CORRUPTION WATCH--“Candidates are increasingly using these [ballot measure] committees as slush funds for unlimited contributions from special interests. They’re paying off lawmakers without technically violating the law. It’s disgusting.” — Kathay Feng (photo above), executive director of California Common Cause, a leading good-government advocacy group, as quoted by the Bay Area News Group

We are supposed to be outraged by the news, via the Bay Area News Group, that the number of ballot measure committees controlled by candidates has grown over the past decade. Adding to the outrage we must feel: BANG’s analysis that only $1 out of every $4 spent by these committees went to passing or killing measures on the ballot.

And the final reason for screaming: much of that money went to cozy up to political donors! With trips! With gifts of suits! With $17,000 worth of appetizers! Kathay Feng of California Common Cause, in the above quote, says that these committees amount to slush funds that represent a way around candidate committees that have limits.

Two reactions: First, hook me up with one of those appetizers (they ought to be great at those prices). Second, hold your outrage and disgust. Statements like Feng’s are self-serving and unfair to elected officials – and create public misunderstanding about how lawmaking works in California.

If anything, the number of ballot measure committees suggest the very opposite of what outraged news reports and goos goos want you to think. The truth is not that too many California politicians have such ballot measure communities. The truth is too few politicians have such committees.

You read that right. BANG reports that just 32 legislators (out of 120 in the California legislature) control ballot measure committees; and only four of the seven state constitutional officers do. That’s scandalously low in California, for one simple reason:

If you are going to make laws in this state, you must be constantly plotting, strategizing and accounting for potential ballot measures. Because California’s ballot initiative process is just so powerful. A measure passed by the voters can’t be undone except by another vote of the people—that inflexibility distinguishes California.

For California lawmakers, this means that any of their policy efforts can be stymied, pressured – or undone permanently – by one ballot measure. In that context, it’s fair to ask if the 88 legislators who don’t have ballot measure committees are doing their jobs.

Such committees constitute a very basic defensive tool. Legislators who are serious about legislating must show strength and constantly be courting donors not merely in support of his or her re-election but in defense of their legislative agenda. You want to build up a fund to show your enemies you’re ready for a ballot fight; and you might want to court or sideline interests or donors that might bring forth a measure that could frustrate your goals.

That’s why the good government attempts to distinguish, as the BANG analysis does, between ballot measure committees giving to ballot campaigns and spending and maintenance of donors are ludicrous. Both donor maintenance and actual ballot contributions are both part of the same game.

In fact, good, strong preventive maintenance of donors is more important — and should be proactive. You don’t want to give to ballot measure campaigns (and so it’s natural, and not corrupt as the goo goos suggest, that 25 of these committees haven’t sent money to ballot measure campaigns). You want to prevent such campaigns from happening in the first place so that your legislation doesn’t get locked into the permafrost of California’s constitution or initiative statutes.

When you understand that legislators with these committees are merely doing their jobs, what then explains the outrage? Part of it is reflexive dislike of anything involving money in politics. But a good part of it is politics by Common Cause and other interest groups, whose power derives from the notion that they represent the public interest and are a check on corruption.

Such groups want leverage and power over politicians, and they themselves use the ballot measure process—making them potential competitors with the pols. Indeed they’ve used the ballot to pursue measures like the redistricting commission, which took power away from politicians, and created more power and influence for the good government folks themselves.

In this context, the expressed outrage about ballot measure committee is disingenuous, and strategic; the goo goos blast politicians for trying to do their jobs when what you’re really doing is constraining their power (and they are already very constrained) and enhancing your own power. Media outlets need to be smarter about giving good government the platform in their stories to speak as a voice of authority; they are just another contestant in the contest for ballot power in California. They shouldn’t be allowed to pose as the good guys.

The hard truth is that California’s ballot initiative system doesn’t leave any room for good guys. It’s all about power—and locking in your preferences.

Now, let’s take a step back. Is it good that our ballot initiative reality forces politicians to have these committees and do this extra fundraising? Of course not. Our inflexible system forces politicians to the ballot, both for defense and offense. And when elected officials use the ballot, that’s not really direct democracy –it’s a plebiscite. And that’s dangerous.

