LOS ANGELES

LA WATCHDOG--The Fire and Police Pension System had an unfunded liability of $3.3 billion in 2016.  So why did Mayor Eric Garcetti and the other four members of the Executive Employees Relations Committee (Councilmen Wesson, Englander, Kerkorian, and Koretz) make a decision behind closed doors in February of 2016 to ignore the recommendations of Miguel Santana, the City Administrative Officer, to terminate the very expensive Deferred Retirement Option Plan (“DROP”) that had cost the Pension System $1.6 billion since its inception in 2001? 

BELL VIEW-An assassin took the 39-year-old Martin Luther King 50 years ago this week. King came to Memphis to support a garbage-workers’ strike – the one where strikers carried signs proclaiming, "I AM A MAN" – a simple, seemingly uncontroversial message reminiscent of “Black Lives Matter.” 

For a man who cannot stop talking on Twitter about every single thought that pops into his head, Donald Trump's silence on the killing of Stephon Clark in Sacramento says all you need to know about how the President of the United States of America views the death of young black men. 

URBAN PERSPECTIVE--The tragic fatal shooting of  Stephon Clark has captured the nation’s attention and elevated the conversation around whether police can and should investigate themselves, especially when the public’s trust weighs in the balance.

TRANSIT TALK--Because I am a transit rider since 1992 in what is many times called a not-transit-rich Los Angeles, I am quite interested in this bill. I am a transit rider because I am worried about air pollution in the Los Angeles Basin which after years of improvement is now slipping backwards toward more polluted. With the Trump Administration and EPA Secretary Pruitt ready to gut mandatory vehicle mileage requirements it seems certain air pollution will now get worse.

GELFAND’S WORLD--This year, April Fools' Day was kind of a bust. There have been a few jokes including Jack Humphreville's March 29 column, but things have otherwise been kind of dry in the hoax biz. Perhaps this is because April 1 happened to coincide with Easter Sunday, but I suspect that the main reason has to do with the tsunami of fakery we've been getting drowned under since Trump started his run for the presidency. It's been a real life restaging of Lily Tomlin's famous old line, "No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up." 

CAPITAL & MAIN REPORT--Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) invented shortages to justify using the troubled Aliso Canyon storage facility, the site of the October 2015 blowout that forced nearby residents from their homes for months, residents and lawmakers have charged. The blowout, caused by a ruptured well, sent more than 100,000 metric tons of natural gas into the atmosphere and resulted in a four-month-long leak.

BCK FILE--Since the #MeToo movement has taken hold in just about every workplace, from Hollywood and the hospitality industry to the Silicon Valley and government, just about all workplaces have been working to change policies to protect employees and shield employers from costly lawsuits. 

ALPERN AT LARGE--If this topic weren't so frequently raised by community and educational leaders, it wouldn't be so boring (and yet so timely).  We hear about the Millennials being so poorly prepared for the real world, and so unable to be independent, but it could be easily stated that theirs is a generation that is just extending a trend that has been occurring for decades.

WATER PITCH IS FROM FANTASYLAND--This time, “Chinatown” is fooling itself.

CORRUPTION WATCH-Although the Orange Buffoon suffers from a couple diagnosable personality disorders with episodes of paranoia, Donald Trump did not cause our problems. If Trump-a-Doodle and his shenanigans should disappear overnight, nothing would change. “The fault, Dear Brutus, is not in our (reality TV) stars, but, in ourselves….”Julius Caesar (I, ii, 140-141). 

@THE GUSS REPORT-The “free” in freedom of speechcan come with a costly price tag when those who exercise it mistakenly assume it is limitless and without repercussions. 

DEEGAN ON CALIFORNIA-Who will be honored? Will it be the beach boy (and girl) surfers, the board boy (and girl) skateboarders or even the snowboarders?Thousands of boys, girls, men and women in California and beyond enjoy all three sports.But which is the most reflective of California andworthy of being named the state’s official sport by the California Legislature? Hint: two of the three (surfing and skateboarding) will debut as Olympic sports at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. 

ALPERN AT LARGE--Credibility, intellectual honesty, and fairness aren't just big things that determine success in life … they're the ONLY things.  So while it's only fair to criticize both our Mayor and City Council when they lack those above qualities, it's also fair to praise them when they do things right.

NC PROVIDES A REAL VOICE FOR COMMUNITY--Neighborhood Councils who count strategic, long-term thinkers among their members can be important players in regional and local land use and transportation matters – both on their own and as partners with other community leaders and organizations.

GELFAND’S WORLD-It is interesting that John Paul Stevens, a retired Justice of the Supreme Court, has just published an essay calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment. Just like the fact that the term democratic socialism isn't scary to the younger generation, there are -- suddenly -- a few calls for amending the Constitution in this way. Perhaps the idea doesn't scare the younger generation because the prospect of being murdered during second period English scares them more.

BELL VIEW--Dehumanization: the process by which tribal politics justifies every excess. Donald Trump may be a crook, but he’sour crook in a crooked system. His policies may be cruel, but the cruelty is the point when those people are the victims. After all, they have no inner lives. They exist only to victimize us. 

RANTZ & RAVEZ-I attended the LAPD Mounted Unit open house last Saturday at their headquarters near Griffith Park and listened to the mounted unit officers discuss their unique and specialized ability to ride a horse in a major metropolitan city with traffic congestion, pedestrians and other serious hazards. The expertise of these mounted officers is impressive, to say the least. The well-trained and experienced officers and horses serve an important function in crowd control during special events and in patrolling high crime areas. When you see the mounted officers, stop and let them know you appreciate their service. 

MY TURN--We can almost set our clock around post-Thanksgiving time when we will begin to see the start of the ranting about the prejudice in saying “Merry Christmas”. One has to wonder if it is part of the church sermon schedule and parishioners are given a list of what they think are disparages that fall upon their religion.

CALMATTERS-Just a few weeks before Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized for the “breach of trust” that allowed Cambridge Analytica to access the private social media activity of 50 million people, Facebook plunked down $200,000 to fight a data privacy initiative in California. 

FIRST PERSON-Last Thursday at KPCC's Crawford Family Forum in Pasadena guests Fabian Debora, community connection director, Arts for Incarcerated Youth Network; Kim McGill, organizer with Youth Justice Coalition; and Dave Mitchell, deputy director, LA County Probation Department of Residential Treatment Services Bureau, gave an inspired presentation on how using an arts education program has been successful in breaking patterns caused by a dysfunctional, punitive model that has resulted in hyper-expensive often lifelong incarceration and criminal recidivism.