LOS ANGELES

THE BUSINESS OF FAMILY LEAVE-Kirsten Calkins was about five months pregnant with her first child, working as an executive coordinator at a small nonprofit in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Like many working parents in the U.S., she worried about how she’d manage having less money coming in while she cared for a new infant.

Her employer, the International Association of Privacy Professionals, offered four weeks fully paid leave, then five weeks at 60 percent pay and then, if you could swing it, an additional three weeks unpaid.

But Calkins was lucky to become pregnant in 2015: the year companies, particularly in tech, woke up and realized that you can’t strand workers facing huge personal challenges.

In January, IAPP -- which counts many tech companies as members -- started giving all its workers 12 weeks fully paid leave after the arrival of a new child.

“The level of excitement is hard to put into words,” Calkins told The Huffington Post. “Not having to juggle a life altering experience like having a baby with budgeting for a new expense with less income. It was like a weight was lifted.”

The U.S. is one of a handful of countries that offers mothers no paid maternity leave. It is the only developed country without a paid leave policy. The lack of support causes a significant percentage of working parents to fall into poverty. It puts the health of parents and infants at risk.

Finally, in 2015, policymakers and companies started to pay attention -- we may someday look back and see this past year as a tipping point in the movement toward paid leave for all. 

A significant number of businesses -- from Adobe to Netflix to Microsoft to Goldman Sachs -- announced they would expand paid benefits for their employees. Twenty-one percent of companies surveyed by the Society for Human Resource Management were offering paid maternity leave in 2015, up from 16 percent in 2011.

And, for the first time a U.S. President got serious about paid parental leave and sick leave. “Today, we are the only advanced country on Earth that doesn’t guarantee paid sick leave or paid maternity leave to our workers,” Obama said in January’s State of the Union address. “And that forces too many parents to make [a] gut-wrenching choice.” 

The Department of Labor started offering grants to states looking to study how paid family leave would work. Three states currently have paid family leave policies in place: California, Rhode Island and New Jersey -- where the policy is so popular that Republican governor Chris Christie never followed through on his promise to get rid of it when he was voted into office. Eighteen other states are considering paid leave initiatives.

Political candidates, on both sides of the aisle, now find they can no longer ignore the issue. Hillary Clinton called for paid leave in her first major economic speech as a presidential candidate this year. She’d never pushed for it as a senator. One Republican candidate, Marco Rubio, is calling for a company tax credit for offering paid leave.

Candidates who support paid leave, were eight percent more likely to win, according to projections from The National Partnership for Women & Families, cited in a New Republic piece earlier this year. In Connecticut, Dan Malloy is believed to have won the race for governor on the back of his support for paid sick leave.

“It’s kind of a new thing. We’ve always pushed to increase quality of life for our members, but the spotlight has fallen on leave,” Robert Daraio, a local representative of the News Guild of New York, told HuffPost. Daraio helped negotiate four months' paid parental leave for employees at the liberal magazine The Nation in December. “We’re pushing for this in all contracts going forward,” he said.

It seems almost daily a company issues a press release announcing more time for parents and caretakers.

“It was a good year,” said Ellen Bravo, the director of Family Values @ Work, a nonprofit coalition of groups pushing for paid parental and sick leave in the U.S.

Perhaps one of the most outspoken proponents of paid leave, Bravo said that family leave came to prominence thanks to a spiral of factors -- most notably the Obama administration, as well as the many states and municipalities taking action on this. She credits “millennials,” -- young adults -- who are demanding employers give them paid time off to care for children and family members.

Some companies have always had this benefit, Bravo said. “The interest in making announcements public is what’s new. Part of that comes from their desire to say to millennials come here, we’re paying attention to this.”

In the business sector, tech companies fell over themselves in 2015 offering more generous benefits. When Netflix this summer announced it would offer 12 months of leave to new parents, regardless of gender, the news was widely picked up and a flurry of other companies raced to improve their offerings -- including Microsoft and Amazon.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is right now taking a highly publicized paternity leave that Bravo said set a great example for fathers, who are seen as a crucial part of the paid leave movement.

Banks got in on the trend, too. Private equity shop KKR and Credit Suisse both beefed up their offerings for parents this year.

“We knew it started in tech, but then we started seeing businesses in financial services and banking, which are typically conservative, saying we need to do this, too,” said Melinda Figely, who consults on human resource issues as a vice-president at NFP, an insurance brokerage with clients in banking. "As employers adopt it what they see is people actually come back to work in higher numbers and they're happier and less stressed."

One thing critical about the new momentum on leave: It's not just for birth mothers, but for adoptive parents, for fathers, and for those who need time off to take care of loved ones. Paid parental leave -- not "maternity" leave -- is the hot new thing for companies, Figely said.

The change stems from the country's opening up to gay couples in recent years and people of various gender identities, Figely said. "The barriers are coming down and people aren't so narrow in their thinking that there's one kind of family or only one way to do maternity leave."

Yet for all the positive momentum on leave, the data still looks bleak. An overwhelming majority of employers don’t offer paid leave. Most states don’t offer paid leave. The U.S. unpaid leave law -- the Family and Medical Leave Act  -- only covers 60 percent of workers.

About nine percent of workers who take time off to care for a family member end up on public assistance, according to Labor Department data cited by The New Republic. The Family Act, a bill sponsored by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D – Conn.) that would pay for federally mandated leave by taking a few cents out of employee paychecks, is stalled out.

“We haven’t yet reached a polio moment or a moonshot moment where the country comes together and says we can’t let this go on anymore,” Bravo said. “The good news is we don’t need a vaccine. We know the solution. It’s a social insurance fund that can make this possible.”

Bravo hopes that by 2020, the U.S. will make this happen. “We need to do it.”

(Emily Peck is Executive Business & Technology Editor of The Huffington Post where this piece was originally posted.)  CSA Images via Getty Images.  Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

-cw

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 105

Pub: Dec 29, 2015

EASTSIDER-Over the holidays is a great time for politicians to announce things that would normally get greater scrutiny during the year. After all, everyone is making family get together plans, traveling, and/or hiding from year end duties. In that context, along comes a Report from the City Controller with the spiffy name “Disposition of City’s Surplus or Obsolete Items and Equipment” and I lick my chops because I just know that there’s going to be some real gems buried within. 

The Controller’s audit report does not disappoint. The headlines in it say that the City isn’t monitoring its fleet vehicle system, and is spending more money than many of the vehicles are worth in maintenance. For cars there is a photo of a Civic Hybrid that cost $24,000 (new) but they have spent $44,000 to maintain and repair it. On the big iron Street Sweeper side, there’s a photo of one that cost $232,000 to buy -- but another $360,000 to maintain. 

Buried in the document, however, is a story that really interests me: back in 2011, Tony V’s City was broke due to the Mayor and the Council’s incompetent fiscal policies. They were desperate to make the budget look balanced. So, through a series of cuts, early retirements, and shifting employees to DWP and the like, they cooked the books enough to get a bond measure through and stay “solvent.” 

One of the brilliant ideas the Council had was to disband the General Services Department’s Salvage Section -- the folks who monitored the disposCWal of the City’s surplus and/or obsolete items. So guess what happened? Not much, and that’s the essential finding of how and why the City has no real system and has lost a bunch of money. Gee. 

The audit misses a fundamental understanding of how and why LA City’s bureaucracy operates the way it does, and the implications therein. At the top of the food chain are the elected officials, who, by current definition, make political decisions regarding oversight of the City. They do not make business decisions, unless you count getting developers, billboard companies, and the like to make campaign contributions to their coffers. 

I point this out to explain the impact of the City Council’s actions as they axed or crippled, year after year, every request by City Departments for vehicle replacement – and abandoned all oversight. 

So when these half-baked mandates trickle down to the troops, there is one lesson that almost every vested City employee has learned well:  as long as you “go along to get along” and don’t make waves, you will have a fine future and a pension with the City of Los Angeles. On the other hand, if you make waves, take risks, or (god forbid) make the elected officials look bad, your life will be very unpleasant indeed. 

Consequently, no one said anything. 

Looking at the guts of the audit, there are two fundamental lessons to be learned. First, over 80% of the money we are talking about comes from cars -- vehicle fleet maintenance, which represents 83% of all auction income, to be exact.  

Second, outside of vehicles, no one department or agency has responsibility or understanding of exactly what, if any, policy the City has regarding the sale or disposal of obsolete property. Thus it is hard to quantify the rest of the items discussed in the audit; they aren’t even tracked internally, or if they are, it’s by happenstance. 

For example, electronic equipment has its own website (CitiMAX) which almost no one uses. Most of the stuff that gets donated through it (surprise) is because of City Council requests, and even then, the amount of paperwork involving formal Council action is not cost effective. 

I am personally aware of this and remember well when the Glassell Park NC tried to get the City to cough up a computer for our use. No deal. And when the NC used its own funds to buy one, we had to comply with all the CitiMAX requirements of inventory, serial numbers and other information and justification. And now we know all this data went nowhere. So, well done, DONE, BONC and Council offices – thanks a lot. 

If there is a single takeaway moment in the report, for me it is the following: the auditor complained that, as they tried to obtain data, they were reduced to looking at individual employees’ Excel spreadsheets that didn’t even have a common template. Clearly, the Mayor’s “World Class City” is an emperor without clothes. 

The final report has a six point series of recommendations that require action by the Council and City Departments, although there is no reason to believe those points will survive the City Council budget process. For a copy of the full report, click here. 

For those of you with a mathematical bent, Pareto’s Principle is alive and well – 80% of the dollars comes from about 20% of the stuff. In line with this concept, I propose a variation on this idea -- two simple recommendations that would fix 80% of the problems identified in the audit: 

1) Reconstitute the Salvage Unit, staff it with competent people, give them citywide authority and responsibility. 

2) Hire a couple of “freelance” thirty-somethings or their equivalent (that is, no regular full-time employment), pay them enough to cover wages and benefits, then have them develop a simple, web based, data management system for centralizing everything that needs to be kept track of. Then make everybody use it. 

This would be simple and quick with a provable return on investment model. I suggest this be done immediately because, given their mind set, City Council is likely to come up with some stupid major IT project that they would then bid out to the usual “big name/bad result” corporate consultants…who contribute to their campaigns. 

Stay tuned...

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

-cw

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 104

Pub: Dec 25, 2015

CAL WATCHDOG-Public employees at California cities and counties took home more than $36 billion in compensation last year, according to new payroll data released by the state’s chief fiscal officer. 

State Controller Betty T. Yee disclosed the 2014 payroll data from 54 counties and 468 cities, which included information on more than 600,000 employees. The disclosure is part of the controller’s latest update to the “Government Compensation in California” website. 

The open government online portal allows users to map compensation levels throughout the state, assemble charts, evaluate payroll trends and export data for in-depth statistical analysis. 

Vernon: Smallest City, Biggest Pay 

The state controller’s public employee payroll website has become a powerful tool for journalists and citizen watchdogs to identify wasteful spending and corruption in local government. 

Among the municipalities with questionable payroll data from 2014: the city of Vernon. Although it is the least populous city in California, with just 123 residents, Vernon has double number of employees. And those employees earn $103,601 per year in salary — the highest average salary in the state. Vernon employees also take home, on average, another $32,462 per year in health and retirement benefits. 

Vernon’s top salary is followed by the city of Hayward with $94,041 average salary, and Palm Desert at $89,582 in average salary. The state controller’s office notes that the average wages for city governments overall fell by 3 percent to $59,614. 

In 2014, the average salary for county employees increased by approximately 3 percent to $60,993. At the county level, the nearly 19,000 employees at Santa Clara County received the highest average wage, earning $78,486 per year in wages and $27,655 in retirement and health benefits.

Nine Local Governments Fail to Disclose Data

The controller’s office classified six cities as non-compliant entities for having “filed a compensation report that was incomplete, was in a format different than the one requested by the Controller’s Office, or was submitted after the reporting deadline.” San Francisco, the largest non-compliant entity joined the cities of Bell, Compton, Covina, Dana Point and Santa Ana on the list of non-compliant entities.

The counties of Modoc, Monterey and Riverside were the three counties, or 5.3 percent, that failed to file.

