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INGLEWOOD – Inglewood Unified has raked in $6.3 million in development fees from the robust development activity in the City between 2014 and 2021, however, the district has only spent $1.4 million on school improvements.

2UrbanGirls reached out to school board members of various school districts in surrounding cities to ascertain how those funds are supposed to be spent.

“Typically those funds are earmarked for improvements to the schools,” said one board member who declined to be identified.

The district averages receiving about $200,000 in developers fees per fiscal year which runs from July 1 through June 30.

The largest amount on records was in FY 2019 when $$2.2 million was recorded which included $47,000 in earned interest.

In the same year the district reported spending $137,000 on school improvements. An additional $1.4 million was spent on school improvements in 2020 as the NFL season opened.

Visible improvements were noticed at Morningside High School which includes soundproof windows under the sound insulation program, and a resurfaced parking lot where attendees of SoFi Stadium park. The district receives income from the parking fees they collect. It is unclear if the district pays parking taxes to the City.

The ending balance as of June 30, 2021 details $5.2 million in the bank.

Inglewood taxpayers have pledged nearly $500 million in school bonds to repair the district’s 19 campuses, but County Administrator Dr. Erika Torres claims there isn’t enough money to tend to all of the schools. Her solution is to “save money” through consolidating schools to not make the investments in upgrading/improving the schools that the voters asked for.

Residents continue to fight to prevent the closure of Warren Lane Elementary School where some of the developers fees should be pledged towards refurbishing. Those funds presumably derived from the SoFi Stadium project, and coincidentally, Warren Lane was one of the schools prominently featured in various media posts on the Los Angeles Rams media page.

Warren Lane students and its school were leveraged for photo ops for the Rams to make it appear they are being “great” community partners after turning our City upside down after they paid off the city council to approve their football stadium without our input.

The advisory board has nothing to say about the closures after receiving the public’s vote to be our advocate and voice.

The message we are left with are Black elected officials are for sale to the highest bidder and they only speak on behalf of those paying into their campaign coffers.

Are you fed up yet?

2UrbanGirls has been cited in Daily Breeze, Daily News, Inglewood Today, Intersections South LA, KCRW, KPCC, Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, LA Watts Times, Mercury News, New York Times, Orange County Register, Sports Illustrated, The Atlantic, and Washington Post. 2UrbanGirls also has a recurring column, South of the 10, on CityWatchLA, and is a recurring contributor to the Los Angeles Wave newspaper.

Follow the concept carefully. The individual Ram players (usually young men) are selected to be part of a team…. The “team” has an “OWNER” who profits handsomely from the labors (playing in large arenas similar to an ancient Roman colosseum) of those young men while sitting out of dangers way exerting no energy.

The same young men are encouraged to “engage in community activity” to promote the image of the team OWNER to those impacted by the traffic, pollution, and most importantly the disrespect for community participation regarding how this team came to be in our midst.

THERE WAS NO COMMUNITY VOTE AS PROMISED.

The School district “leaders” encourage students to idolize those team members who spend a few hours with them “Beautifying the campus” the district let deteriorate.

Subtle isn’t it ? The Owned players came with a statement. Future ticket sales and life-time loyalty for the one time gift of jerseys, signatures and photo ops which….oh, let us not forget will be used as a public relations tool…..

Wouldn’t it be great if each of the photographed kids received a college scholarship for a school of their choice for the career of their choice even if not sport related! That would be caring and providing!

As for the school involvement ~ if it was girls spending a few hours with a few of employees sent by another rich business man like Hugh Hefner to help Beautify the Campus would that be called by a different name than community relations?….hmmm…user-ship is user-ship and children should never be used .

If beautification was the genuine goal a nice big truckload of plants, soil, and laborers to put the plants in the soil would have been more appropriate, but a photo-op with kids to be used for publicity sake — not so much.

we know the plan to close this school was already in place, maybe this “garden with a player” was a clever plan to pacify the locals into believing all is well, so they need not pay attention to what was going on behind closed doors …with County/State officials or developers….hmmm what do you think?

Thank you 2 urban girls for being the candle trying to shed light on subjects hidden under layers and layers of distraction by people using our money hoping we never find out how!

To answer that question Yes and WE SHOULD ALL BE FED UP

ALL includes not just those with kids in our schools, but those who take their kids elsewhere, and every property owner with or without kids bearing the brunt of the increased property tax, and every renter who listens to the property owners mention the craziness of being stuck with property taxes (for many years to come) for schools that will not even exist !!!!

OUR ELECTED have worked their hardest to take from us to PLEASE the BILLIONAIRES that funded their campaigns, sent pretty mailing into our mail boxes, and then show us each and every week that to them OUR VOICES DO NOT MATTER.

It is long past time we say ABSOLUTELY NO MORE !!!

For the schools here is a short summary Please remember the list does not included the Federal or State matching funds or the multiple hand outs of Airport Attinuation/Insulation funds from LAWA which usually coincide with another one of their expansion projects.

Here is a Quick list to remind us of the multiple deceptions. We were told each and every time starting with Measure K that this one time amount would cover every school and everything on the “wish list” as Sage Institute called it (including the most unnecessary but wish for the moon ) for the insides from changing the bell systems which were in working order to lush landscaping on the outsides …

We will be paying this all back to investors WITH INTEREST along with the are you kidding an additional state operating loan!

Measure K – $ 131 million the make all schools wonderful bond of 1998 Measure GG – $ 90 million 2012 the we paid for plans and forgot about construction cost bond Measure I – – $240 million 2020 the “they fell for it before let us get more” bond

And what happened ? The education of students became the non- priority below/ behind consultants, contractors, friends, family, and assorted board member/superintendent pet projects, resulting in declining enrollment.

Let’s be real it hasn’t always been the State or County personnel who spent poorly. For many years it was that neighbor who sat on the board (But had never visited any of the schools) who put pleasing contractors or convention/conference trips and yes even fancy fashion forward Franklin Covey day-planners over teaching children that got us in this mess.

And why ? Have you figured it out yet ? The assorted campaign dollars came from the attorneys and contractors and consultants who were handsomely rewarded with lucrative contracts by the very persons they persuaded you to vote for.

As dollars stopped being spent in classrooms and schools had fewer students developers put people in state office (yep check those Senate/Assembly campaign donor lists) who voted to let the consultants help “improve” our lives by relocating some and creating not so “affordable” but nice new high rise apartments. —- Those who believe the billionaire developers are trying to house those who can’t afford big ticket housing or get federal (tax dollars) to do so probably believe in the tooth fairy !

We need to vote wisely rather than to recycle the musical-chair-candidates or their selected assistants.

Let’s be different and start voting for us rather than those who are selected for us !! To be clear that doesn’t mean someone selected by others who happens to “look like us” but someone who is part of the fabric of our community concerned about our collective community!!

Until November let’s call/write/appear and say WE ARE TAKING BACK OUR COMMUNITY and OUR VOICES WILL NOT BE SILENCED no matter how much the elected try to keep us from exposing them for acting out as the puppets for their donors!

And no we won’t be silent after November !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

COMPTON – Two people were killed on the Riverside (91) Freeway in the Compton area,…

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