LOS ANGELES

LA TIMES ON EDUCATION-A member of a Facebook group discussing education asked journalism ethics expert Peter Sussman about the LA Times education coverage and posted this. (Shared with permission.)  "I asked a journalist friend about the ethics of the LA Times taking money from Eli Broad while editorializing in favor of his project.” 

Here is his response: 

"Was I tagged because this is such a tough ethical issue to parse? It is not. With this kind of entanglement with the subject of its news stories, the Times has given up the right to expect any trust or credibility for its journalism on education. They are trapped in a massive conflict of interest, and no amount of pro forma disclosure will fix that. It's so sad to see what has happened to that once-great publication.

"You can add to the comment that trust and credibility are the life's blood of journalism, and without it, a ‘new’ organization is no different than any other partisan in public disputes, with the added problem that there is no major paper to hold it accountable, although in this case a blogger has apparently stepped into the breach. People have jeopardized and lost their jobs for defending their editorial independence and standing up to such conflicts of interest. I haven't read the background on the issue you've highlighted, but if all your information is accurate, the Times' problem extends beyond opinions to reporting, however well-intentioned their education reporters are."

Peter Sussman is a retired longtime San Francisco Chronicle editor who is also a past co-author of the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics.

(Karen Wolfe is a public school parent, the Executive Director of PS Connect and an occasional contributor to CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

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CityWatch

Vol 14 Issue 7

Pub: Jan 22, 2016 

BILLIONAIRES AT THE GATE-Over a decade ago, when there was a push to break off the vast San Fernando Valley from LAUSD, and for the Valley to form its own school district, I was not in agreement. However, with approximately 675,000 students in the 7 district areas that comprise LAUSD, I find I am now changing my mind, as have many of us who are education professionals and who follow and write about public education. 

This huge LAUSD enterprise, with a yearly budget of over $7 billion, has been mired in confusion, corruption, and inefficiency for many decades, and seems not to be manageable. I now tend to agree with some Angelenos who are pushing to reconstruct LAUSD into multiple independent districts. However, the danger is that it would further segregate the inner city students. 

Right now, the multitude of charter schools (LA has the most in the nation) pick and choose among students of color, leaving behind those who are hard to teach, English Language Learners, and/or those who are personally handicapped and have special needs. They have contributed to the almost total re-segregation of students of color despite the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education landmark decision by the US Supreme Court. 

It would be very costly to have all these new districts with a multitude of administrators. One of the greatest economic problems at LAUSD is the nepotism which has, for so many years, caused the hiring of many unnecessary middle managers whose large salaries are now built into the budget. They do little to deserve this taxpayer largesse. 

Many lifelong Los Angeles residents -- particularly those of us who are also professional educators -- are beleaguered by the lack of public input allowed by the district, as well as the lack of transparency shown by the district and the Board of Education in a system where highly financed candidates get elected to the BoE…people who either are not educators and/or also are not skilled in business management. 

We do not need more ‘Voteria’-impacted (paying for votes through an illegal lottery), multi-millionaire charter school candidates and other toadies of Eli Broad using his directives to run LAUSD. It is “We the People” who pay all the freight and this is the only thing that is "public" about Broad's latest permutation. In his new takeover scheme for “charterizing” the district, Broad tries to hide his name by calling it Great Public Schools Now, a plan that is actually designed to convert public education into a business model, a vehicle for free market profiteering. But the taxpayers are still footing the bills, so this is not a 'robber baron' solution to funding and running public schools -- it is not geared to educate the entire student base but, rather, only carefully selected students. 

The audacity of these billionaires boggles the mind. They have appointed a hardball charter school lobbyist to run their new 501c3 non-profit, rapidly tossed together after a major teacher and public protest at the Broad Gallery on the day of its opening. Broad's paid articles and editorials have been run in the LA Times, suggesting that their hired gun (hired to kill public schools in favor of free market profiteering) should give the new Superintendent of Schools “a seat at their table" and thus be able to participate in this destruction of public education. It is the greatest form of sophistry we have witnessed yet. It is off the charts in terms of any democratic structure...and public education has always been the crux of our democracy. 

We do need more people willing to run for the BoE, people who have some training in business management plus a background in education.  We got lucky that Scott Schmerelson, who, with his many decades of experience as a teacher and senior administrator, was willing to come out of retirement to run for and win a seat on the Board. He has become the major hope on the BoE to make reasoned decisions while also holding back the Broad deformers from taking over the district. 

We had hoped that George McKenna and Richard Vladovic, each with similar credentials to Schmerelson, would also function positively to protect the public schools against the billionaires’ charter onslaught, but it seems that these two men have become stuck in their own personal issues. 

Monica Ratliff, who is both a Columbia-trained attorney and an elementary school teacher, has been a staunch defender of public education as a member of the BoE, but she has been pushed into a background role by the testosterone overload on the Board. I still have faith that she will vociferously support Schmerelson’s position when he speaks loudly against the “Broad-billionaire clique” takeover. Once Steve Zimmer (photo above) completes his role as a BoE member and as the current President of the Board, there will be a far fairer changing of the guard. 

For now, however, it is imperative for the public to raise a loud voice in support of our public schools.  The outsider cash donated by Broad, the Waltons, Bloomberg, Murdoch, Anshutz, and others, to the now multi-million dollar LAUSD BoE elections that only a decade ago required a candidate to spend just $30,000, must be stopped. 

The push by these few golden boys and girls to take over all of our American institutions, expecting the rest of us to conform to their form of rule, turns all of us into serfs for Eli Broad and his band of invaders. It would be more productive and fair if these privatizers would donate to programs that strengthen the public schools…programs that would hire back teachers, aides, nurses, counselors, janitors, and fund the arts and special education, as well as academics.

(Ellen Lubic, Director of Joining Forces for Education is a Public Policy educator/writer. Views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the views of CityWatch or its ownership.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

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CityWatch

Vol 14 Issue 7

Pub: Jan 22, 2016

BILLBOARD WATCH-What a difference a dozen years makes. Back in 2002, LA City Councilmember Hal Bernson called for the removal of an unpermitted billboard in his San Fernando Valley district and the prosecution of its owner. But in 2014, Councilmember Mitchell Englander, who now represents that district, called for granting “amnesty” to that billboard and almost 1,000 others the city has identified as either lacking permits or having been altered in violation of their permits. 

At the same time, Bernson urged a legal challenge to a state law that puts the burden on the city to prove that unpermitted and altered billboards like the one in his district were erected unlawfully if they hadn’t been cited within five years. He told an LA Times reporter that the law was “horse manure” and said, “We have to test it. Otherwise we have no enforcement authority.”

The city never challenged the 1983 statute, widely regarded as a billboard industry privilege that no other kind of business in the state enjoys. Englander cited the law as a reason to grant billboard amnesty, predicting that the city would be drawn into ruinous litigation if it pursued action against unpermitted and altered billboards.

Bernson’s call for legal action came after he asked city officials to check a random sample of billboards in his district, which includes the communities of Chatsworth, Granada Hills, Northridge, and Reseda, among others. The partial survey found three unpermitted billboards and six that didn’t match the specifications of their permits.

Two of the unpermitted billboards are still standing and displaying ad copy and the third is currently shown as permitted by the city’s Department of Building and Safety. Five of the six altered billboards are also standing. One has an unpermitted second face, while several are higher or larger than specified in their permits.A citywide billboard inventory and inspection showed that Englander’s district has a total of 149 billboards, which is by far the lowest of any of the city’s 15 council districts. Of those, 15 lack permits and 11 have unpermitted alterations, according to inventory data made public nine months prior to Englander’s amnesty proposal.

The City Council’s PLUM committee, of which Englander is a member, added the amnesty provision to a new citywide sign ordinance that has been in the works since 2009, but on October of last year the City Planning Commission emphatically rejected the idea and questioned why the city hadn’t been taking enforcement action against the billboards known to be in violation of the law.

The PLUM committee okayed the amnesty shortly after receiving a letter from City Attorney Mike Feuer saying that enforcement action could be successfully taken against many of the billboards despite the state law colorfully characterized by Bernson in the LA Times article. Feuer told committee members that his office was ready to help in any enforcement effort.

The City Council could reject the planning commission’s action and reinstate the amnesty provision, but that would take a supermajority of 10 votes. Four councilmembers -- Mike Bonin, Paul Koretz, Paul Krekorian, and David Ryu -- have publicly stated their opposition to billboard amnesty. A fifth, Mitch O’Farrell, has said that he was pleased by the commission’s action, which also included a rejection of another PLUM committee proposal -- to allow digital billboards outside special sign districts.

Bernson retired from the City Council in 2003 after 24 years in that office. He was succeeded by Greig Smith, who was succeeded by Englander in 2011. Englander is currently a candidate for the LA County Board of Supervisors in this year’s June primary election, and has received significant support from billboard companies and their employees as well as lobbyists representing major billboard companies.

Interestingly, Bernson’s unsuccessful attempt in 2002 to get the city to challenge the state law seen as protecting illegal billboards came on the heels on a City Attorney race that many believe was heavily influenced by free billboard advertising for the winner, Rocky Delgadillo. (photo)

So it’s not surprising that Delgadillo never gave his blessing to Bernson’s call for the removal of the unpermitted billboard, the prosecution of the owner, and the challenge to the state law. Is also not surprising that Mike Feuer’s office opposes Englander’s billboard amnesty, since he was the loser in that campaign that featured Delgadillo’s name on billboards around the city in the days leading up to the election.

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

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CityWatch

Vol 14 Issue 7

Pub: Jan 22, 2016 

CONNECTING CALIFORNA--Last week, Michelle King was appointed superintendent of LA Unified, California’s largest school district. But can we really trust her to lead the Los Angeles schools? After all, she’s from Los Angeles.

Actually, that understates how suspiciously local King is. As a child, she attended LA Unified schools. Then she got degrees from UCLA and Pepperdine (and is even now working on a doctorate at USC). She has spent her 30-year career in the LA school system, as a science teacher, principal, and top deputy to the last two superintendents. Heck, she even sent three children to LA schools.

If she were any good, wouldn’t she have lived or worked someplace else?

Is that a ridiculous question? Yes, but it mirrors much of the reaction in Los Angeles to her appointment. While politicians and interest groups released official statements full of praise, everyone from education professors to newspaper editorialists whispered their disappointment that LA Unified had hired someone so achingly local and low profile. One mover-and-shaker lamented to me that while there is a Michelle King on Wikipedia, it’s the co-creator of the TV drama The Good Wife.

This is supposed to be the era when we celebrate the local—local produce, local bookstores, local governance. But in Southern California, we’re not so excited about locally grown leaders. It’s the dark side of being a globally connected and welcoming place. We have for so long been a city of stars from someplace else that we have little faith in those boring grinds who are actually from here, painstakingly pay their dues and then have the temerity to think they might run things.

