LOS ANGELES

CORRUPTION WATCH-When medicine bottles are filled with poison, people die. The most famous incident was in October 1982, when someone laced Tylenol capsules in the Chicago area with cyanide, resulting in seven deaths. While the nation moved quickly to guarantee the safety of over-the-counter medicines, the adulteration of our judicial system has been pandemic for generations. 

From civilization’s beginning, mankind has striven to develop institutions that ensure an honest and just society. In the beginning of Genesis, we learn about the corrupt judges in Sodom. Their abuse was so destructive that they were named Liar, Habitual Liar, Deceiver and Perverter of the Law. According to Jewish tradition, these judges so adulterated Sodom, that God destroyed the city and all its inhabitants. From a moral stand point, filling political institutions with poisonous men is as lethal to society as putting cyanide in medicine. 

One difference between lacing Tylenol capsules with cyanide and allowing corrupt people to have positions of importance is that corruption is slow acting and spreads insidiously until the entire society becomes morally bankrupt. The first injustice by a Sodomite judge did not cause fire and brimstone to hail down on Sodom. Cruelty and injustice enriched some Sodomites, causing extreme harm to their victims. As the corruption spread, evil dominated without any thought that a day of reckoning would arrive. 

During the 1770s, people in the American British Colonies became displeased that the Crown was contaminating British institutions. The colonists believed there should be no taxation without representation. They believed they were entitled to impartial courts when they had just grievances against the Crown. But King George and Parliament believed otherwise and saw no reason that their “Tylenol” bottles should not also contain tyranny. The King’s courts were a farce. Like in Sodom, truth, honesty, and justice had been supplanted by power. The colonists expressed their displeasure with this adulteration of the judicial system in the Declaration of Independence, stating: “He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.”   

Our Declaration of Independence posited that all individuals have certain inalienable rights and among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. We drafted the U.S. Constitution to secure the Blessings of Liberty, not to continue the rule of tyrants. The foremost objective of the judiciary is to protect an individual’s fundamental rights. The legal system is not to be manipulated for the benefit of the rich and powerful.   

For decades, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) was an abusive occupying force in South Central Los Angeles (aka Watts) where, in 1965, police brutality after the stopping of a black motorist triggered six days of violence and civil unrest. There was $40 million ($308 million in 2017 dollars) in property damage and 34 deaths. The unrest was fueled not only by the racist nature of the former LAPD, but also by the courts when they backed up a police department that engaged in the brutalization and criminalization of the Black community. 

Twenty-six years later, in 1992, Los Angeles again erupted in violence with the worst civil unrest since the Civil War – with 54 dead and $1.5 billion (in 2017 dollars) in property damage. Again, a poisonous judiciary had been crucial in the breakdown of civil society. 

While the acquittal of the police officers was what sparked that violence, the foundation for the death and destruction was laid months before by the appellate court’s manipulation of the location of the police officers’ trial to Simi Valley, a bedroom community for police officers. The appellate court claimed that due to publicity, a fair trial could not be had in LA County. Thus, the trial was moved to Ventura County, where the media coverage was as extensive as in Los Angeles County but the jury pool was extremely pro-police. In brief, the appellate court concocted a ruse to place the police officers’ trial in a place where the jury would be overwhelming sympathetic to white police officers and hostile to their Black victim. 

After decades of police brutality and a corrupt court system, the Black Community believed that with the video of the beating of Rodney King, there would finally be justice in at least one case. The appellate court knew better. The Simi Valley jury consisting of 10 whites, one Hispanic and one Filipino acquitted all the officers. 

As the violence mounted in South Central Los Angeles in response to the acquittals, the police pulled back, leaving citizens and businesses defenseless to marauding thugs. When a white truck driver, Reginald Denny, was yanked from his truck at the intersection of Normandie and Florence, no police or National Guard responded. Instead, local people (Bobby Green, Lei Yuille, Titus Murphy and Terri Barnett) who saw the brutal attack on TV, rushed from their homes and saved Reginald Denny’s life. Many people do not want to acknowledge the social disintegration unleashed on Los Angeles that was caused by the appellate court’s moving the trial to Simi Valley. 

Decades later, in 2015, when three federal judges told us our State Court system has suffered from an epidemic of misconduct, we shut our ears and allowed the sadistic abuse to continue. In January 2015, the Federal courts complained about state court prosecutors’ committing perjury in order to obtain convictions, but their real target was the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, Tani Gorre Cantil-Sakauye. 

The three judge federal panel identified the cause of the epidemic of misconduct as the California court system itself which turned a blind eye to lying jailhouse informants, prosecutors who took the stand and committed perjury and a host of other misdeeds. If Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye, who has held her position since July 22, 2010, had taken remedial steps in the intervening four years, one of the three federal judge would have taken note. 

However, since January 2015, the Chief Justice seems to have done nothing to remove the poison from our judicial system. According to The Orange County Register, “The U.S. Department of Justice launched a civil rights investigation of the Orange County District Attorney’s Office and the Sheriff’s Department on Thursday (December 15, 2016) over allegations that prosecutors and deputies withhold evidence and use jailhouse informants to illegally obtain confessions.” 

A significant number of judges are former prosecutors, so they are very familiar with these illegal tactics and recognize when they are deployed in their courtrooms. The complaints of the cyanide in the Orange County courts pre-date the complaints by Judge Kozinski in January 2015. Nonetheless, it takes another federal agency to investigate the same type of vile betrayal of public trust which we saw 4,000 years ago in Sodom and Gomorrah. 

Angelenos should not become complacent by thinking that these abuses are relics of bygone eras. Facts and fiction are still fungible commodities in courtrooms. No fact can be too firmly rooted in reality for a judge to proclaim that its opposite is an Undisputed Fact; perjury which favors a judge’s position is preferable over truth. Just as no one knows when the weight of economic frauds will again crash the economy, no one knows when judicial corruption will cause another outbreak of violence.

(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

TNN REPORT--Five years ago when the City of Los Angeles Redistricting was finalized, residents of  Koreatown launched a lawsuit, Lee v. City Of Los Angeles (15-55478). It challenged the redrawing of district boundaries with the primary intent of increasing the African American vote within Council District 10. (Photo above: LA Councilman Ryu, standing.)

Redistricting happens every 10 years after the US Census identifies population numbers within particular districts. In order to have fair elections district borders have to be redrawn to ensure that each district has the same number of residents.  In the last census the boundaries had to be redrawn to contain 252,000 residents per district. 

The Redistricting Commission of 2011-12 requested input from residents. The Koreatown community organized and mobilized in an unprecedented manner, bringing out  thousands in total to more than three dozen Redistricting Commission board meetings and town halls. They were adamant and clear over their displeasure of their historic use as a donation funding bank for CD 10 Council members including Councilman Wesson -while their issues and concerns remained minimized or ignored.  They introduced a letter allegedly from a local business begging to be released from the constant need to donate. 

Research by TNN showed that over a third of the donations to Councilman Wesson came from Korean residents while they represent only 10% of the district. (Redistricting Awakens Koreatown). They were requesting to be released from CD 10 and included in CD 13 the next district over. This would also solve the problem of their Neighborhood Council being divided into multiple council districts. 

But by granting this reasonable Koreatown request, a ready source of funding to Councilman Wesson through allegedly pressured donations, would end. 

The final result approved by the Redistricting Commission (which was headed by a man who quit his job with Councilman Wesson to head the commission) ignored their request and instead redrew boundaries to not only keep Koreatown and its donations in place but to increase African American voter numbers. The lawsuit contends that using the criteria to increase African American votes is illegal while the City argues it was not used as a criteria.  But evidence might prove their undoing.

From TNN report Aug 2, 2013 -  “A secretly taped video at a Los Angeles Baptist Ministers conference is not going to help Wesson's cause. Despite claims he had nothing to do with redistricting, when Councilman Wesson was asked to come and explain his rumored influence on the breakup of their district, he admitted he had a hand in it. ‘I did the best I could to retain ‘assets’ for all of the districts. One person. Alone. Every member came to me to discuss what they wanted ...’ He went on to claim he had secured assurance that three of the districts would have African-American representation for the next 30 years.”  Article can also be found here.

In addition, in a smoking gun email, a Herb Wesson redistricting appointee said:

“We attempted to protect the historical African American incumbents in this district by increasing the black voter registration percentage and CVAP #s accordingly. As you can discern on the attachment, we were able to increase the numbers to 50.12% and 42.8%, respectively.  This was a significant increase in the black voters in CD 10 which would protect and assist in keeping CD 10 a predominately African-American opportunity district.  ... This move would allow CD 10 to divest itself of this diverse populated area, and increase the AA population to the South.”

Because the Redistricting Commission claimed they were going to give priority to keeping the 95 Neighborhood Councils whole, the Koreatown community used the boundary of the Wilshire Center Koreatown Neighborhood Council (“WCKNC”) district and sought, along with other Asian American communities, including Historic Filipinotown and Thai Town, to be kept together in a single council district in order to keep similar immigrant populations with similar language needs.  

The Koreatown community provided the Commission with abundant and compelling testimony for the unification of WCKNC in Council District 13. But, as the final map shows, the Koreatown community’s unprecedented efforts were ignored while the map that was selected focused on increasing the number of African American residents in Council District 10. 

In 2012 Koreatown residents filed a lawsuit accusing the city of redrawing the boundaries for a predominantly racial intent. It was denied but Lee v. City Of Los Angeles (15-55478) is still ongoing and awaiting a ruling from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.  The three judge panel led by the Honorable Alex Kozinski heard oral arguments at the stately Pasadena Courthouse in January 2017.  But the appellants’ attorneys requested that the judges wait until the United States Supreme Court ruled on Bethune-Hill v. Virginia State Board of Elections before ruling on the Lee v. City Of Los Angeles matter.  

The Virginia Legislature had redrawn district lines packing more than 55% African American voters into various districts in order to minimize the African American presence in other districts.  This would dilute the vote of neighboring districts with less African Americans allowing the voter numbers to skew Republican. The legislature argued that they used traditional criteria such as keeping equal numbers of people within the districts and that boundary lines were continuous avoiding strangely shaped districts, often a sign that gerrymandering had occurred. 

On March 1, the United States Supreme Court ruled and it doesn’t look good for the City of Los Angeles. It was unanimous in its decision held in Bethune-Hill v. Virginia State Board of Elections that even if traditional criteria were met it didn’t mean that racial criteria wasn’t a predominating factor – which isn’t allowed. 

The United States Supreme Court decision bolsters the Lee appellants’ arguments that the City’s boundary lines for City Council District 10 were drawn for unconstitutional racial purposes and therefore should be void.  The City’s argument- that since traditional redistricting criteria were met, the racial intent claims have no merit - is no longer a winnable argument after the Bethune-Hill decision.

No amount of rationalization of traditional redistricting criteria explanations will be able to obfuscate what was plainly and openly done during redistricting.  The LA Times Editorial Board called it “an exercise in power politics, not democracy.” LA’s flawed redistricting process, Los Angeles Times Editorial, February 17, 2012

and

“...Angelenos should by now recognize the gap between the official story -- that the process was transparent and decisions were made publicly -- and the all-too- obvious reality: Line-drawing was the result of backroom deals, using private criteria, and Wesson and the other officials who drew the maps protected themselves from accountability for their decisions by cynically hiding behind their redistricting commission appointees. Some of those appointees no doubt intended to be independent; others no doubt knew full well they were on the panel to do the bidding of the elected officials who appointed them.”

From LA, redistricting done wrong, Los Angeles Times Editorial, August 12, 2012

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling should come out soon and will certainly be worth reading.  Hopefully, the Lee v. City of Los Angeles matter will be remanded allowing a trial to go forward.  

Justice is not easy nor quick, but worth the fight.  Justice comes at the cost of perseverance and tenacity.

As of this date, a judgment had not been reached.    

