2017: If California Is to Right Its Biggest Wrongs, We'll Have to Embrace Some Dirty Deals

CONNECTING CALIFORNIA--Grab a glass of champagne. Then bend your mind around this New Year’s resolution for Californians: In 2017, let’s become more tolerant of political corruption.

Yes, bigotry against political skullduggery is just about the last socially acceptable prejudice in our state. And while the idea of tolerating dirty deal-making may sound perverse or strange, so are the ways we make decisions in California. We rarely consider how all of our rules curtailing the power and discretion of elected officials—rules approved in the name of preventing corruption—have made it so difficult to respond to large scale problems in our state that we no longer try.

Our state’s governance system has long been premised on the notion that our chosen representatives must be extremely naughty people. And so we’ve designed a highly complex government over the last century with the primary goal of preventing corruption, by limiting the power and discretion of elected and appointed officials to make dirty deals—or just about any other deals. That is the channel connecting our state’s rivers of regulations, oceans of laws, and tsunamis of formulas for budgets and taxes that defy human navigation.

All these obstacles have worked to a point: We’re a pretty clean state by American standards, with a relatively low rate of public corruption convictions. And the corruption cases you see here typically involve very small stakes for a big state—minor embezzlements, small-time cover-ups, and politicians who violate tricky campaign finance laws or (heaven forbid) live outside their districts.

The perverse result of our clean but hampered government is that we’ve opted to embrace large-scale, incapacitating societal wrongs, instead of accepting even the smallest rule-bending in the legislature or city hall (what other jurisdictions might still consider part of the cost of getting stuff done).

In California, among the richest places on earth, thousands of homeless people are on the streets, and we tolerate the highest poverty rate in the United States. We have done little to respond to a huge and expanding shortage of housing for working and middle-class people. Our roads, bridges and waterworks are in dangerous disrepair. Our health system makes it hard to get health care, our schools offer too little education, and our tax system, by bipartisan acknowledgment, doesn’t tax us efficiently or fairly.

In hamstringing our politicians, we’ve frustrated ourselves.

And yet, attacking such big problems is considered wildly unrealistic. There are too many rules and regulations standing in the way of large-scale action. And if we got rid of those rules, we fear we would be abetting corruption.

Which is why we so desperately need to adopt a new attitude toward corruption.

A famous observation of Samuel Huntington, one of the 20th century’s greatest political scientists, applies now in California.

“In terms of economic growth, the only thing worse than a society with a rigid, over centralized, dishonest bureaucracy is one with a rigid, over centralized, honest bureaucracy.”

“In terms of economic growth, the only thing worse than a society with a rigid, over centralized, dishonest bureaucracy is one with a rigid, over centralized, honest bureaucracy,” Huntington wrote. ““A society which is relatively uncorrupt … may find a certain amount of corruption a welcome lubricant easing the path to modernization.”

California needs lubrication—and a little more corruption that allows us to advance larger public goals.

California must expedite the building of affordable housing, homeless housing, housing near transit, and housing on lots already zoned for housing—even if it means paying off certain interests to prevent their opposition and handing out exemptions to planning requirements and zoning and environmental laws like party favors. The alternative is to let the scandalous housing shortage grow, while we cross all the regulatory t’s and let NIMBYs tie us in knots.

LA voters, for example, just approved money for homeless housing we need now—but it likely will take at least five years to have the housing in place if we follow the usual procedures. And it could be even worse if anti-growth activists, posing as warriors against corruption, succeed in passing a moratorium on certain developments on LA’s March ballot.

The poor state of California’s roads also cries out for some big corrupt deals, damn the environmental reviews. For years, the state has failed to address a $130-billion-plus backlog in state and local road repairs. A legislative report found that more than two-thirds of roads are in poor or mediocre condition, one of the worst records of any state in the country.

But California’s mix of limitations on infrastructure and taxes mean we’ll keep falling behind—as long as we play by the rules. Raising taxes to cover repairs requires a two-thirds vote of both houses of the state legislature and getting to two-thirds in cases like this requires buying votes with spending. But our abstemious governor hasn’t been willing to do the buying. He should resolve to be less righteous and more road-friendly in 2017. (And how fast can we get some contracts out the door and get construction crews on the highways?)

