Times: Greuel may have missed red flags in fight against Home Depot

Public Advocate of the Community

UPDATE: Audio - Zuma Dogg tells story of chance meeting with woman alleged to be at center of alleged Wendy Greuel PR campaign against Home Depot.

Something I learned this week...always listen to Zuma Dogg.

Completely plugged in, even in retirement, and nearly always prescient, the former radio executive turned performance artist turned community advocate has really never steered me wrong.

Last week, ZD brought to my attention a story that I thought was irrelevant, old news and not likely to catch attention in the milieu of the Mayoral race.

I was wrong.

Today, the LA Times published a story that, in seeking to block a controversial Home Depot in Sunland-Tujunga, at the time part of her then City Council District, Greuel may have failed to disclose her business interests in a local building supply firm. 

Full disclosure, I was for the Home Depot before I was against it and currently live less than a quarter-mile from the site. I still believe, for many reasons, blocking the Home Depot was good for the community.

Co-Owner of Frontier Building Supply
Wendy Greuel, Candidate for Mayor

In the Times story by Jack Dolan, several ethics officials remark that Greuel should have recused herself from votes on the Home Depot matter. The story alludes the matter could come before the state's Fair Political Practices Commission.

Greuel's position is that her business would not be affected by the Home Depot.

Beyond the surface level issue of Greuel's ownership of Frontier Building Supply, a San Fernando Valley based construction supply firm with a branch in Oxnard, Zuma Dogg presented additional potentially even more damaging allegations against Greuel.

In a blog post last week, reprinted from a 2011 post authored by Mr. Dogg, the advocate/blogger presents claims that City Hall insiders told him that Greuel allegedly hired a PR firm to assist her with the Home Depot fight.

It must be noted that these allegations are from anonymous sources and are not verified. We are happy to publish information to the contrary. That being said, the Times article is interestingly timely in light of the information Zuma presented to me last week and has published at his blog.

We will continue to follow this up and extend the offer right here to present any rebuttals from the Wendy Greuel campaign.

You Can Do It. Essel Can Help. Well. Maybe Not.

Dang, the bad thing about photos is that they can come back to bite you later. Now we know why Sunland-Tujunga isn't supporting Chris Essel!

Open Thread for Thursday

Victory in Sunland-Tujunga. Victory over billboards. Flukes, or has the tide turned for neighborhood activists? Discuss.

(Update: In case anyone was wondering why I didn't post up a Hotsheet today quite frankly I celebrated in Sunland-Tujunga last night a little too late. So sue me for having a cocktail!)

Home Depot Pulls Out Of S-T!

Breaking News! We just spoke with a high ranking Home Depot official (at 10:45 pm) and he is confirming that HD is backing out of their proposed store in Sunland-Tujunga!

We are still shaking from the news, updates when we settle down and stop celebrating!

Score a big victory for local control and our community!

Home Depot Drops Lawsuit Against LA!

This just in!

Home Depot has filed a request with Superior Court to dismiss it's lawsuit against the City over the proposed and controversial Sunland-Tujunga store!
Read the document HERE!

Home Depot also took down its website (homedepotsunlandtujunga.com) today!

No one knows exactly what this means, but hopes are high!

Stand By for updates!

The Internet is the Activist Tool

Meet the Troublemaker.

Something pretty amazing has happened in the past few days that wonderfully reconfirms how important the internet has become for grassroot activists.

First a little background:

Our group, "The No Home Depot Campaign" has been waging a battle against the 2nd largest retail corporation in America for over 4 years. The issue is about whether or not a corporation can trounce on and ignore a Community Plan in order to place their mega warehouse store smack dab in a small community, on a site surrounded by homes on 3 sides, and with an LAUSD elementary school less than 500 feet away. There are other issues as well, including the community need for a general merchandise store (we don't have one), and the expected dramatic increase in traffic, and specifically, industrial traffic on our one main street.

In the course of this struggle, we have come to rely on the internet for communication, research, and rapid response. We've been able to get our message out to the entire world (we receive visitors from every time zone on the planet), and we can post updates about the situation on a moment's notice. This ability may be a tool that many take for granted these days, but I often try to imagine the difficulties anyone would have of achieving the same results even 10 years ago. I picture us all standing on street corners handing out fliers, posting notices in local newspapers, and holding monthly meetings to strategize and bring everyone up to date. Actually, we still do all these things, but we no longer have to rely on them as our sole means of outreach (the ratio between effort expended and results achieved is now greatly decreased).


