(From our friends at the Union of Concerned Scientists - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
First of its kind economic analysis shows significant cuts in global warming pollution will cost small businesses only pennies
Los Angeles County - As international climate treaty negotiations begin in Copenhagen amid controversy over economic impacts, a new report shows that the costs for small business operating under California's landmark climate law (AB 32) can be measured in pennies. Conducted by leading economists and released by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) today, the report finds that AB 32 policies will only increase the percent of small business revenue spent on energy by only 0.3 percentage points--from 1.4 to 1.7 percent--in 2020. In a case study which examines a real world small business--Border Grill restaurant--the report finds AB 32 will cost diners a mere 3 cents extra per $20 meal in 2020.
The analysis, The Economic Impact of AB 32 on California Small Businesses ( www.ucsusa.org/small_business ), a peer-reviewed first-of-its-kind analysis, uses empirical data on the cost characteristics of small businesses to estimate the economic impacts of AB 32 and was commissioned by UCS and conducted by The Brattle Group, an international economic consulting firm.
"Our report finds that the incremental cost impact of AB 32 on the average California small business will be relatively small and definitely manageable," said Jurgen Weiss of the Brattle Group, and co-author of the report. "The AB 32 cost impact pales in comparison to the effect of inflation over ten years, and falls well within the range of historic cost variation most small businesses face everyday regardless of climate policy."
The Brattle Group projected the likely changes in electricity, natural gas, and gasoline prices due to the major AB 32 policies: cap and trade (which puts a price on carbon), a 33% renewable energy standard, increased energy efficiency measures, and a low-carbon fuel standard.
On December 8th, voters in Los Angeles Council District 2, which encompasses a large swath of the San Fernando Valley from Studio City to Sunland, will get to make a choice on who they want to be their next Councilmember. It's not a choice they should take lightly, as whoever they choose will get to represent them on the Council for the next 14 years (three four-year terms, plus the ~2 years of the unexpired term for which this is a special election). The race has statewide implications, of course, because should Krekorian win, it will require a series of special elections to replace him in the Assembly, and that will be darned interesting.
First, a little background. This election is occurring because former Councilmember Wendy Greuel ran for City Controller and won, leaving the seat vacant. Out of a myriad of candidates, the top two finishers in the special primary were current Assemblymember from AD-43 Paul Krekorian, as well as Paramount studio executive turned community activist Chris Essel. Both candidates are very well funded, though Essel has a distinct cash advantage at the moment. Krekorian has the support of essentially the entire Democratic Party establishment and its affiliated groups, while Essel brings prominent personal endorsements to the table, as well as the LA Chamber of Commerce. At this point, the race is expected to be a toss-up, and hinges on whether supporters of other primary candidates, especially Tamar Galatzan and Mary Benson, will show up to vote and for whom they will vote. Turnout is expected to be primarily by absentee and really low.
So much for background. I'll introduce this by stating the obvious, as well as a fact. Paul Krekorian is of Armenian heritage--the district he currently represents in the Assembly has the highest concentration of Armenians anywhere outside Armenia, and Council District 2 has the highest concentration of Armenians in the City of Los Angeles. Ethnic politics being what it is--see Chu. vs. Cedillo in Congressional District 32--it goes without saying that Krekorian has basically the default backing of the Armenian community. Which is why, if you're the other candidate in an election that will have fantastically low turnout, you should go out of your way not to give your opponent's base any motivation to vote against you.
Enter Chris Essel, stepping in it by attending a "meet-and-greet" with contributions optional held by a boardmember of a Turkish organization that denies the Armenian genocide:
Essel's opponent in the Dec. 8 special election is an Armenian-American. And CD 2 has more Armenian-Americans than any other council district in Los Angeles.
On Saturday Oct. 17, Essel attended a Beverly Hills fundraiser hosted by a board member of the Assembly of Turkish American Associations, a lobbying group that adamantly denies the Armenian genocide. Recognition of this genocide has been perhaps the single most important moral and political issue for Armenian-Americans, who are just as appalled by deniers as Jews are by those who refuse to acknowledge the horrors of Hitler's Holocaust.
Also attending Essel's fundraiser were Azerbaijani leaders, whose controversial campaign to get California lawmakers to condemn Armenia for past military actions was defeated by Krekorian earlier this year.
If you don't know what the Armenian genocide is, or what the longstanding tension between Turkey and Armenia is about, please look it up, as it's one of the most shameful episodes in human history that for some reason nobody ever discusses.
Now, I'm going to leave aside the obvious moral implications here and discuss the political aspects for a moment. What the hell, Chris? Seriously, I can't think of a worse political move than giving the Armenian community a reason to turn out in larger numbers than they otherwise would have. Because if the mere existence of the event itself weren't bad enough, apparently the communities of Armenia's political rivals felt like this event should become anti-Armenia open season day:
An article on the fundraiser was published two days ago in an Azerbaijani newspaper and appeared on a Turkish website that, among other things, also features videos about Armenia's "So-Called Genocide." The article on the fundraiser praises Essel and labels Krekorian's views "immoral" and his actions as anti-Turkey.
