| Letters To The L.A. Times |
| The No Home Depot in Sunland-Tujunga Campaign Website |
Though I'm a Los Angeles native, this article confirms why I read the NY Times. It's one of the worst examples of "fair and balanced" reporting I've seen yet. Your reporter's angle throughout the entire article seems to overwhelmingly favor Home Depot and suggests that we quaint methamphetamine-popping relics should just sit back and passively accept the "future" of big-box consumerism and mini-mansions. I mean really, did your reporter consider that some folks actually LIKE trees and waking up to the sound of chirping birds? How is the sound of semi trucks rolling through town at 5 am any better? It's strange. When Inglewood residents fought hard to prevent WalMart from coming to their city, they were portrayed as courageous citizens standing up for their right to maintain a certain quality of life against a bullying corporation. In our case, we are framed as backward yokels standing in the way of progress. Rong-Gong even failed to mention that there already exists a substantial Home Depot store barely 7 miles away in neighboring Sylmar. Nor did he dig a little deeper to investigate exactly who this Home Depot might really be intended to serve? For example, why does this project seem to be immune from compliance with city regulations, and what about those financial ties to Mayor Villaraigosa's campaign? No. Instead, what we get is a contractor telling us how he 'builds houses,' and 'people buy them' and a teen who thinks it will be an 'employment gold mine.' Because, of course we all know how beneficial a Home Depot can be to local economies. After all, urban sprawl is so last decade. Good try at 'community' reporting. But next time, please don't send the intern. PD Sunland resident ___________________________________ Dear Editor, Thank you for printing a story highlighting some of the challenges our community is facing and its battle against Home Depot, Sunland-Tujunga comes to identity crossroads (Feb 19th). While many long-time residents undoubtedly in general are opposed to change, I would like to point out that the majority of both newcomers, such as myself, and long-time residents are united in their opposition to the proposed Home Depot on the basis that our community lacks a general merchandise or department store such as Target, Kohls or Sears. Your article neglects to mention that the former K-Mart on the proposed Home Depot site served the community for approximately 30 years, and was a cornerstone of our community not because long-time residents grew nostalgic of it, but that it provided most everything any resident of Sunalnd-Tujunga could need, be it toothpaste, back-to-school shopping, housewares, or socks or underwear! And while a Home Depot already occupies a site just minutes away from our community in Sylmar (on Foothill Boulevard no less) and local retailers such as Do It Center, Orchard Supply Hardware, Foothill Hardware, Champion Building Materials, Glendale Tile, Da Vinci Windows and Doors, and many others dot Foothill Blvd. within our community and provide most everything that a Home Depot would offer, there presently is no general retailer within our community to serve the needs of the current or future population of Sunland- Tujunga, nor are there numerous sites other than the proposed Home Depot site which a large retailer could occupy! Its not as though as a community we oppose Home Depot yet have only a single, old fashioned mom and pop hardware store, although in fact, we have that too! All of the retailers aforementioned who provide building supplies would not exist if we were a community opposed to change or growth in general, which is simply not the case. In addition to the greater need for a general merchandise or department store, I oppose Home Depot because I feel that being within 450 feet of an elementary school and backing residential property on three sides, the site is inappropriate for this type of commercial use, and is also in conflict with local use ordinances in the sunland-tujunga and foothill corridor specific plans. I also take issue with the flood channel running behind the property, given Home Depot's tendency to improperly store chemicals and fertilizers, etc. outdoors. Then there is the potential for increased (contractor) traffic and noise. And please note that all of this is the point of view of a "newcomer" to Sunland-Tujunga, being a resident of just two years. It should also be pointed out that Sunland- Tujunga is unique compared with the Los Angeles Basin or the San Fernando/San Gabriel Valleys in that it borders National Forest Land, and many of our small streets dead end into narrow canyons with lush vegetation, wildlife, and running water - just a block or two from Foothill Boulevard! These are sensitive wildlife areas which deserve conservation and responsible development. Because of this, I believe it is appropriate that some special considerations be made in local use and planning. Sadly, it seems that environmental impact is rarely considered when money is to be made. While I enjoy seeing hawks overhead at times and enjoy often hearing coyotes sing from my living room, I am not opposed to seeing change on Foothill Boulevard. Most everyone here welcomes redevelopment along Foothill Blvd, we just want to see appropriate use, I believe that is the only criteria here. I hope that in your future coverage of the the preservation efforts and the campaign against Home Depot in Sunland-Tujunga, you will present some of these sentiments and not mis-identify the core