EASTSIDER-The Developer vs. NELA Open Space fight is one we Angelenos understand all too well. What makes this dispute different is that there is a rational developer, and based on the respective positions of the two sides, there should be a solution that works for all. Since that hasn’t happened, the question is “why the heck not?” For the scene, the struggle, and possible solutions, read on. 

Background 

For those of you who don’t know, Glassell Park is that series of hills near downtown LA, bordered by the Glendale Freeway on the west, and the 5 Freeway on the south. Recently overwhelmed by a wave of gentrification, suddenly a small home in these hills is going for something like $600,000 - $800,000 and beyond. 

Aside from proximity to downtown, one of the main attractions of what was a sleepy little community is the presence of 4 or 5 (depending on how you count) of the last open space canyons in the City, preserving native species from critters to trees in a natural habitat. 

Over the last 15 years or so, these canyons have been ground zero for hotly contested disputes between developers, who see a great commercial opportunity, and a variety of community based groups, such as the Glassell Park Improvement Association (a homeowners group), the Glassell Park Neighborhood Council, the Mt. Washington Homeowners Association, and a coalition of open space groups under the umbrella of Nelagreenspace.  

To no one’s surprise, the amount of this open space has diminished to the point that we are essentially left with two large open spaces -- Walnut Canyon and Moss Canyon (Barryknoll is already in the midst of development.) 

The Shifting Sands of Northeast LA Politics 

Over these same fifteen years, there have been three Council Districts involved with Glassell Park -- CD1, CD13, and CD14. During that time, the political elite of the City have seen fit to gerrymander the area covered by each of these three districts so that there is little political continuity, a fact which I believe has led to the tenuous interest of the current crop of Councilmembers in actually giving a damn about the folks who live here. Two of our three Councilmembers (Huizar and Cedillo) are on the PLUM Committee. 

For example, our very own Mayor, Eric the Bold, used to have a good chunk of the community in CD13, but that has now diminished to a teeny area mostly around San Fernando Road and Fletcher Square. The District is now run by his former staff person, Mitch O’Farrell.

CD14, which used to encompass most of Glassell Park when Antonio Villaraigosa was the Councilmember, got shrunk to a pittance after his successor, Jose Huizar, decided he could make more money selling off Boyle Heights and Downtown LA. 

And finally, CD1, which was run by that paragon of planning, Ed Reyes, got radically expanded in the last redistricting exercise, and is now under the tutelage of Gilbert Cedillo. His district now includes the bulk of these canyons. 

I think the redistricting shuffle is a pretty good variation of three card monte, and gives you a clue as to exactly how rotten the state of politics currently is on Northeast LA. 

That said, accompanying the gerrymandering there has been an equal upheaval in how the politicians view Glassell Park. Back in the day, our Three Amigos (Reyes, Huizar, and Garcetti) were dead against building in the hills. They passed a bunch of legally questionable Interim Control Ordinances, Community Design Overlays, Q Conditions and many more bogus “planning tools,” all of which had the effect of stopping virtually all building of single family homes in the hills.   

The open space people were ecstatic, but some of us noticed that the real thrust of the Council actions were aimed against the right of individual people like you and me to be able to build our own home on a lot in the hills. They didn’t touch their big time campaign contribution base of large developers. The land was being warehoused. 

Of note, the bulk of the people wanting to build were multicultural families who had owned these lots for some time, and simply wanted to build their family a home. In other words, people with no real money and therefore no political power. 

Then came the housing crash in 2007-2008, and god took care of the hillsides for a while. Instead of open space, we all concentrated on figuring out how to cope with a 40% drop in the value of our homes, not to mention staying employed to pay the bills. 

The Adobe at Glassell Park 

Now the worm has turned, and housing near downtown is hot! Silverlake properties are largely unattainable, unless you are running an Airbnb party house, and anything around Echo Park has popped up like pot grown in a hothouse. We in Glassell Park (and to some extent, Cypress Park) have gotten discovered as the next great thing. 

