The Last Man Standing, Physically, on Exposition Boulevard, Admits ‘I Am Cornered’

Ari L. NoonanNews

[Editor’s Note: See previous story,“‘Dogs, Thieves, Redevelopment Personnel’ Are Barred from Entering a Certain Store,” Jan. 30.]

With the vividity and vivaciousness long gone from his life, it probably was appropriate that the weather was as pale as his life when the besieged business owner Patrick Vorgeack greeted a visitor early this morning.

Sunlight was grunting and straining to fight through the clouds, the same way he is grunting and straining in his fight against City Hall, which has demanded his property to clear room for an anticipated light rail train station.

Last seen, City Hall said yes and he said no, he was not moving.

“I can’t move,” said the sixtyish businessman. “I don’t have anyplace to go.

The Study of Peace Offers a Platform for Four Culver High Students

Ari L. NoonanNews

In a magnificent, teen-accented ceremony yesterday afternoon in the happily crowded campus library, an array of eloquent students from Culver City High School — committed to the philosophy of nonviolence — welcomed a traveling world peace exhibit that has been presented on most continents. The elaborate exhibit is open to the public every day this week during school hours, from 7 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon.

Destination: Culver City

Not by accident did the exhibit — centering on the unique accomplishments of Dr. Martin Luther King, Mahatma Ghandi and Prof. Daisaku Ikeda — land in Culver City. In recent years on the Culver High campus, inspired and encouraged by teachers such as Jose Montero, students have undertaken an aggressive, enthusiastic pursuit of world peace through a strict agenda of nonviolence. While it has become a major theme on campus outside of the classroom, the study of peace now occupies a prominent niche in the curriculum.

’The City Is Robbing Us of Our Dignity, Destroying Our Business,’ Harry Fumes

Ari L. NoonanNews

[Editor’s Note: See previous story, “Cool Harry Explodes — He Is Frantic Over His Treatment by City Hall,” Feb. 2.]

In a remarkable display of carefully controlled but acerbic, coherent anger this morning, the artist/designer Harry, of Cool Harry — a 25-year neighborhood art and designer furniture enterprise — turned volcanic over his imminent ouster by City Hall.

“You would never know it by the way Culver City is treating me,” said Harry, “but my work has international standing. I am known all over the world.”

Cool Harry Explodes — He Is Frantic Over His Treatment by City Hall

Ari L. NoonanNews

[Editor’s Note: A planned 9-mile light rail line, originating in downtown Los Angeles, terminating in Culver City, has plunged numerous entrepreneurs in the targeted terminal station area of Culver City into a panicked state. Since the necessary capital has not yet been raised, the projected layout of a light rail station and business complex remains undefined. Maddeningly so, say angry affected business owners. Following a process, icluding the controversial concept of eminent domain, businesses are being shuttered at a steady pace. The owner who is the subject of today’s story is one of the last left standing. See the most recent story, “‘Dogs, Thieves, Redevelopment Personnel’ Are Barred from Entering a Certain Store,” Jan. 30.]

In the entirety of the universe, there probably is only one Harry.

Were there two, you would have heard by now.

And Culver City has him.

But not for long.

Lawsuit by Ex-Culver City Officer May Ignite Montanio Fireworks

Ari L. NoonanNews

Charging race, gender and disability discrimination, attorneys for former Culver City police officer Christie Maddox filed a lawsuit on Tuesday in Superior Court that promises to break open an arsenal of fireworks. While naming the city as the defendant, Ms. Maddox unleashed a string of race- and gender-tainted accusations against former Police Chief John Montanio.

Her lawyers have hinted that the timing of Mr. Montanio’s sudden departure a year ago last autumn was not of his choosing. Just a year and a half after surprisingly landing his dream-of-a-lifetime job in March of ‘04, Mr. Montanio caught even pals off-guard. On Oct. 20, ’05, he abruptly announced his retirement to enter an abstract, secretive and exotic form of security work on a fulltime basis in a distant land. This, he said, was a promotion from his part-time status.

‘Dogs, Thieves, Redevelopment Personnel’ Are Barred from Entering a Certain Store

Ari L. NoonanNews

Welcome to the realm of rage that, increasingly, characterizes a growing colony of singled-out Culver City business operators. Their visceral anger is steadily rising. Physically and emotionally, they are being driven from their property for one of two reasons:

  • City Hall has targeted their business, their neighborhood for redevelopment.
  • The MTA says it needs their space, their neighborhood to accommodate the 9-mile light rail line that will extend from downtown Los Angeles to Culver City.