(Dianne Lawrence is the editor and publisher of The Neighborhood News.   Grace Yoo is an estate planning attorney, who attended more than 90% of all the 2011-2012 Redistricting Commission meetings, and was a 2015 candidate for city LA Council District 10.)

-cw

ANIMAL WATCH-On April 6, 2017, the U.S. Postal Service announced that dog bites to mail carriers in Los Angeles soared to #1 in the country in 2016, with a total of 80 attacks.

This was a 43% increase from 2015, when Postal workers in LA incurred only 56 total bites.

Houston, TX, was #2 with 62 bites in 2016. The number of Postal Service employees attacked by dogs last year nationwide reached 6,755 — more than 200 higher than in 2015, USPS reported, with LA at the top of the list. 

Looking back to 2011, GM Brenda Barnette’s first year at LA Animal Services, there were only 44 bites for the entire year, almost one-half of the current rate. Los Angeles is definitely catapulting in the wrong direction. 

This is not only a danger to the public, but also to LAAS Animal Control Officers who suffer serious bites and risk other injuries attempting to avoid attacks. In 2015, Director of Field Operations Mark Salazar announced at a Harbor Neighborhood Council meeting that workers' compensation claims for LAAS had risen 350%. 

Reports of loose dogs (categorized as "dogs-at-large") -- owned or strays -- need to be addressed when complaints are received by the department and before the first bite occurs, in order to keep residents and service employees (including mail and package delivery) safe. The primary function for which municipal animal control agencies were established under State law was to insure the impounding of stray (loose) dogs for public health and safety. This was prompted by rabies epidemics. 

Dogs are territorial and, when allowed to roam streets and neighborhoods, their "territory" is expanded. If the dog is aggressive by nature and, especially if it is also an unaltered male, it is statistically far more likely to pose a serious threat to the community. 

However, "Dogs-at-large" (running loose or escaped from yards) are No. 18 on the priority list authorized by Brenda Barnette for her field officers.

Although animal attacks are a #2 priority, officers state that they are so busy that they rarely arrive at a dog-bite scene before the victim has been assisted by LA Fire Department and/or transported for medical care. They also confirm that attacks happen almost daily in Los Angeles, including the maiming or killing of someone's beloved pet.

According to Assistant GM Dana Brown, there are still only 50 Animal Control Officers working 24/7 from six shelters to serve 469 square miles with almost 4 million residents and their pets. Eight officers are on long-term leave or restrictions and 25 positions are vacant. She explained at the April 11 Commission meeting, that they had only been able to start four new ACO's during the past two years because of a “glitch” in the hiring process.

Adding to this is the failure to replace the 2001-2003 fleet of dangerously malfunctioning animal control trucks that the city's fleet manager told Councilman Paul Koretz publicly in 2015 were already "falling apart." Assistant GM Brown admitted at the meeting that there had been "miscommunication" in the ordering of the 17 new trucks authorized. She added that now the department is facing budget cuts and the extra funding to correct the errors in the functional design might not be available. 

DOG BITE STATISTICS NOT KEPT BY LA ANIMAL SERVICES 

GM Brenda Barnette admits she does not keep stats on dog bites/attacks in the city. There is widespread speculation that this is to evade revealing the actual frequency and severity. It could also be a tactic to avoid filling LA’s shelters with aggressive dogs that might need to be euthanized and, thus, destroy the myth of the “No Kill” city.

This is very disturbing not only because LA stakeholders paid over $44 million in taxes, and $230,000 for the GM's salary in 2016, but also because victims of attacks or those who are threatened by menacing dogs have nowhere else to turn for help except LAAS. 

Equally if not more alarming is that no one in City government seems to care.

CITY OFFICIALS IGNORE THE USPS REPORT -- DISCUSS FERAL CATS 

On April 11, five days after the widely publicized USPS report, the Board of Animal Services Commissioners met. This is a Board of five volunteer residents appointed by the Mayor and designated by the City Charter as head of the Los Angeles Animal Services Department, with the General Manager setting policy. 

Not one of the Mayor's appointees mentioned the upsurge or dangers of increased dog bites -- not even to request it as a future agenda item.

The Commission, GM Barnette and a room populated with representatives from various city departments, including the offices of the Mayor and City Attorney, were there to discuss feral cats and a proposed city-funded TNR (Trap/Neuter/Release) program to allow free-roaming, unowned, unsocialized cats to be released into neighborhoods citywide.

This plan hinges on the successful results of Mayor Eric Garcetti’s tax-funded $800,000 Environmental Impact Report (EIR) by the City’s Bureau of Engineering, which they hope will show that a Trap/Neuter/Release (TNR) program that results in tons of cat feces and urine excreted on streets and yards of residential areas; the spread of parasites and diseases such as toxoplasmosis; and rampant destruction of birds and other small mammals by colonized cats all over the city will not have a negative impact on communities.

WHY USPS “DOG-BITE” STATS ARE IMPORTANT 

The USPS annual dog-bite statistics during “Dog Bite Prevention Week" are headlined in media reports and TV news across the country as a significant indicator of neighborhood safety.

Any increase should be regarded as warning of a deficit in enforcement and/or effectiveness of the officials in charge of animal control, along with the elected or appointed representatives who seek positions with the responsibility for guarding the public’s interest and welfare.

Expecting government officials and agencies to be concerned about injuries inflicted by dogs, which can be as damaging as those incurred during robberies or gunshots or car accidents, is not asking for a special favor.

The lack of reaction by GM Brenda Barnette and the entire political hierarchy of Los Angeles to the USPS alarming report of increasing dog-bites -- while they focus on releasing feral cats into communities with no regard for homeowners' opinions, or impact on quality of life, or public health and safety -- is just another indicator of Los Angeles' lack of leadership and systemic disconnect with reality. 

The feral cat issue was fast-tracked to the Personnel and Animal Welfare Committee for discussion and further approval on Tuesday, April 19, with no discussion of the USPS dog-bite report on the agenda.

(Phyllis M. Daugherty is a former City of LA employee and a contributor to CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

MCDONALD REPORT--In the nation’s second largest city, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and the City Council have quietly perverted a much-needed housing program for homeless men, women, and children. And affordable housing advocates and the Los Angeles Times are not sounding the alarm. (Photo above: Mayor photo-oping with the homeless.) 

Los Angeles is currently facing one of its worst homeless crises in recent memory. It’s so bad, the Times reported, that LA has the highest number of unsheltered homeless people in the entire United States. 

As a 2013 mayoral candidate, Garcetti told an audience of affordable housing advocates that he would end homelessness. Now, in 2017, he essentially backed off that campaign promise, saying that homelessness was a “long-term crisis” that needed “long-term solutions.” 

One of those solutions was a $1.2 billion bond initiative to build homeless housing, known as Measure HHH. Voters overwhelming approved it in November 2016. 

Another was a kind of pilot project for Measure HHH, known as the Affordable Housing Opportunity Sites (AHOS) program. It will utilize several city-owned properties on the Westside and in Lincoln Heights and South L.A., among other locations, to build more housing. 

The LA Times has described AHOS as a program that will build “permanent supportive housing,” which specifically caters to the homeless and provides important services. 

The paper also reported that Garcetti and the City Council “spent months developing plans for converting as many as 12 city-owned sites [through the AHOS program] into housing for the city’s homeless residents.” 

Garcetti, City Council President Herb Wesson, and other council members also used their time to campaign against a development reform initiative called Measure S. It sought to fix LA’s severely broken planning and land-use system, which numerous critics say has fueled the city’s homeless crisis. 

To get LA’s liberal voters to vote down Measure S, Garcetti and council members repeatedly said the initiative would stop the city from building homeless housing through the AHOS program. 

In a January interview on the local ABC TV affiliate, for example, Garcetti said that “nine out of the 10 (AHOS) properties, the city’s going to build housing for the homeless on, couldn’t be built if Measure S gets passed.”  

City Hall politicians regularly linked the AHOS program to homeless housing — and to Measure HHH, which voters expect Garcetti and the City Council to use for homeless housing, not something else.

But only weeks after Measure HHH was approved on November 8, the betrayal of the homeless — and LA voters — was well underway at the hands of Garcetti, the City Council, and the City Administrative Officer. 

In December 2016, the City Council approved the final details of the AHOS program, which was organized by the City Administrative Officer with much input from the City Council and mayor. It had turned into something startlingly different from what City Hall politicians had been promising — and what the LA Times had been describing. 

The City Administrative Officer recommended, and the City Council approved, an AHOS program that now offered “affordable multifamily housing,” “mixed-income housing,” “affordable homeownership,” “innovative methods of housing,” and, finally, “permanent supportive housing” for the homeless.  

The City Administrative Officer also recommended that it enter into negotiations with developers who have proposed a “mix of supportive, affordable, and market-rate units.” Again, the City Council approved. 

On December 7, 2016, at the City Council’s Homeless and Poverty Committee, Yolanda Chavez, a top official with the City Administrative Officer, revealed another disturbing fact. 

An AHOS project that’s officially deemed “permanent supportive housing” only needs to earmark half of its units for the homeless. In other words, not even the homeless housing will truly be homeless housing. 

“You can have a project that has 50 percent affordable units and 50 percent supportive,” said Chavez. “They have to be 50 percent supportive, and 50 percent of those have to be reserved for the chronically homeless. So that’s the definition of permanent supportive housing.” 

Chavez talked as if everything was perfectly okay. Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson, chair of the homeless and poverty committee, said nothing. Affordable housing advocates, who were present, also kept mum. 

Instead, advocates had only good things to say about the AHOS program — perhaps because they wanted city contracts to build AHOS projects. 

The LA Times was unconcerned, casually reporting that the “city initially planned to offer the [AHOS] sites for supportive housing, which would include on-site services. But the recommendation released Thursday said proposals could include affordable housing, mixed-income housing, market-rate housing and occupant-owned housing as well.”  

The fact that a homeless housing program, which Garcetti and City Council members touted as a vital first step to address LA’s homeless crisis, could now build market-rate housing did not alarm the LA Times in the least. 

All this is happening in a city run by liberal Democrats (Garcetti and Wesson included) in what’s considered to be one of the top progressive bastions in the U.S. — with the left-leaning LA Times supervising. 

Today, Angelenos remain largely uninformed about the specifics of the AHOS program. LA politicians quietly, and hurriedly, pushed it through; the LA Times never raised an eyebrow; and affordable housing advocates took a powder.  

City officials are currently sorting through the proposals for projects that will make up the AHOS program. With complete certainty, permanent supportive housing will not be built at every city-owned property — five sites in Lincoln Heights, which is represented by Councilman Gil Cedillo, have already been designated for “mixed-income” housing. 

As a result, the city’s use of Measure HHH money for the AHOS program will not go entirely to homeless housing, and homeless men, women, and children will not receive the full amount of housing and services that Mayor Eric Garcetti and the City Council had promised. 

Instead, an affluent professional, the only person who can afford market-rate housing in L.A., may land a nice pad on city-owned property in increasingly gentrified Lincoln Heights or near the beach on the Westside. It’s the very definition of a scandal. 

(Patrick Range McDonald, an award-winning investigative journalist, worked on the Measure S campaign as senior researcher and website editor. This perspective was posted most recently at washataw.com.) 

-cw

For the first time, on the day of March 23, 40 percent of Californian grid power between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. was generated by utility-scale solar plants. 

This proportion was a seasonal effect but not a fluke, and it certainly points to what will be routine in the very near future.

California has so much solar power now that sometimes the price of electricity turns negative. Natural gas plant owners actually have to pay the state to take their electricity when that happens. But they make up for it during high-demand periods.

The negative prices were not passed on to consumers because they get charged for the whole mix, and California electricity rates are among the highest in the country.

If you count in the electricity generated by r ooftop solar panels, then on that day at that time, California was actually getting 50 percent of its electricity from solar.

This level of solar electricity generation is new in California. During the past year, there has been a 50 percent increase in utility-scale solar generation.

