West Hollywood : Critics Skewer Food Panel

Some residents hoping to participate in a recently created city task force to deal with feeding West Hollywood’s homeless population say the effort is veering in the wrong direction after only two meetings.

Many of those complaining are the same neighbors of the Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition feeding program in Plummer Park who in October persuaded the City Council to shut the program down because of reports of crime, intimidation, and unsanitary conditions at the site. After a flood of publicity and Hollywood celebrities surfaced to protest the decision, the council reinstated the program for four months and created the task force to oversee the future of the program.

Now critics are saying the task force, which was to be made up of citizens, city staff and food coalition representatives, has been taken over by city staff and is unlikely to produce concrete results.

“Under the city’s direction, there will be no way to reach a conclusion. There is no accountability. . . . “ said Plummer Park neighbor Ed Riney, who has been one of the most vocal opponents of the feeding program.

Riney and others complained at a Monday meeting that the city has restricted discussion to finding an alternate site for the program and funding it. Riney said that approach ignores the nature of the problem.

“Let’s not push it out of the east end and on to someone else. Just throwing food at these people is not helping them,” Riney said.

Riney supports limiting voting members on the task force to city staff and citizens, with non-voting roles for homeless people and Hollywood stars interested in the effort.