LOS ANGELES

THE CITY-Los Angeles is facing an economic disaster. The 2020 Commission’s December 2013 report, A Time for Truth, set forth our tale of woe, and two years later, our situation is more precarious. When the time came for the illustrious and clueless 2020 Commission to set forth some remedies in its 2104 report, “A Time for Action,” it came up dry. The centerpiece seemed to be a huge political gift to BNSF Railway, a client of Mickey Kantor, a senior partner at Mayer Brown Law Firm who was the major force behind the 2020 Commission. The City of Los Angeles would simply take over the port of Long Beach like Wall Street raiders take over and destroy smaller companies, and then make Kantor’s client the only freight railroad for the port. 

For a while, some people thought that building a football stadium in DTLA would financially save Los Angeles. That idea fell through when the voters refused to increase the sales taxes so that the city could give the NFL the $1 Billions it wanted. The financial theory behind the football stadium was that it would employ a lot of people to build and then a lot of hotdog venders on game days. Not only do football stadiums not benefit the local economy, the $1 billion was not going to CIM Group, federal felon Juri Ripinksy or other developer friends of Garcetti. 

As the City’s own HCIDLA department wrote in its November 17, 2015 report, Los Angeles has a glut of apartments constructed within the last ten years. There is a 12% vacancy rate and 5% vacancy is equilibrium. In 2013, the City construct 150% of the housing needed for people who had above moderate income.   

Wall Street has become reluctant to loan developers money to construct into a glut, and poor people cannot afford to pay the rents which will create the revenue stream to repay the Wall Street loans for mixed-use projects. Projects in TODs are more expensive as the land costs more and construction costs escalate as building heights soar. The City has demolished over 20,000 rent controlled units since 2001. Thus, we have a significant homeless crisis due to the City’s allowing poor people’s homes to be demolished and thrown on to the streets. 

Basta! Enough with the Doom and Gloom already. What’s the solution? 

The Know-it-Alls have decided that the City of Los Angeles will Deficit Finance its way to prosperity. Here’s the plan. 

(1) The City will issue bonds for several billion dollars more than it can repay. The City must deficit finance on a huge scale in order to make this scheme work. The City has to borrow billions of dollars more than it can possibly repay. The City has make certain that its debt will be so enormous that a bankruptcy reorganization will be infeasible, leaving a quick and complete bail out as the solution. 

(2) The City (Metro and the County) will give these billions of dollars to those multi-millionaires and billionaires who finance the various political campaigns aka real estate developers. 

(3) These developers will construct massive projects which Los Angeles does not need and Angelenos for the most part do not want... 

(4) By spending billions of dollars which otherwise would not be spent, the entire economy will be stimulated. 

(5) When the time comes to pay off the bond holders and repay the banks, the City won’t have the money. The City will be billions of dollars short and then it will run to Washington DC, screaming: “Bankruptcy, Bankruptcy, Bankruptcy.” As everyone knows, no federal government can allow Los Angeles to go bankrupt. Wall Street will not tolerate it? Who, do you think, bought all the bonds and loaned LA all those billions of dollars? If LA went BK, they would lose billions of dollars. Deja vu 2008. 

(6) Thus, LA plans to issue a series of billion dollar bonds and it will also borrow up the ying yang. The City knows now – right now in 2016 – that it has no intention of paying off the bonds or repaying the loans. The Feds will step in and pay whatever it takes – $1 trillion, $4 trillion, more. It does not matter! The Feds will pay off the debt to avoid a Los Angeles Bankruptcy. 

Will federalizing Los Angeles debt work? 

Yes and No. 

Answer #1: Yes, it will work. 

No matter how much LA borrows, the Feds will pay off the debt. There is no number too high. In fact, the higher the debt, the more pressure on the Feds to pay off the debt outright rather than allow Los Angeles to re-organize. Organization takes time and some lenders may have to take a financial “hair cut.” Wall Street will want is $1.75 on the dollar and the surest way to get all its money is to have a gigantic crisis. 

It’s the same as the game play where the City destroyed thousands of rent-controlled apartments in order to manufacture a huge homeless crisis so that people will vote to issue $1 billion in bonds. Then developers will BK their LLCs and LLPs, causing the City in turn to scream bankruptcy so that the Feds will bail out Los Angeles. The poor will still be poor, but the billionaires will become wealthier. Kind of like the last 30 years! 

Answer #2: No, it will not work. 

The things which LA is buying range between worthless and detrimental. Los Angeles is investing in 19^th Century choo-choo trains and dense residential construction which the overwhelming majority of Angelenos and Americans shun. 

Meanwhile, other areas of the country are busily re-creating old Los Angeles in places like Texas and the Carolinas. If people take the time to look at what Austin is doing and at what is happening outside Dallas and what could happen in North Carolina if it stopped its run-away bigotry, one sees that it is what made Los Angeles a destination city. We offered a combination of job opportunities, a decent climate and virtually endless single family homes. 

Garcetti has declared war on the single family home. The lack of single family homes and the atrocious school district are the largest factors driving out the productive middle class. Employers are shunning Los Angeles and the type of highly dense housing which Garcetti loves will quicken the departure of both educated workers and employers to other states. The exodus is already under way. 

Some very short term events are likely: 

(1) CEQA will be gutted so that more high density housing can be constructed faster to pump more money into the economy faster. 

(2) Billions more in bonds will be issued. 

(3) The courts will rule against all or almost all challenges to any construction project with no regard to whether it is legal or illegal. 

Leading up to 2012, many State leaders saw that the Community Redevelopment Agencies were pushing cities and the State into insolvency due the billions of tax dollars which the CRAs were sucking away from incremental property taxes. Effective February 1, 2012, all the CRAs were abolished and massive insolvency was avoided. At that time, there was no plan to bail out the cities or the State. 

After 2008, the public was extraordinarily hostile to bailouts so the CRA’s had to be killed off and killed quickly. In that climate, many politicos saw the need to force the developers and city to hold back on development. The orders went out to the judges to uphold the challenges to these projects until the economy could correct itself. 

Now in 2016, there is a plan to bail-out the Cities but there is no need to resurrect the elaborate CRA structure. Each councilman says what he wants, and the LA City Council passes it unanimously. Don’t worry about Penal Code 86 which criminalized the vote trading agreement. The judges have their new marching orders to kill any lawsuit which questions the propriety of the City’s being run by a criminal vote trading pact. 

With the bailout plan in place, the priorities have shifted to stop all citizen challenges to the massive spending which is being launched. Most likely the trial courts will rule that citizens have no right to question the decisions of the City leaders and that will throw the cases into the appellate process for several years. Meanwhile, billions of dollars will be borrowed and given to the developers. 

The construction industry will keep Los Angeles’s economy afloat, and ironically, as City devolves it probably will become less crowded as an increasing number of people move away. That will leave LA with more elderly, until they start dying off. A city without modern jobs will lose young of working age. 

Starting after 2026, what we currently call “corporate welfare” will morph into “municipal welfare,” in that city will perpetually need the Feds to prop up the economy. Who knows if LA will continue to have the political clout to keep the Deficit Spending Plan going after 2040. In a culture where only the short term matters, only fools ask such questions.

(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.)

THIS IS WHAT I KNOW-Last Friday, ABC’s 20/20 detailed the unfathomable saga of rehab mogul Chris Bathum, (photo above) subject of an April expose in LA Weekly written by Hillel Aron. Bathum’s company, Community Recovery, Inc., took in over $30 million in revenue last year, despite his record as a convicted felon and, by his own admission, that he is neither a licensed drug counselor nor a therapist. 

Bathum doesn’t even have a college degree and the only certification he holds is from a hypnotherapy institute. His legal troubles had been the subject of an LA Weekly cover story back in December. The founder and board chairman of a chain of over 20 sober living houses and outpatient clinics in California and Colorado has been the target of three lawsuits in early 2016 for allegations ranging from wrongful termination to sexual battery.

A pair of former patients at Bathum’s Community Recovery Los Angeles (CRLA) facilities alleges that Bathum had “isolated and targeted (the) plaintiffs and other women to prey on their addictions by using and supplying drugs around them, moving them to isolated hotel rooms and remote locations, encouraging them to use drugs with him, and sexually molesting them when they were high and/or incapable of consent.” 

According to various reports, Bathum is the subject of over 50 lawsuits, including former client Amanda Jester who filed a suit that he had molested her in a sweat lodge during a meditation session. Another client, Erika Bruakis, claims he provided her with crystal meth and made sexual advances toward her. Dana Reardon, the most recent patient to file a suit, claims he provided her with meth and heroin, forcing her to watch him engage in sex acts with two of his other patients. 

20/20 and LA Weekly both reported that Bathum overdosed on heroin and was taken by ambulance from a Malibu motel in December, which he denies. In fact, when questioned during the 20/20 report, he denied all charges and claimed his identity had been stolen. The Los Angeles County sheriff’s department says he never filed a report. He is currently countersuing multiple women who have filed lawsuits against him for libel.

Bathum’s troubles didn’t start at CRLA. Last July, one of his former patients, Julie Hluchota, died of an overdose. Hluchota had entered a Malibu rehab clinic, Seasons, where Bathum was the co-founder and the director. After spending 90 days in the program, she began to work at the facility and relapsed just two months later. Hluchota alleged that Bathum made unwanted sexual advances toward her, which is denies. 

Just how does a convicted felon without a degree or credentials open and run a chain of sober living facilities and rehab clinics, preying upon young women in the most dire of conditions? 

Kenneth Whoridaz Whitfield has a lot to say about it. The 46-year old military veteran has been in recovery since 1993 and has been sober for the past six years. He shares that he made some bad decisions and relapsed in 2008, serving time in County and as a result, awakened to what recovery really is and what it isn’t. 

“People in the Inland Empire, San Bernardino, and other areas aren’t as affluent,” he says. “They might not have as many resources other than 12 step-programs. It was a real culture shock when I arrived in LA in May 2010. After I was incarcerated, I got clean and sober, thanks to the VA in West LA and Henry Waxman who was committed to staying on top of things to get veterans the best care possible,” he shares. “My experience at the VA wasn’t perfect but they did the best with limited resources and I’m back to being a productive member of society.” 

