Your Boardmembers

I am an L.A. native and have lived in SORO for the last 8 years. My wife and I are truly blessed to raise our two kids in this community, but there is so much more that our community can do.

The Neighborhood Council was started to take an active step in making this city the best it can be, and I will continue to help it take admirable steps in this pursuit. I look forward to being a leader that can truly influence the diverse community that the neighborhood encompasses.

I am a lifetime resident of Soro.

From 2004 – 2010 I served as a member of the South Robertson Neighborhoods Council. I served 5 years as Vice President or Acting President. For that period I was Chairman of the following committees: Executive, Public Safety & By-Laws. I was also a member of the Land Use Committee and the Outreach Committee.

I was re-elected to the Board in October, 2012. My focus for the next four years will be quality of life in our community. Specifically Public Safety, programs for both young people and for retirees, and the economic revitalization of the Soro Business Community.

I have lived in the Pico Robertson part of SORO since 2007. I met my wife here, and we now have 2 children who go to school in SORO. My wife and I work here, attend synagogue here, socialize here and shop here. We have an inherent interest in keeping our neighborhood a good place to live. And in many ways that makes me a typicalmember of the SORO community.

In SORO we don't have big-box stores, or a big mall, or a dominant employer. We are a community of smaller communities, local services, small businesses, arts and culture. I joined the SORO Board with a focus on maintaining the diverse and charming aspects of our neighborhood, while building on our strengths.

I am a religious person, and proud of my religion. I think that the strength of my own identity and beliefs gives me respect for the beliefs of others - and I like the diversity of SORO and the general sense of mutual respect that I feel here.

Long before coming to SORO I was born in Phildelphia, educated in New England, I have lived in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Illinois and finally in California. I am glad to be living in Los Angeles, where pockets of wilderness coexist with urban density and modernity.

If you're reading this then i have a challenge for you. Take a minute and drop me a note at kenblaker@soronc.org, and let me know 2 (or more) things that you'd like to see your neighborhood council and your city do in the next year.

I have lived in this neighborhood all of my 60 plus years and have been a community activist for most of my adult life. I attended Canfield Elementary school, Palms Junior High and Hamilton High School. I have an AA degree in photography from Santa Monica College. I have worked as a photographer here on the Westside for over thirty five years. By working in the community, I believe, we can make this a better neighborhood to live in for all of us.

Occupation: Photographer - events, architecture and portraits

Doug Fitzsimmons served as President of the South Robertson Neighborhoods Council from 2008 to 2018.

Applying his twenty-five years experience as a thought-leader, brand consultant, and Creative Director for some of the world’s biggest companies to bear on local issues, he's built the Board into one of the City’s most successful, innovative, and effective Councils. Currently President of Otter, a strategic and creative consultancy, Doug was previously Vice President, Creative at Participant Media and Online Creative Director at several advertising companies in Los Angeles, New York, London, and Chicago.

He's proudest of the Board's efforts to build pride and identity within the community, its strengthening of ties to the Neighborhood Associations and local organizations; its fight for Police and Fire resources; its involvement in City regulation of marijuana dispensaries and billboards; its work in transportation planning for SORO; and its revitalization planning for the Robertson, Venice, and Pico business corridors, the latter culminating in South Robertson’s designation as one of LA’s Great Streets.

Doug also served as Chair of the Westside Regional Alliance of Councils, a consortium of all thirteen neighborhood and community councils on the Westside.

Occupation: Interactive Creative Director & Strategist

Beth joined the board in 2014. Her interest and involvement with the Neighborhood Council began after a problem in her neighborhood needed solving and she went looking for help. She found an amazing organization of people here at the SORO NC with the will and connections to get things done and she knew this is where she wanted to be. Beth has a strong belief in the importance of civic engagment. She currently serves as the Quality of Life Chair, where she has lead a great team of folks who work on community issues such as homelessness and projects like our Computer Literacy program. She is on several committees and serves on the Executive baord as Board Secretary. In addition in 2017, she began Chairing the Community's Soro Festival, a large city wide supported event hosted in our beautiful neighborhood. Beth fights for causes related to, families, fair housing, crime and safety, human traffiking, rights for small business, growth of the middle classand general neighborhood and city well being. She’s volunteered on several political campaigns, in fundraising, getting out the vote and other grass roots efforts. Beth can be a resourceful and creative problem solver and will use those skills to help move this unique neighborhood forward. Her background is in arts and entertainment and she currently runs a small culinary business.

Marj is the chair of SORO NC's Outreach Committee because, for the most part, she loves connecting people. She has been the driving force behind the banners on Robertson, the SOROCard program and community outreach and town hall events. She's naive enough to still believe that people really can make a difference.

Occupation: Documentary Filmmaker

Community Involvement

SORO Green Team, Run For Her, God's Littlest Angels, Brave Chick LLC, Sketchers Friendship Walk

Personal Background

Realtor®
Local Small Business Owner
Alumni: California State University Dominguez Hills 2012, Santa Monica College 2009

Adam Rich is a lifelong resident of SoRo. He has a Masters degree in Computers and Information Technology from the University of Pennsylvania. He currently lives with his wife and daughter in SoRo's Zone 9 and works as a Software Engineer.

During the dot com movement of the nineties Dan worked as a computer and networking technician and by the turn of the century he was managing the information technology department at a large insurance company. Seeking to refocus his career on improving the well-being of others, he returned to academia and completed his Bachelors degree in Psychology with a focus on Cognitive Science at UCLA. Incorporating his technology experience with this degree, he went on do cognitive psychology research at UCLA. Striving to put these new skills to work in a community context, he continued his education and earned is Masters degree in Clinical Psychology with a specialization in Applied Community Psychology from Antioch University in Los Angeles. He is currently the Deputy Director of The Relational Center, a non-profit that works to improve the wellbeing of Los Angeles residents and their communities. Dan is also co-founder of Open Roots Consulting, providing organization development consulting to individuals, teams, communities, and organizations.

Linda is a native Angeleno who's interested in architecture, conservation, art, animals, urban infrastructure, and yeast breads, among other things. She has worked at MOCA, the Getty, and LACMA, and is currently think tanking in Santa Monica.