LOS ANGELES

EDUCATION POLITICS--Large school districts are often less responsive to the needs of students and the hopes of parents than smaller districts. Public educational behemoths – such as Los Angeles Unified – are more likely to fall under the influence of well-organized interest groups such as teachers’ unions. By breaking up large districts into smaller ones, parents can achieve greater accountability. Although California makes school district secessions difficult, groups in Malibu and Walnut Creek are making impressive strides. 

VOICES--As someone who has been critical of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation over the years for being stuck in the past, I am delighted to see them putting in more bike lanes, even if it means taking lanes out for other traffic. These bike lanes make it safer for the many people who depend on bicycles to get around for their daily needs. They also encourage more to ride for transportation and recreation. This is good for us. 

EASTSIDER-It was supposed to be the equivalent of show and tell with a predetermined outcome. Then hundreds and hundreds of people showed up for the hearing. The Council Chamber quickly filled up, there was another overflow room that overflowed, and ultimately a large crowd wound up outside City Hall on the adjacent lawn. All this before the 2 p.m. start time. I heard estimates of something like 500, give or take, and the PLUM Committee was obviously not ready for the sheer magnitude of their audience. 

PENSION BRINKMANSHIP-Governor Brown’s proposal to fund CalPERS with borrowed money parallels a similar move by Puerto Rico in 2008. Borrowing to meet pension obligations can work under certain circumstances, but it is a risky policy. It backfired in Puerto Rico and can do so here. 

GUEST COMMENTARY-The false testimony given by Kim McGill of the Youth Justice Coalition during recent testimony before the Senate Public Safety Committee is greatly disturbing. As detailed in a blog by Michele Hanisee and Eric Siddall, Ms. McGill gave her testimony before the Senate Public Safety Committee to attempt to "humanize" overturning California law adding mandatory prison time for using a gun in a crime. Several Senators specifically cited her testimony as their reason to support the bill. 

POLITICS--As Trump and the Republicans work to eliminate Obamacare and “replace” it with an economic unicorn that would wipe out health insurance for tens of millions Americans, some politicians in California are pushing for a single-payer healthcare system in the Golden State.

NEW GEOGRAPHY--California is widely celebrated as the fount of technical, cultural and political innovation. Now we seem primed to outdo even ourselves, creating a new kind of socialism that, in the end, more resembles feudalism than social democracy. 

PLATKIN ON PLANNING-When you are hammer, the whole world looks like a nail, or in the case of the City of Los Angeles, when you are totally wedded to real estate speculation, you only have one hammer, up-zoning to fix all urban ills/nails. 

GELFAND’S WORLD--In the movie Invictus (above), Nelson Mandela is hoping to create a bond with South Africa's white population He invites the captain of the country's largely white rugby team to visit him at the presidential palace. 

SENATE SEXISM ALIVE AND WELL--For the second time in as many weeks, Kamala Harris was cut off by her Republican colleagues while posing questions at a Senate intelligence committee hearing. To most, seeing yet another example of a woman silenced by male senators only reinforces the reality that there are different rules for the different genders, but many on the right remain stubbornly unwilling to acknowledge that a male-dominated government led by a pussy-grabbing misogynist would exhibit sexist attitudes toward women.

BILLBOARD WATCH-Public safety, aesthetics, and the will of the people continue to get short shrift at the City Council Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) Committee, as it caves to the powerful billboard lobby. After years of hearings and reports, the committee on May 31 gave instructions to the City Attorney to finally draft a new Citywide Sign Ordinance that will govern billboards, known legally as off-site signs (Council File 11-1705). We should all enjoy the dark night skies while we can, because if this bill becomes a law, digital billboards will be going up in all kinds of new places, flashing messages in our faces every 8 seconds.

MY TURN-My "June Gloom" came early this year, like in April. To those of you who enquired as to why I have been absent from CW, here is my explanation: there was nothing good to write about. We could call it "writers block," but it was more like "Life Block." 

ROAD DIET OVERDOSE, PART 2-The City has been sued – again! This time it is due to its desire to expose children to toxic fumes while they are exercising. See HELP and CCLA v City of Los Angeles, BS 157813. Previously, these groups have prevailed in the Hollywood Community Plan case and in the Target case. Both times the City lost because it refused to follow the law. 

GUEST WORDS--Is this justice or does this mean just us. Politicians are bragging about HHH and what they will do. The question is, what are they doing now. 931 to 937 E. Pico and 1518 S. Paloma St. have been left in the wash in the political bragging. 

TRANSIT WATCH--In the Los Angeles Times June 14, 2017, article in the California section, Mayor Garcetti proposes to run a monorail above the San Diego, 405, Freeway through the Sepulveda Pass. This ignores two issues:  

BELL VIEW--Many years ago, I sat drinking a beer on the steps of an old wooden house in Canaryville – a white working-class neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago – with my friend Tommy, an Irish singer and guitar player who could fill a bar with his voice without the benefit of a microphone. Tommy, who would later be killed by a drunk driver, was one of the great ones: a singer, a fighter, a family man, a decent all-around person. As quick as he could be with his fists, at his core he was gentle and soft-spoken. He ran a thrift shop for the children’s hospital.

NEIGHBORHOOD POLITICS-- Since the recent April 6^th vote to create a Skid Row Neighborhood Council resulted in a lost effort by a mere 60 votes (in which over 1600 total voters participated), from which a “Vote No” cheating scandal was uncovered and a shocking dismissal by the City of Los Angeles’ Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE) of 3 valid election challenges by an Election Challenge Review Panel convened by DONE, the number one response far and wide is “Sounds like something the ACLU would take on” or “Have you guys (Skid Row Neighborhood- Formation Committee) contacted the ACLU?”

GUEST COMMENTARY--A cynic will feel welcome in the entertainment media landscape. 

In it, there are no promises of humanity — no assurances of justice — no unbreakable bond of truth. There is but one king: popularity (and more plainly, profit).

ROAD DIET OVERDOSE-Why does Mayor Garcetti think that it is a good idea to expose children to high levels of toxic fumes by constructing Bike Lanes in heavily trafficked thoroughfares?

GELFAND’S WORLD--Dear Mr City Attorney: If the Trump administration were to send federal officials into your office and announce that they were taking control of your department, you would no doubt feel rather put out. After all, you are an elected official acting under the authority of state law and the City Charter. The fact that Donald Trump doesn't like the way you interpret our sanctuary city status does not give him carte blanche to violate your lawful authority. May we therefore ask you to apply the same standards to our neighborhood council system?

CONNECTING CALIFORNIA--A: Test me all night, baby.

No, really. Sign me up to be the subject of A/B testing. I’d even be willing to sign a blanket consent form, right now, so that all of Silicon Valley’s biggest brains can test me for the purpose of improving the human future.