Los Angeles

Don’t Trust The Media On Corporate Education Reform

August 25, 2015 Molly Knefel, www.fair.org Educate! Charter Schools, Education, Los Angeles, Media, Privatization

By Molly Knefel in FAIR - Earlier this month, the Los Angeles Times (8/18/15) announced an initiative called Education Matters, “an ongoing, wide-ranging report card on K-12 education in Los Angeles, California and the nation.” The project will cover educational issues, including “the latest debate on curriculum or testing” and “how charter schools are changing public education.” The Times, owned by Tribune Publishing, will fund Education Matters with donations and grants from philanthropic organizations like the Baxter Family Foundation and the Broad Foundation. “These institutions, like the Times,” publisher and CEO Austin Beutner writes, “are dedicated to independent journalism that engages and informs its readers.”

Now Free & Legal To Plant Vegetable Garden In LA

August 19, 2015 Amanda Froelich, www.bullhorn.nationofchange.org Create! Food and Agriculture, Land, Law, Los Angeles

By Amanda Froelich in Nation of Change - As ridiculous as it sounds, growing food on government land is an illegal practice in many cities and towns across the U.S. But not everyone desires – or has the means – to pay an extraordinary amount on fruits and vegetables just to maintain their health. For this reason, a growing percentage of the populace has begun planting foods near their home and on lesser-visited plots of land in the city. Known as Guerrilla gardening, this practice has been deemed illegal, as the food foragers do not have a permit to grow a garden – even if they are only trying to use the Earth to its fullest capacity. Such was the case for Ron Finley, who, four years ago, was given an arrest warrant for planting carrots outside of his home on a small strip of city-owned land.

LAPD Convinces LA Times To Fire Editorial Cartoonist, Ted Rall

July 29, 2015 Ted Rall, www.anewdomain.net Resist! Art, Freedom of Press, LAPD, Los Angeles, Media, police brutality

By Ted Rall in A New Domain - As an editorial cartoonist for The Los Angeles Times, I have drawn numerous cartoons critical of the Los Angeles Police Department’s abuse, corruption and heavy-handed incompetence. Now it seems the LAPD has gotten even: It has convinced the Times to fire me. At issue is a blog I wrote to accompany my May 11, 2015 cartoon for the Times. It was about an announced LAPD crackdown. Not on violent crime, but jaywalking. I opened with a personal anecdote from nearly 14 years ago, when a Los Angeles police officer ticketed me for jaywalking on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood. The date was October 3, 2001. I’ll get into the allegations below the fold. But first, here is a far-from-complete sample of LAPD-related cartoons I’ve drawn for The Times and some other publications. . .

Tenants Say Greed & Discrimination In Mass Eviction

June 19, 2015 Naureen Khan, www.occupy.com Resist! Eviction, Housing, Los Angeles, Racial Justice

By Naureen Khan in Occupy - Tenants of this 43-unit apartment building — predominantly African-American, many of them elderly or disabled and receiving vouchers for Section 8 federally subsidized housing — were told their rental contracts were being terminated shortly after the building came under the ownership of Lafayette Square Apartments in December of last year. Critics charge that the maneuver is part of an increasingly common scheme in Los Angeles to drive away low-income residents and raise rents, contributing to the affordable-housing crunch in the city and the gentrification of once diverse neighborhoods. Notices informing residents that they had 60 to 90 days to forfeit their units began arriving in their mailboxes in January. By March, most tenants had been notified that their rental contracts would be terminated by mid-June.

Activists Took Over Special Board Meeting On LAPD’s Use Of Violence

June 15, 2015 PM Beers, www.theantimedia.org Resist! LAPD, Los Angeles, police brutality

By PM Beers in The Anti-Media - Last Wednesday, the city decided to hold another meaningless meeting. It was intended allow community members upset with police violence against minorities a chance to vent,once again, to deaf ears. The Human Relations Commission hosted the first of two special board meetings regarding the impact of community policing. This first board meeting explored the issues of racial profiling and uses of force. After an hour and a half of venting to the reluctant panel, a young man named Evan went up to the podium to speak. He was upset at the division the podium created in the room and the physical separation between those speaking and those who were supposedly there to listen. He told the crowd to move the podium that separated the two groups.

