Mark Ryavec, president of Venice Stakeholders Association (VSA), answers Councilman Mike Bonin regarding his statement about the lawsuit filed this week by VSA and five residents.

Venice Stakeholders Association, headed by Mark Ryavec, and five residents of Ocean Front Walk sued the City and the County this week for allowing dangerous conditions and public nuisance to exist along the Venice Beach area. (See post VSA, Residents Sue City, County–Dangerous Conditions and Public Nuisance at Venice Beach.)

Councilmember Mike Bonin answered yesterday by stating that he too was frustrated but that courts have repeatedly handcuffed the City. (See post Bonin reacts to Lawsuit Regarding Venice Beach Safety.)

This is what Ryavec had to say:

While the VSA and those individuals who have joined the lawsuit against the City appreciate that one court decision and one ill-advised settlement agreement have limited what the City of Los Angeles can do about people sleeping on sidewalks and with the possessions of homeless individuals, it is also clear that the decision and settlement do not apply to parks. Nor do they entirely tie the hands of cities in addressing the problems of homeless encampments; if they did the problems we see at Venice Beach would also be seen in Malibu, Santa Monica, Marina del Rey, Hermosa Beach, Manhatten Beach, etc.

The City still has legal tools to cope with the noxious impacts of transient encampments and the VSA has proposed several changes to City ordinances that would give the City new tools in this area. The first would ban unattended luggage in or within 500 feet of the Venice Beach Recreation Area; this should have been done last year in response to the Boston Marathon backpack bombing. The second would ban lying, sitting or sleeping within 125 feet of a residence or a hotel, creating a buffer zone around the structures were residents and visitors sleep.

These proposals were forwarded to Mayor Garcetti, Councilman Bonin and City Attorney Feuer. We received no reply. Nothing.

Our attorney John Henning then wrote to Mr. Bonin on two occasions asking to discuss these proposals and offering to put them into the form of Motions for Mr. Bonin to introduce in City Council, which is the first step towards enacting them into law. Mr. Bonin did not reply to either missive.

So, I think Mr. Bonin is hiding behind the earlier court decision and settlement agreement instead of working seriously with the City Attorney and LAPD to apply at Venice Beach the existing rules that keep people from camping at all the other parks in Los Angeles. He continues to focus on what the City can’t do instead of inviting our attorney to meet with his office, the City Attorney and the LAPD to craft new ordinances to dismantle the half-mile-long Meth park that exists along Venice Beach and to ban sleeping within 125 of residences.

We all would love to see housing provided for all these people. That being said, Mr. Bonin knows that most of them do not want housing if they cannot also have their drugs and, in some instances, their dogs. Some of them don’t want to live inside under any circumstances. Mr. Bonin also knows that it is unrealistic to think that this affordable or free housing or shelters can be built in Venice due to the underlying high land costs. The protections of residents along the Boardwalk and adjoining streets cannot wait until the City and other agencies can cobble together the funds to build it.