<![CDATA[Solano Canyon

<![CDATA[Solano Canyon - Blog]]>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 21:31:31 -0800Weebly<![CDATA[Feliz Cumpliaños, Guillermo Carlos Bouett (1915–2001)]]>Thu, 12 Jul 2018 02:30:33 GMThttps://www.solanocanyon.org/solanoblog/feliz-cumplianos-guillermo-carlos-bouett-1915-2001A Solano Descendant's Birthday is Today

Guillermo Carlos Bouett (who is the author's father) was born on this day in 1915 on Avenue 32 in Los Angeles. His family soon moved to 427 Soiano Avenue in today's Solano Canyon, in a house that was built by Guillermo's grandmother, Maria Agustina Solano, in 1913. María is the daughter of Fransisco Solano, who founded what is now Solano Canyon in 1866, when he purchased 87 acres of land in the Stone Quarry Hills from the City of Los Angeles. María was born in 1861 and baptised in the Plaza Church downtown. In 1881, María married Guillermo Bouett, the namesake of the above-mentioned Guillermo Carlos, who was also baptized in the Plaza church. Guillermo Bouett is the son of French immigrant Jean Bouet. Guillermo Bouett became a Captain in the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, and he lost his life in the line of duty in 1913, the same year that his widow built the house on Solano Avenue. He played baseball in Elysian Park with friends and attended the original Solano Avenue Elementary School. Today marks the 103rd anniversary of the birth of Guillermo Carlos Bouett.

Guillermo Carlos Bouett, photograph taken in 1940 at age 25

¡Feliz Cumpliaños, Don Guillermo!

]]><![CDATA[You Still Have Time To Help Protect Solano Canyon]]>Thu, 07 Jun 2018 16:30:31 GMThttps://www.solanocanyon.org/solanoblog/you-still-have-time-to-help-protect-solano-canyonToday Is The Vote On The Fraudulent HCNC Subdivision

Voting is always important. Today is the vote on the ill-conceived and completely fraudulent HCNC subdivision application. If you love Solano Canyon as I do, please vote in this election. The subdivision application is nothing more than a power-grab by Chinatown, whose victims will be Victor Heights, El Pueblo, and Solano Canyon. Please do not allow Angelica Lopez Moyez and her co-conspirator, Phyllis Ling, along with their collaborator, Mike Fong of DONE, to perpetrate this fraud. Mike Fong is guilty of dereliction of duty, denial of due process, and collusion by refusing to follow the established policies and procedures that he has sworn to uphold as a civil servant.

Please Vote NO Today To Help Save Solano Canyon

]]><![CDATA[The HCNC Subdivision Fraud Continues Unabated]]>Thu, 07 Jun 2018 00:55:02 GMThttps://www.solanocanyon.org/solanoblog/the-hcnc-subdivision-fraud-continues-unabatedThere Has Been No Outreach For This Fraud

The massive fraud that has been perpetrated on the residents of Victor Heights, El Pueblo, and Solano Canyon that is the HCNC subdivision application looks like it will continue right up to the equally-fraudulent election tomorrow.

In this latest lie that has been told by Angelica Lopez Moyes, wherein she claimed falsely that her subdivision application had been endorsed by Cathedral High School, Martin Farfan, the President of Cathedral, refutes the lie in the following email:

The woman who is doing all the leg work for the subdivision approached Br. John last week and asked to host a community meeting to give information before the election. The only two people who attended the meeting were Br. John and I. The short story is that we are not in support of the subdivision [emphasis added]. We informed her that in our opinion there was no outreach in our community prior to putting it on the ballot for this Thursday election. Cathedral has been in the Solano Canyon since 1925 and Br. John and I have been at Cathedral over 20 years and first heard about the subdivision last week. Hopefully the subdivision doesn't pass! [emphasis added]

In other words, Angelica Lopez Moyes and her co-conspirators once again are telling a boldface lie. Asside from Brother John and the President of Cathedral, no one attended the meeting that Ms. Moyes claims is outreach. She apparently understands that, if she tells the same lie loudly enough and enough times, then perhaps enough people will believe it that her ill-conceived and entirely fraudulent HCNC subdivision application will pass. She can only hope to accomplish this fraud with the collusion of Mike Fong of DONE, and with the tacit approval of Carmen Hawkins, the Assistant City Attorney.

It is really worth reading about what a liar and a fraud Angelica Lopez Moyes really is here.

]]><![CDATA['Outreach' is nothing but a cold and calculated lie ...]]>Thu, 31 May 2018 01:53:39 GMThttps://www.solanocanyon.org/solanoblog/outreach-is-nothing-but-a-lieThe HCNC Subdivision Committee Conducted Zero Outreach

Despite the fact that the 'Plan' that governs the formation of a neighborhood council requires that outreach be undertaken in order to "reflect the broadest array of Community Stakeholders who will actively participate in the proposed Neighborhood Council", the simple fact is that the HCNC subdivision committee undertook zero outreach anywhere but in Chinatown in its ill-conceived and fraudulent effort to concentrate political power in Chinatown at the expense of the surrounding residential neighborhood caucuses, including Victor Heights, El Pueblo, and Solano Canyon. Little Tokyo and the Arts District will simply be cast adrift if the subdivision proposal passes.

Exactly two town halls were held — two

A total of two town halls were held during this so-called outreach process. The first one was held 02 May 2018 at Maryknoll Japanese Catholic Center at 222 Hewitt Street on Los Angeles. Three people attended this meeting. Two of the three attendees were Angelica Lopez Moyes, the perpetrator of the fraudulent subdivision application, and Phyllis Ling, a co-conspirator of Ms. Moyes and recent Solano Canyon representative on the HCNC board (Ms. Ling, however, does not live in historic Solano Canyon; rather, she lives on Savoy Street, which aligns itself with Chinatown). The third person at this meeting was someone who attended so that attendance numbers could be determined. In any case, there was no sign-in sheet for attendees, as required by the Plan. This failure of process was confirmed by DONE as the result of a California Public Records Act request.

The second town hall was held 23 May 2018 at Castellar Elementary School in Chinatown. There was no sign-in sheet for this meeting, either. There were perhaps twelve attendees at this second meeting, again including Ms. Moyes and Ms. Ling.

Do two town halls attended by a total of 11 non-involved people constitute the required outreach effort to reach "the broadest array of community stakeholders"?

Of course it doesn't constitute outreach — not even to the slightest extent. No outreach of any kind was ever conducted in Victor Heights, El Pueblo, or Solano Canyon, let alone the Arts District or Little Tokyo. It's time we stop dignifying the HCNC subdivision application by any name other than what it is:

The HCNC subdivision application is a FRAUD

The entire HCNC subdivision application is a fraud; Angelica Lopez Moyes is a fraud (and a cheat; you can read a third-party characterization of her bizarre behavior here); her recent co-conspirator, Phyllis Ling, is a gullible but apparently willing foot-soldier of Ms. Moyes, and by association, therefore, is a fraud; and Mike Fong, of DONE, who colluded with Ms. Moyes to push through the subdivision application from the beginning, is a fraud.

But here is the scary part

The election to certify this fraud is scheduled to be held Thursday, 07 June 2018. If only ten people vote 'Yes' in this election and that is a majority of the total votes cast, then the subdivision will pass.

There is evidence that Don Toy, a resident of Chinatown, has organized a group of more than 200 of his loyal followers in preparation of the upcoming election. How has he instructed them to vote?

What can one do to stop this fraud?

The answer is simple: 'VOTE'. Vote 'NO' in greater numbers than there are 'YES' votes.

If you love Solano Canyon as I do and want to protect it from a political power-grab by Chinatown, then talk with your friends and neighbors and get them to vote 'NO' on June 7th.

]]><![CDATA[We Don't have to show you no stinking Outreach ...]]>Fri, 25 May 2018 23:27:42 GMThttps://www.solanocanyon.org/solanoblog/we-dont-need-no-outreach"Outreach, to god-damned hell with outreach! We have no outreach. In fact, we don't need outreach. I don't have to show you any stinking outreach, you god-damned cabrón and chinga tu madre!"

Substitute the word 'badges' for 'outreach', and you have one of the most memorable quotes from the terrific 1927 novel by the enigmatic B. Traven, which was later made into the wonderful 1948 movie, both named The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

Well, the subdivision committee also says "No" to the stakeholder community of the HCNC — except for Chinatown, that is. And the point is, 'nothing' is exactly what the HCNC subdivision committee has done in terms of outreach.

Outreach is required as a part of the process

The "Plan For A Citywide System Of Neighborhood Councils" (known as 'The Plan'), which governs the formation of neighborhood councils, was approved 30 May 2001 and amended nine times, most recently 18 December 2013. Section III, Outreach reads:

The outreach process used to identify stakeholders within the proposed Neighborhood Council boundary must be described in detail. In order to demonstrate a good faith effort towards achieving a diversity of stakeholder representation, an applicant(s) shall collect no less than 200 and no more than 500 signatures from stakeholders that have an interest within the proposed Neighborhood Council boundaries. Signatures shall, to the maximum extent feasible, reflect the broadest array of Community Stakeholders who will actively participate in the proposed Neighborhood Council.

There are three distinct parts of the outreach requirement, none of which has been met by the subdivision committee. The essential elements of outreach are:

The outreach process used to identify stakeholders within the proposed Neighborhood Council boundary must be described in detail [emphasis added]. The problem: no plan for outreach that satisfies the requirements of the Plan has been forthcoming.
In order to demonstrate a good faith effort towards achieving a diversity of stakeholder representation, an applicant(s) shall collect no less than 200 and no more than 500 signatures from stakeholders that have an interest within the proposed Neighborhood Council boundaries. The problem: the extent of diversity by the subdivision committee has been limited to organizations, businesses, and some residents of Chinatown — but virtually nowhere else.
Signatures shall, to the maximum extent feasible, reflect the broadest array of Community Stakeholders who will actively participate in the proposed Neighborhood Council [emphasis added]. The problem: the array of 'Community Stakeholders' is nowhere broad; rather, it has been limited to organizations, businesses, and residents of Chinatown who are already pre-disposed positively to favor the subdivision.

