Wetlands and the Well-Ordered Society

And it is the area under Knabe’s jurisdiction where, Gold suggests, "World War III is going to break out" with the developer — because this is where Playa Vista plans to build a small-craft marina and some million-dollar condos. It is, in short, P.V.’s major money shot.

"This issue is going to be escalated beyond local politics," promised Gold. That would be nice. But then all politics is local, and Sacramento has a 40-year record of deferring to the usually Republican 4th District Los Angeles County supervisor on all marina matters. To purchase the plot, governments will have to lay out what remains its unguessable market value (though one source did mention $250 million, no one else wanted to take even a wild guess). Much of that money could come from the state, and it would probably be easier to obtain if Councilwoman Galanter were on great terms with the supervisor of the adjoining jurisdiction in which most of it would have to be spent. That’s not the direction in which things were last seen heading.

Galanter now admits, "I probably should have told Knabe." She said her announcement was intended to put herself formally on the map in favor of acquiring additional Playa properties for public benefit. "We’ve actually been talking about this for years," she said.

But, she cautioned, expect nothing soon: "There’s no indication that they [Playa] want to sell, and this won’t be a hostile takeover."

Playa Vista V.P. David Herbst agrees that the land isn’t for sale. This sounds something like a formula for deadlock. So what have we here now? Nothing, probably, unless something unimaginable happens — like an overlapping consensus of the old-line environmental Democrats like Galanter and the Wetlands Action Network types. That just might just force the issue. Unfortunately, the old-liners bear the onus of their past well-intentioned compromises, while the WAN folk, if they go on claiming they’ll settle for nothing less than everything — plus a little bit more — are going to end up getting nothing. But — if only in some philosophically objective frame — settling the future of all the present and recent Ballona coastal wetlands has to be in the interest of both sides.

If only they could let themselves realize it.

The Beast With Two Wheels

My thanks to poet and riparian activist Lewis McAdams, who recently got me astrad dle a bicycle for the first time in 18 years and re-indoctrinated me into believing it a safe and useful mode of transit. He did this by putting me, with the assistance of friends from the Sierra Club and other worthy groups, on the back of a tandem cycle in that traffic-stuffed hell’s elbow by the Los Angeles River where Figueroa Street meets San Fernando Road.

The ride-in was a demonstration in favor of completing the L.A. regional bike path — but its ancillary effects were stunning. After surviving this cycling experience, I realized that fetching milk from the store by bike would be no challenge. And I’ve just pumped up the tires of the neglected, dusty creature in the back of my garage.