LOS ANGELES

GUEST COMMENTARY--Beverly Hills has sent a clear message to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority about its proposed Purple Line subway extension route running under the city. Quite literally, “It’s our way or the highway.”

The extension, which could be completed by 2024 if a voters approve a 0.5 percent sales tax in November, will finally connect UCLA to Los Angeles’ burgeoning rail system. It’ll be a massive boon for commuters to the Westside who currently have to stew in traffic on the 10 Freeway or the Wilshire corridor.

There’s just one problem: The extension is supposed to run under the city of Beverly Hills, specifically under Beverly Hills High School, and concerns about the sub-school tunnel have given city leaders tunnel vision. In increasingly clear displays of obstructionism, they’ve spent the past five years trying to derail Metro’s plans.

But it’s time for Beverly Hills’ interests to step off the brakes of opposition to the subway. They’ve spent a lot of taxpayer money and made quite a fuss over the years, but they’ve accomplished little of actual substance.

Their latest loss in this sub opera came on Aug. 12, when U.S. District Court Judge George Wu handed down his decision on a lawsuit brought forward by both the city of Beverly Hills and the Beverly Hills Unified School District against the Federal Transit Authority. In an appeal from a 2014 decision in Metro’s favor, they wanted FTA’s approval of the route nullified and a complete redo of Metro’s environmental impact statement. This would have cost Metro millions and delayed the construction timeline. In his ruling, Wu upheld the FTA’s prior approval, which means that Metro can secure its federal grants and loans and award contracts without having to revise its entire impact statement or change its proposed construction schedule.

It’s a victory for Metro, but the drama is expected to continue because Wu also ruled that Metro needed to redo parts of its environmental impact report. While Metro officials say they’re eager to make the revisions, BHUSD attorney Jennifer Recine put out a statement following the ruling that this decision proved the FTA “violated federal environmental law,” and that BHUSD would have further legal claims once the presumably “superficial” revisions were made. 

If Beverly Hills’ endgame is to stop the subway from running under the high school, they should quit while they’re behind. This is becoming an increasingly futile, costly and embarrassing battle for Beverly Hills’ leaders.

The city’s scare campaign has flitted from issue to issue, sometimes taking bizarre turns. The Beverly Hills Courier claimed that the Islamic State group would use the still-unbuilt subway to bomb Beverly Hills High School. The school board enlisted high school students to bring a consultant’s ideas to life and produce an anti-Metro video. The local parent-teacher association put out their own over-the-top video, complete with conspiracy theories and imagery that would have made the guys behind Lyndon B. Johnson’s Daisy Girl attack ad blush. And to top it all off, the school district has astronomical legal fees from all these court battles and public relations firms, which the district has justified paying with school construction bond money.

It’s certainly an impressive exercise in community hysterics, but all it’s gotten them so far is some failed lawsuits and not much else.

As with most things bureaucratic, Metro’s reasoning is a bit more mundane. According to Zev Yaroslavksy, member of the Metro Board of Supervisors until 2014, noted Metro-booster and current UCLA professor, the decision to run the subway under the high school was made to avoid an earthquake fault along Santa Monica Boulevard. Beverly Hills has denied the existence of this fault.

The route itself came from a decision to construct a Purple Line station in the middle of Century City, where it would provide its riders better accessibility and help it compete for federal grants, all at the lowest cost per passenger-mile. Yaroslavksy says there’s no reason to deviate from the proposed plan and have a more costly and less useful subway over technicalities in a report.

It’s easy to dismiss all that as the sweet talk of a biased official, but Wu’s ruling supports Yaroslavksy’s claims. Subway opponents say that his statements regarding the environmental impact report mean that the FTA relied on “faulty science.” Page 11 of the ruling clarifies: “As to those errors, the Court did not find that the FTA had actually made substantive decisions (e.g., the selection of the location for the Century City subway station) that were demonstrably wrong. … Additionally there is no indication that the FTA would be unable to offer better and/or more complete reasoning for its challenged decisions herein.”

In other words, the court didn’t find evidence that Metro and the FTA made flawed decisions, nor did it find the report’s errors serious enough to vacate the FTA’s approval and force a complete redo of the environmental study.

Make no mistake, safety concerns should be of the utmost importance, and the ideal situation would be that Metro and Beverly Hills work out an agreement on how to best redo the impact statement. However, there’s little to suggest future reports or lawsuits will produce new evidence against the route, and this puts BHUSD in a weak position for future litigation. So while we can expect Beverly Hills’ interests to appeal the decision and continue throwing money at this issue, we may be witnessing their last gasps of serious opposition.

Which is just as well. UCLA and Westwood need a viable rail option to connect them with the rest of the city, and this Purple Line extension will prove a valuable addition for student commuters and anyone else looking for an easier way to get around.

(Chris Campbell’s column appears regularly at the Daily Bruin … where this perspective originated.)

-cw

ALPERN AT LARGE--I am what you would call a "hard-ass"--I work three jobs, do all sorts of unpaid civic endeavors, and live in a household where the wife and two kids work hard and stay very busy.  "Downtime" is probably something we should do more, so I am the LAST person who'd downplay the need to keep up with global competition--but the LAUSD school schedule is clearly harmful for the well-being of our students and their families.

SOMEONE's agenda is dominating the early-summer, get-back-to-school-in-August schedule, but it sure as hell ain't the students and their parents.  The summers are too quick, and the ability of children and their parents to be allowed a life is being smashed.

It's not hard to "get it" with respect to global competition, and the need to stay competitive with European and Asian students competing for fewer and fewer well-paying jobs.  

It's also not hard to "get it" when one learns that the first month of a teacher's school year is spent bringing kids back to speed after a long, three-month summer vacation...kids need to relax, to sleep in, and maybe even watch a bit of television, but their minds can't be allowed to vegetate.

My last CityWatch article addressed the lack of affordability in Los Angeles, and the inability of our City to do what's right to allow for true affordability for the average Angeleno.

But as more and more Angelenos have to work multiple jobs, and have longer shifts just to make ends meet, the need to spend time with family becomes greater than ever.  Kids need to go camping, visit our national parks, and enjoy the beach, the mountains, or even just a backyard barbecue.  Call it quality of life.

And that's not to say we should require summertime verification of reading lists and other "to-do" lists, or summertime workbooks.  I really do NOT give a rip about parents too lazy to make sure their children's brains don't vegetate in front of an iPad all summer long--summer can be fun, but life and learning doesn't end when the LAUSD goes on break.

And speaking of breaks, why is there such a long winter break (3 weeks, and perhaps 4 weeks if one counts the full week off for Thanksgiving) but only a single week for the spring?  There's probably a reason or three, but it's still ridiculously lopsided--and prevents a balanced work/play ratio for parents, students, and even the teachers.

I am a dermatologist by trade, and have many teachers in my Orange and Riverside County clinics--so in my various discussions on this topic I've learned that they virtually all have better and more student/family-focused schedules than the LAUSD.   

I am quite aware of, and overall do support, the advanced requirements and preparation for AP classes in high school--my son worked his tail off this summer for AP World History with six chapters of textbook reading, two books, and a host of maps to memorize--he stepped up, and both he and his class are hitting the ground running.   

I am proud of my son, and support this "hitting the ground running" with these sorts of endeavors.  I am also proud of my elementary school-aged daughter, who did some father/daughter workbook studying to stay focused and learn a few things. 

But we also learned things when we went on vacation to the East Coast, and had fun at Dollywood, and saw the awe-inspring changing of the guard at Arlington National Cemetery.  

We got rained on and drenched before seeing Luray Caverns in western Virginia. We got inspired at a Friendly's restaurant in Fredericksburg when we bumped into a local tour guide, who gave my son a Union Army bullet discarded in that hellish Civil War battle where the Union Army got slaughtered. 

So let's not shred the lives and happiness of hard-working students and their families.  We can be both competitive and humane...and we can also make damn sure the LAUSD School Board figures out who the hell their FIRST priority is:  the students and their parents! 

We can and should: 

1) Start the 2017-18 School Year after Labor Day, or the week before Labor Day.  Starting school in mid-August is both horrible for parents and their families, and requires horrible air conditioning bills that markedly increase the operational costs for the LAUSD.  Either way, it's horrible. 

2) Balance the winter and spring breaks.  Right now we've got about three weeks off in December and January … and one full week off (instead of just Thursday and Friday) for Thanksgiving. 

Meanwhile, we've got but one week off in the spring.  Two weeks in the winter, and two weeks in the spring makes sense (and don't worry--we can make sure the AP students are still working hard). 

Destroying summer for everyone doesn't make sense.  And the winter/spring imbalance strikes me as rather cruel and focused on either the benefits for administrators or for the teachers...but certainly not the parents and students.  There are clearly agendas that are being promoted, but they're not promoting the needs of the students and their families.

(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

GELFAND’S WORLD--A couple of weeks ago, I argued that the city is creating strife and turmoil which doesn't have to exist. In brief, the system the city has created for the election of neighborhood council boards stifles what should be a real reform movement. It ensures that each neighborhood council is in jeopardy of being overrun by people who have no right to be involved. In effect, it creates internal conflict. 

My argument in a nut shell is that voters in neighborhood council elections should be limited to the people who live in the neighborhood council's own district. The timeliness of this argument stems from the fact that Jay Handal, the director for this year's elections, suggested that I take it up here in CityWatch. Perhaps Jay brought the topic up because he knows I have been pushing it for the past decade. 

The debate has gotten some traction. One reason is that Tony Butka responded to my column with a column beginning with the title Gelfand's idea is crazy. Perhaps that headline was in reply to my own column's headline which started, Here's a crazy idea. 

I now choose to reply to Tony, but first I'd like to explain that neither Tony nor I are sniping at each other. The CityWatch editor wrote those titles. That's the way newspapers and CityWatch function. (It's true that the author can suggest a title to the editor, but the editor can change it or rewrite it entirely. It's at the editor's discretion.) So I'm sorry to disappoint you, but this isn't a shaming contest in which a couple of CityWatch contributors cross swords. It's a serious discussion about the way the City Council has done its best -- intentionally or unintentionally -- to undermine what could otherwise be a major contribution to city life. 

Let me summarize the argument in one short paragraph. I think that Tony Butka and I both believe that neighborhood councils should have independence and autonomy. They should be able to speak truth to power. The argument comes down to strategy -- how do we best achieve autonomy? My argument is that we should be able to prevent special interests from being able to mess with our elections. Otherwise, we have a formula for turning the once-autonomous neighborhood council into something that is little more than a special interest group. 

To begin with, I'd like to suggest that those of you who didn't read Tony's column the first time around take a look at it. I especially like the description of the early period of neighborhood council formation and development. Tony talks about how Greg Nelson, the city's manager at the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE), encouraged us to figure out our own paths and create whatever organization would work best for us. Greg's famous comment was one size doesn't fit all. Tony's column then goes on to explain how subsequent rule under a new mayor started to undo a lot of the earlier progress. 

I worked on a different neighborhood council in a different part of town, but my memory of the times is pretty similar to Tony's. Mayor Villaraigosa did a lot of damage through his newly appointed Acting General Manager at DONE. One year, she cancelled just about half of all the neighborhood council elections in Los Angeles. 

In order to get to the crux of our differences, I'd like to quote a couple of paragraphs from Tony's article. The first paragraph refers to my point that we ought to define voting membership in neighborhood councils. My argument is that right now, it isn't really defined. Pretty much anyone from anywhere can vote in your local neighborhood council under the current rules. The easiest way to fix this is to limit voting to people who reside in your neighborhood council's district. Tony argues: 

This is not a new idea, but I believe that the real problem isn’t redefining who can vote in NC elections. The real problem is going back to what Neighborhood Councils were supposed to be about before City Hall slowly and deliberately set out to neuter them. 

I don't disagree with the sentiment, but I would point out that what neighborhood councils were supposed to be about has never come to fruition. It's hard to go back to what never was. In addition, it is possible to argue (as Tony does) that redefining the definition of Stakeholder doesn't solve every problem. I'll certainly agree to that, but if you read my previous column, you will see that I suggest that it will solve most of the electoral problems we've been facing over the past 14 years. There have been a lot of problems, arguments, and grievance letters that didn't have to be. 

I'll skip a lot of the intervening discussion, and cut to what I think are the defining paragraphs: 

Let each and every Council go its own way. This includes governance, bylaws and meetings -- anything that furthers their ability to act as a check and balance on our serious train wreck of LA City Council governance. 

I say let’s go back to when the Neighborhood Councils, not the City Council, represented the Wild Wild West and did what they could to meet their Charter mandated goal -- “To promote more citizen participation in government and make government more responsive to local needs...” 

