CA’s ‘FORGOTTEN’ RACE-The California Attorney General Kamala Harris has won a $1.2 billion judgment against the for-profit Corinthian Colleges for predatory practices that left tens of thousands of students with large debts and useless degrees. Students whom Corinthian had targeted for their “special characteristics” like "isolated", "impatient", "low self-esteem" folks "who have few people in their lives who care about them" according to documents Harris' office discovered.  

Does the case reveal any special characteristics of Kamala Harris? (photo right above) That's especially important since she's running for US Senate. 

She’s in the lead for the retiring Barbara Boxer's seat. In a race that not enough of us are watching, she handily beat out Orange County’s Loretta Sanchez for the State Democratic Party’s endorsement last month. 

Even if we were paying attention to this important election, education advocates know that an election for national office is not exactly the best venue to find out a candidate's stand on public education. With so little campaign emphasis on our cause, candidates’ actions and occasional words are open to interpretation. So what do the tea leaves say about Kamala Harris? 

The bulk of the judgment in this case is loan forgiveness for former students. The rest is to punish the shyster Corinthian and try to deter other profiteers from creating business models that prey on hopeful students. That's a good sign. 

The win shows Harris to be a fighter for pupils over profits, something that should help her distinguish herself to voters concerned about the privatization of public education.  

One of Harris’ Republican opponents is cringe-worthy to education voters. Ron Unz is a Palo Alto software executive whose interest in education stems from his effort to obliterate bilingual education in our state. He successfully championed the 1998 “English only” ballot initiative, which the state legislature has nearly finished repealing. This has so ticked off Unz that he decided to throw his hat in the ring for the Senate seat. 

So Unz can make some anti-immigrant noise, which apparently is a selling point in this reality-TV-based election season, though he has little chance of winning against either Democrat. 

The Democrats are having their own difficulty breaking through the cacophony of the presidential election. An LA Times article this week reported one third of California voters are still undecided in the Senate race that includes four Democrats. Harris polls first, ahead of Sanchez among registered voters and Harris’ take doubles Sanchez's among likely voters. 

There’s no poll of education voters, but if there was, this shellacking of for-profit colleges by Kamala Harris surely would put her at the front of the class.

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

Tags: Karen Wolfe, CA state election, US Senate race, Kamala Harris, Barbara Boxer, Corinthian Colleges, predatory education practices

JUST SAYIN’--While I'm sure there are many potential candidates for people who were targeted and labeled toxic for having reported something that even remotely approximated truth, I find the summary public career execution of television personality Phil Donahue to be a compelling first contender for this dubious distinction. 

In 1996, television talk show host Phil Donahue celebrated what until now remains "the longest continuous run of any syndicated talk show in U.S. television history." And this success was clearly based on the trust his honesty inspired in his fiercely loyal audience. 

And yet by February 25, 2003, when Donahue who "was ranked #42 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time," had his career brought to an abrupt end when he was fired by MSNBC for his opposition to the selling of the imminent U.S. invasion of Iraq to the American people. 

Clearly his opposition to the fear and bogus claims of weapons of mass destruction had to be silenced, given his popularity with the American people and any potential that might have had for causing the American people to question this done deal. 

Long before the current film Spotlight deigned to make a film about tolerated child molestation and cover up in the Catholic church, Donahue produced the first national television program in the 1980s showing widespread child molestation by Catholic priests. 

This level of difficult honesty was still something that was tolerated and had a place in American media, but with the selling of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the profit motivated endless war footing this country has remained on, clearly that is no longer the case. 

I don't recall who once said to me that freedom in the 19th century was expressed as the freedom from oppression, while freedom in the 20th century was to be seen as the freedom of expression. But in the 21st century, it seems painfully clear that any supposedly constitutional guaranteed right of expression or any civil liberty that in any way challenges the corporate oligarchy's exclusively profit motivated agenda has been made illegal. 

It is seen as intolerable heresy requiring someone who dares to engage in it like an Edward Snowden someone who must have the moral courage to literally put their life on the line or be willing to seek sanctuary in Russia or elsewhere. Dare to point out that what the U.S. government and its state and local government components openly advocate and implement as being completely and utterly in violation of basic constitutional rights and you better starting looking for a deep hole in which to hide. 

The problem with this awareness is that barring some other insight or proposed course of action, people have tended to become demoralized by their expression of an alternative truth to government party line. 