If you think I'm kidding, here's the website for the organization that the host is a prominent member of. And here's a scan of one of the invites to the event. I don't know who's advising Chris Essel politically, but I do know for certain that she has access to the same Political Data reports that I have access to. And those reports say that the Armenian vote on the September 22nd primary was around 11.7% of the general population. Now, that number is likely to be even higher during the special general, and if I were Chris Essel, I'd be spending a lot of my time making sure there aren't any excuses for that number to be driven further up. What I seriously want to know is who on Essel's campaign decided that attending this event would be a good idea--because if Essel's political team is that tone-deaf and inept, it makes me seriously question whether she would be capable of getting the advice and counsel that would be necessary to represent all of her constituents on the City Council.
Wow, this is a doozy. The LA Times got the scoop that LA Schools Superintendent is considering shortening the school year.
Los Angeles schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines has asked his chief financial officer to study the possibility of shortening the school year to offset part of an expected shortfall of at least $500 million, The Times has learned.
The strategy, if adopted for the 2010-11 school year, would run counter both to the direction of national reform efforts and to the wishes of Cortines, who agrees with research touting the benefits of an extended academic calendar. (LA Now 10/29/09)
In an ideal world, we wouldn't even be discussing shortening. We would be talking about moving to year-round schooling. Instead of loading down our students with ridiculous amonunts of homework, we would increase the number of school days, scatter the vacation weeks, and do what is most effective, not what is cheapest.
But, we're settling. We're settling for a dimmer future where our children our lest educated and less prepared for the future.
When voters cast their ballots for Barack Obama last year, they could have been forgiven for harboring the expectation that they were voting for, among other things, a more humane American immigration policy. On the campaign trail, Obama had made such enlightened statements as: "Ultimately, the danger to the American way of life is not that we will be overrun by those who do not look like us or do not yet speak our language. The danger will come if we fail to recognize the humanity of [immigrants] -- if we withhold from them the opportunities we take for granted, and create a servant class in our midst." For the most disempowered population in the country, as for many others, hope was in the air. For the first time, a person of color (and son of an immigrant) was poised to control America's sprawling immigration enforcement apparatus, and the Democrats riding to Congress on his coattails were bound to loosen the grip that Nativism had held on the Capitol for nearly a decade.
With the news of this week's government-coerced layoffs of a quarter of American Apparel's workforce, those same voters could now be forgiven for looking back on those speeches as so much election season pandering. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency's audit of American Apparel - and the layoffs that it has provoked - have put the President one big step closer to the position of Brian Bilbray, Republican Congressman from northern San Diego County and former lobbyist for the anti-immigrant, vigilante-friendly FAIR, who applauded the crackdown on American Apparel and complained to the New York Times of employers that have "become addicted to illegal labor."
Voters in the Los Angeles area have seen quite a few elections this year. We had our regularly scheduled municipal elections this Spring, as well as a municipal general in certain races that had to go to a runoff. Along the way, we've had a special primary and a special general to fill the Senate seat in SD-26 that was vacated by Mark Ridley-Thomas' ascent to the Board of Supervisors. That election was won by Assemblyman Curren Price, whose seat in AD-51 was then taken by Steve Bradford in yet another special election (thankfully, he got 51% in the primary ballot, avoiding a runoff and getting a new Assemblyman as quickly as possible). In between all of that, we had the May 19th special election, as well as the special Congressional election in CA-32 to fill the vacancy created by Hilda Solis' confirmation as Secretary of Labor.
And now, residents of Los Angeles are on to their final special election of the year--though maybe not the cycle. Today, voters in certain communities in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles will decide who they want representing them on the City Council, as their former Councilmember Wendy Greuel was elected as City Controller.
And believe it or not, this race has statewide implications. As you can see from the fundraising numbers, there are three top-tier candidates in the race: Chris(tine) Essel, who is a former Paramount Studios executive turned community activist; Tamar Galatzan, who represents a school board district that overlaps substantially with the Council District; and Assemblymember Paul Krekorian from AD-43, about 20% of the population of which are also residents of Council District 2. If Krekorian makes it through to the primary and then wins on the 8th, we'll have a special election next year to fill AD-43, which will be vacant until then (leaving us with one less seat in the Assembly until then).
It is widely expected that there will be a runoff, as the bulk of the votes in this low-turnout election will be split between these three candidates, and there are 7 other candidates in the race that will siphon off a significant number of ballots among them--the runoff will take place September 8th.
