LOS ANGELES

EASTSIDER-After the recent defeat of Proposition 53, a Howard Jarvis backed initiative aimed squarely at Jerry Brown’s Delta Tunnel project (aka WaterFix), matters are moving forward with the project. 

The CEQA challenges are now finished, and the resulting a 100,000 page document (I kid you not) is on the Governor’s desk. As General Manager of the Metropolitan Water District, Jeffrey Knightlinger quipped at our DWP meeting that the stack of paper is about 40 feet high, roughly the same as the diameter of the Delta tunnels (irony intended). 

For reasons that I do not purport to understand, the (Chicago) LA Times is still opposing the tunnels, clear proof that the owners of the Times do not reside in Southern California. 

The reality, however, is that we in Southern California really need to protect access to the water flowing from the Northern California mountains through the Sacramento River and the Delta, into the California Aqueduct to the Metropolitan Water District. In the likely event of continued drought this water is critical for us and for our children as global warming increases mountain temperatures. 

As a third generation Californian, I am painfully aware of the North/South political split in our State that has existed forever. Folks like my late grandfather up in Orville wanted to literally divide the state into two, and I have some friends in Sonoma County who still believe it would be a cool idea. But just like we have to live with Northern California and its politicians because of their water, they have to live with our need for that water in order to fuel the State’s economy. Not to mention that the entire state needs to do something with the water supply. Northern Californians don’t like floods and busted levees. 

Truth is, Southern California is a desert, and there are only a couple of sources for water to feed the roughly 50% of the State of California’s population that resides within the six counties of Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino. Those six counties (actually only portions of Ventura, Riverside and San Diego) constitute the membership of the Metropolitan Water District, or Metro, as it is often called.

For all the political talk about the Delta Tunnel, most Angelenos have no idea where our water actually comes from, or how the DWP fits in with the Metropolitan Water District. What’s even stranger is my friends in Northern California seem willing to ignore the fact that Brown’s WaterFix will help them too. The levee system and the Delta are a mess up there, and Brown’s proposal will help them fix their problems as well as help Southern California. 

About That Water 

If you look at the big picture, the Metropolitan Water District generates over 50% of Southern California’s water. Metro’s sources for this water consist of the California Aqueduct and the Colorado River Aqueduct. The balance comes from local sources and the DWP’s Owens Valley Aqueduct. 

Because of multi-state agreements, Metro’s share of the Colorado River is a percentage of what flows through the river. Based on these agreements, this has usually translated into about 50% of a baseline amount. On the other hand, as drought becomes more persistent in the Western states, those amounts will probably go down over time. 

The good news about the Colorado River water is that Metro has a huge storage capacity, and in fact maintains a permanent six months’ supply in storage just in case of an emergency. So from an availability factor, it is great that we will always have access to the allotment from the Colorado River. 

The situation from the California Aqueduct is another matter. Water entering the system from the mountains and rivers in Northern California is capable of producing a huge amount of water per year, but the amount and flow of that water supply is intermittent. In other words, what’s in the system depends on how much rain and how much snow we get, as well as when those events take place. The system itself doesn’t have a lot of permanent storage built into it. 

The astonishing good news to me, and hats off to the water folks, is that while our population has increased from about 13 million people in 1985 to some 19 million people in 2015, our water demand has been essentially flat. Proof that all of those efficiency measures have worked. 

The Environmental Factor 

One of the biggest factors in how much water we can get from the Delta, and for that matter, the Owens valley, are generically referred to as environmental issues. These types of concerns led to the passage of CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) back in 1970, designed to make state and local governments identify and mitigate the environmental impacts of their decisions. 

Most people I know have no clue what CEQA means beyond the name, and it’s difficult to get an objective explanation, so if you want to know more, there’s a good starting point here. 

In addition to providing a legitimate curb on government destroying the environment, CEQA has also made a bunch of lawyers rich and created entire new political and governmental bureaucracies -- thus the some ten years and 100,000 pages of CEQA documents on Governor Brown’s Delta tunnel project. 

Like any huge capital project, WaterFix is going to be paid for by ratepayers in their monthly bills. Small price for ensuring a reliable water supply, and in retrospect it’s a darn good thing that we built the Colorado River Aqueduct and the California Aqueduct. So, if it isn’t really about the money, then what is it? 

I think that using the magic word “environment,” we have created an entire environmental business model that has little to do with rational anything. 

At this point, there are a number of non-profit organizations whose livelihoods consist in fundraising and litigation over the environment. There are also a number of class-action attorneys specializing in this area. Further, there are agencies like California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and a host of others, whose staffing and existence are dependent on staying in the limelight come budget time. 

Two examples. First, I don’t know why the folks up north keep whining about the delta smelt. This isn’t about smelt. Heck, right now I am told there’s a hatchery that produces smelt each year that can’t be released into the water supply because the regulatory agencies won’t let anyone do it. C’mon. 

Second, the DWP and the Owens Valley. The issue of LA stealing their water a century ago is over. These days the issue is a small group of politicians controlling a water district up there that they use to blackmail money out of LA ratepayers. They have evolved from screaming about the water grab to ‘dust mitigation’ and have made a bundle. 

My point is that how much water we get in Southern California is more than just a political issue. There is a huge amount of water from Northern California that simply goes out into the ocean or floods because it can’t be captured or managed. Just ask the folks in Truckee or Sonoma County after this week’s massive rainfall. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a system that can helps manage these huge fluctuations in water? Enter Brown’s plan. 

In terms of planning ahead, you may have seen on TV how they measure the snowpack in the Sierras using the depth of the pack, which gives an indication as to the existence and/or severity of a drought. 

The reason that the snowpack is critical is that the snow is a great way to store water, which can run off later into the system. Now, factor in climate change, or if you don’t like the idea of climate change, just call it drought. When temperatures in the Sierras get much above 30 degrees, we don’t get snow. We get rain, and rain doesn’t get stored. 

The Takeaway 

Let’s put the pieces together. The three big water sources for Angelenos are the Owens Valley (DWP), the Colorado River Aqueduct, and the California Aqueduct (MWD), plus a variable amount of local water through our water basins and recycling. 

Over time, it is clear that the amount of available water from the Colorado River and the Owens Valley will decrease, not increase. Guess what that leaves? That’s right, the California Aqueduct, which produces a large but extremely intermittent flow of water. Thus, the Delta tunnel project. 

The project will help the environment (the 100,000 pages of CEQA documents), and the project will provide more water storage as well. Maybe that could have helped avoid this week’s flooding up north. 

Absent something like the Delta tunnel project, it is not likely that the amount of water available to pump from the California Aqueduct will increase anytime soon. And while MWD contracts for up to two million acre/ft. per year, with regulatory/environmental requirements, the actual amount received is more like 50% of that figure -- which could go down. 

While a $15 to $17 billion plus bill to build the tunnels sounds like a lot of money, consider the B Plan: not having enough water to support us. Remember, without the Owens Valley Aqueduct (politically correct name, the Los Angeles Aqueduct), there wouldn’t be much of a Los Angeles. 

And I would remind folks that big capital projects take a lot of time to complete. Just look at our freeways and CalTrans attempts to fix/build them when bad stuff happens. I think a few bucks a month for ratepayers represents a sound investment. Heck, maybe someday we can even water what used to be our lawns.

(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.

LA WATCHDOG--On Friday, the Ad Hoc on the Summer Olympics Committee will meet to review the City’s and Los Angeles 2024 Exploratory Committee’s (“LA24”) bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympics.  And without doubt, this seven member committee chaired by City Council President Herb Wesson will approve moving forward with submitting the well-conceived bid to the International Olympic Committee (“IOC”) on Friday, February 3. 

After all, almost 90% of Angelenos support hosting the 2024 Summer Olympics. 

But there is the issue of the City’s exposure to losses as our cash starved City will be required to indemnify the IOC and the United States Olympic Committee against any losses.  

Based on the updated projections prepared by LA24 that have been reviewed in detail by KPMG and Miguel Santana, our trusted City Administrative Officer, the $5.3 billion Olympic budget has a Contingency Reserve of almost $500 million, representing over 10% of the $4.8 billion in expenditures.  And this is after other contingency reserves built into the development of individual venues. 

The updated budget is a vast improvement from the 2015 Budget as the Contingency Reserve increased to $491 million from $161 million.  

The new budget ditched the building of a de novo Olympic Village on the site of Union Pacific’s Piggyback Yard.  Instead, LA24 has made arrangements to use UCLA and USC dormitories, resulting in savings of an estimated $1 billion.  

There are also considerable savings that LA24 is able to achieve by using existing venues, ranging from the Coliseum, the Rose Bowl, Staples, StubHub, Pauley Pavilion, Galen Center, and numerous other locations throughout Southern California.  

The management has also fine-tuned its projections by developing a detailed, bottoms up financial model and benchmarked its “conservative” assumptions and results against the London 2012 Olympics and other mega events. 

The City and LA have developed a Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) that protects the City’s coffers.  Importantly, it calls for a $250 million Contingency Reserve to be funded prior to the beginning of the Games.  

The MOU also requires LA24 to obtain insurance policies to cover natural disasters, terrorism, and event cancellation as well as coverage for “reduced ticket sales and other revenue sources should the events become less appealing.” 

As a side note, the State will reinsure the City’s exposure by agreeing to absorb $250 million of losses, but only after the City has taken a hit of $250 million. 

The City will also be reimbursed for its incremental out-of-pocket costs for providing “enhanced municipal services” such as police, fire, sanitation, traffic, and parking control. 

The MOU also allows the City to oversee the operations and finances of the Olympics by allocating one-sixth of positions on the Board of Directors and its committees to the City and by requiring LA24 to provide the City with timely financial information and other information. 

However, the City’s requirement that LA24 comply with all applicable City laws and ordinances may result in significant cost increases because of its prevailing wage and work rule requirements, especially if it involves city-specific venues.    

Hosting the Olympic Games will also increase economic output by around $11 billion, provide numerous full time jobs, and produce additional tax revenue according to a report prepared by Beacon Economics.  On the other hand, the State’s Legislative Analyst stated that “some short-term economic gains in 2024 and in the years before the Games are likely.  Lasting economic gains, however, appear unlikely.” 

LA has an advantage over Paris and Budapest because we are “Games Ready.” This allows us to use our existing world class infrastructure to meet the goals of the Olympic 2020 Agenda which emphasize environmental sustainability and minimizing financial risk.   

The IOC will announce its decision on September 13 in Lima.  

And assuming we win the bid, as well should, then the hard work will begin as preparing for this mega event with so many moving parts over the next seven years will be a monumental task requiring excellent management. 

But the City’s biggest risk is our own Elected Elite who do not have the common sense to leave well enough alone and let management do its job. Oversight is OK, but no day to day meddling, no interfering with operations, and no asking for favors or preferential treatment.  

We also need to wary of mission creep where City Hall decides to accelerate numerous infrastructure projects that have the potential for cost overruns and delays that interfere with the success and finances of the Olympics.   

LA24 has done a very good job of developing a plan that protects the City from financial loss.  But LA24 and Angelenos must also protect the City’s coffers from our Elected Elite. 

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

California’s lieutenant governor has warned that the state can use an environmental lawsuit to block President-elect Donald Trump’s efforts to build a border wall. 

The state could sue under the California Environmental Quality Act or its federal equivalent to stop the wall, a proposal that Gavin Newsom called “laughable” in an interview on the Golden State podcast. 

“There’s something called CEQA in California -- there’s NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] at the federal level,” said Newson, who’s running for governor in 2018. “There’s indigenous lands and autonomies as it relates to governance on those lands. There are all kinds of obstructions as it relates to just getting zoning approval and getting building permits. All those things could be made very, very challenging for the administration.” 

That’s “just simply never going to happen,” Newsom said of the wall. “It’s logistically impossible. It’s a laughable proposal that somehow Mexico’s going to pay for it. It’s just not going to happen.” 