California now has nearly 10 gigawatts of solar power. That is more than all of Britain. It is more than the entire country of France. Even more than the entire country of India. 

If you looked at all the electricity generated in California on the day of March 23, you’d find that 56.7 percent of it was generated by renewables—in addition to solar there are wind turbines, hydroelectric from dams, geothermal and biomass.

Jobs in solar energy in California expanded by 67 percent year on year. 

California wants a third of its grid energy to come from renewables in only 3 years, in 2020. It wants the proportion to rise to 50 percent by 2030.

(Juan Cole is the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan and an occasional contributor to CityWatch. He has written extensively on modern Islamic movements in Egypt, the Persian Gulf and South Asia. This post originally ran on Juan Cole’s website.)

-cw

EDUCATION POLITICS--A state audit gave Alliance College-Ready Public Schools a mixed review last week, following an 11-month examination of spending and privacy issues related to Alliance’s two-year battle against teachers organizing a union at the charter network’s 28 schools. 

Though Alliance has been cleared of suspicions that it might have used public tax dollars in its heated anti-union campaign, the report did criticize the charter management organization’s compliance level with federal student privacy rules when it released protected student data to third parties.

The conflict dates to March of 2015, when a group of Alliance teachers and counselors announced its decision to organize a union and join the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA). In that same month, according to auditors, the Alliance Home Office, which is Alliance’s nonprofit charter management organization (CMO), created a special account and spent nearly $1 million of a $1.7 million war chest raised from private donors.

Other findings include:

• In fiscal year 2015–16, philanthropy accounted for 63 percent of total spending by Alliance Home Office. The CMO took in $29.4 million in private giving against $46.5 million in expenses.
• The Alliance CMO donated more funds to its charter schools in fiscal years 2014–15 and 2015–16 than it had in fiscal year 2013–14, before the unionization efforts began.
• Classroom expenditures did not decline because of Alliance’s anti-union campaign.
• Alliance Home Office used private funds to reimburse its schools for staff time spent on anti-union activities.
• Alliance’s policies and procedures did not establish adequate segregation of duties over the Alliance charter schools’ procurement process to mitigate the chance of fraud and abuse.

Both sides were quick to claim wins in the findings. An Alliance spokesperson was quoted as saying the audit represented a vindication for the franchisor. For its part, California Charter Schools Association (CCSA), whose own role in using Alliance parent-student data was examined by auditors, released a statement commending Alliance but downplaying the audit’s privacy criticisms.

“The audit confirmed that all public funds received by the Alliance College-Ready Public Schools were directed to the classroom,” it stated, “and that per-pupil classroom spending at three Alliance charter schools reviewed for the audit had in fact increased during the period of 2013 to 2016.”

But Alliance teachers claimed a victory in what they said amounted to the first official acknowledgment by the charter that it was actively fighting unionization.

“The Alliance has been claiming over and over again that they’re not running an anti-union campaign,” said Alisha Mernick, an art teacher at Alliance Gertz-Ressler High School. “They’re really still sticking to this narrative that this is an illusion that we’ve painted as some kind of tactic. In this report, it says this is the anti-union campaign. This is dollars spent, documented carefully.”

Charter schools are publicly financed but privately operated, and fears by the state legislature’s Joint Legislative Audit Committee that the 12,500-student, 28-school Alliance network, which is the largest charter chain in Los Angeles, might be misspending tax dollars, became one of the audit’s objectives. But the committee also tasked the auditor to look at whether Alliance’s use of the confidential information about parents, students and alumni had violated the protections of the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).

Those concerns were prompted by reports that part of the anti-union effort was led by CCSA, the state charter industry’s trade and lobbying organization. CCSA had recruited former Alliance students and paid them to work at a phone bank in an outreach program that asked Alliance parents to oppose the union drive. Parent and student phone numbers and addresses are considered protected data under FERPA, and parents have the right to opt out of allowing a school to share the information with third parties.

On the first allegation, the auditor found that although the school’s charter management organization, Alliance Home Office, had spent $917,759 as of June, 2016 on the union fight out of a total of $1.7 million in private philanthropy raised to block the union, that money was segregated in a separate account from tax revenues. Auditors also said that Alliance had used an additional $2 million in pro bono legal work in the campaign.

That grand total drew a sharp rebuke from UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl. In a statement, Caputo-Pearl blasted Alliance’s spending priorities, charging that “Raising funds for a war chest to fight your own employees is just plain wrong. Operators of publicly funded schools should be working to see that every available dollar is spent to further quality education for students.”

But giving student directory information to CCSA was another matter, according to auditors. The report rejected Alliance’s claim that under FERPA’s broad exception of “legitimate educational interest” it was free to share confidential student information without undergoing the cumbersome process that requires parents to annually opt out of waiving their privacy rights. The catch, auditors insisted, was that Alliance would have had to define the terms of the exception in annual notifications to parents, which it had failed to do.

But even had the charter sent out the notifications, the audit had no way to verify Alliance claims that it removed student data based on required parent opt-outs for the simple reason that the school hadn’t bothered to save any of the parent letters. Though that lapse effectively allowed the CMO to narrowly dodge a FERPA violation, auditors felt compelled to warn the operator in an addendum that its carelessness did not equate to following the law.

“Alliance is putting undue emphasis on the fact that the deficiencies we found related to its management processes do not violate specific provisions of law,” auditors reprimanded. “Strong management processes, sometimes referred to as internal controls, help ensure that entities do not misuse public funds or otherwise violate the law.”

Teacher Alisha Mernick remains skeptical that Alliance followed the opt-out process at all before the audit, insisting that in her six years at Alliance, she has only one memory of ever passing out the letters.

“I remember handing out those letters,” she asserted. “You know, ‘These are your privacy rights. This is the law. If you wish to opt out from this policy, you need to write a letter, asking to opt out and deliver it to the office.’ The one and only time I’ve handed out that letter was after we learned about CCSA phone-banking parents.”

Rosalba Naranjo, who has a seventh grade daughter at Alliance Richard Merkin Middle School, and was an early supporter of the unionization effort, told Capital & Main that she knew nothing about an opt-out letter or any other notification from Alliance informing her that the school reserved the right to share her child’s information with outside vendors unless she objected in writing.

“I never received a letter saying I had that option,” said Naranjo. “But I think it’s wrong that parents are receiving mailer after mailer, telling us that teachers forming their union is going to be bad for kids. What’s bad is kids being exposed to all that negative propaganda.”

UTLA currently represents over 1,000 educators in independent charter schools within LAUSD’s boundaries. Forming a bargaining unit at Alliance would require a majority vote by Alliance teachers and other certificated staff.

Mernick thinks that both momentum and the support of parents are on the teachers’ side.

“When parents are able to connect that teachers are going to be advocating on behalf of our students,” said Mernick, “and [that] teachers having a more equal say in how our [school] works is ultimately going to be good for the students as well, parents have been supportive. I’ve yet to meet a parent who reacts negatively.”

(Bill Raden is a freelance Los Angeles writer. This article was first posted first at Capital & Main.)

-cw

RANTZ AND RAVEZ-If you check past California records, you will find that our voters have passed a number of measures to repair the roads, strengthen and repair bridges around the state and complete a variety of other transportation related projects in our so-called Golden State. While Governor Brown has dedicated billions of dollars to build the Bullet Train from nowhere to nowhere, we all manage our finances and tighten our belts to make ends meet.

EDUCATION POLITICS-A new study of public charter school funding has found that California’s explosive charter growth of the past 15 years has left school districts straining under a glut of new charter classrooms that are no better at educating California children than traditional public schools. Released Monday by the research and public advocacy group In the Public Interest (ITPI), Spending Blind reveals the extent to which tax dollars have been used to create privately held real estate empires — charter properties that, because they aren’t owned by the public, could, theoretically, one day be converted into luxury condominiums or shopping complexes. 

Subtitled, The Failure of Policy Planning in California Charter School Funding, the report zeroes in on the costs and impacts of the $2.5 billion in charter school construction and rent subsidies that has been made available to prospective charter operators in a taxpayer-subsidized system of 10 state and federal public funding programs mostly administered by the California School Finance Authority (CSFA). 

The report found that the facilities-funding programs had unintended effects, particularly that they 

• Incentivized adding classroom space to districts that didn’t need it. 

• Created charter schools that underperformed in comparison to their traditional public school neighbors. 

• Funded charters that in hundreds of cases were later found to have discriminatory enrollment policies. 

• Paid for privately owned real estate enterprises. 

• Enabled some of the state’s charter school scandals of last year. 

The charter school industry relies upon a system of state and federal grants, loans, tax credits, and state and district bonds to pay for classroom space. Spending Blind represents the first time, its author, political economist Gordon Lafer, told Capital & Main, that this system has been subjected to the kind of cost-benefit questions that the public school side of the equation is typically required to answer. 

“The most surprising discovery was just the total disconnect between the education policy goals of creating charter schools – [that] I think are still pretty much what people think is the point of charter schools – and how that money is spent,” said Lafer, who is also an associate professor at the University of Oregon’s Labor Education and Research Center. “I expected that it would be like, you know, ‘We have these goals, we write the goals into funding.’ Instead, it was a total disconnect.” 

Charter schools are financed with the same taxpayer dollars that pay for public schools, but are managed by private companies. Passed in the early 1990s, the state’s original charter law created the charter school of the popular imagination -- a statutory zone of deregulation that allows boutique schools to develop superior curricula geared to persistently low-performing students. 

But beginning in the late ’90s, a flurry of changes to the law included generous facilities subsidies that effectively opened the door to charter management organizations (CMOs) — scaled-up corporate franchises whose overall performance has roughly mirrored that of existing public schools. From having fewer than 200 charters in 1998, California now boasts 1,230 schools with 581,100 students, giving it the largest charter enrollment in the nation. The California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) has vowed to nearly double that number by 2022. 

In a prepared statement, CCSA brushed aside the report’s findings as an attempt to generate support for Senate Bill 808, a charter school reform measure authored by State Senator Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia). It also accused ITPI of a “well-documented and biased point of view on the role charter schools play in the public education system.” 

Nevertheless, Lafer found that public facilities funding has been disproportionately concentrated among the fewer than one-third of schools that are owned by CMOs of between three and 30 schools. And it pointed to the state’s four largest California CMOs — Aspire, KIPP, Alliance and Animo/Green Dot — as claiming an even more disproportionate share. 

Lafer also alleged that Los Angeles’ Alliance College-Ready Public Schools network of charter schools also led the big CMOs in using public facilities financing to build up subsidized inventories of private real estate. Lafer’s study reports that Alliance alone has translated $110 million in federal and state taxpayer support into a portfolio of privately owned property “now worth in excess of $200 million.” 

“I don’t think anybody in the legislature ever intended — and I wouldn’t think most citizens or taxpayers intended or would approve of the idea —that public tax dollars are going to be used to buy somebody private property,” Lafer said. 

Yet California charter schools can become the private property of a charter operator when they are paid for with proceeds from the state’s three public conduit bond programs offered by the CSFA, the California Municipal Finance Authority (CMFA) and the California Statewide Communities Development Authority (CSCDA). An operator could also get the same result using private funding subsidized by California’s New Market Tax Credits program, or by getting the school’s mortgage payments reimbursed through CSFA’s Charter School Facilities Grant Program, more commonly known as SB 740. 

Should the authorizer revoke the charter, the state and the local school district would be left scrambling to house displaced students. The now-unencumbered former charter operator, however, would be free to turn the buildings into luxury condominiums or sell them at a profit. 

The danger, Lafer explained, is that because there is no meaningful cap written into California’s education code, any CMO bent on aggressive expansion could effectively become too big to fail. If a privately owned chain expands into a General Motors-like behemoth, then one day goes irredeemably bad, the district would be faced with the staggering cost of replacing those privately owned classrooms. 

