Dozens of citizens pleaded with L.A. City Council for housing instead of a luxury hotel at several January 2023 meetings. After allowing their comments, council went ahead and voted in favor of another luxury Marriott to be built on public land, with public $$$$ and support, just weeks after Mayor Karen Bass declared homelessness in the city a first priority emergency.
I've transcribed many of those comments from the public about the Marriott project here in this post.
Why am I doing this? If you come across the Minutes of L.A. City Council meetings, you find they do not include what the public said. All the ideas, suggestions, and pleadings from members of the public who speak during the Public Comment period of the meetings are nowhere to be found in the "journals" from meetings at the city's website. Public comments take up half of each city council meeting yet nowhere are they being documented let alone published, there's no record that people spoke.
So I've started transcribing the words of these passionate plaintive citizens and posting them here on City of Angels Blog. There will be more posts like this coming soon.
At the January 11 meeting first speaker on the Bethune / Marriott issue is at 39.20 in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwjZtupgl0g
[SPEAKER ON MARRIOTT ISSUE]
[Spanish translator] My name is [SOUNDS LIKE] Irma Favian from SAJE. We are very upset with
our council member because he wants the public land to be a hotel. The zoning commission of Los Angeles voted not to
use that land for the hotel. Our council
member wants to make it a hotel. It has
been worked for the community for ten years because they've been fighting for
this land for the community.
Now we have the opportunity with the ULA measure for them to help us to build housing for the community. We ask the council members to listen to us because we do not have enough housing for us. So we don’t have anymore people living on the streets.
[NEXT SPEAKER ON THE MARRIOTT ISSUE] 41.30
Good morning my name is Maria Gutierrez and I'm with SAJE
and the Unidad Coalition. We are deeply disappointed
in our council member's position to veto the South
L.A. Planning Commission decision to deny a conditional use permit for a hotel on
public land. Our organizations and
coalitions have been working for over a decade to ensure a meaningful community
engagement process for development at the Bethune Library site.
The Zoning administrator denied the conditional use permit, the
South L.A. Planning commission denied the conditional use permit. And now the council member believes that there
hasn’t been enough community engagement or process?
Hundreds of community residents submitted a letter of concern, we've done public comment and signed onto a petition against the development. We have the opportunity with Measure ULA to allocate this site for affordable housing and for public good. We are deeply disappointed and concerned and we ask the rest of the council to side with the South L.A. Planning Commission, thank you.
**
At January 17 meeting video public comments begin on Item 17 Motion Harris-Dawson-Hutt at 33.00 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07oxmD0_z8w
MOTION
(HARRIS-DAWSON - HUTT) relative to asserting jurisdiction over the December 6,
2022 South Los Angeles Area Planning Commission (SLAAPC) action in denying an
appeal of Conditional Use Permit and a Site Plan Review issued for the project
located at 3685 Vermont Avenue
Recommended action:
ASSERT jurisdiction, pursuant to City Charter Section 245,
over the December 6, 2022 (Letter of Determination date: December 21, 2022)
SLAAPC action to deny the appeal and sustain the Zoning Administrator’s
determination which denied the Conditional Use Permit and Site Plan Review, for
the proposed construction of a 168-room hotel building; a community education
facility; and open space; in the matter of Case Number ZA-2020-55-CU-SPR-1A for
the project located at 3685 Vermont Avenue.
First speaker on Item 17 starts at 01.02.20 in the video
My name is Vijan Gayami, I'm a tenant organizer. I’d like
to vote my public comment for No 0n item 17.
The Planning Commission of South L.A. rejected the conditional use
permit to use that property as a hotel.
It used to be a public library and the zoning animator before that also
said no to the hotel.
We know that L.A. is gearing up for the Olympics and
wants to completely disappear all the poor black and brown people in the city
of Los Angeles [INAUDIBLE].
But we need to give this land back to the community. So that's why I'm voting no on seventeen and
that's why I'm also voicing to extend the protections, the tenant
protections. This is a common sense
thing to do. We have working class
people who are trying to keep up with rising costs of housing, of gasoline, of
food. And their wages are stagnant. They're making cash. They have no other options. The working construction, they're working as
domestic workers they're working in restaurants in service industry and
hospitality and they can't afford their rent. They're getting thrown out on the street. They're suffering, they're human beings,
okay.
