Interviews

n2n: What do you appreciate most about living on the Westside and in particular your neighborhood in Culver City?

Jim Lamm: I enjoy being close to the schools my kids attended -- and where my wife taught and still teaches. I am within walking distance and biking distance to a lot of things, such as libraries and parks. And on the Westside there is a lot of interesting diversity: cultural diversity and opportunities to take in the arts and music. We’re close to UCLA, the Getty, and Loyola Marymount. Culver City has a good bus system - the bus network gets us from Culver City to LAX or UCLA without using our car.

I also have a sense of community here, which is very important. At St. John’s we have a church family, but we also have a community family. These families are coming together with planting projects through the church and Tree People.

I enjoy being close to Ballona Creek. I really didn’t pay much attention to it until my wife got involved with it in the 70’s. When our daughter was four in 1974, she learned how to ride her bike along Ballona Creek Bikeway - which was shorter then. We used to ride it down to the Coast Bike Path sometimes.

Then, I reconnected to the Creek after I’d made more room in my life for it at the end of the 90’s. This was partly due to a USC architectural study that opened up possibilities that the creek is more than just a place to do annual clean-ups. It can become a linear park that connects the whole Westside. And it can be a local focus for what Ballona Creek Renaissance attempts to do: namely "clean, green and teach."

n2n: Before we get to the watershed, we’d like to ask you about this sense of community you feel here in the LA area...

Jim Lamm: Oh yes! Community. That’s been a theme of mine for a long time, as opposed to being isolated and only looking out for one’s self interest. Community is key to what we do. Even in the Peace Corps, we had community spread throughout Iran. Whenever we traveled to a village where a couple from the Peace Corp lived, we’d stay with them or they’d stay with us.

n2n: What does community awaken?

Jim Lamm: Community is a place of mutual support where you learn from one another and share a variety of viewpoints. Sometimes you get together in community with people from extremely different viewpoints, as in a faith-based community, like a church. This community can take under its wing all kinds of people -- just like a city. You learn to listen to a variety of viewpoints and work together. You get more done.

In the late 70’s some of the people in our church felt we were working in isolation, and our kids were growing up without much spontaneous interchange between families. We started exploring the idea of intentional community. We formed what we later called the Christian Covenant Community. We initially thought we’d buy a big house somewhere like South Central and all live in it and reach out to the surrounding community. Then, one of the people in this group decided to downsize and move into Culver City. Another house became available next door to that one, and a couple that was part of our community moved in there and rented out the small unit in the back to a single mother and her daughter. Within a few years, we had people living in contiguous houses. Cathi and I stayed at our place near the middle school and high school. We knocked out openings into walls in between the properties, installed gates, and rented units on a nearby property to community families. We gathered for meals and singing and talking with the kids and such. We did outreach together, and made time for adults to share their various experiences and ideas. We didn’t have one mission. We helped support each other in our various projects.

n2n: But community is challenging too...

Jim Lamm: Oh yes. It’s very challenging. At our church, we have such diversity that we often need to practice conflict resolution and peacemaking, which is another one of my real interests. We have gone through a lot of peacemaking at our church. Sometimes people leave, but other times we are able to work through issues where we have differences and resolve and seek consensus and try to abide in each other and move on.

n2n: What makes or breaks a community? What’s the key in your view?

Jim Lamm: A lot of it has to do with focusing on issues, not personalities. Focusing on listening and really hearing each other and trying to find common ground, as opposed to winning a debate. Folks learning to find a decision they can live with, even if they would maybe rather do something else... And without voting!

I found this approach helpful in my professional work, in the church, on transportation projects, and in the environmental world. Our efforts in Ballona Creek and in the watershed require people to come together -- otherwise nothing gets done. In the Ballona Creek Task Watershed Force, a very diverse group, with people who are even sometimes suing one another... we come around the same table and collaborate. There can be a lot of distrust between people who see the wetlands issues very differently, and so our basic approach is to seek consensus and common ground. We try to broker an agreement so that the funding sources will feel good about financing something where people are coming together as opposed to splitting apart. Then other funding comes more easily. Arriving at consensus ensures the project’s ongoing success or sustainability. To be sustainable -- to survive -- a project requires the support of the community, the various agencies and jurisdictions, and the neighbors.

Here at the bike path, for example. Often we find that people who live next to a bike path don’t want to see change, even though the existing condition is less than desirable. They’re afraid that more problems will come in as more people using the bike path: more traffic, more pollution, more crime. So the agency that improved this part of the creek had a tailgate party one day and invited all the neighbors. They put out a board showing a concept design for the area. People from the bicycling community, from Ballona Creek Renaissance, neighbors, and others came and spoke about their hopes for the path, as well as their concerns. Neighbors discussed the problems of motorbikes riding up and down the creek illegally, the crime, the graffiti... I explained how we’d encountered these issues upstream, but as the bike paths and creek sides have been improved, it’s actually improved the situation rather than hindered it.

