LGBTQ PERSPECTIVE--California has long been progressive when it comes to LGBTQ rights, proposing bills for same-sex couples to retain rights and marry long before other states did. Despite a several-year period when Proposition 8 was in effect--banning marriage between same-sex couples from 2008 until 2013--California has taken measures to ensure that the LGBTQ community can live, work, and love safely.  

One of the ways the state has attempted to make positive changes for the LGBTQ community is with a Respect After Death Act, which ensures that the death certificates of transgender people will reflect the gender they chose to live with. Because gender identity is a huge part of a trans individual’s life, the law is a big win for the equality movement, ensuring that the deceased’s legacy will remain untouched. 

The bill, which was co-sponsored by the Transgender Law Center, is meant to help protect the dignity of the deceased. 

Executive director Masen Davis says that it “brings us a significant step closer to making sure that all transgender people are able to live – and die – authentically in accordance with who they really are.” 

Recently, the University of California took steps to make sure their bathrooms were more gender-neutral and to change their official records to include a name change. The campus also has gender-inclusive athletic facilities and has been rated among the top schools in the country for LGBTQ students, in part because the school’s student insurance plan offers coverage for hormones and surgeries for those in transition. 

In another groundbreaking law, California introduced training for all healthcare professionals on how to best care for LGBTQ patients, including “understanding and applying cultural and ethnic data to the process of clinical care, including, as appropriate, information pertinent to the appropriate treatment of, and provision of care to, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex communities.” 

California has also become the first state to protect people from being charged with being a sex worker solely on the basis that they are carrying condoms. Because of the large number of transgender women who have turned to sex work over the years due to discrimination and destitution, women are being profiled by law enforcement and arrested for carrying protection. This law requires the court to state without a doubt that the condoms are relevant to a particular case in order to be used as evidence. 

With California taking steps to ensure the legal protection of LGTBQ individuals, it has become something of a safe haven for the community as a whole, especially with laws put into place banning the legal defense of “gay panic,” meaning a person who murders a gay or transgender individual can’t use the defense that they became violent after discovering they were LGBTQ. 

Since the state has put measures in place designed to protect members of the gay and transgender community, it has garnered praise from rights groups over the years, as well as from those who have made the move to call California home.   

(Caroline Hampton is a teacher and concerned parent. She created OpenEducators.org to make it easier for teachers (and parents) to find reliable, engaging educational resources for the children in their care. In addition to working on the site, Caroline enjoys spending her time organizing events at her church, cycling, and of course, hanging out with her husband and two kids.)

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PERSPECTIVE-The Rio Olympics is history. The green water of the diving and water polo pools has been emptied into Guanabara Bay. The Brazilian Army’s deployment helped keep a lid on crime, but it could not prevent Ryan Lochte from creating an international incident. 

In all fairness, Rio did pull off a mostly controversy-free Games, but there are lessons for Los Angeles. If we win the bid for 2024, our dirty laundry will be aired to the world. 

No matter how hard a host city tries, it will be under the microscope. 

Let me say, I believe LA can stage a financially successful Olympics. As skeptical as I can be about our city’s finances, remember: the mayor and city council will not be pulling the strings. Look for a Mitt Romney or Peter Ueberroth to run the show. Mitt should be available. 

First, we have to secure the bid. 

So, talk of who should light the cauldron at the Coliseum is way too premature. 

But according to TMZ, Mayor Garcetti has expressed a preference for Caitlyn Jenner to do the honors.  

While Jenner has garnered both Olympic and social preeminence, the highly publicized transgender personality wins, at best, a fourth-place medal as a candidate for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

While I hesitate to speculate who would best represent the nation and the region, since the mayor has prematurely opened the door, I’ll weigh in. 

The gold medal winner in the race to light the flame belongs to someone who represents the best in America and a symbol of our Southern California lifestyle. Who better for that role than Kerry Walsh-Jennings? 

When you think of LA, the beach…and beach volleyball…emerge as one of several symbols of our culture. 

Walsh-Jennings is a model of sportsmanship, competitiveness and triumph. In a span that transcended five Olympiads (including one as a member of the indoor team at the Sydney 2000 Games), she won three golds and a bronze. She also had a sensational career as a player at Stanford. She earned her degree there, as well. Not too shabby. 

