EDITOR’S PICK—(When the history of President Obama’s legacy on immigration is written, he will not go down as the president who boldly acted to protect millions of families from the brutality of our nation’s unforgiving immigration laws. The Supreme Court made sure of that last month, when it deadlocked on the legality of his program to defer the deportation of parents of American citizens and residents. Instead, he will be judged on what he actually did: deport more immigrants than any other president in American history, earning him the moniker “deporter in chief.”

However, President Obama can still act to bring humanity and justice to an immigration system notoriously lacking in both. He can do so by using the power the Constitution grants him — and only him — to pardon individuals for “offenses against the United States.”

The debate over the deportation deferral program has been framed as a question of the division of powers. Both sides agree that Congress is the only entity that gets to define offenses against the United States. Reasonable commentators also agree that the president enjoys prosecutorial discretion to determine which deportation cases to pursue and which to forgo. 

The difficult question is whether a categorical decision to decline to prosecute millions begins to intrude on Congress’ power. While the program is consistent with the way previous presidents have used prosecutorial discretion, without guidance from the Supreme Court, debate will surely continue. (Read the rest.) 

-cw

MY TURN-Remember when you had your fiftieth birthday and one of the greetings in the mail was from the American Association for Retired People -- AARP? I don't know about you, but I was almost insulted. Retired at 50? Old person? I dumped the application in the waste paper basket and steadily ignored those solicitations for several years. 

Everyone is talking about “how to attract millennials.” Marketing people are always looking for new ways to reach the digital generation. (I had to learn how to text to communicate with my grandchildren.) They want to know, how do we get millennials excited about voting? How do we get them to shop at brick and mortar stores? I could go on forever talking about the challenges involved in reaching this newest generation of consumers and leaders. 

Quite frankly I am getting bored with all the focus on millennials! What about our generation...the Savvy Seniors. We are, as Gale Sheehey wrote in her book "Passages," at least ten to fifteen years younger than our parents were at the same age. We work out, we bike, we take classes in esoteric subjects, we’re involved in online dating, we travel and we’re probably as knowledgeable about our local politics as we are about the national outlook. 

There have been so many horrible events in the past couple weeks. In a way, all the patriotic events on the Fourth of July -- the parades and the fireworks and the music -- provided a welcome respite from so much sad and scary news. 

I will bet this is probably the first Independence Day that people who gathered in large crowds might have looked around at their fellow celebrators and wondered, "Am I and my family safe? Does anyone here have an assault weapon or a suicide vest?" If you had those thoughts, you are not being paranoid. It’s the world we live in. 

This got me thinking about our problems and how "we" can make things better. Not the “royal we," but everyone. And I don’t mean like those Facebook homilies suggesting we could solve all the world’s problems if “everyone did something nice for someone else daily.” 

For those of us “savvy seniors” who are somewhat computer literate, have you noticed that if you check out a product or service on a website, they follow you? It’s called target marketing. Yes, I do still get mailers advertising the features of "advance burial” and invitations to lunch with the Neptune Society. They like direct mail for their target market. 

AARP does a really good job with its lobbying to protect social security and Medicare as well as promoting dozens of other projects protecting seniors from scams. As an influential national organization, AARP represents and informs us well. 

When you hear the phrase “all politics is local,” I think this extends to public service and philanthropy as well. 

Senior centers in Los Angeles, for the most part, do a good job of helping seniors pass the time. It is proven that seniors who have a good social network live longer and healthier lives. But personally, I think these centers are missing the boat. 

There is a wealth of talent and creativity locked away inside those who have retired. We have a real problem with education in Los Angeles. Our high school dropout rate is appalling for the 6th largest economy in the world! The money we spend on each student is less today than back when we went to school. I'm not going to recite the list because CW readers know the problems only too well. 

Mayor Garcetti keeps asking for suggestions in his weekly Facebook posts. His vision gets pretty good marks from those that evaluate our politicos, but his execution leaves something to be desired. He has a whole Department of Aging which tries to make sure that seniors have access to services they need. The point to this is…everyone needs to be needed! 

Here is a suggestion, Mr. Mayor: We have a large percentage of seniors among our four million inhabitants so why not create a Senior Public Service Corps in each neighborhood? This could include retired teachers, artists, woodworking craftsmen -- every profession and trade one could think of. Time is a precious commodity and, for the most part, this group has time. 

