State Senator Gil Cedillo held a press conference at 12 noon on Friday 2/17/06 on San Julian, near the corner of 6th Street to announce the Skid Row legislation package (see below). He was joined by Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton, City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, Councilmembers Jan Perry and Bill Rosendahl and CCEA Executive Director Estela Lopez.
Proposed legislative package:
-Create stricter penalties and sentence enhancements for those that try to sell drugs near rehabilitation centers, or service centers including measures that would establish specific areas of skid row as narcotics recovery zones;
-Stem the abandonment, or "dumping" of homeless people in Downtown Los Angeles by prohibiting arresting agencies from transporting people in need of drug treatment, mental illness, and/or homeless support services outside of their jurisdiction;
- Require Los Angeles County Sheriff Departments to release an inmate back to the Sheriff substation or detention facility closest to the point of arrest or to the residence of the inmate;
-Establish a fair share zoning law that requires cities and counties to identify sites in the housing element of their general plan where emergency homeless shelters and residential service providers are allowed to locate without the ability of the local governing body to change the plan once it is adopted;
-Create a community court on Skid Row, modeled after the Midtown Community Court in New York, which Chief Bratton attributes to the successful clean up of New York’s Times Square.
