CONNECTING CALIFORNIA--Here’s a new maxim for Californians to live by, courtesy of this election: Don’t dismiss apocalyptic warnings from Stockton.

If you’re a Californian with a television or a mailbox, you’re encountering a barrage of ill-advised Stockton dismissals. Specifically, Gov. Jerry Brown, labor unions, and Sacramento building and infrastructure lobbies are trying to defeat a November ballot initiative—Prop 53, which would require voter approval for state revenue bonds of $2 billion or more—by marginalizing it as merely the flawed idea of a rich and selfish “Stockton farmer.”

This messaging turns out to be doubly wrong, as I learned firsthand on a recent visit to Stockton.

For one thing, the “Stockton farmer” slight badly underestimates the man in question, Dino Cortopassi, who turns out to be a formidable if blustery businessman with diverse interests, a knack for marketing, and a taste for taking on difficult fights. For another, the political message trivializes the real trauma in the city of 300,000 as it struggles through the aftermath of municipal bankruptcy. As a result, Stockton and its citizens, including Cortopassi, know the perils of irresponsible borrowing like Pittsburghers know steel and Houstonians know oil.

Cortopassi grew up on Stockton’s eastside and has spent his life in the area, despite amassing a multimillion-dollar fortune that would allow him to move anywhere he desired. He’s also all too familiar with the difficulties of debt. He started as a tenant farmer, borrowing heavily to buy equipment and farm as much land as he could, and then plugging back the profits into further expansion.

“I was in debt a long part of my life,” he told me during the half-day we spent together in a conference room at his business. “Debt never goes away. So when you borrow, don’t forget you have to pay it back.”

Cortopassi, 79, got ahead by doing things the hard way. He specialized in “headache” crops—like tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, and onions—that require more labor and attention, and that carry more risks in terms of weather, disease, and volatile market prices. While he identifies himself as a farmer (albeit a retired one), much of his business was in food processing. Business associates say he was an early adopter of new technologies, an unusually talented marketer, and maker of food brands, and a savvy investor (most notably in Dreyer’s ice cream). And his combativeness distinguished him; he was willing to wage big fights against larger food companies and against powerful unions, including the Teamsters, when they crossed him.

In recent years, as he’s stepped away from day-to-day management of his business, Cortopassi has had time to watch, with growing fury, as his hometown of Stockton declined and ultimately fell into bankruptcy.

That Stockton story is a convoluted one. But the heart of the tale is this: The city accumulated all sorts of unsustainable debts in a variety of ways, without realizing it.

The fundamental lesson is that when things go bad, even private debts or “safe” borrowing for projects can unexpectedly become obligations for the public. Stockton’s leaders had assumed that city revenues would keep increasing. Then the housing market collapse overextended Stockton homeowners and crushed the city budget. The city had little cushion because it had borrowed aggressively in the previous decade to pay for various public buildings, an arena, housing projects, and marina and downtown improvements. The final straw was a bond that Stockton sold in 2007, just before the financial crisis, to try to cover the costs of compensation and pension benefits it had promised its employees.

As a result of its crisis and bankruptcy, Stockton had to cut all sorts of basic services, including policing. That’s contributed to an ongoing tragedy: Stockton has one of the highest crime rates among California cities and is one of the country’s most violent places.

Cortopassi says he was frustrated about how, despite the fiscal carnage in Stockton and other cities, public borrowing has continued apace, with too little public attention. So, using rhetoric about as subtle as that of your angriest uncle, he’s started issuing warnings—in interviews, in self-published pamphlets (including one called “Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!”), and, in a charmingly journalist-friendly touch, newspaper ads about “the Sacramento gang” that is borrowing without understanding the dangers of the “Debt Dragon.”

The fundamental lesson is that when things go bad, even private debts or “safe” borrowing for projects can unexpectedly become obligations for the public.

Cortopassi can be loud and bombastic. During our half-day together, Cortopassi yelled at me when I argued with him about the finer points of Prop 53 and about some of the numbers he uses on state debt. But, beyond the bluster, I found him to be quite thoughtful and strategic.

