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Life & Times Transcript
10/09/06 Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times -- It's a suburban neighborhood with back yards and room for horses, but is there room for homeless women and children? Brian Gavin>> We service over three thousand six hundred people in need and we're a community of only two hundred eighty homes up here, so it's just a disproportionate burden to put on any community. Val Zavala>> And then, what do you give a president who has everything? In Ronald Reagan's case, everything from spurs to a scary looking dragon. These stories and more next 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>> Would you be willing to have a homeless shelter for women and children in your neighborhood? Well, that's what residents of North San Fernando Valley are asking themselves and some of them are saying no. But a rescue mission says Skid Row is no place for families. Sam Louie goes to Sylmar where it's a case of the homeless versus homeowners. Sam Louie>> In downtown Skid Row, eleven thousand homeless live in a cesspool of squalor, crime and violence. It's no place for anyone, much less women and children. Andy Bales is the Executive Director of the Union Rescue Mission. Andy Bales>> We'll walk by and people are injecting heroine between their fingers or heroine right into their neck. There are fights breaking out. There are women being molested and people being beaten. Sam Louie>> And yet over the past decade, the number of homeless women and children has been rising. Andy Bales>> Downtown Skid Row is no place for a woman. A woman on Skid Row has a seventy percent likelihood of being sexually assaulted within the first two weeks on Skid Row. It's no place for a child to grow up. No grass, no trees, four hundred registered sex offenders in a just a few block area surrounding our mission. Sam Louie>> It's estimated that up to forty percent of downtown's homeless are women and children. The Union Rescue Mission, the longest operating shelter in Los Angeles, takes in a couple hundred women and children each night. Andy Bales>> The kids actually witnessed outside in the afternoon a man being stabbed to death right in front of their eyes. We've made sure now that the kids are never outside to see that kind of thing, but we need to get them out of that environment to a helpful and hopeful environment. Sam Louie>> That hopeful environment is only thirty miles away. It's here at this seventy-one acre facility in Sylmar called Hope Gardens. It's a former convalescent home surrounded by lush trees, grass and trails. It was purchased by the Rescue Mission for seven million dollars to provide transitional housing for up to three hundred women and children, women like seventy year old Bertha Holden. Bertha Holden>> To me, it's more peaceful out here and you can do things out here and enjoy like planting the flowers here and we're going to plant a garden up there, things we can do to improve it. Sam Louie>> But neighbors say the influx of homeless will not improve the community. Brian Garvin>> So this is just going to be a giant seventy-one acre warehouse for the homeless. Sam Louie>> Brian Gavin is a board member on the Canyon Civic Association. The association recently held an informal vote to see how homeowners felt about a women's shelter in their neighborhood. Brian Gavin>> A hundred sixty-five adults voted in that and it came out eighty percent were against this facility moving in. Sam Louie>> What does that indicate to you? Brian Gavin>> That indicates, you know, four to one of the community have looked at this and said this isn't a good idea for this community. Sam Louie>> For the time being, there are only a handful of elderly women staying here. They are allowed to stay because the facilities used to be a convalescent home, but the Union Rescue Mission wants to bring women and children here and that would require permission from the county. Brian Gavin>> We all support what they're trying to do. It's just that this is the wrong place to put it. Sam Louie>> Brian Gavin and many of his neighbors are working to gather enough support to convince county officials to reject the project. Brian Gavin>> We have over twenty-seven facilities similar to Hope Gardens within a five-mile radius of us. We service over three thousand six hundred people in need and we're a community of only two hundred eighty homes up here, so it's just a disproportionate burden to put on any community. Sam Louie>> Bertha was living with her daughter, but was forced to move out and ended up on the streets. Andy Bales>> The reality of it is that she's been in and out of homelessness a few times. We've checked the records over the years and she alluded to some of her struggles, but I shared with you that, because she's had two weeks of transformed living, she doesn't really want to share and go back to share all the struggles and evil that she's experienced on Skid Row. Sam Louie>> After only a few weeks of being here, Bertha can no longer recall the drug dealers, crime or abuse typical of life on the streets. What did you have to do to readjust your schedule so that you're not put in a position of danger? Bertha Holden>> Stay out of it, out of the way of people. I'd go do my shopping and stuff and come back and sit there. If I wanted to smoke a cigarette, I'd go out and smoke a cigarette and come back. Sam Louie>> Marlene Rader lives in Kagel Canyon only a few miles from the Sylmar shelter. She is worried about the proposed size and scope of the site and wants to see the project nipped in the bud. Marlene Rader>> You're bringing in a large number of people with the same problems and, if one person has a hard time, it can bring the whole facility down. "Get all this hair off and all this dirt off and give him a bath and make him look pretty." Sam Louie>> Marlene