Leave this ex-landfill alone

Editorial from today's LA Times

Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Thursday

The vote to move forward a controversial plan to build a trucking school in Lopez Canyon was more like World Cup result as the City Council's Planning and Land Use Management Committee went 1-1 (Krekorian-no, Huizar-yes).  While Council Member Richard Alarcon, Mayor Villaraigosa and city unions want to slap the northeast Valley with this environment destroying stupidity community activists have been joined by adjacent Council Member Paul Krekorian in opposing the school.  One can be certain that if anyone was proposing to build a trucking school say, in Fryman Canyon, instead of Lopez Canyon the howls of protest would be so much louder.  But environmental injustice and racism from the City marches on.  In the meantime while maintaining he is no fan of Alarcon or anything LA's Zorro Marxist cooks up, local gadfly Phil Jennerjahn's take is to blame the victim.

Nice to see the professionals are back in charge at the LAPD.  You may remember that when hooligans rioted following the LA Lakers NBA finals win last year then Chief William Bratton's move was to disengage and let the rioters riot.  This year Chief Charlie Beck has prepped an actual plan, including busting heads where necessary,  but doing everything possible ahead of time to prevent unruly crowds from going apeshit. Oh, go Lakers!

Walter Moore uncovers something very few know but might be outraged otherwise. In a time of budget crunches the City has alloted nearly $125K to cover maid service and other incidentals at Mayor Villaraigosa's home, Getty House. Can't he just call Merry Maids and pull out his own credit card? Or he is pretty good at cleaning toilets, he can do it himself.

In the meantime while the Mayor is getting housekeeping services the dunderhands at the LAUSD are getting rid of school plant managers at local campuses as a cost-cutting move.  Our friend Debbie Lopez writing at the Beckford Parents blog notes that Plant Managers such as Beckford's Henry will be laid off.  If you're an LAUSD parent you may want to take note that your local school will be more likely to have backed up toilets, no one checking furnaces, water heaters let alone fixing broken things quickly. LAUSD will assign the duties to regional managers who will now have the responsibility for several schools.  You may want to call LA's school board members; Beckford Parents has all the details.

Guess what! Two weeks ago LA's law severely limiting medical marijuana shops and crackdowns were in the works yet most of the shops continue to operate.  A significant number of the "illegal" shops are apparently staying open in an act of civil disobedience with their lawyers on hold to battle the City in court.

CITIZEN's ALERT! Lopez Canyon Hearing Tuesday!

Courtesy of Griffith Park Wayist

Just a pleasant reminder. Tomorrow, Tuesday, June 15, 2010 is the LA City Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) Committee hearing regarding the Lopez Canyon Zone Variance Approval Appeal and the proposed trucking school at Lopez Canyon.

WHEN: TUESDAY, JUNE 15, 2010

WHAT TIME: 2:30pm

WHERE: Board of Public Works
Edward R. Roybal Hearing Room 350
LA City Hall
200 N. Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Please attend if you can and if you are planning on speaking PLEASE WRITE OR TYPE your 2 minute statement beforehand and BRING TWO (2) COPIES. Attach one to your speaker card and retain the other one for use while you're speaking. Kindly include your name & address on your statement and the speaker card, for the record.

If you are just attending and do not wish to speak fill out a speaker card and state you support the appeal.

For more background click here

Lopez Canyon: Open Space Battleground

THIS IS A MAYOR SAM SPECIAL REPORT.
by Petra Fried in the City

Editor's note: On June 15th, the Planning and Land Use Management committee of the Los Angeles City Council will hear case number ZA-2009-3619-ZV-1A: Richard Alarcon's plan to put a Truck Driving Academy on top of a closed landfill on a hill in the middle of a residential community in the Northeast San Fernando Valley.

The Truck Driving Academy will be run by a non-profit but backed by a powerful union. The plan paves 1.5 acres of the Open Space while bringing more trucks onto the closed landfill property and into the surrounding residential neighborhoods. The free land comes with a five year lease with two possible five year renewals to the school.

