PLATKIN ON PLANNING--Cities, like Los Angeles, have no shortage of politically inspired schemes to sandbag good city planning, especially the successful updating of their General Plan. They can: 

• Understaff and sideline the units responsible for maintaining the General Plan.
• Prepare the General Plan’s elements out of sequence.
• Implement the General Plan through new zoning ordinances adopted before the plan is actually updated.
• Neglect monitoring and enacting mid-course corrections to the plan.
• Use old or inaccurate population data to skew the plans’ demographic assumptions.      
• “Forget” to calculate the build-out potential of existing zoning.
• Fail to connect the General Plan process to the City’s operating and capital investment budgets and work programs. 

When cities, like LA, resort to these strategies, the resulting vacuum is filled by the wavering impulses of real estate investors. Because fluctuating interest rates, available capital, tax laws, and changing consumer tastes quickly change, the decisions of real estate speculators also quickly change. When this happens, their short-term penchants substitute for the planning process, and the public then pays a steep, long-term price. 

This is my initial list of such hidden costs, but I have no doubt that City Watch readers will identify other harmful outcomes.  

Consequences of bad, negligent, and delayed city planning in Los Angeles. 

• Corruption. As revealed by the LA Times reporting on illegal campaign contributions for the Sea Breeze apartment complex in the Harbor Gateway area, when city planning land use decisions are determined by real estate speculators, City Hall is rife with corruption. Campaign contributions determine which ambitious projects qualify for building permits, not the General Plan and its implementation through zoning. 

• Traffic Congestion. Auto-centric mega-projects, like Caruso Affiliated’s luxury high-rise at 333 S. LaCienega obtain their approvals by claiming they are transit-oriented developments. But, they are not, and when built, they add to LA’s terrible traffic congestion, in this case at an intersection so gridlocked its local nickname is the Bermuda Triangle. 

• Inequality. Zone Changes, General Plan Amendments, and Height District Changes yield enormous financial benefits for property owners. These gains, however, only generate increased property taxes when the owners demolish existing buildings and replace them with new ones. As for the rest of us, our only dubious benefits are more colorful election flyers and more upmarket places to shop. 

• LA’s housing crisis began in late 1980s, and thirty years later there is no end in sight; homelessness, overcrowding, high rents, and lack of middle-income and affordable housing prevail. But, good planning would tell us where there is the greatest need for new housing, where there is existing planning and zoning capacity for by-right housing construction, where sufficient public services and infrastructure allow for increased population, and where existing affordable and rent stabilized housing has already been lost and the remainder should be preserved. 

• Climate change requires extensive local mitigation and adaptation. The General Plan is the obvious way to plan and monitor such efforts as reducing the generation of Green House Gases, hardening infrastructure, adjusting to long-term drought, converting homes to decentralized rooftop solar electricity and hot water, and building transportation infrastructure for non-automobile modes. 

• Economic development requires a detailed assessment of the city’s work force, market trends, industrial land, and supportive infrastructure, such as the transportation system. But, in LA, economic development only means pitches from the Mayor’s office to attract and serve high-end real estate investors. 

• The continued maintenance of and investment in public services and public infrastructure is essential to Los Angeles. But the General Plan elements for infrastructure and public services date back to the 1960s. Now, a half-century later, the city’s streets are filled with potholes and bursting water mains, sidewalks are crumbling and buckling, and a maze of overhead wires is a disaster waiting to happen. Furthermore, private parcels, which comprise 20 to 40 percent of local communities, have become the preoccupation of City Hall, not the public realm and public improvements that are essential to the city’s residents, employees, and visitors. 

• The lack of accurate, frequently updated data generated by careful General Plan monitoring means that public policy is determined in a vacuum, allowing the well-oiled requests of real estate speculators to prevail. 

• City Hall has incrementally responded to stalled General Plan updates by adopting an incomprehensible mosaic of overlay zones and site-specific approval conditions. In order to appease opponents of discretionary land use decisions, these overlay zones and conditions make reliable plan check and code enforcement impossible. 

