Boyle Heights residents boo Mayor Karen Bass, Lineage executives at heated town hall over warehouse fire
Boyle Heights residents air out frustration over warehouse fire fallout
Boyle Heights residents aired their frustrations as they continue to deal with the fallout from the Lineage warehouse fire.
LOS ANGELES - Anger boiled over at a Boyle Heights town hall Thursday night as residents booed Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, other elected leaders and executives from Lineage, venting weeks of frustration over the cleanup of the massive cold-storage warehouse fire that has upended the neighborhood.
The tension began before the meeting. A group of protesters pushed their way into the Robert Louis Stevenson Middle School auditorium, where the town hall was held, and once it got underway, each elected leader who spoke was booed. Apologies were largely ignored.
"Let me straight up apologize for any confusion, miscommunication and information that was put out, especially at the beginning when the fires were still going on," Bass told the crowd.
Lineage officials used the meeting to update residents on the cleanup.
Crews have hauled 1.4 million pounds of rotting food so far, the company said, with 150 trucks a day and 200 workers on-site around the clock. Another 2 million pounds are expected to be removed in the coming days, still a small fraction of the estimated 85 million pounds left behind by the fire.
"I know how upset you are. We're upset. Our building burned down. Right? We're, we're upset too," Jeff Rivera, Lineage's chief operating officer, said.
Just hours before the meeting, Lineage announced a new round of assistance for residents, including hotel and rental vouchers for families who want to move out during the cleanup, cash on prepaid cards, grocery vouchers and offers to pay electric bills. The company says the aid comes on top of the $2.5 million it has already committed.
Still, many residents left saying the meeting wasn't productive and that their questions went unanswered by their leaders.
Bass defended the event afterward to FOX 11.
"It was important for the community to have an opportunity to speak. I appreciate that they did, I understand their anger, and we are going to address their concerns," she said.
Asked whether she plans to hold another town hall, Bass said, "We don't know, we'll see."
Asked whether she believed the meeting was productive at all, she said, "Yes, I do."
Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis pushed back on the notion that officials have been absent.
"I mean, we have been dealing with this. We've been on the ground since it started. I think we gave you a breakdown of when we did start," Solis said.
Asked about the booing directed at officials throughout the night, Solis said, "I think a lot of it is spread against everyone."
The fire broke out June 17 at Lineage's cold-storage facility in Boyle Heights and burned for roughly a week before firefighters knocked it down June 24. Residents in the surrounding blocks have since dealt with the stench of tens of millions of pounds of spoiled food as demolition and debris removal continue.