LOS ANGELES

PLATKIN ON PLANNING--In an editorial critical of the pushback against gentrification in Boyle Heights, the Los Angeles Times portrays gentrification as a result of blind economic forces that also uplift local communities. 

CORRUPTION WATCH-Which is more important, data or propaganda? Answer: data…because it provides a map of reality. Then again, propaganda is important since it lets you do what you want. 

EDUCATION POLITICS--While it remains politically correct to say Black and Latino students can learn, there's a little problem. Those running our still de facto segregated public education system for their own short-term personal interest and financial profit don't share this belief. Oh, they'll continue talking in platitudes about students being "life-long learners," the “100% graduation rate" and "everybody’s going to college," but the reality is drastically different. In fact, these goals represent disingenuous educational expectations for the overwhelming majority of Black and Latino students. 

PERSPECTIVE--If you take Interstate 15 about two hours north from Los Angeles, heading into the high desert of San Bernardino County, you’ll reach a for-profit federal detention facility called the Adelanto Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Processing Center. The center’s named for the neighboring town of Adelanto, which means “advancement” or “progress” in Spanish, and it’s not an inappropriate title for a town founded a century ago by the inventor of the Hotpoint Electric Iron. But the name now carries a rather different set of associations due to the ICE facility’s presence there.

EASTSIDER-CalPERS recently trumpeted that they got an 11.2% return on investments this year, which should make everyone feel good about their investment portfolio, even though it was less than 1% last year, and far from hitting the 7% average rate per year that they assume. 

PROPUBLICA REPORT--Last Wednesday, July 19, was something of a busy news day. There was word North Korea was making preparations for yet another provocative missile test. The Supreme Court, in its latest ruling in the controversial travel ban case, said that people from the six largely Muslim countries covered by the immigration enforcement action could enter the U.S. if they had a grandparent here, refusing to overturn a ruling that grandparents qualified as “bona fide relatives.”

THE PREVEN PAPER--At its Vision Zero community update this coming Saturday at Loyola Marymount University, the Los Angeles City Department of Transportation will have some explaining to do.  

REFORM ROUND ROBIN-California’s previous attempts at pension reform have had a negligible impact.  We should look to solutions from other states to tackle our growing pension problem. Last week, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed a landmark school pension reform bill that will cap the growth of pension liabilities. California legislators need to follow Michigan’s lead to save its pension funds from insolvency. 

GELFAND’S WORLD--People often divide themselves into two broadly defined camps, the first of which insists on obedience to all rules, while the other defines itself by its anti-authoritarianism. May I suggest that each faction is asking the wrong question. 

@THE GUSS REPORT-This article is a bell that the California Department of Consumer Affairs doesn’t want to be rung about one of its 42 Boards that license and regulate an array of industries in the state, including the California Veterinary Medical Board. 

AT RANDOM-Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council’s July 10 agenda-setting meeting turned out to be a rowdy affair. Some 20 stakeholders got riled up over the proposed standing rules change that removed the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of the meetings and voted against every item proposed until a resolution keeping the Pledge was placed on the agenda for the next meeting. This rule was passed by the previous council and, as it turns out, was not always adhered to. 

CORRUPTION WATCH-Should politics invalidate medical science? Politicos readily allow interests of a tiny segment of society to dictate medical decisions for our children. For years local politicians allowed toxic-spewing industrial plant Exide to poison children who lived nearby. While the plant was physically located in Vernon, many of the 10,000 affected families lived in the city of Los Angeles. 

POLICY--Last week, my friend Ethan announced that he is moving to Ohio. Ethan is an extremely bright entrepreneur in his mid-thirties, who grew up in Southern California. He’s civic minded – joined non-profit boards, gave to charities what he could afford, and was even been elected to his local water board.

ANIMAL WATCH-A surge in attacks on humans and pets by bobcats testing positive for rabies across the U.S. in 2017 is getting the attention of public health officials who say it is unusual for bobcats to contract this disease and also abnormal for this elusive wild feline to attack humans. Officials warn that in any case where a bobcat attacks a human, rabies should be suspected. 

CONNECTION CALIFORNIA--California, do you want to be an incubator for great ideas—or a bubble that shuts out the world?

THIS IS WHAT I KNOW--Back in October of 2015, SoCal Gas employees discovered a massive natural gas leak from a well within the Aliso Canyon underground storage facility in the Santa Susanna Foothills near Porter Ranch in the San Fernando Valley. Owned by Southern California Gas, a division of Sempra Energy, the gas field covers 3,600 acres. 

BELL VIEW-One of the many privileges of my middle class life is health insurance. As far as I can tell, it’s decent coverage. At least I think it’s decent – I can’t pretend to understand it, but I don’t feel like I’m one accident away from total ruin. In the midst of the current debate over the fate of the American healthcare system, it’s hard to overstate the level of peace of mind having basic coverage provides to a person. And despite the high price I pay for this coverage and the amount of work I have to do to maintain it, I recognize that – in 21^st Century America – I’m privileged to have healthcare coverage. 

CORRUPTION WATCH-Starting in 2014, Judge Alan Goodman and Judge James Chalfant warned us that Super Gridlock was being planned for Los Angeles, but we weren’t listening. Perhaps, we missed them sound the alarm. They used polite legalese.  

RANTZ & RAVEZ-First of all, a Big RaveZ for LA City Councilman Bob Blumenfield and the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks. The Woodland Hills Recreation Center located at 5858 Shoup Avenue in the West Valley has a sparkling new pool and recreation center after a long four years of meetings, delays and construction-related problems. It was one thing after another that held up construction of the facility, including contaminated soil that had to be removed and heavy rains that hit the community.  

THIS IS WHAT I KNOW--Hiking Runyon Canyon is one of LA’s most popular outdoor workouts – in a city where Angelenos drive to Flywheel or hot yoga. Getting close enough to the Hollywood Sign for that vacation Instagram post is on the to-do lists of many tourists. 

LIVING THE DREAM-When one thinks about the visionaries who made Hollywood what it is today, there are a lot of candidates to consider: Sid Grauman who dreamed up the picture palaces and movie premieres; C.E. Toberman, who built most of the grand buildings on Hollywood Blvd. and made the Hollywood Bowl a reality; the Chandler family and their associates who put the huge Hollywood Sign on Mt. Lee; Johnny Grant, who built the Hollywood Walk of Fame into an international icon. The list could go on and on.