Roads and housing aren’t the only contexts where we prioritize following all the rules over meeting the needs of Californians. In education, state leaders make a fetish of meeting the very low requirement of the constitutional funding formula for schools—instead of finding ways, kosher or not, to lengthen our short school year (just 180 days) and offer students the math, science, arts and foreign language they need, but aren’t getting.

Our aqueducts and water mains so badly need updates and repairs that politicians should be raiding other government accounts to secure the necessary funds. But moving money around brings lawsuits and scrutiny. So no one dares resolve the problem, not even in a time of drought. Now is the moment to break rules and accelerate water infrastructure. Find ways to bully or buy off anyone who objects.

The stakes of our anti-corruption fixation may get higher in 2017. California finds itself in a confrontation with President-elect Donald Trump. Politicians are talking about how they are ready to fight Trump if he attacks California policies or threatens vulnerable people, like immigrants and Muslims.

Fighting may be necessary, but California and its governments are at a decided disadvantage in a battle with the richer and more powerful federal government. Dealmaking might be the better strategy, at least at first. On recent trips to Sacramento, lobbyists and other behind-the-scenes players argued to me that California should find some way to buy off Trump—either personally or in his presidential role—given the president-elect’s love of negotiations and his lack of interest in ethics or legal niceties. Of course, such creative dealmaking runs up against Californian rules and sensibilities.

That’s why the change we need is not legal—it’s cultural. We need to be more politically mature and realize that big progress in governance almost always involves actions that are not entirely forthright. Indeed, some of our country’s most effective officials—like the Daleys in Chicago, or even a California character like Willie Brown, the former Assembly speaker and San Francisco mayor—were effective precisely because they didn’t always color inside the lines.

So as we greet 2017, let’s raise a toast to dealmaking that brings real progress, even when it’s dirty.

(Joe Mathews is Connecting California Columnist and Editor at Zócalo Public Square … where this column first appeared. Mathews is a Fellow at the Center for Social Cohesion at Arizona State University and co-author of California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It (UC Press, 2010).)

-cw

2017: Testing LA’s Mettle

@TheGussReport – Predicting LA’s fortunes requires a decent read on our city and county officials. Dialogue with them and listen closely because what they say matters; their evasion matters more; and their evasion while speaking matters most. (Photo art above: LA’s new skyline?)

“The winds of change blow from the west” is the trite refrain they often invoke when justifying many an ill-conceived idea. Bullet-train, anyone? But in a year with Trumpian-force winds, LA (and San Francisco and Sacramento for that matter) is going to be tested big-time, especially when its desperate need for federal dollars is weighed against its pledge to remain a sanctuary city. And since LA is unaccustomed to being tested by outside forces, there are plenty of balls for it to drop.

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A Must for LA in 2017: More Hard-Hitting Investigative Reporting

PLATKIN ON PLANNING-2016 is nearly over, and that means that 2017 offers immense opportunities for CityWatch writers and readers, including yours truly, to answer important questions. These are some of the stories that I am following and hope to examine in more detail. I look forward to similar research and articles from other CityWatch writers. 

CITY HALL QUESTIONS 

How extensive is corruption at Los Angeles’s City Hall? 

The LA Times Sea Breeze story of $600,000 in campaign donations to get land use decisions reversed is undoubtedly the tip of the iceberg. And David Zahnizer’s front-page story on Rick Caruso’s luxury tower at the former Loehman’s site is just as important. While the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative/Measure S staff has broken smaller stories of corruption, there are undoubtedly many bigger stories waiting for careful investigation and publication. The more the better because even if Measure S does not pass in March 2017, this type of investigative reporting will play a major role in ensuring that Los Angeles is well planned. The alternative, an unplanned city, in which real estate speculators determine long-term land use patterns, is a road to municipal ruin. 

What is the residential build-out potential of Los Angeles, based on existing zoning? 