Make no mistake: Outreach has been virtually nonexistent

The only stakeholders in which the Subdivision committee is interested are the businesses and organizations who are primarily related to Chinatown; residents, especially in Victor Heights and Solano Canyon, were simply not approached at all, and were largely ignored during the process.

How many outreach town hall meetings were held? Two.

The subdivision committee held exactly two town hall meetings to explain their ill-conceived and fraudulent subdivision application.

The first meeting was held on 03 May 2018 at Maryknoll Japanese Catholic Church in the Arts district, one of the neighborhood caucuses that is slated to be cut apart from the HCNC if the subdivision passes. A person who was at the meeting said that there were exactly three persons who attended the meeting, including Angelica Lopez Moyes, the primary author of the fraudulent subdivision application. The second meeting was held at Castelar Elementary School in Chinatown, which is friendly territory for the subdivision application. A person who attended that meeting said that, at most, there were perhaps twelve people attending, also including Angelica Lopez Moyes. [A third-party description of Ms. Moyes' bizarre and erratic behavior may be found here.] At no time was there any attempt to have a town hall meeting in Victor Heights or Solano Canyon, and no resident of historic Solano Canyon reports that personal, door-to-door contact was made by anyone from the subdivision committee. In other words, the subdivision committee lied about outreach.

Given the numerous flaws in the system, and abetted by DONE, the ill-conceived and fraudulent subdivision application has been pushed through to an election through collusion with DONE.

]]><![CDATA[More Lies about the proposed HCNC subdivision]]>Fri, 25 May 2018 00:45:31 GMThttps://www.solanocanyon.org/solanoblog/more-lies-about-the-proposed-hcnc-subdivisionThe HCNNC Formation Committee is desperate for you to believe the many lies they are telling about the HCNC subdivision application

Make no mistake: the group that is promoting the subdivision of the Historic Cultural Neighborhood Council (HCHC) is desperate to consolidate political power in Chinatown. This effort is being spearheaded by Angelica Lopez Moyes (read more about Ms. Moyes here), although there is reason to believe that she is being controlled by others in this effort. The intent of the effort is to negate as much political power as possible in Victor Heights, El Pueblo de Los Angeles, and Solano Canyon and consolidate it in Chinatown. In the process, Little Tokyo and the Arts District will be cut away from the remainder of the subdivision and left to go their own way, even though those two caucuses will retain the name of the original neighborhood council (NC), which is (intentionally and confusingly) HCNC.

It is important that everyone understands the extent of the lies that are being told by the subdivision committee about the current state of the HCNC as well as the level of support that actually exists — apart from Chinatown — for its ill-conceived and fraudulent effort. It is also important that everyone understands the extent of the collusion that exists between the subdivision committee and the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, a City-chartered entity that is known by its acronym, DONE, particularly in the person of Mike Fong.

Why the subdivision committee must lie about what they are attempting to do, because it's all about consolidating political power in Chinatown and away from the other caucuses (but they don't want you to know that)

The subdivision committee does not have wide support among residents in the HCNC beyond Chinatown, which is being manipulated by only a few people. As an example, many residents of Cathay Manor signed in support of the proposed subdivision; yet, at a public meeting held by the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners (BONC) on Monday, 12 May 2018, Don Toy, HCNC board member as Resident from Victor Heights stated on the record that many of those Cathay Manor residents signed in support of the subdivision not only without their knowing what they were signing, but because they had been told to do so (presumably by him or his underlings). This is not a matter of opinion; Don Toy spoke on the record. The reason that so many Cathay Manor residents did not know what they were signing is that many of them speak only Chinese, and the subdivision application was written in English and never translated into any other language.

Any criticism of the subdivision process is characterized as 'misinformation'.

The subdivision committee would have you believe that they, alone, know what is best for all stakeholders in the HCNC. Their characterization of the HCNC in general, and of the Solano Canyon caucus in particular, is that those in opposition are not in step with the times; it is only they who are in a position to dictate what 'in step' means. Here is an example of the subdivision committee's tactic of obfuscation:

As with other campaigns, not everyone agrees. Groups and corporations that oppose the subdivision proposal, and claim to speak for entire communities such as Solano Canyon, do so while ignoring the petition signatories [sic] and letters of support from both Solano Canyon groups and residents.

It is true; not everyone agrees, much to the dismay of the subdivision committee. There are several perversions of the truth in this statement, however. First, no one is presuming to speak for an entire community, such as Solano Canyon. And the notion that anyone who opposes the ill-conceived and fraudulent subdivision application is ignoring the implied 'many signatures of support as well as letters of support' is frivolous and ludicrous on its face.

The fact is that, in the entire historic Solano Canyon community — which is not the same as the area within the Solano Canyon boundary as defined by the HCNC — there were exactly two signatures of support from residents, one of which was subsequently rescinded. As for letters of support, in order to make that point, the subdivision committee has had to resort to utter falsehood. The committee claimed, for example, that Cathedral supported the subdivision proposal. The fact is that, while the subdivision committee scheduled a meeting with Cathedral, the President of Cathedral said in an email that no such support was extant. Another word for a falsehood such as this is a lie.

This is another point that must be clarified:

Stakeholders of neighborhood councils include not only residents, but also business owners, employees, property owners, and organization members. All voices should be valued, not one over the other.

That statement is correct on its face. The problem is that the subdivision committee made the conscious decision to rely primarily on the 'business owners, employees, property owners, and organization members' almost entirely, because they knew that, except for Chinatown residents, they would not, for the most part, be able to convince residents of other neighborhood caucuses to join their cause. As a result, there are clusters of signatures of support from businesses and organizations, but few from actual residents.

The subdivision committee likes to point to 'signatures of support from Solano'. This is a red herring. The historic Solano Canyon community in no way matches the HCNC boundary that is labeled 'Solano Canyon'. For the subdivision committee to assert that there is substantial support from Solano Canyon residents is disingenuous at best; they will not admit that the residential community that is the historic Solano Canyon has been neither the recipient of outreach nor the source of broad-based support. Many of the signature that are referred to come from addresses on Cottage Home or Savoy Street — an area that is not, and never has been, a part of historic Solano Canyon.

All ellegations of fraud have been investigated by DONE and found to be without merit.

This statement requires clarification. The fact is that the allegations of fraud describe actions on the part of the subdivision committee that have routinely been accommodated or facilitated by DONE; in other words, the fraud has been perpetrated by the subdivision committee and DONE, in collusion with each other. DONE is part-and-parcel of the fraud. To suggest that DONE should be the entity to investigate such allegations of fraud is a bit like saying that the fox should be let loose in the hen house to discover whether anything is wrong. That statement by the subdivision committee is absurd on its face.

The concept of Chinatown forming its own neighborhood council has been promoted by those in opposition. We have never shared that opinion, and neither have our supporters as a whole — including business owners and community leaders from El Pueblo, Victor Heights, and Solano Canyon.

This incredible statement must be called out for what it is: a lie. Ms. Moyes, the primary architect (at least, on the surface) of the subdivision committee, explicitly stated that the intent of the subdivision was exactly to form an independent Chinatown NC. Although it is difficult to read, take a look at this published statement by Ms. Moyes:

This is the text of the above image, transcribed for clarity:

CHINATOWN AS A NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL

"With the City of Los Angeles Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE) now accepting subdivision petitions for Neighborhood Councils, a group has gathered in Chinatown to organize a campaign to separate from the Historic Cultural Neighborhood Council (HCNC), and form its own Council [emphasis added]. HCNC currently includes Chinatown, Little Tokyo, Arts District, El Pueblo, Chinatown [mentioned twice], Solano Canyon and Victor Heights. Petitioners advocate that local neighborhoods have their own unique cultural and socioeconomic needs, and would be better served by a more specific council. The application is due 1/15. For more info email angelicahcnc@gmail.com."

Can there be any interpretation of the above statement other than it is the clear original intent of the subdivision committee, headed by Ms. Moyes, to create a stand-alone NC for Chinatown? Why does Ms. Moyes find it necessary to lie about this when it is so obvious?

The proposed bylaws of the subdivision committee have been gerrymandered to concentrate as much political power as possible in Chinatown and away from other caucuses.

Ms. Moyes freely admitted in an email to Mike Fong, her co-conspirator at DONE, that she altered the bylaws for the proposed subdivision. Interestingly, there are now two versions of the proposed bylaws: one of the official City website and another that Ms. Moyes now professes to be the bylaws that she wants to be adopted.

The difference is a section that was added by Ms. Moyes that effectively limits the HCNC board members who may serve on a new board if the subdivision application were to pass. Among the HCNC board members who will become ineligible for the new board is Don Toy, a polarizing figure in Chinatown whose elimination from the new board Ms. Moyes has used to her advantage in her effort to secure support from Chinatown ('Don Toy will not be able to be on the new board').

The outreach that was conducted by the subdivision committee is a complete fraud

The subdivision committee claims that:

We have conducted outreach throughout the existing neighborhood council in numerous way including going door-to-door and participating in community meetings.

Once again, it is necessary to expose this lie for what it is. No one in Solano Canyon has come forward to say that anyone from the subdivision committee visited their door; and one 'community meeting' that was posited for the Los Angeles Theatre Academy (LATA), a partnership with the Department of Recreation and Parks located at 929 Academy Road in Solano Canyon, simply did not hapen. The artistic director of LATA is Alejandra Flores. You can read her letter refuting the subdivision committee's lie here. The subdivision committee claimed in its application that 'Posting Site #4' was at LATA. The letter of rebuttal is scathing in its denunciation of this lie.

This information is blatantly and patently false ... since there was never any contact made at LATA by anyone who represented him- or herself as a representative of the subdivision formation committee.

One must ask: why has the subdivision committee found it necessary to lie to blatantly and so often about its activities? Ms. Moyes and her ilk appear to be desperate to ram this ill-conceived and fraudulent subdivision application through the process, with the collusion and support of DONE.

Finally, the subdivision committee distorts the truth with this statement:

The formation committee has been extremely forthcoming, including in our response to Public Records Act requests for all communication with DONE staff, going above what was legally required, in the interest of transparency.

