What’s happening today?
The Board of Public Works today got the latest on major work performed in July by the Public Works department’s Bureau of Street Services. Among the tree trimming and street resurfacing work was a little update about a project to make it easier and safer for pedestrians and bicyclists to get to the Fairview Heights Station of Metro’s K Line. The work is being done along 67th Street between 11th Avenue and West Boulevard, and also along West Boulevard, south of 67th, and they include curb ramps and improvements to the road, sidewalks, curb and gutter, traffic signals and bicycle infrastructure.
What just happened?
Obscure commission removes itself as Venice Dell roadblock
The Los Angeles Board of Transportation Commissioners, which made a pretty consequential decision in December 2024 to deny the use of a city parking lot to build the Venice Dell project, has officially exited the chat on that issue. They did this after a judge ruled that the mayor-appointed commission actually had no business denying an affordable housing project in that parking lot and ordered the board to rescind their decision. A staffer from the mayor’s office told them it was fine to do so because they don’t support dragging this particular roadblock out on any longer, with Anna Hovasapian, Mayor Karen Bass’s deputy chief of staff on policy, telling the board on Thursday that the mayor doesn’t support an appeal of the judge’s ruling. The commission did spend about an hour in closed session listening to some mysterious and “important” legal advice from the City Attorney’s Office.
The delay on the Venice Dell project has drawn pretty wide attention to Los Angeles over the years, especially since City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto, an elected official in her own right, has been an opponent of the Venice Dell project and the efforts to stop it has been seen as a way to keep affordable housing out of a neighborhood that’s become more affluent over the years, pushed out residents with more modest incomes.
But there are some out there who appear to be watching out for the project. State Assembly member Buffy Wicks recently proposed giving projects like the Venice Dell a little bit more runway, as noted by Mar Vista Voice, by trying to counteract one possible consequence of the delays, which is that other approvals the project has received could expire while opponents try to run the clock out.
Dream of cheaper or free parking for El Pueblo visitors could be dashed, amid struggles for Olvera Street merchants
A city commissioner on Thursday dashed hopes that free or lower cost parking will be offered any time soon to people visiting Olvera Street and other attractions at El Pueblo de Los Angeles, which is considered the birthplace of Los Angeles. Merchants at Olvera Street have been struggling financially, and were especially hard hit during the pandemic, with some pointing to the high cost of parking as one of the many reasons tourists haven’t been showing up.
Commissioner Carlo Matricardi, who is part of an ad hoc committee that has been studying whether they could lower the cost of parking, said that even though he was one of the biggest proponent of offering free parking, he no longer feels it is possible, at least this time, after he and others met up in an ad hoc committee to study the issue. It turns out that El Pueblo relies pretty heavily on that parking revenue in order to keep things afloat, he said.
“Parking is the only consistent revenue that El Pueblo has,” Matricardi said. “Rent is not consistent… a number of vendors are still in pain. So parking effectively is the buffer absorbing that inconsistency.”
He added that this wasn’t a “no, no, no to the free park… it’s a not now. If we were collecting full rent, this would be a different conversation.”
Meanwhile, many vendors have been shuttering multiple days of the week, including on the day of the El Pueblo de Los Angeles commission meeting, which was held in the basement of Biscailuz Building. Notably, the public transit hub, Union Station, lets out right onto El Pueblo de Los Angeles.
El Pueblo recently has been hosting events aimed at drawing in more people, and has gotten in on the action of the World Cup watch parties earlier this summer. At Thursday’s meeting, the commission voted to continue those efforts with a Super Bowl “activation” next February. Also, as first reported by Esotouric, the Boiler Room is gearing up to host another multi-day music and arts festival at El Pueblo. A brief account of the discussion and vote taken at an earlier El Pueblo board meeting to approve the contract can be found in their minutes here.
A few more things…
Karen Bass hosted another community forum on the Lineage fire, but she did not end up showing up, according to Unrig LA.
Nithya Raman on Thursday responded more strongly than usual in a social media post about a fire that broke out on Aug. 26 in her district at a nuisance property. The post included a statement from Raman that said that the city’s Department of Building and Safety and Mayor Karen Bass ignored her office’s repeated requests for assistance. “We have called, we have emailed, we have escalated. We have used every avenue to sound the alarm and nothing was done,” Raman wrote.
Mayor Karen Bass’s campaign hit back on Friday though, highlighting Raman’s response to a reporter at a news conference this morning asking if she called the mayor about this property: “Am I supposed to be making 200 calls to the mayor?” A Bass campaign press release cast this as another instance of Raman blaming others for something happening within her district.
