knocked out and, the guy. Yeah, the guy tried to hit, you know, really hurt me, tried to kill him. He tried to kill me. That's Mary Klein speaking to Fox 11 earlier this month as she recovered from a brutal assault near the Venice canals, a 29 year old suspect has since been arrested for attacking Klein and another woman. He has pleaded not guilty to multiple felonies, including forcible rape and attempted murder. Now, Tracy Park represents Venice on the L.A. City Council. She represents essentially all of the West Side. She has called out what she calls soft on crime policies. That, quote, got us into this mess. And Council Member Park joins me now with more on this issue. And crime is a big issue in your district right now. Councilwoman, we thank you so much for coming on. What are you doing behind the scenes to make your residents not just feel, but to actually be safer? Well, thank you for that, Marla. It's always a pleasure to be here. You know, it has been a rough few weeks, here on the West Side, with respect to crime, the violence, the commercial burglaries, the home break ins, the car smash ins, obviously, the horrific assaults in the Venice canals. We had an active shooter situation. It has been one thing after another. I am incredibly grateful to LAPD for their help and partnership. As we have been watching this uptick in crime. They have generously, generously supported our efforts with additional patrols on the ground, police officers on foot, canvasing in our neighborhoods. We have had some of the best detectives from our sexual assault Task force in our Venice case to our auto detectives in Westchester and Playa del Rey on the ground working with neighbors. We've had mounted police in the district as well, and I really appreciate that additional support. Just a few hours ago, I was with the entire West Bureau sexual assault team. All of the detectives who worked on the Venice case came to Venice. We walked the canals. We talked about the issues of safety, particularly as they relate to women and other people who are more vulnerable, male. And it was also really heartwarming to get to have the detective team spend some time all together with Mary Klein today. Okay, well, that's good to hear. I mean, so the stepped up patrols will help patrol. Of course, the Venice canals make people perhaps feel safer when they're out and about. We were also showing some of the images. You talked about it just a second there of what? More than are up to 100 cars were vandalized recently, and those were juvenile suspects, as far as I can recall. Let me ask you about something off topic from that. And this is about really Covid 19, right. And there has, of course, been in place within the city of L.A, a vaccine requirement for all current, employees and future city employees. There was a leaked document. We got our hands on that, and it seems to suggest that that vaccine requirement will expire May 12th. And that also effective May 12th. Employees who resigned or were fired may be eligible for rehire. Is this your motion that you're introducing? Even if it's not, do you expect that this will be signed and if so, when? So yes. Last fall I did introduce a motion asking our city attorney to opine and report back to us with what a potential pathway to roll back the vaccine mandate might look like and include. This has already been done at the federal level. At the county level, it's been done at LA unified, and I think it's important for consistency. And in recognition of the fact that we are no longer in a public health emergency and in recognition of the fact that this has been a barrier to hiring, that we move forward with the program. I haven't seen any official report that have been released yet to the council file, although I would fully expect for the city attorney to report back and offer some guidance on what the full scope of implications of this policy change will include. So this actual I know you've seen this document. I have it here before me. Who is responsible for this? Who who drafted this. So I'm not sure what the document is. If it's a draft ordinance, it may have originated in the City Attorney's office for review and comment from various employee unions and organizations. As this motion that I introduced just asked for the city attorney to elicit that information and report back with it. I haven't seen a report backward. The draft ordinance myself yet. Okay. And do you think that the firefighters or any of the employees who were fired, they would be eligible for rehire? Will they be eligible? Will they get back pay if they were terminated? I think those are all valid questions that certainly are going to have to be addressed. And I would defer to the city attorney's advice on that, which we just haven't heard yet. Okay. So May 12th is right around the corner. I know you're not sure about this draft document that I have before me, but you do hope that the city attorney will sign it. Well, I haven't seen it, so I can't say without having read it, but whatever draft ordinance may be floating around, it's still going to have to go through personnel and then it's going to have to come to the full city council for a vote. Okay. All right. And you would vote for it . Well, yes, I am in I am in favor of rolling back the vaccine mandate. I don't have an assessment yet on whether or not that applies to former employees or reinstatement issues. That's something we're going to need to hear from the city attorney on. And it's something that we, as members of the City council are going to have to have a discussion about as we roll out the policy of, of ending the mandate at this point going forward. My motion was specific to current and future employees, but I do think there is a valid question that needs to be answered. So I'll look forward to the input from our city attorney and my colleagues on that issue. Okay. Well, we really appreciate you coming on and answering these questions tonight. L.A. City
