CommentsNEIGHBORHOOD POLITICS-- Since the recent April 6th vote to create a Skid Row Neighborhood Council resulted in a lost effort by a mere 60 votes (in which over 1600 total voters participated), from which a “Vote No” cheating scandal was uncovered and a shocking dismissal by the City of Los Angeles’ Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE) of 3 valid election challenges by an Election Challenge Review Panel convened by DONE, the number one response far and wide is “Sounds like something the ACLU would take on” or “Have you guys (Skid Row Neighborhood- Formation Committee) contacted the ACLU?”
It is apparent that there is now a need to publicly clarify that the ACLU has officially turned down Skid Row’s request for representation, thus leaving SRNC-FC still searching for legal representation.
SRNC-FC’s need to publicly declare ACLU’s official position is due to the “vibe” from other lawyers, law firms and legal teams whom all seem passive in the form of a common “deferred notion of assumption” that the ACLU will soon be taking over this case so there would be no need for any others to seriously consider taking on this case.
The SRNC-FC Chair felt it necessary to go public in order to remove any and all doubt and/or hesitance in the “world of lawyers” to increase the selection pool after receiving an e-mail directly from the ACLU last week.
With several SRNC-FC members contacting various members of the ACLU beginning immediately after the April 6th election, there were numerous leads that gave Skid Row hope until ACLU SoCal’s Esther Lim, Director, Jails Project and Deputy Director of Advocacy offered the following correspondence:
Good morning General Jeff and SRNC,
I believe you spoke to our Chief Counsel and Director of our 1st Amendment Project, Peter Eliasberg.
We, unfortunately, do not have a lot of expertise on the law re city charter governing neighborhood council elections and will not be able to take this on.
This response from ACLU comes as a complete shock to SRNC-FC, knowing of ACLU’s rich 100-year history of successfully defending and “preserving the individual rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States” (ACLU website) compared with the City’s most important NC governing documents totaling less than 30 pages in all, with only 3 short sections pertaining to this specific matter, seemingly a sneeze to any lawyer, let alone a powerful entity such as the ACLU.
Nevertheless, Skid Row must continue to move forward with it’s exploration of legal representation.
As for now, the ACLU is scratched off the list.
Next!
(General Jeff … Jeff Page … is a homelessness activist and leader in Downtown Los Angeles. Jeff’s views are his own.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
-cw