As for elections, let self-affirmation roll. Who cares? If a special interest group can organize enough votes to control a Neighborhood Council, so be it. Good for them. It makes the rest of us get off the dime and go organize. Heck, any way you slice it, doing elections by vote beats the heck out of elections by developers’ dollars. City Hall-style. 

OK Tony, I don't entirely disagree. I'm fine with going back to our founding days when the neighborhood councils were the wild wild West. But first let's consider what that really means. 

So allow me to tell you a story about a council that was the wild wild West 

My council was one of the first to be certified, back in December of 2001. We took seriously our responsibility of representing the interests of our district, and that brought us into a head-on clash with one of the weightier operators in California. We took on the Port of Los Angeles. 

We were opposed to unrestrained expansion of the port into residential areas and unrestrained growth in port activity. There were several reasons, but the main one was air pollution. The effect of all the diesel trucks and all the diesel powered ships was equivalent to having tens of thousands of diesel trucks running full time, right next door. Our council held public discussions and passed resolutions that represented the feelings of a substantial fraction of the people living in our district. 

In other words, our council was that wild wild west that Tony Butka talks about. We organized ourselves in our own way and to our own liking, and then we took on a giant opponent. 

And at a subsequent election, our council got taken over by a group who relied on the votes of outsiders to win a board majority. They didn't like the fact that we had passed resolutions that were intended to oppose port-related air pollution through the mechanism of port expansion. 

It was a strange election. It was frustrating to see people from outside the area and even outside L.A. County sign in to vote. But they did. And the responsible residents lost control of our neighborhood council's activities. 

Eventually the rightful representatives took back the council board, but it took another year, another election, and a lot of time and effort that could have been put to better use. 

But this goes to another point that Tony makes. He says, not unreasonably, Let each and every council go its own way. That sounds good in practice, but if the members of the council are not defined, how can this be meaningful? Residents of the Hollywood area neighborhood councils have strong feelings about commercial development. but if developers can bring in hundreds of outside voters to control those councils, then how can the concept of the neighborhood council have any meaning? 

Still, I don't think Tony Butka and I are all that separated in our thought. We both feel frustration over the way the City Council and city administrators have stifled what could and should be a robust political movement dedicated to governmental reform. May I suggest to Tony and to City Watch readers that the best way to create that robust spirit of rebellion is to have councils which are immune from being overrun by special interest groups. 

They aren't at this point. 

I think that everyone would agree that limiting neighborhood council stakeholder status to district residents has the virtue that we know who we are, and we don't have to spend half our time trying to make deals with those who represent ulterior interests. 

I will certainly concede that enlarging the stakeholder definition might bring in more people and create a perception of broader participation. But I would like the proponents of broader participation to admit that with each broadening, the political strength of the core constituency is weakened. It was true in 2004 -- my neighborhood council could not simultaneously represent the interests of Coastal San Pedro residents and the interests of the Port of Los Angeles. It had to be one or the other. 

There is one other point to bring up. The Port had existed for a long time before neighborhood councils came into being. The same holds true for the studios, the aerospace industry, the land developers, and so on. They already had political influence. One reason for the introduction of our neighborhood council system was to provide a counterweight to all that commercial power. It doesn't make sense to create a countervailing power -- the peoples' lobby -- and then to dilute it by giving the Port, the studios, and the land developers free rein to undermine our influence. 

Finally, I would like to respond to a member of our local neighborhood council governing board, who challenged my comments on the basis of the recent governing board election where I ran and lost. It's true that my slate played by the current rules, which allow you to recruit people effectively without regard to where they live. The answer is simple and obvious: We have to play by the rules as they exist, not as we'd like to see them. I would add that I might have lost by even more had we run under electoral rules limiting voting to residents (or just maybe, I might have done better). The point is not my own won-lost record, but that my neighborhood council has less believability to the public and to the city's elected officials in terms of who it actually represents.

●●

Short Takes--I flipped on the television set on Sunday and ran across the basketball finals at the Olympics. I immediately turned on my computer to find out how it had finished. Silly me. It turned out that this wasn't another of NBC's replays of USA gold medal events, but an actual live broadcast of a game that had not yet been completed. There has been a lot of discussion about NBC doing the Olympics the way ABC did Monday Night Football back in the old days. You know, the broadcast has to find a story line and then flog that story endlessly. Watching the biographical sketches was almost like watching tv commercials after a while. This is no way to appeal to an audience that has an ever-shorter attention span and the electronic gizmos to satisfy it.

●●

A few thoughtful pundits are explaining why Donald Trump's tax returns are of interest to the voters. The big question is whether Trump is beholden to foreign interests. The possibility of Russian money having a hold on Trump is hugely important if true, but other owed money is also important. Note that we're looking at close to two-thirds of a billion dollars in owed debt.

●●

What happened to parking ticket reform? We had a movement going for a while. We need to come back to that discussion. It will make more sense as part of a discussion of a broader initiative to reform local government. I intend to get to that discussion.

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

-cw

POLITICAL TONGUE IN CHEEK--Congratulations to LA County Supervisor Hilda Solis and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker for winning this year’s “Strange Political Bedfellows Prize,” in recognition by us of their “shared policy of putting the interests of billionaire hedge fund manager Wesley Edens above the interests of working class families and the rest of the public.”  

It’s an impressive win, given that Solis and Walker have been ideological arch enemies since at least 2012, when Solis, as U.S. Labor Secretary, supported the effort to recall Governor Walker for stripping away the collective bargaining rights of state employees. (Walker survived the recall attempt.) 

Scott Walker’s boosting of Wesley Edens at the expense of taxpayers is old news; without Walker, Edens could have never extracted $250 million from Wisconsin taxpayers to subsidize a new arena for the Edens-owned Milwaukee Bucks. (Mr. Edens’ business partner Jon Hammes was Mr. Walker’s national finance co-chairman during the Governor’s failed bid for the Presidency.) 

As for Hilda Solis, she has provided Mr. Edens the greatest gift of all. More than a month ago, on July 15, Mr. Edens was exposed on the front page of the New York Times  for having pulled a bait-and-switch of unprecedented scale on the LA County Board of Supervisors (as well on the elected officials of New York City, Ventura County, and San Dimas, California.)  

Like a wealthy kid getting into college by having someone take the SATs for him, Edens secured LA County golf course concessions worth tens of millions of dollars by having a qualified company (Fortress Investment Group LLC) go through the County vetting process for an unqualified company (Newcastle Investment Corp), with the result being that Newcastle, unbeknownst to the County, ended up with the contracts. A company called the American Golf Corporation carries out the work for Newcastle. 

In response to all this fraud, Supervisor Solis, the Board’s Chair and “ranking advocate” for working class families, has done nothing to stick up for Angelenos – and has, in fact, done nothing but bend over backwards to look away from the crime. Why? 

Far from being a victimless crime, the fraud has turned LA County into a place where only by lying can parents tell their children that working hard and playing by the rules can lead to success. It has driven working class and family-owned golf operators (as well as golf-pros who teach lessons to make ends meet) out of business. It is a fraud that has cost this “park-poor” County to lose revenues (through predatory pricing which has decimated revenue the County used to receive from non-Edens-controlled County golf courses.) It has turned recreational spaces owned by the public into monetized “gym-like” membership clubs with punitive cancellation policies.  

It is a fraud whose scale dwarfs the offenses for which the 13 companies on the County’s list of debarred contractors were banned. And the malfeasance continues -- including punitive actions by OSHA and by the Air Pollution Board (to whom American Golf pleaded financial hardship.) 

And yet Mr. Edens has still not apologized to the County, choosing instead to deny facts that are self-evident. Not a single document presented to any of the municipalities involved with the fraud included the name of the company actually acquiring the contracts, and yet Mr. Edens, rather than conceding the point, gave the New York Times a print-out of a single email containing the company’s name, with the claim that the email was sent to an LA County employee. The County refutes that claim, saying they never received the message. 

Is this a guy we can trust? Is this a guy we want with his hand in County cash registers? 

Where is Hilda Solis in all this? As the Board of Supervisors Chair (and former Secretary of Labor), she owes it to working class families and the rest of the public to defend Los Angeles. It’s not an enviable challenge, but it’s a fight that she is uniquely qualified for. 

In the next two weeks, as Labor Day approaches, the names of great labor and civil rights leaders will inevitably be invoked. And so here’s a question for Supervisor Solis: Would any one of those leaders respond to this situation by doing nothing?    

(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. Joshua Preven is a CityWatch contributor and a teacher who lives in Los Angeles.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams. 

CORRUPTION WATCH-The word “crime” is one of those terms which we use all the time without taking the time to think about it too deeply. According to Merriam-Webster, crime means: (1) a gross violation of law, (2) a grave offense especially against morality, (3) something reprehensible, foolish, or disgraceful. 

The Los Angeles City Council’s behavior satisfies all definitions of a crime. It operates in violation of Penal Code 86 which forbids vote trading among members of a city council. Its actions are morality offensive especially when it comes to the theft of billions of tax dollars and the destruction of poor people’s homes. Finally, its behavior is reprehensible, foolish and disgraceful. 

Yet, these words fail to convey the great harm which the ‘criminal’ Los Angeles City Council has brought upon us. 

Let’s take a deeper look at how a city council which is a criminal enterprise destroys a great city – one injustice at a time. 

Case in point is one tiny section of Valley Village, a place so small and so out of the way, that the vast majority of Angelenos do not even know that it exists. Zooming in closer, we see a most remarkable intersection at Hermitage and Weddington – or, at least, what is left of it. On the southeast corner once sat a modest home (demolition photo above) where Marilyn Monroe lived during the end of WW II. 

Rather than allowing the modest structure be moved, Mayor Eric Garcetti and Councilman Paul Krekorian wanted the home destroyed. So a couple days before a Cultural Heritage Commission hearing, Marilyn’s home was demolished (just as Garcetti demolished the facade of the Spaghetti Factory in Hollywood in defiance of a court order.)

From a neighborhood standpoint, the properties on the westside of Hermitage across from Marilyn’s home were significant in their own right. Directly opposite from Marilyn’s home was a beautiful Spanish-style apartment and to the north of Weddington was one of Valley Village’s most unique properties. 

Because Valley Village was a mixture of these unique low density places in an area where mega-apartments were encroaching, the Valley Village Specific Plan was enacted in order to preserve the character.  

The fascinating aspect of these Valley Village properties at 5621 to 5303 Hermitage is that they had an extra measure of protection from being destroyed. Weddington Avenue runs ½ block westward between the beautiful Spanish style apartment home at 5621 Hermitage and unique grouping of cottages at 5303 Hermitage. 

With the state owned street separating the two parcels, neither parcel was large enough to attract attention of developers who increasingly want to construct larger projects. In a city run by criminals, however, laws are impotent. Councilmember Krekorian and Mayor Garcetti see nothing wrong with giving the street to the developer so that Urban Box will have an extra-large area on which to construct its project – after destroying all the rent-controlled units and throwing the elderly and disabled on the streets. 

Criminals, however, do not care who owns property. It can be you, it can be me, or it can even be the State of California. When a criminal syndicate operates with the force of law, they take whatever they need. And, everyone else better shut up or else. 

This Is the Evil of Criminality 

In Los Angeles, greed rules and decency is in exile. If a developer wants to destroy your home, no law will stop him. Los Angeles City Council is a criminal enterprise where every unlawful demolition, where every unlawful gift of public property, where every corrupt commission decision always receives unanimous approval. 

We need to be very clear about this: in Los Angeles, the law counts for nothing, for zero, por nada. The criminal vote trading pact requires that each councilmember give unanimous approval without any regard to lies, deception, physical intimidation, vandalism or theft of public funds. There is no crime significant enough for a councilmember to refuse to go along. The criminal regime at City Hall is strict: not even allowing a single protest vote against the destruction of Marilyn Monroe’s home. 

Yet, the District Attorney finds nothing nefarious is afoot when all projects unanimously receive “Yes” votes. The odds of flipping a coin 100 times and getting 100 heads is 1/1.2676506 × 1030. Okay, so you don’t even know how to name that number because it is so large. We are talking about 15 coins being simultaneously flipped and getting all heads. Oh yeah, we’re supposed to believe that number, whatever it may be, is not the product of a vote trading agreement.

The Rise of the Garcetti Goons 

After some goons tried to intimidate an attorney who had come to the property at 5303 Hermitage prior to the August 11, 2016 South Valley Area Planning Commission meeting, the attorney complained to the Commission. He wrote to Councilmember Krekorian and to Mayor Garcetti that the intimidation had to stop. Neither of them bothered to reply. 

Silence in the face of an accusation is an adopted admission. There is a rule of law that says when someone is accused of bad behavior and they say nothing, their silence is a sign that the charge is true. 

