Los Feliz LedgerRead by 100,000+ Residents and Business Owners in Los Feliz, Silver Lake,

Atwater Village, Echo Park & Hollywood HillsJuly 2020Vol 16. No. 1

CRIME: Locals desperate after once-peaceful encampment turns violent, page 11

REAL ESTATE: New Taix design rankles locals, page 5

EAST SIDE EYE: Local’s guide to Griffith Park hits Skylight shelves, losfelizledger.com

SCHOOL NEWS: LAUSD says no for now to defund-ing school police, page 14

COMMUNITY NEWS: King student films on the virtual big screen, page 10

Our Own History of Racism and RedliningBy Erin Hickey Pinheiro, Ledger Senior Contributing Writer

When nationwide protests began in June, following the in-custody murder of George Floyd on May 25th by Min-neapolis police, local neigh-borhoods were quick to join the call, weaving fabric names through chain link at the Silver Lake Reservoir, staging family-friendly protests near the Mul-

holland Fountain and hanging Black Lives Matter signs on windows and balconies.

But while locals are sup-portive of the Black Lives Mat-ter cause, demographically the area remains overwhelmingly white—a statistic that can’t be separated from the neighbor-hood’s racist past.

According to data from the 2010 United States Cen-sus, Los Feliz is 64% white and 3% Black. Silver Lake is 42% white and 3% Black.

Several factors have con-tributed to this demographic makeup, including federal policies, zoning laws and a segregationist national real es-

tate board, as historian Rich-ard Rothstein details in his 2017 book The Color of Law.

REDLININGOne such policy, redlin-

ing, began in 1933 as part of President Franklin Roosevelt’s Home Owners Loan Corpora-tion in the midst of the Great

Depression. The policy rescued homeowners whose mortgages were near foreclosure, and its appraisers used a color system to assess loan risk, with the safest neighborhoods colored green and the riskiest, red.

According to Rothstein’s book, “A neighborhood earned

see REDLINING page 6

Los Feliz Ledger

Page 2 losfelizledger.com July 2020

FOUNDED 20 05

Delivered the last Thursday of each month to 34,500 homes and

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and Hollywood Hills communities.

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PUBLISHER /EDITOR

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SENIOR EDITOR

Erin Hickey Pinheiro

GR APHIC DESIGN & L AYOUT

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Helping You Stay Safer at Home

Our team members are essential city workers continuing to work hard while taking safety measures.

Our crews will respond to water and power outages. Call us or report an outage online at ladwp.com/outages.

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Need help paying your bill? We can help. Visit LADWP.com/fi nancialassistance or call us at 1-800-DIAL-DWP.

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ON THE COVER (clockwise from top): Front page of the Los Angeles Sentinel, May 6, 1948; Area descriptions for Silver Lake and Moreno

Highlands and Wilshire Country Club District, from the federal gov-

ernment’s Home Owner’s Loan Corporation 1935 – 1940; Picketers

march in front of the Los Angeles Breakfast Club to protest a meet-

ing of the Greater Los Angeles Citizens Council, a Pasadena segrega-

tionist group, Valley Times, August 4, 1964; Text from the Los Feliz

Heights Restrictions, circa 1940; Cover of Los Feliz Heights Restric-

tions; Complaint of Housing Discrimination by Los Feliz’s Taylor

family, 1965; “Negro Who Was to Have Moved to Edendale ‘Headed

Off,’’’ Los Angeles Times, October 4, 1907; Eagle Rock Advertisement

stating, “The residents of Eagle Rock are all of the White or Cauca-

sian Race!” Underneath: Image of Los Angeles map coded by colors

where green was considered the best or “first grade,” blue, “second

grade,” yellow, “third grade” and red, the most undesirable or “haz-

ardous,” was “fourth grade.” The color-coding was created by the

federal government’s Home Owner’s Loan program (mentioned

above) to assess risk for mortgage loans, according to the interac-

tive website Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America.

[LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER]

We update the COVID-19 situation daily on our website, both with stories as well as graphics. Because of the dizzying amount of numbers given by Los Angeles County offi-cials each day on COVID-19 we feel telling the story of the novel coronavirus visually is the best way to understand it and to see trends. Please visit losfelizledger.com to track the virus especially in our own communities, like the charts here which show cases as well as deaths, to date, in our neighborhoods.

COVID-19 CASESLOCALLY

NEW CASES/TOTAL HOSPITALIZED

New Cases Hospitalized

(Since June 1st)

LOS ANGELES • BEVERLY HILLS • PASADENA • BAKERSFIELDCall us today at (323)347-3892 to schedule an appointment

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Images represent how vision loss progresses with increasing glaucoma damage.

NO GLAUCOMA DAMAGE EARLY GLAUCOMA DAMAGE

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Los Feliz Ledger

Page 4 losfelizledger.com July 2020SENIOR MOMENTS

Learn more at BELMONTVILLAGE.COM/HOLLYWOODHILLS

7 Los Angeles Communities

July 4, 2020

Photography by Thomas Sanders

H O L L Y W O O D H I L L S

©2020 Belmont Village, L.P. | RCFE 197608467, 197608466, 197608468, 198601646, 565802433, 197608291, 197609518 20202019

Every Independence Day, we honor our resident veterans. As we navigate this pandemic together, your courage, sacrifice and resilience are an inspiration to us all. Our commitment to the health and happiness of all of our residents is as strong as ever. As our community, our city and our country move forward, we are mindful of the trust you place in us to provide the highest standards in senior living for Los Angeles seniors and families.

BELMONT VILLAGE SALUTESAMERICAN HEROES

Howard F., U.S. Navy, Belmont Village ResidentAmerican Heroes: Portraits of Service

[SENIOR MOMENTS]

Dancing Despite the StormBy Stephanie Vendig, Ledger Columnist

D u r i n g this time of “ lockdown” mode, I came across a writ-ten quote at-tached to my

Good Earth Sweet and Spicy tea bag. It really made sense to me: “Life isn’t about waiting

for the storm to pass; it’s about learning to dance in the rain.”

Thus, if we are unable to carry on our usual social rou-tines, we have to learn new ways, because this storm may continue over a longer time than anticipated and, as such, we could be in danger of isola-tion, loneliness and developing illness issues.

New ways can be labeled “new norms,” especially when a lot of people are doing the same thing. For example, in order to keep organizations functioning or office work go-ing, we are seeing new ways to

avoid people working in the same space, such as working from home. This would be called a new norm. And one wonders how many people will consider working at home even after the pandemic. One thing for sure is that the traffic volume is down!

Another new norm is us-

ing a mask when there is pos-sibility of spreading a disease through droplets of moisture from our mouths and noses. The flu and the common cold are good candidates for the use of masks, not just COVID-19. It is common in some coun-tries to wear a mask even when you just have a cold.

But a major new norm now taking place is the use of the internet to connect people. People may be isolated in their homes, but they can still join an activity where people for-merly came together physical-ly. Today with the pandemic,

this could be a lifesaver in that people can still feel connected to previous routines and the same people—but in a differ-ent way.

This latest new norm—virtual meetings and online classes—is showing up at se-nior centers and community organizations as a means of retaining activities that were popular before the pandemic. It is a way to maintain the or-ganization’s continuity.

Senior centers such as the Griffith Park Adult Commu-nity Center normally provide activities for learning and pleasure, promoting social en-gagement above all.

Yes, you want to learn a new skill or continue a hobby or interest. But it also is nice to be around others for conversa-tion or sharing.

