LOS ANGELES

PERSPECTIVE--I am all for saving everything that is left of historic Hollywood. But the Hollywood sign is an exception.

The original sign read Hollywoodland and was known as the Hollywoodland sign. It was constructed to encourage homeowners to live in Hollywoodland beginning in 1923. It’s gone.

The Hollywoodland sign fell down so many times they removed the “land” part forever in 1949 and rebuilt only the “Hollywood” part.  Ever since then, it has been attached and represents another area directly south of the sign led by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. In 1973, this sign was declared a Los Angeles Cultural Monument. This sign is gone too because it fell into disrepair.

The Hollywood Chamber requested and received permission to rebuild the sign with private donations in 1978. The Hollywood sign was demolished completely and rebuilt on a new foundation. For three months the crown of Mt. Lee had no sign. It completely disappeared off the hillside.

The current sign has nothing original nor historic to it. It’s a billboard that sells a brand that is not associated with Hollywoodland. By 1986, it was so covered in graffiti that the Hollywoodland Homeowners Association had to force the city to clean it up regularly.

The sign represents the Hollywood business district to the south where much of the historic fabric has disappeared since 1986– especially around Highland and Vine. The current sign represents this “new” Hollywood, our local ‘Manahttan’ where no one can see the sign because of all the over-development. (Although I suppose if you move into one of the new luxury apartments you could pay for a great view of the sign.)

It makes more sense to move this sign where people can access and see it safely and more easily. Especially since it no longer represents the neighborhood it is destroying. Why not move it near a local subway stop? Visitors can even climb on it if they sign a release. We could dedicate the hole it leaves on the hill to parkland for our precious wildlife.

Or if we keep the sign, let’s add the “land” so it at least it replicates the original sign and reads the historically correct “Hollywoodland.” Visitors will learn a little of LA’s history when they come through here.

(Gregory P. Williams has written and self-published two books on Los Angeles history, The Story of Hollywood (winner of National Best Books 2007) and The Story of Hollywoodland. He wrote his first book in 1980 for Jim Henson’s Muppet Press, The Case of Missing Hat, published by Random House. A native of Hollywood, Greg’s paternal grandparents came to Hollywood from Greece in the early part to the twentieth century and ran a grocery store at Sunset Boulevard at Gordon. Greg was born and raised in Hollywoodland.)

VOICES FROM THE SQUARE--A good part of what was so distressing about this month’s active shooter episode at UCLA was the familiarity of it all.

The death of William Klug, a brilliant and affable young professor, at the hands of a mad former graduate student, was the chief tragedy. But as our campus was taken over June 1 by a veritable army of armed law enforcement personnel in helicopters, police cars, and trucks, I couldn’t help but think: Here we go again.

The sight of high school and college campuses in lockdown, with one or more active shooters terrorizing hundreds or thousands of students, has become normal. Since 2013, there have been 186 school shooting incidents, according to the Everytown for Gun Safety, a group that began compiling school shooting statistics after the Sandy Hook, Connecticut, massacre in 2012. Last year alone saw more than 50 school shooting incidents, 23 of which were on college campuses. 

In a society facing an epidemic of gun violence, universities are, at their best, havens of freedom—sites of the free exchange of ideas, free and open interchange between diverse groups, and free movement across the sovereign campus island. But our freedom is being eroded as we hunker down in preparation for the next burst of deadly fire. Indeed, the vigilance with which we act on our campuses today takes a toll on that exhilarating sense of liberation—from ignorance, bias, and convention—that the university once offered.

I remember well the sad realization I had after Sandy Hook, that it now made sense to introduce active shooter preparation training for the UCLA History Department, of which I served as chair from 2010 to 2015. In 2013, we had our first preparedness session with an officer from the University of California Police Department. The announcement to our faculty, staff, and students noted that:

An “Active Shooter” is defined as a situation where one or more suspects participate in a random or systematic shooting spree, demonstrating intent to continuously harm others.

It’s an unfortunate sign of the times that we need to think this way, but it is very important that we be as prepared as possible for such an event. In that kind of situation, there are specific things we can do to protect ourselves and those around us.

In point of fact, the randomness of these acts constrains our ability to protect ourselves. If we are in the wrong place at the wrong time or are the intended target, there is little to be done. Nonetheless, the active shooter trainer tried to prepare those in attendance for what to do: run from open spaces, closet yourself in your classroom or office, lock the door, turn off the lights, and keep silent.

These are all sensible suggestions. But I was struck, after a second preparedness session, by the indeterminacy of what to do in a situation in which you find yourself in the same room as shooters. The options, as the UCLA Emergency Management webpage tells us, are three-fold: “Stay still and hope they don’t shoot you, run for an exit while zigzaging [sic], or attack the shooter.” 

Fortunately, most of us never have and never will have to face that rather harrowing set of choices. In the meantime, we on college campuses usually put this prospect out of our minds. The more vigilant among us may pay increased attention to our immediate environs, locate exits in rooms, or even run through versions of game theory as we contemplate escape scenarios in our minds.

My own sense of vigilance was heightened during the time I served as department chair, especially when I would meet with irate and sometimes disturbed students. I would ask staff colleagues adjacent to me to pay special attention to any abrupt noises. I would also sit relatively close to the students and follow their hand movements in order to be able to act quickly if they took out a weapon.

I chided myself for engaging in this kind of suspicion-ridden activity, for it seemed to violate the basic trust that underlies the teacher-student relationship. And yet, I couldn’t stop myself from going through a mental checklist of preventative measures.

This is our reality now. Of course, we should follow the Australians and set in place tighter regulation of gun ownership. And of course, we should develop far better strategies and devote far more resources to help those with mental illness. These are absolute no-brainers. What more needs to happen to demonstrate their necessity?

Active shooter preparedness sessions are highly imperfect. They reveal that emergency management is an art, not a science. But these sessions are the best we have at present. And it is all the more important to undergo such training in the absence of far-reaching policy changes necessary to reduce the number of shootings.

In the meantime, even as we know that there will be more episodes, we must fight against the understandable impulse to constrain ourselves even further by censoring our words or altogether altering the ways we interact with colleagues and students out of fear. Difficult as it may be, we must endeavor to preserve that essential freedom of mind and movement that propels the university to do its important work for students and society alike.

(David N. Myers is the Sady and Ludwig Kahn Professor of Jewish History at UCLA. This piece was posted first at Zocalo Public Square.) 

-cw

VOX POP--In certain circles in Los Angeles, William Witte, chairman and CEO of Related California, is known as the “mega-developer.” It’s easy to understand why. He and his outfit, which is part of the nationwide development firm Related Companies, have contributed an eye-popping $118,550 to LA political candidates since 2000, according to the city’s Ethics Commission. It’s the way development is done in Los Angeles — spread around major cash at City Hall to get big favors in return. 

Witte, in fact, has personally contributed $51,500 out of the $118,550 — the rest was given by Related employees. In addition, since 2003, Related has paid City Hall lobbyists a whopping $837,381 to schmooze City Council members and bureaucrats at city agencies such as the planning department, according to the city’s Ethics Commission. 

In all, Related has shelled out $955,931 to win over politicians and bureaucrats at LA City Hall.

It should come as no surprise then that the LA City Council recently voted, unanimously, to give Related and Witte a financial aid package worth $198.5 million so the mega-developer could finish a “high-profile” downtown LA hotel project, according to the Los Angeles Times. 

That move by LA politicians didn’t come without controversy. Related Companies has a massive operating portfolio worth more than $20 billion. The city, on the other hand, has an annual budget of around $8.6 billion. 

Regardless, elected officials decided to give Witte and Related a $198.5-million aid deal in the form of subsidies and loans so it can build two towers, which includes the hotel, across the street from Walt Disney Concert Hall. 

Related is a major player in the glitzy Grand Avenue Project, which seeks to turn that part of downtown into a play zone for the extremely wealthy. The hotel that Related wants to build will be geared towards the super rich. The developer has already contributed tens of millions to the city for the construction of Grand Park, a fancy public space that’s part of the Grand Avenue Project. 

In the end, Related stands to make millions upon millions in profits from the Grand Avenue Project.

Still, when a developer throws around $118,550 in campaign contributions at City Hall, a huge favor like the $198.5-million financial boost is almost expected in return from LA politicians. 

Clearly, LA’s development system is broken, and it’s one that needs honest, meaningful reform. That’s what the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative. 

Through the measure, which will appear on the March 2017 ballot, citizens will finally be given the tools that will level the playing field when it comes to how LA’s neighborhoods will be developed. Greedy developers will no longer have outsized influence on City Hall’s rigged development-approval process. 

But with so much money on the line, developers will do everything they can to beat down our community-based movement and try to defeat the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative. So join our cause by clicking to our Act page right now, and following and cheering our efforts on Facebook,  Twitter and Instagram. You can also send us an email at [email protected] for more information. 

Together, we can create the change that LA needs! 

(Patrick Range McDonald writes for 2PreserveLA.org ... currently spearheading the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

GELFAND’S WORLD--Here's to all the Bernie Sanders supporters on the morning after the night before. You've got the political hangover of all time. You came so close, within a couple of hundred delegates, and then the roof fell in. On June 7, Hillary Clinton won four states out of six, including the big prizes, New Jersey and California. We've known for months that the only way Bernie was going to have any kind of chance at the nomination was to sweep most or all of the last dozen primaries by big numbers. He didn't even come close. 

You are also getting whined at, guilt-sucked, and somberly advised to get over your Bernie obsession and get on the Hillary Clinton train. The people who are giving this advice are right, but for all the wrong reasons. Here is the real reason. 

You say you want a revolution. But the movement is suddenly without an immediately obtainable goal. Taking the 2016 presidential election is no longer a possibility. The question for the Sanders supporters is whether you actually heard what Bernie has been saying, because if you did, you will realize that the revolution of which he speaks is a lot bigger than his would-be presidency. It requires getting major bills through both houses of congress, it requires a president who will sign them, and it requires a Supreme Court that won't find excuses to undermine every reform. 

How could that be accomplished? What will it take to make the revolution happen? 

Let's be blunt and not nibble around the idea of what is needed. Millions and millions of new voters need to get in the habit of voting in every election -- not just in the search for a miracle president every four years, but in every single election, from the off-year congressional votes, to your City Council selection, to your state legislative representatives and your governors. Nothing less will suffice. 

It's necessary to take back the governorships and state legislatures in states that have gerrymandered congressional districts to the advantage of Republicans. Just remember that in the last midyear elections, the Democratic congressional candidates as a group got more votes than the Republicans, but the Republicans got control of the House of Representatives. That's the effect of the redistricting of 2002. The 2020 census will prompt a lot of redistricting in advance of the 2022 elections. The state level races that lead up to the 2022 redistricting have to be one of the major targets of a political revolution. 

Winning congressional seats, especially in less gerrymandered districts, is another task. We can start now and build on our successes, but it won't happen if the liberal residents of this country allow themselves to be bamboozled into the fashionably cynical belief that all politicians are the same, and that it doesn't help to vote. 

