Gary Slossberg For LA City Council District 13

Today marks a new beginning in America. So, just for today, I figured I would take a break from kvetching about the state of the economy and talk about the challenges we’ve been called to face together.

East Hollywood, USA

Sure, we have problems. Yesterday, Barack Obama said in his inaugural address:

“Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.”

Not exactly a rosy scenario. The temptation is to tune it all out, to focus our energies inward or to look to Washington to solve our problems. It feels good to know that we have a new president, a new outlook a new set of hands at the wheel. But Barack Obama knows better than anyone else that he can’t do this alone. He can’t fix our economy, educate our children or make our City our country or our planet any more livable on his own.

Barack Obama knows this, not at the intellectual level, but at the experiential level. He’s experienced the power of grassroots organizing. He’s a product of the South Side of Chicago, where he cut his political teeth organizing communities to make things better for themselves.

Yesterday, strangers in elevators looked each other in the eye. Some nodded their heads in recognition of the other. Many openly expressed their optimism and their hope for the future.

All this in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression – a crisis so deep and far-reaching that no one can be sure where the bottom will be.

Where did all this hope come from? And will it last? Will the Obama bubble burst the second some new challenge comes around the bend? I don’t think so. What Obama understands better than any politician in generations is that people want to be challenged; people want to roll up their sleeves and pitch in; people want to be engaged.

But old habits die hard. Speaking to unnamed foreign leaders, Barack Obama said: “To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”

Was Obama speaking to our local leaders? Maybe not. But dissent can be silenced as effectively with apathy as it can with a clenched fist.

All Politics is Local

So take this opportunity to become engaged. Not just by reading the Op Ed pages of the New York Times, but by educating yourself about what’s happening in your own back yard. I’m not suggesting how you should cast your vote on March 3rd, but vote. In the last election, Eric Garcetti won with barely ten thousand votes out of more than 130,000 registered voters.

He ran unopposed.

Now is the time for boots on the ground. Obama will fail if this country simply turns on the TV and watches change happen from the comfort of its living rooms. We can’t all go to Washington to work for change. We can’t all go to Baghdad or Afghanistan or Palestine. But we can all walk out our own front doors, talk to our neighbors, take the Metro, go to a Neighborhood Council meeting and become engaged in our own lives. Don’t let this moment pass.

When I first got involved, I was under the impression that the main function of the neighborhood council was to serve as a platform for neighbors to take real ownership of their community and not just rely on city servants to take care of everything.

Last week I was at Heliotrope and Melrose for an ArtCycle meeting. Heliotrope and Melrose is the hub for ArtCycle, a neighborhood-based, arts event that we are hosting in East Hollywood on 2/28/09. We hope ArtCycle will raise the profile of our neighborhood and ‘shed light’ on the developing arts businesses that have sprung up around East Hollywood.

After the meeting, just as it was starting to get dark, I walked over to introduce myself to one of the local businesses, a bicycle store, to see how the owner might want to participate in the event.

He said, “You’re on the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council? Let me show you something.”

He took me outside the front door of his booming business. “Look at these streetlights,” he said. By now it was fully dark and all the streetlights were dark too.

Ahhh wonderful, I thought. Here I am trying to promote an Art Crawl to this business owner and he’s showing me that until we take care of serious public safety problems this is no place to host an arts event. It’s too dark. We should host a light bulb changing event instead. In fact, at one of our planning meetings, a young woman seriously suggested we have a fund raiser at the ArtCycle to raise money for streetlight bulbs.

A year ago, a spokesman for the Department of Public Works came to an East Hollywood Neighborhood Council meeting. I think he was a bit surprised that board members and stakeholders were respectfully taking the opportunity to hold his feet to the fire. But it was worth it because it worked. For a brief period of 9 months or so, the lights went back on, the potholes were being repaired and when I called 311, it was as if they knew me.

Lightless in East Hollywood

Edgemont at Melrose, a street without light

Melrose between Vermont and Normandie is again blacked-out at night. Normandie between Rosewood on the South and Monroe to the North is also blacked-out. Normandie just South of Melrose, is totally dark. These dark streets are unsafe for motorists and pedestrians.