Dear Councilmember Krekorian and Mayor Garcetti: 

The intimation and threats in connection with your desire to demolish the rent controlled units at 5303 Hermitage in Valley Village must cease and desist immediately. Brandishing firearms, tampering with the gas lines and having thugs try to intimidate the tenant’s attorney has brought the City’s “war” on poor people’s homes to a new low. As I told the South Valley Area Planning Commission yesterday, this criminal behavior has to stop. Furthermore, no police officer should ever tell a person who has been assaulted with a fire arm that he will arrest her if she calls 911 for protection. We expect this criminal behavior to cease and desist forthwith.-- Richard MacNaughton, Attorney at Law, State Bar 77258.  

When the city council becomes a criminal enterprise, we all live in a lawless society. And when white collar criminality at City Council becomes physical intimidation, it threatens of intolerable violence at the home owner level. 

Let’s remember that this Valley Village instance is not the first situation involving Garcetti, development and criminals. Garcetti’s fundraiser, Juri Ripinsky, spent two years incarcerated in Federal prison at Leavenworth for real estate and bank fraud. Yet, Garcetti got unanimous approval from the City Council for Ripinsky to have the lucrative Paseo Project at the old Sears site in Hollywood. Two years at Leavenworth and he gets a multi-million dollar real estate project! 

Just like the poor people who are desperately trying to save Valley Village, all Angelenos face a criminal enterprise. When criminals with absolute immunity want something, they just take it. And, people wonder why employers and the middle class are leaving Los Angeles.

(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.

DEEGAN ON LA-What does it take to access the corridors of power in City Hall, establish a by-name relationship with key departments, be recognized on sight by your councilmember and staff, and possibly even share an elevator ride with the Mayor and buttonhole him about your community’s issues? 

It takes two things: knowledge and position. So get yourself elected to your Neighborhood Council and then get yourself trained because one feeds into the other in our citywide NC system of 96 Neighborhood Councils. With over 1,800 board members representing neighborhoods across the city, the NCs are city-chartered grass roots organizations that have been empowered for a decade. They help connect residents to the world of city planning as well as other processes. 

Los Angeles City Charter Section 900 defines the purpose of Neighborhood Councils as: “To promote more citizen participation in government and make government more responsive to local needs.” 

Cindy Cleghorn, Chair of the Neighborhood Council Congress 2016, points out that “about half of Los Angeles’ Neighborhood Council board members were elected to a Neighborhood Council for the first time in the most recent cycle of neighborhood council elections that were completed earlier in the summer, and that brings a new class of board members into the system that will need to learn how to navigate the civic ecosystem.” 

Describing the Congress, Cleghorn says, “The Congress is a once a year opportunity for Neighborhood Councils across the City to come together at City Hall for a day of education and communication for the entire NC System. It is an opportunity to speak one on one with our city's elected officials, department officials and each other. Also, to take advantage of a wealth of specialty workshops created by and for Neighborhood Council leaders. This year’s Congress seeks to advance the Neighborhood Councils’ advisory power needed for the enhancement and/or preservation of our communities.” 

Several hundred “newbies” and NC veterans are expected at City Hall on Saturday, September 24, for the 2016 Congress of Neighborhoods. Presented by the Neighborhood Councils of Los Angeles and the city’s Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE), this year’s theme -- “Neighborhoods First: Your Voice, Our City” -- examines how local focus can create citywide impact. 

The Congress is an all-day free education featuring a range of sessions that will teach participants about their roles and responsibilities as board members, and introduce them to some of the intricacies of working the system, now that they are freshly-minted political and civic insiders. 

Registration at www.NCCongressLA.com went live on August 22. Over 700 Neighborhood Council leaders from across the City are expected to attend the annual event. 

What will they learn? The menu of choices is tantalizing, with over 40 workshops and discussion panels held during four 75-minute sessions. Participants will be able to choose from topics in the areas of:

• Leadership skills
• Planning and land use class series
• Managing your City funds
• Writing & sharing Community Impact Statements
• Homelessness
• Purposeful aging
• Code enforcement
• Outreach, social media and PR 

Ethics training (which is required of all Neighborhood Council members) will also be available. Classroom space fills up fast, so early registration is encouraged. 

Each year, leading City officials like the Mayor, City Councilmembers, the City Controller, and the City Attorney have spoken at the opening and closing sessions of the Congress. Headline speakers are still being confirmed, but so far, City Council President Herb J. Wesson, Jr, and City Councilmembers Paul Krekorian (CD 2), Bob Blumenfield (CD 3), David Ryu (CD4), Paul Koretz (CD 5), and Marqueece Harris-Dawson (CD 8) are scheduled to appear. 

It’s a fact, known through observing the success of many previous Congress events, that participants come away smarter and more informed about their board positions and the role of NCs. Also indisputable, is that their new knowledge directly impacts how much better they are able to work for the communities they serve. For many, attending a Congress is just the beginning of a political curriculum that helps prepare them for service to community and city – and could possibly be a stepping stone in their own political careers. Who would want to miss that? 

The Congress runs from 7:45 am - 4:30 pm, on Saturday September 24, at City Hall. It includes four workshops, breakfast, lunch, and opening and closing sessions. Attendees may come and go as their schedules permit. 

Here's an outline of the day: 

7:45 am – Breakfast 

8:30 am – Welcome 

9:25 am - Session 1 workshops 

10:50 am - Session 2 workshops 

noon – Lunch 

1:20 pm - Session 3 workshops 

2:45 pm - Session 4 workshops 

4:05 pm - Closing session 

Everything is free if you RSVP, including admission to over 40 workshops, exhibit tables, catered meals and parking! Sign up at www.NCCongressLA.com. This is about the only time you’ll ever get a free lunch at City Hall. 

Attend the Congress, and go home empowered!

(Tim Deegan is a long-time resident and community leader in the Miracle Mile, who has served as board chair at the Mid City West Community Council and on the board of the Miracle Mile Civic Coalition. Tim can be reached at [email protected].) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

ALPERN AT LARGE--With skyrocketing utility rates, costs of health care, and an average rent of approximately $2000 per month, it's obvious the City of the Angels is anything but angelic when creating affordability for the average Joe/Jane middle-class American.  But can we fix this affordably, or will we just continue to encourage those who built LA and California to throw up their hands and move away? 

1) It's obvious from the way our City and state spend money that we've been pandering too long, and with too much budgetary devastation, to present and future governmental services from being efficient and sufficient for taxpayers' needs. 

So whether it's the Republicans, or conservative or moderate Democrats, or liberal Democrats who understand that "Math doesn't lie", we've got to get over our mommy/daddy issues and recognize that a balanced and sustainable budget--with all of its painful sacrifices--is truly necessary if we're going to allow ourselves and future generations a chance to succeed and thrive. 

And if "progressivism" is turning into "socialism", then we better take a hard, HARD look at Venezuela, Greece, or any other paradise-turned-into-purgatory before we walk down that road.  If the middle class is fleeing to other states (like Texas or North Carolina), then we MUST take note. 

So when the issue of state pension reform hits the news cycle, perhaps we can stop ignoring it.  The reality is that cities and counties are not only grappling with their own pension/budget problems, but they also have a devastating lack of state support. 

We MUST have our City and County political heads work with our state leaders, or we'll have a fiscal crisis the likes of which will make Detroit look like a picnic--because there are only so many millionaires and billionaires in California, and because the stock market will NOT be rising forever. 

2) We MUST fund transportation as the economic engine to promote mobility for both fiscal, business, and quality of life purposes.  We finally have a name for "Measure R-2" for more sales taxes to fund transportation...it's called "Measure M".  And we must pass it.

I've been on the fence for this measure for quite awhile, because I've seen past transportation efforts lead to bad planning and developer overreach...but if we look at transportation as "income" and planning as "spending", we have to have more "income" and less (or smarter!) "spending" to fix our L.A./California household. 

Past stupidity and lack of courage/foresight in the San Fernando Valley led to an Orange Line Busway that could have, and should have, been a more cost-effective and economically-beneficial light rail line.  But the Valley's leaders blew off the experts and the transit advocates, and never reversed the Robbins Bill to show cohesive leadership and build it the right way. 

So with the long-awaited Orange Line-Red Line pedestrian tunnel finally completed and a VICA-led effort to convert the Busway to a light rail line, it'll be expensive but LESS expensive if we upgrade our transportation system NOW. 

And we need to let private employers, developers, and businesses know that we mean business when we ask them to pay for our infrastructure.  Universal Studios and the City Walk could have been directly connected to the Red Line Subway, and now everyone's suffering from that.  Ditto for any lost opportunities in North Hollywood. 

Arguably, any "deals" with hotels, developers, etc. should be focused on transportation/infrastructure mitigations.  THEY (the private sector) can and should expedite paying for freeway, road and rail connections and repairs and upgrades, and play a major role towards the conversion of fixing L.A.'s sidewalks from a 30-year window to 7-10 years. 

(AND I AM TALKING TO YOU, MR. MAYOR, WHEN I STATE THAT YOUR RE-ELECTION SHOULD ADDRESS THAT ISSUE IF ANGELENOS ARE TO TAKE YOU SERIOUSLY). 

So we will all need to pay for transportation upgrades, because not only our freeways but our new rail lines (Expo, Foothill Gold) are clogged with commuters, and our subways are busier than ever.  

There's just no question we all need to put our money where our collective mouth is. 

3) We MUST stop whistling past the graveyard, and stop promoting Orwellian nonsense, about affordable housing when we're really just helping the rich get richer, and promoting upscale housing for the wealthy instead of giving the middle class the support and love they deserve. 

We could build 2-3 story affordable, middle-class housing all over the City (and including south of the I-10 freeway) in a matter of 1-2 years without having to build uber-developments that are geared to the "1%" or without having to transform neighborhoods from family-friendly to those that favor the wealthy and build so big and tall that "us little people" will no longer be able to see the sun and sky. 

And if our celebrity/star-obsessed City will pay attention, it's not just the "old, NIMBY cranks" who want the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative--it's also concerned Angelenos Leonardo DiCaprio, Kirsten Dunst, Joaquin Phoenix, Chris Pine, Garrett Hedlund, and Chloe Sevigny...to say nothing of former Mayor Richard Riordan (who founded the Charter Reform that created the Neighborhood Councils) and Skid Row Reverend Alice Callaghan. 

Let's build...but not have get-rich-fast types kick some financial tail at the expense of kicking the tails of the rest of us.  Los Angeles IS moderate, IS compromising, and IS open-minded and caring. Blockbuster building that shreds the character of neighborhoods isn't "progress"...it's wanton destruction, no matter what flowery speech is used to justify it. 

So we can and should focus on TRUE affordability...but we can't wait any longer.  We just can't afford to keep kicking the can down the road, either at the political or the grassroots level. 

These are battles that we just cannot afford to lose, if we want to keep our City and state truly affordable for ourselves and our children.

(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.

CORRUPTION WATCH-Although most of us say we believe in “Thou shall have no other GODS before Me,” the reality is that Angelenos actually worship the weather gods. Yes, we have the weather gods of perpetual sunshine who have to fight off the god of May Gray and the god June Gloom each year, but throughout Los Angeles’ history, the good weather gods have always prevailed. 

So, the weather gods have been a little off their game in the last few years with the drought, but that’s hardly a wrinkle. Besides, drought means no mosquitoes with Zika virus. 

The weather gods, however, not only bring us the wonderful California sun, but more importantly, they bring us a constant influx of new Californians with brains, energy and creativity. The weather gods also deter any reverse migrations back to the Snow and Rust Belts. “It’s a Wonderful Life” with Jimmy Stewart turns out to be a subversive film. It reminded new Californians in the depths of winter just how horrible it would be to move back to Small Town USA. Yep, the last time I saw Jimmy Stewart ready to jump into the freezing river, it was 85 degrees in Hollywood. I had to run outside and stand in the sun, murmuring my little prayer of thanks to the LA weather gods. 

Shocker!! The weather gods are deserting us – or the world has been knocked off its axis. 

Something dire has happened -- people have stopped coming to Los Angeles. Worse yet, the weather gods have opened the exit gates and people are streaming out of the City! 

Look at it this way. Money is streaming out of Los Angeles. Yes, whenever a white collar job moves to Texas, it means that hundreds of thousands of dollars are leaving Los Angeles. Worse yet, Los Angeles has fallen to #60 as a place where professionals and business service workers want to live. We are behind Chicago and New York -- and they don’t even have weather gods! 

Nashville has had its professional and business service worker segment grow by 47% since 2010, while Dallas-Ft.Worth increased by 29%. San Francisco-Redwood City-South San Francisco has grown a remarkable 45% since 2010. 

Here are some rankings: Nashville was #1, San Fran etc. was #2, Dallas was # 5, metro New York ranked #14, Chicago with its wind, chills, snow and summer humidity ranked #43, and Los Angeles was #60 as the place where middle class white collar workers desire to live. 

