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Life & Times Transcript
08/30/05 Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times -- They call themselves a beautification team and the ugliness they're fighting is gang violence. Sharyn Romano>> This is a hard job. It's hard to be out there every day. They'll stand there and stare at you or they'll verbally harass you or they will become physical. I've been assaulted once only and had a gun pulled on me. Val Zavala>> And then, we send Cris Franco in search of the true Hollywood story of the Harbor City alligator. It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times. Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education. And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg. With additional support for Life and Times from The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation. Val Zavala>> It's been with us for centuries. It was even found in the ruins of Pompeii. I'm talking about graffiti and, here in Los Angeles, graffiti is more than an eyesore. It's a sign of gangs and crime. Well, we found one neighborhood that was sick and tired and was willing to put itself at risk to wipe out graffiti. So did they win? Hena Cuevas has their story. Hena Cuevas>> It's a battle never ending, or so it seems, and at times dangerous, but one that some people are willing to fight day after day. It's the war against graffiti, the pervasive symbols of taggers and gangs, signs that potential violence and crime are nearby. But can this fight be won? One neighborhood is determined to prove that it can. Sharyn Romano>> Well, graffiti itself is a criminal activity. It's vandalism. Hena Cuevas>> Sharyn Romano is the president and founder of the Hollywood Beautification Team, or HBT. It's a nonprofit group that targets the area from Atwater to La Cienega. For the past year, HBT has been part of a test program to see if a neighborhood-based campaign can beat graffiti. Every morning starting at seven a.m., volunteers and staff members arm themselves with paint and brushes ready to undo what vandals have done. >> "I just want to give you a graffiti location. There's graffiti at 3040 Sunset Boulevard." Hena Cuevas>> It's a coordinated effort. They have a hotline that residents call to report graffiti. There are no shortages of calls. Sharyn Romano>> We've had as many as one hundred requests in a day and we get usually forty or fifty a day. Hena Cuevas>> The key is to be as aggressive and relentless as the taggers even if it means coming back to the same place day after day. Sharyn Romano>> So it becomes frustrating because every day we go and paint out and sometimes we paint out the same areas every single week. Hena Cuevas>> That hasn't stopped sixty-seven year old Willie Vaughn. He's been painting over graffiti for the past ten years. Today he's working on the Ibar Tunnel again. Willie Vaughn>> This is the other one where I came on the fifteenth and the sixteenth. This is a completed location here. Hena Cuevas>> So you've already been here three times in five days? Willie Vaughn>> I've been here twice myself in five days. Today makes the third time. Hena Cuevas>> In less than a week, Vaughn has had to wash these same walls three times. Using a high-pressure sprayer, he painstakingly starts removing the paint. Willie Vaughn>> It's pretty frustrating especially if you take the graffiti off in the morning, pass by, and it's back there that evening. Hena Cuevas>> So when it comes to graffiti, the word battle is not just a metaphor. It can and has put some volunteers at risk. Two years ago, Tina Farash was painting over graffiti inside this tunnel when she heard a pop. Tina Farash>> And all of a sudden, my hand started to bother me. I looked down and somebody had taken a pot shot, taken a good chunk out right under here. Hena Cuevas>> Fortunately, her hand healed, but the shot was a clear warning, one that would have scared many people. Instead, Farash became more determined. She says she will continue to paint over this wall, a prime target, as often as needed. Tina Farash>> It's just one of those things that just irritates and degrades my neighborhood to no end. It also applies fear in the neighborhood. Hena Cuevas>> Farash has another weapon in her arsenal, a camera. She's taken photographs of taggers in the act and she's also learned to decipher their codes. Tina Farash>> This is 2XA, which is "to exterminate Armenians". The other one we have which also has been tagging all over the city, all over the freeway, which has been creating a tremendous amount of vandalism and money, TPC, "taking pure control". Hena Cuevas>> It's these messages of hate and violence that she wants out of her neighborhood. Tina Farash>> DSW, which I have actually caught and arrested. It stands for "doing Satan's work". Sharyn Romano>> Those tags are important to them to keep up because they're advertising their presence. They're marking their boundaries and they're dealing their drugs. That is how they earn their living. Those tags are important to them, so they don't want anyone coming and removing them and they let you know that. Hena Cuevas>> Romano says she and her supervisors have also been attacked. Fortunately, no one has been seriously injured. Sharyn Romano>> This is a hard job. It's hard to go out there every day. They'll stand there and stare at you or they'll verbally harass you or they will become physical. I've been assaulted once only and had a gun pulled on me. Hena Cuevas>> If an area is considered to be too dangerous, volunteers will call for a police escort. >> "There's another area where we've got high crime on Virgil and Santa Monica that we may need the police to come out there with us because of the high concentration." Hena Cuevas>> The Hollywood Beautification Team has also gotten some