My initial impression that people around here needed the neighborhood council to help them take ownership of their space has changed. People from all over the neighborhood are calling, emailing and inviting City agencies to meetings. Although it is dark on the streets of East Hollywood, I can now see that it is the City who needs to take more ownership of this neighborhood. Nearly 4 acres of prime East Hollywood land are being used to house city lamp posts for the rest of the city. How do we motivate our city servants to fix the installed street lights so that the good people trying to run businesses, plan ArtCycles, walk and drive the streets of their neighborhood can get on with their work?

~Jennifer Moran

Written by Stephen Box, Hollywood Resident and Bike Activist http://SoapBoxLA.blogspot.com

One of the simplest things we can do to support mass transit in our community is to make sure that transit stops are comfortable, clean, safe and aesthetically pleasing. it seems like a no-brainer that if we want people to become transportation solutions by getting out of their cars we’ve got to make the choice attractive and at least competitive in terms of convenience and comfort.

Unfortunately, we’re far off the mark.

The Metro has its focus on getting people from point A to point B. As for the transit stop amenities, the “no-man’s land” approach from the Metro and the local authorities leaves the average mass transit patron feeling like a second class citizen.

The Metro holds that the City is responsible for the streets, the sidewalks and the amenities along the way. The City looks at the wear and tear on the transit heavy streets and asks the Metro for maintenance money and the standoff starts. Meanwhile, transit patrons throughout the City of Los Angeles stand on narrow, filthy sidewalks, looking for little respect.

The Metro holds that the sidewalks are not their responsibility and that the City is responsible for street furniture. The City turns and contracts out with CBSDecaux who then installs bus shelters with advertising, paying the City for the privilege. The money is split so that our City Councilmembers all end up controlling some of this revenue, ideally to be spent within the respective Council District.

CBSDecaux provides everything from the traditional bus shelter shown above to the automated public toilets (APTs) such as the one located at the Santa Monica and Vermont Red Line station. Along the way they put up advertising, on the bus shelters and on two and three sided sidewalk-sized kiosks and billboards.

Missing from this relationship is a simple commitment to supporting mass transit with an overall plan for streetscape beautification, a plan that would improve the aesthetic of the neighborhood, complement the local architecture and streetlife and encourage pedestrians and transit patrons.

The picture above is of a bus shelter on Hollywood Boulevard at Western. It sits on a narrow sidewalk, forcing pedestrians to squeeze past. The sidewalk is sticky, the area smells and the solid wall of the shelter hides the activities on the other side. It’s evident here that the standards for architectural security are non-existent, that the placement of transit stops is not part of a larger commitment to mass transit and that maintenance is low priority.

The sidewalk just beyond this shelter is sinking, leaving two plates that don’t line up. A simple misstep results in a tumble as pedestrians squeeze past the shelter and passengers who are jockeying for their bus.

On the west side of Western, the sidewalk is not just uneven and patched with asphalt, it has a meter hole covered with plywood.

At least mass transit passengers suffer no delusions of equality. It’s painfully apparent that in the grand scheme of things, mass transit is for people who have no choice. It’s evident that it’s a bare-bones service for those who can’t afford a car. A comfortable, walkable environment that is safe and pleasant is not something to be wasted on a public street.

It’s a sad commentary on our community that the most popular streetscapes are fake, created by developers who study Great Streets and then imitate them, drawing people in cars to the Grove, Americana and CityWalk, all so people can walk on faux boulevards. enjoying something they should be able to find in their own neighborhoods; walkable streets.

As for our neighborhood, it’ll change when we work together and demand big sidewalks, clean sidewalks, street furniture and a commitment to making our streets pedestrian oriented.

“See you on the Streets!”

This past weekend, I helped host a community tree event. The event was to do follow-up maintenance on trees we planted 10 months ago. Each time I do one of these events, I think about how it relates to community issues.

