LOS ANGELES

PLATKIN ON PLANNING-The City Planning Commission hearing on amendments to the two citywide mansionization ordinances – the Baseline Mansionization Ordinance (BMO) and the Baseline Hillside Ordinance (BHO) -- took place on Thursday, July 14, 2016. To get a full report on what transpired, please open this link.  

If you are concerned about mansionization -- the hasty and often illegal demolition of smaller, less expensive houses to clear building pads for pricey, oversized, out-of-character McMansions -- then these amendments are the big one. In Los Angeles, the mansionization process began in the Beverly Grove neighborhood, where I live, over a decade ago, but has since spread over the entire city. Contractors have bulldozed thousands of well-priced, middle class homes to make way for a crowd with apparently with more money than taste. 

With plenty of City Council and City Planning Department support behind them, the investors, contractors, and realtors in the mansionization business have been able to neutralize six previous attempts to stop McMansions by smothering them in loopholes. As a result, there has not even been a blip in the number of affordable houses demolished and then replaced by extremely expensive, intrusive monster houses in more and more LA neighborhoods. 

In this relentless cycle of real estate speculation, the only areas able to protect neighborhood character and scale are about 30 Historical Preservation Overlay Zones (e.g. Hancock Park), several residential Specific Plans (e.g. Mount Washington), and four neighborhoods with Residential Floor Area Districts (e.g., Beverly Grove).

While important, these zoning overlay ordinances only shield small areas. They oil loud squeaky wheels so truly awful planning practices can roll through the rest of Los Angeles unperturbed by multiple anti-mansionization policies in adopted and approved city planning documents. 

While these local anti-mansionization ordinances cannot unring a bell, they can at least protect the remaining homes in a handful of neighborhoods. But that also means that the rest of Los Angeles will not have dependable protection against mansionization until the City Council adopts a strong, citywide anti-mansionization ordinance. The current BMO-BHO amendments could finally provide that protection, but it will be a knock down, drag out fight over the coming months. Many neighborhood David’s are already facing off against a small army of Philistines, who are in league with City Hall decision makers taken in by the mansionizers’ frequently repeated but always debunked talking points.  

Breaking news: The City Planning Department recently issued their staff report for the Thursday hearing, and it does have some good points: 

• It recommends reducing by-right FAR from 0.50 to 0.45 on R1 lots of less than 7,500 square feet. 

• It calls for the full elimination of the exemption for covered porches, patios, and breezeways. 

• It calls for public hearings for all waivers (10% Zoning Administrator Adjustments) decided by the Department of City Planning. 

But the staff report falls far short in other key ways: 

• In hundreds of public comments and letters, Angelinos living in “the flats” identified the exclusion of attached garages from a house’s floor area (a 400 square foot freebie for mansionizers) as the single most damaging loophole. Even the City Planning staff report concedes that this has been “one of the most requested changes” and that if included, it would encourage detached garages with driveways that “provide increased separation between houses.” We would also add that the elimination of this loophole results in smaller houses. 

• But city planners recommend keeping the exemption for attached garage space, even though the City Council expressly directed City Planning to eliminate all loopholes that promoted mansionization. 

• Communities in the hillsides that are covered by the Hillside Mansionization Ordinance asked, above all, that the City drop the 1,000 square foot floor area minimum for non-conforming lots and tighten grading and hauling allowances. 

But city planners recommend keeping the 1,000 square foot minimum, as well as excessive grading and hauling allowances. 

Communities with larger lots (RA, RS, and RE zones), such as Tarzana, first and foremost requested that the City eliminate the same square footage bonus loopholes in their zones that they removed in R1 zones. 

But the city planners recommended keeping these bonuses, asserting that larger lot sizes and smaller FARs “make these zones better able to accommodate” the bonuses/loopholes. The bigger question, why there should even be a secret (ministerial) process to enlarge houses above their initial by-right size without a public, discretionary process, was, of course, not asked and not answered. 

Finally, all LA neighborhoods repeatedly requested that City Hall keep the amended mansionization ordinances as short, straightforward, and enforceable as possible. They knew, from bitter first hand experience, that LA’s Department of Building and Safety cannot understand and/or will not enforce the most basic mansionization provisions, such as the required posting of demolition and construction permits. They know that anything exceeding a barebones mansionization ordinance will be easily gamed by the mansionizers. 

They also realized that the inclusion of new design features lifted from re:code LA, encroachment planes and side wall articulation, are nothing more than lipstick on a pig. These are complicated, hard-to-enforce design provisions whose rationale, camouflaging bloated houses, is a myth. They are no different than the existing loopholes that the Council ordered City Planning to eliminate from the Baseline Mansionization Ordinance because they promoted mansionization. The locals know these design gimmicks utterly failed over the past eight years, and they will not work if again forced upon LA’s neighborhoods. Like before, they are nothing more than a recipe for further mansionization pretending to be fancy architectural doodads.

The first draft of the current BMO/BHO amendments in October 2015 received over 600 responses, and the Planning Department reported that these comments favored tighter limits on McMansions by a margin of almost 4-to-1. The second draft drew over 1000 responses, and there is no reason to think that public sentiment suddenly changed in favor of loopholes, whether old or new. 

But the Planning Department’s summary of “the most representative comments” pairs every objection to its reinstatement of loopholes with an opposing comment, while leaving out any mention of relative frequency, the actual validity of claims and counter-claims, and the instructions of the City Council. 

At the hearing on Thursday, speculators and realtors were expected to be out in force. Some of them have a simple, short-term outlook based on making a quick buck, regardless of the consequences for other people. Others are simply so ignorant they have not noticed that the neighborhoods with the highest property values are those, like the HPOZ’s, that protect neighborhood character. Finally, others clothe their greed in long-winded architectural discourses that boil down to “wear shirts with vertical stripes if you want to appear thinner.”
NEXT STEPS: We all know what we need to do: Show up at the hearing!  And, after the hearing, submit testimony directly to the City Planning Department, the City Planning Commission, and the City Council. This way, your testimony will be contained in the official file forwarded to the City Council’s Planning and Land Use Committee (PLUM) for its public hearing on the same amendments. Plus, you can also present your testimony again at the PLUM hearing. These are the City of LA staff that you should contact. Remember to include CF 14-0656 in the subject line. 

City Planning Commission: [email protected]

City Council PLUM Committee: [email protected]

Tom Rothmann:   [email protected]

Nicholas Marrakech: [email protected]

Phyllis Nathanson:   [email protected] 

Niall Huffman: [email protected]

Another round of emailed public testimony will show support for meaningful reform of LA’s repeatedly flawed efforts to stop mansionization. 

For further information on the next stages in the adoption process, this website will have all the information you need.

(Dick Platkin is a former LA City Planner who reports on local planning issues for City Watch. He welcomes comment and corrections at [email protected]. He also thanks Shelley Wagers, who wrote an earlier version of this column.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

THIS IS WHAT I KNOW-Just days before the delegates arrive in Cleveland for the GOP convention and less than two weeks before the Democrats gather in Philadelphia, California officials have been busy certifying the over 8.5 million ballots cast last month. Voters and local election officials alike have been scratching their heads about confusing rules and overlapping that occurred during the primary voting process. 

Most complaints stem from the dissimilar rules governing both presidential and statewide elections. Primaries for state offices are open; voters can choose candidates across party lines. Rules for the presidential primary differ and are governed by the political party.

Independent (no party preference) voters were able to vote for either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary but were not permitted to vote in the GOP primary. Independent voters were required by the Democratic Party to use a designated “crossover” ballot which did not include a vote for the party’s governing committee. This special ballot was only presented to unaffiliated voters if they asked for it. 

Furthermore, local election officials were held to enforcing the rules – and procedures were inconsistent from county to county. Training for poll workers isn’t even consistent throughout the state. Activists have alleged that independent voters may not have had the chance to vote for Sanders. Election Day reports pointed out a number of “polling place flash points” where poll workers either gave the wrong advice or weren’t using the latest roster of registered voters. 

After there were some suspected uncounted provisional ballots in other states, Sanders supporters in California used social media to inform people to refuse provisional ballots. At the same time, election officials noted the state election law gives wide discretion to accept provisional ballots. Reports from Contra Costa County concluded eighty-eight percent of the county’s provisional ballots were counted. Eighty-seven percent of Los Angeles County’s over 268,000 provisional ballots were counted. 

In the days following the June 7 primary, more private citizens than usual were showing up to watch over the tallying of provisional ballots and in San Diego, social media activists accused election workers of changing provisional ballots. 

Snafus happened when voters showed up at different polling places than where they were registered and ended up mistakenly voting for down-ticket races for which they weren’t eligible to vote. In San Diego, workers redacted those particular votes with white correction tape, leaving in place the votes for president and U.S. Senate. In other counties, election workers were copying the voter’s choices to a clear ballot, similar to what happens with damaged ballots. An activist group in San Diego has filed a lawsuit claiming that the procedures followed to recount the required manual recount of one percent of the ballots were incorrect. 

Additional problems occurred when voters who don’t typically go to the polls were confused about their party affiliation. For example, some voters believed they were registered independents (who could receive provisional ballots for the presidential primary) but were, in reality, members of California’s American Independent Party. 

In Riverside County, allegations were levied that changes may have been tampered with in the state’s online registration portal to change part affiliation, charges Secretary of State Alex Padilla denies. 

Election changes in 2014 allow for completed vote-by-mail ballots to arrive as late as 72 hours after the polls close, provided they are postmarked on Election Day. This typically causes late counting in less populated counties. 

In elections with such a wide array of ballots by both party affiliation and language, as well as such large numbers of candidates like the 34 primary candidates for the U.S. Senate race in California, voting systems need to be updated. More money is needed to expand voter communications and to pay for mandated procedures to ensure fair, uniform elections and equal treatment of voters throughout the state.

(Beth Cone Kramer is a successful Los Angeles writer and a columnist for CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

JUST THE FACTS--I have been ranting and raving about the deteriorating conditions of our once proud City of Los Angeles neighborhoods for a number of months. Homeless are entrenched in many parts of our residential communities, pot holes exist on more roadways than I can count, severe traffic congestion is in all parts of the city with all the freeways in all directions jammed most times of each and every day until late evenings, graffiti is sprawled along business corridors, trash is spilling over trash cans at bus stops, and crime is increasing in all categories. 

Being a native of Los Angeles and living here for nearly 70 years, I know what our city used to look like and what it used to offer residents, business owners and visitors over the years. 

For the residents, there was affordable housing, good public schools for the children, good manufacturing jobs; auto, bicycle and motorcycle travel on well maintained roadways and relatively safe neighborhoods where people could walk on sidewalks that were even and without huge cracks to trip and fall without fear of being confronted by thugs, homeless living on the sidewalks and an assortment of conditions that turn a well - maintained city into a place that is in severe decay and neglect. 