It's true that any one vote doesn't count if we only think of ourselves as individuals on the losing side. That's the wrong way to think about coalition building. You have to think of yourselves as small parts of a winning coalition. If any one of us who votes were to miss voting this time around, it wouldn't change the outcome. Elections aren't won by a single vote very often. But elections can be lost by a few thousand votes and, once in a while, by a few hundred votes. You have to think of yourself as one element of a winning coalition, because when enough people choose to avoid participating in the coalition, we lose. 

The great mass of us, as active voters, would certainly hold the controlling power. You as an individual have to set aside your personal doubts and egotism and join in a mass movement that will potentially go on for a decade or two or three. It has to be a solid commitment by enough people who agree to become chronic voters. 

Here's the not-so-secret fact about Bernie's promises. He would never be able to do all those things like bringing Wall Street under control or creating a truly universal health care system all by himself. Some of it would require active participation by both houses of congress. It's true that a liberal Democrat as president can do some things administratively, but the larger body of work requires a groundswell in the American political landscape that leads to big legislation. 

Such a groundswell is not an impossibility. The large fraction of the American people who don't vote routinely, or vote only in rare presidential elections, have it within their power to effect the revolutionary change that Sanders calls for. But they have to do it as a collective effort, and they have to do it by voting. 

One of the other secrets of making this kind of revolution work is that you have to keep at it, election after election, even in those elections when the guy representing your party isn't your favorite person in the whole world. But if you and your neighbors vote routinely in a way that makes your district into a solid Democratic Party district, then you can afford to replace the less useful representatives with people more to your liking. This is nothing more than what the Tea Party voters have been doing to Republicans in their own districts. 

The trick is to build party control over the district first, and only then mess with the candidates' lineup. The Republican Party lost a couple of critical U.S. Senate seats a few years ago by ignoring this concept. 

The final secret of making the revolution work is that you don't accept the argument that we can live with a Donald Trump presidency because Hillary isn't perfect enough. That's a version of the argument that there is no difference between the parties. If you can convince yourself of that, you're not paying attention to the details that affect your neighbors' lives, things like being able to buy medical insurance at $150 a month instead of $3000 a month. Even if it means nothing to you, it means a whole lot to the ten million plus people who now have this advantage. And if you want to argue that the European systems are better, that's a fair statement, but will you sit idly by in implicit acceptance of our status quo, or will you work to bring the U.S. up to the level of France and Switzerland? 

Yes, we all agree that the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is imperfect. It would make a lot more sense to modify it so it provides universal coverage for all U.S. residents. Another useful modification would be to abolish the current billing system and replace it with revenue from income taxes and tariffs. These will be evolutionary changes in a system that was created in the belief that it would gradually improve. That's how Medicare and Social Security developed -- out of small beginnings -- and we have the ability to bring Obamacare into a more civilized form. 

But this evolution of our medical care system, an essential part of the political revolution, will be damaged if the Republicans get a chance to abolish it in the way they have promised. They want to take us back to the miserable system we had just a few years ago. One part of the political revolution is keeping the improvements you have just achieved, even improvements that are incomplete. 

Especially improvements that are incomplete . . . those are the foundations from which we can build the future that we speak of when we talk about the political revolution. Even revolutions can be incremental. In the U.S., they are almost always incremental. 

Another example: Bernie Sanders points out, rightly so, that our legislative system has been corrupted by the need for campaign money. This is something that is reversible. It would definitely take acts of congress, which means that we and the new voters have to do all that voting, until the ruling philosophy of this generation's leaders is replaced. Perhaps that won't take place until we have a new generation of leaders, or perhaps some of the current group will take the hint when liberal Democrats start filling seats previously held by conservatives. In either case, we have to make that generational switch happen. 

But we also need to have a Supreme Court that won't arbitrarily overturn these much needed reforms. That means we need to elect a Democrat as president right now, because the Republican candidate has already explained the kind of people he would nominate to the Supreme Court, and it isn't a pretty sight. 

So anybody who wants the political revolution but doesn't think Hillary Clinton lives up to your standards, think of it like this. If you allow Clinton to be defeated due to your lofty ideals, you are doing the one worst thing to do if you hope that eventually the political revolution will happen. Instead, we will be taken backwards and Citizens United will remain the law of the land. There needs to be a law that legislative control over campaign spending is legitimate, and we can't afford another 20 years of reactionary control over the Supreme Court if we hope to effect necessary changes such as this. 

I should point out that you don't actually have to be registered as a Democrat, at least in California, to join the political revolution. Registering as No Party works just fine, because our Top Two primary system gives you the chance to participate. That's exactly what I do, and it works just fine for me. 

I'd like to finish by linking to a slightly different approach by Marc Cooper. It's a little more radical sounding, but I'd like to think that it gets to about the same place, namely that people newly engaged in the system should stay engaged. I'm a little more optimistic about a Clinton presidency than Marc, but the differences don't matter, because the Donald Trump alternative is simply unacceptable. 

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

-cw

PRIMARY POSTSCRIPT--It is no surprise that Assembly Member Patty Lopez advanced to the finals in the 39th AD. More on that later in the article.

Henry Stern’s path to the general election in the 27th Senate District was less certain.

There was no doubt that Republican Steve Fazio would make it, but most figured a Democrat would come in second due to the large field of Democratic candidates carving up the vote. Instead, he surprised by finishing first with 31.2% of the ballots cast, almost a full point ahead of Fazio and well ahead of his chief Democratic challenger, Janice Kamenir-Reznik. **

Reznik held an advantage over Stern early in the evening when absentee ballots weighed heavily.

Two key endorsements abandoned Stern for Kamenir-Reznik: former County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and current Supervisor Sheila Kuehl. Despite those two big name defections, Stern prevailed and appears to have a lock on winning the general. Fazio’s support is unlikely to grow significantly to where he can give Stern a run for his money. Supporters of the other candidates are likely to line up behind Stern, who is a senior staff member of Fran Pavley, the termed-out, current office holder.

The race makes you wonder about the value of endorsements from individuals

I had the pleasure of discussing a number of issues with Stern a few weeks ago. He is someone who appears to be receptive, especially on issues with a direct impact locally. 

Patty Lopez (photo above left), the Rocky of local politicians, appears to face a similar challenge to the one which confronted her back in 2014. Her opponent, Raul Bocanegra, a favorite of the establishment, with the backing of the State Democratic Party, and who outspent Lopez 10 to 1, finished the night with 45% of the vote. Lopez garnered 27%.

With that kind of spending and structural advantage, earning measurably less than a majority is unimpressive and points to vulnerability in the general for Bocanegra. He had almost 63% of the vote in the 2014 primary before falling to the Lopez’ indomitable grassroots push in the general, when he ran as the incumbent. He starts off in a weaker position this time around.

If Lopez can attract support from the pool of voters who supported other fine candidates in the primary, then Bocanegra could be in for a long night on November 8. A loss would all but destroy his aspirations to regain a seat anywhere. It is hard to raise money from deep pockets when you have burned through a small fortune in back-to-back losing efforts.

**Note: The percentage of votes received by Stern as reported above reflect only LA County. The District includes a portion of Ventura County. Fazio finished with 37.5% and Stern with 26.5%. Both will still advance to the general election where Stern is likely to win, as many of those who voted for other Democratic candidates in the primary will tend to support him.

(Paul Hatfield is a CPA and serves as President of the Valley Village Homeowners Association. He blogs at Village to Village and contributes to CityWatch. The views presented are those of Mr. Hatfield and his alone and do not represent the opinions of Valley Village Homeowners Association or CityWatch. He can be reached at: [email protected].)

-cw

APOLOGIZING FOR THE MILITARIZATION OF THE LA’S SCHOOL POLICE--Come on, they aren’t tanks, they’re armored rescue vehicles. And the, uh, grenade launchers would only be used to launch teargas canisters. When necessary. And the M-16s? Standard police issue.

What a journey these Los Angeles teenagers, and the civil rights group Fight for the Soul of the Cities, had, to get from there — the ho-hum justification by (good Lord) the city’s school district police force, for the accumulation of surplus Defense Department weaponry — to here:

“Our recent meeting and dialogue has led me to review my actions as Board President during this difficult period. Upon reflection, I failed to understand the amount of pain and frustration our participation in the 1033 program could cause in the community and especially with our partners from the Dignity in Schools Campaign and the Fight for the Soul of the Cities...”

These are the words of Los Angeles School Board President Steve Zimmer, speaking in genuine anguish as he acknowledges that militarizing school district police has, to put it mildly, a serious downside. He continues, in his letter last month to the Labor/Community Strategy Center, parent organization of Fight for the Soul of the Cities:

“I now understand that especially in the context of the many conflicts between law enforcement and communities of color across the nation, our participation in this program may have created perceptions about the role of our district and our school police that my silence exacerbated. . . . I now understand that even the possession of such weapons in the context of this moment damaged trust that we now must all work to rebuild. Please accept my apology...”

This is an extraordinary victory — possibly the first of its kind in the nation.

It’s a victory for civil rights. It’s a victory for kids. But primarily, it’s a victory for absolutely basic common sense. The Los Angeles School Police Department — a police force whose sole responsibility is to maintain order in the public schools — has returned all the weapons, including grenade launchers, a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle (i.e., a tank) and 61 M-16 automatic rifles, which it had obtained under the controversial 1033 program, to the U.S. Department of Defense.

It provided proof that it did so. And it apologized — to the children and teenagers in the Los Angeles Public Schools. The apology was an acknowledgement — oh, so painfully rare in 21st century America — that real order isn’t a matter of armed domination. It was an acknowledgment that education requires trust and trust is annihilated by the appearance of a military dictatorship.

The struggle with the School Board over this began in 2014, shortly after members of the civil rights group had gone to Ferguson, Mo., to show solidarity with the protests over the police shooting of Michael Brown.

“We come back from Ferguson and find out they have a tank, grenade launchers — it was a declaration of war,” Manuel Criollo, director of organizing at Fight for the Soul of the Cities, told me.

And thus began almost two years of sit-ins and protests. Hundreds of students participated. They refused to compromise or accept half-measures from the school board. “First they got rid of the grenade launchers,” Criollo said. “In the winter of 2014, they got rid of the MRAP tank. By early 2015, they argued that the M-16 was a standard police weapon. They said, ‘We no longer have military weapons’ — even though the M-16 is considered a cruel weapon by the Red Cross.”

But the students didn’t give up. When the School Board finally said it got rid of all its Defense Department armaments, they still weren’t satisfied. They demanded proof, and an apology. At a board meeting last February, “the activists spoke over the Pledge of Allegiance and demanded to be heard before other business could proceed,” according to the Los Angeles Times. The meeting was canceled. 

And proof eventually came, and so did Steve Zimmer’s remarkable acknowledgment that militarizing the school police force had been a mistake, wrecking that invisible and crucial quality called trust — wrecking the school system’s relationship with the communities it served.

As I read his letter of apology, I honor its painful honesty — “I failed to understand the amount of pain and frustration our participation in the 1033 program could cause in the community” — but at the same time I feel a stunned despair that such a decision was made in the first place. Indeed, the more I think about it, the more it rips my heart to shreds. Yes, yes, I understand that maintaining order in a big-city school system is an enormously difficult, complex undertaking. But, to reach out for tanks and grenade launchers?

