{"id":33495,"date":"2025-11-01T14:23:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T14:23:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/33495\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T14:23:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T14:23:06","slug":"melanie-winter-fought-for-the-los-angeles-river-with-urgency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/33495\/","title":{"rendered":"Melanie Winter fought for the Los Angeles River with urgency"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>  Nov. 1, 2025 7 AM PT <\/p>\n<p>To the editor: Those of us who work along the banks of the Los Angeles River are often told to be practical. To weigh flood control, secure permits, follow timelines and keep expectations in check. It is responsible work and it is necessary.<\/p>\n<p>But every so often, someone reminds us that practicality can be a trap. Someone insists the river demands more than patience, more than bureaucracy, more than progress reports. That person was Melanie Winter (<a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/environment\/story\/2025-10-23\/obit-melanie-winter-los-angeles-river-advocate\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cMelanie Winter, who fought for embracing nature along the Los Angeles River, dies,\u201d<\/a> Oct. 23).<\/p>\n<p>Melanie never accepted \u201clater.\u201d She believed the river should be healthy now, that people living along it deserved access now, that nature and justice could not wait for convenience. She wanted us to move faster, be braver and stop apologizing for wanting more for the river.<\/p>\n<p>I had the privilege of knowing Melanie, of sitting across from her as we debated the pace of change and the politics of restoration. When she told me, \u201cDon\u2019t be lazy, Candice,\u201d she meant \u201cDon\u2019t compromise. Don\u2019t settle for partnerships that dilute your purpose or alliances that lose sight of the river.\u201d She could not abide small visions.<\/p>\n<p>Melanie worked alongside Lewis MacAdams, the founder of Friends of the Los Angeles River. Together, they defined the modern river movement, believing it could be both wild and urban, ecological and human. Lewis said, \u201cIf it\u2019s not impossible, I\u2019m not interested.\u201d Melanie took that impossibility and made it urgent.<\/p>\n<p>At FoLAR, our work sits at the intersection of big vision and practicality. We bridge people and government, navigating the slow world of policy while also responding to pressing community needs. Melanie reminds us that collaboration cannot mean complacency.<\/p>\n<p>This is our challenge now: to carry forward Lewis\u2019 poetry and Melanie\u2019s defiance with the pragmatism needed to turn vision into access, passion into policy and urgency into lasting change.<\/p>\n<p>Candice Dickens-Russell, Los Angeles<br \/>This writer is president and CEO of Friends of the Los Angeles River.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nov. 1, 2025 7 AM PT To the editor: Those of us who work along the banks of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[4329,24186,24187,10800,24190,23540,48,52,51,24185,47,50,49,24184,16431,2268,592,5409,24188,24189,686],"class_list":{"0":"post-33495","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-access","9":"tag-big-vision","10":"tag-candice","11":"tag-change","12":"tag-defiance","13":"tag-friends","14":"tag-la","15":"tag-la-headlines","16":"tag-la-news","17":"tag-lewis-macadams","18":"tag-los-angeles","19":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","20":"tag-los-angeles-news","21":"tag-los-angeles-river","22":"tag-melanie-winter","23":"tag-nature","24":"tag-people","25":"tag-policy","26":"tag-practicality","27":"tag-responsible-work","28":"tag-urgency"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}