Commentary: Hollywood residents want more for their tax dollars. Councilman says he's trying

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Hold everything.Hollywood’s Lexington Park will not be getting a new playground after all, and that’s both good news and bad news.To explain, let me take you back to April 15, when I tagged along with Sabine Phillips on her weekly three-hour inspection of the neighborhood’s chronic trash problem.

Phillips, a housekeeper by trade, was hired by one of her clients a few years ago to help clean up their streets.So each Wednesday, Phillips went out on her yellow Huffy cruiser and routinely logged 50 or more illegally dumped items and reported them to the city’s 311 system for pickup.And each Saturday, she filled up to four or five big bags with smaller bits and scraps of debris.Near the end of my three hours with Phillips, who got help that day from volunteer Keith Johnson, we visited the Lexington pocket park.

There were no kids there, and there never are, Phillips said.That’s because of the glass and needles in the sand, drug activity, sporadic violence, gang tags on the slide and homeless camps.A guy from the Recreation and Parks Department showed up and said the park was in line for a possible upgrade that could cost as much as $300,000.

In my April 18 column, I questioned the wisdom of investing in a playground that would remain unsafe unless there was a plan to address all the aforementioned issues.Nick Barnes-Batista, communications director for L.A.City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez, wrote to tell me his office was unaware of any playground projects planned for that park.Frustrated by lack of city attention, an L.A.

homeowner hired her housekeeper to help clean the neighborhood.A spokesperson for Recreation and Parks told me that despite what was said by the employee I met in the park, there is no “immediate playground replacement project on the books.” But the department is “working closely” with the councilman’s office “to identify funding source...