11/06/03

LC031106


Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

It's an air base with no planes or runways, but it plays a
strategic role in military aviation. We'll look at the fight to
save Los Angeles Air Force Base.

John Parson>> This area of southern California is where all
that brain power comes from and we don't want that to start
being decimated and picked apart piece by piece because we'll
lose it.

Val>> And then, Film Week critics hop into "The Matrix
Revolutions" and take a fling at "Love Actually".

These stories and more next on tonight's Life and Times.

Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

Val>> Hello, I'm Val Zavala. It may be the most unlikely air
base in the country. In fact, many people don't even know it
exists, but will they miss it when it's gone? That's what some
people are saying about the Los Angeles Air Force Base. For
years, it was a player in American aviation history, but now, as
Toni Guinyard reports, the Los Angeles Air Force Base may soon
fall victim to Washington's budget ax.

John Parson>> Los Angeles Air Force Base is very unusual in
that it doesn't have a runway. It doesn't have, you know,
hundreds of thousands of acres surrounding it like many bases
do. It's an office complex.

Toni Guinyard>> The Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo is
home to the Space and Missile System Center, home to ideas,
research and development of military defense projects. It's
also one of hundreds of military bases across the country that
could soon be shut down or have operations relocated as part of
the Base Realignment and Closure plan. It's a cost-cutting move
authorized by Congress aimed at streamlining military
operations.

John Parson>> We know that the military is going to be looking
at between twenty and twenty-five percent cuts in their bases
around the country. There are about 425 bases and that's a big
number that's going to be looked at. So we're not taking any
chances, making sure that our base stays here in the Los Angeles
area and in the city of El Segundo.

Toni Guinyard>> Redondo Beach City Councilman, John Parson,
serves on the Base Retention Taskforce. He says the potential
economic impact of losing the base and the ripple effect on
local businesses within the aerospace industry is reason to go
on the offensive.

John Parson>> The Los Angeles Air Force Base, on an annual
basis, puts out between $8 billion and $10 billion dollars in
contracts.

Toni Guinyard>> It's a matter of dollars and cents, image and
economics, for southern California's South Bay cities.

Gary Johnson>> We were just awarded a $6 million dollar
contract for the U.S. government to supply an exhaust nozzle for
a helicopter. The day after we were awarded that, we issued
$1.5 million dollars worth of purchase orders to our vendors.

Toni Guinyard>> Local?

Gary Johnson>> Local, all local. I mean, that just multiplies
itself, you know, across the board.

Toni Guinyard>> Ace Clearwater Enterprises is a manufacturing
company employing nearly two hundred workers.

Gary Johnson>> We supply a lot of things that end up being a
part of systems within the Los Angeles Air Force Base.
Satellite systems, launch systems. We don't have a direct
relationship other than the brain trust that is created by that
base. Quite frankly, if the base was to move or were to move
out of the state, it wouldn't put us out of business and we may
still be doing work indirectly for the base if it was somewhere
else. What I feel is one of the biggest attractions of that
base is the brain trust that it creates.

Toni Guinyard>> Johnson's perception of the potential economic
impact if the base closes is not as dire as it might be for
other companies, but he adds that there is another threat.
California's aerospace industry is already being targeted by
other states.

Gary Johnson>> It's Florida. They're here all the time trying
to get aerospace companies. Nevada, it's a nonstop thing trying
to attract companies to move and that's not easy thing.

Jack Kyser>> Picture the 405 Freeway and you go, say, 14
Freeway, Palmdale, down to the 405 and then right around past El
Segundo and into Orange County. You go along that freeway and
you will find a whole array of suppliers to Los Angeles Air
Force Base and the aerospace corporations. We have been told
that, if the air force base activity moved to Colorado Springs,
a lot of these other businesses would follow.

John Parson>> For Los Angeles County and for the South Bay,
this is the preeminent area of space where it's all the way from
commercial space satellites to military space satellites to the
satellites that JPL and Caltech design and implement. This area
of southern California is where all that brain power is and we
don't want that to start being decimated and picked apart piece
by piece because we'll lose it.

