Center Theatre Group to light up Los Angeles

By Casey Russell

The Center Theatre Group

(CTG) is holding its 2023 gala Sat., April 15. To take place at The Music Center’s Mark Taper Forum, the “Light Up Los Angeles” gala will be a night to celebrate CTG and Los Angeles in cocktail attire.

Guest artists including Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Justin Mikita, Rachel Bloom, Joey and Faith Soloway, Kristina Wong and Culture Clash will be featured. Honorary co-chairs are Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance, Anna Camp, Adam Rothenberg and Cecily Strong.

The night will include cocktails and dinner in the Eva and Marc Stern Grand Hall of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Then, guests will enjoy the celebrity musical performances

Cuisine, music at PATH Food Fest on April 29

Help end homelessness while enjoying delicious cuisine and signature cocktails at a Taste of Home Food Festival to benefit PATH (People Assisting the Homeless) on Sat., April 29 at Sunset Las Palmas Studio. Enjoy delicious bites from more than 35 local restaurants

Residents to meet with CD13 April 3 on homelessness

With fencing proposed to come down at Echo Park Lake and several other homeless-related issues, a meeting has been set up with Larchmont Village, Windsor Square and other area residents and Councilman Hugo Soto-Martinez.

The meeting is on Mon., April 3 at 4 p.m. at the City Council field office, 6501 Fountain Ave., and it will include CD13 homeless team deputy Kylie Jansen.

“We have heard from neighbors that they’d like to attend to find out more about CD13’s plans for encampments along with our questions and concerns,” said Keith Johnson, board member of the Larchmont Village Neighborhood Association.

For information and updates, email kjphotog@gmail, or call him at 323-461-5895.

CD 5 Council Report

(Continued from page 9) of stops, but in how connected they are to adjacent communities. That success is achieved by direct investments in improving streets and sidewalks to make walking and biking to and from stations safer, providing convenient alternative transportation options — such as Metro Bike Share — and creating local micro-mobility shuttle services to connect communities to the transit system.

By tailoring additional transportation options to the needs of the community, we can reduce traffic and pollution while continuing to make Greater Wilshire and Mid City among the most livable communities in Los Angeles.

in the intimate setting of the Mark Taper Forum, followed by an after-party on The Music Center’s Jerry Moss Plaza.

The CTG event will raise funds to support its programs on- and off-stage, including its Education and Community

Book signing is April 22 at Grove

Author Mimi Slawoff will sign copies of her book, “Oldest Los Angeles,” Sat., April 22 from noon to 4 p.m. at Barnes & Noble at The Grove, 189 The Grove Drive.

Partnerships Programs.

Tax Day for Angelenos has been postponed to Oct. 16 for 2023. That’s another reason to celebrate CTG on April 15th!

For information and to purchase tickets, visit ctgla.org/ gala.

MOCA gala on April 15 takes guests clubbing

The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) will hold its annual fundraising gala Sat., April 15 at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in the Little Tokyo neighborhood. “Carl Craig: Party / After-Party,” which guides visitors sonically through a club night from the perspective of the DJ, will be unveiled at the event.

and curated libations from beer and wine vendors and chef demos while listening to live music at the event. All proceeds benefit PATH’s work to end homelessness in Los Angeles.

VIP admission is at 3 p.m. General admission starts at 4 p.m. Visit tasteofhomefest.org for more information.

Travel journalist and former reporter Slawoff will share details of historic sites, including from among several local ones featured in the book: El Cholo Mexican restaurant, Chevalier’s Books, the Original Farmers Market and the La Brea Tar Pits.

More information is in last

October’s paper at: issuu.com/ larchmontchronicle/docs/ lc_10_2022/38

The evening will kick off with a cocktail reception and will include a dinner and musical performance.

Tiffany & Co. is the gala’s presenting sponsor.

Visit moca.org for more information on the gala and for tickets.

The second annual Gala Dance Party will follow the dinner. Email gala@moca. org for more information.

