The Eviction: Was Bernard Parks Playing Politics With City Rentals?

As we remain glued to the dual drama of the bailout and the election (and the debate-or-no-debate cliffhanger that is John McCain’s latest Hail Mary ball toss), let’s take a break to look at an elections-related drama closer to home.

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This week some are questioning whether or not Councilman Bernard Parks used his office to play politics with the city’s rental policy.

Here’s the deal: SCOPE, a well-regarded South LA-located nonprofit, has been renting the same building for nearly ten years. Like another 100 or more nonprofits in the city (107, to be exact), SCOPE has something of a sweetheart rental deal. They are allowed to occupy a building— a former firehouse located at Florence Avenue near Western—and they pay only $1-a-year in rent. SCOPE originally made the rental deal back in 1998 with then-city council member Mark Ridley-Thomas.

Now that same council seat is occupied by Bernard Parks who is facing a close runoff race for the County Supervisor position being vacated by Yvonne Burke. His opponent in the runoff is, of course, Mark Ridley-Thomas.

(As the story continues keep that last point in mind.)

Anway….after years of happy renting, SCOPE president and founder Anthony Thigpenn and Executive Director Erika Smith were surprised and alarmed when, on September 3, they received an eviction notice stating that SCOPE must vacate the building in 60 days. No warning. No explanation. No hint of what had triggered the eviction. The notice was sent by the city’s Department of General Services.

The SCOPE folks called General Services right away to find out what was up. And were told that Councilman Bernard Parks had requested the eviction because he thought the property could be put to better use for the city and was going to be sold. “We were also told he didn’t know what SCOPE does,” said Thigpenn.

This last seemed somewhat hard to believe. As far as South LA nonprofits go, SCOPE is very well known. They have run several job training programs in the district that Parks oversees, each with budgets in excess of a million dollars.. The programs have been funded by groups as diverse as the L.A. Work Force Investment Board and Dreamworks. Most recently SCOPE has been heading up a newly hot multi-agency project called the Los Angeles Apollo Alliance that is creating green jobs for residents in low income LA neighborhoods.

In other words, SCOPE is not exactly low profile.

So if Parks really was unfamiliar with SCOPE, he was strangely remiss. If he did know SCOPE, why was he feigning ignorance?

Barbara Osborn is another who thought Parks’ Who-Are-These-People? stance a bit odd.

Osborn is the Communications Director for the Liberty Hill Foundation, one of the organizations that has repeatedly given SCOPE grants. She is also the person who first brought the SCOPE/Parks situation to my attention.

“SCOPE is one of the most effective community organizing entities in Los Angeles,” Barbara told me “They have been an extraordinarily effective in their get out the vote effort in South LA. So how could Bernard Parks not know who they were? ”

Whatever the case, SCOPE set about rectifying the situation. On November 4, the day after they got the notice from General Services, they sent their own letter to Parks’ council office inquiring about the eviction, and dutifully followed up with three phone calls in the days to follow.

No one ever got back to them. No return letter. No calls. No emails. Nada.

Curious, Thigpenn and Smith also checked to find out if they could find any evidence that their building was up for sale, was to be placed up for sale, or if anyone had expressed interest in buying the building.

They found nothing. “And we’ve never been approached to see if we wanted to buy the building,” said Thigpenn. As nearly as they could tell, he said, the sales ploy was “a complete fabrication.”

So with still no reply from Parks’ office, SCOPE did what community organizers do. They began organizing. They called friends and allies to see if they could turn things around or, at the least, work out some kind of compromise. They also put in place an organization plan in case the front door approach didn’t work.

Word of the situation got around, and various well-placed friends of the councilman reportedly contacted Parks to warn that this whole eviction thing was wrong-headed.

SCOPE also hand delivered a comprehensive package to Parks’ office explaining the details of all of SCOPE’s programs.

The result?

SCOPE got a new eviction notice saying that now they had to be out in 30 days, not 60. Again there was no explanation.

Seeing no other alternative, SCOPE pulled the trigger on their plan. Emails and calls were launched.

(Never try to out-organize a group of experienced community organizers.)

Meanwhile, SCOPE and their supporters began wonder if Bernard Parks had some kind of personal beef with the organization. But, if so, what was it? While they are big in GOTV, SCOPE has the reputation for being resolutely nonpartisan, said Barbara Osborn.

There was, however, one teensy weensy thing that some suspected might indirectly be bugging Councilman Parks: Last Spring, Anthony Thigpenn took a leave of absence from the organization and went to work for a political organization that supported Mark Ridley-Thomas in the County Sups race against Bernard Parks.

So would Parks really use his office to get back at someone who had worked off-the-clock for the election of his political rival?

One would hope not.

Yet, there was the matter of the September 18 interview that Herb Wesson III, the former field director/campaign manager for Parks, gave to the Los Angeles WAVE’s Betty Pleasant. Wesson (who is the son of City Councilman Herb Wesson) recently quit the campaign in a rather noisy exit, and then told Pleasant that he left specifically because of Parks’ tendency to pursue vendettas.

(As Kevin Roderick pointed out at LAObserved, Pleasant is an admitted Ridley-Thomas fan, a fact that should be kept in mind as we attempt to untangle motives here.)

According to Pleasant, Wesson said he was and is still extremely upset about Parks’ attacks on SEIU labor leader Tyrone Freeman and others—including SCOPE’s Thigpenn.

“And now he’s going after Anthony Thigpenn, one of my best friends with whom I’ve worked closely for most of my life,” Wesson added. “Parks is obsessed about getting Anthony because of Anthony’s association with Mark. Because of his grassroots activities, Anthony has been associated with almost everybody involved in all forms of community activism — including me, and an attack on Anthony is more than I can stand.

Oh.

Listen. There may be a perfectly innocent explaination for all this. But if Parks is NOT trying to yank SCOPE’s building to get back at Anthony Thigpenn, now would be a good time for him to explain himself.

My calls and email to Parks’ spokespeople have thus far gone unreturned.

In the meantime, SCOPEs organizing and outreach paid off. Late yesterday afternoon they got a notice rescinding the eviction. “We understand that the mayor’s office called General Services,” said Thigpenn.

In other words, the eviction is over.

Councilman Parks does have the option of taking his would-be eviction of SCOPE to the entire City Council to see if they’ll go along with it.

Personal note to Bernard Parks: Whatever your reasoning, please don’t.