The corporate funded density hawks repeatedly argue that LA has virtually no land left for housing construction, yet the most recent City Planning reports on this exact question – from the early 1990s – concluded the exact opposite. Furthermore, we also need to know how much future housing construction and population growth can be supported by available public infrastructure and public services. 

What is really behind the “no money” excuse for the many projects and public services that elected officials and some of their advocates ignore? 

There is no shortage of low-priority budget categories that qualify for this sorry alibi: urban street trees, careful plan check and code enforcement, updated General Plan elements, sidewalk and street repairs, ADA curb cuts, street cleaning, street lights, recreation program, library hours, climate change mitigation and adaptation, bicycle infrastructure, mass transit station amenities, and much more. For these and many more projects, local government’s constant refrain is, “There is just no money,” yet big-ticket items, like the 55 percent of the City budget that funds the LAPD, go unchallenged. 

What role does local government play in increasing wealth and income inequality? 

Most fingers point to the Federal government because it largely controls tax rates, tax loopholes, minimum wage, and the safety net, such as Social Security and Medicaid. But, City Hall also plays a significant, but overlooked role. For example, every time the zone and/or General Plan designation for a piece or property densifies through spot-zoning, the site becomes considerably more valuable. Yet, this windfall is not taxed in California because most commercial property is never totally sold. Instead portions of the ownership change, allowing the property title to remain fixed and unassessed because of Proposition 13. 

Is METRO advancing mass transit for mobility or to bolster real estate speculation? 

Some scholars, like Allen Whitt, long ago argued that the fundamental purpose of urban mass transit, include MetroRail in Los Angeles, is to resuscitate real estate in older parts of town, such as Wilshire Boulevard and Hollywood. Now, several decades later we are witnessing the expansion of mass transit, but with little consideration for mobility. 

In Los Angeles, the MetroRail interface with other transportation modes is missing: buses, cars, pedestrians, and bicyclists. METRO has dropped the ball on this aspect of transit, while City Planning has largely limited its role to up-zoning the private parcels near existing and proposed transit stations. As a result, transit-adjacent public areas have unfunded guidelines, while individual parcels are stoked for an influx of private investment. 

ENVIROMENTAL QUESTIONS 

How is climate change related to economic activity? 

The popular press presents the climate change “debate” as climate scientists on one side and climate change deniers on the other side. This supposed debate is then reduced to one bid question: do humans cause climate change or is it a natural fluctuation? But this this simplistic approach sees the forest and misses the trees. This is because it doesn’t examine the diverse carbon footprints of our planet’s eight billion humans. It equates the carbon footprint of those living in squalor on $2 or less per day with executives of fossil fuel companies, living in energy-intensive estates, driving big cars, and flying on highly polluting planes. 

Will driverless electric cars reduce our carbon footprint? 

Companies such as Tesla and Google tout their driverless and electric cars as a miracle cure for congestion and Green House Gases. But this is a dubious claim for several reasons. First, better cars perpetuate the entire built environment based on cars: the entire car manufacturing process, roads, parking lots, and car-oriented buildings, especially big box retail and shopping centers. 

Second, better cars mean each car uses less energy, but the automobile companies still expand overall production. For example, Toyota does not use the profits from the Prius to make a better bicycle, but to branch out to the Prius C and Prius V. Instead of one Prius model there are now three, as well as other Toyota models with hybrid engines, such as the Camry. As a result overall energy consumption is still expanding. 

A FINAL WORD FOR THE NEW YEAR 

CityWatch readers, in 2017 please share your information about these and other important and overlooked stories. We may have meager resources, but crowd-sourcing our knowledge can and will be the antidote to the neglect of the mainstream, corporate media.

