West Athens Westmont Community Task Force

The MTA Board APPROVED a light rail transit line in our community on Exposition Blvd without involving our homeowners in the planning process.
NO meetings in the Crenshaw community were held and very little outreach was done even for the Public Hearing at West Angeles Church on May 9th 2001. All meetings and distribution of information was done in the Wilshire and West Los Angeles area.

The draft environmental impact study/report already plans to bypass USC with a tunnel option and bypass the Cheviot Hills homes but NOT Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw residences.

The EXPO Neighbors Association organized in April of 1993 because of MTA's neglect of the right-of -way. At that time our group wanted to plant drought tolerant flowers to discourage illegal dumping and improve property values but we were personally told by MTA officials that ''Community based projects have a tendency to fizzle-out'' and ''Flowers catch trash.'' MTA officials also told us that ''We rather fence in the ROW and sell parking spaces.''

This long-standing mindset by MTA raises serious concerns about the intentional discriminatory tactics of MTA by deliberately excluding minority communities from the planning process. This violation of due process constitutes civil rights violations and MTA has and obligation to allow for full participation of ALL the homeowners and residences that will be impacted by this project. A lobbyist group in west LA called Friends of Expo rail spent a lot of energy to persuade the MTA board to approve this self-serving, discriminatory rail project. The idea is to get Westsiders downtown and back without considering the negative impacts to the African American communities in Baldwin Hills and Crenshaw. This is an illegal, self-serving conflict of interest when the EIR/Study already plans to re-route the train away from the backyards of the Cheviot Hills residences on the westside of Exposition Blvd. It also plans to avoid Exposition Blvd. near USC with an underground tunnel option or re-route on Vermont south to King Blvd. east. The existing plan does NOT avoid the residences on Exposition Blvd. between La Cienega and Vermont Ave. Why is the rail plan NOT ok in the Cheviot Hills backyards, NOT ok in USC's front yard, but OK in our front yard?

The existing project has a racist land-use planning strategy.



Patrick McCullough

Metrorail

Being a homeowner who worked very hard to own feels disappointed to have certain groups determine your life and your future. I got one newsletter about this and I wrote back stating to do something else with the money. Our congressman should always inform us of all major changes to our community were property values are going to be effective. I don't even know how to fight back. We don't want a train going down Exposition Blvd.

Know what/who to fight... p1

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The MTA seems to have done a poor job of informing area homeowners of the coming Exposition project. Members of Friends4Expo, an all-volunteer group that supports light rail on Exposition, attended the MTA's three outreach meetings on the draft environmental impact review last year. One was in the mid-cities district, one was at the Veterans Center in Westwood, and one was on Crenshaw Blvd. at the West LA Church.

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The West Angeles Church is in the Crenshaw community. The public hearing at the West Angeles Church was exactly the same as the hearings done at the Automotive museum on Wilshire and at the Veteran's Center.

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No. The outreach seems to have been equally poor across the length of the line. Friends4Expo has tried to get more people involved in outreach and we have been critical of MTA's relative failures at reaching the community. That's why we worked hard--on our own time--to set up the presentation at Dorsey High.

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No. They are suggesting that this be studied as an option. Personally, I think the idea of a tunnel by USC is disgusting. Light rail is safer than the automobiles that run on either side of Expo from Figuero to Vermont. I think last year they had a student killed by a car near there and two more were injured. I personally have suggested to USC's people that they should build a pedestrian flyover over both the street and the tracks, but they seem to be more interested in protecting the shrubs they planted on the median than their own students.

<< and bypass the Cheviot Hills homes but NOT Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw residences.>>

Well, I didn't vote for Yvonne Burke, who is responsible for the diversion (she also supports the USC tunnel). She promised the people in Cheviot Hills and Rancho Park there would never be a train there--we know this because her transportation deputy told us so at a Friends4Expo meeting. Although we don't have it on the record, it's widely known that Zev Yaroslovsky also promised that the train would never run through Cheviot Hills/Rancho Park.

If you?’re outraged by the diversion?—and you should be?—then you should go after the politicians who ordered it. The rest of the MTA, as a matter of law, follows the directives given it by these politicians who WE elect. That?’s democracy. Sometimes democracy sucks. But since voter turnout is so low in LA, next time there?’s an election, use your energies to get them unseated. You can do that. It just takes enormous leg work.

That's why, in fact, the line has only been approved as far West as Venice/Robertson. Protests to the diversion were so loud and widespread that the MTA didn't dare try to go through with it, so instead we get half a rail line. I suggest you join in protesting the DIVERSION, but not the line itself. Nearly all of the protestors at the MTA hearings last year stated that they supported light rail, but no diversions.
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Know what/who to fight p2


In other words, we know what you're against (the diversion). People will listen more if you tell them what you're for: an equitable light rail train that doesn't include diversions and tunnels to support special interests.

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Who told you that? Get names. I'll personally help you get some complaints written to MTA about that. MTA is a big organization. There are bad eggs and good ones. But ultimately it's run by people YOU vote into office.

If it makes you feel any better, homeowners in Cheviot/Rancho Park have also had a real problem with the MTA and keeping the ROW clean. Someone told me the MTA even pulled out some trees they planted. I?’m not going to defend MTA as a whole?…how could anybody? Much of it is pretty screwed up. The rail planners, however, seem pretty together.

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The MTA is run by elected officials. It's not some monolith. Minority communities were not excluded any more than majority communities. However, I will tell you that turnout was larger at the Veterans Center in Westwood but that was because the homeowners associations were better organized. The dates/places of all the meetings were posted in the newspapers. The homeowners?’ associations managed to get the troops out there, not the MTA.

<< This violation of due process constitutes civil rights violations and MTA has and obligation to allow for full participation of ALL the homeowners and residences that will be impacted by this project. A lobbyist group in west LA called Friends of Expo rail spent a lot of energy to persuade the MTA board to approve this self-serving, discriminatory rail project.>>

Huh? Many, many members of Friends FOR Expo are Crenshaw-area and Baldwin Hills residents who live within a door or two of the line.

We are unpaid volunteers who are just sick of listening to people complain and complain about traffic without suggesting viable alternatives or solutions. The MTA ain't the greatest organization in the world...that's for sure. But it's all we've got. So we're making an honest effort to watch dog them and push them the best we can. We want an alternative to sitting in traffic, plain and simple. If you call that self-serving, so be it. But don?’t try to mischaracterize us. You were at the Crenshaw meeting so you know the
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