Everyone eventually bought into the project [at the Centinela Avenue Ballona Creek Bike Path Entrance]. There has been some graffiti, but not a lot. And there is an agency now that is responsible for maintenance, in addition to installing plants and so forth. This is now seen as a demonstration project for other projects upstream. Recently we adopted another group who created a community garden next to Centinela Creek. We took out insurance on their behalf.

n2n: Can you talk a little about your affection for the Ballona Creek?

Jim Lamm: It’s one of those glass half-full/half-empty things. It’s a source of very positive thoughts and also frustration, sometimes despair, when you see all the trash that comes into the creek. The trash has always been an issue for me -- seeing how people can be so inconsiderate of their surroundings. The trash from their neighborhoods ends up in the creek and then the ocean. But Ballona Creek with all its challenges can be beautiful. As the tide rises, you’ll see a lot of different birds downstream of Centinela where the soft bottom begins. And on a hot day it’s good to walk down to the creek. The sea breeze comes up the creek and creates a nice microclimate change. Sometimes further upstream you’ll even see wetlands birds -- willits, egrets, herons and ducks. It’s always flowing, and not just urban run-off. It’s got a lot of natural water from springs and streams of the Santa Monica Mountains. Our history here relates to the water that used to naturally flow through these valley and canyons. The people who originally came here, the Native Americans, and then the Spanish settlers and the founders of Los Angeles, they all located themselves near LA’s waterways. Even the movie industry -- supposedly one of the movie studios started here because of Ballona Creek, where they shot various cowboys and Indian movies. Then the storm water was channelized, put in this concrete jacket, to protect the area from flooding. People tended to build their homes and businesses in flood plains. We’re not trying to wipe out homes and businesses and recreate the old flood plains, but there are ways to remove some of this concrete, make the creek more natural, and reconnect people with local water and its value.

n2n: Has your involvement with Ballona Creek deepened your own roots in LA?

Jim Lamm: Oh yes! But I’ve been affirming my river and watershed roots for a long time. I was born near the LA River and raised near the San Gabriel River. Even in my professional life in the 90’s I began to get involved in the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers Watershed Council. And I worked with architectural firms who were interested in getting involved in environmental work.

This area of work brings together people from so many different walks of life. People from universities and from the business community and design fields, landscape architecture consultants, engineers, and the players I have been involved with professionally, too. It’s a broad environmental community.

n2n: Some folks might be surprised that environmentalists can be so people-oriented.

Jim Lamm: Most of the environmentalists I have been involved with are very people-oriented. We go out to schools or community groups and get folks involved in hands-on activities. We help people see the connections between their neighborhoods and understand that they live in an ecosystem. They live in the Ballona Creek watershed. We’re working with Heal the Bay, trying to reduce the plastic trash that makes its way out to the ocean and inside birds and fish.

n2n: What are the big challenges or concerns about Ballona Creek?

Jim Lamm: We have challenges in terms of reaching more consensus about how we might change the creek and the watershed in really meaningful ways instead of just the cosmetic aspects. Much of our work has been focused on making the creek area more attractive in order to educate people to see the creek in a more positive way and recognize its possibilities. This work can have limited environmental value beyond that.

We need to have the experts really examine how we can un-pave Ballona Creek and still provide flood protection. Much of the challenge here is with money. With our state’s and with the federal government’s huge financial debts, acquiring funding is a big problem. And achieving funding sustainability for projects is another aspect of this challenge. There may be funds for planning and/or putting in the improvements, but not for maintaining them. Sometimes public art that we do -- the murals, signs, or the benches -- get vandalized. Trash needs to be picked up. Plants need to be maintained.

General public awareness is a huge challenge. We were invited by the administrator of a school on the eastern edge of our watershed to work with kids on Ballona Creek and watershed issues. She said, "You know, these kids probably won’t know what the watershed is, even though they are very interested in the environment." Sure enough they didn’t, but by the time we were through they did.

The interest is definitely building. I get asked to speak at a number of events, and one speaking engagement leads to another, or a request for a walking tour or a bus tour. We’re finding that the greening of the Ballona Creek interests some people, and the improvements to the bike path others, but an even broader segment of people connects to the issue of plastic trash going into the ocean. People will ask, "How does all this relate to global warming?" I tell them that this plastic bag going into the creek directly affects the health of the ocean. And the health of the planet depends upon the health of the ocean.

