CORRUPTION WATCH—Candidate for LA Mayor, Mitchell Schwartz, is turning up the heat on the so-called soft corruption at City Hall issue exposed recently by the LA Times. Schwartz is calling on US Attorney for LA, Eileen M. Decker to open a criminal investigation into payments that real estate developers have been making to Mayor Eric Garcetti and to some Los Angeles Councilmembers. 

After Mr. Schwartz (photo above) recounted the revelations concerning the Sea Breeze project by developer Leung where thousands of dollars were given to campaigns and causes of Mayor Garcetti and numerous LA City Councilmembers, he noted that this problem is not new. Back in 2006, then in-coming Planning Director Gail Goldberg had warned Eric Garcetti, who was then councilmember for CD 13 at the time, not to allow developers to get the zoning they desire. Ms. Goldberg’s exact words in 2006 were, "In every city in this country, the zone on the land establishes the value of the land. In Los Angeles, that's not true. The value of the land is not based on what the zone says ... It's based on what [the] developer believes he can change the zone to. This is disastrous for the city.” 

Candidate Schwartz pointed out that the US Attorney has the power to interview City Hall insiders about the ways in which developers have been getting the zone changes which they want. The big wigs can all lie to reporters, but the City Hall insiders including former field deputies as well as department heads have to cooperate with a federal investigation. We all remember what happened to Martha Stewart when she wasn’t forthright during a federal investigation. 

With the plethora of city council wannabees, only Mayoral candidate Mitchell Schwartz has thus far taken this bold step. Schwartz punctuated his announcement thusly: “If the developer and politicians were committing crimes, they must be held accountable.”

(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.)

-cw

LATINO PERSPECTIVE-I was originally interested to learn about Measure S, formerly known as the “Neighborhood Integrity Initiative,” since there are many reasons to criticize planning and development in Los Angeles. I believe we can do a better job of creating a city where homeowners and renters, working and middle class people can live side by side and can get around. We need a city in which people who grow up here can afford to stay here in a growing economy that is welcoming to immigrants. 

But after reviewing a report by my local paper, the Larchmont Chronicle, on the arguments made in support of the initiative at a community forum at Third St. School, it became clear that this measure would have many negative effects on Los Angeles, and even more so on immigrants and the Latino community. Far from helping us achieve a welcoming city, it would have the opposite effect by making LA more expensive and crowded. It’s worse than cutting off your nose to spite your face. It’s more like cutting off your leg to fix your stomach ache. 

As a Hancock Park resident who ran for City Council in 2015, I understand some of the frustration. Our community plans are out of date, making development appear haphazard. Los Angeles has the potential to grow in a way that protects our traditional neighborhoods by placing urban amenities near transit, but we need stronger leadership to get there. 

As was clear from the account published in December’s Chronicle, the backers of Measure S are all frustration and no leadership. Their vision is purely negative and they are eager to criticize everything and build nothing. They imagine we can turn back the clock, but their plans would hurt renters, first-time homebuyers, and anyone who hasn’t put down solid roots. In today’s Los Angeles, where vacancy rates hover around 3 percent, their proposed building moratorium is a recipe to raise rents. It would hurt families and push many into homelessness. 

Measure S problems 

That’s not to say that we should do nothing. Here are three of the main problems that Measure S proposes to fix — and the reasons why the problems would be left worse under the initiative: 

1. Campaign finance. Measure S’s backers criticize developer contributions to political campaigns, but their measure is silent about who may donate. We should have an honest conversation about how to get money out of politics. 

2. Housing affordability. More than 270,000 Los Angeles households are “severely rent-burdened,” meaning they pay more than 50 percent of their income in rent. Measure S’s backers criticize luxury housing, but there is not one word in the initiative that regulates housing prices, nor does it leverage funds to build affordable housing. Further, the best tools to build the housing we need to make Los Angeles affordable would be lost in a building moratorium.

3. Out-of-date plans. Measure S’s backers say that the desire for new development would “force” the city to update its plans. How? Plan updates typically take up to 10 years in Los Angeles, and the measure provides no new money to update them. Fortunately, there is movement in City Hall to fix this, including new money in the Mayor’s budget to hire planners to expedite the process. 

We know Measure S won’t do what its backers promise. So what will it do? 

It will prevent us from housing the homeless. Measure S says it has an exemption for “100% affordable housing,” but that exemption does not extend to projects that require General Plan Amendments. The City of Los Angeles published a list of sites that could be used to develop affordable housing, like the housing we all just voted for with Prop HHH. Of ten proposed sites, Measure S bans building on nine of them. 

