Last quarter, the sidewalk maintenance team collected 3,068 bags of trash (70,564 lbs.), dispensed approximately 4,000 doggie bags, picked up 21 bulk items, and removed 241 graffiti tags on sidewalk pots, poles, and news racks. The crew is out every Monday and Thursday sweeping the sidewalks, picking up trash, clearing gutters and painting out graffiti from street poles, news racks, and flower planters. The team empties 59 trash cans throughout the District due to the City’s reduced efforts which had led to an overflowing of the cans.
The landscape crew for the District’s Wilshire streetscape continues to maintain all 15 medians and about 160 flower pots along Wilshire Blvd. The work consists of removal of trash, trimming of plants, watering of plants, and repairing broken sprinklers.

Last quarter, the security team assisted the City in getting over 227 bulky items picked up, made 5 calls/reports to the City for street repairs, assisted in getting 360 graffiti tags cleaned up; 10 potholes and 11 street lights were reported and fixed. The team responded to 65 calls for assists to the LAPD and others. They issued 7 illegal vendor warnings and assisted 25 homeless individuals; 440 illegal signs were removed. The team addressed the subject of 3 individuals drinking in public and 9 belligerent transients. The team captain attended 12 LAPD crime control meetings and attended the Wilshire Center Business Watch meetings. Security informed homeless people who erect tents in the RFK Park that they were in violation of city ordinances.

The following are some of the common activities performed by the security crew last quarter: Cleared several skateboarders off property; assisted building security. Assisted LAPD to distribute crime prevention tips flyers to the community. Cleared panhandler harassing pedestrians. Cleared belligerent transient off plaza; assisted security. Monitored and cleared belligerent couple running into traffic. Cleared subject drinking in public. Detained suspect involved in assault, assisted building security, dispatched LAPD.

Dispatched paramedics due to medical emergency with elderly citizen. Advised illegal vendor to maintain sidewalk clear. Assisted LAPD with the apprehension of shoplifter at Ralph’s market. Assisted LAPD in clearing out abandoned property.

Since the last report, trash is up by 4,500 pounds. Bulky item removal has increased and illegal sign posting has increased. Graffiti is down and the number of street lights in need of replacement is down.

Community News & Events

WCBID community events: WCBID along with UDLA, and many others on Jan 18th from 9am-12noon met at the Ralph's Parking lot on 3rd Street and Vermont for an event dedicated to improving our District. The next meeting of the Wilshire Center Business Watch will take place on Thursday, March 13, 2014, 12:00 noon at the Archdiocesan Catholic Center, 3424 Wilshire Blvd., El Camino Real Conference Room (5th floor). Civlavia is scheduled for Sunday, April 6th, along Wilshire Boulevard between Downtown and Miracle Mile, 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

The best place to keep informed of Wilshire Center District’s activities is on Facebook; become a friend of the Wilshire Center District at facebook.com/wilshirecenter.

Other News

We would like to welcome Hotel Normandie at Normandie & Sixth and The Line Hotel at Wilshire & Normandie to the Wilshire Center District. Also we would like to welcome the Sake House by Hikari to the District. The Sake House by Hikari is located at 3465 W. 6th St., Ste 150 in the historic Chapman Market. The Wilshire Boulevard Temple has completed its’ first phase of work and will begin its’ second phase of construction in June 2014; parking structure, school, food pantry. The Temple and KYCC are partnering on a dental clinic at the site. The YMCA at 3rd and Oxford may be open this summer. The office to apartment redesign on Wilshire (Jamison Properties) is completed, and the building is 80% occupied (135 unit building). The Wilshire Center District is no stranger to new openings, and you can expect to see more in the near future. It's a very cool thing to be part of a District with such a rich history and an even brighter future.

Congratulations to Jamison Services for enrolling in LA Better Buildings Challenge. LA Better Buildings Challenge is at 20M square feet and well on their way towards our 30M square foot goal by 2020. The City of Los Angeles has set a goal to achieve 20% energy savings by 2020 across 30 million square feet of existing buildings as part of the Better Buildings Challenge, a national leadership initiative, which calls on public and private sector leaders to demonstrate the benefits of modernizing America’s existing buildings. For more information go to http://la-bbc.com.

Some plans for this year are to study the idea of providing some new plants for the flower pots and working with LA Watershed Protection Division to improve the watershed in our district with the possibility of removing the tree well covers to help water retention in the soil, and decrease runoff to the ocean. We are working with the LA Times in reviewing the condition of the newsracks and they will remove the broken racks. We are planning for the RFK School Movie nights, two nights this summer. We will be looking for a new holiday installation to replace the existing holiday lights. We will be doing two more new electric art boxes at Wilshire and Vermont. We will continue to work with Unification of Disabled Latino Americans’ community involvement programs within the District area. UDLA helps organize the monthly Night Outs and the beautification and graffiti removal days. We plan to update the WCBID website listing of restaurants.

The Wilshire Bus Rapid Transit construction is well underway from Western to San Vicente as of January 22, 2014 and is anticipated to be completed on June 20, 2015. The Wilshire Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Project is intended to further improve bus passenger travel times, service reliability, ridership of the existing Wilshire BRT system, and encourage a shift from automobile use to public transit. A number of general improvements will be implemented as part of the proposed project. They include: restriping of traffic lanes, as necessary; conversion of the existing curb lanes to peak period bus lanes in each direction; upgrade of the existing transit signal priority system; selective street widening; curb lane reconstruction/resurfacing in select areas; and installation of traffic/transit signage and pavement markings, as necessary.

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Video highlighting much of the work that the Wilshire Center Business Improvement District does on a daily basis was presented at the last Annual Membership Meeting.

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