Toni Guinyard>> Base closures have been authorized four times
since 1988 and each time the Los Angeles Air Force Base has
survived. The Base Realignment and Closure is saving the
Pentagon billions of dollars. The next round will come in 2005
and one local coalition is unwilling to wait and see if the Los
Angeles Air Force Base ends up on that list, so they are working
to make sure that doesn't happen.

Joe Aro>> We've determined that, in the case of the Los Angeles
Air Force Base, this is something worth working on together.

Toni Guinyard>> Joe Aro is Executive Director of the South Bay
Economic Development Partnership.

Joe Aro>> "Hi, John. Joe Aro returning your call."

Toni Guinyard>> These days, he finds himself working the
phones, sounding a rallying cry to protect the Los Angeles Air
Force Base.

Joe Aro>> "Yeah, why don't you do that? I've got somebody that
will get him down here."

Joe Aro>> We would lose not just the prestige of having the
base here, but the dollars would follow. I may be a little bit
of a cheerleader for the South Bay, but as far as I'm concerned,
when Pioneer 1 lifted into space and was the first orbiting
device that we put in space, the space program was created here
in the South Bay because Pioneer 1 was built in Redondo Beach by
TRW which is now Northrop Grumman.

Toni Guinyard>> One of many companies that are part of the
aerospace industry that operates adjacent to or near the base.
But it's not just the potential loss of the military operations
that is cause for concern. Products developed for the military
like GPS navigation systems now found in cars or weather
satellites are now widely used by consumers. The technology
traces back to the type of technology envisioned at Los Angeles
Air Force Base Space and Missile System Center.

Joe Aro>> Without satellites, you don't have DirecTV. Without
satellites, you may not have some of your cell phone features.
You may not have your pagers. All those things that we now
couldn't live without.

Gary Johnson>> We had a tour of a bunch of high school students
a while back. They weren't all that enthusiastic about
manufacturing and aerospace and all of this. We had a kid say
to the guy that runs our machine shop, "Why do you want to do
that? It's a gritty, grimy, dirty job and I can't believe it."
Our machinist answered, "I make $72,000 a year. I have a high
school education and I have parts that I designed and built
sitting on the planet Mars." It's kind of cool.

Toni Guinyard>> Every example illustrating the economic impact
of the work being done is being used as a potential weapon to
protect the base from the Pentagon's hit list.

John Parson>> If you're on the list, you're pretty much at the
end game. So our effort is to make sure we don't get on the
list.

Toni Guinyard>> And staying off the list means, in part,
convincing elected officials and military brass that the base is
more than just a valuable piece of real estate waiting to be
developed.

Joe Aro>> The Los Angeles Air Force Base is a great prime piece
of real estate just as the American flag is just a piece of
cloth. There's a lot more to it than that. This is not just a
military installation. This is far more than that. We're
talking about research, we're talking about futures.

Val>> Base closings are nothing new and California has borne
the brunt of them in previous years, but now the Pentagon may be
facing even greater pressure as the federal deficit rises and
the costs of Iraq and other military campaigns soar.

Question: Should the government thin forests to help avoid
another fire disaster?

>> It sounds like a good idea, but it also sounds like it's
going to be expensive, so it's kind of where do we get the money
to do that? Landscaping and thinning stuff out is another
issue. I don't know that we could do that necessarily.

>> I'm opposed to that. I think that it's an opportunistic
move on the part of the Congress and the president to try to get
more logging rights out there. I think there are better ways
that they could manage the forests. If they wanted to clear
brush or something around homes or where people lived, I could
see them doing that, but the kinds of bills they're passing now,
I'm completely opposed to. I mean, fire is part of the normal
cycle of the forest. It has to burn for things to grow.

>> Though I know that there's been a movement for ecology's
sake towards letting forests thin out, if we have fires like
this, it's a disaster for too many people. So I think it's a
good idea to have controlled fires rather than disasters like
this.

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Val>> We've all seen our neighborhoods change, sometimes
unexpectedly. Construction can start on a mall or an apartment
complex and residents will only learn afterwards how it impacts
them. Well, one Los Angeles City Councilman has a solution to
this problem to be sure that residents have a chance to respond
before ground is broken. I met Los Angeles City Councilman,
Eric Garcetti, at The Village in Hollywood to learn more about
the Community Impact Report. Eric Garcetti, thank you so much
for taking the time.