Now back to the amazing thing that has just happened. At least it is to me.

If you Google the words "Home Depot", our site comes up as the #3 search result. Forget about entering "No Home Depot in Sunland-Tujunga" or even "No Home Depot". For reasons we can't entirely explain, simply entering the name of the corporation will send you to a link that leads directly to us. It cannot just be the meta tags doing this, as there are literally thousands of sites with "Home Depot" embedded in the same way.

So, in essence, we are entering the realm of the corporate brand. I say this not as a boast, but as a point to ponder. Google is taking our site high up the food chain, to the point of being listed ahead of the company's own sites and other related sites. In the world of internet rankings, we suddenly find ourselves the equivalent of front page news.

Our website is now being viewed by some guy looking for a sale on power tools, an investor doing research on a company that they may want to invest in, or a similar community facing the same problem as us.

So while Home Depot continues in their insane efforts to reshape our little town into the image they see fit, as they spend millions of $ to influence the City, and as they sit on a $10,000,000 lawsuit against the City (that they can reactivate unless they get their way), we get a little payback.

We're in their heads.

We are sitting on the front porch of their corporate brand and greeting their potential customers before they enter the store. We are telling the public our story.

And we are doing it all from a couple of old laptops and a Dell XPS 410 that could use a serious tune-up.

Remember, this story is not about the group I belong to, it's about all of us. It's about a thousand stories and a handy little tool that in a special way, helps to level the playing fields.



You can visit our site at:
http://www.no2homedepot.com

Home Depot, The DRP and a Closed Door Meeting!

At 4:30 this afternoon, Avis Ridley-Thomas and her Dispute Resolution Program will hold what is being billed as a "Scheduling Meeting" at the North Valley City Hall in Tujunga. The purpose off this meeting is to set the date, time, & ground rules for any further talks between Home Depot and the Sunland-Tujunga community and is part of the Stipulation Order to Stay Litigation made between the City and Home Depot.

If you'll recall Home Depot filed a $10,000,000.00 lawsuit against the City last year after their building permits were revoked by the L.A. City Council. Home Depot suspended their lawsuit and agreed to file a new application and undergo environmental assessment for their proposed store as an alternative to further litigation. Part of this agreement included a clause that the Dispute Resolution Program would mediate between the community and Home Depot. This mediation is completely non-binding and considered by many a waste of taxpayer money and community time. This mediation will have zero effect on whether or not Home Depot is ever able to open their controversial store, as that decision currently lies with City Planning, who is currently reviewing their application.

And the story goes all downhill from here.

After the DRP held it's first open community meeting back in April that was attended by over 300 local residents and produced an overwhelming consensus of opposition to Home Depot's store,(Just ask the MS bloggers who were there-Michael Higby, Red, Zuma, Joseph Mailander, and Petrafried), the DRP promised more meetings that would be "open and transparent in the process".

That promise comes to a grinding halt at 4:30 this afternoon, when the DRP holds a private closed door meeting with "invited community leaders" (of their choosing) in the very public North Valley City Hall. Even after numerous requests to the DRP, no names of the invited participants has been provided.

Not only is the public not allowed to observe this meeting, the DRP has now threatened a police presence to prevent local residents from entering the hall.

The Sunland-Tujunga Alliance, the sponsors of "The No Home Depot Campaign" have spent weeks trying to contact the DRP to discuss the details of the meeting.

The DRP has not returned a single phone call or email.

After waiting on hold for hours (literally) last Monday, the STA finally spoke with a DRP staff member who informed them that the meeting would indeed be open to the public. Additionally, people who called Councilmember Wendy Greuel's office were told the meeting would be open to the public as well.

With that info in hand, and feeling somewhat relieved, late last week, the STA posted a public invite to today's event on the No 2 Home Depot web site (www.no2homedepot.com).

Last Friday, the STA received an email from Barbara Goldfarb, the volunteer DRP lead facilitator in charge of the meeting.