 

(Dick Platkin reports on local planning issues in Los Angeles for CityWatch. Please send any questions, comments, or corrections to [email protected].) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

Los Angeles and 10 Big “No’s” for 2017

LA GOVERNMENT WATCH-Over this past year, our contributions to CityWatch have focused on a disturbing pattern that has shown how elements of our Los Angeles City government have been working against the public interest for years. Here’s a re-cap of what needs to change as we move into 2017: 

  1. No sole source contracts or private sales of surplus property under any condition. No exceptions. No contracts let without Requests for Proposal (RFPs). Apart from being required by law, they are the life blood of good government, because they secure the best value for the public, while also ensuring that every member of that public gets a clean shot at winning contracts. The same is true of public auctions of surplus property. 
  1. No closed sessions of the City Council -- for any reason -- not even those permitted by the Brown Act (i.e. litigation, real estate negotiations and so on.) 
  1. No attorney-client privilege for Officers of the City (except in their capacities as private citizens.) Again, all litigation -- regardless of the dollar amount -- should be conducted in open session. This would help prevent the kind of prolonged litigation that has recently cost the City over $250 million. 
  1. No contracting with secretive LLCs. If you want to do business with Los Angeles, you have to take your mask off. It is preposterous how many entities there are with whom the City currently does business without knowing the most basic of facts about them, including the precise identity of the owner. 
  1. No enforcement role for the Ethics Commission. Campaign finance laws etc. should be enforced by the DA. The Enforcement Division of the Ethics Commission routinely violates the Constitutional rights of members of the public. The part of the Ethics Commission that maintains the database of donations etc. should be kept intact. 
  1. No absolute power for the City Council President in making committee assignments. Such power gives the President too much leverage over the rest of the Council and results in a stifling of debate (because everyone has to tow the line or suffer retaliation.) 
  1. No use of parking fines in the General Fund. Such fines, not to exceed $35, should go to a fund used exclusively for infrastructure projects. 
  1. No back-room lawsuit settlements. These are used as a way to kick-back money to the plaintiff. Settlements need to be dealt with in open session. 
  1. No further violations of Rule 93 -- violations which have resulted in the public’s cameras in City Hall that are being operated by public employees -- at the direction of Herb Wesson – so that the members of the public are videotaped from a face-obscuring distance. 
  1. No commencing of City Council meetings with the settling of liens against members of the public who suffer humiliation and unspeakably huge monetary penalties.


(Eric Preven and Joshua Preven are public advocates for better transparency in local government. Eric is a Studio City based writer-producer. Joshua is a teacher.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

 

LA’s Non-Stop War against Rent-Control, the Single Family Home and Other Long-Term Wealth Creators

THE WEALTH FORMULA, PART TWO- In a recent CityWatch article, I explained why the City of Los Angeles has escalating housing costs and, at the same time, is experiencing a net exodus of people leaving rather than moving to LA. It took years of corruption and malfeasance, but the City has managed to make Los Angeles the nation’s least desirable urban area. 

The Destruction of Wealth is Not Wise 

Just as the government has laws against people stealing other people’s property, the government has a duty not to encourage the destruction of businesses which are generating wealth. Rent-controlled properties are long-term wealth creators. Los Angeles’ Rent Stabilization Ordinance was relatively effective in allowing landlords to make a profit and provide housing the poor could afford. (I shall not discuss the criminal REAP program. I hope someone does a CityWatch article from the landlord’s perspective.) 

From the macro-economic standpoint, when an honest business is generating wealth, it should not be destroyed. Tearing down rent-controlled units destroys wealth. Not only is the landlord harmed, but the tenant is harmed, and those who end up homeless become a financial burden on everyone. Macro-Economics does not care if the developer believes he can make more money from his new fancy units. Society does not look at only how much “gelt” he pockets, but it must subtract all the wealth lost by the destruction of the rent-controlled units and all the extra costs which society will incur. 

From a macro-economic standpoint, the destruction of over 22,000 rent-controlled units has caused irreparable harm from which the City will not recover. 

In a city operating on the economic philosophy of corruptionism, the city government is unable to institute wise macro-economic safeguards. As a result, we have an economic system that destroys affordable housing, while only 37% of the need is being built and while replacing it with luxury apartments that represent a 12% glut. (11-17-2015 HCIDLA report) The City then gives our tax dollars to the developer because he says his profit is too small. ($17.4 Million to CIM Group for 5929 Sunset Blvd.) Thus, we have a corrupt city government that destroys the homes of poor people, stealing “wealth generators” from small landlords; and then the City gives tax money to the developers who happen to be funding the Mayor’s and councilmembers’ campaigns. 