Apparently the only assistance coming from the national government is military. There is zero peace consciousness at this level, zero guidance except to prepare for war.

As Criollo pointed out, the Los Angeles Police Department (which is separate from the Los Angeles School Police Department) and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department have thousands of M-16s and other equipment — MRAPs, a helicopter — from the 1033 Program.

“From our point of view, they’re on tactical alert to go to war with their own people,” he said. “We’re living in a country that’s not guaranteeing us a job, not investing in education. But trillions are invested in the military. This shows where their priority is. I think they’ve given up helping communities uplift out of poverty.”

I don’t think the nation has lost its way, but I think the government has.

(Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. Contact him at [email protected] or visit his website at commonwonders.com.)

-cw

BILLBOARD WATCH--The political debate over allowing new digital billboards in L.A. has little to do with issues like traffic safety, light pollution and energy use. In fact, it’s not even a debate in the classic sense but can be characterized as an interplay of two powerful desires. Clear Channel and other big billboard companies badly want to put up the electronic signs on city streets and freeways and the City Council desperately wants to find new sources of revenue. (Photo above: This Clear Channel digital billboard was shut off by court order in 2013.)

The stakes for the billboard companies are high. Digital billboards are big moneymakers, which means the companies are pulling out all the stops to sway the City Council in their favor. They’ve tacitly admitted that some of their existing billboards are blight by offering to remove them. They’ve promised free space both to city agencies and private organizations for public service messages. And most significantly, they’ve dangled the sweet-smelling carrot of revenue sharing in front of councilmembers’ noses.

The council, needing money to fix the city’s crumbling infrastructure and address it’s dire homelessness problem, is all ears. Or to be precise, those councilmembers who have never had angry calls from constituents about brightly-lit, constantly changing ads for fast food, movies, TV shows, and other commercial products and services hanging in the sky outside their windows 24 hours a day.

For those unfamiliar with the sometimes dreary history of billboard regulation in the city, Clear Channel and CBS Outdoor—now Outfront Media—converted 100 of their conventional billboards to digital before the City Council took heed of citizen complaints and called a halt in 2008 to further conversions. Four years later, the courts found that the city’s 2006 action allowing the conversions was blatantly illegal and ordered the signs shut off.

Faced with the loss of millions in revenue, Clear Channel cranked up a public relations and lobbying onslaught aimed at convincing city councilmembers to change course and allow the company to turn many of the digital billboards back on as well as put up new ones. Outfront joined that effort, along with the city’s third major billboard industry player, Lamar Advertising, which recently sued the city in an unsuccessful attempt for permits for 45 new digital billboards in West LA, Silver Lake, Eagle Rock, and the San Fernando Valley, among other areas.

The premises of this campaign were amply visible at a May 24 meeting of the City Council’s PLUM committee. Taking up citywide sign ordinance revisions that have been on the table in one form or another for seven years, the committee heard from a parade of billboard industry lobbyists and representatives of business, labor, and non-profit organizations all reading, sometimes literally, from the same script.

Digital billboards stimulate business activity, produce jobs, protect public safety, promote good causes, and offer a source of revenue for city programs and services. The five councilmen on the committee are educated and intelligent, and undoubtedly know that the first four claims are questionable at best, but the vision of money flowing into their districts without a dreaded debate over fee or tax increases is compelling. Furthermore, those aforementioned 100 digital billboards were clustered in only five of the 15 council districts, and guess what? None of the current members of the committee represented those districts, which means that their office phones never rung with constituent complaints about a billboard pouring out an endless loop of bright, eye-catching ads on their neighborhood streets.

But just how much money are we talking about? Tens of millions? Hundreds? Enough to fix the streets and sidewalks, build housing for the homeless, hire more police officers and firefighters?

To date, there hasn’t been any public discussion about the number of digital billboards that might be allowed, or what percentage of revenue from those billboards Clear Channel and others would be willing to share with the city. According to the city’s Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), the gross receipts, or business tax paid by billboard companies over the past three years ranged from $580,000 to $700,000. That works out to a gross annual revenue of $164 to $196 million per year.

Billboard companies are typically secretive about the amount of money they make from individual billboards, but figures from rate schedules available online as well as statements from company executives indicate that a digital billboard could generate at least six times the revenue of a conventional billboard of comparative size and location. A lot of money, in other words, but just how much the city might expect to get its hands on remains unknown, at least to the public.

Another question awaiting answer is how the city intends to permit new digital billboards or conversions of existing billboards, given that these are now prohibited. The City Planning Commission last year approved sign ordinance revisions allowing such billboards in a limited number of sign districts in high-intensity commercial areas such as downtown, Universal City, Warner Center and LAX, but PLUM committee members reacted to that restriction as if a dead skunk had landed on their desks, holding their collective noses, figuratively speaking.

One proposal floating about City Hall would allow companies to apply for conditional use permits to put up new digital billboards. For anyone new to City Hall nomenclature, that process is essentially as it sounds, where a proposed use is permitted by the city with conditions, on a one-by-one basis. In the case of a digital billboard, those conditions would ostensibly regulate location, size, height, brightness, rate of message change, and hours of operation.

Another possibility, repeatedly mentioned by Clear Channel lobbyists at public meetings, is for the city and billboard companies to enter into relocation agreements, as allowed by state law. How this would work in practice isn’t totally clear, although the ultimate objective would be to get a bunch of those digital billboards now dark or displaying static ad copy back into operation at new locations.

A third way has been proposed by City Councilman Paul Krekorian, who isn’t a PLUM committee member. His idea is to allow new digital billboards in exchange for revenue sharing and the takedown of existing billboards, but only on selected city-owned properties. The idea has generated some interest, although the billboard industry clearly doesn’t like the restriction, because lobbyists and their cohort of supporters in business and labor always speak in public meetings of the need to allow digital billboards on both public and private property.

At the May 24 PLUM committee meeting, there was also a brief discussion of the possibility of raising the gross receipts tax on billboard companies, and whether or not such a tax increase would have to be approved by voters. It wasn’t clear if that tax increase would be an alternative to allowing new digital billboards, or just another revenue source.

There is an elephant in the PLUM committee’s meeting room that members have been doing their best to ignore, although one did allude to it at the May 24 meeting. That is the legal jeopardy the city could be flirting with if it allows a significant number of new digital billboards outside those limited sign districts.

In 2002, the city approved a ban on new off-site signs, with exceptions for sign districts, specific plans and development agreements. The ink was hardly dry on the ordinance before legal challenges were filed in both state and federal court, and at one point the city was defending itself against more than a dozen lawsuits claiming that these exceptions rendered the ban unconstitutional.

After untold hours of labor by the City Attorney’s office, stacks of motions, and drawn-out hearings, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had the final word, ruling that the exceptions didn’t render the sign ban unconstitutional as long as they could be shown to further the city’s interest in promoting traffic safety and improving aesthetics. But that ruling which struck joy in the hearts of those working to protect the visual environment from saturation by commercial advertising came with a caveat.

In a 2013 report to the PLUM committee, City Attorney Mike Feuer referred to a warning from that court that too many exceptions could render the off-site sign ban vulnerable to legal attack. Those exceptions, he wrote, could mean that the ban “would no longer adequately improve aesthetics and traffic safety and would thus be invalid under the First Amendment.”

Feuer pointed out that the sign ordinance revisions then being considered by the committee addressed this issue by limiting the number of sign districts and their locations to high-intensity commercial areas zoned regional center or regional commercial. That’s what the City Planning Commission affirmed last year, and what the PLUM committee summarily rejected when it took up the matter earlier this year.

The issue of allowing exceptions to the sign ban for the purpose of raising revenue was directly addressed in an earlier ruling by the appeals court in a case called Metrolights vs. City of Los Angeles.  That lawsuit claimed that the city’s billboard ban was rendered invalid by the fact the city allowed thousands of exceptions in the form of ads in bus shelters, kiosks, and other items of street furniture.

The court ruled in favor of the city, saying that having a uniformly designed street furniture system could be shown to enhance traffic safety and aesthetics. However, the court warned that other purposes could undermine the off-site ban, specifically mentioning the raising of revenue, which “by itself perfectly legitimate state action, does not allow a state selectively to prohibit constitutionally protected conduct.”

Deputy City Attorney Michael Bostom also addressed the subject of getting revenue from digital billboards at a City Planning Commission meeting last year. Referring specifically to the proposed conditional use permit process, he said that while people tend to think of billboards as “a panacea for solving revenue problems in the city” the actual issue of generating revenue from signs is “highly complex.” He likened allowing new digital billboards in exchange for revenue to giving a developer permission to put up a building on private property only if the city was given one of the units in the building.

And at the last PLUM committee meeting on May 24, Councilman Felipe Fuentes alluded to a “privileged” communication to the committee from the city attorney’s office on May 16 about the “perilous ground” the city could be on through discretionary actions allowing new digital billboards. The four other members were presumably aware of this communication, although none commented on it.

Rewriting the sign ordinance was initiated by the PLUM committee in 2008. Of the current members, only Chairman Jose Huizar was on that committee, but he ought to remember that the major rationale was stopping the onslaught of legal challenges that were threatening to make the city wide open to new billboards, supergraphic signs, and other forms of outdoor advertising.

But that was obviously before the discussion was taken over by those who don’t see this advertising as something to be strictly limited and contained, but as a cash cow for the city.

Coming soon: LA’s Digital Billboard Debate, Part II: Sham Democracy

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

-cw

GUEST WORDS--The word fascism has been widely bandied about during the current US presidential campaign, especially in negative campaigning against Donald Trump, the likely Republic candidate. Trump has been compared to Juan Peron and Benito Mussolini because of his flamboyant personal style and his racist comments. Those labeling him a fascist or neo-fascist point to his rampant bigotry against immigrants in general, and Muslims and Mexicans in particular, through proposed entry bans, wholesale roundups, mass expulsions, border walls, and labeling Federal judges as biased because of their ancestry. 

This is certainly part of what has constituted fascism in the past, and they also have precedents in American history, such as the Palmer Raids in the early 1920s, the incarceration of Japanese Americans at the beginning of WWII, and mass expulsions of Bracero program workers in the late 1940s and 1950s. 

But, we need to remember that history is definitely much better at helping us understand the present than accurately predicting the future. So what do our history books tell us about Mr. Trump, other Presidential candidates, such as Hillary Clinton, and the prospects for fascism in the United States? 

In the past, fascism, as it appeared in Italy, Spain, and Germany, was far more than anti-immigrant nativism and bigotry against religious minorities emanating from street thugs. In the 1930s it was a top down answer to deep political and economic crises at the national and global levels. It strengthened the executive function of government at the expense of its legislative and judicial functions. It also included intense patriotism, glorification of an idyllic past and intense state and street opposition to organized labor, liberals, socialists, and communists. Its program has also always included preparation for and pursuit of aggressive foreign wars, which is why some analysts surprisingly focus on Hillary Clinton’s militarism as another fascist danger in the United States. 