Following his time at the VA, Whitfield got into the field of recovery, managing a sober living facility in Mar Vista and working in marketing for another facility. When his last contract was up, he says he “didn’t like the direction the treatment world was going.” 

The U.S. is the most addicted country in the world, he says, and the consumer of 90 percent of prescription drugs worldwide. As a result, the addiction treatment centers and rehab have become a multimillion dollar industry. “Until society looks at prescription and illegal drugs as drugs anyone can get addicted to, nothing will change,” says Whitfield. 

He continues, warning, “Big names in rehab are just about making money. It’s easier to get a license as a rehab owner in California than it is to get a contractor’s license. If you have a felony record, you just have to write to the governor. Doctors who have had their medical licenses revoked can open clinics and rehab facilities. There’s no process to make sure they are legit and they are given carte blanche to scam insurance companies.” 

What can be done to change the broken system? 

Whitfield points to the Governor. “When it comes to this issue, he’s dropped the ball. He needs to put his foot down and say if you’re a sober living facility, you need to be non-profit,” he advises. “The East Coast has far more regulations. In New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, they don’t have this stuff going on. To open a treatment center there, you have to get a license like a hospital or mental health facility.” 

If someone owns an outpatient treatment clinic, he or she should not be able to open a sober living facility and the facilities need to be licensed, he suggests. There should be some oversight and regulation to check up on non-licensed employees handing out medication, as well. Residential treatment centers must have doctors and nurses present to provide the level of care necessary.

Substance abuse and addiction come at a tremendous cost to individuals, families, and society. As the need grows for rehab and sober living facilities, it’s crucial that we don’t allow unscrupulous entrepreneurs to take advantage of Californians in the most dire straits. California should follow the lead of other states that place more restrictions on who can open and operate facilities, as well as how the facilities operate. 

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

CONNECTING CALIFORNIA--The California media keeps getting it wrong. The state legislature hasn’t passed a budget. And the governor hasn’t made it law.

It’s not because they don’t want to do those things. It’s because they can’t. Not in California.

Yes, the legislature approved a document called a budget, and Gov. Brown signed it. But that is not the state budget. That is sort of a holding document that decides all the very easy things that can be decided under the California budget system.

All the budget optimism has blinded us to the unchanging reality in California:

The real budget is decided by voters.

And that’s not because they necessarily want it that way. It’s just how California works.

Anything that changes the constitution or affects previous initiatives has to be decided by ballot – that’s what makes California different. In addition, difficult tax and spending questions get put on the ballot by the rich and the interested – because they want political power or notice, or they want leverage, or they want something that they can’t get from the governor and the legislature.

Gov. Brown and the legislature’s main budget reform has been to move all these big ballot measure questions away from June, and pile them up on a big messy November ballot. That’s where voters will decided on the key points of the budget—various taxes including partial Prop 30 extensions, and a host of other questions that could affect spending and taxes.

So it’s November – or maybe December, when the votes are all finally counted – when the budget gets passed. Well, sort of. The courts can rule on measures, further delaying things.

So hold the congratulation about passing budgets, at least until the stores are decorated for Christmas.

(Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square. This was originally posted at Fox and Hounds.

-cw

TRANSPORTATION POLITICS-We live in conflicted times.  Whether it's presidential politics, state politics, or local politics, the ambivalence and anger seem to be at historic levels. Ditto with transportation and planning here in the City of the Angels.  I've heard many impassioned, if not infuriated, individuals who are all over the place with respect to transit/transportation efforts, but one common sentiment appears universal: overdevelopment is neither economically nor environmentally smart or safe ... and if LA City transit leads to overdevelopment, then sentiment for more transit will certainly drop. 

So whether it's the proposed half-cent transportation tax ("Measure R-2") scheduled for this November's ballot, or the troubled California High-Speed Rail (CAHSR) project, ambivalence and conflicted sentiments abound.  I'm not the only transit/transportation advocate who recognizes BOTH the benefits and shortfalls of mass transit, and who NEVER wanted the blatant overdevelopment we're seeing in LA. 

And I'm not the only transit/transportation advocate favoring passage of BOTH Measure R-2 this fall as well as the Neighborhood Intregrity Initiative next spring.  Expediting rail to our airports and suburbs, as well as funding transportation operations, is in no way mutually exclusive to delivering the legal and political smackdown that overly-empowered developers and their political puppets so richly deserve. 

In my last CityWatch article, I emphasized how the City of LA--which has a huge hunk of county voters--is undermining the county's efforts to pass Measure R-2 by the City's corruption, poor planning, horrific abuse of environmental and planning laws, and belittling of its City's residents' rights. 

But then ... we had Bill Rosendahl show up, and now we have Mike Bonin. 

Visionary goals, prudent planning, a focus on credibility, and no B.S. allowed in CD11 with respect to development and obeying the law. 

Unfortunately, the rest of the City Hall too often provides milquetoast, or aloof, or even downright corrupt leadership with respect to appropriate economic, environmental and quality of life issues.   

Garcetti's record is mixed with positive new initiatives and an appalling record of overdevelopment from his City Council days.  And as for City Council President/Boss Wesson...well, let's just be grateful for term limits. 

In my last article, I mentioned the imperfect but overall-favorable approach to the Martin Cadillac project adjacent to the only CD11 Expo Line station at Bundy/Olympic that Mike Bonin could influence--he and his team are fighting for a transit-oriented project with community benefits and affordable housing. 

Ditto for the LAX Northside Plan Update on Westchester Parkway, and sandwiched between LAX and Westchester/Playa Del Rey.  The City Council passed it, and it's an example of community participation and more appropriate and sustainable planning the City sorely needs. 

As articulated by Argonaut newspaper journalist extraordinaire Gary Walker, the originally-approved 4.5 million square feet of commercial land use was cut in half.  Westchester residents will have a virtual extension of the Downtown Westchester Business District, and will have Westchester Parkway buffered to protect local neighborhoods.  Green space, open space, community/civic land use, and even a dog park is planned.  And, of course, it's transit-friendly. 

Mike Bonin and both the Westchester and LAX leaderships worked together on this plan, which shows that--as with the LAX/Green Line/Crenshaw Line effort--former foes can work together to come up with compromise that best serves all parties. 

Unfortunately, Mike Bonin isn't mayor...yet.  But he does show that honor, credibility, and compromise can get the job done during an era where citizens are so used to getting the heave-ho that they presume government will never serve him. 

Maybe there's hope for Measure R-2 after all ... but, of course, that doesn't mean we shouldn't also pass the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative.  Not everyone is as well-represented as folks are in CD11.

(Ken Alpern is a Westside Village Zone Director and Board member of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Planning and Outreach Committees, and currently is Co-Chair of its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee. He is co-chair of the CD11Transportation Advisory Committee and chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at  [email protected]. He also co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Mr. Alpern.)

-cw

EASTSIDER-I can only say that my failure to grasp the scope of LA City politicians’ ability to rip us off was a gross underestimation of their talent. Now our very neighborhoods are under the same types of attack the Council used to reserve for commercial development. In fact, for those who care, I would point out that there are currently something like fifteen Proposed Ordinances gurgling around the Planning Department. 

Of these, four are now directly aimed at the residential neighborhoods we live in: a Small Lot Code amendment, the repeal of the Granny Flat Policy, adoption of a Home Sharing Ordinance, and our old favorite, the Airbnb type short-term rental Ordinance. Oh goody, more “help” from government even as our middle class implodes. You can find the text of all of these Ordinances and backup information here.  

1. The Small Lot Subdivision “Code Amendment and Policy Update”--What, you

ask, is the Small Lot Subdivision Ordinance? Good question. If you live in Northeast LA, there are a whole bunch of complexes that look like 3-story Leggo’s squashed together with virtually no space between them, zip setbacks, and a lack of anything that resembles design. (Example in photo above.) 

For example, as you come off the Glendale Freeway going south into Echo Park and Angeleno Heights, there’s one where the freeway ends. It’s amazing -- the freeway particulates can go directly into these units -- I guess to enhance their ambience. 

There’s another cluster of them in Silverlake/Echo Park up off of Rowena on the hill by the 5 freeway, built on a hillside that looks like a slide waiting to happen. There’s even one off of Eagle Rock Blvd. by the new Sprouts grocery store. I tell you, they’re going up like popcorn poppin’! 

What they are, according to the inventive language of the Planning Department, is “..a new hybrid housing topology that looked and functioned like row townhomes but where each unit was built independently on individual ‘small lots’. It combined the benefits of a single-family home and its full fee-simple ownership of building with the conveniences of a townhouse lifestyle.” 

I don’t know what it cost the developers to get the PLUM Committee and City Council to approve this stuff, but I can only say that they got a real bargain from the elected officials. All we and our neighborhoods got is the fuzzy end of the lollipop. 

I say “our neighborhoods,” because these new structures can be built in single-family zones. Again, to quote the Planning Department: “When Small Lot projects are proposed in a neighborhood developed with single-family homes or small duplexes, it signifies that they are within an older multi-family neighborhood zoned for multi-family uses.” 

Well gee, I feel so much better knowing that, not to mention that when they adopted this Ordinance back in 2005, they neglected to limit the number of units per project. Now the proposal is that projects of over 20 homes will have to provide stuff like open space, bike parking, and the like. And, of course, all the existing projects will be grandfathered in. 

2. Second Dwelling Unit Repeal--Here’s the short version. In 2010, the Planning

Department adopted a Memorandum outlining the criteria for building Second Dwelling Units. This regulation was more restrictive than the State law (AB1866). These units are usually referred to by everyone I know as Granny Units, Granny Flats, or in the planning vernacular, “accessory dwelling units.” They are the add-on rentals that a lot of people build without a permit to make a few bucks toward their mortgages. 

So in 2013, a homeowner group filed a lawsuit over the issuance of such a permit in Cheviot Hills. And finally this year, a Superior Court judge overturned the City’s regulations and entered a judgment directing the City to cease using their current criteria for permitting these units, as well as requiring monthly reports back to the judge. 