• Urban design. Since the mega-projects blessed through the political process, like 8150 Sunset, clash with the scale and character of existing development, they degrade the appearance of a city that is already burdened by unsightly communities, corridors, and buildings. While some of this also results from slip-shod code enforcement, the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative could prevent a big part, especially if it can be followed up with the design review of new public and private construction, similar to Beverly Hills. 

• Downward spiral of bad planning. As effective city planning is stymied, City Hall weaves a downward web of self-imposed hardships. Real estate lobbyists and expediters then repeatedly claim that an outdated General Plan warrants parcel level spot-General Plan Amendments, spot-Zone Changes, and spot-Height District Changes. Their unstated assumption is that more permissive zones would have appeared if the ageing plans had already been updated, and, hey, their clients need them now. But, there is no basis for their claims and the precedents they set. In fact, in many communities there has been negligible demographic change or even, like Hollywood, population decline.  When these trends appear, the proper response is to either keep existing zoning in place or in some cases, reductions in permitted planning and zoning, not increases. 

Last, but hardly least, shoddy city planning thwarts City Hall's grandiose plans to transform Los Angeles into a world or global city. Anyone who spends time in London or Paris quickly learns they have wonderful transit and other public services, high design standards, and carefully controlled public and private construction. In contrast, Los Angeles needs far more that 3.9 million people and struggling entertainment and import-export industries to eventually become a city of this caliber.

(Dick Platkin is a former LA City Planner who reports on local planning issues for CityWatch. He is also a supporter of the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative [[ http://2preservela.org/faqs/ ]]   and welcomes comments and corrections at [email protected].) 

-cw

EASTSIDER-Last week, Angelenos were greeted with two very different visions of short-term rentals for Los Angeles. On the one hand, there was a press conference at the 8^th & Hope Building, sponsored largely by UniteHERE. That event drew around 70 people who shared their experiences and concerns about where Los Angeles seems to be headed with their proposed short-term rental ordinance. It has seemingly landed in a “dead zone” vacuum created by the City Council. For more on this, take a look at Keeping Neighborhoods First. 

The other vision for Los Angeles started the next day, a tightly controlled international event called Airbnb Open 2016, set at four downtown Theaters, not to mention events all over town including a Festival on Saturday, that had music by Maroon 5, a special screening of LA LA Land and all kinds of other performances. Speakers were as glitzy as you would expect, with a veneer of authority provided by none other than the former U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder (who, one can presume, was well compensated for this event.) 

The juxtaposition of the Press Conference and the Airbnb event tells you a lot, as does the tightly controlled outreach by Airbnb. I mean, they had to spend a zillion dollars on this massive event, international in scope, held all over the city, to tout their “new vision” of being more than simply a house or apartment-renting app. And yet, there was virtually no grand hurrah in local media, no blasting out of “see me, see me” for the wonderful events on TV. So, you have to ask why? 

This was clearly an insider deal, aimed squarely at current supporters of Airbnb and the hosts, designed to show them at their best and dazzle the attendees with hi-profile speakers, even as they announced their new areas of expansion. 

For Airbnb, this is “it” -- the beginnings of the IPO that is going to make them all billionaires, and what better venue than Los Angeles as the model for international everything? To prove I’m not making this up, just read the Wired article from Thursday November 17. There it is, confirmed by Brian Chesky himself. 

I think there were a couple of basic reasons that the event was so “under the radar.” First, Airbnb did not want to risk nasty picketing or negative press in the media -- nothing to take the shine off the prize. Second, the proposed short-term rental ordinance in LA City is not yet final, and while we cynics know that the Mayor and the Council are all bought off (or in), they are loathe to publicly admit they have no interest in an equitable ordinance. Especially after they had just successfully pushed for a bunch of municipal tax measures on the November ballot. It might make them look bad. 