issues. Damien McGinnis Tujunga, CA ___________________________________ The article by Ron Lin contained numerous serious distortions and omissions: He unquestioningly repeated Home Depot and Latham Watkin's claim that residents' objections to Home Depot are about day laborerers. This is code for racism, is false and no one from the No Home Depot Campaign would have given day labor as a reason for opposing Home Depot. No one is suffering more from the closure of K-Mart than Sunland-Tujunga's working and poor families, not to mention the elderly and others (like immigrants!) who don't drive cars. It is now necessary for residents to drive to Glendale, Burbank and Pasadena to buy necessities like bedding and children's clothes. The families of day laborers need shoes and towels, too. The loss of a general merchandise store affects 30,000 families. Lin didn't write a single word about this or the FACT that this site is the ONLY property in our community large enough for a general merchandise store. Furthermore, he repeated the specious claim by Home Depot and Latham Watkins that the HD will bring jobs. Are they thinking that a Target store on that site would NOT have employees? It is probable that Target or Kohl's would actually require more employees per store than a HD warehouse would. For women, there arguably would be more opportunities than at HD, whose discriminatory labor practices have been reported on in the Times. Lin failed to mention that an EIR is required by law for a project this close to an elementary school and that LAUSD has written to the Planning Dept demanding that this be done. He failed to cover the blatant collusion between LADBS officials like Lincoln Lee who coached HD to alter their plans to avoid environmental review. He failed to investigate the safety issues uncovered by structural engineer Arnold Bookbinder, who also discovered that the plans that were approved by LADBS were actually plans for another building in a different municipality, not actually the building under construction in Sunland. I would also add that inclusion of the photo of a man wearing an NRA t-shirt is part of the attempt to portray us as reactionary hillbillies who are out of tune with the modern world. Just wondering, was that photo provided by HD's PR firm, Dakota Communications? Regarding anti-mansionization: I researched and wrote the original draft of the anti-mansionization ordinance at the request of the neighborhood council and we were strongly and consistently supported by Councilmember Greuel in this effort to preserve our neighborhood character. This important message was received by City Planning, but apparently your reporter didn't get the memo. In Lin's article, our desire to keep preserve the natural environment that still exists in our urbanized areas was portrayed as NIMBYism. There was no mention that massive homes result in the loss of urban forest and bird habitat. There was not a word about the heat sink effect of this loss of vegetation which has created unbearable nighttime heat in an area where summer temperatures are routinely above 100 degrees, nor the excessive winter rain runoff and consequent depletion of the water table caused by over-building in the hills. There was not mention of loss of privacy, views, or sunlight by neighbors of massive houses. It appears that Ron Lin has never encountered the idea that we should be striving for a smaller ecological footprint - he just parroted the builders' claims that bigger is better. I am not against large homes per se, but shouldn't environmental impact be an important consideration now that most of us are aware that climate change is not a myth? There was no mention of loss of remaining affordable housing in R-1 zoned areas. Lin neglected to mention that not one single affordable unit has been built here in the last three years and and that uniformly it has been the older, low cost housing which has been replaced by condos and houses which are unaffordable for a Los Angeles resident of median income. "Cleansing" our neighborhoods of the families who can afford to live in older, smaller homes may seem to be a desirable goal to many of your advertisers in the real estate and building supply industry, but it is not our idea of good urban planning. Did Lin look into the practice of speculators flipping overlarge houses on a two-year schedule to take advantage of tax benefits? Did he question the impact of these well-heeled transients on our sense of community? If so, it didn't appear in print. Again, the Times article failed to address any of the REAL issues. Furthermore our community is angry and disappointed that your reporter, Ron Lin, feigned sympathy and friendliness to our citizens, then delivered a pastiche of superficial preconceptions and stereotypes. Unfortunately this type of useless and trite drivel has become the expected "content" of the "fair and balanced" corporate media. Roberta Actor-Thomas Tujunga __________________________________ Re: Sunland Tujunga Comes To Identity Crossroads (Feb. 19) As a long-time resident of Sunland-Tujunga, I am disgusted at the gross mischaracterization of my community and the struggle of a large percentage of its residents against unwise, short-sighted and, frequently, illegal, development in our area found in your recent article. I am aware of the fact that a significant number of residents contributed background information, information about their own personal experiences, and their opinions to your reporter, Mr Lin, concerning their opposition to mansionization, the opening of a Home Depot store