Culver City Observer -

Assembly Member Sebastian Ridley-Thomas has introduced a bill to indefinitely extend the authority of the Baldwin Hills Conservancy (BHC) to preserve and protect the group's work to create open space and expand parkland for residents' recreational use in his 54th Assembly District.

Assembly Member Ridley-Thomas' bill would delete the January 1, 2018 sunset clause from the BHC's enabling statute that was chaptered in 2000.

Ridley-Thomas said, "The Baldwin Hills Conservancy should never be allowed to go out of business until its mission has been fully achieved, its initiatives fully realized and its work has been fully completed."

"The Conservancy's mandate is to acquire the remaining open space in the

Baldwin Hills for the expansion of Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area into a two square mile park.

The BHC's was created to coordinate an integrated program of resource stewardship so that the Baldwin Hills open space area is managed for optimum recreational and natural resource values based upon the needs and desires of the surrounding community. Those mandates are as important today as they were 15-years ago.

We should not allow the BHC to sunset three years from now when there is still considerable work left to be done," Ridley-Thomas said.

"We have an opportunity to create a grand park in the middle of Southwest Los Angeles. I intend to make sure we don't let that opportunity slip through our fingers because of a sunset clause that threatens the very existence of the BHC and its good work in 2018."

California's 54th Assembly District encompasses the City of Culver City and unincorporated

Ladera Heights, and the Los Angeles communities of Mar Vista, Palms, Westwood, Cheviot Hills,

Beverlywood, Faircrest Heights, Century City, Holmby Hills, Mid City, Lafayette Square, Baldwin

Hills, View Park, Windsor Hills, Crenshaw District, Jefferson Park, Leimert Park and Park Mesa

Heights.

For more information on Assemblymember Sebastian Ridley-Thomas, go to:

http://asmdc.org/members/a54/