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Saving LA Project Says No to Southwest Museum Takeover; City Rushing to Shut Off Debate |
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SLAP Confab Notes
By Ron Kaye and Nina Royal
City Hall is rushing to shut off public debate and close the deal to loot the Southwest Museum of its valuable collection and turn this historic facility -- the city's oldest museum -- into community college classrooms using bond money from the November ballot measure put up by the LA Community College District.
 The Autry National Center in Griffith Park is looking to rebuild and
expand its lackluster museum dramatically and has cut a back room deals
with LACCD to get $12 million to convert the Southwest into class space
-- an action that will rob the Mt. Washington-Highland Park area of its
most notable landmark.
The deal betrays the commitment made by Jackie Autry, widow of the western movie star Gene Autry, to maintain the Southwest as a museum.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has broken his promise to protect the Southwest as a museum.
Councilman Jose Huizar has done nothing to stand up for his constituents.
Councilman Tom LaBonge has spearheaded the Autry's campaign which has spent large sums of money to get heavyweight lobbying support from City Hall insiders Bill Delvac and George Mihlsten of Latham & Watkins and PR man Steve Sugerman, the admitted felon.
Please contact Heinrich Keifer (
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) who is helping to put together a team that will drum up support from community groups, conduct email and phone campaigns and develop other strategies to force the Autry to live up to its commitments.
SLAP VOTED TO OPPOSED THE BOND FOR THE LOS ANGELES COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT because of the LACCD's complicity in this back room deal, instigated by Community College Board member Mona Field.
SLAP also decided to oppose the $3.5 billion bond issue, the district's third in recent years.
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SLAP VOTED TO OPPOSE THE $7 BILLION LAUSD BOND AS POORLY PLANNED AND NOT QUALIFIED TO PASS WITH 55 PERCENT APPROVAL --George Buzzetti pointed out many flaws in the bond issue which was doubled in size at the last minute and raised a number of serious issues that should make it ineligible for approval by only a 55 percent majority instead of two-thirds.
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SLAP VOTED TO SUPPORT THE CULTURAL HISTORICAL DISIGNATION OF GRIFFITH PARK--Kris Sabo won the full support of SLAP for a motion to support the efforts of the heirs of Griffith Jenkins Griffith who donated the land for L.A.'s "Central Park" to get the city to declare the park a cultural-historical preservation zone which will give it badly needed protections from the city's intention to turn it into an amusement park and tourist trap.
Councilmember LaBonge also took heavy criticism from SLAP activists for his role in pushing for other developments in Griffith Park even as he postures as its guardian. Contact
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who is the lead for this opposition.
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SLAP VOTED TO JOIN THE LA BREA-WILLOUGHBY COALITION -- Headed by Lucille Saunders, the lawsuit is aimed at forcing the city to carry out required studies of traffic and other infrastructure needs before approving new developments.
Every neighborhood in the city is being negatively impacted by developments approved in ignorance -- the city hasn't made these required studies for a decade. Lucille Saunders laid out the issues involved in the lawsuit and won support Saturday from the L.A. Neighborhood Council Coalition as well as SLAP. More than a dozen community groups have now joined the suit and the support of as many as possible will help strengthen the campaign to bring sanity and good information to the city's future development. Forms to join as Plaintiff's for the lawsuit are on the website. They must be completed and faxed the September 11. Contact Lucille Saunders and the website at
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SLAP VOTED TO SUPPORT THE "NO HOME DEPOT IN SUNLAND-TUJUNGA CAMPAIGN"--Like the Southwest Museum issue, the Sunland-Tujunga "No Home Depot" campaign is rooted in the local community but raises concerns that need to be understood and supported citywide. City Hall's failure to treat local communities with respect and to engage them seriously in decisions that affect them is at the heart of what's broken in L.A. and what SLAP is really about -- hanging together to make this a great city. Cindy Cleghorn and Lidia Grant and other Sunland-Tujunga activists talked about how the city has gone to extraordinary lengths to trample on the community despite the City Council's agreement that a full environmental impact report is needed before a final decision is made. However, Home Depot has hired at great expense the usual hardball lobbyists and PR manipulators to leverage City Hall. Contact Cindy Cleghorn at
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SLAP VOTED TO OPPOSED PROPOSITION ‘B’-- Jose Aguilar won SLAP support for efforts to defeat Proposition B on the November ballot, a so-called affordable housing measure that undermines decades of voter-approved policies that ensured local community involvement and a significant share of low-rent units for senior citizens. Contact
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SLAP VOTED TO SUPPORT NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCILS FIGHTING EFFORTS TO REQUIRE FULL FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE OF ALL MEMBERS --The City Council's attempt to require all 1,600 NC members to fill out financial disclosure forms annually as the price of winning the right to open City Council files was rejected as a cynical ploy to undermine and confuse NC members. NCs have no power to approve or reject legislation and are only advisory, so at most their members should be required to do no more than DWP officials, who make decisions on huge contracts and, under a new rule, only have to sign a declaration saying they don't have a conflict.
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We would like to set up a SLAP town hall meeting in other parts of the city at times and places convenient to local community groups. If you have a confirmed a site available for at least 100 people, please contact me at
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to set up a meeting in your area.
We can only change L.A. if we work together and support each other to break the pay-to-play political culture that is serving no one but the special interests. (Ron Kaye is the former editor of the Daily News and can be reached at
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. Nina Royal publishes the North Valley Reporter and can be reached at
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) ◘
CityWatch
Vol 6 Issue 73
Pub: Sept 9, 2008
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