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Life & Times Transcript

04/10/06

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

It's a sad fact that too many animals will spend their last days in an animal shelter. Can the new man in charge change that?

Ed Boks>> When we get to the place where we an use the same criteria that a compassionate veterinarian uses or a loving pet owner uses in deciding whether or not their pet should be euthanized, we will have achieved no-kill.

Val Zavala>> And then, former owners plundered this home's historic furnishings and only one master craftsman could restore it to its former glory.

It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times.

Announcer>> 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 Zavala>> No one likes to see dogs or cats euthanized and yet every year across Los Angeles tens of thousands of animals have to be killed. Now they've tried in the past to institute no-kill policies, but have failed. But now there's a new general manager of Animal Control for the city and he believes he can do what his predecessors couldn't. Can he? Hena Cuevas tells us he's going to have plenty of animal rights activists watching.

Hena Cuevas>> Every day, animal shelters around Los Angeles offer perfectly good pets ready to be adopted, but not everyone is able to get a home and the sad reality is that, as new animals come into a shelter, those who've been there the longest eventually have to be put down.

Ed Boks>> I don't want anybody to be under any illusion. Animals are dying and it is tragic. How we train our staff is that this is what we are trying to end.

Hena Cuevas>> Ed Boks is the new general manager at Animal Services. One of the unofficial job requirements is being unafraid of controversy. In fact, the post is so contentious that there have been five different general managers in the last five years. Why the high turnover? According to animal activist, Charlotte Laws, Los Angeles has a very active animal rights community and it isn't happy with the way the department has been run.

Charlotte Laws>> We have people that care, but have a different perspective, so they kind of clash every once in a while.

Hena Cuevas>> And they have clashed, especially over the large number of animals killed every year in shelters.

Charlotte Laws>> Animal shelters have always been kind of in the back alley or in the industrial area and people don't really know what goes on. I think that people of Los Angeles do care about animals. They just don't understand that all these animals are being killed and that that doesn't need to happen.

Hena Cuevas>> Animal Services estimates between twenty to twenty-five thousand dogs and cats are euthanized every year at Los Angeles shelters, but some animal rights groups say that number is low and place it as high as fifty thousand. But all agree that thousands of animals are killed simply because they aren't getting adopted and there is no room to keep them. So how do you reduce that number? That's where Boks comes in. Boks is a former pastor who has run animal departments in Phoenix and New York, cities that also had high euthanasia rates.

Ed Boks>> What we're hoping to do here is replicate some of the programs that were so successful in those communities to help us achieve that goal.

Hena Cuevas>> His goal is to turn Los Angeles into a no-kill city.

Ed Boks>> When we get to the place where we're no longer killing animals just because we don't have the space or the resources to care for them anymore, that's no-kill.

Hena Cuevas>> Is that a realistic goal, considering the numbers?

Ed Boks>> There was certainly a time when people asked, you know, is putting a man on the moon a realistic goal? I think that, as citizens of Los Angeles and residents of California and as Americans, this is certainly something that we can achieve.

Hena Cuevas>> Under the no-kill policy, every effort is made to find a home for the animals. Only those who are too sick or too aggressive are put down. Terri Macellaro is an attorney and animal advocate. She is a big proponent of spay and neuter programs. Her nonprofit group, Animals Anonymous, even donated a mobile spay-neuter van to the city.

Terri Macellaro>> When a cat or a dog can have so many babies and then those babies reproduce and have so many animals, simply killing them is not going to stop the problem. The way to stop the problem is to stop the animals from being born in the first place.

Hena Cuevas>> Boks is also a big supporter of sterilization and has called for the spaying and neutering of nearly every animal.

Ed Boks>> We're launching our Big Fix Program which is a very aggressive spay-neuter program so that we finally turn the faucet off and stop all the producing of these unwanted animals so that we can continue to see the decline in unwanted animals or homeless animals in our community.

