Month: July 2020

Housing Rights

• Despite objections from activists and community members, the Los Angeles City Council voted 10–4 to resume sweeps of the “Special Enforcement and Cleaning Zones” created around shelters associated with Mayor Eric Garcetti’s A Bridge Home program. The Bureau of Sanitation had ceased these operations in March due to the pandemic and the recommendation of public health officials that unhoused people be allowed to remain in place.

• Kristy Lovich, a Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority supervisor who has pushed in recent weeks for the homeless agency to sever ties with law enforcement, was fired for undisclosed reasons this week. Lovich has spoken out against LAHSA’s reliance on police to do enforcement sweeps, accusing the agency and city council of reneging on a promise last fall to allow service workers (instead of police) to take the lead on interactions with unhoused Angelenos.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• Mayor Eric Garcetti joined with other city officials to announce the expansion of the Community Safety Partnership, a unit of the police that focuses on building relationships between law enforcement and the communities they police. Though conceived as a reply to protests against police violence, the move is opposed by many activists. “We absolutely want the things that were raised — tutoring, field trips, recreation programs. I’m a mom, I want those things. But those services cannot and should not be offered by police,” said BLM-LA co-founder Melina Abdullah.

• Protesters from various organizations, including BLM-LA, gathered in Westwood on Sunday to show solidarity with activists in Portland. This comes after recent reports from Portland of brutal crackdowns and the removal of protesters by federal agents in unmarked vans.

• ICE’s “Citizen’s Training” program has been flooded with false applications. The program, which offers “scenario-based” training to civilians, has been criticized as an “armed vigilante” group. Organizations such as Never Again encouraged people to flood the database in order to delay the project, even reaching out to K-pop fans. The first Citizen’s Academy was offered during the Obama administration.

• A veteran LAPD SWAT sergeant has filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the department, claiming that leaders of the SWAT division “glamorize the use of lethal force, and direct the promotions of officers who share the same values while maligning the reputations of officers who do not.”

• Three LAPD officers have been charged with falsifying records and obstructing justice, as evidence surfaced that they falsely portrayed people as gang members or associates on field interview cards. Field interviews of gang members are used as a measure of productivity for officers, which can incentivize false reports; over 20 more officers are still under investigation. District Attorney Jackie Lacey announced this week that her office would review hundreds of cases involving the three charged officers.

• Unite Here Local 11, which represents Cristobal Guardado — the father of Andres Guardado, the eighteen-year-old whom the sheriff’s department shot and killed on June 18 — has called for the resignation of Sheriff Alex Villanueva. The letter, signed by 60 organizations including BLM-LA and the American Civil Liberties Union, declares, “You have dramatically exacerbated [the department’s] problems by undermining basic mechanisms of accountability and civilian oversight at every turn. This historic moment demands that you recognize when it is time for you to go — and the time is now.”

• This pressure on Sheriff Villanueva mounts as his attitude toward LA County’s Board of Supervisors has grown increasingly toxic and strange.

Climate

• As climate activists call for a total phaseout of fossil fuels, SoCalGas is being investigated by the Public Advocates Office to determine whether the utility has used ratepayer dollars to support pro-gas advocacy and lobbying. In response to questions from the consumer watchdog, SoCalGas has acknowledged lobbying government officials for policies that would result in more natural-gas-fueled vehicles and has also acknowledged charging its customers for some of that lobbying.

Labor

• By a margin of 97%, childcare workers for low-income families on public assistance voted to join Child Care Providers United, a union formed in a partnership of SEIU and AFSCME. These workers, mostly women of color, are heavily reliant on state aid, and many effectively make less than minimum wage.

Elections

• An article published in the Los Angeles Times recontextualizes Councilmember David Ryu’s recent rebranding as a “progressive fighter” as a likely reaction to the challenge he is facing to his left from campaign rival Nithya Raman.

Local Politics and Community Actions

• The LA County Board of Supervisors passed a sweeping motion intended to make anti-racism a core principle of all county-level policy-making and operations. Titled “Establishing an Antiracist Los Angeles County Policy Agenda,” the motion will now enter a planning stage, to determine what an anti-racist policy agenda would look like in practice. The motion passed 5–0 to some fanfare, with all five supervisors offering extended remarks on the importance of the work this motion initiates.

