Organizing in ‘No Man’s Land’

In response to a soaring crime rate and the neglected appearance to our neighborhood, located between Monterey Park and Rosemead, South El Monte and Montebello, we have organized the Wilmar/South San Gabriel Neighborhood Improvement Assn.

We propose to eliminate the causes of our problems by working together as neighbors who take pride in our community.

We recognize that gang graffiti, a blight in any neighborhood, must be removed from our streets and walls. To do this, we have organized a graffiti removal committee to remove it as fast as it goes up.

Working closely with the Temple City Sheriff’s Station, we have formed Neighborhood Watch teams that will report crimes in progress.

South San Gabriel isn’t a city. It is an unincorporated no man’s land with no local government. Its needs are administered by the County Board of Supervisors, with the county providing police and fire protection.

This area, known at different points in its history as either Wilmar, Garvey Acres or South San Gabriel, has always been a neglected orphan that no city wanted to claim.

Its residents love it, though, because of its rural nature. But they pay a price for living here.

Part of the area’s charm is that it has large undeveloped parcels of land bordering it. But broken beer bottles on the sidewalks and streets are rarely cleaned up by the county. In some cases, the streets go unswept for years. We want the county to clean all of our streets.

Senior citizens lack special services, such as Dial-a-Ride or recreation centers.

Children have no neighborhood parks to play in. They have no public transportation to take them to parks in other cities.

We want to create a park within our community that will have recreational facilities for all our residents.

We intend to see that our county government provides a public transit system that would serve the members of our community.

We have organized a sports committee that plans to organize a Little League team for the youth of our community.

We are investigating the possibility of becoming a city of our own, with direct control over our resources, but this is an idea that will take years of work to implement.

Until then, we have 3,060 registered voters in our community. We will make our county politicians work for us; they can be voted out of office.

We invite our neighbors to come to our weekly meetings and join one of our committees. It’s a lot of work painting out graffiti. We need your help.

To raise funds for our projects, we are having a yard sale at the Wesleyan Church, 7509 E. Mooney Drive, South San Gabriel, on June 3. Help us by donating something that we can sell.

FRANK J. ARCURI

JERRY WEBER

MARYELLEN WILKINS

MIKE ARANDA

JOE MORALES

The Wilmar/South San Gabriel

Neighborhood Improvement Assn.

Executive Board