This opinion piece was posted to another story, but it needs some promoting. I'm turning the stuff below into a letter.

Comments have been closed about the MTA fare increases, but it's still possible to do fare strikes, public campaigns, and make a stink in the media. The board went for the increases, despite over 1,200 people showing up in protest, and over 300 people speaking at the microphone, pleading that the fares be kept affordable.

I got this via email from an associate, pretty late after the fact. My ranting follows.

posted 2:26 on myspace:
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> URGENT!!! SPREAD THE WORD!!
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> Union Del Barrio and the Frente Contra las Redadas has recieved reports that there is a MIGRA RAID happening right now in the city of Rosemead
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> WHEN: NOW Sunday May 5/20/07
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> WHERE: Rosemead and Garvey!!! city of Rosemead!!
>

(Please note that FOWNNA has not been endorsed by SOC. This is a personal blog post, and opinions are mine, alone.)

The Friends of Whittier Narrows Natural Area have been having meetings at the nature center on Durfee at Sundays, 1pm.

They are also going to make a presentation at Sierra Club on Wednesday at 7:30. The location is 3435 Wilshire. Early arrival is recommended.

I guess it's "so far, so good" for them. Right now, they're trying to make some documentation about the project public. There are several different parts to the project, but only one part, the Center and its surrounding area to the northeast, is up on the Discovery Center Authority site. There's a whole other aspect to the project, called the Lario Creek Stream Corridor Enhancement Planning Project that involves re-routing a ditch so it runs through the trees. (See http://www.rmc.ca.gov/ )

In El Paso Texas, the neighborhood of Segundo Barrio is being targeted for some "urban renewal" or "community redevelopment", aka, razing the poor part of the city to put up a Wal-Mart shopping center. The big plan is to destroy over 100 homes to make way for a big strip mall.

This is one of the big cases where eminent domain is being used to seize homes from poor people. So, there's a somewhat unusual coalition of conservative anti-ED activists, and Chicanos and poverty activists opposing this.*

The anti-ED** folks are the landlords who are going to have their apartments taken, and the others being the people who rent from these landlords, but *are* the neighborhood. Usually, they're not on the same side of the fight, but when a giant comes stomping into town, old enemies become friends. Nothing unifies like a common enemy.

If you want to know more about the El Paso situation: Paso Del Sur

This isn't my own opinion, but that of Bob Bracamontes of onlinewithbob.com. You may remember him from the 1990s, when the LA Times had regional writers, and he was their Eastside writer.

I'm just putting it up here because Montebello seems to lack a site like SOC, where people can discuss civic issues.

Here's the teaser, and a link to the whole article:

Why Montebello should consider a change in fire services

The Chinese Islamic Restaurant on Garvey got a review from El Chavo!

@ Metroblogging LA

I was wondering what the unemployment situation is like, and went to the EDD's California Labor Market site. http://www.labormarketinfo.edd.ca.gov/ On that site, you can generated graphs of labor market data, to see trends in employment (among other things). To see if Wal-Mart's arrival caused our unemployment rates to drop, I did a search on 2006 unemployment rates in Rosemead and surrounding communities.

I was going to put up a link to the City's website, but I can't find it.  The link on WikiPedia says it's http://www.cityofrosemead.org/ but that just brings up a search page.  Please send the url to johnk a+ riceball d-t com.