Author: David Hunter

Issue No. 152 – April 7, 2023

City Politics

• DSA-LA’s annual convention will take place on Saturday, April 22. DSA-LA members will discuss and vote on chapter priorities for the upcoming year. RSVP here, and read about the proposed resolutions here!

• Results in the CD6 special election have started to come in, with Imelda Padilla and Marisa Alcaraz in the top two spots. Both candidates are in favor of the recent revisions to 41.18 designed to further displace unhoused people; current totals project a runoff election between the two of them. More on the candidates here.

• The only currently active petition to recall Councilmember Kevin de León will not move forward, as signatures were not submitted by the deadline. The petition was organized in part by a CD14 resident who had attempted to recall De León several times already, motivated by opposition to a Tiny Homes Village in Highland Park.

Health Care

• Governor Newsom has proposed two major changes to the state’s mental health system during his state-of-the-state press tour: a bond measure to fund an increase in the number of residential psychiatric treatment beds, and a regulation requiring counties to spend a certain amount of their mental health services budget on housing for unhoused people with severe mental health issues. CalMatters covers the pushback the second of these has received from mental health workers.

• The LA Times published a historical look at the LAPD’s anti-abortion squad, which existed before Roe v. Wade.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• The City of Los Angeles filed a lawsuit “immediately denounced as legally meritless” against a journalist with Knock LA, who legally obtained a database of photographs, along with names, badge numbers, and other public information, of LAPD officers. The information is public and was provided by the LAPD in response to a public records request. The “Watch the Watchers” database, hosted by the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, can be found here.

Housing Rights

• Knock LA has platformed a letter from residents of an encampment on Aetna Street in Van Nuys that may be the target for an Inside Safe operation. The letter, responding to shortcomings in previous incarnations of the program, forcefully asserts the needs of the community that will have to be met in order for them to participate.

Labor

• The Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) has set a strike authorization vote, with voting to begin next week on April 11. The WGA is entering contract negotiations with the American Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP); a yes vote would authorize the guild’s negotiating committee to call for a strike, if deemed necessary, on May 1. At issue are lagging pay and job security for writers, especially as the shift to streaming platforms has allowed studios the opportunity to reset the labor market in their own favor.

• A dockworker shortage at the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports drew attention to protracted labor negotiations between the union that represents West Coast dockworkers and the industry group representing maritime shippers.

Environmental Justice

• The California Air Resources Board (CARB) will soon decide on a rule that would require most new heavy-duty trucks to be zero-emission by 2036. CARB proposed to extend the zero-emission deadline for some 200 garbage trucks, but after pressure from waste companies, that exemption grew last month to around 10,000 conventional combustion trucks.

Thorn 119

State Politics

• The current state legislative session will close on August 11, leaving the fate of several bills with a dwindling window of time to be passed. Streetsblog Cal urged support for AB 2438, which aligns transportation policy with climate goals. A reader brought our attention to AB 2632, which significantly regulates the use of solitary confinement in California prisons. Both bills have passed the Assembly but need to be passed in the state Senate by the deadline.

Healthcare

• A Los Angeles County indoor mask mandate, scheduled to go into effect today, has instead been paused. The county has been in a “high” state of community transmission for two weeks, triggering a mandate according to the CDC’s revised guidelines. The County Board of Health has pointed to a recent decline in hospital infection rates to explain the reversal.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• A town hall was convened on Zoom to address widespread concerns about the LAPD shooting of Jermaine Petit, who was unarmed and was shot in the back. LAPD representatives were unable to coherently answer community questions about the incident and abruptly ended the Zoom. Petit has inexplicably been charged with felony assault with a deadly weapon. Knock LA has been covering.

• On Monday, Sheriff Alex Villanueva was again scheduled to testify before the Civilian Oversight Commission about deputy gangs. He once more canceled his appearance at the last minute, this time refusing to comply with his subpoena until a list of formal demands were met, including the right to cross-examine witnesses.

Housing Rights

• With a crowd of protesters outside Los Angeles City Hall to denounce the City Council’s proposed expansion of 41.18 anti sit/lie/sleep zones, the vote was continued until August 2.

• Council also discussed the Declaration of Local Emergency, which is currently one of the only things preventing a flood of evictions in Los Angeles, and which must be extended monthly. The council voted to extend for another month, but Counclimember Bob Blumenfeld pulled the item for discussion and spoke ominously about the need for an “exit strategy” for “mom and pop housing providers.”

Labor

• Frequently, newspapers devoting disproportionate attention to property crimes are asked why they don’t report on wage theft committed by employers. This week, CalMatters did some reporting on wage theft.

