Community involvement is at the heart of what we are trying to do.  With that said, check out the news and dates for meetings that may be of interest to you below.

WHAT'S GOING ON IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD

1. New Councilmember - We are preparing a welcome letter

2. 41.18 Anti Encampment Rule gets passed and now we wait for implementation

3. NextDoor - Getting banned for reporting news?

4. Mayor's Corner - Info from the office of our new Mayor

    

Zoom meeting dates, times and links:

• Crime Mapping interactive tool is live on our site.

• C-PAB. Community Police Advisory Board meeting 

• Mid-City West Board Meetings - link to their calendar.

New Councilmember ~

We are preparing a Welcome Letter

We have seen groups rushing to put their best foot forward with our new Councilmember. Maybe it should be no surprise that some groups are asking to take up old issues again, such as UpLift Melrose and the Willoughby & Ogden street diverter. This is all fine and good, but when the excuses for rehashing old transportation issues center on false narratives of misinformation, we thought we'd let our issues be heard too.

A letter approved by the entire board (with the exception of 1 abstain vote) of the Mid City West Neighborhood Council, drafted by their Transportation Committee could be very problematic to many neighborhoods and especially Melrose Village! In this letter approved at their Dec. General Board Meeting, they once again blame our former CouncilMember for all the failures on their wish list transporation items. At the meeting, there was ONE board member that asked for a change to the letter - change the word "most" to "many" in regards to prior support for UpLift Melrose. She stated that "...this specific word...has been a cause of our Board being accused of lying...". Well, that didn't go over very well and the requested change was voted down. Being called liars is not something they seem to be concerned with. They also decided that instead of using the word "riot" to describe the May 2020 riot and the looting on Melrose, Fairfax and other surrounding commercial streets they will use the word "uprising" to describe that horific event. Look up the difference between riot an uprising in the dictionary. If you lived near Melrose, near where buildings were set on fire, you would hardly be calling this an "uprising".

We are writing our own letter to Councilmember Yaroslavsky. If you'd like to read and support our letter please send us an email. We'll share the letter with you as we work to make our concerns and issues placed front and center onto the Councilmembers agenda and give you an email address where you can provide your own comments and opinions regarding this and other issues. We must make Melrose Village issues an important part of the conversation. YOU have to be part of that conversation too.

41.18 Gets Passed but our new Councilmember Has Different Ideas!

What is 41.18? Simply put, it's an ordincance that makes certain locations off limits to overnight camping on streets and sidewalks (the public right of way).

In an email from our Field Deputy to one of our organizers, it became clear that just because a motion that includes a list of 17 sites passed City Council for sign installation and enforcement, there is still work to be done! The area of importance to us in Melrose Village is the area around 911 N Formosa Ave that would be included in the ordinances protections. This includes Poinsettia Park and the Willoughby/La Brea encampment areas.

Here's the email with highlighted parts we feel are of main importance:

"As you know we are 2 weeks into the transition and as you can imagine there are alot of moving parts around this issue. This is my current understanding of where we are relative to 41:18 rollout and Care+. 

1. The signage for 41:18 has not commenced yet as they have not been fabricated.  In addition, the councilwoman wants to make sure there are housing options for PEH before authorizing district wide installations. What this means is that she will look at each location on a case by case basis to determine whether or not to install the signs based on the history and conditions of those encampments. We just met yesterday and came to this plan of action. Staff is developing criteria around this process to help her make those determinations. Councilwoman Yaroslavsky is in the process of hiring 3-5 staffers whose sole responsibility will be to work on the homelessness issue. She will be relying heavily on this team to design and implement her strategy to address issues surrounding the unhoused. 

