Energize your mornings with neighborhood buzz. Subscribe to our Daily Digest newsletter, and join over 9,000 inquisitive readers who rely on The Eastsider for the latest happenings. Stay informed, stay connected - try it now. Cancel anytime.
Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup.
Error! There was an error processing your request.
Officers stood by as crews installed fencing around the lake - March 25, 2021.
Echo Park - Though the days seem numbered for the chainlink fence around Echo Park Lake, some neighbors want to keep it there - or replace it with a nicer fence.
“I’m 84 years old, and I just want to feel safe,” said Dolores De Angelis, a retired music teacher who lives at a senior living community across the street from the park.
The link fence first went up in March 2021 when the city cleared out a large homeless encampment along the west bank of the lake, and the park was closed for the next couple of months. Former councilmember Mitch O'Farrell kept the barrier in place.
But new City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez now says he plans to take it down. His office is also having volunteers canvas the neighborhoods around the park to solicit feedback, according to Nick Barnes-Batista, a spokesman for the Council District 13 office.
Meanwhile, De Angelis and others are circulating a petition not only to keep the fence, but to upgrade it to wrought iron.
One supporter, Michael Bansuelo, a retired Navy man who also lives in Angelis’s building, said he’s been seeing more tents going up in the neighborhood in recent weeks, and remembers the large encampment.
“It was becoming dangerous,” he said. “A lot of drug deals were going on. They were destroying the park by defecating. You just couldn’t walk through there without smelling the bad smells.”
De Angelis said she is also concerned about a possible rise in crime if the fence comes down: the kind of problems that predated the encampments - gangs, prostitution, drug dealing, etc. - as well as the vandalism that would regularly strike her building while the encampment was up.
“The fence is working,” she said. “In the two years the fence has been up, crime has decreased. No one has died. We all feel safer. There is a calmness here.”
The Echo Park Neighborhood Council, however, still wants the barrier removed.
“Our position has been that this park was designed as an open space, has remained that way for one hundred years, and should remain that way,” said a statement from the council.
Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez has also released a statement, saying his office has been gearing up to ensure that people will be able to get housing and services before an encampment can grow again in the park.
Soto-Martinez has outreach meetings scheduled for the coming weeks. Bansuelo said he and others from his building will be attending.
Here is a schedule of outreach meetings with Council District 13 for the Echo Park Lake fence:
En español, el jueves, 16 de marzo a las 5 pm, en El Centro del Pueblo, 1157 Lemoyne St.
Barry Lank has worked for newspapers on the East and West Coasts, and earned an MS in journalism from Columbia University. He formerly produced "National Lampoon Presents: The Final Edition." A native of San Gabriel Valley, he now lives in East Hollywood.
We are grateful to all those who have made financial contributions to The Eastsider. One-time contributions are always welcome, but we encourage you to join the ranks of our Reader Sponsors who have committed to making a monthly contribution.
Our goal is to have 300 Reader Sponsors by the end of 2023.
Why is this so important? Even a small monthly contribution will create a more stable source of revenue, giving us more confidence to commit to expanding our staff to provide you with more of the community news you can’t find anywhere else.
Join The Eastsider 300
I hope we can count on you. And, if you are not ready for a monthly commitment, you can always make a one-time contribution. Thanks!
—Jesús Sanchez, Publisher
PS: The Eastsider is a private company. Your contribution is NOT tax deductible.
Select the email newsletters you want, enter your email address and hit the Sign Up button
Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup.
Error! There was an error processing your request.
Yes, down with the fence. And I don't believe that most in Echo Park want it, an idea this and a previous story seems to push. At least this sotry did say the Neighborhood Council, which represents all in Echo Park, wants it down – a good sign the neighborhood generally does. I'm sure you can find people who want it up and even permenantly, but they do not seem to be the bulk of people in Echo Park.