The city and county of Los Angeles remain the largest local government agencies. Los Angeles County employs 103,338 people with a cumulative wage of $7.2 billion in annual salary and $2.76 billion in health and retirement benefits. The city of Los Angeles paid out $4.5 billion in wages and $703 million in health and retirement benefits.

Yee’s latest disclosure builds on the work of her predecessor. In 2010, following the high-profile corruption case at the city of Bell, then-Controller John Chiang didn’t wait around for local governments to clean up their act. He ordered cities, counties and special districts, under Government Code sections 12463 and 53892, to share salary and other wage information with his office. Initially, some local governments balked, then dragged their feet in disclosing the payroll data.

To access State Controller Betty Yee’s payroll database, go to publicpay.ca.gov. 

Top 10 Highest County Employees in California

1. Faculty Physician-Contract: $1,360,744
Kern County

2. Faculty Physician-Contract: $1,295,929
Kern County

3. Orthopedic Surgeon-Contract: $1,092,651
Kern County

4. Chairman, Department of Surgery: $851,665
Kern County

5. Medical Director II: $775,999
Los Angeles County

6. Physician – VMC: $760,461
Santa Clara County

7. Chief Physician III Surgery-Neurological: $728,489
Los Angeles County

8. Physician: $727,864
San Joaquin County

9. Physician – VMC: $684,365
Santa Clara County

10. Physician – VMC: $658,745
Santa Clara County

Top 10 Highest City Employees in California

1. Police Sergeant: $592,652
City of Burbank

2. Fire Chief: $487,871
City of Richmond

3. Chief of Police: $487,644
City of El Monte

4. City Manager: $470,249
City of Lincoln

5. City Manager: $419,840
City of West Covina

6. City Attorney: $412,211
City of Escondido

7. Power Engineering Manager: $403,271
City of Los Angeles

8. Assistant City Manager: $396,548
City of Oxnard

9. City Manager: $395,501
City of Escondido

10. Police Officer (PERS): $393,573
City of Oakland

(John Hrabe is an investigative journalist, freelance writer and communications strategist with a decade of experience managing media outreach for local, state and federal political campaigns, public relations clients, and new media start-ups. This piece was posted first at CalWatchDog.com) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

-cw

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 104

Pub: Dec 25, 2015

SERVICE REPORT CARD--Got a gripe about street maintenance or trash pickup?  Graffiti or storm drains? Want to express your admiration for our local fire or police services?  Animal services or libraries? Had a particularly good or bad experience with another local city service this year?

The City of Los Angeles Budget Advocates have created a comprehensive survey for Angelenos across the city to weigh in on a wide variety of city services, which will help them with budget planning for the coming year.  The survey gives you a chance to let the city know what’s working for you and what isn’t.  Please take a few minutes to fill it out and add your voice to the planning process.  The deadline for responses is January 15. Everyone is invited to contribute.

Take the Survey in English  

Take the Survey in Español

(Elizabeth Fuller is the co-owner/publisher of the Larchmont Buzz.) 

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 104

Pub: Dec 25, 2015

PLATKIN ON PLANNING--If you are following debates over growth and density in Los Angeles, I strongly recommend you watch the new film, The Big Short.   Without giving away too much of the plot, it is about several financial analysts who saw through the bombast that lead to the mortgage-based real estate bubble that nearly devastated the global economy in 2008-09.   

The only thing that stopped that Great Recession from turning into another Great Depression was the United States government bail out of the banks.  According to Bloomberg News, it took $13 trillion dollars of public dollars to stem the red ink that flowed from sub-prime mortgages into the entire financial system.  

Now, less than a decade later, the cheerleaders of another real estate bubble are ushering in Act II.  As recently presented in City Watch (“If you want LA to continue Living in the Past, then the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative is for You”), we are once more being treated to the preposterous argument that unrestrained real estate speculation is an urban miracle cure.  It represents the present rather than the past.  It eliminates the cause of high priced housing: planning and zoning regulations.  It allows for vertical growth rather than horizontal sprawl.   It creates jobs.  It promotes transit ridership.  And on and on.   

So, let us actually look at Los Angeles to evaluate several of these often repeated claims for their “truthiness.” 

Dishing out planning and zoning exceptions to super-sized projects allows us to be modern, to no longer be stuck in the past.   Really?  If we have learned anything from the recently concluded Paris climate summit, it is that modernity means dealing with climate change, not thumbing our nose at it through zoning approvals that allow mega-project after mega-project to proceed despite their unmitigatable levels of Green House Gases.  

Yes, the claims that high rise, mixed use projects in Hollywood and elsewhere are “green” (i.e., low carbon footprints) is belied by their Environmental Impact Reports.  Like the Hollywood Community Plan -- overturned by Superior Court Judge Alan Goodman -- all of the mega-projects’ Draft Environmental Impact Reports reveal that these projects will generate unmitigatable levels of Green House Gases.  Why?  Because they are automobile-oriented.   These buildings are only transit-adjacent, which does not, in any way, make them transit-oriented.   

They all have large parking structures to serve the needs of their well-heeled, car-loving tenants and condo-owners.  These tenants are, in fact, the least likely demographic group to use transit, even though many of these proposed and/or approve projects are close to METRO Red Line stations.  If these projects contained significant numbers of affordable units, they could eventually become transit-oriented developments because those tenants are more likely to use transit.  But, in LA this is not happening because the City Council long ago rejected inclusionary zoning provisions that would have mandated approximately 20 percent affordable units in all new apartment projects. 

In addition, the Hollywood area and other potential transit-oriented areas, such Korea Town and the Miracle Mile, suffer from two more deficits never mentioned by the groupies of real estate speculation.  Enthralled at appearing “modern,” these hucksters overlook the obvious.  Los Angeles does NOT have a dense mass transit system, nor does it have dense local services. 

Dense housing needs a dense transit system for local residents to regularly take transit.  This is why cities like New York, with its transit-oriented built environment, generate such high levels of transit ridership.  That city’s subway system, augmented by busses, has an astounding number of alternative origins and destinations.  In contrast, Hollywood residents only have a few Red and Purple Line destinations:  NoHo, Universal Studios, Koreatown, and some parts of downtown Los Angeles.  Many busy Los Angeles destinations will not be mass transit accessible for many decades – if ever -- such the Sunset Strip, downtown Beverly Hills, Westwood, Veterans Administration, UCLA, USC, Century City, Venice, and much of Santa Monica, to cite just a few popular destinations. 

Dense housing also needs dense public infrastructure and public services to effectively dislodge those who can afford to drive cars out of their vehicle.  As again demonstrated by New York City, a city needs wide, well maintained, ADA-compliant, sidewalks covered by trees and free of overhead wires and billboards, for residential density to achieve its intended low carbon goal.   

In the same vein, transit-oriented communities also need well-serviced local parks, schools, community gardens, and libraries.  Finally, these communities also need a full array of nearby private services, including restaurants and bars, dry cleaners, medical offices, grocery stores, drug stores, hardware stores, and clothing stores. 

When the Los Angeles neighborhoods targeted by investors for high density, such as Hollywood and Koreatown, provide these amenities, then the anticipated benefits of large, tall, mixed-use buildings could eventually appear.  Until then, however, to approve and then build these enormous structures is an invitation to failure.  The reason that the boosters overlook this is not quite a mystery though.  Like the commercial enterprises they shill for, their focus is short-term.  Once the Council dishes out the zoning and planning entitlements they need, and the buildings they ballyhoo are built, they are on to their next commercial project.   Their approach is antithetical to long-term planning, which is why real estate speculators and their supporters view planning as a barrier, not a manual for crafting a much-improved Los Angeles. 

Mega-projects help solve LA’s housing crisis by channeling billions of private investment into local real estate projects.  If this claim were true, Los Angeles would already be far better off, but it isn’t.  Building expensive homes and apartments does not increase the supply of affordable housing.  There is no linkage between these two real estate markets.  An analogy told to me by one correspondent explains this simply and straightforwardly:  building lots of Ferraris does reduce the cost of Hondas.  

Furthermore, the actual situation is much worse because new luxury housing often replaces affordable houses that are quickly bulldozed out of way – often illegally -- to assemble building sites.   For example, the Department of Building and Safety issues at least 2000 demolition permits per year for single-family houses.  They are almost all smaller, older “starter houses.”  When the wreckers leave, these new building pads quickly sprout over-sized houses that cost three times as much as the ones they replaced.  

The job creation myth.  Nearly every Statement of Overriding Considerations issued by the City Planning Commission and City Council cites job creation as the rational for ignoring the generation of unmitigatable levels of Green House Gases.  In these cases, though, talk is cheap because these decision makers never require a monitoring program to determine if the perpetually promised jobs actually appear.   Similarly, they never revoke zoning and planning approvals when the promised jobs do not materialize. 

While it is theoretically possible that some of the mega-projects will generate significant numbers of jobs, it is highly unlikely.  The free market approach to job creation has already failed miserably in Los Angeles.  While the Los Angeles area has had moderate population growth since 1990, job creation has been stagnant.  In fact, according to KPCC, there has been no change in the number of local jobs in over 25 years.   

Other CityWatch writers will undoubtedly debunk the alleged benefits of large commercial projects in Los Angeles requiring special zoning and planning exemptions.  I trust, though, that presenting the facts regarding the myths of modernity, construction of affordable housing, and employment is enough to take the wind out of the boosters’ sails and encourage wide support for the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative.  

(Dick Platkin is a retired LA City planner who writes on planning issues for CityWatch.  He welcomes comments, corrections, and questions at [email protected]. )

-cw

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 104

Pub: Dec 25, 2015

COUNTERPOINT--I have been trying very hard not to weigh in on Dick Platkin's latest “Mansionization Crusade”  to limit our ability to build a modern home in Los Angeles. I spent 7-plus  years defending my neighborhood against his misguided mission to prevent the building of homes with attached garages or any other architectural features that don't conform to his vision of a proper home … and I'm tired. 

But in his last CityWatch article (“Mansionization at a Crossroads...”), he said something that should make sense to anyone who does want to engage in this battle. Make your voice heard!   

Talk to your neighbors. Sign Petitions. Talk to reporters if you can. Make appointments with your Councilman and speak to him, not one of his aids. Attend hearings. Write letters to your Councilman, the Mayor, the Planning Department. And if possible, talk to any political movers and shakers you might know or your neighbors might know that might have influence with the politicos.  Motivate your neighbors to do the same. 

Because in the end, this is a political fight and the deck is stacked against you. It doesn't really matter what you want. It only matters what your Councilman wants... or in this case, the entire City Council. And if they want to change the Mansionization Ordinance and severely limit what kind of home you can build, it will most certainly happen. 

If the changes Mr. Platkin proposes were just for his District, this would be a done deal because Councilman Paul Koretz is already “on board” and, like every other Councilman, Koretz is pretty much emperor of his own district. No Councilman would dare oppose another Councilman's control over his individual district without risking interference with his own district's management … at least that is what I believe. 

And don't depend on the Planning Department to do anything more than give the Council what they want. I know. In my district, we handed Paul Koretz and the Planning Department signed statements from the majority of property owners in the neighborhood opposing proposed zoning changes … but Koretz wanted the changes … so we were ignored and the zoning changes took place. 

There is only one way you can stop the proposed zoning changes. And that is to create enough political noise to make the politicians think twice; to make them wary of political fallout. Not an easy task when our representatives are typically deaf to anyone who is not a threat to their political image. But if enough people scream; if you can get the support of the right people; if you can get enough public visibility to make the City Council nervous … then maybe you have a chance. 

The sad truth is that the proposed zoning changes will do nothing to enhance the quality of life in our city. If Dick Platkin and his ilk really cared about Los Angeles, they would stop trying to impose their idea of a proper single family home on their neighbors and start fighting all the new condominiums, apartments, and hotels that are being built with little or no concern for the impact on neighborhoods or the city at large. 

Each one of these projects bring with them 300 families and 600 cars to one location and nobody seems to link that fact to our congested streets, horrendous freeway traffic, growing air pollution, and inadequate and overly expensive parking … not to mention the challenge of providing city services like water, gas, power, schools, etc. 

