RIGGING THE RULES-The public employee unions, especially the teacher union variety, are very jittery over the prospect that the Janus case, if successful in the U.S. Supreme Court next year, could free government workers from paying forced dues to a union as a condition of employment. Enter California’s AB 119, a trailer bill, which was signed into law last week. As R Street Institute’s Steven Greenhut reminds us, a trailer bill is typically intended “for last minute and non-controversial technical fixes to budget matters.” While, AB 119 was certainly last minute, it is anything but non-controversial. 

15 CANDLES-- (Editor’s Note: It has 15 years since Los Angeles certified its first Neighborhood Council … Wilmington Neighborhood Council … in December of 2001. The ’15 Candles’ campaign celebrates the occasion, looks back at the early days and considers the future of LA’s NCs. Bill Christopher Chaired the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners … BONC … beginning in June of 2001 and, working at fever pitch, oversaw the certification of some 60 neighborhood councils in a two year period. Bill takes a look back and considers what he might do differently.)  

CORRUPTION WATCH-Millions of Americans on the Left are being scammed by the call for “Single Payer Health Care.” We have naively allowed ourselves to be so polarized by the endless hogwash from both parties that we will believe anything. The Left is consumed with insane Tweets from a mentally ill President and by the stupendous avarice of the GOP in Congress; a majority of Americans have lost the ability to think. 

EASTSIDER-I rarely write directly about what I do for a living, but as a neutral person with some 25 years experience in California public sector labor relations, I feel compelled to write about the merits of the DWP/IBEW settlement itself, especially after the recent flood of articles casting the contract in unflattering terms. 

TENANT’S RIGHTS--Close to four Million people reside in Los Angeles according to an annual population report by the California Department of Finance dated May 1, 2017 

PERSPECTIVE-Much has been written and discussed about the recently approved contract with DWP’s IBEW Local 18 members...but not enough.