The Thorn West

Thorn West: Issue No. 167

State Politics

• A statewide public ballot measure to repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act has qualified for the 2024 ballot. If the measure succeeds, it would allow local municipalities to expand rent control locally; Costa-Hawkins, as state law, dramatically restricts municipalities’ ability to do so.

• Have an opinion on currently proposed statewide legislation? California DSA invites DSA members to recommend legislative endorsements, both in support and in opposition.

City Politics

• Protesters briefly shut down a meeting of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, to demand the closure of Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, where conditions are inhumane. Los Padrinos was recently reopened only after two other juvenile facilities were ordered to close by the state due to unsuitable conditions.

Health Care

• California is experiencing an uptick in cases of COVID-19.

• Premiums for health insurance sold through the Covered California marketplace will increase by nearly 10% next year, the highest rate hike since 2018.

• In-N-Out Burger recently announced a policy to prohibit its workers from wearing face masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19, but California regulations prevent them from implementing it here.

Labor

• At a rally this Tuesday, striking WGA workers will deliver a petition with over 25,000 signatures demanding justice from NBCUniversal, which has attempted to thwart picketers by closing down sidewalks and has repeatedly ignored instructions from the city to install pedestrian protections. Details here!

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• The Los Angeles city controller’s office has released a database of all LAPD arrests from the last four years, searchable by race, geographic area, and type of arrest. Among the audit’s findings were that Black and brown people were disproportionately the target of arrests.

• Streetsblog LA thoroughly documents the outrageous contradictions between a report from LAPD Chief Michel Moore on an incident last year in which an officer shot an unarmed man and bodycam footage of the same incident.

Transportation

• Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass took over as chair of Metro for the upcoming year. At her first meeting as chair, a coalition of activists anchored by ACT-LA, and supported by DSA-LA, rallied in support of fare-free public transit.

Housing Rights

• Tenant protections enacted in response to COVID-19 gave many tenants until August 1 to pay off rent debt accrued between March 1, 2020, and September 30, 2021. With that deadline now here, many anticipate a wave of evictions. For anyone with concerns about tenant protections moving forward, Councilmember Nithya Raman published a breakdown of rights, protections, and requirements on Instagram, as well as in a subsequent bulletin jointly released with Mayor Bass.

• A lawsuit initiated by the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles aims to immediately end the freeze on rental increases that applies to LA rental housing currently subject to the Rent Stabilization Ordinance. The rent freeze on RSO units will expire on February 2024 even if the lawsuit is unsuccessful. Currently, this ren freeze is the only thing legally preventing rental increases as high as 8.8%. The maximum allowable increase has recently spiked because it’s indexed to inflation.

Environmental Justice

• CalMatters breaks down the battle between Big Oil and environmentalists over a law that bans new oil and gas wells near homes and schools. Though Governor Gavin Newsom signed the law last year, it’s been on hold since oil companies qualified a measure for the November 2024 ballot that would overturn it.

• A heat wave continues across Southern California, during a July that may be the hottest month in recorded history.

Thorn West: Issue No. 166

Labor

• Jacobin covers the first week of the SAG-AFTRA strike. SAG-AFTRA has released a negotiation status report showing in detail how little the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers has been willing to give. Mayor Karen Bass, after a much-derided initial statement calling on “all sides to come to the table,” released a second statement expressing support for striking workers.

• Members of striking unions including the WGA, SAG-AFTRA, and UNITE HERE attended a Teamster rally and picket on Wednesday in downtown Los Angeles. Some 340,000 Teamster drivers and warehouse workers are poised to go on a nationwide strike against UPS if they cannot come to terms on a contract before August 1.

• In further “this is all one struggle” news, NBCUniversal recently pruned the trees outside their studio, removing shade from picket lines — only a week after LAPD communications revealed a plot to remove a tree that provided shade to an encampment. Universal has been fined $250 by the city for trimming trees without a permit. SAG-AFTRA and the WGA have filed unfair labor practices charges.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• Knock-LA has published the results of an intensive survey of every time Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies have fired a weapon at a person.

