I hope you all had a safe and sane Holiday, I didn’t put a lot in the newsletter last month about the illegality of fireworks and I wish Lakewood would change their ways, but I assured by the Police Department that they were going to keep up their vigilant enforcement of Long Beach laws. I am writing this newsletter a few days before the fourth, so I can only hope we had a quiet celebration of our Independence Day.

Gerrie Schipski hosted a "Good Neighbor Networking Meeting" on June 27th, in attendance were representatives from five neighborhood associations and officials from LBCC, Campfire USA, Premium Street Home Owners Group and a couple of our private schools in the neighborhood. Councilwoman Schipske is endeavoring to strengthen neighborhood networking as a tool available should we have a major environmental or terrorist disaster in our city. It has been said over and over that in such an event, in our city, we residents would most likely be on our own for a lengthy period, as police and fire could be focused on other areas needing more attention. She stressed the need for Emergency Training in our neighborhood and the critical preparations each family should take for their own protection. Many of our neighbors are elderly and will desperately need help, as good neighbors, part of our duty is to look out for one another. At the meeting we were asked to encourage our residents to become familiar with the neighbors that are less mobile and may not have anyone to call in case of emergency. There are new classes starting all the time, a quick call to the Councilwoman's office can get you in an upcoming class, convenient to your schedule.

A web site has been set up to encourage group communication, visit the site to see what some groups are doing and if you are interested get on the list for notification of future meetings.

www.5thdistrictgoodneighborhoodnetwork.com

If you visit the site you will see our loose knit "El Dorado West Neighborhood Association" is still recognized, even if we don't meet regularly. Both Rob Roberts and myself are listed as contacts for our group. I continue to hope that someday others with more enthusiasm well step forth and give this group renewed life. Call me anytime!

Last month I solicited input to this newsletter and I did get an article from Jason Klodt and I am happy to include it in this months newsletter, here it is in total.

"First of all, I would like to thank Ron Beeler very much for allowing us to contribute some hopefully useful information to you readers out there of Rons' monthly newsletter.

Some of you might know me, and some of you might be new to the neighborhood. My name is Jason Klodt. I grew up in the Ranchos on Karen Ave. When I was around twelve years old, after mowing my parent’s lawn one summer day, a neighbor asked me if I could do their lawn, as well. I did and got paid. I thought that was the coolest thing. After many years of doing lawn maintenance around the neighborhood, Ron did a story on me in August of ’95, when I did some work at his Rosebay house. Later on, he wrote about me again in August of ’98. Well, I guess it is my turn to write. In June of ’99, I graduated with a Bachelors of Science Degree in Landscape Architecture and a minor in Landscape Irrigation Science from California Polytechnic State University, Pomona. For the past eight years, I have been working for one of the largest Engineering Firms on the West Coast, designing parks, streetscapes, playgrounds, sports fields, etc. I have also been contracting design/build jobs with various clients that I had in my younger days as lawn customers. I am a licensed landscape contractor and a licensed general building contractor. Just recently I incorporated my company and took on a partner. His name is Peter Dalman. The new company name is Dalman & Klodt Builders Inc. My old company name was Jascapes Landscaping. I have known Peter for about 10 years now and he possesses some really great skills with the use of wood and other materials as well as great design skills. Peter also graduated from Cal Poly with the same degree, but he minored in Ornamental Horticulture. He currently works for a large Architecture Firm in Los Angeles. We are currently taking on and starting some new projects in the neighborhood and one of our recently finished projects that we put a lot of thought and pride into was the Driskill Residence, located at 3802 N. Studebaker Rd. A lot of detailed features went into this project including colored concrete, stamped colored concrete, natural stone, synthetic wood deck, window planter boxes, and many other features. One of the other features was the irrigation system, which I will now talk about.

As mentioned in last Months newsletter, Ron asked me to talk about irrigation. I want to discuss with you some ways you will be able to not only conserve water when you irrigate, but how you can also save some money. This money savings does not have to solely apply to saving water, but also to saving some of your plant material, fences, structures (such as the exterior walls of your house), car washes, etc. It sounds funny, but think about it, how often do you see irrigation being sprayed into the street, onto sidewalks, cars, your house? All that over spray is not only going down the drain, but it is also slowly deteriorating the outside of one of your most precious investments. You are possibly paying for something that is essentially going to cost you more in possible water damage. If you have ever noticed a brand new housing development with brand new wooden property line fences and you see the what I call “angel wings” of white, that is the calcium in the water causing that discoloration as well as starting the rotting process. Think of all the houses that are in some way doing this, whether it is water into the street, on the house, car, etc. and now you have a significant impact.