In the midst of all this, along came the developers of The Adobe at Glassell Park, a four-acre piece of the 30-acre Walnut Canyon. Unfortunately for those who want to preserve the canyon, Adobe has the legal ability to build 32 single family homes on their four acres. This is because that land was zoned and 32 lots were approved way back when. 

With virtually no inventory in Glassell Park and a housing comeback, in 2014 the developers got serious about moving forward with their plan. It’s Unusual for developers, but these folks actually did engage the community and have a number of community meetings. Furthermore (gasp), they were and continue to be open to selling their property as open space, for a park or such, and reaffirmed this willingness last Saturday at the Glassell Park Community Center. 

On the other hand, this is a capitalist country (even before Trump), and the developers are interested in making a decent profit out of the deal. Duh. 

Saturday’s Meeting at the Glassell Park Community Center 

On January 28, a community meeting was held at our community center, a space leased by Council District One. The event (and thank you very much) was cosponsored by the Glassell Park Improvement Association and the Glassell Park Neighborhood Council. 

As usual, the crowd was huge, and the rhetoric was as toxic as the bike lane meetings were in Highland Park/Cypress Park/Glasell Park. Toxic indeed. While it is clear that the community will do everything in its power to stop the development and preserve Walnut Canyon, it is equally clear that the owners have a right to build, and the most the community can hope to do is delay the project, not stop it. 

I think it is that frustration which has led to the vehemence in attempting to block the project, a frustration over our community’s lack of political power to preserve the canyons. 

Of course an unmentioned fact is that most of the groups in our area supported the loser in the last race for CD1: Ed Reyes’ Chief of Staff Jose Gardea. In an almost $2 million dollar campaign, Gil Cedillo won by 52% to 48%. And wouldn’t you know it, the Mt. Washington crowd was prominent in the Gardea camp, many of whom had some pretty incendiary things to say about Mr. Cedillo. I won’t say that elections have consequences, but I haven’t seen a lot of kiss and make up since the election. Sigh. 

The Takeaway 

The real problem is that public institutions have failed in step up to actually do something to preserve what little open space there is left in Glassell Park. For example, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and its OberGrupenFuhrer ‘Ranger Joe’ Edmiston, has been too busy posturing to come up with the money from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy to buy the land. 

It also turns out that the spiffy new Measure “A” Parks money which was just passed by the voters won’t really be available until sometime in 2019. After all the hype it turns out that even then the funds will be up for grabs by various denizens of the Supervisorial District. So good luck to our local open space folks. 

That leaves the City of Los Angeles. It seems to me that this is a grand opportunity for Council District 1 to see about some fresh ideas on how to keep Walnut Canyon as open space. God knows the rest of LA is turning into a concrete jungle, a place where the only open spaces are the potholes.

There is precedent for the City stepping up for open space. After all, a few years ago Jose Huizar proudly bought Elephant Hill for over $9 million bucks and hailed it as a great victory. 

The value of a pristine canyon or two is inestimable to all the citizens of Los Angeles, particularly those people squashed into outrageously priced condos in the downtown area. Maybe Huizar could help out, since he runs the PLUM Committee. He, after all, was the one who gerrymandered his way out of Northeast LA in favor of downtown, and I think his constituents just might like to take a ride and see a tree, or a critter, in a canyon. 

(Tony Butka is an Eastside community activist, who has served on a neighborhood council, has a background in government and is a contributor to CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

REFORMING LA FOR THE PEOPLE-While I can't reasonably speak for all of those who advocate for Measure S, I can reasonably say the following: neighborhood/volunteer/community advocates have been stymied by a Downtown/Mayor/City Council/Planning elite for decades. This elite has thwarted attempts by neighborhood councils and grassroots groups to create affordable, sustainable, environmentally-favorable, and economically-beneficial living conditions in the City of Los Angeles. 