In case you are wondering, follow up tree-care is a vital step to ensuring trees make it in the urban environment, which is very difficult for trees. Also, the city does not have sufficient funding to maintain all the trees in the city. Someone has to ensure the trees planted actually make it. This is where the community comes in. Not only can they keep the closest eye on trees in their neighborhood, their participation helps the social health of the community.

During the event, I found myself conversing with other event volunteers about how wonderful it is to do tree care as a community event. Not only are community members invited to attend the event to check up on their street trees and to learn how to care for them, but when we work on the street, people cannot help but notice what we are doing. Sometimes they stop and join in the activity. Sometimes they stop to talk, find out more, and thank us for what we are doing. Sometimes they just look, but it probably gets them thinking. For everyone who participates, it builds a sense of belonging, responsibility, and connection to the people around us and to the streets on which we live.

We all know that the government cannot, and probably should not, do everything for us. The government extends only so far. In our city, it will pay for trees to be planted, but does not have the resources to take care of them all. At the same time, we notice social problems in our urban environments. What if we had well established systems of community participation where all residents actually did their part to contribute to improving the neighborhood, especially to compensate for lack of governmental resources/services? I think this would go a long way to improving social responsibility and connection in our neighborhoods. Could our City Council Representative do more to encourage this type of activity?

As I mentioned in my weekly recap, last week I sent a proposal to Garcetti’s campaign for three debates in the 13th Council District spread out throughout the district. This would be a great opportunity for each of us to share our views and approaches with voters and respond to their questions. Here is the prepared statement that I read at the City Council meeting on Wednesday, January 14, 2009:

Hi, my name is Gary Slossberg and I’m running for City Council for the 13th District. I come before the Council today to speak to the importance of public debates. Last week, I sent a proposal to my opponent to participate in public debates within our district, so that each of us could inform the voters of our positions on the issues that affect them most. To date, I have yet to receive a response.

As it stands now, if a candidate cannot raise substantial funds for their campaign, they have an incredibly difficult time competing for the attention of voters. This is without regard for the quality of their ideas and without regard for the dedication and work ethic that the candidate would bring to the office.

I find it quite appropriate to raise this issue the same week of that candidates’ fundraising reports are due. What should come as little surprise is that the funds raised by incumbents in most, if not all, of the races dwarfs in comparison the amount raised by their challengers. Unsurprisingly, so often the donors to the incumbents are the same vested special interests from which a government by the people and for the people should strive to protect us, as is the case here with contributions from rich developers and billboards companies.

What is abundantly clear to me is that our City desperately needs campaign finance reform to remove the influence of money out of our government. Second, what is clear to me is the need to mandate that candidates participate in open, public debates. A refusal to debate is an effort to silence opposition and de-legitimize one’s opponent, and it is a sad statement on our City government if to be a legitimate candidate one must be personally wealthy or have a famous last name. More importantly, given the gravity of the issues of the day, it is an offense to the voters to play political games rather than have an open debate between the candidates on how to get us through these tough times.

I am a former teacher, a Violence Prevention Educator, a long-time Neighborhood Council Board Member, and currently an attorney for low-income teen parents. Am I still not a legitimate candidate for office because I am not rich? That is not the type of government that the people of this City deserve.

I encourage everyone to contact Garcetti and ask him why he does not want to debate me. What is it about an open public dialogue that concerns him? I will continue to post updates on the progress of the situation.

“I guess we won’t be having another kid this year,” my co-worker said, after the Governor announced that State offices would be shut down two days per month indefinitely, amounting to a ten percent pay cut for State workers. “At least we still have jobs.”

Everywhere I go, the fear of being cut loose in this economy hangs in the air. Unofficially, it appears that claims for unpaid wages are down. Workers are staying in jobs without pay, with the hope that when things turn around, they’ll still have a job to go to.

Fear is in the air. It’s palpable. Just scan the business pages of your favorite newspaper and the subtext of fear is behind every word.