Of course, Airbnb did not totally escape without notice. During the event’s grand finale on Saturday, hundreds of protesters marched at their multiple locations. You can read about it here. Actually, this may be the only place you will read about any protests, because this is Los Angeles, land of glitz and corporate censorship. 

In Europe and Other American Cities, Airbnb Has to Play Nice 

Also under the radar, is the fact that Airbnb has had a lot of pushback from their nicey-nice new age techie public image -- despite paying a lot of money for lawyers, lobbyists, and even buying a few politicians for a fake “advisory board.” In Europe, for example, particularly Paris, Berlin, and Barcelona, much of the populace is not happy and legislation to curb Airbnb’s freewheeling business model abounds. 

While Airbnb has been quick to litigate, as in San Francisco, I should point out that they recently lost that case, which is similar to suits they filed against Anaheim and Santa Monica. Not to mention their litigation problems in New York. 

Other cities, all more interested in their residents than Los Angeles, have also pushed back. For more information, check out a recent, detailed article in CurbedLA.  They took a relatively balanced approach in explaining the history and the two very different sides of the Airbnb tsunami. 

So What’s the Deal in the City of Los Angeles? 

Almost all the articles on Airbnb point out the inherent conflict between their public vision that the entity publicly promotes – that of Airbnb simply being a cool new way to connect “hosts” together with travelers to rent a room or bed in a real community, enhancing the feeling of being in a real neighborhood and experiencing a sense of belonging -- with the reality that the real money in the Airbnb business is in a full time business model. 

The trick is how to merge their “sharing economy” idea of the short-term renting out of a room to make a few bucks versus the business reality of converting houses into permanent “short-term” rentals which, in bulk, can alter or even destroy the character of a neighborhood, turning neighbor against neighbor. 

In Los Angeles, the current state of the law is that short-term rentals in residential areas are illegal, period. However, the LA City Attorney has failed to enforce the law in a manner that now gives new meaning to the phrase “scofflaw.” I covered this in a previous article, “The Feckless Feuer Dilemma - To Enforce Airbnb Law or to Pretend to Enforce Airbnb Law.” 

Well, the jury is back in on that issue and the verdict is just what we thought: LA is up for sale, law or not. C’mon down, not to worry. 

While this fight has been kicking around for a couple of years, and all the insiders like Airbnb and City Hall and the Mayor have known the outcome before there was even a draft, there is still no short-term rental ordinance in place -- even though the Council file on the matter started back in 2014. 

So Why Hasn’t the Ordinance Passed?

I can posit a couple of worthy, underhanded reasons why the ordinance hasn’t already passed. First and foremost, there were two really important dates that had to go by first: the November 8 General Election and the November 7 through December 12 deadlines to file a declaration of intent and nominating petitions for the March 7, 2017 LA Municipal primary election. 

That’s right, the cutoffs for when some incensed citizens might get together and run someone against the incumbents for Mayor, Controller, City Attorney, and Council Districts 1,3,5,7,9,11,13, and 15. And you thought that politicians couldn’t count. 

You see, after the cut-off dates, it largely doesn’t matter what anyone does. With the exception of CD 7, vacated by the vacuous Fuentes and where everyone is running, there are usually very few significant challengers to incumbency in LA City, absent a major scandal or revolt. Since less than 10% of eligible voters are likely to even bother to vote, and close to a majority of them will vote by mail, the election is already locked in for the majority of incumbents. 

The other reason is simple. The City has already sold out, but they don’t want the troops to know that. This is no longer about short-term rentals, which are defined as the rental of a home or portion thereof for less than thirty (30) days. Think about it. As I pointed out in an earlier article, this ordinance is now called the “Home Sharing Ordinance.” 

The other big picture reason that the ordinance hasn’t passed is equally naughty -- while the ordinance is in limbo, entrepreneurial “hosts” can rent out their homes 365 days a year as a commercial business, even though it’s illegal. And the City doesn’t even care, since they’re now getting tax money in a separate deal already in place -- without any ordinance at all! 