When one sorts through all the data, what we see is that places with atrocious weather and with over-crowding and high costs of living are doing significantly better than Los Angeles. Places which have sunshine like South Texas are doing wonderfully. 

So that has been the Kryptonite for our weather gods? “Corruptionism.” 

When business leaders look long-term, nothing is a greater deterrent than entrenched Corruptionism. It’s not just that LA’s streets are the worst and that our traffic congestion has become the worst in both America and Europe. The real threat is a City Council which is a criminal enterprise. There’s a difference between LA and a place like Chicago where cronies throw city contracts to their friends and if they get too far out of line, they get prosecuted. 

In Los Angeles, the City Council itself has been the criminal enterprise since 2006 when Garcetti was City Council President. When employers see entrenched criminals receiving the protection of the District Attorney and the courts for a decade, they know that matters will deteriorate. 

It’s no secret that billions of dollars have been diverted to real estate developers at the same time the City has been destroying poor people’s homes. The City is subsidizing the private Grand Avenue Project to the tune of an initial $198 million. Only the terminally naive think that this largesse will be the last of the city’s generosity to the project. And now they want us to approve ballot measures costing over $200 billion and that’s just the start of it. 

We know that the exodus from Los Angeles will accelerate because two important groups of Millennials are leaving: (1) Those who had to postpone starting families because of the bad economy and high student loan payments, (2) Those who are a few years younger, but who also can afford to start families elsewhere. 

Don’t expect new Millennials to take their place. The number of younger Millennials is dropping each year and since LA is now #60, there are 59 other cities where all Millennials of any age believe they can make better lives for themselves.   

Recently, there has been disinformation out there that only the poor are leaving the City. That is a false claim, although smart poor people actually should move. For the state as a whole, according to IRS data, “In 2014, more than two-thirds of the net domestic out-migrants were reported on returns filed by persons aged from 35 to 64. These are the people who are most likely to be in the workforce and be parents.” And we know Los Angeles is doing much worse than the rest of the state, so our middle class is abandoning the City. 

No place can economically survive when the 35 to 64 age group is two thirds of the net domestic out-migrants. That is why employers are moving away from Los Angeles and why Los Angeles’ great residential neighborhoods are now being built in Texas – which has some pretty powerful weather gods of its own. 

Corruptionism is Kryptonite. Employers know that the criminal vote trading at Los Angeles City Council is permanent. Los Angeles’ corruption overlords have become far stronger than our kindly weather gods.

(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.

CITYWATCH INSIDER REPORT (FIRST OF AN OCCASSIONAL SERIES)--If you ask someone what the small army of lobbyists who frequent LA City Hall actually do, you'll probably get an answer along the lines of, “they try to get the City Council and various commissions and committees to support projects and other things their clients want.” 

This is true. But it leaves a lot to the imagination. For instance, when a lobbyist steps off the elevator on one of the floors at City Hall, where is he or she going? To the mayor's office? To one of the 15 LA City Councilmembers' offices? To the Planning Department? Public Works? 

And even more to the point, who is the lobbyist going to talk to in one of those offices, and what, exactly, will that city official be asked to do? 

Because lobbying firms are required to register with the City Ethics Commission and file quarterly reports that are posted on the commission's website, one might assume that the answers to these questions are just a few mouse clicks away. Unfortunately, that's not the case. 

To illustrate, take the most recent quarterly report of one of five firms registered to lobby on behalf of Clear Channel Outdoor, the multinational corporation that owns some 1,600 billboards in the city. The firm, Ek & Sunkin, reported receiving $75,000 from the corporation to lobby on “issues related to City sign ordinance.” Listed as targets of that lobbying were the mayor's office, the city council offices and the city planning department. That's the extent of the report. 

There are more than a thousand persons working in the mayor's office, the city council offices and the planning department. Who did the lobbyist meet with? The mayor himself or an underling? A city councilmember or one of his or her staff? The director of planning or a deputy? 

And almost every conceivable issue involving billboards would be related in some way to the city sign ordinance. Did the lobbyist want an amendment to the ordinance? A particular vote on the latest version of the ordinance which is pending in City Council committee? Something else? 

Some reports are marginally more informative. For example, when the lobbyist is working for a client with a specific real estate development, the name or address of the project is often listed. But there is typically no detail about who the lobbyist met with, when and where the meeting took place, and what, exactly, was being sought. All these questions are highly pertinent to one of the Ethics Commission's stated purposes: promoting government decisions that are “fair, transparent, and accountable.” 

We'd all like to think that politicians and other city officials are guided in their decisions purely by personal principles and public opinion. But one needn't be a cynic to assume that those officials are also influenced by the blandishments of businesses, labor unions, and others with a strong vested interest in the decisions made inside City Hall. 

Consider the fact that 200 firms employing 442 lobbyists are currently registered with the Ethics Commission, and that those firms were paid $58 million last year to promote the interest of some 1400 clients ranging from corporate behemoths like Exxon Mobil and Comcast to local businesses such as restaurants and taxi companies. 

In addition, those lobbying firms reported raising $996,000 for city election candidates and delivering another $324,000 in contributions from individuals. All legal, even though registered lobbyists are prohibited by law from contributing directly to those candidates. 

It's doubtful that this flood of money spent to influence city officials can be slowed down, but there are ways to shine more light on the connections between that money and the decisions those officials make. In fact, the Ethics Commission is engaged right now in a review of the municipal lobbying ordinance, and soliciting public comment about ways to improve it. 

The commission doesn't have to look far for ideas. In San Francisco, for example, lobbyists are required to report the names of officials they contact, the date and location of that contact, and its purpose—to propose a specific policy, to get support for an ordinance, to provide information about some matter, and so forth. 

That city also maintains a directory of all public officials who have been contacted by a registered lobbyist and a list of all “subject areas” of concern reported by lobbyists. Lobbying firms are also required to report monthly, rather than quarterly as in Los Angeles. 

At its most recent meeting, the Ethics Commission discussed another element of lobbyist regulation that seems to cry out for reform. While the state of California and Los Angeles County define a lobbyist as someone who receives compensation for communicating with a public official to influence legislation, Los Angeles defines a lobbyist as a person who engages in 30 hours or more of compensated lobbying in a 3-month period. 

Which means that a lobbyist spending less than 30 hours in that activity is not required to report, or even register with the Ethics Commission. How many contacts could a person make to influence city officials within that time limit and still keep the public in the dark? 

Of course, none of these possible reforms would impede deep-pocketed interests from sending that small army of lobbyists to City Hall to buttonhole councilmembers, commissioners and others. But at least the public would have a better idea of who was buttonholed and how that contact might have affected a vote or other action. 

To use another billboard-related example, did lobbyists for Clear Channel meet with Councilman Mitchell Englander and/or members of his staff before he put forth a proposal to grant “amnesty” to all of the unpermitted and out-of-compliance billboards in the city? The public surely deserves an answer to the question. 

If you want to weigh in on lobbying reform, the commission welcomes public comment. Send yours to

[email protected]. We can be sure that the lobbyists themselves will look to protect their own interests. But that may not jibe with the greater transparency and accountability the public deserves.

(Dennis Hathaway is the president of the Ban Billboard Blight Coalition and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected].) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

DROUGHT CONUNDRUM-While fire is always part of nature, many attribute its increased frequency and intensity to climate change. Certainly, that makes sense: longer stretches of warm weather and earlier snowmelt create a fire-friendly scenario. But what does this connection do for us, beyond providing another reason to rue the continued assaults on our climate? For the terms “climate change” and “global warming” elide the dynamics that create the constellation of factors that, collectively, we call climate. However, by zeroing in on the ecology of fire-prone regions, we can find ways to minimize the risk and severity of the fires that threaten homes and wilderness areas—not to mention the lives of firefighters. 

For example, since arid conditions beckon fire, we can ask how healthy environments maintain moisture. Plentiful rain is one obvious answer, but equally important is what happens to rain once it falls. Enter “green water”, or water held in soils. We generally think of freshwater in terms of lakes and rivers, but two-thirds of rainfall becomes green water. When rain falls on living soil that’s rich in organic matter, it stays in the system and sustains plant and microbial life. Rain that falls on soil depleted by tillage or chemicals streams away, as does all the rainwater that strikes concrete or asphalt. Dry, degraded soil (read: dirt) doesn’t absorb water, thirsty though it may be. For every one percent increase in soil organic matter, soil stores 20,000 gallons of water per acre. 

Historically, our western landscapes were kept hydrated in part by beavers. According to Brock Dolman of The WATER Institute’s Bring Back the Beaver Campaign, the winsome rodents act as “water engineers”. By building dams they harvest water and direct its flow, and the moist soil that surrounds the pools yields lush vegetation. Beavers, he says, serve as ecological “shock absorbers” so that land is less susceptible to drought and fire. Beavers are native to much of California, and were numerous prior to the early nineteenth century, when they were mostly wiped out. (Water-wise, California’s “fur rush” was a bigger deal than the Gold Rush.) Nationwide, today beavers number around 10 million, down from an estimated 200 million when Europeans arrived on our shores. 

One ongoing challenge in staving off conflagrations is keeping down potential fuel: the dead trees and dried leaves and grasses standing or laying around, ready to ignite. Australian soil microbiologist Walter Jehne, whose Regenerate Australia program emphasizes reducing fire risk, says nature has two basic strategies for dispensing with combustible material. One is through fire, which tends to perpetuate a fire-prone regime: favoring plants that require fire for germination or that thrive on bare ground. (One such tree is the Eucalyptus, which sprouts and regenerates quickly after fire. Originally from Australia, Eucalyptus, now pervasive in California, have been implicated in deadly fires, notably the 1991 Oakland Tunnel fire that killed 25 people.) 

The other means of managing fuel is recycling the plant matter biologically. This could be by way of animals that eat the plants or, says Jehne, “fungi that can break down litter or fuel into organic matter and reincorporate it into the soil where it is safe from fire.” Either way, plant debris is returned to the soil so that the ground becomes a sponge for rain and dew, thereby creating a fertile environment for plants to thrive, draw down carbon and cycle water. All of which make uncontrolled fires less likely. 

"We can think of climate change as the manifestation of disrupted carbon, water, nutrient and solar cycles." 

We can think of unbridled wildfires as a result of climate change, as well as a contributor to it. Extensive bush and grassfires spark a negative spiral that leads to more greenhouse gas emissions—in Australia, annual CO2 emissions from fire exceeds that of fossil fuels—dry, tinderbox conditions, and bare soil unwelcoming to plants and vulnerable to erosion. When sunlight beams down the ground gets a direct hit, without the cooling effect of water transpiring through plants. The alternative scenario, in which the land holds moisture and would-be fire fuel is processed biologically, encourages what we want: living soil that stores, rather than releases, carbon; plants providing food and shelter for animals, birds and insects; water cycling within the system rather than evaporating or rushing away. 

In other words, climate change isn’t merely a looming specter that’s tied up in physics and the fiat of large corporate and governmental entities. It’s also about what we do with land. Climate dynamics are too complex to be reduced solely to an equation involving CO2. Rather, we can think of climate change as the manifestation of disrupted carbon, water, nutrient and solar cycles. With this approach, we see that wildfires—along with droughts, floods, heat waves and other problems associated with climate change—are not inevitable. 

In my travels reporting on ecological restoration I’ve seen numerous instances of people allying with natural processes that hold water on the land, and seeing multiple benefits including reduced risk and impact of fires. Chris Henggeler, who manages a parcel in Western Australia the size equivalent of New York’s five boroughs, has minimized fire damage by keeping water in springs and creeks longer into the dry season, installing fire breaks, and making use of dew, which he calls integral to the “micro-water cycle”. 

As we look toward future fire seasons, there is indeed much we can do to douse the flames—and curtail the degree of flames need dousing to begin with.

(Judith D. Schwartz is a longtime journalist who lives in Vermont. Her most recent book, Water In Plain Sight: Hope for a Thirsty World, has just been published by St. Martin's Press. Her previous book is, Cows Save the Planet (Chelsea Green Publishing). This perspective was first posted at Common Dreams.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

VOX POP--Working-class Latinos, Westside homeowners, Valley renters, South Los Angeles citizens and major film stars joined together today in asking Mayor Eric Garcetti to reform the city’s rigged development system that is paving over cherished neighborhoods and has created a serious luxury housing glut and massive gridlock, while destroying thousands of units of affordable housing.

Concerned Angelenos Leonardo DiCaprio, Kirsten Dunst, Joaquin Phoenix, Chris Pine, Garrett Hedlund and Chloe Sevigny added their voices to those of former Mayor Richard Riordan, Skid Row Rev. Alice Callaghan and tens of thousands of Los Angeles residents supporting the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, which will give residents a much greater say in what Los Angeles becomes.