where the area's only general merchandise store once stood, and other developments which would completely change the fundamental character of our semi-rural, small-town community. Most, if not all, of that information was ignored, inaccurately reported, or slanted in a way that gave an impression that was frequently the opposite of the perspective of those Mr. Lin spoke to. Key points-of-view in the article seem to have been formulated to add substance to the article even though they do not even approximate the reality of the current situation in the Sunland-Tujunga community. The viewpoint that opposition to the opening of the Home Depot store on our main thoroughfare and other current developments is a fight between old-line community activists and new residents is the most glaring example of this type of fanciful reporting. My question is. Why did this happen? I leave it to others to form their own conjectures about an answer to this question. Peter Moen Tujunga ____________________________ RE: Sunland-Tujunga comes to identity crossroads Dear Editor, I was both surprised and saddened by the February 19 article on the possibility of having a Home Depot in Sunland. Most of the people I know have lived in the area less than five years and all are completely opposed to having Home Depot in the old Kmart location. All of the surveys and petitions have demonstrated a very strong opposition to the Home Depot plan. We also have two Home Depots within ten miles of Sunland- Tujunga. During the remodeling process of the existing building part of the roof caved in and it was rebuilt without a permit. Yet none of these things were mentioned in the article. The former Kmart met an important and immediate need in the area. It was closed, not due to lack of business, but because of Kmart´s bankruptcy agreements. We currently have to drive more than ten miles to get to a general merchandise store. There is only one property in the area for that badly needed store, the former Kmart site. We want and need big box businesses in the area. We are not opposed to having them here. But given the limited spaces available, we need wise planning. If we already have a Home Depot less than ten miles away and have to drive more than ten miles to get to a general merchandise store, it seems clear which of these will meet a more immediate need for us. I would love to have had Rong-Gong Lin II address all of the needs of our community and not describe the people that have lived here for many years as luddites. Maybe he can return and write a more balanced article. Sincerely, Juan Francisco Martínez Sunland ______________________________________ From the LA Times Reporter, Ron Lin.. Dear Ms. Barbara Johnson, Thank you very much for your letter. I have read your letter very carefully, and I do appreciate you taking the time to send me these comments. I'd like to point out that a fair amount of the article did quote residents about efforts to preserve Sunland-Tujunga so future generations would be able to see wildlife or flora, and spoke about one resident who noted how soothing it was toa waken each morning to the sounds of chirping quail and wailing coyote pups, saying "This is about the last refuge" in LA... and how "That's all normal here, and I would like to stay that way." I also mentioned that that resident, Debi Statland, was participating in a No to Home Depot rally. I thank you for taking the time to send me an e-mail, and will keep your thoughts in mind as I continue to cover this issue. Sincerely, Ron Lin And Barbara responds.... Dear Mr. Lin, The point of my email to you, as well as quite a few other emails sent to you, is that we, as the Sunland/Tujunga community, feel that your article was slanted and one sided. Apparently you spent many hours visiting our community, discussing revitalizing plans, the No2HomeDepot campaign etc...and you basically barely brushed on the surface. You managed to quote two of our areas "arch enemies", your picture selection was dreadful and leading readers to believe that the NRA t shirt man represents us...I am not alone and many share those same feelings, my subscription of many years has been canceled and until you can prove to us that you are not at the mercy of advertisers such as Expo & The Home Depot, not only will I not support your newspaper, I shall not believe any printed words emanating from the LA Times and quoted elsewhere in the news. You have no idea how important it is to us to see Home Depot defeated, it is not only for us but so many other "forgotten" communities that are basically raped by such giant corporations. It is poison & corruption and basically given the state of our country, nothing surprises me anymore. How sad and what a great example for future generations. You had the power to set a story straight and you turned on us...mentioning a few quail is charming but that again is only the tip of the iceberg. The quails like the Oak trees will go the way of the semi trucks and end up as road kill for one and firewood for the other... We are talking about something bigger than us and it is happening in our own backyard. Remember Michael Douglas' famous quote: greed is good...that is what we are dealing with. Greedy unscrupulous people at many levels, they own you with their advertising dollars and own our local politicians as well... This country would still be drinking tea and eating crumpets had it not been for a few revolutionaries...the problem here is that we seem to be the only straight & honest ones...you cannot imagine how convoluted all this is, the makings of a