South Park Residents Drop-In at Councilmember Jurado’s Event

          Forty-five + South Park residents and several downtown residents attended CD14 Councilmember Ysabel Jurado’s Drop-In event on Monday, March 24 at the South Park BID office from 5:30 to 7:30 pm.

The event to meet one-on-one with residents about their issues turned into a townhall style meeting at the request of the participants. Jurado admitted that the first two drop-in events at Little Tokyo/Arts District and Skid Row/Industrial District yielded few people and one-on-one sit-downs worked at those events, but South Park showed up in large numbers which required a change in format. After several ideas from the audience on how to proceed, Jurado met with residents in an open forum while her staff met one-on-one with residents. 

Councilmember Jurado opened with a couple of comments – LA City has a $1 billion deficit which will require tough decisions on where money is spent. She said she ran to improve basic city services, wants to bring more small businesses to downtown and support them, and be “a cheerleader for downtown.”

“South Park (and downtown) changed after COVID and is not rebounding” was the overarching view of the attendees. Most felt South Park and downtown are headed in the wrong direction.

Residents’ main concern centered around safety and security. The comments ranged from lack of street lighting to petty crimes, store break-ins, assaults, graffiti, encampments, and in general residents not wanting to walk the neighborhood. Councilmember Jurado talked of meeting with police, attending Community Policing Advisory Board meetings, and the strain on the department with fewer officers. The “quality of life issues” do not get addressed by the police because of major criminal activity. Councilmember Jurado called on the BIDs to help with public safety.

The issues of “empty store fronts” from Big Joe was echoed by many. One person suggested that pressure needed to be put on landlords to rent vs. writing off the vacancy on their taxes which might require legislation. Emotional comments centered on the loss of businesses, broken windows, and garbage accumulating around empty spaces.

A specific request for Councilmember Jurado was to have a downtown office to show she cares about downtown which has specific needs. Jurado currently has offices in Eagle Rock, Lincoln Heights, El Sereno, and Boyle Heights. Her City Hall office fills in as a downtown office, but she agreed that does not work well. She is considering adding a downtown office.

Councilmember Jurado said she is “willing to do the hard work.” She asked attendees what they were willing to do with a one-million-dollar deficit.

Resident responses after the meeting – “she recognized the issues – must  wait and see how she deals with the solutions,” “she is still getting up to speed,” “no money is a problem and deciding where to spend the money will be what is important,” “she appears to be more a doer than a politician,” “tonight’s meeting was productive and I think she is the real deal.” But there were also attendees that are taking a wait and see attitude with most comments centered around policing and support of the police, how she will allocate money between C14 neighborhoods and whether downtown gets the money it needs to make a comeback, and how well she will work with other council members and other city departments and organizations.

Safer, cleaner, more businesses in South Park and Downtown LA were the messages of the evening. Now the hard part begins…solutions.

By Debra Shrout