Ujima Village demolition set
Site will become a park
The Board of Supervisors Tuesday awarded a contract to National Demolition Contractors to remove the hazardous materials from the Ujima Village housing development and demolish the property located at 941 East 126th St. in the unincorporated area of Willowbrook.
Residents moved out of the 300-unit complex in August 2010, after an environmental investigation found asbestos and other hazardous materials on the property. Since that time, the empty complex has become a source of decay and community blight.
Tuesday’s action paves the way for new uses of the property by authorizing the contractor to begin demolition this summer. The county of Los Angeles is committed to using the space for parkland and recreational purposes and will seek feedback from interested community residents and stakeholders on the site’s design.
“We are starting fresh and setting a new path for the Willowbrook community,” said Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas. “Once Ujima Village is demolished, the site can be re-envisioned and redeveloped into a quality, community serving destination.”
The recreational improvements will be planned in consultation with the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — A man in his early 20s suffered life-threatening wounds to his upper back this morning in a shooting in the Leimert Park, police said.
The shooting in the 3800 block of Third Avenue, near 39th Street, was reported around 12:20 a.m., said Lt. H. Fanfassian, watch commander of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Southwest Station.
The victim, who was hospitalized “in extremely serious condition,” did not provide police details of the shooting or a suspect description, Fanfassian said.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Authorities today identified a man who was fatally shot by Inglewood police after he allegedly smashed the windows of eight squad cars with a sword in a police station parking lot.
The shooting occurred Saturday night, after the man damaged the vehicles using a sword that was thicker and heavier than a machete, police said. The dead man was identified as Charles Curl, 46, of Los Angeles, coroner’s Assistant Chief Ed Winter said.
When Beyoncé Knowles sang the Etta James song “At Last” at President Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration, the song could have had several meanings. At last, we have an African American president? At last, the muscle of the Black vote has been flexed? At last, there is some hope for our country to come together with the mantra “Yes We Can.”
May brings us holidays from May 1 (May Day) through Memorial Day, May 27 (originally, Decoration Day), the preeminent celebration of loyalty and courage in America’s Civil War. In between May Day and Memorial Day, there is also Cinco de Mayo and the always adventurous Mother’s Day.
In fact, May hosts more than 25 distinctive political observances, including the annual Malcolm X birthday gala and festival (there’s also another Malcolm X festival held annually in April), held in most major urban areas in America.
The congressional hearings on May 8 may become the beginning of the end for Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Three credible eyewitnesses of the Benghazi consulate assault last Sept. 11, 2012, finally got to give their accounting of it. They had been kept from the FBI, all committees of Congress—Senate and House, media and anyone else in the world. It was through the Whistleblower Program that they came to tell the real story.
