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GELFAND’S WORLD - The Palms Neighborhood Council had a great idea. Let’s try the new light rail route to L.A. International Airport. We’ll buy tickets (the price is $4-$6) and make it easy by using TAP cards. It will be outreach to our community because they will learn that the neighborhood council exists, and it will be a public service in that people in our area will learn that you can now get to the airport using the train. This will lessen the amount of traffic going into LAX and reduce (by a lot) the cost of parking. It certainly seems like a good idea. After all, the failure to complete rail access to LAX has been a public scandal for years, and now, what with the Olympics coming soon, there has been a lot of pressure to get the job done.
The only thing I would have added to the proposal would be to invite the Channel 5 News crew to come along on the ride, bringing their cameras and commenters. It would be a huge service to the city and to those planning for the Olympic games.
The City said No.
I’m going to copy the refusal letter sent to Palms Neighborhood Council president Kay Hartman and then offer one or two comments.
Event Approval Request Denied
We have completed our review of your event approval request, unfortunately, we have denied your request for the following reasons:
After reviewing the Event Request Approval Form submitted for your event, "Group Transit Ride from Palms Station to LAX and Back", we cannot approve the event for the following reasons: 1.) The event does not appear to meet the general outreach objectives for NCs. The outreach component of the event primarily promotes Metro ridership rather than Neighborhood Council functions. 2.) The planned activity presents a high level of risk and liability for the City. 3.) The purchase and distribution of TAP cards may be considered a gift of public funds. However, the Neighborhood Council may partner with Metro to provide information about public transportation at a Neighborhood Council board meeting.
Event:
Group Transit Ride to LAX and Back
Description:
Take public transportation from Palms Station to LAX and return. Meet for snacks.
Event Date:
December 6, 2025
Event Budget:
$700.00
Organizer Type:
Main_Organizer
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact your Funding Representative at 213-978-1058 or e-mail us at [email protected]
Thank you,
Office of the City Clerk
Administrative Services Division
Neighborhood Council Funding Program
So this is how it works when you deal with the city bureaucracy and you happen to be a neighborhood council. There is some bureaucratic finding that a demonstration project to show members of the community how nice it is to ride Metro light rail isn’t a proper function of a neighborhood council. But here’s the fun part, as explained by the City Clerk:
2.) The planned activity presents a high level of risk and liability for the City.
So let’s get this straight. We’re talking about riding the Metro light rail, which every other element of city government is begging us to do, from the Mayor on down to the local City Council office. The neighborhood council sustainability alliance would like you to use public transportation, and one CityWatch writer routinely explains in great detail that this is a great option.
But the office of the City Clerk says that riding the train is not only risky, it is so risky that it presents liability for the City. By the way, this is a curious comment on the Clerk’s part – it suggests the sort of liability that would ensue should the train run off its rails or catch fire. It is not clear whether the Clerk is also warning us about criminal activity, and this should be made clear.
I kind of wonder why the Clerk’s office doesn’t think that supporting light rail usage is a proper function of a neighborhood council. We involve ourselves in every other level of land usage, transportation, and parking. The proposed field trip involves all of these.
Kay Hartman, the president of the Palms Neighborhood Council, is a lot better at dealing with bureaucrats than I am, so I am guessing that she will work through some sort of compromise with the city. But I have to say that when Kay told our LA Neighborhood Council Coalition about the rejection on the basis of risk and liability, there was a community-wide gasp by those who were listening.
There is an old joke about gaffes. It is said that a politician commits a gaffe, not when he accidentally tells a lie, but when he accidentally tells the truth. Was this a gaffe on the part of the Clerk’s office, or was it just a mistake? More likely, it was just the revelation that city agencies, put to the test, do not like to take responsibility for anything unless they have it on a direct order from someone else. Allowing people to journey to a station, board a train, ride the train, and then journey home is apparently something that raises fear in the hearts of entrenched bureaucrats. I wonder how they intend to deal with the World Cup. Can our hooligans match their hooligans?
The World Series
Riddle: How is it that the L.A. Dodgers contribute to environmental sustainability?
Answer: Those old 2020 World Series Champs tee shirts can be recycled
(And I know this because I have been recycling mine through 3 World Series now.)
