Mayor Sam Exclusive!! David Tokofsky meet the Hazard Park Advisory Board, "COUNCILMAN LAST SEEN INVESTIGATING OTHERS AS JOSE HUIZAR", exposed again!!
Interesting e-mail making the rounds in CD-14.Apparently a group called the Hazard Park Advisory Board got under the skin of Southwest Society Member/Legacy LA Front Person Jenny Krusoe and she went whining to fellow Southwest Society Member Jose Huizar.
So what recourse does the "COUNCILMAN LAST SEEN AS JOSE HUIZAR" undertake in dealing with this situation?
Its seems that despite the denials that were stated in this e-mail, the "COUNCILMAN LAST SEEN INVESTIGATING OTHERS AS JOSE HUIZAR" orders his Boyle Heights Field Director (who shortly after resigned to pursue other employment) to investigate Jenny Krusoe's complaints further.
One must wonder if the "COUNCILMAN LAST SEEN INVESTIGATING OTHERS AS JOSE HUIZAR" even bothered to attempt communicating with the members of the Hazard Park Advisory Board to get their side of the story.
It was this type of behavior that led to the "COUNCILMAN LAST SEEN INVESTIGATING OTHERS AS JOSE HUIZAR" being fined $15,000 for using campaign funds to "secretly research" former LAUSD Board Member David Tokofsky policy decisions.
With this sort of behavior, maybe it is now time to investigate and question whether the "COUNCILMAN LAST SEEN AS JOSE HUIZAR" is misusing tax dollars in needless acts of "creepy investigations" of his own constituents.
Makes you wonder who will be lurking in the shadows tonight for the Mayor Sam's Bash in Highland Park.
***Is the Mrs. Huizar expecting # 4??***
Labels: "COUNCILMAN LAST SEEN AS JOSE HUIZAR", david tokofsky, Jenny Krusoe, Southwest Society
Posted by Red Spot in CD 14 @ 10/17/2008 02:05:00 PM
21 Comments:
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD will you PLEASE spell and grammar check your work you ignorant fool.
[AN] Interesting e-mail [IS] making the rounds in CD-14.
Its [IT] seems that despite the denials...
(...resigned to pursuit [PURSUE]other employment)
...even bother [BOTHERED] to attempt communicating...
...investigate and question whether the "COUNCILMAN LAST SEN [SEEN] AS JOSE HUIZAR" is misusing tax dollars in [THE] needless act of creepy investigations" of his own constituents.
You look like a damn ignorant fool with your 3rd grade writing abilities.
"Makes you wonder who will be lurking in the shadows tonight for the Mayor's Sam Bash in Highland Park."
If you think anyone takes this site seriously you are more delusional than Higby.
The blog you write for is "Mayor Sam" not "Mayor's Sam". Perhaps when you show up with Dowd, Higby and Dog they can teach it to you.
Yu R westing breathe to atak Reed Snot bout spleing rongly.
Hee s Prowd of hiz ignerunce. He lafs, he meks juks (bery baad onz).
Hee hes th bren pour f a chiken (ded 1).
For the love of grammar and education, will someone please give Red Spot a copy of Microsoft Word which has grammar and spell checking capabilites.
The messenger IS dumber than a fifth grader.
And I am NOT a third floor spinster.
"And I am NOT a third floor spinster".
But you may be an old bat from the belfry, or a sorry old Mexican mouth jockey from Highland Park, or possibly a reject from a hundred other blogs.
Have you considered taking a serious run at the Ass Clown position?
I'm laughing diabolically at yew control freaks (first fore anons). Yew awl remind me of the little gnats and flies who circle an empty food can someone chucked out of there car window.
Why are my tax dollars being used by the Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council and given to Huizar to spend on events he takes credit for without community input. This sleazy, kiss ass board does things just as corruptly as Huizar and the Mayor. They meet behind closed doors, vote on crap, then we find out our tax dollars instead of going to help the community is given to Huizar. IS THIS LEGAL??? Why is Richard Alatorre who supports the Vernon Power Plant project getting involved in the Boyle Heights Parade? Does anyone know what happened to the investigation of Huizar's employee Gustavo and Estrada Courts Housing corruption charge???? Dig Red Spot, Dig for the truth
Who cares about Hazard Park or Los Angeles?
Higby here is a great McCain Picture just for you.
http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/johnmccain/ig/John-McCain-Pictures/Animated-McCain-Tongue.htm
"Does anyone know what happened to the investigation of Huizar's employee Gustavo and Estrada Courts Housing corruption charge???? "
Probably the Judge in the case was Villariagosa's sister...'nuf said.