We could have classes in art, music, shop, cooking as well as help with reading in every school that doesn't have the money or parent participation to offer those things. Before the teachers union gets bent out of shape, we are not looking to replace them but to augment their work. Mentors for kids who need them (and how many of us are where we are today because we had one?) would come from their own neighborhoods. It would provide many of the benefits that kids going to private schools in LA enjoy for a princely sum. 

It would give kids in Middle School the extras that allow them to see their unique possibilities and it would offer alternative opportunities for kids in High School. Not everyone needs or wants to go to college but everyone needs to have the knowledge to earn a living and be able to take care of themselves and their future families. 

This could be done through the Neighborhood Councils or other local service organizations. It would take advantage of adults who have experienced wars, recessions, joys and tragedy and survived it all. The cost would be minimal and it would give many seniors in LA the satisfaction of still being needed and able to make a difference. 

Yes, Mr. Mayor, I volunteer! 

My eldest granddaughter participated in the "March of the Living" a couple of months ago with high school seniors who visited Poland and Israel. In Poland they were accompanied by Holocaust survivors, touring two concentration camps as well as other historical places. There were 10,000 young people and chaperones in all. In recounting their very traumatic experiences, the one that really stuck with me were the stories and interaction with these eighty and ninety year olds who shared with these kids how they survived and showed how they are now giving back. 

I am sure that many of you have ideas and suggestions for how we can improve our schools, take care of the homeless, improve our environment and continue to be the place that sets the standard for the rest of the country. 

When I first began my career I was lucky to have a great mentor. He ran a big company but managed to find time to be the president or chairman of both industry and philanthropic organizations. I remember asking him how he could do it all. He replied, "Public Service is the rent one pays for taking up space on this earth." 

I'm sure you’ve heard variations on that theme before but for this 20 year old it made a huge impact. I can still hear him saying those words so many years ago that so greatly affected my life. 

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]) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

CONNECTING CALIFORNIA--“How can we save South Los Angeles?” is a tired question. It’s an artifact of previous decades when the region formerly called South Central was known by its reputation for crime, gangs, poverty, racial conflict, and the 1992 riots, the deadliest American urban uprising since the Civil War. 

So let’s retire the old query, and turn it upside down to pose a new and urgent question: How can South Los Angeles save us?

South LA is no longer a place apart. Today, it sits in the center of the California story, embodying some of our greatest possibilities and our greatest struggles. And in a particularly nasty and anxious time in the United States, when pessimism and angry nonsense spread faster than Western wildfires, the South LA of 2016 offers a tough-minded but optimistic narrative that ought to remind us just how much can be achieved—beyond mere survival—through gritty determination and small, steady improvements.

South LA is both the closest thing we have to an urban success story, and the furthest thing from a fairy tale. In today’s South LA, crime, despite recent upticks, is less than one-third of what it was a quarter century ago, access to health care is improving, there are more and better schools, housing prices and home ownership are up, transportation and arts and food options are multiplying. And major new developments are arriving—with all their promise and peril.

Of course, it is dangerous to generalize about a place so large and diverse. South LA consists of about 30 very different neighborhoods, from pristine suburban-style historic tract to industrial precincts to college-town enclave to narrow boulevard-based corridors. South Los Angeles is comparable in size to San Francisco, California’s fourth largest city. Both are nearly 50 square miles and have populations of 850,000.

But today’s South LA is more often described as Los Angeles’ version of Oakland. It’s a poorer place that is being changed, for better and for worse, both by the work of its residents and by proximity to the wealth and spillover housing demand of Los Angeles’ booming downtown and Westside.

South LA has not shed its older challenges, particularly around poverty and jobs, while its gains have created new challenges. In particular: How do South LA’s people and businesses make sure they don’t become exiles from their own success, driven away by a higher cost of living?

That poignant question resonates across the state. South Los Angeles is the largest working-class place left in coastal California. If it can figure out a way to remain such, it could provide a crucial model of success for a state with a dwindling middle and a widening divide between its affluent and America’s largest population of poor people.

