EASTSIDE : Panel Fails to Quell Adelante Study Fears

Try as they might, members of an advisory committee representing the community in an effort to revitalize areas of Boyle Heights and El Sereno could not convince more than 100 people who attended a meeting last week that their homes would not be targeted for demolition.

“We want it on paper! We don’t believe anything else!” said Paula Ramirez, who said she has lived in Boyle Heights for 40 years.

The Wednesday night meeting at the Boyle Heights Senior Citizens Center was filled with angry and doubtful residents who have formed their own watchdog panel to oversee the Citizens Advisory Committee on the progress of the Adelante Eastside study.

The study, also called the Eastside Neighborhoods Revitalization Study, was completed 18 months ago.

Officials are following through on study recommendations that commercial and industrial corridors be developed or enhanced to increase the local tax base. One of the study’s findings was that most residents in a 10-square-mile area of Boyle Heights and El Sereno leave the area to shop.

It also found that most of the housing in the area is among some of the oldest in Los Angeles and in desperate need of repair. For now, officials have dropped the housing component of the revitalization effort and are focusing on the commercial and industrial corridors.

But many residents in those areas refuse to believe it.

Many at the meeting said they are suspicious of a committee whose members have been appointed by 14th District Councilman Richard Alatorre. They called for the committee to be elected by the community or to be chosen from their group.

Residents also have demanded a Spanish translation of the voluminous study, which the city’s Community Development Department is completing, said project director Al Santillanes. The residents, led by the Legal Aid Foundation’s East Los Angeles office that has conducted workshops on the study, have formed Union y Fuerza de la Comunidad and meet monthly to discuss their neighborhoods’ future.

“The main concern of the organization is the lack of representation,” said Veronica Machado, who grew up in Boyle Heights but now lives in the San Fernando Valley.

“The reason is the simple fact that residents have not been informed of the study,” she said, adding that she has also spoken to Whittier Boulevard business owners who were unaware of it.

Some Citizens Advisory Committee members said that they too are concerned about the future of the neighborhood and volunteered for the panel to ensure that homes are spared, despite other potential development.

“Right now in Boyle Heights and East L.A., things are happening that you should know about,” Santillanes told the audience. “You were told that your houses were in jeopardy. We’re here to tell you that they’re not, in our study.”

The next Community Advisory Committee meeting will be at 6 p.m. July 27 at the El Sereno Senior Citizens Center, 4818 Klamath Place. The next meeting of the Union y Fuerza de la Comunidad is from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. July 16 at the Community Service Organization at 1st and Chicago streets.