Civilian Board: Officer That Shot Ezell Ford Acted ‘Out Of Policy’

June 11, 2015 Matt Ferner, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! Accountability, Ezell Ford, Los Angeles, police brutality

By Matt Ferner in The Huffington Post - The civilian board that oversees the Los Angeles Police Department ruled Tuesday that one of the officers involved in the fatal shooting of Ezell Ford last year in a south LA neighborhood was acting "out of policy" in his use of lethal force. The second officer involved in the shooting was found to be acting within policy with regards to use of force. While the identities of both officers are known -- Sharlton Wampler and Antonio Villegas -- the Police Commission did not identify which officer was out of policy. "This is a tragedy for all involved," Police Commission President Steve Soboroff said late Tuesday. "The Ford family, my fellow commissioners express our deepest condolences." The commission had deliberated for more than three hours, after hours of tense public comment.

Protesters Angered Over Lack Of Charges In Ezell Ford’s Death In L.A.

June 8, 2015 Steve Kuzj, www.ktla.com Resist! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Los Angeles, Racial Justice

By Steve Kuzj in KTLA - Los Angeles police Chief Charlie Beck and the Police Department’s independent watchdog have determined that two officers were justified in fatally shooting Ezell Ford, a mentally ill black man whose killing last year sparked protests and debate over the use of deadly force by police, according to sources with knowledge of the investigation. Department investigators found evidence indicating that Ford had fought for control of one officer’s gun, bolstering claims the officers made after the shooting, said two sources who spoke on the condition that they not be identified because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the case. Protesters angered over recent reports that charges were not expected to be filed in the fatal police shooting of Ezell Ford marched in South L.A. on Saturday. Steve Kuzj reports from South L.A. for the KTLA 5 News at 6 on Saturday, June 6, 2015.

Act Out! Episode 14 – Occupy Venice & France

June 5, 2015 Eleanor Goldfield, www.occupy.com Resistance Report France, Homelessness, Los Angeles, Occupy, Strategy

By Eleanor Goldfield in Occupy - This week, we test our math skills in the name of systemic dumbshitedness. Then Occupy Venice shows us how to fight the power while helping the powerless: hosting a people's potluck every Sunday with locally sourced organic foods. Martin Kirk, founder and head strategist at /The Rules talks about breaking them, shifting paradigms and planned poverty. He talks strategy, Occupy Wall Steret and the role of scientific knowledge in campaigns. We ask the Internet, what are we? Oligarchy, plutocracy, oligarch-racy? Even after LA raises minimum wage to $15, too many folks remain homeless. And finally, France schools us on architectural design and food, but not in the ways you’d expect. Eleanor Goldfield performs spoken word for the movement, flipping the paradigms.

LA’s New Minimum Wage Isn’t Worth Anywhere Close To $15

May 23, 2015 Ben Casselman, www.fivethirtyeight.com Educate! California, Living Wage, Los Angeles, Minimum Wage

The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday voted to raise the city’s minimum wage to nearly $10 an hour. Oh, sure, the headlines in Wednesday’s papers all said the council raised the wage floor to $15 an hour. That’s what the actual ordinance says, too. But $10 is a more accurate reflection of what low-wage Angelenos will actually experience. There are two reasons for this. The first is inflation: Los Angeles’s minimum wage won’t go up to $15 tomorrow. Instead, the hike will be phased in over the next five years. Assuming inflation holds more or less steady, $15 an hour in 2020 will be worth the equivalent of about $13.75 today. But the bigger issue is that $15 doesn’t go as far in Los Angeles as it does in most of the rest of the country. Not even close. According to data from the Council for Community and Economic Research, it costs workers about 40 percent more to live in Los Angeles than in the average American community.

Homeless Jump By 44,000 In LA County In Two Years

May 14, 2015 Al JAzeera, www.facebook.com Educate! California, Employment, Homelessness, Housing, Los Angeles, Poverty

he number of homeless people in Los Angeles County jumped 12 percent in the past two years, to more than 44,000, amid a sluggish economic recovery that has left the poorest residents of the second-largest U.S. metropolitan area falling farther behind, a study released on Monday found. Most of those counted weren’t staying in homeless shelters. The study also found that the number of tents, makeshift encampments and vehicles with people living in them jumped by 85 percent, to about 9,500. “California was one of the hardest-hit states in the country during the economic recession, suffering high unemployment and high job losses,” the housing authority said in a news release. “There is a lag in rebound, and the working poor and low-income individuals have been hit particularly hard, with the trifecta of unemployment, stagnant wages and a lack of affordable housing.”