high-tech backup. This security camera at Lake Street Park is connected to the Rampart police station. It's a twenty-four eye that catches graffiti taggers in the act. But some would say that this is a lot of work to get rid of graffiti. So why not keep spray paint out of the hands of taggers in the first place? Well, we do, to an extent. To fight graffiti, Los Angeles has made it harder to buy spray cans. For example, they must be kept locked and they can't be sold to minors. Still, the city with one of the toughest laws is Chicago where twelve years ago they declared spray cans to be a criminal tool. Therefore, they can't be sold to anyone. Other cities are considering implementing similarly strict bans. In the meantime, HBT still has plenty of work to do. Sharyn Romano>> "So do you think that's going to match? That's okay? But you're going to have to color-match something up here to get rid of all this graffiti on the top. I see it all the way down there. This is quite a mess." Hena Cuevas>> So have the risks they've taken and the work they've done made a difference? Sharyn Romano>> "You're right. That's perfect. That's the color." Hena Cuevas>> The city says absolutely because, in a year, this test program has cut graffiti in Hollywood by an impressive sixty percent. Sharyn Romano>> So we feel we've been effective, but these are some very hardcore issues that our society faces with the gang activity, with poverty, with unemployed kids, and these problems are ongoing. Hena Cuevas>> The group estimates that it covers about two hundred fifty thousand square feet of graffiti a month, but it's not cheap. It costs six hundred thousand dollars a year to run. Romano says it's worth it. Sharyn Romano>> Once you let the graffiti stay up, you are inviting drug dealing and you are inviting violence because the graffiti is up as a billboard. I'm dealing drugs here. This is my gang territory. Don't step over here. Hena Cuevas>> The other challenge is not to vandals, but law-abiding citizens, thousands of residents who get used to seeing it and get complacent. Sharyn Romano>> I think it's become so much a part of what we see every day that we don't see it anymore. Hena Cuevas>> That will never be the case for Romano and the other members of HBT. For them, it's a matter of ownership and a fight against graffiti that can and will be won one brush stroke at a time. I'm Hena Cuevas for Life and Times. Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org and click on "Life and Times". Toni Guinyard>> Too much traffic, too much gridlock and too few transportation options. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has made dealing with traffic problems one of his top priorities and he wants commuters to follow his lead. Antonio Villaraigosa>> I think we ought to lead by example. I've said from the beginning that we're all part of the problem and part of the solution. We're married to the single-passenger automobile here in Los Angeles, the center of gridlock in the United States of America, the place with the dirtiest air. The only way we're going to address this issue of gridlock is that, once in a while, we get away from driving in that single-passenger automobile and carpool or use public transit. So I'm saying let's go metro with the mayor. Let's get on the light rail line. Let's get on our buses. Chris Janofsky>> Well, with my job, I have to go everywhere from pretty much Ventura County all the way down to San Diego County, so that really isn't realistic for me because I have to go to different places in a timely manner. Antonio Villaraigosa>> We're building a system that's starting to get somewhere now in a city of gridlock and congestion where the price of gas is nearly three dollars a gallon. On average, you spend twenty-four dollars on each trip to and from work where you could use public transit and spend about three dollars a day to use public transit. You know, using public transit isn't for everyone and certainly everyone can't do it every day. What we're saying is, try it once a week. Do it as much as you can. Antonio Villaraigosa>> "Say, Board members here. I want all the Board members to hear this. They think we need more parking around our stations and they're right. There's no parking here. That's right, it's an issue. It really is. That's good. See, that's the other thing we get, an earful (laughter). But it's good. We've got to hear these things. I think you're right. It's a way to expand ridership." Antonio Villaraigosa>> People are looking for government to wave a magic wand and get rid of the traffic. It's just not going to happen. You know, we've got to do other things as well. We've got to incentivize employers to go to flex time work schedules, to go to telecommuting, to incentivize them to support vanpools and public transit and the way they do parking. We've got to do smart growth in the city so that you have jobs closer to housing and you create housing and mixed use development along light rail lines and subways. Toni Guinyard>> What can the city do to encourage developers to go to those hubs? Antonio Villaraigosa>> I'm putting together -- and will be announcing very, very soon -- my planning commission, my community redevelopment agency, my commission that's going to deal with both economic development and housing issues. You're going to see a very focused effort at smart growth, at making planning decisions, with transportation decisions, with housing decisions, with economic development decisions. That's what great cities around the world do and that's what we have to do. We've got to get from out of the stone ages when you made transportation decisions in one room, and planning, housing and economic development decisions in another. You know, you've heard me say -- and some have attempted to ridicule that -- that we need to