Lincoln Place: TENT CITY REPORT


By C.V. Beck

On Friday October 13th, we had a fabulous double rainbow over Frieda’s at Lincoln Place and simultaneously, to the west, an incredible sunset of pinks and blues with almost black storm clouds. I hope some proud Venetian took some pictures...


On another day, I went out to look at the flowers in the front “quad” as I do almost every morning. A small child, on her first 2 wheeler-- with training wheels, came whizzing by-- enjoying the quad, as we do here at Lincoln Place. I waved to her mother, who did not seem to see me (didn’t you know that rentmonkeys are transparent?) and she did not respond. The little girl came around again, making a loop, enjoying the green/open space that we have here Lincoln Placewise, and I waved at them again. The mother finally waved back at me and they went on their way. It was a breath of fresh air to see other living people here in the “gulag”--even if they were just passing through-- enjoying what is likely to be taken away from us shortly.

Later, the pharmacy guy came to give me my medicines and he commented how like a “Ghost Town” it is here. I replied that for us, it was like the “Twilight Zone” and he stated he hoped we would win in our legal efforts. I thanked him for being even remotely interested in our plight and he went away. Once again...it was like the “Twilight Zone”! (But we have lots of parking, while the rest of the town has almost none...how very odd, how “Twilight Zone-like”).

We, the rentzombies of Lincoln Place, very attentively await our day(s) in court and the hoped for justice in the daffy/goofy/zany/ditzy City of the Angels, with our overly-ambitious mayor and his sycophantic staff careening recklessly into the twenty-first century and world-class/world/crassness, infrastructurally totally unprepared for what the city and it’s thoughtless, planless, blinded by greed and selfishness; are trying to do...in the new and improved newfangled version of the old shell-game, same-o-same-o.(I’m not including Bill Rosendahl in this complaint...he is working very hard for his constituents).

Last Wednesday, a redheaded woman on a bicycle came up to us, opened her Peruvian-style bag and brought out 4 pints of Haagen-Daz...chocolate, vanilla bean, chocolate chip and strawberry cheesecake plus napkins and spoons. She thanked us for what we are doing here at Tent City and pedaled away. That was nice.

By the time you read this, we will have had our hearing on AIMCO’s motion for summary judgment which was held on October 30th in the Santa Monica courthouse. Judge Patricia Collins has taken it under submission and now we are waiting on the judge’s ruling as to whether or not we will be proceeding to trial on the substantive issues; or to an appeal and simultaneously will be awaiting the sheriff’s lockouts. Happy Halloween from AIMCO...what’s next for Venice from the Denver cowboy landlord?

This Wednesday, the first of November, may be our last Tent City...or depending on the courts, maybe not. (See crystal ball, below).

Posted: Wed - November 1, 2006 at 06:39 PM          


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