CommentsSOUTH OF THE 10 - Former Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs and his family have re-located to South LA despite misgivings of being perceived as a “gentrifier”, although he is busy behind the scenes pulling the strings on universal basic income programs sweeping the state of California (and Los Angeles).
Tubbs was “so concerned” with being labeled a gentrifier, he went to local black elected officials if he would be “undermining their efforts to curb displacement”.
“They said it’s important that folks come in with a sense of ownership,” Tubbs said, noting he is already involved with several local grassroots initiatives like universal basic income. “So it’s buying property and owning land. I think they also appreciated that it’s me and my wife, and we look like the community.”
It isn’t clear when he purchased his home, in the Hyde Park area of South LA, but it came close to the time he was transitioning out of his elected role, into one of everyday citizen.
When Tubbs lost his 2020 re-election bid, the LA Times attributed it to “fake news” generated by a popular Stockton news site, 209Times.
209Times wrote extensively about questionable moves being made by the well heeled Tubbs, whose resume is VERY impressive.
Tubbs graduated with honors from Stanford University, the same school Richard Sherman attended, and has a long list of political accolades after leaving working in the education field, into political life, after being elected to Stockton City Council in 2012.
He was elected mayor in 2017, and quickly became a media darling for spearheading the nations first Universal Basic Income program in 2019.
**it should be noted the owner of the LA Times daughter, partnered with the former mayor of Compton on a UBI program they called the Compton Pledge**
Stubbs was a member of the “mayors for Mike” campaign when Michael Bloomberg ran for president.
Since his devastating loss at re-election, despite an HBO documentary and a sit down with media maven Oprah Winfrey, he cried foul when a “little blog” tanked his 2020 re-election.
“People saw 209 Times and thought, ‘Well, it’s a news site. Why would anyone purposely and deliberately go out and deceive people?’” Tubbs told the Columbia Journalism Review. “It was literally everything — just lie after lie after lie. At some point, I think it just beat down the defense mechanisms for some people. And they’re like, ‘All this can’t be false.’ Like, ‘There’s something about this that has to be true.’”
The LA Times went into overdrive via their “Editorial” section, to lambast the credibility and legitimacy of “alternative” news sites.
By March 2021, Tubbs was announced as an “unpaid” “economic advisor” to Gov. Gavin Newsom, and a few months later, in May, the The USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership & Policy (CCLP) announced he joined the center as a Senior Fellow.
“We are thrilled that Michael Tubbs will be joining CCLP as a Senior Fellow,’ said CCLP Director Geoffrey Cowan. My wife and I spent a lot of time in Stockton when we were the majority owners of the Stockton Ports minor league team, and I followed his years as mayor with great admiration. He has thought deeply about issues of structural poverty, political communication, and the need for good and trustworthy journalism in an era of profound change. We are looking forward to working with him on these and other topics in the years ahead.”
USC touted his vast political career, and accompanying accolades, to cement the basis for his joining the “team”. As almost to recognize “lessons learned” for failing to issue a similar press release when they hired the disgraced Sebastian Ridley-Thomas, under dubious pretenses.
The 209Times shared their sources allege Tubbs has moved “South of the 10” to make a run for the Los Angeles Unified School District board, which means he could be eyeing the seat currently held by George McKenna.
“Our sources in LA report to us that Tubbs is planning to run for LAUSD. The same school district that his buddy John Deasy was run out of amidst an FBI investigation, prior to him being recruited to come to Stockton and work with Tubbs’ friends to takeover SUSD,” wrote the 209Times in an article titled “LA Times Fabricates Story to Push Stockton’s EX Mayor on LA“.
“But as for the LA Times, we suspect and can see clearly, they are setting the stage and providing political cover to Tubbs’ historic loss in Stockton, so that he can run for office in Los Ángeles,” wrote 209TImes.
What’s in it for the LA Times to go out of their way to assist with sharing a story on him that really shouldn’t matter to the everyday citizen. The LA Times didn’t announce his new position at USC, and they have been called out by Bernard Parks for endorsing Mark Ridley-Thomas for city council, despite “unethical” choices he made regarding his son Sebastian. MRT is now scheduled to appear in a federal courtroom to fight a 20 count indictment in December.
Tubbs told the LA Times he wants to raise his kids in a “strong black community” which is being ethnically cleansed by the day.
U.S. News and World Report indicates Stockton Unified is 67% White, 9% Black and 1.4% Latino. On the other hand, Los Angeles Unified is 73% Latino, 10% Black, and 8% White.
Do we need a carpet-bagger, being pushed by the LA Times, who could possibly be linked to the same “establishment” that could be connected in a “very ongoing” federal investigation?
(2UrbanGirls has been cited in CityWatchLA, Compton Herald, Daily Breeze, Daily News, Inglewood Today, Intersections South LA, KCRW, KPCC, Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, LA Watts Times, Mercury News, Orange County Register and The Atlantic.)