What people don't realize is their feelings of powerlessness are merely the well executed end product of a corporate media whose goal is to make the majority of people in this country think they are in the minority, because if corporate media no longer reports the tree falling in the forest then it must not have fallen. 

However, this well nurtured corporate media fantasy that the majority is merely a disgruntled and maladjusted minority- be they Left, Right, or somewhere in between- is starting to break down due to an Internet individually connected world where the success of a "not serious candidate" like Bernie Sanders openly contradicts this corporate media "dominant narrative."

In reality, all Americans can still believe and democratically implement that we the people should decide what is good for we the people...if we have the persistence to see through the corporate media exquisitely executed charade of seamless virtual reality.

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

-cw

ANIMAL WATCH-On February 1, 2016, in my CityWatch article, “Has L.A. Animal Services Brenda Barnette Crossed the Line with Questionable Fundraising MOU?”  I questioned why a nonprofit corporation created by former Villaraigosa-appointed Commissioner Maggie Neilson, Global Philanthropy CEO, as a charitable arm for LA Animal Services, was registered as “The Los Angeles Animal Rescue Foundation.”  

On January 12, 2016, LAAS GM Barnette urged the Animal Services Commission to approve a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and stated the purpose is “…to support the work of the Department much the way the LAPD Foundation, the LAFD Foundation, the Library Foundation and others support the work of City Departments.”  

However, other City department “supporting foundations” clearly mention in their name the agency for which they are soliciting funds.  

So why wasn’t “The Los Angeles Animal Rescue Foundation” incorporated as “Los Angeles Animal Services Foundation” or “Friends of Los Angeles Animal Services?” Both were available according to the CA Secretary of State.

It is also perplexing that the Articles of Incorporation for ‘The Los Angeles Animal Rescue Foundation’ state: 

“The specific purpose of the Corporation is to ensure every animal has a home and that no adoptable animals are euthanized in Los Angeles.” 

While the official mandated Mission Statement of the Department of Animal Services, which is budgeted as a public-safety agency, is: 

“To promote and protect the health, safety and welfare of animals and people.” 

Why would a nonprofit charity be set up with an idealistic statement of purpose not closely related to the realistic mission of the agency for which it purports to raise funds? There is a major difference between a municipal, taxpayer-funded public animal shelter which takes in all animals in need (regardless of condition or behavior) and a “rescue,” which is a private organization and can choose to accept only adoptable animals.  

According to the Board Report, Deputy City Attorney Dov Lesel had been working on this MOU with Ms. Neilson and LAAS staff “for the past couple of years,” indicating that City Attorney Mike Feuer is fully aware of this proposal. She also mentioned that it is supported by the Mayor.

So, if a Deputy City Attorney is preparing documents for a private company to submit to the City Council -- prior to instruction or approval by that body -- is he acting as counsel for the City or for the non-profit? And, what other City officials and/or employees have been involved? 

No accusation of wrongdoing has been alleged, but inquiring minds want (and deserve) to know.

To that end, on February 23, 2016, I sent California Public Records Act requests to City Attorney Mike Feuer, Mayor Eric Garcetti, Councilman Paul Koretz and LAAS GM Brenda Barnette, which can be read at CF16-0070 in the City Clerk’s file. Certified receipts show the letters arrived on February 25.

Those familiar with the process know that the agency has ten days to either respond and provide the information, deny that they have such documents, or ask for a 14-day extension of time. Councilman Koretz and Mayor Garcetti were informed that a copy of each of their letters was also being sent to the City Attorney as the City’s legal advisor. 

Not one of these officials responded -- including City Attorney Mike Feuer. 

Is it possible nothing was done in writing? According to Brenda Barnette’s report, a number of City officials collaborated and this is essentially a fait accompli. Could a several-year project simply have been conducted by phone, with not a single person writing a note or sending even one e-mail? 

Or did they possibly use private e-mail accounts -- a la Hillary Clinton? 

Although we don’t want to believe steps would intentionally be taken by the City to limit transparency, Jim Bickhart, former aide to Mayor Villaraigosa, sent a very rambling e-mail to the LA Animal Services Commissioners on January 14, 2012 which appears to be an effort to do just that. (Bickhart is now under contract to Councilman Paul Koretz as Speedway Policy Associates.) 

