LOS ANGELES

CALIFORNIA FORWARD--Lawyers, public servants, students, academics, good government reform groups, and concerned citizens made Los Angeles City Hall on Thursday the center of a statewide discussion to modernize California's landmark political ethics law and encourage more people to participate in the political process.

They joined the Fair Political Practices Commission, California Forward and the University of California Berkeley School of Law yesterday for the first of three small discussions being held throughout the state regarding the Political Reform Act Revision Project.

"This is our best shot at cleaning up the law after 40 years," said Jodi Remke, Chair of the FPPC. "We’re trying to get the act into a shape where it’s easier to read, easier to understand and easier for you to make further suggestions and comments."

The Political Reform Act was approved by voters in 1974 and governs political activity in California like campaign finance, lobbying, and governmental ethics. Since then it has been amended numerous times. That's made the rules harder to understand and navigate, placing a hurdle in front of people who might want to seek public office and making it more time-consuming to enforce.

To give act more clarity, the FPPC has partnered with CA Fwd and the law schools at UC Berkeley and UC Davis for a comprehensive revision of the law. 

One of the co-authors of the original version of the Act, Robert Stern, participated in the discussion and congratulated the project's partners on taking on such an important task.

"This [act] should not be locked in stone," said Stern, former president at the Center for Governmental Studies and former General Counsel of the FPPC. "We thought it was very important for this act to be a living act. Clearly it needs to be easier and consolidated."

The gathering served to call attention to the first of two public comment periods and to empower interested individuals to voice their perspectives regarding updating the more than four-decade-old act.

"If we can encourage and empower the public to understand how to engage in this process we will end up with a better product," said Jim Mayer, president and CEO of CA Fwd.

Before beginning the project, the FPPC and CA Fwd recognized four important goals in order to achieve a robust public process: 1) to provide practitioners, public servants and citizens an opportunity to understand the vitality of the law, 2) to incorporate and include parties who deal with the law on a regular basis, as their feedback would only serve to strengthen the revision, 3) to model what an inclusive and transparent process is, and 4) to apply a high level of rigor to the comments received.  

"We wanted some qualitative understanding -- how are people feeling about the law and the project so that when we look at these comments we have context," said Mayer.

The first phase of the project spanning nearly eight months was for the UC Berkeley and UC Davis Law Schools to clean, re-organize and simplify the language without making substantive changes and create a revised draft for review. According to Remke, this is only the first of multiple steps to engage the public and only the beginning of a process that will take several months.

To help with the process, Remke said additional tools to assist the public with understanding proposed revisions will be made available on the FPPC website soon. 

There are two more discussions scheduled for August. To register, visit the event registration page.

NEED TO KNOW

Tuesday, August 16 at 1-2:30 p.m.
Fair Political Practices Commission, 8th floor hearing room
428 J Street
Sacramento, CA 95814

Thursday, August 25 at 1-2:30 p.m.
Oakland City Hall, Hearing Room 4 (2nd floor)
1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza
Oakland, CA 94612

For more information about the project including an introductory webinar, a packet of materials with the latest draft of the act, and to learn how to submit a comment, please visit www.cafwd.org/pra. 

The California Political Reform Act Revision project is supported by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation.

(Jania Palacios writes for California Forward whose mission is to restore the California Dream, we must create more middle class jobs, promote cost effective public services and encourage accountability for results.)

-cw

LA WATCHDOG--If approved by a majority of the voters, Proposition 53, the Stop Blank Checks Initiative, “all revenue bonds issued or sold by the State in an amount singly or in the aggregate over $2 billion for any single project owned, operated, or managed by the State must first be approved by the voters at a statewide election.” 

ALPERN AT LARGE--Whether it involves initiatives ranging from the Expo Line to the Green Line/LAX connection to local Planning and Transportation issues, being fair and honest and credible is everything.  When someone does good, they deserve credit...and vice versa.  Hence, for the benefit of all Angelenos, we have to pass a Neighborhood Integrity Initiative (LINK: http://2preservela.org/) this spring. 

All ethnicities, all regions, and all socioeconomic groups of fair-minded, open-minded, and civic-minded Angelenos are being attacked.  Our services are lower than ever, our economy is producing a two-tiered rich/poor divide that no minimum wage diversion can prevent, and a wealthy and connected few are thriving while most of us who (gasp!) want to play by the rules and laws of LA are being told that WE are the problem. 

Maybe it's "affordable housing", and maybe it's "transit-oriented development", or maybe it's "urban infill", but Los Angeles has the ability to perform the "elegant densification" of Former-Mayor Villaraigosa without shredding environmental laws that were passed for a reason (actually a lot of reasons, but livability is at the center of them all). 

Angelenos are all about REAL affordable housing, transit-oriented development and urban infill--but they're also into sustainable, neighborhood-preserving and neighborhood-enhancing rules that are the hallmark of a modern, civilized, and kind-hearted society. 

The former mayor of Los Angeles, by the end of his tenure, was rightfully-perceived as bought out, a sell-out, and corrupt to the core.  Our current mayor is more affable and friendly...but Mayor Eric Garcetti and his Planning Politburo are killing Los Angeles in the same way his predecessor is doing, and it gives me no joy in saying that. 

As a human being, I kind of like Mr. Garcetti--but his actions are really turning LA into a Wild Wild West, whether they were under his watch as LA City Council President or under his watch as a man who really has the ability to rev up the City Bylaws and the Community Plan effort.   

As fellow CityWatch editor and transit advocate Damien Goodmon posted recently, there is just NO reason why we need a Cumulus skyscraper at Jefferson/La Cienega. 

Damien Goodmon and the Crenshaw Subway Coalition are rightfully, along with the Friends of the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, filing a lawsuit to stop this 320-foot skyscraper...which raises a host of issues and talking points that are as timely as we could ever hope for. 

It's no secret that Mr. Goodmon and myself (and a host of others) had different visions of the Expo Line--he wanted more of it to be a subway, while others (like myself) recognized the costs and need for the Expo Line to be at-grade or elevated for a light-rail trolley of 100,000 passengers maximum.  

But we both wanted an Expo Line. 

And neither of us wanted bad planning and neighborhood destruction throughout Los Angeles as a result of the transportation initiatives we fought for.  Adhering to the law is something that African-Americans in the Mid-City, Latinos in the Eastside, and Whites in the Westside all want.  And it's pretty darned tough to be pro-transit when there's all sorts of people who will use that effort, and other venerable ideas like affordable housing to ... 

... BREAK ... THE ... LAW! 

There are plenty of ways we can have lower and slightly-densifying building throughout the City, but if we create Downtowns here, and there, and everywhere, we'll end up with the same disjointed traffic problem that the Expo Line and other lines were built to mitigate. 

There already IS a Downtown, and the Downtown Light Rail Connector offers a host of new options for high-rise residential and business endeavours.  Another "Downtown" is Wilshire Blvd., and maybe another is Century Blvd.   

There ARE places for high-rises, but otherwise it's just it's just a battle against Common Sense, Common Decency, and Common Cause, as I recently opined to make Los Angeles one big Downtown and a new, 21st-Century traffic hellhole.

But let's be honest, Mr. Mayor--you may smile while the rest of us rule-abiding taxpayers are getting hurt, and threatened, and name-called when we call out law-breaking for what it is--we're still being hurt.  If you're going to be Antonio Villariagosa with a smile and kind-hearted face, then why wouldn't threatened citizens push back? 

Hence we have the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, with all sorts of volunteer neighborhood advocates like Dick Platkin and others weighing in. 

I also again call for a new part of LA City government where LA citizens can go to inquire as to whether they can take legal action against any Downtown efforts that violate the bylaws and policies of our City.  My guess is that it should be part of the Neighborhood Councils, or a change in the rules of what the City Attorney is with respect to the job description of that office. 

There is no legal office to protect citizens against their elected officials when that latter group goes rogue--the City Attorney is for the City Council, and NOT for the rest of us ... especially those of us who don't have tons of money and time to sue for our rights. 

But for now, we've got a City to take back.  And if THIS Mayor is going to behave like our LAST Mayor, then we've got no choice but to slam through a Neighborhood Integrity Initiative.

(Ken Alpern is 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 is co-chair of the CD11Transportation Advisory Committee and chairs 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 Mr. Alpern.

-cw

GUEST COMMENTARY--One has to wonder whether the adults in charge of the LA Times Editorial Board were part of the recent mass exodus from the Times. The question is raised because of a most recent rambling editorial concerning the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, demonstrating yet again the Times’ antipathy towards law enforcement. 

In an editorial ostensibly concerning a delay in the Board of Supervisor's implementation of a "Civilian Oversight Commission", the Times took a bizarre turn and pontificated about several recent shootings involving Los Angeles County Sheriff deputies. The Times questioned the "training" and "fitness" of the deputies involved, wondered aloud whether they were "trigger-happy deputies" whose "tactical training" may have been lacking, and for good measure threw in a random sentence asking if the Sheriff's Department disproportionately targets African Americans. 

That the Times editorial writer didn't know the complete facts of the three shootings it questioned was no hindrance to making accusations against the hard working deputies involved and the Sheriff's Department as a whole. 

Of course, the Times is hardly a supporter of law enforcement, and it clearly pains them to say anything positive about law enforcement officers. Witness, for example, the July editorials following the assassinations of five police officers in Dallas and three officers in Baton Rouge.  

Following the Dallas cold blooded murders that shook the nation, the Times wrote a nine-paragraph, 836-word editorial. Exactly one paragraph and 81 perfunctory words were devoted to officers brutally murdered before the Times segued into what it would rather discuss: "police brutality", "police shootings" and "racial disparities" in the criminal justice system. 

The reporting of the ambush murder of three law officers and wounding of three others in Baton Rouge illustrated how difficult it continues to be for the Times Editorial Board to express concern over the killing of law enforcement officers. This time, the Times could only muster up a scant four paragraphs concerning the killing, with a mere three sentences devoted to the death of the officers before the Times editorial once again turned to what it would rather discuss, devoting the majority of the editorial to pontificate on "accountability" for law enforcement and the "friction" between police and the community they serve.  

The Times view as summed up by the repulsive headline "Cops killing civilians, civilians killing cops.  How do we fix this" -- suggesting some moral equivalence between police shootings and the cold-blooded and calculated murders of multiple law enforcement officers! 

Finally, as to the Editorial Board's belief that accountability will only come from "Oversight Commissions" filled with political appointees, it conveniently ignores the fundamental way citizens of this great country determine the direction of their public agencies, including the Office of the Sheriff. It is called elections. Every four years, elected Sheriffs  must justify their performance and that of the department they lead, with anybody who has a different view with law enforcement experience free to run against the incumbent Sheriff in support of a different vision. That is real accountability!

