LOS ANGELES

BILLBOARD WATCH--Students coming to Animo Venice Charter High school by bus from areas like Inglewood and South LA get off at a stop on Venice Blvd. and walk a half mile north on Lincoln Blvd. to the school campus. One a recent school day, this is what they’d have seen on their way to morning classes.

First, a bus shelter ad for the new James Bond movie, Spectre, featuring actor Daniel Craig holding a gun as if he is prepared to do business with it. A few blocks further, a 600 sq. ft. billboard ad for New Amsterdam vodka, featuring a Marilyn Monroe look-alike who appears to be engaged in some serious partying. And, just a block-and-a-half from the school, signs for Marlboro and Camel Crush cigarettes at the edge of a 7-Eleven parking lot, placed as closely as possible to the sidewalk without actually impinging on the public space.

The students on foot and the people in cars creeping along highly-congested Lincoln Blvd are not the only audiences for the signs. Across the street from the bus shelter is a Boys & Girls Club. Three quarters of a block up the street is a church, and across the street from the church is a preschool. Those institutions are just 400 ft. from that Clear Channel billboard with the vodka bottle and model with her mouth open wide and bare arms thrust into the air.

Of course, the students and others don’t always see these pitches for alcohol, tobacco, and action movies with lots of gunplay. Ads change. Over the past several years, the Clear Channel billboard has displayed ads for Beck’s beer, for the TV show “The Strain” with the notorious image of a worm crawling out of woman’s eyeball, and for the online video streaming site “Crackle” with an image of a woman holding a smoking gun.

The billboard has a valid permit but is 10 ft. higher than allowed by the permit, according to city inspection records. Which means, of course, that it can be seen from a greater distance by motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians on that busy thoroughfare.

Lest anyone wonder about the relevance of the 400 ft. distance, Clear Channel is a member of the Outdoor Advertising Association of American (OAAA), which has “Code of Industry Principles” stating, among other things, the following:

We are committed to a program that establishes exclusionary zones that prohibit stationary advertisements of products illegal for sale to minors that are intended to be read from, at least 500 feet of, elementary and secondary schools, public playgrounds, and established places of worship.

Nothing about this is surprising. A 2008 study published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine found that 37 per cent of outdoor ads for alcohol and 25 per cent for tobacco were located within 500 ft. of a school, playground, or church in Los Angeles. But the OAAA does say that its “Code of Industry Principles” are voluntary, and there’s plenty of evidence that L.A.’s big three billboard companies—Clear Channel, Outfront Media, and Lamar Advertising—have chosen to ignore them.

There’s also plenty of evidence that the billboard company clients—corporate purveyors of alcohol, fast food, soda, violent movies—design many of their ads to appeal to young people like the students who walk Lincoln Blvd to and from high school each day in Venice.

The First Amendment’s free speech guarantee means that billboards on private property are free to display almost anything in ads, no matter how distasteful, harmful, or otherwise antithetical to a community’s physical and mental health. Fortunately, cities are also allowed to limit the number of billboards, or even prohibit them altogether, and many have done so.

Los Angeles made at attempt in this direction in 2002, when it banned new off-site signs, i.e, those advertising products and services not available on that site. Unfortunately, that ban was riddled with exceptions and proved vulnerable to legal attack. And Clear Channel and the other billboard companies are still lobbying city hall and going to court for the right to put up new billboards, especially the digital variety.

And a final thought:  Did anyone at Clear Channel or the ad agency or the company producing New Amsterdam Vodka think about the propriety of using a blonde Marilyn Monroe type to market booze, given that serious addictions to alcohol and drugs likely contributed to cutting short that actress’s life?

The following is a sample of studies by researchers at UCLA, USC and elsewhere into the links between outdoor advertising and public health. (click on title to read full report)

Clustering of unhealthy outdoor advertisements around child-serving institutions: A comparison of three cities. UCLA School of Public Health, University of Pennsylvania, University of Texas, American University: This study of outdoor advertisement in Los Angeles, Austin, and Philadelphia found that unhealthy ads—alcohol, junk food, depictions of violence—were clustered around child-serving institutions in Los Angeles and Philadelphia. It concluded that zoning and land use regulations should protect children from unhealthy commercial messages, particularly in neighborhoods with racial/ethnic minority populations. 

The Prevalence of Harmful Content on Outdoor Advertising in Los Angeles: Land Use, Community Characteristics, and the Spatial Inequality of a Public Health Nuisance. American Journal of Public Health, April 2014. | This year-long study of billboard advertising in seven selected areas of Los Angeles found that at-risk communities and communities of color hosted more harmful content—alcohol, fast food and soda, gambling, gun-related violence, and sexism—than more affluent communities.  

Outdoor advertising, obesity, and soda consumption: A cross-sectional study. Lenard Lesser, Frederick J. Zimmerman, and Deborah A. Cohen. BMC Public Health, 2013. | This study by researchers at UCLA, the Rand Corporation, and Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute of 220 census tracts in Los Angeles and New Orleans found a strong correlation between the percentage of outdoor advertising promoting unhealthy food and beverages and the rate of obesity among residents of those tracts.  

A Cross-Sectional Prevalence Study of Ethnically Targeted and General Audience Outdoor Obesity-Related Advertising. UCLA, Johns Hopkins University, University of Texas, University of Pennsylvania, American University, Public Health Institute, California Dept. of Public Health: | This study of areas offering contrasts of income and ethnicity in Los Angeles; Austin, Texas; New York City; and Philadelphia found that low-income and ethnic minority communities were disproportionately exposed to outdoor advertising for fast food, soda and other products that can promote obesity. 

(Dennis Hathaway is the president of the Ban Billboard Blight Coalition and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: Dennis@banbillboardblight.org. ) Photo credit:  Mayor Sam’s Sister City

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CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 99

Pub: Dec 8, 2015

JUST THE FACTS-Westfield Corporation spent $350 million on the development and construction of the Westfield Village in the West San Fernando Valley community of Woodland Hills to benefit the people in the San Fernando Valley and, of course, as an economic boost for their own company. With all the upscale dining establishments and numerous stores, including a brand new Costco, the concept was intended to create jobs and be a destination for shopping and relaxation for Valley residents and visitors. There are very few cultural spots in the West Valley; the “Village” was designed to fill the gap.   

