Buscaino and Sheriff turn Boardwalk into political circus

By John Seeley, Venice Reporter

The Venice Boardwalk, long viewed by some visitors as a low-key freak show, transformed in June into a full-fledged three-ring political circus when a long-shot, would-be mayor, a troubled sheriff and foes of the Westside’s city councilman kicked off their 2022 campaigns a year early, drafting Venice’s beachside tent-dwellers as the menace or symbols of “anarchy” they will run against.

District 15’s Los Angeles city councilman, ex-policeman, Joe Buscaino of San Pedro, chose the Boardwalk as the site for an early launch of his run for Los Angeles mayor on June 7. Buscaino used the locals as props as he announced his plan for a “safer Los Angeles” that would build more housing but also “must engage every measure available” — including arrests — to clear the homeless from parks and other public spaces. He cited two recent incidents of nearby violence, although the perpetrators had not been identified as boardwalk residents, and urged the shutdown of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, better known as LAHSA, whose policies had, in his view, failed badly. His press conference was attended by dozens of indignant locals holding Walk, promising holiday fireworks by clearing the boardwalk by July 4. In tweetwars and other heated exchanges with Bonin and County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl — neither of whom were notified of his appearance or plans — he condemned their oversight and asserted his right, as top local law enforcement authority, to substitute his own forces for a “handcuffed” LAPD.

While Venice homelessness will be a continuing problem for Bonin and an ongoing talking point for Buscaino, Villanueva has set himself a shorter timeline for resolving problems, which may be self-defeating, considering the host of obstacles he faces.

Among the practical obstacles are a lack of interface with local service agencies that unhoused people know, some of them are openly hostile to what they consider “grandstanding.” Venice Family Clinic CEO Elizabeth Forer told KCRW June 14 that the sheriff isn’t trying to solve the issue — he’s “trying to score political

By June 17, the military tone of Villanueva’s debut strutting had softened, and LASD troops evolved into a pizza posse, dispensing lunches with or without pepperoni; conversations on housing was also optional. At an adjacent free haircut service in the same parking lot, a persistent deputy sealed the deal during his trim with a young tent-dweller, who agreed to relocate to a Salvation Army shelter 20-some miles away in Bell. The posse’s half-day harvest was only three campers, even though two dozen deputies and other outreach personnel were on duty. Next week, said Lt. Geff Deedrick, his LASD outreach team will be on the beach three mornings, but at this week’s rate of progress, the homeless census wouldn’t change much.

The sheriff also faces challenges from activists, including StreetWatch and People’s City Council, who demonstrated against the park closure and evictions at Echo Park Lake, plus members of the Venice Justice Committee, all of whom have been handing out “know your rights” flyers and discouraging divulging information to deputies. A Twitter storm was launched June 18 with hashtags #VillanuevaOutof Venice and #VillanuevaMustGo. Activist coalitions sent a letter to the Board of Supervisors the same day demanding they defund the sheriff’s HOST program and transfer resources to community services.

Beyond passive resistance, there may be legal action pending. While the sheriff’s authority may trump that of the LAPD, he is as vulnerable as the City of Los Angeles to limits imposed by the U.S. District Court, 9th Circuit, whose 2018 Martin v. Boise decision holds that anti-camping ordinances aren’t enforceable, if adequate shelter beds aren’t available for those displaced.

Villanueva may have handed opponents additional ammo in his June 9 comments that out-of- state beach residents were special targets:

“We’re coming for you,” he said on his Facebook chat. “You do not belong here in LA County … you need to pack up your bags and head back to the state you came from.”

This statement has echoes of the Depression era, when another local lawman, LAPD Chief James “Two-gun” Davis, erected a “bum blockade” on the state border in 1936 to turn back “Okies” in their jalopies seeking refuge from the Dust Bowl. That was ruled unlawful by the state’s attorney general’s office. Courts, attorneys say, would recognize no distinction between the rights of destitute locals and those from other states, or any authority to deport “alien” Nebraskans or New Yorkers.

Whatever happens by July 4, the homelessness issue will continue as a key factor for the political fortunes of Bonin, Buscaino and Villanueva. But recent polling suggests that the latter two may have misread public opinion on homelessness. An April survey commissioned by AIDS Healthcare Foundation found the issue at the top of voters’ minds – 79% considered it “very serious” — but that doesn’t mean they favor sweeping the unhoused away. Most Los Angeles voters ( Black and Latino voters strongly) also show compassion towards the unhoused, with 54% blaming rising rents and inadequate wages over poor personal choices (31%) as the primary cause of homelessness. A survey of 2000 Los Angeles County residents by Loyola Marymount University’s StudyLA project early this year found that people are against — by 61 to 39% — clearing encampments unless substitute shelter is offered. Two out of three respondents would endorse supportive housing for the homeless in their neighborhood, a finding perhaps related to the fact that

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ings, the CRC will present an overview of the redistricting process, legal considerations, outreach efforts, public access plan, and a timeline. Public input is valuable. These hearings are important for receiving public comments and input from communities of interest. Members of the public are welcome to make live comments at the public hearings or submit public comments ahead of time at, www.docs.google.com/forms/publiccomments You can attend more than one public hearing. If you are unable to attend the scheduled public hearing for your area, please attend another or submit a written comment.

