MALL CULTURE REVISITED-When regional shopping centers first appeared in the mid 1950s, they were considered by most Americans to be the wave of the future. As a radical new type of commercial land use, the shiny new malls with their up-to-date modernist architecture, free parking and good access roads were a refreshing contrast to the increasingly tired looking and deteriorating downtowns and main street business districts, which had little or no new construction during the Great Depression, World War II and the initial postwar years. The malls were immediately popular with consumers. They provided the convenience of having retail stores placed together in one location along an automobile free, internal mall “anchored” by at least two major department stores at either ends of the mall. And there was plenty of free parking. 

However, as the decades went by it became increasingly evident that there were undesirable side effects accompanying the widespread development of regional malls:

CBD Deterioration 

Most evident was the stagnation and deterioration of downtowns and main street business districts as customers and then retailers abandoned them for the new regional malls. When developers proposed the malls, most elected officials and planning officials saw them as progress, as forces for economic growth and additions to the local tax base. It occurred to very few officials that, because retail demand is fixed and based on demographics such as population, income levels and the purchasing patterns of different ethnic and racial groups, consumer demand that would be met by the regional malls would come from reduced retail sales in the existing downtowns and main street business districts. So increases in property tax and sales tax revenues from the new malls were at least partly offset by reductions in or a stagnation of property tax and sales tax revenues from the downtowns and the main street business districts. The only way to avoid business district stagnation and deterioration would be for the mall to be located in a city with a growing population and/or with increasing per capita incomes.   

As the downtowns and main streets deteriorated, local governments enacted programs to revitalize them. This resulted in the expenditure of tax dollars to subsidize redevelopment projects, dollars that could have been spent on other basic government services, such as maintaining streets, water mains, sewers and other infrastructure and providing more parks and open space. The only exception to this pattern of business district deterioration are the business districts in elite, upscale communities that have the purchasing power to both support their local business districts and patronize nearby regional malls.

The sharp contrast of shiny new malls and deteriorating business districts could have been avoided with better planning, by adopting a strategy for the location and form of retail development in a city. 

Industrial Land Removed 

Some regional malls, such as the Northridge Fashion Square and Topanga Plaza, are located on land zoned industrial, which otherwise would have been developed with light industrial and other similar uses that would add to a city’s economic base. Industrial zoned land was likely used for those malls because it was less expensive per square foot than commercially zoned land. And the Century City Mall is located on land that was formerly part of a movie studio and the city’s economic base. 

Incoherent Urban Form 

A more subtle, undesirable effect is the erosion of a coherent urban form. Prior to the end of World War II, cities in the United States had prominent downtowns and a series of pedestrian oriented, main street business districts and commercial intersections to serve the individual communities and neighborhoods that make up a city. Each community and neighborhood had a business district that was the center of a community or a neighborhood and was a major part of their identities.   

But, as the regional malls and other shopping centers overlayed this pattern, it became harder to identify community centers. Is the center of Sherman Oaks along a half mile of Ventura Boulevard or is it in the nearby Sherman Oaks Fashion Square mall? Is the center of North Hollywood along a quarter mile section of Lankershim Boulevard or is it in the ValleyPlaza/Laurel Plaza shopping centers near the intersection of Victory and Laurel Canyon Boulevards? Is the center of the Wilshire District in the Miracle Mile along Wilshire Boulevard or is it at the Beverly Center, Beverly Connection, and the Grove shopping centers seven blocks to the north?   

The following shopping centers are properly located within a larger, existing business district: the Seventh Street Marketplace, Hollywood/Highland, Century City, Westside Pavilion, Santa Monica Place, Crenshaw Mall, Promenade Mall, Sherman Oaks Galleria and the Panorama City Mall. The following malls are not located within an existing business district and draw retail sales away from other nearby businesses: The Beverly Center, the Grove, Westfield Mall in Culver City, Fallbrook Square, Topanga Plaza (on the outer edge of Warner Center), Sherman Oaks Fashion Square and Valley Plaza/Laurel Plaza.

Random Locations 

The regional malls are often randomly located, wherever a developer can find large tract of land zoned either commercial or industrial, which also permits commercial development. They were also not evenly distributed throughout Los Angeles. For example, the Promenade, Topanga Plaza and Fallbrook Square shopping centers are clustered together in Woodland Hills on the west side of the San Fernando Valley. Meanwhile, there are no regional malls to the east in Reseda.   