Now, senior centers across the country that had to close due to the virus are participat-ing in this new norm—and these new ways may extend beyond the pandemic.

Without venturing out, you can still enjoy classes, con-ferences, meetings and conver-sations by using a computer or telephone.

While the storm is passing you can “learn to dance in the rain.”

Without venturing out, you can still enjoy

classes, conferences, meetings and conversa-

tions by using a computer or telephone.

17,000 Jobs Lost Locally Due to COVID-19By Erin Hickey Pinheiro, Ledger Senior Contributing Writer

Local areas have lost about 17,000 jobs since March, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced business clo-sures, while Los Angeles has lost more than 300,000 jobs citywide, according to a report released in June by City Con-troller Ron Galperin. 

According to Galperin’s re-port, the industries hit the hard-est were food service and hospi-tality, which lost about 70,000 jobs citywide since March; re-tail, 33,000; healthcare, 27,000; and information—a broad cat-egory that includes publishing, broadcasting, motion picture and sound recording, telecom-munications and data process-ing—19,000. 

Those industries were af-fected the most locally as well, with the food service industry losing the most jobs by far—about  4,000—in the Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Atwater Village, Echo Park, East Hol-lywood and Hollywood Hills neighborhoods. 

Meanwhile, about 1,700 jobs locally were lost in the information industry, 1,387 in retail and 1,254 in healthcare. 

“As reopening the economy

continues, some industries will regain jobs quicker than others, and unfortunately, many jobs may not come back right away,” Galperin’s report reads. 

The Hollywood Hills, East Hollywood and Echo Park fared the worst locally, each losing about 17% of jobs since March. In the Holly-wood Hills, that translated to about 6,500 jobs, in East Hol-lywood, about 2,400 and in Echo Park about 1,000. 

A request for clarifica-tion from Galperin’s office on the numbers, especially those pertaining to the Hollywood Hills, which to be seemed an outlier, was not returned. 

Silver Lake, Los Feliz and Atwater Village fared slightly better, with those areas each losing about 16% of jobs—in line with the citywide aver-age of 16.2%. Silver Lake lost about 3,600 jobs, Los Feliz about 1,700 and Atwater Vil-lage about 1,500. 

According to Galperin’s report, low-income neighbor-hoods and communities of color were hit the hardest citywide, including Mid-City’s St. Elmo’s Village and Pico-Union.

Los Feliz Ledger

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New Taix Design Rankles LocalsBy Sorina Szakacs, Ledger Contributing Writer

ECHO PARK—As plans to build a 6-story apartment complex on the site of Sunset Boulevard’s 93-year-old Taix restaurant move forward, lo-cals are up in arms, while the restaurant’s owner says it’s the only way to keep his business afloat.

According to owner Mike Taix, as less space was being used in the sprawling eatery and costs became too high for him to keep up, he sold the property to a developer to save his business.

“Lunch is dead, people no longer use the meeting rooms, the banquet halls, and we wanted to reduce the foot-print. If you have space that is not used, it costs a lot of mon-ey,” said Taix.

Planned now is a 170-unit apartment building—24 af-fordable—with 13,000 square

feet of ground floor retail, a portion of which will be occu-pied by Taix in a new incarna-tion.

The restaurant’s sale was first announced in August, and while there was little pub-lic outcry at the time, with many locals expressing sup-port for building housing on an under-utilized lot, recent renderings of the development have brought the issue to a head.

At a virtual Echo Park Neighborhood Council meet-ing June 24th, some residents called the design “a monstros-ity” that “does not preserve the aesthetic of the neighbor-hood,” while others decried a lack of adequate affordable housing in a project just one block away from a large home-less encampment.

“The renderings are mod-

ern and typical, and there is no consideration for the neigh-borhood. Twenty-four afford-able units is a small amount, especially if we think about the housing crisis. It looks like we are not trying to help our homeless community mem-bers,” said EPNC boardmem-ber David Bond.

Members of the group Friends of Taix, said they op-pose the project because they “don’t want the heart of the neighborhood to die.”

Meanwhile, two local preservation groups, the Echo Park Historical Society and the Los Angeles Conservancy accused the developer of pull-ing a bait and switch, saying the newest design is “substan-tially different” from what the company presented to the Los Angeles Department of City Planning.

“Places like this are an-chors for the community, and the development should be incorporated in the building

with meaningful preserva-tion,” said the Conservancy’s Adrian Scott Fine. “The new renderings are different from what we initially saw, which included partial preservation. We worked with the developer but they brought in a different architect and now there is no preservation.”

Now, the organizations are seeking to preserve the res-taurant as an historic cultural monument—a designation that doesn’t prevent demoli-tion, but could delay it—in the hopes the developer will re-incorporate some of the

building’s original design. “Our organization looks

forward to working with our neighbors, the developer, Councilman Mitch O’Farrell and other organizations in creating a project that respects the past of Echo Park while preparing for its future,” the Echo Park Historical Society wrote in a recent statement.

For his part, developer Tom Warren said “fitting into the urban context is really im-portant” to his company and that they were committed to making the project “work for Taix.”

A rendering by Holland Partner Group.

Los Feliz Ledger

Page 6 losfelizledger.com July 2020COMMUNITY NEWS

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a red color if African Ameri-cans lived in it, even if it was a solid middle-class neighbor-hood of single-family homes.”

Los Feliz was awarded the highest ranking, green, above Los Feliz Boulevard accord-ing to a 1939 redlining map of Los Angeles. The area below the boulevard—known today as the Los Feliz Flats—was ranked slightly lower, due to “a threat of subversive racial infil-tration from nearby areas.”

Meanwhile, the map shows much of Silver Lake was blue, the second highest rank-ing, though a few parts were designated red, due to an “in-crease in foreign populations occurring” and a Black popu-lation of 1%.

Per historian Rothstein, when Roosevelt created the Federal Housing Administra-tion the next year—which in-sured bank mortgages—the same maps were used, which essentially barred Black people from mortgage financing. In-stead, Black people who wished to purchase a home were forced to accept “contract loans,” which required high down pay-ments, did not allow them to build home equity and under which they could be evicted for just one missed payment.

Redlining continued, lo-cally as well as throughout the country, until 1968, when the Fair Housing Act was passed.

RESTRICTIVE COVENANTSAnother segregation

tool—used by real estate de-velopers, homeowners’ associ-ations and property owners—was the “restrictive covenant,” language included in a deed or homeowners association con-tract that barred a home from being sold or rented to non-white residents.

These restrictions were enforceable by law—meaning police could forcibly evict a Black family from their home if it was in a neighborhood covered by covenants—until a 1948 Supreme Court ruling nullified the practice.

But even that high court ruling did not put the practice to rest. Aggrieved homeown-ers could still sue their neigh-bors for selling to a Black buy-er for another 20 years, until the passage of the Fair Hous-ing Act in 1968.

Many such restrictions remain in deeds to this day, according to Rothstein, as re-writing deeds on old houses to remove them can be prohibi-tively expensive.

Even the Los Feliz Im-

provement Assoc. (LFIA) had a hand in the practice.

In 1943, the organization formed a special committee to blanket the neighborhood in deed covenants—an effort that resulted in a dramatic increase in LFIA membership and donations—according to The History of the Los Feliz Im-provement Association, a book published in 2000 by the or-ganization that drew from his-torical meeting minutes.

“It is the consensus of opinion if non-Caucasians permeate the district, the high class residential character would be seriously affected,” the LFIA’s September 1943 minutes read.

