By T.A. Hendrickson State Senator María Elena Durazo, who represents Northeast Los Angeles, notched two victories this week when Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Senate Bill 731 and SB 951, two reform bills authored by Durazo. SB 731 will automatically seal conviction and arrest records for those who have done their time and have […]
Continue ReadingBy Joel Sappell and Dominic Massimino Maria Elena Ramirez has found purpose in her community along the street. Wearing surgical gloves, she gently picks up syringes around her Eagle Rock encampment, drops them into a plastic container and gives them to a nonprofit healthcare provider that rolls up every Friday at 11 a.m. with a […]
Continue ReadingGlendale’s Moves Will Affect the quality of life in NELA. How to handle the methane at Scholl Canyon is a major point of contention. Read why here.
Continue ReadingSelf employed can begin to submit applications for unemployment benefits on April 28.. For details on applying, read on.
Continue ReadingThe state will begin implementing new federal benefit payments of $600 on top of the weekly benefit received by California workers starting this Sunday
Californians have filed more claims in the last four weeks than in all of 2019
Continue ReadingThe state will begin implementing new federal benefit payments of $600 on top of the weekly benefit received by California workers starting this Sunday
Californians have filed more claims in the last four weeks than in all of 2019
Continue ReadingIf you haven’t yet filled out the census for your household, here’s what you need to know and do.
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Here is the News Release issued on March 19, 2020 from the United States Attorney, Central District of California entitled “Fundraiser Agrees to Plead Guilty to Federal Corruption Charge for Delivering Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars to Bribe Member of Los Angeles City Council” LOS ANGELES – A political fundraiser has agreed to plead guilty […]
Continue ReadingShootings yes, Murders no, More patrols in CD-14. Read update here.
Continue ReadingOpinion: Cedillo and Koretz proposed a flawed resolution but the idea behind their resolution – that cheaters should be held accountable – is right. No amends is not right.
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SELAH and VOALA each got a van from LA County to be dedicated to getting the Homeless Where They Need to Go for Help. To connect with SELAH and/or Volunteers of America, click here.
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Eagle Rock Elementary School (ERES) has avoided a $160,000 budget cut that threatened to eliminate funding for teaching assistants and academic programs. Read here about how this was achieved.
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Metro staff’s decision on BRT route through Eagle Rock is delayed until “late Summer”. Read on for details.
Continue ReadingThis month Laura Brady-Allen reports LAPD arresting man in shooting death of 15 year-old, a stand-off, and a push for more cops on the beat.
Continue ReadingFive artists who live or work in Northeast Los Angeles have been selected to participate in the fifth Made in L.A. biennial exhibition, which will take place at the Hammer Museum in Westwood and the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino from June 7 through August 30.
Continue ReadingAnother effort to keep bars open later is taking shape in the California state Assembly.
Continue ReadingOwner says he is keeping his options open as to whether to build or sell Pillarhenge. Things like that can “make you go, hmmm.”
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Who Speaks for Highland Park? Here’s our update.
Continue ReadingLAPD proposes foot patrols on Colorado Boulevard in Eagle Rock. Read more here.
Continue ReadingBreak-ins occurred early Wednesday morning, January 8, 2020, at two restaurants on Colorado Boulevard in Eagle Rock.
Continue ReadingCity Council takes the slow road to reform in the face of scandal. Read the latest here.
Continue ReadingOnly technical and bureaucratic hurdles remain before the Oxy Pool can open. When will it open? Read here.
Continue ReadingThe saga of Manny Espana continues.
Continue ReadingFlawed from the start, Metro’s proposed BRT process divides Eagle Rock. We update this story here.
Continue ReadingThe 2020 Homeless count in NELA will take place in January 2020. Details are here.
Continue ReadingGentrifying newcomers, residential and commercial meet Activism and Resistance in Highland Park. Here’s our update.
Continue ReadingWant to how you can help the homeless in your neighborhood? SELAH volunteers are doing this now providing weekly suppers, showers, clothing and more. Get started here.
Continue ReadingA bank robbery and more burglaries in Eagle Rock. Here’s your monthly crime update.
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Thousands took in the Eagle Rock Bark this year. They had fun and did good. A great combination. Read about it here.
Continue ReadingIt’s time once again to count the homeless. You can volunteer. Read about it here.
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The property was going to house the homeless but City red tape took too long and reviving the congregation presented itself. There’s more. Read about it here.
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Two more defendants were sentenced to prison in November in a major federal case against three street gangs in Northeast Los Angeles. There’s more. Read it here.
Continue ReadingBy T. A. Hendrickson An effort in Eagle Rock to create safer, more sanitary conditions for the homeless advanced on November 15, when the Los Angeles City Council told city agencies to study the use of the parking lot at 7541 Figueroa Street as a homeless-services staging area. Among the potential uses: Installing mobile showers […]
Continue ReadingDeceased’s sister speaks out. Read story here.
