Thorn West would like to platform its own interviews with local activists, agitators, etc. Suggestions, and volunteers, welcome as always. Email [email protected]!\
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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. 113 - June 17, 2022
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- As mail-in ballots continue to arrive in Los Angeles County, the updates from this week have been positive almost across the board. The big news is that DSA-LA–endorsed candidate for city council Eunisses Hernandez took the lead over incumbent Gil Cedillo on Tuesday. That lead has widened with today’s update; she would win the seat outright if the lead holds. DSA-LA’s other endorsed candidate for City Council, Hugo Soto-Martinez, has widened his lead heading into a runoff with incumbent Mitch O’Farrell. Progressive candidates Kenneth Mejia, Faisal Gill, and Karen Bass have also widened their leads in their respective races. Live results here include additional little morsels of good news.
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- Los Angeles City Council passed a motion, plainly targeted at the unhoused, that prohibits the number of bicycles and bicycle parts that can be stored on public property. The motion’s supposed intention is to break up bicycle “chop shops,” though as Councilmember Nithya Raman pointed out while opposing the motion, stealing bicycles is already illegal. The new motion empowers the police to harass people by criminalizing normal activity that proponents have asserted correlates with bike theft. The motion passed 13-3 (with the unsurprising support of Cedillo and O’Farrell), and will receive one final vote next week.
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- An 8-1 Supreme Court ruling has curtailed a legal work-around, unique to California, that allowed employees to sue their employers even when they had waived those rights and agreed to resolve disputes solely through private arbitration as part of the terms of their employment.
- Smithfield Foods is closing its pork processing plant in the city of Vernon, citing “the escalating cost of doing business in California,” without further clarification. Smithfield was fined $100,000 following large-scale COVID outbreaks at the Vernon facility in 2020.
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- Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE) pushes back on Olympics boosterism in the LA Times, arguing that the public transportation projects that have been tied to the Olympics schedule are more likely to be privatized and rushed.
- Relatedly, SoFi stadium in Inglewood has just been approved as a site for the 2026 World Cup. Think Outside the Ball details the “human and moral cost.”
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- A coalition of tribal, environmental, and community groups has withdrawn its support for the Los Angeles River Master Plan, approved by the LA County Board of Supervisors this week. The group called for more naturalization of the river, with less concrete, and criticized the county plan as, in the words of one spokesperson, “nothing more than a flood control channel.”
- The “net metering” debate has reopened to the public, following outcry in reaction to a California Public Utilities Commission proposal to lower subsidies for customers who install solar panels, who tend to already be higher-income. Utility Dive explains the different issues that remain unresolved.
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