LAist: South Central Farmers Should Leave Peacefully

Tony

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 21:53:20 -0800

I don't think that holding progressive values and respecting private property, or for that matter capitalism is mutually exclusive.

Ruth

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 21:14:40 -0800

...By the way, for them it's not a matter of a choice between conventionally grown fruits and over-priced organic foods from a gourmet market. It is a matter of being able to grow fresh produce themselves, or going without.

Ruth

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 21:03:09 -0800

Pierce calls himself a "hippie", implying, I imagine, that he holds some progressive values and condems social injustice, but he sounds more like a capitalist when he says the people should be grateful for the 13 years they used the land rent-free. I disagree. These farmers are not freeloaders. They are hard working people who work other jobs as well as tend the community farm. The area was a wasteland when they got it. With years of hard work, they turned it into something valuable. Now that the land is valuable, the city comes along, and in deal that violates the city charter, sells the land out from under them to a rich developer for far less than it's worth. This deal was not in the city's best interest. The farm is definitely something worth fighting for. I teach in that community. The city provides very little for this community. There are no parks, no libraries, nothing that those of us living in middle-class neighborhoods take for granted. It's concrete all around. Yes, the city has offered to let them farm another area, but it is half the size, and all the work that has been done will have to be done over. It will take another decade for that plot to produce decent crops. Also, the land being offered is in another neighborhood. I don't think it's an acceptable alternative.

finn1929

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 11:10:38 -0800

What is lost in this discussion is that Horowitz was not, and is not the legitimate owner of the land. The back room deal that gave him the property is being challenged in court and will be decided this July. It is entirely possible the courts will find he has no claim to property and put it back in the hands of the city. It was the city that initially allowed the food shelf to manage the farm which made plots available to the farmers(Who did not charge rent, I'm not sure who this mysterious "entity" people keep referring to), because they correctly understood it is better to give people the means to create healthy food rather than hand out gov cheese. Horowitz bought the property from the city in a back room deal, with no public over sight, in which he was able to buy it for $5.1 mill. He then claimed the property was worth over $20 mill, and demanded $16 mill form the farmers. That's an $11 million profit! He never thought the farmers could raise the money, they did and now he's trying to back out claiming his feelings were hurt because of comments made about him by individuals who are not affiliated with or empowered to speak for the farmers. When you force 350 families off their land after they've offered you $16 million dollars for a piece of property you acquired illegally for $5.1, people are going say bad things about you. Some appropriate, others not, but if you some how think that Horowitz is the victim in all this you're either not paying attention or a fool.

JK

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 11:06:55 -0800

We all know that many of the people "farming" this land are in the U.S. illegally. All they have done is on top of showing they have no respect for or border, they have shown they have no respect for our laws or for us in general. And that is the fact.

Bruce

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 10:43:47 -0800

"it unfortunate that the owner Ralph Horowitz took the anti-Semitic insults toward him personally? Yes it is. " How is he supposed to take anti-semtitic insults. Look if the spanish community is upset over english only laws, and calls that descriminitation, what right do they have to call him part of a 'jewish mafia?' Or is this one of those situation where they can't be racist bigots becuase they are from a minority? So you think that he should have just ignored it? Let another piece of Jew hate infect the local population and not make a stand on it, nor an issue of the inherent rascim and bigotry in the remark? Is it becuase you approve of the statement?

KneeJerk

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 09:56:14 -0800

I guess we shouldn't also bring up that a certain entity was charging RENT to those people farming there, even thought they didn't own the land and were basically strongarming and scamming people. Yes, it's the big bad rich man against the po' defenseless farmers again, ain't it. Not a chance.

Michael

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 09:47:56 -0800

Not to defend Horowitz, but the story that's not getting out is the role of the 'westside activists' inserting themselves into this fight. For years they were demanding Horowitz turn the property for free, slamming him with Marxist rhetoric and trying the turn the farm into a spectacle. At the very last minute, saner individuals step in to help with actual funding and a plan to work with Horowitz, but it was all to late. Go read the the LA Times write-up where an actual South Central resident blames the 'Westside dogooders' and they throw water in his face. Plenty of blame to go around, but the lock-arms-in-concrete-barrels types are absolutely the worst. This kind of ego-driven publicity hound 'activism' does nothing to bring people to a cause or solve a problem. Problems like this are solved at a conference table, not by laying down on the ground.

Eric

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 01:09:48 -0800

This is no different from the owner of an apartment complex deciding he wants to convert those apartments to condominiums. As the landowner, you are free to do with your land as you see fit. Once we get into "the rights of the squatters"(I said squatters, because that's what they were) we start moving down a path like that of the former Soviet Union. Socialism sounds fine and dandy, until it's your land, or your property being taken for the "greater good". See how much "greater good" you'll be in favor of when the police come take what you own to "help some poor farmers".