Evidently this action provided an opening for the City Council to cozy up to the construction community. Instead of filing an appeal, like the City did with the Telephone Users Tax and the DWP annual transfer of funds to the City, the City Attorney and the Council used this opportunity to propose an Emergency Repeal of the existing regulations regarding Second Dwelling Units. 

Buried in the Planning Department’s Report and Recommendation is the real reason for the rush to repeal everything instead of fixing any deficiencies in existing rules: the effect of a repeal is to default to State Law and that will be a lot looser than what the City’s extant regulations were. 

For example, the Emergency Repeal would allow Granny flats of up to 1200 square feet, eliminate any lot size requirements (like the substandard lots in the hills), and let these secondary units to be built in single-family and multi-family zones. 

Don’t’ blink. This one is going through the system faster than a NASCAR race. Good to know the City Council can move so quickly, even if it’s against residential homeowners. 

The rationale, of course, is that we need more affordable housing, since Council actions have already made most housing unaffordable. 

3. The Unapproved Dwelling Unit (UDU) Ordinance--This one is simple to

understand. Everybody knows that a ton of people have been building unpermitted granny units to make a buck or just make ends meet. This Ordinance legalizes them as long as they were in existence as of December 10, 2015. 

OK, I get that. The rationale, however, is a doozy. It turns out that those nasty Code Enforcement people have been doing their job and citing the miscreants. Goodness. As the City chooses to describe the problem, “the result is often the dislocation of low and moderate income households and the loss of existing housing stock at a time the City is facing a severe housing crisis.” 

Need I say more? 

4. Short-Term Rental Ordinance (aka Airbnb)--Goodness knows I’ve written enough

about this divisive issue. The last post is available here.  

Since that May meeting, there was a public hearing in the auditorium next to the LAPD’s new building, and it was evidently packed with some 300 people. As usual for Airbnb hearings, it was also very contentious. As of now we are still awaiting yet another draft of the proposed Ordinance, and no one’s talking about what if any changes will be in the new draft. 

Whatever will be in the revisions, a few things are clear. First, the City Council is going to approve a short-term-rental Ordinance, because they lust for the revenue to shore up their shaky budget. Second, in the adoption of almost any Ordinance, it is virtually impossible to realistically limit the number of guests per rental. And third, without forcing the rental entities themselves such as Airbnb to responsible for providing data to the City, there is no way that LA City will have the technological ability to track and enforce what goes on. Stay tuned. 

So…What Does All This Mean?--The net effect of all of these new planning tools aimed squarely at our residential neighborhoods will be to fundamentally change the character of those very neighborhoods. You know, the places we live together that actually define what Los Angeles is, since the City is so big, sprawling, and impossible to get around in that it has no inherent character -- except for being a desert. 

Nowhere in these proposed laws is any mention of what is going to happen to parking. In my part of town, where you already can’t park since everyone seems to have at least two cars, one a big SUV or truck, and they already park them on both sides of the street, since the garages are used for other purposes. 

What’s going to happen to the existing (and crumbling) infrastructure for water, power, and streets as the load on them potentially doubles? I suspect that the current DWP plan to replace pipes on something like a 200 year schedule is going out the door, and we already have power outages in areas where the power demand is suddenly increasing dramatically. Who’s going to pay for all this stuff and how long is it going to take to ramp up? 

Most important, what is going to happen as neighbor is pitted against neighbor? We have already seen with the Airbnb proposals how bitterly divided our communities have become on this type of issue. The invective isn’t pretty, and it is inwardly directed, instead of focused on the City Council that is creating the divisiveness through their actions. 

There is a huge increase of folks out there who don’t have high paying and/or full-time employment, as our society devolves into a “sharing” or “gig” economy without fringe benefits pensions or employer paid health insurance. They need additional income to cover the outrageous costs of housing in our City, and I certainly can’t blame them for wanting to do what they can to make ends meet. 

It is also unacceptable to expect us to live in neighborhoods which are flooded with too many people, where parking is nonexistent, streets crumbling, increased broken pipes and power outages, and oh yes, where we get to pay for the sidewalks that the City messed up by planting the wrong type of trees. 

This is not good governance. This is not good public policy. If our elected City officials are incapable of bringing us together, I can see only one short term solution. Support Jill Stewart and the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative! 

(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.

LA PROFILES--Homelessness is presently a political, hot topic as it continues to sprout in almost all parts of the City of Los Angeles. The story of Toastmaster Michael Perez’ volunteering for the homeless caught my attention at the Toastmasters Division Contest for Table Topics ---held bi-annually in downtown Los Angeles. 

The Contest Topic was open-ended enough for contestant Perez to respond from direct life experience. He won the Division Contest, rising to the district level competition. However, he didn’t make good at the district contest, though he did walk away with a bundle of impromptu speaking skills and a cherished experience. 

Later, I contacted Perez for an interview on his altruistic story that caught my attention at the Toastmasters Division Contest. Perez explained that when he was attending Cal State University Northridge, his fraternity, Phi Beta Sigma in partnership with another fraternity held an annual event to feed the homeless on skid row. About fifty volunteers made 1,000 peanut-butter-jelly sandwiches in Northridge to distribute to the homeless at 3:00 a. m. on Thanksgiving Day. Their target was the homeless without shelters who are situated in one place at that time in the morning. 

“Phi Beta Sigma is a multicultural fraternity with an inclusive motto, ‘united we stand, united we fall,’“ Perez articulated. “We wanted to show our brothers and sisters living in skid row that someone cared for them. What a better time than on Thanksgiving Day when we’re all enjoying freshly home-cooked meals.” 

Perez admitted that a bit of fear lingered in the air when they took to the streets not knowing how they [homeless] were going to respond especially at three in the morning. 

“It was lit well enough for us to navigate from street to street. We zigzagged in and out of major streets --started walking up Sixth Street, then north on Central Avenue, etc.--covering 30 square blocks and ending back at Pershing Square, where we started,” Perez said in one breath. 

The crew handed sandwiches to everyone they saw in the street, and in a matter of two hours the sandwiches were gone. “People were sleeping, lying down on cardboards, inside tents, while some sat on the bare concrete sidewalks,” he said. 

Perez (photo left) explained that there are some homeless who don’t even bother to go to a shelter or church where distributions of food are offered because of their circumstances, “We targeted those who don’t have access, for whatever reason, and give them a break from their harsh reality by bringing some hope into their lives.” 

When Perez saw someone sitting by a tent, he’d ask how many inside and left sandwiches for them. In some cases, when there were lone tents, “we left a couple of sandwiches in a bag with a note, letting them know why the sandwiches were there.” 

Perez expressed that in the past, he heard about a few cases where homeless men tried to grab female volunteers. For the three consecutive years that he volunteered, he saw no obstacles. Women were paired with men for precaution, and the crew was welcomed with open arms. 

“Starting off on Thanksgiving Day with men and women getting together to distribute food before twilight is very powerful. This feeling of community unity brings meaning to community service,” Perez said. 

“This experience made my Thanksgiving even better. 

Perez is a Mechanical Design Engineer, a graduate from Northridge-U and works in the aerospace field as a mechanical designer.

(Connie Acosta writes about Los Angeles neighborhood councils and is a neighborhood council participant.)

-cw

DEEGAN ON LA-Immediate access to one-half billion dollars from the state’s Special Fund for Economic Uncertainties is the goal of a motion introduced on Tuesday, June 14 by Supervisors Mark Ridley-Thomas and Sheila Kuehl seeking a resolution from the Legislature asking the Governor to declare a state of emergency due to the homeless crisis. The Board of Supervisors unanimously passed the motion. 

In addition to the action by the Supervisors, the County’s multi-pronged State advocacy effort to combat homelessness includes an online petition urging Governor Jerry Brown to declare a state of emergency in California to address this growing humanitarian crisis throughout the State, by indicating to lawmakers the need for a concerted effort and more resources to end homelessness. 

If the Governor declares a state of emergency, it will open the door to various funding possibilities that can immediately help LA County, where nearly half the state’s homeless population lives, deal with our homeless issues. 

The stark reality is that 115,738 homeless, or 21% of the nation’s homeless, live in California and that 41% of the state’s homeless (47,000 including over 6,000 parents and their children) live in Los Angeles County. 

Stay with CityWatch for ongoing comprehensive coverage of this developing story.

(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.

WORDS FROM THE HOOD--It’s been a while since ImagineVenice had something to say. Why? …because no one likes to read an edition comprised of rants. It seems like all the action around here provokes one rant after another – so, we guess, it’s time to let it rip.

Residents often talk about how “cool” Venice is. You know, along with all the other platitudes about how much more Venice was before and how Venice has changed. We have. Many worry we are on an irreversible course towards losing our “uniqueness” … maybe even our soul. We are. In the next breath these landed gentry complain “tsk, tsk my friend still can’t find a place to live here with all these Airbnb’s taking over all our rentals.” If you are grousing about the changes around this town, you better get ready for the big one. 

Last week our local Chamber of Commerce lead its business-minded membership, along with many restaurant owners, developers and architects to the polls to vote at the Venice Neighborhood Council election. (Photo above: Voters stand in line to cast vote in Venice Neighborhood Council election.) They called in their chits and their dishwashers and Sparklett’s delivery guys marched dutifully to the polls along with anyone else who “owed” them. It was a rout. The election turnout was almost double from the last election.

Many of the newly “Venice committed” voters have absolutely nothing to do with the Venice community. They could care less about it. Their required declared “relationship” got them a ballot and they voted. That’s the way this election dumped the old team and brought in a new one.

We know it sounds ridiculous that non-residents or non-property owners could actually determine your future by voting in someone else’s local election. That’s what happened. An interpretation of the election rules allowed this corruption.

Manipulation like this of our local neighborhood council vote has never happened before. The Chamber and all of its business-interested members have utilized their group power and joined together to serve their common interests using this avenue. It doesn’t matter whether it is moral. It is legal.

