LOS ANGELES

PLATKIN ON PLANNING-According to legend, Mark Twain coined the expression, "Lies, damned lies, and statistics," to describe statistics that researchers use to support weak arguments.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?--In December, I was on a panel organized around the question of whether coming out is "like it used to be." All but one panelist declared that coming out today is much easier. I was the outlier.

CAL MATTERS--Gov. Jerry Brown wants to add millions in new spending on programs to help former inmates stay out of jail—a proposal generating bipartisan praise because of concern they are returning to prison in large numbers. But some say it still isn’t enough.

NEW GEOGRAPHY--For generations, California has offered its people an opportunity to own a home, start a business, and move up, whether someone came from Brooklyn, east Texas, Morelos or Taipei. That deal is still desired by most, but in a state that increasingly sees such activities as socially regressive and environmentally disastrous.

ALPERN AT LARGE--In a nutshell, we are all being overwhelmed by apathy, a tougher cost of living, traffic, homelessness, a lack of coherent affordable housing and transit-oriented development, and a lack of taxpayer-paid services in the City of the Angels.  No one has all the answers, but certainly raising the right questions is a step in the right direction.  But first and foremost, our greatest threat lies in the following three groups: 

CORRUPTION WATCH-Human beings prefer myths over facts, so why do myths have advantages over facts?

BCK FILE--One year after the first Women’s March, women, men, and children gathered in cities across the United States and the globe not only to protest the GOP agenda and policies but also to support flipping the House. A record number of women are running for seats in 2018. 

CAL MATTERS--Four-plus decades ago, the Legislature and Jerry Brown, then in the first stages of his two-part governorship, decreed that public employees had the right to join unions and bargain for salaries and other working conditions.

GELFAND’S WORLD—(This is part of a year-long effort by CityWatch to help inform and support city government reform.) In a previous article, I laid out the basics for creating substantive reform in the city government. The strategy is to make use of a ballot initiative process that we already have. 

@THE GUSS REPORT-Last week marked 20 years since Los Angeles City Councilmember Gil Cedillo was first elected to public office, yet he made a rookie error when he winged it during an adjourning motion, when members of the public who have died are memorialized by what are supposed to be a few thoughtful words. 

STANDING UP TO GREED-The Los Angeles Times announced on Friday that its newsroom earlier this month voted overwhelmingly to unionize, 248–44.

CAPITAL & MAIN-(Editor’s Note: A reminder here that constitutional scholar Chemerinsky also chaired one of the two commissions that created Los Angeles Neighborhood Council system. In those early days Neighborhood Councils were in good company amid great expectations.) Since Donald Trump took office once year ago, perhaps no American has called into question the legal and ethical behavior of the president with more persistence and authority than Erwin Chemerinsky. One of the country’s preeminent constitutional scholars, and the dean of the University of California, Berkeley’s law school, Chemerinsky has sounded the alarm from day one of Trump’s administration – most strenuously over the president’s alleged daily violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution. 

RANTZ AND RAVEZ-I don’t want to be too critical about the leadership or lack of it at LA City Hall. I just want to be fair and objective as I point to a failed system of direction and accomplishments – failures that impact all of us who are trying to enjoy life and happiness in the Golden State and the City of LA. I am talking about the ever-growing population of homeless living on the streets of our city. 

CORRUPTION WATCH-Mayor Garcetti’s declaration to make Los Angeles into Silicon Beach bears as little resemblance to reality as Trump’s declaration that he is “like a really stable genius.” Garcetti proclaims that LA will become a center of the STEM industry. (STEM = science, technology, engineering and mathematics.) In September 2017, CNBC showed a grinning Garcetti sitting in a self-driving car, as it heralded LA’s emergence with infusions of investment capital. 

PACIFIC STANDARD-Last week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents swooped down on about 100 7-Elevens across the country. The coordinated pre-dawn raids arrested 21 workers and launched audits of employers who, if found to knowingly employ undocumented workers, face fines and jail time. The message was clear: Undocumented people—even those who escape workplace arrests—will soon find it impossible to seek employment at all. 

PLATKIN ON PLANNING-City Planning has developed a host of ways to assist real estate developers building for the high end of the real estate market. Their helping hand, though, is based on cheating, and it also hides behind several totally spurious claims. While they don’t yet concede their bait-and-switch approach, their friends, like Senator Scott Wiener, unabashedly support real estate speculators with many outlandish predictions. 

PERSPECTIVE--Have you experienced water faucets that spray tiny jets of water onto your hands? You know, those eight tiny jets of water, each about 1.0 millimeter in diameter, that are emitted with so much pressure that the paltry quantity of water bounces off your skin before you can get it wet enough to apply soap, and makes rinsing the soap off nearly impossible? You can find these water faucets in airports and other public places, where they constitute a minor annoyance. But wait. Thanks to California’s state legislature, they’re on their way into your home.

ALPERN AT LARGE--As stated in a previous CityWatch piece, we're supposed to pursue transportation policy and infrastructure improvements as engineers, not social justice warriors. 

CAL MATTERS-To intertwine cliches, Gov. Jerry Brown let the cat out of the bag last week and acknowledged that he’s concerned about killing the golden geese. 

BCK FILE-One year ago, the day following the Inauguration of Donald J. Trump, 750,000 people gathered in Pershing Square as part of a global Women’s March. For many of us who participated in the very first march alongside fellow members of the resistance across the country and even the world, this was one of the first steps to show our solidarity on behalf of not only women, but every group and issue marginalized by the Trump and Republican agenda. 

EXPOSED--In a statement released shortly following the false ballistic missile alarm that sparked panic in Hawaii on Sunday, FCC chair Ajit Pai placed blame for the incident on the state's lack of "reasonable safeguards"—while failing to mention that it was telecom giants, including his former employer Verizon, that played a specific and outsized role in preventing the implementation of several key safeguards.