PLATKIN ON PLANNING--In their forced march to promote large, speculative real estate projects, LA’s elected and appointed officials have committed themselves to update LA’s 35 community plans over the next decade. Their public argument is quite simple; the Community Plans are old, and therefore need to be brought up-do-date, by which they mean increasing by-right density through elaborate zone changes and General Plan Amendments. 

But, as they are about to discover, this public argument does not hold much water because the only serious flaw of these older plans is their exaggerated population numbers. Like the General Plan Framework, these plans vastly overestimate LA’s population. LA’s population has hardly grown since the City Council adopted the Community Plans 15 to 20 years ago. And, some communities, like Hollywood and Wilshire, have actually lost population during the past two decades. This, then, creates a conundrum for City Hall’s density hawks. How can they justify vast programs to increase density in local communities when their rationale, population growth, has not panned out? 

One option, used for the Hollywood Plan, was to resort to old census data and SCAG population forecasts that foster the illusion of extensive future population growth. But this statistical illusion did not last long. It was quickly spotted by Superior Court Judge Alan Goodman, who summarily rejected the entire Hollywood Community Plan Update, including its text, maps, EIR, and land use ordinances. 

The other option, hardly any different from the one already overruled by Judge Goodman, is to cite newer SCAG data that points to the same dubious conclusion: hordes of newcomers to Los Angeles will soon need housing, so the City Council must now loosen up local zoning and plan designations. Once they do so, private investors will then rush into Los Angeles to build market housing for these newcomers. Voila. Problem solved by market forces (with support from well-treated friends in high places). 

Based on my review of a typical older plan, the Wilshire Community Plan, which regulates my Beverly Grove neighborhood, updates are a serious undertaking, not a hasty effort to create a windfall for commercial property owners. While each community plan is only 1/35 of Los Angeles, in size and complexity these plan areas are the equivalent of a medium-sized city. 

Furthermore, when City Planning takes out the time to carefully read the existing Community Plans, such as the Wilshire plan, they should gird themselves for some major bumps in the road. It will not be that easy to touch up the existing plan maps and texts in order to quickly leap frog to the real goal: appending extensive up-zoning and up-planning ordinances to each slap-dash Community Plan Update. 

So what are these bumps in the road? 

Bump #1 is Sequencing and Consistency. Depending on which side of their mouth you are listening to, City Hall officials say they only want to update the Community Plans, or they will simultaneously update the Community Plans and the other mandatory and optional elements of the General Plan. Once underway, they might stumble on this section of the existing Wilshire Plan, “Since state law requires that the General Plan have internal consistency, the Wilshire Community Plan must be consistent with the other elements and components of the General Plan.” 

If followed, this means that all elements of the General Plan must be based on the same population data; same demographic forecasts; and the same goals, policies, and programs. If some elements remain subject to inflated population numbers, while other elements have realistic demographic forecasts, Los Angeles’ General Plan would be inconsistent. The City would continue to be in violation of State of California planning laws.

So far, City Hall has not offered the third and most professional alternative; first update the General Plan’s citywide elements to obtain the big picture of Los Angeles over the next several decades before turning to local plans. If this option does not appear on its own, then the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative may mandate this serious bump in the road.  

Bump #2 is Accurate Forecasting: While SCAG can always be relied upon to conger up inflated population numbers, this is confounded by other factors. One such factor is actual population trends. For example, City Planning’s own data for the Wilshire Plan in 2015 indicate that it dropped about 2000 people since the Plan’s adoption in the year 2000. City Planning’s data also indicate that in 2015 Wilshire’s population was 45,000 people less than the Plan originally forecast for its 2010 horizon year. 

Bump #3 is Monitoring: Like the General Plan Framework, the Community Plans require clear monitoring programs that are intended to carefully guide the implementation of the plan. This section of the Wilshire Community Plan is typical: “In the fifth year following plan adoption and in every five years thereafter, the Director of Planning shall report to the Commission on the relationship between population, employment, housing growth, and plan capacities. If growth has occurred faster than projected, a revised environmental impact analysis will be prepared and appropriate changes recommended to the community plan. The plan and zoning changes shall be submitted to the Planning Commission, Mayor, and City Council as specified in the Los Angeles Municipal Code.” 

Although the Wilshire Community Plan is now over 15 years old, City Planning has never monitored it. If or when this were to happen, it is clear from this provision that the City Planning Commission should recommend up-zoning or even down-zoning to respond to changes, whether up or down, in population, employment, housing, and plan capacities. 