Jenner, whose achievements are noteworthy and has shown personal courage, unfortunately brings to mind the Kardashian clan. I do not believe we want Kim, Kanye and company leveraging off the publicity – as if they need any. 

Regardless, this is about selecting a role model all can admire -- one who sets a standard for achievement with humility and grace. 

Let the mayor know Walsh-Jennings can best represent us before the world.

(Paul Hatfield is a CPA and serves as President of the Valley Village Homeowners Association. He blogs at Village to Village and contributes to CityWatch. The views presented are those of Mr. Hatfield and his alone and do not represent the opinions of Valley Village Homeowners Association or CityWatch. He can be reached at: [email protected].) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

OLIVER TARGETED BY PRIVATIZERS--What do an education historian and a late-night comedian have in common?

Shared opposition to the fraud and abuse associated with charter schools and other privatization efforts, of course.

Longtime educator and activist Diane Ravitch encouraged her readers to start a campaign of thanks to comedian John Oliver, who devoted a segment of his HBO show Last Week Tonight on Sunday to charter schools and fraud—and is now being targeted by privatizers and other corporate propagandists on Twitter. (There are approximately 274 charter schools currently in the Los Angeles School District.)

Charter supporters are "saying that he 'hurt' children, he savaged children," she wrote, noting that this is "a familiar tactic" of intimidation that she faced after writing about dubious test-scoring methods in New York City school a decade ago.

Ravitch called on her readers to combat the hate by tweeting and emailing Oliver messages of support. "Don't let the charter industry intimidate him," she wrote.

Watch Oliver's segment below:

"Fraud is a feature of deregulation, not a bug," Ravitch added.

"When no one is looking, some people steal. Not everyone steals, but many do. That is why Ohio, Florida, Michigan, and California are scamming taxpayers. No one is demanding accountability. Politicians get paid off by charter friends, then cripple any effort to oversee them Ohio and Michigan spend $1 billion a year to subsidize charter schools, which are lower-performing than public schools."

(Video) John Oliver takes on the Charters  

Education activist and associate fellow at Campaign for America's Future Jeff Bryant noted in an op-ed on Thursday that Oliver's critics miss the point of his segment by calling his arguments outdated, uninformed, and unfair. 

"None of Oliver's critics seriously refuted the crux of his argument that there might be something fundamentally wrong by design, rather than by implementation or intent, with the idea that  a 'free market' of privately operated and essentially unregulated schools is a surefire way to improve education opportunities for all students," Bryant wrote.

(Nadia Prupis writes for Common Dreams … where this piece was first posted. John Oliver on Charter Schools Video.) 

-cw

BILLBOARD WATCH-Will this digital billboard re-appear? In this location, or elsewhere? The photo is from 2010. But new digital billboards are going to start popping up along LA’s streets and freeways, probably sooner than later. The only questions are exactly where these brightly-lighted signs with rapidly-changing ads will appear, and how many will ultimately brighten the landscape with their shiny sales pitches to motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians on those congested thoroughfares. 

That’s a prediction, not a fact. But it’s based on close observation of the saga that began when the city banned those billboards fourteen years ago, a convoluted epic involving lawsuits and threats of lawsuits, multiple rewritings of the city sign ordinance, numerous public meetings, and a lobbying and public relations campaign by Clear Channel and other big billboard companies that resembled, in its expense and relentlessness, a military exercise designed to batter down City Hall walls and turn politicians into willing and even enthusiastic allies. 

The latest chapter opens tomorrow, when the City Council’s PLUM committee takes up a proposal to allow 150 new digital billboards in exchange for taking down existing static billboards, providing community benefits, and sharing part of the considerable revenue generated by the signs. That’s it in a nutshell, although a lot of details would remain to be worked out, mostly to do with questions of quantity -- how many billboards taken down, how many streetscape improvements or pieces of public art or other community benefits, how much revenue. 

Certain numbers are floated in an 11-page joint report from the city’s planning department, the chief legislative analyst, the chief administrative officer, and the department of building and safety. One is a sign reduction of 8 to 1, based on square footage. In other words, if a full-size digital billboard were to be erected, Clear Channel or other company owning the sign would have to take down eight of equivalent size. And half of those billboards would have to be taken down within a five-mile radius of the new digital sign. 

