POLITICS-California is expected to have a considerable upsurge in voter turnout in both the June primary and November elections. Over 600,000 Californians have registered to vote online or updated their registration in the past three months alone. Secretary of State Alex Padilla has warned Gov. Jerry Brown that county election agencies may be overwhelmed. Padilla is appealing to the governor and the Legislature for an extra $32 million to assist county elections officials and his agency.

The presidential primary and ensuing election in November have been capturing the interest of the previously disenfranchised voter but there’s much more at stake in the primary than seeing if Trump and Hillary can top off the delegates and “feeling the Bern.”

Following a 2014 triple threat of state legislators charged with perjury, bribery, and other violations, the state legislature has voted to place Prop 50, the California Suspension of Legislators Amendment on the ballot, which would allow the legislature to terminate the salaries and benefits of suspended legislators with a two-third vote if the provision is included in the suspension resolution.

 The June primary includes a Top Two Primary election for Sen. Barbara Boxer’s seat. State Attorney General Kamala Harris, endorsed by the California Democratic Party, and Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Orange) are expected to capture the top two spots. The June ballot will also include Top Two primaries for congressional, state senate, and local races to advance to the general election.

PULSE LA

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The November ballot is expected to have as many as 18 ballot initiatives, seven of which have already gathered enough signatures to make it to the ballot. One of the most prominent proposals is Gov. Brown’s measure to revamp prison parole and juvenile justice laws, pending the completion of signature gathering this week and the California Supreme Court removes a legal obstacle.

Other measures include an initiative to fully legalize marijuana that is backed by Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, Facebook co-founder Sean Parker, and others. Newsom is also behind a measure that would place new background checks for the sale of firearm ammunition and is also a supporter of a measure to raise California’s tobacco tax by $2 per pack.

In addition to Prop 50, legislators have contributed to the ballot measures with a repeal of Proposition 227, a 1998 initiative that limited bilingual education in the state. As of last week, lawmakers have also moved ahead an advisory measure on whether Congress should overturn the 2010 US Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United, which loosened campaign finance laws.

M*A*S*H actor Mike Farrell and other death penalty opponents seem to have gathered enough signatures to place a measure to repeal capital punishment on the ballot, while pro-death penalty proponents may qualify a measure to expedite cases through the legal system.  

One of the first initiatives to qualify for the November ballot is a proposed state law that would require condom usage by actors performing sex scenes in adult films, a measure written by LA-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

Continue to follow CityWatch for California and Los Angeles news regarding both the June primaries and November election.

NEED TO KNOW:

• League of Women Voters of Los Angeles 
• California Secretary of State 

(Beth Cone Kramer is a successful Los Angeles writer and a columnist for CityWatch.)

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There were two articles in CityWatch recently about the candidacy of Janice Kamenir-Reznik, who seeks the open seat to be vacated by termed-out Fran Pavley in Senate District 27. 

There are five candidates, including Republican Steve Fazio, who stands an almost certain chance to make it to the general election. The district is moderately competitive owing to enough Republican or decline-to-state registration to rule out a walkover by a Democrat.

But Reznik faces a formidable opponent in Democrat Henry Stern. The fact that it is an open seat makes it potentially even more competitive.

Stern is a senior advisor to Pavley. In that role, he undoubtedly has absorbed much about the workings of the district and the issues affecting the state.

In the interest of full disclosure, I was approached by a mutual acquaintance to chat with him. Even though I do not have a vested interest in the district, the potential for a competitive race got my attention. Not to mention that there are state issues in play affecting all of us.

It is likely that this will be one race I will follow besides what will be a marquee event in AD39 between Patty Lopez and Raul Bocanegra, who was taken down by Lopez in what had to be the biggest upset in modern times in California.

Stern and I sat down over coffee the other day and covered a range of subjects. It was not a Q&A; more of a discussion. And it was more process-oriented, framed by some key issues concerning both the state and local levels.

I will start by saying he impressed me by his focus on how things should get done. If you involve the public at the grassroots and level with them, there is a greater likelihood of turning out sensible legislation.