Here are the facts: the author has made multiple California Public Records Act requests (CA PRA requests) for information that include correspondence between Ms. Moyes and various agencies, including DONE, BONC, the HCNC, the Echo Park Neighborhood Council (EPNC), and between Ms. Moyes and numerous individuals who serve in official capacities. On more than one occasion, Ms. Moyes' response has been that she is under no legal obligation to disclose anything she has written unless it was in her capacity as a board member of the HCNC.

Ms. Moyes, of course, is completely wrong on this point. Ms. Moyes is obligated, under the CA PRA, to reveal any and all correspondence of which she is the author, in any capacity, with any entity that is subject to the CA PRA. But we should, by now, be cognizant of the fact that Ms. Moyes' goal is not to be forthcoming, but rather to obfuscate, obscure, distort the facts, and outright lie to secure the passage of her ill-conceived and altogether fraudulent subdivision application.

The ill-conceived and fraudulent HCNC subdivision application must not pass; rather, it should be rejected altogether by the City Council.

]]><![CDATA[DONE Fails to Follow the Rules]]>Sun, 20 May 2018 22:22:37 GMThttps://www.solanocanyon.org/solanoblog/done-fails-to-follow-the-rulesThis blog is about the ill-conceived and fraudulent application by Angelica Lopez Moyes and her Historical Cultural North Neighborhood Council Formation Committee (HCNNCFC) to subdivide the Historic Cultural Neighborhood Council (HCNC). Yes, the name is confusing and deliberately so, so as to divert attention from the unethical and underhanded actions taken by the formation committee in its attempt to push an incomplete and fraudulent subdivision application through the process.

DONE fails, but no one cares, not even the City's lawyers ...

The Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, commonly referred to by its acronym, DONE, is a City-chartered entity. Employees of DONE are public servants who are required by statute to follow the rules and procedures that have been established for them.

The application for subdivision of a neighborhood council (NC) is governed by the "Plan for a Citywide System of Neighborhood Councils (Plan).” Article III, §2 of the above-named 'Plan' states, in part,

If, at any time during the processes described in this section, DONE determines that an application is incomplete, it shall return the application to the applicants along with a detailed list in writing of the missing components required in a certification application and suggestions on how to incorporate missing components. Applicants whose certification application was determined to be incomplete and returned by DONE may at any time re-submit the application after amending it to meet all the necessary criteria [Emphasis added].

One of the tools that are available to everyone is the California Public Records Act (CA PRA). Requests made under the PRA provide archived public records available for review. In this case, a PRA request was made to DONE to try to determine whether the rules specified by the Plan were being followed.

The subdivision application of the HCNNCFC was woefully-incomplete as of the deadline date of 15 January 2018: the minimum number of signatures of HCNC stakeholders, 200, was not met; the application was replete with half-truths, distortions of the truth, and outright lies; and there was little-to-no outreach to stakeholders in neighborhood caucuses — especially in Victor Heights and Solano Canyon — because the formation committee knew that there was little support in these neighborhood caucuses for its effort to perpetuate its fraud. In fact, there was but a single signature of support from Solano Canyon.

Dereliction of Duty and Collusion by a City entity

Response to the above-referenced CA PRA request demonstrated that, at no time, was the required notification made by DONE. The application was never returned to the formation committee and no letter was written that specified the missing components of the application. Rather, the PRA request revealed that email communication between Ms. Moyes and Mike Fong, Director of Policy and Government Relations for DONE, demonstrated clearly that the pair — Ms. Moyes and Mr. Fong — were communicating 'behind closed doors'; in other words, Mr. Fong — who has political aspirations — was 'working the system' to ensure that Ms. Moyes' subdivision application would be approved. This is a clear dereliction of duty on the part of Mr. Fong. The fact that Mr. Fong and Ms. Moyes were communicating behind closed doors is a demonstration that there was substantial collusion going on between DONE and the formation committee.

The City Attorney's office fails to act

The office of the Los Angeles City Attorney has a division consisting of Deputy City Attorneys whose job it is to advise neighborhood councils. Headed by Supervising Deputy Attorney Darren Martinez, the Deputy City Attorney whose area includes the HCNC is Carmen Hawkins.

Numerous emails were sent to Ms. Hawkins, calling her attention to, and documenting, the numerous breakdowns in the system (the 'Plan') on the part of DONE, especially by Mr. Fong; yet at no time does it appear that the City Attorney's office made any effort to advise DONE on proper procedure or to chastise anyone at DONE for failure to follow procedure. On the contrary: it appears instead that the City Attorney's office was happy to 'turn its head' and allow DONE to run roughshod over the process.

The City's neighborhood council system is badly broken

It will not be possible to fix the broken neighborhood council system in one fell swoop; but is it not reasonable to expect that, bit by bit, the system will be repaired, and that the players, working in the various City-chartered entities, will do their jobs as public servants and at least give the appearance that they care?

Apparently not.

]]><![CDATA[More Lies Threaten Solano Canyon ...]]>Sat, 19 May 2018 21:28:51 GMThttps://www.solanocanyon.org/solanoblog/more-lies-threaten-solano-canyonThe HCNC subdivision application is a fraud

A blog dated 4/20/2018 (read it here) detailed the many inconsistencies and outright lies connected to the fraudulent neighborhood council subdivision application of the Historic Cultural North Neighborhood Council Formation Committee (HCNNCFC). Make no mistake: the primary purpose of this travesty is to consolidate political power in Chinatown at the expense of the stakeholder caucuses of Victor Heights, El Pueblo de Los Angeles, and Solano Canyon. The Arts District and Little Tokyo, stakeholder caucuses that are presently members of the Historic Cultural Neighborhood Council (HCNC), were deliberately cut out of the HCNC by the HCNNC subdivision proposal; the result is that they will be isolated and left to fend for themselves.

The HCNNCFC staged a so-called 'press conference' at 11:30 a.m. yesterday in Chinatown, ostensibly to explain their divisive subdivision proposal. In truth, it was a travesty fraught with half-truths, distortions of the truth, falsehoods, and outright lies. You can view the flyer for the press conference here.

The first statement of the so-called 'press release' is a lie

The so-called 'press conference' says that its purpose is to announce a "... subdivision of Historic Cultural Neighborhood Council (HCNC) into north and south." To be clear: this is a lie. The proposal does not mention anything, anywhere, about a southern portion of the division of the HCNC. The neighborhood council what would result from the subdivision is called Historic Cultural North Neighborhood Council. The original subdivision application may be seen here. Notice that the primary signatory of the subdivision application is Angelica Lopez Moyes (more about her follows).

The remainder of the 'press release' is not based on truth

The formation committee (those who called the press conference, along with their co-conspiritors) cannot make their case with the truth, so they resort to half-truths, innuendo, faulty logic — and yes, lies.

HCNC was formed more than fifteen years ago. Today, it no longer has the
capacity to serve all areas effectively. Our voices have been lost. Our communities are suffering because we are represented by those who do not prioritize the unique needs of our areas. We need to strengthen representation for those in our communities. We must work together to effectively address the needs of all of our communities. We deserve to be represented in ways that are more inclusive and collaborative.

The first misstatement in the statement above is that the HCNC was formed more than fifteen years ago. The fact is that the HCNC was formed in 2003, which was, indeed, fifteen years ago; but by some magical arithmetic, the fifteen years that have elapsed between 2003 and today has become 'more than fifteen years', which is nothing more than an attempt to portray the HCNC as an out-of-date, decrepit organization. One of the primary authors of the HCNNC subdivision application is Angelica Lopez Moyes. Ms. Moyes uses the technique of asserting that everything she says is true, with the expectation that her word alone thereby constitutes the veracity of whatever she says, and that her word, alone, should be sufficient as proof. A classic example of this technique is her statement that the HCNC "... no longer has the capacity to serve all areas effectively." Notice that Ms. Moyes provides no proof of this ridiculous statement of her personal opinion; yet she expects it to be believed simply because she has said it. And as Ms. Moyes tells it, 'fifteen years' has become 'more than fifteen years'. Ms. Moyes never lets an exaggeration go to waste ...

Ms. Moyes would also have us believe that her every utterance is true and correct in every particular. Unfortunately, this, too, may be nothing more than a smoke screen — to what purpose, one can only guess. One might consider these comments about some of Ms. Moyes' past history. Can we really rationally lend credence to anything Ms. Moyes says? You can read about some of her checkered past here. That she is promulgating this travesty against the HCNC is disturbing, to say the least. The man in the photographs in the link, above, is her one-time boyfriend, Tad Wanawine, the President of the Echo Park Neighborhood Council, who has a clear conflict of interest in the subdivision application due to his association with Ms. Moyes.

Make no mistake: The HCNNC subdivision application is all about a political power-grab on the part of Chinatown

The flawed logic here is that Chinatown, Victor Heights, El Pueblo de los Angeles, and Solano Canyon are all quiet, residential communities that share much in common. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that Victor Heights and Solano Canyon are, in fact, quiet, residential communities. El Pueblo is not particularly residential, and is centered around the Plaza. Chinatown, on the other hand, is very-much development-oriented, and it is clearly the intent of the proposed subdivision to consolidate what political power is available to a neighborhood council in Chinatown's hands at the expense of the surrounding stakeholder caucuses.

The existing HCNC does not want the subdivision

The board of directors of the HCNC has submitted a Community Impact Statement (CIS) in opposition to the subdivision proposal. This CIS was addressed to the Los Angeles City Council. You can read the CIS from the HCNC here.

The subdivided NC's bylaws were re-written for Chinatown

One of the obligations of a subdivision formation committee is to write proposed bylaws for the new NC if it is approved. However, there now exist not one, but two sets of bylaws for the HCNNC: one that exists on the City's website and is presumably the official set of bylaws, and the other that was re-written by Ms. Moyes, in which she sets out criteria that will effectively eliminate the possibility of many existing HCNC board members to continue onto the new board, if the subdivision were to be ultimately approved. This is yet another example of the political power-grab on the part of Chinatown and the devious tactics employed by Ms. Moyes.

The HCNNC bylaws on the City's website (the 'official' bylaws) may be found here.

On the other hand, the re-written bylaws that favor Chinatown may be found here.

