LOS ANGELES

BELL VIEW-I once did a short stint at Gigi Gordon’s Post-Conviction Assistance Center. My first week on the job, Gigi dropped 80 pedophile cases on my desk. The Supreme Court’s decision in Stogner v. California, which held California’s retroactive extension of the statute of limitations for child molestation unconstitutional, invalidated hundreds of convictions under the statute. I wasn’t long for that job. I didn’t have the constitutional grit necessary for criminal defense. But I learned a little something about pedophiles in the process. 

PLATKIN ON PLANNING-Question: Is the dizzy array of new zoning ordinances welling up at LA’s City Hall really intended to address LA’s twin crises of affordable housing and traffic congestion? 

ALPERN AT LARGE--Vision Zero (and, to a very large degree, Great Streets) are first-rate, meritorious efforts that have the ability to improve and save lives.  There is no reason why every neighborhood council and city council throughout the nation and world shouldn't adopt part or all of those initiatives. 

EASTSIDER-I just finished reading Donna Brazille’s book Hacked, and she did not say that the election was “rigged” against Bernie. What she said was much worse! 

CAL MATTERS--The camera and lights switched on and Ole Torp, the Charlie Rose of Norway, leaned in, silver hair flashing, and posed his first question to Gov. Jerry Brown.

PREVEN REPORT--During the past few years, according to a federal lawsuit filed last year by the Los Angeles Police Protective League, four separate police captains serving at various times on a disciplinary panel called the Board of Rights have come forward to accuse LAPD Chief Charlie Beck of pressuring them to return guilty verdicts and then punishing them in cases where they refused to tow the line.  

AT LENGTH-On Nov. 2, the joint commissions at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach voted unanimously to approve the Clean Air Action Plan 2.0. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti called this a visionary action that would affect the lives of millions and those of generations to come. Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia mostly agreed. But this document was signed despite vocal criticism from the community advocates who have been pushing for policy changes for decades. 

CONNECTING CALIFORNIA--Can Californians learn to be as cool as Koreans in the face of nuclear annihilation? 

@THE GUSS REPORT- If the lawsuit filed last week by diminutive LAPD Captain Lillian Carranza was a stand-alone story, the title of today’s column might be “Small Cop Stands Tall.” But it isn’t stand-alone at all. 

EASTSIDER-Every so often I take a look at the Planning Department’s list of Proposed Ordinances, just to see what the rascals are up to. A couple months ago, I looked, and then, again, this month. The results were startling, to say the least! 

CAL MATTERS-You’ve heard the term “all politics is local”? California Republicans had better hope so. The polls told us that this week’s gubernatorial matchup in Virginia would be a nailbiter. Instead, it was an electoral thrashing. Voters handed the governor’s mansion to Democrat Ralph Northam with a decisive 9-point margin while stripping the state GOP of its firm grip on the legislature’s lower chamber, reducing a supermajority to within spitting distance of a tie (and counting). 

ALPERN AT LARGE--One of my favorite classes in college at UCSD/Revelle College was Freshman Humanities, a damned-hard writing/history/humanities course that (despite the demanding reading/writing requirements) forced its students to explore the recurring question civilized societies have asked since the dawn of recorded history:  What makes us human, and what makes us special? 

CORRUPTION WATCH-Los Angeles’ corruptionism will last until LA real estate crashes and burns.  A sociological explanation for this might be that “we grow up to become our parents.” Many of LA Millennials’ parents or grandparents were immigrants from the East Coast or other countries, which means their history has been to leave bad conditions rather than stay and fight for reform.   

ANIMAL WATCH-When Assembly Bill 485, which banned pet shops from selling dogs, cats or rabbits other than “rescued" animals or face a $500 fine, was signed into state law by Governor Jerry Brown on October 13, it also created and legalized an entire new California industry, devoid of regulation and oversight. It seems that the ramifications were also not considered. Sacramento legislators basked in a near-nirvana moment of media attention and glowed in the hype that they were “saving lives” -- as if they had just solved a problem, rather than potentially creating one. 

DEEGAN ON LA-The recent news that an as yet gender-unidentified mountain lion has been discovered in the Hollywood Hills reminds us that, while we live in a very dense city, our urban landscape also includes a thriving wilderness. If the mystery cat is a female and if she mates with one of the better-known local mountain lions – such as the iconic P-22 – we could soon have a new family in search of a hillside habitat. It would be, however, a family without a “dad” since male mountain lions leave “mom” within days of mating. 

GELFAND’S WORLD--Harlan Ellison, Timothy Snyder, and Ta Nehisi Coates are modern authors who have written with great eloquence that Truth Matters. It may seem strange that someone has to say so, but in this era it becomes a painful necessity. Snyder wrote On Tyranny, Coates has written two well received books and a column for The Atlantic. Ellison has published nearly two thousand stories and columns. And they all keep saying that truth matters. They're not alone, but their outspokenness in response to modern forms of public dishonesty stands out. 

CAL MATTERS--California Gov. Jerry Brown and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo shed some alligator tears last week over Republican plans to eliminate the federal income tax deduction for state and local taxes.

CALWATCHDOG--The California chapter of the NAACP is distributing a resolution to California lawmakers that calls for the removal of the “Star Spangled Banner” as the official national anthem of the United States.

PLATKIN ON PLANNING-It is easy to understand how street and prescription drugs became a gateway to opioid addiction, which now kills 64,000 people per year in the United States. 

CA VOICE GOES UNHEARD IN DC--Despite a growing sense that a Democratic wave could be coming in 2018, House Republicans showed little sign of letting up on their tax proposal Wednesday, with a bill set to move out of committee on a party-line vote Thursday and onto the floor as early as next week. (Photo above: California congressman Darrell Issa.)

EDUCATION POLITICS--The Los Angeles Unified School District and some of the nation’s highest-performing charter schools are engaged in what one report has called a “game of chicken” – with the fate of 14 of these schools and their nearly 4,600 students hanging the balance. But that suggests this is about two parties engaged in dangerous brinksmanship. In fact, it is about charter schools finally standing up to teachers union’s bullying.