PLATKIN ON PLANNING--While we plebeians dawdle away our lives cooking, cleaning, studying, working, raising families, and helping friends and relatives in need, we can (kind-of) sleep comfortably knowing our local elected officials are hard at work combatting climate change … through press conferences.  Luckily for them, they have Donald Trump as their climate foil, blasting away at him with their sound bites for pulling the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord. 

DEEGAN ON LA—-Arnold Schwarzenegger had Columbia Pictures promote one of his movies by painting the title logo on the main fuselage of an unmanned rocket that was then launched into outer space by NASA. Anything  to get attention: although in the case of his 1993 movie "Last Action Hero” even that stratospheric publicity stunt could not help. 

MY TURN-Immigrant bashing has become the new national sport in some areas of our country, even though some bastions of white conservatism have been revitalized by an influx of immigrants. These groups have given new life to towns once on the verge of extinction. Diversity in all areas of Los Angeles is more evident than ever. We have traveled a long way since Proposition 187. (Photo above: Corinne Ho) 

LABOR WATCH-- I just got out of a special meeting called by SAG-AFTRA union leadership to share a TV/ Theatrical negotiations update with the membership. When I saw the letter on the website to all of us from Executive Director and Chief Negotiator David White and Gabrielle Carteris, SAG-AFTRA President and Chair of the Negotiating Committee, I was surprised to see that it did not say that a reasonable agreement had been reached and we would be called upon to ratify. (Photo above: Jennifer Caldwell.) 

EASTSIDER-Only in Northeast LA. First there was the Special Election to replace Xavier Becerra’s seat in Congress, won by Jimmy Gomez. Now there will be another Special Election to replace Jimmy Gomez’ seat in the 51^st Assembly District. What’s an “only in California” moment is that Gomez has not yet resigned his Assembly seat. So, no election for the moment, and we still don’t have a timetable for the Special Election itself. 

SKID ROW- Last week, an article in the LA Weekly titled “Who Killed the Skid Row Neighborhood Council?” shed even more light on the still-unfolding plot to prevent a Skid Row NC from becoming a reality. The plot, involving numerous “players” in Downtown politics, was first discovered when a cheating scandal by the opposition was uncovered and after months of “digging for gold”, now new revealing words found in the LA Weekly article confirm the shenanigans included City Hall, which allowed online voting less that two weeks before the April 6^th subdivision election in which Skid Row attempted to break away from the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council to form it’s own neighborhood council. (Photo above: Los Angeles Councilman Jose Huizar.)