Follow the logic. As reported back in July by the LA Times, the City announced a deal with Airbnb whereby LA City will collect hotel taxes on their “short-term” rentals, even though short-term rentals are illegal. Ya gotta love it. Franz Kafka and Albert Camus were optimists. 

Thus, there is no rush for the Airbnb “hosts” to want any ordinance passed. They will never have it this sweet. The Wild Wild West rides again, and nobody gives a darn. Except, of course, those people living in residential neighborhoods who have not cashed in on the Home Sharing market and don’t want it. You know, the people who paid big bucks to live in nice neighborhoods, even as their infrastructure crumbles under the weight of increased traffic, power and water usage, etc. which will not be paid for by anyone. Not to mention those people who have seen their affordable housing morph into permanent vacation rentals in places like Venice Beach. By golly, it’s political perfection. 

A Nagging Question 

Nobody I know has actually seen final language of the agreement between the City and Airbnb over the tax deal, even though I am anecdotally told that the City is even now getting money. Maybe some brave soul will file a Public Records Request to obtain these documents to find out for sure. 

I ask because a question arises in my random, non-attorney mind. If short-term rentals are currently illegal, and the City Officials are deliberately refusing to prosecute that illegality in exchange for money gained from the illegal acts, are they engaging in a criminal conspiracy subject to prosecution? Would the generally blanket immunity for public officials save them? 

Of course we will probably never know, since the odds of the District Attorney actually doing anything about this are right in there with the odds of Donald Trump appointing Loretta Sanchez as Attorney General. 

Still ...

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

@THE GUSS REPORT-I once sat in on humorist Stephanie Miller’s radio show when her guest, pornographer Larry Flynt, was asked, what the difference was between him and televangelist Jimmy Swaggart. Flynt’s response, “He sells his thing and I sell mine,” is as applicable now as ever, especially with all our Thanksgiving discussions only a few days away.

With that in mind, here are some notes for your Thanksgiving consideration. 

To the proverbial baker who does not want to make a cake for an LGBTQ wedding: 

You may find this hard to believe, but gay people are not trying to seduce you. They probably do not find you attractive. They are not trying to change your religious views, if that is the reason why you do not want their business; nor do they want to delegitimize your own marriage. They are simply trying to live their lives as you are living yours. 

It is hard as hell for anyone to be different than the majority, whether that difference is being gay or anything else. Being asked to use your talent to blend ingredients, bake them to perfection and decorate the resulting cake into a thing of beauty does not mean you “approve” of gay marriage, and truth be told, nobody asked for you to approve it. Try not to be crippled by other people pursuing their happiness. 

LBGTQ couples come to your bakery because you are nearby and apparently quite good at baking. So what if it presses your buttons? Bake the cake with joy and deliver it with a smile if, for nothing else, out of professional pride. If you think your God will disapprove (if there is a God) you apparently don’t understand the whole God-concept and the words in Psalm 86:5 speaking about how the Lord is “… abundant in lovingkindness to all.” It applies to all people and, truth be told, all living beings. 

Please don’t come back at me with an opposing Biblical “oh yeah?” I had to look that up on the internet. Bake the cake. Make the money. Get a good Yelp review. Rise above it because it’s the yeast you can do. 

To the LGBTQ couple hoping to get a cake from that baker: 

You learned long before you met your betrothed that the world is often illogical, unfair, uneven and unkind. Someone, apparently including this baker, was raised in a way or developed thoughts in which they feel threatened by how others live. But instead of hating them, why not instead reward another baker with your business because that one respects you and makes as good, if not a better, product? The laws are now in your favor and are becoming ever more that way. 

You are in the right. But sometimes, the best way to be accepted by those who do not accept you is to not necessarily exploit it by suing. Why not look upon them with pity because their vision is so myopic. Why not take a broader vision than they do and understand that, most likely, they do not hate you, but that they are paralyzed by fear of the unfamiliar? By exercising your right to sue, putting them out of business and their employees out of work, whose mind will you change? 