Where Los Angeles Does Have Housing Shortage 

There is an actual shortage of detached single family homes. One factor is that prior to the 2008 Crash, banks unloaded foreclosed homes as fast as possible onto the market. But after the Crash of 2008, many banks decided to rent homes. This decision reduced the number of homes for sale without reducing the number of available homes in which to live. Withholding homes from the sales market drove up prices without any increase in demand. 

How the City Increases the Price of R-1 Homes

The City’s housing policies, especially in-fills, allow developers to buy and tear down the single family home to construct multiple rental units on the property. As a result, a family who wants to purchase a home for living space often faces a developer who will pay far more than the living space value

Because developers can get councilmembers to change the zoning to satisfy their whims, they are confident that wherever they buy, they can build multiple units. In order for many families to purchase a home in Los Angeles, they have to out-bid developers. 

As a result, detached home prices have been “bid up,” thereby reducing the supply of homes for families. A proper government would protect the Price System of detached homes by not allowing any spot zoning or granny flats. A competent city would not permit Small Lot Subdivisions. 

A City Which Decimates its Middle Class is a Failed City 

As a result of making it hard to construct and allowing the destruction of detached homes, the City has driven out Family Millennials, i.e., the new Middle Class. It did not take a genius to foresee that when the younger Millennials wanted to settle down, they would abandon the Dorm Room style of life and do what Americans have done for generations: find a detached home with a yard and decent schools. Intentionally depriving Millennials of the homes they would come to desire has left them no realistic alternative but to move away from Los Angeles. When the most productive sector of the population abandons a city, it becomes an economic basket case. 

The City’s Subsidizing Mega Projects Drives out the Middle Class 

Because Wall Street does not want to be left holding the bag when the next crash comes, it is balking at financing a lot of mega projects. Wall Street has seen that fraud does not deceive the laws of economics. For example, for years the City fooled Wall Street into lending for improvident mixed-use projects by giving the developers an extra revenue stream to repay the Wall Street loans. The City would let the developer keep the sales taxes from the retail stores in the mixed-use projects. CIM Group’s Midtown Project in City Council President Wesson’s district, for example, allegedly gets 100% of sale taxes and business license fees. 

When she was City Controller (July 2001 to April 2009), Laura Chick warned of this folly, pointing out that 50% of the CRA mixed-use projects’ retail space was vacant, but the City ignored her. Without tenants, there was no extra revenue stream for the builders to repay the Wall Street loans. Perhaps, the most colossal disaster was the Hollywood-Highland Project which cost $625 million to construct but was sold a few years later for only $201 million. Projects do not sell for 1/3 their construction costs because they are making money for the developer. Remember, the wealth formula: you have to sell or rent for more than the cost to produce. 

Since then, the City has been giving its developer buddies billions of dollars in financial aid. The private Grand Avenue Project is getting about $197 million. All the projects in Hollywood will end up being subsidized. The City has subsidized Korean Airlines and China. Yes, freakin’ China – the world leader in over-development. When the government subsidizes developers who build crap that no one wants, the government destroys the Price System. 

The Anticipatory Destruction of Wealth 

While some people look at Gehry’s Folly at 8160 Sunset Boulevard and say “ooh and aah,” others see the Anticipatory Destruction of Wealth. The role of the government is to understand this aspect of macro-economics. When hundreds of millions of dollars are invested in bad projects based on falsified data, all those hundreds of millions of dollars are diverted away from productive investments. That means we lose wealth by diverting money from where it should go. All the wealth that wise investments would have created never comes into existence. 

While some recognize this anticipatory destruction of wealth, no one person knows where the funds should have been invested. That is why the nation needs to restrict investment firms to doing one thing – raising capital for productive investments. Investment firms, which can stay in business only by making wise investments in enterprise, are absolutely essential for the nation to prosper.

