LOS ANGELES — It was an evening of stimulating conversation on Sept. 30 at the General Assembly in downtown when nearly 80 African-American women converged to talk about race, self-care and politics.

The evening, titled “Black Girls Matter,” was hosted by Kimberly Foster, founder of the website ForHarriet.com, who felt that with the growing impersonality of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, black women needed a physical space to air their opinions and grievances other than sounding off in cyberspace.

“I felt that black women needed an opportunity to come together and talk about issues affecting their lives through face-to-face comments and discussion,” said Foster, who has held Black Girls Matter forums in Atlanta, Oakland, Dallas, Houston, New York and Philadelphia.

Foster first asked the audience what made them mad and glad.

Denia said she was happy that despite the obstacles she had encountered in her life, “God has left me with an abundance of talents. I grew up in Watts where there were drive-by shootings. But I’m working on getting two degrees and I am a single parent raising a daughter.

“Be all you can be and be an example, as well,” she urged the audience.

“I’m glad to be here among all these beautiful women,” said another audience member. “But when I was in Las Vegas, I got angry when a white man walked up to me and put his fingers in my hair. It took everything in me not to slap away his hand.”

“I feel very fortunate to be alive,” Shia said. “I was born gay and I am proud of it. It has been a long journey to get here. Love yourself for who you are.”

JeJuana Johnson said she was concerned about the stigma of “colorism” that still affects the black and white communities.

“You’re not light enough to be accepted by white society and you’re not dark enough to be fully accepted by blacks,” she said.

Johnson, who once worked in corporate America, also felt that ambitious black women were stereotyped.

”They cast you in a role. You’re either a ‘mammy’ or a ‘jungle bunny.’ I’m a black woman with a smart and intelligent mind,” said Johnson, who finally left corporate America to start her own business.

Turning to current events, Foster asked if it was fair to expect NFL players to protest and kneel during the nationala nthem. “Do you agree when Trump said ‘We need to fire those SOBs?’” she asked. “Some are questioning the [players’] social justice credentials.”

“I don’t think it’s fair for all of the NFL players to protest,” Kim Isaacs said. “We all support black people in different ways. That black NFL player who didn’t kneel might be quietly giving back to his own community in his own way. Whether it’s money or time, there are different ways to show up for us.”

“It is up to our white brothers and sisters to help dismantle this situation,” Ola Wells said. ”The owners need to make it easier for the players to demonstrate their First Amendment rights. Colin Kaepernick kneeled because of the injustices going on in our community. “

Damia Gordon agreed. “I saw police brutality. I saw what they did to my brothers and sisters. There is definitely injustice in our community.”

Foster then asked the audience when was it time to “cancel” someone on social media.

“I had to cancel someone recently who was a friend,” Tamina said. “The friend felt compelled to tell me how the GOP and taxes worked. It was a quick cut off. I said, ‘No, I’m sorry, you have to go.’”

“I’ll cancel someone because I believe in self-care,” Kai said. “We as black women absorb enough negativity in our lives so I don’t feel the need to hear it from somebody else.”

Alisa, a defense attorney, said, “I’ll cancel someone if I don’t agree with what they say. I canceled my cousin when she said, ‘Let’s give Trump a chance.’ It can cause you to get high blood pressure.”

Pausing, Alisa added, “I’ve researched my position. I surround myself with family and friends who are like minded. When you’re talking about black people, Trump or issues of life and death, then it’s serious enough in my mind that you have to cancel that associate.”

“I ended a friendship with someone I knew for 30 years because I found out she voted for Trump,” said Marquita Thomas. “She was arguing about the troops and veterans and the military. How do you hang out after that? If you think all black people are criminals, then we have a problem.”

Foster then asked the audience members if their lives would be different if Hillary Clinton had captured the presidency.

“I feel like there are no accidents in life,” Baseema Pena said. “Trump is very negative, but we needed him so that we could wake up. We needed him because he compelled us to come together. He riled us up and that’s what we needed.”

Another audience member said that although Hillary didn’t win, she felt it was crucial to participate in local elections. “It’s so important to vote in those school board and city council elections so that we can have more say in our communities,” she said.

“I don’t think it would have mattered,” April Odom said. “Hillary would have been false security. People are seeing more police brutality and prejudice is now so in your face that you can’t brush it off.”

“Black women have been uncomfortable since the day we were born,” one woman said. “I think that if Hillary were president, we would get too comfortable. Black women have a lot of influence and power. I feel we need to know who you are. If you’re against black people, I’m not going to spend money in this store.”

The post Voicing their opinions face-to-face, not in cyberspace appeared first on Wave Newspapers.

This is one of the hardest things I have ever had to write and admit.

Donald Trump is winning. In the brief space of a week he won a brief court fight to shove Mick Mulvaney to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Mulvaney wasted no time in unhinging a spate of consumer protection rulings, regulations and personnel hires made during the Obama administration.

Trump’s Supreme Court pick, Neil Gorsuch, eagerly cast a vote to impose the Muslim travel ban.

His Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt delivered a couple of million acres of public monument land in the west to oil, gas and coal industry developers. Trump busily continues to pack the federal judiciary with a parade of ultra-conservative, clones to strict constructionist Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia.

The first loss his administration has faced came Dec. 12 when Alabama judge Roy Moore lost his Alabama Senate race.

He got another sweet perk when Senate Democrats turned with a vengeance on Minnesota Sen. Al Franken and virtually ordered him out of office. His subsequent resignation got rid of a pesky thorn for Trump. Franken had a big voice, lots of name recognition and popularity and was not afraid to take shots at Trump.

Trump pooh-poohed the guilty plea of his former National Security Advisor Mike T. Flynn as no big deal while shouting “no collusion, no collusion” and got away with it.

He got his tax heist for the rich and corporations through the Senate and, as an extra bonus, brought his long-held dream of dumping the Affordable Care Act closer to reality when the Senate tacked on the provision to the bill wiping out the mandate requirement.

When the markets took another tick up, he crowed even louder that he was the man who brought the good times rolling to America. As always, he did all this with the sheepish connivance of much of the mainstream media, which is always off to the races in giving round-the-clock coverage to his self-serving, vapid tweets as if they were the word from the mount.

Trump’s biggest wins so far though have come on three fronts.

One is the Republican Party. It can rail and curse at him publicly and privately, but it needs Trump. He is more than the titular head of the party. He is the point man for GOP policy and issues. And, in a perverse way, the spur to get action on them.

The second front he’s winning on is the continuing love fest that his devout base has with him. While polls show that his overall approval ratings consistently wallow under 40 percent, buried in the polling fine print are the numbers that mean the most to him and the GOP. The overwhelming majority of Republican voters still back him.

Even though his approval rating has dropped among white males without a college degree and Christian evangelicals, polls show that he still gets majority approval from them. These are the voters that the GOP will need Trump to rev up in the key swing districts in 2018.

The third winning front for Trump is his perennial ace in the hole: the media. He remains a ratings cash cow for the networks and makes stunning copy for the print media. He knew that from day one of his presidential bid and he knows it even more now.

He will continue to suck the media air out of everything that the Democrats do and try to do. Take his phony war with the NFL owners over the national anthem protest by a handful of black players. A couple of tweets from him knocking the owners for alleging caving into the players was more than enough to distract from his bumbling, inept and dangerous handling of the North Korea nuclear threat, and his clueless saber rattling at Iran over the nuclear curtailment pact with the U.S.

This has been his patent ploy: distract and deflect. The public and networks take the bait every time. Other than the New York Times and other liberal print publications, there is no real sobering, in-depth discussion of the dangerous and destructive consequences of his administration’s policies.

But those publications are anathema to Trump devotees in the heartland and the South anyway. So, the withering criticism of Trump in those publications is tantamount to a wolf howling in the wind.

During the campaign, Trump loved to shout to his adoring throngs that with him in the Oval Office they would win so much, they would get tired of winning. The giveaways to the rich, the gut of Obamacare, and the upcoming whittling away of Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security is hardly winning for many of his backers. They benefit from these programs and won’t get a dime’s more relief in their tax bill. But for Trump so far, this has been a win-win, sad though it is to admit it.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His latest book is “The Trump Challenge to Black America” (Middle Passage Press). He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on Radio One and the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles and the Pacifica Network.

The post THE HUTCHINSON REPORT: Sadly, Trump is winning so far appeared first on Wave Newspapers.

Throughout his campaign for president, Donald Trump said that one of his first orders of business as president of the United States would be to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare. Fortunately, he has failed.

Here are the facts that everyone needs to know: The Affordable Care Act is alive and well, and you and your family are eligible to apply for, or adjust, your Covered California health coverage plan between now and Jan. 31.

During my seven years in Congress, I have listened to Republicans lament that if they were in charge of the entire U.S. government (meaning the House of Representatives, the Senate and the White House), they would immediately repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Then they got their wish last January and attempted to repeal health care for millions of Americans. After failing, the White House and Republicans in Congress began an effort to sabotage the system by reducing funding for outreach to alert people about the annual sign-up period and by reducing the amount of time people have to sign up for coverage.