It can all be turned around with strong, consistent and determined political leadership.   It happened in New York City when Rudy Giuliani was the mayor and the city was experiencing decay at an alarming rate. 

The police were given the tools to do their job and the public work crews were directed to clean up the mess. The transit line operators were tasked to clean the cars before they left the barn and all turned around in a short time. 

I don’t see that happening here in Los Angeles. While I know and respect Mayor Eric Garcetti, his management team is not connected with the task at hand. Homelessness is out of control and the only remedy from our city leaders is an increase in taxes and fees. They want us to put up over one billion dollars to remedy the situation. Money without a plan for how to spend it. 

There will surely be more city jobs created with more and more bureaucracy and costs to the tax payers. I say enough with the constant demand for more money to fix a problem that our city leaders let get out of control. 

The city leaders need to take some of the billions of dollars in our current budget to address this most serious situation. It is interesting that the city leaders let the situation get out of control and are now turning to the taxpayers to correct the situation they created and ignored for such a long period of time. 

The message here is simple. VOTE NO ON ANY AND ALL MEASURES ASKING FOR MORE OF YOUR MONEY TO ADDRESS THE PROBLEM THE CITY LEADERS LET GET OUT OF CONTROL IN THE FIRST PLACE!

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TRAGEDY IN DALLAS--The attack on law enforcement rose to a new level when a crazed man assassinated five Dallas police officers and injured many others during a march protesting police shootings in other parts of the country. This tragedy illustrates just how dangerous police work has become. 

In Dallas, with a starting salary of $44,000 a year, it takes brave and courageous individuals to join a career where your life can end in an instant. Your family and friends will remember you each and every day while society moves on and returns back to normal in short time. 

Serving with the LAPD for nearly 50 years, I have lost partners and friends to the dangers of the job. With the grace of God, I remain here to remind you to show your appreciation when you encounter a member of law enforcement. They have a very dangerous job and it is not getting any easier. A friendly smile and wave goes a long way to express your appreciation for your police officers. 

If you are so inclined, when in a restaurant and see an officer on code 7 (Meal Break) think about picking up their tab. This gesture goes a long way in expressing your appreciation for our police. It is not about the person’s color or race with the officers it is about enforcing the law in a fair and professional manner. If you just comply with the officers directions, your encounter can be a pleasant one for both of you.  

(Dennis P. Zine is a 33-year member of the Los Angeles Police Department and former Vice-Chairman of the Elected Los Angeles City Charter Reform Commission, a 12-year member of the Los Angeles City Council and a current LAPD Reserve Officer who serves as a member of the Fugitive Warrant Detail assigned out of Gang and Narcotics Division. He writes Just the Facts for CityWatch. You can contact him at [email protected].)

-cw

CO-EXISTENCE ALERT--I have 56 years’ experience with coyotes first hand. I am a college-educated, retired USDA Wildlife Specialist. I have lived among coyotes for a collective 210 days in remote locations in Arizona while collecting biological samples for the Center for Disease Control and Arizona Game and Fish Department. I have studied and pursued them in every way possible over these years. I have kept live coyotes on my property for the USDA for observation and urine collection for several years. And I’ve dealt with damaging and dangerous coyotes first hand and witnessed the death and the trauma they cause. 

I know coyotes. They do not belong in town, in your community, in your neighborhood, or in your back yard. These wild animals are dangerous. They are equivalent to “urban terrorists” as they invade the urban areas of America because they are there to kill – it’s their expertise. They are not cute little wild dogs, they are not a friendly wild animal, they are not your friend in anyway; they are dangerous. Anyone who tells you that you can co-exist with these dangerous wild animals is irresponsible and putting your life, your family’s life, your children, grandchildren, pets, and property in danger! 

Look closely at a few things they tell you to do to protect yourself from dangerous coyotes:

1. Secure your home to prevent unauthorized entry by coyotes – as you would to prevent burglars from entry. 

2. Never let your pets out into your very own back yard without supervision. You must police them. 

3. Watch your children closely at all times when they are outside -- guarding against coyotes as you would against criminals like kidnappers. Imagine seeing your child being eaten by a coyote. 

4. Secure all access to your home and buildings both above and below the foundation from unauthorized entry by coyotes. Again, like burglars and other criminals, they are thieves in the night. 

5. Never travel the same routes day in and day out -- change your pattern, like you would from a stalker or attacker. 

Let’s get real here, people! This dangerous wild animal is a trespasser. The coyote has proven to be a threat to humans, pets and property for decades. It is doing what criminals do, what stalkers do, and what terrorists do – and some would want you to learn to co-exist with them? Well then, let’s all learn to co-exist with muggers, rapists, stalkers, drunk drivers, and murders as well. After all, they have rights too. But do you really want to learn to live with a rattlesnake in the kitchen? 

According to some unrealistic and perhaps deranged people, rattlesnakes, killer bees, alligators, grizzly bears, cockroaches, and others have more rights to live anywhere they want than we do. If these creatures (like snakes) take up residence in your back yard or under your house (like skunks) or in your attic (like bats) – well, that is their right. 

Their proponents say, “We have moved in on them” … but they were there first! Poor misunderstood wild animals … you must “learn to live with it!” 

There is a reason that all across America there are no closed hunting seasons on coyotes. Many states do not even require hunting licenses to pursue coyotes. There are no bag limits on coyotes either. There is a reason that there have been bounties paid on killing coyotes for over 50 years. The state of Utah now pays a $50 bounty for each coyote killed. There is a reason that one federal agency has had a huge focus on controlling coyotes in America for over 100 years: coyotes are abundant. They cause a huge amount of personal property damage where ever they go. Coyotes are dangerous to humans, pets, and livestock and cause tens of thousands of dollars of damage each year in America. 

Everything I have stated here is simple to research and very easy to verify. The USDA has a fulltime well-staffed research center in Utah that studies coyotes every day. These are dangerous wild animals that must be monitored and controlled. Coyotes do not belong in your community, your neighborhood, or your back yard. And the so-called “coyote experts” seldom are that. Most have not even been alive for as long as I’ve been dealing directly with coyotes. 

Public officials encourage “co-existence” with coyotes because they don’t have the budget or the experience to deal with them. They just hope the problem goes away. But it won’t and if they were real experts they would know that. 

Activists like those who run Project Coyote have the single agenda of stopping all hunting in America -- and they want to start with the coyote. They want to raise money from you by giving you a false message with unrealistic claims about these dangerous animals. Much of what they claim is simply made up! 

I encourage all of you to take action like some other communities have. Green Valley, Arizona rose up and fought back against a single coyote that bit eight different adults. They killed this bad coyote and the attacks immediately stopped. Long Beach, California is fighting back by forming a citizens group to demand something be done about their increasing coyote problem. They found that the City of Long Beach has no budget for this control and the California Fish and Wildlife Department is doing basically nothing because they also have no budget for it. Printing up a few pamphlets will not stop the invasion and danger. 

So, what has caused this invasion? This terrorism? It is easy to figure. Across America, coyotes are showing up where they have not been in the past, looking for something to kill and eat on the roof tops of New York City, in the back yards of Pennsylvania, in downtown Chicago, and in many other similar locations. The expansion is due to the loss of rural habitat, reduction in hunters and the increasingly abundant amount of resources available in town. There is more water, more cover, and more trash to rummage through. There are pets to eat, plenty of cool shade, lots of food and most importantly, “no pressure” from other coyotes or people pursuing them. 

Urban America is a safe place for these dangerous wild animals. And it’s becoming even safer as misguided people try to “co-exist” with them. Do not fall for it. Fight back against this new urban terrorist! 

Other perspectives on urban coyotes 

• ‘Urban Coyotes: Learning to Coexist with Them’  

• ‘Coyote Shooting in Silver Lake: Is the Public Losing Patience with City Hall and Animal Services’ 

(James A. Schmidt is a retired USDA Wildlife Specialist.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

EDITOR’S PICK--In Los Angeles, resistance to change at the neighborhood level has never been at more of a fever pitch than it is today. We have the massive effort behind the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, which seeks to curb large-scale development; we have the grassroots resistance to gentrification in Boyle Heights; and we have the curious case of the Silver Lake Reservoir. Presently a gaping muddy hole, the 96-acre reservoir can no longer be used for drinking water — but that hasn't stopped some residents from demanding it be refilled, despite the severe drought. 

The two-part reservoir was built in the early 1900s as an emergency water supply and was designed to be useful, not pretty. Yet the reservoir later became a sort of focal point of the upwardly mobile community.

"Many longtime residents think this is their lake," the reservoir keeper, Manuel Trujillo, once said, according to the application to make the reservoir a Historic-Cultural Monument. "The lake adds to the property values of the nearby homes. When the lake was drained in 1975 for some reconstruction, the
property values dipped."

In the wake of 9/11, the federal government mandated that all water supplies be kept underground. So in 2013, the the reservoir was taken offline. In the summer of 2015, it was drained so that the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which owns the reservoir and surrounding land, could rebuild some pipes, sending drinking water to a new subterranean reservoir underneath Griffith Park. 

The reservoir was supposed to be refilled by the end of this year, but things are running a little behind.

Oh yeah, we're also in the middle of a really bad drought, which has led some to wonder aloud, why are we filling this thing up with water again? Water that no one will use, except to look at?

Surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, the reservoir is essentially a jail for water. Now that it won't be functioning as an actual reservoir, maybe it could put to an actual use? Like maybe a park? 

Once ideas such as these started percolating, Silver Lake residents started getting agitated. Not all of them, of course. Silver Lake Forward [[ http://silverlakeforward.com/ ]]   is pro-park; it has Moby on its side! Catherine Geanuracos, a co-founder of the group who lives in Silver Lake, says the group is calling for a new planning process to come up with the best use for the land.

"It’s a public asset that’s changing, and it seems like we could create something really amazing for the community," Geanuracos says.

But a far more vocal group, active in the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council, has formed, calling itself Refill Silver Lake Now. [[ http://refillsilverlakenow.org/ ]] From its website:

Refill Silver Lake Now is a dedicated group of people advocating for the prompt refilling of the Silver Lake Reservoir (Historic-Cultural Monument 422), home to many species of wildlife, and critical nesting grounds for the legally protected blue heron. The reservoir is not only a crucial spot on the Pacific Flyway for migrating waterfowl but an essential body of water for the L.A. County Firefighters in battling blazes in the area, including Griffith Park. In short, it is the heart and soul of the 43,000 people and countless wildlife that call Silver Lake their home.

