Serving Larchmont Village, Hancock Park, and the Greater Wilshire neighborhoods of Los Angeles since 2011.

Hancock Park Town Hall with Councilmember Nithya Raman March 15

All CD4 Residents are invited to attend Hancock Park’s virtual town hall with Councilmember Nithya Raman, Monday, March 15 at 6 p.m.

This story has been updated to correct the date. The meeting is Monday, March 15 at 6 p.m.

The Hancock Park Homeowners Association is inviting residents of City Council District 4 to attend a virtual town hall meeting with City Councilmember Nithya Raman on Monday, March 15 at 6:00 p.m.

HPHOA President Cindy Chvatal-Keane shared the invitation with the Buzz so residents in the district can join in and  learn more about Councilmember Raman’s positions on a wide range of issues of interest to residents. In preparation for the meeting, HPHOA sent over the questions in advance, since time with Councilmember Raman is limited to one hour.

Below is the invitation and RSVP link. All CD4 residents are invited to attend. Please register in advance to receive the Zoom link for the meeting.

Dear Hancock Park Residents and Neighbors,

We are delighted that our new Council Member, CM Nithya Raman, will be joining our Hancock Park neighborhood community for a virtual town hall meeting. CM Raman will be our only guest and we have created a list of questions for her, based on topics you have told us are the priorities, issues and concerns for our neighborhood.  Our time with the CM is limited to one hour so we have provided CM Raman with all the questions in advance, so she will have time to review prior to the meeting. The questions are listed below.

We look forward to “seeing” you all at the meeting!

When: Mar 15, 2021 06:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Topic: Hancock Park Town Hall with CM Nithya Raman

Register in advance for this town hall: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_TiADeMsjS2e_rbIVjyfw0A

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Questions for CD4 Council Member Nithya Raman:

Safety and Security

    • Cutting the LAPD budget and redistributing funds is a main focus of yours. How far is too far in cutting the LAPD budget and still be able to provide protection and emergency response to neighborhoods?
    • “Calling it a “disturbing trend,” LAPD Assistant Chief Beatrice Girmala told the L.A. Police Commission that as of Tuesday 3/2/21, L.A. had recorded 64 homicides and 267 shootings, compared with 46 homicides and 111 shootings at the same point last year, Girmala said. “Shooting violence continues to plague our communities with citywide increases,” she said. ” That is a 141% increase. LA Times 3/8/21
    • Homicides and robberies are at all-time highs in the City.
    • Hancock Park burglaries are up 44%.

Land Use and R1 Zoning

    • What is your position on SB 9 and 10?
    • And if you support them, how are either of them going to create affordable housing? Certainly, they will lead to abundant housing but definitely not affordable housing in high-income areas where incentives encourage developers to create masses of market rate, luxury apartments, leaving the middle class out of the equation. What is your justification for supporting this “trickle down” theory, with the homeless getting the crumbs?
    • How will the city support the massive upgrades to infrastructure required for this “abundant housing”, e.g. parking, sewer, power, emergency response?
    • SB 9 and SB 10 will eliminate local control over zoning, turning over decision-making to Sacramento, even in endangered coastal areas and for all HPOZs. What is your stance on the local control of zoning?

Homeless Crisis Progress

    • City Council recently passed motions to request FEMA money (150M) to pay up front for hotel rooms to be used to house the homeless for six months. Also to have the City Attorney study the City’s ability to commandeer hotels unwilling to participate. The E in FEMA stands for emergency, what happens when the Covid crisis ends hopefully in the Fall/Winter. What will happen to those thousands of people? Will they be evicted? What is your plan going forward?
    • Where will the funds to keep thousands housed in hotels come from?
    • ACCESS CENTERS: During your campaign you focused on building Access Centers in the CD 4 district as a path to help solve the homeless crisis in LA.
    • What will each center provide?
    • How many do you intend to build?
    • Where will they be built?
    • What is the operational cost of each of the Access Centers you are proposing and how will they be funded on an ongoing basis?
    • How many Access Centers are now in operation in CD4?

