Month: May 2022

Thorn West: Issue No. 110

City Politics

• In-person voting centers will be open from tomorrow, May 28, through the June 7 primary. Same-day registration can be completed in person. Bring your DSA voter guide!

• A mayoral debate last week focused on homelessness — and demonstrated the value of Gina Viola’s participation, as she persistently advocated for housing policy shaped by the input of unhoused people. Available to watch here.

• Incumbent Councilmember Gil Cedillo conducted his first debate with his opponent this week, only after online pressure threatened his ability to collect matching funds from the city. He packed the audience with his own staffers. Likewise, staff for incumbent Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell disrupted a candidate forum for CD 13.

• If protest actions directed at Brett Kavanugh and Texas Governor Gregg Abbott were at least somewhat heartening reminders that you aren’t the only person who feels anger about recent events, a reminder: in Los Angeles many politicians and media think you shouldn’t be able to do that sort of thing.

Housing Rights

• A major victory today was secured by the Hillside Villa Tenants Association! The city council voted unanimously to approve a funding mechanism for the city to purchase Hillside Villa Apartments and maintain affordable rent. Today’s vote follows years of tenant organization following the expiration of the building’s affordable housing covenant, and the current landlord’s attempt to impose massive rent hikes. Capital & Main covered that effort earlier in the week.

Transportation

• Metro Los Angeles has officially canceled plans to widen the 710 freeway, a plan that would have destroyed homes and increased pollution in South LA County communities. Even in an election day issue, there are many victories for direct action strategies to report!

• Drafted by Streets 4 All, Healthy Streets LA is a public ballot measure that would compel the city to follow the guidelines of its own long-ignored mobility plan. Now, the Los Angeles City Council is following along, and introduced its own similar motion this week.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• A series of hearings began this week on the subject of deputy gangs operating within the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. The hearings are being conducted by the Civilian Oversight Commission.

Labor

• California’s street vendors have won significant protections from state-level legislation, but a new bill that passed in the state Senate today would move things backwards by imposing stricter fines against vendors in “high-tourist areas.” L.A. Taco covers.

Thorn 109 – May 20, 2022

State Politics

• California finishes the year with a staggering $97.5 billion budget surplus, driven by stock market gains making the wealthy even wealthier. Surplus spending in California is arbitrarily constrained by a 50-year-old law known as the Gann limit; CalMatters analyzes Governor Gavin Newsom’s draft budget attempts to work around those constraints.

City Politics

• After several weeks of hearings, Los Angeles City Council voted to approve a budget for the 2022-2023 fiscal year which includes an $87 million increase for the LAPD. Councilmember Mike Bonin voted against the budget, noting that the city had yet to make the “big pivot” on public safety rhetorically committed to after the George Floyd protests, and was the only no vote.

• City Attorney Mike Feuer has dropped out of the mayor race, endorsing Karen Bass. He is the second candidate featured heavily at mayoral debates — to the exclusion of more progressive candidates — to drop out before primary day. 

• This evening, remaining candidates Bass, Gina Viola, and Councilmember Kevin DeLeón will appear at a debate focusing on housing and homelessness, hosted by KCRW. Submit questions here. Billionaire candidate Rick Caruso will not show up.

• Speaking of no-shows, Gil Cedillo, whom DSA-LA-endorsed candidate Eunisses Hernandez is challenging for the council seat in CD1, has yet to appear at a debate. On Twitter, @UnrigLA, has noted that Cedillo’s campaign has nevertheless received over $100,000 in matching funds from the city, which requires at least one debate appearance from all recipients. Follow the story here.

Housing Rights

• L.A. Taco spoke to Eunisses Hernandez this week about how, as a city councilmember, she plans to combat gentrification.

• Relatedly, Knock LA documents the obscene amount of money being poured into Los Angeles elections by the California Apartments Association, or landlord lobby, to defeat progressive candidates. You may have seen the mailers they paid for this week.

Transportation

• Los Angeles Metro is also going through their budget process, and inexplicably continuing to increase funding for freeway expansions at the expense of public transportation. Streets For All is encouraging Angelenos to weigh in.

Environmental Justice

• The number of California properties facing severe wildfire risk will grow sixfold over the next 30 years, according to data from First Street Foundation.

• Amid worsening drought conditions, Southern California’s Metropolitan Water Board has voted to impose water usage restrictions. In Los Angeles, those restrictions will be implemented on June 1. Meanwhile, the biggest corporate water abusers continue to get a pass.

Issue No. 108 – May 13, 2022

City Politics

• DSA-LA has released its voter guide for the June 7 primary! Knock-LA’s voter guide is also available, and takes a cursory look at elections in the smaller cities of LA County. Ballots have already begun being mailed to registered voters county-wide.

• The Los Angeles Times editorial board aligned with DSA-LA on some races this week, endorsing Erin Darling in Council District 11 and Eunisses Hernandez in Council District 1.

