It fell to Communities for a Better Environment to drop the first hint of reclaiming the Farm: "The [Environmental Impact Report] needs to establish the baseline as when this land was home to the community garden, and compare it to the impact of the proposed project. The EIR must take into account issues of air quality, noise, public health, storm water discharge, aesthetics, traffic, cumulative impacts, and environmental justice."
Brad Rosenheim and his associate had argued that the warehouse would create jobs, and now they sat on one side of the front row, leaning back, legs splayed and arms crossed. They sat, impassive and withdrawn, as a former warehouse worker told the Board and the residents about warehouse jobs.
It's not a nice job, and I don't think any of these men would have their sons and their nephews working in these warehouses, much less if they didn't say it was going to be union jobs. I'm sure it's going to be twelve hundred non-union jobs, low wage, long hours, and let me tell you what happens in those kind of warehouses. If things are spilled, you sweep it out of the way. And trucks have to wait, let the engine run, because they don't want to shut it off and have to start it back up and waste gas. There's hazardous materials that are open and need to be taken care of immediately, that are left in the corner, put off to the side because production has to keep moving and we can't slow down because profits have to be made. . . . So I implore you, please, please, I implore you to deny this plan, and to take into consideration everything that the community has talked about here, including the things that these power brokers smirk at, like the kids and the hawks and the trees. That's what's important to us. That's what makes up our sacred church. So please, I implore you, it's not as easy as they make it sound, there's a lot of complicated things involved here, including the health and the lives of our children.
Speaker after speaker rotated up to a place at the speakers' table, and each firmly, with clear conviction, confronted the Board across its buttress of desks.
"The idea of putting a child's recreational center next to a distribution center packed with evil trucks, doesn't anybody feel compelled to care for or take some responsibility for the health and safety of the children of the Ninth District?" At moments, Board members looked nonplussed at the heartfelt outpouring in front of them.
A teacher's assistant at Jefferson High School explained what the Farm meant to her students. "They have to deal with a lot issues in their life, and the South Central Farm provided a place of refuge. It was one of the few after school programs offered for our students. . . . I'm a bilingual T.A. with English learners, and the students I work with, they're extremely isolated and they're cut off from their homes, from their culture, and the Farm was really the only place where they were able to reconnect with that, to learn from the people that were role models for them. [The Farm] built up a sense of pride in their culture, in their history, and in their people, and to take something away like that was really heartbreaking for them."
"Air pollution does not stay in one area. It will affect children and the elderly the most, people who live and work and play around that vicinity. We're using taxpayer dollars to clean up this pollution, to pay for the health care of these kids with asthma. We're taxpayers as well."
A member of the Regional Comprehensive Planning Task Force for the California Association of Governments noted that the regional plan requires open spaces for Southeast and South Central Los Angeles, specifically community gardens and farmers' markets, and that community stability and economic self-reliance were values recognized in the regional plan. He declared that the City had violated the plan when it facilitated the destruction of the Farm.
And another: "There are students and workers behind me that have made sacrifices to be here today. Our community in South L.A. is drowning in warehouses, and the few jobs that are projected to be provided by this warehouse are not guaranteed to go to the community."
Calls for an Environmental Impact Report and the reclamation of the Farm continued, with warnings about traffic and safety hazards, about the seventy-foot water table endangered by the proposed underground parking garage. A truckers' organizer for the IWW testified that trucks would have nowhere to wait except to idle along the streets surrounding the warehouse, that the warehouse truck docks were too narrow to turn in. 
A member of the Longest Walk, a cross-continental walk to protect Native American rights and the Native way of life, turned the morning's message back on the Deputy Advisory Board: "See that picture right there? You can clearly see the sky above it, and all that brown stuff right there, you're breathing that too, no matter where you live, it's all southern California. If you open up that window right there, you'll probably get a better look for yourself and see exactly how nasty it is . . . So you guys got to think about your own health and your own children's health and their children's health too, because this doesn't just affect us who live in poor communities."
Another speaker said much the same: "We don't want any more asthmas or respiratory or lung illnesses. We want clean air. We don't want any more invasion of poor communities. Just like they share their project with us, we would love to share our illnesses with them. I would love for them to live there, so they can understand what's going on."
A woman challenged the Board: "Look what they have done to this area. There's no trees, there's no parks: What are you trying to do to these people? I wish you could have to go there, take your lunch on a few occasions, and leave and see how these people are suffering."
When the neighbors, the supporters, and the Farmers had finished, a lone representative from Councilmember Perry's office sat at the table. Perry chairs the City Council's Energy and Environment Committee and sits on board of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which touts that "AQMD Board members have an understanding of the air pollution problems facing the general public." But Perry had determined to oppose growing healthy food and protecting the air, the earth, the water, and the quality of life for this strip of her district. Speaking for Perry, her aid warned the crowd and the Board: "Council member Perry recognizes a lot of the problems that were brought up. I think that some of them have to do with the site, others of them are larger issues that face the community. . . . The warehouse being located here, we do feel it is an appropriate site for the warehouse and are supportive of that."
Perry must have been asleep at the switch. The day of the hearing, the SCAQMD faxed a letter to the City Planning Division roundly denouncing the neg deco and recommending that the Planning Commission, "specifically prohibit land uses that would include sensitive receptors or industrial land uses that would further expose existing sensitive receptors nearby," apparently referring to the proposed recreation area next to the warehouse. The SCAQMD went on to fault the findings for using incorrect references for soil handling, for referencing anti-pollution devices that may not exist, and for comparing the truck emissions of the proposed facility to a much smaller facility. It recommended, among other adjustments, that the project include a 300 meter buffer zone between the distribution center and sensitive receptors, constructing freeway off-ramps to the facility, and reconfiguring the architectural plans to move the main entrance off Long Beach Avenue. With the SCAQMD restrictions, industrial development on the land may be impossible.
In 2006, Perry had enough clout to force Mayer Villaraigosa and the rest of the City Council to defy their constituents and give in to the developer Horowitz. Today, rumors are that, after two years of waiting, Jan Perry counted the Farm Movement out. And, reports continue, that since the people of the Ninth District condemned the project, Perry is on a rampage to salvage her job.
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