And so King, who probably knows LA Unified better than any living being, was labeled a disappointing fallback choice. Los Angeles elites had been hoping for a star from the outside—a political figure like the Obama cabinet member Julian Castro or a member of Congress who could transition into schools; or some gilded creature from the billionaire-backed reform movement; or a high-profile superintendent from a city like Miami or St. Louis—both of which, it should be noted, have far fewer residents than LA Unified has students.

Of course, Los Angeles’ contempt for its own is not new. Los Angeles’ locally grown police chief Charlie Beck, for all his progress in crime-fighting and diversifying his force, labors under the sense that he’s not in the same class of out-of-town predecessors. Once an internal candidate, always an internal candidate.

And no matter who you are, making the New York Times has always been a far bigger deal than getting written up in the Los Angeles Times—even before our local paper was downsized by out-of-town owners. And Hollywood has organized itself as an exclusive club that keeps regular Angelenos at a remove; even in 2016, the entertainment industry remains so distant from the diversity around it that it has turned the Academy Awards, with another slate of all-white acting nominees, into a national joke. When our movie stars do philanthropy, it’s more likely to be directed to South Sudan than South LA.

Los Angeles also has a nasty habit of outsourcing thorny problems: When our big institutions get into trouble, we don’t knuckle down and fix them ourselves. We bring in outsiders to fix them. Over the past generation, our sheriff’s department, police department, the Dodgers, and elements of our transportation and school district have had to be taken over, or put under trustees. “Too much of the city has been taken into receivership,” the author D.J. Waldie has written of LA.

I’ve experienced LA self-contempt personally. When a source or friend is introducing me to some powerful LA figure, I’m struck at how little access my years of journalistic work in Southern California buy—and at how many doors suddenly swing open when it’s mentioned that I went to college at Harvard.

This is supposed to be the era when we celebrate the local—local produce, local bookstores, local governance. But in Southern California, we’re not so excited about locally grown leaders.

In this context, the reaction to King’s appointment, while frustrating, is hardly surprising. You could argue that she’s the best prepared LA Unified leader in a long time—having been a success as teacher, principal, and administrator, most recently as a top aide to the past two superintendents. Her expertise ranges from science education, to instructional reform, to student discipline. And she’s hardly following giants; the district has had eight superintendents in 20 years, many of them outsiders, including a Navy admiral who had little idea what he was doing.

And while elites don’t know her well—she was presumably too busy working to write lots of op-eds and give speeches—regular people in LA schools do. As the LA School Report site pointed out, King was far and away the most frequently mentioned person in the district’s online survey of what kind of new superintendent parents, staff, and teachers would want.

This community support, however, counted as a strike against her in editorials by the Los Angeles Times and LA Daily News after her appointment. Both papers damned her credentials with faint praise (the Times editorial called her “obviously capable” twice) and advised her to pick fights and make enemies—the kind of tactics that backfired on her predecessor and former boss, John Deasy. The only thing more condescending than the editorials was a column in which the Times’ Steve Lopez said the school board “decided on someone who has been a good, low-profile soldier rather than a strong, independent voice, and for now at least, I find that disappointing.”

And I find Lopez’s notion that a good local can’t be strong and independent to be maddening. And out of touch.

The reality is that, with all our diversity and strange ways of governance (from ballot initiatives to our hundreds of regulatory commissions), California’s institutions are getting more complicated—making it harder for outsiders to step in. And with all of LA Unified’s challenges, from its hundreds of thousands of poor students to its big projected deficits, there may be no California government more complicated and important.

In other school districts, local leaders or those elevated from the ranks have succeeded. There may be no better big-city school district in the state than Long Beach, run for the last 14 years by Chris Steinhauser, who was both student and teacher in the schools he leads. In San Francisco, Richard Carranza, who was the top deputy of his predecessor, has done so well that LA Unified sought to recruit him before choosing King.

At San Diego Unified, Cindy Marten, a local elementary school principal elevated to superintendent three years ago, has made some political mistakes but also has pleasantly surprised many with dramatic changes to culture, training, and personnel, including the replacement of more than 70 principals and vice principals.

Of course, LA Unified presents a bigger challenge. Which is precisely why a woman tough enough to negotiate the LA district as parent, teacher, and administrator for 30 years stands a better chance of succeeding than just about anyone else.

(Joe Mathews is Connecting California Columnist and Editor, Zócalo Public Square, Fellow at the Center for Social Cohesion at Arizona State University and co-author of California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It [UC Press, 2010]. This column was posted first at Zocalo Public Square … connecting people and ideas.)

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CityWatch

Vol 14 Issue 7

Pub: Jan 22, 2016

STREETS BLOG LA-Yesterday, the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), a national non-profit with state chapters throughout the country, released a report detailing the “12 biggest highway boondoggles” under study in the country. Not surprisingly, a California highway project made the list, the I-710 Tunnel Project in Los Angeles County. 

PIRG explains the project: 

San Gabriel Valley Route 710 tunnel, California, $3.2 billion to $5.6 billion – State officials are considering the most expensive, most polluting and least effective option for addressing the area’s transportation problems: a double bore tunnel. 

The 710 Expansion Project has been studied for decades and has been one of the most contentious projects in the region. For nearly a decade, Streetsblog Los Angeles has covered the public meetings, public outcry and community opposition to the project even as it soldiers on through study after study. The project was debated for decades before Streetsblog LA even existed. 

Heck, this isn’t even the first time a national environmental advocacy group has chimed in agreeing that plans to expand the 710 represented “one of the worst highway projects in the country.” 

The maligned 710 freeway project, which Streetsblog LA readers voted to name the “Southern California Big Dig” would extend the existing freeway north so that it connects with the 210. The most recent iteration of the project is championed by councilmembers and representatives of cities that are dealing with congestion on freeways and local streets south of the I-210 that connect with the 710. 

However, opponents of the expansion argue that a tunnel project is not the answer to congestion and port traffic. “I do not believe that the 710 freeway tunnel alternatives proposed by Caltrans and Metro make sense for our region or taxpayers,” writes Congressman Adam Schiff, who represents the portion of the San Gabriel Valley where the tunnel would be dug. 

“For the same cost as the $5.6 billion tunnel, we could likely complete all of the alternatives — light rail, bus, surface street improvements, bike and pedestrian walkways, cargo movement, and other traffic flow solutions — combined, and use the remainder of the money to repair some of our aging infrastructure. These alternatives are not only more cost effective, but far less disruptive of the affected neighborhoods.” 

Opponents have put together their own list of solutions to address mobility with a mix of transit, active transportation and highway and road projects. PIRG published recommendations for Caltrans and other California transportation departments to follow that would apply not just to the 710, but to every highway project designed to “reduce congestion.”  

This massive widening project, currently under construction, was pitched as one that would improve air quality and the environment. 

The study recommends that California and Caltrans: 

1. Adopt fix-it-first policies that reorient transportation funding away from highway expansion and toward repair of existing roads and bridges;

2. Invest in transportation solutions that reduce the need for costly and disruptive highway expansion projects by improving and expanding public transit, biking, and walking options;

3. Give priority to funding transportation projects that reduce the number of vehicle-miles people travel each year, thereby also reducing air pollution, carbon emissions, and future road repair and maintenance needs;

4. Include future maintenance costs, a range of potential future housing and transportation trends, and the availability of new transportation options such as car-sharing, bike-sharing, ride-sharing, and transit in transportation project selection decisions;

5. Invest in research and data collection to better track, and more aptly react, to ongoing shifts in how people travel. 

Caltrans has made progress in recent months, acknowledging that California’s mania for building more highways is actually counter-productive. But as any twelve-step program will tell you, admitting you have a problem is just the first step. Governor Jerry Brown’s recently proposed budget didn’t show any major changes on how the state funds transportation projects. Neither did last year’s. 

But as for the 710, PIRG has a specific solution. 

“Given that the proposed tunnel has extraordinarily high costs and would not serve to reduce congestion or improve air quality according to their EIR, Caltrans should immediately drop the 710 tunnel project,” writes Emily Rusch, the director of CALPIRG.

(Damien Newton, along with Joe Linton, heads up the excellent StreetsBlogLA … where this perspective originated.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

CityWatch

Vol 14 Issue 7

Pub: Jan 22, 2016

LA WATCHDOG--The Los Angeles Rams are returning to Southern California, 35 years after they left Memorial Coliseum for Anaheim and 21 years after ditching Anaheim for St. Louis.  But most importantly, the return to the Southland is not being financed with taxpayer money which is why the move to Inglewood does not make economic sense for either the San Diego Chargers or the Oakland Raiders. 

The Rams will be playing in an 80,000 seat stadium that is projected to cost $1.8 billion. But this futuristic, high tech venue is only part of a 298 acre, $3 billion entertainment complex that will consist of not only the football stadium, but over 4 million square feet of retail, office, hotel, and high end residential space as well as a 6,000 seat performing arts venue and a 25 acre park. 

This entertainment complex that is located in Inglewood, just south of the refurbished Forum that is now managed by New York based Madison Square Garden, is owned by Hollywood Park Land Company, a joint venture between two sophisticated, well-heeled partners, San Francisco based Stockbridge Capital, a real estate investment firm with almost $10 billion of assets under management, and The Kroenke Company, a commercial real estate and development company founded in 1985 by Rams owner Stan Kroenke. This family enterprise controls over 60 million square feet of space, including shopping centers, warehouse facilities, residential real estate and entertainment venues in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. 

However, if the Chargers or Raiders decide to relocate to Inglewood, the second team in the market would have to pony up $900 million, an amount equal 50% of the cost of the not-so-profitable stadium.  However, this team would not have the opportunity to participate in the upside of the joint venture unlike Kroenke, the owner of the Rams and one of the principals of the Hollywood Park Land Company. 

As a result, both the Chargers and Raiders would be better off by staying in their respective cities, leveraging the threat to move to LA with the cities of San Diego and Oakland for new stadiums, saving their $900 million needed for the Inglewood stadium, foregoing the payment of a substantial relocation fee, and taking the $100 million that the National Football League has offered each of them to stay in their existing markets. 

The relocation of the Rams to Southern California, the second largest media market in the country, is a huge win for the NFL as the 17 million residents in the Los Angeles metropolitan area (including the Inland Empire) will more than offset of the loss of 3 million people in the St. Louis metropolitan area where the Rams play second fiddle to their beloved Cardinals. 

Kroenke will benefit not only from his investment in the Inglewood entertainment complex, but also from the increase in the value of the Los Angeles Rams (v. the St. Louis Rams) over and above the $550 million relocation fee that the NFL will extract from the team.  

While the economics of the relocation of the Rams to Inglewood (and not the City of Los Angeles, contrary to the impression left by LA Mayor Eric Garcetti in his Sports Center interview) is of paramount interest to the 32 billionaire owners of the NFL, our question is when will we have winning team?  Fans may not be bothered by being forced to buy a personal seat license for thousands of dollars and pay over $100 for a nose bleed ticket, but putting up with another losing team is unacceptable, especially now that the Lakers have lost almost 80% of their games this season.  