It will shut down needed development. Even if we could build 100% affordable housing, why should that be our only option? This rules out needed housing developments that include affordable units next to market-rate apartments. It’s easier to protect neighborhoods like Hancock Park if you can build denser, more urban buildings in other parts of the city — and by current estimates, Los Angeles needs to add 500,000 new units of housing to make our city affordable for working people. 

It will hurt our economic recovery. Beacon Economics calculated that two years of Measure S would suck $3.8 billion out of our local economy, destroying not only thousands of construction jobs but also all the employment they support. It will lower our city tax base by over $70 million each year — enough to hire 1,000 police officers or firefighters. 

It could last for 10 years. They say it’s a two-year moratorium — but it will prevent development for as long as it takes to update our community plans; it offers no new funding to do that; and it offers many opportunities to file lawsuits to slow down the process. In ten years, job losses could top 120,000. 

It will protect no one and preserve nothing. The best way to protect our single-family home neighborhoods is to build new housing next to transit. We can have a city that welcomes newcomers and makes room for the young without “turning into Manhattan.” We shouldn’t pretend to be Manhattan, but we shouldn’t pretend to be Kansas City or Fresno either. 

At the end of the day, Measure S lacks vision, is motivated by anger and frustration at the present and an aesthetic preference for the suburbs. Most Angelenos want a city that will grow in a way that is humane and welcoming. We should reject this measure, continue to make our voices heard, and look towards the future if we want to create a true 21st-century Los Angeles.

(Fred Mariscal writes Latino Perspective for CityWatch. He came to Los Angeles from Mexico City in 1992 to study at the University of Southern California and has been in LA ever since. He can be reached at [email protected].) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

VOICES--Thank you for your service to us the citizens of LA. 

I am a long time resident and Landlord (one rental unit as I live in the upper) who has annually, without fail, registered my one rental unit and paid the fee which for me is $67.83.  In reading and filling out the papers for the 2017 HCIDLA, I was shocked and disillusioned to find out that The City Council and the Mayor has come up with a requirement that Landlords must not only pay a fee for each unit but they must fill out Form RR 17 U Annual Rent Registry Form which you should be familiar with as you may have voted for it.   

The form requires Landlords to reveal private information that should only be between the Landlord and the tenant. Now this information will be put on the internet for anyone to put in an address and get the amount of rent, utilities by the way Water was not on the form and I do pay for the water and garbage fees. The form also asks about parking included in the rent collected. 

This is an invasion of privacy between the landlord and the tenant. The form wants the year the tenant began tenancy.  No ONE should be able to know these things!!!!!!! A Rental Agreement is a private contract between the Landlord and the tenant-----no one else should be privy to this information.  This will pit neighbor against neighbor. 

What about my rights? The tenant knows what he is paying.  No one else should. 

The issue of Short Term Rentals in this community has caused so much turmoil that people are no longer speaking to each other as a result.  I can not imagine imagine what looms ahead if this ill thought out requirement is allowed to continue.  DO NOT put this out for public perusal and ultimately causing untold problems in all communitiesin LA. 

Shame on the City for Blindsiding the good Landlords without contacting us with letters explaining the whys and wherefores of this requirement.  IT is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. 

I filled out the form as I want the legal right to collect rent and provide housing in LA. 

I am against it and want this discontinued now. 

Shame on you all for not listening to the Apartment Owners Association during the period that this was being discussed.  I guess that none of you on council own rental property.  Think about how you would feel if your private financial agreements were posted on the internet? 

Please let me know what is the reasoning for this invasion of my … and my tenants … privacy?

(Carol Kapp is a duplex owner living in Playa del Rey.)

WAR CORRESPONDENT--When I signed up for this gig, I didn’t realize I might end up as a war correspondent. But when I talk to people these days, it feels like something bad is about to happen -- and they want it to happen. 

Everyone expects Democrats and Republicans in Congress to go at each other hammer and tongs. This is the new normal in which compromise is viewed as surrender and only complete annihilation of your opponent is an acceptable outcome. It’s the same story in state capitols across the country. 

Bipartisanship has been dead since the beginning of Bill Clinton’s term in 1993. In the last quarter century, one party has been driven relentlessly into a hard position that the other side is not just wrong, but evil. To a good extent, this is due to the Republicans’ many supporters who see government as not just interfering with their right to worship, but actively working to force them to act against their beliefs. 

Building on this base, others whose motivation is racial and ethnic prejudice or maybe just a feeling that nobody is on their side has led to a constant strengthening of the wall between Americans.