Prop 53 reflects Cortopassi’s strategic impulses. It can appear like a broadside against one mode of borrowing—a requirement for voter approval for state revenue bonds, bonds that have some guaranteed source of funds to pay them back (like tolls for a bridge). But the initiative is a carefully crafted political document full of exemptions for local governments, and with a requirement so high—only bonds of $2 billion or more would require voter approval—that it’s not clear to me that it would have much practical impact at all. After all, California voters approve most of the bonds upon which they already cast ballots. And state revenue bonds are hardly the only financing mechanism available to big projects.

What’s more, revenue-bond projects of that size are rare—precisely because it’s so hard to do anything big in California these days. The state’s non-partisan legislative analyst found Prop 53, if approved, would only prove an obstacle to two current state projects: High-speed rail and the governor’s proposed water tunnels through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. And both of those projects face so much opposition and so many obstacles that they could both die whether Prop 53 passes or not.

Cortopassi has business interests in the Delta, so the “No” on 53 campaign has argued that he’s acting primarily to frustrate the tunnels and serve himself. Cortopassi acknowledges his fervent opposition to the tunnels and desire to protect the Delta (among his passions there are restoring marsh habitat and duck hunting) but says his Delta interests are less than 5 percent of his empire.

When pressed, Cortopassi said that Prop 53, like any ballot initiative, can’t do everything. His goals for the measure, he told me, are to gain attention for the state’s debt issues and to win a victory at the polls that could set up future initiatives and political action to force a reckoning with debt.

Whatever you think of Prop 53’s particulars (and I remain skeptical), Cortopassi’s larger point is inarguable: California and its many governments have taken on too many different kinds of debts, and leaders and citizens alike are not facing up to them.

In his ads and writings, Cortopassi shows how debt is already cutting into the public services upon which Californians rely. He writes about how the state’s prison realignment has created new and largely hidden financial burdens for cities, including Stockton; about how water and parks bond measures are often corrupt efforts to secure money for the favored projects of the measures’ sponsors; about the $60 billion-plus in deferred maintenance on state roads; and especially about the many billions of dollars in unfunded pension liabilities.

“We act like we don’t have to pay debt back,” he says.

If you’re from Stockton, you know better.

(Connecting California Columnist and Editor, Zócalo Public Square, Fellow at the Center for Social Cohesion at Arizona State University and co-author of California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It (UC Press, 2010). This piece first appeared in foxandhoundsdaily.com.)

DEEGAN ON LA-In what could be seen as a blow to historic preservation, further frustrated by twisted planning logic, the City Council’s Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) committee has decided to approve Frank Gehry’s massive building project at 8150 Sunset Boulevard before considering a recommendation from the Department of City Planning’s Historic-Cultural Monument Commission to grant Historic-Cultural Monument status to the Lytton Savings Bank building that occupies part of the site. By reversing the review and approval process, they have gone about this backwards. 

Had the PLUM Committee considered the Historic-Cultural Monument status motion before the 8150 building motion, they would have had to seriously deal with the question of what to do about the Lytton Savings Bank building (photo left). Instead, they postponed consideration of Lytton Savings Bank’s Historic-Cultural Monument status until November 22. That’s well after next week’s November 1 City Council vote on approving the 8150 Sunset project. 

By taking these two motions out of order, they may have effectively destroyed hopes for preserving the Lytton Savings Bank building, even if it’s eventually granted monument status by PLUM. 

Steven Luftman, co-founder of Friends of Lytton Savings, is fighting for preservation of the building. “At the end of the day,” he says, “I believe that David Ryu will stand by his commitment to preserve the historic Lytton Savings building.” Councilmember David Ryu (CD4), who negotiated a compromise with the 8150 Sunset developer to bring the building height down, “supports the Cultural Heritage Commission decision to award Historic-Cultural Monument status to the Lytton Savings Bank building,” according to his spokesperson. 