Transportation

• LAPD shutdowns and councilmembers bickering over graffiti: agony over the new Sixth Street Bridge continued to deepen and intensify this week. L.A. Taco recaps from a community perspective.

Environmental Justice

• Reuters published an investigation focused on the radioactive contamination from Santa Susana Field Lab just outside LA, but also broadly surveying the way corporations such as Boeing are granted “conservation easements,” which critics see as a tool for companies to limit their toxic waste cleanup responsibility.

• The LA Times interviewed Max Gomberg, who this month resigned in protest from the California State Water Resources Control Board over Governor Newsom’s inaction in combating the state’s worsening drought.

Thorn West: Issue No. 103

State Politics

• Most Californian tenants are again exposed to pre-pandemic eviction protections following the close of applications for the Housing Is Key rental assistance program and the expiration of the state’s eviction moratorium. The legislature did pass AB 2179, emergency legislation that extends the moratorium until June 30, but only for tenants who applied for rental assistance before the deadline and are still waiting on resolution from the backlogged program. AB 2179 also prevents municipalities from passing additional, stronger protections, and strips many that were already in place, including in Los Angeles County. It is supported by landlord lobbyist groups such as the California Apartments Association.

• The nine-person advisory task force assembled to craft a potential statewide policy on reparations voted 5–4 to limit benefits to those who can demonstrate a direct lineage to enslaved ancestors.

City Politics

• Los Angeles County has begun taking applications for “Breathe,” its guaranteed income pilot program. Those accepted into the program will receive $1,000 a month for three years.

Housing Rights

• After a six-month-long tenant-led campaign, the Pasadena Tenant Justice Coalition is celebrating the submission of over 15,000 signatures in support of amending the city charter to guarantee rent control and stronger eviction protections for Pasadena tenants; 13,366 signatures were needed to put the amendment on the November 2022 ballot.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• Knock LA is hosting a candidate forum for Los Angeles County Sheriff, moderated by Cerise Castle, this Tuesday, April 5.

Labor

• Many celebrities crossed a picket line to attend a post-Oscars party thrown by Jay-Z at the Chateau Marmont. Unite Here Local 11 has been calling for a boycott of the hotel since it laid off most of its workforce two years ago, and two former employees have since filed a lawsuit alleging a pattern of sexual harassment and racial discrimination.

Environmental Justice

• State regulators entered a South LA oil drilling site with a warrant and bolt cutters after being unable to schedule an inspection. “It demonstrates that the state oil and gas regulator is willing to take actions that would assist in protecting the health of the community,” said Hugo García, campaign coordinator with social justice nonprofit Esperanza Community Housing Corporation.

• Governor Gavin Newsom ordered water suppliers across California to step up their local drought responses, but fell short of requiring water rationing or setting a statewide conservation target.

• With drought conditions leaving California vulnerable to a dangerous wildfire season, the state auditor reported that officials are failing to hold electric utilities accountable for their equipment failures.

Issue No. 101 – March 18, 2022

State Politics

• In response to rising gas prices, some state legislators have now proposed sending a $400 rebate to every California taxpayer (not just drivers). Curbed LA promotes a more impactful approach: a federal buyback of gas-powered cars.

City Politics

• With petition numbers now finalized, it’s clear that DSA-endorsed candidate Eunisses Hernandez will be incumbent Gil Cedillo’s only challenger on the ballot in Council District 1. This means the primary on June 7 will decide the winner.

• LA Podcast’s newsletter highlights a particularly substantive mayoral debate from last week, organized by the Los Angeles Provider Alliance to End Homelessness.

• Knock LA talks with “The Defenders of Justice,” a slate of public defenders running for judgeships in the Superior Court of LA County.

• Cat Packer, the head of Los Angeles’ Department of Cannabis Regulation, resigned last week. Packer had been battling the city for more personnel in the department, which has struggled to process licenses in a timely fashion. The city’s licensing program prioritizes social equity applicants who have had undue exposure to the criminal justice system, many of whom have been left on the hook leasing storefront space they cannot use.

Housing Rights

• Housing Is Key Rental Assistance Program, a fund that helps pay off back rent for Californians affected by COVID, will be closing for new applications on March 31 at 5 PM. (Apply here.) The program has so far struggled to disburse its funds to tenants in need.

• A planned sweep displaced an encampment at Toriumi Plaza in Little Tokyo this week. Councilmember and mayoral candidate Kevin de León, who ordered the sweep, embraced the full Orwellian playbook, conflating temporary shelter with “housing,” while demonizing on-the-ground activists as “agitators.” Disgraceful.

