LOOK AND LISTEN-Unfortunately, it appears we’re off to a red-flag-riddled start with Prop HHH. The first implementation meeting took place on February 17th, though you wouldn’t know it unless – well, actually, there is no “unless.” There was simply no reasonable way for any Angeleno to have found out about it. 

No worries. We’ll just listen to the audio recording of the meeting ... except that … 

The following brief letter is real and is reprinted here verbatim: 

Mr. Preven - earlier today you asked about audio recordings for both the COC [Civilian’s Oversight Committee] and AOC [Administrative Oversight Committee] meetings for Prop HHH. 

I followed up with staff and it is our intention, similar to all of our other bond oversight Committees, to record all of these meetings. However, there was a technical problem at the COC meeting last Friday and so we do not have an audio recording for that meeting. Tomorrow's meeting will be recorded assuming no problems with the equipment.  

We do not currently post audio recordings of any bond oversight meetings and do not currently have plans to begin doing so. We can and do provide them to the public when asked. 

Sincerely, [name redacted]

Assistant City Administrative Officer 

We’ll take that as …“Yes, I didn’t mean what I just wrote and of course we’ll post every audio recording immediately, so that the public doesn’t rise up and roar the Mayor and the rest of us out of City Hall and half way to Kingdom come.” 

Thank goodness that four out of the seven Citizens Oversight Committee members for HHH were appointed by the Mayor! With a straight shooter like Garcetti calling the shots, the public’s sure to get a good deal. Better yet, the other three Committee members were appointed by the not-at-all-compliant City Council. With that body’s integrity in the mix, the future couldn’t be brighter, right? 

Are you sitting down? One of the Mayor’s appointees for the Citizens Oversight Committee is former CAO Miguel Santana. Last we saw him he was receiving a commendatory resolution and a lionizing farewell. (By the way, he said that everyone can get in free to the County Fair  if they give him a jingle. We’ll keep that under our hats and not tell the people whose livelihoods depend on ticket sales.) 

But Miguel is back and although he has worked for the Mayor since forever, he’s turned over a new leaf during the past the six weeks and is now ready to do some 100% independent oversight.  

Here’s an idea; let’s lose the nascent obfuscations and secretiveness, and get this billion dollar operation off to a non-fishy start. Let’s make it so that an everyday resident can find an agenda or any notice of these oversight meetings without hiring a private detective. Trust and verify.  

And about that audio equipment? We know a great guy downtown. 

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

ELECTION WATCH--One of the most competitive Los Angeles City Council contests that voters could decide next week pits the incumbent against two challengers – one with a large campaign war chest to leverage. (Photo above: Jesse Creed, Mark Herd, Paul Koretz, candidates for LA’s CD5)

Councilmember Paul Koretz is running for his third term representing District 5. Covering communities like Bel Air, Encino, Hollywood and Westwood, the district is among the wealthiest and well-educated among the council's 15 represented areas.

Koretz' challengers are Mark Herd, who has been active in several community groups and is the founder of the Westwood Neighborhood Council, and attorney Jesse Creed.

Among the challengers in the eight City Council contests on Tuesday's primary election ballot, Creed is the top campaign fundraiser, with the exception of one candidate running for the open District 7 seat in the San Fernando Valley.

Creed has collected about $298,800 in contributions, as of the latest filling deadline, but is trailing incumbent Koretz who has about $440,300 in contributions. Both Koretz and Creed also accepted public matching funds. Herd has not reported any fundraising.  

Creed claims he's gained significant local support by walking the district's neighborhoods. He said he has spent three to five hours a day since December knocking on doors.

"Our donation base comes from individuals, people with a pulse, not PACs, corporations or LLCs. And it comes from people who live in and around the city," he said.  

Koretz points toward accomplishments like helping to save the Century Plaza Hotel, boosting code enforcements and his work on environmental issues. He is well-known as an advocate for animal rights and worked to outlaw declawing cats and puppy mills in Los Angeles.

For his next term, Koretz said he'll be able to get more done for constituents thanks to funding improvements, a reference to improved city revenues since the recession. 

"We'll trim more trees, but we've been doing that already. We'll fix more streets, but we've been doing that already. We have money committed to fix sidewalks and we'll do that more aggressively," he said.