• The Board of Supervisors also passed a motion to put the priorities of the county’s budget to a public vote this November. The motion, drafted in partnership with justice activist coalition Reimagine LA, urges the creation of a ballot measure requiring the county to allocate at least 10% of its unrestricted fund to “community investment and alternatives to incarceration.” This measure passed 4–1 after heated debate. Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva called into the meeting and said the measure represented “[police] defundment in disguise.”

• Over 200 people, including LA City Councilmember Herb Wesson, attended a recent outdoor town-hall-style event aimed at urging City Hall to shift nonviolent 911 calls from the LAPD to unarmed specialists in areas such as mental health. The event was held by the People’s Budget LA coalition, led by Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles. BLMLA co-founder Melina Abdullah pointed out the “strange” shift since the recent protests where the City Council is now actively collaborating with community groups.

• Councilmember John Lee is being pressured to disclose whether he is the one referred to as “City Staffer B” in the corruption investigation against his predecessor and former boss Mitchell Englander. The Northridge East Neighborhood Council has passed a resolution formally asking for a response from Lee whether he is included in the investigation. This is not the first time a neighborhood council within Lee’s district has pressed this issue.

• Community fridges are being added to Los Angeles neighborhoods in order to battle food insecurity during the Covid-19 pandemic. More than 60 organizers have partnered with businesses in the area to open and maintain the fridges.

Police Violence and Mass Incarceration

• Activists marched and gathered at the Silver Lake Trader Joe’s to demand justice for Mely Corado, who was shot and killed by an LAPD officer almost two years ago while she was working during a shootout at the grocery store. Family members called for the police officers who killed her to be charged.

• With the COVID-19 crisis in the California prison system continuing to escalate, the federal judge overseeing litigation regarding the treatment of incarcerated people within the system has ordered the state to set aside 100 beds for coronavirus patients at each of its 35 prisons. Advocates for inmates’ rights have argued that, given the rate of infections, 100 beds is not enough.

• The FBI has announced it is initiating a review of the killing of Andres Guardado by a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy.

• The California Department of Justice released a report showing that, while 2019 marked a 55-year low in the state’s number of felony cannabis arrests, there were still racial disparities in how the laws were enforced. Latinx people accounted for 41.7% of all arrests and Black people accounted for 22.3%.

• Public protests have urged a halt to “Prison-to-ICE” transfers, or the practice of releasing immigrants who have completed their incarceration straight into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation. Advocates for Immigrants’ rights are arguing that former prisoners should instead be released to their families.

• The Otay Mesa Detention Facility in San Diego currently has a total 168 positive cases of the Coronavirus since the start of the pandemic. Two former guards of the facility are suing CoreCivic, which privately owns and operates the facility, over issues of negligence and “cutting corners.”

Climate

• Fifteen states, along with Washington, DC, have formed a coalition to jump-start production of electric trucks, buses and vans, with a goal of having all new sales of those vehicles be electric by 2050 — with an additional benchmark of 30% by 2030. LA Metro will complete electrification of the G Line in the San Fernando Valley at the end of 2020, six months later than expected. Metro has set a goal of transitioning its entire bus fleet from natural gas to electric by 2030.

• While 2020 is already the second-hottest year on record, California has lost nearly 90,000 clean-energy jobs since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak. In response, the Alliance for a Clean Economy has sent recommendations to Governor Gavin Newsom on what the state can do to support clean-energy jobs without any new major expenditures or legislation.

Labor

• An SEIU-organized nationwide “Strike for Black Lives” saw robust participation by Angeleno workers, with a caravan of hundreds of cars and trucks passing through South Los Angeles on Monday, bearing banners calling for both economic and racial justice and calling attention to the demands of “essential workers” in the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Entertainment industry unions are backing the Mixed Earner Unemployment Assistance Act of 2020. The bill would close a loophole that keeps many Hollywood workers — who often combine work in the industry with self-employment — from being able to access federal coronavirus relief.

Coronavirus: Resurgence and Response

• Los Angeles may be on the brink of shutting down again as coronavirus cases and hospitalizations surge to record levels in the county and across California. The surge began in late May as California allowed businesses to reopen, mass protests took place, and quarantine fatigue led to less adherence to social distancing. While many workplaces in LA have seen outbreaks, cases have been concentrated at food processing and distribution facilities, manufacturing facilities, garment factories and wholesale warehouses. County health officials have said that these locations are not enforcing proper safety guidelines such as social distancing, face coverings and regular sanitation.

