Gov. Gavin Newsom has vetoed a state bill that would have created a task force to study compensation for families forced out of Chavez Ravine in the 1950s.
Sponsored by Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo (D-Los Angeles), the Chavez Ravine Accountability Act would have created a statewide task force to study the long-term damage to residents, business owners and landowners displaced from the area between 1950 and 1961 and to the city of Los Angeles and counties for compensation to their descendants.
It also would have required the city to erect a permanent monument to the Chavez Ravine community.
“I support the author’s intent to evaluate and address the injustice that took place in the Chavez Ravine community decades ago. However, a task force to study the events that occurred should be established at the local level,” Newsom wrote in his declaration of veto Friday.
“Fundamentally, the determination of recommendations for compensation to the displaced is a matter best addressed by stakeholders closest to the Chavez Ravine community.”
In the mid-20th century, Chavez Ravine was home to a large community of families, predominantly Mexican American, who had been prevented from living and purchasing property elsewhere in the city due to discriminatory housing restrictions.
With an eye toward redeveloping the area for a new housing project, the city began pursuing residents’ properties in the early 1950s through eminent domain and below-market offers. In 1957, Los Angeles dropped the planned housing project and traded the land to Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley to build what is now Dodger Stadium. An estimated 1,800 families were eventually displaced.
“I’ve learned that when you put forward policy ideas, some will say it goes too far, while others may say it doesn’t go far enough,” Carrillo said of the bill this summer. “But at the end of the day, we’re moving the needle toward justice, and we’re trying to do as much good for as many people as possible.”