Call the Feds! Dominguez Channel Odor Could Be an Evacuation Level Event if Due to Underground Fault By Melina Paris, Assistant Editor
POLA Passes $10 Clean Truck Fee p. 3 Tito Jackson Casts His Spell on the New Blues Fest p. 11
By Hunter Chase, Community News Reporter On Oct. 27, Councilman Joe Buscaino submitted three motions asking the Los Angeles City Council to ban homeless people from sitting, sleeping or lying down at 161 locations in council district 15. The council has not yet acted on them. This came only a week after the council’s Oct. 20 decision to ban homeless people from sleeping at 54 sites in the city, 11 of which were in CD15. In a press release on Oct. 27, Buscaino claimed that his office has housed most of the people in CD15 who live in large encampments by offering them transitional housing. This appears to be at odds with what Gabriela Medina, district director for Buscaino, said at the Nov. 2 meeting of the CD15 Working Group on Homelessness. She said that as of the January 2020 homeless
count by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, there were 2,257 homeless people in CD15. Of those people, 1,219 lived on the street, while the rest lived in their vehicles. “Of those people experiencing street homelessness, 343 are housed in interim sites, 147 have been permanently housed, bringing us to 490,” Medina said. “So through our collective efforts, we have housed 40% of the people experiencing street homelessness as of the count of January 2020.” Nevertheless, Buscaino used his claimed success as a reason for banning the sites. “It is now my intention to ensure that these areas remain clean and safe, and are not repopulated by new encampments,” Buscaino wrote. “This is why I am introducing these new locations where street living will
not be allowed.” Kenneth Mejia, candidate for LA city controller in the 2022 election, tweeted on Nov. 2 that the city council voted to reallocate $2 million from the “Additional Homeless Services” fund for the printing and installing of the anti-camping signs. Medina said she did not have a budget for how much it would cost to install signs at 161 locations in CD15. Chris Venn, one of the founders of San Pedro Neighbors for Peace and Justice, vehemently disagreed with this strategy for handling homelessness. “This is hurting people,” Venn said. “This approach of coming into unhoused communities, criminalizing people, disconnecting them from resources, is a part of
November 11 - 24, 2021
Tito Jackson at the New Blues Fest in LB
SP Residents Respond to Buscaino’s Attempt to Ban Homeless from 161 Sites in CD15
It’s Plus Ça Change for Wes Anderson and The French Dispatch p. 14
[See Feds, p. 6]
Real People, Real News, Really Effective
Four speakers at a press conference called by the Coalition for a Safe Environment on the hydrogen sulfide leak in Carson. From left to right: Councilwoman-elect for Carson 4th District Arleen Rojas, Carson Mayor Pro tem Jim Dear, the Coalition’s director Jesse Marquez, and Dr. Jill Johnston, an exposure scientist and epidemiologist at USC. Photo by Harry Bugarin
CARSON — On Nov. 3, the Coalition for a Safe Environment called for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to take over the investigation of the odor emanating from the Dominguez Channel. After a month with no answers or solutions to the odor, the Wilmington-based environmental justice organization conducted its own investigation before calling for the takeover. CFASE’s message simple: We could be in some deep doo doo if the authorities don’t this seriously. The intense rotten egg smell of hydrogen sulfide still hovers over the City of Carson, despite recent rains that should have cleared it out. In a released statement, the Coalition expressed incredulity that after four weeks of testing the South Coast Air Quality Management District has not been able to find the source of the hydrogen sulfide gas in the Dominguez Channel. The South Coast AQMD, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health and Public Works have been studying the issues, but have released little information. At the Nov. 3 press conference, the Coalition presented three proposed areas of study regarding hydrogen sulfide sources including the debris from the recent warehouse fire, neighboring oil refineries such as Marathon, Valero, and Phillip 66, and the underground fault shift caused by the Carson earthquake. “It is true hydrogen sulfide was found in the Dominguez Channel but it is near impossible for Hydrogen Sul-
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[See Encampments, p. 5]