Common sense, right? And this same elite is coming out against Measure S. Most of their allies are comprised of the same ilk that has benefited financially while causing the majority of Angelenos to suffer a decrease in quality of life or to flee the City altogether, often after years of fighting against this elite. 

Despite the lies and distortions, most of this unholy alliance of builders and developers are the same people who flout the laws themselves or pay off Downtown to flout the laws. They benefit financially while they do this and -- as would be expected -- have overseen a worsening of the environment, economy and quality of life in LA as a result of their actions. 

So the same folks who have fought for grassroots voices and for neighborhood councils are fighting for Measure S. Perhaps it's sad we have come to this, but has the City Council elite (those who oppose Measure S) bothered to police itself over the last few decades? 

The answer is No. So this is what Measure S is FOR, as per Ballotpedia:  

1) FOR TWO YEARS, WE WILL STOP MEGADEVELOPMENTS, ALLOW DEVELOPMENTS THAT DON'T NEED HUGE VARIANCES, AND UPDATE OUR GENERAL PLAN/COMMUNITY PLAN/ZONING LAWS.  WE WILL HAVE THE CITY OBEY ITS OWN LAWS, AND THEY WILL BE UPDATED WITH LEGAL/COMMUNITY INPUT. 

2) THERE WILL BE A PERMANENT PROHIBITION AGAINST "SPOT-ZONING", WHICH IS WHEN THE CITY VIOLATES THE LAWS FOR A GIVEN PROJECT, BUT THE ABILITY TO PERFORM LEGAL/COMMUNITY-SUPPORTED VARIANCES WILL BE MAINTAINED. 

3) THE CITY GENERAL/COMMUNITY/AIRPORT DISTRICT PLANS WILL HAVE A LEGAL REQUIREMENT TO HAVE A PUBLIC REVIEW EVERY FIVE YEARS. 

4) ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORTS (EIR'S) WOULD HAVE TO BE PERFORMED BY CITY STAFF, AND NOT BY INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS PAID BY (AND BEHOLDEN TO) THE DEVELOPERS.  IN OTHER WORDS, THESE EIR'S WOULD BE UNBIASED. 

5) NO MORE THAN ONE-THIRD OF A REDUCTION OF ON-SITE PARKING REQUIREMENTS COULD OCCUR FOR A GIVEN DEVELOPMENT. 

So now you have read the basics -- the essence of Measure S. It's a shame that we have to pursue Measure S at this time, but after decades of being lied to, of being "owned" by developers and their allies who want to make big bucks and harm the daylights out of the rest of us, we have no choice. 

Measure S supporters are your neighbors, the affordable housing advocates, and the volunteers who want parks and a livable City where children and seniors and families can thrive and enjoy life. They want big projects to remain Downtown where they belong, and for there to be smaller projects in the suburban portion of the City, with accessible jobs as well. 

It's what we're FOR. And those who oppose Measure S? What are THEY for? 

Vote "YES" on Measure S on March 7, 2017. 

A happier, reformed Los Angeles may be coming a lot sooner than you think!

(Kenneth S. Alpern, M.D. is a dermatologist who has served in clinics in Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside Counties.  He is also a Westside Village Zone Director and Board member of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Planning and Outreach Committees, and currently is Co-Chair of its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee. He is co-chair of the CD11Transportation Advisory Committee and chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at   [email protected]. He also co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Dr. Alpern.) Photo: LA Times. Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

ELECTION POST-MORTEM-If you have found yourself profoundly depressed since the election of Donald Trump, you should have been at Occidental College on Wednesday night -- it would have given you hope. The Reverend Dr. William Barber II not only laid out in painful detail what put Trump in the White House, but also took the time in the clearest of terms possible to lay out the steps we the people can do about it now. It involves coming together and asserting our majority status in this democracy. 