So but you guys choose instead of putting money into services or voting for more protections for these working class tenants who are paying off the landlords’ mortgages, you guys-
[NEXT SPEAKER ON ITEM 17]
01;05;00
Good morning, my name is Katie McKeown and I'm a staff
attorney with public council, we're a member of the Unidad coalition and I'm
here to express our strong opposition to number seventeen. This motion deals with a proposed Marriott
Hotel development on a piece of publicly owned land in south L.A. commonly
referred to as the Bethune Site.
This land was most recently the home of the Mary McLeod
Bethune Library branch. When the library
was demolished in the two thousands, the city promised local residents that the
land would continue to be used for the local community, including through the provision
of affordable housing.
However the city has gone back on its promise and is
instead trying to sell this public land to a private developer to build a
Marriott Hotel to serve out of town tourists instead of the local
community.
In recent years this city has state its intention of
seriously addressing the housing crisis starting with using public land to
start making a dent in the affordable housing crisis. It has passed motions to compiles lists of
public lands to use for affordable housing.
In the most recently adopted housing element, this parcel is listed on
its site for the public land program and the newly elected mayor has stated in
her campaign that she wanted to use the public land for desperately needed
housing.
Now this is one of the instances where this council can
actually put its words into action. Will
the council overturn the judgment of its professional staff who denied the
requested permits for the hotel? Will
the council overturn the decision of its appointed commissioners who affirmed
the denial?
It's time to stop making one off exceptions for
developments that don’t serve the community but give valuable land public land
to private developers who won't address our most desperate crisis.
[NEXT SPEAKER ON ITEM 17]
1.18.09
I want to reach out and voice my support for the
project near Edgemont and
Vermont. I think it's important we
finally take advantage of this opportunity to build something and improve the
surrounding area. The project will add
tons of jobs to the local community and improve the walkability of the area.
I went to USC but also grew up in South L.A. more
specifically on Vermont. I have lived on
the main street my entire life and don’t understand why the development is
going on in Figueroa.
I know the counter argument to this is a lot of people
want affordable housing but how can we keep pitching the same idea when it has
failed at least twice already. Adding an affordable housing project there
doesn't help the immediate local community it helps those outside of this
community. By bringing them into an area
that is already lacking safety and retail.
Adding more housing is definitely fundamental to the
growing housing crisis but it doesn't all have to be centered in that
area. Most individuals can't even be
accepted into low income housing. The
threshold is so low you’d have to almost purposely maintain a part time job and
not exceed a certain amount of hours.
I also believe the people will have been empty for far too long and we have to do something now and create change. Thank you.
[NEXT SPEAKER ON ITEM 17]
01.27.03
I've been coming here ever since I was five years old. I
went to Beaudry Elementary School down the street. And I've been coming here for a long time
over seventy years. I remember when the
tenth floor used to have a cafeteria, we could get cookies there. I've seen this chamber full of joy but now I
see it heavy, pesado, a cloud on top of you.
I've heard the family call out his name, I want to call
out Fanny Lou Hamer. How many of you
remember her? No one. Because time passes here. It's a time machine. You come back, you plug in and it's just the
same thing again.
Now I came to talk about item seventeen. The reason why the city should assert jurisdiction over land. The city should assert jurisdiction over land for public purpose by public housing. Anything less than that is an abridgement of your responsibility to the people of the city and will lead to only more of this heavy feeling that we have here. The heavy feeling of desires unrequited, dreams unmet, the potential unfulfilled. How long will this chamber be silent and heavy?
[NEXT SPEAKER ON ITEM 17]
01.31.41
Council member, I am [SOUNDS LIKE] Henry Fan of Orion
Capital the developers for this project so I'm urging for your support on this
project.
Let me just state that we are not in opposition of
affordable housing or in denial that there is need for affordable housing in
the city.
But what we believe in is that developing an economic
asset like a hotel will stimulate commerce up and down the Vermont corridor and
provide people with jobs.
Economic development is a necessary component to keep
people housed and off the street. Often
times economic development is significantly more difficult because of factors
such as the availability of land at the right location, on a major
thoroughfare, and nearby major transport.