The Rams have not had a winning record in 12 years.  Over the last five years, the team has won less than 40% of its games and over the last ten years, less than 30% of its games.  So the question to Stan Kroenke and Coach Jeff Fisher (a home town boy who graduated from Taft and USC) is: “What is the plan to produce a winning team, especially in a division that features the Arizona Cardinals and the Seattle Seahawks?”

(Jack Humphreville writes LA Watchdog for CityWatch. He is the President of the DWP Advocacy Committee and a member of the Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council.  Humphreville is the publisher of the Recycler Classifieds -- www.recycler.com. He can be reached at:  [email protected])

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CityWatch

Vol 14 Issue 6

Pub: Jan 19, 2016

GUEST WORDS--By the time Tom LaBonge [photo] termed out of the City Council in June 2015 his City Hall office was a mess. Shades of the fall of Saigon, file cabinets were emptied and records were shredded or just vanished. Not a single piece of paper was left for the incoming David Ryu administration. Council District Four residents who had been asking for assistance with problems or filing complaints were out of luck because there were no records for Ryu’s staff to respond to.

To make matters even worse, LaBonge had gone on a last minute spending spree. He promised to hand out over $600,000 in discretionary funds to various groups with no documentation to show how these expenditures had been earmarked or why.

When those of us who closely follow City Hall found out that LaBonge had emptied the CD 4 bank account we were stunned because the use of discretionary funds had been a major issue in the runoff election between Carolyn Ramsey, LaBonge’s former Chief of Staff, and David Ryu. For many voters LaBonge passing out money like Halloween candy was the straw that pushed them into Ryu’s camp. Ryu won the election hands down. (We can only speculate if those funds and files would have been left intact if Ramsey had been elected.)

In order to bring some sanity to the situation, on his first day in office Councilman Ryu filed motions to have LaBonge’s spending spree rolled back. On July 28, 2015 the City Council voted 15-0 to do just that. They cancelled LaBonge commitments and declared that these funds were unencumbered. Ryu then appointed a committee of stakeholders to advise him in this effort to review LaBonge’s pledges, but with no paperwork to go on the effort has been extremely daunting. The committee has been diligently trying to help the Councilman examine the requests and appropriately reallocate funds. But the task is complicated. Did the groups listed by LaBonge as needing public funds actually apply for them or was this LaBonge’s peevish attempt to empty the coffers before he left office?

There are legitimate and pressing needs for discretionary funds in CD 4: trees to be trimmed, potholes to be filled, sidewalks to be fixed, and the list goes on! Which of the projects on LaBonge’s list should be funded, which should not?  This is public money and each group should have to step forward and make their case for the funds to the Council office – and to the public.

The list of LaBonge’s giveaways ranged from Parent Teacher Associations to museums. It also appears that some funds were earmarked for projects outside of  Council District Four – these are probably the most egregious items.

The amounts on LaBonge’s list range from $2500 to $50,000. Some names are recognizable while others are not. All are just a simple line entry on  a page that lists the names and amount. There are no supporting documents illuminating why one group was to get money and others were not. To many this is the perfect example of a slush fund: opaque, arbitrary, and subjective.

One name and amount on LaBonge’s ledger immediately jumped off the page: Museum Associates was to get $50,000 to finance a way-finding project involving signage along Museum Row.

I had to look at it several times to make sure I was really seeing what I was seeing. Museum Associates is a privately owned 501(c)(3) non-profit doing business as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

This group receives around $30-million a year from the County to run LACMA and is also slated to get another $125-million from the County to build its new museum on Wilshire Boulevard. Museum Associates also owns the old May Company property were the Motion Picture Academy is being built – as well as its Spaulding parking lot and 6006 Wilshire Boulevard. So, the first thought that came to mind was does LACMA really need $50,000 from the CD 4 discretionary fund and if so, why?

In a letter LaBonge submitted to the City Council on July 28, 2015, he asked them to leave his financial gifts in place and not return the funds to Councilman Ryu. LaBonge claimed he was fulfilling a $ 100,000 commitment to Los Angeles County by giving $50,000 to LACMA and $50,000 to the Ford Museum. That actually should be fairly easy to check out. An inquiry to the County should turn up something that references such a commitment.  

Museum Associates should also be of help as they have a personal service contract with an independent contractor detailing plans for a way-finding plan to promote LACMA and other Miracle Mile museums. That contract mentions a grant from the city that will be used to pay the contractor. Surely there is something in writing that Museum Associates can produce that details the conditions of such a grant? The project may be the greatest thing since sliced bread, but what elevated it above all the other needs in CD 4?

Again, these are public funds and there must be a paper trail documenting the basis for this grant. Without that the specter of quid pro quo will forever hang over all of these funds and projects.

David Ryu is committed to an open and transparent process in this matter. He promises to come up with a grant proposal system that all must comply with. There is already a template that many Neighborhood Councils use to help them in this process. Whether a Neighborhood Council or a Council Office, there needs to be a rational and fair way to vet the expenditure of public money. After all, it’s our money – not Tom LaBonge’s.

(James O’Sullivan is Vice President of Fix The City and President of the Miracle Mile Residential Association. This perspective was posted first in the MMRA Newsletter, edited by Ken Hixon.) 

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CityWatch

Vol 14 Issue 6

Pub: Jan 19, 2016

COUNTY WATCH--The LA County Counsel Annual Litigation Report and the Chief Executive Officer’s Annual Risk Management Report will be heard on Tuesday at an atypical 1pm Board of Supervisors meeting.   

The Board of Supervisors is the defendant in county lawsuits and in FY2014-2015 roughly $61 million dollars or half of the county's total litigation bill was deployed toward fighting the Sheriff's myriad legal battles. 

Supervisor Solis described the reports as “an urgent call for introspection and action."  Self-analysis is critical but the county residents who have been footing the clearly escalating bill for such litigations are entitled to basic information.  That's because the dirty little secret that no one at the county wants us to know, is that half of the county's liability costs goes to lawyer fees, much of which is paid to outside white shoe law firms who have repeatedly refused to disclose their hourly rate or provide anything close to the kind of itemized bill one might expect from a plumber. 

Abetting such preposterous non-disclosure, the County has long been invoking Gov code 6255, which states "the public interest served by not making the record public clearly outweighs the public interest served by disclosure of the record." Why?  The City of Los Angeles, hardly a paragon of transparency, provides such information.     

The truth is, however, that the only interests served by the county's non-disclosure are those of the outside law firms themselves.  An important example of this fact relates to Richard E. Drooyan who was at first hired pro bono (an arrangement in and of itself, highly unorthodox and fraught with potential conflicts of interest) as General Counsel for the Citizens' Commission on Jail Violence but then was hired by the board to be the Implementation Monitor responsible for enacting the CCJV's recommendations.   

Apparently, Mr. Drooyan's compensation went from zero to a salary so unorthodox as to be made a virtual state secret by the board of supervisors who to date have spent thousands of dollars opposing a simple public records act request for the basic terms of Mr. Drooyan's contract.  Even though every one of the County's more than 100,000 employees has their salaries disclosed.  

It’s the salary that they dare not speak of, but it's important for us to know, because frankly we should get our money back. 

Perhaps the most important of the  CCJV recommendations requiring implementation was also the "deliverable" …  whose quality could best be assessed, and frankly, the document-- critical to the well-being of both deputies and inmates --is a disgraceful mess, full of embarrassing typographical errors and until recently, lacking page numbers.  Much more importantly, by not stripping out certain problematic sections, it has had the effect of actually legitimating them.   

One of several egregious examples can be found on page 90 of the revised manual we are told "Sworn personnel may demonstrate a “sparking” of the weapon in an effort to gain voluntary compliance of the suspect."   

How much did we pay to have that rule slip through the cracks?   

Which one of the 63 recommendations of the CCJV did that fall under?  How is sparking a Taser not something like cracking a whip?  

Until we are given such information, the public is left groping in the dark for sane policies on all of the above.  

Until our representative leaders get their house in order there is little chance that the jailhouse will be put in order.   

So, maybe that's a good excuse not to kick meaningful reform down the road any further, but rather kick the 2+ Billion dollar jail plan down the road until the many diversion programs focused on reduction before construction can get funding and get to work. 

While the OIG Max Huntsman's website has a terrific piece on deputies shooting themselves in the foot, one wonders what our OIG thinks of the "Use of Force Manual" and in particular, the language regarding Tasers?  

(Eric Preven is a Studio City based writer-producer and public advocate for better transparency in local government.  He was a candidate in the 2015 election for Los Angeles City Council, 2nd District.)

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CityWatch

Vol 14 Issue 6

Pub: Jan 19, 2016

HERE’S WHAT I KNOW-It’s been over 86 days since the Southern California Gas Company first reported the Aliso Canyon gas leak in the Porter Ranch community of the valley. The gas well, not expected to be contained until late February or early March at the earliest, has disrupted lives for many families in this suburban neighborhood. Over 2,200 residents have been temporarily displaced, housed in hotels and apartment buildings as far away as Warner Center and Westlake Village.

When students at Porter Ranch Community School and Castlebay Lane Charter School returned to classes after the winter break, they were no longer housed in their home schools. Back in December, the LAUSD board declared an emergency for these schools, both located within two miles of the gas leak. About 1,100 K through 8^th grade students at Porter Ranch Community School are now housed on the Northridge Middle School campus; and 770 kindergarten through 5^th grade students from Castlebay are housed at Sunny Brae Elementary School in Winnetka. In the months after the gas leak was first reported, absenteeism and visits to the schools’ health offices had increased; families had begun to choose independent study for their children. 

Could anything have been done to prevent the gas leak? Attorneys representing Porter Ranch families report that Southern California Gas Co. knew five years ago about the leaking wells in Aliso Canyon and had received a ratepayer increase to fund upgrades in 2013 -- but never replaced safety valves on its gas injection wells. 

LA County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich is asking fellow board members to join him in possibly curbing residential development in parts of the northern San Fernando Valley until, as Antonovich said in a statement released last week, “a thorough investigation can take place as to what caused the leak and what safeguards will be put in place to avoid a failure of this magnitude again.” 

One of the caveats involves halting development in Deerlake Ranch, a 314-home tract approved sixteen years ago. And Newport Beach-based Foremost Companies is in the process of pulling building permits for the 230-acre development north of the 118 Freeway at Topanga Canyon Boulevard, just 10 miles west of the entrance to the storage facility. Antonovich has asked county agencies to re-designate the area as permanent open space. 

Way back in 1989, before the area was developed, locals opposed overdevelopment, fearing traffic, depletion of water, and a strain on sewage lines and landfills. Environmental reports that outlined plans for the just under 3,400 homes that would be known as Porter Ranch contained no obvious references to the massive natural gas storage facility about a mile away. Despite the concerns of locals, the 1,300 acre development was approved by City Council in 1990 and became one of the largest residential and commercial projects in LA history. 