great suspense thriller. Again, this is just my very humble opinion... Think about it and give us the opportunity we thought we had and many of us will consider re-subscribing....but again, we are few but never underestimate that power. Cliches say it well: where there is a will, there is a way. Thank you & regards, Barbara D. Johnson _________________________________ RE: "Sunland-Tujunga comes to identity crossroads" February 19, 2007 This story seriously distorts the main thrust of the fight against Home Depot in this location and omits several critically important facts. The issue is not development in general. It is the community's very specific concerns about a building materials warehouse being the wrong business in the wrong location. The No Home Depot Campaign in Sunland-Tujunga, a grass-roots organization which represents over 4,000 area residents, was not mentioned at all. We provided your reporter with all the pertinent legal documents that we have filed and briefed him on our appeal to the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety and the Planning Department. This included testimony at the January 19 public hearing in which Councilmember Greuel stated that what the community really needs is a general merchandise store. We pointed out that this site not only adjoins a residential neighborhood, but also is within 450 feet of an elementary school. We also presented extensive detailed information about safety flaws in the structural alterations of the building, and questioned the basis for the city's approval of the building plans. This construction project is not consistent with the Foothill Boulevard Corridor Specific Plan, and the City erred when it approved the plans so that no Environmental Assessment was required. There is one more issue about your story. I wish to clarify that the caption under your photo of "No Home Depot" protesters is misleading, because "fear" of day laborers is not now and never has been part of our organization’s argument. The Home Depot continues with construction and we continue to wait for a decision on our appeal. The general welfare and safety of the community is being compromised. We agree with Councilmember Greuel: the community would welcome a large general merchandise store, but not a building materials warehouse operation. Abby Diamond, Secretary No Home Depot Campaign Sunland-Tujunga Alliance, Inc. _______________________________ I read your article about Sunland-Tujunga and Home Depot with great interest. I was surprised to see so many quotes from people in favor of Home Depot. The majority of people I know, who live in this area, are opposed to the idea. Here are some of the reasons why: First, there is no shortage of Home Depots in our area, several are located within ten to fifteen minutes of the foothill area. Secondly, like all of the Home Depots I’ ve ever seen, those stores are located in industrial areas, such as the Home Depot in San Fernando. The old K-Mart property is located on Foothill Blvd. in downtown Sunland, a primarily suburban area. An elementary school and residential neighborhoods are just around the corner. Home Depot, which caters to contractors, generates a much different kind of traffic flow than the old K-Mart, and unlike other Home Depots, this location does not have easy freeway access. Deliveries, as well as contractors picking up building supplies, would have to drive west to the Sunland Blvd. onramp, or east to the Lowell Avenue onramp, impacting a series of neighborhoods which utilize those stretches of Foothill Blvd. A Target or other general merchandise store is more in keeping with the kind of retail market that K-Mart once provided and would also provide jobs, as one person in the article mentioned in favor of Home Depot. This is one family saying: No to Home Depot in Sunland. Karen Zimmerman Resident of the foothills since 1974 _________________________________ The majority of the people living in Sunland Tujunga are not against development. We are against improper development. Putting a Home Depot on an 11 acre site when there are numerous stores in our area to purchase the same inventory is not a good use of precious land. Sunland Tujunga desperately needs, wants and would welcome with open arms, a Target or similar general merchandise store on that very site. If there was mixed use housing and a couple of good restaurants and a bookstore, even better. If I want to buy underwear or a toaster or curtains for my house, I must drive 30 minutes to Burbank, Glendale or Pasadena. If I want a can of paint or hardware or windows, I need only travel a minute to any one of a number of fine stores in our area. We are similarly against improper development of homes. Your example of Robert Hall as a concerned contractor was quite amusing. He is under investigation by the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety for improperly developing a lot on Commerce Avenue in Tujunga with a house that intentionally broke the law by being too large for that lot. The slant of your article was all wrong. It should have read: Citizens of Sunland Tujunga on the forefront of proper planning. Robin Siegel-Meares Tujunga _____________________________ Mr. Lin, Please be advised that after years as a loyal subscriber to the LA Times, I have called and canceled my subscription. I might just be just one person but the bottom line is if you managed to write such a slanted article, chances are that the rest of the paper is following suit. I have lost trust in the LA Times, the writers and most of all the editor for allowing such untruths