LOS ANGELES

GELFAND’S WORLD--This is an exercise in thinking about a political left-center that is coherent enough to act effectively. Today's issue is the loss of health insurance for tens of millions of Americans at the hands of Mitch McConnell. Tomorrow's could be the phase out of Medicare under Speaker Ryan. How do we bring organized power to bear against their actions? 

THE VIEW FROM HERE--Can the One L.A. Organization "make democracy work" again in Los Angeles? Not without addressing a still segregated and purposefully dumbed-down LAUSD that is exclusively run for the benefit of its entrenched bureaucracy and the obscene profits of their corporate vendors' interests that keep them in power. 

THIS IS WHAT I KNOW--Earlier this year, Airbnb host Tami Barker refused to honor Dyne Suh’s reservation, tweeting, “I will not allow this country to be told what to do by foreigners. It’s why we have Trump.”

AFFORDABLE HOUSING BATTLE--The California State Assembly will soon be voting on SB 35, and United Neighborhoods for Los Angeles (UN4LA) urges local representatives to reject it. While it's being sold as a way to cut through red tape and accelerate the creation of housing, this bill is poorly conceived and will do more harm than good. SB 35 would create a streamlined approval process for multi-family projects that include a certain number of affordable units. We need to build more housing, but we can't abandon planning in the process. 

NEW GEOGRAPHY-As its economy bounced back from the Great Recession, California emerged as a progressive role model, with New York Times columnist Paul Krugman arguing that the state’s “success” was proof of the superiority of a high tax, high regulation economy. Some have even embraced the notion that California should secede to form its own more perfect union. 

CORRUPTION WATCH-The benefits of living in Los Angeles are god-given, while the liabilities are man-made. There was a time in the first part of the 1900s, when Angelenos more or less tried to preserve the good. Those days are gone. 

PERSPECTIVE-I am a member of LA Fitness. I most often use the facility at Universal City because it has a hardwood basketball court. 

UNAFFORDABLE HOUSING-Yesterday, the Los Angeles City Planning Commission ignored South LA residents’ concerns about displacement and gentrification, swiftly approving a luxury mixed-use redevelopment of Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza.  The City Council’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee (PLUM) will now consider the mega-project.

THE PREVEN REPORT--Here’s what Mayor Eric Garcetti had to say when asked in a recent KPCC radio interview how he manages to balance career planning with fulfilling his current role as Mayor of Los Angeles: 

MY TURN-Full disclosure: I am not an expert in City Planning. Having attended a few Planning Commission meetings and Neighborhood Council rallies "against" new developments, I have seen people display the most discourteous behavior. Sometimes I have mentally checked out when faced with myriad of statistics presented by engineers and architects. 

FIRST TIME AVAILABLE--Monday, TransparentCalifornia.com released 2016 pension payout data from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP) — the nation’s largest municipal utility district. 

VOICES--Many Californians have fond memories of landing their first decent-paying job, working long hours to save enough for a down payment, and finally buying a family home. Many of us poured our weekends and hearts into repairing beautiful old houses.

FINANCE POLITICS--Inadequate roads are leaving Californians stuck in traffic. According to a 2016 study by Inrix, a data company that specializes in traffic-related analytics, Los Angeles, California has the worst traffic in the United States. San Francisco takes the number three spot, and San Diego comes in number 14. In all, 17 California cities rank among the 100 most congested cities in America. 

A disturbing new LA Times investigation of Mayor Garcetti's embrace of Black Lung Lofts has laid open a system of buck-passing and internal disarray, with the Mayor defending freeway-adjacent housing as legally untouchable because it's "in the pipeline." 

BELL VIEW--This morning I was running late to work. Screaming at red lights to turn green, cursing other drivers too timid to make left turns when they had the chance, I looked ahead of me and saw a cyclist taking the lane as he trudged up a small hill. I’ve ridden my bike in the streets of LA, so I gave the guy a wide berth as I slowed to a crawl behind him. I couldn’t get around him because I had to turn right and he was in my lane. “Come on, come on, come on …!” I repeated to myself as the ticking clock seemed to mock my predicament. What a nightmare! I thought. 

PARTY DOWN--Whether the issue is the privatization of public education for corporate profit and the further dumbing down of America or the continued suppression of the will of the majority by gerrymandering and/or removing legally registered voters from the voting rolls based on clearly false charges of multiple registration or any one of many other corporate inspired programs to thwart the will of a democratic majority, the response from the Left in this country has been anything but logical, effective or reasonable. 

VOICES--TPS Parking Management, doing business as The Parking Spot (TPS) filed a legal challenge to the Los Angeles World Airport's (LAWA) Environmental Impact Report for the Landside Access Modernization Plan (LAMP), asserting that the report's conclusions would negatively impact thousands of Los Angeles area residents who are members of the company's loyalty program. 

@TheGussReport – Just when you thought City Attorney Mike Feuer’s office made enough poor decisions in the Wayne Spindler (photo above) gun case, his spokesman Rob Wilcox and prosecutor Eugene Hall, Jr. dug deeper and doing so may cost the taxpayers dearly. 

EASTSIDER-For those living under a rock, California Senate Bill 562 is a California Only, Single-Payer Healthcare Bill. After passage by the Senate and moving to the Assembly for a vote, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) pulled the bill from further action this legislative session. He did note that since this is the first of a two year session, the bill can be revisited next year. 

RESISTANCE WATCH--Feeling bad? First take care of yourself, of course. I like this a lot: Ways to Stay Motivated in this Shit-Shellacked Era of Epic Stupid which begins:  

PLATKIN ON PLANNING--What a pleasant, but short-lived surprise to discover that in late June 2017 UCLA’s renowned Luskin School of Public Affairs sponsored a forum entitled, Can LA fix its Broken Planning System?  Needless to say, I read an article about the forum on the Luskin’s School’s website with great enthusiasm, expecting to see a serious professional urban planning analysis of LA’s tottering and shady city planning system.  After all, these issues are presented twice weekly through CityWatch, formerly at Ron Kaye’s LA, and even in an occasional Los Angeles Times, KCRW, and KPCC story. (Photo above: Wedding of Former King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson.)