The critical change that Ms. Moyes inserted is the paragraph entitled "Additional Requirements for Board Eligibility", in which she picked a magical number of 30 months ("one and a quarter terms"); any board member's having served longer than that term becomes ineligible to carry over to the new board. Nowhere does Ms. Moyes explain the logic of her reasoning; but suffice it to say that Ms. Moyes is using this very criterion as her argument that 'some board members will not be able to serve on the new board' as a selling point to garner support for the subdivision.

The subdivision application could not exist without the cooperation of the Department of Neighborhood Development (DONE)

This ill-conceived and fraudulent HCNC subdivision application would never have seen the light of day and survived scrutiny were it not for the dereliction of duty, collusion, and denial of due process on the part of the DONE, the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, which is a City-charted entity. DONE employees are public servants, sworn to uphold the law and the policies and procedures of the City of Los Angeles. Yet there are multiple examples where this has not been done. Such violations leave these public servants subject to administrative, civil, and, in extreme cases, criminal penalties as a result of their actions; yet the Deputy City Attorneys who are charged with advising City entities such as DONE have turned a blind eye to such misdeeds.

The HCNNC subdivision application is ill-conceived and fraudulent. It must be withdrawn in its entirety.

]]><![CDATA[Solano Canyon Is Under Attack!]]>Fri, 20 Apr 2018 21:55:49 GMThttps://www.solanocanyon.org/solanoblog/solano-canyon-is-under-attackBackground

The City of Los Angeles, in 2012, adopted what is called “The Plan for a Citywide System of Neighborhood Councils” (see the link here). Included in its six-point ‘goals and objectives’ is the statement that its intent is to

Promote public participation in City governance and decision making processes so that government is more responsive to local needs and requests and so that more opportunities are created to build partnerships with government to address local needs and requests

Unfortunately, the original plan did not foresee, and therefore did not address, the notion that it might be desirable in the future to subdivide an existing neighborhood council for a number of reasons, including unexpected population growth.

One such neighborhood council is the Historic Cultural Neighborhood Council (HCNC), that includes the historic neighborhoods near Downtown Los Angeles of Chinatown, Little Tokyo, Victor Heights, the Arts District, El Pueblo (essentially the Olvera Street area), and Solano Canyon, the historic neighborhood that was founded in 1866 by Francisco Solano. The website of the HCNC may be found online at https://empowerla.org/hcnc/.

The Problem Facing Solano Canyon Today

A cohort from Chinatown is currently trying to subdivide the HCNC, cutting out Little Tokyo and the Arts District and consolidating the HCNC’s political power in Chinatown. The proposed subdivision would be called the Historic Cultural North Neighborhood Council (HCNNC). This blog is an attempt to document the chaotic, underhanded, and completely unprofessional manner with which the HCNNC subdivision application has been handled by the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE) and the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners (BONC) from the beginning of this unfortunate and one-sided process and make it a matter of public record. DONE and BONC are staffed by public servants, who are bound by a set of standards that, when they are violated, may leave the individuals involved subject to administrative, civil, and sometimes even criminal, sanctions.

There is ostensibly a process (see http://empowerla.org/subdivision/) for subdivision of a neighborhood council; but the process as it is described online has either not been followed or seems to have been changed at the whim of DONE, in particular by Mike Fong, Director of Policy and Government Relations. Mr. Fong clearly has political aspirations: he was a Field Deputy for former Councilman Ed Reyes; he ran, unsuccessfully, for the California Assembly (losing to Jimmy Gomez); and he has expressed his interest in running for a Los Angeles City Council seat. The leading proponent of the HCNNC subdivision proposal is Angelica Lopez Moyes, who is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the HCNC, the host council.

Communication between Mike Fong and Angelica Lopez Moyes has been sporadic and contradictory — at least that part of their communication that is a matter of public record; Mr. Fong seems to have gone out of his way to apply existing procedural rules only when it suits or abets Ms. Moyes’ project. That Ms. Moyes is leading an effort to subdivide the Historic Cultural Neighborhood Council (HCNC) is curious, since Ms. Moyes is a resident of Echo Park and not of any of the communities that are part of either the existing HCNC or the proposed HCNNC.

A case in point: On Thursday, 16 November 2017, Mr. Fong wrote to Ms. Moyes in an email, which says, in part

Hi, Angelica ... The subdivision process will open soon. Applications will be accepted until January 15, 2018.

This shows clearly that Mr. Fong was well-aware, at least by 16 November 2017, the date of this email, that Ms. Moyes intended to submit a subdivision application. While there is, on the surface, of course, nothing wrong with the fact that Mr. Fong and Ms. Moyes had communicated prior to that date, it clearly establishes the fact of their early communication. There has been a pervasive feeling on the part of some stakeholders that much of the subdivision process has been conducted ‘behind closed doors’ in an apparent effort to conceal the overall process from a large number of stakeholders in caucuses surrounding Chinatown, especially those areas where Ms. Moyes believed there was latent opposition to her proposal.

It is clear from the actions of Ms. Moyes and the HCNNC Formation Committee that the purpose of the subdivision is to consolidate political power in the Chinatown caucus. There are numerous examples, but this one is striking; this is an email from Ms. Moyes to Mr. Fong on 14 March 2018 (using one of the three email addresses she uses):

Mr. Fong,

Attached please find a cover letter and the updated Bylaws.

Note: There is a significant Bylaws change under the Board Structure section. This change resulted from opposition feedback received at the BONC meeting held on March 12. Support documentation to follow in a separate email. Most of the documentation is in response to criticism received and it demonstrates that we have engaged further with fellow Stakeholders throughout this process [Emphasis added].

Thank you,
HCNC Subdivision Application Committee

An attachment to this email included the ‘significant bylaws change’ referred to by Ms. Moyes in her email. In it, of 20 proposed board positions for the subdivided neighborhood council, three each are allotted to Victor Heights, El Pueblo, and Solano Canyon; five are allotted to Chinatown; and there are five at-large seats plus one youth representative. If the five at-large seats were to be acquired by Chinatown, then that caucus would constitute a quorum at any Board meeting, which is defined in the proposed by-laws as ten members’ being present. This means that, any time Chinatown would wish to conduct any business of the council on its own behalf and for its own benefit, that caucus would then be able to do so without the participation of any other caucus.

It appears that someone is intent on structuring the board positions for the proposed HCNC subdivision in such a way that guarantees that Chinatown will retain enough power to determine any decisions made by the new board. In an email dated 15 March 2018, three days after a BONC meeting on Monday, 12 March 2018, Ms. Moyes sent an email to Mr. Fong at DONE that stated the following:

We went ahead and inserted the language for limiting seats in a section of the Bylaws which were sent yesterday. Perhaps we may explain in more detail our concern when communicating about the other questions that we had. Hopefully, we are able to connect soon. Currently working to pull together all of the work done since the BONC meeting including correspondence with those opposing the solutions we arrived at together [Emphasis added].

One can only conclude that the first sentence of this email refers to the concern on the part of the subdivision committee that they need to structure the allocation of board member positions in such a way as to confer as much political power in Chinatown as possible so that the result will be complete control of the new neighborhood council by Chinatown.

Ms. Moyes is always quick to assert that all of her actions are for the benefit of the proposed subdivision council as a whole; notice how, in the above-referenced email, she makes that very assertion. In fact, however, the actions of the HCNNC Formation Committee demonstrate nothing of the sort. The committee has gone to great lengths not to conduct outreach in areas that it feels are not completely supportive of the subdivision process.

As a result of several California Public Records Act (CA PRA) requests, it has become clear that much of what Ms. Moyes writes is simply gratuitous nonsense and, in many cases, is simply untrue — that is, unsupported by fact. Whether that failure of truth is intentional on the part of Ms. Moyes is unclear. Ms. Moyes, however, has positioned herself as an expert in everything she says, and her attitude is clearly that the reader is expected to accept that whatever she says is unimpeachable because she says it; the email to Mr. Fong from Ms. Moyes on 14 March 2018, referred to above, is typical of her expression of that attitude. By her saying that

... [M]ost of the documentation is in response to criticism received and it demonstrates that we have engaged further with fellow Stakeholders throughout this process [Emphasis added].

This ridiculous assertion on the part of Ms. Moyes lauding the subdivision committee’s outreach again demonstrates nothing of the sort; what it shows is that Ms. Moyes’ attitude is that everything she says is always right, and that her assertion at the moment should suffice as proof of that ‘fact’.

The HCNNC subdivision application has apparently been a part of Ms. Moyes’ plan for more than a year; the actual application was put together hastily after that 16 November 2017 date. In an email from Ms. Moyes to board members of the HCNC dated 20 December 2018, Ms. Moyes states:

Further in the same email, Ms. Moyes asserts the following:

Ms. Moyes’ contention that she (or members of her committee) contacted — or at least intended to contact — all HCNC board members individually is patently false. On the basis of their statements, no HCNC board member from Solano Canyon or Victor Heights (the two neighborhoods referred to in the email quoted above) has ever been contacted by Ms. Moyes’ committee. Several HCNC board members report that they attempted to schedule a meeting through Ms. Moyes, but she made herself conveniently unavailable. This issue is but one of the many falsehoods that the subdivision committee has perpetrated.

Ms. Moyes submitted a three-page document as part of a CA PRA request that consisted of responses to comments from people who spoke on the record at the 12 March 2018 BONC meeting; a sample is provided, below.

Alejandra Flores, Los Angeles Theater Academy (Solano Canyon Stakeholder)
“feels all behind closed doors”
Documents included : Email correspondence with Ms. Flores following meeting to address her concerns
Allison Rubenfeld, Solano Canyon Resident
“Inadequate outreach”
Ron Fong, HCNC Board Member (Little Tokyo)
“I support self-determination, but I don’t feel Solano, El Pueblo and Victor Heights outreached to”
Danny Young, HCNC Board Member (Solano Canyon)
“residents were not contacted”

Ron Fong and Danny Young are HCNC board members who have stated that they were never contacted by anyone from the HCNNC formation committee, including Ms. Moyes; her response, however, is another example of the rationale she uses to convince everyone that the committee is ‘doing everything right’.

Outreach has been ongoing.

Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. Outreach, especially in the peripheral caucuses like Victor Heights and Solano Canyon, ranged from limited to nonexistent. The emphasis from the beginning has been on Chinatown, Chinatown, and only Chinatown.