The LA Conservancy is also working to find a solution that avoids the wrecking ball for the Lytton Savings Bank building. Director of Advocacy Adrian Scott Fine provided this statement to CityWatch: “The Los Angeles Conservancy continues to press for a win-win outcome and is deeply disappointed in the direction by the City to date. Not only is the project and preservation possible but it was identified in two separate preservation alternatives studied by the City in the environmental review process. Townscape Partners, and their architect, Frank Gehry, however prefer to instead proceed with their plan, needlessly calling for the demolition of Lytton Savings when it otherwise could be successfully integrated into the proposed project. In allowing this to happen, the City is not fulfilling its responsibility under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), and that’s a problem.” 

Luftman added, “I feel this could be an amazing opportunity to have two of the most significant architects of Los Angeles -- Frank Gehry and Kurt Meyer -- together in one project. It seems to me that what is keeping this from happening is greed and ego. I find it terribly sad that one architect would want to erase another’s work. Tearing down this historic Modernist building, an obvious Historical Monument, is unacceptable -- especially when alternatives exist. In the end it will be up to the city council to decide if wealthy developers are more important than the city’s rich history.” 

The other side of the preservation question was represented at the meeting by Gehry himself, who offered no apologies when he said, “The Lytton Bank building is in a precarious position for this building project.” That statement, and the fawning over him by the star-struck committee members (one gushing “what an honor” it was to have him in the chamber,) left no doubt that the spin cycle was in high gear for project approval, and that Lytton would be orphaned. Anastasia Mann, Chair of the Hollywood Hills West Neighborhood Council observed, “The ‘guardians of our city’ are really selling our soul to the devil for celebrity here.” 

At the center of this brewing controversy was what to do about Frank Gehry’s plans that many (but not everyone) like to build a collection of signature buildings at the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Crescent Heights Boulevard. Gehry has called this location “the gateway to the Sunset Strip,” to be flanked by his buildings on the south and, on the north, a mostly tree-obscured Chateau Marmont. 

That was the primary question -- to approve or not to approve Gehry’s plans. It was answered by the PLUM committee, pushed by David Ryu, who sent them a forceful letter objecting to the original plans a few days ago, just before the meeting, and subsequently entered negotiations to try to get the changes he hoped for. He seems to have met that goal, said his spokesperson, telling a local paper, “We got right what we wanted -- a 24% reduction [in height]. Right in the middle.” 

In the end, the committee unanimously voted for the compromises brokered by Ryu, who was out of the country but in text message contact with his chief of staff monitoring the situation throughout the PLUM meeting. Appellants Laurel Canyon Association and the City of West Hollywood, as well as the developer Townscape Partners, praised Ryu for his efforts to find a solution, while others at the meeting and in the community afterwards were unhappy with what he had done. 

The PLUM meeting may have lasted five hours (its last three meetings were dedicated solely to 8150 Sunset,) but the wrangling has been going on for years. “The Hollywood Hills West Neighborhood Council has spent three years trying to work with the developers,” emphasized Neighborhood Council Chair Mann. “These compromises negotiated by David Ryu are better than nothing...it’s a step in the right direction. I was impressed that he was able to get them. It’s David versus Goliath. Obviously, there’s more to be considered; everybody's not thrilled, but I don't know how anybody else, under the circumstances, could have done better than David Ryu did for the community. David’s efforts have been as a result of his attempts to represent his constituents. The reality is that no one else would even try.” 

Where does this stand now? The PLUM committee will send a unanimous recommendation to the full City Council to approve the 8150 Sunset plan when they meet on November 1. On November 22, the committee will consider the unanimous recommendation of the Cultural Heritage Commission to grant Historic-Cultural Monument status to the Lytton Savings Bank building. 

If, after monument status is approved, a preservation plan can be created that includes relocating the Lytton Savings Bank building, or keeping it on site, then it has a chance of remaining intact. Other than Frank Gehry having a change of heart, or David Ryu pulling a rabbit out of his hat, or litigation, it’s possible that the orphaned Lytton Bank building may not be adopted.

