Lincoln Place - Tent City Report
By C.V.
Beck
Tent City is located at the
southwest corner of California Avenue and Frederick Street, Venice, California
(sometimes called Squirrel Square, that is behind the Ross parking
lot)...We still maintain although we have reduced our hours to 10-4 pm,
Wednesdays and Saturdays because of the winter darkness.
What's new over here, you might be
asking? Well, let me tell you that we are now awaiting a Santa Monica
court hearing date of Monday, December 4, 2006 at which event we will find out
if AIMCO's motion to reconsider our right to have a trial will fly or if we
will, at long last, have a trial date set, possibly for January, 2007.
Hold your breath! I know we
are.
We
continue feeding the squirrels peanuts mostly from the "99" (unsalted) and have
some tasty assorted morsels for whoever comes by. We tell jokes and dish
and have a good old time, socializing and being supportive of one another
in a truly neighborly way. People continue to come by to hear the latest or just
to hang out, act "normal" for a little while and try to relax.
As we head into winter, if it is raining, we will not be here,
according to our usual sensible
plan.
On
Wednesday, November 15, there was a large police presence around California
Streets, including the Ralph's/Ross/Lincoln Place areas, with a police
helicopter flying around most of the day. I assumed it was a preholiday
traffic "putsch" but as it turned out later, it was a drug bust in the Oakwood
neighborhood.
On
Saturday, November 18, we had a gaggle of people coming by, or driving around,
some were friendly, some were not. For example, at 11:00 AM a small
dark bluegreen-ish pickup truck with two occupants, came by and drove around the
Frederick/Doreen circle, the first time, shouting, "Go home and clean your
house!", the second time, this driver, with black framed Buddy Holly type of
glasses, also shouted again, "Go home and clean your house!". I responded
appropriately with a spirited, feminist "Eff off!" both times. We
debated this very odd (to us at least) occurence all afternoon...as to what it
might mean. But what we thought
it meant was something on the order of either
"keep 'em barefoot and pregnant", or "kinder, kuche, kirche"...the very orthodox
feminine
role...right?
On
another occasion, a pushed-out--of-Lincoln Place-former-resident, a single
mom, came by and told me after she had moved out of Lincoln Place, she has had
to move twice already and her rent is going to go up majorly again at the
beginning of the New Year. A woman with a camera walked around Lincoln
Place for a while and came up to chat, saying that she lived on Brooks and
wanted to know what was going on here. She apparently knew
nothing
about our struggle but was very tuned into the
traffic problems we now have on the "western edge" due to the extreme
hyper/overdevelopment, insufficient green factors and overly sufficient greed
factors. There is a man who is painting pictures of the Lincoln Place
complex with an easel on the sidewalk, this has been going on for several months
now.
Odd
things continue to happen. About a month or so ago, a white tandem truck
came by and went to Elkgrove Circle, then shortly returned back to Lincoln
Boulevard. I had a report later that same day from a resident when he went
to see what they were doing, they told the security that "the company" had sent
them and that the 2 large piles of earth they dropped in the roadway of the
circle, , . were "for the spring garden"! !
!
There
is a rumor I have heard that the Cafe 50's lease is up soon and people are
worried that either there may not be a new lease or that it might be too
expensive...
Posted: Fri - December
1, 2006 at 05:53 PM