South Central Farmers, Local Community Fight Horowitz, City, For Land, Air
Nearby schools, future park, and residences will beimpacted from air quality, diesel exhaust, noise, toxic air contaminants, and odors, and impacts to sensitive receptors and recreational facilities all demand that the developer and the City make every effort to protect the community.
On Wednesday July 2nd, The South Central Farmers and members of the local community near the site of the South Central Farm will protest plans by local developer Ralph Horowitz to develop a warehouse distribution center on the now- bulldozed Farm land.
The City Planning Department has announced its intention to allow the warehouse to be built without following the standard guidelines for an Environmental Impact Report, a move Farm representatives and the community say will endanger the health of local residents. Plans call for a warehouse facility that will draw some 11 diesel big rigs into the area every hour on a daily basis, creating an intolerable concentration of diesel fumes and particulate matter in a neighborhood in a warehousing district already saturated with such exhaust, posing the danger of increased risks of cancer, emphysema, asthma, and increased hospitalizations to poor people of color who live in the district. South Central Farm representative Tezozomoc said, "This is an unmistakable and undeniable threat to the health and well being of the people who live here, and that the City Planning Department has waived the requirement for an Environmental Impact Report on behalf of Mr. Horowitz is a clear cut example of environmental racism."
Nearby schools and residences, a city park planned for 2 ½ acres of the site, the historical significance of the site as the South Central Farm, the analyses of impacts from air quality, diesel exhaust, noise, toxic air contaminants, and odors, and impacts to sensitive receptors and recreational facilities all demand that the developer and the City bend every effort to protect the community. A full and highly detailed Environmental Impact Report is only the beginning of that effort.
Studies show that diesel fumes and particulate matter pose serious health risks to those who live near high concentrations of diesel exhaust. Last year, the State of California estimated that lowering diesel emissions would annually prevent 6,500 premature deaths. A report by the American Lung Association of California makes the stakes for the South Central neighborhood plain:
"While diesel pollution harms everyone, the most serious health impacts are experienced by sensitive populations, including children, the elderly, and those with existing heart and lung diseases, as well as communities near truck stops, distribution centers, freeways and major highways, refineries or other sources of diesel exhaust..."
A report by the California Air Resources Board and the South Coast Air Quality Management District concluded that diesel exhaust is the most significant source of air toxins in California and accounts for over 70% of the cancer risk statewide and in the South Coast Air Basin from toxic air contaminants.
Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jan Perry, who negotiated the sale of the land back to Horowitz at an estimated 8 Million dollar loss to tax payers, and who also backed Horowitz' drive to evict the South Central Farmers from the site, represents the council district that includes the Farm land and the proposed warehouse distribution center.
Perry was also designated by the City Council to sit on the board of the South Coast Air Quality Management District. South Central Farmers representative Rufina Juarez said, "Perry is deeply familiar with the dangers associated with diesel pollution, she claims to stand against environmental racism and for environmental justice, and, despite and because of her complicity in an $8 million give-away of the Farm land to Ralph Horowitz, we demand that she take a stand against this project that is consistent with her public pronouncements against diesel emissions and with her role on the Air Quality Board."
WHEN: Wednesday, July 2nd at 9A.M.
WHAT: Press Conference demanding full environmental accountability
WHO: South Central Farmers and area residents, peaceful supporters, Azteca dancers, plus special musical guests
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Leslie Morava / 310-428-9380
June 20, 2008 Lora O'Connor / 415-378-4008
Scott Hamilton Kennedy / 323-270-1666
DARYL HANNAH TO ATTEND WEST COAST PREMIERE OF "THE GARDEN"
AT L.A.F.F. SATURDAY 6/21
After rousing world premiere at Silverdocs in Washington, DC "The Garden" continues to roll out with Daryl Hannah and other notable cast members at its west coast premiere at LAFF
Los Angeles - Activist, actress and environmental advocate Daryl Hannah, who was arrested in June 2005 along with many others for their courageous defense of the nation's largest urban farm in South Central L.A. the South Central Farm, will be on-site for the first west coast screening of Scott Hamilton Kennedy's "The Garden" at the Los Angeles Film Festival Saturday, June 21 at 1 pm.