In terms of actual American precedents for fascism, we need look no further than the World War I administration of President Woodrow Wilson, the former Democratic governor of New Jersey. After his 1916 election as an anti-war candidate, he not only led the United States into “the war to end all wars,” but also successfully promoted three draconian bills through Congress: the Espionage Act, Sabotage Act, and Alien Act. These laws banned open opposition to US participation in WWI and to military conscription. As a result, many critics of the war were sent to jail and not released until the 1920s. Some of these provisions remain on the books, and the Obama Administration has frequently used the Espionage Act to prosecute government whistle blowers. 

President Wilson also promoted anti-Black racism by barring Blacks from entering the front door of the White House. He then hosted a White House screening of D.W. Griffith’s pro-KKK movie, The Birth of a Nation, a key step in the nationwide revival of the Ku Klux Klan in the late teens and early 1920s.   Wilson also used the Justice Department’s affiliate, the American Protective League, to set up a massive domestic spying operation, as well as to bombard the American public with pro-war, pro-conscription propaganda through his Committee for Public Information.  

Since the US has already had one serious brush with fascism, several renowned novelists have imagined what a fascist United States would look. This is why Sinclair Lewis wrote his book about US fascism, It Can’t Happen Here, in 1936, when memories of WWI were still fresh. Later Phillip Dick wrote The Man in the High Castle (1958), which imagined the U.S. occupied by Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. Most recently, in 2005, Phillip Roth wrote The Plot Against America. He carefully researched fascistic trends of the 1930s and devised a plot in which Charles Lindberg was elected President in 1942 and then signed anti-intervention peace treaties with both Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. While Roth’s fascist U.S. did not have a domestic Holocaust, it did have anti-Jewish pogroms. 

So, this brings us the second decade of the 21^st Century and the obvious question asked by Sinclair Lewis 80 years ago: Could it happen here? My answer is yes, and it could happen if either candidate becomes the next US president, a thesis that might surprise many readers. 

Pre-Conditions of Fascism already underway 

Based on historical patterns, many pre-conditions for fascism are already present. 

• War: Our troubled planet already is reeling with military conflicts, and they are drawing in the current super-powers, China, Russia, Europe, and the USA. Other countries, like Japan, are re-arming, and many countries, like Germany and France, have growing nativist and anti-refugees movements. In this climate, it is easy to imagine many scenarios of extreme racism and military escalation drawing in many more countries, such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia into Syria.
• Economic Crisis: While we do not yet have a global depression, many key countries are economically stumbling. China, Russia, Japan, most of Europe, South Africa, and Brazil are all suffering from economic stagnation or recession, including rising unemployment. In all of these countries, and many more, much deeper economic and political crises are either already present or knocking at the door.
• Weak Recovery: In the US, the “recovery” is the weakest since WWII.  Since the Great Recession of 2008-9, it has failed to take off even through the Federal Reserve Bank has kept interest rates at historically low levels and pumped over $4 trillion into the economy through Quantitative Easing.
• Security State: In the US the trappings of a strong and increasingly authoritarian executive function of government are already in place. It is called the Security State. The NSA collects details on all telecommunications, and the US Post Office scans all mail. Furthermore, in the name of fighting terrorism, the Bush and Obama administrations have whittled away at many civil liberties enshrined in the Bill of Rights.
• Nativism: As anti-immigrant and anti-refugee nativist movements and policies grow in Europe, they also have their counterpart in the United States. It is not only Trump’s rants about Mexicans and Muslims, but also the government’s creation of enormous barriers to political asylum seekers from Syria and Iraq, as well as the Obama Administration’s record levels of incarcerating and deporting immigrants and refugees fleeing to the United States.
• Police Surveillance: These trends are also visible at the local level through police department SWAT teams, police intelligence divisions, and fusion centers whose purpose is to monitor potential terrorism. It includes the LAPD’s Suspicious Activities Reports, whose vague terrorism indicators include people taking photos of public buildings and overheard conversations about public officials.
• Corporatism: Another historical feature is extensive collusion between corporations, finance, and government. This was not only obvious in “too big to fail,” a Federal government program that pumped $13 trillion in public bailout money into the banking system according to Bloomberg News, but also the Justice Department’s failure to prosecute the Wall Street executives who played a leading role in the financial collapse of 2008-9.
• Militarism: A final component that intertwines with the security state is the warfare state. The total US military and security budget has exceeded $1 trillion per year for the entire decade, when all military-related categories are included. Part of this warfare state is active participation in many military conflicts (Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia), but also local training and US military bases in nearly 200 countries. 

With so much already in place, and with so many pre-conditions emerging, based on historical models, what should we expect? As the cliché goes, the answer is complicated, but it clearly depends on how rapidly the Federal government moves on foreign wars, economic austerity, surveillance, and mass deportations. If they get little push back, trends might proceed slowly. But, grassroots movements, like Black Lives Matter, already exist, and opposition to economic austerity, militarism, racism, nativism, police violence, and spying and surveillance, is likely to grow. 

The larger and more successful these movements, the greater the chance of authoritarian responses, such as those during WWI and the Cold War. We also know that fascist regimes have used street thugs, like those attacking counter-demonstrators and minorities at Trump rallies, and when they could not find or rouse them, they simply turned to Plan B, using cops as agent provocateurs and vigilantes. 

One scholar of potential fascism in the United States, Bertam Gross, in Friendly Fascism, argued that American fascism would have traits not found in Germany and Italy. For example, elections could be retained, such as in Iran. In this case, a Council of Experts vets all candidates for the Iranian Parliament and Presidency. While Iran does have political diversity and a high-level of voting, the approved candidates range from the far right to the center right. How different would this be from the upcoming Presidential election in the United States, featuring a closeted white nationalist, Republican candidate, Donald Trump facing off against a center-right military hawk, Democrat Hillary Clinton? 

Bracing for the Presidential election 

If there is a take-way from the discussion, it is that the term fascism needs to be grounded in historical analysis, and that it should not be restricted to one Presidential candidate, Donald Trump. At this point deepening global military and economic crisis could easily converge and draw in the United States with responses that would include some or all features of fascism. 

This is why the November election is, of course, important, but why it is incorrect to claim that a Trump victory ushers in fascism, while a Clinton victory blocks it. Independent of either candidate, the basic trends and the basic government institutions are already in place. After all, fascism cannot be reduced to a blowhard or military hawk winning a presidential election or a group of street thugs rushing the podium, grabbing the microphone, and then using the trappings of power to plunder the economy, attack the public, and scapegoat minority groups. Fascism utilizes all the institutions of the public and private sectors, including the military, the police, the spy agencies, the courts, and the media, to resolve a deep economic and political crisis. 

But, we also know from the historical record that fascist regimes do not exist in a political vacuum. Their freedom of action is limited because of foreign and domestic opposition. The Third Reich collapsed after 13 years when the Allied armies converged on Berlin in the summer of 1945. Mussolini might have been victorious in the 1920s, but the Italian partisans executed him and then hung him by his heals 20 years later at a gas station in Milan. 

So, if you are following this Presidential election closely and harbor legitimate concerns about fascist trends in the United States going into high gear after January 2017, then you need to pay close attention to and support the many types of opposition movements. These include organizations addressing civil rights, civil liberties, privacy and surveillance, climate change, economic inequality, health access, education access, police violence, military spending, foreign wars, and much more. They might be drowned out by election news until November, but they are here to stay, and their political role can become extremely important. 

They, just as much as any regime in Washington, will determine the long-term historical outcome of this election.

(Victor Rothman lives in Los Angeles. He can be reached at [email protected].)

-cw

DEEGAN ON LA-Is LA having a “Robin Hood Helps the Homeless” moment in the face of an ever growing more-expensive-than-anticipated crisis involving people suffering from homelessness? Will we support the taxing of millionnaires to pay for homeless services? 

Taking from the rich and giving it to the poor is a well known concept popularized in the 15th century legend of Robin Hood. He was a folkloric hero that saw the 1% not caring for the needs of the 99% and did something about it by taking from the rich and giving to the poor. Legend may repeat itself if the proposed “millionaires’ tax” makes it to the November ballot. 

The proposal is for a Local High Income Tax (aka “millionaires’ tax”) that will be equivalent to 1/2 % of personal income above $1 million per year. The projected revenue from this tax is $243 million, but will this make a dent in the problem? While much more is needed, this is a great start. The challenging part is getting it approved by the state legislature next week on June 16, and then getting the Governor to sign the bill that would allow the County Supervisors to put it on the November 8 ballot, where it must get a 2/3 majority vote to become effective. 

The legislative process is underway and urgently needs voter support through phone calls, letters, faxes and email to the legislative leadership in Sacramento. The deadline is June 16, but supporters are being asked to take immediate action -- today. 

What the County of Los Angeles is seeking is “the enactment of trailer bill language to grant counties the authority to seek voter approval to impose a special tax on personal annual income above $1 million to combat homelessness.” 

In August 2015, in response to the homelessness crisis which pervades Los Angeles

County, the County launched the Homeless Initiative, a countywide effort to develop a comprehensive set of county strategies to combat homelessness. 

On February 9, 2016, the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a comprehensive set of 47 strategies which resulted from an inclusive planning process in which community organizations, cities and county departments all played key roles. 

The Board approved $100 million in one-time funding to launch the implementation of these strategies, but more is needed, on a continuing annual bass, to sustain the plan. 

This is where the millionaires’ tax come in -- to help fill the “housing gap” of 25,550 units that has been identified by LAHSA. This includes permanent supportive housing, rapid re-housing, and emergency shelters. The County needs $450 million per year (not counting construction costs) to fill the gap. The $243 million annual Robin Hood tax revenues would fund about half of that need. It is a significant step in the right direction. 

The urgent call to action -- made even more urgent because the legislature will consider the trailer bill request next Wednesday, June 16 -- is for anyone that supports this legislation to enact a millionaires’ tax benefitting the homeless, should say so immediately. 

Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas stressed, “The people of Los Angeles County have made it known that the time to act on homelessness is now. Public support for a millionaires’ tax is overwhelmingly positive. We need to continue with this forward momentum, and so we are urging everyone to contact the Assembly Speaker, the Senate pro Tem and the Governor to allow the County the option to seek this vital source of ongoing revenue in the battle to end homelessness.”

Here’s what to say and who to say it to: 

“The (your name or the name of your organization) urges your support for trailer bill language (TBL) that would provide counties with the authority to seek voter approval to impose a special tax on personal annual incomes over $1 million dollars for purposes of providing housing and services for homeless individuals/families.” 

Who to contact: 

You can email and/or fax, or call in your advocacy letter no later than Monday, June 13th to the following elected officials that are decision makers for this legislation, and send copies of your email, for or letter to: [email protected] 

Governor Jerry Brown

Email - https://govnews.ca.gov/gov39mail/mail.php or https://govnews.ca.gov/gov39mail/mail.php

Telephone: (916) 445-4341

Fax: (916) 558-3160

Senate President pro Tempore Kevin de León

Email: [email protected]

Fax: (916) 651-4924

Senator Mark Leno, Chair, Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee

Email: [email protected]

Fax: (916) 651-4911

Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon

Email: [email protected]

Fax: (916) 319-2163

Assembly Member Philip Ting, Chair, Assembly Budget Committee

Email: [email protected]

Fax: (916) 319-2119

When you go to sleep tonight, think about how and where the homeless are sleeping tonight. Before you go to bed, go to your computer and send a message to the Governor and legislative leaders stressing your support for the Trailer Bill Language (TBL) - the Robin Hood Tax.