Location by Income Levels 

The regional malls, of course, are not evenly located with regards to income levels in a city. Rather, they are placed in the affluent and middle income sections of a city where there is substantial retail demand. It is no surprise then that there are no malls in poor communities. An example of this is the west side of the Los Angeles. Six regional malls serve it, while less affluent central Los Angeles has only three; the Seventh Street Marketplace downtown, Hollywood/Highland and the Crenshaw Mall. 

And none of the three can really be considered inner city shopping malls because the Seventh Street Marketplace gets a substantial portion of its sales from more affluent customers working downtown and Hollywood/Highland derives some of its sales from tourists and is near the west side of Los Angeles and Hancock Park. Finally, Crenshaw Plaza is near Baldwin Hills, with its higher incomes. 

Incomplete Centers 

While the regional malls are designated “regional centers” on the City of Los Angeles’ community plans, most lack the wide range of commercial and non-commercial uses found in traditional downtowns, such as office buildings, hotels, institutional uses and government buildings. At best, they are only half of a center, lacking the rich mix and diversity of uses in a traditional downtown. This has contributed to the monotony and dullness of suburban communities, where most of the malls are located. If one has seen one suburban regional shopping center, one has seen them all. 

No Pedestrian Orientation 

A clear defect of almost all of the shopping malls is their lack of a pedestrian orientation to the surrounding streets, such as The Grove which faces inward to a lively private pedestrian street. Nearly all of LA’s shopping centers face inward to their interior malls. Most are surrounded by a sea of surface parking and the urban malls have either blank walls or parking structures facing the surrounding streets. 

While the retail buildings in the Grove Shopping Center in the Wilshire district have picturesque architecture, the center has the typical pattern with blank walls facing Third Street and a massive parking structure looming over and facing the adjacent Pan Pacific Park. Rather than just facing inward, stores in a shopping center should also face the street in order to “activate” the street, to make it interesting for pedestrians to encourage pedestrian activity. The new urbanist movement in planning and architecture, which favors downtowns and traditional, pedestrian oriented main street business districts, has been critical of shopping centers due to their lack of orientation to the surrounding streets. 

Traffic 

A final undesirable impact is traffic. Because most shoppers arrive in their cars, regional shopping centers are major traffic draws, creating localized congestion and the need for street widenings as part of their construction. Connecting the malls to Los Angeles’ expanding rail transit system would reduce the amount of traffic congestion. However, less than half of the existing malls will eventually be served by the rail transit lines. They are the Seventh Street Marketplace downtown, Hollywood/Highland, Century City Shopping Center, Santa Monica Place, Crenshaw Mall, the Panorama City Mall and the Promenade Mall in Warner Center. 

The malls that will not have rail transit connections are the Beverly Center, the Grove and Fallbrook Square, Topanga Plaza, Northridge Fashion Square, Sherman Oaks Fashion Square and Valley Plaza/Laurel Plaza in the San Fernando Valley. The Sherman Oaks Galleria, the Westside Pavilion and the Westfield Plaza in Culver City may or may not have a transit connection depending on the route of the subway line between Van Nuys and Westwood that will eventually be built under the Santa Monica Mountains and later extended south to LAX.

Planning Non-Policies 

Despite their major impacts, there are no policies and regulations concerning the location and design of regional shopping centers in LA’s General Plan and in the zoning regulations of the City of Los Angeles. For these planning documents, regional malls do not exist. If a regional shopping center meets all the requirements of the commercial or industrial zoning for a site, then they are deemed to be ministerial projects that need only a building permit for approval. If they do require zone changes, zone variances or conditional use permits, then the final decision on whether to approve a new shopping center is not made by the Planning Department staff or by the Planning Commission. 

Instead the councilmember representing the area in which the mall is to be located makes the decision. These politicians and their deputies usually have no background in city planning, and they will almost always approve new malls within their district due to the promise of more jobs and property and sales tax revenues. The new malls get approved regardless of whether they fit in with surrounding development, whether they have a pedestrian orientation and despite their economic impacts on nearby business districts.

For many decades, market forces rather than sound planning principles have mostly determined the patterns of land use, density and height in Los Angeles. The development community, rather than the Planning Department staff, has done most of the planning in Los Angeles and in most other cities, with most elected officials ratifying decisions made by the developers. 

If approved, Proposition S on the March, 2017 ballot will curb the spot upzones and General Plan amendments which have been used to approve some of the regional malls and expansions of existing malls. 