Part of South LA’s importance lies in its relative openness to new approaches in addressing this conundrum. There’s less of the NIMBYism that’s epidemic elsewhere in the state. I recently heard community planners call South Los Angeles “LA’s LA” They meant that in two ways. First, in the sense meant by Tom Bradley, modern LA’s greatest mayor and a longtime South LA resident, who once said that people come to LA “looking for a place where they can be free, where they can do things they couldn’t do anywhere else.” And second, in the technical sense: while so much of LA’s planning and zoning has already been settled, with overlays and districts for different areas, South LA’s plans remain relatively free of such obstacles.

So how can South LA’s example save us? The region has become a popular proving place for new initiatives.

It’s already the site of some of LA’s most significant cultural investments these days—in Exposition Park alone, the Coliseum is being renovated, a new soccer stadium is scheduled to be built, the Natural History Museum has been recently renovated, and the Space Shuttle Endeavour now resides at the California Science Center.

Many of South LA’s bigger developments come with “community benefits agreements” and local hiring promises that are all the rage among labor unions and local economic development wise men. But it remains to be seen whether such agreements lead to enduring improvements, or whether this one-deal-at-a-time approach undermines efforts at more thoughtful and comprehensive planning and development. USC’s The Village, which combines student housing with a new Target and South LA’s first Trader Joe’s, opens next year and is being closely watched because it comes with some of the strongest community benefits in the city’s history, including hiring for disadvantaged people, local business assistance, $15 to $20 million for a new affordable housing fund, and the creation of a legal clinic to assist local tenants. A proposed $1 billion expansion of the Washington Boulevard high-rise for creative firms and artists known as The Reef, to include new housing units, retail, and a hotel, faces skepticism about its feasibility and opposition from neighbors who fear it could further drive up rents in the area.

In an LA where it’s hard to build housing, South LA is a relative hotbed of new homes—often fashionably close to transit and retail—but it’s far from clear whether it is affordable enough to serve local residents. Recent efforts to improve access to health care are being closely watched, notably Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital, located south of the 105 Freeway, which recently reopened in conjunction with expanding local health clinics. The just-completed Expo Metro rail line (which connects South LA with downtown and Santa Monica) as well as the forthcoming Crenshaw line will make South LA a key test of whether highly touted transit investments can improve neighborhoods.

And South LA is home to dozens of charter schools, billions of dollars worth of new and improved school facilities, and various other educational innovations, including the Partnership schools, a district within a district. So far, some of these school experiments are showing strong results, while others lag.

South LA is a fertile ground for experimentation, from efforts to help local businesses embrace technology, to a new approach in sidewalk repair. The city’s new trash franchise is supposed to curb illegal dumping in South LA and establish recycling facilities in the area. Private and nonprofit efforts to provide healthy and locally grown food are targeting South LA. And if high-profile efforts to boost voter registration and turnout are to succeed, they’ll have to gain traction in South LA, where people vote less frequently than in other Southern California communities with similar population profiles.

Statewide efforts to increase park access in poorer communities are being tested in South LA, which has seen the opening of many small parks but has struggled to establish the mid-sized community parks it desperately lacks. South LA’s long street corridors are ripe for the redesigns promised by the “Great Streets” movement, which aims to make streets friendlier for bicyclists, pedestrians, and community gatherings.

In all these initiatives, the stakes are high. If any of these ideas can show results in reputedly hardscrabble South LA, they are likely to find a receptive audience in struggling urban areas around the country.

If any of these ideas [for community improvement] can show results in reputedly hardscrabble South LA, they are likely to find a receptive audience in struggling urban areas around the country.

Of course, the two most profound changes South LA needs involve not physical, but human, capital.

First, South LA stands to benefit tremendously from statewide efforts to ease re-entry into communities for people who have served time, as well as from efforts to help people clean up their criminal records by expunging or reducing non-violent felony convictions. Nonprofit groups are collaborating to make it easier for people with records to get hired and become eligible for housing and student benefits.

Second, there may be no greater advertisement for long overdue immigration reform than to spend time in South LA. And if the undocumented workers and entrepreneurs behind so many small or home-based businesses had the legal status to come out of the shadows, South LA, as both an economy and a community, would be unstoppable.

South LA’s reputation, particularly in mainstream media, hasn’t yet caught up with its new, improved, and more complicated reality. Its success has come too slowly and steadily, without a sole catalyst, and so it’s not easily told.

