South Brentwood Residents Association strives to enhance the beauty, safety and security of our neighborhood, and to provide events and activities that serve as a forum to educate, represent and advocate for our members and for the benefit of our diverse community.
Join SBRA to
Keep Brentwood safe
Identify and address community problems
Learn new things
Plan community events to meet new people, help fellow neighbors
Change the rules/laws or make new ones
Have Fun
Individual or Single Family Home: $40 ($25 for Seniors over 65)
Multi-family: Condos or Apartments: 15 units or less: $50; 16 units or more: $75.
Sponsor $50-99; Benefactor: $100+
Please note: with Multi-family membership, one representative receives all email notices and can forward to their condo or apartment residents. Fee is for the entire complex!
To Become a Member of SBRA
Choose your membership type and click on the Pay SBRA Dues button or send a check payable to SBRA to: 149 S. Barrington Ave. #194, Los Angeles, CA 90049.
Membership
Individual or Single Family Home $40.00 USD Seniors $25.00 USD Multi-family: – Condos or Apartments: 15 units or less $50.00 USD – Condos or Apartments: 16 units or more $75.00 USD Sponsors $50.00 USD Benefactor $100.00 USD
If you don’t have a PayPal account, you can still pay with your credit or debit card. Once you get to the PayPal page, just click “Don’t Have a PayPal Account.”
To pay by check, make it payable to SBRA and mail to: 149 S. Barrington Ave. #194, Los Angeles, CA 90049.
Thank you. You’ll be making a contribution to the community of South Brentwood.
VAGLAHS Hosts Master Plan 2022-2027Virtual Townhall Thank you for your interest in the Master Plan 2022, and a special thank you to those who took the time to attend the Master Plan 2022 Townhall meetings on August 19, September 9, and September 30. Meeting slide decks and video recordings can be accessed at any time via the following link: https://westladraftmasterplan.org/documentation/public-meetings.
As many of you are already aware, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) West Los Angeles (West LA) Campus Draft Master Plan (DMP) was developed in 2015 with significant participation and collaboration from you, our stakeholders. At the time, VA received more than 1,000 public comments on the preliminary draft. These comments were carefully considered during the development of the Draft Master Plan, which was signed by the Secretary of VA and adopted in 2016.
The DMP contemplated a revision or revisiting every three to five years to account for the changing needs of the Veteran population that the West LA Campus serves. Now, leading up to the fifth anniversary of the DMP, VA is working to solidify the DMP with the Master Plan 2022.
The VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System (VAGLAHS) is pleased to invite you to participate in the fourth Virtual Master Plan 2022 Townhall, which will be held via WebEx on Thursday, October 28, 2021 from 6:00 – 7:15 p.m. PDT. During this session, we will present the draft of the Master Plan 2022, field any questions, as well as invite additional feedback from you.
Your involvement and feedback are critical components of the Master Plan 2022. We invite you to keep up with our progress and to leave feedback via the following link: https://westladraftmasterplan.org/p/masterplanupdate.
Thank you for joining this meeting and partnering with us to ensure that the West LA Campus is the best possible community and medical services provider to the Veterans we are honored to serve.
Respectfully,
Robert McKenrick Deputy Medical Center Director VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System –VAGLAHS–
“Have the mental agility to change, true leaders never stay the same”
The County Department of Public Health will require vaccination in certain high-risk venues, such as bars, nightclubs, wineries, and breweries, in two short weeks. Additionally, attendees at indoor mega-events with 1,000+ attendees must now verify COVID-19 vaccination or a negative test result. Effective October 7, outdoor mega-events will also require vaccine verification or a negative test 72 hours before the event.
Several weeks ago, LA County mandated that all of our 100,000+ employees get vaccinated or begin weekly testing, starting October 1st. I sincerely hope that all employers will implement similar policies and understand that help is available to do so.
This helpful toolkit can help guide your workplace policies and provide a plethora of educational materials for employees. You can even request a mobile clinic to come right to your worksite! Beyond protecting your employees and preventing disruptive workplace outbreaks, it’s just good customer service to provide the peace of mind that your employees are doing their part to stop the spread of this virus.
