Weekly Calendar

Weekly Calendar

Latino Urban Forum

Meetings, Activities and Events that promote our mission as of

May 14, 2007

1. Pico/Olympic One-Way Boulevard Proposal

2. Bike to Work Week

3. LANI's Fifth Annual Community Forum

4. LA Botanical

5. Learning from San Diego

6. Toward a design and politics for metroburbia

7. Save Elephant Hill

8. Sustainable Transportation Forum

9. Cork Meeting

10. Westlake Walkabout

11. Glassell Park Walkabout

12. LA River Bike Ride

13. Strategic Planning with Ron Milam

14. SouthCentral Farmers at the United Nations

15. LA Weekly 2007 People

Visit www.latinourbanforum.org or Myspace.com/LatinoUrbanForum

http://latinourbanforum.blogspot.com/

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Monday, May 14, 2007 from 6:30-8:30 pm

Pico/Olympic one-way Boulevards Proposal, meeting. Special Guests: Gloria Jeff, LADOT General Manager; Allyn Rifkin, Transportation Planner/Engineer; representatives from Supervisor Yaroslavsky' s office. Transportation Planner/Engineer Allyn Rifkin will be presenting and answering questions about preliminary study of the proposal to convert Pico and Olympic to one-way traffic flow.
Please RSVP to len.nguyen@lacity.org

Location:

West LA Municipal Building

1645 Corinth Avenue, 2nd Floor

West LA 90025

PARKING: Available in the city lot at the NW corner of Iowa and Corinth

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May 14-18, 2007

Bike to Work Week!

Thursday, May 17, 2007, local cyclists will converge on Hollywood and Western in a demonstration of cycling solidarity and at 9 am they will ride down to City Hall.

The Hollywood and Western Pit Stop is hosted by illuminateLA and will offer refreshments, swag and encouragement to cyclists from 7 am to 10 am.

There will also be entertainment and Hollywood Pro Bike Shop will be offering bicycle tune-ups, all of which will serve to prep the crowd for a ride downtown to "Bang the Drum" at City Hall. Bike to Work Day is intended to encourage the cycling community to keep on riding, to educate motorists about cyclists rights to the road and to urge our leaders to support the cycling community with appropriate enforcement. Call Stephen at 323.962.6540 or email him

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Thursday, May 17, 2007 From 8:00 am to 2:30 pm

LANI's Fifth Annual Community Forum

Workshop topics include: Accounting for Nonprofits, Billboards, Farmer's Markets, Business Development, Community Murals, Disaster Preparedness at a Neighborhood Level Transportation Linkages Water Quality and Your Community

Register at www.lani.org or by calling (213) 627-1822 x20. The event is free and includes parking.

Location

USC Davidson Conference Center

3415 S. Figueroa Street

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Friday, May 18, 2007 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

TOWARD A DESIGN AND POLITICS FOR METROBURBIA

This symposium is about design in the emerging American city.

Featured speakers include ; Mario Gandelsonas, Michael Dear, Robert E. Somol, Roger Sherman, Dana Cuff

Introductions from Hitoshi Abe, Jonathan Zazloff

Panel discussion with

Albert Pope, Ed Mitchell, Interboro Partners

This event is free and open to the public. Reservations are not required.

Parking will be available in Lot 3 for $8.

Please see attachment or www.cityLAB.aud.ucla.edu for more information.

Questions? Please email citylab@aud.ucla.edu.

Location: UCLA

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Friday May 18, 2007 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Learning from San Diego : Fostering Sustainable Downtown Revitalization

RSVP to 323 932-9393 info@aplusd.org

Location:
A + D Museum

5900 Wilshire Boulevard

LA, CA. 90036

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Tuesday, May 22, 2007 @ 2:00 p.m.

Attend Hearing – Agencies to Report on Environmental Review for Elephant Hill

The report by City agencies investigating the need for a Supplemental Environmental Impact Report (SEIR) for the expanded development on Elephant Hill - Tract 35022 - will soon be presented to the City Council's Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) Committee. Residents and other supporters are urged to attend the PLUM hearing at 2 p.m., Tuesday, May 22nd in Room 350, City Hall.

On January 23, 2007, PLUM directed the Planning Dept. (lead agency), the Bureau of Engineering and the Department of Building and Safety with assistance from the City Attorney to develop this report.

Documentation obtained since the January PLUM hearing provides further details about the Tract expansion. A geology and soils report approval letter dated March 6, 2006 from Building & Safety states: "The referenced reports concerning recommendations for development of 52 lots for proposed single-family residents have been reviewed by the Grading Division…Reports for development of Lots 1-24 of tract 35022 were previously approved in the above referenced Department letters. The current reports include those lots and several other lots as one development. " (Italics added.)