Labor

• A second Starbucks location in Los Angeles has announced an intent to unionize, and DSA-LA is organizing its members in support.

Environmental Justice

• Despite a drought emergency being declared and the state pleading to cut back water usage, ​​Californians used 2.6% more water in January 2022 compared to January 2020. Newsom has yet to issue a mandatory conservation order.

• California legislators have been given a “D” grade for their actions (or lack thereof) in 2021. EnviroVoters — an environmental group that has been evaluating politicians’ voting records, budgets, and policies since 1973 — gave California its lowest marks ever, writing that “state legislators are taking money from fossil fuel companies and dragging their feet on climate action.”

Issue No. 100 – March 11, 2022

State Politics

• Governor Newsom has suggested pausing a scheduled increase in the gas tax as a response to soaring gas prices, but legislators warned this would harm the state’s ability to maintain roads. During Tuesday’s State of the State Address, he shifted focus to a proposed gas rebate that would be paid to California’s car owners. (Biking in LA addresses the unfairness of that.) Newsom also resisted calls to increase oil drilling in the state.

City Politics

• Across several races, Los Angeles’ political incumbents have, predictably, begun trying to leverage the crisis in Ukraine to score points against any challengers who are supported by the DSA (whose calls for peace in the region they deride as utopian). If you would like to learn what the left actually stands for regarding Ukraine, join the DSA’s panel this Sunday at 2pm, where you’ll hear from Ukrainians and other folks with ties to the region. The panel will be followed by a hybrid in-person/online fundraiser for civilian relief and refugee support efforts.

• A great resource from UnrigLA on Twitter: a calendar of all upcoming Los Angeles candidate debates.

Labor

• Writers for animated TV shows are arbitrarily paid far less than their counterparts in live action television. With contract negotiations underway with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the Animation Guild is pushing for fair compensation using the hashtag #Rally4Animation. The guild is holding an in-person rally on March 20 (with DSA Hollywood Labor support).

Housing Rights

• Streetwatch LA and J-Town Action are rallying in opposition to another displacement of an encampment — and the fencing off of more public space — this time at Toriumi Plaza in Little Tokyo. Petition here.

• The Homelessness and Poverty Committee unanimously approved a motion for the city to purchase from Caltrans many of the vacant homes along the abandoned planned 710 freeway extension for development as housing. These are the same homes that were occupied by the Reclaiming Our Homes movement before a police eviction conducted over Thanksgiving in 2020.

Education

• The Los Angeles Unified School District released its Second Interim Financial Report this week, showing $2.8 billion in unspent reserves and a projected year-end reserve of over $3 billion, even as the Superintendent’s office is currently proposing to close a number of schools.

Environmental Justice

• The Biden administration has restored California’s authority to set emissions rules for cars and SUVs that are tougher than federal standards, reversing a Trump administration policy. 

• The Environmental Science and Technology Letters published a study on Wednesday that showed a correlation between past redlining and current air pollution in communities such as Boyle Heights.

Los Angeles Media

• Happy 100 issues of Thorn West! We are always looking for new writers, new sources, new friends, as well as new ideas for longer-form content. Email us at dsalathornwest@gmail.com.

Issue No. 99 – March 4, 2022

State Politics

• Governor Newsom’s new homelessness plan, called CARE Court, empowers the courts to forcibly compel unhoused people with mental health or drug addiction issues into treatment. “Subjecting unhoused people to forced treatment is extremely draconian,” said one critic from the ACLU. “It’s morally wrong.” Mayor Garcetti has already expressed gushing support for the plan, which will need the approval of the legislature.

Coronavirus and Relief

• Los Angeles County is one of several California counties that have magically had their risk of COVID infection set to “low,” thanks to new guidelines from the CDC that weight hospitalizations more heavily than infections. Today the county dropped its indoor mask mandate, though masks are still “strongly recommended.” CalMatters speaks with immunocompromised people who have been left behind by the rushed return to “normalcy.”

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• The Los Angeles Police Commission approved reforms that prohibit officers from making “pretextual stops” for minor offenses without first recording on bodycam why they believe a more serious crime may have been committed. The policy has been called “the middle ground” by LAPD officials and has drawn criticism from activists for its loopholes.

Transportation

• Knock LA wants Angelenos to know about the city’s Metro Micro pilot program, a $1 rideshare program currently being tried out in a few areas around the city.