While the 15 January 2018 deadline appears, on the surface, to be a hard date for submission of subdivision applications, that date quickly became meaningless in the present instance.

Quoting from the above-referenced website,

Outreach – the outreach process used to identify stakeholders within the proposed Neighborhood Council boundaries must be described in detail and 200 to 500 signatures from stakeholders that have an interest within the proposed Neighborhood Council boundaries must be submitted and should reflect the broadest array of stakeholders who will actively participate in the proposed Neighborhood Council [Emphasis added]. Stakeholder signature petitions must include the stakeholder’s first and last name, a contact email and/or phone, type of stakeholder (live, work, own real property or community interest) and the physical address associated with their stakeholdership. The physical address cannot be a post office box. The petition should also include language that states that the stakeholders understand that they are signing to support the creation of a new Neighborhood Council via the subdivision of existing Neighborhood Councils [Emphasis added]. Please include the names of the proposed and existing Neighborhood Councils.

This section was violated repeatedly in the case of the HCNNC subdivision application. First, the stipulation of ‘200 to 500 stakeholders’ is vague as to its exact meaning: does it mean that any number between 200 and 500 is acceptable? Does it mean that 200 and 500 signatures are minimum and maximum numbers? Does it mean that 201 signatures may be acceptable in one case, but 499 may not be in another? Does it mean that DONE may accept whatever number it wishes, and if that is so, depending on what, exactly? No criteria are specified.
Second, the language regarding a certification that stakeholders understand that they are signing is critical here. How is that certification made? Of the eventual total of about 250 signatures that were submitted — and I maintain that there is ample evidence to suspect that many of those signatures were obtained fraudulently — more than 90% were Chinese names; and at the above-referenced public meeting held by BONC on Monday, 12 March 2018, Don Toy said on the record that many signatures from Cathay Manor were obtained from stakeholders who not only did not understand what they were signing, they signed because they were told to do so. (One of the reasons many of these signers did not understand what they were signing is that the subdivision application was never translated from English into Chinese or any other language for those who are not proficient in English.) Several observers at the meeting say that the advising Deputy City Attorney who is assigned to advice the HCNC, Carmen Hawkins, appeared to be signaling to Mr. Toy while he was speaking. What message was Ms. Hawkins attempting to convey to Mr. Toy? It was as if she were ‘warning’ Mr. Toy not to say too much on-the-record, thereby revealing himself.

The application process is specified in the “Plan for a Citywide System of Neighborhood Councils (Plan)”. Article III, Section 2 of the above-named ‘Plan’ states, in part,

If, at any time during the processes described in this section, DONE determines that an application is incomplete, it shall return the application to the applicants along with a detailed list in writing of the missing components required in a certification application and suggestions on how to incorporate missing components. Applicants whose certification application was determined to be incomplete and returned by DONE may at any time re-submit the application after amending it to meet all the necessary criteria [Emphasis added].

A CA PRA request to DONE to determine whether this proscription was followed failed to provide evidence that such notification was ever made, which is yet another failure on the part of DONE to follow established protocol and procedure.

Third, the HCNC is the neighborhood council that would be affected by the HCNNC subdivision, were it to become finalized; yet, a number of emails provided through a CA PRA request to HCNC clearly demonstrates that there was significant communication going on between Ms. Moyes and others about the proposed subdivision well before the Board of HCNC was first notified of the subdivision. This smacks of an effort, lead by Ms. Moyes, to keep information from HCNC, while at the same time, Ms. Moyes was working with the Echo Park Neighborhood Council (EPNC) to garner support for the subdivision. This is particularly troubling, especially since Tad Yenawine, the President of EPNC, and Ms. Moyes, at least at one time, had an easily-provable romantic involvement. Mr. Yenawine should have insisted on recusing himself in all matters related to the HCNNC subdivision application because of his relationship with Ms. Moyes; yet he did not. In fact, Ms. Moyes actively solicited, and even was able to obtain, a letter of support from EPNC for the subdivision application. It was only after vigorous and vocal objection on the part of HCNC to this behind-the-scenes activity that the letter of support was eventually rescinded. All of this occurred before anyone on the HCNC board was even made aware that Ms. Moyes was preparing a subdivision application.

Fourth, there is ample reason to believe that some — perhaps many — of the signatures that were obtained in support of the subdivision application were obtained fraudulently. As a case in point, one such signature was that of Mei Lau. Ms. Lau has stated on the record that she did not sign the signature page. Her on-the-record assertion must be accepted at face value, absent proof to the contrary. This is a portion of an email from Ms. Lau that was part of a CA PRA request #20265

In the manner that has become typical of the tenor of Ms. Moyes’ response to any and all criticism, she said that she believes that the signature of Ms. Lau is genuine. It should be pointed out that what Ms. Moyes believes is of no relevance whatsoever; in point of fact, if Ms. Moyes cannot prove that Ms. Lau’s signature is genuine, then one must believe the on-the-record assertion of Ms. Lau that she did not sign the page; and the only conclusion that can be drawn from this conflicting evidence is that Ms. Lau’s signature was obtained fraudulently. If that is the case, one must wonder whether other signatures were also obtained fraudulently. Given that it was proved that signatures were obtained fraudulently for the HCNC board election two years ago, in which 430 people were registered using a single email address (the original owner of which was Don Toy) as well as from a single physical address (Cathay Manor), is it not prudent to verify the method that was used to verify signatures for something as important as a subdivision application that will physically divide the HCNC? Remember that Don Toy stated on the record at the BONC meeting12 March 2018 that he obtained signatures for the HCNNC subdivision application from the same Cathay Manor, the subject of the fraudulent signatures from the HCNC election two years previously.

The issue of an insufficient number of signatures — some likely fraudulent or, at best, fraudulently-acquired — was addressed by several people at the 12 March 2018 BONC meeting; here is a sample, including Ms. Moyes’ response:

Lydia Moreno, HCNC Board Member (Solano Canyon)
“incomplete and fraudulent”
Laura Velkei, HCNC Board Member (At Large)
“Flawed subdivision process” and number of required signatures not met

Response : Signatures were vetted by DONE and not all were accepted, yet the minimum requirement of 200 signatures was met. All signatures gathered through January 15, 2018, and pages sent to DONE before January 16, 2018. All pages resent to DONE upon request.

This is a blatant falsehood. The fact is that there were many, many pages of signatures that were not submitted to DONE until 30 January 2018, which is evidenced by the following email, and which date is two weeks after the 15 January 2018 deadline. This is a portion of an email from DONE dated 16 February 2018 in response to CA PRA Request 20265 that was submitted 10 February 2018:

In other words, Ms. Moyes assertion that “... all pages [were] sent to DONE before January 16, 2018” is not simply a falsehood; it should be called for what it is: a lie. It is a statement that is used intentionally for the purpose of deception. And ‘... before January 16, 2018” means that the signature pages had to have been submitted at least by the day before, which was 15 January 2018, the ostensible deadline for submission of the subdivision application; yet the initial subdivision application was submitted at 9:17 pm on 15 January 2018 by Ms. Moyes. The document was incomplete in that it contained only 128 signatures, 12 of which were from EPNC board members who were ineligible to sign and were subsequently invalidated. The ‘bottom line’ here is that, by any standard, the subdivision application was incomplete as of 15 January 2018.

As stated above, a CA PRA request provided no evidence that DONE rejected the initial submission or sent the required letter of explanation to the formation committee to explain the nature of the deficiency or deficiencies. A separate CA PRA request to DONE on 22 January 2018 requested all attachments to the HCNNC subdivision application. The request was answered the following day, 23 January 2018. The requestor, Lydia Moreno (HCNC Board member and Treasurer) then asked, by email,

Is this all the pages? I’m interested in the signature pages? Is this all there is[?]

This query was answered by DONE on 24 January 2018:

I confirmed with staff that everything that was attached to the application was forwarded to you.

In short, Ms. Moyes’ statement,

All signatures gathered through January 15, 2018, and pages sent to DONE before January 16, 2018 [Emphasis added].

was a lie.

Finally, this statement by Ms. Moyes is staggering in its falsity. Falsity is ‘the fact of being untrue, incorrect, or insincere’.

Speaker (name to be confirmed)
Solano Canyon will be negatively impacted by development projects as a result of subdivision.
“Steamrolled by development”
A. Moyes Response : In fact, the opposite is true. Since giving more focus to the areas within and around Chinatown and demanding more outreach, presenters of development projects have come to area community groups to gain feedback and respond to community concerns.

Ms. Moyes, once again, is employing her tactic of assertion in the face of any challenge in an attempt to dominate opinion — even if her assertions are, in fact, lies or at best inaccuracies — and it is clear that one of the primary reasons, and perhaps the only reason, for the current HCNNC subdivision application is that Chinatown wishes to be its own neighborhood council — at least, that is what Ms. Moyes has asserted.

The relevant statement is

... a group has gathered in Chinatown to organize a campaign to separate from the Historic Cultural Neighborhood Council (HCNC), and form its own Council.

Notice that the contact person is none other than Ms. Moyes. Since Ms. Moyes asserts that Chinatown wishes to become its own neighborhood council, then what is the need for the deceptive tactics and falsehoods surrounding the fraudulent HCNNC application? Would Ms. Moyes not be better-served if she were simply to submit an application to create a stand-alone Chinatown Neighborhood Council?

One of the primary objectives in Ms. Moyes desperate attempt to force the ill-conceived HCNNC subdivision application through the process, aside from the obvious attempt at a power-grab by Chinatown at the expense of the surrounding neighborhood caucuses, is to paint a derogatory and altogether false picture of the state of the HCNC:

Thank you for the opportunity to submit this Application for Subdivision of the Historic Cultural Neighborhood Council. We, The Committee, place our trust that you will thoroughly consider not only the Application, but also the current state of our neighborhood and the ongoing problems we have neither overcome nor addressed for many years [Emphasis added].

Collusion, Dereliction Of Duty, and Denial Of Due Process

This entire subdivision application process is so fraught with dishonesty, outright lies, fraud, and likely collusion between Ms. Moyes and Mr Fong that it deserves nothing more than to be dismissed out-of-hand in its entirety.

