HomeMy WebLinkAboutCORRESPONDENCE - 65BApril 7, 2015
City Council Meeting
Correspondence for Item 65B (Park Security Update)
PARK SECURITY UPDATE AND STAFF RECOMMENDATION
TO ENSURE CONTINUED SECURITY
Sender/Representative
Letters in Support
1 Ann Salisbury
hAgendmQ015 AgendnArrent Folder - WIPLExhibits Correspondence 65-B.doc
Mitre -Ramirez, Norma
From:
Sent:
Cc:
Subject:
Attachments:
Categories:
Mayor and City Council,
Huizar, Maria
Tuesday, April 07, 2015 1:57 PM
Cavazos, David; Rojas, Carlos; Flores, Alma;
Edward; Mouet, Gerardo
Park Ranger Update (4/7/15, Item 65B)
A change in the landscape_ L.A.pdf
Correspondence
Communication received on the Park Ranger program on tonight's agenda.
From: Martinez, Michele
Sent: Monday, April 06, 2015 2:22 PM
To: Huizar, Maria
Subject: Fwd: Park Ranger Update (4/7/15, Item 65B)
FYI
Sent from my Whone
Begin forwarded message:
From: "Ann Salisbury" <sannsalisbury@a,anail.com>
To: "Martinez, Michele" <MiMartinezi Santa-ana.org>
Subject: Park Ranger Update (4/7/15, Item 65B)
Dear Council Member Martinez,
Lawrence, Mark; Garcia, Jorge (CMO); Raya,
As you know, on Tuesday, April 7th, the City Council will be receiving a report on the status of
the Park Ranger program. This would be Item 65-B, "Park Security Update and Staff
Recommendation to Ensure Continued Security." The title of the item alone demonstrates that
despite Council's clear and emphatic direction, Management refuses to set aside its preferred
alternative.
The City should reject the staff proposal and maintain the status quo to move forward with
Council's plan to hire new park rangers and terminate the existing Ca1PERS annuitant rangers as
their replacements are hired.
The Saturday after Council made its decision to maintain the Park Ranger program, an op-ed
appeared in the Los Angeles Times discussing the results and benefits municipalities have seen
when they have provided a patrol and enforcement team dedicated to their parks. That op-ed
may be found at hitp://www.latimes.com/o inn ion/op-ed/la-oe-0208-guuinones-parlcs-gangs-
20150208-story.htrnl a e=1. (I have attached a copy as a pdf, but the online version is easier to
read.)
The staff report makes much of the fact that Ca1PERS has not responded to the City's letter
regarding the employment of the existing park rangers. I believe this is a red herring. I
understand from Steve McGuigan that if CaIPERS does not respond to the City's request to keep
the CalPERS annuitants within 60 days, the failure to respond is deemed approval to keep
them. I have not yet independently verified this, but perhaps the City Attorney could provide us
with accurate facts on this point. I found it interesting that Mr. Raya's letter to CalPERS failed
to explain that the Ca1PERS annuitants were only being employed long enough to train new
recruits and would be let go once their replacements were hired and trained. Perhaps it was
inadvertent oversight rather than a deliberate attempt to mislead Ca1PERS into denying the
City's request.
That the City has issued termination notices to the existing Park Rangers is of no matter. Such
termination notices have been rescinded before and may be rescinded again. Using police
overtime to fill the gap is fiscally imprudent regardless of any budget surplus, and those funds
would be better spent by expediting the park ranger hiring process.
Speaking of expediting the process, I have spoken with family members who work in law
enforcement for other agencies, and they related that no desired hiring process takes six to nine
months. In their experience, open peace officer positions are filled much more quickly. It would
be useful to know, with actual data, how long the Police Department takes in hiring lateral
officers and new graduates for its open positions.
Because Management has not presented any persuasive reason for Council to deviate from its
existing policy, Council should reject the staff recommendation and proceed with its existing
policy and direction. Thank you for your consideration of this important issue.
Sincerely,
Ann Salisbury
A change r landscape: L parks n
longer belong'streetgangs
Sycamore Grove Park
At Sycamore Grove Park, the city put in new jungle gyms and installed workout
equipment, so, without the presence of gang members, locals now have what amounts to
a health club with no membership fee. (Joseph Daniel Fiedler / For The Times)
Sam Quinones
At Sycamore Grove Park in Highland Park a few weeks ago, I met a 32 -year-old bank
teller named Uscolia Flores. She's lived most her life within walking distance of this 15 -
acre park, which winds along between the 110 and Figueroa Street.
FOR THE RECORD:
Parks: A Feb. 8 Op -Ed about gangs and parks stated that Smith Park is in Alhambra; it is
in San Gabriel.
Back when Flores was in her teens, local gang members tools it over as a hangout. They
congregated toward the back of the park in ever -larger groups, drinking beer and ready to
face off with any rival who happened by. You never really knew what was going to
happen. Most families avoided Sycamore Grove. Flores said she didn't visit the park for
years.
Gangs have receded from streets and public areas they once dominated.... In the region
that invented the phenomenon, it's probably no longer correct to talk about 'street'
gangs.
Two weeks ago, however, she was there, watching her 4 -year-old play on a jungle gym.