For example, he faulted the lack of transparency by the framers of Prop 47 (which allowed early prison releases)for not providing details as to when structural savings from a smaller prison population would kick in, and not dealing with funding resources localities would need to deal with the influx of former inmates. For that matter, he stated that poorly-crafted propositions were all too common.

Prop 1A, which authorized the sale of $9.5B in bonds to fund the start-up of high-speed rail, was another case where a half-baked plan was sold to the public. His boss, Fran Pavley, opposed the initial funding for constructing the controversial system in the Central Valley.

Stern and I agreed that there was nothing wrong with the concept of HSR, but the plan was unrealistic and the assumptions unsubstantiated, plus there are far more important priorities facing the state ranging from education, infrastructure and water, to the problems of homelessness. Cap-and-trade funds could be applied to considerably more effective environmental improvements (if indeed the train would even produce a measurable net effect on the clean air in our lifetimes, a criticism often cited by opponents).

On a local level, he claimed to be very supportive of Neighborhood Councils and strongly urged making the voices of residents a priority when it comes to determining development. Stern said that was a key difference he has with Resnik. He also did not support the density bonuses allowed under SB1818 due to the unintended consequences of of the bill’s implementation.

He was strongly concerned over how CEQA has been subverted in the interest of development.

Stern expressed his dismay as to how Porter Ranch was ever approved for development given the adjacent gas field. He supports a fee to be paid by Sempra- one that cannot be passed on to customers – to cover the damages suffered by the residents. He did acknowledge it would take oversight to assure the cost would be fully absorbed by the gas company.

As I mentioned earlier, this will be a race to watch in both the primary and general.

I will cover it in greater depth.

(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].)

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BILLBOARD WATCH--Billboard companies spent $507,000 lobbying Los Angeles city officials in the first quarter of 2016, according to City Ethics Commission records. Those companies and their executives also donated a total of $9,800 to seven city councilmembers running for re-election in 2017. (Photo above: Billboard company lobbyists Morrie Goldman, left, and David Gershwin. Clear Channel paid Goldman’s firm $90,000 and Gershwin’s $45,000 in the first quarter of 2016.)

As usual, the big spender was Clear Channel Outdoor, which paid four different lobbying firms a total of $240,000. The company, one of the city’s big three along with Outfront Media and Lamar Advertising, has been pushing the City Council to lift the current ban on putting up new digital billboards or converting existing billboards to digital.

Other companies with major outlays to registered lobbyists were Regency Outdoor, $56,000; Outfront Media, $53,000; and Lamar Advertising, $37,500. The three companies are also members of the L.A. Outdoor Advertising Coalition, which spent $50,000 lobbying city officials on behalf of billboard issues during the quarter.

The city councilmembers getting billboard company contributions were Bob Blumenfield, Joe Buscaino, Gil Cedillo, Mitch O’Farrell, and Curren Price. O’Farrell was the top recipient of this largesse, with $3,500 in contributions. Cedillo and Blumenfield each received $2,100, while Bonin, Buscaino, and Price each got $700 donations.

Bonin has been one of the council’s most vocal opponents of allowing more digital billboards, while Cedillo, a member of the committee that considers sign legislation, has proposed allowing new digital billboards through a conditional use permit process. The others haven’t taken a public stand on the issue, although O’Farrell and Blumenfield both represent districts with significant anti-billboard sentiment.

Registered lobbying firms are required to make quarterly reports of payments received from clients, but those reports don’t include any detailed information about lobbyist contacts with elected and appointed officials. However, the City Ethics Commission is currently studying proposed changes in the lobbying ordinance, including a requirement for much more detailed reporting.

(Dennis Hathaway is the president of the Ban Billboard Blight Coalition and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected].) 

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DESIGN--For Agence Ter's redesign of Los Angeles' Pershing Square, this rendering shows a human-scale view from the middle of the square looking out.

Rarely does anything with a photovoltaic canopy, a “great lawn,” no fewer than 13 design collaborators, and an estimated $50 million budget qualify as simple. But, relative to its competitors, that’s exactly what the winning design in the Pershing Square Renew competition is.

If all goes according to plan, by 2020, Los Angeles’ Pershing Square will be flattened, scraped clean and reintroduced to a public that has long crossed the street to avoid it.

