In response to “Hillcrest celebrates updated community plan.“
I don’t think I have ever sent a note to the author of a newspaper article before. But because of the importance of this issue to the Uptown community, including Hillcrest and Mission Hills, I am taking a few moments to reach out, and I thank you for taking the time to read this.
My overall comment on your story is that it is biased and does not present the full picture. Perhaps that’s what you intended, in which case I would say you accomplished your goal. But if you, as a publisher, feel that your responsibility is to truly inform your readership, then I would say you fell quite short.
While I could give extensive examples of the City’s deeply flawed and dishonest approach to shoving this plan through to its conclusion, let me just, for the sake of brevity, focus on a few significant shortcomings, as follows:
1. The LGBTQ corridor/cultural district is in reality a slick way to permit the demolition of buildings which are historic from an LGBTQ perspective. Basically, an important LGBTQ structure can be demolished so long as some sort of plaque is placed on the site, describing what used to be there and what previously happened there. That is a weak substitute for the real thing, akin to demolishing Monticello and instead installed a plaque which says “Thomas Jefferson lived here.” So, in my view, you are skewing this sellout of the LGBTQ community with some sort of implied “win,” which is a pyrrhic victory at best.
2. The Community Group Uptown Planners conducted many, many, many meetings over the years, and submitted detailed itemizations of problems with the plan, with questions and/or recommended changes to City Planners. The recommendations made by Uptown Planners were largely ignored. I attended many of these meetings, with City Staff sometimes present, and it was all basically Kabuki Theater; City Staff “checking the box” that they attended so that the City could claim inclusiveness, when in fact the die had already been cast. Your article was quick to mention all of the meetings that the City attended, but you didn’t complete your reporting properly by noting how few of the community’s recommendations were in fact adopted.
3. The most egregious part of this entire debacle, was the overturning of an election. As you know, Uptown Planners are democratically elected by the community. But as a thorn in Mayor Gloria’s side, a bogus DEI theory was used to cancel the results of this election, in order for the Mayor to install essentially his own group of true believers as the community voice. A simple check would reveal that in fact the elected Uptown Planners group is more diverse than the new group which has been formed. I would think your readership would like to know about undemocratic political shenanigans, and the rigging of the deck to arrive at a selected outcome.
I suspect you achieved your goal with the article, and as publisher, you are in a position to do so. But I do think your readers deserved a more balanced view of this most-important story.
Ken Perilli, Mission Hills
Related articles on Uptown Planners and Plan Hillcrest in 2024:
Town Hall reveals two oversights in Plan Hillcrest
