EPA grant for Rockwood Park

We were informed today that the Environmental Protection Agency has awarded the city a grant of $400,000 from the federal Brownfields program, which funds the cleaning and rehabilitation of contaminated areas; "brownfields", by definition, are properties whose expansion, redevelopment, or reuse may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. In CD13, the grant will help assess the possibility of remediating the Rockwood Park site in Historic Filipinotown, where abandoned oil extraction wells have a history of releasing small amounts of methane and hydrogen sulfide. (Part of the grant will also go towards a remediation assessment in San Pedro.)

The obstables to locating new parks in dense, urban areas are tremendous. But my goal since I took office has been to double the number of parks in CD13. Obstacles are, if you'll pardon the expression, part of the course. And this grant puts us one step closer to knowing that Rockwood can be made safe for children at play.

For more information, check out Los Angeles's Brownfields program in the Environmental Affairs Department.

UNTAGger tags tagger as efforts expand

Disclaimer: UNTAG block captains are notencouraged to personally chase down criminal suspects. It's dangerous. Call the police! That said, three cheers for UNTAG block captain Rusty Millar, who spotted a pair of vandals defacing a wall on Hyperion in Silver Lake on Tuesday morning. He took pictures, followed the suspects as they left the area, and got a neighbor to call police, resulting in an arrest. Rusty was one of our initial UNTAG block captains, and like the more than fifty others in the district, he has taken responsibility for reporting and painting out graffiti on his block. In this case, he's gone beyond the call of duty. Thank you, Rusty! At the exact same time as Rusty was chasing taggers, I was encouraging an "aye" vote on item 42 on the council agenda, the expansion of UNTAG to a city-wide program. It's time to replicate our success from San Pedro to Granada Hills. Council voted 12-0 to create a version of our home-grown program for all of Los Angeles. It will be directed by Operation Clean Sweep, the agency responsible for administering graffiti eradication contracts. It will replicate our system of block captains, surveillance cameras in graffiti "hot spots", and anti-graffiti techniques such as vining to curb blight and vandalism. Following council, the budget committee met in the afternoon. I made sure that we included $500,000 in the FY 2005-6 budget to support the citywide UNTAG program. Now we know that we'll be able to reach our goals. Unveiling UNTAG in June 200

The 2005-6 City Budget

After more than 40 hours of deliberation, the Budget Committee of the City Council has finished making its recommendations. The budget, which consists of adjustments made to the original budget proposed by the Mayor, will next be forwarded to the entire City Council for approval. Here are some of the things that I personally fought for in this budget, that the committee passed today:

• $500,000 to establish a citywide version of Uniting Neighborhoods To Abolish Graffiti (UNTAG), our highly successful, volunteer-based, CD13-grown initiative
• $100,000 for the Neighborhood Land Trust, which turns small lots into community parks
• $500,000 for Domestic Abuse Response Teams (DART), intervention teams that roll-out on domestic violence calls and help survivors of abuse extricate themselves from dangerous home situations
• Restoration of all of the Fire Department's 10-member task forces and of a 24-hour ambulance presence in all fire station houses
• $741,000 for the creation of a Department of Gang Violence and Youth Development, an idea, originated by my colleague Martin Ludlow, whose time has come
• $608,000 for 9 city planners, one of whom will implement the Silver Lake-Echo Park Community Plan update
• 23 positions and funding for illegal sign enforcement program, which will encourage creative signage in commercial areas while relieving our neighborhoods of ugly, illegal advertisements
• $50,000 for a street light on Santa Monica Boulevard, to prevent future accidents like the one that took the life of 9-year-old Seily Rodriguez

Also of note:

• End of the citywide hiring freeze, enabling departments to better serve the public
• $1.5 million in new materials for our libraries (after all, what good is a brand-new library without any books?)
• 5% increase in planning fees, which will help us hire new planners and eradicate the backlog in the planning department
• Boosted the reserve fund to about 3.5%, the highest rate in years

Hollywood and Vine

The Hollywood and Vine project has taken two giant steps forward. The project combines a hotel, mixed-income housing and commerical space on a transit-friendly site over the MTA station (and the rest of the surrounding block minus the Taft Building) at Hollywood and Vine. In March, the MTA board approved the deal; earlier today, the Community Redevelopment Agency signed off.

The details of this project are truly impressive, and I'm excited to watch construction go forward. Especially exciting is the community benefit agreement (CBA) that my office developed along with local residents, community groups, and the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy. The project and CBA include:

• a 296-room W hotel that has an agreement with hotel workers' union UNITE HERE Local 11
  
• 350 apartments, of which 74 are affordable at different levels
  
• 145 condominiums
  
• living wage agreement for all direct employees of the developer (hotel, security, parking, etc.)
  