2. As for Care+ cleanups, those will be taken over and scheduled by the new team. In the interim I have populated the list through mid January and have been given authority to continue scheduling some locations. Jarrett (Field Deputy), George (Deputy District Director) and Fernando (Deputy Chief of Staff for District Operations) will be having a meeting this morning to discuss what locations we will schedule through February. I have not heard that Care+ was going to be discontinued, but I did hear that the Mayor was not in favor of adding any more new 41:18 locations. The ones that were submitted and approved under CM Koretz would be "grandfathered" in. "

I have to echo the sentiments of others who are discussing this in detail and trying to formulate options for us:

"Since the community worked very hard to get the areas protected under 41.18 it appears from how I interpret this that my biggest fear is being realized.   I don’t know what is implied by 'looking at each approved location on a case by case basis to determine whether or not to install the sign based on the history and conditions of those encampments…'.  As I feared, we luckily got the motion approved by all but two council people under CM Koretz, but if CM Yaroslavsky can or will not follow through with the requisite enforcement measures, all of our efforts and those of the 16 other locations in her district will be compromised." (some text edited for clarity).

Clearly it is our new Councilmembers desire to live up to campaign commitments to not push people living in encampments around without adequate housing. But what happens when those people refuse housing?

If you feel strongly about this issue, please write to our Field Deputy and voice your concerns at this address:

Joaquin Macias
Senior Deputy
Councilwoman Katy Yaroslavsky, Council District 5
200 North Spring St., Room 440
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Tel: 213 473-7005

Email: joaquin.macias@lacity.org

NextDoor - Getting Banned for Reporting the News?

Has this happened to you? You're on NextDoor and post a question or comment regarding something you heard about on national news. Maybe ABC Morning News Shows, maybe the National NBC Nighthly news. It's a difficult issue but your comment gets your banned! Why? You file a dispute and find out you've violated their Policies to prevent racism & discrimination by saying something "discriminatory". This is what happened recently when I posed the question: "I’m wondering what impact a really large influx of immigrants will have on our neighborhood."

Several emails went back and forth between the admins and myself but 3 different admins refused to tell me what part of my question was "discriminatory". The rest of my post went on to ask other questions such as "would this be good for small business struggling to find workers?" "Might this make our encampment problems worse?" "How many of the estimated 15,000 immigrants expected to cross into the United States on a DAILY basis might make their way to Melrose Village?" Well, this gets you banned. It appears that speaking about political issues such as the extenstion of Title 42 is too hot an issue to discuss by neighbors.

But wait, there's more! On Jan 1, I posted a Happy New Year skit written in the spirit of George Carlin and within a few hours it was taken down for possibly being "disrepectful". Ok fine, not everyone is a George Carlin fan. But when another friend of mine takes the text and posts it himself and his post is not reported or removed, something fishy is going on here.

If our neighborhood is not allowed to have a conversation about these issues, speak with a little sarcasm or share a joke then what's the point? Is NextDoor just for reporting your own personal experiences and nothing more? I've had other friends banned for sarcasm, politics and defending someone who's opinion was different. Not even warned, just banned for some arbitrary amount of time. It's just too bad that such selective and subjective rules are now being used on a regular basis.

The moral of the story is be careful what you say because once you develop a group of followers who don't necesarily like your opinion or your comments, everything you post may end up being "reported" or reviewed. Is this any way to run a social media website?

My opinion only!

Shelby Blecker

Mayor's Corner ~

I am thrilled to report that one of our friends from the new Mayor's office sends out a newsletter and has asked us to share the articles listed below with our readers. We owe this great access to our Senior Lead Office Dantzler and the Melrose Wednesday Walks where the connection was originally made.

Stay tuned for an update when our friend from the Mayor's office will be joining us again for one of our Melrose Wednesday Walks.

The 2 most important updates we were asked to share are new ordinances regarding plastic single use bags and polystyrene containers/packaging. This mosly effects our retailors on Melrose, Fairfax and La Brea who use these plastic products and single use bags but all of us should be aware in order to help spread the word.

You can read the ordinaces by clicking on either link below:

Expanded Single-Use Plastic Carryout Bag Ordinance FAQ (122722)- SRCRD

EPS Ordinance FAQ (122722)- SRCRD (Polystyrene Containers)

For anyone with a small business that would like to learn more about the City's Reusable Foodware Microgrant Program, you can access the interest form at this link:

Reusable Foodware Microgrant Program

Crime Mapping Tool is now live on our site...

