CommentsVOICES—Dear Councilman Krekorian. You have hurt Studio City in so many ways I do not know where to start.
Perhaps I’ll start with the many “favors" you have bestowed on Sportsmen’s Lodge over the years and continue to do so.
I know you will deny it, but Ben Besley of Sportsmen's told us it was your office that encouraged him to enlist the hotel in the Project Room Key while he was in construction with his "mega" mall. What a coup for them! An empty hotel due to construction noise filled up with what we hear up to 400 homeless at $120 a night since the middle of August. Our once beautiful Studio City looks like a war zone now. The fire department and police are called there 3-5 times a day at taxpayers’ expense for stabbings etc. The streets are not safe to walk on anymore. There are homeless hiding in the bushes on the street in front and around the hotel and streets nearby. We have had a rape, many assaults, and robberies along with a multitude of other crimes since you allowed this in our neighborhood. There is no plan that we know of in place for all of these homeless individuals once Sportsmen's Lodge boots them out just as we have heard that if they misbehave they get booted out into our neighborhood.
Where have you been to speak out to your constituents about what is happening in our neighborhood? Why do we hear from the surrounding council members on a regular basis and nothing from you on what is happening in your community? When contacting your office for why the constant helicopters and fire dept. at the hotel, your office hides behind HIPPA, saying you cannot release information however, informing the neighborhood of possible crimes nearby without disclosing the names of parties is not covered by HIPPA. Your office claims we the stakeholders and property owners are not in danger and have replied "At no point was anyone in the community at any risk or threat”. However, we know these "guests" have weapons in the vicinity and have brought drug dealers into our neighborhood as well. According to the police and fire dept. crime has drastically increased however you claim the opposite.
Here is a clip from a zoom meeting we had last month with the organizers of Project Room Key. No criminal background checks. No drug tests. No Covid testing. No curfew. Shocking.
We know that housing the homeless at the hotel is being shown as protecting them from Covid however we know they do not test other than a temperature. Let’s face it this is a cover up from the mismanagement of HHH taxpayers’ monies of over a billion dollars that has been mismanaged by you to get federal covid funds instead to house the homeless. LAHSA is not qualified to deal with all the mental issues as well as the addicted and this temporary solution is only a bandaid for the real issues of helping the homeless in Los Angeles.
Ben Besley told us just weeks ago that Sportsmen's is in the process of remodeling hotel rooms; however we just heard a rumor there will be a high rise to replace the hotel I'm sure you have already green lighted…another huge disturbance for our neighborhood. I’ve been chased out of my home for over six months due to noise and foul air which I understand also consisted of a huge amount of asbestos uncovered on site. Where are you in all this? I can imagine behind closed doors figuring out what else you can do for Sportsmen's. Oh, I know…you have requested Harvard Westlake with their Weddington Golf project to install a ramp on the north side of the river at Coldwater. Since there is already a ramp on the south side there is NO need for one on the north other than to allow overflow parking for the Sportsmen's Lodge Mall shortage of parking that will be even greater now that a market has been added and more restaurants. WE DON'T WANT IT. We sent you a petition in January from our neighborhood, which you obviously ignored. If you look at the south side there is graffiti, homeless encampments, trash etc. at the ramp. We do not want these elements to have easy access to our neighborhood, along with overflow parking from the “mega” mall. If you insist on a ramp for the continuance of the river, why not where you live on the north side of the river at Whitsett? Perhaps you should ask YOUR nearby neighbors how they would like that, however, that wouldn't help your pals out at Sportsmen’s with their lack of parking would it?
I hope you have filled your pockets from all the "favors" to Sportsmen's Lodge or have you moved on to how you can profit from the Harvard Westlake Weddington project? If you even think for a second you will have a political career in the future, you are sadly mistaken. We will be sure to update the FBI on the latest.
WHERE ARE YOU COUNCILMAN?
(Patrice Berlin lives in Council District 2. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of CityWatch or other CityWatch contributors.)
-cw
