Month: November 2021

City Politics

• Redistricting maps for both city council and the Los Angeles Unified School Board were passed unanimously by council. A final attempt to amend the map to return USC and Exposition Park to District 9 failed 11–3 despite overwhelming public comment in support. The maps were not otherwise discussed by council, and will receive final approval by ordinance on December 1.

• The story of how and why USC was moved from District 9 to District 10 in Los Angeles’ last redistricting cycle is told in The Sellout, a podcast about former Councilmember Jose Huizar, who was indicted for corruption in 2020.

Housing Rights

• With 10 members of city council solidly behind the inhumane revisions to 41.18, fringe mayoral candidate and councilmember Joe Buscaino has resorted to taking increasingly extreme positions on houselessness to distinguish himself from the crowd. On Tuesday, Buscaino’s proposed measure to essentially move the entire unhoused population of Los Angeles into “FEMA-like” camps went before council. By a vote of 11–2, the bill was sent to the Poverty and Homelessness Committee for further review, from where it will likely not return. The Buscaino campaign has now said it will gather the necessarry 65,000 signatures to put the measure directly onto the ballot in 2022.

NOlympics

• The Games Agreement, a blueprint agreement between Los Angeles and the organizers of the 2028 Olympics, has been released to the public. This Monday it is scheduled to be discussed by the Ad Hoc Olympics and Paralympics Committee, chaired by Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell. NOlympicsLA has more.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• City departments turn in their budget requests for the next fiscal year every November. The LAPD has requested a budget increase of 12%, or $213 million, which the Police Commission approved on Tuesday. Stop LAPD Spying Coalition breaks down the numbers.

State Politics

• For the second year in a row, California is predicted to see a multi-billion dollar budget surplus, putting the state on a collision course with constitutional spending limits.

City Politics

• Councilmember Marqueese Harris-Dawson spoke candidly with Jon Peltz of Knock LA, a rare unfiltered interview for an LA City Councilmember with Harris-Dawson’s questionable voting record.

Housing Rights

• LAist spoke with the residents of several encampments in designated 41.18 sites, to see if the required outreach had materialized. Their accounts validate the concerns of many that the city has been lackluster in meeting its outreach commitments. “They have not followed up, come back out or done anything for that matter,” said one resident.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• The Metro board met this week to consider recommendations made by its newly established Public Safety Advisory Group, and took a step towards drastically reducing the role of law enforcement on public transit.

• Meanwhile, months after the city of Pomona seemed to commit to the removal of law enforcement from public schools, they have substantially backtracked.

Labor

• Over the weekend, IATSE members voted on whether to ratify the proposed Basic Agreement with the AMPTP, an agreement many members felt didn’t do enough with the leverage membership provided by overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike. Because the election relied on a delegate-based voting system, ratification passed, despite a majority of membership (50.4%) voting against it.

• The Alliance of Health Care Unions had also voted to authorize a strike. That strike, against Kaiser Permanente, was also forestalled when the two sides reached a tentative agreement, with workers being said to have won many key concessions.

• Despite reaching a contract agreement, thousands of Kaiser workers struck for two days in sympathy strikes with several hundred hospital engineers, who have been striking for weeks.

• Finally, a planned walkout by untenured faculty represented by the University Council-American Federation of Teachers was avoided when a tentative agreement was reached with the University of California. “This is the best contract in UC-AFT history,” said union leadership.

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.