But the way to respond to that is not to attack politicians out of context. After all, they didn’t create this system—voters and interest groups did, often through ballot measure. The goal should be to make the ballot system more flexible.

There are two essential reforms. First, make it harder to change the constitution by initiative. And second, let politicians amend statutes passed by ballot initiative as if the statutes were any other law. That, in turn, would reduce the need for politicians to have ballot measure committees, since they could still change voter-approved laws that went too far without having to play the ballot game themselves.

Such changes would bring California more in line with other states and countries, and would make our system more rational. But in California, the people in power see the rational as unrealistic. These reforms aren’t. In fact, making the ballot initiative process more flexible would have natural allies and financial support. Including from the candidate-controlled ballot measure committees.

(Joe Mathews writes California Connected for Zocalo Public Square. This column was posted at Fox and Hounds.) 

-cw

GELFAND’S WORLD--In a recent column (see the subsection titled Another dog that didn't bark), I mentioned that the new state law mandating vaccination of school age children seems to be going into effect smoothly, with generally high levels of compliance. I speculated that the most extreme anti-vaccination parents were managing to obtain vaccine exemptions for their children by going to a few pediatricians -- the ones who are willing to play the game of declaring nearly normal kids to be medically ineligible for vaccination. 

Perhaps I spoke too soon. 

In that earlier piece, I mentioned that until recently, anti-vaccine parents didn't even need a doctor's note. They just needed to sign something called a personal belief exemption (PBE). I speculated that use of the PBE was often just the result of parental tardiness rather than of deeply held anti-vaccination beliefs. Parents who had neglected to keep their children's vaccinations up to date found that they could still get their children enrolled in school. They just had to sign a piece of paper (the PBE). The new law makes this impossible because the PBE has been abolished. We are now seeing the effect. Parents either have to make an appointment with an expensive pediatrician or make the effort to get the kids their shots. A lot of parents now are just taking their kids to the shot clinic. 

But then there are the more extreme anti-vaccinationists, the ones who blame childhood vaccinations on all manner of ailments including autism. They have to deal with the issue in some other way. Home schooling is one permissible option. Going to a cooperative pediatrician who is willing to write a vaccine exemption letter is another possibility. 

The most famous of those pediatricians is Dr Bob Sears (photo above) of Orange County. Sears is the author of a book on vaccine resistance and was an outspoken opponent of the new state law, SB277. 

The same day that my original column was published, a legal bombshell hit the anti-vaccination community. Bob Sears was charged with negligence by the state medical authorities. 

I won't go into a lot of detail about the charges, except to point out that they involve a parent who obtained a vaccine exemption for a two year old infant. The charges imply that Sears did not follow an adequate level of medical care in his evaluation of the child. The charges make it clear that the state authorities consider Sears' performance to have been negligent (an important word in the practice of medicine), at a level that is bad enough to justify the state taking action against his right to practice medicine in California. 

The story was considered big enough to make the news in the Orange County Register and the L.A. Times, and from there to local radio. It expanded to become a worldwide internet discussion. That the state's action is more than just a complaint about medical incompetence was explored in the opening paragraphs of Matt Hamilton's story in the Times. 

Dr. Bob Sears, an Orange County pediatrician and nationally known critic of vaccination laws, faces the loss of his medical license after the state medical board accused him of improperly excusing a toddler from immunization and endangering both the child and the public. 

The Medical Board of California contends in legal documents released Thursday that Sears committed “gross negligence” and deviated from standard practice when he issued a letter in 2014 prescribing no more vaccines for the child. 

In other words, the state of California is going after Sears because of his approach to childhood vaccination. We can paraphrase the state's message to California doctors as follows: You can write vaccine exemptions when they are medically indicated, but you have to follow the principles and standards of accepted medical practice. Doctors who wish to continue playing the vaccination exemption game will probably be able to do so, but they will have to document each exemption by taking a medical history, examining the patient, and keeping adequate records. You might say that the state of California is requiring that vaccine exemption needs to be considered just as seriously as you would consider a possible case of pneumonia in a young patient. 

Some critics are going to point out that the state of California is being tougher about vaccines than it is about marijuana use. It's no secret that getting a certificate recommending the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes is simply a matter of visiting one of the clinics that advertises for your business. Some of these clinics have actually used signs the size of small billboards to bring in the marijuana users. 