Bump #3 is Infrastructure: Community Plans include far more than the private parcels that City Hall aims to densify. They also include parks, schools and other public buildings, streets, driveways, parkways, sidewalks, power line easements, and open space. This is where public infrastructure is located, which is why Community Plans include data and policies for public infrastructure and services. At the same time the plans also should consider user demand for these same public services and infrastructure. Finally, according to the General Plan Framework, the Community Plans need to demonstrate that there is sufficient infrastructure and services, based on funded maintenance programs, to serve both the existing population and to accommodate future growth if or when it occurs. 

Bump #4 is Calculating Buildout: In order to make a convincing case that Los Angeles as a whole, or specific communities, like the Wilshire Plan area, have insufficient zoning to accommodate population growth, City Planning must calculate the potential build out of all local existing residential zones. This is not exactly a profound insight; it is just common sense, as well as standard city planning practice. 

Luckily, City Planning has already calculated residential build out several times. At the end of the AB 283 Zoning Consistency Program, in the early 1990s, City Planning staff determined that Los Angeles contained enough available zoning to absorb five million more people. 

Several years later, the consultants for the General Plan Framework Element and the Framework EIR reached the same conclusion in their background reports. They concluded that LA’s existing zoning – as of the mid-1990s -- could support a city of 8,000,000 people. The Framework’s text also noted that Los Angeles had enough commercially zoned parcels to accommodate all growth scenarios throughout the entire 21^st century. 

Since the Framework’s population forecasts were 500,000 people higher than actual population in 2010, this indicates that Los Angeles has an extensive amount of existing but underutilized zoning. There is no evidence to indicate that this situation has changed over the past two decades. 

In the years since City Planning prepared these studies, I am also unaware of any subsequent zoning build out calculations, although current City Planning staff maintain that existing zoning could only accommodate 1,000,000 more residents. 

Clearly, there is a profound difference between zoning build out producing a city of 4,900,000 people or a city of 8,000,000 people. While both hypothetical cities are much larger than the LA of 2016, it is imperative that any updates of the General Plan, including the Community Plans, include a rigorous and transparent calculation of the likely population resulting from zoning build out, broken down by Community Plan area or even smaller neighborhoods. 

These data, combined with realistic population trends, as well as data on the capacity of local infrastructure and services, would result in plans that direct future growth to those neighborhoods that can best accommodate it. This approach should guide the update process, not the hunger pangs of investors intent on overloading neighborhoods like Hollywood and Koreatown with luxury high-rise developments that clash with existing character, scale, and capacity. 

Unknown Knowns: Following the insights of the famous Zen poet, Donald Rumsfeld, these four predictable Bumps-in-the-Road are known knowns. But this poet has also reminds us that there are unknown knowns, and sometimes even unknown unknowns. 

Clearly, once the Update process is in high gear, we should expect many more bumps in the road than this beginners list.

(Dick Platkin writes on Los Angeles city planning issues for CityWatch. He lives in Beverly Grove, and is a Board Member of the Beverly Wilshire Homes Association. Please send any comments or corrections to [email protected]) 

-cw

ELECTION WATCHDOG--Julie Tyler, an election observer who volunteered to make sure our democracy is on a good footing, went to the LA County Registrar’s office on June 20 in Norwalk, California.

All vote-count observers are given an escorted tour of the ballot counting facilities, but this was Tyler’s fifth visit to Norwalk. She had seen the provisional ballots removed from large fluorescent green envelopes to sit in piles of pink envelopes, each holding one ballot. By day five, there were many such provisionals placed in a box of “snagged” ballots. They would receive special “de-processing.”

“I was interested in understanding why the provisional envelopes were ending up in the ‘snagged’ box,” said Tyler. “As the rest of my small group exited the room with our escort, I noticed on the top of the pile in one box an envelope from a No Party Preference (NPP) voter, who had stated in the affidavit section, ‘Democrat’ and who was given a Democratic ballot.”

In California, people who identify as ‘independent’ register as No Party Preference, however, they are allowed to vote for president using a special Democratic, American Independent Party, or Libertarian crossover ballot in counties which opted to use crossover ballots. Different counties used different methods to prevent NPP voters from voting in the Democratic County Central Committee elections, while still voting Democratic in the presidential primary.