(George Hofstetter is President of the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs. ALADS is the collective bargaining agent and represents more than 8,200 deputy sheriffs and district attorney investigators working in Los Angeles County.  He can be contacted at [email protected]. Mr. Hofstetter’s views do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

DEEGAN ON LA-A mega-development on Sunset Boulevard and a big project on Wilshire Boulevard are being erected in what could be seen as northern and southern anchors for the “towering” of Crescent Heights Boulevard, a secondary highway that runs through the heart of well-established, charming neighborhoods west of Fairfax Avenue. Will these two projects, UDR at Wilshire Crescent Heights (photo rendering above) and 8150 Sunset Blvd become bookends, making the 2.5 mile stretch of Crescent Heights Boulevard between them the next “canyon of towers”? 

Lots of people in the neighborhoods surrounding these two projects are uneasy. Is it possible that more of Crescent Heights Boulevard will be dotted with similar mixed-use towers? Will there be a north-south canyon of tall buildings strategically placed at key intersections like Wilshire, Third, Beverly, Melrose, Santa Monica, and Sunset? The upside could be that these major east-west major streets intersecting with north-south Crescent Heights could become the spokes connected to the Crescent Heights spine, helping to create a pocket of hubs for “new urbanism” communities in Beverly Grove, West Fairfax and parts of West Hollywood. 

The goal of “new urbanism” is to live, work, shop and play all within the same neighborhood, enabling residents to rely less on cars and use alternative forms of transportation, like walking, biking and mass transit to get around. Considering its central location, these attributes could make the increased development along Crescent Heights attractive. 

Some very good north-south rapid transit lines (the 780 express, the 217 local and the DASH Fairfax) run on Fairfax, just a couple blocks east of Crescent Heights. And each of the major intersecting boulevards has its own rapid transit routes, providing east-west mobility. 

That kind of mass transit access is one of the criteria for Transit Oriented Development (TOD), the development model for creating a mixed-use tower of residential and retail close to a transit route, reducing reliance on automobiles. 

The twenty-four possible corners of Crescent Heights on six major cross streets that can be targeted as ideal spots for towers could have great allure for developers. That would provide lots of mixed use housing, retail and gentrification for the thirty streets between glamorous Sunset Strip and commercial Wilshire Boulevard. The fact that most TOD projects offer minimal affordable housing, with tenants still relying on their cars, has not stopped planners and politicos from approving these projects. They continue to justify them by pointing to the convenience of adjacent mass transit, a useful fiction to keep the buildings coming. 

Right now, Koreatown, Silver Lake, Boyle Heights, Highland Park and South Los Angeles are receiving a lot of gentrifying, towering attention. Vermont, La Cienega, La Brea, Vine, Highland, and Western are some of the major north-South streets that are currently being “towered.” Add on to that Crescent Heights? 

In an era when no community is an island it’s open season for developers. Can it be long before Fairfax, one of the really badly traffic-snarled transportation corridors on the west side of town, is skipped over in favor of Crescent Heights? Are the developers already mapping this out? Only those that protect themselves with Historic Preservation Overlay Zone (HPOZ) status can feel safe. 

Of these tracts, Beverly Grove (with boundaries of Wilshire-San Vicente on the South, West Hollywood on the north and northwest, Beverly Hills on the west and Fairfax on the east) may be at risk. With the exception of a few protected residences and small apartment buildings, it has very little city-backed historic cultural monument status, or HPOZ protection, that would block tearing down houses. 

However, neighborhood activists have been successful at modifying what goes up by using other measures to control development, implementing solutions like Interim Control Ordinances, the Baseline Mansionization Ordinance, Floor Area Ratio (FAR) ranges, and the prospective Neighborhood Conservation Initiative. While these efforts may affect what might go up, it does not stop the wrecking ball from bringing structures down the way historic cultural monument status does. 

If there is to be growth in this area of town, coveted for its central location and attractive housing and close-by amenities, Crescent Heights and adjacent neighborhoods may be a sleeping giant waiting to be woken by developers. The neighborhoods along Crescent Heights could be caught by surprise, with cranes and work crews arriving sooner than anyone expects. The city’s out-the-window zoning codes are no match for aggressive developers who see enterprise potential where others see charm and community. 

Ideally situated in old neighborhoods with lots of 1920’s era Spanish-Mediterranean houses, this tract of less than two square miles along Crescent Heights could be transformed into clusters of “new urbanism” that are easily accessible to the clubs, shopping, restaurants and the nightlife of West Hollywood and the Sunset Strip; to the historic Farmers Market; to the Grove dining, shopping and entertainment complex; and to the multiple cultural offerings of Museum Row, which itself is undergoing a huge transformation. Having a Metro Purple Line Subway stop at Wilshire and Fairfax will add to the allure of living in the Crescent Heights pocket. You could live here as a “new urbanist” and not have to go very far for most everything you desire. It might be just what a future, younger demographic will want. It could easily be styled as the Echo Park or Silver Lake of the west side. 

The two and a half mile distance between 8150 Sunset and UDR at Wilshire Crescent Heights is very low-density right now. Is that a good thing? Or, rather, is it a good sign that the area is ripe for growth into “new urbanism communities” that will be anchored by mixed use towers and all the amenities that drive transformation? 

(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.

NEW GEOGRAPHY--“Old in error,” writes historian Kevin Starr, “California remains an American hope.” Historically, our state has been a beacon to outsiders seeking a main chance: from gold miners and former Confederates to Midwesterners displaced by hardship, Jews seeking opportunity denied elsewhere, African Americans escaping southern apartheid, Asians fleeing communism and societal repression, Mexicans looking for a way out of poverty, counter-culture émigrés looking for a place where creation can overcome repression.

Yet, this notion of California as a land of outsiders is being turned on its head, our state’s dream repackaged — often with the approval of its ruling hegemons — as something more like a medieval city, expelling the poor and the young, while keeping the state’s blessings to the well-educated, well-heeled, and generally older population.

Some boosters of the current order, such Gov. Jerry Brown, contend that the affluent and the educated are still coming, while the less educated and well-heeled, are leaving. They cite this as evidence that the “declinists” are wrong. Yet, the reality remains that California is losing its allure as a place of opportunity for most.

COMING AND GOING--California has been “bleeding” people to other states for more than two decades. Even after the state’s “comeback,” net domestic out-migration since 2010 has exceeded 250,000. Moreover, the latest Internal Revenue Service migration data, for 2013-2014, does not support the view that those who leave are so dominated by the flight of younger and poorer people. Of course, younger people tend to move more than older people, and people seeking better job opportunities are more likely to move than those who have made it. But, according to the IRS, nearly 60,000 more Californians left the state than moved in between 2013 and 2014. In each of the seven income categories and each of the five age categories, the IRS found California lost net domestic migrants.

Nor, viewed over the long term, is California getting “smarter” than its rivals. Since 2000, California’s cache of 25- to 34-year-olds with college, postgraduate and professional degrees grew by 36 percent, below the national average of 42 percent, and Texas’ 47 percent. If we look at the metropolitan regions, the growth of 25- to 34-year-olds with college degrees since 2000 has been more than 1.5 to nearly 3 times as fast in Houston and Austin as in Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, or San Francisco. Even New York, with its high costs, is doing better.

In fact, the only large California metropolitan area which has seen anything like Texas growth has been the most unlikely, the Inland Empire. The coastal areas, so alluring to the media and venture capitalists, are losing out in terms of growing their educated workforces, most likely a product of high housing prices and, outside of the Bay Area, weak high-wage job growth.

The location of migrants tells us something about where the allure of California remains the strongest, and where it has been supplanted. Almost all of the leading states sending net migrants here are also high-tax, high-regulation places that have been losing domestic migrants for years — New York, Illinois, Michigan and New Jersey. In contrast, the net outflow has been largely to lower-cost states, notably Texas, as well as neighboring Western states, all of which have lower housing prices.

And, finally, there is the issue of age. Historically, California has been a youth magnet, but that appeal is fading. In 2014, according to the IRS data, more than two-thirds of the net domestic out-migrants were reported on returns filed by persons aged from 35 to 64. These are the people who are most likely to be in the workforce and be parents.

CLASS AND ETHNIC PATTERNS--Upward mobility has long been a signature of California society. Yet, 22 of the state’s large metro areas have seen a decline in their middle class, according to a recent Pew Research Center study. Los Angeles, in particular, has suffered among the largest hollowing out of the middle-income population in the country. In places like the Bay Area, there’s a growing upper class, while in less glamorous places like Sacramento, it’s the low end that is expanding at the expense of the middle echelons.

The economy, too, has been tending toward ever more bifurcation, with some growth in tech and business services, largely in the Bay Area. Elsewhere, the overwhelming majority of jobs created since 2007 have come from lower-paying professions, such as health and education and hospitality, or, recently, from real estate-related activities. Overall, traditional, higher-paying, blue-collar jobs – such as construction and durable goods manufacturing – have continued to lose ground. Most California metropolitan areas, most notably Los Angeles, lag most key national competitors — including Texas metro areas, Phoenix, Nashville, Tenn., Charlotte, N.C., and Orlando, Fla. — in higher-paid new jobs in business services and finance.

But the biggest losers of egalitarian aspirations have been the constituencies most loudly embraced by the state’s progressive establishment: black and brown Californians. Nowhere is this disparity greater than in home ownership, the signature measure of upward mobility and entrance into the middle class. Overall, Latino homeownership in California is 41.9 percent; nationally, it’s 45 percent, and in Texas it’s 55 percent. Similarly, among African Americans, homeownership is down to 34 percent in California, compared to 41 percent nationally and 40.8 percent in Texas. In Los Angeles, which has the lowest overall homeownership percentage among the nation’s largest metro areas, only 37 percent of Hispanics own their own homes, compared to 50 percent in Dallas-Fort Worth.

CALIFORNIA’S ROAD FORWARD--One popular progressive theory for how to address the economy lies in trying to emulate places like Massachusetts, a state whose per-capita income ranks among the highest in the country. Yet, this approach fails to confront the huge demographic differences between the states.

Let’s start with ethnicity. Eighty percent of Massachusetts’ population is comprised of non-Hispanic whites or Asians, who traditionally have higher incomes, while in California whites and Asians constitute only 52 percent. Some 80 percent of the Boston metropolitan area is non-Hispanic white or Asian, compared to only 46 percent the population in the Los Angeles-Orange County area, and 40 percent in the Inland Empire. California has a poverty rate, adjusted for housing costs, of 23.4 percent, while Massachusetts, with its lower share of more heavily disadvantaged minority populations, registers just 13.8 percent.

California could only resemble Massachusetts if it successfully unloaded much of its disadvantaged minority and working-class population. Although some might celebrate the movement of poorer people out of the state, our poverty rate is unlikely to decrease, since historically disadvantaged ethnicities (African Americans and Hispanics) account for 58 percent of the under-18 population in California, and only 25 percent in Massachusetts.

