Yaroslavsky — a new leader for the Miracle Mile

By Casey Russell

For this month’s issue, we talked with new councilwoman Katy Young Yaroslavsky. She now represents the city’s Council District 5, which encompasses the Miracle Mile area in its entirety.

Her office is now fully staffed. The councilwoman told us in a recent interview that staffing was a big focus during her first weeks in office, saying, “I will only be as good as the strength of my team.”

Homelessness Team

And what is the team’s main focus currently? Homelessness. “We need to slow the rate at which people are falling in [to homelessness],” she said.

The councilwoman has put together a solid team of people who, daily, are making connections with the unhoused in District 5. Accompanied by Perla Urza and Loren Jackson, Yaroslavsky’s homelessness programs manager, Matthew Tenchavez, goes out into local neighborhoods to speak with people living on the streets. Tenchavez and his colleagues work to discover what will be required to get individuals off the streets. Tenchavez then collaborates with Zachary Warma, the office’s housing and homeless policy director, to make sure beds are available, ensuring the outreach can lead to people actually being connected with a place indoors.

Yaroslavsky and her outreach group began speaking, in December, with a gathering of people camping on the sidewalk behind the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and the Academy Museum — on Sixth Street. “Working with the mayor’s team,” Yaroslavsky told us on Feb. 6, “we’re hoping to be able to announce something soon and move all those folks into housing.” (By Feb. 18, all of those street dwellers had been moved to temporary housing. See story on Page 1 of Section 1.)

Working with the mayor

The councilwoman told us she has been incredibly impressed with the council / mayor relationship so far. Mayor Bass is “very much interested in making sure each of the 15 council members is part of the solution and that there is not an ‘us’ and a ‘them.’ It’s a partnership,” she said. She went on to say that the mayor “has it in her power, and is willing, to acknowledge what’s not working and to find a way to fix it… She understands it’s a regional solution.”

Yaroslavsky’s biggest priority going forward is to increase the number of interim shelters and permanent supportive housing sites and to help people access already existing housing with vouchers. The councilwoman told us she will measure her success by how many people are moved from the streets to beds.

Prior to now, said Yaroslavsky, there hasn’t been a strategy for getting large numbers of longterm lease buildings. The city has been acquiring places ad hoc. “We need to flip the tables and have a lot more to choose from. It will drive down costs,” she said.

The councilwoman also believes the mandate for having affordable workforce housing is even more pronounced now that more rapid transit stations are coming online. She is looking into setting aside, for affordable housing, land Metro has been using as staging areas.

The environment

As to other items on her agenda, Yaroslavsky told us she is excited to be chairing the city council’s Energy and Environment Committee. The councilwoman has a lot of experience in this area. She is an environmental attorney who, for the past six years, worked as senior policy director for the environment and the arts in the office of former Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl. Yaroslavsky hopes to shut down the oil wells in the district and help Los Angeles become more energy-efficient.

Rapid response

She told us her team has put together a system that allows constituents to get a response to queries within 48 hours. The system tracks the hundreds of calls and emails her office receives daily. This enables the team to make sure concerns are addressed or resolved before any query is marked as closed.

Yaroslavsky told us her office is also working to get out ahead of what’s happening relating to government or other construction works on local streets. The goal is to be able to give advance notice and solutions to residents in order to stave off people’s annoyance when street closures, parking disturbances, power outages and the like occur.

Local office

Part of the CD 5 team will be moving to a new field office near the Metro station at La Brea Avenue and

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Following is a list of elected officials who serve the Miracle Mile and surrounding areas.

Councilmember

Katy Yaroslavsky

5th District

6380 Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 800, 90048

323-866-1828 councildistrict5.lacity.gov

Mayor Karen Bass 200 N. Spring St. 13th Floor, 90012

213-978-0600 mayor.lacity.gov

County Supervisor Holly Mitchell

2nd District

500 W. Temple St. Ste. 866, 90012 213-974-2222 mitchell.lacounty.gov

County Supervisor

Lindsey Horvath

Miracle Mile Elected Officials

3rd District 500 W. Temple St. Ste. 821, 90012 213-974-3333 lindseyhorvath.lacounty.gov

Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur

51st District 2800 28th St., Ste. 105 Santa Monica, 90405 310-450-0041 a51.asmdc.org

Assemblymember Isaac Bryan

55th District 5601 W. Slauson Ave., Ste. 200, Culver City, 90230 310-641-5410 a55.asmdc.org

State Sen. Ben Allen 24th District 2512 Artesia Blvd., Ste. 320 Redondo Beach, 90278 310-318-6994 sd24.senate.ca.gov

State Sen. María Elena Durazo

26th District 1808 W. Sunset Blvd., 90026 213-483-9300 sd26.senate.ca.gov

State Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas 28th District 700 Exposition Park Dr., 90037 213-745-6656 sd28.senate.ca.gov

Gov. Gavin Newsom 1021 O Street Ste. 9000 Sacramento, 95814 916-445-2841 gov.ca.gov

Rep. Adam Schiff 30th District 245 E. Olive Ave. Ste. 200, 91502 323-315-5555 818-450-2900 schiff.house.gov

Rep. Jimmy Gomez 34th District 350 S. Bixel St. Ste. 120, 90017 213-481-1425 gomez.house.gov

Rep. Ted Lieu 36th District 1645 Corinth Ave. Ste. 101, 90025 323-651-1040 lieu.house.gov

Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove 37th District 4929 Wilshire Blvd.

Ste. 650, 90010 (202) 225-7084 kamlager-dove.house.gov

Sen. Dianne Feinstein 11111 Santa Monica Blvd. Ste. 915, 90025 310-914-7300 feinstein.senate.gov

Sen. Alex Padilla 255 E. Temple St. Ste. 1860, 90012 310-231-4494 202-224-0357 padilla.senate.gov

Real Estate Sales*

Single family homes

6407 Moore Dr. $2,100,000 503 N. Formosa Ave. $1,399,000 116 N. Sycamore Ave. $1,157,500

Condominium

*Sale prices for January.

Yaroslavsky

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Wilshire Boulevard. (It likely will be in the Dominguez Building that houses a Bank of America branch and, soon, the relocated Andre’s Italian Restaurant.)

Yaroslavsky ran on a platform of constituent services and believes having more people on the ground and having places accessible to constituents for community gatherings and meetings are important parts of her being the councilmember she ran to be.

When asked about the CBS Television City project — TVC 2050 — at the corner of Beverly Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue, Yaroslavsky told us she is meeting with concerned neighborhood groups and touring the site. “Everything is a balance,” she said. “Finding a balance between the good paying jobs it will provide and the scale… it will be a negotiation.”

Elementary Schools

Cathedral Chapel School

755 S. Cochran Ave.

Ph: 323-938-9976

Co-principals: Tina Kipp and Danielle Mitchell

Grades: K to 8