We are fortunate in California to have another month and a half to enroll or to update our coverage plans. It is incumbent on us to go all out and make sure we sign up before the end of January. We must go out in force and sign up. We must call friends and family members in California and in the eight other states that have an extended deadline.

The effort to sabotage the health care system began immediately after inauguration day. Right after he took office, Trump’s White House instructed the Department of Health and Human Services to remove useful guidance about the Affordable Care Act, including benefits of the program and ways to enroll, from their website. A few weeks later, the White House proposed new rules for enrollment — tightening procedures and cutting the health law’s open enrollment period in half.

The White House has continued issuing statements citing death spirals and other doomsday prophesies with the intent to purposefully sabotage the Affordable Care Act and it has led to further instability in the health insurance marketplace. In August, the Trump administration decided it was safe to take a less covert approach to sabotage by overtly decreasing spending on promotion of enrollment from $100 million to $10 million as well as cutting funding from enrollment programs.

Perhaps worst of all, the White House has opened the door for the sale of plans with fewer benefits and protections, allowing health insurance companies to sell short-term plans that are exempt from requirements including hospital care, maternity care and mental health services. Those plans are also exempt from rules prohibiting insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions.

Covered California could be more affordable than you think. During last year’s enrollment period, eight out of 10 applicants qualified for financial help and for most people that meant they could find insurance premiums between $50 and $100 per month. In addition to possible financial assistance, free and confidential enrollment help is also available.

The cynical effort to destroy the Affordable Care Act is part of this administration’s larger agenda to erase from U.S. history the accomplishments of President Barack Obama. Trump would like his shrinking base of followers to forget the achievements of the first African American president, who served for eight years without a hint of scandal.

It is clear that Trump suffers from a profound inferiority complex — that’s the basis of his obsession with President Obama and his sabotage is a symptom of this complex. To combat his sabotage, Democrats in Congress have taken it upon themselves to promote enrollment efforts and ensure their success.

Be sure to take the time to learn about your options and if you have any questions about this open enrollment period, please do not hesitate to contact my office. Our system is strongest when we all participate. Fight back making sure you and everyone you know signs up for Covered California before Jan. 31.

Rep. Karen Bass is the congresswoman from California’s 37th District, which includes Culver City, Leimert Park, the Crenshaw District and parts of South Los Angeles. She is a new contributing columnist for The Wave.

The post Trump’s sabotage of Obamacare could impact your health appeared first on Wave Newspapers.

The year 2017 will be remembered as the year Donald Trump became president of the United States, making it an interesting year as far as news-making was concerned. What is and what isn’t news became as important as the main issues of the year.

In Southern California, 2017 was the year government leaders finally decided to address the homelessness crisis. Local leaders also fought with Trump over immigration issues and local governments wrestled with what do with marijuana, which becomes legal for recreational use by adults over 21 on Jan. 1, 2018.

Those are among the top stories of 2017 that we look at in our annual year-in-review issue.

Waters criticizes

President Trump

WASHINGTON — President Trump has had a lot of critics and one of his loudest — and most vocal — was Rep. Maxine Waters.

The congresswoman from South Los Angeles held a series of town hall events and community rallies where she criticized the president for the way he treats women and the media and his disregard for those who oppose his policies.

“Having served in Congress for over 26 years, I am deeply concerned about the direction and the future of this country under Donald Trump,” Waters said in July at the 2017 Black Church Advocacy on Capitol Hill Press Conference. “A president’s budget is the blueprint of a president’s priorities and values, and Donald Trump’s budget makes it glaringly clear that he does not care about hard-working Americans and their families.

“Like so much of what we’ve come to understand about this president, all of his pledges last year to preserve and protect Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the social safety net were lies. Trump’s budget is wrong for the country. It’s a mean and heartless plan that only benefits the rich while the rest of us are left to pick up the pieces.

“While Donald Trump is busy proposing enormous tax cuts for his friends, his budget cuts funding to almost every single significant government program other than defense. Crucial agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Education, Housing and Urban Development, the National Institute of Health and others all face unprecedented slashes to their budgets.

Continuing her attack, Waters said: “Trump’s budget is also a full-on assault on our society’s safety nets that millions of Americans including children, veterans and the elderly rely upon. His budget jeopardizes our health care system by cutting more than $1 trillion from Medicaid over the next 10 years, eliminating meals on wheels, reducing funding for food stamps and drastically cutting Social Security disability insurance.”

Officials seek lower

homeless numbers

LOS ANGELES — In January, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority sends volunteers out into the darkness to count the number of homeless people.

Officials were stunned when the numbers were announced in May. The number of homeless people in Los Angeles County had increased 23 percent from January 2016. There were now 57,794 people living on the streets, their cars, under freeway overpasses and along the Los Angeles Rivers and other waterways, up from 46,874 people in 2016.

Officials used words like “staggering” and “abysmal” to describe the 23 percent increase.

City and county elected officials struggled in 2017 with finding solutions to the homeless crisis after the number of homeless increased 23 percent from 2016 to 2017. Ballot measures approved by county voters and in the city of Los Angeles may help fund new shelter and services for the homeless. (File photo)

But officials had begun planning to solve the problem even before the dramatic numbers were revealed.

In November 2016, voters in the city of Los Angeles approved Measure HHH, a $1.2 billion bond issue to pay for more than 10,000 units of housing.

And in March 2017, Los Angeles County voters approved a .25 percent sales tax increase that is expected to raise $355 million annually over the next 10 years. The money will be spent to provide services for homeless people that will hopefully get them off the street permanently.

In November, the United Way of Greater Los Angeles and Los Angeles County announced an innovative grant program with cities in the county that saw 47 of the county’s 88 cities submit applications.

The idea was to get cities to develop their own strategic plans for dealing with homeless issues, with the United Way and Los Angeles County providing funding resources.

“Each application that we received was reviewed by a county CEO staff member, United Way staff member and two volunteers from our Home For Good Funders Collaborative,” said Chris Ko, director of homeless initiatives for the United Way of Greater Los Angeles.

“Their scores and comments were all collected and utilized in the award deliberation meetings that followed with reviewers and with the other members of Funders Collaborative.”

Each city will receive a planning grant ranging from $30,000 to $70,000, depending on the number of homeless families and individuals within its municipal boundaries.

West Hollywood is one of the grantees.

“We’re excited and grateful,” said Corri Plank, project manager of the West Hollywood Homeless Initiative.

“West Hollywood has a long history of serving its vulnerable population including its homeless community members. This is another opportunity for us to look at some of the various pieces of data on our homeless community, to look at strategies that are included in the county initiatives, to look at some of the things we’ve been doing and we look at what our social service providers are doing.”

The next homeless count is the last week of January 2018. Officials are hoping for better — meaning lower — numbers this time around. 

Brown re-elected

Compton mayor

COMPTON — For the second time in four years, Aja Brown defeated Omar Bradley in a runoff election to win a second four-year term as mayor of Compton.

Brown, 35, was the youngest mayor in the city’s history when she was first elected in 2013.

She received about 60 percent of the vote to win the June 6 runoff after receivong 47 percent of the vote in the municipal election in April.

“She’s not only a smart person, but she’s a likeable person,” said city commissioner Brenda Postelle at an election night party for Brown. “She has class. People like her. That’s why we’re getting so many new businesses.”

Among her goals for her next term are to strengthen partnerships with re-entry and gang intervention programs as well as nonprofits that train young people in trades. She said she also would like to build up the downtown area and restore the nightlife that has “faded in the past.”

Not everybody embraced Brown and chose to cast their lot with Omar Bradley, 59, who served as mayor from 1993 to 2001.

“I don’t really support Bradley, but Aja does not tell the truth,” said Lynne Boone, who ran for mayor in the primary elections.

“She’s not invested in our city,” Boone said. “Our financial situation is a disaster, our streets are in disrepair, we’ve had five city managers and no budget since she’s been here.”

L.A. to host

Olympics in 2028

LOS ANGELES — The City Council Aug. 11 unanimously approved a new memorandum of understanding and host city contract for the 2028 Olympics paving the way for the city to host its third Olympics.

By signing off on the documents, the council commits the city to pursuing the 2028 Games while ceding the 2024 Games to Paris, despite not knowing the full financial outlook the change could bring.

LA 2028, the renamed committee leading the city’s bid, proposed a balanced budget of $5.3 billion for 2024 — a low figure compared to other modern Olympics — by utilizing existing venues and not building any new permanent structures just for the Games. However, an independent analysis of a new budget in the works for 2028 will not likely be completed for months.

Los Angeles started off competing with other cities around the world for the 2024 Games, but eventually all cities except L.A. and Paris dropped out.

In July, the International Olympic Committee approved the idea of awarding both the 2024 and 2028 Games simultaneously.