Twenty-five years later, families are squeezed into hotel rooms, surviving on takeout or restaurant meals. Kids must adapt to new schools and do their homework in tight quarters, unable to play with friends after school, play soccer or take karate in the neighborhood studio. Residents have suffered from various health issues caused by the methane gas exposure. 

Mothers and fathers, residents and business owners, activists and attorneys continue to mobilize to fight for what was lost and for the future. We must look at what has happened in Porter Ranch as a cautionary tale -- a tragedy that should not be repeated. Until the gas company can stop the leak and ensure the area is safe, any further development there should be curtailed.

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

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CityWatch

Vol 14 Issue 6

Pub: Jan 19, 2016

HERE’S WHAT I KNOW--The Neighborhood Integrity Initiative targeted for the November ballot picked up an endorsement from former mayor and top philanthropist Richard Riordan on Thursday. The initiative would place a citywide two-year moratorium on projects that attempt to circumvent existing land zoning in Los Angeles. 

Riordan has expressed disapproval with Mayor Garcetti’s policies. “If a person moved to the city now and heard Eric Garcetti talk, they’d assume he’s a member of the Tea Party,” the former mayor shared. “He isn’t doing anything for the poor but helping the rich get richer – through these zoning deals on land development.” 

The Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, sponsored by the Coalition to Preserve LA (CPLA) would prevent spot zoning by individual city council members that paves the way for developers to bypass existing zoning laws to build taller, denser buildings across the city on land zoned for less dense development. 

Should the initiative make the November ballot, stakes would be high. In attempt to address rising rents in Los Angeles, Garcetti has promised to add 100,000 housing units by 2021. A second piece of Garcetti’s plan is to place housing within proximity of rail and bus lines to encourage mass transit. 

On the other side, supporters of CPLA and the Neighborhood Integrity Commission argue that mega-development adds to street traffic and has a negative impact on both neighborhood character and livability with developers cutting deals to build larger structures than the city’s infrastructure can handle. 

Riordan cautions against placing too much zoning control in the hands of single council members. “That person is being lobbied by the developers and getting campaign money or campaign promises and this just has to end,” he warns. (Photo right: So-called Palladium Project that prompted the ballot measure.) 

The former mayor also questions the impact of positioning developments near bus, rail, and subway lines, noting that traffic congestion surrounding “elegant developments” near mass transit has worsened rather than improved. “You’re going to have more and more traffic around these over-developments,” he adds. “You cannot put in expensive condos and rental units and hope to attract people who will use public transportation. You will have two cars in each family.” 

The issue of affordable housing is crucial as LA moves forward. Tying development to encourage residents to use mass transit is an ambitious plan but spot zoning is unlikely to be the panacea. As Riordan predicts, the working class and poor will continue to be driven out, a historically prevalent outcome of gentrification. “Los Angeles is not a fast-growing city and it won’t grow all that much in the future but it’s going to switch to wealthier people under current policies,” Riordan observes. “It’s like San Francisco – a lot of wealthier people and a lot fewer minorities.” 

Riordan reflects on his own record as mayor. “When I was mayor, we prevented people from taking industrial land and turning it into high-rises because we still needed factories and manufacturing – for the good jobs it provides to the working class in LA.” 

He believes the moratorium to end land flipping and spot-rezoning is necessary to stop the net loss of existing, older affordable housing units in LA and he challenges Garcetti to define affordable housing. 

“It has zero to do with housing the homeless. It has to do with creating solidly middle and upper-middle class condos that area $4,000 a month,” he concludes. “Garcetti’s affordable housing will probably go for close to $3,000. So I want him to define it because the working poor in L.A., without question, can’t afford City Hall’s ‘affordable housing.’” 

Changing the landscape of affordable housing in Los Angeles, as in cities across the country, is complicated. Developers are more likely to build multi-unit projects that will capture rents that the market will bear. If we don’t curtail the power of individual city council members to assist developers in bypassing zoning restrictions, we aren’t likely to see that landscape change. We need to address the affordable housing issue in Los Angeles. Paving the way for developers to work around existing restrictions is not the way to do it.

(Beth Cone Kramer is a Los Angeles-based writer and CityWatch contributor.)

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CityWatch

Vol 14 Issue 6

Pub: Jan 29, 2016

METHANE MAYHEM-It’s early December, and I’m sitting in a mega-church packed with more than 500 people. They’re here to listen to an update on the efforts to contain an enormous natural gas blowout that occurred more than a month before. Gas from the leak is being blown by prevailing winds right into their community of Porter Ranch, in Los Angeles County, CA. 

People are mad. 

Hundreds of families have left their homes to get away from the rotten-egg smell of the gas, and moved into temporary homes elsewhere. Children are attending other schools further from the leak, which is spewing some 110,000 pounds of methane per hour from a broken well less than a mile from the neighborhood.  

Trust between the gas company, regulators, and community members seems absent. 

People question what else is in the gas that might have long-term health impacts. They want to know why many are suddenly reporting headaches and bloody noses.

I’m sitting in this church because my colleague Hilary Lewis and I were invited to Porter Ranch with our infrared gas-finding camera to see what this high profile disaster actually looks like. Before we arrived, the public had no access to images or video of the gas itself, as it’s invisible to the naked eye. 

We meet a local organizer in a supermarket parking lot, exit the vehicle, and even my horrible sense of smell instantly reacts to the scent of the gas more than two miles from where we stand. It’s coming from a well at the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility, an 8,000-foot deep sandstone formation — a depleted oil field — that SoCalGas uses to hold vast quantities of gas. In fact, it’s one of the largest gas storage fields in the nation, comprising some 115 extraction and injection wells, some of which operate at pressures above 2,000 pounds per square inch — a hefty load for well casings over 60 years old. 

We hike the hills and document the gas blowing sideways and downhill into town. Later that night, we see a plume of gas at least a mile long spanning Aliso Canyon. Of all the sites I’ve shot as a certified infrared thermographer nationwide, this is, hands down, the largest volume of spewing methane gas I’ve ever seen — and I’ve visited nearly a hundred sites around the country, including the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota. Each day, the leak is releasing the same amount of greenhouse gases as the average daily emissions of more than 7 million cars.

This video footage — aired nationally on NBC’s The Rachel Maddow’s Show and many other media outlets — has helped to draw widespread attention to the leak, and has assisted local residents in their efforts to get justice and to hold industry, regulators, and policymakers accountable.  

Just ten days later, I return to Aliso Canyon to shoot additional infrared footage for the Environmental Defense Fund from a small chartered aircraft. We fly as close as is safe, seeing a plume nearly 1,000 feet high under calmer wind conditions. The pilot can’t help but note the pungent smell not long after gaining altitude. 

We get a view of the well pad itself — a mangled looking mess coated in mud. This mud was used to try to “drown” the well during the first several attempts to plug the leak. Nothing worked. There are huge craters around the well, and no one wants to get too close with machines for fear of a spark turning the entire scene into an enormous fireball.

The footage I shot for EDF makes an even bigger mark on the national consciousness. Soon thereafter, California Governor Jerry Brown declares a state of emergency regarding the leak, and the Los Angeles Times editorializes against fossil fuels, referencing the Aliso Canyon leak. 

Right now, as the leak enters its tenth week, the underground pressure has been reduced by half of its original rate, due to the gas escaping from the leak and other actions taken by SoCalGas — the company operating the facility — to withdraw gas in a controlled manner.  

It will be months before the leak is repaired. SoCalGas is currently drilling two relief wells to divert the gas below the leak source, much like what was done during the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. But by the time the wells are drilled, most of the gas will be gone anyway. 

Methane, the primary component of natural gas, is 87 times more harmful to the climate than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. So far, an estimated 79,000 metric tons of methane have escaped from this one facility — so much that California’s goals to reduce climate pollution have been seriously compromised. It’s estimated that, at its height, the leak increased the state’s daily methane emissions by 25 percent.

What has this disaster taught us? For one thing, it’s yet another affirmation that fossil fuels are not safe or clean, and that things often go horribly wrong when it’s least expected. But more specifically, it highlights the woeful state of regulatory oversight on underground gas storage facilities such as Aliso Canyon. For example, the well casing at the site of the blowout failed hundreds of feet below the surface, likely due to the predictable corrosion of 60 year old well casings. To add insult to injury, the safety shut-off device for this well was removed long ago and never replaced.

So there you have it — a well operating at the upper limit of its pressure tolerance, with a safety valve deliberately removed long before, and a well casing that failed with no safeguards in place to prepare for when that time might come. Aliso Canyon has 114 other wells that could fail at any time unless adequate safeguards are in place.

Thankfully, Governor Brown’s declaration of a state of emergency will force a number of much-needed steps — both immediate and medium-term — that will address the situation. His declaration was much needed because, for example, the California Air Resources Board is considering new regulations that would address leak detection and repair for natural gas infrastructure, but these wouldn’t have applied to underground facilities like Aliso Canyon. Yes, you read that correctly. Now, due to Brown’s declaration, California regulatory bodies, including the Air Resources Board, will be required to assess the long-term viability of natural gas storage facilities in California.

It’s long past time to regulate these facilities properly, or take them offline entirely. Hundreds of underground natural gas storage facilities exist throughout the nation, and many of them could also experience catastrophic failures, in addition to other problems already occurring, such as groundwater contamination. 

To prevent more disasters like Aliso Canyon in California and around the country (there are 326 similar facilities nationwide) we need an emergency statewide effort to shut down facilities that lack basic safety equipment, including Aliso Canyon. Gas storage wells that lack shut off valves should be taken offline before other Porter Ranches happen. We also need increased oversight and management of these facilities, not to mention support for residents affected by pollution, including health care and financial compensation.

Moving forward, we also need a rapid transition away from gas. The Solutions Project, an organization working to accelerate the transition to renewable energy, has mapped out a plan for California to achieve 100 percent fossil fuel-free energy by 2050. This transition would protect communities from underground storage risks, gas line leakage, and explosions like the one in San Bruno.

Because nearby communities — and the global climate — cannot afford any more disasters, Earthworks, a nonprofit that works to protect communities from the adverse impacts of energy development, is working hand-in-hand with community groups to push for significant regulatory changes and enforcement. Learn more about Earthworks’ work here.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

(Pete Dronkers is the Southwest Circuit Rider for Earthworks. He is an ITC-certified thermographer. This piece was posted earlier at the excellent Common Dreams.)  Photo:   EarthWorks. The first (and to date only) direct overhead photos of the leaking Aliso Canyon well pad polluting Porter Ranch community; taken on December 17, 2015. Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

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CityWatch

Vol 14 Issue 6

Pub: Jan 19, 2016

EDUCATION POLITICS-The LA Times has written another diatribe peddling Eli Broad’s privatization plan for Los Angeles public schools (Eli is certainly getting his money’s worth in underwriting the LA Times education coverage). 