Yes, we have real problems in this city. Our leaders don't seem to be able to see beyond their term of office. They have no density plan whatsoever. How many people per square mile is reasonable? That question is not even on their radar. It seems to me we are building New York City West minus the subway. OK … maybe we are trying to build some mass transit, but do we really want to be like New York!? Not me! 

For the record, I have lived in Los Angeles and my neighborhood for almost 70 years. I live in a small home and have no ambitions (or money) to build a modern home. But I recognize that today's families need more space than most old homes can provide. Given today's economy, it is not uncommon to have more than one generation living together and sometimes even three (Parents, children, and grandparents). 

It is irresponsible and heartless to prevent families from building or expanding their homes to meet their needs.

(Charles Tarlow  is a Los Angeles homeowner, has served on a neighborhood council board and can be reached at: [email protected]) 

-cw

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 104

Pub: Dec 25, 2015

NO ONE’S LISTENING--Since October, residents of Porter Ranch California have been exposed to dangerous contaminants from a massive natural gas leak that continues to seep into the air, causing a catastrophe the scale of which has not been seen since the 2010 BP oil spill.

After only a week of visiting families in Porter Ranch, I am already experiencing the headaches, nausea and congestion that have plagued this community living at the center of one of the most significant environmental disasters in recent history.

Southern California Gas Co., or SoCalGas, has essentially ignored the impact to victims and its actions have instead added to their suffering. The company has refused to release air quality data that could be used to protect its residents, it has made relocation very difficult, and it has forged ahead with plans to expand its facility before the leak has even been contained.

The enormity of the Aliso Canyon gas leak cannot be overstated. Gas is escaping through a ruptured pipe more than 8,000 feet underground, and it shows no sign of stopping. As the pressure from weight on top of the pipe causes the gas to diffuse, it only continues to dissipate across a wider and wider area. According to tests conducted in November by the California Air Resources Board, the leak is spewing 50,000 kilograms of gas per hour — the equivalent to the strength of a volcanic eruption.

At this rate, in just one month, the leak will have accounted for one-quarter of the total estimated methane emissions in the state of California.

So it is no surprise that residents here feel sick. While I can escape to my home to recover from my symptoms, this community wakes up to conditions that cause vomiting, nosebleeds and serious respiratory issues daily. And no one really knows the potential long-term side effects of benzene and radon, the carcinogens that are commonly found in natural gas.

This dangerous environment is why the Los Angeles Unified School District unanimously voted last week to close two Porter Ranch schools and relocate their nearly 1,900 students and staff to protect their safety.  

SoCalGas’ response to this disaster is almost as alarming as the impact on the community.

The company has offered some assistance in relocating residents in the affected area, but those efforts are woefully inadequate. People have been told they have to wait, they are 300th in line and that they will not be able to relocate before Christmas. Many residents simply cannot afford pay for a hotel or apartment while continuing to cover home costs. SoCalGas does not even know exactly how long it will take to fix the leak, but the company’s CEO has said it will be at least another three to four months. Curiously, despite this admission, SoCalGas is only offering three months of relocation to those fortunate enough to receive a return call. 

The company has also refused to release the data from air quality monitoring it has conducted in the community, despite numerous requests from the public. The company is withholding vital information about the exact composition of the air — information that is critical for the thousands of residents who want to understand why they are so sick. That is why I have been out in the community distributing canisters that we hope will provide an independent verification of the toxicity in the air. 

And while Porter Ranch continues to suffer, SoCalGas is moving ahead with a project to expand the Aliso Canyon facility, even though the company still has no idea how the gas leak there started and is unsure of how to fix it. The company hasn’t even established any risk management or emergency response plans in the event of another leak. 

That is why I am working with the law firm Weitz and Luxenberg to seek justice for Porter Ranch and hold SoCalGas accountable for the physical and emotional damage they have caused, and to ensure that something like this never happens again. This community should not have to wait any longer to receive the justice and fair treatment it deserves.

The situation Porter Ranch residents are facing today is unacceptable. It is time for SoCalGas to acknowledge this fact, gather whatever resources are necessary to help every resident now, and provide answers about the health impacts to residents who have suffered for too long.

(Erin Brockovich is a renowned consumer advocate who works to help Americans everyday on multiple fronts. Her comments were posted first at Common Dreams.)

-cw

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 104

Pub: Dec 25, 2015

LA NOT READY FOR A SERIOUS SKID ROW CONVERSATION--While families across America come together this holiday season to spend quality time with one other, there are many who also choose to “give back” to the less fortunate. 

Every year since 2007, I have been in Skid Row on Sundays, but holidays are the worst time for the accumulation trash, debris and whatever remains from all the food that is handed out. It all ends up on Skid Row’s streets, especially near the missions. 

With many City workers off for the holidays, all of that trash builds up. One cannot help but wonder, where are all the trash cans? And, why doesn’t the City distribute additional trash cans before employees go home for the holidays? 

While these questions are valid, I couldn’t help but ponder a bit longer than normal about all the connected topics associated with trash in Skid Row. 

This has ultimately led to my realizing what the number one least-asked question in Skid Row is. 

My thought pattern goes something like this: trash and debris…leads to germs and bacteria…which leads to urine and feces…  Wait, I forgot to ask the question: 

Drumroll please… The number one least-asked question related to homelessness in Skid Row is: “Where do homeless folks wash their hands?” Boom! 

Years ago, the LAPD insisted on removing all the port-a-potties from Skid Row due to all the drug-related crime and prostitution occurring constantly in them. 

Instead, super-expensive Automatic Public Toilets (APT’s) were installed – FIVE for the entire 50-block Skid Row community. But there are so many moving parts in these self-cleaning restrooms that, combined with the 24-hour constant usage, the APT’s often are out-of-service -- even though they are serviced by contracted maintenance crews 3-5 times per day. 

Only one of the missions remains open for 24-hours. This means there are extremely limited restroom options in an area with a reported 10,000 to 15,000 residents, and of those, 2,000 to 3,000 are homeless folks sleeping on Skid Row streets.  

All of this means that homeless folks and residents living in missions or low-income housing who travel several blocks from home have to “get creative” when they have to use the restroom. 

In 2012, the City of Los Angeles was cited by the LA County Health Department for three violations, one of which was for a high concentration of urine and feces all over Skid Row. 

Going back to the “number one least-asked question,” even when homeless folks relieve themselves, whether it be in an alley or behind a car, where would they be able to wash their hands? 

People outside of Skid Row don’t even realize that a person living in low-income housing (in this case an SRO) who happens to be receiving GR (General Relief) only receive $221 a month; sometimes they don’t have money at the end of the month to by a bar of soap. This means there are even residents who have access to bathrooms who can’t wash their hands in a sanitary manner. 

With El Nino fast-approaching, along with the germs and bacteria that will travel with it, a much-needed holiday gift would be bars of soap and hand sanitizers. 

It would help tremendously if a responsible person or team could walk around pouring bleach into all the nooks and crannies where homeless people relieve themselves. (I say this holding my nostrils closed just thinking about some of the smells “passing” in the air. Pun intended.) 

Maybe Santa could drop off his elves for a few months before next year’s holiday season so they would be tasked with BPD (Bleach-Pouring Duties). 

I don’t think Los Angeles is ready to have serious conversation about everyday living in Skid Row. In February, 2016, both the City and the County of LA plan to release comprehensive strategic plans on homelessness. But I can almost guarantee that funding for hand sanitizer, soap or bleach will not be anywhere in these two separate documents. 

And by the way, why will there be two different strategic plans released the same time anyway? But that’s a whole different article for a later time. 

Right now, though, it must be made public as to just how easily germs and bacteria can spread in Skid Row. Since it is winter time, it won’t be considered offensive if volunteers wear gloves when passing out food, blankets or whatever. 

Fist bumps instead of handshakes are a must…anyway, it makes people seem cool. Even volunteers should carry hand sanitizer in their pockets and/or purses. 

While we appreciate it if you want to “give back,” there are many more realistic complexities that all should be aware of. 

Instead of “walking to end homelessness,” how about pouring some bleach to end undesirable smells? It’s a more realistic way to help. 

I hope Angelenos appreciate what a luxury it is to have a place to wash their hands and soap to wash them with. 

Happy Holidays to all of you from all of us in Skid Row!

(General Jeff is a homelessness activist and leader in Downtown Los Angeles.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

-cw

 CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 104

Pub: Dec 25, 2015

CORRUPTION WATCH--I fear that today's shocking revelation in the Los Angeles Times about Mitchell Englander flying down to Arizona with a staff member for a Taser fundraiser, concurrent to the company seeking a major body worn video contract with our city, may be the tip of an iceberg. First of all it's not okay. 

Regardless of the contorted logic and twisted thinking that the downtown lobbyists and their pack of lawyers will put forward, it is still not okay.  

As for the council members who will come out to defend or may feel sympathy for Mr. Englander (photo), claiming that the disclosure requirements were too confusing, we ought to demand, as some of us have, that the Ethics ordinance be rewritten, immediately   

And without any disrespect intended for Common Cause or Clean Money or other groups trying to bring accountability, while indirectly seeking political support from the very group they help regulate, we should be sure to include in any discussion, a reasonable number of outraged residents with a modicum of street smarts, to help explain what quid pro quo means so that your average eighth grader could grasp the concept.

But make no mistake, Mitchell Englander is the man of the hour and he should receive the strongest possible sanction. District Attorney Jackie Lacey, whom the council member crassly honored as the CD12 Pioneer woman in April, ought to remove any endorsement from Englander's campaign website as should the City Attorney Mike Feuer, and both should team up to provide the public with an overview of what they are doing to help enforce state bid rigging laws … or, admit that they’re not really paying attention.  

One excellent way to avoid bid rigging is to avoid bidding and competition altogether. Unfortunately, that is in direct conflict with the public's best interest. We need to make that clear.   All too often, good journalists are left with bad campaign finance laws scribbled down by the Englanders, Knabes et al. and the public must endure a chorus of "it's perfectly legal" on the opinion pages.  

Enough is enough. 

Council member Englander should put all of that Taser money he received and put it into a special city ethics fund. 

Taser should also be fined, and, in exchange for the right to participate in fair and open bidding, the company should be required to provide 15 state of the art body worn video cameras, to be worn by ALL 15 members of the City Council during the several months it will take to have a fair and reasonable RFP.  As Englander himself put it in September 2013, just after teeing Taser up for a near-exclusive trial, it's a "great opportunity to set the record straight, to give us extra eyes and ears" where we obviously need them. 

The Lobbyists, including Arnie Berghoff, mentioned in the Times article, who shares an office and presumably bunk-desks with the regularly highest grossing lobbyist firm, Uncle Harvey dba (Englander Knabe & Allen), ought to explain just how deep the relationship between Taser and the council member really is, and make a substantial voluntary deposit into the aforementioned special city fund.  

Politicians trying to score political points by being anti-cop is truly unsavory. What's far worse is politicians like Mitchell Englander, who pretend to have the cops best interests, while doing real damage to the brand.  By selling out Main Street to Wall Street … and Taser … Englander has violated something most good cops hold near and dear and work hard to deliver every single day: FAIR and HONEST protection and service to Los Angeles citizens.

(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.)

-cw

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 103

Pub: Dec 22, 2015

MOM’S POV--News junkie that I am, I was awakened by a 6 am push feed notification from the Washington Post. LAUSD schools would be closed due to a threat received by a school board member. As of Tuesday afternoon, the threat appears to have been some sort of hoax, per Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) who serves on the House Intelligence committee. 

My daughter atten ds high school in Las Virgenes Unified School District, which chose not to close schools. I was notified by a robocall and at least two emails that our schools in LVUSD would remain open. 

New York Police officials stated a similar threat had been made on New York City schools but the threat was deemed not credible. “We cannot allow ourselves t raise levels of fear,” New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton said. New York mayor Bill de Blasio commented that the threat appeared to be “so generic and so outlandish” that the New York officials were not taking it seriously. 

Rep. Brad Sherman shared that the author of the email claimed to have “32 jihadist friends” ready to attack with bombs and rifles. He claimed to be a devout Muslim who had attended an LA high school where he had been bullied. Sherman had been given a copy of the email by a school board member. 