But there are problems.  First of all, there is the paid parking situation. For the entire Village. While you can receive one courtesy hour free, additional time (three hours) must be obtained from either the Costco or another establishment. However, some shops don’t provide any validation at all for their customers. 

As you can imagine, most people who shop at Costco purchase large quantities of merchandise and roll their shopping cart to the parking lot. Unfortunately, many Costco shoppers must park on the upper level of the multi-story parking structure and then struggle to get to their cars and load their items before driving away. This is inconvenient for most shoppers who, once arriving at their vehicles, must follow long lines to exit the parking structure. If you forget to get your parking ticket validated, you must pay to exit the lot. For this reason alone, many Costco shoppers have informed me that they prefer other Costco locations in the Valley such as the ones on Tampa and on Sepulveda Blvd. in Van Nuys. 

In addition to the tiered parking situation, Westfield operators want to charge for parking along the surface lot adjacent to Topanga Canyon Blvd. This is taking advantage of the good people of the San Fernando Valley; no other shopping center in the entire Valley charges for parking. 

I suggest that Westfield re-examine its parking policies. They should provide free parking for shoppers willing to visit their centers and spend money. 

One of the first businesses to open at Westfield Village has already closed its doors. I had the opportunity to meet the family that owned and ran the dessert shop, “Confexion.” They invested a large sum of money and hoped to make it work. Unfortunately, the store did not do well and closed shortly after opening, a sad situation since they put their heart and soul into the venture, in addition to a considerable amount of money. 

Given the expensive rents and other costs associated with Westfield Village, I project that more stores will close in the near future.  

The Westfield Corporation purchased a large segment of property along Topanga Canyon Blvd between Vanowen and Oxnard, buying all the existing stores, investing considerable dollars to improve the neighborhood. Their next phase of development is the Promenade site on the southern end of the property. Currently, there are homeless people residing in this mostly abandoned shopping center. 

Rumors are circulating that Westfield intends to develop hundreds of residential units, both apartments and condos, as well as some retail on the site. The surrounding neighborhood has become more and more congested with large condos and multi-story apartments. And as road become more crowded, additional market rate residential units will only cause more gridlock and frustration for the public. I am considering filing a court action if Westfield proceeds with the housing development. 

I welcome your thoughts and ideas on this controversial situation. 

And I wish everyone a very Happy New Year. 

(Dennis P.  Zine is a 33 year member of the Los Angeles Police Department and former Vice-Chairman of the Elected Los Angeles City Charter Reform Commission, 12 year member of the Los Angeles City Council and current LAPD Reserve Officer. He writes Just the Facts for CityWatch. You can contact him at Zman8910@aol.com) Photo at top: LA Times. Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

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CityWatch

Vol 14 Issue 1

Pub: Jan 1, 2016

EASTSIDER-Let me be clear:  I like my Post Office. I like the mail carrier that actually delivers mail to my door six days a week. I like the fact that there is one Federal office building in my area that makes me smile instead of frown; and I like the idea that in almost every community in the United States, large or small, thereisa USPS office, as well as mail carriers and a postmaster. They form a positive connection to my government, decent paying jobs with benefits, and are often the visual emblem of government, providing services to those who cannot or are unable to leave their homes. 

This is unlike the politicians who run my government, those whose services seem to largely include selling off public assets and granting tax breaks for corporations and the rich. 

The usual attack on the USPS states that it is inefficient and “people don’t use mail anymore.” That it’s somehow part of the “old economy,” replaced by smart phones, and most importantly, that it is economically unsustainable and would be broke were it not for massive infusions of cash from the federal government. This drumbeat has been going on for so long that if you ask someone in my neighborhood if the post office is losing money, most folks would say “sure!” Such is the impact of repeated media coverage over time. 

So when the Washington Post and the Brookings Institute (the number one rated think tank in the nation)put out hit pieces about the USPS going broke and the need for change, it came as little surprise to many. The facts, however, do not support the argument…it’s simply not true! 

Hey, somebody has to stand up for the USPS -- and clearly, it will not be the media, the once-reliable Brookings Institute or the political/lobbyist class. Forgive me, but this humble blogger can’t help himself. 

The truth is, the US Post Office was getting along just fine until 2006, when Congress passed its annual appropriations bill. Buried in it were a couple of real doozies from our bought-and-paid-for elected officials: the “Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act” and the “Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund.” 

Have you noticed that whenever elected officials really sell us out it’s always with language that says the exact opposite of what the legislation does? 

What they really did was require the USPS to pre-fund years and years of anticipated retiree health care benefits. You got it. The Post Office has to pay about $5.5 billion per year into this bogus fund to prepay health benefits. This was done by the same Congress that stole Social Security Fund money for years, putting it into the General Fund to “balance” their phony budget. The same Congress that creates its annual “showdown in Washington” moment for television to increase the National Debt ceiling just to stay afloat. 

The take away from these articles is that the USPS is going broke, the politicians can’t fix anything, and the profitable parts of the USPS ought to be spun off to the private sector. Yeah, well, they “fixed” the Post Office all right. 

The scary truth is that this horsepuckey has been repeated so often, and in so many places, that our numbed citizens now actually believe it’s true. The exact opposite is the case. Only in America. 

Now, I understand theWashington Post article -- Jeff Bezos (who bought the paper) probably wants to privatize the operation so that Amazon and the private sector can “help” us become more efficient. 

By spinning off the profitable areas of Priority Mail and parcel delivery from the USPS, Amazon can cut wages, eliminate benefits, magically become bigger than FedEx and UPS and take over the world. Or maybe FedEx or UPS can become the biggest, or whatever. Even scarier, they plan to generate mergers and acquisitions activity by the financial services industry, enabling them to skim money off a load of corporate debt, possibly causing the next financial crash to be even bigger.  