She and her son are beneficiaries of what can properly be called a revolution across
Southern California.
In the last few years, gangs have receded from streets and public areas they once
dominated. Indeed, in the region that invented the phenomenon, it's probably no longer
correct to talk about "street" gangs.
Gangs still exist here. They're involved in drug trafficking, identity theft, smash-and-
grab jewelry heists, burglaries. But the daily degradation and intimidation of whole
neighborhoods — the carjackings, graffiti, shootings and, of course, the constant hanging
out — is no longer central to how they operate.
Parks are among the best places to size up the scope of this change. Roosevelt Park in
Florence -Firestone; Smith Park in Alhambra; Patterson Park in Riverside; Salvador Park
in Orange County; Plaza Park in San Bernardino; and the mother ship, MacArthur Park,
west of downtown — all these and many more were notorious gang hangouts. Today they
have been returned to their rightful owners: neighborhood residents like Flores and her
son.
For years, gangs in parks inflicted a special kind of torture on working-class
neighborhoods. Residents were often crammed into houses or apartments that were too
small. Respite at a nearby park was out of the question when the picnic tables were
dominated by gang members with their beer cans and pit bulls.
Now families flock there, and nearby houses are appreciating in value. It's a barely
noticed yet radical change, and its benefits redound mostly to working-class families.
This shift is important beyond providing access to more outdoor space. Parks were part
of the primordial soup from which gangs emerged here. Parks were open areas where
members could be the occupying force that police could not. Several gangs took their
names from nearby parks. Establishing a presence in them added to a gang's reputation.
Because members were out in the open, some parks became crime magnets — places
where shootings happened and long-running feuds could erupt.
In the 1990s, when the Mexican Mafia prison gang imposed a truce between feuding
Latino gangs and instituted a system in which gang members "taxed" local drug dealers,
the meetings happened in parks in Chino, San Bernardino, Santa Ana, South El Monte,
Pacoima and Echo Park, to name a few.
00017,"M
• @teacherinLA > Stop blaming cops. They deserve a lot of credit for this& often work
in conjunction with ex-gangstas: http://news.sky.corn/story/1416260/la-gangs-join-
forces-in-fight-against-killings "Andre Christian, a former member of the Grape
Street branch of the Crips, says the Gang...
ZeroDarkThirty
at 5:34 PM February 12, 2015
Add a comment See all comments
21
After that, Latino gangs undertook a kind of ethnic cleansing in many of the surrounding
neighborhoods, attempting to rid their areas of black people, whether they were
affiliated with a gang or not. That terror was often spread at parks. Pacoima's Humphrey
Boyz gang made the Hubert Humphrey Memorial Recreation Center — Humphrey Park,
as it's known — off-limits to blacks for several years, according to residents and members
of that gang I have interviewed. In Montecito Park, just across the 110 from Sycamore
Grove, Avenues gang members staged assaults against black Highland Park residents;
federal prosecutors convicted four of them of violating hate crime laws in 2006.
Those days are gone.
What changed? The business imperatives in the gang and drug-trafficking underworld,
for one thing. The focus is now on making money. Tit-for-tat shooting feuds that were so
much a part of street gang life attract police attention and are now frowned upon. Why
risk business over petty street beefs?
New families, with no gang connections, are moving into traditional gang areas as old
families depart. Kids spend far more time indoors on the Internet and less time on the
street.
Better policing strategies are a big part of the story. Federal racketeering indictments and
CompStat, the data analysis of crimes and where they happen, have proved effective.
Gang injunctions have sent many gangs indoors or at least elsewhere.
The Los Angeles Police Department also underwent a profound change over 20 years,
embracing community policing and becoming more racially diverse. Officers now
cultivate alliances and partnerships with residents in a way impossible to imagine a
generation ago — and that combats much of what had atomized neighborhoods and
allowed gangs to flourish. Officers have fostered neighbors' confidence in reporting
crimes. They'll call a city crew to remove a discarded sofa.
Other law enfocement has followed suit.
In 2010, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department brought this philosophy to parks.
It formed a bureau to take over patrolling of 174 parks around the county from the Office
of Public Safety. Deputies were assigned specific parks. With accountability and
consistent deputy presence, problem parks — in Lennox, Lynwood, Lancaster — are now
safe for families.
At Sycamore Grove Park, the city put in new jungle gyms a few years back. It also
installed workout equipment, so, without the presence of gang members, locals now have
what amounts to a health club with no membership fee.
Still, I guess nothing comes for free.
Sycamore Grove is also where you can see another unexpected effect of the absence of
gangs: a rise in the number of homeless people. You can usually see a few guys pushing
shopping carts along the park and sleeping on the grass at midday.
Omnipresent street gangs kept rents low more effectively than any ordinance. Who'd pay
market rates to live in a gang neighborhood? What landlord wanted to invest in a
property while thugs lurked down the street? Now rents are on the rise in Highland Park,
and so is homelessness.
Uscolia Flores said that in the last three years, her mother-in-law's rent went from $600
to $989.
"You get rid of one thing," she told me, as I was leaving, "but then you struggle with
another."
Sam Quinones is a journalist based in Los Angeles. His third book, 'Dreamland: The True
Tale ofAmerica's Opiate Epidemic," comes out in April.
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