So you ask yourself, what can you do about it? Well there are lots of things you can do. There is tons of information on the web where all you need to do is type in basic irrigation design, and web sites will come up showing you how you can go about designing a system for your yard. If you have a yard with a simple geometric layout, you will find how easy it is to layout. The main thing is limited knowledge or research will result in limited results. What I wanted to mention about the Driskill Family’s irrigation system is that is completely under the ground. There are no spray heads of any kind. This goes for the lawn area as well. The system is a network of engineered tubes that have specially designed emitters that are spaced at specific on-center spacing. The sandier the soil, the closer together they are, the more clay soil, the farther apart they are. Now this system is a little more complicated at first, but once you understand it, it is quite simple how it works. Car dealerships love using this type of irrigation to prevent over spray onto their new cars, thus saving car-washing expenses. This system also works well in windy areas where spray pattern distortion can occur. A well-designed spray system is about 65% to 75% efficient. A drip type system properly designed can achieve up to 95% efficiency. Their are some drawbacks though like knowing where the lines are when you dig and so forth and you just learn to adapt and use extra caution when you dig.

Now, that water conservation has come up again because of the little rainfall we had this past year, here is your chance to contribute, or as they say, flex your power to conserve water. If any of you are deciding to renovate your yard, either do your research by surfing the web, talk to nursery people, give us a call, consult a professional or if you already have someone in mind you are comfortable with, talk with them. In the end, you will save money and really appreciate and enjoy what you create. Also, a note, a lot of people have been trying to introduce either native plants into their landscape or drought tolerant plants that are not native, but adapt well to our climate. Do your research on these plants before you purchase them, especially native plants. There is a lot to understand how native plants survive and function as a community. The biggest no is over watering them. They usually only like very little water, if any before and after they become established. I was surprised to find out that giving them a gentle spray once in a while is all they need. I learned that drip irrigating them was not the best way to go. Ornamental plants that most people like because of their lush textures and colors work very well with drip. The best piece of advice I can give any of you is to plan your project. You wouldn’t tear your house a part and do an addition without a plan, well try to treat your landscape the same way. You can budget what you want and create an outdoor experience that you will be able to enjoy all times of the year. Look at various garden magazines and other reading material. You will be amazed and if you talk with someone with a lot of knowledge and experience, you can plan, design, budget, and if necessary, phase the construction of your project so you get something that you can enjoy for years to come and not regret cutting corners.

A couple of web sites you can look at are, www.elnativogrowers.com. This nursery is located near the Santa Fe Dam where the 605 and 210 freeways meet. They have an excellent photo gallery that you can look through to see various native plants and their characteristics. One other web site we found helpful that talks about native plants and how they function as a community is www.laspilitas.com/classes/landscape.htm.

I hope you found this information helpful and I thank you for spending the time reading through it.

If you would like to contact us, please see the back of this newsletter for our information."

Jason's letter was greatly appreciated and I checked with the Driskell Family and they couldn't have be happier with their completed project.

The "Crappie" story continues with another neighbor calling about an incidence where on returning home she smelled and spotted what appeared to be human feces on her car tires. She had just pulled into her driveway and suspects she ran over the terrible mess somewhere near her home on Kallin. What is going on, Kallin Avenuers?

Another caller called about loose dogs in the neighborhood, she has had some bad experiances while walking her small pet, with bigger dogs running loose and chasing after her, scaring her that her little dog could get hurt. She also mentioned that she frequently sees other dog walkers ignoring the messes their animals leave on neighbors lawns. She asked that I include a reminder that it is the pet owners responsibilty to clean up after their animals as they enjoy their neighborhood walk.

Real estate has picked up a bit, loan rates are on the rise, but still excellent. I saw several homes in our vicinity go into escrow in June and I will try to give an update on sales next issue. I will be gone most of August, so I may be late with the next issue, so have a good summer and I'll get back to you later.

Ron Beeler
El Dorado Realty Inc.
3810 Orange Ave. & 1790 Bellflower Blvd.
429-0686 or 243-0645
SUMMER PARK CONCERTS
EL DORADO PARK
Friday, July 6, 13, 20 & 27
Friday, August 3 & 10