Finally, one must ask: Why has Carmen Hawkins, as the advising Deputy City Attorney, not addressed these many obvious problems and clear violations of protocol and procedure with the HCNNC, DONE, and BONC during this process; it seems that the City had taken the position simply to turn its head and blindly allow this fraud to be perpetrated on the HCNC. In the end, it may be likely that litigation is the only remedy that the stakeholders of the HCNC have left to them to correct this atrocity.Here, Ms. Moyes is, once again, attempting to assert her clear authority to determine what is, and what is not, either important or true. Were it not so potentially damaging to the neighborhood caucuses of the HCNC, her patently self-serving attempts would be pathetic.

]]><![CDATA[September 13th, 1866—2016]]>Tue, 11 Oct 2016 21:13:14 GMThttps://www.solanocanyon.org/solanoblog/october-11th-2016September 13th, 2016 marked the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Solano Canyon community. It was on that date in 1866 that Francisco Solano purchased 17 acres of land in the Stone Quarry Hills that became the community of Solano and which is known today as Solano Canyon, an historic Los Angeles community that is now 150 years old.

Francisco Solano's original 1866 purchase [Solano-Reeve Collection, The Huntington Library, San Marino]

The 17 acres that Francisco Solano purchased is the narrow block outlined in red in the center of the map. Solano originally asked to purchase the entire 35-acre block, but the City agreed to sell him only the 17-acre portion in the center.

There was a stream that ran the length of the property. The stream emanated from a spring that was located higher up in Solano Canyon. The street at the bottom of the map is Buena Vista Street, which became North Broadway in 1909. This property is now all of that portion of Solano Canyon Southeast of the Arroyo Seco Parkway (formerly CA-110).

A Sesquicentennial Commemoration

To celebrate the sesquicentennial of the founding of the Solano community, the author had a commemorative coin struck, both in bronze and pure silver. The coin measures 39 mm in diameter (1.54"), and the silver coin contains 1 troy ounce of pure, .999 silver.

The coin was struck both to celebrate the sesquicentennial of the founding of the Solano Canyon community and to honor the author's great-great-grandparents, Francisco Solano and his wife, Rosa Casanova.

Solano Canyon Sesquicentennial Commemorative coin

]]><![CDATA[Cruise through time up Buena Vista Street]]>Sun, 27 Sep 2015 00:05:26 GMThttps://www.solanocanyon.org/solanoblog/cruise-through-time-up-buena-vista-streetThis blog traces the genealogy of Buena Vista Street, which we all know today as North Broadway. But it was not always so; Buena Vista Street has undergone several name changes over time, although its alignment has remained relatively constant.

Follow along as we trace the history of this, well, 'historic' Los Angeles street, from Downtown to the Los Angeles River and beyond ...

The pathway to Eternity

The View up Eternity Street from Fort Hill, ca. 1879 [CHS-7078]

No, this isn't a secret recipe for how to get to Heaven. Each of us has his or her own ideas about how that works.

One of the first things that was required of the newly-formed pueblo that was Los Angeles in 1781 was to figure out how to dispose of those who died. We do not know the exact location of the first church, nor that of the Plaza, for that matter; but it is reasonable to assume that the first burials took place in a cemetery at, or near, the church itself.

Eventually — and like the location of the first cemetery, the exact date is uncertain — the Catholic Church acquired some land a short distance to the northeast of the pueblo, at the mouth of a ravine against the base of the Stone Quarry Hills. The ravine was the second one to the East that came down from the hills and it became known as Cemetery Ravine, for obvious reasons. The exact location and size of the cemetery is well-documented, however, as shown on several early maps of the area, including this one from 1857.

Location of Calvary Cemetery, 1857 [SR Map 0335]

The street that led from Downtown to Calvary Cemetery was called Calle Eternidad, which was later Anglicized to Eternity Street Like all streets in Los Angeles, it was a dusty, unpaved street that, by the time it reached Calvary Cemetery, was little more than a trail for horses, burros, and wagons.

Here comes Fort Street

Beginning at the south side of Fort Moore Hill and running to First Street was a street that is shown on Lt. E.O.C. Ord's original 1849 map of Los Angeles named Fort Street. Ord's map was later incorporated into other maps, including this one made in 1853 and this one made in 1857 by George Hansen.

Downtown Streets from 1849, 1853, and 1857 [SR Map 0336]

It's nearly impossible to read the street names on this old map, so here is the same map with the street names annotated.

Downtown Streets from 1849, 1853, and 1857, annotated

Fort Street is not shown on these maps. It is roughly parallel to Eternity Street, and to the left of Short Street. In 1890, Fort Street, from 10th Street up to 1st Street, was renamed Broadway. From 1st Street up to California Street, it became North Broadway.

Meanwhile, people who wanted to get to the north of Los Angeles, or to east of the river, followed a simple trail that began at the end of Eternity Street, at Calvary Cemetery. The dotted line on this map from 1868 shows the trail that existed from Calvary Cemetery to the river. Also of interest on this map are the locations of la Zanja madre and the water wheel.

Map showing the trail from Calvary Cemetery to the river [SR Map 0375]

Bueva Vista Street becomes a reality

Then, in 1884, Eternity Street was renamed Buena Vista Street and was established all the way to the Los Angeles River. The parcel labeled "Solano Heirs" is the original, 17-acre parcel that became the first 100 lots of the Solano Canyon community.

Broadway and Buena Vista Street are connected

But there was no easy way to get from North Broadway onto Buena Vista Street without going around Fort Moore Hill, so a tunnel was bored beneath Fort Moore Hill, which allowed North Broadway to connect directly with Buena Vista Street. The tunnel was opened to traffic in 1901 ...

The Broadway Tunnel, which opened to traffic in 1901. It was 65 feet from the street to the top of Fort Moore Hill.

After much hand-wringing, Buena Vista Street became North Broadway in 1909

There were several proposals to the City Council over time to change the name of Buena Vista Street to North Broadway. These proposals were usually met with a chorus of objection by those who lived along the street and who bemoaned the loss of the original, Spanish names of many of Los Angeles' Streets. Calle Principal became Main Street; Calle Primavera became Spring Street; Calle del Toro became Bull Street; Calle de las Arispas became Wasp Street; and on an on and on ... And Calle Eternidad became Eternity Street.

And even though Calle Eternidad became Buena Vista Street — a hybrid between the Spanish Buena Vista and the English 'Street' — eventually, in 1909, Buena Vista Street did, indeed, become North Broadway.

This 1897 map helps to understand the streets

This 1897 map by Sidney Reeve, surveying partner of Alfred Solano, helps to make clear the location of some of the early Los Angeles streets.

Portion of an 1897 map showing the streets of Los Angeles [SR Map 0744]

Begin at the left-hand edge of this strip of map. Locate Main Street, near the center of the left-hand edge of the map. About four blocks in, Main Street splits into Main Street and Broadway. After another two blocks, Main Street splits again, into Main Street and Spring Street.

Now go back to the Main Street-Broadway split. Follow Broadway about ten blocks to the right to the Broadway Tunnel. Upon exiting the tunnel, one is on Buena Vista Street. Buena Vista Street may then be followed all the way to the Los Angeles River.

After the name change of 1909, this entire route became Broadway and North Broadway, which was eventually extended across the river all the way to Avenue 18, the portion east of the river replacing Downey Avenue.

This extension east of the river was made possible by construction of the Broadway Bridge over the Los Angeles River, which was opened to traffic in 1911. Elysian Park may be seen in the photograph on the heights beyond the bridge. This view is from the South, looking North.

Broadway Bridge across the Los Angeles River [Library of Congress]

At one time, Buena Vista Street, now North Broadway, provided a beautiful access point to Elysian Park.

Buena Vista Street entrance to Elysian Park, ca. 1920s

]]><![CDATA[Fray Junipero Serra, O.F.M]]>Thu, 24 Sep 2015 18:33:09 GMThttps://www.solanocanyon.org/solanoblog/fray-junipero-serra-ofm

Pope Francis delivering the Homily in Spanish in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. yesterday

Statue of Junipero Serra in Mallorca, Spain

Fray Junipero Serra, the Spanish Franciscan priest who started the California Mission system, was canonized yesterday, Wednesday, 23 September 2015 by Francis, the first Hispanic Pope, during a Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conceptio in Washington, D.C. Serra is the first person to be canonized in the United States, and he is the first Hispanic saint. His canonization was endorsed by many North American Catholics, especially in California, although he is not well-known outside of California.

Working primarily in las Californias de Nueva España — Baja and Álta California — Serra founded his first mission, Misión San Fernando Rey de España de Velicatá, in Baja California in 1769. In addition, he founded the first nine of the 21 missions in Álta California from 1769 to 1782; they are:

Misión Basilica San Diego de Alcalá, San Diego

Misión San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, Carmel-by-the-Sea

Misión San Antonio de Padua, Jolon
Misión San Gabriel Arcángel, San Gabriel
Misión San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, San Luis Obispo
Mision San Juan Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano
Misión San Francisco de Asís, San Francisco
Misión Santa Clara de Asís, Santa Clara
Misión San Buenaventura, Ventura

It would be remiss not to acknowledge that Serra's canonization is not without controversy. While there are Native Americans who protest Serra's treatment of indigenous peoples, there are others who point out that he lived and worked during a time of colonization of the Americas by Spain, and that his actions were within the historical context of that period.

Serra died August 23, 1784. He is buried beneath the sanctuary floor at Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo.

The crowd in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception

]]><![CDATA[A Name Grander Than The Town Itself]]>Fri, 04 Sep 2015 19:22:06 GMThttps://www.solanocanyon.org/solanoblog/a-name-grander-than-the-town-itself

Today is the official celebration of the 234th anniversary of the founding of the City of Los Angeles. This is the official date, although there is reason to believe, from the distance of 234 years, that that date may be arbitrary. What matters, though, is that we have a date we can use for our birthday celebrations.

This blog tells a bit about what happened 234 years ago, including the names of the people who were involved in founding this great city that we love today — Los Angeles, California.

El pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles sobre el Río de Porciuncula

It's a grand name, and it is debated whether it is even accurate, and to what extent. Whatever the name, however, it is surely grander than the tiny pueblo that sprang up near río Porciuncula, or what we now call the Los Angeles River.

The indigenous people who lived here then were called Tongva after their eponymous Uto-Aztecan language. They called the region Yaa. Their village nearest the pueblo was called Yang-naa (there are various spellings), and they held council at the base of the then-400-year-old sycamore tree that grew in the fertile soil on the banks of the Los Angeles River and which came to be called el Aliso by the settlers.

The Plaza in Los Angeles, with el Aliso in the background [ca. 1860]

Who were los Pobladores?

There were 44 of them — 11 families, comprising 22 adults and 22 children. They were recruited from various parts of México and one was from Spain. They came from Nayarít, Sinaloa, Jalisco, Durango, and Chihuahua in México; and Cádiz in Spain. Five heads-of-household were from Sinaloa; two were from Jalisco; and one each were from Nayarít, Durango, Chihuahua, and Cádiz.

They were also of diverse racial backgrounds. Remember that Spanish North America had an extensive casta system that classified people based upon their ethnic backgrounds — at various times, upwards of 30–40 separate classifications were used. William Mason, historian and co-founder of the Los Angeles Historical Society, explains:

"Of the 44 original pobladores who founded Los Angeles, only two were white … Of the other 42, 26 had some degree of African ancestry and 16 were Indians or mestizos." .
— William M. Mason, Los Angeles Times, 1975

It should be pointed out that the census that was taken on December 31, 1781 — just 42 days after the original padrón — lists not eleven families, but twelve: it included Antonio Rodrígues, 50, chino, from Manila, viudo, and his 8-year-old daughter, Juana María. It is not known whether Rodrígues was actually present at the founding in September; he was certainly not present for the November padrón.

La Escolta

A miliitary escort of four soldados de cuera — three privates commanded by a corporal — was assigned to ensure the safety of los pobladores on their trek from Misión San Gabriel Arángel to the site of the new pueblo. Like the settlers themselves, the members of the escolta traveled with their families. The escolta was comprised of:

Corporal José Vicente Felíz. Español. His wife died in childbirth in Sonora, but Corporal Felíz and his six children arrived safely in Los Angeles.

Private Roque Jacinto de Cota (the author's fourth-great-grandfather). Español. He arrived in Los Angeles with his wife, Juana María Verdugo. A daughter, María Celia Bonifacia de Cota, married José de Jesús Felíz, son of Corporal José Vicente Felíz (above) in Loreto, Baja California.

Private Antonio de Cota. Español. A younger brother of Private Roque Jacinto de Cota (above). He was accompanied by his wife and two children.
Private Francisco Salvadór de Lugo. Español. A daughter, Rosa María de Lugo, married Pablo Antonio de Cota, a brother of escolta soldiers Roque Jacinto de Cota and Antonio de Cota (above).

Both the pobladores and the members of the escolta are commemorated by bronze plaques in the plaza.

Los Pobladores

La Escolta

The pueblo began to grow immediately

A padrón was taken in 1790, and the original pueblo had grown to 31 households and 139 persons in just under nine years.

Felíz 234º Cumpliaños, Los Ángeles!

So if you love Los Angeles as I do, perhaps you can take a moment today to reflect on the great diversity and enormous effort and sacrifice it took on the part of those brave souls to have left their homes in México and traveled to el Pueblo so long ago. Their spirit and determination are present in modern-day Los Angeles, and we should be both proud of them and determined to keep that spirit and determination alive today.

Gracias por leer.

For further study ...

For those who may be interested in following the genealogies of los Pobladores or members of la Escolta, may I suggest the following resources:

Northrup, Marie E., Spanish-Mexican Families of Early California, Volume III. Burbank, California: Southern California Genealogical Society, Inc., 2004.

Early California Population Project. San Marino, California: The Huntington Library, 2006; http://www.huntington.org/Information/ECPPmain.htm

]]><![CDATA[A solution to the traffic problem in Solano Canyon on Dodger game days]]>Mon, 24 Aug 2015 10:57:07 GMThttps://www.solanocanyon.org/solanoblog/a-solution-to-the-traffic-problem-in-solano-canyon-on-dodger-game-daysLest anyone thinks that this blog is about the Dodgers as a baseball team, which is the pride of Los Angeles, rest assured: it is not; rather, it is about the imperial attitude of the Dodgers management toward the Solano Canyon community and the lack of civic responsibility on the part of Councilmanic District 1 toward the very real concerns of the community.

Step 1: Acknowledge the problem

The first — and most critical — step in solving a problem is to acknowledge that there is, in fact, a problem to begin with. Solano Canyon is faced with not one, but two, problems on Dodger game days: traffic and noise. The noise issue is one that exists primarily on the days of Friday home games; but the traffic problem exists literally every day there is a home game — and that means 81 dates during the seven months from April 4th to October 5th in 2015.

Step 2: Look at the issue

The issue of why traffic is a problem for Solano Canyon on Dodger game days may be seen graphically by looking at how traffic flows to the Academy Gate of Dodger Stadium through the Solano Canyon community. This issue has been explored on these pages before; see here, here, and here.

In this image, the red line is the main route through Solano Canyon to access the Academy Gate on Dodger game days. The yellow arrows show how traffic gains entrance to Solano Canyon. The upper white line is the Academy Road access from CA-110 westbound and the lower white line is the Solano Avenue access from CA-110 eastbound. Altogether, more than 62% of the total lengths of these streets is used for stadium access, despite the provision in the Dodgers' Conditional Use Permit (CUP) "... that only short stretches of a few local residential streets will be directly utilized and hence fewer residential property owners will be inconvenienced by traffic ...". [Emphasis mine]

"... only short stretches of a few local residential streets will be directly utilized and hence fewer residential property owners will be inconvenienced by traffic ..." — from the Dodgers' Conditional Use Permit, 1960

Step 3: Do some research

In 1996, neighbors in the Echo Park community argued that stadium traffic 'overwhelmed' their community. That year, attendance at Dodger games was 3.2 million people.

What happened? Dodgers owner Peter O'Malley (son of Walter O'Malley, who brought the Dodgers to Los Angeles in 1958) agreed to close the Scott Gate. The gate remained closed entirely for 11 years, until 2007, and partially until 2013 (see below). In 2006, attendance at Dodger games was 3.8 million; and in 2014, it was still at 3.8 million.

In 2007, when the Scott Gate was reopened, team officials argued that the Dodgers had a unilateral right to open the gate. The rationale for that bizarre statement was not explained at the time. Ed Reyes, City Councilmember for CD-1, said at the time that he would prefer the gate remained closed. Eric Garcetti, City Councilmember for CD-13 — and now Mayor — said, "We don't want a return to the '80s, when people couldn't get out of their homes."

The Dodger management, under owner Frank McCourt — a man well-known for his hubris — then agreed that they would use the Scott Gate only for egress from the stadium — but not for ingress — and that they would use the gate for ingress only if the game were sold out, meaning that a larger-than-normal crowd was expected. That 2007, egress-only policy remained in effect between 2007 and 2013, when the gate was unilaterally opened by new owners Guggenheim Management Group for both ingress to, and egress from, the stadium. [Source: Los Angeles Times, 18 April 2007]

"We don't want a return to the '80s, when people couldn't get out of their homes." — then-CD-13 Councilmember Eric Garcetti

Step 4: Look at the current situation

It is worthwhile to take another look at the five gates to Dodger Stadium and the access roads that lead to them.

Downtown Gate: The 'preferred' gate for access to the stadium. The Downtown Gate is served by an exit from the CA-110 freeway both eastbound and westbound, and it is also accessible directly from Stadium Way.
Sunset Gate: Accessible from W. Sunset Boulevard via Elysian Park Avenue as well as from Stadium Way.
Scott Gate: Accessible from Stadium Way; it was traffic using Scott Avenue instead and driving through residential Echo Park that led to its closure in 1996.
Golden State Gate: Accessible from Stadium Way either direction. Close to, and accessible from, Riverside Drive.
Academy Gate: While theoretically accessible from Stadium Way and Academy Road, a vast majority of traffic uses Solano Avenue from North Broadway for access.

Step 5: Find a solution

Now comes the tricky part: finding a solution to the problem. Remember, the problem is this: Dodger Stadium traffic to the Academy Gate ties up the streets of Solano Canyon for hours on game days.

The solution, then, would seem to be obvious:

Close the Academy Gate!

Remember, the Scott Gate was closed completely for 11 years, from 1996–2007, and it remained closed for ingress to the stadium until 2013. Echo Park thereby enjoyed 17 years of reduced stadium traffic in their neighborhood. Can Solano Canyon find a similar solution?

If Solano Canyon residents want to solve this problem, they need to be mindful of the facts and be able to present a workable solution.

The big problem

The biggest obstacle to any community-proposed solution is, without doubt, the Dodger management, aided and abetted by the seemingly total indifference to these issues on the part of the office of the current City Councilmember for CD-1. The Dodgers have an imperial attitude toward their neighboring communities — they won't even respond to individual e-mails, although they promised they would — and the CD-1 staff simply offers platitudes and says they are 'studying the problem'.

Meanwhile, nothing gets done, and the traffic problem in Solano Canyon on Dodger game days worsens by the day, season-by-season.

]]><![CDATA[A Massive Non-response to Community Concerns from CD-1 and the Dodgers]]>Sat, 01 Aug 2015 03:48:45 GMThttps://www.solanocanyon.org/solanoblog/a-massive-non-response-to-community-concerns-from-cd-1-and-the-dodgers

No, it isn't the Fourth of July. The image above is a stand-in for the unexpected — and virtually unannounced — private fireworks display at Dodger Stadium on the night of Thursday, July 30th, and which will be followed by yet another fireworks display tonight, Friday, July 31st, following a Dodger baseball game.

An unvarnished look into how CD-1 and the Dodgers are collectively failing the residents of Solano Canyon

On August 4, 1960, under the administration of Mayor Norris Poulson, Huber E. Smutz, Chief Zoning Adminstrator for the Office of Zoning Administration for the City of Los Angeles, issued a finding of fact and determination in a case entitled Z. A. CASE NO. 15430: Dodger Stadium Site — Chavez Ravine Area, which became, in the absence of any appeal, the Conditional Use Permit (CUP) for construction and operation of Dodger Stadium.

