Reclaim Rampart Hosts Garcetti, Other Officials Thursday

Anne Hars is one determined woman. For months, she's been digging through documents, scouring the Internet for records.

Hars is trying to understand how the (arguably) iconic building on Temple that housed LAPD Rampart during its most notorious years could end up the home of a SWAT unit.

Hars and her group have chronicled their recent work on a blog called Reclaim Rampart.

See that here.

They've worked hard to get the ear of government officials.

On Thursday they will host a commuity meeting with CD 13 rep Eric Garcetti and some on the committee overseeing the Rampart conversion.

It will take place at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Otis Booth Campus on Temple Street.

According to the Reclaim Rampart blog, some of their concerns include:

• Why was the community left with an abandoned and blighted building for so long while 18 million taxpayer dollars in renovation money sat unused?
• Why has there been Zero public outreach from the LAPD in the planned re-utilization of Old rampart [sic] as S.W.A.T. Headquarters like all other Proposition Q projects?
• Has Metro Division ever addressed the recommendations made after the internal investigation of the Division's 2007 shootings at May Day?
• Have former C.R.A.S.H. alumni now at Metro been investigated as recommended by the 2007 Blue Ribbon Panel report Rampart Reconsidered?

Hars has said the group's goal is to get the community more input into how the building is used going forward.

The Children's Institute is located at 2117 W. Temple St. in Echo Park.