Being as objective as I can (I am the political director of an organization that has endorsed Tamar Galatzan), here are the strengths and weaknesses (as I see them) of each candidate:
Chris Essel: Essel has a lot of money, but not a lot of name recognition. She has never held elected office, which can be (and has been) a good marketing point, but also means that the 4X4 voters who will decide this election will not be as familiar with her as with the other candidates. Essel has gotten the endorsement of the Los Angeles Times, and has been able to pay for quite a bit of literature, based on conversations I've had with contacts in other campaigns, as well as a TV spot. Essel also has the endorsement of the former Councilmember, Wendy Greuel. On the downside, I've heard that Essel doesn't have all that strong a volunteer base and has been having to use paid canvassers.
Paul Krekorian: Krekorian has a lot of things going for him. He is well known to a significant section of the district, has good fundraising to pay for mailers and such and has some good endorsements, including the Los Angeles County Democratic Party. On the downside, the State Assembly isn't the most popular body in the country right now. In addition, Krekorian has been attacked by other campaigns for not being a resident of the district until recently--not that that line of attack was successful for those seeking to stop Garamendi from getting the nomination in CD-10, but perhaps a City Council race will feature a different dynamic.
Tamar Galatzan: Galatzan is weaker in fundraising than the other candidates, but has some advantages. First, she might have better name recognition than the other candidates because more residents of the district have voted for her than for anyone else, given the extensive overlap between her school board district and Council District 2. She also has the endorsement of the L.A. Daily News and one of the local community papers. From what I've seen and heard, both Galatzan and Krekorian have had a good ground game so far, and Galatzan has been doing well in recent media appearances--even according to sources I've mentioned previously who have no love for her or her campaign. On the downside, less money means less mail, which is the usual way one wins races like this.
So who wins? Well, the real question is, which two of the three is going to go to the runoff, given the fact that it will be a major shock if one of the lesser seven somehow manages to pull it off without a substantial campaign. My prediction?
Krekorian in first, with Galatzan barely beating Essel for slot 2. I do think that a good field campaign, volunteer operation, and name recognition from previous campaigns matter, especially when the electorate consists of the most politically active and savvy voters. In my heart, I would also like to believe that elections can't be won with a rolodex, even at the local level.
I'll be posting an open thread with the results soon after they close.
Note: I'm the political director of an organization that has endorsed Tamar Galatzan in her race for Council District 2 in Los Angeles. The election is this upcoming Tuesday.
It's a damn shame that Mayor Sam is one of the best-read blogs in Los Angeles politics. First and foremost, many of its posters (unlike our frontpage Caliticians, who have decided to disclose their identities) remain anonymous. Now, as someone who blogged anonymously for years before feeling comfortable disclosing my real name, occupation and other aspects of my identity, it would be hypocritical of me if that were the sole source of my complaint. Rather, Mayor Sam's real problem is that the frontpage posters, whoever they are, peddle conspiracy after conspiracy theory about power politics in Los Angeles. It was Mayor Sam's posters, after all, who took Eric Hacopian's work in CA-32 as evidence that Emanuel Pleitez was doing Mayor Villaraigosa's bidding just to punish Gil Cedillo).
It's one thing when such lies and distortions happen to people you don't know. But when your real-life friends start popping up in posts like this, it requires some pushback.
As background, the relationship between current School Board Member and CD-2 candidate Tamar Galatzan and Mayor Villaraigosa has been a point of issue in a campaign centered around certain portions of the San Fernando Valley where the Mayor is not very popular. Tamar Galatzan was first elected to her School Board seat in the 2007 municipals with significant aid from Villaraigosa's so-called "Partnership for Better Schools"--a campaign account he set up to elect allies to the school board.
Since then, however, Galatzan has apparently had a falling-out of sorts with the Mayor (and who hasn't?). But it appears that one of the chief tactics of whoever on Mayor Sam seems to have such a vested interested in attacking Galatzan is to try to do his (her?) best to link Galatzan with the mayor. And this is where it gets a little personal.
In the first post by this "Higby" individual, it is mentioned that many members of Galatzan's staff used to supposedly work for the Mayor, including Policy Director Pamela Burga. Now, Pam has been a good friend of mine for a couple of years, and has devoted her life to educational equity. Her supposed "work for the mayor"? Working for the Villaraigosa-funded Partnership for Better Schools" for a few months before joining Galatzan's staff in 2007, where she has worked ever since. She didn't deserve to be brought into this, much less lied about.
But the idiot is not done. In yet another post on the same issue, this same duplicitous hack goes even further, except this time he can't even get the names right.
Haley Green is has been paid $2,000 to date for consulting work by the then Galatzan. Previously Green was on the payroll of Villaraigosa's Partnership for Better Schools, the Mayor's political committee that helped to elect Galatzan to the School Board with a $2 million boost.
Galatzan's day to day aide Devin Orisri is a former employee of the Mayor's Partnership for Better schools. Her Policy Director Pamela Burga is another former employee of the Mayor.