Policies Needed 

Rather than prohibit regional shopping centers as a land use, policies and regulations on the design and location of new or expanded regional malls are needed in order to improve the quality of the built environment in Los Angeles and avoid their harmful impacts. If the City Council were to finally enact policies and regulations for regional shopping centers, they should have these provisions: 

1. Regional shopping centers should be located within existing business districts, to strengthen      them, rather than draw retail business away from them. The only exceptions to this policy should be for planned communities built on vacant lands that to not have an existing business district and poor communities not served by any existing regional malls. 

In order for a regional mall to be approved, an economic impact study should be prepared with a study verifying that there is unmet retail demand that the mall would satisfy and that the mall would not have an adverse economic impact on existing business districts within a three mile radius.  

2. Regional shopping centers should not be located on tracts of land zoned and planned for industrial development, in order to preserve the City’s economic base and because vacancy rates for industrial buildings are lower than those for commercial land uses. 

Regional shopping centers should be designed so that there are stores facing existing commercial streets next to the mall in order so those streets will have a pedestrian orientation. 

3. So that they are in scale with their surroundings, the height of urban malls should not substantially exceed the height of surrounding commercial buildings. 

4. The exteriors of the regional centers should have detailing, articulation and façade variations so they are not dull looking, modernist boxes. 

5. Parking structures serving urban malls should have exterior facades matching the main buildings they serve, so that the structure does not look like a parking structure and the parked cars are not visible from the outside. An example of a parking structure not having exterior facades and appearing very functional is the structure for The Grove. 

6. Bright digital signs should not be permitted on the exterior facades of shopping centers. 

7. Overhead utilities along the streets surrounding a new shopping center should be placed  underground. 

8. Trees and landscaping within the shopping center should be coordinated and compatible with trees and landscaping along surrounding streets. 

Because the regional malls are under unified ownership and thus are easier to manage, they are more likely to be redeveloped and expanded every 20 to 30 years. Policies and regulations are also needed to address existing malls proposed for expansion. Those policies should be:

1. Stand-alone malls that are not located within an existing business district should not be permitted to expand.   

2. Stand-alone malls should be encouraged to redevelop with non-commercial uses or mixed use town centers when they reach the end of their economic lives. Such non-commercial uses should be residential or industrial. 

Endangered Malls 

With the era of regional shopping centers now over 60 years old, the malls that competed so successfully with the downtowns and the main street business districts are now themselves facing competition from big box retail stores, factory outlet centers, E-commerce, and other newer malls. With more retail sales now occurring online, there is less need for retail space in the United States. 

Even with unified ownership and management, there are some malls in Los Angeles and other cities in the United States that have declined and lost customers and tenants. Increasingly, “dead” malls are being redeveloped with mixed use, pedestrian oriented town centers favored by new urbanism. In addition, declines in income levels in sections of some cities also mean that the regional malls serving them have had to be redeveloped, with upscale department stores being replaced with discount stores, as with the Panorama City Shopping Center. 

With the changes in the retail environment that the regional malls are facing, the continued success of regional shopping centers in the United States is uncertain and regional malls may increasingly be the wave of the past.

(John Issakson is a planning activist living in Los Angeles.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

WHAT THE RESISTANCE LOOK’S LIKE-- More than 120 companies have joined a legal brief rebuking President Donald Trump and his executive order barring refugees and immigrants from Muslim-majority countries from entering the country, Reuters reports. Among those companies are some of America’s biggest players  --

 California’s Apple, Google, and Elon Musk’s Tesla and SpaceX -- who argued in an amicus curiae brief that the Trump administration’s ban “inflicts significant harm on American business.” 

According to Reuters, the brief continued: 

Highly skilled immigrants will be more interested in working abroad, in places where they and their colleagues can travel freely and with assurance that their immigration status will not suddenly be revoked. Multinational companies will have strong incentives … to base operations outside the United States or to move or hire employees and make investments abroad. 

So much for Trump’s technology summit last December. The tech sector wants reform, and it’s willing to flex its muscle to get it. 

And those tech executives aren’t wrong. Restrictions on worker visas like the H1-B program would deprive American tech companies of essential talent. While computer-related jobs are the largest source of new wages in the country (per Code.org), American colleges barely graduate enough skilled workers to tackle the more than 50,000 computing jobs currently open; about 70 percent of tech jobs may go unfilled in 2020, according to the Department of Labor. 

