LOS ANGELES

SAME LA, DIFFERENT VISIONS—On Monday, a coalition of labor and affordable housing advocates delivered petitions signed by nearly 100,000 City of Los Angeles residents who support the Build Better LA initiative going on the November 2016 ballot. A chain of workers in uniform delivered one box at a time directly to the City Clerk's office. The measure would have needed approximately 62,000 valid signatures to qualify for the ballot, but volunteers collected nearly 100,000 signatures total. Volunteers reached thousands of voters through door-to-door outreach, at storefronts, and around transit hubs.   

The Build Better LA initiative, which was launched in February 2016, would incentivize developers to create more housing residents can afford near transit, and it will ensure that a percentage of residential units are set aside for low-income residents in Los Angeles on projects that receive discretionary zone changes or General Plan amendments. The initiative also includes a local hire provision that ensures a living wage with good job standards. 

"On behalf of the Build Better LA Coalition, we are grateful to the nearly 100,000 Angelenos who signed and have faith that our City can do better. The voters in Los Angeles will soon not only get the opportunity to vote on the future of our country, but they will vote on an initiative that brings housing people can actually afford and good, local jobs they could rely on," said Rusty Hicks, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and convener of Build Better LA. 

"Build Better LA is crucial to move LA in the right direction. Too many residents are getting priced out of their homes, and too many are struggling to find a good job. This is an issue that impacts all Angelenos from every corner of our City," said Laura Raymond, Campaign Director for Alliance for Community Transit-Los Angeles and member of the Build Better LA Coalition. 

"LA keeps growing, but there is not enough housing that's affordable to keep people in their communities. Build Better LA ensures that more people have access to high-wage jobs and housing that's affordable. It also ensures that the residents who have created such a strong and vibrant Los Angeles can remain in the communities they call home," said José Eduardo Sánchez, Director of Organizing with Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance.

"Growing up in LA, I always assumed that I would continue to live and raise my family here, but with the way rents have skyrocketed, I had no choice but to move away from the City that I called my home. Build Better LA will give me and other hard working people the opportunity to find affordable homes close to work," said Lyn Landers, Sheet Metal Worker with SMART Sheet Metal Local Union 105. 

"We believe that every resident in the City of LA should have equal opportunity to not only survive, but to live with dignity and thrive in our communities," said Reverend Oliver Buie, pastor at Holman United Methodist Church and member with ACT-LA. 

Through November, the Build Better LA Coalition will continue to speak to every voter in the City of LA to bring a shared vision of healthy, accessible housing and good, local jobs.

(Gabriella Landeros is a spokesperson for Build Better LA.) 

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SAME LA, DIFFERENT VISION--Endorsers of the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative warned Monday that a counter-plan financed by labor, Build Better LA (BBLA), will boost gridlock and hasten demolitions in rent-stabilized communities, all while accelerating LA's price-gouging luxury housing craze.  

 “This Build Better LA measure will fuel the city’s development frenzy,” said veteran Westwood community leader Sandy Brown, who is endorsing a reform-minded March ballot measure that aims to end the very backroom dealing by the City Council that Build Better is embracing.

 Brown backs the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, which repairs L.A.'s broken system of development, currently driven by closed-door deals between developers and individual city council members who take money from those developers. The desires of communities and residents are pushed aside.

 “The situation is bad enough now,” Brown said. “But if this measure passes we’ll have a nightmare on our hands. No neighborhood will be safe” if BBLA is approved in November. Brown, a respected expert on city land use and development, says LA  needs the reforms contained in the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, heading for the March ballot.

 Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association president Richard Close said today that “Public concerns about overdevelopment and the widespread perception that the City Hall land-use approval system is rigged for developers are the big issues in Los Angeles. The Build Better LA initiative fails to address these issues.”

 Close, who endorses the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, is a respected voice for intelligent development in the Valley. He helped lead efforts to save Sherman Oaks from a massive “community redevelopment” plan and misguided developer-backed projects aimed at paving over one of LA's most livable neighborhoods.

 Close added that the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative heading for the March ballot is a carefully written citizen movement to reform City Hall while allowing healthy development and construction jobs to flower. “The LA labor movement also should not fear the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative,” Close advised. He noted that under the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative “Most building projects in Los Angeles can be built 'by right' and won't be affected by the initiative. Labor will do fine under our initiative.”

 Richard Riordan, who has endorsed the reform-aimed Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, says BBLA “Will never produce the kind of affordable housing its backers are promising. That plan will create overdevelopment all over Los Angeles, and a lot of apartments that rent for $3,000 a month. We're seeing people displaced and homeless pushed out, and this idea just makes things worse.”

Riordan noted that any plan that hands the City Council even more power to alter the zoning of a single piece of land for a developer friend is bad news for neighborhoods fighting congestion, displacement of residents  and destruction of neighborhood character.

A key endorser of the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, former Los Angeles city  planner Dick Platkin, says the amount money changing hands at Los Angeles City Hall will explode if voters approve BBLA. “In effect, the exact pay-to-play practices that have prompted the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative will continue through the Build Better LA Initiative,” says Platkin. “The power of the City Council to enact parcel-levels legislative ordinances will be increased, not reduced, through the BBLA loophole.”

Platkin points to BBLA's key loophole that lets the City Council decide if developers are getting a “reasonable return on investment.” If a majority thinks a developer isn't getting rich enough, BBLA lets the city council slash the promised affordable housing.

The City Council and mayor have accepted $6 million in campaign donations from the real estate industry since 2000, creating a clear conflict of interest.

Platkin warns of BBLA: “Thanks to the lack of any precise threshold of profitability, the non-existent standards of financial evidence, the missing formal review process, and the failure to hold public hearings and appeals on developers’ requests for the City Council to waive affordable housing requirements on a project-by-project level, this loophole well deserves the title, “The Backroom Bonanza Initiative.”

Endorsers of the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative are attached to this press release.

Labor groups and others backing Build Better LA say they want to increase the city's affordable housing supply – by encouraging luxury developments that tower over neighborhoods zoned only for low-rise buildings.

But the BBLA measure is misguided, giving far too much new power to the city council to help developers get around zoning rules, destroy neighborhood character, and ignore the limits of local infrastructure — including roads, water mains and safety services that can't handle the proposed major new density.

BBLA is swimming against a popular tide. From the Los Angeles Times to veteran lawmaker Zev Yaroslavsky, who led a popular 1980s slow-growth initiative, the momentum to fix the broken City Hall planning system and give residents more say  is growing – and it is being led by the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative.

Unlike the BBLA measure, the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative ends the controversial LA City Council practice of granting exceptions, special favors and exemptions to let developers get around the rules.

(John Schwada is a former investigative reporter for Fox 11 in Los Angeles, the LA Times and the late Herald Examiner and is the Communications Director for the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative. He is a contributor to CityWatch. His consulting firm is MediaFix Associates.)

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NEIGHBORHOOD POLITICS--LA’s Mobility Plan 2035 suffered a potential setback at today’s meeting of the Los Angeles City Council Transportation Committee. Today’s action likely sends the plan back to the Planning Commission for further decisions. (Photo above: Ten-year-old Rachel Lee (center) speaking in favor of bike lanes on Westwood Boulevard and throughout Los Angeles.)

Mobility Plan 2035 was approved by the City Council in August 2015, then challenged in court. Due to the legal case, the plan was then re-approved and then re-re-approval got underway.

On the Transportation Committee agenda today was a modest set of minor plan amendments, most notable for what they did not include. Councilmembers Paul Koretz and Curren Price had requested that the City Planning Department (DCP) amend the approved plan to remove bike facilities designated for Westwood Boulevard and Central Avenue, respectively. Koretz and Price’s anti-bike amendments were rejected by DCP staff and by the City Planning Commission in February.

Attending today’s Transportation Committee meeting were Chair Mike Bonin and committee members David Ryu, Jose Huizar, and Koretz.

Public testimony at today’s hearing was near-unanimous in urging the committee to “keep the network intact” by approving DCP’s minor amendments as is. TRUST South LA representatives and others focused on keeping Central Avenue in the bike network. UCLA and other Westwood community interests emphasized keeping Westwood Boulevard in the bike network. The loudest applause came for 10-year-old Rachel Lee who gathered over 200 signatures in favor of implementing bike lanes on Westwood Boulevard. Additional speakers in support of an intact plan included representatives of AARP, Fixing Angelenos Stuck in Traffic, the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, and Pacoima Beautiful.

After public comment, a lot of committee discussion was focused on procedures for any potential plan amendments. The lawsuit that attacked the plan criticized the process by which the plan had been amended. Under the city charter, any amendments made by the City Council must go back to the City Planning Commission for approval. City staff appeared somewhat nervous to respond committally to process questions, given the prior lawsuit. 

Koretz proposed a plan amendment to remove bike facilities planned for Westwood Boulevard and Central Avenue. In the past, Koretz and Price had requested that these facilities just be deleted from the plan. Today, Koretz proposed that the bikeways be shifted to alternative parallel streets: Westwood Blvd to Gailey Avenue and Midvale Avenue, Central Avenue to Avalon Boulevard and San Pedro Street. DCP responded that they had only studied (and recommended against) removal of facilities from the plan, not modifying them, though, theoretically, alternate parallel facilities could be evaluated and implemented as part of the project implementation process.