Simply put, California faces a gargantuan challenge of generating a better standard of living for a huge proportion of its population. To be sure, both the San Francisco and San Jose metropolitan areas can thrive, like Massachusetts, in a highly education-driven economy. But states like California, Texas and Florida are too diverse, in class and race, to follow the “Massachusetts model.” We need good blue-collar and white-collar, middle-income jobs to keep a more diverse, and somewhat less well-educated, population adequately housed and fed.

This should be the primary concern of our state. But the governor and legislators seem more interested today in re-engineering our way of life than improving outcomes. True, if you drive up housing and energy prices, some of the poor will leave, but so, too, will young people, the future middle class. Though our largest coastal metropolitan counties — Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo and San Francisco — have long been younger than the rest of country, soon they will be more gray than the nation.

The demographic future of California seems increasingly at odds with the broad “dream” that Starr and others evoke so powerfully. We are headed ever more toward a state of divided realities, of poorer, downwardly mobile people, largely in the interior and in inner-city Los Angeles or Oakland, and a rapidly aging, wealthier, whiter enclave hugging the coast. For those with the right education, inheritance and a large enough salary, the California dream still shines bright, but for the majority it seems like a dying light.

(Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com. Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, an international pubilc policy and demographics firm. This piece was was posted first by the LA Daily News and most recently by New Geography.)

-cw

THIS IS WHAT I KNOW--As “religious freedom” (or a pass to discriminate under the guise of religious convictions) continues to be a hot-button issue on the national stage, Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) is eliminating provisions from a California senate bill that would have made it more challenging for faith-based institutions to receive Title IX exemptions. 

“The goal for me has always been to shed the light on the appalling and unacceptable discrimination against LGBT students at these private religious institutions throughout California,” Lara told the Los Angeles Times. 

The bill as drafted faced strong opposition from religious colleges and some schools joined to create the Association of Faith Based Institutions and the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities to lobby against its passage. MassResistance and other protest groups also encouraged people to petition their local assembly members. 

Religious institutions had objected to the initial bill because many believed the provisions would leave them vulnerable to lawsuits and would infringe upon their right to follow their religious values. Lara has amended the bill to remove restrictions, which would allow colleges to maintain their faith-based standards. The institutions would be required to notify the public of their exemption status and provide information about disciplinary actions based on their sexual orientation. 

The bill as originally drafted would have placed obstacles on schools that include sexual orientation in decisions about admission, accommodation, or housing. Colleges would need to advertise their Title IX exempt status. When religious institutions claimed the bill would force them to act against their standards of conduct and would also leave them open to lawsuits, Lara revisited the bill. 

The amended bill, which now has support of many California colleges, has been approved in the state Senate and will be heard by the Assembly Appropriations Committee on Thursday. 

Accommodating institutions and businesses that would practice religious-sanctioned discrimination, typically against LGBT and women, is a slippery slope. As the American Civil Liberties Union position states, “While the situations may differ, one thing remains the same; religion is being used as an excuse to discriminate against and harm others.” 

During the sixties, institutions opposed integration laws, stating their religious beliefs promoted separation of races. Colleges and universities affiliated with religious institutions would refuse to admit students in interracial relationships. 

Freedom of religion means protecting one’s right to practice religion without providing the right to discriminate against and impose beliefs on others who do not share those beliefs. While this bill does place some limits on religious colleges, it allows discriminatory practices under the guise of religion. Balancing the rights of institutions to operate under their religious moral code with protecting others from discriminatory practices is a slippery slope.

(Beth Cone Kramer is a Los Angeles writer and a columnist for CityWatch.)

-cw

PERSPECTIVE--State Senator Bob Hertzberg is a smart man; smart enough to know the power of language. According to his bio, as an undergraduate English major, he wrote a 400-page handbook titled A Commonsense Approach to English.

To paraphrase a quote attributed to the late US Senator Everett Dirksen: A deft turn of a definition here, and a subtle re-characterization there, the next thing you know, we are dealing with some serious money!

And that has been Hertzberg’s game plan since he returned to the legislature in December 2014.

He introduced SB 8, a bill cloaked by a seemingly harmless name – the Upward Mobility Act. The senator described it as a tool to “modernize” the state’s tax structure. He admitted it would be designed to yield another $10B in tax revenue.   

The bill died, but that did not stop Bob from reintroducing a replacement: SB 1445.  

As SB 8 proposed, this new bill would extend the application of sales tax to services, a direct hit to all segments of society – the middle class, most notably. As he did with SB 8, he is characterizing it as “modernization.”

The only thing being modernized is the state’s access to our wallets.

But the “serial hugger” is not stopping there.  He again whipped out his English to Taxation dictionary to conjure up SB 1298.

His objective is to do an end run around Prop 218’s requirement for voter approval of tax increases by redefining “sewer service” to include storm water projects. Perhaps “serial wordsmith” would serve as a better moniker for him. Please read the excellent editorial concerning 1298 in the Daily News. 

The bill has a worthwhile objective.  It is designed to encourage recovery of storm water. No one is arguing with the benefits it offers to our drought-stricken state.

But it is dangerous to override the benefits of government transparency and the legislative process.

Californians are being asked to pony up more cash to fund a growing list of expensive projects.  In Los Angeles alone, we are being asked to pass a permanent increase in the sales tax for the MTA. The city and county are considering spending over a billion dollars to provide housing to the homeless.  There is also the trainwreck of HSR absorbing funds that could be used to enhance the state’s water capacity.

Our state and local governments have no grasp of prioritization.  Capital budgeting is completely absent in the minds of Hertzberg, his colleagues in Sacramento and counterparts at the local level.

Taxpayers have a right to weigh in on what needs attention and the means of paying.  To do so requires presenting the big picture of competing needs. Let the people decide what is most important and authorize appropriate funding levels.

We do not have unlimited funds; we can only afford what can be sustained without breaking the bank.

Sneaking around the voters and playing word games, as Hertzberg has been doing, is disrespectful to all of us.

(Paul Hatfield is a CPA and serves as President of the Valley Village Homeowners Association. He blogs at Village to Village and contributes to CityWatch. The views presented are those of Mr. Hatfield and his alone and do not represent the opinions of Valley Village Homeowners Association or CityWatch. He can be reached at: [email protected].)

-cw

MAKE A REPORT--There is no room for illegal and unethical behavior in politics – especially local politics. Yet, it looks like there is a continuing trend of campaign property being stolen over in LA County in the race for 4^th District Supervisor. This is a much watched contest that could change the direction of the LA County Board of Supervisors for years to come.  The race is between Steve Napolitano and Janice Hahn. 

We’re asking for your help identifying the person seen here in this video.

If you recognize this person or have information regarding this theft, send an email to [email protected].  

Napolitano staff and volunteers noticed that a large number of Napolitano for Supervisor campaign yard signs went missing after their opponent’s signs went up during the primary.  

This disturbing trend of thefts and vandalism appears to be continuing now into the general election. 

This past week, the staff and volunteers saw another big spike in the number of missing campaign signs, especially in the San Pedro area.  

But we now have a video that shows someone in the act of stealing a Napolitano campaign sign. 

I am hoping CityWatch readers will take a close look and let me know who this is.   DO YOU RECOGNIZE THIS PERSON? Send an email to [email protected].  

Please help identify whoever is in this video.  This is a very important election and taking down campaign signs shouldn’t be a part of it.

(This video and this story were provided by a San Pedro resident who has asked to remain anonymous.)

-cw

NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL WATCH-Saturday morning July 30, Budget Day was indeed “on” at City Hall. Breakfast started at 7:30 a.m. as LA Neighborhood Council (NC) members co-mingled in the Art Deco style chambers. An hour later at the City Council chambers, a plenary session of speakers, namely City Officials and NC Budget Advocates shined the light on past and present city budget matters. In the second and final session NC Budget Representatives by regions elected new Budget Advocates for fiscal year 2016-17. 

Empower-LA Administrator for Budget Day Mike Fong said that about 200 people registered electronically. At the event, Jay Handal counted about 200 attendees. “I did a head count while standing there,” he said. 

Liz Amsden, BA Co-Chair, opened the ceremony with, “…we provide role models in our communities and for our leaders, and see positive outcomes. That’s why we’re here today to learn a little more to be able to give our neighbors a hand, not to make money but to develop and nurture human capital.” 

Then, BA Co-Chair Terrence Gomes reminded the NC members that the purpose of NCs is to be a conduit between our stakeholders and City Hall. Gomes said, “… for some of you in the valley, it’s a long way for your stakeholders to yell over here for us to hear, that’s why the neighborhood council system was started.” 

Four years ago, the Budget Advocates started interviewing departments and saw ways of saving money for the city. Gomes elaborated, “We saw what needed to be done and saw a vision for the city. We wrote the White Papers, to give guidance to the City.” 

General Manager of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE), Grayce Liu, announced that this budget year her Department started with 26 employees to work with the 96 NCs. City has added 10 staffers with an additional four coming in from the Office of the City Clerk, she reported. On the field side, six new staffers will soon be hired and trained to attend NC meetings. Liu asked for a show of hands of first timers in the audience and 50% raised their hands. She welcomed them as she closed. 

In succession, City Council President Herb Wesson introduced himself as the chair of the committee that oversees the NC system. He said, “We have accomplished a lot with you as my partners and equal participants. We have increased the budget by $5,000 for each NC, so you can deliver the services that your NC areas need.” 

As a result of the partnership, Councilman Wesson assisted in putting in place a new policy: NC members can speak during public comment time at City Council and Committee Meetings for up to five minutes at the discretion of the presiding officer.

In addition, Wesson said that, as he visited NCs throughout the City, he met many members with concerns related to accounting issues, specifically, “not getting reimbursements in time or a lot of rules shifting and things of this nature.” In January, as a tentative solution, the accounting functions of DONE will be moved to the Office of the City Clerk. Wesson added, “It has expertise in making payments. I believe it will be better and if it doesn’t work we’ll change it again. Let’s don’t be afraid to fail. And if we do, we’ll fix it.” 

Next, City Controller Ron Galperin briefly discussed the LA City Controller homepage that links to four distinct panels: ControlPanel LA, Utility/Panel LA, GeoPanel LA, and EconomyPanel LA. Galperin said that these tools are to be used to make government spending decisions that are data driven and wise. 

“For example, the Economy Panel shows in what districts people are using the most public transportation; displays the income levels across the City per District; and includes which districts have the highest and lowest number of renters verses homeowners. Also a search is available for neighborhood council expenditures by NC name. “The more this tool is used, the more aspects you’ll find,” Galperin said. 

Then, Chief Administrator Officer (CAO) Miguel Santana provided a detailed overview on how the City of Los Angeles manages its budget. 

Santana said that the total budget for any department with a seal of the City is $25 million; this includes the LA Airport, LA Harbor, and LADWP. The total number of City employees is 48,000. 