“What the LA School Board's resolution opposing the Broad plan might accomplish is to continue making this a politically divisive issue. Potential donors might then decline to join the effort, but would that really be helpful to students?”  

Really? Is it the democratically elected representatives’ vote to support public schools against a hostile private takeover that is the problem here? Is it LAUSD’s fault for discouraging otherwise willing donors to pay for the weaponry that would destroy its schools?

The LA Times goes on: “A better move would be to call on Great Public Schools Now [Broad's group] to provide a place at the table for the district’s new superintendent, Michelle King, to participate in the planning process. If the new nonprofit organization hopes to overcome resistance in the community, it needs to be more open about its planning and it needs to open the process to public discussion…”

Hello!

In its ongoing effort to convince the city that a huge public entity should be handed over to a private group of titans, the LA Times now suggests inviting the public official to the table to give the effort some credibility. This is the superintendent, who was appointed by the democratically elected board, to lead the public entity the titans seek to control.

As Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis has said, “You can’t have a seat at the table when you’re on the menu.”

The LA Times even suggests the plan should include funding for outside auditors.  I guess that’s to head off the mob that will cry foul at circumventing public process.

It seems the LA Times needs a civics lesson.

The things they think would make this process go better are the very things that define democratic process—the things inherent in a public school system: Public hearings. Involvement of experts. Inclusion of all stakeholders. Service to all not some.

If this group of do-gooders has such a bright idea, why don’t they come to a school board meeting, present it, and participate in the discussion that any of us does? Let’s hear a discussion about the educational value, the impact on desegregation goals, the research-based evidence, the cost, etc.

They won’t do that because they’re titans. They think they should run things without the inconvenience of public interference.

The LA Times has backed itself into a corner in advocating for the private takeover of the public school system. Now calling for a *public* process into a private takeover does not fix that.

The LA Times’ conflict of interest in promoting Eli Broad’s plan remains a problem. Just as every LA Times article about education now comes with an asterisk (*), so does this version of a public process.

(Karen Wolfe is a public school parent, the Executive Director of PS Connect and an occasional contributor to CityWatch.)

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CityWatch

Vol 14 Issue 6

Pub Jan 19, 2016

THE TRUTH ABOUT ROAD DIETS-Everyone in NELA who’s been awake for the last few years know about the reactionary cabal that has been struggling to keep Highland Park a preserve for “leadfoot drivers.” You know, the sort that has been maiming and killing residents on Figueroa Street for years – the sort that, lately, has been accelerating the pace of the bloodshed. And now the car addicts have started a petition on change.org asking CD14 Councilmember José Huizar to remove the bike lanes from York Boulevard. 

Sign the counter-petition here.  

These people employ what you might call discredited arguments, but really, they are just plain lies. They state that bike lanes have caused a loss of business, but the empty storefronts that existed before bike lanes are now largely occupied, and older businesses such as Huarache Azteca have invested in sprucing up their façades. They claim that bike lanes slow down emergency response -- they don’t. They say bike lanes cause traffic backups. 

What they don’t mention is that collisions of all sorts dropped dramatically thanks to the street’s road diet, which later added bike lanes without reducing mixed traffic lanes further. As for the other intuitive assertions, this UCLA study on the York road diet itself should set your mind at rest. Its conclusions were based on actual data gathered on the actual York Boulevard -- not on “gut feelings.” 

What causes traffic backups is too many cars which are drawn to a street when it has too much lane space. Cars cause congestion; building more lanes makes more room for more cars to cause more congestion. Don’t take my word for it: listen to CalTrans, which now admits that More Roads Mean More Traffic.  

In fact, it should be obvious even to the Neanderthals that we’ve been building more roads and more lanes for eighty years -- and traffic has gotten steadily worse. 

So I offer a compromise: for the next eighty years, let’s build nothing but bike lanes and transit lines, and see what happens. 

Who knows? We might end up like Denmark, which currently holds the Number 1 spot on Forbes Magazine’s list of best places to do business,  as well as being home to the happiest population on this poor beleaguered planet. 

All those bike lanes help….

(Richard Risemberg is a writer. His current professional activities are centered on sustainable development and lifestyle. This column was posted first at Flying Pigeon.  Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams. 

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CityWatch

Vol 14 Issue 6

Pub: Jan 19, 2016

MY TURN-I received a lot of questions asking me how I felt about Councilmember Felipe Fuentes (District 7) announcing that he would not run for election in 2017. I have been critical of him and his rather cavalier attitude toward most of his constituents. In fact, much of the central and northeast parts of the San Fernando Valley have not been well served by their elected city officials. 

Fuentes is well known for not answering questions. And so is his staff. I have asked them all to state their points-of-view on issues I have covered in my articles. All have neglected to answer any queries, either negatively or positively. I don't take this personally because many of his constituents have also been ignored, and I’m not even a constituent. However, as my dear departed Mother would say, that is just plain rude! 

The Los Angeles Times ran an interview with Fuentes in which he spoke about his sixteen years of public service. He gave the impression that he was burned out, that he could no longer give his constituents the service they deserved if he opted for a second term. I was rather taken back since I had yet to discover what services he had actually devoted to them in his first term. 

His comments sounded rather noble, but what the interview did not disclose were the other factors involved -- including angry constituents. In September, Fuentes announced that the space occupied by the Sunland Tujunga Neighborhood Council (STNC) for the last eleven years would have to be vacated in November. He also gave an eviction notice to the Substation of LAPD housed in the same city-owned building. 

He had decided to rent the space (for $1.00 a year) to two non-profit organizations involved in helping the homeless. A great hue and cry was raised both in CityWatch and by other Valley news outlets and social media. All the protest came to naught; the STNC and the LAPD had to find new homes. 

Apparently, the City Council doesn't interfere with decisions made by individual Councilmembers, even when the Councilmember is not truthful in the file on which he is asking them to vote. 

Fuentes claimed that the change would free up space for groups that address homelessness and other community issues. “I'm not going to be apologetic for bringing more services into the district,” he said.  

Adding to the intrigue was an aide to US Rep. Tony Cardenas, who also represents part of the Valley.  She disclosed last year that she had received a subpoena to appear before a Federal grand jury. Months later, the LA Times reported that several aides to another Valley officeholder, CM Nury Martinez, had also received subpoenas. 

Fuentes' district director, Yolanda Fuentes Miranda, went before the grand jury in December. The councilman declined to comment on Miranda, who happens to be his aunt, but said her appearance had nothing to do with his decision to leave after one term. 

Last September, when I began my research into District 7, I found that none of the NCs and non-profit groups were ready to go on record with their opinions of Fuentes – even though he is not running for re-election. Such reticence would indicate that they were afraid of retribution. 

Northeast Valley politics has existed as a kind of political stronghold for a long time. Some stakeholders refer to groups in power as "the cartel" or "the machine." I don't think they mean they are literally relatives of the Mexican cartels or have anything to do with the drug trade, but they have pretty much picked the winners of the various electoral races in their area for several years. 

One big exception, and what I think precipitated a grassroots push back, was the election of Assembly Member Patty Lopez who upset and defeated Raul Bocanegra. Incumbent Bocanegra was supposed to become speaker of the State Assembly…but Patty Lopez threw a nice monkey wrench into that plan. 

It is rumored that there are grand jury ethics questions related to that election. Staff members from three different political offices were supposedly sent as “supervisors” and “watchdogs” for the recount of the Lopez/Bocanegra votes – all while working for other politicians. 

I had a business office in Mexico for more than 20 years. Some of the political nepotism I see here is reminiscent of how political jobs were handed out down there during those times. 

There are quite a number of staff positions occupied by people with the names “Fuentes” and “Padilla.” Some of them must be related to the elected office holders and their titular boss, Alex Padilla. 

District 7 is really a microcosm of Los Angeles. There are ranchers seeking to retain the rural flavor of the area and they fight against most development. There are pockets of extreme poverty and a huge homeless population, attracting drug dealers, thieves and other ne'er-do-wells. There are also middle class sub-divisions and gated communities. The terrain is both hilly and urban inner city. There is a large Latino population and a conservative white group. The region runs the gamut on the economic scale. 

The Bullet train is causing a great deal of stress to many residents. Plans now call for it to run through the middle of some of these Northeast communities. And El Nino will probably flood the Tujunga Wash where developers want to build 250 upscale homes. 

But despite all these real and potential difficulties, residents of the Northeast Valley have seen that grassroots efforts can make a difference. A new group, initiated by Sunland Tujunga community leaders late last year, now has over 2500 Facebook members on its page called, "An Open Letter to CD7." It has spread to neighboring communities and they are working the social media and raising awareness. 

Here is an edited look at their purpose: 

OUR MISSION: CD7 Open Letter has been created to recruit members of the ST community to become signers to the open letter that the administrator will author in an effort to bring about positive change to CD7 in general and Sunland Tujunga in particular. 

When the letter is complete, members will have the opportunity to decide if they support it. If they do support it, their name will be included as a signer. 

The group is for people who support the following goals: 

1. Cleaning out the homeless camps all over CD7.

2. Strict enforcement of vagrancy, loitering and trespassing laws.

3. Cleaning up the parks.

4. Initiation of patrols of the Wash, forest and sensitive wildlife areas to ensure that camps are not reestablished.

5. Proactive working with property owners who have been impacted by the influx of transients and trespassers caused by public policy failures…people who have no means to effectively deal with it on their own.

6. Enforcement of the homeless ordinances recently passed by the LA City Council but largely abrogated by the mayor.

Members agree that a solution should start with law enforcement. The city should work to make our streets livable and safe again and not give them over to transients and drug dealers. We believe it’s about being able to take our kids to the park or on a safe walk along the creek in Big Tujunga. It's about not being attacked in our cars by crazy people. It's about seeing new stores open because Foothill no longer looks like a mini Skid Row. 

Members of this group truly want to help the homeless. We are all compassionate people, many of whom devote time and treasure to help. But unless the authorities make it more difficult to live on the streets or in the Wash and on the hillsides, no one is going to have the motivation to get help. The camps will continue to grow. 

Transients who steal and the hard core drug dealers who have threatened us need to be dealt with by the authorities or, at the very least, they have to be made so uncomfortable that they relocate to other areas. 

IF YOU'D LIKE TO PARTICIPATE, PLEASE VISIT HERE. 

Just in the last couple of weeks, community leaders from different neighborhoods have met to talk honestly about the kind of person they would want to represent them on the LA City Council. The groups have included Republicans and Democrats, Libertarians and Independents but unfortunately (for me) no press. This is a non-partisan office. These leaders see an opening for neighbors to actually have a voice in who they elect, instead of being given just a few choices. 

It is rumored that potential candidates will receive a “report card” from representatives of the entire area; their grades on the most important issues will be disseminated in the community. 

Several people have indicated their desire to run. The big question is... who will be anointed by the old guard? Raul Bocanegra has already had several fund raising events; it’s rumored he wants a re-match with Patty Lopez. 