• hiring from the community via a “first-source” agreement
  
• $30,000 to fund efforts to sign workers and neighbors up for low-cost healthcare
  
• $50,000 contribution to the city's Healthcare Career Ladder training program
  
• $100,000 contribution for career ladder training in the culinary industry
  
• $500,000 fund for the arts at Hollywood High School, established in memory of Hollywood high alumnus John Ritter

While we're still working with the developer to perfect the design, the project, valued at $326 million overall, looks great. Construction should commence in early 2006.

Come Clean The River

Promoting the cleanup

Come clean up the Los Angeles River with me on Saturday! I will join the Pacific American Volunteer Association (PAVA) at 9:00 am where Fletcher meets the river. I'd love to see you there. If you can't make it to that site, this page at the Friends of the Los Angeles River website can help you pick another one. Our city's history is bound to the river's path and its movements. Taking care of it is fun, it's ecological good sense, and it represents a profound and necessary shift in attitudes: turning back to the river after we've turned our backs to it for so long a time.

Blogging.la also wants you to clean up the river. And just to be clear, I will not be wearing a tie to clean up the river—the above picture was from an event promoting the clean-up last year

Madeline Janis Aparicio in the Daily News

The Hollywood and Vine development (see below) is what happens when you ask the right questions about a city's growth: what kind of jobs are we creating? Are we locating them close to transit? Are we putting density in the right places? In an opinion piece published in today's Daily News, CRA commissioner Madeline Janis Aparicio explains why it's so important to ask every development how it will help the neighborhood in which it locates, and how the city can work smarter—not just harder—to attract business to Los Angeles.

Cutting Down on Cutting Through

Are you concerned about traffic congestion on the residential streets bounded by Silver Lake Boulevard, Glendale Boulevard, and Sunset Boulevard?

At my request, the city's Department of Transportation (DOT) is conducting a neighborhood Traffic Management study to figure out how to prevent commuters from using residential streets as "cut-throughs". Many residents in that neighborhood have been troubled by smog, noise and public safety problems resulting from cut-through traffic during rush hours.

My office will host a community meeting in early autumn to discuss the results of the DOT study. This meeting will be an opportunity for you to participate in the process and help determine what types of traffic mitigations the city will implement. If you'd like to learn more about the study in advance of the autumn meeting (date to be announced), contact Shane Goldsmith, my Silver Lake Deputy, via email or at (323) 913 4693. Thanks go to the members of the Duane Street Association in Silver Lake, who have taken a very active role in this process and they are eager to meet other concerned residents. Shane can put you in touch with them.

The Silver Lake Jewish Community Center Lives

The Silver Lake Jewish Community Center will keep its doors open! Due to financial problems and disagreements between the Jewish Federation and the Jewish Community Center of Greater Los Angeles, the center's existence was in doubt. Nothing would hurt Silver Lake quite like the loss of the popular SLJCC, which offers day-care and interesting classes, open to all community members. At a time when the city is trying to increase the amount of available day care, it would mean a public policy loss as well.

For much of my first term in office, I was involved in “shuttle diplomacy” between all of the parties involved, seeking a solution. (I had the excellent help of Jenny Isaacson and Julie Shullman, two concerned members of the center.) Things started to look bad; developers started to wonder about converting the site into other uses entirely. Meanwhile, the offerings at the center grew more robust: while facing closure, the center added ballet and flamenco dancing classes and the day-care center's waiting list surged.

Finally, help came from an unlikely source. Bishop Jon Bruno, the head of the L.A. Diocese of the Episcopal Church, stepped forward and offered to rescue the Jewish Community Center! The deal that the Episcopal Diocese and the center struck gives the Diocese 49% ownership of the facility, which they will use for community services and classes in conjunction with the JCC. (I asked the Federation to support the deal.) Bishop Bruno has emerged in all this as a real hero – as I told the L.A. Times, I think they'll make him an honorary rabbi.

Read more about this exciting victory in the Jewish Journal and in the Los Angeles Times.

Photo by Jacob Shavit for the Jewish Journal

Beautification Day

The Silver Lake Neighborhood Council Beautification Committee was out in full force at Saturday's Silver Lake Beautification Day. I joined 150 volunteers turned out by Emily Johnson and the Beautification Committee to the area around Laurel and Hardy park. We picked up more than 130 bags of trash! After three hours of hard work the volunteers returned to hot dogs, musical entertainment, and the satisfaction of a job very well done.

Eric and Emily sling soil for Silver Lake

Silver Lake Town Hall and Community Fair

Addie Daddio did a fantastic job organizing the Silver Lake Town Hall and Community Fair at Bellevue Park. A relative newcomer to Silver Lake, Addie brought energy and commitment that produced an informative, festive event which will hopefully return as an annual celebration. Michael Locke covered the event on his Silver Lake News. Check out his write-up here—you have to scroll down a little. Thank you, Addie!

Photo credit: Michael Locke