Happy Labor Day!

http://www.lopezautomotive.com/

SAVE THE DATE: LACCD VAN DE KAMP INNOVATION CENTER GRAND OPENING, OCTOBER 13TH

For more information contact:

Veronica Garcia
Communications/BuildLACCD
770 Wilshire Blvd. 6th floor
Los Angeles, CA 90017
213.891.2493 office
714.380.7731 mobile
veronica.garcia@build-laccd.org

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Other news about the LACCD Van de Kamps Innovation Center

VAN DE KAMP'S COALITION TO COMMUNITY COLLEGES: SEE YOU IN COURT

TAXPAYER LAWSUIT TARGETS CITY OF LOS ANGELES TAKEOVER OF HISTORIC VAN DE KAMPS BAKERY COMMUNITY COLLEGE SITE

LACCD’S ACADEMIC SENATE PRESIDENT WANTS TO TELL NORTHEAST COMMUNITY TO “FUCK OFF” OVER LOSS OF NORTHEAST SATELLITE CAMPUS

OFFICIAL EMAILS SHOW LACCD LIED TO ELECTED OFFICIALS ABOUT ITS ABILITY TO OPERATE VAN DE KAMPS COLLEGE CAMPUS

LAPD CHIEF CHARLIE BECK TO SPEAK AT GLASSELL PARK IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION MEETING 9-16-10

The Glassell Park Improvement Association (GPIA) is pleased to announce our new Police Chief is coming to speak at their September General meeting. All NELA stakeholders are welcome to attend.

Save the Date

Thursday 9-16-10 7:00 PM

Glassell Park Community and Senior Center

3750 Verdugo Road Los Angeles, Ca 90065

(the south side of the Public Storage building, next to the park)

For more information write to us at gpia90065@gmail.com

Grand Opening - Youth Boxing Program at LAPD Northeast Station

On Saturday August 28, 2010, between 11 AM to 2 PM, there will be a red carpet event and press conference to launch the "Northeast Youth Boxing Program" at Northeast Station, in our back parking lot (off Treadwell Street). Come join Chief of Police Charlie Beck, local elected officials, and television celebrity Erik Estrada as we launch this new program as part of our Police Athletic League lineup of youth programs. Food and entertainment will be provided for free. Hope to see you there.

Captain Bill Murphy

Northeast LAPD

NELA River Study Area News: HUD Grant

The NELA river corridor team would like to share that we've submitted a grant application with Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for possibly $3 million in funding.

The grant was prepared by the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles (CRA/LA) in response to a national, competitive call for projects. The money, if granted, would be used to enhance the studies that the CRA/LA is conducting related to the proposed NELA redevelopment project area. This grant request does not pre-determine the adoption of a redevelopment project area. There is a process that must be followed to ensure that the community is informed, engaged and heard. For more information on that process please visit our website at www.crala.org/nela which has a downloadable chart that describes basic steps and phases necessary to adopt a new redevelopment project area.

To download the grant application please click on link. HUD Grant

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me or Alison Becker at abecker@cra.lacity.org  

Michael Cortez

NELA Team Member

Michael Cortez I Community Relations I Hollywood

Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles

6255 W. Sunset Blvd.I Suite 2206 I Los Angeles, CA 90028

T (323) 960-2660 I (213) 977-2645 I F (323) 461-1487

E mcortez@cra.lacity.org

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The Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles (CRA/LA) is seeking to create a redevelopment project area in Northeast Los Angeles (NELA). The project area would cover most NELA communities that lie alongside the river, including some significant sections of Atwater Village, with no regards to the integrity of long established community boundaries. Atwater Village’s boundaries and land-use development uniformity would be threatened by its inclusion in the proposed NELA River Redevelopment Project Area.

