The Rotary Corner at Temescal Canyon Road and PCH has been cleared.
Photo: SHARON KILBRIDE
Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) collaborates extensively with national, state, and county agencies on wildfire prevention. This past week, a supervisor for the National Wildfire Prevention unit was at the corner of Temescal Canyon Boulevard and Pacific Coast Highway on land owned by L.A. City Recreation and Parks, overseeing brush clearance.
Photo: SHARON KILBRIDE
The prevention unit is a collaborative framework of federal, state and local agencies, coordinated by the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC). They have been tasked with going into affected burn areas and remove dead trees.
Canyon resident Sharon Kilbride stopped to speak with the supervisor as they cleared out the Rotary Corner.
It was called the Rotary Corner because member Perry Akins recruited landscape designer David Card to lead the beautification of the area. Akins said the entrance to this “sweet community” Pacific Palisades should be more than an eyesore and a collection of garbage and trash.
Two years later, with permission from L.A. City Recreation and Parks, the land was cleared and graded, and an irrigation system and plantings were installed by the Club members, Jamie Hubbs’ Eagle Scout project team (Troop 23), many community volunteers, and with the assistance of contractor Great Western Landscaping.
The Rotary Club funded the planting, with help from the Woman’s Club (for a solar irrigation controller) and community donors. The installation was done with the City of Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation (the station) and Rec & Parks. The landscaping was dedicated with City Councilman Bill Rosendahl on July 24, 2008.
Two years later, the City dug up that site to install more pumps for a year-round diversion system that flows to the Hyperion facility. After the pumps were installed, the City replanted the area, with plants specified by Card/Rotary.
Keeping the plants alive was often difficult, because of Project O and the storm diversion project that occupied the Canyon from 2010 through 2017.
Troop 23 Eagle Scout candidate Greg Gold led a team of Scouts, Rotary Club members and other volunteers that built a two-rail wood fence in the park at the Rotary corner 2017.
Although the Rotary plantings were kept up, the parkland behind was not. In 2023, it was reported to the City that brush clearance had not been done behind the Rotary Garden and there was dead vegetation. It was also overgrown, which meant it became an ideal place for the homeless to camp, which is why Kilbride was often at that corner.
Now, that brush clearance is complete, Card will have a blank slate to redesign it.
And the prevention unit? They’ve been told that Palisades Drive might be a good next stop for brush clearance.
As usual LA City does NOT maintain what it starts. There have been so many similar stories around the Palisades of spending money and then neglecting the maintenance!
I have been trying to have a single storm drain on Temescal cleaned so it will drain water into the storm sewer. Despite many emails and 311 submittals – ZERO success in over 17 years of trying. Go figure why we pay taxes!