WATER POLITICS--California may be coming out of the drought, but LA’s water system is in dire need of fixing. Angelenos will soon be asked to pay more for their water and they must stay alert to ensure their money is being invested wisely and not wasted on projects for special interests. 

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is set to make its customers pay higher rates and taxes for a project misleadingly named the “California Water Fix.” This project involves building two massive water tunnels underneath the San Joaquin Delta in Northern California and could cost $25-67 billion. 

The tunnels are supported by an alliance of corporate agribusinesses and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD), a wholesaler provider that makes money from importing and selling water. 

The tunnels would funnel massive amounts of water to Beverly Hills billionaire Stewart Resnick’s agribusiness empire, whose businesses use more water every year than all the homes in Los Angeles combined. The Resnicks, owners of the Wonderful Company, and their agribusiness allies have gamed the state’s water system to grow excessive amounts of pistachios and almonds in the desert and now they want ratepayers and taxpayers to pay for multi-billion dollar tunnels to keep their scheme going. 

Governor Brown, a longtime friend of agribusiness, is now working to persuade the Trump administration, to greenlight the project. President Trump cozied up to these same special interests in his campaign stops in California. 

The real sucker punch is that the project would not deliver a single drop of new water to Los Angeles. Yet, MWD would charge ratepayers and taxpayers in L.A., Compton, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, and other Southern California cities for this boondoggle. An independent analysis found that if the tunnels project were to only cost $25 billion, Angelenos would be stuck $1.6- $3.5 billion of the total cost. And that’s the low end of cost projections. 

For LA to be prepared for the next drought, the solution is not to build tunnels that can’t create new water, but to invest in projects that would maximize our local supply and adapt to the effects of climate change. Mayor Garcetti introduced an Executive Directive to make our water safer from earthquakes and climate impacts by 2024, by calling on LADWP to reduce its dependence on imported water, and to increase local water sources. This includes capturing rainwater, recycling water, cleaning up polluted water and augmenting groundwater storage. A one-inch rain storm can produce up to 10 billion gallons of water, and in an average year, Los Angeles wastes more than 500,000 acre-feet of storm water that runs off to the ocean— which is almost the annual water supply of the City of Los Angeles. 

Water experts estimate that it would cost LA County $300-$500 million a year to build the local infrastructure that would capture more rain. In addition, a proposed water recycling facility could provide another 400,000 acre-feet per year of water for the region. That means the best way to increase the reliability of our water is to invest here in Los Angeles, not in tunnels hundreds of miles away. 

Indeed, the only way Mayor Garcetti can follow through on his plan to cut Los Angeles’ dependence on imported water by half over the next seven years is to make sure not a dime of our DWP bills does towards to building the ill-conceived tunnels. 

MWD and agribusiness are funding a spin campaign to sell the tunnels. They even make the claim that these tunnels could help save endangered fish populations. This Orwellian argument was squelched by a recent federal study that showed that the tunnels could decimate the struggling wild salmon population. 

The tunnels can only be stopped if Southern Californians rise up and refuse to pay for this scam, reminiscent of the film Chinatown. Mayor Garcetti must protect ratepayers and prevent LADWP from wasting our money on the tunnels. The Mayor must act soon, as the Metropolitan Water District has stated it hopes to secure a rate and tax hike for the project as soon as this summer. 

A more reliable LA water system that can withstand the serious impacts of climate change is possible and necessary, but we have to invest in proven local and regional infrastructure now. There is no money to waste to satisfy the greed of special interests.

(Brenna Norton is a senior Southern California organizer with Food & Water Watch.) prepped for CityWatch By Linda Abrams.

EASTSIDER-When the dust cleared from the 23 candidate race to replace Xavier Becerra in the 34^th Congressional District Special Election, Mariel Garza of the Los Angeles Times couldn’t resist a condescending Opinion piece with the pretentious title of LA voters didn’t just turn their backs on Berniecrat progressivism, they went positively Clintonesque.  

