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# Residents of Sunset Park can be your friends or foes
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/residents-of-sunset-park-can-be-your-friends-or-foes/
- Published: 2006-03-15T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T23:41:25.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Sunset Park, #archive-import

*By CHARLIE DONALDSON Special to the Daily Press*

Friends of Sunset Park: Don’t let the name fool you.

The Friends of Sunset Park can be very unfriendly if you threaten the safety of residents or challenge the quality of life in Sunset Park — that primarily residential section of Santa Monica stretching from Pico Boulevard to the south city limits, and from Lincoln Boulevard to the east city limits.

The “Friends” will be your foes if you promote congestion-causing construction that would run more traffic through Sunset Park, or if you fly more jet aircraft in and out of Santa Monica Airport.

This nonprofit city-recognized neighborhood organization represents 7,000 households. Member dues, augmented by small city grants, fund its volunteer efforts.

The Friends of Sunset Park’s eight elected directors — Tom Cleys, Charlie Donaldson, Eric Gabster, Susan Hartley, Emmalie Hodgin, Zina Josephs, John Reynolds and Lorraine Sanchez — meet once a month in a rented room at Mount Olive Lutheran Church on Ocean Park Boulevard. These meetings, which run from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., are open to all.

“If you’re a resident of Sunset Park, please feel welcome to attend our board meetings,” said Friends of Sunset Park board president Zina Josephs. “If you feel strongly about issues affecting our neighborhood, please consider volunteering your efforts.”

Community concerns are identified during these monthly meetings, and committees track these concerns. Newsletters, postcards, occasional flyers and e-mail alerts are used to keep Sunset Park residents informed.

The organization got its start in 1989\. Groups that later became the Friends of Sunset Park and the Pico Neighborhood Association met at Grant Elementary School to voice concerns about a large commercial development proposed for the northwest corner of Pico and Cloverfield boulevards. That effort stopped the development, and that same location 16 years later saw the December 2005 grand opening of the newly expanded Virginia Avenue Park.

Friends of Sunset Park held its first annual general membership meeting in 1990\. In 1991, the organization focused on airport noise and safety, reducing traffic in the neighborhood, crime prevention, the city’s alcohol policy and R-1 zoning requirements. Friends also successfully lobbied the City Council for a preferential parking program around Santa Monica College.

After the 1994 earthquake, the neighborhood association also held earthquake preparedness meetings and collected more than 500 pints of blood during seven annual blood drives.

More recently, the Friends Airport Committee, chaired by Cathy Larson, successfully lobbied the city for stricter aircraft noise enforcement and increased fines. It also began monitoring a Southern California AQMD study of air quality around the airport. In addition, the committee is urging the FAA to enforce its own guidelines for 300-foot safety zones at either end of the runway.

The Friends of Sunset Park successfully called for a “Monster Mansion” ordinance to prevent the construction of oversized homes in Sunset Park and worked to maintain the public hearing process in approving hillside homes. When the city began the process of updating the General Plan, Friends of Sunset Park sent a detailed questionnaire to all Sunset Park residents in January 2005 asking for their views. Nearly 350 residents responded, and the results were sent to City Hall.

Friends of Sunset Park has worked to slow down cut-through traffic in the neighborhood in order to protect pedestrians, especially school children. To accomplish this, City Hall has added crosswalks, crossing guards, stop signs, traffic signals, speed humps, islands and chokers. Recently, Friends of Sunset Park successfully urged City Hall to direct SMC Bundy Campus traffic onto Centinela Avenue rather than onto residential streets in Sunset Park.

The neighborhood group is still trying to get a crossing guard at Ocean Park Boulevard and 16th Street, an intersection used by many Will Rogers and John Adams Middle School students, and the scene of numerous accidents.

On Feb. 28, 15-year-old Eddie Lopez, an honor student at Samohi, was shot at Pico and 26th. A resident of Pico neighborhood, Eddie attended school in Sunset Park and had close friends in both neighborhoods. The Friends will be flyering the entire neighborhood this week to encourage residents to participate in the “Community Forum on Gang Violence in Santa Monica,” co-sponsored by State Sen. Sheila Kuehl, the city and the school district. It’s scheduled for Saturday, March 18, 10 a.m. to noon, in the JAMS cafeteria. (For more information, check the Friends of Sunset Park Web site at www.friendsofsunsetpark.org, send e-mail to or call 310- 358-7117.)

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 15, 2006.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/031506.pdf?ref=smdp.com)