Electrical

(Continued from page 1)

13’s Hugo Soto-Martinez and representatives from the DWP. DWP participants were Chief Operating Officer Aram Benyamin; Director of Power, Transmission and Distribution Walter Rodriguez and Senior Assistant General Manager for Power Systems and Construction, Brian Wilber. Many concerned community members also signed on. President of the Hancock Park Homeowners Association, Cindy Chvatal-Keane, moderated. She reported that there were 200 participants.

Said Soto-Martinez at the meeting, “Hopefully we can learn from this because the second-largest city of the country should not be dealing with these issues.” Yaroslavsky echoed his sentiments saying residents “deserve a resilient and reliable power grid.” She went on to say that it appears there are par- ticular underground utility vaults having issues and that the system in general is outdated in some areas. “The grid is particularly old in Hancock Park,” she said. “The extensive rains are just a preview of what’s going to come as climate change continues to intensify. We need to be thinking of long-term climate resiliency — both when it’s really wet and when it’s really hot and the grid is strained under opposite conditions. We have a real opportunity and, I would say, an obligation, to do that work now, so that outages like we just experienced don’t become the new normal.”

Cause

Asked what was a main cause of the Hancock Park / Windsor Square outages, Rodriguez said there was an underground transformer serving the area that failed. It had to be located and fixed.

“Basically, you have to turn the system on and off… locate the problem… isolate it, and try to get as many customers online as you can,” said Rodriguez. This is very time consuming, he added. DWP has to make sure protocols are followed and crews are kept safe while doing the underground work, especially when water is involved.

Delays

The answer to why it took multiple days to get everyone back online was multifaceted.

“We have 1.5 million customers in the metro area,” said Rodriguez. Rains hit hard in January and February saturating the ground and causing trees to fall over on power lines throughout the city. Hazardous areas have to be dealt with first. Next, crews start working on areas with the largest amounts of customers affected, and they work through affected areas until power is restored.

When Chvatal-Keane pushed for specifics on staffing, DWP officials said the department is seriously un- derstaffed. “We are at about 50 percent of what we want, and need, to get to over the next five years. We had every available crew working, but we are short-handed. We are continuing on ramped-up hiring so we can meet goals,” said Wilber.

“Understaffing,” said Soto-Martinez, “is an issue every department is facing. We are working on our end on this issue.”

The department is looking to “harden the system in the overhead and in the underground. We want to make it more of a water-tight system,” said Rodriguez. The DWP is looking to address outages caused by trees and on the ground.

Benyamin said, “We put in [requests] for water infrastructure hardening and replacement funds,” including for grants from the federal Department of Energy (DOE), one of which is for a transmission upgrade grant of $436 million.

Residents can help inform the DOE’s selection of grant awardees by making sure it hears from people in the community that the area is deserving of the funds. The DWP will be reaching out to residents in the coming months to appeal for support calls to the city’s delegation of federal elected officials.

Confusion

The actual outages, however, were not residents’ only concern. Outage maps and messaging to those without power were incorrect or inconsistent. This caused confusion and riled many tempers.

The automated system currently in place takes in information based on phone calls received and similar information, and it then automates outage responses. When the system gets overloaded, false information appears on the site. “This is what we really need to look at — when our system is overloaded, how can we make it… have accurate information?” said Rodriguez. He said this definitely would be looked at in the after-action plan.

Chvatal-Keane asked about the timeframe for fixing the issues discussed. Said Yaroslavsky, “The council offices will be checking in regularly with the DWP… and will come up with an accountability plan so that what is said is going to happen actually happens. We’ll be in communication with our constituents about timing and how it’s working. These are not small projects that need to be undertaken… but it’s safe to say we see this as a real problem.”

Help clean up LA River on April 15, April 22

Friends of the LA River will gather on two Saturdays — April 15 and on Earth Day, April 22 — to support the Los Angeles region and city for the organization’s 33rd Annual Great LA River CleanUp!

The clean-up event will take place at seven sites along the 51 miles of the Lower, Middle and Upper River.

Activities for all ages include habitat restoration, nature walks and education and art activities. For more information and to register, visit folar.org

Earth Day at Arboretum

In honor of its 75th anniversary year, the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden in Arcadia will be having an Earth Day Seed Giveway on Sat., April 22. Tours of the endangered Engelmann oak will take place on National Arbor Day on Fri., April 28. For more information visit arboretum.org.