build a subway all the way to the ocean. I've never articulated that it would be done in my first four years or even in the first eight, but we've got to start investing in public transit. If we were to build that subway to the ocean, it would be the most cost-effective investment in public transit in the United States of America, the most used subway anywhere in the United States. That's New York, Chicago, Washington, Boston. Here in Los Angeles, we've got to make investments. We've got to change our patterns of getting to and from work. Richard Katz>> So I took the Red Line from Universal City to Union Station and then took the Gold Line up here to meet the mayor today, so you can get around. It's efficient and we're trying to encourage people to follow the mayor's lead and, one or two days a week, you know, get on a train, get out of a car. Antonio Villaraigosa>> The goal should be that you should be able to walk out of your house and go five minutes to a public transit station and get anywhere you want to go, to work, to recreation, to the beach or Dodger Stadium, and that's my commitment. To invest, to build a consensus, to say to people, look, we have got to begin to use public transit now. We've got to begin to address our traffic congestion. Bernard Parks>> I think it's a long-term educational issue, but we have to convince the public by showing them that these interlinking systems will get them where they want to go. Antonio Villaraigosa>> We've got gridlock throughout the city, so it's not just about addressing no construction during the rush hour. It's not just about synchronizing the lights. I'm putting a plan together in the first hundred days to synchronize all our lights. It won't be done in the first hundred days, but it will be a plan complete with funding that will look at how we synchronize all our lights here in the city of Los Angeles. We're also going to focus on reversible lanes which are important opportunities. The problem is that today, if we had done that ten or fifteen years ago, there would be a lot more opportunities where we could do reversible lanes. Now we've got traffic going both ways morning and afternoon, so there aren't as many opportunities to do reversible lanes. You know, when people, Toni, tell me, well, gee, where are we going to get the money? You know, there are always the nay-sayers. Where are we going to get the money for all of this? You know, that's billions of dollars. I said, you know, we're already spending it. On average, we spend eleven billion dollars a year in lost productivity stuck in traffic. We're stuck in traffic on average ninety-three hours a year. That's two and a half weeks. You know, you pay on the front end or you pay on the tail end. We're going to have to invest. If you want to address gridlock, we're not going to wish it away. It's not going to go away unless we invest, unless we change our patterns and, yes, unless we get on public transportation once in a while. That's what going on metro with the mayor is all about. [Film Clip] Antonio Villaraigosa>> I've gone to press conferences, I've gone to work, I've gone to MTA board meetings, on the bus, on the rail. You're going to see me continue that if I got you with a camera alongside or not because I understand that our ability to get people to start moving to public transit is going to be part of the solution of what we need to deal with in congestion in this city. You know, people want simple solutions. I don't have those. I'm sorry. I'm going to talk straight to people. That means you've got to say to people, look, you've got to get out of your car once in a while. You can't go in your car and go two blocks to the market and wonder why we have gridlock on Sunset Boulevard or Wilshire Boulevard or Sepulveda Boulevard. Pasadena understands smart growth. If you go to Burbank and some of these smaller cities, they understand that you have to make these connections. We're getting from behind the curve, if you will, and focusing on that kind of smart growth here too because it's our only way to address the growth in this city, to be smart and plan and focus on creating synergies. Toni Guinyard>> Mr. Mayor, I thank you so much for spending a little time with Life and Times. To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address: Life and Times 4401 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, California 90027 You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org. Val Zavala>> He's attracted around the clock coverage and television crews from across the country. We're talking about the alligator lurking in a lake in Harbor City. So we thought we would dive into the waters and send our own Life and Times commentator, Cris Franco, who filed this hard-hitting report about the reptile with the reputation. Cris Franco>> Scotland has Nessie. Oregon has Big Foot. And for the sizzling summer of 2005, Harbor City had a monster all its very own. But unlike Nessie and Sasquatch which are myths, the creature residing deep inside Lake Machado was all too real. This is the true Harbor City story of Reggie, the alligator. [Film Clip] Cris Franco>> Only a few people had ever really seen him. Have you at all seen the alligator? >> Just on the news. Janice Hahn>> I looked at him with my bare eyes and I also looked with night vision binoculars and saw his red eyes glow at night. Cris Franco>> Oh, spooky. Janice Hahn>> I know, so it was kind of creepy. Cris Franco>> But exciting, and for weeks the residents of Harbor City could only speculate as to how a man-sized alligator got into their murky shallow lake. >> I think someone put him in there. Cris Franco>> Perhaps he left home because he'd just seen too many of his family members end up as high-priced shoes. However he got here, Reggie made a big splash. [Film Clip] Cris Franco>> What