Because additional environmental review is allowed under state law when there is proof that a project has expanded beyond its original plans, concerned residents and organizations have formally requested that the report answer key questions including: What decision, law or authority allowed tract 35022 to be expanded? And, under what law or authority was the 1992 EIR applied to the expanded tract lots?

El Sereno residents deserve equitable and fair services from City agencies responsible for planning and overseeing the construction of residential developments. Developers who work in El Sereno should be required to follow the rules like everyone else.

What You Can Do:

1. Attend the PLUM hearing on the agency report investigating the need for a Supplemental EIR for Tract 35022 on Elephant Hill, 2 p.m., Tuesday, May 22,
2007, in Room 350, City Hall. The File Number for this item is #04-1413.

2. Write or call PLUM committee members to ensure that the report answers the questions asked by residents and others about the expansion of Tract 35022; mention File #04-1413. Thank PLUM members for directing City agencies to develop this report.

Email: Barbara.Greaves@lacity.org or write to: Planning & Land Use Committee, City Hall, 200 N. Spring St., Los Angeles , CA 90012 . Individual Committee members can be contacted as follows:

Ed Reyes, Chair: councilmember.reyes@council.lacity.org or 213-473-7001.
Jose Huizar: councilmember.huizar@lacity.org or 213-473-7014.

Jack Weiss: councilmember.weiss@lacity.org or 213-473-7005.

3. For ongoing information about Elephant Hill check out these new blogs:

http://www.saveelephanthills.blogspot.com/ and http://latinourbanforum.blogspot.com/

For more information contact: Casey Reagan at 213-804-2471 or cjreagan@roadrunner.com

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Wednesday, May 23, 2007 from 12:00 to 1:00 pm

Sustainable Transportation Forum, Contested Streets Movie is a T.A. produced, Cicala Filmworks made documentary that explores the rich diversity of New York City street life before the introduction of automobiles and shows how New York can follow the example of other modern cities that have reclaimed their streets as vibrant public spaces. The run time of the film is approximately 1 hour and we will try and begin promptly at 12:00pm. So bring your lunch and come early to enjoy, imagine and be inspired!

Location: Metro Head Quarters Board Overflow Room on the 3rd floor. (Located adjacent to Cafeteria)

Address: One Gateway Plaza , Los Angeles 90012

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Wednesday May 23, 2007 from noon - 1 pm

Cork Meeting: Tom Banner from Cork USA will review the production and use of one of the world's great sustainable materials, cork. Cork is a sustainably grown and harvested product and has found myriad uses in building construction today. Tom will review the process from harvest to installation, and will describe the many products that have been developed from cork and their sustainable characteristics.

Location: Brown Bag lunch

LACCD Board Room

770 Wilshire Blvd , at Flower

Please use public transit, DASH, Red Line, METRO all nearby.

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Saturday, June 9, 2007 from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Westlake/Macarthur Park Walk Audit. The Latino Urban Forum was able to connect California Walks to the Center City Neighborhood Partners to do a walk audit in the largely Latino community of Pico/Union. Walks audits are a great way to help people examine, and improve streets. The team is looking for Spanish speaking planners to help facilitate the walk audit. Please consider volunteering to facilitate groups of 5-10 people. Each group will survey a targeted area of Westlake for 2 to 2 ½ hours. We're also looking for people to assist the facilitators by recording information and getting help from participants to record further information and take photographs. Facilitators and assistants will need to undergo a training on either May 21, 9-11 am or May 31 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.

Contact Jennifer Allen at Livable Places 213 622.5980 x23

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Saturday, June 9, 2007 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

The Great Glassell Park and Cypress Park Walkabout. This walkabout is being organized by The Glassell Park Improvement Association, the Greater Cypress Park Neighborhood Council, Council Offices #1 (Reyes), #13 (Garcetti) and #14 (Huizar) and the Department of City Planning. We are conducting a Walk Audit of the major streets in the both communities to review the current build out of the street VS the street designation of each street as well as the land uses and urban form. Looking for volunteers to help facilitate groups of community volunteers for the walk audits. Please respond to Deborah Murphy at deborah.murphy@roadrunner.com

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Saturday, June 16, 2007 9:00 am to 1:00 pm.

Keep LA Beautiful and help clean the surrounding area around Fuller Lofts on Gloves, tools and lunch will be provided. Grab your old jeans, t-shirts & sneakers and give the neighborhood a makeover.

