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Life & Times Transcript
05/24/05 Vicki Curry>> Tonight on Life and Times -- Nobody likes traffic, but do we have to make a choice between gridlock and open space? Brittany McKee>> So the question becomes, is it possible to protect open space forever in Orange County? According to the TCA, no. When you set aside something to protect it, you're just setting it aside to wait to put a toll road down the middle of it. Jim Dahl>> If we do nothing, Interstate 5 will turn into a parking lot. Vicki Curry>> And then, his name may not be familiar, but we guarantee you'll know the songs. The music of composer, Harold Arlen. It's all straight ahead 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. And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg. Val>> Orange County commuters know the spot well. It's that traffic crunch along the I-5 right near San Clemente. Now one possible solution is to build another toll road. The only problem is that one proposed route would take it right through a state park. Roger Cooper brings us the debate between Orange County transit officials and conservationists. Roger Cooper>> Perhaps ten thousand years ago in Orange County, this mastodon tiptoed around what is now Tustin. It's preserved in this display because its remains were dug up when they began building the toll road. >> "Hi, there. How are you doing? $1.35." Roger Cooper>> But much more than mastodons lies in the path of completing this road. In Orange County, you can get places more quickly if you're willing to pay for the privilege. >> "Hi, there. $1.35." Roger Cooper>> A fifty-one mile system of toll roads takes you places freeways don't, through undeveloped back country to the 91 and on to the Inland Empire. Or you can take the 241 as it hugs the foothills and delivers you to rapidly developing residential areas in the south county. It's here at Oso Parkway that the toll road ends and a major controversy begins. The controversy is over the final sixteen miles of toll roads, sixteen miles that were part of the original plan, but have never been built. Developers and environmentalists are sparring over the path that the extension should take. Some of the most controversial proposals would put the toll road right through a state park. Lisa Telles is with the Transportation Corridor's Agency which will decide where the route will go. Lisa Telles>> This project, along with the other toll road system, was identified in the late 1970's as something that was going to be needed for the future that was going to be happening in Orange County and Southern California so that we can continue to have mobility. Roger Cooper>> The plan has always been to extend the Foothill Toll Road south to link up with I-5 at San Clemente, but building it will involve coming to terms with people like Brittany McKee of the Sierra Club. Brittany McKee>> My main concern with this extension is that they propose to put the toll road through the middle of the state park and a land conservancy. These are areas that were set aside to be protected forever and this quasi-private agency wants to put a toll road right through the middle of them. Roger Cooper>> There are eight different proposals on the table. Several of them would take the road through San Onofre State Park as well as a nature conservancy and habitat for threatened wildlife. Brittany McKee>> So the question becomes, is it possible to protect open space forever in Orange County? According to the TCA, no. When you set aside something to protect it, you're just setting it aside to wait to put a toll road down the middle of it. Roger Cooper>> But backers of the toll road extension argue that more road capacity must be built to take pressure off the I-5 to San Diego where traffic is projected to increase by sixty percent by the year 2025. Jim Dahl is a City Councilman for San Clemente. Jim Dahl>> If we do nothing, Interstate 5 will turn into a parking lot. Right now, we have tremendous traffic problems on Interstate 5, especially on the weekends and in the afternoons. Lisa Telles>> There's no other alternative, so once there's a problem on I-5, despite when it's a busy time or there's an accident on I-5, there are no options. You're stuck. Jim Dahl>> People won't be able to drive between Los Angeles and San Diego because we'll have this choke point at San Clemente. Roger Cooper>> But the Sierra Club says this toll road through a sensitive animal habitat will not solve our transportation problems. Brittany McKee>> This proposed toll road is not the answer. There are innovative solutions we can look at, including mass transit, improving arterial roads, improving existing freeways. But as far as building a brand new road through the middle of a state park, it sets a precedent for a really bad idea. Roger Cooper>> There are options that avoid parklands. One is to build the toll road extension as a central San Clemente. Another is to widen the existing 5 Freeway. Lisa Telles>> The I-5 widening was one of the alternatives that were analyzed. The challenge with that is, to do it to actually create relief, you're taking out eight hundred homes in that and hundreds of businesses as well. Jim Dahl>> Widening the 5 would be disastrous for the city of San Clemente. Lisa Telles>> We heard a lot from residents along the route that goes down Avenida Pico that said no way are you going to split this city in half. Roger Cooper>> Neither side sees widening the 5 as an attractive alternative, but McKee says that's part of the supporters' strategy. Brittany McKee>> The other alternatives were