LOS ANGELES

EMBRACING THE OTHER-At 3 p.m. on January 28, 2017 -- the day after Donald Trump signed an executive order banning travel to the United States by citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries -- I frantically tried to stop the departure of a plane carrying Ali Vayeghan. 

CONNECTING CALIFORNIA--If the apocalypse comes to California, I’ll be ready. After all, I’ve been to San Juan Bautista, which has centuries of experience with the ending of worlds. (Photo above: Scene from the Hitchcock movie Vertigo)

@THE GUSS REPORT-Los Angeles City Councilmember Gil Cedillo played a Joseph McCarthy-esque Pied Piper with his 14 law-making colleagues last week in which they pondered “taking names,” as it were, of all businesses that profit from President Donald J. Trump’s proposed border wall.

SHOW UP AND SPEAK UP (AGAIN)-Mayor Garcetti's Interim CAO, Richard Llewellyn, is trying to raise land use appeal fees to discourage the average Joe from filing an appeal. This may happen at the City’s PLUM Committee meeting this coming Tuesday, August 15, 2017 at 2:30 p.m. Under our Constitution, the people have a basic right to make a complaint to, or seek the assistance of, their government, without fear of punishment or reprisals.

GUEST WORDS--As we all now know, this weekend in Charlottesville, hundreds of white supremacists gathered with torches, shouting racial, ethnic and religious epithets about Black and Jewish people, chanting Nazi slurs, waving the Confederate flag and banners emblazoned with giant swastikas. A peaceful protester was murdered. Two brave police officers lost their lives.

PERSPECTIVE-In several of my articles, I’ve characterized the City of Los Angeles’ finances as being in a state of virtual bankruptcy. Pension costs are the key drivers of the city’s unsustainable model. Growing pension costs are plugged by reducing service levels or holding them flat in the face of higher demand. 

THE PREVEN REPORT--To the casual observer there was nothing remarkable about the Studio City Neighborhood Council’s (SCNC) vote last Monday to oppose Harvard-Westlake School’s “Parking, and Athletic Improvement Plan,” which involves building in the hillside abutting the school’s campus a 750-space parking structure topped with a lighted athletic field that is connected to the school by a covered pedestrian bridge arching over Coldwater Canyon Boulevard. 

INFLATED EXPECTATIONS-It will soon be nine years since high-speed rail was passed in California. But Californians haven’t gotten the high-speed rail system they were promised. Instead, high-speed rail has taken a new form: something more expensive and smaller in scope that will substantially increase traffic congestion in urban areas. 

PLATKIN ON PLANNING-The announcement that Los Angeles will host the 2028 Olympics has lead to a highly contagious disease: Olympic Fever. It is particularly virulent among the same well-off crowd that imagines a few iconic buildings designed by celebrity architects, such as the Disney Concert Hall, the Getty Center, or yet another remodel of LACMA, will finally turn Los Angeles into a truly global city. 

THE EPPERHART EXPRESS--I know a lot of people who are proud hyphenates—Italian-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Asian-Americans, and so on. Many are the children and grandchildren of immigrants. Interestingly, those of my friends who are immigrants themselves tend to self identify simply as Americans once they gain citizenship. Plain American is how I’ve always thought of myself. 

EASTSIDER-CalPERS is having an election which will directly affect more than 1.5 million Californians who are part of the CalPERS system, have huge tax implications for the rest of us, and probably affect the fate of a $300 billion dollar plus institution. I am urging everyone to vote for Michael Flaherman and Margaret Brown for the Board. They are serious about addressing CalPERS’ problems, and have the right background to truly make a difference. 

MY TURN-The most overused "buzz phrase" in today's communication is Fake News. We could even call it trendy or fashionable. Late Night TV uses it as a source to increase its ratings. John Oliver, Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert, Shawn Hannity and Alex Jones and most of the others are creating their own style of fake news. No one who stays up that late would possibly think this is anything but satire. 

BELL VIEW--I’ve been struggling with an issue lately. My first taste of local politics came via the Neighborhood Council system. I lived up the street from the City’s light pole storage facility. Directly across from a Carnegie Library, in the middle of one of the denser neighborhoods in Los Angeles, filled with school-age kids and renters without backyards, the East Hollywood Light Yard, as it came to be known, represented for me a lost opportunity to make the lives of the people in East Hollywood just a little better. 

CORRUPTION WATCH-The normal pattern for the mafiazation of a business is that the thugs move in on an established business and by using threats, physical intimidation and murder, they force honest businessmen out of the field. The objective of organized crime is to create a situation in which it has a geographic monopoly. When you own the only trash hauling company in your part of town, people pay what you demand or your trash piles up, and up, and up. 

NEIGHBORHOOD POLITICS--Renting in LA is about as enjoyable as having a third job -- which many renters have, spending nearly half their monthly income on rent. 

CONNECTING CALIFORNIA-President Trump claims that California allowed millions of non-citizens to cast ballots in the 2016 elections. This allegation, while totally bogus, has put California and its political leaders on the defensive. They are forced to respond as Trump and his allies use the lie to justify a new federal commission devoted to making it harder for all Americans to vote.

THE PREVEN REPORT--At 6:30pm Monday evening, the Studio City Neighborhood Council, in a unanimous vote, adopted a Resolution strongly opposing the Harvard-Westlake School’s “Parking, and Athletic Improvement Plan.” The vote comes on the eve of a Public Hearing regarding the project, which has been controversial and is anticipated to draw a large number of speakers on both sides of the issue. The hearing will take place at 9am on Tuesday, August 8th at Van Nuys City Hall, 14410 Sylvan Street, Room 201 Van Nuys, CA 91401. 

SO-CALLED ‘CHANGE’ AND ‘DISPLACEMENT’-For too long, whenever City Hall politicians and developers want to approve and build another luxury-housing project, they conveniently use the excuse that Los Angeles is experiencing a “housing crisis” — it gives them political cover. But the facts point to a more specific and troubling problem, which they’d rather ignore. To borrow a phrase, LA is facing an affordable housing crisis, stupid. 

GELFAND’S WORLD--Dark of the Moon seems like a rather dated play, but it contains some up to the minute concepts. It is currently being performed by the Elysium Conservatory Theatre in San Pedro.

ANIMAL WATCH-It appears from the lack of statistical support, that Councilman Paul Koretz and LA Animal Services GM Brenda Barnette were duped into believing a pet shop/puppy mill ban -- prohibiting 11 pet shops in Los Angeles from selling puppies, kittens and bunnies -- would notably impact Midwestern puppy mills (which breed an estimated 2.5 million puppies annually) and would empty City shelters. 

AT LENGTH-Not much crosses the waterfront in Southern California’s twin ports that isn’t in the jurisdiction of the International Longshore Workers Union. Every kind of commodity and product, legal or not, comes here from around the world — 42 percent of all imports into the United States, to be exact. What could possibly go wrong?