Jim Bickhart oversaw the Department of Animal Services and the Commission for the Mayor. He coordinated the appointment of animal issue-neophyte Maggie Neilson, CEO of Global Philanthropy, in April 2013 to replace the very popular, knowledgeable and independent Commissioner Kathleen Riordan  (who had recently been appointed to a new term.) 

I am providing the lengthy e-mail from Bickhart to the Commission in its entirety (below) to assure full disclosure. However, I direct your attention to the bolded areas (emphasis added)--especially the first paragraph, which begins, “You’ll note that I’m e-mailing you from my personal e-mail address.”

Then in a later sentence Bickhart writes: “So I would suggest that you take the this [sic] precaution: If you don't want what you say to be subject to possible public disclosure, don't put something in writing to a public official's work e-mail account.”  

(Ironically, I received this e-mail in a response to a CPRA on an unrelated topic.) 

Note: All emphasis in the following e-mail is added.

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] ,  [email protected] ,  [email protected]
CC: [email protected]
Sent: 1/14/2012 5:03:22 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time
Subj: some notes on use of correspondence in the public sector

Dear Commissioners,

You'll note that I'm e-mailing you from my personal e-mail address.  I'm doing so by way of providing an example, even though I believe it would have been fully appropriate to send this to you from work.

Because of all the stir being created relative to your work by a certain member of the public, I am reminded that I owe you all an apology for a couple of things.

First, I apologize for not checking with each of you during your appointment processes to be sure you were not overlooking any paperwork-related situations that someone with an agenda might later be able to exploit in efforts to embarrass you. I don't think I have to belabor the point that in contemporary politics, there are people looking to say "Gotcha!" at the slightest provocation and a variety of tools have been provided to them for doing so.

Much as one of my jobs as a staffer for an elected official is to try to eliminate opportunities for people to do that to my boss, it's also my obligation to do that for those of you who are volunteering your valuable time, along with your reputations, to help us all try to do a
better job on behalf of the people (and, in this case, the animals).  By not doing that due diligence with you when I should have, I let you, and my boss, down.  So, again, I apologize.

Second, my other sin of omission was to fail to make it known that EVERY kind of written correspondence that emanates from or is received by a public sector official (elected or otherwise), is subject to public disclosure via either the state Public Records Act or the federal Freedom of Information Act.

That means your e-mails, memos and letters to anyone working in government are potentially subject to being revealed to the media or other individuals if they request it in accordance with the procedures set forth in those laws.  For sure there are limitations - usually comparable to those applied to evidence being excluded in court procedures - but in general we all need to keep in mind that anything we send to each other might end up being seen by people we didn't expect would ever see it.

During my tenure in the Mayor's office I've been subjected to no fewer than a half dozen Public Records Act requests for my City e-mails and other documents.  I can attest that it's a royal pain to be forced to comb through hundreds of e-mails at the behest of someone who's on a "fishing expedition" for one reason or another.  I certainly understand the motive behind these disclosure laws and support transparency in government, but I highly doubt that those who created these laws properly anticipated how they might be employed in ways that shed more nuisance than they do sunlight.

A key rule we in the Mayor's office are told early on is, "Don't put anything in an e-mail you wouldn't want to see in the newspaper later on."  It's good advice that I should have told you a long time ago (and should remind myself of way more often than I do).  Not that it's been a
problem with 99.9% of your e-mails to City Hall, but you just never know when that 0.1% might be sitting around in somebody's in-box when a PRA request comes in.  Believe me, I know, because I'm a way bigger offender than any of you will ever be.

So I would suggest that you take the this [sic] precaution: If you don't want what you say to be subject to possible public disclosure, don't put something in writing to a public official's work e-mail account.  This doesn't need to apply to simple communications such as, "I can't attend the next meeting," or "Can you call me this afternoon?"  Messages that don't contain opinions or potentially problematic revelations are not the issue.  None of us really cares if someone else is bored (or disappointed) by them after they're disclosed.

As we've seen in the last few months, it doesn't take much for certain kinds of people to go out of their way to make you, as volunteers who are trying to do something positive, wonder why you bothered in the first place.  To be frank, I feel that way regularly, but I'm being paid.  You're not (at least not for this).  I owe it to you to do what I can to protect you from being placed in that position and I should have taken steps to do so earlier.  Once we've made an error, there's not much any of us can do to avoid taking some lumps, and our ethical obligation is to make sure we're treated like anyone else would be in the same circumstances.  So it's best to be doubly sure we're staying out of harm's way in the first place.