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

CORRUPTION WATCH--On Sunday, the Los Angeles Times published a damning, in-depth report about developer Samuel Leung and his associates who greased LA’s rigged development approval system with hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions that benefited City Council members and Mayor Eric Garcetti, seeking favors for a 352-unit residential mega-project known as “Sea Breeze” that the City Planning Commission had rejected.

The LA Times pulled out all the stops — six reporters worked on the story, flashy graphics are featured on the website and a data base was created that provides more information about the contributions. It’s the kind of hard-hitting, fact-driven, eye-opening news feature that should prompt an investigation by the LA County District Attorney’s Office corruption unit. 

Now, the Coalition to Preserve LA and its supporters aren’t surprised by the LA Times’ Sunday bombshell. In fact, we believe the paper should have been covering soft corruption among developers and City Hall politicians much sooner.

Because for months, week after week, our citizens’ movement has rolled out the hard facts about the millions of dollars deep-pocketed developers spend on campaign contributions, slush funds, officeholder accounts and politically connected lobbyists as they seek profitable spot-zoning favors for mega-projects that end up destroying neighborhood character, creating gridlock traffic and causing wide displacement of lower-income and middle-class Angelenos. 

By the way, our opposing campaign that’s funded by billionaire developers never, ever mentions the obvious influence peddling that’s going on at City Hall. Neither do the developers’ apologists. It’s as if developers never seek to change city zoning rules and manipulate a broken planning and land-use system that favors the fat cats over ordinary people.

But the Times report shows that’s obviously case, and we’ve published numerous stories that offer proof as well. This is not just one bad-apple developer doing something shady while everyone else plays by the rules. To wit:

1. NoHo West in North Hollywood, where developers spent hundreds of thousands in campaign and lobbyist cash to get City Hall favors for a luxury housing mega-project; 
2. The same goes for the Westside luxury housing mega-project known as Martin Expo Town Center; 
3. And there’s the luxury skyscraper in Koreatown that Mayor Eric Garcetti pushed through against the wishes of the City Planning Commission;
4. There’s also the Cumulus luxury housing mega-project in South LA — the developers again spent hundreds of thousands in campaign and lobbyists money to get profitable spot-zoning favors from City Hall;       
5. And there’s billionaire developer Rick Caruso and his luxury housing skyscraper known as “333 La Cienega.” 

As one can see, developer’s seeking spot-zoning favors from the City Council and Mayor Eric Garcetti is happening across Los Angeles — and developers are raking in millions upon millions in the process while longtime residents get displaced, streets get more clogged with traffic and neighborhoods get ruined.

It’s why a citywide solution that’s the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative is desperately needed — developers and LA politicians need to be reined in and the playing field needs to be leveled.

Read the LA Times and check out its database. It’s all there, and you’ll see — LA’s broken and rigged planning and land-use system must be reformed.

(Patrick Range McDonald writes for 2PreserveLA. Check it out. See if you don’t agree it will help end buying favors at City Hall.)

-cw

PERSPECTIVE--Increased TV and film location shooting in Los Angeles is a good thing, but can it cross a line?

Some residents in a very quiet neighborhood Valley Village think so … and they have good reason. They support local filming, but a certain production has turned their block into a studio backlot extension for too many days.

Five times in two years, to be exact, for multiple days per event – all at the same residence. The permits cover 3-5 days each, although there is usually an added day at the front or back end for prep and breakdown. The hours run from 6AM to 10PM. However, the crews start arriving at 5AM. Overall, this quiet residential street has been a commercial zone for approximately 25 days within the last two years (with more to come), with 10-ton trucks, trailers, canteen vehicles and porta-johns lining both sides of the street. There are no ex-LAPD officers on hand.

