Cheviot Hills Neighborhood

Tucked among rolling green hills and tree-lined avenues, Cheviot Hills is a bedroom community with the Westside at its doorstep. Below the hub of Fox Studios and Century City, it is about a mile from Beverly Hills. With distinctive homes ranging from Aiken cottages to stunning estates, Cheviot Hills is also a residential development from a bygone era.

For years, a homeowners association in Cheviot Hills has been able to derail plans to put modern-day streetcars on an old railroad line that skirts the upscale Westside neighborhood. But now, those residents' long opposition to mass transit in their backyard is encountering resistance from neighbors fed up with worsening congestion that has slowed traffic to a crawl.

For the most part, Glen Friedman loves living in Cheviot Hills, a choice Westside neighborhood with undulating streets and gracious multimillion-dollar houses. If only he could get in and out of it. The same goes for Chuck Shephard, a lawyer in Century City who in spring 2004 had to allow 40 minutes to get from his desk to his son's 5 p.m. Pony League games at nearby Cheviot Hills Recreation Center. That's for a 1.4-mile trip that Mapquest, the online service, says should take three minutes.

For the most part, Glen Friedman loves living in Cheviot Hills, a choice Westside neighborhood with undulating streets and gracious multimillion-dollar houses. If only he could get in and out of it. The same goes for Chuck Shephard, a lawyer in Century City who in spring 2004 had to allow 40 minutes to get from his desk to his son's 5 p.m. Pony League games at nearby Cheviot Hills Recreation Center. That's for a 1.4-mile trip that Mapquest, the online service, says should take three minutes.

For years, a homeowners association in Cheviot Hills has been able to derail plans to put modern-day streetcars on an old railroad line that skirts the upscale Westside neighborhood. But now, those residents' long opposition to mass transit in their backyard is encountering resistance from neighbors fed up with worsening congestion that has slowed traffic to a crawl.

It seems to me that the Engs family tore down a fine traditional home, the design of which fit perfectly with its lovely Cheviot Hills neighborhood ("Addition by Subtraction," July 8). How do aluminum windows and exposed sheet metal tie in with the traditional homes by the Engses? Perhaps they should have consulted their neighbors and obtained input about how their proposed design would affect those living nearby. This house may be a good example of why there is a groundswell to establish Historic Preservation Overlay Zones.

Southern California is in the third act of an economic tragedy, and the headlines remain bleak: The construction and real estate engines of our economy are idling; aerospace is facing new cutbacks. Foreign business people are being told that Los Angeles is a poor investment, a place of exorbitant labor costs, restrictive environmental laws and civil disturbances, not to mention the prospect of the Big One. The one thing we still have going for us is Hollywood.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has learned that federal officials have pulled $156 million intended for construction of a rail line that could one day link Los Angeles and Santa Monica, a move that could delay the project and force the creation of a much shorter railway. The agency envisions 20,000 riders a day boarding light-rail trains that would roll through dense neighborhoods down a route along Exposition Boulevard.

It's a funny thing, being a student member of the University of California Board of Regents. People approach you with notions of what a student regent should be like: opinionated, somewhat domineering and possibly a bit arrogant. Those characteristics seem a given for anyone bold enough to be the lone student voice on the 26-member board of trustees otherwise dominated by governor appointees and elected officials. But Michelle Pannor, 21, makes a surprisingly unassuming first impression.

Six years ago, Jerome N. Schneider was telling a skeptical U.S. Senate subcommittee about the honest workings of the shadowy world of private offshore banks. An example of how it should work, Schneider said, was a bank he had established on the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat and then sold to J. David Dominelli, an investment adviser who was the toast of San Diego back in 1983. "J. David Banking is used as an intermediary for foreign exchange currency trading to channel investment dollars into the United States in a wholly legitimate manner," said Schneider.

Tucked among rolling green hills and tree-lined avenues, Cheviot Hills is a bedroom community with the Westside at its doorstep. Below the hub of Fox Studios and Century City, it is about a mile from Beverly Hills. With distinctive homes ranging from Aiken cottages to stunning estates, Cheviot Hills is also a residential development from a bygone era.