Category: Uncategorized

City Politics

• The LA City Council approved the Ad Hoc Redistricting Committee’s revised map without debate. Only Councilmembers Marqueece Harris-Dawson and Nithya Raman voted against it. A revised LAUSD district map was also passed, over the objections of Southeast LA residents whose voices it minimizes. CalMatters identifies the friction points in California’s congressional redistricting. Drafts of congressional district maps dropped this week and they have to account for the fact that California is down a seat.

• A motion to allow Los Angeles park rangers to carry weapons was passed out of the Parks Committee, despite overwhelming opposition in public comment.

Housing Rights

• A story by Cerise Castle in theLAnd magazine covers Reclaim and Rebuild Our Community, a group of housing advocates who earlier this year occupied several long-vacant homes in El Sereno, owned but neglected by CalTrans.

• Councilmember Kevin De León was appointed chair of the Homelessness and Poverty Committee, taking over from Mark Ridley-Thomas. (Councilmember Raman was appointed vice chair.) Today De León’s 41.18 motion to create a massive anti-sit/lie/sleep enforcement zone around City Hall passed 8–2, with only Councilmembers Raman and Mike Bonin opposing.

Labor

• Labor Notes interviews an IATSE member who is voting against the tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

Environmental Justice

• Updates from the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow: Governor Gavin Newsom backed out of attending, and promptly disappeared for two weeks. Mayor Garcetti attended and contracted COVID-19. A host of international pledges left California’s climate commitments looking comparatively wan. “I don’t at all feel that we are leading the world anymore,” assessed California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, who was in attendance.

• Though the California Public Utilities Commission has been investigating ways to close the Aliso Canyon gas storage facility ever since a disastrous 2015 leak, they also just voted unanimously to increase the amount of gas stored there in the short term.

• The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has declared a regional drought emergency due to record dry conditions and called for increased efforts to maximize conservation.

• After years of resistance, the Southern California Air Quality Board has finally approved a significant regulation, known as Refinery Rule 1109.1, that could dramatically curb air pollution around south Los Angeles County.

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.

City Politics

• The Los Angeles City Council voted 11–3 to suspend Councilmember Mark Ridley-Thomas, who faces federal charges of corruption. Ridley-Thomas entered a not guilty plea on Wednesday, with trial set for December. The Board of Supervisors voted to approve an independent audit of the contracts mentioned in Ridley-Thomas’ indictment, among others. Indictment here. Ridley-Thomas’ district is currently without representation.

• The Los Angeles City Council Redistricting Commission voted to approve their finalized draft map, despite “potentially significant flaws.” It will now be sent on to City Council. Council President Nury Martinez weighed in for the first time today, criticizing the proposed map’s “drastic changes.” The council can revise the map and seems likely to. Per activist Rob Quan, public pressure has been instrumental so far and can help ensure that the next changes are for the better.

Housing Rights

• The City Council voted 12–2 to approve bans of sitting, lying, and sleeping at 54 locations across three council districts, as recent revisions to municipal code 41.18 now allow. Though the revisions are meant to be accompanied by expanded outreach, the outreach plan has yet to be finalized or staffed. Councilmembers Mike Bonin and Nithya Raman voted in opposition.

• Knock LA covers the role that various Brentwood homeowners cabals have played in privatization of land use at the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs campus, which has prevented unhoused veterans from receiving services. This week the US Secretary of Veterans Affairs vowed to find housing for the unhoused residents of Veterans Row, an encampment of roughly 30 tents just outside the campus.

Gentrification

• Capital and Main updates the story of the Crenshaw Mall, the South LA cultural landmark that was inexplicably sold to outside developers despite a higher bid from community-based investment group Downtown Crenshaw. Next steps include potential lawsuits

Labor

• Sunday, a tentative deal was struck between IATSE and the AMPTP, a day before a strike would have been triggered. However, that deal still needs to be voted on by membership. Labor Notes explains the mechanics of that election, and spotlights the significant dissatisfaction with the proposed deal among IATSE members.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• Sheriff Alex Villanueva and his undersheriff, Tim Murakami, unlawfully defied subpoenas that would require them to testify before the LA County Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission about deputy gangs within the Sheriff’s Department.