On the PLUM committee is Reyes, Huizar, and Alarcon's next-door neighbor, CD 2 representative Paul Krekorian. Most of Krekorian's constituents as well as constituent groups that got him elected are resoundingly against Alarcon's project. 

Special to Mayor Sam.


Kagel Canyon is an idyllic community in the unincorporated County foothills behind Lopez Canyon. Mainly lower income, and rural, it is often the last to receive services on the County side. Residents put up with the constant threat of wildfires, limited water, and so-so services for what should be a quaint, quiet country lifestyle.


View Larger Map

Kagel Canyon was truly very quiet, until the City of Los Angeles opened Lopez Canyon Landfill next door in 1975. The City – as embodied by the City Council representative for the district (CD 7) has been a very rude, nasty neighbor since then. For the next 20 years Kagel Canyon residents lived with the sound of hundreds of trucks, and the smell of Los Angeles’ garbage... all without any City mitigation. None. Zero. Zilch.

Finally, some reprieve when the landfill was closed in 1996 and the closure process began. Relief was on the horizon. Or so Kagel Canyon, or any sane individual would have thought.

Today, and every day since 1996, when Los Angeles City trucks start work on Lopez Canyon, Kagel Canyon knows it’s 7am – time to get up whether you’ve had your 8 hours sleep or not. Rumbling. The ground shakes. Beep beep beep go the back-up alarms – supposedly “directional” so as not to disturb the neighbors. The grinding and scraping of backhoe buckets. There is no sleeping through the onslaught. A small window of quiet does still the vibrations around lunch break at 11:30am. True peace doesn’t come until knock-off time after 3:30pm. Then it begins again the next morning.

The landfill is supposed to be “closed”, a process by which the landfill stops taking refuse and over time is capped by a required amount of dirt and clay to limit leachate and runoff. Fourteen years after closing began, Lopez is still not completely capped, something for which the State of California’s governing body - the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery - wants an immediate explanation.

The State also want an explanation for something else:

Why is the City of Los Angeles building a truck driving academy on an uncapped landfill zoned Open Space? It is not in the approved closure plan.

The answer to why can be summed up in one man: Richard Alarcon. The “how” however, is a complex tale of decades of Mafia-esque behavior, illegal activity, and environmental injustice.

The State should also be asking why the City also built a green waste recycling facility – an industrial activity bringing 35-40 trucks a day into the facility on the same landfill – in 2002? How did that happen? 



The road to Open Space.

The hills that used to be Lopez Canyon Landfill lies in the northeast San Fernando Valley, at the 210 -118 Freeway split in Lake View Terrace. Bordered on the west by what’s left of the original Lopez Canyon that isn’t filled with garbage is a part of unincorporated L.A. County wherein lies Sky Terrace Mobile Home Park – damaged in the Marek Fire and, at last check, left without financial aid of any kind – and Hope Gardens, the Union Rescue Mission’s halfway residence for elderly women and mothers with children.

The land to the south of the landfill and north of the 210 freeway between Lopez Canyon Road and Osborne Street is a strictly residential part of Lake View Terrace, with another mobile home park, two schools, and equestrian properties at the edge of Los Angeles City Council District 7 (Alarcon) next to CD 2 (Krekorian). The northern part of the landfill adjoins the Angeles National Forest and over 100 acres owned by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

To the northeast lies Kagel Canyon, bearers of the brunt of landfill impacts these past three decades.

Lopez Canyon landfill stopped accepting trash in July1996 and began the 30-year process of closing and sealing off the former landfill areas. Known as “decks”, Deck A – the area closest to Kagel Canyon residents, Deck B, Deck AB and Deck C, together with their respective slopes have dirt packed to a certain level above the garbage, sealing it from rainwater and limiting leaching and ground water contamination as the garbage decomposes and settles.

From the landfill’s opening in 1975 until its closure in July, 1996, trash was deposited into canyons, now filled and closed became the currently visible flat, clay and dirt-covered areas. According to State law, all former trash sites must be monitored for settling and methane gas emissions.