Hena Cuevas>> The other way to reduce the kill rate is to increase the number of animals adopted. One way to increase adoptions is by making the shelters a lot more accessible to the public. Some of the complaints Animal Services has received is that their shelters are dark and that they smell. But in the year 2000, Los Angeles voters approved Proposition F which allows property taxes to be used to expand and renovate the six existing shelters and also allows for the construction of two brand new state of the art facilities like this one scheduled to open in June.

Linda Gordon>> "The cubby portion is heated for when it's cold and the outdoor portion will be misted to cool it off."

Hena Cuevas>> Linda Gordon is overseeing the construction and renovation. She says traditionally shelters have been tucked away from the public eye, but not this one.

Linda Gordon>> It will reduce the barking, it will eliminate the noise and, plus, we create an environment that has plenty of landscaping and water features and plenty of spots to sit down and relax and enjoy the pets that you're viewing.

Hena Cuevas>> The new shelters will significantly increase the number of animals that can be held and the idea is to have only one per kennel.

Ed Boks>> When we get to the place where we can use the same criteria that a compassionate veterinarian uses or a loving pet owner uses in deciding whether or not their pet should be euthanized, we will have achieved no-kill.

Hena Cuevas>> It's a lofty goal and Laws says Boks faces an uphill battle.

Charlotte Laws>> It's a tough job. I mean, you know, he's taken on a big responsibility and a very difficult job, and especially with all the things that have happened in the past in Los Angeles.

Hena Cuevas>> She's referring to the appointment of the previous general manager, Gordon Stuckey, by former mayor James Hahn.

Charlotte Laws>> And I think the animal community felt left out of the decision. They felt that he wasn't a good choice.

Hena Cuevas>> So when Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa took office, animal advocates demanded Stuckey be replaced.

Charlotte Laws>> He'd been at his post for a year and that's a long time. If you look at what he had done, I didn't see really any evidence of him having really done very much.

Hena Cuevas>> So last February, Villaraigosa gave the job to Boks, but some city employees who had been harassed at their homes by radical animal rights groups were unhappy with the appointment. They felt the mayor had caved in to pressure from extremists. Laws disagrees.

Charlotte Laws>> The pressure on the mayor was not the radical people as reported in the press. It was the mainstream animal communities that said this needs to change. This is not working out.

Hena Cuevas>> Boks is aware of the controversy surrounding his appointment and of the different expectations he faces.

Ed Boks>> We all have different ideas on how fast we can achieve this goal. Your very question of, you know, is it even achievable is one side of the spectrum and there's the other side of the spectrum that wants it accomplished yesterday.

Terri Macellaro>> We've heard great things about Mr. Boks from his prior places of employment. I don't think we knew of him specifically until then, but he seems to be working with the community and that certainly is half the battle.

Hena Cuevas>> As for Laws, she says that most people realize change will take time and that they need to give Boks a chance.

Charlotte Laws>> I think that, if the numbers look good and he's reaching out to the community and he's bringing the deaths down and he's doing all the right things, I think the people are going to give him some time. I mean, you can't do it overnight.

Ed Boks>> This isn't rocket science and these animals deserve better than that and I think that, if we can just agree to work together, I think we can make astonishing progress in just one year.

Hena Cuevas>> One year may be all the time he has to show serious improvement in the euthanasia numbers. After all, animal rights groups have proven to be a very active bunch and no other department head has so many watchdogs nipping at his heels. I'm Hena Cuevas for Life and Times.

Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times".

Val Zavala>> Her political career has had its ups and downs and now she says it' going to have an end. We're talking about Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, the first African American woman from California to be elected to the U.S. Congress. Since then, her resume has paralleled history, starting in 1965 with the Watts Riots. As she told Toni Guinyard, that's when her forty-year career in politics started.