• In recognition of National Anti-Police Brutality Day, a coalition of activists including BLM-LA, LA CAN, and Streetwatch LA are rallying outside LAPD headquarters from 4–7pm today.

Environmental Justice

• On Tuesday Governor Gavin Newsom expanded the California drought emergency from 50 counties to statewide, but did not implement any water conservation mandates. Newsom did authorize water regulators to ban wasteful water use, such as spraying down public sidewalks.

• An independent study has found that the 2018 Woolsey Fire caused radioactive contamination to migrate from Santa Susana Field Laboratory, a former nuclear research lab, into neighboring communities. The new study contradicts the initial report from the California Department of Toxic Substances Control.

State Politics

• Governor Newsom has vetoed the Freedom to Walk Act, which would have removed the penalty for safe jaywalking. CalMatters provides a roundup of Newsom’s “year in vetoes.” A two-thirds vote in both houses of legislature would override any veto, but even with the current Democratic supermajority, no veto has been overturned since 1979.

City Politics

• In surprising news, Councilmember Mark Ridley-Thomas was indicted and now faces federal corruption charges related to his relationship with the University of Southern California. Ridley-Thomas is the third LA Councilmember to be indicted on corruption charges in the past two years. LA Podcast has thorough coverage.

• The LA City Council Redistricting Commission’s attempt to unseat Councilmember Nithya Raman has become national news, with a multi-part opinion piece in the New York Times. This week Raman replaced her delegate on the commission with former councilmember and current LAUSD boardmember Jackie Goldberg. The final public hearing of the proposed map is tomorrow morning at 10am. See here for a toolkit for submitting written and public comment.

• The DSA-LA annual convention is tomorrow! More details here.

Labor

• The United Nurses Associations of California and Union of Health Care Professionals voted 96% in favor of authorizing a strike against Kaiser Permanente. CalMatters has more on this, as well as the potential of the coming #striketober to empower California healthcare workers across the system.

• Newsom has signed SB 62, which bans piece rate pay for garment workers. It will go into effect January 1. The bill also expands liability for wage theft in the garment industry.

• The Port of Los Angeles will now enter round-the-clock production, in order to clear a backlog of cargo ships. This was first announced in a statement released by President Joe Biden.

Environmental Justice

• An analysis conducted by Grist and Capital & Main demonstrates the racial disparities in community exposure to oil drilling across California, a state which does not regulate “buffer zones” between residential areas and drilling sites.

• Southern California’s fall wildfire season has begun, as the Alisal Fire has burned across 13,400 acres in Santa Barbara.

• California Attorney General Rob Bonta has launched an investigation into the Huntington Beach oil spill.

Housing Justice

• US District Judge David O. Carter is overseeing a lawsuit against the city and county (brought by the so-called LA Alliance for Human Rights, a coalition of downtown business owners and residents), alleging that both have failed in their responsibilities to rapidly and humanely shelter the unhoused. (Some background here). This week, Carter held an open-air hearing at the Downtown Women’s Center on Skid Row, at which county and city representatives were questioned about why efforts to address the crisis continue to lag. Members of the unhoused community were able to listen into the proceedings over loudspeaker from nearby. LA Community Action Network commented on the hearing on Twitter.

• At the Carter hearing, and in an op-ed published earlier in the week, Councilmember Mike Bonin advocated for a “consent decree,” which would give the courts, under Carter’s supervision, the authority to compel action from various county and city entities to take direct action to shelter the unhoused. Examples Bonin used as illustration include compelling reluctant councilmembers to approve supportive housing in their districts, or compelling the city to commandeer motels.