The monitored decks total 166 acres of the 399 acre Lopez Canyon Landfill property. But the entire 399 acres was zoned as Open Space in 2007, by Alarcon’s very own council motion. This is what Alarcon said then about the Open Space zoning:

Eleven years after the closure of the Lopez Canyon Landfill, Lopez Canyon today has the potential to re-emerge as a location where children and families can enjoy a safe and clean place for active and passive recreation as well as open space. Lopez Canyon Landfill yields revenues that have been placed in various funds, thus, providing seed funding for the rebirth of Lopez Canyon as an open space and recreational gem.

The City of Los Angeles has an opportunity to make good on its commitment to the Northeast San Fernando Valley community to mitigate the impact of the landfill and other environmentally hazardous land uses by using Lopez Canyon as a location that can serve the recreational and open space needs of residents.

The zoning came with formal plans for recreation on the site (scroll down). The community would like to think that Richard Alarcon meant what he said in this motion, passed unanimously by the Los Angeles City Council. Knowing Alarcon’s usual modus operandi, however, the Foothill Trails District Neighborhood Council http://www.ftdnc.org/ , within whose boundaries Lopez Canyon lies, filed the following Community Impact Statement on this council file:

At its regular meeting tonight, the General Board of Foothill Trails District Neighborhood Council voted unanimously to request that the City Council notify the public via mailings to all City And County residents within 1/4 mile and surrounding Neighborhood Councils of any new proposed uses for Lopez Canyon Landfill that are different than that adopted by Council File # 07-1660

Like torture.

One Kagel Canyon homeowner expresses their frustration with the ridiculously slow pace of the closure, and the new industrial uses in an Open Space zone.

“We bought house in 1997, two years after the supposed “closure”. If we thought this thing wouldn’t shut down, we’d never have bought here. My mother’s home in the heart of Van Nuys is much quieter than here.”

Another resident likens living with the noise pollution “like water torture”.



All in the family.

The neighborhood council representing all of Lake View Terrace, the Foothill Trails District NC, too have often been the recipient of Alarcon’s subtle tactics in the Lopez Canyon matter. From Mayor Sam at the time:

Alarcon Aide Issues 'Warning' to NC Board

…Tonight the Foothill Trails District Neighborhood Council had two items on their agenda directly related to Zorro Marxist’s council motion (08-0481) taking $100,000 from the Hansen Dam Environmental Awareness Center fund to pay for truck driver training.

1. presentation by Alarcon aide John De La Rosa on the truck driver training program
2. community impact statement opposing 08-0481 (because) the Hansen Dam fund is not for this purpose.

First De la Rosa, who used to run Lopez Canyon Landfill when it was open by the way, gave his own version of the history of the Fund…. De La Rosa saying that it did not matter what the City Administrative Code says about this fund. Alarcon could and will spend it any way Alarcon wants. He told the board to forget what the City Administrative Code says, end of story. ‘It’s (o8-0481) going to happen no matter what’. Also, Alarcon will be moving the money to a new fund of some kind.

… when FTDNC board were about to pass the CIS, De La Rosa in his best Sopranos voice - “(if you vote for the CIS) …you will be pitting community against community.”

Alarcon’s favorite field deputy and hit man, John De La Rosa, receives a healthy stipend granted by City Council motion for personal services – to provide expertise the Councilmember needs relative to his Council Office that is not otherwise available. What might those be?

De La Rosa is Richard Alarcon’s cousin. He has a long history with Lopez Canyon and the impacted communities. In fact, De La Rosa used to manage the entire Lopez Canyon Landfill as a Bureau of Sanitation employee when the dump was open for garbage. In fact, after years of alleged funny-business such as falsifying employee records, De La Rosa was basically forced to resign or be fired and lose his job and pension. He resigned, and his personnel file was successfully sealed. De La Rosa ran Lopez Canyon the same way Alarcon wields control over the site and the people surrounding it – with the same tactics. It is oddly fitting that the old dump manager is now Alarcon’s special community contact.

