One Corrupt Councilmember and 84 Displaced Households
I have had a massive headache for two days, so this will be a bit shorter than the entry I originally planned.
CD9 Councilmember Curren Price is facing MULTIPLE felony counts relating to his corrupt actions. DA Hochman added new charges last week.
In case anyone needed reminding, this is the same Curren Price who made the vile claim that the victims of the 27th Street fireworks explosion “…have decided not to accept our help. I think others are kind of gaming the system a little bit...They’ve had it good living in the hotel rent-free for several months. They want that to last as long as it can." As if anyone wants to have their home and everything they own destroyed and be stuck in a hotel indefinitely while the city drags its feet on making things right.
Price has a history of voting on development projects in which he - and his current wife Del Richardson Price - have financial interests. Some of the felony charges stem from that.
Richardson Price is the sole owner of Del Richardson and Associates, which according to multiple similar online profiles specializes in “…relocation assistance, public affairs, community engagement and outreach…”
“Relocation assistance” is a euphemism for getting rid of tenants. (Having managed apartments, we didn’t call it “relocation” when we evicted the scumbag who threw wild parties on school nights. We just called it eviction.)
As for “public affairs”, there’s a joke in there somewhere about Price obtaining spousal medical benefits for Richardson Price while he was still married to Lynn Suzette Price.
Richardson Price tried to Ellis Act the Yucca Argyle tenants (“community engagement and outreach”, my ass), who fought back and won a right of return. Still, since the proposed project seems to have stalled, the site may well sit empty for five years (or more) anyway.
Price’s corrupt actions put 84 rent-stabilized units in the crosshairs. One of the three buildings was lost in a knockdown fire last June (with you, the taxpayer, footing the bill, by the way), and Yucca-Argyle has since been fully demolished. Since there is no telling when, or if, the stalled project will ever come, it’s anyone’s guess how many of the tenants will be able to ever use their right of return (consider Bunker Hill, which delayed new housing for so long that very few displaced Hill dwellers were ever able to return).
If you would like to peek inside the Las Palmas-Selma complex, also emptied as a result of the Prices’ actions, Esotouric posted a video the other day. They also dug up more dirt on Price’s corruption charges - scroll to the updates on this entry.
Hollywood deserves its RSO housing back.
CD9 deserves a decent, honest council representative who will uphold the law and take better care of their own district.
Angelenos deserve better.
Block bounded by Yucca Street, Argyle Avenue, Vista Del Mar Avenue, and Carlos Avenue, Hollywood.