The undersigned residents of Mar Vista and Venice do not support the LAUSD’s intent to lease land at Walgrove Elementary School for the construction of multiple permanent buildings for a new 500 seat charter school campus. Such an enormous project will dramatically alter the character of our neighborhood with a significant increase in traffic, hundreds of additional car trips to and from the school twice a day everyday and large numbers of cars for extracurricular events on nights and weekends. This greatly increased traffic influx to our small streets would be in addition to the anticipated growth in population of Walgrove Elementary School and its students! The quality of life in our neighborhood would change dramatically, with higher noise levels, greater amounts of pollution and diminished light and air quality, double and triple parked cars, idling cars, safety issues for pedestrians, blocked driveways, trespassing, litter, loitering. Additionally, Walgrove Elementary School and our neighborhood will have to endure years of construction noise, debris and disruption. The residents of the community remain committed to developing a public education model that can serve and meet both the immediate and projected demographic realities of the Mar Vista/Venice region. The residents of this community are not confident that the proposed plans supported by LAUSD and the charter programs meet these goals. We urge you to reject the long-term arrangement to lease the land at Walgrove Elementary School to build a new permanent charter school facility, as it is not in the best interest of our community or the local school students and will have detrimental and long lasting effects.

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