CONNECTING CALIFORNIA--Los Angeles should drop its bid for the 2024 Olympics -- before it gets chosen. It’s true that Paris has long been the favorite to be awarded the games during an upcoming vote in September. The Paris bid has broad international support, the City of Light has come close to winning the games in recent bids, and sentiment is on its side. 2024 would be the 100th anniversary of the last Olympics in Paris, the 1924 Games portrayed in the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire. 

But the contest is changing. All other contenders for 2024 have now dropped out (Budapest hung on the longest before bailing last month,) leaving just LA and Paris. And after reviewing documents from and about both bids, it looks to me that LA has the superior bid, with greater public support, stronger management (led by two of LA’s most skilled civic operators, Casey Wasserman and Gene Sykes,) and a better plan for producing an exciting event without the organizational meltdowns and cost overruns of previous Olympics. 

Indeed, what’s most promising about LA’s bid is also what makes it perilous. Los Angeles is bidding not merely to hold the Olympics but to transform them. Specifically, LA pledges “to create a new Games for a new era” and to “refresh” an Olympics brand. 

There’s plenty of transforming and refreshing to be done. The Olympics over the last generation has become more associated with corruption than sport: There’s the constant doping by individual athletes and nations’ sports federations. There’s the vote-buying by previous bid cities, including Atlanta and Salt Lake City. There’s the propagandistic use of the Games by the world’s worst human rights violators, from Russia to China. There’s the displacement of poor people, from East London to Rio, that has come with Olympic facility construction. And there’s the overspending and overpromising that has left generations of Olympic cities with debt and dead Olympic-related infrastructure. 

(Photo left: Mary Lou Retton celebrates her balance beam score at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Retton, 16, became the first American woman ever to win an individual Olympic gold medal in gymnastics. Photo by Lionel Cironneau/Associated Press.) 

All of which raises the same hard questions you might ask of a wonderful neighbor who romantically pursues a dashing foreigner even though the foreigner’s previous relationships ended badly. 

Do we really want the Olympics? How can we be sure that Olympic corruption won’t sully our reputation? And most of all, if an LA Games did succeed in hosting a profitable and “clean” Olympics, what’s to prevent the Olympics’ wheeler-dealers from exploiting an LA triumph to revert to their old tricks and take advantage of other global cities for future Games? 

Such questions may sound peculiar, but California has a peculiar relationship with the Olympics. While the rest of the world has become a sea of discontent with the corrupt Olympic movement -- in this cycle, Toronto, Hamburg, Rome, and Boston all have dropped bids -- we remain an island of Olympic love. One poll in Los Angeles showed 88 percent support for the Games. 

California’s Olympics love is rooted in nostalgia, for both the 1932 Games and for the famously well-run and profitable 1984 Games, which remain one of LA’s proudest civic moments, when we embraced a vision of ourselves as an international city. I attended those games as an 11-year-old (I saw Edwin Moses win the 400-meter hurdles) and remember them fondly. 

But the Games we’re bidding for now are not those Olympics. Today’s Games are bigger and bloated, with too many sports and expense. They also come with more baggage. The most recent Summer Olympics, held in Brazil last summer at twice the anticipated cost, were a disaster for that developing country, contributing to economic and political turmoil, and leaving behind useless infrastructure. 

The budget for the next Summer Games, in Tokyo in 2020, is now projected at four times the original estimate. And these recent problems come on the heels of other disasters. The 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, were beset by state-sponsored doping and massive construction corruption, with Vladimir Putin’s government rewarding friends with lucrative contracts. The 2008 Games in Beijing provided a pretext for China’s rulers to crack down on dissent and demolish important neighborhoods. The 2004 Games in Athens left massive debts that contributed to that country’s economic collapse. 

These games all centered on the “Development Model” of Olympics -- using the bid to transform cities by building. LA’s bid is a welcome departure because it relies on existing facilities for nearly everything, which helps contain the projected budget at just over $5 billion. (Sochi spent a reported $50 billion.) 

Viewed purely as a question of LA’s self-interest, the case for seeking the Games is strong. 