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Opportunities for Empowerment: Creating Real People, Real News, Totally Relevant LGBTQ+ Inclusive Workplaces To commemorate Pride Month, Controller Ron Galperin is hosting a discussion in his Conversations with the Controller series featuring civic, business and nonprofit leaders in the LGBTQ+ community. Scheduled for June 24, the event will highlight how the different sectors have worked to uplift LGBTQ+ employees and eliminate barriers to advancement, while also recognizing the important and practical work that remains to be done. Time: 5 p.m. June 24 Details: www.us02web.zoom.us/meeting/ register/conversations

Families Should Expect Child Tax Credit

Monthly Payments Beginning in July

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Nanette Diaz Barragán encourages all Los Angeles County families to be on the lookout for advance monthly payments of the Child Tax Credit of up to $300 per month per child, beginning July 15th and continuing through December.

Nearly all families should get their monthly payments automatically, beginning July 15, with no further action required. Families who did not file a tax return for 2019 or 2020 and who did not use the IRS Non-filers tool last year to sign up for the Economic Impact Payments should go online and use the IRS Child Tax Credit Non-filer Sign-up Tool at www.irs. gov/child-tax-credit-non-filer-sign-up-tool.

To determine eligibility or check the status of payments and more check at www.IRS.gov/ childtaxcredit2021 later this month. 15th District City Councilman Joe Buscaino’s fans asking the councilman to save them on the Venice Boardwalk. Photo by Brittany Murray

“SAVE US JOE” signs, and much amplified in the media when an unhoused 19-year-old woman who dropped a hunting knife at the periphery of the gathering was detained by Buscaino’s security detail and arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department.

“I am grateful for my safety, the safety of the public,” said Buscaino later that day after being whisked away; “I am convinced now, more than ever, that bold action is needed to make our city safer for everyone.”

The young woman, charged with possessing an illegal dagger and released that evening, said she carried it for defense against rapists, and had no idea who Buscaino was.

Within the Buscaino rally was a preview of Ring Two, the recall campaign against Los Angeles Councilman Mike Bonin, who is detested by many Venice residents and businesses for supporting a “bridge home” blocks from the beach. Recall proponents were there in force, but Bonin was not served with formal recall papers until June 15, eight days later.

Later on June 7, the Big Top opened when Los Angeles Sheriff Alex Villanueva — facing shaky prospects for a second term after a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, or LASD, killing of an unarmed Latino teenager, refusal to meet with the Oversight Committee and feuds with the inspector general and county supervisors — suddenly appeared for a photo op on Ocean Front points … stirring up people,” and “just popping up …without coordinating with anybody.”

Six other community groups joined the clinic in a joint “Get-lost” statement. (Others, including Venice Neighborhood Council members and the Venice Chamber of Commerce, countered with a statement backing the sheriff, but these groups have little sway among the tent-dwellers.)

In lieu of local partners, LASD opened their contacts with the unhoused through flyers promoting SHARE! Collaborative Housing, offering “A Solution, Starting at $550” [per month] for room-sharing in private homes. SHARE! does offer a range of supportive services for people with mental health challenges, substance use issues, and peer counseling, say its program director Jason Robison and outreach worker Tom Haberkorn, but they have only two homes in the Westside area. While there will be openings elsewhere in the county, many spaces are committed to locals, and expecting much aid from SHARE! by July 4 would be “a really heavy lift,” says Robison.

The following week, LASD had less to say about SHARE! Instead, a woman using a wheelchair and a 20ish young man were sent to Salvation Army shelters in faraway City of Bell, while another man was placed in a rehab facility. A majority of the tent residents I met in Week 2 had not spoken with deputies, some avoiding encounters, others simply refusing to talk.

Lumbruno said that Creech told her this was how people got shot by police, by going to get guns from their cars. Lumbruno said she does not own a gun.

Morales continued to argue with Lumbruno for several minutes, and before he and Creech left, he said that he would give her a ticket if he saw her feeding the cats again.

[Buscaino, from p. 6] Buscaino

57% worry that someone in their household may face homelessness.

For the central players in the drama, the days since June 7 have had mixed results. Buscaino scored a small plus with the introduction of his dump LAHSA resolution to city council, co-sponsored by retiring Councilman Paul Koretz. Bonin suffered a setback with the service of the recall petition.

