Author: David Hunter

Local News

• Union del Barrio, with support from Black Lives Matter, organized a protest in Gardena with the family of Andres Guardado, an 18-year-old Latinx man killed by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputies on June 18. The sheriff’s deputies were not wearing body cameras and reportedly seized security camera footage before obtaining a warrant. The protesters marched from the location of the shooting to the Compton sheriff’s station. At a press conference on Saturday, the LASD claimed that none of the six to seven cameras they took had memory cards, and that they do not have any footage.

• State lawmakers reached an agreement with Governor Gavin Newsom on Monday that found workarounds to avoid some of the deep cuts Newsom had called for in schools and social service spending.

• Councilmember Jose Huizar has been arrested for violating the RICO act. The full affidavit, detailing bribes Huizar took from real estate developers, is here. A Los Angeles Times editorial makes the case that this corruption results almost inevitably from the amount of money the Los Angeles City Council takes from developers in campaign contributions.

• Following an 11-hour meeting, the LAUSD school board voted on Board member Monica Garcia’s motion to defund the Los Angeles School Police Department. Black Lives Matter-LA held a demonstration outside the meeting in support of Garcia’s motion. However, the motion failed by a vote of 4–2, with one abstention. Three of the board members appeared staunchly opposed to the newly vocal opposition to the school police, including George McKenna, whose own proposed bill “reaffirming the role of LASPD in ensuring safe, peaceful, and respectful engagements on our campuses” was repeatedly praised by the numerous police officers who spoke during public comment. The fourth “no” vote came from Jackie Goldberg, who attempted to craft a compromise motion that would place some restrictions on police behavior, and that was later amended to include a $20 million budget cut. This motion, and McKenna’s, also failed. Ultimately, the four members of the board who supported school police reform, and among them held the votes to pass a motion, could not come together.

• By comparison, Oakland’s school board voted unanimously this week to eliminate the district’s police department via a resolution named in memory of George Floyd. San Francisco’s school board also voted unanimously to void its memorandum of understanding with local police and to ask teachers to refrain from calling police for minor incidents.

• The Los Angeles City Council passed a motion carving out $100 million of Los Angeles’ federal aid to establish a tenant relief fund. The fund would make rental payments to landlords on behalf of tenants who could demonstrate financial hardship due to an economic or health impact from COVID-19. The fund is expected to last through October.

• The City Administrative Office has found and itemized $139 million in cuts to the LAPD budget, and that budget has passed out of committee. This number is short of the $150 million in cuts that were initially proposed by the mayor, which was already orders of magnitude less than the 90% cut called for in The People’s Budget. Despite the council’s warm reception for People’s Budget LA at a special meeting last week, the two sides remain far apart in their immediate goals. One caller into public comment said the smaller cuts feel “more like showmanship than a commitment to real change.”

• The Metro board is beginning the process to overhaul transit policing. The Alliance for Community Transit flooded the public comments in support of the strongest proposal, and the board passed four motions that include a mandate for Metro to review ways to revise transit police’s use-of-force policy and to find ways to reallocate resources to homeless services. A new advisory committee will also be created to implement alternatives to armed police for nonviolent matters including unhoused outreach, while a motion filed by Councilman Mike Bonin mandates revisions to Metro’s mutual aid agreement to prevent LAPD from using Metro buses for transporting detained protesters as they did at the onset of police brutality protests a month ago. But Metro is still a long way from any budget cuts, as its $130-million-per-year contract with LAPD does not expire until 2022.

• LA County has only secured enough hotel rooms through Project Roomkey for about 4,000 of the estimated 15,000 unhoused residents in the county who are considered medically vulnerable to COVID-19. Meanwhile, LAHSA has proposed an $800 million, three-year program to permanently rehouse these 15,000 through a “combination of bridge housing, rental subsidies and rehousing services.” But the source of this funding is unclear and could require diverting funds from other housing projects. 

• California is not on target to meet its goal to reduce carbon emissions by 40%  by 2030. The state, led by EPA Secretary Jared Blumenfeld, is now reevaluating it’s cornerstone strategy to fight climate change: The cap and trade program, a system that sets an overall cap on greenhouse gas emissions each year but offers flexibility in how companies achieve it by allowing them to buy and sell pollution credits in auctions. 

• On Thursday, the California Air Resources Board voted unanimously to adopt a landmark rule that will require the majority of trucks sold in California to be zero-emission by 2035, putting California at the forefront of US climate policy.  California’s Air Resources Board hopes the new measure will improve local air quality, rein in greenhouse gas emissions, and lessen the state’s dependence on oil. Oil companies and the farming industry opposed the measure, calling it “unrealistic, expensive and an example of regulatory overreach.” 

• Fifty farm workers in the central city of Wasco, CA, have gone on strike for better sanitation measures for the more than 400 workers at Primex Farms. The company has confirmed that there are 31 employees who have tested positive for coronavirus, but has dismissed the concerns of striking workers and stated that they have revamped safety measures. One employee mentioned that just a few days ago, the company was previously selling cloth masks back to employees for $8 each. This comes among repeated concerns for farm laborers around the country since the start of the COVID-19 crisis. Farm workers are still one of the lowest paid occupations in the country, and President Trump has signaled interest in lowering pay standards during the pandemic. 

• Los Angeles County now has the most coronavirus cases in the US as California has seen a 69% surge in cases in two days and a record number of people were hospitalized last weekend. Latinx residents, who make up a large proportion of frontline workers in the state, account for 57% of all cases despite being only 39% of the population. There are currently no plans to slow or reverse the state’s reopening.

• Despite the surge in coronavirus cases, many LA County residents are struggling to get testing appointments. Officials said the shortfall is due to reducing the number of testing sites and appointment slots, and the county will now open an additional 12 testing sites on Monday.

Elections

• In the last two decades, police unions in Los Angeles have spent at least $64.8 millionon payments to city council members and state legislators, as well as lobbying costs to influence law enforcement policy and thwart pushes for reform. Police unions from all around California have also poured over $2 million into helping Jackie Lacey, a staunch ally of police, in her district attorney race.

• Relatives of Alex Flores and Daniel Hernandez, who were killed by LAPD officers in late 2019 and April 2020, led a protest outside Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey’s home on Saturday to demand that she charge the LAPD officers who shot them. Amidst these protests, Representative Adam Schiff’s rescinded his endorsement of Lacey, while, Lacey’s challenger George Gascon won an endorsement from Senator Elizabeth Warren.

LOCAL NEWS

CW: Racist Violence

• People’s Budget LA presented its proposed alternate budget of the city’s General Fund to a group of city council members. The People’s Budget, which reimagines community safety and reduces the LAPD’s share of the budget from 54% to 5%, was presented by a coalition of activists led by Black Lives Matter-LA and other groups. The development process of the budget incorporated several weeks worth of surveys asking Los Angelenos for their spending priorities. The presentation, unprecedented given the council’s previous resistance and apathy to activist demands, would not have occurred without the sense of urgency generated by weeks of protests in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd. After the presentation, councilmembers vowed to adopt the budget in some capacity. Despite the strong rhetorical commitment from several councilmembers, as of yet, the mayor’s proposed $150 million dollar cut to the police budget represents only a fraction of the cuts proposed in The People’s Budget. The entire presentation can be watched here.