has lived here for thirty years enjoying her horses and the surrounding beauty of the outdoors, but she feels this rural lifestyle will be difficult for people from the city. Marlene Rader>> This is a real rural environment. A lot of people can't handle being up in the middle of nowhere. It's extremely isolated and children don't easily adapt to that. Sam Louie>> Residents of Kagel Canyon joined forces with those in Sylmar to block the shelter. It means convincing county officials to see their point of view. Jon Sanabria is with Los Angeles County's Planning Department. Jon Sanabria>> A homeless shelter is not a permitted use in that zone. It would require a plan amendment, more likely, as well as a zone change and a conditional use permit. Sam Louie>> But Sanabria says his department has yet to receive the application from the Union Rescue Mission for a shelter. The mission says they expect to submit the paperwork within the next few weeks. At this point, can you say if this future homeless shelter would get your recommendation? Jon Sanabria>> Not at this point. Not until we look at all the information. It would premature. Not only that, I wouldn't want to prejudge an application. Sam Louie>> Sanabria said even if the Planning Department approved the shelter, neighbors can appeal the decision to the Board of Supervisors and that's exactly what Brian Gavin intends to do, given what he feels is a dismal record. Brian Gavin>> If you look at the homeless population that's constantly growing downtown, that's a clear example that their programs are failing downtown. They're not helping these women get their lives back together. Andy Bales>> I really hope that the county will not let fear in this day and age, fear and anything else, stand in the way of our women and children and elderly women from living a life of peace and hope in this beautiful place. They deserve a break. Sam Louie>> For Bertha, this change of scene is the impetus for personal change she's been looking for. Bertha Holden>> And I really believe that, if we're allowed a chance, we can make it out here. Sam Louie>> Conflicts like this one are likely to become more frequent in the future. Last spring, Los Angeles County Supervisors approved five other regional shelters with the goal of moving more homeless out of the inner city and into communities like this one. It may promise a better life for the homeless, but it also promises to ignite more opposition from homeowners who want to keep big city problems at an arm's length. I'm Sam Louie 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>> Consider this. Ninety percent of California's wetlands have been lost to development. Our wetlands are vital ecological sponges along our shoreline, so when hundreds of acres of wetlands got restored recently near Huntington Beach, environmentalists popped open the champagne. But as Orange County reporter, Roger Cooper, tells us, a last-minute setback dampened the celebration. Roger Cooper>> It is three o'clock in the morning in late August on the shore in Huntington Beach. A small but dedicated group has gathered, people who don't mind losing a little sleep to witness something that hasn't happened in over a century. Jack Fancher>> First let me say that I wasn't alone. There were between eighty and a hundred people there all doing the same thing I was, which was holding our breath until the water flowed, to cheer. Roger Cooper>> At low tide, earthmovers move in. They plow through the last few feet of sand that separates the Pacific from the Bolsa Chica wetlands restoration project. Then as the tide rises, it begins to happen. After more than a hundred years, the ocean is flowing back into Bolsa Chica, replenishing a habitat that used to teem with life. Environmentalists and engineers alike celebrate with a pre-dawn toast of champagne. This site is what this restoration project was all about. For the first time in a hundred seven years, the ocean's waves are washing into this inlet carrying with them the ocean's amazing ability to sustain life. But how did this once rich wetlands come to be dry for more than a century? The story starts in 1899. That's when a duck club closed the ocean connection to build ponds for hunting. Fifty years later, the duck club was replaced by vast oil-drilling operations. Then, if developers had their way, Bolsa Chica would have been the site of thousands of houses and a marina. That's when environmentalists stepped in and waged a thirty-year battle to block the project. They won. The ocean began to re-enter the picture in 1997 when money was found to buy the land from its owner, clearing the way for a giant wetlands restoration project to begin. Since then, seven agencies have spent a hundred forty-seven million dollars scooping out a giant basin, removing sixty-four oil wells and building two bridges to allow the ocean to flow under Pacific Coast Highway. But after all this work, a key question remains unanswered. How soon would the wildlife return? The answer came almost immediately. Within minutes, living things began to discover the four hundred acres of restored wetlands, something that thrills Jack Fancher of U.S. Fish and Wildlife. Jack Fancher>> Now it's connected to the ocean and some fish came in immediately, so it's like instant payoff. Lots of shore birds and the fish-eating birds. Brown pelicans here in large numbers. Roger Cooper>> Animation shows how the tides now rise and fall twice each day to bathe the wetlands in sea water, providing a nursery for marine life, marsh plants and migratory birds. Grace Adams>> There was actually a group of pelicans just waiting for fish and food, an early breakfast at five a.m. Roger Cooper>> Grace Adams of the Bolsa Chica Conservancy is also spotting the signs of new life. Grace Adams>> How exciting it is to see wildlife back again in this area. You see a lot of