Creed promises he will only be beholden to voters and he's taken a pledge not to accept any money from developers or lobbyists. 

"I will be an independent voice for the neighborhoods, for residents, for the basic issues that people care about on a day-to-day basis," he said.

Koretz dismisses Creed's charges that the incumbent is beholden to developers. Koretz took heat for his handling of the developer Rick Caruso's high-rise residential building project located across from the Beverly Center. 

The Los Angeles Times reported that Koretz received $2,200 in donations from Caruso. After the story ran, Koretz removed his support for the project, and then ultimately restored his support after Caruso lowered the project's height by 55 feet.

Koretz told KPCC "it didn't turn out perfectly." He said he'd intended to remove his support for the project all along unless it was shortened, but was motivated to act faster when the Beverly Wilshire Homes Association held a press conference to voice strong opposition to the project.

"At the end of the day, I think it was the right compromise," Koretz said. 

He called Creed's campaign "the most shockingly negative" that he's ever seen. 

"Every developer in town knows I've been their worst enemy," Koretz said. "The idea that contributions have made me any less independent, I think, is absurd."

Despite the Caruso project controversy, Koretz was among five incumbent City Council members endorsed by the Los Angeles Times. The newspaper praised him for caring "deeply about his district and his constituents" and for making himself available to them. 

On the other hand, the Los Angeles Daily News endorsed Creed, noting his work as an advocate for homeless veterans and what it described as his broad knowledge of district issues.

Koretz also has the backing of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party and the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, and several politicians like Mayor Eric Garcetti.

If no candidate reaches the majority threshold of 50 percent of voter support plus one vote in the primary, then the top two vote-getters will move on to the general election on May 16.

Voters who are still undecided on the District 5 race can check out KPCC's candidate survey, which features the candidates' backgrounds and answers to campaign questions. 

(This analysis was posted originally at KPCC radio.) 

-cw

NEW GEOGRAPHY--The cracks in the 50-year-old Oroville Dam, and the massive spillage and massive evacuations that followed, shed light on the true legacy of Jerry Brown. The governor, most recently in Newsweek, has cast himself as both the Subcomandante Zero of the anti-Trump resistance and savior of the planet. But when Brown finally departs Sacramento next year, he will be leaving behind a state that is in danger of falling apart both physically and socially.

Jerry Brown’s California suffers the nation’s highest housing prices, largest percentage of people in or near poverty of any state and an exodus of middle-income, middle-aged people. Job growth is increasingly concentrated in low-wage sectors. By contrast, Brown’s father, Pat, notes his biographer, Ethan Rarick, helped make the 20th century “The California Century,” with our state providing “the template of American life.” There was then an “American Dream” across the nation, but here we called it the “California Dream.” His son is driving a stake through the heart of that very California Dream.

California crumbling

Nothing so illustrates the gap between the two Browns than infrastructure spending. Oroville Dam’s delayed maintenance, coupled with a lack of major new water storage facilities to serve a growing population, reflects a pattern of neglect. Just this year alone, the massive water losses at Oroville Dam and other storage overflows have almost certainly offset a significant portion of the hard-won drought water savings achieved by our state’s cities. A sensible state policy would have stored more water from before the drought, and would now be maximizing the current bounty.

Once a national and global leader in infrastructure, according to a report last year by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, California now spends the least percentage of its state budget on infrastructure of any state. In the critical Sacramento-San Francisco Delta, an ancient levee and dike system is decaying, and ever more stringent environmental regulations limit key state and federal water facility operations. To be sure, Brown has supported a “water fix” — a dual tunnel through the Delta — to address some of these problems, but his efforts have only produced a mountain of paper, rather than real-world improvements. In terms of preparing for the future, California’s current penchant for endless studies and environmental hand-wringing is fostering pre-Katrina Louisiana conditions, rather than the forward-looking capital investments previously the state’s hallmark.

Remarkably, this year’s water system fiasco could have been prevented if Brown had actually heeded his own climate change rhetoric, which anticipates that more rain and less snow will fall in the state. But his climate change obsession failed to spark any rush to modernize or expand water storage to capture the potentially increased rainfall. There has not been a major new dam or reservoir constructed since the first “Moonbeam” era — in large part, due to environmental opposition and Sacramento’s disinterest in basic state services.