On July 31, Mayor Eric Garcetti and other leaders announced a tentative agreement to host in 2028 as long as the Los Angeles City Council and U.S. Olympic Committee Board of Directors also approve the change. If that approval is given, the IOC, Los Angeles and Paris will work on a formal three-way agreement in advance of the IOC’s meeting in Lima, Peru, on Sept. 13, when the Games will officially be awarded.

At the committee and council meeting Aug. 11, a lineup of prominent Angelenos and Olympic supporters spoke in favor of the 2028 bid, including Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Michelle King, former Councilman Tom LaBonge and Olympic medalist Carl Lewis.

“This is about people’s lives. It’s about bringing people together. It’s about inspiring children,” said Lewis who won four gold medals in track and field in the 1984 Olympics, which were held here.

Los Angeles would receive some significant financial concessions for waiting the extra four years to host. Under the terms of the 2028 host city contract, the IOC would advance $180 million to the Los Angeles organizing committee due to the longer planning period and to fund youth sports in the years leading up to the Games.

The IOC also agreed to waive $50 million in fees and contribute up to $2 billion of its broadcast and sponsorship revenues to the Games, more than the $1.7 billion pledged to Paris for 2024. The IOC also agreed to funnel any of its profits from the Games back to the city.

“My top priorities in this process are to protect Los Angeles taxpayers and create new opportunities for young Angelenos to play sports, and be healthy,” Garcetti said in a statement before the vote. “This new MOU ensures that our city priorities remain front-and-center in LA 2028’s preparations for the Games. Under the city’s leadership, we can be sure that the up to $160 million we will receive to fund youth sports programs from LA 2028 will be put to the best, most impactful use.”

Drug overdose

leads to probe 

WEST HOLLYWOOD — At first, the drug overdose death of Gemmel Moore, a 26-year-old gay black man on July 27, was simply that.

Moore was found dead in a local apartment. His mother, who lived in Texas at the time, was notified of his death by deputies at the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station, who wrote it off as a typical drug overdose. But LaTisha Nixon decided she wanted more answers about her son’s death.

LaTisha Nixon made an appearance at a West Hollywood City Council meeting in August, asking city officials to conduct an investigation of the drug overdose death of her son, Gemmel Moore, in the apartment of local businessman and political donor Ed Buck. At right is a picture of Moore and Nixon. (Courtesy photo)

She found out her son died in the apartment of a wealthy, white businessman, Ed Buck, who was known for making political contributions to prominent Democrats, both locally and nationally.

She found her son’s journal, in which he blamed Buck for his addiction to methamphetamine, which led to his death.

According to the journal and stories that Moore’s friend told Nixon and investigators she hired, Buck liked to invite young, gay black men to his apartment where he introduced them to methamphetamine.

In November, the Los Angeles County coroner’s report on Moore’s death revealed that “24 syringes with brown residue, five glass pipes with white residue and burn marks, a plastic straw with possible white residue, and a clear plastic bag with a ‘piece of crystal-like substance’” were found in Buck’s apartment after Moore’s death was reported.

Jasmyne Cannick, a social and political activist and publicist, who has worked with Nixon since Moore’s death, said anybody else found with that amount of drug paraphernalia in their home would have been prosecuted by now.

“If you had that many syringes and drugs and other things in that quantity in your house, you’d be in jail,” she said. Anybody would, she said – except Ed Buck.

Buck has refused to comment on the case. His lawyer, Seymour Amster, issued a statement shortly after Nixon and Cannick went public with accusations.

“It is unfortunate that the sheriff’s department is reacting to unsubstantiated allegations,” Amster said. “This is a tragedy, not a crime. [Buck] had no involvement in Gemmel’s death.”

He said the coroner’s initial ruling of an accidental overdose should have closed the case and the continuing investigation is unwarranted.

New pot regulations

to take effect Jan. 1

LOS ANGELES — When Californians voted in November 2016 to legalize the recreational sue of marijuana for adults 21 and over, the new law didn’t take effect until Jan. 1 2018, giving the state and local governments a year to prepare for it.

Los Angeles officials waited until December to pass new laws dealing with the legalization of marijuana. Many other area cities voted to ban the sale and cultivation of recreational marijuana, but West Hollywood was one of the few cities to welcome the legalization of the drug.
File photo

Some area cities took little time to decide they didn’t want to deal with legal pot and voted not to allow permits for the sale, cultivation or distribution of marijuana within their boundaries.

Los Angeles took most of the year to develop its procedures, with the City Council approving regulations Dec. 6 and Dec. 13.

Council President Herb Wesson said he hopes the new laws will be a national model for other cities to follow.

“We are L.A. We are a big city. We do big stuff, that’s who we are, that’s how we roll,” Wesson said. “And there are cities throughout this country that are looking at us today.”

The rules approved by the panel would create limitations on how many cannabis businesses could be located in each neighborhood, similar to the regulations imposed on the alcohol industry, and also create requirements on how far cannabis businesses must be located from “sensitive sites,” including schools, public parks and other cannabis retailers.

Retail businesses must be 700 feet from sensitive sites under the rules, while non-retail and delivery businesses must be 600 feet from schools.

Bellflower allowed voters to determine policies. A ballot measure in March was approved by voters to allow as many as 12 licenses for sales, cultivation and distribution for medicinal marijuana only.

It took the council another nine months to award four permits for sales and another for cultivation and that came after a marathon 10-hour City Council meeting.

Compton originally voted against allowing marijuana sales in the community but now has competing measures on a Jan. 23 special election ballot to settle the issue.

West Hollywood, always one of the most liberal cities in the county, is the only city so far to approve places to consume marijuana as part of its response to legalization.

Bradley convicted

in second trial

COMPTON — Omar Bradley, the former mayor of Compton was convicted of corruption charges July 28 for using about $4,000 in taxpayer funds to pay for personal expenses.

After the guilty verdicts on two felony counts were read aloud, Bradley raised both arms skyward and then sat looking downwards, shaking his head from side to side. His wife sobbed.

Bradley was sentenced Aug. 30 to three years probation and a year in county jail that he has already served.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge George G. Lomeli suspended a three-year state prison term that the 59-year-old former city leader will not have to serve if he complies with the terms of his probation.

The judge cited Bradley’s age and lack of prior criminal history.

Bradley, 59, was charged with misappropriating public funds by “double-dipping” — using a city credit card and cash advances for travel. It was his second trial in the case.

In 2004, Bradley was found guilty of the charges, but the conviction was tossed out on appeal eight years later. His voided conviction in 2012 allowed him to twice unsuccessfully run for mayor again.

Bradley now faces a lifetime ban on holding public office. Bradley served as mayor from 1993 until 2001.

During the two-week trial, Bradley’s attorney argued that the former mayor believed his expenditures — for clothing, golf fees and hotel rooms — were legal because they were for city business. Prosecutors had not proven that Bradley knew the $4,000 he spent was unlawful, attorney Robert J. Hill told the jury.

But Deputy District Attorney Ana Lopez alleged that Bradley’s spending was “purely personal” and offered “no public benefit,” and that he clearly understood the rules.

She conceded, however, that accountability for spending became “very relaxed” in Compton after the city council approved a resolution authorizing the issuance of city credit cards to council members without any public comment on the issue.

During two days on the stand, the ex-mayor testified that he had played golf with officials in order to discuss several city projects, and bought golf clothing to look the part.

Following the first trial, Bradley was sentenced in 2004 to three years in prison, but he was later moved to a halfway house.

The post 2017 YEAR IN REVIEW: Waters taking on Trump is top 2017 story appeared first on Wave Newspapers.

The year 2017 will be remembered as the year Donald Trump became president of the United States, making it an interesting year as far as news-making was concerned. What is and what isn’t news became as important as the main issues of the year.

In Southern California, 2017 was the year government leaders finally decided to address the homelessness crisis. Local leaders also fought with Trump over immigration issues and local governments wrestled with what do with marijuana, which becomes legal for recreational use by adults over 21 on Jan. 1, 2018.

Those are among the top stories of 2017 that we look at in our annual year-in-review issue.

Officials seek lower

homeless numbers

In January, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority sends volunteers out into the darkness to count the number of homeless people.

Officials were stunned when the numbers were announced in May. The number of homeless people in Los Angeles County had increased 23 percent from January 2016. There were now 57,794 people living on the streets, their cars, under freeway overpasses and along the Los Angeles Rivers and other waterways, up from 46,874 people in 2016.

Officials used words like “staggering” and “abysmal” to describe the 23 percent increase.

But officials had begun planning to solve the problem even before the dramatic numbers were revealed.

In November 2016, voters in the city of Los Angeles approved Measure HHH, a $1.2 billion bond issue to pay for more than 10,000 units of housing.

And in March 2017, Los Angeles County voters approved a .25 percent sales tax increase that is expected to raise $355 million annually over the next 10 years. The money will be spent to provide services for homeless people that will hopefully get them off the street permanently.

In November, the United Way of Greater Los Angeles and Los Angeles County announced an innovative grant program with cities in the county that saw 47 of the county’s 88 cities submit applications.

The idea was to get cities to develop their own strategic plans for dealing with homeless issues, with the United Way and Los Angeles County providing funding resources.