What I don’t understand is theBrookings Institute piece. Over the years, Brookings has always had a reputation for middle of the road or even (gasp) a liberal bent. 

When Elaine C. Kamarck, a “Senior Fellow of Governance Studies” and “Director of the Center for Effective Public Management” for the Institute, wrote about privatizing the USPS in her article, “Delaying the Inevitable,”  I read it with great interest. 

There are two fundamental problems with her piece. First, the conclusions of the article are based on a basic math error, evidently not Ms. Kamarck’s forte. If you take the roughly $5.6 billion annual prepayment for the fiscal year in question, the USPS actually made money. But instead, Kamarck took a bunch of these annual payments and clumped them together to come up with the $22.4 billion figure; then she used it in a single fiscal year analysis.  

The other bad assumption of Kamarck’s piece is not a simple math error, but rather the typical dismissal by pseudo-science economist types who “assume” that delivering the mail, with all that it entails, is an unprofitable and hence worthless act. This mind set is endemic only to people who live in a huge metropolis like Washington DC or New York City.  

If you live somewhere else, like McFarland, CA or Sanger, CA in the central valley, or Hayfork, CA in the Trinity Mountains, or in any small town in America, you know that the USPS performs vital services to the underserved. It’s a physical symbol of the Federal government that helps you. It’s a gathering place, where mail carriers actually go out and do something for the forgotten; it provides decent jobs with benefits to members of the community and it may just be there for us in a time of need.  

So, of course, the lobbyist and political elites want to get rid of the USPS; and they are closing more post office branches every year. But I have a better idea: how about blocking the politicians from putting these slimy pieces of “payoff legislation” into appropriations bills?   

For those interested in this issue, see the blog Save the Post Office for more information.

(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.

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CityWatch

Vol 14 Issue 1

Pub: Jan 1, 2016

OTHER WORDS—(Of all the issues we shine light on here at CityWatch, ‘mansionization’ sparks some of the biggest firestorms. Robert Eisele is a homeowner association officer in the LaBrea – Hancock community and provides yet another perspective.)

In Charles Tarlow’s CityWatch article  “The Other Side of the Mansionization Debate” (24 Dec 2015), Tarlow attacks former city planner and anti-mansionization activist Dick Platkin by saying that the proposed amendments to the city’s Baseline Mansionization Ordinance (BMO) “will do nothing to enhance the quality of life in our city. If Dick Platkin and his ilk really cared about Los Angeles, they would stop trying to impose their idea of a proper single family home on their neighbors…”

Actually, if Mr. Tarlow lived next to a McMansion he might have quite a different opinion. In our La Brea Hancock neighborhood, houses of 4700 square feet have been built on 6700 square foot lots, spanning almost to the back fence of the property. These monstrosities not only peer into nearby backyards and destroy their neighbors’ right to privacy, they are also out-of-scale in terms of height, and their shadows often rob enough sunlight to kill portions of their neighbors’ gardens.

Quality of life? McMansion developers in our neighborhood have been cited by the Southern California Air Quality Management District for asbestos pollution while demolishing older homes, as well as for lead contamination. Not a single resident homeowner in La Brea Hancock has chosen to build a boxy, gigantic McMansion when enlarging or remodeling their home.

McMansions are the creations of real estate speculators and developers, and are not occupied by “more than one generation living together and sometimes even three,” as Mr. Tarlow suggests. In our neighborhood, they are usually occupied by couples or couples with one or two children. Sometimes, they’re even the second residence for affluent individuals who do not call Los Angeles their home.

Our neighbors organized against mansionization for one reason – to maintain their quality of life. It is a grassroots movement that sprang up in living rooms, not boardrooms or council chambers. Anti-mansionization activists are your neighbors, not your enemies. They are not out to dictate the style of your home, nor to stop you from expanding or building anew. All they are asking for is reasonable scale. Yes, you have the right to build a larger home.

In La Brea Hancock, on some of our corner lots, you could build a 3500 square foot home according to the proposed BMO Amendments. That is a large house. But if you – or more likely a spec builder – want to construct a monolith that robs your neighbors of privacy and sunlight, why not move to a neighborhood with larger lots where such homes are appropriate?

Property rights are important and they include the right for neighborhoods to organize and ask for changes in zoning laws. You can’t build a 7-11 in the middle of an R-1-1 neighborhood for a reason: It affects the quality of life in the neighborhood. In a like manner, the infestation of McMansions in neighborhoods with smaller lots destroys quality of life and, therefore, defeats the basic intent of zoning. That’s why, when polled, over 66% of La Brea Hancock’s residents supported zoning change to end mansionization. And that’s why, if the will of the people and not the developers is heard, the Baseline Mansionization Amendments will prevail.

Although it’s good that Interim Control Ordinances (ICOs) have temporarily stopped mansionization in certain neighborhoods, they’ve also had a counter-productive effect. The voices of many anti-mansionization advocates have been quelled by the effectiveness of the ICOs. But their efficacy is only temporary.

And now, realtors and developers – a tiny minority when compared to the citywide anti-mansionization movement – are roaring at City Planning meetings. If homeowners want the BMO Amendments enacted, it’s time to email their Council people and City Planning staff. Comments will be heard till January 11^th.

And the developers’ lobbyists are growing louder, since they now see potential barriers to the speculative building of McMansions.

(Robert Eisele is a resident homeowner in the La Brea Hancock neighborhood, and serves as Vice-President of the La Brea Hancock Homeowners Association. He can be reached here.)  Photo credit: LarchmontBuzz.com.

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CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 105

Pub: Dec 29, 2015

LATINO PERSPECTIVE--‘Circus Disco’ the 40 year old Hollywood nightclub that was founded decades ago to welcome Latinos and men of color who were shunned at other gay nightspots, is now being considered for demolition to make way for a multi-million dollar, mega mixed-use development project that would include 695 residential units and 1,391 parking spaces on the almost 6-acre site. (Photo: proposed Lexington) 

According to the Los Angeles Times when historic preservationists learned that the soon-to-be-shuttered club could be torn down for new development, they grew alarmed that another vital piece of Los Angeles' gay history could be lost to the bulldozers. 

