DIM BULBS DOWNTOWN DON'T GET IT.Byline: Kimit Muston Local View I am a happy dude. We should all be happy dudes Dudes may refer to:
And we didn't even ask for it. The Downtown Mafia strained its brain recently and came up with a solution for Ventura Boulevard Ventura Boulevard is one of the primary east-west thouroughfares in the San Fernando Valley; as it was originally a part of the El Camino Real (the trail between Spanish missions), Ventura Boulevard is the oldest route in the San Fernando Valley. It was also U.S. - the solution to 40 years of disrespect and abuse and inattention in·at·ten·tion n. Lack of attention, notice, or regard. Noun 1. inattention - lack of attention basic cognitive process - cognitive processes involved in obtaining and storing knowledge , to traffic jams and sparse parking and 40 years of taxes and more taxes. The downtown bureaucracy has burned its neurons Neurons Nerve cells in the brain, brain stem, and spinal cord that connect the nervous system and the muscles. Mentioned in: Speech Disorders and provided for Ventura Boulevard - ta da! - brand new street lights! Have you ever noticed that when it comes to community problems downtown solutions always seem to require $200 million or $300 million solutions, while the rest of the city always seems to get the 50-cent solutions? Downtown requires a Rolls-Royce, we get a rented Yugo. They get champagne and we get the cork. They get a private room and we get an outpatient HMO HMO health maintenance organization. HMO n. A corporation that is financed by insurance premiums and has member physicians and professional staff who provide curative and preventive medicine within certain financial, . They get the mine, etc. Anyway, the Department of Public Works public works pl.n. Construction projects, such as highways or dams, financed by public funds and constructed by a government for the benefit or use of the general public. Noun 1. announced this month that over the next five years they are going to install 17 miles of identical 40-foot-tall streetlight poles from Valley Vista to the Burbank city line, at a cost of $8 million. And every single gray steel pole is going to look exactly like every other 40-foot-tall gray steel pole. Now that's a major improvement, dude. New street lights? My, City Hall has been devoting just hours of deep thought to Valley issues, haven't they. Why, I'll bet I'll Bet was an NBC game show that aired from March 29 1965 to September 24 1965, that was created by Ralph Andrews. The host of this program was Jack Narz. It was a precursor of It's Your Bet, which aired with four different hosts during its four year run: Hal March, Tom when the word came down from Jimmy Hahn to put The Valley in the front of the line for public works (at least until Nov. 5) the gang at the street lighting division wasted not a second but immediately reached for their Sears Catalog catalog, descriptive list, on cards or in a book, of the contents of a library. Assurbanipal's library at Nineveh was cataloged on shelves of slate. The first known subject catalog was compiled by Callimachus at the Alexandrian Library in the 3d cent. B.C. and ordered us the best street lights they could find. I had an uncle who used to do his Christmas shopping the same way. Nobody liked him. I can see why the poles have to be 40-feet tall, to get the lights above all the billboards along Ventura, but who the heck asked for new street lights? It turns out nobody along Ventura Boulevard did. Their wish list included things like municipal parking garages, maybe some pedestrian bridges across the boulevard, and most certainly some help in changing zoning laws, but not new street lighting. See, here's the idea, dude, along each section of Ventura Boulevard every storefront and every building exterior would have a designated color scheme and a design influence; the sidewalks might be painted, maybe even the boulevard itself, with different kinds of trees and parking meters along the curb in each section, all of it to help customers remember where on Ventura that little store they are looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. was located. And each neighborhood, like Sherman Oaks and Encino, could use these zoning districts to stake out their own identity and, like, dump the general urban sprawl look, dude, and strengthen the feeling of neighborhood. You know, improve the quality of life. The dudes have been trying to get City Hall to help with these issues. And in response the Department of Public Works is now going to implant implant /im·plant/ (im-plant´) to insert or to graft (tissue, or inert or radioactive material) into intact tissues or a body cavity. their bureaucratic bu·reau·crat n. 1. An official of a bureaucracy. 2. An official who is rigidly devoted to the details of administrative procedure. bu Bauhaus approach; form totally follows function. Period. If City Hall isn't going to help could they at least stop throwing light poles at us? I don't mean to look a gift lighting fixture in the mouth, but why do all the poles have to be the same? Seventeen miles of identical poles? What is this, Kansas? Did City Hall get a discount for ordering identical poles in bulk or what? I mean, dude, how much more would four different pole designs cost? It may sound like a silly objection but not to the folks who live and work along Ventura. What are we building here, a city of neighborhoods, as Mayor Hahn insists, or a streetlight farm? Listen, thanks for the lights but doing something for the Valley is different than doing something to the Valley in the Valley. You have to start by caring about The Valley, dude, and treating the dudes who live here as fellow dudes and not just the source of complaints or tax revenue. Ventura Boulevard doesn't need more lights. It needs more attention. And it's clear we ain't getting that from City Hall. The Valley, dude. Vote for it. |
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