Besides the aforementioned Pamela, Hayley Greene and Devin Osiri are also friends of mine from the local Young Democrat clubs. Devin, age 26, has worked on numerous campaigns--before joining Galatzan's team, he was also an aide to Ron Galperin, who was a candidate for Council District 5. Hardly what I'd call loyalty to the head honcho. And yes, a couple of years ago in 2007, he also worked for Tamar's campaign--but the checks came from the Partnership.
But it's with Hayley that this gets the most ridiculous. Hayley Greene, the so-called "consultant" and mayoral loyalist, is a 20-year-old who is about to enter her junior year of college. She is helping with volunteer coordination as a summer job. And yes, she helped with the 2007 campaign as a high-school student.
When all is said and done, this post isn't about supporting or defending Tamar Galatzan or trying to prove anything one way or the other about her connections to Mayor Villaraigosa, which, in whatever capacity they exist, would exist at levels far higher than the individuals mentioned here. I cite this not only to defend my friends, who have no business being used as political footballs by anonymous insiders trying to spread crap about candidates who are running against the one that particular insider is supporting (how else, after all, does one come by such specific information about a high-school coordinator?) but also as a signal that the Los Angeles area needs an honest progressive blogosphere that will do better coverage of our local races, since most of the important ones are Dem against Dem primaries and we deserve to have an honest media that can follow these races and cover them with honest efficiency.
Los Angeles is over $400 million in the hole. With all the raids on local funding from the state level, you never know when that number may go up again. And Mayor V looks as if he's really considering what would be a painful option for a politician with a long history in labor: furloughs.
If no agreement is reached, Santana said, the council will proceed with plans to furlough workers - 26 days a year for all those scheduled to get cost-of-living increases this year and 18 days for those not receiving an increase.
Coalition Chairwoman Cheryl Parisi said union leaders hope a compromise can be reached. "We are committed to working together and believe we can reach an agreement," Parisi said.
But earlier in the day, Villaraigosa insisted that he needed to be able to keep the city solvent and operating efficiently without being hamstrung by a provision prohibiting furloughs and layoffs.
"If we don't do something to stop the hemorrhaging (of money), we could lose a lot more people," Villaraigosa said. "I don't want to do this. I don't wake up every morning and say, `I want to lay off or furlough workers.' These are good, hard-working people and they have families. I recognize that." (LA Daily News 9/18/09)
The fact is that without the power to raise substantial revenue at the local level, the options for municipalities are getting slimmer all the time. The previous agreement that the Mayor had worked out to early retirement now seems to be if not dead, on life support as it heads for approval by the City Council.
Unfortunately, when the answer is always cut, the questions will look grimmer and grimmer.
Negotiators for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the City Council scrambled to put the finishing touches on a deal to save an early retirement program for the city's civilian workforce while at the same time putting a dent in a $405-million budget shortfall.
The Coalition of L.A. City Unions, which has been pushing for early retirement, scheduled a 9 a.m. conference call between various civilian unions to discuss a potential deal. Minutes earlier, Villaraigosa and Council President Eric Garcetti were discussing progress on a potential agreement.
UPDATE to the UPDATE: The City Council passed the deal after unions gave up $78 million in concessions. Members of the union coalition still must ratify the agreement.
Over the weekend, while fire raged in the Angeles National Forest, over in the San Fernando Valley they were inundated with water. A water main built in 1914 broke and flooded Ventura Boulevard in Studio City throughout the weekend. While it reopened on Monday, today a second break on the same water main hit another section of Coldwater Canyon Avenue and produced maybe the ultimate piece of imagery - a fire truck consumed by flood. I don't think the truck was headed to La Cañada, but the inference is made anyway.
You cannot write 1,000 words on our crumbling infrastructure that capture the subject better than this. A state without the revenue to heal itself becomes a state where fire trucks sink in a flood caused by unattended 100 year-old pipes. The layers of meaning just fall into one another. This is the picture of a state that cannot fix itself.
Whether it's the continued foreclosure crisis, the impact of state budget cuts or the cumulative effect of depressed consumer spending, it's now extremely clear that the state's employment picture shows no sign of bottoming out, reaching an all-time high in the post-war period.
California's unemployment rate took an unexpected leap in July, reaching a post-Word War II high of 11.9%. The increase contrasts with the national rate, which declined slightly over the same period, and reflects ongoing weakness in the state's battered construction and financial services industries.
The state lost a net 35,800 jobs last month, more than any other state, the U.S. Labor Department said today. It has lost 760,200 jobs over the last year.
Every category of nonfarm jobs in the state except education and health services experienced year-over-year losses. The construction sector was the hardest hit, shedding 18.6% of its jobs. Manufacturing jobs fell 8.7% from the same time last year.
Job loss did slow relative to the previous two months. But I don't think anybody believes that 11.9% is a floor. Los Angeles, where the jobless rate jumped 0.7% in just a month, is one of the worst big cities to find a job in America. The city has 15,000 homeless veterans. And areas of the Central Valley and the Inland Empire are in far worse shape. It's basically a depression in those parts.