shore birds. I saw some Skimmers back there earlier. Roger Cooper>> And there are lots of signs of human life. A steady stream of people with cameras and binoculars now moves along Bolsa Chica's newly created nature trail. Some try to capture it on canvas. Some just stand and take it in. Among them, naturalist Dick Newell. Dick Newell>> It's so seldom that we see anything positive happening. It just made me feel extremely good to see it happen, to see people like yourself out here looking at the resource and thinking about it in a new light. People are starting to get excited about things like that and, if that happens, maybe their votes in the future will change and maybe they'll start to be concerned about the natural world. Roger Cooper>> The reality that the wetlands are back is enough to leave an old outdoorsman like Jim Lee almost speechless. Jim Lee>> I just can't describe it. I'm just in shock (laughter). I really am in shock. I would have never imagined it would have turned out like this. Roger Cooper>> But some last-minute news dampened the celebratory mood. As it turns out, the restoration of Bolsa Chica is not yet complete. The moment you heard the oil company wasn't ready to go ahead and flood their area, what did you say? Jack Fancher>> I can't repeat that. We were pretty upset. Roger Cooper>> At the last minute just before the ocean was to be re-introduced, an oil company notified the project that it was not ready to allow flooding of the final one hundred eighty acres. Aera Energy still operates oil wells here. The gates that were supposed to open to let the ocean in remains closed. Jack Fancher>> To be less than two months from completion and hear that they objected to completing the project made us individually very angry. Roger Cooper>> The issue was clean-up. In a statement, Aera Energy told Life and Times, "Before introducing sea water into an active oil field, it’s prudent to understand the potential environmental risks and impacts." Aera says an analysis is underway. Jack Fancher>> We're urging Aera to complete the clean-up in a timely way so we can open those gates. Roger Cooper>> Asked why the delay came at the last minute, Aera said it's a very complex project. We want to make sure we protect the environment and we want to do it right. Jack Fancher>> We have engaged them in a discussion now. We're trying to work our way through it, but at this moment, we don't have resolution of those issues. They have not cleaned up the oil field contamination in the remaining part of the project. Roger Cooper>> Negotiations are continuing and, despite the frustrations, people who have worked on this project are still beaming over what has been accomplished. Grace Adams>> This certainly is one of the largest restoration efforts in the history of the state of California and this makes Bolsa Chica one of the largest saltwater marshes that exists in the state of California. More than ninety percent of our wetland population has been eradicated because of development. Roger Cooper>> And people are still getting to know the wetlands they have back. Dick Newell>> I have never spent a day in nature that I didn't see something new. Every single time I come out, I see something new. Now that may not be a new species, but it might be a new behavior. I see a bird acting differently than what I've ever seen happen before. Roger Cooper>> Grace Adams says that educating the public will be vital if what's happened at Bolsa Chica is to keep going. Grace Adams>> That is very important to us in particular because we really need to nurture the next generation of stewards for this area. Jack Fancher>> Now we're very much on the threshold of having it done, so that part is a very good feeling. Roger Cooper>> So mark down the morning of August 24, 2006 as a milestone for southern California's ecology. It's the day nature got a second chance. Jim Lee>> Well, there is a place in this world for tree huggers (laughter). Roger Cooper>> At the Bolsa Chica wetlands, I'm Roger Cooper for Life and Times. Announcer>> 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 Zavala>> Ronald Reagan received more gifts than any other president up to that time in presidential history, more than a hundred thousand of them. So what do you do with a hundred thousand gifts, everything from sculptures to spurs? Well, most of them ended up at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley and now you can see dozens of them in an exhibit called "Gifts to the President". Vicki Curry got a tour from curator Thomas Thomas. Vicki Curry>> Crystal and coins, guns and knives. These are just a few of the thousands of gifts given to Ronald Reagan during his presidency. Thomas Thomas>> He received all kinds of things from the absurd to the gorgeous. I mean, it's a full array. Vicki Curry>> And they're not just from other heads of state. Half of them came from ordinary people around the world. Thomas Thomas>> The everyday people just wanted to say thank you to a president that they thought was doing a really fine job. They are sent to him so often that there's a Gift Unit in Washington, D.C. for each president and the gifts are sent directly to the Gift Unit. Many are presented to him directly on some sort of event or occasion and those he sees. The ones that go directly to the Gift Unit he actually doesn't see until after his presidential library is built and he comes out here. There are many. I'm told stories that were before my time here that he wandered through the gifts downstairs in our collections area and just was amazed. He said, "All these were from the people to me?" Vicki Curry>> It's not very often that the general public gets to see these gifts to the president, so curator Thomas Thomas selected over four hundred items from the Reagan Library's collection for a special exhibition. Thomas Thomas>> So we put together what we