Check out the Community Impact Statements (CISs) that MINC voted to send to City Hall at our November stakeholder meeting! They are attached here (with links to the relevant city council files) and summarized below.
Letter to Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG)
We have been talking with LADOT's Active Transportation Division, who are submitting a grant to SCAG with the goal to improve the safety and increase numbers of people walking and cycling in the City as well as bolster economic development and sustainability. We wrote a letter of support for the project, which is doing a feasibility study for amplifying connectivity in our mid-city core through:
SRTS’ Walking Safety Assessments and near-final SRTS Plan engineering recommendations for a Top 50 LAUSD schools with most need (Alta Loma Elementary)
Active Transportation’s Stress Free Connectivity initiative
CIS on council file 20-1044
This council proposal would see development of criteria to allow high value projects bypass PLUM committees in the planning process and go directly to the City Council. MINC believes that this is a bad idea, and additional checks and balances are needed to combat possible future corruption in planning and land use committees. We make some recommendations.
CIS on proposed Digital Communications Policy for NCs
The Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, which oversees neighborhood councils (NCs), has proposed a policy for how NCs use their website, social media accounts, and how individual members represent themselves on their personal accounts. We are concerned at some of the potential overreach possibilities and read the policy as being too restrictive on what NCs can post. We believe in order to serve our communities best, we need to be able to highlight voices and events beyond official city and NC events. We ask to be given more input on any potential policy.
CIS on council file 20-1376
The city is considering legislation that would ban sitting, sleeping, and lying within 500 ft of freeways, raps, tunnels, facilities that provide housing, shelter, services, safe parking, or storage to unhoused people. MINC believes this is overly restrictive and effectively criminalizes homelessness, which wastes money while accomplishing little.
Conclusion
We are adding a folder to our documents page that will compile all our CISs and letters, by year. Look for it and read up on what has been happening! Please reach out to comment on what you liked or disliked, or if there are particular issues you want us to discuss.