You don’t have to be a hard-core climate activist to see the need to expand our storage capacity. Contrary to the prevailing media narrative, droughts and floods have been repeated throughout our history. Back in 1861, it rained for 54 days, flooding much of state and creating lakes in the Central Valley. Yet, Brown, and his immediate predecessors, have not chosen not to invest in this critical infrastructure, leaving us with an aging set of water resources that date, like the Oroville Dam, from the 1960s or earlier.

Nor is the water infrastructure alone in terms of neglect. California’s roads are among the worst maintained in the country. The Los Angeles area has the worst road conditions of all major metropolitan areas, followed closely by the Bay Area. But fixing roads is hardly a Brown priority, given that the state wants to put us all on a “road diet.” Instead, we are faced with the mounting costs for a high-speed choo choo that Brown wants to leave us as his legacy, but solves none of California’s basic transportation problems. Despite paying billions in gas taxes and other levies that are supposed to maintain roads, Californians, as the San Francisco Chronicle recently suggested, will be required to pay new, more regressive taxes if they want fewer potholes and sound bridges.

The wages of narcissism — and opportunism

Brown’s recent pronunciamentos suggest we will have ever more extreme climate policies, including virtual bans on all greenfield housing, and regulations covering everything from how houses are built to cow farts. Sadly, all this will have no real effect on the global climate, given California’s relatively small footprint; the shift of people, jobs and productive industries to other, less temperate states like Texas all but wipes out whatever might be gained from the state’s increasingly extreme greenhouse gas limitations.

Brown’s actions seem rooted in a desire to present himself as the savior of the planet. Yet, while he postures, Brown is leaving a legacy not of salvation, but rather of devastation — at least for everyone but a handful of tech oligarchs and the state’s pensioners. His successors must cope with voter ire over such mundane things as ever more crowded roads, a perennial shortage of secure water supplies and cascading prices for everything from electricity to housing. These realities, not the praise heaped on Brown from the media, will constitute the essence of his legacy.

(Joel Kotkin is executive editor of New Geography … where this analysis was first posted. He is the Roger Hobbs Distinguished Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University and executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism. He lives in Orange County, CA.)

-cw

THIS IS WHAT I KNOW-Donald J. Trump and Co. have occupied the Oval Office for over a third of his first 100 days or edging toward 1,000  hours, give or take a few trips to Mar A Lago. Thirty-eight days have passed since Women’s Marches were held across the planet. 

To date, social media feeds are still primarily occupied by political posts, to the chagrin of those who long for the days of “cute puppies and grandmas” (this from an actual Facebook post I read a couple of weeks ago!) 

Since that first Tuesday in November, many of us have experienced disappointment leading to fear and anxiety. I’ve described the slew of executive orders and statements as brush fires we’re working to extinguish all over the yard while hosing down the house to protect it from going up in flames. 

So what can we do next? Can we survive this pace for another three years, ten and a half months? 

This past week, I co-hosted a Huddle event, a follow up effort in coordination with The Sister March Network. I attended a Town Hall hosted by Assemblyman Matt Dababneh (D-Encino) in the Van Nuys State Building atrium. Rep. Dababneh, Congressman Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks) and state Sen. Bob Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys) fielded questions from a standing-room only crowd of constituents. Over the weekend, I also joined a group of Santa Monica and westside residents at the first Bake & Gather event coordinated by baker/restaurateur Zoe Nathan and colleagues. Lines snaked around a park and pastries sold out for the first time within the first hour as participants jammed twenty dollar bills into jars to raise money for the ACLU and Public Counsel. 

I spoke with and listened to participants at all these events. Here’s my takeaway. As much as we need to formulate concrete plans to address what’s going on in Washington, D.C., we also need to gather to heal. It’s far too easy to slip into hopelessness and despair. Knowing we are not alone goes a long way toward being able to address and even survive the days of this administration. 

During the election cycle, I joined a number of private Facebook groups that either supported Hillary Clinton or opposed Trump, as much to share information and grievances as to help me to process what was happening. During the final days before the election, we questioned what would happen should these groups disband. As a reaction to the outcome, many of the groups are still active but the focus has shifted to resistance, as well as commiserating and venting. 

