An otherwise conservationist friend once said, “The problem with the Los Angeles River is that there is really no such thing. It’s a concrete flood channel.”That was what I thought. Until I attended my first Friends of the Los Angeles River (FoLAR) conference last week.It wasn’t just a routine meeting. Perhaps 300 “Friends” gathered at the downtown library on a beautiful Saturday. They were seeking direction on the future not just of the problematic river, but of the disjointed center of this city. It someday may be said that this conference was the occasion when centering downtown around a resurrected L.A. River became a serious option for Los Angeles’ future.What was new was some surprising support for FoLAR, primarily from local Latino legislators – state Senator Richard Polanco and U.S. Representative Xavier Becerra – who see renewal of the riverbank’s old Taylor and Chinatown rail yards as connecting Eastside communities with each other and providing them with desperately needed greenbelt and recreation. But most surprising was the admission from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that greening the river was doable. Army Deputy Secretary Michael L. Davis said the corps was open to a project that would convert the Taylor site to recreational uses that would also include flood-control ponds and settling basins. Previous FoLAR proposals had been criticized for reducing flood control, but the new proposal, which the Army accepted, could actually decrease flood risk.