Month: October 2020

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• Los Angeles County Supervisors Mark Ridley-Thomas and Sheila Kuehl have written a motion requesting a report on options to impeach or remove Sheriff Alex Villanueva. The Los Angeles Times explores what it considers the narrow, but not nonexistent, range of options, considering that county sheriff is an elected, not appointed, position. The motion will be heard by the board on November 10. Villanueva is up for reelection in 2022.

• As Angelenos across the city took to the streets to celebrate the Dodgers’ World Series win on Tuesday night, the LAPD and LASD ordered crowds to disperse in downtown LA, Echo Park, and East LA. The police used violent dispersal methods, including tackling and beating an LA Taco journalist with batons, and firing foam projectiles into crowds.

Housing Justice

• LA City Council spent hours debating Joe Buscaino’s motion to implement draconian “anti-camping” measures that would effectively criminalize being unhoused in Los Angeles. Thankfully, the vote was delayed until November 24 once it became clear that the motion would not pass. A substitute motion authored by Mike Bonin radically reframed the issue, reprioritizing increasing the number of shelter beds and improving the way they are allocated. Because of the delayed vote, this motion was also not heard.

• In March, families and individuals in need of shelter moved into several vacant homes owned by Caltrans. In the process of this occupation, they started Reclaiming Our Homes, which is supported by DSA. Now, as part of the City of LA’s transitional housing program, many will move into these homes legally. See their press release here.

Coronavirus and Relief Measures

• Los Angeles budget analysts released a report on Friday projecting a much greater pandemic-related shortfall in city revenue than had earlier been anticipated, with a potential outcome that the city’s reserve fund will be fully depleted. This has reignited the conversation over what cuts to services, or furloughs of city employees, will be implemented if the federal government doesn’t step in with relief.

Elections

• Remember that you have DSA’s 2020 Voter Guide to check out if you have yet to cast your vote in Los Angeles County. Also, you can still cast a ballot in California even if you missed the voter registration deadline.

Climate

• Southeast Los Angeles residents marched in downtown LA on Monday evening to protest the bankruptcy court decision that will now allow Exide Technologies to walk away from their lead-contaminated Vernon plant. The decision leaves it up to the state of California and its residents to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up decades of toxic contaminants deposited by Exide into neighborhoods surrounding the facility. The protest, organized by East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, highlighted the primarily Latino working-class communities that continue to be impacted by the toxic emission of lead and arsenic from the now shuttered Exide plant. “Why is it OK for us to live in poison?” asked protester and East LA resident Guadalupe Valdovinos. “To me, that’s an imminent threat. But we just don’t matter. We’re collateral damage.” Protesters left bags of lead-contaminated dirt from the front yards of Southeast Los Angeles homes on the steps of the federal courthouse. State and local officials have since criticized the ruling, while the Department of Toxic Substances Control is appealing the court’s decision.

Transit

• Widespread public outcry has now successfully delayed a plan to demolish hundreds of homes in Downey to widen the 605 freeway.

Housing Justice

• Councilmember Joe Buscaino continues to escalate the criminalization of the unhoused. This week he requested the city attorney draft an ordinance to ban “sitting, sleeping, or lying” within 500 feet of a freeway overpass or within 500 feet of a facility offering supportive services to the unhoused.

Education

• Los Angeles County recently implemented a waiver system that will allow some schools to partially reopen if they clear certain hurdles. Though the program was supposed to prioritize schools that serve low-income students, the first four schools to receive a waiver are private schools.

Elections

• Uber and Lyft have threatened to withdraw their services from California if forced to comply with AB5 and treat their workforce as employees instead of independent contractors. A stay was granted as they appealed an injunction forcing them to obey the law. This appeal has been rejected. However, the injunction doesn’t take effect for 30 days, and in the meantime Proposition 22, if it passes on election day, will specifically exempt them from compliance.

• DSA-LA made the news this week as Councilmember David Ryu attempted to make the organization’s support of his challenger, Nithya Raman, a political football in the homestretch of the council race in district 4.

Housing Justice

• Curbed (now a part of New York Magazine) interviewed Theo Henderson, an unhoused resident of Los Angeles who, through his podcast We the Unhoused, has become a powerful voice for his community. “It’s really hard to open [people’s] eyes to something they have intentionally hardened themselves against, and that’s what Theo does” says fellow unhoused activist Halcyon Selfmade.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• On Wednesday, the Los Angeles County Civilian Oversight Commission formalized its demand for Sheriff Alex Villanueva to resign, arguing that “Sheriff Villanueva enables a culture within the Sheriff’s Department of deputy impunity, disregards the constitutional rights of Los Angeles County residents, disdains other elected officials and disrespects the will of voters who support robust civilian oversight.” The commission can voice collective demands and increase public pressure, but has no legal authority to force Villanueva out of office.

Climate

• Yesterday, public comment was scathing at the bankruptcy hearing that would allow Exide Technologies to walk away from one of the worst environmental disasters in California history — which took place in the industrial city of Vernon. Dozens of callers, many of them citizens of the predominantly Latinx residential communities that neighbor Vernon, queued up to blast the decision. “We will be asked to live in our contaminated homes forever and to suffer for generations,” said one caller. “What gives you the right to let them walk away financially?” Nevertheless, today the bankruptcy settlement was approved.