“You potentially lose those choices if the price of making those choices is prohibitively high,” Lafer explained. “And the more of this [facilities financing] that happens, the closer to that situation we get.”

That scenario is more than theoretical. Tri-Valley Learning Corporation (TVLC) might be the poster child for California’s taxpayer subsidy program. It is one of three California case studies that Lafer features from last year’s charter scandals. The school, which operates two charters in Livermore and two in Stockton, collapsed last November after a run of poor managerial and financial decisions that included taking on $70 million in charter facilities bond debt. Though its schools are still technically open for business, the company’s death rattle continues to echo in Stockton, where both TVLC charters, Acacia Elementary school and Acacia Middle school, will be shuttered in May.

(Bill Raden is a freelance Los Angeles writer. This article was first posted at Capital & Main.)  Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

TONE DEAFNESS AT CITY COUNCIL- The vast majority of Angelenos who show up at LA City Council meetings to address their representatives have never been there before. They come from every corner of the city, from every age group, and for different purposes, but there’s one thing they all have in common -- genuine, heart-felt passion about their reason for coming. Without such feeling, these Angelenos would never find the impetus to take time off from or risk losing their jobs, might not find a caretaker for their young kids, or, as senior citizens, might never venture out into the unfamiliar and frightening web of buses and subways. 

The expectations these people have when they attend a City Council meeting vary as much as their reasons for coming. Many have no idea what will happen when they take those fateful few steps up to the public comment podium once the agenda item for which they’ve travelled all this way to speak with their representatives is called by the Council President. What none of them expect (but which happens at least half of the time) is that they won’t be allowed to address the Council at all.  

Sometimes the bad news is delivered politely by the Sergeant-at-Arms, sometimes curtly, but the effect is devastating nonetheless.  

And the reasons they are turned away? Most frequently, the cause is that the agenda item was already “taken up in committee”-- and the Brown Act says that if an opportunity for public comment is given at a committee meeting, then the Council doesn’t have to hear public comment at the regular meeting.  

Sometimes the reason for the bad news is that the Council has decided -- during the meeting -- to “continue” the agenda item to another date. That means they’ve decided not to address the issue that day but rather at a future meeting.  

Other times the reason for denial of public comment is that the item was “already approved,” as a result of Council President Wesson taking up the issue in the first few seconds of the meeting, even if the item appears near the end of the published agenda.  

In every one of these cases, Council President Wesson can easily make it possible for these Angelenos to make their comments. Yet he rarely does that.  

Even for the lucky ones who make it up to the podium to say their piece there is disappointment. They will find many of the Councilmembers -- often as many as half or more -- are missing or engaged in side conversations, or, as happened recently, holding a press conference.

It’s heartbreaking. It’s wrong.  

In October, on a motion by Paul Krekorian, the amount of time afforded to those who have journeyed down to City Hall to address their representatives was cut in half. How much time does that mean? Five minutes? Three? No, the answer is: one. A single minute. 

It’s no wonder that the respect level for politicians is at an all time low. It’s no wonder that voter turnout for Los Angeles elections is embarrassingly miniscule. It’s no wonder that more citizens than ever are going to court to get the attention of their representatives. As former LA Councilman Joel Wachs said in his run for mayor as far back as 1992, the people have become cynical about government and no longer believe anyone is listening or capable of understanding them. 

It’s interesting to imagine how successful politicians might be in today’s cynical climate if they were to include a promise of human compassion as a high priority in their political campaigns. Of course that would require that they possess that quality in the first place. And, based on the treatment of constituents in the Los Angeles City Council chambers, human compassion is running in short supply.

(Eric Preven and Joshua Preven are public advocates for better transparency in local government. Eric is a Studio City based writer-producer and Joshua is a teacher.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

LOS ANGELES … ONLY THE RICH NEED APPLY--From Los Angeles to Berlin, developers and politicians, not to mention the “new urbanists,” are creating a global gentrification crisis – and it’s not just the poor who are getting hurt. We first came to understand the ugliness of gentrification in Los Angeles.

In LA, gentrification has been fueled by the City Council and Mayor Eric Garcetti’s willingness to grant “spot-zoning” approvals to deep-pocketed developers who want to build luxury-housing high-rises. 

For example, the city’s General Plan and community plans lay out zoning rules for what can and cannot be built in neighborhoods. So a 20-story luxury-housing tower cannot go up in a community that’s only zoned for four-story buildings.

Over the past few years, however, developers have gone to the L.A. City Council and Garcetti, with checkbooks in hand, asking for zoning exemptions – or “spot-zoning” approvals. After taking thousands of dollars in campaign contributions and other political cash, such as money for a council member’s “officeholder” account, the City Council and Garcetti almost always deliver the favors.

Developers then demolish an older building with affordable housing units to construct a luxury high-rise with over-priced apartments or condos. Or, developers throw up a luxury tower on a piece of land that’s not normally zoned for that kind of project.

Developers make tens of millions, if not more, in profits from spot-zoning approvals. But residents and neighborhoods, especially if a luxury high-rise goes up in a working- or middle-class community, feel the pain.

Residents in an affordable apartment building that’s slated for demolition lose their homes from the get-go. And more times than not, there’s no way they can afford the exorbitant rent at a new luxury-housing tower that offers such fancy amenities as concierge service, a gym, and, believe it or not, a dog park. A senior citizen or housekeeper or struggling artist is out of luck while a happy dachshund gets world-class treatment. 

Adding to the displacement, the luxury tower jacks up rents for residents in other buildings in the neighborhood—and a once affordable community becomes less affordable. Not only are those residents forced out, but lower- to middle-income people can no longer move in.

We saw this disturbing trend take place across LA – from the lower-income, Latino Eastside to the middle-income, white San Fernando Valley to working- and middle-class neighborhoods on the Westside to lower-income, African American South LA More than 20,000 affordable units have been taken off the market in LA since 2001 to make way for some form of luxury housing.

It didn’t matter what color you were, although people of color often got screwed the worst. If you weren’t making an annual salary of $100,000 or more to pay for higher rents, you were displaced – and a one-time worki ng- or middle-class neighborhood became gentrified.

Similar scenarios are unfolding in London, Portland, Berlin, (photo left) and numerous other cities across the United States and the world.

It’s particularly pervasive today. Deep-pocketed developers are on a spending spree around the world, buying up properties in major cities and building luxury projects or converting affordable housing into luxury housing.

In the United States, according to Zillow, developers are building all kinds of high-end apartments and condos, but are not construct enough housing for lower-income people. Politicians allow this to happen by either failing to come up with land-use policies that prevent widespread gentrification or they approve luxury projects that are not normally allowed under a city’s zoning rules.

More and more, community activists are fighting back, which is happening in Berlin, London, New York, and Los Angeles, where numerous neighborhood groups supported a development reform initiative known as Measure S.   LA’s political establishment hated it, and developers spent millions to kill reform. After all, they didn’t want a broken system that helped them make billions in profits and millions in campaign contributions to be fixed. Measure S ultimately failed at the ballot box this past March.

But the initiative did jump-start a much-needed, citywide discussion about troubling land-use policy, gentrification, corruption at LA City Hall, and a severely broken development approval process. That discussion, and neighborhood activism, will only continue in LA.

Luxury-housing developers and politicians either ignore or refuse to acknowledge the serious, street-level problems they are creating. The same goes for the “new urbanists,” as they call themselves. They push for more dense cities regardless of what kind of housing is built. They just want density, density, density.

Many urban planning academics are just as bad. They say the best way to lower rents and to cure housing shortages is to simply build more housing—the supply-and-demand theory. Developers then cite the academics and new urbanists to justify their luxury towers to the public and politicians. With that political cover provided by the “experts,” the developers build more high-end housing.

Yet the academics, developers, new urbanists, and politicians often ignore specifics. Cities such as L.A., which is dealing with a shocking homeless problem, are not facing a “luxury” housing crisis, but an “affordable” housing crisis. It makes perfect sense to build more “affordable” housing, not any kind of housing—fix the problem at its root.

That’s what Zillow recommended — developers must construct more housing for lower-income people, which includes the middle-class.

Developers, academics, new urbanists, and politicians don’t want to discuss that. It messes with their economic, political, and/or ideological agendas. (Yes, “new urbanism” is an ideology.)  The affordable housing crisis then worsens, luxury-housing prices are sky high, rents in the neighborhood keep going up, and working- and middle-class folks keep getting pushed out.

If gentrification continues to go unchecked, it will have devastating, long-lasting, multi-pronged impacts, and the world’s metropolises will become luxury cities that only the affluent can afford. Everyone else will struggle to make ends meet – or get the boot. 

(Patrick Range McDonald, an award-winning investigative journalist, worked on the Measure S campaign as senior researcher and website editor. This perspective was posted first at LA Weekly and most recently at washataw.com.) 

-cw

TOMORROW’S MOVERS AND SHAKERS TODAY--Crespi Carmelite High School senior Justin Miller (photo above) says, “A year ago, I watched The Hunting Ground, the award-winning documentary by Kirby Dick about sexual assault on college campuses. Then, I watched it again. And again. It hit me hard. I could not shake it.” 

The 2015 documentary produced by Amy Ziering follows the experiences of college students raped on campus who face retaliation and harassment as they fight for justice. One in five women will be the victim of sexual assault during their college experience – and that’s a statistic Justin would like to see turned around. Eleven million women are currently enrolled in higher education nationally and of that number, 2.5 million will be assaulted. 

Inspired by the documentary, Justin founded Seniors With A Mission (S.W.A.M.), with the initial goal of producing Raise the Volume, a one-night event at the Saban Theater on April 27. The teen started a GoFundMe and raised over $6,000 to underwrite the event but due to some logistical issues, has decided to donate money raised to The Rape Treatment Center. To expose Los Angeles-area high school seniors to this crucial issue before they leave for college, Justin has appealed to Kirby Dick and the team at The Hunting Ground to allow the film to be screened for free at participating high schools, including Crespi Carmelite, Louisville, Marlborough School and other schools in Los Angeles. 

“I am going to ask each high school to screen the film for their seniors,” the teen says. “If we can make this happen, we will ultimately reach more high school seniors and be left with more money to donate to The Rape Treatment Center. Although I am disappointed that we had to rethink the Raise the Volume event, it might yield the most benefit for the overall cause, which is awesome.” 

Justin, a writer/director who will be studying at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts next fall, explains most assaults happen during the first weeks of freshman year, as students begin their college experience, forever changing their lives. The mission of the S.W.A.M. is to “change the College Campus Culture to one of Compassion and Respect.” A painful and difficult subject will be embraced by an entire generation and revolutionized into a message of dignity, hope, and transformation.” -- Raise the Volume 

The Rape Treatment Center at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center was established in 1974 and is nationally recognized for its pioneering work in the treatment, prevention and education arenas. The RTC provides free comprehensive and compassionate care for adult and minor victims of sexual assault and operates 24 hours a day. 

Services include emergency medical treatment, forensic services, crisis counseling, and longer-term psychotherapy, advocacy that includes accompanying victims during legal and court proceedings, as well as during medical appointments. The Center provides information about rights and options so that victims can make informed choices. Over 50,000 victims and their families have received this support services. 

In addition, The RTC prevention education serves thousands of Los Angeles middle school, high school and college students. Students learn about rape, sexual assault, peer sexual harassment and other forms of abuse. The students are also exposed to prevention strategies, including options in high-risk situations, safe intervention strategies when they witness a peer being sexually abused, assaulted, harassed or bullied, as well as how to get help. The center works with educators and administrators to best address sexual abuse, bullying, sexual harassment and other forms of sexual violence on campuses, as well as to develop effective prevention policies and strategies. 

The center provides professional training and education programs that reach thousands of victim services providers each year, including police, paramedics, prosecutors, medical and mental health practitioners, and school personnel. An additional area of impact is Public Education and Policy Reforms.

To donate to S.W.A.M.: Raise the Volume, visit the Go Fund Me page.