GLENDALE BLVD’S GRASS MEDIAN CLEANUP TO HAPPEN SOMETIME NEXT WEEK

According to CD13 the overgrown grassy median along Atwater’s “main street” business district (Glendale Blvd) will be cleaned up sometime next week. The Department of Public Works has refused to maintain the median and a private vendor will need to be hired for next week’s cleanup.
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For more information contact CD13 Atwater Village Field Deputy Angela Motta at:
angela.motta@lacity.org

“OBAMA MONEY” TO PAY FOR THE REPAVEMENT OF FLETCHER DRIVE IN ATWATER VILLAGE

According to Congressman Baccera website the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has provided funding for a long overdue repavement of Fletcher Drive between Casitas Ave and the I-5 Freeway overcrossing. The actual street resurfacing is to be done by the Department of Public Works - Bureau of Engineering, which is the recipient of the Recover Act grant.

Recovery Act Projects in California's 31st Congressional District [Congressman Xavier Baccera website]

Summer Nights on the Boulevard returns!

The Atwater Village Neighborhood Council is proud to present Summer Nights on the Boulevard ~ Thursday, August 26th from 6-10 PM, all along Glendale Boulevard in beautiful Atwater Village.

We have bands at Kaldi (including Samantha Lane, Zachariah and the Lobos Riders, and Bobby Joyner and the Sundowners), and in front of Lenore Solis's building at 3315 Glendale Blvd.

We have a DJ, dance performances, and all of our community groups at the 55 Degree Wine parking lot.

We have interactive theater from Shakespeare Everywhere, kids' arts and crafts from Ed and Vivian Flynn, handwriting analysis, and Neighborgoods at the Revo Cafe patio.

But most importantly, our shops and restaurants will be open late with amazing promotions and fun all along the boulevard. Woof Dog Boutique is hosting our DAWS and Sante d'Or as well as having a doggie bake sale. Hugo's Tacos is having an ice cream social. Other merchants will have wine and cheese and free giveaways.

Your Neighborhood Council is proud to bring you this event, and yes, we will be giving away the coveted I Heart Atwater Village bumper stickers!

All we need is you, our neighbors, enjoying our beautiful main street. Please share, pass it on, and please join us for a beautiful night in beautiful Atwater Village!

Best, Leonora Pitts, co-chair, Atwater Village Neighborhood Council

http://atwatervillage.org/

Summer Nights on the Boulevard, August 26th!

Summer Nights on the Blvd

Thursday, August 26th 6:00pm to 10:0pm

3100 Block of Glendale Blvd in Atwater Village!

Join the Atwater Village Neighborhood Council for a great evening on Glendale Boulevard in beautiful Atwater Village. Our businesses will stay open late for your enjoyment, we'll have music all along the boulevard, an ice cream social at Hugo's Tacos, arts and crafts, and much, much more. Hope to see you there!

http://www.atwatervillage.org/

TAXPAYER LAWSUIT TARGETS CITY OF LOS ANGELES TAKEOVER OF HISTORIC VAN DE KAMPS BAKERY COMMUNITY COLLEGE SITE

Multiple violations of state law and false claims about operating funds by LA Community College District Board draws lawsuit by Northeast taxpayers.

(Los Angeles, CA) A group of taxpayers of the Los Angeles Community College District (“LACCD”) announced they have filed suit seeking to invalidate a May 26, 2010 proposed lease of nearly half of the Northeast Satellite Campus of Los Angeles City College at the historic Van de Kamps Bakery to the City of Los Angeles. The lawsuit seeks to halt a deceptive effort of certain LACCD Board members and administrators to use the state budget crisis as a pretense to avoid finishing the decade-long plan to build and open a Satellite Campus to Los Angeles City College. Instead, LACCD officials have tried to hand off the $72 million taxpayer-financed campus to private corporations eager to rent the brand new buildings. The scheme would deny educational opportunity to young adults living in Northeast Los Angeles and substitute programs for the unemployed person from all over the City.

“Trustees Silvia Scott-Hayes, Mona Field, and Georgia Mercer have made false representations to the community that the state budget crisis prevents the District from opening the Northeast Campus as a community college satellite,” said Miki Jackson. “But the District’s own economic feasibility studies establish the fact that the Satellite campus could be opened with profitable non-credit courses in high demand and without the need of state budget funding, yet District officials continue to falsely claim the state budget would affect their ability to open the Van de Kamps site.”