You would be right to question if anyone not focused on money-making development issues in Venice needs to pay any future attention to the happenings of the VNC. With this new group running the VNC show there won’t be a development they won’t like or a rule they won’t break or change or a rent stabilized apartment they won’t want to change into a short-term rental for a buck. Whatever it is, if it puts money in their pockets or in their friend’s pockets they will approve it.

Get ready for a very different Venice.

●●

Enforcement? Not in Venice--If you want local laws enforced, better move to Brentwood. Somehow, even though we are in the same council district, trash cans are plentiful over there and homeless people are not setting up tents on their sidewalks. 

Shops don’t get to illegally expand without parking and restaurants don’t get away with adding illegal seating. Citations mean absolutely nothing around here but somehow have their intended force and effect in Brentwood. There are no driveways on San Vicente or Wilshire converted into “pop-up” shops of one stripe or another or vendors setting up businesses right on the street out of their cars, vans and even on blankets. 

In Brentwood you won’t find apartment houses with illegal structures built in their front yard selling cookies. No amplified music event is approved if it is within 500′ of residences. The ABC doesn’t approve just about every request it gets to sell alcohol. We in Venice must live in another world. 

Maybe we do. Here, anything goes. Despite a year’s worth of citations our hottest restaurant still uses the neighbor’s driveway to provide seating for a no-seating-allowed takeout. That property owner continues to ignore citations demanding the seating be removed and his driveway returned to a useful driveway. There are numerous illegal acts, too many to list. For some reason, enforcement just doesn’t happen around here, no matter how egregious the behavior. 

The newest hustler on the block, Greenleaf, asked for and got a permit for an outside parking lot “beer garden” to add to the mix during our last First Friday. Never before has a restaurant or shop on the street sold alcohol from an outside parking lot or a shop received a special event permit to sell alcohol on a First Friday. 

Greenleaf has now opened the floodgates to alcohol special event sales on First Friday. Thousands of young people pack our sidewalks those nights while eating from various food trucks. Now they have the “opportunity” to walk off the sidewalk and get a beer or three and return back to the crowd. 

Imagine kids all juiced up packed in like sardines on the next First Friday. Imagine your kid at this event. If it’s a hot night, it will take just one troublemaker to make this event a disaster. The decision makers use no discretion when they give out alcohol-related permits. It will take much more than common sense to say “no” to the powerful and connected — especially if the Chamber is behind them. You would think these “deciders” were Chamber members themselves! 

We dodged a bullet last Friday. It was a cool evening. We are unlikely to be that lucky in the future. Greenleaf now has a sidewalk sandwich sign advertising their parking lot alcohol event for future First Fridays. Looks like future approvals are in the bag for our avaricious new neighbor. It is all about making money. 

Sometimes newcomers are the target of our disdain because of their disinterest in what made Venice, Venice. The new “new” matters most to them. They really don’t care if this place is turned into another Grove. But they are not villains. They are what they are. 

The real truth behind the big changes here can be found with our own “movers and shakers.” They are our villains — our very own — our super land rich. Because Venice has become a magnet drawing international businesses from all over the world, our own landed gentry are now so very rich and loving it. They never dreamed money of this magnitude would drop from the heavens right into their laps. All they had to do to get it was be here at the right time. Like a drug, they just want more, more, more. No matter the cost. 

Venice in the word of that famous song just doesn’t get any R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

(Marian Crostic   and Elaine Spierer are co-founders of Imagine Venice … where this commentary was first posted.)

-cw

THE CITY--While Angelenos are easily fooled, Wall Street is not. Wall Street does not buy the disinformation about a housing shortage. They know that Los Angeles has a 12% vacancy rate for apartments constructed in the last decade. Wall Street knows that means the City has been constructing too many new apartments. 

Wall Street knows that more people are moving out of the City of Los Angeles than are moving into the city, meaning, LA has a net exodus over new arrivals. The amount of empty housing increases, even if nothing new is constructed. Thus, Wall Street knows the exodus means the demand has slowed, while the number of available places has grown. 

Wall Street knows that developers with empty units cannot make their loan payments and that makes Wall Street unhappy. The developers are also upset. Like the species of sharks which must swim in order to breathe, developers must construct in order to survive. Any business facing a declining market for its product is doomed. The developers know that Los Angeles has “150 percent (5,874) of the units needed by above moderate income earners.” (11-17-2015 HCIDLA report to Mayor) 

In response to this excess capacity, the City has turned to subterfuge: 

(1) Tell Everyone That There Is a Shortage of Housing--Following the old adage, “figures don’t lie, but liars can figure,” they pretend that housing prices are soaring, therefore, there must be a shortage. Like I said, Angelenos are easily deceived, but Wall Street is not. Higher prices do not necessarily mean a shortage. And that is why Wall Street wants guaranteed bail-outs to fund additional construction. But more about the bail-outs later. 

(2) How Housing Prices Are Hyped--In calculating average prices, they throw in some super high homes such as the asking price of $85 million for Eddie Murphy’s old estate in Holmby Hills – as if mansions in Holmby Hills affect prices in East Hollywood. 

And there’s another scam on the public: the City reports the high advertised sales prices and high advertised rents as the amounts actually paid. The City gets this misleading data from real estate companies which have a vested interest in deceiving people into believing that prices are escalating. 

There are also machinations at the low end of the market. The City has torn down over 20,000 rent controlled units. Rent controlled units have lower rents and the older units with long term tenants have the lowest rents. The demolition of rent controlled units removes low end rentals from the equation. 

For example, let’s say the rent range is between the low rent of $20 and the high rent of $80. Then the average rent is $50. Tear down the $20 units, and the cheapest is now $30 so the new “average rent” is $55. Because rents have then increased by 10%, the City declares that there must be an increased demand. However, the reality is that the demand has not changed. Rather, the City has eliminated the apartments with the lowest rents.

(3) Create a Homeless Crisis--By tearing down rent controlled housing, the City throws thousands of people into the streets. Even if they could find a new rent controlled apartment, that unit’s rent would begin at market rate, which these people cannot afford.

Now, Wall Street sees a chance to make money on the backs of the poor. Here’s how the scam works:

(1) Publicize the Plight of the Homelessness--Garcetti excels at photo-ops. He may suck as a mayor, but when he’s in front of the camera, he is #1. These photo-ops then lead to a campaign to house the homeless. 

At this moment, Garcetti ignores the fact that LA has a plethora of empty apartments – where we could house all the homeless who want homes. Instead, the Mayor says that we must give hundreds of millions of dollars to his friends to build apartments for the homeless. I wonder if Garcetti’s friend and campaign fund raiser Juri Ripinsky, a federal felon who served two years in Leavenworth for real estate fraud, is in line for some of this free money. He got the lucrative Paseo Plaza Project in Hollywood back when Garcetti was City Council President. 

(2) Wall Street No Longer Likes Tax Rebates--There was a time when the City gave future taxes to the developers who would keep the sale taxes generated from the stores in their mixed-use projects. However, many of them collected no sales taxes because their retail space was vacant. Vacant retail space often means that many apartments are also unrented. The point of mixed-use projects is that the people who live in the building will shop at the stores. Wall Street knows that empty retail spaces portend disaster. As a result, Wall Street will no longer rely on sales tax rebates as providing the developer with the revenue stream to repay his loan. 

(3) The Garcetti Administration has a dilemma--The homeless are too poor to pay rents and the more affluent already have too many available apartments. Plus, each day Los Angeles is losing more and more educated and well trained people. This leaves us with a poorer population, many of them young and elderly. Neither the newborns nor the old are demanding new housing. 

Question: What can we do to keep Garcetti’s developer buddies in business? 

Answer: Pre-Arranged Wall Street Bail-Outs 

This solution is brilliant. In advance of a loan, the taxpayers will guarantee to bail out Wall Street. In this scam, the City itself borrows the money and gives it to the developers. That way, it’s the City that must repay the loans! 

Wall Street buys City’s bonds which the taxpayers repay. The developers are left out the equation -- except they get all the money. Developers form collapsible companies call LLCs and LLPs. After the developer’s company has distributed millions of dollars to the developer, his family and his friends, the company goes bankrupt. 

If the developer had borrowed the money directly from Goldman Sachs, then Goldman Sachs would be out hundreds of millions of dollars. But in this scheme, Goldman Sachs will have bought the City bonds and made no direct loans to the developers. So the City has to repay Goldman Sachs.   

That is why the City is floating bonds for projects with Affordable Housing. The public is easily fooled and doesn’t realize that it’s paying the bills. The harm here is greater than one first sees. When the City uses up its credit by issuing too many bonds, it must agree to pay higher rates of interest for additional borrowing. 

Thus, a secondary impact on the taxpayer is that the City cannot finance itself without incurring high debt. In anticipation of more of the City’s money going to pay off Wall Street, the City is already turning to rate hikes like the four year DWP rate increase, from which the City skims off 18%. The City also wants higher taxes to pay for transportation -- and eventually will want higher taxes for more police and paramedics. 

NYC is called The Big Apple. Soon, LA will be known as The Big Scam.

(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.

FINANCIAL STRUGGLE--With the demise of Air America, Current TV, and Al Jazeera America it looks like only Pacifica Radio is still standing. Here in Los Angeles many rely on KPFK 90.7 fm for information they just won't hear anywhere else. KPFK is one of the five Pacifica stations. 

Many have lamented the perpetual dysfunction and drama surrounding Pacifica. But Pacifica has somehow endured for almost 70 years. It's time to fix it. Actually, it's past time to fix it. The need for revitalization is urgent. All five stations are struggling financially but financial shortfalls at two of the stations are so severe that they are threatening the survival of the entire network. 

Also, Pacifica is currently being investigated by the California Attorney General, has lost its Corporation for Public Broadcast funding two years in a row (about $2 million lost so far) because of poor financial reporting and will probably lose CPB funding for the next fiscal year. It is also not up to date on other financial reporting to federal and state agencies. 