Others may recall the days during the Viet Nam War when young men sought exemptions from the draft. There were a lot of doctors who were sympathetic and would supply a letter to your draft board if there was some finding that could justify a draft exemption. It was obvious at the time that some doctors pushed the limits of medical science in writing those letters. 

Is Dr Bob Sears doing anything all that different or all that worse than the medical marijuana certificate mills or the anti-draft doctors of the 1960s? There is a pretty good case that from the public health standpoint, he is. The medical board's position about Dr Sears endangering the wider public, in addition to the specific child, makes exactly that point. It's also obvious that unvaccinated children are at increased risk of catching whooping cough and other contagious diseases. 

What about the political and social implications of the state's action? 

The charges against Sears cannot help but create a stultifying effect on pediatricians who have been merchandising themselves as anti-vaccine practitioners, and on those who have been considering doing so. They are all thinking things through very carefully at the moment. The upside to writing slightly spurious vaccine exemptions is to build one's medical practice and to gain the gratitude of anti-vaccine parents. The downside is the possible loss of one's career. 

Dr. Sears responded to the public thrashing by announcing the charges on his internet page. This resulted in angry (and anguished) comments by his supporters. For people who really believe that vaccination can lead to autism, Dr. Sears was their life preserver in a sea of hostility. They don't want to lose him. 

The effect of the state's action, however well justified, is to further stimulate the fight that for one brief moment seemed to be dying down. Some pediatricians willing to deal with anti-vaccine parents may figure out how to walk the tightrope and write those exemption letters. Others may figure out that it's not worth the effort. But no licensed physician in the state of California is likely to run an anti-vaccine exemption mill in the way that the medical marijuana mills have been run. 

Hillary gets pneumonia 

Late night comedians will be dusting off the Prevnar jokes. Unlike Vince Foster, she didn't get this one done. (If you didn't see the commercial, this line will be meaningless to you.) Reporters will explain to the Libertarian candidate that laryngitis is not a city in the middle east. Some comedian who went to college will connect Bill Clinton with the word pneumococcus. 

But I'm going to treat this illness as an experiment. You see, I have no reason to assume that the diagnosis of pneumonia is anything but 100% true. What reason would they have to fake it? She's been coughing, weak, and feverish for days or weeks, and her doctor confirmed the diagnosis. 

But my prediction is that within hours, we will be deluged with speculations about what Hillary has, why the pneumonia story serves a villainous end, and how the subterfuge is being managed by the mass media. The paranoia will flow and burst into flame. Figure Wednesday at the latest.

And because we are imagining this now, before it has taken off, we can treat it as a new episode of Hillary Derangement Syndrome (HDS). The point of our observing HDS after the pneumonia diagnosis is that it will demonstrate how unbelievable all those previous episodes of HDS were.

(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for City Watch. He can be reached at [email protected]) 

-cw

VOX POP--AMCAL Multi-Housing, Inc. wants to build 335 apartments next to the 101 Freeway in Woodland Hills, although scientific studies have shown that freeway-adjacent housing, also known as “Black Lung Lofts,” can be extremely unhealthy for children and pregnant women. Since the mega-project seeks height district and zone changes, the developer needs approvals from the LA City Council and Mayor Eric Garcetti. What will they do?

THIS IS WHAT I KNOW-Two bills that would have improved transparency at the California Coastal Commission were defeated last week, disclosing a slant toward business, labor, and pro-development interests. A third measure that would mandate one of the commission’s fifteen members to be from a low-income minority community that is impacted by environmental problems did pass the Assembly and is headed for Governor Brown’s desk. 

Senate Bill 1190, sponsored by Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara), would have banned ex-parte contacts between commissioners and developers, lobbyists, environmentalists and others with an interest in the commission’s decisions. Forty-seven assembly members voted against the bill, with 21 abstentions. Only twelve members supported the bill. 

Jackson’s bill had an endorsement from the Coastal Commission and was passed in the Senate but the measure faced resistance in the Assembly from a roster of organizations, including the California Farm Bureau Federation, the California Chamber of Commerce, the Western States Petroleum Assn., and the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, as well as the California League of United Latin American Citizens and lobbyist Susan McCabe who represents development interests.