Vaccination is the centerpiece of our regional recovery. The more people who get vaccinated, the closer we get to putting this dark chapter behind us. Read on for more on how LA County is working towards an equitable and comprehensive recovery! 8.6.0
LA COUNTY RECOVERS
The pandemic has affected every facet of our lives and is still having a devastating impact on businesses, families, mental health, housing, nutrition, and so much more. As we rebuild and recover, LA County is committed to getting our residents back on their feet swiftly and equitably.
Recovery.lacounty.gov is our new recovery hub, providing a one-stop-shop for available resources and eliminating the need to parse through a daunting amount of COVID-19 information (and misinformation) online. In addition, the site will be continually updated as more programs and services become available, ensuring timely access to critical aid.
Every 10 years, LAUSD School Board Member (Board of Education) district boundaries are redrawn to account for population changes. You have an opportunity to give your opinion on how district boundaries should be redrawn to best represent your community, and you can do so directly by participating in a public hearing or by leaving a public comment.
The public is welcomed and encouraged to share their ideas and comments by filling out the public comment form here or emailing comments directly to: [email protected]. 8.6.0
GIRLS EMPOWERMENT CONFERENCE
On October 9, LA County Parks and Recreation will present the 2021 Girls Empowerment Conference! This year’s theme is: girls with dreams become women with vision.
Free for LA County girls ages 12-18, participants will hear from influential women innovators, educators, trailblazers, and more! Girls will have an opportunity to connect with their peers and all the speakers to feel connected, inspired, and empowered. And they’ll do more than merely listen. This event provides direct access to opportunities for training, technical certifications, scholarships, and employment. Because when you open doors for girls, they WILL shatter glass ceilings.
Registration is free and required. Space is limited, so register today!8.5.7
OMEGA SCI-FI AWARDS
Take me to your reader Calling all young sci-fi writers: The Omega Sci-Fi Awards want to hear from you!
The Omega Sci-Fi Awards were founded seven years ago by Sci-Fest LA and is presented by the arts and education nonprofit, Light Bringer Project. Their goal is to provide a platform and opportunities for emerging authors to tell imaginative stories and use the medium to explore the possible futures of humanity – from the ways in which we address scientific, social, philosophical, and environmental issues to the development of new technologies and outer space exploration.
The genre of Sci-Fi has always combined imaginative visions of our future with social commentary relevant to our present, and I’m excited to see what this “next generation” comes up with!8.6.0
Have a happy and safe weekend!
Meet 8-year-old Trixie (the lovely lady in black) #A5434548 and her 8-year-old beau Toby (the handsome gentleman in brown) #A5434554!
Sadly, this adorable twosome was turned into us, along with their pal Tipi (since adopted!), when their family was evicted from their home.
Both dogs are very shy, Trixie being the braver of the duo. But both are very sweet puppies. They have been fully vetted, needing only dental work for which they are already scheduled.
What these two need more than anything is a home with a cozy bed where they can curl up together and enjoy a new family.
Thursday, September 30, 2021 from 6:00 – 7:15 p.m. PDT
VAGLAHS Hosts Master Plan 2022-2027
Virtual Townhall
Thank you for your interest in the Master Plan 2022-2027, and a special thank you to those who took the time to attend the Master Plan 2022-2027 Townhall meetings on August 19 and September 9.
As many of you are already aware, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) West Los Angeles (West LA) Campus Draft Master Plan (DMP) was developed in 2015 with significant participation and collaboration from you, our stakeholders. At the time, VA received more than 1,000 public comments on the preliminary draft. These comments were carefully considered during the development of the Draft Master Plan, which was signed by the Secretary of VA and adopted in 2016.
The DMP contemplated a revision or revisiting every three to five years to account for the changing needs of the Veteran population that the West LA Campus serves. Now, leading up to the fifth anniversary of the DMP, VA is working to solidify the DMP with the Master Plan 2022-2027.
The VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System (VAGLAHS) is pleased to invite you to participate in the third Virtual Master Plan 2022-2027 Townhall, which will be held via WebEx on Thursday, September 30, 2021 from 6:00 – 7:15 p.m. PDT. During this session, we will discuss opportunities, constraints, and options that are being considered in the development of the Master Plan 2022-2027, as well as invite additional feedback from you.
Your involvement and feedback are critical components of the Master Plan 2022-2027. We invite you to keep up with our progress and to leave feedback via the following link: https://westladraftmasterplan.org/p/masterplanupdate.