This is why Yelp exists. Praise with a 5-star review the baker who welcomes and appreciates you, and give a 1-star review to the one who didn’t, and explain why. Maybe turn the other cheek, as it were. 

On the issue of abortion: 

We can all agree that it is one of the most difficult decisions a woman may ever make. Depending on your belief system, it is somewhere between terminating a life and terminating a potential life, and there is nothing to celebrate in that. Ultimately, it is a yes or no decision and, anatomy being what it is, nobody has a greater overall stake in the decision than the woman. Those who are pro-choice should try to understand that those who are pro-life might feel that the fetus has an equal if not bigger stake in the decision. Those who are pro-life should understand that the decision does, and can only, belong to the woman, and that making it less accessible is less productive than preventing unwanted pregnancies in the first place. We will never all agree on where sustainable life begins, but it is somewhere therein. 

On the issue of the U.S. Supreme Court: 

There is a great chart on Wikipedia showing the liberal/moderate/conservative balance of the SCOTUS. With the death of Antonin Scalia less than a year ago, the conservative bent presently has Roberts, Alito and Thomas remaining, with Kennedy in the middle; the liberal bent has Breyer, Bader-Ginsburg, Kagan and Sotomayor. (The chart, made at Berkeley, lists Kennedy as moderately conservative, but he is in fact moderately liberal.) 

If ever there is a place for balance, it is here, especially in an era where SCOTUS is increasingly accused of legislating from the bench, when the separation of powers dictates that legislating be done by the Legislative Branch, that is, Congress. Both sides should understand the others’ fear of a 5-3-1, or an even more unbalanced court. The pendulum always swings, and a 4-4-1 balance is always a great idea. 

As for myself, I spend a great deal of my life advocating for animals and, therefore, have a lot of friends in the vegan, vegetarian and humane advocacy universe. The world has always, and probably always will, exploit animals, the horrors of which I will spare you in this column today. But please Google, as a favor to me, the phrases factory farming, vivisection, what “No Kill” really means and dog meat festival so you are not fully detached from the brutal realities of their lives. It is my hope that we always move toward less animal exploitation, and treat them all better while they are alive. 

The whole point of today’s article is simply this: try to at least see the other’s side. It almost always helps. 

Have a great holiday.

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

MY TURN-With half the country cheering and the other half expecting Armageddon any minute, these are strange times. I have read many comments asking how we can we celebrate Thanksgiving with the country in chaos. 

As Americans, how can we not celebrate Thanksgiving? Regardless of our political preferences we still live in the best country in the world. Each and every one of us can find something to be thankful for -- be it good health, family and friends, etc., etc., etc. Before you accuse me of having a "Pollyanna" attitude, let's be realistic. 

This last election has a silver lining: It shows how important it is to vote. The people who stayed home have no right to complain about the results. Those who put their heart and soul into promoting their candidates and/or initiatives and lost have the right to have a pity party, at least for a short while.

Perhaps now, more people will be motivated get involved in knowing what the government can and cannot do. 

Yes, the Electoral College can skewer the election. Our Founding Fathers were not into Democracy. They figured the great unwashed didn't have the knowledge to choose wisely. They were snobs! In their wildest imagination they couldn't dream of how this country would look in the 21st Century. 

It doesn't matter how many people sign a petition to get rid of the Electoral College, or if our Senator tries to put forward a bill to do that…it won't change this election. Donald J. Trump will be the President for the next four years, unless he decides that having the press follow him everywhere he goes and not being able to make money is too oppressive and resigns. The sooner everyone faces this fact, the better. 

There is much discussion about “Fake News” which has become so widespread that it deserves to be capitalized. There is talk about whether it also helped skewer the election results. Facebook President, Mark Zuckerman is changing the way his portal treats certain news outlets by cancelling identifiable sites. He has said, however, that Facebook users have an obligation to notify the company if they see Fake News. 

Certainly the preponderance of Fake News has come from conservative and "Alt-Right" sources. But the left has participated in the same game either by accident or on purpose. And they are still doing it. 