When I started writing this column for American Reporter back in the oughts, I was assigned to media criticism. Twenty or so years later, I’ve mostly left that subject behind, because lots of others with professional training have taken over the analysis of right wing media. But every now and then, it is interesting to consider what the professionals are doing when some story hits the top of the page. This week it has been the World Series, and I find myself a little confused about a particular story line.
The line goes like this: The Dodgers are a dynasty and were destined to win because they bought the best players (this is considered a good thing) and we all had fun watching a World Series that had everything and was marvelously entertaining. And the Dodgers, as a team of destiny, couldn’t have lost.
I think that for the average fan, it was a different experience. And I say this as somebody who has been a fan since 1958, rode a streetcar to the 1959 World Series, watched Kirk Gibson’s home run on television in 1988, and have been to Dodger Stadium dozens of times.
This World Series was no walk in the park. The Dodgers were getting beat at the time they went back to Toronto. Yes, they won that marathon extra-inning game, and yes they came home to Los Angeles from the opening two games in Toronto with a split. So for one magic moment, they were ahead 2-1 in games and had they managed even a split in the last two home games, it would have been like last year.
But Toronto showed how good they are by pretty well crushing the Dodgers in the next two home games and merely had to take one out of two at home to win the championship. In the first of those two games (Game 6, officially) the Dodgers, ahead 3-1 in the bottom of the ninth, allowed runners to get to second and third with no outs, and the only reason a run didn’t score at that point was because of the most bizarre scenario, where the ball got stuck under the bottom of the outfield wall – has anybody alive ever seen that one before?
So instead of 3-2 and nobody out and a runner on third, Toronto has second and third and goes to one out. And then another one of those miracles for the Dodgers and tragedy for Toronto. The ball is hit to short center, and the runners take off, but the Dodger outfielder catches it in the air, but just off his shoe tops, and then fires the ball to second base for the force out on the base runner. And just like that, the Dodgers win game 6, whereas a ball maybe five inches shorter would have been a clean base hit and at least a tie ball game on Toronto’s home field.
So, what I’m saying here is that the Dodgers were getting beat, almost got beat in Game 6, managed a win by good luck and excellent fielding and brilliant timely play and taking advantage of a base running decision by Toronto that was disastrous for them. And so we come to Game 7.
Let’s pause for a moment and refer to a column from Jack Baer titled World Series 2025: The 14 most absurd moments from the Dodger’s Game 7 win. You can see it here.
So here is my gist: The Dodgers barely squeak by to hold onto a tied Series after 6 games and are getting beaten pretty soundly in Game 7. This was a team that kept fanning on pitches arriving at shoe-lace level, swung and missed on stuff that looked like it was halfway between the plate and the dugout, and you can fill in the rest of the painful descriptions.
It was a team that had scored a total of 7 runs in the previous 36 innings going into the seventh game. And it could have been worse. Prior to Game 6, the Dodgers had only scored 4 runs in its previous 27 innings.
And worse yet, Ohtani starts the last game and allows men on base so that when he doesn’t quite get the pitch to break just right, a Toronto batter puts a three-run homer into the seats.
And just like that, a Dodger team that had been averaging less than 2 runs per 9 innings for much of the series was already (maybe, probably) too far down to come back and win.
So that’s my summary of what this series was all about for the average fan going into the fourth inning. Dynasty? Team of destiny? Not at that point. A pretty good team, for all that, in the sense that it got itself into the World Series and then to Game 7, but it was not crushing the Blue Jays at that point. In fact, the Toronto pitchers had made the Dodger hitters look pretty inept. Max Muncy was having a dreadful time of it, and Mookie Betts was not having a wonderful time either.
So let’s try another approach: This was a heroic, come from behind victory by a team that was in a slump and was facing an American League champion at the top of its form. I think that viewed this way, the average fan can enjoy the win even more. For those last two games, the Dodgers really were the underdog, and the win is all the more worth celebrating. Of course there was the stellar performance by Yamamoto, but there was no guarantee coming into the Series that he would perform at such an MVP level. And of course there were just enough super-close calls to add spice along with the aching stomachs. The throw by Rojas to get the runner at home plate would have been too late had it been a half second later, and that would have been the Series for the other side.
Lots of fun for fans all over the globe. And maybe I’ll get to recycle that World Series Champs shirt one more time.
(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected].)