• Local media once again chose to validate the strange and incorrect belief, seemingly prevalent among police officers, that simple exposure to certain narcotics is a health risk, after several LAPD officers were taken to the hospital for “meth exposure.”

Incarceration

• Starting on October 1, Los Angeles County will all but eliminate the use of cash bail for defendants accused of misdemeanors or nonviolent felonies. Before this announcement, the use of cash bail had already been paused, as a result of a lawsuit. The decision comes as the public has become increasingly aware of decrepit and unsafe conditions of LA County jails.

Environmental Justice

• Southern California is in the middle of a record-breaking heat wave. LA Public Press covers the annual shortcomings of Los Angeles’ system of cooling centers, which in the neighborhood of Skid Row has only gotten worse.

• California’s three largest electric utilities have proposed a plan to charge customers not just for how much energy they use but also based on their household income. Their proposal is designed to accommodate a new law to make energy less costly for California’s lowest-income customers.

• An experiment in Pacoima applied “cool paint” to 10 square blocks of streets. One year later, the results have shown temperatures that are 10 degrees cooler than regular asphalt.

Thorn West: Issue No. 157

State Politics

• The California Reparations Task Force released a historic report this week, which proposed a method of calculating how much the state owes to Black Californians for a variety of harms including over-policing and housing discrimination. In his response, Governor Gavin Newsom was noncommittal on support for reparations in the form of cash payments. The Task Force is due to complete work in July.

City Politics

• A coalition of activist groups is advocating for implementing a democracy vouchers program in Los Angeles. Vouchers would be issued to all Angelenos regardless of income; once pledged to a candidate for office, they could be redeemed for campaign funding. A motion to study democracy vouchers was introduced by councilmembers Nithya Raman and Marqueece Harris-Dawson this past March.

• Kevin de León’s presence at Los Angeles City Hall took another step toward normalization, as last Friday the disgraced councilmember was permitted to deliver a Cinco de Mayo presentation; many city councilmembers left the floor as he spoke. A protester was arrested following the provoked public outcry.

Labor

• The Writers Guild of America strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers is ongoing. For schedules and locations of picket lines, see here. Joining is easy! DSA-LA and several of our electeds will be at Warner Brothers on Monday. This week President Biden expressed support for a “fair deal” for writers, after both Mayor Bass and Governor Newsom called for “both sides” to come to the table. Law enforcement has also expressed anti-solidarity, warning the public against “excessive honking” in support of striking workers.

Housing Rights

• The Ellis Act, a state law which allows landlords to evict tenants without cause provided they take the units off the market, is being used to evict hundreds of tenants from Barrington Towers in West LA — one of the largest mass evictions in state history.

• A new policy paper looks at the way a municipal public bank in Los Angeles could bolster the city’s affordable housing stock.

Transportation

• A report from Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE) and the Alliance for Community Transit (ACT-LA) makes the case for universal fareless public transit across Los Angeles.

Environmental Justice

• After widespread pushback from residents of the San Joaquin Valley, Governor Newsom has restored $40 million in funding for floodplain restoration. An El Niño weather pattern is widely predicted for the upcoming year; this would put the area at an increased risk of flooding.

• In a 5 – 4 decision, the US Supreme Court narrowly sided with California voters, who voted in 2018 to ban the sale of meat and egg products from farms that did not meet animal welfare standards.

Thorn West: Issue No. 156

City Politics

• The Los Angeles City Council Budget and Finance Committee wrapped up two weeks of hearings with a presentation from the People’s Budget LA coalition that began by calling out “eleven LAPD officers doing nothing” in the lobby of City Hall. A revised draft of the budget will now move on to the full council for deliberation.

Labor

• The Writers Guild of America has gone on strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Stakes for writers are high, as the job is becoming one that doesn’t provide a sustainable living, and the two sides were still far apart in contract negotiations. Jacobin covers in further detail. Picket lines are ongoing, and DSA-LA is rallying members to support any way they can.

Anti-Gentrification

• In Compton, community members are fundraising to purchase the Compton Community Garden, which will otherwise be purchased for redevelopment. LA Public Press covers.