Continue ReadingColorado Boulevard Is Focus of Metro Workshops – 134 Freeway Option is nowhere in sight. Read more here.
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Updates on Eagle Rock burgler, shooting death arrests, more burglaries in Eagle Rock.
Continue ReadingWinning an award in the 6th annual Highland Park Independent Film Festival was not easy.
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As of October 17, 27 cases of serious lung injury and one death have been linked to vaping in Los Angeles County,
Continue Reading“No fault” evictions are banned for the rest of 2019
Continue ReadingThe Los Angeles County District Attorney has not filed charges against either of the two men arrested on August 31 in connection with the hillside fire in Eagle Rock and Glendale on August 25.
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L.A.’s eastside has always had a creative core. The wider art world is taking notice.
Continue ReadingKnow the next step in Metro’s plan for a BRT express bus service for Eagle Rock.
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See how our local NELA elected officials voted. You may be surprised.
Continue ReadingNELA man gets Derek Jeter for his “Boss”.
Continue ReadingShootings are plaguing NELA. We report in this edition on four of them, including the fatal shooting of LAPD Officer Juan Jose Diaz. For details continue with this September crime report by Laura Brady-Allen.
Continue ReadingCD-14 “remains optimistic” and “fully committed” improving Eagle Rock Blvd. Seems the Glassell Park Improvement Association is, too. Public meeting on ERB coming up soon. Details are here.
Continue ReadingThe Southwest Museum is holding its breath. Good news. Much needed help may be on the way. Read all about it.
Continue ReadingDozens of volunteers, including many veterans, gathered on Saturday, August 24, to put finishing touches on the plaza and landscaping of the newly refurbished Veterans Memorial at the intersection of York Boulevard and Figueroa Street in Highland Park. The centerpiece of the Memorial is the fountain. There’s more to be done.
Continue ReadingThe prep work for re-painting of the 170′ mural on Marmion Way near the Southwest Museum has been completed and the re-painting has begun, Both the preparation work and the re-painting are creative adventures in their own right. See the work in process on the Boulevard Sentinel.
Continue ReadingJuan Jose Diaz, a 24-year-old officer who served two years with LAPD, died in the gunfire that broke out around 1 a.m. near Avenue 26 and Humboldt Street, according to the Police Department.
Continue ReadingThis month we had a murder in Eagle Rock, a prowler apprehended and a man sentenced in mugging of a pregnant jogger. Up to date details on all this and more are here for you.
Continue ReadingTuition and fees will be waived in the first two years of community college for first-time, full-time students, thanks to provisions in California’s new state budget. Want more? How’s this: Nearly half of students earning a bachelor’s degree from a UC in science, technology, engineering and mathematics transferred from a California community college. And, there’s more in this report by Matthew Reagan for the Boulevard Sentinel.
Continue ReadingHere’s the latest on the Real Estate Developments we’ve been following in NELA.
Continue ReadingBurnt out fields of play may be becoming an thing of the past in NELA’s Rio de Los Angeles State Park. For more read more.
Continue ReadingHomelessness in NELA may be intractable but efforts are underway to make it less so. We update you on a few initiatives underway to address this catastrophic problem.
Continue ReadingFrom the College of Art and Design to the LA County Museum, Ana Serrano evokes the look and feel of front-yard, window-ledge spaces in Latino neighborhoods. Read on for a view of the creative expression of what we pass by every day in NELA.
Continue ReadingProposed route has roiled the town. Constituents to have a special opportunity to speak directly with Hilda Solis, Metro Director and L. A. County Supervisor. Read on for details about next meeting and recap of situation to date.
Continue ReadingShooting on Colorado Blvd. For details read on.
Continue ReadingAbout 350 Eagle Rockers showed up at the Eagle Rock Plaza today to hear what Metro and their fellow residents had to say about Metro’s plan for Bus Rapid Transit on Colorado Boulevard. About 70 people spoke up. Here’s how things came out.
Continue ReadingAttention Eagle Rockers: Bring your comments and questions on Saturday, July 13, to a meeting with Metro about its Bus Rapid Transit plan for Eagle Rock. Here are four questions the Boulevard Sentinel is submitting for the record. The meeting will be at the Eagle Rock Plaza from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Continue ReadingProtests in Glendale Over the Grayson Power Plant Hold Lessons for NELA on Scholl. Read here about the power of resident advocacy.
Continue ReadingThe hot water that José Huizar has been in for months is getting hotter. On June 24, a judge denied a request by Huizar to delay a lawsuit against him. More here. Read on.
Continue ReadingBars open until 4am coming to NELA? Not so fast, legislation has cleared the state Senate before but didn’t get passed the Governor. And, the politicians who represent Northeast L.A in Sacramento – state Senator Maria Elena Durazo (D) and Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo (D) – are going different ways on the issue. There’s more here. Read on.
