LOS ANGELES
DOWNTOWN
NEWS Volume 38, Number 6
Valentine’s Day Downtown 10-15
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A new Central Division captain, and other happenings Around Town.
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A call to save the Los Angeles Times before Sam Zell goes too far.
W W W. D O W N T O W N N E W S . C O M
February 9, 2009
THE NEXT FOUR YEARS
INSIDE
With Elections Approaching, Two Downtown Council Members Detail Their Plans for Their Final Term Salvaging the Fashion District BID.
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On Cloud Ninth Jan Perry Will Take Aim at Parks, Housing and Homelessness In Her Next Four Years photo by Gary Leonard
Urban Scrawl imagines a love letter.
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A River Runs Through Him For First District Councilman Ed Reyes, Almost Everything Revolves Around Reclaiming the Waterway
Transition at the Alexandria.
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Ninth District Councilwoman Jan Perry is running unopposed for a third and final term, during which she hopes to encourage affordable housing construction throughout the city, among other goals.
Another Downtown club faces trouble.
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photo by Gary Leonard
by Anna Scott staff writer
N Welcome the burlesque of Minsky’s.
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Big dance at the 7+Fig mall.
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18 CALENDAR LISTINGS 20 MAP 21 CLASSIFIEDS
inth District Councilwoman Jan Perry may be running for office unopposed, but that does not mean she has forgone campaigning. In anticipation of the March 3 election, she has produced a glossy, eight-page color brochure (in English and Spanish) documenting her accomplishments and has people phone banking in five languages. She has raised nearly $315,000 in campaign contributions. The effort amid no competition, she said, is not only to draw attention to herself. It is also an attempt to raise her district’s profile. “This is a district that is to be taken seriously, because they will come out and they will vote,” she said last week in an interview with Los Angeles Downtown News editors and reporters. “I don’t want to lose the momentum of the presidential election, but see if we can continue that and bring in new people.” Perry’s approach to growing her district’s clout extends beyond the campaign trail. Elected to lead the Ninth District in 2001, the City Hall veteran’s jurisdiction includes
most of Downtown, from the Walt Disney Concert Hall on Bunker Hill to Skid Row, and deep into South Los Angeles. Perry has worked on both poles of the economic spectrum. In the heart of Downtown Los Angeles she was a champion of South Park’s recently debuted, 27-acre L.A. Live, and touts its economic benefits. As the head of the Council’s Ad Hoc Committee on Homelessness, in recent years she has helped propel the creation of 1,223 permanent supportive and affordable housing units in her district. All have either been recently completed or are scheduled to open in the next two years. For her third and final term, Perry has laid out some specific goals: primarily, continuing to foster new, neighborhood-oriented development while pushing for more affordable housing and homeless services throughout the city, not just in Skid Row In the faltering economy, Perry has her work cut out. Yet her approach to the next four years, which involves tackling big issues through consistent, achievable measures, largely reflects the last eight. Take her stance on see Jan Perry, page 8
First District Councilman Ed Reyes is seeking a third and final term to make progress on projects such as revitalizing the Los Angeles River. by Ryan Vaillancourt staff writer
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ive the floor to First District City Councilman Ed Reyes, who is up for re-election on March 3, and almost all explanations of his past and future political agendas wind up literally and figuratively at the Los Angeles River. First and foremost, the Los Angeles native considers himself a politician rooted in the basics — his platform boils down to advocating for public safety, new park space and job creation. “The agenda of my district and my administration has been one of just trying to clean the streets, public safety, looking at safer schools and safer parks, new parks and just creating jobs,” Reyes said in an interview last week with Los Angeles Downtown News editors and reporters. “It’s really very fundamental.” While Reyes has indeed worked on neighborhood-level efforts for things such as streetlights, his policy passion has been and continues to be the revitalization of the longmaligned L.A. River. It’s a massive
project whose full scope would take decades and cost billions, but Reyes sees it as being tied intrinsically to his basic political priorities. A cleaner, pedestrian-friendly and activated L.A. River would translate to public safety along its corridor, as well as more park space, he believes. His vision of new social, industrial and commercial uses along the river — from bike paths to housing developments — requires manpower and jobs to be a reality. Four months ago, Reyes teamed up with the Army Corps of Engineers and the L.A. Conservation Corps to initiate a program called the L.A. River Rangers. The effort employs atrisk youth to clean up the river corridor, remove graffiti, clear invasive plants and other tasks, while educating them in environmental issues. Reyes has kept the program quiet, he said, “because I wanted to make sure it was working.” Currently, the rangers are working to ready the corridor for the addition of a segment of the bike path that now runs from Fletcher Drive see Ed Reyes, page 9
Since 1972, an independent, locally owned and edited newspaper, go figure.