We’ll get into why this is balderdash in a bit, but first a confession from yours truly. I totally forgot that the boundaries of the 34^th Congressional District don’t match up at all with the City Council boundaries. It basically covers all of CD1 and CD14, as well as all of Koreatown – as opposed to the Wesson-led effort that came up with the gerrymandered redistricting map that chopped Koreatown into four City Council Districts.

As a result, I didn’t check the financial reporting until it came out a few days before the election, and discovered Robert Ahn, who was not terribly visible in my area of town but still scored something like $500,000 in contributions as of that last reporting period before the election. Shame on me, and let’s hear it for Ahn, who came in second in the race and will face Jimmy Gomez in the June 6 runoff. My bad. 

Behind the Primary Numbers 

While Gomez and Ahn are the survivors of the primary, let’s not forget that between the two of them, they got less than 48 percent of the vote (25% and 22%) and nine of the 23 candidates got over 1000 votes, with Maria Cabildo scoring over 10% (4259.) That ain’t bad. From my point of view, these numbers repudiate the assumptions buried in the Times OpEd that it’s business as usual. 

Those numbers demonstrate to me exactly what the “Bernie Revolution” was really about -- creating the next generation of younger, grassroots, bottom-up progressive democrats that will take over the ho-hum Democratic Party establishment. Good for them and shame on Mariel Garza and the Times. 

And while Garza’s piece was written before the final tally, the actual final turnout numbers were 14% of eligible voters, not the 10% she reported. That represents some 43,000 voters, of which over 50% were vote by mail. While that is not a huge number, it isn’t terrible in a year where we have had election after election, with more to come, and a number of my friends have complained about voter burnout. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could rationalize our voting system? 

Also, the voting shift from going to the polls vs. mail-in-balloting is getting progressively larger, courtesy of the permanent vote-by-mail, called “permanent absentee voter” in Registrar-ese. I think that the 50% number is going to continue to grow, as people become less interested in taking their decreasing personal time to actually go to the polls on Election Day, and are more comfortable with social media and other not-in-the-flesh ways of communication. 

Democratic Clubs and the 34^th Congressional District 

In large part because of all the interesting and contentious elections in what used to be boring old Northeast LA, our Democratic clubs have been growing by leaps and bounds. At last week’s Northeast Dems endorsement debate, around 200 members packed the venue to hear Gil Cedillo and Joe Bray-Ali. And these were actual dues paying members, since you had to be a member to vote. Good for them. 

I won’t get into the NEDC’s CD1 endorsement debate, since it mirrored other recent debates between incumbent Gil Cedillo and challenger Joe Bray-Ali. I will only say that the vote was overwhelmingly in favor of Gil Cedillo. The one variable I’m not quite sure about is that in the “old” days you had to have been a member by the beginning of the year to vote. I heard that the new criteria had a much shorter time frame and might have been responsible for the dramatic increase in the club’s numbers for this endorsement vote. 

As for the EAPD (East Area Progressives), they have had almost a geometrical membership growth, and are probably at around 800 members as I write this column. 

Since the Northeast Dems endorsed Jimmy Gomez before the primary and the East LA Progressive Dems have not yet made an endorsement, it made the April 25 meeting important. 

I will again have to admit that I wasn’t familiar with Robert Lee Ahn until recently -- I don’t go to Planning Commission meetings because I believe that they either do what the Council tells them or the Council will overrule whatever action they take. Mr. Ahn is on that Commission and it would have been helpful to see him in action, notwithstanding the City Council’s 15-0 closed ranks “we don’t care what the Planning Commission thinks” attitude. 

So I’m glad I attended the EAPD meeting. From a very articulate and passionate pitch by Mr. Ahn’s surrogate, Peter Choi, I will admit that I am fascinated, and want to learn more, not to mention meet and greet Robert Lee Ahn. A native Angeleno, (LAC/USC Hospital) he came up in the Congressional District, and ultimately became a practicing public interest attorney after obtaining his law degree from USC. 