To protect or at least commemorate Circus Disco, they proposed that the city recognize it as a historic monument, a step that could make it harder to demolish or alter the cavernous building. Such a status would not forbid demolition but could delay and complicate plans to redevelop the site with hundreds of new apartments. 

On February 24, the City Council approved an ordinance that certified the EIR and made a zoning change allowing residential use of the proposed Lexington site, which was restricted to industrial and commercial. The ordinance was approved 14 to 0; Councilman Jose Huizar was absent. The ordinance goes into effect April 8, but LGBT Latino advocates and historic preservation experts want the council to reopen the EIR and have it amended to include historical and cultural information about Circus Disco and have a discussion about what should be done with the property. 

“The fact that Circus Disco is on Survey LA  and a potential historic resource means it should have been included in the EIR,” said historic preservation attorney Susan Brandt-Hawley. “It sounds like it’s an inadequate EIR. The city council needs to re-open it and supplement it to include this information.” 

Jonathan Menendez, who directed the 2012 documentary “Gay Latino LA” and has been researching Los Angeles’ gay Latino history – including Circus Disco – for eight years, said, “Obviously that EIR is false. I completely support the city council amending it.”   

“Circus is so important because the space has meaning. It’s a sacred cultural space,” Menendez said. “The space is meaningful because for gay Latino men it’s a home away from home. If you destroy that cultural space, you destroy a cultural landmark.” 

Disco has tremendous historical and cultural significance to the LGBT Latino community.

Anthony C. Ocampo, a Cal Poly Pomona sociology professor, said Circus Disco is vital for some gay Latino men coming out of the closet. 

“As a result, Circus plays a tremendous role and crucial role in creating community for gay men of color. When they first come out of the closet, it’s a safe space,” Ocampo said. “You find people like you. I’ve had gay Latinos refer to Circus as going to church. It was that essential to their life. 

I agree with those who say that Circus Disco has an important historical and cultural significance to the Los Angeles LGBT Latino Community; but for Ocampo to say that demolishing Circus Disco would erase gay Latino history is nonsense!  

Our history should not depend in one building. The plan should recognize the property's history, and it can be commemorated with a plaque. 

In a letter to the Cultural Heritage Commission, Avalon Bay senior vice president of development Mark Janda said the company disagrees with the idea that Circus Disco is a historic monument and emphasized that hundreds of new apartments at the site could help chip away at L.A.’s housing shortage. 

Mr. Janda is right there is a housing crisis in Los Angeles, the lack of it it’s the main  reason rents continue to go up.  Latinos are greatly affected by the shortage of housing in this city.

What we have to do is to make sure that the Lexington Project is well planned, and that it will take into account traffic, parking, the environment, and our quality of life. 

If we truly want to honor our LGBT Latino Community we should support the Lexington Project and make sure that LGBT Latinos in Los Angeles and Latinos in general have access to a decent quality of life. This project will help ease some of this housing shortage, and will make it easier for Latino families in Los Angeles to afford rent in this city.

(Fred Mariscal 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 is a community leader who serves as Vice Chair of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Coalition and sits on the board of the Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council representing Larchmont Village.  He was a candidate for Los Angeles City Council in District 4. Fred writes Latino Perspective for CityWatch and can be reached at: fred.gwnc@gmail.com)

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CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 99

Pub: Dec 8, 2015

SKID ROW-With all the recent talk of a possible “Homeless Czar” who would lead the effort to solve homelessness in Los Angeles, I can’t help but begin the New Year with a resolution of my own. 

If I were named as Homeless Czar, here’s the first thing I’d do: I’d withhold the paychecks of everyone with jobs related to homelessness…period. Then I bet we’d get some solutions – and fast! Problem solved. 

Seriously though, everyone we look to for solutions for homelessness is receiving a paycheck -- including non-profit executive directors and CEO’s earning six-figure salaries, some as much as $200,000 to $300,000 a year. 

The Mayor and City Council also make six-figure salaries. Fifteen City Councilmembers each “earn” $250K. LAPD is “earning” a $1.5 billion budget for the current fiscal year. And so on. 

Add to this the money that comes from the Federal government (American taxpayer money,) as well as funding from the state and local levels, along with grants and donations from private foundations and public “do-gooders.” Think about it…there is a ton of funding being generated by the very presence of homelessness. 

It stands to reason that as long as homelessness continues, a lot of “leaders” will continue to get paid. Maybe there’s just no impetus for them to do anything significant at all…only enough to justify “earning” their paychecks. 

With that established, as the Homeless Czar, I would have access to internal documentation to support my theory. And that’s when I would drop the hammer! 

During my first press conference on the steps of City Hall, I’d boldly announce, “No one will receive paychecks until the desired results have been achieved.” 

I can guarantee that the necessary “sense of urgency” we’ve all been waiting for would instantly be present. All solutions -- coordination of efforts, outreach, healthcare, housing and shelter options and more -- would be quickly implemented with easily identifiable results: less homeless folks and less encampments on the streets across the City and County of Los Angeles. 

Voila!  Then and only then would paychecks for the “experts” be resumed. 

Unfortunately, this idea of mine is not the reality. But then again, neither are your promises to quit smoking, stop drinking, exercise more, lose 25 pounds, go back to school and get a better paying job. 

The funny thing is, if I really were named the Homeless Czar, I believe I could actually do the job in a relatively easy fashion. All I’d need is complete compliance from everyone. 

Unfortunately, you’re stuck now with the other guys – the ones with the “comprehensive strategic homeless plans.”  But if nothing else, I would make them earn their paychecks. 

Happy New Year!