When I was first aware of the alleged threat, like most parents, I questioned whether to send my daughter to school. Most of her soccer classmates were staying home. I made the decision to send her to school and to be available by text. 

By early afternoon, the threat had been deemed a hoax but the experience did raise some issues for me. How do we handle these potential threats? Do we allow these threats to paralyze our society, which is, aside from violence, the true aim of terrorists? How do we explain this to our kids? 

We are pretty fortunate to be living in a country where terrorist threats are not part of our typical day. In plenty of countries around the world such as Israel people face the possibility of terrorism or war on a daily basis. However even in our own country, in cities like Chicago, homicide is at an all-time high. 

Certainly, we live in unsure times when terrorists cells and even rogue disengaged gunmen attack in places where we have always felt safe, in schools, religious institutions, theaters, which is exactly what terrorists want. 

For parents, setting your children free as they grow up has always been one of the biggest challenges, that first time we allow our kids to go to the mall with friends or to drive by themselves, even when we send our toddlers to preschool or kindergarten for the first time. Setting all of this in the milieu of potential terrorist threats, whether domestic or ISIS, escalates our anxieties and worries to a new level. 

I think of all the parents in other countries or cities who face the threat of violence as part of life, the real terror in not knowing if your child will arrive home safely at the end of the day. It’s so easy to point fingers at everyone we perceive as a threat. We have candidates like Donald Trump riling supporters with his plan to exclude all Muslims from entering the U.S.

Most of us have seen the images of refugees risking their lives so they and their families can live in peace, far from the daily threats of violence or with basic human rights. I hope we can remember that fear we felt Tuesday morning, unsure of our children’s safety and we can think of those parents for whom threats might not have turned out to be a hoax.

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

-cw

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 101

Pub: Dec 15, 2015

DEVELOPMENT POLITICS-Politics is local but Los Angelenos are sick and tired of seeing local interests steamrolled by downtown powerbrokers willing to do whatever it takes to achieve City Hall cooperation.  

One such controversy has stoked deep-seated resentment in Coldwater Canyon where residents who would very much like to be settling in for a cozy El Niño are instead bracing themselves for a battle against a new private parking garage, athletic field and pedestrian bridge over a major public thoroughfare in Studio City.  

Speaking about Harvard-Westlake School’s request to have the three-story 750-car lot and bridge over Coldwater Canyon Boulevard, school Vice President John Amato said, “Our kids have to perform in front of audiences so we have to have parking for visitors, and we want to have all our parking in one location.” 

In LA city politics, the closest thing to absolute power is the ability of a city councilmember to make or break a land-use project in his or her district. Two days after telling his constituents who live in the area 24-hours a day that the school's bridge over Coldwater was a "challenging issue for the community," District 2 Councilmember Paul Krekorian received (most on the same day) donations from eighteen Harvard-WestlakeTrustees, with all but two giving the maximum $700 contribution and none disclosing their relationship to the school on the donation form.   

This activity resulted in a $20,950 windfall for Mr. Krekorian's campaign committee from the school's trustees alone. All but a few of those contributions were made on November 3, 2014 and though we saw references to "homemaker," "investor" and "stamp collector," not one of the contributors identified his or her role as a school trustee. This tops the virtually simultaneous contributions made to Mr. Krekorian by the same trustees and administrators on February 18, 2011, also with not a single trustee identifying his or her connection to the school.  

There is no more effective way for a 501c3 non-profit to lose its tax-exempt status than by contributing to a political campaign, so writing a check from Harvard-Westlake School is something only a fool would entertain. But having that many trustees make donations on a single day violates the spirit, and possibly the letter of the federal law that prohibits 501c3s from engaging in political activity. 

Incredibly, Mr. Krekorian did not return any of those contributions. On the contrary, he used them to obtain public matching funds from the City, so that each Harvard-Westlake contribution was in effect supplemented by $500 of taxpayer funds. In other words, literally the very same people who are having their quality of life at their homes intruded upon by the school's plan were made to match the Harvard-Westlake influence-peddling donations. 

Article II of the City of Los Angeles Code of Ethics states that persons in public service "shall not give occasion for distrust of their impartiality or of their devotion to the city's best interests."  How could Mr. Krekorian affirmatively state that he is impartial while taking so much money from a highly interested part y...  or in this case, parties?  

The answer, shamefully, is the public was never supposed to connect the dots and figure it out. 

Obviously taking large donations and submitting them to the matching fund compromises impartiality. But it does more than that. It also erodes basic trust and the public's faith in our politicians. The Ethics Commission, the very office which approved the dispensing of the public matching money should take responsibility to rectify the unacceptable status quo. A good start would be to close the loophole that allows for this type of stealth donation. Trustees with business before the city should be required to disclose that relationship. If the hard ban on political activity for 501c3s makes that impossible, the loophole will be effectively closed. Next item... 

Councilmember Krekorian should do now what he should have done a year ago -- return the eighteen contributions he received from Harvard-Westlake Trustees. Of equal importance, he should return all of the matching funds he obtained through use of the Harvard-Westlake money. Harvard-Westlake ought to amend its 990 tax filings appropriately, checking the correct (and honest) box that indicates that they have indeed been engaged in lobbying -- nearly a million dollars in lobbying for what has become...a bridge too far.  

The smart people, and there are many at Harvard-Westlake, ought to realize that a parking structure on the campus side of the public roadway would be just fine. Any digging in the hillside in question will merely be digging a hole for the school's reputation. 

(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.)

-cw                

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 101

Pub: Dec 15, 2015

EDUCATION POLITICS-In looking at LAUSD's latest defamatory attack on nationally acclaimed teacher Rafe Esquith, (photo) one can only surmise that those running the District are starting to run scared. Esquith's billion dollar lawsuit brought by lawyer Mark Geragos has too great a probability of bankrupting the District if it’s allowed to be tried in the forum of a neutral court. 

The LAUSD smear machine (aka "LAUSD investigative team") has been given their marching orders: do not find the truth, but rather, get the goods on Esquith --even if they have to fabricate or distort the facts. 

After years of war against teachers and other certificated and classified employees (whose only crime was to question district policy or make too much money,) LAUSD has an amoral group of administrators and outside contractors in place, seeking to supplement their income or position, even if they have to lie, fabricate, or distort evidence to do so. 

By examining the recent indictment of Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke for first degree murder of Laquan McDonald, we are reminded of how deceptive public entity cultures like this work. 

After a 13-month cover up, we saw what happens when an organization is allowed to investigate itself. In this case, it came to a pre-ordained conclusion of innocence because that was the only explanation acceptable to those whose loyalty to the organization took precedence over commitment to truth and the rule of law. 

This same self-dealing culture has existed for generations at the LAUSD, to the preclusion of good pragmatic public education. No administrator could ever have gotten to a position of power unless he or she showed a willingness to fabricate lies and subordinate truth to support LAUSD’s party line. 

LAUSD has put out for public consumption the fact that "the district's investigative team, which includes former LA Police Department detectives, [has] launched an investigation." They do not emphasize the "former" status of these LA Police Department detectives, who are either retired from LAPD or moonlighting for LAUSD as a second job to supplement their income. LAUSD seeks to cultivate the appearance that this is an LA Police investigation, when nothing could be further from the truth. 

The corporate-owned press continues to selectively report only the "facts" as LAUSD presents them, instead of asking questions like…has any LAUSD investigator ever found a teacher they were investigating innocent? Or, how many of these "LA Police Department detectives" have found evidence of LAUSD administrative wrongdoing among personnel who are still working for the District? 

A more fundamental question is, why are local, state, and federal agencies ceding control of their investigatory function to LAUSD -- which is a self-interested party to Esquith’s $1 billion civil lawsuit alleging criminal conspiracy and other charges against the LAUSD administration? 

The hallmark of all LAUSD investigations is that they investigate themselves, deviating from any notion of legal objectivity. And what they do investigate never seems to go anywhere, like in the case of the iPad scandal under former Superintendent John Deasy or the sexual harassment investigation against current and habitually retiring Superintendent Ramon Cortines. 

In my own case, when I filed a whistleblower complaint against my principal Janet Seary and her superior, Jan Davis, for graduating students with low elementary school math and reading ability, the LAUSD's Office of Inspector General allowed Seary and Davis to investigate themselves. Not surprisingly, they found they had done nothing wrong. The fact they were given this case, in which they had a clear conflict of interest, was never addressed by the District or any other authority. Now, the Esquith class action lawsuit is finally bringing these actions into the light. 

But my favorite illustration of LAUSD's one-sided railroading of teachers, along with anyone else questioning LAUSD's often illegal behavior, was given by my then Vice Principal Rene Martinez. Asked under oath why he included in my evidence file only the ten negative letters from my students (that were obtained through a rather intimidating process) and none of the five positive letters, he said, "They did not go to the charges against you," showing how one-sided the LAUSD's investigatory process remains. 

It is very telling to look at the LAUSD’s modus operandus as it goes after "enemies":  neither Mr. Martinez nor Mr. Johnson from the LAUSD Office of Inspector General had any idea what “exculpatory evidence” meant. True to LAUSD culture, Mr. Martinez has been made principal of his own school and he should continue to do well as long as he remains unfettered by the truth – or as long as Esquith is not successful in finally bringing accountability to LAUSD. 

Let’s consider the recently released incriminating evidence alleging that Mr. Esquith engaged in improper sexual activity with his students. Before getting into the purposefully prurient nature of these charges, it is worth asking: 

1. Why were all charges against Esquith not brought immediately? 

2. Is it a mere coincidence that the more Esquith stood up for himself against LAUSD, the more egregious the heretofore unmentioned subsequent charges were? 

3. What was the relationship between Mr. Esquith and the student bringing the charges? Were they good students or bad with a score to settle? 

4. Why bring these "new" charges against Esquith now, instead of allowing the class action trial    process of discovery and testimony under oath to determine in a neutral forum who is telling the truth? 

5. Under what circumstances was the testimony of prior students against Esquith made? Were these circumstance neutral, as required by the standards set up in the McMartin Preschool case, where falsely accused teachers and administrators were vilified by false charges for close to 10 years before it was revealed that the students were manipulated into making their testimony? 

6. How is it that Esquith’s alleged improper sexual behavior going back to the 1970s is only now seeing the light of day, now that LAUSD is faced with a billion dollar class action suit? 

Any teacher can tell you is that there are several things that might allow Mr. Esquith's comments to be viewed as acceptable, given the subjective reality that all teachers face. First, students transitioning from childhood into young adulthood like to flirt. It is important and completely normal for students to flirt with their teachers and others, still knowing that they are safe. I cannot think of any conscientious teacher I know who has not been flirted with or who would ever take advantage of a young person's vulnerability. 

A second issue that every teacher I know encounters with both male and female students is that many students have a poor self-image, making them feel incapable of even trying to do the assigned work. In trying to help a student overcome a poor self-image, it is entirely possible that an excellent and empathetic teacher like Esquith might tell a 14-year old student that she was, "beautiful, elegant, dazzling, sexy, and gorgeous," especially if this could help her accomplish something she believed she couldn’t do. In this context, what Esquith is alleged to have said is more than justified. 

For 30 years, Rafe Esquith taught in a lower socio-economic neighborhood, even though he could have done better financially, had he taken one of many offers to go elsewhere. But he chose not to. Rather, he chose to set up a foundation ensuring that students of modest financial means could have access to education programs. He wanted to help them go on with their education after graduation, encouraging them to work hard and master the rigorous traditional public education he was trying to give them. 

But in quoting an email out of context, where Esquith refers to himself as "your favorite ATM," the district is seeking to imply some false negative motive on the part of Esquith, when sainthood is a more reasonable conclusion. 

There is an insane irony to the fact that the Los Angeles Unified School District, which should be dedicated to the highest traditions of open intellectual pursuit, remains a closed and insular bastion of cult-like behavior -- a place where those who question it are targeted for removal and destruction. As constituted, LAUSD’s leadership only seems concerned with mindlessly defending its failed public education policy along with its obscenely extravagant financial privilege against anyone like Rafe Esquith who is foolish enough to intelligently question them.

(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.