Here is the entire contents of that email :


Sunland-Tujunga Alliance/No2Home Depot

It has come to our attention through observing the notices that the Sunland-Tujunga Alliance is posting on the No2Home Depot web site and through phone calls being received in Councilwoman Wendy Greuel’s office, that the Sunland-Tujunga Alliance is disseminating false and misleading information regarding Monday’s upcoming scheduling conference.

May we remind you once again that this meeting is under the auspices of the Dispute Resolution Program and that the Sunland-Tujunga Alliance has no role to play in its organization or conduct beyond that of being one of many invitees who have been asked to have a representative attend. The meeting is for invited participants only. This closed door meeting at this location does not violate any existing laws and its closed door status will be strictly enforced.

The Alliance’s irresponsible behavior in issuing its unauthorized public invitation has forced the Dispute Resolution Program to request police presence at the meeting to insure that this process will proceed under the Dispute Resolution Program’s policies and rules. (emphasis added)

As was clearly stated in our letter, this meeting is logistical only. We fully respect and honor your right to express your opinions about the subject, but this scheduling conference is not the place for that and no discussion of the controversy as identified at the April 26, 2008 dialogue will be allowed. We are simply discussing time, date, place and ground rules and the Alliance’s representative will be asked for input along with all other representatives.

May we respectfully request that the Alliance issues a correction of the incorrect information on the web-site and call as many of their members as possible to instruct them not to attend. The last thing any of us want is a disturbance at the meeting and we should all do our best to avoid that possibility.

Barbara E. Goldfarb
Dispute Resolution Program

When Ms. Goldfarb was contacted by phone about the DRP staff member who said that the public could attend this meeting, Ms. Goldfarb was dismissive saying that the staff member didn't know what she was talking about. It is unfortunate that the DRP now blames the STA for their own lack of communication and misleading information. The DRP is ultimately responsible for creating this confusion and hard feelings among neighborhood residents, and the DRP is able to resolve this matter by calling off the police, and allowing the public to observe this meeting.

Sunland-Tujunga resident, Damien McGinnis, put it this way:

"What an outrage! Ms.Goldfarb seems to be making up the rules as she goes along and as she sees fit. The secrecy in the form of undisclosed participants/invitees, the closed door policy, apparent ulterior motives (which raises questions about possible corruption within and/or coercion of the DRP) and simple lack of congruency from the DRP and its office is intolerable and outrageous! I hope the news gets all over this and it becomes the latest city scandal."


Needless to say, angry residents upset about being excluded from this process will be showing up today at 4:30 pm to voice their concerns.

Perhaps you (and the Press) will consider joining us.

DRP Scheduling Meeting
4:30 PM
North Valley City Hall
7747 Foothill Blvd.
Tujunga



(For those that don't know, Joe B. is the president of the Sunland-Tujunga Alliance Inc., and chairman of the No Home Depot Campaign, in addition to being a blogger on Mayor Sam.)

March of the Autry Volunteers

Taking a page from Home Depot tactics and just in time for the Beijing Olympics, it's The March of the Autry Volunteers!

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Hi everyone,

You may have already gotten the message from John about the city Hearing on the Autry's expansion this coming Monday, August 18, at 10 a.m. in beautiful City Hall (renovated by our architect Brenda Levin).

In any case, the first big hearing in front the Plannng Commission's Hearing Officer is expected to last no more than a few hours. It's one of those events where having the room full of supporters is a really, really good thing, so if you're free this Monday, then I'm asking you to please come down and help us out. If you can come to the Autry at 8:45 a.m., we'll even provide the transportation, leaving at 9 a.m. sharp! We will also have some coffee, etc. ahead of time (and - I'm working on this - maybe something afterwards as well).

Please let me know if you can make it! And for those who have already responded, THANK YOU, and I look forward to seeing you all on Monday morning!

Scott
p.s. - oh, and feel free to bring guests/friends, of course!

Scott Frank, Ph.D.
Senior Manager of Education and Volunteers
Autry National Center of the American West
4700 Western Heritage Way
Los Angeles, CA 90027
323-667-2000 ext. 242
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Of course, Dear Leader.

4th Of July Photos from Sunland-Tujunga!

For your viewing pleasure, here are some 4th of July photos from Sunland-Tujunga (with a No Home Depot slant, of course) to wrap up this great weekend. There is such a thing as a small town in a big city. And what better occasion for a little revolution of our own?
To see them all go Here.