Surprisingly, Councilmember Huizar, a stalwart supporter of bicycling and multi-modal mobility, seconded Koretz’ motion, saying that he supported alternatives getting a fair hearing. The Koretz motion passed 3-1, with only Bonin opposing. This means that the anti-bike motion passed out of committee and will be heard by the full City Council at its 10 a.m. meeting this Friday. Both the Koretz anti-bike motion and the DCP minor amendments go to council.

If the City Council approves the Koretz motion, then the new Koretz anti-bike amendments will need to go back to the City Planning Commission. If the CPC rejects the amendments, then it is possible for the City Council to override the CPC. Though much of the approved plan should be proceeding to the implementation phase, overall re-re-approval remains bogged down by the hostility of Koretz and Price.

(Joe Linton is the editor of StreetsblogLA. He founded the LA River Ride, co-founded the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, worked in key early leadership roles at CicLAvia and C.I.C.L.E., served on the board of directors of Friends of the LA River, Southern California Streets Initiative, and LA Eco-Village. This report was posted originally at LA Streetsblog) Photo credit: Joe Linton/Streetsblog LA

THIS IS WHAT I KNOW-In response to the rash of demolition development disrupting their neighborhood, the members of Save Valley Village are focused on gathering signatures for a Krekorian recall petition ahead of the July 26 deadline. “Ideally, we want to get in before the deadline,” explains a representative for sVV, “There a section in the election code that allows us to assume for some mistakes in signatures or for people who aren’t registered. This gives us a time period to go back to collect additional signatures or to correct mistakes.” (Photo above: Councilman Paul Krekorian in council chambers.) 

Instead of going door to door, the group has been attending local events, doing what they can to make sure everyone signing is registered, and meeting with pockets of people throughout the city districts to circulate and spread the word.

As soon as enough signatures are collected, the group will submit the petition to the clerk, who has twenty days to review the signatures and at that point, if it’s before the deadline. Within twenty days, the petition needs to be sent to council and a special election would be organized for all voters in CD 2. February 25, the organization served a note of intent to serve, which was also sent to Councilmember Krekorian on February 29. On March 1, the notice was published in the newspaper, as required. Krekorian had twenty-one days to answer to the notice. He had not responded by the March 21 deadline. The petition was approved by March 31. 

If the petition gathers enough of the requisite signatures, a special election will be held. The sVV representative shares that a couple of people have mentioned they might run. “What we’re contemplating is how to really tell if it’s the right person for the job if we’re doing all this work to create a seat, if we’ve seriously given up our lives. This is all we do 24 hours a day and if people are waiting to know if a seat has opened up, that’s the wrong person for the job. This shows us they paid zero attention to the Recall Krekorian effort and the issues. If a candidate is really interested in the community problems, he or she wants to review our site and get involved in the recall. We hope we aren’t doing this to roll out another red carpet for an identical problem.” 

The Save Valley Village members have committed thousands of hours to fixing a problem facing their community and hope to extend that commitment to mentor other districts with similar issues. “We don’t want people to be afraid. People have a right to send back their meal when they’re served something wrong. It’s okay to speak up. It’s the only way it’s going to happen,” the sVV rep advises. “If it’s not working, we can fix it. We really think we can change things and get this back on track. It sounds really cheesy but sometimes it takes the smallest amount of effort to make the biggest impact. We have to get away from this attitude that I’m just one. Come to a meeting. Spend an hour a day informing your neighbors.”

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

Tags: Beth Cone Kramer, This is What I Know, Save Valley Village, Recall petitions, Paul Krekorian, LA City Council, developers, vote trading

TRANSIT TALK--Moving forward from the past to the future is something I advocate for everyone--memory is critical, but forcing one's self to keep focused on the future is just as important.  In my last CityWatch article, I adamantly pronounced my support for the Expo Line, but also raised a few points about the Expo Line being a good neighbor--the time it took to travel from one end of the line to the other was questionable, parking was in insultingly short supply, and bus/Uber/Lyft/rider amenities were also behind where they need to be. 

As the expression goes, "time will tell" whether the 50-55 minutes from one end of the line is accurate, or whether the 46 minute Downtown LA to Downtown Santa Monica timeframe that Metro reports is accurate.  But seven new stations and more access to both Downtowns, as well as the Mid-City and Culver City destinations along the way, can only be a good thing. 

Yet Metro also proclaims that the Expo Line is an alternative to the I-10 freeway, and so the issues of insufficient parking on the Expo Line raised by the LA Times and others threaten the perception of the benefits of the Expo Line, and even threaten whether more transit/transportation funding will pass in this November's proposed sales tax initiative if the Expo Line leaves a sour taste in taxpayers' mouths. 

Pity. 

And perhaps it's just unfair to quote the Times article when one Suja Lowenthal (who may, as the press so often does, have been quoted out of context), the planning and engagement manager for the award-winning and nationally-respected Big Blue Bus, says, "Part of the excitement of rail is figuring it out and having some uncertainty." 

Well, no ... not really.  Not at all.  Uncertainty for most people is very, very BAD. 

Having insufficient parking … 544 spaces … for a line supposed to be an alternative to the I-10 freeway, and for a line supposed to carry tens of thousands of commuters a day?  Really? 

That's akin to building a new or upgraded freeway without onramps and offramps and telling people that it's great they'll have the challenge to access the billion-dollar transportation project they paid for. 

So let's both celebrate the decades-long pursuit and success of the Expo Line while also advocating for changes and upgrades to make it a success to the majority of those who pursued and fought for it.  

And as we celebrate the halfway point of the Crenshaw/LAX Line let's not forget what's necessary to make that line a success, as well. 

Let's confront the Parking, Barking, and Marking issues, shall we?  Please?  Pretty please? 

1) PARKING:  Again, the Expo Line is supposed to be an alternative to the I-10 freeway, and we've got no car to train Metrolink in the region.  This isn't quite the same as the Crenshaw/LAX Line, but any freeway-adjacent station on either line needs parking for the widespread Southern California commuter base to access our urban/dense cores. 

So taking advantage of the two main Westside "regional" stations at Exposition/Sepulveda and Venice/Robertson is not a kooky, naive, or uninformed idea.  It's common sense.   

We've got a no-build, non-residential "dead zone" near the Casden project adjacent to the 405 freeway that's itching for a Regional Transportation Center (with parking, bus/van and bicycle amenities) to include hundreds of parking spaces.  We've also got the need for a similar center on the Los Angeles side of the Venice/Robertson station, and having Culver City do the job of Los Angeles for its residents isn't acceptable. 

Or do we just have to wait for Councilmembers Paul Koretz and Herb Wesson to be termed out of office in order for them to be FOR something with respect to their constituents on this issue?  The parking need not, and SHOULD not, be free, but dumping Expo Line commuter-focused parking on adjacent neighborhoods is just wrong on so many levels.  Make it easy, make it affordable, and make it fair for all parties involved. 

And if the Expo/Crenshaw station and the Hindry/Westchester stations need it on the Crenshaw Line, as well as any South Bay Green Line stations once that line connects to LAX, then so be it.  Just DO what the taxpayers and commuters want, OK?  Is it so hard to listen to your constituents? 

2) BARKING:  We've heard from the NIMBY's, the race-baiters, and the haters, about how this Expo Line will cause problems and how it's all about them.  To some degree, we've seen this about the Crenshaw/LAX Line as well, what with race and civil rights issues misused aplenty when simple transportation/planning, urban redevelopment, economic enhancement and environmental planning should have been the main focus. 

What we've not heard enough from are the greater voter electorate.  Most of the communities want an east-west Expo Line and north-south Crenshaw/LAX line...period.  They want it to enhance the economy, mobility, environment, and quality of life for the majority of residents and commuters who's use and/or benefit from these lines. 

They want the businesses preserved, more parking built if the neighborhoods and businesses cry out for it, and they want these lines to be safe, clean, and convenient for people of all ages, races, and backgrounds...and they don't want any litany of excuses on why that can't be done.   

This is true from the Westside to the Mid-City to Downtown, and from the Wilshire District to the Mid-City to the South Bay.  They're all happy to see new projects succeed...but the constant barking from the usual suspects needs to be addressed when it becomes clear that those barking are IN THE MINORITY.  Listen to all parties, and if the MAJORITY wants something contrary to the MINORITY, please follow MAJORITY RULE. 

3) MARKING:  Things will change that will "blow everyone's mind".  When the Downtown Connector is completed by 2022-23, and the Crenshaw/LAX Line is also completed, there will be several north-south lines that require renaming.  And future lines will need highlighting. 

a) Will the east/west Exposition/Eastside Light Rail Line become one big Gold Line? 

b) Will the north/south Blue Line and Pasadena (and connecting Foothill) Gold Line become one big Blue Line? 

c) Will the east-west Green Line to LAX...and beyond to the Westside become one big Green Line, or shall it be renamed? 

d) Will the north-south Crenshaw/LAX Line and the South Bay segment of the Green Line become one big new line, with a future color to be named (or shall it be the Green Line)? 

e) When we talking about finishing the Crenshaw Line, does that mean expanding it north to the Wilshire/Purple and Red Line subways, or creating a new wing from Inglewood to the Blue Line and Downtown via the Harbor Subdivision Rail Right of Way, or both? 

