There is something about L.A. that’s worse than how business un-friendly it is — and that’s how people un-friendly it is.
City Hall’s long-time war against good jobs and the middle class has escalated in the name of the unending budget crisis into a war against community life itself.
Dozens of events that brought people together across the city have been canceled because of the mayor and City Council’s decision to make people pay the full cost of everything the city provides — costs that already were paid for in the past with tax dollars.
Sunday’s Israel Independence celebration in Woodley Park, an event that draws tens of thousands of people, was canceled because the city demanded $44,000 for police and fire protection, and traffic diversion — charges that could not be met on top of the $174,000 cost of staging the festival.
Then, there’s the case of the city’s most popular farmers’ market, the one in Hollywood at Selma and Ivar that has been on life support for months.
Its latest extension of permits to operate expires today and still nothing has been resolved about its future which has been imperiled by city policies and the uncivil attitudes of the L.A. Film School.
Back on Dec. 14, you might remember, Council President Eric Garcetti promised a Council Chamber full of “Save the Hollywood Market” protesters that the Sunday event that draws thousands of shoppers, vendors and farmers would be preserved and the issues resolved.
On Monday, Pompea Smith, CEO of Sustainable Economic Enterprises of Los Angeles (SEE-LA), the non-profit which operates Hollywood and other markets, wrote Garcetti and Public Works Board Vice President Andrea Alarcon (the indicted Councilman’s daughter and anointed successor) that their efforts to find solutions have failed (HollywoodFarmersMkt.pdf).
In an exercise at diplomatic politeness, Smith unequivocally stated in her four-page letter that SEE-LA cannot and will not pay the huge costs of relocating the market or reconfiguring its existing location north onto Hollywood Boulevard, which would have to be partly closed.
“Most of the issues, challenges and costs associated with such a relocation are related to City Departments’ requirements, laws, ordinances and procedures, and we would respectfully request that the City assume the cost of street closure, including the cost of traffic control or security officers, the cost and time needed for a traffic study for such a major street, the Fire Department requirements, the MTA rerouting of
busses, petition and notification requirements, and the impact on the community and other businesses,” she wrote.
“Please also note that all of these issues either are not factors, or are addressed at far lower cost to both HFM and the City at the existing location and configuration.”
She notes SEE-LA with its own funds and money from the Community Redevelopement Agency has studied numerous options and has found them all inadequate because of ”economic and safety considerations “
Not so with regard to the LA Film School’s commitment to consider solutions so that its parking facilities can be fully used by its students on Sundays when the market operates — the supposed source of the “private for-profit” company’s objections to the market.
The Film School “given equivalent opportunities to utilize City-support, made a similar commitment to study potential options to solve its internal circulation issues by potentially connecting its parking structures; however, in the end, they abandoned their public commitments and did not undertake their promised study,” Smith wrote.
She closes the letter by asking for a permanent permit to operate in its current location and offering to provide ”a more detailed proposed market design analysis, including the specific impact on each building, parking ingress and egress, circulation patterns, etc” to minimize impact on the Film School and others in the area.
So it’s back in the hands of the powerful and ambitious Garcetti to choose between his commitment to business interests and community interests, and fulfill the promise he made on Dec. 14, 2010:
So Garcetti’s Dec 14, 2010 promise meant nothing
because someone else wants that location for
their business? Why is that man in City Hall?
Also notice that Garcetti continually violated the Brown Act during the meeting by speaking about a non-agendized item ignoring warnings by the City Attorney.
Hey Ron:
Why not offer your usual solution?
Appoint David Abel to fix the problem. Isn’t that the ultimate fit all – fix all solution?
Gag me with a spoon.
Anon 6:06pm
I do not know what you are talkiing about – but I will ask you: do you know if we voters can form our own union, collect dues to pay the lawyers, and vote for less power for the city employees? After all this is my city as well as it is the
school, library, police, fire dept, DWP etc, etc, etc employees.
7:27 wants the voters to form a labor union to give money to lawyers…. okayyyyyy that makes perfect sense
Anon 7:42pm
Yes, it does, doesn’t it? We cannot seem
to muster any enthusiasm to get the city lawyers to defend us against the skuldugery
that goes on constantly at every meeting. If
you do not know what I mean go to the City Council budget meeting tomorrow. There is no
one on my side as an ordinary citizen of this
forsaken overly-poppulated hell hole.
8:06 must be drunk
Who the hell talks like that
I do all the time. Where did you get your vocabulary? Street? Have a nice evening. I am
going back to the Angels game.
Do all of you notice City Council allows all the illegal immigrant marches up to 8 during the year costing a couple of million dollars for police and fire? They canceled St. Patrick’s Day parade, they don’t allow others to have events because of “no money” they canceled the Israel Independence celebration in Woodley Park. Its shameful to see how the gangster Mayor has taken Los Angeles down the toliet.
What the voter is describing is a Political Action Committee. A PAC can collect and report campaign contributions and usually needs a lawyer to advise how to legally comply with election laws. There are also independent expenditure committees which are different from PACs in ways that I am not quite certain. Both would put money into municipal elections. One of the biggest reforms that would save the City MILLIONS OF DOLLARS would be to combine the municipal elections with the state wide election. By holding the municipal elections at a different time from the state, the City Hall, LAUSD, and other local boards suppress voter turn out and make it easier to control local elections.
There are also existing taxpayer advocacy groups like the Howard Jarvis folks. The problem with them is that they only weigh in on state issues and refuse to “dirty their hands” with local issues. So, a local oriented PAC or independent expenditure committee may be legal avenues for the banding together of disgruntled City voters who are now ready to DO SOMETHING to change the losers in charge right now.
Or we could come together across the City and negotiate the terms of a coordinated “divorce”. This option would be to organize better than when it happened in the Valley Secession. An overall secession would break LA into smaller more manageable and responsive cities like Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena, Santa Monica, and other smaller cities adjacent to LA.
Hope that gives our angry but confused voter some options.