Alarcon Gets His Pet Project. Open Space Laws Shredded!
Business as Usual in Los Angeles.
What do you get when you combine:
1. A packed house of opponents speaking passionately for over three hours against a Diesel Truck Driving School being placed on designated and precious Open Space.
2. Strong legal arguments against the project by noted land use attorney Daniel Wright.
3. Opposition to the project by the entire LA County Board of Supervisors, The Sierra Club, The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, Assemblyman Cameron Smyth, a ton of neighborhood councils and homeowner groups, the Sunland-Tujunga Alliance, and the Community Alliance for Open Space.
What do you think you get?
A quick and unanimous vote by the North Valley Area Planning Commissioners (appointed by the Mayor) to allow the project to proceed. They didn't even bother to explain why they were voting this way. The vote was taken, the meeting was adjourned.
That is all. Move along, nothing but business as usual.
Side notes- Speaking in favor of the diesel truck driving school was none other than Board of Public Works Commissioner Andrea Alarcon (yep).
-Seen hugging a North Valley Planning Commissioner during a break- a head of the program trying to open the school (didn't catch her name).
- Only two Neighborhood Councils supported the truck driving school; Mission Hills NC (who sent a rep to speak) and Pacoima NC.
-First thing overheard after the hearing; "When we start working out which residential streets the trucks can practice on, Mission Hills and Pacoima should be at the top of the list."
-The Community Alliance for Open Space (the appellants) said they are exploring their options which could include filing a lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles.
Labels: Lopez Canyon landfill
Posted by Unknown @ 4/16/2010 12:02:00 AM
18 Comments:
Alarcon is completely corrupt.
He belongs in jail.
Tell those "opponents" that instead of complaining, that maybe they should join the Recall effort and send Alarcon packing.
He's making a mockery of elected service.
RecallCityHall.org
Is this the same Phil Jennerjahn who dissed these same "opponents" when he was spouting his support for Home Depot in Sunland-Tujunga?
What happened? Are you running for office or something? Using the goofy recall to get some attention?
I was there last night and I wish everyone could have seen the blank, bored and disinterested looks on the faces of the commissioners.
They were simply going through the motions, looking at their watches, and simply waiting for all the speakers to finish and shut up so they could vote as instructed by the Mayor.
Pathetic.
Wasn't Jennerjahn the guy that thought cutting down 10 Oak Trees in S-T so a road that no one uses could be widened was a good idea?
Phil,
Wny don't you go back to City Council and demand Alarcon's resignation again?
May be this time he will do it! You can do it right after you declare that you're running for Congress. I"m sure every one was in rapt attention.
job b., the reason why phil comes here to comment even though he gets no respect here is that he don't get no comments on his own idiotic blog. at least here he gets negative attention. after all, he thinks the negative attention makes him "semi known," to quote him directly
These commissioners need to be replaced with volunteers who represent the communities and not their own special interests, needs and pats on the back. I suggest letters to replace them. Include names. Its time for an overhaul of the NVAPC.
I hope the Community Alliance for Open Space sues the City. I'm sure there will be some big surprises.
Sending the Zoning Administrator, who thinks she has such authority, Lin Wyatt, back into retirement looks like it would be a good thing too.
Why does this City allow itself to dig deeper and deeper into financial ruin?
that may have been phil. are you talking about the same phil jennerjahn who came in last place in the mayor's race, or the one who backed the wrong cd2 candidate?
or the one who waited a year before getting going on the recall? or the one who john phillips on kabc said was just in this for the gratification that the attn brings him.
oh, wait, you're referring to the phil jennerjahn who calls people freedom haters, and then goes and tries to undo a fair and free election.
you mean the hippocrite!
Lawsuit time.
Amazing we have to sue the City to uphold the law.
LA County needs to pony up some cash on this.