California’s economy depends so heavily on international trade and tourism that an Olympics could serve as advertising for our global connections and openness, particularly as much of America turns isolationist. And a 2024 Games would allow LA to show off its rapidly expanding transit system.

Plus, the Olympics, for all of its problems, still offers opportunities to volunteer (an LA Olympics would need tens of thousands of volunteers,) to root for your country, to promote the value of physical exercise, and to take a two-week respite from contentious politics during an election year. 

The Olympics would be fortunate to have us host. No city in the world is better suited to the games, from our dry and temperate summer weather to our wealth of sports facilities to our expertise in handling mega-events. “Make Los Angeles the permanent host of the Summer Olympics,” the sports economist Andrew Zimbalist advised last year.  

Most of the typical concerns about a Los Angeles Olympics -- about cost overruns, about traffic, about terrorism and security costs -- are overblown, and are well planned for in LA’s bid documents. The Games would be run by LA 2024, a separate organization, which means Olympic planning shouldn’t be a distraction for local elected officials who need to focus on Southern California’s everyday needs, from ill-repaired roads to the housing shortage. 

Some news reports have suggested that President Trump and his bans on travel and refugees and immigrants could hurt LA’s chances of winning. But the French have their own anti-immigrant, racist populist -- the leading presidential contender Marine Le Pen -- to defend. And Olympics politics is much more about the politics of the International Olympic Committee and the federations for all the different sports. 

No, the real question about LA’s bid is whether we’re too good for the Olympics. Our association is likely to sully us, and require moral compromises. For example, The New York Times reported last month that the U.S. Olympic Committee was soft-pedaling its response to the Russia doping scandal because of fears that a hard U.S. line could hurt LA’s Olympic bid. 

Such compromises pale in comparison to the moral hazard of saving the Olympics with an excellent LA bid. Hollywood warned us about a situation like this. If we win, our Games could become an Olympic version of The Bridge on the River Kwai, a 1957 film classic about Allied prisoners of war who dutifully build a railroad bridge that serves the interests of their Japanese captors. In the same way, an Olympic movement, restored by Los Angeles’ dutiful work, would be newly free to go back into the world and grant the Games to repressive regimes and developing countries that can’t really afford it. Do we really want to make that possible? 

Nope. It’s not our job to save the Olympics. Instead, Los Angeles should preserve its Olympic ideals -- by dropping our bid. Yep, that means handing the 2024 Games to Paris. C’est la vie. We’ll always have 1984.

(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). Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

CORRUPTION WATCH-On Tuesday, November 8, 2016, Americans elected Donald Trump President on the basis of the Politics of Rage. Millions of Americans, albeit less than 50%, were out for revenge. Although the Democrats’ hubris coupled with an inability to count votes in the Electoral College tipped the scales in favor of Trump, without the passion for revenge throughout much of the nation, Trump would not have won. 

On Tuesday, March 7, 2017, Angelenos re-elected Eric Garcetti Mayor of Los Angeles on the basis of the Politics of Ignorance. 

Garcetti was already the longest serving politico at LA City Hall. The voters first elected him as councilmember for Council District 13 in 2001. In 2006, he became City Council President which in LA is an extremely powerful position anyway, but even more so then because Mayor Villaraigosa was seldom in town and when he was, Tony V was primarily concerned with chasing skirt. Thus now, more than anyone else in LA, Garcetti can take credit for the city’s current condition. 

During Garcetti’s tenure, Los Angeles has declined from being a Destination City to which people aspire to an Exodus City from which people are fleeing. Every day in every way, life is LA is becoming worse. Yet, Angelenos are ignorant of the connection between city government and the deterioration in the quality of their lives. 

1. The infrastructure is decaying with about three water mains bursting a week and creating sink holes into which cars disappear. 

2. Traffic congestion has gone for bad to terrible to second worst in the nation to worst in the country to worst in the U.S. and Europe to having the worst traffic gridlock in the entire world. (Inrix 2017 Traffic Scorecard.) 