-cw

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 101

Pub: Dec 15, 2015

GUEST WORDS--The news out of the Middle East is relentlessly disheartening these days, but the other day I reread this amazing story from a while back about a child in the region whose birth was so threatening to his country’s ruling elite that the king slaughtered untold numbers of infants to make sure the boy would never grow up. 

Luckily, the boy’s stepfather learned of the king’s intentions in a dream, so he whisked his family away to exile in a neighboring country. Once the evil ruler died, the refugee family moved back to their homeland and settled near the Sea of Galilee, where a growing number of followers came to recognize the young man as the king of his people and, indeed, their savior.

The songs I hear in my local drugstore and on the radio tell me over and over again that Christmas is about joy. And, of course, it is. But that’s only half the story. The Christmas tale, which appears in only two of the four Gospels—in two very different versions—is a lot richer and more challenging than we generally choose to remember.

Every year around this time, I try to get my head and heart prepared for the holiday season. I ask myself what I should think about as Christmas approaches. What do I want to learn? How do I want to grow? I guess you could say it’s my personal version of Advent.

A year ago, I was so ill prepared for the season that I went to visit my good friend Frank McRae, who has studied the Old and New Testaments, to request guidance. He considered my question, went silent for a moment or two, and suddenly slammed his palm violently on the table. “He was born in a manger!” he yelled. “And yet they found him! Those three wise men didn’t let the humble surroundings distract them. They knew greatness when they saw it. It helped that they came from the East, from far away. They didn’t share whatever local prejudices there may have been against a child of humble parents in such humble surroundings.”

In one fell swoop, my friend turned my Christmas into a meditation on discernment, the need to see clearly, and to recognize goodness around us, in whatever shape or form.

In their wonderfully insightful book, The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Teach Us About Jesus’ Birth, New Testament scholars Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan encourage us to understand the Christmas story for what it is: a parable, a metaphorical narrative whose truths lie not in its factual details, but in the multiple meanings we can find in it.

Of course, Jesus himself was famous for his parables, the best of which subverted conventional ways of seeing the world. These parables, Borg and Crossan write, “invited his hearers into a different way of seeing how things are and how we might live.” In other words, as invitations from Jesus to see differently, they were also opportunities for people to change their lives and circumstances.

Today’s popular Christmas stories are often sentimental and viewed through the gauzy lens of warm and fuzzy childhood memories. Unlike Easter, which more clearly invites believers to meditate on notions of sacrifice, repentance, and transcendence, Christmas is more likely to be focused on gift-giving family togetherness than on individual faith and transformation.

But the story of the birth of Jesus is clearly more than sentimental. It’s about the weak and the wise outsmarting the powerful. It’s about the humble and faithful turning the world upside down. As Borg and Crossan argue, these are not tales designed to safeguard the status quo.

So this year, as I celebrate the birth of Jesus with the ones I love, I will also be thinking about where exactly I stand in a world that clearly needs fixing, and whether I’m doing my part to help turn it upside down.

Because whether or not there has ever been a war on Christmas, the Christmas story is itself about conflict. And each December 25, we are given an opportunity not only to welcome joy into the world, but to declare which side we are on.

(Gregory Rodriguez is the founder and publisher of Zócalo Public Square. … where this column originated.)

-cw

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 100

Pub: Dec 11, 2015

NEW GEOGRAPHY--When I arrived in Los Angeles four decades ago, it was clearly a city on the rise, practicing its lines on the way to becoming the dominant metropolis in North America. Today, the City of Angels and much of Southern California lag behind not only a resurgent New York City, but also LA’s longtime regional rival, San Francisco, both demographically and economically. 

Forty years ago, San Francisco was a quirky, backward-looking town, a haven for the gilded rich and hippies, a quaint but increasingly insignificant town. The Dodgers and the Lakers ruled the California sporting world. 

Today things couldn’t be more different. San Francisco and its much bigger southerly neighbor, Silicon Valley, have morphed into the global epicenter of the technology industry, with 25 tech companies on the Fortune 500. In contrast, Los Angeles County, which has almost twice as many people, is home to only 15 Fortune 500 firms total. 

Meanwhile, the Giants and the Golden State Warriors have become consistent winners while the Dodgers, Angels and Clippers disappoint and the Lakers are painfully unwatchable. 

Although there is a desire to repeat LA’s success with the 1984 Olympics and bring football back to town, that would only put a happy veneer over the city’s core problem: the long-term decline of its business sector. In 1984, the city had a strong and highly motivated business elite highlighted by 12 Fortune 500 companies who could help sponsor the games and provide management expertise. Now there are only three within city limits, with the departure of major corporations such as Lockheed, Northrop Grumman, Occidental Petroleum and Toyota, and the loss of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs. 

In contrast, the Bay Area is full of thriving companies and successful entrepreneurs, many of them astoundingly young. Of the 30 richest people in the country, five live in the Bay Area; Southern California has only one, the Irvine Company visionary Chairman Donald Bren, and he’s in his eighties. The Bay Area accounts for the vast majority of American billionaires under 40; if not for Snapchat’s founders, Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, as well Elon Musk, who lives in LA but spends much of his time working in Northern California, where Tesla and Solar City are located, LA would be off the list. 

This unfavorable contrast with the Bay Area, sadly, is not just a recent development. Since 1990 Los Angeles County has added a paltry 34,000 jobs while its population has grown 1.2 million. In contrast, the Bay Area, which added roughly the same number of people during the same time, gained a net 500,000 jobs, mostly in the suburbs. In 1990 Los Angeles had around the same number of private-sector jobs per person as the Bay Area, roughly 410 per 1,000; today Los Angeles’ private-sector jobs to population ratio has dropped to 364 per 1,000 while the Bay Area’s has grown to 415. Worse yet, while the Bay Area has increased its share of high-wage jobs to 33 percent since 1990, Los Angeles percentage fell to 27.7 percent. 

How LA Blew It in Technology 

As recently as the 1970s, as UCLA’s Michael Storper has pointed out, L.A. stood on the cutting edge not only in hardware, but also software. Computer Sciences Corp. was the first software company to be listed on a national stock exchange. In 1969, UCLA’s Leonard Kleinrock invented the digital packet switch, one of the keys to the Internet. 

In 1970, IT’s share of the economy in greater Los Angeles and in the Bay Area was about the same (in absolute terms it was bigger in LA). By 2010, IT’s share was four times bigger in the north than in the south. 

Storper links the decline in large part to the strategies of the biggest high-tech companies in the L.A. area: Lockheed Martin, Rockwell and TRW focused on defense and space, essentially becoming dependent on government spending. In contrast, the Bay Area technology community, although also initially tied to Washington, began to move into more commercial applications. In the process they also developed a huge network of venture capitalists who would continue to help found and finance fledgling firms. 

Today the San Jose area enjoys the highest percentage of workers in STEM (science technology engineering and mathematics-related jobs) in the country, over three times the national average. San Francisco and its immediate environs, largely as a result of the social media boom, now has a location quotient for STEM jobs of 1.75, meaning it has 75% more tech jobs per capita than the national average. In contrast, the Los Angeles area barely makes it to the national average. 

Southern California remains an attractive to place to live, but it’s hard to imagine it as the next Silicon Valley. L.A. had its chance, and, sadly, it blew it. 

The Growing Demographic Crisis 

Storper and other critics suggest that Los Angeles failed in part because it tried to maintain high-wage blue collar industries while the Bay Area focused on information and biotechnology. The problem now, however, are the factors in L.A. that drive industry away, such as ultra-high electricity prices and a high level of regulation. Even amidst the recent industrial boom in many other parts of the country, Los Angeles has continued to lose manufacturing jobs; Los Angeles’ industrial job count stands at 363,900, still the largest number in the nation, but down sharply from 900,000 just a decade ago. 

This decline places LA in a demographic dilemma. Like the Midwestern states that lured African-Americans to fill industrial jobs during the Great Migration, LA attracted a large number of largely poorly educated immigrants, mostly from Mexico and Central America. These people came for jobs in factories, logistics and home-building, but now find themselves stranded in an economy with little place for them outside low-end services. 

Although inequality and racial disparities also exist in the Bay Area, the issue is far more relevant in Southern California. The Bay Area’s population is increasingly dominated by well-educated Anglos and Asians. San Francisco’s population is 22 percent black or Hispanic; in Los Angeles, this percentage approaches 60 percent. 

Poverty and lack of upward mobility are the biggest threats to the region. In Los Angeles, a recent United Way study found 35 percent of households were “struggling,” essentially living check to check, compared to 24 percent for the Bay Area. 

A recent study by the Public Policy Institute of California and the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality found that, once adjusted for cost of living, Los Angeles has the highest level of poverty in the state, 26.1 percent. Rents are out of control for many people who are struggling in an increasingly low-wage dominated economy. In fact, Los Angeles is now the least affordable city for renters, based on income, according to a recent UCLA paper. 

Is There A Way Out? 

Despite these myriad challenges, Los Angeles, and indeed all of Southern California, is far from a hopeless case. It is unlikely to become the next Detroit and is better positioned by natural and human resources than it’s similarly troubled big city competitor Chicago. It still enjoys arguably the best climate of any major city in the world, remains the home of Hollywood, the nation’s dominant ports and a still impressive array of hospitals and universities. 

At least some of the city’s leadership has begun to recognize the challenges facing the region. “The city where the future once came to happen,” a devastating blue ribbon report recently intoned, “is living the past and leaving tomorrow to sort itself out.” 

This recognition might be the first step toward a turnaround, but the area really has increasingly little control over its own fate. Today San Francisco and its immediate environs, despite its much smaller population, is home to virtually every powerful politician in the state: both its U.S. Senators, the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor and the Attorney General. Not surprisingly, state policies on everything from greenhouse gases, urban density and transit to social issues follows lines that originate in, and largely benefit, San Francisco. 

Most troubling of all, the local leadership seems clueless about how to resuscitate the economy, or even how this vast region actually operates. Neither another Olympics nor getting a football team or two will make a difference. Even worse is the effort by Mayor Eric Garcetti to densify the city to resemble a sun-baked version of New York. 

This has been part of the agenda for developers, greens and most local academics for the better part of 30 years. But the problem remains: Los Angeles, and even more so its surrounding region, is not New York, nor can it ever be. It is, and will remain, a car-dominated, multi-polar city for the foreseeable future. After all, the vast majority of Southern California’s population growth — roughly 75 percent — came after the Second World War and the demise of the Red Cars, LA’s  much lamented pre-war transit system. 

Some outside observers such as progressive blogger Matt Yglesias now envision LA as “the next great transit city.” Yet in reality, despite spending $10 billion on new transit projects, the share of transit commuters has actually dropped since 1990; today nearly 31 percent of New York area commuters take public transportation, while 6.9 percent do so in Los Angeles-Orange County. 

People take cars because, for most, it’s the quickest way to work. Few transit trips take less time, door to door than traveling by car, not to mention the convenience of working at home. The average transit rider in Los Angeles spends 48 minutes getting to work, compared to people driving alone, at 27 minutes. 

This reflects L.A.’s great dispersion of employment, which is not compatible with a transit-driven culture. In greater New York, 20 percent of the workforce labors in the central core; in San Francisco, the percentage is roughly 10 percent. But barely 2 percent do so in Los Angeles. The current, much ballyhooed revival of downtown Los Angeles then is less a reflection of economic forces, than the preferences of a relatively small portion of population for a more urban lifestyle and as market for Asian flight capital. Its population of 50,000 is about the same as Sherman Oaks or the recently minted city of Eastvale in the Inland Empire. 

Rather than seek to become someplace else, Los Angeles has to confront its key problems, like its woeful infrastructure, particularly roads, among the worst in the country, and a miserable education system. These are among the likely reasons why people with children are leaving Los Angeles faster than any major region of the country. 

Yet Los Angeles is not without allure. Overall Los Angeles-Orange has grown its ranks of new educated workers between 25 and 34 since 2011 as much as New York and San Francisco and much more than Portland. 

Perhaps most promising is the region’s status as the number one producer of engineers in the country, almost 3,000 annually. This raw material is now being somewhat wasted, with as many as 70 percent leaving town to find work. 