Who cares about this. Enough already!!
Hey Red Spotte, I heard-ed that Scotty Johnson, Jose Aguilar and their 1-2 supporters have already stayed on the Advisory Board past their terms.
THE HAZARD PARK ADVISORY BOARD NEEDS TO BE DISBANDED:
Scott Johnson has done nothing!!
Jose Aguilar has done nothing!!
Juanita Dellhomes has done nothing!!
Time for new people.When is the next meeting, so we can go tell them that they do not represent anyone, especially not the Sierra Club
Apparently this Jenny Krusoe has no understanding of the US Constitution.
Citizens who have an issue with an action of their government have every right to speak out on with or without the permission of some bureaucrat protecting their position.
I would suggest that any outside foundation considering funding any project undertaken by a City of LA department these days, especially in CD 14 take a good hard look before they authorize funds. No doubt there are plenty of decent organizations seeking funding for worthy projects, but the graft, corruption and shadiness in this Council District is legendary and historic.
It's kind of the Chicago of LA. :)
Oh goodness if you think Red Spot needs a spell check so does Ron Kaye.
WE LOVE Ron Kaye over here in Mar Vista but sincerely he's a NEWSPAPERMAN and he doesn't proof his blog very well.
WE NEED RON KAYE and MAYOR SAM, would someone volunteer to PROOFREAD Ron Kaye and Red Spot?
Say what you will about the Hazard Park Advisory Board,but if one has to lie about her place of birth in order to market herself as some Horatio Alger, then that is the real story.
FYI
There are alot of copies of that e-mail making the rounds inside and outside of CD-14.
Plus, there are more e-mails that show the veracity, or should say lack of, from the likes of Jenny Krusoe, Ellen Sanchez, David Galaviz and other public officials.
.....and the LA Times has them all.
The Sierra Club has been supporting the efforts of community activists to protect Hazard Park and restore its natural wetlands for 40+ years.
Long-time Hazard Park Activist Alex Man was a Sierra Club Member and has worked with the Hazard Park Advisory Board and Northeast Trees in his goal of restoring the Wetlands and protecting the park from the likes of USC.
Has anyone seen Vera Padilla??
One should educate themselves about Hazard Park by reading this.
Back in the protest-laden 1960s, Hazard Park was a symbol of how local activists and environmentalists could beat City Hall. For seven years, they vigorously opposed construction of a veterans hospital in the park, and eventually won.
When the city finally threw in the towel in 1969 in the face of protesters who said the Eastside needed its parks, opponents such as environmentalist Alexander Man rejoiced. “The city thought it was a fait accompli,” Man recalled recently, “but it wasn’t.”
The 25-acre park, east of the County-USC Medical Center complex in Boyle Heights, survived, but it fell out of the public’s eye. Quietly, Hazard was overshadowed by bigger parks in the area and by growth that hemmed it in on three sides.
The Los Angeles Unified School District built a magnet high school on the park’s southern boundary. USC’s health sciences campus took up property on the park’s northern perimeter. And the presence of an Army Reserve center and armory precluded the park’s growth to the west. Soto Street borders the park on the east.
Now, Man and other veterans of the fight to save Hazard Park are readying for a new campaign. This time, they want to preserve a heretofore little-known wetland area that bisects the park.
The 2-acre section, which was once part of a railroad easement through Hazard, has some vegetation that thrives in water, such as cattails, willows and sedges. In addition, researchers have found fresh-water snails and crayfish.
Several years ago, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staff members discovered a variety of birds, including the Anna’s hummingbird, the northern mockingbird and the American crow, in Hazard.
“It has a tremendous potential of being developed into a nice wetlands area,” said James Henrickson, a professor of botany at Cal State Los Angeles, who noted that some degradation has occurred in recent years because of neglect and use of the railroad.
Added James Campbell, a retired marine biologist who lives in Woodland Hills: “Any wetlands of an acre or more is worthy of preservation. I think this area, especially because it is in the inner city, has considerable recreational potential.”
Henrickson, Campbell and others are not sure what the parcel’s source of water is. One theory suggests that the old Arroyo de los Pasos, shown on maps drawn in 1894, is the source. Another hints that a section of the old Zanja Madre irrigation system, which was built shortly after the city’s founding in 1781, provides the wetland’s water.
Still another suggests that the Hazard water is from springs.
Whatever the source, locals have long known of the water in that part of Hazard Park. For years, children reported catching fish there. Man and others remember seeing pools in the middle of summer.
Three years ago, when Southern Pacific abandoned its right of way–granted by the city in 1904 for $1,000–Man and others began to persistently query the Army, the city, USC and the school district about their intentions.
