Palisades Residents Take Garbage Seriously

Bruce Schwartz, representing PRIDE and Cindy Kirven, president of the Village Green helped with the town cleanup on Saturday.

A portion of the commercial district has burned in Pacific Palisades, mostly buildings on Antioch between Swarthmore and Via de la Paz. Storefronts have burned on Via and both grocery stores are shells.

Despite that fact, there are a group of residents that take pride in the town. They find overflowing garbage cans and  litter from  workers, contractors and residents distasteful. Additionally garbage encourages rodents.

On May 10, Palisades Beautiful handed out gloves, grabbers and trash bags and about 35 people fanned out across Pacific Palisades to pick up trash left in streets and on the sidewalks.

Ronald Reagan Post 283 provided lunch, and the event was organized in conjunction with Palisades PRIDE, The Palisades Village and Palisades Beautiful.

Palisades Beautiful Noah Martin said he was working mostly by Palisades High School and collected 10 bags of trash, with help from his sister Racheal.

“Those bags were picked up by Mike Sosa with ECC who saw us working and volunteered his truck to brings the bags to their trash, “ Martin said. ECC Construction is the prime contractor working with the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers in the Palisades. (Look for a future story about Palisades Beautiful and Noah Martin.)

Now, the streets are noticeably cleaner as garbage was stacked up, but who is responsible for picking up trash? The City of Los Angeles has not picked up trash in the Palisades Village for years.

The Palisades Business Improvement District (BID) formed in January 1, 2016, to take over tasks the City was not doing, such as sidewalk cleaning, tree trimming and of course, trash pickup.

Local businesses pay an assessment (tax), which then goes to the BID, which specifically paid Chrysalis for trash pick-up, sidewalk cleaning and graffiti removal.

On the BID website, it is explained that “Normally Chrysalis works three days a week, but because of the Palisades Fire, they have not had access.

“Chrysalis now has a group of employees who completed the HAZWHOPPER 40 training (requirement to clean in areas post-fire) but needed a Site Supervisor.”

Grace Davis, the Assistant Vice President at Chrysalis Enterprises, reported that on May 1, the supervisor was completing training and now “a team of 10 people will be cleaning the business district the remaining Wednesdays in May. Beginning June, a team of two to three will clean two times a week.”

At a March Zoom meeting, the BID voted to continue its operations. The next meeting is June 4, and people are invited to join click here.