On that sobering note, I hope everyone is having a good MLK weekend.

Jim 

The Mayor, City Attorney, Councilman Paul Koretz, and Brenda Barnette have another chance to respond to my CPRA about the proposed Global Philanthropy MOU before any further action is considered. 

On March 23, a letter advising them of their Failure to Respond to the CPRA was sent and also placed in the City Clerk’s file CF16-0070. It provides the opportunity to rectify this matter promptly. I hope they will do so.

(Animal activist Phyllis M. Daugherty writes for CityWatch and is a contributing writer to opposingviews.com. She lives in Los Angeles.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

ATTACK ON AFFORDABLE HOUSING-An irresponsible and complicit City Hall has sat idle in recent years as 20,000 rent-controlled apartment units in Los Angeles have been destroyed or converted, forcing working class tenants into the streets, scrambling to find replacement housing while luxury units were built to replace the affordable apartments that have been lost. 

That was the story told in part by Los AngelesTimes in a page-one investigative report. “The paper did a good job of documenting the destruction and pain caused by this housing trend,” said Jill Stewart, campaign director of the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative. 

“Unfortunately the Times did not go the extra mile and properly lay the blame for this tragedy at City Hall’s doorstep – as it should have,” said Stewart. “This is a crisis that City Hall has helped create because of its cozy relationship with the real estate industry, and it is a crisis that City Hall has certainly failed to correct.” 

Stewart called on Mayor Garcetti and the City Council to immediately place a moratorium on projects that will destroy affordable housing unless the new project will provide significant numbers of affordable units – at the very least replace the lost affordable units with an equal number of new affordable units. 

“Homelessness is spiking in Los Angeles as a direct result of City Hall's thoughtless behavior,” said Stewart. “Yet our elected officials have looked the other way for years as landlords and developers razed or converted building after building and wiped out our inexpensive rent-controlled apartments.” 

Since January, the Coalition to Preserve LA, sponsor of the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative aiming for the March 2017 ballot, has challenged the frequent back room deals and votes by the Los Angeles City Council to place outsized luxury buildings in neighborhoods that were once affordable. 

The City Council has openly ignored critics who say the preservation of existing affordable housing is the only way to prevent a housing disaster and the spiking homelessness in LA. 

The actions and inactions of the City Council have set off a dramatic domino effect on block after block of Los Angeles: landlords jack up their rents and evict existing tenants — so they, too, can join the “luxury” density movement promoted and approved by City Hall. 

As the Coalition to Preserve LA has reported, all but one of 17 elected officials at City Hall are accepting campaign cash, gifts and/or money for their pet projects, from developers and the real estate industry. Since 2000, the City Council and mayor have accepted $6 million from real estate industry sources alone. This amount does not include contributions from an army of land-use attorneys and lobbyists who facilitate the real estate industry’s big-growth agenda at City Hall. 

In the face of this conflict of interest, Los Angeles city leaders have touted the wrong-headed idea that constructing luxury housing for the rich will help poor and low-income families. “There is no evidence to support this conclusion,” said Stewart. “Their argument is essentially that luxury housing will become over 25 or so years affordable. That’s no solace to families now who are being evicted. They need affordable housing now – not 25 years from now.”

The Los Angeles Times investigation by Ben Poston and Andrew Khouri notes: “The number of lost units is a fraction of the roughly 641,000 rent-controlled apartments in the city, but in a tight market the removals have had an outsized effect, tenant advocates say.” Most of the units were lost to demolition but some were converted into condos. 

Approval by voters of the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative next March will end the most egregious actions by the City Council to uproot communities in favor of luxury housing built by their developer friends. But until voters put a halt to this, and require non-corrupt planning by City Hall — a core aspect of the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative — the City Council should enact a moratorium to bar further destruction and conversion of LA's desperately needed rent-controlled units, according to Stewart. 

The initiative will impose a two-year moratorium on the biggest and worst projects that can be built only if City Hall provides developers with building exemptions and special favors. This time-out will give Los Angeles a breather from the current development frenzy now swamping LA’s streets with traffic, ruining neighborhoods, creating an environment of concrete and pollution, displacing working class families and overwhelming the city’s infrastructure. 