Barber’s thesis is that endemic racism is not only alive and well, but is literally the only force powerful enough to get poor White voters in 95 of the poorest counties in the United States and elsewhere in the South to vote against their own economic self-interest. 

These poor voters should wonder why some of those pushing Trump or prior Republican candidates make as much as $97,000 an hour while they fight a $15 an hour minimum wage. The "gift" of racism is that it is able to deflect the blame of poor White exploitation by the obscenely rich to the usual Black, Latino, Muslim, and Jewish suspects, which continues to succeed in the 21st century by offering equally poor and downtrodden working class Whites the consolation prize of feeling at least nominally superior. 

What this left us with in the latest election -- and many of the ones proceeding it -- is the voting reality that this profoundly poor racist motived the voter core of 13 Southern states to give conservative Republicans and now Trump an almost insurmountable 171 Electoral College leg-up. Republicans then only need to accumulate another 99 electoral votes out of the remaining 37 states. 

But in North Carolina, Barber didn't stop at just pointing out the racist fear motivated model that has kept putting conservatives and now Trump in power. His Moral Mondays and other programs coordinated with litigation networked across racial and state lines to engage a multi-racial and ethnic have-not majority that has finally given constitutional "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" a substantive new reality as reflected in the election of a new Democratic governor and other elected officials. 

This has been accomplished, while waging a successful judicial confrontation and a reversal of what had been the systematic gutting of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.  

What I found to be a vindication of Dr. Barber's approach to all exploited people is something he mentioned briefly in passing. In the state of West Virginia where Trump won, Dr. Barber has now been asked to speak before predominantly White audiences ow that these folks have come to realize that the racially tainted Obamacare is actually the Affordable Care Act, and that is what Trump is in the process of taking away from them. 

The significance of race in the election of Donald Trump was clearly illustrated when Dr. Barber said, "There would have been no Trump without Obama first having been president for eight years" as a catalyst to White fear expressed in racism. But by the end of the evening it was also clear to the packed audience that if we organize now across racial and ethnic lines, then 95 million Americans will not sit out the next election as they did this one. And a 77,000 vote margin will never again be allowed to put a Trump into office. 

North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP | P.O. Box 335,Durham NC 27702 | 919‑682‑4700 | Fax 919‑682‑4711 | [email protected]

(Leonard Isenberg is a Los Angeles observer and a contributor to CityWatch. He was a second generation teacher at LAUSD and blogs at perdaily.com. Leonard can be reached at [email protected]) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

DEEGAN ON LA-Will David Ryu’s inaction, as alleged by renters, help evict 500 Miracle Mile affordable housing renters to make room for high end developers? What had been thought of as “secured borders” may now be plums ripe for the picking for developers who are aggressively moving into Miracle Mile. They want to transform up to 500 affordable housing units currently protected by the Rent Stabilization Ordinance into massive, high-end apartment and condo complexes. 

To accomplish this, they would evict workforce renters and tear down historic structures -- a blow to the community and a blow to the City’s efforts to increase the number of affordable housing units. 

This is leading to questions as to whether or not Councilmember David Ryu (CD4) has become a conduit for City Hall’s development plan for the Miracle Mile – a plan that would see it explode with high-end luxury housing taking the place of affordable housing. The upgrading of Museum Row and the installation of the Purple Line Extension subway are driving wedges between the status quo and the future. David Ryu is caught in the crossfire. 

The area between 8th Street and Wilshire Boulevard is primarily vulnerable, but properties fronting on Olympic Boulevard, as well as on the west side of Orange Grove Avenue south of 8th Street, will also be impacted. 

Concerned renters and building owners in the affected area of the Miracle Mile are upset with what they see as Ryu’s lack of continued backing, if not his reversal, of the original boundaries of the historic preservation plan contained in the Miracle Mile Historic Preservation Overlay Zone (HPOZ) currently winding its way through City Hall hearings. It’s headed for a decisive vote by the City Council’s Planning and Land Use Management committee (PLUM) on February 14. 

