Letters


• What a surprise - Lynne Bronstein
• CRISES IN HOUSING - Cynthia Fenton
• Forced Out - Charles Kruger
• LINCOLN BLVD. - Ray Bianco
• SCRATCH BACK - Bruce Harrison
• ONE VENICE BLVD. - Susanne Chilton
• Response from Carol Fondiller

Dear Beachhead Collective of 2002,

What a surprise (although I had seen a poster announcing the benefit) to see the Beachhead again! And it looks somewhat the same, although the typesetting has improved.

But there's the enjoyment of again being able to read Carol's Harpie rants, with the added bonus of seeing how long they take to download! Don't write brief 500 word articles just because you can, Carol. The Internet is infinite!

I look forward to seeing more issues-and while it's a comfort to know I can read them online if I can't find them elsewhere, it does feel

strange to be "logging on" to the Beachhead. I never thought I would see it.

Good luck,

Lynne Bronstein,
Collective Member 1979-1983.
tanysare@earthlink.net

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CRISES IN HOUSING

There must be tremendous crisis in housing when you have people willing to pay close to a million dollars to live in the Oakwood section of Venice. You have 24 hr. foot traffic, drug dealers, taxi cabs all night, crime, not to mention shopping cart people looking for cans in the wee hours of the morning. A million dollars to live here. Wow!

Cynthia Fenton

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Forced Out

Dear Friends:
I was delighted with the September 2002 isue of the Free Venice Beachhead. It is of conspicuously high quality.

I am a former Venetian who was forced out by an intimidating landlord who assured me that that my Lincoln Place Apartment would soon be unavailable to me and that I'd better take a $3000 bribe and hit the road. This was intimidation as the apartment is still empty.....

I am happy in my new Long Beach home, but a piece of my heart belongs to Venice.

Charles Kruger

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LINCOLN BLVD.

I could not agree more with “Living on Lincoln by Jim Smith in the September Beachhead.

I would like to call your attention to a small community of transit advocates who share your view:
http://boards.eesite.com/board.cgi?boardset=ExpoLine&boardid=Green&thread=20&spec=4622967
 I have expressed similar sentiments to Los Angeles City Council members and the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors.  Don Knabe has passed along my comments to his appointees on the Lincoln Blvd. Transit Task Force.

Yours are ideas worth raising great visibility. 

No doubt, with all the redevelopment occurring on Lincoln from Santa Monica to LAX, there is certainly an opportunity to fix years of zoning and planning neglect.
 
Kind regards,
 
Ray Bianco

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SCRATCH BACK

Never before has one single man with his administration so gutted the American constitution and destroyed many years work in producing wise environmental laws. Eisenhower warned of a military industry complex takeover 42 years ago in his farewell address.

We round the corner on one year of 9/11 and I was asked to help with a peace gathering. I will, but much of me feels at war. It is a pencil war at this time. While Washington's pencil scratches away at my freedoms and homeland in the name of running my gas guzzler 6 more months, or chasing elusive Bin Ladens, I scratch back with small handfuls of people writing Washington. Anyone remember Bin Laden?

Why do I feel we are loosing our freedom to fight with pencils? We live in a time when individual enlightenment has reached an apex. Thanks to many Authors we have been able to study and explore the last frontier, our inner selves. But in these strong studies of the self we have begun to forget that we are still a collective whole capable of mapping our collective future. Apathy has set in because it seems futile because the percents are so low in participation and voting.

But how will we feel if we lose this possibly last chance to fight for our rights with pencils? Are we dooming our children to have to fight with physical violence to regain these freedoms because we won't click the pen?

How far into the future will it be before someone like me sets on remote island as a detainee for writing this terrorist letter against the government? Having been given the "fair military trial by judge only".

Is the media telling you how many people are being detained now? U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler gives the Fed. Government 15 days to release the names of 1000 detainees secretly held. All Muslims with minor visa infractions.

Many of you will remember Skip and Doreen that for many years were rangers at the West Water put-in. Skip recently took on one of his passions about the added fees in the Parks and went to Washington for two

weeks. His amazement was how happy the Senators were to see and hear someone.

I am not asking anyone to drive to Washington. Just pick one of the issues -Just one!- that you feel passion about and click your bic.

The War on Iraq? Call the President at 202-456 1111 or 202-456-1414. Fax 202- 456- 2461 Email: president@whitehouse.gov

Congress can be reach through <http://www.congress.org>.

Bruce Harrison

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ONE VENICE BLVD.

Hello from an aging activist residing at One Venice here in Venice!

While in total agreement that Carol Fondiller is, indeed, a "worldwide treasure" (and I've known her since 1970--even typed some of her seventies columns for The Beachhead), I was terribly chagrined to note her lack of specificity when summarizing the "Crises in Housing" (Sept. 2, issue No. 255).

We here at One Venice are quaking in our boots while awaiting our opt-out fate, and I would have loved to see us pointed out via Venice identification rather than merely as one of "at least three buildings in Los Angeles" affected by the City Council's 8/13 unanimous authorization to the City Attorney's office to call a halt to our being evicted out onto Ocean Front Walk.

Suggestion: in your archives, you possess an article written by Arnold Springer (in itself historical) in which he interviewed the builder and still part owner of One Venice. The man's name is Jim Anthony.

In this interview, Anthony is portrayed as the New Redeemer of Venice, because of his sensitivity to the needs of seniors wanting to live beside the ocean here. I wish I had photocopied this article, which was dated in about 1979 and was a celebration of this "Second Coming". The neighbor here in the building who showed the article to me has fortunately passed away and did not live to see the way in which Mr. Anthony's manager is treating those whom he was purporting to Arnold Springer to be so redemptive.

It would be just great to see a reprint of this article, conjoined with a couple of interviews with today's residents of One Venice, some of whom were here when our building was built and the Beachhead article was written.

I would personally purchase copies of such an edition of The Beachhead, and would see that Mr. Anthony received a copy in order to refresh his memory.

Speaking of memory, thanks for all the memories of times gone by...and a very warm welcome back to each and every one of you, including the "worldwide treasure"!

Affectionately, Susanne Chilton,
old venetian crone still trying to survive

••••••

Response from Carol Fondiller:

Dear Susanne,

Thanks for the trip down Memory Lane. So why don’t you return my calls? Write us an article, ol’ chum!

Love, Carol

Posted: Tue - October 1, 2002 at 06:44 PM          

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