In addition, the initiative will empower neighbors to have a bigger say in shaping the community plans that govern growth in their neighborhoods. “Our initiative will help level the playing field so residents can have as much say or more say in how their communities are developed than the developers – who are now almost exclusively in control of the city’s growth machine,” said Stewart.

(John Schwada is a former investigative reporter for Fox 11 in Los Angeles, the LA Times and the late Herald Examiner. He is a contributor to CityWatch. His consulting firm is MediaFix Associates.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING HANDICAP SCAM--Just when you think that the Mayor and the Los Angeles City Council could not sink lower, new evidence comes to light. 

We see and hear the publicity stunts by Mayor Garcetti and various councilmembers, crying for the need to construct more Affordable Housing. What has the City been doing to create Affordable Housing? According to the LA Times on April 2, 2016, It has been demolishing Affordable Units to make way for pricy apartments, condos and McMansions! 

That’s right, the City has been helping developers not only destroy affordable housing, but then through its HCIDLA Committee, the City has been giving tax money for the developers who just demolished the rent controlled properties. They justify these gifts of our money on the grounds that the poor need housing. As a result of this scam, the City Council has been voting unanimously to allow rent controlled units to be destroyed and then giving hundreds of millions of our tax dollars to the very people who tore down the homes. 

It’s like a late night Infomercial, “Wait there’s more.” While Mayor Garcetti and current Council President Herb Wesson have been shedding crocodile tears for the less fortunate, they have been abusing the City’s disabled population in order to divert more tax dollars to the billionaire developers. On camera, they speak in the name of the disabled, while screwing them off camera. 

No need to take my word for it. We have documented proof. In January 2012, while Mayor Garcetti was City Council President, the City and its now defunct Community Redevelopment Agency [CRA] was sued in federal court for systematically and knowingly cheating Los Angeles’ disabled persons. (Independent Living Center of Southern California et alia v City of Los Angeles, Community Redevelopment Agency [CRA], United States District Court for the Central District Court of California, Case Number SACV12 0062JST.) 

For at least the last decade, during which time Eric Garcetti had been Council District 13 Councilmember (2001-2014) and City Council President (2006-2012), the City and Garcetti’s beloved CRA cheated both disabled persons and the tax payers. Here’s the scam they used: 

(1) In order to receive tax money to construct affordable housing, the City had to guarantee that the developers made their apartments and condos disabled accessible. [Lawsuit ¶ 76] 

(2)   Because making apartments and condos accessible to disabled persons costs the developers more money, the City not only allowed developers not to provide the legally require handicap facilities, but Garcetti and other councilmembers also frustrated the efforts of advocates for the disabled to document the violations. [Lawsuit, ¶ ¶ 78-82] 

As a result, Mayor Garcetti and current Council President Herb Wesson, along with all the rest of the Los Angeles City Council, have helped to divert hundreds of millions of tax dollars to developers by allowing them not to make the required handicap improvements to their projects.

“By the actions described above, Defendants have engaged in, and continue to engage in a pattern or practice of discrimination against people with disabilities in violation of the Rehabilitation Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and Government Code § 1135. The Defendants continue to engage in such a pattern, practice, or policy of discrimination so as to constitute a continuing violation.” Lawsuit ¶ 85 

That’s right; Garcetti and Wesson are still at it! Look at how many of the projects named in the lawsuit are in Wesson’s Council District #10. 

“. . . Defendants have known that their acts and omissions create a substantial likelihood of harm to Plaintiff's federally protected rights, and Defendants have failed to act upon that likelihood.” Lawsuit¶ 86   

We are not dealing with innocent mistakes of a complicated law. The law is as simple as one could want: “This money is to be used to make the housing accessible to disabled persons.” What’s not to understand? How does this then become, “Use this tax money to buy yourself a mansion in Bel Air?” 

Let’s remember that in 2011, the State abolished Los Angeles CRA due to rampant corruption. Garcetti and Wesson knew about this scam as they were actively aiding and abetting the diversion of hundreds of millions of tax dollars away from disabled people to enrich their buddies, the real estate developers. (CityWatch wrote a series of articles about the corrupt CRA, especially about Garcetti’s pet project, The Cesspool on Vine.)  

Angelenos have to ask themselves: Do we want to be ruled by men who steal from the disabled in order to give more of our tax dollars to developers? That is exactly what Garcetti, Wesson and all the other councilmembers have been doing. They know that the tax dollars were to make this housing accessible to the disabled, yet they allowed the developers to pocket this money while leaving the disabled persons out in the cold.