• Community members gathered in Palmdale to mourn and demand justice for Robert Fuller, a 24-year-old Black man whose body was found hanging from a tree near the City Hall. Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger requested an independent investigation by Attorney General Xavier Becerra, after an outcry from family and community members when authorities first announced the cause of death as suicide. The FBI has also announced it is examining Fuller’s case, as well as the death of another Black man, Malcolm Harsch, who was found hanging from a tree in Victorville a week earlier, in another case where local authorities said there was no evidence of foul play. Robert Fuller’s half brother, Terron Boone, was killed by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies on Wednesday in Rosamond.

• Councilmembers Herb Wesson and Nury Martinez put forth a motion calling for the development of “an unarmed model of crisis response…that would divert non-violent calls for service away from LAPD to the appropriate non-law enforcement agencies.” The motion specifically mentions the CAHOOTS program in Oregon, which is emerging as a touchstone in similar discussions in cities around the country, as a model. “If it’s what it appears to be, it’s absolutely a step in the right direction,” said Black Lives Matter-LA co-founder Melina Abdullah.

• Two weeks after the Minneapolis school board terminated its contract with police, hundreds of students, parents and teachers gathered at LAUSD headquarters to demand that LA’s school board do the same. The protest called for LAUSD’s $70 million police contract to be diverted to programs that can help Black students, like counseling and mental health services.

• Thousands marched in the streets of Hollywood and West Hollywood in the All Black Lives Matter March to denounce racism and support LGBTQ+ lives. The march was organized by a newly formed group, Black LGBTQ+ Activists for Change, after the original organizers from LA Pride faced criticism for seeking a permit for the march from the LAPD.
   
• A statue of Christopher Columbus asking Queen Isabella to support his 1492 voyage to the Americas will be removed from California’s Capitol rotunda. It has not been announced what will replace it.

• Following intensifying opposition from community activists, CIM has abandoned its plans to buy the Crenshaw Mall and repurpose it as “creative” office space.

• An LA Times investigation found that despite anti-eviction rules in place during the pandemic, landlords are using illegal tactics such as illegal lockouts and utility shutouts to force tenants out of their homes, with the majority of recorded instances taking place in Black and Latinx neighborhoods.

• AB 3121, State Assemblymember Shirley Weber’s bill calling for a task force to study potential mechanisms for reparations, passed in the California Assembly on a 61–12 vote. It now heads into the State Senate.

• The Supreme Court has allowed California’s Sanctuary Law to be upheld. This means that law enforcement will not cooperate with aggressive deportation forces. This comes after two different defeats for the Trump administration: the rulings on LGBT discrimination in workplace and the ruling upholding DACA.

• Detainees in San Diego’s Otay Mesa have started a hunger strike in order to draw attention to the now 27 positive cases of coronavirus. Detainees were made to sign English-language waivers in order to receive face masks. Detainees who objected have reported being denied medical treatment, pepper-sprayed and placed in solitary confinement in retaliation. In addition, guards have purposely tried to disconnect detainees from communication with outside groups such as Otay Mesa Resistance.

• Two more incarcerated men at Chino prison have died after testing positive for COVID-19, bringing the total death toll to 15. The number of cases at San Quentin has tripled in the last two weeks, spurring family members, attorneys and advocates to call for urgent action to fast-track release of prisoners.

• Two far-right extremists have been charged in the killing of a federal security officer in Oakland on May 29. The two men appear to be part of the “boogaloo” movement, which aims to foment a second Civil War through violent insurrection.  Members commonly wear Hawaiian shirts underneath their ballistic vests when they attend rallies and protests. The men used a George Floyd protest as a cover to carry out the premeditated killing. One of the men was a sergeant in an elite Air Force security unit and is also being charged for the killing of a sheriff’s deputy during a shootout when police tried to arrest him.

• Pacific Gas & Electric is preparing for life after Chapter 11 after a Bankruptcy Court judge filed a written decision Wednesday saying he would approve PG&E’s reorganization plan. This decision comes a day after the monopoly utility entered guilty pleas for 84 felony counts of involuntary manslaughter stemming from the devastating November 2018 wildfires in Northern California that were caused by the company’s equipment. While PG&E CEO Bill Johnson promised his company would emerge from bankruptcy “reimagined,” skeptics say it’s unclear there’s anything fundamentally different about the utility, which over the last decade has caused a deadly pipeline explosion, deadly fires and days-long power shut-offs affecting millions of people. This marks PG&E’s second bankruptcy in two decades.

ELECTIONS

• A Los Angeles county report determined that malfunctions in the electronic tablets used to check in voters at polling locations caused the hours-long waits during the primary election on March 3. The report found that the county’s new voting machines also had malfunctions, but that the primary issue stemmed from inadequate planning, testing and programming of the electronic poll books and a lack of paper backup for voter lists.

• The California State Legislature passed a bill to strengthen Governor Gavin Newsom’s plan to mail ballots to all eligible voters in the November general election, enshrining the mandate as a statute. The legislation will provide a stronger legal footing for Newsom’s executive order, which has come under attack from multiple Republican-led lawsuits.

LOCAL NEWS

• Monday’s meeting of the LA City Council’s Budget and Finance Committee did not take up the motion that would follow through on Mayor Garcetti’s recent pledge to redirect $250 million to social services with up to $150 million coming from the LAPD budget, as the motion’s authors requested until the committee’s next meeting on June 15 to continue with drafting. An extended public comment session received hundreds of calls, with the vast majority forcefully demanding a new budget in line with the People’s Budget LA, which lowers the LAPD’s share of the city’s General Fund from 54% to 5%, while reimagining a city where most police duties are reassigned to other agencies. Leaders from the Service Employees International Union, United Teachers Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy also called on Mayor Garcetti to cut at least $250 million from the LAPD budget.

• Leaders of United Teachers Los Angeles have called for the elimination of the Los Angeles School Police Department and to redirect its $70 million budget toward mental health services. An ACLU report on over-policing in California schools can be read here.

• The LAPD is restricting its use of carotid restraints, which restrict or block blood flow to the brain. Meanwhile, legislation has been introduced at the state legislature to make carotid restraints illegal.

• LAPD officer Frank Hernandez has been charged with assault for the beating of an unhoused man in Boyle Heights in April that was caught on video. Hernandez has been an officer for over 20 years and has been involved in three on-duty shootings.

