SOUTH-CENTRAL : Councilman Assailed Over Market Delay

In the latest push to have a supermarket built at Vermont Avenue and Adams Boulevard, neighborhood residents have posted a sign at the site and are circulating a petition calling on City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas to do a better job of letting the community know where the project stands.

Erected during a May 16 rally attended by 200 residents, the sign reads: “705 Days of darkness. There is no rebuilding here. Mark Ridley-Thomas, where’s the market?” The mention of 705 days refers to how long Ridley-Thomas has been in office.

The Southern California Organizing Committee, an ecumenical and multiracial grass-roots group spearheading the campaign, has collected about 1,000 signatures.

However, Ridley-Thomas accused the committee of wanting exclusive access to his office and said he has been made the scapegoat in an issue that involves city agencies and private parties.

“I don’t talk to people who are not typically constructive,” he said. “Anyone who attacks me will not find me responsive. The store is going to be built without SCOC. I’m not impressed by their little power politics and their efforts to vilify me.”

Oscar Jaugrui, project manager for the Hoover Redevelopment Project of the Community Redevelopment Agency, said Ridley-Thomas has been instrumental in getting the agency to acquire additional land adjacent to the site to accommodate the proposed 40,000-square-foot full-service market.

Because $4.5 million of the $9-million project will come from the city, Jaugrui said, the Food 4 Less Corp., which owns the site, must hire a minority contractor as a partner in the project. He said the La Habra-based company is in negotiations with Danny Bakewell, the president of Brotherhood Crusade, which could act as the minority partner in the project. Jaugrui said those negotiations have delayed the process.

A study conducted for the redevelopment agency showed that the one-square-mile area around the store ideally should be served by at least four supermarkets. The 32nd Street Market in the University Village shopping center is the only market in the area, with the closest supermarket three miles away, Jaugrui said.

“This has affected the community a great deal,” said Lilliana Morenco, who has lived in the area 16 years. “A lot of people don’t have cars. And if they go to another area they have to carry all these bags. . . .So they end up going to these mom-and-pop liquor stores that are overpriced.”