Prior to the repeal of Glass-Steagall, investment houses were limited to doing the research necessary to know where to invest the capital they raised. Of course, the people who provided the funds for the investments held each investment firm liable for mistakes. After the investment firms no longer had to make a profit by raising capital and investing it for other people, they found that financial manipulation was more profitable for the executives -- even if it crashed the world economy. The vital function of Wall Street’s raising capital for wise investments cannot resume until a beefed up Glass-Steagall is re-instituted and credit default are outlawed and Wall Street’s role in the commodities market is seriously restricted. 

The City’s War on the Middle Class is not Wise 

Garcetti has made no secret of his war on the single family home and against the automobile in his mania to turn Hollywood and now the rest of Los Angeles into a west coast Manhattan. The City would have been far wiser to pass an emergency re-zoning measure 10 to 15 year ago, in which all single-family homes, no matter where they were located, would have a presumptive R-1 status. 

Simultaneously, there should have been a moratorium on any increase in office density in The Basin. That would have stabilized residential housing in the Basin, while allowing offices on the periphery. Traffic patterns would have been reversed, somewhat, thereby allowing for more population without more traffic. Without anyone at City Hall who understood or cared about macro-economics, we have suffered through at least 15 years of economic falderal and corruptionism. 

Que sera sera 

At this point, one is supposed to provide the prescription for recovery. But there is none for Los Angeles. Alea jacta est, the Rubicon was crossed years ago, and we have gone far beyond the point of no return. Here is Los Angeles’ most likely future: there will be a massive dump of billions of dollars of construction dollars into Los Angeles for mega-projects and fixed-rail transit. These improvident expenditures will further erode the quality of life and leave Los Angeles bankrupt, at which time the City will seek a federal bailout.

(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

They Go Low – We Go Local!

BUTCHER ON LA-Within two weeks of moving into our new apartment in La Crescenta, I learned of two substantive, meaningful opportunities to participate locally: a community meeting explaining the new districts for elections of local school board members and notice of a meeting of the Crescenta Valley Town Council where the main topic discussion was construction on the 210 freeway. 

Got a doggie park recommendation for what turns out to be the best dog groomer in the San Fernando Valley (at the corner of Wheatland and Sunland), pulled into the parking lot and found myself parking in front of the Foothill Trails District Neighborhood Council storefront. 

Then we received this notice announcing the City of Los Angeles’ gifting of delicious, free mulch and soil amendment. 

And just as I was feeling most darkened by the shortness of the days after the Election, I read this from esteemed labor activist attorney, our friend Emma Leheny, who now with the National Education Association, America’s largest labor union, sharing a comprehensive organizing resource for local action

Anti-immigrant statements by Trump and his supporters have caused anxiety among school children throughout the country. Bullying and harassment in schools have been fueled by Trump’s slurs. Educators have been supporting our schools and students – with guidance, inclusive curricula, and anti-bullying resources.  But given Trump’s stated plan to rescind all Obama executive actions, school sites may soon see ICE agents attempting to enter campus. ICE issued a memorandum in 2011 stating schools were off-limits for immigration enforcement, except in exigent circumstances. We can expect that memo to be repudiated, or at a minimum, ignored in the next administration. So our students and educators are looking for answers: what can keep our schools safe for all of our students? 

NEA has developed this template resolution and policy for use by any school board. It recognizes the constitutional rights of undocumented students to access a free, public K-12 education, as set forth by the Supreme Court in Plyler v. Doe. It puts in place steps for district administration to follow if approached by ICE. It re-iterates the support and respect a school community holds for all of its students and families. Several large school districts have already taken steps in this direction – Los Angeles, for example, enacted and re-affirmed a resolution opposing immigration enforcement at school. 

The Tenth Amendment also creates a bulwark against feared efforts by the new administration to overreach by attempting to coerce local and state compliance with an anti-immigrant agenda. This proposed NEA language educates local administrators about what protection they can offer students, even in the face of ICE intimidation. 

They go low, we go local. 