A good example: I was getting ready to write this article when I received one of those "pass along this message to twenty of your friends” messages. Supposedly, it was advice from the "Oracle of Omaha,” Warren Buffet. It was pretty interesting and since my source was very reputable I was going to include it in this article. 

Even though CW is devoted primarily to opinions on the news, I try to fact check before I include something from a third party. This supposed message outlined ten ways to make Congress more efficient and productive. Warren Buffet is a very practical man but the ten points sounded too good to be realistic. I turned to his website which lists many of his more famous quotes and to Snopes.com, which is a very reliable neutral fact check site. 

Whoever put this list together, took his quote from an interview in July 2011 on how to solve the national debt. According to Snopes, "It was during that exchange that the Oracle of Omaha made his now famous statement about rendering ineligible for re-election all sitting members of Congress whenever the deficit exceeded 3% of gross domestic product. 

"So yes, it's true that one of the most respected businessmen of modern times did indeed voice the quote now widely ascribed to him in various e-mailed forwards, although his remark was more in the nature of a wry commentary on the workings of Congress than a serious proposal for tackling the budget deficit. 

"The rest of the lengthier e-mail in circulation has nothing to do with Warren Buffett. What is presented as the ‘Congressional Reform Act of 2011’ began circulating on the Internet in October 2009 as the ‘Congressional Reform Act of 2009.’ In a nutshell, what is presented as a proposed 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution isn't something that has been put forward by any member of Congress and thus is nothing more than a bit of Internet-based politicking." 

So when it comes to getting news from social media -- if it sounds too ridiculous or too good to be true, it probably is. 

I hope the Democratic minority in Congress doesn't act like the Republican majority under President Obama that swore to make Obama a one-term President by blocking everything he wanted. Revenge is no way to run a country. The mission should be to compromise on issues that will help the American people and to fight those things that will have a disproportionate negative effect on the majority of Americans. If you fight everything then nothing becomes important. 

The office of the President deserves respect. President-elect Trump was very disrespectful of President Obama. Remember what First Lady Michelle Obama said: "When they go low, we go high." We are just going to have to make the best out of a frightening situation. We also have to make sure that we don't tolerate disrespect from others -- including friends and family. 

We know that the President-elect is very competitive and hates to lose. He might just surprise us with some effective governance. As for most of us who live in California...we are insular. We don't relate, for the most part, to that “Middle America,” that seems to have a disproportionate influence on our political agenda. 

We are fortunate that our economy is growing and California has led the country with many reforms. But perhaps we made a mistake by being a little arrogant; we need to look outside our own "bubble.” House Speaker Paul Ryan, has a telephone survey on Obamacare. Check out his website for voting directions. Get involved and pay attention to what our congressional representatives are doing; attend their meetings locally and equally important, know what our local government is doing. Educate yourselves as to how we all can make this country better. 

No, ladies and gentlemen, Armageddon is not upon us...at least not yet! A suggestion for your Thanksgiving Dinner: Trump supporters, don't gloat…and Clinton supporters, don't whine. Both sides have much for which to be grateful. 

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.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Koretz’ website includes photos of the councilmember celebrating the Expo Line’s opening. The site touts Koretz’ time on the Expo Construction Authority Board: “Councilmember Koretz served first as an alternate board member and then as a full board member of this body until 2015. He served on this body through the completion of Phase 1 of this project and through most of the construction for Phase 2, much of which travels through Council District 5.” 

But what Paul Koretz has delivered is the worst section of the Expo Line.

Koretz’ section has a mile-long gap in the bike path. Koretz’ section has kids walking in the street because of a missing sidewalk between the Palms Station and Lycée Français High School. Koretz’ section has an at-grade crossing at Overland Avenue that is worsening gridlock and leading to crashes that prompted neighbors to create a “Stop the Wrecks on Overland” Facebook page.