Let's celebrate this weekend's new light rail line.  Let's celebrate grassroots advocacy and government leadership. 

But let's not rest on any laurels while there's so much work, discussion, and leadership that glaringly remain in order to create the Exposition and Crenshaw/LAX Lines we all know, in our hearts and minds, that we all fought for...and which we deserve to have.

(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.)

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LARGEST URBAN OIL FIELD--With 840 miles of beautiful coastline and palm trees swaying in the breeze, “toxic” is not the first word that comes to mind when one thinks of California. Yet, in spite of its reputation as a progressive environmental state, California’s toxic affair with oil and gas has been hiding in plain sight.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in Los Angeles, the nation’s largest urban oil field. Though it is the second most populous city in the country, LA is still the wild, wild west when it comes to oil development. Active oil wells dot the cityscape, connected by a spider web of pipelines carrying oil, explosive fumes, and corrosive acids directly under homes. Worst of all, these oil wells have a devastating impact on Angelenos’ long-term health.

I went on a “toxic tour” of LA and witnessed what it looks like when extreme fossil fuel extraction collides with the places where people live, work, and play. Our reliance on fossil fuels puts real communities at risk across the city. Extreme oil extraction injects a toxic mixture of chemicals into the ground to stimulate oil wells in a manner similar to fracking, and the emissions can cause headaches, nosebleeds, respiratory ailments, inter-generational reproductive harm, and even cancer for surrounding neighbors.

Last year, the state of California mandated an independent scientific assessment of oil and gas development. They found that in areas of high population density — such as South Los Angeles — oil drilling poses elevated health risks because more people are exposed to toxic air contaminants. The 580,000 Angelenos living less than a quarter mile from an oil well are subjected to the dangers of neighborhood drilling every single day. L.A.’s oil problem is more than just a problem; it’s a crisis of human health and safety.

On that eye-opening tour, I met young Nalleli Cobo — a South L.A. teenager who has been fighting neighborhood drilling since she was sickened at age nine by the AllenCo Energy drill site across the street from her home. For years, she was in and out of hospitals trying to get answers to the long list of symptoms she experienced daily. On some days, Nalleli had to be carried to the car to go to the doctor because painful body spasms made it difficult to move.

After hundreds of community complaints, USEPA investigators finally conducted an inspection — only to fall ill immediately upon entering the drill site. Though they were temporarily forced to shut down, AllenCo is now working to reopen the drilling site this year.

Make no mistake about it, LA’s oil drilling is toxic.

Shockingly, Nalleli’s story isn’t unique. California is the third largest oil producing state in the nation and over 75% of the active oil wells in Los Angeles are within 2,000 feet of homes, schools, or hospitals, where they pose the gravest threat to human health.

Concrete walls may try to shield extreme extraction from neighbors’ eyes, but they are useless at protecting them from poisonous fumes. It’s common to see workers in hazmat suits monitoring rigs on one side of a wall, while families on the other side remain completely unprotected sitting around their dinner table.

That’s why Nalleli, fueled by her sense of duty to protect her neighbors and fellow Angelenos, wants to hold her elected leaders accountable for allowing the oil industry to pollute her community. As a member of the coalition called Stand Together Against Neighborhood Drilling (STAND-LA), she has spoken at press conferences with Senator Barbara Boxer, organized health surveys to track symptoms in her community, and serves as a youth plaintiff in a lawsuit against the City of L.A. for violating her civil rights. Nalleli has even taken the fight to Pope Francis, asking him to urge the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to stop leasing their land to AllenCo Energy and other oil companies.

Fortunately, Nalleli is not alone in this fight. This Saturday, thousands of Californians will gather to support the communities on the front lines of neighborhood drilling at the March to Break Free from Fossil Fuels. They will gather at Los Angeles City Hall to call on Mayor Eric Garcetti and City Council President Herb Wesson to put an end to urban oil drilling.

Confronting the mighty oil industry is not an easy task, but Mayor Garcetti and President Wesson need only follow the courageous lead of Nalleli and others in STAND-L.A. who have been fighting for years. LA’s elected leaders have the opportunity to send a clear signal to the rest of the nation with a victory in this climate battle. We must keep oil in the ground. Stand with Nalleli and families like hers on the front lines at this critical moment in history.

(Mark Ruffalo is an Oscar-nominated actor and climate change activist. This perspective was posted most recently at Huff Post.) 

-cw

VOICES-The Department of City Planning recently unveiled its second draft of amendments to the city’s toothless mansionization ordinances, the Baseline Mansionization Ordinance (BMO) and Baseline Hillside Ordinance (BHO.) Consternation ensued. 

Their first draft of amendments, put forward for comment late last year, drew more than 600 responses. By almost 4 to 1, people asked for tighter limits on home size. But the latest draft seems to address developers’ demands, not the needs of our communities.

We asked for meaningful reform. Instead, it preserves loopholes that undermined the ordinance in the first place. To name just two, these include the exemption for attached garage space (even in “the flats”) and bonuses in non-R1 zones that increase house size by 20 percent with no public notification or oversight. 

The exemption for attached garages adds a whopping 400 square feet of bloat to houses, and the bonuses add hundreds of square feet more with no transparency or accountability whatsoever. And hillside neighborhoods are understandably concerned about inadequate conditions applied to grading and hauling, as well.

The Council Motion provided the blueprint for a simple, effective fix. Instead, the latest draft borrows elements from Re:Code LA that make the ordinance harder to understand and harder to enforce. These include “encroachment planes” and “side wall articulation.” 

City planners note that neighboring communities like Pasadena employ design standards of this type. Adopting best practices of other communities is great. In fact, LA should do much more of that – if and when we have the resources to implement them properly. Angelenos who have seen the inability or unwillingness of the Department of Building and Safety to enforce even simple floor area ratios may be excused for having their reservations.

The city sought input on the first draft of amendments and then ignored the concerns of an overwhelming majority. Six months have passed, and reckless development continues to threaten neighborhoods all over Los Angeles. We need to stop mansionization in the simplest, most effective and timeliest way. That’s what residents and homeowners want and what the Council Motion calls for. 

It’s time for Los Angeles to put stable communities and neighborhood character ahead of real estate speculation.  

(Shelley Wagers is a homeowner and community activist in Los Angeles.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

EASTSIDER-On Saturday, the LA City Planning Department visited the LA Neighborhood Council Coalition (LANCC) for the second time to talk about the proposed Draft Short Term Rental Ordinance, along with another proposed Ordinance change over second dwelling units (aka ‘granny units’). As readers may remember, the first visit was not a resounding success. 

This time, we were visited by no less than Claire Bowin, Senior Planner from the City Planning Department. As Streetsblog reported, “Bowin has had her finger in a lot of pots in her tenure with Planning, working on the Bike Plan, the Mobility Element, the Housing Plan, the Cornfield Arroyo-Seco Plan, and Bike Plan Implementation.” 

Lately, she has been intimately involved with both the repeal of the second dwelling units issue and with the short term rental ordinance. Unfortunately for the LANCC group, before leaving due to scheduling difficulties, she only had time to go over a draft ordinance to repeal the rules over granny units. Then she took just a couple of questions regarding the short-term rental ordinance. 

The Second Dwelling Unit Repeal draft ordinance, regarding granny units, is being offered on an emergency basis, and will be over by the time you read this article, which is a shame. More on this issue in another column. 

Regarding the Short Term Rental Ordinance, Claire Bowin only took a couple of questions, referred us to the upcoming Saturday May 21 Hearing at the Deaton Auditorium (next to the new LAPD building), 100 W. 1^st Street, LA 90012. The public hearing starts at 10 am, and I urge everyone who can to be there. 

Anyhow, back to the real issues. As you may remember, I was enthusiastic when the draft ordinance came out and urged folks to weigh in. 

Well, we’ve had some time to kick the tires on the proposal and a number of people have found some holes in the City’s Draft. For example, Raymond Klein, from the Brentwood Homeowners Assn., weighed in with the problems regarding enforcement, the no guest limit for hosts, and essentially, the running of hotels in residential neighborhoods. 

Next, a hat tip to Lucy Han, (a founding member of Community Above Profit, or CAP,) for pointing out the obvious flaw in the Draft Ordinance. It’s simple. There is an 800 pound gorilla lurking in the draft: there is absolutely no way that the City of Los Angeles can enforce this Ordinance unless the dot.com platforms like Airbnb and their like are responsible for maintaining the data and reporting it to the City of Los Angeles. If you don’t believe me, remember an earlier CityWatch article regarding the debacle over the City’s Surplus Disposal.  

City Controller Ron Galperin was brutal in his dissection of the absolute failure of this program, and it should pose a warning to elected officials in crafting the upcoming Short Term Rental Ordinance. The City simply can’t handle IT projects. This Ordinance won’t work unless LA City builds a massive database to handle the registrations that are going to be required. As I wrote regarding the Surplus Disposal mess: 

“If there is a single takeaway moment in the report, for me it is the following: the auditor complained that, as they tried to obtain data, they were reduced to looking at individual employees’ Excel spreadsheets that didn’t even have a common template. Clearly, the Mayor’s “World Class City” is an emperor without clothes.” 