• In April the California Judicial Council, which makes rules for the California court system, had instituted a statewide policy of $0 cash bail for misdemeanors as an emergency coronavirus order to alleviate crowding in county jails. On Monday a 17–2 council vote rescinded that policy. The policy had not led to a rise in crime, but the council’s position appears to be that the crisis has passed and the status quo should return. In November, California will vote on SB-10, which would eliminate cash bail permanently.

• As the state’s prison system returns to its pre-COVID functionality and once again accepts transfers from county jails, a coronavirus outbreak in Chuckawalla Valley State Prison in Riverside County has spread to over 1,000 inmates.

• The Aliso Canyon gas storage field, the site of the worst gas leak in US history, which sickened nearby residents and spewed heat-trapping methane into the atmosphere, is ramping up its operations. In 2015, 8000 families were forced to leave their homes after the leak caused a rotten-egg smell to blanket the area and they began experiencing headaches, nosebleeds and nausea. During his campaign for governor, Gavin Newsom claimed he was committed to shutting down the facility, but he has not followed through. Newsom has also reneged on his promise to hire more oil and gas regulators in his recent budget, and in April allowed approval of a dozen fracking permits in Kern County. 

• California’s freight and oil industries are attempting to delay two proposed regulations that would limit diesel exhaust throughout the state, using the coronavirus pandemic as a pretext to request sweeping regulatory relief. Activists and clean-air advocates point out that the health risks of living with polluted air are now even greater due to the links between COVID-19 severity and pre-existing respiratory conditions, especially for communities of color living near freight transportation hubs. 

• The largest landlord organization in Southern California is suing the city of Los Angeles to remove eviction protections put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic. The suit claims that landlords’ constitutional rights are being violated because the 5th Amendment prevents the government from taking property without compensation. Property law experts have said that local governments do have the power to temporarily ban evictions during emergencies.

• The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority released a count of unhoused people that concluded in January prior to the pandemic, showing a 13% increase in LA County and a 14% increase in the city of Los Angeles. Black people are ten times more likely than white people to become unhoused, with Black people making up 34% of the unhoused population, but only 8% of the overall population of the county. Activists decried the pervasive systemic racism and failures of institutional leadership causing the housing crisis, and called attention to the coming onslaught of evictions that will hit Black and Latinx communities hardest when the California Judicial Council lifts the temporary moratorium on evictions imposed in April. 

• Farmworkers who live in conditions where social distancing is all but impossible fear they will contract the coronavirus and spread it to their families. In agricultural centers such as Salinas Valley and Monterey County, many families live in cramped conditions due to the lack of affordable housing. In guest worker housing built by labor contractors, each dormitory can have as many as 24 people sleeping head-to-toe. 

• Multiple Tesla workers have gotten coronavirus after Elon Musk’s decision to defy lockdown orders and reopen the company’s main production facility in Fremont. Despite an agreement by Tesla to adhere to strict social distancing measures, a worker said there was “no social distancing at all when clocking in/out [because] people are…in a hurry to go home or get back to their work station,” adding “it’s like nothing but with a mask on.” 

• Today LA County is allowing the reopening of gyms; museums; professional sports arenas without live audiences; music, television, and film productions; hotels for leisure travel; and more. Despite increasing coronavirus cases and deaths, county health officials cited stabilized hospitalizations as a reason for continuing with reopening.

LOCAL NEWS

• Ongoing uprisings demanding justice for George Floyd, the defunding of the police, and accountability for police killings have continued throughout Los Angeles; Black Lives Matter-LA has led actions at the home of Mayor Eric Garcetti and the office of District  Attorney Jackie Lacey. Activism against police violence has created unprecedented support for demands to defund the police. As a result of continuous pressure by activists and ongoing protests and organizing, City Council President Nury Martinez has introduced a motion calling for up to $150 million in cuts to the LAPD to be redistributed to communities of color, and Mayor Garcetti has announced reallocation of $250 millionfrom the city budget to health and education in the Black community and other communities of color. The People’s Budget LA coalition released a statement declaring victory but called for further cuts, with Melina Abdullah, a leader of Black Lives Matter-LA stating that “they need to go much further. $150 million looks big, until you realize it still leaves the LAPD with 51% of the city’s unrestricted revenues. That’s not at all acceptable.” The LAPD budget was previously $1.8 billion, which accounted for 53.8% of the unrestricted general fund of the city, and Mayor Eric Garcetti had previously proposed to increase the budget by 7% overall, which included generous raises and bonuses for officers. The LA City Council normally reviews and approves the mayor’s budget each year, but allowed it to go into effect without a vote this past Monday. It takes effect on July 1 and is currently open to amendment.

• Black Lives Matter – LA filed a class action lawsuit on Friday against the LAPD, alleging that the LAPD unlawfully detained over 2600 people engaged in peaceful protest and engaged in excessive force and improper conditions of confinement.

• Members of the California State Legislature’s Black and Latino caucuses introduced legislation that would make “carotid” neck holds illegal; Governor Gavin Newsom also announced his support for the restriction and for new use-of-force standards for protests.

• In an unprecedented move, LA Metro shut down the entire bus and rail transit system in response to this week’s protests, stranding protesters as well as essential workers. Metro also allowed its buses to be used to transport prisoners who had been arrested, 
  which several other city’s transit departments had declined to do.

• Centro Legal de la Raza announced a hunger strike at the Mesa Verde ICE processing facility in Bakersfield, part of ongoing protests by detainees against unsafe conditions that increase risk of exposure to COVID-19. 

• All government-run coronavirus testing sites in the city and county of Los Angeles have reopened as of Friday, after about half of the 36 sites were closed last week. Mayor Garcetti’s decision to close the sites made it more difficult to track and trace infections at a moment when city officials have expressed concern that large demonstrations could increase transmission of the virus. 

• Countywide curfews have been lifted following a lawsuit filed by the ACLU on behalf of Black Lives Matter – LA challenging their legality. The full brief and a statement from the ACLU can be read here. Cities within the county still have the authority to set their own curfews.

ELECTIONS

• Janeese Lewis George,endorsed by and a member of the Metro DC chapter of DSA, decisively won election to city council in Washington, DC. Lewis George ran on a host of progressive policies such as expanding housing affordability, getting money out of politics, providing higher paying jobs, enacting criminal justice reform, and defunding the police to spend money on social services.

• Nikil Saval endorsed by and a member of the Philadelphia chapter of DSA, also endorsed by the national DSA, unseated the incumbent in Pennsylvania’s 1st State Senate district.

• All current national DSA endorsements for 2020 can be found here.

