LOS ANGELES (CNS) – The Los Angeles City Council Wednesday is set to consider approving $2 million for a neighborhood security grants program in a move to procure private security for faith-based organizations.
Council members Katy Yaroslavsky and Bob Blumenfield introduced a motion seeking to allocate $1 million to fund nonprofit security services to protect Jewish places of worship, community centers and schools. However, that proposal was later expanded to include other faiths and increased the funding to $2 million.
If approved, the funding would be placed in the hands of the city’s Civil and Human Rights Department, which would facilitate the grants program.
At the time, Yaroslavsky said the proposal received support from Mayor Karen Bass, the City Attorney’s Office and interfaith leaders across the city.
On July 2, council voted to continue the item for further consideration upon return from summer recess, which was June 29. During that meeting early July, Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez attempted to send the motion back to the council’s budget and civil rights committees for further deliberation.
Her request was initially approved in a 8-6 vote with council members Yaroslavsky, Blumenfield, Heather Hutt, Tim McOsker, Curren Price and Traci Park voting against it. Moments later, Councilman John Lee, who had voted to support Rodriguez’s request, then voted against it, and with his vote, denied the request.
“I’m trying to ascertain why duly referring to both the budget and civil human rights committee is slowing down the process,” Rodriguez said on July 2. “If we’re not voting on this item today, I don’t understand why we can’t send it to the appropriate committees. We have a lot of financial decisions to make. They can be referred concurrently so that we have a full understanding.”
Yaroslavsky said the city’s program would mimic the state’s $80 million initiative to fund neighborhood security grants over the next two years, which will begin in the fall. She said the more committees her proposal has to go through, the longer it would take and the “less safe all our religious institutions will be over this summer.”
The $2 million is intended to fill in the stopgap and accelerate the state’s effort. Yaroslavsky believes the city will be reimbursed by the state once its program is in operation.
Yaroslavsky and Blumenfield’s original motion aimed to allocate $400,000 to the Jewish Federation Los Angeles for its Community Security Initiative, $350,000 for a contract with Magen Am for community patrols, and $250,000 to the Jewish Community Foundation so it may provide grants to nonprofit organizations to support Jewish community safety efforts in the city, according to Tuesday’s agenda.
The motion came in response to a violent clash between Palestinian and Israeli supporters outside a synagogue in the Pico-Robertson district June 23.
“It was an escalation of tension felt across the country and we need to take it seriously, and act swiftly. The threats are real and the fear of a proxy war for what’s happening in the Middle East spilling onto our streets here in L.A. is real,” Yaroslavsky said on July 2. “I’ve said this many times, but I think it is important to reiterate that everyone has a right to peaceful protest … but that doesn’t mean there’s a right to violence and all of us deserve to feel and to be safe, and to live without fear of hate.”
The grassroots organization Ground Game LA released a letter from its Jewish members “with the full support of our membership” to council members, calling the motion “flagrantly anti-Palestinian” by “holding up Jewish safety as the sole concern raised by these protests.”
It called the proposal “a misallocation of public funds” and demanded it be withdrawn or rejected.
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