(General Jeff is a homelessness activist and leader in Downtown Los Angeles.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

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 CityWatch

Vol 14 Issue 1

Pub: Jan 1, 2016

WHO WE ARE--Recently, a homeless woman, making her point by shaking a can with a few coins in it, knocked on my Mid City neighbor’s door and asked for a donation. Bold? Desperate? The start of a trend? 

PROMISES, PROMISES-Nowadays, it’s almost impossible for developers to strike major deals with city governments without first negotiating some sort of community benefits agreement (CBA). Such agreements are typically legally binding deals involving developers, community groups and the local government in which a developer pledges funding or other assistance to a community in exchange for tax abatements, subsidies, regulatory changes or exemptions from the city for a project.

CBAs hold plenty of promise as a relatively new way for communities to hold local governments and private developers accountable. But so far, they’ve yielded a mixed track record. (One skeptical Silicon Valley city even rejected a Google CBA offer earlier this year.)

In New York City, CBAs have been a borderline calamity. See the Barclays Center/Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, or Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.

There’s some hope, yet.

“At the end of the day, you can’t judge whether this process is going to be successful until 10 years from now,” West Harlem community leader Larry English told The New York Times in a 2013 story on the West Harlem Development Corporation (WHDC), which got started with $76 million out of a CBA tied to Columbia University’s expansion.

For an idea of what could be ahead for CBAs, the University of California at Irvine’s Nicholas Marantz took a look back at the CBA tied to the development of the Los Angeles Sports and Entertainment District (LASED), negotiated in 2001. The Journal of the American Planning Association recently published Marantz’s findings.

“The LASED CBA is widely regarded as the first in the U.S.,” Marantz writes.

Marantz examined two questions: First, have all the parties to the LASED CBA complied with the provisions concerning jobs, housing, and parks and recreational facilities. Second, if yes, did the developers provide benefits beyond those required under existing laws and regulations?

In the LA agreement negotiations, the community was represented by the Figueroa Corridor Coalition for Economic Justice. (At one point, at least 29 organizations were involved, according to Marantz, so they formed this umbrella organization to negotiate on their behalf with the developer — a tactic that’s become commonplace in hammering out CBAs.) The developer was Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG).

The talks led to a mix of binding and non-binding goals. On jobs, for example, the CBA set a non-binding goal that at least 70 percent of permanent jobs in the LASED would be “living wage jobs” as defined by the CBA, while it set a binding pledge for AEG to submit an annual report to the city on the status of meeting the 70 percent goal. AEG did not comply with this public reporting obligation until 2014.

Marantz did not report finding any penalty paid by AEG for not meeting what was supposedly a legally binding goal. Furthermore, the CBA defined any job covered by a collective bargaining agreement as a “living wage job,” regardless of actual wages paid.

So was it worth it to fight for such goals around wages, binding or non-binding? According to Marantz, the answer may be yes, but not for the reason you might expect.

“Although the living wage goal was reportedly attained by 2013, the role of the CBA in attaining that goal is ambiguous,” Marantz writes. “The CBA, however, may have served as an important symbol in a long-term labor campaign that resulted in a stronger living wage law and the city’s 2015 adoption of an ordinance that would increase the citywide minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2020.”

On affordable housing, another common CBA focus area, the LASED CBA required AEG to provide $650,000 in interest-free three-year loans to specified affordable housing developers. It also required all residential developers in the LASED to either develop or subsidize one affordable unit for every five housing units in the LASED.

The development devil is in the details.

“Ambiguous language in the CBA ultimately allowed the LASED developers to fulfill the latter requirement in a way that covered only a fraction of the development cost for each required affordable unit,” writes Marantz.

Furthermore, Marantz reports, even though the CBA prioritized affordable housing for families, most of the affordable units completed in fulfillment of the CBA ended up being part of a college dormitory.

It’s worth noting that the LASED CBA isn’t just the first CBA in the U.S., it’s also widely cited as a model for many others, including a family of CBAs in the Los Angeles area (SunQuest Industrial Park, NoHo Commons, Marlton Square, and the CBA for the Los Angeles International Airport’s $11 billion modernization plan.)

All of those, in turn, have been cited by others: “Efforts in New York to replicate meaningful CBAs have been disappointing,” writes Good Jobs First NY. “Atlantic Yards, Columbia University’s expansion and Yankee Stadium attempted to implement CBAs but fell short of those modeled after the landmark agreements in California.”

Yet, as Marantz writes, “it is not clear that the LASED CBA yielded jobs, affordable housing units, or parks and recreation facilities beyond those that would have resulted from municipal mandates, federal regulations, and agreements between unions and employers.”

The real bottom line for CBAs may lie in their (generally) unintended effect of galvanizing marginalized communities to influence policies and resources beyond those tied directly to development projects. Like the living wage example above, for instance.

Marantz also points out that LASED developers provided only a fraction of the funds needed to construct the affordable housing, and parks and recreation projects in the neighborhoods surrounding the project. Most of the remaining funds came from multiple public sources as well as banks fulfilling obligations under the federal Community Reinvestment Act. 

“The LASED case thus demonstrates that a CBA can help direct resources to underserved communities,” he writes. “But only a small share of those resources may come from the developers who are subject to the CBA.”

The Equity Factor is made possible with the support of the Surdna Foundation. 

(Oscar Perry Abello is a Next City 2015-2016 equitable cities fellow. A New York City-based journalist writes about impact investing, microfinance, fair trade, entrepreneurship and more for publications such as Fast Company and NextBillion.net. This piece was posted originally at Next City) Photo by Steve Jurvetson.  Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

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CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 105

Pub: Dec 29, 2015

THE BUSINESS OF FAMILY LEAVE-Kirsten Calkins was about five months pregnant with her first child, working as an executive coordinator at a small nonprofit in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Like many working parents in the U.S., she worried about how she’d manage having less money coming in while she cared for a new infant.

Her employer, the International Association of Privacy Professionals, offered four weeks fully paid leave, then five weeks at 60 percent pay and then, if you could swing it, an additional three weeks unpaid.