Aside from noise, difficulties backing out of driveways, lack of parking or inadequate access for emergency vehicles – concerns which can be mostly overlooked if they occurred a couple of times per year – the conversion of a residential street for commercial use on a semi-regular frequency is contrary to the right to enjoy one’s property.

There are no restrictions as to how often a specific block or residence can be used as a shooting location.

There are restrictions on yard sales, however.

The owners of the residence who allowed their home to be used are gone during the filming and do not have to put up with the inconvenience. There must certainly be some form of compensation involved. If so, I hope they report it on their tax returns. According to the residents I spoke with, they have not been responsive to appeals from the neighbors.

It would seem there should be a reasonable restriction on location filming in residential neighborhoods, including limits on the number and size of vehicles, the frontage occupied, the hours and days per shoot and minimum requirements for a permit approvals from the affected residents in accordance with the nature and scope of the shoot.

The zoning laws of our city are increasingly being ignored at the expense of the residents.

In this instance, the production company may be enjoying a tax credit for filming locally, but the residents receive little or nothing, only congestion, the aroma of the honey wagons, and noise late into the night.

Not a good deal.

(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

EDUCATION POLITICS-What kind of a credible and independent audit of the costs related to LAUSD's removal of allegedly bad teachers can the State of California Auditor objectively perform, when it goes into the audit without questioning anything LAUSD tells them? 

There is no question that it is an expensive proposition to keep charged teachers sitting around, often for years on end, while having to pay their salaries and those of their substitutes. The California State Auditor, in its recently released audit of this practice, never once mentions or takes into consideration the fact that LAUSD saves a fortune when it is able to rid itself -- by hook or by crook or by fabricated charges -- of teachers at the top of the salary scale. These are the teachers with expensive benefits packages and lifetime health benefits -- the ones LAUSD needs to get rid of, one way or another, before they vest. 

The State Auditor presumes from the beginning of its audit that there is an actual net cost and not a net savings achieved when LAUSD targets, removes, and ultimately fires high seniority teachers. It doesn't even consider there just might be an actual savings to LAUSD of $60,000 a year in combined salary and benefits in just the first year these teachers are gone. Simply stated, a major component of what this audit should have looked into has been completely ignored and omitted. And with this blatant omission goes any chance of this audit having any validity, let alone holding accountable for their criminal behavior all those at LAUSD who continue to perpetrate this fraud. 

For one small illustration in this flawed audit -- and what can only be considered a purposeful oversight – we need to examine what is not considered here and elsewhere in the attached State audit. For example, while this audit says: "For a selection of 18 re-assignments (teachers being charged,) costs per case ranged from about $7,000 to nearly $315,000 during the period we reviewed." No information or statistics are given as to how many of these teachers – 93% of whom in unaudited reality were at the top of the salary scale -- were forced out and replaced by fresh out of college "teachers" working on emergency credentials for $35,000, instead of $80,000 a year. And, of course, these young teachers also have significantly less expensive benefits packages. 

If just 16 of these forced-out teachers were at the top of the salary scale, the average cost of removing them was $19,687.50; again, the savings to the District was approximately $60,000 per teacher, leaving a net savings to LAUSD of $40,312.50. And that's in just the first year of this gift to the District that keeps on giving, as long as teachers continue to be dissuaded from sticking around too long. 

It is worth mentioning that both my attorney and I contacted the California State Auditor during this audit with sworn evidence to prove that LAUSD's is actually saving money in the long run on teachers' jail, their substitutes, and all the out of pocket costs it immediately recoups when it forces these high seniority teachers out. I was assured by several people in the California Auditor's office that they would look into this. 

And of course, how or why should the public be concerned, if they are constantly told by all the media marching in lock step with LAUSD that this is about the costs of dealing with "teacher misconduct" and not a felonious scam (see Penal Code 132-134) to get rid of high seniority teachers so the District can save money to squander elsewhere (which is why they needed to target senior teachers in the first place.) 

There's no way LAUSD or the California Auditor could get away with this without the complete cooperation of the mainstream and public media that refuses to report what is actually going on and why. 