did you think when you heard that there was an alligator in Lake Machado? >> Well, I think he's cool. I hope they don't catch him (laughter). Cris Franco>> Are you at all frightened, knowing that there is a huge reptile in the lake that borders right on your property? >> Not really because, if he was a family pet, probably -- Cris Franco>> -- he's a domesticated dragon (laughter). >> (Laughter) Right. Cris Franco>> And within days of having been spotted, Reggie the alligator became Harbor City Park's star attraction. He was a star, a big star, eight feet long, a hundred twenty pounds with eighty teeth, and he was talented too. He could swim at up to thirty miles per hour and he could hold his breath for up to sixty minutes. That's from Mike Wallace to Andy Rooney. Janice Hahn>> When I came out here the first night, I realized that it was sort of like looking for a needle in a haystack. This is a very large lake. This is not a pond that has distinct parameters. This guy could be anywhere. He could be hiding in the willows. He could be hiding in the primrose. He could be hiding in the tullies. Cris Franco>> Yes, he was tiptoeing through the tullies. And for a while there, Reggie was the undisputed king and he literally ate up the attention. These are tortillas, the same snacks that frenzied fans chucked into Lake Machado in their effort to lure Reggie and get a good look at him. Oh, Reggie! Reggie! It's far away. Crowds multiplied. Merchants prospered, and the press and paparazzi descended on Harbor City like fans for Gator games, spreading the news nationwide. Everyone was wild about Reggie. [Film Clip] Cris Franco>> It seemed that nothing could stop Reggie's ascending star, or could it? See, there was trouble in Harbor City. That's trouble with a capital T and it rhymes with C and that stands for crock. Reggie had a dark, dirty secret. He was a carnivore. The city fathers decided that Reggie, their star attraction, had to go, but they couldn't just run him out. He was a media darling now and they wanted him alive, kicking and snapping, but no one knew exactly how to catch him. The tortillas and the doughnuts didn't work? Janice Hahn>> Actually, the tortillas worked. He actually came closer to the shore the night we were throwing tortillas in there. Cris Franco>> But corn or flour? Janice Hahn>> Well, that's a very excellent question. Cris Franco>> Because I brought flour. Janice Hahn>> It was corn. Cris Franco>> Realizing that they needed a professional, Harbor City leaders recruited Jay Young and his two assistants from Gator Farm and Reptile Park in Colorado. For forty-eight hours, the trio tried a variety of gator-getting tactics and, for two days to the delight of his fans, Reggie outsmarted them, leaving their nets and traps a torn, tattered, pathetic mess. The disappointed Crocodile Dundee wanna-bes decided that they would leave, take a break, vowing to come back. And just when the town thought that Reggie might be making the park here his permanent digs, a stranger stepped up to the plate, Florida's gator guru. So Tim Williams from Gator Land, tell me how you plan on catching Reggie, the alligator? Tim Williams>> What we hope to do is get a noose around his neck and then we can pull him out. If he's in shallow enough water, one of the guys will jump on his back and grab him. Then we'll put some tape around his mouth. Cris Franco>> Now what do you do if he like starts fighting you, like biting, biting? Tim Williams>> I scream and holler and run like crazy. Cris Franco>> Okay, Tim, have you ever been bitten? You've got all your fingers, but do you have everything else? Tim Williams>> Everything else that I can show you, I have, yes. Cris Franco>> Very good answer. I want to know if you can do some gator wrestling for me. Tim Williams>> You mean wrestle the alligator? Cris Franco>> Yeah, I'm gonna -- [Film Clip] Cris Franco>> Tim Williams loves gators, but not everyone does. In fact, most people agree that, overall, Reggie the alligator has been good for the people of Harbor City. >> We see a lot of people talking to each other and what you wouldn't normally have. >> He's like a lucky charm around here, you can say, because you can't catch him and that's a good thing (laughter). Janice Hahn>> I was down here when we had close to seventy-five to a hundred people right here and people were seeing high school buddies, people they hadn't seen for years. It was like -- Cris Franco>> -- big old home week, right? Janice Hahn>> A home week reunion for people that hadn't seen each other for a while, so it was kind of fun. Cris Franco>> Do you think that they should change the name of Harbor City to Alligator City? Because you don't have a harbor, but you do have an alligator, at least right now. >> Right. Well, I think it would be good to put it Alligator Alley or (laughter) -- Cris Franco>> -- Alligator Alley is not bad. >> Yeah. Cris Franco>> We said goodbye with our new Alligator Alley gang handshake dedicated to the gator that won the hearts and tortillas of the South Bay. At the time of this taping, Reggie the alligator had not yet been caught. You know, although civilization may want to capture Reggie, it is he who has already captured us and our imaginations, bringing a sense of the wild into our asphalt and cement curbed lives and, if anyone tells you that Harbor City won't miss Reggie the alligator, you tell them it's a crock. I'm Cris Franco and this is just one of the many stories from the harborless city. [Film Clip] Val Zavala>> Hmmm, film noir in the middle of the day. Good try, Cris. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time. Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education. And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg. Sponsored in part by:  | |
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