The Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council (ERNC) held its monthly board meeting at Eagle Rock City Hall on Tuesday evening. Agenda items included a letter urging the Los Angeles City Council to declare a public health emergency addressing anti-LGBTQ+ hate, and a car crash prompted a discussion on traffic safety.
After a car recently crashed into his neighbor’s home at the intersection of Townsend and Avenue 51, community member Kevin Gill-Jessup said he believed there should be more safety precautions in the area. He said that he lives two doors down from where the accident took place.
“The reason we suspect it happened is because on Townsend and Avenue 51, cars routinely speed down it and don’t stop at the stop sign,” Gill-Jessup said. “Additionally, last week bike lanes were added, and they removed lines at stop signs.”
Gill-Jessup also said that he wanted transportation safety precautions to be installed at the intersection and said that decisions on this issue could affect who he votes for in the upcoming CD-14 election.
“I’d like to see speed direction measures in place on roads where drivers who go fast, like speed bumps, more traffic cops, barriers in front of the houses that are most at risk, clearly marked sidewalks, lighting,” Gill-Jessup said. “[Those measures] can help prevent lots of pedestrian injuries.”
Gill-Jessup also said he would like to see the stop sign lines at all Avenue 51 intersections be reinstalled.
“I want my family and neighbors to be safe,” Gill-Jessup said.
Later in the meeting, ERNC board member and Social Justice Director Flor Chaidez moved to send a letter to the Los Angeles City Council in support of declaring a local public health emergency for anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes.
“There is an increasing rate of hate crimes in Los Angeles which has prompted calls for a public health emergency from community members and elected officials,” Chaidez said, reading from the letter.
According to Chaidez, making a declaration of this kind could help address the surge in anti-LGBTQ+ hate.
“Designating hate crimes in LA County as a public health emergency could initiate an influx of money to examine the root cause of the issue and provide services for vulnerable communities,” Chaidez said.
ERNC Board Treasurer Gina Elliott said she was interested in the letter, but said that wanted more information about the specific ways in which declaring a public health emergency would tangibly address anti-LGBTQ+ hate.
“I’m very supportive of putting resources into tackling hate crimes against the LGBTQ+ community,” Elliot said. “I just want to make sure that we can make a targeted suggestion to the city that is really going to address it in the right way.”
ERNC Board Member Margaret Irwin said that she had volunteered for the Los Angeles LGBTQ+ Alliance of Neighborhood Councils, and that she wanted the ERNC to lead the way on the initiative to declare a public health emergency.
“The amount of hate crimes that were reported every month in that meeting was shocking,” Irwin said.
The board voted 13-0 to approve the letter. ERNC President Michael Sweeney said that he believed the council should be allowed to send letters, like the LGBTQ+ hate crime initiative, to the county of Los Angeles.
“The neighborhood council sent letters to everybody all the way up to President Obama, and then the city decided that shouldn’t be allowed anymore,” Sweeney said.
Board member Richard Loew’s subsequent motion to amend the letter to also be sent to the LA Office of Civil Rights, passed unanimously.
The ERNC is set to hold its next monthly meeting Oct. 1.
Contact Addison Wieseler at wieseler@oxy.edu and Beatrice Nielson at neilson@oxy.edu.
