Big days in Elysian Park. Over the weekend, there were countless birthday parties and picnics. As usual, Spanish was the majority language, but there was French, too, as a group of French chefs gathered and offered treats of food and wine for a cover of $50. The Citizens' Committee to Save Elysian Park had its annual sell-out dinner. They showed off the four finalists for Elysian Park gates -- symbolic gates that never open and never close. There were sacred-mound-type gates, heavy metal gates and nutty twisted fantastical gates. The display was off on the side of the crowded banquet room, which was well-stocked with old-guard lefties like Art Goldberg. ... Not everyone had a happy party in the park, though. One citizen reported on the Echo Park Animal Alliance list that -- earlier in the day -- some hoods with two pitbulls made moves toward letting their dogs attack her smaller, non-power breed dog -- just for sport. ...

This morning, I got back to the western trail in Elysian Park. It's a stripped down landscape this year, as has been well noted. Elderberry trees mostly looking a bit shrivelled. But it still looks better than when the eucalyptus were all sick a few years ago. It's amazing to me that they came back. Anyway, today it was sunny, with dappled light, not too hot, slightly hazy views of the valley to the north, between Echo Park and Cypress Park-Mount Washington as well as downtown to the south, and Elysian Park was glorious.

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Officers not cops: A traffic officer named David, who lives in Angelino Heights, contacted me with the following correction:

Please note - the officers assigned to work Dodger games on Scott Avenue are Traffic Officers from LADOT, not cops as noted in your previos blog. Jimmy Price is the Chief of Parking Enforcement at the Los Angeles Department of Transportation. Please don't confuse Traffic Officers with the LAPD in your blog.

Never again.