06 December 2014
Dear Friends and Fellow Gardeners,
On Tuesday, at 10:00 AM, the Los
Angeles City Council will take a tremendous step forward into a new
paradigm, a new way of seeing our food. They have put their
legislative skills together in the past few years to create a nascent
urban gardening movement that is gaining strength and threatens to be
one of the most vibrant in the nation – as well it should be, with
our wonderful soils and our spacious layout that allows for urban
farms and urban gardens. As a gardener and a gardening instructor
and author, I've seen them secure a future for me with their
supportive actions.
But on Tuesday, they will vote on the
one measure that will underpin these gardens and give entrepreneurs
the assurance they will need to make this city practically self
supporting in many of our vegetable needs: They will vote to make
Los Angeles a GMO Free Zone!
We have seen state legislatures and
Congress, sidestep even the meager act of labeling genetically
engineered foods because they have become beholding to the likes of
the big agriculture. So it has come down to the cities and counties
to make their statements. Los Angeles will be the biggest statement
of all!
We have not won yet. I ask all of you
to come to City Hall on Tuesday morning in your gardening grubbies
and when the motion is introduced be there to support it. I know so
many of you have been wondering what to get me for Christmas and this
is the one thing I want. We have a solid, practical law that the
promoters of a GMO Free LA have had the chance to help write. It is
a good law - it is enforceable, it is fair and it has legal
precedent. It is worth our support.
City Hall is located between Main and
Spring Street and between Temple and First Streets. It is accessible
by the Red and Purple Lines (Civic Center Stop) – I get to the
subway via the Expo Light Rail Line – starting in CulveCity at
Venice and Robertson Blvds. The entrance is on Main Street and the
City Council Chambers are on the 3rd Floor.
We have no money to influence votes –
certainly not nearly as much as the bio-tech companies and the
Grocery Manufacturers' Association. All we have is you and your
conviction that we need to save our seeds and promote clean, healthy
food that is not sprayed with chemicals that harm us, the animals we
depend on for food and the environment. Spend a few hours in our
City Council Chamber and rise when it's time to support a GMO Free
LA!!
I would be most grateful,
david
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