Koretz takes no responsibility for Expo’s flaws – flaws that were clear when he was a member of the Expo Board. At last night’s Cheviot Hills Homeowners Association meeting, he said “we kind of knew this would be a disaster.” For that, Kortez blames his predecessor. “Unfortunately, my election was kind of being too late to the party. The previous councilmember really was there when all of the negotiations were happening. And … at least regarding the Expo, I don’t think he did enough to protect the community.”

But Councilmember Koretz shouldn’t get off the hook so easily: he could have resisted widening Overland and he could have pushed for grade separation. Indeed, before he took office, the city of Los Angeles Department of Transportation wrote to Expo opposing the misguided widening – which was designed to dodge Metro’s grade crossing policy that required grade separation based on the per-lane traffic count without widening. Councilmember Koretz could have tried to stop it. He didn’t.

Now, Councilmember Koretz is claiming credit ($300,000 of taxpayer money credit) for reducing wheel squeal noise as the train passes Cheviot Hills. At last night’s meeting, Koretz spoke on Expo line “problems” including “an unanticipated screech of the wheels” stating: “We’ve been trying to figure out different ways to address that.…. So, we’ve actually gotten the Expo Board to approve a $300,000 expenditure to bring a huge wheel-grinding machine.”

But the wheel screech/squeal was not “unanticipated.” Indeed, the staff report [PDF] on the wheel-grinding motion says, “The FEIR indicated that wheel squeal was possible in specific curves along the alignment based on the curvature of the rail alignment. …. Rail grinding has been identified as a method to correct these track gauge variations in order to mitigate the wheel squeal.”

Expo’s Council District 5 flaws will cost millions to fix. If Paul Koretz wants credit for the good, he must take responsibility for the bad.

(Jonathan Weiss practices law, lives in Cheviot Hills, and served as an appointed representative to the L.A. City Bicycle Advisory Committee between 2009 and 2016. He is also a boardmember of Streetsblog L.A.’s parent nonprofit, the California Streets Initiative.) Photo Credit (top): Jonathan Weiss; (bottom) LA.Streets.blog

-cw

TRANSIT TALK-We can, without any hesitation, claim that Los Angeles County has "given its all" with respect to spending on its own transportation and infrastructure.  In addition to a host of water/sewage tax and bond proposals, LA County has over the years raised its sales tax FOUR times to pay for projects that should have been done decades ago. 

To its credit, Metro (or the MTA, if you wish to call it that) has worked with elected officials to focus on efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and operational soundness in its operations.  As much as many have raised a concern with Measure M (the most recent sales tax just passed) not going far enough, or being too expensive, it DID devote a lot of money towards ensuring operational costs. 

In other words, the risks of "build, build, build" without wondering how we were going to keep our roads and rails in good working order has been addressed--if not entirely, then at least a solid step forward.  And for those complaining about not having enough rail cars ... well, Metro and the manufacturers are going the fastest they can. 

And for those of you STILL reporting that no one will use these rail lines, perhaps you should ride the Expo Line to a Rams game or on a Sunday evening. 

But there are immediate and long-term gaps for us to fill in--in our cities, and in our counties, and in our state: 

1) Pass the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative! 

Isn't it only reasonable and pragmatic to consider Transportation Funding to be the equivalent of "income" and Planning/Development to be the equivalent of "spending"? 

Infrastructure, be it roads/rail, or electrical grid, or cell phone grid, or sewage pipes, etc. is the component on which we can all live in our city, county, and/or state.  Infrastructure is the critical lifeblood of our Economy, our Environment, and our Quality of Life.   

And Planning is the spending aspect of its Transportation counterpart. 

The Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, which we will vote on this spring, allows us to "live within our means" with respect to honoring legal Community Plans, prevents big developers from using their pet consultants to shimmy and lie their way through the Planning process, and focuses on what makes new housing both affordable and livable. 

Here's a hint, for all those who want Affordable Housing, Urban Infill, Smart Development, Mixed-Use Development, etc.:  unless they're luxury apartments/condos, a 2-3 story project creates homes, but a 5-20+ story project is just that...a "project" where people will live only if they've nowhere else cheaper to go to. 