Fears of a St. Valentine’s Day Massacre by Ryu and PLUM Committee will hopefully be mitigated by a meeting with affected renters in the Miracle Mile on Monday, February 6. Ryu has been invited there so they can explain what they consider to be his abandonment of the original borders of the Miracle Mile HPOZ: namely, the strip between 8th and Wilshire, a strip along Olympic, and a strip west of Orange Grove to Fairfax – all of which have been hollowed out of the HPOZ and would be made available to developers, they say, with Ryu’s tacit approval. 

At press time, Ryu’s office was unable to confirm that he would attend the renters’ meeting, but the clock is ticking. One week after the meeting the PLUM committee is scheduled to hear and discuss the issue that has suddenly caught fire: how and why did the original boundaries change? 

On December 8, 2016, the City Planning Commission endorsed the Miracle Mile Historic Preservation Overlay Zone (HPOZ), but, at the last minute, the Commission rewrote the HPOZ boundaries that had been approved by the City’s Cultural Heritage Commission, recommended by the Planning Department, and endorsed by Ryu. But these boundaries excluded properties fronting on Olympic Boulevard, properties north of 8th Street, as well as properties on the west side of Orange Grove Avenue south of 8th Street. 

These carve-outs of areas offering affordable housing, if allowed to stand, will become a developer’s playground. 

In March, the Interim Control Ordinance now protecting the Miracle Mile, will expire and without a fully approved HPOZ covering the original territory, the land grab by developers will be on. 

Until recently, the renters believed that Ryu was on their side, but in their passionate letter to him requesting a meeting, a copy of which was obtained by CityWatch, the community challenged him, saying: 

“We relied upon your promise to protect our neighborhood and your vow to ensure that multifamily residents – especially so many rent stabilized apartment dwellers – from rampant development. Why did you allow your staff to remain silent when the Planning Commission redrew the boundaries, in effect, issuing eviction notices to those of us living in more than 500 historic rent stabilized units? Unless you take decisive action to undo the newly proscribed boundaries unjustifiably drawn and adopted by the Planning Commission, our neighborhood will be left unprotected.” 

Ryu has scrambled under community pressure before and may be able to calm down the community with a public pledge to reinstate the original HPOZ borders. He will need to reinforce that by appearing at PLUM and publicly announcing his views since this is the key issue in dispute. 

This will not entirely solve his problem: Ryu would then need to explain himself to the developers and his City Hall colleagues. Or, he may just keep it a secret as to why he will not do what the community believes he originally promised them he would do. 

(Tim Deegan is a long-time resident and community leader in the Miracle Mile, who has served as board chair at the Mid City West Community Council and on the board of the Miracle Mile Civic Coalition. Tim can be reached at [email protected].) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

WISHFUL THINKING ABOUNDS-Thank you Kellyanne Conway. Now we have a name for the phenomenon, Alternative Facts. We needed a simple term to encompass the lies, deceit, misinformation, disinformation, “fair and balanced untruths,” the fake news, the fatally flawed data, and the wishful thinking that have been plaguing us for years. 

When his eminence President Donald Trump tweets about fake news, he too may have a point. The Left loves fake news. The media loves fake news. The Los Angeles Times has perfected Fake News by Omission. That’s why I stuck the LA Times with the motto: “All the News the Elite Wants You to See.” The media can fake the news by using misleading headlines and by omitting crucial facts. The most notorious example is, “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot.” As we now know, Michael Brown was not standing with his hands up surrendering when shot. 

President Trump’s greatest contribution to our understanding of Alternative Facts is his ability to “perchance” Tweet From the Hip. I imagine some of his advisers have pasted signs on the walls of the West Wing urging, “THINK before your TWEET.” If that is so, the signs have been ineffective. While Trump presents a clear and present danger to the Union, we should realize that he did not invent the use of Alternative Facts. We are all in this current nightmare because Alternative Facts have become as American as apple pie. 