And we are just starting to add a round of painful state budget cuts to increase the economic shortfall. Whether it's closing parks that provide economic benefits, or dropping or cutting aid to 100,000 IHSS recipients, or wiping out the entire domestic violence budget, the cuts will not only force the poor and infirm to slip through the cracks and cause mass suffering and even death, but the economic impact will be profound. Caregivers will lose their jobs. Relatives will shift their schedules to care for their families. Productivity will reduce. It's just a plain fact that lowering public spending during a deep recession will negatively impact the economy. Consumers aren't spending, companies aren't trading and businesses aren't investing. Government is the spender of last resort. And that spending has been slashed.
This week, Remote Area Medical, an organization that got its start providing health care services to the impoverished in the Third World, descended on Inglewood to provide those same services to the most disenfranchised group, from a medical care standpoint, in the industrialized world - the uninsured and underinsured in America.
They came for new teeth mostly, but also for blood pressure checks, mammograms, immunizations and acupuncture for pain. Neighboring South Los Angeles is a place where health care is scarce, and so when it was offered nearby, word got around.
For the second day in a row, thousands of people lined up on Wednesday - starting after midnight and snaking into the early hours - for free dental, medical and vision services, courtesy of a nonprofit group that more typically provides mobile health care for the rural poor.
Like a giant MASH unit, the floor of the Forum, the arena where Madonna once played four sold-out shows, housed aisle upon aisle of dental chairs, where drilling, cleaning and extracting took place in the open. A few cushions were duct-taped to a folding table in a coat closet, an examining room where Dr. Eugene Taw, a volunteer, saw patients.
These were not only uninsured patients, over 1,500 in the first day alone, but underinsured patients who cannot get the services they need with their coverage.
No cable news outlet discussing health care reform and the town halls around it ever get around to mentioning this reality. In the poorest areas of this country, health care access is so nonexistent that people will wait around for days in their cars, driving for sometimes hundreds of miles, to find a volunteer clinic that they now use as their primary care physician. South Los Angeles lost one of its only health care providers when King-Drew Medical Center shut down a couple years back, and really nobody, outside of Remote Area Medical, has filled the breach. This is an absolute tragedy, and at the end of the day, it costs our medical system far more than it would to cover everyone, because nagging problems only served by free clinics every couple years eventually find their way into the emergency room. And the disconnect between this circumstance and those right-wingers yelling and shrieking across the country is striking.
The enormous response to the free care was a stark corollary to the hundreds of Americans who have filled town-hall-style meetings throughout the country, angrily expressing their fear of the Obama administration's proposed changes to the nation's health care system. The bleachers of patients also reflected the state's high unemployment, recent reduction in its Medicaid services for the poor and high deductibles and co-payments that have come to define many employer-sponsored insurance programs.
Somebody should leak to one of the astroturf groups activating the right about these town halls that there will be a major Congressional event over at the Forum in Inglewood, and then sit back and watch their face sink when they show up to protest and instead encounter the horrors of this broken system.
If you look at state economic statistics and the consistently worsening projections as each month of revenue collection goes by, you would recognize that, even if the positive talks on closing the current budget gap result in a deal, the possibility - even probability - of another deficit requiring a revision could take hold as early as this winter. That's what happened last year, and if anything the economy in the state has softened since then. At this time, the value of having a fully seated Senate and Assembly, due to the need for 54 Assembly votes and 27 Senate votes to move anything, becomes even more pronounced. Right now, we are down one Assembly seat owing to Curren Price's move to the Senate (owing to Mark Ridley-Thomas' election as LA County Supervisor last November). The CA-10 race could leave another opening if Sen. Mark DeSaulnier or Asm. Joan Buchanan emerge victorious. And in Los Angeles, an opening on the City Council may cost the Assembly another seat for a period of time.
Los Angeles voters showed a profound disinterest in the civic election in March when just 18% turned out, but there was a virtual stampede of candidates this week to run for the San Fernando Valley seat of former City Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, who won the race for city controller.
The slate of 14 candidates for the Sept. 22 special election reflects the varied geography of the 2nd District, which stretches from Studio City and Sherman Oaks at its southern border, through Van Nuys, Valley Glen, North Hollywood and Sun Valley to the rugged reaches of Sunland-Tujunga at its northern edge [...]
With just two months to raise money, a number of City Hall watchers are eyeing several strong contenders: former Paramount Pictures executive Chris Essel; state Assemblyman Paul Krekorian, a Democrat who lived in Burbank until moving this spring to Valley Glen; and Los Angeles Unified School District board member Tamar Galatzan.
Krekorian, who is an assistant majority leader, moved into the Council District but not out of his own Assembly District (Valley Glen is on the edge) to pursue this seat. If he wins, it probably wouldn't take effect until December 8, assuming that he doesn't reach 50% +1 on September 22. AD-51 (Curren Price's old seat) will have a new Assemblymember by November 3 at the latest, but Joan Buchanan or Mark DeSaulnier could reach the US Congress on the same day, and Krekorian might move to the LA city council and vacate AD-43 soon after. By the time all these special elections shake out, we'll be well into 2010.