Daryl Hannah will be available for interview and to address the press at 3PM in front of the MANN Theater after the film's screening and Q&A period. Joining her will be filmmaker Scott Hamilton Kennedy and Farmers representatives Rufina Juarez and Tezozomoc. A representative of Mayor Villaraigosa's office has also been invited to attend.
The film marks the launch of the first feature-length film documenting the historical struggle to save the nation's largest urban farm, Los Angeles' own South Central Farm. June 13 marked the 2nd anniversary of the turbulent eviction of poor farmers from the nation's largest urban farm, which the city had donated to the South Central community as a beacon of hope.
WHAT: The Garden Movie - A Film by Scott Hamilton Kennedy Q & A WITH DARYL HANNAH and others
WHEN: Saturday, June 21, 3:00 PM
Breakdown: FILM SCREENING: 1pm-2:20 PM
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS INSIDE THEATER : With filmmakers, farmers: 2:30 to 3 PM
TO PRESS OUTSIDE THEATER: Daryl Hannah and farm representatives available to address the press: 3 PM
WHO: Daryl Hannah, filmmaker Scott Hamilton Kennedy, South Central Farm Representatives and cast members Rufina Juarez and Tezozomoc, Executive Producers and other special guests.
WHERE: Los Angeles Film Festival, MANN Theater, 10887 Lindbrook Dr. Los Angeles, CA 90024
The Garden is the unflinching look at the struggle between urban farmers and the City of Los Angeles and a powerful developer who wants to evict them and build warehouses. Mostly immigrants from Latin American countries where they feared for their lives if they were to speak out, we watch them organize, fight back, and demand, "Where is our 'Justice for all'?" "If everyone told you nothing more could be done, would you give up?"
The Garden has the pulse of verité with the narrative pull of fiction, telling the story of the country's largest urban farm, backroom deals, land developers, green politics, money, poverty, power, and racial discord. The film explores and exposes the fault lines in American society and raises crucial and challenging questions about liberty, equality, and justice for the poorest and most vulnerable among us.
First it was a trash incinerator, and we fought it!
Now, it's a 10 acre low-wage diesel-soot 24 hour polluting warehouse and we must fight it!
Construction of a warehouse facility and distribution center with approximately 643,000 square feet of warehouse and ancillary support space in a 46-foot high, two-story structure on a 10.04 acres site (437,196 square feet after dedication) in the M2-2 Zone. The project includes subterranean parking of approximately 114,399 square feet for 306 cars. Parking for another 39 cars would be provided at grade level for a total of 345 parking spaces.
"Economic inequality has been and remains deeply ingrained in Los Angeles.2 The disparity in income between rich and poor continues to widen with a dramatic increase in low-wage workers and the steady rise in the poverty rate. Not surprisingly, economic inequities coincide with racial and ethnic divisions, leaving African Americans and Latinos disproportionately over represented at the bottom of the economic ladder. Therefore, while many residents bask in the well celebrated Los Angeles charms, others, the poor of Los Angeles, survive in impoverished inner-urban neighborhoods, the very same neighborhoods that exploded into violence on April 29, 1992." -- Paul Ong, "Poverty and Employment Issues in the Inner Urban Core"
We need your help!
You can support the struggle to stop the warehouse by doing at least one of the following things.
Becoming a "Supporting Member" of the South Central Farmers Health and Education Fund so we can write a letter to the Planning Department from an organization with members...
I want to become a "Supporting Member"
Join us for a free Movie Screening of Scott Kennedy's "The Garden" (see below)
June 21, 2008, @ 1:00 pm at 10887 Lindbrook Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90024
Send an email petition to the City Planning department opposing the warehouse and demanding a full EIR and public hearings... Petition
Join us Monday Night @ 7:00 pm at the SCF Center located 1702 e. 41st St, Los Angeles, CA 90058 (800) 249-5240 for a meeting to discuss shutting down the warehouse.
Join us on July 2nd, 2008 for a Rally in front of City Hall for the Hearing By: Deputy Advisory Agency,Date: July 2, 2008, Time: 10:OO AM ,Place: Los Angeles City Hall, 200 North Spring Street, Room 1020, Los Angeles, CA 9001 2
Items: VTT-6 1482/ENV-2008-799-MND/Negative Mitigation Plan
"We have to throw them off," said Horowitz, of Brentwood (7820)
.jpg)