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AN ANGRY ANGELENO - According to an April 6 email from the CAO's Office to Zachary Warma (whose Ethics issues I detailed in the last two paragraphs of my last column) and Gary Gero (Yaroslavsky's Chief of Staff), among others, and an April 7 email from Warma (Yaroslavsky's Housing & Homelessness Policy Director), both obtained via a PRA by Fix the City, Katy Yaroslavsky's office was considering FIVE locations in LA City Council District 5 for homeless housing or affordable housing. If your neighborhood is given a choice (when you lose your city public parking facility), pick 100% Affordable Housing over ANY homeless use!
Only one of the 5 locations (“Olympic/Crenshaw”) is not an LADOT City parking lot/garage. TWO of them are in the Rancho Park area. What did Rancho Park do to Katy to deserve this level of abuse?
And THE ONLY City Parking Facility (Garage) in WESTWOOD VILLAGE? I feel sorry for all those small business owners. Very expensive real estate right next to UCLA. Wouldn't student housing for UCLA make more sense??
Warma's email notes that they are currently working on 2377 Midvale (Yaroslavsky turning City Parking Lot at Pico/Midvale into homeless housing). It mentions that “NO parking replacement be formally contemplated as part of the Midvale analysis” (the City does not have to make up elsewhere for the public parking spaces it's stealing for a homeless use) because of Yaroslavsky's “motion to NULLIFY the [2019 Memorandum of Understanding] that set the requirements for parking spot replacements when an LADOT lot is converted into housing.” [emphasis added] Wow. Thanks, Katy.
Makes sense for a progressive politician to steal limited city public parking during a post-Covid wobbly economy. Progressive politicians support reducing parking requirements for businesses and residential buildings, saying that customers and residents will take public transit. You say you don't want to take LA Metro? Don't worry. You won't have a choice when progressive LA politicians introduce “congestion pricing” and make you pay tolls to use regular roads. Only the wealthy will be able to afford to use the roads during rush hour.
Think I'm joking? LA Metro is planning to roll out congestion pricing soon. Metro ALWAYS wants more money!
Warma's email continues: “For 2367 Prosser and Olympic/Crenshaw, we will very likely be bringing forward a council motion in the near future for a formal analysis of both sites. And for the [Cedars-Adjacent] Robertson and [Westwood Village] Broxton LADOT garages both necessitate more substantive conversations with an array of stakeholders........ ”
Of course, it would be political suicide for Yaroslavsky's office to be doing all five of these at the same time (Pico/Midvale neighbors were even shouting “RECALL” repeatedly at Katy's in-person community meeting), so it appears her office is doing the smart “divide and conquer” staggered strategy.
If you live, work, or own near one of these sites and you're curious what's in store for you, with Pico/Midvale, Katy is rushing and jamming it through neighborhood opposition. A Special Interest Activist Group that endorsed her, Westside for Everyone, is helping her. She even gave them their own Zoom meeting. The City Council File was just created online on FRIDAY (three days ago). City
Council Committee hearing (run by fellow Progressive Nithya Raman) will be held on Wednesday. No time for a Community Impact Statement by the local Neighborhood Council to be printed onto the Agenda. Neighbors are told by both Yaroslavsky's office and the top of the Council Committee Agenda that commenting is only in-person. Of course, you can also submit comments in writing online, but nobody's gonna help you out by telling you that...it's at the bottom of the Agenda (that should be taken to court). You're told you have only one minute to speak before the meeting even happens...barely enough time for an elderly (and/or disabled) person to say their name and where they live. Somebody should take that to court...that's a Brown Act violation, in my opinion. When so many City meetings are happening virtually or hybrid (and Covid is still around), this committee won't let people phone in comments...they have to drop their jobs and kids to fight the project in person at City Hall...wondering if you could argue that that is a Brown Act violation too. As you can see, the deck has been stacked against Katy's neighboring Residents that oppose the project. Progressives drunk on Power. Wonder if Katy is giving Westside for Everyone outsiders free parking at City Hall for the hearing.
(“An Angry Angeleno” is the nom de plume of Yuval Kremer, a former ballot candidate for both LA County Supervisor and LA Mayor. The opinions expressed by Mr. Kremer are solely his and not necessarily those of CityWatchLA.com.)
