Latino leaders to discuss plans for the West Side

Elise Gee

WEST SIDE -- Printing bilingual newsletters and providing

interpreters at public workshops has not been enough to coax the Latino

community into participating in the West Side revitalization process.

Latino community leaders, led by El Ranchito owner Maria Elena Avila,

will meet Wednesday morning to come up with strategies on how to collect

the valuable feedback from the section of the community that makes up

more than a quarter of the city’s population, according to 1995

estimates.

Consultants are wrapping up a yearlong process of gathering community

input and anticipate that a draft specific plan for improving the West

Side will go to the City Council later this fall. EIP consultants were

hired last year to come up with a plan that would address the

incompatible zoning and rundown conditions in the part of the city

located roughly west of Harbor Boulevard and south of Wilson Street.

“When I would speak to other people in the community and asked ‘Do you

know about the West Side plan? Are you aware of it?’ I realized that

somehow the Latino population had not been reached,” Avila said.

The group of Latino community advisors will work to reach out to the

Latino community and also collaborate with the UCI School of Social

Ecology to study the demographics of the area -- something not within the

scope of the West Side study commissioned by the city.

So far, Latino participation has been limited to a meeting with the

Madres, a group of Latino mothers, to a living room dialogue at the

Shalimar Learning Center and to meetings with the Latino Business

Council. However, attendance at the larger public workshops has been

poor. In fact, the interpreter at the last public workshop went unused.

The few Latino residents who have attended West Side meetings have

expressed frustrations and fears that important decisions were being made

about the West Side without the input of a good majority of the people

who live there.

Leticia Hermann, a West Side Latino resident spoke frankly at a

meeting in March about the “shyness” of her community and how hard it was

for her to work up the courage to attend a meeting.

“The Latino population, I think perhaps don’t think their voice

matters or their opinion is important,” Avila said. “Some of them come

from a country where they really weren’t part of the governmental process

as they are here.”

Councilwoman Libby Cowan said she hopes the effort will help city

leaders connect with the portion of the community which has so far eluded

them.

Cooperating with UCI graduate students also will give the city

important information that has not been included in the specific plan,

she said.

“What (UCI) really brings us is an opportunity to go beyond what the

West Side study was charged with and that is doing an in-depth

demographic study of the West Side, which I think is a piece that is

essential in determining where we want to go,” Cowan said.

Although consultants are nearing completion of the draft specific

plan, it doesn’t mean that it’s too late for community input, Cowan

added. In fact, another meeting is being held with business owners

Wednesday who had been accidentally left out of the last public workshop

because of a mistake in address notifications.

The West Side Specific Plan is still changeable until the council

adopts it. All residents will still have a chance to shape it through

public hearing processes that haven’t been held yet, Cowan said.

“I’m interested in ensuring that we have the community input which

creates the community buy off, which creates the community support for it

before we have the vote,” Cowan said. “If that means we slow down, we

slow down.”