But how can this happen without lifting the aforementioned 2002 ban on new billboards (defined by code as off-site signs) and any modifications to existing ones -- which, presumably, would open the floodgates to new billboards and other forms of outdoor advertising all over the city. 

The mechanism proposed by city officials and touted by Clear Channel ever since the court ordered their digital billboards turned off in 2013, is the relocation agreement. Put simply, California law allows cities to enter into an agreement with a billboard owner to remove a billboard and put up a new one of equivalent size elsewhere. This law was intended to relieve cities and other jurisdictions from paying compensation for billboards needing to be removed for street widenings and other public works projects, and it would -- presuming again -- allow LA’s off-site sign ban to remain intact. 

After the city settled a lawsuit back in 2006 by allowing Clear Channel and CBS Outdoor (now Outfront Media) to convert 840 of their billboards to digital, the companies got 101 of the new billboards operating before public outcry lifted to such a pitch that the City Council slapped on a moratorium and then a permanent ban on the signs. A lawsuit by a smaller billboard company then resulted in a court ruling that the city’s lawsuit settlement was illegal and that the digital billboards had to be shut off. 

Those digital billboards had been put up without any public notice or restrictions on location and proximity to residences. City planners and other officials obviously learned something from the debacle, because the proposal to be considered by the PLUM committee includes a number of restrictions apparently designed to lessen the impact of digital signs. 

Among the most noteworthy are prohibitions of the signs in areas zoned neighborhood or limited commercial, which typically have small shops and neighborhood businesses; in public parks, historic preservation zones, and along designated scenic highways; and areas within 500 ft. of single family zones. 

Still, this is a major departure from action of the City Planning Commission, first back in 2009 and again in 2015, which restricted any new off-site signs, including digital billboards, to 22 high-intensity commercial areas including downtown, Universal City, Warner Center, Mid-Wilshire, and others. That restriction, however, has been strenuously opposed by Clear Channel and other members of the billboard industry, and it became clear earlier this year that despite the support of numerous individuals, neighborhood councils, and community groups, the five-member PLUM committee was going to turn a collective thumbs down. 

Another unknown is whether new “relocated” digital billboards will be allowed on both private and public property, as vigorously promoted by the major billboard companies, or only on public property, as put forward in a proposal last year by City Councilman Paul Krekorian. Those companies -- Clear Channel, Outfront Media, and Lamar Advertising -- have vigorously enlisted the support of business groups, labor unions, and non-profit organizations in their push to allow the billboards on both private and public property, so the smart money is probably on that arrangement. 

Still, many questions remain. For instance, will a small billboard company like Regency Outdoor or Summit Media be interested in removing eight of its existing billboards just to get one digital sign? What about Lamar Advertising’s inventory, which consists predominately of small signs in less affluent neighborhoods? Would it want to put up all its new digital billboards in communities miles away where eyeballs are more coveted by advertisers? And what about Clear Channel’s and Outfront’s digital billboards that have been sitting dark for three years? Many of these signs generated complaints about light flashing in windows, possible distractions to drivers, and so forth. Do the companies want to turn a bunch of those back on? 

And perhaps most importantly, what is the legal significance of these proposals? The highly litigious billboard industry, as well as other outdoor advertising companies, have sued the city repeatedly in the past, all attacking in one way or another that nefarious 2002 ban on new off-site signs. The sign district restriction adopted by the City Planning Commission was originally touted as a way to allow off-site signs without opening up the ban to legal attack. 

Any digital billboard scheme the PLUM committee stamps with its imprimatur will have to be put in ordinance form by the City Attorney’s office, which-- presuming yet again -- means that some light will be shed on possible legal pitfalls. 

We’ll see.

(Dennis Hathaway is the president of the Ban Billboard Blight Coalition and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected].) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

EASTSIDER-I’m looking at an old CityWatch Special Report from September 2006, which was published ahead of the November 2006 general election. What’s fascinating to me is the subject matter of the two major events it covered -- Proposition R and a one billion dollar affordable housing bond called Measure H. These two events are still timely today as we look forward to this November’s general election. 

Measure R and Legal Lying 

The most politically divisive and deliberately misleading of the two was Measure R, captioned as “Council member Term Limits of Three Terms, City Lobbying, Campaign Finance and Ethics Laws, Charter Amendment and Ordinance Proposition R.” 