But that may be about to change. Two high-profile political campaigns could bring media scrutiny to South LA. Steve Barr, founder of a charter school network with many South LA campuses, is challenging the incumbent mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, in 2017. And if former mayor Antonio Villaraigosa makes a strong run for governor in 2018, Californians should hear a lot about South LA, the setting for the most significant policy initiatives of his eight years in office.

South LA’s people and institutions are understandably reluctant to tell their turnaround story, given the remaining challenges. And progress can have its costs. South LA was turned down at first for a federal Promise Zone designation, which brings all kinds of resources to the neediest neighborhoods, largely because it wasn’t poor enough to meet the program’s standards. But, in a demonstration of their collaboration and sophistication, South LA’s officials and nonprofits rallied, suggested changes to the program’s standards, and won the designation.

An updated narrative of South LA is vital to the region’s ability to protect itself and its people from developments and changes that might threaten its progress, or displace its people. Vast and diverse South LA is on the rise, and we shouldn’t let anything get in the way of the example being built there.

Because if South LA can make it, there’s hope for all of us.

(Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square ... where this column originated.)

-cw

PERSPECTIVE-As reported by the Los Angeles Times, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) faces allegations of billing fraud. Unlike the earlier version of the complaint filed by the City where it accused the firm of botching the implementation of the DWP’s new billing system, this latest motion has the potential for criminal charges if there is compelling evidence of a deliberate attempt to deceive. 

Most of you have probably read the article. It was reported that a number of contractors involved in the project inflated billable hours to cover the cost of some serious partying in Las Vegas, with the knowledge and approval of the billing project’s PwC partner and managers. See the DWP press release at the bottom of this post. 

I am assuming it was a whistleblower who disclosed the alleged fraud, although other means of discovery could have been in play. 

The outcome of the lawsuit could go any number of ways, but one needs to bifurcate the overall case. The initial complaint was mainly over performance, although DWP also claimed PwC misrepresented its expertise in implementing comparable billing systems. Overall, this aspect of the case is civil. 

So let’s focus on the latest motion. 

Knowingly presenting falsified invoices to a government entity is serious business, more so when done by a firm required to serve the interests of the public. There could be an element of criminal intent. 

The AICPA defines the accounting profession’s public as consisting of clients, credit grantors, governments, employers, investors, the business and financial community, and others who rely on the objectivity and integrity of CPAs to maintain the orderly function of commerce. Every action taken by the CPA should work towards serving the public interest. 

If this latest claim arose from whistleblowers’ information, it will get down to their credibility. I would think there would have to be corroborating evidence to justify a criminal action. 

The most difficult challenge for the City will be proving that the cost of the extra-curricular activities in Las Vegas were actually billed. It is one thing for a manager to suggest an unethical action (perhaps under the influence of alcohol), and quite another to actually pull the trigger. Regardless, at a minimum it would probably be viewed as unprofessional conduct by the State Board of Accountancy even if the expenses were not passed through. 

The original contract for the system was for $57 million and grew to $69 million. Is there at least a tenuous trail that could connect the specific hours spent partying as a very small piece of the $12 million increase? That would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. 

Are there progress billings with hours traceable to the dates and times of the activities in question? Hard to conceive that would be the case. 

There may be no smoking gun with fingerprints. 

A civil decision in favor of the City or a settlement would make it a reportable event to the Board of Accountancy. PwC would be sanctioned in a manner which could make it difficult for the firm to engage in consulting services with governments in California, and maybe even Nevada. Clouding the prospects for a favorable outcome for the City would be the DWP’s role in the system’s disastrous rollout. 

According to Daniel J. Thomasch, PwC’s outside counsel, “the DWP acknowledged in writing …that PwC fulfilled each one of its contractual obligations and paid PwC in full.” 

An audit conducted by the State of California concluded, “The department’s executive management was well aware of the significant problems associated with (the system) and yet made the questionable decision to launch.”

PwC was awarded the contract in the summer of 2010, the go-live date for the project was September 2013. There was plenty of time in between for DWP to smoke out potential trouble and cause PwC to modify its approach. All major system projects involve a constant flow of information and feedback between the developer and the client. Did DWP consistently approve the results of tests? Did its employees even bother to look? 