Located in the heart of downtown, Pershing Square has aspired to be one of the country’s great public spaces — and failed miserably. [[https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/los-angeles-pershing-square-design-makeover ]]   Twin forces of urban decay and atrocious, unwelcoming design have conspired to drive away would-be visitors for decades, leaving the square a notable exception in downtown’s steady revitalization. Nonprofit Pershing Square Renew was founded two years ago by developers and other stakeholders, including City Council Member Jose Huizar, who decided that enough was enough.

The organization sponsored a design competition that received submissions from a star-studded list of locally and internationally recognized design firms, each with expertise in architecture and landscape architecture. Out of 10 semifinalists, four finalists were chosen last month. Yesterday the team led by Paris-based Agence Ter was announced as the winner. 

In many ways, the choice was obvious. Agence Ter’s design was the only one that met Pershing Square Renew’s guidelines.

Pershing Square is currently encumbered by bunker-style walls and various follies that, notwithstanding the ugliness of their early-1990s neon paint jobs, physically separate the square from the surrounding streets. The competition called for the opposite in the redesign: something that would open the square up and welcome visitors rather than intimidate them.

“We’ve said very clearly: Don’t approach this as the next wonderful portfolio piece that’s going to win awards,” Eduardo Santana, executive director of Pershing Square Renew, said in December.

That’s why it’s curious that the three other finalists submitted visions that I see as grossly over-designed. Fussy, even. The team led by James Corner Field Operations would have built an artificial hill on the square’s south side, thus creating exactly the type of barrier that Pershing Square Renew sought to eliminate. The teams of wHY with Civitas and SWA with Morphosis also operated heavily in three dimensions, with raised lawns and undulating structures.

The Agence Ter design is almost entirely flat, lowering the surface of the square so that it is flush with the encircling sidewalks. It aggressively bids adieu to the 1992 design’s purple tower and yellow walls with nothing more garish than trees and grass.

Its brilliance, or at least adequacy, is evident in a single rendering (top photo). It is not of a dramatic bird’s-eye view or of some cute feature like a grotto or miniature mountain. Rather, it is a human-scale view from the middle of the square looking out, such that the square’s grassy lawn visually blends in with the Biltmore Hotel across the street, with trees framing its Beaux-Arts entryway and a rectangular water feature lined up with the front door, as if the hotel and square had been built together. (They were, for the most part; one has just aged better than the other.)

Of the six official renderings that each of the four teams submitted, the Biltmore view is the only one of its kind — the only one that truly connects the square with the city.

The other designs also accommodated the subterranean parking garage that currently sits below the square more generously, making way for its curb cuts and protuberances. The Agence Ter design would spend a large portion of its $50 million budget to shave off the top five feet of the garage, thus achieving a double-benefit: a properly elevated square without extra funds to build ridiculous structures.

It’s hard not to speculate that the star power than went into the competition’s designs was, in fact, their undoing. Despite Pershing Square Renew’s calls for modesty, each included barriers and design flourishes that directed attention toward structures and away from people and the surrounding city.

They took their cues from the type of disembodied starchitecture that downtown Los Angeles knows so well — Frank Gehry’s Disney Hall, Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s Broad Museum, and Rafael Moneo’s cathedral, to name a few — and refused to give the city what it desperately needs: an inviting vernacular streetscape in which people can live rather than another object at which they can gape.

It’s notable that Agence Ter is French and is, therefore, amply familiar with the great, and simple, public spaces of Europe.

Pershing Square will never be Hotel de Ville. It may never even be Bryant Park. Indeed, until backers come up with $50 million, the new Pershing Square may never be built at all. But, by opting for flat instead of flash, Pershing Square Renew has already elevated the prospects for public spaces in Los Angeles.

(Josh Stephens is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Planning Magazine, Sierra Magazine, the Huffington Post and the Los Angeles Review of Books. He is a contributing editor to the California Planning & Development Report and Planetizen. His website is joshrstephens.net. This review was posted originally at Next City.) 