Local Politics

• Newly elected Councilmember Kevin de León was sworn into office this week, two months early. He takes the seat formerly held by José Huizar, who is now facing corruption charges that compelled him to vacate his seat. As a state senator, de León represented the city of Vernon and was instrumental in protecting the scandal-plagued city from disincorporation.

• Governor Newsom’s May budget called for billions of dollars in cuts to services, but also included plans to reverse those cuts if federal aid came through before October 15. Here’s where California stands now that we know that, in the near term, federal aid is not coming.

Elections

• An interview conducted by The Guardian with both George Gascón and Jackie Lacey is extremely useful in clarifying important distinctions (as well as similarities) between the two candidates for Los Angeles district attorney.

• Proposition 21 would allow counties and cities in California to implement rent control in certain circumstances, easing restrictions put in place by the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act of 1995. In this debate hosted by KPFA, Rene Moya, housing advocate and campaign director for Proposition 21, makes the case for #yeson21.

Coronavirus Relief

• A furlough of Los Angeles city workers passed in September would have required 15,000 employees take one unpaid day off every two weeks, amounting to 10% pay cuts. A new agreement reached between Mayor Garcetti and several public employee unions increases the number of workers affected, but reduces the number of days off to only one between now and January 2021.

• After a two-week pause, Californians are once again able to apply for unemployment benefits. It is unclear how successfully the Employment Development Department used the designed pause to address its stated goals of accelerating the clearance of a massive backlog of claims.

Transit

• The city of Downey has released a statement opposing Metro’s current plan to widen the 605 freeway, which would require the demolition of hundreds of homes within the city.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• Last Friday, the Ad Hoc Committee on Police Reform met to discuss preliminary steps in developing a plan to divert certain 911 calls away from police and toward specialists in nonviolent crisis management. Pending a vote before the full council, the city will now undertake a search for nonprofit partners who can help them launch such a program.

• A report from the Los Angeles County Inspector General accuses Sheriff Alex Villanueva of maintaining a “code of silence” around the Banditos, a gang of deputies alleged to be operating within the East LA sheriff’s station.

Climate

• In the small city of Vernon, just southeast of LA and entirely zoned for industrial use, an Exide battery-recycling plant has been a major polluter, contaminating surrounding neighborhoods with toxic lead dust. Now, a bankruptcy deal brokered under the Trump Department of Justice may let Exide off the hook for tens of millions of dollars in cleanup costs.

Elections

• Don’t just take our word for it! Here are more progressive voter guides from KNOCK.LA and LAnd Magazine, (and both go deep on DSA-endorsed candidates Fatima Iqbal-Zubair and Nithya Raman).

• Also in KNOCK.LA: an explanation of why so many activist groups advocate voting No on Prop 25. Though SB-10, which 25 would uphold, would end cash bail in the state, the alternative system the bill proposes is worse, only increasing the leverage of a carceral criminal justice system.

State Politics

• September 30 was the deadline for Governor Newsom to sign or veto much of the legislation passed during the most recent session. Among the bills Newsom vetoed was AB 3216, which would protect California workers in the hospitality industry who lost their jobs during COVID, compelling employers to rehire the workers they fired instead of using the opportunity to hire workers with less seniority at lower salaries. In explaining his veto, Newsom parroted the objections of business interests who insisted the requirements were too onerous. A similar worker-protection bill successfully passed in Los Angeles in April.

• CalMatters provides more details on the bills Newsom signed and the bills he vetoed.

Education

• In September, LA Metro announced they were moving forward on the environmental review public comment period for a proposed widening of the 605/5 freeway. Metro has now backtracked, delaying public comment after criticism. Downey political candidate Alexandria Contreras pointed out that this proposed project would result in the demolition of entire POC neighborhoods.

• Investing in Place has teamed up with ACT-LA and other community organizations to address Metro’s service cuts to bus routes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Metro cut approximately 20% of bus service due to the impact of the pandemic — a decrease of 1.4 million revenue service hours. They plan to keep those cuts in place until June 30, 2021. Advocates and community members criticize this plan, citing long wait times, overcrowded buses and unreliable service.

Housing Justice

• The Board of Supervisors has unanimously approved a plan for the county to purchase eight motels to serve as interim and permanent supportive housing, using funding from a grant from the state’s Project Homekey program, as well as CARES Act funding.

Education

• LAUSD’s Board of Education further discussed how to implement the $25 million defunding of the Los Angeles School Police Department passed this June, and how the money could instead be spent.

• The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a waiver process that will allow some schools to hold in-person classes for students in kindergarten through second grade. The waiver process is intended to give priority to schools serving higher percentages of students from low-income families. In other parts of the state, these waivers have overwhelmingly gone to private schools.

Climate

• An ongoing state investigation into SoCalGas has now revealed details as to how the utility, working with Imprenta Communications Group, leveraged local politicians across the county into advocating more lax emission standards for trucks at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Elections

• Some polling numbers are in on many of California’s ballot measures. Prop 22, a measure financed by Uber and Lyft, and designed to exempt ride-sharing apps from complying with labor protections, is moderately favored to win.

• Check out DSA-LA’s 2020 Voter Guide!