LOCAL NEWS

• Black Lives Matter – LA organized and led a protest in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday, joining continuing protests in cities across the nation to demand justice for George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and demanding accountability for 601 people killed by police in LA County. Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police officer Greg Chauvin on Monday, while on the ground handcuffed and pleading that he could not breathe. Taylor was murdered in her home by police officers in Louisville in March. The Los Angeles protesters successfully blocked the 101 Freeway, where a police car drove violently through a crowd of protesters, and gathered outside of District Attorney Jackie Lacey’s office. Black Lives Matter – LA further called on LA City Council President Nury Martinez to convene a special city council meeting to reject Mayor Eric Garcetti’s proposal to spend 54% of the city’s general fund on the LAPD, and instead adopt the People’s Budget, which has been developed with input from more than 20,000 residents and activists, to defund police and provide funding for services that help and strengthen Los Angeles communities.  A full statement from DSA-LA on the murder of George Floyd can be read here, and the national statement from DSA can be read here. DSA-LA demands an end to the mass murder of Black and Brown people at the hands of U.S. law enforcement, and DSA-LA will fight alongside Black Lives Matter-LA and other BIPOC-led groups to dismantle the systems that uphold capitalism and white supremacy, which include police, prisons and detention centers.

• On Thursday, regulators at the California Public Utilities commission voted to approve PG&E’s reorganization plan to exit bankruptcy. The approval came despite widespread community outcry and public comment mobilized by DSA and other groups, and opposition from over 200 local elected officials. DSA will continue to organize to fight for energy democracy and to turn PG&E into a public and worker owned utility.

• Activists are continuing car protests to draw attention to the COVID-19 outbreak and unsafe conditions at the Otay Mesa and Adelanto ICE detention centers, and to demand that detainees be released. Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejia was the first ICE detainee to die in US custody, but many other detained immigrants fear he will not be the last. He died in San Diego’s Otay Mesa, which has the largest coronavirus outbreak of any immigration detention center. He had lived in the US for over 40 years. Some of those detained with him notified medical staff many times, but Carlos was merely instructed to fill out multiple “sick cards,” and given ibuprofen. Immigrants are being held on civil offenses, not criminal, meaning they could be released at almost any time. Although 91 detainees have been released as part of the court order, many fear for the lives of those that remain. 

• Big Oil has lost its appeal to stop California cities and counties from taking it to court to seek damages for the impact of climate change. The lawsuits target Chevron, Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, BP and Royal Dutch Shell as being responsible and seek to make them pay for damages from climate change as well as for infrastructure to prevent future impact.

• A former close aide to Councilmember Jose Huizar pled guilty to criminal racketeering, the fourth such plea deal stemming from an ongoing federal corruption probe into City Hall “pay to play” real estate deals. Council President Nury Martinez and Mayor Garcetti have now both asked Huizar to resign. The plea agreement can be read here; as part of the agreement, evidence emerged that Huizar had used a bribe from a Chinese billionaire to privately settle a sexual harassment suit brought by a former staff member.

• A new citywide program will move $100 million of federal relief into a fund designed to help “qualifying” Los Angeles renters keep up with their rent during COVID-19. In announcing the program, LA City Council President Nury Martinez acknowledged that the housing department would likely be overwhelmed by demand. The program is designed to cover renters by making payments directly to their landlords.

• The County Board of Supervisors met on Wednesday. A debate as to whether to seek a variance that would allow cities within the county to reopen piecemeal, as each individually hits recovery benchmarks, split the board 2–2 and was moved to a closed session. Opponents argued that the piecemeal approach would disadvantage the communities of color that have been hit hardest by COVID-19.

• Many of the cities within LA County with the highest infection rates neighbor the city of Vernon, where there have been outbreaks at numerous industrial plants. The city has only a few hundred legal residents — most of Vernon’s thousands of workers live nearby.

• Coronavirus infection rates in LA County jails are nearly 60% in some locations. More than 1000 inmates out of 13,000 have tested positive and over 5000 are currently under quarantine.

• Anti-lockdown protests are being attended by extremist groups such as the Proud Boys (designated by the FBI as having ties to white nationalism), and by armed militias that advocate for civil war. Brian Levin, a professor of criminal justice who studies extremism, says that their intermingling with other participants, who have a wide variety of concerns, is concerning because the extremists can recruit as well as create an environment that is a “petri dish for conspiracy theories and bad information, as well as aggressiveness.” Many of the anti-lockdown protests are funded by wealthy conservative groups, including the family of Secretary of Education Betsy Devos.

• Los Angeles County is reopening despite still being the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in California. All retail stores are now allowed to have in-store shopping at 50% capacity; personal care services such as barbershops and salons can reopen; restaurants can resume dine-in services; faith-based services can resume at 25% capacity or 100 people, whichever is lower; flea markets, swap meets and drive-in movie theaters can open; and public protests can also take place at 25% of a location’s capacity or 100 people, whichever is lower. Social distancing and the requirement to wear face masks remain in place.

ELECTIONS

• California now faces a second suit to prevent the move to a vote-by-mail November election. The new suit, brought by the Republican Party, is in addition to the suit filed previously by a conservative group and Repulican Darrell Issa. President Trump has repeatedly undermined confidence in the democratic process by attacking the use of mail-in ballots as “rigged,” and is falsely claiming that California is distributing ballots to noncitizens and that people will send in hundreds of thousands of fake ballots.

LOCAL NEWS

• People’s Budget LA, a coalition of activist groups including DSA-LA’s Street Watch, Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, and Ktown for All, mobilized opposition to Mayor Eric Garcetti’s proposed budget cuts and flooded social media and public comments periods in an outcry over proposed spending on LAPD at the expense of social services. On Thursday the City Council declined to approve the budget and referred the budget to committee for further discussion, meeting the activists’ demands for more time for public input. The coalition will now pressure the City Council to pass a People’s Budget, centering human services and defunding the LAPD. Currently, police funding takes up over half of LA’s budget. DSA-LA member and endorsed LA City Council candidate Nithya Raman pointed out that “all of the proposed cuts to services total $230 million. LAPD officer pay is simultaneously being increased by $144 million. If officers were to receive the same pay they did last year, we could be saved from two-thirds of the cuts.”

• Health officials announced on Wednesday that LA has reached an important milestone in the fight against coronavirus, with the transmission rate now slightly below 1, meaning that on average every person with COVID-19 infects less than one other person. Simulations show that if this transmission rate is maintained then just 9% of Angelenos will have contracted the virus by December. However, even a slight uptick in the transmission rate — to 1.5 — could result in nearly half the city becoming infected by December. For this reason, county health officials continue to stress the importance of residents abiding by social distancing guidelines even as the city’s lockdown begins to ease.

• The University of California announced that it has fully divested from all fossil fuels, becoming the nation’s largest educational institution to do so and capping a 5-year effort to move the public research university’s $126 billion portfolio into more environmentally sustainable investments. The movement against fossil fuels has bloomed to encompass more than 1,100 faith, educational, government, corporate and nonprofit institutions, with $14 trillion in assets, in the last decade. Among them, more than 50 universities have committed to full or partial divestment.