Thank you for joining this meeting and partnering with us to ensure that the West LA Campus is the best possible community and medical services provider to the Veterans we are honored to serve.
Respectfully,
Robert McKenrick Deputy Medical Center Director VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System
Starting next week, we are launching the next phase of an ambitious and unprecedented program that will humanely address the homelesness crisis at Venice Beach, respond to the urgent safety needs of the housed and the unhoused, and fully reopen the park and beach for general public use. Beginning Monday, teams led by the St. Joseph Center will begin offering housing, shelter and services to everyone currently living in encampments along Ocean Front Walk. The six-week initiative, a collaboration between neighbors, government agencies and nonprofits, will offer nearly 200 people a pathway to permanent housing and appropriate services to help them succeed. The “Venice Beach Encampment to Home” program will not be led by law enforcement, nor driven by threats of arrest or incarceration. We will offer what works: housing, with counseling, or mental health services, substance abuse recovery services, and anything else needed to successfully transition people into housing. The current situation is intolerable, and we must end it. Nobody deserves to live, or die, on the street; and all Angelenos should be able to enjoy our neighborhoods, beaches, and parks. We can do better, and this program creates a model for bringing people together to house those in need and reopen our public spaces, using a humane and proven approach. How will this work? Since late April, an early phase of this initiative has helped dozens of people move indoors from encampments on the boardwalk, in time to reopen the handball courts, volleyball area, and skate park to public use. We will use the same approach, with dramatically expanded resources for the northern half of Ocean Front Walk (OFW), offering housing and services to nearly 200 people.Professional outreach workers and neighbors have been on OFW for weeks, developing relationships, and building trust. Starting June 28, outreach workers will begin offering housing to people living in encampments in designated zones. Over six weeks, they will systematically focus on entire encampments. As people and their belongings move indoors, dedicated Bureau of Sanitation resources will clean each area. Once the people currently living in each zone have been housed, the spaces will be reactivated with community programming for public enjoyment.
What resources are available? Over the past several months, my staff and St. Joseph Center, with the assistance of Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, Mayor Eric Garcetti, and my colleague Counclmember Mark Ridley-Thomas, have identified a variety of permanent housing options including openings in Project Homekey, in shared housing, and through permanent housing vouchers. For vouchers, we know that identifying willing landlords or available units can take time. That’s why we’ve made sure to include substantial interim housing resources, including up to six months of motel placements per person as needed—the most commonly requested interim housing option—so unhoused residents have a safe place to stabilize and begin receiving services, as additional permanent resources come online.City Council will take up final consideration of the funding for this Encampment to Home program for Venice Beach this coming Wednesday.
Why now? Homelessness has been a big problem in Venice and Los Angeles for a long time, but it grew significantly worse during the pandemic. Public health orders necessary to protect people from COVID-19 resulted in reduced capacity at emergency shelters, and caused encampments to become larger – especially in neighborhoods where there was already a significant unhoused population. This has led to overcrowding, confrontations, crimes and even fires. As most housed residents honored Stay at Home orders, places like beaches and parks became campgrounds for those who did not have homes. As the pandemic has lifted, and the public’s appetite to return to full use of recreational facilities reemerged, the state and federal governments have made more housing resources available, giving us the necessary tools to help people move out of encampments. Encampments are unsafe, unsanitary, and unacceptable. That is why I have fought against lawsuits, appeals, and protests to provide alternatives to encampments. Everyone suffers with the status quo; everyone wins when people can move indoors.
Who is involved? This effort has an array of partners. St. Joseph Center is the lead agency, but resources, services and support are also provided by People Assisting the Homeless, Safe Place for Youth, Venice Family Clinic, Self Help and Recovery Exchange (SHARE!), CLARE Matrix and others. Government agencies include the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, Department of Public Health, the Department of Mental Health, Department of Recreation & Parks, and Bureau of Sanitation. The Los Angeles Police Department, which is aware and supportive of the program, is not involved in this rehousing effort. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, whose presence and lack of familiarity with Venice and available services has been disruptive to outreach efforts, is not involved or participating. The sheriff’s rhetoric and approach are damaging, as is the criminalization of homelessness. It leads to re-traumatization, breaks crucial connections with service providers, creates barriers to housing and employment, locks people further into homelessness or poverty, and can lead to displacement into neighboring areas. That’s why our effort leads with housing, and not with handcuffs.
