A large group of people attended to hear the MTA presentation at the VNC meet Tuesday.
By Angela McGregor
An MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) spokesperson announced MTA will be starting community outreach in the fall for the structure on their site (not bridge housing), a spokesman for City Planning said they were going to upgrade the Venice Specific plan, it was decided for the VNC election to have both online and in-person voting, and the cityhood motion was tabled. All of these actions happened at the July Venice Neighborhood Council meet Tuesday night.
Wells Lawson
VNC Meeting featured a presentation by Wells Lawson of MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) officials regarding the long-term (post Bridge Housing) plans for the MTA lot on Main Street. He said the environmental cleanup was finished, and demolition would begin shortly. MTA’s outreach to the community to determine what type of development Venetians will take roughly 6-9 months, beginning in the fall with Town Halls and VNC Board meetings.
Late next year, the MTA will present their findings to the Metro Board and, once approved, issue a request for proposals to interested developers. They anticipate construction will begin on the lot no sooner than 2021.
Jonathan Hershey
The Los Angeles Department of City Planning, according to Jonathon Hersey, is embarking on a 3-year process to update neighborhood community plans, including Venice’s, which was last updated in 2000 (seen here: https://planning.lacity.org/complan/pdf/vencptxt.pdf). On Tuesday, October 2 they will hold a kickoff event at Westminster Elementary to begin to gather community input, to be followed up with surveys, walking tours with stakeholders and questionnaires. The website, which is still a work in progress, will be found at www.planning.thewestside.org.
Taylor Bazley, spokesperson for Mike Bonin’s office, stated that electronic scooters are by far the biggest issue currently concerning Venice residents, judging by the amount of emails the Councilman’s office receives. He announced that legislation to regulate Birds and Lime Bikes is currently in process and on its way to the city’s Public Safety Committee. It will include a citywide 2500 device cap per company, and forbid riding the bikes on the sidewalk. This should be finalized within 1-2 months.
The Board engaged in a contentious discussion of implementing online voting in the next VNC election, which will happen in June of 2019. Former California Secretary of State Deborah Bowen, a longtime Venice resident, spoke against online voting primarily on the basis of difficulties with accessibility, especially among older residents, since Venice is a “documentation” neighborhood council requiring proof of residency in order to vote, which would presumably mean that voters would have to scan such proof and upload it. Conversely, VNC Parliamentarian Ivan Spiegel pointed out that with such a system there is nothing to prevent homeless residents, who are exempted from the documentation requirement, from voting multiple times. Nevertheless, the Board voted to go with both online and in-person voting for the 2019 elections, at an additional expense of $5,000.
Finally, the Board considered a motion regarding cityhood for Venice, in which the Board would call upon the City to amend and revise their current regulation governing local government reorganization. Currently, in order for neighborhoods such as Venice to separate from Los Angeles, the entire City of Los Angeles would vote on the issue. The requested amendment would rest that decision solely upon Venice Stakeholders.
Before the Board could vote, Venice Stakeholders Association President Mark Ryavec rose to explain that he had created a revised motion with Los Angeles’s Local Agency Formation Commission (see: http://www.lalafco.org/) that would be more Venice-specific, since, as written, the measure on the Board’s agenda might open the door to any neighborhood that had previously been a separate city to easily secede (including San Pedro, the City’s major port), and as such would inevitably be a non-starter when sent to the City Council for consideration. The Board ultimately decided to table the motion until next month, in order to give the Cityhood Committee time to do more research and present a revision.
Jocelyn Williams
New board member Jocelyn Williams was sworn in.
The meeting adjourned around 11pm. The next meeting of the VNC Neighborhood Council will take place Tuesday, August 21st.