Both environmental laws were passed to protect the environment, and both have been successfully used to block building projects.  

The environmental effects of border barriers are becoming increasingly clear in several European nations. The increase in the use border fences in the ongoing refugee crisis overseas is impeding the flow of wildlife between countries, with damaging consequences, according to recent research. 

“These fences represent a major threat to wildlife because they can cause mortality, obstruct access to seasonally important resources, and reduce effective population size,” concluded a 2016 study published in PLOS Biology. 

Researchers noted in California’s case that “conserving biodiversity on an increasingly crowded planet will always involve a combination of applying ecological knowledge and skillful politics.” 

How ready is California to fight Trump’s policies on the border and elsewhere? Very, said Newsom. “There’s no indication that he’s changed. That means we have to be prepared for the worst.” If Trump goes through with many of his plans, there’s “going to be a lot of confrontation.” 

Newsom doesn’t seem concerned about alienating the next administration and isn’t cowed by Trump’s threat to cut funding to California because it’s a sanctuary state. “The United States of America needs California more, with all due respect, than California needs it from an economic perspective,” said Newsom. “California is the economic engine of the country.”  

The podcast is part of a series of stories and interviews created in tandem with San Francisco magazine on “The Resistance to Donald Trump.” 

Anticipating battles with the Trump administration, California has placed former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on retainer for help with legal responses.

(Mary Papenfuss is a Trend reporter at the Huffington Post where this piece was originally posted.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

CORRUPTION WATCH—Candidate for LA Mayor, Mitchell Schwartz, is turning up the heat on the so-called soft corruption at City Hall issue exposed recently by the LA Times. Schwartz is calling on US Attorney for LA, Eileen M. Decker to open a criminal investigation into payments that real estate developers have been making to Mayor Eric Garcetti and to some Los Angeles Councilmembers. 

After Mr. Schwartz (photo above) recounted the revelations concerning the Sea Breeze project by developer Leung where thousands of dollars were given to campaigns and causes of Mayor Garcetti and numerous LA City Councilmembers, he noted that this problem is not new. Back in 2006, then in-coming Planning Director Gail Goldberg had warned Eric Garcetti, who was then councilmember for CD 13 at the time, not to allow developers to get the zoning they desire. Ms. Goldberg’s exact words in 2006 were, "In every city in this country, the zone on the land establishes the value of the land. In Los Angeles, that's not true. The value of the land is not based on what the zone says ... It's based on what [the] developer believes he can change the zone to. This is disastrous for the city.” 

Candidate Schwartz pointed out that the US Attorney has the power to interview City Hall insiders about the ways in which developers have been getting the zone changes which they want. The big wigs can all lie to reporters, but the City Hall insiders including former field deputies as well as department heads have to cooperate with a federal investigation. We all remember what happened to Martha Stewart when she wasn’t forthright during a federal investigation. 

With the plethora of city council wannabees, only Mayoral candidate Mitchell Schwartz has thus far taken this bold step. Schwartz punctuated his announcement thusly: “If the developer and politicians were committing crimes, they must be held accountable.”

(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.)

-cw

LATINO PERSPECTIVE-I was originally interested to learn about Measure S, formerly known as the “Neighborhood Integrity Initiative,” since there are many reasons to criticize planning and development in Los Angeles. I believe we can do a better job of creating a city where homeowners and renters, working and middle class people can live side by side and can get around. We need a city in which people who grow up here can afford to stay here in a growing economy that is welcoming to immigrants. 

But after reviewing a report by my local paper, the Larchmont Chronicle, on the arguments made in support of the initiative at a community forum at Third St. School, it became clear that this measure would have many negative effects on Los Angeles, and even more so on immigrants and the Latino community. Far from helping us achieve a welcoming city, it would have the opposite effect by making LA more expensive and crowded. It’s worse than cutting off your nose to spite your face. It’s more like cutting off your leg to fix your stomach ache. 

As a Hancock Park resident who ran for City Council in 2015, I understand some of the frustration. Our community plans are out of date, making development appear haphazard. Los Angeles has the potential to grow in a way that protects our traditional neighborhoods by placing urban amenities near transit, but we need stronger leadership to get there. 

As was clear from the account published in December’s Chronicle, the backers of Measure S are all frustration and no leadership. Their vision is purely negative and they are eager to criticize everything and build nothing. They imagine we can turn back the clock, but their plans would hurt renters, first-time homebuyers, and anyone who hasn’t put down solid roots. In today’s Los Angeles, where vacancy rates hover around 3 percent, their proposed building moratorium is a recipe to raise rents. It would hurt families and push many into homelessness. 

Measure S problems 

That’s not to say that we should do nothing. Here are three of the main problems that Measure S proposes to fix — and the reasons why the problems would be left worse under the initiative: 

1. Campaign finance. Measure S’s backers criticize developer contributions to political campaigns, but their measure is silent about who may donate. We should have an honest conversation about how to get money out of politics. 

2. Housing affordability. More than 270,000 Los Angeles households are “severely rent-burdened,” meaning they pay more than 50 percent of their income in rent. Measure S’s backers criticize luxury housing, but there is not one word in the initiative that regulates housing prices, nor does it leverage funds to build affordable housing. Further, the best tools to build the housing we need to make Los Angeles affordable would be lost in a building moratorium.

3. Out-of-date plans. Measure S’s backers say that the desire for new development would “force” the city to update its plans. How? Plan updates typically take up to 10 years in Los Angeles, and the measure provides no new money to update them. Fortunately, there is movement in City Hall to fix this, including new money in the Mayor’s budget to hire planners to expedite the process. 

We know Measure S won’t do what its backers promise. So what will it do? 

It will prevent us from housing the homeless. Measure S says it has an exemption for “100% affordable housing,” but that exemption does not extend to projects that require General Plan Amendments. The City of Los Angeles published a list of sites that could be used to develop affordable housing, like the housing we all just voted for with Prop HHH. Of ten proposed sites, Measure S bans building on nine of them. 

It will shut down needed development. Even if we could build 100% affordable housing, why should that be our only option? This rules out needed housing developments that include affordable units next to market-rate apartments. It’s easier to protect neighborhoods like Hancock Park if you can build denser, more urban buildings in other parts of the city — and by current estimates, Los Angeles needs to add 500,000 new units of housing to make our city affordable for working people. 

It will hurt our economic recovery. Beacon Economics calculated that two years of Measure S would suck $3.8 billion out of our local economy, destroying not only thousands of construction jobs but also all the employment they support. It will lower our city tax base by over $70 million each year — enough to hire 1,000 police officers or firefighters. 

It could last for 10 years. They say it’s a two-year moratorium — but it will prevent development for as long as it takes to update our community plans; it offers no new funding to do that; and it offers many opportunities to file lawsuits to slow down the process. In ten years, job losses could top 120,000. 

It will protect no one and preserve nothing. The best way to protect our single-family home neighborhoods is to build new housing next to transit. We can have a city that welcomes newcomers and makes room for the young without “turning into Manhattan.” We shouldn’t pretend to be Manhattan, but we shouldn’t pretend to be Kansas City or Fresno either. 

At the end of the day, Measure S lacks vision, is motivated by anger and frustration at the present and an aesthetic preference for the suburbs. Most Angelenos want a city that will grow in a way that is humane and welcoming. We should reject this measure, continue to make our voices heard, and look towards the future if we want to create a true 21st-century Los Angeles.

(Fred Mariscal writes Latino Perspective for CityWatch. He 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 can be reached at [email protected].) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

VOICES--Thank you for your service to us the citizens of LA. 

I am a long time resident and Landlord (one rental unit as I live in the upper) who has annually, without fail, registered my one rental unit and paid the fee which for me is $67.83.  In reading and filling out the papers for the 2017 HCIDLA, I was shocked and disillusioned to find out that The City Council and the Mayor has come up with a requirement that Landlords must not only pay a fee for each unit but they must fill out Form RR 17 U Annual Rent Registry Form which you should be familiar with as you may have voted for it.   

The form requires Landlords to reveal private information that should only be between the Landlord and the tenant. Now this information will be put on the internet for anyone to put in an address and get the amount of rent, utilities by the way Water was not on the form and I do pay for the water and garbage fees. The form also asks about parking included in the rent collected. 

This is an invasion of privacy between the landlord and the tenant. The form wants the year the tenant began tenancy.  No ONE should be able to know these things!!!!!!! A Rental Agreement is a private contract between the Landlord and the tenant-----no one else should be privy to this information.  This will pit neighbor against neighbor. 

What about my rights? The tenant knows what he is paying.  No one else should. 

The issue of Short Term Rentals in this community has caused so much turmoil that people are no longer speaking to each other as a result.  I can not imagine imagine what looms ahead if this ill thought out requirement is allowed to continue.  DO NOT put this out for public perusal and ultimately causing untold problems in all communitiesin LA. 

Shame on the City for Blindsiding the good Landlords without contacting us with letters explaining the whys and wherefores of this requirement.  IT is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. 

I filled out the form as I want the legal right to collect rent and provide housing in LA. 

I am against it and want this discontinued now. 

Shame on you all for not listening to the Apartment Owners Association during the period that this was being discussed.  I guess that none of you on council own rental property.  Think about how you would feel if your private financial agreements were posted on the internet? 

Please let me know what is the reasoning for this invasion of my … and my tenants … privacy?

(Carol Kapp is a duplex owner living in Playa del Rey.)

WAR CORRESPONDENT--When I signed up for this gig, I didn’t realize I might end up as a war correspondent. But when I talk to people these days, it feels like something bad is about to happen -- and they want it to happen. 

Everyone expects Democrats and Republicans in Congress to go at each other hammer and tongs. This is the new normal in which compromise is viewed as surrender and only complete annihilation of your opponent is an acceptable outcome. It’s the same story in state capitols across the country. 

Bipartisanship has been dead since the beginning of Bill Clinton’s term in 1993. In the last quarter century, one party has been driven relentlessly into a hard position that the other side is not just wrong, but evil. To a good extent, this is due to the Republicans’ many supporters who see government as not just interfering with their right to worship, but actively working to force them to act against their beliefs. 

Building on this base, others whose motivation is racial and ethnic prejudice or maybe just a feeling that nobody is on their side has led to a constant strengthening of the wall between Americans.

On the other side are those who have a hard time comprehending why anyone would refute science or encourage government to turn a blind eye to prejudice. Their world is fact-based and logical and spirituality is an individual and not collective practice. 

Simply put, one side views non-conformity as the greatest virtue and the other as the greatest sin.

And now the battle lines are drawn not just in Washington and state houses, but in courthouses and city halls and coffee shops and taverns and every street corner in America. 

In the last few weeks, I’ve seen more and more evidence that Democrats and others who don’t share Donald Trump’s (or Paul Ryan’s) world view aren’t interested in even talking about trying to work with Republicans. They’re ready for war. 

We’re not talking about conservatives and liberals or left and right anymore. The United States has reached the point where its population is now divided simply into “us” and “them.” 

I’ve been struck by the number of folks who have told me about visiting relatives over the holidays and carefully avoiding any mention of politics. It’s not just the potential for bad feelings, but the danger of an actual rift in the family. (I wonder if that’s what it was like discussing slavery with your Southern relations before the Civil War.) 

This is where I should offer soothing phrases about the need to step back from the brink and engage in dialogue. After all, we share the same ideals and pledge allegiance to the same flag. We believe in the American dream and all that other stuff they taught us in school. 

Except it’s mostly nonsense and anybody who’s read a little history knows it.

But, the part about equality is real. That stuff about “all men are created equal” and “equal justice under law” and “liberty and justice for all” is the one constant thread that runs through American history. Slowly and inexorably, society’s institutions of government have displaced the sanction of prejudice and intolerance. 

Ultimately, that’s what this war will be about. 

