Los Angeles City Councilman Joe Buscaino upped the ante in the debate over where and how to restrict homeless encampments, calling on his colleagues to prohibit tents from going up within 500 feet of any public school in the city.
Buscaino, who is running for mayor, said he wants the council to use its new anti-camping ordinance to make sidewalks around more than 1,000 campuses “no camping zones.”
The councilman announced his proposal outside Larchmont Charter School in Hollywood on Monday, the first day of school for hundreds of thousands of children in the Los Angeles Unified School District. But his event was swiftly cut short when one of his aides got into a brief scuffle with a group of protesters who had surrounded Buscaino, yelling and waving signs as the councilman attempted to deliver his remarks.
The incident began when Buscaino spokesman Branimir Kvartuc grabbed one of the protester’s signs, which had come close to the councilman’s face. The protester, who identified herself only as Stevie, tried to stop him, yelling at him to get his hands off her.
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