I question why Fuentes decided to give so much notice in announcing his “retirement” from politics. During the next year and half he can continue to follow the same shoddy path or he can create a legacy of inclusion, putting his constituents before his personal agenda. If he would resign now the cost of a special election would be burdensome.  

We will be watching his actions closely. As always, comments welcome…

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

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CityWatch

Vol 14 Issue 6

Pub: Jan 19, 2016

PERSPECTIVE--Benedict Arnold betrayed our nation, but at least he accomplished significant good before he strayed down the dark path of treachery. He saved the Continental Army from certain defeat during the retreat from the failed invasion of Canada, skillfully parrying British efforts to destroy it. His leadership at Saratoga led to the most important strategic victory for the colonists and was a major factor in drawing France into the conflict. French assistance was vital in George Washington’s overwhelming victory over the British at Yorktown. 

Ratepayer Advocate Fred Pickel (photo) sold the ratepayers and stakeholders of the DWP up the Yazoo without so much as contributing to the public’s awareness of just why rates must be increased. 

His statement declaring DWP’s proposed series of rate increases as “fair and reasonable” has provided the DWP and its GM, Marcie Edwards, with a public relations windfall. 

The following press release was issued by the DWP on January 15: 

We are pleased that the Ratepayer Advocate has found that the power rate request to be “just and reasonable,” as it will invest in replacing aging infrastructure, which is critical to providing reliable electric service to our customers. If the Board of Water and Power Commissioners and the City Council approve the rate request, it  will allow us to continue the transformation of our power system to a clean energy future that protects the environment, while complying with regulatory mandates.

We have included key performance metrics and regular public reporting of our progress in the proposed power rate ordinance as recommended by the Ratepayer Advocate, and we are pleased that his report recognized that this will increase transparency and accountability by linking rates to the progress and performance of key programs. We are also grateful that the Ratepayer Advocate recognized that the Department has been instrumental in supporting the design and inclusion of the reporting mechanisms in the rate ordinances, referring to LADWP’s support and actions as, “unprecedented and a reflection of a more mature and sustainable management practices.”

Dr. Pickel’s independent review of the rate request is valuable, and we are reviewing his additional recommendations. We look forward to consideration of the power rate action by the Board of Water & Power Commissioners next Tuesday (January 19) and consideration of both water and power rates proposals by the City Council and Mayor thereafter.

Fred Pickel has never bothered to reach out to the media and the public about the need for reform at the utility. The hundreds of millions of dollars siphoned to the city’s poorly managed general fund at the expense of ignoring much needed capital improvements and maintenance to our water and power system should have been at the top of his agenda.

He should have been battling the City Council over the continuation of this backdoor tax and publicly disclosed how much it has diverted from the primary task of maintaining infrastructure.

He should have raised a giant red flag about the conflict of interest evident in DWP labor negotiations.  As long as the IBEW and its members can contribute to city election campaigns, the ratepayers will never have fair representation.

He should have emphasized the steady increases DWP employees received during the recession when the residents were taking pay cuts. 

He can analyze the numbers all he wants – and that is a job that must be performed – but the results lack meaning when taken out of context of the bigger issue of reform. In his report issued January 15^th, the same date as the DWP press release, he attempted to couch his characterization of the increases as “fair and reasonable” in officialdom-speak:

“Reasonableness is an opinion held by rate-setting public officials performing a specialized duty to the public interest. The essence of this opinion is whether the rates charged are equitable to the many competing interests facing a monopoly utility.”

Nice to know how public officials interpret the meaning, but how about the public’s perspective?

Edwards wasted no time in using Pickel words to promote the city’s objectives. She should have paid him. Endorsements like that are worth money.

Pickel can redeem himself if he counters the DWP’s press release with a very public and unambiguous statement criticizing Marcie Edwards and her masters for leveraging his ill-conceived, and apparently nuanced, “fair and reasonable” characterization of the rate increases.

If not, it is time for the Neighborhood Councils to issue a statement of “no confidence” in Doctor Pickel’s ability to represent the public.

(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 Village to Village or CityWatch. He can be reached at: [email protected].)

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GETTING IT RIGHT-After many months of delay, the city finally got to work on the much-needed amendments to its flawed mansionization ordinances – the Baseline and Hillside ordinances known as the BMO and BHO.  Homeowners and residents from Echo Park to Valley Village to Westwood have pleaded for years for relief from reckless overbuilding. Now, they are voicing enthusiastic support for meaningful reform. 

Some supporters live in neighborhoods already covered by Interim Control Ordinances that provide a measure of protection. Others are in neighborhoods that are still fully exposed to the devastation of mansionization.  Some are in a queue to be designated HPOZs (Historic Preservation Overlay Zones) and some will rely on citywide regulations for protection. Exact preferences may differ a bit from one cohort to the next, but they are all calling loud and clear for appropriate limits on home size in single-family neighborhoods. Naturally, there some who are still fearful of opponents’ doomsday scenarios. No surprise there.  

The real surprise is the breadth of support from Angelenos who do not even live in the single-family neighborhoods covered by the BMO and BHO. Some of these supporters live in “mixed” neighborhoods where single-family homes share the street with multiple-family dwellings; some live in higher-density residential neighborhoods. Some own their homes and some rent.  

What they all share is their grasp of the big picture: Los Angeles will never be a world-class city until it demands development that honors the scale and character of its neighborhoods, both residential and commercial. Amending the BMO is an essential element of enlightened public policy, moving toward a more livable city.  

The mansionization ordinances in effect since 2008 have fallen far short of their goal. Councilmember Paul Koretz’s admirable council motion to amend them laid out a simple, straightforward path to getting it right. His amendments propose allowing for spacious, comfortable homes for modern families, while still respecting the scale and character of established neighborhoods.  

That’s why Los Angeles Conservancy has come out in support of amendments that faithfully reflect his motion. (You can find a partial list of organizations that support the amendments on the No More McMansions website.) But important as it is to fix the BMO and BHO, it’s not the end game. It’s a down payment on the promise of sustainable development -- an explicit commitment to end mansionization – and both are embedded in the City of Los Angeles’ policies and principles.  

Our city’s residential neighborhoods are beset on many sides. R-2 and R-3 neighborhoods are grappling with the replacement of duplexes by McMansions – a trend that runs directly contrary to the city’s density and affordability initiatives. They are threatened by small-lot subdivisions that disrupt the fabric of neighborhoods and severely strain infrastructure.  

So why do R-2 and R-3 neighborhoods care about fixing single-family neighborhoods? Because the BMO and BHO amendments are first-up on the agenda, and they set the tone for everything that follows. Fixing the BMO forces the city to acknowledge that mansionization is too widespread and damaging to ignore. It strengthens the arguments and paves the way for regulation that will preserve the scale and character of other zones and neighborhoods. It serves as a foundation to build on.  

Speculators who are strip-mining residential neighborhoods would love nothing better than to drive a wedge between hillsides and flats, single-family neighborhoods and all the rest. But Angelenos are on to them. We know that money gives developers and realtors access and clout while the rest of us must rely on our numbers and our nerve. We are standing together to insist that the city do right by its residents. 

(Shelley Wagers is a neighborhood activist who has campaigned for the last ten years to stop mansionization in Los Angeles. She is an occasional contributor to CityWatch. For more information, please log on to  www.nomoremcmansionsinlosangeles.org or send email to [email protected].) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

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CityWatch

Vol 14 Issue 6

Pub: Jan 19, 2016

TRANSIT TALK-It's said that no good deed goes unpunished, but the Westside will soon have to grapple with the benefits and challenges of a major mass transit line running through Culver City through West LA and ending up in Santa Monica. And make no bones about it -- there are both solid benefits and thorny challenges to be confronted. 

On Friday, January 15, 2016, roughly 15 years after it was approved by Metro in 2001, the Expo Line Construction Authority handed control of the Exposition Light Rail Line to Metro to begin pre-revenue service (testing, troubleshooting, analysis but no actual commuters yet.) 

The Expo Line was and is a very special moment in both county and grassroots politics. Its main support came not from the top down but from the non-profit, volunteer organization Friends4Expo Transit  which was founded, led, and co-chaired by Santa Monica resident Darrell Clarke and several others at a time when the Internet, modern grassroots advocacy, and neighborhood councils were all in their earliest stages of development.  

The Friends4Expo Transit was itself championed by both those in power and ordinary residents who -- as the memory of the LA riots faded and an awareness developed that gridlock was destroying our quality of life -- realized that Los Angeles needed new paradigms in both mobility and development. Initial outreach from Metro came in the form of two special engineers -- David Mieger and Tony Loui -- who provided guidance, updates, and education. 

LA and other Westside, Mid-City and Downtown residents needed their cars because buses alone cost most commuters more time and patience than they could tolerate, and because greater access to a reviving Downtown was imperative to reestablishing an urban core necessary for Los Angeles County to become a major national and worldwide economic power. 

Friends4Expo Transit intentionally had co-chairs and an inner circle made up of both men and women, and of individuals of both black and white ethnicities, and were both Westside and Mid-City residents. Outreach to grassroots and political entities was foremost and was performed with virtually no budget whatsoever. 

The grassroots and political powerhouses of the City and County of Los Angeles really didn't know what to make of Friends4Expo Transit, whose members paid out countless of their own dollars and devoted years to the work of overcoming the political and economic obstacles necessary to make the Expo Line a reality. 

There were more local and political obstacles to overcome than could possibly be described here, and the struggle to create a proper, well-built, and environmentally-friendly Expo Line was a tedious, prolonged fight which still goes on today. Even the formation of the Expo Line Construction Authority did not end the struggle – and arguably that Authority's leadership may have created a few problems. 

Only when the Authority did true outreach to community leaders and Friends4Expo supporters did things begin to happen; but issues such as native plants, station design and allowing the existence of the accompanying Expo Bikeway was and are still ongoing points of contention. 

This is particularly true for the Expo Bikeway that still remains a hotbed of contention in the Cheviot Hills region that had been the focal point of opposition to the Expo Light Rail Line. 

It is certainly not the fault of either Metro or Friends4Expo Transit that the City of LA has problematic and potentially illegal tendencies to overdevelop, thwarting both its own City Charter and CEQA law, the question of whether a "Pandora's Box" has been opened weighs heavy on the minds and hearts of those who fought for the Expo Line. 

People who gave it their all fighting for the Expo Line were and are also being strong-armed by City of LA and Santa Monica leaders and planners whenever issues of common-sense zoning, congestion, and environmental law arise. 

Following the approval and initial construction of the Expo Line between Downtown and Culver City, momentum for mass transit throughout the county helped pass a half-cent sales tax (Measure R).  A decade ago, the empowerment of county residents and political leaders, influenced by the passage of the Expo Line, helped Measure R pass by an overwhelming majority of county voters. 