All of this shows the need to modernize our system of filling special elections, which always seem to be more widespread in California. Wendy Greuel was elected City Controller back in March. There's little reason to drag out the search for her replacement this long. And if we had Instant Runoff Voting for the first round, we would not need to wait two months for an additional round, paralyzing state and local government and costing the state money in setting up additional elections. In the case of federal and state legislative elections, this is particularly perverse, since the way in which runoffs occur (with the top vote-getter in each party) almost always become useless races where the ultimate victor is well-known from the beginning.
Meanwhile, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jan Perry said she'd "love it" if the Jacksons helped defray some of the city's expected costs associated with Tuesday's memorial, but that officials hadn't heard from the family.
Perry said the city didn't immediately have an estimate of those costs. More than 1.6 million fans registered online for a chance to attend the Staples Center ceremony, and only 8,750 names were chosen. Los Angeles officials are concerned about other fans clogging city streets.
"We're encouraging people to stay away," Perry said on CBS' "The Early Show" on Monday.
I don't think that the city leaders have entirely thought this one through. The shops and restaurants in the LA Live complex around Staples tomorrow will probably set a one-day record. Obviously the city will have to pay out some overtime for cops and the like, and traffic will put a crimp in productivity (don't expect to get anywhere near downtown tomorrow), but overall, the city stands to make money off of this, given the economic activity generated.
The LA Times just released a new poll of LA residents on a number of questions. Today, they released their results on marriage equality:
In the state's continuing political battles over gay marriage, both sides are targeting Latino voters, and a new Los Angeles Times poll illustrates why. Overall, the poll showed, a substantial majority of voters in Los Angeles support the right of same-sex couples to legally marry, with 56% in favor and 37% opposed. (LAT 6/19/09)
In the Prop 8 voting, LA County was almost exactly split, so this is progress. Still, if Prop 8 taught us anything, it's that you have to take polling numbers with a grain of salt. Apparently people like to tell pollsters they are voting for marriage equality, but when they get to actually filling out their ballots they change their minds.
On the crosstabs, we once again see that marriage equality will not be an issue in a few years. Voters 18-29 support marriage equality at a 66-29 clip, voters 50-64 supported at a 55-39 rate. The only group to oppose equality are seniors. Those over 65 are at 43-48.
Along ethnic lines, white voters supported at 68-27, Latinos split 45-46, and African-Americans opposed at 37-54.
All in all, this poll is relatively good news, but there is a lot of work left to be done.
I threw the rest below the fold. Here's the latest update with 65% reporting in CA-32:
JUDY CHU
DEM
11832
33.31
GIL CEDILLO
DEM
8800
24.78
EMANUEL PLEITEZ
DEM
5042
14.2
BETTY CHU
REP
3518
9.91
TERESA HERNANDEZ
REP
2684
7.56
DAVID A TRUAX
REP
1716
4.83
Though the lead continues to shrink, I don't think Cedillo can make up 3,000 votes with what's left out there. Judy just declared victory, I'm told.
UPDATE More votes in, and Chu upped her lead to 3,300 votes with 75% in. It's over. Congratulations to Judy Chu.
...In other races, Carmen Trutanich is going to win the City Attorney's race. He's up 54-46, by over 13,000 votes with 55% of the vote in, and he's been gaining with each update. What a terrible race run by Weiss.
As for Council District 5, it's Paul Koretz 53-47 over David Vahedi, though the spread is just 1,200 votes with 40% in. That's not quite over.
That one was getting long. So here's the deal. 1A-1E are going down.
17.4% precincts reporting
1A: 36.6% Yes, 63.4% No
1B: 40.1% Yes, 59.9% No
1C: 38.6% Yes, 61.4% No
1D: 38.0% Yes, 62.0% No
1E: 37.5% Yes, 62.5% No
1F: 76.4% Yes, 24.6% No
Just to make a point, in the city of Palmdale, a mildly conservative city in LA County, they have Measure B, a transient occupancy tax (hotels), on the ballot. Right now it's passing with 67% of the vote.
Don't tell me this is a repudiation of taxes. It's a repudiation of bad governance.
...Update: 21.9% precincts reporting
1A: 36.7% Yes, 63.3% No
1B: 40.2% Yes, 59.8% No
1C: 38.6% Yes, 61.4% No
1D: 38.0% Yes, 62.0% No
1E: 37.6% Yes, 62.4% No
1F: 76.4% Yes, 24.6% No
Interesting that the measure giving money owed to schools is doing best, ay?
... Brian checks in from the war room with the news that the AP called 1F for the Yes side. Yay! Now the legislators will be REALLY motivated!
Just a matter of time before 1A-1E get called.