“Each application that we received was reviewed by a county CEO staff member, United Way staff member and two volunteers from our Home For Good Funders Collaborative,” said Chris Ko, director of homeless initiatives for the United Way of Greater Los Angeles.

“Their scores and comments were all collected and utilized in the award deliberation meetings that followed with reviewers and with the other members of Funders Collaborative.”

Each city will receive a planning grant ranging from $30,000 to $70,000, depending on the number of homeless families and individuals within its municipal boundaries.

West Hollywood is one of the grantees.

“We’re excited and grateful,” said Corri Plank, project manager of the West Hollywood Homeless Initiative.

“West Hollywood has a long history of serving its vulnerable population including its homeless community members. This is another opportunity for us to look at some of the various pieces of data on our homeless community, to look at strategies that are included in the county initiatives, to look at some of the things we’ve been doing and we look at what our social service providers are doing.”

The next homeless count is the last week of January 2018. Officials are hoping for better — meaning lower — numbers this time around.

Los Angeles officials waited until December to pass new laws dealing with the legalization of marijuana. Many other area cities voted to ban the sale and cultivation of recreational marijuana, but West Hollywood was one of the few cities to welcome the legalization of the drug. (File photo)

New pot regulations

to take effect Jan. 1

When Californians voted in November 2016 to legalize the recreational sue of marijuana for adults 21 and over, the new law didn’t take effect until Jan. 1 2018, giving the state and local governments a year to prepare for it.

Some area cities took little time to decide they didn’t want to deal with legal pot and voted not to allow permits for the sale, cultivation or distribution of marijuana within their boundaries.

Los Angeles took most of the year to develop its procedures, with the City Council approving regulations Dec. 6 and Dec. 13.

Council President Herb Wesson said he hopes the new laws will be a national model for other cities to follow.

“We are L.A. We are a big city. We do big stuff, that’s who we are, that’s how we roll,” Wesson said. “And there are cities throughout this country that are looking at us today.”

The rules approved by the panel would create limitations on how many cannabis businesses could be located in each neighborhood, similar to the regulations imposed on the alcohol industry, and also create requirements on how far cannabis businesses must be located from “sensitive sites,” including schools, public parks and other cannabis retailers.

Retail businesses must be 700 feet from sensitive sites under the rules, while non-retail and delivery businesses must be 600 feet from schools.

Bellflower allowed voters to determine policies. A ballot measure in March was approved by voters to allow as many as 12 licenses for sales, cultivation and distribution for medicinal marijuana only.

It took the council another nine months to award four permits for sales and another for cultivation and that came after a marathon 10-hour City Council meeting.

Compton originally voted against allowing marijuana sales in the community but now has competing measures on a Jan. 23 special election ballot to settle the issue.

West Hollywood, always one of the most liberal cities in the county, is the only city so far to approve places to consume marijuana as part of its response to legalization.

Safety changes

make traffic worse

PLAYA DEL REY — Los Angeles is notorious for its traffic and 2017’s “road diets” — part of a pilot safety program — didn’t help to change that stigma. The lane reductions in Playa del Rey in some instances removed traffic lanes in both directions.

The public reacted with complaints about the pedestrian-friendly updates slowing traffic to a crawl calling it “one-lane madness.”

The lane reductions were meant to improve safety. Between 2003 and 2016, there were 244 collisions that resulted in injuries occurred along Pershing Drive, Culver Boulevard and Jefferson Boulevard, and eight people lost their lives, according to city data. Councilman Mike Bonin backed the project and he defended the road alterations.

“We don’t need to sacrifice another mother or child to make way for as many speeding cars as we can jam through our neighborhoods,” Bonin wrote.

The updates included restriping on Vista del Mar, Culver Boulevard, Jefferson Boulevard and Pershing Drive. All four streets were reduced to a single lane in each direction with a center lane for turning. Diagonal parking spaces were added to stretches of Pershing, Culver and Vista del Mar, while new bike lanes were added to Jefferson, Culver and Pershing.

An online petition calling for an end to the project gathered thousands of signatures and an online campaign raised tens of thousands of dollars for its supporters to take legal action against the city and organize opposition.

In July, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation announced it was adding an extra traffic lane —spanning a few blocks from Nicholson Street to Jefferson Boulevard along Culver Street. The following month, Councilman Bonin declared that traffic lanes would be restored in Playa del Rey.

However, on Aug. 10, a group of Westside residents called KeepLAMoving took it a step further and filed a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles calling for the project to end.

“We’ve documented 27 accidents in two months,” said John Russo, chief analytics officer for KeepLAMoving. “That’s an astounding increase of 132 percent over the previous average of just 11.6 per year. The fact is, our streets are not safer. Our residential streets are being deluged with cars cutting through to avoid the gridlock created on the arterials, our businesses are dying, air pollution is noticeably worse, and our quality of life has diminished.”

In October, Mayor Eric Garcetti and Councilman Bonin announced that the remaining traffic lanes removed in Playa del Rey would be restored — with lane restoration work scheduled to start later that month.

Leslie Lockhart

Culver City gets

new superintendent

CULVER CITY — The Culver City Unified School District got a new superintendent before the year was over — she’s the first African-American to hold the position. On Dec. 12, the five-member Culver City school board voted unanimously to appoint Leslie Lockhart as superintendent of the Culver City Unified School District. She was named interim superintendent after the former Superintendent Josh Arnold left his post in June.

“Leslie Lockhart has been serving as interim superintendent for these past six months, and has demonstrated that she has the talent, vision, passion and skills to be CCUSD’s next superintendent,” said school board President Kathy Paspalis.

Arnold only lasted a year as superintendent. He was dismissed because the board did not share the same vision of leadership for the district. Before coming to Culver City, Arnold had been serving as the assistant superintendent of educational services in the Los Alamitos Unified School District in Orange County.

During his tenure in the district, Arnold set in motion several initiatives, including plans to install system-wide air conditioning, demolishing the non-operational swimming pool; pursuing total inclusion of special education students into the mainstream classroom, and establishing Makerspace classrooms in each of the elementary schools.

The school board said it was committed to pursuing those projects in the coming years. The board also praised Arnold for upgrading the district’s brand and image, particularly an extensive social media campaign called Culver Pride.

Lockhart has worked for the district since 1998. She was hired as assistant principal of activities and discipline at Culver City High School. She also was the principal of El Rincon Elementary School before moving to the district office to be director of categorical programs. Her last position was as assistant superintendent of human resources – a job she continued while acting as interim superintendent.

“I wholeheartedly accept this full time position. It is my honor and privilege to continue to serve CCUSD as superintendent,” Lockhart said. “I thank the board for their vote of confidence in me, and the staff and community for their steadfast support. As I have done for the past 19 years, I will work daily with the best interests of the children of this district in mind.”

Culver Studios

donations recognized

CULVER CITY — Culver Studios has been recognized for its giving spirit not just for the holidays, but all year long. The production studio has a long line of philanthropic activity supporting public education and Culver City schools.

The production studio presented a check for more than $3,300 to the Culver City Backpacks for Kids program to help ensure that needy students have sufficient food for the weekend. The funds were the proceeds of a family carnival featuring food, rides, games and entertainment hosted on the Culver Studios historic front lawn in April.

In May, the Culver City school board honored the studio for its contributions toward education. In November, the Culver City Education Foundation thanked them for its $15,000 donation towards the Front and Center Theatre Collaborative – an innovative theater education program for all district students.

Culver City Backpacks for Kids has grown rapidly since its start in 2013 at one elementary school where teachers noticed that some of their students came to school hungry on Mondays. Parent and school volunteers began putting together simple backpacks to provide students food for the weekends.

Supported by the Culver City Council PTA, Backpacks for Kids is run entirely by volunteers and receives no funding from the school district or state or federal sources. Food drives are held in December at all schools, and twice a year the program hosts a food and donation drive at a local supermarket.

“We are so pleased to have the Culver Studios as a neighbor and generous sponsor of our school district,” said Kathy Paspalis, president of the Culver City school board. “They are a model of good corporate citizenship and we look forward to working with them for years to come.”

Culver Studios partners with the school district, the Culver City Education Foundation, the Culver City Council PTA, and nearby Linwood E. Howe Elementary School, to host fund-raising events for the groups and activities for students on the studio lot.

At the 2017 Culver Studios community holiday party, Hackman Capital CEO and President Michael Hackman announced another generous donation to the Culver City Backpacks for Kids Program.

“At this time of year, it is of utmost importance to make sure that no student goes without sustenance,” said Hackman.

The gift will finance the purchase of two weeks’ worth of supplies for the program that helps ensure that needy Culver City students have sufficient food for the weekend.

Seniors halt

apartment evictions

WEST LOS ANGELES — The residents of Vintage Westwood Apartments feared they would have to leave their home last year, but 2017 was a year of victory for the senior citizens.

Dozens of elderly residents were told to be out by April, so Watermark Retirement Communities could complete a $50 million renovation and convert the building on 947 Tiverton Ave., into a residential care facility with assisted living. The current facility is unlicensed and does not provide health care options.