• The California Department of Public Health has adjusted its recommendations for how COVID-19 tests should be allocated. Whereas the guidelines used to recommend that tests be available to all who want one, the new guidelines recommend that they only be available to those who show symptoms or who work in high-risk settings. Los Angeles County, meanwhile, has added testing sites in areas that have been hit hardest by the pandemic.

Police Violence and Mass Incarceration

• A federal judge has temporarily blocked the city of McFarland from constructing a previously approved GEO Group detention center. The order also prohibits the center from housing detainees. This suit was brought on by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center and the activist group Freedom for Immigrants, due to concerns that the detention center had been approved by just one public hearing. The proposal for the detention center was also previously rejected by the city’s Planning Commission. This comes as the Adelanto Detention Facility has been ordered to release ICE detainees via bail. After losing a class action suit filed by the ACLU of Southern California, 43 detainees are now awaiting release.

• After ongoing outcry and pressure from families of incarcerated people and activists due to the increasing outbreak of COVID-19 in the state prison system, Governor Gavin Newsom has approved three separate efforts to reduce the prison population by 8,000 by the end of August. Ten of the state’s 35 prisons currently have outbreaks, and San Quentin alone has over 1000 coronavirus cases.  

• A federal judge issued a tentative ruling largely upholding the ban on private prison contracts in California. Two separate lawsuits, one brought by a Florida private prison company and the other by the Trump administration, both allege that California Assembly Bill 32, which bans new for-profit detention contracts and calls for phasing out existing facilities by 2028, violates the federal government’s right to enforce detention in California. The ruling is expected to be the beginning of a long court process.

• Alex Villanueva’s chief of staff, Capt. John Burcher, was removed from his position and reassigned after making social media posts in which he said that Andres Guardado, the 18-year-old shot in the back and killed last month by a sheriff’s deputy, “chose his fate.” The attorneys for Guardado’s family have pointed to this incident as further evidence that the sheriff’s department should not be conducting the investigation into the shooting, and have continued to call for an independent outside inquiry.

Climate

• President Trump unilaterally rolled back the 50-year-old National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) on Wednesday, accelerating federal approval for projects like pipelines, chemical plants, highways and waste incinerators. The 1970 law changed environmental oversight in the United States by requiring federal agencies to consider whether a project would harm the air, land, water or wildlife, and giving the public the right of review and input. Environmental groups immediately promised legal challenges, saying the regulatory rollbacks threaten public health and make it harder to combat climate change. Some have called it “the single biggest giveaway to polluters in the past 40 years” and “a blatant attempt to silence the working class communities of color who are resisting the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure into their communities.”

• A state fire department investigation has found that Pacific Gas & Electric’s equipment caused last year’s Kincade fire. The fire lasted for nearly two weeks and burned 77,758 acres, causing thousands of Northern Californians to flee their homes. Last month PG&E pleaded guilty to 84 criminal counts of manslaughter in connection to the 2018 Camp fire.

Labor

• Garment workers are getting sick at factories participating in the city’s LA Protects scheme, which enlists local businesses to fast-track production of face masks. There have been hundreds of cases and multiple deaths so far; workers have described cramped working conditions and lax enforcement of safety guidelines.

• A firsthand account details the lack of safety on sets following the recent partial reopening of film and commercial production.

Local News

• An independent autopsy requested by the family of Andres Guardado has found that the 18-year-old was shot five times in the back by a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy. The sheriff’s department had previously placed a “security hold” on the report from the LA County coroner’s office; however, today the coroner’s office released the document, which also determined that the cause of death was five fatal gunshot wounds in the back.

• The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to take the next step in shutting down Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles. The jail, which is run by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, has long been criticized for its inhumane conditions. Its closure — without plans for a replacement facility — was framed by the board as representing a “reduced reliance on incarceration.”

• The families of Sean Monterrosa and Erik Salgado have joined in protesting against police brutality in Sacramento. Monterrosa and Salgado were murdered by police in the Bay Area earlier this month, within four days of each other. California’s attorney general has refused to investigate Monterrosa’s murder by the police despite a recommendation from the Soleno district attorney.

