Month: September 2020

Transit

• Despite widespread opposition, Mayor Garcetti and the rest of the LA Metro Board (with the exception of Mike Bonin) voted to slash the Metro budget by 20%, citing decreased ridership impacting revenue — even though federal CARES Act funding earmarked for maintaining transportation during COVID has held net revenue losses at only 2%. The cuts are primarily to bus service and will impact low-income riders of color the hardest just as ridership is beginning to increase.

Housing Justice

• Plaintiffs, including KTown for All, have won a legal motion, and now the City of Los Angeles will be held in contempt of court for violating an April injunction preventing the city from seizing “bulky items” belonging to the unhoused. A San Pedro sweep defied this injunction and posted outdated signs claiming that bulky items could still be seized.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• Black Lives Matter Los Angeles has been organizing protests outside of city hall every Wednesday for months. Hundreds joined this week, as thousands around the nation protested the lack of criminal charges brought against the Louisville police officers who killed Breonna Taylor.

• TW violent footage: An article on StreetsBlog LA explains how footage of the police shooting of Dijon Kizzee contradicts the claim from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department that Kizzee was pointing a gun at the deputies that shot and killed him.

Coronavirus Relief

• The California unemployment department has paused logging any new claims for unemployment benefits until October 5 and has announced that they will take that time to implement a new system that will speed up processing times. A recent report found a backlog of over a million pending claims that will take until January 2021 to resolve, even with this pause.

Climate

• Last week, as record-breaking wildfires received national attention, Governor Newsom promised action on climate protection. This week, Newsom has issued an executive order banning the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035. See here for a detailed analysis of how the order would be implemented and all the ways it falls short.

Elections

• An LA Times reporter live-tweeted the Sherman Oaks CD4 Candidate Forum, featuring incumbent Councilmember David Ryu and DSA-endorsed challenger Nithya Raman. Ryu was asked again if he is simply “Nithya lite.”

Transit

• Councilmember Paul Koretz has effectively killed Uplift Melrose, a plan to invest in making Melrose Avenue friendlier to pedestrians and cyclists. Uplift Melrose enjoyed support from local businesses and neighborhood councils, but was opposed by LAPD on the pretext that fewer traffic lanes would reduce response times — a concern not shared by many fire departments. LAPD has previously killed bike lanes in other parts of the city for similar reasons, for example at the request of NIMBY group Fix the City, which argues the city is “stealing” lanes from drivers.

Housing Justice

• Project Roomkey fell short of its goal of placing 15,000 of the most vulnerable unhoused people in vacant hotel rooms for the duration of the pandemic. Despite paying full price for rooms, the program was only able to find beds for 4,100 people. During a discussion about Project Roomkey at last week’s council meeting, Councilmembers Mike Bonin and Marqueece Harris-Dawson requested a report on the justifications supplied by hotels that declined to participate. That report was released this week, and it revealed that several hotels held out because of an open bias against the unhoused. It’s the second time in two weeks that city programs have been exposed as naively relying on the “reasonableness” of landlords and businesses; these interests’ most valuable assets are their class privileges, and they won’t reliably sell them at cost.

• LA Magazine published a story recognizing the successful efforts last week of community activists to draw attention to and push back against the illegal displacement of an unhoused encampment by the South Robertson Neighborhood Council.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• On Sunday, KPCC reporter Josie Huang was covering the interaction between sheriff’s deputies and a small group of protesters. While she was recording an arrest the deputies shoved Huang to the ground and arrested her. The Sheriff’s department issued a statement claiming she never identified herself as a reporter. This was later blatantly contradicted by video evidence in which she is heard shouting “I’m with KPCC” and is seen wearing her press badge.

• At Thursday’s meeting of the Los Angeles County Civilian Oversight Committee, which oversees the sheriff’s department, Commissioner Robert Bonner — known as a conservative member of the committee — shockingly called on Sheriff Alex Villanueva to resign. This follows the false report of the Huang arrest, as well as other recent incidents that have destroyed the sheriff’s relationship with the public and his ability to work with other elements of government. The call was immediately echoed by two of the five county supervisors. “He really is a rogue sheriff,” said Supervisor Sheila Kuehl.