Santana oversees the City’s $8.7 billion budget, including: 

• $5.5 Billion are discretionary, general funds with no restriction on how they can be spent
• $3.2 billion are nondiscretionary, special funds with specific purposes. 

Some of the City Reserve Accounts coming out of the General Fund include these percentages: 2.5% for an emergency reserve; 5% covers two reserves contingency and emergency; 1.6% is set aside for capital improvements to repair sidewalks, streets, facilities, etc. Included is a rainy day fund for an emergency crisis. In addition, the city has “a one-time use fund that we use for one-time things,” Santana said. This is the second year this money category has been used, as in, for capital improvements, he said. 

Most of the money from the Discretionary Fund (over 70%) goes for public safety to pay for Police and Fire Departments; 4.6% goes to libraries; 5.8% to recreation and parks; 8.5% for Street Services, Transportation, Engineering, Contract Administration, Capital Improvements, Building and Safety, and Planning; and, 3% for the City Attorney. 

“Most of our revenue comes from property taxes; this is the most stable of all of our funding sources, it is the stability of the city,” Santana said. “Most of our sales tax does not come to the city; it goes to state and county.” 

In prior years, the city “was banking overtime to police officers at time and a half” with collection at retirement. Santana said that the most responsible way to do it is to budget $90 million. “This is about the amount necessary to keep the public safety capacity at the existing level,” he said. 

“It’s in the City Charter that at the end of the year the budget is balanced,” Santana said. “This year it is balanced.” 

Budget Advocate Jay Handal has been working with homeless issues for 28 years. He opposes the $1 billion bond that will be on the ballot this November. It would provide funds to be spent over the next 10 years for the homeless. 

Handal said that the city finds money to build brand new animal shelters for stray animals, yet “we walk over the homeless on the streets who have to defecate on the streets because they have no place to live and no place to shower.” 

Presently there are 27, 000 homeless living on the streets of Los Angeles. “And that number will grow, not stay the same in the next 10 years,” Handal said. 

Living on the streets exacerbates illness and leads to the use of a variety of public systems that taxpayers fund. This is very inefficient and costly. It's the responsibility of the government and not the taxpayers to provide money to create permanent supportive housing for the homeless. 

Jay Handal (left) opposes the $1 billion bond because there are too many unanswered questions, such as: 

Where is the real plan written? 

How many supportive units will fit in the seven proposed properties? 

Over what period of time will these 10,000 units be built? 

How many units per year? When will construction begin? 

Who picks the developers? How would developers get their financing? 

Who picks the nonprofits to run this type of project? 

How much money will be used to persuade neighborhoods to accept these projects? 

How much money will be spent when people oppose the projects? 

Who will pick the community expediters to go out to negotiate for the construction of these buildings? 

How much money will go for litigation costs for CEQA and EIRS when environmental issues arise?

Does the Planning Department have the personnel for these activities? 

The next speaker was Councilman Paul Krekorian from CD 2 who is the Chair of the City Council Budget and Finance Committee. 

Krekorian recounted how a former Mayor of Los Angeles once wrote an editorial for the Wall Street Journal, predicting it was inevitable that Los Angeles would be bankrupt within three years. Krekorian said, “In 2010 the challenge that we were facing was monumental, we couldn’t figure out where the bottom was.” 

He specified that the City had projected a $1 billion deficit, with a general funds budget of 4.75 billion. “Since then, in the last two years, we’ve rebuilt our reserve funds by far more than we’ve ever had in history.” 

Krekorian said allowing Budget Advocates to have a seat at the table for budget discussions with general managers and the mayor’s budget office has created a collaborative effort contributing to the process of recovery. 

Krekorian noted that over the last three years, the City has appropriated $30 million a year for infrastructure costs, including the repair of city sidewalks to offer better mobility for our four million residents. He added, “We’ve cut unemployment in half. We hired 15,000 people in summer youth jobs this year so they can build a better future for themselves.” 

Councilman Krekorian thanked the NC members for being engaged and staying involved. He said, “Government is an ongoing process that never stops.”

(Connie Acosta writes about Los Angeles neighborhood councils for CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

GUEST WORDS--Hopefully, in the next week or two the Los Angeles City Council will take action to correct a technical defect in its current policy for permitting second dwelling units. This action is both critical and necessary for the city to comply with state housing laws, and to give relief to hundreds of homeowners whose permits have become vulnerable due to a court's ruling against the city. 

The City Council's action on this issue is the right thing to do for a city dealing with one of the worst housing situations in the nation, a situation that makes it nearly impossible for kids to live near their parents, or elderly parents near their children.

While this action will not solve the housing crisis by any means, it is an important step forward toward giving people options to use their current homes to accommodate growing families in a difficult housing market.

For some background, the story of how the Los Angeles's second unit policy became newsworthy in 2016 is not significantly different from many other hot-button urban planning and housing related issues: a NIMBY lawsuit originating in a wealthy neighborhood.

Since 2010, after working for a better part of a decade to catch up to state mandated standards, the city has been permitting second units without controversy. The permitting scheme applied, as guided by state standards, were extremely conservative in that they only allowed for second units that comply with all "height, setback, lot coverage, architectural review, site plan review, fees, charges and other zoning requirements generally applicable to… the zone."

They were also restricted in size to be less than 1,200 square feet. Given these restrictions, and the array of other complications involved in constructing anything sizable on a single family lot, only a modest 50 to 60 second units have been permitted annually over the last five years in a city of almost four million people.

The city's second unit policy was working, and it was helping to keep families together while providing new housing opportunities in otherwise fully built-out single-family residential zones.

Last year however, after a Cheviot Hills family attempted to build an 850-square-foot "granny flat" for their elderly grandfather, a litigious neighbor objected and made it clear that he would stop at nothing to kill this relatively small addition to their home. The neighbor, an experienced attorney himself, went ahead and hired additional lawyers and began to lay siege against the city and the family to stop the second unit.

In doing so, the neighbor was able to get a court to find that the city's latest second unit permitting policy, which has been in flux for more than three decades in response to state legislation, had a technical deficiency that made it invalid.

That court decision meant that not only was the Cheviot Hills family's second unit potentially permitted improperly, but so to were hundreds of others permitted before it and dozens since. Now, with an invalid second unit ordinance and a team of NIMBY lawyers demanding a quarter of a million dollars in attorney's fees, the city is doing the right thing to clear up the technical defect and re-adopt the second unit policy. Doing so will not only fix hundreds of permits that are currently hanging in the balance, but it will help quell the costly litigation on this issue once and for all.

To stop the city from fixing the situation, however, the same team of NIMBY lawyers has been spreading misinformation to community groups and homeowners in an attempt create controversy and debate.

In order to strike fear in homeowners groups, they continue to make baseless and unsupported claims that the city's second unit policy provides for unrestricted and "weak" regulations of second units, and that the city has an "existing ordinance" that should be preserved. These claims however, are completely detached from reality.

Firstly, as noted above, any second unit addition must comply with the basic requirements of the underlying zone. There is no unfettered right to build a second unit as opponents contend. Second, the opposition's call to preserve the existing restrictions in the municipal code is both absurd and dangerous. There is no question that the municipal code provisions on second units are not only antiquated, but also unquestionably in violation of state law as written. 

If the city seeks to preserve or "reinterpret" these antiquated standards, as certain groups have called for, not only will the city be subjected to more and more litigation by all those homeowners that have relied on city permits, but it will leave hundreds stranded with potentially unpermitted second units. It will also mean the continuation of the city's costly and never-ending struggle to comply with the state's second unit mandates. This is not a reasonable pathway forward for a city in a housing crisis, and the City should not attempt to avoid taking necessary legislative actions because of NIMBY pressure.

Accordingly, the city cannot kick this can down the road any longer, and must act now to correct its second unit policy. Not only will this action assure that the city's standards comply with state law, but it will help avoid future litigation expenses, while also protecting those people that have relied on the city's second unit permitting programs for the past decade.

(Daniel Freedman is a land use attorney and environmental advocate focused on regional planning issues and sustainable development. This article was posted most recently at Planetizen.) 

-cw

CONNECTING CALIFORNIA--Ventura County is the most glorious and verdant of California kingdoms.

Just ask its princes and princesses—those fortunate enough to be able to afford to live and vote there. Most of the time, the nearly 900,000 residents can pretend that they live in the country, even though they’re part of greater Los Angeles. Parks or open space or farmland is almost always within easy walking or biking distance. The Santa Clara River, the least developed of Southern California’s waterways, is being protected. The Kingdom of Ventura’s cities remain separate and distinct developments on the landscape—they haven’t sprawled and melted into each other, like cities do elsewhere in Southern California.

Their secret? “No other county in the United States has more effective protections against urban sprawl,” says the web site of SOAR, aka Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources, a family of growth-controlling ballot measures.

Those SOAR protections have been fixed in the laws of the county and its cities for two decades. SOAR permits development only within certain urban cores in the county and makes no allowances for population growth. And if a developer wants to change the boundaries or develop open space outside the areas where growth is permitted, that developer can’t buy off the county supervisors or a city council. SOAR requires any development in protected open space be approved by the voters.

Ventura voters like the results so much they are moving to make them all but permanent this November, when they vote on county and city measures that would extend SOAR protections through 2050.

In practice, this has made the Kingdom a mighty fortress. Those sprawling suburban housing developments that fill up the San Fernando Valley to the east and the Santa Clarita Valley to the north? They stop at the county’s edge. It’s almost as if Ventura County has built a wall against growth along its border—and made neighboring Los Angeles pay for it.

All of which makes SOAR worth celebrating. But there is a problem with those walls, and within the Kingdom. And that problem is not the wonderful things that growth restrictions have done. It’s what the princes and princesses of the Kingdom have failed to do. (Photo left:A group of SOAR volunteers in Ventura County)

Smart growth strategies like SOAR are not merely supposed to preserve open space. At their best, they are designed to promote smart growth—to drive more creative, dense, multi-family, and transit-oriented development in the urban cores where growth is still permitted. But the Kingdom has been far from welcoming to this type of development.

Yes, you can find smart, denser growth in the city of Ventura, particularly around its downtown. But infill development in Ventura County has lagged far behind what’s needed to serve the Kingdom’s growing population and its housing needs. The same citizens of the Kingdom who back SOAR also have opposed multifamily and denser developments (Thousand Oaks even passed a ballot measure limiting density), and resisted investments in public transit to connect their urban cores.

The results are as obvious as the choking traffic on the 101 Freeway and the astronomical housing prices. Ventura County is one of the 10 least affordable places to live in the United States. It’s been very difficult for middle-class people, much less lower-income people, to make their homes there, and that makes it hard for companies to locate there. Many service workers have to commute from outside the county.