Filed three weeks ago, attorneys for the taxpayers are in the process of serving the lawsuit on defendants LACCD, the City of Los Angeles and the intended lease beneficiaries: a group of privately-run workforce unemployment programs funded by federal economic stimulus funds and the Workforce Investment Act. “LACCD placed the Northeast Satellite Campus on its Proposition 39 project list as a promise to voters to build and open it using taxpayer-approved funds, but some kind of politically wired bait-and-switch is now underway to divert millions of dollars of new taxpayer-paid facilities to private corporate interests that appear to be linked to Mayor Villaraigosa,” observed Paul Heidenreich, an attorney who filed the taxpayer lawsuit on behalf of the taxpayer plaintiffs.

“Our taxpayer lawsuit focuses on how LACCD Facilities Director Larry Eisenberg allegedly oversaw the expenditure of at least $6.2 million of voter-approved Proposition 39 bond funds to convert a planned classroom building into administrative offices for the unemployment programs funded by the City of Los Angeles Workforce Investment Board,” said another plaintiff, Andrew Garsten. Records of the LACCD show that in the midst of building the new $72 million Northeast Satellite campus, subordinates reporting to Eisenberg, in violation of the state Contract Code, converted the value of the historic Van de Kamps Bakery Building construction contract to the benefit of the proposed unemployment program tenants championed by the City.

Under the California Constitution, community colleges that pass bond issues with only 55% of the vote are limited to using the bond monies for capital expenditures for construction of community college “school facilities.” The lawsuit challenges the LACCD’s use of Proposition 39 funds for changing the historic Van de Kamps Bakery Building into a huge unemployment office operated by outside private non-profits.

“Under Proposition 39 and Proposition 13, LACCD has no authority to use precious school bond funds to re-design and re-construct a school building into an office space for workforce bureaucrats – and yet, that is what LACCD did,” said Mr. Heidenreich. The Board could have decided on May 26, 2010 to return to a lawful course to use the building for community college classes, but instead it conferred millions of dollars of illegal taxpayer monies on private corporations by handing the historic bakery building over to the City of Los Angeles. The City plans to sublease 100 percent of the leased area to four private entities: Community Career Development, Inc., Worker Education and Resource Center, Inc., Archdiocesan Youth Employment (a program of Catholic Charities), and the Atwater Park Center, Inc.

In addition to the taxpayer claims, the lawsuit also seeks to invalidate the lease to the City of Los Angeles because Education Code rules on no-bid leasing were also violated. On April 14, 2010, the Board tried to lease this same space to Community Career Development using an Education Code provision that allows no-bid leases to ‘private educational institutions’, but when the community established that the proposed lessee did not qualify, the Board hastily canceled the proposal.

“Six weeks later, the Board returned with a new proposal to lease the same space to the City of Los Angeles but allow the City to sublease 100% of the space to anyone. LACCD is using the City as a ‘municipal entity front’ to hand a no-bid lease to a bunch of private corporations,” said Daniel Wright, another attorney representing the taxpayers. “The lease arrangement is a sham to circumvent the requirement for competitive bidding in the Education Code.”

The campus, located in the Northeast Los Angeles at the intersection of San Fernando Road and Fletcher Drive, is already the subject of a lawsuit for the LACCD's failure to do any environmental review required by the California Environmental Quality Act when District officials decided they wanted to change the use of the site from a Satellite Community College campus to a profit-making tenant-based facility. E-mails show LACCD’s own environmental consultant told District officials that a Supplemental Environmental Impact Report was required before implementing the changes. This advice was ignored as Trustees Scott-Hayes, Field, and Mercer led the rest of the Board down a path of illegal actions including the mis-expenditure of millions and millions of taxpayer bond funds. The Los Angeles County Superior Court has set a hearing to promptly move the case to trial on the merits.

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For more information:

Paul Heidenreich (310) 545-5459