Members of Refill Silver Lake Now turned out in force at a recent public meeting to discuss the future of the reservoir. They cheered when City Councilman David Ryu promised it would be at least partially filled next spring. And they lost their collective shit when Councilman Mitch O'Farrell suggested that maybe, just maybe, we should think about putting the land to better use than a dreary water jail. According to Curbed LA:

One thing’s for sure: Most of the residents who attended the meeting are not interested in a damn park! The loudest cheers of the evening came when a woman informed the officials at the meeting that Silver Lake did not want to hear about alternative uses for the reservoir — just a quick refill.

There was also nearly a riot when City Councilman Mitch O’Farrell raised the prospect of landscaping the path around the lake, making the mistake of comparing the project to Echo Park Lake and saying future public meetings would be a "marketplace of ideas." From the back of the room, one woman shouted, "It’s not a marketplace. It’s a community!"

"The people who were at that meeting were incredibly opinionated," Geanuracos says. "And they're entitled to their opinions. But that room wasn’t representative of the current population of Silver Lake, let alone the whole city."

It's not as if the reservoir doesn't already have some parklike elements. There's a much-loved jogging track, a basketball court, a dog park and, of course, the Silver Lake Meadow, which opened in 2011. There was a bit of resistance to the meadow, too – it only got the green light after officials agreed to make it a "passive space," meaning no dogs and no sports.

"We would be open to any discussions about beatification once the water’s in," says Jill Cordes, one of the co-founders of Refill Silver Lake Now. She says she's worried about a giant, gaping muddy hole siting around for years while landscape architects fiddle around with various plans.

One issue yet to be addressed: What kind of water will the DWP use to fill the hole with? The original plan called for drinking water, even though no one can drink from it. But drinking water is in demand right now. It's expensive.

The DWP could fill the reservoir with recycled water, but that would take a lot longer; it's unclear how long. 

"We’re willing, as a group, to potentially wait a month or two if it means we can be a shining example for using reclaimed water in Los Angeles," Cordes says. But she doesn't think the DWP can get it done that fast. In that case – well, the group is called Refill Silver Lake Now. 

Cordes also worries that any major enhancements to the reservoir would attract crowds. And traffic.

"Where would people park?" Cordes asks. "How would they get here? I don’t understand. Unless you made half the reservoir a parking lot. And who wants that?"

She adds: "This is a respite in the middle of a giant city. I don’t see why there's anything wrong with keeping it a nice tranquil spot."

Of course, the Silver Lake Reservoir is not owned by Silver Lake. It's owned by the DWP. It's public land. 

"This whole part of our city, not just the few surrounding blocks, use the meadow and use the walking track," Geanuracos says. "It’s an incredible resource for us already. And so it’s a really interesting question. Those people [who live here] are impacted more. But there’s also a potential huge benefit for the whole area."

(Hillel Aron writes for LA Weekly  … where this piece originated.)

-cw

VOX POP--Powerful City Hall lobbyists, who are popular hired guns among developers, raised a whopping $124,046 in the first quarter of 2016 for seven City Council members, one of whom is running for Los Angeles County supervisor. Lobbyists help developers bend the rules and get City Council approvals for zone changes, General Plan amendments and/or height district changes for gigantic development projects across LA.

In June, the city’s Ethics Commission released a quarterly lobbying report for the first quarter of 2016. It contains eye-popping figures that show City Hall lobbyists are raising king-sized cash for LA. politicians’ campaign chests and officeholder accounts. 

Council members Mike Bonin of District 11, Gil Cedillo of District 1, Mitch O’Farrell of District 13 and Joe Buscaino of District 15 each received lobbyist fundraising money for their 2017 re-election bids. Council member Mitchell Englander of District 12 received lobbyist campaign cash for his LA County supervisor run, and Council member Marqueece Harris-Dawson received lobbyist fundraising money for his 2015 campaign.

Nury Martinez of District 6 received lobbyist money for an “officeholder account,” as did Bonin, O’Farrell, Buscaino and Harris-Dawson. An officeholder account is a controversial slush fund used by City Council members to pay for expensive meals and travel.

The top five lobbyists firms to raise money for City Council members include, according to the Ethics Commission:

1. Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell — $20,848 for Mike Bonin’s 2017 campaign and $700 for Bonin’s 2013 officeholder account;
2. Benjamin Resnick — $20,848 for Bonin’s 2017 campaign and $700 for Bonin’s 2013 officeholder account;
3. Afriat Consulting Group — $7,300 for Gil Cedillo’s 2017 campaign, $4,700 for Mitch O’Farrell’s 2017 campaign and $4,450 for Nury Martinez’s 2013 officeholder account;
4. Englander Knabe and Allen — $4,700 for Mitch O’Farrell’s 2017 campaign and $700 for O’Farrell’s 2013 officeholder account, $3,300 for Bonin’s 2017 campaign and $1,400 for Bonin’s 2013 officeholder account, $2,900 for Mitchell Englander’s 2016 county supervisor campaign, $1,400 for Marqueece Harris-Dawson’s 2015 campaign and $700 for Joe Buscaino’s 2011 officeholder account;
5. M Advisors — $8,900 for Buscaino’s 2017 campaign.

All of these lobbyists have been hired by deep-pocketed developers to woo politicians and bureaucrats at LA City Hall.

Council member Bonin represents such neighborhoods as West Los Angeles, Venice, and Palms, all areas that developers have been looking to overbuild. In O’Farrell’s district, developers have been pushing controversial projects in Hollywood, Silver Lake, Elysian Valley and Echo Park.

And councilmen Gil Cedillo, Marqueece Harris-Dawson and Mitchell Englander are members of the powerful Planning and Land-Use Management Committee, which signs off on zone changes and General Plan amendments sought by lobbyists on the behalf of developers.

See a pattern here? Politicians get big money from developers and lobbyists, lobbyists rake in millions from developers, and developers make huge profits from the help of politicians and lobbyists. And the citizens get what? Traffic gridlock, unaffordable housing, outsized development that ruins our neighborhoods, gentrification and essentially screwed. 

But that’s how things work within LA City Hall’s broken planning and land-use system. Spread around huge sums in campaign contributions to City Council members, and win big favors in return. 

In addition to lobbyists raising major money for local politicians, the real estate industry has contributed at least $6 million to the campaign chests of LA politicians, according to Ethics Commission records.

Enough is enough. We need to reform LA’s broken planning and land-use system, which is what the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative will do. 

Developers and their politician pals will do anything to defeat our reform movement and continue their wrong-headed policies. But together, we, the citizens, can create the change that LA needs!

(Patrick Range McDonald writes for the Coalition to Preserve LA.) 

-cw

TAX TSUNAMI--The overburdening of taxpayers in the City of the Angels is a very, very real thing--except, of course, to the privileged, the disconnected, and the powerful interests tied to the majority of the City Council and Mayor who feel that our sales, parcel, utility, and other taxes are just not high enough.  More importantly, the perception and reality alike of how our taxes are being spent argues that Downtown is attacking its taxpaying residents. 

1) It's no secret that our taxes, when compared to other cities, counties, and states in the nation, are very high--and arguably either the highest or very close to it.  More taxes are acceptable when they're being spent well, but not acceptable when the past history of how they're being spent is poor. 

My CityWatch colleague Jack Humphreville isn't the only one decrying the billion-dollar homeless bond plan the City is trying to push this November.  We're being asked to pay more taxes for transportation, parks, educational facilities...yet again...but what is our past history of spending. 

And THEN City taxpayers get attacked AGAIN for being cruel and selfish.  To oppose this homeless measure is being conflated with not caring about the homeless--which itself is a cruel and selfish argument not against those who are questioning this initiative, but against those who are completely oblivious to the City of Los Angeles' horrible history on how its past homeless issues-related spending has gone. 

So City taxpayers have to endure being attacked both with more taxes, and then morally pummelled and bullied into spending more taxes--despite a horrible history on how they were spent in the past--and therefore get attacked again. 

2) Good planning, and good policies, and good representation, will lead to the acceptance of more taxes and new City initiatives...but the converse is certainly true as well.  Bad planning and policies and ignoring the voters/taxpayers won't sit well when they're being asked to do more...and more...and more...and more! 

One of the best reasons I support individuals like CD11 Councilmember Mike Bonin is that he takes his own credibility and representing the Westside very seriously...and it is certain that he will bridge the voters, the City workers, and developers into doing the right thing. 

It was Mike Bonin, and others, who are leading the fight to avoid LAX from smashing a few critical hundred feet into Westchester and threatening the safety, traffic and infrastructure of the entire region.  Others on the City Council caved in to the overreaching of LAX, some with better intentions than others--but poor Planning is poor Planning. 

But NO ONE wants, or will ever put up with, poor Planning--particularly when it's almost certainly illegal, threatens neighborhoods, the economy, and both the environmental safety and quality of life solely for the purpose of making a few very rich and connected individuals more rich. 

Everyone with a conscience and a brain wants affordable housing, transit-oriented development, and enhancement of our commercial corridors--but trashing neighborhoods to do that?  No--it's NOT acceptable. 

It's NOT acceptable on the Westside, the Eastside, in the Valley, or South Los Angeles. 

Whether it's an amazingly by-right project on Venice Blvd. in the Westside that is several stories higher than other buildings for miles around, and with fewer parking spaces than units, merely because the City of Los Angeles has grossly and immorally misinterpreted state affordable housing laws ... 

... or whether the gigantic and out-of-character Cumulus skyscraper in South/Mid-City Los Angeles is being promoted along the Expo Line near the La Cienega station... 

...illegal, immoral, environmentally-unsafe and neighborhood-destroying mega-projects are NOT acceptable to a City or County that voted for more transportation options to CATCH UP, NOT WORSEN traffic, and to IMPROVE, NOT DESTROY neighborhoods.   

3) Be they black, white, brown, or yellow taxpayers, NO ONE should be a slave to a Downtown Planning Politburo-like system gone amok.  And when the taxpayers and voters get stepped on too much, they'll have to face the Hobson's choice of either taking more abuse or screaming NO!!! to new tax initiatives just to make their elected leaders be heard. 

The Casden project was a horrible poison pill for Expo Line supporters in the Westside, and the Cumulus project was a horrible poison pill for Expo Line supporters in the Mid-City/South L.A. region.  

And "by-right" rules to the otherwise-venerable goals of affordable housing and transit-oriented development, but which establish projects and development that do anything BUT achieve those goals while making a few cruel and scurvy developers richer, is just plain WRONG. 

I am not the only transit advocate in agony over whether to promote Measure R-2 or not this November, because more sales taxes are needed to operations of mass transit, fixing our streets, and repairing our infrastructure--but "feeding the beast" is anything but acceptable. 

What is particularly sad is that the aforementioned Councilmember Mike Bonin, and former Santa Monica City Mayor Denny Zane have an EXCELLENT and VERY CREDIBLE record on past and planned-future spending of transportation funds, and on acknowledging what is and isn't real transit-oriented development. 

