From Laddie Williams, President of VC-PUCC: Keeping all of you in the loop...we had to shut down a secret Local Coastal Planning meeting in Venice Monday, April 18 because Venice community was not invited to attend, only developers, architects, attorneys and realtors! See video for full protest. City Planning promised a new more transparent meeting for the whole of Venice, which is now scheduled - please show up and be ready to ask some questions: Venice Local Coastal Program Open House Event When: Wednesday, April 27, 2016 from 7-9:30 p.m. Location: 1010 Abbot Kinney, Venice 90291 "Open House" with a "loop tape"...no presentation with questions and answers, as LA City Planning was going to do on Monday April 18, 2016, with their select group [see video] - when we had to crash the 'invitation only' 'focus group' meeting! Keeping it open and transparent...I do hope many of you will write and let CD11 and LA City Planning know that Venice is together on what we want in Venice -- [we want to know what they're planning to do with the Venice Local Coastal Program (LCP), and we want a full and transparent presentation to the community from the City, with questions and answers, because it's obvious they already have a plan and they don't want us to know what it is.] Please see my correspondence with L.A. City Planning, below. Peace Laddie ----- On Sat, Apr 23, 2016 at 9:50 PM, wrote: To Ms. Hagu-Solomon-Cary- Los Angeles City Planning, We appreciate the attempt you have made to include the entire Venice community in the Local Coastal Program discussion, but we are concerned that an 'Open House' is not a forum with time for question and answers. The invite states "Attendees are free to come at any time between 7-9:30 p.m. and stay for as little or as long as they like." We request that this event be in the same format as the event you were going to host on Monday April 18, 2016 at Westminster Elementary School. In that meeting there was an agenda, maps and what appeared to be a presentation. With an 'Open House' there is no recording of the meeting and city representatives listening to the community talking about what they would like to see in the Local Coastal Plan. We are requesting full accountability and transparency. We do want everyone's involvement in this discussion about our Venice Community (Local Coastal Plan). We do not want anyone in the city stating 'outreach was done, the community had input' this style of meeting has not bode well for us in Venice, this style of meeting is always misrepresented to officials in the city and Venice ends up being misrepresented. Meetings on record and documented, full transparency and accountability. And 'Open House' meeting is not what we requested (Monday April 18, 2016), nor what you agreed too. We are requesting a meeting where everyone hears the same language, see's the maps, everyone understands the presentation. Everyone hears what Los Angeles City Planning is trying to accomplish by ratifying the Local Coastal Plan not rewriting the plan. Our community needs Los Angeles City Planning and CD11 to recognize our distrust of the system, and realize the LOVE we have for preserving our HOME 'Venice.' Transparent and accountable to all! Thank You Venice Coalition to Preserve the Unique Community Charter -------- Original message -------- From: Hagu Solomon-Cary Subject: Re: Venice Local Coastal Program Open House Good afternoon, All. Laddie, thank you for writing. The open house style of this Wednesday's meeting is not much different from the format that was planned for Monday the 18th and the objectives are exactly the same. The reason there is any change in format is because the invitation is now going out to several hundreds of people and it is not feasible to hold the exact same format as we previously planned. That said, the open house will include all of the same elements, including maps, a presentation running on a loop (in English and Spanish), and staff present to receive the public's comments. The room will be set up with several stations covering various topics (the same topics we hoped to cover at the canceled meeting). Again, this is the essentially the same exercise, just tailored to a larger audience. The written comments made by everyone who attends will be photographed for documentation and shared publicly, so there will be a record of what was expressed. Lastly, in your email, you state that "Everyone hears what Los Angeles City Planning is trying to accomplish by ratifying the Local Coastal Plan not rewriting the plan." To clarify, the Coastal Act requires that every jurisdiction has a certified Local Coastal Program. A Local Coastal Program is made up of two parts: 1) a Land Use Plan, and 2) an Implementation Plan. The California Coastal Commission will only certify the Local Coastal Program only when both parts (1 & 2) are certified. In other words, Venice does not have a certified Local Coastal Program because it only has one-half (part 1) of the two-part document certified. In addition, and most importantly, the California Coastal Commission has adopted new policy guidance that must be reflected in planning and regulatory actions which will require us to update the current Land Use Plan and draft an Implementation Plan in order to get the LCP certified. There is no way certify the plans without making any changes. I hope you and other members of VCPUCC will be engaged in the process going forward. Best, Hagu Solomon-Cary AICP, LEED-AP + ND Policy | Community Planning City of Los Angeles | Department of City Planning 200 N. Spring Street, Room 667 Los Angeles, CA 90012 hagu.solomon-cary@lacity.org| 213.978.1394