The committee disbanded following the Supreme Court’s 1948 decision, and no further mention of keeping the area white was made in meeting minutes.

According to current LFIA President Amy Gustin-cic, the LFIA of the 1940s couldn’t be further from the LFIA of today.

“As president of the cur-rent organization, what I would say is that it’s a great organization—community minded and progressive—in 2020,” said Gustincic, “but in 1940, I’d love to be able to

say we were at the forefront of ending those practices, but we weren’t. The reality is we weren’t … I’m not afraid to call it racism.”

Ignoring that blemish on the organization’s history, she said, is counterproductive.

“The fear is talking about this will paint LFIA in a bad light,” Gustincic said, “but … this is our history, and especial-ly in these very specific times we’re in right now, there’s noth-ing to be gained by hiding it. It makes it worse. It’s the real-ity. It’s worth investigating and worth understanding.”

According to Dr. Eric Avila, a Professor of History at UCLA, even when restric-tive covenants fell out of use, “it did nothing to undo what had already been in practice for decades.”

“There was this kind of residual force that kept Los Feliz white,” he said.

What could no longer

be enforced legally, he said, could still play out behind the scenes.

In Los Feliz, as in all ma-jority white neighborhoods at the time, there was “collusion between real estate developers, homeowners, mortgage lend-ers—tacit unspoken under-standings,” said Avila. “While not overt in targeting Afri-can Americans for exclusion, nonetheless, it was covert, un-spoken often with a wink of an eye, and it was always tied to property values.”

ANGRY NEIGHBORS & RACIST REALTORS

But, according to Avila, the Los Feliz area is “by no means exceptional in its his-tory of racial exclusion,” citing “stories like Nat King Cole, who had a really hard time finding a neighborhood that was equivalent to his income.”

When Cole eventually

REDLINING from page 1

see REDLINING page 15

Los Feliz Ledger

July 2020 losfelizledger.com Page 7Su Casa REAL ESTATE

[U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES]

Black Lives MatterBy Rep. Adam Schiff

Racism is the original sin of our nation.

Throughout our history, we have fought racism through a bloody civil war, a civil rights movement, generations of peaceful protest and progres-sive legislation. We have made progress, but only haltingly and at great cost.

For racism is always with us. And in Minneapolis on May 25th, when a police offi-cer put his knee on the neck of George Floyd and kept it there for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, racism was at the heart of that murderous depravity. 

The crushing and suffo-cating reality of police brutal-ity against Black Americans is, tragically, everywhere. And racism persists, in part, because we can never fully understand what it is like to stand in someone else’s shoes.

I recently participated in a multi-faith virtual forum with All Saints Church, IKAR, a Jewish congregation in Los An-geles, and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). Dur-ing the event, Rabbi Sharon Brous shared a story of the dif-fering life experiences of Black and white Americans: A white mother said to her child that if he got lost, and saw a police of-ficer, that was a safe person to ask for help.  A Black mother said to her child that if he got lost and saw a police officer coming, he should hide as fast as he can.

These are the contrast-ing experiences of our fellow Americans. We see each other

but dimly, even with both eyes open. And yet, we must try. We must not turn away. We must acknowledge our own implicit biases. And we must use our voices to lift up, rather than divide.

For more than two de-cades I have been a legislator. I believe in the power of correc-tive action through collective action, in the ability of the law to address injustice and the courts to effectuate it. I believe in the power of oversight in Congress, in our state legis-latures, through police com-missions and through public inquiry and protest.

Many Americans, includ-ing those who cannot breathe and live in fear of the police, do not see these levers of pow-er as protecting them, or even representing them. And right-fully so. That must change. 

And Congress must change, too. Congress must listen, hear, and act.

Led by our colleagues in the Congressional Black Cau-cus, including California’s Sen-ator Kamala Harris and Con-gresswoman Karen Bass, we just introduced a bold, unprec-edented police accountability bill, the Justice in Policing Act.

This bill will hold police of-ficers and departments account-able and increase transparency, make structural changes to our justice system, ban chokeholds and eliminate qualified immu-nity, which helps protect bad ac-tors, and much more.

We must reimagine polic-ing in our country and this is just the start.

[CALIFORNIA STATE ASSEMBLY]

No Shortage of Disasters: What’s Around the Corner?By Assemblymember Laura Friedman

As the “Gol-den State,” California is known for its sunny weather, beaches, deserts, forests, mountains and abundant natural resources. However, our diverse climate and rugged beauty can turn

on us. California residents must live with the question of when, not if, the next natural disaster will strike. Knowing our region’s predisposition for earthquakes, floods, drought and fire, are we prepared?

California’s wildfire sea-son is here once again. Only recently, were the latest notable wildfires: one in the Sepulveda Pass; the other in Mendocino County.

In 2017 and 2018, Califor-nia experienced the largest fires in its history, when combined, which burned over 3 million acres, destroyed 32,700 struc-tures, and cost an unprecedent-ed $40 billion and counting.

In his current revised budget, California Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed millions in cuts to wildfire preparation and prevention programs. But

here’s the hard truth: wildfires aren’t going to take a break during COVID-19 and the re-sulting economic crisis.

Despite the pandemic, a strained budget, social unrest, increasing unemployment and

homelessness, we cannot af-ford to take a pass on prepar-ing for natural disasters.

And then there’s Califor-nia’s more notorious challenge: earthquakes.

In recent years, the legisla-ture has struggled to get earth-quake resiliency measures into law, although we’ve made some important investments.

In the past two prior budgets, we’ve allocated over $116 million to the Califor-nia Disaster Assistance Act, a program administered by the California Office of Emer-gency Services that provides financial assistance to local governments for repairs or the replacement of property dam-aged by disasters.

This year, despite our budget challenges, we are al-locating $17.3 million for the

California Earthquake Early Warning system. While these are good and crucial invest-ments, I have to ask, are they enough? It is unlikely all these funds, as currently allotted, would help communities through a major earthquake, in which the damage to infra-structure and the local econo-my could cost billions.

When COVID-19 first began raging through our com-munities, taking lives, devastat-ing nursing homes and grinding our economy to a halt, we had to move quickly and with un-precedented resolve.

Fortunately, California began 2020 with a historically high “rainy day” fund, which along with our long-estab-lished emergency plans, have helped us mitigate some of the impacts of the crisis.

But we also know from our struggling hospitals and our economically devastated residents and businesses that we could have been much bet-ter prepared.

This week, due to the eco-nomic devastation from CO-VID-19, we had to drastically reduce spending to achieve a balanced budget. It is incred-ibly painful to be cutting the budget at the precise time that people need our help the most.

To be truly resilient to fu-ture disasters, we must focus on making our social safety nets not only well funded, but efficient. We must take a hard look at how quickly public

Unless we take significant steps to pull more California families out of poverty,

we will never have a truly resilient economy, and we could again struggle

after the next disaster.

see FRIEDMAN page 15

[COUNCIL DISTRICT 4]

Less Policing, More ServicesBy Los Angeles City Councilmember David Ryu

When our public safety system doesn’t

work to make all Angelenos feel safe, and when our city budget looks to cut services for seniors and renters before touching LAPD raises, some-thing is wrong. Outrage and frustration over a long his-tory of injustice against Black America has reached a boiling point—and an opportunity for real, substantive reform. In the Los Angeles City Council, we have the opportunity to not only reexamine policing in our city, but to reevaluate our entire approach to public safety, housing, and the voices that are heard in City Hall.