His resume is seriously impressive. In addition to being on the LA City Planning Commission, he reads like an honest-to-god-no-kidding Bernie progressive, kind of like Joseph Bray-Ali in CD1, but this time, a straight-up lifer grassroots democrat with a real progressive track record. And a public interest lawyer to boot. 

Jimmy Gomez we know. Currently in the Legislature, well-spoken, and beyond a doubt the front runner. He’s endorsed by everybody -- Xavier Becerra himself, the California Democratic Party, and SEIU, and so on. 

At the meeting Mr. Gomez spoke very knowledgeably about current California legislation, like the Disclose Act (AB 14), which he co-authored and would require the big bucks donors on ballot measures to cough up their names. He also talked about SB 54 (the “sanctuary state” bill), authored by his friend Kevin de Leon -- which recently passed out the Senate. 

The Takeaway 

Here’s the thing. As with Council District 1, Congressional District 34 is an up-front carve-out designed to be a safe Latino District within our wonderfully partisan federal redistricting process. I’m so used to City Hall slicing and dicing Koreatown into digestible pieces, that I missed the fact that all of Koreatown is in the 34^th Congressional District. And I’m sure that I am not alone in that unfortunate assumption. 

Still, it may not all be locked up for the front-runner Jimmy Gomez. After all, he wound up with only 25% of the total vote, about 2% more than Robert Lee Ahn. It’s all about turnout. If the real Bernie progressives show up in force, and there are enough of them on that list of 23 candidates, Robert Lee Ahn could win. As the primary proved, he has the ability to be raise enough funds and votes to be competitive in a runoff election. 

The trick is, Robert Lee Ahn needs to be able to reach out to everyone in the district to let them get to know him and see him in action, including me. Remember, this vote could have national implications in the toxic Washington battles to come. 

So I urge everyone to try and see both Ahn and Gomez before they cast a ballot. Hint, hint, the EAPD Endorsement Meeting will be on May 23, and it would be an excellent opportunity to see both candidates in action. You can find out more about them here.  

As readers of this column know, I love a real, competitive race for office. Witness Council District 1, the only runoff against an incumbent in LA City. Something is happening in Northeast LA, even as we gentrify. In this race the stakes are infinitely higher than for a local election, so we need to pay serious attention. This job could be for life, and we don’t need someone who will simply follow the Nancy Pelosi party line -- she and her pre-anointed candidate are what got Donald Trump elected President. 

And on a personal note, Xavier Becerra was absolutely loyal to Nancy Pelosi for his entire career in the U.S. Congress, and what he got for all that loyalty was to be passed over a lot. Even as Pelosi failed to take the hint that she’s why the Dems lost the House, and ran for re-election as House Minority Leader. 

Becerra’s a good guy (even if he has pre-endorsed in this runoff) and I’ve followed him his entire career. What the D.C. Dems did wasn’t right, and all their actions simply show that they won’t let the next generation step up and take their rightful place in Washington. You know, the ones that might actually be progressive. 

Follow this race closely, engage in the debate, and above all, VOTE if you are in the District!

(Tony Butka is an Eastside community activist, who has served on a neighborhood council, has a background in government and is a contributor to CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

BELL VIEW-It’s a strange day in Los Angeles. The slow drip of slime that has been falling on the head of the only independent candidate for City Council – a guy I once described as a "ray of hope" – has started to leave a real stain.  My friend, Don, who’s been pounding the pavement for change since his training wheel days, appealed to everyone for empathy. But I can feel his heart breaking. “Why can’t we have nice things?” another friend asked in response to the breaking story.

I don’t know all the facts, but the ones I know don’t look good for the candidate. Somewhere, a former campaign staffer with an iPhone full of now ironic uplifting moments from this Cinderella story is dusting off her elevator pitch in anticipation of next year’s Sundance Film Festival. 