Propaganda vs. Love of Truth 

Many decades ago in the build-up to World War II, Alternative Facts ran rampant in the world. Europe had the Nazi Party, but American had its Lindberghs and the American Bund Movement.  America also had a couple of Jewish kids, Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, high school students from Cleveland, who created Superman in 1933. Interestingly, Superman’s alter ego, Clark Kent, was a nerdy guy who worked for a newspaper, The Daily Planet – a rather universal sounding name. 

Although Superman’s powers were allegedly involved with leaping tall buildings in single bound, etc., in reality his greatest super power was his belief in “Truth, Justice and the American Way.” 

Somewhere after WW II, our belief in “Truth Justice and the American Way” waned somewhat. Instead, Alternative Facts came into favor with doctors telling Americans that smoking cigarettes was good for their health and the government warning us that smoking a single reefer would make you commit suicide. 

Yet, we Americans had our limits in those yesteryears, as was shown on June 9, 1954, when chief counsel for the United States Army Joseph Welsh brought the McCarthy Era to an end by asking the Republican Senator from Wisconsin, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” In the 1950's, Truth, Justice and the American Way was not yet a dead. 

Are Truth, Justice and the American Way, a Thing of the Past? 

With Donald Trump’s cleansing of Jews and Genocide from the Holocaust Remembrance Day, with his claims that Mexicans are rapists and drug lords, and with the banning of Muslims from certain nations while expressly exempting Christians from the ban, Americans are drowning in a tsunami of Alt-Rightism that is emanating from the White House. There is a constant barrage of Alternative Facts about millions of illegals voting for Hillary Clinton, along with Trump’s cropped photo of his inauguration he showed to David Muir on ABC. It clouds our minds to the reality that Trump did not make America safe for Alternative Facts. That happened long ago. 

We have become aware of Alternative Facts not because Trump has brought us something new. We are only shocked by the brazen absurdities of his Alternative Facts. Thus, we all need to stop and look at ourselves; we must remember Pogo who pointed out that we have found the enemy and he is us. Let me tweak that -- we have found the enemy and the enemy is our acceptance of Alternative Facts. 

Alternative Facts Govern Los Angeles 

In January 2014, Judge Alan Goodman warned Angelenos that the City intentionally used Alternative Facts to mislead the public and subvert the law. Judge Goodman’s exact words were, “fatally flawed facts,” “wishful thinking.” The judge said, “…material [facts] are necessary to informed decision-making and informed public participation.” As a result of then Councilmember Eric Garcetti’s habitual use of Alternative Facts, Judge Goodman rejected the Hollywood Community Plan. 

In its aftermath, Mayor Garcetti has repeatedly said how important community plans are for the city. Yet, more than three years have passed and there is no new draft of the Hollywood Community Plan. In April 2016, Mayor Garcetti released a foreshadowing of that Community Plan. It was intentionally based on fatally flawed data claiming that Hollywood’s population had grown from 198,288 people in 2010 to 206,000 people in 2016. He cited something called the SCAG 2012 RPT as the source for this “fact.” That SCAG document had absolutely no – nada, zilch -- population data for Hollywood. Lies, deceit, fake news, Alternative Facts are falsehoods are that are found everywhere, too numerous to mention. 

Does Garcetti’s perennial use of Alternative Facts matter? He has used them to divert over $2.5 billion to his developer buddies and he is proposing several mega-projects in Hollywood based on his lies about Hollywood’s population. 

What did the 15-member Los Angeles City Council do when they were asked to approve the Hollywood Community Plan based on lies? During a council hearing on June 19, 2012, one councilmember asked whether City Planning could redo the Plan with accurate data. Senior Planner Kevin Keller basically said, “Yes, that is possible.” Whereupon Garcetti insisted that his Hollywood Community Plan, which everyone knew was based on falsified data, be approved. The LA City Council then unanimously approved it. 

