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. 121 - August 19, 2022

City Politics

• A united front of unhoused people and advocates once again obstructed a vote to expand 41.18 zones. This week, Los Angeles City Council escalated the confrontation with the public, bringing riot police to the meeting, ejecting people for going over their public comment time, and clearing the chambers when activists shouted down councilmembers. Two arrests were made and a bobblehead fell off of a desk. The motion passed 11–3 again, with only the three councilmembers opposed staying in chambers through the recess. In the aftermath, numerous councilmembers who voted for the (likely unconstitutional) measure lashed out, as if their own choices had been exonerated, or at least made immaterial, by the breach in decorum, and they could safely focus only on what they felt had been done to them. @UnrigLA makes the valuable point that the most recent council, chaired by Herb Wesson, though ideologically similar, was able to gracefully hear out criticism.

• In an interview in Capital and Main with incoming councilmember Eunisses Hernandez talks about her plans once she is seated in December, and touches on 41.18 and the protests: “I’m an organizer. My background is in trying to persuade and move the government to do the right thing. Part of that has been to stop meetings. It’s a tactic.”

• Activists were able to dismantle a significant length of the fence around Echo Park Lake, repurposing it as a statement on behalf of community self-determination. It was reconstructed as a fence the next day. At a CD 13 candidate forum, DSA-LA–endorsed challenger Hugo Soto-Martinez and Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell discussed the fence, along with other issues related to the environment.

• DSA-LA members have voted to endorse an additional round of candidates and ballot measures for the November elections! These are: Estefany Casteñeda for Centinela Valley Union HS District Board Member, Ricardo Martinez for La Puente City Council, Rocio Rivas for LAUSD School Board, and the Los Angeles City ballot measure United To House LA.

• The Empowerment Congress West Area Neighborhood Council voted to request that Heather Hutt, who currently serves as the “caretaker” of CD 10 but is not able to vote along with city council, be officially appointed to the seat. CD 10 has been largely without representation since the indictment of Mark Ridley-Thomas and subsequent court intervention blocking the interim appointment of Herb Wesson. The Los Angeles Sentinel is covering.

• The second attempt to put a potential recall of Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón on ballots has failed. Whistleblowers in the recall committee have alleged that personnel systematically forged signatures on unsigned attestation forms.

Labor

• The dancers at Star Garden, a Los Angeles strip club, have filed a petition to unionize with Actors’ Equity, which represents stage performers. The petition follows months of protests staged outside the club after a number of workplace safety concerns went unaddressed.

Transportation

• The Healthy Streets L.A. initiative has officially qualified for the 2024 ballot! If approved by the public, this would compel the city to comply with its own Mobility Plan, installing bike and bus lanes whenever it repaves streets. The city council, in response, has drafted its own watered-down version of the measure. Streetsblog LA compares the two, while Streets For All, which drafted the ballot measure, urges the public to support the original version in the critical next few weeks with the following tool kit.

• A ban on cars along a dangerous stretch of road in Griffith Park, piloted after the death of a cyclist, has now been made permanent.

Environmental Justice

• A NASA-funded study published on Monday showed that “dry lightning,” or lightning without rain, has been a driver of the increasingly destructive California wildfires, and is more likely to occur under climate change conditions.

• Governor Gavin Newsom sent a memo to the heads of both California legislative chambers pushing legislators to enact a slate of proposals strengthening the state’s climate goals. But with the legislative session ending on August 31, there is some question as to whether the governor’s goals are realistic.