So, what do you think the chances are that LA City will have a robust database up and running to actually try and implement the Ordinance? You guessed it: none…zip…nil. 

There is only one way to obtain the data to enforce this type of ordinance, and that is to require the platforms themselves, like Airbnb, to cough up the data. I covered this some time ago in an article about the absolute requirement of honest reporting to make any of these ordinances workable. 

Think about it. Airbnb is essentially a computer app hooked to a really solid, scalable, database. And they have spent millions of dollars developing this app and database. The rest is their claim of intellectual property -- a really good smoke and mirrors sales campaign to investors and hosts who need money. If it cost Airbnb millions to do their computer work, what are the chances that LA City can ramp up something to track what they do by chasing the individual hosts? gain, none…zip...nil. 

This is the biggest single issue that needs to be addressed prior to the next draft of the short-term rental ordinance. I hope the Planning Department and the City Council take heed. If this issue is not addressed, the inspectors who have to enforce the ordinance won’t stand a chance. They are already understaffed and simply cannot cover thousands of hosts one by one. The data is the key to any prosecution and/or fine for nonpayment of the TOT. 

So, urge lawmakers to stand up and get this ordinance amended the way it needs to be. Require honest reporting from the platforms themselves, like Airbnb. Otherwise, it won’t make any difference what they pass because the City can’t enforce it. And City Attorney Mike Feuer will be unable to even pretend to do his job of enforcement in court. 

Do we want all of our efforts to be one more LA City Special Debacle?

(Tony Butka is an Eastside community activist, who has served on a neighborhood council, has a background in government and is a contributor to CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES- The Los Angeles Police Department commonly arrests people for “resisting arrest.” A deeper look into this process by questioning its legalities sheds new light on an old law enforcement excuse. Legal experts should question this, including both the City Attorney and the District Attorney. (FULL DISCLOSURE- I am NOT a legal expert, nor do I play one on TV!) 

Penal Code section 148 (a) is commonly known as “resisting arrest.” Clearly, this language is what requires immediate challenge. The presumption is that a person being arrested for a criminal act(s) who then resists, should receive the additional charge of “resisting.” 

The problem is that LAPD and many other law enforcement agencies across the nation wrongfully use resisting arrest as a “primary” charge when its legal language strongly implies that it is a “secondary charge.” 

People who have been arrested for “resisting” as a primary charge have claimed the Fourth Amendment as their legal defense. There are lots of cases that have achieved successful outcomes utilizing this formidable strategy. 

The Fourth Amendment states that “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized.” 

While there are elements within this definition that seemingly apply only to search warrants, there are other elements which seem to apply only to the protection of one’s self from unlawful seizure. 

In Skid Row (commonly known as the Homeless Capital of America,) LAPD often partakes in the action of arresting homeless persons for having tents on the sidewalk during the day. They follow this by completely seizing the tent and all of its contents. A Federal judge ruled against LAPD and the City of Los Angeles in the form of a preliminary injunction barring them from any further illegal seizures. 

The question that can be raised is, “Does LAPD need a search warrant before seizing a homeless person’s tent/encampment?” According to the Fourth Amendment, there would be a whole lot of judges signatures needed for the confiscation of tens of thousands of homeless people’s belongings all across LA County. 

As it relates to seizing property, the Fourth Amendment seems clear, but in regard to “the right of the people to be secure in their persons”, the Fourth Amendment has a lot of gray areas -- meaning room for interpretation. 

Can law enforcement simply walk up to people and arrest them? Can they simply walk up and arrest them for “resisting arrest?” 

There is a strong hint of abuse of authority/abuse of power every single time resisting arrest is used as a primary charge. 

Natural responses often are, “Why am I being arrested?” and, “What was I resisting?” Common law enforcement replies are, “You’re being arrested for resisting.” The conversation can go around in circles without any true and/or valid explanation by law enforcement for detention, sometimes for no good reason. Some officers and deputies even go as far as to say, “Am I supposed to explain (and possibly debate) everything to you before I put handcuffs on you?” 

Law enforcement has a “comfort zone” of zero culpability because they conveniently defer to the justice system with the mindset, “We can arrest you for anything….It’s up to the court system to either enforce or reject the case.” 

And in the case of “resisting arrest” used as a primary charge, what protections do “We, the People” really have? 

(General Jeff is a homelessness activist and leader in Downtown Los Angeles.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

THIS IS WHAT I KNOW-Depending on which side of the issue you rest, gun control (or Second Amendment Rights) are hot button issues in the presidential race. Closer to home, Temple Isaiah in Beverly Hills, has formed a Gun Legislation Advocacy Committee, which has joined other faith-based organizations to form the Interfaith Coalition to End Gun Violence in the Los Angeles area.

Two months ago, sixty concerned people from all over Los Angeles filled an auditorium at Holman United Methodist Church with one common goal: keep their communities safe. Amy Phillips, a member of the GLAC, Moms Demand Action and other groups, share a philosophy, “Gun violence knows no geographic boundaries; no ethnic, gender, or age limits. From schools to movie theaters, from churches to street corners, a bullet finds its victim.” 

Phillips says, “I couldn’t comprehend after Newtown that this was going on. People were getting shot and our policy makers refused to do anything about it. I thought I can’t just sit here and complain or post on Facebook. My little involvement won’t change the whole system but if I didn’t, there would be one less person doing it.” 

When Phillips joined GLAC two years ago, one of the first actions she took was to get involved in creating an arts and advocacy program for 9^th and 10^th grade students in the religious school, all of whom had experienced a lockdown. Phillips thought kids could create posters with social messages. She showed the students a clip reel of new stories from the past decade which impacted them. 

This past year, the students used their phones to create videos on topics ranging from the gun issue to save the earth and Cast LA, an organization that works with women who are enslaved sexually or for labor. “The kids got to choose the topic and there was no budget, other than paper. They came up with creative videos, which they intend to tweet to candidates. The kids who chose the gun issue really got it,” she says. “We wanted to teach them advocacy through the arts.” 

GLAC is part of the Interfaith Coalition to End Gun Violence, with representatives from different temples, churches, and nondenominational groups – all of whom, as Phillips explains, are “fighting the same battle, getting everyone on the same page.” Phillips says meeting people who deal with gun violence on a daily basis was eye-opening. One of the steps her group wants to take is to bring the arts advocacy program to Holman United Methodist Church. 

While Phillips encourages people to consider choosing candidates who have positive records or stances on gun restrictions, she says GLAC and other groups focus on community-based activism. She believes most law-abiding gun owners want better gun laws, to make sure guns are locked up so that three-year olds can’t go around shooting, but they may be intimidated to share their stance with the NRA.

By getting involved on the local and state level with groups like the Interfaith Coalition and Moms Demand Action, Phillips says we can make a difference. “Gun violence is everyone’s issue. I don’t just want to be involved. I need to be involved. I cannot be idle and continue to see innocent people die and families ruined. The Interfaith Coalition to End Gun Violence is my pathway in,” she says. 

Action Info: For more information on GLAC at Temple Isaiah and the Interfaith Coalition to End Gun Violence, contact Karen Sloan at [email protected].

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

TRANSIT TALK--A Streetcar Named Santa Monica? OK, not exactly. It’s actually something better. A light rail line from downtown Los Angeles to within blocks of the sea. And if we do things right, in November the Expo Line could become one of several sorely needed (and accelerated) public transportation projects -- like a line through the Sepulveda Pass -- that Los Angeles is trying to make a reality. Vote early and often as they say in Chicago. 

What is so important about our new rail line to the beach? It came to me yesterday as I sat on the Expo Line to Santa Monica. 

We have broken the 63 year curse that no train would ever again pierce the sacred veil of LA’s far West Side. True, Boston’s 86 year long Curse of the Bambino is longer, but given our size, the Curse of the West Side impacted more Dodgers fans than Red Sox losers. 

“I am riding the train to Santa Monica!” I nearly shouted as we pulled into Bergamot Station.  I had the honor, thanks to a press tour with Mayor Garcetti and other elected, to preview the line which opens to the public on Friday, May 20. 

In any other city, the lightbulb that went off in my head that I was riding a train to the beach might not mean much. For example, riders of San Francisco’s N Judah light rail line have long been able to take the train to Ocean Beach -- since 1928, to be exact, when the route opened as a streetcar line. 

But this isn’t any other city. This is Los Angeles where the car was once king and small numbers of haters have long dictated what will, and won’t be, built. 

Now, at least as far as traffic-free driving goes, those days are long gone. And in its place are the famous Los Angeles parking lots, otherwise known as freeways that have sliced up dozens of perfectly nice neighborhoods and communities. 

Aside from the train’s arrival in downtown Santa Monica, perhaps the sweetest part of the ride for me was when the train chugged past the 10 Freeway close to the new Palms station. I also felt a pleasant whoosh of pride, and relief, when the train passed through Cheviot Hills where a handful of NIMBYs tried, and thankfully failed, to stop the Expo Line in its tracks. 

Ironically, it was, similarly, not in my back yard-minded Angelenos who more often than not allowed the freeway to come in, ruining neighborhoods for what sometimes seems like forever more.  

