LETTER TO THE EDITOR

‘Sensitive Sites’

The following letter was sent by the Pacific Palisades Community Council Executive Committee on October 25 to Councilmember Mike Bonin regarding a request for resolution designating sensitive sites in Pacific Palisades under LAMC Sec. 41.18 (c)(1) and (d). It has been reprinted here with permission.

Pacific Palisades Community Council regrets that you have not responded to our letter of September 12: pacpalicc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/PPCC-Letter-Bonin-re-41.18.pdf.

Instead, you recently voted against resolutions brought by several councilmembers to designate sites and post signs in their districts under Sec. 41.18 (“pre-enforcement” procedures provided for in the ordinance).

According to the LA Times, you believe that designating sites and posting signs—before the city’s “street engagement” program has been firmly established—is supposedly putting the “cart-before-the-horse.”

We disagree. Twelve of your council colleagues also disagree and voted in favor of the resolutions. Additional resolutions to designate sites in numerous city districts have been brought by other councilmembers and are awaiting votes in council. We assume these resolutions will again be approved over your “no” vote.

LAMC Sec. 41.18 is a duly enacted ordinance, passed by overwhelming vote of the council and signed by the mayor. Other residents represented by responsive councilmembers throughout Los Angeles are now being afforded the protections provided by the ordinance. Your constituents, in contrast, are forced to do without these protections because you disagree with and/or misconstrue the ordinance and, now that it’s been enacted, refuse to implement in CD 11 the pre-enforcement procedures that Sec. 41.18 clearly authorizes.

We decry this plainly unfair and unequal treatment of CD 11 constituents. We also stress the following:

• Sec. 41.18 by its terms does not require any outreach or “street engagement” before sites are designated and/or signs are posted, nor does it require such outreach before enforcement takes place.

• In the case of “sensitive sites” (schools, day care centers, parks and libraries) under subsection (c)(1), no showing of risk to public health and safety is required before sites are designated or signs are posted.

• Notwithstanding these provisions, PPCC supports requiring offers of service and housing to be made and refused before enforcement takes place under 41.18 (see motion passed by PPCC and four other WRAC Councils to date: pacpalicc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/WRAC-recommended-motions-10-14-21.pdf).

• The respected Pacific Palisades Task Force on Homelessness, in a balanced approach working with outreach workers funded largely by the community, regularly and extensively engages with unhoused individuals in the Palisades to offer services and housing. They have done so for more than five years, independent of the city and apart from the status of any Los Angeles “street engagement” program or policy.

• The Palisades community fully supports PPTFH’s compassionate approach, donating hundreds of thousands of dollars toward the PPTFH’s successful outreach efforts. There is no reason to think that PPTFH’s approach would suddenly change if sensitive sites were designated and signs were posted under Sec. 41.18 in Pacific Palisades.

• Implementing the pre-enforcement procedures authorized by Sec. 41.18 would serve to protect and keep the Palisades community safe—primary goals of PPCC and PPTFH. We respectfully suggest that as our councilmember, these should also be your goals.

We urge your prompt response.

Executive Committee, Pacific Palisades Community Council
David Card, Chair
Christina Spitz, Secretary
David Kaplan, Vice-Chair
Richard G. Cohen, Treasurer
John Padden, Organization Representative (P.R.I.D.E.)
Joanna Spak, Elected Representative (Area 1; Castellammare, Paseo Miramar)