(Beth Cone Kramer is a Los Angeles writer and a columnist for CityWatch.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

SKID ROW- (Editor’s Note: The Department of Neighborhood Empowerment did not respond to attempts by CityWatch to authenticate the charges made by the author of this article. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of CityWatch.) Last week, there was an historic election of sorts in Downtown Los Angeles. The many historic moments start with the first-ever subdivision election in the history of the city. 

The Skid Row Neighborhood Council- Formation Committee, which began their formation effort in June of 2014, squeaked by the community of Hermon, who started their effort in 2011 and held their subdivision election two days later. 

While Hermon’s election was successful and went off without any hitches (beyond opposition from the larger Arroyo-Seco NC), Skid Row’s history books will forever overlook their election which was held in a physical polling place in Skid Row (with online voting becoming a last-minute additional option less than two weeks prior to the election day) and also had an energetic and well-attended “Uplift Skid Row Pep Rally” directly across the street, and instead will focus on the “Scandal in the Skid” which was originally leaked by an anonymous source connected to the Downtown LA Neighborhood Council (DLANC) who forwarded damaging e-mails to the Skid Row NC- Formation Committee, who initiated Skid Row’s bid to create a new NC that would’ve broken away from the DLANC and addressed it’s myriad issues directly with City Hall’s resources. 

The irrefutable evidence pointed out that DLANC created a front organization called “Unite DTLA” which then forwarded “Vote NO on Skid Row Separation” campaign materials to DLANC’s entire database via e-mails that connected directly to a DLANC-controlled URL, which is illegal by City regulations. It was also discovered that Unite DTLA also used DLANC’s mailing address- which is paid for by the City’s NC Funding System (taxpayer funding), and thus also a violation. 

The Skid Row subdivision election’s preliminary results saw Skid Row NC losing by a slim 62-vote margin. DLANC’s database registered at least 700 potential voters from their 2016 NC elections. This entire database was automatically registered in Skid Row’s 2017 subdivision election. Easily, the “NO” position e-mails (publicly stated by a current DLANC Board member on social media to have been sent “four times a day”) may have influenced 62 of their 700 voters, and possibly more. 

This week, the Skid Row NC-FC officially filed multiple actions, which include a recount (there are provisional ballots that have yet to be counted), a grievance against the DLANC and 5 separate challenges all filed with the City’s Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE). 

If DONE accepts any of the challenges, an independent grievance panel will be formed with a possible decision coming no more than 14 days from it’s convening. 

If each of the challenges are dismissed, the Skid Row NC-FC has indicated that they will explore all possible options, including “legal options” which imply the possibility of at least one lawsuit, possibly naming both DLANC and the City of Los Angeles. 

This unfortunate turn of events takes away from a tremendous and unexpected turnout in which over 760 voters voted in favor of creating a Skid Row NC and over 1600 overall. Even rap superstar Ice Cube and dozens of Hip-Hop artists recorded cell phone videos urging qualified voters to “Vote YES for the Skid Row NC” which formulated from a #HipHop4SkidRow social media campaign. 

With all this momentum, Skid Row was able to organize and activate a newly-established voter base that could have been much larger, but there are also claims of voter suppression, which may be addressed after the pending challenges through DONE. The oldest voter in support of Skid Row’s effort was a 96-year old Skid Row man who beamed with pride for his community. 

Still, DLANC’s devious acts overshadow Skid Row’s glory and a revealing video released on social media exposes an even greater concern of how people outside of Los Angeles will view this controversial election. 

Will the City of Los Angeles’ image, which prides itself on being diverse, inclusive, progressive and a “sanctuary city” be tarnished? 

Will international tourists see Los Angeles in an unattractive light because of it’s inhumane actions towards it’s homeless residents? 

Will the City’s 2024 Summer Olympic bid be negatively affected? Or the City’s effort to land the 2026 World Cup frowned upon? 

Or will this simply be just a local community tussle over the control of Skid Row? 

If the DLANC is to be punished, will it’s close ties to the powerful Downtown business sector be a factor in a soft “slap on the wrist”-type punishment? Or will the hammer be dropped to set an example of what will not be tolerated in any NC elections across the city? 

There is a lot at stake and the pressure is already mounting. 

It was reported that DLANC’s Executive Secretary stepped down this week. It is not yet known whether this move is related to the voting scandal, but surely the timing seems to come at a bad time. 

Can DLANC, which is considered one of the better NC’s of the 96 NC’s citywide, overcome this still-unfolding drama where things will simply return to normal or will major changes be inevitable? 

The Skid Row community is stunned and there is talk of the concerns regarding the possibility of long-term trauma, which would add to the many complexities associated with the area commonly known as “the homeless capitol of America”. 

Will Skid Row residents cower behind the results of this election and collectively decide never to get involved in politics again? Or stand up to the powerful land-use developers who aim to gentrify the area where they live? 

The results of DONE’s challenge review has great implications that will undoubtedly and instantly affect tens of thousands of Angelenos. 

A Skid Row NC could be the missing piece in all the new Measure HHH and Measure H discussions involving billions of taxpayer dollars, which could give the necessary credibility to subsequent decisions on homelessness that the DLANC just doesn’t have. 

Either way, history will again be made. 

Skid Row NC-FC members strongly believe they are on the right side of history. 

This will undoubtedly be a significant turning point in Los Angeles’ well-documented struggles to sufficiently handle it’s expanding homeless problems which include a lack of significant low-income housing, adequate storage facilities for homeless citizens and ineffective healthcare services for the ever-growing mental illness population and even help for those suffering in various states of addition. 

The new Homeless Count numbers will be released by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) at the end of next month. 

The fight to create a Skid Row NC may still continue well past that. 

It is unknown what solutions the “NO” voters have planned to address homelessness in Skid Row, if any. 

Maybe they just got caught up in the moment of wanting to simply win an election. 

History books now await DLANC’s entry.

EASTSIDER-Let’s be honest. Since the late 1980’s, Council District 1 has been a district deliberately created to be a majority-Hispanic council district. You can check out the history at Wikipedia.  

The latest revisions to the District are the product of a particularly slimy body-swap political exercise presided over by the 2012 LA Redistricting Commission. It was so toxic that it only ended in 2015 with a federal judge’s ruling long after the 2013 election was over. 

Here in Glassell Park, I guess we should be used to being treated like serfs, since we have at various times been under Council District 13 with Eric Garcetti, Council District 14 with Jose Huizar, and Council District 1, initially with Reyes and now with Cedillo. 

The 2013 race to replace termed-out Ed Reyes was particularly nasty, with Cedillo, termed-out himself from the CA Legislature, running against Reyes’ Chief of Staff, Jose Gardea. You can get a taste of that debate in this LA Weekly article.  

Anyhow, the 2012 redistricting did not change the 70% plus Latino nature of the District. What it did do was provide a body swap between Huizar and Reyes so that CD 14 swapped its chunk of Glassell Park and environs out for Downtown LA where Huizar could make more money with the CRA and the business/developer community. It also let Council President Herb Wesson split Koreatown into four districts for his own purposes…including a piece landing in CD 1. 

With that background, it seems to me that the 800 pound gorilla in the room for the Council District 1 runoff, is whether gentrification, missteps by the incumbent, and voter turnout will flip this district to non-Latino. 

How We Got to a Runoff 

Between 2013 and now, many of our communities have been the beneficiaries of a gentrification tsunami in the Echo Park, Highland Park, Glassell Park and Cypress Park areas. Mt. Washington doesn’t count, since it had already been gentrified. 

As Silverlake became outrageously expensive, our hillsides from Highland Park to Glassell Park became the next “new wave” of gentrification, with single family homes suddenly going for $700,000 and up. Also, condos and small lot homes are popping up like mushrooms with exorbitant prices. All this is driving out a lot of longtime residents who can’t even afford their apartments. 

Regarding Gil Cedillo and Joe Bray-Ali, there is an irony in this race. When he ran in 2013, Cedillo talked to everyone; on the other hand, City Hall Insider Gardea was locked in to Ed Reyes “never met a development he didn’t like” (unless it was a single family home) remote style of governance. 

This time around, Cedillo is characterized as the incumbent who loves development and doesn’t talk to the troops, while Joe Bray-Ali is the young, fresh candidate who talks to everyone. As I wrote in an earlier CW column, “Joe Bray-Ali Cleans Up Nice!” 

Further, it was clear at the Sotomayor School debate that Joe had a shot -- the takeaway quote being, “of all the other candidates Joe Bray-Ali stands the best chance of getting in a runoff.” 

And the results -- although initially in favor of Cedillo -- were ultimately:

While it’s nice to guess right, the margins in this race were very tight, and the number of total votes cast in a district with some quarter of a million people in it, was not so good. 

The Runoff Its Own Self 

Clearly Joe Bray-Ali has momentum going for him, and is garnering unusual endorsements, such as CD 13’s Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell, in addition to the Los Angeles Times and a number of environmental groups like the League of Conservation Voters. And there is no question that the issue which brought Joe to everyone’s attention -- safe streets and the Bicycle Plan -- has galvanized supporters. 

Gil Cedillo also has a number of endorsements, from Jerry Brown and Xavier Becerra to Mayor Garcetti and Gloria Molina. Perhaps of more use in this race are the ones from the Police Protective League, the Firefighters, and UTLA (United Teachers of Los Angeles.) 

Joe’s difficulty will likely be in the area of Latino voters, inasmuch as his campaign has not achieved too much success in wooing this segment of the District to his cause. Of course Gil Cedillo’s problem is that, while the District is about 72% Latino, so far, that hasn’t translated into a huge Latino voter turnout. The trick may be how many of the Giovanni Hernandez and Jesse Rosas voters will come out and vote for Joe in the runoff. 

On the other side, it seems to me that a big difficulty Gil Cedillo has is that he actually likes to govern, as in introducing City Council initiatives and motions. This probably stems from his years in the California legislature, where they make decisions on statewide issues. Trouble is, most Angelenos I know could care less about what the City Council does -- unless and until their taxes go up, a monster development invades the neighborhood, or they actually need something from their Councilmember. 

The real name of the game in winning City Council Districts is going out and pressing flesh, having as many one-on-one contracts with each neighborhood as possible, and demonstrating that the Councilmember cares. Take Mitch O’Farrell as an example. He’s never met a development or developer he doesn’t love (even if the project is on a fault line) but has great constituent services staffing, and is out everywhere pressing the flesh all the time. And guess who won re-election in a walk? Mitch. 

Joe Bray-Ali is out and about everywhere, while Gil Cedillo labors under the handicap of being an incumbent with a track record. The rap on him is that once elected, his team slacked off on daily outreach to the various community groups and neighborhood councils, and it was difficult to get him to go out and press the flesh of constituents. It is difficult to turn around these perceptions at election time; on the other hand, the challenger can make any promise he wants before getting elected and having to deliver. 

Upcoming Events 

As we speak, the East Area Progressive Democrats (EAPD), now up to about 750 members, have endorsed Joe Bray-Ali, but many of them are not in CD 1. The Northeast Democrats (NEDC) have not endorsed; however, they have scheduled a meeting for April 19 to vote on an endorsement. Of course, they are a much smaller group, but at this point everything counts. 

There will also be an important candidates’ forum in the critical Westlake/Pico-Union area on April 17 at the Monsenor Romero Hall (2845 W. 7^th Street, starting at 7p.m.) It should prove interesting. 

Hopefully, there will be more candidate forums and events before the election, and I may write another column before the actual May 16 election date. 

The Takeaway 

Not only does Joe Bray-Ali clean up nice, but my initial observation stands: “…if Joe Bray-Ali can force Cedillo into a runoff, all the electoral math changes in a hurry. If an incumbent with all the advantages can’t put the election away in the primary, he’s viewed as wounded meat and all bets are off.” 