Eric Garcetti>> My pleasure.

Val>> Now explain what this thing is called, Community Impact
Report? It's like an EIR, an Environmental Impact Report, only
it's about the community?

Eric Garcetti>> It is like an EIR in some ways, but it's also
independent because it's not something that you can bring a
lawsuit against. A Community Impact Report essentially asks
developers and communities to talk to each other at the
beginning of projects. Right now in Los Angeles, usually what
we have is a dynamic that communities find out after a year or a
year and a half of pre-development that something is coming to
their neighborhood or something is coming to their area.

Val>> That's right, and then they say no one told me they were
going to build this. How come I didn't hear about it?

Eric Garcetti>> Exactly, and then they wind up fighting it,
they often kill it. Then here in Los Angeles, we don't have any
pre-development. We have things that just kind of get dismissed
out of hand by communities. If that dialogue happened at the
beginning, it could have brought them both to the table and
worked out those differences. Made sure the development serves
the community, but also that it can go forward because we need
some development. We just want it to be accountable.

Val>> So what would be in this Community Impact Report? What
kind of information?

Eric Garcetti>> Well, we look at everything from, you know,
park space in a community to affordable housing. What sort of
living wage jobs were produced by a development. What sort of
benefit is the community right around the development going to
get essentially. And also hopefully save the developers from
tying the money because right now that same dynamic where
they've been working on something for a year and a half, two
years, and then suddenly their project gets stalled because the
community is up in arms, at least they can have some more
predictability and we can have better development and move
forward more quickly.

Val>> And who would do this impact report? Would the developer
do it or the city or the community?

Eric Garcetti>> No, we don't want the developer to have an
additional burden in the city, but we do want to have a public
hearing. So it would be the staff of the community development
agency. They would do this report. We then have a public
hearing where the community could voice their concerns. The
developer could hear them and then the project could move
forward once that's been resolved. You know, right now we kind
of have that informally, but like I said, it often takes so many
years that this is a way of making it more predictable and
having it be fair to both sides.

Val>> The first time I heard about it, I thought, oh, my gosh,
another report, more paperwork, more attorneys, more surveys,
more money, more time. I thought who would want to add an
additional burden? You can't get anything built anyway as it
is, good or bad.

Eric Garcetti>> We don't want a cottage industry of more
lawyers and more consultants.

Val>> How are you going to be sure you're going to avoid that
because you know how these things grow and grow and grow?

Eric Garcetti>> They do, and I don't want it to be the foot in
the door to just create something more bureaucratic. Right now,
if we don't do anything, the situation is pretty bad. It's that
dynamic I described where people aren't talking to each other.
To me, if we do this right -- and the threshold for me is
actually a reduction of the amount of time it takes for
developments to go forward in the city, but at the same time
communities being happier with them. I know that's a high bar.
If we hit that bar, then I think we have made something that's
non-bureaucratic. By making sure it's the agency that does it
as opposed to the developer and we don't have a whole cottage
industry of consultants. We have people who are interested in
moving things along.

Val>> So give us an example. Would, for example, the expansion
of LAX be subject to a Community Impact Report?

Eric Garcetti>> Well, LAX probably would, but that's such a
huge project that the EIR there is going to cover most things.
A good example would be the second phase of the Staples Center
where now they're going to build an arena, they're going to have
Lowry's California Home Center come back to it, you know, like
Lowry's used to be by the river.

What happened there is you have the community come forward and
say, can you reduce liquor licenses over here if you're going to
have a new one? Can you help build some green space because
you're taking up parking lots that we'd love to have a pocket
park? Can you make sure there's affordable housing being built?
That negotiation came out where the developer felt good and the
community felt good and political leaders could support it. So
that would be a good example of a larger project, but it would
also look at some of the medium-sized projects and make sure
that that dialogue is happening. It's going to happen one way
or another. We just want to facilitate it.

Val>> And is it buildings or would it also be, for example,
schools, landfills, everything?

Eric Garcetti>> Right now, we're looking at what it would apply
to. Most economic development projects, it could apply to. It
could apply to housing projects as well. Affordable housing
projects, you might not want to saddle them with additional
burdens, but we really don't see this as a burden. We see this
as something that helps the developer and empowers the community
and that's special.