• After a federal judge ordered LA County to carry out a “humane relocation” of unhoused residents underneath the city’s freeways, local officials have submitted preliminary plans that include a rapid expansion of safe parking sites and pallet shelters, as well as safe campsites based on a pilot program implemented by the West Los Angeles VA. The judge’s order requires that all unhoused residents living under overpasses must be offered an alternate space in a shelter with access to health and hygiene services before police can order them to leave, and that this offer must be given with advance notice. 

• Gov. Newsom’s Project Roomkey, a plan to house thousands of unhoused Californians in hotel rooms across the state, is rolling out far slower than anticipated. Only half of the 15,000 rooms leased for the project have been filled. 

• School support staff, teachers, and superintendents are warning that the school budget cuts proposed by Gov. Newsom could threaten the ability of schools statewide to reopen safely. 

• A 74-year-old man committed suicide in the Mesa Verde detention center in Bakersfield. Choung Won Ahn had expressed concerns over contracting COVID-19 due to his many pre-existing health conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and heart problems. 

• The Guardian has published a deep look at six prisons in California where the failure to implement basic protocols to prevent the spread of COVID-19 has preceded “rapidly escalating outbreaks,” with some fearing worse to come.

• “A restaurant worker without papers has to work twice as hard. You have to constantly say: ‘I’ll do it.’ The day someone is out sick, you have to cover. You can’t get sick. You can’t call out. It’s a hard road to walk,” says Oscar, who now is out of work. Being undocumented, he is not eligible for unemployment or a stimulus check. Undocumented workers account for 10% of the US labor force, and there are about a million undocumented workers in the food and beverage industry. With the government failiing to provide relief to the undocumented community, many groups including DSA-LA are engaging in solidarity campaigns and mutual aid to address the dire circumstances of undocumented Californians. In April, California announced a $125 million relief fund specifically for undocumented workers, however during this week’s rollout, it met a fate similar to that of other COVID-19 relief funds, with its administration being rapidly overwhelmed by a deluge of claims, and most predicting the fund to be fully drawn down very quickly.

• A full timeline of Elon Musk’s erratic behavior on Twitter can be found here, preceding his decision to restart production at Tesla’s plant in Fremont on May 9, flouting shelter-in-place orders. Tesla’s HR department told employees on Wednesday that operations were returning to normal and their attendance policy was resuming as of this week at both their Fremont assembly plant and their Sparks, NV, battery factory. Musk and Tesla dropped a suit filed against Alameda County, and Musk said he would move Tesla’s headquarters out of California and threatened to move manufacturing and future projects away as well. 

ELECTIONS

• Judicial Watch (a conservative activist group) and Republican congressional candidate and former member of Congress Darrell Issa filed a legal challenge to block Governor Newsom’s executive order to direct state elections officials to mail a ballot to every voter and conduct an all-mail November election. Newsom’s order would make California the first state to move to an all-mail election in response to the pandemic; the Republican National Committee also said it was weighing legal options in response.

Local News

A federal court judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s plans to pump more water into the Central Valley, after the California Natural Resources Agency and the California Environmental Protection Agency and half a dozen environmental groups filed two lawsuits against the administration, arguing that the plan would cause irreparable harm to species protected by state and federal law.Democrats in the California State Senate introduced a series of proposals to address the economic impact of COVID-19. The proposals include a plan to allow qualified renters 10 years to repay missed rent payments directly to the state, while the state would compensate landlords through tax credits that could be sold for cash. A second bill focuses on allowing debt forbearance and postponement, allowing homeowners to request forbearance on mortgage payments for a year and allowing borrowers of auto loans, payday loans and other forms of debt options to postpone payment with increased consumer protections. Senate Democrats are also developing an economic stabilization plan in which individual and corporate taxpayers could prepay a decade’s worth of income taxes at a slight discount in order to provide the state with immediate funding for short-term economic relief programs. Governor Newsom announced the state is facing a projected $54.3 billion deficit, has called for cuts to public school spending and government services and has requested federal assistance to prevent billions in further budget cuts. The deficit is attributable to a collapse in state tax revenue, the costs of COVID-19 response and the growing numbers of residents signing up for health and social services due to economic hardship. Newsom is proposing a 10% pay cut to state employees as part of a plan to reduce spending, and union leaders from SEIU Local 1000 are planning to offer and negotiate an alternative plan. The deadline for legislators to pass an operating budget is June 15.  California is struggling to drive down its coronavirus cases and has not seen a sustained decline in deaths over the past month even as it takes steps toward reopening. This may be the result of two factors: 1) Essential workers are being put at increased risk — a study in the San Francisco area found that 90% of cases are coming from those who must leave their homes to work; and 2) People are experiencing stay-at-home fatigue, with some flouting social distancing to return to beaches and other crowded places. AB-3121, the “Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans,” has passed out of the California Assembly Judiciary Committee with an 8–3 vote in favor. The vote broke along party lines. It will next be voted on by the Assembly Appropriations Committee.An ICE employee working at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, which is privately owned and operated by GEO Group, has tested positive for COVID-19. This comes as reports that 943 of the 1,788 detainees tested nationally for coronavirus have returned positive results. The first death of an ICE detainee from COVID-19 occured at San Diego’s Otay Mesa Detention Center last week. Activists from the LEAP coalition, a citywide coalition of environmental justice and frontline health and housing groups, are calling on Mayor Garcetti to restore $800,000 in funding, and to guarantee full funding, for the Climate Emergency Mobilization Office and the Climate Emergency Commission in the 2020-21 budget. In 2019, the coalition partnered with the Mayor and the City Council to approve these structures to facilitate a just transition toward a fossil-free economy, however the funds were not included in Mayor Garcetti’s latest budget, released in April. The City Council has until June 30 to approve the budget.Pressure is mounting in the probe into corruption at Los Angeles City Hall, with a real estate consultant pleading guilty to a racketeering charge and agreeing to cooperate with federal prosecutors. Documents make clear that the investigation is into City Councilman Jose Huizar, who is alleged to have accepted cash bribes and other enticements in exchange for helping secure approval for a major development project.This week the LAPD released body-camera footage of one of its officers, Frank Hernandez, violently beating a homeless Boyle Heights man. The release, which occurred after a third-party cell phone video had gone public, led to an outcry. Hernandez’s lawyer claimed that the man had punched Hernandez in the chest, but the bodycam footage does not support this. Hernandez has been involved in three prior on-duty shootings in his career. Los Angeles public schools will start classes on August 18 regardless of whether their campuses reopen. Many details remain to be worked out for reopening, such as class sizing and scheduling to meet social distancing guidelines, as well as the issue of whether masks would need to be worn by students and teachers — which the district does not have the resources to provide. This planning is taking place as Governor Gavin Newsom just announced major funding cuts that could lead to teacher and staff layoffs.  Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that all Angelenos will be required to wear masks when outside, with the exception of small children and those with certain disabilities. This announcement came as Los Angeles began to open up some businesses for curbside pickup and beaches for active recreation. Officials continued to caution that reopening will be a slow process and extended the stay-at-home order indefinitely on Tuesday.