At the same time, never underestimate the value of incumbency. Mr. Cedillo did, after all, come within a hair’s breadth of winning the election outright, and I suspect that in a two-candidate race he would have won. At this point, his political back is up against the wall, and you can be sure that all stops are out. 

The real question has to do with voter turnout…and the Latino vote. 

Shortly after you read this article, vote-by-mail will start on April 18, and the actual runoff election date is May 16. Remember, as the primary election proved, EVERY VOTE COUNTS! If we don’t vote, complaints about the results won’t mean much.

PLEASE VOTE! We will be living with the results of this election for 5 1/2 years.

(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.

GELFAND’S WORLD--For sixteen years, Los Angeles officials have been telling us that the system of neighborhood councils exists to improve citizen participation in government. In fact, the City Charter leads off its section nine with the following purpose statement: 

To promote more citizen participation in government and make government more responsive to local needs, a citywide system of neighborhood councils, and a Department of Neighborhood Empowerment is created.  Neighborhood councils shall include representatives of the many diverse interests in communities and shall have an advisory role on issues of concern to the neighborhood. 

That seems pretty self-explanatory. In my home-council, we've been encouraging participation by our neighbors since February 2002, back when we held the first neighborhood council board meeting in the city. Over the ensuing years, public officials and LAPD Senior Lead Officers have added their own contributions. In fact, our public treats the chance to ask questions of the LAPD and of civic officials (or their representatives) as an important part of the meeting. In reality, this is their part of the meeting, because it provides members of the public a chance to engage with officials who have the power and authority to change things. Even when the visitor is an appointed representative (usually a staffer) rather than the City Councilman, it is a chance to provide feedback to the elected official. 

That's why I was so surprised when an old friend told me the following story. He was at his neighborhood council meeting (it's the council immediately adjacent to my home council) and he got up to ask the City Councilman's representative a question. This was nothing new actually -- it happens routinely at most neighborhood councils around the city. But this time, he was told that he could not ask his question. The rules had changed. 

He explained to me that he was told the following -- that only members of the elected board could ask questions of the City Councilman's representative during the public part of the meeting. If he wanted to have a private conversation with the rep away from the meeting, he was welcome to try. 

It's apparently the new rule. If this is an accurate description of a new policy, it certainly represents a terrible way of doing business. 

I called the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE), the city agency that oversees neighborhood councils. The DONE representative I spoke with explained the situation my friend had experienced. The Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council had a rather busy agenda that evening, so to save time, the board decided to abolish the public's right to ask questions of the visiting dignitaries. Thus my friend Bill was forbidden to ask Councilman Joe Buscaino's representative Ryan Ferguson a question in public. 

That this is a bad policy is easy enough to see. An essential element of public participation is providing members of the public a chance to cross swords with elected officials. This is what we have seen in town halls held by congressmen over the past couple of months. The reception that members of congress had at their town halls may be the reason that we still have the Affordable Care Act. 

The public Q/A session is the public's opportunity to communicate not only with the elected official, but also with each other. This is particularly important when the inquiry concerns a City Councilman's performance in office, analogous to the way it concerns a congressman's voting record. What is the councilman going to do about traffic or homelessness or home burglaries? Will he support the proposed sales tax increase? What does he think about the current trend to treat home burglaries as misdemeanors? 

It's not obvious that elected board members will think of the same set of questions as you or I would, and it's rather unlikely that board members will press their questions to the same extent that we might. In fact, there is a reasonable argument to be made that neighborhood council governing board members have different incentives than the public when it comes to discussions with elected officials. The board members are trying to maintain a cordial relationship with the elected official, something which is not conducive to aggressive public questioning over matters of performance or ethics or legislation 

The question of purpose 

In considering the radically different approaches taken by my home council (Coastal San Pedro) and the council in question (Central San Pedro), it's appropriate to ask what the whole system is supposed to be about. Which way is more likely to result in improved government as described in the City Charter's quaint wording? My rather partisan point of view is that shutting the public out of the process is less than optimal. Actually, it's the way to communicate to the public that they are second class participants. What's so outrageous is that the neighborhood council is the organization that is supposed to be the closest to the public in all of city government. How hard is it to point out that citizen participation means exactly what it says? 

But this point having been made, it is also necessary to admit that the night's agenda (see the link above) was in fact pretty busy. How do you rationalize the need to get through a long agenda with the public's right to participate in questioning of officials? 

I think that the honest answer is that for some agendas and some neighborhood councils, it's not always possible. It's necessary to make a choice. 

In order to make a choice rationally, it's necessary to consider the opposing needs. 

My view is that an essential function of the neighborhood council is giving the public the maximum opportunity to make its own views known. It's not unreasonable to dedicate a significant fraction of council meetings mainly to public participation. For example, my council held a couple of meetings dedicated to discussion of the homelessness problem, leading off with speeches by homeless advocates and devoting the bulk of each meeting to public comments. 

In addition, it's necessary to devote a sufficient amount of time for public participation at every other council meeting. Hearing from the public is a prime function of the neighborhood councils, and all of them should live up to this expectation. 

But what about all the other agenda items -- the items that require such a large amount of time? There are three possible answers to this question. The first is simple: Just don't put so much on your agenda. A lot of routine matters are sufficiently handled every two months, or even every three months. 

Another method is to learn how to use time management. In practice, this involves putting a time limit on each agenda item in advance. The board can extend the length of any item, knowing full well that this adds to the length of the meeting. It is between the board and the public as to whether this is acceptable. But absent an affirmative board vote to extend the length of any given item, it is over when it has used up its allotted time. 

I understand that most boards would feel strange about having an item die without taking a vote, but there again, there are methods for dealing with the situation. In brief, go directly to the vote at the end of allotted time, or put further consideration of the matter over until the next meeting, or quickly pass a motion to extend the item by five minutes. 

It's possible to handle your time effectively such that the rights of the public to participate are not hindered. That this requires of the presiding officer a certain skill set is not in question, and training in these matters is one of those obligations that should have been taken up by DONE years ago but never was. 

I should also like to add that lengthened board agendas are a symptom of a long term trend in neighborhood councils, the idea that every question should be sent to a committee, and there should be a committee for every question. It sounds reasonable at the superficial level, but a deeper look leads to some concerns. For one thing, committee work is usually carried out by a smaller number of participants, and committee meetings often happen at times and places that are difficult for many members of the public to attend. The result is that those few people who are most invested in any particular subject are the ones who become the committee members. The result is, often enough, a skewed recommendation from the committee to the board. Now add in a board meeting which limits public participation (one comment not to exceed two minutes is certainly to be limited) and the recipe is for an overall skewed result. 

It is of course possible for a committee to be made up almost entirely of people with a specific interest and still see a fair result. This happens when, for example, the downtown business owners can ask for certain changes that would benefit the community as a whole without damaging any other part of the community. 

But the primary functioning of a neighborhood council still has to include a maximum of public participation, and this remains the case whenever the choice is between hearing public comment and hearing the reports of committees. Or to be specific, Bill should have been allowed to ask Ryan his question.

(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected]) 

-cw

LEAVING LA-We have spent considerable time exploring the factors driving Family Millennials away from Los Angeles. Today we show the lure of other places. 

NewGeography has a number of articles describing the areas which are competing for middle class Angelenos. They all share the common element of Affordable Opportunity. Four articles are: 

September 20, 2016, NewGeography, “Lone Star Quartet,”  by Aaron Renn. 

This article gives an over view of Texas and shows the breadth of opportunity which Texas offers. 

December 3, 2016, NewGeography, “Opportunity Urbanism: The Tech Edition,” by Ryan Streeter. 

This article describes the tech job market in Austin, one of Texas’ most desirable areas. Austin not only has a university but it is the state capital with an established music scene. As such, it has a decent chance of attracting young Millennials who can later effortlessly transition into Family Millennials without moving thousands of miles away.

April 8, 2017, NewGeography, “The Ghost of Mamie Eisenhower,”  by John Sanphillippo. 

Good picture essays are fantastic. This article documents small towns that abound in other parts of the nation and have decent weather. Their decline has become ancient history, and their renaissance has already begun. The best place to enter opportunity is on the ground floor. 

April 6, 2017, NewGeography, “Seven Ways Life Has Gotten Better in Rural America,” by Aaron M. Renn. 

For people who love open space, convenience, and who can telecommute, the rural areas probably provide the most opportunity. People have not yet begun to talk and write about the coming impact of Virtual Presence. Soon wall size monitors, directional mics, and cameras which can track you as you walk about the room will be common. When people are liberated from the small monitor, we will enter a telecommunications era more revolutionary than what the smart phone has brought.   

These and other NewGeography articles give us a sense of the advantages of moving to smaller cities, smaller towns and even to rural areas sooner rather than later. When one adds together Virtual Presence, long range electric, self-driving cars and the economics of our times, we see that the future of the American family lies in low density communities. 

Work Book for LA Family Millennials 

In planning for a family, Millennials will do some basic calculations. The housing costs in Austin or the exurbs in the South or in rural areas will be one third to one half of a detached home in LA. While everyone’s financial position is different, the extra housing cost to live in LA is about $36,000 per year. If one includes two children in private school, the extra cost will increase by about $40,000 more per year. (Private LA schools range from $11K to $32K per year per student.) That means it costs about $75,000 extra per year to live in LA. 

Away from Los Angeles, that $75,000 can be divided three ways: (1) $25K/yr. for normal living expenses like vacations, clothes, cars, restaurants, (2) $25K/yr. for retirement, and (3) $25K/yr. to up-grade housing, e.g. six bedrooms, home offices and an acre of land. 

For an LA family who is not earning enough to save $75K per year by moving, relocation to a low density, growth community means the difference between paying exorbitant rent for a small apartment and owning a home of their own with a yard in a decent school district.

(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

CONNECTING CALIFORNIA--Dearest Nevada … Marry me.

(Editor’s Note: As regular readers know, CityWatch was founded 15 years ago to promote civic engagement. And, it is our belief that the best engagement is the result of information and education. We also believe that for this divided country to ever come together it will be necessary for all sides on these divisive issues to be heard … and listened to. No progress comes from ‘preaching to the choir.’ That is why we post perspectives and positions from all sides of the political spectrum. We believe your voice should be heard … even if we disagree with what you have to say. It is with that belief in mind that we make this Heather MacDonald speech available to you.)

TRANSPORTATION WATCH--Most of us like paying for a given thing only once.  But hey, maybe some of us like paying for transportation and infrastructure so much that we'll pay not once, but three, four, five times for the exact same thing until finally, sort of, maybe, it gets paid for. 

As for little old me? I like paying for something once ... although I realize that budgets and disasters require some significant flexibility when reality makes yesterday's predictions null, void, and moot. And I've recommended sales taxes and higher gas taxes for decades to pay for transportation and infrastructure. 

I'm all for appropriate taxation...but I'm also for "Alpern's Law of Taxes" which states that the one thing taxpayers are more concerned about than the amount of taxes they pay is the perception about how well those taxes are spent. 

Let me repeat that again, more slowly … 

 ... the ... perception ... about ... how ... well ... those ... taxes ... are ... spent! 

But a funny thing happened over the past few decades.  The education unions needed to be FED. The public sector employee unions decided that early retirement in the mid-fifties, and getting paid big time in retirement at a salary similar to those still working, took precedence over that little thing called financial sustainability. 

And even former Governor Schwarzenegger showed he had no spine or willingness to explain that one could be PRO-teacher, PRO-education, PRO-roads, PRO-rail, PRO-business, PRO-health care, and PRO-taxpayer all at once. 

So, here’s the drill: We scream about the roads, gather more taxes, bonds, fees, whatever and then when we get more money for infrastructure we yank money from the general fund for “other” things to placate the unions. 

And whadaya know?  We don't have enough money for roads, rail, sewage, water, and other infrastructure all over again!  But the percentage of our budget going to pensions and inefficient/inappropriate spending continues to rise. 

Lather, rinse, repeat. 