3. There is an outward migration of the middle class that has to aggravate to split between the very poor and very wealthy since the middle has picked up stakes and moved away. The lack of a vibrant middle class also kills the opportunity ladder and the middle class is to step out of poverty. 

4. The City’s Dependency Ratio is progressively worst each year. The Dependency Ratio is important to gauge a city’s future since it measures the percent of people working versus the percent of dependents. Generally, that is the number of young people between 0 and 18 added to the number of over age 65 versus everyone in the middle. Since the young and the elderly do not generate income, they are a drag on the tax base. The smaller the middle class, the greater the tax burden on the middle class. 

5.  The City’s homeless problem is escalating due to Garcetti’s Manhattanization of Los Angeles which has destroyed over 22,000 rent-controlled units since 2001. When veterans, the disabled and the poor are evicted, they often cannot afford market-rate housing and thus they end up on the street. An increasing number live in SUVs and cars. The services for the homeless are very expensive for the LA, but Garcetti does not provide extra funds to make up for the loss of police and paramedics because of the need for them to tend to the increasing problems of homelessness. 

6. Garcetti promoted Measure HHH to allegedly build affordable housing, but via Measure JJJ, that money can subsidize luxury apartments -- of which the city has a glut, over a 12% vacancy rate. (As the UN reported on March 1, 2017, it is worldwide trend to construct dense housing units for money launderers and oligarchs to hide and cleanse their money. Thus, LA provides money to construct “investments” for wealthy Russians. I guess in some respects, Garcetti is not all that different from Trump.) 

7. Housing prices in LA are beyond out of control due to the developers’ practice of “being nice to” councilmembers to get whatever Up Zoning they desire. Once a friendly councilmember places any Up Zoned project on the city council agenda, it automatically passes unanimously – even if no councilmember votes for it. The City Council vote tabulating machine is programmed to Vote Yes for everything all the time. 

8. In the 15 years of Garcetti’s tenure, LA has gone from a world class destination City to a failing city which is again insolvent -- and yet a whopping 81% re-elected Garcetti for Mayor. 

9. The City is insolvent – again —with a $250 million deficit. 

10. The crime rate is ratcheting upwards. 

11. LA is the most park poor large city in the country. 

12. The density in DTLA and Hollywood and the Westside has only just begun to escalate. Once it is under way, it will make traffic even worse and housing prices continue to rise. As traffic worsens, it seems that more people use cars because mass transit is very slow; in addition, it goes very few places while cars go everywhere and it is increasingly dangerous with unreliable timetables. Thus, the mere prospect of an arduous commute results n people seeking the comfort and relative safety of their own vehicles. 

The Difference between Trump and Garcetti 

Unlike Trump, who is a mentally disturbed, twitter-addicted braggart held aloft on the wing of resentment and rage, Eric Garcetti speaks softly and carries a big war chest. He is a low-keyed political genius who skims along on a cloud of misinformation and misdirection. Also, he is backed by the LA Times which has been the master of Alt-News since its inception in the 1800s. The LA Times’ secret motto is “All the News the Elite Wants You to See.” Thus, Angelenos swim in a vast sea of ignorance. They know things are worse every day but they are clueless as to the cause. 

The results of the Politics of Rage and the Politics of Ignorance are essentially the same – deterioration.

(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney and a CityWatch contributor. 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.

CITY HALL EXPOSED--This is a timeline of City Council and LA City Staff backroom meetings with developers and lobbyists; campaign donations to City Officials; and “spotzoning” approvals for controversial projects. 

A Special March 4, 2017 Report on Backroom Governing and Undue Developer Influence Upon LA Elected Leaders 

Sourcing: All facts provided by Los Angeles City Ethics Commission or contained in official documents released by Los Angeles City Council members as required by the California Public Records Act. 

Released by the Coalition to Preserve LA, Yes on Measure S 

Summary:

Yes on Measure S today releases a special report of official city information that has been released publicly, but unpublished to date. It reveals how LA City Hall works behind closed doors, on behalf of developers and usually without the knowledge of the public, to get around an area's zoning rules.

Most developers donate to LA elected leaders throughout the backroom process. 

