Posted: April 8th, 2008

The City Project’s Executive Director and Counsel Robert García presented the Policy Report Healthy Parks, Schools, and Communities: Mapping Green Access and Equity for the Los Angeles Region before the full Los Angeles City Council on March 18, 2008. Council members responded in a public conversation about a fair system of park finance and fees including Quimby fees; regional grass roots support for parks and recreation; joint use of parks and schools; alleviating park, school, and health disparities based on race, ethnicity, and poverty; parks and recreation as an alternative to gangs, crime, and violence; and improving the quality of life in every community. Highlights are quoted below.

View the maps and analyses of access to parks, schools, and pools by City Council District on The City Project flickr site.

The Downtown News has published two articles about The City Project working with the City Council and the Recreation and Parks Department, A Tale of Two Studies, and City Project Briefs Council on Parks Study.

View YouTube videos of the City Council hearing. Download a summary of The City Project recommendations. Download the text only version of the Policy Report in PDF format or order the multimedia report on compact disc online.

The following are highlights of the City Councilmembers’ comments:

Council Member Janice Hahn “Thank you to Robert García of The City Project for giving us the presentation and really giving us a good picture of where parks are in the City of Los Angeles.” “It’s clear that Los Angeles is a park poor city with the majority of greenspace concentrated in too few corners of this city.”

“[The City Project’s] work in showing us all this is really letting us pinpoint where our own Department of Recreation and Parks can focus its resources on building more parks.”

“We now know where the parks are, where they aren’t, where we need to spend more resources.”

“How do we spend our dollars in a tough budget cycle. . . . If we’re going to shortchange people, and children, in this city, we are going to pay for it later. We know that if we don’t offer people a place to recreate, a place to play, a place to get involved in sports, then we are going to pay for it later. . . . We ought to pay for it on the front end by giving people more places to play, more places to recreate.” “The same parts of the city that are underserved in so many ways, clearly are underserved in terms of something which many people take for granted, and that is open space to play and recreate.”

Councilman Ed Reyes “First of all, I thank Robert García for taking this work on a regional level, it’s important to see it that way.”

“These are problems that we have. The gang issue. We put a lot of money, a lot of policy language, discussion, meetings, but we haven’t looked at the core issues of what causes gangs, and that is the ability for children to live near parks, to have diversion, so that they are not sucked into the gang culture.”

“The end consequence is that the kids in our neighborhoods are being shot to death. Our kids don’t have a place to play. They don’t have baseball diamonds, they don’t have soccer fields. . . . We need to put our policy language in line with our realities. I hope this Council understands that it does take a brave act to do what’s right, and that we should sustain our policies so that we can allow for whole communities to live near parks.” “We should have a constructive dialogue without criticism and talk about what’s real in our land use patterns and allow these kids to play in parks.”

Council Member José Huizar on joint use of schools and parks: “In terms of the existing facilities, both on the city’s side and the school’s side, it’s just a matter of leadership and us working together to make that happen. The limited resources are there, we just have to optimize their use and, particularly, to focus the kids at our schools and how do we provide them the parks when they need them and how do we provide more of the schools’ facilities when the public needs them. And, unfortunately we are in a situation where we have budget constraints on both sides. The schools, for example, are asking local Little Leagues to pay increasing fees to use the schools. But, I think we’ve got to break that mold and think more creatively about how we ensure that we are working a lot closer together and that, there, is just a matter of leadership for us to collectively work together.”

“On the side of new facilities, I think there we have a tremendous opportunity, both on the school side where they’re still building new schools, why not create more parks while you’re building the schools, get creative how you design your schools so you provide a park or some open space for the community to use as well. And us too. As we move forward, hopefully we do get a park bond and we create those additional open space and parks, we do them near our schools so that our kids can benefit from them, given that many of our schools are cluttered with bungalows and very limited places for them to recreate.”

“[The City Project has] been, I think, a real lone voice on this item for a long time. We hope to amplify your voice because this is something that we continue to discuss and talk but we need to get you a big bullhorn and continue providing you that so that we make this an urgency for the city of Los Angeles and the school district.”

Council President Eric Garcetti “Thank you for your continuing great work on park equity and bringing up issues that cut across race and class when looking at green space in our city.”

“CD 13 is the smallest district in the city, only 13 square miles. And so, people are saying ‘How do we create parks, we don’t have any land.’ And I believe, because we’ve shown almost tripling the number of parks in less than seven years in one council district that happens to be the smallest, that there’s no place in this city that we can’t find the space. It’s the political will, it’s the social will, it’s the community will to actually do this.”

“A skate park right along the L.A. river where we had kids six years who said, “If you need to put nature by the river do it, but just give us a skate park, for God’s sake.” And when we were able to do it, they designed it, they built it, they staff it now and I’ve got to tell you what it did to transform the Elysian Valley and to empower those kids in that neighborhood, keep them away from gangs, keep them out of trouble, and actually have a place to play. It is transformative.”

Council Member Wendy Greuel “Thank you Robert for this presentation. We often find that parks are an integral part of the community and a neighborhood and particularly for those kids who have no other option in which to play.” “Some people unfortunately in our city think a park brings problems. I think a park brings opportunities for us.”

“It’s about prevention, it’s about our healthy environment, it’s about creating better neighborhoods and quality of life, and this report and what you’re doing really helps us in that way.” “We know that if development happens on some of those potential parklands we will never get that land back for park space, never ever. I think it behooves us, and it is very important for us, to take a leadership role here. So I appreciate your presentation and Mr. LaBonge suggesting that you come here to the council chambers to look at ways in which we can better our community and environment.”

Council Member Tom LaBonge “Every day is another opportunity to try to create more space for people to live a better life in a city. A city, if you look at a city, how it’s built, its parks, its places, its common grounds are so important. The City Project does just that. I hope we can focus on it [and that] you also afterwards get [the Policy Report] on this so you can share it with your staff and be part of the effort to create more public space for the improvement of quality of life in Los Angeles.”

“Members, if we explored ourselves, as well as our staff, to find some solutions to the challenge of open space. Because it is about alienation, if you don’t have a city, you want to live in you may feel alienated to its environment.”

“Please assign a deputy on your staff to really focus on this so you can take advantage of it.”

Download the highlights of City Councilmember comments.