• DSA-LA joined with United Teachers LA, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, and Reclaim Our Schools LA to rally against a proposed zoning waiver that would allow a charter school to be built on vacant land owned by LAUSD.

Transportation

• In Culver City, a newly installed council has voted to roll back parts of MOVE Culver City, the highly successful road redesign that reallocated space away from cars and toward buses, cyclists, and pedestrians.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• Reporting in the LA Times covers the deposition of a whistleblower from within the LAPD SWAT Unit, alleging a deeply ingrained culture of corruption and violence controlled by an inner circle of officers known as the “SWAT Mafia.”

Environmental Justice

• In a lawsuit filed this week, environmental groups argue that the California Public Utilities Commission acted illegally when it slashed compensation payments for power generated by solar panels. 

• Grist explains state Senate Bill 233, which mandates that all electric vehicles be equipped with bidirectional hardware. Bidirectional charging allows the power in vehicle batteries to be rolled back into the grid itself to bolster grid reliability.

Thorn West: Issue No. 155

State Politics

• Governor Newsom quickly signaled his opposition to a state Senate plan that would accommodate a projected budget deficit with a tax on corporate profits. In Newsom’s proposed budget, the projected deficit is met with spending cuts, notably to climate preparedness.

City Politics

• The City Council Budget and Finance Committee held meetings all week to discuss the mayor’s proposed budget, department by department. Committee chair Bob Blumenfield broke with precedent and did not allow public comment after the first day of hearings.

• The People’s Budget LA coalition presented the results of their annual participatory budgeting survey to the mayor. Mayor Bass, the first mayor to meet with the coalition, responded by acknowledging “the sentiment in the room,” – a prevailing community desire to spend less money on policing – but claiming an obligation to balance it against opposing concerns in places like “Sherman Oaks.”

Housing Rights

• In Shelterforce, excellent first-person coverage of the work that went into the passage of Measure H, the Pasadena rent control measure that passed in 2022.

• LA Public Press checks in with the housing reclaimers occupying vacant homes in El Sereno, whom the city is stepping up pressure to evict. DSA-LA’s Housing and Homelessness Committee has a toolkit to show support.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• [Content warning: police killing] A civil suit brought against Los Angeles County and two sheriff’s deputies by the family of Anthony Vargas, who was killed by LASD in 2018, ended in a mistrial on Monday. Vargas was shot 13 times in the back. Plaintiffs challenged the police narrative of the killing.

Labor

• The WGA released strike rules to their membership ahead of a potential strike, which could start on Tuesday. The president of IATSE indicated that IATSE members are legally permitted to refuse to work struck workplaces.

• Jacobin reports on the complicated victory of unionized Amazon workers in Palmdale, who have received recognition and negotiated a tentative agreement. However, the agreement is not with Amazon itself, but with one of its many “delivery service partners” that act as middlemen with workers.

• Join DSA, along with many left-wing organized labor and immigrants’ rights organizations, at the march in downtown Los Angeles in celebration of International Workers’ Day on Monday, May 1

Environmental Justice

• On Earth Day, harsh critique for Mayor Bass’ just-announced climate change preparedness plan, which contains little more than tweaks at the margins.

• It’s official: The California Air Resources Board today unanimously approved a plan to phase out diesel trucks, statewide, by 2035.

• This year’s record heavy snows are beginning to melt, leading to serious flooding concerns. CalMatters reports on the risks statewide, while LAist covers the same issue for the city.

Issue No. 154 – April 20, 2023

City Politics

• Following her State of the City speech, in which Mayor Bass simultaneously stressed her goal to “rebuild” LAPD by adding 500 more officers while also endorsing the expansion of unarmed alternatives to policing, her office released its draft budget for the upcoming fiscal year. The biggest headline was a massive expansion of homelessness and housing spending, about 20% of which is allocated to Inside Safe. The budget proposes a $19 million increased expenditure on LAPD salaries, even though the city actually spent nearly $50 million less on police than allocated in the previous budget due to failure to hire officers. The budget now heads to LA City Council for potential revisions.