"Pay to Play In Los Angeles City Government" contains a comprehensive timeline of private meetings and dinners involving billionaire developers, elected City leaders and their staffs. It reveals that private meetings are rarely granted by elected leaders to LA residents who question the developments. 

The timeline, entirely made up of official city documents released under the California Public Records Act, or official city campaign finance and lobbyist data published by the L.A. City Ethics Commission, includes: 

- Dates and people present at private backroom meetings between developers and City Council officials and city employees. 

- Donations received by elected officials from these developers during the process. 

- City Council approval of projects achieved by badly bending LA zoning rules, often after private meetings and/or donations from the developer. Nine Los Angeles City Council members were asked by the Coalition to Preserve LA to divulge this public information. All nine failed to release the

subject of these backroom meetings with developers. They divulged only the fact that the meetings happened, in response to California Public Records Act requests by the Coalition. 

The nine LA City Council members, of 15 on the City Council, were asked for their official appointment calendars regarding these large-scale developments, because their Council Districts contain a significant number of projects that have been allowed, by vote of the City Council, to ignore city zoning rules. 

Some of the nine City Council members responded long after the 10-day deadline under the California Public Records Act (CPRA). 

City Councilman Jose Huizar failed for several months to provide his meeting calendar. Councilman Huizar complied with California state law only after attorneys for the Coalition demanded that he divulge this public information. 

The official city data provides a direct look at the campaign and lobbying cash spent to influence City Hall leaders as they decide, in a non-transparent and money-influenced system, how and where LA and its neighborhoods should absorb large-scale developments. The official city campaign and lobbying data, and the official calendars released by City Council members, show that collusion between megadevelopers and elected officials is endemic. Zoning is for sale at City Hall. (Read the complete report here.)

-cw

IMMIGRATION WATCH--California legislators have filed a Freedom of Information Act request to learn what federal immigration authorities are up to in their state. 

The request was filed this week by California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and Senate President Pro Tem Kevin De Leon, both Democrats, for “information about recent Department of Homeland Security policies and Immigration and Customs Enforcement activities.” 

Federal authorities appear to be cracking down on immigration with a recent “surge in enforcement activities,” the lawmakers said in a statement. But federal authorities have provided “limited information,” despite repeated requests, the statement continued. California is home to 5.4 million non-citizen immigrants, and almost half of all children in the state have at least one parent who is an immigrant. 

“When the safety of Californians is at stake, we must demand greater transparency, with the backing of federal courts if necessary,” the lawmakers said. “The lives and physical safety of many thousands of Californians — citizens and immigrants, documented and undocumented — depend upon knowing this information.” 

Immigration authorities arrested hundreds of people in February in raids across the country. Dozens of those seized had no criminal record. An ICE official said the activity was “routine.” 

Rendon and DeLeon seek details on recent federal enforcement in California, including the massing of immigration agents outside a Southern California church shelter in order to “ambush, arrest and detain homeless individuals seeking warmth there.” They also cite the case of an immigrant woman attempting to obtain an order of protection against her husband in a courthouse, where agents escorted her out and arrested her. 

The lawmakers demand information on ICE and Department of Homeland Security enforcement in California near “sensitive” areas, such as at schools, hospitals and churches; detainees’ access to lawyers; and treatment of young people in the Dreamers program who were brought to the U.S. as children. 

The request also seeks information about people detained and deported in an intensive five-day sweep in Los Angeles County last month that netted some 161 individuals. 

An ICE spokeswoman provided a link to the agency’s policies concerning sensitive locations, and cautioned that some information about detainees may not be available because of privacy concerns, the Sacramento Bee reported. 

Santa Cruz police blasted federal officials last month for lying, using a crackdown on a local gang as an excuse to secretly round up undocumented immigrants. 

Immigration enforcers said they felt constrained under former President Barack Obama. But now, after President Donald Trump campaigned on an anti-immigration platform, agents are feeling emboldened, according to unions representing Border Patrol agents and ICE officers.