Local Politics

• An article in L.A. Taco checks in on the Los Angeles District Attorney race between George Gascón and Jackie Lacey. The candidates met on a zoom call this week, where Lacey was grilled about contributions from police unions and her failure to prosecute a single LAPD officer for a police shooting.

• Mayors of five Los Angeles County cities that have legalized card room casinos met to lobby the city to allow outdoor gambling. The boundaries of many of the cities in the county have been drawn up to separate residential communities from the nearby industrial tax base. Some of these cities rely on card rooms for up to 50% of their tax revenue.

Climate

• Surveying the devastation of the historic, ongoing wildfires, Gov. Gavin Newsom broke with President Trump and acknowledged the scientific reality of climate change, calling it a “climate damn emergency.” But we are far past the point of debate. Scientists estimate that the fires in California this year have burned enough forest to emit about 90 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, some 30 million tons more than the total CO2 emissions from providing power to the entire state. The climate emergency is here. We are living through it. What matters now is action. Newsom said that he had directed two of his top environmental officials to review the state’s current climate strategies “and accelerate all of them, across the board,” but climate activists remain skeptical. As the COVID-19 pandemic has raged, critics have charged that Newsom has squandered an opportunity to move faster on reducing emissions, and has even slowed down or backtracked on climate action. Most recently, Newsom defended the state water board’s decision to extend the shutdown deadline for four gas-fired power plants that were supposed to close this year.

Housing Justice

• In June Los Angeles passed the Emergency Renters Assistance Subsidy Program, establishing a fund to help tenants struggling to make rent during the pandemic. Instead of providing assistance to tenants, the program was designed to make payments directly to their landlords. However, the program required that landlords agree to some terms — such as pausing evictions during the pandemic — in exchange for the money. Now, tenants in the program have reported that their landlords are refusing to take the subsidy — echoing outcomes in similar programs nationwide — leaving tenants in the lurch.

• Members of the South Robertson Neighborhood Council (SORO NC) raised $3,650 through a GoFundMe with the explicit intention of illegally displacing unhoused people under the Cattaraugus underpass in West LA. On Sunday, they removed the belongings of unhoused residents and put down boulders in their place. Volunteers from Ktown for All, Street Watch LA, and Los Angeles Community Action Network successfully drew public attention to the incident, directing Angelenos to call into the SORO NC meeting’s public comment, as well as provoking a response from South Robertson’s Councilmember Herb Wesson. By the end of the week the boulders had been removed.

• Following some debate over funding levels, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to approve $97,000,000 in funding for the “Rapid Re-Housing” program, to be administered by LA Homeless Services Authority.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• For several days, protesters demanding justice for Dijon Kizzee staged peaceful demonstrations outside the South LA Sheriff’s Station. But the conflict escalated over Labor Day weekend, when sheriff’s deputies fired projectiles and chemical irritants into the crowd, injuring several. No justification has been provided by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for the escalation, and activists present report that it was unprovoked. Over the following few days of protests, deputies began making arrests, with 35 arrests made as of Tuesday.

• In a bizarre and upsetting press conference staged by County Sheriff Alex Villanueva in response to the Dijon Kizzee protests, a series of speakers supposedly representing the South LA community — including someone with ties to white supremacists — addressed “outside” protesters to insist that they were not welcome. Spokespeople for Kizzee’s family pushed back on Instagram, insisting that all peaceful protesters were welcome no matter where they were from.

• The open existence of gangs within the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has become a national story. Zak Cheney-Rice writes, “The particular incentive structure that governs gangs like the Executioners may be eye-catching in its boldness. But it also typifies policing in places where they do not proliferate so literally.”

Labor

• AB5, a law passed last year in California, mandated that many “independent contractors” be reclassified as full- or part-time employees. Now, Governor Gavin Newsom has signed into law AB2257, which creates exemptions for several professions, including journalists and musicians.

Climate

• AB 2147, which removes some of the barriers that incarcerated firefighters face in becoming professional firefighters after they are released, was also signed into law this afternoon.