However, Watermark spokeswoman Laura Mecoy, said most of the residents were given a year to move from the start. The residents were given the option to move back in at the same rental rate and would have been paid up to $19,700 per unit for moving costs — an amount required under the Rent Stabilization Act.

Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Koretz stepped in to help and publicly accused Watermark of being a “greedy corporation,” run by “faceless, heartless wheeler-dealers.”

The City Council approved a motion — introduced by Koretz — that directed the city’s Housing and Community Investment Department to report back within two weeks on making the determination.

On Feb. 14, around a dozen residents or their children spoke at the City Council meeting and talked of the stress and hardship an eviction would mean.

“I may not show my anger and my fear by my voice, but we are all really very frightened, very distressed and emotionally upset about the feeling that we have to evacuate the building,” resident Jane Monbach said.

The City Council unanimously approved a motion by Koretz to ask the Housing and Community Investment Department to decide if the property should be designated a residential hotel, which would make it ineligible for the Ellis Act evictions.

The Ellis Act is a provision in California law that provides landlords with a legal way to get out of the rental market business.

On Feb. 17, a letter from Watermark Retirement Communities, carbon copied to City Council members and Mayor Eric Garcetti, was sent to the residents saying everyone can stay. However, the offer came with a warning, that the council needed to stop trying to make the property a residential hotel. Executive Director Allison Marty of Watermark Retirement Communities added that residents who wished to stay during the renovations could do so, although they may have to temporarily move rooms or be temporarily moved to a hotel at no cost to them.

In June, the city went forward and designated the building a “residential hotel,” which prevented the tenants from being moved out.

City fights Venice

Beach safety, curfew  

VENICE — The beach curfew enacted in 1988 to deter late night crime — covering beaches, piers and seafront parks from San Pedro to Pacific Palisades — has the possibility of being relaxed. On top of that, some argue that the city has failed to keep the beaches clean and safe.

Lawyers for the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office have urged a judge to dismiss a legal challenge to Los Angeles’ 29-year-old overnight beach curfew, saying it conforms with the California Coastal Act. However, attorneys for two opponents of the ordinance said the city should have submitted the law to the California Coastal Commission for review before enacting it.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Susan Bryant-Deason did not immediately rule on the city’s motion, saying she would take the issues under submission and issue a decision soon.

However, she did hand the plaintiffs a favorable ruling when she granted their motion to dismiss one of the city’s affirmative defenses: that the entire action was barred because the enactment and enforcement of the curfew was not the type of “development” that requires Coastal Commission approval.

Lawyers for the city maintain the ordinance is needed to limit vandalism and crime on the beach and that the curfew is exempt from the permit provisions of the Coastal Act. They also claim the lawsuit should have been brought within three years of the curfew’s enactment.

Meanwhile, the Venice Stakeholders Association has filed an appellate court brief in hopes of keeping alive its lawsuit that claims the city and county of Los Angeles are neglecting the beach area. They also argue in its brief that the issues it is raising in the case must be tried by a jury and are not subject to the city and county’s motions for summary judgment.

The complaint blamed the city for failing to enforce an ordinance that restricts people from setting up encampments to sleep overnight at the beach area, which is considered a park owned by the city and partly managed by the county.

In 2015, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Gregory Alarcon ruled against the city and county’s effort to have the lawsuit dismissed, but that decision was later overturned by the 2nd District Court of Appeal, and the association’s appeal brief is an effort to keep its lawsuit moving forward.

When the lawsuit was filed in 2014, Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin, said he also was frustrated by the “deplorable conditions on and near Venice Beach” but that the city’s own attempts to manage vending, sleeping in public areas, camping and trash in the area had all been hindered by the courts.

Venice High

teacher honored

VENICE — A Venice High School teacher was named one of five 2018 California Teachers of the Year. Kirsten Farrell, a health science and medical technology teacher, is the only Los Angeles Unified School District teacher this year to receive the honor.

“I want to thank the California Department of Education for this very special recognition,” Farrell said. “I have always been — and continue to be — inspired by my students and by my many dedicated colleagues every single day.”

Farrell created one of the first LAUSD sports medicine teams, which she founded at Venice High in 2004 in partnership with the West Coast Sports Foundation. In addition to teaching students about anatomy, medical terminology and the ability to treat athletic injuries, the program helps them recognize signs of concussions and trains them in CPR, use of defibrillator and other life-saving techniques.

“We are incredibly proud of Ms. Farrell for this important distinction,” said LAUSD acting Superintendent Vivian Ekchian. “In addition to exhibiting educational excellence, she is someone who embodies an entrepreneurial spirit. Breaking new ground in important fields, she is an amazing role model for students everywhere.”

A 21-year teaching veteran, Farrell has served at Venice High for 15 years as a regional occupational program and career technical education teacher. She has taught a variety of courses, including sports medicine, medical terminology and sports therapeutics. She is also a certified athletic trainer.

Farrell’s’ recognition also garnered accolades from Los Angeles school board.

“We celebrate the amazing talent in Los Angeles and are proud to have Ms. Farrell honored as a California Teacher of the Year,” said school board President Mónica García. “Ms. Farrell models the qualities of inspiring educators, like excellence, commitment, healer, scholar and bridge builder. And, we salute her work to get more students to the graduation finish line, ready for college, career and beyond.”

Presented by California Casualty and the California Teachers of the Year Foundation, the California Teachers of the Year Program began in 1972 to honor outstanding teachers and encourage new teachers to enter the profession.

Culver City bans

polystyrene items

CULVER CITY — The city became the 108th city in California to adopt a citywide ordinance that bans the use of polystyrene items used at fast-food restaurants.

The ban was approved by the City Council May 8 and took effect Nov. 8.

Polystyrene, which is a synthetic polymer plastic that comes in two forms: foam (often mistakenly referred to as “Styrofoam”) and solid (straws, cutlery, coffee cup lids), are commonly used by restaurants for take-out food orders.

The polystyrene ban prohibits the sale of foam foodware, including coolers that are not encased in another material. All food establishments providing take-out food are prohibited from using solid and foam polystyrene products and are required to ask their customers whether they want cutlery included with their takeout order. Egg cartons, meat trays used for the sale of unprepared food, food prepared outside of the city and foam packing materials used in shipping containers are exempt from the ban.

“One of the primary examples of the amount of Styrofoam waste can be found in Ballona Creek,” Mayor Jeffrey Cooper said.

Ballona Creek flows through Culver City as an open channel, which drains stormwater and urban runoff within the 130-square-mile Ballona Creek Watershed to the Pacific Ocean.

The City Council went even further in its efforts to prevent all types of trash that ends up in Ballona Creek by installing waste and recycling receptacles along the creek bike path, as well as key areas within the Ballona Creek Watershed.

Ballona Creek Renaissance — a Culver City nonprofit organization with a mission to improve Ballona Creek — brought its polystyrene ban proposal to the City Council Sustainability Subcommittee, which in turn recommended it to the City Council. After deliberation, the City Council adopted the resolution to ban polystyrene in the city.

After the ban was approved, the city conducted a six-month comprehensive outreach program that included a series of workshops with food providers, geared toward explaining the ban and identifying alternative products and their suppliers.

The post 2017 YEAR IN REVIEW: appeared first on Wave Newspapers.

The year 2017 will be remembered as the year Donald Trump became president of the United States, making it an interesting year as far as news-making was concerned. What is and what isn’t news became as important as the main issues of the year.

In Southern California, 2017 was the year government leaders finally decided to address the homelessness crisis. Local leaders also fought with Trump over immigration issues and local governments wrestled with what do with marijuana, which becomes legal for recreational use by adults over 21 on Jan. 1, 2018.

Those are among the top stories of 2017 that we look at in our annual year-in-review issue.

Officials seek lower

homeless numbers

In January, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority sends volunteers out into the darkness to count the number of homeless people.

Officials were stunned when the numbers were announced in May. The number of homeless people in Los Angeles County had increased 23 percent from January 2016. There were now 57,794 people living on the streets, their cars, under freeway overpasses and along the Los Angeles Rivers and other waterways, up from 46,874 people in 2016.

Officials used words like “staggering” and “abysmal” to describe the 23 percent increase.

But officials had begun planning to solve the problem even before the dramatic numbers were revealed.

In November 2016, voters in the city of Los Angeles approved Measure HHH, a $1.2 billion bond issue to pay for more than 10,000 units of housing.

And in March 2017, Los Angeles County voters approved a .25 percent sales tax increase that is expected to raise $355 million annually over the next 10 years. The money will be spent to provide services for homeless people that will hopefully get them off the street permanently.

In November, the United Way of Greater Los Angeles and Los Angeles County announced an innovative grant program with cities in the county that saw 47 of the county’s 88 cities submit applications.

The idea was to get cities to develop their own strategic plans for dealing with homeless issues, with the United Way and Los Angeles County providing funding resources.