Val>> And the whole idea is to have development not only that
goes more smoothly, but that really is in harmony with the
immediate environment so we don't get monstrosities like the
Beverly Center again, things like that, right?

Eric Garcetti>> Absolutely. I mean, we often have developers
who come in from outside a community and never spend time with
the community having that dialogue. This is a great way to
ensure that happens. You know, as a policymaker, if ten people
show up to a public meeting, we're ecstatic, but we should
really have a higher bar than that. We should have a process in
which, you know, dozens if not hundreds of people in a community
can have some input, but in a positive way that helps move it
forward. I believe that, when you empower people, they actually
go from saying no, no, no, nothing in my backyard to yes,

Val>> Right, because a lot of the reasons people are opposed is
because they feel totally left out in the first place and they
feel surprised. So when is it going to start?

Eric Garcetti>> Well, it's already started. The Community
Redevelopment Agency board is going to be looking at this. They
have a motion before them and they'll be having the first public
hearing next month. They'll probably vote on it late winter,
maybe early spring, and I've asked the city to look at a
possible citywide motion as well. But we really want to assure
the business communities that this isn't a threat. We want to
invite all the community members to know that this is out there
so they can help shape how it looks.

Val>> Well, that's the key thing. The key thing now will be
notifying people about the Community Impact Report. I mean,
who's going to get notified? Every household within a certain
range of a development?

Eric Garcetti>> Well, we'll do a geographic area. We'll look
at the neighborhood councils, some of the existing groups that
are already there. They might be labor groups. They might be
housing advocates. They might be parks advocates. But for
sure, the residents around the development because those are the
people that are most impacted.

Val>> Very good. Eric, thank you so much. We'll see how it
works.

Eric Garcetti>> Thank you, Val. Nice to see you.

Val>> Garcetti emphasizes that the Community Impact Report
would not put any more requirements on developers. It would
just channel the communities' response in a more organized way.
So far, the idea has the support of more than a hundred
community leaders and a couple dozen civic organizations.

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Larry Mantle>> Welcome to Film Week on Life and Times. I'm
Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC. This week we begin with the third
film in the trilogy of the Matrix stories, "The Matrix
Revolutions".

[Film Clip]

Larry Mantle>> I'm joined this week by critics F.X. Feeney of
the L.A. Weekly and Peter Rainer of New York Magazine. F.X.,
what did you think of "The Matrix Revolutions"?

F.X. Feeney>> Well, I don't think it's so much a sequel so much
as an outer spiral or maybe an extra halo around the first
Matrix, which was a fantastic movie. I think that, for me, part
of it lives up to the promise of the original, part of it. I
think the relationship between Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss
and this vast mystical matrix in which machines dominate human
beings by basically controlling their perceptions of reality,
those aspects of the film are intelligently handled.

But a lot of the movie is basically noisy battle scenes between
the folks, you know, in the Zion, the underground, the humans
who escaped machine domination and they're pitching their
apocalyptic stand against the will of the machines. You know,
Hugo Weaving is the great villain in the sunglasses who seems to
replicate. He's a machine programmed who is dominating a lot of
the human beings and he seems to be more of a rogue this time.
So that is part of the essence of how they're trying to unlock
things.

But I felt largely bored during the battle scenes and all I
could think was that, a couple of weeks ago, they showed
"Lawrence of Arabia" and I'm seeing living people on live
horseback and I'm always energized by seeing it. But if it had
been an animated cartoon, would it have been anywhere near as
moving to watch all those battle scenes in "Lawrence"? I think,
no, and I think the proof of it to me are the battle scenes in
"The Matrix" where it's basically robots fighting robots or
digitally conjured humans.

Larry Mantle>> Peter, your take on "The Matrix Revolutions"?

Peter Rainer>> Yeah, I was never a huge fan of the series to
begin with. You know, I think that what's happened in this
third movie is that they sold out all of the people who did
think the first one was some great revolutionary movie
entertaining for the twenty-first century. As F.X. says, it's
basically a kind of crash and burn action movie with lots of
special effects and loud noises and explosions.