On the other side are those who have a hard time comprehending why anyone would refute science or encourage government to turn a blind eye to prejudice. Their world is fact-based and logical and spirituality is an individual and not collective practice. 

Simply put, one side views non-conformity as the greatest virtue and the other as the greatest sin.

And now the battle lines are drawn not just in Washington and state houses, but in courthouses and city halls and coffee shops and taverns and every street corner in America. 

In the last few weeks, I’ve seen more and more evidence that Democrats and others who don’t share Donald Trump’s (or Paul Ryan’s) world view aren’t interested in even talking about trying to work with Republicans. They’re ready for war. 

We’re not talking about conservatives and liberals or left and right anymore. The United States has reached the point where its population is now divided simply into “us” and “them.” 

I’ve been struck by the number of folks who have told me about visiting relatives over the holidays and carefully avoiding any mention of politics. It’s not just the potential for bad feelings, but the danger of an actual rift in the family. (I wonder if that’s what it was like discussing slavery with your Southern relations before the Civil War.) 

This is where I should offer soothing phrases about the need to step back from the brink and engage in dialogue. After all, we share the same ideals and pledge allegiance to the same flag. We believe in the American dream and all that other stuff they taught us in school. 

Except it’s mostly nonsense and anybody who’s read a little history knows it.

But, the part about equality is real. That stuff about “all men are created equal” and “equal justice under law” and “liberty and justice for all” is the one constant thread that runs through American history. Slowly and inexorably, society’s institutions of government have displaced the sanction of prejudice and intolerance. 

Ultimately, that’s what this war will be about. 

Is America going to turn its back on our history of looking to the future, welcoming the new and different, understanding that progress comes with a price? Or will “them” -- or are they “us” -- prevail?

In the coming years, you’ll be hearing a lot more about this battle for the soul of America. It will consume vast amounts of space in publications, online, and via the airwaves. Many will think of themselves as warriors fighting for freedom and liberty or God and country. Some will sit back and enjoy the fight. I suspect most Americans will consider themselves innocent bystanders. 

Meanwhile, I have a war to cover.

(Doug Epperhart is a publisher, a long-time neighborhood council activist and former Board of Neighborhood Commissioners commissioner. He is a contributor to CityWatch and can be reached at: [email protected]) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

PLANNING FOR THE PEOPLE-Not long ago I published a piece on the need to stop the LA City Planning Politburo because City Planning has long ago stopped becoming a force for rules and bylaws and started becoming a "build-build-build" shill. 

Similarly, I just published a piece on promoting both the Wilshire Subway and reconsidering a long-overdue Metro Rail/Metrolink connection in the City of Norwalk. 

And no, the two pieces are not in contradiction, or mutually exclusive. 

In general, those who fight for more transportation options are not interested in overbuilding the begeezus out of our city, county or state. They want mobility and options and an overall increase in environmental/economic improvement, happiness and quality of life for those of us who pay for New Starts projects. 

Yet we have too many vultures (often quite politically-connected) who figure out all sorts of creepy, sneaky ways to turn transportation advocates into "useful idiots" and justify all sorts of overdevelopment that no one in their right mind would want. 

After all, if we're trying to catch up in our congestion and mobility issues, why would we want to overdevelop and worsen our traffic problem? Or even just worsen our quality of life? 

A little bit of development is a nice compromise that makes a cute, sweet new (maybe affordable to most, maybe not, depending on the locale and development) neighborhood of homes or apartments. 

A whole lot of development where we build to the moon (THE MOON, DAMMIT, THE MOON!) just infuriates and insults the intelligence of all of us -- including the taxpayers who fund new transportation projects and get their rights taken away from them in return. 

So would anyone in their right mind want the arts district of Bergamot Station to be shut down just to create a monster development next to the Expo Line in Santa Monica? Maybe a "chill pill" … or three … is needed for the Santa Monica Council and Planning to create a very small housing project with commercial to make a real nice trip generator for that city...and tell the drooling developers and density-warriors to take their body parts elsewhere. 

Similarly, while I think the Norwalk Green Line Extension to connect LAX and LA County to the rest of Southern California region is a darned great project, I am very sensitive to the concerns of the Norwalk City Council and to Norwalk residents, and we should all take heed to those well-placed concerns. 

After visiting Norwalk last night, and hanging out with fellow Friends of the Green Line veteran Daniel Walker, we learned from the SCAG officials (who, happily are done with a quixotic MagLev campaign and are now spending their taxpayer-funded efforts on relevant issues) that the locals have lots of negative feelings and fears about this project. 

