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Preservation-focused Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council meeting starting now. https://twitter.com/esotouric/status/1304091332277927936
145 (!!!) people on the line for public comment.
Japanese and Spanish interpreters are on hand to ensure that all community members can express themselves about the privatization of Keiro/Sakura Gardens senior housing and other gentrification and development issues.
Caller is concerned about ELACC’s control of the historic church site Casa Del Mexicano and wants to know how that happened. There are multiple people sharing a single phone line and making public comment. Next caller wants wraparound social services in historic buildings.
Hana Kawano, her family lived on Euclid, very concerned that Pacifica has been taking over culturally Japanese nursing homes. Her family was terrorized by the decline in care at another Pacifica facility. Wrong to put in luxury housing in an old folks home that was a nonprofit.
There are others who want to speak about Pacifica’s proposal to knock down Keiro/Sakura Gardens, but they’re reminded to wait until the agenda item. Jose Huizar has disenfranchised this beautiful neighborhood, he’s MIA and the people are fighting HARD!
Brenda Martinez and Beatriz Zaragoza complain that ELACC is placing a Verizon cell tower on Casa Del Mexicano but the community has had no input, and there are health concerns. They want the tower gone.
A lot of caller are scared about the health impacts of the Verizon cell tower and feel that ELACC is ignoring the concerns of the Boyle Heights community.
Next up is a status report on the long shuttered Breed Street Shul from Dan Tenenbaum, Vice Chair of the BSS Project.
Breed Street Shul Project update for @boyleheightsnc: Vice Chair Dan Tenenbaum is also a housing commissioner. Gives an overview of the left-leaning Jewish community that built and utilized the temple compound from 1915-1980s.
Breed Street Shul is apparently the last historic brick building in Los Angeles that has not been structurally reinforced. (That seems hard to believe, maybe the only designated landmark.) They need $2 Million to finish the work. Seeking grants to 1) retrofit and 2) reactivate.
Breed Street Shul proposal: basement would be space for nonprofits. Temple space would be cultural venue, live theater, community meetings. Mini museum of Boyle Heights immigration history. These are nice ideas, but why can’t they raise $? Jose Huizar didn’t care. Do LA Jews?
Public comment on the Breed Street Shul Project. Here’s Shmuel Gonzales, the Barrio Boychik. Excited about the possibilities. The Pico-Union Project is a great model for a shuttered shul made relevant. He says NOTHING has happened in three years, and there’s no communication.
Before he gets cut off, Shmuel Gonzales, the Barrio Boychik says his Boyle Heights history museum is now exhibiting the local cultural installation that used to be in Breed Street Shul. He doesn’t understand what they’re doing with their space.
Our experience with Breed Street Shul was always so frustrating, we wanted to bring people into the back temple as part of our Boyle Heights history tours, but could never even get a call back. So we would park in front of the razor wire fence and tell stories. Hope for change!
Next up on the @BoyleHeightsNC agenda is the highly contentious Pacifica redevelopment of the historic senior living facility on Boyle Avenue, originally Jewish Home for the Aged, now Keiro / Sakura Gardens. 1st up, Ryley Webb the developer's rep. Looks like big money!
Project goals of developer Pacifica who took control of the Japanese cultural senior housing complex on Boyle Avenue five years ago. Suggests family members will move close to their elders. Says these units will be crummy so they will be cheaper than most new housing. WOW!
Pacifica’s Keiro/Sakura Gardens redevelopment proposal. No changes to memory care or retirement home, only to ICF building. Rooftop would have views of all that Jose Huizar once surveyed.
Pacifica’s plan is to create a cohesive multi-generational campus. They just submitted it to the Planning Department 3 weeks ago. It’s good that @BoyleHeightsNC jumped on this project as soon as it was listed, because this is VERY DISTURBING. Special guest getting patched in now.
Giving public comment, Rev. Mark Nakagawa, Dist. Sup. United Methodist Church. He is opposed to the project. It violates agreement betw Pacifica and Kamala Harris of a 5 year pause on any changes. Violates integrity of retirement home. Should build senior housing, not market rate
Tune in now to @BoyleHeightsNC on Zoom as @RepMaxineWaters has public comment for developer Pacifica, which has plans to turn the Japanese cultural retirement home Keiro/Sakura Gardens into market rate housing.
http://bhnc.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/PLUC-AGENDA-09-10-2020.pdf
http://bhnc.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/PLUC-AGENDA-09-10-2020.pdf
@RepMaxineWaters has grave concerns about Pacifica’s plans. She arranged a meeting with @KamalaHarris when sale of nonprofit senior residence was first proposed. Boyle Heights is not her district, but her constituents have aged kin living there. Broken promise to make no changes.
@RepMaxineWaters calls out how gentrification hurts our communities, displaces culture and transforms our landmarks. We can’t allow profit motive alone to dictate such important places impacting our communities...
@RepMaxineWaters continues in her comments to Pacifica re Keiro/Sakura Gardens: Let our Japanese seniors stay in their home. How would you feel if they were your parents? It is an abandonment of a sacred covenant between generations.
Ernesto notes that Pacifica’s proposal lacks green space, and if they want to move so many new people onto the Keiro/Sakura Gardens, there should be greener community amenities, and not just on the roof with pricey DTLA views.
