VOICES - For the last three years, the LACCD has used threadbare excuses to avoid opening the Van de Kamps Satellite Campus to offer a meaningful and coherent slate of community service and academic classes to serve the communities of Silverlake, Echo Park, Atwater Village, Glassell Park, Cypress Park, Highland Park, Mount Washington and Eagle Rock. Without environmental review in 2009, LACCD started leasing the campus to political cronies of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Audits by the State Controller’s Office and review by the LA Superior Court found misconduct by LACCD officials at Van de Kamps.
The environmental lawsuit won by the Van de Kamps Coalition requires the District to prepare a Subsequent Environmental Impact Report (EIR) to examine future use of the $91 million Van de Kamps campus. NOW is the time for residents in these affected communities to use the public input process to participate in the LACCD’s court-ordered reconsideration of its rash and illogical decision to try to abandon the community college mission of this campus.
This coming Friday, October 12, 2012, is the deadline for YOU to ask to be put on LACCD’s official list for all notices related to the Van de Kamps environmental review process. The Van de Kamps Coalition is asking residents of the City to demand that the EIR include analysis of the original programming plans developed with extensive community input – something LACCD is currently not proposing to do.
NOW is the time for persons who have been reading about the appalling misdirection of taxpayer monies at Van de Kamps to DO SOMETHING TO DEMAND LACCD conform its behavior with community demands and the law. Silence is your permission to continue to take your tax monies (about $120 per year on the average tax bill) and offer no ladder of opportunity to our young adults who desperately need these services and no meaningful services to our community.
LACCD has made no effort to outreach to you and our communities to let you know it is preparing a new environmental document in which you have a legal right to participate. The Van de Kamps Coalition is distributing this information to you because the LACCD staff has continued its effort to only notify the existing tenants of the Van de Kamps campus.
Are you going to sit by idly and let LACCD do this or will you speak out to demand the satellite campus LACCD promised our communities for more than a decade before it was snatched away by the Mayor? PLEASE forward this ACTION ALERT to your e-mail address book or post to your Facebook page in order to help the Van de Kamps Coalition get out the word of how people have an opportunity to change LACCD’s course through our collective voices!
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Here are the instructions for how to send an email to LACCD:
Please take a moment to send an email to Vice Chancellor Adriana Berrera and the Trustees to make sure LACCD does not exclude you further from the environmental process. Of course, this email is a template. Feel free to add to it to express your feelings about the loss of the Van de Kamps campus.
Send to these email addresses: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]:
Dr. Adriana Berrera and Trustees
Los Angeles Community College District
770 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, California 90017
October __, 2012
RE: Van de Kamps Campus Subsequent EIR – Interested Person List and Scoping
Dear Dr. Berrera and LACCD Trustees:
Pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act, I request that my name, address and email be added to the list of interested persons to receive all notices, a copy or notice of online access to the Draft and Final Subsequent EIR for the Van de Kamps campus project, and fair notice to myself and all community organizations of any public meeting to consider future changes to the use of the Community College Campus you built at Van de Kamps with my taxpayer monies.
In fact, I demand that the Board of LACCD schedule a meeting at a public location in Northeast Los Angeles adequate to hold persons interested in this matter to consider any further leasing or other changes in use to our community college campus and that neighborhood councils, homeowner groups, and other community electronic bulletin boards be given at least 10 days advance notice of any meeting where you will consider changes to the Van de Kamps campus.
The EIR must analyze the original plan to open the Van de Kamps Satellite Campus (validated by the Kosmont Associates Report), including the District’s plan for development of the adjoining land where Denny’s Restaurant is located.
Most sincerely,
[Provide Your Name
Your Mailing Address
Your E-Mail Address]
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The Van de Kamps Coalition is an all-volunteer coalition that advocates for a return of the Van de Kamps campus to the adult community college programming promised to voters and taxpayers. Please go to our website to see final judgment of the lawsuit and look for future postings and web updates. www.vandekamps.org email: [email protected]
(Miki Jackson and Laura Gutierrez are members of the Van de Kamps Coalition and CityWatch contributors. Miki Jackson can be reached at [email protected]) –cw
CityWatch
Vol 10 Issue 81
Pub: Oct 9, 2012