Under the current system, the police respond to nearly all situations deemed an “emer-gency”—from a crime in

progress, to a traffic problem, to a mental health crisis. But police officers aren’t trained for all these scenarios, and we shouldn’t send a police officer to do a counselor’s job. We will not solve issues of poverty, inequity and systemic racism with law enforcement—only services and support can do that. We need to restructure community safety from the ground up.

I joined my colleagues Marqueece Harris-Dawson and Mike Bonin in introduc-ing a plan for community safe-ty that will rely less on armed officers, and more on social services, community empow-erment, and restorative justice. We’re calling for the creation of an Office of Violence Pre-vention, which would house resources to address underly-

ing issues of poverty, crime and systemic racism. This of-fice would work with the com-munity to develop plans for public safety, and would al-low mediators, conflict inter-rupters, and restorative justice teams to intervene in situa-tions of interpersonal conflicts that don’t present a serious safety risk.

Any public safety office must work closely and collab-oratively with the community it’s protecting. A community knows what it needs to feel safe, and what resources it’s lacking. We’ve seen examples of suc-cessful violence interruption programs in other areas—like Washington, D.C.—where information about violence is shared through outreach, and staff members work with the community to mediate and

diffuse conflicts before they erupt into violence.

The advocates with the People’s Budget have made a strong case for what makes a community safe. The answer isn’t always more enforcement, but more community resourc-es, more after-school programs, more employment services. We know that in many cases, increasing the presence of law enforcement actually contrib-utes to worsening violence. It’s time to do more than simply respond to violence—we must seek to address the underlying issues that lead to violence in the first place.

I’m also proud to sup-port legislation introduced by Councilmembers Wesson, Martinez, Harris-Dawson, Price, and Blumenfield in-structing relevant city depart-ments to develop an unarmed model of crisis response that would divert certain calls for service away from the LAPD

and to appropriate non-law enforcement agencies. This legislation, in addition to an Office of Violence Prevention, would work in tandem to ad-dress root causes of violence, and allow the city to take a holistic and preventative ap-proach to public safety.

These are important first steps, but we still have many issues to address and battles to fight. We must meet a home-lessness and housing crisis that disproportionately hurts Black Angelenos. We must continue to build bridge housing, per-manent supportive housing, and repeal state laws that block us from protecting tenants.

Most importantly, we must continue listening, learn-ing and building the future that Los Angeles communities deserve. Right now, we have a vital opportunity to reimagine and restructure how our city works and who it works for—I will not let it go to waste.

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Los Feliz Ledger

July 2020 losfelizledger.com Page 9Su Casa REAL ESTATE

[LOS FELIZ NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL]

Be Kind, Shop Local, Wear a MaskBy Sarah Tressler, LFNC

We’ve been hearing from you a lot more lately and thank goodness! Hearing from our constituents is vital to ensure your interests are accurately represented by the LFNC.

Lately, one comment we’ve received fairly often is concern from neighbors who have noticed people out and about without masks.

This concern isn’t just coming from our neighbors, though.

“We are seeing too many people with faces uncovered,” California Gov. Gavin New-som said June 18th when he issued a mandate requiring Californians to wear face cov-erings in “high-risk settings,” including while waiting in lines, inside indoor public spaces and while outdoors when maintaining 6 feet of space between yourself and others isn’t feasible.

People are still getting sick with COVID-19 and we should be mindful of how eas-ily this virus spreads.

So if you’re leaving the house, please bring a mask.

Whether you’re walking the dog or meeting friends for din-ner, covering your face is still the right thing to do to pro-tect each other, and to ensure shops, restaurants and parks can remain open.

Our local businesses have had to adapt and many have struggled to stay afloat over the last few months.

At the end of May, we got the OK to re-open most retail stores for in-person shopping, to the relief of many business owners.

But are we returning to our local shops, markets and restaurants? The people who run these small businesses cer-tainly hope so.

By now we’ve grown ac-customed to ordering day-to-day necessities online and that’s not a bad thing. But when you go online to or-der food, toys, clothes, gifts, books and more, we hope you remember that many lo-cal small businesses have set up their own websites and are happy to have your patronage. You can still shop local, even if you’re staying home.

[COUNCIL DISTRICT 13]

Initiatives to Reform the LAPDBy Los Angeles City Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell

Change is coming. Over the past sever-al weeks, I’ve heard from many of you regarding the

nature of policing in our city. As a policy maker, the mo-ment we are in requires that we take a fresh look at the role law enforcement plays in keep-ing our neighborhoods safe for all Angelenos.

In June, I signed on to several initiatives that iden-tify opportunities to enhance public safety in Los Angeles. Initiatives to reform the Los Angeles Police Dept. (LAPD) include:

UNARMED MODEL OF CRISIS RESPONSE

Instructed city staff along with the LAPD and the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority and in co-operation with the Los Ange-les County Dept. of Mental Health and other relevant government service provid-ers, to develop an unarmed model of crisis response. The

goal is to divert non-violent related emergency calls for service away from police of-ficers and to the appropriate social service agencies.

OVERVIEW OF SPECIAL ORDERS, RELATED TO USE OF FORCE AND TRANSPARENCY

Directed the LAPD to report on LAPD Special Or-ders related to the use of force, body worn video cameras and digital in-car video—in-cluding data on compliance and how supervisors enforce them—in collaboration with the Los Angeles Police Com-mission and the office of the Inspector General.

ENHANCING PROCEDURAL POLICE TRAINING, DE-ESCALATION, & USE OF FORCE STANDARDS

Directed the LAPD to report with a plan to enhance procedural justice training standards and community policing, including implicit bias, restorative justice, de-escalation training, as well as the use of force standards set

by AB 392 and SB 230, and how force is used when deal-ing with large crowds such as those found at the numer-ous peaceful protests recently across the city.

I am committed to these

important reforms and ensur-ing neighborhood safety is not compromised in any way. I am also part of the resolution in support of the federal Justice in Policing Act.

In addition, we will be fo-cusing on the significant role institutional racism has played in poverty and homelessness in Los Angeles. In the coming weeks, we will hear a follow-up report generated from last year’s Summit on Poverty and take a forensic look at the data. This will help us identify funding priorities to invest in historically neglected commu-nities.

The movement is under-way and the peaceful pro-tests against racism across the country underscore the need for us to focus on the tasks at hand. This is the first of many steps forward.

Los Feliz Ledger

Page 10 losfelizledger.com July 2020Su Casa REAL ESTATE

Compass is a real estate broker licensed by the State of California and abides by Equal Housing Opportunity laws. License Number 01991628. All material presented herein is

intended for informational purposes only and is compiled from sources deemed reliable but has not been verified. Changes in price, condition, sale or withdrawal may be made

without notice. No statement is made as to accuracy of any description. All measurements and square footages are approximate. This is not intended to solicit property already listed.

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plete and it should not be relied upon as such. This offering is subject to errors, omissions, changes including price or withdrawal without notice. If your property is listed with a real estate broker, please disregard. It is not our intention to solicit the offerings of other real estate brokers. We are happy to work with them and

cooperate fully. Sotheby’s International Realty and the Sotheby’s International Realty logo are registered (or unregistered) service marks used with permission. Operated by Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc. Real estate agents affiliated with Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc. are independent contractor sales associates

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[LOS FELIZ IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION]

Mr. Palayan’s Pandemic OpusBy Lynne T. Jewell, LFIA

For nearly two decades, animation projects created by students at Thomas Starr King Middle School have been proudly screened at the his-toric Vista Theater.