Tyler asked the supervisor, Tim, how these ballots would be reprocessed. “He said the ballot needed to be remade into an NPP ballot. I said, ‘but that would mean there would be no section for the presidential race.’ He said, ‘Correct.’ I said, so you mean it will be canceled? He said, ‘Yes.’”

Tyler persisted. “I asked him to pull out another ballot randomly from the box. In the span of 60 seconds, I saw three provisional envelopes suffering the same fate. I confirmed with him that these non-partisan voters and their ballots were being remade into NPP ballots in the remake room.”

Tyler and three other observers entered the remake room. “We all stood behind one of the clerks in front of her computer. She showed us how she scans the NPP ballot into a computer, canceling out the offices/races for which the NPP voter may not vote, then manually with a green pencil, marking an ‘X’ in the corresponding boxes.” Thus, independent voters without a special crossover ballot were having their votes for president thrown out.

Tyler asked, “which ballot would have been correct [so that NPP voters could cast a vote for president]? What does it look like? Please show it to me.”

Tim showed her an example crossover ballot. But the non-crossover Democratic ballots placed in provisional envelopes had all the information necessary to count their vote for president. Tyler said, “the intention of the voter is clear. It is written on the outside of the provisional envelope in the form of an affidavit.” The observers all had the same concern. “Why is this voter’s presidential vote being thrown out?” Tyler asked. “Tim really had no explanation, and at that point we all said we needed to talk to his supervisor right away.”

Aaron Nevarez, Executive Assistant of the County Clerk, who reports to Dean Logan, Registrar/Recorder, came to meet them. For a half an hour they discussed the issue. The observers requested a halt to the reprocessing of provisional ballots. They asked exactly how many had been reprocessed and what caused them to have Democratic ballots. Did they run out of the crossover ballots at the precincts? Were the poll workers uninformed, and simply gave out the wrong ballot?

Tyler said, “Nevarez said they needed to ‘understand the scope of it and would not be halting the process just then.’ He then agreed to go make inquiries and get back to us with a response.”

About an hour later, Nevarez returned saying that he had news that would please the observers. “He said they would no longer be remaking the Dem ballots as NPP, but rather crossover Dem, and that they would gather all of them which fit that criteria and put specific clerks on that task.” But how many provisionals had been reprocessed already, and would they start over? Tyler reported, “Nevarez said, out of 4,000 provisionals we have counted thus far, 25% fit the same criteria.

More importantly, we asked if they would go back, retrieve the ballots that had already been reprocessed and retroactively remake them the proper way. He replied yes. He said they were going to compile all of those particular ballots, put specific clerks on them to process them.” Who had made this decision? Nevarez, said Dean Logan.

The election observers wanted a guarantee that Dean Logan would take the matter all the way up to Secretary of State Alex Padilla. Los Angeles is just one of 58 counties in California, and it was unknown how many of them used crossover ballots.

“We wanted something in writing from LA County to cite when we requested other counties process this particular ballot,” Tyler said. “He told us to call Secretary Padilla’s office and make a request. An observer named Donna Tarr submitted something in writing on the spot.”

Volunteer observers held a conference call with every team lead statewide to watch for these ballots, to make sure they would be counted correctly. But San Francisco certified their tallies shortly after volunteers learned about the problem, and SF vote observers had experienced thwarted efforts to observe closely enough to catch it even if they were able to figure out NPP voters were being deprived of their vote for president.

Tyler tried to get more information from Mark, Ted, and Nick at the county registrar’s office. Others tried reaching Alex Padilla, whether through their state senator such as Ben Allen, or through Dean Logan’s office, trying to gain assurance that votes were counted. Tyler specifically expressed concern with vote by mail (VBM) ballots being returned with hand-written presidential candidates on their ballots. Again, in each case, the voter’s intent was clear.

When Aaron Nevarez agreed that “this issue falls under the category of voter intent” he was referring to the Democratic ballots, not every instance in which voters would show their preference for a candidate. Write-ins for Bernie Sanders on a Green Party ticket or write-ins for Bernie Sanders on an American Independent Party ballot would be wasted votes, according to the registrar’s office. Voter intent be damned in those cases.

Tyler said, “If I were an NPP voter whose presidential vote was thrown out for any reason, I would be furious.”

To report a problem with your voting experience, please fill out the California Voter Declaration at WatchtheVoteUSA.com.

(Judy Frankel is Founder and CEO, Writeindependent.org … where this perspective was first posted.)

