News of Venice, CA and Marina del Rey CA
Porta potties appeared in private parking lot on east side of 3rd Ave. Sign says do not throw clothes in potties or the porta potties will be removed. Looks like large bowl or planter is used for garbage.
Owner had been plagued with people using his property as a toilet so he probably sought the porta potties as a solution.
Jasmin Kozowy, director of Lava Mae, for 3rd and Rose said Thursday that there are six residents on 3rd and Rose with MRSA based on the medication they take and there are three cases she suspects are MRSA based on the what the sores look like.
MRSA, according to the Mayo Clinic medical information on internet: Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection is caused by a type of staph bacteria that’s become resistant to many of the antibiotics used to treat ordinary staph infections. It is contagious by contact.
A higher number of cases were reported at the Venice Neighborhood Council Wednesday night. When asked if the CDC had been notified, the answer was no. Venice Update contacted Center for Disease Control (CDC) Wednesday morning and was told to call the Public Health Nurse at SiMMS/MANN Health. This was done. Update requested that the public health nurse assigned to that area contact the Update. No one so far has called the Update. Supposedly, a nurse has been assigned and if there is a problem will report such to CDC.
John Betz is once again beset by the flagrant oversight of the Los Angeles Police Department to keep the Westminster Park/Westminster Senior Center free of “tenters” and vagrants and also the area bordering Westminster Elementary School.
The law states that one cannot be in the park after closing, cannot sleep in the park, cannot erect a tent in the park. Yet.
Councilman Gilbert Gedillo of the LA City Homeless and Poverty, made the motion that Homeless encampments adjacent to school facilities continue to interfere with the City’s mission of safe and clean routes to schools. State of California Penal Code Section 626 defines ‘Safe School Zones’ as property within 1500 feet of a school. Yet.
“For the past two weeks two “traveling” lads, who I would estimate are about 28 years old, are living out of their car, and have been sleeping in a tent in the Westminster Park,” wrote John Betz. “And it is on Main Street right across the streets from the Westminster School. It is easy to find – right under the “School Crosswalk” sign meant to keep the school children safe while crossing the street (oh, the irony).
“I have called LAPD about 5 or 6 times to report this, usually at about 4 am when enforcement should be easy because no one is supposed to be sleeping in the park at night, but no results–apparently nothing meaningful has been done.
“I don’t understand why our community has to put up with this. The winter shelter is open and there were plenty of beds available last night, 17 Dec, (80 open beds at the shelter and 21 openings at S.H.A.R.E.). So why is this going on for so long? Why will the police not do anything? It is illegal to camp in the park and these people have a place to go. And now, because of LAPD inaction the problem in our park is growing, as it always does when the City turns a blind eye.
“This is what one mom found recently walking her child to school. The fence is the elementary school fence.”
The newly formed Oxford Triangle Association (OTA) is reaching out to members of the community in an effort to unite all residents to fight the proposed rezoning and redevelopment of the Thatcher Maintenance Yard at the corner of Thatcher and Princeton.
“Our goal is to unite as a community so that we have one voice speaking for the Oxford Triangle community and to interface with all neighboring communities,” wrote Karen Kennedy. “The Oxford Triangle Association was formed to raise funds for an attorney for this specific issue only. The organizers are actively seeking participation and volunteers in this united effort to fight the City and Mike Bonin, who is behind the City efforts to change the very nature and fabric of our neighborhood(s).”
Contact OxfordTriangle@gmail.com and/or go to the OTA website www.oxfordtriangleassociation.com
The Walgreens encampment is gone. It packed up after the Venice Update published an open letter to Councilman Mike Bonin and the new LAPD Captain last Monday. Letter had been on the web a few days earlier.
It was an insane encampment with needles dropping on the sidewalk and street to inebriated people harassing vehicles and pedestrians passing. Feces was everywhere. These were not your normal homeless; these homeless were combative.
They had a bike chop shop and rode thru the neighborhood at night and early in the morning. For what reason?
The story carried the law and the settlement that affects the law. Remember the two because many police do not know the law. The one at the encampment recently was not aware of law other than homeless weren’t allowed after 6 am.
Residents of Carter, which is first street parallel to Lincoln, have suffered with these transients off and on for years. One family on Carter with young children moved because of it. Various members of the community have “done the dance” with the police and with Walgreens but it persists.