Furthermore we are local developers
that are part of this community, our offices are literally half a mile
from the site.
And I've personally spoken to almost every business along
Vermont Avenue to discuss the development.
And virtually every single business is in support of the hotel.
To that point, we've received almost three hundred signatures from community supporters that we personally have spoken to. Additionally we received almost two hundred more emails of support.
[DISRUPTION IN CHAMBERS PEOPLE SHOUTING]
[NEXT SPEAKER ON ITEM 17]
1.34.22
So my councilman Price and Marqueece Harris-Dawson, thank you from my family for all the support for my father [SOUNDS LIKE] Ronald Wright. One thing
I’d like to say is that we have about a thousand students that we support at
Youth Build Schools throughout Los Angeles and those kids need jobs, they need
job training. So I’d like to commend the
developer as not being a fat cat that is not just coming in to take from our
community but they've already provided us with food subsidies for our families,
they provided jobs, and they provided training opportunities. SO the reason why I support the building is
because people will receive jobs and they will be able to raise their families
out of poverty.
Few people know that these developers have risen out of poverty themselves. And that they are not outsiders, that they are a part of our community. And with my last remaining time, I’d like to give the family my heart and my prayers and anything that we can do we will do. Thank you.
[NEXT SPEAKER ON ITEM 17]
1.45.55
My name is John Broadway I represent an organization
called Artists United which has been working with the Unidad Coalition to
preserve the Bethune Site on behalf of the public use.
On December sixth, South L.A. Planning Commission, the
deciding vote from the president, when she gave her deciding vote she said that
she could not ignore the voices of the community who have repeatedly voiced
their concerns over this land being used for commercial development that does
not serve them.
And she made the vote to veto this proposal because the
community has repeatedly voiced their concern and their need for affordable
housing on this land or for something that benefits the community, something
that will not lead to gentrification and displacement that has ravaged the USC
area.
And we will not continue to stand for this to happen and that's why we're here making our voices heard and urging the council to vote no on this proposal. And honor the voices of the community who have repeatedly voiced their concern.
[NEXT SPEAKER ON ITEM 17]
1.56.52
I speak to item seventeen on behalf of the Mary McLeod Bethune organizing team at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church. Our church has been invested in the Mary McLeod Bethune site for generations and we have always seen it as a space for
public good in our community.
For the last three years our church has tried to engage
with this project in good faith but the more we learn about this project the
less we like it.
Labor agreements have been an after thought. The environmental impact has been an after
thought. Community benefits have been an
after thought. Our church cannot support
this project. We're not the only
ones. The Neighborhood Council said no,
the zoning animator said no, the Planning Commission said no, the church right
next door says no.
You can also say no. by voting no in Item Seventeen. We can do better. Please let this project die so something better can rise, thank you.
[MEETING DISRUPTED BY AUDIENCE MEMBERS, SOME REMOVED FROM CHAMBER 1.58.07 to 2.10.17, during which you hear the City Attorney say to security officers: “If you can figure out who’s making the most noise, please remove them.” And Mr. Williams please leave, and the guy with the ‘Death to killer cops’ sign.”
Public Comments now open for callers on phones.
[NEXT SPEAKER ON ITEM 17]
2.11.45
Number seventeen is a case in point. A luxury hotel project on city property versus affordable
housing. The city’s public plans program
was to build ten thousand affordable housing units on city property, including
this Bethune site of thirty four thousand square feet. L.A. Planning Commission, the city zoning
commission, the neighborhood councils all say no. The public has said no.
What does sleazy paid-off king of black evictions Marqueece
Harris-Dawson do? No, he sides with the
developers, the luxury developer. Has
anybody heard of [SOUNDS LIKE] Jose Uizar the four million dollars paid off a developer. I can guarantee an FBI complaint going in on
this one [LAUGHS]. I can guarantee it.
And I can guarantee boycott of all Marriott Hotels. This one isn’t going through. As soon as Marriott hears about the hell
coming down. Corrupt little short sleazy
councilman Marquise Dawson, another corrupt paid-off politician.
For a luxury hotel one block from school, one block from a church, the community doesn't want it, boy.