Alternative Facts that the entire City Council knew were false, ended up carrying the day. The Los Angeles City Council is often faced with projects based on Alternative Facts and each and every project is unanimously approved. 

While Mayor Garcetti and Donald Trump are habitual users of Alternative Facts, does this pollute America? Or is using them something akin to a used car salesman’s saying, “This car was used only by a little old lady who only drove it to church on Sunday.” 

The New Yorker ran an article in its January 30, 2017 issue called “Doomsday Prep for the Super-Rich” in which Evan Osnos noted: 

“Even financiers who supported Trump for President, hoping that he would cut taxes and regulations, have been unnerved at the ways his insurgent campaign seems to have hastened a collapse of respect for established institutions. Dugger said, "The media is under attack now. They wonder, is the court system next? Do we go from 'fake news' to 'fake evidence'? For people whose existence depends on enforceable contracts, this is life or death." 

The New Yorker, Mr. Osnos, and financiers are woefully behind the curve. Back in 1992, the California Supreme Court ruled that the court must enforce decisions where errors of fact and law are apparent on the face of the award and where they cause substantial injustice. See Moncharsh v. Heily & Blase, (1992) 3 Cal. 4th 1, 27-28. In her dissenting opinion, Justice Kennard noted, “the majority's holding requires our trial courts not only to tolerate substantial injustice, but to become its active agent.” Yes, the California Supreme Court requires its lower courts to treat known Alternative Facts as true! 

The California Supreme Court ruled that some things are more important than Truth, Justice and the American Way, and winning is one of those things. The threat facing America does not come from Donald Trump, from Breitbart, from the corrupt Los Angeles City Council, or from judges who find facts and fiction to be fungible commodities. The threat comes from our acceptance of those lies, deceit, fake news, dishonest judges, dishonest media, lying Presidents, and prevaricators calling themselves Members of Congress while knowing that they are bold faced liars. 

After the world economic crash in 2008, the nation accepted the Alternative Fact that certain Wall Street executives took unwise risks. That’s a “liar, liar, pants on fire” type of Alternative Fact. The economy crashed due to intentional multi-trillion dollar frauds perpetrated by Wall Street executives, none of whom went the prison. Why? Because we believed the in the Alternative Realty that criminality was mere carelessness. 

Our nation seems to run on Alternative Facts. The use of perjury to convict people is so common that in January 2015, the federal courts said that the California courts had an “epidemic of misconduct” after a prosecutor took the stand and committed perjury in order to convict a defendant. Did U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, who was then California’s Attorney General, do anything about that perjury? No. She just took the credit for another successful prosecution.

As bad as Donald Trump may be, we the American people have created the swamp where Alternative Facts create Alternative Realities. The difference among Trump’s lying Alternative Facts, the court’s lying facts, the media’s lying facts, and Eric Garcetti’s lying Alternative Facts is basically nothing. A lie is a lie is a lie. The fault rests not in the stars nor even in the politicos but in ourselves for pretending that falsehoods are part of Truth, Justice and the American Way.

(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.

MY TURN-This doesn't happen often! Remember college days when you ran to watch "Days of Our Lives" on TV, anxious to find out what disaster befell which member of the cast? Each morning I reach for the news to see what happened. It’s like living in an alternate universe and I keep hoping that, with time, I will be able to look at the "happenings" more dispassionately. 

When last I wrote at the end of the year, I was leaving on my annual R&R break, giving me a chance to travel – my second favorite thing…after writing for CityWatch, of course. Getting away is a good way to clear the head and think about the upcoming year. People who don't take a work break are doing themselves harm. No one is indispensable. 

I went to see longtime friends in Australia and New Zealand. I would suggest adding both countries to your travel "bucket" list. And it was the perfect time to be gone from all the political noise. Both countries have beautiful scenery, great food and wine, warm friendly people, stable governments and a lot of interest in the political changes taking place in the United States. 