If it was the intent of DWP to place 100% confidence in PwC – or any contractor – to develop a critical system, that is the essence of naivete, not to mention dereliction.

There was a contract with a division of Ernst and Young for quality assurance. The State Auditor reported: DWP was “warned that no aspect of the project was ready; in fact, the quality assurance expert reported that the project’s scope, quality, and schedule were all at the lowest possible rating and needed immediate attention.” 

It would appear, then, that regardless of PwC’s actions or errors, DWP was equally reckless and incompetent throughout the duration of the project, as well as in its decision to go live. 

With so much at stake for both sides, the case will be lengthy and expensive. 

One nagging question: what action has been taken against any DWP employees whose responsibilities included oversight? 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DATE: June 30, 2016 5:00:33 PM PDT

LADWP Letterhead
Additional Allegation of Fraud by PriceWaterhouse Coopers Filed in Court Motion in Connection with its Role in Customer Information and Billing System Implementation 

LOS ANGELES — Earlier today, the Los Angeles City Attorney, on behalf of the City of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), filed a motion in LA Superior Court seeking permission to file an Amended Complaint detailing an alleged fraudulent conspiracy operated by PriceWaterhouse Coopers, LLP (PwC) and several of its senior managers. The alleged conspiracy was recently discovered through an ongoing investigation into PwC’s role as the primary contractor implementing LADWP’s Customer Care and Billing System (CC&B). This legal action, which seeks to recover tens of thousands of dollars in ratepayer funds that were illegally obtained by PwC through its fraudulent conspiracy, is in addition to the charges of fraudulent inducement and breach of contract included in litigation initially filed by City Attorney Mike Feuer on behalf of the City and LADWP in March 2015. 

The alleged conspiracy detailed in the court papers filed today consisted of PwC and several senior-ranking PwC Managers, including the PwC Partner-in-Charge of the CC&B System implementation project for LADWP, engaging in a three-year long conspiracy to defraud the City of Los Angeles and the LADWP by repeatedly submitting intentionally falsified PwC time records in a manner not able to be detected by LADWP to obtain payments for work that PwC never performed from 2011 through at least 2013. The alleged fraudulent conspiracy is detailed in the court filing and includes payments authorized by PwC and its senior managers to reimburse their subcontractor for payments made for the services of escorts and prostitutes, lavish hotel stays, two bachelor parties and thousands of dollars for “bottle service” liquor at Las Vegas hotels and clubs in July 2011 and May 2013. 

After learning of the alleged fraudulent conspiracy, the Board of Water and Power Commissioners directed LADWP Executive Management to pursue all appropriate remedies, up to and including the possibility of debarment, which if initiated could result in PwC being debarred as a government contractor for the LADWP for a maximum period of five (5) years. 

LADWP General Manager Marcie Edwards made the following statement regarding today’s court filing: 

“PriceWaterhouse Coopers not only misrepresented their qualifications and delivered a disastrously flawed billing system to LADWP, but based on the allegations in the court filing made today, they did so while violating the public trust and engaging in reprehensible and potentially criminal conduct. Even worse is the fact that the alleged fraudulent scheme was carried out by the PwC Partner-In-Charge and PwC’s Senior Managers working on the billing system project. Their alleged conduct is outrageous and our customers deserve to be repaid every dollar that the flawed billing system and fraudulent billings have cost them,” said General Manager Edwards. 

Background 

In March 2015, the City and LADWP filed a civil lawsuit against PwC. The Complaint in the lawsuit alleges that PwC fraudulently induced the City and LADWP to enter into a contract to replace the LADWP’s Customer Information System (the “CISCON Contract”) and, after having been awarded the CISCON Contract, that PwC breached the terms of the CISCON Contract by failing to successfully perform several of the tasks that PwC was contractually required to perform. As a result, LADWP was unable to properly bill many of its customers, leading to widespread problems experienced by LADWP customers and costs borne by ratepayers to fix the billing system after it went live in September 2013. 

In March 2016, the Court ruled in favor of the City and LADWP when it rejected PwC’s attempt to dismiss the City and LADWP’s fraudulent inducement allegations. The Court’s decision was significant because it allows the City and LADWP to attempt to recover all of the damages incurred by the City and the LADWP as a result of PwC’s misconduct. 