In seeking support to preserve the wetland, the old Save Hazard Park Assn. changed its name to Friends of Hazard Park and Hazard Park Wetlands.
Members say the reason for their campaign is simple.
“I joined the Save Hazard Park committee in 1966,” said retired U.S. citizenship teacher Gonzalo Molina, “and I’m still committed to the park. Right now, we’re trying to save a wetlands because of its neighbors.”
Kathy Farnsworth, who is the Hazard group’s secretary and treasurer, reiterated the often-repeated complaint on the Eastside that it’s a park-poor region in comparison with other parts of Southern California. “We need open space,” she said.
Leader Has History of Activism
Most of the lobbying has been left to Man, 78, a longtime environmentalist who isn’t afraid to express an opinion or to commit provocative acts. One of the founders of the activist Barrio Planners planning group in East Los Angeles, Man was arrested in 1972 after he and two others tried to stop the bulldozing of trees on an East L.A. street for a street-widening project.
Later, he became an active member of FOCUS, the Federation of Organizations for Conserving Urban Space.
Man has been known to inundate elected officials, bureaucrats and reporters with paperwork to support his point of view. Los Angeles school board member David Tokofsky has had his share of meetings with Man about the school district’s role in preserving Hazard Park and the wetland.
“He is a persistent gadfly,” Tokofsky acknowledged recently. “He has a well-founded passion for the issues he believes in.”
In view of the 1960s fight and his other dealings with public officials, Man is quick to question anything that doesn’t seem right to him.
He admitted that there is no immediate danger to the park wetland, but added that he is concerned about the following:
* USC’s health services campus. Over the years, the medical school has expanded by taking over homes and other property across the street from Hazard, sparking concerns that access to the park and the wetland could be limited. The university has purchased an old, degraded portion of the wetland area north of Norfolk Street and Hazard Park.
* A new 40-year lease granted by the city to the Los Angeles school district for the continued use of the Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High School. While Man and others don’t oppose the school, because students do research in the wetland area, they wonder why the city didn’t insist on guarantees in the lease that the school could not be expanded into the park or the wetland.
* The Army’s lease for its reserve center expires in 2002. It was renewed in the 1970s with little community input, Man contended. He would like to see the city regain the center’s land and turn it into soccer fields as an extension of Hazard Park and the wetland.
The reactions of officials from the institutions involved suggest that they share, to varying degrees, Man’s vision for Hazard Park and the wetland–even if he is still suspicious of them.
Jane Pisano, USC’s senior vice president for external relations, said the university has no plans to build on parkland. “The university respects and values Hazard Park,” she said.
School board member Tokofsky said in a recent interview that he was aware of the concerns about Bravo, and he tried to reassure Man and others about the district’s intentions. “If there’s any change [in the lease agreement], a thorough study would have to be done” before any action could be taken, he said.
And Councilman Nick Pacheco, who represents the area, reiterated what he told Man, Molina and Farnsworth at a City Hall meeting: “I have agreed with their position to recapture our land from other entities–from the Army and from the railroad.” But he stopped short of saying the Army property should eventually become soccer fields.
Meanwhile, the councilman said, the city is proceeding with paperwork to reclaim the railroad land. After that is completed, the effort of formally recognizing and protecting the Hazard wetland can begin.
All this is good news for wetland supporters.
“I think the wetlands’ value is increased by [its being] next to Bravo,” said Henrickson, the Cal State Los Angeles botany professor. “The kids would enjoy it. And I think it has a good potential to be developed into something good. The water is there. And that’s where wetlands begin–with a good supply of water.”
Hazard Park Wetlands Restoration Making Slow Progress
Funding for the project is difficult to secure because of ownership issues.
By Gloria Angelina Castillo, EGP Staff Writer
“Long term,” two words describing the Hazard Park wetlands restoration project caught the eye of some residents in the audience at Councilmember Jose Huizar’s Boyle Heights Town Hall meeting on July 29.
“I’d like to know when it became a ‘long term’ goal,” local activist Scott Johnson told EGP.
Several years ago, the preservation and restoration of the wetlands had been discussed as a priority. Even this newspaper reported that the community was excited to hear the project would be made a reality.
Alex Man, an 87 year-old activist, fought for the wetlands as president of the Friends of Hazard Park and the Park Wetlands until recently when his health began to deteriorate. Man says the preservation and restoration of the wetlands is very important.
“The preservation of the wetlands will help the trees thrive and the trees will improve the quality of the air,” Man told EGP. “There are a lot of people with respiratory diseases in Boyle Heights, the wetlands could help improve the air quality in neighborhoods.”
