RestoreThe Frederick Passageway
Friends and Neighbors:
We are making progress! Because of YOUR support, we have been able to transform the
Frederick Passageway from this:
To this:
It’s been a long road and we have had many unexpected challenges, including a global pandemic, but with the Encampments to Homes program being implemented along the north side of Rose Ave, we are hopeful that our beloved project will finally be realized.
Our neighborhood overwhelmingly supports the plan for this space to become a City Park, one that can be used for walking, jogging, meditating, cycling or just looking at the flowers. We are hopeful that the Department of Parks and Rec will ultimately take over what we have built, along with the path around the Penmar Golf Course. A loud, uproarious "Thank You" to the Rose/Penmar group of neighbors who are working tirelessly to make this happen. If you don't know them already, hopefully you'll cross paths with them at our first park celebratory event. They are an incredibly dedicated group of people who have gone above and beyond for our community.
In the meantime, however, we still owe around $30 thousand dollars to our contractor. Those additional costs are the result of additional requirements and demands from the city’s building inspector and are not the fault of our contractor and his hard-working crew.
To the contrary, our contractor has been extraordinarily flexible and generous in terms of the work and payment schedule. After many months, the time has now come to make good on our obligations.
The additional $5 thousand we hope to raise will go toward water bills, insurance, fencing costs, added plantings to sparse areas, and possibly lighting.
Many of you have expressed gratitude, in person and via email, to those of us who have taken the lead in organizing, fundraising, and maintaining what we have built so far. However, this has always been OUR project, and it is up to all of US, together, to make sure all of our efforts don’t go to waste.
Thank you so much. We sincerely appreciate your continued support of this project. We're almost there!
Friends and Neighbors,
We are so thankful to everyone who came out to our last neighborhood meeting! It’s always great connecting face to face so we can listen to your questions and work together to find answers. For those of you who were unable to join us we want to fill you in on what was discussed so you can remain fully informed.
Right now our project is moving swiftly along and we’ve made great progress! Yay! You might not be able to tell but we’ve broken ground, installed irrigation, and will be laying out the pathways soon. After that, planting can begin!
When will this be done? Great question. We are currently on target for a mid October end date. We mentioned at the meeting that we can only move as fast as the city inspector who regularly visits the site to ensure everything is within code. Once he gives his approval we can move on to the next step. It’s another one of those times where we are at the mercy of the city but we are working as swiftly as possible to get it done!
And..we still need your help! Our initial plans had been approved without irrigation. Halfway through the project, the city mandated that we add irrigation to our plan. It was a pricey curveball we didn’t factor into our original fundraising goal. Fortunately we had the funds necessary to cover the initial cost but we need a little more financial help to pull us through to the end. We’ve decided to increase our Gofundme goal so that we can not only cover irrigation, but also include lighting that will serve to illuminate the park at night and make it safer overall.
Thank you so much for your continued support and encouragement throughout this process. We’ve already received requests from neighbors living nearby wanting to know how they can follow our lead in their own communities. Pretty cool.
Dear Supporters,
First and foremost thank you for your support of our event to restore the Frederick Passageway. Due to inclement weather, we are postponing the event at Clutch to Monday, January 21st from 6:30-9:30 pm to ensure the safety and comfort of our guests. We hope that you will still be able to join us for live entertainment, open bar, and delicious food from our venue host Clutch Roadhouse on this new day and time. As a reminder 100% of the proceeds from this event, including ticket sales, will go towards supporting our mission of enriching our community and helping all who call Venice home — that being said, if you are unable to attend and wish to receive a full refund for your ticket you can directly e-mail us your request. Again, thank you for your support of our mission. When community comes together, great things happen.
To purchase tickets for the event and to learn more please visit:
https://frederickpark.eventbrite.com
Hope to see you there!
Dear Friends:
If you have lived here for any significant length of time, you will remember when the area connected Frederick St from Rose to Dewey was clean, empty and safe for running, walking, playing with your dogs and/or kids. But for at least three years now, that has not been the case. The police and sanitation department come out and clean up the area every once in a while, but within 24 hours, the area is back to its now-customary state - piled up with garbage, bicycles, filth and more than 30 people per night.
