Recreation and Parks and Equal Justice
Diverse allies have sent a letter to the City of Los Angeles, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the City of Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Commission, and Department (”RAP”) demanding that the City take immediate steps to improve parks and recreation for all and to alleviate unfair disparities. The allies call for:
1. Developing and implementing a strategic plan with the community including the undersigned to improve parks and recreation in every neighborhood, as called for by the Controller for the City of Los Angeles and others.
2. Investing Quimby park development fees based on need, not based on artificial geographic limitations.
3. Creating, improving and/or maintaining parks in underserved communities, including but not limited to:
- Ascot Hills in East Los Angeles, four years after the City’s broken promises for a park,
- Griffith Park on the East Bank of the Los Angeles River, which the City is squandering as a service yard, and
- Watts Towers, which suffer from neglect and deterioration.
Los Angeles is park poor, and there are unfair disparities in access to park, school, and health resources based on race, ethnicity, income, poverty, youth, and access to cars and transportation. Children of color living in poverty without access to a car have the worst access to parks and to schools with five acres or more of playing fields, and suffer from the highest levels of child obesity and diabetes. In Los Angeles County, the prevalence of childhood obesity varies significantly among cities and communities, from a high of 29.3% in City Council District 8 in South Los Angeles, to a low of 18.1% in City Council District 5 in West Los Angeles, and is strongly associated with economic hardship and access to park space, according to the County Health Department.
“The City has failed to implement the Controller’s recommendations to improve parks in every neighborhood and alleviate unfair disparities more than four years after the audit was published,” according to Elise Meerkatz, Staff Attorney with The City Project. “[T]his project has not yet begun,” RAP Commissioners admitted on October 22. Years after calls for reform, the City has not changed Quimby park development fees, which developers of residential projects pay to create and improve park space, according to RAP Commissioners as of July 2009.
“We have done and will do what we must for our children and their families. We have sought justice in court to create or preserve parks at what is now Los Angeles State Historic Park at the Cornfield, Rio de Los Angeles State Park at Taylor Yard, and Canyon Back Trail in the Santa Monica Mountains, and to obtain public records about how the City is investing Quimby park fees,” according to Mark Williams of Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles. ”We have run out of hope that the City will do the right thing if its citizens do not demand it.”
“The lack of places for physical activity in parks has profound human health implications,” according to Marty Martinez, Policy Director for the California Pan Ethnic Health Network (CPEHN). ”Social science research shows that access to parks is critical to help reduce the epidemic of childhood obesity and diabetes.”
“Parks are important in themselves, and they are also a vital part of the city’s infrastructure. Equal access to public resources is a fundamental human right,” according to Robert García, President and Counsel of The City Project.
“We are willing to work with the City and RAP, but the commitment to change must be immediate and real,” according to Elise Meerkatz.
Click here to download the demand letter on Recreation and Parks and Equal Justice updated December 18, 2009.
The letter has been submitted by:
Robert García and Elise Meerkatz, The City Project
Mark Williams, Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles
Marty Martinez, California Pan Ethnic Health Network (CPEHN)
Mary Lee, PolicyLink.
A broken sign is a symbol of the City’s broken promises for a park at Ascot Hills four years after the groundbreaking.