Lately, it appears that community enthusiasm has dwindled and little progress has been made. One factor that has made little to no progress is the ownership rights to the wetlands. The 1.4 miles of wetlands that bisect the park from Norfolk to Marengo are a railroad easement.
According to Paul Davis, Environmental Specialist for the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, although there are no longer tracks and the railroad company has abandoned the land, the City of Los Angeles does not have the legal title to the land.
“We are still looking at the title,” Davis told EGP. “The title is still in question.”
Chris Knoll, project manager for the State Coastal Conservancy, says it is a complex situation and will take time to resolve.
“Dealing with the railroads is a big deal. It has to do with how the land was acquired. The railroads were part of the ‘settlement of the west’ and the federal government gave them the land for little money,” Kross said. “Someone has to negotiate with the railroad to see if they will sell or donate the land. It may require a lot of patience.”
Originally the railroad easement belonged to Southern Pacific, but in 1996 the company was sold to Union Pacific Railroad because of financial difficulties.
Union Pacific spokesperson Tony Richman said they could not either “confirm or deny” that the City of Los Angeles had inquired about acquiring the property.
According to documents obtained by EGP, as of May 2008 the city had not yet started talks with Union Pacific nor knew when the negotiations would end.
“If North East Trees plans to develop this southern part of the railroad easement they will need to deal directly with the railroad and with the owner of the surrounding property which is the Los Angeles Unified School District,” wrote Jon Kira Mukri, General Manager of the Department of Recreation and Parks, and Michael A. Shull, who was superintendent at the time.
Not being legally owned by the City of Los Angeles poses obstacles for the wetlands preservation. If ownership is unclear, the “wetlands” designation, that gives environmental protection to the area, cannot be granted, according to Harry Morris, a press officer for the Department of Fish and Game,
In addition to not having legal protection, it is difficult for organizations to get funding for the preservation and restoration of the wetlands because grants are often denied if a land title is in dispute.
North East Trees Executive Director Larry Smith says his organization began their involvement in the restoration of the Hazard Park wetlands pre-2005, and in 2005 they received funds to create a restoration plan.
“Earth Island Institute funded the plan in October 2005, and it was completed in December 2007,” Smith said.
North East Trees applied for a grant through Rivers and Mountains Conservancy last fall. Smith says they asked for $5 million, the amount it would cost them to complete the entire project. But according to Smith they did not receive the funds because they were outside the jurisdiction of the conservancy.
North East Trees has completed a variety of studies but according to both Smith and Kroll, while there may be studies and plans, the scientific community is not in agreement over what type of wetlands are at Hazard Park or the best way to restore them.
There are also other details that complicate their ability to receive funds. According to Smith, the restoration purpose of the wetlands has to meet the rational for the funding sources. “Measure ‘O’ designated $750,000 to improve the water quality, but it was used to fix a storm drain under the park,” Smith Said.
While the funds did not go to restoring the wetlands, Smith said it was beneficial because it filters clean the water before it flows into the stream.
Proposition 84 also designated money to improve streams, and could help fund the restoration of Hazard Park’s wetlands as a tributary to the L.A. River restoration (keeping in mind the disputed land title). Smith said he did not know how much money Proposition 84 could allocate for the wetlands at Hazard Park.
In addition, Smith said he was unsure if Proposition 50/Chapter 8 grant “Integrated Regional Water Management Program” was earmarked.
In response to local concerns that the wetlands were in danger because they were not granted protected status, or that there may be plans for development, Smith said he doubted the wetlands were in danger of being paved over.
Smith said the Los Angeles City Attorney had written a letter stating that the city needed to take action to acquire the land title. Smith believes the real reason there has been a slow down in the wetlands project is simply because the city does not have the resources or commitment from city leaders at the moment.
“Being a long term project doesn’t mean it’s not urgent,” Smith said. “We can’t take our foot off the pedal even if it takes a long time to reach fruition.”
So what is Jenny Krusoe's real role?
Jenny Krusoe, Development Consultant for Legacy L.A., says the organization is trying to fundraise between $3 and $5 million dollars to renovate the armory.
Red Spot, what's your deal?
Posting sensational, inaccurate information and lies does no one good.
The truth will come out.
Helping troubled youth to stay out of gangs.
Providing help to vulnerable youth and find them jobs to become productive citizens of society.
That's what Legacy LA at the Hazard Armory is all about.
Red Spot's posting of vicious lies only to block positive efforts by the City to help a struggling community hinders.
Why do Scott Johnson and Jose Aguilar hate? Guys, look beyond yourselves and do good.
Do good.
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