South Central Organizing Committee

Lois Martin says she has spent many of her 24 years as a resident here pleading with officials to clean up vacant and boarded buildings, abandoned vehicles and litter-strewn streets. Officials, she said, "always seemed so slow" to react to requests from the neighborhood block clubs and homeowner associations to which she has belonged.

Standing on the same stage for the first time since their lone debate last month, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles) answered a set of pointed questions about immigration, school reform, violence prevention and job creation at a crowded candidates forum in Lincoln Heights on Thursday night.

Known for nearly a decade for its confrontational techniques of pressuring politicians into taking action on urban problems, the South-Central Organizing Committee has moved into three cities in Southeast Los Angeles County. And true to its image, the grass-roots group has immediately gotten into a confrontation with a politician. More than 200 members attended its first organizational meeting Wednesday night at Martin Temple AME Zion Church in Compton.

Standing on the same stage for the first time since their lone debate last month, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles) answered a set of pointed questions about immigration, school reform, violence prevention and job creation at a crowded candidates forum in Lincoln Heights on Thursday night.

Fifteen churches and a Compton labor union local were enrolled as members of the South-Central Organizing Committee on Thursday evening as the organization moved to increase participation by blacks and Protestants. Staff organizer Larry Fondation said the additions mean that the grass-roots lobbying and community action organization is spreading its base beyond the boundaries of South-Central Los Angeles into Compton and drawing more black church figures.

Hundreds of angry Compton residents assailed their City Council on Sunday for courting business interests while ignoring a community proposal to build a low-cost housing development on public land.

The United Neighborhoods Organization, and its sister community-based groups in the San Gabriel Valley and South-Central Los Angeles, Sunday launched a voter-registration drive and set a multifaceted agenda to tackle such issues as crime, housing and child care. The immediate goal of the campaign, dubbed "Sign Up, Take Charge" by its leaders, is to register 60,000 voters in Los Angeles County for the Nov. 8 general election.

Political reformers don't like the messy kind of politics practiced by the pros. The give-and-take, the deal-making, the compromise--these real-world political lubricants make them uncomfortable, as if their hands have been soiled. That question of whether to play or drop out of the game was a dominating theme of Los Angeles' reformers long struggle to persuade the City Council to approve a new ethics law, and public financing of political campaigns.

A coalition of church leaders and community organizers, stressing the dearth of new affordable housing in Los Angeles, have decided to press forward themselves by seeking funds to construct their own development of 500 low-cost homes in South-Central Los Angeles. Using a much-praised, church-based housing program in a run-down New York City neighborhood as its role model, the group is hoping to provide homes for $50,000 to families with annual incomes of $18,000 to $26,000.

Standing on the same stage for the first time since their lone debate last month, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles) answered a set of pointed questions about immigration, school reform, violence prevention and job creation at a crowded candidates forum in Lincoln Heights on Thursday night.

Political reformers don't like the messy kind of politics practiced by the pros. The give-and-take, the deal-making, the compromise--these real-world political lubricants make them uncomfortable, as if their hands have been soiled. That question of whether to play or drop out of the game was a dominating theme of Los Angeles' reformers long struggle to persuade the City Council to approve a new ethics law, and public financing of political campaigns.

Hundreds of angry Compton residents assailed their City Council on Sunday for courting business interests while ignoring a community proposal to build a low-cost housing development on public land.

A coalition of church leaders and community organizers, stressing the dearth of new affordable housing in Los Angeles, have decided to press forward themselves by seeking funds to construct their own development of 500 low-cost homes in South-Central Los Angeles. Using a much-praised, church-based housing program in a run-down New York City neighborhood as its role model, the group is hoping to provide homes for $50,000 to families with annual incomes of $18,000 to $26,000.

With chants of "Stay out of our churches," about two dozen Protestant and Catholic religious leaders from throughout Los Angeles County on Monday joined a protest against what they called the desecration of an Orange County Catholic church last week by immigration agents who entered in pursuit of two illegal aliens.

The United Neighborhoods Organization, and its sister community-based groups in the San Gabriel Valley and South-Central Los Angeles, Sunday launched a voter-registration drive and set a multifaceted agenda to tackle such issues as crime, housing and child care. The immediate goal of the campaign, dubbed "Sign Up, Take Charge" by its leaders, is to register 60,000 voters in Los Angeles County for the Nov. 8 general election.

Lois Martin says she has spent many of her 24 years as a resident here pleading with officials to clean up vacant and boarded buildings, abandoned vehicles and litter-strewn streets. Officials, she said, "always seemed so slow" to react to requests from the neighborhood block clubs and homeowner associations to which she has belonged.

Standing on the same stage for the first time since their lone debate last month, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles) answered a set of pointed questions about immigration, school reform, violence prevention and job creation at a crowded candidates forum in Lincoln Heights on Thursday night.

With chants of "Stay out of our churches," about two dozen Protestant and Catholic religious leaders from throughout Los Angeles County on Monday joined a protest against what they called the desecration of an Orange County Catholic church last week by immigration agents who entered in pursuit of two illegal aliens.

Known for nearly a decade for its confrontational techniques of pressuring politicians into taking action on urban problems, the South-Central Organizing Committee has moved into three cities in Southeast Los Angeles County. And true to its image, the grass-roots group has immediately gotten into a confrontation with a politician. More than 200 members attended its first organizational meeting Wednesday night at Martin Temple AME Zion Church in Compton.

Fifteen churches and a Compton labor union local were enrolled as members of the South-Central Organizing Committee on Thursday evening as the organization moved to increase participation by blacks and Protestants. Staff organizer Larry Fondation said the additions mean that the grass-roots lobbying and community action organization is spreading its base beyond the boundaries of South-Central Los Angeles into Compton and drawing more black church figures.