Education

• LAUSD officials have presented plans to displace the students at Orville Wright Middle School STEAM Magnet, in Westchester, to make way for a charter school. They also plan to close Pio Pico Middle School in the Mid-City area, where students are 90 percent Latine, and over the past five years the share of the student body qualifying for free and reduced-price meals has increased from 75% to 90%.
• LAUSD has committed to installing solar panels on 30 schools by 2027, and on another 50-to-70 more schools by 2030. With enough available roof space for solar panels to meet the LAUSD’s power needs and then some, the program is a potential revenue earner for LA’s public school system — but has fallen behind schedule. Plan details here.

Environmental Justice

• After the driest consecutive January and February in the Sierra in recorded state history, the statewide snowpack has dropped from 160% of normal to 63%. LAist covers the season’s wild weather swings.

Issue No. 98 – February 25, 2022

State Politics

• SB 972, introduced by State Senator Lorena Gonzalez, makes it simpler and more affordable for street vendors to obtain permits, a process that is effectively impossible to complete as currently designed. LA Times coverage in Spanish here.

City Politics

• Five candidates for Los Angeles mayor participated in a debate at Loyola Marymount University this week, presenting five versions of the same uninspiring platform on policing and homelessness. Protesters loudly heckled all candidates. Knock-LA covers. Video here.

• Writing in LA Progressive, Melina Abdullah and Patrisse Cullors lament Karen Bass’ pivot to the right as a mayoral candidate and express hope for a return to form.

• On Tuesday, the City Council voted to approve former Councilmember Herb Wesson as interim replacement for Mark Ridley-Thomas, whom they previously voted to suspend while he faces corruption charges. On Thursday, a judge blocked the appointment on the grounds that Wesson has already hit the term limit. CD10 remains without representation.

Education

• On Thursday, new LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho released a “100-Day Plan” for his project to reform the district. Absent from all of the reporting on the plan is any mention of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), or the union’s struggle to reduce class size. On this vital question, all Superintendent Carvalho says is that LAUSD will study “the effects of reducing class-size on academic achievement.”

• The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor voted on school board endorsements on Thursday, voting to endorse Maria Brenes for Board District 2 over UTLA’s endorsed candidate Rocío Rivas, and to endorse Nick Melvoin in BD4, over UTLA’s objections.

Labor

• CalMatters diagrams a rift within California labor over “just transition” plans as fossil fuel production within the state is being phased out.

Housing Rights

• A motion from Councilmember Mike Bonin making it easier to open a shelter for people experiencing homelessness without requiring a lengthy application process has advanced out of committee.

• State housing regulators rejected Los Angeles’ Housing Element for failing to expand the city’s zoning capacity to meet state mandated housing and affordable housing targets on a fast enough timeline. Hundreds of millions of dollars in housing grants are at stake.

• A discrimination lawsuit has been filed against real estate company K3 Holdings LLC by a group of tenants organized in part by the K3 Tenants Council. Coverage on Univision and ABC7. Details about the campaign against K3 Holdings can be found at K3TC.org.

Environmental Justice

• Local activists have filmed construction proceeding illegally on a build site that citizen journalists discovered, earlier this year, was known to be contaminated.

• State regulators have hand-waved aside a study exposing the likely ineffectiveness of California’s “cap-and-trade” program at restraining polluters.

• This week’s Boiling Point column in the LA Times lists all the climate legislation eligible for movement in the current state legislative session.

Issue No. 97 – February 18, 2022

STATE POLITICS

• California’s mask mandate for vaccinated people was lifted on Wednesday, though it remains in effect for the time being in LA County. On Thursday Governor Newsom announced S.M.A.R.T.E.R, the “next phase” of California’s COVID response strategy. His repeated reference to an “endemic” era suggests that the plan is to raise the threshold that would trigger any state action while accepting some level of infection and death as inevitable. The state of emergency does remain in effect.
• The first of many attempts at billionaire-funded recall petitions has succeeded in San Francisco, where three members of the school board were just recalled. A ballot measure this June will allow that city to vote to restrict the window of recalls, prohibiting them in the first 12 months of a term or when there are less than 12 months until the next election.

CITY POLITICS

• Early polls in the mayoral race show a lot of undecided voters, but Representative Karen Bass nevertheless has a commanding lead.
• The filing deadline for the 2022 elections has closed. Activist Gina Viola announced her candidacy at the wire, and with Karen Bass promising to increase police budgets as mayor, Viola is one of few candidates committed to decreasing the role of armed police in public safety.
• CD 10 has been without representation on the city council since Mark Ridley-Thomas was suspended in October of last year. This week, Council President Nury Martinez introduced a motion to appoint former councilmember Herb Wesson, aand political ally, to fill the seat on an interim basis.

HOUSING

• The Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count is scheduled for next week. Care+ sweeps will be suspended for three days but are still being conducted this week, potentially skewing the data.