(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.

MY TURN-Today's article was inspired by a letter I was writing my daughters, daughter in-law and granddaughters. My daughter, Hillary Hunn, added a post on Facebook Wednesday which literally brought tears to my eyes. It said, in part, "I give credit to my mom, Denyse C. Selesnick, and all the pioneering working women like her who blazed the trail to make a historic moment like this a reality. Thanks, Mom. #ImwithHer" 

I have gotten to know so many of you over the last three years so I hope you will forgive my taking the liberty of writing a very personal article on the significance to me of Hillary Clinton's nomination and speech on Tuesday night. For all you “Hillary Haters" -- why not use her as a place mark in our long march to equality? 

As a woman of "a certain age," I entered adulthood and a career at the time of the real "Mad Men." I watched the show only once, but it was for me a "reality" show in all aspects. I lived it...so I couldn't watch it! I know that many of you younger women, including my own daughters, never faced the situations that we "feminists" did in the sixties, seventies and eighties. You take for granted that you can be anything you want. Fortunately, my granddaughters will have an even more expanded universe to make their mark. 

You do not realize what women went through in those years. "Leave it to Beaver" and "Father Knows Best" were the programs on TV when I grew up. In my day, going to college was more about getting an MRS. Degree than an education. I have shared with you that my decision to be a journalist covering international news was made at the age of fourteen. When I divulged that to my mother, she scoffed and said, "Women don't have those type of careers." Girls from middle class families became teachers and social workers until they met "the one" and then they became housewives. This was the rule…not the exception. 

My parents were born and grew up in the UK, so not only did they have to embrace the entire Southern California ambience and culture...they had a daughter that wouldn't fit the mold. This was traumatic stuff. I'm sure they pondered the wisdom of their decision to immigrate here more than once. 

I met a guy and fell in love but warned him that I had no intention of being a housewife! I wanted to pursue a career and had already gotten a job on a small trade magazine. I also wanted a big family. I don't know if he really believed me but he said OK. I was twenty at the time and thought I could have it all. Even though we have now been long divorced, I know that I never could have done that climb up the ladder without his support. He was a terrific participatory Dad and I will be forever grateful. 

The husbands in our circle of friends used to make a lot of caustic comments, asking, “How could he let me engage in work-related travel and be in such a male dominated business world?” Once, I heard him reply, "She is not chattel mortgage. She does what she has to, as do I.” Being the only "working mother” both on my street and in my four children's elementary school, my kids were often asked by the neighbors if they hated me working. 

My best friend used to refer to herself as Mrs. James Smith. It took me a few years to convince her that she was Rita Smith...not Mrs. James Smith!     

Work wise, the magazine was involved in the manufacturing part of the apparel industry...not fashion. I can't remember how many times I was invited to lunch by a man I was interviewing and noticed between the time we had the interview and went to lunch that his wedding ring seemed to have vanished. 

One time, I was invited to a conference and was the only woman among 500 men. The featured speaker looked at me and said over the microphone, "Well gentlemen, there go the dirty jokes."

Looking back on some of the experiences and comments, I don't know why I didn't get mad. But this was accepted behavior and I felt lucky to be included in this male-dominated industry. I went to many events and probably 75% of the time I was asked when my boss was going to show. They confused “Denyse” with “Dennis.” No, I was not the “secretary.” 

When I became Publisher/Owner of the same apparel industry magazine, I was the only female publisher in the apparel/textile industry world-wide. When I sold them twenty years later, I was still the only female publisher in the industry world-wide. I know, this is too much information...but I wanted to set the foundation for my thoughts, not from books or articles...but from personal experience. 

Is Hillary Clinton a flawed candidate? Of course she is. One can't reach almost seven decades without making mistakes along the way. Don't your children complain about things they didn't like about their upbringing? If they haven't, they will. If it's any comfort, tell your kids that after they are 40 they can't blame their character defects on their parents…or so it says in the “parenting book” on page 89. 

Yes, Bill Clinton has been judged for his sexual peccadilloes and I'm sure that more than one of the gentlemen reading this have done the same. Monogamy is and always will be a controversial subject.   President Clinton's predecessors were not choir boys either, but no one seemed to care. Wasn’t he an intelligent, thoughtful man who left office with a surplus in the treasury, full employment and no wars? Didn’t he represent us well on the world stage instead of retiring? Doesn’t he have a 66% favorable rating? He must have done something right. The Clinton Foundation has done wonderful things around the world. I'm sure there are one or more journalists out there now researching this very topic. 

Hillary Clinton has also had some great achievements and some really debatable policies. But character assassination has no place in this election. You may not agree with her policies or where she sees the country going, but you can't deny the historical significance of her nomination. 

Even if she wins the Presidency and has a Congress like President Obama has endured, at least she is the most experienced candidate running. She’s built up tremendous good will around the world. It may be sexist to say, but women are much more collaborative than men. All that testosterone can sometimes get in the way. 

The first woman to run for President in the Republican Party was Margaret Chase Smith. She spent twenty-four years in the Senate and House of Representatives. But Barry Goldwater won that nomination and we know how that turned out. Shirley Chisolm ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972. Can you imagine the effrontery back then of an African American woman having the nerve to run for President? 

Donald Trump implies that Hillary is physically weak and doesn't have the stamina needed. Perhaps he might have said the same thing about Indira Gandhi (India) Golda Meir (Israel) and Margaret Thatcher (UK). In fact, the 20th century saw 47 female heads of state who served as either Presidents or Prime Ministers. We Americans are late to the party. 

Frankly, after 2008 I thought I wouldn't live long enough to see a woman become President of the United States. I sat there on Tuesday night watching the election results -- thinking about my path and feeling fortunate that I have lived to see all these changes. We haven't yet elected a “lady mayor” in Los Angeles but we will still have two lady Senators from California. Every girl – no matter what age -- knows that she can aspire to be President, Fire Chief, astronaut, doctor, plumber and, as I like to describe stay-at-home moms, Domestic Goddesses. For that, we of the female persuasion owe Hillary Clinton and all those who came before her our gratitude. 

To quote Vice President Joe Biden, "It is indeed a big f@#$% deal!"

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

EASTSIDER--By the time you read this article, the LA City Council will have already decided to put DWP Charter Reform on the November 2016 ballot. The Rules Committee issued their Report and Recommendations last week, and on Tuesday the Council discussed and then adopted recommendations for a November ballot measure.

It is amazing how fast the Council can act when they want to … and put an end to any real public debate! Still, here are the reasons you should read the fine print and kick the tires before voting for this turkey. 

Back in March, the Pat Brown Institute hosted an important forum to talk about the latest round of “reform” of the Department of Water and Power. Aside from Council and Mayoral politics, what the Department itself needs, according to General Manager Marcie Edwards, are two basic changes. 

First, they need delegated authority to be able to execute contracts without months and months of going back and forth with the City Council, ham stringing the process of being able to run a business. And a big business it is, since the DWP is the largest municipal utility in the United States of America. Even though this turned into a big deal, I would ask a simple question -- who do you trust more, the LA City Council or the General Manager of the Department? I know, tough choice, but I think it’s the General Manager hands down. 

Second, the DWP needs the ability to hire and promote quickly to meet staffing problems, as more and more employees are retiring, including key managers, and as they need to quickly respond to short term crises, such as the recent billing problems.. 

For those who were unable to attend the event, the Institute has provided a summary report of the entire event. It’s worth reading. 

Without ever providing a real explanation, the Mayor, the Council Committee on Energy and Environment, and the City Council as a whole, seem to be ‘all in’ for ramming something through right now to put on the November ballot, even if it’s half-baked. My take away from the Pat Brown event was that DWP Reform is Not Ready for Prime Time. 

There are some three pages of actual Charter amendments in the recommendations, as well as some four pages of “Non-Charter Recommendations”, whatever that means. Or, as CityWatch columnists Julie Butcher and Jack Humphreville put it, some 2300 words of you-know-what. Later in this article I’ll go into some detail about all of this stuff thrown at us at the last minute, but for now, let us cut to the chase. 

Remember, what the Department itself says it needs is the ability to execute contracts in a timely fashion, with delegated authority up to a dollar maximum, and relief from the City Personnel/Civil Service bureaucracy to be able to fill positions quickly when needed, particularly managerial jobs and overall vacancies, so that they can respond to customer needs. 

Well, out of the seven major recommendations to be voted on June 7th (Board Structure, General Manager, Board Support, Ratepayer Advocate, Personnel and Hiring, and Monthly Billing), the DWP doesn’t even get half a loaf. There are some unspecified relaxing of the DWP’s ability to let contracts, but that is tied to a four year “strategic and investment plan” which in fact gives the Council more control over the Department than they have now. 

As to the proposed amendment on personnel and hiring, I can only say that my hat’s off to an absolute masterpiece of obfuscation, persiflage, and all round mealymouth platitudes. Clearly, over the years Council President Herb Wesson has mastered the art of writing a lot of words while saying nothing, and he has really outdone himself in this one. 

For example, the “salary setting authority” “may” waive some or all of the Civil Service requirements “pursuant to a legally binding collectively bargained MOU”.   Then there are further requirements that the “waivers” would have to maintain “specific merit system standards” Finally the Council “may” but doesn’t have to, even designate the new DWP Board as the “salary setting authority” 

All the ambiguities in this language will likely guarantee years of arm wrestling and litigation between the City and its unions, with absolutely no guarantee that there will be an ultimate outcome any different than the current system. In the interim, the needs of the DWP to relax current Personnel/Civil Service regulations will go nowhere -- it simply lets the City Council off the hook for any responsibility for the mess they are creating. 

The reality is that if you read the words on Charter change for Personnel and Hiring, there is absolutely no guarantee of winding up with any of the reforms that the Department clearly needs in order to fulfill their duties to the ratepayers and function as a 21^st century utility. 

Notwithstanding the above, in Monday’s LA Times, Herb Wesson has made it clear that he intends this package to go through as is.

As you can read by the heading, this version of DWP Charter Reform is even less ready for prime time than what came out at the Pat Brown Institute forum. 

What I am having a hard time understanding, though, is why the mad rush to jam something called DWP Reform through on this November’s ballot? To actually address the complex set of issues involved in transforming this huge utility that we all depend on for reliable water and power, the powers that be really better get it right, or the consequences to us, the governed, could be disastrous. 

In terms of politics, you can usually figure these things out -- some politicians are termed out and looking for the next gig, they are desperately trying to avoid big time heat that should properly be directed at them, or there is something buried in the 2300 words that is the real meat of the issue, and we’re not supposed to find it. 

If I had to venture a guess, it would be a combination of deflecting heat for the DWP rate increases (remember half the Council is up for election next year), and finding a way to lock in the transfer fees/Council pet projects that they use to balance the City budget. Remember, if the City loses the current litigation over the transfer fees, it could cost them over $1 billion dollars. 

Nothing like sliding in some language that will allow the City’s outside attorneys to continue litigation for a few more years until the incumbents are all termed out. Remember the Utility Tax debacle?