Pacifica's radio signal licenses are estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars. It would be tragic if they were lost. Progressive advocacy groups need media to project their messages. They court, beg and cajole mainstream media with mediocre results. Meanwhile, here is Pacifica, the naughty step child of the left, mostly abandoned by the groups and movements that could save it and build a powerful media force and, at the same time, increase their own clout. 

Here's a quote from the Pacifica Bylaws: "The Foundation is committed to peace and social justice, and seeks to involve in its governance and operations individuals committed to these principles."  

Let me say loud and clear that you are formally invited to join Pacifica governance. Yes, I mean YOU. What does that entail? Let me explain. 

Pacifica has democratically elected local boards that, in turn, elect members of the Pacifica National Board, which controls all its stations and assets. If competent and committed people are elected to these local boards there is a good chance that Pacifica could be fixed. 

Pacifica has been mismanaged and misgoverned. The Pacifica National Board has the ability to change the management of the Foundation for the better. If the Local and National boards were improved they could make the bold management changes needed and Pacifica could probably be repaired. It wouldn't be easy, but it could be done. There are elections for local boards at each of the 5 Pacifica stations. These elections began on June 1st. The local boards each elect 4 people to the Pacifica National Board. The first step is to elect competent people to the local boards who then elect their most qualified members to the National Board. It's as simple as that. 

There is a very short window for nominations to these boards. The nomination period has already started and ends on June 30th is scheduled to open on June 1st and only lasts for one month. It's extremely important that competent, committed people be elected to these boards. Elections are held every two out of three years. As there was an election in 2015, after this current election there won't be another one for 2 years. That means this election is crucial to the survival of Pacifica Radio! 

If you want further information, please don't hesitate to email me at [email protected]. Or you can go to Elections.Pacifica.org or to CandidateSlate.org.

(Grace Aaron is a Pacifica National Board Member (2008, 2009 and 2016, interim Exec Dir 2009.) The opinions expressed in this article are entirely her own and do not represent Pacifica Radio, or any faction, group or entity related or unrelated to Pacifica.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

JUST THE FACTS-It was Sunday morning June 12 when I learned from a radio report around 6:30 am that there was a massive shooting in Orlando, Florida. As the information was broadcast, I learned that this was possibly another terrorist attack on Americans at a soft target location. Reminding me of other recent attacks across the globe, I went to church at the 7:00 am service to offer prayers for those shot and killed and recovering from their wounds. 

Since the event was so recent, the priest did not mention the incident during the service. Following mass, I turned to my radio and learned the horrifying details as the news reports were coming in from the scene. The tragedy was now being described as the worst massive shooting in American history! 

During my 33 years of service with the LAPD, I often thought I had seen the worst of hostility and tragedy in America. Multiple shooting victims at various crime scenes, the North Hollywood B of A Bank shootout and thousands of victims killed in gang shootings over the years. 

The Orlando shooting reminded me of so many other terrorist shootings I have read about around the world. Incident after incident with innocent people including women and children killed by terrorist activity. The civil rights movement in America claimed the lives of many innocent men, women and children over the years. Riots across America claimed the lives of other innocent people. Chicago gangs have taken so many lives in turf battles. Being raised a Catholic, I have always respected people as people. It did not make a difference of the persons color, their religion or sexual orientation. It is and has always been about respect for people. All people. 

I will be saying prayers for those that have been killed and those suffering in recovery. The family members of all those impacted also need our support and prayers.

May the 49 that have died Rest in Peace in God’s hands. 

We also need to keep the police officers and sheriff deputies firefighters and paramedics in our prayers. Coming upon a scene with so many dead and injured people will have an impact on the safety personnel for many years to come.

May our elected government representatives work with our public safety personnel and establish safety and security in the lands of The United States of America. 

How many more TERRORISTS are out there looking for the next target? 

The FBI currently has hundreds of people under investigation for possible terrorist activity. We all need to support our law enforcement personnel in their mission of Protecting and Serving all of us in America. Remember that IF YOU SEE SOMETHING SAY SOMETHING. Law enforcement can’t do it without your help and assistance. 

In this particular case, the individual has been identified as Omar Mir Seddique Mateen. He carried out the carnage with a Sig Sauer MCX and a Glock 17.     

Terrorist activity in America and law enforcement’s ability to rescue victims that are being held in so many life-threatening situations.   

Some ignorant American government officials with no military or law enforcement experience have pressed law enforcement agencies to return surplus military equipment that was supplied for the protection of the public. To be politically correct, some agencies were forced to return the military vehicles and other specialized equipment. While public safety personnel may not use the specialized military equipment on a daily basis, when they need it to protect American people and they need it now and not later. Isis is a threat to all Americans and America. We need to push the Federal Government to supply our local public safety personnel with the military equipment they need to protect and serve our communities.               

I thank those of you that have taken the time to email me your thoughts and comments. I try and reply to each of you when time permits. Your comments are welcome at [email protected].

(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].)

PLANNING POLITICS--The Los Angeles Department of City Planning has done some crazy stuff in the past several years. Greenlighting skyscrapers that would be built on top of fault lines. Allowing developers to knock down affordable housing to build new luxury units. Continuing to hand out liquor permits in high-crime areas, even after LAPD Chief Beck wrote a letter asking them to cool it. I’m so used to the DCP doing things that are either irresponsible or totally irrational that I thought nothing they did could surprise me anymore. 

But I was wrong. 

At the beginning of May I was going through my inbox when I came across a hearing notice for a 21-story hotel that’s been proposed for the corner of Sunset and Cahuenga (graphic above)st. That caught my attention. I live in the area, so I know the intersection well. I scanned the hearing notice, and was surprised to see that the DCP was handling a project this large with a Mitigated Negative Declaration. 

For those of you who aren’t familiar with this process, here’s a quick summary. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires that project applicants complete an Initial Study to determine if there will be significant impacts on the environment. There are three possibilities. If there are no significant impacts, it can be handled with a Negative Declaration. If there are significant impacts but they can be mitigated, a Mitigated Negative Declaration (MND) is used. If there are significant impacts that can’t be mitigated, then the project requires a full Environmental Impact Report (EIR). Doing an EIR is a long, complex process. It can be difficult and costly for developers, and many would rather skip it if possible. 

R.D. Olson is the developer behind this high-rise hotel, and they obviously didn’t want the hassle of doing a full EIR. Lucky for them, the DCP was only too willing to oblige, and chose to handle the process quickly with an MND. In my opinion, this was completely inappropriate for a project of this size, especially considering the entitlements the developer was requesting. Check out R.D. Olson’s wish list. They’re asking for…. 

A Vesting Zone and Height District Change and an increase in Floor Area Ratio (FAR) of up to 6 to 1. 

A Conditional Use to permit the sale and dispensing of a full line of alcoholic beverages. 

Reducing required setbacks on the sides and rear of the project to zero. 

Seems like the developer is asking for a lot. But let’s skip that for the moment, and take a look at the way the DCP has handled the approval process so far. 

The hearing to consider approving all these entitlements and the adoption of the environmental document was scheduled for May 25. On May 4, I e-mailed the staff contact to ask if I could get a copy of the MND. He replied the same day, saying that the MND wouldn’t be ready for a couple weeks. That bothered me, because it meant the public would only have a week to study the document before the hearing. I wrote back expressing my concern, and asking if I could see the Initial Study. No answer. A few days later I wrote again. Still no answer. After another few days I wrote again. This time I got a response, but the staff contact made no mention of the Initial Study.

I finally realized that e-mailing was a waste of time, and I made an appointment to go to the DCP to look at the case file. On Friday, June 20, I made the trip to City Hall and rode the elevator up to the Department’s offices. A young woman handed me the file and showed me to a conference room. I sat down and started flipping through the documents. I was hoping that since the hearing was only five days away the MND would be available. No such luck. But what really surprised me was that in looking through the file I didn’t see any sign of the Initial Study. 

Let me state this another way. In five days the DCP was going to hold a hearing to consider approval of a 21-story hotel in a busy urban area that required major entitlements, and the environmental documents required by state law were nowhere to be found in the case file. 

But I did find another document that was pretty interesting. The traffic analysis for the project was done by Linscott, Law and Greenspan. They studied six intersections in the vicinity, including Cahuenga at De Longpre, Cahuenga at Sunset, and Cahuenga at Hollywood. Now anybody who’s driven north on Cahuenga or east on Sunset during weekday rush hour knows how bad the congestion is. Cars are often backed up for blocks. But according to Linscott, Law and Greenspan, all three intersections get an “A” for Level of Service (LOS) during the PM rush hour. Let me give you the definition of “LOS A” from the Highway Capacity Manual: "Free-flow conditions with unimpeded maneuverability. Stopped delay at signalized intersection is minimal." 

It’s clear that the analysis offered by Linscott, Law and Greenspan has some serious problems. But you’d never guess that from the Traffic Assessment prepared by the LA Department of Transportation (DOT). They say, "....[T]he proposed development is not expected to result in any significant traffic impacts at any of the six study intersections identified for detailed analysis. The results of the traffic impact analysis, which adequately evaluated the project's traffic impacts on the surrounding community, are summarized in Attachment 1." 

The other aspect of this project that really worried me was the liquor permit. In recent years the DCP has approved numerous liquor permits for clubs, bars, restaurants and hotels in the Hollywood area, apparently unconcerned about the high-crime rate associated with local nightlife. But LAPD Chief Charlie Beck was so worried about this practice that he wrote a letter to the DCP in October 2014 to express his concern about the “oversaturation of ABC [alcoholic beverage control] locations” in the Hollywood area. In his letter, Beck said that the high number of businesses serving alcohol was putting a strain on police resources, and listed some of the problems associated with local nightlife, including robberies, thefts, fights with serious injuries, shootings and rapes. 

I wanted to talk about all these issues at the hearing, so I showed up at City Hall on May 25. I was surprised when the hearing officer opened the proceedings by announcing that they were doing things a little differently for this project. Since the MND wasn’t ready yet, this would just be a preliminary hearing. Later, when the document had actually been completed, the DCP would schedule another hearing. This was a first for me. I’d never heard of such a thing before, but I guess they finally realized that giving the public the opportunity to comment on a document before it was actually released didn’t make a lot of sense. Also, it would have made it very easy to challenge the DCP’s determination. 