Lopez Canyon lies within the Rim of the Valley Trail Corridor, providing both a buffer and an open space trail linkage between Rim of the Valley elements. It is now part of the Federal Consolidated Natural Resources Act (P.L. 110-229, section 327).  With industrial uses firmly entrenched where they shouldn’t be, the Rim of the Valley connections and uses at Lopez Canyon are now at risk.

Alarcon could not care less. The words “Rim of the Valley” might as well be “have a nice day”.


Lopez Mitigation funds: play money.

Again, from Mayor Sam at the time:

There are three or four (community mitigation) funds associated with the closed landfill in the northeast San Fernando Valley, all of which receive incoming monies from sales of methane which is a byproduct of the decades of decomposing City garbage underground. The Lopez Canyon Landfill Community Amenities Fund is supposed to benefit the people who have been highly impacted by the landfill. This area includes the parts of Lake View Terrace and Pacoima nearest Lopez Canyon, and most of unincorporated Kagel Canyon. Kagel has borne the majority of the landfill's impacts while receiving effectively none of the millions that have passed through the funds since Ernani Bernardi introduced the original motion with the best of intentions in the early 1990s.

According to Alarcon aide (and coincidentally also his cousin) John De La Rosa, the Lopez Canyon fund is supposed to be used '...for the area north of San Fernando Boulevard to Foothill Boulevard; east of Paxton Street to Osborne Street.' Completely contrary to Bernardi's original motion, De La Rosa's description of the impacted area tellingly leaves Kagel Canyon, the area most impacted by the landfill, 100% out of the picture. (There are historic reasons to believe that Bernardi envisioned the fund benefiting Kagel Canyon as well.)

When questioned last year as to why Alarcon was taking $100,000 from another of the landfill community funds (the Hansen Dam Environmental Awareness Center Fund) and using it to build a truck driving academy on the landfill property now slated to be a City park, Alarcon simply dissolved the Environmental Awareness Center fund and moved the money into the Community Amenities Fund where the motion states that the funds are to be spent at the discretion of the councilman.

Alarcon successfully completed the termination of the Hansen Dam Environmental Awareness Fund and placed the remaining cash in the Lopez Canyon Community Amenities Fund in October 2009.  Today the Community Amenities Fund has for all intents and purposes gone from a community mitigation fund to a second discretionary fund for Alarcon, leaving the people impacted most by the landfill once again without a true democratic voice in how the funds are spent. Meanwhile, Alarcon's friends profit from the community's loss.

Community amenities seem like they should be permastructures, like basketball courts or playground equipment. Something those directly affected by the landfill - people in '...the area north of San Fernando Boulevard to Foothill Boulevard; east of Paxton Street to Osborne Street', and Kagel Canyon obviously - can use and enjoy.

The Lopez Canyon Community Amenities Fund is Alarcon’s play thing now, and the spending is mainly in Pacoima on items one could hardly call an amenity. His spending spree, basically unchecked, includes the following:

• $100,000 of these community amenities funds two weeks ago were diverted to pay for LAPD overtime salaries in Foothill Division. 


• In February, Alarcon gave $30,000 from this fund to a Pacoima community theatre company for a youth production by one of his favorite non-profits: Youth Speak! Collective. 


• $10,000 went to the Pacoima Christmas Parade in February. 


• $100,000 of this fund was given to the Greater Community Missionary Baptist Church for their Community Multipurpose Center mainly serving Pacoima in January 2010.


• $100,000 to again to Youth Speak! Collective – a non-profit with ties to Alarcon’s political friends for a community garden in Feb 2009. 


• $30,000 for the Hansen Dam Fourth of July fireworks show in 2009. 

None of the money has ever gone to Kagel Canyon, and very little has gone to the City portion of the community most impacted by the landfill.