Yvonne Brathwaite Burke>> I was one of the young attorneys on the staff of the McCone Commission and really that was what caused me to think about running for office. When we were sitting there going through all of the issues, the first thing we started thinking was, you know, we need new people running for office. We started looking at districts and where there was greater opportunity for minorities to run. As a result of that, putting together all of that information, one of the people became my campaign manager, Sam Williams, and I ran for the Assembly.

Toni Guinyard>> Looking back on everything, how far have we come from that point to now?

Yvonne Brathwaite Burke>> Oh, we've come a long way. We've come a long way in terms of middle-class America, African Americans and minorities. Today we have people who are presidents of corporations. We have members who are partners in law firms. At the top, people have done very well, but at the bottom, we have more young people dropping out of high school than we had at that time. We have many more people, young people, who should have every opportunity. For some reason, they're not getting that education. They are not having an opportunity to move upwards. So in many instances, it's worse particularly compared to where the top is for many inner city youths.

Toni Guinyard>> I sense that that frustrates you.

Yvonne Brathwaite Burke>> It has to be frustrating to everyone. Any person who's in education, I don't know what they say or how they approach it. Obviously, from the Board of Supervisors, we get involved in terms of our probation camps with education and Juvenile Hall and all the entire system of education. Los Angeles Unified, that's all separate. But one of the things we've been saying, if a child goes to a probation camp or Juvenile Hall, let's make sure they come out of there with a GED. Even if they're just there for a short period of time, let's make sure they start picking up and catching up on their grade average in terms of their ability to read and math and English.

I am very frustrated. I'm frustrated that, you know, we have media that just encourages young people to talk without proper English instead of trying to say to them, "You have to learn how to speak English" because how are you going to get a job?

Toni Guinyard>> Now a lot of people will say you are not being culturally sensitive.

Yvonne Brathwaite Burke>> Well, I am culturally sensitive. I'm culturally sensitive to the realities of life. You know, if you want to get among your little friends and talk whatever way you want, also be able to get somewhere and know how to speak and write the English language. My immediate responsibilities, though -- there's a couple of things.

I'm chairing the Coliseum Commission, so obviously I want to see an NFL team come to Los Angeles. I am going to be chair in June of the Southern California Area of Government, so I do want to look at some of those transportation issues such as all those trucks on the freeway. We want to have a big move as far as movement of some of the container ports and goods movement to try to lessen some of the impact on people who have to drive our freeways and our highways.

Toni Guinyard>> Do you feel as if you've dropped the ball -- and I hate to use that phrase - but dropped the ball at any point during this term of yours?

Yvonne Brathwaite Burke>> Well, there have been problems. I'm not going to deny that. There have been terrible problems. There was nothing that upset me more than the whole problem at King-Drew, but now I'm feeling better about it. It seems to be turning around. It seems to be improving and we hope it will get its accreditation back. That was a real challenging issue.

Toni Guinyard>> You know, I think people saw a different side of you then too because you got really tough at that point.

Yvonne Brathwaite Burke>> Well, it was time to get tough. It was tough to make sure that some of my colleagues understood. They couldn't just take for granted that that was disposable, and it was not disposable. Our entire region, the south region of Los Angeles, needs that hospital. Other hospitals not just in south Los Angeles, but other hospitals through the entire county were just so concerned. If that hospital closed, it would put a great impact on them because that's the hospital that takes the uninsured, the people who have no safety net, and these are people who are working every day. But on their job, they don't get health insurance and what happens? If they get ill, they come to our county hospitals.

Toni Guinyard>> Do you feel that you were unfairly being characterized as a protector of King-Drew simply because it used to primarily serve the African American communities?

Yvonne Brathwaite Burke>> I really think I was unfairly characterized because I wasn't over-protective. I was in there giving them hell. I don't know any other word to express it. But I was giving them -- every time that there was something wrong, I was trying to get it corrected. But there was so much that had gone on for so long and so many people -- there was a community that was very sensitive to anyone changing things. That community now is understanding that you have to change with the times. You can't keep the same people in year in and year out. You can't use the same methods. You have to adjust. You have to change the way the hospital looks from time to time. Now there's an acceptance of that and I'm feeling much better.

