Cedillo Reportedly Diverts $500,000 in L.A. River Funds

As a boy growing up in Cypress Park, Ed Reyes and his friends viewed the Los Angeles River as a Shangri-La—a refuge from all the stresses and strains of city life. So when Reyes got elected to the Los Angeles City Council in 2001 and “realized what the planning powers of the city could be,” as he put it in a recent interview to Los Angeles Downtown News, he made it one of his top priorities to develop parklands along the river and increase its recreational use.

The L.A. River evidently remained one of Reyes’ leading concerns right until he was termed out of the city council this past June: According to Eastsider L.A., Reyes succeeded in getting the city council to approve his request to divert $500,000 in funds meant for CD 1 redevelopment projects and services to projects related to the L.A. River.

By contrast, one of the first things that Reyes’ successor Gil Cedillo did in the city council was to designate the $500,000 in river-related funds for “alternate community projects” designed to “address community needs,” according to a city council motion last month. 

This past week, the city council approved Cedillo’s plan, reports the Eastsider, adding that Cedillo’s office “has failed to respond to several requests for details on how that money will now be used.”

Inquiries by Highland Park-Mount Washington Patch, too, have so far gone unanswered.

Click here to read the Eastsider report.