LOS ANGELES-Perhaps the biggest problem about getting a message to the general public in these modern "enlightened" times is the ability to get past those who will distort a message and/or read into it something that wasn't meant or implied. We need more mobility, we need to create neighborhoods that make sense, and we need to find ways to help those among us who are less fortunate.
While my area of familiarity is Mar Vista and the Westside, it's the same everywhere. Mobility, economic opportunity, crime control, walkable streets, open space and helping out the needy are all priorities for individuals and families, regardless of where they live and despite differences on what is prioritized the highest by different groups of individuals:
1) Planning/Transportation: The election of Kevin McKeown to be the mayor of Santa Monica was not so much an issue of NIMBYism as much as it was an issue of sustainable growth and common sense. Transit-oriented development, affordable housing and other growth-related planning issues never meant over-development...it just meant smart development.
And not just "smart growth" that was prima facie unsustainable to the average person, but really thought-out projects that most normal individuals could relate to and respect, even with a bit of compromise in the mix.
Santa Monica and the Westside did not vote to create an Expo Line to invite overdevelopment and make the Westside traffic situation worse. Santa Monica and the Westside does not oppose affordable housing and more opportunities for student, senior and workforce housing to live, but they do oppose unsustainable and overbuilt monstrosities that will transform and destroy a neighborhood.
That's just common sense.
And market-level homes or condos or apartments for families with children will NOT be affordable for most of us, will NOT require less than two cars per home, and will NOT be attractive without sufficient open space and parks and the like. That's just common sense.
Upgrading the 405 freeway and building mass transit will certainly invite some right-sized and secondary development, but the development isn't supposed to lead transportation improvements--we did NOT pass Measure R with the primary intention of overbuilding and overcrowding the City and County of Los Angeles.
That's just common sense. And to overbuild and break the law is anything but compassionate.
2) Homelessness: The change of leadership at the Los Angeles VA Medical Center offers us the ability to really focus on use of the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center land for veterans.
And only for veterans--that's just common sense, to say nothing of common decency.
The homeless issue is a complicated one, in that there are multiple groups of homeless who have different backgrounds and different needs. Yet the piling up of campers and RV's on Sepulveda Blvd. and other major thoroughfares, as well as the homeless encampments we're seeing throughout the Westside is not a result of either common sense or compassion.
Creating shantytowns isn't helpful for anyone, and shared rights mean shared responsibilities--that's just common sense.
Any and all veterans who need a place to live and get help should be directed to a compassionate, supportive and results-oriented program at the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center. That won't entirely solve the homeless problem, but it's a big first step towards those who arguably deserve first crack at taxpayer largesse for what they've done to keep the rest of us safe and free.
Beyond that, the issue of helping the homeless--versus inviting more transients to come here as a magnet from throughout the nation --has to not just be common sense but based on policies where compassion is truly and sufficiently thought through.
Some homeless need help with respect to substance abuse and psychiatric counseling, and the issue of taxpayer-supported halfway homes for permanent lodging of the mentally ill may have to be raised.
Those sorts of issues won't magically go away, and it's neither common sense nor compassion to pretend that they will.
And for those homeless who refuse help, and who insist on squatting on public space (and who might pose a threat to the community)? Then it becomes a tough but necessary situation for our society to confront...but it is neither compassion nor common sense to elevate their "rights" over that of the law-abiding community as a whole.
Our current political leadership is hardly a group that lacks compassion--but for them to not make the tough decisions, even when common sense makes it evident for them to make those decisions--they can and will come across as showing no love for their constituents.
And it will invite their constituents to do what common sense tells them they must do, come what may in the next round of local elections.
(Ken Alpern is a Westside Village Zone Director and Board member of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Planning and Outreach Committees, and currently is Co-Chair of its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee. He is co-chair of the CD11Transportation Advisory Committee and chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at T[email protected] He also does regular commentary on the MarkIsler Radio Show on AM 870, and co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Mr. Alpern.)
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CityWatch
Vol 12 Issue 102
Pub: Dec 19, 2014