How long will it take? The effort will take 6 weeks, beginning June 28 and ending in early August. Each week, St. Joseph Center and outreach teams will focus on a different geographic section of OFW.
How can I get involved and support this effort? If you would like to volunteer to help support the effort, if you would like to donate materials or supplies to people moving indoors, or if you own rental units and would be interested in accepting a tenant with a housing voucher, please fill out this form and let us know. There is a right way and a wrong way to respond to homelessness, and we are determined to do it the right way. The Venice Beach Encampment to Home program is an ambitious initiative, and we have a lot of work to do. If we work together, I am optimistic that we can house our unhoused neighbors and ensure that Venice Beach becomes once again a safe and welcoming environment for all. Regards, MIKE BONIN Councilmember, 11th District
P.S. Even though many City facilities – including my offices – remain physically closed to the public, my staff and I are at work and available to serve you. If you want to reach us, please call 213-444-3508. It is a new central number that allows you to reach us even when my staff is telecommuting. You can also email us, and you can call 311 to request basic city services. We are committed to continuing throughout this public health crisis the work we do every day to help solve problems in our neighborhood.
Last week I announced a six-week program to offer housing to every unhoused resident on Ocean Front Walk (OFW) in Venice. Even before the program’s formal launch today, the St. Joseph Center has already helped move 19 unhoused people indoors.
Those 19 people are the first of up to 200 people we intend to house. That’s nineteen individuals—someone’s mother, father, brother, or sister—who had fallen into homelessness for a variety of reasons, and now are safely under a roof on a path to permanent housing. This is what addressing our crisis of homelessness in Los Angeles looks like, getting one unhoused resident at a time back on their feet and into housing.
Here’s how the “Venice Beach Encampments to Homes” initiative works: the City, County and St. Joseph Center have secured permanent housing for the people living in encampments along OFW and the beach. To move urgently and help people get off the streets immediately, outreach workers are offering people interim housing or shelter, where caseworkers will match each individual with an existing permanent housing resource, so they can stay off the streets, in a home, and begin to rebuild their lives.
This week, outreach workers will begin work to house the unhoused residents in Zone 1, the area from the boardwalk to the shore, between Park Avenue and Windward Avenue. Each unhoused resident in that area will be offered immediate, temporary housing and commitment of permanent housing. At the end of the week, city crews will clean the area and return it to general public use.
Homlessness is the biggest crisis of our time. There are no easy solutions, and we are working against a deeply flawed and broken system that lets vulnerable people fall through the cracks and onto our streets. The only way to address it is through hard, on-the-ground, person-to-person work to match unhoused residents with the housing resources they need, and that work best for each of them. I know we can do this, with your help and support.
If you would like to volunteer to help support this effort, if you would like to donate materials or supplies to people moving indoors, or if you own rental units and would be interested in accepting a tenant with a housing voucher, please fill out this form and let us know.
Together, we can lift people out of homelessness, move Los Angeles forward, and get this done.
Regards, MIKE BONIN Councilmember, 11th District P.S. Even though many City facilities – including my offices – remain physically closed to the public, my staff and I are at work and available to serve you. If you want to reach us, please call 213-444-3508. It is a new central number that allows you to reach us even when my staff is telecommuting. You can also contact us, and you can call 311 to request basic city services. We are committed to continuing throughout this public health crisis the work we do every day to help solve problems in our neighborhood. Share Tweet Forward
California is open! I’m pleased that after 15 months of restrictions and closures due to COVID-19, our state is back. With over 40 million vaccines administered statewide, we are on our way to returning to normal. I am deeply grateful to every frontline worker, first responder, and health care professional for their sacrifices in the fight against this virus. We wouldn’t be here without you.
This week was bittersweet. As we celebrated the achievement of reopening our state, we also hit a tragic milestone of 600,000 American deaths due to COVID-19. This is a brutal reminder that we continue to lose lives to this terrible disease. My heart goes out to anyone who has lost a loved one due to COVID-19. As we make progress in the fight against COVID, we must never forget those we’ve lost and their families.