So after listening to the project reps give their spiel about how great this hotel would be, I got my chance to talk. I told the hearing officer I thought an MND was inadequate; I said I believed the traffic analysis was seriously flawed and explained that I was worried about approving yet another full alcohol permit in an area that clearly had serious problems related to nightlife. 

And that sparked an interesting discussion about the permit. The project reps assured me that this hotel would not be creating undesirable impacts. The clients they wanted to attract were business travelers, not night clubbers. There would be no parties on the rooftop deck. There would be no DJs. There would be no live music. This hotel was going to be geared toward the upscale business class. Any fears about the project adding to the problems caused by the party scene were completely unfounded. 

At the time, I bought it. But then I remembered that I’d seen a post on Urbanize LA announcing the project. According to that post from August 2015, no operator had yet been named. I contacted both the developer and the DCP to ask if Olson had signed an agreement with someone to run the hotel. No response from either. Why is this a concern? Because the operator will be the one to determine who the hotel caters to and what kind of clientele they want to attract. 

R.D. Olson isn’t going to be running the show. Any promises they make about how the hotel will be run are meaningless. And the DCP knows that. Lately they’ve been making a practice of handing out liquor permits to developers instead of business owners, which means there’s no way to assess the impacts and no meaningful way to attach conditions governing the use of the permit. 

Why am I going on at such length about this proposed hotel? Because it’s a beautiful illustration of just how bad things have gotten at the Department of City Planning. We have the decision to use an MND for a project that clearly requires an EIR, the bizarre plan to hold a meeting to consider a document that wasn’t even finished, the absurdly inaccurate traffic analysis, and the approval of a full liquor permit with no clear idea of how the business owner will use or abuse it. When you add all this together, it seems to me that the Department’s highest priority is serving the developer. 

The substantial impacts this hotel could have on the community have all been brushed aside to speed the approval process. I get the impression that the folks at the DCP feel like they can just disregard state law. And even worse, it seems to me that they’re completely oblivious to the public’s interests here. I get the feeling that they just don’t care. 

This is what planning looks like in the City of LA these days. A shoddy, haphazard process driven by developers with deep pockets. This is just one hotel in Hollywood, but there are people all over LA who are frustrated by the DCP’s apparent lack of concern for their communities. 

Last Thursday, I wrote again to the staff contact to ask if the next hearing had been scheduled. You won’t be surprised when I tell you I haven’t heard back yet.

NOTE: If you’re interested in talking to the DCP about this project, here’s the case number: CPC-2015-2893-VZC-HDCUB-ZAA-SPR

(Casey Maddren was born in Los Angeles and has lived here most of his life. He tries to capture as much of the city as he can in his blog, The Horizon and the Skyline.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

PLATKIN ON PLANNING--We don’t know how future historians will assess the political careers of Governor Jerry Brown, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, and LA Councilmember Gil Cedillo, but they should at least receive a footnote for their contribution to the slow by steady descent of the Democratic Party. 

This chapter begins with Jerry Brown’s proposal to “streamline” housing production in California by forbidding local authorities from undertaking any zoning or environmental reviews of proposed housing projects that conform to local zoning. 

Just to show he means business, the Governor doubled down on his proposal with an ultimatum to the State Legislature. He would not fold $400,000,000 for existing State affordable housing programs o the State budget unless the Legislature agrees to his approve his Streamlining Affordable Housing Approvals Bill. 

Some cities, unions, and many environmental organizations oppose the Governor’s approach, but in Los Angeles, Mayor Garcetti and Councilmember Gil Cedillo, signed a joint statement of support. In Cedillos’ words, he supports the Governor because Brown’s program is a market-based approach to California’s housing crisis. (As a footnote to a footnote, Gil Cedillo was also co-chair of the Bernie Sanders’ campaign in Southern California, even though his market-based solutions to affordable housing are the antithesis of Senator Sanders’ unreconstructed New Deal political approach public policy). 

On this account, Cedillo, like Garcetti and Brown, is correct. The Governor proposal is a market-based solution to California’s housing crisis. But, otherwise, these three pols are flat out wrong about the housing proposal, such as one conspicuous detail. There is no evidence that the Governor’s bill will produce the affordable housing that California needs. While it might produce a few thousand affordable units here and there, the real beneficiaries will not be lower and middle income families that need affordable housing, but the investors and contractors building the housing, since most of the units will be sold for California’s soaring market prices.  

The profit margins of the developers will go up because in many municipalities they will no longer need to submit their projects for design review, environment review, and then be subject to lengthy public hearings, debates, and appeals that increase their costs. 

This also means that the market value of their properties will increase because the cost of pulling permits and constructing housing on it will go down. Like any formal or informal up-zoning program, property values will increase. This, not affordable housing, is the real importance of this amazing money machine. It makes money for owners of commercial property under the cover of an affordable housing program in which only five percent of their units need to be affordable. 

Furthermore, as demonstrated by John Schwada in CityWatch, the City of LA’s Housing Department is notoriously incompetent in keeping track of these affordable units. Based on the research for this article, we can expect that many of these affordable units will not be included in the City inventory of affordable housing available to the public.  

What else do we know about the Governor’s public rationale for his amazing money machine? 

We know that the boosters of all such market housing programs invoke several axioms of classical economics. They portray them as if they are irrefutable truths, rather than quasi-religious dogmas masquerading as social science “laws.” For example, these market fundamentalists, whether Democrats like Brown, Garcetti, and Cedillo, or Republican, repeatedly invoke the “law” of supply and demand. Their claim is that if market regulation of land use is removed, developers will rush in to build much more housing. They then argue that once this housing boom produces a surplus of pricey housing, the price of all housing will decline and some of it will become affordable. 

Of course, those who live in Los Angeles know their claim is utter nonsense. In Los Angeles new, expensive housing is infill housing, and it often displaces older, lower-priced housing, including certified affordable housing. Furthermore, even when the expensive housing has high vacancy rates, such as the current 12 percent, the landlords do not slash rents or purchase princes. Instead, they just hold out longer for tenants, sometimes sweetening leases with a signing bonus, microwave oven, or free cable. 

Even in the worst cases scenarios, such as the Savings and Load crisis of the 1980s and 1990s and the Great Depression that began in 200, the investors successfully turned to the Federal Government for massive bailouts when they went belly-up. The S and L crisis ended up costing the Federal Government over $132 billion, while the Great Depression financial sectorbailouts, as I have previously written, totaled about $13 trillion. 

The markets alternatives of selling building or units at a loss, or slashing condo prices and rents is hardly a wise business option when Uncle Sam offers this type of a helping hand. Likewise, the option of subsidizing borrowers so they could renegotiate delinquent mortgages hardly makes financial sense when compared to a bailout 

Another supposed iron economic “law” is filtering. According to this doctrine, today’s pricey housing will become tomorrow’s affordable housing. In the case of Los Angeles, however, when pressed to show where yesterday’s pricey housing has become today’s affordable housing, the adherents come up dry. Through CityWatch, and sometimes directly I have repeatedly asked, “Where is the affordable housing in Los Angeles that filtered down from once expensive housing?” Is it the gentrifying areas of Highland Park and Boyle Heights? The Historical Preservation Overlay Zones in the West Adams district? The once-upon-a time bohemian neighborhoods of Venice, Silverlake, and Echo Park? Trendy areas like the Arts District and Koreatown? 

(Since I post my email address at the end of every CityWatch article, just let me know where downward filtering is happening in Los Angeles.)

As we wait for these locations to be listed, it is painfully easy to document the counter-example of LA’s many gentrifying neighborhoods where previously affordable housing has filtered upward to become expensive. While gentrification now goes by many names, the best known and most controversial are spot-zoning, spot-planning, mansionization, small lot subdivisions, and Transit Oriented Development (TOD). 

Another often repeated market claim is that zoning and environmental reviews so stifle the production of affordable housing that developers must turn to the City Council for spot-zoning and spot-planning laws. Even though I have also repeatedly asked for evidence of this in my City Watch columns, so far only one person gave me an address that checked out. Like my question for evidence of filtering in Los Angeles, all lines are open and operators are waiting. 

The lack of any serious data for these repeated claims about market magic to address the housing crisisis no mystery, however, and I think this might explain why: 

Profit maximization. Investors of all types, big and small, want to make money, and affordable housing doesn't sufficiently fill their wallets. Even in a city like Los Angeles, where there is massive demand for affordable housing, and many locations where contractors could build by-right, investors are ignoring the supposed law of supply and demand. 

Political influence. Investors have substantial political influence through their donations. When they are subjected to market busts, they ask for and receive financial bailouts, even if it costs trillions of dollars and requires the government to run the printing presses 24/7. In slightly more flush times, like the present, they settle for favorable legislation, like the Governor Brown’s 

Cost of War.  The New Deal programs that built affordable housing (in theory, still championed by Bernie Sanders) through the Federal Housing Authority were sacrificed to sustain high levels of military spending. This process began during the Vietnam War and continued to the present day. Furthermore, alternative local sources for affordable housing funds in California, Community Redevelopment Agencies, were dissolved in 2012.

(Dick Platkin reports on city planning issues in Los Angeles for CityWatch. He is a former LA City Planner and current advocate planner.   He welcomes comments and corrections at [email protected].) 

-cw

GUEST WORDS-- Since joining the LA County Board of Supervisors 18 months ago, I, along with my colleagues on the Board, have taken a series of steps to build prosperity and economic security for residents by raising the minimum wage and establishing programs to promote social enterprises, help small businesses thrive and prevent people from falling into homelessness when they encounter short-term financial crises, like the loss of a job or a catastrophic medical condition.

Last week, the Board took another significant action to try to stabilize and empower low-income households in the county.  Fifteen percent of our residents live below the official poverty line, but more than three times that number (49%) lack sufficient savings to live above the poverty level for three months if they lose a job or suffer a financial emergency. These residents don’t hold sufficient household wealth to weather even a brief financial storm.