Elections

Democrat Christy Smith conceded defeat to Republican Mike Garcia in the race to fill the seat vacated by Katie Hill in California’s 25th congressional district. Hill had picked up the seat as part of 2018’s “Blue Wave” of Democrats; it will now flip back to red. Donald Trump was an active booster of Garcia’s campaign, making characteristically unfounded charges of electioneering after the Democrats succeeded in opening an extra voter station to serve the city of Lancaster. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton endorsed Smith. Smith and Garcia will face each other again in November, when they will be running for a full congressional term.

Local News

After renewed national outcry, a white father and son in Georgia have been arrested and charged with murder and aggravated assault in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man. Arbery was jogging in his neighborhood when he was confronted and killed in what Arbery’s father and others have called a modern-day lynching. A newly released video shows Gregory McMichael and his son Travis waiting with guns in a pickup truck blocking the road when Arbery approached, and they immediately attacked him as he tried to avoid them. The shooting occurred on February 23, but no charges were initially brought, with the first assigned prosecutor recusing herself due to McMichael being a former employee of her office. The second prosecutor also recused himself, after a month on the case, due to a complaint by Arbery’s family that his son worked in the prosecutor’s office where McMichael used to work. Prior to his recusal, the second prosecutor sent a letter to the police department saying there was insufficient probable cause for an arrest. The killing of Arbery occurred just three days prior to the eighth anniversary of Trayvon Martin’s death. The US food supply system has been upended by the Coronavirus as huge shifts have resulted in a massive increase in food bank use at the same time that produce rots in fields and meat processing plants close. The existing system that linked farmers, meat processors, truckers, food distributors, restaurants, grocers and food banks collapsed when restaurants were forced to close, which sharply decreased overall demand. Now grocers are passing on less food as they struggle to keep pace with bulk purchases by customers; other sources, such as leftover food from movie productions, have also vanished. The result is desperation, with food distribution points that give directly to hungry Californians seeing their supplies exhausted minutes after opening.

Local News

Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejia, a detainee in San Diego, became the first to die of COVID-19 while in ICE custody. His death occurred just one day after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overruled a US District judge’s ruling to decrease the population at California’s Adelanto ICE processing facility, one of the largest immigrant detention facilities in the country, to a level that would allow the remaining detainees to maintain a social distance of six feet from one another. Eduardo Robles-Holguin became the sixth inmate to die from COVID-19 at Terminal Island prison in San Pedro, and family members of inmates took to the streets outside the prison to demand justice and safety for incarcerated people. Terminal Island is the location with the largest outbreak of COVID-19 in the federal prison system, with 620 inmates and 15 staff members infected as of May 5. Video footage of an LAPD officer brutally and repeatedly punching a man during an arrest in late April in Boyle Heights has sparked widespread outrage and condemnation, and activists are calling on District Attorney Jackie Lacey to prosecute the officer. The LAPD announced they would conduct an internal review after the video footage spread online this week. The officer has been involved in three prior on-duty shootings. DSA-LA’s Street Watch coalition organized with unhoused activist Davon Brown to seize a hotel room in the DTLA Ritz-Carlton and demand that Mayor Garcetti follow through and commandeer empty hotel rooms to provide safe shelter for the unhoused during the pandemic. The Ritz-Carlton gets $270M in taxpayer subsidies and yet at least 900 rooms remain empty. The LA City Council has so far voted only to publicly identify hotels that have refused to take part in Project Roomkey, a joint effort by the state, county and city to shelter the county’s unhoused in vacant hotel rooms. The program, which is restricted to only the elderly and “medically vulnerable,” aims to find rooms for 15,000 of the county’s estimated 60,000 unhoused. But as of yet, rooms have been found for only 1,800, the program is voluntary, and some hotels have resisted participating.Meanwhile, outside of Los Angeles, several hotels that have willfully participated in Project Roomkey have faced pushback from neighbors and from their own municipal governments. Judges permitted Los Angeles County to issue restraining orders against the cities of Bell Garden and Norwalk, both of which had attempted to prevent hotels from taking part in the program. In Covina, protesters chanting “not in my neighborhood” and “safety first” were ultimately successful in convincing a local hotel owner to back out. Rent strikes are spreading in Los Angeles and across the country as economic desperation compounded by the pandemic further worsens the housing crisis and radicalizes tenants. Membership in the LA Tenants Union has more than doubled since the start of the crisis, and most of their now 8000 members participated in a citywide rent strike on May 1. These strikes are estimated to be the largest since the 1930s. According to one estimate, the federal government could expand existing housing subsidy programs to cover all qualified low-income renters and those newly eligible due to the pandemic for just $100 billion a year, a mere fraction of the trillions handed out by Congress to large corporations in the series of bailout bills passed already. The LA City Council unanimously passed a measure that will allow tenants to sue landlords who violate the city’s eviction rules for those affected by COVID-19. The measure allows judgments of $10,000–$15,000 to tenants of these “unscrupulous” landlords. Tenants will still be required to pay back all missed rent within a year of the end of the emergency. Council President Nury Martinez presented this measure as the last word on rent relief from the city. “While we have done everything that we can, neither the mayor [nor] the Los Angeles City Council has the legal authority or the financial ability to do more,” she asserted in a speech following Mayor Garcetti’s signing of the bill into law. Frustrations continue to grow as many more file for unemployment. California’s Employment Development Department says it has processed 3.5 million claims since mid-March. 2.7 million claims have been filed in the last month, and the state has decided to waive certification requirements until further notice. This comes as news breaks today that US unemployment has reached 14.7% and that 20.5 million jobs were lost in April alone. Businesses in LA County such as “car dealers and other types of brick-and-mortar stores — including florists and those that sell toys, music, books, clothing and sporting goods” are reopening today with curbside pickup. Officials caution that this is not a return to normal, as LA County accounts for over half of the COVID-19 deaths in California.

Elections

Ahead of the May 12 special election to replace Katie Hill in Congressional District 25, Democrats argued that black voters are being disenfranchised by the unbalanced placement of voter centers. “Lancaster is the single most diverse part of the district, and yet the nearest voting center is nine miles away,” said LA County Democratic Party Chair Mark J. Gonzalez.

Happy May Day!

Happy May Day to all the comrades in struggle today! DSA-LA’s Political Education Committee shares this short pamphlet of assorted May Day histories, memories, and songs compiled as both a celebration of our radical tradition and as a call to commit (and recommit) to our collective fight for an ambitious and emancipatory political horizon. As Martha Foley says in these pages, “We are not alone! There are others, many, many others and we triumph!” Solidarity forever!