But they risk losing, and WE risk losing, a very necessary initiative (Measure R-2) if it will only result in empowering the developers and "the 1%" while disempowering the rest of us and consigning our City into a living hell...to which only the option of moving is available. 

To the Mayor, the City Council, the Board of Supervisors, and to our state and federal electeds: 

1) Stop attacking taxpayers with poorly-conceived and nontransparent spending initiatives, because they will threaten the ones that ARE well-conceived and transparent. 

2) Stop attacking taxpayers for being cruel and selfish when, in fact, they are anything BUT...although those doing the attacking are likely those who truly merit the monikers of "cruel" and "selfish". 

We have a City to save, and you're killing our ability to save it.

(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.)

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LA PROTEST WATCH--A sober New York Times headline last weekend described what many assume has been a dramatic change in fortune for Black Lives Matter, the de facto civil rights movement of the day. “Black Lives Matter Was Gaining Ground,” it read. “Then a Sniper Opened Fire.”

The story outlines how, since 2013, BLM has slowly but steadily built national support for its in-your-face protest tactics and its relentless message that African Americans have borne the brunt of police brutality, often fatally, for far too long. Against the odds, BLM and its larger critique of American racism have gone mainstream and become a de rigueur topic in circles ranging from celebrities to presidential hopefuls. The most recent fatal shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile by police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana,and suburban St. Paul, Minnesota, were among the most shocking and egregious of many such killings captured on camera in the last three years, including the high-profile shootings of Michael Brown and Tamir Rice.

These and other images were galvanizing the national conscience, much the same way as images of civil rights protesters being abused by police stunned the public in the ‘60s. But last week, when a black, military-trained sniper killed five Dallas policemen at the tail end of a peaceful BLM protest in that city, this national support allegedly stalled; in its place is a BLM backlash that has emboldened public figures like Rudy Guiliani to declare that by focusing exclusively on black lives, the organization is inherently racist. The question posed by the New York Times and other mainstream media is how, or even whether, BLM will survive.

The criticisms of BLM, especially accusations of racism, are not new. But the Dallas shootings instantly moved such criticism from the background to the fore, giving Guiliani and other pro-police types full license to characterize BLM as counterproductive and even dangerous—one pointed accusation is that in stoking black dissatisfaction, BLM is actually responsible for the deaths of the Dallas cops.

BLM activists have for their part rejected the backlash, as well as the narrative that their cause now hangs in the political balance. National protests against police violence have continued unabated, including in Los Angeles, where the rate of questionable shootings of black people by police is higher than in any other big city. The BLM backlash seems to have actually increased participation in protests. 

“Of course people who have power want to say what we’re doing is divisive, but what’s divisive is killing black people,” says Melina Abdullah, a key BLM organizer and professor of Pan African Studies at California State University, Los Angeles. “State-sanctioned violence is the issue.”

Abdullah adds that the group that convened on Sunday at Chuco’s Justice Center in Inglewood for a march numbered in the thousands; typically it would be about 200 people. She says the show of force speaks to the urgency of the cause of police reform and racial justice – an urgency that’s growing, not diminishing.

Akili, a fellow BLM activist and project coordinator for Corporate Accountability International, agrees with Abdullah that the Dallas shootings, tragic as they were, cannot obscure the real, deeply historical problems of inequality that have animated the movement from the beginning. “The two items are separate—the shooting in Dallas, and our demands for justice,” says Akili, who goes by one name. “These two things are not related, but we’re connecting them. That’s wrong. [Sniper] Micah Johnson was a deranged individual and we are not accountable for that. You can’t paint all black people with the same brush, but that happens all the time.” Especially when it comes to acts of violence.

Coincidentally, or appropriately, Los Angeles has become a hotbed of protest this past week. The Sunday night march in Inglewood shut down the 405 Freeway near LAX airport. On Tuesday, protesters were visibly angered by the Los Angeles Police Commission’s ruling that the 2015 fatal shooting of Redel Jones, a 30-year-old black woman who allegedly charged officers with a knife, was in policy. Jones was one of 36 people killed by the Los Angeles Police Department last year. After having swarmed City Hall, only to be refused entry, protesters are now enacting an “occupy” campaign; Abdullah says she and others will stay in the streets until LAPD chief Charlie Beck is fired. They will stay, she says, until that goal is achieved. No more negotiating.

It could very well be a long haul, with long odds for success. Abdullah is undeterred. “It’s summer,” she says. “I’ve got a lot of time on my hands.”

(Erin Aubry Kaplan is a Los Angeles journalist whose posts regularly appear on KCET’s SoCal Focus blog. Her book, Black Talk, Blue Thoughts and Walking the Color Line, is published by University Press of New England. This column was posted most recently at Capital and Main.) 

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VOICES FROM THE SQUARE--There is more opportunity in South Los Angeles now.

You can see it in the houses, in the development, in the grocery stores finally arriving, in the people who—as I did several years ago—decided to stay. There’s a real sense of unity and possibility. It can feel a little (dare I say) like Brooklyn, with the renaissance in some neighborhoods, the sexy feel of the place. And we’re just a $5 Uber ride away from everything happening in downtown. Maybe I should stop here—I don’t want too many people to come to South LA.

But I also want to raise questions about the big things that haven’t changed. Who gets the money produced by the hard work and striving of people in South LA.? Who gets to decide how public money is invested to improve South LA. neighborhoods? And most of all, who gets to represent South LA.?

For now, the answer to those questions is: the same old Los Angeles establishment. South LA. doesn’t get to invest in itself, represent itself, and govern itself. One reason for this is that running for office in LA. costs a lot of money—and citywide interests with little sense of South LA. are the funders who can afford to participate in our political races.

South LA. has always been a pawn in games played by other people. There is a strong sense of identity among people here, but our bureaucrats and politicians have divided the place up so they can do as they wish. Some parts of South LA. are unincorporated and in the county, some are in the city. Within the city, South LA. has been divided up between three or four different council districts. On top of that, the city has divided South L.A. into three different planning areas, each with their own plan.

Throw in the school district, the police and sheriff departments, and various other state and local government entities, and it’s often hard to tell who is responsible for what. That has made it harder for people here to be civically engaged—and to get power equal to our numbers. And those numbers are considerable: 850,000 people live in South LA, as many as live in San Francisco.

If the jurisdictions weren’t enough to divide us, the establishment continues to try to divide us between black and brown. People in power are always talking about that demographic divide.

But what I’ve seen over the years are ways to create possibilities. Twelve years ago, I bought a big, 100-year-old craftsman home in South LA I grew up a few blocks away from this house, helping my dad with his gardening business while my mom ran a day care. I had some struggles as a kid, but found my way to college, became a graphic designer, and started my own design firm. When my company expanded, I decided to move the firm into the second floor of my house.

I like to tell my neighbors: “Don’t move, improve.” Let’s make the “hood” a place we want to live.

I had so much space that I opened The Big House, as we call it in the community. A couple of nonprofits and small businesses have offices in my home. I built a skate park for neighborhood kids in the back. We’ve hosted block parties, health fairs, and all kinds of community events.

With my work colleagues and neighbors, we’ve also tried to tell the story of some of the gains South L.A. is making. For the past two years, I worked on a marketing campaign for Santee High School, which used to be one of the city’s worst, and now is among its best. Many community members didn’t know that. So we put together brochures, and produced original content about how well the students were doing and the school’s offerings in subjects like culinary art, fashion design, entrepreneur courses and perception of the school changed. More people need to be telling the good stories.

Of course, now that we’ve seen so many gains, expectations are higher, and South LA needs to be better prepared for the changes that are coming. Six years ago, I incorporated a nonprofit, Nuevo South, that teaches kids how to code and handle various technologies, produce original content, how to seek a job, how to engage in civic life, how to lead. I saw so many talented people leave South LA when I was young—I was briefly one of them.

Housing prices have gone so high in South L.A. that some people might be tempted to sell. But where are you going to go? You can’t go to Huntington Park or South Gate—you’re priced out. I like to tell my neighbors: “Don’t move, improve.” Let’s make the “hood” a place we want to live. (Photo left:A stately home in Jefferson Park.)

If enough people stay and become more prosperous here, South LA should be able to fund and elect its own representatives.

Then we can steer economic development here, and get local hiring—in everything from tree trimming to the contracting at the new soccer stadium that’s replacing the Sports Arena. South LA can develop its own housing policy that works to get the right kind of development—instead of exhausting ourselves fighting every single luxury condo development that doesn’t offer affordable housing or other benefits to the community. And we could provide far more infrastructure to help small businesses.

We also need to completely popularize civic engagement, so people in South L.A. vote in big numbers, and throw their weight around City Hall—which is really not very far away. This is why I’ve decided to make it a little closer. After years of talking about changing politics and representation in South LA, I’ve decided to do something about it—by running for city council next year.

I’m betting that now that South LA’s people and institutions have more money and resources, we can elect one of our own, and gain the power to match what the place has become.

(Jorge Nuño is founder of El Nuevo Sur. This essay is part of South Los Angeles: Can the Site of America's Worst Modern Riots Save an Entire City?, a special project of Zócalo Public Square  and The California Wellness Foundation.) 

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LATINO PERSPECTIVE--One of the things I like to do in my weekly column is to show my readers the important contributions that Hispanic Americans bring to the United States. 

Famed African American author Ralph Ellison once posed an intriguing question: What would America be like without blacks? Not only did Ellison show the socio-economic and cultural contribution of African Americans, but he also questioned what America would have been if Africans and their descendants did not shape and define America. 

According to Stephen Balkaran who is an Instructor in the department of Philosophy and Political Science at Quinnipaic University, Ellison not only showed that America’s historical, political, economic and cultural definition was contributed to by African Americans, but also reminded us that America has continued to evolve as a country of immigrants. 

Recent debates now surround the “Browning of America,” the continuous reshaping of America and its Hispanic influence. Many of us fail to grapple that America has always been Hispanic. 

Yet, Hispanics have contributed to every avenue of American life since the inception of this country. Hispanic’ origins have played a key role in our country’s socio-economic, political and cultural development and many argue: What would America would be like without the presence of Hispanics and their influence? 

Here is a small but meaningful example. Sigue Corporation founder and CEO, Guillermo de la Viña (Center, photo left), was honored with a Community Hero Award from the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sunday, July 3. The honor is given to leaders in the Hispanic community as part of the Dodgers’ Viva Los Dodgers and Cuban Heritage Day. 

With 25 years of experience in the banking and financial services industry, de la Viña led Sigue to become the fourth largest money transfer company globally. Sigue serves more than 100 countries on six continents.  

