Library Plan Is a Lightning Rod in El Sereno

What could be controversial about a new $4.3-million library for the children of a needy community northeast of downtown Los Angeles?

In El Sereno, plenty. A bitter disagreement over one of El Sereno’s biggest public works projects is illuminating the growing pains of a newly certified Neighborhood Council that is attempting to exercise its advisory role and unify a community historically bisected by distrust between two camps.

The cast of characters:

* The Los Angeles 32 Neighborhood Council, which some perceive as synonymous with the middle-class community of Hillside Village, and as the “Beverly Hills” of El Sereno. The council’s library committee, working without the full support of the council, opposes the site of the new library.

* Activists of the broader El Sereno community, who largely favor the library site and are puzzled by what they perceive as the full Neighborhood Council’s opposition to the project.

* Los Angeles Councilman Nick Pacheco and representatives of the city Library Commission, who approved the site.

* Alvin Parra--a key member of L.A. 32--who opposes the library site and is running against Pacheco to represent that area.

At issue is a modern, 10,500-square-foot library. Those who support the new library site fear that the opposition of L.A. 32, which has considered legal action to force officials to evaluate other sites, might endanger the project, on which preliminary grading work has already begun.

There’s much going on in the background of the dispute that the parties don’t disclose to each other. That has fanned distrust and stirred up a bewildering array of questions, rumors and suspicions.

Some in L.A. 32 ask: Do public officials really respect the Neighborhood Council’s role as an advisory body to the city?

“Here we are, certified, and they are not listening to us,” said Hugo Garcia, a member of L.A. 32’s library committee. The committee, without the support of the entire Neighborhood Council, is heading the protest.

Others who do not feel represented by the Neighborhood Council ask: Is the official platform of L.A. 32--a group intended to be a unifying force in the community--being politicized to promote one candidate over another?

“If the community was supportive of what happened, then why not” let it go forward? asked Richard Acosta of the project. He recently gathered 1,300 signatures in an attempt to counteract opposition to the site.

To some in L.A. 32, there’s a bigger issue.

The El Sereno project to be constructed at 5226 S. Huntington Dr. was supposed to be an extension of the existing library, which is about three blocks south on Huntington. But when library officials could not persuade a property owner to sell, they obtained the new site by swapping the site of the existing library, built in 1924, for a parcel owned by Century Housing.

Today, L.A. 32’s library committee cites a number of points of dissatisfaction with the new site, from traffic safety to its proximity to Alhambra and relative distance from El Sereno’s schools.

But their chief complaint is that Pacheco and library officials did not conduct a site search, which they say was required because this is a new project.

“It’s about understanding how the site was selected and our community was sidestepped,” said Linda Arreola, a member of L.A. 32’s library committee.

There are no legal mandates dictating when site searches should be made, said Susan Kent, Los Angeles city librarian. Traditionally, though, when plans call for a new building, library authorities conduct a site search.

This site, because it was close to the original library and because it started as an expansion project, was chosen without a full site search, Kent said.

“At no time did anyone say it was not a good idea,” she said, adding that there had been three community meetings to discuss the library’s design.

But some L.A. 32 members are unconvinced. “It’s not a good site for the library,” said Mark Santarelli, another member of L.A. 32’s library committee. “It’s not a process that involved the community.”

The conflict comes as newly certified neighborhood councils in the city are becoming active and as L.A. 32 is trying to represent an area with two distinct communities, long suspicious of one another.

To outsiders, El Sereno is one big neighborhood of 50,000 residents northeast of downtown.

Hillside Village, or “The Village,” as some call it, is the area around Wilson High School, up in the hills. The flatland below is a district of apartment houses and lower property values.

Some residents see Hillside Village as a snobbish community that looks down on the rest of El Sereno. “I’m 46,” said Acosta. “Since I was a kid, there has always been that friction with Hillside Village, because they have always thought they are better than everybody else.”

Some El Sereno residents suspect hidden motives in L.A. 32’s opposition to the new library site. The council wants the library closer to Hillside Village, one theory goes, to embarrass Pacheco and promote Parra.

“It’s unfortunate that individuals are trying to accuse me of using this process as a political steppingstone,” Parra said. “The reality is that a process and a practice has not been honored, and that should be the issue ... not whether I’m running against Pacheco.”

As the rumors fly, some in L.A. 32 fear that the perception that the Neighborhood Council’s role is being used for political purposes will harm the group’s main aim of unifying the community.

“This kind of thing is destructive to everybody, because I feel that the councils have a purpose,” said Eddie Duran, L.A. 32’s interim president. “And the reason the city put these councils together is to benefit the community, not separate or destroy them.”