Month: September 2022

Thorn West: Issue No. 127

City Politics

• With the election in six weeks, debates have picked up again. Candidates for mayor and sheriff met this week. @UnrigLA maintains a calendar of upcoming events, including a debate in the CD13 race in which DSA-LA–endorsed candidate Hugo Soto-Martinez is running.

Health Care

• In response to the overdose death of a student, the lifesaving overdose-reversal medication naloxone (Narcan) will be made available at all LAUSD K–12 schools.

Transportation

• Governor Newsom has signed AB 2097, blockbuster legislation that restricts the off-street parking requirements municipalities can impose on new developments that are near transit corridors. Advocates anticipate the bill enabling denser housing and lower rent, while removing some of the incentives from owning a car. Newsom’s signing statement here.

• After years of delays, Metro surprisingly announced that the official opening of the K Line will be October 7. The light rail line will initially service seven stations throughout several Los Angeles communities, including Leimert Park and Baldwin Hills, as well as the city of Inglewood. In recognition of the accomplishment, Metro will suspend all fares across the transit system October 7-9.

• Los Angeles City Council is in the process of approving a new vendor contract for bus shelters, for the first time in 20 years. Next City looks at how Los Angeles, which is failing to provide shade for bus riders compared with other cities, can improve.

Housing Rights

• The previously unhoused tenants of the LA Grand Hotel, which is “demobilizing” as a Project Roomkey site, have released a statement and a list of demands, which include an end to evictions until all tenants have been provided with and accepted permanent housing.

• L.A. Taco reports on United to House LA, or ULA, the November city ballot measure that would institute a “mansion tax” on all property sales over $5 million and use the money to fund a variety of potentially transformative housing programs intended to combat houselessness. More here.

Labor

• Proposition 22, which exempts rideshare apps from some labor laws, has yet to go into effect. In the meantime, a study conducted in partnership with Rideshare Workers United shows that under Prop 22’s payment plan drivers would make a median wage of $6.20 an hour.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• Attorney General Rob Bonta has taken over the investigation opened by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department into two prominent critics of the department.

Environmental Justice

• Governor Newsom signed 40 climate-related measures into law on Friday. The legislation includes a mandate that the state achieve carbon neutrality by 2045 as well as a 3,200-foot setback requirement between new oil wells and homes, schools, and other locations. Other provisions include expedited solar permitting, record-keeping requirements for EV charging station reliability, and a ban on enhanced oil recovery using carbon sequestration.

Thorn West: Issue No. 126

State Politics

• This Saturday and Sunday in Los Angeles, the California Reparations Task Force will be holding its first public meeting since the release of their interim report in June. The task force’s final recommendations are still scheduled to be delivered in July of 2023. this weekend’s agenda here.

City Politics

• Marilyn Flynn, the USC dean who was facing corruption charges alongside suspended councilmember Mark Ridley-Thomas (as his co-defendant), has agreed to plead guilty. Ridley-Thomas’ trial was scheduled for November 15. Pending the outcome, he would either be reinstated or a special election will be called to fill his seat, currently filled by appointment.

Housing Rights

• Despite recent reports suggesting that state protections during the pandemic were instrumental in slowing the growth of houselessness in Los Angeles, this week on back-to-back days the county Board of Supervisors and City Council Housing Committee (in a particularly chaotic and contentious meeting) set in motion rollbacks of tenant protections that may go into effect at the end of the year.

• As expected, Governor Newsom signed CARE Court into law. Newsom dismissed the coalition of activists who oppose the program, which facilitates the state forcing people experiencing mental health issues into carceral forms of care, as “groups … holding hands talking about the way the world should be.” CalMatters details the massive tasks that lie ahead if the law is actually to be put into practice.

• Los Angeles County has settled its part of a lawsuit initiated by a coalition of landlords and business owners frustrated with the city’s failure to control the presence of unhoused people in Downtown Los Angeles. The city settled several months ago, agreeing to build more temporary shelters, which the county has now agreed to partially fund.

• Nice interview with a volunteer from KTown for All, discussing the state of services for unhoused people in Los Angeles.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies executed search warrants at the homes of Supervisor Sheila Kuehl and Civilian Oversight Commissioner Patti Giggans, who have both been outspoken critics of LASD. Attorneys have challenged the legality of the warrant, which was issued by a judge with a close relationship with LASD. This is part of a pattern of the LASD under Villanueva using its power to harass critics, including the families of victims of LASD killings. Bad.

Incarceration

• The ACLU has filed for an emergency order that would force the county to improve “barbaric” conditions at the Inmate Reception Center of the LA County jail, where people are held while awaiting trial.

Environmental Justice

• Last weekend’s heavy rains caused significant mudslides in burn-scarred areas of the San Bernardino mountains. There has been one confirmed fatality.

• KQED writes about the success of an innovative and volunteer-powered response to a failing water system in Allensworth, a historically Black community in California’s Central Valley.

Thorn West: Issue No. 125

State Politics

• With the legislative session closed, here is everything that passed and awaits the governor’s signature or veto.

• President Biden endorsed AB 2183, the California bill that would enable union organizing among farm workers. The bill passed through the Legislature last week, but Governor Newsom already vetoed an earlier version of this same bill and has yet to sign this one. Biden’s surprise endorsement is speculated to be political gamesmanship aimed at Newsom, a potential 2024 primary challenger.