“We need to understand that there is an uncertain capacity within our urban boundaries to accommodate job growth,” Bruce Stenslie, president of the Economic Development Collaborative of Ventura County, said during a public conference earlier this year on SOAR. “Which doesn’t mean that we should tear down the urban boundaries, it means we need to be a little more mature about questions concerning in-fill development and higher density.”

Of course such immaturity about growth—and high housing prices and inequality and traffic—is not limited to Ventura County. What’s frustrating is that after 20 years, the Kingdom doesn’t seem to have learned its lesson. The current proposed renewal of SOAR doesn’t include any new flexibility to account for population growth—and it’s not linked to any broader effort to do more infill development in the cores.

This represents at best a missed opportunity—and at worst an example of mass public selfishness.

Matthew Fienup, an economist with Cal Lutheran University’s Center for Economic Research and Forecasting (who likes to talk about how much he loves living across the street from orchards), points out that there are myriad ways to require more regular analysis and adjustments of the boundaries, and to put management of the boundaries in the hands of planners, instead of the hands of people with the money to put questions to voters. Fienup suggests that the county would be better off establishing tradable development rights that would protect the same amount of land while bringing some flexibility to the boundaries.

… it’s great if your community wants to protect open space from development, but then you don’t get to block denser development, housing, and transit in your already developed spaces.

But in its intransigence, Ventura is an example of the California disease—grab your piece of the Kingdom, and then keep out anyone who might come in after you. And few in Ventura seem to care that the county, like other urban coastal places in California, has seen such a decline in its number of children and young families that it might eventually resemble a well-off senior living community.

In California, local growth restrictions are only one small part of how the old block the young. State laws make housing development slow and costly. Prop 13 provisions keep their property taxes low, encouraging people to stay in their homes longer, which reduces the supply of homes on the market.

This local anti-growth bias is now a major statewide issue as California faces a crisis in housing affordability and availability—for anyone but the most affluent. To push back against anti-growth local communities, Gov. Brown is championing legislation that would exempt many urban housing developments from environmental or local government review.

Many localities have responded to this statewide push defiantly, via local ballot measures that block growth and housing, as the Voice of San Diego documented recently. The least responsible cities are going beyond growth boundaries to impose anti-density restrictions. The most reactionary of these ballot initiatives comes from Santa Monica, which was just connected to the LA rail system by LA county taxpayers. That rail connection should inspire denser, transit-oriented development. But anti-growth Santa Monicans want to derail all this by requiring a vote of the people on most developments taller than two stories.

The defense of those backing anti-growth measures is disingenuous: If you don’t like restrictions, you can go to the ballot. But that argument is an invitation for development to be determined by a showdown between NIMBY demagoguery and self-interested political money, as opposed to any rational long-range planning.

One lesson from Ventura County is that growth boundaries like SOAR shouldn’t be pursued in isolation. They need to be tied to rock-solid requirements for creating more housing, both for low-income and middle-income people. To put it another way, it’s great if your community wants to protect open space from development, but then you don’t get to block denser development, housing, and transit in your already developed spaces.

If Ventura County wants to wall off growth in its open areas until the end of time, fine. But it must be compelled to open gates in its walls big enough to bring much more progressive development into the Kingdom.

(Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square … where this piece was originally posted.)

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PLATKIN ON PLANNING-In Los Angeles there are now so many programs and proposals to deregulate zoning and environmental regulations, all hiding behind a “business friendly” cover story of promoting affordable housing, that it can make your head spin. The real story, though, promoting real estate speculation, is always kept deep in the shadows. 

Along with other CityWatch writers, I have frequently tried to shine a light on these programs, including rebuttals of their unsubstantiated claims that the deregulation of zoning and environmental laws magically produces affordable housing for an impending population boom. 

By now, City Watch readers have read about many of these sand castles, including Community Plan Update land use ordinances, Community Plan Implementation Ordinances (CPIO), SB 1818/Density bonuses, Value Capture policies, Transit Oriented Districts (TOD), re:code LA, Second Units, Home Sharing and Short-term rentals, Transit Neighborhood Plans, Small Lot Subdivisions, and Baseline Mansionization Ordinance loopholes. 

Furthermore, year-in and year-out, Governor Jerry Brown and the California State Legislature pitch similar proposals. If adopted, they would exempt an expanding range of local real estate projects from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and local discretionary reviews. These statewide proposals, too, are based on the same bogus claim: deregulation increases the supply of affordable housing. 

While all of these programs are different, the same threads run through them. They neglect to consider the following in their pursuit of a quick buck: 

Public Services and Infrastructure: The politicians, planners, and publicists pushing these programs never bring up the increased public services and public infrastructure that these new buildings and their occupants require. Even though this concern is clearly spelled out in LA’s legally adopted General Plan Framework’s policy 3.3, it is always ignored. Policy 3.3 should: 

Accommodate projected population and employment growth within the City and each community plan area and plan for the provision of adequate supporting transportation and utility infrastructure and public services. 

The increases in building mass, traffic, and population resulting from this laundry list of real estate schemes are totally disconnected from daily life in Los Angeles. Will the new buildings, cars, and people need more street capacity? More street parking? More sidewalks? More bicycle lanes? More schools? Parks? Playgrounds? Animal Shelters? Electricity? Water? Fire and police protection? Garbage collection? Libraries? Street cleaning and garbage collection? In the blinkered world of the deregulators, their fevered predictions of soaring population only head down one path: sparking a building boom by eviscerating zoning and environmental laws. They never lead to expanded public services and upgraded public infrastructure. 

By also separating out the consequences of building permits from the legally required General Plan, these many real estate hustles also lead to a cascade of other municipal failures. They not only divorce zoning from the General Plan, but also the City’s Capital Improvement (CIP), which is another essential (but ignored) General Plan implementation program. Likewise, another overlooked plan implementation program, the City’s budget, which folds in the staffing levels and work programs of all City departments, is severed from the willy-nilly granting of otherwise illegal building permits. 

Urban Design: The deregulators’ version of the “urban growth machine” also ignores the design implications of their real estate investments. Even though the City Council unanimously adopted the General Plan Framework Element, which has an entire chapter on Urban Form and Neighborhood Design, as well as appended design guidelines for residential, commercial, and industrial projects, the visual impact of these helter-skelter projects flies below the decision makers’ radar. In some cases there are even local design guidelines, such as Miracle Mile’s Community Design Overlay District, that deep-pocketed political muscle easily dispenses with, approving such hideous buildings as the Peterson Museum and currently-under-construction Museum of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. (rendering photo above) 

Deemed consistent with the Miracle Mile Community Design Overlay District! 

Likewise, the City’s official planning documents all indicate that new projects must be consistent with the character and scale of existing neighborhoods. For example, this is standard language in all Community Plans. 

1-3.1 Promote architectural compatibility and landscaping for new Multiple Family residential development to protect the character and scale of existing residential neighborhoods. 

Great words, but they have absolutely no bearing on the luxury mega-projects supposedly offering affordable housing. Such high-rise structures are at least three times the height of surrounding buildings, like the upscale residential complexes proposed for 333 LaCienega, 8150 Sunset, and the Cumulus Project at the corner of Jefferson and Fairfax. 

As a result, LA’s residents not only have to endure such pervasive visual blight as bootlegged signs, billboards, super-graphics, overhead wires, and streets barren of trees, but also new, over-sized projects that clash with neighborhood character and scale. 

Monitoring: These out-of-character, out-of-scale, under-supported projects typically make pie-in-the-sky claims to obtain their official approvals. Promises of transit use, sustainability, and jobs flow like the first flush of wastewater into Santa Monica Bay after an early autumn deluge. But, there is no requirement that developers verify any of their wild-eyed claims. There are no consequences if they don’t pan out, even when they are the basis for City Council decisions, such as Statements of Overriding considerations to sideline Environmental Impact Reports. Likewise, no building permits or Certificates of Occupancy are ever revoked since no one at City Hall ever double-checks the developers’ crystal balls. 

Next Steps: The pell-mell efforts of real estate speculators to deregulate zoning and CEQA means the planning process and its implementation through zoning, environmental reviews, Capital Improvement Programs, and the City’s Budget are all being thrown under the bus. The resulting mishmash of unrestrained market-driven projects is fraught with dire consequences that surpass their plug ugliness. They endlessly degrade the physical environment and quality of life for LA’s residents, employees, and visitors. Despite their short-term profits quickly whisked away to offshore bank accounts in the Caribbean and Panama, LA’s persistent economic decline will speed up and possibly enter free fall. 

From my perspective, the only local solution in sight is the coalescence of many isolated movements separately opposing numerous local projects. At this point this means the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative and its sponsor, the Coalition for Preserve LA, and its supporters, such as United Neighborhoods for Los Angeles. 

(Dick Platkin reports on city planning issues for City Watch. He welcomes comments, criticisms, and corrections at [email protected].) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

VOX POP--Silver Lake residents met last night to further bolster an organized effort to fight a highly controversial mega-project proposed for Sunset Junction, a longtime and much-beloved community gathering spot. The group of more than 20 men and women was given a tutorial by Dr. Tom Williams about the ins and outs of an environmental impact report (EIR).

Silver Lake residents are concerned that the mega-project by developer Frost/Chaddock for Sunset Junction will destroy the character of their culturally important and historic community while also creating gridlock traffic. The developer wants to build three, large mixed-use buildings on three different sites along Sunset Boulevard. 

Community activists have already formed the group Save Sunset Junction, and are gearing up to deliver comments on the project’s environmental impact report. On Tuesday night, Williams, an EIR expert, gave them tips about writing effective opposition letters. Save Sunset Junction members invite all Angelenos to join their cause. 

The event, which was held at Akbar on Sunset Boulevard, was sponsored by the Coalition to Preserve LA.

(Patrick Range McDonald writes for the Coalition to Preserve LA where this piece was first posted.)

-cw

EXODUS 2016--More people are leaving California than coming, and it is the poorest and least-educated residents who are leading the exodus, according to a new report from Beacon Economics and the independent nonpartisan organization Next 10. [[http://next10.org/sites/next10.huang.radicaldesigns.org/files/california-migration.pdf ]]

California saw a net loss of 625,000 residents from 2007-2014, and 469,800 of those people did not have a bachelor's degree. The vast majority earned less than $30,000 a year, lured away to cheaper states like Texas, Nevada and Oregon.

California’s high housing costs are becoming a bigger problem for the state’s employers, said the study’s lead author, economist Chris Thornberg.

“We do need to have an economy that’s welcoming to all different kinds of folks, not just the most well-heeled,” said Thornberg.

But while lower-income people leave, there’s been a net increase of 52,700 residents making over $50,000 a year who have a bachelor's degree. However, as Thornberg knows from personal experience, even those making relatively high wages have trouble affording housing in Southern California.

“I’m paying some of my master’s students $75,000 to $80,000 a year, and these guys don’t have a prayer of buying a house in West L.A.,” said Thornberg.