Here’s how misleading the measure really was: (1) it made it seem like LA City Councilmembers would have stricter term limits of only three terms, when the truth is, that measure expanded the term limits from two to three terms; and (2) it made it seem as if there was a real substantive crackdown on lobbyists, when in fact, the opposite was true: existing rules were turned on their head. 

And who were the movers and shakers behind this smarmy sleight of hand? None other than then Council President Eric Garcetti, along with god’s gift to the Eastside, Jose Huizar. Rounding out the pack was our current Council President, Herb Wesson. Yes, sir, all in for the gravy train. 

On the other side of this deal was a little band of mostly Neighborhood Council types and City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo -- who publically stated that the measure, as dastardly as I have described it, was passed over his opposition. In the interests of full disclosure, I should report that your humble blogger was among that little band of folks filing the NO Argument on this one. 

It got really ugly. We wound up in Superior Court over the hopelessly skewed language of the Ballot description -- and we won. Of course, the Superior Court judge was quickly reversed by those bastions of the establishment in the Appeals Court. The result was that the public was denied the truth when they voted in November. 

On the Ethics side, the measure was equally toxic. Bill Boyarsky, a really good guy who was on the City Ethics Commission at the time, was quoted in an LA Times article, saying Measure R was “outrageous,” and noted that the LA City Council “showed absolute contempt for the Ethics Commission.” Of course, unbeknownst to most normal people who do not follow the slime trail of LA City politics, guess who was the President of the LA City Ethics Commission at the time? None other than Gil Garcetti -- yes, that Gil Garcetti -- former District Attorney of Los Angeles County and father of Council President Eric Garcetti. 

I mean, this thing stunk worse than the plot of a bad soap opera. Naturally, backed by the big bucks of lobbyists and political insiders, you won’t be shocked to hear that the measure passed before the voters figured out they’d been hoodwinked. 

For those interested in the event, check out the history on Smartvoter.org.  

And You Thought Affordable Housing Bonds Were New? 

As long as the Council was sliding through job extensions for themselves, it evidently seemed like a good idea to back door a new tax increase by asking for $1 billion in bonds for a really good cause -- Measure H, “Affordable Housing.” Of course it wasn’t simply called that. Nope, in and of itself, something with such a clear title might get defeated at the ballot box. The text of the final ballot language is below, and the smartvoter.org history file is here. 

“To provide safe, clean, affordable housing for the homeless and those in danger of becoming homeless, such as battered women and their children, veterans, seniors and the disabled; assist first time homebuyers; provide low income working families safe and affordable rental housing; shall the City of Los Angeles issue $1,000,000,000 of bonds, with independent citizen oversight, mandatory annual financial audits, and prosecution for criminal misuse of funds?” 

My goodness. This measure was the written equivalent of all those TV ads showing starving children and abused animals. I mean, how could anyone with a heart not vote for it? And, by the way, people did vote for this one. Measure H was only defeated because of the 2/3 requirement for tax increases. The final vote tally was 62.86% in favor and 31.14% against. 

Two points here. First, prominent among the shining proponents of Measure H were Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Council President Eric Garcetti, and then Councilmember (and Chair of the City Housing, Community and Economic Development Committee) Herb Wesson. Gee, do these names sound familiar? 

The second point is a lesson in why voters really need to read the full text of anything on a ballot before voting for or against it. In the case of Measure H, buried in the lengthy text of the measure was a Fiscal Impact analysis by then LA City CAO Bill Fujioka: 

“The debt service will be paid from additional property tax revenues based upon the assessed value of all taxable property within the City.” 

Of course most people don’t even bother to vote, much less look at what they are voting for. But for a few tenths of a percentage point, we would have had another tax. 

Back to my ongoing concern about City Hall and Neighborhood Councils. Why this Measure frosted me is that it demonstrated what Council President Garcetti (and the entire City Council) really thought about Neighborhood Councils. As CityWatch put it: 

“The main reason Neighborhood Councils are upset about the proposed billion dollar affordable housing bond issue is that while numerous powerful interests were invited to draft and vet the proposal, the only group the City Charter mandates the city consult with - Neighborhood Councils - was completely ignored.” 

The only difference between 2006 and 2016 is that in 2006, then Council President Garcetti was sufficiently worried (probably about passing the bond) that he actually agreed to leave his ivory tower and go to LANCC’s first ever General Assembly to discuss the matter. I wonder if he or Herb would do the same today. 

