Assembly Candidate Catches Amnesia

Inglewood residents have begun receiving campaign literature for the upcoming June 7 special election to fill the vacancy created when Autumn R. Burke abruptly quit. Two members of Burke’s former staff are now running to succeed her.

Robert Pullen-Miles is the sole Black member of the Lawndale City Council, and the city’s first Black mayor. His campaign literature lauds his work to prevent evictions, which jogged this author’s memory on how he felt about Los Angeles County’s attempts to house the homeless in his city at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

From the LA Times:

When officials in the South Bay city of Lawndale learned that a hotel on its main drag had been leased to Los Angeles County to house homeless people at high risk for the coronavirus, their reaction wasn’t to put out a welcome mat.

Rather, in an April 14 letter to the hotel’s owner, the city attorney said that if he did not break the lease by the next day, a hearing would be called to consider revoking the hotel’s operating permit.

‘We aren’t the dumping ground’: Homeless people fleeing coronavirus meet NIMBY resistance

Yes, the city of Lawndale threatened a lawsuit to put a small business out of business to keep the homeless out. What was Mayor Pullen-Miles’ response?

“On this particular project,” he said of the hotel, “our position is we feel there are other communities where this type of program is probably more fitting.”

Why didn’t he want the homeless in Lawndale? And what other communities were more fitting?

He said his city’s top concerns were whether the homeless residents would be free to roam the surrounding neighborhood and whether they would be transported out of the city after the lease ended.

Robert Pullen-Miles

Please don’t tout your moving from Oklahoma to California with only $25 bucks, and no permanent place to sleep, and berate others who are in a similar position as you.

What’s that saying don’t forget where you come from?

It’s getting more and more obvious Black candidates aren’t here to work on behalf of the underserved, but for themselves and their campaign donors.

This author can corroborate that Burke’s office assisted with helping people get through to EDD, although Pullen-Miles didn’t appreciate residents calling this author to facilitate their requests.