We have been working with the local city council office for the past two years and have a permit to landscape this area so that a clean, attractive pedestrian Pathway will be created, and the empty space surrounding it will be filled in with native plants and landscape features.
We have a plan. We have a licensed landscape company ready to implement the plan. We simply need to raise the funds to pay for it.
If you live here, this will improve your quality of life. If you jog around Penmar Golf Course, we need your help! If you walk through this area on the way to church, shul, mosque, or school, this will make that walk better! In other words, we are all in this together. Some of us may have more resources than others but if we all commit to the common good, we can share the burden and create a better future for all.
Please note that if we are unable to reach our $80,000 goal the money will be returned to each individual donor and the project will not move forward.
Frequently Asked Questions:
WHO CAME UP WITH THIS PLAN AND WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE WHO ARE TRYING TO MAKE CHANGES IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD?
The plan we are working from was commissioned by the former owner of 846 Warren Ave. She was trying to sell her home at a time when the homeless encampment was almost as bad as it is now. As a result she paid an landscape architect to design the plan we have now. It has been amended slightly as per the request of a couple neighbors living closest to the Pathway. This plan, in its current form, has ALREADY received a city permit to build.
All we need to do is to reinstate that permit and construction can begin. The city councilman’s office tells us that it will take less than one day to reinstate the permit.
With that in mind, we believe it would be extremely counterproductive to start at zero again and look for some other plan. So we’re going with what we’ve got!
As for us, we are your neighbors! We live on Warren Ave. Some of us have been here more than 20 years, some of us have moved here within the past five years, and some of us are in between. We all love this block and our immediate community and we look forward to getting to know you as we work to improve our surroundings!
SHOULDN’T WE HAVE A MEETING TO TALK ABOUT THIS?
As mentioned, we would love to get to know you and everyone in the neighborhood! Yes, your input matters! Yes, your opinions matter! We would love to get together in small groups to discuss all of this.
What we do NOT want is to have the type of meeting where people who don’t live in our neighborhood show up with their own agenda and shout down others who don’t share their point of view. We do NOT want to waste time with long and pointless debates about who caused the homeless crisis, and why so many of these folks come to Venice and not Marina del Rey. etc etc etc. We do NOT want to waste time criticizing the current city councilman or the city government. We DO want to improve the area at the western edge of Penmar Golf Course. Any meetings we hold will be towards achieving that immediate goal.
MY FRIEND/COUSIN/COLLEAGUE IS A LANDSCAPER. I BET HE COULD DO THIS JOB FOR CHEAPER. WHY DON’T I CALL HIM AND SEE?
We appreciate the enthusiasm! That said, a project this size, on a public easement requires the contractor to be fully vetted, insured, and experienced with municipal-type projects. It has taken quite a long time to find this landscaper and we feel confident that he will do a good job.
THE PLAN LOOKS NICE, BUT I THINK WE SHOULD ADD DIFFERENT PLANTS. AND, WHY DO YOU WANT TO USE DG INSTEAD OF CONCRETE? ALSO, WHAT ABOUT A VEGETABLE GARDEN?
We must NOT allow the Perfect to become the enemy of the Good. In other words, there’s always going to be something that could be better. Ours is an imperfect world. But we can’t allow this to drag on and on, like it has done for years. We have to focus on priority #1 - to have a clean, safe, pedestrian-friendly area at the end of our quiet residential blocks.
HOW DO I KNOW THAT MY MONEY WILL ACTUALLY BE USED FOR THIS PROJECT?
That’s exactly why GoFundMe was created! To ensure a secure, effective way for crowds (that’s us!) to fund a larger project. The company has safeguards in place to guarantee that the money will ONLY be used for its intended purpose. Saul Janson, one of the organizers of this project and a fellow neighbor, will be soley responsible for withdrawing funds and making payments directly to landscaper.
Thank you for our partnership and we look forward to crossing paths soon!