From the Lancer Trash-to-Energy Incinerator to Bulldozing the South Central Farm — Fighting City Hall for Environmental Justice in South L.A.

Fifteen years ago, a student at Jefferson High School wrote
a paper about how the African-American community fought to kill the Lancer
trash-to-energy project at 41^st and Alameda a decade earlier.

“Residents feel that South
Central Los Angeles took a large step towards earning some political respect
and not get stepped all over,” wrote the student, L. Garcia. “The community
held to the belief that health always comes first, no matter how good the benefits
might be.”

It was a rare victory against the power of City Hall,
especially by a minority community fighting for environmental justice and finding a key ally in then Assemblywoman Maxine Waters who helped cut off state funding..

Now, a quarter century after the Lancer incinerator
project went up in smoke, the 14-acre property remains a political battleground
like no other in the city.

Seized under eminent domain by the Public Works
Department, the land sat idle until nearby residents began turning it into a
community garden. It eventually became the South Central Farm whose struggle
for economic and environmental justice was captured in the Oscar-nominated
documentary “The Garden” about their unsuccessful fight to keep the city from
bulldozing the community gardens of hundreds of people.

The tale of how city officials have manipulated public
money in buying and selling the property, promoted various unsuccessful schemes
for its development and created a variety of legal fictions to justify their actions
goes to the heart of what has gone wrong across Los Angeles over the last three
decades.

The rights of property owners like the interests of the
community have been trampled time and again by city officials who rewrite the
narrative to suit their own interests of the moment.

With pro-development, jobs-at-any-price Councilwoman Jan
Perry leading the way, the latest chapter in the saga of the Lancer property
will be written on Thursday before the L.A. Harbor Commission. (See Agenda Item No. 13)

On July 12, Perry wrote the commission that she wanted
the settlement agreement with property owner Ralph Horowitz torn up to free him
from the obligation to cede 2.6 acres to the city for a park – a provision she
had fought so hard to get back when the settlement was reached in 2003.

“Since the pledge agreement
was authorized in 2003, there has been an emerging field of research regarding
air pollutants and the harmful impacts they can have on sensitive receptors.
Considering the health risk posed by diesel emissions, the propriety of
establishing an active use park in the middle of this heavily industrialized
corridor should be questioned and is the primary reason why I am requesting the Harbor Commission
to consider amending the pledge agreement,” Perry wrote.

Instead, Perry, the wannabe mayor and downtown football
stadium champion, has worked out a new deal that allows Horowitz – who was the
principal owner of the property back in the early 1980s and sued to get
it back 20 years later – to pay $3.6 million into a special fund that she has
designated for recreational activities in a nearby housing project and two
parks, one of which is around the corner from the environmental hazards at the
Lancers property.

Normal city rules split the sale of city assets 50-50 for
use within the district and for the general fund. In this case, Perry gets all
the money and can still channel it through Concerned Citizens of South Central
as she has done in the past and intended to do with the Lancer park.

Horowitz, who saw his property seized under eminent
domain by the city nearly 30 years ago and then re-sold from the Public Works
Department to the Harbor Department and then sold back to him at a fraction of
the price, is now in escrow to finally sell the entire 14 acres for what Perry
says will be for “garment design, manufacturing and warehousing” that “could
potentially create up to 600 new jobs.”

Many deals have come and gone for the property over the
years, including efforts of the South Central Farmers that Perry squelched, and many promises of jobs that would be created.

Back in the early 1980s when City Council members were
great characters and the corruption was of the traditional kind, envelopes of
cash not the kind of penny ante political contributions and small-time favors
now in vogue, Councilman Gil Lindsay promised the Lancer incinerator would
provide electricity for 40,000 homes, provide nearly $15 million in community
benefits and make the area a “Garden of Eden.”

The Public Works Department dutifully seized the property
for the Lancer project under eminent domain from owner Ralph Horowitz, his
partners and others who held title to smaller parcels.

A woman named Juanita Tate became the driving force
fighting the project, forming Concerned Citizens of South Central and in 1987
got the project killed, an extraordinary achievement aided by environmentalists
in the face of a big-spending campaign by promoters of the trash-to-energy
plant.

In 1991, the city rejected a $6.6 million offer for the property as inadequate but when Horowitz, a frequent beneficiary of Community Redevelopment Agency support, started pushing questionable claims in 1994 that he had the right of first refusal to buy the land back, Mayor Richard Riordan came up with another idea.

He cancelled a plan to sell the property for creation of 316 affordable townhouses and had Public Works instead deal the land to the L.A. Harbor Department for $13.3 million – twice what was offered three years earlier — on the pretext it might come in handy for the Alameda Corridor Project. It was the kind of finagle with protected Harbor and Airport funds that the Riordan Administration was to find to its chagrin was illegal and unethical.

It is noteworthy at this point that Robin Kramer was Riordan’s chief of staff, and later Mayor Antonio Villiaraigosa’s, will have the opportunity on Thursday to vote on the latest deal over this property as a member of the Harbor Commission. So too will Cindy Miscikowski, who is president of the Harbor Commission and served on the City Council from 1997 to 2005 and like Kramer was party to many of the decisions affecting this property.

The truth was the Lancerproperty never was part of the Alameda Corridor project so within months of buying the property, harbor officials granted a revocable permit to the LA Regional Food Bank which in turn granted legitimacy to the South Central Farm.

By 1999, Riordan had set up a non-profit called Genesis L.A. that was supposed to spur economic development in the impoverished South L.A. neighborhoods but mostly became identified with strip malls and corporate chain stores.

Genesis L.A. had its eye on the Lancer property and Harbor officials moved forward in leasing the property, which didn’t sit well with Horowitz who invoked his claim to the refusal to buy back the property.

He sued and in 2003 the judge, despite rejecting one claim after another that Horowitz put forward, kept pressure on the city to  settle.– which City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, with Perry’s support, did.

Horowitz got the property cheap, paying just $5 million to the Harbor Department — a loss of more than $8 million – and agreed to donate the 2.6 acres to the city Recreation and Parks Department for a soccer field. It was to be operated with city funding by none other than the aforementioned Juanita Tate who has been succeeded by her daughter Noreen McClendon who continues to get funding for various activities thanks to Lindsay’s successor, the former Council staffer Jan Perry.

Perry soon went to war against the South Central Farm using Horowitz as her agent.  In early 2004, he revoked the South Central Farm’s right to operate and issued an eviction order two years later.

What happened in court and in the protests that went on were the subject of the Oscar-nominated documentary “The Garden.”

It is the story of the farmers and their supporters, the software engineer who emerged as their leader because his ailing father was one of those farmers. His name is Tezozomoc and he’s a friend of mine and an inspiration to me.

He will come to the Harbor Commission on Thursday with supporters and a long list of signatures on petitions to challenge the action which seems certain to pass and be s
ent on to the City Council where Perry will get unanimous support. 

In her letter to the Harbor Commission, Perry make a big point of how she got the Department of Water and Power to help her establish a seven-acre community garden under the high-voltage power lines at 110^m street and Avalon Boulevard — clearly missing the irony that putting the health of poor people trying to grow food for their families at risk is exactly the kind of environmental injustice that made Juanita Tate a community hero so many years ago and has made Tezozomoc one today.