“Each application that we received was reviewed by a county CEO staff member, United Way staff member and two volunteers from our Home For Good Funders Collaborative,” said Chris Ko, director of homeless initiatives for the United Way of Greater Los Angeles.

“Their scores and comments were all collected and utilized in the award deliberation meetings that followed with reviewers and with the other members of Funders Collaborative.”

Each city will receive a planning grant ranging from $30,000 to $70,000, depending on the number of homeless families and individuals within its municipal boundaries.

West Hollywood is one of the grantees.

“We’re excited and grateful,” said Corri Plank, project manager of the West Hollywood Homeless Initiative.

“West Hollywood has a long history of serving its vulnerable population including its homeless community members. This is another opportunity for us to look at some of the various pieces of data on our homeless community, to look at strategies that are included in the county initiatives, to look at some of the things we’ve been doing and we look at what our social service providers are doing.”

The next homeless count is the last week of January 2018. Officials are hoping for better — meaning lower — numbers this time around.

Los Angeles officials waited until December to pass new laws dealing with the legalization of marijuana. Many other area cities voted to ban the sale and cultivation of recreational marijuana, but West Hollywood was one of the few cities to welcome the legalization of the drug. (File photo)

New pot regulations

to take effect Jan. 1

When Californians voted in November 2016 to legalize the recreational sue of marijuana for adults 21 and over, the new law didn’t take effect until Jan. 1 2018, giving the state and local governments a year to prepare for it.

Some area cities took little time to decide they didn’t want to deal with legal pot and voted not to allow permits for the sale, cultivation or distribution of marijuana within their boundaries.

Los Angeles took most of the year to develop its procedures, with the City Council approving regulations Dec. 6 and Dec. 13.

Council President Herb Wesson said he hopes the new laws will be a national model for other cities to follow.

“We are L.A. We are a big city. We do big stuff, that’s who we are, that’s how we roll,” Wesson said. “And there are cities throughout this country that are looking at us today.”

The rules approved by the panel would create limitations on how many cannabis businesses could be located in each neighborhood, similar to the regulations imposed on the alcohol industry, and also create requirements on how far cannabis businesses must be located from “sensitive sites,” including schools, public parks and other cannabis retailers.

Retail businesses must be 700 feet from sensitive sites under the rules, while non-retail and delivery businesses must be 600 feet from schools.

Bellflower allowed voters to determine policies. A ballot measure in March was approved by voters to allow as many as 12 licenses for sales, cultivation and distribution for medicinal marijuana only.

It took the council another nine months to award four permits for sales and another for cultivation and that came after a marathon 10-hour City Council meeting a week before Christmas.

Compton originally voted against allowing marijuana sales in the community but now has competing measures on a Jan. 23 special election ballot to settle the issue.

West Hollywood, always one of the most liberal cities in the county, is the only city so far to approve places to consume marijuana as part of its response to legalization.

Eastside faced with

special elections

The election of California Attorney General Kamala Harris to the U.S. Senate in November 2016, replacing the retiring Barbara Boxer, resulted in Gov. Jerry Brown’s appointing U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Los Angeles, to take her place as attorney general.

More than 20 candidates filed for a special election April 4 for Becerra’s 34th Congressional District seat.

Twenty-three candidates sought the post including Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez, D-Eagle Rock; and public interest attorney Robert Ahn; journalist/community advocate Wendy Carrillo, who produced a public affairs radio program; and former Los Angeles school board member  Yolie Flores, all Democrats.

Gomez and Ahn were the top vote-getters but did not obtain over 50 percent of the votes, thus pitting the two in a runoff election June 6, which Gomez won.

The 34th Congressional District extends from Korea Town in west Los Angeles east to the  Long Beach (710) Freeway, with the Santa Monica (10) Freeway on the south and the Ventura (134) Freeway on the north. The area includes downtown Los Angeles, the Westlake District, Highland Park, Eagle Rock, Boyle Heights and Lincoln Heights.

With Gomez heading off to Congress, Brown called another special election to fill his 51st Assembly District seat. Another crowd of candidates were on the special election ballot Oct. 3. They included Carrillo, Luis Lopez, who lost to Gomez in 2012; former Montebello school board member David Vela and Mike Fong, who was elected to the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees in 2015.

The 51st District includes the communities of Eagle Rock, Boyle Heights, Highland Park, El Sereno, Chinatown and Pico Union.

Carrillo, a first-generation immigrant from El Salvador who has since become a U.S. citizen, was the leading vote-getter in the Oct. 3 election and she defeated Lopez in the runoff election Dec. 5.

A shrine to Whittier Police Officer Keith Boyer, who was killed in a shootout Feb. 20, was set up outside the Whittier Police Station. The 27-year veteran of the force became the third officer in the history of the Whittier Police Department to die in the line of duty. (Courtesy photo)

Whittier officer

shot to death

WHITTIER — An admitted Eastside gang member, Michael Christopher Mejia, 26, faces murder charges in the Feb. 20 shooting of Whittier Police Officer Keith Boyer, 53, as he investigated a traffic accident involving Mejia.

Boyer, the first Whittier officer killed in the line of duty in 37 years, was among those responding to a traffic accident near Colima Road and Mar Vista Street. As Boyer and Officer Patrick Hazel approached, Mejia reportedly pulled out a semi-automatic handgun and began firing, striking both officers. Hazel survived. Mejia was shot and wounded by police in the exchange.

During a preliminary hearing, prosecutors played a taped interview of Mejia in which he admitted “I smoked a cop.”

He noted that the arriving officers did not have their guns drawn when they approached.

“I delayed it. I should have smoked ’em quicker,” he said, telling the detectives later that “they didn’t come out with both guns pointed ‘cause if they would have come out with both guns pointed, then it would have been a whole different ball game.”

Asked by detectives if he had anything to say to the Whittier Police Department, Mejia said, “I mean, train your guys better. Train your guys better. They just got a taste of an L.A. gang member, real L.A. gang member. You know what I mean? And, nope, I don’t feel sorry. Because I know they would’ve dropped me, they wouldn’t feel sorry for my family.”

Earlier in the day, Mejia reportedly killed a cousin in East Los Angeles and stole his car.

Exide cleanup

process criticized

VERNON — Residents in several cities surrounding the Exide plant continue to fear health risks from the lead contamination caused by the former battery recycling operation. A survey by the Los Angeles County Public Health Department, released in June, indicated occupants of 16,000 homes in Bell, Boyle Heights, Commerce, Maywood, East Los Angeles, Huntington Park and Vernon are concerned about lead contamination in the area.

The plant was permanently closed in March 2015 and the company agreed to pay $50 million toward cleanup of the area. Another $176.6 million was approved by the state.

The state Department of Toxic Substances Control was criticized by county Supervisor Hilda Solis in October for not doing enough. She noted that the state had allowed Exide to operate for 33 years on a temporary permit.

The state cleanup plan, released in 2016, stated some 2,500 properties with the most toxic soil would be targeted in an area about 1.7 miles from the closed plant in an effort that will take about two years.

Barbara Ferrer, who leads the county Department of Public Health, said the state’s method for testing soil to determine whether lead contamination exists is flawed.

“The sampling strategy just has you going to a handful of places in each yard,” Ferrer said. “Unfortunately, with lead, it can be in one place in the yard and not another place.”

County workers retested five parcels that had been cleared by the state’s Department of Toxic Substances Control and found three of the five still had hot spots, she told the county Board of Supervisors.

Ferrer said the state needs to institute a block-by-block plan for cleanup to ensure environmental safety, rather than a house-by-house, parcel-by-parcel strategy.

County officials have also been pressing the state to clean up the inside of homes, saying residents track in contamination from their yards. And parkways, not just yards, need to be decontaminated, they say.

“The neighbors agree with us that the strategy right now doesn’t make sense at all,” Ferrer said.

AQMD shuts down

Paramount firm

PARAMOUNT — Faster action came from the South Coast Air Quality Management District, a regional agency, when residents of Paramount complained of foul odors last June. The AQMD ordered Carlton Forge Works, 7743 E. Adams St., identified as the source of the smell, to abate them.

Plant officials said they were unhappy abut the order and had worked in good faith with the agency to minimize odors. They noted that the plant has operated in Paramount for 80 years and employs some 350.

AQMD officials said they had received 190 complaints since December 2016, about the plant, which has received 17 violation notices since then. The company produces rolled rings and die forgings for commercial and industrial use.

Cities to decide

on second units

State efforts to require more affordable dwelling units, spurred on by increasing numbers of homeless people, resulted in three state laws which took effect Jan. 1, 2017, aimed at making it easier for property owners to build a second, less expensive dwelling unit on their sites.

That sent area cities scrambling to revise their so-called “granny flat” laws to comply with state rules but still maintain some local control. Final versions of those revised law are expected in the coming year.

They are Senate Bill 1069, which reduced and in some cases eliminates on-site parking requirements for what are now called “second dwelling units” on a site, and allows them throughout the city in residential areas including the single family zone. Previously they were allowed only in multi-housing areas such as apartments.