to be printed. You have sunken to the level of the The National Inquirer, which actually is more entertaining. Regards, Barbara D. Johnson Tujunga Ex LA Times subscriber ____________________________ What the article left out is that the community of Sunland-Tujunga is not only fighting against "inevitable" development, but also against City Hall. Many of these projects could not be built if developers followed or did not try to maliciously circumvent the existing laws for zoning, slope density, building permits and environmental health and safety. Something is wrong when residents must pay lawyers to force city officials to follow the laws already on the books rather than to see them grant huge variances to these builders or to ignore their abuses of the system. I'm a longtime resident - I know that prime retail space won't become a park, but our geographically isolated patch of land isn't getting any bigger, and that it is critical to have smart and sustainable improvement. Building yet another hardware store when you really need a place to buy socks or other items is not the answer, nor is building high density or luxury housing tracts up against the edge of a National Forest on the last natural tracks of land within the city limits. Jim McGlynn Sunland-Tujunga and Dear Mr. Lin, Thank you for writing an article on S-T. It is rare to see anything in the paper about my town which does not have to do with a natural disaster. That being said I did write a letter to the paper (below), because we are witnessing a man-made disaster. I do now know if the paper allowed more than the 1,418 words that you wrote on the subject, but it is disappointing the way you framed the story in the context of newcomers vs old-timers and development against the status quo without touching upon the much more compelling stories beneath those simplified and inaccurate stereotypes. As a long time resident of S-T there were some things that rang true about certain aspects of the town but simplified the main point of the story. It seems that you also interviewed a number of people with various opinions, but I think there are a number of other opinions which do not divide themselves upon those lines you've drawn. You did not consider that many of the fights are over big developers deciding to get the zoning rules changed rather than the City looking out for it's citizens. It did not consider that many people are not against construction of houses, but feel that we should have homes which show consideration for the neighbors next to them. It did not consider that this town does not have the infrastructure to support all these developments, one example being that the city can't be bothered to re-pave our roads more than once in 30- 40 years. Your article did not mention that this Home Depot is down the street from a school, with single family houses immediately behind it. Perhaps they did not give you much room for this assignment, but these issues are not as simple as what you say. I hope that a longer piece which shows more of what this fight is about can grace the pages of your paper. Thanks again for letting me voice my opinion, Jim McGlynn Sunland-Tujunga _____________________________ Dear Mr. Lin, As I read your article in today's California section, I find myself asking several questions...why did you not "praise" our sense of Community ?. Instead, I find the article to be very pro-Home Depot & pro-contractors. Nowhere did you mention these entities unlawful practices, progress is inevitable and we all must go with the flow but to a point. There are ways of achieving progress and it must be lawful and respectful of the envrionment. The people you quoted are either recent transplants who have never participated in a community and/or contractors who are greedy and have caused irreparable damage to our environment. Mr. Hall has been cited numerous times by the Dpt of Building & Safety and has most recently poisoned a 400 old protected California Oak tree, this in the name of progress ! You did not mention the No2HomeDepot campaign, please be advised that we are not the only community fighting Home Depot, Glassel Park is in the same predicament. I like to refer to Home Depot having the Starbuck's complex, have one of each street corner. A Home Depot would only benefit a few and not the whole, we want & need a general merchandise store and there is nothing wrong with a Target which, does show some progress and expansion. As a community, we should be praised for our efforts, there are plenty of hardware stores in our community, Ms Saris can shop at the Do It Center as well as OSH...Ms Saris like Mr. Hall has no sense of community nor respect for Nature and is only concerned about her "self" and is very much in the typical LA material "world". I am basically appalled. I have lived here for over 13 years, it is a great escape from the busy city that LA is, yes; walking up to the sounds of chickens & horses is refreshing and for me, this is my oasis of peace. I am for progress, perhaps my home is the only home in the area to be 100% solar and off the grid...we still have plenty of sun up here unobstructed by tall mansions... All I have to say is that I sincerely feel that you missed the point and made us, the kind citizens of Sunland-Tujunga appear like a bunch of old angry backwards hillbillies, it is so far from the truth.... Your article has hurt us and given corporate greed more ammunition, all this while we await the final decision from the Zoning Administrator regarding the illegal Home Depot practices.... With many thanks for your one