March is Women’s History Month and the City of Inglewood and the nation will highlight and celebrate the contributions of women to events in history and contemporary society. Last year many of the women’s suffrage centennial celebrations originally planned for 2020 were restricted, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, so the National Women’s Alliance extended the annual theme for 2021 to “Valiant Women of the Vote: Refusing to Be Silenced.
It was announced in the council meeting that we particularly recognize Stacey Yvonne Abrams, the politician, lawyer, voting rights activist, and author who served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2007 to 2017, serving as minority leader from 2011 to 2017. She is a Democrat who founded Fair Fight Action, an organization to address voter suppression, in 2018. Her efforts have been widely credited with boosting voter turnout in Georgia, including in the 2020 presidential election, where Joe Biden won the state, and in Georgia’s 2020–21 U.S. Senate election and special election, which gave Democrats control over the Senate. Earlier this year Abrams was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts in the 2020 election.
Getting down to business, the council approved a three-year agreement with Ellison Wilson Advocacy, LLC, to provide legislative advocacy services for the City. The council approved Amendment No. 1 to Grant Agreement No. 920000000TOD201512 between the City of Inglewood and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority for the Florence/Hindry and Crenshaw Station Transit Overlay District Project.
The council approved a purchase order with Crosstown Electrical & Data, Inc., for LED traffic control devices, per Bid No. RFB-0126.
The council awarded and approved an agreement with Michael Baker International, Inc., to prepare the Urban Water Management Plan (UWMP) 2020 study and the state-required plan/report to be submitted to the California Department of Water Resources and an agreement with Kane, Ballmer & Berkman for legal advice, guidance, and representation. Responding to a public comment, Mayor Butts explained that a city as vibrant as Inglewood, must maintain legal representation.
Before closing the weekly council meeting, Mayor Butts described a few of the council’s recent accomplishments that benefit the citizens of Inglewood and the County of Los Angeles. He mentioned the city’s 1st Time Home Buying Program, the Rent Relief Program and the COVID-19 Debit Card Program for needy Inglewood families. He explained that within the nine square miles of the City of Inglewood, the city boasts five COVID-19 Vaccination Programs, including the 12,000 vaccinations that are being administered each day for Los Angeles County teachers, the mobile vaccinations that are being administered to immobile senior citizens and the Centinela Hospital Vaccination Program that is catering the city’s first responders.