• The U.S. lost half a million jobs in December as the jobless rate rose to a 16-year high.
• Housing starts are down 70% from two years ago, as lumber mills close up shop all over the country.
• The third largest bank in the country announced fourth-quarter losses of more than $10 billion – despite having received $45 billion in bailout money from the federal government since October.
• The collapse of the Stock Market has left pension funds underfunded by more than $400 billion dollars.
• LA Unified School District is set to lay off 2,300 teachers.
• The State of California is cutting grants to low and middle income College students, putting the possibility of a college education out of reach for those who need it most.

People can’t get money to build homes or buy cars. The State of California has announced that it may have to delay sending out tax refunds this year. Meanwhile, the people I know are hunkered down, waiting for the next piece of bad news and doing whatever it takes to hang on to their jobs in this bleak economy.

There is one group, however, who doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of fear: the political leaders of Los Angeles. Despite the bleak economic outlook, Antonio Villaraigosa raised more than $2.7 million dollars for his reelection campaign. Jack Weiss raised more than $350,000 in his bid to become City Attorney, and Wendy Gruel took in more than $650,000 for her campaign to replace Laura Chick as City Controller.

Here in Council District 13, the incumbent, Eric Garcetti, reports raising more than half a million dollars in 2008 – which just adds to his already bloated war chest.

All this political money means that the incumbent officeholders can afford to forego government matching funds. Why is that significant? Because government matching funds come with strings attached – like the requirement that the candidate actually debate his or her opponent.

Villaraigosa’s closest rival, trial lawyer Walter Moore, has raised about $127,000 this past year. He ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2005, and has significant support in his community. He wants to debate Villaraigosa, but the mayor has refused.

“We’re not going to debate Lyndon LaRouche either,” said Villaraigosa’s spokesman, comparing Moore to the perennial fringe candidate.

Oh yeah – and let ‘em eat cake.

But seriously, why should our political leaders debate their opponents? Because they owe it to their constituents? Because they should be able to defend their positions in a public forum if they expect to lead this City through these tough times? Because we live in a democracy?

Please.

Everyone knows it’s a sucker move to debate a hungry opponent when you’ve got a famous name and a fat war chest. Still, the people are demanding accountability. Gary Slossberg has called on Eric Garcetti to debate. Garcetti hasn’t seen fit to respond. Neighborhood Councils are demanding accountability.

As President of the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council, I hereby extend the invitation to Mr. Garcetti to engage in a public candidate’s forum which we will hold in East Hollywood. The 53,000 stakeholders of East Hollywood would love to hear what you have to say.

Posted by David Bell

All the locations mentioned below are within two blocks of each other.

There’s a cute Spanish style multiplex up the street from where I live. And it’s boarded up with plywood and a chain link fence. Sort of detracts from the charm.

Charmless Spanish Style employs City’s own Design Standards.

Maybe this sounds like a symptom of a bad economy. But that’s not it. It’s been left this way for 7 years. It’s owned by Ronald McDonald House. They bought it in along with 5 other residential lots up the street in order to build a bigger hotel for guests who bring their sick children to the nearby Children’s Hospital. They built the hotel but left this particular parcel of land to waste away. (RMH is a worthy organization and what I am attempting to demonstrate is in no way belittling the important role they serve to the families of sick children.)

Understandably, the residing neighbor on the North side of this property is not a big fan of the dilapidated building. She takes excellent care of her property. She and husband are constantly painting over gang tags next door and hearing trespassers rustling around inside the units. The residing neighbor on the south side of the property says he hears people in there too from time to time doing, “…God knows what”.

Craftsman copies styles from the City’s nearby Light Yard.

A block away sits another abandoned property; a charming, old craftsman house on Virgil. It’s been abandoned for years. I could see inside before they nailed boards onto the windows and doors. The inside was covered in tags. Another neighborhood council member informed me that it was being used by squatters for prostitution and drugs. Now this house has a 9-foot tall chain link fence that surrounds its perimeter. One of the sides of the fence has a gaping hole.

Almost as unattractive as the City's Light Yard down the street.