What Los Angeles needs to do is to provide the entrepreneurial opportunities to keep its young at home, particularly the tech oriented. As the Bay Area has shown, it is possible to reshape an economy based on pre-existing strength. For LA the best regional strategy would be based on a remarkably diverse economy dominated by smaller firms, a population that, for the most part, seeks out quiet residential neighborhoods and often prefers working closer to home than battling their way to what remains a still unexceptional downtown. 

One place where Los Angeles could shine is in melding the arts and technology. Unlike New York, which has relatively few engineers, Los Angeles still has the largest supply in the country. The Bay Area may be more appealing to nerddom, but is unexceptional in the arts. This revival will not come from the remaining suits in LA; roughly half of workers in the arts are self-employed, according to the economic forecasting firm EMSI. 

This entrepreneurial trend will continue since, with the studio system clearly in decline, as large productions go elsewhere, digital players such as Netflix, Amazon, Apple as well as Los Angeles based Hulu have become more important. Los Angeles could expand its arts-related niche by supplying the content that these expanding digital pipelines require. 

Given the corporate exodus, and the difficult California business climate, overall L.A.’s recovery must come from the bottom up, and be dispersed throughout the region. According to Kauffman Foundation research, the L.A. area already has the second highest number of entrepreneurs per 100 people in the country, just slightly behind the Bay Area. 

The next LA can succeed, but not by trying to duplicate New York or San Francisco. Instead there’s a need for greater appreciation why so many millions migrated here in the first place: great weather, beaches, suburban-like living and entrepreneurial opportunities. Only when the local leadership rediscovers the uniqueness of LA’s DNA can the region undergo the renaissance of this most naturally blessed of places.

(Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and Roger Hobbs Distinguished Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University, and a member of the editorial board of the Orange County Register. He is also executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism. His newest book, The New Class Conflict is now available at Amazon and Telos Press. He is also author of The City: A Global History and The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050. He lives in Orange County, CA.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

 -cw

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 100

Pub: Dec 11, 2015

EASTSIDER-If you’re like most Angelenos, you’re worried about the upcoming DWP rate increases -- fearing that you are going to get fleeced, and frustrated that you can’t understand how it works. So here’s a very short primer that I hope is understandable, along with some suggestions as to what you can do. 

The basics: Over the next five years, DWP is looking for about 5% per year in water rate increases, and about 4% per year in power rate increases. That translates into roughly $1.2 to 1.4 billion in increases over the five years, depending on how you count a couple of variables. 

The really interesting part is that the DWP doesn’t particularly care how much any individual ratepayer pays in their bill. It’s basically an engineering company at heart, so what they really care about is the total number of dollars they will need over the five-year time period to do their job. Period. 

Who pays what and how that money is divided up into the rate structure for water and for power is of secondary interest to the people who have to do the actual work. 

What’s not needed: The hundreds of millions of dollars that the City grabs as a ‘transfer fee’ each year and the millions of dollars in “feel good pet projects” Council members shift over to the DWP – projects that you and I have to pay for in our DWP bill. We need to stop this ripoff! 

Guess who makes the decisions as to how much you and I will pay individually? The politicians, of course.  After looking at how other utility companies do their billing, hiring a bunch of consultants, and getting input from the Ratepayers Advocate, the DWP Board then votes to send recommendations to the LA City Council. Abut for practical purposes, it’s really the Mayor and the City Council that decide.  Remember, the Mayor appoints every single DWP Board member, and if they fail to do his bidding, they get zapped.  

You have probably heard me say that these new funds are mostly needed to fix the crumbling infrastructure (largely thanks to past manipulation by City Council,) and to pay for legislation requiring a high percentage of renewable energy over this same time period. Every time the Mayor, the City Council, or the State Legislature gets that old ‘feel good green hot flash’ impulse, they impose yet another set of unfunded mandates that the DWP has to implement. And of course, you and I are the funding for these unfunded mandates. 

I can make probably make enough changes in my own water/power needs to offset some of these increases, and can then marginally afford them. But if you talk to my 90 year old mother-in-law who gets about $1000 a month in Social Security, she’s not so thrilled -- nor can she absorb these increases.  All she gets from the politicians is a bunch of hot air and no help. For her and many other Angelenos, the bottom line is the cost, and she’s hurting. 

So let me give you the political math about DWP rate setting, along with some suggestions as to what we can do about it. All my politically savvy friends say that in the era of 10% voter turnouts for LA City elections, homeowners, representing about 40% of the overall population, are far and away the largest percentage (60%) of people who actually bother to vote in municipal elections. 

Why is this important? Because something like 90% of renters do not pay a water bill directly. Big apartment buildings have ‘master meters’ where there is no individual breakdown of use by unit.   Couple that with the Apartment Owners Association findings that about 78% of LA City apartments are subject to rent control, and you discover that there is unfortunately no reason that renters should pay attention to how much water they use -- and according to the LA Times, they don’t. 

Now if you are a homeowner in the Valley, where temperature swings are higher and lot sizes are much larger, you may take a double hit. The proposed new 4-tier system hits people with larger lots in higher temperature zones more than other ratepayers. 

So now you know that homeowners, particularly those in the Valley, have some proof that they are getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop. But are we doomed? And who can fix this? 

Remember, the DWP as an entity has no stake in the answer to these questions – all they want is their $1.2 to 1.4 billion over the five year period. It’s a political exercise. So forget the DWP Board of Directors, unless you like spinning your wheels and getting blown off. Don’t forget: the Mayor owns them. 

Of course, you could try to influence the Mayor himself, that is, if you could actually find him in between his jet setting travel schedule and photo ops. Good luck with that. 

Or, and here’s my proposal:  take a look at the LA City Council’s Energy and Environment Committee. That is where the proposed DWP Rate Increase goes after the DWP Board votes on them in December or January. That is where the proposals are subjected to the political process before the full Council votes on the final rates. And that is one of the few places where politics can still count in modifying ratepayer increases. 

And guess what? All five members of this committee are up for re-election in 2017. The Chair is Felipe Fuentes (CD7), and the other members are Gil Cedillo (CD1), Bob Blumenfield (CD3), Paul Koretz (CD5), and Mitch O”Farrell (CD13). These five are the most vulnerable of the pack, because the voters can actually hold them accountable for their actions. And face it, until a councilmember or two pays the price for ignoring us (as in, losing their sinecure), it will be business as usual for our “go along to get along” elected officials.  

Forget the details about the proposed DWP rate increases. Let’s talk about the “transfer fee” and the pet projects and why everybody doesn’t get treated the same way in their bills. 

Consider talking to all of the homeowners you know and the people and community groups they know. Start focusing on these five elected officials. Demand equal treatment in deciding who pays what for water and power rates. Tiers are not legally mandatory. Get rid of them. Make a stink. Demand answers about these issues from the members of the E&E Committee. You may discover that councilmembers don’t know as much as you think they should. Get excited and start talking about Valley Succession again. Whatever works! 

This fight may be uphill, but it is not a children’s campaign. If you do the political math of who owns homes and who votes, we are one whale of a special interest group. We know we are being used and we know we can do something about it at the polls. Heck, we might even get a fair rate structure. 

For more information about the DWP, its budget, and rate structure go to this link.  

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

-cw

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 100

Pub: Dec 11, 2015

LATINO PERSPECTIVE--‘Circus Disco’ the 40 year old Hollywood nightclub that was founded decades ago to welcome Latinos and men of color who were shunned at other gay nightspots, is now being considered for demolition to make way for a multi-million dollar, mega mixed-use development project that would include 695 residential units and 1,391 parking spaces on the almost 6-acre site. (Photo: proposed Lexington) 

According to the Los Angeles Times when historic preservationists learned that the soon-to-be-shuttered club could be torn down for new development, they grew alarmed that another vital piece of Los Angeles' gay history could be lost to the bulldozers. 

To protect or at least commemorate Circus Disco, they proposed that the city recognize it as a historic monument, a step that could make it harder to demolish or alter the cavernous building. Such a status would not forbid demolition but could delay and complicate plans to redevelop the site with hundreds of new apartments. 

On February 24, the City Council approved an ordinance that certified the EIR and made a zoning change allowing residential use of the proposed Lexington site, which was restricted to industrial and commercial. The ordinance was approved 14 to 0; Councilman Jose Huizar was absent. The ordinance goes into effect April 8, but LGBT Latino advocates and historic preservation experts want the council to reopen the EIR and have it amended to include historical and cultural information about Circus Disco and have a discussion about what should be done with the property. 

“The fact that Circus Disco is on Survey LA  and a potential historic resource means it should have been included in the EIR,” said historic preservation attorney Susan Brandt-Hawley. “It sounds like it’s an inadequate EIR. The city council needs to re-open it and supplement it to include this information.” 

Jonathan Menendez, who directed the 2012 documentary “Gay Latino LA” and has been researching Los Angeles’ gay Latino history – including Circus Disco – for eight years, said, “Obviously that EIR is false. I completely support the city council amending it.”   

“Circus is so important because the space has meaning. It’s a sacred cultural space,” Menendez said. “The space is meaningful because for gay Latino men it’s a home away from home. If you destroy that cultural space, you destroy a cultural landmark.” 

Disco has tremendous historical and cultural significance to the LGBT Latino community.

Anthony C. Ocampo, a Cal Poly Pomona sociology professor, said Circus Disco is vital for some gay Latino men coming out of the closet. 

“As a result, Circus plays a tremendous role and crucial role in creating community for gay men of color. When they first come out of the closet, it’s a safe space,” Ocampo said. “You find people like you. I’ve had gay Latinos refer to Circus as going to church. It was that essential to their life. 

I agree with those who say that Circus Disco has an important historical and cultural significance to the Los Angeles LGBT Latino Community; but for Ocampo to say that demolishing Circus Disco would erase gay Latino history is nonsense!  

Our history should not depend in one building. The plan should recognize the property's history, and it can be commemorated with a plaque. 

In a letter to the Cultural Heritage Commission, Avalon Bay senior vice president of development Mark Janda said the company disagrees with the idea that Circus Disco is a historic monument and emphasized that hundreds of new apartments at the site could help chip away at L.A.’s housing shortage. 

Mr. Janda is right there is a housing crisis in Los Angeles, the lack of it it’s the main  reason rents continue to go up.  Latinos are greatly affected by the shortage of housing in this city.

What we have to do is to make sure that the Lexington Project is well planned, and that it will take into account traffic, parking, the environment, and our quality of life. 

If we truly want to honor our LGBT Latino Community we should support the Lexington Project and make sure that LGBT Latinos in Los Angeles and Latinos in general have access to a decent quality of life. This project will help ease some of this housing shortage, and will make it easier for Latino families in Los Angeles to afford rent in this 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])

-cw

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 99

Pub: Dec 8, 2015

BILLBOARD WATCH--Students coming to Animo Venice Charter High school by bus from areas like Inglewood and South LA get off at a stop on Venice Blvd. and walk a half mile north on Lincoln Blvd. to the school campus. One a recent school day, this is what they’d have seen on their way to morning classes.

First, a bus shelter ad for the new James Bond movie, Spectre, featuring actor Daniel Craig holding a gun as if he is prepared to do business with it. A few blocks further, a 600 sq. ft. billboard ad for New Amsterdam vodka, featuring a Marilyn Monroe look-alike who appears to be engaged in some serious partying. And, just a block-and-a-half from the school, signs for Marlboro and Camel Crush cigarettes at the edge of a 7-Eleven parking lot, placed as closely as possible to the sidewalk without actually impinging on the public space.

The students on foot and the people in cars creeping along highly-congested Lincoln Blvd are not the only audiences for the signs. Across the street from the bus shelter is a Boys & Girls Club. Three quarters of a block up the street is a church, and across the street from the church is a preschool. Those institutions are just 400 ft. from that Clear Channel billboard with the vodka bottle and model with her mouth open wide and bare arms thrust into the air.

Of course, the students and others don’t always see these pitches for alcohol, tobacco, and action movies with lots of gunplay. Ads change. Over the past several years, the Clear Channel billboard has displayed ads for Beck’s beer, for the TV show “The Strain” with the notorious image of a worm crawling out of woman’s eyeball, and for the online video streaming site “Crackle” with an image of a woman holding a smoking gun.