But Calkins was lucky to become pregnant in 2015: the year companies, particularly in tech, woke up and realized that you can’t strand workers facing huge personal challenges.

In January, IAPP -- which counts many tech companies as members -- started giving all its workers 12 weeks fully paid leave after the arrival of a new child.

“The level of excitement is hard to put into words,” Calkins told The Huffington Post. “Not having to juggle a life altering experience like having a baby with budgeting for a new expense with less income. It was like a weight was lifted.”

The U.S. is one of a handful of countries that offers mothers no paid maternity leave. It is the only developed country without a paid leave policy. The lack of support causes a significant percentage of working parents to fall into poverty. It puts the health of parents and infants at risk.

Finally, in 2015, policymakers and companies started to pay attention -- we may someday look back and see this past year as a tipping point in the movement toward paid leave for all. 

A significant number of businesses -- from Adobe to Netflix to Microsoft to Goldman Sachs -- announced they would expand paid benefits for their employees. Twenty-one percent of companies surveyed by the Society for Human Resource Management were offering paid maternity leave in 2015, up from 16 percent in 2011.

And, for the first time a U.S. President got serious about paid parental leave and sick leave. “Today, we are the only advanced country on Earth that doesn’t guarantee paid sick leave or paid maternity leave to our workers,” Obama said in January’s State of the Union address. “And that forces too many parents to make [a] gut-wrenching choice.” 

The Department of Labor started offering grants to states looking to study how paid family leave would work. Three states currently have paid family leave policies in place: California, Rhode Island and New Jersey -- where the policy is so popular that Republican governor Chris Christie never followed through on his promise to get rid of it when he was voted into office. Eighteen other states are considering paid leave initiatives.

Political candidates, on both sides of the aisle, now find they can no longer ignore the issue. Hillary Clinton called for paid leave in her first major economic speech as a presidential candidate this year. She’d never pushed for it as a senator. One Republican candidate, Marco Rubio, is calling for a company tax credit for offering paid leave.

Candidates who support paid leave, were eight percent more likely to win, according to projections from The National Partnership for Women & Families, cited in a New Republic piece earlier this year. In Connecticut, Dan Malloy is believed to have won the race for governor on the back of his support for paid sick leave.

“It’s kind of a new thing. We’ve always pushed to increase quality of life for our members, but the spotlight has fallen on leave,” Robert Daraio, a local representative of the News Guild of New York, told HuffPost. Daraio helped negotiate four months' paid parental leave for employees at the liberal magazine The Nation in December. “We’re pushing for this in all contracts going forward,” he said.

It seems almost daily a company issues a press release announcing more time for parents and caretakers.

“It was a good year,” said Ellen Bravo, the director of Family Values @ Work, a nonprofit coalition of groups pushing for paid parental and sick leave in the U.S.

Perhaps one of the most outspoken proponents of paid leave, Bravo said that family leave came to prominence thanks to a spiral of factors -- most notably the Obama administration, as well as the many states and municipalities taking action on this. She credits “millennials,” -- young adults -- who are demanding employers give them paid time off to care for children and family members.

Some companies have always had this benefit, Bravo said. “The interest in making announcements public is what’s new. Part of that comes from their desire to say to millennials come here, we’re paying attention to this.”

In the business sector, tech companies fell over themselves in 2015 offering more generous benefits. When Netflix this summer announced it would offer 12 months of leave to new parents, regardless of gender, the news was widely picked up and a flurry of other companies raced to improve their offerings -- including Microsoft and Amazon.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is right now taking a highly publicized paternity leave that Bravo said set a great example for fathers, who are seen as a crucial part of the paid leave movement.

Banks got in on the trend, too. Private equity shop KKR and Credit Suisse both beefed up their offerings for parents this year.

“We knew it started in tech, but then we started seeing businesses in financial services and banking, which are typically conservative, saying we need to do this, too,” said Melinda Figely, who consults on human resource issues as a vice-president at NFP, an insurance brokerage with clients in banking. "As employers adopt it what they see is people actually come back to work in higher numbers and they're happier and less stressed."

One thing critical about the new momentum on leave: It's not just for birth mothers, but for adoptive parents, for fathers, and for those who need time off to take care of loved ones. Paid parental leave -- not "maternity" leave -- is the hot new thing for companies, Figely said.

The change stems from the country's opening up to gay couples in recent years and people of various gender identities, Figely said. "The barriers are coming down and people aren't so narrow in their thinking that there's one kind of family or only one way to do maternity leave."

Yet for all the positive momentum on leave, the data still looks bleak. An overwhelming majority of employers don’t offer paid leave. Most states don’t offer paid leave. The U.S. unpaid leave law -- the Family and Medical Leave Act  -- only covers 60 percent of workers.

About nine percent of workers who take time off to care for a family member end up on public assistance, according to Labor Department data cited by The New Republic. The Family Act, a bill sponsored by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D – Conn.) that would pay for federally mandated leave by taking a few cents out of employee paychecks, is stalled out.

“We haven’t yet reached a polio moment or a moonshot moment where the country comes together and says we can’t let this go on anymore,” Bravo said. “The good news is we don’t need a vaccine. We know the solution. It’s a social insurance fund that can make this possible.”

Bravo hopes that by 2020, the U.S. will make this happen. “We need to do it.”

(Emily Peck is Executive Business & Technology Editor of The Huffington Post where this piece was originally posted.)  CSA Images via Getty Images.  Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

-cw

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 105

Pub: Dec 29, 2015

IT’S BEEN THIS KIND OF YEAR--Prominent in the LA Times “Burbank Leader” edition this morning was an article describing an apparently hard-fought compromise allowing cyclists to continue using a seventy-year-old bridge to cross the LA River between Burbank and Griffith Park. The issue? Horseriders preferred to ban cyclists altogether, claiming they “scared the horses.” And cyclists wanted to be able to pedal over the bridge, claiming…well, “I just wanna!”  

Burbank’s city council made a mostly good decision: cyclists can use the Mariposa Bridge so long as they walk their bikes across.