The bill’s opponents used the “free speech” argument alleging that the ban would restrict labor representatives, developers and others from providing their views to commission members. The California Coastal Act requires commissions to stick to issues like public coastal access and environmental issues, not business or economic benefits. If commissioners do not follow these guidelines, their decisions can be challenged in court. 

Supporters of the bill state that most ex-parte contacts are between commissioners and developers looking for approval along California’s coastline, which can impact the fairness of subsequent proceedings. In lieu of ex-parte meetings, developers and others, they say, should address their concerns during public hearings and not behind closed doors.

Assembly Bill 2002, sponsored by Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) and Assemblyman Mark Stone (D-Monterey Bay), would have required anyone who lobbies the Coastal Commission to register with the state and to disclose clients with business before the commission. The bill would also have fast-tracked reporting of ex-parte meetings and made the disclosures more accessible to the public.

The measure faced an uphill battle due to the two-thirds vote requirement, as it would have amended the Political Reform Act. The bill failed to pass in the Senate. Opposition to the bill included lobbyists, construction, real estate and agricultural interests, the same groups that also worked to defeat the ex-parte bill. 

The beleaguered Coastal Commission has been under scrutiny by courts and the media for its lack of transparency in reporting ex-parte meetings or reporting them late and without much detail, all of which appear to violate statutory requirements. Just over two weeks ago, Spotlight on Coastal Corruption and attorney Cory Briggs filed a lawsuit in San Diego County Superior Court, alleging that five coastal commissioners (Chairman Steve Kinsey, Erik Howell, Martha McClure, Wendy Mitchell and Mark Vargas) had violated ex-parte disclosure rules 590 times. 

Until we see complete transparency and a ban of ex-parte meetings, the Coastal Commission will answer to special interests with deep pockets. Our miles of coastline will be up for grabs, sold to the highest bidder. You could lose you California beach. I ask again, where the hell is the outrage!?

(Beth Cone Kramer is a Los Angeles writer and a columnist for CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

CORRUPTION WATCH-CityWatch has had a few articles recently about the harm which secrecy does to our society. On September 5, 2016, Daniel Guss described, in “Garcetti Playing Dirty Pool?”  the behind the scenes attack on John Vidovich of the Los Angeles Fire Department. It seems his misdeeds were reduced to the number uninspected buildings in Los Angeles and trying to save the homes and lives of those living in the Hollywood Hills near Lake Hollywood. 

On the same day, CityWatch ran a piece about the harm that the Brown Act’s secrecy causes by permitting city government to hide its corrupt machinations from the public. 

CityWatch has also written more than a few times about the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative that calls for no more secret meetings between developers and city councilmembers. 

A major factor in this widespread secrecy is the unanimous voting at City Council where all items pass unanimously. As reported by the Los Feliz Ledger, Councilmember David Ryu admits that it is futile to vote No since all the other councilmembers will vote Yes. Ryu’s reasoning seems to be: What sense would it make to expose the dirt behind the scenes when each councilmember is obligated to vote Yes? 

A Case Study of Secrecy and How It Pollutes Society 

Let’s take a look at just one case of secrecy that shows the relationship between not only the secret dealings between developers and city councilmembers, but illustrates how the entire system is enveloped in a cloud of criminality. We shall analyze the secret dealings between Councilmember Krekorian’s Office, City Planning and the developer to see how Marilyn Monroe’s home was demolished and how the entire system, including the courts, closed ranks to protect the criminal voting system at City Hall. 

Developer Purchased Marilyn Monroe’s Former Home, Knowing its Historical Significance 

The listing for the family home at 5258 Hermitage Avenue in Valley Village included the express statement of that it was the former home of Marilyn Monroe. Thus, when the developer bought the property, he already knew he had a problem. 

Although the City still has failed to provide all the documentation about the contacts between Councilmember Krekorian’s office and the developer, during litigation a significant email was discovered from the developer’s attorney to City Planning stating: 

From: Mary Neifert <[email protected]>

Date: Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 1:03 PM, Subject: 5258 Hermitage Historical Assessment

To: [email protected]

Hi Tom,

The APC appeal hearing is

Per your suggestion last month, the owner of 5258 Hermitage Avenue had a historical assessment done on the property to defend against the appeal on file. I have attached it hereto for your review. Hopefully it can be included in your report to the Committee. Please contact me if you need any further information. 