Yet the modern-day debates over Planning and Mobility in both Santa Monica and Los Angeles threaten whether a "Measure R-2" will achieve the 2/3 voter threshold this November that is needed for voters to approve more local funding to jumpstart transportation and mass transit. 

But it began with Westside and Mid-City grassroots voters and organizations willing to take a big chance on mass transit and who were optimistic yet concerned about what the Expo Line will bring. 

And, depending on how much local governments respond or fail to establish a successful Expo Line, will see whether the same grassroots that got the City/County powers-that-be to create the Expo Line will change course to halt more mass transit because of overdevelopment this November. 

Let's just hope and remember that -- in an era where ordinary citizens feel less empowered than ever -- that the Expo Line is a symbol of what ordinary individuals could do if they put their collective hearts and minds into a singular project: a rail line, the Expo Line, which is hoped and meant to connect us and bring us together.

(Ken Alpern is a Westside Village Zone Director and Board member of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Planning and Outreach Committees, and currently is Co-Chair of its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee.  He is co-chair of the CD11Transportation Advisory Committee and chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at  [email protected].   He also does regular commentary on the Mark Isler Radio Show on AM 870, and co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Mr. Alpern.) 

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CityWatch

Vol 14 Issue 6

Pub: Jan 19, 2016

EDUCATION POLIITICS-LAUSD is a business that for generations has been more concerned with the well-being of its exclusive "agreed vendors" of goods and services than it has been for the successful formation of its students. The uncontested reason for the very existence of this behemoth as the second largest school district in the United States is what is called the “economics of scale.” This is where, in theory, a larger entity like LAUSD, with its enormous buying power, should be able to get the best price for goods and services at the lowest wholesale market price. 

However, the opposite reality has been the case for generations. For years, you could go into any retail store and buy almost anything for less than LAUSD pays for it. You could even get the newer more up to date model or version with better warranties. 

So why is it that LAUSD remains such a dysfunctional entity, rife with incessant scandals such as the building of Belmont High School on an irremediable toxic waste dump or the way-over-budget Ambassador Hotel high school being built with talking benches or the still unaddressed $1.3 billion iPad debacle? Why is this happening generation after generation to the detriment of the vast majority of its primarily poor and minority students? 

The reason? Power corrupts. And unnecessarily centralized power corrupts absolutely. While the idea of “economics of scale” might be reluctantly tolerated, what is never addressed is that the consolidation of power brings the danger of endemic corruption -- especially when highly centralized administrative business decisions are made by inexperienced ex-teacher administrators who are ill-equipped to stand up to the sophisticated vendors who’ve been bilking the district for years. 

Into this fray comes new LAUSD Superintendent Michelle King, who has moved up the ranks in this purposefully flawed de facto segregated, academically underachieving culture over the past thirty years. She has done this by not by making waves and by going along to get along. When you examine who the LAUSD chooses for its superintendent (or any administrative position), it seems that the most important qualification is the assurance that person will do nothing to change its vendor-friendly, student-toxic culture. 

Whether it is Michelle King or her most recent predecessors Ramon Cortines and John Deasy, the hallmark of this type of “reform” leadership is that it only addresses the effects of a long-failed LAUSD public education but never the underlying causes. King’s first suggestion upon entering the superintendent's job was to have exclusively all boy and all girl campuses. This notion is supported by competent academic authorities, yet it doesn’t address the damage of socially promoting students who arrive in kindergarten already way behind. 

Instead of championing an early intervention program addressing each student's academic level, irrespective of age, it seems that under Michelle King, LAUSD will continue to socially promote ill-prepared students…who are then assured to fail whether they are in a mixed gender or single gender school. 

The same is true for her second goal: "making sure every student graduates." Again this cannot be done without addressing the deficits underlying each student’s prior grade level achievements in a timely, age-sensitive manner. Up until now, this is something that has remained conspicuously absent in the plans of prior LAUSD superintendents. Why do they never question of failure of social promotion and the assured subsequent academic failure? 

It’s human nature to not change unless there are known negative consequences. But one cannot blame LAUSD administrators alone, especially since no local, state, or federal oversight has done anything to hold LAUSD accountable for its failure. Socially promoted students lacking the skills they should have with a high school diploma arrive at junior college unprepared. Unfortunately, 75% continue to fail, some taking remedial classes, and a disproportionate number of them dropping out; and there is no governmental agency legally charged with intervening, asking questions like, "What's going on here and who's fixing the grades and the CAHSEE exams that these students have supposedly passed?" 

It is not lost on me that new LAUSD Superintendent Michelle King is an African American and a woman. One can only hope that she will comport herself in a manner befitting the needs of what remains a nearly 90% de facto segregated school system. And this is 62 years after Brown v. Board of Education said, "Separate but equal...is inherently unequal." Yes, and I still believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.

(Leonard Isenberg is a Los Angeles observer and a contributor to CityWatch. He’s a second generation teacher at LAUSD and blogs at perdaily.com. Leonard can be reached at [email protected]) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

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CityWatch

Vol 14 Issue 6

Pub: Jan 19, 2016

DEEGAN ON LA --“Harry Potter Swoops into Controversy with an Epic David Versus Two Goliath's Struggle on Eve of Theme Park’s Grand Opening” is not the Variety headline you’d expect as one of the world’s most famous and successful movie and book franchises makes its debut at Universal Studios Hollywood. It’s a brand new iteration: "Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey”, a novel new ride -- in 3-D no less! 

The grand opening at the theme park has been announced for April 7. But will the Wizard be met by picketers protesting the closure of the southbound Hollywood 101 freeway’s Barham off ramp that was eliminated in order to build a grand driveway into the park, linked to the freeway? 

There is a fourth “D” in this scenario: it’s the “David” (aka Keep the Barham Ramp association) that is suing the two Goliath’s, Comcast-NBC Universal and Caltrans (State Department of Transportation.) The suit is over what Hollywood Hills resident John Strozdas, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, says was a violation by Caltrans of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by not providing substantial proof it had studied alternatives to the closure, and also not sufficiently backing up its findings regarding the closure's effects. 

"It is the experience of many persons who ... use the Barham (southbound) off ramp that police and fire services regularly use the ... off ramp to provide public services to that area and that without it, they will have to exit approximately one mile north ... increasing response time," states the lawsuit. 

Caltrans has addressed this allegation in fifteen succinct words, stating that this closure ”will have a less than significant impact on public services, including fire and police services.” 

Fifteen words buried in a 39,000 page Environmental Impact Report. Blink and you’ve missed it. 

This denial can be found on page 8, section K of an addendum to the EIR, the environmental impact report mandated by CEQUA. But no substantiating documentation supports this claim -- no independent traffic studies from LADOT and no on-the-record findings from LAFD and LAPD. Nor were there any attached documents showing Q+A from the community, many of whom say they were caught off-guard by the ramp’s closure since it had been labeled “Bennett Drive” and not what it actually is, Barham Boulevard. This looks like a wizardry that Harry himself might approve of, if, in fact, trickery was the objective. 

There were no justifying declarations from Caltrans or Comcast NBC-Universal that could reassure the community that they would have a happy Hollywood ending if they ever needed first responders in an emergency.  

The lawsuit alleges that Caltrans did not prove that public safety would not be impacted. Many residents believe there is reason to be fearful; they are concerned that fire and police responders will be the victims of this freeway ramp closure. And they may have a point. 

Has Comcast-NBC Universal, a monolithic entertainment giant capable of being a good neighbor and corporate citizen, cast a dark shadow over the people and places in its orbit? Did they know what they were doing to the surrounding community by closing off an important route for emergency responders?  

It seems that the southbound Barham off ramp just got in the way of the Harry Potter theme park visitor traffic plans. So it was “offed” and public safety has taken a hit. 

The new Grand Entry to the park is designed to speed visitors directly from the 101 Hollywood Freeway to Universal Studios Hollywood's first outdoor roller coaster, the "Flight of the Hippogriff,” a new restaurant called Three Broomsticks, a pub called Hog's Head, twenty-nine stores and restaurants at the City Walk promenade, and finally, the nineteen movie theaters -- all at the top of the hill. There’s a reason the sprawling complex is called Universal City. 

Freeway traffic will now flow smoothly in and out of this goldmine, possibly keeping local streets less congested with theme park traffic. That claim has yet to be proven, but will be settled once Harry Potter opens for several weeks of visitors during the spring and summer. 

While many Comcast corporate stockholders may be happy with the increased profits Harry Potter will generate, some community stakeholders are not so pleased. This community falls into three camps: the insiders, the outsiders, and the non-aware.  

Residents in the Cahuenga Pass, Lake Hollywood and the Hollywood Hills are fearful that this freeway ramp elimination will add precious minutes to emergency responders that had previously been “freeway close” via the Barham off ramp.  

As any cop or firefighter will tell you, when it comes to an emergency, it can come down to a matter of minutes. The faster the response, the better the result. An extra few minutes delay in reaching a heart attack or stroke victim can mean the difference between stabilization and eventual recovery, or a state of permanent vegetation, or worse. 

As a result of the Hollywood Freeway Barham off ramp closure and the new traffic management plan for emergency responders, those minutes will mount up quickly. 

NBC Universal has told CityWatchLA that “the Caltrans study concluded that the new 101 southbound on-ramp will help improve traffic along Cahuenga Boulevard, which means better access to local roadways for all drivers, including emergency vehicles. Caltrans also determined that the freeway improvements, including the off-ramp closure, will not impact public services.” All this remains to be seen, once Harry Potter opens and increased numbers of visitors swarm the Cahuenga Pass. 

Comcast-NBC Universal, the world’s largest media company (according to Forbes Magazine) with corporate annual net profits of $8 billion, and Caltrans, the mammoth state transportation agency with an annual budget of $11 billion. 

Comcast-NBC Universal and Caltrans maintain that public safety is not at risk with the closure of the Barham off ramp. But this is their opinion and not fact backed up by documentation and studies. And if tragedy occurs and the two Goliaths are wrong, more lawsuits could follow, especially if someone dies because an emergency responder is unable to get there fast enough. 

The community suspects that Comcast-NBC Universal paid Caltrans $30 million to facilitate the closure of the southbound Barham off ramp, stating that there remain two other ramps in the same proximity. Comcast-NBC Universal denies the existence of these funds, stating that such money was earmarked for unrelated traffic studies of the 134-170 freeway interchange and for Hollywood and Highland. Carrie Bowen, Director of the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) District 7 (Los Angeles and Ventura counties), would neither confirm nor deny this when her office was contacted by CityWatch. We will discover the truth of these allegations if the pending litigation reaches a judge and jury.  

One payment by Comcast-NBC Universal that has been acknowledged is the $50,000 paid to the Outpost Homeowners Association in negotiating for their support or tamping down their opposition, depending on which side you take. These funds were earmarked for traffic mitigation for neighborhood improvements, stated John Campbell, a board member of the HOA at the time of the transaction. “The fact is, they ‘bought our HOA’, and even though the money went to the city, under the stewardship of former CD4 Councilmember Tom LaBonge, it was just a cute way of the HOA accepting those funds and be able to say we’re clean.” He added, “We couldn’t even get $250 from the HOA for the cause (the lawsuit), because they had already been bought.”  