Housing prices are only expected to rise the next couple of years, according to the UCLA Anderson Forecast. 

The good news is employment growth has been strong, with California seeing some of the highest rates of post-recession job growth in the nation. 

“California has an employment boom with a housing problem,” said Thornberg.

The report notes that people in California spend more of their income on housing than anywhere else in the country.

(This Ben Bergman piece originated at KPCC.)

QUEST FOR JUSTICE-This past Saturday marked the 26th day of a City Hall sit-in by activists from Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, a protest that shows no signs of ending any time soon. The group vows to stay encamped in front of the James K. Hahn annex until Mayor Eric Garcetti fires Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck or Beck resigns. The action started July 12, soon after the Los Angeles Police Commission ruled that the fatal shooting of Redel Jones, a 30-year-old African American woman, was within department policy. According to police, she had lunged at officers with a knife in Baldwin Hills. 

In addition to calling for Beck’s removal (BLM says he leads the nation’s most murderous police department), the group’s other demands of the city and its police commission, as stated in a flyer distributed on site, are: 

• The establishment of a partnership with the City Council to develop a reparations policy for police-violence victims and their families. 

• Hold police commission meetings that are open and accessible to the community. 

• The appointment of community advocates to key commission seats. 

• Adhere to quarterly town hall-type meetings as was tentatively negotiated in July of 2015. 

In contrast to other BLM protests that have taken place across the country, the action downtown is designed to draw attention to the group’s goals and demands in a peaceful rather than confrontational manner. From the looks of its improvised bivouac, BLM Los Angeles is in it for the long haul. A stereo is on site that provides a steady flow of music, there are about a dozen red and blue tents pitched along North Main Street and in the mall area, and there are tables, chairs, a well-stocked food station and a stack of milk crates that offer a hefty selection of books and other reading material. 

“Night before last, we had close to 100 people out here,” says Greg Akili, a BLM activist and organizer. “We also had a large group of people from a Pilipino feminist organization that joined us for the night and donated $300.” Many other donations, he added, have come from white citizens who have stopped by and expressed concerns about police shootings of unarmed black men.

So far, City Hall and the LAPD have been noticeably tolerant of the protestors – which wasn’t the case in January of last year, when activists camped outside LAPD headquarters were eventually evicted, with two members being arrested. There have been some minor disputes with the police involving the placement of the tents and when they have to be taken down during the day, notes Courtney Echols, a volunteer and University of California, Irvine PhD candidate studying racial violence. 

Rudy, another BLM volunteer, told Capital & Main that sometimes during the night cops “buzz” the site with their sirens, trying to disturb those asleep, but otherwise the activists have been left alone. Akili theorizes that the reason for the soft treatment is because the mayor is currently on business in Rio de Janeiro (to “meet with international sports officials and hone the city’s bid to host the 2024 summer Olympics,” according to the Los Angeles Times), and because, as Akili claimed, “they’re ignoring us, just hoping we will go away.” 

It is hard to imagine a conclusion that would be satisfactory to all concerned. There is no shortage of optimism among BLM members, however. Melina Abdullah (top photo ) is a BLM organizer and tenured professor at California State University, Los Angeles, where she chairs the Pan African Studies Department. When asked if she thought the outcome of the protest would be positive, she answered without hesitation: “We are here to stay, and we will be successful.” 

(Lovell Estell III is a Los Angeles-based freelancer who spent nine glorious years as a member of Ironworkers Local 416. His interests are American history, chess and theater. This piece first appeared at Capital & Main.)  Photo: Lovell Estell III. Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

FIRST HEARING REPORT-The developers, after a couple of years, finally submitted their environmental report to City Planning. Most everyone expected Planning to sign right off on it and push this project on … and they did exactly that. Now it proceeds to the public hearing process. 

We think that the nonsensical new name “apartment hotel” (that’s an 80/4 ratio of hotel rooms to apartments) may assist this commercial project to elude the Venice Specific Plan’s restriction against tying more than three commercial lots together. At this point, only the community can force a more thoughtful project out of the developers. 

ImagineVenice wrote a few other articles on this near city-block-long project comprised of an 80 room hotel with four apartments and a multitude of restaurants and other hotel services. When the writers first met with the developer years ago, we expressed support for a hotel in principle, and put forth a simple notion, one which more than likely would engender community support for the project --Build Less and Charge More. The developer demurred and said he was going to build to the “hotel model.” One can only assume that this “model” is one which the likes of Starwood, Hilton, or Marriott would find attractive as an acquisition property, ensuring a very big future payday. 

Our concern is that this hotel, being built over eight lots, is designed in such a way that it would negatively affect the nearby residential Oakwood community forever. We think this current scheme comprising more than 50,000 feet, creates ongoing risks to the children of Westminster School. 

Additionally, we believe that paramount and essential to any good hotel project would be a serious intention to control the truck traffic and car flow it generates. These are important and worrisome issues and they are being glossed over with PR and by various promo “meet and greets.” We doubt there are many pesky neighbors at these “outreach” events to ask the hard questions. There is an intensive PR effort to “put lipstick on a pig.” 

We know it is hard to believe, but this huge development does not have an off-street loading and unloading area. Why? Because the city code says that developments without an alley don’t have to have loading areas. But wouldn’t you think that a developer projecting real concern and love for the Venice community would allocate the necessary land to take all the delivery trucks and trash trucks off the street? Instead, the project will load entirely from three curbside parking spaces on Broadway. These three spaces are expected to handle all truck pick-ups and deliveries. We are expected to believe that like magic, trucks will arrive in synchrony and fit perfectly into these three curbside parking spaces. 

It would have been the right thing if the developer wanted, and was willing to give up, revenue earning land for this essential need. Clearly no moral imperative propelled them to do it for the benefit of the community. Imagine, in 2016 a huge project is going up without an off-street loading area.

It doesn’t matter how many inch-thick surveys and elegant reports with pages and pages of charts are generated by paid-for hotel consultants. They all say this project will have no on-going negative impact on the Venice community. The results of bad planning are all around us now. How much more of it should the community have to endure? 

We believe that all the fancy promised amenities of this project will do nothing to offset the forever damage it will cause Venice. The developer claims they are filling a need for hotel rooms for visitors -- but who will protect the residents from more traffic congestion and over-building in the community? Our old infrastructure just can’t take much more of it. 

So, what we have here is a giant project, the largest in-fill development ever built in Venice, which has the same truck loading standards as do our old historic buildings on Abbot Kinney. Venice is forced to accept, adapt and live with the conditions grandfathered long-ago. Must we now shut our eyes to the endless number of double-parked huge delivery trucks and those that fill the center lane of Abbot Kinney knowing that it will most certainly increase? We are an old town. We live daily with a parking mess created in the 1930’s and 40’s. Why must we accept a 20th Century solution in 2016? It does not have to be this way. 

When a new 80 room hotel, its four apartments and all the restaurants, retail, offices and spa are in full operation, traffic will surely get worse for Oakwood and for most of Venice. Trucks and cars are already directing themselves inland to avoid the growing congestion on Abbot Kinney and Lincoln. 

The alternate route mobile AppWayz aggravates people now by directing traffic into residential neighborhoods. But who can blame people for using it? It is just one of the tools people will find even more necessary as they try to move around this town. 

As we said originally to the developers and which we repeat again here -- Build Less and Charge More. There is still time to reduce the size of this huge project, provide essential off-street truck loading and un-loading and develop a traffic mitigation system to keep hotel-generated traffic out of the Oakwood community and protect the safety of school children. 

The community has an opportunity to weigh in and voice their concerns about this very important and powerful development. 

The time is now.

(Marian Crostic and Elaine Spierer are co-founders of Imagine Venice  … where this commentary was first posted.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

REMEMBERING SCOTT FOLSOM--Decades-long champion for public schools, Scott Folsom, died last week. Howard Blume wrote a beautiful obituary in the Los Angeles Times.  

I had the privilege of sitting down with Scott for the last time a couple of weeks ago. He was troubled not to have written his education homily the week before. He didn’t call it that, but it’s not far off. For years, district officials and parents religiously read Scott’s blog, 4LAkids, every Sunday. Board President Steve Zimmer and Superintendent Michelle King called Scott “the conscience of the district.” Steve said Scott had the ability to see when the emperor had no clothes. 

In this era when so many people have found ways to make money off of public education, Scott gave two decades of unpaid public service.  He was part watchdog, part caretaker. He criticized because he cared -- and he showed great care. His blog was a mix of notes from the many, many meetings he attended, chatter heard-around-the-water-cooler. Scott’s broad educational and cultural references were infused with his wit and intelligence. He had majored in political science in the 60s. If there were song lyrics that fit a situation, Scott included them. When we read Scott’s blog, we understood both LAUSD and the world better. And, with important exceptions, we usually forgave both. 

Scott had called me, hoping I could listen to his thoughts on the week’s education happenings and put them into a blog post. I was operating on hope, too, not only because of my deep admiration for him, but because of my awareness -- growing by the day -- that he was running out of time. He had decided to discontinue cancer treatments, saying he had chosen quality over quantity. But he quibbled about the quality part.

Scott gave this post its title. He had so much left to say and do, and we would all be better for his having said and done it. If I could help in any way, I was going to try. 

So I sat and talked with him for a couple of hours while the Republican National Convention played on the TV in his living room. 

Here is part of what he said between long pauses: 

The process to put these together does not make it easy to narrate or dictate or any of those kinds of “-tates.” 

I would love to be able to turn over a handful of my notes and have you make it whatever you will. The reality is I can never read my notes 24 hours later, and I don’t even know what I meant. I can read and toss ideas. My mind wanders completely. I love where it wanders. And now morphine makes all these new words. 

I guess I could do like Melania Trump and find something that’s pretty damn good and use it. I could probably get away with it longer than she did. 

But our campaign is education, and plagiarism is somewhere along with our sworn enemies. The Trump campaign, on the other hand, has storm-trooped -- not tiptoed -- through the tulips, and created its own reality. It’s born from reality TV -- and there is neither in either. 

I was listening to Melania’s speech. Public education! At least she mentioned public education!

This Trump escapade is such a colossal and monumental failure of ethics. Ethics in government, ethics in journalism. The fact that the Republicans let it go this far. The Democrats let it go this far.

All of us let it go THIS FAR. 

That the one little boy on the street corner didn’t point out that this particular emperor had no clothes.

Speaking of clothes, now for a subject that’s neither near nor dear, but very close to me.

I was reading somewhere -- I think it came out over the gender identification discussion. It was about the signs on the restroom doors. Somebody was commenting about how the color pink had not always been identified with girls. 

The haberdashery industry in the UK was all fixated with boys and girls, the ones the Dickens kids were aspiring to be. And so, in stories, if you were selling layettes, you sold pink ones to girls and blue ones to boys.

Amusing. Not the end of the world. 

