THE SNUB RUB--Ah, Council District 5’s so-called representative, Paul Koretz (photo above right), is at it again. As the Daily News reports.

Jonathan Weiss published a letter two weeks ago in the Los Angeles Daily News slamming the councilman’s leadership on the Westwood Greenway, a planned 800-foot park in Koretz’s district.

The park, first proposed by Weiss in 2009, would rise near the Expo Line’s Westwood/Rancho Park stop.

Weiss’s letter outlined his support for Jesse Creed, Koretz’s opponent in next year’s race for City Council District 5, because Weiss believes Creed would be better at getting projects completed.

NC ELECTIONS RE-BOOT-We take issue with “Build Bridges Instead of Firewalls…”, Jay Handal’s CityWatch article that contains his NC Election Report. In it, he distorts the facts and offers little by way of practical solutions for future elections. 

Issues with the voting process are not the fault of the Neighborhood Councils (NC) or their Bylaws, but of the dictates delivered by the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE). Much of what has been outlined disregards the real issues facing NCs and their relationship with DONE. Neighborhood Councils are the bridges for the stakeholders to the City and DONE has become the firewall. 

The Los Angeles City Charter (Charter Section 900) in 1999 intended “to promote more citizen participation in government and make government more responsive to local needs….” The purpose of the Neighborhood Council System is to bring self-governance to the local level and engage stakeholders in that process. But standardization is the bane of NCs as it limits their individuality. Some NCs are round pegs and some NCs are square holes. This is hard for the bureaucrats to understand. Basically, NCs are like individual states in our country and are unique within themselves; no two states have the same election requirements or voting laws. NCs must have this same autonomy over their bylaws and elections. 

Since the elections were taken away from the NCs, problems have increased exponentially. Every election cycle has been run differently with changes to election procedures, election dates and forced requirements that do not always comply with individual NCs’ Bylaws. Originally, NCs ran their own elections under the direction of DONE. Then they were given to the City Clerk. Then they were given back to DONE and the City Clerk, which is where we stand today. It is time for the experimenting to end. Stakeholders deserve better. DONE and the City Clerk are supposed to be the support for the NCs, not the master. 

Handal misses the point when discussing the individual NCs’ Bylaws and their attempts to limit or exclude certain stakeholders within their districts. All NCs adhere to the definition of a stakeholder: “A ‘stakeholder’ shall be defined as those who live, work, or own real property in the neighborhood and also those who declare a stake in the neighborhood as a community interest stakeholder….” NCs may have different criteria for specific seats or categories on their board but no one is excluded, including non-citizens, the homeless, or the village gadfly. What works in Sunland-Tujunga or Studio City or San Pedro, may not work in Westwood or Chatsworth or Encino. One size does not fit all.

As far as the online voting debacle is concerned, California State Law prohibits electronic or online voting statewide, yet it was deemed by the powers-that-be in the City of Los Angeles that this does not apply to NC elections. The law applies to City elections, County elections, and State elections so why is a City government entity which receives taxpayer dollars excluded? 

DONE courted the NCs to get them to approve online voting. In order to enlist the services of Everyone Counts, DONE reported they needed 35 participating NCs to cover the costs. They achieved that number but in the process gave wrong and misleading information to the NCs. None were advised that documentation requirements for online voters was not advised by the City Clerk. 

The Studio City NC, for example, voted for online voting but added the documentation requirement out of fear of potential voter fraud issues with a new, experimental online voting system. Their fears were well-founded but for different reasons. Other NCs faced similar problems. A major issue with online voting was the impossibility of doing election verification after the election. No actual ballots were kept for the online votes and no final tally that reconciled the ballot count issued. Contrary to Handal’s calling the online voting a success, it was a huge failure and most NCs that participated would not do it again. 

What faith can anyone have in an election outcome if it cannot be verified, especially when there are challenges of voter fraud? 

Many NCs that used online voting had a decrease in voters compared to previous elections. Much of this is attributable to the difficulty of registering and voting online, disenfranchising the stakeholders. Some then came to the polls to vote but many did not. The actual figures do not exist, or DONE has not released them.