As you begin to resume normal activities, please continue to follow LA County’s guidelines to stay safe and healthy. In compliance with state guidelines, all businesses and activities may return to usual operations. Schools and institutions of higher education can resume full-time, in person classes. For more information, please view the county’s updated Health Officer Order. In LA County, masks are no longer required for fully vaccinated individuals, except in the following settings where masks are required for everyone, regardless of vaccination status:On public transitIndoors in K-12 schools, childcare, and other youth settingsHealth care settingsState and local correctional facilities and detention centersHomeless shelters, emergency shelters, and cooling centers If you are not fully vaccinated, you are still required to wear a mask in indoor public settings and businesses. For more information on new masking requirements, including guidance for businesses and venue operators on how to implement these requirements, please click here. Throughout the pandemic, parents and caregivers have sacrificed so much to care for their loved ones at home. They cannot go back to work unless they know their loved ones are safe and cared for. Last week, I hosted a virtual roundtable with representatives from SEIU, AARP California, and the National Domestic Workers Alliance on the importance of investing in the Care Economy. I appreciated their meaningful insights on the challenges facing the caregiving workforce and look forward to advancing President Biden’s American Jobs Plan in Congress to create jobs and raise wages and benefits for essential home care workers. Get Vaccinated!If you haven’t already, please get vaccinated to help our community recover. Everyone age 12 and older who lives or works in LA County is eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Please check VaccinateLACounty.com for updated information on walk-in vaccinations or to book an appointment ahead of time. To find a vaccination site near you, please visit corona-virus.la/VaxSites.If you have a disability or do not have access to the internet and need assistance making your vaccination appointment, you can contact the County’s Call Center –– open from 8:00 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. –– at (833) 540-0473. You can also call this number if you or a family member need to be vaccinated at home.
Additional Resources re you planning to travel? Before you book a flight abroad, it is critical that you check your passport to make sure it’s current and won’t expire within 6 months of your trip. Many countries do not allow people to visit if their passport will expire in fewer than six months. To renew your passport, please click here.
Many Californians have applied for unemployment claims with the State of California’s Employment Development Department (EDD). If you require assistance in contacting EDD regarding a pending unemployment claim or the processing of your benefits, you may contact your California state legislators to seek assistance. To find your state legislators, please visit findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov.
The West LA VA is offering walk-in vaccinations veterans of ALL ages and their spouses or caregivers. Please call (310) 268-4900 for information about walk-in times and locations. Looking for employment? UPS is hiring in the Los Angeles Area! If you lost your job due to COVID-19, UPS jobs offer an opportunity to launch a new career. If interested, please apply at upsjobs.com.
If you need someone to talk to, please call the LA County Department of Mental Health hotline at (800) 854-7771 or text “LA” to 741741.
If you are in need of food assistance; housing relief; information about COVID-19; and more, please call 2-1-1 or visit 211la.org.
Thank you for your continued efforts to keep our community safe. For more information, please visit my website at lieu.house.gov and follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Stay safe.
Sincerely,
Ted W. Lieu Member of Congress
Washington, DC 403 Cannon HOB Washington, DC 20515 Phone: (202) 225-3976
Los Angeles Office 1645 Corinth Ave., Suite 101 Los Angeles, CA 90025 Phone: (323) 651-1040
Manhattan Beach Office 1600 Rosecrans Ave., 4th Floor Manhattan Beach, CA 90266 Phone: (310) 321-7664
Los Angeles’ work to build back better from the COVID pandemic has begun. Last week, the City Council unanimously approved an $11.2 billion budget that focuses on reopening our city, improving our neighborhoods, and fulfilling long-delayed promises of equity and justice.
This new budget includes significant funding for solutions to homelessness, responses to increases in crime, expanding neighborhood sanitation efforts, improvements to our parks, enhancing our urban forest, repaving our streets, and fighting climate change. It also includes resources to help small businesses, renters, seniors, and parents with young children.