Commitment to Transparency

    • Why did you cancel the CD4 Discretionary Fund Task Force?
    • Background Information on the Discretionary Task Force:  In seeking more neighborhood input and transparency on how these funds (over 1.5 million dollars a year) should be utilized, CM Ryu established an advisory task force to identify projects that will be beneficial to the residents of CD4, and at the same time review funding and prioritize those projects that will receive funds.
    • Members of the CD4 community were appointed to sit on this task force and to take part in this process. Appointees changed from year to year. All records of how the discretionary funds are allocated were posted online so constituents could review and comment.
    •  CD4 neighborhoods were able to apply for the discretionary funds for improvement projects within the District. CD4 was the only council district to make transparent how and where their Discretionary Funds were spent.

CD4 Neighborhood Constituent Representation vs Organizations.

    • How do you view and intend to represent the concerns and issues facing the residential neighborhood constituents in CD4 vs the City and National organizations who supported your campaign but whose majority of members do not live, work or own property in the district you now represent?
    • For example: Streets For All continues to lobby for the installation of Bike Traffic Lights/Restricted turns at Highland and 4th and Rossmore and 4th. Hundreds of your CD4 constituents have already been surveyed on this issue and opposed the implementation of Bike Lights and Restricted Turns, once in 2011 and again in 2020. Our latest survey was conducted in Sept 2020. The GWNC and HPHOA are both on record supporting the neighborhoods and opposing the Bike Lights/Restricted Turns. LADOT and your staff have been sent all of our survey information, which contains the names and addresses of those surveyed and the motions and minutes from the HPHOA and GWNC meetings.
    • Do majority voices of the CD4 constituents, who live in the neighborhoods, you represent deserve more weight on issues that directly impact them, then special interest organizations?

City Budget Cuts and City Services

    • What are you planning to do about the city’s unfunded pension liability? Where are you going to get the money to pay for the steadily rising pension costs?
    • How will you ensure the city is planning for infrastructure needs for the near and long term future
    • We have just been informed by your office that none of our streets will be repaired this year. In the past several years our streets and sidewalks were finally being repaired- in concrete – a far better material for our environment; cooling temperatures and lasting up to 80 years. What will you do to reverse that decision and help the neighborhood get the needed repairs to our infrastructure?

Quality of Life Issues

    • Explain your vote against authority to ticket people who violate the mask mandate. News reports were that you were concerned about tickets issued to minorities in a city outside California. Given the continued health emergency and higher infection rates in minority communities, why were you unwilling to help protect your constituents?
    • Many of our residents walk to Larchmont Village, even more now during the pandemic. For years we have been trying to get the City to repair/construct the sidewalk on the northside of Beverly Blvd. from Rossmore to Hudson, bordering the Wilshire Country Club. This is a serious safety concern in our neighborhood. How will you help the neighborhood get this infrastructure installed?
    • The community has continually reported these hazardous, unsafe burned out and/or abandoned houses to LADBS, CD4 and other City Departments for years, yet no action has been taken. What will you do to make sure these dangerous properties are demolished or repaired?
        •  252 S. June St. (directly across the street from 3rd Street School)
        • 281 S. McCadden Place
    • Last spring after hearing many questions and complaints about huge DWP bill increases, we surveyed our residents. We found most everyone in the area had received huge DWP bills with no explanation. Many had not been living in their home, many had fewer people living in their homes, many homes were under construction, yet everyone had huge increases. When DWP was asked to explain – the answer most given was “check for leaks.”  DWP to date has not provided a clear explanation to our residents. What will you do to get answers for our residents?
    • Several of our residential streets have recently been damaged by infrastructure failure and burst water mains. They have been temporarily patched with asphalt. When will final concrete repairs, which are paid for by DWP, be completed? What is the repair schedule? The locations are:
        • 500 N. Cherokee
        • 333 S. Las Palmas Ave.
        • 4th Street at Muirfield
    • Gas powered leaf blowers are illegal but used without exception. Why is this not enforced, with homeowners being fined? The gas blowers cause air and noise pollution.
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Patricia Lombard
Patricia Lombard
Patricia Lombard is the publisher of the Larchmont Buzz. Patty lives with her family in Fremont Place. She has been active in neighborhood issues since moving here in 1989. Her pictorial history, "Larchmont" for Arcadia Press is available at Chevalier's Books.

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