Beyond tech workers, Trump’s travel order has prohibited hundreds of brilliant scientists and academics and nearly 16,000 university students from re-entering the country. Seven founders and CEOs of the tech sector’s most successful companies are the children of immigrants; Trump’s executive order could create a brain drain that the ever-innovative Silicon Valley obviously doesn’t need. 

It would not be churlish to regard tech companies’ benevolence with suspicion. The brief includes Uber, whose CEO Travis Kalanick was a member of Trump’s business advisory council until last week, and his ride-sharing app hemorrhaged users after breaking a New York Taxi Workers Alliance work stoppage at the city’s John F. Kennedy International Airport in protest of Trump’s travel ban. It’s worth noting that Lyft, which enjoyed a corresponding boost in users as a result, is also a signatory -- and a beneficiary of Trump adviser Peter Thiel’s timely investment.  

Tech companies are, at their core, capitalistic enterprises: If business interests happen to overlap with human interests, that’s a happy coincidence that can help a company’s bottom line. This fact is very clear to liberal critics of major corporations, but it’s often lost when the political agenda coincides with left-wing justice. That was certainly the case when corporations boycotted North Carolina businesses last year as a response to the state’s anti-LGBT “religious freedom” legislation. As I asked then: Is it hypocritical for liberals to rail against money-in-politics measures like Citizens United and corporate lobbyists while lauding tech conglomerates for effectively strong-arming elected officials with their economic clout? 

In the case of the Trump order, the will of a corporation isn’t just the will of an executive board with fiduciary responsibilities -- it’s actually the will of people too. That’s according to reporting in the New York Times on Monday that detailed how organizers and activists like the group Tech Solidarity are pushing back on corporate management from within, holding executives accountable for their dealings with the Trump administration and, occasionally, staging internal protests of their own companies. “I want pressure from below to counterbalance the pressure management is already feeling from above,” organizer Maciej Ceglowski told the Times. “We have to make sure we’re pushing at least as hard as Trump is.” 

In the aftermath of the Women’s March on Washington, Jamelle Bouie made a curious observation: Protests actually do work, if only by force of sheer annoyance. This notion that a little complaint, no matter how small, can mushroom into a massive moment on social media has transformed corporate crisis communications in recent years, and these recent events only serve to reiterate how a focused jeremiad of dissent can change the course of those old, impenetrable institutions. 

Conservatives have been using corporate power for years to raise money and reinforce ideological battle lines. And while tech companies and their figurehead billionaires have a history of aiding liberal causes, the mobilization of corporate power from the worker up could be a game-changer. Should the tech industry’s response to Trump’s travel ban solider on as a genuine movement, corporate activism may become a new province of resistance in the Trump age.

(Jared Keller, Writer for Hire, is contributing editor at Pacific Standard where this piece first appeared.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

STAND FOR SOMETHING--It’s hard to believe just two weeks ago, three-quarters of a million women, men and children gathered in LA’s Pershing Square to raise our collective voices to send a bold message to the incoming administration. Worldwide, estimates place the number who marched at just under 5 million. The mission and vision of the marches in DC, LA, cities and towns all over the planet, were to “stand in solidarity with our partners and children for the protection of our rights, our safety, our health, and our families – recognizing our vibrant and diverse communities are the strength of our country.” (Photo above: Eleanor Roosevelt. ‘Pussy Hat’ provided by a marcher.)

Many who marched are new to activism, frightened by the rhetoric on the campaign trail and by President Trump’s Twitter rampages. Now that this ground swell of activism and empowerment has been released, what next?

All over Los Angeles – as well as in cities, suburbs, and towns throughout the country and the world – newly minted and experienced activists are planning and participating in “Next Up Huddles,” part of the “10 Actions for the First 100 Days” campaign that was launched at the Women’s March. These groups gather in private homes, at neighborhood bars and restaurants, in parks with the goal of mobilizing millions to “win back the country and the world we want.”

According to the website, groups will “visualize what a more equitable, just, safer, and freer world could look like four years from now— and work backwards to figure out what to do to get there. Huddles are meant to be positive, inclusive, action-oriented and grounded in the tradition of nonviolent resistance.”

Resistance is most effective when organized with specific actions, which is the intent of the Next Up Huddles, gathering Angelenos throughout the city, from downtown to the Westside, from Long Beach to the Valley.

