Misappropriation, Smishappropriation.

I've heard of Clean Diesel, but really -- this is a bit much.

In the February 29th Council Referral File, listed was what appeared to be a fairly mundane little motion -- (#08-0481) by Richard 'Houdini' Alarcon and seconded by Cardenas that instructs...

"...the Board of Public Works, with the assistance of the CLA, to appropriate and provide $100,000.00 from the Hansen Dam Environmental Center Awareness Fund (sic), to the Training Opportunity Program for the purposes of training participants from District Seven, who shall constitute an additional 25% of the program’s enrollees; and related matters...."

Hmm. Seems innocent enough. But if you look at the full text of the motion, the 'Training Opportunity Program' in question is actually the new Union-backed Truck Driver Training Program which is held at the Lopez Canyon Landfill. Yup -- Alarcon is paying to train new truckers at a closed City landfill with money taken from the Hansen Dam Environmental Awareness Center Fund. That's quite a trick, making a program that puts more truckers on the road equivalent to environmental awareness. Houdini would be proud.

The Hansen Dam Environmental Awareness Center Fund has a complex history, and it's this history that both Alarcon and his equally-adept-at-pre$tidigitation CD7 'predecessor/successor' (you can thank Prop R for this), Alex Padilla, have excelled at using to generate the smoke and mirrors that confuse the very community which is supposed to benefit from the funds. To summarize the history, Lopez Canyon semi-mitigation money begat the Lopez Canyon Community Amenities Fund benefiting the community impacted by the landfill, which, through the will of the impacted community, begat the Hansen Dam Envronmental Awareness Center Fund which begat the Lake View Terrace Library, and is supposed to beget an environmental awareness center in Hansen Dam Recreational Area, where, it just so happens, there is a recently-designated wildlife lake and sensitive wildlife area and a host of relevant community partnerships just waiting for some funding to create a beautiful, vital environmental experience for the citizens -- and the wildlife -- of this City.

The actual history of this money is full of political intrigue, misappropriation, subterfuge, and general overall screwing-of-the-people, so if you would enjoy reading it, please see below. Regardless of history and regardless of the merits (or possible un-merits) of the truck driver training program, if Council File 08-0481 passes, $100,000 from the Hansen Dam Environmental Awareness Center Fund will be successfully misappropriated by the Councilmember to pay for more truck drivers on our freeways. Environmental awareness, CD 7-style.

This is plain old wrong -- call me an idealist but the ends, good or bad, do not justify the means.


Additional:

It is worth noting that the only vetting of the Lopez Canyon truck driver training program on the community that its proximity directly impacts was a simple FYI session held as part of the Lopez Canyon Landfill Closure community meeting process -- well after CD 7 declared it a done deal in the media.

Also worth noting is that the neighborhood council inside whose boundaries Lopez Canyon and the truck driver training program resides has had no input in the process -- a process controlled by CD 7's Richard Alarcon, who just happens to be the chairman of the Los Angeles City Council's Education and Neighborhoods committee which oversees and advocates for neighborhood councils at the City Council level. That's irony for ya.
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Here as promised is the history of the HDEAC Fund: (get ready to be confused)

A long long time ago in a far far away corner of the Valley, Lopez Canyon Landfill was open and accepting the fetid garbage of millions of Los Angelenos. Its existence severely impacted a Community consisting of roughly half of Lake View Terrace, all of Kagel Canyon (in LA County), and a small part of Pacoima. Also negatively impacted because it is unlucky enough to be directly downwind/downslope of the landfill is Hansen Dam, then a "Flood Basin", now magically a "Recreational Area." (You're supposed to forget about the flood part.)

To mitigate this impact in different ways, two different official City funds were created in the City Administrative Code. One was the Lopez Canyon Community Amenities Fund. Predating neighborhood councils, this Fund was overseen by community members on a committee and administered by the CD 7 councilmember at the time (Alarcon, then Padilla). LVT and southeast Pacoima is relatively isolated, and the little impacted Community wanted a branch library for their children. They also felt that a just use of landfill mitigation money would be to create environmental awareness opportunities. Thus the Hansen Dam Environmental Awareness Center Fund was birthed from a chunk of the Lopez Canyon Community Amenities Fund. It, too, is an official City fund in the City Administrative Code.

One day around the peak time for the Y2K panic, without telling the little, impacted Community, Padilla suddenly closed the Amenities Fund and transferred all of the remaining money (hundreds of thousands of dollars) to his general discretionary fund to be used as he saw fit. It took the little, impacted Community, still without an NC, a number of years to figure out what really happened to the money and by the time they did, the money was long gone. Thus ended the Amenities Fund, although it still exists as an Administrative Code artifact. During the same period, an acre of the Rodney King "memorial corner" on Hansen Dam property was purchased with HDEAC Fund funds and dedicated to the LVT Branch Library -- a building that was at the time cutting edge in Los Angeles with its eco-friendly design. Without knowing of the cleaning out of the Amenities Fund and expecting a new, green library, the little, impacted Community was happy.

Ignorance is bliss, however. Without notice, the new, green library was severely downsized. Taking his vow to use his political wisdom over the wishes of his constituents very seriously, against the will of the little, impacted Community, for the hefty price of $1 US per year to be paid to the City, Padilla gave half of the library property to a private corporation to build their Los Angeles Children's Museum -- an institution designed to be a city-wide amenity, not a local amenity for the people living next to a landfill as was intended by the spirit of the fund. The private corporation could then charge the public a $8-$10 fee each to enter a facility on City property purchased with the little, impacted Community's own funds. On the side, and again unknown and unobserved by the little, impacted Community and a neighborhood council in the process of formation, Padilla up and gave $2 million of the Hansen Dam Environmental Awareness Center Fund to the same private corporation. Fortunately for the little, impacted Community, when it came time to pay up in 2006, things had changed. The Foothill Trails District Neighborhood Council existed, Padilla had moved upstate, and a loose end -- a council referral file -- clued the little, impacted Community in to Padilla's previously unknown generous donation on their behalf. Alarcon, having triumphantly returned to his people for a third term, actually listened to the community impact statement filed by the FTDNC on behalf of its stakeholders that include much of the little, impacted Community, and returned the money to the HDEAC Fund.

Confusing, yes? YES. But does this justify Alarcon's motion? NO. A thousand times NO.