2) Fix the Damned Sidewalks! 

Even with the passage of Measure M, we STILL don't have the funds to fix the City of LA's sidewalks in a timely fashion.  If anyone reading this is okey-dokey with a 20-30 year timeframe, then they must be as pleased as punch. 

But for the rest of us, a 5-7 year timeframe is more appropriate, and why developers, City budget planners and the rest of us all don't work together to expedite the resolution of this nightmare defies belief.   

Here's a hint, though, for all those who want to fix our sidewalks just like we did the 405 HOV Lanes and other major freeway projects:  our pension nightmare is eating up 20%--and going higher--of our City's budget.  Fix and confront that painful problem, and we can better assure that our sidewalks will be built and fixed in our lifetime. 

And don't elect anyone this spring to the City Council unless they promise to fix our sidewalks in a 5-7 year timeframe.  This problem is NOT resolved! 

3) Fill the gaps in our freeways! 

Like it or not, our freeways will be a critical part of our mobility for decades to come.  Part of Measure M includes widening the I-5 to the I-710 freeway, and a host of other freeway fixes from the ports to the borders of our county. 

And that's a good thing, as well as the need to enhance and improve our freeway intersections. 

But the big fixes are yet to come--and they involve getting out of the cult of "rail only". 

One big fix includes the establishment of a freeway along the La Cienega corridor from LAX to the 10 freeway--this would enhance north-south mobility and traffic in the Westside. 

The other big fix:  L.A. own Big Dig.  An upgrade of the east-west chokepoint of the I-10 between the I-110 and East Los Angeles.  Some of it might be underground, and some of it might be on the surface or elevated.   

But mark my words:  someday, somehow, and some time in the future, the freeway infrastructure of Downtown LA will need an upgrade from the 1950's...particularly because Downtown LA is no longer an economic sinkhole but an increasingly vibrant part of the economic powerhouse of LA City and County. 

4) Fill the gaps in our rail systems! 

Considering how much rail planning and building and spending we're doing, this may seem pretty strange to bring up.  But there ARE going to be glaring gaps in our rail systems, and we can either confront them now or face a lot of angry voters in the future. 

a) The Harbor Subdivision Rail Right of Way should be more than a cute bikeway.  It should be extended from the Crenshaw/LAX Light Rail Line from Inglewood to the Blue Line to the Eastside Gold Line and Union Station.  It will be the critical LAX-to-Downtown that will relieve both freeway pressure and rail congestion on the Blue, Crenshaw and Expo Lines, and will be one of the most heavily-ridden lines in LA County. 

b) Connect the Norwalk Metrolink station to MetroRail via an eastern extension of the Green Line. And consider having Orange and Riverside Counties help share the costs, because commuters from those counties will almost certainly benefit. 

c) Coordinate the Metrolink and Eastside Gold Line Extension projects.  What the heck is Metrolink and Metro Rail doing not ensuring easy and convenient access from one system to the other? 

d) Build the Anaheim to Las Vegas rail line.  This might be a fix that is done directly, or via the High Speed Rail Line and Desert XPress projects that connect at Victorville, but it's needed. 

e) Build the doggone South Bay Green Line Extension and connect it to the Blue Line--must commuters have to use the 405 South Bay curve for everything? 

f) Work with Orange County to create 2-3 commuter line alternatives to allow access from LA to/from Orange County--again...must we use the 405 freeway for everything? 

So here we are--we're spending, and we're building, and we're planning. 

And now that we've put our money where our collective mouth is, we have every right to demand that our Sacramento and Washington representatives come through for us.  Or they're gone, to be replaced with those who WILL come through for us. 

We've got to control our planning and development, and we've got to raise our expectations of what our state and nation can do for us with our trusted taxpayer dollars/investments. 

To do no less makes no sense.  Certainly, no Common Sense.

(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.)