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Saturday June 10, 2007

LA River Bike Ride

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Saturday, June 23, 2007 from 10 am - 3 pm

STRATEGIC PLANNING WITH RON MILAM

At L.A. Eco-Village, 117 Bimini Pl , LA 90004

What's your community's mission? What's your vision? Values? What will you do to make your vision reality? Knowing the answers to these questions plays a key role in your nonprofit group's success, whether it be a shared house, cohousing group, ecovillage, or other type of co-op living or working situation.

Topics covered in this workshop include:

Welcome & Introductions

Expectations

Preparing to Plan

Decision making options

Vision, Mission , Activities and Values

SWOT Analysis

Identifying and Prioritizing Strategic Issues Defining Strategic Goals and Objectives & Establishing a Monitoring Schedule Plan Presentation Summary & Evaluations

Fee:

$75 (sliding scale available)

Pre-registration required: 213/738-1254 or crsp@igc.org

Note: Bring a brown bag lunch or enjoy lunch on your own at a local inexpensive restaurant

READ MORE AT http://laecovillage.org/strategicplanningmilam.html

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ART

May 18th - June 23rd, 2007

Reception: Friday May 18th 2007 7-10pm

LA Botanical ; A project by Joyce Campbell

LA Botanical is an ongoing project, massive and perhaps unachievable in its full potential scope, to document each plant that grows in Los Angeles for which there is a documented use - be it food, medicine, weapon, abortive, analgesic, fuel, stimulant, building material, deadly toxin or mind altering entheogen. The plants are documented as wet-plate Ambrotypes, an anachronistic photographic form ubiquitous the 1850's-1890s, the period during in which Los Angeles grew from a dusty town of 1400 inhabitants to a major metropolitan center.

The project is an attempt to reconcile Campbell 's own rural background with her life here in Los Angeles , one of the most sprawling and unsustainable metropolises on earth.

LA Botanical operates simultaneously as map, inventory, and survival guide to the city of Los Angeles . It has the potential to reveal who lives here, from where they originate, what they value, how they eat, worship, heal, harm, travel, clothe themselves, seek insight or achieve oblivion. It also serves as a tool or guide - enabling its audience to see Los Angeles , not as a desiccated industrial wasteland into which resources must flow, but as a field of abundant life that might be harvested to satisfy our needs.

Joyce Campbell is an interdisciplinary artist working in photography, sculpture, film and video installation. She is a visiting lecturer at Scripps College and Claremont Graduate University in Claremont , California .

Joyce¹s recent work utilizes anachronistic photographic techniques to examine the collision of natural and cultural systems.

In October of 2006, Joyce traveled to the Ross Sea region of Antarctica for two weeks sponsored by Creative New Zealand and Antarctica New Zealand.

While in Antarctica she shot large format negatives and Daguerreotypes, an archaic and exquisite form of photography that predates Antarctic exploration.

Location: Gallery 727

727 S. Spring Street #12

LA, CA. 90014

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May 19, 2007 from noon to 5:00 pm

Los Angeles Women Remembered and Honored. The Studio for Southern California History will host a Story Symposium for its current exhibit Los Angeles Women: A Record of Experience. This event is intended to be a broader conversation between scholars, experts, students, and the general public regarding the role of women in Southern California history. In honor of Mother's Day (the previous Sunday), those who bring their mom or daughter to the Story Symposium will receive a flower while supplies last. This event is free but reservations are recommended Contact Person: Sharon Sekhon. Telephone Number: 213 – 229 – 8890 Email Address: sharons@socalstudio.org

Location:

National Center for the Preservation of Democracy

111 N. Central Avenue

Little Tokyo ..

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Articles:

South Central Farmers' Delegation Heads to The United Nations

South Central Farmers have been invited to attend the Sixth Session of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, on May 14-25, 2007 at the United Nations (UN) in New York .

South Central Los Angeles, CA May 14, 2007, as the anniversary of the eviction and destruction of the South Central Farm (previously located at 41st and Long Beach Ave) approaches a delegation from the South Central Farmers heads to New York City to participate in the Sixth Session of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at the UN.

For fourteen years, the 14-acre South Central Farm (SCF) was the largest and most biologically- diverse urban farm in the United States . The farm was established in 1992 at a site located in an industrial warehouse zone of South Central Los Angeles. After a three-year campaign to save the farm, the Farmers were evicted and the crops bulldozed in June 2006. The Farm had 360 individual family plots cultivated by a culturally-diverse community that includes members of indigenous Mixtec, Nahua, Seri, Yaqui, and Zapotec peoples among many others.