Reminders of our foolish addiction to the car abound along the route. As Neal Broverman put it in Los Angeles Magazine, “Views at the Palms, Bundy, and, especially, Sepulveda stations are kind of, ugh. The aerial views really show the auto-centric city planning that happened here -- tons of gas stations, liquor stores, and billboard blight. Hopefully, politicians like [Councilmember Mike] Bonin can help create more of a sense of place and really incentivize the Expo investment.” 

Now is the time to end the “no growthers’” stranglehold in Los Angeles and Santa Monica on sensible transit-oriented development and proceed with the building of projects worthy of our environment. 

Other public amenities I am hoping for with the opening of the Expo Line? That: 

• Metro, Culver City Bus and Big Blue Bus got it right with their redesign of the feeder bus routes, and riders can get to the train car free. 

• There is enough bike parking and bike share at the stations to accommodate all of the area’s active transportation and transit enthusiasts. 

• Pedestrian improvements including sidewalks spreading out from the train line are inviting enough to encourage pedestrians to make their commute part of their 10,000 steps or bike ride a day. 

Kudos to Santa Monica which seems to have gotten things right, with Colorado Esplanade, the city’s attractive and WIDE pedestrian gateway and protected bike lane from the Expo Line station to Tongva Park, the Santa Monica Pier and beyond. 

Let’s also hope that Santa Monica will be measuring the benefits of the new train to downtown, including an off-the-charts bump for businesses in the area. For area merchants in downtown Santa Monica and at the other new stops along the line, it will be like CicLAvia all of the time with shoppers galore. 

Speaking of which, don’t forget the sure to be awesome bike and pedestrian streetfest, CicLAvia Southeast Cities, this Sunday from 9 am to 4 pm. 

Of course Expo to the beach will not be without its hiccups. Look out for the inevitable idiot drivers who think they can make it across the tracks ahead of the train, even though the light has changed. Others will whine about the noise and the increased foot and bike traffic around the stations and along the new protected bike path Metro has built adjacent to much of the line. Yay! 

And what about parking for transit riders who want to ride but simply can’t or won’t take the bus, walk or bike to the new stations? The new lot at Sepulveda and smaller lots at other stations just won’t be enough for the expected demand. This is why I am hoping Metro gets cracking on cutting deals with Caltrans and other land owners for more parking at underused locations like beneath the freeway at Pico and at churches and businesses along the remainder of the route. 

Metro has wisely done this at its Expo Line Crenshaw station where 400 spaces are available on weekdays in the garage belonging to the neighboring West Angeles Church of God in Christ. 

Lastly, consider signing the petition urging LADOT to provide signal preemption for the Expo Line through downtown Los Angeles and give priority to longer trains. 

With trains carrying hundreds of passengers versus cars carrying no more than a few, the choice is clear. 

See you soon on Expo and the rest of our growing transit system!

(Joel Epstein is a senior advisor to companies, law firms, foundations and public initiatives on communications strategy, corporate social responsibility (CSR), recruiting and outreach. He is a contributor to CityWatch and can be contacted at [email protected].) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

GUEST COMMENTARY--The criminal justice system, burdened with being the de facto forum for dealing with the mentally ill population in Los Angeles County, has now becoming the forum of last resort to deal with the homeless population of which the mentally ill are a subset.  

For three decades the Central City East Association (CCEA) has been warning that drugs, criminality, and mental health issues would converge at the epicenter of homelessness on skid row.  Add into the mix Prop. 47, which in essence decriminalized theft and drug offenses, and a series of court rulings which have allowed the homeless to take over public streets and sidewalks, and you have an ungovernable mess.  Yet homeless advocates and the attorneys they employ call it a civil right to live in squalor, and judges render decisions from their sterile courtrooms that play out far differently on the streets. Perhaps it would be considered untoward of us to suggest that the City sponsor a new homeless encampment on the sidewalks of 312 North Spring Street Los Angeles, the location of the Federal courthouse. 

The street population is at nearly 2,000 in skid row alone.  Businesses that remain do so despite the public safety and public health threat, wanting to stay in an area that is centrally located and to provide much-needed industrial jobs.  However, an increasing wave of crime makes victims of area workers, residents and the homeless themselves.  The violent nature of these crimes is escalating.  

CCEA has released a powerful 5-minute video  that allows the voices of the law enforcement, residents, and business community speak for themselves.  "Emergency" is an intense tour of the daily gauntlet that is Skid Row

It contains disturbing images of inhumane conditions on public sidewalks with vivid descriptions of Skid Row as told by the people who live and work there.  We urge everyone to watch the moving video and listen to the police officers who work on Skid Row. The question that is posed is one the leadership of Los Angeles City and Los Angeles County need to answer - how long will this nightmare be tolerated? 

It is well-documented that support for the mentally ill in our society has declined over the years and that a significant number of the homeless living on our streets are mentally ill. When they cause a disturbance in the community, the police are the first to be called. If and when an arrest is made, it then is deposited in the laps of Deputy District Attorneys and Deputy City Attorneys to decide if charges will be filed - with the low expectation that any misdemeanor charge will result in a meaningful sentence. 

Despite law enforcement's extensive training and new resources, the problems of homelessness and mental illness are vast.  Last year, Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey presented a comprehensive plan to the Board of Supervisors that recommends enhanced treatment and services to safely divert mentally ill offenders from the county jail.  In Los Angeles, the Sheriff's Department and the LAPD are constantly collaborating with the various public and private sector organizations to better address the behavior of mentally ill individuals.  However, at the end of the day, it is the community of Los Angeles that must demand of our elected leaders at both the state and local level a comprehensive plan to combat the true roots of homelessness. 

As Oliver Wendell Holmes famously stated, "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."  In the skid row area of Los Angeles, the homeless population is now not just swinging, but connecting, into the body of the law abiding residents who wish to walk the sidewalks or work in downtown Los Angeles.

(Michele Hanisee is President of the Association of Los Angeles Deputy District Attorneys. The Association of Deputy District Attorneys (ADDA) is the collective bargaining agent and represents nearly 1,000 Deputy District Attorneys who work for the County of Los Angeles. Views expressed by Ms. Hanisee are her own and the association’s.)

-cw

GETTING THERE FROM HERE--As discussed in my last CityWatch article), the Expo Line, after initial approval by the Metro Board in 2001, is finally opening for service on May 20th.   

You can go on a virtual ride right now via this link ...but the bigger question is "What's Next?" 

The Expo grassroots story is an amazing one, led by Darrell Clarke of Santa Monica and a host of volunteers, but the next big expansions of the L.A. County light rail system are the north-south Crenshaw/LAX line (somewhat of a north-south Expo counterpart) and a Downtown Light Rail Connector (an "Expo Phase 3" that also combines the entire countywide patchwork of lines into a true network)...but there are challenges as we move well beyond the grassroots. 

And sooner or later this transportation endeavor MUST go beyond the grassroots to become a multibillion-dollar operation...but to Metro's credit, their leadership and planning teams are as available as any governmental entity could ever be.  It is NOT hard to be plugged into the outreach meetings for Metro's expansion plans, and it's arguable that Metro is a model for governmental accountability and transparency. 

But while Metro's planners and leaders are accountable, available, and in touch with the grassroots, their political leadership need not be if they so choose.  By and large, the Garcetti-led L.A. City team works well with countywide political leaders (unlike Garcetti's predecessor), and acrimony over the paradigm of "the Wilshire Subway vs. suburban transportation efforts" is over.   

Ditto with the "getting the train to LAX".  So don't ever count me as someone who'll hurl bombs and epithets at Metro's efforts. 

Yet politicians are politicians, and planners have the ability to do great things (keep in touch with the grassroots, gather data impartially and use it to raise the bar for enhanced services).  But political, economic, and egotistic forces often lead to dogmatic and "groupthink" traps that are both self-imposed and counterproductive: 

1) The Expo Line is a welcome addition to the Metro Rail network, but its timetable is too darned long. 

Much of the problem is its streetrunning portions in Downtown LA and in Santa Monica--and it should be emphasized that it was the Santa Monica City Council which went against both common sense and the recommendations of the Expo Authority to insist on changing an elevated portion of the line to street level. 

So it's hard to know if the motorist who made an "ill-advised" left turn in front of a testing train in Santa Monica (LINK: ) is to blame, or if the City of Santa Monica is to blame, but...congratulations, Santa Monica! You've got your first car vs. train collision! 

Furthermore, while the old Air Line (the predecessor of the Expo Line that was abandoned in 1953) had an end to end travel time of approximately 70 minutes, the Expo Line has an approximately 55 minute travel time. 

So ... yes, the train is, for a host of reasons (and not too much of it is Metro's fault) too darned long. 

2) Meanwhile, parking is still being pilloried as evil and is in such short supply that it will limit usefulness of the Expo Line. 

I would love to see the day that the anti-parking zealots are either shut down, ignored, and are otherwise brought to bear--but they've got no right being a part of a city or county governmental planning team.  Parking for the Expo Line is especially critical because this line is billed as an alternative to the I-10 freeway. 