From Noah Zatz’s spot-on piece, The Principle and Politics of Sanctuary:  

What to do? It is easy to feel paralyzed and powerless in the face of President-elect Trump’s announced intention to rain terror on immigrants and people of color with mass deportations, Muslim registration, racial profiling, and so much more. Start somewhere. For me, that has meant staring where I live, by attending my first local school board meeting. I’ve joined with other parents to make my small city’s schools into sanctuaries from federal immigration enforcement and other intrusions. It’s also meant starting where I work, joining with faculty, staff, and students to push similar policies at the university level. 

Sanctuary offers a simple moral idea that draws on rich and righteous histories. It connects us to the Underground Railroad for escaped slaves, the protection offered to Anne Frank and Schindler’s List, and the 1980s religious movement to welcome Central American refugees from Cold War conflicts. 

They go low, we go local. Whenever the social justice arms of our religious communities show up – be it the Catholic Worker or the human rights committee of a reform synagogue -- in South Gate or Selma, the light of God and the goodness of people ultimately bend the arc of justice towards peace -- but we’ve gotta work it. 

There’s an amazing group of organizers gathering on Facebook at “Our Future. The Organizers’ Roundtable.” Sign up now to join the greatest organizers in the country. Find your local page! 

Find a local organization working to protect the environment. For instance, I’ve been inspired by the successful local organizing in my new neck of the woods by Glendale’s VOICE (Volunteers Organized in Conserving the Environment).  

As 48 US mayors say in their November 22 letter to the President-elect

On November 8, American voters approved more than $200 billion in local measures, funded by their own local tax dollars, to improve quality of life and reduce carbon pollution. Seventy percent of voters in Los Angeles County, the car capital of the world, approved a $120 billion, multi-decade commitment to public transit. Seattle voters approved transit investments totaling $54 billion; Austin voters approved a record-setting $720 million mobility bond; Boston voters approved investment in affordable housing, parks, historic preservation and more. 

As President, you will have the power to expand and accelerate these local initiatives which the people resoundingly supported. We call upon you and the federal government you will lead to help cities leverage funds for the hundreds of billions of dollars in transit, energy, infrastructure and real estate development necessary to upgrade our infrastructure for the 21st century. We ask that you lead us in expanding the renewable energy sources we need to achieve energy security, address climate change and spark a new manufacturing, energy and construction boom in America. 

We ask that you help provide American businesses the certainty to invest through continued tax credits for electric vehicles, solar power, renewables and other clean technologies. And we ask that you shift to embrace the Paris Climate Agreement and make U.S. cities your partner in doing so. 

While we are prepared to forge ahead even in the absence of federal support, we know that if we stand united on this issue, we can make change that will resonate for generations. We have no choice and no room to doubt our resolve. The time for bold leadership and action is now. 

Sign up for the simple local app Nextdoor and connect with happenings in your community. 

Find your local Patch for local news! 

Order your local newspaper for home delivery -- or BUY an electronic subscription if you don’t need the feel of newsprint on your fingers. 

It’s all local and it’s all personal – I’ll sign up for a Muslim registry. I’ll tell the woman at the DIY store that she’s being rude when she says too loudly that she doesn’t understand a word the cashier is saying because she speaks with a different accent. I’ve got an entire clip of safety pins to wear! 

I ordered home delivery of the LA Times now that we’re back in town! 

A worthwhile read from the Nieman Reports, All Journalism is Local:  

A possible future for journalism is more in the mold of grassroots organizing, where the newsroom becomes a sort of 21st century VFW hall, the hub of local activity. The current buzz is around audience acquisition through social media. What about audience acquisition through local physical presence, opening up potential trickles of revenue from events and other local activities? 

The danger of social media “audience acquisition” is that it repeats the mistakes of cable television, rendering us captive to celebrity, national news stories, and clickbait. Newsrooms as “civic reactors,” the beating heart of our communities, offers greater promise -- not to mention the skills of grassroots organizing are cousins to traditional news-gathering skills, rather than the alien skills of marketing and public relations. 

“Res publica” means, literally, the “real” people. It is up to us to make sure it is not the kind of “real” in reality television, but the kind of “real” you find at PTA meetings and traffic hearings.