(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.

AT LENGTH-I remember traveling one hot July day in 1955 to the opening of Disneyland in Anaheim. For the “happiest place on earth,” that day was a disaster. 

When Disneyland’s gates opened for the first time, the park unveiling was plagued with epic traffic jams, counterfeit tickets, broken rides, food shortages and a lack of water on a 100-degree day.

It was a bold move opening a theme park in the outer-reaches of Orange County -- an event that heralded the urban sprawl that has now become epic in Southern California. 

Gone now are the orange groves, vineyards and dairy pastures that once fanned out across the Southland from places like Torrance, Lomita, Gardena and even San Pedro. San Pedro locals still remember Lochman Farms Dairy on Western Avenue. 

Los Angeles County was once the largest agricultural region in the state. All of it has been divided and subdivided by freeways and thoroughfares, housing communities and shopping malls except for the last piece of vacant Lochman Farms land that’s to be developed known as Ponte Vista. 

This was part of the “dream” of an ever-expanding future. Disneyland and Hollywood fueled those dreams until they hit the brick wall of the Watts Riots in the summer of 1965. The hard reality set in that some parts of sunny California weren’t a part of the “happiest place on earth.” I watched the fires burn on TV from the hills of Palos Verdes and wondered. 

There is a lot more to this narrative that leads right up to Los Angeles today being the capital of homelessness that makes me believe that what we are witnessing is the demise of this dream. That all of the anger expressed by the Tea Party and the Donald Trump hostility on one side and the “enough is enough” campaign of Bernie Sanders are part of the same reaction to the squeeze.

More symbolic to this end were the recent deaths of both former First Lady Nancy Reagan and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. 

With the first being a champion of the “Just Say No to Drugs” campaign and the latter a constitutional “originalist” appointee to the Supreme, both were extensions of President Ronald Reagan’s dubious legacy. 

The worldview of this Reagan triad that started back when he was governor of California and continued with his now discredited “trickle down economics” in the 1980s. This has persisted as a legacy up until President Barack Obama got his signature Affordable Care Act passed. 

The ACA continues to be a thorn in the side of conservative Republicans, Tea Partiers and neo-Trumpites even though it has survived three Supreme Court challenges, massively exceeded expectations, and has covered millions of Americans for whom the “dream” has slipped from their grasp along with their last middle-class job. 

What we are clearly witnessing in this curious presidential campaign year is the end of the Reaganomics era and the beginning of something else. That’s what the real debate is about. What’s the alternative to trickledown economics, free trade and inequitable wage compensation? 

Both Trump and Sanders criticize the free trade deals as a gambit that ships manufacturing jobs overseas, but clearly Sanders has the better grasp of the complexity of the issue and only recently has Hillary Clinton signed on to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. 

The TPP treaty is only understood by some 10 percent of the California electorate, but conservatives and liberals alike oppose it once it is explained. It is a curious phenomenon that, in a time in which Republicans and Democrats can’t agree on much of anything, that voters both left and right oppose the TPP. This probably has something to do with the growing realization that “the dream” is slowing slipping from both hands. 

Back here in the Los Angeles Harbor Area we also have these dreams of waterfront development and of saving San Pedro. Perhaps someone will make a hat that reads “Make Pedro Great Again.” Yet, the issue of a few hundred homeless people camped out on our streets or the slow boating of waterfront development are only a veneer of the true problems that plague many parts of this great metropolis by the sea. Sustainable jobs, faster public transportation to the rest of Los Angeles and better access to capital investment for small business is the cure. 

The one key element that’s missing from the current plan to expand the MTA’s light rail system over the next 20 years is the connection from LAX to the Port of Los Angeles. 

This one change in the transportation plan would solve two of the three causes listed here for poor economics and would improve the lives of millions of county residents who live south of the 405 Freeway, as reported on in the LA Weekly. Read the story. Supervisor Don Knabe and Mayor Eric Garcetti need to hear from you. 

In the end, what’s needed for this new era is a different dream that is not predicated on more freeways, more cars or more urban sprawl as we ship jobs overseas. What is needed is for city governments to connect residents to themselves and to their city both physically and technologically.  What is needed are cities committed to being both economically and environmentally sustainable while ensuring shelter for everyone, even those who have the least.

(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.