By Brian Hews
Motorists and residents of West Los Angeles and Santa Monica are preparing for a Presidential sized traffic headache on Friday as President Obama prepares to visit the Southland.
President Obama will be meeting with Chinese President Xi during his trip to California at Sunnylands, that was used dating back to President Eisenhower for presidential meetings.
On Thursday night, the Los Angeles Police Department issued the following statement to the media about Obama’s visit:
“In an effort to assist the public in avoiding possible traffic congestion during the visit of the President of the United States on June 7, 2013, the following areas of the City should be avoided when possible to prevent travel delays for community members:
Friday June 7, 2013
The area around Centinela Avenue and West Olympic Boulevard from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., and between the hours of 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
The area around West Olympic Boulevard and Cloverfield Boulevard from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., and between the hours of 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
The area around 26th Street and San Vicente from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and between the hours of 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
The White House said this week that Sunnylands “provides a really perfect venue for the type of discussions that we’d like to have with the Chinese President.”
The meetings will begin on Friday afternoon, at around 4:00 p.m.
White House press officials said this week that they anticipate the two leaders to make statements at the beginning of that meeting and take a couple of questions at the end of that meeting.
Then after the bilateral meeting on Friday, the two leaders will have a private dinner.
On Saturday morning, they’ll continue their discussions with some informal meeting in the morning followed by a bilateral meeting between the two leaders to conclude midday Saturday.
“Just stepping back, we felt that this is an important opportunity for President Obama and President Xi to meet early in President Obama’s second term and shortly after President Xi took office in China. We have a very broad agenda that we cover with the Chinese that touches upon issues that are directly relevant to the lives and interests of the American people — from our efforts to promote economic growth around the world to some of the leading security challenges that we face like the situation in North Korea, to the ongoing necessity of cyber security, which is so important to U.S. businesses and security,” a White House official said.
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