“Free Land”

At a time when many truckers are out of work and the trucking jobs promised by Alarcon to academy graduates are nowhere in sight, independent truckers are fighting the City of Los Angeles tooth and nail to bypass expensive new environmental laws enacted at the Port of Los Angeles last year. Yet the Teamsters Union – profferers of the Truck Driving Academy – aren’t exactly fighting the new environmental laws. They, along with associated organized trucking companies, can afford to upgrade their trucks to meet the new environmental criteria at the Port… on the taxpayer dime. Many of their members were recipients of $44 million in taxpayer money to do so, and not surprisingly, they’re not keeping up their end of the bargain nor are they being made to do so, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal. 

Authorities in the field say that the 1.5 acres being forced upon Lopez Canyon is too small for proper truck driver training. Although flush with more taxpayer money than we could possibly know about, it appears that the Teamsters do not want to pay a nominal fee to rent industrial property in CD 7 on flat land that is actually suitable for a truck driving school.

Although opinionated, one Mayor Sam commenter recently summarized this aspect of Alarcon's plan fairly well:

“There is only one reason this City is poised to grant a horrible zoning variance in the middle of Open Space in Lopez Canyon to allow an industrial diesel spewing truck driving school-- the … AFL-CIO ... does not want to use its federal grant funds to pay rent at a more appropriate location!

The Lopez Canyon Truck Driving School is ALL ABOUT Villaraigosa and Alarcon HANDING CITY ASSETS OVER to political cronies in the unions and in this case it's free use of taxpayer-owned City land for this school…All of this has been orchestrated from the Mayor's office by Deputy Mayor Larry Frank -- himself a former union attorney flack -- steering the federal job training money to enrich the Mayor's union buddies.

After enduring years of garbage trucks running up and down residential streets near Lopez Canyon, the community understandably is ready to fight for some environmental justice. The Mayor and Alarcon are ...trying to make the community's children be exposed to 5, 10 or 15 more years of diesel and harmful truck noise when they just finished enduring more than 20 years of a sanitary landfill jammed down their throats… The residents of Lopez and other areas nearby need the unified voice of Neighborhood Councils and community groups from all over the City writing to the Mayor and Alarcon saying:

No economic downturn justifies you to ignore the fundamental zoning and federal grant rules to site a semi-truck driving school in the hillside open space zone of Lopez Canyon. Tell your union buddies to locate some more appropriate commercial/industrial land in an proper land use zone and pay the damn rent!"

What Alarcon says to those who actually listen to the aging demagogue about opposition to his land grab runs along these lines. Paraphrased: It’s all about jobs for people in Pacoima, and those people who live around the landfill are just selfish NIMBYs.


“Infrasound” and Vibroacoustic Disease.

Infrasound is sound that is lower in frequency than 20 Hz (Hertz) or cycles per second, the normal limit of human hearing. Hearing becomes gradually less sensitive as frequency decreases, so for humans to perceive infrasound, the sound pressure must be sufficiently high. The ear is the primary organ for sensing infrasound, but at higher levels it is possible to feel infrasound vibrations in various parts of the body.

-Wikipedia

Vibroacoustic Disease is a cumulative and chronic disease caused by exposure to infrasound. Infrasound is low frequency sound energy that affects the nervous system and prolonged exposure can lead to progressive medical conditions. Noise pollution is unwanted human-created sound that has the effect of being annoying, distracting, painful, or physically harmful. Sound triggers an involuntary stress response commonly known as "flight or flight." This results in the secretion of adrenaline, with ensuing spikes in cardio-respiratory rates, muscle tension, and elevated blood pressure.

People exposed to noise pollution suffer from hearing loss, sleep deprivation, chronic fatigue, anxiety, hostility, depression and hypertension. The World Health Organization, National Institutes of Health, United Nations and numerous scientific and medical publications recognize noise pollution and its deleterious effects. The City of Los Angeles, however, doesn’t give a damn if its planning policies and practices are any indication.