Each plot comprised an impressive collection of diverse native crops sown from heirloom seeds that have been kept and conserved by families for countless generations. A pilot study by a University of Washington anthropologist classified 37 different fruit and vegetable species according to their scientific, indigenous, and English names. The ethnobotanical species inventory provided descriptions of the nutritional and medicinal properties of these plants recognized by the cultivators at South Central Farm (please see Appendix 1). The study estimated that in June 2005 there were about 150 different plants cultivated at South Central including multiple varieties across fruits, vegetables, herbs, cacti, and culturally significant trees (e.g., Chorisia speciosa). The study concluded that the SCF was a significant site for the conservation of the genetic diversity of the crops associated with the Mesoamerican " Vavilov Center ," one of the world's great centers involved in the original domestication of wild plants for food. Maize (corn), bean, squash, chile, avocado, chayote, guayaba, guava, peach, plum, lime, chipilin, mango, banana, and cactus were among the dozens of native heirloom fruit and vegetable crops cultivated at the SCF.

The study concluded that crop biodiversity was evident within horticultural varieties. For example, the Oaxacan green dent maize cultivated at the South Central Farm includes 8 to 10 distinct alleles (genetic variants).

The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues is the only official body within the UN that addresses issues exclusive to Indigenous people.

Josefina Medina and Rufina Juarez will be part of this delegation and as representatives, they have been appointed to speak on behalf of the struggle of the SCF. "Our primary role is to denounce the injustice and suffering that was imposed on the SCF, families, women and children, as geographically displaced indigenous peoples, by the City of Los Angeles and the same LAPD that rioted on the poor people of Los Angeles on May 1st 2007", stated Rufina Juarez, elected representative of the South Central Farmers. They will present a three minute statement to the UN Permanent Forum of Indigenous Peoples.

"Our written statement will be submitted to the Permanent Forum and will be recorded and analyzed by the members and included for policy recommendations to the appropriate UN agencies after the Forum has ended. These agencies have mandates to address, prevent and intervene in human rights abuses to all people, but this forum mandates them to give special attention to issues affecting Indigenous People.", commented Rufina Juarez

"Our secondary role is to network among indigenous peoples throughout the world who are struggling for "land and natural resources" and who identify themselves as "geographically displaced indigenous peoples" (the themes of this years Forum). We expect to learn a lot about our struggle and be able to reframe it within an international perspective and in comparison to other indigenous struggles worldwide!", stated Josefina Medina, South Central Farmer.

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LA Weekly

Jerilyn Lopez Mendoza Port in a Storm By DAVID ZAHNISER
Wednesday, May 9, 2007 - 12:00 pm

Environmental attorney Jerilyn Lopez Mendoza remembers vividly the night police officers showed up at her home, instructing her and her neighbors to evacuate because of a chlorine-gas leak nearby.

Mendoza, a sophomore in college at the time, fled with her family shortly after midnight to wait out the chemical scare in nearby Whittier . By then, she had grown accustomed to the oddities of living near the industrial section of Montebello , from the dozens of freight cars that stopped traffic each morning at railroad crossings to the strange smell that wafted through her city each summer.

But those experiences meant little until after college, when Mendoza went to a teach-in on the Persian Gulf War in San Francisco and heard an African-American community activist talk about lead-paint poisoning among low-income children. Suddenly, Mendoza began asking whether her working class, Mexican-American neighborhood suffered from its own disproportionate share of environmental problems.

"It was the first time I'd ever seen a person of color talking about environmental issues, and it just blew me away," she says. "I was asking lots of questions, and she gave me a newsletter she was working on called `Race, Poverty and the Environment. ' It was like a light switched on in my head. All these things I had experienced were suddenly put into context."

Mendoza soon found a way to tackle environmental justice issues head on: by getting a law degree and becoming an attorney with the group Environmental Defense. That organization worked with Los Angeles World Airports to come up with a plan for reducing the impact of jet noise on the neighborhoods that surround LAX, securing $500 million to pay for the soundproofing of homes and other environmental initiatives.

Even more significant, the 38-year-old Mendoza was tapped as one of five people assigned by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to oversee the Port of Los Angeles , which, combined with the Port of Long Beach , is the biggest source of diesel pollution in Southern California .

Since her appointment to the city's harbor commission in July 2005, Mendoza has supervised the port's effort to convert industrial stretches of waterfront in Wilmington and San Pedro into public space. And she has worked with the port to prepare a clean-air action plan, one that calls for the replacement of 16,000 "dirty" diesel trucks and upgrades to the ships and locomotives that move through the port.