(Mary Pappenfuss is a Trends reporter for the Huffington Post where this piece was originally posted.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

ANIMAL WATCH-LA Animal Services GM Brenda Barnette informed the Commission at a West Valley meeting this week that it is safe and recommended by UC Davis to surgically sterilize six-week-old kittens at only 1-1/2 pounds in order to adopt them out of the shelter at their highest level of “cuteness.”

She also announced that the City is implementing a “pilot program” with this new policy at the Chesterfield Square shelter in South Los Angeles. If it is successful, in three months it will be extended to all city shelters. 

If LA’s desperation to reach the elusive “no kill” goal continues, this could also soon mean these tiny, helpless creatures may be given away “free.” That is what happened recently under a grant by the ASPCA, which paid adoption fees for cats and eliminated the need for adopters to make an investment. This does not say much about sustainability of the “no kill” plan. What happens when the mythical metric is met and those who benefit from the acclaim and increased donations move their subsidies out of Los Angeles? 

Under the Hayden Law, California policy for shelters, states, “Adoptable animals are those over eight weeks of age…”  Barnette did not discuss the violation of this provision.

The plan to perform surgery on barely weaned kittens became the topic of impassioned opposition by distraught shelter volunteers and rescuers at the meeting. 

The pilot program for this “experiment” at a shelter in one of the most economically challenged areas of Los Angeles did not include any long-term study or data that indicates performing sterilization surgery on barely weaned kittens and releasing them to uncontrolled and unmonitored adopters at public shelters has been successful. As a public, tax-funded shelter, LA Animal Services cannot refuse adoption to anyone without proof of past violations of laws regarding animal care or cruelty.

The Chesterfield Square shelter is located in a blighted, semi-industrial area of South Los Angeles, where stray and diseased feral cats roam the streets and starving kittens cry for help from behind a fenced lot across the street from the shelter. It is mystifying to rescuers and advocates why this shelter would be chosen for a “pilot program” to release vulnerable 6-week-old kittens with immature immune systems. A few have suggested cynically that a high post-adoption mortality or illness rate might be less likely to be reported in this community. 

It is necessary to understand the limitations and challenges of this area to fully grasp the mind-boggling decision to start such a precarious program in South Central LA, where the largest part of the surrounding population has limited income for potential veterinary bills or special pet care. And, it is unlikely many adopters from other parts of the city will drive to Chesterfield Square. 

In 2013 Eric Brightwell wrote on Amoeblog, “Chesterfield Square is without a doubt, one of Los Angeles’ most obscure neighborhoods. The obscurity is somewhat surprising given the neighborhood’s longstanding and dubious distinction of having the city’s and county’s highest violent crime rate.”

The latest LA Times Mapping Tool shows Chesterfield Square still ranked No. 1 in the city for violent crime. The median population age is 31 years, and more than 30 percent of residents have not completed high school. Average household income is $37,737, with over 50 percent at less than $20,000 year, according to the Times. 

Residents of this area represent various ethnic groups. Most are hard-working, honest people, but many who own pets also struggle with the constraints of poverty and are plagued by the hazards of their daily lives. Thousands of dogs and cats run loose in the streets and have open sores resulting from mange, parasites and untreated wounds. Many starve to death in alleys or are killed by cars.

Xaque Gruber wrote in a 2013 Huffington Post article, “Nowhere is Los Angeles' homeless dog population a more chronic problem than in South Central where thousands of canines run wild. And nowhere is a blind eye turned more than in this section of the city.” 

Do we wonder how cats fare in this desperate and disease-ridden environment for animals? GM Barnette admits in her Board report dated February 7, 2017, that, "South LA Chesterfield Square shelter has been struggling with an inordinate influx of cats and kittens infected with life threatening virus infections..." 

DOES “CUTENESS” JUSTIFY SURGICAL RISK? 

Cuteness? If this is the criteria for choosing a pet kitten, what happens in a very few weeks when it becomes a cat? Kittens grow quickly and are not toys. They need to learn bite-inhibition and non-injurious play from interaction with siblings. If “cuteness,” rather than personality and affection, is the criteria GM Barnette is using for adoption-appeal, it appears the audience is families with young children, rather than adults who are more concerned with long-term bonding. 