One look at the map shows that city to be right smack-dab in the middle of the I-5, I-105, I-605, and SR-91 freeways, and between the soon to be LAX-connected Green Line and Metrolink. Norwalk really is a "gateway city.” The freeway access to the eastern terminus of the Green Line is reportedly substandard, and access to the Metrolink station is a problem. 

So if we want to help Norwalk and enhance ridership/access/quality to the Green Line and Metrolink, we need to create a freeway/road fix that prevents cut-through residential neighborhood traffic to the current and future stations, establish a transit-oriented residential/commercial development near Firestone/Imperial that fits into that region, and a station that is near the county governmental hub at Imperial/Norwalk that makes sense. 

It's likely that part or all of this would have to be a subway, as considered before in the 1990s when this was last studied, and there's already about $1 billion funded for this "county light rail connector project.” And more will be needed to allow Norwalk to be enhanced, and not destroyed, by this project. 

So what does this have to do with Los Angeles and Measure S? I am guessing that Norwalk, unlike Los Angeles, isn't going to let any pro-transit sentiments allow creepy, sneaky developers (and their Planning and other density warriors) overdevelop Norwalk in the name of "transit oriented development" or "affordable housing" or "urban infill.” 

Los Angeles, like Norwalk, needs homes and neighborhoods, not projects or spot-zoning. Los Angeles, like Norwalk, needs to obey its laws and not be bought out by developer money -- and it sure as HELL shouldn't need the Sea Breeze scandal and Measure S to finally, finally say no to developer campaign contributions.. 

Let's revisit Measure S: 

• Developers will have to have to pay for their traffic and environmental impact reports to be done by independent experts, and not by their own hired guns. EIR's have to mean something, and they have to be credible. 

• Backroom deals between billionaire developers and City Councilmembers will be made illegal, and City Council rules and laws will be adhered to and enforced. 

• Developers will have to prove to impacted communities that their new megaprojects can absorb the new development with respect to traffic and other environmental impacts.  

• Despite claims by mega-developers that they want to create affordable housing, the opposite has been the result of these at-market and oversized, over-tall projects (which often have over 50% vacancy) that ultimately leave fewer, and not more, truly affordable housing for Angelenos.  

• The City Council will have to (finally) update the City’s legally-required Community and General Plans that balance growth and environmental impacts. 

You know ... follow and obey the laws! 

We need a Transportation Infrastructure for the 21st Century -- and we made big progress towards that with Measures R in 2008 and M in 2016. 

We also need a Planning Infrastructure for the 21st Century -- let's make progress in that direction as well with Measure S in 2017.

(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.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

THE PEOPLE SPEAK--On March 7, Los Angeles residents get one last chance to assert their fundamental right to shape what our city becomes before our wonderful city of towns and villages is paved over by glass box mega-developments, the terrible traffic they cause, and the glut of empty $3,500 apartments nobody wants, now marching across LA. 

Measure S, the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, is the fix to this broken and rigged system at City Hall. 

A “yes” on Measure S puts planning back in the planning department, dismantling the current system of backroom real estate dealing by City Council members -- 15 individuals who are utterly unqualified to engage in private and inappropriate "spot zoning" deals with some of the world's richest and slickest developers. 

As the Los Angeles Times has repeatedly reported in recent months, elected leaders at City Hall are accepting huge amounts of cash, gifts and wining and dining from wealthy developers. Then, those same City Hall elected leaders are handing these same developers special exemptions from our protective zoning rules. 

Winning an exemption from LA's height zoning rules, for example, can mean an instant, unearned, $20 million profit to a developer who suddenly is allowed by a councilmember to build 20 stories instead of 4 stories. 

A single exemption from the General Plan -- those are granted by City Councilmembers to let a developer use the land for something that's entirely inappropriate and not allowed by the city's own laws -- can mean an instant, unearned $40 million or larger profit for that developer. 

That's what happened when City Hall agreed to let a rich developer squeeze the Sea Breeze luxury housing project between a couple of noisy warehouses, a Houston-style approach to planning. Which is to say, no planning at all. 

City Hall's gross misbehavior is at the heart of this system of free money, big money -- and corrupt money. Our City Council is selling its votes. They do so at the expense of all of us. 

Measure S strikes directly at the heart of this dysfunctional, New Jersey-style mess. So our opposition, the defenders of this status quo are up in arms, New Jersey-style. 

Funded largely by the Chamber and three billionaires -- the Lowy global mall kings of Australia, the multi-national skyscraper-building Kahn family of Miami, and the Lowes global resort kings in LA -- powerful lobbyists are running a cynical campaign designed to trick Los Angeles residents into voting against their own self-interest on March 7. 