Seen any new universities get built lately?  The cost of education go down?  The ability of the middle class to thrive?  Businesses with lots of middle or upper class jobs go up, with either an industrial or intellectual economic base go up to pay for everything? 

I didn't see any of that, either. 

And here's the kicker, fellow taxpayers, and fellow Californians: 

You already paid for universities, and roads, and everything nice, several times over and got that tax/bond/fee money indirectly yanked towards ‘something else’ … and you will now pay for all of that yet again. 

I'm not for ANY one-party state, either Republican or Democrat.  Boondoggles and sweetheart deals that favor a few and thrash the majority is not OK. 

We now have an upper economic class of technological and other professionals who are in nice and/or gated communities.  They may grumble and get angry about taxes, but they're moving forward and living nice lives. 

Then there's the middle class, comprised primarily of suffering but hanging-in-there small businesses and public sector workers.  And if you're too stupid to become one of them, then woe be unto you. And after you retire, you'd be well advised to flee California to keep (gasp!) your hard-earned money. 

And then there's the former industrial/manufacturing middle class, who are now working fast food jobs in a service industry that's anything but helpful for those who want to live sustainable, self-sufficient lifestyles...and a minimum wage increase will too often lead to automation replacing their jobs, not more money. 

But those who stayed awake in economics class, or who lived long enough in California to remember how economics works in different venues and climates, either have been shut down, died, or fled the state. 

And now we have a new gas tax that ... perhaps after the last 4-5 failures ... will actually go to transportation. 

There ARE answers: 

1) Require a minimum of the state general fund, and safeguard all transportation taxes/fees/bonds, to remain invested in transportation/infrastructure.  10% of the general fund ought to do it. 

2) Change the education portion of the state general fund to alter inefficient K-12 funding (the K-12 population is going DOWN...did you know that?) to be diverted and establish 5-10 new UC and Cal State universities over the next ten years.  And pay education employees in a responsible and sustainable manner! 

3) Increase the costs of transportation/infrastructure for Silicon Valley/Beach businesses and developers who are impacting, but NOT paying their fair share, of the costs needed for them to be among those few who are profiting handsomely off the sweat and toil of the rest of our state. 

Until then, we've got the gas tax from those we elected to "lead".  Shut up and pay, right? 

Let's just make sure that our money actually goes to where it's supposed to, with transportation money actually having a net INCREASE as a result of this gas tax. 

Otherwise, we can look forward to our next tax/bond/fee increase because--you know--there's just not enough money for our crumbling roads and infrastructure because we spent our recent gas tax money ... directly or indirectly ... on SOMETHING ELSE. 

(Kenneth S. Alpern, M.D. is a dermatologist who has served in clinics in Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside Counties. He is also a Westside Village Zone Director and Board member of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Planning and Outreach Committees, and currently is Co-Chair of its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee. He was co-chair of the CD11 Transportation Advisory Committee and chaired the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at [email protected]. He also co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Dr. Alpern.)

-cw

ANIMAL WATCH-If anything will get viewers for TV news, it is reporting that animals are going to be killed at a shelter. Activists know this well. Occasionally, frantic calls to reporters come from well-meaning--but misinformed--visitors or volunteers, because there is little time for quiet, detailed communication while managing facilities with hundreds of animals leaving and entering daily.  

Most stations know this and confirm the full facts with the agency's management so the broadcast can, hopefully, provide a positive way the public can be part of the solution--if there is a problem. 

But, on Thursday, KTLA News completely caught LA County Animal Care & Control by surprise when it broadcast and posted, “Some local rescue pet organizations are upset over a new policy at LA County Animal Services. They say the policy allows shelters to euthanize animals that are deemed 'unsafe,' instead of being made available for adoption by rescue organization." 

Sayalan Orng, identified by the station as a shelter volunteer, said ominously, "My concern is that, if this continues and we can't save dogs that are deemed aggressive, this will be a “mass murder.”" 

Although reporter Kareen Wynter announced that shelter volunteers had started a petition opposing the change, the on-line document which KTLA posted for the convenience of critics indicates it was actually started by a woman in Littleton, CO, who does not appear to have affiliation with L.A. County shelters or any other animal organization. 

A spokesperson for LACAC&C said they were not aware of the broadcast. When they were notified that an e-mail to one of their Carson rescue partners had been misinterpreted, the Department promptly posted a media release on the LA County Animal Care and Control website to clarify:

As an animal care organization DACC is committed to finding homes for all adoptable pets sheltered that are not reclaimed by their owners. While we strive for adoption outcomes for all dogs, we also have a responsibility to public safety. In some cases, dogs that find their way to our animal care centers have a documented history of such aggressive tendencies that they pose a threat to public safety. 

Eighty-four percent (84%) of the dogs that come into our Los Angeles County Animal Care are adopted to families or placed with our very valued adoption partners (rescues). However, because of our commitment to public safety, DACC will not place dogs—even with our adoption partners—when the dog has a documented history of aggressive behavior, or has exhibited a pattern of threatening or aggressive behavior while in our care. 

The reality is that very few dogs in our animal care centers will be deemed to pose a risk to public safety. We want to reassure concerned animal advocates that fears that have recently been conveyed to us -- that any dog that shows fear in the stressful kennel environment will be euthanized -- is simply not correct. Our policy is limited to dogs whose documented history demonstrates a high likelihood that they will injure or kill another animal or attack a human. 

We do not take lightly the decision to euthanize a dog for behavioral reasons and are committed to taking that action only when the dog poses a very strong propensity to do harm if placed in a new home. We will continue to evaluate each dog as an individual, taking into consideration all available information including temperament test, documented history and behavior while in our care. 

We continue to collaborate with our adoption partners to place dogs with less serious behavior issues, such as those whose evaluation would suggest special placement that our adoption partners may have the resources to address. 

The release also cites State law supporting the department’s policy. 

It is hard to believe that most County residents and rescuers would not support a decision to reduce the risk of harm to people, their pets and other animals by dogs which have a documented history or pattern of aggressive behavior—especially with attack reports on shelter employees, volunteers and the public by impounded or adopted animals increasing at an alarming rate. 

Here are just a few: 

RECENT DOG ATTACKS IN SHELTERS 

On January 23, 2017, CityWatchLA told the story of Priscilla Romero, Animal Care Technician for L.A. Animal Services, who was savagely mauled by a dog that had bitten before while in the shelter and had other notations by employees that the dog was not safe. 

On February 24, 2017, according to the Orlando Sentinel, “Lake man is recovering from attack by pit bull at animal shelter, -- “The victim of a pit bull bite in the Lake County Animal Shelter talks ... A worker came running with a mop and used it to beat the dog off.” 

On March 18, 2017, the Daily World, wrote, Pit bull attacks worker; animal shelter shut down – Stacey McKnight was alone in the back of the St. Landry Parish Animal Control shelter Thursday when the unthinkable happened. ... ‘The dog's aim was to attack me,’ she said.” 

WHO ARE ‘ANIMAL RESCUERS’? 

Responsible animal rescuers perform a valuable service for the shelters and homeless animals by keeping them in a quiet, safe environment while they seek adopters that are a good match for each dog's personality, energy level and potential needs for the rest of its life. 

Some rescuers believe they are able to change the behavior of even a very aggressive dog or that behavior assessment tests do not show the dog’s true nature. Because of the increase in breeding and ownership of certain breeds of dogs for property protection (or to guard criminal enterprises), often those impounded in shelters have serious anti-social behavior or genetic propensities which have caused them to threaten or to have already attacked a person or kill other animals. 

There is no clear legal definition of a “rescuer” or a “rescue organization” in California or most states. Anyone -- including those without dog-handling, training, or other animal-management education or experience -- can become a “rescue” and solicit donations merely by obtaining or being remotely covered under a federal 501(c)3 non-profit, tax-exempt umbrella. 

There are no other federal laws, nor is there a state or local agency in California that maintains jurisdiction, monitors or reviews "rescue" activities for compliance with laws or ordinances. Nor are there prescribed background checks to start a "rescue" or determine qualifications for employees or volunteers. 

Hoarding, noise or animal cruelty complaints may be made to the local animal-control department -- which is often where the rescue has “pulled” many of its animals to help reduce shelter population. 

There is also no statewide agency (such as Department of Consumer Affairs) for anyone dissatisfied with the health or temperament of an animal adopted from a rescue to make a report and have its license or permit revoked, because none is required. 

ANIMAL RESCUERS ARE NOT IMMUNE TO DOG ATTACKS 

April 5, 2017, Rescue Group Volunteer, Son Injured in Dog Attack … A volunteer and her young son were hospitalized after two large-breed dogs attacked and bit them at “For the Love of Dogs” private animal shelter. "The Rottweilers went up to the children and they started to pet one of the dogs … the dog suddenly grabbed one of the children off the picnic table and took him to the ground, and the second dog started to attack the child as well.” Samuel said, “the volunteer rushed to her son’s aid and was bitten when she tried to shoo the dogs.” 

May 23, 2016, CityWatch article, LA Animal Services: Pit Bull with a Violent History Attacks Potential Adopter... 

-- "A Pit Bull named Sammy with a prior record of repeated aggression and who had just bitten a Los Angeles Animal Services kennel worker in the abdomen, was released on April 28 to NovaStar Rescue, at the personal instruction of LA Animal Services General Manager Brenda Barnette."  

August 12, 2013, Darla Napora, Pregnant, Killed by Her Pit Bull . .. . 

Two Years Ago Father Writes ... "Darla's husband wanted a male pit bull and one was rescued… Darla was described as being "...an avid, long-time supporter and member of Bay Area Dog Lovers Responsible About Pit Bulls [BAD RAP], a Pit bull advocacy group.” 

On August 20, 2012, Dog Rescuer Rebecca Carey Killed at Georgia Home by Dogs She Saved ...One or more of the rescued dogs in her home attacked Carey and killed her. ...at the time of her death—two Pit Bulls, a Boxer mix, and two Presa Canarios…” 

ANIMAL CONTROL, HUMANE SOCIETIES CAN BE SUED 

Aug 5, 2016 -- Animal control director can be sued for dog attack death, court rules ... Court rejects animal control chief Mark Kumpf’s defenses. ... Two complaints specifically alleged that the dogs’ owners, Andrew Nason and Julie Custer, had directly threatened her with attack. Andrew Nason and Julie Custer, above, were convicted of offenses pertaining to. . ."..

April 3, 2017 -- Adopted Pit Bull Attacks Toddler - Animal Shelter Sued for ‘Product Liability’ "Although the dog in Clinton, Iowa, had been listed as a 'Boxer-Labrador-mix,' it was determined to be a Pit Bull  that had been transported from a Louisiana shelter. The dog was subsequently declared a dangerous dog by Clinton authorities..." 

INCREASE IN FATAL ATTACKS BY RESCUE OR SHELTER DOGS

Colleen Lynn, of Dogsbite.org, compiled the following stats:

In the 7-year period of 2005 through 2011, dogs inflicted 214 deadly attacks in the United States. Only 2% (4) of those deaths involved rescue or adopted dogs. Of these 4 cases, 75% (3) of the dogs were vetted by rescues or shelters.[Vetted indicates a certified rescue or shelter.] All of the victims were children ages 4 and younger. 

In the 5-year period of 2012 through 2016, dogs inflicted 178 deadly attacks in the United States. A stunning 9% (16) of these deaths involved a rescue or adopted dog, making it the fastest growing category of the 47 measurable parameters that DogsBite.org tracks per death between the two time periods. 

Of the rescue or adopted dogs that killed during the 5-year period, 63% (10) were vetted. 50% (8) of these deaths involved children 7 years and younger and the other half involved adults 23 to 93 years old. 

Between the two periods, there has been a 350% increase in rescue or adopted dogs inflicting fatal attacks in the U.S. Combining both periods, 2005 through 2016, pit bulls and American bulldogs accounted for 70% of all rescue or adopted dogs that killed a person in the United States. 

PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM MARCIA MAYEDA, DIRECTOR, L.A. COUNTY ANIMAL CARE & CONTROL 

The Department of Animal Care and Control is committed to protecting human and animal safety, while placing as many unwanted animals as possible into new homes. Unfortunately, some dogs that arrive at our care centers have documented histories of aggression, or exhibit behavior so dangerous that they cannot be safely placed back into the community. Doing so places other animals, as well as people, at risk for serious  injury or death. While, sadly, these aggressive dogs cannot be safely rehomed, this decision is essential to public safety. 

To be clear, this policy relates to relatively few dogs. Other dogs may not pass a temperament assessment, but we feel are able to be further assessed and rehabilitated by experienced animal adoption partners (rescue groups). We work closely with many such organizations to provide these dogs with the opportunity for behavior modification and placement into new homes. 

It is disheartening that a venomous attack on LA County Animal Care & Control was promoted by KTLA -- which has been a strong supporter of animal shelters -- before the station had determined all the facts. As conveyed by Director Mayeda, a discussion with management could have diffused the angst of those making these claims and this damaging controversy would not have occurred.

(Phyllis M. Daugherty is a former City of LA employee and a contributor to CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

DEEGAN ON LA-In today’s uneasy political climate, threatened by storm clouds of unwanted change, many are expressing their grievances by either complaining about, arguing against, or resisting something political. 

Education, and how it’s delivered, has become one of the flash points for collective dissatisfaction -- all the way from the Federal government, where we have a Cabinet level Education Secretary (who many claim lacks the understanding and experience to do the job) to the local neighborhood level here in LA, where Charter school “co-locations” on LAUSD campuses are an issue. 

A “co-location” (which became state law seventeen years ago) means having a charter school share a campus that has extra classrooms not used full time by the school district -- although those rooms may sometimes be in use for special-ed needs, art, drama and other extra-curricular after-class programs. 

The co-location process has received pushback from parents who don’t want their campuses hosting charter schools, bringing a minimum of eighty additional students from a different school and culture (private school versus public school) into their LAUSD schools. Is the politically expedient anti-globalism movement now going local, where students are becoming the spoils of the education wars? 

For the first ten years of the state law authorizing co-locations, LAUSD mounted legal challenges that they eventually lost. Yet, school district educators, administrators and parents still try to deny implementation of this law that reflected the will of the people in a public vote. Aligning this to the will of the LAUSD has not been easy. 

Expansion of charter schools by “co-locating” onto LAUSD campuses is at a crossroads now, with the May 16 run-off for seats in Districts 4 and 6 crucial to both pro and anti-charter school forces. The people on both sides of the issue have a chance to speak by casting their votes in this election. 

It doesn't take many votes to make a difference; change is lurking in this current school board race. The biggest vote getter in the municipal election -- the Mayor -- was given a second term with the votes of just 15% of the city’s registered voters. Not so lucky was the incumbent and anti-charter-school school board president Steve Zimmer, who is now fighting to hold onto his seat in District 4, jeopardized when he captured slightly under half of the votes cast in his district. This gave him just short of a majority in the close race, forcing a run-off. That slight margin is how little it takes to get elected to a position that could help freeze charter school growth. The flip side is that charter school supporters, seeing this vulnerability, can mobilize and achieve the required votes to win.

A mostly boring, poorly attended municipal election a few weeks ago had a historically low 16% voter turnout that would make anyone’s claim of having a “mandate” sound like something Trump would tweet. This resulted in a run-off for the LAUSD school board seats in District 4, which includes the Westside and part of the west Valley where pro-charter Nick Melvoin faces anti-charter Steve Zimmer; and District 6, the east San Fernando Valley, where charter-backer Kelly Gonez faces union-supported Imelda Padilla. Results in Districts 4 and 6 could tip the school board to a “pro-charter” or an “anti-charter” majority, so lots is at stake. This run-off could tilt the scales in the charter versus traditional school controversy as well as reveal the union versus non-union biases that exist in this, the second largest school district in the country. 

After voters passed Prop 39 in the year 2000, adding to the State Education Code "that public school facilities should be shared fairly among all public school pupils, including those in charter schools....that school districts to make ‘reasonably equivalent’ facilities available to charter schools upon request,” the LAUSD fought back, delaying implementation for ten years until forced to comply. In 2010 they lost a lawsuit brought by the California Charter School Association to compel LAUSD compliance with Prop 39. 

Now, seven years later, the power ratio at the LAUSD school board is vulnerable to a major shake-up. All it will take is two more pro-charter board members to be elected on May 16 and the pro-charter forces will have a majority on the board. It has been seventeen years since Prop 39 was passed -- enough time for a kid to matriculate from kindergarten to the doorsteps of college. 

Across the city, on the neighborhood level (such as in Hancock Park) there are charter schools wanting to use Prop 39 to co-locate onto LAUSD campuses. But many face resistance. Is this a state law versus neighborhood preference conflict? Or is it something more -- possibly a form of NIMBYism? 

“To Be, or Not To Be? That is the question” is what many students learn when they are exposed to Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” for the first time. It’s a question many of their parents are asking now with the increasing number of charter schools taking up space on LAUSD campuses. In Hancock Park, they are asking if the LAUSD Third Street School campus will also be home for a charter school. That would swap out a few rooms that are now used for extracurricular activities for a charter school co-location by Citizens of the World Charter Schools which already operates charters in Hollywood, Silverlake and Mar Vista. 

A recent LAUSD presentation about a possible charter school co-location at Third Street School was shouted down by mostly moms who are against co-location. It was as if parents were using another Hamlet quote: “There’s something rotten in Denmark”, although the laws are pretty specific: it’s the adjustment to them that’s causing the emotional turmoil. 

The boiling point will come with the May 16 run-off election. Charter-advocate and Zimmer opponent Nick Melvoin (District 4) and charter-backer Kelly Gonez (District 6) will have to win seats if it’s going to be “goodnight sweet prince” for school board president Zimmer. We may see a school board that says hello to charter school expansion.

(Tim Deegan is a long-time resident and community leader in the Miracle Mile, who has served as board chair at the Mid City West Community Council and on the board of the Miracle Mile Civic Coalition. Tim can be reached at [email protected].) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

EDUCATION POLITICS-On Sunday April 2, the Committee for Racial Justice in Santa Monica had as their guest speaker Dr. Ben Drati, the relatively new African American superintendent of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD). What Dr. Drati discussed in his presentation was SMMUSD's decision to once and for all effectively deal with the unacceptable realities behind why African American and Latino students continue to do poorly at SMMUSD -- and what can be done to close this achievement gap with verifiable results. 

While I had some problems with Dr. Drati's approach to achieving minority student parity with their generally more affluent and academically successful non-minority peers, what I nonetheless found refreshing in his approach was a his willingness to incorporate ideas that might enable him and SMMUSD to help minority students to achieve their potential. 

The "coherent and cohesive focus" that Dr. Drati seeks to implement at SMMUSD to improve minority achievement, will require that he not underestimate the entrenched "culture of opposition" he will surely encounter when his reforms challenge the profitable vested interests of those who are doing just fine financially under the present system. 

Dr. Drati believes the "people leading schools have best intentions in mind." The reality is that we have 2.3 million people presently incarcerated in our prisons, one million of whom are African American. Fixing our schools so that minority students come out highly educated, socialized and employable, could not help but cut into these rates of incarceration and the obscene corporate profits that have been generated by them for so long.

There is also a tendency to minimize or not really understand the profoundly positive effect a good pragmatically driven public education system can have when it does more than mouth platitudes that most of those running the system don't even really believe. For example, Dr. Drati presented a list of several factors that schools could not control in dealing with minority underachievement. The reality is that a well functioning school is the actual mechanism that eliminates these negative factors. 

According to Dr. Drati, schools "don't control the level of poverty and living conditions" of its student population. But in American history, functioning public schools have always been the social integration mechanism that has assured students will more often than not do better socio-economically than their parents, who often had inferior educations. So far, this has eluded Black and Latino students. Why is that? 

If the "parents’ education level" continues to function as a continuing negative indicator of their children's achievement, because they are incapable of helping their children with homework, there are certain measures to try. Something as easy and relatively inexpensive as keeping the schools open after regular school hours and into the evening, so that students can get supplemental help with homework, can not only give underachieving students a place to get help but it might also serve as a forum for drawing back to school some of the students -- and parents -- who may have become frustrated and dropped out. It would be a lot cheaper than incarceration in the juvenile justice system that costs $78,000 a year per youth. 

Most importantly, Dr. Drati needs to know that any K-12 education system cannot assume that students arriving into a school at a given grade-level are objectively at that grade-level as measured by mastery of all prior grade-level standards. The existing system that now socially promotes students irrespective of their true grade-levels, has been and continues to be the greatest factor in creating student apathy, classroom disruption, and the lack of self-worth these students continue to suffer from unnecessarily. Could this have something to do with explaining why 70% of students who ultimately make it into the community college system in California wind up taking remedial courses in subjects that should have been remediated while in K-12? And how was it their K-12 schools awarded them high school diplomas? 

In dealing with the present de facto segregated public education system that still exists throughout the vast majority of inner city schools, there are some very difficult truths that cannot be avoided or ignored. For the past 400 years, there has been a systematic decimation a people based on race. It cannot be overcome without addressing the quantifiable, predictable damage this system has had and would have on any people unwillingly subjugated to it. A belated "equal education" for people who have been assured that they are not equal will not work to turn this travesty around – to the benefit of all Americans -- unless a pragmatic, subjective assessment of each student’s academic standing is done to ensure a relevant education the students can benefit from. 

One of the hardest issues to address and get the public to accept in order to turn around our failed public education system is to recognize that we as a society have perpetrated immutable damage that has limited the future of what were once the unlimited possibilities of the poor and minority students subjected to it. It now behooves us to transition from this "inherently unequal" low expectation school system to one "with liberty and justice for all." We must not ignore the damage we have done, which if left unaddressed, would continue to preclude these students from attaining any possible remaining success in the future. 

As we move to lessen the negative impact of this necessary transition period, it might be advisable to stop using empty, disingenuous rhetoric. More specifically, with a total college and university capacity in this country of 40% of high school graduates, why have public schools all but eliminated industrial arts and career training programs that students could use to achieve gainful employment after leaving school or to enable them to defray the ever increasing costs of post-secondary education? 

Another temptation that reformers like Dr. Drati need to avoid if they are to assure that minority students get the timely education they are entitled to, is not to adapt the system to the current low, negative achievement results of a racist system. In successfully educating any student, their age and grade levels need to be ignored and replaced with an assessment of where the individual student is subjectively – while at the same time assessing what each one is capable of learning. Such an approach might result in a pleasant surprise, a system in which minority students finally feel safe and respected and able to let down their guard, becoming "school boys or girls" without suffering the slings and arrows of their peers. 

In his talk, Dr. Drati posed the question: "What is going on in the mind of somebody who thinks it's okay to kill" without understanding that such a person has neither Drati's education nor vocabulary to understand the ramifications of such an action. With an average 500 word vocabulary, these young people engaging in violence on the streets of Los Angeles or Chicago are the logical result of failing to educate too many of this country's most important asset: its kids. This is important for all of our futures...if we want to have one. 

Although a product of the Los Angeles public school system who had the atypical ability to go on to college and get degrees in both biochemistry and a doctorate in education, I must confess I was not surprised to find out that Dr. Drati's family had immigrated to the United States. To me, this means that his family was probably not subjected to the systematic siege that most Black American families have suffered for far too long. Imagine what African American and Latinos students might achieve in school if they were given a level playing field like Dr. Drati had. 

(Leonard Isenberg is a Los Angeles observer and a contributor to CityWatch. He was a second generation teacher at LAUSD and blogs at perdaily.com. Leonard can be reached at [email protected]) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.