“Kittens at this age, by necessity are focused on their own survival,” says early-age spay/neuter expert Dr. W. Marvin Mackie, who advises waiting until eight weeks of age for surgical sterilization. “At six weeks they are being thrust by Nature from dependency on their mother or a ‘foster’ into a world where they must be able to provide for their own subsistence and safety. Adopters should look for a kitten old enough to develop interests beyond its basic egocentric needs so that they can forecast the basic personality and desire for human interaction of a pet that will share their home for the next 15 to 20 years.” 

While veterinarians agree on the importance of getting kittens out of the shelter environment as soon as possible, Dr. Mackie, who pioneered contemporary early-age spay/neuter in the late 1980’s, expressed shock that a shelter would not do all possible to assure the safety of these tiny juveniles -- not only from the surgical-aspect, but also from a developmental and socialization perspective. (View kitten growth progression here.)   

The Best Friends blog states, “Eight-week-old healthy kittens are fully weaned and should soon be ready to be spayed or neutered and to find their new forever homes.” 

WHY IS BARNETTE SUDDENLY IN SUCH A RUSH TO ALTER KITTENS? 

Brenda Barnette, a former dog breeder and AKC legislative representative in Seattle, is on record opposing mandatory spay/neuter laws. Her December 2016 Woofstat report shows 492 breeding licenses have been issued to unaltered-dog owners in Los Angeles, with a 42% increase this year. 

During Barnette’s tenure in LA, there has been no consistent city-wide media promotion or enforcement effort to stop backyard and in-home breeding of dogs and cats. Barnette and Councilman Paul Koretz of the Council’s Personnel and Animal Welfare (PAW) Committee have blatantly rejected microchipping or licensing of cats to stop overpopulation and provide accountability for ownership of owned outdoor cats.  

Why the sudden rush to alter infantile kittens? Maybe because Barnette has repeatedly said kittens and cats keep her from reaching “no kill.” She admits in her February 7 Board report that the "South LA Chesterfield Square shelter has been struggling with an inordinate influx of cats and kittens infected with life threatening virus infections..." (Emph. added.) So, why institute a risky surgical program in that facility? 

Here are some questions/comments proposed by skeptics and cynics: 

--“Is the purpose of six-week surgeries and adoptions to place feral kittens as pets without having to disclose their background?” 

--“For each one-pound kitten that dies from a spay, Brenda counts as a spay for her credit and not as a euthanasia -- also to her credit. Fake metrics.” 

--“If they die during or after surgery, it will reduce the shelter’s cat population.” 

--“Whether adopted into homes without experience (or even those that are former cat owners) the possibility of post-surgical complications is much more likely in these very fragile animals. Will they be able to afford the care?” 

--“Will they report morbidity or deaths to the shelter? Does Brenda Barnette really want to know?”

And some questions/comments from veterinarians: 

--“Can shelter staff determine age? This needs to be done on dentition and choosing those under 6 months of age could put the animals at more risk. Is there adequate shelter staff to monitor recovery?” 

--“Testicles drop into the scrotal sac around 6 weeks, so many may still be retained, which will cause the surgeon to go deeper to look for them-- more invasive surgery and increased time under anesthesia for these kittens.” 

--“If the gas is delivered by intubation the tiny tubes plug up easily with even a small amount of mucous and the animal can suffocate.” 

--“My guess is that someone needs data to publish a paper regarding spay/neuter at this age, so you can get data fast through a large agency with a huge number of cat impounds. In academia, it is publish or perish.” 

OPINIONS ON FACEBOOK AND ELSEWHERE 

Many veterinarians commented on a Facebook page started by Dr. Robert Goldman, highly respected veterinarian and specialist in spay/neuter who worked for LA Animal Services. Some support this program, but most wrote that they felt six weeks is too young and articulated their professional concerns. 

Dr. Kate Hurley of UC Davis wrote: “…[T]his recommendation came from me and my team and is well supported by science and an enormous amount of experience…A number of shelters have now spayed thousands of kittens at this age with no documented increase in morbidity or mortality.” 