Duplicate voting was not the major issue surrounding the elections, whether online or at the polls. In at least two elections, Studio City and Sunland-Tujunga, these NCs’ specific documentation requirements and the proper completion of the voter registrations, were not followed. DONE enabled this lapse in protocol and tried to blame the NCs for their documentation requirements being too complicated. Election Day was not the time to make this allegation, particularly to complaining stakeholders. As far as it being easier to vote for president than in a NC election, it is important to remember that you must be registered in advance to vote in all City, County, State and Federal elections and you can only vote in the district in which you live. NC stakeholders do not have to live in their district, and can vote in as many NC elections for which they may qualify. In other words, it’s apples to oranges. 

Another major issue is the misguided rules and enforcement of election challenges. Seamless is hardly the adjective that applies. There were no clear-cut guidelines and no specific election challenge panel(s) established. DONE relied on Regional Grievance Panels which were not really applicable. The rules fluctuated, and there was no transparency in the process. Challenges were dismissed without explanation and by an unknown entity. A specific case-in-point was the deplorable handling of the Studio City NC challenges and the reversal of an “unappealable” ruling. DONE maketh the rules and DONE breaketh the rules. 

Due to the flawed elections, these motions by Councilmember Paul Krekorian are pending before the Los Angeles City Council:

File Number 04-1935-S1 motion (Krekorian-Wesson, Jr.) – instructed the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE) to report on improving the voting environment for future elections and on the actions that DONE intends to take to train staff, engage stakeholders to create uniform policies across all neighborhood councils, and insure a safe environment for voters free of electioneering. 

File Number 15-1022-S2 motion (Krekorian-Wesson, Jr.) – instructed the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE) to cease the implementation of the online voting system for future elections until DONE completes a report with information about the experience of online voting for candidates, voters, staff and other stakeholders and on the actions that DONE intends to take to improve the implementation process, outreach, training, data security, and other processes. 

There is much more that can be discussed but we will leave that for another day. In the interest of brevity, we have chosen to offer our experiences on the most serious issues addressed in Handal’s election report. In conclusion, if DONE really wants to empower LA, it should engage with the NCs before issuing new rules or changing the rules. DONE’s sole role should be to provide support to the NCs in building the bridges to empower LA.

(Lisa Sarkin is the current past President of the Studio City Neighborhood Council and has participated in the Neighborhood Council System since 2005. Judy Price is a past President of the Greater Valley Glen [Neighborhood] Council and has participated in the Neighborhood Council system since its inception.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

POLITICS--Not many politicians have risen as fast as Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego. She just scored the 35th spot on Politco Magazine’s annual list of the Top 50 politicians in America, its “guide to the thinkers, doers and visionaries transforming American politics in 2016.” She’s listed as “The progressive ideas lab.” 

“If states are the laboratories of democracy, then Lorena Gonzalez might be the nation’s most ambitious progressive scientist,” Politico enthuses. “After decades of lurching from crisis to crisis, California has emerged as a test case in how progressive government can work. And since 2013, Gonzalez, an assemblywoman who represents the state’s southernmost district, has become the brain trust for California’s most ambitious policy ideas – in the process, mobilizing liberals across the country too.

Her polices: The “Motor Voter” law for voter registration. Co-authoring the rise in the state minimum wage to $15 an hour. [The nation’s strictest law aimed at closing the gender pay gap, as well as proposing a bill this year to expand overtime for farmworkers. But it’s Gonzalez’s trailblazing advocacy of mandatory paid sick leave that could make the biggest difference nationwide.”

And let’s not forget the former cheerleader’s bill that designated part-time cheerleaders as full-time employees earning full-time benefits. Rah Rah Rah! Cis Boom Bah!

Except that all the economic policies impose higher costs for hiring people. As you learn in Economics 101, if the price of something rises, demand goes down. So the demand for workers will go down, raising unemployment.

But in politics, being lucky counts more than being right. And these policies occur as the country’s economy is growing, albeit at a slow pace. And in California, Silicon Valley’s extraordinary growth is paying for the higher cost of state government.

