High-Tech Business Center Opens Despite Lawsuit
As county officials unveiled a $4.7-million business technology center on Lincoln Avenue on Thursday, a handful of local business owners have filed a lawsuit challenging the county’s redevelopment efforts.
The lawsuit, filed a week ago, alleges that the county’s Community Development Commission denied residents a voice in redeveloping the blighted neighborhood around Lincoln Avenue.
Business owners Delores Weaver, Adolfo Miralles and a resident, the Rev. C.R. Tillman, alleged that the county never reinstated a local committee to oversee development.
Therefore, the lawsuit says, residents did not have a proper means of objecting to a Board of Supervisors decision to extend the West Altadena Redevelopment Project for a dozen more years. The extension allows the county to retain the power of eminent domain in the neighborhood.
The business owners charge that the county has failed to get a supermarket and other retailers for the neighborhood.
County officials, who deny the allegations, say the new state-of-the art business building that opened Thursday will spur retail development in the area.
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