Toni Guinyard>> What do you see as the biggest challenge in all of your years of public service to the city of Los Angeles? What do you feel is your biggest challenge?

Yvonne Brathwaite Burke>> The biggest challenge really is how you have changing communities, how you're having a diverse population, how those populations learn to work together, and also how you manage to maintain the economic base of it. What has happened to so much of south Los Angeles when there was a 1965 riot or a 1992 riot, business and companies pulled out when we really needed them to come in. So we have a real economic challenge in Los Angeles, particularly in the inner city of Los Angeles, to keep a job base.

My district, probably five hundred thousand of the African Americans moved out and they moved out because they couldn't find housing here, they couldn't find the schools for their children. They moved out to suburbia. Now that's probably good, but it is a symptom that the economic base and the jobs were not kept within those areas where people needed to work. We've become a service economy which is totally different and the service economy either says you have to be a computer genius or an executive or someone who's involved in service of some kind or you don't get those good manufacturing jobs and those good union jobs.

Toni Guinyard>> Personally, what have you learned over the course of these years about the people that you have to deal with every day?

Yvonne Brathwaite Burke>> Well, I've learned that don't take for granted that there is not race at the bottom of an awful lot of things. Don't ever take for granted as a woman or as an African American that people, when they see you, until they know you, don't think that they don't see an African American woman and all the stereotypes that they have come to play in how they will look at you. Now that's changed a lot, but until you come to grips with that, you are not able to deal with society as a whole. You're not able to go into that boardroom and deal with people who've never met with probably an African American woman as a peer. That's the one thing I've learned.

Toni Guinyard>> Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, I want to thank you so much for spending a little time with Life and Times.

Yvonne Brathwaite Burke>> Thank you. It's so wonderful to see you.

Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address:

Life and Times
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You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org.

Val Zavala>> It's an exquisite example of Greene and Greene architecture, the Blacker House built in 1907, but would you believe that at one time inside all the beautiful furniture and light fixtures were stripped and sold at auction and there is only one person who could recreate them in all their gorgeous detail.

[Film Clip[

Val Zavala>> You're most likely to find Jim Ipekjian bent over the work table in his shop in Pasadena. Jim is a true master of his craft, one of only a handful of cabinetmakers who can recreate to perfection the stunning arts and crafts furniture from Greene and Greene homes.

Jim Ipekjian>> It's been an odyssey in that it's been a process of learning.

Val Zavala>> For the past decade, he and his sons have been working on reproductions for the Blacker House, a showcase home designed in the early 1900's by the famous brothers, architects Charles and Henry Greene.

Jim Ipekjian>> In 1994, the current owners purchased the house. Fortunately for me, they included me in the restoration of the house.

Val Zavala>> The odyssey started in 1988 with what preservationists consider a crime against Greene and Greene architecture. The owner of the Blacker House at the time was a man from Texas. He bought the home for about a million dollars, then proceeded to strip it of about seventy valuable light fixtures, windows and doors. He sold them mostly at auction for more than he paid for the house.

Jim Ipekjian>> The light fixtures, for instance, inside the house, of which there were over fifty of them, beautiful art glass Greene and Greene designed light fixtures, had more value than the house itself.

Val Zavala>> The Blacker House was built in 1907. Henry and Charles Greene were at the top of their field, leaders in the arts and crafts movement which was dedicated to integrating the whole environment, house, lighting, gardens, windows, rugs and furniture. They were all part of the design of the house and that made the loss of the Blacker House furnishings even more painful. Local preservationists dubbed it a Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Two owners and eight years later, the meticulous process of restoring the home began.