• KNOCK.LA reports that LAPD plans to implement 24/7 police presence at Echo Park Lake by springtime, with support from Friends of Echo Park Lake (FoEPL) and CD13 Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell. FoEPL is advocating for a “Tiny Homes Project” proposed for Alvarado Street in Echo Park, as a (non-optional) housing alternative for residents of the lake. It’s unclear whether they’ve sought out input from the unhoused community on this project, as Theo Henderson, advocate for the unhoused, was muted after calling into an FoEPL meeting to raise concerns.

• This “housing report card” created by the Southern California News Group explains in detail the state’s current requirements for affordable housing, and provides a granular look at how well municipalities all over California are meeting their state-mandated affordable housing goals. Extremely poorly! And the requirements are about to go up. In January, Governor Newsom proposed creating a Housing Accountability Unit to enforce greater compliance with these benchmarks.

• In a well-timed article, LAist dives into the topic of community land trusts, which can empower communities to maintain control over land use in their neighborhoods and maintain some level of local affordable housing.

Labor

• Grocery store workers rallied in opposition to Kroger’s closing of two Long Beach supermarkets, a direct retaliation against the city’s passage of mandatory hero pay for frontline workers in large supermarkets.The city of Montebello passed a similar ordinance this week, and the California Grocers Association, which is already suing Long Beach, filed a lawsuit in response. Nevertheless, a request for legislation to be drafted that would mandate hero pay in the city of Los Angeles passed through the city council unanimously.

• The California Teachers Association has challenged Governor Newsom’s timeline on reopening California schools, advocating for strict safety benchmarks to be met as opposed to picking an “artificial calendar date.” LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner similarly criticized the county’s patchwork approach to reopening as “bass ackwards” and “political.”

• Some of the people who have been thrust into the role of supervising COVID safety on Hollywood sets question whether the precautions being taken to protect worker safety are remotely adequate.

Electoral Politics

• The DSA-LA membership has voted overwhelmingly in favor of endorsing Daniel Lee for State Senate!

• Here is an extremely early look at which candidates are already raising money for some of the bigger Los Angeles elections in 2022.

Coronavirus and Relief

• Though there are ongoing issues in California’s vaccine distribution, Governor Gavin Newsom surprisingly announced on Monday that the state will immediately lift its stay-at-home order — a decision that appears to have been communicated first to the California Restaurant Association. Soon thereafter, LA County announced it will “align” with the state, and Mayor Garcetti announced that the city will “align” with the county. Following up, County Board of Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer updated City Council on the state of the county’s vaccine programs, among other things, and Councilmember Nithya Raman summarized that report on Twitter.

• The California State Legislature reached an agreement to extend the state’s eviction moratorium until June 30. The moratorium protects tenants who pay 25% of their rent. The bill also contains a plan as to how to use the $2.6 billion the state will receive from the federal government for rent relief. This money will be disbursed to landlords to cover 80% of their pandemic-related unpaid rents, in exchange for their forgiving the other 20% and agreeing not to evict any tenants who are behind. However, landlords will be able to decline this money.

• CalMatters explains estimates that Californians are over a billion dollars behind on water payments — a number twice as much as the estimate for the state’s total unpaid rent.

Criminal Justice Reform

• California Attorney General Xavier Becerra will soon leave his position to join the Biden administration. But first he has launched a civil rights investigation into the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. The investigation will determine if there is a “pattern and practice of unconstitutional policing” within the department. A similar investigation in Kern County led, after several years, to their Sheriff’s Department agreeing to a list of reforms.

• On Tuesday, the County Board of Supervisors heard the results of their requested report on what legal options they had to remove Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva from office. The results are summarized here. The board took no further actions.