Those NIMBYs, as Alarcon calls them, are people who have varying degrees of Vibroacoustic Disease, and who desperately need some relief from the Infrasound and the rank odors emanating from the tons of green waste mixture of yard trimmings and horse manure as it is turned and mixed daily.


It's about what Richard wants.
 

It’s 2002 and enter the first new industrial use installed on Lopez Canyon land, the Green Waste Recycling Facility by Alarcon’s then heir apparent: Alex Padilla. It goes by the innocuous name of The Lopez Canyon Environmental Center. Entirely out of keeping with other landfills undergoing closure in Los Angeles, this is precedent-setting. It will be used against the community when the Truck Driving Academy appears on Alarcon’s radar in 2009. Does this sound familiar?

A task force of Lopez Canyon Landfill neighbors (individuals, neighborhood associations, local non-profits) sic was formed to meet with Bureau of Sanitation representatives to determine the feasibility of siting a composting facility at the closed landfill and to advise the Bureau on (the Green waste recycling facility). Meetings were held for 9 months discussing topics that included noise, odor and traffic concerns and mitigations, site design, composting methods, and landscaping. As a result of these meetings Sanitation redesigned portions of the proposed facility, made changes to the originally proposed operations, hired a noise consultant to design noise mitigation measures and brought in a Bureau landscape architect to develop the landscaping plan. A Mitigated Negative Declaration was prepared and approved, a Memorandum of Understanding was written and signed by the Task Force and the facility became a reality in December 2003.

Alarcon always stacks the deck when he wants something, something Padilla learned well. Alarcon hand-picks his individuals, neighborhood associations, and local favored non-profits to get the result he wants. The “Lopez Canyon Community Advisory Committee” is just one example of a hand-picked committee Alarcon uses to rubber stamp his activities there.

If handpicking committees isn’t enough, Alarcon buses “stakeholders” in to meetings, as this author witnessed in a community fight to keep a major league sized baseball stadium from being built in a residential community. He also controls media perception. When reporters visit Kagel Canyon, if Alarcon knows about it in advance, he orders all work stopped at Lopez so that the trucks can’t be heard: the Kagel community sounds like liars. Last Tuesday in Council during the confirmation hearing of Irma Munoz to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy board, while other councilmembers asked Ms. Munoz her plans/qualifications/goals, Alarcon instead went on the offensive, overtly attempting to intimidate her with respect to the SMMC's opposition of the Truck Driving Academy.


Improper use of a Variance.

Zoning variances are are for residential use primarily, in neighborhoods where the majority have a certain amenity but some in the neighborhood do not enjoy the same property rights as neighbors because they don’t quite meet a zoning requirement. That is when a variance might be granted. They are not for use by the City in an attempt to re purpose open space such as what is happening now.

Reading the Zoning Hearing Administrator’s Findings of Fact shows you how hard she had to work to make the language try to work for this project. There are no perceived property rights from nearby zones to compare with. The zoning administrator tries to make significant comparisons, but over all fails, making some key mistakes in her findings. For example:

“The use of Open Space property for non-recreational use is not uncommon as exemplified by gravel mining operations around Hansen Dam…”

Fact of the matter is that Hansen Dam is not City land, but Federal Land, managed by the Army Corps of Engineers. The Dept of Recreation and Parks leases Hansen Dam for use as Open Space. At the time the mining activity was taking place, the land where mining was taking place was not leased by the City as it is today. Other comparisons to strips of land under power lines are just plain silly. The variance criteria falls on its face right here.

There are other things to take issue with in the Zoning Administrator's certification of the Mitigated Negative Declaration for the Truck Driving Academy. An alternative site wasn’t even named or studied as required by a mitigated negative declaration. That in itself is lawsuit material. All supporters speaking at the hearing (besides Alarcon, giving the benefit of the doubt) have some form of material interest in the Academy. CEQA regarding the truck driver rural training section was ignored in the MND.