Empathy. It’s hard to find in an era of racism, homophobia, sexism, ageism, fat-shaming, slut-shaming, rape-explaining, and pussy-grabbing. Everything today quickly divides into two camps. And, although I believe in objective truth, and that some things are either right or wrong, I also believe that most of the answers we seek fall somewhere between the two camps. Not some squishy middle where nothing means anything, not the phony objectivity conjured by the “both sides do it” media, but true communities built among diverse people. For that kind of community to exist, we need empathy and we need optimism.

Joe Bray-Ali is done. He only ever had a snowball’s chance, and Gil Cedillo just turned up the heat. That Bray-Ali lit the match himself only adds to the sense of constant defeat that hangs in the air like smog. 

Why can’t we have nice things? 

Well … we can. Exhibit A: The Silver Lake Reservoir. Like everything, the discussion around the future of the “lake” has broken down into competing ideologies.  As usual, no discussion can take place without name calling and unfounded comparisons. Home ownership is likened to Trumpism; urban planning to ethnic cleansing; development to gentrification. I tend to divide the world up between the rich and the rest of us. 

But a park is something we should all be able to agree on. Parks are what cities do best. And LA needs more parks. 

I have a calculation I do whenever a politician in LA suggests turning some space into a park. I analyze the increased traffic flow, the impact on scarce parking resources, the potential influx of homeless people, the expense of building and maintaining the park…. 

And then I say yes.

I never met a park I didn’t like. A real park. People point to the disaster that is the “Triangle Park” in Los Feliz – but that was never anything but a glorified traffic median. Open the Silver Lake Reservoir up to people, wildlife, trees, benches, and – yeah – bathrooms and watch it blossom. I empathize with the fears of long-term residents who worry that their neighborhood will be turned into the Santa Monica Pier. I don’t see racism behind the desire to protect the single greatest investment of your life. But real progress almost always involves a leap of faith. And I have faith in the people of Los Angeles. 

Let’s make Silver Lake Reservoir a park. And let’s not stop there.  

(David Bell is a writer, attorney, former president of the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council and writes for CityWatch.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

DEEGAN ON LA-Lost in the landscape of the homeless people we see across the city are youth experiencing homelessness, struggling to survive. 

They are out there, just like homeless adults, but they have a different sort of pedigree: many are “survivors” of the juvenile justice system or have been aged out of the foster care system. Parental neglect and abuse have also driven many young people into homelessness. 

Nearly 4,000 homeless youth are on the streets of Los Angeles, according to the most recent Los Angeles Homeless Service Authority (LAHSA) homeless count. 

They come into their new world of “independence” still dependent on others to help them with the basics that most non-homeless young people have already received from their families and their progression through school: food and shelter, socialization skills, job training and placement, as well as an education.

Many of these wanderers who are educated in the “school of life” find resources tailored just for them at My Friend’s Place in Hollywood. Here, dozens of youth experiencing homelessness drop in every day to access the core free offerings that include the social services triumvirate of Health and Wellbeing, Safe Haven, and Transformative Education programs. For these clients, that translates into case management, legal, medical and mental health referrals, meals and showers, creative arts workshops, educational assistance and help with employment. 

My Friend’s Place serves 1,400 individuals a year and is a member agency of Hollywood Homeless Youth Partnership that calls itself “a collection of preeminent experts on the issues of youth homelessness in Los Angeles, the current homeless capital of America.” As service providers, the Partnership agencies “work to achieve best practices in service delivery with the goal of strengthening interventions to help homeless youth exit the streets, overcoming the traumatic experiences at the core of their homelessness.” 

How does this work? According to Heather Carmichael, Executive Director of My Friend’s Place, (photo, left) “Working with the leading social services providers and educational institutions in the region as well as over 400 volunteers, My Friend’s Place offers a free and comprehensive continuum of care that combines emergency necessities with therapeutic, health, employment and education assistance, and creative arts services through three programmatic areas.” 

The professionally staffed drop-in Resource Center has in its mission statement the goal of “lowering the traditional barriers to service and providing homeless youth with the opportunity to improve their psychological, intellectual and physical capacity to reach their potential.” 