Check out the new Crime Map Tool under the links tab of our website. Easy to navigate and highly interactive. CrimeMapping.com supplies the tool and they receive the crime information directly from our law enforcement agencies who choose to participate with them.

WATER RESTRICTIONS ARE STILL IN PLACE IN OUR AREA!

Click on the image below for more details from the LADWP

MELROSE VILLAGE Wednesday Walks 

It's 2023 neighbors! Take a walk with us.

The walk continues and it's vitally important to stress how fortunate we are to have our Senior Lead Officer join us on a regular basis for a portion of our walks.

Would you like to meet some of your neighbors? Maybe you have an issue you'd like to discuss with our LAPD Senior Lead Officer in a non-emergency setting.  Maybe you would just like to feel safe with a group walking our neighborhood.  We'd like to make this happen! Typically we are joined by a member of the LAPD who is there to meet the community, answer questions and talk about what concerns us.

Regardless if you want to walk 1 block or 1 mile, it's up to you.  We want to make this an enjoyable and no stress walk. If you'd just like to meet us at the starting point to meet your neighbors and our LAPD Senior Lead that's perfectly fine too.

The route is planned on Tuesday and you can email us for details.  You can join in at any location on the route or meet at Spaulding and Waring at our start time of 6:30 p.m.  Anyone is welcome to join the fun and feel free to bring your dogs, children, parents, opinions and concerns. We walk casually for about an hour. If the group wants to walk further, we can extend this in any direction after we circle back to the starting point.

(As with any type of exercise, consult your physician before to make sure this is the right thing for you to be doing.)

Last year, we even made the CBS local news!  The video link is below.

C-PAB (Community - Police Advisory Board)

Mid City West Neighborhood Council Meetings:

We will no longer be posting meeting dates and times. There have been too many canceled meetings and rescheduled "special meetings" for us to try and keep up with. The General Board meeting is always on the 2nd Tuesday of the month at 6:30 p.m. and this is the only meeting that meets regularly. For details on when any of the other committee meetings will be, check the MCW calendar. The agendas are supposed to be posted within 3 days of the meetings.  If you would like to listen in, just follow the link on the calendar or the agenda page to the zoom meeting.  There is no 'sign up' required but this is a chance for you to MAKE YOUR OPINIONS HEARD!

Below is a list of the MCW Neighborhood Council committees:

General Board - 2nd Tuesday of each month at 6:30 p.m.

Public Safety & Well Being - Our Zone 2 rep, Nasim Kablan, is on this committee and hopes to use this committee to improve our Melrose neighborhood. Email: nkablan@midcitywest.org,

Transportation

Outreach & Civic Engagement

PLUC (Planning and Land Use)

Social & Racial Equity

Executive Council

Agendas, Minutes & Meeting Recordings for all the above meetings are now on a new tab on the MCW Website. 

We have brought this up before, but feel it's worth mentioning again...

What brought you to sign up for our newsletters?  We want to believe it is because you wish to learn what's going on and to participate in advocating for a safer and cleaner neighborhood. Most of you who receive this email live in Zone 2 or are affected by what happens on Melrose.  This newsletter contains links to the calendars and meetings for the Mid City West Neighborhood Council and the LAPD C-PAB meeting.  

Here's the important part:  Rarely if ever does a MCWNC meeting or a C-PAB meeting have neighbors, referred to as 'stakeholders', attend.  Most of the sub-committees for MCWNC have NO 'stakeholders' attend.  So what happens when elected neighborhood council representatives get no input from those they are voted to represent?  They go off and turn their attention to their own pet projects instead of advocating for the people and the neighborhoods they serve!

So PLEASE get involved!  If you find a meeting topic or committee in the list above that you are interested in and if you can attend just ONE meeting to make a comment or offer support to someone making comment, it will make a difference!  Tell them you are part of The Melrose Village Neighborhood Alliance!

If you would like to help us with the newsletter, write an article

or comment on our newsletters,

LET US KNOW!  This is a community effort!