In 2007 Alarcon was touting the open space designation for Lopez Canyon and the park it would become, supposedly in 2026, thirty years after the landfill was closed in 1996. Months later he's announcing the truck driving school for that very same open space.
Now we learn, courtesy of the North Valley Reporter, no one can find the paperwork that the landfill was ever officially closed.
Does that mean the 30 year clock starts now and a park is delayed until 2045?
Ineptness? Or convenience.
Yesterday a five year variance was approved, which can be extended...does anyone doubt that a request to extend will be denied? Not if the current city hall mindset continues.
The arrogance of this Mayor is unbelievable. The only time we see one of his sleazy staff members in our community is when they come out to this hearing to screw over the community.
The Mayor targeted federal job-training funding to his pet political supporters in various non-profits throughout Los Angeles. Then, because the teamsters who are running the school are too cheap to pay rent at alternative locations readily available in the Valley, they have to come back and rape our community for "five years more" of noisy, diesel belching big rig trucks.
If a credible recall effort gets underway, my community will be helping to screw this Mayor like he is screwing us.
Dan Wright is more than a "land use attorney," he's got a huge dog in the fight against the mayor and his allies on anything and during Nuch's campaign proved his partisan stripes and showed a willingness to get down and dirty - definitely the guy you want to use to persuade the mayor, not.
The Sierra Club is considered being on the WRONG side of the DWP- mayor's energy plan by the same folks joining Wright and the usual crowd on this. They go for anything "green" or "open space."
In this case it sounds like a tough call, but it's jobs, jobs, vs. an Antonio-hater like Wright or the knee-jerk Sierra Club.
get Phil Jennerjahn and David Hernandez in there who are perfect in that neither one has ever won a battle yet!
Re: 1:40 PM
"In this case it sounds like a tough call, but it's jobs, jobs, vs. an Antonio-hater like Wright or the knee-jerk Sierra Club."
And who's to say that graduates of this or any truck driving school will have jobs waiting for them at the end of the course? There are local seasoned truck drivers unable to find work.
And at the ports, drivers without the 'green' trucks can't work for trucking companies that will only hire drivers who have these trucks OR who lease the 'green' trucks from the company.
The 25% of students from CD7 is suppose to outweigh the residents in CD7 who have endured decades of landfill, green mulching, etc.?
This isn't about students or residents, its about Alarcon getting what he wants.
Alarcon happened to be on the right side this time, but having his daughter Andrea vote with him, having been voted in amidst cries of nepotism and having been a law student on the east coast at the time, is one of those Alarcon moves like not living in his district, having failed to move his house and hundreds of voters out of CD2, that reflects badly on anything he touches. And on the Latino "leadership" of this city.
The contemptuous way he talks to city staff is also horrible, like a Mexican patron over peasants. And the guy just went to Cal State in Chicano studies!
Legalized corruption, family members and friends apointed to key postions of power. Welcome back to the bad old days LA similar to the depression years. We need to break the bonds of corruption by not giving big business and the unions a reason to think that their contributions to elected officals will get them results. Local voters should decide much of what is apporved directly as it realtes to zoning changes in land use changes. This would require a change in the City Charter which might be done at the ballot box.
Any takers?
Change the City Charter, so that all Los Angeles Area Planning Commissioners are elected not appointed by the Mayor!
Elaine Brown
Sunland, CA
You haven't begun to know the horrifying stories of the North Valley Planning Commission. When Villaraigosa had to appoint a NEW commissioner, he so didn't give a fuck about the north valley, that he appointed the FORMER PRESIDENT of the same north valley area planning commission. That is no lie. The CD 12 Planning Deputy's husband was the President before the former came back. It's a nightmare here and this planning commission is the joke of all of the other planning commissions. It's not all the mayor's fault. He is guilty of "not caring at all". The worst culprits are the councilmen whose districts fall in that planning area. They get to pick the commissioners. The mayor just okays it and his people just nod their heads and say okay. It's not a pretty picture in the north valley.
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