But I’m coming from a different end of the market. 

I’m buying adult diapers. 

The female ones are pink. Why are we not surprised? 

But the male ones? I guess, my gender, in my day and age, blue doesn’t quite go with the GI Joe image. They’re green—Army Man green. 

[Long pause.] 

That was exhausting. 

It had taken Scott over a half hour to say that much. And he was drifting in and out. Then he said: 

I did a really bad job of downloading what went on in public education this week. There’s so much fun to be had, and not enough time, and way too much explanation about Gülen. You and I both know that all charter schools aren’t Gülen schools. But it’s our government money, meant to educate our children. 

[Pause.] 

The promise made to me before the bait and switch was ‘quality of life’. I don’t want to overdose on anything because I don’t want to miss anything. 

Scott had picked different people to take over what he’d be leaving behind. Rachel on the Bond Oversight Committee, Franny needling from the inside, me blogging. It says something that it takes three of us to do what Scott did, and those are the three I know about. I can’t speak for Rachel and Franny, but I can’t imagine I’ll live up to Scott’s example. The striving will make a difference though. So I will try.   

Late last week I heard Scott was nearing the end, and that he was worried. I called him the day before he died. I said, “Scott, you’ve done enough. We’ll take it from here.” 

“OK,” he said. “Don’t screw it up.”

Then, always thinking of others, Scott instructed, “Karen, take care of those who need our care.” 

So I will try.

(Karen Wolfe is a public school parent, the Executive Director of PS Connect and an occasional contributor to CityWatch.)

JUST THE FACTS--In politics there is always the rule of Strategy. Strategy gets your ideas moving forward and hopefully onto implementation. Elected officials and others in government services use Strategy on many programs and issues similar to what our military and law enforcement personnel use in the various programs designed to protect and serve our communities. Without Strategy, not much ever gets done. 

Not to be too critical of our elected officials but … I have been thinking about the kind of strategy that was going to be used to convince you to vote for more fees and taxes and bonds to handle problems that have been brewing for months and even years in the City and County of Los Angeles. 

Take for example the homeless situation in Los Angeles. We have all seen the negative impact on our neighborhoods and read about how it is going to be addressed. We know the police are not doing much of anything about it. Not because they want to see our communities run over by homeless, but because they have been following orders from police leaders who follow orders from the political leaders of our cities. We can all see it every day. 

The homeless population continues to grow. Many of our communities have become homeless camps. During a recent drive down Burbank Blvd in the Sepulveda Basin, I have found that the homeless are permanently camped in the wooded section of the area on the south side of Burbank Blvd. Some have erected large Army tents in the brush and even parked their cars in the camp. It is like going to Lake Arrowhead and camping in the woods. 

While our mayor declared the Homeless population in Los Angeles an Emergency a year or so ago, nothing much has been done to address or resolve the problem. Sure there have been some dollars directed toward the problem, but nothing of any significance when you look at the billions in the city’s current budget. 

While our Mayor and other Los Angeles City Elected Officials were on another council recess rubbing elbows with others in power at the Democratic National Convention others from the city council were overseas in foreign countries on a Sister City Mission. So, with no one watching the exploding homeless population chewing up more and more of our neighborhoods, nothing is being done. 

But wait. There is an answer. Remember ‘Strategy’. There is hope you that you will fall for the increase in taxes to address this out of control situation. Yes ladies and gentlemen, ignore the problem after you declare it an emergency and let the problem continue to grow so that the people who pay the taxes will get so fed up with the situation that they vote to support the new taxes. 

NEW Taxes in the Billions of dollars! 

Since the city has over an $8 Billion-plus General Fund this fiscal year, it is time to use existing money and finally address the problem that is not going away and only getting worse as the days pass. 

While the city has throwing a few thousand dollars to address the problem, little impact has been seen. The homeless are not washing away or going to other parts of the country. It is time for you the taxpayers to get off your collective asses and force your city officials to use existing funds to finally address the out of control homeless population in Los Angeles. 

We all hear about the great economy here in Los Angeles and California. If that is true, existing money is there to once and for all address the homeless crisis the is negatively impacting neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles. 

For the record, following the DNC our Mayor and his entourage traveled to Rio to view the 2016 Olympics since Los Angeles has put in a bid to host the 2024 Olympics in Los Angeles. This is great. It is 2016 and there are a lot of pressing issues on the plate before attention is generated to 2024.   

There is strength in numbers and we the taxpayers have the numbers to vote. There will be no less than four local tax and bond measures on the November Ballot. Transportation and homeless are the main ones gaining attention at this time. This will cost us BILLIONS over the coming years. Use your vote to tell city leaders NO NEW TAXES and No Bond Measures. We have existing measures that are still being paid off from years ago! 

As always, Zine is watching your pocketbook and holding people accountable.

(Dennis P. Zine is a 33-year member of the Los Angeles Police Department and former Vice-Chairman of the Elected Los Angeles City Charter Reform Commission, a 12-year member of the Los Angeles City Council and a current LAPD Reserve Officer who serves as a member of the Fugitive Warrant Detail assigned out of Gang and Narcotics Division. He writes Just the Facts for CityWatch. You can contact him at [email protected].)

-cw

CORRUPTION REPORT-Each week CityWatch has more articles that could be categorized as “Organized Crime is Ruining Las Angeles.” The technical name of the vehicle which the Mayor and City Council use in their destruction of Los Angeles is called “Accounting Control Fraud.” The biggest problem with Accounting Control Fraud is that the name puts everyone except certified public accountants to sleep. An alternate name is Criminal Accounting. 

Many readers will remember Enron whose wunderkind, CEO Ken Lay, was the toast of Dallas until he made toast of Enron through massive frauds. Los Angeles has its own wunderkind in Eric Garcetti. Garcetti’s mastery of Criminal Accounting is prodigious. 

The characteristic feature of Criminal Accounting is that the company or the city itself is the target of the fraud which is orchestrated by the executives. In a city, the insiders are the mayor and city council. Rather than using a Ponzi scheme to dupe individuals out of their money, the mayor and city council steal money from their own city and divert tax dollars to their buddies. 

A city like Los Angeles is no different from a company like Enron; it can be bilked into ruin by transferring the city’s wealth to a handful of thieves. 

Organized Crime in the DTLA Hotel Market --In 2013, the City commissioned PKR Consulting to study how to divert city revenues to a few friends of the Mayor and City Council. PKR Consulting (which is now CBRE Group) specializes in helping the hotel industry become more profitable. Habitually, the City retains consultants which cater to the desires of a particular industry in order to obtain “independent” studies identifying which private person(s) should receive huge gifts of public money. Here’s what the lobbyists for the hotel industry found. 

Hotels were doing exceedingly well in Los Angeles with the DTLA hotels showing an 80% occupancy rate. In an economy which is not dominated by organized crime, one expects ample investment money to flow into that portion of the economy which is doing very well. Since the DTLA hotels were doing fantastically well, no subsidies were necessary. Yet, PKR Consulting found that the City should give new hotels hundreds of millions of dollars in tax rebates. We hasten to add that providing a silly opinion is not a criminal act. 

When a city solicits foolishness and then relies on the silliness in order to divert tax dollars into the pockets of its cronies, the city itself is the criminal enterprise.   

The Legal Function of a City--People form governments in order to provide public services. I cannot construct the streets, nor can I build the water system, nor can I maintain the parks. The function of city government is not to make the friends of the mayor and city councilmembers wealthier by diverting tax dollars into their pockets. Yet, that has been happening for over a decade in Los Angeles and it is the reason that Los Angeles is rapidly becoming a “failed city.” 

Readers of CityWatch will remember the criminal appraisal fraud with the CRA project at 1601 N. Vine, i.e. Cesspool on Vine. In that case, the City obtained an appraisal of the property for $4 million, but the developer obtained an appraisal in the same month for $5.4 million. In recommending that the City pay his buddy an extra $1.4 million for the property, Garcetti withheld from the City Council the lower $4 million appraisal. Thus, nobody questioned the $5.4 million purchase price. 

Later, Garcetti arranged for the City to sell back the same piece of property to the developer for only $835,000. In addition to the $4,564,000 which the developer made on these exchanges, he did not have to make any mortgage payments on the property for the time during which the City “owned” 1601 N. Vine. Now that’s organized crime, LA style. 

Organized Crime Favors Its Own while Harming Everyone Else--When a hotel gets to keep between 40 to 100 percent of all the hotel taxes for 30 or 40 years, it has a great advantage over its competitors. Just look at a Trivago.com advertisement. Hotel rooms are booked on the basis of price and any hotel that doesn’t have to pay taxes has a competitive advantage over hotels that must pay the hotel tax. 

Is there anyone so naive as to think that these hundreds of millions of dollars in gifts by the mayor and city council do not result in money flowing into the political campaigns of the mayor and councilmembers? 

The economic malarkey fed to the City by the mayor and city council is astounding. The public thinks that it benefits them to give their tax dollars to billionaires because the billionaires’ businesses are doing fantastically well. The hotels have over 80% occupancy rate, and therefore, we need to give them hundreds of millions of tax dollars! 

With criminal accounting, the crooks devise a bunch of false and misleading studies to deceive people into thinking that the city is making sound investments when in reality the city treasury is being looted. The foregoing has illustrated a couple penny-ante scams showing City Hall’s use of Criminal Accounting. But it gets worse. 

The Sophisticated Organized Crime Syndicate that Rules LA --When Judge Goodman ruled in January 2014 that Garcetti’s Hollywood’s Community Plan 2012 Update had knowingly used fatally flawed data, Judge Goodman did not go farther to describe how the entire criminal enterprise operated. Judge Goodman stopped short because the lawsuit was a civil lawsuit, and thus, he had no power to advance into criminal matters. Nonetheless, his ruling did reveal the widespread criminality. 

When one intentionally makes materially false representations of fact on which the deceiver expects other people to rely, that is criminal fraud. 

The Subways are an Example of Criminal Fraud--But let’s look a little deeper into how this massive fraud works. The history of Metro subways shows how a multi-million dollar criminal scam becomes a multi-billion dollar criminal enterprise. Subways and trolleys are not inherently criminal, but in the hands of sophisticated fraudsters, any public agency can become a criminal enterprise. 

In the CityWatch article on July 28, 2016, “Expo Line Expansion Fails to Make Up for LA Transit Loss,” by Wendell Cox, we see how Organized Crime has manipulated Metro to divert money away from bus services (which actually benefit Angelenos) toward subways and fixed-rail transit which benefit developers. Mr. Cox’s article links to an extraordinarily important analysis by Thomas Rubin showing how Metro’s decisions have devastated bus service. When one understands how organized crime operates, one can see the rationale behind many of Metro’s current decisions. 