There is also the question of how some support letters were obtained by Council District 7 for the application. At least one claiming to represent a major local community entity did not go through official channels and does not represent the position of the entity in question. How the letter was obtained, and by whom is under investigation at the time of the publication of this article.



David verses Big Brother.

With the deck perpetually stacked by Alarcon, Kagel Canyon and its concerned neighbors, collectively known as the Community Alliance for Open Space (email to: lopezopenspace(at)yahoo.com ) will likely have to sue the City in open court to force it to obey its own laws and to achieve environmental justice at last.

On their side, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, the Sierra Club, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors – all five of them, and more than ten neighborhood councils.

Standing between them and peace and quiet, and good health – the demagogue of CD 7 and his extended family, his two favorite neighborhood councils (Pacoima and Mission Hills) who are, not surprisingly, well-stocked with favored operatives, and a union who has in the past no doubt made many contributions to Alarcon's political career.

Lawsuits cost money, something that is not in abundance in the modest community. So for now, the pancake breakfasts and car washes continue while hoping beyond hope that on June 15th, the PLUM committee will somehow decide to do what is right over what Richard Alarcon wants.

Perhaps the ultimate irony in the struggle over Lopez Canyon is that the fate of Open Spaces across the City may rest in the hands of a community group whose core constituency doesn't even live in the City.

Cut and Paste Briefs on the Los Angeles Political Scene for Wednesday

"Councilman Richard Alarcon laughing at community opposition to trucking school"

It is safe to say that CD 2/7 City Councilman Richard Alarcon, runs his council fiefdom under the notion that what is good for the "Zorro Marxist" political agenda, takes precedent over the will of the community.

Take for example the controversy over the "Zorro Marxist's" plan for a truck driving school at the closed Lopez Canyon Landfill. The landfill which was closed in 1996 and re-zoned as "open space" is now being targeted by the CD 2/7 councilperson, as a training ground for unionize teamsters big-rig drivers.

Alarcon has the support of Mayor Antonio Parkervillar, the Teamsters Union and about a dozen community groups according to the Los Angeles Times. But remember that earlier note about the new land use designation for Lopez Canyon? Since the area now is declared "open space", the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and multiple community groups, are in opposition to Alarcon's quest to implement his driving school proposal.

Residents and community activists who for years put up with truck loads of garbage, the sounds of tractors and the air quality issues associated with these activities, smell something "politically nefarious" regarding the truck school proposal.

"This sets a dangerous precedent for thousands of open spaces," said Joe
Barrett of the Sunland-Tujunga Alliance, a community group that got involved out
of concern about the open-space issue.

Alarcon, for his part calls these concerns "selfish", citing the needs to create jobs, but one wonders if there is some other industrial acreage available within the "Zorro Marxist's" collective to place this "workers driving academy"?

OTHER NEWS:

** Our once united City Council at 200 Spring Street, are now divided into "budget hawks" and "budget doves", this from the keyboard of David Zahniser at the "Old Gray Hag on Spring Street".

The "hawks" include the likes of Greig Smith, Bernard Parks, Jan Perry and Dennis Zine, no surprises there.

The "doves" include the likes of Richard Alarcon, Herb Wesson, Paul Koretz, Janice Hahn..... and Jose Huizar??

Huizar deserves the title of "budgetary opportunist", because he will take the side that best can help his re-election chances in 2011.

BTW, the "hawks" hold the better budgetary hand.

** Go Suns Go!! Mayor Parkervillar took the opportunity of the "LA Sanctuary City Lakers" vs. the "Kidnapping Phoenix Suns" series to make the non-binding wager, that if Phoenix wins, we would take Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio as payment. Memo to Lakers, roll over now for a safer and legal Los Angeles. BTW, if the Lakers win this series and they will, then we should make Phoenix the new home of CD 1 Councilman Ed Reyes.

** Interesting tidbit on the future of Recreation and Parks. A community activist happen to chance upon a meeting of "connected non-profits/community groups" and the Mayor's office where the subject matter was future public/private partnerships to provide recreation programming at various recreation facilities city wide.

