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ONE MAN'S OPINION - A year ago, I got attacked on my own street in the middle of the day by a homeless person. My glasses were broken and my left thumb was messed up. I've had 2 sets of x-rays on my thumb. It still has very limited usage. We suffered for over a year on Croft Ave with an encampment at the corner at 3rd Street. Having to call the police almost every day. Packages stolen by bike thieves. Open drug and bathroom use. Nudity. Screaming. Threats. Almost daily trespassing. Other thefts. Illegal utility usage.
Break-ins. Fires. You get the idea. Perhaps you've also suffered like this. Residents moved away. Condos sold. Finally, we got a no camping zone, but only at our corner, which is fine, because that's where we needed it. Made all the difference in the world. Sanity restored, anarchy ended.
Now, our new (relatively) young “progressive” council member is looking at taking no camping zones away, not just in our council district (which is the size of a city), but in the WHOLE VERY LARGE City of LA. LA, which has 15 council districts, is essentially like 15 cities, each with a Mini Mayor aka Council Member. EACH Council Member has 3 offices, 2 in their council district and one at LA City Hall. EACH Council Member has about 15 staff members that work for them, paid for by our tax dollars. EACH Council Member makes close to a Quarter Million Dollars Per Year. Council Members pretty much control Land Use (Development) decisions and other matters in their council district. And the other 14 council members typically defer to them. So, it was a BIG SURPRISE recently when the others did NOT defer to Katy on a Land Use matter in HER council district! The question is WHY??
I would argue one reason is that Yaroslavsky has not been deferring to them on homelessness policy in THEIR council districts. For example, she recently voted AGAINST Blumenfield creating a new no camping zone in HIS council district...and he had good public safety reasons for doing so! Show the others that you won't defer to them and they'll see it as a sign of disrespect and stop deferring to you!
There are A LOT of no camping zones in Council District 5 created by Katy's predecessor. Take those away, and homeless people will FLOOD IN from the other 14 council districts and from outside the City. Now, Katy's not politically suicidal. She'll likely keep no camping zones for schools. I'm wondering if she lives within 500 feet of a school and/or in the middle of an R1 (single family home) area (where homeless people are less likely to be). If she lives within 500 ft of a DAYCARE, she's protected too...as long as she doesn't work to remove that protection. And it wouldn't surprise me if Zev Yaroslavsky, better known as Katy's father-in-law, is protected too.
Recently, Katy and Mayor Bass got A LOT of publicity in Beverly Grove, my hood, along San Vicente, dealing with homelessness. There was a cleanup, housing for the homeless, and the problem was “fixed.” And, I wondered how? NEW homeless people will come right in (or people return). Well, I visited yesterday. I saw what was NOT heavily publicized. You, see, there were already no camping zones on the medians from La Cienega all the way to Doheny (along Burton Way). Burton Way ends at La Cienega, and East of La Cienega, it's just San Vicente. That's why there was a HUGE encampment under a huge shade tree at La Cienega. Now that tree has magically disappeared, the area is fenced in, and from La Cienega almost all the way to Wilshire, there are LONG FENCED-IN areas and A LOT of City Signage along San Vicente. So, the City has basically EXTENDED no camping on the medians all the way to Wilshire. Hypocrisy At Its Finest. When push comes to shove...and political survival is at stake (or at least, prevention of a Recall Effort), common sense and basic logic prevail.
(“The Angry Angeleno” is the nom de plume of Yuval Kremer, a former ballot candidate for both LA County Supervisor and for Mayor of LA, failing to prevent Mayor Garcetti's reelection)