Assembly Bill 2299 says a city must allow second units if parking and setback requirements are met.

Assembly Bill 2400 allows “junior accessory dwellings in part of the main home. They may be up to 500 square feet in size but must have separate bathroom and kitchen accommodations.

Garages may be converted and a second unit may be built on top of an existing structure.

A rule used by most cities that there may be only one accessory dwelling on a site besides the main house and that the property owner must live in one of the two structures is not affected by new state laws, nor is the requirement that each accessory building have a separate bathroom and kitchen from the main house.

Downey and Norwalk have moratoriums in effect preventing new accessory units until they can revise their laws, expected in 2018.

South Gate has approved a tentative ordinance stating a second unit would be allowed only on a site of 6,000 square feet or more and may be attached or detached from the main house. A second unit may range from 240 to 640 square feet and occupy no more than 30 percent of a site. Total lot coverage may not be more than 46 percent of a site.

The dwelling may have no more than one bedroom. An accessory dwelling must have at least one on-site parking space although tandem parking would be allowed in an existing driveway, under the South Gate plan.

Similar rules are in the revised Whittier law although it adds that a second unit may not detract from the historical significance of a home deemed of historic value.

Whittier law requires an accessory dwelling to be not less than 150 square feet although units on 20,000 square foot lots may exceed 1,500 square feet in size.

A second unit may not be separated from the main house and sold and may not be rented for less than 30 days.

Most other cities affected by the state law are expected to approve similar rules.

Conservative groups

target H.P., Cudahy

HUNTINGTON PARK — President-elect Donald Trump’s strong rhetoric on immigration reverberated through heavily Latino Southeast Los Angeles County with regional conservative groups taking aim at Huntington Park and Cudahy.

American Children First, based in Torrance, unsuccessfully sought to “defund” the cities by petitioning for a vote and convincing residents to cancel the utility taxes imposed by the communities at the risk of reducing city services. A second group, We the People Rising, based in Claremont, has appeared at every Huntington Park City Council meeting since August 2016 protesting the appointment by Vice Mayor Jhonny Pineda of non-citizens to two advisory commissions.

Members of the latter group have frequently called out loud, often derogatory, comments during meetings. Torrance blogger Arthur Schaper is suing the city for removing him from a meeting last June for allegedly making such comments. Schaper says he is innocent. The suit will go into 2018.

The immigration issue has been especially notable in Huntington Park and Cudahy, where Joseph Turner, head of American Children First, has pledged to “defund” the two cities. He obtained permission to circulate petitions for a special election in Cudahy to nullify the city’s 4 percent utility tax, which generates about $1 million a year. The group obtained a petition in June on second attempt after resident Adolfo Vargas agreed to submit the request. The first request was rejected by the city as the one submitting it was not a resident, Deputy City Clerk Richard Iglesias said.

Turner’s petition to circulate in Huntington Park was submitted by residents Nicholas Ioannidis and Daniel Salazar twice but was rejected both times because it did not meet legal requirements, said then City Manager Edgar Cisneros on July 24.

He said the second rejection was July 5 and the city had not heard from the petitioners since then.

Huntington Park’s utility tax of 9.25 percent on telecommunications equipment and 9.75 percent a month on water, natural gas and electricity. It generates about $6 million a year.

We The People Rising has demanded that the city void Pineda’s appointment of Francisco Medina to the Health and Education Commission and Julian Zatarain to the Parks and Recreation Commission.

Because of their non-citizen status, the two have agreed to work without the usual stipend received by other commissioners. Council members have said only Pineda can change the appointments and have rejected claims that the two can’t legally serve.

We The People Rising said appointment of the two non-citizens is illegal and predicted council members could face jail. An attorney supporting the council said the appointments were legal.

Charter school

suit awaits trial

HUNTINGTON PARK — In another legal issue, a moratorium on new charter schools continues following a court decision last April that the city was within its rights.

City Attorney Arnold Alvarez-Glasman said it was a land-use issue. Mayor Graciela Ortiz assured charter school backers the city did not plan to abolish charter schools but needed time to determine, via zoning, the best place for schools, both charter and public.

It was noted that one charter school was established in an industrial area with heavy truck traffic from nearby plants. Councilwoman Karina Macias said the city must preserve space for tax-generating commercial and industrial operations.

The suit was filed by the California Charter School Association in November 2016, saying there is a long list of area students, mostly Latino, waiting to get into a charter school. The moratorium was supported by residents who acknowledged that they were employed by the Los Angeles Unified School District. They maintained that public schools provide quality education for area students.

The post 2017: YEAR IN REVIEW: Homeless, new marijuana laws top 2017 stories appeared first on Wave Newspapers.

Compiled by Dennis J. Freeman in downtown Los Angeles.

Camille Sauciay
Los Angeles
“I think the major issue comes down to respect. … I think there is a notion that women can’t achieve the same things as men. Growing up, I never thought that would be an issue, but I’ve come to experience that in the workplace myself.”

Lindsey Zihari
Long Beach
“The person that is in the White House today. It’s just not right.”

Alexandra Stanley
Los Angeles
“Pay equality. … I’m a working woman and the pay gap is enormous in every industry in the USA. That is unacceptable.”

Gordon Bruce-Severance
San Louis Obispo
“I think the critical thing is women need to be compensated equally in the workplace as men. … We need to move into the 21st century, and give women equal rights.”

The post STREET BEAT: ‘What is the most important issue for women in 2018?’ appeared first on Wave Newspapers.

To former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick: if it takes a promise to stand for the national anthem to get a tryout with an NFL team, make it.

I say that as someone who, from the moment Kaepernick took a knee and stayed on his knee game after game, backed his right to take that knee. I backed him because his protest against racism and the gunning down of unarmed blacks by the police was the right and courageous thing to do.

His courageous stance rammed the issue of police abuse hard in national politics and even more importantly in the hallowed and near sacrosanct world of pro sports. He forced players, coaches, managers and team owners to do a mild soul search about racial injustice both inside and outside the sports world.

Kaepernick paid a horrendous price for his bold knee down. He was pilloried, hectored and harangued by many sportswriter and broadcaster jocks. He was assailed by many fans. He was ultimately blackballed. But he didn’t buckle.

Kaepernick, more than any other athlete since Muhammad Ali was banned from boxing for his protest over the Vietnam War in the late 1960s, paid the hard price for his stance. So he owes no one, starting with himself, any apology for agreeing to say to a pro team “Yes, I will stand for the anthem.”

He has more than made his point. He will continue to win the thanks and deep accolades of those whose spine he stiffened in the sports world.

However, there are two brutal realities Kaepernick faces. One is that he is still first and foremost a pro football player. That is his livelihood. He still has some productive years left in the game.

He has the chance to cash in on his ability during those years. That doesn’t mean that he can’t, won’t and shouldn’t continue to speak out loudly and passionately on the issue of racism. It certainly doesn’t mean that he won’t stop giving the tens of thousands of dollars that he has given to youth and social justice organizations. He will.

He also will continue to be a symbol for legions of black pro athletes because he took a stand for justice and backed that up with his deeds.

The other is that he plays in the pro sport that is the most rigid pro sport run by some of the most conservative rich white guys on the planet. They are mostly conservative Republicans, some very outspoken Republicans. They have contributed money, lots of it, to President Donald Trump and other Republican presidential candidates over the years.

The NFL is not just in the business of paying salutes out of history and tradition and patriotic loyalty to the military and the flag. It’s also in the business, literally, of promoting both. It has a lucrative partnership with USA Football, Inc. which licenses and sells millions of NFL apparel and paraphernalia that carry the NFL logo and uniform designs through the NFL FLAG program. NFL FLAG also sponsors and promotes youth training camps and football related sports programs.

Then there’s the NFL majority fan base. They have made it clear in informal polls, surveys and by raining loud boos down on the relative handful of NFL players that have knelt during the national anthem that they will have no regard for any player who “disrespects” the flag. They don’t want that player in the league, and the owners have heard them.

They listened to them because these fans are the ones who pack stadiums and plop down tens of millions for tickets and assorted NFL paraphernalia.

They made it abundantly clear by slamming the door tightly on Kaepernick for more than a year that he will never play in their league if he continues his protest. Some have made it clear by shunning him that even if agreed to stand for the anthem he’s still persona non grata.

The NFL owners have the absolute power to make sure that the door stays firmly closed to him. And one of their main rules that must be rigidly adhered to is their faux patriotism.

Also, there are millions of blacks who do stand for the national anthem. Most know the brutal history of racial violence, exclusion and poverty that trapped and still traps countless numbers of blacks. They watch and read almost daily of the police killings of mostly unarmed blacks, the mass incarceration numbers for blacks, the grim figures on job and housing discrimination, the gaping health care disparities and the endless other big and small racial insults and indignities.

But they still stand for the national anthem because they also see that, hypocrisy aside, it stands for freedom and democracy.

