Lincoln Place: TENT CITY REPORT
By C.V.
Beck
TENT CITY IS NOT WINDING
DOWN...for those who still don’t know where we are: we are at the
southeast corner of Frederick/California Streets, east of Ross, south of
Ralph’s and west of Lincoln Place.
As we await our day in court and our
constitutionally promised due process of law, some of us have been
“posted”, (that is, having an Ellis Act-oriented unlawful detainer
summons served) and some haven’t. Some had summons left stuck to their
door with very sticky masking tape (by a masked man, no doubt) and the office
has not accepted our rent. Some of our more irresistible seniors have people
banging on their doors late at night and the phone rings and rings...and no one
is there...security guards pop out at me while I empty my trash, saying,
“Good morning, I didn’t mean to startle!” when I jumped but in
my heart of hearts, I’m sure he did mean to
startle.
Lincoln Place residents are
experiencing a barrage of threatening legal boilerplate as the big law firms
“paper” us with scary, incomprehensible-to-most people-multiple
pieces of white papers...involving several different areas of the law and also
involving the removal of almost 800 truly affordable apartments under rent
control from Venice. People in brand new cars continue to circle around and
through Lincoln Place, staring at the “rentmonkeys”with our knuckles
seemingly dragging on the ground. (Imagine that, these “rentmonkeys”
have the nerve to think they can continue to live in aesthetic Venice...rapidly
on the way to becoming anaesthetic Venice)...I continue to experience direct
attacks on my property in the back yard as things “coinkidinkly”
continue to vanish...just like they want us to do...just discovered a tent in my
car trunk has disappeared...just when I might really need it! Some more people
have sold their souls to the devil for green pieces of paper. Somehow,
someone’s wife, who works or worked for the Rand Corporation in some
unknown capacity, is present at a meeting between the relocation specialist and
a taking-the-deal-kind of resident. Why was that? Just a coinkidink, right? Are
we part of a study of some kind of people moving techniques? The big
lawfirm’s mouthpieces continue to spew lies, lies and more lies. They
really don’t want us to go to court, do
they?
Last month, the Venice
Neighborhood Council had their elections. There are a only a few people who
understand their roles as a NEIGHBORHOOD REPRESENTATIVE and not for personal
aggrandisement or as a clone of the Venice Chamber of Commerce or Abbot Kinney
District Association. On the upside, Spike Marlin, a feisty rentmonkey from
Lincoln Place, was elected as a representative. While this is encouraging,
unfortunately, too many of the rest of our reps seem to think that it’s
all about me, me, me and I, I, I and not we and us...together, trying to make a
too small place better for everyone, not just for a select, incredibly lucky and
few “Lords of Dirt or
Sand.”
Last week, I observed one
of the security guards in his big car, creeping along much too closely behind
one of our most disabled seniors, struggling to walk down the alley. I had to
direct him with hand signals to go around this person and lectured him on his
misconduct, letting him know that I would be contacting his supervisor. On
another note, one of our creepiest dogwalking neighbors is back. This is the
person who puts the dog waste in a plastic bag and hangs it decoratively from
trees directly across from my residence where it is liable to remain-- til the
cows come home--unless, of course, I remove it. No one else seems to have
noticed this vile person’s disgusting activity. Stay tuned for more...next
time and see you in court, any day now.
Posted: Sun - October 1, 2006 at 05:22 PM