-cw

GUEST COMMENTARY--Some state legislators and student leaders called a University of California advertising campaign “tone-deaf” and accused the University of a “cover-up” after they learned that the UC spent $158,000 on online ads and radio time promoting its good practices.

The advertisements were intended to defend the UC after a March state audit, which found the UC had lowered admission standards for nonresident students in order to raise revenue. In the advertisements, the University pointed to highlights from its rebuttal to the audit, including the fact that 84 percent of UC undergraduates hail from California.

The spending didn’t hurt students, and it had good intentions. But it further damaged the University’s image and was not only unnecessary but ultimately ineffective.

The state’s audit lacked sorely-needed context that residents need to be aware of when assessing their stake in and access to California’s higher education system, such as the University’s balancing act between serving in-state students and enrolling out-of-state students, who can provide three times the amount of tuition dollars and help the University’s precarious financial situation. Given this, the UC’s motivations were understandable.

However, the University seriously misread the state of public opinion when it decided that spending money on an advertising campaign was the best way to improve their standing with the public. Instead, the move brought sharp criticism from California State Assembly member Catharine Baker, who called it “tone-deaf”, and University of California Student Association president Kevin Sabo, who said the University thought it was “above transparency.”

While the money came from the University’s endowment funds earmarked for administrative purposes, this represents a serious waste of resources. UC spokesperson Dianne Klein told the Sacramento Bee that the University thought it was necessary to promote a positive message because of negative press’ power to dominate the conversation surrounding the audit.

It was a worthy effort, but the university decided to try creating this positive message through a $158,000 ad campaign instead of using its existing press corps or spending the money on community engagement. In other words, the University spent money to flood Californians with information to reflect its struggle with the state. This is certainly not on par with a cover-up, but it isn’t the wisest use of University resources.

Instead, the University should be calling attention to the root cause of the enrollment controversy: years of underfunding from the state government. Danny Siegel, Undergraduate Student Association Council president, told The Bruin just that in an interview earlier this week: “The onus is on the state for this (spending). The UC wouldn’t be enrolling so many out-of-state students if the state wasn’t underfunding UC in the first place.”

Just as the state failed to acknowledge how its declining contribution to the UC has created the need for nonresident enrollment, the UC failed to acknowledge that residents don’t just need to know more about the UC, but rather need to be better engaged with it and its issues.

(This Daily Bruin Editorial Board commentary was posted originally by the UCLA Daily Bruin.)

ALPERN AT LARGE--"Well, Doctor, what have we got--a Republic or a Monarchy?"

"A Republic, if you can keep it."

--Benjamin Franklin, at the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, in response to a woman asking Dr Franklin this question at the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, as per the notes of Dr James McHenry, one of Maryland's delegates to the Convention. 

Too many of us in our "modern, enlightened era" (the quotes are there because we're becoming less modern, and certainly less enlightened) have too little knowledge of our nation's history, and know too little of the difference is between a Republic and a Democracy, of the Separation of Powers, and just basic Civics to understand the extraordinary responsibility Benjamin Franklin was talking about. 

Our Democratic Republic is NOT for the entitled, and it is not for the cowardly... 

...and here's another critical quote from Dr. Franklin: 

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." 

In other words, our nation, "the home of the Brave and land of the Free", is NOT for sissies, and NOT for those looking for OTHERS to take care of THEM. 

1) And on that note, let me APOLOGIZE for an expression I used before in a recent CityWatch article.

I used the word "civil service mentality" to describe some of the more customer-unfriendly, honesty-challenged, and both contemptible and passenger-contemptuous individuals at United Airlines, and that expression should have been "entitled".  So while United Airlines IS by far too often an entitled and customer-unresponsive entity, our dedicated City workers are, by and large, NOT. 

I am, as I have stated on numerous occasions, the proud son of a retired former engineer who worked for the City of Los Angeles Dept of Sanitation and Refuse.  Many of the current efficiencies and modern sanitation practices of our City are due to his efforts, and I grew up living a more modest lifestyle than most of my neighbors because of his fixed income. 

So I would like to give a shout-out and call for respect to my neighbors and friends working for Council members, at the LADOT, Department of Public Works, and elsewhere.  Their income is overall much much lower, and with much less upside income potential, than many of their private sector counterparts.   

Most of them deserve a raise. Like our armed forces, they preserve and defend what we all take for granted. 