This email was not shared with the public. Not only does it tell us was there was prior contact between the developer and City Planning, but it also reveals that City Planning had expressly asked the developer to prepare a biased report against finding any historical value to Marilyn Monroe’s former home. In case anyone questions whether this communication between the developer and City Planning was intended to be secret, the attorney concludes with: 

The contents of this email and any attachments are confidential and may be protected attorney work product or subject to the attorney client privilege. If you are not the intended recipient, kindly notify Mary Neifert immediately by telephone at **** - or by e-mail at****.com. Please also destroy all copies of this message and any attachments hereto. 

While the City has chosen to keep the prior contacts between Councilmember Krekorian, City Planning and the developer secret, it is clear that prior to receiving any data about the property’s historical status, City Planning was asking the developer to provide a slanted report on which the Planning Department’s Ken Bernstein could then rely to claim that there was no historical significance to Marilyn’s home.   

In what type society is the City allowed to be the biased and dishonest advocate for a developer who wants to destroy a historic structure? On April 9, 2015, we found this email from City Planning’s Ken Bernstein. 

Ken Bernstein <[email protected]> Zhu, Apr 9, 2015 at 12:47 PNI

To: Tom Henry <[email protected]>

Cc: Tom Glick [email protected]>, Lambert Giessinger <[email protected]>

Thanks, Tom, for checking back with us on this — I hadn't noticed that the APC hearing was happening today. Yes, we reviewed the ARG historic resources assessment, found it complete, and agreed with the findings.

understand from Lambert that another consultant, Charlie Fisher, may raise the argument that Marilyn Monroe was first discovered during the period she lived at this property, but I would agree with ARG's conclusion that this alone isn't sufficient to make the building eligible for designation.

Ken, Ken Bernstein, AICP, Manager, Office of Historic Resources. & Principal City Planner, Policy Planning 

Ken Bernstein’s office, which had requested the biased ARG report, agrees with the report’s conclusion, despite the fact that he has learned that the community will be submitting a report from noted historian Charlie Fisher. Nonetheless, without bothering to wait for the Charlie Fisher report, Ken Bernstein agrees that the home is not significant.   

About one hour later at 1:49 pm, and before that afternoon’s meeting of the Area Planning Commission, Ken Bernstein re-writes his email with some interesting changes. 

On Thu, Apr 9, 2015 at 1:49 PM, Ken Bernstein <[email protected]> wrote: 

Tom,

I wanted to let you know that the Office of Historic Resources' staff did review the historic resource assessment for 5258 Hermitage, prepared by Architectural Resources Group. We found the report to be thorough and complete, and concurred with the report's findings. While we understand that Marilyn Monroe was initially "discovered" to begin her modeling career while living at this property, this alone is not sufficient to qualify the property for historic designation. Our eligibility standards for Survey LA, our citywide historic resources survey, are consistent with the guidance from the National Park Service: properties achieving eligibility for designation due to their association with historic persons should be those associated "with a person's productive life, reflecting the time period when he or she achieved significance." Because this property is from the earliest stages of Monroe's career, and she was not discovered at this particular site, the historic association at this site is not sufficient to meet designation criteria.

Ken, Ken Bernstein, AICP, Manager, Office of Historic Resources & Principal City Planner, Policy Planning 

Here we see secrecy in action. Any mention of Charlie Fisher and his report has been deleted. Ken Bernstein, who is the Manager of the Office of Historic Resources, is concealing that fact that there will be another historic report with a different conclusion. Wouldn’t one think that the Area Planning Commission would like to know that there is contrary report?   

While Ken Bernstein refers to the ARG (Architectural Resources Group), one could never find that Ken Bernstein allowed the Area Planning Commission to see the ARG report. Thus, we have double secrecy: The actual ARG report and the fact that it had been solicited to be biased are withheld from the Area Planning Commission. It turns out that the ARG report contained many facts which showed that the property had historical significance and that its conclusion was not supported by its facts. Thus, one may reason that the contents of the ARG report were kept secret from the Area Planning Commission because the Commission disagreed with Mr. Bernstein and it might decide that the city should conduct a study of alternatives to demolishing the home. 