The billionaire mega-developers and their cronies know that they can’t beat us using the truth. So they’re saying, doing and spending whatever it takes to win -- at all costs. 

Let's conduct some myth-busting here, with the understanding that the lies issued by opponents of Measure S are going to get much more extreme and out of this world. 

According to their fantastical accounts, Measure S, the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, would “stop the building of everything -- from affordable housing, to hospitals, schools, and parks.” We at Measure S even apparently view “new toilets” as over-development. 

We also have a secret "housing ban" tucked somewhere in our back pocket. A Westside City Councilman and a Valley City Councilman are telling their constituents that we, ahem, "ban all development." (We got calls from people who were upset about being spoon-fed these obvious whoppers while meeting with the councilmembers.) 

A Hollywood Councilman has been running around saying we will stop projects already underway (another ahem), and the mayor is flirting with trying to claim that LA's entire economy is teetering atop a coterie of rich land developers who must be allowed to break the zoning rules. 

The Chamber of Commerce president, emboldened by this fake news from on high, illegally lied about Measure S in official ballot literature (Measure S is going to ruin the economy), as did a well-known economist who was paid to do so by the three billionaires. Both the Chamber president and the economist had to retract their lies, just last week. 

As I wrote in the Los Angeles Daily News back in August, "Sadly, our measure also bans rainbows, outlaws donuts, and deports the tooth fairy." 

What's going on here? What's going on is that voters are about to force City Hall to do its job and play by the rules. 

And that will leave a lot of instant wealth for some of the world's richest developers sitting on the table, and crimp the fundraising ability of some of California's most cash-needy politicians. 

The truth is that in Los Angeles, 95% of developers play by the rules. The truth is that 95% of developers do NOT give money to the City Council, mayor and other officials. The truth is that 95% of developers do NOT engage in these greedy bidding wars that have driven our land values sky high, in turn driving our rents into the stratosphere. 

The truth is that only about 5% of developers active in Los Angeles drive the actions of elected officials at Los Angeles City Hall, just as they own and drive nice cars. 

The truth is, 95% of development will continue to flourish under Measure S, because Measure S is about working out the rules in a transparent setting with strong input from residents, then following those rules. And 95% of developers actually honor our local zoning. 

The truth is that affordable housing will flourish under Measure S, because Measure S exempts from most of the city's zoning rules those developers who will build 100% affordable housing -- an exception that we ourselves carved out, due to the great need. 

The truth is that Measure S does NOT halt any project underway, for any reason, even if it's one of the hideous glass boxes that is helping Los Angeles each day look more and more like Charlotte, NC. 

Instead, think of Measure S as "the gift of time for our City Council and mayor." 

Suddenly, instead of spending hundreds of hours cutting backroom, closed-door deals to let developers get around the zoning rules, our city leaders can spend those recaptured hours doing right by the residents and taxpayers. What at treat that will be. 

The City Council and mayor can spend this recaptured time figuring out how to end the wanton destruction of 1,000 units of affordable rent-stabilized apartments by developers every single year. So far, 22,000 irreplaceable, sound, older low-rent units have vanished since 2000. 

Suddenly, on March 7, our elected leaders will have loads of new free time to actually create a plan for spending the badly needed bond money we voters approved in November to build homeless housing with support services. 

(At a city hearing a few weeks ago, a city official let slip that, ahem, they are already toying with requiring that only 50% of the housing financed by we taxpayers provide the full shelter and services City Hall promised in the bond measure.) 

Suddenly, instead of spending hundreds of hours being lobbied and wined and dined by developers seeking ways around our rules, the City Council and mayor can spend it addressing our exploding water mains, our cracking sewer mains, our bodacious potholes and our long-promised parks. 

Our opponents know they can’t win on March 7 on the merits. They know that voters want affordable housing and reasonably priced housing, not the City Council's luxury rental housing glut with its 15% to 20% vacancy rates. Our opponents know voters want less gridlock, not worse traffic backing up as far as three miles from absurdly oversized projects. 

And most frightening to our misbehaving status quo, they know we’re onto them. Voters have realized that City Hall is rigged, thanks in no small part to recent coverage by the Los Angeles Times, and also thanks to our own stories by award-winning journalist Patrick Range McDonald at VoteYESonS.org. 

As I wrote in the Daily News, "Voters aren’t going to stand by as the character, culture, and connectivity of our city gets washed away in a sea of unwanted and unaffordable luxury housing mega-developments."

(Jill Stewart, a former journalist, is campaign director for the Coalition to Preserve LA, sponsor of the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.