created to present a false choice to the people in the community to say you either let the toll road go through your state park or we're going to put it through your house. Roger Cooper>> There's another point of contention in this toll road dispute. It involves a popular surfing spot, but not just any surfing spot. This is Trestles, made famous in the lyrics of "Surfing U.S.A." by The Beach Boys. Trestles is near the spot where some toll road alignments would join the 5 and that has some surfers kicking up sand. Mike Lewis of the Surfrider Foundation claims the toll road would be the eventual ruin of Trestles. Mike Lewis>> The thing that's often difficult to convey is how important a resource our California waves, oceans and beaches are. To have the opportunity to walk a seashore that isn't loaded with hotdog stands and the like. Brittany McKee>> One of the things that makes Trestles unique and special is the ability to walk down to Trestles. Unfortunately, by putting a toll road there, you will have a giant flyway over your head as you enjoy this currently pristine walk. Lisa Telles>> There will be no change to the surf break at Trestles and there will be no change to the trails and experience of walking down to Trestles which you have to do. As you can see, the location of the closest point does not come any closer to the ocean as Old Pacific Coast Highway is today. Roger Cooper>> Mike Lewis says the real purpose of the toll road is to accommodate more development. Mike Lewis>> The fact of the matter is that this is not a statewide traffic concern. It's a local traffic concern being driven by an agency that's basically, for all intents and purposes, privately held with one goal in mind and that is to build the toll road. Lisa Telles>> I understand completely people who don't want to see change. I understand that completely, but the reality is that life changes around us and, if we don't change with it, we're going to be stuck with the problems of not doing anything. Jim Dahl>> I think we can still have good planning. We can have development. Keep the densities low and still protect the environment. Roger Cooper>> The toll road debate has been going on for several years and, over that time, planners who put together an environmental impact report that consumes volumes and contains comments from some seven thousand citizens, made its public meetings. >> The actual environmental impact statement stands five and a half feet tall. It is 3,200 pages. The blue books are summary only and those piled together are fourteen inches tall. Roger Cooper>> The Transportation Corridor Agencies will vote later this summer on which toll road alignment to build or whether to build at all. It's one of those decisions Orange County and Southern California will have to live with long after those who make it are gone. I'm Roger Cooper for Life and Times. Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org and click on "Life and Times". Val>> For the past ten years, some residents of Huntington Park have been living with a mountain of concrete debris right in their own neighborhood. It's ugly, dirty and unhealthy and they've been trying for years to get it hauled away. Hena Cuevas brings us the final chapter in this long dusty story. Hena Cuevas>> Imagine living with this right across you're your house, a fifty-foot pile of rubble, the concrete remains of the 10 Freeway after the Northridge earthquake of 1994, and this is what it looks like today. But clearing out this mountain of concrete was no small task, especially for the residents of this modest neighborhood in Huntington Park. Linda Marquez>> We had a lot of time. We had a lot of patience and it's finally out. Hena Cuevas>> Linda Marquez is a long-time resident of Cottage Street. We met her late last year when she was fighting to get rid of the massive pile across the street. Linda Marquez>> We named it La Montana because it was getting higher and higher and higher. Hena Cuevas>> The dump site was supposed to be temporary, but as the years wore on, Linda thought it would never go away and she wasn't the only one. Covering more than five acres and almost five stories tall, the concrete mountain sat there for more than ten years. Linda Marquez>> I noticed that they were working there. They were putting in all that rubble. Hena Cuevas>> Back in early 1994, eighty year old Marquez noticed new activity going on in the vacant lot across from her apartment. Linda Marquez>> But when it continued for twenty-four hours and floodlights, bulldozers, trucks at night, I wondered what it was. Hena Cuevas>> What was being brought in by the truckload were the remains of the Santa Monica Freeway that had just collapsed during the January Northridge earthquake in 1994. A local businessman had bought the rubble and was planning on selling it later as crushed material to build roads. He was renting the space temporarily. Linda Marquez>> We should have been notified and, if we were notified, of course, I didn't get a letter. Hena Cuevas>> Dean Hickman owns an apartment building a block away. He told us he was also surprised by the arrival of the pile, but he understood why it was done. The concrete had to go somewhere. Dean Hickman>> It was an emergency, so I can't really fault the city for accepting that level of debris. The original conditional use permit said that the debris would not be any higher than the fence, so this was an emergency and I went along with it. Hena Cuevas>> It wasn't long before residents had to deal with one potentially harmful side effect: dust and lots of it. Hector Lopez>> Dust. You just hit the