The deepest challenge facing Los Angeles is the political will. We’ve got some good elected officials, but we need to help them by getting more of the public involved! One of my spiritual heroes, Jim Wallis of Soujourners, is bringing conservatives and progressives together at the national level. With all of the important elections this year, everyone is trying to put their finger up to see which way the wind is blowing. Jim makes the point that we really need to be ‘Wind Changers.’ That involves education, outreach and advocacy. We need to actively engage people, help them get involved so that regardless of who gets elected to the county board of supervisors, or the state assembly, or the presidency, there can be more interest and pressure exerted from the local level on up in regard to environmental concerns.

And there‘s a connection -- take local transportation, for example. We’re concerned with the air pollution here that results from all the traffic. Air pollution creates water pollution. We’re trying to get people out of their cars and onto busses, or bikes. We’re trying to get more bikeways and get those bikeways connected to the Ballona Creek bikeway. Alternative transportation is important, too, like the new Expo light rail line and bikeway that will connect to the creek. Making those connections is key to what we are seeking to do.
n2n: What are some of the solutions or the directions to some of the fixes? Where does the hope lie?

Jim Lamm: The hope lies in that we still have the major players in dialogue through the Ballona Creek Watershed Taskforce and the Santa Monica Bay Commission, which looks at all of the water in the Santa Monica Bay, of which Ballona Creek is the largest sub-watershed. The variety of players in government, the nonprofit sector, and the business sector are beginning to see the connection. We really need to get more of the business sector involved -- not treat them as the enemy, but rather as part of the community and therefore part of the solution.

Kids represent hope and the future, which is why we reach out to them. A lot of activists are older, like me. Some of the board members are my parents’ age and still active. They are impatient, which is great. They have a lot of wisdom, and they want to see things happen. The younger generation has energy and new ideas, but might not be fully aware of the depth and complexity of the issues. So often we see younger people from the environmental fields in the universities stepping right into positions where they are able to make a difference. For example, there were a huge number of landscape architect students at UCLA extension who created design projects relating to Ballona Creek and the watershed -- some work focused on the creek, some on the tributaries.

Some of my ideas have been realized, but other people come in and new ideas take shape. The way these ideas develop is like an illustration my wife likes: the pebbles at Malibu Creek, as the water washes over them. They start out rough and jagged as they break off from erosion and tumble into the waterway. But as the water moves them around, they get smoothed and shaped. The water makes them beautiful.

A lot of my motivation is faith based: caring for creation.

n2n: That was going to be our next question. Why are you such a do-gooder? Lots of people don’t do so much even if they are aware of the problems. What awakened this instinct in you?

Jim Lamm: I’ve wanted to do more than just focus on myself for a long time. A lot of it comes back to my faith and Jesus Christ, who modeled "servant leadership." The early church was made up of people living in community, sharing meals and sharing possessions. This sometimes comes into conflict with our American ideals. We think, "Aren’t we the land of the individual?" But I find that working in community is just so key to everything. Being a servant leader as opposed to being a dictatorial leader.

In architecture there was this model that Ayn Rand put out there of the individual/objectivist. I find myself identifying more with the architect who is a collaborator, a team player. Architects work in a team -- it’s the nature of the work -- so we have to learn how to collaborate with many different people. If you are redoing a downtown area or putting a transportation project through a neighborhood, you naturally need to work with the community. My role throughout my career was coordinator -- helping people start with a vision and work together toward a common cause -- the realization of a project.

n2n: Can you speak about the enjoyment you find in this?

Jim Lamm: I find a lot of enjoyment in this. There are times when I am frustrated with a challenge that I feel might lead to failure. But typically we get over the hump.

n2n: Anything else you want to tell your neighbors?

Jim Lamm: The whole subject of neighbors and neighborhoods is critical. At my church, we had some issues with neighbors. They were concerned that we were going to take down two beloved Italian Stone Pines from National Blvd. Some other people in our church were handling the conflict in a more traditional way, and some antagonism developed between our church and the neighborhood. I happened to step into a role in the church that focused on this problem. Fortunately, I knew some of the neighbors already through Ballona Creek and the Expo line. After some friendly community meetings and the removal of two trees, we ended up having a big planting of 38 Native California trees with a variety of neighborhood groups.

It’s important to connect and talk across the back fence. And look after one another. Communities need to learn how to work together. Culver City is a little city surrounded by Los Angeles. They need to learn how to be good neighbors to each other. I talk to Culver City council candidates and encourage them to have dialogue instead of fights with Los Angeles. We’ve simply got to work together.