Brenda Barnette also joined in with a rather caustic comment and Dr. Goldman replied:

“Brenda Barnette: The pilot we are planning to try at one shelter is supported by UCDavis Koretz (sic) Shelter Medicine Program, Maddies Shelter Medicine Program in Florida and the Shelter Medicine Veterinary Assoc. I am disappointed to see you making this public grandstanding on Facebook rather than through you (sic) professional associations. Seems decisive I’m sorry to say.” 

“Robert Goldman:  Sorry if this seems like grandstanding to you. This is me reaching out to friends on professional associations as well as other stakeholders concerned. My question to Dr. Julie Levy is to the heart of the issue: if Veterinary Medical Professionals are to make the best decisions for their patients but in a municipal setting are judged by non medical personnel who hold sway over their employment but also set the conditions for the patients, how is that conflict resolved in the best interest of all?” 

There is another exchange between GM Barnette and Dr. Goldman, who wrote a public letter addressed to the LA Times in regard to LAAS shelters and Barnette’s contention that “…by the end of the end of this year Los Angeles will achieve 90% live save for shelter dogs and cats.” 

He states (in part), “As a veterinarian who performed spays and neuters for the Department on a part time basis from August 2015 to October 2016, I witnessed first-hand how the focused (and often falsified) pursuit of these numbers, called "metrics," has taken the focus off the shelter animals themselves and resulted in animal neglect that is at times tantamount to animal abuse.” 

Dr. Goldman writes that he was informed on July 13, 2016, there was no more funding for his spay-neuter vet position after he supported the position of a volunteer who spoke about shelter conditions.

There has been no shortage of spay/neuter funds. The LA Animal Services report shows a balance of $5,193,971.40 in the Animal Sterilization Fund during the period July 1 – July 31, 2016. 

IS LA REALLY REACHING “NO KILL”? 

What is really going on at LAAS to cause a sudden rush to do spays and neuters most vets consider inadvisable? Why push kittens that may not be completely weaned into adoptive homes with unknown experience and resources? Is it related to the fact that Best Friends is already past its promised deadline to make LA “no kill”? 

Barnette announced at the Feb. 28 meeting that Best Friends will be paying its NKLA rescuers from $75 to $150 each to “pull” cats from the LAAS shelters to reach “no kill.” Relocating animals is not the same as adopting them from the shelters directly to permanent local homes. How will “no kill” be sustained in Los Angeles after the funding by Best Friends and ASPCA moves on?

(Phyllis M. Daugherty is a former City of LA employee and a contributor to CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

GUEST WORDS--Will Los Angeles finally admit it’s a metropolis? And if so, what kind of metropolis does it want to be?

That may seem a strange question, given the size of the LA region. But Los Angeles is of at least two minds. Yes, we’re home to world class universities, two pro football teams, the nation’s largest port complex by volume, the third-busiest airport in the U.S., more manufacturing than any other American city, and we’re bidding to host the Olympic Games for the third time. But many people in LA also expect the city to be as open and livable as any suburb.

How we Angelenos see our city, and what we want for its future, is coming to a head not in a pitched street battle out of West Side Story, but at the ballot box. On March 7, Los Angeles voters will consider Measure S, an anti-development ballot measure that proposes to put a moratorium on certain types of building projects for two years.

Many of the measure’s details address rather arcane urban planning codes that are admittedly outdated. But the campaign for Measure S has secured a base of support by tapping into a sentiment closely held by older residents, suburban dwellers within in the city limits, and NIMBY (“Not In My Backyard”) constituencies that Los Angeles is changing too rapidly into a dense, mega-city.

As Los Angeles residents experience record-high rental rates and property values, developers are constructing larger infill projects, building multi-story apartment complexes akin to more traditional urban forms. The way Measure S supporters see it, these denser developments create more traffic, change the character of neighborhoods, and create more luxury housing at the expense of more affordable housing in older, smaller complexes. In short, LA is becoming too much of a metropolis.