word. Dust. That's my situation. Hena Cuevas>> Hector Lopez, who lives a block away, moved into his apartment a year before La Montana arrived. Hector Lopez>> My wife gets (laughter) gets pretty mad. Like in the summer, you know, sometimes even a lot of people say it's not windy in the summer, but sometimes little breezes pick up when the windows are open. She's constantly dusting. She gets all -- what do you want me to do? Do you want me to get a shovel and move it myself (laughter)? Linda Marquez>> These people over here have to close their windows and their doors still. I have to close my windows because that dust will go in like, for instance, when the wind is blowing in the afternoon, yes. When we had that wind here, yes, it's a crime that we have it. Hena Cuevas>> But the problems, according to the residents, went beyond just having to clean every day. Lopez's daughter who was born after La Montana came in developed asthma as a baby. Hector Lopez>> We figured it was because of La Montana. La Montana had a cause of that because no other kids or anybody in my family ever had suffered with asthma. Linda Marquez>> People have asthmatic conditions. They didn't think of those. They thought of what they were going to put in there. They never thought of us. That's a crime. Hena Cuevas>> A few months after La Montana arrived, the residents decided to take to the streets. Linda Marquez>> I knocked on doors. Dean knocked on doors. His wife knocked on doors. We recruited a lot of people around here that had to knock on doors and ask these people to come out and speak out against this mountain. Hena Cuevas>> But after getting no response from city officials, they enlisted the help of the group, Communities for a Better Environment. Robert Cabrales worked closely with them. Robert Cabrales>> It's not a quick battle and it's never a quick battle. Hena Cuevas>> Huntington Park is in a heavily industrial area just southeast of Los Angeles. It is also more than ninety-five percent Latino. Why do you call it environmental racism? Robert Cabrales>> Well, because they didn't take into consideration the community that lives there, you know. If they would have brought it over to Beverly Hills or Palos Verdes in a community that there is more income or more wealthy folks there, it would have been out in months. Hena Cuevas>> Cabrales says the legal obstacles they faced were as massive as La Montana itself. First, the man renting the land, an actual owner of the pile, declared bankruptcy in 1998. Ownership of the pile and the responsibility to clean it up went to the landowner. Robert Cabrales>> You know, he was ordered to do the cleanup and then he's like we don't have any money. He was ordered to do the cleanup and then extensions after extensions. You know, the city was always pretty much pushing forward and taking it to the court and finding out what they can do in their power and there is usually no power because the landowner has his contracts. Hena Cuevas>> Cleanup was going to cost an estimated two million dollars and the group had gotten the state to approve two-thirds of it. However, legally, no one was allowed to enter the private property without permission. Finally, last August, the group got clearance to enter the site to begin cleanup. Do you really think this is going to happen? Robert Cabrales>> I'm confident that it can happen. I mean, the community folks were promised several times that the cleanup process would start a few years ago and nothing has happened. That's precisely why the community is a little bit hesitant of seeing this proposal at this time as we speak move forward. Hena Cuevas>> Hickman says he'd heard it all before. Dean Hickman>> I've got my fingers crossed, but I don't want to celebrate yet. Hena Cuevas>> But late last November, the sound of trucks could be heard on Cottage Street once again. This time, taking the rubble away. Resident Nancy Pena still can't believe it. Nancy Pena>> I am so glad. I can see the sun now and the sunset (laughter) because it covered -- I mean, it was a lot. It was huge. Linda Marquez>> It took ten years, but it's out. That mountain is out, yes, it is, and we're so happy to hear. Everybody just goes, oh, Linda, that mountain is out? I said, yes, go take a look at it. It's out, it's out. Hena Cuevas>> It took six months of hauling, but today there's not a trace of rubble left. However, something else remains: closer ties among the residents of Cottage Street and a shared sense of accomplishment. Linda Marquez>> We all came together. United, you can move mountains and that's what we did. Hena Cuevas>> I'm Hena Cuevas for Life and Times. To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address: Life and Times 4401 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, California 90027 You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org. Val>> He's written more than four hundred songs and one of them was recently named the song of the century. He is Harold Arlen and he ranks right up there with Porter and Gershwin. Vicki Curry talked with Harold Arlen's son about the man who wrote "Over The Rainbow". [Film Clip] Vicki Curry>> You know the songs, but who's the performer singing them? He's the man who wrote them: Harold Arlen, maybe the most famous American composer you've never heard of. Sam Arlen>> Because he's not as well-known as some of the other composers and lyricists of that era, we really want people to recognize the name, to know who put pen to paper. Vicki Curry>> Sam Arlen is Harold's only child. To celebrate the centennial of his father's birth, Sam made it his mission to