In addition to in-person gatherings, many women throughout Los Angeles have been tapping into social media and texting to spread action lists along with contact information for Senators Feinstein and Harris, as well as congressional representatives to voice opinions about cabinet confirmations and executive orders.

Before November 8, I wrote my column about the election as a referendum for women. As the electoral map unrolled on election evening, many of us were disappointed. In the end, perhaps we have a different type of referendum – showing that women can gather together to make a difference.

To find a Next Up Huddle near you, visit WomensMarch.com.

(Beth Cone Kramer is a Los Angeles writer and a columnist for CityWatch.)

-cw

THERE’S MORE TO IMMIGRATION THAN LAWS-In late 2012, I got a call from a church member. “Seth, Harry’s picking his daughter up from school? Is Sanctuary over?” he asked me. It wasn’t, and Harry -- an undocumented Indonesian immigrant we were sheltering in our church -- wasn’t supposed to be out and about. 

In conversations with the media and our neighbors we had claimed, over and over, that the men we were protecting stayed put inside the walls of the church. It didn’t look good, my parishioner reminded me, for Harry to be walking around our tiny borough of Highland Park, New Jersey, the kind of place where the townsfolk know one another and can spot an outsider on sight. I knew he was right, but I also knew that from Harry’s point of view, picking up his daughter must have outweighed safety that day. I’d rather have bad optics than kill Harry’s soul, I told the church member. 

We had been experiencing many of these uncomfortable moments. For 11 months -- from the beginning of March in 2012, until mid-February in 2013 -- my congregation, the Reformed Church of Highland Park, offered sanctuary to nine Indonesians at risk of deportation. We offered it to keep families together and to keep the government from ruining lives and community, and because of our faith commitment to siding with the oppressed. 

But we learned that while our sanctuary offered freedom from persecution and deportation, it was also a kind of jail. We were locking up free people -- hindering the movement of men who had previously had at least the degree of “freedom” required to make a living, to cover the rent, pay for food, and otherwise contribute to their families’ well-being. They had the freedom to embrace -- and be embraced -- by their wives, to soothe their children, to be comforted by the feeling of family and community. Our friends might have been safe, but they were trapped, dependent on us for pretty much all of their material and emotional needs. Sanctuary turned out to be a perfect storm for depression and despair. 

The refugees’ stories were tragic. Indonesians of Chinese descent, including many Christians, had first fled to the U.S. during the 1990s, targeted as scapegoats during the collapse of the Suharto regime. Saul, who was the first Indonesian refugee we sheltered, told us that his brother-in-law, a priest, was attacked in his own pulpit. Militants cut off his head and then torched his church. Saul’s story was not an anomaly. More than 1,000 churches in Jakarta and beyond were burned to the ground. 

Many people fled, and thousands entered the U.S. on tourist visas. At least 3,000 came to New Jersey, where they got factory jobs. It was the late ‘90s, companies needed low-wage workers, and nobody was asking for work permits. The refugees overstayed their visas, with few consequences. Most opted not to file for asylum, in some cases for fear of government reprisal, or for lack of the language skills perceived to be necessary to make a successful case. But also, some later told me, Indonesians were surrounded by many other undocumented workers from many other lands. It seemed to be the American norm. 

After 9/11, things changed, and by 2006, deportations were in full swing. The first people targeted were often the upstanding ones who had tried to work together with immigration authorities. One night in May of that year, in a town near mine, 35 Indonesian men were rounded up in a predawn raid. None were criminals. Almost all were fathers, with undocumented wives and some combination of older Indonesian and younger American children. We watched in horror as the men were all deported within a month. That was when our church vowed not to let the government abuse immigrant families anymore. 

At first we took things slow, engaging in what I call “sanctuary behavior,” all within the law. After the raid, we invited the families of those who were taken -- and who had fled their homes for fear that they, too, would be deported -- to camp out at the church until they found new housing. We collaborated with immigration advocacy groups and supported pro-immigrant legislation. We visited detention centers, and held vigils. We forged a special relationship with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Newark that lasted for 11 months and brought temporary protection to many people. 

It was only after that relationship broke down and agents started again coming -- this time for Saul and others -- that we began to wonder if it was time to take more drastic action. Our church board prayerfully and methodically considered the implications of going against the government. Ultimately we decided that the only way to help these men that would be truly useful, that might provide some protection from deportation, would be to lock them in the church. 