thought were just, you know, a good array and even balanced as far as we could get and then I went back and filled it out so that we did have areas like this saddle area. Then we have an Asian area. We have the kitsch area and the high-end area. Vicki Curry>> So you start the exhibit with this portrait. How did you decide to do that? Thomas Thomas>> I went through the collection and decided on a portrait that I felt really showed the president. The president as a western man is the way I see him. Vicki Curry>> Now there's quite a number of portraits in this exhibit, but yet many of them are made out of unusual materials. Thomas Thomas>> That's quite so. Vicki Curry>> Tell me about them. Thomas Thomas>> Oh, we have pieces out of redwood. We have pieces out of bronze. We have a portrait out of lapis lazuli stone, which is really quite incredible. Someone decided that they needed to do a portrait out of butterfly wings and, of course, I tease the director that they're all right wings (laughter). We have a piece that was chainsaw-carved of the president. Yeah, it's an interesting piece. Then we have pieces right next to it that are done in gold and silver. I brought these out just so you'd get an idea of how so many people see the president so differently. I enjoy asking people, "Which one do you think looks the most like the president to you?" Vicki Curry>> Well, you were telling me earlier that you feel a lot of people had difficulty capturing the likeness of the president. Thomas Thomas>> The president has a very unusual likeness to be captured. He has certain things about him that are unique and, if you don't really spend a lot of time looking carefully at who he is and the way he looks, you'll miss him entirely. If you do see him, then you'll get it. Some are done by professional artists. Many are done just by individuals who enjoy doing pieces like that or decide that that's what they really need to do to say thank you to the president. Vicki Curry>> That craftsmanship is on display throughout the exhibit. Thomas Thomas>> I think one of my favorites is the Komodo Dragon carved out of wood. But when you look at it, people when they just sort of pass by think it's a taxidermy piece, you know, that that really is a dragon there with its children. But it's out of wood and it's extraordinary. Vicki Curry>> This looks really interesting. What is this piece that's hanging on the wall here? Thomas Thomas>> That's a cowhide. It was presented to the president by a group of Japanese people. Vicki Curry>> A cowhide. That's interesting. Thomas Thomas>> And it's done in Old West, of all things. We have the cavalry up there coming over the hill, the stagecoach being attacked by Indians. It's a strangely gorgeous piece. Vicki Curry>> It really is. And then what does it say there in the middle? Thomas Thomas>> It says, "In Commemoration of Reappointment". They really mean "Re-election", but didn't quite get the translation. Vicki Curry>> (Laughter) This looks like a replica of the White House which he probably received quite a few of. But apparently this has something else going on that you don't see on first glance? Thomas Thomas>> This is a desk and quite an unusual one in that it does open up. Vicki Curry>> Oh, my goodness. Thomas Thomas>> Storage compartments. Vicki Curry>> Wow. Thomas Thomas>> Secret compartments, writing area. Vicki Curry>> That's amazing. So this was hand-made by a woman? Thomas Thomas>> Yes, Margaret Martin. She's one of these people that felt that she wanted to say something to the president and she used her craft to do so. Vicki Curry>> There are a lot of things you might expect a president to receive, like different versions of the American flag, the Bald Eagle, the Statue of Liberty. But do all presidents get spurs as gifts? Thomas Thomas>> Each president seems to get things that are just for him and saddles were a big thing. Although Mr. Reagan only rode English, other people gave him all kinds of saddles. Belt buckles were a huge thing to give to the president. Oftentimes, people gave things to him for an occasion. Here's a saddle here talking about tax reform. We have a pencil back there from a group of students because they wanted to get his attention on an object. We have a ball of yarn over here from a group of ladies in San Diego who were concerned about the Conference on Aging and they wanted the president to be sure that he was aware of their needs and concerns, so they sent it to him. The ball of yarn, unfortunately, went unnoticed until after he was here. That's one of the unfortunate things when people send things. Sometimes the Gift Unit receives over a hundred items a day. A hundred items a day is just a lot of material to take in. Vicki Curry>> Although the president doesn't see most of the gifts sent to him by the public, he usually sees the ones from world leaders. Thomas Thomas>> Heads of state would give him more of the high-end kind of things, just something really nice from their country that represented their country and their people. Japan gave a couple of dolls that are really exquisite. The DeMarcos family gave him a tree that's out of Mother of Pearl. It's really flashy (laughter). Vicki Curry>> Flashy or simply, ordinary or bizarre, the Reagan Library says all the gifts are popular with visitors. Thomas Thomas>> It's a connection between the people and the president. We've had one other gift exhibit. It was done about eight years ago and I would say that probably eighty percent of what we have on exhibit now is new. If you saw the original gift exhibit, you will see a whole lot of new things. Val Zavala>> "Gifts to the President" is open to the public for the next six months or so. For more information, you can go to their website at reaganlibrary.com. 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. 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