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.
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Issue No. 16 - June 26, 2020
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- Union del Barrio, with support from Black Lives Matter, organized a protest in Gardena with the family of Andres Guardado, an 18-year-old Latinx man killed by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputies on June 18. The sheriff’s deputies were not wearing body cameras and reportedly seized security camera footage before obtaining a warrant. The protesters marched from the location of the shooting to the Compton sheriff’s station. At a press conference on Saturday, the LASD claimed that none of the six to seven cameras they took had memory cards, and that they do not have any footage.
- State lawmakers reached an agreement with Governor Gavin Newsom on Monday that found workarounds to avoid some of the deep cuts Newsom had called for in schools and social service spending.
- Following an 11-hour meeting, the LAUSD school board voted on Board member Monica Garcia's motion to defund the Los Angeles School Police Department. Black Lives Matter-LA held a demonstration outside the meeting in support of Garcia’s motion. However, the motion failed by a vote of 4–2, with one abstention. Three of the board members appeared staunchly opposed to the newly vocal opposition to the school police, including George McKenna, whose own proposed bill “reaffirming the role of LASPD in ensuring safe, peaceful, and respectful engagements on our campuses” was repeatedly praised by the numerous police officers who spoke during public comment. The fourth “no” vote came from Jackie Goldberg, who attempted to craft a compromise motion that would place some restrictions on police behavior, and that was later amended to include a $20 million budget cut. This motion, and McKenna’s, also failed. Ultimately, the four members of the board who supported school police reform, and among them held the votes to pass a motion, could not come together.
- The Los Angeles City Council passed a motion carving out $100 million of Los Angeles’ federal aid to establish a tenant relief fund. The fund would make rental payments to landlords on behalf of tenants who could demonstrate financial hardship due to an economic or health impact from COVID-19. The fund is expected to last through October.
- The City Administrative Office has found and itemized $139 million in cuts to the LAPD budget, and that budget has passed out of committee. This number is short of the $150 million in cuts that were initially proposed by the mayor, which was already orders of magnitude less than the 90% cut called for in The People’s Budget. Despite the council's warm reception for People’s Budget LA at a special meeting last week, the two sides remain far apart in their immediate goals. One caller into public comment said the smaller cuts feel “more like showmanship than a commitment to real change.”
- The Metro board is beginning the process to overhaul transit policing. The Alliance for Community Transit flooded the public comments in support of the strongest proposal, and the board passed four motions that include a mandate for Metro to review ways to revise transit police’s use-of-force policy and to find ways to reallocate resources to homeless services. A new advisory committee will also be created to implement alternatives to armed police for nonviolent matters including unhoused outreach, while a motion filed by Councilman Mike Bonin mandates revisions to Metro’s mutual aid agreement to prevent LAPD from using Metro buses for transporting detained protesters as they did at the onset of police brutality protests a month ago. But Metro is still a long way from any budget cuts, as its $130-million-per-year contract with LAPD does not expire until 2022.
- LA County has only secured enough hotel rooms through Project Roomkey for about 4,000 of the estimated 15,000 unhoused residents in the county who are considered medically vulnerable to COVID-19. Meanwhile, LAHSA has proposed an $800 million, three-year program to permanently rehouse these 15,000 through a “combination of bridge housing, rental subsidies and rehousing services.” But the source of this funding is unclear and could require diverting funds from other housing projects.
- California is not on target to meet its goal to reduce carbon emissions by 40% by 2030. The state, led by EPA Secretary Jared Blumenfeld, is now reevaluating it’s cornerstone strategy to fight climate change: The cap and trade program, a system that sets an overall cap on greenhouse gas emissions each year but offers flexibility in how companies achieve it by allowing them to buy and sell pollution credits in auctions.
- On Thursday, the California Air Resources Board voted unanimously to adopt a landmark rule that will require the majority of trucks sold in California to be zero-emission by 2035, putting California at the forefront of US climate policy. California’s Air Resources Board hopes the new measure will improve local air quality, rein in greenhouse gas emissions, and lessen the state’s dependence on oil. Oil companies and the farming industry opposed the measure, calling it “unrealistic, expensive and an example of regulatory overreach.”
- Despite the surge in coronavirus cases, many LA County residents are struggling to get testing appointments. Officials said the shortfall is due to reducing the number of testing sites and appointment slots, and the county will now open an additional 12 testing sites on Monday.
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- In the last two decades, police unions in Los Angeles have spent at least $64.8 million on payments to city council members and state legislators, as well as lobbying costs to influence law enforcement policy and thwart pushes for reform. Police unions from all around California have also poured over $2 million into helping Jackie Lacey, a staunch ally of police, in her district attorney race.
- Relatives of Alex Flores and Daniel Hernandez, who were killed by LAPD officers in late 2019 and April 2020, led a protest outside Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey’s home on Saturday to demand that she charge the LAPD officers who shot them. Amidst these protests, Representative Adam Schiff's rescinded his endorsement of Lacey, while, Lacey’s challenger George Gascon won an endorsement from Senator Elizabeth Warren.
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