Saul came first. In a few weeks, the others followed. By April we had transformed almost every Sunday School room into a bedroom, setting up futons that could be folded up during the day, so classes could still take place. At first, the sanctuary-seekers bathed in a kiddie pool; after a month, we installed two showers. We set aside a special section of the church kitchen for “sanctuary tenants.” Area churches brought food. One congregation donated a badminton net, which was put to frequent and appreciative use. 

Our close-knit community rallied to the Indonesians’ aid. We worked to lift the men’s spirits, with games and hymn sings, and hosted dinners for their families on the weekend. Doctors provided free medical clinics. We kept watch for undercover ICE agents, who patrolled in unmarked cars, scouting for “fugitive refugees.” When a town manager expressed concerns about the church not being zoned for housing, we assembled a cadre of volunteers to stand sentry and conduct a daily “fire walk” to ensure everyone’s safety. 

Sanctuary is beautiful, but messy. The narrative is written through real human lives. Those sheltered must have a voice, and the possibility to rewrite the narrative in ways that protect their hearts, minds and souls. 

There were interviews: with CNN, with the New York Daily News, and with The New York Times. People were noticing what we were doing. It was exhilarating, for the Indonesians and for us. The media attention, the ICE sightings, the local support (and anger): all of it felt like important elements in the fight for justice. 

But before long, the reality of what we were doing set in. Our guests were trapped, mere steps down the road from where their children played Little League and went to school -- because of ICE, which would pick them up if they left, and because of us. I was putting myself and the church on the line, and they loved and respected us for it. They felt obligated to abide by sanctuary at its strictest definition, but, over time, the accumulated emotional weight of being shut off from free life was too much to take. People like Harry (photos above) began to slip out to see their families. 

Sanctuary proved psychologically draining for us, too. The hardest part was that there was no obvious end in sight. I felt very guilty about this, and struggled with extreme fatigue (I was also trying to keep up with my church responsibilities). When the men started to leave the premises, I had to unlearn sanctuary a bit. This could only work, I began to realize, if these men could escape from time to time to their true sanctuaries -- their homes and wives and children. I had to learn to accept a possible accusation of fraud, as I publicly staked my reputation and the reputation of my congregation on the sanctity of physical sanctuary while privately knowing that those in my care were buckling under the rigidity of the claim. 

As time dragged on we found ourselves not only supporting the men but also providing major rental assistance to their families, who were on the verge of losing their housing. One church couple renewed their vows to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary and raised $5,000 to help with rent. That got us through a particularly difficult month. In all, we put at least $15,000 toward rental assistance. 

I struggled to take things one day at a time. To be honest, it was way too scary to look into the horizon and not be sure how this would all end. In the end, I finally got through to Gary Mead, the head of Enforcement and Removal Operations for ICE, in Washington. He heard us out and instructed the ERO director in Newark to offer Stays of Removal to the refugees in our church. Our dilemma ended. 

Now, nearly four years later, the Indonesians’ families are intact -- a relief and a blessing -- and life has returned to “normal.” Still, none have been granted citizenship. They would have benefited from Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, which never happened, or from other immigration reform efforts. I see them regularly. Some worship here. Some just stop by, to remember the blessings, and trials, of living here. 

In recent months, with talk of renewed deportations, increasing numbers of congregations, colleges, and municipalities have said they want to extend sanctuary to their undocumented neighbors. I hope they do—whether that means providing physical sanctuary or engaging in creative, combative, and sustained “sanctuary behavior” such as protesting, advocating with officials, or vigils of support. I hope that as communities make this choice they’ll remember that sanctuary is beautiful, but messy. The narrative is written through real human lives. Those sheltered must have a voice, and the possibility to rewrite the narrative in ways that protect their hearts, minds, and souls. 

And also, would-be sanctuary providers: Relish the moments of hope and possibility. Sanctuary can feel like jail sometimes, for those inside and for those offering protection. Thank God, for us, in the end, it felt like Shalom.

(Reverend Seth Kaper-Dale is pastor of the Reformed Church of Highland Park in Highland Park, New Jersey. He is running for governor of New Jersey on the Green Party ticket. This essay is part of a Zócalo Inquiry, Do Sanctuaries Really Bring Peace?  Photos courtesy of Reformed Church of Highland Park. Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

HE DOTH PROTEST TOO MUCH-President Trump gave his informed testimony this week that people were registered to vote and had voted in multiple states in this last election. It seems for once he knew what he was talking about.

