Anyone who attended the September 15 Town Hall meeting to preview the new Boardwalk ordinance proposal - and didn’t feel sick to their stomach – please read no further. Everyone else read on:

The new proposed ordinance for Venice Boardwalk was even more complex and anally-inspired than anything that has gone before. Thanks to both Deputy City Attorneys, Mark Brown and Gita Isagholian, who were intimately involved in the drafting of this latest violation of our First Amendment rights. They visibly gloated over their latest creation – one, I’m afraid that is destined to fail – yet again.

Why do they insist on curbing our civil rights when they are, themselves, violating Government Ethics Ordinance Section 45.5.5 MISUSE OF CITY POSITION OR RESOURCES? "A city official or employee engages in a prohibited use of his or her official position or prospective position when he or she engages in activities other than in the lawful and proper performance of the person's City duties."

What can be considered lawful about denying us our First Amendment rights to Free Speech on Venice Boardwalk ?

If you’re MAD AS HELL – come to our SOV meeting on October 7 and find out what you can do about it !

 Editor

Why the Lottery Failed by Andrew Deener

It is not too surprising that the manipulations of the Venice Boardwalk by politicians and city attorneys has failed. Central bureaucratic agencies often fail when it comes to dealing with local cultural concerns and customs. While Venice Beach is unique in many ways, in this way, it is just another case of misdiagnosis. People have been writing for decades about the ways that governments misuse their power and misappropriate their funds by working to benefit their own interests or the interests of a small group of landowners. This is not a distinctly American phenomenon – there are cases like this in Brazil, Romania, Tanzania and Russia, among many others.

The problem, as it relates to Venice Beach, is the misunderstanding of culture when diagnosing a problem. Lawyers, for instance, work within a strange framework. They compare across legal cases, to see what has been ruled on already, and through these previous rulings come up with a strategy for dealing with a new specific case. For instance, they review case histories in Waikiki, Portland, Santa Barbara, Santa Monica and New York. And in the end, through this review of the legal precedent, they determine what should be done about Venice Beach. While this is the dominant way of defining ordinances, simply stated: It is the wrong way.

There is a very good possibility that there are important distinctions between these cases and the places in which they arose. Even comparing Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade and the Venice Beach Boardwalk serves as an obvious reminder of these differences. Only the most foolish would agree that the Promenade and Venice Beach are exactly the same types of places. There are important differences that need to be made clear. Why is Venice Beach an attraction and why is the Third Street Promenade an attraction? Why do artists and performers attend either of these spaces? What is the history of the neighborhoods in which these spaces exist? There are dozens of questions that are outside the realm of legal precedent that explicitly determine the differences between these spaces, enabling the prediction of failed political ordinances in one space when they were successful in another.

These differences are a reminder of the importance of understanding history and culture before mismanaging and misdiagnosing local problems. Central government agencies need to do research. They need to visit the spaces, talk to the people, bring together people of diverse intentions and viewpoints, and then define the problem. It is never fair to base a problem on hearsay from one group or another.

It is also never fair to focus on only the aspects of a culture that does not work. There are many things about Venice Beach and the vending situation that worked perfectly before the lottery imposition. The government agencies focus on fighting. In more cases, in my three years of research, I have seen mentoring - old artists helping new ones to succeed on the Boardwalk. The government agencies focus on safety threats to visitors. In more cases, in my three years of research, I have seen vendors assist visitors: provide directions, explain the history of the location and even help in dire circumstances, such as calling for medical and police assistance.

In retrospect, it is very easy for most people to now see how and why the lottery plan went wrong. The irony, of course, is that from the beginning, local people involved with the Boardwalk – artists, performers and vendors – were able to foresee these problems. Now it is time for government agencies to redirect their energies towards understanding local conditions and cultures, for making informed decisions about these everyday activities, and for taking into account the perspectives of a diverse citizenry.

© Andrew Deener

 

In Honor of Michael Devalcourt by Diane Butler 

Michael, our brother, it was so hard to lose you. It is our prayer that you are free from pain and in a better place, because this world is hard and cruel. You were a great artist among us. You shared your talents, gifts, and most of all your love with us. Set up at a corner of Rose Avenue and the Boardwalk, you painted one half of the trash can with a beautiful dolphin scene and shared the other half with your friend Lorenda, who painted her cat. Now the trash can is replaced by a black-barred, bolted down city monstrosity, devoid of art.

You set up your modest space like a meticulous outdoor art gallery, with your surreal paintings, and copper twisted trees, every day for three years. And in the fourth year, the city took your modest self-muraled camper home away from you and your cat. We all watched you go downhill after that. Everyone asks how you died, and no one really knows what disease you had. But many of us know that you died of a broken heart. The same broken heart that Vincent van Gogh died of the same broken heart that Cindy Bear and Sonny Zorro died of. Because of a city that doesn't care about taking the roof from over someone's head, and a city that confiscates everything that a homeless person has – including your beautiful paintings and art supplies. A city that hounds street artists, even though they can't keep a roof over their heads, by instituting a restrictive lottery program, that makes it impossible for a true artist to compete with commerciality.

So we say that you were the first casualty of the lottery system, which took away your beautiful, spirit-filled outdoor art gallery, and your beautifully painted trash can, and left you to die in a wheelchair at the northeast corner of the Rose Avenue beach parking lot, between the bike shed and the wall, all alone in the sand.

We love you, Michael, and will not let your death be in vain. We thank your mother Judy Devalcourt Tidwell, your sister Alicia Steinhaus, and your family for sharing you with us these past four years. We are with your family in their grief. Love, Your Venice family

P.S. The police gave Michael a ticket for a shopping cart three weeks before he died. Emaciated and weak, he was probably using the shopping cart to help himself walk. He was thirty-three years old, just like Jesus. He was homeless, just like Jesus.

In the end, I want to recognize a few people who helped Michael in his passing: Patty, Mary, Eden, Brad, Daisy, Demetrius, Jan, Shyla, Regina, and the man who paints surreal paintings a lot like Michael's. I also want to recognize Christine, who was Michael's best friend, and Sadika, who was Michael's Angel as well as mine.

God Bless You, Michael

Love, Diane

***His Day of Rest***

(As an introduction to this declaration of the Cherokee people, we understand that the Buddhists have Wednesday as their day of rest...the Muslims have Friday...the Jews have Saturday...the Christians have Sunday... In answer the Cherokee made this statement.)

"Now we shall not rest until we have regained our rightful place.....We shall tell our young people what we know. We shall sent to the corners of the earth to learn more. They shall lead us."

"Now we have much to do. When our task is done, we will be ready to rest."

In these days, intruders, without our consent, are speaking for the Cherokee people. When the Cherokee government is the Cherokee, we shall rest.

In these days, the high courts of the Unites States listen to people who have been wronged. When our wrongs have been judged in these courts and the illegalities of the past have been corrected, then we shall rest.

In these days, there are countless ways by which people make known their grievances to all Americans. When we have learned these new ways that bring strength and power, then we shall rest.

In these days, we are losing our homes and our children's homes. When our homeland is protected for ourselves and for the generations to come, we shall rest.

In the vision of our creator, we declare ourselves ready to stand proudly among the nationalities of these United States. © Leroy Mitchell