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. 31 - October 9, 2020

Coronavirus Relief

• A furlough of Los Angeles city workers passed in September would have required 15,000 employees take one unpaid day off every two weeks, amounting to 10% pay cuts. A new agreement reached between Mayor Garcetti and several public employee unions increases the number of workers affected, but reduces the number of days off to only one between now and January 2021.

• After a two-week pause, Californians are once again able to apply for unemployment benefits. It is unclear how successfully the Employment Development Department used the designed pause to address its stated goals of accelerating the clearance of a massive backlog of claims.

Transit

• The city of Downey has released a statement opposing Metro's current plan to widen the 605 freeway, which would require the demolition of hundreds of homes within the city.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• Last Friday, the Ad Hoc Committee on Police Reform met to discuss preliminary steps in developing a plan to divert certain 911 calls away from police and toward specialists in nonviolent crisis management. Pending a vote before the full council, the city will now undertake a search for nonprofit partners who can help them launch such a program.

• A report from the Los Angeles County Inspector General accuses Sheriff Alex Villanueva of maintaining a “code of silence” around the Banditos, a gang of deputies alleged to be operating within the East LA sheriff’s station.

Climate

• In the small city of Vernon, just southeast of LA and entirely zoned for industrial use, an Exide battery-recycling plant has been a major polluter, contaminating surrounding neighborhoods with toxic lead dust. Now, a bankruptcy deal brokered under the Trump Department of Justice may let Exide off the hook for tens of millions of dollars in cleanup costs.
  

Elections

• Don't just take our word for it! Here are more progressive voter guides from KNOCK.LA and LAnd Magazine, (and both go deep on DSA-endorsed candidates Fatima Iqbal-Zubair and Nithya Raman).

• Also in KNOCK.LA: an explanation of why so many activist groups advocate voting No on Prop 25. Though SB-10, which 25 would uphold, would end cash bail in the state, the alternative system the bill proposes is worse, only increasing the leverage of a carceral criminal justice system.

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