• Through the LA Civil + Human Rights and Equity Department, the city is piloting a participatory budgeting program in three Los Angeles neighborhoods that allows community voting to influence how some city money is spent. Voting will take place through April 30. Learn more here; you may be eligible to participate. People’s Budget LA is conducting their annual budget survey as well.

• The City Council Government Reform Committee is holding a series of public meetings about, among other things, expanding LA City Council. The meeting was not livestreamed and only accepted public comment in person. Live-tweeted here. Video here.

Housing Rights

• Members of the Hillside Villa Tenants Association rallied outside the home of Mayor Bass all weekend, to demand that she follow through on the city’s plan to use eminent domain to acquire the Hillside Villa apartments, to protect them as affordable units from a landlord who plans to skyrocket the rent.

• KCRW reports on Los Angeles’ community land trusts, a housing model in which apartment complexes are acquired and control of them is legally transferred to their tenants.

Incarceration

• ACA-4, a proposed amendment to the California State Constitution to restore voting rights to incarcerated people is making its way through the state legislature. The motion, authored by Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, passed out of the Election Committee this week. If passed out of the legislature, it will be on the ballot in 2024.

• ACLU SoCal filed a motion this week to hold the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department in contempt of a court order, after years of failing to address barbaric conditions in LA County jails. A hearing will begin in 60 days.

Transportation

Streetsblog LA breaks down “an astonishingly vacuous report” from the Los Angeles Planning Department that vastly oversells the city’s progress on implementing its mobility plan for safer streets.

Labor

• Writers represented by the WGA voted in favor of a strike authorization if their demands are not met in contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers. Nearly 80% of members voted, and 97.9% voted to authorize.

• United Teachers Los Angeles reached a tentative agreement with the Los Angeles Unified School Board. It includes a 21% salary increase over three years and class size reduction, as well as the vast majority of UTLA’s Beyond Recovery program. Included in that program are DSA-LA’s Green New Deal for Public Schools demands, which, if ratified, will be implemented by the LAUSD Climate Committee, chaired by DSA-LA member Dr. Rocío Rivas. The tentative agreement will be put to a ratification vote by UTLA membership in the coming weeks.

Environmental Justice

• For the first time in 17 years, California’s Department of Water Resources will deliver 100% of the water requested by agencies that are part of the State Water Project.

Thorn West: Issue No. 153

State Politics

• After a nearly two-month absence from the US Senate due to health concerns, California senator Dianne Feinstein has asked to be replaced on the Senate Judiciary Committee, while resisting increasingly prominent calls to resign. The committee has been unable to move forward with judicial appointments in her absence, as she is the tie-breaking vote.

City Politics

• The special election in CD6 will officially head to a runoff between Imelda Padilla and Marissa Alcaraz, two of the most conservative candidates in the field, both of whom heavily benefited from independent expenditures from outside groups.

• Heather Hutt was reappointed as representative of CD10 on the Los Angeles City Council, over calls to hold a special election. The appointment passed 11–1, with only Councilmember Monica Rodriguez in opposition. Further recap (and argument against the appointment) here. Both CD10 and CD6 will hold elections again in 2024.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• The council passed a revision to the municipal code that makes it a crime to possess a detached catalytic converter without being able to provide proof of ownership. Several councilmembers spoke in opposition, arguing that the law would expand police powers without curtailing theft. The motion passed 8–4, with councilmembers Eunisses Hernandez, Nithya Raman, Marqueece Harris-Dawson, and Hutt in opposition. Councilmember Soto-Martinez wasn’t present for the floor vote but summed up his opposition here.

• The Intercept continues coverage of the nuisance lawsuit filed against a journalist by City Attorney Hydee Feldstein-Soto, verifying that the LAPPL’s claims that photos of  “undercover officers” were included in a public records request was actually an attempt to expand the term to include any officer who might one day conduct work out of uniform. “They’re openly calling for a secret police force.”

Anti-Gentrification

• Knock LA speaks with business owners in Inglewood whom the city plans to displace – in order to make way for a people mover connecting SoFi Stadium to the K LIne – about the uncertainty and potential disaster they face.