So Kaepernick should promise to stand for the anthem. At least that way you don’t give them one more excuse to keep you blackballed. You’ve more than paid your dues and earned the right to play again.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is the author of the forthcoming “Why Blacks Lives Don’t Matter” (Middle Passage Press). He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on Radio One and the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles and the Pacifica Network.

The post THE HUTCHINSON REPORT: Kaepernick should stand for the anthem appeared first on Wave Newspapers.

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Contributing Columnist

At a press conference in March 2016, then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump flatly said “it’s very appropriate” for his allies to beat protestors.

That was not said in the heat of the moment. Trump has made a specialty of verbally pummeling anyone who has crossed him in the months since he incited a riot at his press conference.

In almost every case, there has not been a peep of protest from a Republican senator, congressperson or state legislator about it.

Not many Democrats have raised their voices in protest of Trump’s bullying and brutish outbursts that put people in physical danger, either. There was no avalanche of angry editorials from indignant, outraged newspapers and commentators calling on Trump to resign, be censored or apologize.

Then there’s U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, my congresswoman, who simply calls on Trump’s opponents to confront Trump administration officials in public places over his bigoted and destructive policies. The abuse heaped on her for this simple, lawful and age-old call for citizens who disagree with an administration to voice their dissent directly to those officials is puzzling.

Waters did nothing wrong and certainly has no reason to take a word of her admonition to directly protest back. She certainly has nothing to apologize for.

But how do you explain the torrent of abuse heaped on her? I’m not talking about abuse from Trump and the GOP. That’s to be expected.

But abuse from Democrats and almost all the mainstream media? There are two explanations, and both tell ypu much about the dismal shape of politics and politicians and much of the big media.

The first is that Trump has done a masterful job in bullying, cowering, manipulating and poisoning the political stream. It has got far too many Democrats running scared of doing and saying anything that can be construed as “going low” on Trump. Translated it means wrapping their criticism and protests over his outrages in the softest of velvet gloves.

The thinking is that Democrats can beat back the Trump onslaught by playing by the conventional rules of political engagement. The rules are that you engage in polite discourse on the issues, but refrain from anything that can be regarded as hitting back hard on the integrity of the fellow or lady on the other side. This gentleness has gotten the Democrats an almost unprecedented string of losses in elections in dozens of states in the past decade. It has made the Democrats a minority party in the Senate and the House. It paved the way for the Trump ascension and the toxic forces that he represents.

Trump well understands the raw power and emotionalism unleashed by ripping the wraps off political combat and talking tough and mean about Democrats and even wavering Republicans. It cowers the opposition and sends the message “don’t even think about opening your mouth in criticism about me, because you will be called out by name, and it won’t be pretty.” The GOP leaders got the message loud and clear and that’s why it’s now a Trump party.

The media long ago figured out that playing up every silly and idiotic Trump tweet or utterance, and camping at his rallies to give wall-to-wall coverage of them was a goldmine in ratings. That meant more ad dollars. It’s been a nice little tag team.

Trump will say something outrageous or, better yet, bad mouth an opponent and the ratings numbers soar even higher. Trump knows that, media outlets know that and that’s why it continues.

The second reason Waters is such an inviting target for vitriol is she is an outspoken female, black Democrat, who has made no bones that she wants Trump out of office and has been the one Democrat willing to say it the loudest without the requisite political niceties.

This has made a lot of Democrats squirm and squeamish because she’s unwilling to play the polite parlor game of how GOP opponents must be dealt with kid gloves.

The great fear is Waters’ verbal aggression could throw a monkey wrench into the Democrats chances to take back the House in November. Trump again caught the drift of this great fear when he lambasted Waters as the ‘unhinged” face of the Democrats. This plays well with his base, but it may play even better with Democrats who duck for cover from Waters.

Beating back the Trump evil will take a colossal effort at mobilizing, organizing and engaging those disgusted with Trump and the GOP to get to the polls. But it doesn’t mean that you also can’t shout out loud at Trump’s enablers to their face that his and his party’s policies have been a wreck and a ruin for the country.

The right to say that openly and publicly is after all the American way. Waters got it right by making that call. And I strongly applaud my Auntie Max for that.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is the author of the forthcoming “Why Black Lives Do Matter” (Middle Passage Press). He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on Radio One and the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles and the Pacifica Network.

The post THE HUTCHINSON REPORT: A round of applause Auntie Maxine appeared first on Wave Newspapers.

By Dennis J. Freeman

Contributing Writer

LOS ANGELES — U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters has been at the forefront of the anti-Donald Trump movement almost from the time that Trump was sworn in as this nation’s 45th president in January 2017.

In return, the crusading Democrat has become the target of vile criticism from Trump and his followers to such an extent that she recently canceled two out-of-state appearances because of death threats made against her.

In response, local religious leaders have picked up the shield for Waters.

On July 2, just across the street from Waters’ South Los Angeles office, a coalition of ministers and pastors, held a press conference to condemn the hateful rhetoric aimed at Waters and to speak out against a pointed agenda they feel is specifically targeted at communities of color.

“Our democracy is under attack and we’re on the verge of a constitutional crisis under the Trump administration,” Macedonia Baptist Church Senior Pastor Shane B. Scott said. “This administration has created an atmosphere of divisiveness to satisfy the base, and not represent all people in the United States of America. Immigrant children have been separated from their families at the borders. Trump’s travel ban is rooted in anti-Muslim prejudices, which discriminates against religious freedoms and lawmakers ignore implementing reasonable gun laws to stop mass shootings in our most sacred public places.

“This is not who America is supposed to be,” Scott added. “We are better than this. Congresswoman Maxine Waters is courageously raising her voice and leading the fight in the Democratic Party to maintain the moral fiber of this country. She is a true patriot, and she should be celebrated as such. She has been an exemplary public servant for all the people and any attempts to disrespect, discredit or assassinate her character are unwelcomed and unwarranted.”

Scott led the contingent of clergy who showed up to throw their support behind Waters, who was not present during the ceremony.

Waters, a vocal critic of President Trump and his immigration policy of having children separated from their parents as they await deportation back to their homeland, had recently canceled appearances in Texas and Alabama because of perceived death threats.

The Trump administration’s policy has sparked outrage domestically as well as abroad, including drawing a rebuke from Waters.

“When one hears disturbing news reports that children are being ripped out of the arms of their parents only to be held in detention centers where they are locked in cages, are forced to sleep on cement floors, and are only allowed to go outdoors for limited periods of time, one would think that those reports are describing conditions under the rule of a callous dictator — not the president of the United States,” Waters said in a statement. “Unfortunately, Donald Trump and his racist, Jim Crow-era throwback Jeff Sessions have unleashed the full power of the executive branch to target, terrorize and traumatize children and families — many of whom are seeking refuge from the very type of mistreatment in which they are now confronted with upon arrival to the greatest democracy in the world. This is a national disgrace.”

Bishop Noel Jones, senior pastor at the City of Refuge, a church in Gardena where Waters often visits, said that type of policy has no place in America.

“We have become silent from our evangelical point of view and voicing the fact that we have stood against all of the principles of Christianity to allow people of color — black and brown — to have their children separated,” Jones said. “The first thing that comes to mind is we’re going back to slavery, where people can separate families with no conscious, where men and women were taken from their homes, simply because of money, where children are separated from their families, and we keep our mouths quiet.

The Rev. Kelvin Sauls of Holman United Methodist Church speaks at a July 2 press conference in support of Rep. Maxine Waters. (Photo by Dennis J. Freeman)

“We need to open our mouths and declare that this is not acceptable for the American way, and that we are not closing our opportunities to people who need opportunities, people who are running from all of the oppression they have in their nations. We don’t want that kind of oppression to come back into our country.”

Rev. L.A. Kessee, senior pastor of Bethany Baptist Church of West Los Angeles, was another clergy member who spoke.

“We, as Baptist ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, support Congresswoman Maxine Waters,” Kessee said. “We are calling for her protection from threats of bodily harm. She should be protected. … I believe she should be protected not at her own expense, but she ought to be protected by the government that she serves. She should be protected by the police. She should not be going through threats to her personhood.”

Last month, Waters urged people opposed to the administration’s policies to confront cabinet members. At a rally at the Westwood Federal Building, she alluded to the heckling of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who was dining at a Mexican restaurant in Washington, D.C. when she was confronted by protesters over family separations at the border, and White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders being asked to leave a Lexington, Virginia, restaurant by its owner because of her work defending Trump and his policies.

“Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up,” she said in remarks posted on YouTube. “And if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you
create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.

“We’ve got to get the children connected to their parents,” Waters added. “Mr. President, we will see you every day, every hour of the day, everywhere that we are to let you know you cannot get away with this.”

Waters appeared on a cable network later that day to reiterate her remarks, and exclaimed “no sympath” for members of the Trump administration.

The president then sent a tweet that said: “Congresswoman Maxine Waters, an extraordinarily low IQ person, has become, together with Nancy Pelosi, the face of the Democrat Party. She has just called for harm to supporters, of which there are many, of the Make America Great Again movement. Be careful what you wish for Max!”

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