Chris Cerbo suggested that all police cars route thru Walgreens parking lot to keep the area clear.
“Obviously, it requires a continuous, persistent effort,” according to Venice Update. “The burden should be on the police, not on the residents to keep this corner clear. Panhandling at the Washington—Lincoln intersection should be stopped. It is illegal. This is a big attraction and sometimes the first sign of homeless settling in.”
The area does have a new senior lead officer (SLO) replacing Gregg Jacobus. New SLO Javier Ramirez contact information is 39174@lapd.online, 310-622-3971.
(Photo courtesy of John Betz.)
The rewritten LAMC 85.02, defining where and when live/sleep vehicles can park on city streets, will go into effect and be enforceable 7 January.
The new LAMC 85.02 prohibits live/sleep vehicles in residential areas during the hours of 9 pm to 6 am and at no time within 500 feet of a park, licensed school, pre-school or daycare facility. Posted city parking restrictions will remain in force. They will be able to park in commercial/industrial zoned areas.
This law will sunset 1 July 2018.
The new code is as follows:
SEC. 85.02. REGULATING THE USE OF VEHICLES FOR DWELLING.
A. Use of Vehicles for Dwelling Restricted on City Streets. No person
shall use a Vehicle for Dwelling as follows:
1. Between the hours of 9:00 P.M. and 6:00 A.M. on any Residential
Street; or
2. At any time within a one Block radius of any edge of a lot containing
a park or a licensed school, pre-school or daycare facility.
Nothing herein precludes the enforcement of any other laws such as parking restrictions, including, but not limited to, prohibitions on overnight parking.
B. Definitions: As used in this section:
1. Block is defined as 500 feet.
2. Dwelling means more than one of the following activities and when
it reasonably appears, in light of all the circumstances, that a person is using a vehicle as a place of residence or accommodation:
Possessing inside or on a vehicle items that are not associated with ordinary vehicle use, such as a sleeping bag, bedroll, blanket, sheet, pillow, kitchen utensils, cookware, cooking equipment, bodily fluids. Obscuring some or all of the vehicle’s windows. Preparing or cooking meals inside or on a vehicle. Sleeping inside a vehicle.
3. Residential Street means any street which adjoins one or more
single family or multi-family residentially zoned parcel.
4. Vehicle means any motor vehicle, trailer, house car or trailer coach
as defined by the California Vehicle Code.
C. Penalty. A first violation of this section shall be punishable as an infraction not to exceed $25. A second violation of this section shall be punishable as an infraction not to exceed $50 and all subsequent violations of this section shall punishable as an infraction not to exceed $75. Violators may be eligible for referral to a prosecutorial-Ied diversion program such as the Homeless Engagement and Response Team (HEART).
D. Sunset Provisions. The provisions of this section shall expire and bedeemed to have been repealed on July 1, 2018, unless extended by ordinance.
E. Severability. If any portion, subsection, sentence, clause or phrase of this section is for any reason held by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, such a decision shall not affect the validity of the remaining portions of this section. The City Council hereby declares that it would have passed this ordinance and each portion or subsection, sentence, clause and phrase herein, irrespective of the fact that anyone or more portions, subsections, sentences, clauses or phrases be declared invalid.
Enforcement
The City Attorney’s letter dealt with the enforcement situation and wrote to the City Council members the following:
City Council sought to enforce the draft ordinance through the City’s Administrative Citation Enforcement (ACE) program. However, the ACE program relies on the violator having a current and valid mailing address. Based on information provided by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) and others, people who use their vehicles to dwell often do not have reliable mailing addresses. Therefore, the ACE program is not suitable as a tool to enforce the draft ordinance.
In order to establish enforcement that meets the goals of City Council, the draft ordinance provides for the issuance of infraction citations with a penalty structure requested by City Council: $25 for first violation, $50 for the second violation and $75 for third and subsequent violations. A violator can pay the fine or appear in court to challenge the issuance of the citation. Alternatively, a violator may seek eligibility for dismissal of the citation through participation in the Homeless Engagement and Response Team (HEART) program or similar prosecutorial led diversion program.
The City will provide public outreach concerning information about where people can vehicle dwell on City streets. Public outreach will be coordinated with LAHSA and homeless service providers through the creation and distribution of maps developed by the City denoting the streets on which vehicle dwelling is allowed. The maps will be made available on the City’s website and updated regularly.