sided article.... Please go hug an Oak tree as it may be the last... Regards, Barbara D. Johnson ________________________________ Dear Mr Lin, I am writing about the story you wrote regarding Sunland-Tujunga that appeared in today's LA Times. In this story, you have manufactured an adversarial relationship between "long time residents and newcomers" that simply does not exist. Most of our newcomers moved here for the tranquility and rural lifestyle, they have not moved here to encourage development or mansionization , as your story seems to indicate. Furthermore, the group fighting Home Depot, The No Home Depot Campaign, has just as many newcomers, as we do long time residents, joining together to stop this store from opening. I also notice that you contacted the Home Depot spokesperson, Kathryn Gallagher, and managed to quote her in your story rather extensively, but yet, there is not a single mention of the No Home Depot Campaign, much less a quote from any of us. I can only assume that you either came up here with a preconceived story in mind, or you have a rather zealous editor that has butchered your original story so much, that it now reads as a promo piece for Home Depot and developer Robert Hall. I expect much better journalism from the LA Times. Sincerely, Joe Barrett No Home Depot Campaign Chairman ___________________________________ About three weeks ago, I got a call from Councilmember Wendy Greuel's office asking me to help a LA Times reporter to do an article on the old fashioned lighting that has been approved through a ballot of the property owners on Commerce who will be required upon installation of these lights to pay a larger assessment on their lighting bills. Ms. Greuel leveraged $135,000 of Federal Government funds appropriated for use on Commerce several years ago with $145,000 of city funds to pay for the new lighting. We are all, both the members of the Commerce Owners and Business Restoration Association, Inc and Ms. Greuel, very proud of our accomplishments and expected an article in the Times that said so. I assume I was asked to help Mr. Lin, because I am Vice President of COBRA and a long-time and well-known activist in the area. I agreed and made an appointment to meet Mr. Ron Lin the next day explaining that I was then unavailable, because I was on my way to a No Home Depot in Sunland- Tujunga demonstration. Mr. Lin came to that demonstration and later to another. The second time he came to a No to Home Depot demonstration he brought a Times photographer who took several hundred pictures. Mr. Lin met me the next day and I gave him a walking tour up-and-down the two blocks of the restoration area on Commerce, and I subsequently took Mr. Lin wherever he wished to go and did the best I could to acquaint him with our beautiful rural area which we are working desperately to keep from being ruined by poorly planned over development. Mr. Lin also brought a LA Times photographer with him to take pictures of Commerce and the other sites I showed them. This photographer also took hundreds of pictures including those of the Foothill/Commerce Town Center sign displaying a picture of the widely anticipated new development about to break ground next to the area under restoration. I gave Mr. Lin a copy of the restoration plans drawn and generated by the city with COBRA, the group who has organized the restoration, a copy of the Foothill Boulevard Corridor Specific Plan which is a city ordinance governing the improvements along our commercial corridors, a copy of the currently active appeal which was filed against Home Depot and copies of the two supplements to that appeal. We in Sunland Tujunga are presently awaiting a decision from the zoning administrator following a January 19th hearing attended by the No to Home Depot attorney, experts and over 200 No to Home Depot supporters. Only one Home Depot supporter aside from the Home Depot officials and lawyers attended the hearing. During the course of our brief two or three week acquaintance, I spoke to Mr. Lin frequently about and took him to many sites we are trying to protect in Sunland Tujunga from greedy and unscrupulous developers, to the sites where we have already had excessive or poor development, and to those where we have negotiated for development which is aesthetic and satisfying to the citizenry. He met with the gentleman who is restoring our Wetheworld castle which received notoriety when we succeeded in rescuing it from the hands of the developer at the eleventh hour. I introduced him to Robert Hall, quoted in Mr. Lin's article, who is at this moment under the scrutiny of LA Building and Safety and the California Contractor's Licensing Board for violating the mansionization Interim Control Ordinance and for building more houses than is allowed without a General Contractor's License. None of that was mentioned in the article. Mr. Lin spoke for two hours with the curator of our museum at Bolton Hall and took a two-hour tour of the area with Councilmember Greuel. He spoke on numerous occasions to the No to Home Depot campaign core group and to the Neighborhood Council officers. We in Sunland-Tujunga gave Mr. Lin carte blanche. How were we repaid for that courtesy? The article that resulted turned quickly from a story that we thought was going to be about our little community's battle to preserve our rural lifestyle and magnificent views into a propaganda piece in behalf of Home Depot. The article insinuated that we are a divided community as to Home Depot. That is totally untrue. Only a tiny percentage of Sunland-Tujunga residents