There's no Metrolink west and south of Downtown, so the Expo Line is the closest thing, and Metrolink requires parking to function well.  Does anyone really think that San Fernando Valley, Pacific Palisades, and South Bay car commuters will take a bus to the Expo Line? 

No, they clearly won't--and what they'll do is drive to the Venice/Robertson or La Cienega stations, where there is parking that's now occupied by 8-9 am, and where Downtown-bound traffic bunches up on the I-10. 

Yes, there are about five hundred parking spaces in the Westside portion of the Expo Line, but for a line that's supposed to carry tens of thousands of riders a day, that's both a slap in the face and a middle finger to the voters and taxpayers who paid for this line. 

And let's not forget that the City of Los Angeles is just as bad as the City of Santa Monica with respect to its quasi-theological and wild-eyed war on the automobile ... because unlike the City of Culver City, which is building a transit-oriented development next to the Venice/Robertson station that includes hundreds of new Expo Line parking spaces, the Casden Sepulveda project next to the Exposition/Sepulveda station in West L.A. has not ever been forced to create a new parking structure as a betterment for the Expo Line. 

3) The Expo Line is neither focusing on the present or the future with respect to bus or other "final mile" links, or to safety issues. 

Why the various bus lines that link to the Expo Line were "caught off guard" by the Expo Line, but costs and operations could have, and should have, been addressed years ago.  It's not like the Expo Line was a secret. 

Fortunately, human ingenuity isn't dead.  Ever heard of Uber or Lyft?  Perhaps a more cost-effective method is to establish more automobile connections/drop-offs when the trains are operating later than any connecting buses...because it's really scary to be stuck at an empty train station after dark waiting 20-30 minutes for a bus that might never come. 

Furthermore, howza 'bout establishing food truck and similar private sector services for those commuters wanting to eat or shop and otherwise have something to do--and with more eyes and ears in the vicinity--while waiting for the next train to arrive.  It's hoped that Metro and local cities will recognize these real-world issues and resolve them. 

Because the Expo Line was always supposed to be a good neighbor, and an overall boon to the neighborhoods through which it traverses. 

And it will be, provided that the same innovative and energetic grassroots that started this train rolling aren't thrown off that train merely because they've pointed out a few obvious and glaring problems that might be coming our way.

(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

SOUTH OF THE 10-Two weeks ago 2 Urban Girls discussed African-American men supporting the presumptive Democrat presidential nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and caused quite an uproar. While the article looked at why Black men are supporting HRC, commenters remarked, why would ANY Black person support her? Most articles speculate that HRC has the women’s vote sewn up.

According to the Center for American Women and Politics, in every presidential election since 1980, the proportion of eligible female adults who voted far exceeded the proportion of eligible males who voted. 

Last week, social media was ablaze with African-American women posting selfies with Hillary Clinton when she appeared at the California African-American Museum (CAAM) in Exposition Park at the request of Congresswomen Karen Bass (D-CA37) and Maxine Waters (D-CA43). (Photo above.) 

Many of the women on hand were political movers and shakers, with many being members of an established political organization focused on grooming African-American women for a career in politics. 

The Los Angeles African-American Women’s Public Policy Institute (LAAAWPPI) has, since June 2004, been the premier organization for women of color seeking a more active role in civic engagement. Women who join LAAWPPI have backgrounds ranging from running nonprofits to working with elected officials to serving on various boards and commissions throughout Los Angeles County. 

Curious as to why women of color are supporting Hillary, I spoke with several alumni -- “baby boomers” to “millennials” -- about their reasoning. 

Joy Atkinson, Executive Director of the Los Angeles African American Women's Public Policy Institute (LAAAWPPI) is no stranger to politics. Her father was the first African-American to run for Los Angeles City Council. 

“I have been around the political arena for many years and I think I know what [issues] politicians can and can't deliver. Mrs. Clinton served as an attorney for the Children's Defense Fund and helped stop the incarceration of teenagers in adult prisons and worked for the rights of disabled children in Massachusetts,” Atkinson remarked. 

“She also tackled the desegregation policies of Mississippi way after the 1954 decision to not segregate school children. She has been and still is an advocate for women's rights. As Secretary of State under President Obama, she was able to negotiate a cease fire between Israel and Hamas,” said Atkinson. 

Atkinson is also looking to separate fact from fiction when it comes to people’s perception of Hillary.

“Would somebody give me some reliable proof that Hillary Clinton is a "crook" and can't be "trusted" - I mean some evidence and not innuendo,” continued Atkinson. 

Many would think trigger words like “Whitewater” “Benghazi” “Email Server” would emit some concern in the areas of “trust”, yet that doesn’t seem to apply here. 

Hillary Clinton has also managed to finagle the support of Compton Mayor Aja Brown. Speaking at an event hosted by hosted by the Center for American Progress (CAP) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) in early 2015, Hillary publicly floated the idea of offering the mayor a job if elected President. 

“Don’t be surprised if you get a call,” Mrs. Clinton said after praising the Democratic mayor’s anti-gang programs. 

More than 70 percent of black women voted in 2012, out-voting white women (65.6 percent), white men (62.6 percent), and black men (61.4 percent). Exit poll data from Democratic primaries in 2016, show black women continue to make up a larger proportion of the Democratic electorate than black men.

 In 2008 and 2012, 96 percent of black women voters cast their ballots for Barack Obama. Will those same women show up for Hillary Rodham Clinton? 

Not all women of color have made Hillary Clinton their de facto choice for President.

Next week’s column will look at African-American women who are supporting Sen. Bernie Sanders.

(Melissa Hébert is an alumni of California State University Dominguez Hills with a degree in Political Science and a member of LAAAWPPI. She is the editor-in-chief of blog 2urbangirls.com and host of the Urban Girl Show. Melissa is also President of School Site Council in Inglewood Unified School District and is the mother of two handsome sons. She can be reached at [email protected]) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams. 

GUEST WORDS--“The City’s repeal proposal is bad enough, replacing meaningful neighborhood zoning protection with virtually no protection. But the way the City is processing this proposal exemplifies its continuing broken planning system and completely undermines the City’s credibility at a critical point in time.” --Carlyle W. Hall. 

To head off a proposed ballot initiative that would impose a moratorium on major construction projects throughout Los Angeles, it’s been widely reported that the City is now seeking support for a planning and zoning “reform package” that will, once more, simply update the City’s 35 community plans. This proposed “solution” overlooks the City’s fundamental credibility problem: an ever-widening gulf between what’s promised and what’s actually delivered.  

In a recent example, Los Angeles Neighbors in Action prevailed against the City when Superior Court Judge James Chalfant found that, since May 2010, LA’s building officials have been routinely ignoring the City’s adopted zoning standards for development of second units (sometimes called “accessory dwelling units” or “granny flats”) in single-family residential zones.  

 Under state law changes enacted in 2002, second units must be approved on a “ministerial” basis (i.e., no public hearings and no conditions of approval) if they meet a city or county’s adopted standards—no matter how negative the ensuing traffic and infrastructure impacts. Further, if a locality does not have its own adopted standards, it must approve any second unit application that meets certain state “default” standards. The Legislature specifically designed those “default” standards to be so utterly weak—providing virtually no protections for the surrounding neighborhood—that any rational city would prefer to adopt and enforce its own local second unit standards. 

The 2002 legislative changes have made strong local second unit standards, like those adopted in Los Angeles, of great importance. LA’s adopted standards, for example, strictly regulate a proposed second unit’s size (no greater than 640 square feet in floor area), location (no second units in designated hillside areas) and visibility (second units must not be visible from the street). In contrast, the disfavored state “default” standards allow second units as big as many primary residences (1,200 SF), have no restrictions on the location or visibility of second units, and contain no other meaningful protections for surrounding neighborhoods. 

Like other cities, LA’s adopted second-unit standards were originally intended to be administered on a discretionary basis through the conditional use permit process. Shortly after the 2002 state law changes, then-Chief Zoning Administrator Robert Janovici issued an administrative memo in 2003 describing how the City would thereafter administer its adopted standards on a ministerial basis. For the next seven years, the City successfully administered those standards, issuing approximately 40 second-unit permits a year. 

In 2009, however, at the city attorney’s urging, former Planning Director Gail Goldberg undertook a series of community workshops to study alternatives to the City’s adopted standards. These workshops were swamped with homeowners wanting a voice in potentially major density changes to their neighborhoods. In light of the strong outpouring of citizen opposition to the 2009 effort, Goldberg “pulled the plug” on the study and refused to send any ordinance to the City Council.  

Most citizens assumed the issue had been put to bed at that point. But in 2010, the Planning Department issued a behind-closed-doors administrative memo (ZA 120) based on the city attorney’s mistaken legal advice. The city attorney wrongly counseled that, as a result of the 2002 state law changes, the City needed to “formally amend” its adopted standards in order to provide for their ministerial administration. 

ZA 120 ordered the City’s planning and zoning officials to stop following its adopted standards and instead to follow the weak state “default” standards. For the next six years, the City issued about 75 second unit permits annually, but essentially all of the increase in permits involved unlawful permits that exceeded the City’s adopted standards. 