Local News

California is facing a record low turnout in 2020’s census. With conventional canvassing and door knocking impossible, advocates worry about undercounts in vulnerable communities. You can take the census online here. On April 28th, International Workers Memorial Day, Trump used the Defense Production Act to compel meat processors across the country to stay open, or reopen, despite the plants being the site of some of the highest rates of COVID-19 transmission nationwide. The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union reported the same day that at least 20 meat processing plant workers had died and 5000 had been hospitalized or were showing symptoms of the virus. In addition to forcing these plants to stay open at the expense of workers’ lives, Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Labor Department are vowing that the federal government will defend employers against worker lawsuits over workplace exposures during the pandemic. The move comes at a time when some state governments are also signaling to workers that they will lose continuing unemployment benefits if they decline to return to their workplace out of concern for their health and safety. Immigrant detainees at ICE detention centers continue to report being on hunger strike for their release and for protections against COVID-19 as the number of confirmed cases among detainees and employees grows daily. Incarcerated immigrants at Otay Mesa, site of the largest outbreak of any detention center nationwide, report that ICE is massively underreporting cases in detention. ICE has tested only 705 out of 30–40,000 detainees as of this week, with 60% of those tested coming back positive. Thus far, 70% of federal prison inmates tested have been positive for COVID-19. A federal judge this week upheld Trump’s recent executive order that uses nativist arguments of “protecting American workers” during the pandemic to bar green cards for many for a period of 60 days or more. Administration officials have indicated to supporters in private calls that the order is a preview of more long-term restrictions to immigration. According to the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning council, more than 1,100 physical and verbal attacks against Asian Americans have been documented since late March across 46 states, with women more likely to be targeted than men. Activists in California are calling on county supervisors to denounce discrimination and hate crimes targeting Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic. In March, the FBI issued an intelligence report warning of an increase in hate crimes “based on the assumption that a portion of the US public will associate COVID-19 with China and Asian American populations.” Echoing historical xenophobic and racist tropes used against Asian Americans and communities of color, President Trump, other politicians, and media figures have repeatedly used the phrase “China virus” to refer to the pandemic rather than the terms “coronavirus” or “COVID-19” used by public health officials. Incidents can be reported to Stop AAPI Hate here. Some law enforcement agencies are publicly pushing back against the Judicial Council’s April 6 emergency bail schedule, which lowers bail for low-level crimes to $0 statewide in an effort to reduce crowding in jails and combat the spread of COVID-19. “These misguided judges and the professional apologists for criminals saw an opportunity to utilize COVID-19 to advance their dangerous views on incarceration,” said the head of the San Jose police union. In November, California will vote on SB-10, which will eliminate cash bail permanently and replace it with a risk-based system. A Northern California police officer is under investigation after a viral video of the officer punching a 14-year-old African American boy while pinning him to the ground was released by the boy’s family, creating nationwide outrage. Tanya Faison, founder of Black Lives Matter Sacramento, noted that this was the third encounter in the past year in the Sacramento area that involved police officers over-policing children of color. In June, Sacramento police officers put a spit hood on a 12-year-old boy, and in July, three 13-year-old boys were held at gunpoint by a Sacramento police officer, Faison said. This week the California Labor Secretary has created a separate portal for the Pandemic Assistance Program. Self-employed and gig workers can now apply for $600 a week and receive compensation for any wages lost or diminished since March 29. Many are still struggling to access the original EDD Unemployment website, and although the state has planned to hire more staff, 43% of those who have already applied are waiting to receive benefits. Conservative groups have filed a lawsuit against Governor Gavin Newsom, after Newsom’s announcement on April 15 that the state would allocate $75 million in aid for undocumented immigrants as part of a plan to provide $125 million in aid for those without legal status. The plan, allocating $500 per adult, would be financed partly by NGOs. This does not cover even basic necessities in Los Angeles, where the average rent alone is $2,375 for a one-bedroom apartment. Governor Gavin Newsom detailed four stages for California to begin loosening stay-at-home orders. The first phase, which we are currently in, involves the state increasing its testing, contact tracing, stores of personal protective equipment, and hospital surge capacity, while also having essential workplaces make physical and workflow adaptations and encouraging behavioral changes by individuals. Hitting benchmarks here will enable Phase 2, which allows for lower-risk sectors to gradually reopen with modifications that maintain social distancing guidelines, including some retail stores, manufacturing sites, offices where telecommuting is not possible and some public spaces like parks and trails. This phase will also require wage replacement, to allow sick workers to remain at home. Phase 3 will allow for the reopening of higher-risk workplaces, while Phase 4 will mark the end of stay-at-home orders and permit the reopening of the highest-risk events, like large-scale concerts, conventions and live-audience sports. To achieve Phase 4 will require coronavirus therapeutics to be in place. Beginning May 4, LA City Council will resume weekly meetings on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Elections

The California Attorney General’s office is reviewing whether Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey’s husband should be charged with a crime. David Lacey pointed a gun at Black Lives Matter activists outside the Lacey home on March 2, prior to the primary election. Jackie Lacey is in a runoff election with challenger George Gascon; primary election results at the precinct level are now mapped here.

DSA-LA ORGANIZING PROFILES:

STREETWATCH VICTORY!

What is Streetwatch? Streetwatch began in 2017 as a project of the DSA-LA Housing & Homelessness (H&H) committee, inspired by and trained by the amazing organizers in the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN), who began their “Community Watch” program in 2006, and won several lawsuits against the city. Streetwatch member Jed Parriott, who is also a member of LA CAN, noticed that those lawsuits ended in settlements that only applied to Skid Row, and realized there was a need for a similar program that gathered evidence of the city’s harmful practices throughout LA. The Streetwatch group quickly grew into a big part of the work of the H&H committee. Streetwatch teams are now active in Echo Park, Hollywood, Westside, SF Valley, Koreatown and Downtown LA, with a newly formed South Bay team in progress. Streetwatch co-founded a citywide coalition that calls for Services Not Sweeps, which has now inspired the similar Solutions Not Sweeps in San Francisco and works closely with Ktown for All.A Major Legal Victory Streetwatch was there when Janet Garcia, a housecleaner, had all her work supplies thrown away by the city as she was using a nearby restroom, and has seen the city do this countless times. Janet Garcia and seven other unhoused people in different locations agreed to sue the City of LA. Members of LA CAN, Streetwatch, Ktown for All and lawyers at Legal Aid Foundation offered to negotiate with the city, and spent eight months trying to come to an agreement out of court. The city refused to offer meaningful concessions and the negotiations failed, so lawyers at Legal Aid filed the lawsuit, which challenges the city’s municipal code 56.11, one part of which allows the city to immediately trash anything they consider a “bulky item.” People living through these dehumanizing sweeps get no warning and no clear instructions on what is and is not bulky. The court ruled on April 13 that this part of the city code is likely unconstitutional, so the City of LA must immediately stop enforcing it. The lawsuit continues against other aspects of LAMC 56.11, but this is a huge victory for Janet Garcia and everyone else who has had their rights violated because they cannot afford a roof over their heads. DSA-LA was instrumental in the work that allowed this lawsuit to go forward; without Streetwatch we would not have had the leverage to get this result. In 2019, LA CAN presented DSA-LA with a “Freedom Now” award. We are proud of our work to bring together housed and unhoused people across the city, fighting against capitalism together — which continues with our #NoVacancyCA campaign!