want a Home Depot. Those of us who have collected signatures and letters, sold bumper stickers and tee shirts know best of all who does and who does not want a Home Depot on the old K-Mart site. It is less than five percent. If you count the single supporter who attended the hearing, it is far less than one percent. The article insinuated that we are a divided community as to mansionization. That is also untrue. Obviously the people who are building these monstrosities and the people who buy them support them. That again is a tiny percentage of the population. The ICO was written by our Sunland-Tujunga Neighborhood Council. The article insinuated we have no summer jobs and no place to buy paint. That is equally untrue. The spokesperson Kathryn Gallagher, for Home Depot stated that business has faltered since our highly successful K-Mart was gobbled up in a bankruptcy sale to Home Depot. That is untrue. All that has faltered is our ability to buy mercantile goods. The Times selected one picture of the No Home Depot demonstrations out of hundreds and chose one which showed a man wearing an NRA shirt, and twice in the article the Times told readers that one of only two reasons for Sunland Tujunga opposing Home Depot was because of the day laborers. Day laborers have never been an issue of the No to Home Depot campaign. Once again, the Times chose to print what is untrue. The LA Times is respected throughout the United States for being a major class newspaper. Based on this biased and one-sided article, I beg to differ. We in Sunland Tujunga who are knowledgeable about what is going on in our community know what was done to us in this article. I for one will be canceling my long-term subscription to the LA Times and I will be encouraging others in our planning district to do the same. I wait for the Times to print this letter in their major class newspaper. I will be sending it along to my extensive email network so we can all watch for its publication. Elaine Brown Sunland ______________________________________________________ Re "Sunland-Tujunga comes to identity crossroads," Feb. 19 Home Depot spokeswoman Kathryn Gallagher said that her company's research shows a demand for a store in Sunland- Tujunga. This research only shows that area residents do not mind traveling 10 minutes to Home Depot's Sylmar store. Not wanting Home Depot pushed on us has nothing to do with disliking big-box stores. We have many hardware stores in and around our community that would be put out of business, making for more vacant storefronts. Home Depot would be creating an industrial area in a school zone and residential neighborhood. We do object to spending hours traveling outside our community to do our shopping. We could save time and gas and have less congested traffic if we had a much-needed general merchandise store in Sunland-Tujunga. Our community is not against growth, but we should have a say in what we need. We just want growth that compliments and fits the needs of our community. NORMA WHITE Sunland ___________________________ RE: "Sunland-Tujunga comes to identity crossroads" February 19, 2007 I was very dissapointed after reading your article regarding Sunland-Tujunga. The No Home Depot Campaign spent a great amount of time with your reporter showing him around, giving him the pertinent documents regarding our appeal, a detailed background of all the facts regarding the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety and how it has erred, how the property where the Home Depot is trying to build is detrimental to Sunland-Tujunga because of the loss of a general merchandise store, etc. The No Home Depot Campaign was never mentioned in your reporter's article, nor were any of the reasons why Sunland-Tujunga is fighting Home Depot. The only reason mentioned, twice I might add, was day laborers. The No Home Depot Campaign has never, and never will, make day laborers an issue in our campaign. The No Home Depot Campaign has been fighting Home Depot since early 2005 and has a 90 percent majority support of the community. Your article makes it sound like there is a 50/50 split on the issue. This is just untrue. We have over 4,000 boycott signatures which we collected and submitted to the Hearing Officer at the January 19 hearing (which were also delivered to Mr. Nardelli at Home Depot in 2006). As Councilmember Greuel said at the January 19 hearing, what Sunland-Tujunga really needs is a general merchandise store. We do not need a wholesale warehouse hardware store. This is the wrong location as it is surrounded on 3 sides by residental and is less than 450 feet from Apperson Elementary School. The Haynes Canyon Flood Control Channel is 15 feet from one side and a senior mobile home park abuts another side. Paula Warner Sunland-Tujunga Alliance, Inc ________________________________________ To the Editors: Clearly the era of sensationalist and exploitative yellow journalism is not behind us. Your reporter, whose article reads like a promotional piece for Home Depot and suggests benignity and some exalted, nearly virtuous, status for developers in general, could only have been hoping to so utterly misrepresent the actual situation as to cause a sensation. On further reflection, though, perhaps your reporter is not guilty of this and was merely paid off by Home Depot and cancerous developers as are our mayor and the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety. Kathleen Travers a "new" Sunland-Tujunga resident of 5 years, but a 4th-generation native Angeleno |
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