INSIDE INGLEWOOD-Residents of Inglewood may be being bamboozled by reports that imply a new round of Residential Sound Insulation (RSI) funds have been made available from Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA).
The RSI Program is a FAA-funded federal plan to soundproof homes significantly affected by overhead air traffic into and out of select airports.
The reality is that the funds were approved in 2005 and rescinded a year later in 2006.
The recent hype regarding Inglewood’s Mayor James T. Butts having allegedly acquired a new round of RSI funding is big news in the newspaper owned by Butts’ paid political consultant, Willie Brown—a paper that is heavily funded by City Hall via the city's General and Sanitation Funds.
Congresswoman, Maxine Waters, whose area includes Inglewood, was quick to tout the "new" funds on her Website as well as in a front-page story in Brown's paper, Inglewood Today.
The reality, however, was quickly clarified by Nancy Castles, PR Director at LAX/LAWA. Reached by e-mail days after Waters’ announcement, Castles stated that “the $7.07 million grant was originally authorized on Feb. 22, 2005, and ... rescinded about a year later.”
The “7.07 million” to which Castles referred was the same funding that both Butts and Waters have repeatedly implied is newly awarded to Inglewood residents.
What neither Butts nor Waters would say, however, is that $2 million of those funds were already spent in 2006—five years before Butts became mayor.
According to the letter of agreement that both Butts and Waters announced in late November, “In 2006, Inglewood requested $7.07 million in GIP 6 from LAWA. LAWA delivered the first installment of $2.07 million to Inglewood. The remaining $5 million was never delivered due to Inglewood’s improper allocation of funds per the [Letter of Agreement].”
The latest agreement goes on to state that there will be no release of funds until “Inglewood completes the comprehensive audit.” Even then, and only after approval of the many other items that are required, “LAWA will recommend [emphasis ours] the BOAC approve new funding for Inglewood.”
This means that any new funding can only be recommended by LAWA CEO Michael Feldman, as the City of Inglewood must leap through a number of significant hoops before the Board of Airport Commissioners (BOAC) will even consider further RSI funding.
According to LAWA, "The LAX [Residential Sound Insulation] program is based upon a contour map of Community Noise Equivalent Level (CNEL) established during the fourth quarter of 1992, which identified more than 32,000 eligible residential units around LAX. To date, more than 15,000 homes around LAX have been soundproofed, with 4,300 of those homes in Inglewood."
Inglewood lost its funding in 2006 after approximately $27 million in RSI construction funds went unaccounted during the years that Roosevelt Dorn was Inglewood's mayor. In an unrelated case, Dorn was convicted of taking a $500,000 loan through a city housing program that was used to improve his house and socked away into his personal bank account.
During his bid for election in 2011, Butts personally told residents he was a hand-picked by Dorn to replace then-mayor Danny Tabor, a strong vocal opponent of Dorn.
Butts is set to run again for mayor in November, 2014.
Reached for comment via e-mail, Waters’ Communications Director Latoya Veal stated, “This agreement was reached between LAWA and the City of Inglewood, therefore you will need to contact one of them.”
Butts did not respond to requests for comment.
(Randall Fleming is a veteran journalist and magazine publisher. He has worked at and for the New York Post, the Brooklyn Spectator and the Los Feliz Ledger. He is currently editor-in-chief at the Morningside Park Chronicle, a monthly newspaper based in Inglewood, CA and on-line at www.MorningsideParkChronicle.com. Views expressed and/or conclusions reached by Mr. Fleming are his and do not necessarily reflect those of CityWatch.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 11 Issue 98
Pub: Dec 6, 2013
