Year in Review
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t’s difficult to pin down a single theme that accurately defines 2014. In many ways, this was a pretty confusing year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shot up from 16,441 in January to a record high of more than 18,000 before Christmas, but wages remain flat for most as the cost of living climbs — except at the pump, with gas prices plummeting well under $3 per gallon. A rainy and cold December has capped off months of intense concern about the still very troubling drought. And how will we ever explain the Ice Bucket Challenge to our grandkids? Restoration plans for the Ballona Wetlands still haven’t materialized, and for better or worse the Annenberg Foundation has decided against building a controver-
sial $50-million nature education center there, putting us back where we began in 2013. The courts struck down prohibitions against people sleeping in cars as security along Venice Beach ratcheted up, but the clearest remedy for homelessness — more affordable housing — remains out of reach. At the same time, residents have found themselves pitched against developers in neighborhood battles over increasing density. In Santa Monica it was opposition to the towering Hines project that turned the political tide toward slow growth. In Marina del Rey, longtime locals and boat owners say they’re being squeezed out by county plans for a harbor makeover and are up in arms about plans to redevelop tranquil Mariners Village. A proposed
It took 365 firefighters, eight of them suffering minor injuries, to extinguish a 14-hour blaze that engulfed the Extra Space Storage facility on Venice Boulevard on Oct. 25 and 26. Photo by Marta Evry.
The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, in which people willingly dumped buckets of ice water on themselves to raise awareness and funding to combat Lou Gehrig’s disease, went viral in 2014. Cynthia Hoepner, principal of St. Bernard High School in Playa del Rey, stepped up to the plate on Aug. 21. Photo by Greg Mitchell. PAGE 10 THE ARGONAUT January 1, 2015
On Nov. 4, election night victories went to Sheila Kuehl (pictured on election night with former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa) for county supervisor, Autumn Burke for state Assembly, Ben Allen for state Senate and Ted Lieu for the U.S. House of Representatives. Photo by Marta Evry.
restaurant patio in a formerly industrial block of Venice has become a lightning rod for critics of a much wider gentrification trend. Meanwhile, Playa Vista is riding the Westside tech industry boom to an unprecedented growth spurt. IMAX is already building a new $45-million West Coast headquarters there, and Google just bought 12 acres for a $120-million corporate compound. Construction of the Runway at Playa Vista retail center and adjacent high-end housing (already selling fast!) clips along at a breakneck pace, foreshadowing what may become the biggest story of 2015. — Joe Piasecki
The endangered El Segundo Blue Butterfly reestablished a thriving population in the Ballona Wetlands this summer, naturalists finding more than 117 of the thumbnailsized insects where previously there were none. Photo by Patrick Tyrell.
On his way to hanging out with Gwyneth Paltrow at a $15,000-perplate Democratic Party fundraiser, President Barack Obama dropped by Ted Lieu’s Venice congressional campaign office on Oct. 9 and spent a few minutes calling Westside voters on Lieu’s behalf. Lieu cruised to victory in the Nov. 4 election and takes over the seat being vacated by the retirement of Henry Waxman.
Alix Hobb, who began volunteering with Heal the Bay as a teenager in 1993, became the nonprofit’s CEO and president on Oct. 1. Photo by Nick Fash.
Sibyl Buchanan (center), who retired this year after 25 years as community affairs director for Playa Vista, was honored on Oct. 21 by the Rotary Club of Playa Vista Sunrise. Photo by Glenn Marzano.