In fact, I've not experienced this much curiosity about our country in many a year. They both have an arsenal of cartoonists and journalists who are having a great time at our expense. 

My first stop was a lake house north of Sydney that didn't have CNN or Fox News. The first couple of days withdrawing from news was like quitting smoking. But I adjusted and managed to clear my head by reading books and having huge political discussions with four generations under one roof. The patriarch of this family was a big Trump supporter but most of the rest were definitely not. The "Aussies" have always been strong allies of the U.S. but seem disconcerted about what is happening with our 45th President.

That was somewhat surprising because Australia tends to lean more conservative than its neighbor New Zealand, a country that was the birth of Greenpeace and remains very environmentally conscious. During my visit to New Zealand, I stayed with friends living in a forest overlooking a bay. There, they had both CNN and Fox News so my viewing habits returned quickly. 

I became accustomed to people asking me if I was from "Trump Land" -- and this was before the inauguration. Some of my fellow American travelers told people they were from Canada so they would avoid the usual comments and questions! 

I’ve been home for a short time now, and would say the atmosphere is certainly promoting increased sales in tranquilizers – especially for those who lost the election. Let's hope this will be a lesson learned for 2018: there is no such thing as a "sure thing" and staying involved is vital to a working democracy. 

So many words have been written about the national state of affairs. Unfortunately, much of the harsh rhetoric has extended to personal insults on social media. One of my long-term activist friends called me to say that she can't even look at her Facebook account. Many relationships have broken apart due to this Presidential election. 

One can criticize a policy but should not insult the person. President Trump was not my candidate but he won the election. No one else has called the voting into question. We need to respect the office and the people who voted for him. I am well aware that this courtesy was often not extended to ex-president Obama, but he set a great example by showing dignity and class.   

I have been paying attention to our local elections and have been bombarded by phone calls and flyers. If it was ever important before, it’s now of paramount importance. Never again will local government have as much influence on our lives as it will for the next four years. 

And no, I don't think CalExit is an option. I am an American by choice. I love this country and, like a marriage, it’s for better or for worse! 

Will we lose Federal funding? Maybe. But I believe we send more money to the Federal government than they remit to us. What are the contingency plans? There are many candidate meetings where constituents have the opportunity to ask the tough questions. The race for City Council seats is rather mild with only District 7 without an incumbent. This is the seat vacated by the infamous Felipe Fuentes where there are now 19 candidates. 

Does the Mayor’s recommendation mean an automatic winners? The majority of candidates are civic activists competing against a couple of professionals. One has to decide if political experience counts more or less than new ideas and a fresh outlook. It is really tough to raise money without strong backing. 

District 3 has Councilman Bob Blumenfield running unopposed as are Mike Feuer for City Attorney and Ron Galperin for Controller.

More and more I tend to think that in local elections like LA City Council, each candidate that qualifies should have the same amount of money to spend. How they use it will be a good indicator of how creative and financially responsible they are. 

We lose good people who would make great public servants because of unequal funding. Several candidates have stated they will not accept money from Real Estate Developers. They should also refuse union money. Both have vested interests in who is elected and have a disproportionate influence on the outcomes. 

I am sure that if every LA resident was asked to pay a small "fee"(since tax is a dirty word) to finance our local elections, the majority would do so if it would keep special interest money from gaining an unfair advantage. 

Not all "special interests" are evil. But instead of raising money for elections they could hold Town Halls and community meetings. This would give them a better opportunity to educate the electorate about their issues than sending dozens of flyers that often "stretch" the truth. 

We are a nation of survivors and if we do our part we will make sure that the next four years will not be the end of the world. 

As always, comments welcome.

(Denyse Selesnick is a CityWatch columnist. She is a former publisher/journalist/international event organizer. Denyse can be reached at: [email protected]) Cartoon: Australian Financial Review. Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.