2) So let's throw the blame where it belongs ... with City management. 

Remember...brains AND courage?  That means when you ignore the small businesses of Los Angeles, and ignore all the rules of economics, and not only raise the minimum wage but jack it up to the point where businesses will either similarly jack up their prices or bolt outside the City limits, it's neither brains nor courage to do that sort of thing. 

Congrats to winning over the voters and activists who understandably are infuriated about income inequality, but I just hope that Mayor Garcetti and the City Council are able to "man up" if and when their business-unfriendly policies catch up with them ...AND MAKE INCOME INEQUALITY WORSE!!!

Because just about EVERYONE wants upside income potential to go UP, and for the average Angeleno to thrive, but pandering to feel-good policies that threaten the economic future of the middle-class just for some short-term publicity is neither Free nor Brave, and it's exactly the sort of thing that our nation shucked off when we chose to give up our Monarchy and become a Republic.

Raising the minimum wage?  Great.  Doing so to a level that small businesses were screaming? Not so great. 

Most importantly, diverting Angelenos from the horrific mismanagement in the City by smacking around small business owners makes short-term political sense, but only so far as the citizenry remains blind and uneducated as to what long-term damage our Downtown leaders have done.

That government-by-fiat approach over businesses is what Socialism is all about.  Yes...Socialism. 

And for those who are enamored by that form of government, just take a look at the crime, food lines, and civic unrest of Venezuela, which once had a growing and modernizing economy. 

Because Socialism is about the most efficient way to make income inequality WORSE, not better ... but enough uneducated individuals will feel "empowered" all the way down to Economic Hell". 

To Mayor Garcetti and the City Council:  perhaps if you REALLY want to help the middle class and small businesses, you'll find a way to make utility costs cheaper, and to really, really, REALLY take on the LA Department of Water and Power, which again keeps slipping into controversy and blatant mismanagement at the expense of City residents and businesses. 

3) Democracies, and Democratic Republics, are supposed to be messy and argumentative--but it keeps tyranny from taking over. 

There's a reason why CityWatch has so many things to raise up.  We have heroes like City Controller Ron Galperin, who continues to uncover more mismanagement and downright corruption in how our City spends its taxpayer monies. 

There are also heroes like CD11 City Councilmember Mike Bonin, who works side by side with City workers to restore the credibility gap left in the wake of the Hahn and Villaraigosa eras, but who also calls out corruption and bad City policies whenever he sees them arise. 

Yet, overall, we still have a two-tiered society--the empowered and the unempowered.  We have our empowered City leaders, and those unempowered volunteer activists and Neighborhood Council leaders who don't get paid in anything but heartache and indigestion while they "dare" to promote accountability and transparency in the way public money is spent, and how the economy is promoted. 

Do we have enough meetings (like, for example, the county Metro agency does for its rail, road and other projects) in the evenings when it comes to City Planning and other critical issues...or do we just stack the deck so that paid lobbyists and hired guns can overrun the City Chambers while the citizenry is hard at work feeding their families? 

How long are we going to endure rising taxes for this, that, and any other diversion the City Council can come up with rather than demanding the City live within its means, focus on basic City services, and not treat the public's money like it belonged personally to the Mayor and City Council? 

It's good to have an Olympics, but will Angelenos get rewarded by having their sidewalks fixed within 7-10 years, and not an insulting 30 years?   

We've paid and paid and paid.  That whole "taxation without representation" thing is going on today as much as it did under King George III, and just because we don't have an institutional monarchy doesn't mean Downtown too often doesn't understand that our taxes and fees is NOT their money. 

Ultimately, it's up to each and every one of us.  We can either fight for another round of City reform (such as the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, which comes out next year, and demands reasonable City Planning policies consistent with City Bylaws and Environmental Law be adhered to), move out of the City whenever we can...or just live with bad government like the lower life forms we've gotten used to being. 

Do we, as American citizens, recognize that brains and courage have ALWAYS been needed, and ALWAYS will be needed, to fight for a fair and representative Democracy that empowers and truly, TRULY takes care of its citizens? 

Or will we just give in to the siren's song of decrying those who do raise these issues as "crazy" or "unrealistic"?

(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

ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY-Governor Jerry Brown has signed another California budget essentially along the lines he proposed, once again thwarting the designs of some legislative Democrats for expansive new and renewed programs. Not that Brown hasn’t had some expansive programs of his own, especially in education, health care, energy and the environment, and new infrastructure for a sustainable new economy.

