At last month’s Strategic Planning Retreat for the City Council, each member was assigned a long-term project to research and nurture.
When Thomas Small’s turn came, it was accompanied by one of his trademarks, a hurricane of enthusiasm.
“The project I am responsible for that I am so excited about,” he said, “is the revitalization of Ballona Creek. This is something I have been talking about for a long time, but it is separate from – it is not part of a plan yet. Pieces of it have been talked about for a long time as something great to aspire to.”
Mr. Small said that “we are finally getting to a stage where, realistically, changes can happen.”
At the Aug. 29 retreat at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, “talking with staff and with my colleagues really moved it forward.”
What does “revitalization of Ballona Creek” mean?
“Several images come to mind,” Mr. Small said. “The easiest and the most immediate one is the relatively new Milton Park, which is not quite completed, just west of Centinela Avenue, on Ballona Creek. It’s in the Los Angeles-Marina del Rey area.”
Mr. Small said the new Milton Park “is the beginning, very much the kind that I would like to see all along the river. It has grass. It has vegetation. It has trees. It has benches and tables. It has shade. Finally, it has beautiful galleon walls, walls that are created by stacking riverstones and then binding it with chain-link fence.”
(To be continued)
