We had so many dumping photos throughout the Red Car Property in 2014, we did not run them all. (Here are a bunch of previously unpublished photos). However, they were all sent to the Red Car Property owner's rep and CD13 as they occurred. In most cases, it took neighbors' creative efforts to get dumping cleaned up despite the Red Car Property owner's promises to clean up the piles of trash.
At India Street, the neighbors finally convinced the City that if they are driving onto the Red Car Property to pick up the trash cans & turn around, they can pick up the illegal dumping too. One neighbor started consolidating the piles at India the night before trash pick up in the hopes of encouraging the City to stop ignoring the neighbor's calls, after reporting the dumping to 311. It seems to be working.
Read more about trash dumping and the city efforts to clean it up: LA Times
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, February 23, 2014. Apparently no one wanted the chairs. The City issued an order to comply to the owner to clean up the dumping. It was finally picked up in March.
Despite the number of dumping incidents, this year was really was not that bad compared to previous years. It's just extremely frustrating for residents because the City won't pick up illegal dumping from private property & the property owner fails to pick up dumping in a timely manner. It doesn't help that so many of our City streets abut freeways & have no addresses, so the dumping in those areas sits for months awaiting City pick up. The whole neighborhood can seem like a dumping ground.
People who walk the the Red Car Property regularly do their part to remove what they can, but there's also a liability issue for the property owner.
Then there's the problem of neighbors dumping on the property.
Through the years, to prevent vehicle traffic, dumping, late night parties & stolen car abandonment on the property, our LAPD Senior Lead Officers have suggested steel gates with LAFD approved locks, similar to what they have in areas around Griffith & Elysian Parks. Landscaping and earth berms could be built up other areas around the gates.
When I first moved to the neighborhood 25 years ago, 3 such gates were in place at India St, north of India St above Gilroy and at Corralitas. Somehow, gates were opened, then disappeared (probably to scrap metal thieves), but the posts are still in the ground at India. One steel post is intact north of India & another was displaced years ago by the City's brush clearance & is at rest near the 2 Freeway fence at Corralitas.
We've written about dumping by the truckload: click here for all our dumping posts.
Read today's LA Times story
Stuff You Missed This Year is our annual wrap up of interesting photos and things we just didn't have a chance to run, because everything seems to always happen at the same time.
