Dear Honorable Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky,
As you are well aware, on Tuesday the Expo Line Construction Authority, of which you are a board member, submitted to the California Public Utilities Commission a request for authorization to construct one of four options at the Farmdale Avenue crossing next to Dorsey High School:
1) Street closure with a pedestrian bridge
2) An at-grade crossing with “Stop & Proceed”
3) An at-grade crossing with a station at Farmdale
4) An at-grade crossing with “Stop & Proceed” until a station is built at Farmdale
Such was done because it was requested by the Expo Board, per meeting minutes of the June 15, 2009, Expo Authority Special Meeting. [img]628|exact|June 15, 2009 Expo Authority Special Meeting Minute||no_popup[/img]
Zev, given your seat on the MTA Board and L.A. County Board of Supervisors, you are positioned to provide considerable influence on the project and have intervened repeatedly to the detriment of South L.A., regarding this rail line issue, which places in direct risk primarily black and brown residents, children, stakeholders and a community. Specifically, there was:
A) The April 2007 Expo Board meeting. The transcript reflects you cautioned the board against changing the design of the Farmdale from at-grade to grade separated.
B) Your statements in January 2008 as captured in a CityBeat LA article, where you specifically request support from a Westside-based group to intervene and help you push the at-grade application at Farmdale:
“So I really urge you all here, if the coalition has any value, it’s principal value is to give the elected officials, who are the ultimate decision-makers in this, the cover.”
(Not coincidentally, at the very next Expo Authority board meeting, Westside special interest/development interest groups, who do not want an at-grade Expo through South LA, but a Subway to the Sea through your backyard, came to voice their passionate opposition to a grade separated options at Dorsey High School.)
C) Your decision to not specify funding in the county-wide sales tax increase (Measure R) for additional grade separations in South L.A. on the Expo Line, or for that matter, the Blue Line, the nation's deadliest light rail line.
D) Your phone call in January 2009 to at least one CPUC Commissioner requesting they deny a pedestrian bridge for the students at Foshay: [img]627|exact|CPUC Commissioner phone call January 2009||no_popup[/img]
“On the afternoon of January 27, 2009, Zev Yaroslavsky…spoke by telephone with Stephen St. Marie, Chief of Staff to [CPUC] Commissioner John Bohn. Supervisor Yaroslavsky expressed support for the Alternate Proposed Decision of Commissioner Chong in this proceeding [that denied a pedestrian bridge for the children and community of Foshay Learning Center].”
History tells us that you share the same disregard for South L.A. for East L.A., given your opposition to a Red Line subway extension there. Here's the quote in 2006, from Supervisor Gloria Molina, who represents the area:
“I had just joined the City Council when we got the full funding for the [subway] extension to the Eastside, only to find out a few years later that it was taken away from us. And it was originally a subway, and now it’s partially a tunnel and then it comes out above ground. I’m upset with some of our board members who put the measure together to prevent L.A. County from having a subway system and making sure that Congress could not give us money for any of those things—remember them? But we’re building our above-ground line on the Eastside, and now that it’s going to the Westside, they’ve changed their minds. It’s very unfair.”
So there is no confusion, it was YOU, Supervisor Yaroslavsky, who put the measure together to prevent East L.A. from having a subway system (you even proudly keep the text of the proposition on your website), and it is you who has changed his mind now that rail is going through your backyard. You won't even look at an elevated line down Wilshire because you find it unsightly. Indeed the message appears to be when it's Zev's backyard, taxpayers should spare no expense to keep you safe and peaceful.
And regarding the Eastside light rail line, just like the Expo Line in South L.A., MTA Board meeting transcripts show that you have fought attempts by Eastside stakeholders to have Metro implement bare-basic safety improvements.
Instead of implying or asking the obvious question, I respectfully request a timely response to four major questions that have erupted in the South L.A. community in the course of this important discussion so we can better understand your discriminatory policies for South L.A. and East L.A.:
1. Which of the four options at Farmdale (or any other alternative not submitted in the document Tuesday to the CPUC) do you support for the crossing, and do you intend on phoning the CPUC Commissioners to express your support/opposition like you have done in the past?
2. Please reconcile for us your proposed alternative for us in South L.A. at Dorsey, and at the other at-grade crossings. Simply, why should we absorb the safety risk, traffic disruption and other adverse environmental impacts of street-level rail, while in your Miracle Mile community we should pay for a $6 BILLION Subway to the Sea.
3. Please explain how there is money for a $6 BILLION Subway to the Sea in your backyard, but not money for train underpasses in South L.A.
4. Please explain why you were opposed to a subway extension into East L.A., but now that the line is designed to go west in your backyard, you are for it.
I look forward to making sure your response (or non-response) is given to every member of the press I know (in particular members of the ethnic press) and members of the civil rights and environmental justice communities.
Thank you for your time. I look forward to continuing to work with you on this important issue, and I truly hope you will change your current course and begin seriously addressing the institutional racism and discrimination at Metro, given decisions you have made and continue to make daily.
Sincerely,
Damien Goodmon
Chair, United Community Associations
Coordinator, Citizens' Campaign to Fix the Expo Rail Line
Mr. Goodmon may be contacted at dg@fixexpo.org
