We all learned from Los Angeles Times reporter Emily Alpert-Reyes of a slyly concocted “veto letter” that allows each Los Angeles City Council member, in this case Curren Price, to write a ban any homeless housing for any reason in their district.
Even a lovely development by LINC Housing Corp. in Florence, with, get this: a rooftop garden, bbq area, veggie garden and computer lab. A really nice project. Check out the photo above. Price stopped desperately needed homeless housing and left behind a creepy rusting fence surrounding decaying cars, a blight on Florence Avenue adjacent to a hard-working, low-income neighborhood.
Vetoed by Curren Price, the homeless housing would have created 50 single units for senior citizens and foster care teens who get “aged out” of care at 18 and are put onto the streets. (That’s right, we put our frightened foster children on the streets at age 18, although many good programs manage to keep about two in three foster teenagers from becoming homeless.)
Curren Price used a “veto letter” to stop the Florence-area project — tossing out years of planning. Nor did Price consult the local Neighborhood Councils about their feelings on it. We called and asked them. The community did NOT oppose it. Curren Price did.
Where did Curren Price get his bizarre veto power, during L.A.’s historic humanitarian crisis? He got it from Los Angeles Chief Administrative Officer Rich Llewellyn, Mayor Eric Garcetti’s longtime confidante, who dreamed up these outrageous veto letters.
Recently, the mayor’s office and the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times began blaming Los Angeles residents for standing in the way of homeless projects.
That’s amazing, since L.A. residents who oppose gigantic luxury projects have virtually NO CHANCE of stopping the luxury developments. How on earth did residents suddenly get the power to stop HOMELESS projects?
They didn’t. Here’s how Llewellyn helped provide the political class yet another way to do as it pleases:
– Rich Llewellyn wrote up several April 18, 2017 “Recommendations” to the HHH Citizens Oversight Committee that is deciding how to spend the $1.2 billion Los Angeles voters approved for homeless housing.
– Rich Llewellyn told the well-meaning HHH Citizens Oversight Committee that his plan to require an “acknowledgement” letter from a council member would “ensure that Council Offices are aware of the agencies applying” to build homeless housing in their Los Angeles City Council districts.
– But wait! Curren Price realized the “acknowledgement letter” clearly gave him feudal lord powers over homeless housing in his district. So he exercised his absurd power.
How’s Curren Price’s veto of homeless housing going for the people of the Florence area in South Los Angeles? Check out what exists on the corner of Florence and Towne now, in the above photo.
What will Curren Price and other Los Angeles City Council members demand next, before they summarily veto a good homeless development, a swimming pool?