It is painfully obvious that the City is stalling on increasing its affordable housing stock despite multiple staff reports saying the contrary.
The City has entered into three affordable housing agreements with Thomas Safran, who is a consistent contributor to Inglewood Mayor James Butts’ reelection campaigns and only one of the projects is actually being built.
Related: Inglewood appears to be land banking to avoid building affordable housing
You wrote about the City land banking these parcels back in 2019 and the reason for it is to avoid having to sell the land and return the money to the state. The City’s own staff report says so. As long as the City purports to have active projects attached to parcels formerly owned by the Redevelopment Agency, it buys them time with the state, although based on the staff report, time is running out. This year to be exact.
Safran was granted two vacant parcels on the north end of Market Street at Regent and another vacant parcel at Crenshaw and 82nd Street in Feb 2018 to build affordable housing and if you drive by there regularly, no work is being done and there are no actions on any Inglewood council agenda from the Public Works department to support it either. The vacant lots on Market street lie along the path of the proposed Inglewood Transit Connector and the one on Crenshaw is most likely contaminated because it used to be a gas station. A former city employee spoke about the City not fully disclosing the contamination to prospective buyers like K.P. Properties and Stan Kroenke.
Related: Eye on Mayor Butts: Passing out free money to developers, campaign donors
They say a prophet is never honored or received in his or her own home.
I hate to say it but I proudly hold the self-appointed / self-anointed biggest supporter and critic of your coverage of the City’s questionable land/real estate transactions, involving deals using questionable tools such as exclusive negotiation agreements.
Related: Letter to the Editor: Why does Inglewood only sell city-owned property to certain developers?
Upon a deeper review, it is clear the public’s (taxpayer’s) land is being given away to preferred developers for pennies on the dollar and these developers tend to belong to a small elite group of developers who are reliable political donors to Mayor Butts and by extension those whom he sees as imperative to his success.
From the City Clerk’s office to the council and even the Inglewood Unified School District, it’s hard to imagine where Mayor Butts and his rich billionaire donor buddies haven’t attempted to influence elections and/or land-related decisions with money or copious, insurmountable resources.
There is no way to explain it but simply it appears that the Butts administration, which on the surface appears to devise a plan to usher in an economic revolution in the city, but they aren’t. It’s the outside billionaires, like in a DC Comics movie using their limitless wealth to descend on a politically and ethically compromised government and take over that City and or municipality, like a thief in the night and despite credible warnings no one heeded them.
Without the risk of losing you and your readers, I see a dangerous pattern here, especially with the council adopting that acquisition of land language two weeks ago, that’s needed to complete the route for the highly touted Inglewood Transit connector slated to open in conjunction with the 2028 Olympics.
Did I miss something?
Is Inglewood any closer to securing the necessary funding to complete the people mover or is it safe to assume like the Mayor painfully resigned to the notion that the Inglewood Transit connector may in fact never happen despite best efforts to get this project done?
it was clear with the defeat of Measure I in 2021, that the prospect of the people mover is dead on arrival as the passage of Measure I would have allowed funds to be raised through the measure to go to the design, construction, and completion of the Inglewood Transit connector. Residents aren’t paying attention that money is coming out of the GENERAL FUND to finance the many consultants getting contracts with the City hoping that the activity is reimbursable by Metro.
Once again, did I miss something?
What is with all this activity, and expenditure of consultant and attorneys fees, acquisition of property under a loosely devised scheme known as land banking or as I like to refer to in the case of the City of Inglewood a three-card monte also known as a Ponzi scheme?
Again, where is the City going to come up with another billion dollars to complete this transit project if California is facing a multi-billion deficit and after Sen. Padilla and Feinstein bent over backward to secure federal funding to only come up with $5 million is laughable. Republicans take over the House of Representatives this week and I doubt their priority is the Los Angeles Olympics.
You spoke on it years ago about how the City initially wanted to pay for the transit connector and no one was paying attention. Perhaps it’s time to revisit your article on the matter.
Related: Inglewood finds money to pay for people mover: tax the city’s residents
You wrote about the City attempting to create a special finance district that encompassed the ENTIRE city of Inglewood.
Related: Consultants request application related to Inglewood Transit Connector be placed on hold
The City consultants tabled the matter after you brought it up. Someone even went through the trouble to tell you to stop focusing on the mayor and his ex-girlfriend and keep your eyes on the lack of funding for the transit connector.
Related: Letter to the Editor: 2UrbanGirls you are focusing on the WRONG issue in Inglewood
If residents don’t see the connection between keeping the residents at bay through phony affordable housing projects while they go behind their backs to tax them for the transit connector, I have a stairway to heaven to sell them.
I wonder what Asm. Tina McKinnor has to say on the matter considering her first act as Assemblywoman was to pass a bill related to affordable housing reporting mandates.
