www.palisadesnews.com
September 13 – 26, 2019 Volume 5, Issue 21
P-61 Mountain Lion Struck by Car, Dies Cougar who crossed 405 last month was killed near Sepulveda Pass By Keldine Hull On September 7, GPS tracked mountain lion P-61 was struck and killed on the 405 freeway in the Sepulveda Pass, near the same section he’d successfully crossed less than two months ago. His final GPS point indicated that he was between Bel Air Crest Road and the Sepulveda Boulevard underpass. According to a Facebook post from Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area,
“California Highway Patrol was initially alerted and moved P-61 out of traffic. City of Los Angeles Animal Control officers then retrieved his body and the radio-collar and notified both California Department of Fish and Wildlife personnel
and our researchers here at Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.” Throughout the course of a 17-year study of mountain lions in or around the Santa Monica Mountains, P-61 made headlines in July as the first GPS tracked lion to successfully cross the 405 freeway. In 2011, P-18, a cougar outfitted with a GPS collar, was killed while trying to cross the same freeway. Although not a part of the study at the time, P-22 is the only known mountain lion to successfully cross the freeway. Researchers are still unclear why P-61, first outfitted with a GPS collar in October 2017, decided to cross the freeway again. The Facebook post continued, “Based on his GPS points, he had been staying close to the eastern edge of the 405 more recently. Over the last few years, we and
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others have gotten remote camera photos of an uncollared male mountain lion that apparently lives in that area. A negative encounter between the two could have caused P-61 to move back west.” News of P-61’s passing comes shortly after the final design phase for the world’s largest wildlife crossing that would stretch 200 feet above 10 lanes of the 101 freeway. Slated to be completed in 2023, the new crossing will give animals of the Santa Monica Mountains safer access to food, open spaces and potential mates. In an interview with the Associated Press, Beth Pratt from the National Wildlife Federation said, “We’re not taking the freeway away from people. They can still drive yet we’re doing this beautiful thing for animals so that they don’t get hit by cars and so that they can have a future.”
Bringing Homeless into Policymaking? Bonin proposes commission composed entirely of people who are or have been homeless By Sam Catanzaro A week after a scathing report was released showing the agency tasked with tackling homelessness in Los Angeles County failed to meet many of its goals, an LA City Councilmember is suggesting bringing homeless or previously homeless individuals into the policymaking process to improve results. Councilmember Mike Bonin, who represents much of the Westside, has proposed the creation of a new advisory commission, composed entirely of people who are or have been homeless in Los Angeles. Bonin’s 11th District includes Venice where several encampments make the homelessness crisis especially evident, and Pacific Palisades. The commission proposed by Bonin, modeled after city advisory commissions on disability issues, children’s Native American issues and transgender issues, would provide expert and re-
al-world experience to improve policy-making, program development and budgeting decisions. “We set ourselves up for failure if we do not take into account the experience of people who have been homeless,” said Bonin. “Programs that sound good on paper or in a City Council meeting may not work given the complexities of being without housing. We need to be listening to the people who can tell us if the programs taxpayers are paying for are working as intended.” Earlier this month, Los Angeles City Controller Ron Galperin released a scathing audit that highlighted the county’s failure to house individuals experiencing homelessness. According to the audit, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) failed to meet seven of nine of its goals in the fiscal year 2017-2018 and five of eight goals in 2018-2019. This poor track record comes as LAHSA has doubled the number of outreach workers over the past two years. LAHSA responded by calling the report “misleading”, stating it “ultimately says nothing about LAHSA’s outreach efforts, which contacted record numbers of our homeless neighbors in the year it studied,” but the agency did agree that complaint-driven outreach should be de-emphasized throughout the system. At City Council meetings policymakers rou-
Photo: Pacific Palisades Taskforce on Homelessness.
Pacific Palisades Taskforce on Homelessness outreach workers speak with an individual experiencing homelessness.
tinely hear about programs and policies from government officials, non-profit executives, business associations, neighborhood councils, homeowners, developers and activists from a variety of organizations and perspectives. One voice, however, has been largely missing: the voice of people who are homeless or have recently been homeless.
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“As a result, elected officials and policymakers rarely hear when programs fail to work as advertised, when resources and staff are misaligned, how new ordinances impact people who are homeless, or how sexism, homophobia, and institutional racism impact services,” Bonin said.
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