Lila

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 21:08:36 -0800

There are hundreds vacant lots in the LA basin that could be used as community gardens, but just sit collecting fast food trash. Some time ago, I assisted a neighborhood group with a grant application to create a community garden on several vacant lots awaiting development in central Long Beach. Unfortunately, the owner of the vacant lots refused permission, even though the group agreed that the garden would be temporary. This incident perfectly illustrates the owner's reason for refusing. Ten years later, the lots are still vacant, still awaiting development, still serving as a catch basin for litter and old sofas. After this short-sighted and unnecessary drama, how many property owners will agree to temporary land uses? Not only did the farmers lose this battle, but as I see it, neighborhoods everywhere did.

Tony

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 18:11:51 -0800

There are college kids at LAist? Where? Carolyn never told me we had college kids here! CAROLYN!

googlie

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 17:54:40 -0800

Tony, do you believe everything politicians and wealthy land developers say? News flash: Maxine Waters is the new most-liberal-Angeleno. Tony dropped the mantle. Did Horiwitz care about the anti Semitism? Maybe, but that was just ranting from a fringe group that activists don't like. Does he care about Private Property Rights and Eminent Domain? Damn. He probably LIKED the Kelo decision, and has probably used ED to build other projects. Come on. I bet a lot of the smelly anarchists defending the farm, and the wacko leftists on Indymedia see this situation more clearly than the college kids at LAist. Excessive drug use and idealism cannot mask the smell of politics (or the sausage making at the Farmer John factory.)

Will Campbell

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 14:59:42 -0800

Hey Darnell, go find out who put up the land for sale back in 2003 and then think about redirecting your anger towards that entity (hint: it's the one you admirably feel should put the interests of all its people first) rather than LAist for daring to express an opinion that differs from yours.

Darnell

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 14:18:07 -0800

Horrifying!!!!!! Is this what LAist and their new editor stands for?! LA should put the interests of all its people first, not corporate interests and landgrabbers who have reduced this beautiful farmland itself into a concrete jungle where storage facilities for people's unneeded possessions are more available than housing for the disadvantaged. You should be ashamed...what next, maybe the homeless and impoverished should leave peacefully too so developers can continue gang-raping our city?

Rasul

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 13:42:18 -0800

Corporate blog, corporate shill. who's shocked?

Ted

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 13:32:26 -0800

Sorry Pierce, but you've got it all wrong. This is a valuable piece of civic property which was saved by a combination of private (annenberg) and public money, only to have it ripped away at the last minute. The city bungled this from the start, but this is a case that deserves to be fought for.

Questioner

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 13:23:12 -0800

Yeah, yeah, champion of the underdog, and I'm sure you have all the right stickers on your Prius...but when it comes down to it, the status quo rules, and anybody who bucks it ought to shut up and "leave peacefully," lest the natural order of things (extremely rich people using land to get much, much richer) be upset. You indeed come off in this article like a California hippie, Tony--complacent, half-hearted, and more devoted to the system as it stands than you would ever admit. Whaddaya say we drive six blocks to the organic supermarket and pick up some wheatgrass before Deadwood starts?

jillian

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 12:11:35 -0800

Horowitz says that this is about something bigger than the money. That's fine. Because it is. This goes deeper than his little petty squabble with the farmers, but not in the way he means. The Farm set an example for urban agriculture that was beneficial in many, many ways. It showed, not only that a community could band together for a very positive outcome, but set an example of sustainability and environmentalism that should be held up across America. In terms of sustainability, the food grown at the SoCentral Farm was food which was efficient in how it used resources. With an oil crisis on, and with the average food at the grocery store travelling 1500mi to get there, places like the South Central Farm help offset added transportation costs in a family fresh food budget. For environmentalism, the Farm was a green space that collected and used rainwater effectively. Most rainwater in LA runs off roofs into gutters and streets, where it picks up toxins that then wash into the Bay. It's a massive waste of fresh water, in a region that cannot afford to lose it, and we lose that resource because we've cemented over the green area which would act as a watershed. I think the point is that Horowitz lost the opportunity to set an example of the Farm as a massively good thing, as a model for the 21st century, as something that could be upheld and imitated as a solution to the looming oil and water shortages that will be massively damaging to agriculture and the way that we distribute food. He's lowered himself into a petty squabble. It isn't upholding his standards, but reinforcing the system that makes us all too cynical to believe that more places like the Farm are possible.