Public Access

A newly emerging problem with the Internet that needs more attention is attached to a basic feature of online communication that most people take for granted: Internet accounts. The need for an account to access the Internet has its historical roots in the old days of time sharing, when large computers split their processing time between "jobs" or procedures, and produced different results for different users.

As a child crossing the English Channel with his family to immigrate to America, Peter M. Douglas was mesmerized by the churning seas and his first sighting of a whale, an experience that he said forged an "intangible, unbreakable, lifelong bond" with the ocean that deepened as he grew up in Southern California. That fondness for the ocean would later lead him to become one of the fiercest and most controversial guardians of the state's 1,100-mile-long coastline who battled to preserve its natural beauty and public access to its beaches.

Your remote control isn't screwed up. As of now, there really is nothing on some cable channels. No more id-video, "look at me" public access shows about offbeat religions (with just one believer, the host) or crocheting or playing with your dog. No more community programs low on production values but high on neighborhood content. For decades, some cities' cable TV franchises have been required to operate TV studios -- a dozen of them in L.A.

Judge Michael Nash, who presides over the Los Angeles County Juvenile Court, has long argued that public access to the court's proceedings would improve its accountability and the accountability of those who appear before it. Last week, he set out to prove it. Nash, along with this page, had supported state legislation that would change the presumption that dependency court hearings, in which the fate of children in foster care is decided, should...

For decades, public access programming on cable television has provided a virtually free forum for community activists and aspiring entertainers, for preening star wannabes as well as serious-minded political watchdogs. But in Los Angeles and across California that forum began crumbling last week, a development that advocates say will strip ordinary citizens of a valuable 1st Amendment platform.

Regarding your article that focused on the quasi-commercial use of public access (Westside, April 21), in reference particularly to the subject of people developing shows that they hope will be picked up for sale to a larger audience, I think there is a point that was missed. Many of the self-styled producers of public access programming are dedicated to what they consider their art form. As in any art form, there are artists of varying levels of talent, experience, notoriety and accomplishment.

Re "Blocking the Way to the Beach," Sept. 3: You deserve credit for bringing the issue of dedications of land for beach access to the public's attention. However, defining the problem as a denial of public access rather than the acquisition of property rights leads to an unbalanced article. Echoing the 5th Amendment to the Constitution, the U.S. Supreme Court has stated that requiring dedications of land for the good of the public can only be done without just compensation where it is reasonable and proportional to the impacts created by real estate development.

Walnut Community Cable Channel 56 is offering a series of free public access television production classes in conjunction with the city and Cencom Cable Television. Classes will run from 6 to 10 p.m. on Feb. 8, 9 and 10 in local city offices. The classes will include editing and production instruction. Students will practice by producing public service announcements for the public access channel.

In reference to the April 21 article by Scott Collins regarding public-access TV ("Commercial Appeal"), the specific purpose of the Gardena Community Access Corp. is to provide assistance to the general public, such as coordinating the usage and programming of two community access cable television channels within the city of Gardena. While one can argue that public access has not become "the electronic soapbox" that would put mass media in the hands of the masses and invigorate democracy, public access does give every citizen an opportunity to express ideas.

Our family owns a partial interest in a parcel in the Hollister Ranch, the "community of large estates" along the Gaviota Coast that you reference in your Sept. 23 editorial as an example of public access denied. We are not rich; we have owned this property for over 15 years and have not been able to afford to even build a habitable structure on it. Not mentioned is the fact that Hollister Ranch does have public access, through its scientific access programs, open to those who apply and follow the rules to preserve what the Hollister Ranch is, a coastline and tide pool preserve that has been used by the scientific community for years to study pristine areas.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors violated the law last year when it shut the public out of a meeting with Gov. Jerry Brown that had been called to discuss the county's new responsibility to deal with felons, according to a finding issued last week by the district attorney's office. Realignment, as it is known, is a landmark shift in how Californians lock up, supervise and pay for thousands of criminals and parolees, and some of the supervisors have sought to sway public opinion on the issue with warnings of coming crime spikes and assertions that the state is leaving the county without adequate funding for the shift.