The Good Samaritan, A Catholic Worker On LA’s Skid Row

April 4, 2015 Sr. Rose Pacatte, www.ncronline.org Create! Faith, Los Angeles, Workers Rights and Jobs

This new book is autobiographical for Dietrich and is again a collection of essays from Los Angeles Catholic Worker newspaper, Catholic Agitator. These reflect Dietrich's untiring service of feeding and aiding the poor, and his unabated passion for speaking truth to power. As I write this review, I am listening to the news about the killing of another homeless person, a man on Skid Row, a 50-square-block section of downtown Los Angeles. No one knows his real name, but he was known by his street name, "Africa." The Los Angeles Police Department's long-standing crusade against the homeless, especially veterans, is well-documented in The Good Samaritan: Stories from the Los Angeles Catholic Worker on Skid Row, which details some of the court cases won by the homeless, with support of the American Civil Liberties Union. Dietrich describes the city's uneasy and sometimes cruel relationship with the homeless and calls it "punitive policing."

Protests Hit McDonald’s In Los Angeles, Nationwide

April 3, 2015 Tiffany Hsu, www.latimes.com Resist! Fast Food, Los Angeles, Worker Rights and Jobs

Labor organizers displeased with McDonald’s Corp.’s decision to raise wages only for workers at company-owned stores, leaving out employees at franchises, held protests across the nation Thursday. Planners said that workers in dozens of cities — including Los Angeles, New York, Detroit and Las Vegas — rallied to criticize what some called a disingenuous strategy from the fast-food giant, based in Oak Brook, Ill. At a protest at a Wilshire Boulevard McDonald's, Jibri Range, 22, said his repeated requests to be paid more than $9 an hour at a South-Central franchise restaurant have all been rejected or ignored. He said he works four hours a week as a McDonald's maintenance employee and relies on his mother, a full-time cafeteria worker, to help support him. His daughter will turn 4 on April 15, when fellow workers protest again, he said.

City Council Approves $2.45-Million Deal With Occupy L.A. Protesters

April 2, 2015 Veronica Rocha, www.latimes.com Resist! Law, Los Angeles, Occupy

The Los Angeles City Council approved a $2.45-million agreement Wednesday to settle all claims involving Occupy L.A. protesters arrested during a violent clash with Los Angeles police in 2011. Although the City Council agreed to settle, the deal must still be approved by a U.S. District Court judge before it's finalized, said Frank Mateljan, a spokesman for the city attorney's office. Cheryl Aichele and five other demonstrators filed a lawsuit in December 2012, alleging the police department used a “shock and awe” campaign to forcibly remove hundreds of protesters from a campsite on the south side of City Hall. Attorneys representing the protesters did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

Teachers Poised To Strike, First Time In 26 Years

March 17, 2015 Mario Vasquez, www.inthesetimes.com Resist! Labor Unions, Los Angeles, Teachers

Los Angeles may be close to its first teachers strike in 26 years after its school district and the local teachers’ union declared that they would be unable to make progress on contract negotiations. Consequently, later this month California’s state labor board for public employees will be mediating between the two sides in the first of several sessions scheduled thus far. United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), a union representing over 35,000 teachers in the area, is working under terms of a contract that expired in 2011 but still remains in effect. Negotiations for a new contract began last July upon the swearing-in of President Alex Caputo-Pearl.

Protests Over LAPD Killing Of Mentally Ill, Black Homeless Man

March 11, 2015 Bethania Palma Marcus, www.truth-out.org Resist! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Los Angeles, police brutality, Racial Justice

Roughly 200 protesters gathered in front of the Los Angeles Police headquarters downtown at least twice last week, demanding justice for a mentally ill homeless man who was shot to death by LAPD officers March 1 in a videotaped killing that went viral. The video, which has been viewed millions of times, shows Charley Keunang, who was known to his fellow skid row residents as "Africa," because he was from the West African nation of Cameroon, being subdued on the ground by multiple officers and tased. Three officers then opened fire on him, leaving him motionless. The shooting, along with the recent release of a scathing Department of Justice report on racism by the Ferguson Police Department, have amplified even further the national spotlight on racial bias and violence in American policing.

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