Then came the CO-VID-19 crisis and on March

17th the Los Angeles Unified School District shut down. Prospects of the digital-imag-ing projects ever being shown publicly on the big screen looked grim.

But let’s not doubt the de-termination of tenacious mid-dle school teacher Kirk Pa-layan. He turned to long-time supporter and Vista Theater owner Lance Alspaugh, who generously offered to show the 2D and 3D cartoon and com-

munity film projects virtually.The 17th annual King

Middle School Animation & Film Festival went off without a hitch during the first week-end of June at the Vista ‘Vir-tual’ Theater in Los Feliz.

Palayan said the students

never anticipated that their projects would receive mar-quee attention.

“They were really excited when I told them the screen-ing had not been canceled af-ter all,” he said.

LFIA board member and former King staff member Mary Beth Sorensen said that when she met Palayan in the early 2000s, he was one of the most popular teachers on cam-pus.

“His enthusiasm and cre-ativity were so infectious,” she said. “He’s full of positive en-ergy and always dedicated to providing creative opportuni-ties to the kids. He’s amaz-ing.”

Palayan’s in-demand ani-mation class became the gen-esis for the creation of the film festival as a vehicle for students to showcase their work on the big screen.

With its box office-closed, the Vista Theatre brought the student projects into the homes of family and fans last

month. The festival opened with a welcome to the virtual viewers and Alspaugh provid-ed a brief history of our iconic neighborhood movie house starting with silent films in the 1920s up to the current King student-produced creations.

Palayan, who is a 1990 graduate of John Marshall High School, followed with an overview of the student digital imaging process from charac-ter design to storyboarding.

“I’m so proud of what the students have done,” he said.

The LFIA has has been a

long-time sponsor of the fes-tival along with major Hol-lywood film studios. During the closing credits, the LFIA received special thanks for its ongoing support of the festival over the past 17 years.

The 17th annual King Middle School Anima-

tion & Film Festival went off without a hitch

during the first weekend of June at the Vista

‘Virtual’ Theater in Los Feliz. Palayan said the

students never anticipated that their

projects would receive marquee attention.

Los Feliz LedgerThank you to our

advertisers that have supported us during

this difficult time. Now please support them!

Los Feliz Ledger

July 2020 losfelizledger.com Page 11

[THEATER]

No Shakespeare in the Park This Summer, But Find the Bard OnlineBy Marilyn Tower Oliver, Ledger Theater Critic

One of summer’s highlights is enjoying Shakespeare un-der the stars in Griffith Park, produced by the Independent Shakespeare Company. Alas, this year it isn’t happening due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In March the company was getting ready to cast King Lear and As You Like It when stay at home orders came down.

The city’s Dept. of Rec-reation and Parks “made the decision to have no events in the park this year,” according to Melissa Chalsma, the com-pany’s co-founder and artistic director.

Even though it is held outdoors, the festival, which draws an audience of up to 3,000 attendees each night, isn’t feasible during this time of social distancing. Rehears-als, which involve close en-counters between actors aren’t possible either.

Shakespeare lovers, don’t despair. To fill the gap, the company is producing several different programs that can be accessed for free on the com-pany’s website.

“We have a mandate to provide free Shakespeare for

L.A.,” Chalsma said.Shakespeare Journal is a

series of short videos featuring company actors in vignettes in which they reflect on their per-sonal relationship to a speech from one of Shakespeare’s plays. The videos include a short so-liloquy. I enjoyed all three.

Nikhil Pai portrays Ed-mund from King Lear. April Fritz offers Edgar’s speech, also from King Lear. I particularly liked Carine Montbertrand’s French and English presenta-tion from Henry V.

Art Break Podcasts are another way one can explore Shakespeare at home. The digital programing started as a response to the pandemic and explores the intersections be-tween Shakespeare and mod-ern life. The free programs are accessed online at the compa-ny’s website. Carolina Xique moderates.

At this time, there are 5 programs with intriguing titles. I plan to watch “Can a Mummified Cat Protect You? “in which Xique and the company’s co-founder Da-vid Melville discuss the ways Shakespeare intersects with

Melville’s family history and childhood. “Is Lady Macbeth a Witch?” explores female power and the nature of magic in Macbeth with producer Melissa Chalsma and actress Kalean Ung. In “Is This Cat Wearing a Dress?” co-found-ers Chalsma and Melville ex-plore the Bubonic Plague dur-ing Shakespeare’s time.

The company’s mission is to bring the community to-gether through Shakespeare. To fulfill the mission, actress Carine Mekertichyan has just been appointed Artistic Asso-ciate for Social Justice. I chat-ted with her by phone to find out how she plans to achieve the goal of promoting issues of social justice through art and social action.

“Our main focus is to connect the work we do with activism,” Mekertichyan said. “We are looking to make connections with Black and brown theater companies. Our new commitment is to focus our next production on Black artists.

Mekertichyan who also performs with the company was seen last summer as Val-entine in Twelfth Night and Marina in Pericles.

More digital offerings are scheduled this summer. You can get your Shakespeare fix at iscla.com

Su Casa REAL ESTATE

Some Say Encampment Spiraling Violently Out of ControlBy Sorina Szakacs, Ledger Contributing Writer

LOS FELIZ—Stabbing, assault, drug-dealing and vandalized property have become com-monplace on Lyman Place and Berendo Street as homeless en-campments in the area over the past few months have become the epicenter of an organized-crime group, forcing residents to move out of fear for their lives and their belongings, ac-cording to residents.

One female Lyman Place resident, who did not want to give her name, said she was threatened with rape.

Another male resident said he was attacked on June 4th with a metal pipe in retali-ation for helping a homeless man who was stabbed on Ly-man three days earlier.

“It is a really sad situation. One of our residents found the person who was stabbed and later a person under the influence attacked him with a deadly weapon,” said the woman.

She added that some of her neighbors are also harass-ing those who have spoken out about the violence and drug dealing on social media and in public meetings, or by calling the police.

“We have been attacked by people who accuse us of ha-rassing the homeless,” she said. “It’s very frustrating because

people who do not know the situation accuse us.”

Residents say that those currently living in the two en-campments are not the same people who used to live in the area before the novel coronavi-

rus and that luxury cars show up every evening.

While the previous en-campments were peaceful,

they say, this new group is prone to violence, drug deal-ing, destruction of property and car and home break-ins.

“Many people in the neighborhood have had horri-ble experiences,” said another

Lyman Place resident. One homeless person, she

said, followed her and made an expletive-filled threat to

stick a knife in her. “Several neighbors have

already moved out because they were afraid for their lives and belongings after receiv-ing threats [and] people doing crack,” said the resident.

According to Brendan Sullivan, who manages all the apartments on Lyman Place, the situation was never perfect, but it used to be manageable.

“Since COVID-19 start-ed, the situation got worse and worse. We are sympathetic to our homeless neighbors,” he said, but noted that in addi-tion to the stabbing and as-sault during the first week of June, members of the encamp-ment “are defecating on doors and walls.”

According to Sullivan, the management company spent around $40,000 on new gates to secure the parking area and the back of the buildings, af-ter a few residents moved out. He said they also upgraded a two-year-old surveillance sys-tem, hired an unarmed secu-rity guard from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. and will be posting signs around the neighborhood to discourage drug dealing.

“One resident was chased and decided to move out,” Sullivan said. “At least four residents moved because they were afraid.”

