Growth Limits and the Westside
The comments by Daniel Garcia, president of the Los Angeles City Planning Commission, in the April 14 Times regarding Westside motives about growth limitations raise serious questions about his qualifications to hold such a sensitive appointive office. The issues affecting growth on the Westside are totally different than those in East Los Angeles. I seriously doubt that anyone would oppose a major development of any type on the Eastside and indeed would welcome the attention of developers being diverted to that area.
The fact he chooses to make a racial issue out of this movement is doubly reprehensible. The residents of the Westside are rightfully concerned about issues which they perceive to be neighborhood issues such as the traffic congestion that increases daily, overcrowding in areas that have no off-street parking, increased smog, the proliferation of vest-pocket shopping centers and on and on. Why are these racial issues?
It would seem likely that these same issues are of concern to East L.A. residents also. The curtailment of Westside development is not an employment issue other than having some effect on construction employment, but guess what, the construction worker is gone in six months or a year and we have to live with the results for many years.
Garcia should be concerned with the issues that affect all citizens. The fact that he and other downtown politicians were not sympathetic gave rise to Proposition U.
Mayor Bradley is showing just how much he is out of touch with today’s scene if he allows that kind of statement to stand from an official in such a critical post. He has abdicated leadership in this matter and no longer can look to a sympathetic Westside, first it was drilling in the Palisades and now this total lack of empathy for local problems.
We can all work together to surmount these problems or the citizens will find someone who is in tune with the times. Things have changed, we don’t want to live in another Houston or New York.
SUSAN C. YOUNG
Los Angeles
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
