The Thorn West is a state and local news roundup compiled by members of DSA-LA. Our goal is to provide a weekly update on the latest developments in state and local politics, and to track the issues that are most important to our membership.

Issue No. 154 - April 21, 2023

City Politics

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

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

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

Housing Rights

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

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

Incarceration

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

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

Transportation

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

Labor

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

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

Environmental Justice

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

• (Last week’s Thorn was mistakenly only emailed to 57 people but it’s here for completists!)