Newsom vetoes bill to study reparations for families displaced at Chavez Ravine

Gov. Gavin Newsom has vetoed a state bill that would have established a task force to study reparations for families forced out of Chavez Ravine in the 1950s.

Sponsored by Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo (D-Los Angeles), the Chavez Ravine Accountability Act would have created a state-level task force to study the long-term harms to residents, business owners and landowners displaced from the area between 1950 and 1961 and to advise Los Angeles city and county on compensation for their descendants.

It would also have required the city to erect a permanent monument to the Chavez Ravine community.

“I support the author’s intent to evaluate and address the injustice that took place in the Chavez Ravine community decades ago. However, a task force to study the events that occurred should be established at the local level,” Newsom wrote in his veto statement Friday.

“Fundamentally, the determination of recommendations for compensation to those displaced is an issue best addressed by stakeholders closest to the Chavez Ravine community.”

In the mid-20th century, Chavez Ravine was home to a large community of families, predominantly Mexican American, who had been barred from living and buying property elsewhere in the city as a result of discriminatory housing restrictions.

With an eye toward redeveloping the area for a new housing project, the city began pursuing residents’ properties in the early 1950s through eminent domain and below-market offers. By 1957, Los Angeles dropped the planned housing project and traded the land to Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley to build what is now Dodger Stadium. An estimated 1,800 families were ultimately displaced.

“I’ve learned that when advancing policy ideas, some will say it goes too far, while others may say it doesn’t go far enough,” Carrillo said of the bill this summer. “But ultimately, we move the needle toward justice, and we try to do as much good for as many people as possible.”