 ●●

You will notice that in the meat of this article I have not addressed the 20 “Non-Charter Recommendations” contained in the Rules Committee Report.   The basic reason is that by definition, any non-Charter Ordinances can be made or changed at any time by the City Council, so they don’t really have anything to do with the Charter changes that will be on the November ballot. 

And a number of these recommendations are silly. For example, they propose to pay the DWP Commissioners $2000/month, which is not going to be anywhere near the going rate for actual folks who understand the ins and outs of public utilities in the State of California. And their Ratepayer Advocate recommendations totally ignore the real need of the Ratepayer Advocate to have their staff positions designated exempt from Civil Service. 

Further, in the Personnel & Hiring section, they provide for the “CAO, the CLA, and the Personnel Department”, along with the DWP to “report back” to the City Council, within 60 days, “with a plan to address the hiring needs of the DWP.” The phrase snow in the wintertime comes to mind. If you can’t implement anything different from the current LA City Civil Service System until all the Charter change requirements are met, exactly what good does a report do? You got it. 

I could go on and on, but very few people would want to read the depressing details. It should be perfectly clear that the big time City Council DWP Charter Reform is simply still not ready for prime time. And nothing in these 2300 words of verbiage answers the question as to why there is this unseemly rush to the ballot box with a half-baked set of maybes. 

Of course I could just be paranoid, and there’s always the old Monty Python shtick about creating the illusion of doing something so the suckers won’t understand what you’re really up to. Or was that Yes, Minister? 

(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.)

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MY TOWN--The great advantage of buzz words is that people get to emote without thinking. That’s why many people love to hurl the invective NIMBY at others. 

NIMBY stands for “Not In My Back Yard” and refers to a person who objects to the building something unpleasant or potentially dangerous in their own neighborhood, such as a landfill or hazardous waste facility, especially while raising no such objections to similar developments elsewhere. 

Thus, if we stop and think, we see that NIMBYS want to prevent something unpleasant or potentially dangerous, like the Aliso Gas Fields near a community like Porter Ranch.  

Here’s the alleged bad part of NIMBYS; they do not object to the unpleasant or potentially dangerous thing being constructed elsewhere. Let’s stop again and think some more. Don’t we have a buzz word for people who tell other people how to live their lives? Butinsky is a too-common term. 

So, the good part of NIMBIES is that they would stop the Aliso Gas Fields and the bad part is that they are not Butinskies who should follow the gas company throughout California and always object. Sounds foolish, doesn’t it? If someone wants to build a freeway through my home in South Pasadena, I am a NIMBY because I don’t also object the 210 Freeway through Pasadena?

●●

There is the charade that NIMBYS have stopped the Target Store from being constructed on the south west corner of Sunset and Western in Hollywood. A prime complaint is that the two groups that sued the City, La Mirada Neighborhood Association and Citizen Coalition Los Angeles (CCLA), do not live in the neighborhood and are outsiders.   Thus, these NIMBIES are actually Butinskies. Yes, it is an oxymoron to label a NIMBY a Butinsky. 

Where is La Mirada? La Mirada is one of the closest neighborhoods to the major intersection of Sunset and Western. It is within easy walking distance of the proposed Target. So maybe La Mirada is a NIMBY since this commercial area is contiguous to it. 

Did La Mirada say, “Do not build here?” No. La Mirada said, “Welcome Target. Yes, a Target would be a fine addition to our neighborhood.” CCLA said the same thing.   

It’s defamatory to call someone a NIMBY because they welcome a project. Myths, however, are great fun as facts play no role. It’s easier to engage in name calling than it is in fact checking. 

As it turns out, Target had no objection to building a legal 35 foot store. It was then Councilmember Garcetti who wanted Target to violate the zoning height limitation. The Specific Plan limited stores to only 35 feet and Garcetti wanted 75 feet. That was more than double the maximum height. 

Had Target been allowed to follow the law, the store would have been opened by 2010. That’s right, without Garcetti’s interference, we’d be in our 7^th year of a shopping at Target, and Target would be approaching a billion dollars in sales? 

Does anyone think that Target preferred to have this protracted legal battle when they could have had a completed store before 2010? 

So who’s the real NIMBY? It’s Garcetti. The Court gave Target the go ahead to construct its store two years ago. La Mirada and CCLA are not stopping Target. The court is not stopping Target. The person who is stopping Target is Garcetti. If the City had issued a permit for a legal store two years ago, we’d have a Target by now.  

●●

Hollywood has a Community Plan. Community plans are supposed to set down the path for a community’s future. Community plans select a “Base Year Population” and from that population they determine how many fire stations, how many paramedics, how many parks, how wide the streets, how much housing, etc. we will need in the upcoming decades. 

Crucial to deciding all these things for the future is how rapidly the community is growing or declining. One does not need more apartments in a community when people are moving away. In 2010, Garcetti selected the Base Year of 2005 and said that Hollywood had 224,426 people, which was an increase of about 14,000 people over 2000. Quite an increase. Thus, he wanted Hollywood to add enough housing for 250,000 people by the year 2030. 

Hollywood did not have 224,426 people in 2005 and the population was not increasing, it was declining from a high of 213,912 in 1990 to only 1998,228 2010. Thus, no new apartments were justified, and planning on 250,000 by year 2030, was absurd. 

Five groups sued the City. None were NIMBYS, but all were called NIMBYS. None of them said, “not in my back yard.” None said, “We do not want a Community Plan.” The motto was “Garbage in, Garbage out.” The five groups merely asked Mayor Garcetti for a Community Plan that was based on facts and not on disinformation. 

The court rejected Garcetti’s Hollywood Community Plan because it was based on “fatally flawed data” and “wishful thinking.” None of the five groups were NIMBYS – they were citizens who devoted years of their lives to have the City tell the truth and make future plans based on facts and not on Garcetti’s pipe dream to Manhattanize Hollywood. 

Why dredge up the rejected Hollywood Community Plan? Because it’s back-filled with the same “Garbage in, Garbage out” data. Yes, the NIMBYS are alert and they’ve already discovered that there is no reliable data behind the new update to the Hollywood Community Plan. These NIMBYS should be re-named Fact Checkers. 

Here’s what the NIMBYS have found. The population estimates are based on the projects which Garcetti wants to build. Then, the City pretends that the apartments will be filled and that becomes the “population increase.” It’s circular reasoning. One cannot assume the conclusion in the premise. That’s Garbage in, Garbage out. The demographic data shows that Hollywood’s population is more likely to decline. 

When you hear the cry, NIMBY, you should be alert. NIMBY means that something bad or dangerous is happening. So, listen to the warnings of people who are fighting to protect the citizenry from bad government. If we had good government, there would be no need for NIMBYS.

(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.)

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PEOPLE POWER--The Coalition to Preserve LA strongly opposes Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal to gut CEQA and Coastal Act environmental protections for virtually any urban project where developers agree to add an insignificant number of affordable housing units. We urge our supporters, and those who believe developers are the last ones who should decide their communities' fates, to tweet and call Gov. Brown immediately regarding Trailer Bill 707. Brown's twitter is @JerryBrownGov, and his phone is (916) 445-2841.

Brown's wrongheaded plan tosses aside the California Environmental Quality Act and Coastal Act, handing the wheel to developers who have shown that without environmental oversight they won't hesitate to place thousands of children in harm's way, create gridlock and destroy neighborhood character.

The Coalition is sponsoring the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative on the March 2017 Los Angeles ballot to end developer control over what L.A. becomes. Contact us or donate at 2PreserveLA.org.

The Coalition this year criticized L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti and the City Council for encouraging developers to erect family housing near freeways. These developments have been dubbed Black Lung Lofts. Brown's attempt to detour around CEQA will hasten these dangerous housing projects. [[http://www.laweekly.com/news/black-lung-lofts-2164048 ]]

In USC's watershed Children's Health Study of 3,600 children, scientists proved that children living near freeways suffer chronic lung damage, particularly within a block of freeways. UCLA researchers found a higher risk for premature babies. Experts say this tainted housing cannot be “mitigated” with air filters, trees or tighter windows — microscopic metal and rubber particles still lodge in the lungs and brain.

In 2007, USC researchers took the unusual step of urging Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Eric Garcetti and the City Council to act. They were ignored. The city has pushed for dozens of freeway-adjacent apartment buildings and condos.  In 2010, then-Councilman Tom LaBonge told LA Weekly, “It would be great if we could call a time-out and try to plan better, but it's not practical." Like the rest of the City Council, LaBonge pushed for more freeway-adjacent housing, insisting, "We need to save jobs."

The Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, gathering signatures for the March ballot, gives L.A. residents the power to “call a time-out” and shape what L.A. becomes. We believe environmental review is crucial to preserving public safety, fighting gridlock and ending the destruction of neighborhood character.

Gov. Jerry Brown should heed the researchers' warnings about the poisonous airborne rivers in California. Instead, Brown is engaging in a sweeping attack on CEQA that goes in precisely the opposite direction.

Under the guise of saving the environment, Brown has argued that cramming family housing into already congested areas reduces global warming. Now Brown claims that halting environmental review in congested areas is the best way to create affordable housing. While the City Council recently approved ineffective changes to address Black Lung Lofts in L.A., Brown must do better: end his war on CEQA and the Coastal Act and find another way to increase badly needed affordable housing units in California.

(Jill Stewart is Campaign Director for the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative. She can be reached at [email protected].)

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GUN POLITICS--A divided federal appeals court in California ruled Thursday that there is no constitutional right to carry a concealed handgun, adding to a division among the lower courts on gun rights outside the home.

By a vote of 7-4, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld a California law that requires gun owners to show a good reason before they can get a license to carry a concealed handgun.

"The protection of the Second Amendment — whatever the scope of that protection may be — simply does not extend to the carrying of concealed firearms in public by members of the general public."

The court declined to say whether the Constitution protects openly carrying a gun in public. It said that question was not at issue in the case.

Gun owners in two California counties challenged the requirement that they show "good cause," as defined by county sheriffs, before they could get concealed carry permits.

Thursday's majority opinion traced the rights of gun owners from medieval England to the founding of the United States and through the Civil War, finding that local laws almost universally prohibited carrying concealed firearms in public.

In 1897, well after the adoption of the Second Amendment, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that "the right of the people to bear arms is not infringed by laws prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons."

The appeals court said it followed the U.S. Supreme Court's method of looking to history to resolve gun rights issues.

"Because the Second Amendment does not protect in any degree the right to carry concealed firearms in public, any prohibition or restriction a state may choose to impose on concealed carry — including the requirement of 'good cause,' however defined — is necessary allowed by the Amendment," the 9th Circuit said.

Many states have similar restrictions on concealed carry, and the lower courts are divided on whether they violate the Second Amendment. So far, however, the Supreme Court has declined to take up the issue in the wake of its landmark 2008 ruling that found a right to own a gun at home for self-defense.

