Officials Used Recycled Tactics to OK Complex

I read with great interest a story titled “City Told to Rescind OK of Complex” (Times, Aug. 8).

In June of 1989, the city of Monterey Park improperly allowed National Medical Enterprises, parent company to the Garfield Medical Center, to exceed the voter-imposed limit of three stories and allowed a five-story building to be constructed.

The city of Monterey Park used the same scenario with the residents adjoining the Garfield Hospital as they did with the residents near the Golden Age Home mentioned in the story.

The city failed to properly notify nearby residents of the project. The city also refused to issue an environmental impact report studying the structure’s effect on noise, traffic, air quality, etc.

This also was a large commercial project in a residential area passed through by suspicious administrative procedures.

Some of the players in this scenario were City Atty. Stephanie Scher; the chairperson of the Planning Commission at the time, Patricia Chin; the present mayor of Monterey Park, Betty Couch, and City Manager Mark Lewis, who has since been fired.

It seems very suspicious that the officials of the city would illegally exempt two developers from the building codes using the same tactics in each instance.

ROBERT LUJAN

Monterey Park