PwC’s defective implementation of the LADWP’s CC&B Billing System caused a nightmare for hundreds of thousands of LADWP customers and its employees as LADWP managed the fallout from this defective implementation. While LADWP has made tremendous progress in lowering call hold times and in remediating the defectively implemented CC&B Billing System that PwC delivered, the LADWP has also continued its investigation into PwC’s misconduct in connection with the lawsuit. 

NOTE: The motion and amended complaint will be posted on http://www.ladwpnews.com under Hot Topics when available from the Court.

For more information contact:
Joseph Ramallo
Communications Director, LADWP
(213) 367-1361

• ●●

(Paul Hatfield is a CPA and serves as President of the Valley Village Homeowners Association. He blogs at Village to Village and contributes to CityWatch. The views presented are those of Mr. Hatfield and his alone and do not represent the opinions of Valley Village Homeowners Association or CityWatch. He can be reached at: [email protected].)

-cw

VOICE OF THE PEOPLE--Crenshaw Subway Coalition and Friends of the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative are jointly suing a Bay Area real estate developer (CP V Cumulus) and the Los Angeles City Council to stop the first approved skyscraper in the history of South Los Angeles. 

The project, known as Cumulus, (above, photo of rendering) would impose nearly 1,200 luxury housing units in a fortress-like complex that includes a 30-story, 320-foot skyscraper at the foot of Baldwin Hills and adjacent to the Expo Line La Cienega station. The Cumulus project would add a staggering 1.9 million square feet of development at the frequently gridlocked intersection of La Cienega/Jefferson, which is a shortcut to LAX that is already jammed with east-west and north-south commuters much of the day. 

“The building is too damn high, and the Jefferson/La Cienega intersection is already a traffic nightmare,” said Clint Simmons, a nearby resident and member of Expo Communities United. 

Crenshaw Subway Coalition and Friends of the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative are two independent groups fighting for rational city planning that respects neighborhood character and ends land-use abuses. The groups jointly filed their complaint for injunctive and declaratory relief in Los Angeles Superior Court on June 24. The lawsuit cites gross violations of the City Charter and California Environmental Quality Act by the City Council, which on May 25 unanimously approved the Cumulus project. 

In approving a 30-story skyscraper in an area where no building exceeds even 4 stories, the Cumulus project is among the worst examples to date of the City Council’s pattern of defying all local protective zoning and height/density limits to help enrich wealthy developers -- who shower the City Council with campaign funds and lobbying. In 2014 and 2015, Carmel Partners (CP V Cumulus) of San Francisco paid $59,356 to well-connected lobbyists to influence LA officials, and gave a total of $4,900 to a council member's “officeholder account” and the campaign chests of City Council members who were key to backing the project. 

National and international developers are swarming Los Angeles to cash in on the development craze currently gripping the Los Angeles Department of Planning and elected Los Angeles politicians, creating a glut of luxury housing with a huge 12% vacancy rate, according to the city's own data. 

The Cumulus project, which will introduce more than 1,000 new unaffordable high-rise apartments, is aimed at upscale employees in nearby Culver City, while acting as a slap in the face to the surrounding South Los Angeles neighborhoods of mostly Black and Latino residents. The City Council even approved the project without any local hire requirements. 

The Cumulus project is the poster child for wildly out-of-scale development that is clearly not for existing residents and feeds concerns like gentrification. We believe in development without displacement and responsible community planning. This is a gross violation of both of those principles. Furthermore, the Cumulus project sends a horrible message to developers that “anything goes,” which threatens the right of existing residents to the neighborhoods we have built and want to see improved for us. 

Beverly Grossman Palmer, the attorney representing Crenshaw Subway Coalition and Friends of the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, said, “The entitlements granted to construct the Cumulus Project fly in the face of sound planning and violate City Charter rules about when the General Plan may be amended.” 

Palmer notes that, “The City ignored the limitations included in the newly proposed West Adams Community Plan and permitted construction of a 320-foot tower that far exceeds the permissible height on all neighboring properties. This is a perfect example of ‘spot zoning’ to benefit a particular developer, exactly the practice that the City Charter prohibits.” 