But the growth largely is in stock and real estate values, which artificially are pumped up because of the Federal Reserve’s zero-interest-rate policy, or ZIRP, now in its eighth year. When that ends, which might be next year, the economy will contract as it did in 2007-08. California’s unemployment rate will rise back to 10 percent – or higher, thanks to the new Gonzalez legislation.

And state deficits will soar back above $20 billion a year, despite (or because of) the two massive tax increases on this November’s ballot, which likely will pass. They are Proposition 55, $7 billion on those making incomes over $250,000 a year, which number actually puts one in the middle-class in California, because it’s already so expensive to live here. (This shocks folks from other states, but it’s true. What’s left after paying sky-high state taxes and a $4,000 monthly mortgage payment on a dinky home?)

And Proposition 56 ignites taxes $2 a pack, primarily on poor people, about the only ones left who smoke here. It also will boost a larger black market to fund terrorists.

But nobody will blame a mere state legislator for any of those disasters. The politicians at the top will get blamed. So, if a massive recession hits, it will be Gonzalez’ hour.

Her rivals: As the lieutenant governor, Gavin Newsom will get much of the blame, even though his influence in that position is less significant than Jerry Brown’s dog, Colusa. Treasurer John Chiang, the other announced candidate for governor, will be hit with less blame, especially because of his reputation for frugality; but he’s still part of the state bureaucracy. And Antonio Villaraigosa’s mayoralty of Los Angeles (2005-13) is not remembered with fondness, as the latter part coincided with the Great Recession and the great city’s near bankruptcy.

Republicans, of course, are out of the running for statewide offices.

Voters also seek a fresh, cheery face. Gonzalez is a kind of Democratic Ronald Reagan, who actually was a Democrat the first part of his life. Add to that Democrats’ desire to advance women (see: Hillary Clinton, and the California Senate race) and Latinos/Latinas, and Gonzalez’ candidacy for governor seems inevitable.

(John Seiler is a former editorial writer at the Orange County Register. He is a veteran California journalist and can be reached at The Seiler Report. This piece was posted most recently at Fox and Hounds.) 

-cw

CHARTER WARS-Oh, edu-friends! Sometimes I can hardly keep a straight face at the forces trying to destroy public education. So, this time, I didn't even try. I hope you'll laugh, too. 

I wish you could have been in LA LA Land with me last weekend! I made a video for you in case you missed the charter rally in the valley! 

Now that headlines from across the nation, of the NAACP, Black Lives Matter, the Network for Public Education, and the ACLU have all made clear—and John Oliver made hilarious—that the charter emperor has no clothes, the California charter lobby took its carnival to its favorite corporate reform playground, Los Angeles. Pacoima to be exact. The last bastion of that little inconvenience of democracy, the largest school district in the country that still holds school board elections, LAUSD. 

Edu-friends, I thought I had stumbled into a Trump rally. It really made me feel like these folks are our only chance at making education great again. 

“When I say ‘parent’ you say ‘power’!” Corporate reform champion and LAUSD board member Monica Garcia shouted. 

There were t-shirts with catchy phrases like “Fierce Learner”. Although I don’t know who let the guy slip in with an off-message t-shirt that read, “Public education is not for sale.” Ha! 

There were t-shirts with metaphors like Phoenix! I could almost smell the smoke rising from the ashes. Although, let’s face it, that might have been the fresh aroma of bull****. Some hoped you’d forget they were any metaphor at all. Could the M.I.T. t-shirts actually, officially, almost be connected to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology? Oh, who cares? Details, details! 

The point is, these kids have a great shot at getting into a school like that because they received extra credit for attending this rally! Several of them told me so. 

There were other ways to tell this was no ordinary rally. It was literally on—wait for it—AstroTurf! That’s right, edu-friends. Mere grass isn’t good enough for these disrupters! 

It was like a carnival! 

Just listen to this charter school principal shriek -- I mean lead -- the crowd. 

“You have MORE accountability for MORE student learning! Can we do it? YES WE CAN! YES WE CAN! SI, SE PUEDES [sic],” she cheered. 