Labor

• A new contract between LAUSD and education workers represented by SEIU 99 was approved this week with 99% membership approval. The contract agreement was reached after a strike in March that closed schools for three days.

• A motion introduced by councilmembers Curren Price and Soto-Martinez would immediately raise the hourly minimum wage for many tourism industry workers to $25, and to $30 by 2028.

Environmental Justice

• The Biden administration will intervene in the apportionment of Colorado River water allocations among Southwest states, and this week introduced three differing plans for apportioning water rights, featuring high-leverage distinctions for Southern California. A final decision is expected in August.

• The blog Heated measures the climate costs of the LAPD and LASD helicopter fleets.

Issue No. 152 – April 7, 2023

City Politics

• DSA-LA’s annual convention will take place on Saturday, April 22. DSA-LA members will discuss and vote on chapter priorities for the upcoming year. RSVP here, and read about the proposed resolutions here!

• Results in the CD6 special election have started to come in, with Imelda Padilla and Marisa Alcaraz in the top two spots. Both candidates are in favor of the recent revisions to 41.18 designed to further displace unhoused people; current totals project a runoff election between the two of them. More on the candidates here.

• The only currently active petition to recall Councilmember Kevin de León will not move forward, as signatures were not submitted by the deadline. The petition was organized in part by a CD14 resident who had attempted to recall De León several times already, motivated by opposition to a Tiny Homes Village in Highland Park.

Health Care

• Governor Newsom has proposed two major changes to the state’s mental health system during his state-of-the-state press tour: a bond measure to fund an increase in the number of residential psychiatric treatment beds, and a regulation requiring counties to spend a certain amount of their mental health services budget on housing for unhoused people with severe mental health issues. CalMatters covers the pushback the second of these has received from mental health workers.

• The LA Times published a historical look at the LAPD’s anti-abortion squad, which existed before Roe v. Wade.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• The City of Los Angeles filed a lawsuit “immediately denounced as legally meritless” against a journalist with Knock LA, who legally obtained a database of photographs, along with names, badge numbers, and other public information, of LAPD officers. The information is public and was provided by the LAPD in response to a public records request. The “Watch the Watchers” database, hosted by the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, can be found here.

Housing Rights

• Knock LA has platformed a letter from residents of an encampment on Aetna Street in Van Nuys that may be the target for an Inside Safe operation. The letter, responding to shortcomings in previous incarnations of the program, forcefully asserts the needs of the community that will have to be met in order for them to participate.

Labor

• The Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) has set a strike authorization vote, with voting to begin next week on April 11. The WGA is entering contract negotiations with the American Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP); a yes vote would authorize the guild’s negotiating committee to call for a strike, if deemed necessary, on May 1. At issue are lagging pay and job security for writers, especially as the shift to streaming platforms has allowed studios the opportunity to reset the labor market in their own favor.

• A dockworker shortage at the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports drew attention to protracted labor negotiations between the union that represents West Coast dockworkers and the industry group representing maritime shippers.

Environmental Justice

• The California Air Resources Board (CARB) will soon decide on a rule that would require most new heavy-duty trucks to be zero-emission by 2036. CARB proposed to extend the zero-emission deadline for some 200 garbage trucks, but after pressure from waste companies, that exemption grew last month to around 10,000 conventional combustion trucks.

Thorn West: Issue No. 138

City Politics

• This Tuesday was the first City Council meeting for DSA-LA’s endorsed candidates (and members) Hugo Soto-Martinez and Eunisses Hernandez! Both of them recapped their first day’s motions, (Soto-Martinez here and Hernandez here), while this write-up in Bolts comprehensively recaps the political situation they’re entering. The council now enters winter recess and will next meet on January 10, 2023.

• Tuesday’s council meeting was disrupted by Kevin de León’s second attempt to rejoin council proceedings; he has remained absent from meetings for months amid widespread calls for his resignation. His return was signaled by the organized bloc of De León supporters who also attended, several of whom were recorded chanting “all lives matter” at Black Lives Matter activists, as covered in L.A. Taco. Several councilmembers honored their commitments to vacate chambers while De León was present, though he came and went confusingly, and was able to register a vote at one point while not in the room.