“This solid budget makes responsible investments in California and sets aside billions of dollars to prepare for the next recession,” Brown declared in a signing statement. 

That last is the tell, the reminder of why Brown has been loathe to restore a number of social welfare programs which he and predecessor Arnold Schwarzenegger cut back in the period in which the now four-term governor inherited a $27 billion state budget deficit. Why not? Because they’re the sorts of programs that grow and grow. And Brown is more convinced than ever that the next economic downturn is already on its way. 

This, despite the fact that California’s economy during Brown’s governorship has grown in the world, trailing only those of China, the US as a whole, India, Japan, and Germany. 

Russia? Just behind California. Britain? Back in 11th place, even before the exit from the European Union which continues to roil the world economic landscape (and has just turned into a real-life ‘House of Cards’ in both the Conservative and Labour Parties.) 

Brown, who has continually, in the view of many analysts, low-balled California revenue forecasts, even doubled his new state budget rainy day fund. Though, of course, any big downturn will probably require significant future budget cuts. That’s the only actual “spending limit,” as I’ve noted with regard to other governors, which works in a democratic society, and is well within the broad constitutional powers of the California governorship. 

Brown’s longstanding and growing concern about an economic downturn reflects one of the key eventualities that could lead to the defeat of the Democrat he ended up successfully backing earlier this month in the California primary, former Secretary of State of Hillary Clinton. 

Despite a month of woe, the execrable de facto Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump only trails Clinton by, on average, a mid-single digit margin. 

The continued danger of a Trump presidency, which if anything has increased again in the wake of Brexit, added a sense of urgency to Brown’s hosting of the first ever Clean Energy Ministerial held in the US. Brown hosted what has become an annual summit of major world energy ministers in his home town San Francisco a few days before the California primary. 

The two-time runner-up for the Democratic presidential nomination also created a second global organization on renewable energy and climate change, the Subnational Clean Energy Ministerial, representing subnational governments in key energy-producing nations.    

Trump is a notorious climate change denier who has vowed to push an energy strategy which would take America back -- though hardly in the way he meant it last week when he appropriated Brown’s 1992 presidential campaign slogan -- at least half a century, relying on coal and other fossil fuels to the extent that the cooking of the planet would not only not be reversed, it would be accelerated.

Clinton, in sharp contrast, has committed to major steps forward along the renewable energy path that California is blazing into the future. 

Brown also just wrote a powerful article in the New York Review of Books, discussing former Defense Secretary William Perry’s new book, “My Journey at the Nuclear Brink.” 

In it, Brown says that Perry, a defense technology insider for more than half a century, “As much as anyone, is aware of the ways, secret and public, that technical innovation, private profit and tax dollars, civilian gadgetry and weapons of mass destruction, satellite technology, computers, and ever-expanding surveillance are interconnected. But he now uses this dark knowledge in an effort to reverse the deadly arms race in which he had such a pivotal role.” 

As it happens, Clinton takes a more conventional view, and, among other things, has long backed the NATO expansionism which has alarmed Russia since the ‘90s and may drive a new nuclear arms race as Brown and Perry point out. I’ll have more on this going forward. 

Trump, however, has views on nuclear weapons which are frankly terrifying. 

He blithely recommends an increase in nuclear proliferation and has spoken of using nuclear weapons as though they are just another military option, holding out the prospect of nuking the terrorists of ISIS. In the American system, the president has quite stunning and immediate direct power over the nuclear button. 

If Hillary Clinton is elected, there’s room for debate and improvement on nuclear weapons along the lines advocated by Perry, Brown and others. 

But if Trump is elected, there can be nothing but opposition to a profoundly dangerous mindset and temperament. And perhaps prayerful hopes for the best. 

In which case Brown’s Jesuit background might come in handy.

(William Bradley is a political analyst. He blogs at Huffington Post  … where this piece was first posted.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

POLITICS LA--Among the British-inflicted “repeated injuries and usurpations” spelled out in the Declaration of Independence, none holds greater significance for Angelenos than does the English king’s crime of erecting “a multitude of New Offices” and sending “hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.” Could the Framers have been referring to anything other than the Enforcement Division of LA City’s Ethics Commission? While the chronology doesn’t scan, have a listen to the audio recording of the recent campaign finance “proceeding” against longtime Neighborhood Council member Kelly M. Lord, and you’ll know what we mean.  

