cc: Alejandra Marroquin, CD13 Field Deputy, Alejandra.Marroquin@lacity.org
Caroline Sim, CRA Wilshire Center/Koreatown Redevelopment Area, csim@cra.lacity.org
Elizabeth Morrison, Los Angeles Eco-Village LEED-ND Project, laraeco@hotmail.com
Jenny Aguas, Director of Community Engagement, LAUSD Board Member District 2
Michelle Banks-Ordone, Project Manager, CRA, mbanks-ordone@cra.lacity.org
Robyn Morningstar, Madison Avenue Residents Association, rmorning@Sidley.com Here are a few letters from our supporters:December 17, 2007
Councilman Eric Garcetti
City ofLos Angeles 200 North Spring St #470 Los Angeles CA 90012
Email c/o <lamerian@council.lacity.org Re:LAUSD Central Region Elementary School #20/Beverly-Vermont
Community Land Trust (BVCLT), request for your support to help
save afordable housing on White House Place in the Los Angeles
Eco-Village Neighborhood
Dear Councilman Garcetti: It has recently come to our attention that the LAUSD is considering
taking housing on the block of White House Place for a new K-5
or K-8 Span) elementary school. We are requesting your support and
asking you to use the power of your office to prevent the loss of
this affordable housing.
The Beverly-Vermont Community Land Trust has been in the planning
stages for two years and is about to be officially launched in
January 2008. The BVCLT has an interest in bringing the rental
housing of our members into the land trust. Several of them live
on White House Place. Our values and purposes are aligned with the
neighborhood retrofit of the L.A. Eco-Village demonstration project,
which includes White House Place. The six four-plexes on White House
Place are also a historically significant cluster.
Our colleagues have generated a list of potential alternatives school
sites that has been forwarded to your office. The alternative sites
focus on acquiring property with auto related industries and parking
lots as an important and needed step toward reducing pollution and
auto dependency in the targeted area.
The BVCLT supported the effort to register the Eco-Village
neighborhood with the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED-Neighborhood
Development pilot project to document the strengths of Smart Location
combined with Neighborhood Pattern and Design. Regular tours and
on-going media coverage of Eco-Village contribute to the increasing
expansion of public awareness for retrofitting neighborhoods for
sustainability. And we plan on using the Eco-Village neighborhood and
its anticipated LEED-ND certification to work with the City in
promoting similar demonstration projects within the many Neighborhood
Council Districts .
We hope you would support a transfer of the LAUSD White House Place
PrimaryCenter property to the CRA in exchange for a more suitable site,
opening the door for reviving the Bimini Baths. We look forward to
working with your office along with the CRA to bring back the Bimini
Baths to the Eco-Village neighborhood, integrating natural systems of
water purification, geothermal heating and edible landscaping along with
recreational and therapeutic uses which would serve the local school
population as well as the general public. We thank you for your prompt
attention to this matter. Please feel free to call me should you need
further information.
Very truly yours,
Kristina Mata Acting President Beverly-Vermont Community Land Trust
Email address: tinamata@earthlink.net Phone number: (323) 463 4541 Cc: Alejandra Marroquin, CD13 Field Deputy, Alejandra.Marroquin@lacity.org Caroline Sim, CRA Wilshire Center/Koreatown Redevelopment Area, csim@cra.lacity.org Elizabeth Morrison,Los Angeles Eco-Village LEED-ND Project,
laraeco@hotmail.com Jenny Aguas, Director of Community Engagement, LAUSD Board Member District 2 Michelle Banks-Ordone, Project Manager, CRA, mbanks-ordone@cra.lacity.org Robyn Morningstar, Madison Avenue Residents Association, rmorning@Sidley.com Susan Cline, LAUSD, Central Region Development Team Manager, susan.cline@lausd.net December 29, 2007
Mónica Garcia, LAUSD Board of Directors, District 2
333S. Beaudry, 24th floor
Los Angeles, CA 90017
Email : monica.garcia@lausd.net Re: Request for your support to help save affordable housing on White House Place in the
Los Angeles Eco-Village Neighborhood
Dear Ms. Garcia: As we reflect on the work we have done over the past year to improve our neighborhood and our
lives, we have become increasingly distressed from receiving letters about LAUSD’s plans to take
our housing. We have peaceably lived with LAUSD’s three existing schools, and we feel we have
the right to stay to preserve the fabric of this historical neighborhood. We are requesting your support
and ask that you to use the power of your office to prevent the loss of this special neighborhood. As part of theLos Angeles Eco-village demonstration project, we have worked to become a safe and
stable neighborhood. Because of the relationships we have with each other, our block is an effective
buffer zone between two gangs and Rockwood) and the existing schools. Quite a few of our residents
have lived here for many years, and weathered the changes before and after the ’92 uprisings.
