So just tonight the Palms Neighborhood Council filed yet another Community Impact Statement opposing Mitch O’Farrell’s Kerry-Morrison-behested anti-playground motion. And like the Eagle Rock NC and the Lincoln Heights NC and the Los Feliz NC before them, they’ve made a well-reasoned and articulate argument:
This measure would penalize lawful park users and would result in discriminatory enforcement. Such a ban improperly assumes that adult park users in a children’s playground area are there solely for nefarious purposes and seeks to ban lawful conduct. Simply being present in a park and enjoying the surroundings is not illegal. There are already criminal laws on the books to address any improper conduct in these areas.
Again, as with all of the others with the minor exception of Los Feliz,1 this statement was adopted unanimously, leaving Mitch continuing to flounder around in the pool of shit into which he impulsively flung himself just because Kerry Morrison said it would please her to watch him jump. And there is one thing about the Palms Neighborhood Council which makes tonight’s Community Impact Statement marginally more impactful than the others. You see, Mr. Nicholas Greif is not only the chair of the Palms NC Executive Board and therefore part of the unanimous majority that approved the CIS, but he is also David Ryu’s director of Policy and Legislation.
Of course, in his first role, he’s allowed, I suppose, to have his own publicly expressed opinions. In the second he decidedly is not. And if this motion ever makes it out of committee, which at this point I’m willing to bet essentially any amount of money that it will never ever ever do, how’s David Ryu going to vote given the fact that even Nicholas Greif can see the problems with this nonsensical motion? The very fact that that question can’t be answered is why it’s never coming out of committee. Like so many of Kerry Morrison’s other weird ideas for the future of Hollywood it’s destined to die a quiet death-by-file-expiration, I’m thinking.2 And Nicholas Greif, interestingly enough, seems to have sensed that the file’s fate left him some room to say what he really thinks, something which happens very rarely up there on the fourth floor of City Hall.
Image of Nicholas Greif is a public record and I got it from David Ryu’s website.
- Whose motion garnered a grand total of one vote against. That is, just one vote to support Mr. Mitch.
- Perhaps, and there’s really no chance of this, Mitch O’Farrell will begin to learn that pleasing Kerry Morrison isn’t always worth the risk. Probably not, though. Just look at the agenda for the upcoming February 8 meeting of Kerry’s security committee. Right there in the City Initiatives section there is a troubling little item entitled “Friends of Selma Park.” That’s a lie, of course. Neither Selma Park nor any other bit of public space in the City has any friends in that room.
