A sign is up at the Gaylord Apartments, a building located directly across from the former Ambassador Hotel site, indicating there is a meeting tonight at 6 pm with a representative from the Los Angeles Unified School District, which is building three schools on the site. Apparently, some residents in Gaylord are looking for the LAUSD to explain why 100-year-old palm trees were chopped down, and to expand on what the planned park on Wilshire will look like. Full email after the jump.
Email from Gaylord resident:
"....By way of background, I wanted to share one of the photos I took of the site two days after LA Unified took over the property. There were about 100 mature beautiful Palm trees on the property, some at least 100 years old. They were all killed by workmen with no regard for their value. Chopped down, which is ILLEGAL in the city of Santa Monica. Trees MUST be transplanted there. Now you show us presentations of what you guys want to plant at the ambassador site when it's done, and we all collectively scratch our heads. All these pictures of palm trees. What a waste of money, and of life really. We've seen a soccer field built on the site about two years ago, with sod AND a watering system (which did not work, the field was always just dirt) and what was erected was torn down in 6 months. Another WASTE of money.
We had a parking lot on the ambassador property run by Standard Parking which made all of our lives SAFER and much less STRESSFUL. WE WERE PROMISED that the parking would be REPLACED in the very first meeting we had with you guys 4 years ago.
The city of LA, with it's misguided, aggressive, money-making, parking ticket "scheme" is making our lives MISERABLE. Using parking ticket money to finance a city smacks of feudalism, quite frankly. But that is just my humble opinion. All I am asking at this time is for your help. In fact, we the PEOPLE of Los Angeles, RESIDENTS who border this construction site, DEMAND that you help us with this heinous parking problem. Either figure out a parking lot close to our property which we can rent, or radically and swiftly change the regulations in the neighborhood so we can park on the street WITHOUT BEING TICKETED, PERIOD.
You MUST come up with a solution that will assuage our fury over this parking situation.
Also, we must ALL be CLEAR about what is going on with that "PARK" which borders Wilshire Blvd. Quite frankly from what I've seen, it will not be a place where I can walk barefoot on the grass, or play catch with a baseball. From my experience in big cities, the park will be a MAGNET for the homeless and vagrant population we share our streets with. We are all citizens, and the homeless issue is a huge problem in Los Angeles and all over the USA, but the fact is we the residents of 3355 Wilshire Blvd. deserve to feel safe right in front of our home. Change should never be creating a situation which is WORSE for citizens than what "was" before.
We are looking forward to a lively and vibrant discussion Tuesday night!
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