Now a resident of Valley Village , Mendoza is frequently overshadowed by the harbor commission's more flamboyant environmentalist — the cowboy-hat wearing S. David Freeman, a former Tennessean who speaks in a colorful, occasionally profanity-laced, drawl. But she is also the one who brings rigor to the commission's deliberations, asking hard questions about the port's business practices and its efforts to make port neighborhoods more liveable.

"She doesn't let David just run the show," observes Councilwoman Janice Hahn, whose district includes the port.

Under Mendoza 's watch, the harbor commission hired the port's first female executive director — Geraldine Knatz, formerly of the Port of Long Beach . And its next step may be the most controversial yet: levying a fee on each container that passes through the port on its way to Southern California and the rest of the nation, and using the proceeds to pay for new environmental measures and port transportation projects.

The container fee has been vetoed repeatedly by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger up in Sacramento . But with Mendoza and Freeman in charge, the measure may just serve as the next big change at the nation's busiest port complex.

Cynthia Ruiz

Trash talker

By DAVID ZAHNISER

Wednesday, May 9, 2007 - 12:00 pm

Nothing says Los Angeles quite like the random pieces of furniture that line our city's dumpy and unloved boulevards. Perhaps you already know the drill: First you see the mattress, propped up against a streetlamp. Then a couch. Then a chest of drawers. Then the individual drawers, piled up in an untidy heap on the curb.

Cynthia Ruiz thinks constantly about that furniture, and all of the other garbage moving through L.A. 's sewer lines, storm drains and trash bins. Picked by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to lead the city's powerful Board of Public Works, Ruiz wants to make the city's streets a little less ugly through a mix of marketing, civic outreach and oddly infectious enthusiasm.

A resident of El Sereno, Ruiz is known to greet garbage collectors at 6 a.m. before they head off on their routes. Her eyes light up as she talks about plans for roving "bulky item" crews to seek out dumped furniture. And she can make a trip to the Hyperion Treatment Plant, the sewage processing facility north of El Segundo, sound like the most entertaining day of your life.

"More and more people are asking the question, `Where does our water go? Where does our solid waste go?'" says Ruiz, as she gives yet another pitch for her Hyperion tour. "And look, it's right across the street from the beach!"

Growing up in Los Angeles , Ruiz saw her father work a day job as a financial planner, then play percussion at night in a Latin jazz band. Her mother, who is Cherokee with a bit of Irish, was a liaison between county government and the region's Native American community. Throughout those years, Ruiz took note of the conservation- minded advertising aimed at the nation's schoolchildren, from the jaunty "Don't Be a Litterbug" to the tragic stare of Iron Eyes Cody, the Native American actor who got all misty at the sight of a smoggy, trash-strewn freeway.

At 17, when she was a student-body leader at Cal State Los Angeles, Ruiz met Villaraigosa, then enrolled at UCLA. The pair were introduced through MEChA, the Chicano student group that pushed for more students of color to attend college.

Decades later, Ruiz and Villaraigosa are collaborating on a different goal — getting Los Angeles to recycle 70 percent of its waste by 2015. To meet that target, Ruiz is working to bring a recycling program to the city's renters and raise awareness in immigrant communities about the city's "blue bins" — 95-gallon trash receptacles earmarked for glass, paper and plastic. And remembering the influence of the ads she saw growing up, Ruiz has embraced the use of an animated octopus character as part of a "Keep Los Angeles Beautiful" campaign.

"It was important to me to have a sea creature as a mascot, because I wanted kids to understand and make the connection — that when they throw trash in the gutter, it goes directly into the ocean untreated."

With Ruiz at the helm, public works officials are even producing a Spanish-language glossary to translate the city's conservation terms. But like everything else involving trash, that effort turned out to be more complicated than expected. "Everybody," Ruiz points out, "was using a different word for `mulch.'"

Urban Eats:

Farmer Markets in the Hood!

Tianguis: South Central Farmers Market.

Support Community Sustainable Agriculture (C.S.A.)

Music, high quality produce,

www.southcentralfarmers.com

Date: First Sunday of every month (May 6th)

Time: 10:00 am. to 4:00 p.m.

Location: 41st and Alameda

" East Los Angeles Farmer's Market" every Saturday from 9 AM TO 1 PM

Features fruits and vegetables grown locally by local farmers. In addition, you'll find one of a kind creations offered by local artisans and meet representatives from local community organizations.

Location: First Street (between Rowan and Ditman).

Homegirl Café!

1818 East First Street

LA, CA. 90014

Mama's Hot Tamale Cafe

7th Street across from Macarthur Park

To post events, activities or meetings that promote planning, cultural or dialogue contact James Rojas at 213 892-0918 or email Latinourbanforum@yahoo.com Please submit post in a word document.