Is America going to turn its back on our history of looking to the future, welcoming the new and different, understanding that progress comes with a price? Or will “them” -- or are they “us” -- prevail?

In the coming years, you’ll be hearing a lot more about this battle for the soul of America. It will consume vast amounts of space in publications, online, and via the airwaves. Many will think of themselves as warriors fighting for freedom and liberty or God and country. Some will sit back and enjoy the fight. I suspect most Americans will consider themselves innocent bystanders. 

Meanwhile, I have a war to cover.

(Doug Epperhart is a publisher, a long-time neighborhood council activist and former Board of Neighborhood Commissioners commissioner. He is a contributor to CityWatch and can be reached at: [email protected]) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

PLANNING FOR THE PEOPLE-Not long ago I published a piece on the need to stop the LA City Planning Politburo because City Planning has long ago stopped becoming a force for rules and bylaws and started becoming a "build-build-build" shill. 

Similarly, I just published a piece on promoting both the Wilshire Subway and reconsidering a long-overdue Metro Rail/Metrolink connection in the City of Norwalk. 

And no, the two pieces are not in contradiction, or mutually exclusive. 

In general, those who fight for more transportation options are not interested in overbuilding the begeezus out of our city, county or state. They want mobility and options and an overall increase in environmental/economic improvement, happiness and quality of life for those of us who pay for New Starts projects. 

Yet we have too many vultures (often quite politically-connected) who figure out all sorts of creepy, sneaky ways to turn transportation advocates into "useful idiots" and justify all sorts of overdevelopment that no one in their right mind would want. 

After all, if we're trying to catch up in our congestion and mobility issues, why would we want to overdevelop and worsen our traffic problem? Or even just worsen our quality of life? 

A little bit of development is a nice compromise that makes a cute, sweet new (maybe affordable to most, maybe not, depending on the locale and development) neighborhood of homes or apartments. 

A whole lot of development where we build to the moon (THE MOON, DAMMIT, THE MOON!) just infuriates and insults the intelligence of all of us -- including the taxpayers who fund new transportation projects and get their rights taken away from them in return. 

So would anyone in their right mind want the arts district of Bergamot Station to be shut down just to create a monster development next to the Expo Line in Santa Monica? Maybe a "chill pill" … or three … is needed for the Santa Monica Council and Planning to create a very small housing project with commercial to make a real nice trip generator for that city...and tell the drooling developers and density-warriors to take their body parts elsewhere. 

Similarly, while I think the Norwalk Green Line Extension to connect LAX and LA County to the rest of Southern California region is a darned great project, I am very sensitive to the concerns of the Norwalk City Council and to Norwalk residents, and we should all take heed to those well-placed concerns. 

After visiting Norwalk last night, and hanging out with fellow Friends of the Green Line veteran Daniel Walker, we learned from the SCAG officials (who, happily are done with a quixotic MagLev campaign and are now spending their taxpayer-funded efforts on relevant issues) that the locals have lots of negative feelings and fears about this project. 

One look at the map shows that city to be right smack-dab in the middle of the I-5, I-105, I-605, and SR-91 freeways, and between the soon to be LAX-connected Green Line and Metrolink. Norwalk really is a "gateway city.” The freeway access to the eastern terminus of the Green Line is reportedly substandard, and access to the Metrolink station is a problem. 

So if we want to help Norwalk and enhance ridership/access/quality to the Green Line and Metrolink, we need to create a freeway/road fix that prevents cut-through residential neighborhood traffic to the current and future stations, establish a transit-oriented residential/commercial development near Firestone/Imperial that fits into that region, and a station that is near the county governmental hub at Imperial/Norwalk that makes sense. 

It's likely that part or all of this would have to be a subway, as considered before in the 1990s when this was last studied, and there's already about $1 billion funded for this "county light rail connector project.” And more will be needed to allow Norwalk to be enhanced, and not destroyed, by this project. 

So what does this have to do with Los Angeles and Measure S? I am guessing that Norwalk, unlike Los Angeles, isn't going to let any pro-transit sentiments allow creepy, sneaky developers (and their Planning and other density warriors) overdevelop Norwalk in the name of "transit oriented development" or "affordable housing" or "urban infill.” 

Los Angeles, like Norwalk, needs homes and neighborhoods, not projects or spot-zoning. Los Angeles, like Norwalk, needs to obey its laws and not be bought out by developer money -- and it sure as HELL shouldn't need the Sea Breeze scandal and Measure S to finally, finally say no to developer campaign contributions.. 

Let's revisit Measure S: 

• Developers will have to have to pay for their traffic and environmental impact reports to be done by independent experts, and not by their own hired guns. EIR's have to mean something, and they have to be credible. 

• Backroom deals between billionaire developers and City Councilmembers will be made illegal, and City Council rules and laws will be adhered to and enforced. 

• Developers will have to prove to impacted communities that their new megaprojects can absorb the new development with respect to traffic and other environmental impacts.  

• Despite claims by mega-developers that they want to create affordable housing, the opposite has been the result of these at-market and oversized, over-tall projects (which often have over 50% vacancy) that ultimately leave fewer, and not more, truly affordable housing for Angelenos.  

• The City Council will have to (finally) update the City’s legally-required Community and General Plans that balance growth and environmental impacts. 

You know ... follow and obey the laws! 

We need a Transportation Infrastructure for the 21st Century -- and we made big progress towards that with Measures R in 2008 and M in 2016. 

We also need a Planning Infrastructure for the 21st Century -- let's make progress in that direction as well with Measure S in 2017.

(Kenneth S. Alpern, M.D. is a dermatologist who has served in clinics in Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside Counties.  He is also a Westside Village Zone Director and Board member of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Planning and Outreach Committees, and currently is Co-Chair of its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee. He is co-chair of the CD11Transportation Advisory Committee and chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at  [email protected]. He also co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Dr. Alpern.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

THE PEOPLE SPEAK--On March 7, Los Angeles residents get one last chance to assert their fundamental right to shape what our city becomes before our wonderful city of towns and villages is paved over by glass box mega-developments, the terrible traffic they cause, and the glut of empty $3,500 apartments nobody wants, now marching across LA. 

Measure S, the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, is the fix to this broken and rigged system at City Hall. 

A “yes” on Measure S puts planning back in the planning department, dismantling the current system of backroom real estate dealing by City Council members -- 15 individuals who are utterly unqualified to engage in private and inappropriate "spot zoning" deals with some of the world's richest and slickest developers. 

As the Los Angeles Times has repeatedly reported in recent months, elected leaders at City Hall are accepting huge amounts of cash, gifts and wining and dining from wealthy developers. Then, those same City Hall elected leaders are handing these same developers special exemptions from our protective zoning rules. 

Winning an exemption from LA's height zoning rules, for example, can mean an instant, unearned, $20 million profit to a developer who suddenly is allowed by a councilmember to build 20 stories instead of 4 stories. 

A single exemption from the General Plan -- those are granted by City Councilmembers to let a developer use the land for something that's entirely inappropriate and not allowed by the city's own laws -- can mean an instant, unearned $40 million or larger profit for that developer. 

That's what happened when City Hall agreed to let a rich developer squeeze the Sea Breeze luxury housing project between a couple of noisy warehouses, a Houston-style approach to planning. Which is to say, no planning at all. 

City Hall's gross misbehavior is at the heart of this system of free money, big money -- and corrupt money. Our City Council is selling its votes. They do so at the expense of all of us. 

Measure S strikes directly at the heart of this dysfunctional, New Jersey-style mess. So our opposition, the defenders of this status quo are up in arms, New Jersey-style. 

Funded largely by the Chamber and three billionaires -- the Lowy global mall kings of Australia, the multi-national skyscraper-building Kahn family of Miami, and the Lowes global resort kings in LA -- powerful lobbyists are running a cynical campaign designed to trick Los Angeles residents into voting against their own self-interest on March 7. 

The billionaire mega-developers and their cronies know that they can’t beat us using the truth. So they’re saying, doing and spending whatever it takes to win -- at all costs. 

Let's conduct some myth-busting here, with the understanding that the lies issued by opponents of Measure S are going to get much more extreme and out of this world. 

According to their fantastical accounts, Measure S, the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, would “stop the building of everything -- from affordable housing, to hospitals, schools, and parks.” We at Measure S even apparently view “new toilets” as over-development. 

We also have a secret "housing ban" tucked somewhere in our back pocket. A Westside City Councilman and a Valley City Councilman are telling their constituents that we, ahem, "ban all development." (We got calls from people who were upset about being spoon-fed these obvious whoppers while meeting with the councilmembers.) 

A Hollywood Councilman has been running around saying we will stop projects already underway (another ahem), and the mayor is flirting with trying to claim that LA's entire economy is teetering atop a coterie of rich land developers who must be allowed to break the zoning rules. 

The Chamber of Commerce president, emboldened by this fake news from on high, illegally lied about Measure S in official ballot literature (Measure S is going to ruin the economy), as did a well-known economist who was paid to do so by the three billionaires. Both the Chamber president and the economist had to retract their lies, just last week. 

As I wrote in the Los Angeles Daily News back in August, "Sadly, our measure also bans rainbows, outlaws donuts, and deports the tooth fairy." 

What's going on here? What's going on is that voters are about to force City Hall to do its job and play by the rules. 

And that will leave a lot of instant wealth for some of the world's richest developers sitting on the table, and crimp the fundraising ability of some of California's most cash-needy politicians. 

The truth is that in Los Angeles, 95% of developers play by the rules. The truth is that 95% of developers do NOT give money to the City Council, mayor and other officials. The truth is that 95% of developers do NOT engage in these greedy bidding wars that have driven our land values sky high, in turn driving our rents into the stratosphere. 

The truth is that only about 5% of developers active in Los Angeles drive the actions of elected officials at Los Angeles City Hall, just as they own and drive nice cars. 

The truth is, 95% of development will continue to flourish under Measure S, because Measure S is about working out the rules in a transparent setting with strong input from residents, then following those rules. And 95% of developers actually honor our local zoning. 

The truth is that affordable housing will flourish under Measure S, because Measure S exempts from most of the city's zoning rules those developers who will build 100% affordable housing -- an exception that we ourselves carved out, due to the great need. 

The truth is that Measure S does NOT halt any project underway, for any reason, even if it's one of the hideous glass boxes that is helping Los Angeles each day look more and more like Charlotte, NC. 

Instead, think of Measure S as "the gift of time for our City Council and mayor." 

Suddenly, instead of spending hundreds of hours cutting backroom, closed-door deals to let developers get around the zoning rules, our city leaders can spend those recaptured hours doing right by the residents and taxpayers. What at treat that will be. 

The City Council and mayor can spend this recaptured time figuring out how to end the wanton destruction of 1,000 units of affordable rent-stabilized apartments by developers every single year. So far, 22,000 irreplaceable, sound, older low-rent units have vanished since 2000. 

Suddenly, on March 7, our elected leaders will have loads of new free time to actually create a plan for spending the badly needed bond money we voters approved in November to build homeless housing with support services. 

(At a city hearing a few weeks ago, a city official let slip that, ahem, they are already toying with requiring that only 50% of the housing financed by we taxpayers provide the full shelter and services City Hall promised in the bond measure.) 

Suddenly, instead of spending hundreds of hours being lobbied and wined and dined by developers seeking ways around our rules, the City Council and mayor can spend it addressing our exploding water mains, our cracking sewer mains, our bodacious potholes and our long-promised parks. 

Our opponents know they can’t win on March 7 on the merits. They know that voters want affordable housing and reasonably priced housing, not the City Council's luxury rental housing glut with its 15% to 20% vacancy rates. Our opponents know voters want less gridlock, not worse traffic backing up as far as three miles from absurdly oversized projects. 

