Questions Surround the January 10, 2022 Death of LAPD Officer Fernando Arroyos
THE VIEW FROM HERE - Because early news reports always have errors, one should not accept early news reports at face value.
THE VIEW FROM HERE - Because early news reports always have errors, one should not accept early news reports at face value.
RantZ and RaveZ - While Mayor Eric Michael Garcetti waits for confirmation by Elected Representatives in Washington, D.C., to the distinguished position of United States Ambassador to India, his record as Mayor and 8 year leader of the City of Los Angeles can be described by some as an embarrassment to his Legacy as the 42nd Mayor of Los Angeles.
COVID WATCH - Unauthorized pop-up testing sites have been reported in northeast Los Angeles, along the Wilshire corridor and across LA County.
THE DOCTOR IS IN - I very much prefer the company of children to that of adults, because only children act their age.
PLANNING WATCH - In last week’s Planning Watch column, I pointed out that LA’s underwhelming urban forest is a key indicator that the city’s planning glass is mostly empty.
NEIGHBORHOOD POLITICS - The Los Angeles City Council Tuesday called for the state to pass legislation requiring a minimum of five years of ownership before a homeowner can invoke the Ellis Act to evict tenants and take the property off the rental market.
EDUCATION COMMENTARY - If “zoom schooling” has taught us anything, it’s that we’re locked in and our kids are learning things that shock us.
HOUSING WATCH - New laws that took effect on January 1 end single-family home zoning in California.
HOUSING WATCH - For as long as California has been a state, local governments have decided where housing will and won’t go and how much to allow.
PLANNING WATCH - From the Dog Bites Man Department: The recently adopted Los Angeles 2021-2029 Housing Element met its first legal challenge, with the likelihood of more to come.
JUSTICE WATCH - Everyone is entitled to an opinion about “justice” for a 14-year-old girl who was an unintended victim of a ricocheted bullet fired by an LAPD officer after responding to desperate 911 calls that a male suspect inside the North Hollywood Burlington Coat Factory had badly hurt several people and had a gun.
DEEGAN ON LA—One thing is for certain in a simmering concern in the Mid City area:
COMMENTARY - We cosmopolitan coastal progressives tend to look down on any hint of conspiracy theories, especially after the plethora circling the drain of the Trump oligarchy.
PLANNING WATCH - In case you have doubts, LA’s Planning Department has assembled a long list of planning projects they worked on in 2021.
A Citywide Sign ordinance, a Collection Bin ordinance, amendments to the Cornfield-Arroyo Seco Specific Plan, a Home-Sharing Ordinance amendment, a Local Emergency Code amendment, a Mello Act ordinance, a Private Detention Centers ordinance, a Processes and Procedures Ordinance, a Restaurant Beverage Program Ordinance, a Ridgeline Protection Ordinance, a Temporary Signs on Construction Walls Code Amendment, a Transportation Demand Management Program update, a Vacation Rental Ordinance, a Ventura-Cahuenga Boulevard Corridors Specific Plan amendment, a Westwood Village Specific Plan amendment, and a Wildlife District ordinance.
In addition to these prospective ordinances, the City Council adopted three planning-related ordinances in 2021: a Cannabis Location Restriction ordinance (Adopted June 22, 2021), amendments to the Floodplain Hazards Management Specific Plan (Adopted April 14, 2021), and a Protected Tree and Shrub ordinance (Effective February 4, 2021).
But, for those skeptics who think the planning glass is nevertheless mostly empty, there are seven categories for you to ponder:
As for the citywide General Plan elements, they should be updated every ten years, and these long overdue updates should be completed prior to the preparation and adoption of new Community Plans. These citywide elements include Air Quality (1992), Conservation (2001), Health (2015), Safety (1996), Mobility (2015), Infrastructure (1972), Open Space (1973), Public Facilities and Services (1969), Noise (1999), and Housing (2021). Of these, only the Housing Element is current, and its singular focus on up-zoning means it is headed for failure.
Melting into the shadows of green-lighted high-rise apartments with high vacancy rates, are LA’s ever-increasing homeless. These Angelinos desperately hope they can make it through LA’s winter without joining the 1000 people who have annually died on LA’s streets.
Planning is more than the regulation of private real estate ventures, what is left behind when planning departments abdicate their role in preparing, implementing, and monitoring policies for an entire city. In LA the General Plan includes citywide plans, as well as local Community Plans. What they have in common is that they address the city’s entire land area. This includes what is visible at street level, located below, and the environment in which all of the categories above reside. This means that municipal plans must address design and architecture, urban forest, housing and homelessness, infrastructure and public services, climate and environment, and mobility. When they don’t, the result is the bleak Los Angeles that we encounter every day.
(Dick Platkin is a former Los Angeles city planner who reports on local planning issues for CityWatchLA. He serves on the board of United Neighborhoods for Los Angeles (UN4LA) and co-chairs the Greater Fairfax Residents Association. Previous Planning Watch columns are available at the CityWatchLA archives. Please send questions and corrections to [email protected] .)
THE VIEW FROM HERE - A glance at Los Angeles City Council shows no White domination. Our longest serving White councilmember (putatively Irishman Mitch O’Farrell) is also Native American and Gay.
THE DOCTOR IS IN - If you're beholden and dogmatic to a political, psychological, or quasi-theological way of thinking, then perhaps this piece isn't for you.
THE VIEW FROM HERE - When Joe Biden had 200 million shots in the arm a week before his deadline to have 100 million shots in the arm, he did not say, “More good Dem got shots than bad GOP, who are out to kill the rest of us.”
EDUCATION WATCH - When Los Angeles Unified School District’s new rockstar superintendent, Alberto Carvalho, formerly of Miami-Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS), concluded his remarks at a press conference on Dec. 14, the first question he received from the media was not about vaccine mandates, teacher shortages or the omicron variant.
THE DOCTOR IS IN - This article may be a toughie for those who want to read this.
THE VIEW FROM HERE - When LAPD Det. Mark Fuhrman first took the stand during the July 1994 preliminary hearing of the O.J. Simpson trial, he looked every inch the movie star as OJ himself.
PILL POLITICS - "The result of the House Oversight Committee investigation is clear: American families are suffering from outrageous drug prices, while Big Pharma rakes in record profits."
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