In 2014, Los Angeles Neighbors in Action brought its lawsuit demanding that the City set aside ZA 120 and resume following its protective local standards.  After almost two years of litigation, the Superior Court recently ruled that, since 2010, based on the city attorney’s mistaken legal advice, the City has been unlawfully ignoring its adopted second unit standards on a routine basis. As relief, the City was ordered to stop using ZA 120 and the state “default” standards, rather than its adopted standards, as the criteria for issuing second-unit permits.  

The City’s response? Perversely, it now proposes to “fast-track” a proposed repeal of its adopted second-unit standards. Without any prior community input and study, that proposal is now scheduled to be heard by the Planning Commission on May 12.  

The City’s repeal proposal is bad enough, replacing meaningful neighborhood zoning protection with virtually no protection. But the way the City is processing this proposal exemplifies its continuing broken planning system and completely undermines the City’s credibility at a critical point in time: 

• The public notice for the March 12 Commission hearing, for example, blatantly misstates that repeal of the City’s adopted second-unit standards is proposed “for the purpose of complying with state law AB 1866.” This is nonsense. Judge Chalfant ruled that the City had to stop routinely violating its adopted standards, and he specifically ruled that the City can properly continue enforcing its existing adopted standards. There is no legal need whatsoever to repeal those adopted standards and replace them with the weak “default” standards. 

• The City has put the proposed repeal ordinance on a “fast track” as an “urgency” ordinance. But it is hardly an emergency when a City is ordered by the Superior Court, as here, simply to follow its adopted zoning standards. Beyond that, under its adopted standards, the City issued approximately 40 permits annually over a seven-year period—the same number currently projected by its 2013 housing element. No crisis there. 

• The great majority of California cities have adopted their own local standards, rather than choosing to implement the undesirable state “default” standards. Similar to LA’s adopted standards, cities throughout Southern California enforce their local adopted restrictions to protect surrounding neighborhoods. The City’s repeal proposal would embrace the “default” standard without even first examining the alternative second unit ordinance approaches of these cities. 

• The much-heralded re:codeLA study will include, among other things, customized second-unit zoning standards designed to take into account the undeniably different topography, density, and character of LA’s diverse neighborhoods. The study’s rhetoric strongly denounces “one size fits all” zoning practices. But instead of awaiting the re:codeLA zoning recommendations, the City’s repeal proposal would immediately replace our existing strong second-unit standards with the weak “one size fits all” state “default” standards. 

Newly updated community plans also offer an opportunity for the City to formulate effective second-unit policies to be implemented throughout its widely diverse neighborhoods. But with its proposed repeal action, the City’s planning establishment appears willing to let LA’s neighborhoods suffer the negative consequences of unwanted (and unstoppable) second-unit development without first making any meaningful effort to study alternatives and to formulate public policies that take into account differing points of view. 

The bottom line: When the City says one thing but does another -- as its second unit policies and practices continue to do -- it completely undermines potential public support for its ongoing planning and zoning efforts.

(Carlyle W. Hall is an environmental and land use lawyer in Los Angeles who founded the Center for Law in the Public Interest and litigated the well-known AB 283 litigation, in which the Superior Court ordered the City to rezone about one third of the properties within its territorial boundaries (an area the size of Chicago) to bring them into consistency with its 35 community plans. He also co-founded LA Neighbors in Action, which has recently been litigating with the City over its second dwelling unit policies and practices. This piece appeared first in PlanningReport.com.)   Illustration by Kyle T. Webster. Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

The full quote goes, “Behold how good and pleasant it is for the brethren to dwell together in unity!”

…Which may not even be something to hope for. A lust for “unity” seems to lead to fascism, and whether of left or right doesn’t matter, because it is inherently oppressive. I prefer to think that what would really be good and pleasant would be solidarity: working together towards common goals, while making room for, and use of, the exhilarating diversity of thought and talents in our bustling little communities here in LA.

Sad to say, we don’t even get that, as our (sort of, in one case) elected leaders play us off into factions that fight each other over quibbles and intuitive but usually incorrect gut feelings, while the powers-that-be make their own quiet plans.

That may be changing. For now, CD 1’s Gil Cedillo (who squeaked into office by fewer than 800 votes, and then immediately backstabbed the good folks he’d pandered to in the safe streets community), gets to play tin god in the council chambers, blocking road diets and bike lanes, then grudgingly tolerating a traffic signal or two after enough bodies pile up, while keeping North Figueroa the perfect model of a modern Slaughter Alley. But opposition is rising …

As the LA Times noted a couple of days ago, not one, not two, but three candidates are gearing up to oppose him after what many in NELA hope will be his single term. They are former opponent Jesse Rosas, Miguel Amaya, and our own Josef Bray-Ali, the owner of Flying Pigeon LA, a former white-hat developer, and a tireless advocate for safe streets, local businesses, and a healthy community. Although the Times article characterizes him as a “bicycle advocate,” we all know that he is much more, and that the original road diet plan would have strengthened commerce and neighborhood solidarity and made the street safer for all—cyclists, yes, but walkers and drivers as well.

All Cedillo’s efforts have done is paint the street with blood—literally.

Meanwhile, across town, Paul Koretz is seeing opposition, as Beverly Grove lawyer Jesse Max Creed prepares a run for CD 5. Koretz has been steadfast in blocking bike lanes on Westwood, refusing even to permit an impartial study of the matter—which leads you to wonder what hidden interest he is “protecting” in his busy Westside district. Even Ryan Snyder’s plan for the street, which would have left all car lanes and parking intact, was refused consideration. 

Creed is not running on a pro-bike ticket (at least not yet), but there’s a chance he’d be more reasonable than the ever-obdurate Koretz.

So it looks like, with a little bit of solidarity, we might be able to vote a couple of neanderthals out of office, and move in folks who believe it is people, and not traffic jams, that make a city great.

Don’t forget to vote local on March 7th next year!

BEGGING FOR RECALL-We’ve all heard about the ruckus in Hollywood about spot zoning. That is the practice of councilmembers’ taking R-1 lots with single family homes and re-zoning them for large apartment complexes, often to be built with tax dollars as Affordable Housing. 

Hollywood got so fed up that it spawned the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative. Well, Councilmember David Ryu isn’t going to ignore poor old Sherman Oaks. Councilman Ryu has brought Spot Zoning to the Valley. 

Claiming to be the homeowner’s friend and to protect his constituency from the developers, Councilmember Ryu has not voted NO on a large development project since he was elected. 

Councilmember Ryu did vote YES on the gigantic Palladium Towers in Hollywood, and now he has moved on to destroying single family homes in Sherman Oaks. Approving Spot Zoning is a strange way to protect his district from Spot Zoning. 

When the neighbors told the Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council that they wanted to retain the R-1 zoning for their homes along Magnolia Boulevard and in the nearby neighborhood, Ryu’s response was that the community should be glad that he let them know what was happening. 

It may sound strange for a councilmember wanting praise for not concealing when a developer seeks Spot Zoning. In the culture that permeates Los Angeles City Council, however, being deceptive and closing the community completely out of any and all input to major decisions like Spot Zoning is Standard Operating Procedure. So, councilmember Ryu does seem to be a little more open than the other councilmembers. Some think that it’s the same as the difference between a polite mugger who does pistol whip you and one who needlessly whacks you on the head after stealing your wallet. 

Spot Zoning can destroy the value of a family’s major asset, the home. 

But these enterprising families are fighting back. They got the Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council to reject the project despite the developer’s renting a large bus to bring his friends and employees to stack the Neighborhood Council’s audience in favor of demolishing the homes. Perhaps, the SHNC Board member resented such crass manipulation. 

And now, these neighbors may sign on to the Recall Ryu campaign which grew out of his support for the Palladium Towers and his deception over putting a professional basketball court in the wilderness of Runyon Canyon. 

We can expect Ryu’s crocodile tears any time now. Nothing makes a Councilmember tear up faster than a Recall. 

But don’t be naive, that will not stop Ryu’s Spot Zoning of R-1 homes to Multifamily Affordable Housing. Ryu has promised this R-1 neighborhood to the developer, and Ryu knows on which side his bread is ultimately buttered. 

On the other hand, Ryu’s mega support for developers is earning him a lot of enemies. Along with Krekorian and O’Farrell, Councilmember Ryu may become prey in the Recall Games.

(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.

TAXED TO DEATH--Members of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors have suggested an income tax on millionaires dedicating the money for homelessness relief. Opening the door for local governments to impose income taxes would erode the state’s major fund raising mechanism, burden taxpayers with more paperwork, hit small businesses whose owners pay business taxes through personal income taxes, and subject more government revenue to a highly volatile revenue source. 

All in all -- a bad idea 

Last week, when Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed the bill that would have permitted local governments to levy cigarette taxes, he complained that there already are too many taxes on the coming ballot. A push for an income tax would increase the volume of tax measures facing voters. 

Yesterday, the LA Board of Supervisors put off for one week a motion to ask county lobbyists to try and convince legislators to change the law that prohibits local jurisdictions from imposing an income tax. 

Still, Pandora’s Box on local income taxes has been cracked open. If the movement persists, the consequences can be great. 

The proposal to levy local income taxes comes at a time that a statewide effort to extend the Proposition 30 state income tax levies is on-going. California’s top income tax payers already pay the highest income tax rate in the country. 