The adoption of this draft ordinance will allow the City to collect data for an environmental analysis of permanent regulation of vehicles used for dwelling on public streets.
Lava Mae, managed by Jasmin Kozowy, comes each Friday close to 8:30 am and leaves close to noon to provide clean showers for those living on 3rd Avenue. Bureau of Sanitation comes, after they finish on Ocean Front Walk, to clean and sanitize the street and the sidewalks.
Maria expresses her gratitude for the shower.
Note: Pardue has reference to the LA City Committee on Homelessness and Poverty that met 7 December in LA to discuss the contractors for the surplus properties, such as Thatcher Yard and Venice Median.
Just got back from the meeting at City Hall and wanted to pass on some notes to you all…
I walked in at 9:09 and there was already a line of speakers and no more speaker cards. I did not get a chance to speak but many spoke against the Venice plans — usually bringing up the obvious economic folly of this entire thing (help at most 250 homeless in 5 years time at a cost of $100m OR raise $100m now and help thousands TODAY). Several people spoke in favor as well – these people were mostly affiliated (read: make money – Linda Lucks was there speaking, Becky Dennison, etc) with Venice Community Housing (VCH). The few others who spoke in favor lived in a Safran development (pretty unlikely that they just “showed up”). Many others wanted to speak but the comment segment of the meeting was cut short due to “time constraints.” Incidentally, that is exactly the same reason the Business Improvement District (BID) was brought up for a revote….
So Far CAO Has Made All Decisions
What happened today is the City Homeless and Poverty committee agreed in principle to an ENA (exclusive negotiating agreement) with the selected developers for the 5 city lots (8 total lots, 2 are to be sold, 1 has been pushed – more on that later, and 5 to be developed). Bonin made a point of saying that he has not seen ANY plans – he has no idea what has been proposed for each lot by each developer. The only people that have seen these proposals are the City Administrative Officer (CAO) “board” which ultimately made the decisions to develop or sell. They ostensibly used the developers previous experience as a determiner as well.
If this is true, it means that a completely anonymous board of unelected officials whom we have zero contact with is making decisions about our neighborhood that affect us tremendously. A group that has zero accountability, zero responsibility to our neighborhood, zero involvement with the public is setting the course for our lives. They are doing so without input or ideas from the communities most affected and without recourse from the elected officials (in our case, Bonin).
If this is true, it also means that a body completely unconnected to Bonin and without Bonin’s approval, has given the go-ahead to two of Bonin’s biggest donors to develop. They made this “choice” from 49 proposals. They chose a company that has zero experience developing a property like the Venice median lot, has only developed one building in its history (and that was accomplished with a partnership), and has a horrible track record of maintaining properties (Venice Community Housing VCH). At the very least, Thomas Safran Associates has SOME experience developing these types of projects…but I still find it incredibly coincidental that Safran would get 2 projects of 5. The collusion is blatant.
Bonin reiterated some points:
No plans have been submitted and there will not be plans without community outreach. Since VCH has never done this type of project, who knows what their community outreach will be. I can guarantee that Becky Dennison doesn’t really care what we think – she has already said that “there is no neighborhood there (Venice medial lot area, ie: MY NEIGHBORHOOD).
All plans will be subject to approval – just like any other development. He also said they will be subject to EIR and Coastal Commission approval. Yet another factor that the CAO board conveniently “forgot” when looking at feasibility for the Venice lots.
Bonin wanted to know if the ENA could last longer than a year (“because nothing gets built in a year in Venice”) and also wanted to know what would happen “if it became clear that nothing was going to work on that property.” He was basically asking if the City has an “out” and could one day rethink this entire plan. The answer is yes, that could happen. That was Bonin’s way of tossing us a bone…and we should continue to guide this process as much as we can along the way. There will be meetings and it will be hard, but we have to show up and voice our concerns as we learn more.
Bonin Says All Units Must be for Homeless
Bonin was very concerned about the rumors of some of these projects having “market-rate housing” built on them. He will not stand by that. He feels the entire purpose of these lots being developed is for low-income/housing for the homeless. A mixed-use with market rate housing is out of the question for Bonin. There was also some question about permanent supportive housing being mixed with low income housing – something that to my knowledge (and to Bonin’s) does not exist – but apparently PSH can be labeled as such if 50% of the units are PSH and the other 50% are something else. But regardless, if Bonin gets his way, there will be no market rate housing on these lots.