If you have any doubts, just read reporter Howard Blume's Los Angeles Times LAUSD party line article about this recent state audit that unquestioningly parrots LAUSD's position that this is only about teacher misconduct: 

Do you think it’s a coincidence that every time the issue of teacher misconduct is mentioned that a picture of convicted teacher Mark Berndt is hauled out to paint all teachers with the same “pervert brush?” Could that be why one element of the Rafe Esquith vs. LAUSD class action suit is defamation...and another is age discrimination? 

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

TRUTH & CONSEQUENCES-When touting the merits of The Public Safety & Rehabilitation Act of 2016 (also known as Proposition 57,) the 2016 California voters guide addresses the question surrounding juvenile arrests for violent or serious criminal offenses to be charged as adults. Those convicted could spend years incarcerated in California State prisons. Prop 57 strips away the power of prosecutors to try juveniles as adults, overturning Proposition 21 which was approved by 62% of the voters in 2000. Prop 21 gave prosecutors, instead of judges, the right to decide whether juveniles should be charged as adults. 

A prosecutor could file directly against a juvenile in adult court under W&I 707(d), but could also file a “fitness hearing” in Juvenile Hall. Under W&I 707(c), a juvenile is presumed to be unfit for juvenile court. 

Prop. 57 will also strip judges of the power to set sentencing guidelines, transferring that power to Governor Brown's appointed members of the Board of Parole Hearings instead. 

Prop. 57 overturns key provisions not only in Marsy's Law, a Constitutional amendment enacted by voters in 2008, but also the “Three Strikes Law” (Prop. 35), The Human Trafficking law (Prop. 35), The Street Terrorism and Prevention Act (Penal Code Section 186.22) and The Victim’s Bill of Rights (Prop. 8.)

If the court order does not have the enhancement under PC 667.5 of the California Penal code, then a current incarcerated criminal can be released early from state prison. Prop 57 allows the worst “career criminals” to be treated equal to first‐time offenders, prohibiting strong sentences that judges could impose. 

The Voter Guide also hides the fact that Proposition 57 seeks to set new guidelines to allow both appointed Board members and California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation staff to enhance “good time” credit for current incarcerated adult inmates convicted of very violent and serious criminal offenses and also grants early release from state prison. Presumably, these credits will apply if they attend educational or work/vocational programs -- even if there is no availability for those programs in a particular prison. 

Prop. 57 is a Constitutional Amendment that affords new rights and privileges for even the most dangerous criminals. If passed, it cannot be overturned by the Legislature. 

The devastating effects of AB 109 and Prop. 47 have threatened the safety of all communities and claimed the lives of many innocent victims. Adding the negative impacts of Prop. 57 into the mix would ultimately weaken all of California’s anti-crime laws.

Did you know that violent crimes across the State have escalated over 10% last year? In Los Angeles, crime statistics point to a 20% rise in violent crime last year. Those charged with enforcing the laws of the State know this only too well.

Each side claims the other side is lying. Supporters insist Prop. 57 will help fix the broken system that would rehabilitate prisoners and reduce the recidivism rate. They want inmates to have the “tools” to “stop the revolving door to prison.” 

Gov Brown and his band of followers insist that, “To be granted parole, all inmates, current and future, must demonstrate that they are rehabilitated and do not pose a danger to the public.” But ask yourself, how can anyone “prove” they’ve been rehabilitated during a hearing? Does a simple promise to not harm another guarantee public safety at that inmate’s hands? What happens to all that “rehabilitation” when an inmate is released from prison and cannot assimilate back into society or cannot find a job to support him or herself? 

The California District Attorney’s Association (CDAA) wrote an analysis of the Governor’s Initiative (Prop. 57) in February 2016. 