Since the election, and certainly since January 20, we have seen the rise of many groups in response to Trump’s executive orders, cabinet picks, and presidency in general. The shift has attracted many who were previously not engaged in the process but who are fully embracing their new roles as activists. Throughout the country, hundreds of people attend town hall meetings, a far greater number than in years past. I’ve heard from friends who attended town hall meetings in red states where the constituents in attendance were plentiful, infuriated and anxious, just like us in blue states. In fact, more than a few members of Congress have refused to participate in town hall meetings because they don’t want to face the rage and questions of their constituents. 

Throughout the country, people are sharing to-do lists to contact representatives and address numerous issues and pending legislation. People are continuing to gather for marches, meetings, and to plan the next steps at every turn. They are mobilizing to turn around seats in the midterm elections. Others are contemplating running for local offices. 

This administration is a bit like a dysfunctional or unhappy marriage. Venting and commiserating certainly have value for getting through each day in response to all the landmines -- but taking the next step is equally, if not more, crucial. Complain, express disapproval, find like-minded people for peace of mind but also take steps to move forward. 

To find a Huddle group in your neighborhood, visit www.womensmarch.com/100/action2/.
Join the next Bake & Gather March 11, 12-3 p.m. at the (Silver Lake Reservoir’s Meadow 1850 W. Silverlake Drive), hosted by Roxana Jullapat (behind the forthcoming Friends & Family,) Proof Bakery’s Na Young Ma, and Alimento’s Harriet Ha.

(Beth Cone Kramer is a Los Angeles writer and a columnist for CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

@THE GUSS REPORT-An article I wrote last year cautioned that when speaking with politicians, and those surrounding them, one should “listen closely, because what they say matters; their evasion matters more; and their evasion while speaking matters most.”

Today’s column starts innocently at a community meeting in Hollywood a few weeks ago when a woman named Del Richardson offered money to the residents of 12 rent-stabilized addresses on Yucca Avenue and Vista del Mar Avenue to persuade them to move elsewhere so developers could use their landlord’s property for more lucrative purposes. (Photo above: Del Richardson, blue dress; Councilman Price, white jacket.)

What Richardson and her company, Del Richardson Associates (DRA), were in the habit of not offering is this tidbit of information: according to media sources, she is married to Curren DeMille Price, Jr., the Los Angeles City Councilmember who happens to be on the city’s Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) Committee. (DRA which has been in business for decades does not appear to have a website, or at least not one that is currently functioning.)

When the locals confronted Richardson (who is listed as “Del Richardson Price” on the Councilmember’s Wikipedia page and elsewhere) about that relationship, and whether she was offering fair market money to vacate their units, she begrudgingly admitted that she is married to Price but claimed that she had no conflict of interest. Still, it is believed that she left or was removed from the project days after the disclosure.

In order to determine how long Price and Richardson have been married, a search of public records shows that Price was, indeed, married…to Lynn Suzette Price, his first wife, and that he twice filed for divorce from her in the Los Angeles court system, with neither effort finalized. Mr. Price’s second such effort to obtain that divorce tells a curious story, to say the least.

In 2012, Mr. Price tried to persuade the LA court to grant him a divorce hearing because, he claimed, he was unable to locate Lynn, and he wanted to serve notice on her via a paid announcement in a newspaper. But the court staff directed Mr. Price to ascertain from the post office whether Lynn used a change of address form, and to explore serving her at that address, if one was provided.

The case file shows no further activity in that divorce pursuit…because Mr. Price knew quite well where Lynn was living and working.

Lynn Price is an attorney practicing in Trenton, New Jersey. It says so on her website, and in various bar associations to which she has belonged since 2003, after receiving her law degree from Southwestern University. Her physical address, an active phone number and email address are all readily available.

Price knew all along where to serve his wife with divorce papers – had he wanted to.

Instead of having a New Jersey process server go to Lynn’s office address, Mr. Price’s SoCal process server swore to the court in a misdated 2012 document that no response was ever received to the two letters mailed to her Trenton office address.

No one can know why the process server or Mr. Price misled the court in declaring under penalty of perjury that Lynn could not be located, though his not wanting to split assets with his first wife that he currently co-owns with his second wife is a prevailing thought. Mr. Price is no amateur when it comes to serving legal papers. According to his biography, he earned a law degree from the University of Santa Clara. But according to the California Bar Association, he never received a license to practice law in California.