“Sigue connects Latino communities throughout the world, and the Dodgers connect us all in Los Angeles,” said de la Viña. “The Los Angeles Latino community is particularly close to my heart because it’s where I’ve built my business. I am very grateful for the way the community has welcomed me and for this special recognition from the Dodgers’ organization.” 

The Community Hero Award is presented to an individual with a tireless involvement in the Latino community. The general public nominates individuals that they think have provided continued support to the Latino community in Los Angeles.  

De la Viña was recognized as one of the most successful and creative individuals in the Latino community by Poder Hispanic Magazine, which included him on the list of the nation’s 100 Most Influential Hispanics of 2011. 

In 2014, de la Viña received the Community Service Award from the Soledad Enrichment Action (SEA), a Southern California non-profit organization, for his public service. He has supported many organizations and non-profit groups, including White Memorial Medical Center, Providence Holy Cross Medical Center, the Salvation Army and the American Red Cross.

About Sigue Corporation 

Headquartered in Sylmar, California, Sigue is a leading financial services company providing international electronic money transfer services to over 100 countries. The company is privately held and operates through a comprehensive network of retailers. Learn more at www.sigue.com. 

(Fred Mariscal came to Los Angeles from Mexico City in 1992 to study at the University of Southern California and has been in LA ever since. He is a community leader who serves as Vice Chair of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Coalition and sits on the board of the Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council representing Larchmont Village. He was a candidate for Los Angeles City Council in District 4. Fred writes Latino Perspective for CityWatch and can be reached at: [email protected].)

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DEEGAN ON LA-The shot rang out in the silent summer night, in Silver Lake. One coyote down. Summer is here, the heat is rising, and the hills are full of coyotes that are migrating down from their usual habitats in the now-parched hillsides to urban centers in search of food and water. What to do? Definitely don’t shoot them, as an apparent coyote vigilante did in Silver Lake a few weeks ago. 

"This kind of sniper attack against a coyote is the first I’ve heard of in Southern California. There has been an outpouring of support to find and catch whoever committed this reprehensible act of animal cruelty. Project Coyote is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the sniper who fatally shot this coyote in Silver Lake,” declared Randi Feilich, the Southern California Representative for Project Coyote an organization that promotes coexistence between people and wildlife through education, science and advocacy. 

The LAPD is treating the coyote shooting in Silver Lake as an open criminal case, and asking anyone with information to call the Animal Cruelty Task Force at 213-486-0450. 

Protecting wildlife corridors in the hills, so coyotes and other wildlife can trek to common grounds, is no longer the answer when the native wildlife, that were here long before any of us, descend into Silver Lake, or Hancock Park, or the Valley communities at the base of the Santa Monica Mountains. 

Coexistence with them and education about them are the winning strategies for dealing with our wildlife neighbors that are showing up in urban neighborhoods with real regularity. 

Hillside dwellers may be more familiar with coyotes than city dwellers, although, as the hills continue to densify and attract first-time residents, many more are seeking the “living-in-nature” experience in the midst of urban sprawl -- one of the coveted lifestyles in LA. So, some knowledge about the wildlife population and strategies for coexisting with coyotes in the hills or on city streets is necessary. 

“Many people moving to hillsides are simply unaware there is wildlife living near them in close proximity. Education is the key for safe coexistence", said Feilich. The same advice – education -- applies to city dwellers. 

Project Coyote offers strategies for both hillside and city residents to coexist with coyotes. 

If you live in the city, these are some solutions that will help you manage:

• Start with keeping your animals on a leash when you are taking them for a walk.
• Some waste management containers don’t have self-closing lids--always have garbage contained and covered.
• Fruit on ground attracts rodents and then coyotes. Pick it up when it falls off the tree.
• Don’t feed a coyote by leaving cat food or dog food outside.
• Leaving your pet door open at night is a problem. Close it at night.
• Dusk to dawn is the critical time to be sure you don’t have free-roaming pets when you take them for a walk.
• Spay or neuter your dog. Coyotes can, and will, mate.
• Secure your under-house crawlspaces to deny coyotes a place to hang out and make themselves at home. 

Here are some of the tested and effective strategies if you live in the hills:

• You can build fences around your property. Make them 6 to 7 feet tall because coyotes can leap, and are also good climbers, and sink the fence to a depth of at least a half-foot to prevent them from burrowing under the fence.
• If you have coyotes coming into your yard, you can get solar operated flashing lights, or motion sensors, or motion-activated sprinklers. Any of these methods will scare a coyote away.
• To prevent a coyote from climbing up your fence, you can install a “coyote roller” which has a unique design that prevents coyotes from getting the traction with their front paws needed to climb a fence line. A coyote roller (coyoteroller.com) is a 4-foot, aluminum extruded ribbed roller designed to prevent animals from getting the foothold they need to climb over a fence. It’s simple, safe, and humane; it requires no power source while being maintenance free and durable. 

Project Coyote’s Feilich makes a point many hillside dwellers may not have considered when she advises, “Clear away dense brush and weeds that can become den sites for coyotes who are looking for a safe place to raise their young. April through August is pupping season for coyotes. Don’t create a habitat for them if you don’t want them in your neighborhood. But also recognize that they are one of nature’s most effective rodent controllers so they’re important to healthy ecosystems.”

Project Coyote offers this short video of “Best Practices For Coexisiting With Coyotes”

Others, like California wildlife biologist Kevin Brennan, an expert on coyotes in Southern California who works for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, have also shared their strategies. Brennan recently told a Southern California Public Radio audience that “understanding some of the attributes of coyotes helps -- they’re likely to eat pets, root through your garbage and frighten homeowners.” 

He advises a strategy of deterrence for urban dwellers who are not used to dealing with the growing presence of coyotes that are now often sighted when walking dogs in city neighborhoods. Like others, he suggests keeping pets on a leash when outdoors, cleaning up loose garbage and picking up fruit that falls from trees, thus denying coyotes a free lunch. You can also make coyotes feel uncomfortable by opening and closing an umbrella aimed at them or throwing a tennis ball toward but not at them; this will not hurt them but may scare them away.

Closer to home, Los Angeles Animal Services offers a very informative brochure full of tips and FAQs that can help you, such as: 

What should I do if a coyote approaches me?

• Wave your arms.
• Shout in a low, loud tone.
• Throw objects at the coyote while maintaining eye contact.
• Make yourself look as big as possible.
• If you are wearing a jacket, take it off and swing around over your head.
• If possible go towards active or populated areas but do not turn your back and run from the coyote as that could trigger a chase. 

How can I keep my dog safe?

• Closely supervise your dog.
• Do not leave small dogs unattended in your yard.
• Walk your dog on a leash at all times & stay close to high pedestrian traffic areas.
• Try not to establish a regular routine & route to avoid setting up a pattern for the coyote to detect.
• Avoid dense brushy areas or paths near abandoned properties.
• If you notice a coyote when walking your dog, keep your dog as close to you as possible and move towards an active area.
• Never encourage or allow your dog to interact or “play” with coyotes.

No matter if you live in the hills or the flats, the coyotes are singing the same tune as humans as they roam our streets and hillsides: Home Sweet Home.

(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.

GUEST COMMENTARY-Faced with what may be the most critical moral, civil rights and social justice issue of our time, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is considering asking voters to approve a tax to fund the fight against homelessness. 

Ongoing revenue — as opposed to one-time-only funding — would go far towards implementing the comprehensive 47-point strategy of the Los Angeles County Homeless Initiative, which seeks not only to house the homeless, but to provide a full range of supportive services that are vital for homeless persons to achieve stability and eventually become self-supporting. 

We are in a crisis and, sadly, it is growing. According to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, the current homeless population of 46,874, would fill every seat at the downtown Staples Center, USC’s Galen Center and the newly renovated Forum in Inglewood — combined. This is the largest number of homeless men, women and children in a local jurisdiction anywhere in the United States. It’s hard to believe but the trends strongly suggest there will be another 2,000 homeless individuals by this time next year. Needless to say, this is not only unsettling but patently shameful. 

The disturbing increase in homelessness in LA County over the past three years is part of a statewide problem. The Board of Supervisors recently called on Governor Jerry Brown to declare a statewide emergency on homelessness, which would make funding available immediately to assist California’s 115,000 homeless — the most of any state, and more than 20 percent of the United States’ homeless population. The California State Assembly answered the Board’s formal request last month, passing HR 56,  which also urged the governor to make that emergency declaration. The general public has spoken as well, with some 14,000 people signing a petition urging the governor to act. People are paying attention to this inescapable crisis and the number of concerned citizens continues to grow. 

Without abandoning its pursuit of state funding, the Board of Supervisors is also focusing its efforts on placing a sales tax, parcel tax or marijuana tax on the November ballot. Our deliberations are informed by 10 surveys conducted by diverse pollsters from February through July, which showed the electorate consistently and emphatically views homelessness as a top concern, second only to jobs and the economy. The polls also indicated an unprecedented willingness by likely voters to tax themselves to finance solutions to the crisis. The question is: What kind of tax would work best to fund the County’s response to the homeless crisis? There are three proposals to be considered on Tuesday, July 12. They are as follows: 

General Sales Tax--The sales tax proposed to the Board is equivalent to one-fourth of a cent, which would raise about $355 million a year. For the average taxpayer, that amounts to about $1 a month, according to the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation. A County-commissioned survey in April showed 68 percent of likely voters already in favor of a half-penny sales tax dedicated to homelessness — double what the Board is considering. These and other data make it clear that the people of LA County want something done and they are ready, willing and able to pay for it. 

Parcel Tax--Another proposal for the Board’s consideration is a parcel tax that is projected to generate $185 million a year. At 3 cents per square foot, a property owner would pay about $45 annually for a 1,500 square foot parcel. At this rate, the parcel tax would generate less than half of what is required to address the homeless crisis with sufficient resources. 

Marijuana Tax--This proposal may be a promising new source of revenue for the County, but at present, it is unclear how much revenue it would generate and when the County would start seeing returns on the upfront administrative costs. Although using marijuana for medical purposes is permitted under state law, recreational use remains illegal, although voters could change that in November. Even if California legalizes recreational marijuana use, federal law makes regulation and taxation a bit murky at this point. Further, public health and public safety officials, environmentalists and land use experts have all expressed concerns about the potential impact of legalization, and the overconcentration of dispensaries in some areas of the County. 

While each funding option merits consideration and they all generally fared well in the polling, I believe a general sales tax levy provides the best opportunity to secure most of the funds needed on a yearly basis to effectively deal with this crisis. No other option comes close to generating as much revenue as the sales tax. A projected annual yield of $355 million is nearly 80 percent of the total funds needed to put us on a path to ending homelessness, and sales tax revenues are more predictable than the other options. 

