LOS ANGELES

FIRST PERSON--I first met Danielle by her tent in the spring of 2018 on Fairfax Avenue during my daily walks. She lived with a male partner who was often sitting with her in their tent. Sometimes she sat near Fairfax Avenue panhandling. 

OTHERWORDS--Some brave hetero activists are attempting to organize a “Straight Pride Parade” in Boston.

CLIMATE POLITICS-Permafrost covers 25% of the Northern Hemisphere. It is the world’s largest icebox, and its landmass is 4.5xs larger than Antarctica, 6.5xs larger than the United States.

EDUCATION POLITICS--LIKE MANY SCHOOL DISTRICTS in the post-Columbine era of the late 1990s, Los Angeles’ responded to misbehavior with zero-tolerance toughness.

TRANSIT WATCH--Riding buses for the work commute share time calculations like driving.

CALIFORNIA POLITICS-The date was Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2017, in Sacramento CA, when Senator Scott D. Wiener introduced SB 384, a bill amending the California Business and Professions Code to permit the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) to extend the required closing hours of operation for the sale of alcoholic beverages from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. (so that “last call” at any bar, restaurant or other service establishment would be 4 a.m.).

EASTSIDER-I know it seems like the world is divided into FoxNews, MSNBC, and Facebook (roll your own) universes these days. But underneath the distractions, some very bad things are happening to people who live in rural areas and are not well to do. 

NEW GEOGRAPHY--Twenty-one businesses have closed in less than two years since the city of Los Angeles reconfigured a 0.8 stretch of Venice Boulevard in the west side’s Mar Vista neighborhood.

GUEST COMMENTARY--More than two weeks ago, a group of over 50 neighborhood council leaders sent a letter to the Mayor and to the City Council asking to have a citizen’s interview panel created to do pre interviews of new general manager candidates for the Department of Neighborhood Councils. 

PLATKIN ON PLANNING-Even though LA City officials were taken aback by the city’s recent 16 percent increase in homelessness, they shouldn’t be.

ONE MAN’S OPINION-If robbers invade your home and steal your jewelry, the criminals are at fault. 

FIRST PERSON-The longstanding endemic corruption at the dysfunctional and nearly bankrupt Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) will not be cleaned up until the school district’s operational practices – both financial and academic -- are finally addressed, eliminated, or radically changed. 

COMMUNITY ARTS-Watts is a village, not a riot. Poet, playwright, actor and world champion in blind judo, Lynn Manning, (photo above) had a vision powerful enough to transform the way people would see his people and his city.

GELFAND’S WORLD--It's time once again for the Hollywood Fringe festival and this year, CityWatch will be ramping up its coverage with at least two reviewers following the action.

NEIGHBORHOOD POLITICS-After over half a year of intense struggle, the Hillside Villa Tenants Association is close to a major victory. All that stands in the way presently is the greed of the landlords, Tom and Chloe Botz, as well as that of their sleazy lawyer, Brandon Dimond.  

ALPERN AT LARGE--Let's face it: we just loooooove writing for new measures to tax ourselves, but we suck at demanding that the taxes get spent in a measurable and cost-effective manner. I mean REALLY now ... are we that blind and childish as to presume throwing money at a problem necessarily fixes it? 

NEIGHBORHOOD POLITICS--In a June 4, 2019 letter to the Los Angeles City Attorney, Benjamin Reznik, attorney for the owners of Tom Bergin’s, demanded that Council District 4 representative David Ryu be “disqualified” from the Historic Cultural Monument (HCM) proceedings for Bergin’s. Reznik accuses Ryu of being “personally embroiled in the matter.”

@THE GUSS REPORT-There was plenty of schadenfreude last week as LA Mayor Eric Garcetti’s and the LA Times’ beloved Measure EE not only failed to get the needed 67% of votes to pass, it didn’t even get a 50%+ 1 vote majority. 

VIEW FROM HERE--The last time I checked the sovereign nation of Mexico was not an enemy of the United States. Mexico is the 5th largest Christian nation and one of the epicenters of Catholicism in the world.

DEEGAN ON LA-Los Angeles, eagerly looking forward to a summer of Olympic glory in 2028, has won the Gold Medal for failure when it comes to the competition of helping the homeless beat the streets and win housing. 

GUEST COMMENTARY--The streets in parts of Los Angeles now look like (or worse) than some of the streets I have seen in some of the poorest countries in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean that I have traveled through.