In addition to there being no record of a divorce between Mr. Price and his first wife in Los Angeles courts, court clerks in Sacramento, Houston, Trenton and Washington, D.C. (i.e. places where either or both were known to have lived prior to Price marrying Richardson) indicate there is no such divorce record in those locations either.

Lynn Price did not respond to several voicemail messages requesting comment on the status of her marriage to Mr. Price. Del Richardson, for weeks, did not respond to questions about her real estate dealings. And Mr. Price similarly dodged questions about either subject.

Until last week.

That’s when the LA Times endorsed Jorge Nuño, Price’s young Latino challenger for his CD9 seat on the LA City Council, a community which is quickly transitioning from largely African-American to predominantly Latino.

Within minutes of my publicly pointing out Nuño’s rise, I received coordinated emails – within minutes of each other – from Del Richardson and Price’s media relations person, Angelina Valencia.

Richardson declared, “I conduct all my business with honesty and integrity in a fair, ethical and forthright manner, and in compliance with laws and regulations.”

But this 2004 LAUSD audit concluded that Richardson’s firm overbilled the school district by $83,128 for unauthorized charges. The audit recommended that the amount should be recovered from DRA, or deducted from its future invoices. It is unclear whether Richardson’s excess fees were ever repaid, or if any of her other government contracts are under audit.

Moreover, while Richardson stated that there was “public disclosure of my business interests in the Councilmember’s ‘Form 700,’ economic interest statement,” there was no such mention of it in Price’s 2012 Ethics Commission Form 700, when he was a candidate for LA City Council. He only made that disclosure in subsequent years, when he already had the job.

The huge financial increase between Mr. Price’s 2012 and 2013 economic interest disclosures are the likeliest reason why he wanted a divorce from his first wife without serving her directly.

So if the LAUSD could not rely on Richardson’s financial figures, it comes as no surprise that the residents of rent-stabilized apartments were no less concerned that she dealt fairly with them, either.

And finally, there were the emails from Angelina Valencia, Mr. Price’s Communications Director, who, when asked when and where Price divorced his first wife, wrote back, “I am currently running your request by the City Attorney's Office. I will have a response for you shortly.”

Why would the City Attorney’s office have knowledge of, let alone anything to say about, when, where – and whether – Mr. Price divorced his first wife? Ms. Valencia has yet to reply.

More on the Councilmember’s connubial chaos soon.

(Daniel Guss, MBA, is a contributor to CityWatch, KFI AM-640, Huffington Post and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter @TheGussReport. His opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

PLATKIN ON PLANNING--It is a serious chore to keep up with the deceptive claims about Measure S. Today I heard that it would cause rents to increase because of supply and demand, while yesterday I heard just the opposite. Supposedly Measure S will block the construction of luxury housing (partially true), and it therefore reduces the amount of affordable housing because of supply and demand. (Graphic above: Caruso luxury development on Burton Way, Los Angeles.) 

Only one of these contradictory claims could possibly be true, even though as a city planner, I think they are both false.   This is why. Rents for luxury apartments, like Caruso Affiliated's at 8150 Burton Way and 333 S. LaCienega, are not connected to middle class and affordable housing markets. 

In response to Caruso's projects, charging average rents of $12,000 per month, nearby landlords are not going to move their rents either up or down. They will continue to impose the three percent annual rent increases allowed through LA’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance. And, because of vacancy decontrol, they will attempt to rent-out newly vacated units at slightly higher prices. Finally, when given the right combination of carrots and sticks, some landlords will sell out to the likes of the Wiseman Company. 

As the new owner, they will evict the tenants they inherited and then demolish the small apartment building they just bought. All of this takes place in a universe separate from the luxury apartments that sprout up down the street through City Council spot-zoning ordinances. 

Anyone, including opponents of Measure S, who truly wants to maintain affordable apartments and houses, needs to first stop the dislocation caused by urban infill, whether for luxury mega-projects, medium-rise apartment buildings, Small Lot Subdivisions, or McMansions. They then need to toughen up LA's Rent Stabilization Ordinance to eliminate automatic rent increases and vacancy decontrol. 

