It’s been a busy Spring and now Summer officially starts next week, on June 21st. Right now I am in San Francisco. I’ll update with some photos soon, but in the meantime I wanted to touch down on some news. You may recall my photos from the South Central Farm[1]. Developer Ralph Horowitz’s asking price of $16 million was met on June 7th, but he rejected it because the money came together after the May 22 deadline. Mr. Horowitz has decided that he does not want to sell the land to the farmers for any price, stating:
“I’m not real happy with this group,” Horowitz told NBC4. “Even if they raised $100 million this group could not buy this property. It’s not about money. I don’t like their cause. I don’t like their conduct. So, there’s no price that I would sell it to them for.”
Yesterday morning (June 13th) at 5 AM, approximately 50 Los Angeles County Sheriffs’ Deputies entered the Farm with bolt cutters and other equipment and started removing people from the Farm. Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa tried to negotiate with Horowitz, offerring him the $16 million that he asked for, but Horowitz claimed the land was worth an additional $3 million. Videos of the eviction, including arrests made on the farm supporters and videos of actress Darryl Hannah being removed from a tree she had stationed herself in to peacefully protest the farm eviction can be seen here and here. By noon, all people had been evicted from the Farm and it was under the control of the Los Angeles Police.
What next? This is very uncertain, but the farmers are not giving up. There are more gatherings scheduled, so go to their website and check for upcoming events for the next few days. As of this writing, the Farm has not been bulldozed yet; only a small portion was bulldozed yesterday to make way for the firetruck that was used to take people out of the trees.
I am saddened by this.
[1] This links to a Wikipedia entry on the South Central Farm, and is one of the most detailed and concise sources of information about SCF that I’ve found.
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