How mad are they?

“Keep Out!

“All dogs, thieves and Redevelopment Personnel”


Did Last Week’s Surfas-Court Ruling Save City Hall a Million Bucks?

Ari L. NoonanNews

Part II

[For Part I, see “Inner Thoughts of First- and Second-Place Finishers in a Courtroom,” Jan. 26.]

The proprietor of Surfas Restaurant Supply and Gourmet Foods was feeling sprightly last Thursday. He was fresh from winning a Superior Court ruling allowing him to maintain his warehouse on a redevelopment site 30 days longer than City Hall argued he should be allowed to remain there.

“My next move,” said Les Surfas, will be just that, a move,” but on his terms, not the city’s, as far as he is concerned. The court ordered him to close down his warehouse on the corner of National and Washington boulevards by July 1. He recently signed a long-term lease, with an option to buy, to shift the warehouse operations of his business a few hundred yards west, to Landmark Street.

Inner Thoughts of First- and Second-Place Finishers in a Courtroom

Ari L. NoonanNews

[Editor’s Notes: See earlier stories from this week, “Surfas Has a New Location — Will That Cool City Hall Feud?” Jan. 24, and “Surfas Scores a Timely Victory in a ‘30-Day’ Argument with City,” Jan. 25.]

Here is a closer look at how the winner and the runner-up reacted yesterday morning directly after a court awarded businessman Les Surfas 30 days more than the city believed he deserved to vacate his redevelopment-targeted property.

Near one marbled wall in the long, hollow corridor of Los Angeles Superior Court, the Surfas family was huddled with attorneys Connie Sandifur and Melanie Butts.

The ebullient Mr. Surfas was first to speak. He was grumbling over the way he believes City Hall is continuing to harass him about moving the warehouse of his restaurant supply business from the northwest corner of Washington and National boulevards by June 1 instead of his date of choice, July 1. “I have a contract to move,” he said, “and they’re still pushing me to move earlier even though I paid $40,000 to somebody to leave their lease early so I can move in. That still doesn’t make the city happy. They make all of us sit here today to say, ‘Don’t put me out of business.’”


Senator Throws Rice at Gangs’ Problem, but Is That the Cure?

Ari L. NoonanNews

[Editor’s Note: See earlier stories, “A Shining, Oscar-Worthy Morning — Swearing-in of Sen. Ridley-Thomas,” Jan. 19, and “Do You Suppose the Much-Praised Senator Can Top This?” Jan. 22.]

Boarding the fast-churning wings of newly elected state Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas (D-Culver City), dynamic civil rights attorney Connie Rice ignited a crowd of 300 this afternoon with a hammering address in which she declared the gang problem in Greater Los Angeles should be everyone’s No. 1 priority. The war on gangs — 730 in Los Angeles and 1,000 in L.A. County — is frighteningly urgent and also winnable, she said. The large-haired Ms. Rice came to inflame the enthusiastic audience convening for a 15th anniversary celebration of Sen. Ridley-Thomas’s all peoples’ Empowerment Congress. She easily succeeded. Billed as an interfaith luncheon, the room was packed with every shade of resident of Los Angeles, which was Mr. Ridley-Thomas’s goal. In a more nuanced way, many of the city’s religions were represented, Christian, Jew and far, far beyond.

Surfas Scores a Timely Victory in a ‘30-Day’ Argument with City

Ari L. NoonanNews

[Editor’s Note: See earlier story, “Surfas Has a New Location — Will That Cool City Hall Feud?” Jan. 24.]

Gathering momentum, the most valuable weapon a business owner can pack for a fight with City Hall, the entrepreneur Les Surfas prevailed this morning in a psychologically significant ruling in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom. With Culver City in the process of redeveloping roughly half of his property, Mr. Surfas won the right to remain on the targeted portion until July 1. For nearly half an hour, the city’s attorney, Bruce Gridley, a redevelopment specialist, argued strenuously — but in a restrained low key — to force out the businessman 30 days earlier, by June 1, because the city needed to begin its vaunted project. Directed by a patient Superior Court Commissioner Bruce E. Mitchell to be more specific, Mr. Gridley gave what the court considered an unsatisfactory response. He said the land needed to be cleared as soon as possible in order to attract potential developers. Seeing no “urgency,” the operative term, in the attorney’s answer, Mr. Mitchell said granting the July date would not make a noticeable difference in Culver City’s relatively amorphous project.