(Pete Williams reports for NBC news. This piece was posted most recently at Huffington Post) 

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VOICE OF THE PEOPLE--The Los Angeles City Clerk's office has verified that a ballot initiative sponsored by Build Better LA has qualified, with a whopping 94,238 signatures that have been obtained -- far more than the 61,487 valid signatures required. Voters can expect to see the Affordable Housing and Labor Standards Ballot Measure on the ballot at the November 8 election, unless the City Council adopts the proposed ordinance, without alteration, within the next three weeks, as allowed by Charter Section 452. However, Build Better LA references the November election in their press release announcing the validation of the signatures. (Photo above: Training for BBLA signature gatherers.) 

The decision to be made now is either to go to the public for an up or down vote on November 8, or to let a majority of the LA City Council members vote the proposal into a law that can be signed by the Mayor. Will it be a few voices at City Hall, or thousands of voices at the ballot box? That is the choice. The decision must be made within the next three weeks by the City Council. 

The measure would incentivize developers to create more housing that residents can afford near transit, and to ensure that a percentage of residential units are set aside for low-income residents in Los Angeles on projects that receive discretionary zone changes or General Plan amendments. The measure also includes a local hire provision that ensures a living wage with good job standards. It’s sponsored by Build Better LA, a coalition of business, labor, affordable housing and community leaders. 

"City of LA residents agree that the City is getting more and more expensive to live in each day. By having our proposal on the November ballot, Angelenos will have the best possible chance to vote on a measure that brings housing people can actually afford and good, local jobs they could rely on. Build Better LA puts our City on a path to a brighter future," said Rusty Hicks, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and convener of Build Better LA. 

Another ballot measure, the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, being driven by Campaign Director Jill Stewart and underwritten by Michael Weinstein and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, is being circulated by the Coalition to Preserve LA, which hopes to have it before voters at the March 2017 elections. 

It’s a simple three-point ballot measure attacking the current system with these key objectives: (1) it stops developers from hiring consultants to do their own EIR (Environmental Impact Report). The city would hire the consultants, but developers would continue to pay for them; (2) it prevents developers from making huge slashes in the parking requirements for their projects; (3) it calls for a two-year “time out” on all developments that do not conform to the city’s zoning. 

Both measures relate to the affordable housing crisis and zoning, two important issues that need as much public discourse as possible. This is why having them on the November and March ballots so important.

(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].) Photo: LA Times. Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

Last week, 28-year-old Jasmine Richards, the founder of Pasadena’s Black Lives Matter movement, was convicted of ‘felony lynching’. The California penal code refers to lynching as “the taking by means of riot of another person from the lawful custody of a peace officer,” though the term brings up visions of KKK hangings in the southern states. Tuesday of this week, Judge Elaine Lu sentenced Richards to 90 days in jail with 18 days served, three years of probation, and one year of anger management.

What led up to this conviction and sentencing? On August 29 of last year, police had responded to a 911 call at a local park. The owner of a nearby restaurant had told the police that an unidentified black woman had skipped out on her check. Richards and other Black Lives Matter supporters were already in the park for a peaceful protest for Kendrec McDade, a 19-year-old unarmed black teen killed by Pasadena police in 2012.

Richards and other Black Lives Matters supporters rushed to the woman’s side when the police were in the process of arresting her. Two days later, Richards was arrested for her attempt to pull the woman from the police.

The initial charges brought against Richards included inciting a riot, child endangerment, delaying and obstructing police officers, and felony lynching. By the June 1 trial date, the other charges were dropped and only the lynching charge remained.

Richards isn’t the first activist to be charged with lynching. Maile Hampton was arrested last April for “lynching” during a Sacramento rally against police brutality. Occupy Oakland activists Tiffany Tran and Alex Brown were charged with “lynching” in 2011 and the following year, Sergio Ballesteros of Occupy Los Angeles was charged with “lynching” when he intervened during an arrest.

However, in all of these other cases, the charges were eventually dropped.

Jasmine Richards is the first African American to be convicted of lynching in the United States, which her attorney Nana Gyami characterizes as politically motivated to stop activists from organizing and from speaking out to challenge the system.

At first notice, the existence of lynching laws in California seems out of character. Most of us think of lynching as the Jim Crow-era terrorizing of black communities in the southern states. Governor Jerry Brown removed the term from the California criminal code in 2015, probably at least in part due to the racist associations.

The state’s anti-lynching laws enacted in1933 when a vigilante mob of 10,000 stormed a San Jose jail to seize two white prisoners who had been confessed to the kidnapping and murder of a 22-year-old son of a store owner. Police guards were attacked by the crowds and in what reads like a scene from To Kill a Mockingbird, the two prisoners were hanged from trees in a nearby park. No one was charged for the deaths but Gov. James Rolph, Jr. was prompted to sign an anti-lynching law.

The federal government had a pretty egregious record during the 1920s through 1930s until a national anti-lynching bill was passed in 1937 but that bill was squashed. California’s law was seen as progressive when the federal government has failed to act.

The lynching charges against activists like Richards seem exploitive and aimed at stopping social change. Violence certainly is not a preferred or legal way to impact social change but it appears that the members of the Black Lives Matter movement are the targets of intimidation, much like earlier civil rights activists.

Additionally, the legal precedent in this case is troubling. People v. Jones (1971) expanded lynching to include a riot of two or more people leading to their own escape. This has been exploited to include activists who resist their arrests, which are often unlawful. It’s important to note that California law states that interfering with police, which is how Deputy District Attorney Christine Kee described Richard’s actions, is a misdemeanor. To charge Richards with the lynching felony sends a message to activists and organizers that protesting is unlawful.

Black Lives Matter organizer Melina Abdullah comments, convicting Richards of lynching is “disgusting and ironic.” It’s hard to argue with that sentiment.

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

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PLATKIN ON PLANNING-As a former Los Angeles City Planner who was part of the team that prepared the General Plan Framework element, I offer an alternative work program with ten basic steps to properly update LA’s General Plan. If followed, it would reliably prepare, adopt, implement, and monitor the City’s General Plan according to State of California law and regulations, as well as professional city planning standards. 

My alternative work program is based on two assumptions: 

First, the “no money” claim for avoiding this important work is pure bunk. For example, only last week the City Council unanimously voted in favor of $200 million in subsidies and fee waivers for a new downtown hotel.  This is obviously a great deal of money, but still much less than the $519 million that former LA City Councilmember Jan Perry boasted about in her efforts to financially support companies like AEG through City Council largess. 

Second, the purpose of updating, implementing, and monitoring LA’s General Plan is to improve the overall quality of life in Los Angeles, not to facilitate real estate speculation or reduce public health and safety to policing.

Step 1 - Demographics: The first step is to produce accurate citywide neighborhood demographic forecasts. This is because Los Angeles relies on the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) and its inflated demographic projections for Los Angeles, especially the Hollywood Community Plan Update. These exaggerated forecasts resulted in Superior Court Judge Alan Goodman’s 2013 total rejection of the Hollywood plan’s text, EIR, zone changes, height district changes, and General Plan amendments. Furthermore, SCAG’s previous demographic forecasts for the General Plan Framework were 500,000 people too high for the element’s 2010 horizon year. 

Since this blunder, City officials have not yet bothered to investigate why this citywide forecast was so inflated. As for SCAG, its only explanation was an in-house paper that blamed its erroneous numbers on a failure to consider the business cycle, including the Great Recession, in its demographic methodology.  

Step 2 - Monitoring: Next, City Planning needs to establish the General Plan Monitoring Unit required by the Framework. Its tasks include accurate periodic measurements of employment, housing, population, infrastructure (maintenance, capacity, and user need), zoning buildout, and plan implementation. Without this information, it is impossible to know if or when existing or future plans perform as intended or require mid-course corrections. 

Step 3 - Re:code LA: City Planning should also freeze the current re:code LA rezoning program since the City of Los Angeles should not legally change the zone for every piece of property in Los Angeles before it updates its General Plan elements. General Plan implementation, such as zoning, should follow, not precede, the update of the entire General Plan. 

Step 4 - Update all General Plan Elements: After these steps, City Planning should address the six citywide, non-Land Use elements that the State of California legally requires, beginning with the four oldest ones: Conservation, Open Space, Public Safety, and Noise. The remaining two citywide elements that are up-to-date, Housing and Mobility, must then be amended to assure consistency with the updates of the other General Plan elements.                                                                                                                                 

Step 5 - Update Existing Optional Elements: The next step is to review and update existing optional elements to make sure that they, too, become fully consistent with the mandatory elements. The General Plan Framework and Air Quality elements are the most high profile, but older optional elements should also be included, especially Service Systems and Infrastructure, which are now celebrating their 50^th birthday. 

Step 6 - New Optional Elements: After that, City Planning should prepare two new optional elements that many California cities have already pursued: Climate Change and Economic Development. The Governor’s Office for Research and Planning has already prepared extensive guidelines for these optional elements. 

Step 7 - Update Community Plans: Then, with those previous six steps concluded, City Planning should address the Land Use element, more specifically LA’s 35 Community Plans and two District Plans. The city’s current proposal, to update the Community Plan elements before City Planning updates the citywide General Plan elements, is clearly out-of-sequence. This is because it is impossible to accurately update local plans without fully understanding citywide trends in Los Angeles related to infrastructure, services, zoning capacity, and demographic trends. 

Step 8 - Local Zone Changes: With this process well underway, City Planning should determine what local zoning should be changed as a result of a properly sequenced planning process. To undertake these comprehensive zone changes first, which is the City of LA’s current approach through re:code LA, is also obviously out-of-sequence. 

Step 9 - Infrastructure Spending: Like all other California cities, Los Angeles has a five year Capital Improvement Program (CIP).  The CIP lists all proposed public improvements, and the City Planning Commission is charged with confirming that these infrastructure investments faithfully implement the policies of the General Plan. This never happens, and it must become one of the CPC’s major recurring tasks. 

Step 10 - Annual Monitoring Reports: Finally, with these nine work program steps completed, the General Plan Monitoring Unit must prepare thorough annual reports that measure housing, employment, and population changes, and then recommend how these data should result in amendments to the General Plan's various elements, as well as all implementing programs. 

It is many years since the City of Los Angeles has taken on even some of this work program, but the necessity, expertise, and potential financial resources are all available. As already directed by the City Council in its April 14, 2016, resolution, let’s get this process underway.

(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].) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

GUEST COMMENTARY--Several months ago as I was driving through the City of San Fernando I noticed that there were no “cars for sale”. As I continue to drive in an attempt to get home to Pacoima it also became obvious to me that there are no parking lots on the lawns of single family residents nor were the streets being used as auto repair shops. 

I decided to ask “why?” I drove to the San Fernando City Hall and inquired. A young woman asked me could she help I replies “Yes.” I asked “Why are there no cars for sale on the streets of San Fernando?” She ask me to wait a minute and made a phone call. A young man entered from the rear and I repeated my question. 

He laughed and asked, where did I live? Once I said Pacoima, he really had a good laugh, and replied: “We enforce the laws in San Fernando, we all live under the same state laws, the difference is the City of Los Angeles don’t enforce the existing laws.” 

I didn’t need any additional explanations, the reason for the steady creeping decadence and crud in the city of Los Angeles is the failure of the city’s code enforcement agencies. It matters not what laws are on the books, if they are not enforced they are worthless. But then, I read almost daily the city council is steady making new laws. For what, they cannot enforce the ones they have now. 