And most frightening to our misbehaving status quo, they know we’re onto them. Voters have realized that City Hall is rigged, thanks in no small part to recent coverage by the Los Angeles Times, and also thanks to our own stories by award-winning journalist Patrick Range McDonald at VoteYESonS.org. 

As I wrote in the Daily News, "Voters aren’t going to stand by as the character, culture, and connectivity of our city gets washed away in a sea of unwanted and unaffordable luxury housing mega-developments."

(Jill Stewart, a former journalist, is campaign director for the Coalition to Preserve LA, sponsor of the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

ELECTION 2017--My name is David (Zuma Dogg) Saltsburg. I'm running for mayor of Los Angeles and I will be using all the mayoral campaign platforms allowed me to raise awareness of and to urge CityWatchLA readers to vote for … and get out the vote for … "Yes On S!"

My mayoral campaign is already a success because I get to write this article for CityWatch … whom I consider to be the front line of LA watchdog activism. I began my own LA watchdog(g) activism ten years ago and there are not nearly as many platforms for city activists as there were when I started.

I'm probably not going to say anything that CityWatch readers don't already know (many of you, who tell me what I know, know more than I do) but I'm a public figure and decided to get on the ballot. The people of LA need a voice a City Hall now more than ever. We need to be a CityWatch Army between now and March 7.

So, first of all, please do all you can to raise awareness that there is, indeed, a citywide election this March 7th. People are "electioned-out" and I'm fearful that if someone sees an election campaign sign they assume it's from the election we just had. So, with this local, under-the-radar election just letting people know the date of the election is a priority.

Secondly, I of course want you to vote for me and tell everyone else to vote for me because I believe I'm LA's only hope to keep this ship from sinking into something we no longer recognize. (Check out my video. See if you agree with me.)  

Next, get out the #YesOnS vote. Tell everyone you know, "Yes on Measure S” … because even if LA skyscraper developer Eric Garcetti is re-elected, Measure S will prevent him from selling-out LA to China developers for a Shanghai Surprise on the city and its residents.

The skyscraper issue is central to many other issues people are outraged about:

Traffic gridlock getting worse. Skyscrapers cause more traffic jams. When they are being constructed and then when 1000 more people are living on street that isn't any wider and multiply this over a decade of Eric Garcetti's, "Smart Growth."

Garcetti actually said that the goal is to make traffic so bad, that people jump out of their cars and take mass transit. But these people moving into million dollar (plus) condos drive cars and are not going to hop out to take the bus or rail. We all know this.

The city has to STOP doing things to make traffic worse. Garcetti justifies that everyone is gonna take the bus, so he can sell out LA to China developers for Skyscraper City. New York and China were built around mass transit. Los Angeles was not and is not a city that lends itself to mass transit and I'm not gonna waste precious column space explaining why anymore because you know.

Skyscrapers also have driven up housing costs and the overall expense to live in LA and it has caused an increase in homelessness. And, when I say "increase" I mean we have a triple alarm emergency on the streets (sidewalks, actually) of Los Angeles -- and Garcetti and City Hall CONTINUE to ignore building affordable housing and are still all about skyscrapers.

If you flew in from another world and evaluated city hall you would think they are a skyscraper development firm. Do they do ANYTHING else? Sorry, Garshady; EVERYTHING needs to STOP and we need to address the homeless issue.

Even if you aren't caring or compassionate about homeless people, as a city we can't have encampments on sidewalks, all over. Does Garcetti think the Olympics are going to come here?

It is going to take new and innovative approaches in ways the city is not used to and has never done before. HHH isn't going to be a drip in the bucket in actual number of people off the streets; compared to how many we have (and more are coming). I met a company at a neighborhood council meeting that takes portable shipping containers and converts them into home units. I am IN LOVE with these units; and you can see a video, about them on my website).

All the density of skyscrapers taxes LA's infrastructure, way too much. Water is a limited (and increasingly expensive) resource. They say we don't have enough emergency response/police on the street as it is … and they keep on adding more skyscrapers that allow more people to jam into the area.

I am not of the belief that people are coming here, anyway so we have to keep building more and more and more and more luxury housing to accommodate. The community decides what kind of city they want and we don't want China or Manhattan. It won't work in LA because of geographic layout alone. I wasn't a science wiz but remember "Law of Diffusion." So, stop building skyscrapers and people will have to live their lives in other communities.

Can't have a bunch of millionaires zipping around LA in Maserati's while we the people have to walk in the streets because the sidewalks are filled with tent encampments. STOP THE MADNESS! Vote Yes on S. And Yes on Zuma Dogg!

(David (Zuma Dogg) Saltsburg is a candidate for Los Angeles mayor. He has been a community activist in Los Angles for more than 10 years successfully taking on City Hall on numerous occasions. Learn more here.) 

-cw

TRUMP RESPONDS ‘STREEP OVERRATED’--Occasionally entertainment and politics intersect, often hitting a false note. You never want your screenplay to be, as they say in Hollywood, “on the nose.” You have to step sideways away from ordinary news and address some dimension of the human condition to make art.

But in moments of national crisis, stars feel a need to speak out. Nick Gass [[http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/the-oscars-most-politically-charged-moments-115392 ]]   has reviewed some of the major such incidents at the Academy Awards. Jane Fonda used her moment on the stage at the Academy Awards in the 1970s to denounce the Vietnam War. Marlon Brando declined to appear and had a Native American activist accept for him, making a statement about Indian rights.

Robin Corey tells the story of how in 1978 Vanessa Redgrave was picketed by the Jewish Defense League because of her support for Palestinian rights, and when she won her category anyway, she said, “I think you should be very proud that in the last few weeks you’ve stood firm and you have refused to be intimidated by the threats of a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums whose behavior is an insult to the stature of Jews all over the world and to their great and heroic record of struggle against fascism and oppression.”

Michael Moore denounced the Iraq War.

So we now have another such moment, as Meryl Streep tearfully addressed the stars assembled at the Golden Globes about her anxieties and distress at the advent of the Trump era in the United States. 

She pointed out, as Hugh Laurie already had, that those assembled at the Golden Globes award ceremony (put on by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association) were Hollywood, foreigners, and the press, the very sort of people who have been vilified for the past 18 months by Donald J. Trump. (Laurie had wondered if last night’s ceremony would be the last, as all the foreigners were kicked out of the country).

(Donald Trump responds instantly: Calls Streep ‘overrated Hillary flunky’) 

She pointed out the diversity of the origins of the actors in the room, saying that Amy Adams, Natalie Portman, Ruth Negga, Ryan Gosling and Dev Patel were born abroad: “Where are their birth certificates?” she asked.

The essence of the acting art, she affirmed, is to get inside a character who is foreign to us and make us feel what they feel. “And there were many, many, many powerful performances this year that did exactly that, breathtaking, passionate work.”

She was making two points against the xenophobia, the irrational hatred of foreigners, at the center of the Trump campaign and at the center of his Neonazi fringe, such as the Breitbart thugs. One is that key American industries, including the entertainment industry, often attain their excellence through openness to talent from abroad.

The second is a far more subtle and powerful point, which is that no human experience is really foreign to us as human beings if only we can find the tools to understand it, emotionally and intellectually. She was standing up for her craft, acting, as xenophilic, as involving a love of the foreign, insofar as the falling away of strangeness is the goal of great acting.

Her most powerful intervention, however, referred to Donald J. Trump’s mocking of New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, who is challenged by a congenital joint condition.

By the way, the mocking was provoked by Kovaleski’s having stood up to Trump over his false and monstrous claim that large crowds of Muslim-Americans celebrated the September 11 attacks in New Jersey. She called Trump’s antics a “performance” but lamented that it was in “real life.” She thus drew attention to the similarity of the political speech, which spins a narrative and often involves some mugging for the camera or even doing impressions of people, to the actor’s performance. Her complaint is that when Trump bully Kovaleski in public, he gave permission to all Americans to be mean to the weak, to become a nation of goons.

CNN: "Trump mocks reporter with disability": 

Streep is in tears because a Fascist is about to take the helm of our country. And her apprehension over how the tone set by the White House could coarsen the fabric of everyday life is well-placed. Her call on the press to confront these tendencies may be a bit forlorn. The television media, at least, appear to view Trump as a cash cow because he attracts eyeballs, which allows them to earn more from advertising.

But I think the situation is even more dire than just a president who encourages bullying by example. I think there is a danger that Neo-Nazis and Klansmen and other such gangs may start beating up Jews, and Muslims and Latinos and African-Americans. I think there is a danger that Attorney General Jeff Sessions will encourage this racialized violence, and that local police will be encouraged to wink at it. I fear a tear in the fabric of the rule of law. Fascism doesn’t begin with a big military machine, it begins with gangs of brutes.

Ms. Streep left us with the most wonderful advice, relayed from the late Carrie Fisher: “the dear departed Princess Leia, said to me once, take your broken heart, make it into art.”

Art yes. But also resistance.

(Juan Cole is the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan and an occasional contributor to CityWatch. He has written extensively on modern Islamic movements in Egypt, the Persian Gulf and South Asia. This post originally ran on Juan Cole’s website.)

-cw

DEEGAN ON LA-Is METRO mocking us? The regional public transportation giant that moves tens of thousands of people across Los Angeles every day, says that the recent voter approval of Prop M, and the billions of annual tax dollars it will bring to them forever (there is no sunset for this special tax) is not enough. They say Prop M is just for construction and not operations. We need more money from some other source to help keep fares down, they plead. Otherwise, it seems, transit riders may be asked to help make up the difference through fare increases. 

Coming out of their December board meeting, Metro directors want us to believe they must have what they call a “Property Naming-Corporate Sponsorship Policy” and the sales from it to help pay their operating expenses. 

This presents an interesting dichotomy: wealthy corporate interests splashing their names all over transit “products” in a pay-to-play scheme on one end, targeting mostly Latino and Black riders on the other end. Metro’s latest “Biannual Onboard Survey” indicates Latinos make up around half of all bus and train riders, with Blacks making up about one quarter. So, 75% of all riders fit a specific ethnic profile that is attractive for advertisers and corporate sponsors. These leading racial groups, as well as other transit riders, may be asked to pay higher fares if other sources of revenue like corporate sponsorships are not available. 

For Metro, a public agency stewarding a public resource, to activate the sponsorship program could trigger a slippery slope leading to the crass commercialization of an otherwise very good public transit system. Leveraging corporate branding by condescending to minority riders, telling them that it will save them a rate hike, is bad policy and bad public relations. 

Here are the naming rights Metro says are up for grabs in the categories of Facilities, Transit Services, Programs, and Events:

• rail or bus stations
• parking lots and parking structures
• maintenance buildings and structures
• the Metro headquarters building in downtown Los Angeles
• light and heavy rail lines
• bus service lines and routes
• transit way service lines and routes
• established Metro-operated efforts/initiatives for the benefit of customers and communities
• seasonal, annual or one-time events led and initiated by Metro 

Apple paid the Chicago Transit Authority almost $4 million several years ago to refurbish the Clybourn Red Line station that, coincidentally, happened to be the location of the new Apple store. In fact, the new plaza for the subway platform connects directly with the Apple store, giving riders the opportunity to exit the train and enter the store within just a few feet. While Apple hoped for the stop to be renamed the “Apple Red Line” stop the city demurred, offering instead the right of first refusal if they ever decide to sell naming rights to stations, which so far, they have not. No other major city, admits Metro, has gone even as far as the platform deal between Chicago and Apple. 

Los Angeles, a leader in so many ways, does not need to take the lead in this form of commercialization by giving corporations naming rights to our transit system 

Hopefully Metro will learn from the public beating and disastrous lesson suffered by the Department of Recreation and Parks last summer, when they authorized a hip hop clothing manufacturer to receive naming and logo placement rights to a basketball court that the hip-hoppers would build in Runyon Canyon Park. Like Metro, Rec and Parks is seeking additional revenue through corporate sponsorships, but is now taking a much harder look at the consequences. They cancelled the b-ball sponsorship deal after a huge public and political outcry. 