...I'm done updating the ballot measures, as it's obvious what's going to happen there. So far LA County has yet to update any totals for the local and federal elections, so we wait.
...Arnold concedes: "We have heard from the voters and I respect the will of the people." Whew, for a second there I thought he was going to institute the spending cap anyway!
You know what he's intimating here, of course. He'll pull out his budget #2 and try to implement it. The May 20th strategy is upon us.
UPDATE by Brian: Check the flip for the No on 1A Press release about the results. Arnold is flying back tonight to have a Big 5 meeting tomorrow. Would love to be a fly on the wall for that one.
...just to update, there have been, um, no updates from the LA Registrar of voters on these local races. Here, pulled up from the bottom, are the results for the top six finishers, I assume among absentees, in CA-32 thus far.
JUDY CHU DEM 6,388 41.98
GIL CEDILLO DEM 2,628 17.27
BETTY CHU REP 1,938 12.74
EMANUEL PLEITEZ DEM 1,233 8.1
TERESA HERNANDEZ REP 1,202 7.9
DAVID A TRUAX REP 1,036 6.81
...Todd Beeton tweets in from Judy Chu HQ to say that people there feel good.
...Finally starting to get some more numbers from LA County.
City Attorney: Trutanich 52%, Weiss 48%. The spread is about 3,200 votes with 12% in.
5th District City Council: Koretz 53%, Vahedi 47%. The spread is about 700 votes with 10% in.
OK. So we'll start with a results thread here. Just to recap, in addition to the statewide special election, here are the other key races today, at least in the LA area:
City Attorney: This is a runoff election between Jack Weiss and Carmen Trutanich. This election got extremely nasty in the final weeks, although they pulled all their attack ads last night and went soft and cuddly for the stretch run. The low turnout probably favors Trutanich. If Antonio Villaraigosa cannot drag his pal Weiss across the finish line, then it speaks volumes about his ability to draw voters in what's supposed to be his local base.
LA City Council 5th District: This is another runoff between former Assemblyman Paul Koretz and neighborhood council leader David Vahedi. This happens to be a very engaged, well-off, activist district, so I would actually expect turnout to be decent, relatively speaking. Progressives have mobilized for Koretz, and most of the competitors in the first round primary endorsed him.
SD-26: Curren Price will be a state Senator by the end of the night, replacing Mark Ridley-Thomas. His Republican opponent is a rabbi, which rules, but I think he was outspent 300:1.
CA-32: This should be a very interesting race tonight, with Judy Chu, Gil Cedillo and Emanuel Pleitez the main competitors. Will Cedillo's nasty, negative strategy pay off? Did the late endorsers to Chu's campaign recognize a trend? Can Pleitez use social media politics to a good showing? We'll see.
...CapWeekly has a pre-analysis of their own for you to all read while we wait out the results. Anthony York thinks Schwarzenegger will tack hard right as a result of this defeat. He has no guiding political principle, so any port in a storm, I guess. I think York's reading the right tea leaves, and success or failure will depend on where the Democrats elected to reflect the will of the people will go.
...18.6% turnout reported for LA County. Remember, there were actual other elections on the ballot out here. Wow, that's just terrible.
1A: 39% Yes, 61% No
1B: 42% Yes, 58% No
1C: 40% Yes, 60% No
1D: 39% Yes, 61% No
1E: 39% Yes, 61% No
1F: 77% Yes, 23% No
The totals are about 1 million votes, presumably absentees at this point. If you are charitable and say that there will be 30% turnout, there are maybe 4-5 million votes left. So I'd say that 20% of the totals or so are in at the very least.
...Another huge dump of absentees. And 13% of precincts reporting:
1A: 37% Yes, 63% No
1B: 40% Yes, 60% No
1C: 39% Yes, 61% No
1D: 38% Yes, 62% No
1E: 38% Yes, 62% No
1F: 75% Yes, 25% No
...First results from CA-32 are in over at LA County's website. Early, but it looks good for Judy Chu. 9% reporting:
JUDY CHU DEM 6,388 41.98
GIL CEDILLO DEM 2,628 17.27
BETTY CHU REP 1,938 12.74
EMANUEL PLEITEZ DEM 1,233 8.1
TERESA HERNANDEZ REP 1,202 7.9
DAVID A TRUAX REP 1,036 6.81
Probably would be in better shape without Betty Chu in the race.
...17% now reporting, and the numbers are basically the same as before.
1A: 37% Yes, 63% No
1B: 40% Yes, 60% No
1C: 39% Yes, 61% No
1D: 38% Yes, 62% No
1E: 38% Yes, 62% No
1F: 75% Yes, 25% No
...briefly on the other elections: with 10% in, Curren Price has 69% of the vote. Carmen Trutanich leads Jack Weiss 51-48 with about 10% of the vote in. And Paul Koretz leads 53-47 with 10% in. These last two will probably go all night.
