Supporters of the Petition to Stop the Armory Project

First of all: Thanks again for your support!!!

A lot has happened in recent days that confirms that several prominent veterans’ advocates are opposed to the Armory project. That’s a good sign. With the veterans and the neighbors united, we can defeat the project!! 

Here’s the good news: 

At a recent Veterans Roundtable meeting (hosted by our West LA congressman Brad Sherman and another California Democratic congressman, Mark Takano), stellar veterans’ advocate Robert Reynolds said he feared the Armory project’s large population of homeless civilians would have a “very dangerous” impact on the West LA VA campus where hundreds of veterans now live (the campus is just a stone’s throw from the Armory site). In effect, Reynolds painted a dark picture of the Armory project’s civilian clientele ‘polluting’ the safe and healthy environment the VA is trying maintain for veterans on its campus. When Reynolds speaks, veterans listen. 

At the same Roundtable event, the head of a local chapter of the GI Forum (a nonprofit advocacy group with a focus on Latino veterans), argued that the Armory project would be illegal because it would principally serve homeless civilians. Fernando Juarez reminded the congressmen that the two philanthropists who donated the land made it a condition of their gift that the land would forever be used to only benefit and serve veterans – not civilians, homeless or otherwise. This was the so-called Bandini-Jones covenant.  That donated land is where the VA campus, including the Armory project site, are now located. On Sept. 6, 2024, U.S. Dist. Court Judge David O. Carter upheld the validity of the covenant. Carter’s ruling was a stunning blow to the Armory project. 

Meanwhile, County officials attending the Roundtable never tried to speak up and defend the Armory project. That sent a message to all of us that the County knows its case is weak. Even so, the county is betting that the project will get built because its opponents don’t have the bucks needed to sue the county. If it became a war of attrition in the courtroom, the county might win. Not because it’s right. But because of the county's might. After all, the county has the deep pockets of our tax dollars to pay its legal fees. 

The county has got the money but we’ve got OUR VOICE. Our petition with your support will send a message, loud and clear, to voters, to the public, to the media that the Armory project should not be built. With enough pressure, enough bad publicity, the Board of Supervisors might change its mind. 

In the meantime, we continue to need your support by sharing the petition with your neighbors, friends, relatives, loved ones, work-mates, whatever, so we can show and warn the county that there’s a helluva a lot of opponents to this project – so, watch out!!