• In the trade unions of the film production industry, there is a growing sentiment in favor of expelling police unions from labor partnerships. Rank-and-file members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and the Screen Actors Guild have been leading the charge.

• Of the 18 million calls to the LAPD logged over the past decade, only 1.4 million — or 8% — were for violent crimes. Nearly half of those calls were officer-initiated calls for perceived violations like traffic stops, which are disproportionately called on Black and Latinx drivers and pedestrians.

• Coronavirus tests, once available to all who requested them in Los Angeles. But testing sites are now being overwhelmed by the number of requests in the county. As the infection rate rises, tests at many facilities are being restricted to those who are feeling symptoms; requests now must be made days in advance. City council candidate Nithya Raman has criticized Mayor Eric Garcetti and city leadership for abandoning the cautious approach they took at the start of the pandemic and for rushing too quickly into reopening businesses.

• The Emergency Renters Relief Program will start taking applications on July 13. The program sets aside $103 million — mostly from federal stimulus funds — to cover up to $1,000 a month per household, in the form of direct payments to landlords. Applicants must meet eligibility requirements and demonstrate an economic or health impact from COVID-19. As council president Nury Martinez acknowledged, “demand will be high,” and the current model of tenant relief will require billions more in federal aid. The deadline to apply is July 17.

• The Los Angeles teachers union is advocating that school campuses remain closed for the upcoming fall semester and that distance learning continue. This is not in line with the current position of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has said that schools should be available for in-person learning “to the greatest extent possible.” Meanwhile, the burdens that distance learning places on working families are explored here and elsewhere.

• California legislators will not return to the capitol next week, due to concerns over coronavirus. Several staffers and lawmakers have tested positive.

• Farm workers are continuing to protest in light of employees testing positive for coronavirus. According to United Farm Workers, 78 farm laborers employed by Primex Farms in Wasco, CA, have been infected with the Coronavirus. Primex released a statement acknowledging positive cases and closed their work location for about two weeks. Primex Farms has not confirmed whether workers would be paid for hours lost during the shutdown.

• Lawmakers joined activists in a press conference outside of San Quentin State Prison to urge Gov. Newsom to release thousands of incarcerated people from state prisons as coronavirus continues to surge throughout the prison system. Prison transfers have exacerbated the spread of the virus, with a current total of 31 deaths in California state prisons.

• The University of California will join Harvard and MIT in suing the Trump administration over its ruling forcing international students to attend in-person classes in order to remain in the country. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced this week that failure to attend in-person classes could result in removal proceedings.

• Gov. Newsom’s oil and gas regulatory agency approved 12 new permits this week for fracking in Kern County, which already suffers from some of the poorest air quality in the nation. Newsom has additionally approved drilling permits for more than 1,400 new oil and gas wells. “Approving these permits is especially dangerous now,” Hollin Kretzmann from the Center for Biological Diversity pointed out, as “multiple studies have shown air pollution increases our vulnerability to coronavirus.”

• Experts are warning of an above-normal “significant large fire” potential for California. Fires are likely to create even greater risks for contracting COVD-19, due to air pollution. Meanwhile, incarcerated firefighting crews in 12 out of 43 of the state’s prison fire camps are in lockdown due to the rapid spread of the coronavirus through the prison system. The state of California relies on 2,200 incarcerated people to work on fire crews, for wages ranging from $2 to $5 per day plus $1 per hour.

• The California Transit Association has started a lobbying and ad campaign requesting $3 billion in funding relief from the state for local transit authorities. The CTA warns that such a bailout is necessary to avoid permanent cuts in bus services, particularly in vulnerable communities.

• Plans to construct a high-speed electric rail line between Las Vegas and California took another step forward. CalTrans has formally leased right of way adjacent to Interstate 15 to XpressWest, in accordance with plans to build a 170-mile electric passenger rail system running between the Las Vegas Strip and San Bernardino County. While the western terminus of the line is located 90 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles, other construction projects may eventually link it to Union Station.

Local News

• Congress’ first-ever committee dedicated exclusively to climate change released a 538-page action plan Tuesday, stating that California and other US states face “an existential threat” from climate change and require robust government response. The report calls for 12 pillars of action, including reducing carbon pollution, making communities more resilient to the impacts of climate change and building a more equitable energy economy. Specific targets include bringing the US to net zero emissions by 2050 and delivering $8 trillion in health and climate benefits. Locally, it calls for the creation of “clean energy” jobs, a field in which more than 100,000 workers in California have been laid off due to the coronavirus pandemic, and recommends timely action on several California-introduced climate bills, including the Wildfire Defense Act and the West Coast Ocean Protection Act.