The billboard has a valid permit but is 10 ft. higher than allowed by the permit, according to city inspection records. Which means, of course, that it can be seen from a greater distance by motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians on that busy thoroughfare.

Lest anyone wonder about the relevance of the 400 ft. distance, Clear Channel is a member of the Outdoor Advertising Association of American (OAAA), which has “Code of Industry Principles” stating, among other things, the following:

We are committed to a program that establishes exclusionary zones that prohibit stationary advertisements of products illegal for sale to minors that are intended to be read from, at least 500 feet of, elementary and secondary schools, public playgrounds, and established places of worship.

Nothing about this is surprising. A 2008 study published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine found that 37 per cent of outdoor ads for alcohol and 25 per cent for tobacco were located within 500 ft. of a school, playground, or church in Los Angeles. But the OAAA does say that its “Code of Industry Principles” are voluntary, and there’s plenty of evidence that L.A.’s big three billboard companies—Clear Channel, Outfront Media, and Lamar Advertising—have chosen to ignore them.

There’s also plenty of evidence that the billboard company clients—corporate purveyors of alcohol, fast food, soda, violent movies—design many of their ads to appeal to young people like the students who walk Lincoln Blvd to and from high school each day in Venice.

The First Amendment’s free speech guarantee means that billboards on private property are free to display almost anything in ads, no matter how distasteful, harmful, or otherwise antithetical to a community’s physical and mental health. Fortunately, cities are also allowed to limit the number of billboards, or even prohibit them altogether, and many have done so.

Los Angeles made at attempt in this direction in 2002, when it banned new off-site signs, i.e, those advertising products and services not available on that site. Unfortunately, that ban was riddled with exceptions and proved vulnerable to legal attack. And Clear Channel and the other billboard companies are still lobbying city hall and going to court for the right to put up new billboards, especially the digital variety.

And a final thought:  Did anyone at Clear Channel or the ad agency or the company producing New Amsterdam Vodka think about the propriety of using a blonde Marilyn Monroe type to market booze, given that serious addictions to alcohol and drugs likely contributed to cutting short that actress’s life?

The following is a sample of studies by researchers at UCLA, USC and elsewhere into the links between outdoor advertising and public health. (click on title to read full report)

Clustering of unhealthy outdoor advertisements around child-serving institutions: A comparison of three cities. UCLA School of Public Health, University of Pennsylvania, University of Texas, American University: This study of outdoor advertisement in Los Angeles, Austin, and Philadelphia found that unhealthy ads—alcohol, junk food, depictions of violence—were clustered around child-serving institutions in Los Angeles and Philadelphia. It concluded that zoning and land use regulations should protect children from unhealthy commercial messages, particularly in neighborhoods with racial/ethnic minority populations. 

The Prevalence of Harmful Content on Outdoor Advertising in Los Angeles: Land Use, Community Characteristics, and the Spatial Inequality of a Public Health Nuisance. American Journal of Public Health, April 2014. | This year-long study of billboard advertising in seven selected areas of Los Angeles found that at-risk communities and communities of color hosted more harmful content—alcohol, fast food and soda, gambling, gun-related violence, and sexism—than more affluent communities.  

Outdoor advertising, obesity, and soda consumption: A cross-sectional study. Lenard Lesser, Frederick J. Zimmerman, and Deborah A. Cohen. BMC Public Health, 2013. | This study by researchers at UCLA, the Rand Corporation, and Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute of 220 census tracts in Los Angeles and New Orleans found a strong correlation between the percentage of outdoor advertising promoting unhealthy food and beverages and the rate of obesity among residents of those tracts.  

A Cross-Sectional Prevalence Study of Ethnically Targeted and General Audience Outdoor Obesity-Related Advertising. UCLA, Johns Hopkins University, University of Texas, University of Pennsylvania, American University, Public Health Institute, California Dept. of Public Health: | This study of areas offering contrasts of income and ethnicity in Los Angeles; Austin, Texas; New York City; and Philadelphia found that low-income and ethnic minority communities were disproportionately exposed to outdoor advertising for fast food, soda and other products that can promote obesity. 

(Dennis Hathaway is the president of the Ban Billboard Blight Coalition and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected]. ) Photo credit:  Mayor Sam’s Sister City

-cw

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 99

Pub: Dec 8, 2015

ACTION ALERT-The future of land use and development in our city gets down to a choice: do we want a horizontal city, mimicking what we know -- the low slung buildings and sometimes NIMBY attitude toward development. Or do we want a vertical landscape, where towers triumph? Strong cases can be made for both, each with its pros and cons.  

There’s no end to the number of people who want to live in LA and enjoy our perfect climate and laid back lifestyle. Against that demand is a significant housing shortage -- a finite and dwindling supply of affordable housing. It seems that every time a rent-stabilized pre-1978 building is torn down, often unscrupulously by invoking the Ellis Act, it’s replaced with a bigger building with smaller units and higher rents, forcing the relocation of previous tenants who cannot afford to stay. 

Neighborhood groups are flexing some muscle by joining the conversation. Developers and politicos are becoming accustomed to strident pushback, as evidenced by the recent epidemic of litigation against development. Much of that is centered in Hollywood -- ground zero for development and densification. Rules once created by legislation are being replaced by rules based on litigation. 

Imaginative messaging has become one successful weapon in the arsenals of both developers and communities. Developers are using Hollywood storytelling skillsto gain acceptance for their projects. More and more, communities are successfully mobilizing at the grassroots level. 

Redevelopment of a block at Sunset and Crescent Heights provoked a neighborhood crisis when it was announced. However, this has become a textbook example of how to win hearts and minds. The project’s original, controversial design was changed once Frank Gehry was brought in. The message to the community was that what Gehry was planning would be different -- as evidenced by the installation of two models of the 8150 Sunset project in his massive survey show on view now at LACMA. (Model photo above.) 

The models show a group of three buildings isolated on a plinth. Nearby, a second, more dramatic and storytelling display incorporates the model within the context of the whole hillside, so that perspective can be presented. Lots of visitors are spending time studying these displays at this very popular exhibition. 

This is a smooth presentation, located in a subtle, hushed museum gallery context. It comes across as interesting and effective “advocacy” instead of a hardcore sales job. As a bonus, it didn’t hurt that this pitch to skeptical hillside neighbors who objected to the architect’s first version, were reminded that they would now have a Frank Gehry work of art to look at. Most works of art are memorialized in a museum setting after they have been created and gained an audience. This flips the sequence: the project’s three buildings are displayed as a significant work of art even before being built. 

What other living architect has taken over most of a massive exhibition pavilion at one of the country’s most visible museums? Talk about reinforcement and Hollywood image-making! 

Contemporary artist Takashi Murakami sold his “Multicolore Monogram for Louis Vuitton” handbags during his MOCA exhibition. So it’s no wonder LACMA is now allowing Gehry’s exhibition floor to be an exchange of sorts. For the developers, it’s much more imaginative than fighting with neighbors who are protesting or even litigating against them. This is an example that other developers may want to think about: how to be a storyteller – presenting their projects in a venue where they can tell their story -- a location that goes beyond the traditional community meeting. Hollywood, as one of the image-making capitals of the world, presents lots of opportunity for development conversations to come. 

But then how do you fight against development when you don't have the powers of persuasion on a grand scale such as this? Answer: you have to be a guerrilla and use grassroots techniques that require hustle, imagination and drive. Until last week, when the LA City Council approved Historic Cultural Monument status for 118-124 N. Flores St. in Beverly Grove, (popularly known as theMendel Meyer house,) it was uncertain that a grassroots campaign to achieve that goal would succeed. 

During the summer, tenants at the Los Flores property were evicted by the landlord who used, (and many say unfairly,) the Ellis Act to evict them. The goal was to tear down this building that would eventually be ruled a historic-cultural structure; the landlord wanted to build a bigger building with increased rental potential. All but two tenants, a couple, took the money and moved. Steve Luftman, however, got to work, waging guerrilla warfare (almost like Abbie Hoffman,) against the development establishment. 

What Luftman did should inspire anyone facing eviction under suspicious circumstances: say no and fight back using every means possible that substitutes for money. Namely, engage the neighbors and the community, make a case at the land use committee of the neighborhood council and solicit the support of your councilmember. Use the media by repeatedly sending out stories and updates to the press; open an email address and use other digital resources like social media. 

In addition, you can hold a demonstration at the subject building, file for historic cultural monument status, go to every hearing that has anything to do with your project and make public comment, and most of all, don’t give up! 

Steve Luftman didn’t give up and now the Mendel Meyer house has been granted historic cultural landmark status. The building will not be demolished. 

The Edinburgh Bungalow Court, (photo) not far from Luftman’s building, now awaits a hearing by PLUM (LA City Council’s Planning and Land Use Management committee,) and a vote for preservation by the full City Council. “This has been an incredible fight, and it’s not over yet,” says tenant Heather Fox, co-organizer with Brian Harris of the efforts to protect Edinburgh Bungalow Court. A developer wants to replace it with a small lot sub-division. 

The Cultural Heritage Commission voted unanimously in support of Edinburgh Bungalow Court’s Historic Cultural Monument status on November 19, with lots of community backing and strong supportive remarks to the committee by Councilmember Paul Koretz. 

Fox and Harris also enlisted the support of the LA Conservancy, once it was clear that Survey LA http://preservation.lacity.org/survey had flagged Edinburgh Bungalow Court as an excellent example of a Hollywood bungalow court. 

In the last two months, other guerrilla techniques used to gather community support for Edinburgh Bungalows included a demonstration outside the Bungalows, a canvassing of the neighborhood, handing out flyers, knocking on doors, and stopping to chat with people in the community at every chance. Advocates even set up a lemonade stand on the corner outside the Bungalows; they made yard signs and started a Facebook page. 

Their neighborhood council, Mid City West, supported the preservation with a board motion. By the November 19 Historic Cultural status hearing date, they had 200 petition signatures and 91 letters from people who live and work in the community. Over 30 people showed up at the hearing to speak, including the councilmember, LA Conservancy, Hollywood Heritage, and the West Hollywood Preservation Alliance. 

“We have met so many wonderful people who really care what happens to their neighborhood, and are so grateful for the enthusiasm of the community and especially for the concern and active part of our city councilman Paul Koretz,” says Fox, describing the grassroots, community-led fight for preservation of this structure from demolition. 

Moving to a grander scale is the proposal by The Coalition to Preserve LA to launch a Neighborhood Integrity Initiative ballot measure in an attempt to better manage the spread of new developments in Los Angeles. 

Key elements of their plan include a proposal for a construction moratorium for 24 months for city-approved projects that aim to increase some types of density. During this period, review and updates of community plans would be conducted. 

City employees, rather than developers’ staff, would be in charge of preparing an environmental review of major development projects. 

The city’s community plans would be reviewed and become consistent with the city’s General Plan. 

The General Plan will not be allowed to be amended by what is popularly known as “spot zoning” --where developers are able to get separate variances for a single project. 

The Coalition is ironing out the final language. Then the matter will either be considered by the full City Council – or sent to the voters as ballot measure. Which alternative will be used is yet to be determined. 

Leaders of the Coalition to Preserve LA include Michael Weinstein, Ballot Measure Proponent and President of AHF(Aids Healthcare Foundation); Jacqui Shabel, Hollywood Neighborhood Alliance; Jack Humphreville, the Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council and UN4LA (United Neighborhoods 4 L.A.); Helen Berman, UN4LA (United Neighborhoods 4 L.A.); John Campbell, Save Residential Hollywood; and Miki Jackson, Ballot Measure Proponent. 

No matter which side of the “horizontal versus vertical” development debate you are on, you can expect lots more noise from each side. This kind of public dialogue is both healthy and an affordable, so add your voice!

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

-cw                

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 99

Pub: Dec 8, 2015

EDUCATION POLITICS-It’s decision time at LAUSD.  With the end-of-year departure of Superintendent Ramon Cortines, LAUSD has some decisions to make. What are LAUSD’s policy goals for the next few years? Who is the leader to help LAUSD meet those goals? 