Outrageously, the City Council approved a special “General Plan Amendment” in its efforts to help the developer get around city land-use rules on the very same day that an environmental impact report was publicly released detailing the updated West Adams Community Plan. The new Community Plan, eight years in the making, allows an increase of the building height limit on the site from 45 to 75 feet with a possible increase to 86 feet for mixed-use projects, far below Cumulus’ 320 feet. 

City Hall’s decision to break zoning rules on behalf of a wealthy developer is a clear-cut message that Council members viewed residents’ years of input and engagement with city officials on the West Adams Community Plan as meaningless. Such actions have been proven to ignite a domino effect that drastically alters neighborhood character. The Council has frequently used approval of a single illegal tower to justify more high-rise towers in areas where they are expressly prohibited by the zoning code. 

Darren Starks, President of the Baldwin Neighborhood Homeowners Association, said, “We are deeply concerned about the domino effect of the Cumulus skyscraper. One skyscraper is bad given the current traffic gridlock. But we see this as the start of more to come.” 

Jill Stewart, campaign director for the Coalition to Preserve LA, which is sponsoring the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative heading for the March 2017 ballot, said supporters of the ballot measure joined the Crenshaw Subway Coalition in suing City Hall because “City officials are steamrolling over a community of color that supports development, but not outrageous and illegal development that will ruin their area, jack up rental prices, price out existing residents, and jam up the streets in an area reaching from South L.A. to the Wilshire District to Palms. The Neighborhood Integrity Initiative will put an end to the soft corruption at City Hall, where rule-breaking mega-projects are granted ‘spot zoning’ favors after council members and the mayor take money from those very same developers.” 

The Cumulus skyscraper complex is far more than a “project.” It would forever change local neighborhoods in and along the Baldwin Hills, and would tower over the Ballona Creek Bicycle Path and Ballona Creek. Yet the Cumulus proposal is practically unknown to the public, having been rushed through its approvals with little mention of it by the area's representative, Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson. 

(Damien Goodmon is the Executive Director of the Crenshaw Subway Coalition and an occasional contributor to CityWatch.)

VOTING DISPARITY-The United States is, by and large, not a very politically participatory country. Not only do Americans vote in relatively small numbers, they also don’t contact their representatives, take part in campaigns, or even talk about politics all that much. 

It’s also a politically unequal country, with white people participating more than other groups  --  a fact highlighted in a new report on political participation in California. 

“Since 2000, California has been a majority-minority state where no racial group holds a numerical majority,” write Advancement Project researchers John Dobard and Kim Engie and University of California-Riverside political scientists Karthick Ramakrishnan and Sono Shah. “Yet California’s democracy does not accurately reflect that demographic reality.” 

Drawing on the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey Voter Supplement, the team estimates that an average of 68 percent of white U.S. citizens in California voted in presidential elections between 2004 and 2012, compared to 65 percent of blacks and 51 percent of Latinos. Meanwhile, just 48 percent of Asian Americans voted. 

“Racial disparity has been a common thread in voting and nonvoting forms of political participation. This does not bode well for California’s democracy.” 

That same basic pattern held true for mid-term elections, albeit with even smaller numbers overall. Those gaps, the researchers write, follow from three other factors -- Asian Californians, for example, are much less likely to be citizens and, among citizens, are much less likely to be registered to vote. 

Just as important, the authors argue, are disparities in other forms of political participation. Only about one in 10 Latinos and Asian Americans participated in some way in a political campaign, according to Census data from 2011 and 2013, compared with nearly one in four whites and nearly one in five blacks. While 16 percent of whites had contacted a public official in the year prior to taking the Census Bureau’s survey, only 9 percent of blacks, 6 percent of Asian Americans, and 5 percent of Latinos had done so. Asian Americans were by far the least likely to discuss politics every day  --  only 3 percent did, compared with 14 percent of whites. 

“There are also numerous ways in which those who speak up are unrepresentative of California’s population,” the authors write. “Racial disparity has been a common thread in voting and nonvoting forms of political participation. This does not bode well for California’s democracy.” 

There are, however, some solutions. Because low levels of political participation are associated with fewer resources – including  income, education, and so on -- they propose civic education efforts targeted at low-income communities of color, as well as the involvement of more people from those communities in voter mobilization efforts. 

(Nathan Collins writes for Pacific Standard Magazine where this piece was first posted.) Photo: Andrew Burton/Getty Images. Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.