Shut the LA City Council Down

PRESERVE ENTIRE 1087 ACRE BALLONA WETLANDS ECOSYSTEM RATING: 9

(Scale from 1 to 10 and it's very rare that a hearing gets a 9 rating.)

WHAT: Rally out front, then Council Hearing

WHEN: Tuesday, Rally at 9:00 am, Hearing at 10:00am

WHERE: Rally- outside at 200 North Los Angeles Street, Downtown LA

Hearing- John Ferraro Council Chamber, Room 300 City

Hall, 200 Los Angeles Street, Downtown LA*

QUESTIONS? Call the Ballona Wetlands Land Trust at 310-338-1413

Check website at www.ballona.org for last minute changes to the City Council agenda, in case this item is moved to another day.

* Please note that this is in the old City Hall, not in City Hall East. The City Council has finally moved back into the original City Hall now that all the renovation has been finished.



This Tuesday, June 19, the Los Angeles City Council is taking the third and perhaps final step in beginning to release 5 million of Mello-Roos bond funds as well as million in housing bonds to the Playa Vista development company .

The City Council needs to see a lot citizens there who oppose this outrageous and dangerous giveaway. Your presence will give our statements much more weight during this critical time in our struggle to save the Ballona Wetlands. Please attend if at all possible.

We will hold a rally/demonstration in front of City Hall at 9am and need as many people as possible to attend. The City Council needs to see that the public does not support this corporate giveaway and this fraudulent use of public funds.

The existence of these hazardous gases have come to light since the original Environmental Impact Report (EIR), upon which the City will base its Mello-Roos Bond allocation decision. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires a Subsequent EIR to be prepared when such new information is discovered. Nevertheless, the City Council has chosen to ignore all of this and appears to have every intention of handing over the money on Tuesday.

There are more dangers than toxic gases. The use of these bonds at Playa Vista could result in increasing the City's liabilities, which arecurrently approaching billion. Additional City and therefore taxpayer liabilities are possible because the "Phase I" area contains large amounts of explosive methane gas coming either from the old oil fields or the SoCal Gas underground storage facility. Hydrogen Sulfide gas, which can cause brain damage, has also been discovered leaking from ground. If the Playa Vista project fails because people refuse to buy homes built on top of these dangerous gases, the City will not only lose the interest revenue from the bonds, but the use of the bonds themselves for other needed projects. Such a loss would result in a down-grading of the City's credit rating, making the borrowing of money in the future for truly worthy public projects much more expensive.

The City could also be held liable if any future residents are harmed by gases known to be present when the City approved this funding. Since Playa Capital is a Limited Liability Corporation (LLC) they are likely to escape the billions of dollars in law suits that could result. The next entity to be sued would be the City of Los Angeles for permitting this development project and approving bonds for it.