From the Downtown News
A River Runs Through Him
First District Councilman Ed Reyes is seeking a third and final term to make progress on projects such as revitalizing the Los Angeles River.
For First District Councilman Ed Reyes, Almost Everything Revolves Around Reclaiming the Waterway
by Ryan Vaillancourt
“The cornerstone of this would-be transformation is a 67-year-old, 415-unit housing project, the William Mead Homes. In the heart of the North Central neighborhood, the site represents for Reyes decades of neglect, stagnation and gang culture. In its place, he envisions a denser, mixed-income community that would combine hundreds of new, market-rate apartments with the affordable component already there.
“If I can maintain one-to-one affordable that you see there, and triple the density, I can bring in a middle and upper-middle class range of units that complements a facility that decentralizes the economic ghetto that you find there,” he said. “It’s been there for decades and all it’s done is create generation after generation of gang culture. We need to essentially decentralize, disband and disarm the culture that breeds on violence and drug dealing.”
There are two city planners focusing on the possible project at the William Mead Homes site, and Reyes has so far conducted three meetings with tenants, he said.â€
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Of course Reyes is speaking of the projects known as “Dogtownâ€, which has housed many people, for many years, who are not now and never have been gang members.
But it seems that the buzzword “gang “ is code for eminent destruction of a neighborhood of poor and working class people, and the smacking sound of developers and politicians licking their collective lips in anticipation of, as Reyes describes, “higher density, middle and upper-middle class range of units†can be heard at various high end dining and wining spots where the deals are arranged.
Who does Reyes represent after all? The poor and mostly working class constituents of his district 1 or developers and the upper middle class future residents of his higher density nirvana?
Reyes who will be termed out if he is elected this time is suddenly very busy with multi developments, for the good of his constituents of course.
And again we all get to hear that infamous and bogus term “affordable housing”, oh yeah!