• Newsom did sign AB 257, which would establish a Fast Food Council to regulate wages at large chain restaurants. The restaurant industry is fighting back, and announced intentions to put a referendum on ballots overturning the law, which now may not be able to go into effect until the referendum is resolved. Via Who Gets the Bird, more labor analysis on the impact of this measure.

Health Care

• The newly developed COVID vaccine that is more effective against the prevalent BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of the omicron strain is now available in Los Angeles County to all adults. Book an appointment here, or through most major pharmacy chains. Vaccines remain free of cost.

Housing Rights

• After several delays, LAHSA has released a census report on the county’s unhoused population, for the first time since COVID began. The numbers reveal a 4.1% increase in the total population in LA County, and a 1.7% increase in the city of Los Angeles, with continued overrepresentation of Black and Latine people among the unhoused. This represents a smaller increase than in previous years, largely attributed to a slower rate of people falling into homelessness. County representatives suggest that this is likely due to COVID-related assistance programs and eviction protections.

• The Housing Committee of the Los Angeles City Council will discuss ending COVID-related eviction protections at its next meeting, following the Housing Department’s fulfillment of a request for a report, which recommends that most citywide eviction protections sunset on December 31, 2022.

• Knock LA continues its in-depth reporting on the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Campus, where many tiny homes developed for unhoused veterans remain empty. A fire destroyed several of these homes this week, though no one has been reported injured.

Environmental Justice

• The record-breaking heat wave that has gripped California since last week may finally end, with a dramatic near-miss hurricane. The heat also caused record-breaking power-usage that prompted an emergency request urging Californians to conserve power “if health allows,” or rolling blackouts would be ordered. This warning effectively curbed consumer usage, averting the need for drastic action.

• Curbed uses the heat wave as a prompt to talk about lack of shade on LAUSD campuses. LA Taco reports on industrial pollution at Jordan High School in Watts, where students report being advised not to drink the water.

Thorn West: Issue No. 124

State Politics

• The two-year state legislative session closed this week amid a flurry of activity. When the Legislature returns it will have many new members. CalMatters tracks, with more below.

• Despite substantial public support, the VISION Act, which would prevent prisons from transferring incarcerated people who have completed their sentence to ICE for deportation, failed by three votes in the Senate, after being approved in the Assembly. Statement from the ICE Out of California coalition here.

• SB 1338, also known as “CARE Court,” passed on Wednesday. The bill makes it easier to coerce people with mental health disabilities into treatment, and is targeted at the unhoused. The bill also contains a TBD plan to manifest the massive amount of resources that would be needed to treat so many new patients. It passed unanimously in the Senate and 62–2 in the Assembly despite overwhelming opposition from disability rights and civil liberties groups.

City Politics

• The contentious fight to fill the council seat in CD 10 escalated quickly, as this week City Council President Nury Martinez agendized a series of motions to rapidly appoint Heather Hutt. A minority of councilmembers advocated for a more transparent and deliberative process delaying the approval, but that resistance collapsed Friday, and Hutt’s appointment passed 12–2 with only Councilmembers Mike Bonin and Monica Rodriguez opposed.

Labor

• AB 2183, which would allow farm workers to vote by mail in union elections, has passed through the Legislature and to the governor to sign. Last year Newsom (who owns vineyards) vetoed an earlier version of the bill, citing “procedural issues.” This year, in support of the bill, a group of farm workers marched from Kern County to Sacramento and are holding a vigil until the governor signs.

• The Legislature has passed AB 257, a bill creating a council to regulate wages and working conditions for all California workers in large fast food chains. Read a little more about AB 257 — the first bill of its kind nationwide — in the context of sectoral bargaining here.

• AB 1577, which would allow workers in the Legislature the right to collectively bargain, passed through the senate, but was blocked from a vote in the assembly by the Assembly Public Employment and Retirement Committee.

Housing Rights

• The Legislature overwhelmingly approved an amendment repealing Article 34 of the state charter, which requires onerous local elections to approve any form of public housing. The bill, widely understood to have been originally pushed by racist segregationists, is among the last laws of its kind on a state charter. In Los Angeles, many council districts are nearing the limits of affordable housing authorized in the last Article 34 citywide ballot measure, and the city failed to put reapproval on the ballot. The amendment will still need to be approved by the public in 2024.

Environmental Justice

• Temperatures will continue to reach triple digits in many areas of the state through Labor Day, breaking records and straining the power grid. In Los Angeles, the city has opened very few cooling centers to help unhoused and other vulnerable people manage the heat, and many libraries are closed for Labor Day. The Kenneth Mejia campaign provides some analysis and calls attention to some programs that are providing mutual aid.

• Citing searing summer temperatures and expected energy shortages, California lawmakers approved legislation aimed at extending the life of the state’s last-operating nuclear power plant. The Diablo Canyon plant — the state’s largest single source of electricity — had been slated to shutter by 2025. The New York Times covers this and other California climate bills from the busy week.

• A fire ignited just after noon on Wednesday and has spread to cover 5,2000 acres near Castaic, in Los Angeles County.