Continue ReadingOver 1,000 NELA high school grads are going on to college. Read here where they are coming from and where they are going.
Continue ReadingDog kisses, a watermelon eating contest (against your dog) and a happy day for NELA. Glassell Bark brings out the best in NELA.
Continue ReadingThe expansive lawn at the Hill Drive home of Michael and Eugenie Noguiera was the site of the 5th annual Taste of Eagle Rock on June 23 where some 300 visitors sampled specialties from 25 local restaurants.
Continue ReadingTo Evict or Not to Evict? Why Is That Even a Question?
The clock is ticking for Ramona Sierra, 90, and Suzanna Bermudez, 65, who are bracing for eviction from their rent-controlled, one-bedroom bungalows in a five-unit complex at 4542-4544 Eagle Rock Boulevard.
Rock the Boulevard, a public/private effort to transform Eagle Rock Boulevard into a safer, more beautiful thoroughfare, has been unable to secure the public grant money needed to move forward as originally planned.
There were high hopes for the project last year. Launch money was raised from City Council District 14 ($23,000), Occidental College ($13,500), the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council ($2,500) and The Eagle Rock Association improvement group (an unspecified amount)
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Wildfires can occur anytime, not only in the typical wildfire season of mid-summer to early autumn. Northeast Los Angeles is at high risk: The Boulevard Sentinel recently reported on data showing that nearly half of the buildings in Eagle Rock are in a very severe hazard zone; in Highland Park, 40% of the buildings are in a very serve hazard zone. In Mount Washington, all of the buildings are in a very severe hazard zone.
Continue ReadingJackie Goldberg, a veteran local politician, won a decisive victory on May 14 over Heather Repenning, a former city commissioner, for the Board District 5 (BD 5) seat on the Los Angeles School Board, which includes Northeast Los Angeles. The task now before Goldberg, who was endorsed by the L.A. teachers union, is to find the money to deliver on her promise of smaller class sizes and more counselors, nurses and teachers aides.
Continue ReadingVielka McFarlane, who founded the Celerity network of charter schools located in Eagle Rock and other parts of Los Angeles, was sentenced on May 20 to 30 months in prison for misspending public education money on luxuries for herself, including first-class plane travel, fine dining and high-end shopping.
McFarlane pleaded guilty in January to one count of conspiracy to misappropriate and embezzle public money. The plea followed an investigation, starting in 2012, by the inspector general of L.A. Unified School District and federal authorities.
An intraparty feud among local Democratic groups has come to a can’t-please-everyone kind of resolution.
The dispute began in late January, when Democrats in State Assembly District 51, which includes Northeast Los Angeles, voted to select 14 delegates to the California Democratic Party convention in Sacramento from May 31 to June 2.
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This month focuses on a conviction for burglary in Eagle Rock, a sexual preditor also in Eagle Rock, a hearing for a a person know for harassing and threatening women and the bomb threat at Franklin High School.
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This month focuses on a couple of scary adults that have plagued the neighborhoods and two juveniles arrested for armed robbery in Eagle Rock.
Continue ReadingThe Grand Opening of the dog park at the Eagle Rock Recreation Center will take place on Saturday, May 11 at 10 a.m. This will be the first new dog park in Northeast Los Angeles in 13 years.
Continue ReadingThe Grand Opening of the dog park at the Eagle Rock Recreation Center will take place on Saturday, May 11 at 10 a.m. This will be the first new dog park in Northeast Los Angeles in 13 years.
Continue ReadingHere’s the follow up on some of the NELA’s recent crimes:
Continue ReadingCouncilmember Gil Cedillo recently filed a motion to exclude CD 1 from a one-year pilot program to test widespread use of electric, dockless scooters in Los Angeles.
Continue ReadingThe academic decathletes from Franklin High School in Highland Park placed sixth among 68 schools in the recent California state finals of the Academic Decathlon.
Continue ReadingThe academic decathletes from Franklin High School in Highland Park placed sixth among 68 schools in the recent California state finals of the Academic Decathlon.
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The Coalition for Scholl Landfill Alternatives (CSLA), a local group of environmental activists, has issued a press release saying it “strongly suspects” Glendale Water and Power of trying to manipulate an upcoming environmental review at the Scholl Canyon landfill . . . . . .
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The Coalition for Scholl Landfill Alternatives (CSLA), a local group of environmental activists, has issued a press release saying it “strongly suspects” Glendale Water and Power of trying to manipulate an upcoming environmental review at the Scholl Canyon landfill . . . . . .