...Debra Bowen tweets that these are all vote-by-mail ballots reporting right now. If, as expected, they are 40-50% of the final total, everyone can go to bed. Except for Jack Weiss, Carmen Trutanich, Paul Koretz and David Vahedi.
The City of Los Angeles set a goal to get 20% of its power from renewable sources by 2010. The program the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) put in place gives people the choice of whether the money they pay in electrical bills will go to fund coal power, or renewable energy.
We've had less than glowing reviews of the public comments of potential gubernatorial candidates Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom, but there has been somewhat less talk about the other leading potential candidate, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. His re-election performance was uninspired and listless, but that's not a description of his policies.
I have said in the past that the enduring image of Villaraigosa's leadership is a crane in front of a half-finished building. Now we are seeing him tested in a time of crisis. Los Angeles has a close to $1 billion dollar deficit, and he is trying to balance cuts with continued support for labor, and the results have not been pretty. While Villaraigosa led the effort to add a penny to the sales tax for public transit, he has vowed not to raise local taxes to cover the deficit, and as a result, the mayor will cut salaries for city workers almost across the board by 10%, and LA Unified will lay off 5,000 teachers this year.
Los Angeles school district officials moved forward Tuesday with plans to lay off more than 5,000 teachers, counselors, custodians, clerks and other employees, but the battle over funding will rage on for weeks -- affecting who goes, who stays and what schools and classrooms will look like for students next year.
The Board of Education's 4-3 vote, after more than four hours of pleading and debate, closed most of a $596.1-million deficit for next year in the nation's second-largest school system.
"Anger is appropriate and outrage is appropriate," said school board President Monica Garcia, who voted with the majority. "Nobody wants to do these layoffs."
In his State of the City speech last week, Villaraigosa denounced Sacramento lawmakers, yet he supports the same failed propositions that will not address the structural problems with state government, and he did nothing, of course, to move forward on any of those while Speaker of the Assembly. However, he did spend a lot of time in his speech talking about his innovative environmental policies in Los Angeles, which have had an impact.
Villaraigosa denounced the "politics of no" as he called for a green technology hub along the west side of the Los Angeles River to attract new jobs and start-up companies.
"We need to build a future in which clean technology is as synonymous with Los Angeles as motion pictures or aerospace," said the mayor, appearing at the Harbor City factory of Balqon Corp., which manufactures electric big-rigs for use at the city's ports [...]
As a centerpiece of his speech, Villaraigosa reintroduced his plan for a "green" industry corridor just east of downtown that would serve as a spawning ground for environmentally conscious businesses. The speech echoed Villaraigosa's message during his recent reelection campaign, when he promised to make Los Angeles "the greenest big city in America."
Over the last four years, Villaraigosa has pushed the Port of Los Angeles to replace up to 17,000 diesel trucks with cleaner-burning models. And at the Department of Water and Power, he has pressed officials to expand the utility's reliance on renewable sources of energy -- primarily wind, solar and geothermal power.
And that agenda could be scaled up to offer a new economic future for California. Villaraigosa selected longtime green activist David Freeman as his environmental deputy, and as a result you'll probably see some form of solar initiative along the lines of Measure B, which was defeated in March, come into law.
So there are glimmers here. But I will personally never forget Villaraigosa leaving town in 2006 for an 18-day Asian trip in the middle of the Schwarzenegger-Angelides race, and neglecting to even endorse Angelides until late in the campaign (and even then, not in Los Angeles). The Mayor has a few good ideas, has been less successful with the follow-through, and on the big structural issues has offered no vision of reform.
(Bumped. Disclosure: Todd Beeton, who originally bumped this post, is doing blog outreach for Eric Garcetti. Garcetti's blog is here. - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
Last week, I announced the formation of the Los Angeles City Council's Ad Hoc Committee on Economic Recovery and Reinvestment. The goal of the committee is to develop strategies to help Los Angeles win the maximum amount of federal stimulus dollars for which we're eligible and to create a plan for allocating the funding to most efficiently and effectively meet the needs of the city's businesses and residents.
You may recall that in February, President Obama put local governments on notice, calling on us to "spend that money wisely, free from politics, free from personal agenda." That's precisely the spirit in which I convened the first meeting of the committee last Tuesday. At that meeting, we established a set of 9 guiding priorities by which we intend not only to fulfill the president's vision for efficient allocation of the stimulus funds, but also to make Los Angeles the most accountable, transparent, and effective city in moving economic recovery programs forward. We'd like to see these priorities serve as a model for local governments all over the country, particularly in our nation's cities where "urban acupuncture", or the careful targeted allocation of funds to projects that have the most combined benefit, can be used to best effect.
Those priorities are over the flip (edit for space by Brian).
I forgot about this (which is why I'm such a good reporter!), but the White House Health Care Forum in Los Angeles and several satellite sites around California is streaming at HealthReform.gov right now. Todd Beeton is liveblogging at MyDD.