Twenty-eight percent of County households either don’t have a bank account or rely on check-cashing stores and payday lenders with high interest rates. Those dramatic numbers led to the Board voting to establish a Center for Financial Empowerment which will help thousands of families reduce their debt and save money. 

The Center for Financial Empowerment will coordinate and promote the many existing financial services already available for low-income residents such as financial literacy, free tax preparation, accessing appropriate benefits and helping consumers manage their debt.  Similar Centers have been established in Boston, Chicago, New York, Oakland, San Francisco, and Seattle.

In LA, the Center will initially prioritize two populations: families and young people. According to a New America Foundation report, low to moderate income County residents fail to claim more than $370 million in Federal EITC funds each year. The Center for Financial Empowerment will focus on ensuring that County families tap a greater share of that EITC funding. 

In addition, the Center will target young people, 18 to 24, who are just entering the job market and starting families. Over the last decade, San Francisco’s Office of Financial  Empowerment has helped more than 75,000 “unbanked” San Franciscans open safe, affordable bank accounts, and more than 22,000 college savings accounts have been opened for public kindergarten students.

I am very grateful for the support of my colleagues, especially Supervisor Hilda Solis, who co-authored the motion that established the Center, and to Citi Community Development which will provide significant financial support for the first year of the County’s pilot.

I am hopeful that these new County efforts will help more and more families build the kind of household wealth that will allow them to send children to college, purchase homes and start new businesses!

(Sheila Kuehl is LA County Supervisor for the 3^rd District. The Supervisor is an occasional contributor to CityWatch.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

SORTING OUT THE STATISTICS-The recent primary offered signs of improvement for California’s abysmally low voter turnout. Recent elections have seen some of the worst turnout in the state’s history. The 2014 election cycle was particularly dismal, but 2012 also set a new low for a presidential primary election. Moreover, California has been lagging behind other states in both registration and turnout. 

However, there has been a large surge in new registrants over the last few months, and the California Secretary of State currently estimates that almost 9 million Californians participated in the 2016 presidential primary election, compared to only 4.5 million in 2014 and 5.3 million in 2012. 

If we look at the share of voting-eligible residents who have registered in time for each of the last 18 primary elections, California’s registration rate has always fallen within a fairly narrow band—from a low of 66% in 1988 to a high of 75% in 1996. 

In this context, the 2016 registration rate might be seen as a disappointment. Compared to the same point in the 2012 primary election cycle, the registration rate has remained largely unchanged, though it is still comparatively high when viewed in the context of the past several decades. 

How can we square this result with the reported surge in new registrants? The registration rate typically drops some between elections as county registrars purge voters who have moved or died from the registration rolls, and relatively few new voters sign up to take their place. This decline was especially large between fall 2014 and the beginning of the primary season this year. Given that baseline, a flat registration rate is consistent with a surge of new registrants, and must be considered something of a success. 

More to the point, these registrants turned out to vote at a higher rate than we have seen in any primary since 2008. The estimated 8.9 million ballots translates to a turnout rate of about 50% among registered voters. That sits comfortably in the broad average of California’s presidential primary turnout, and marks a considerable improvement over 2012. 

In fact, California’s presidential primary turnout now shows no clear sign of decline since 1984; it may even be holding its own relative to other states. But midterm turnout is a different story. There is a much longer downward trend for such elections, both viewed on their own and relative to trends in other states. 

On balance, there are signs of recovery from the low turnout levels of 2012 and 2014, despite concerns that California’s late presidential primary would discourage participation. Whether this improvement will be sustained into the fall—and whether things will turn around for mid-term elections in 2018—of course remains to be seen.

(Eric McGhee is a research fellow at Public Policy Institute of California where this was originally posted. He focuses on elections, legislative behavior, political reform, and surveys and polling.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

LA PULSE: Mischa Haider writes in today’s CityWatch in response to the Orlando shooting tragedy: ‘My heart is exploding with love and grief for those who have died and are dying, and it is also burning with anger at those who perpetrate, encourage, and enable these atrocities. I am left wondering, amid all the prayers and mourning, wherein lies the responsibility and who is to blame?’

Angelenos … and other Americans … are left wondering in the Orlando aftermath, WHO IS TO BLAME?

You are invited to provide your thoughts in this CityWatch LA Pulse survey.

[sexypolling id="7"]

(Note: LA Pulse is not a scientific survey. It is an instant sampling of the mood and thinking of readers on timely news subjects.)

LATINO PERSPECTIVE--A growing number of new Latino voters in Los Angeles and California are registering as “Non-Party Participants,” in a rebuke of the Democratic Party. 

I found a really interesting article written by Amanda Gomez from PBS last week in which she argues that the Democratic Party is relying on Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric to drive up Latino turnout this fall. But while conventional wisdom holds that most new Latino voters will register as Democrats, an increasing number in California and I have to add Los Angeles — a key state in the battle over immigration — are actually opting out of the two-party system altogether, a troubling sign for a Democratic Party that has long taken the Latino vote for granted, Gomez suggests. 

Since 2008, California — which holds its Democratic and Republican primaries on Tuesday — has seen a 35 percent spike in people registering as “No Party Preference” voters, instead of as Democrats or Republicans. California’s new nonpartisan or no-party voters are primarily young and Latino, according to Paul Mitchell of Political Data, a California voter information and political campaign management group. 

“As cities get more heavily Latino or Asian, [the] rate of nonpartisan registration rises significantly, while Democratic registration is flat-lined and Republicans are losing voters,” Mitchell said. 

The surge of Latino no-party voters in California isn’t surprising, given that many come from families whose parents do not have strong ties to either major political party. Often, their parents were born outside of the country or are less interested and involved in U.S. politics, said Mark DiCamillo, a senior vice president at Field Research, a California-based polling firm. 

Still, it’s becoming increasingly clear that Latino turnout this election is less of a pledge of allegiance to the Democratic Party, and more of a vote against Trump. And beyond the implications for 2016, the no-party voter surge reveals an important generational divide among Latinos like Betsy Avila, which could impact Democratic candidates for years to come.

Avila, a 28-year-old artist in Los Angeles, says she updates her Mexican-born parents regularly on the state of the presidential election. There isn’t a dinner-table discussion that goes by without election talk, Avila said. 

But in these discussions, Avila said she often finds herself explaining the intricacies of U.S. politics to her parents. “It goes beyond English to Spanish. I provide nuance,” she said. 

Avila cited Sanders, who relies on numbers and catchphrases like “the 99 percent” and “the 1 percent” that can mean little for immigrants without being placed in historical context. 

That disconnect is readily apparent in Los Angeles County, which has the largest Latino voter bloc in the state. More than one-third of the residents in the county are immigrants. The number of new no-party voters in Los Angeles is growing daily, according to Diana Colin, the director of civic engagement at the Coalition of Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles, a nonprofit that runs a voter registration program. 

“California has come a long way since Prop 187,” said Colin. “But Latinos in California have not forgotten.” 

Still, Democrats are going to have to work harder to convince Latinos to remain in the party. Until that happens, the number of no-party voters could keep growing. 

“The Democratic party should have California Latinos’ unwavering support,” said Jose Parra, the CEO of Prospero Latino, a left-leaning political consulting firm in Washington, D.C., “but it doesn’t because the party has not [done enough] to sustain it.”

(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].)

-cw

REALITY POLITICS, LA COUNTY STYLE--Election campaigns contain a bit of Shakespearean drama as they deal with many aspects of human nature, but the fractured headline of this piece refers not to Shakespeare’s play but the question labor faces because of an unusual outcome in a Los Angeles County supervisorial race. 

In the Fifth Supervisorial District overseen by Republican Michael Antonovich for 36 years, most political experts thought that Antonovich’s successor would be a Republican. Labor agreed and the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and public employee unions stacked dollars behind their preferred Republican candidate, Kathryn Barger, Antonovich’s Chief of Staff. So much mail was sent out on behalf of Barger by the unions that she could direct her campaign cash to buying expensive Los Angeles television. 

Barger finished first on primary day. The surprise was who probably finished second and made the run-off. 

While five fairly well-known Republicans were vying for the seat, one Democrat also was invited to the debates because he was endorsed by the LA Democratic Party. On Election Day, Democrat Darrell Park grabbed the second spot—for now at least. He only leads Republican state senator Bob Huff by 417 votes with all the precincts counted, but there are outstanding ballots. 

Labor backed Barger because they worked with her during her stint with Antonovich creating compensation packages among other things. 

During a debate for supervisor, the five Republicans and one Democrat were asked how they would handle their responsibilities given that there would probably be four liberal Democrats on the five-member board serving with the winner of the Fifth District. The Republicans all gave an answer along the lines that they can work across the aisle. When it was Park’s turn he said, ‘If I win there will be five liberal Democrats on the Board of Supervisors.’ 

What is labor going to do if Park holds onto the second spot? 

Much media attention has been focused on business’ decision to search out moderate Democrats in hopes of coming up with an acceptable alternative to a liberal Democrat in races certain to be won by a Democrat. In LA, labor attempted the reverse, looking for a Republican they could work with. 

Labor wasn’t the only one that attempted to make a pragmatic decision. Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, the most liberal supervisor on the board also backed Barger, as did Barger’s boss, Antonovich. 

Now labor faces the possibility that a Democrat more to their liking is in the finals. Rusty Hicks, head of the labor federation told the Los Angeles Times that it was too soon to decide whether the federation would change horses for the November election. 

As for candidate Park, his good fortune could put him in a position of honorificabilitudinitatibus, a term meaning “the state of being able to achieve honors,” the longest word Shakespeare ever used, which appears in the play, Love’s Labour’s Lost.

(Joel Fox is Editor of Fox & Hounds … where this piece was first posted … and President of the Small Business Action Committee.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams. 

VOICES-The post began “A very important election is coming up and we need a change. I am talking about the Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council election.” 

As a sitting board member, I sighed. The allegations went on providing more than a little misinformation about what has transpired in terms of current board activities and Tiny Houses in particular. 

I should not be surprised or dismayed by the blatant misrepresentations being passed along as truth, but I am. 

