July 7, 2008
News Brief
A July 19 grand opening date has been announced for the $14 million, 10-acre Vista Hermosa Park in City West. The facility on First Street is next to the Edward R. Roybal Learning Center, a high school that will bring 2,800 students to the area when it debuts in the fall. The [...]

Education
July 8, 2008
Pacific Palisades Chabad preschool denied lease extension
By Jane Ulman

Public testimony was presented last night’s emergency meeting convened by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy to consider Chabad of Pacific Palisades’ appeal to temporarily extend its preschool lease at Temescal Gateway Park. Credit: Robert Garcia/The City Project
An eight-to-one vote by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy [...]

. . . At a news conference this morning, the mayor announced a new agreement between the city and the Los Angeles Unified School District to open up 15 LAUSD pools to the public during the hot summer months.To commemorate the deal, Villaraigosa was supposed to shoot a starter pistol and send about a dozen [...]

We support access for all to the Park through programs like Transit to Trails that provide diverse inner city youth and their families and friends with fun, educational, and healthy experiences. … Assosacion de Fraternidades Guatemaltecas (AFG) California Pan Ethnic Health Network Cinelandia Coalition Against Militarism in Schools (CAMS) Congreso de Hermandad Centro Americana Comite Pro Uno Maywood Comunidad Salvadoreña La Placita Cristian Avalos for Congress Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana Knights of Columbus La Placita Church Latinos for Peace Los Angeles Gardens and Urban Farms League of Latin-American United Citizens (LULAC) Mexican-American Political Association (MAPA) National Hispanic Environmental Council (NHEC) Palisadians for Peace School of the Americas Watch L.A.

Board Member Marlene Canter is introducing a motion to enforce physical education laws before the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education at a public hearing on July 8, 2008, at 3:30 pm at LAUSD headquarters on BEAUDRY and Third in downtown L.A. Quality physical education will help students move more, eat well, stay [...]

Editorial Downtown News June 30, 2008
Contreras School Pool a Squandered Opportunity
Stakeholders in City West and adjacent communities received dispiriting news last week, when city and Los Angeles Unified School District officials announced that the swimming pool at the Miguel Contreras Learning Complex once again will be off-limits to the general public this year. This is [...]

The Greater Baldwin Hills Alliance draft Community Standards District will protect human health and the environment for the community and the Baldwin Hills Park, the largest urban park designed in the United States in over a century. Visit www.greaterbaldwinhillsalliance.org and www.baldwinhillsoil.org.

Professor Josh Sides describes the unique role of the Baldwin Hills in the history of African Americans in Los Angeles and across the nation:
By the late 1950s and early 1960s, blacks had pushed west and south of West Adams into Leimert Park and the exclusive area of Baldwin Hills, which quickly became the heart of [...]

Residents Ask County to Protect the Environment & Community Health
Moratorium on new oil drilling expires June 30th
LOS ANGELES, CA — Surrounded by the neighborhoods of Baldwin Hills, Baldwin Vista, Culver City, Crenshaw, Leimert Park, Ladera Heights, Inglewood, View Park and Windsor Hills, the two-square-mile Baldwin Hills Oil Field is the last large-scale undeveloped open space [...]

“It is the most important work of American art of the 19th century,” Sara Cedar Miller said.
She was referring to Central Park, not to the 3-foot by-8-foot pen-and-ink map over her shoulder. But the two are inseparable. The enormous map depicts “Greensward,” the plan by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux that won the park-design [...]