community gardens

You're a gardening whiz.

Later this morning, the Los Angeles City Council will consider a motion to formally halt the ticketing of individuals who plant vegetable gardens in the curb strips in front of their residences. Wesson promised the motion in 2011, after a Steve Lopez column in the Los Angeles Times told the story of one resident who planted such a garden, shared healthy food with his neighborhood, and was promptly ticketed by the city.

When speaking with a major non-profit about their decision to put gardens in South Los Angeles, Garrett Broad says he was struck by their declaration that, after running the data, "it just so happen[ed]" that the highest incidences of heart disease, diabetes, and other health risk factors were found there.

TONIGHT Sitting in a room full of California journalists and their editors last week as part of my training for a journalism fellowship, I was incredibly surprised to learn that few of them knew that fracking was going on in L.A.'s back yard. The lack of awareness has been of great concern to many of the local environmental organizations because it makes it harder for them to gather support to counter powerful lobbies in favor of the practice. It is one of the reasons representatives from a number of the organizations have gathered this weekend for a California Fracking Summit; they hope to cobble out a common position against regulations proposed by the Department of Oil And Gas (DOGGR) and decide upon strategies that will facilitate their fight. While the summit itself is closed to the public, the festivities of the evening are not.

"They've been receiving it pretty decently, I must say," Karen Whitman, the "Mama" of Mama's Chicken, told the riders with the Healthy Food tour regarding her customers' response to the fresh produce she recently began offering at her shop. "The more people that know about it, the more that's coming in."

The little boy tearing through the hallway at the All Peoples Community Center pulled up abruptly when he spotted Crystal Gonzalez, the Peace Education Coordinator with American Friends Service Committee (AFSC).

TONIGHT! The Crenshaw Line, Neighborhood Bike Ambassadors, and Fracking -- way too much fun for one person to handle!

Voting is great and all, but it is only one part of democracy.