Only 5% of California’s students attend charters, but this rally looked like the whole world had descended to celebrate charters! They boasted 3000 attendees. The cop I asked estimated 900 to 1000. 

So how did these folks get here? Nothing is left to chance by the charter lobby. They had buses! But it was billed as a march, so a march it will be! Buses dropped folks off three blocks away so they could march into the rally! 

And at the pilgrimage to Pacoima, the messianic theatrics did not disappoint. 

The charter principal tells the story of “throwaway schools” and trashes the idea of integration. 

And if you think anyone in LAUSD has the solution, you just don’t know how to let private enterprise capitalize on a good old fashioned crisis. I couldn’t find anyone in LAUSD there to set folks straight. 

Chan ends her dramatic oratory with the 1993 miracle of miracles, the charter school law. That’s the law that lets some students into a charter if they win the lottery. 

By the way, what rally could be complete without a drawing of its own? Just fill out the address card and give it to CCSA Families. Gotta capture your personal data somehow. 

And it’s going to take a lottery—or maybe that principal’s miracle of miracles—for our public school system to survive charter schools sucking them dry. 

What are our district leaders doing about this? What of LAUSD Board member Monica Ratliff, a headliner at the charter rally? 

“I believe that parents should have the right to choose the school that they think is best for their children: Charter schools, magnet schools, pilot schools, private schools, traditional public schools…” Ratliff said. 

And if you think a debate about opposing views was a good idea, think again. 

“Rhetoric that turns discussions about education into an ‘us against them’ narrative is never, ever helpful,” Ratliff finished. 

A narrative. So it seems that it’s all about a story. Is the story about re-segregation of schools? Or discriminatory enrollment practices? Or the bilking of millions of public dollars into private hands? 

Edu-friend, that rhetoric is never, ever helpful! Especially with a new campaign beyond LAUSD where the charter debate is just icky. In fact, maybe she’s right. Maybe the real problem is those of us who talk about the problem. 

But hey, politician’s speeches are nobody’s favorite part of a rally. And at this rally, EVERYBODY loves charters! In fact, they’ll pledge their allegiance to them, and that’s exactly what they did before boarding the buses to return home.

(Karen Wolfe is a public school parent, the Executive Director of PS Connect and an occasional contributor to CityWatch.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

LOS ANGELES COUNTY--One of these Tuesdays the LA County Board of Supervisors plans to vote on whether to grant a 60-year lease to MDR Boat Central, L.P. and so remove the final obstacle to that company’s construction of an 80 ft. high automated dry stack boat storage facility which will extend 11,600 square ft. over the water. (Photo of proposed project above.) 

The vote should be continued until after the forthcoming election and subsequent installation of District 4’s next County Supervisor. It’s the people of District 4 who will be most directly affected by the project. 

The dry stack boat storage facility is an ineffective solution in search of a problem. As we reported in an earlier CityWatch piece, Marina del Rey doesn't happen to have a shortage of affordable dry stack facilities and boat slips; and contrary to what the Coastal Commissioners were led to believe (during a festival of ex parte meetings with the applicant,) there's only one operational, fully automated dry stack boat storage facility in the world. It's associated with the neighboring luxury condominium complex and does not even have the ability to store non-luxury sized boats. We could go on. 

Far more important are the voices of the people who use and love Dock 52. No one is more eloquent on the topic than one of the public speakers at a recent public hearing on the project. What follows are the words of Dr. Patrick O'Heffernan, edited only for space:  

“Dock 52 is more than a parking lot and a boat ramp. It is a community resource used by people from around the county. On any given Sunday morning you will see my club there with thirty or forty people. You will see other bike clubs, many who are African American, as is my club. You will see groups of people in buses and vans from Koreatown to go fishing. You will see church groups who use this as a stage for their fundraising. This is more than a parking lot. It is a community resource. 

“I did a little survey of my own and found that people come from at least five different congressional districts in Los Angeles to be here. They come from Menlo Park, from west Adams to east Compton to the Valley, all over. One of the reasons that they come here is this is the only free parking lot in the Marina and there are many, many families and many, many groups that get together to come down there with their children and can spend the day over on the bridge, over by the Ballona Creek fishing, teaching their children how to fish, and they won't do it if they had to pay for parking. 