Rec. and Parks General Manager Jon K. Mukri also announced during a meeting with park advocates that Asst. General Manager Vicki Israel would become the "Asst. General Manager for Partnerships".

What future impact do these "backroom dealings" have for the employees of the department? Lets just say that somewhere close to 800 part-time employees of the department will lose their jobs by October 1, 2010. For those who frequent recreation facilities, it is these employees who inplement programs on a daily basis.

It should also be noted that the "connected non-profit" Legacy LA, is undertaking a new, innovated gang prevention program. Its called forming and coaching a baseball team at Hazard Park in Boyle Heights. Confirms for me that Recreation and Parks employees have been providing gang prevention and intervention programing all along.

........ and just how can your "connected non-profit/community group" become a future partner in Mayor Parkervillar's plans for Recreation and Parks? This might help.

06/27/08 Maria Lourdes Calanche (Instructor, LA Community College District) Los Angeles, CA 90031 Antonio Villaraigosa Mayor 1305101 - Antonio R. Villaraigosa for Mayor 2009 A - Monetary Contribution Received (IND - Individual) [Period: 01/01/08-06/30/08] $1,000.00

Lets call this the franchise fee.

** Los Angeles County Labor Federation Leader Maria Elena Durazo, was re-elected to another four year term as the chief of the non-affiliated AFL-CIO federation of county unions. She then join her long time "fellow traveler" Mayor Parkervillar on the LAX tarmac to fly off to Washington DC. This to meet with President Barack H. Obama and Mexican Presidente Felipe Calderon.

** Lastly, godspeed and wishing for a quick recovery to LAFD Firefighter/ Paramedic Charles Anthony MacDougall, who was stabbed while rendering aid in Downtown Los Angeles.

Your thoughts and open comments.

Scott Johnson in CD 14.

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.

Lopez Canyon, Richard Alarcon, and the WTF Factor

I would venture to guess that overall, a relative few in Los Angeles have ever heard of a place called Lopez Canyon, but for many in the Foothill communities and the northern end of the Valley, Lopez Canyon is ground zero in a battle to preserve and protect Open Space designations.

A little background- back in 1996, the Lopez Canyon Landfill was closed after over 20 years of use and began to undergo a 30 year monitoring period as the land settled and the slow process of rejuvenation began. The land was designated to be Open Space and intended to be used for low impact recreational use (hiking,etc). The motion to close the facility and designate it Open Space was introduced by then Councilmember Alarcon (who was about to move up the political ladder to the state level). In early 2007, the now (again) LA City Councilmember Alarcon introduced an even more detailed plan for Lopez Canyon called the Lopez Canyon Restoration Project. This plan was meant to restore the area even further and once again called for the passive Open Space use of the grounds.

That should have been the end of the story, but this is Los Angeles, a city overflowing with bad ideas, piss poor planning decisions, and sudden appearances by what I call "the WTF factor".

About 8 months after Councilmember Alarcon called for the Lopez Canyon Restoration Project,"the WTF factor" made an appearance. In January of 2008, the Councilmember, out of nowhere, began to tout his new plan for the former Lopez Canyon Landfill; a big rig truck driving school.

A big rig truck driving school on top of a mountain.

In the middle of horse country.

Surrounded by winding roads.

On a site that had not yet recovered from being a landfill.

In an area designated Open Space.

And the land would be provided to the truck driving school by the city at little or no charge.


This of course did not go over well with with the feisty residents of the area and so to make a long story short, there will be a hearing this Thursday April 15th at 4:30 pm at the Marvin Braude Building in Van Nuys before the North Valley Area Planning Commission to decide if Richard's idea may be a bad one or not. Of course, the City Planning recommendation is to deny the appeal of the residents.

The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and just about everyone else disagrees. And now the Big Guns have arrived...
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UPDATE; We have just received a report from a reliable source that Richard Alarcon will be busing in "supporters" of the school to Thursday's Hearing. Shades of Home Depot indeed!