trumpet Harold Arlen's contribution to the Great American Songbook. Sam Arlen>> He wrote about five hundred fifty songs altogether. You have this great music that went on with a life of its own, but my dad was actually a quiet man. He wanted his music to do the talking, which it did, but his name is not up there on the forefront. [Film Clip] Vicki Curry>> He was born Hyman Arluck in Buffalo, New York in 1905. His father was a cantor and his family shared a duplex with an African-American family. Sam Arlen>> Harold grew up hearing the cantorial music, learning classical music and also being exposed to early jazz, early hot music, so to speak, and he loved it. He just grabbed it and loved it. Vicki Curry>> When Harold was nine, his mother bought him a piano, but he didn't really take to it until a few years later when he learned a ragtime piece. At fifteen, he began playing wherever he could around town, eventually landing in a band called the Buffalodians. [Film Clip] Sam Arlen>> And he always wanted to be a singer. That was mainly what he wanted to do and that is what he started to do. When he first moved to New York City in the mid-1920's, he started as a singer and singing other composer's songs. Vicki Curry>> But that would soon change. In 1929, he had a part in a show called "Great Day" and one day he filled in for the rehearsal pianist playing for the dancers. Harold Arlen>> "They used to have a standard vamp that went something like this. I wanted to simplify it and I did this. And I got tired of that and one day I did this. Some foolish publisher heard it, gave me a contract and it became:" [Film Clip] Sam Arlen>> And that was really the first hit that my dad had. It also happened by accident, actually. [Film Clip] Vicki Curry>> But a fortuitous accident for Arlen. He said later that songwriting better suited his temperament than performing. [Film Clip] Sam Arlen>> He would write when the mood struck him. It was never a nine to five type of situation. He could be playing golf and a melody would come to his head and he'd take out a little jot paper and write this idea and, when he went back home, at the piano he goes to create. Vicki Curry>> With the success of "Get Happy", Arlen and his partner at the time, Ted Koehler, were suddenly in demand. They found themselves writing music for the Cotton Club between 1930 and 1934 and Arlen's Jewish musical tradition began fusing with jazz and blues. [Film Clip] Sam Arlen>> When Harold starting working for the Cotton Club, he would spend a lot of time with the performers because the performers were African-American and he was writing for these performers in these shows. He would pick up their dancing techniques and the way they sang. [Film Clip] Vicki Curry>> In 1933, Arlen took a year off from the Cotton Club to work on his first movie assignment, "Let's Fall in Love". [Film Clip] Vicki Curry>> It was the first of many forgettable movies that produced unforgettable Harold Arlen songs. [Film Clip] Vicki Curry>> After a few years in Hollywood, Arlen finally got a job on a memorable movie. [Film Clip] Sam Arlen>> The initial idea on the original book of the "Wizard of Oz" was to be very light, very happy, very upbeat. So all the songs were completed before "Over The Rainbow". Harold felt that it needed something in there because you had that transition from dreary Kansas to Oz and the black and white to color. Of course, the producers, the directors, they weren't too keen on this. They felt it would slow the motion picture down. Everybody liked it, but they felt still it wasn't quite right, except for one of the producers there. The first three previews of the motion picture, the song was cut. Finally, one of the producers went to the head of the studio and said, look, this song has to stay, and the rest became history. [Film Clip] Vicki Curry>> That was the beginning of a long relationship between Harold Arlen and Judy Garland. They produced more movie magic when Arlen, along with Ira Gershwin, wrote the music for "A Star is Born". [Film Clip] Vicki Curry>> As his many hit songs made careers for many singers, Harold Arlen continued to remain behind the scenes. Sam Arlen>> You'll hear all the time "Over The Rainbow". It's Judy Garland's "Over The Rainbow". She introduced it and is the most well-known for that song. You have Frank Sinatra's "One For My Baby" or Frank Sinatra's "I've Got The World on a String" and the list goes on. [Film Clip] Sam Arlen>> The performers deserved that credit for introducing the song in a wonderful talent, but somebody put pen to paper and Howard was the one to do that. It's important. It's our heritage. It's this body of work. Number one, he deserves the recognition which he didn't get and, number two, he deserves to be promoted. People need to know about the music and this is what our responsibility and our legacy is. [Film Clip] Val>> And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks so much for watching. We'll see you next time. 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. And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg. Vicki Curry>> Next time on Life and Times -- The Feds will finally help cover the cost of health care for illegal immigrants, but does it go far enough? >> Whether it's being paid for by government at the local level or is being paid for by the federal government, it's still our money. The federal government is no different than local government. They get their money from us, the taxpayers. Vicki Curry>> That's next time on Life and Times. Sponsored in part by:  | |
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