Thursday, February 8, 2007

A thanks and follow-up

from councilman LaBonge's Deputy Carolyn (note: our group is Miracle Mile Action Committee but I prefer her name for us!) peace, denise


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Subject: thanks and follow-up

Dear Cloverdale area residents,
Thanks to all of you for attending our walk-about last night with Tom. Thanks to LAPD Capt. Richard Wemmer, Senior Street Lighting Engineer Stan Horwitz, their staff members and the leaders of several Miracle Mile community groups for showing up. In particular, I want to thank Jim O'Sullivan, Alice Cassidy and Jeff Horne of the Mid City West Community Council, James Panozzo of the Miracle Mile Chamber of Commerce and Denise Robb of the Miracle Mile Call to Action. So many great ideas have come out of this process and many of you are moving full speed ahead on them. This is really impressive. I trust you'll come up with great solutions that suit your community well. Maya Zutler of Jack Weiss's office and I look forward to working with a small committee to brainstorm solutions to the preferential parking issues. Denise is forming a committee of 5 people from your PPD to meet with 5 people from PPD 41 to find ways to create more parking spaces. Our office is also requesting higher wattage lighting for your area and
re-striping to squeeze in more parking spaces. In the meantime, stay involved, continue going to your neighborhood council meetings and please be safe.

all best,
Carolyn


Carolyn Ramsay
Field Deputy for Windsor Square,
Hancock Park, Koreatown,
Miracle Mile, Larchmont Village,
Wilshire Center and Hollywood
Councilmember Tom LaBonge, CD4
City Hall
200 N. Spring St., Rm 480
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(213)485-3337
carolyn.ramsay@lacity.org

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Update on Miracle Mile Parking, Crime etc. 2/07/07

Hi all (and welcome to those of you who just joined our email list):Councilman LaBonge, his deputy Carolyn Ramsay, Captain Wemmer, Sergeant Kirby and Senior Lead Officer Charles Thomas, as well as Street Lighting Senior Engineering Manager Stan Horwitz all met with us tonight on 4th and Detroit (with Channel 7 filming, at therequest of the Council office) and discussed crime and street lighting. Then we all walked to the fire station on Alta Vista and Third and had a meeting about parking.

It all seems to be very positive and productive. The Senior Engineering Manager said we would have better lighting in various areas within two weeks.

The LAPD urged us to report every single crime, even if you think the person
won't be caught. The more crime that is reported, the more they will take our neighborhood seriously. They repeated that our neighborhood is much safer than many other neighborhoods in LA. Car crime is still high and from what I hear from all of you, muggings and robberies are not uncommon. However, they promised more presence in our neighborhood. Some cops on bikes came by for a while and they will also have two patrol cars in our neighborhood more frequently.

Remember: 911 when you hear or see anything unusual or dangerous. And 311when you want to reach the city for street lighting, recycling, calling the city council, mayor, anything city related - dial 311.

PARKING: They are beginning the process of making 6th and Cloverdale one way (except for a few spots for businesses). This is thanks to the heroic work of Babette and Jon who live over there.

We will be having a meeting with the homeowners north of Third to discuss working out something mutually acceptable to allow some more parking for us.

LaBonge's office will look into commercial parking. If any of you know of any people who are willing to rent spaces, please let us know asap. It looks like our neighborhood is finally getting the attention it deserves. Shannon attended the meeting yesterday of the neighborhood council (Mid City West's) parking committee. Tonight Dan and Dave (the head of our soon to be formed security patrol) are attending the Mid City West's public safety committee. They are offering us walkie-talkies and other equipment to help us get our patrol started. 23 of you have signed up. If more of you want to be involved please let me know!

Also, don't forget, the third Thursday of every mos. is the community police advisory board. Please attend at 7pm every third Thursday at Wilshire Division police dept. (La Brea and Venice) in the Roll Call room.

I'm not sure what the coverage will be, but it's likely we'll be on ABC tonight. Thank you all for your involvement. It's starting to feel like a community
again!
peace,

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

Welcome to the Miracle Mile Action Committee Email List 2/06/07

And reminder about tomorrow (Wed) meeting with LAPD Captain and Councilman LaBonge

Hi all! I'm sorry if this is a repetition of information for those of you who have been on this list for weeks (or months or years) - but I've finally added all the people who attended the meeting to this list. So I want to recap what we have been doing and discussion over the past couple of days:

1. Press Coverage. As you noticed when you attended the meeting - the press was there in full force. We were the lead news story on ABC and featured on Channel 2, 4, 5, 9 and 11. We received coverage starting Saturday afternoon and all the way until today(when they repeated yesterday's coverage).

2. What Happened Because of Coverage. The Captain of the LAPD called today to ask what they can do to help us. Councilman LaBonge also called today to ask the same thing. They want to know the streets that need patrolling the most - and many of you sent me ideas so I'm compiling them and emailing them to the LAPD.

They would like as many of you to serve on the CPAB (Community Police Advisory Board) as possible. This way you get to know the police and you can tell them about our concerns first hand. This is great to get increased police presence. Please regularly plan to attend CPAB which is the third thursday of every mos. at the Wilshire Station on La Brea and Venice (the Roll Call Room) 7pm.

3. La Bonge is Coming on Wednesday. If you can meet with Councilman LaBonge he'll be on 4th and Detroit at 630pm on Wednesday. He wants to talk about street lighting and crime. The police captain (Capt. Wemmer) will also be there. They want to meet with a few neighbors.

4. Neighborhood Crime Patrol. Thirteen people signed up for the crime patrol. The LAPD wants to come to our first meeting. Our neighborhood council offered equipment and possibly an office. We still have to talk about liability issues. I'll email you when Dan and Dave have set up the first meeting so you can start that.

5. Parking Parking Parking. This will be the longest fight. Many businesses have underused parking - but they don't want to share because of liability issues. We're hoping a lawyer (maybe you?)will come forward and help us with the legalities of it all. Also, we're hoping to meet with Jack Weiss and maybe even go door-to-door to meet the homeowners so they can help us turn District 41 and District 36 into District 78 (or remove signs). This will be an uphill battle, but perhaps if they met some of our mugging victims, they would be moved to act.

That's all for now. I hope to see you Wednesday. I hope some of you can join the patrol and the CPAB. Thanks for coming to the meeting and for caring about the hood.

peace,
Denise Munro Robb
Miracle Mile Action Committee

PS: I'm a volunteer and a full time grad student, so as many of you that can do things as possible will be welcome. We need you!

Sunday, February 4, 2007

more Blogger action!

A blog by a couple of Greens in Los Angeles about the city, the Green Party and green politics in L.A.

Community Organizing In the Miracle Mile