Sound oppressive? Well, the bridge is narrow, covered with a layer of soft dirt, and shared with powerful 1500-pound animals. Waling your bike for all o f a hundred and forty feet under those conditions makes sense to me.

I am no apologist for equestrians, though I rode horses a fair bit in the distant past. I suggest that a horse that is afraid of cyclists is a badly-trained horse. Let us look at the history of this precursor to the bicycle: for about 7,000 years, horses have been used in war, including the shooting wars of the last four hundred years.

This means that the average horse can be trained to go calmly into a battlefield where guns are blasting, bayonets flashing, bombs exploding, and people screaming in rage and pain. If they can be trained to endure that, they can certainly be trained to see a bicyclists without suffering an immediate and total nervous breakdown.

I suspect that equestrians use the “horses are nervous” argument to arrogate trails and other facilites to their personal use. I’ve been told that I shouldn’t be walking on some trails, because it “makes horses nervous”! If that’s the case, your horse needs an animal psychiatrist. And anyway, how do you walk up to it to get on and ride?

But cyclists were asking too much here as well. It’s a narrow dirt-covered bridge; judging from the photo in the article, two cyclists would have difficulty crossing paths on it. It makes sense to walk. Especially as there’s not bikeway on the other side, at least not for several hundred yards. A shared-use trail—even if it’s shared only with hikers—is no place to shred.

This should not have been contested territory. The bridge is a public facility with a peculiar configuration that requires some compromises by all users. (Indeed, many hikers are made nervous by gigantic horses on the trails….)

A waste of time and organizational energy. With people dying in the streets, there are more important matters to attend to.

(Richard Risemberg is a writer. His current professional activities are centered on sustainable development and lifestyle. This column was posted first at Flying Pigeon.)  Photo: Roger Wilson/Burbank Leader.

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CityWatch

Vol 43 Issue 1

Pub: Jan 1, 2015

PROACTIVE PREPAREDNESS-Once again, the world has witnessed a mass shooting. Predictably, people across the nation feel the need to do something when such things happen. Soon after the tragedy in San Bernardino, armchair experts were having policy debates on gun control, immigration and mental health, even before all the facts of the incident were fully known.

But these debates divert our attention from immediate strategies that can and should be enacted now.

As a police officer with 35 years of experience, and one of the developers of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Multiple Assault Counter Terrorism Action Capability  (MACTAC) plan for situations like the San Bernardino shooting, I offer up some strategies to deal with the reality that faces us.

We must prepare because the threat isn’t “coming.” It’s already here.

It is time for a national action plan involving law enforcement, educators, firefighters, paramedics, medical personnel and the security industry on how to deal with active shooter events—not only to address the incidents that have happened in this country, but the kinds of events we’ve seen in Mumbai in 2008 and in Paris last month. In Mumbai, ten shooters killed 172 people in coordinated multiple attacks. Over 120 persons were killed in similar planned attacks in Paris.

We need a national standardized response platform, much like what the National Incident Management System does for handling long-term disasters, on how to prepare, prevent and interdict multiple location attacks.

This plan, developed by an expert working group, has to be driven at the national level to ensure the same uniformity that we have in our responses to other disasters. We should look at the successes of Israel, the outstanding work by first responders in San Bernardino, and other security experts to, once and for all, develop a standardized response.

Right now, there is no standardized plan that takes in coordination with fire and medical response in hot zones, universally accepted terminology for all responders, and so many other important issues.

As noted author Col. Dave Grossman points out, we have entire fire codes designed to protect children in schools; yet few, if any, children have perished in school fires in the last 50 years. Just as schools practice fire drills, they must conduct active threat drills. Each school should have an active threat emergency plan that is clear and practiced.

Schools should be designed (or updated) to allow teachers to reasonably block and prevent an attacker from entering classrooms. Security systems should be layered and redundant. Doors should be secure and reinforced; alarm systems should be updated to include warnings about other dangers. Each school should have trauma kits that provide life-saving first aid equipment for serious injuries, not just skinned knees. Teachers should be taught basic casualty-care procedures.

On weekends, local law enforcement should train on the very campuses they may be called upon to defend. Persons responsible for other facilities, such as governmental offices, should follow the same planning and preparation steps.

It is time for law enforcement and first responders to be more resolute than ever in confronting and stopping this evil. Legislation is needed to mandate that law enforcement first aid curricula are updated, giving responding law enforcement cutting edge first aid skills to deal with gunshot and other traumatic wounds. Best practices developed by our military in casualty care are slow to be implemented by law enforcement.

Officers should be issued individual first aid kits that provide them with such things as tourniquets, chest seals and clotting gauze. Tactical training should be mandated for cops not only on confronting a deadly attacker, but how to provide medical care under fire.

Law enforcement agencies within cities and municipalities must train together. Without working out tactical challenges ahead of time, chaos would hamper response. For instance, at an attack at a school, it is critical to team up school police officers as guides for other law enforcement personnel because school officers have essential knowledge such as the campus layout, access to keys, whereabouts of personnel and children.

We have all seen photos of hundreds of police officers at the scene of a shooting. Since there may be attacks in multiple locations, law enforcement and other first responders must have disciplined deployment schemes to avoid over-deployment of personnel at one incident leaving the remainder of the city unprotected from another potential attack.

The plan has to be in place and practiced. Precious time is lost organizing when bullets are flying.

Emergency managers must leverage the resources of the entire first responder community.  Educators, medical, firefighters, law enforcement and security industry personnel need to work out details ahead of time in the event of a shooting disaster. In some jurisdictions, fire and police do not even agree on common terminologies during victim rescues.

Venues that claim to be gun-free should either enact viable common-sense security measures or quit wasting time and resources on feel-good but unproductive practices. My wife (also a cop) and I conduct our own security test do this when we go to venues where they search bags for guns. They have never found the Beretta 9mm pistol in her purse. Meanwhile, I walk through security, fully armed, and I’m never searched.