Bonin also asked the board to readdress the lot in Manchester that is being recommended for auction. He felt like it would be a good site for a Habitat for Humanity project. He had no details, no plan, no idea what that actually meant….but he had been at en event and someone brought it up and now it is going to be explored. THAT IS HOW THIS MAN THINKS ABOUT OR NEIGHBORHOOD. He has an idea…and he waves his hand and some committee with no accountability or authority, goes off to make it so…just like that. A complete 180 degree turn on a property all because Bonin thinks it might be a good site for something from Habitat.
Finally, the portion of the meeting about housing came to an end with the Councilman from the 8th district (Marqueece Harris-Dawson) saying that his community already deals with homeless enough and thinks “wealthy” communities should start to do their part and not kick the problem around.
Note: Venice is second only to Santa Cruz in state as far as having a high homeless ratio to resident. It is 1 homeless person to 40 residents.
With that, every single person associated with VCH and homelessness in general left the room. The meeting, however, was still VERY MUCH about homelessness and in particular about vehicular dwelling. Difficult questions about where (industrial v residential areas, number of spots – the committee felt 25 per district was enough, Bonin pushed for 50 and reassessing after 6 months), about who, and about how vans and RV’s would be dealt with…but not one person there from VCH actually cared about those people or those solutions. They only care about the money they stand to make on building housing. They are only interested in their tired old model that has gotten us into the mess we are in today. They strutted out of the room — happy that they will profit while people sleep on the streets and in their cars for YEARS until this housing is built. It’s sickening and vile. I have never seen such a smug group of self-righteous people in my life. They truly think they are doing the “right” thing and will not listen to anyone who questions them. They hide behind being “good,” but they showed how little they care when they cleared out that room while important decisions were still being made.
The Los Angeles Homeless and Poverty Committee met at 9 am, 7 December to approve entering into exclusive negotiating contracts with developers for permanent supportive housing projects on eight city-owned properties, including the Thatcher Yard and Venice Median lots.
Residents of the neighborhoods affected by this development were not officially notified by the city, and members of the Oxford Triangle Association were notified of it via an email from Mark Shockley, around 5 pm 6 December, after the Association’s attorney noticed it on the city’s website. At least a dozen opponents of these projects arrived by the announced meeting time of 9 am, only to be met with a room full of proponents of the projects who had apparently been formally notified and had arrived early enough to fill out the majority of the speaker cards prior to 9 am. Public comment was cut off at 9:15. Among the notable comments:
Dan Whalen, one of the members of the Oxford Triangle Neighborhood Study group, pointed out that the neighborhood is small, entirely zoned for single family residential housing, and already plagued with traffic problems, and pleaded with the committee to consider an alternate, more appropriate location for such high-density development.
Linda Lucks, former VNC President, said that she favored such developments because they would restore the economic diversity that had been lost in Venice due to gentrification.
Mark Ryavec, candidate for CD11 Councilmember and President of the Venice Stakeholders Association, asked that any plans for such development in Venice be held in abeyance until after the March elections, and that the concept of such developments be put before the Venice Neighborhood Council so that the community would have a chance to weigh in on them in light of what seems to him to be enormous community opposition.
Two formerly homeless, current residents of Safran projects in Del Rey spoke in favor of the project as well.
During the Committee’s discussion, mention was made that proposals had been featured in social media (possibly a reference to the Safran Group’s response to Venice Update’s questions), in particular that the projects might include a majority of market-rate housing. Councilman Bonin insisted that he had not seen any proposals and that none had been approved, nor would they be without both VNC and Coastal Commission approval. “I have instructed these developers not to come to me with proposals until they’ve worked out their plans with the community,” he stated. Furthermore, while by law such developments only have to include 15% permanent supportive housing , he said including such a large amount of market-rate housing, which “is effectively luxury housing, on the Westside” was “unacceptable” to him, and would be tantamount to a “bait and switch”. He said he would not approve any project which did not predominantly consist of housing for the formerly homeless, in line with the stated goals of the City’s plan to combat homelessness via funding available due to Proposition HHH, which passed in November.
The exclusive negotiating agreements, which would expire after one year, were approved. Councilman Bonin pointed out that it would no doubt take longer than a year to build these projects in Venice (“nothing gets built in Venice in less than a year”), and the point was made that the City can pull out of the agreements if the projects don’t “pan out.”
The meeting adjourned at 10 am.