And the new council rep, Martinez, is seeking input from all park neighbors. He's not jsut going around spewing villiainizing like O'Farrell did about horrors of the homeless who were there – but for some reason, with all that supposedly going on, police didn't patrol more, arrests were not up. In fact, that camp was a good example, people there worked to get trash bins to put their trash in, to get water, to get the city to leave the rest rooms open to them, they set up a cooking area. The camp was relatively clean once they got the necessities to keep it so.
The headline is one-sided, making it sound like everyone is against taking down the fence, the first nine paragraphs of the story are the same, most of the story. There finally is a mention of the Nighborhood Council wanting it down but only at paragraph 10 -- there are only 13 paragraphs in the story, and the last two are finally saying Soto Martinez is talking with the neighbors. Unless people read all the way to the end of this story, the info they come away with is that everyone is against this, but that just is not so.
"I would build a great fence, and nobody builds fences better than me, believe me, and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great great fence around our park and I’ll make the homeless pay for that fence."
No mater what, that chainlink eyesore must be taken down. Whether to put a better more permanent fence or no fence needs to be determined. It would be nice to have no fence, so maybe we could try for a while? If that does not work, install a rod iron fence at that point?
Didn’t we learn the last time it cost millions to restore the park, the neighborhood security, and use of the park as intended? Until money can grow on trees let’s keep the fence.
100% agree. We know what happened, and what will again happen without a fence and/or security. The fence has been the only thing that has maintained the repair work - millions have already been spent. Twice. Echo Park Lake is NOT for overnight camping. Period.
Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd,
racist or sexually-oriented language. PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK. Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another
person will not be tolerated. Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone
or anything. Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism
that is degrading to another person. Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on
each comment to let us know of abusive posts. Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness
accounts, the history behind an article.
Stay on top of the news with our Daily Digest newsletter. Just enter your email address below and hit the Sign Up button. FYI: We don't sell our email lists to protect your privacy.
Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup.
Error! There was an error processing your request.
Post a comment as Guest
Report
Watch this discussion.
(8) comments
fence can be removed if there is an immediate removal of campers......it was so disgusting when it was overrun with the encampments
Yes, down with the fence. And I don't believe that most in Echo Park want it, an idea this and a previous story seems to push. At least this sotry did say the Neighborhood Council, which represents all in Echo Park, wants it down – a good sign the neighborhood generally does. I'm sure you can find people who want it up and even permenantly, but they do not seem to be the bulk of people in Echo Park.
And the new council rep, Martinez, is seeking input from all park neighbors. He's not jsut going around spewing villiainizing like O'Farrell did about horrors of the homeless who were there – but for some reason, with all that supposedly going on, police didn't patrol more, arrests were not up. In fact, that camp was a good example, people there worked to get trash bins to put their trash in, to get water, to get the city to leave the rest rooms open to them, they set up a cooking area. The camp was relatively clean once they got the necessities to keep it so.
Every time a comment from @mark4321 pops up, I know it's gonna be a bad take and — oh hey — here you are again with yet another worst take ever.
Move to another country if you can't handle democracy.
The headline is one-sided, making it sound like everyone is against taking down the fence, the first nine paragraphs of the story are the same, most of the story. There finally is a mention of the Nighborhood Council wanting it down but only at paragraph 10 -- there are only 13 paragraphs in the story, and the last two are finally saying Soto Martinez is talking with the neighbors. Unless people read all the way to the end of this story, the info they come away with is that everyone is against this, but that just is not so.
"I would build a great fence, and nobody builds fences better than me, believe me, and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great great fence around our park and I’ll make the homeless pay for that fence."
No mater what, that chainlink eyesore must be taken down. Whether to put a better more permanent fence or no fence needs to be determined. It would be nice to have no fence, so maybe we could try for a while? If that does not work, install a rod iron fence at that point?
Didn’t we learn the last time it cost millions to restore the park, the neighborhood security, and use of the park as intended? Until money can grow on trees let’s keep the fence.
100% agree. We know what happened, and what will again happen without a fence and/or security. The fence has been the only thing that has maintained the repair work - millions have already been spent. Twice. Echo Park Lake is NOT for overnight camping. Period.
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person.
Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.