LA activists, politicians divided over police in Park Macaron

From Jim NewtonCalmness

This comment was originally published by CalmattersS Register about their ballots.

Residents, business owners, people who are not travelers, travelers and passers -by in the area around the Macarthur Park in Los Angeles have some common things: they take advantage of the clean community and all appreciate their safety.

But this consensus documents for some significant differences on how to achieve these goals. As a mayoralty of LA Focuses time and resources on the revival of Macarthur ParkSome of these differences arise and raise questions about whether Mayor Karen Bass and those around her are on the right track.

For the park and its surrounding neighborhood, the city’s campaign for cleaning and providing this area is urgent. After jewelry from this crowded, vibrant, lively immigrant community, Park MacArthur is falling into decay, overwhelmed by crises that affect Los Angeles and so many other cities: drugs, stray, crime, illness. The result is an alarming spiral down, pushing families and turning a drug market with all its accompanying violence.

Write big, the fight for the park is even more. If Los Angeles cannot regain this piece, cannot restore safety and community through the city mixture of implementation and compassion, then these funds may have lost their power and may be required to live in peace in peace.

In this sense, the debate is related to the competitive views of the government, or as an instrument of improvement or implementation.

This is what makes this area not only important for those who live here, but also for other cities in California, by signing this example. And given that, the fight already shows signs of discord.

Bass and the Los Angeles police department represent an approach to this crisis. Earlier this year, LAPD and other city agencies got into the corridor along the east end of the park, displacing illegal street sellers whose goods often included stolen goods or drugs. In order not to return these suppliers as soon as the police departed, the city raised fences for a chain connection that remain in place today, blocking large sections of the sidewalk.

The intervention works. The violent crime in the neighborhood dropped significantly. Local business owners saw hopeS City leaders took a tour of victoryS

But a new raft of problems appeared. The drug overdose actually increased as consumers were forced to search for a new delivery and were not familiar with the new doses, according to the teams to respond to an overdose.

In addition, the enclosed areas of the sidewalks are eyes, and their maintenance is a Sizyphic enterprise. People throw their garbage into the enclosures and they are filled with garbage. Cleaning crews valiantly do everything possibleArriving every morning to clean the sidewalks and turn the areas. The enclosures are filled again overnight and the work is repeated.

If bass and Lapd are one type of answer, activists and leaders in the neighborhood offer another. For them, this is not a crisis to resolve the police, but a breakdown of social policy. Only in Los Angeles Bas bass, a liberal Democrat, is considered moderate, but in terms of policies around MacArta Park, the pressure comes from the mayor’s left.

Going beyond the ‘backup solution’

Recently, three members of the neighboring council in the area were sitting on a picnic bench near the west entrance to the park and reckoning the work.

There were several children on the playground with his mothers, but the hill near him was full of sleeping men. A man lit a container with foil and then nodded. He stared more empty, scattered through the grass. A movement officer moves cars nearby and ignores the use of drugs to less than 50 feet.

The members of the neighboring council are young, deliberate and serious. They live in the area and spend a lot of time and energy on their community. For them, the police decision is doomed to fail.

“They just respond to crime,” says Mireya Valencia, who has been working for a non -profit purpose and has lived in the area for four years. “They don’t interfere with it.”

Grace Bryant agreed. “We ask the police to do too much,” she said. As he spoke, a police helicopter walked on top, forcing her to raise her voice. “They are the backup solution of everything.”

The problem with this claim that they and the co-operation member Gabriel Owens-Flores is that police can only do so much that law enforcement decisions are more likely to move the problem together, the problem of the Park Park, according to this, are only the city’s dense row to the West.

For these activists, the main causes of trouble in Park Macraatur are not street suppliers or even drugs or goods that some have been selling. The main problems are housing and employment, both under this city of very rich and very poor.

There are measures that can help these problems. Protecting expulsion, for example, can help keep people in homes, relieving pressure on homelessness; Legislative rental freezing can bring stability to neighborhoods; Urban inspections can guarantee home safety. In the neighborhoods around the park, which are some of the most densely populated in America, these and other solutions can bring a little peace and stability.

But they come at a price. Many landlords already feel pressure as costs, such as insurance, utilities and taxes, are increasing. Adding Tariffs and economic chaos This has become a hallmark of Trump’s administration and how can they survive?

Buffered by increasing costs and demanding tenants, landlords often look to maintain their buildings at the lowest possible level, dropping tenants so that they can destroy the buildings and replace them with a higher profitability replacement. This is bad for tenants and destructive for communities.

These are not problems that foot patrols or Community police I can do anything for. Yes, Lapd can put fences and chase suppliers, but the fences are filled with garbage, and the crime just moves a few blocks.

The most basic tension between those who turn to the law enforcement agencies, and those who see decisions elsewhere, however: the police are in a hurry to react, but it does not remain long; Housing and employment plans can produce long -term results, but they are not fast. You can’t call 911 and get a home and you can’t get the police to allow chronic employment shortages.

The Council of LA Municipal Council Ennis Hernandez stands in the middle of all this. She is often critical of the super-priority of the police and she is among the members of the Council, happiest to see Lapd, reduced in size and height, an easy argument that he should do in a year when The city’s finances are narrow Anyway. For her, the success in Park Macarur is measured not in the statistics of crime, but in the overall health of the community. Winning, according to her, will be when “any participant can thrive.”

Still, this cannot be done without any involvement of the police, she admits. “There is,” she said, “a place for law enforcement.”

So working in the park continues. There are no sellers, but police helicopters remain busy.

This comment is third in a a string of recurring coating Concerning LA’s attempts to restore Macarthur Park and areas like it and the consequences of difficult communities around the state.

This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.