TRANSPORTATION

• Metro service cuts, forced by staffing shortages, go into effect starting Sunday. Details on which lines will be affected here.

CLIMATE

• After record-setting storms in October and then December, the past six weeks — usually among the wettest months in California — have seen precipitation totals plateau.
• California’s emissions reduction targets are slipping out of reach, due to over reliance on marketplace solutions that allow companies to pay to emit greenhouse gases. A recent report notes the unsustainable amount of carbon credits that have already been banked.

City Politics

• Mark Ridley-Thomas’ chief of staff has been appointed as “caretaker” of District 10 while the councilmember is suspended. The district is still without voting representation on the council.

• With widespread calls to bring independent redistricting to Los Angeles in 2030, CalMatters looks at the results of some independent redistricting commissions statewide. Meanwhile, City Council’s extremely not-independent ad hoc Redistricting Committee met for the first time this week and made many recommendations. They meet again this afternoon.

Housing Rights

• The City Council, with the support of Mayor Garcetti, is rapidly designating hundreds of sites as anti-sit/lie/sleep enforcement zones. It’s a complete reversal of the city’s previous stated policy on addressing homelessness.

Labor

• From November 12 to 15, IATSE members will vote on whether or not to ratify the tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. A series of virtual town halls is scheduled before then; not all members are satisfied with the terms of the new contract. DSA and IATSE member Victor P. Bouzi offers one perspective in an essay published at Knock LA.

• Unions representing 30,000 workers for Kaiser Permanente have delivered the required ten-day notice that will allow them to call a strike on November 15 if contract negotiations don’t progress. Workers are opposed to the two-tiered wage system proposed by Kaiser. Similar proposals have motivated the ongoing strikes at Kellogg’s and John Deere.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• Capital and Main checks in on what has been accomplished by the Black Student Achievement Plan, a program which steered $35 million in resources to schools with high percentages of Black students, including the $25 million defunded from school police.

• Analysis in the LA Times reveals a pattern of intrusive stops of cyclists by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. Seven out of ten stops involve Latin cyclists.

Environmental Justice

• A month after a Southern California offshore oil spill, the Center for Biological Diversity said it sent notice to the secretary of the interior of its intent to sue the federal government over the failure to review and update plans for coastal oil platforms.

• A noxious odor reported by residents of the city of Carson has been traced to rotting vegetation in the drought-stricken Dominguez Channel. It has been declared a local emergency to speed up the cleanup process.

• Reported by the Daily Poster: progressive members of the California Democratic Party’s executive board forced a special meeting on October 24 to decide whether the state party should stop accepting money from fossil fuel and law enforcement interests. But the party’s officers chose to table a vote on the matter, prompting fears that party leadership will ultimately renege.

City Politics

• Applications are open for BIG:LEAP, the city’s pilot guaranteed income program. Angelenos are eligible if they are living at or below the poverty level, can claim at least one dependent or are pregnant, and can demonstrate that their income was affected by COVID-19. Randomly selected applicants will receive $1,000 a month for 12 months.

• The LA Podcast newsletter goes into detail about how recently suspended Councilmember Mark Ridley-Thomas’ seat could be filled, and how constituent services in Ridley-Thomas’ district will be met while the seat remains open.

• City Council President Nury Martinez introduced a motion to form an Ad Hoc Redistricting Committee, citing disappointment in the work of the Redistricting Commission. The LA Times editorial board also attacked the redistricting process, pointing out that the commission is made up of political appointees. The commission’s final report recommended that the process be made fully independent from City Council, and that the council itself be expanded.

Housing Rights

• A comprehensive report from the ACLU finds legalized discrimination against unhoused people spreading across California.

Labor

• A consortium of business interests wrote a letter to Governor Newsom asking for a suspension of labor and environmental regulations as a cure for the backlog at the Long Beach and San Pedro ports.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• The city of Pasadena’s Police Oversight Commission held its first meeting.

Environmental Justice

• An “atmospheric river” (i.e. a corridor of rain traveling through the sky) caused historic amounts of rainfall across parts of drought-stricken California and the Pacific Northwest. The long-term drought forecasts remain unchanged. The storm will decrease the risk of wildfires for the rest of the season, though areas that have experienced recent wildfires are now at greater risk of mudslides.

• Carcinogenic chemicals have been detected in the groundwater near Lost Hills, a fossil fuel wastewater containment facility in Central California. Grist explains how lax regulations allowed this to happen.

• With the issue facing sustained public scrutiny, the Newsom administration took the first step toward banning new oil and gas wells within 3,200 feet of homes, schools, and healthcare facilities.