Posted: December 15th, 2005

Dear Friends,

As we enter this holiday season and prepare for the upcoming year, we wanted to take the opportunity to thank you for everything you have done to support the Center for Law in the Public Interest this year. It has been a remarkable year. We have continued the fight to improve our children’s health, create new parks and new funding sources for more natural lands, build new schools and modernize existing schools, keep green space and beaches open and accessible for all, create jobs for local workers and an even playing field for small business enterprises, and promote many other priorities for the people of the Los Angeles region and beyond.

Yet, it is only with your support that the Center can continue to lead the way. With your financial support, the Center can take risks, advocate for change, and stand up for a better future for all of us. Your tax-deductible investment today can help secure a future that includes healthy children, new green space, good schools, economic vitality, equal justice, democracy, and a vibrant community.

Here is a brief review of some of the victories we helped achieve in 2005:

• We celebrated the groundbreaking of a 140-acre natural urban park in the Ascot Hills of East Los Angeles, to green one of the most park-poor areas of the region.

• The Governor and Legislature provided $9 million for the Baldwin Hills Park and Conservancy, rejecting a proposal to eliminate the Conservancy.

• Surrounded by local residents and their families, we celebrated the groundbreaking for the new El Rio de Los Angeles State Park at Taylor Yard. The balanced 40-acre park will feature soccer fields, a running track, and other opportunities for physical activity, as well passive recreation. Four years ago, we won a lawsuit to prevent this site from becoming an industrial park.

•I served as Chairman of the School Bond Oversight Committee in Los Angeles. We helped shape the construction and modernization of public schools in Los Angeles to improve our children’s education and health and revitalize our communities. More than $9.2 billion will be invested on 184 new schools and additions, which will add over 6,500 classrooms and over 450 acres of playing fields and play areas. More than 35 schools opened in 2005.

School construction will create 174,000 jobs, $9 billion in wages, and $900 million in local and state taxes. Small businesses and local workers will receive a fair share of these benefits through programs that serve as best practice examples for other public works projects around the country.

•We stopped a proposal by school district staff to charge non-profit youth groups to use sports fields and other school facilities after school and on weekends. The pay-to-play proposal would have disproportionately hurt organizations that serve low-income children and children of color.

• We are helping to keep public beaches open for all. The California Coastal Commission ordered Malibu property owners to stop using illegal “private property” and “no trespassing” signs, and private security guards on all-terrain vehicles that harassed and prevented the public from reaching the public beach.

• We published chapters in new books on The Quest for Environmental Justice and Awakening from the Dream: Civil Rights under Siege and the New Struggle for Equal Justice.

• The Center received awards from the City of Los Angeles, the American Society of Landscape Architects, and the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Board for extensively publishing research and findings on urban parks and their benefits for the L.A. River, improving the quality of life in Southern California and beyond, and improving water quality and restoring habitat through the greening of the Los Angeles River.

We want to thank you again for your commitment to a better future for Los Angeles. Now we want to ask you to – once again – renew your commitment to that future.

We ask that you consider investing in a greener, more just, more democratic future by contributing to the Center today. Please visit our website to learn about the many ways you can make a difference — by making an individual contribution, by donating appreciated securities, by having your firm co-counsel with us, and many other ways.

On behalf of all of us at the Center for Law in the Public Interest,

Robert Garcia
Executive Director and Counsel

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