It is unconscionable that Los Angeles County — one of the largest economies in the world — has nearly 47,000 human beings living on the streets. We can and must take action to provide decent housing and restore dignity to those forced to live in such unsafe and deplorable conditions, no matter how daunting the task. It is time to put a viable measure on the November ballot and let the voters demonstrate that they are serious about addressing this worsening tragedy.

(Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas represents the 2^nd District for the County of Los Angeles.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

POLICE POLITICS--Mayor Garcetti should rip up the $69 million, conflict-of-interest-tainted, police body camera purchase order recently slapped on his desk by Mitchell Englander (photo above) … the soon-to-be-termed out City Councilmember and recently defeated County Supervisor candidate … whose tireless efforts at ramming the toxic body camera procurement through the Council finally succeeded a few weeks ago. 

GET EDUCATED NOW-On the November 8 ballot, City of Los Angeles voters will be asked to approve Charter changes to improve governance of the Department of Water and Power. At least that’s the theory. The measure contains some new contracting freedom, gives the DWP Board its own staff, and doubles the minimum budget for the Ratepayer Advocate’s Office of Public Accountability. It also opens the possibility that some or all of the city’s Civil Service standards may be modified through a binding labor agreement, provided that merit-based hiring, retention and discharge (not promotion) are retained. These changes are significant. They deserve a YES vote. 

The reality is that the ballot measure does not really free DWP from the political meddling of elected officials. It includes a new “strategic planning” process. This process will give the City Council an oversight role for LADWP investments and rates that it does not have today. Strategic planning is good. Strategic planning for a utility by elected officials who are strongly influenced by election cycles and special interests is not in keeping with the concept of reduced political interference. 

What DWP really needs to resolve its hiring crisis is more positions that are exempt from Civil Service rules. The County of Los Angeles has 10 percent. DWP has 18 positions out of 8,000. Exemptions didn’t make it to the ballot. As a result, DWP is totally dependent on labor negotiations with its dominant union for a solution to its hiring crisis. That is going to be expensive. 

Furthermore, the City Council apparently has no intention of allowing the DWP Board to make the decisions on changes to Civil Service at DWP. The ballot measure requires that any changes made through a valid labor agreement must be approved by the “salary setting authority”. That authority is the City Council. Note that none of the remaining 23 recommendations for DWP Reform include making the DWP Board the salary setting authority for DWP. 

Shortening the terms of DWP Commissioners from five years to four means that all members can be replaced by every Mayor, even with staggered terms. This partially offsets the new ability of commissioners to appeal their dismissal to the City Council. Expansion of the Board to seven members and some decorative skill “requirements” will have little effect on the powers of the Board. The only areas in which elected officials have given the Board additional powers are contracting and setting the salary of the General Manager. Four recommendations (20, 21, 22 and 23) are classic political meddling. 

Inserting into the Charter a requirement that DWP implement monthly billing by January 1, 2020, raises the specter of a three-year (2017, 2018, 2019) forced march to a major billing system software change that can’t be halted if it is not ready. Did we learn anything from the last billing system fiasco?

The following list is a summary of the 24 DWP Reform recommendations from the Rules, Elections, Intergovernmental Relations and Neighborhoods committee (REIRN, or just “Rules”). It breaks them down into categories by the type of action and the timing. 

Ballot Measure, November 8 

—- 01 –Charter Changes - Board GM DWPAO OPA Strategic Plan Personnel Billing.

Ordinances, IF Ballot Measure passes 

—- 02 –Board - Stipend of $2000 per month proposed.
—- 03 –Board - Transition schedule and staggered terms.
—- 14 –Contracts - Eliminate council approval of power contracts and design-build contracts.
—- 16 –Oversight - Four-year investment and revenue Strategic Plans and approvals.

Other actions, IF Ballot Measure passes 

—- 07 –OPA_RPA - (Request) Hiring plan with additional exempt positions.

Ordinances, NOW 

—- 04 –Gen Manager - Board sets compensation annually with approval of EERC.
—- 05 –OPA_RPA - Appropriate and necessary access to DWP documents.
—- 11 –Contracts - GM authority to $5 mil without Board OK Board up to ($15 mil?) without Sec 245.
—- 12 –Contracts - Quarterly and annual contracting reports including outsourcing.
—- 13 –Contracts - Board approves contracts up to 5 years (some 10) without Council OK.
—- 15 –Contracts - DWP may use RFPs and competitive negotiation for special equip.

Other actions, NOW 

—- 09 –Personnel - By Aug 1: a Plan to address DWP hiring needs in existing system.
—- 10 –Personnel - DWP labor negotiations to expedite existing hiring and promotions.
—- 17 –Independence - Ask Mayor to exempt DWP from sweeping oversight of ED4.
—- 18 –Independence - CAO: Options for DWP Board to do own collective bargaining.
—- 19 –Power Transfer - Litigation update with options to modify transfer or resolve the case.
—- 24 –Attorney - Authorize technical or legal changes w advice of CAO, CLA, CC Pres.

Reports for POSSIBLE ordinances 

—- 06 –OPA_RPA - Potential changes to [Charter!] role by ordinance.

—- 08 –Attorney -“Strengthen Board oversight of litigation” without an outside counsel.
—- 20 –Water System - Report: Options for integrated water group (BurSan merger).
—- 21 –Discounts - Report: How to give discounts to Rec & Parks, non-profits, seniors.
—- 22 –Green Power - Report: Options to assure access to green power by low income.
—- 23 –Low Income - Report: Creating an executive level low income advocate at DWP.

For full details on these 23 additional proposals, go to http://dwpreform.lacity.org, click on “Information for Neighborhood Councils”, and look at the related document “REIRN Committee Recommendations on DWP Governance Reform.” The charter changes (the ballot measure) are contained in recommendation number 1. They became new CF 16-1800. 

Each of the recommendations 2 through 24 is still open for Neighborhood Council input. Community Impact Statements can be filed on the original motion (CF 16-0093). Make sure to send a copy of any Neighborhood Council or individual recommendation on DWP Reform to Council President Herb Wesson’s Assistant Chief Deputy Andrew Westall ([email protected]). 

Please send your questions and comments on DWP Reform to [email protected]. DWP Reform information will be posted regularly at http://empowerla.org/dwpmou. There is additional information at http://dwpreform.lacity.org.

(Tony Wilkinson is the Chair of the Neighborhood Council – DWP MOU Oversight Committee. He will be contributing information on the DWP Reform process to the EmpowerLA newsletter each week.) Prepped by Linda Abrams.

THIS IS WHAT I KNOW-Since the petition to recall Councilmember Krekorian was approved on March 29, the activists at Save Valley Village have been hard at work collecting enough signatures prior to the upcoming July 26 deadline. If the petition gathers enough signatures, the recall vote would trigger a special election. 

I sat down with a member of Save Valley Village for an update on the fast approaching deadline. Where does the group stand on the petition effort and what is the pulse in the neighborhood? 

“A day does not go by where we do not receive at least one e-mail from a constituent eager to sign. Everyone has a personal experience of being ignored by the council office, frustrated by over-development, and vanishing character and culture,” shared the spokesperson for the group. “People are still reaching out to us wanting to do what they can to remove Krekorian from office.” 

The petition, she says, has appealed to an “extraordinary cross-section of voters, wealthy homeowners, elderly pensioners, professional people, blue collar workers, immigrants, homemakers, artists, small business owners, renters, students -– residents of every imaginable cultural and religious background, across the socioeconomic spectrum.” 

However, she adds, “A number of people were afraid to sign the petition for fear of retaliation. Council members are not permitted to view the signature sheets, yet people feared they would be singled out. They feared the possibility that getting their request fulfilled in the future would somehow be compromised – as if those requests are getting fulfilled now. This is indicative of the lack of confidence in the integrity of our city systems.” 

“A woman was promised a stop sign by Krekorian who was running for office in his first election – in 2009. She would rather continue waiting for a response from his office, over seven years later, than sign a piece of paper that would help get her the appropriate person elected to get her stop sign and be done.” 

The petition movement has brought together many people, affording the grassroots group the opportunity to further grow its database of residents committed to preserving the character and culture of the community. 

With about two weeks to go, petitions are still circulating throughout the neighborhoods. The group had hoped to get the signatures in prior to the July 26 deadline to leave room for collecting additional signatures as needed. 

As indicated by the graphics below, the response has been mixed between those who “didn’t have time,” “needed more information,” and signed, as well as a handful who weren’t sure who Krekorian was. A second survey noted over 52% percent of those asked had signed.

No matter the outcome, the Save Valley Village spokesperson notes, “There is nothing in the Election Code preventing voters from filing another Petition to Recall. We have learned a great deal from the process and have a good handle on the Pulse of Council District 2 – which is more than we can say for our Council Office.”

(Beth Cone Kramer is a Los Angeles writer and a columnist for CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

DECISION TIME--Thirty-one years ago, Kevin Cooper was sentenced to death by a California court for the brutal murder of four people in a ranch house in Chino Hills, a middle-class suburb of Los Angeles.

The bodies of Douglas and Peggy Ryen, their 10-year-old daughter Jessica, and a family friend, 11-year-old Chris Hughes, were all found stabbed to death. Josh Ryen, the couple’s eight-year-old son, managed to survive the attack.

From the start, Cooper’s case has been besieged with controversy: Cooper has steadfastly maintained his innocence; the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department destroyed and concealed important evidence; and the case was the first to make use of then-new DNA testing. One 9th Circuit Judge went so far as to write that Cooper “is either guilty as sin or he was framed by the police.” In a scene seemingly taken straight from The Making of a Murderer, there are allegations that the police planted physical evidence implicating Cooper and concealed statements from eyewitnesses who claimed to have seen three white men leaving the crime scene on the night of the murders. 

While no definitive evidence has been found to confirm Cooper’s guilt, he remains on death row. That’s because the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 constrains his ability to present new evidence. The AEDPA, passed during Bill Clinton’s administration, was one of a number of laws and regulations designed to prevent what were seen as an unending string of appeals afforded to those facing execution, particularly those who were claiming innocence as a result of newly discovered evidence.

But even judges involved in Cooper’s case have expressed doubt as to his guilt: One judge on the 9th Circuit called the ruling “wholly discomforting.” In 2009, the 9th Circuit denied en banc review of Cooper’s case, and the powerful dissent, joined by four other judges, begins: “The State of California may be about to execute an innocent man.”

Cooper is one of 747 people on California’s death row, and one of the 16 who have now exhausted all of his appeals. He faces execution if the backers of the (confusingly named) new pro-death penalty initiative, California Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act of 2016, have anything to do with it.

Amid declining support for the death penalty across the nation — 19 states have eliminated it entirely, and 2015 saw a record low in the number of death sentences and executions doled out — there’s been a joint endorsement by the California District Attorneys Association, law enforcement, and a majority of prosecutors across the state to enact the CDPRSA. They argue it will fix the death penalty.