In a meeting at City Hall with Mayor Eric Garcetti, leaders of communities from east, west, south and north sectors of Los Angeles, rich and poor, middle-class and working-class, urged Mayor Garcetti to take the lead — as he promised in April 2016. 

If he does not propose major and immediate reform, in just over a week, the Coalition to Preserve LA, sponsors of the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative aiming for the March 2017 ballot, will submit far more signatures than needed to qualify for the ballot. 

Below is the letter and signatories to the letter, presented today to Mayor Garcetti:

Dear Mayor Garcetti:

We appreciate that you agree with us that our city’s planning process is broken and out of control. As you know, for far too long, greed has fueled corruption, which has produced runaway development, and now stifling gridlock.

This planning process does not serve the people of Los Angeles because it’s not designed to. It is designed to serve powerful lobbyists and for-profit developers at the expense of the rest of us. And we pay the price.

That’s why we support the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative. We have been playing by the rules of a rigged system for a generation, only to see luxury housing proliferate, gridlock calcify, homelessness spike, open space destroyed and middle-class homeowners get squeezed out of our city.

The time has come to take back our city for our communities and our families before the fundamental character of our city is lost forever.

While we deeply believe in the purpose and the policies represented in the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, we also believe that complicated issues like zoning policies and urban planning are best resolved by the city’s elected leadership. That’s their job. That is the reason we write to you today.

Through our grassroots campaign we have collected the requisite amount of signatures to qualify for the March 2017 ballot, the same ballot on which you and seven council members will stand for reelection. On August 24th we plan to turn in our signatures.

We believe our city is about to cross a Rubicon after which the character of our neighborhoods will be drowned out by unrelenting development and lost forever in a sea of unaffordable luxury housing and gridlock. We have no choice but to act now.

But we would welcome your leadership on this pressing issue, and we remind you that, in reaction to our citizen initiative movement, you promised to be that leader. You said that you want to fix the broken system in City Hall, yet you have done nothing of note to achieve that goal, and time is running out.

Before our August 24 signature completion, we urge you to announce your mayoral plan to transform the fundamental nature of our rigged system. Our tens of thousands of supporters expect your commitment to include:

• Developers and their special interest lobbyists must no longer be permitted to choose the consultants who literally write Environmental Impact Reports for their own developments. This obvious conflict of interest must be banned so that the actual environmental impact – not a consultant’s self-interested twisting of traffic, health, parking, open space and density impacts – will be fully mitigated, instead of ignored.
• There must be a clear and transparent process, including fast-tracked deadlines, for crafting the new Los Angeles General Plan that empowers the people to chart the future of our own city, slashing the undue influence of developers and their lobbyists over the L.A. River, neighborhood character, mansionization, small lot subdivisions and other crucial public concerns.
• Spot zoning exceptions to the General Plan, a practice which currently allows wildly inappropriate mega-developments in cherished neighborhoods, must become the rare exception to the rule, rather than routine, as it is today.
• Ex parte communications between developers and city elected officials or members of the City Planning Commission — also known as backroom meetings — must be eliminated. Just as we have seen with the California Coastal Commission, ex parte communications give developers an all-access pass to our government officials while regular people with a much bigger stake in their communities wait in line at long meetings for one minute of public comment. We are better than that.

It is our hope that we can put aside special interest politics and rally around a shared vision for our collective future that serves all the unique neighborhoods and communities of Los Angeles.

You have a deep connection to the history of Los Angeles. Your story in many ways is the story of our city. You literally embody many of the diverse cultures and communities that make our city so special. As citizens and as voters, we call upon you to commit these next several days to proposing a far-reaching solution that will shape the landscape and define the character of Los Angeles for the 21st Century.

Meanwhile, we are readying for our our August 24th deadline, when we will submit far more than our required 62,000 signatures, and the people of Los Angeles will decide.

We look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

The People of Los Angeles

Signatories (all signatories are acting as individuals.)

Dr. Ken Alpern, chairman, the Transit Coalition; and board member, Mar Vista Community Council

Jay Beeber, executive director, Safer Streets L.A.; and San Fernando Valley coordinator, Coalition to Preserve LA

Sandy Brown, president, Holmby-Westwood Property Owners Association; and vice president Westwood Neighborhood Council

Jose Cabrera, vice president, and Margarita Lopez, president, MacArthur Park Neighborhood Council

Rev. Alice Callaghan, founder, Familias del Pueblo, Skid Row

Mabel Chang, Del Rey, former president, Los Angeles City Planning Commission

Cindy Chvatal, president, Hancock Park Homeowners Association

Richard Close, president, Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association

Diann Corral, president, Laurel Grove Neighborhood Association, North Hollywood

Leonardo DiCaprio, award-winning actor and environmentalist

Kirsten Dunst, award-winning actress and activist

Aaron Epstein, founder and owner, Artisan’s Patio of Hollywood, Valley Village

Gustavo Flores and Manny Flores, founders, Westlake Advocates, Westlake

Joyce Foster, former board member, Westside Area Planning Commission; and former vice-president, Los Angeles Building and Safety Commission

Roman Gomez, president, and Arturo Gomez, vice president, Elysian Valley Neighborhood Council

Xochitl Gonzalez, board member, West L.A.-Sawtelle Neighborhood Council

Damien Goodmon, founder, Crenshaw Subway Coalition, South Los Angeles

Garrett Hedlund, actor and activist

Alex Hertzberg, executive director, Society for the Preservation of Downtown Los Angeles.

Debra Hockemeyer, vice-president and treasurer, Brentwood Hills Homeowners Association

Jack Humphreville, president, DWP Advocacy Committee; and Ratepayer Advocate, Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council

Susan Hunter, member, 1st Unitarian Church of Los Angeles; and RAINN Speakers Bureau

Christine and Gareth Kantner, owners, Cafe Stella, Silver Lake

Jeff Lynn, president, Van Nuys Neighborhood Council

Casey Maddren, president, and entire board, UN4LA, Hollywood

Joaquin Phoenix, award-winning actor and activist

Chris Pine, award-winning actor and activist

Dick Platkin, former Los Angeles city planner; and adjunct instructor, USC

Richard Riordan, former Mayor of Los Angeles, Brentwood

Julie Ross and Kathy Schwertfeger, Playa del Rey Guardians Society, Playa del Rey

Chloe Sevigny, award-winning actress and activist

Gerald Silver, president, Homeowners of Encino; board and members, Homeowners of Encino

Clint Simmons, P.E, member, Expo Communities United; and board member, Baldwin Neighborhood Homeowners Association, South L.A.

Darren Starks, president, Baldwin Neighborhood Homeowners Association, South L.A.

Robina Suwol, founder, California Safe Schools, San Fernando Valley

Carole Tweden, Wilshire Vista Heights stakeholder; volunteer for Coalition to Preserve LA

Diego Velasco, Academy Award-nominated filmmaker, Silver Lake

Grace Yoo, attorney, co-founder, Environmental Justice Collaborative, Koreatown

Gloria Zuurveen, publisher, Pace News; and director, Los Angeles Press Club Board, South L.A.

(This article provided CityWatch by Preserve LA.) 

-cw

CALWATCHDOG--California doesn’t have nearly the reputation of, say, New Jersey or Maryland when it comes to a history of public corruption. Studies that measure corruption with metrics tend to give most corrupt honors to less populated, poorer southern states like Louisiana and Mississippi or big, relatively wealthy Midwest and Eastern states like Illinois and Pennsylvania.

But when it comes to the most corrupt counties, few if any can top the recent run that Los Angeles County is on — specifically, the cities and agencies in south and central LA County.

The latest example came last week when Luis Aguinaga resigned as mayor of South El Monte after admitting to taking bribes for seven years from a contractor paid by the city for engineering and construction services.

A Nexis search of stories by the Southern California News Group, the Los Angeles Times and Southern California Public Radio shows Aguinaga has plenty of corrupt company in neighboring communities.

Bell--In 2010, a  Los Angeles Times investigation found that the city was being run like a criminal enterprise to the benefit of city officials and City Council members who received huge salaries and relied on illegal taxes and deceptive accounting. Former City Manager Robert Rizzo was found guilty of 69 corruption charges. Five City Council members also were convicted over city schemes.

Carson--Mayor Al Robles is now under siege from Los Angeles County prosecutors for simultaneously serving on the board of the Water Replenishment District of Southern California and as Carson mayor. He faced a county grand jury rebuke over the water board’s move to pay his legal bills. He has also faced years of campaign finance allegations over his water board and Carson election campaigns.

Central Basin Municipal Water District--Political and legal fallout continues from a scandal involving an alleged $2.75 million slush fund created by the district to pay politically connected consultants such as former Assemblyman Tom Calderon, D-Montebello. Central Basin board member Art Chacon was allowed to collect car allowance and mileage reimbursements from the district from 2006 to 2014, an eight-year span in which he didn’t have a driver’s license. To avoid a potentially huge payout at trial, in 2014, the district settled sexual harassment allegations made by a female contractor against district Director Robert Apodaca for $670,000.

City of Commerce--In 2012, Councilman Robert Fierro resigned after he pleaded guilty to a felony conspiracy charge related to his attempts to dupe investigators looking into the financing of his 2005 campaign. In 2010, Councilman Hugo Argumedo resigned after he pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice. Argumedo concocted evidence to help an attorney sue his city for allegedly unpaid legal fees.

Cudahy--In 2012, City Manager Angel Perales, Mayor David Silva and Councilman Osvaldo Conde were arrested by the FBI after being caught seeking bribes from the owner of a marijuana dispensary. In 2014, then-state Controller John Chiang released a scathing report about city finances that found city credit cards were used improperly for meals, travel and entertainment; pay raises were awarded without explanation or justification; and that employees regularly received paid leave that they were not entitled to get.

Lynwood--In 2012, former City Council members Louis Byrd and Fernando Pedroza were convicted of illegally boosting their pay — by $330,000 and $160,000, respectively — by taking stipends for working on city commissions without any responsibilities, a crime with parallels to what happened in Bell. There were also reports that city officials used city credit cards to pay for entertainment, including “a $1,500 night out at a Guadalajara strip club, where dancers allegedly performed sexual favors” for two city officials, the Los Angeles Times reported. In 2007, Mayor Paul H. Richards II received a 16-year sentence for a long-running embezzlement scheme.

Maywood--County prosecutor are now investigating alleged illegal collusion to get around state open-government laws that may be related to questionable zoning changes made without proper scrutiny. There are also reports that the FBI is investigating possible bribery in the awarding of city contracts.

Montebello--In 2011, state Controller John Chiang issued a report showing that officials had improperly spent more than $31 million, helping prompt a city budget crisis. Redevelopment funds were used for many non-government purposes, including meals in Las Vegas.

South Gate--Former city councilman, city manager, mayor and treasurer Albert Robles was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison in 2005 for public corruption, money laundering and bribery. Though several of the convictions were thrown out in 2013, Robles’ sentence was not reduced because of the seriousness of the bribery counts that remained.

Vernon--The tax-rich industrial city which long controlled who voted in the city by controlling who stayed in its very limited housing was nearly disbanded by the Legislature in 2011 after Donal O’Callaghan became the third city administrator since 2006 to face criminal charges. Mayor Leonis Malburg and his wife Dominica were convicted of voter fraud and conspiracy in 2009. The Malburgs lied for years about living in Vernon while actually residing at a Hancock Park mansion.

(Chris Reed is an editorial writer for U-T San Diego and a regular contributor to Cal Watchdog … where this perspective was first posted.)

-cw

PLATKIN ON PLANNING-If you want to dive into critical discussions about the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s (LACMA’s) makeover, designed by Peter Zumthor, the world is your oyster. Just Google it, and for hours you can immerse yourself in renderings, panel discussions, and well-written articles, many by LA Times architecture critic, Christopher Hawthorne.  

But most of what you unearth will miss the big picture, the context of LACMA’s costly project on Wilshire Boulevard, where two other nearby museum projects have already been abruptly plopped into place. Like Zumthor’s edgy design, they, too, are totally disconnected from the surrounding mid-Wilshire area. 

This section of Wilshire is called the Miracle Mile and it extends from Highland Avenue on the east to San Vicente Boulevard on the west. It began as LA’s premier shopping destination, and it still has some notable gems. But, with or without Zumthors’s inkblot, this area’s many rough edges require far-reaching up-grades. 

The question is how the future of this charming, centrally located region of Los Angeles will evolve over the next several decades, especially when the Purple Line Subway Extension opens in 2023. By the time it is completed, this transit project will have cost over $3 billion, a tidy investment of local and Federal money. 

The Miracle Mile’s amenities include Page Park (also called Hancock Park), the LaBrea Tar Pits, and the adjacent complex of museums near Wilshire and Fairfax. Together they have reversed some of the corridor’s economic decline after the Beverly Center and Grove shopping centers forced its old department stores to meet their maker. 