Beyond those defensive steps, if they want to increase the supply of affordable housing, they need to campaign for the restoration of all the slashed HUD public housing programs and the local Community Redevelopment Agency. 

“Law” of supply and demand: But what about the miraculous law of supply and demand that can simultaneously cause rents to increase and affordable housing units to appear from thin air? This assumed feature of capitalism actually plays little role in LA’s housing market for one obvious reason.   Supply and demand only works within capitalism's one true iron law, profit maximization. 

Maximizing profit is the purpose of all capitalist ventures and investment decisions. As a result, no one buys or sells things for long – including real estate -- when they are not making sufficient profit, regardless of surplus supply or unmet demand.   

If you look at housing in LA, there is a massive unmet demand for middle income and affordable housing, even when thousands of foreclosed properties sit empty. There are also vast piles of underperforming capital available for housing construction, as well as ample building sites for new market and affordable apartment buildings. How so? Because all commercially zoned property in Los Angeles can be used for by-right apartment houses.  While it is true that Proposition U limits the Floor Area Ratio (FAR) on some commercial lots, the subsequent Density Bonus Ordinance allows developers to dodge this restriction by including 10 or 20 percent affordable housing in their projects.

So given available capital, potential building sites, and enormous demand, why is there is so little construction of market and affordable housing in LA? As far as I know, no Los Angeles developers are choosing to meet this pent-up demand for affordable housing by building low-priced housing, even though it would immediately fill up or sell.  They can't make enough money at it, so they don't do it.  They need subsidies, and these subsidies have totally dried up through the elimination of Federal housing programs and the dissolution of the Community Redevelopment Agency.

Nevertheless, some anti-Measure S true believers maintain -- without a shred of evidence -- that the construction of luxury housing increases the supply of affordable housing. Through CityWatch I have repeatedly asked them where in Los Angeles one can find these new affordable units. So far no one has given me an addresses or told me about a neighborhood where this affordable housing can be found. If some reader knows its location, please speak up. 

Until I learn otherwise, my explanation is simple. There is no area in Los Angeles where new luxury housing causes the price of older housing to go down. Even when there is a glut of luxury housing, such as Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA), the price of non-luxury housing stays fixed or also slowly rises, as part of broad market trends.  At best, the landlords of the luxury housing repond to high vacancy rates with offers of free parking or a month of free rent. That is as far as they go, which is many thousands of dollars away from affordability.   

Filtering: The anti-S diehards also argue that new luxury housing eventually filters down to become affordable housing, although it takes 25 years.  I have therefore asked them where in Los Angeles one can find affordable housing that was built as luxury housing in 1992 or earlier.  If it actually exists, it is such a well-kept secret that even those who make these claims do not identify these hidden locations. They are as mum as could be, so if they know, they, too, need to finally speak up.

Domino Theory: Another new anti-Measure S supply and demand argument is a domino theory.  It argues that a new tenant of luxury housing frees up a lower priced unit, and this cascades through the entire housing market, creating affordable housing at the lowest ends.   

But, quite frankly this is just a quack theory contrived by the anti-S campaign.  There are no facts and studies whatsoever to back up this newly minted domino theory.  There is simply no evidence that the construction of luxury housing triggers a chain reaction that methodically generates low priced housing at another location.   

If this were the case, Hollywood should have lots of new affordable housing, but reality is just the opposite. Affordable housing, including rent-stabilized apartments, has largely disappeared in Hollywood. The supply of low priced units and the low-income people who lived in them have plummeted, alongside the construction of new luxury housing.   

Part of the reason is the demolition of affordable housing, about 20,000 units, since 2000, as well as broad increases in rents that have displaced the poor.  They have no choice but to double up, live in cars, live on the streets, live in garages and warehouses, or move to far-flung regions like Palmdale. 

It is time for Angelinos to get real and stop believing in the fairly tales dreamed up by the no on S campaign. The only housing bans in L.A. are the end of affordable housing programs funded by the Federal government and the CRA, as well as the profit-based business model of developers. The supposed law of supply and demand will never substitute for these programs, which is one more reason Angelinos should vote for Measure S.

(Dick Platkin is a former LA city planner who reports on local planning issues in Los Angeles for CityWatch LA. Please send your comments and corrections to [email protected].)

-cw