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Council Steamrolls Opposition to Housing Element |
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GuestWords
By Ron Kaye (Posted first at RonKayeLA.com )
(Note: The LA City Council approved 13-0 the amended Housing Element of the City Plan. Here’s how Ron Kaye saw it.)
The City Council as usual revealed a lot by showing what's important to them with a chamber full of community activists angered because they were about to be steamrolled by adoption of housing policy that would lead inevitably to the destruction of their property.
Toilets for day laborers, contracts for artists, sobriety at group homes wherever they are --- these were among the dozens of issues that got priority as the audience drifted away.
In the end, it was a done deal like all of City Hall's dirty deals: 13-0 with Tony Cardenas and City Attorney wannabe Jack Weiss absent for whatever reasons.
Through it all, there was a constant refrain that the Housing Element doesn't really mean anything, just a state legal requirement. What really matters are the Community Plans.
And just before the vote, Ed Reyes, the point man in this deceit, admitted the city is five or six years behind in amending the Community Plans.
To the point, Richard Alarcon blamed that inefficiency for the incomprehensible over-development without logic or adequate infrastructure that is going on all over the city.
What wasn't mentioned is the General Plan for the city which is constantly ignored and back room deals are routinely cut so that the city's building, zoning, and planning policies, ordinances, and procedures have become meaningless.
That's why lobbyists and other political operatives earn millions getting entitlements for developments the wreck the quality of life in neighborhood after neighborhood and undermine the rules and regulations intended to protect them.
Case closed.
(Read more Ron Kaye and get the latest on his Saving LA Project at: www.RonKayeLA.com )
CityWatch
Vol 6 Issue 66
Pub: August 15, 2008
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