Friday, February 19, 2010

Cuts in LA

Everything I love is being cut.

I am an involved citizen. I vote. I care. I make phone calls to public officials occasionally, and watch as Jonathan corners them in public places demanding attention for potholes, or whatever.

But I had never really written to save my life.

Now, in the past month I have written a slew of letters. Not because someone asked me to (though they did) but because it seems that everything I care about is being cut.

First they cut our groundskeeper at Canyon. He is the only thing that keeps our little patch of grass in the middle of drug infested, homeless person mecca of Hollywood from turning into a mini Hooverville. Even now we find needles in the underbrush, the occasional human feces in the garden out front, and drunk homeless people passed out in the parking lot where you nearly run them over. But Marcus always greeted us with a smile, protected us from cursing untreated mentally imbalanced homeless and kept the school and senior center clean. Beautiful. An island of sanity in the middle of insane Hollywood. It makes a difference. We wrote letters to save him. To no avail.

Then, two weeks ago, the city said they were going to cut all the classes and programs at Barnsdall, the cultural and arts center left to the city by Alicia (?) Barnsdall to promote culture and art in this city. The classes take place on the grounds of the Hollyhock House, a gorgeous Frank Lloyd Wright creation on its own island of a hill in the middle of Hollywood, with views in every direction. Just going there is inspiring. But more importantly, Barnsdall offers incredible classes by supremely talented working artists at affordable prices. These are not graduate students, but people who work as sculptors, painters and collage artists. That they teach the public at a place like this, for affordable prices, available to all, is a miracle. I wrote letters to save Barnsdall. Everything is on hold.

Yesterday we heard that our favorite librarian, Hilary St. George, had been cut from our local library. Libraries in LA have become like daytime homeless shelters, with lost, lonely people sleeping on tables and sitting at the computer. These librarians, who love books, have become the social workers of our city, taking care of these people with no place to go. That makes other people not come. But Hilary St. George, with the help of some supplemental funds from a very active community group, almost single handedly brought programming, energy and passion to the children's program at the library.

She has story hour and singing. She has reading programs and treasure hunts. She is approachable, young, beautiful, warm.

On paper, to some budget slashing bureaucrat downtown, she is young, inexperienced and easy to cut. But she has changed that library. So I will write again.

And as everything I care about is cut, I wonder what I am getting from this city and state I pay taxes to. The roads are rutted and filled with potholes that are now so deep Jonathan jokes the mini will fall in and never come out. Driving around the city and dodging the potholes is like careening down a washboard dirt road in Death Valley at 45 mph. Libraries, art programs and park budgets are being cut. Anything that breaks is not fixed. The city is going to privatize its parking garages--something that every other city seems to be able to make money at.

And the city talks of installing more red light cameras to raise revenues. Oh hooray.

So what ARE we getting?

We get our trash picked up. A street sweeper drives 100 mph down our street every Monday leaving a wet track. But does it really clean the street?

I don't know.

I am not an angry Tea Party type, but I am frustrated when I pay taxes but everything I care about is being cut to ribbons, but the union of calligraphers for the city is keeping their job.

And don't even get me started on California and the way it is treating public schools...

How is the recession treating your city? Your state?

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