When you look at social benefits of Dock 52 and begin to calculate those, and there are many of you that do that, you see that any benefits that might accrue to the 235 people that might possibly use some of the slips in this, some of the storage in this -- there is no question. It fails a cost benefit analysis for the same reason it fails the social benefits. The social benefits accrue to 200 people or less, depending or whether or not the facility is used and to the investors, but thousands of people use Dock 52 over the year. They use it for parking to go into the path. They use it for fishing. They use it for boat launching. Thousands of people use it, so when you balance that against the possible utility of 200 people with their boats, there is no question." 

(Eric Preven is a CityWatch contributor and a Studio City based writer-producer and public advocate for better transparency in local government. He was a candidate in the 2015 election for Los Angeles City Council, 2nd District. Joshua Preven is a CityWatch contributor and a teacher who lives in Los Angeles.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

EASTSIDER-Every so often I forget that there is City Hall villainy over and beyond the Northeast’s very own trio of Jose Huizar, Gilbert Cedillo, and Mitch O’Farrell. Although led by Jose Huizar, as the Chair of the PLUM Committee, I do believe that this gang has approved enough mega-development to make the land subside by at least ten feet, and maybe even cause a shift in the tectonic plates. Heck, Eric Garcetti was a piker compared to these guys -- at least until he became Mayor and had more land to sell off. 

On the other hand, a CityWatch reader contacted me with yet a different dastardly bend over, kiss the developer and sell out the community mega-development act perpetrated by another one of our model-of-integrity City Council members -- this time, Mike Bonin (CD 11). Take a look at the picture of the Martin Expo Town Center (photo above.) It reminds me of some planetary headquarters of the evil empire in a Star Wars movie.

Located on Bundy and Olympic Blvd., this monster ought to permanently block the ability of anyone to get from downtown LA to the Westside and vice versa. Not to mention that the folks who live there won’t be able to get anywhere at all. Proponents note that it’s being built near the Expo Line extension, I suppose implying, yet again, that mass transit will eliminate the need for cars in Los Angeles. But I seem to remember that the Expo Line is already overburdened with riders, so maybe this project can create a first in LA: Metro gridlock on one of their routes. 

So back to Mr. Bonin, the replacement for Councilmember Bill Rosendahl. Bonin really makes some of us rue the untimely demise of his former boss: he isn’t a Bill Rosendahl. For those of you who remember the Airbnb wars, Mr. Bonin was the author of that fatuous statement that he supported “good short-term rentals” and opposed “bad short-term rentals.” What a guy. 

You might also remember Mr. Bonin for being the second to Herb Wesson’s original Airbnb motion, even while his constituents in Venice were being illegally evicted from their rent-controlled units that were replaced with Airbnb hotels. In fact, Councilmember Bonin is so beloved in Venice that some there are attempting get out of Los Angeles completely and form their own city, a move referred to as Vexit.  

Bonin’s Deal Hits a Bump 

So what’s new with Bonin’s dialing for dollars on the Martin Expo Town Center? 

Here are the details: In order to build the monster Martin Expo Town Center, the Council has to fiddle with the City’s General Plan to change the designation of the area from Light Manufacturing to General Commercial. This is not trivial, especially since the General Plan has not been changed for something like 20 years and going from a Cadillac dealership to a huge mixed-used mega-development is a huge change. We won’t even get into Community Plans. But there is a process that should be followed. 

On the same PLUM Committee agenda that lists the Martin Expo item is another item, 14-1719, regarding possible zone changes for a project in the Valley. In this case, it looks like they got it right by making the Planning Department, in conjunction with the City Attorney, prepare a report regarding possible zone change options. 

So why didn’t they do the same for the Martin Expo project? How about because Mr. Bonin has already partaken of the developer’s kool-aid? 