Metro directors may want to take some time to reflect on David Foster Wallace’s brilliant and sometimes satirical novel “Infinite Jest” about a dystopian near-future in which each calendar year is sold off to corporate sponsorships, including the “Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar,” the “Year of the Whisper-Quiet Maytag Dishmaster,” and the “Year of the Whopper.” 

Let’s hope that 2017 doesn’t become the “Year of the Jumbo Mistake by Metro.” 

(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].) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

GUEST COMMENTARY--On December 19, Mayor Garcetti, accompanied by City Attorney Mike Feuer, announced that $5 million of Los Angeles taxpayers' money will be used to pay defense costs for undocumented immigrants facing deportation. Experts immediately challenged this gift of public funds, because deportation is a civil matter. They also claim it is discriminatory because it applies to only one group of individuals.  

Garcetti's chest-pounding response to Donald Trump's threat to enforce federal immigration law may have been staged during the holiday shopping frenzy and religious observances due to an ulterior motive. It distracted watchdogs' and the major media’s attention from announcements of the final versions of hiring mandates for both the City and private businesses – something that should alarm every Los Angeles resident, business owner, taxpayer, consumer and investor. 

On December 14, former Councilmember Jackie Goldberg, head of the Workforce Restoration Working Group, gave a progress report to Paul Koretz' Personnel and Animal Welfare committee on the Mayor's Executive Directive to hire 5,000 new City employees, which is launching in January 2017. The primary goal is to assure that those traditionally turned away due to criminal records or other issues have an increased opportunity to be hired.  

To accomplish this, Garcetti ordered all City Department heads to ensure that no applicant for "non-executive positions that do not involve public safety" is asked to disclose criminal convictions until after a conditional offer of employment has been made. It also admonished that credit history cannot be considered for non-executive positions "where the only basis for using the report is that a position is managerial." 

Garcetti described this Targeted Local Hire Program as, "an unprecedented opportunity to rethink the way we deliver services to meet the 21st Century demands of our residents.”

It is definitely unprecedented. It ignores that all City employees are at some level involved in "public safety." LA's historic tough background checks were to assure that personal and/or confidential information provided to the City is not improperly used or disclosed by employees. Another concern is that, even if not assigned to jobs deemed unsuitable due to criminal history, City badges can provide employees entry to private property and access to families and children.

Goldberg listed, in order, those who will soon be targeted for hire as City workers: (1) the homeless; (2) formerly incarcerated, including those on parole or probation; (3) "former" gang members; and (4) troubled and "disconnected"/fostered youth. These individuals will be recruited to replace the 46% of current City employees eligible for retirement within two years. 

Veterans are No. 5 on the list, followed by transgender individuals, the disabled, and the elderly. The application will not ask about criminal background, drug use, or credit history. The only requirements are to speak English well enough to be trained and have a legal right to work in the U.S., Goldberg said.  

These employees will earn $15 per hour, plus full benefits, as office trainees or in field jobs and will be permanent after six months or be eligible for promotion. Goldberg used the Mayor's analogy of this providing a "pathway back." 

KFI listeners may recall that on Memorial Day last year, KFI talk-show hosts John and Ken relentlessly chided Garcetti for his statement equating jail time with military deployment and veterans' service. During his announcement of a $9 million partnership between the City and CalTrans to employ the formerly incarcerated, Garcetti urged, "When people have paid their debt to society...we should be not just thanking them for serving that time, but allowing them a pathway back in."

Although the Mayor later claimed this was an error, he had just exposed his intention to force hiring of individuals with criminal records. But, he did not reveal they would be given preference over veterans for City jobs. 

No explanation has been given as to why LA residents and youth who have not been incarcerated, not joined gangs or become homeless are not provided an equal opportunity for entry-level City employment. 

Even more disturbing, Garcetti's "pathway back in" does not stop there. His Fair Chance Initiative resulted in Ordinance No. 184652 - "to limit employers' consideration of the criminal history of applicants for employment." This very restrictive law was signed by the Mayor on December 7 and posted in City Hall beginning December 13 for ten days. It applies to all private businesses with ten or more employees, located in or doing business in Los Angeles, and becomes effective January 22, 2017. 

Here is a brief introduction to this very complex law: 

It applies to any individual, firm, corporation, partnership, organization, group or association that is located or doing business in the City employing ten or more employees, including owners, managers and supervisors. 

Applicants can't be asked about their criminal background, nor can employers conduct any “direct or indirect” (including internet) search or ask any question that, “seeks the disclosure of an applicant’s criminal history” until after a conditional job offer is made.  

There are a few narrow exceptions for those carrying firearms on the job or otherwise prohibited by law from holding the position.  

If employment is then denied, the employer must perform a “written assessment that effectively links the specific aspects of the Applicant’s Criminal History with risks inherent in the duties” of the job. The assessment must satisfy all factors set forth by the City. 

Non-selected Applicants can file a civil action against the Employer. 

Fines for violation of this ordinance include the questionable provision that an "administrative fine paid by an Employer for a violation of this article may be awarded by the City to the Applicant or Employee up to a maximum of $500 per violation." Has the City become a collection agency for individuals to receive funds garnered as city revenue? 

Ironically, SEC. 189.14. AUTHORITY, states "This article is adopted pursuant to the police powers vested in the City...and is intended to promote the general welfare." 

Even in the holiday bustle, most Angelenos heard the Mayor's well-publicized and broadcast pledge to defend immigrants facing deportation. Why was Garcetti less forthcoming about his new hiring mandates for the City and private businesses? He just sent out a campaign email itemizing reasons to support his re-election. Why was this not on his list?

(Phyllis M Daugherty is a former City of LA employee and a contributor to CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

SPECIAL TO CITYWATCH--The story of saving Parker Center is nearly as entangled as the history of the place itself. The former LAPD headquarters, designed by Welton Becket and Associates and built in 1955 in downtown LA’s Civic Center, has been threatened with demolition for years. 

Its fate has become mired in matters having less to do with preservation than politics. In and of itself, the political nature of this effort is not surprising. What does set Parker Center apart from other preservation advocacy issues is the lack of a real plan -- by the City and for the City -- other than to get rid of Parker Center. 

Can Parker Center be saved and be re-purposed for a new use? Yes, the Los Angeles Conservancy strongly believes that it can and should be, but will it? Given the current direction set by the City administration, it looks more likely that Parker Center will be demolished and for all the wrong reasons. Here’s why. 

Plans Designed to Fail 

When the Los Angeles police headquarters moved from Parker Center to its new facility in 2009, the preservation community knew that the historic building’s future was very much in question. Yet no clear plan emerged until 2012, when the City, through its Bureau of Engineering (BOE), first released an initial study looking at ways to house upwards of 5,500 City staff near City Hall. The City’s stated need for over a million new square feet of office space is based on a now-dated study calling for 200 square feet per employee. 

While preservation and reuse were considered, the environmental review process leaned heavily toward what has become the City’s preferred project: to demolish Parker Center and build a new 450-foot high-rise tower on the site. 

Plan 1: Too Small 

Besides leaving Parker Center as is -- which wouldn’t come close to meeting the City’s stated project objectives -- the only reuse alternative called for keeping most of Parker Center intact and building a new addition and short tower at the rear. Yet this alternative was essentially designed to fail. 

For no apparent reason, the new addition was capped at eleven stories, falling far short of the City’s stated project goal to provide at least a million square feet of office space. 

Clearly, this alternative couldn’t meet a basic goal defined by the City. We asked the City, “Why not plan a taller addition that provides more square footage, and why was this the only preservation alternative provided?” We asked these questions repeatedly for the next three years as the process continued to play out. We are still waiting for a response from the City. 

Plan 2: Too Expensive 

In May 2015, City Councilmember José Huizar instructed the BOE to study another preservation alternative that would more likely deliver what the City wanted: a 750,000-square-foot building. Now joined in the preservation effort by the City’s Cultural Heritage Commission, we were pleased and looked forward to working with the BOE to develop a “win-win” alternative to demolition. 

Instead, the BOE quietly developed a new alternative on its own, with no involvement by the preservation community or architects experienced in preservation. Without any advance notice, the BOE took its analysis to the City’s Municipal Facilities Committee in August 2016, which voted to recommend the initial plan to demolish Parker Center. 

The committee rejected the new preservation alternative as being too expensive. The City claims that this alternative will cost nearly $107 million more than the City’s preferred project (all-new construction.) 

This significant cost differential is surprising, as we know from experience that adaptive reuse often costs much less than all-new construction. We asked to see the detailed analysis to understand how the City arrived at this figure. Apparently there is no such analysis -- nothing substantive has been provided to date. 

With no substantiation from the City, we asked experts in private development and adaptive reuse to take a look at the alternative to examine what little details they could. 

We believe that the cost estimates in the new alternative are heavily inflated -- described by some as the City “putting their thumb on the scale.” The City makes several assumptions that indefensibly disadvantage preservation, and some just don’t make sense. 

For instance, the alternative places a fifteen-story building atop eight stories of above-grade parking, which no private developer would do. It also makes the preservation option nearly 65,000 square feet larger, requiring more parking spaces for the same number of people and further driving up rehabilitation costs. 

The City also assumes that the contractor’s fee and general conditions require $14.2 million more for preservation than for all-new construction. There is no basis for this assumption. These types of cost premiums appear throughout the plan’s summary, adding up until the number is so big that no one would ever choose it over a much less expensive option. 

UPDATE [January 7, 2017]: Based on a convening on January 6 by the Conservancy of a panel of preservation experts (comprising highly experienced developers, architects, cost estimator, and seismic engineer), we strongly believe the reuse of Parker Center can actually result in a savings of nearly $50 million, and possibly far more. This directly contradicts claims made by the City stating preservation will cost $107 million more than all-new construction. See this fact sheet for details.

Missed Opportunity for Civic Center Master Plan 

When City Councilmember José Huizar made his motion in 2015 to study a new preservation alternative, he also directed the City to undertake a plan for the Civic Center. The Conservancy and others had urged the City to develop a cohesive vision for the Civic Center before deciding the fate of Parker Center. 

A master plan for the Civic Center is a great opportunity to provide a thoughtful framework for meeting the City and private sector’s needs for years to come. For instance, even if Parker Center were replaced, the City has stated a desire for even more space for City staff. There may be more efficient and thoughtful ways to add this square footage throughout the Civic Center, without relying solely on the Parker Center site to provide more than half of the space the City says it needs. 

Most master plans are large-scale, visionary, and based on extensive public input. By contrast, this has been a quiet and quick process involving a limited group of community stakeholders. The community advisory committee (CAC) contains representatives of nearby business improvement districts, including in part Little Tokyo and the Historic Core. The City declined requests by the Conservancy and the Cultural Heritage Commission to participate on the CAC. 

Despite the fact that Parker Center’s fate has yet to be decided, the Civic Center master plan process assumed that the building is gone. The absence of Parker Center is a foregone conclusion and a central premise of the master plan -- despite the plan having a stated objective to “balance past and present” as part of a legacy goal for the Civic Center. 

This deeply disappointing approach puts the cart before the horse, rather than studying all options from the beginning. It also presumes that the City Council will vote for Parker Center’s destruction before they even consider the master plan. 

In many ways, this is not a true master plan for the entire Civic Center. It addresses only the core of the Civic Center, primarily the city-owned properties. The plan focuses mainly on three blocks consisting of the Los Angeles Mall, City Hall East and South, and the block containing the 911 Call Center, Metro Detention, and Parker Center. From what we have been able to assess, the plan proposes a series of high-rise towers, as a companion to the one envisioned at the Parker Center site. 

We anticipate a final plan for the Civic Center to be released in January 2017. We also anticipate members of the CAC to support the plan, in part because of how the new development will be limited and what it can offer as a buffer. 

