WATCH: Rendon's office: No visitors due to Covid
CA Speaker Rendon's office refuse entrance to Citizen delivering written complaint.
LAKEWOOD, CALIF. — The office of State Speaker and Lakewood resident Anthony Rendon refused entrance to the Lakewood Populist, citing “county” Covid-19 restrictions.
”We’re observing social distancing rules, sir, according to the county. So feel free to slide the letter under the door,” said Special Assistant Calderon via a speaker.
Located near Del Amo and Lakewood boulevards, the office is on the 4th floor. One must enter through a glass door to gain entrance to the hallway where the taxpayer-funded office of Rendon is located. A camera is attached to the ceiling, allowing Rendon’s staff to spy on whoever wishes to visit their assemblyman’s office and voice a complaint or a compliment. Instead, citizens must use a speaker attached to the wall.
The Lakewood Populist alerted Calderon that Lakewood City Hall allows people into their building and so this reporter did not see how Los Angeles County was forcing Rendon’s staff to lock people outside of his Lakewood office.
Below is a copy of the letter detailing several complaints about issues in Lakewood, among them: homelessness and crime, as well as the destructive effect of Rendon’s support for housing-congestion mandates. The letter also detailed the unequal treatment towards Latinos in Lakewood in connection with the condemnation of racial attacks.
NOTE: Several gun scares at an area high school and somewhere else nearby occurred this day. While that could understandably make one nervous, the bank at the bottom floor of the high-rise complex appeared open to visitors, and the many nearby businesses were open.
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Speaker Rendon:
My name is Brian and I am one of your constituents and neighbors in the City of Lakewood. More particularly, I am a citizen living in East Lakewood, the parts of Lakewood east of the San Gabriel River or the 605 Freeway depending on how you look at it. I have visited your office Friday, September 3, 2021, to drop off this letter because I want you to see how you have failed as a state assemblyman via your disastrous policies and inaction.
Like many other cities, Lakewood is suffering from homelessness, but the worst-affected parts of the City are in East Lakewood, where there are at least nine (9) homeless encampments. Did you read that correctly? There are at least NINE homeless encampments in the small area of East Lakewood. This includes a massive encampment surrounding a private residence behind and on the side, as well another encampment where the homeless sleep under the windows of a private residence (apartment complex) and on the sidewalk. This violates those residents’ RIGHT to use and enjoy their property. However, when I told deputies from the Lakewood Sheriff’s Station about this, my concerns were dismissed. One deputy told me that moving these homeless off the sidewalk, a place homeless even under our current laws are not allowed to encamp on, would do no good. Well, I disagree. I think it would do a lot of good for the residents living next to these homeless to have these homeless driven off the sidewalk.
A homeless man at the sidewalk encampment has already attempted to rape one girl in recent weeks. They chased this adolescent girl from the Carson Boulevard and Pioneer Boulevard intersection to under the freeway. The girl found shelter at the El Pollo Loco west of the 605 Freeway. The girl and her mother are too afraid to speak out publicly and have not reported it to the police, but they have done so to me. I reported this to the Lakewood City Council and, still, the encampment remains on the sidewalk there.
There has also been homeless on two (2) different occasions walking from the encampments near the 605 Freeway and Del Amo Boulevard NAKED. One recently went into the nearby Starbucks and made threats. The police dispatch actually told these employees, I heard, to stay inside with the homeless to help police detain the naked man. Is this what we’ve come to?
At Heartwell Park, a young man just out of high school who is of small stature was chased by a homeless man out of the park into Lakewood. The young man is a Lakewood resident and now walks around in fear for his life. Some people now carry weapons to defend themselves. Is this what we have come to?
Near Del Amo Boulevard and Pioneer Boulevard, a woman with two kids and a husband was chased out of the neighborhood. Two homeless were encamping in their car in front of her house. They would have sex in front of her little, toddler children. They would also throw their pee onto the grass on the public easement in front of her house, stinking up her house when the hot sun would boil the pee. There is more happening on this street and I would say more but I fear this woman would get attacked or harassed by the criminals, and this is why she has left East Lakewood. Is this what we have come to?
HOUSING POLICIES
The beige areas are zoned for apartment complexes. See the red circle where about 70% of all the apartments are condensed into two tiny housing blocks. Also, notice how most of all the city’s apartments are zoned into EAST LAKEWOOD.