As we touched upon in an earlier CityWatch piece, Kelly Lord was last month wrongly convicted at the hands of Ethics Enforcement Director by Sergio Perez of campaign violation so tortured in design, so poorly cobbled together, and “out from left field” as to be meaningless. All for a 2011 City Council election in which Mr. Lord raised just $4,000 and got trounced by City Council member Mitch Englander. Thomas Jefferson would do back flips in his grave. The details can be found here. 

But for the purposes of this piece, it suffices to underline, two bigger issues with the case, which would exist even if Mr. Lord were actually guilty of a legitimate campaign violation, which, again, he was not.  To put it simply, the four ethics commissioners, Serena Oberstein, Melinda Murray, Ana Dahan, led by chair Nathan Hochman, made mincemeat of Mr. Lord's constitutional rights by holding precisely the kind of Kangaroo court persecution which colonial Americans suffered at the hands of British thugs.  

Due process requires in layman's terms, that the government can't take your possessions or prosecute you for a crime whenever they feel like it and for any reason that tickles their fancy and without a rule book for the proceedings.  The constitution makes the government jump through many hoops before they can deprive you of your property and or freedom.  

One could hardly imagine a trial with less due process than the prosecution of Kelly M. Lord. First, most of us think it is important in a trial to have a judge. But apparently not the Ethics Commission.  According to their manual, the presiding officer needs to have not a single qualification including a law degree.  According to the commission's whim, the presiding officer can be anyone of the commissioners or the commissioner's as a group, or (the only sane alternative) an actual judge provided by an organization certified and experienced at conducting administrative hearings.   

In other words, there is no requirement to have any idea what they are doing.  In the case of Kelly M. Lord it was the commission's whim to have its Vice President Nathan Hochman play the role of judge.  It just so happens that he is a lawyer, though not one with any experience as a Judge, the small wrinkle in the choice of Hochman as we've mentioned in these pages before is that he is a campaign donor to precisely the person Kelly M. Lord was running against, at the time of his alleged campaign violation: namely, City Council Member and recently trounced county supervisor candidate, Mitchell Englander (who, through no fault of his own, also happens to be the nephew of the single most successful lobbyist in the Los Angeles region.) 

Listening to Hochman, Enforcement Director Sergio Perez and the rest of the commission fly by the seat of their pants in conducting the tribunal against Mr. Lord, will shock even the most unscrupulous lawyers. At the end of the proceeding one listens with horror and disbelief as Mr. Hochman asks if there are any volunteers among the other commissioners or Ethics Commission staff to draft the official finding of fact and application of law (ie. the official judgement against Mr. Lord).  Did that volunteer need to be a lawyer, let alone a lawyer with any experience or training in such matters?  Nope.  Did the volunteer have to have the faintest idea of what he or she would be doing?  No siree, Bob!   Could the volunteer have been the receptionist at the Ethics Commission?  Why not?  If he or she is willing to pitch in. 

The friendly patter and good-natured chuckles exchanged among the commissioners during the phase of the trial at which the extent of the punishment was being mused over is sickening when one thinks about Kelly M. Lord sitting just a few feet away, twisting in the wind.  After each of the commissioners had had an opportunity to expound on his or her feelings of how much or how little to mitigate or make harsher the punishment of Mr. Lord, they satisfied themselves with an eye-popping fine of $15,900.  By comparison, Mr. Lord's campaign raised in total, barely $4,000 dollars, which brings us to the second violation of Mr. Lord's constitutional rights: Eighth amendment which prohibits the levying of "excessive fines."   

This independence day is an appropriate time to call for a complete dismantling of the enforcement division of the Ethics Commission. Violations of the law including those related to elections and campaign finance should be handled by actual professionals acting in accordance with actual rules of due process and presided over by actual judges, who actually understand the Bill of Rights.  This is not at all to say that the whole of the Ethics Commission should be shut down. On the contrary, the extensive data base it provides of campaign contributions, money spent on lobbyists, and other tools of pay-to-play is an invaluable service to the public.  

“And as for Mr. Lord, he should take that $15,900 judgement against him, show it to a civil rights lawyer, and then do with it what those fed-up citizens at Boston harbor did with all those crates of tea.” 

Happy Birthday America! Happy fourth of July! 

(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, and is an elected member of the Studio City Neighborhood Council. Joshua Preven is a teacher who lives in Los Angeles.)