Here’s a rundown of some of the key items impacting you and your neighborhood:
HOMELESSNESS There is no more immediate crisis than homelessness, and this budget devotes an unprecedented $1 billion to confront the crisis. The budget includes:
• More than $360 million from HHH to build more than 5,600 permanent housing units in 89 different projects throughout Los Angeles. • $140 million in hotel and motel conversions to provide 1,500 rooms for housing and shelter to get people out of encampments and off the street quickly. • $100 million to increase the supply of affordable housing, homeless and eviction prevention, and homeless outreach programs. Increased mobile hygiene stations and sanitation services to help keep areas with encampments clean and sanitary. A pool of funds that I am proposing to tap for Encampment to Home programs that move people from areas of large encampments, such as Venice Beach, into long-term housing. Funding for a multi-disciplinary team to do dedicated outreach to unhoused neighbors in Council District 11, offering help for those suffering from mental health and substance abuse problems. $3 million for the Los Angeles Regional Initiative for Social Enterprise (LA RISE), which provides job development activities for homeless individuals and for participants at A Bridge Home sites. These activities include subsidized employment for individuals with a history of homelessness, supportive case management designed to help prepare participants for continued employment, and training in both hard and soft skills. PUBLIC SAFETY The budget invests in the beginning of reimagining public safety, using non-armed civilians to handle an array of issues while freeing up sworn officers to respond to crime. The budget: • Pays for additional police patrols in Westside neighborhoods that have seen an increase in crime over the past year, including the Venice boardwalk. • Funds a one-year pilot program for a new crisis response team that will be dedicated to providing a 24/7 community-based response to non-violent emergencies involving unhoused neighbors in Venice. • Funds a pilot program with the Department of Mental Health and the Los Angeles Fire Department for a program that will dispatch trained mental health professionals to deal with urgent calls about people experiencing a mental health crisis. • Increases funding for gang reduction and youth development programs. • Provides funds for constant staffing of LAFD platoons to keep open LAFD engine companies, like Station 69 in Pacific Palisades, that my colleagues and I restored in recent years.I still felt the public safety programs did not go far enough, and I proposed $18 million for additional smart and cost-efficient programs for unarmed response to a range of issues, including traffic enforcement.
SUPPORT FOR SENIORS, FAMILIES, SMALL BUSINESSES, AND THE ARTS As we emerge from the COVID pandemic, the 2021-22 city budget uses funds from the American Rescue Act to support those most affected by the pandemic-fueled economic turndown. The budget includes: • $25 million to support restaurants and small businesses, as well as an additional • $25 million in efforts to focus small business support on disadvantaged communities. • $10 million to a program to serve meals provided by restaurants in disadvantaged communities to low-income seniors. During the pandemic, home-delivered meals from local businesses were a lifeline for seniors. Funding is also increased for congregate meals, a critical nutritional program for seniors. • $2 million to make some of the Al Fresco outdoor dining opportunities set up by local restaurants during the pandemic permanent. • $10 million for child care businesses, enabling parents to return to work as Los Angeles emerges from the effects of the pandemic. • More than $5 million in programs for seniors, including services and programming at senior centers. • $20 million to operate eight childcare centers that will serve hundreds of children. • $10 million to expand broadband services in disadvantaged communities. • Improvements to the Business Assistance Virtual Network, which will open up the supply chain of major public infrastructure projects and sporting events to the City’s small business community. • Our targeted local hire program will get $30 million to hire 750 positions in various departments from underserved and underemployed communities in LA. • $2.8 million for a summer youth jobs program. • $1 million to the Youth and Creative Workers Mural Program will ensure restoration of treasured murals citywide. • $1.5 million for LA’s Best afterschool programs. • Increases funding to the Department of Cultural Affairs for community arts programming at art centers and theaters, including solo and group art exhibitions, outreach programs for underserved populations, and numerous events during the year that celebrate the cultural diversity of our communities. • Creates a new Youth Development Department to coordinate youth programs city-wide and give young Angelenos tools to shape their own futures. • Creates a Community Investment for Families Department to run family source centers, domestic violence interventions, and other social services. PARKS This year’s budget provides funding to restore services, programming, and investment in the Department of Recreation and Parks to levels not seen in more than a decade. The budget includes: $75 million dedicated to deferred maintenance and improvements at parks throughout LA. This funding will pay for things like new playgrounds, ballfields, lighting, bathrooms, security, and air conditioning in recreation centers. Funding to renovate and restore the pool operated jointly by LAUSD and Recreation & Parks at Venice High School. Money to the Department of Recreation and Parks to expand its capacity in aquatics programming, construction efforts to improve parks, and efforts to connect with unhoused neighbors living in parks. Funds to restore programs through the LA2028 Youth Sports initiative, which provides free sports programming at 80 qualified recreation centers in disadvantaged communities. Additional resources for sanitation efforts to clean up trash and remove bulky items from parks.