They note, “The term ‘non-violent felony offense’ is not defined in the initiative, or elsewhere in California law. However, Penal Code section 667.5(c), which has been the law in California since 1977, defines ‘violent felony’ with a list of some 23 offenses. That list currently includes crimes such as murder and attempted murder, mayhem, forcible rape (but not all rapes,) forcible sexual assault crimes (but not all of them), felonies involving great bodily injury being inflicted on a victim, felonies involving firearm use, robbery, some arsons, kidnapping, carjacking, some felonies involving explosives, and any felony punishable by death or in the state prison for life. Logic dictates that any felony not included in the definition of ‘violent felony’ would be a ‘non-violent felony’ for purposes of the initiative.” 

The CDAA also notes that, “not all ‘non-violent felonies’ are limited to low-level crimes like drug possession or auto burglary. Proposition 8 provided California with a ‘serious felony’ list passed by voters in 1982. The ‘serious felonies’ list far outweighs the “violent felonies” list that is found in Penal Code section 1192.7(c). 

“The ‘violent felony’ list is a subset of the ‘serious felony’ list, meaning that violent felonies are also serious felonies. There are numerous serious felonies that are referred to as ‘not violent’ under California law, but which are, in fact, violent in nature. Here is a just a small sampling of those ‘non-violent’ felonies:

• Penal Code section 136.1 Threats to a crime victim or witness. 

• Penal Code section 186.22(a) Active participation in a criminal street gang. 

• Penal Code section 186.22(b) Various felonies committed for gang purposes. 

• Penal Code sections 191.5 & 192(c) Vehicular manslaughter. 

• Penal Code section 192(b) Involuntary manslaughter. 

• Penal Code section 243(d) Battery with personal infliction of serious bodily injury. 

• Penal Code section 244 Throwing acid or flammable substances. 

• Penal Code section 245(a)(1) Assault with a deadly weapon. 

• Penal Code section 245(c) Assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer or firefighter. 

• Penal Code section 246 Discharging firearm at an occupied dwelling, building, vehicle, or aircraft. 

• Penal Code section 261(a)(1) Rape where victim legally incapable of giving consent. 

• Penal Code sections 261(a)(3) & 262(a)(2) Rape by intoxicating substance. 

• Penal Code sections 261(a)(4) & 262(a)(3) Rape where victim unconscious of the act. 

• Penal Code section 261(a)(7) & Penal Code section 262(a)(5) Rape by threat of public official.

• Penal Code section 422 Criminal threats. 

• Penal Code section 451(c) Arson of a structure or forest land.

• Penal Code section 451(d) Arson of property.

• Penal Code section 455 Attempted arson.

• Penal Code section 459-460(a) Residential burglary.

• Penal Code section 487(c)(2) Grand theft firearm.

• Penal Code section 4501 Assault with a deadly weapon by state prison inmate.

• Penal Code section 4503 Holding a hostage by state prison inmate. 

• Penal Code section 12022(b) Any felony involving the personal use of a deadly weapon. 

• Penal Code section 18740 Exploding a destructive device or explosive with intent to injure.” 

In fact, 56 out of 58 major cities across the State, including Chief’s of Police, District Attorneys and members of the Law Enforcement community stand in staunch opposition to Prop. 57. 

Governor Brown, through his ballot committee has contributed over 40% of the $10.5 M raised in support of Prop 57. 

Prop. 57 makes for great “political speak” just like AB 109 and Prop. 47 that have proven to be epic fails. So, too, will Prop. 57. Politicians know far more about the salesmanship in peddling bills but far less than law enforcement officials who actually patrol the streets -- your streets. 

The choice belongs to voters in November. In today’s current political climate it is difficult to know who is actually telling the truth. But is it really worth gambling away safety in our homes, neighborhoods and schools -- putting our families at risk? 

Get the facts on Prop. 57 before you vote because it can’t be undone down the road.

(Caroline Aguirre is a retired 24-year State of California law enforcement officer, LAPD family member, community activist and Neighborhood Watch captain. Aguirre is a CityWatch contributor.)

(Katharine Russ is an investigative reporter and a regular contributor to CityWatch. She can be reached at [email protected].) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.