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Councilman Wesson Rescues Tom Bradley Family Center

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Category: Community News
Published on Friday, 13 June 2014 15:32
Written by D.V. Lawrence
In a nail-biting last minute save, Council President Herb Wesson rescued the jobs and programs of the current regime at the Tom Bradley Family Resource Center.

AprilTony Nicholasweb As reported in the last edition of TNN, due to cuts in federally funded programs and in an effort to save money, the Los Angeles Housing Department was about to make a recommendation to the Housing Commission to move the staff at Tom Bradley’s (Tony Nicholson, Andrea Solomon and Eddie Nuno) to a family center in Watts and turn control of the city-owned Tom Bradley Center over to a non-profit who would fund and provide new programs to the community.

Tony, who grew up in Mid-City, has dedicated his life to helping its low-income residents and was distraught over leaving them behind. As hopeless as things seemed, he refused to give up the effort to save programs that served the poor in our community; programs that would move with him to Watts. He continued to press for meetings with all the officials involved.

Recently the recommendations from the Housing Department to defund this and two other family centers came before the commission. Tony reported to TNN that Council President Herb Wesson, also happens to be a member of the Housing, Community and Economic Development (HCED) Committee and during the meeting of it's commission, questioned the logic of defunding the Tom Bradley Center. Tony reported to TNN, Wesson made the point that 90% of the funds used for the Bradley Center pay for the salaries of the three staff members and this money would follow them to Watts, so no savings there. By bringing in a nonprofit to run the Center the only money saved would be money for the janitor, utilities and landscaping, a mere 10% of the overall budget. To save this 10%, the city would be sacrificing the programs, food give aways, legal services, classes and more. It didn’t add up. The commission agreed with the Council President and made a recommendation to the City Council to continue to fund the Center for at least another year, or two. The Council voted to accept the recommendation. For now, a reprieve.


Photo by Dawn Kirkpatrick.









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Established in August of 2008 by writer, artist Dianne V. Lawrence, The Neighborhood News covers the events, people, history, politics and historic architecture of communities throughout the Mid-City and West Adams area in Los Angeles Council District 10.

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