Restoring the 'History of Highland Park" mural

Very proud to have helped restore a more than 30-year old mural honoring the “History of Highland Park” – We’ll be unveiling this fully restored piece of art Saturday. My office worked for a number of years to get AT&T and the artists who painted this beautiful mural in full agreement to restore it. Thanks to AT&T, Judy Baca, SPARC & all the artists and volunteers for helping us make this happen.

Tomorrow in City Council, we will hear an update on the City's mural ordinance, which we heard in PLUM last week - As the Councilmember representing the district with the most murals in the City of Los Angeles, I've worked to help shepherd in an ordinance that will support creating new murals on private property while also working toward the kind of restoration that is allowing us to revitalize treasured pieces like the "History of Highland Park" mural.

City Working on New Mural Ordinance

After introducing no fewer than 19 motions related to supporting murals over the last few years, I am pleased the City is moving forward on a new mural ordinance. I authored 4 out of the 6 motions we considered yesterday in PLUM and as someone who grew up appreciating murals and who supports the arts I want to make sure we follow through on this ordinance. See what could happen with murals throughout City here.

Siqueiros Mural Conservation Project Groundbreaking

I joined the Mayor’s Office, Getty Conservation Institute officials and the Friends of Siqueiros this morning for a groundbreaking for David Alfaro Siqueiros' Tropical America conservation project. This project, which will be open to the public in March 2012, was a long time coming after Siqueiros' mural was painted over not long after he completed it in 1932. It's important to honor Siqueiros, a man who inspired a generation of eastside muralists, which led to Los Angeles becoming the mural capital of the world. I hope that we can do more work to continue preserving murals Citywide.

Fighting Graffiti on the L.A. River

On Thursday I joined Sgt. Maj. Jeffrey Koontz from the Army Corps of Engineers on the Los Angeles River (near the Sixth Street Bridge) to remove gang graffiti from 100 miles of the flood control channel. We were also there to thank Sheriff’s Deputies for their work, which led to the arrests of some of the alleged taggers responsible for what many consider the largest tag in the U.S. The City of Los Angeles spends more than $10 million a year battling graffiti and I’m working on several solutions, including SB138, my plan authored with State Senator Carol Liu to raise the tax on spray paint cans and felt-tip markers to increase local graffiti funding; a multi-jurisdictional, multi-agency data-base to better track repeat offenders.

On a different perspective, beautifying the community has always been top priority of mine. With the help and recommendations of the residents, last year, the "Art Heals" mural in Ramona Gardens was completed. We made sure that this mural paid homage to our history. The City of Los Angeles has a great tradition of public street art, and preserving the many murals throughout my district and the city requires that we take pride in maintaining them free of vandalism.