Jon Deutsch, president of the Los Feliz Neighborhood

Attacker using drugs behind Goodwill. Photo Courtesy: Los Feliz Resident.

see ENCAMPMENT page 13

[HOUSE AND HOLMES]

A Grill Thrill By Rob Loos, Ledger Columnist

I was look-ing forward to some relief after the last few months by celebrat-ing the 4th of

July. Our country was founded

on grand principles, and now we have to live up to them. I was ready to barbecue, but I was disappointed when my grill went kaput.

I had just prepped our gas grill for summer. I scrubbed the grease from the inside of the grill, vacuumed the charred flakes that fell into the grill base, and I even scoured the cooking grates with steel wool and water-based cleaner. So why won’t my fire flame?

I was positive that that I could solve this problem if I asked myself the right ques-tions. First, was there propane in the tank? The gauge that I installed a few years ago showed that the current pro-pane level was “green,” which meant yes.

Second, I opened the grill hood and turned the regulator knob to make sure that the gas was flowing from the tank and through the hose to the burn-

ers. Okay, it was working. Third, I adjusted the

burner knob and heard a gentle hiss and smelled the propane. Finally, I pushed the “starter” button and I heard its tiny “click,” but nothing happened. Usually, there is a mighty “whoosh” of burning gas as it ignites the jets.

I called my friend Dave, who is not only the world’s best contractor, but also a master griller.

Dave made his diagnosis: “Your starter is probably cov-ered with debris from your cleaning, so find yourself a pa-perclip—”

I had to cut him off. “Dave, I’m not MacGyver! I can’t fix anything with a pa-perclip!”

Dave laughed. “Okay, then look inside the door un-derneath your grill and tell me if you see a long metal stick with a clip on the end.”

Dave told me to put a lighted match on the end of the stick and slowly turn on one gas burner. It worked—the burner flamed up and I’m cooking with gas!

I guess that after the holi-day I’ll still have to find a pa-perclip.

Los Feliz Ledger

Page 12 losfelizledger.com July 2020SCHOOL NEWS

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[IVANHOE ELEMENTARY]

Protesting Beyond PostersBy Nahla Bailey, 4th Grade

The tragic death of George Floyd has been hard emotion-

ally and physi-cally. People have been protesting for a very long time, standing up to police

brutality against black and brown citizens. Some people have been protesting in differ-ent ways by joining the rallies or putting up signs of support for the Black Lives Matter movement.

Some people have been distributing essential items for the protesters. Candice El-der, of Oakland and the fou-nder and CEO of the East Oakland Collective (an or-ganization helping unhoused citizens stay safe from the coronavirus), has been going to protests and handing out items like goggles, face masks, bottled water and first aid items.

Tear gas is a toxic gas that has been used as “crowd control” at rallies. It causes a painful stinging to the eyes and, according to healthine.com, if inhaled can cause in-flammation to the lungs and irritate the skin. It causes peo-ple with respiratory illnesses like Asthma or Pneumonia to be more vulnerable. One of

the items being distributed to protestors—from citizens like Candice—include Milk of Magnesia, a liquid originally used for treating indigestion, that is applied directly to the eyes to help soothe the pain of tear gas.

Too many Black Ameri-cans have been killed by po-lice brutality like Tamar Rice, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown and many more. One death is too many. And one of the worst parts is that for most of the people who were mur-dered, the police offers that killed them were not held ac-countable for their actions and were let off without any real punishment.

According to the Wash-ington Post, a recent report showed that since 2015 at least 5,400 black people have been shot and killed by police offi-cers nationwide. My question is: why are we still protesting for something that’s been hap-pening for a very, very long time? Why has it taken so long for people to care? We should not have to be protesting against racism anymore! But we are!

Racists are people who are rude, unfair and violent towards people of different backgrounds or skin tones. However, there

see IVANHOE page 14

[HOLLYWOOD SCHOOLHOUSE]

Graduation by Zoom!By Nikhil George, 6th Grade

Another year has come to

an end, and just like the HSH community does every year on its last day of school, there was a luau. Of course, it would usually be in person at a park or beach. This year, though, we had it on Zoom and it in-cluded fun games, like Bingo. It was a fun event!

For me, the end of this school year means graduat-ing from the only school I’ve known for my entire life. This is my 10th year here and my journey has been amazing. Es-pecially this school year, where I became a writer for this newspaper, received a scholar-ship and was awarded valedic-torian of my class. 

The memories I have with other students are unforget-table, including this year’s “Virtual Ditch Day.” Despite complications from the global pandemic, our teachers and faculty still wanted to give us this fun day. The first thing we did was a virtual escape room where we split into two teams and competed to see which

could escape faster. Afterwards, we had a virtual dance party and a Zoom scavenger hunt.

Our graduation events and ceremonies continued on after ditch day. The first was our recognition dinner, full of speeches from each 6th grader acknowledging their parents and teachers and our school.

There was also a tribute to the class of 2020; a slide show compiled of photos from over the years.

On June 4th, our class finally put on our caps and gowns. Graduation was still a great ceremony and exceeded expectations in its online form. A highlight for me was read-ing my valedictorian speech and listening to my teachers give theirs.

I’m now an alum of Hol-lywood Schoolhouse! I will always remember to be safe, kind and responsible, the three values that the school lives by. Again, thank you for this opportunity to write in this newspaper and report on what was happening monthly at Hollywood Schoolhouse.

Los Feliz Ledger

July 2020 losfelizledger.com Page 13SCHOOL NEWS

Council, said the organiza-tion is concerned for the safety of both the housed neighbors and the unhoused ones.

On June 23rd, the council created an ad-hoc committee to work with the Los Angeles

Police Dept., the county’s Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) and lo-cal Los Angeles City Council-member David Ryu’s office to manage the situation.

LAHSA’s Victor Hinderli-ter said in an email he is un-

able to reveal whether anyone in the two encampments had been offered shelter or how many had refused.

“We review shelter and other housing options with all the individuals with whom we engage,” Hinderliter wrote.

“To protect client confidenti-ality and given current band-width constraints to respond to these types of requests, we are unable to confirm specific resources that we have dis-cussed with specific individu-als or at specific locations.”

According to Ryu, he said has been working continu-ally with city sanitation and the nearby Goodwill on Hollywood Boulevard to keep the area—and a nearby alley—clear.

“The issues around these two encampments are serious

and my office is do-ing everything we can to bring last-ing solutions,” Ryu said, including en-suring law enforce-ment is aware of any unsafe activity and  the construc-tion of a 100-bed Bridge Housing shelter on Riverside Drive.

Ryu’s spokes-person, Mark Pam-panin, added the counci lmember’s hands are currently tied from taking any more aggressive measures.

“With the pandemic, public health experts said

that moving encampments would cause a public health problem. The Federal Judge ruling against bulky items stops the city from seizing and tossing bulky things. These are the rules we are operating un-der,” Pampanin said.

ENCAMPMENT from page 11

According to local residents, this homeless man was stabbed by another homeless man on June 1st. Source: Los Feliz Resident.