In a city of lush gardens, the Hannah Carter Japanese Garden in Bel-Air is neither the biggest nor the most accessible. But it is among the rarest examples of post-World War II Japanese private gardens in this country. Featuring paths of varied textures that wind past pines, a waterfall and a stone pagoda, among other features, it is a melding of Kyoto and California. Designed in 1959 by the renowned Japanese garden designer Nagao Sakurai, its mere creation was considered part of a renewed respect for Japan in the United States.

The Occupy L.A. group that camped out at City Hall for months before being ejected in late November may have chosen the wrong venue: Not only would protesting in Malibu have been more scenic, it would have more appropriately symbolized the group's struggle against the unfairnesses perpetrated by the 1% — such as the refusal by certain super-wealthy individuals to allow public access to public beaches. A recent report by the California Coastal Commission showed that some progress has been made across the state in improving access to the 1,100-mile shoreline, whose wet sands and craggy tide pools are part of the birthright of all Californians and cannot be privately owned below the high tide line.

The California Coastal Commission was on a mission to find out what's keeping the public from some of the state's most desirable beaches. On a rare bus tour of the Malibu coast this month, officials stopped to inspect gates that were once locked, peered at fake "no parking" signs residents used to ward off beachgoers and even stumbled upon a movie shoot hogging all the parking at the glitzy beach town's pier. But perhaps most noteworthy was what the commissioners didn't see: more than 20 pathways to the beach that were set aside on paper — some of them decades ago — but have yet to be built, depriving people of the opportunity to get to the shore.

A land donation announced Thursday will allow the University of California to nearly double its research forests, conserving a swath of the Northern California watershed and offering academics an expanded laboratory to explore forest ecosystems. The university will acquire 4,584 acres of mixed-conifer forests in two locations: 3,100 acres near the Pit River in Shasta County and 1,484 acres in the Lake Spaulding area of Nevada County. Before the donation, the single largest acquisition of forestland in UC history, the university held 5,131 acres in several locations across the state.

L.A.'s next gated community lies high in the Hollywood Hills on a curvy cul-de-sac that boasts sweeping views, slick, mid-century modern homes and a popular public access point for hikers heading into Runyon Canyon Park. For many years, the nights were quiet on Solar Drive — until an abandoned mansion was overrun by squatters and ravers, and the road became one of the city's most popular spots to park and party. Now, residents spend their mornings armed with trash bags, cleaning up used condoms, beer bottles and drug paraphernalia.

When it comes to public access, Century Southwest Cable Television on the Westside and King Videocable of the Sunland-Tujunga area have one major thing in common. Out of their studios come shows that seem as if they were created on another planet. Century has "Mr. Morrison," a weathered philosopher who gives rambling dissertations on the meaning of life while he twists balloons into animals. King has "Daisy Gabfest," whose host, a former vaudevillian, carries a hand puppet.

The California Coastal Commission is losing the leader who has guided it for a generation, casting uncertainty over the direction of the powerful agency responsible for guarding the state's treasured coastline. Peter Douglas, 68, who has been fighting lung cancer since last spring, announced this week that he would go on sick leave Monday and will retire in November after 26 years as executive director. He said he planned to hand off leadership to Senior Deputy Director Charles Lester.

One of California's priciest beachfronts may become a little less exclusive after a judge sided with state coastal regulators fighting to build a public pathway next to an oceanfront Malibu mansion. In a ruling made public this week Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant upheld a 2009 California Coastal Commission order telling Lisette Ackerberg to clear the way for a public walkway to Carbon Beach along the edge of her property. The decision also revealed a private settlement between Ackerberg and Access for All, a nonprofit group that works to secure access to public beaches.