Carmichael has been doing this type of work for over 23 years as a Licensed Clinical Social worker helping at-risk and high-risk youth, and working at My Friend’s Place for 17 years where she has helped grow the organization to be one of the largest comprehensive service centers in Los Angeles for youth experiencing homelessness. 

The composition of this mostly invisible homeless youth population can be eye-opening: My Friend’s Place serves homeless youth ages 12 to 25 and their children. That’s right -- their children -- a mostly under-acknowledged population that is homeless, just like the more familiar populations that are segmented into homeless male adults, homeless women with children, and homeless veterans. 

Any entry barrier that could be created by the cost of services is kept deliberately low for the young people who flock to the safe haven of My Friend’s Place in Hollywood. Carmichael, her staff and dozens of volunteers all work to “create positive attachment” with them, as she describes their process. 

Along with traditional social services, My Friend’s Place has become a beacon for youth with a level of distress above the norm, as described in a recent snapshot by Children's Hospital Los Angeles. In side-by-side categories, these homeless young people were shown to be more vulnerable than homeless youth accessing services at other agencies. The needs assessment conducted by CHLA, with support from the California Endowment, was overlaid with data from My Friend’s Place, revealing that the homeless youth who access services at My Friend’s Place exhibit significantly higher rates of substance abuse, past trauma, and mental health challenges. 

Carmichael explains, “As for the level of distress of the youth receiving support here at MFP, many of the youth we serve have not been able to thrive in other structured environments and have lost housing, been banned from other community resources leaving them with fewer options and leading them to more intense survival behaviors, greater exposure to victimization and the further delaying of healing of childhood abuse and neglect. We operate as a kind of ‘urgent care’ center for youth who are super distrusting of adults and social services. We meet youth ‘where they are at’ in the ultimate intention to engage them on a path toward wellness and stability.” 

A good example of someone helped by their program is 23 year old "Alicia" (she asked that a pseudonym be used to protect her privacy) who offers that "being homeless, you quickly become used to people not caring. But there was never a day I felt like I couldn’t come to My Friend’s Place and find support. Eventually, with the help of My Friend’s Place and other organizations, I got into shelter, I got a job and I began to really work on myself." 

Being a homeless youth in Hollywood does not mean being without friends or a place to get help, as My Friend’s Place now demonstrates five days a week, operating for the past 29 years since 1988 when a small staff started it all by packing 50 sack lunches and heading out for their first Friday night meal drive. They were greeted by over 100 young people in need of food. It was the first of thousands of “moments” in Hollywood that have made My Friend’s Place “home” to homeless youth, and such a significant contributor to the community.

(Tim Deegan is a long-time resident and community leader in the Miracle Mile, who has served as board chair at the Mid City West Community Council and on the board of the Miracle Mile Civic Coalition. Tim can be reached at [email protected].) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

EDUCATION POLITICS-The pro-privatization LA School Report (LASR) spun a school board committee meeting report last month to say that just about everybody in LAUSD wants charter schools to be included in a universal enrollment system. This was alarming since universal enrollment is an urgent priority of the charter lobby. 

“Common enrollment is a big Walton idea to put charters on the same footing as public schools,” education historian and national treasure Diane Ravitch told me in an email.

Whether they call it universal enrollment, common enrollment, unified enrollment, or OneApp, charters want to piggyback on the establishment. Always insisting that they are “public schools,” they want to be viewed that way by every parent, “regardless of zip code.” Similar enrollment systems in New Orleans and Denver were funded by the pro-charter Walton Family Foundation. 

Yet the headline to the meeting recap cheered, “All sides push for earlier inclusion of charters as LAUSD readies its Universal Enrollment site.” 

This caused a bit of a stir because the article said that even the privatizers’ nemesis, UTLA, was on board. 

“One of the committee members, Robin Potash, a teacher representing UTLA, said it was important for the district to include charter schools in the list of options and to do it faster than their present timeline….“We all know there are many new charters opening in the district and they should be included as soon as possible,” Potash said. “These are all our students and they should be listed as options.” 