• An LA Times opinion piece decries the city council’s increasingly violent hostility towards activists. Friday, Kevin de León body-slammed an activist, an action caught on videotape. City Council President Paul Krekorian and Councilmember Monica Rodriguez quickly defended their colleague’s violence, blaming the activist he assaulted for provoking him.

Housing

• Karen Bass fulfilled her campaign promise to declare a state of emergency over homelessness on the first day of her mayorship. The declaration, which can be read here, was passed unanimously by council on Tuesday. How Bass might exercise those powers is still largely hypothetical at this time. Writing in The New Yorker suggests some possibilities.

• On Tuesday, Councilmember Soto-Martinez introduced an amendment reversing last week’s council action that triggered the end of COVID-era eviction protections on January 31. The ultimate goal would have been to delay the end of eviction protections until a package of renter protections, championed by Councilmember Nithya Raman (who explains in detail here), could be locked in place. However, though Councilmembers Heather Hutt and Katy Young-Yaroslavsky joined in with the renters coalition, the amendment failed 6–5, two votes shy of the threshold for action. These tenant protections may still be put in place before January 31, and Soto-Martinez has promised to try. More coverage in the LA Times.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• [Content warning: graphic police violence.] The District Attorney’s office will not file charges against any of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputies responsible for the killing of Frederick Holder. Coverage from Cerise Castle in Knock LA.

Environmental Justice

• Los Angeles and San Diego voted on Tuesday to ban the distribution of expanded polystyrene, the foamy plastic that’s used in disposable coffee cups and takeout food containers.

• The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has declared the whole region, comprising 26 member agencies, to be in a drought emergency. Last April, the agency declared a drought emergency for only six of its member agencies, including the Los Angeles DWP, triggering the current mandatory outdoor watering restrictions.

Thorn West: Issue No. 133

State Politics

• On Thursday, Governor Newsom took the surprising step of blanket denying all of the state’s Homeless Housing, Assistance, and Prevention grants, which are set aside for municipalities, on the grounds that no city had developed an ambitious enough plan to reduce houselessness. Newsom called for a mid-November meeting of local leaders to discuss “new strategies” before further grant money would be disbursed.

City Politics

• Large numbers of protesters continue to disrupt Los Angeles City Council meetings, demanding the resignation of Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León. The council this week has responded by aggressively removing protesters from meetings, and has discussed the possibility of preventing members of the public who have been removed from attending subsequent meetings.

• The special election to fill former council president Nury Martinez’s seat in District 6 has been set for April 23.

• In-person voting for the California midterm election began on Saturday and will continue through Election Day. Same day voter registration is possible at all voting centers — find the one nearest you, here. DSA-LA voter guide here.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agreed Tuesday to pay $47.6 million to settle several lawsuits alleging misconduct by sheriff’s deputies. This includes a payment of $8 million to the family of Andrés Guardado.

• An LAPD captain was revealed to have tipped off executives at CBS about sexual assault charges made against former CBS president Les Moonves, mere hours after the charges were first filed in 2018, and to have gone on to leak more information as the investigation proceeded.

Housing Rights

• Curbed published an interview with state Assemblymember Matt Haney, who has formed the California Legislature’s first renter caucus. They’ve started with three members, including DSA member Alex Lee and Los Angeles’ Isaac Bryant.

Transportation

• Streetsblog LA takes a granular look at the ways incoming councilmember Eunisses Hernandez can use the power of her office to transform her district to the benefit of pedestrians, cyclists, and public transportation users.

Environmental Justice

• The California Air Resources Board met Thursday and agreed to move forward with plans to mandate a transition to zero-emission trucks, shuttle buses, and certain other buses beginning in 2024. A final decision on this Advanced Clean Fleet regulation will occur in the spring of 2023.

• According to a new study, Los Angeles County’s “hundred-year” flood risk is far greater than what the federal government currently estimates. Grist explains how and why Black communities face a disproportionate risk if floods like the ones that have devastated other American cities happen here.