‘What Has Russell Been Doing?’

Where has Councilwoman Pat Russell been for the last 17 years she has been in office? Russell is fond of quoting the Southern California Assn. of Governments. She forgets to mention its predictions of more smog, more gridlock, a possible water shortage, a depletion of inner-city open facilities, a job-housing imbalance, etc. Her proposal for a fee paid by builders for mitigating traffic problems has already been discredited. It favors large projects which will gladly pay the token fees required.

What has Russell been doing while her constituents voted 70% in favor of controlled growth? She has been supporting the Summa project, which will create a monster larger than Century City, probably destroy the Westchester neighborhood and exacerbate all Westside problems. At zoning hearings her staffers have supported every speculator who wants a variance despite hundreds of signatures in opposition by residents.

Russell hasn’t done anything about a local coastal plan to resolve the “flea market” atmosphere at the beach, as she herself called it before developers got to her; cleaning up the Venice median strip; getting Venice Boulevard paved; parking problems; pollution in Santa Monica Bay; summer jobs for teens, “crack” problems in our neighborhoods, etc.

Russell has been busy cultivating groups that can kick in $1,000 or more per person to sponsor grandiose plans. They are not the 70% who voted for controlled growth in L.A.

In 1983, a switch of only 1,781 votes would have forced Russell into a runoff. An additional 3,562 votes from the 74,628 who did not vote would have changed the result and relieved us of Russell.

If Russell is reelected on April 14 you’ll learn firsthand what “the arrogance of power” really means. Kiss your neighborhood goodby!

JACK WEINROTH

Venice