For some, particularly members of the Little Tokyo community who are most directly affected, Parker Center is essentially a pawn in a game of chess. Agreeing to support the demolition of Parker Center can help ensure that no new development spills over into Little Tokyo in the future. The “master plan” would also provide more than a thousand new parking spaces for the area. 

Reluctance by members of the Little Tokyo community to preserve Parker Center is understandable, given the neighborhood’s negative association with the building. Parker Center came into being through urban renewal and the destruction of two of the most vibrant blocks in the community. 

In 2014, the Little Tokyo Historical Society joined the Conservancy in urging the City to support a preservation alternative, in part to tell the story of what happened to their community. At the time, members of the society expressed a desire to own their past, rather than wiping it away through yet another demolition. Yet in recent months, as part of the Civic Center master plan process, the Historical Society has changed its position and now supports Parker Center’s demolition. 

We Can Do Better by Working Together 

The likely demolition of this highly significant building will happen not for valid reasons, and certainly not from a lack of trying by the Conservancy, the Cultural Heritage Commission, and many others. It will happen as the result of a misguided, flawed, and opaque government process designed in many ways to ensure the destruction of Parker Center.

In a one-two punch, the replacement project will likely go before the City’s Entertainment and Facilities Committee on Tuesday, January 10, 2017. We expect the committee to recommend the project, and for the full City Council to cast its final vote very soon thereafter—perhaps within days.

Meanwhile, the Historic-Cultural Monument nomination for Parker Center is still pending, waiting to be scheduled before the City Council’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee. The Cultural Heritage Commission (CHC) re-submitted the nomination in September 2016, after a procedural error by the City essentially voided the initial nomination submitted by the CHC in 2014. Yet the proposed project calling for the building’s demolition will likely be approved before its designation as a landmark. 

It doesn’t have to be this way. There is a better option for everyone than what’s now on the table. By working together, we can find a solution for Parker Center. Let’s engage and bring in the preservation expertise to begin addressing the various challenges and opportunities for this project, from rehabilitation and costs to community connectivity as part of a larger Civic Center vision. 

How You Can Help

Please call and request a meeting with Councilmember José Huizar, Council President Herb Wesson, and Mayor Eric Garcetti and strongly urge their support for Parker Center and its preservation through an adaptive reuse project. Parker Center is located within Councilmember Huizar’s district and his position especially matters as other councilmembers are likely to support his stance. 

City Councilmember Jose Huizar
Phone: (213) 473-7014
Email: [email protected]
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/huizar.jose/
Chief of Staff Paul Habib, [email protected] 

City Council President Herb Wesson
Phone: (213) 473-7010
Email: [email protected] 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HerbWessonJr/
Chief of Staff Deron Williams, [email protected] 

Mayor Eric Garcetti
Phone: (213) 978-0600
Email: [email protected]
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/garcetti

(Adrian Scott Fine is director of advocacy for the Los Angeles Conservancy.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

ALPERN TALKS TRANSIT--There is no reason to choose between more options for mobility and commuting. Improved roads, freeways, rail systems, bus routes, etc. need not be created at the expense of the others--it's like choosing food versus water.  Similarly, it's pointless and immature to choose between transportation infrastructure and planning infrastructure--without one, the other falls apart. 

Similarly, local versus regional versus federal help for our roads and freeways and rail systems need not be independent of the other.  Those who want more high-speed rail and yet give the cold shoulder (or even a more pejorative expression) to highway construction/upgrades are not part of the answer, they're part of the problem--and, of course, vice versa. 

On the Eastside of LA County, and in the Southeast Cities of LA County, that region benefits from both an I-5 widening and I-605 upgrade as well as with new Metro Rail lines planned to link into the current Gold and Green lines. 

And it sure wouldn't hurt to have a double-barreled approach to the South Bay Cities of L.A. County, in that a new Major Investment Study to extend and expedite the South Bay Green Line to Torrance, San Pedro and the Long Beach Blue Line is as timely as any potential freeway enhancements to the I-405 South Bay curve. 

And if some of us who foam at the mouth at any discussion of new freeways would just "take a chill pill", here's another reasonable question: would a freeway to connect LAX to the I-10 freeway via the La Cienega corridor, or an upgrade/expansion of the Downtown I-10, be any less desired by commuters than a direct LAX-Downtown train without the Crenshaw and Expo Line detour? 

So let's talk about regional rail efforts that might APPEAR local, but yet enjoy regional planning and consensus, and (no thanks to Sacramento) are getting regional and federal support. 

Regional Rail Example #1: The Wilshire Subway 

One of the best nominees of the outgoing presidential administration is one Anthony Foxx, the U.S. Transportation Secretary (photo above) who was unanimously nominated by the Senate and who is an advocate for both automobile and transit funding, and is a powerful advocate for both public and private funding for New Starts in transportation. 

Secretary Foxx was present for a ceremonial signing of $1.6 billion in federal funding to extend the Metro Purple Line (a.k.a. "the Wilshire Subway") to Century City.  This Wilshire Subway/Purple Line is used by commuters all over the county and Southern California region to access their jobs, and is already undergoing extension to La Cienega. 

The La Cienega extension is phase one of the Purple Line westward push to the 405 freeway, and the Century City extension is phase two. Measure R, the half-cent sales tax approved by LA County voters in 2008, is already dedicating $747 million for this second phase. 

The whopping $1.6 billion for the second phase allows all sorts of projects (including the third phase of the Wilshire Subway/Purple Line to the West LA Veterans Center) to be moved up the planning ladder at Metro as money becomes available for these other projects as a result of the federal grant. 

And although Sacramento has been dedicating by far too much money away from this locally-preferred project, the Purple Line continues to draw bipartisan support both from Washington and throughout LA County.  Let's hope that another grant is forthcoming for the third phase of the Purple Line. 

Regional Rail Example #2 

There are three main gaps of the Green Line--the first light rail line that didn't have a direct connection to Downtown, and which helps connect the peripheral regions of LA County to each other--to LAX, to the South Bay Cities, and to Norwalk. 

In that order, the attention, focus, and priority of both planners and budget directors at Metro exists to correct these "Green Gaps".  Of note is that--when the old Friends of the Green Line project did their outreach fifteen years ago--the local consensus was also in that same order. 

First, LAX.  Second, the South Bay Cities to Redondo Beach and Torrance.  And third, gone but not forgotten, is Norwalk.   

There is a major Metrolink train station at Norwalk that serves commuters from Orange and Riverside counties, and years ago an eastern Green Line extension was planned to connect this 2.8 mile gap between Metro Rail and Metrolink. 

It's no secret that when major connections and destinations are reached via train (or even bus) transit routes, ridership explodes incrementally.  That happened when the Red Line Subway connected to Universal City and North Hollywood, and when the Expo Line connected to the Westside. 

So it's long overdue that this "Green Gap" connecting LA, Orange and Riverside counties be revisited.  The locals in Norwalk and Santa Fe Springs did not show us a lot of love at all fifteen years, ago, but at least the interest has returned in a new generation of mobility-minded experts. 

And it's not just the locals who are interested.  Mayor Garcetti, Metro, and the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) are also taking note that this critical connection be ignored no longer. 

As predicted by Friends of the Green Line, the connection of the Green Line to LAX would suddenly turn NIMBY's into YIMBY's for Green Line expansion.  Both LAX workers and commuters would love to park or be dropped off a long way from LAX to access that destination, or even to access the entirety of the expanding Metro Rail network. 

Who would pay for this project, which could easily reach up to $600 million or more if it were placed underground or were elevated?   

Arguably, despite its entire location in LA County, the project was proposed for Orange and Riverside County funding in the past, and the same should hold true in the future.  L.A. County cannot reasonably fund and build all of its projects that benefit non-LA County residents and commuters.

But at least the overdue project is being re-explored...and this time, hopefully pursued by a multicounty agency that will be unstoppable in its attempts to plan, fund, and build it.  The next community open house (and the last for now) is at 12239 Sproul Street in Norwalk this Wednesday, January 11th from 6-8 pm. 

And for those of you who want our freeways and planning/zoning upgraded for the 21st Century as well as a rail upgrade...don't stop fighting and demanding for those as well. 

Because transportation of all modes and locations has never been a "mutually exclusive" sort of issue.  That's only for the short-sighted and petty, and we've no time nor patience for that in traffic-clogged Southern California.

(Kenneth S. Alpern, M.D. is a dermatologist who has served in clinics in Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside Counties.  He is also a Westside Village Zone Director and Board member of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Planning and Outreach Committees, and currently is Co-Chair of its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee. He is co-chair of the CD11Transportation Advisory Committee and chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at  [email protected]. He also co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Dr. Alpern.)

-cw

@THE GUSS REPORT-On Wednesday, the Los Angeles City Council will unanimously approve an extension of its contract with Best Friends Animal Society to continue occupying the animal shelter the city built, but could not afford to operate, in the northeast portion of the Valley, also known as the Mission Shelter. 

This deal was rigged literally from its 2011 inception, primarily benefitting the city’s politicians and the uber-wealthy Best Friends, at the expense of the taxpayers, animals and clarity on what – exactly – happened to scores of them who were passed through to Best Friends without the same accountability required of all other rescue groups. 

How wealthy is Best Friends? According to its most recent tax return, in the five-year period ending in 2015, it took in $313,676,006 in total support -- tens of millions of dollars more than when it came to LA in 2011. That is not Best Friends’ worth; it is just its income, while it grovels for money in advertisements. 

The taxpayers of Los Angeles do not collect rent from Best Friends for occupying the Mission shelter, or adoption fees, or dog licensing revenue, or fees that other, genuinely poor, rescue organizations pay to bail shelter animals. The taxpayers also provide Best Friends with free utilities, maintenance and security at the shelter. In 2011, and to this day, the city did its best to prevent a competitive bid from other well-established rescue groups for that tenancy. 

In a controversial, marathon-length City Council meeting on August 16, 2011, other LA-area rescue groups said they were blindsided when they learned that LA Animal Services GM Brenda Barnette said she sent out a (still unverified) RFP to more than 1,500 humane organizations to bid on occupying the Mission shelter, but that only Best Friends submitted a proposal. 

Teri Austin, who runs the well-respected animal charity Amanda Foundation, claimed (at the 05:15:38 mark of the video) that neither she nor any of the other leading, local humane groups ever received the RFP. Despite her plea, and those from other groups, the City gave the contract to Best Friends without investigating the claims of a rigged RFP process or Best Friends’ relationship with Barnette’s daughter, Mary Alice Davis. 

At the core of this rip-off is Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Koretz, who embodies corrupt government bloat as the lawmaker who forever promises aid to suffering animals, but who always misses the mark like he did with LA’s porous, irrelevant spay/neuter law, licensing and cruelty laws, like his elephant bull hook ban that was so inept, the circus stopped exploiting elephants long before it ever kicked in. 

“I will call for an audit of LAAS and (Paul) Koretz will second it…to give him cover,” is what LA City Council president Herb Wesson said when he called me on July 3, 2014 after I collected thousands of signatures for an audit that would largely (but not solely) focus on the city’s dubious dealings with Best Friends. 

What Wesson meant by “giving Koretz cover” is very inside baseball. But it runs the gamut on fraudulent Garcetti claims like how LA Animal Services used Best Friends to falsify thousands of pet adoptions as I exposed in this CityWatch article from last October. 

The city’s relationship with Best Friends amounts to this: an unaccountable black hole where the city sends thousands of animals, counts them as “adoptions,” while all other groups taking in shelter animals are listed as “transfers.” The city does not require Best Friends to explain exactly where those animals went as all other rescues must. Note: Best Friends ships many of those animals to high-kill shelters in other states. By using this black hole as an illusion for helping homeless animals, LA politicians, including Mayor Eric Garcetti, falsely claim that “adoptions are up, kills are down,” when in fact they have no idea what became of the animals. And City Hall is about to, again, handsomely reward Best Friends for shielding the truth. 