State Legislature

• The California State Legislature adjourned for the year leaving many people hanging. A resumption of the $600-a-week unemployment benefits was one among many relief proposals that never materialized. Calmatters asks, what’s next?

• A day before the expiration of the state’s eviction moratorium, the California legislature passed compromised legislation that extends bare-bones protections through January 31. Under AB 3088, signed on into law on Monday, tenants cannot be evicted for any rent missed between March 1 and September 1, and are protected through February 2021 provided they pay 25% of their rent and file a statement that they were financially impacted by COVID-19. Per Governor Newsom, AB 3088 still offers stronger protections than the surprising federal eviction moratorium issued by the CDC on Tuesday, so the CDC order would have no effect in the state.

• Despite majority approval in polls, millions in the streets and a Democratic supermajority, the California State Legislature only passed incremental police reform while shooting down more ambitious legislation. Using the Sept. 1 deadline and aggressive lobbying to control legislators overwhelmed by multiple crises, police unions were successful in preventing SB 731, a bill that would have created a process to decertify violent cops, from ever reaching a vote. A bill that would require officers to intervene when their colleagues used excessive force, and one that would open up more police records to the public, were also beaten back.

• In the middle of a housing crisis, SB 1120 would allow most single-family homes to be converted into duplexes. It was likely to have passed, but inexplicably was introduced to the Assembly too late by Speaker Anthony Rendon and its vote will be delayed until the next legislative session.

• AB 3121, which will establish a task force to make recommendations for what form reparations should take in the state of California, was passed, and now heads to the governor to sign.

City Politics

• Furloughs for over 15,000 city workers are coming after the Los Angeles city council voted to declare a fiscal emergency. The furloughs will require city workers to take 18 unpaid days off, amounting to a 7% pay cut. Councilmember Mike Bonin proposed an amendment that would have city negotiators first meet with the L.A. Police Protective League, to try and negotiate a delay in their scheduled raises and bonuses, potentially allowing the city to stave off the furloughs. His motion failed 9-3, with Nithya Raman’s opponent, David Ryu, not even showing up for the vote.

• Los Angeles schools will now be able to reopen for a limited number of special ed and ESL students, though it will still be up to local districts whether or not they want to take advantage of this new policy.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• A gang of Sheriff’s Deputies called The Executioners has long been reported as operating within the Compton Sheriff’s station. Now, a whistleblower within the department has testified that Miguel Vega, the Compton deputy who shot and killed Andres Guardado, was an Executioners prospect.

• Protesters involved in three demonstrations over the past month have filed a federal civil rights suit against Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villenueva and the County of Los Angeles for the use of “indiscriminate and unreasonable force” in the treatment of protesters, withholding access to water, keeping protesters detained in unventilated spaces without masks, and other tactics “designed to punish protesters.” Complaint here.

• A photo-essay in L.A. Taco documents the “all hands on deck” demonstration demanding justice for Dijon Kizzee, who was killed by sheriff’s deputies this week in South Los Angeles.

Climate

• The Los Angeles Times reviews the findings of the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education’s recently-released 636-page report on policies the state might employ in order to integrate economic and workforce development into major climate policies and programs and help achieve California’s major climate goals. “But don’t call it a “green jobs” report.”

Elections

• In response to public outrage many curtailments of the postal service planned by the Trump administration have since been abandoned. California’s attorney general will now seek the immediate reversal of all changes the administration had already put in place.

• The labor-backed, statewide campaign to win passage of Proposition 15 in November stepped-up on Wednesday with the launch of the official campaign. The Schools and Communities First coalition dropped two TV ads (‘Collar‘ and ‘What Matters Most‘) to mark the beginning of a campaign that is expected to be bitterly opposed by some of the most reactionary sections of capital in California. To overcome these forces and galvanize a broader, anti-austerity movement in California, DSA’s ‘Yes on 15’ campaign also announced their next steps in the fight to win the $12 billion a year for public schools and local services that Prop. 15 would generate. On Labor Day at 11:00 am DSA-LA and unionists will be meeting at Burbank USD and then driving onto Walt Disney Company HQ to demand the passage of Prop. 15 and a just recovery for workers – join here!