That’s a potentially major shift in a state where more people on death row die from suicide than have been executed, and where more inmates have died of natural causes (60) than have been executed (13) since 1978. (Visiting San Quentin’s death row in 2015, the Los Angeles Times described a harrowing scene of wheelchairs lining the hallways.) Meanwhile, death row has cost California taxpayers $4 billion since it was reinstated in 1978. A Los Angeles Times story describes at least 20 death row inmates who are likely “permanently incompetent” — deemed to be unqualified for execution because of mental illness.

While the CDPRSA is being hailed by some as a panacea to prison bloat, there’s simply no research to support the notion that speeding up executions will save money—money that could be better used to solve cold cases or fund public defenders.

The death penalty in California has been headed toward extinction for a long time. Reinstated in 1978, death sentences, while technically legal, have been trapped in a morass of case law, further exacerbated by the unavailability of the execution drugs and the desperate attempts by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to write a new lethal injection protocol that survived the challenges of advocacy groups. As a result, no one has been executed in California since 2006.

With the exception of a few outlier counties, death sentences have gone down across the United States. Last year saw the lowest number of death sentences and executions in the last two decades. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, there were 49 death sentences issued in the U.S. in 2015, 14 of which were in California, more than any other state. (Texas, long a staple of the “death belt,” had only two.) These 14 death sentences were not evenly distributed throughout the state — Riverside County alone had eight.

There’s simply no research to support the notion that speeding up executions will save money.

Though California hasn’t executed anyone in a decade, certain counties in California continue to sentence people to execution at disproportionately high rates. As legal expert and senior researcher at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice’s Rob Smith explains, these outlier counties account for almost all of the death sentences in the U.S. It so happens that five of these counties are in California — Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange, and Kern.

Kern, Orange, and San Bernardino counties have produced more death sentences than the three most death-loving Texas counties, despite having fewer people. Riverside County, which is home to just 6 percent of California’s population, has produced over 50 percent of last year’s death sentences, more than Los Angeles County, which has over three times as many people. Most experts argue that these death sentences are the result of overzealous prosecutions, not increased crime.

So, is the CDPRSA a ploy to cement Southern California as the new death belt?

The immediate risk posed by the CDPRSA is that innocent people will be executed. Three men have been exonerated from California’s death row since its reinstatement. And while the district attorney of San Bernardino, Michael Ramos (who is sponsoring the initiative and is running to replace Kamala Harris as attorney general of California), told me that “California has never executed an innocent person,” those who know the Tommy Thompson case might disagree. Thompson, who was convicted in 1984 in Orange County largely on the basis of snitch testimony, went to the execution chamber with many people still asserting his innocence. And, despite evidence to the contrary, Ramos remains similarly convinced of Cooper’s guilt.

Supporters of the CDPRSA argue it will save money and help victims — namely, by double-celling death row inmates and saving on their health care and other housing expenditures. But there’s little evidence to support this argument. In fact, there’s reason to think the initiative will cost more money than is currently being spent on death row, because it moves death cases to the front of the docket, pushing out other cases and jamming courts.

Further, the $4 billion that has been spent on death row has come at the cost of other public-safety provisions, particularly in the counties that seem to favor executions the most. In 2010, the California Supreme Court held that at least 18 cases in Riverside against people accused of felonies and serious misdemeanors were dismissed because of the “fault or neglect” of the county government; the new death penalty initiative would seem to further strain a system that has already proven insufficient.

There is also little to no reason to think that victims’ families benefit from a death sentence. Take the case of Scott Dekraai in Orange County — if the prosecutors there gave up the death penalty, the case would be over because no one questions Dekraai’s guilt. Instead, the Orange County district attorney’s pursuit of a death sentence, in light of substantial police and prosecutorial misconduct, just means the case will be stalled for decades. “Stop the madness. Take the death penalty off the table and end all the appeals, all the court appearances,” a victim’s sister said in the local press.

Rather than creating justice, speeding up the death penalty increases the risk of a dreadful mistake, all to satisfy a handful of prosecutors who should be focused on following the law, not making it. Courts will be blocked up and costs will increase. And while the Supreme Court decided not to take up the issue of whether the death penalty itself violates the 8th Amendment, Justice Stephen Breyer has given hints that he is watching the issue closely.

California’s showdown on whether the death penalty should be resuscitated will indeed be an interesting battleground to watch.

(Jessica Pishko writes for excellent Pacific Standard Magazine  … where this piece originated.)

-cw

THE CITY-The illustrious attorney Mickey Kantor of the mega law firm Mayer Brown formed a fancy-smancy committee of poobahs back in 2013 to figure out what was wrong with the City of Los Angeles. Contrary to the proclamations of our new mayor that he had revitalized everything, this gaggle of self-appointed VIPs discovered that the City was going to rack and ruin. It wrote: 

“Los Angeles is barely treading water while the rest of the world is moving forward. We risk falling further behind in adapting to the realities of the 21st century and becoming a City in decline.” 

When time rolled around to fix the problem, the 2020 Commission became the Zero Zero Commission. It had nothing. 

Now, we read about all sorts of solutions in the LA Times, LA Weekly and CityWatch. Borrow $1.2 billion to build homes for the people we just made homeless by tearing down their homes. Or, better yet, how about a $120 billion tax increase for more subways, when, with each billion dollars we spend on transit, a smaller percent of the public actually uses mass transit? 

The cause of the City’s ruin can be viewed three times a week on TV. All we have to do is tune to the City Council’s live feed or to Channel 35 and we can watch criminality in action. Mickey Kantor is right: the City of Los Angeles is in decline, but there was no reason for him to keep the origin of our municipal woes a secret. His commission just lacked the guts to admit the truth. The Los Angeles City Council operates under an unlawful vote trading pact which Penal Code 86 criminalized a decade ago in 2006. 

The vote trading pact is the old “I’ll scratch your back, if you scratch my back” trade-off. No councilmember will vote “No” on any project in another councilmember’s district. In return, no councilmember will vote “No” on any project in his or her district. As a result, any project which a councilmember places on the City Council agenda unanimously passes. They’ve got a 99.9% unanimous passage rate. 

This is not passage by a mere majority vote – this unlawful “voting pact” requires that every single councilmember who is present must vote “Yes” every single time. It does not matter how many laws a project may break -- it gets unanimous approval. It does not matter how many millions of dollars in gifts the developer gets -- there is unanimous approval. It does not matter if the city treasury cannot pay for roads or sidewalks because the developers are draining the coffers. Each project gets unanimous approval. The overriding concern of the City Council is that each and every council member has every one of these special deals with his special friends unanimously approved. 

Of course, almost nothing works in the city, and naturally we have too little money for pension funds, streets or paramedics. Yet, the councilmembers always get unanimous approval for whatever gifts they want for their special friends – no questions asked. Literally, no councilmember ever asks another council member if giving millions of dollars to CIM Group for 5929 Sunset is a wise idea. 

The City’s rotten core, its criminal vote trading system, continues on many fronts: 

•  If a councilmember’s buddy wants to construct twin skyscrapers straddling an earthquake fault line, he’s got it – unanimously. 

•  If a councilmember’s buddy wants $14 or $20 million for his Hollywood high rise which the courts closed down for being illegally constructed, he’s got it – unanimously. 

• If Councilmember Krekorioan’s buddy wants to tear down Marilyn Monroe’s historic home in Valley Village three days before the Cultural Heritage Commission meets, he’s got it – unanimously. 

• If Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell wants to continue evicting the elderly, disabled and the poor from their rent-controlled apartments so his buddies can continue to create more high-end, luxury boutiques for the rich and famous, he’s got it – unanimously. 

• If Councilmember Wesson wants all the sales tax revenue at the CIM Midtown Project to go to CIM Group and not to the City, he’s got – unanimously. 

• If a councilmember wants the millions of dollars of hotel taxes from its Grand Hotel to go to his buddy, aka Korean Airlines, he’s got it – unanimously. 

It does not matter what project a councilmember wants or how much the project will drain the city treasury, the councilmember gets it – unanimously. 

Let’s go back to Mickey Kantor and his report from 2013. It continued: 

“As a consequence, Los Angeles is sinking into a future in which it no longer can provide the public services to which our people’s taxes entitle them and where the promises made to public employees about a decent and secure retirement simply cannot be kept. City revenues are in long-term stagnation and expenses are climbing.” 

What is the City’s response when someone complains about the criminal vote trading agreement? The City claims that it is above the law. The City says that it is none of the courts’ business how the City conducts its internal affairs. It claims that it does not have to follow Penal Code § 86 because the Mental Processes of the councilmembers are confidential and privileged. 

The City’s claim is far more than councilmembers’ asserting the Fifth Amendment. It claims that no one may present any evidence in court from which a jury could infer that a councilmember had a criminal state of mind. King Louis XIV of France made the same assertion when he claimed, “L'etat c'est moi'” (I am the state). 

In line with its grandiose belief, the City claims that the State of California has no power to enforce its laws setting the limits on how cities may govern themselves. The State can pass all the laws it wants, but the City denies that the courts have the right to adjudicate whether the City is following the law. 

The City claims that it is solely a matter of politics, and courts may not hear cases that involve politics. The fancy word for this weird idea is “justiciable.” The City asserts that the question of whether or not city councilmembers engage in criminal vote trading is a non-justiciable issue. It is not the court's role “to dictate the manner in which councilmembers choose to vote.” The City asserts that the courts are impotent in the face of this massive, decade’s long criminal vote trading agreement that has brought disaster upon the City.

So now, you know why the 2020 Commission turned tail and ran away. The City insists that the only law it has to follow is the law it wants to follow. In fact, the City claims that it does not even have to follow its own rules and procedures. Why? Because the courts may not second guess what the city actually does. 

So we Angelenos can forget about exalted commissions. We can forget about the Neighborhood Councils or submitting our comments to challenge construction projects. We can forget about the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative. We can forget about everything because the fix is in. 

The role given to us Angelenos is simple – approve hundreds of billions of dollars of bonds, rate hikes, and tax increases so that each city councilmember has an endless supply of money to dole out to his friends.

(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.

EASTSIDER-When I grew up, we had a whole bunch of automakers in the US, mostly based in Detroit. One heck of a lot of jobs, mostly in America. That ended with the full-on onslaught of the Global Economy, which we are told is “good for us” and somehow produces a better free market which should make us all sing hosannas and clap with joy. 

I still remember the television pronouncement of President Bill Clinton as he told us all to get over the idea of working for one employer and retiring on their pension. We lived in the new, competitive, global economy and we needed to get used to it and be willing to train, and retrain, for a bunch of different jobs during our working life so that we too, could become competitive. Or some such horsepuckey. 

