Last minute moves from Councilmember Mike Bonin
By Dolores Quintana
As a parting gift to Council District 11, Los Angeles City Council member Mike Bonin has moved to add to the district’s transportation infrastructure and give more greenery to the area as reported by Urbanize Los Angeles.
Bonin’s newest motion is to make improvements on Slauson Avenue’s median, in Del Rey, near Culver Boulevard.
Bonin’s motion reads, as quoted by Urbanize Los Angeles, “The median of Slauson Avenue is particularly ripe for improvement and beautification, and could be transformed into a tremendous asset for the community, on a major street with hundreds of apartments, Culver-Slauson Park, and the Mar Vista Family Center. There is also a need for improvements along the stretch of Ballona Creek that borders the neighborhood.”
Bonin’s plan is to give $100,000 in monies to Kounkuey Design Initiative and the Del Rey Neighborhood Council greening projects to kick-start their plans to improve the neighborhood
by using revenues derived from street furniture.
The other motion that Bonin filed in his last days in office is to give over $5 million in the City’s budget created by fees that the city charges developers for fund projects from The Westside Fast Forward Initiative for improvements to the area’s infrastructure.
The projects the money would be earmarked for are the effort to widen the Lincoln Boulevard bridge that crosses Ballona Creek. This would ease traffic congestion with a new lane, and add sidewalks and bike lanes. Bonin’s motion proposes giving $2.5 million to that project and giving $1.6 million to the project to build a protected bike lane on Rose Avenue near the Penmar Golf Course. This motion would also give money to the effort to improve traffic signals in Westchester, and build new crosswalks near Abbot Kinney that would be dedicated to the LGBTQ+ community.
The Los Angeles City Council voted yes on Bonin’s proposed motions but his replacement in CD11, Traci Park, objected to the vote via letter. In the letter, she asked that the vote be delayed until she takes office and insisted that there was no community engagement regarding the Lincoln Boulevard project.