Given that universal enrollment is such a boon for charters, could it be true that there is consensus among the California charter lobby, the UTLA representative and all three LAUSD board members on that committee? 

I called UTLA’s Robin Potash to find out if LASR quoted her accurately. 

She explained that her comments at the meeting came after a rosy presentation by the LAUSD School Choice department. (You can watch here.) 

One LAUSD staffer said it was like a shopping cart. “What this will allow parents to do now is a one stop shop.” 

We’re “hoping to increase the equity and access,” said another. 

That resonated with Potash. She said her school, located in South Central LA, has four co-located charters impacting it. She was hopeful that the inclusion of charters in LAUSD’s enrollment application would also bring some much needed oversight of them. 

Potash was looking for solutions to a problem that is so common that the ACLU issued a report last year admonishing the one in five California charter schools that were found using discriminatory enrollment practices, according to the report. The NAACP found discriminatory enrollment by charters to be such a significant problem that it called for a national moratorium on charter expansion until that and other issues were corrected. 

Maybe including charters in LAUSD’s enrollment process would be a way of making them more accountable for using the standard enrollment methods employed by district schools. At least that’s what Potash hoped. 

She’s not alone. 

Last year, California’s State Senate Education Committee held a hearing about charter oversight. The committee was asked to push school districts for common enrollment for the same reasons Potash thought it might help. 

In testimony to the committee, Silke Bradford, the Director of Quality Diverse Providers for Oakland Unified School District, suggested that a common enrollment system like New Orleans uses, would go a long way toward providing the oversight and accountability that charters need. You can watch her testimony here.  

She said for charter schools to be “pure public schools,” a term she coined to distinguish charter schools that are using public funds transparently from those that are not, they have to do better about including all students. Specifically, she asserted that the increased oversight of a common enrollment system would prevent exclusionary enrollment because all parents would get applications rather than just the parents handpicked by a particular charter or those savvy enough to navigate a complex system. She said charters would no longer counsel out students who proved challenging or expensive to educate. She also thought it would give foster students a better shot at enrolling. Left on their own, charters set application deadlines before foster youth are placed in homes. 

To be clear, Bradford is a charter oversight authority -- a former Green Dot Charter School administrator -- who was asking the State Legislature to push districts to enact common enrollment in order to help hold charters accountable for their failure to provide equitable access.

It should not be surprising, then, that someone would sit through a presentation about the wonders of universal enrollment and conclude that it could help provide some oversight that charters are currently lacking. 

Plus, LAUSD’s School Choice department was so convincing. You can watch their presentation here.

So it seems the policy makers are all in. What does the research say? 

Let’s visit the petri dish -- or swamp -- of charter takeover, New Orleans. Researcher and author, Mercedes Schneider previously examined the New Orleans’ unified enrollment experiment, “OneApp”, in July 2013. That post might have been the most in-depth review of the topic at the time. She said the selective enrollment has continued under OneApp. 

In fact, four years later, we now know that inequity is worse in New Orleans than it was before implementation of the common enrollment system, according to a Stanford University study.  

Education researchers Frank Adamson, Channa Cook-Harvey, and Linda Darling-Hammond have issued a report called, “Whose Choice? Student Experiences and Outcomes in the New Orleans School Marketplace.” 

In an email, Dr. Adamson told me, “The common enrollment approach is a major cornerstone of how schools end up selecting students (instead of the other way around). This usually occurs through a variety of loopholes (some schools maintaining neighborhood, sibling, or other preferential treatment), lack of equal access in the stratification by race and class in terms of access to higher performing schools.” 

You can read the full report here.   

Even a Walton funded report conceded problems. It quoted a parent as saying, “They make us believe that we actually have a choice and we’re involved in the process of picking our children’s school, but ultimately, if the computer didn’t pick your [lottery number], it doesn’t matter.” 