The existence of Dodger Stadium has had a major, negative impact on the residents of Solano Canyon in two primary and incredibly-important areas: traffic and noise. The issue of traffic has been explored on these pages several times already: see Community Service and A Disaster Waiting to Happen.

The issue of traffic

The issue of noise

Then there is the issue of noise. Quoting again from paragraph 3 of the CUP:

This exerpt from paragraph 3 of the CUP addresses the issue of the potential impact of traffic on the community — remember, this was in 1960, a full two years before the Dodgers began to play baseball at Dodger Stadium:

Note the reference in the second sentence that "... only short stretches of a few local residential streets will be directly utilized ...". [Emphasis mine.]

Let's look at that impact on the Solano Canyon community. Dodger game-day traffic, despite the DOT sign above to the contrary, is free to use both Solano Avenue (from North Broadway or from eastbound CA-110) and Academy Road (from westbound CA-110). The total length of Solano Avenue is 3,502', of which, 2,408' is used today for stadium access along with portions of both Amador and Jarvis Streets. That is more than 69% of Solano Avenue's total length; for Academy Road, more than 42% of its length is used to provide stadium access. Between the two streets, more than 61% of their combined total length is used on Dodger game days to provide stadium access. Does that sound remotely like "... only short stretches of a few residential streets ..." to you? I didn't think so.

This entire paragraph is worth reading again carefully. To summarize, it says that, even a stadium having "... considerably less than the seating capacity here proposed [Dodger Stadium seats about 56,000 people] would be materially detrimental to public welfare and to the character of the existing and potential development in the immediate neighborhood ..." unless certain conditions and limitations were put in place. [Again, the emphasis is mine.]

What conditions and limitations does this paragraph refer to? One that is particularly important is part (e): "The control of lights, public address systems, and signs so as to prevent annoyance to occupants of adjacent properties." [And, once again, the emphasis is mine.]

What is the character of Solano Canyon on Dodger game days?

In a word: it's bloody awful. (OK, that's three words.) Streets are choked with stadium-bound traffic at speeds approaching 20 minutes per block for long periods of time both before and after games. Then, if the game happens to be a Friday night game, there are fireworks, sometimes running well past 11:00 pm. On one Friday night recently, the fireworks began at 10:59; when residents complained, the response from the Dodgers was, "Well, it started before 11:00."

Now it's time to look again at the image at the top of this blog, so as to imagine this scene beginning at 10:59 pm when you're trying to do ... well, anything.

The City Councilmember for CD-1 is Gil Cedillo. His Field Deputy for the area that includes Solano Canyon is Melinda Ramos-Alatorre. Despite the many complaints to the Councilmember's office, a rigid protocol has been enforced that virtually guarantees that community concerns will never be discussed at the Councilmember level, which also guarantees non-resolution. That protocol is elaborated in an e-mail from the Field Deputy dated Tuesday, 09 June 2015, in response to a request from the community to meet with Councilmember Cedillo:

What is the response of CD-1?

"To say you were not granted the opportunity [to meet with the Councilmember] is just false. We have a protocol before anyone meets with the Councilmember. Sitting it [sic] at one meeting that discussed one topic does not necessarily qualify as the proper discussion that you were requesting either, to be fair. There is also no indication that we haven't tried to work with the community, as I have continued to make attempts at solutions to the major problems."

On the contrary: it is every indication that CD-1 is not willing to work with the community, because the same complaints are aired, over and over and over again, and yet nothing is done to resolve them.

In case it needs to be made clear, this e-mail is nothing but obfuscation and diversion; it effectively walls the Councilmember off from contact by members of the community on issues that either the Councilmember or his Field Deputy do not wish to address. What it does not deal with is the issue that was raised in the original e-mail, which in this case was about an agenda item for an Historic Community Neighborhood Council (HCNC) meeting.

This tactic of delay and obfuscation has been used repeatedly by Councilmember Cedillo through his staff. The following are paraphrases of the types of responses that have been received by various members of the community.

"We're trying to come up with solutions" (even though no workable solutions are ever forthcoming);
"You never responded to my request for information" (despite e-mail trails to the contrary);
"You cannot expect to meet with the Councilmember ...", (even on issues that have existed, unresolved, for years; and, least satisfying of all),
"There isn't anything more that we can do ..." — (sorry!)

In other words, in all cases: "It's not our fault." So what does that mean, that it's the fault of the community?

What do the Dodgers say?

Unfortunately, the responses from the Dodger organization have been no better than are those from Councilmember Cedillo's staff. The following is part of an e-mail that was sent in frustration to Oscar Delgado, the neighborhood liaison for the Dodger organization, by a long-standing and well-respected member of the Solano Canyon community.

"When you first introduced yourself to our community here in Solano Canyon you were very specific on how you would be as a neighborhood liaison, that you would answer all of our phone calls and emails. I confess, I really thought that as a community we would have a chance to have real input and that we could all start building a strong, collaborative, and mutually respected relationship. Lately, though, there seems to be a disconnect as some of my neighbors are not even receiving the courtesy of a response to their emails. Why is this?"

Again, there has been a litany of obfuscation and delay, as if the Dodgers hope they can get through the season, season-after-season, without their having to address any of the very-real concerns of the community.

It's the old 'Bait and Switch'

In a bait-and-switch, there is something of value that is promised (the 'bait' — like saying, "Oh, we're going to work with you on this."), but when it comes time actually to make something happen, what is offered is of lesser, little, or no value (the 'switch' — "Well, gee, see, we have this protocol ... sorry!") The Dodger organization — previously, under Frank McCourt, and more recently, under Guggenheim Management Group — has been practicing this patent dishonesty in its relationship with the Solano Canyon community for years.

Under previous CD-1 Councilmember Ed Reyes, there was interaction between the Councilmember himself (not just his Field Deputy) and the community. An example is the dedication of the "Historic Solano Canyon" monument on a rainy Saturday in December, 2008. Councilmember Reyes attended the dedication, but he sat quietly in the audience of about 100 people as the community dedicated is monument.

The entire community felt involved with this project. The priest from San Conrado Catholic Church was on hand to bless the monument, which was a touching gesture that was well-received by all.

And it is clear that the entire community was behind the project.

By contrast, at the recent dedication of the second Historic Solano Canyon monument, a more modest version of the original that is located at the intersection of Solano Avenue and Amador Street, and which monument was paid for entirely by the HCNC on land donated by Mr. Kim Benjamin, a former member and Past President of the HCNC, the dedication was made by Councilmember Cedillo and his staff as if it were they who had made the monument possible, rather than through the efforts of the community and the HCNC. It is reported that fewer than ten members of the community were in attendance.

Plus ça change, plus c'est le même chose ...

This elegant and historic French expression translates as The more things change, the more they remain the same. And sometimes, change means that things may actually get worse, as in that ominous line from the movie The Hunt for Red October, where Admiral Painter says, "Things are going to get worse before they get better ... and they're not going to get better."

One hopes that is not the case.

]]>

¡Feliz Cumpliaños, Don Guillermo!

Please Vote NO Today To Help Save Solano Canyon

Exactly two town halls were held — two

Do two town halls attended by a total of 11 non-involved people constitute the required outreach effort to reach "the broadest array of community stakeholders"?

The HCNC subdivision application is a FRAUD

But here is the scary part

What can one do to stop this fraud?

If you love Solano Canyon as I do and want to protect it from a political power-grab by Chinatown, then talk with your friends and neighbors and get them to vote 'NO' on June 7th.

Outreach is required as a part of the process

Make no mistake: Outreach has been virtually nonexistent

How many outreach town hall meetings were held? Two.

Given the numerous flaws in the system, and abetted by DONE, the ill-conceived and fraudulent subdivision application has been pushed through to an election through collusion with DONE.

Why the subdivision committee must lie about what they are attempting to do, because it's all about consolidating political power in Chinatown and away from the other caucuses (but they don't want you to know that)

Any criticism of the subdivision process is characterized as 'misinformation'.

The proposed bylaws of the subdivision committee have been gerrymandered to concentrate as much political power as possible in Chinatown and away from other caucuses.

The outreach that was conducted by the subdivision committee is a complete fraud

The ill-conceived and fraudulent HCNC subdivision application must not pass; rather, it should be rejected altogether by the City Council.

DONE fails, but no one cares, not even the City's lawyers ...

Dereliction of Duty and Collusion by a City entity

The City Attorney's office fails to act

The City's neighborhood council system is badly broken

The first statement of the so-called 'press release' is a lie

The remainder of the 'press release' is not based on truth

Make no mistake: The HCNNC subdivision application is all about a political power-grab on the part of Chinatown

The existing HCNC does not want the subdivision

The subdivided NC's bylaws were re-written for Chinatown

The subdivision application could not exist without the cooperation of the Department of Neighborhood Development (DONE)

The HCNNC subdivision application is ill-conceived and fraudulent. It must be withdrawn in its entirety.

The Problem Facing Solano Canyon Today

Collusion, Dereliction Of Duty, and Denial Of Due Process

A Sesquicentennial Commemoration

The pathway to Eternity

Here comes Fort Street

Bueva Vista Street becomes a reality

Broadway and Buena Vista Street are connected

After much hand-wringing, Buena Vista Street became North Broadway in 1909

This 1897 map helps to understand the streets

El pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles sobre el Río de Porciuncula

Who were los Pobladores?

La Escolta

The pueblo began to grow immediately

Felíz 234º Cumpliaños, Los Ángeles!

For further study ...

Step 1: Acknowledge the problem

Step 2: Look at the issue

Step 3: Do some research

Step 4: Look at the current situation

﻿Step 5: Find a solution﻿

Close the Academy Gate!

The big problem

An unvarnished look into how CD-1 and the Dodgers are collectively failing the residents of Solano Canyon

The issue of traffic

The issue of noise

What is the character of Solano Canyon on Dodger game days?

What is the response of CD-1?

What do the Dodgers say?

It's the old 'Bait and Switch'

Plus ça change, plus c'est le même chose ...

Step 5: Find a solution