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TechnologySan Diego State UniversitySan Francisco State UniversitySan Jose State UniversitySanta Barbara City CollegeSanta Clara UniversitySanta Monica CollegeSchool of the Art Institute of ChicagoScripps CollegeSeattle UniversitySewanee: The University of

the SouthSonoma State UniversitySt. John’s College

St. John’s UniversityStevens Institute of TechnologySwarthmore CollegeSweet Briar CollegeSyracuse UniversityTemple UniversityThe Evergreen State CollegeThe New School - All DivisionsThe University of ArizonaThe University of Texas, AustinTrinity College DublinUnion College, SchenectadyUnited States Air Force AcademyUniversity of California, MercedUniversity of California, San DiegoUniversity of California, BerkeleyUniversity of California, DavisUniversity of California, IrvineUniversity of California, Los Angeles

University of California, RiversideUniversity of California,

Santa BarbaraUniversity of California,

Santa CruzUniversity of Hawaii at HiloUniversity of Hawaii University of Illinois at ChicagoUniversity of La VerneUniversity of Nevada University of Northern ColoradoUniversity of OregonUniversity of PennsylvaniaUniversity of PittsburghUniversity of PortlandUniversity of RedlandsUniversity of Rochester

University of San DiegoUniversity of San FranciscoUniversity of Southern CaliforniaUniversity of the PacificUniversity of Wisconsin, MadisonUrsinus CollegeWarren Wilson CollegeWashington State UniversityWashington University in St LouisWellesley CollegeWesleyan UniversityWheaton CollegeWhittier CollegeWillamette UniversityWilliam and MaryWilliams CollegeWoodbury UniversityWorcester Polytechnic InstituteXavier University of Louisiana

Congratulations John Marshall High School Class of 2020!Graduates have been accepted at these colleges and universities

Sponsored by John Marshall High School parent organizations

City Offering Free Trees

The city of Los Ange-les is offering free trees as part of Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Green New Deal goal to plant 90,000 new trees by 2021.

The trees are available to be planted in the parkway—the space between the side-walk and the curb.

The giveaway is in partner-ship with a non-profit called “City Plants,” the Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power, Los Angeles Sanitation and Envi-ronment and StreetsLA.

Residents can apply online at cityplants.org/street-trees.

Once the application is received, a representative will visit the site to determine space and to determine what type of tree would be best for the location.

Studies have shown that increasing the number of trees in a neighborhood reduces the rate of asthma and improves mental health. In addition, the U.S. Forest Service has found that access to trees decreases stress and anxiety.

To sign up and for addi-tional information, visit city-plants.org/street-trees

L.A. City’s free tree program offers free street trees to city residents, beautifying neighborhoods and saving on energy costs. Photo credit: City Plants

Los Feliz Ledger

Page 14 losfelizledger.com July 2020SCHOOL NEWS

have been many political activ-ists of different ages speaking up against racism like Amariyanna “Mari” Copeny, a 13-year-old girl who lives in Flint, Michi-gan. When Mari was 8 years old, she wrote a letter to former president Barack Obama about the unfiltered toxic water target-ed at her community. Obama then authorized $100 million to help fix the problem.

Whatever age you are, whatever culture, belief, or gender you identify with, YOU can stand up to racism. It can even be through small things like holding a sign on the cor-ner of your street, handing out necessary items and first aid to other protesters, or even writing letters to your elected representatives. Racism must come to a complete stop and you can help!

IVANHOE from page 12

LAUSD Rejects Changes, For Now, for School Police

Despite vocal public calls for defunding, the Los An-geles Unified School District (LAUSD) Board on June 23rd rejected a proposal that would have slashed 90% of the School Police Dept.’s bud-get by 2024.

The proposal by board member Monica Garcia called for the school police budget to be reduced by 50% in the 2021-22 fiscal year, then 75% the next year and 90% the following year, with funds redirected to the “highest need schools in sup-port of African-American students.”

Some boardmembers, how-ever, said they were reluctant to take such a drastic action without an alternative plan in place to guarantee the safety of students in the nation’s second-largest school district.

“I would regret for the rest of my life if I left any student vulnerable, any student in danger,” board member Rich-ard Vladovic said.

The vote came at the end of a marathon board meeting that began at 9 a.m. with sev-eral hours of public testimony. The final board votes on a trio or resolutions addressing school policing weren’t cast

until 8:30 p.m.In the end,

the board reject-ed all three of the resolutions, unable to reach consensus on any of them.

Local Dis-trict 5 Board-member Jackie Goldberg’s pro-posal called for the creation of a planning group to make recom-mendations to

the board no later than July 30th.

The motion also would have made some operational changes to the school po-lice department, including elimination of military-style uniforms for officers and a mandate that officers patrol outside school grounds, not on campus.

LAUSD Supt. Austin Beutner said, earlier in June, a district-wide budget review this summer will include a deep look at the Los Angeles School Police Dept., which was founded in 1984 and employs 366 sworn officers and 95 non-sworn officers. Its

budget of roughly $70 million represents less than 1% of the district’s annual budget.

Beutner has appointed a nine-member task force, which includes himself as well as educators, former pub-lic defenders and prosecutors, and public policy experts. The task force plans to deliv-er a progress report and ini-tial recommendations to the Board of Education sometime in August.

Regardless of what the task force ultimately recom-mends regarding school po-lice, Beutner said “random wanding” searches will stop as of July 1st and he is recom-mending the elimination of officers’ use of pepper spray and carotid holds.

More than 50 speakers ad-dressed board members dur-ing the first two hours of the district’s meeting and another 100 were still in the queue be-fore the allotted time ran out.

The majority of pub-lic comments called for the total elimination of school police or supported Garcia’s proposal to slash the school police budget.

LAUSD police—who are not part of the Los Angeles Police Dept.— responded to more than 100,000 emer-gency calls last year, includ-ing threats of mass shootings and bombs at schools, as well as robberies, sexual assaults, burglaries and other serious crimes, advocates for keeping the police told the board.

LAUSD Rejects Changes Souce: LAUSD.

Los Feliz Ledger

July 2020 losfelizledger.com Page 15SCHOOL NEWS

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agencies, such as the Employ-ment Development Depart-ment, became overwhelmed during COVID-19, and how they continue to struggle to meet crucial needs. We have to demand the state fix structural issues within all its depart-ments and social service agen-cies so that they can function during any disaster.

We have seen what hap-pens when disaster strikes in an economy in which so many residents struggle to survive paycheck to paycheck. Unless we take significant steps to

pull more California families out of poverty, we will never have a truly resilient economy, and we could again struggle after the next disaster.

There’s no shortage of threats in California: climate change, earthquake, flooding, and drought. However, the guiding principle for all these scenarios should be the same; preparedness today will miti-gate suffering in the future.

We are in a teachable moment. We need to realize that every dollar we invest in resiliency and preparedness is a dollar well spent. This

should be our mantra as we budget for the California of today and the California of the future.

What do you think about California’s preparedness for natural disasters? Do you have any thoughts, suggestions, or ideas on how we can best shift our focus and funding to make our communities more resil-ient? I would love to hear what you think. If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to my District Office at 818-558-3043 or email me at: Assemblymember.Fried-man@Assembly.ca.gov

FRIEDMAN from page 7

purchased his Hancock Park home in 1948, angry neigh-bors burned a cross on his lawn and poisoned his dog in an attempt to get the family to move, according to a 2014 Wall Street Journal interview with his daughter Natalie.

Even absent racial animos-ity, the Los Feliz area’s history of favorable loan terms and heavily enforced single-family zoning put it out of financial reach for most non-white fam-ilies, according to Avila.

“Los Feliz became such an expensive neighborhood by the mid 20th century that most African Americans, who were predominately working class, were just priced out of those neighborhoods,” he said. “They had to find their own neighbor-hoods, where Black middle class or Black elites could create a community. … like Sugar Hill or West Adams.”

The neighborhood’s prox-imity to several major film studios and hospitals begin-ning in the ’20s and ’30s also contributed to the area’s whiteness, as it became a ha-ven for studio executives and doctors—the vast majority of whom were white, or white-passing Jews.