A lot of the Zen mumbo-jumbo that was in the first film and, to
some extent, the second one, has been jettisoned and a lot of
the epistemology, you know, which is okay in my book except they
haven't replaced it with anything better. I think in the end
the ultimate legacy of this movie may not be so much in the
realm of movies or metaphysics, but high fashion. A lot of
people look good in basic black, but, you know, Keanu Reeves
starts out the movie in a coma as Neo and then he snaps out of
it, but my question is, how can you tell? (laughter)

Larry Mantle>> Well, next up is the holiday comedy, "Elf",
starring Will Ferrell, directed by Jon Favreau.

[Film Clip]

Larry Mantle>> Peter Rainer, what did you think of "Elf"?

Peter Rainer>> That's a deep question, Larry, and it requires
some deep thought, but I will say this. Why is this Christmas
movie being released now? It seems a little odd. But Will
Ferrell, to me, can do no wrong. He's just one of these
innately funny people. I even read in the press notes for the
movie that he majored in something called Sports Information at
USC. Everything about him is funny and seeing him in a big
green elf suit in this film is really a kick.

He plays a foundling who was adopted by, you know, Santa's elves
in the North Pole and grows up believing he's an elf, although
he's quite a bit larger than anyone else, and then goes to New
York to find his real father played by James Caan, who's a
children's book publisher.

His experiences in New York City around Christmastime are often
very funny, particularly when he's walking around the streets in
this big elf costume and no one even bothers to notice or care,
which is very typical of New York where you can pretty much do
whatever you want on the streets and no one will notice you.
But ultimately the movie suffers from, you know, treacleitis.
There's just too much, you know, good spirit in this film, too
many life lessons, too much sugar-coating. I was hoping for
more satire and, instead, it's pretty much a valentine, a
Hallmark card.

Larry Mantle>> Well, our third and final film is the British
romantic comedy, "Love Actually".

[Film Clip]

Larry Mantle>> All right, F.X. What did you think of "Love
Actually"?

F.X. Feeney>> You know, Peter referred to the treacle factor.
You know, the British invented treacle and one remembers this
when one is watching "Love Actually", which is a very well-
intended and I think for the most part a genuinely entertaining
movie written and directed by Richard Curtis. It is very light
on its feet and, in fact, an emblem of how light it is is that
you've got Hugh Grant playing the Prime Minister of England.
And at the same time, there's a certain bite in it because part
of the usual Hugh Grant coming of age is that he's got to stand
up to the United States.

On the other hand, you've got a lot of Brits. You've got Emma
Thompson, Alan Rickman. You've got Liam Neeson. You've got all
these characters all basically struggling with the problem of
love. It was certainly a fine piece of escape for the two hours
that I was watching it.

Larry Mantle>> Peter Rainer, your thoughts on "Love Actually"?

Peter Rainer>> Yeah, there's a little too much treacle in this
movie. Richard Curtis is a very strange character because, on
the one hand, he's written films like "The Tall Guy" which I
loved, and TV series like "Black Adder" and "Mr. Bean". Then he
does "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and "Nottingham", films that
are really to me not terribly interesting, but highly popular.

He definitely has a popular touch and Emma Thompson and Alan
Rickman as a couple on the rocks actually give genuinely good
performances. But there's about ten different stories that
somewhat mesh in the end, but essentially you're watching a
medley of rather sappy stories. But I do think that Hugh Grant,
at this point, could probably run for Prime Minister and win in
England.

Larry Mantle>> Well, thanks so much for joining us for another
edition of Film Week on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of
89.3 KPCC joined by critics Peter Rainer of New York Magazine
and F.X. Feeney of the L.A. Weekly. Thanks for joining us.
Back with you next week at this same time for another edition of
Film Week on Life and Times.

Val>> Remember that you can hear a full hour of Film Week every
Friday at 11:00 a.m. on KPCC Public Radio 89.3. That's our
program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times,
thanks for watching.

Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

Val>> Tomorrow on Life and Times, California's community
colleges help pave the way to higher education, but budget cuts
are making it a rocky road.

>> Now most people are getting out, if they're lucky, in three
years. There are some that are staying three years and an extra
semester just to complete their classes. I've had a friend who
was supposed to get into UC Davis and had to stay here an extra
semester, now forced to stay an extra year because of budget
cuts.

Val>> That's tomorrow on Life and Times.