• Councilmember Joe Buscaino dropped out of the Los Angeles mayoral race on Thursday, following polls which had him at 1%. The announcement was made at a joint event with fellow candidate Rick Caruso, whom Buscaino immediately endorsed.

Coronavirus and Relief

• COVID infections continue to rise in Los Angeles County, placing it on track to hit “medium” levels of community transmission for the first time since the CDC instituted more lax benchmarks at the end of February. People ages 12–17 currently have the highest infection rates.

• The LAUSD voted unanimously to delay adding the COVID vaccine to the list of vaccines required for K–12 students. The mandate was scheduled to go into effect for the fall but has been delayed until July 1, 2023. This follows a corresponding delay at the state level, hinged on waiting for full FDA approval for a youth vaccine.

Labor

• Today, two Starbucks stores, in Lakewood and Long Beach, have become the first in Southern California to unionize!

Housing Rights

• Article 34 — a 70-year-old amendment to California’s constitution designed to enforce racial segregation, which prohibits the building of any public housing without a public ballot measure — may be on the way out. An amendment to repeal has just advanced out of the Assembly Housing Committee, having already cleared the Senate unanimously. The charter amendment will still need to be approved by statewide ballot, and it is unclear where the money for that campaign would come from.

• Every eight years, all California municipalities must release their Housing Element, a plan to meet the housing needs of their residents, at least on paper. The Los Angeles Daily News looks at how some cities game that system.

Environmental Justice

• Governor Gavin Newsom called for the California Air Resources Board, the state’s top climate regulator, to “evaluate pathways” for the state to become carbon neutral by 2035. But CARB’s newly released draft plan for meeting the state’s emissions targets rejects that goal as too expensive, arguing instead for backing off to a 2045 target.

• CalMatters provides additional analysis on the CARB draft plan, noting that while it scales back reliance on “cap-and-trade” incentive programs to reduce emissions relative to its 2017 plan, it does not account for the intervening years’ revelation that these programs might not have any significant effect and does not explain how or why these programs are expected to work.

• California regulators are about to take another crack at reforming the state’s contentious solar net-metering policies. In December, it was proposed that compensation paid to new rooftop solar owners for power they send to the grid would be reduced, but following a massive public backlash, the California Public Utilities Commission issued a ruling reopening public comment until June 24, after which the CPUC will revise its proposal. That pushes the timeline for the release of a new policy into July at the earliest.

Issue No. 107 – May 06, 2022

State Politics

• A leaked draft of a Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, later authenticated, represents an existential threat to reproductive freedom in the United States. At a rally in front of a Planned Parenthood, Governor Newsom vowed to enshrine the right to an abortion in the state constitution.

City Politics

• On Tuesday the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors had already agendized a motion to support AB 1245, approving $20 million in state funding for a pilot program that would endeavor to make the county a “safe haven” for anyone seeking an abortion, regardless of where they live. According to some estimates, if Roe were to be overturned, California would become the nearest abortion provider for over a million Arizonans.

• The news has also renewed focus on mayoral candidate Rick Caruso’s past donations to anti-choice politicians. Though Caruso, who switched from the Republican to Democratic party in advance of his mayoral run, announced his current support for Roe v. Wade, Planned Parenthood released an open letter calling on him to apologize for his past positions.

• Black Lives Matters – LA co-founder Melina Abdullah was forcibly removed from a mayoral debate held at Cal State LA, where she teaches. Though none of the debate candidates objected to Abdullah being carried out by campus security at the time, Kevin DeLeon and Karen Bass have since joined the chorus condemning Abdullah’s treatment.

• City Hall reopened to the public for the first time since the pandemic began. Courthouse News narrates day one, which concluded with housing activists from Hillside Villa being forcibly removed by police. Though in-person public comment is once again permitted, dial-in public comment has been correspondingly suspended.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• In downtown LA, a spontaneous rally in defense of reproductive freedom was declared an unlawful assembly, following repeated aggression against protesters. Violence was instigated by both the LAPD and the Department of Homeland Security, whose presence at the march has yet to be officially explained.

Housing Rights

• An accelerated timeline requiring all California cities and counties to meet their housing capability quotas by October 15 has proven nearly impossible to meet. Only five cities and counties in Southern California are on track, with millions in state funding at stake.

Environmental Justice

• Facing possible electricity shortages, Governor Newsom suggested that the state’s sole remaining nuclear power plant might continue operating beyond a planned closing by 2025.

• Last week, the seven states that rely on the Colorado River, which includes California, agreed to forfeit their water from Lake Powell in order to ensure that the reservoir can still generate hydroelectric power.

• California’s Air Resources Board, the state’s clean-air regulators, unveiled a proposal requiring a ramp-up in sales of zero-emission cars, culminating in a ban on new gasoline-powered cars by 2035. If adopted, the regulations would be the first in the world and could pave the way for nationwide standards.