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
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