STREETS, SIDEWALKS, AND SANITATION This budget focuses on the essential services neighbors rely on every day, especially streets and sidewalks. The budget: • Allocates $183 million for street repairs and reconstruction, an increase of $13 million over last year. • Provides funds so that 1,700 lane-miles of roadway will be repaired in the next year, an average of five miles a day. Not only will this fix potholes and cracks in the road, but it will put Angelenos to work by hiring workers locally from underserved and underemployed communities in LA. • Expands and accelerates the City’s commitment to pedestrians and our neighbors with disabilities by committing to $44.5 million for sidewalk repairs, a 27% increase over last year. • Restores funding for important neighborhood improvements, including median island maintenance, alley paving, and speed humps on residential streets. • Expands street sweeping programs, allowing StreetsLA to expand street cleaning to more streets throughout the city, and to do a comprehensive street sweeping optimization study, with further recommendations of how to improve the services. • Funds expanded sanitation services for neighborhood cleanups, graffiti removal, and bulky items pickup. • Dedicates funding to improve a portion of La Cienega Boulevard in Ladera and Westchester to be a “Green Street” that includes landscaped medians to help filter and clean stormwater.
PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT AND FIGHTING CLIMATE CHANGE Los Angeles is leading the way toward a clean energy future and investing in a just transition away from the fossil fuels that have polluted and poisoned our air and water. This budget: • Spends $3.5 million to begin the process of phasing out oil and gas production in LA. • Hires staff to ensure more robust and frequent inspections of oil wells and ensure verification of bonding and insurance requirements to ensure oil companies are held liable for clean-up costs; and a team to develop and launch a pilot version of the Oil and Gas Well Site Facility Compliance Program as part of the Office of Petroleum and Natural Gas Administration. • Provides funding to plant 200,000 new street trees and to hire new crews to trim 38,000 trees in LA in the next year. • Provides staff to advance efforts to create wildlife corridors, protecting critical habitat and tree canopy for the City’s precious wildlife. • Provides staff to make environmental justice and climate action more ingrained elements of our planning process. Invests $30 million in expanding the use of solar panels and energy storage at city facilities. • Provides $4 million to expand municipal EV charging stations and nearly $5 million to invest in cost- and carbon-saving energy efficiency projects in city buildings.
EQUITY & JUSTICE The budget makes good on commitments to invest in efforts that focus on equity and justice. This budget includes: • Funding is directed to enhance existing employment programs including the city’s youth employment program, LA RISE, and day laborer services. • Funding is also provided for new pre-apprenticeship opportunities for transitional workers to learn a trade. • $24 million is provided to launch BIG LEAP, a landmark guaranteed basic income pilot to provide $1,000 a month to 2,000 households for an entire year. • $8.7 million is provided to launch Clean LA jobs, an initiative to clean up neighborhoods most dramatically impacted by illegal dumping and litter, while implying employing 200 young adults. • $5 million for Angeleno Corps, a one-year program of 400 students committing to a year of service in environmental justice, community wellness, tutoring and mentorship, arts education, immigrant services, and closing the digital divide. • $10 million to launch LA REPAIR Innovation Fund, providing grants to support job creation, racial healing, justice, and reconciliation work. • $2 million is to launch LA REPAIR Peace and Healing Centers in partnership with community and faith organizations to establish safe spaces where youth and adults can dialogue around racial justice and reconciliation. • Continuous funding for an Office of Civil, Human Rights, and Equity. • Creates the Office of Racial Equity to develop and implement racial equity service programs and policy analysis. • $3 million to support the Social Equity Program within the City’s Department of Cannabis Regulation and promote equitable ownership and employment within the cannabis industry.
We have an opportunity to rebuild Los Angeles stronger than ever before as we emerge from the pandemic, and the budget approved by the City Council last week is an excellent start to that work. I am proud to work with neighbors to move Los Angeles forward, do good, and get things done for our neighborhoods.
Regards, MIKE BONIN Councilmember, 11th District P.S. Even though many City facilities – including my offices – remain physically closed to the public, my staff and I are at work and available to serve you. If you want to reach us, please call 213-444-3508. It is a new central number that allows you to reach us even when my staff is telecommuting. You can also email us, and you can call 311 to request basic city services. We are committed to continuing throughout this public health crisis the work we do every day to help solve problems in our neighborhood. Share Tweet Forward
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Calling all young sci-fi writers: The Omega Sci-Fi Awards want to hear from you! 