So here’s my poster child for “how’s that workin’ for ya?” Let’s talk about airbags. You know, the ones that are in virtually every car these days, made overseas by the Takata Corporation, a veritable shining example of global competitiveness and its outcomes. 

These devices were so cost competitive on a per unit basis that they created close to a monopoly: no one else could compete with their prices. After all, if car companies can save a few cents per unit on every car they make, then they should do so. Then add all that up and “hurrah” – it’s a shining example of global competitiveness in action. 

But it is also a prime example of what happens when a system goes wrong. The simple timeline of the airbag problem and efforts to fix it shows us how incapable our system is in actually dealing with global problems of this magnitude. Here’s Consumer Reports’ take on it. 

And this gift just keeps on giving. I own a Toyota and was overjoyed to be greeted by this headline last week: “A second airbag supplier SNAFU hits Toyota, 1.4 million cars recalled.” 

Seems to me that all this points out some pretty serious flaws in the wonderful “global economy” theory. When things go wrong, no one knows the magnitude of the problem for a long time because the chain of how it has occurred is murky, complex, and has happened over a long period of time. The company on the hook is simply unable to fix the problem for every vehicle, because, in truth, doing that all at once would make them go bankrupt. So too bad for all of us and our cars. But we still go through these tortured exercises about how the government is somehow responsible for figuring out what to do. It’s a huge mess and coping with it is beyond the ability of any one of these global giants. Plus, the car manufacturers can’t take the hit all at once either. 

Remember, one of the upsides of the old “inefficient” economy was a certain amount of redundancy. There were usually a fair number of parts manufactured so that, if one messed up, there were quick fixes or alternatives. In fact, often a manufacturer would step up and actually make the part if necessary. Our global system, in contrast, tends to rely on a “just in time” assembly process with pieces coming on a slow boat from China. The old system had the advantage of redundancy, as well as being close to home -- and oh, by the way, providing jobs for us. 

The financial services industry could care less about this because they are the primary beneficiary of the global economy. They’ve already taken in their money and have it lodged in institutions all around the world, able to move their profits at the click of a button at the speed of electrons. 

By financing these deals with a massive amount of highly leveraged debt, they have made tons of money which they and their corporate partners can hide overseas to evade US taxes. If one of the deals goes bad, some investors (like your and my 401-k plans) get hit. However, the corporate types along with their profits have moved on, bearing no responsibility. 

In the meantime, people die. Also, a heck of a lot of folks in the United States have lost their jobs, with most of the manufacturing losses permanent. There is a direct correlation between the so-called free trade deals and job losses for us, and it’s not based on news media hype. Even the New York Times gets it. 

If you want to really know the details, check out the 55-page research paper referred to in the Times article here.  

Where does all this leave you and me? How about we consider less globalization and more local jobs? How about actually reigning in “Too Big to Fail” banks? Of course, I wouldn’t hold my breath with the two presidential candidates we have, but I can dream, can’t I?

(Tony Butka is an Eastside community activist, who has served on a neighborhood council, has a background in government and is a contributor to CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

GELFAND’S WORLD--The Lotus Festival (photo above) is an annual celebration of the Asian cultures that have settled and flourished in Los Angeles. There will be dragon boat races and food, dance performances, a health fair, and community interest booths. The Lotus Festival is being held this weekend, July 9-10 at Echo Park. 

The festivities begin at noon each day and continue until 9 PM. There will be 14 food booths, 29 boutique booths (that's how the sponsor describes them), and 38 community organization booths. Entertainment begins at noon each day, and continues until the festival's closing time of 9 PM. 

How, you may ask, do you manage to fit dragon boat races into the middle of Los Angeles? The answer is Echo Park Lake. This is also a clue for the answer to "Why is it the Lotus Festival?" 

Back in the late 1800s, what is now Echo Park was empty land on the western edge of a much smaller but growing city of Los Angeles. Then came the lake. It was originally designed to be a reservoir, containing water diverted from the L.A. River. You can read the story in Nathan Masters' history.  As Masters explains, the lake and its surroundings went through various phases, and were eventually made into what we now know as Echo Park. 

Historians are unsure how the lotus plants began to populate the lake, but at some time in the 1920s, they began to flourish. There is an amusing story of how the lake's lotus population died off and was later reintroduced. The fun part is that the replacement plants came from cuttings that had been stolen from the lake nearly a decade earlier. You can read about it in Marisa Gerber's story in the L.A. Times. How many people can put lotus thief and honored conservationist on their resume? Randy McDonald can. 

The Lotus Festival is well on its way to the half-century mark, although it went out of business for a short time and then came back in 2014. 

Each year, a different country sponsors the Lotus Festival. This year, it is the Republic of Korea. To give you an idea of the breadth of what will be presented, artist Yongseob Kwon will be displaying his remarkable collection of paintings of the LA River as imagined in a future setting. And those of you who have been active in neighborhood councils may know members of the Korean Culture Center Inc, which supports the heritage of the Korean independence movement as it existed in Los Angeles a century ago. 

Wear your sun screen and print out a street map.

●●

Dave Thomas would have been ashamed--Dave Thomas (photo right) was the guy you may remember from Wendy's commercials. He has since passed on, but he represented his company on television for more than a decade, mostly in the 1990s. The other night I went into the Wendys over in Carson and ordered a burger and a bowl of chili. The young man at the register asked me if I'd like onions and cheese on my chili. 

You may already know where this is going. I said, "Sure." He took my money but when I reached for the receipt, he held onto it, telling me that it was used to fill my order. Only later did I notice that Wendy's had stuck a half-dollar charge for the cheese on my bill. I should point out that the cheese they put on wouldn't have filled a thimble, but that's not the point. The point is that the company dishonestly and dishonorably stuck a surcharge on my bill without warning or explanation. Considering that cheese and onions are an expected part of a bowl of chili unless the customer declines them, this wasn't right. It was as if they had stuck a surcharge on the bill for taking a packet of sugar to go with a cup of coffee. 

If you were to have gone into that same restaurant with me that same night and looked at the menu, you would have seen the incriminating evidence. The menu board gave the prices for two sizes of chili, but nowhere did that menu say anything about charging extra for cheese. Like I said, Dave Thomas would have been ashamed of this kind of behavior. The young manager politely explained that the computer automatically adds the fifty cents to your bill if you agree to the offer of the added cheese. 

There oughta be a law--There is upselling and then there is sleazy upselling. One morning I ordered some breakfast at the McDonalds here in San Pedro. The menu item explained that my breakfast came with a drink which could be orange juice or coffee, and when I asked for coffee, the sales lady said, "Medium?" I assumed that she was offering me a chance to have either the smaller coffee (medium) or the larger coffee, as in upsize that. If she had offered me a large coffee, I would have understood that there would be a surcharge. 

So that morning in McDonalds, still looking at the printed price list and in answer to the question, I said, "Sure." That was another half-buck that a corporate computer stuck onto my bill in its own sneaky way. I guess I should be more careful about answering any question at a fast food place with "Sure." 

The game in upselling seems to be that the advertised price isn't necessarily the real price, and if you agree to any change whatsoever, you deserve your fate. But how is the offer of that half-thimble worth of cheese -- which the customer would assume is something that comes with the order -- any different than the question of whether you want cream in your coffee? We've come to expect that we can have our coffee with cream or without cream for the same price. Restaurants don't ordinarily charge us for sugar or artificial sweetener. It's part of the deal, and the cheese should be too. Or the sales person should make it clear that it's an upsale and it will be costing you. Then you can say to yourself, "Wendy's doesn't provide the whole dish when I order chili, so maybe I should avoid the Wendy's experience." 

Long ago, fast food places introduced the hard upsell by asking, "Will you be having fries with that?" It didn't take people long to figure out that fries weren't a free bonus, but cost extra. Eventually that question became the punch line to a lot of jokes, such as "What is the first thing a liberal arts major says in his new job?"

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

-cw

A PASTORAL PERSPECTIVE--As a pastor it is my calling to defend the helpless and to point out injustice when it happens. Christianity is not always a "namby pamby" religion. There is a time for condemnation and to demand change. I am reminded of Jesus Christ taking a whip to the money changers and overturning their tables in the temple in Jerusalem. What brings all of this to my attention are the two recent shootings of black men in this country. 

It is an uncomfortable fact in this country that when it comes to cops and African American men, it is open season on murdering black men. Having dated a black man for 2 years, I can personally testify to the terrible relations between the black community in Pasadena and the police. I even took a 13-week community policing class in Pasadena, and what I came away with was disheartening. The attitude of the PPD is shoot first, ask questions later. When I pressed the officers about that, the response was that was what lawyers and the courts were for, to work out the details. Our officers in the PPD are trained in Orange County, hardly a bastion of progressive thinking. This is made even worse by the recent shootings by Pasadena police of unarmed black men in Pasadena. 

This brings me to the shootings of Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota that happened this week. Both men were shot point blank. Take a look at these videos, and then tell me if you think the shootings were necessary or justified. Warning: these videos are very graphic in nature.

Sterling

Castile

Enough is enough! Police officers need to be held accountable for their actions, both by their commanding officers and by grand juries that investigate. 

Police officers are not above the law. In the case of the officer in Minnesota, he was yelling obscenities at the victim when he shot him. 

In the case of Alton Sterling in Louisiana, two police officers were kneeling on top of the victim with the full force of their weight, and then shot him. 

We need a policing culture that respects the lives of everyone, regardless of the color of one's skin. We need to retrain our police forces on how to deescalate dangerous situations and how to interact with minority communities. And we need to make it crystal clear that the attitude of shoot first ask questions later has no place in policing, and if an officer does that, charges should follow. 

Gun and ammunition laws need to be changed, and changed now. Assault weapons have no place in our communities.  

Let me ask you this question: How many pastors have you heard speak out about all of this? And white pastors need to stop the silent act and speak out firmly against the killing of unarmed black men. My message to white pastors: Stop hiding in your churches and step up to the plate! 

We are entering a very dangerous summer season. The United States is a powder keg, just waiting to explode. We already have demonstrations planned for the two national political conventions. And now we have protests over the shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota. It's going to be a long hot summer. 

We read in Psalm 18 : "This God - his way is perfect; the promise of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all who take refuge in him." My prayer is that the violence will end, and all of us, as children of a loving God, will take refuge in the loving arms of Christ. 

However, in the meantime, we demand change. We demand that the killing of unarmed black men stop. We demand that our police officers be retrained. Yes, black lives DO matter. ALL lives matter. And it is time we remember that. 

-cw

VIDEO INTERVIEW--Ken Bernstein (photo above), Principal City Planner and Manager of the Office of Historic Resources, [[http://preservation.lacity.org/ ]]   was recently interviewed for the Miracle Mile Residential Association’s “MMRA Channel on YouTube.”