Since that initial drive through San Fernando, I have been there many times. There are no peddlers on the street, I never see individuals cooking and selling food from carts on the streets or in the parks. Nev-er saw an 18 wheel tracker trailer parked on the streets of San Fernando. 

Why, what is the difference, two communities in such close proximity, yet one is clean, the other in a steady decline into “Third World Status”.

(Morris Eichon and Edwin Ramirez are co-publishers of the Pacoima Today Newsletter.)

-cw

POWER POLITICS--California’s Senate District 27 comprises some of the most beautiful and valuable real estate in the country. From the beaches of Malibu to the Santa Monica Mountains to the flat lands of the San Fernando Valley and beyond into Ventura County, it is treasured by environmentalists and coveted by their mortal enemies — the developers. 

In order to build in what is called SD-27, California's 27th Senate district, you need to be “entitled” — you need to have the right. Those rights are called “entitlements” and the lawyers with the right connections, the ones who can get you those entitlements, are considered royalty. When one of them decides to run for office the gloves come off. 

The Rezniks are the king and queen of entitlements. They have gotten entitlements for billions of dollars worth of real estate deals, so when Janice Kamenir Reznik abruptly decided she was entitled to the State Senate seat vacated by Fran Pavley she just took for granted that the other candidates would politely get out of her way. After all, Reznik & Reznik specialized in entitlements. 

They had helped Shappell Industries, the developers of Porter Ranch, get all their entitlements to build next to the Aliso Canyon underground gas storage yard, now the largest natural gas storage facility in the Western U.S.  But now all those homeowners are entitled to is righteous anger and reimbursement for the cost of moving out until the leak was capped and for the cleanup of the oil slime that coats their homes.

But let’s start at the beginning:  

As hubby Ben points out, in an interview with the Los Angeles Business Journal, "There were no land use lawyers back then." In 1979, when Shappell approached Reznik & Reznik for help with some land use issues, Ben and his partner, Janice, had created a whole new specialty – land use litigation - and we all know the rest.  

Janice blames lack of oversight for Porter Ranch, noting on her website that "the debacle in Porter Ranch, which is part of the 27th District, revealed that the legislature was asleep at the switch." 

But when the facts are revealed, it seems that the developers of Porter Ranch were not into disclosure. When Porter Ranch was permitted, the environmental report didn’t mention that oil field just down the road, as the Daily News reports.    

Ben and Janice were there "in the trenches" as Ben revealed to the Journal back in 2011, making sure those switches stayed turned off! During the 1980s the Rezniks represented virtually all the biggest developers, according to the LA Times. If you live in the Valley, just look out your window or maybe just inhale and you can experience the results of their labors, or as Janice calls them, “accomplishments.” 

Expanding their reach soon after Porter Ranch was built, the Rezniks went after the oil companies themselves - not as adversaries but as clients, hiring a former SoCalGas company regulatory attorney to head up their brand new Energy and Utility Division! So as methane wafted over SD 27, where Janice plans to reign, we know whom to thank - the Rezniks.  And don't be fooled - the firm name is Reznik & Reznik - the first is Ben and second is Janice - or is it the other way around?  

But the Rezniks weren’t through with the Valley – there was still Ventura Boulevard – the charming, historical low-rise walkable Main Street of the San Fernando Valley.  Remember when the afternoon sun hit the Encino backyards north of Ventura? Well thanks to the Rezniks the sun shines there no more.  Finally the City Council stepped in and created a plan to limit the height of buildings along the Boulevard – but not before Reznik extracted an exemption for his client’s 172-unit apartment building in Encino.  The LA Times reported on the negotiations. 

And on the Encino project in particular: When homeowners objected to the scale of the project, “Ben went nuclear,” the Times reported, cynically threatening to add subsidized (read Section 8) housing to the plan.  He got 150 units and he and his developer client headed right to the bank. 

In 1997, facing cash-flow problems, the Rezniks headed to the West Side, leaving behind a complaint about violations of their profit sharing plan and their office building which was put up for sale – but not their home.  Too bad the Reznik’s division which represented management against labor wasn't there to defend them.   

Reznik even went so far as to use labor negotiations to try to weaken CEQA – a long range goal: “That’s part of where the reform needs to take place so you can avoid a situation where CEQA is used as a leverage tool for someone to gain other advantages that have nothing to do with the environmental welfare of the community at large,” Reznik said, according to DTLA News. In 2015 Reznik predicted CEQA reform.  Sorry, Ben.  Even Jerry Brown can’t help you with this one.  

But even at Jeffer Mengals, where he oversaw over $20 billion in real estate deals, nothing was too petty for Reznik.  When his client Norman Bench Advertising lost its exclusive contract to manage the bus benches, Patt Morrison reports that Norman started removing all the benches leaving mothers, children, the old and infirm to stand for as long as it took to for the bus to come.  Nice work.  L.A. scrambled to get another firm to rebuild them. 

But let’s be fair - the Rezniks represented homeowners too - like this sheik who wanted to build an 85,000-square-foot mega mansion in Brentwood. The sheik filled the profile of the Rezniks' typical client - he had big problems and deep pockets! Vanity Fair called their article on the project "There Goes the Neighborhood"! .
Ben and Janice are a team. They raise money together – whether from developers or big oil (Chevron) aka the California Dental Association whom you can thank for all those mailers!   The Resniks use their connections well and if they get control of the gold mine that is SD 27 you can kiss CEQA goodbye along with much of what is left of our open space.  And if the developers want CEQA “reform” what will Chevron demand?    

If you want to trust SD 27 to Team Reznik then you know how to vote.  Maybe we would be better off with the Barrows … of Bonnie and Clyde.  

(Dorothy Reik is  head of Progressive Democrats for America of the Malibu/Santa Monica area and  a member of the California State Central Committee. Views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the opinions of CityWatch or its other writers or contributors.)

-cw

POT POLITICS--Hakeem Brown is unique. In the state of California, where black owned cannabis businesses are rare, Hakeem Brown owned and managed a licensed medical cannabis dispensary in Vallejo from 2009-2012, when it was shut down as part of a multi dispensary raid. The raid was deemed unlawful and the city was required to return the money seized during the police action.

Brown used this money to open up a new garden to grow for patients in Napa. This garden was raided and Brown was arrested for possession with intent to distribute despite possessing documentation confirming the medical nature of the garden. For four years the case has dragged on, with the judge limiting the ways in which those who were Brown’s patients can testify on his behalf.

Stories like Hakeem Brown’s are too common in a state that has allowed medical cannabis use for decades and is known for its lassie-faire attitude about cannabis. In fact, cannabis remains illegal in California, but you wouldn’t know it by witnessing its flourishing industry. The cannabis culture on display in incubators and expo halls is a far cry from what is happening on the streets of the Golden State, where in 2014, there were over 13,000 felony arrests for cannabis, with black and Latino people overrepresented among them.

Cannabis has been a non-incarcerable offense in California since the 1970s, and possession of less than an ounce has not been an arrestable offense since then. However, the subjectivity of “possession”, vs. “possession with intent to distribute” enables police to use “evidence” such as an empty baggie or a certain amount of cash to take a non-arrestable offense and flip it to a potential felony. Or, as in the case of Hakeem Brown, claim that cannabis grown for medical purposes is simply a front for illegal dealing. 

In the city of Oakland, black people comprise 25% of the population yet 78% of those arrested for possession with intent to distribute. On the other hand, white people comprise 35% of the population and only 8% of those arrested for possession with intent to distribute.

The racially disparate policing of cannabis crimes is not new information. Multiple reports have highlighted this pervasive practice. In 2011, then-Governor Schwarzenegger passed a law moving simple possession of an ounce or less to an infraction. Now considered on par with a traffic ticket, guilty parties simply had to pay a fine, no court appearance, no criminal record.

This change in penalty classification also came with downsides. Now data on marijuana possession offenses are no longer collected at the state level, which means it is now much more difficult to measure whether unequal enforcement persists after marijuana possession was reduced to an infraction. Additionally, as with traffic court, the fees added onto the fine can be hefty and can be more burdensome for some to pay than others.

In a collaboration between the Drug Policy Alliance and the ACLU of California, racial data on who is getting infractions were obtained from the cities of Los Angeles and Fresno and analyzed to determine whether there were racial disparities in marijuana possession enforcement. Data collected from Los Angeles and Fresno show that blacks were respectively cited for marijuana possession infractions 4 and 3.6 times more often than whites. The disparity is worse than the rates at which blacks were arrested for simple possession of marijuana prior to 2011, when possession was a misdemeanor offense.

In 2010, black were 2.2 times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana possession. Latinos were cited for marijuana possession infractions 1.4 times in Los Angeles and 1.7 times in Fresno more often than whites. It is likely that these disparities are actually greater. California has a long history of data collection challenges regarding Latinos, who are often classified by law enforcement officers as white and thus undercounted.

Most marijuana possession citations are issued to young people in both jurisdictions, particularly in Los Angeles. The mean age for those receiving marijuana infractions is 26.58 years old in Los Angeles and 28.82 years old in Fresno. In both cities, the majority of marijuana possession infractions were issued to individuals 29 years of age and younger.

Hakeem Brown was lucky. He was found not guilty at his trial in April. While he was fighting for his freedom, others were planning for the green rush. The infraction and arrest data in California show that there is a bigger issue at stake than industry. The harms of cannabis prohibition persist in California, and they do so most for young people of color.

The Adult Use of Marijuana Act, which will give California voters the opportunity to legalized regulated marijuana this November, allows those in jail for marijuana offenses that will no longer be punishable by arrest to petition for release, and for those on probation or parole to have their records expunged.

It also allows those with drug felonies to not only work in the industry but to be business owners. It’s far past time to stop the bleeding of prohibition that has been centered in our most vulnerable communities, and legalize cannabis in California. Once we move cannabis into a regulated market, we can slowly dress the wound left by decades of disparate enforcement by making a place in the industry for those like Hakeem Brown who have been on the front lines and have the scars to show for it.

(Amanda Reiman is the manager of marijuana law and policy for the Drug Policy Alliance. This piece first appeared on the Drug Policy Alliance Blog.  Follow Amanda Reiman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AmandaReiman. 

-cw

POLITICS--I had the good fortune in recent weeks to discuss my commentaries from CityWatch and elsewhere on KFI AM-640’s Sunday Morning with Elizabeth Espinosa. It is surely coincidental that the all-powerful LA City Council president Herb Wesson invited me for coffee and a chat prior to a Council meeting last week.

Under his leadership, Council’s inauthentic meetings lack genuine public debate that result in preordained, orchestrated unanimous votes. Imagine flipping a coin 15 times and it always coming up heads….for every agenda item. That is the essence of Los Angeles City Council and the unquestioning local media enslaved to it.

Historically, those who do not go along with the Wesson Way get politically disemboweled like former Councilmembers Jan Perry and Bernie Parks, who were ostracized and had their assignments and Districts’ best assets carved into the hands of Wesson allies, i.e. all the other Councilmembers. While Perry finagled her way back into a peachy political gig after terming out of office, Bernie went on to his pension-rich retirement.