The Takeaway - Career Politicians Don’t Change 

Flash forward from 2006 to 2016, one whole decade. Many of the faces in LA City are the same: Eric Garcetti, Herb Wesson, Jose Huizar, and the always running for something, Antonio Villaraigosa. And behind them are the developers, the “fixers,” the lobbyist law firms and fronts for money. 

One example would be the Kaufman Legal Group, a professional corporation dedicated to “political law.” There are lots of others; I only mention them because guess who worked Measure R in 2006? 

Yup, and their client list reads like a Who’s Who of the democratic party establishment -- Kevin De Leon, Eric Garcetti, Janice Hahn, Jackie Lacey, Alex Padilla, John Perez, and Herb Wesson, just to name a few. And since they specialize in Governmental Ethics, I would note that Gary Winuk, former Chief of the California FPPC’s Enforcement Division from 2009 to 2015, has recently joined their Sacramento office. I guess you should buy the very best when lookin’ for loopholes in ethics laws. 

Seems to me that not too much has really changed in the last decade of LA City politics, other than the fact that after Measure R, City Council members have been able to inflict themselves on us for twelve years instead of eight. Ain’t life grand? 

Oh, I guess there is one change -- City Hall politicians now routinely blow off the Neighborhood Councils with impunity. They have the City Attorney, BONC and DONE to front for them and control us.

(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. 

POT POLITICS--Although legalization of recreation marijuana did not pass in California in 2010, Robin Abcarian, with the LA Times  writes that marijuana is barely labeled as a “gateway drug” anymore, and you hardly find anyone saying it’s evil. Hence she believes that recreational use of marijuana will be legalized when it goes up for ballot in November. 

Nearly two-thirds of California voters support legalization of marijuana for recreational use, according to a poll released on Wednesday by the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley. From June 29 to July 18, 2016, 3,020 people were surveyed in this poll. 

One of the arguments against legalization is that patients in California can be prescribed to treat practically any ailment. Therefore, according to such opposition, legalization for recreational use isn’t required. 

Further, in 2011, California made possession of up to one ounce of marijuana a minor offense that is only as bad as a parking ticket. 

However, the Drug Policy Alliance released a report finding that almost half a million people were arrested in connection with marijuana related charges in the last 10 years. Almost 9,000 people were arrested on marijuana-related felonies in 2015 alone.  

“Black, Latino, and white people use and sell marijuana at similar rates, yet black and Latino people are more likely to be arrested for a marijuana law violation,” according to the report’s press release. 

“Black people were more than twice as likely as white people to be arrested for marijuana misdemeanors and nearly five times more likely than white people to be arrested for marijuana felonies. Latinos are 35 percent more likely than white people to be arrested for a marijuana offense: 45 percent more likely for a misdemeanor and 26 percent more likely for a felony.” 

In addition, arrests of people under 18 for marijuana misdemeanors almost tripled in 2015 when compared to the time period before 2011 - when the charge for personal use possession was dropped to a misdemeanor. 

Thousands of people are still being arrested for misdemeanor possession charges, giving away marijuana to other people, or possessing more than an ounce of marijuana. 

Upon passing marijuana legalization, possession of marijuana concentrates, giving away minor quantities of marijuana would all be legal. People will also be able to grow up to six marijuana plants in their homes (which is now a felony). And plants can be sold and taxed like in Colorado. 

In February, the Denver Post reported that in 2015 legal sales of marijuana in Colorado hit $996,184,788. 

“Colorado also collected more than $135 million in marijuana taxes and fees in 2015 — more than $35 million of which is earmarked for school construction projects,” The Denver Post reports.  

With a population that is almost eight times larger than Colorado, California’s Department of Finance director Michael Cohen and legislative analyst Mac Taylor reported that California can potentially collect over $1 billion in tax revenue yearly if marijuana legalization passes. 

It is argued that legalization will reduce the amount of arrests for marijuana-related charges. That means less people will miss work, lose a job, have an arrest on their record, or restrict their chances of leading a productive life due to a victimless act that shouldn’t be considered a crime. 

An initiative to legalize recreational marijuana will appear on the November ballot.

(Neal Rodriguez is a technologist and journalist who has worked for the Neilson Company, AOL and the US Department of Defense. This perspective was posted most recently at Huff Post.) 

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