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 ATTACK ON AFFORDABLE HOUSING-Nationwide, the middle class is shrinking in metropolitan areas, according to a Pew Research Center report, and that includes Los Angeles. We’re not surprised — when City Hall policies bring about the demolition of more than 20,000 rent-controlled units, you’re going to have an exodus of middle-income folks. Local politicians’ citywide template for a new, luxury LA that features high-end mega-projects for the affluent will only exacerbate the troubling trend.  

Making big headlines today, the Pew Research Center released a report titled, “America’s Shrinking Middle Class: A Close Look at Changes Within Metropolitan Areas.”  The Los Angeles Times noted: 

Many experts regard a shrinking middle class as worrisome for economic and social stability, and the issue — along with a related trend of skewed gains among the nation’s richest — is seen as a major factor in the anger and resentment displayed by voters during recent primaries that have fueled the campaigns of Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, and on the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders. 

In general, Pew found that areas with a larger middle class tended to have a smaller degree of income inequality. 

“The deeper root at what is driving inequality and really hollowing out the middle class — that is a pattern very strong in the metro areas,” said Rakesh Kochhar, associate director of the Pew Research Center. “It is cutting across all communities. No one seems immune to this widening inequality trend.” 

But LA is not one of those metropolitan areas with a larger middle class. The Pew Research Center reported: 

In about a quarter of the metropolitan areas in 2014, middle-class adults do not constitute a clear majority of the adult population. Notably, many of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas fall into this group, including Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA, where 47 percent of adults were middle income; San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA (48 percent); New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA (48 percent); Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH (49 percent); and Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX (49 percent). 

In some of these metropolitan areas, such as the Boston and San Francisco regions, the relatively small share of the middle-income tier reflects the fact that the upper-income tier is larger than average. But in the Los Angeles region, the middle class is relatively small because the share of adults who are lower income is greater than average. 

But LA politicians seem to have a solution for having a greater than average number of lower-income citizens — just tear down rent-controlled units, build a luxury housing skyscraper and push them out of their neighborhoods. Voila! Problem solved. After all, that’s what’s happening, or will be soon underway, in Venice, Koreatown, Westlake and Hollywood, among other places. 

We’ve already seen an exodus in Hollywood between 2000 and 2010 of more than 12,000 Latinos, according to LA Weekly. And we’re seeing City Hall embrace, among many other projects, a 27-story luxury housing skyscraper in a working-class community in Koreatown. 

With our middle class shrinking, does LA need more luxury housing skyscrapers like this one pictured above that is proposed by developer Rick Caruso at 333 La Cienega Boulevard? 

Clearly, our middle- and working-class neighborhoods need better land-use protections, and local politicians have shown no desire to make that happen. That’s why we need the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative. It will stop developer control of City Hall, which is driving the luxury housing push, and allow citizens to have more say on land-use policies in their communities. 

Right now, LA’s rigged and broken development-approval process only favors deep-pocketed developers who also want to turn LA into a luxury city. And according to the Pew Research Center and other experts, that will only cause economic and social instability — and create an LA with greater income inequality. 

Is this the kind of city that Angelenos want? 

Join the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative movement by clicking to our Act page right now, and follow and cheer our efforts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. You can also send us an email at [email protected]. 

Together, we can create the change that LA needs!

(Patrick Range McDonald writes for 2PreserveLA.org.)  Photo via Rick Caruso Affiliated. Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

AT LENGTH-It’s happening across the country -- a populist backlash from the right and the left -- the flames of which are nipping at the heels of marginalized communities, whether they’re immigrants, Muslim, transgender or homeless or a part of the billionaire class or the corrupt Wall Street bankers and brokers. Both sides of this populist uprising can be heard via social media and other media outlets during this presidential election cycle. 

The cacophony of narratives and counter narratives of conservative and progressive authenticity has become only slightly less chaotic with the elimination of 16 GOP rivals from our rather curious primary election system. 

It has often been said that all politics is local and it can’t get any more local than at any of the 96 neighborhood councils in Los Angeles that are also having their elections this month and next. 

There are 33 and 35 candidates respectively running for Central’s and Coastal’s Neighborhood Council’s 17 seats -- vying for the privilege to donate hours of unpaid service to democratically represent stakeholders in a body that has no more than an “advisory” role in city politics. 