LOCAL NEWS

Hundreds of immigrant detainees report being on hunger strike to demand protections against COVID-19 at three ICE detention facilities in California — Adelanto, Mesa Verde and Otay Mesa. At Otay Mesa, site of the second-worst outbreak in ICE detention, 42 detainees and eight ICE employees have been confirmed positive for the virus as of April 22; ICE has confirmed 287 detainees and 35 employees in their facilities testing positive nationwide. Detainees at Otay Mesa report that employees of the private prison company Core Civic, which runs the facility, attempted to force them to sign a release form — written only in English — in exchange for a single surgical mask that they are expected to use for a period of 15 days. Those who refused to sign and protested were pepper sprayed. Detainees at other ICE facilities nationwide have described similar abuse as they have advocated for themselves in light of the risks of the pandemic. On April 20, a federal judge ordered ICE to review the custody of every at-risk person in detention nationwide and consider their release, saying that the government’s failure to protect them from the risks of COVID-19 “likely exhibited callous indifference to [their] safety and wellbeing.”  144 people incarcerated by the state of California have tested positive for COVID-19 as of April 22, as have 97 Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation employees. The first confirmed death of an incarcerated person in a California state prison came Sunday in San Bernardino County. Meanwhile, Lompoc, CA, is the site of the worst outbreak of COVID-19 in a federal prison in the US; 69 incarcerated people and 25 employees have tested positive there. Research suggests that mass incarceration will be a major driver of COVID-19 infection rates and fatalities. The United States incarcerates more people than any other country on earth and also leads the world in COVID-19 cases. An epidemiological study released in collaboration with the ACLU this week finds that models projecting 100,000 COVID-19 deaths in the United States have failed to account for mass incarceration as a vector of infection, and estimates that an additional 100,000 people could die unless drastic decarceration is undertaken.  A coalition of more than 50 Black Los Angeles–based community leaders issued 55 immediate and long-term demands in light of COVID-19 and rates of Black death, stating that “Interlocking economic, political, and social injustices collide with long-standing patterns of medical racism to make COVID-19 a Black issue that demands a response specific to the needs of the Black community” and highlighting that “Black people are dying at two-three times our population share from COVID-19. In Los Angeles County, the rate of Black death is twice our population share, with Black people constituting 9% of the County population, but 17% of the COVID-19 deaths. With nearly 900,000 Black residents in the County and 403,000 Black residents in the City (the eighth-highest number of any city in the United States), what happens in Los Angeles has serious national implications. While several initiatives have been launched nationally, state-wide and locally, none speak to the particular needs of the Black community.”  The coronavirus pandemic continues to place a spotlight on the devastating impact of air pollution on the human body, with severe cases of COVID-19 being linked to high air pollution. Scientists have recently detected coronavirus on particles of air pollution, and are investigating if this may increase the distance that the virus can travel. Even before the pandemic, air pollution was considered the largest environmental risk factor for disease in the US. Communities of color are particularly impacted by pollution due to higher rates of pollution and decades-long disparities in healthcare systems. The result is that African-American children are “500 times more likely to die from asthma than white children, and have a 250 percent higher hospitalization rate for the condition.” In Wisconsin, African-Americans are just 6% of the population but account for half of the COVID-19 deaths, and “in New York City, Hispanic people represent 29 percent of the population, and 34 percent of the city’s deaths — the largest percentage by race.” The impact of pollution goes far beyond being associated with severe cases of COVID-19. Studies have indicated links between high pollution and long-term health impacts such as increased likelihood of developing high blood pressure, asthma, diabetes, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, and negative impacts on fetal birth weight.  At Wednesday’s Los Angeles City Council meeting, a bid to blanket ban all evictions for the duration of the Coronavirus emergency failed, by a vote of 6–7. A measure already passed in March banned evictions of tenants who had been impacted by the pandemic, but Councilmember Mike Bonin, one of the sponsors of the blanket ban, echoed objections that the earlier law forced tenants to demonstrate loss of income, and allowed unscrupulous landlords to strong-arm tenants unsure of their rights. The city attorney, again present at council in an emergency capacity, reiterated concerns that a blanket ban would exceed the city’s authority and open the city to lawsuits. These concerns were cited by the measure’s opponents, including Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell, who called the process a “charade” and specifically chastised the legal advocacy group Public Counsel — which had released analysis arguing the city indeed had the legal authority to enforce an eviction moratorium — for offering “false hope.” The legality of such a measure remains in dispute. Councilmember Gil Cedillo reassured the council that the knowledge that the City of Los Angeles would not be going much farther than it had to protect renters would bring people “peace.” The City Council passed a measure voicing support for combined relief for renters and property owners at the state and federal level, and moved over a million dollars into a fund that would provide assistance to renters. A similar fund established in Santa Clara quickly ran through 11 million dollars in March. A study found that people “experiencing homelessness are twice as likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 and two to three times more likely to die than the general population.” Getting into a shelter may not help, as outbreaks are developing in some — and a new UC Berkeley study shows “high-density congregate settings” to be unsafe even if operators follow social distancing guidelines. A better solution is to use single-occupancy hotel rooms, but, as of Tuesday, LA County has leased just 2500 and fewer than 750 are occupied, vastly below the city’s 60,000 homeless residents. Efforts to expand the use of hotels is being met with resistance from local residents. A drive-through protest of stay-at-home orders was held by right-wing group “Operation Gridlock” in Downtown Los Angeles, but was sparsely attended. The Los Angeles Times plans to stop publishing three community newspapers: the Glendale News-Press, Burbank Leader and La Cañada Valley Sun. “The three titles, while journalistically sound, are operating at significant losses,” the paper explained in a note to readers.

ELECTIONS

DSA-LA member and city council candidate Nithya Raman — an urban planner who has focused on urban poverty, housing and homelessness and is endorsed by DSA-LA in the ongoing race for City Council District 4 — published an op-ed criticizing the City Council for cracking down on unlicensed street vendors, writing that “in an environment of near-universal desperation like this one, getting relief requires a loud voice to make your needs heard. Unfortunately, those who need the most help right now are often people we’ve forced into the shadows all along. The faces of LA’s shadow food economy are its street vendors. There are about 50,000 street vendors operating in Los Angeles, 10,000 of whom sell food. Many are undocumented. Many are refugees, whose families came here fleeing violence in Central America. Many are seniors. 80 percent are women of color…Los Angeles has never done right by its vendors. This crisis was an opportunity to make up for decades of cruelty — to give neighborhood vendors the opportunity to serve food safely and legally, and help fill the gaps left by dried-up supply chains and shuttered restaurants. Instead, the city has done the opposite. We’ve failed them again.”