The bogus “audit” that LA City Controller Ron Galperin eventually conducted was supposed to be based on a 72-page report requested by Wesson from me, following our lengthy January 3, 2014 meeting in his City Hall office. “Show me where the bodies are buried and we’ll audit it,” Wesson told me. But instead of using the report as a blueprint for exposing corruption, Galperin, Wesson, Koretz – and Mayor Garcetti – used it like a film negative; as a list of things they did not audit. 

And even with this rigged game, Best Friends has continued to cheat the city by using the Mission Shelter for activities that are strictly prohibited in its agreement with the city…..and with Koretz’ blessing. 

For example, the Mission shelter may only be used by Best Friends as an outlet for adoptions of animals that must first come from the city’s other shelters. Best Friends is explicitly prohibited from using it for animal intake, and the rule is there for a reason: to ensure that city property is used to help city animals. It is a secret known throughout the humane community that if you find an animal in another community, you can dump it with Best Friends, no questions asked. This is why the rule is there. 

In this 2013 email and accompanying impound record for a neonatal kitten improperly taken in by Best Friends, you can see the communication between a Best Friends employee and an LA Animal Services supervisor generating false impound numbers, a practice done thousands of times over. This activity was known to Koretz and the other city officials, including Galperin, who refused to audit it. The impound sheet shows the empty page in the city’s animal inventory system for one of those kittens. If the kitten had, as required, been processed through a city shelter, this page would have a photo, intake notes, a microchip number, inoculation and veterinary information, and the date when the kitten left the shelter. 

It is blank because the kitten never came in through the shelter….as required. 

It isn’t that Best Friends was ignoble in doing this. It is that they and City Hall were dishonest with the public, and it resulted in the deaths of scores of city animals whose turn it was to be taken by Best Friends, but weren’t because they were deemed “less desirable,” which means they require more love and veterinary care than a kitten to get adopted. And it costs money, even when Best Friends sits on a mountain of gold. 

At the final 2016 meeting of Koretz’ Personnel and Animal Welfare Committee, Koretz said that these two documents were “not credible” and that he “had not seen them before.” 

But which is it, Mr. Koretz? If you had not seen them before, how do you know they’re not credible? 

In fact, Koretz is lying in both instances because these two documents are on pages 21 and 22 in the 72-page report requested by Wesson from me in 2014 and provided to him, Galperin, Wesson and Garcetti at that time.

For two and a half years, Koretz actively ignored this and a wealth of other Best Friends-related corrupt practices and now recommends that Best Friends gets its contract renewed with the city on Wednesday. 

In the spring, Koretz will ask the voters of Council District 5 for another term in office. Before the primary, I will publish the 72-page report in its entirety in an interview with Jesse Creed, Koretz’ opponent, who is a public interest attorney, and an LAUSD product who graduated Princeton summa cum laude before graduating at the top of his Columbia Law School class. 

Creed has been endorsed in the CD 5 race by former City Controller Laura Chick. 

Koretz, Mayor Garcetti, Best Friends and LA Animal Services have refused to respond to direct questions regarding this matter.

(Daniel Guss, MBA, is a contributor to CityWatch, KFI AM-640, Huffington Post and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter @TheGussReport. His opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.)Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

THIS IS WHAT I KNOW-As those of you who regularly read CityWatch know, the LA City Council seems to engage in “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” vote-trading, as CityWatch’s Richard Lee Abrams wrote here back in July. “No councilmember will vote “no” on any project in his or her district. As a result, any project which a councilmember places on the City Council agenda unanimously passes. They’ve got a 99.9 percent unanimous passage rate,” which is statistically impossible. The passage rate isn’t just a majority vote but requires that every single councilmember present must vote “yes” every single time, no matter how many laws a project would break. 

Despite coverage by media outlets including the LA Times, the Council continues to do business as usual, citing that members are immune to Penal Code § 86 because the mental processes of councilmembers “confidential and privileged.” The result? Runaway projects, spending, and a Council that serves the needs of developers far more than it serves constituents. 

Caney Arnold has thrown his hat in the City Council race in District 15 to turn this around. Arnold, who has a background in Air Force acquisition and program management, is fed up with what he’s witnessed in the Council. Grassroots democracy, government transparency and accountability are the cornerstones of his campaign. I sat down with Arnold to discuss why he decided to run and the details of his platform. 

Arnold says, “The main thing that got me excited in politics again was Bernie, a progressive candidate to get behind. At the same time, I went to (Councilmember) Joe Buscaino’s town hall on homelessness. I was trying to advocate for a mom and her two kid but there was so much red tape. The paperwork was daunting.” He also noticed that Buscaino was moving homeless people out of encampments in San Pedro. (In September, CityWatch reported on the Council Homeless Strategy Committee’s authorization of $615,000 for the leasing and construction of storage facilities for the homeless in San Pedro, without prior notice being given to the Harbor Area’s neighborhood councils.) 

“The focus on moving people from place to place doesn’t help anybody, [it’s] just costing the city more money on police, sanitation, mental health workers. People are already in the system or on a waitlist for help. This is just a newspaper or photo op,” he added. “The system is inefficient. The method should be to secure housing first to help get people off the streets. Taking them out of the environment would take care of them and reduce nuisance on the street. It’s a win win for all and what is used in many other cities.” 

The frustration Arnold met as a volunteer addressing the homeless crisis in San Pedro and surrounding areas led him to run for Neighborhood Council. Once he was on the Neighborhood Council, he says he started to receive CityWatch and became aware of other issues that concerned him, such as campaign finance. 

“I started to look at campaign contributions on ethics websites and was amazed. A little after that, I had seen an article in the LA Times on an investigation involving the Sea Breeze apartments in Harbor Gateway,” he adds. (The LA Times reported over 100 donors directly or indirectly connected with a developer had contributed over $600,000 to politicians while the $72 million Sea Breeze apartment complex was up for approval.) 

“On one side, I was excited about this weakness but on the other side, I was discouraged. Every councilperson seemed to be in the same situation. It wasn’t like Joe was different from anyone else,” Arnold says of his decision to run. “We spent 84 hours, gathering 839 signatures, door to door, at shopping malls to get on the ballot. We don’t have $300,000 like Joe does but I have an appointment to talk to the city councilperson in West Hollywood. I’ve talked with loads of people in Watts.” 

“This is grassroots. Someone like me can decide to get off the couch. All it takes is someone with energy and motivation to get out there and do it. There are lots of excuses why things cannot get done. I thought someone needs to run. I looked in the mirror and saw that I was that somebody so I ran,” says Arnold.

In my next column, Caney Arnold and I discuss his ideas to solve specific problems and issues in the city.

(Beth Cone Kramer is a Los Angeles writer and a columnist for CityWatch.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

GUEST WORDS-For over a month, I have been fighting to help more than 120 seniors, living in the Westwood Horizons (photo below) building in Westwood, from being evicted. I’ve met a number of them. Some are holocaust survivors. Some are veterans. They range in age from 70 years old to 100 years old. Many of them have lived in the building for decades. Serving eviction notices to our most vulnerable community members just before the holidays was outrageous. Since learning of the evictions on December 2, I have fought to do whatever I can to stop the process. 

Watermark took over the building in October 2016, and issued eviction notices a little over a month later. 

Under state law, the Ellis Act permits owners of apartment buildings to evict their tenants if they intend to take their building off the rental market. However, they must give proper notice and pay relocation fees pursuant to the City's rent control law of around $18,000 per resident. Furthermore, any senior facing an Ellis eviction can apply for a one-year extension, which the landlord must grant, if they’ve lived there for at least a year. After my involvement began, Watermark agreed to grant residents the one-year extension without having to apply, a positive step forward. 

In order to stop these evictions, I took a number of steps. First, I sent a letter to the General Manager of the Planning Department calling for a hearing regarding Watermark Retirement Communities’ proposal to renovate the facility and to change its use from residential to commercial. I also launched a pressure campaign on Facebook listing the names of each of the executives behind this unfortunate decision as well as phone numbers, email addresses, and mailing addresses, calling on outraged community members to demand they halt the evictions. 

Also, I was able to convince the City Council to immediately vote and adopt a motion I introduced asking the City Attorney's Office to look at seeking an injunction to stop the evictions, or ways to make Watermark apply for new permits to remodel based on their plan do a considerable renovation which would lead to the mass evictions of the senior residents. 

I’ve subsequently met with the City Attorney’s office, which has responded energetically to my concerns. I’ve also had conversations with attorneys representing some of the residents who are convinced that they would have a reasonable chance of winning in court over the question of whether or not Watermark is illegitimately using the Ellis Act to evict their residents. 

I also heard from residents that the company was going to lay off their employees in a few months, leaving them without necessary and vital resources such as a functioning kitchen for prepared meals. It turned out that they had never actually given layoff notices to their employees as was rumored.

Before the New Year, I received a letter from Watermark President and CEO David Barnes indicating that our demands are slowly being met. They promised to retain every employee needed to continue providing services for as long as the residents continue to live at the facility, even offering a retention bonus to the employees. With this action, Watermark took another step in the right direction. 

They have also agreed that every senior resident who leaves the facility will be able to return when it is completed and for the same rent they currently pay. 

Although we are making forward progress, our work is not yet done. The huge issue remaining is that Watermark has argued that they must renovate the building for life-safety reasons, and that it can’t be done without removing all the tenants during that period. Watermark appears to have a point that this over 50-year-old building needs renovation for safety purposes. I have a meeting scheduled this week with Watermark’s management, architects and engineers, experts from the City’s Department of Building and Safety, and possibly additional specialists brought in by the residents’ attorneys, in order to determine whether renovating this building can be accomplished without having to remove the residents. Other owners of similarly situated buildings have done it, and I strongly believe Watermark can too. 

I hope to work out an agreement with them that will allow the tenants to stay while still accomplishing the necessary repairs to the building. That would be the only way to protect their safety while keeping their lives intact.This whole episode is emblematic of the challenge LA, and society in general, faces as our elderly population grows. The shortage of affordable housing is dire enough for people of working age, but to subject our seniors to threats of eviction is almost criminal. The Westwood Horizons crisis should be a lesson to all of us on that score.

(Paul Koretz is councilmember for Los Angeles’ 5^th Council District. He is running for reelection in the Los Angeles primary this March.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

CORRUPTION WATCH-Finally, someone is opposing Eric Garcetti in his bid for re-election as mayor of Los Angeles in March 2017. It is Mitchell Schwartz with his new side kick, The Developers’ Pig, Erika G.

Erika G first appeared with candidate Mitchell Schwartz on January 4, 2017 in front of the Department of Water and Power building in downtown Los Angeles. I found Ms. G, however, to be so fascinating that I decided to interview her for this CityWatch edition. 

First, I need to report that Ms. G clarifies that she is the former Developer’s Pig, but she is her own gal now. Her job was to help developers’ scarf up as many billions of tax dollars as possible. Ms. G explained, “Even a pig has to have some self-respect.” Adding that she thought her lipstick was just the proper shade of red, Ms. G complained that the Garcetti-DWP Bill of Rights was a lot of hog wash, and “I know hog wash when I see it.” She continued to explain that Los Angeles has become such a cesspool of corruptionism that she cannot stand it. “Development does not have to mean corruptionism,” she explained.

Ms. G continued that after wallowing in the developers’ muck all these years, she desired to take a bath so she trotted off to the DWP. “But at those prices, who can afford water?” she lamented. Ms. G related that the City Hall skims cash off the top of the DWP’s take from its customers. If the DWP hadn’t been paying tribute to the crooks at City Hall all these years, it could have afforded to fix the pipes beneath our streets without raising rates.” She added, “Every time you look at your DWP bill, you should realize that a considerable portion is being skimmed by City Hall. “Garcetti didn’t put that into his DWP Bill of Rights,” she snorted. 