A block in the other direction is a vacant double sized lot on a small, residential street. It’s been vacant with a breached chain link fence for the past 7 years. It sits there taunting the children who play in the street because there is no nearby park. Less than a block away from that vacant lot, is the DWP’s light yard which looks similar to a vacant lot only it is less attractive. The city thought that historic route 66, right across the street from a Carnegie Library, in one of the most densely populated areas of Los Angeles would be a great place to store light posts for the rest of the city. Behind a 12 foot high, razor wire fence that is patrolled nightly by a security guard, sits the worst offender of all: the light yard owned by the City of Los Angeles.

Child walks by city light yard on way to school.

Unidentifiable substance behind the fence. Hope it's safe for the children on their way to school.

If we can only hold landlords as accountable as we hold our own city agencies then I suppose things could get worse than they are now. It would be nice to think that property owners care about the community more than they do about their profits but this is not usually the case. But when the city’s own example of how to maintain property is such a hideous eyesore (located smack dab in the middle of 3 elementary schools no less), the standard for what everyone else needs to do to comply has been set. Why shouldn’t gangs and squatters look at this neighborhood and feel right at home. They can literally run recession proof businesses with no overhead and, at the same time blend in with the image the city puts forth in her own properties. Maybe the city’s plan is to attract all the crime to my neighborhood so it is more centralized.

As this week’s entries have made clear, there is a big gap between the rhetoric of Councilman Eric Garcetti and his actions while on the City Council.  From development to parks to fiscal responsibility, it’s evident that he is not being truly responsive to the community.

One shining example: For the past year, members of the East Hollywood community have complained about the vacant lot on Western and Carlton.  Although it is less than a block from Councilman Garcetti’s field office, it remained littered with trash and gang tagging.  Whenever residents contacted Garcetti’s office, they were told to contact the City, and the City would take care of.  Yet, after over a year, nothing was done to remedy the situation.

That was until one of the complaining residents brought her concern to one of the volunteers for my campaign.  My campaign contacted the City, arranged for the lot’s clean-up, and agreed to paint over any new graffitti that went up thereafter.

On both Saturday and Sunday, my campaign painted over fresh graffitti.  We then purchased a chain and lock to secure the gate to the lot in hopes of keeping away taggers.

As experience has shown, consistently painting over any new graffitti day after day is a great deterrent to tagging.  In many cases, the taggers evenutally realize that their efforts to tag that area are futile.  This morning as I walked to work, I was heartened to see that there was no more graffitti in the vacant lot.

It baffles me that what my campaign was able to accomplish with a few phone calls and persistence could not be accomplished by Garcetti’s office in over a year.  I understand that the demands of a Councilman are many, but if you are going to pride yourself on your reduction of graffitti in the community (as Garcetti does constantly through his newsletters), you may want to start by taking care of the graffitti that is right across the street from your Field Office.  I think this begs the simple question: Councilman Garcetti, when you make claims about your accomplishments for the community, are you telling us the truth?

This has been a great week in the campaign. I was very excited to see the activity on the campaign news and media page. Thank you everyone for your articles and insightful comments! This space is intended to provided a forum for voices in the community, so please submit your thoughts about the issues impacting our community so we can continue the public dialogue.

For the past few weeks, I have been walking the streets of Atwater Village to introduce myself to the community and to present my vision for a better Los Angeles. This is part of my grassroots effort to get out to all the neighborhoods in the 13th District to learn about their concerns. This is the same approach I plan to take in serving my constituents if elected to the City Council.

This past Thursday, I attended the Atwater Village Neighborhood Council meeting to share my ideas to create a more community-focused 13th District. As a Neighborhood Council Board Member myself (of the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council), I love attending the meetings of other Councils. I strongly believe that Neighborhood Councils can be one of the best vehicles to engage residents in their community and in the City. To learn more about the work of the Atwater Village Neighborhood Council, check them out on the web at www.AtwaterVillage.org.

On Saturday, I participated in a Tree Care Event in East Hollywood organized by Cassandra Pruett, one of the involved members of my own neighborhood council. Creating more green space in Los Angeles is crucial, and tree planting and tree care events are great ways to help do so. It particularly was great to see so many young people at the event volunteering their time for their community.

