South Shores  VIEW POINT

As our Association and our Board step from one year to the next, let’s reflect on what Samuel Johnson wrote 230 years ago:  “He was so generally civil, that nobody thanked him for it”. With your support the South Shores Homeowners Association has progressed this year because of a panoply of civil and civicly inclined individuals. Let me thank and honor them now, in no particular order:

Vern Hall, our former President is responsible for the largest membership in the Association’s history.  He organized and executed the most thorough and personal campaign to involve our neighbors in a concerted effort for our community.  Also, as a former Chief Engineer of the Port of Los Angeles, Vern has been the perfect advisor and reporter to our Board on port matters.  He has been helped in these areas by Joyce Hall, who besides exercising her outreach talents, vigilantly maintained Western Avenue through the Adopt-a-Highway program.  They are thanked individually and as a team.

The revenue from our expanded membership has been accounted for, and wisely invested, by Richard Welsh, our Treasurer.  Our thanks to him for his calm efficient management of a healthy budget. Christine Danella, the Secretary, compiles succinct, accurate minutes as if it were easy.  (Oh, easy for Leonardo.)  She maintains her recording equilibrium, even if I make an unpublishable comment, and even if I say “Don’t put that in the minutes.”

Stan Katten, a writer and a pilot, is our aviation and transportation expert.  Say what??  These tasks include aircraft overflight of our area and synchronized signalization of stop lights for our ingress and egress on Western Avenue.  His experience and his longevity qualifies him as our gris eminence. Bob Genest ably monitors our parks: the County Parks and Recreation Friendship Park and the City’s Recreation and Park Bogdanovich.  He encourages the park staffs to correct flaws and prevent problems.  In addition, he is the fastest gun in the West at getting graffiti removed.  Because of his speed, he has fewer “young guns” challenging him.

Jerry Gaines has more hats than Stetson.  In his long-term role as chair of our Architectural Committee he has tirelessly worked to be the “honest broker” between the builder and the neighbors during construction or remodeling.  He is on the Western Avenue Task Force which made it natural for Councilwoman Hahn to appoint him to the Ponte Vista Community Advisory Committee. John Lang is our construction engineer for the South Shores monument sign on Paseo del Mar and for any future hardscapes.  Elisabeth Tweedie is our grant writer.

If you have joined us at one of our members receptions, you want to thank Anita Mannila.  She has changed the tenor of the Association from an all work and no play to some work and some play.  She knows that business can be furthered with an aperitif as well as with a PowerPoint. Assisting her in these civil ventures are Geraldine Katten, Emma Reinie, Georgia Cordero and Christine Braganza.  It is worth much more than our membership fee to partake of the food and libation at their parties.  Christine has also expanded our views by encouraging more family activities and Generation X events. Much of the news of all these friends’ contributions is made available by our sage webmaster Dave McMullen.

Join us at our Annual Meeting on January 15, 2008 (see page 2 for details) and thank them personally.

South Shores Homeowners’ Association l P.O. Box 922, San Pedro, CA 90733 l www.southshoresha.org