• Fossil fuel and utility companies are attempting to use COVID-19 to request delays in regulations. On Monday, state oil and gas regulator CalGEM blocked Southern California Gas Co.’s effort to delay required safety testing at the company’s Aliso Canyon storage field, citing the COVID-19 pandemic and associated stay-at-home orders. The Aliso field was the site of a record-setting gas leak that spewed more than 100,000 tons of heat-trapping methane into the atmosphere and sickened residents of the nearby Porter Ranch neighborhood. 

• The state of California has passed a budget that attempts to address the economic impact of the continuing COVID-19 crisis. While school funding remains level with last year, many payments are being delayed, with local districts having to plug the gaps in the interim. Restrictions on drawing from the state’s welfare assistance program are being eased. Additional funds have been earmarked for converting hotels into housing for the unhoused ($550 million to purchase and renovate, another $50 million to counties for operation), and reducing business tax breaks is a component in reducing the budget shortfall. Newsom’s campaign promises of a single-payer healthcare system, walked back even before the current crisis, have been essentially abandoned despite a Democratic supermajority in the state government.

• The Los Angeles City Council has now passed a budget which cuts $150 million from the Police Department budget. The newest draft of the budget structures most of the cuts as reductions to overtime pay. Meanwhile, several councilmembers have introduced a proposal to consider replacing the LAPD with Department of Transportation workers for the enforcement of traffic laws.

• The Los Angeles Board of Education voted 4–3 in favor of a 35% reduction to the budget of the Los Angeles School Police Department (LASPD). Following a week of sustained pressure from activists groups, including Black Lives Matter-LA and LA Students Deserve, board members compromised by folding elements of the motions proposed last week into an amendment to this year’s budget. The amendment cuts the LASPD budget by $25 million, restricts officers from wearing uniforms and limits them to the perimeters of school campuses. A task force convened by Superintendent Austin Beutner, thought after last week’s impasse to be taking over the issue of police reform, will now play catch-up in studying how best to implement the board’s decision. The commander of the LASPD resigned the following the day.

• As protests continue against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s killing of Andres Guardado, the Los Angeles Times has sued the department for withholding public records related to deputy misconduct in violation of the recently passed California Public Records Act. The suit comes as the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training has refused to publish information on the surveillance technology it uses, citing copyright laws. Andres Guardado’s family is also demanding that the results of his autopsy be released.

• Citing cost, California is halting its plans to expand COVID-19 testing into rural towns and urban neighborhoods — right as cases and hospitalizations surge in the state.

• Black and Latinx Angelenos have double the mortality rate from coronavirus as white residents. In addition to disproportionately working in low-wage front-line jobs at higher risk of exposure to the virus, Black and Latinx residents face health challenges caused by structural racism, limited access to healthcare, and chronic stress.

• Asian American Californians have reported over 800 incidents of racist verbal abuse, shunning and physical assaults since the beginning of the pandemic.

• In the same week that construction crews at SoFi Stadium finished raising a 2,200-ton video screen over the field, nearby residents are organizing to prevent landlords from pushing them out with escalating rent. The Lennox-Inglewood Tenants Union has accused landlords of renovating empty units near the Rams and Chargers’ new stadium to attract new tenants while disregarding units — held by long-standing tenants of color — that have fallen into disrepair. “The big capitalists saw Inglewood, and they saw money signs,” said one organizer. “It was always the plan to get long-time tenants out, Black and brown, poor and low-income tenants out, and get a different demographic with a different income bracket in here.”

• Members of the Kumeyaay Nation, which spans both sides of the California–Mexico border, physically blocked construction of the border wall on Monday. Community members are protecting ancestral lands from desecration and are demanding an immediate halt to construction of the wall on Kumeyaay land.

• More than 900 coronavirus cases have been diagnosed in the last two weeks alone at San Quentin state prison, bringing the total number of cases to over 1,100 infected out of the 3,700 people being held at the prison. The new outbreak began after a transfer of 121 inmates from the California Institute for Men in Chino, a prison with an existing coronavirus outbreak. The transfer has been denounced by public health officials.