I’m the guy in blue (sporting my Florida Gators T-Shirt in celebration of my alma matter’s College Football National Championship Game victory this week):

On Sunday, my campaign took on the responsibility of taking back a vacant lot on Western and Carlton from taggers in the area. (More about this issue in the blog entry above.) This lot, although it sits less than a block from Eric Garcetti’s field office and despite the persistent complaints from community members remained filthy and filled with graffiti for over a year. It took my campaign literally only a few days to remove this blight from the community.

I look forward to having a public debate on this or other issues with Councilman Garcetti as the March 3 election approaches. In the middle of last week, I proposed to Garcetti’s campaign that we schedule three debates in our Council District. Each debate would be held in a different part of the district to encourage community involvement and to respond to neighborhoods’ individualized concerns. I have yet to hear a response from his campaign.

I hope Garcetti will agree with me that the public deserves an open dialogue on the issues affecting our community. Such dialogue is the foundation of a democratic society. To much is at stake at this time in our City’s history to not have a candid debate about where we are headed in the future.

Written by Stephen Box, Hollywood Resident and Bike Activist http://SoapBoxLA.blogspot.com

The most elegant solution to L.A. traffic is simply to pedal to where you need to go. If cycling is not for you, at least give some respect to those who choose to ride. Here’s why: Cyclists are the “indicator species” for a healthy community.

Cyclists favor well-maintained streets free of potholes and debris. They prefer streets with moderate vehicle volumes and speeds, an environment that is likewise safer and more hospitable for drivers and pedestrians.

Surveys in San Francisco found that local businesses benefited from “traffic calming” through their districts, which included accommodations for cyclists.

Finally, an increase in the number of cyclists in a neighborhood – which means more eyes on the street – has a direct relationship to a reduction in crime.

In other words, what’s good for cyclists is good for your community.

As for supporting cyclists, one of the simplest things you can do is to make sure that your neighborhood offers cyclists a place to park their bikes.

The simplest and most effective bike rack is the inverted U which is inexpensive, simple to install, holds two bikes securely, is space efficient and requires no maintenance. They simply need to be located in a highly visible, convenient and well lit area and they will fill up with bikes.

The City’s Department of Transportation offers three excuses for not putting more inverted U racks in our neighborhood.

1) “The City of Los Angeles has no money for bike parking.” Good try but not a good excuse. Funding is available but the City doesn’t apply for Safe Routes to School or Bicycle Transportation Account funding for bicycle parking. Both programs dispense millions of dollars each year and the City of Los Angeles has failed to simply put bicycle parking on their list of priorities.

2) “There isn’t always room for bike parking.” Again, good try but not a good excuse. Our streets are littered with newspaper racks along the red curb no-parking zones, all of which are great spots for the inverted U racks parallel to the curb. A little survey work and I assure you that there is plenty of room for abundant bike parking. Some cities even attach a ring to parking meters so that bikes can be secured but here in Los Angeles, it’s actually illegal to lock a bike to a parking meter.

3) “There isn’t any way to get developers to include bike parking in their projects.” Actually, LA’s municipal code already requires projects over 10K square feet to include bike amenities including bike racks at a minimum of 2% of parking and as close as the handicapped parking but even the City of Los Angeles violates this ordinance in its facilities, demonstrating that the real issue is simply political will.

All of the talk from our leadership about a bikeable city is tested when we look for the bike parking.

If you want to change the character of your community, look around and try to find the bike racks. If you’re shopping, ask the merchant to put bike racks in so that people can ride to the store. If you’re a parent, ask the school administrators to put racks in so the kids can ride to school. If you visit your Councilman at his office, ask for the bike parking and if there is none, ask why not. Most of all, remember that the developers in your community will do what we insist they do.

Parking for cyclists is a little thing but it goes a long way to supporting cycling and in encouraging cyclists.

It’s time to ask our City leadership to set the example by providing bike parking at all city facilities and to follow through on their commitment to enforcing the law by requiring developers to include bike parking in all projects.

“See you on the Streets!”

p.s If you’re interested in more information on bike parking, visit Bicycling Info.