There should be an investigation into racial discrimination by the City of Lakewood due to how they have zoned for low-income housing. I find it “amazing” that the City Council has historically, from the 1980s to the present, zoned around 70% of all the housing for apartments, where most low-income residents live, into two (2) tiny housing blocks: See the housing blocks between the 605 Freeway and Norwalk Boulevard (west and east) and Del Amo Boulevard and Centralia Street (north and south). What’s amazing, Speaker Rendon, is that this was an area where a lot of Hispanics have historically lived. It was beautiful. I remember as a kid seeing goats that Hispanics owned. My buddies even got to see a goat killed before it was cooked. I love traditional culture. But the City of Lakewood over the years has stuff all the zoning for apartments into these two tiny housing blocks. What has been the result?
Nearly HALF the City’s homicides are in East Lakewood. Most of those are in the two housing blocks where most of the condensed housing has been constructed. Will YOUR policies cause such murders to increase throughout ALL of Lakewood?
MURDER. Nearly HALF (50%) of the City’s homicides since 2000 have occurred in or around these two housing blocks. I don’t that’s a coincidence. Why is this so important? Because if your housing policies, such as SB 9, become law, then the condensed living environment of East Lakewood will become normal throughout all of Lakewood. Why is that so bad? Because, if East Lakewood’s condensed housing area is any rule, then MANY MURDERS will ensue. Have you thought about this? Have you even done a study concerning this? O, wait, you wouldn’t know about this since YOU don’t live in a condensed housing area that you want everyone else to live in.
ANTI-HISPANIC DISCRIMINATION & CRIME
Finally, I wish to talk to you about two (2) things that I hope you will at least do something to stop. In June 2020, three (3) Latinos were racially targeted near the Lakewood Mall by about 30 black youths. During the attack, shouts of “Fuck Mexicans! Fuck Mexicans!” were heard on a viral video that has since been taken off Instagram. (There are still copies of the video, however.) The Lakewood City Council knew this was a racially-motivated attack. Then-Mayor Todd Rogers said so on video during a private meeting. However, the Council covered up the attack by not publicly condemning it and by not publicly coming out in support of Latinos against ANY racism. I know this because the Council publicly condemned anti-black racism within one (1) week after George Floyd’s death in May 2020 and within one (1) week after the anti-Asian shooting in Atlanta in early 2021.
Speaker Rendon, by the acts of the Lakewood City Council, Latinos are SECOND-CLASS CITIZEN in Lakewood. Why do you allow this? The Council finally did condemn the anti-Hispanic attack, but only after I publicly shamed them online and made repeated public requests for them to condemn it. It took TEN (10) MONTHS for the Council to condemn the attack, while it took them only one (1) week to condemn either anti-black or anti-Asian racism. This is pretty pathetic when you consider that state Speaker—YOU—is a Latino living in Lakewood. What needs to be done is to put the Lakewood City Council on notice that they better act quicker next time and respect Latinos. The only way to do this is by people like YOU making a PUBLIC COMMENT to the Council telling them that their 10-MONTH WAIT is unacceptable and should never happen again. (The Council, even when they finally did condemn the attack, tried to excuse their 10-month wait for condemning it. This shows a lot of disrespect towards Latinos even in the midst of their condemnation.)
Finally, there are bicycle gangs from Long Beach, Lakewood and other nearby cities, roaming the streets of Lakewood and Long Beach in crowds of 100 to 300 riders. They are attacking young women and children and old men. They beat up one old man. Some Lakewood men have tried to stop these guys. The Sheriff’s deputies evidently have arrested some, but still these “ride outs” continue every now and then. The ride outs are being organized via Instagram and social media. The cowardly thugs have members who are reportedly the sons of rich men from Long Beach and law enforcement officers from Long Beach and Lakewood. They have also rode their bicycles inside the Lakewood Mall, vandalizing shops. When will you pass a law to force Instagram and other social media to stop such VIOLENT organizing? (This is a state issue, by the way.) When will you look into residents’ complaints by law enforcement and rich men being able to get their sons of the hook due to their money and power?
Brian Maquena
LakewoodPopulist.com
September 3, 2021
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