Tuesday, September 20, was the last day for Council action on the General Plan Amendment/Zone Change for the Martin Expo Town Center. If the Council didn’t act by then, it would be goodbye to whatever goodies Bonin stands to get. But it turns out that there was a big “boo boo” in the PLUM Agenda: Planning filed a new Addendum to the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) on the day of the PLUM meeting. This meant that the items were out of compliance with the Brown Act so the PLUM Committee wouldn’t be able to discuss or vote on the items. And the last day to act was coming up, which meant they wouldn’t be able to fix it by having the PLUM Committee re-agendize the item and get Council to act before September 20. 

For those who think I’m imagining things, the project was already set for the City Council meeting of Friday, September 16 -- obviously, assuming that the same PLUM Committee would have approved the project. 

But this is the City of Los Angeles, so there’s always a way to fix the error and still ram through the project. The “powers that be” had the PLUM Committee “waive consideration of item” and quickly put the project directly on the City Council agenda for September 20, the last day for action. And guess what the vote was? 

For a more detailed look at manipulation of the General Plan and planning in general in the City of Angels, take a look at Dick Platkin’s recent CityWatch articles. I particularly enjoyed, “Who’s In Charge at LA’s City Planning, the Queen of Hearts?”  

And why, pray tell, would a City Councilmember resort to such obviously disingenuous behavior, evading the very spirit of open government and the Brown Act? How about pushback from the affected communities that are refusing to roll over for this repurposing of a Cadillac dealership that will cause the wholesale destruction of their deeply affected neighborhoods? Irony intended. 

All you have to do is take a look at the coalition that organized to see why Mr. Bonin is trying to sneak this project by. It’s a pretty potent, activist set of folks -- the West of Westwood Homeowners Assn, West LA/Sawtelle Neighborhood Council, the Brentwood Homeowners Association and the Westwood South of Santa Monica Homeowners Association, to name a few. 

The Takeaway 

Sadly, Bonin is just a symptom of City Hall dysfunction. If you add up all of the recent actions by the City Council, I think the conclusion is inescapable. City Hall has contempt for our neighborhoods and Neighborhood Councils. Oh, they will have a Congress of Neighborhoods, and the elected officials will take pictures and hand out scrolls, but that’s it. Input not welcome. Charter reform? What Charter? 

In addition to our own experiences in Northeast LA, and the current Martin Expo Town Center contretemps of Mr. Bonin, here are a couple of other recent developments which demonstrate my point. 

First, as an exemplar of hubris, Council President Herb Wesson has announced that he will personally run Felipe Fuentes’ Council District (CD7) until next March when an election will take place. For those who missed this news item, Mr. Fuentes recently resigned his position to become a full time lobbyist in Sacramento. And no, I’m not making this up. 

But Herb says “not to worry” because he will not vote on items for Council District 7. In short, many of our best and vocal Neighborhood Councils in the Valley and foothill areas will be disenfranchised until we have results for next year’s election. Talk about taxation without representation. I thought Fuentes’ throwing the Sunland/Tujunga Neighborhood Council out of City offices was reprehensible. But, boy, did I underestimate Herb’s ability to manipulate the system. This one was so raw it even took the LA Times by surprise. 

Second, Mike Bonin’s next door neighbor, Joe Buscaino (CD15,) recently blew off the San Pedro Neighborhood Council to unilaterally do his own “homeless deal.” 

It’s really a shame. Mr. Buscaino, a former LAPD officer, got elected on an honest, open and transparent platform back in the day when he replaced Janice Hahn. 

I am at a loss to explain the behavior of our elected officials. Honest. We pay them close to $200,00 a year (the highest in the U.S.) They really don’t have to do much except collect a paycheck, and yet they all seem compelled to bend over for real estate developers and billboard companies, betraying their fiduciary obligations as public servants.

Anyhow, to end on a more positive note, there are a couple of things we can do. On the development end, sign up and vote for the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative. Campaign Director Jill Stewart’s very good article about it is here.  Second, the Neighborhood Councils have to figure out how to get together and organize on their own, knowing that BONC, DONE and the City Attorney are not our friends. LANCC is the logical place, but to make that work we need a charismatic figure who is willing to step up and reinvigorate the NCs into being the check and balance on City Hall that Charter Reform envisioned. 

Any takers?

(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.