Still, I am even more concerned that the skills (technical and soft) and resourcefulness of the candidates seeking board membership are seen as irrelevant in this selection cycle. 

The City defines the role of neighborhood councils as bodies in which “Neighborhood Council participants are empowered to advocate directly for real change in their communities.” 

The key word in that definition is ADVOCACY. In fact, it should be clear that the councils have almost no formal power beyond: 

1. Acting to influence the policy decisions/votes of the elected and salaried officials who represent the citizens of Los Angeles and
2. Disseminating information to the community to increase overall civic engagement. 

The level of personal vitriol directed at the current board (comprised of pure volunteers) makes absolutely no sense in light of the very limited power and minimal budget given the neighborhood councils. 

The board is also not authorized to behave as personal henchman carrying out the agenda of any singular constituency. The commitment must be to effectively advocate for solutions and services in this very diverse community. 

Advocacy requires more than emotional responses to the challenges that face this community. The work should be pragmatic and involve recommending solutions that address root problem(s) rather than simply assuaging individual feelings. Real skills and resourcefulness is needed. 

Given the upcoming urban renewal plans for this community, board members who understand recent innovations in community development, business, transportation, quality of life improvements and social services are needed. They should be people who are more thoughtful than incendiary. 

“Thoughtful” is less exciting, but it will certainly lead to better long term results. 

A key attribute of an effective board member is the willingness to help this community face the changes that are coming and do so in a way that moves the community forward as one rather than as polarized factions. 

Board members must be able to see from more than one point of view, analyze data to support information based decision-making and communicate complex policies in simple terms. 

This is indeed an important election….I have been in San Pedro for 10 years now and have heard many times how neglectful the city is with regard to this community. 

Clearly, angry protests and emotional pleas for respect, change and attention are not being heard by City Hall. Take a chance on different results by doing something different. 

Vote based on actual candidate qualifications and a correct understanding of the role of your neighborhood council. Then get involved and stay involved. 

Help your neighborhood council agendas not be hijacked by single issue constituencies. There is much to do and the future can truly be bright.

(Debra Hunter is a member and a candidate for Central Neighborhood Council. This article was posted originally at Random Lengths.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

THIS IS WHAT I KNOW-I woke up to a CNN notification this morning that a gunman had opened fire and taken hostages in an Orlando nightclub, the worst mass shooting in the history of the United States. As most know by now, Omar Mateen stormed Pulse Nightclub at about 2 am with an automatic rifle and a handgun that he had purchased legally only last week, according to Bureau of Alcohol Assistant Special Agent Trevor Velinor.

Three hours later, a SWAT team had entered the nightclub and Mateen was shot dead after an exchange of fire with eleven Orlando police officers and three Orange County sheriff’s deputies. About 300 people were in the club at the time of the shooting. 

According to NBC News, the New York-born Mateen had sworn allegiance to the leader of ISIS during a 911 call right shortly before the shooting and the massacre is being investigated as an act of terrorism. Seddique Mir Mateen, the shooter’s father said his son had become angered after seeing two men kissing a couple of months ago and he believes that may be related to the shooting.

A few hours later, I received another push notification that the Santa Monica police had found weapons, ammunition, and the materials to build a pipe bomb in the trunk of James Howell, an Indiana man who planned to attend the LA Pride festival in West Hollywood. Santa Monica Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks tweeted that the suspect had told an officer that he wanted to harm the “Gay Pride event.” 

Santa Monica police were responding to a call about a suspected prowler in the vicinity of Olympic and 11^th Street when they encountered Howell, who said he was waiting for a friend. Officers found three rifles, including an assault rifle, ammunition, and a five-gallon bucket of tannerite, an ingredient that could be used to make a pipe bomb when they inspected his car. 

Federal and local law enforcement made the decision not to cancel the annual parade, which was held under tightened security. It is not believed this incident and the Orlando massacre are connected. 

LA Pride went on, colored by the sadness surrounding Sunday morning’s massacre but with hope, a celebration of pride and acceptance. From the Super Bowl and the Oscars to events like Pride, large gatherings garner worries that terrorists, ISIS sympathizers, or a lone domestic terrorist will strike. We can’t put our lives on hold because then fear and hatred win. So, we’ll move forward, acknowledging and shedding a tear as we do for each massacre and murder. We can hope that we never get so immune to death by violence, that it no longer means anything, while at the same time, refusing to put a stop on our lives because of potential threats of violence. We cannot accept violence, whether by an ISIS sympathizer, a lone perpetrator of hate crimes, a disenfranchised person, or anyone else.

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

TRANSPORTATION POLITICS--I was impressed (and a little saddened) over the past few months with both the optimism and the disappointment being generated by the opening of the Exposition Light Rail Line to Santa Monica.   

There is, overall, an excitement that enhanced mobility and alternative commuting now exists in the Westside, but the lack of parking and access to the Line, coupled with the perception of overdevelopment that might even be enabled by the Line, raises all sorts of concerns and cynicism as well. 

In my last CityWatch article, where I raised the alarm over the insulting and woefully insufficient City of LA's sidewalk "fix", there has been a remarkable consensus among my grassroots colleagues that this "fix" has really hurt the cred that the City needs more than ever. 

Enter the upcoming November countywide transportation tax initiative, and the unresolved and even worsening budgetary problems that the City of LA has, that leaves us with the following key points that will be critical for the transportation efforts of ten years ago to continue this November and for years to come: 

1) Credibility is key, and transparency is key.  Lose them, and you've lost the voters/taxpayers of the City and County of LA. 

The 2008 Measure R countywide sales tax was as credible and transparent as any tax initiative I have ever seen in my life.  We were told what we were going to get with that money, and it was fairly straightforward to learn which city and project would be funded by a given amount of money. 

"Measure R-2", as this November measure is being called by its backers, must do the same.  Overall, it has created the same sense of transparency as its predecessor by its backers, but questions to the broader electorate still remains.  What are the freeway/road projects that will be expedited by the November measure...or is it all rail projects?  And which projects will be prioritized first? 

For those of us who know the difference between Measure R-2 and what a Metro Long Range Transportation Plan is, that's an easy question to answer:  funding and prioritization of projects (and the .awarding of project planning and construction to contractors) are different things.  But we can do better in explaining that to taxpayers and community leaders who aren't transportation wonks. 

And while we're on the subject of transparency and credibility, let's underline a key point that Friends4Expo Transit leaders learned quickly:  the Expo Line CANNOT be promised to reduce traffic--it can only offer commuters another alternative to getting to where they want to go.  The same can and should always be said for other rail lines. 

2) The inefficient, if not downright corrupt, politics of the City of LA is undermining the credibility of the County's transportation efforts. 

It's not worth dragging old issues into the weeds, but it is worth mentioning that the City and County of LA are two separate levels of government...and is a reality that by far too many Angelenos and other County residents don't get.  Ask a City resident who their "supe" is, and he/she might tell you that he/she prefers salads to soups.  Ask a resident of a South Bay or Southeast LA County City who their mayor is, and he/she might respond that it's Eric Garcetti. 

So the best thing that local (and big) cities can do is to make sure that their city's transportation needs will be met.  As a Long Beach kid who now lives in LA, I understand and respect different perspectives within our county...and in our City of LA, it's the sidewalk fix (some stretches done in 2 years, some in 5 years, but the whole enchilada in 10 years) that has to be funded and lionized by any Measure R-2. 

Furthermore, the need for Planning and developers to create projects that are truly legal (yes, following environmental and engineering laws aren't just an old-fashioned fad, but it's supposed to be mandatory), and to fund transportation impacts that big (and even small) projects create, will be necessary to avoid souring tax-weary voters this November.   

It's not perfect, but the Bundy/Olympic development planned for the current Martin Cadillac site is an example of both good will on the part of its developers (compared to Mr. Alan Casden, they're angels), and the demands of Mike Bonin and the CD11 office to derive a project that's truly transit-oriented, has affordable housing, and has transportation mitigation efforts funded to improve the community.  It's still too darned big for many local residents, but at least Mike Bonin "gets it" with respect to credibility and transparency. 

But does Herb Wesson and the rest of the LA City Council "get it" with respect to credibility and transparency? 

3) Not all development has to be on the Westside and West Valley--and suburban work/home commutes need to be reduced for the betterment of all LA County residents. 

Issues raised by those promoting the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative--which has its core paradigms the insistence that the City of LA follow its own laws with regards to Planning and Development--include the big question of why there isn't more development south of the I-10 freeway.  After all, if Downtown LA is undergoing a housing and business renaissance, then why can't South LA? 

Similarly, why shouldn't LA City, as well as the San Gabriel Valley, take advantage of the Foothill Gold Line to create more jobs and transit-oriented development along its major new commercial/residential corridor?  Do all jobs need to be within LA City limits? Can't rail commuting allow suburban commuters better new options if they do work within LA City limits? 

When the planned Metro Rail/LAX People Mover connects LAX to the countywide rail system, the unfinished Green Line segments in the South Bay and Norwalk will be potentially explosive new regions that want "in" to the Metro Rail network. 

So not only should City Planning recognize the need to avoid undermining transportation efforts with unsustainable overdevelopment, but we all need to recognize that trying to cram or redo more housing/development in the Westside and other congested regions is the same as rotating chairs on a sinking Titanic.  There is a LIMIT to what we can build in certain overbuilt portions of the City...so the need to develop south of the I-10 and outside City limits is immediate and mandatory. 

Funding and construction efforts come in cycles and waves, and it's possible that the desire for more transportation initiatives is very different than what it was ten years ago. Yet the opportunity very much exists if both hope and credibility are adhered to by those truly seeking transportation/mobility enhancements as a vehicle to improve all of our lives...and by those willing to really do what it takes to sell that hope and credibility to their fellow LA City and County taxpayers.

(Ken Alpern is a Westside Village Zone Director and Board member of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Planning and Outreach Committees, and currently is Co-Chair of its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee. He is co-chair of the CD11Transportation Advisory Committee and chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at  [email protected]. He also co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Mr. Alpern.)

-cw