This chilling effect on an HOA’s prospective support of a lawsuit shows how funds by developers are used to freeze opposition. Several other HOA’s surrounding the Harry Potter project may have had their own “deals” with Comcast-NBC Universal. This makes them “insiders,” and an example of how the shoe can sometimes be on the other foot -- with the HOA “green-mailing” the developer, withholding support until funds are provided. This is often described as “traffic mitigations.”  

The proposed Neighborhood Integrity Initiative ballot measure may supercharge needed reform and cast sunlight on developers, mandating that this “cash for blessings” paradigm be forced out of the shadows, creating transparency instead of suspicions and secrecy.  

Developers and HOA’s alike must be required to publicly disclose what cash and other transactions take place as part of the land use agreement process. 

This puts a spotlight on the “insiders:” the several neighborhood homeowner associations that Comcast-NBC Universal has been cultivating ever since it was mandated by LA County to do community outreach during the 2013 approval process for the Comcast-NBC Universal Evolution Plan, the 25-year blueprint for the property. 

The six favored homeowner organizations (HOA’s) are Cahuenga Pass Neighborhood Association, Cahuenga Pass Property Owners Association, Hollywood Knolls Community Club, Studio City Residents Association, Toluca Estates Drive Homeowners Association, and Toluca Lake Homeowners Association.  

The following rules of public engagement were set by Comcast-NBC Universal’s management for the quarterly meetings with these groups:  You must be specifically invited, one of two authorized representatives of one of the six approved HOAs; you must RSVP and be authenticated before being given the location of the meeting; and you may send your questions in advance for review by Comcast-NBC Universal before the meeting even starts. The meetings are not open to others in the community, or the media. Some have called this strict control mechanism “elitist,” or “preaching to the choir” or “non-inclusive.”  

The next meeting is Tuesday, January 19, the day following the celebration of MLK’s birthday: the man who challenged us all to “let freedom ring” in his historic 1963 “I Have A Dream” speech before tens of thousands at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. But freedom to engage with Comcast-NBC Universal is apparently not universal, unless you are a favored and vetted insider in the group of six. Once a year, they let all members of the approved HOA’s in the front door for what Comcast NBC-Universal callas an “annual meeting”. 

How some parts of a community get included in the conversation may stem from the rigid corporate culture governing Comcast-NBC Universal, whose corporate parent, Comcast Corporation, is legendary for hiring dozens of ex-Members of Congress, and anyone else with influence in Washington DC, to lobby Congressional and state legislatures for the cable company’s agenda. Forbes Magazine ranked Comcast the number one media company worldwide last year. They are big and they are powerful. They have a very good record of setting the meeting agenda and getting what they want. They are a Goliath. As is Caltrans, a Goliath.  

The “David” in the piece is a small, outsider community group -- the Keep the Barham Ramp association -- fighting huge odds through a pair of lawsuits against the two Goliath’s. However, the Biblical story of David versus Goliath reminds us that one well-placed rock, lobbed by sling shot into the eye of a giant leveled the playing field. 

Negative opinions are being directed at public relations sensitive, image-conscious Comcast-NBC Universal. In this climate, it will reveal how it plans to treat a community that they do not really “own.” This could end up being the rock that is thrown at them.

(Tim Deegan is a long-time resident and community leader in the Miracle Mile, who has served as board chair at the MidCity 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.

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CityWatch

Vol 14 Issue 6

Pub: Jan 19, 2016

LATINO PERSPECTIVE-Trishna Patel, Media Director and Travel Writer @RomanceTravelConcierge, sat down with George Sifuentes in the summer of 2015 to discuss the challenges of approaching strangers, the pressures that come with social media notoriety, and why he attributes his focus on LA’s Latino community to time spent with his grandmother. (Photo: A Sifuentes’ photograph) 

Patel asked him to describe his favorite things about shooting in Los Angeles -- what are his favorite areas and why? 

He responded by saying that the best thing about shooting in LA is the variety of people and neighborhoods that are so close to one another. Hands down his favorite place to shoot is Downtown on Broadway, running through the historic core where the city’s oldest souls and newest inhabitants walk side by side. His second favorite spot is Boyle Heights/East LA. To Sifuentes, Mexican culture is so visually strong in these areas that it's highly unlikely he’d leave without finding anything good. His third favorite spot is Venice Beach. He argues, if you look beyond the tourist trail you’ll find some of LA's truest characters that are influenced by art, music and gang culture. 

Another good question asked by Patel was, what exactly is it about people that Sifuentes wants to capture and portray? 

He answered by saying that he wants to portray truth and originality in his subjects – and for his audience to look at his portraits and understand without a doubt that his subject is the true and beautiful character he or she is. 

The Latino community has been Sifuentes’ home and Patel asked him about his particular interest in LA’s Latino community. Since he grew up with young parents, he spent a lot of time with his grandparents. For him, photographing streets in LA is a nostalgic act – he used to walk on Cesar Chavez Avenue and Grand Central Market with his grandmother. (Photo left: George Sifuentes) 

Being Latino here means so many different things, adds Sifuentes. “We are [one of] the few communities in Los Angeles that can point to five or more generations that were born and raised in this city. Documenting both the older and younger generations as well as observing the varying degrees of mainstream influence is very interesting to me.” 

Finally, he argues thatspeaking Spanish is everything when it comes to photographing the Latino community. It establishes a common bond which leads to trust; plus Latinos, mostly the older ones, want to know why the hell you want a picture of them in the first place. The elderly have no understanding as to why Sifuentes would want to photograph them. They could care less about his photographic passion and most of the time they are not even aware of their own beauty. 

I think Trishna Patel did a great service to the Latino residents of Los Angeles by conducting this interview with Sifuentes; he raises a very important awareness of what Los Angeles really is. He shows us a view of this city that is hard to document by any other means. 

I just hope that residents and visitors alike learn to appreciate the importance of our city’s great diversity; how it has and continues to contribute to the greatness of the State of California and to our country as a whole. 

After all, Los Angeles is one of the largest and most diverse cities in the world, and the second largest in the United States. It would be hard to imagine Los Angeles without its Latino community. 

Thank you George Sifuentes for your contribution to our city.

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

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CityWatch

Vol 14 Issue 5

Pub: Jan 19, 2016 

CHARTER SCHOOL WARS-As we continue to see, the highly biased LA Times is under the thrall of Eli Broad and his cohorts to take over public education in Los Angeles and convert it to free market profiteering. Almost daily, the Times runs what is loosely called journalism, lauding charter schools and defaming public schools.  They add a disclosure announcement at the end of these articles admitting they are paid for by Broad and non-profits such as United Way where he calls all the shots. 

Here is the operant paragraph of Sunday's editorial from the LA Times, which is paid for by Eli Broad and his claque of pretenders (see their full disclosure which appears repeatedly with most of the education issues on which they report). 

“A better move would be to call on Great Public Schools Now to provide a place at the table for the district’s new superintendent, Michelle King, to participate in the planning process. If the new non-profit organization hopes to overcome resistance in the community, it needs to be more open about its planning and it needs to open the process to public discussion — after all, whether charter schools or not, these are all public schools.” 

“The Times receives funding for its digital initiative, Education Matters, from the California Endowment, the Wasserman Foundation and the Baxter Family Foundation. The California Community Foundation and United Way of Greater Los Angeles administer grants from the Broad Foundation to support this effort. Under terms of the grants, the Times retains complete control over editorial content.” 

What a pile of manure…the only way these charter schools are public, is that We the People, we the public, we the taxpayers, are forced to pay for them…with NO oversight by the public, the government, or the school system. This is an amazing scam concocted by the Bonfire of the Vanities guys to use public funding for public schools while transferring students to privatized charter schools, all for their own profit.  Rupert Murdoch and Eli Broad have openly written about this, and they and their billionaire buddies are gathered in their kingdoms, cackling at their success in fooling the public. 

Now we read in their controlled corporate media, the LA Times, that Broad and Company wants the new Superintendent of LAUSD, Michelle King, to sit at their golden table as a participant with his hit squad, to charterize and privatize the rest of LAUSD…or at least for now, up to 50 percent more charters which take away from public education. Their fantasy seems to be that Michelle King will now work for them and be a subject to Myrna Castrejon…and of course Eli Broad. 

It is shocking to see that Broad lawyers and PR firms now use as their mouthpiece, this hard core, non-educator, lobbyist for CCSA who spent her time twisting arms in Sacramento and who now thinks she is on the same level as the new Superintendent of LAUSD. 

Here is the Times dossier for Myrna Castrejon, (photo) the political hit woman who works for charter schools: 

“The organization driving a controversial effort to vastly expand charter schools in Los Angeles has selected one of the state’s most visible charter school advocates as its first executive director.

Myrna Castrejon, 50, is leaving her position as a lobbyist and strategist for the California Charter Schools Association to lead Great Public Schools Now, a non-profit organization established to carry out the charter expansion strategy, which was first developed by billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad and his foundation. 

“In her new position, Castrejon will become the face of an initiative that is stoking tumult among educators and push-back from the Los Angeles Unified School District. An early proposal called for raising $490 million to enroll half of the district’s students in charter schools over the next eight years. 

Castrejon, senior vice president of government affairs for the charter association, begins her new role Feb. 22. She said a key priority will be reaching out to leaders of the nation’s second largest school district who, just two days ago, publicly opposed the plan developed by the Broad Foundation. 

LA Unified Supt. Michelle King on Thursday echoed concerns raised by the school board, saying she does not support any initiatives that propose to “take over” the district by encouraging students to enroll in charters.” 

How many of the California legislators are under the influence of Broad and his endless cash? We know for a fact that former LA Mayor Anthony Villaraigosa, who is now preparing to run for Governor, is prime among these sellouts to Big Money. He is so close to Eli and John Deasy, he can taste them. 

Have we lost all control of American society and democracy to Broad his band of oligarchs? How can they form a new 501c3 and think it will be the vehicle to infiltrate the school district and usurp it totally from the Superintendent to the BoE to every classroom and every piece of LAUSD real estate? 

The arrogance and sheer chutzpah of this power grab is mind boggling. 

The real public, those of us living in the community, better wake up to this irreversible loss of public schools; we must take to the streets to preserve what is left. California already has more charter schools than any other state in the Union, and Los Angeles has the most of any city in the nation. Yet university reports show that the preponderance of these charters do no better than public schools in educating students, and a large group does far worse...all the while making big bucks using ill prepared teachers who flee their charges quickly.

(Ellen Lubic, Director, Joining Forces for Education, Public Policy educator/writer. Views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the views of CityWatch or its ownership.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

-cw

CityWatch

Vol 14 Issue 6

Pub: Jan 19, 2016