LOS ANGELES

GUEST WORDS-This week, I joined more than 100 Porter Ranch area residents and their supporters to mark the two-year anniversary of the gas blowout at the SoCalGas Aliso Canyon Storage Facility. The 2015 blowout -- the worst gas disaster in U.S. history -- released 100 thousand metric tons of methane and took four months to cap. For five hours on the October 23 anniversary, we blockaded the entrance to the facility that has gotten so many friends and neighbors sick. After two years of insisting that the dangerous gas facility be closed down, we were fed up with getting the run around from SoCalGas, state regulators and public officials. 

CONNECTING CALIFORNIA--Want to spook your neighbors this Halloween? Don’t bother with big displays of goblins, ghouls, or ghosts. Instead, just decorate your door with a picture of an eight-story apartment building.

BCK FILE--Sexual harassment has taken over the news and social media feeds. Every day, there’s another high-profile executive or celebrity who has been harassing female colleagues in the office or on set. As I wrote in CityWatch last week, hopefully, this vigilance to suspend, fire, or elicit resignations isn’t a temporary P.R. move but authentic change.  

On October 25, 2017,  protestors from the Catholic Worker and the LA Community action Network entered Los Angeles City Hall carrying covered toilets protesting lack of hygiene among homeless who have an outbreak of hepatitis A. The protestors tried to deliver the toilets to Mayor Garcetti.

EDUCATION WATCH-Silicon Valley-based Rocketship is a charter school chain with a bevy of star backers that has reported sky-high student achievement and recently landed a $12.6 million grant from Betsy DeVos’ Department of Education. But beyond the hype is a galaxy of problems, including plummeting test scores, litigation and allegations of student mistreatment. 

@THE GUSS REPORT-2017 is the 70^th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking Major League Baseball’s color barrier when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers and faced a tidal wave of hatred ranging from being spit upon to receiving death threats. His doing so, and his succeeding at his job, is not just an element of baseball history, but of American history. As such, Robinson’s 42 uniform number has been retired by every team in both MLB leagues. 

DEEGAN ON LA-A pioneer in so many ways, he was also an early NIMBY-type that railed against development. He was so angry, so distraught about the constructions that were happening outside his dining room window, the stain on his view, the assault on his senses that Frank Lloyd Wright felt he had no other option than blocking out the offending view by boarding up his window. This nugget of information was provided by docents who lead tours through the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio  in Oak Park, a leafy, Wright-residence-filled western suburb of Chicago. 

GUEST WORDS-The recent release of Ken Burns’ Vietnam documentary transported me back to the politics of my youth and the ugly hypocrisy of Lyndon Johnson, whose story contains a critical lesson for California today. 

POLITICS--LA planning commissioners, who wield tremendous power and influence, should obviously have a background in urban planning and land use, right? Not according to Mayor Eric Garcetti. He’s nominated a political consultant for the California Democratic Party to the Central Los Angeles Area Planning Commission.  (Photo above: Mayor Garcetti on right with State Senator Kevin de Leon.)

RANTZ AND RAVEZ-In previous columns, I’ve written about numerous critical issues facing the City of Los Angeles and the State of California, and the elected officials who are responsible for the governance of our City of the Angels and the Golden State of California. 

GUEST WORDS--Let’s play with a word and an idea. “Hegemony” means the dominance of one political group over all others. That, at this moment, is the Republican brand. President Donald J. Trump, a Republican Senate, a Republican House, and a conservative, if not Republican, court system that will judge the law and Constitution for years to come. Hegemony. (Photo above: Jennifer Yarnal searches for keepsakes in the rubble of her home just a few days ago in Santa Rosa, California. LA Times/Getty image.)

CALMATTERS--From the minute you stepped into the carpeted ballroom foyer that separated the California GOP’s semi-annual convention from the rest of the Anaheim Marriott, you could see that something in the Republican party had changed.

THE SERIES, UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL--Almost a day has gone by and I’m still processing last night’s heartbreaking World Series Game 2 Dodger loss, which I attended with my brother Richard, my niece Grace and my son Vin.

GUN SHOWS VS. GUN LAWS-Firearms-related deaths and injuries increased 70 percent in parts of California in the weeks after gun shows in neighboring Nevada, which has fewer regulations on such events, a University of California, Berkeley study released on Monday found. 

WHAT, CITY HALL WORRY?—At a site known simply as Jefferson, 36 oil wells are pumping closely – too closely, residents say — to occupied multi-unit apartment buildings at a drilling site on Jefferson Boulevard, just west of the University of Southern California.

EASTSIDER-Can you be both fiscally responsible and socially progressive? Two very different democratic candidates for governor visited the EAPD on October 24, and the small group of dedicated political activists who chose this meeting over the World Series Game 1 got a real treat. 

ALPERN AT LARGE--A judge ... a California judge ... a California AND an Obama-appointed judge ... just rejected a bid by 18 of our United States to revive subsidies to health plan for covering patients as part of the Affordable Care Act, or ACA.  Should we call that a defeat for health care?  Shall we call it a victory over federal government over reach?  Or both? 

GUEST COMMENTARY-The legislative season is over, and we finally have begun to see our California legislature act on the housing crisis in this state. The Governor signed 15 bills that were intended to smooth the way to more housing being built. 

PLATKIN ON PLANNING-Like jackalopes and unicorns, NIMBY’s (Not in my backyard) are imaginary beings. Nevertheless, real estate “developers” still spread much ill will about them. They are also endlessly pilloried by City Hall lobbyists, campaign consultants, hired pens, mainstream journalists, Internet trolls, and neo-liberal academics – all of whom have joined the welcome wagon for real estate speculation. 

BELL VIEW-I started out life as a good kid, a nice guy. As my interest in the opposite sex increased, I began to notice that the bad boys got all the girls. So, I switched. I started smoking, drinking, hanging out with the bad kids, and acting like I didn’t care about anything. Deep down, I like to think I was still basically a nice guy – but I have my regrets. 

420 FILE-A new Gallup poll finds the highest level of public support for marijuana legalization since the organization first posed the question almost five decades ago. (Editor’s note: Recreational marijuana becomes legal in California next January 1.)