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The Lummis Legacy League, a grassroots organization to preserve the legacy of Charles Fletcher Lummis, will hold a kick-off reception and presentation on March 17 at the Los Angeles River Center and Gardens in Cypress Park. Suzanne Lummis, the granddaughter of Charles Lummis, will be a guest of honor. The group hopes to draw more […]
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Public school teachers in Los Angeles will go on strike starting Thursday, Jan. 10, unless an unforeseen breakthrough occurs before then. The teachers union – United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) – announced the strike date on Dec. 19. The announcement followed the release of a report by a fact-finding panel made up of a […]
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Vielka McFarlane, the founder and former chief executive of Celerity Educational Group, a Los Angeles charter school network, has pleaded guilty to one felony count of conspiracy to misappropriate and embezzle public funds. In her plea, reported by the L.A. Times on Dec. 21, Ms. McFarlane admitted that she had misspent $2.5 million in public funds intended for Celerity students.
Continue ReadingA lawsuit to lower the fees for commercial garbage collection in Los Angeles hit a roadblock last month when the judge said the case was too flawed to go forward. But the Apartment Owners Association of California – which filed the lawsuit – has not given up. The judge gave the group until Feb. 8 […]
Continue ReadingThe Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has received 216,102 public comments on a Trump administration proposal that would make it harder for legal immigrants to obtain green cards or permanent residency if they use Medicaid, food stamps, housing subsidies or other common federal benefits. The comments were overwhelmingly against the proposal. It’s safe to say […]
Continue ReadingWork has finally begun to recreate the mural that once covered the wall along Marmion Way leading up to the Southwest Museum. The first step – creating detailed, life sized drawings of the original mural – got underway in January, when Pola Lopez, the renowned artist who will paint the new mural, received a first […]
Continue ReadingSeven years ago, an abandoned carport at the end of Tipton Way in Highland Park became a community memorial to the artist Mike Kelley, who had his studio down the street and had died by suicide on Jan. 31, 2012. All through the month of February, 2012, visitors filled the space with farewell messages in […]
Continue ReadingIn the three months since the FBI raided the home and two offices of NELA City Councilmember José Huizar, no official explanation has been given for the raids and no related arrests or charges have been made. But the issue continues to generate a lot of smoke. The L.A. Times reported on Jan. 12 that […]
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As of press time for this issue of the Boulevard Sentinel on Dec. 27, there was no official word from the FBI as to why it raided two offices and the home of José Huizar last November. There have been no charges and no arrests in connection with the raids. Recent reporting from the L.A.Times, […]
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L.A. Más, a non-profit urban design firm in Elysian Valley, is now taking applications from homeowners for its Backyard Homes Project. The project will help low-to-moderate income homeowners finance, design and build Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) on their properties. In exchange, the homeowners will rent the ADUs, (often converted garages), for […]
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Obama Drove Here Roughly five-miles of the 134 freeway, including the stretch in Eagle Rock between Pasadena and Glendale, is now officially the “President Barack H. Obama Highway.” Two large freeway signs announcing the new name were unveiled on Dec. 20, one on westbound 134 at Fair Oaks Ave. in Pasadena […]
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Not Taking “No” for an Answer State Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) has re-introduced legislation to let bars in Los Angeles and eight other California cities stay open until 4 a.m., two hours later than the current closing time of 2 a.m. The latest bill (SB 58) is basically no different […]
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Higher Speed Limits, More Speeding Tickets New speed limits went into effect on many streets in Los Angeles on Dec 11. Most of the new limits are increases, some are decreases. One reason for the changes is to ensure that posted speed limits conform with what up-to-date speed surveys […]
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As 2018 draws to a close, I asked the LAPD for updates on some of the higher profile crimes that occurred this year in Northeast L.A. Here’s a rundown as of Nov. 16: No suspects were identified in the attempted kidnapping on Jan. 22 at Campus Road and Escarpa Drive, near Eagle Rock High School. […]
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On Nov. 14, the labor dispute between the L.A. school district and the L.A. teachers union entered the fact-finding stage. Over the next 30 days or so, the claims by each side will be analyzed and a report issued by a panel headed by the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), the state agency that oversees […]
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For the most part, businesses and landlords in Northeast Los Angeles and the rest of the city have had no choice but to accept the higher costs and new procedures imposed by RecycLA, the city’s commercial trash-hauling system in effect since July 2017. But at a recent meeting of the committee on Energy, Climate Change […]
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Violet Rivers, a third grader at Eagle Rock Elementary, will sing next month at a student showcase in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the National Parent Teacher Association and the U.S. Department of Education. Violet will perform her original song, Transformation, which won a 2018 National Award of Excellence in Music Composition last May in an […]
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A former aide to NELA’s Councilmember José Huizar is suing the city of Los Angeles, alleging that she faced retaliation for speaking up about his “potential legal and ethical violations,” the Los Angeles Times has reported. The lawsuit, which names Mr. Huizar as a defendant, comes as a special investigatory panel is looking into a […]
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