This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Community Corner

Neighborhood Wants Early Notice of Hollywood Half Marathon Closures

Board members of the Hollywood Hills West Neighborhood Council express disappointment over handling of the event.

The recent Hollywood Half Marathon was a source of contention at Wednesday night’s meeting of the Hollywood Hills West Neighborhood Council.

At issue was notification of the event, or the lack thereof, said Anastasia Mann, president of the Hollywood Hills West Neighborhood Council.

“There was a lot of impact on the community,” Mann said. “The issue that came up for the community was disclosure for the community. No one knew about it.”

Find out what's happening in Hollywoodwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Mann said she received numerous emails, many of them angry, from local residents as a result with some expressing concerns about the inconveniences it caused them the first Saturday of this month, which also marked Easter weekend and the beginning of Passover.

The route of the Half Marathon closed off parts of Cahuenga Boulevard and Highland Avenue in addition to neighboring streets.

Find out what's happening in Hollywoodwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“I felt it was very disrespectful to the neighborhood councils that you didn’t get the information sooner,” said Annie Gagen, a Hollywood resident. “We were landlocked in Whitley Heights.”

Michael Meyer, the neighborhood council’s treasurer, said street closures should not be considered if there is not an alternate route.

Lisa Schechter, legislative director in Councilman Tom LaBonge’s office, said she had done “outreach” in March for the event,An but also pointed out “there are many organizations that do not notify us.”

Mann said neighborhood councils were created to provide information to residents from the offices of city council representatives.

“We’re all for tourism,” Mann said. “We’re all for community events. The neighborhood council has the role to protect communities, and we were overlooked completely.”

Schechter agreed improvements to the process need to be made.

“I agree there need to be better checks and balances,” Schechter said.

However, she said Councilman LaBonge hoped to be able to put the incident behind them.

“The councilman wants to take this, learn from it and move on to the future,” Schechter said. “Let’s not dwell on what happened in the past. Let’s take what you have and move forward.”

Angela Motta, a field deputy in City Councilman Eric Garcetti’s office, said in the future she will insist event organizers also notify the neighborhood councils. Mann said she hopes the neighborhood council is a “part of the process” prior to future events taking place.

“We all hope this is a learning experience for us all,” Mann said.  

Related:

Stay connected with Hollywood Patch throughout the day on Facebook and Twitter. Subscribe to our free daily newsletter for email updates.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?