Labor

• The United Farm Workers’ December lawsuit against the Department of Labor contesting their proposed regulation changes for H-2A workers has been resolved, with an injunction granted. Following the Department of Labor’s last-minute set of H-2A farmworker regulation changes during the final days of the Trump administration, the Biden administration has withdrawn many of these pending rule changes — including those affecting H-2A workers.

• The crewmembers of an independent film were forced to file unpaid wage claims covering five weeks of prep after what is being called a COVID-19 “scare” drove away the project’s financier.

City Politics

• A motion directing the Los Angeles City Administrator to find 45 million dollars in the budget so the city can purchase Hillside Villa Apartments, for use as affordable housing, has passed unanimously through the housing committee.

• The city’s Jobs Committee voted to advance a motion that would require large supermarket chains to pay their frontline workers hazard pay. Long Beach, a step ahead of Los Angeles, passed a similar ordinance last week and now faces a lawsuit from the California Grocers Association.

• Though it had been speculated that former councilmember Mitchell Englander could face no jail time for his role in municipal corruption, this week he was sentenced to 14 months in federal prison.

Coronavirus and Relief

• The California State Legislature is once again playing chicken with the state eviction moratorium, which ends on January 31. It is expected that the legislature will extend the deadline in some fashion but it is still unclear what shape that will take. The LA Times discusses how the rent relief funds that were part of December’s stimulus bill can be applied for (still unclear), and how they will be disbursed (direct payments to landlords).

• Some councilmembers in the city of West Covina have proposed that the city form its own department of health, independent from Los Angeles County, as a way for the city to make their own health regulations and safety decisions that would weigh the interests of business more heavily.

Housing Justice

• Yesterday, the City Planning Commission’s Equity Day listening session offered a chance for residents to participate in presentations and extensive public comment, which focused largely on how development in this city has failed to conserve communities and community resources, in South LA and other neighborhoods, and how these needs can be met in the future. The event was live-tweeted here.

• The Pasadena Star checks in with Pasadena’s new mayor in the aftermath of another failed appeal of the state’s affordable housing requirements. California cities have repeatedly pushed back against the municipal affordable housing benchmarks in the state’s Regional Housing Needs Assessment. At the moment, however, the state only requires that each municipality be legally prepared to hit its benchmarks — not that the housing ever actually be built.

• This week the LA City Council asked for a report back in 30 days on the feasibility of turning the LA Convention Center into an emergency shelter for unhoused Angelenos. Skepticism over whether this is an adequate or safe response to the city’s housing crisis is expressed here.

Labor

• KNOCK.LA has continued reporting on the aftermath of Prop 22, this time focusing on the ways labor is fighting back: pushing for federal legislation, filing lawsuits in the state, and organizing on the ground. The same topics were also discussed this week on Ground Game LA’s Twitch, at 12:53. (Also featured in this video is Daniel Lee, the Culver City councilmember and DSA member who is running in a special election to fill Holly Mitchell’s seat in the State Senate.)

• Workers at Donut Friend, in Highland Park, were recently fired in retaliation for attempting to organize a union. You can follow Donut Friends United on Instagram to learn how to support their efforts.

• Though it may end up largely a symbolic gesture, the Screen Actors Guild is considering expelling former President Trump for his role in inciting the January 6 Capitol riot.

Criminal Justice Reform

• Sixty-five current and former elected prosecutors filed a brief supporting Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón in the civil case brought by the Los Angeles County prosecutors’ union. The union is suing to reverse several less-punitive policies Gascón put into place when he took office, which some prosecutors claim are “unfair” to be asked to follow (because it is their preference not to).

Coronavirus and Relief

• Following CDC COVID-19 vaccine guidelines, Governor Newsom has simplified the access tier system in California and announced that the vaccine will now be made available to everyone over 65. However, Los Angeles County still does not have enough doses for its healthcare workers and will not be able to make the vaccine available to seniors until February — unless you live in Long Beach, which has its own separate health department that isn’t facing these shortages.