Unlike the transit improvements, which are publicly financed, the museums are dependent on private philanthropy; the bulk of it coming from a small coterie of extremely well off patrons, such as Eli Broad. More specifically, LACMA’s project will cost over $650 million, and the adjacent Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science museum and major event center will cost at least $300 million. Across the street, the renovation of the Peterson museum cost $125 million. 

Given cost overruns and inflation, we can assume that the final museum price tags will easily surpass $1 billion in private donations from LA’s one-percenters. 

Corridor’s shortcomings: Considering that over $4 billion in public and private investments is flowing into the Miracle Mile corridor, it is truly amazing that so many obvious shortcomings in appearance and public services persist. Sitting in plain view, they remain unexamined and unaddressed by City Hall, METRO, and the big-givers impatient for their names to be chiseled in marble on museum entranceways. 

Like most of Los Angeles, this blight is pervasive, and it is inexcusable that $4 billion in public and quasi-public projects have ignored the following: 

• City Planning has yet to undertake any actual neighborhood planning for the Purple Line Extension. The many questions of how pedestrians, bicycles, cars, busses, and cabs/ubers will interface with the subway stations at LaBrea, Wilshire, and LaCienega have not yet been examined, much less planned and paid for. Likewise, the land use and design impacts of the Purple Line subway on surrounding areas have, so far, not been considered, even though old file cabinets have detailed plans, land use ordinances, and EIR’s from the early 1980s, when the original MetroRail alignment included the Wilshire/LaBrea and Wilshire/Fairfax stations. 
• Furthermore, based on station area planning for the new METRO Exposition light-rail line stations, there is not much to look forward to if the Purple Line planning process is implemented before 2023. In the Expo cases, the plans consist of the up-zoning of private parcels and a streetscape design manual. The City’s budget does not yet include any money for public improvements to support the new light rail stations. 
• The boulevard trees along the entire Miracle Mile corridor are a hodge-podge of different species, with some odd choices and notable gaps. In fact, on the half-mile stretch of Wilshire Boulevard between Fairfax and San Vicente, there are hardly any street trees at all.
• Billboards and super-graphics can be found in many parts of the Miracle Mile, a major form of visual pollution that would only get worse if the City’s new billboard ordinance designates the Miracle Mile corridor as a sign district suitable for electronic billboards.
• Large metal fences fortify local landmarks, especially LACMA, Hancock Park, and the adjacent Park LaBrea housing complex. These block pedestrian flow, and if anyone wants to walk from Hancock Park to Park LaBrea, they must swerve two blocks out of their way just to cross the street.
• Other than the famous Urban Light installation at LACMA, the corridor is gloomy at night. It urgently needs enhanced street and pedestrian lighting along Wilshire Boulevard, not just a public art installation on LACMA’s grounds.
• Building signs include many questionable and outright illegal signs that should be cited and removed through the Department of Building and Safety and office of the City Attorney.
• Missing street furniture, such as visually consistent newspaper racks, bus shelters, and trash cans, are the low hanging urban design fruit that could quickly spiff up this area, especially the bleak section west of Fairfax Avenue.

Why is context so ignored? How can we explain LACMA’s failure to consider the Miracle Mile’s context in its expansion plans? Why have the other two major museums in this area also been so resistant to local design guidelines and so unconcerned about the extraordinary lack of sufficient services, infrastructure, and planning for this corridor? 

My working explanation is that LA’s movers and shakers, who are the guiding light and deep-pocketed funders of these museum projects, are quite unaware of the city they live in. Cloistered in protected estates and penthouses, their lives consist of private services, private infrastructure, and tinted windows blocking out both sunlight and the urban blight of most LA neighborhoods. Instead, they only peak out of limo windows to view iconic buildings, such as the Getty Museum, Disney Concert Hall, and now LACMA, all designed by celebrity architects appreciative of accolades and handsome commissions. 

LA’s hundreds of miles of congested, unadorned streets, with their endless overhead wires, mini-malls, strip malls, billboards, super-graphics, bootlegged commercial signs, treeless parkways, dumped couches, broken sidewalks, pot holes, McMansions, ragged building lines, and dingbat apartments are apparently well hidden by a Star Trek-type cloaking device. It miraculously makes this visual pollution invisible to those patrons of the arts whose tastes gravitate to Frank Gehry and his ilk. 

In their wake, elected officials and City staff have absorbed this blinkered view of Los Angeles, and it is our task to peel the tinting off the windows so they can see and attend to the real Los Angeles. 

(Dick Platkin lives in the Fairfax area, several blocks from LACMA and the Purple Line Extension. A veteran city planner, he reports on local planning issues for CityWatchLA, and he welcomes comments and questions at [email protected].) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

THE GUSS REPORT-(Editor’s Note: This Daniel Guss piece was posted on CityWatch on August 9. We offer this in-case-you-missed-it ‘replay’ because David Zahniser’s excellent column in Thursday’s LA Times flushed the financial struggles of City Council president Herb Wesson the top the LA politics conversation again. It’s worth a second read.) Herb Wesson is one of the most influential and talented local lawmakers in the United States. As President of the Los Angeles City Council, former Speaker of the California Assembly, and recipient of a consistent and generous government paycheck and perks since 1982, the irony of his potentially losing the homes he and his wife Fabian own is immense. Yet that is the dangerous dance they have narrowly sidestepped as far back as 2002 and as recently as a few weeks ago.  

Their former residence in Ladera Heights, which sits on an earthquake fault line, was first in default 14 years ago this month. But as recently as a few weeks ago, the Wessons were notified that the million dollar house would be sold at auction for just $382,229.50 in July if their obligations were not immediately satisfied. They have received similarly ominous warnings virtually every year since 2011. 

That house, according to the Council President’s filings, provides the Wessons between $10,000 and $100,000 in rental income per year by leasing it to a Pasadena-based business that uses it as a for-profit assisted living facility. (That company was cited this summer by the Department of Social Services for having broken appliances, indoor furniture and exposed trash in the yard, and poor maintenance of patient records.) 

Wesson’s office did not respond to a request for an interview regarding why that revenue was not used to satisfy the latest mortgage default, what conditions presently exist in the house, what is its current ownership status and the condition of its residents. 

Things are more worrisome for the city’s leading lawmaker when it comes to the home in which he and his wife reside. Earlier in 2016, they were in default by $33,248.24, an amount similar to earlier default notices and more than double those from earlier years at the other property.

One mortgage executive, who estimates that that figure represents roughly eight months of missed payments, says that it makes no sense that the properties have not yet been seized and sold. “With their hefty income, significant equity and one property being a revenue-generating, non-owner occupied home, no lender would knowingly say that is a hardship worthy of a refi[nance]. I would want to see their loan docs [to determine among other things] whether they have represented to their lenders that they are the occupants of the home they’re leasing out … A refi in that type of situation would be a big no-no.” The executive also points out that the Wessons may have cured their defaults with money from a source other than a refi. 

According to Wesson’s Ethics Commission filings, their combined household income in recent years ranges between $200,000 and $500,000 per year. They enjoy the city’s Cadillac-level health insurance plan and free automobiles that the taxpayers also fuel, maintain and insure at no cost to them, leading to the question: how is it they are able to hold foreclosure at-bay? 

Perhaps it is because some of the defaults are in Wesson’s legal first name, Herman; others are in his more familiar name, Herb, with and without his Junior suffix; and others are in his wife’s name. It should be noted that one of his sons is similarly named Herb Wesson III who, like one of his brothers, is also employed in a City Council staff position. 

Complicating matters even more, Wesson has not recused himself from voting on City Council agenda items that relate to the rotation of lenders who hold and hand-off their defaulting mortgages like a hot potato. Wesson’s office, in response to multiple public records requests, says no records exist regarding those votes. 

While some of the Wesson’s problems stem from a massive federal tax lien, as well as a state tax lien, their mortgage woes predate those liens by at least six years. 

At an event last year, Wesson told a sidebar of constituents concerned about their personal and community’s economic woes that their “suffering is God’s way of testing your faith.” But by that measure, Wesson’s own faith is being mightily tested, as well. The question is, since Wesson has the ability, authority and talent to do something about their situations and his own, why hasn’t he? 

While this may explain a bit why Sacramento and the City of Los Angeles are in a perpetual fiscal morass, it might be time for Wesson to offer a confession of his own … or at least an explanation.

(Daniel Guss, MBA, is a contributor to CityWatchLA, KFI AM-640, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Business Journal, Los Angeles Magazine and others. He blogs on humane issues at http://ericgarcetti.blogspot.com/. Daniel Guss opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

MY TURN-This political year has been like an addiction … a very bad drug for those of us who are political junkies. You don't want to watch the events on TV, but you don't want to miss anything either. And as if it wasn't bad enough to be counting down the days to November 8 … we now have a local election issue that won't be resolved until next March. 

I’m sure most of you have heard that Felipe Fuentes, Councilmember for District 7, is leaving his post in September. Social media and the mainstream press have covered his resignation extensively. He has accepted a position with the legislative advocate The Apex Group in Sacramento. 

He assured everyone that he did not entertain new job opportunities until after he announced his intention not to seek re-election back in January of this year. His current term of office doesn’t expire until June 30, 2017. 

District 7, which extends from east of the 405 to the border with Glendale, sometimes reminds me of poor Job in the Old Testament. They have fires, homeless encampments, poor roads, speeding problems with constant accident fatalities, increased crime, floods (unless we have a drought), NYMBYism, and in some areas, the need for economic and job development. 

District 7 is a microcosm of Los Angeles. The stakeholders there represent all economic levels, and cover the entire political spectrum -- which can make for interesting discussions. Beautiful rural areas, including animal preserves and hiking trails in the San Gabriel Mountains, are mixed in with industrial parks and car repair blight. Developers want to increase the density. High Speed Rail threatens to split some communities in half. Residents there are multi ethnic, multilingual and care deeply about their neighborhoods. 

I became familiar with Felipe Fuentes last year when he evicted the Sunland Tujunga Neighborhood Council and a police substation from the designated City Hall in this part of the Northern San Fernando Valley. Ostensibly, his reason was to give the space to a couple of non-profits that were working on homeless projects. 

I covered that rather ugly event in a CityWatch article in October. I had tried to get some explanation from either him or his offices to no avail. Apparently, his typical response was no response. This is something his constituents faced most of the time. I again questioned his motives in a CityWatch piece in January called "Felipe Fuentes: The Long Farewell." It seemed strange that he would cloak himself in the "lame duck" attire eighteen months ahead of time. 

Of course he and his fellow Councilmember Nury Martinez had been questioned as to why, on City time, their respective staffs helped with Raul Bocanegra's recount for the 39th Assembly district when he was defeated by Patty Lopez. There has been no further news on that lately.   

Scouring the internet, I couldn’t find a single post from anyone who is sorry to see him leave. This is pretty remarkable since he did manage to raise a lot of money for his council campaign in 2012. His biggest donors were building trades associations. Coincidently, his new position with The Apex Group will be with their construction and building trade sectors. 

I asked Darren Martinez in the City Attorney's office if there is any rule against an elected official becoming a lobbyist immediately after leaving office or it there is a waiting period, which is standard in Federal and State ethics rules. As of now, I’ve had no response from the City Attorney. I guess they are too busy defending the City against lawsuits. Someone knowledgeable in LA ethics law told me that the City has the same ethics rule but since he is going to work for a lobbying group outside of Los Angeles, it doesn't apply. 

He should have resigned in January which could have allowed a new councilmember for District 7 to be elected. Doing it now is like making a farewell obscene gesture to his constituents: He’s leaving them without a representative for another year. Council President Herb Wesson will appoint a "caretaker" from the Legislative Analyst’s department. 

Some of Fuentes constituents told me that they will be better off with him gone because he wasn't doing anything for them anyway. While this may be true, he did, after all, make a commitment to serve for four years. It seems that he managed to do the minimum amount of work just to set himself up to take a much higher paying position when leaving office. 

He managed to spearhead the new Charter amendment on the November ballot which restructures the DWP. But what did he accomplish for his constituents? Aside from telling some of the NCs in his district that he didn't need them and helping with some cleanup and playing favorites...not much. 

The LA Times grudgingly endorsed him in 2012 with the caveat that he could do a great job or a poor one. Yesterday they concluded it was poor. 

Now, at least 21 people have filed papers for the vacancy. It looks like representatives from the entrenched SVF political machine will try to use their considerable influence and power. There are also political staff members from other Council offices who are getting a head start on fundraising. Don't forget…this primary election isn't until March 2017. There are quite a few civic activists and some ordinary citizens also looking at this job. 

I urge the stakeholders in District 7 to vet all these candidates carefully. You are at a crossroads and you need someone who will commit to doing his or her best 24/7. Hold their feet to the fire! Make them give you more than a glimpse of their visions and how they plan to achieve their goals. The term of office will be five plus years, so make them promise publicly that they will fulfill the whole term of office. 