For the few Black families who could afford the area, be-coming a Los Feliz homeown-er was no easy feat.

One such family, the Taylors, who purchased their home on Ames Street in 1965 and lived there for 53 years, filed a discrimination com-plaint under California’s Fair Housing Act shortly after their purchase.

According to the com-plaint, when the Taylors placed an offer on the house, a secretary at Gary Wolff Realty—which still operates today at Hillhurst and Prospect avenues—told them it had been withdrawn from the market and referred them instead to a much smaller house near Echo Park.

Later that evening, the secretary called the family and confided that the house was

still on the market, but Wolff, the realtor, refused to forward their offer to the sellers be-cause they were Black, accord-ing to the family’s eldest son Ronald Taylor.

The secretary “told us, look this isn’t going to happen unless you talk directly to the seller, and gave us the seller’s number,” he said.

After the sellers accepted the Taylors’ offer, “Mr. Wolff reportedly stated to [them] that he would do everything possible to prevent the sale of the house to us. He feared our buying a house in the area might start a ‘panic,’” the Fair Housing complaint reads. “Al-though Mr. Wolff did not use the word ‘Negro,’ it was obvi-ous throughout the conversa-tion that his objection was based entirely on the fact of our racial identity.”

To the neighborhood’s credit, Taylor said, “all of our neighbors were awesome. No-body panicked. Nobody re-acted.”

Just a few doors down from the Taylors, soul singer Sam Cooke purchased a home on Ames Street in the early ’60s.

Whether Cooke faced any pushback when purchasing his home has been lost to history, though Taylor noted, “Some-times celebrities get a pass.”

Nearby, in Silver Lake, shortly after World War II, Anne-Marie Johnson’s father was able to get a loan through the United States Dept. of Veterans Affairs due to his status as a police officer—a nearly impossible feat for a Black man at the time, since redlining maps were also used to administer VA loans.

He used that loan to buy two vacant lots in Silver Lake, near Bellevue Park, and built what would be-come Johnson’s childhood home.

“When the house was completed, there was a peti-tion signed by every family on the block except for one to deny my family due to skin color,” said Johnson. However,

“one family refused to sign the petition, which made it much more difficult for any of the neighbors to prevent us from moving in.”

According to Johnson, the situation was made worse by her father’s ability to purchase two lots.

“There was just anger that here was this Black man. How did he get the money?” she said.

Johnson said she devel-oped a “thick skin” to deal with the racial bias she expe-rienced growing up in Silver Lake, but one incident stuck out as especially painful.

“I had a close friend in junior high school—who I thought was a close friend—and she invited me over to her house after school for lunch, and her mother forbid me from entering because I was black,” said Johnson, adding that the incident occurred in the mid-1970s.

A John Marshall High School alum, Johnson said she can still name every Black stu-dent in her graduating class of 600.

“Obviously the commu-nity has changed, but a lot of people need to realize that Silver Lake wasn’t always what people assume it is,” she said.

But while the neighbor-hood has come a long way in terms of individual attitudes, it remains overwhelmingly white demographically, a trend Johnson said she believes will only continue.

“When you’re talking about Silver Lake and the his-tory of racism in Silver Lake, in a very sad and quiet way, it has returned because of the loss of affordable housing … and homes going for multi-millions of dollars. That has completely shut out people of color,” Johnson said. “When I was growing up, the predomi-nant minorities were Asian Americans and gay men. These families are being pushed out and Silver Lake is just becom-ing whiter and whiter and whiter.”

REDLINING from page 6

DRE#’s George Moreno 00560275 | Eileen Moreno 01194455 | Laura Moreno 01950438 | Dunia Handy Gill 01262913

3895 Aguilar Street • Glassel Park • Call For Price

1930s Traditional home in trendy Glassell Park! Super sweet 2bd/1ba + studio. Freshly painted interior. Hardwood floors. Newly landscaped front yard and spacious backyard with patio. Finished garage + parking in the driveway. Great proximity to Eagle Rock, Highland Park, and downtown Los Angeles.

FOR LEASE in Los Feliz

LOS FELIZ • SILVER LAKE • FRANKLIN HILLS • ATWATER VILLAGE • ECHO PARK BEACHWOOD CANYON • HOLLYWOOD HILLS • WEST HOLLYWOOD • GLENDALE

COMING SOON in Glassell Park

3573 Division Street • Mid-Century • $1,075,000

Stunning Mid-century 3+2 Post & Beam. Lovely views. Walls of glass to enjoy the hillside foliage. Dramatic wood ceiling. Large bedroom suite with private bath. Charming back yard. New appliances, central air and heat, plus solar panels. Great location near Highland Park and Eagle Rock. Dunia represented buyer.

IN ESCROW in Glassell Park

4310 Cedarhurst Circle • Traditional • $8,000

Spacious 4+4 on highly coveted Cedarhurst Circle. with sweeping downtown views. Gracious living rm & formal dining rms with hardwood floors that lead out to charming terrace overlooking lovely backyard. Well appointed kitchen. Great home office space. 3-car garage. Franklin Elementary School. Central AC/Heat.

You Can Expect More From The Moreno Team.

3704 Prestwick Drive • Traditional • $2,395,000

Located in the coveted Los Feliz Hills is this gated 4+5 Traditional view home. Fabulous updated kitchen that leads to scenic view deck. Large dining room. Master suite with seating area, en-suite bath and wonderful views. Spacious family room. Stunning grounds. Patio and possible room for a pool.

IN ESCROW in the Los Feliz Hills

1312 Occidental Blvd • Cal Bungalow • $949,000

You’ll fall in love with the open floor plan and renovated kitchen in this 1920’s 2+1 bungalow with separate home office retreat on the hill. Beautiful drought tolerant landscaping. New flooring. Low E windows. Great location that’s minutes to the Silver Lake dog Park, reservoir, Lamill L&E, Sawyer and more on Sunset!

IN ESCROW in Silver Lake

2424 Lanterman Terrace • Cape Cod • $1,345,000

Perfectly perched in the hills is this 1930s built, 2+1.5 home has fabulous views and situated in the highly coveted Ivanhoe Elementary! Beautiful living room with fireplace and views. Sweet home office. Charming retro kitchen with built-in breakfast nook. Large formal dining room. Lovely spacious patio. Large storage room.

MULTIPLE OFFERS in Silver Lake Hills

George, Eileen, Laura, and Dunia

Keller Williams Realty Los Feliz

2150 Hillhurst Avenue

Los Angeles, CA 90027

323.668.7600

moreno@georgeandeileen.com

georgeandeileen.com

@georgeandeileenrealestate

The Moreno Team is amazing to work with and I can wholeheartedly recommend them! They helped me when I decided to rent out my Silver Lake home two years due to my relocation out of state. They helped find a fantastic tenant and brought me several excellent options. When I decided to sell two years later, once again they came through for me, helping me get multiple offers over asking in the middle of the pandemic! They are resourceful, knowledgeable, great communicators and a dream to work with. Thank you!

Jeffrey Holland | 2424 Lanterman Terrace, Silver Lake Hills

(323) 668-7600 • HOME@GEORGEANDEILEEN.COM • GEORGEANDEILEEN.COM • @GEORGEANDEILEENREALESTATE

DO THE BESTYOU CAN

UNTIL YOUKNOW BETTER.

THEN WHEN YOUKNOW BETTER,

DO BETTER.maya angelou

Have a safe and happy 4th of July, from the Moreno Team.