• LA County will discontinue the use of Curative’s COVID-19 tests, after a report issued by the FDA last week warned that the test is associated with a high rate of false negatives.

State and City Governance

• Governor Newsom released his budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year last Friday. It reflects the fact that revenues for 2020 were 20% higher than were expected in June, largely due to the resiliency of the stock market. “Folks at the top are doing pretty damn well,” said Newsom. Read a more in-depth breakdown here.

• Los Angeles City Council is back in session (and now using the gallery view so online viewers can see every councilmember at once). Committee assignments have also been released. On Twitter, Councilmember Nithya Raman has broken down the committee process’s role in how motions become laws.

• From the LA Podcast blog: transcripts of conversations used as evidence in the corruption case against former Councilmember Mitchell Englander were released this week, and they remove any lingering doubt that current Councilmember John Lee, the former Englander aide who was elected to fill his former boss’s seat this March, was complicit in that corruption.

Labor

• A coalition of Los Angeles city employee unions have negotiated a deal that would prevent any layoffs or furloughs for at least six months. The results of the elections in Georgia, giving Democrats functional control over the US Senate, make it more likely that the federal government will step in to make up the budget shortfalls in municipalities.

• An in-depth article in Capital and Main surveys worker complaints made to Cal/OSHA about inadequate workplace protection from COVID-19. Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer noted this week that worksite infection rates have more than quadrupled as general infection rates have soared.

• Workers in film production have been deemed “essential workers” — but the industry is wisely not pursuing priority for its employees in the vaccination pipeline.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• The LMU Law School has officially released their study “Fifty Years of ‘Deputy Gangs’ in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.” Among other things, the study notes a correlation: deputies at sheriff’s stations with active gangs are more likely to use their guns. The Sheriff Department’s official response so far has been to disparage the report. The full report is here. (An amazing nationwide database of all civilian deaths caused by police has been posted here.)

• Meanwhile, a Los Angeles Sheriff’s Deputy appears to be one of the many law enforcement officers from around the country who participated in the riots at the Capitol building last week.

• A $25 million cut to the Los Angeles School Police Department was approved this summer by the LAUSD Board of Education. The discussion as to how to implement those cuts has again been delayed, at the request of activist groups who still don’t feel that they have enough voice in the process. It had previously been delayed until this week’s meeting of the board for the same reason, and has not yet been rescheduled.

Coronavirus and Relief

• The FDA has cautioned that the COVID-19 test provided by Curative, a self-administered oral swab, is far more prone to false negative results than the nasal swab tests administered under the guidance of a healthcare professional, and should only be used to test symptomatic patients. Curative processes thousands of tests per day in Los Angeles, including all of the tests given at Dodger Stadium.

• The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors returned this week, and voted to extend the county’s soon-to-expire eviction moratorium by another thirty days. Public comment hammered the ridiculousness of expecting tenants to be able to pay a year’s worth of back-rent after the moratorium is lifted, as the current law mandates, and demanded that the board move to cancel rent entirely.

State Politics

• Governor Newsom, as expected, appointed California Secretary of State Alex Padilla to Kamala Harris’s vacated Senate seat, while Assemblymember Shirley Weber was appointed to replace Padilla.

• The California State Legislature disappointingly failed to pass meaningful police reform legislation last year. CalMatters runs down some of the state laws that did pass, and which went into effect on January 1.

Labor

• Reported in KNOCK.LA: Vons and Albertsons have fired all of their non-unionized delivery drivers and will replace them with “independent contractors,” in the wake of the passage of Prop 22.

• As infection rates in Southern California soar to unprecedented levels, SAG-AFTRA has recommended that on-set commercial production be paused.

Criminal Justice Reform

• Ground Game LA hosted an excellent roundtable of public defenders and civil rights advocates to discuss the criminal justice system reforms implemented by incoming District Attorney George Gascón, which touches (at 40:44) on how to support those efforts amid pushback from supporters of the current, punitive, model.