Felipe Fuentes will serve as a great example of what you don't want in your next councilmember! 

As always ... comments welcome.

(Denyse Selesnick is a CityWatch columnist. She is a former publisher/journalist/international event organizer. Denyse can be reached at: [email protected]) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.)

DEVELOPERS’ DREAMS-After a six-hour, emotional hearing at LA City Hall on Thursday, the City Planning Commission approved the billion-dollar mega-project known as “The Reef” for Historic South-Central, even though scores of local residents testified that the high-end residential development would force them out of their neighborhood and create widespread displacement. 

“This is modern ethnic cleansing,” a young man told the planning commissioners at the packed meeting. 

Neighborhood activists and working-class residents have long been wary about The Reef, also known as SoLA Village. 

The 1.6 million-square-foot mega-project, pushed by developer Kanon Ventures, is located near the Santa Monica Freeway at 1933 S. Broadway features a 19-story hotel and two luxury housing skyscrapers (32 stories and 35 stories each) with more than 1,000 units. Abandoning its Historic South-Central heritage, Kanon Ventures markets The Reef as a “creative habitat in downtown LA,” an obvious attempt to grab the attention of artists, hipsters and techies. 

In a 2014 Los Angeles Times article, LA City Council member Curren Price, who represents Historic South-Central in District 9, also made clear that the mega-project was part of an expansion of downtown LA, which has been rapidly gentrifying. “This is a wonderful opportunity to show what the future of downtown is going to be as it migrates southward,” he told the newspaper.  

Perhaps most tellingly, Kanon Ventures offered no affordable housing at The Reef, but agreed to contribute $15 million to the Council District 9 Affordable Housing Trust Fund to “facilitate development of affordable housing within CD 9 and towards the purchase of expiring restricted affordable housing covenants,” according to a city document. 

Each council member maintains a number of trust funds that are essentially slush funds, with money often going to the politician’s favorite pet projects and organizations. The slush funds are difficult to track and receive little public oversight. 

Kanon Ventures and its executives have long been deep-pocketed players at City Hall. Between 2001 and 2015, the developer shelled out $12,450 to the campaign war chests of LA politicians, according to the city’s Ethics Commission. 

In pursuit of building The Reef, the developer poured $357,325 into super-connected lobbying firm Marathon Communications to win over LA pols and city agencies, according to the Ethics Commission. For The Reef, Kanon Ventures operates through a limited liability corporation known as PHR LA Mart. 

That’s a whopping total of $369,775 — more than 10 times the median household income in Historic South-Central. 

During Thursday’s meeting, many city planning commissioners, who are appointed by Mayor Eric Garcetti, revealed that they had previously talked with the Mayor’s Office about The Reef -- a sign that in addition to Councilman Price, Garcetti was deeply involved with the mega-project. 

At the City Hall hearing, where more than 140 people testified, local residents brought up a number of serious concerns with planning commissioners David Ambroz, Renee Dake Wilson, Veronica Padilla, Caroline Choe, Samantha Millman, John Mack, Robert Ahn and Dana Perlman, including: 

• Local residents can’t afford the market-rate housing at The Reef. 

• The residential towers are next to the 10 Freeway, the kind of freeway-adjacent housing that USC and UCLA scientific studies show is dangerous to the health of children, seniors and pregnant women. 

• Apartment rents around the The Reef will rise and force people out of their homes and cause displacement. 

• Numerous large billboards at the site will overwhelm the neighborhood. 

• The developer and City Council member did not properly reach out to the community. 

The planning commission, however, decided against super-graphic and digital billboards at The Reef, and proposed that the developer offer some affordable housing -- a paltry 50 rental units for low- and moderate-income tenants. The commissioners did approve spot-zoning favors such as a General Plan amendment and zone change. 

Community activist Damien Goodmon of Crenshaw Subway Coalition, who opposed The Reef, said about the City Hall-approved favors that push forward over-sized, luxury development in LA, “Spot zoning for mega-projects is facilitating gentrification. People who live in these neighborhoods are longtime residents, and they will be pushed out. Who are these projects for?” 

It was a question that the planning commissioners never asked developer Kanon Ventures.

(Patrick Range McDonald writes for the Coalition to Preserve LA where this piece was first posted.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

MIDDLE EAST POLITICS-The California State legislature is about to adopt a bill heavily promoted by Santa Monica’s Assemblymember Richard Bloom to penalize criticism of Israel. Based on the false allegation that criticisms of the Israeli government are anti-Semitic (i.e. anti-Jewish), Bloom’s bill would forbid State of California contracts to private companies that subscribe to any tenets of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Bloom’s opponents have pointed out these criticisms, such as Israel’s construction of apartheid in occupied territories, are commonplace among Israeli Jews. They also point out that many American Jews criticize the Israeli government’s racist practices and support various consumer boycotts. 

What Bloom is promoting in Sacramento mirrors similar actions in many other states and in Washington DC. In fact, U.S. government policy toward Israel will swerve further to the right on January 20, 2017, when either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump is inaugurated President of the United States. Massive military aid and unquestioning diplomatic support of Israel will continue, and relations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will become more cordial as Israeli and American policies become more closely aligned. 

Israel’s Likud political party and its American proxy, AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), will still be in the driver’s seat. As the greater Middle East further unravels, Israel and its U.S. advocates will argue that Israel deserves still more U.S. government support because it is a rock solid, stable U.S. ally in a region filled with shaky authoritarian regimes. 

But, for the reasons we outline below, either presidential administration will eventually discover that its pro-Likud position – similar to Richard Bloom’s -- is extremely counterproductive. President Clinton or President Trump will reap few benefits and many setbacks by doubling down on U.S. government support for the continued Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, including the construction of an apartheid state in these areas. This is because the U.S. government has little to gain and much to lose from this continued approach. 

As of 2016-17, AIPAC can still sway U.S. policy toward Israel, including in the California legislature, but AIPAC, like its Israeli puppet master, is a 97-pound weakling when it comes to stopping many long-term trends in the Middle East at odds with perceived U.S. and Israeli government interests. This is, in part, because Israel’s enormous military power, much of built through U.S. aid, has become irrelevant to U.S. concerns in the greater Middle East. For example:

• In Syria, Israel cannot directly attack the Assad regime or its enemies from the Islamic State (IS). Its participation would only sharpen the conflict and expose rifts within Israel and between Israel and the United States. This is because Israel discreetly supports jihadists in Syria to cement its backdoor alliance with Saudi Arabia, while the U.S., in contrast, is bombing these same jihadists. 

• In Iraq, Israel cannot attack the IS for the same reasons. If it were to do so, it would jeopardize its hush-hush relationship with the Gulf monarchies and find itself in an awkward alliance with Iran, whose goal is to attack IS in order to prop up the pro-Iranian Shiite regime of Iraq. 

• In the Sinai Peninsula, a hotbed of IS activity on Israel’s southern flank, the situation is no different. Even though IS is a sworn enemy of the U.S., Israel, and Egypt, another Israeli invasion of the Sinai Peninsula would undermine, not strengthen, Egypt’s pro-U.S. autocrat, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. An Israeli attack in Sinai could also draw in Hamas from the adjacent Gaza strip, resulting in a level of Israeli casualties that would again undermine the Netanyahu government. 

• In Lebanon, another enemy of the U.S. and Israel, Hezbollah, has 50,000 missiles aimed at Israel. Even though Hezbollah has moved the bulk of its forces into neighboring Syria to fight jihadists and U.S.-supported secular forces attacking the Assad regime, it could still fire its missiles at Israel. While Israel has the military power to again attack Hezbollah in Lebanon, it does not have the military technology to block all Hezbollah rockets fired at Israel, or the political strength to absorb the many dozens of Israelis who would be killed in combat or by rockets destroying civilian targets. 

• Yemen, Sudan, Libya, and Somalia are other Middle East hotspots where U.S. interests are militarily challenged and where Israel has the military power to intercede, but could not tolerate the blowback. Israeli intervention in those conflicts would inflame local jihadists and increase the flow of refugees northward, some of who would breach border fences to join other “infiltrators” already living in Israel. Furthermore, any casualties from these military adventures would jeopardize Netanyahu’s Knesset alliance. 

If it were not initially clear, either Presidential administration would slowly realize that U.S. military aid and diplomatic support for Israel was restricted to the following: 

• Quell Palestinian opposition to the construction of an apartheid state in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, including potential future Palestinian expulsions under the cover of a regional war. 

• “Mow the lawn” in Gaza to periodically hobble a Palestinian force that could, at some distant point, challenge an apartheid state by going off their reservation/open-air prison. 

• Attack Iran using F-35 stealth and other first-strike weapons the U.S. is supplying Israel. While such a neo-con inspired attack would unleash a tsunami of counterattacks against the U.S. and its regional protectorates, including Israel, such unintended consequences are of little concern to neo-cons, whether they reside in Washington, Riyadh, or Jerusalem.     

Future U.S. Government Role in the Israel-Palestinian Conflict 

With so many local conflicts weakening the overall U.S. military position in the Middle East, and with Israel of no help in these conflicts, we have a vantage point to foresee the future U.S. role in this critical geo-political region. Although we can expect more rounds of neo-con inspired military interventions throughout the Middle East, such as confrontations with Iran, they will not improve the situation of U.S., only drain the country’s economic and political resources further. It has already happened in Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, where there is no light at the end of these tunnels. Furthermore, the one-sided U.S. alliance with Israel can only jeopardize its declining position throughout the greater Middle East. 

This is one of reasons we can predict how, but not when, the Israeli government experiment to construct an apartheid state will eventually collapse. At some point the United States government either cannot or will not shield Israel from further international pressure, including sanctions, as well as local mass movements. This loss of critical external support from the U.S. will usher in swift changes, for either the better or worse. 

That moment is now on the horizon due to three other political trends that are converging with declining U.S. military and political influence in the Middle East.

Foreign protection: The first trend is Israel’s increasing need for direct military support and diplomatic protection, especially at international forums, like the United Nations Security Council. 

Israel’s transformation of its 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem into a full-on apartheid state requires greater, not less, shoring up from the United States to deflect growing domestic and international opposition. Despite one public relations offensive after another, Israel is increasingly isolated. It has now reached the point where the country has becoming a pariah state in many parts of the world.

Israel’s frantic pushback against this growing resistance now appears on a daily basis, such as ever more draconian undemocratic laws aimed at weakening Israeli, Palestinian, and foreign anti-occupation movements, even non-violent middle class ones, like Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS). 

American Jewish Disenchantment with Israel: The second trend is the weakening of the organized American Jewish community’s dedication to Israel. As a younger generation of Jewish American leaders comes to power, unlike Assemblymember Bloom, they are repulsed by Israel’s never-ending occupation, religious fanaticism, extreme nationalism, overt racism, repressive political climate, and alliance with the U.S. Republican Party. Furthermore, unlike Bloom, they do not easily confuse opposition to Israeli racism with opposition to Jews as Jews. 

As the Jewish American community gets further removed from its immigrant roots, which directly witnessed the fate of powerless Jews during the Holocaust, and it becomes more integrated into the American intellectual, political, and financial elite, the more Jews question the need for a refuge in one of the most dangerous corners of the world. 

In fact, Jewish elites have become well integrated into this American academic, economic, and political circles. In this process, anti-Semitism has effectively disappeared, and the need for a hasty mass exodus from the United States to Israel strikes most of them as ludicrous. 

Weakening Israel Lobby: The stranglehold that the Israeli lobby has had on the U.S. government is weakening. Congress and all Presidential administrations since the 1960s complied with nearly all of Israel’s requests. But the cumulative efforts of the Israel government and the Israel lobby could not stop the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran, finalized in 2015 and already mostly implemented. Recently, the Bernie Sanders Presidential campaign brought the plight of Palestinians and Israel’s 50-year occupation into the national spotlight for the first time. 

These three political trends together mean that Israel’s need for protection from accountability and opposition, such as BDS, will eventually exceed the United States’ capacity or commitment. 

Like the nationalist government in South Africa, Israel will then have to adjust to a new reality, and that will usher in dramatic political changes. There are more and less desirable possibilities. The most likely non-violent path is that moribund Israeli peace forces regain strength and, together with Palestinian movements, find a way to end the occupation and establish a viable, sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel.

The other options almost surely will involve violence. On one side, the formation of a South African-style, single democratic state with equal rights for all or a bi-national state could trigger a Jewish civil war. On the other side, if an American exit nevertheless leads to a full apartheid state and/or a massive expulsion of Palestinians, it will further isolate Israel, confront it with a massive Intifada, and finally trigger a regional war that could involve nuclear weapons.

A non-violent response to the fallout from an eventual U.S. departure must be the international goal.