In the interest of transparency, I am one of those candidates running for re-election to the Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council. I have also been a target for some people who claim they are “Saving San Pedro.” This phrase sounds a similar note as Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again,” suggesting that San Pedro is in decline if not in some state of arrested development. In a political climate such as this, theirs is a great political slogan. 

Slogans, however, are not platforms. Nor are they an agenda that can accomplish anything. They are, at their root, a form of political propaganda intended to encapsulate an idea to motivate voters or to deceive them. 

Yet, so much of what is behind both Trump and the creators of Saving San Pedro -- a Facebook group that rose up against the San Pedro homeless advocates and then belatedly filed for non-profit status -- is a fear of all the things they don’t understand, be it immigrants or the homeless. 

Both the Trumpites and our local Savers are nativist, NIMBY reactions to serious economic conditions that are more complex and harder to solve than building a wall on a border or deploying the police to evict homeless encampments from public spaces. Anyone who knows anything on either subject will tell you that you can’t arrest your way out of illegal immigration or homelessness. Yet, that’s mostly what’s being done about the homeless in Los Angeles City Council District 15, with the exception of the work done by Harbor Interfaith Services’ workers and two LAPD quality of life officers. 

Since last August, when our Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council brought the plight of our unsheltered neighbors to the attention of the community and all of Los Angeles, Councilman Joe Buscaino quickly held a community forum on the subject and appointed a taskforce. 

Unfortunately, that task force held private meetings and didn’t include anyone from our neighborhood council and has yet to issue a report of its findings or even an action plan on dealing with our rather small, yet growing homeless population. 

Despite Buscaino’s enforcement approach and the Los Angeles City Council promising but not producing $100 million to address homelessness, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority announced May 9 that the number of homeless in Council District 15 rose from 1,544 in 2015 to 1,773 this year. 

Several of the San Pedro Savers are on Buscaino’s taskforce and as I’ve said before, they have yet to come up with a solution other than continued forced evictions and prohibiting the feeding of the homeless in public parks. 

Are you serious, you might ask? Sure, a small number of homeless people have been given assistance yet it is obvious by the increase that this clearly isn’t enough. 

The Savers have been very bold in shaming the homeless on their favorite medium, Facebook -- shouting down anyone who challenges them there and confiscating unprotected shopping carts while claiming that “all the homeless are criminals or drug addicts.” 

The statistics from the recent homeless count prove these allegations untrue, as mental illness tops the list and substance abuse comes in third just above domestic violence. Several of the Saving San Pedro folks, along with Buscaino, are in the process of being sued for harassment and one of them, Joanne Rallo, is due back in court May 20 on a restraining order. 

While the challenge of homelessness has become a greater problem all across America, with Los Angeles County being the epicenter, it is not a singular problem solved with a simple solution -- especially with the decline in affordable housing, the loss of good middle class jobs, the pressure to gentrify neighborhoods and a flat-line growth in real wages for over three decades. 

Yes, I hear that people are angry and I actually understand that anger. But I don’t go around blaming the victims just to make myself or my neighbors feel better. 

I have said this before and I’ll say it again: Conflict precedes resolution. Only after everybody is done yelling can there be any commitment to resolving a problem. I believe that for every human problem there is a humane solution. 

As for now, the lines have been drawn between progressives and nativist populists, and the one solution we have come to embrace since the American Civil War is the ballot box. As you might well suspect, I endorse both the progressive slate at the Coastal and Central neighborhood councils, as well as Bernie Sanders for president. This is the point at which you connect your local interests to the national politics and then recognize that democracy only matters if you show up and vote.

(James Preston Allen is the Publisher of Random Lengths News, the Los Angeles Harbor Area's only independent newspaper. He is also a guest columnist for the California Courts Monitor and is the author of "Silence Is Not Democracy - Don't listen to that man with the white cap - he might say something that you agree with!" He was elected to the presidency of the Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council in 2014 and has been engaged in the civic affairs of CD 15 for more than 35 years. More of Allen … and other views and news at: randomlengthsnews.com.)  Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

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