“It is a good idea. It's poor execution. Their thought process is good to help these struggling cities and to do these things. But what they're doing is not necessarily going to help.”
Steven South Gate Park 04/27/2019
Camila [00:00] oh I’m Camilla
James [00:02] yeah and then James
Steven [00:03] Steven, I would shake your hand but my hands are dirty…
Camila [00:05] And your beautiful dog is?
Steven [00:07] Pook
James [00:09] I guess you can just tell us.. are you from South Gate?
Steven [00:15] I actually live in Watts, yeah. I only come down here to walk my dog, yanno. Over there they’ll try to take him. I don’t wanna deal with it
James [00:24] And so do you know about the LA River?
Steven [00:027] I mean I used to go, I used to go ride my bike around there. I used ride fixes and whatnot so. Just to ride that…that that pathway
James [00:36] And then what would you say is your experience like with the river could you talk more about what you do or what you would experience down on the river
Steven [00:48] Uhh dang well when I used to ride my fixie I’ll usually go like sometimes I’ll go alone sometimes go with group but there’s a lot of sketchy things on a river honestly, a lot of sketchy people. You know especially like on the under the bridge part where the traffic is 01:03 yeah
Steven [01:04] so like definitely I’ve had a couple of run-ins. There’s even like a couple of gang houses down there I don’t know if you guys know about those down my atlantic so…yeah there’s a lot of things to just watch out a lot of people but its just.. other than that I just go for the path along and what not.
James [01:23] so are you familiar with what the city is trying to do with the LA River in terms of like restoration and revitalization
Steven [01:31] Mm no. I don’t know what is going on
James [01:34] so basically the city is kind of trying to kind of create more paths more recreation and more parks on the river and so we’re trying to see what the community want and what their concerns about if things like that were to happen
Steven [01:51] oh definitely would be like I’d say just other people like I said the people that live under the bridges and just tend to you know be around there when they’re not supposed to and just claim as their own little spot in their territory and they tend to get pretty aggressive so I can only imagine what’s it gonna be like when they actually have little recreational centers that they can actually take over and you know have their own little renown spot you know so it’s like who’s it really gonna be for? There has to be eyes there there has to be constant surveillance definitely because it’s just it’s just currently like I don’t see it as a safe place. I wouldn’t let my kids or younger relatives go out there and you know trust them to be out there safe when I’ve been there myself and know what its like you know?
Camila [02:39] Right
Steven [02:40] So yeah I don’t know
James [02:42] Is there anything you would like to see happen there, like specifically if they work to, if not a park something else?
Steven [02:49] I mean I honestly just that long sometimes it could be very like that long little long in the route long little walkway down the LA River, it’s really nice and really calm I mean if there wasn’t like trash or what not around of course we could like pick up but that’s just uh a community effort you know is this not a thing that one one group can focus on. It has to be like a community of the whole and I feel as though like if there was just more surveillance more security there… you know just like more people are forcing like the no soliciting type thing then I think it’d be pretty nice to see something go down there maybe you know? A place where people just…like even like a little jogging community I don’t know.
James [03:35] And so you said you didn’t you didn’t really know about what the city’s plans are how do you think the city could improve that in terms of communicating with…
Steven [03:49] I don’t know if you guys have seen those like your campuses, I’m sure UCLA has them but the emergency lights you know the emergency little beacons those would be like I think the best thing to have around there. Like I know like recently there’s been like I don’t know it’s just so much crime lately, so much stuff is going on. But I say like just more security, more surveillance, a couple of those beacons around, more lights, definitely.
James [04:23] And I guess if you were to describe the LA River and like one word
Steven [04: 29] One word…
Camila [04:31] Any word
Steven [04:31] It’s unpredictable. You know what I mean because it could be really it could be really calm and tranquil. But it can have you really edgy and I don’t know if I wanna be here but I wanna be here but I can’t because I can’t enjoy it you know what I mean? It’s beautiful though, a couple tags here and there, trash nobody likes to see trash, it just ruins everything
James [05:03] As a part of, we’re environmental science students and so a part of our research is asking what the community feels about flooding risk and climate change in terms of that there’s a higher risk that the river will over flood it in terms of future climate change. Do you do you have any concerns about that or any thoughts about flooding?
Steven [05:30] Ooh about flooding? Yeah we dry over soo.
James [05:34] Hahah
Steven [05:34] I don’t know if I would mind I mean… I know but that would be actually be a serious problem and issues though. I’m gonna be real honest I haven’t really I wasn’t really aware of any potential flooding you know? Like the rivers never too high I don’t know. I never would have figured it could flood you know..something definitely that you got me worried about
James [06:01] it’s kind of interesting because when you said you described it as unpredictable.. that’s kind of like the first thing that popped into my head is that usually that LA River is nice and calm but when there’s a winter storm it can actually get pretty violent and unpredictable in that way yeah… So I guess that pretty much hit all the marks yeah, all right. Thank you so much have a good Saturday
Steven [06:24] No problem you guys have a good one!