(Victor Rothman is a California-based political analyst. Jeff Warner is the Action Coordinator of LA Jews for Peace. Please send any comments to i[email protected].  Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

GELFAND’S WORLD--When Donald Trump argued that the only way he could lose Pennsylvania was by being cheated out of it, he was essentially conceding defeat in the presidential election. Competitive candidates try to turn the tide. Losers make excuses. It's not even a good excuse. We are barely into the middle of August, and Trump is already explaining away his eventual loss. 

Trump has been building the excuse for the past couple of weeks. Think of all the whiney statements he has been making about the election being rigged. This is a substantial reversal from when he bragged incessantly about how well he was going to do (remember even 3 months ago?). 

Usually, the candidate who goes into the middle of August down by 7 points is introduced at his rallies as "the next president of the United States." Leaders in the polls and second placers alike are supposed to keep up a brave front, particularly because there are occasional turnarounds. But Trump doesn't seem to understand either history or how to play the game. 

When it looks like you're about to lose in historic proportions, likely giving up Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida -- a solid bloc of once-confederate states -- it must really smart. Over the past 16 presidential elections (starting with 1952) Florida voted for the Republican 11 times, taking time off to vote against Goldwater and to vote for Bill Clinton's reelection before the modern realignment as a swing state. Virginia has a similar history. and North Carolina has voted for the Republican candidate 10 times out of the past 12 elections. 

The post-convention polling must have been devastating to The Donald. He gave a flamboyant speech at the RNC that has been compared to some of Mussolini's best efforts, and he even got to celebrate a short bounce in the polls. But two weeks later, his lead in the polls evaporated, and suddenly Hillary Clinton is leading by historic percentages. 

It must be frustrating beyond belief to Trump that his message is not only being ignored, it is being laughed at. 

The part that I find interesting is that Trump has become boring. Like really, really boring. 

Trump made his mark by taking a series of outrageous positions. He started his campaign by challenging the president's birthplace. It was a shameful display of racism, but it got him recognized. He continued with his attacks on immigrants, Moslems, and all of his primary opponents. His approach was fairly unique in our modern presidential history. Most candidates try to create at least an image of adulthood, but Trump turned it all over by throwing infantile tantrums. 

The more outrageous he got, the more attention he drew. But neither Trump nor the media seemed to sense that eventually this approach would get old. 

Perhaps it's the fact that Trump is using his patented approach of calling names (crooked Hillary) but didn't see that when the victim is not on stage with him, the name calling falls flat. 

Perhaps it's the fact that in the post-convention period, the press finally has time to practice the craft of the high school essay: compare and contrast. They have a lot of material and the comparison has become easy. 

But did we predict that the press and most voters would suddenly get bored with Trump? If the rest of the reporters haven't yet caught on, allow me to state the obvious fact. 

A few days ago, an increasingly desperate Trump accused the president of founding Isis. You know, Isis, the terrorist organization that took over a large part of Iraq? It's interesting to look at the media's reactions. Yes, there were the obligatory attempts to ask if Trump meant something else, and there were the now reflexive attempts by his staff and supporters to make his statement into something else. In response to the question -- "Did you mean that?" -- Trump said Yes, then he said No (it was sarcasm) and then he went back to a qualified Yes. 

The press and the public just yawned. 

It wasn't new and entertaining anymore. Everyone was wondering what Trump would come up with next. The reaction was, in essence, Is that all you've got? 

At this point, Trump has become predictable. Oh so predictable. We've come to understand that he will make up just about anything. We're not sure whether it's carefully crafted deception by a master of the craft, or whether it's done on the fly. But the notable point is that the press and the public don't buy into the game anymore. We're not paying much attention because it's been sooooo overdone. 

"Hey, did you hear what Trump did today?" 

"No (stifling yawning noises). "What did he do this time? 

While Trump was in the ascendancy during the primaries, he was considered to be an object of fascination by political scientists and reporters alike. It was a truly unexpected win streak. But now that his numbers are falling and Hillary Clinton has been pronounced 89% likely to win the presidency, he is just one more loser. Reporters and editors are a lot less likely to get all worked up about the desperate gyrations of the guy coming in second.

●●

Short Takes -Is it the end of a sporting era? Women's Soccer became an Olympic sport in 1996. The U.S. women's team finished second in 2000, and took the gold every other time. That's four golds out of five Olympics. This year's team came into the Olympics as Women's World Cup champions. And then the floor collapsed under them. It's true that they won their opening two games in the group round, but showed worrisome instability in the final group game against Colombia. The two-time loser Colombia managed to tie the game in what was literally the last second. Then the U.S. went to the knockout round and lost in the quarterfinals to Sweden. Sweden is good, but the U.S. is supposed to defeat them when it counts. 

After the game, the American goalie Hope Solo created a small international incident when she referred to the Swedish strategy as cowardly, referring to the Swede's tactics of playing defense well. Nobody took it too seriously, but one wonders whether Solo is on the downswing of a once spectacular career. 

It was certainly the end of the Michael Phelps era in swimming, unless it isn't. He says he's retiring (skipping out with a mere 23 gold medals?). 

The U.S. men's rugby team beat Brazil and Spain in the Olympics, while suffering close losses to Argentina and to eventual Olympic champion Fiji (by a score of 24-19). Think of rugby scores as fairly analogous to scores in American football. In the championship game, Fiji beat Great Britain by 43-7. With its 9th place finish, the U.S. team showed that it can play world-class rugby, but not necessarily championship level rugby. 

Save the Olympics-- Kevin Drum has been floating a pretty good idea for saving the Olympics. Why do they need saving? Because most modern Olympic games have been budget busters for the host countries. Greece and Brazil are particularly good examples of the bad effects of hosting the games. 

Some people have suggested that there be a permanent site for the games in Greece, the country of their origin. Drum took the idea and changed Greece to Los Angeles. It makes sense in a way, because Los Angeles has hosted the games twice and avoided bankruptcy. Most of the facilities are in place. I suspect that the one negative would be air quality, but we've survived it before. Drum points out that he didn't get a lot of support for making Los Angeles the permanent home (I think it's still a reasonable idea) and now suggests that the games could be spread among several countries in each Olympics. 

May I suggest that Drum combine the two suggestions to include Los Angeles as the main host with negotiated subordinate hosts for various sports. How about Chicago or Boston for basketball, England for rugby, and India for cricket? 

NCEPA--The neighborhood council emergency preparedness alliance (NCEPA): The group has been meeting and has developed a committee structure to recommend communications methodology (this refers to the use of radios in emergency situations rather than putting out a newsletter), outreach, and an overall plan. We will keep everyone in the loop using City Watch. 

What's with Scott Adams?--Adams is the creator of the Dilbert cartoons, author of lots of books, and self-proclaimed expert on what motivates people. He also writes a blog.  At the start of the presidential campaign season, he talked about Trump as the master persuader. In recent months, he predicted that Trump would win the presidency in a landslide. His argument seems to come down to the assertion that people make decisions based less on reason, and more on emotion. OK so far, but it is a bit presumptuous to think that the majority of voters share the same emotions as Trump voters. 

More recently, he stated that he was endorsing Hillary Clinton, but not because he supports either candidate; rather, he says he is making the endorsement because in Northern California, where he lives, it would be personally dangerous to do otherwise. Ignoring the huge insult to the people in his region, this is also one of the stupidest arguments I've heard in a long time. Perhaps this is Adams' attempt to make himself into a real-life version of a Dilbert cartoon, or perhaps his lampoon of Trump himself. 

Whatever the reality, people seem to be noticing the Adams touch and becoming irritated. Recently, Adams is hedging his bets by arguing that Hillary has learned to use Trump's own measures against him.

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

BILLBOARD WATCH-Earlier this summer, the bus shelter pictured above displayed an ad for the movie, “Central Intelligence,” which depicted two men brandishing and blasting away with guns. But after complaints were raised about the bus shelter’s proximity to nearby schools, the ad was changed to a public service message featuring Smokey the Bear. 

It’s probable that the city’s street furniture contractor, a joint venture of billboard giants Outfront Media and JC Decaux, gets considerably more revenue from movie ads than public service messages. That may explain the very temporary hiatus between the offending “Central Intelligence” ad and the gun-displaying ad for the movie, “Suicide Squad” in the bus shelter less than 300 ft. from the grounds of an elementary school and charter high school. 

In fact, despite an ongoing debate about gun violence in the U.S., it’s business as usual for billboard companies and the marketing departments of companies like Warner Bros., which produced Suicide Squad.  Bus shelters, billboards and other forms of outdoor advertising display often-menacing figures armed to the teeth with pistols, assault rifles, and even more extreme forms of weaponry. These displays of violence, both explicit and implied, can be found near schools, libraries, playgrounds, and other places children and young people congregate. 

Violence, and especially, gun violence, obviously sells tickets, or so media companies like Warner Bros. and Universal apparently believe. However, not everyone in the entertainment business agrees that such ad campaigns are appropriate. Lena Dunham, creator and star of the popular HBO series, “Girls”, recently objected to ads for the movie, “Jason Bourne,” calling on people to alter the ads in New York City subways. And closer to home, Venice neighbors and their children recently altered a construction fence plastered with “Jason Bourne” ads by covering the gun images with flowers. 

(Dennis Hathaway is the president of the Ban Billboard Blight Coalition and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected].) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

CALIFORNIA FORWARD--Lawyers, public servants, students, academics, good government reform groups, and concerned citizens made Los Angeles City Hall on Thursday the center of a statewide discussion to modernize California's landmark political ethics law and encourage more people to participate in the political process.

They joined the Fair Political Practices Commission, California Forward and the University of California Berkeley School of Law yesterday for the first of three small discussions being held throughout the state regarding the Political Reform Act Revision Project.

"This is our best shot at cleaning up the law after 40 years," said Jodi Remke, Chair of the FPPC. "We’re trying to get the act into a shape where it’s easier to read, easier to understand and easier for you to make further suggestions and comments."

The Political Reform Act was approved by voters in 1974 and governs political activity in California like campaign finance, lobbying, and governmental ethics. Since then it has been amended numerous times. That's made the rules harder to understand and navigate, placing a hurdle in front of people who might want to seek public office and making it more time-consuming to enforce.

To give act more clarity, the FPPC has partnered with CA Fwd and the law schools at UC Berkeley and UC Davis for a comprehensive revision of the law. 

One of the co-authors of the original version of the Act, Robert Stern, participated in the discussion and congratulated the project's partners on taking on such an important task.

"This [act] should not be locked in stone," said Stern, former president at the Center for Governmental Studies and former General Counsel of the FPPC. "We thought it was very important for this act to be a living act. Clearly it needs to be easier and consolidated."

The gathering served to call attention to the first of two public comment periods and to empower interested individuals to voice their perspectives regarding updating the more than four-decade-old act.

"If we can encourage and empower the public to understand how to engage in this process we will end up with a better product," said Jim Mayer, president and CEO of CA Fwd.

Before beginning the project, the FPPC and CA Fwd recognized four important goals in order to achieve a robust public process: 1) to provide practitioners, public servants and citizens an opportunity to understand the vitality of the law, 2) to incorporate and include parties who deal with the law on a regular basis, as their feedback would only serve to strengthen the revision, 3) to model what an inclusive and transparent process is, and 4) to apply a high level of rigor to the comments received.  

"We wanted some qualitative understanding -- how are people feeling about the law and the project so that when we look at these comments we have context," said Mayer.

The first phase of the project spanning nearly eight months was for the UC Berkeley and UC Davis Law Schools to clean, re-organize and simplify the language without making substantive changes and create a revised draft for review. According to Remke, this is only the first of multiple steps to engage the public and only the beginning of a process that will take several months.

To help with the process, Remke said additional tools to assist the public with understanding proposed revisions will be made available on the FPPC website soon. 

There are two more discussions scheduled for August. To register, visit the event registration page.

NEED TO KNOW

Tuesday, August 16 at 1-2:30 p.m.
Fair Political Practices Commission, 8th floor hearing room
428 J Street
Sacramento, CA 95814

Thursday, August 25 at 1-2:30 p.m.
Oakland City Hall, Hearing Room 4 (2nd floor)
1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza
Oakland, CA 94612

For more information about the project including an introductory webinar, a packet of materials with the latest draft of the act, and to learn how to submit a comment, please visit www.cafwd.org/pra. 

The California Political Reform Act Revision project is supported by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation.

(Jania Palacios writes for California Forward whose mission is to restore the California Dream, we must create more middle class jobs, promote cost effective public services and encourage accountability for results.)

-cw

LA WATCHDOG--If approved by a majority of the voters, Proposition 53, the Stop Blank Checks Initiative, “all revenue bonds issued or sold by the State in an amount singly or in the aggregate over $2 billion for any single project owned, operated, or managed by the State must first be approved by the voters at a statewide election.”