Yo! Politicians! Enough of your BS about what “can” happen, and “you are working on it”. Make something happen! We have had a triple homicide. We have weekly write-ins telling you how bad life has gotten in Venice. You have been TOLD the residents of Venice are having their safety put in jeopardy by an identifiable group that has laid siege on the community.

Politicians of Venice: The next time someone gets KILLED in Venice, the blood is going to be on YOUR hands. The people of Venice are demanding your help and you are doing NOTHING to help them.

I get an email like this sent to me about every day of the week. I am trying to keep this issue focused around Wednesday’s write-in campaign .. but this story has a picture with it, and for your own safety you should read this and that is why I am posting it today.

From Yo! Venice! reader Steve:

Dear Mr Mayor, Mr Rosendahl and Captain Peters,

As a long time Venice resident I cant help but notice the growing number of Transients, … I saw this post in yovenice.com and decided to tell you about what happened to my 5 month old daughter and I last night.

This is a letter I wrote from my iPhone to my neighbors to help me during this crisis:

This man was trying to sleep behind our gate at our front door. I heard him trying to no open our front door to get inside our home. I was holding my baby. I confronted him to get off my properly and he then threatened to kill me… looked at my baby and told me he would kill her too. He claimed that the house was his. He took a swing at me as I stepped back away from my properly. He kicked our gate over and over as hard as he could as I then asked my neighbor for help. He then took a swing at my neighbor. I called 911 to report this. The man left after about 15min of this acting out with violence and the police came by around 45min after this all took place. The police were helpful in calming us down and offered to look for the man. I told them he’s a local homeless man and is usually down at Washington and Speedway hanging out.

I have lived in this location for over 8 years, in Venice for 30 years. I do of course deal with the homeless on a daily basis and understand homeless people can be mentally ill and I do understand that there is no place for them to live and that Venice welcomes them. Venice is a great place for the homeless to live. They can and do sleep just about anywhere around here and not get hassled. But I have never have felt “afraid” before yesterday. The homeless are getting too close to us. They are living too close to our homes now. They sleep in our stoops and in back of our garages. My wife is very afraid to leave out our back gate into speedway because she may wake a homeless person outside our back door. This time our front door was unsafe. So now what door should we use to feel safe?

This is the man standing in my house telling me to get the fuck away from him. Would you feel safe if you came home and this man was at your front door yelling at you and your family to fuck off?
Thank you for listening.
Steve

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WITZEND Live
1717 Lincoln Blvd.
Venice 90291

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The Stonghold Speakeasy
1625 Abbot Kinney Blvd.
Venice, CA 90291

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For the last three weeks Yo! Venice! posted about a “write in” campaign intended to make Venice Beach a safer place for residents. It is only through continued efforts that this campaign will be taken seriously, so we are reposting this again to let residents know about it. If you wrote in last week and do not feel the situation has changed, write in again this week.

For a link to the full post with all of the email addresses, click here.

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DANNYS VENICE
23 Windward Avenue
Venice, California 90291

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“Night Lights”
March 13, 2010 – May 1, 2010
DNJ Gallery
154 1/2 North La Brea Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90036
t. 323.931.1311

Helen K. Garber is known for her night urban landscapes taken in cities such as Los Angeles, New York, Paris and Venice, Italy. For “Night Lights,” Garber will exhibit new work from her “Venice/ Venezia” series of diptychs which juxtapose Venice, Italy and Venice Beach, Ca. Her images are exhibited internationally and are in permanent collections of museums, private and corporate collections nationwide.

Ginny Mangrum will exhibit new work from her ongoing series, “Night Moves.” In these photographs, Mangrum stresses the intensity of darkness as she moves throughout the night. She explores interior and exterior spaces, presence and absence of the human subject, and the tension that is created by her voyeuristic observation. Mangrum received her MFA from Mills College in Oakland, CA and is currently an Adjunct Professor at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, CA. She has exhibited her photography throughout California since 2003.

Bill Sosin’s contribution to “Night Lights” consists of richly colored photographs capturing urban landscapes in the rain. Sosin’s “City Rain” photographs describe the texture, shape, weight, and direction of raindrops at night as well as the twinkling luminescence of the streetlights, fluorescent lights, and storefronts behind the rain. His work has been exhibited widely throughout the Unites States and he has won many awards for his work including the International Lucie Award ‘Official Selection’ in 2009 and the International Color Award from the Photography Masters Cup, among others.

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OK people, if you are actually doing this …. do it. I will start individual threads for write-in candidates once you email me that you have officially registered.

Nominations for VNC Board Elections Close Friday, March 12th

Nominations as write-in candidates for the Venice Neighborhood Council Board elections (scheduled April 11th) must be submitted by Friday, March 12th at 5:00pm. Thirty-seven individuals have already declared their intent to run for twenty-one board positions, and their names will appear on the ballot.

While the deadline for getting names on the ballot has passed, the LA City Clerk’s Office is currently accepting nominations for write-in candidates. Nominations must be submitted on the form found at http://bit.ly/VNC_Candidate_Packet. Completed filing papers (along with appropriate ID – see the candidate packet) must be mailed (or hand carried) to:

City Clerk – Election Division
Piper Technical Center
555 Ramirez Street
3rd Floor, Space 300
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Or faxed to the City Clerk at: (213) 978-0376

The Friday deadline closes nominations; the final list of nominees will announced next week.

