All kinds of Eastside neighborhoods that make the Eastside the Eastside were on display last night at Stevenson Middle School in that multi-cultural Eastside:
Give the cheating politicians a fair hell.
It was the first town hall about the Lineage warehouse fire, which burned for nearly a week and left 85 million pounds of frozen food rotting across the street in residential areas. All 400 seats in the hot hall were full, with an additional 300 people in the restaurant. Many others are waiting in the parking lot and on the lawn.
During the town hall, a member of the audience holds a pamphlet about the response to the store fire.
There were activists who marched about a kilometer from the burned warehouse to push security into the hall, chanting “Close!”
There were taqueras like Monica Susteyta and Cristina Flores, who ran stores on Union Pacific Avenue near Lineage until a fire closed them down last month. Susteyta is yet to reopen. Flores tried this week, out of financial desperation, but he hasn’t sold yet, “because there are a lot of flies.”
“We can’t work, our children can’t play outside. It’s worse than the epidemic,” the 41-year-old woman continued in Spanish.
“The mayor said the smoke was not poisonous,” added Susteyta, 50. “How could it be, when one cigarette is poisonous?”
Chief Operating Officer Jeff Rivera and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass during a town hall.
Mariachi played, highlighting the loss of gigs for local artists, and backyard parties were canceled amid the stench lingering in the area. Elderly immigrants showed injuries they attributed to the evil spirit: strange spots on their skin, temples scrubbed green from watery eyes.
And then there were Eastside nurses like 77-year-old Ross Valencia, who attended Stevenson like his father and stood in line for two hours to get a seat.
“How many things have to happen on the Eastside?” the Navy veteran sighed, citing the May oil spill on Cesar Chavez Avenue that polluted the Los Angeles River, the Lineage on fire and the car that drove into a crowd of people enjoying their lunch at Los 5 Puntos earlier in the week. “There are a lot of angry people today. Normally, I’m calm, but …”
His face was frowning as we were blown away by the smell of vomit. To the south, what remains of the Lineage warehouse can be seen over the 5 freeway, its charred walls covered in white plastic and its charred roof still intact. The hulking structure looked like a giant, rotten sheet cake.
In front of city hall, protesters marched toward Stevenson Middle School in Boyle Heights.
Not one official has ever appeared to rule, because there really is no one to rule. The warehouse is on Indiana Street, the dividing line between Boyle Heights, in downtown Los Angeles, and unincorporated East LA.
Although LA Mayor Karen Bass, LA City Council Member Ysabel Jurado and LA County Supervisor Hilda Solis have tried to cut red tape, many residents complain that they will ask for help from one office, only to be directed to another.
“For officials, Indiana is the border,” said the tag! Lopez, an organizer of East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice whose grandmother was a founder of the famous mothers of East Los Angeles. “Not to the people who actually live here.”
The town hall was an opportunity for someone, anyone, to take the lead and say something that would reassure the angry Eastside.
Not tonight.
East LA resident Genesis Coronado turns away from the stage during a town hall on the warehouse fire.
“Hello everyone,” Bass began with a laugh, in the voice of an elementary school teacher who knows her students will do more. He apologized “specifically” for any “confusion, miscommunication,” which only upset people — but not as much as when he tried to calm them down by saying, “If you want to listen, clap once.”
Oh, the people were listening – they just wouldn’t shut up about what they heard.
Solis, who represents East LA on the Board of Supervisors, followed even louder as he offered pabulum that sounded like he had packed his U-Haul in preparation for his potential run for Congress this fall.
Jurado tried to remind people that he was once an ardent activist, like many in the audience. His 2024 city council victory was his first run for office.
“The community has always been open about the community, and it is my duty that we hear your voice,” he said.
But when Jurado sarcastically introduced the next speaker – “Your favourite, Lineage, will now introduce you!” – the joke fell on the ground than the solar panel.
Chief Operating Officer Jeff Rivera said over and over again what everyone wanted to hear: “I’m sorry.”
That is the only highlight of his presentation. His PowerPoint slides were illegible due to the small text and the bright lights of the auditorium. The audience booed when he said the test showed the air was safe to breathe. They were disappointed when he complained, “I know you are upset. We are here Hello. Our building burned.”
Below the podium sat a row of bored-looking representatives from city, county and state agencies. Others looked down on their phones, texting members of the public to ask questions that Abigail Marquez, general manager of the LA Department of Public Investment, couldn’t answer. The only official who said anything was Barbara Ferrer, LA County’s director of public health.
“We failed,” he admitted, explaining how public health agencies stepped up to help citizens in a way his staff did not.
Much of the Lineage warehouse is covered in plastic to prevent the smell of rotting food from spreading to Boyle Heights.
Rivera vowed that Lineage would provide financial assistance, air conditioners, air purifiers and help pay utility bills. Bass announced that AirBnB will help temporarily relocate people. He vowed to study all warehouses in the Eastside, South LA and San Fernando Valley to “assess their resilience to environmental challenges.”
But when the officials spoke loudly, the crowd did not want to.
For decades, the powers that be have burdened the Eastside with freeways, warehouses, public corruption, invisible development that has brought discord and social negligence to the border of criminality.
Much to the public’s dismay, in the early days of the fire, Bass and others had insisted that the black smoke billowing as far as the San Gabriel Valley was nothing to worry about — an attitude they wouldn’t dare adopt in the city’s affluent neighborhoods.
The Eastside can’t seem to win at City Hall or County Hall. That has been the case for ordinary people like East LA resident Silvia Corona, who has protested everything from environmental discrimination to anti-immigrant immigration enforcement for nearly 50 years, trying to save the area from further harm.
“Pongansen las pilas, please,” Corona urged the audience to cheer. Please put your batteries in – a Mexican Spanish expression for cowboy. “You don’t want listen to us. For God’s sake, we are you are tired.”
After about two hours, the residents filled the hall. Others passed out leaflets with information about the facilities. They exchanged phone numbers and Instagram accounts. They would not expect promises that might not be fulfilled.
A resident of Boyle Heights who calls himself El Chavo, the lovable Mexican children’s television actor who lives in a barrel in the working class, compared the official fire response to a meme in which Spider-Man points to a costumed impostor who loves him, returning the gesture.
“It’s like they’re all busy, but no one is coordinating what they’re going to bring or who they’re going to invite,” said El Chavo.
Los Angeles County Superintendent Hilda Solis addresses a town hall at Stevenson Middle School.
Nearby was Genesis Coronado, who stood up and turned his back every time Solis spoke.
“It’s ridiculous if I have to call Ysabel Jurado’s office to get help, instead of representing myself,” said the 34-year-old East LA native.
I asked him how Solis and other leaders worked at city hall. The fresh air baptized us in another bad smell.
“It’s really bad,” he said. “You had no answers, you had nothing.”