As it turns out, members of Trump’s own family, Tiffany Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner are both registered to vote in two different states. The difference is that, unlike most of the rest of us, they are rich enough to jet set from state to state on Election Day, to vote in more than one state at once.

In fact, he is surrounded by such double registering fraudsters, including Steve Bannon, his radical alt right top adviser, Sean Spicer, his press secretary, and Steve Mnuchin, his mortgage document forger nominee for treasury secretary.

His big expert on voting fraud, Gregg Phillips -- who was Trump's source when he retweeted the lie that three million people had voted illegally -- is registered to vote in three, count them, three separate states.

So when Kellyanne Conway asked rhetorically what everyone is afraid of from an investigation of voting fraud, the most fearful would seem to be Trump himself.

In the meantime, the abuses of power continue to escalate. Sally Q. Yates was required to promise, by no less than Trump's now nominee for U.S. Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, she would be independent, as a condition of being approved for the position in the Justice Department. After approval, Acting Attorney General Yates was summarily canned for refusing to defend Trump's unconstitutional ban on Muslim immigrants.

It didn't work for Nixon, when he executed his Saturday Night Massacre, but then of course he had not already stacked the judiciary with pliable quislings.

This dramatically raises the stakes on all judicial appointments going forward, especially the Supreme Court nominees. The Democrats have already vowed to filibuster anyone Trump nominates, justifiably presuming it will be someone from the far right.

We will thoughtfully hold our fire until the nomination is announced. There will be plenty of time for strong opposition, and we will no doubt oppose.

In particular we will require that whoever is nominated must forcefully and unequivocally repudiate both torture and the blanket discrimination against people based solely on their country of origin. We have no doubt that Trump is in the market for torture and prejudice-happy judges, who will do his authoritarian will. We may be seeing just the beginning of more decisions as bad as the Dred Scott case.

Let us remember that in Nazi Germany there were many judges without the basic integrity to resist Hitler's mounting crimes against humanity, who, to their eternal shame, went along with the will of the dictator. This was sold to them as a Christian theocracy too, you know.

It will not happen here because we held our tongues. 

In the meantime, please continue to protest the extreme ignorance of Trump's so-called extreme vetting.

(Michael N. Cohen is a former board member of the Reseda Neighborhood Council, founding member of the LADWP Neighborhood Council Oversight Committee, founding member of LA Clean Sweep and occasional contributor to CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

RIGHT WING POWER GRAB--President Donald Trump reportedly did not realize he was promoting chief strategist Steve Bannon to the National Security Council (NSC) Principals Committee when he signed the executive order dropping intelligence and defense officials from the top government panel and elevating the former Breitbart News chair in their place.

The New York Times reported over the weekend that Trump had not been fully briefed on his own executive order, which became "a greater source of frustration to the president" than the protests and legal actions over his travel ban blocking immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries.

Reporters Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman depicted an administration that's just barely keeping a lid on its internal crises, turf wars, and lack of preparation—and a scheming chief strategist that's successfully taken advantage of it all.

They wrote:

[White House chief of staff Reince] Priebus told Mr. Trump and Mr. Bannon that the administration needs to rethink its policy and communications operation in the wake of embarrassing revelations that key details of the orders were withheld from agencies, White House staff, and Republican congressional leaders like Speaker Paul D. Ryan.

Mr. Priebus has also created a 10-point checklist for the release of any new initiatives that includes signoff from the communications department and the White House staff secretary, Robert Porter, according to several aides familiar with the process.

Mr. Priebus bristles at the perception that he occupies a diminished perch in the West Wing pecking order compared with previous chiefs. But for the moment, Mr. Bannon remains the president's dominant adviser, despite Mr. Trump's anger that he was not fully briefed on details of the executive order he signed giving his chief strategist a seat on the National Security Council, a greater source of frustration to the president than the fallout from the travel ban.

Trump seemingly clarified on Twitter that he calls his own shots, "largely based on an accumulation of data, and everyone knows it." He also accused the Times of writing "total fiction" about him.

The executive order promoted Bannon, a white nationalist with no foreign policy or government experience, to a regular seat at some of the most sensitive meetings at the highest levels of government, along with other NSC meetings. Meanwhile, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—who need to be confirmed by the Senate—were directed to only attend meetings when discussions pertain to their "responsibilities and expertise."

The memo led to speculation that the right-wing power grab in the executive branch could be setting the stage for a coup d'état.

(Nadia Prupis writes for Common Dreams  … where this report was first posted.)

-cw