Allow us to introduce some of our neighbors.
Maria, a native of
Nicaragua, moved here in 1968 after her husband passed. She has a special
relationship with the children in the neighborhood and has volunteered during the Census 2000
and the national elections.
Anna and her husband came from
Vietnam and have lived here for over 20 years. They raised their
sons Andy and Micheal here on White House Place to attend college. They are good friends with
Mr. Mao and his family two buildings down on the street.
Daniel grew up here on White House Place with his grandmother, and works at nearby bank on
Wilshire Boulevard. Daniel’s father has recently reunited with his family.
Delia and her husband are recent neighbors, but they have relatives who have lived on White House
Place for over six year. Their two young daughters attend White House Place Primary as well as
Frank del Olmo. When they are not playing with their cousins, they receive tutoring lessons from
neighbor Irma to improve their English and reading skills.
Michelle has worked with various nonprofits, helping artists to immigrant women who have been
enslaved. She walks to school for acupuncture studies. As a neighbor, she and I tend organic
gardens and have planted many trees in the neighborhood.
We feel is important to preserve this multi-ethnic neighborhood (Guatemalan, Filipino, Vietnamese,
Korean, Indian, African American, Caucasian) with good neighbor relations, to represent the
diversity of CD13 and demonstrate how a neighborhood can become more sustainable in a socially
just and economic matter.
White House Place along with Bimini Place play a central role in three public-interest projects: The
Beverly-Vermont Community Land Trust (BVCLT), the LEED-ND (green neighborhoods) pilot
project, and theLos Angeles Eco-village (LAEV).
The BVCLT supported the effort to register the Eco-Village neighborhood of White House Place
and Bimini Place with the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED-Neighborhood Development pilot
project to document the strengths of Smart Location combined with Neighborhood Pattern and
Design. Regular tours and on-going media coverage of Eco-Village contribute to the increasing
expansion of public awareness for retrofitting neighborhoods for sustainability.
As we have quite a few families with school age children, we are concerned that finding comparable
housing would be extremely difficult. We believe affordable housing is a public health necessity so
that parents can spend more time with children and help them to succeed in school. Our neighborhood
children have been part of the Bresee center, we have participated in block parties and Halloween
events with EcoMaya and the Mary Lind. Our children will not experience neighborhood like ours
anywhere else.
Another reason to rethink the LAUSD project between 1st and White House Place are the impacts of
drawing more automobile traffic to this location, which is currently under construction to be a
Shared Street. The demographics of the proposed student population show that they would have to
travel many blocks, most likely by car or bus, to reach this location. We already have three LAUSD schools
one block away, and a number of charter schools also close by. It would be better to put a new school in
the area where the students and their parents can walk to.
We are aware that LAUSD has moved monies from Prop Y meant for books, early education, and repairs
to existing schools to build a school that is really not needed in this neighborhood. We have seen evidence
that LAUSD student enrollment is sharply declining, and that there are already empty 2 semester seats
in the new Frank del Olmo Elementary School. In light of the coming budget cuts, we also urge LAUSD to
reconsider spending $91 million on CRES #20 when monies for necessary books and human resources to
truly help our children is in short supply. One of our parents has been waiting for two years for the new
elementary school to provide a speech therapist, but has been told there is no money to hire one. Meanwhile,
her first grader is falling behind, and will have to repeat a year.
Finally, we ask you to help preserve our housing because of possible positive developments for the greater
community. The six four-plexes on White House Place are a historically significant cluster, as a link to the
glorious past of the Bimini Baths. The idea of reviving the Bimini Baths in our neighborhood will provide jobs
and affordable health care in this low income area where we have caregivers and young people wishing to
enter the health field. Our colleagues have generated a list of potential alternatives school sites that has been
forwarded to your office. The alternative sites focus on acquiring property with auto related industries and
parking lots as an important and needed step toward reducing pollution and auto dependency in the targeted area.
We hope you will support a transfer of the LAUSD White House Place Primary Center property to the CRA
in exchange for a more suitable site, opening the door for reviving the Bimini Baths, and further development of
White House Place and Bimini Place as a model LEED neighborhood.
Sincerely,
Dean Thomas and Michelle Wong cc: Alejandra Marroquin, CD13 Field Deputy, Alejandra.Marroquin@lacity.org
Caroline Sim, CRA Wilshire Center/Koreatown Redevelopment Area, csim@cra.lacity.org
Elizabeth Morrison, Los Angeles Eco-Village LEED-ND Project, laraeco@hotmail.com
Jenny Aguas, Director of Community Engagement, LAUSD Board Member District 2
Michelle Banks-Ordone, Project Manager, CRA, mbanks-ordone@cra.lacity.org
Robyn Morningstar, Madison Avenue Residents Association, rmorning@Sidley.com 