ah poo....Deputies Evict Farmers at L.A. Garden

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Deputies Evict Farmers at L.A. Garden

 

By JACOB ADELMAN

The Associated Press

 

LOS ANGELES - Dozens of sheriff's deputies descended on an urban garden near

downtown at daybreak Tuesday and began evicting the 14-acre site's farmers and

their supporters.

 

Deputies used a saw to cut down part of the chain-link fence around the site

while 15 to 20 protesters gathered outside the area and chanted " Save the farm. "

 

About 350 farmers tend produce and flowers on the privately owned land in an

inner-city area that is surrounded by warehouses and train tracks. The garden

has been there for decades, but the landowner, Ralph Horowitz, wants to replace

it with a warehouse.

 

The farmers, many of them Hispanic families, were unable to raise the $16.3

million asking price to buy the land and turned to celebrities and publicity to

try to save it. In mid-May, supporters moved onto the property full-time and

occupied a walnut tree there after the judge issued an eviction order.

 

Sgt. Val Rosario of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said about 65

deputies and support staff, including riot forces, were on the scene Tuesday

morning to remove the protesters.

 

He said he was not aware of any immediate arrests as the deputies moved in.

 

John Quigley, a veteran environmental activist and tree-sitter at the site, said

in a cell phone interview that he was securing himself in the large walnut tree

as deputies swarmed below.

 

 

" It's a massive show of force, " Quigley said. " Our goal is to hold as firm as we

can, obviously in a nonviolent manner. "

 

Actress Daryl Hannah, also in the walnut tree, said by cell phone that she was

willing to risk arrest.

 

" I'm very confident this is the morally right thing to do, to take a principled

stand in solidarity with the farmers, " Hannah said.

 

The roots of the dispute go back to the 1980s, when the city forced Horowitz to

sell the land to for $4.8 million for a trash-to-energy incinerator. The project

fizzled and the city turned the land over to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank,

which allowed people to begin gardening there in the early 1990s.

 

Horowitz sued to get the site back, and the city settled in 2003 by selling it

to him for $5 million, slightly more than the $4.8 million he had been paid.

 

Garden supporters took legal action, but after a winning a temporary court order

last year, an appellate court overturned that decision and the state Supreme

Court last month decided against hearing the case.

 

In the meantime, Horowitz offered to sell the land for $16.3 million to a trust

set up for the urban garden's farmers, but the group came up $10 million short

when the purchase option expired May 22, and Horowitz got an eviction order