East Hollywood Target Appeal Hearing continued until June 2010

The hearing of the three appeals to the proposed Target store at Sunset and Western, which was scheduled for last Tuesday's Planning & Land Use Management Council Committee meeting, has been continued until June 1, 2010. Yup, continued for 6 long months. There was, of course, no announcement of an continuance prior to Tuesday's Planning & Land Use Management Council Committee meeting.

This is the fifth time this item has been continued. It was originally scheduled to be heard at the Planning & Land Use Management Council Committee on September 29th but was continued each time at the request of of Target representatives.

In a perfect world Target would use this time to work with the community to redesign the project so it meets the goals and objectives of the Vermont/Western SNAP. But this isn't a perfect world, is it? More likely than not Target will spend the next 6 months undertaking supplemental studies and reports in an attempt to beef up the project's Mitigated Negative Declaration to withstand the arguments the appellants have made against the project.

The next 6 months should be interesting.

There is one other thing I want to mention before we put discussion of the Target project on temporary hiatus. It has become clear to me in this whole process that the Council really doesn't care about community members, advocates, and stakeholders who take time out of their day to participate in the public process and provide input on issues of concern in their community.

Case in point:

One gentleman who took the time to be at Tuesday's hearing commented that it was his 3rd visit to the Planning & Land Use Management Council Committee for this item. He said that the prior 2 times he only found out the item was continued after he got to City Hall. This time he said he contacted the CLA staff who then told him to contact Councilmember Garcetti's office to find out if this item was going to be postponed or not. He indicated he left a message for one of CM Garcetti's staffers but did not hear back from her prior to departing North Hollywood to come downtown for the hearing.

Councilmember Ed Reyes (CD 1), the chair of the  Planning & Land Use Management Council Committee defended the continuance by saying that there are times hearings need to be delayed (five times in this case) and that these delays are "hard to control."

The gentleman then pointed out that it was "strange" that the Target representatives, and Council District 13 staff, always seem to know that the hearing is canceled but the appellants, and the general public, never seem to be notified.

Councilmember Reyes didn't respond directly to the gentleman's point, but simply commented that "evidently there is some understanding between the applicant and the Council Office."

Thank you Councilmember Reyes for pointing out the obvious.