Jim Ipekjian>> Many of the pieces were already in museum collections and the rest of them were in private collections and the prices that were being gotten for original Greene and Greene objects the prices were escalating practically monthly, so they just had to accept the fact that reproductions of these pieces would be the next best thing to having the originals.

Val Zavala>> And the current owners, Harvey and Ellen Knell, knew the best man for the job was only a few miles away. So this is a piece you're working on right now?

Jim Ipekjian>> This is a piece, yes.

Val Zavala>> For the Blacker House?

Jim Ipekjian>> For the Blacker House.

Val Zavala>> The shop drawings by the original cabinetmakers were lost in a fire, so Jim works off of photographs and a close examination of existing Greene and Greene pieces which he's studied for twenty-five years.

Jim Ipekjian>> The panel which is the part that's all carved and inlaid has actually a tree, as you can see, and the tree trunk extends out and becomes the handle, so you can pull it open like that. This is a blown-up photograph of the detail of the door, so from this I'm able to get the shape and the size and the location of the clouds and the tree trunk and all the inlay pieces and eventually I'll be cutting out all the little inlay pieces for the leaves and placing them in what hopefully will be exactly the right positions.

Val Zavala>> Now how is that done? Do you, for example, try to get every single leaf exactly like it is here? Not just do a few leaves?

Jim Ipekjian>> Not a few, no. I'm not taking artistic license with this work at all. I have to count each leaf. That door I know has a hundred eighty-six leaves in it.

Val Zavala>> Jim is a perfectionist. This chair is made of rich mahogany and inlaid ebony spines along the arms. Chairs are especially complex and, after days of work just as Jim was on the verge of finishing this one --

Jim Ipekjian>> I accidentally cut a notch into the side of the arm that simply wasn't acceptable.

Val Zavala>> The flaw is so small that our cameras couldn't even pick it up.

Jim Ipekjian>> And when all was said and done, I couldn't stand seeing this thing sitting around in parts, so I finished it.

Val Zavala>> And, no, it's not for sale. In fact, Jim has a special agreement with the owners of the Blacker House.

Jim Ipekjian>> That I won't reproduce any of the original Blacker House designs for anybody else.

Val Zavala>> Over the years, he has become fluent in what he calls Greene and Greene vocabulary.

Jim Ipekjian>> The way that you round a corner can be done with a machine. It can be done by hand. It needs to be done by hand because it creates a look, so it's that look that relates to in music a sound or in literature a certain feeling that a writer might be trying to create.

Val Zavala>> Since the Blacker House plunder, the city has passed an ordinance forbidding anyone from removing fixtures from the thirty-seven Greene and Greene homes in Pasadena. As for Jim, he has his work cut out for him and a deadline to meet.

Jim Ipekjian>> Since the hundredth anniversary of the creation of the Blacker House is approaching in 2007, we're hoping to finish essentially all of the original designs and I think I have about half a dozen or so left.

Val Zavala>> Do you think you'll make it? How long does it take to make these pieces?

Jim Ipekjian>> Well, they're time-consuming.

Val Zavala>> Very.

Jim Ipekjian>> I'm working towards it and that's my goal.

Val Zavala>> What will you do after the Blacker House is all complete?

Jim Ipekjian>> There are other Greene and Greene houses. Fortunately, concurrently I'm working with other owners. There are other houses in Pasadena that are undergoing significant restoration and I'm fortunate in being called upon to build furniture for them.

Val Zavala>> So if I were a client, would I have to be put on a waiting list?

Jim Ipekjian>> Well, for you, a very short list (laughter).

Val Zavala>> (Laughter) I'll remember that. Although Jim is an expert in the arts and crafts tradition, he doesn't consider himself an artist and he doesn't consider his furniture art. Instead, he says, he's a craftsman, one of a long line of artisans who prize quality and beauty and lucky enough to help rescue an historic home that this time will remain intact long after his work is done. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.

Announcer>> 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.

Sponsored in part by:


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