LA County wants to pile on. 

The LA County supervisors think they have a winning proposal. The press release announcing the effort said a poll showed 76% support. Advocates of the idea will point to 14 states that give permission for some local governments to raise income taxes. Of course, it’s always easy for those polled to say they are willing to raise taxes on someone else. 

But what happens when there is an economic downturn? I dealt with that concern for the state last week considering the possibility of a Shakespearean Tragedy for the State Budget. Looks like the locals want to stage a similar play. 

When I write “locals,” I mean more than Los Angeles. If the legislature decides to change the restrictions on local governments imposing an income tax, does anyone think other jurisdictions will sit idly by? Los Angeles County supervisors say they want the money to help the homeless. There are a lot of other interests in communities around the state that consider the causes they believe in worthy of more economic help. 

But, what about the taxpayers? 

How long before local taxpayers who continue to get hit with increased tax rates throw up their hands and give up on Los Angeles and California? The burden continues to grow. Proposition 30 was sold as a temporary tax for seven years. Perhaps many high-end income taxpayers said they would weather the storm. However, those taxpayers are now looking at an additional twelve years of the highest income tax rate in the country BEFORE local governments jump on that gravy train. 

In the Los Angeles County Business Federation (BizFed) poll of members issued last week, the number one concern for small business owners was the income tax. 

Before anyone thinks the push for new taxes is only about the rich, consider what likely might occur if government budgets relying on increased income tax revenue are hard hit during a recession or economic slowdown. 

I remember reading about the Midwest congressman who announced on the floor of the House of Representatives in the early years of the 20^th Century that he was voting for the amendment to the United States Constitution that would establish an income tax because his constituents wouldn’t pay the new tax. It was aimed at the rich. 

The income tax eventually came after his constituents, too.

(Joel Fox is the editor of Fox and Hounds and President of the Small Business Action Committee. This column was posted first at FoxandHoundsDaily.com) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

THE ISSUE: If prostitution is the oldest profession in the world, then debating its social benefits and whether it should be legal or not is the oldest pastime. Below, Erin Fuchs makes a case for legalization to help get the debate cranked up again. Let us know what you think.

BIZ WATCH--The attention-grabbing tiff between California Governor Jerry Brown and Florida Governor Rick Scott over the latter’s business-snatching safari to the Golden State highlighted a week of the state’s constant struggle to stay on top of business recruitment. The scorecard was mixed with news highlights of one business coming, one leaving and, watching with regret, one that got away.

California can improve the score if it keeps business burdens in mind. More on that later.

But first, the positive.

The Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) announced that medical device company Cerebain Biotech was moving headquarters from Dallas, Texas to Costa Mesa. GO-Biz’s announcement crowed about California’s dominance in the biotech field with 2848 companies directly employing 281,000 people. California, home to so many innovative companies, is hosting the annual biotech convention in San Francisco in June.

On the other side of the balance sheet, Jumba Juice announced it was moving its national headquarters from Emeryville to Frisco, Texas outside of Dallas. The company noted that less expensive living and operating costs were major reasons behind the move.

Win one, lose one in the business tug-of-war with Texas.

As far as that rhetorical battle with Florida, pretty much a wash as well. Governor Brown pushed back at Florida. He said job creation success in California is far superior than that in Florida with California creating twice as many jobs as Florida over the past year.

True as far as it goes. But since Florida’s population is about half California’s, Florida actually had a slightly faster jobs growth rate. The fact checking site PolitiFact put the issue in context this way: “Brown’s claim is close on the raw numbers. But it leaves out the important context that California is a much larger state that needs to add more jobs to keep its millions more people employed.”

On the other hand, PolitiFact dismissed Gov. Scott’s argument that California would lose 700,000 jobs because of the new minimum wage increase law.

All the while this activity was going on, across the state line in Nevada, the enormous Tesla battery gigafactory is going up. Bloomberg News had an updated report on the giant factory.

A couple of years ago, there were a number of articles on this site supporting California’s attempt to capture the factory designed to build batteries for the Tesla car company, which is headquartered in California.

Ironically, in this period of prominent discussion of building walls, I began my article about the Golden States’ failure to win the factory this way: “Maybe we should build a fence around California not to keep people out but to keep businesses in now that the Tesla decided that the battery gigafactory would set up shop across the border in Nevada.”

The gigafactory represented the latest technology and possibly 6500 jobs, so it was a big loss to California and its quest for capturing businesses that produce innovative and cutting edge technology.

What to make of all this? That California is in a constant competition with other states over business placements and job creation. To stay competitive, state legislators and regulators have to consider businesses’ bottom line costs, which seem to grow simply because of state imposed mandates, regulations and taxes.

While legislators congratulate themselves for passing bills to improve the human condition, they should remember that successful businesses are the essential element for improving people’s lives. Legislators must consider ways to offset the growing costs they mandate on business so that businesses remain in California, are built in California and create more jobs.

(Joel Fox is the Editor of Fox & Hounds … where this analysis was first posted … and President of the Small Business Action Committee.)

VOX POP--As a mayoral candidate in 2012, Eric Garcetti boasted that Hollywood’s high-end development had “become a template for a new Los Angeles.” With those words, LA Weekly looked into what that template would look like for the rest of the city. The paper’s findings were startling, especially for working- and middle-class folks.

In 2013, with an investigative report titled “Hollywood’s Urban Cleansing,” the Weekly found that between 2000 and 2010, nearly 13,000 Latinos were driven out of Hollywood and East Hollywood. As a longtime City Councilman, Eric Garcetti represented these neighborhoods, and experts and activists blamed the exodus on luxury overdevelopment, which spurred eye-popping gentrification. Residents and experts decried the city’s planning policies, which Garcetti and other City Council members largely shape, that dramatically altered affordable communities forever. The Weekly wrote:

Hollywood-area City Councilman Eric Garcetti, who is running for mayor in the March 5 primary and has for 12 years avidly led the urban renewal in Hollywood, won’t discuss the census data, the outflow of Latinos or the area’s net population loss, none of which were foreseen by his office. But Larry Gross, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Survival, a tenants’ rights advocacy group, says, “It was an economic tsunami that pushed low-income people out. There was massive displacement.”

 Representing more than 8 percent of Hollywood and East Hollywood’s population, the exodus of nearly 13,000 mostly Latinos is believed to be the largest mass departure from an LA neighborhood since “black flight,” between 1980 and 1990. In that demographic upheaval, 50,000 residents fled the violence and shattered neighborhoods of South Central and South Los Angeles.

 Garcetti and other LA politicians have insisted that growth is as inevitable as summer tourists, and that City Hall is merely facilitating Hollywood’s unavoidable, denser future with smart planning. But census data and the stories of those who have fled suggest that city planners and political leaders are facilitating what some criticize as the urban cleansing of Hollywood.

 Father Michael Mandala, who was pastor at the landmark Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church on Sunset Boulevard from 1998 to 2011, repeatedly saw landlords drive out Latino families of three or four in order to rent the same space to one or two white tenants. “I’m wondering if the policymakers are on the mark with fixing Hollywood,” Mandala says, “or are they clearing out what they don’t want?”

What happened in Hollywood is remarkably similar to what’s happening today in other LA neighborhoods, such as Koreatown and Westlake. It begs a simple question: Is this the kind of citywide template that Angelenos want? 

Further, Hollywood activists believed developers, who have given millions to L.A. politicians in campaign contributions, were receiving big favors while citizens were getting screwed over — the same complaint uttered today by residents in the San Fernando Valley and the Westside. The Weekly reported:

Brad Torgan, an attorney at The Silverstein Law Firm, which represents one of the groups, describes the Hollywood Community Plan as Garcetti’s personal “vision for Hollywood — good and bad.” But, Torgan says, “There’s a perception that the plan was created for the development community at the expense of the residents.”

Experts were clearly disturbed by City Hall’s hard push to help out their deep-pocketed developer pals. The paper wrote:

Dowell Myers, a demographer and urban planning professor at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy, says L.A. political leaders and planners have already gone too far to draw a high-end crowd to Hollywood. “We don’t need more condos,” he says. “We need more rentals. Rentals are where you house lower-income and poor people.”

 Dennis Frenchman, a well-regarded professor of urban design and planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has a similar message for Los Angeles’ leaders: “Diversity is the key to long-term sustainability. … Density without diversity makes things worse.”

Former Hollywood resident Mercedes Cortes, who was pushed out of her home, asked a question that still remains relevant today — and one that City Hall leaders have shown no signs of considering when trying to carry out a new template for a denser, more high-end Los Angeles filled with luxury housing mega-projects.

As if talking directly to Garcetti, the grandmother and retired house cleaner [Mercedes Cortes] delivers up one of [her] complaints, still unanswered after all these years: “When they start to build something, why does the middle class have to suffer for that?”

With our community-based movement, however, citizens across L.A. are standing up and speaking out. We are no longer allowing City Hall to easily get away with their secret deals and bad planning policies that dramatically impact millions of hard-working Angelenos. Read more of the Weekly article, and you’ll know why our cause and the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative is so important.

And please join the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative movement by clicking to our Act page right now, and follow and cheer our efforts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. You can also send us an email at [email protected].

Together, we can create the change that LA needs!