Ms. G said that as the Developers’ Pig, she learned a lot of the inside dirt which she’ll be sharing with voters in the upcoming weeks. “Where’s the missing $424 million from the Hollywood-Highland Project? Hiding with Judge Crater?”   

Ms. G said the public wants answers to questions like, “Just what did Developer Leung buy with his $60,000 to Garcetti’s charity?” 

Why did Garcetti give $17 million to CIM Group for their illegal project at 5929 Sunset Boulevard? 

How do extortion and bribes interact with development projects in Los Angeles? 

Asked what she could do to fix corruptionism in Los Angeles, Ms. G pointed out that the new mayor has great power. “Yes, Virginia, there is a U.S. cavalry to ride to the rescue,” Ms. G shared with us. “It’s called the FBI.” 

Without going into detail, Ms. G said that we can see for ourselves that a new mayor will have great power. The new mayor will have access to all the city’s files including all the communications with the developers and their agents. The FBI has criminal jurisdiction over such corruption and Mitchell Schwartz, as the new mayor, can share all the information with the Feds. “I’m very good at finding dirt,” said Ms. G.   

When queried about that the Schwartz Administration would be like, Ms. G cryptically replied with the Mel Brooks’ line, “May the Schwartz be with you.”

(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

Better to drive a stake through the heart of civic debate in Los Angeles than bleed it dry with more fundraising-obsessed election coverage.  

What’s so bad about a shoe-string candidacy? What’s so bad about an underdog facing impossible odds?    

War-chests of campaign funds are impressive, but it’s not clear how they benefit the public. After all, it’s not to give the public a clear, unbiased view of their options that campaign funds are deployed. 

If a member of the public is buying a car, he or she deserves an opportunity to inspect all the available models, have them lined up, so he or she can see them side by side, kick the tires, look under the hood.  

But the public is denied that opportunity in the context of elections when newspapers disqualify candidates who don’t make fundraising a priority.  

Even if those candidates are unlikely to get elected, maybe some of their ideas will inform the debate. Readers might find them interesting. It’s not easy to collect 500 signatures. 

As for viability, a single debate can change the dynamics of an election, throwing into disarray plans for a game-ending primary. A single article can start a wave of interest, rallying fund-raising sources and tactical support. 

Isn’t it more interesting--and more likely to build an audience--for the press to mix it up, foment the debate rather than smother it, make incumbents get in the ring and fight for a second-term?
The press should be merciless on incumbents who refuse to debate. Such refusal should be the unpardonable sin of politics. No elected officials are above the public. If we ask them to show up for a couple of hours for a debate, they better well do so—quickly and with a smile.   

If the press reports on a candidate’s fund-raising, it should be one factor among others. Media outlets that receive public funding—KCRW to cite just one example—should be required to give 2 minutes of airtime per candidate. The Elections division of the city should host debates, with candidates sitting in the seats used by Councilmembers during meetings. Cameras are pre-set in that chamber, so it shouldn’t be expensive. 

Besides, it's money well spent. 

(Eric Preven and Joshua Preven are public advocates for better transparency in local government. Eric is a Studio City based writer-producer and a candidate for Los Angeles mayor. Joshua is a teacher.)

-cw

NEW GEOGRAPY--In 1949 the historian Carey McWilliams defined California as the “the Great Exception” -- a place so different from the rest of America as to seem almost a separate country. In the ensuing half-century, the Golden State became not so much exceptional but predictive of the rest of the nation: California’s approaches to public education, the environment, politics, community-building and lifestyle often became national standards, and even normative.

Today California is returning to its outlier roots, defying many of the political trends that define most of the country. Rather than adjust to changing conditions, the state seems determined to go it alone as a bastion of progressivism. Some Californians, going farther out on a limb, have proposed separating from the rest of the country entirely; a ballot measure on that proposition has been proposed for 2018. [[ http://www.presstelegram.com/government-and-politics/20161224/is-california-splitting-away-group-believes-california-should-form-its-own-nation ]]

This shift to outpost of modern-day progressivism has been developing for years but was markedly evident in November. As the rest of America trended to the right, electing Republicans at the congressional and local levels in impressive numbers, California has moved farther left, accounting for virtually all of the net popular vote margin for Hillary Clinton. Today the GOP is all but non-existent in the most populated parts of the state, and the legislature has a supermajority of Democrats in both houses. In many cases, including last year’s Senate race, no Republicans even got on the November ballot.

Homage to Ecotopia

The election of Donald Trump has expanded the widening gap. The two biggest points of contention going forward are likely to be climate change, which has come to dominate California’s policy agenda, and immigration, a critical issue to the rising Latino political class, Silicon Valley and the state’s entrenched progressive activists.

Most of the big cities -- Los Angeles, San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland and Sacramento -- have proclaimed themselves “sanctuary cities,” and the state legislative leadership is now preparing a measure that would create “a wall of justice” against Trump’s agenda. If federal agents begin swooping down on any of the state’s estimated 2 million undocumented immigrants, incoming Attorney General (and former congressman) Xavier Becerra has made it among his first priorities to  “resist” any deportation orders, including paying legal fees.    

Equally contentious will be a concerted attempt to block Trump’s overturning of President Obama’s   climate change agenda.   In recent years Gov. Jerry Brown has gone full “Moonbeam,” imposing ever more stringent environmental policies on state businesses and residents. The most recent legislation signed by Brown would boost California’s carbon reductions far beyond those agreed to by the U.S. in the Paris accord (which Trump has said he will withdraw from). All of this is being done along with a virtual banning of nuclear power, which, as the Breakthrough Institute’s Michael Shellenberger notes, remains the largest and most proven source of clean energy.

California’s draconian climate policies have been oft-cited by Obama and environmentalists as a role model for not only America but the world. However, they will not be widely emulated in the rest of the country during the next four years. Instead, California may be opting for a kind of virtual secession, following the narrative portrayed in Ernest Callenbach’s 1975 novel, “Ecotopia,” where Northern California secedes from the union to create a more ecologically perfect state.

Ironically, the state’s policies, which place strong controls on development, road construction, and energy production and usage, are somewhat symbolic; by dint largely of its mild climate, the state is already far more energy efficient than the rest of the country.  But to achieve its ambitious new goals,  most serious observers suggest, the state would lose at least 100,000 jobs and further boost energy prices -- which  disproportionately affect the poorer residents who predominate in the state’s beleaguered, and less temperate, interior.

The impact of these policies would be far-reaching. They have already reduced outside investment in manufacturing to minuscule levels and could cost California households an average of $3,000 annually. Such economic realities no longer influence many California policymakers but they could prove a boon  to other   states, notably Texas, Arizona and Nevada, which make a sport of hunting down California employers.   

A ‘Light Unto the Nations’?

Even with these problems, no other part of the country comes close to being as deeply progressive as California.  Illinois, President Obama’s home state, is a model for nothing so much as larceny and corruption. New York, the traditional bailiwick of the progressive over-class, is similarly too corrupt and also too tied to, and dependent upon, Wall Street. In addition, both of these states are losing population, while California, although slowing down and experiencing out-migration by residents to other states, continues to grow, the product of children born to those who arrived over the past three decades.

California’s recent economic success seemingly makes it a compelling “alt-America.” After a severe decline in the Great Recession, the economy  has roared back, and since 2010 has outpaced the national average.  But if you go back to 2000, metro areas such as Austin, Dallas, Houston, Orlando, Salt Lake City and Phoenix -- all in lower-tax, regulation-light states -- have expanded their employment by twice or more than that in  Los Angeles.

Indeed, a closer examination shows that the California “boom” is really about one region, the tech-rich San Francisco Bay Area, with roughly half the state’s job growth recorded there since 2007 even though the region accounts for barely a fifth of the state’s population. Outside the Bay Area, the vast majority of employment gains have been in low-paying retail, hospitality and medical fields. And even in Silicon Valley itself, a large portion of the population, notably Latinos, are downwardly mobile given the loss of manufacturing jobs.

According to the most recent Social Science Research Council report, the state overall suffers the greatest levels of income inequality in the nation; the Public Policy Institute places the gap well over 10 percent higher than the national average. And though California may be home to some of the wealthiest communities in the nation, accounting for 15 of the 20 wealthiest, its poverty rate, adjusted for cost, is also the highest in the nation. Indeed, a recent United Way study found that half of all California Latinos, and some 40 percent of African-Americans, have incomes below the cost of necessities (the “Real Cost Measure”). Among non-citizens, 60 percent of households have incomes below the Real Cost Measure, a figure that stretches to 80 percent below among Latinos.

In sharp contrast to the 1960s California governed by Jerry Brown’s great father, Pat, upward mobility is not particularly promising for the state’s majority Latino [[ http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/04/non-white-youth-population-growing-in-california-and-nation-report-finds.html   ]]   next generation. Not only are housing prices out of reach for all but a few, but the state’s public education system [[ https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-the-best-schools/5335/ ]]   ranks 40th in the nation, behind New York, Texas and South Carolina.  If California remains the technological leader, it is also becoming the harbinger of something else -- a kind of feudal society divided by a rich elite and a larger poverty class, while the middle class either struggles or leaves town.

Will America Turn to the California Model?

The new California model depends largely on one thing: the profits of the very rich. Nearly 70 percent of the state budget comes from income tax, half of which is paid by the 1 percent wealthiest residents (the top 10 percent of earners accounted for nearly 80 percent). This makes the state a model of fiscal instability. As long as the Silicon Valley oligarchs and the real estate speculators do well, California can tap their wealth to pay its massive pension debt, and expand the welfare state inexorably for its increasingly redundant working-class population.  

It’s highly dubious this model would work for the rest of the country. Due largely to its concentration of venture capital, roughly half the nation’s total, Silicon Valley may be able to continue to dominate whatever is the “next big thing,” at least in the early stages. Even parts of the tech community, such as Uber, Lyft and Apple, have announced major expansions outside of the state, in some cases directly due to regulatory restraints in California. Layoffs, meanwhile, are rising in the Valley as companies merge or move to other places. Google, Facebook and others, of course, will remain, keeping the big money in California, but the jobs could be drifting away.   

Under any circumstances, the rest of the country -- with the exception of a few markets such as Manhattan and downtown Chicago -- could not absorb the costs for housing or the taxes California imposes on its residents and businesses. Part of the reason stems from the fact that California is indeed different; its climate, topography, cultural life cannot be easily duplicated in Kansas City, Dallas or anywhere else. People will pay for the privilege of living in California, particularly along the coast. Would they do so to live in Minneapolis or Charlotte?

Nor, unlike during much of the postwar era, can it be said that California represents the demographic future.  The state -- even the Bay Area -- generally loses people to other states, particularly those in middle age, according to an analysis of IRS numbers.  Brown apologists suggest it’s only the poor and uneducated who are leaving, but it also turns out that California is losing affluent people just as rapidly, with the largest net loss occurring among those making between $100,000 and 200,000.  

Perhaps more revealing, the number of children is declining, particularly in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas. Children made up a third of California’s population in 1970, but USC demographer Dowell Myers projects that by 2030 they will compose just a fifth.

Nor is help on the way. Although boomtown San Francisco has maintained its share of millennials, most large California cities have not. And the number of people in their mid-thirties -- prime child-bearing years -- appears to be declining rapidly, notably in the Bay Area.   Coastal California is becoming the golden land for affluent baby boomers rather than young hipsters. Surfing dudes will increasingly be those with gray ponytails.

Instead of a role model for the future, the Golden State seems likely to become a cross between Hawaii and Tijuana, a land for the aging rich and their servants. It still remains a perfect social model for a progressive political regime, but perhaps not one the rest of the country would likely wish to, or afford, to adopt.

(Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com… where this analysis was first posted. He is the Roger Hobbs Distinguished Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University and executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism. He lives in Orange County, CA.)

-cw