SaveValleyVillage Sues the City of Los Angeles 

SaveValleyVillage sued the City and the developer over destruction of Marilyn’s Valley Village home due to its failure to proceed in the correct legal manner. For the legal case, the city was required to identify all pertinent documents so that they could be included in the Administrative Record on which the court would base its opinion. 

Did City Planning provide any copy of the ARG Report on which Ken Bernstein said he relied? No. Although the city certified that it had produced everything, the ARG report remained secret. Ken Bernstein also failed to provide the City Attorney’s Office a copy of the Charlie Fisher report which explained why the property had historical significance. Thus, City Planning had cleansed the Administrative Record of any historical report from which SaveValleyVillage could argue that the property had historic significance. Also, there is no reason to believe that the City Attorney’s Office knew about the missing documentation. 

After SavevalleyVillage had submitted its brief to the court, the City saw that a member of the public had attached the crucial four pages of the Charlie Fisher report to an email and that those four pages, which had not been routed through Mr. Ken Bernstein, had made it into the Administrative Record. 

This breach of secrecy was devastating to the developer and to Ken Bernstein’s opinion. The only factual evidence in the Administrative Record supported the position that Marilyn’s home had historic significance. 

Then and only then a miracle occurred: the City Planning “discovered” the ARG report. Despite the fact that SaveValleyVillage had already submitted its brief and had laid out its entire case for all to see, the court thought that it should consider the ARG Report. The court believed that if Ken Bernstein had the opportunity to review the ARG report in secret and to conceal the ARG Report from the Area Planning Commission and keep it out of the Administrative Record, then the court should most certainly rely on that secret document. Why, anything less would be unfair.

In rendering his August 29 decision, Judge Fruin relied on a case from August 12, 2016 even though the briefing in his Marilyn Monroe case had been completed in July.

The Criminogenic Nature of Los Angeles Culture 

Members of the public need to understand the criminogenic culture that permeates Los Angeles. The lynchpin in this criminal culture is the vote trading pact which Penal Code § 86 criminalized in 2006. 

If city councilmembers were free to complain about and vote against a developer who secretly colluded with the Department of Planning to destroy Marilyn’s home, then Councilmembers such as Paul Krekorian might not feel so secure in being able to subvert the law. Without the City Council’s criminal voting pact, Councilmember Krekorian would have had to risk the project’s being voted down due to the illicit manner in which the council office, city planning and the developer conspired to destroy the property. 

The public needs to understand the vital importance that the criminal voting pact plays in Los Angeles. It allows every councilmember to know that no matter how illegal a project may be, no matter what may have transpired in secret behind closed doors, his or her project is guaranteed unanimous support. What good is secrecy between the council offices, city planning and developers when it can be brought into the open during a public debate a city council? 

If the City had followed CEQA and issued an Environmental Impact Report concerning the limited issue of the historic significance of Marilyn Monroe’s home, one CEQA alternative would have been to move the small structure to another location. For example, the Lasky Production Barn was moved from Gower Gulch in Hollywood to opposite the Hollywood Bowl. 

As for the City’s permitting the public forum, which an EIR would have provided, Judge Fruin wrote: 

Petitioner suggests that the structures, or at least the back house in which Norm Jeane and her mother-in-law lived, could have been moved to a different location and serve as a Hollywood attraction. See rd Am. Pet. @ 21:23-25 and 22: 2-6; see also Pet. Br., p.8 and Reply Br., p.8. (Moving a structure to a different location is considered to diminish its historical integrity. [bold added] August 29, 2016 Statement of Decision page 8 ¶2 

Thus, Judge Fruin seems to believe that considering the historic value of Marilyn Monroe’s Valley Village home would have been a waste of time since moving a historic structure “diminishes it historical integrity.” Apparently, smashing it to smithereens so that not even a match stick size parcel of wood remains is a suitable option to relocating the home. 

Judge Fruin shows no concern about Mr. Bernstein’s secrecy or his own reliance on a report which the developer’s own attorney admits was asked to be biased against finding the property to have historic significance. In some judicial systems, judges question the reliability of such evidence. 

