Last Thursday night I showed up at LA City Councilman Mitch O’Farrell’s field office on Sunset Boulevard to participate in the yearly homeless count. When I first walked in, there was a packed house watching a training video on how to do the count. The greeter handed me a waiver so I headed to a side room and as I entered, Mr. O’Farrell was greeting folks and shaking hands. He then turned to me and I said, “Hi Mitch.” To which he responded looking at me with clear distain, “I know you and your inflammatory work.” To which I responded while extending my hand, “Maybe we should talk?” He neither shook my hand nor wanted to take me up on the offer. I have known the councilman for a few years now originally through my work with the Stonewall Democratic Club and I wouldn’t say we were ever friends but certainly he and I had been playing on the same LGBTQ team as it were.
As folks know, I have been a vocal advocate for the Transgender Community in particular and the LGBTQ Community in general. Now that I sit on the board of the Rampart Village Neighborhood Council, I am doing my dead level best to be a vocal advocate for the stakeholders I represent.
In press releases published on the LA Tenant Union’s website I was quoted as follows. You can judge for yourself if they are inflammatory or if they are me speaking truth to power.
1) “For once, I would like to see the Councilman look the people he represents in the eye and explain to them why he wants to throw them out of their homes. Explain to residents on side streets why their street parking will go from bad to miserable. Explain to small business owners why he thinks it is a good idea to build retail and commercial space they cannot afford.
For once, just for once, I would like to see the Councilman demonstrate the mettle it takes to come down out of city hall and explain himself, in person, to his constituents by answering their very valid questions. Is that really too much to ask of an elected politician in a democracy these days? I do know if I were in his council seat, I would be at the forum in a hot second!”
2) “I believe the city has neglected the needs and desires of residents and small business owners that have lived and thrived in these communities for decades. The neglect is one of allowing foreign and out-of-town investors to construct housing and retail spaces the average Angeleno cannot afford. This has been going on for so long that I would strongly argue the displacement of lower income folks, who tend to be people of color, is intentional on the part of City Hall.”
3) “It is my understanding the community did not ask for this ordinance. They did not ask to make their main thoroughfares into spectacles of out-of-control urban development and that is exactly what we have all seen happening in every corner of our city. It is downright shameful. What I do know is that with a coalition of the willing, including the community, developers and City Hall, there is a way to progress forward with further developing our city without the disenfranchisement or displacement of the people who have lived and worked in these neighborhoods for decades.”
Strong language indeed but these are the sentiments I have been hearing from folks in my area and to some degree, from Hollywood to Boyle Heights. This is me being vocal and I am sorry not sorry if I ruffled some feathers.
So for those who have not been following what is going on in our neck of the woods and what prompted the above exchange, here is the gist as I see it.
Over the past several years, the councilman has been championing the North Westlake Design Ordinance. It is being touted as a redevelopment overlay plan to make the Temple Street, Beverly Boulevard, Third Street and Alvarado Street corridors more pedestrian friendly. This effects most of Historic Filipinotown and in my opinion, as well as the opinion of a whole lot of other folks in the community, this ordinance would have a devastating effect on the character of this neighborhood, has the potential of displacing thousands of working poor families and places undue burdens on existing small businesses.
The issue of displacement of folks is real, tangible, and is being tracked, and from my perspective, he is doing zero about it. In fact, I believe he is making matters worse all over the 13th District. Despite years of community push back by residents, small business owners and community organizations against the unbridled sell off of our city to developers, Mr. O'Farrell has deemed it necessary to set a vision for Historic Filipinotown that, to my knowledge, no one in the community ever asked for. And to me, this is at the root of the problem. His unwillingness, for whatever reason, to engage with constituents that have an opposing opinion to his own is antithetical to the progressive values we hold dear as Angelenos. Inclusion of all in the civic dialog is at the very heart of those values.
The Coalition to Defend Westlake, which I am a part of, organized a Community Meeting held last Wednesday night so our neighbors could weigh in on the ordinance. Here is the live stream of that meeting. The LA City Planning Department was gracious enough to send 3 representatives but the councilman obviously did not feel the need to be represented, and yes, he was invited. At the risk of being “inflammatory,” this is his ordinance and if he truly wanted the support of the community, he or his staff would have been there to face the concerns of the community. But you can draw your own conclusions from his absence. To me? It is clear he could really care less about how the community feels about this ordinance.
Just like the Planning Department hearing in May, the folks who attended the meeting last Wednesday are not happy about this ordinance in the least and yet the councilman wants to proceed with it. Do I think Mr. O'Farrell is an awful person? Heck no. I just think he needs to engage the community, ask them what their vision for their neighborhoods are, and then proceed to help them obtain that, not some vision he alone has. I have had more than a few stakeholders say to me, "I have contacted his office and he never responds." The problem’s root.
If folks had shown up to the Community Meeting and had said they think this ordinance is the best thing since sliced bread, I would say ok, let’s make it happen. But that is not the case.
Yes, I have made some pretty forceful public statements about him in regards to this particular issue but it is only because I care so deeply, so passionately about my friends and neighbors. He is the one that shut the door, not me. Mine is always open. All I want to see is for him to listen to the people that actually voted him into office and those folks are certainly not developers. If that is "inflammatory," then maybe he needs to recognize that such statements need not be made if only he would listen…
For Love. For Peace. For Tolerance. For Humankind.
Rachael Rose Luckey is a progressive political activist, with special emphasis on the LGB/Trans Movements, living in Los Angeles. As Secretary of the Rampart Village Neighborhood Council, she is one of only sixteen openly Transgender Government Officials in the nation to currently hold elected office. She also participates on community advisory committees/working groups including LAPD and LA Care. (The views expressed are solely her own and do not represent the views of any political party, organization, government entity or candidate/elected official)