However, many venues with metal detectors prevent anyone, including off-duty police officers, from entering carrying a concealed firearm. Police officers are trained to protect people. Their firearm is a tool of the trade. An FBI report on 160 active-shooter events found that off-duty police officers, as well as other armed persons, have interrupted the active shootings in at least seven instances.

Amateurish security measures are insufficient. Security at major gathering places needs to be seriously escalated to protect against the legitimate threat of active shooters.

It is time for action by those who can invoke change. The federal government should place heavy emphasis on developing a national response plan for multiple active shooter scenarios. The LAPD’s Multiple Assault Counter Terrorism Action Capability could be the stepping-off point for that discussion. States should mandate that care under fire be a part of every law enforcement curriculum. School districts must concern themselves with active threats as much as they do fire drills. Emergency managers should focus on active-threat scenarios and mobilize the emergency response community plan and train together so that when the day comes, they are ready to roll.

As we have seen time and time again, the threat is real. Evil will visit again. We should make preparations to meet it.

(Richard Webb is a Retired LAPD Commander and one of the creators of the Multiple Assault Counter Terrorism Action Capability (MACTAC) program and author of LAPD’s guiding documents to deal with multiple location active shooters. Since his retirement, Rick created Peak Policing Strategies LLC. He welcomes comments from readers.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

-cw

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 105

Pub: Dec 29, 2015

ANIMAL WATCH--On January 1, 2016, the Federal Bureau of Investigation will begin recording all animal-abuse crimes reported by local law-enforcement agencies to its national database as “top-tier”—placing them on the same level as arson, kidnapping, burglary, drug trafficking and murder, rather than grouping them into the “other offenses” category.  

This great news was disclosed earlier this year when the FBI announced that it was re-categorizing crimes against animals as "crimes against society.”  The animal crimes that were regrouped to Part 1 offenses are intentional abuse and torture, gross neglect, sexual abuse and organized abuse, which includes dog fighting.

Does this mean we can now call the FBI instead of LA Animal Services to report an animal being beaten or starved or a staged cockfight or dog fight in progress next door?

Unfortunately, many reports by the media and enthusiastic animal activists have been misleading. In a desperate desire to believe there is a panacea to end animal suffering, someone even commented that this decision by the FBI signals an “end to animal cruelty, because the federal government is now in charge."

So that we do not have unrealistic expectations and—more importantly--so that this FBI decision does not become a diversion from holding local agencies accountable for responding to reports of animal cruelty or neglect and for prosecuting all such crimes, it is important to accept that this change by the FBI in how animal crimes are categorized is just that. It is merely a step up in existing reporting methods.

It signifies an important new recognition at the federal level of the importance of crimes against animals—including both abuse and intentional neglect. It also indicates that the Feds are undergoing a change in attitude that mirrors the societal shift to consider pets as family members and violence against animals to be as egregious as violence against humans.

What it does NOT mean is that all animal cruelty has suddenly become a federal crime, John Sibley explains in The Myth of the FBI and Animal Cruelty. It does NOT mean that there will automatically be a change in how animal crimes are prosecuted or that sentences will become harsher.  It also does NOT mean that the FBI will now become involved in local cases—other than those that include violations of federal law. 

FBI stats capture statistical data, not individual identities of perpetrators or those accused of crimes. This means that the reports will also NOT be of help to shelters in making adoption decisions.

Wayne Pacelle of The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) describes the importance of this recognition on A Humane Nation blog:

“The proper identification of animal cruelty crimes in the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program, once in effect, like the tracking of hate crimes and other important categories, would be national in scope. Within the FBI system, every incident would be reported, whether or not it results in an arrest or conviction…Having proper data on where and with what frequency cruelty is occurring would help guide lawmakers on policy decisions and law enforcement and nonprofit agencies on allocation of scarce resources.”

The FBI currently tracks animal cruelty crimes in the 32 states which report their stats to the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS.) 

Since not all states are certified and participating in this database, the federal report is not a complete profile of criminal activity nationwide. Unfortunately, California is not listed as a reporting state at this time. Thus, crimes against local animals will not add to the database which will help the federal government and non-profits determine were more resources are needed.

According to the FBI, the official definition of animal cruelty will be:

Intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly taking an action that mistreats or kills any animal without just cause, such as torturing, tormenting, mutilation, maiming, poisoning, or abandonment. Included are instances of duty to provide care, e.g., shelter, food, water, care if sick or injured, transporting or confining an animal in a manner likely to cause injury or death; causing an animal to fight with another; inflicting excessive or repeated unnecessary pain or suffering, e.g., using objects to beat or injure an animal. This definition does not include proper maintenance of animals for show or sport; use of animals for food, lawful hunting, fishing or trapping.

The FBI has finally validated what animal lovers have long known--that animal crimes, whether solitary or organized, have a significant impact on society. However, we cannot allow this validation to lull us into silence or apathy. It must motivate us to even more vigorously report any suspicion, indication or evidence of neglect, violent or otherwise abusive behavior, abandonment, lack of food, water or adequate shelter, chaining, hoarding, animal fighting, or any mistreatment of any animal.

Owning any animal imposes a legal level of care on every owner. Owning a dog in the City of Los Angeles is a privilege, not a right. It requires a license and that certain specific standards of care and attention are met. No training, discipline or punishment may be done in such a manner that the animal is harmed.

Too often, caring observers wait until an animal is visibly injured to call L.A. Animal Services to do a welfare check.  That may be too late for the victim. It is not enough to talk to neighbors and friends. Animal Control Officers have the powers and know the legal procedure for addressing issues with owners and/or entering a property to act on behalf of the animal.

Do not give up—continue to call and report any activity in which an animal (or a human) is endangered. Contact the City Council or Mayor, if necessary. If it is important to the FBI, it should be important to them.

If you see something, say something! 

(Animal activist Phyllis M. Daugherty writes for CityWatch and is a contributing writer to opposingviews.com.  She lives in Los Angeles.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

-cw

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 105

Pub: Dec 29, 2015