Friday also marks the deadline for candidates to submit their candidate statements to the City Clerk. Candidate statements submitted to the clerk will be displayed on the City Clerk’s website and at the polls. Statements must be submitted on the form found at: http://bit.ly/City_Clerk_Candidate_Statement by 5:00pm March 12th. They should be submitted to the above address or faxed to (213) 978-0376.

The VNC will publish Candidate Statements and pictures on its website and in its newsletter. Deadlines and submission rules can be found at: http://bit.ly/VNC_Candidate_Statement.

See http://www.venicenc.org/BoardElections for more information about the elections and becoming a candidate or contact elections@venicenc.org.

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If someone has recently ripped off your bike, you may want to go check these out at Tar-Zhay in a few days. If you do, let us know if they suck or not in the forums.

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National Weather Service High Surf Advisory:

Coastal hazard message National Weather Service Los Angeles/Oxnard … high surf advisory remains in effect until 11 pm pst this evening… A high surf advisory remains in effect until 11 pm pst this evening. A short period westerly swell will increase surf and swell to 4 to 7 feet with local sets to 9 feet possible. The highest surf will occur along west facing beaches. As winds diminish some this morning…surf and swell may lower. But by this afternoon and evening…a wind driven swell will increase over the coastal waters. This swell will arrive once again at the beaches creating high surf conditions. The high surf will also result in strong rip currents which will make swimming dangerous for anyone entering the ocean. Precautionary/preparedness actions… A high surf advisory means that high surf will affect beaches in the advisory area…producing rip currents and localized beach erosion.

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Click here for the full sized image that you can print and put up on the fridge.

From Jason:

Over the past couple of years, we’ve been working with the city on a number of local issues here near the Venice Library – street signage, graffiti, bus stop trash cans, shopping cart pickups, abuses of the library and park facilities, etc.

I’ve collected together some useful city contact information on a single sheet you can print out, keep near a phone, and share. Every phone call or email goes into a statistical database that, in addition to focusing and improving local services, can also help with future funding for Venice services.

Add key phone numbers to your cellphone and/or speed dial – and feel free to forward this to friends, etc.

Hope you find this useful to have and here’s to helping keep Venice clean(er) and safe(er) – every little bit helps!

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The Young Storytellers Foundation offers a uniquely engaging and effective arts education and youth development program at elementary schools around Los Angeles where students are at-risk or have little access to the arts. The children have been working on their projects for months and now they need some actors to help perform their works!

Previous actors who have helped out include Rachel Bilson (The O.C.) Tate Donovan (Damages), and Anthony LaPaglia (Without A Trace). Join in the fun!

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The 3rd annual LA Urban Iditarod was held this past Saturday in Venice Beach. Loosely based on the Alaskan Iditarods, participants wear “team” costumes and push shopping carts full of booze around the streets while on a bar crawl.

In general a lot of fun appears to be had by participants during the event, but the organizers should probably figure out how to clean up after themselves. Given the legality of “organizing” the event, it is doubtful that will ever happen. As we slept through the event this year, check out the pictures of Colin Young-Wolff by clicking here and our pictures from last year here.

Picture by Yo! Venice! reader Matthew K.

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Bin 73
14 Washington Boulevard
Marina Del Rey, CA 90292
(310) 827-6209

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The Washington Oxford Beach Relief Sewer Project includes a number of improvements that will make the sewers more reliable for decades to come. The project involves the installation of about 2,100 feet of sewer pipe, five maintenance holes, two junction structures, and other components in Washington Boulevard between Beach Avenue and Oxford Avenue. A small portion of the project will be built in Oxford Avenue.

• Construction period: fall 2009 through summer 2010.
• A new, 2,100-foot long, 24 to 30-inch diameter sewer will be built.
• Work hours: Monday to Friday, 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Limited night work and some service interruptions may take place when the individual local sewers (from homes) are reconnected to the new sewer. Residents will be notified 24 to 48 hours in advance.
• Project cost: $4.4 million

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Picture by Ray Rae Goldman. Support the VSA here.

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Coeur d’Alene Elementary School in Venice is having an E-waste collection tomorrow, Saturday, March 6 from 9:00 am – 3:00 pm. There will be a free drop-off zone in the school parking lot, and all the proceeds will benefit Coeur d’Alene and also Mother Earth. Feel free to recycle computers, monitors, laptops, TV’s, printers, cell phones, FAX, VCR, DVD, stereos, cameras, scanners, inkjet and toner cartridges … etc.

Sorry, but no appliances or batteries are being collected.

Coeur d’Alene Avenue School
810 Coeur d’Alene Avenue
Venice, California 90291
phone (310) 821-7813

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ARBOR
102 Washington Blvd
Venice, CA
90292

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From the LA Times:

Medical marijuana advocates upped the ante in the legal battle over Los Angeles’ pot dispensaries by suing the city Tuesday, saying the recently adopted ordinance is so restrictive it will cause even law-abiding businesses to shut down.

Americans for Safe Access, the nation’s main medical marijuana advocacy nonprofit group, filed the lawsuit along with the Venice Beach Care Center and Pure Life Alternative Wellness Center, two dispensaries that have operated in Los Angeles since 2006 — before the city’s moratorium on dispensaries took effect.

The 11-page suit filed in L.A. County Superior Court says the sweeping marijuana ordinance passed by the City Council in January and signed into law by the mayor Feb. 3 “severely restricts access to medical marijuana by effectively forcing plaintiffs, as well as the vast majority of collectives in the city, to close their doors.”

Continue reading the full story here.

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