Here’s the essence of the complex criminal scam to divert tax dollars away from public services in order to benefit the friends of Garcetti and the City Council. Once a subway or fixed rail system has a station at a particular development project, that mass transit will never deviate one inch from that location to service another project. The purpose of LA’s subways and trolleys is not to provide better public transportation but to maximize the value of certain private projects over other real estate projects. 

When there is a subway station in the basement of a high rise, that project has a huge competitive advantage over all projects which do not have their own subway station. 

We are not saying that the mayor’s office and the city council are stupid; we are saying that they constitute a sophisticated Organized Crime Syndicate. LA is not dominated by criminals from outside City Hall. Los Angeles City Hall itself is The Crime Syndicate. The city operates in violation of Penal Code, § 86 which criminalizes all Vote Trading Agreements at any city council. Thus, by definition, Los Angeles City Council is an organized criminal enterprise. (The RICO statute does not apply to city councils.) 

The fact that law enforcement turns a blind eye does not mean that Los Angeles City Hall has not morphed into an Organized Crime Syndicate. The Duck Test reveals its criminality. Are the mayor and the city council looting the public treasury to benefit their friends? Yes. 

The Lynchpin of the Criminal Enterprise--City Hall’s criminal enterprise operates through a Vote Trading Agreement where each councilmember is required to support each other’s individual criminal scam. Although Penal Code § 86 criminalizes Vote Trading, law enforcement and judges all turn their blind eyes, while Organized Crime grows stronger each day.

(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney. 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.

GUEST WORDS-Anyone looking for a project that crystallizes the City of Los Angeles’ “Wild Wild West development process,” needn’t look any further than the Cumulus skyscraper at Jefferson/La Cienega. In late May, without anything that remotely approaches legal justification, and without a word of discussion, the City Council rubber-stamped a 30-story skyscraper with over 1,200 luxury housing units and 1,900,000 square feet of new development at an intersection that any commuter to/from LAX or Downtown Culver City knows is synonymous with the term “gridlock.” Crenshaw Subway Coalition, along with Friends of the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, has jointly filed a lawsuit in Superior Court to stop the project. 

The 320-foot skyscraper proposed by San Francisco-based Carmel Partners would be the first skyscraper in South Los Angeles. It is almost three times taller than the next tallest building and four-times taller than the closest building within a 2-mile radius. In fact, the tallest building in the surrounding neighborhood is only 4 stories. Views from the Baldwin Hills and Blair Hills will undoubtedly be impacted. Traffic will be worsened. It is being built without a single unit dedicated to housing for households that are “low-income,” which the state defines as a family of four making $69,450 per year. And it is being built without a local hire requirement. 

The Cumulus skyscraper of luxury housing is clearly not for existing South LA residents. The project is a microcosm of how our city government is exacerbating, not solving, the country’s worst housing affordability crisis, and greasing the wheels of gentrification. It exposes a broken and corrupt process that threatens both working poor renters in Historic South Central and affluent Westside homeowners. 

WHY IT’S ILLEGAL & WILDLY OUT-OF-SCALE: GENERAL PLAN AMENDMENTS 

If you’re wondering how it is possible that the City Council approved a 320-foot skyscraper in an area where none currently exists – in an area where no one even discussed something of this size for the future, first you have to understand three terms: “zone change,” “height district change” and “General Plan amendment.” 

Every parcel in Los Angeles has a list of limited uses and a height. This is justified by the presence of a citywide General Plan, which is a blueprint for development predicated on hard data related to regional and community-specific needs and growth projections. The community plan (there are 37 in Los Angeles) is where the zoning designation establishing limits on each site is specified. 

To achieve approval of the 320-foot skyscraper, with 1,600,000 square feet dedicated to the luxury housing, the City Council granted Carmel Partners requests for an amendment to the zoning code in the City’s General Plan and change in the height district designation to unlimited. In Los Angeles, these General Plan Amendments, zone changes and height district changes get doled out to almost any mega-developer who requests one like mollies at a rave. 

To be clear General Plan amendments are allowed – but not the kind the City is granting. General Plan amendments are supposed to be community-wide, not site specific. To change the zoning at a project site to let the developer build without having to adhere to the restrictions imposed on the whole community/corridor is known as “spot zoning.” It constitutes a special favor that increases the land value and potential profits of a development project. If that sounds like it is not only unfair, but also illegal to you, that’s because it is. It is one of multiple claims in our lawsuit to stop the project.

Unfortunately, the city of Los Angeles is littered with new high-rise luxury housing projects that received General Plan amendments, and height district/zone changes. It is how most mega-projects that are wildly out-of-character and have/threaten to gentrify communities like The Reef in Historic South Central are even possible. 

THE DOMINO EFFECT: MORE SKYSCRAPERS AND OUT-OF-SCALE DEVELOPMENT 

There are undoubtedly regional impacts of this lone massive project. But by green-lighting the Cumulus skyscraper, our City has sent a signal to other potential developers that “anything goes” in the neighborhood. This is the domino effect of the project. It is practically guaranteed to lead to even more drastically out-of-scale developments in the community that violate zoning laws. One luxury high-rise that violates the height and density limits leads to another, then another, then another… 

Unfortunately, “the domino effect” is already on full display in other parts of our city. Like a kid who says that they should get to stay up late on a school night and eat dessert first because their sibling was allowed to, mega-developers are being relieved of height, density and zoning limits based on special favors being previously given to nearby projects. You read that right: the city actually uses previous approval of illegal projects to approve more illegal projects. This is the very definition of out-of-control lawlessness that threatens our community and harms our city, and the insanity is completely unjustifiable. 

THE CITY COUNCIL/MAYOR WANT US TO FORGET THAT THEY BROKE IT & CAN FIX IT 

Proponents of “spot zoning” argue that it is necessary to increase the city’s housing stock, because the city’s zoning code is outdated. For a variety of reasons, that argument has more holes in it than a pound of Swiss cheese. Firstly, even the low estimate is that L.A.’s existing zoning code would permit development to house 1 million more residents. That’s without General Plan amendments, height district or zoning changes. (Many suggest the figure is actually much higher: between 3-5 million.) Additionally, when one considers the density increases provided by state laws, it is apparent that almost every major commercial boulevard in Los Angeles could be lined with residential development that is a minimum of 5 or 6 stories tall. 

Furthermore, proponents apparently want us to ignore that the Los Angeles City Council and Mayor have deliberately chosen to not do city planning. Much smaller cities like Seattle (population: under 700,000; which is smaller than just South LA) have far more staff solely dedicated to planning than the entire city of Los Angeles (population: 4 million). The analysis of hard data, infrastructure capacity (parks, fire stations, transportation), affordable housing and senior housing needs, and the facilitation of community conversations about improving the quality of life of existing communities while growing responsibility, is being done in LA by a skeletal staff and at a snail’s pace. Our elected officials have consistently and deliberately underfunded the “city planning” in the City Planning Department. This underfunding has gone on not for years, but for decades. 

We are rightfully skeptical of Congressional Republicans who state that the oil industry must be allowed to police itself to prevent environmental catastrophes like Deepwater Horizon, because we know that for decades they’ve been cutting funding for oil rig safety inspection. A blind man can see that the real desire of Congressional Republicans is deregulation. Similarly, the real objective of the City’s elected officials should be clear: give mega-developers who feed their campaign war chests whatever they want, no matter what the zoning law requires. 

HOW CAN ONE JUSTIFY “SPOT ZONING” WHEN THE CODE IS BRAND NEW? 

If you are still unconvinced of the real objective of our City Council despite the approval of countless General Plan amendments for mega-developers, who spend millions of dollars in lobbying and shower City politicians with donations, the specifics regarding the Cumulus skyscraper approval process should eliminate all doubts. You see, the new zoning code for the community was before the City before Cumulus was proposed. 

In April 2013, the City Planning Commission reviewed the draft of the new West Adams-Baldwin Hills-Leimert Community Plan. The West Adams Community Plan specifies the height, density and allowable land uses of every parcel in the city from roughly Robertson to the west, Venice/Pico to the north, Arlington/Van Ness to the east and the borders of Inglewood/Culver City to the south/southwest. Among other updates, drastic increases in the allowable height and density and permission of mixed-use (a combination of office/retail with housing) were proposed around the new Jefferson/La Cienega Expo Line station. The argument is that mixed-use development and higher density housing should be encouraged around transit stations. 

But those proposed increases are not as great as what Carmel Partners proposed and the City Council approved. Not. Even. Close. 

The proposed height increase was 45 feet to 86 feet for mixed-use projects. Not 320 feet like Cumulus.

The proposed density increase, known as the floor-area ratio, was 1.5:1 to 3:1. Not 3.9:1 like Cumulus. 

At no point in the West Adams Community Plan update process did anyone from the public request, nor did the city planning department or any other governmental entity study, let alone recommend, anything that even remotely approaches 320 feet at the site. 

And it is telling that at no point in the numerous region-wide town hall presentations and public hearings regarding the community plan update, where the planning staff justified upzoning around the La Cienega/Jefferson because of the new light rail, did a city official announce to the audience: “Oh yea, there’s a skyscraper-a-coming.” 

And if you think that this is a case of the left-hand not knowing what the right-hand is doing, that somehow the Planning Department and Council just forgot about that whole community plan update process as they were fast-tracking this mega-development, consider that the City released the final (and now approved) version of the West Adams-Baldwin Hills-Leimert Community Plan on the very same day that the City Council approved the Cumulus skyscraper. 

“FORGET IT JAKE, IT’S CHINATOWN”? I THINK NOT 

The Cumulus skyscraper project stinks as bad as a pig farm in August. It is the poster child for a corrupt planning process that favors mega-developers who buy favors from City Council without any regard to the needs of our community and city. 

Carmel Partners bought the project site knowing that the height and density at the site was going practically double, and yet that wasn’t enough. The mega-developer wanted more, because they knew they could get more, and the City Council obliged. 

We in South LA, which has long been underserved by both the public and private sector, but are now receiving heightened attention because of public transit investment and a changing real estate market, must quickly rise up, become better educated and more engaged in the planning process. 

We need to reject those who claim that we have to accept these illegal General Plan Amendments and zone changes, which are being requested by those who seek to gentrify our communities for their own personal profits. 

We need to demand our elected officials just say no, because there is no justifiable legal basis for approving them. 

We need to loudly state from the moment they are proposed that they are illegal and violations of the zoning code, and be willing to sue to stop the projects, like residents in other parts of the city, to protect and enhance the community we have built. 

We should welcome new development, but unapologetically demand that it be built for us and in conformance with our community standards. To do otherwise is to co-sign our own displacement. 

(Damien Goodmon is the Executive Director of Crenshaw Subway Coalition, past Coordinator of the Citizens Campaign to Fix the Expo Rail Line, a renter in Leimert Park, and fourth-generation Angelino whose family has lived in South Central for over 100 years. He can be contacted at [email protected]) 

-cw