Elsie García, a native of Boyle Heights who lives close to Keiro/Sakura Gardens says to Ryley Webb of Pacifica: “If this doesn’t include affordable housing, we don’t want it! We will not be displaced!"
Sanjoy Datta has an elder living in Keiro/Sakura Gardens, says they are already chipping away at the Japanese character of the facility by withholding culturally familiar food from tenants. Seeks to take away the aging-in-place facility. His family doesn’t trust Pacifica.
Michael Toji’s 90 year old mother has lived in Keiro/Sakura Gardens for 15 years. She speaks no English, this was where she felt safe. Her facility is proposed for demolition. 70 people live there! Concerned they are especially vulnerable to COVID. His mom is crying.
Kristin Fukishima wants more engagement with Boyle Heights community and the current Keiro/Sakura Gardens residents. Everyone was afraid of gentrification and displacement when sale happened, and here it comes. Pacifica needs to be more accountable.
Tracy Imamura has a photo of 5 residents who lived in the ICF facility when Pacifica bought the nonprofit senior housing facility 5 years ago. Their building would be demolished. Community is very concerned. 70 jobs lost. (Her full letter with photo will be on BHNC website.)
Jeanine DiTomasso from the Neighborhood Music School across from Keiro/Sakura Gardens says parking is already very difficult. The proposed density concerns her. Will guests park on the street?
Timothy Manaka, former board member of Keiro, reminds us the Jewish Home for the Aged was originally on this historic site. His elders are so well cared for by Beverly Ito and her staff. He is very concerned about their aging in place. And are they demolishing activities center?
Etsuko has an elder with dementia who is so well cared for at the ICF at Keiro/Sakura Gardens. This is the building Pacifica wants to demolish. She won’t understand, and will be harmed if forced out in a pandemic. The shame & blame of this poorly thought out sale...
Karen is a professor. Her parents donated to Keiro when they didn’t have money for milk for the family. It is a sacred covenant. The community’s bond with this facility is very great. It’s an issue of corporate responsibility. BHNC, please help hold Pacifica accountable.
Dr. Takeshi Matsumoto cares for 68 patients at ICF, and most of them are Japanese speaking Medi-Cal users. There is nowhere else for them to go. The caregivers will lose jobs, the elders will lose their care. VOTE NO, please save the elders.
Jon Kaji says @KamalaHarris suppressed the public comment period five years ago when Pacifica sought to purchase the Japanese senior housing facility Keiro / Sakura Gardens. It’s wrong. Please oppose this plan.
Hana Kawano explains how a Keiro/Sakura Gardens patient with dementia said to her “If I don’t have anyone to talk to, I won’t know that I exist.” "What if she only spoke Japanese? I couldn’t have understood her." What will happen to the workers, the residents? For luxury housing?
Kensaku Nakayama’s mother lives at Keiro/Sakura Gardens. Other Pacifica properties has had bad COVID-19 outbreaks and deaths, but ICF where his mom is has been safe. The staff is great. It would be a great disruption to residents to demolish their home.
James Okazaki appreciates the Japanese-American community coming together. As a city employee and community member, he hopes there can be an acceptable transition plan before the Planning Commission permits a project. We’re in a pandemic. You’re scaring people! Halt and lay low!
Mark Masaoka has such deep family ties to Keiro/Sakura Gardens that he was actually married on the grounds. Market rate housing on this site would exacerbate gentrification and increase homelessness in Boyle Heights.
A former member of the California Assembly calls in and describes how senior citizens are being culled by coronavirus. Black Lives Matter, Senior Lives Matter, too. This is a moral issue, like fighting systemic racism. It goes far beyond land sales and deals with @KamalaHarris.
Carlos Montes is opposed to Pacifica project. He’s a senior in Boyle Heights and has a hard time finding decent affordable housing. A lot of older homeless people in the community.
Brenda Martinez calls out all the affordable housing being developed in Boyle Heights which nobody can actually afford, and local people don’t even get first chance to move in. This is a displacement project, she’s against it.
Kristine Dennehy is a professor of Japanese-American cultural history at Cal State Fullerton. This site has a regional significance, and the community matters. She opposes the market rate redevelopment of the historic senior housing facility.
Mike Okamura, Little Tokyo Historical Society, talks about how Japanese-Americans in Boyle Heights had to go to the Supreme Court to be able to open the Japanese Hospital, which led to Keiro. The community needs a voice. Affordable housing for seniors is so needed.
David Garcia, born and raised in Boyle Heights. He doesn’t know anyone who lives in the Japanese American senior housing Keiro/Sakura Gardens, but he is very moved by what he’s heard from callers opposing Pacifica’s demolition proposal. He too opposes it 100%.
John Kanai of Koreisha Senior Care & Advocacy says when seniors moved into Keiro/Sakura Gardens, seniors were promised they would be safe for the rest of their lives. There is no place for them to go. They don’t deserve to be displaced for Pacifica’s market rate project.
Kathy Masaoka calls out the values of Boyle Heights, the caring for elders, the bonds of protecting each other. Pacifica’s values do not align with the values of the community. Please oppose this project.
Kenjie Irie speaks of a 105 year old tenant at ICF who moved in because her children were too old to care for her. She was clear minded and wanted a safe place to live. Very concerned about the broken promises. Where can people like her go?