[NEXT SPEAKER ON ITEM 17]
2.20.50
Next thing, the hotel, we need affordable housing. Right now we have zero affordable
housing. We have housing but not
affordable housing. When it comes to
living In Los Angeles, if you make twenty dollars an hour, that's thirty four thousand
dollars a year. If you only work forty
hours a week.
So when you work that much, you have to continue to work that much to afford a house. It's ridiculous. We need affordable housing, we don’t need hotels that cost billions of dollars to say there for one night. It's just crazy.
[NEXT SPEAKER ON ITEM 17]
2.30.10
I think that the hotel will provide a lot of opportunities and jobs for this area, in addition, this area also has numerous affordable housing available at this time. So I want to support this project, thank you.
[NEXT SPEAKER ON ITEM 17]
2.30.58
Council members, I am kindly asking you to vote yes and
support the project located at 3685 Vermont Avenue. This hotel project is located on a major
commercial corridor and will add a tremendous amount of value to the area. We need more economic development in this
neighborhood and the project will not only elevate this area but it will also
bring in additional businesses and resources to the community.
It will provide jobs and help support the local community
as well as bring in revenue to the city, which can go towards funding much
needed programs like infrastructure
repair and affordable housing.
While I understand the need and demand for affordable
housing, I believe this is a unique opportunity to build something that will
not only be easily accessible to the surrounding community, but will have a
positive impact as well.
I thank you for your time and consideration.
[NEXT SPEAKER ON ITEM 17]
2.35.54
Speaking about item seventeen, one thing I do want to say
is that we do not need more construction of hotels being built in the city of
Los Angeles. I want you to understand
that there are motels and hotels where over half of their rooms are sitting
vacant and we don’t need more hotels and motels to be built in the city of Los
Angeles. What we do need is more affordable
housing. So I'm urging you council members to reject item number
seventeen, to reject the construction of the one hundred sixty eight room hotel
building, because this community needs affordable housing not more hotel rooms.
And it's just not fair that the community doesn't have
enough affordable housing. We voted for H H H bonds and when we have public
lands available, that should go towards building more affordable housing not
building more luxury hotels and motels that the community does not want.
And I urge you council members, please, support the community in building more affordable housing not more hotels and motels. We don’t need that.
[NEXT SPEAKER ON ITEM 17]
2.40.44
Hi my name is Wendy and I'm with Esperanza Community Housing which is [INAUDIBLE] and I'm urging you all to vote no on item seventeen which would be total [INAUDIBLE] [unable to hear well enough to transcribe verbatim] .
End of public comment
It seems appropriate to transcribe here the weirdly self serving opposite-land excuse for voting for the hotel delivered by council member Marqueece Harris-Dawson
02;43;45
 |
| Cuncilmember Dawson |
Many people have raised the question or asserted that
because this is publicly owned land that the only thing that should go there is
affordable housing.
And we raise an objection on several counts but the main
count is it's a neighborhood that has perhaps more affordable housing- or at
least as much as any other section of the city.
[INAUDIBLE] Gardens is a hundred and forty units right around the
corner. At King and Vermont twenty seven
H H H units. At Western and Expo thirty
three units., at Casa de Rosa around the corner on Hoover thirty seven units.
I can tick off development after development after
development and these are the ones that are already open and families are
living in them. They don’t include the ones that are on the books to be built.
And so at this one site, the eighth district has the one
opportunity to remove itself from a very short list an extremely short list of
council districts in the city of Los Angeles that do not have a single union
hotel.
It is the location right across the street from the new
Lucas Museum from USC, the sports arena.
And the coliseum. Folks who
remember in years and months prior we talked about the division of community
benefits that come from these types of developments, a hotel is one of the
things that not only creates permanent jobs, but it creates permanent community
benefits for a neighborhood that sorely lacks them, even though they bear all of
the brunt of having these tourist destinations right in the heart of their
neighborhood.
And so I ask my colleagues for an aye vote on the very
rare occasion that I will stand up in defense of a private developer commercial
development over affordable housing.
Thank you.
