A Faraway Perspective
By Frank J. Gruber
For most of last week I was traveling on business -- my other business,
not the writing about Santa Monica business. I went to Berlin to attend
meetings with clients at the Berlin Film Festival. I kept up with Santa
Monica news by reading The Lookout, but the fact was that I
was "distant."
So as I write this on the plane home Monday, I haven't yet talked to
anyone about the big news -- the arrest
of eight suspects in the shootings and murders that have plagued
Santa Monica for two years. Won't it be wonderful if getting eight criminals
off the street solves the gang problem?
That's a straightforward question and a fervent wish. I am not being
disingenuous or cynical. Social movements and social problems have to
manifest themselves sooner or later in individuals and their actions,
and gang warfare is crazy enough that perhaps arresting a set of sociopaths
can bring an end to a cycle of violence. It's well established that
only a few violent gangsters cause most gang violence.
But this particular cycle has been turning in Santa Monica for more
than two decades and ending it will depend not only on the arrests of
a few, but also on the actions of many. To put it plainly, now that
the police have arrested the alleged shooters, will Santa Monica gang
members give up private revenge?
Will these arrests be, as Capt. Carol J. Aborn-Khoury, the LAPD's West
Los Angeles area commanding officer, expressed it hopefully, "the
beginning of the end of these feuds"? Or will Santa Monica's own
gangsters go out and do something that recycles the cycle?
The most encouraging development I noted was that Santa Monica's new
Chief of Police, Tim Jackman, credited the arrests to increased cooperation
from residents of the Pico Neighborhood after the December murder of
Miguel Martin.
There could be various reasons why the police didn't have this level
of cooperation after the previous shootings, or after the murder of
Eddie Lopez. I don't know why it took so long, but I hope the reasons
were positive -- because of good policing, in particular Chief Jackman's
own example of walking the neighborhood, and because of a change of
attitude among residents close to gang members who realize that they
are not protecting anyone or any concept of neighborhood solidarity
by closing ranks around criminals.
* * *
I also read last week about how the School Board's agreement settling
the contract of former Chief Financial Officer Winston Braham, which
included a clause keeping him from commenting on the District's financial
condition, has ignited some amount of outrage among City
Council members who have agreed that the City should pay the District
a substantial amount of money each year.
The question I had when I initially learned of the settlement agreement
was how someone who resigned could get a settlement of his contract
that paid him every penny remaining on it. Usually when you quit, that's
it. So did he quit, or was Mr. Braham asked to resign? Was he, in effect,
fired without legal cause, and that's why the District is willing to
pay the full balance of the contract?
I have previously written that the contretemps with Mr. Braham does
not necessarily mean that the District overreached with its most recent
contract with the teachers' union, or that it has necessarily mismanaged
its finances. I still believe that. I also don't believe that good policy
making is served by focusing on individuals rather than the problems
themselves.
But we need more transparency; that's obvious. The Board and new Superintendent
Diane Talarico need to let the public know all the circumstances involving
Mr. Braham's "resignation."
And if we're still paying Mr. Braham, it seems like we should be still
entitled to his expertise.
* * *
In the happy news department, it was wonderful to read that Ann
and Ron Funk have donated $100,000 to the Santa Monica Historical
Society's capital campaign to relocate the society's collections to
the new Main Library.
The society is still a long way from achieving its goal of $5 million,
but the Funks' large gift should stimulate others to donate.
We are lucky to live in a little city with an important history, and
we are even luckier to have a society that does such a good job cataloging
it.
* * *
The weather in Berlin was not good for sightseeing or taking photographs
-- it was cold, grey and drizzly when it wasn't snowing -- and I only
had a little time on Sunday to get out and about. Which was too bad
because this was my first visit to the city.
I took one long cold walk, however, from the Brandenburg Gate to the
Jewish Museum designed by Daniel Libeskind. The walk was quite historical;
my path followed, pretty much, the course of the Wall, the former dividing
line between east and west, the "Communist Bloc" and the "Free
World." The stops along the way were the Holocaust Memorial designed
by Peter Eisenman and the site of Checkpoint Charlie.
As I said, it was a grey day, but a good one for contemplating history.
Here are some photos.
 |
| The Brandenburg Gate (Photos by Frank Gruber) |
Last year when the American Institute of Architects had its convention
at the L.A. Convention Center I attended a debate about how to build
cities between a preservation-minded architect and one who believed
in starting over. The latter used the Brandenburg Gate as an example
of a monument to various bad values, and wondered why it was so important
to preserve it.
He was probably exaggerating, but I guess my reason would be that something
like an imperial gate stuck in the middle of 21st Century consumerism
is a good symbol that values change.
 |
| The Holocaust Memorial |
I am not a good enough writer to express what it was like on a day
with snow on the ground to walk through Peter Eisenman's maze of concrete
blocks, each one set ever so slightly askew in ground that got deeper
and deeper. But reflect on the two meanings of "lost" -- both
not "knowing where you are" and "doomed."
 |
| The View from Checkpoint Charlie |
In this photo you are looking up Freidrichstrasse at the corner of
Zimmerstrasse; the Wall crossed right in front. Most of the buildings
in the picture weren't there then, however.
As someone who grew up in the Cold War, it was remarkable to think
that so much of what I grew up thinking about could be encapsulated
in such a banal place.
 |
| The Jewish Museum |
The full impact of Daniel Liebskind's design for the Berlin Jewish
Museum is available only to those who go inside it. One enters the building
underground. The initial exhibits, about the flight of those members
of the German Jewish community who got out and then the destruction
of those who didn't, are embedded in the walls of a patchwork of crisscrossing,
obliquely angled corridors.
The museum is not only about the Holocaust; in fact, its purpose is
to tell the story of 2,000 years of Jewish life in the lands that became
Germany. But we know how that story ended; or, rather, how it seemed
to end, because the Jewish community in Germany is again growing.
There are no regular rectangles within the museum. Architecturally
it's the opposite of the 90-degree grid of the Holocaust Memorial. But
I got lost there, too. |