Last year, when Oakland Unified School District was considering common enrollment, Dr. Adamson was joined in a panel discussion by Julian Vasquez Heilig, the head of Cal-State Sacramento’s education leadership PhD program. He also chairs the education committee of the NAACP of California and is a board member of the pro-public school Network for Public Education co-founded by Diane Ravitch. His blog is called Cloaking Inequity. 

Dr. Vasquez Heilig said, “We know a lot about what happens with common enrollment from New Orleans.”  

He explained that the higher performing schools fill up and many kids get stuck in lower performing schools. The more elite or higher performing schools create additional hoops that some parents don’t have access to, such as attending seminars or filing extra applications.

“OneApp is disingenuous because there are alternative pathways,” into the higher performing schools, he said. 

He summed up the lessons learned in New Orleans this way: “They’re last or nearly last in every single education indicator.” 

The research on New Orleans provides extensive evidence about the consequences of unified enrollment. LAUSD officials should do their homework before implementing such a system in the second largest school district in the country.

Concerned about LAUSD's Universal Enrollment? E-mail, call or write your school board member:

  213-241-6387[email protected]
  213-241-6385[email protected]
  213-241-6388[email protected]
  213-241-6382[email protected]
  213-241-5555[email protected]
  213-241-6180[email protected]
  213-241-8333[email protected]

And the Superintendent:
[email protected] 
213-241-7000

(Karen Wolfe is a public school parent, the Executive Director of PS Connect and an occasional contributor to CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

CITYWATCH RESISTANCE WATCH--My day began bright and early yesterday at 5:00 a.m. I and two friends loaded up the car with our DJ equipment and headed off to the March for Science at Pershing Square. As official DJs for the march, we had permission to set up our gear at the corner of 6^th and Hill. After setting up and securing our official t-shirts, I headed off to the press booth to pick up my press badge. 

The day was a scorcher but the mood was buoyant as some 50,000 people gathered to send a message to public servants from local and state officials to the Trump administration: BELIEVE IT OR NOT, SCIENCE IS REAL. 

I was doing double duty at the event which marked the 47th anniversary of Earth Day. I spoke to dozens of people of all ages and nationalities about why they came down to Pershing Square. Here is some of what they said: 

Earth Day 2017 at the March for Science LA    

The event was a great way to get first hand information from all manner of scientists, researchers, activists, educators and enthusiasts. The speakers list was filled with brainiacs like organizers Jennifer and Philip Wheeler, CSUN astrophysicist Farisa Morales, seismologist Lucy Jones, US congressman Brad Sherman, high school student Joanne Boadi, Children’s Hospital LA pediatrician Diane Tanaka, NextGen Climate founder Tom Steyer, Hidden Figures screenwriter Allison Schroeder, and CSUN plant biologist Maria Elena Zavala. 

The Square was lined with booths from scientific and environmental organizations such as NASA, Cal Tech and the Sierra Club with scientists and activists holding impromptu educational sessions right then and there. 

As for my time over at the DJ booth, we had people getting into the groove to the sound of cumbia, salsa, tribal, jazz and African beats with a dash of classic oldies from the 60s through 90s and a pinch of today’s top hits. We’ve also added a new addition to our collective – DJ Rockin’ Riot. His infectious brand of Record Hop with Wild Boppers, Hot Jivers & Cool Strollers had dreaming of lindy hop magic as they waited in line for the various offerings from the food trucks lining Hill Street near our booth. 

It was a beautiful day on Earth Day 2017 and I am filled with hope at the fact that 45 is making resisters out of people who never thought they would be protestors. #KeepResisting !!

(Jennifer Caldwell is a an actress and an active member of SAG-AFTRA, serving on several committees. She is a published author of short stories and news articles and is a featured contributor to CityWatch. Her column at www.RecessionCafe.wordpress.com is dishing up good deals, recipes and food for thought. Jennifer can be reached at [email protected].  Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jennifercald - Twitter: @checkingthegate ... And her website: Jenniferhcaldwell.com) 

-cw