Could there be any stronger judicial support for secretive collusion between a developer and the City than relying wholeheartedly on a secret report that was solicited to be biased and withheld from the Administrative Record? 

Secrecy and the culture of criminality go hand in hand.

(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

NO ON BLACK HOUSING-To quote the late, great Martin Luther King, who deserves his own holiday as much as any President, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."  Well, at CSULA, we've got no dream … we’ve got a nightmare:  a New Racism, as repugnant and dangerous as any Old Racism we've ever seen. 

I'm sure there are a few "diversity" types or "social justice warrior" types, who will defend the "living learning community" of black-focused housing at Cal State Los Angeles, and to those creepy types I wish them all the racist monikers and scorn they richly deserve. 

Shall we have separate bathrooms and water fountains for African-American students, but this time of

THEIR choosing to make it all "better"?  How about black robes with eyes cut out, for good measure, so those living at the black-focused housing can recognize a fellow self-excluded member and feel "safe"?  

Perhaps we can have some "white-focused" housing, too, now that we're going "full-on racist"? 

Yes, these ARE very harsh criticisms and statements, but after a half-century of our nation fighting to create a melting pot in America, which Martin Luther King and his heroic team of TRUE "social justice warriors" fought to make real in the United States (and not just diversity among white/European backgrounds), this regressive CSULA housing experiment is such a horrific step backwards that it should be stopped altogether. 

As a physician who worked for outreach to minority students to attend my medical school in Texas, and who still advocates for more medical Spanish and cultural sensitivity to be taught to medical professionals, I've also observed the need for patients and professionals alike to get over their cultural differences. 

We're "culturally-sensitive," which is smart and just, but are we as a society brave and demanding of our need to get over those cultural barriers, and to emphasize that there's only one race--the human race? 

And that we're of one people--the American People--in this nation? 

The only exclusive/cultural needs that might be open for housing is for those based on gender and sexual preference ... although those, too, have their risks in a society that has to live with and work with each other.  So while LGBTQ and single-sex housing might make for greater comfort to those living there, it's best for all of us to end bullying and fighting to coexist. 

College is supposed to prepare us for the real world, and any successful American will not get to his/her goals without confronting the differences and similarities of our fellow human beings.

Certainly, any black student who truly wants to succeed will have nothing to do with this form of housing--which is publicly-funded, and should be subject to appropriate rules and governmental oversight. There remains the option of black colleges, but sooner or later there comes a time when anyone and everyone must choose to address and (hopefully!) befriend ALL our fellow Americans. 

There is an answer to this nightmare at CSULA, and it's premised on the "community" being open to all students (there is a waiting list, however): 

It is my hope that all Asian, Latino, and white students truly interested in learning about the segment of our nation who happens to be African-American apply to live there.  Let diversity really work, and let enough non-black students attend so that the "safety" of an all-black-only student housing community is prevented ... because that "safety" can only lead to racial division (which we do NOT need!). 

The education of what it is like to grow up black in America is fundamental to all of us.  And ditto to learn what it is like to grow up Latino, Asian, and even white (which ranges from Italian to Greek to Jewish, just as "Latino" ranges from Mexican to Cuban to Peruvian). 

The medical group I work at, and the other medical groups I worked at previously, had black, Latino and Asian leaders ... but the ethnic background was de-emphasized in favor of excellence. 

There's a time when we need to talk, and to debate, and to learn.  Then there's a time to act, and to live, and to make a stand. 

I'll go with the time-tested and time-proven "melting pot" of what best makes our nation special.

The New Racism at CSULA is as repugnant and deserving of scorn as any Old Racism.  It stinks, and belongs on the trash heap of failed ideas as much as Jim Crow laws, Socialism, Fascism, and Communism.

I'll stick with MLK's ideals, and eschew the KKK ... in whatever hellish form any wannabe separatist, racist new trend may show up.  Black separatism is as pathetic as any White separatism. 

Hey, CSULA!  Show some real "character" and end this form of New Racism! 

• SEE OPPOSING POINT OF VIEW 

(Ken Alpern is 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 Mr. Alpern.

-cw