But the coalition opposing Measure S—developers, businesses, affordable housing advocates, urban living enthusiasts, and most of the political establishment—have a fundamental disagreement with the basis for Measure S. These opponents say L.A must preserve any and all avenues for construction of schools, hospitals—and especially scarce housing. Cutting off the supply of housing with overly restrictive regulations in the midst of a well-documented housing shortage is a prescription for land use malpractice. Without needed supply, rents and property values increase to match housing demand. It’s a simple argument, which also happens to make tremendous sense.

Maybe the answer is even simpler than we wish to acknowledge: We’re not just metropolitan; we’re a metropolis. We just need to be a better one.

Reality, if not perception, is with the opponents. Angelenos don’t realize it, but LA is already the densest urbanized area in the nation, with some 7,000 people per square mile. (New York is in third place, at a mere 5,319 people per square mile.) But the enormous growth of the suburbs in post-WWII Los Angeles gave Southern California an ethos that’s been hard to shake, even in the 21st century: The relic of a notion that we’re entitled to two cars in every driveway and a Weber grill on every backyard patio.

Los Angeles is of at least two minds. Yes, we’re home to world class universities, two pro football teams, the nation’s largest port complex by volume, the third-busiest airport in the U.S. … But many people in LA also expect the city to be as open and livable as any suburb.

Of course, LA has evolved into a metropolis as it has grown in population, driven by domestic migration, immigration from Asia and the Americas, and the simple math of the birthrate for Angelenos already here. But it can be hard to understand that because, as Reyner Banham wrote in his 44-year-old book, Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies, the city is so multifaceted. Banham saw his four ecologies—the hills, the flatlands of the coastal plain, the beaches, and the freeways—as being so disparate that there was no shared narrative about the place.

“Los Angeles does not get the attention it deserves,” Banham wrote. “It gets attention, but it’s like the attention that Sodom and Gomorrah have received, primarily a reflection of other people’s bad consciences.” Could it be we have finally matured as a city so that we are no longer seeing reflections, but a new urban reality?

Today, it can feel as if different generations are living in very different LAs. While older residents cling to suburban neighborhoods, young people are living more urbanized lives, with Lyft and Uber and Metro trains coexisting with fusion restaurants and food trucks. Downtown Los Angeles loft-dwellers—a species that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago—walk their dogs, zip around via our expanding transit system, and enjoy a thriving culinary scene that’s nationally—and internationally—recognized as one of the most vibrant anywhere.

I’m not young anymore, but I appreciate how this newer metropolis allows me to live in Valley Village, an increasingly urban environment near Studio City and North Hollywood that is less dependent on the automobile, and that has more to offer as a result.

From my San Fernando Valley neighborhood, I take the Metro Red Line to my office in downtown Los Angeles’ Historic Core, getting to work faster than I did driving surface streets from where I previously lived in the Miracle Mile. I walk to my local grocery store, the dry cleaners, and my daughter’s elementary school.

I’m also within walking distance of the Los Angeles River Recreation Path, and I’m about a six-minute drive from hiking trails maintained by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. Another two minutes in the car (yes, I own and use a car) and I can take Parker, our family’s terrier mix, to one of the city’s largest dog parks. And I’m comfortably within the delivery radius of a brand new restaurant that’s easily the best Thai food I’ve ever had. (Measure S would have been smart to exclude ethnic restaurants from its building moratorium, don’t you think?)

To be sure, my neighborhood has all the plagues that Measure S supporters worry about: traffic, police and ambulance sirens, and, yes, noise from construction sites building much-needed housing. But on the whole, I feel fortunate to live in a place where I’m not stuck in the backyard. I feel connected to the city, literally and figuratively.

For me, that’s progress. And the moment we realize that we are a metropolis, restrictions like those proposed by Measure S will be seen as a relic, too.

(David Gershwin is a Los Angeles-based public affairs consultant, Zócalo Public Square board member, and teaching fellow at UCLA Anderson School of Business. This perspective was posted originally at Zocalo Public Square.) Photo by Reed Saxon/Associated Press.

-cw