Thursday afternoon, on December 3, about 100 parent and student advocates rallied on the steps outside of LAUSD Headquarters to tell the School Board the next superintendent must value the voice of the community and fight for increased fairness in the district. The advocates, organized by Community Coalition urged LAUSD superintendent candidates to sign an equity-oriented “Pledge to the Community” and embrace the principles of fairness and community involvement expressed in the pledge. The advocates also encouraged the Board of Education to use the pledge as a tool for evaluating the superintendent candidates. 

The students and parents at the rally came from South LA and the Eastside--areas where we know too many students are not making it to graduation, and those that do graduate aren’t ready for college. These student are not getting the resources they deserve, and the next superintendent needs to do a better job of making sure all students in LAUSD have the tools to succeed. 

One of the most powerful speakers at the rally was Takara Haslem, a junior at Crenshaw High School and a youth leader at Community Coalition. Haslem hopes to be the first in her family to go to college, but repeatedly has been assigned to the incorrect A-G college prep classes causing her to miss valuable weeks of learning. She wants a superintendent who values the education of all students, no matter their race or ethnicity. 

“At times, I lost over two weeks of learning in important classes like History and Algebra,” Haslem said. “When my counselors finally placed me in the right classes, I had to work extra hard to catch up, to make sure that I could still be college-ready. This is not fair! Why do black and brown students need to work harder to be college-ready when adults are the ones making the mistakes?” 

Haslem worries her younger siblings will face the same challenges when they come to Crenshaw in a few years. 

The “Pledge to the Community,” developed by leaders from InnerCity Struggle and Community Coalition, calls upon the next LAUSD Superintendent to create a healthier learning environment for our students. By signing the pledge, the next superintendent would commit to prioritizing community involvement, addressing racial disparities and acknowledging the need for developing strategies targeted specifically at schools in high poverty areas that have previously lacked necessary funding. 

In addition to these broader commitments, the pledge also asks the next superintendent to commit to implementing specific policies to ensure LAUSD students are prepared for college and career: A-G Readiness for All; continued progress on school discipline reform, putting a greater emphasis on restorative justice programs that help students heal rather than simply suspending or expelling them; and full implementation of the “Equity is Justice” resolution urging greater investment in schools with the highest need. The “Equity is Justice” resolution was passed by the School Board in 2014. 

Davona Watson, a senior at Wilson High School and a youth leader with InnerCity Struggle, explained at the rally why it is so important that the next superintendent understand the need for a positive school climate and restorative justice programs, which encourage students to take responsibility for their actions and resolve conflicts with their peers. 

“Restorative Justice allows guidance for both students and adults to build a thriving environment where students can feel comfortable, safe and be heard,” Watson said. “Although we have made much progress, we need this policy to be more than a slogan that is generally misunderstood and rarely applied.” 

This past weekend executive search firm Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, who is conducting the superintendent search, began meeting with the candidates. This follows a series of meetings between the search firm and key community stakeholders including parents, students and staff from Community Coalition and InnerCity Struggle. 

We hope that both the Board of Education and the executive search firm were listening to the voices on Thursday calling for change --the voices of Takara Haslem and Davona Watson asking for a superintendent that will make students like them a priority. It’s decision time at LAUSD, and we hope LAUSD’s next superintendent will make the decision to sign the “Pledge to the Community,” and make equity and community involvement a priority.

(Henry Perez is Associate Director of InnerCity Struggle.  Sandra Hamada is Director of Youth Organizing and Programs at Community Coalition.) Prepped for CItyWatch by Linda Abrams.

-cw

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 99

Pub: Dec 8, 2015

MILLENNIAL PERSPECTIVE--Watching condos overrun my hometown, I began to ponder my own gentrifying impact as a temporary resident of South Los Angeles. Each year, tens of thousands of students flood into the poor, gang-ridden area of South LA to attend the University of Southern California (USC). 

It’s an awkward image, an eighteen year-old jumping into his Maserati while mothers and their children dig through trash bins at the campus center. 

Years from now, USC will have displaced most of the latter demographic. Returning alumni, including myself, will hardly recognize the setting of their college memories. 

Recently, USC has taken huge steps in terms of altering South LA, undertaking what is arguably the most impactful development project in the area’s history. Officially breaking ground in September 2014, the USC Village Project will replace an inexpensive, unadorned shopping center with a $650 million hub of posh stores, restaurants, and student housing. Of course, the project means something very different to the USC student body than it does to permanent residents of South LA, most unable to afford groceries at the incoming Trader Joe’s.   

Thomas Sayles, the USC administrator appointed to handle community relations regarding the Village, has fervently contended that the project will serve the community, including perks such as local hiring, street lighting improvements, and the construction of a new fire station. Throughout the approval process, USC emphasized that the project will increase low-rent housing availability for local residents by providing more on-campus student housing. 

In reality, USC’s claim that this project will increase low-rent housing vacancy in the area lacks substance. For the 2015-2016 academic year, sample costs for living in USC residence halls, including parking, were quoted at $17,007.  Living in an apartment several blocks from campus, my total rent, parking, and utility costs will come out to less than $10,000 for the same school year. Certainly the USC administration realizes that students are unlikely to choose to remain in expensive university housing beyond the typical freshman year experience, rather than save thousands of dollars. While the university boasts the support of the local residents, this is clearly more of a public relations perk than a priority. 

The first rumblings I heard about the USC Village Project came in the middle of my freshman year, once I’d spent just enough time at this university to grow fond of the old “UV.” Here, a charismatic albeit rundown food court held dining options from an impressive variety of cultures. Sandwich Island, a personal favorite, was run by a Chinese couple who’d have your sandwich made before you could say “sprouts.” Sure enough, the USC Village will replace the only dining options near campus for less than five dollars, not to mention the only space that was truly shared between USC and non-USC-affiliated community members.   

As a student at a large, inner-city public high school in a neighborhood not so unlike South LA, I was exposed to the sort of homelessness, poverty, and crime that USC fears will deter potential students from enrolling. Being exposed to such harsh realities early in my life greatly influenced my perception of the world, marking my plans for the future with a sense of social responsibility. Unfortunately, I’ve found that USC students are much more divided from their neighbors than my classmates were from the people who lived around our high school. Remarks from my peers about the “dirty hobos” lining Figueroa are frequent. USC, as an institution committed to training future world leaders, should be focused on battling such fear and ignorance by building bridges between students and South LA residents, not tearing them down. 

Certainly, the USC Village will alleviate a few of the greatest challenges to the institution in its competition for academic status. The Village will make complaints about the lack of quality shopping and dining options around campus obsolete. The new “UV” will create a buffer between USC and the sort of senseless violence that took the life of a student who was on his way home from a study session in the summer of 2014.  It will, however, only increase the divide between USC students and the low-income residents of South Los Angeles. 

Here is a lost learning opportunity for young people to truly build a community with people from different walks of life. All in all, the USC Village Project is inconsistent with the university’s mission to teach students “to acquire wisdom and insight, love of truth and beauty, moral discernment, understanding of self, and respect and appreciation for others.”

(The author of this piece is a white undergraduate at the University of Southern California. She requested her name be withheld out of concern for retaliation.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

 -cw

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 99

Pub: Dec 8, 2015

ANIMAL WATCH-An elephant walking up Weidlake Drive to a late-night party on Saturday, November 15, at a house in Hollywood Dell, caused concerned residents to call LA Animal Services, LAPD and the Fourth District Council Office. As a result, Councilman David Ryu is asking for a report from LAAS on closing a “loophole” in the City’s exotic-animal permitting process. 

One neighbor reported being  “concerned that the elephant was agitated,” the Councilman said in a letter to the department that was read into the record by his Director of Policy and Legislation, Nicholas Greif, at the November 24 Animal Services Commission meeting. (Photo: Elephant at party example is from a Blake Edwards Hollywood party in 1968.) 

Representatives of the Hollywood Dell community were also present to testify. The first, Mary Ledding, described how perplexed she was by being unable to find a listing of issued permits on the LA Animal Services website. However, according to the Councilman’s letter, “…organizers of the party at 6447 Weidlake Drive said that they had a permit for the elephant. And they did.” 

Councilman Ryu wrote, “I find it hard to believe that our permit system for exotic animals is meant to be allowed for late-night parties in the City of Los Angeles. I do not believe that bringing an elephant up the rutted roads of this hillside street to a loud party is humane treatment …” 

Skip Haynes told the Commission he has lived in the area for over 15 years. He said he attended the meeting to support the LAPD Senior Lead Officers who responded regularly to “party house” incidents. He voiced concern for the animals and what will happen as a result of proposed development and the increasing number of “party houses” in residential communities -- houses that are not used as homes, but merely rented out for events such as this. 

Haynes, co-founder of Citizens for LA Wildlife (CLAW), said that on June 6 a similar party was held at the same house and a full-grown lion was clearly visible to neighboring properties. An earlier event involved a giraffe; and reportedly no proof of a permit was produced  He also voiced concern about the damage that can be done by large transport vehicles or, as in this case, walking an elephant on aging, narrow canyon streets. 

George Skarpelos, who serves on the Board of Directors of Hollywood United Neighborhood Councils, stated, “Using animals as 'props' in this manner is not the type of thing we want to see.”  He also expressed great concern over alcohol consumed at these events and how that may impact the treatment of the animals. He stated that Councilman Ryu’s office had promptly contacted LA Animal Services and asked that this item be placed on the Commission agenda. 

In a subsequent e-mail to Councilman Ryu, George Skarpelos wrote, “I believe the letter…sent to the commissioners was a forceful indictment of this ridiculous craze and certainly gave weight to the community's concerns.”  He also noted that Councilman Ryu’s policy director Nick Greif, “… gave very clear and valid reasons for restricting the permitting of these animals.” 

Senior Lead Officers Ralph Sanchez and Tracy Fields of the Hollywood Division voiced apprehension over how public safety is compromised when wildlife is used in a private party setting. They explained that, if any emergency arose in the area which required a helicopter and/or other emergency equipment to be brought in, there is a very real risk of the animal becoming frightened and out of control. 

Captain Martin Wall of California Fish and Wildlife advised me by phone that, while a company may have the proper permit(s) to provide wildlife for events, the animals and public safety are always the first concern. He agreed with the LAPD officers that an emergency could cause a chaotic scene in which the elephant could become alarmed and “stampede,” injuring itself and humans and also damaging emergency-response vehicles and equipment. He stated that the local jurisdiction can develop an ordinance to establish restrictions on how wildlife permits are used. 

I am withholding the name of the company (obtained from the Council office) which provided the elephant at the party, in order to avoid giving them free advertising. However, the services listed on their website include “Exotic Animal Rentals” and are vividly described on Google as the,“Cutting edge of extreme party themes and over-the-top events. Party, prop and exotic animal rentals…” 

LA Animal Services did not provide a written report at the Commission meeting. General Manager Brenda Barnette was present and confirmed that a permit had been granted, but she seemed uncertain as to the process or details. According to an attendee at the meeting, when they called Animal Services to report the incident that night, they were told by the dispatcher that only one officer was on duty and there would be nothing that could be done about an elephant at 11:30 p.m. 

Animal Services Commission President David Zaft issued the following statement in response to my request for the Board’s position on the concerns expressed by Councilman Ryu and residents about the City’s permitting regulations: 

"I and the other Commissioners were extremely concerned to learn that some individuals are bringing elephants, giraffes, lions and other exotic animals into our residential communities to use as party props. Such behavior manifests an outright disregard both for the well-being of these magnificent animals and the safety of our communities. 

“The Board has asked the Department of Animal Services and the City Attorney's Office to take swift action and propose changes to the Municipal Code to make sure this sort of reckless activity is stopped, while the humane and safe use of such animals for legitimate and limited purposes may continue when properly permitted." 

Councilman Ryu affirmed in his letter that, “It is important that our City maintain a clear and easy to use exotic animal permit system for legitimate filming purposes.” However, he added, if the purpose for which animals are permitted is “disrupting the quality of life of residents and the animals, then this is a loophole that must be closed.” 

For more information contact:  Phyllis M. Daugherty at [email protected].

(Animal activist Phyllis M. Daugherty writes for CityWatch and is a contributing writer to opposingviews.com.  She lives in Los Angeles.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

-cw

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 99

Pub: Dec 8, 2015