END OF PUBLIC COMMENTS
Council voted yes on item seventeen which sends the Marriott
Hotel project to the Planning Commission
Watch Jan 17 2023 meeting on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07oxmD0_z8w
**
I have to admit, there are more public comments about the Marriott Hotel proposal at more meetings
that I've been watching last few months, but I was not taking notes and now I cannot
find them. Reading through the agendas at the L.A. City Council website to find a topic is a
lot like reading IRS tax form instructions, and after spending a few hours trying
to find more comments on this issue, I decided to just keep moving forward and
accept that since I did not decide to start transcribing them for my blog until
yesterday, I'll just do better going forward.
NEXT POST IN THIS SERIES: Follow-up on incident May 26 Nazis disrupting Sacramento CityCouncil, which I wrote about here. At May 30th meeting many residents showed up with their reactions to the presence of Nazis and how that affected the City Council meeting. I am working on that blog post now and it will go up in a few days.
PS WHY am I doing this? Because I used to transcribe for a living and now at age 75 I'm not working full time but don’t want to lose my skills as a transcriber.
**
As a UT Austin trained journalist I try to stay objective and hear both sides. It's amazing how the pros of a project like this Marriott mention the benefits to the economy, jobs, stimulus, a better community. Developers in L.A. have been saying that for decades, but look around. Do you see economic prosperity amidst all this economic development?
Will anyone who works at this hotel be able to afford an apartment in L.A. at hospitality industry wages? I mean, I WISH what the developers say was true but I've never seen any evidence of it and I've been paying attention for more than sixty years now. At age 75, I was politically woken up at age 15 during the Vietnam War and I've never stopped since then. I pay attention. Developers always promise jobs and prosperity and then when the project is completed, the prosperity is somewhere else, it never appears for or helps the locals who, in fact, get trampled over and forgotten.
Even though more than half of each 3x a week LACC meeting features local people who go to the time and expense to come to council chambers and make their case in person to council members, when you go to read minutes of those meetings, you only find “journals” that don’t even mention that anyone from the public was in attendance.
In fact usually while a citizen is making a case in front of the horseshoe of city council members’ chairs, the chairs are empty. Council members ignore most of the public requests.
Hundreds of citizens came to council to protest and beg for affordable housing instead of a luxury hotel in the weeks before the council voted to approve funds for the hotel, ignoring their words.
I will be transcribing more public comments at meetings in L.A., Orange County, Sacramento, and anywhere else I find that the words of the public are not being heard.
I wrote about the Marriott project a while back before deciding to make this an ongoing project here: https://cityofangels25.blogspot.com/2023/02/la-city-council-favors-luxury-hotels.html
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2023 L.A. City Council favors luxury hotels and landlord rights in response to homeless emergency declared by Mayor Bass
-30-
POSTED BY
Kay Ebeling, producing City of Angels Blog since January 2007
Not Just L.A., the city of angels is everywhere
If you appreciate this work at City of Angels Blog, please click my PayPal button with a high $5 or higher or email me at cityofangelslady @ yahoo . com to connect.
POST SCRIPT
I have finally found a topic / focus for my blog after spending last 2-3 years looking for one. I do not want to just write things everyone else is writing as that's not how UT Austin J school grads are trained (!) I was looking for something that is not being covered anywhere that I can cover from my laptop at my desk as I'm old and sclerotic and never go out anymore.
I FOUND ONE
All over USA extremist radical groups are showing up at city council and board of directors meetings and shouting, saying outrageous stuff, and if it gets in any news it's not more than one or two quotes in a local paper.
So now I have a new way to use my blog and skills to do SOMETHING as otherwise I may end up in my senior housing building lobby confused by a bingo game. . .
Working now on the meetings in LA City Council that led up to approval of the Marriott Luxury Hotel weeks after the mayor called homelessness a crisis. There are passionate, informed, involved citizens who go to great lengths to get to these meetings and speak and yet they get No Coverage from local media. Even minutes from the meeting leave the public speakers out.
shameful
Anyway
after that I'm doing a follow up of the Sacramento CC meeting where last week Nazis disrupted and I posted on that last week. Many Sac residents came to council last night to say what they think and share their experiences with fascism on the streets of the city.
So City of Angels Blog is at it again. I have missed having something to blog about and even depressed by the lack of sense of purpose blogging and disseminating information to people brings me.
stay tuned. Meanwhile read CofA Blog from its start at link here https://cityofangels3.blogspot.com/
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