I’m inspired to help organize a bit locally. I accepted a little freelance reporting job with the Crescenta Valley Weekly News, a vibrant, privately-owned local weekly newspaper. Enjoy my first byline: Holiday Happiness Found on Oak Circle Drive

They go low … we go local!

 

(Julie Butcher writes for CityWatch, is a retired union leader and is now enjoying her new La Crescenta home and her first grandchild. She can be reached at [email protected] or on her new blog ‘The Butcher Shop - No Bones about It.’) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

Raising Eyebrows: California Secessionists with Russian Ties

CAL WATCHDOG-The campaign to place California secession on the ballot next election year entered uncertain waters as news broke that its mastermind lives and works in a city in the center of Russia.  

“I immigrated to California, and I consider myself to be a Californian,” Louis Marinelli told The California Report from his Yekaterinburg apartment, KQED reported. “I wanted to handle some personal issues in my family, regarding immigration. My wife is from Russia. I’m here handling various personal issues. But at the same time, we have some political goals we can achieve while I’m here.” 

From founding to funding. 

Marinelli’s deep Russian ties, past and present, attracted attention as he took his current stay in the country as an opportunity to start work on a so-called “embassy of California” in Moscow. That undertaking, as Bloomberg noted, has the aid of “a vehemently anti-American group supported by the Kremlin” — the Anti-Globalist Movement of Russia — which Marinelli said supports California’s right to self-determination. “Talking to the Russian tabloid Life, Alexander Ionov, the president of the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, said that the embassy would serve as a hub to boost tourism and foster cultural and economic exchanges between the Golden State and Russia,” Heat Street reported.  

“We may disagree on several issues, but if we have common ground on one issue, why shouldn’t we have a dialogue?” Marinelli asked Bloomberg. But he has already begun to hit against the limits of that rhetoric.  

“Marinelli’s Russian connection has created a schism, if not quite the Great Schism, in the breakaway movement with members of the California National Party, a group that is formally affiliated with Yes California but has publicly disavowed Marinelli as a Russian marionette. Silicon Valley investor and Hyperloop co-founder Shervin Pishevar briefly became another standard-bearer of ‘Calexit,’ as it come to be known, threatening Marinelli’s virtual monopoly on the cause, but backed off, saying he didn’t really support secession.” 

The Trump factor. 

But crisis management was not the only reason Yes California accelerated its timetable to land their initiative on the California ballot in 2018. (According to the prospective measure’s language, voting yes “would trigger a special election the following March in which residents would decide if ‘California should become a free, sovereign and independent country,'” as the San Jose Mercury News observed.) Donald Trump’s election provoked a degree of dismay among some California Democrats intense enough to suggest a secessionist movement could take advantage while passions remained relatively hot. 

“It wasn’t until Trump’s victory last month that mainstream U.S. outlets -- including the Sacramento Bee, the LA Times and NPR -- covered the group more seriously,” KQED noted. “The story got new legs because several influential tech figures took to Twitter to voice their desire for California to leave the union after Trump’s election. Among them was Shervin Pishevar, an investor and co-founder of Hyperloop One, a startup promoting a futuristic new transportation technology.” 

Although no elected officials have promoted the breakaway effort, tempers have flared around the idea that a Trump presidency would try to stymie state Democrats, seen by many party members nationwide as a progressive vanguard on social and environmental issues. 

In a recent San Francisco speech before the American Geophysical Union, for instance, Gov. Jerry Brown vowed to press ahead with the state’s current climate policy regardless of what happens in Washington. “If Trump turns off the satellites, California will launch its own damn satellite,” he said, according to the IBTimes. “We’ve got the scientists, we’ve got the lawyers and we’re ready to fight.” 

Rough going. 

Despite the flurry of attention from Russia, Marinelli’s personal political reach in California was likely to remain limited. To date, his track record has been spotty. He “filed a handful of statewide ballot measures related to secession in 2015 and none qualified for the November ballot,” the Sacramento Bee recalled.  “He also waged an unsuccessful campaign to represent state Assembly District 80, but didn’t advance beyond the June primary.”

 

(James Poulos blogs for CalWatchdog.com where this perspective was originally posted.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

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