As a resident of Antelope Valley, I am concerned about your act of cowardliness in the face of bullying tactics and threats by the NAACP and a local group known as The Community Action League.

Your fear of standing up to these bullies and your refusal to protect law abiding citizens of Antelope Valley leaves me with serious doubts that you should have any say in what happens in our communities.

Perhaps it is easy to turn your back on people who have no ability to end your political career. After all, it’s not residents in your town that must face criminals in their once safe neighborhoods, so why should you care. And it is painfully obvious that you don’t!

It is much easier for you to turn and run, leaving us to deal with the mess – as you usually do.

Therefore, since it is money taken from hardworking, law-abiding residents of Antelope Valley that you are spending, we want an accounting. And since we seriously doubt that any of the Section 8 inspectors will ever actually step foot in Antelope Valley to respond to the many complaints against criminals abusing the program, we want something else.

We want to know when someone on Section 8 commits a crime in Antelope Valley. We want it published! Since the housing authority inspectors won’t do their job, and fear being called racists if they do, then this is the only way for Antelope Valley residents to know if the housing authority and its inspectors are really doing their jobs.

We want proof that housing authority employees really do thorough background checks on everyone that applies for Section 8. And we want Antelope Valley residents - the elderly, the disabled, the single mother with children, families who need temporary housing - to receive Section 8 housing in Antelope Valley FIRST- not those from other areas of the county.

And we demand that the LA County Housing Authority end its discriminatory practices against whites and other non-black races.

Supervisors, we want you to keep your criminals, your career welfare families in your own towns. Stop allowing the housing authority to dump them in Antelope Valley! If you can’t do that, if you can’t protect Antelope Valley residents, then you should not be receiving any funds from this area and you should have no say whatsoever in anything that happens in this Valley.

If one resident is harmed by someone on Section 8 that housing authorities should not have allowed in the program, or that inspectors did not check properly on and remove from the program, then you four supervisors - Gloria Molina, Mark Ridley-Thomas, Zev Yaroslavsky and Don Knabe - should be held accountable. You should be charged as accomplices and you should serve jail time along with the criminals.

And you should also be forced to pay full restitution from your own pocket, not county funds, to anyone harmed by a Section 8 recipient!

Remember, it was a crime you could have prevented. It was the death of an innocent loved one that you could have prevented. It was a business burglary or robbery that you could have prevented. It was one less child hooked on illegal drugs – one less family destroyed.

From this day forward, you should be held accountable for the problems you dump on Antelope Valley residents.

Since news of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors “back-room” deal with the NAACP and TCAL to end inspections of Section 8 housing in Antelope Valley, we at AV News have been asked what residents can do. Here are a few suggestions for those who really care about our communities.

1. The Los Angeles County Housing Authority has waged a discrimination war against Antelope Valley residents – the elderly, the disabled, the young, single mothers, hard working families - who now need a place to live. The LA County Housing Authority gives priority to people living in other areas, providing them with Section 8 housing, and sending them to AV, rather than helping our own residents.

Antelope Valley residents and leaders should immediately call on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to establish a separate Antelope Valley Housing Authority to properly serve the almost half a million people living in the High Desert. HUD needs to open that new office in AV and provide housing for AV residents.

Landlords also should be able to walk into that AV office to obtain information and discuss problems with Section 8 tenants.

Contact the HUD investigator for this area by email at linea.creel@hud.gov, or by mail at Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity; 600 Harrison Street, Third Floor; San Francisco, CA 94107-1300 or by calling (415) 489-6400.

Contact the national HUD office by mail at 451 7th Street S.W., Washington, DC 20410 or by telephone at (202) 708-1112.  {TTY: (202) 708-1455}.

Also, contact Ophelia B. Basgal, regional administrator, at 600 Harrison St., Third Floor, San Francisco, CA 94107-1300 or by calling (415) 489-6400. By fax at (415) 489-6419.

2. Call on the Department of Justice to investigate the discriminatory practices of the LA County Housing Authority against whites and non-black races. An attorney for a legal service representing the NAACP and TCAL said in an interview with AV News last year that the program is to be used for integration of blacks into communities.

“The federal housing program was explicitly designed to be a desegregation program,” said Catherine Lhamon, attorney for Public Counsel Law offices representing the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and The Community Action League organizations.

Obviously, LA County Housing Authority agrees with Lhamon.

3. Call on the Department of Justice to also investigate how many criminals and how much fraud has been perpetrated by Section 8 recipients who were not properly screened or investigated and terminated prior to last year. And to investigate how much occurs now that the LA Board of Supervisors has turned its back on AV residents.

4. Since the LA County Board of Supervisors have made a “back-room” agreement that leaves AV residents to deal with fraud and crime, the cities of Lancaster and Palmdale, or a private nonprofit group serving as a watchdog overseeing complaints in AV, should obtain a list of all Section 8 housing in AV. If necessary, call every rental that shows up in the local newspapers or craigslist that states it accepts Section 8, get the address and keep a list. If a crime is committed by someone living at that address, determine if they really are on Section 8 and report it to news media.

And create an anonymous tip phone line and email for people to report suspected fraud or criminal activity. Property owners can report destruction, damage, etc. to property by Section 8 tenants. The group can follow up to see if LA County Housing Authority does anything about the complaints. If not, the group can institute some type of legal action on behalf of concerned residents and property owners in AV.

5. The Department of Justice has heard only one side of the story – that provided by the NAACP and TCAL. It is time they heard the other side. It is time they heard from those who have been harmed by unsupervised and criminal Section 8 recipients. We suggest residents contact them immediately by mail at U. S. Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, 950  Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC  20530-0001; by phone at (202) 514-2000 or by e-mail at AskDOJ@usdoj.gov.