Bonin called the campaign “a thinly disguised attempt to derail my efforts to provide real solutions to our homelessness crisis, and the latest in a series of recall attempts to silence strong progressive voices.” (One was also filed against fellow progressive Nithya Raman, the co-sponsor of the softer, service-oriented approach to homeless sweeps the council adopted unanimously in April.)

Villanueva took a major hit when the Los Angeles County Democratic Party that put him in office voted by a 10-1 margin for his resignation, citing the shot-in-the-back LASD killing of security guard Andres Guadardo as well as long-standing management problems. Whether this inhibits Villanueva, or convinces him he has nothing to lose, remains to be seen.

As for the unhoused Boardwalk residents, little has changed, and most are adopting a wait-and-see attitude. “Got nowhere to go,” said army vet Jack on Thursday — “I’ll hang in as long as I can.”

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“I’m out there trying to help, you know, help the hopeless, these poor animals,” Lumbruno said. “It’s just so sad. And here, the Port Police are giving out tickets and they’re calling it littering because there is no ticket for feeding cats.”

Lumbruno confronted Creech about it at the June 15 meeting of the Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council.

“There was no one ever in danger of getting shot in the neck,” Creech said.

Lumbruno recorded the conversation, but did not issue a formal complaint with the Port Police until June. Since then, the Port Police have interviewed her multiple times about the incident. The Port Police are conducting an internal investigation based on her complaint, said Lt. Philip Heem. Life Mission

Lumbruno began caring for stray cats about two years ago, but in that time has re-homed hundreds of cats. She also feeds them and traps them so that she can bring them to the vet for neutering, or any other medical care they require.

“I do the best I can,” Lumbruno said. “Everything comes out of my own pocket, my time … it’s like a life mission. It’s kind of a love-hate thing, it really is a lot of work.”

Lumbruno’s involvement with strays started when she found a severely injured cat in her parking lot. She brought it to the vet and found out about other people who helped cats.

“I couldn’t find where it came from,” Lumbruno said. “But I did find a couple people that were taking care of cat colonies that looked like my cat, so that’s kind of how I got involved.”

Despite her encounter with Port Police, Lumbruno still feeds three cats that live in lots E and F. It’s a large, open space without many human visitors, with lots of thick, tall grass that hides them well. There used to be seven cats; Lumbruno found homes for four of them, but these were simply too wild.

Lumbruno isn’t the only person overseeing the well being of San Pedro’s feral felines. She said she is among about 10 people who have taken on this responsibility, but emphasized that they do not operate as a formal group.

“We all have our little areas that we work on,” Lumbruno said. “And we’ll help each other out. And if somebody’s sick, or on vacation or whatever, we’ll feed [their cats]. And we also help trap, because it’s hard to trap by yourself.”

Lumbruno gets some funding from a nonprofit called Healing Arts Haven for Animals, which pays when the cats need said. “They’ve either gotten run out by another colony of cats, or they’re dumped, or lost, and they just kind of establish a little living area.”

Oftentimes another cat will join and have kittens with the existing cats. Then those kittens grow up and have their own kittens, and their kittens will reproduce as well.

“It’s terrible; it’s a vicious cycle,” Lumbruno said. “It’s from us; it’s from humans. … They’re not wild animals, they’re not out there by themselves. They’re out there because they were either dumped or lost.”

Lumbruno uses a three-step process called trap, neuter and return, or TNR, for feral cats. After capturing a cat, Lumbruno and others will assess how tame it is. If it is really feral, it would not be able to live as a pet.

“Sometimes we just have to put them back in the area,” Lumbruno said. “Like the ones in The Whale & Ale parking lot; I have not been able to find a spot for those two.”

There are places that will care for feral cats, but they tend to be very expensive, costing about $3,500 to $4,000 per cat. The money covers food and medical bills for the rest of the cat’s life.

She usually has no trouble finding homes for kittens. Even if they are born feral, if they are caught young, they are easily domesticated.

Not everyone Lumbruno has encountered while taking care of cats has been supportive.

“A lot of people hate cats,” Lumbruno said. “They hate that you feed the feral cats and they just want it to go away, and they don’t care.”

Gina Lumbruno preparing to trap area cats, so she can bring them to the vet for spaying or neutering. Photo by Chris Villanueva

vet visits, including neutering. Everything else comes out of her own pocket.

“I pay for all the food, and whatever else they need,” Lumbruno said. “And they eat a lot, because when they’re out there running around … they burn up a lot of calories.”

Lumbruno also feeds two cats that live around The Whale & Ale parking lot, as well as a group of seven cats in the parking lot of Kalaveras — two of the seven have already been fixed. Lumbruno can tell because the tip of one ear has been clipped in both, which is a way of marking strays that are fixed. They are part of something Lumbruno calls a colony.

“A colony is usually one or two cats that have either been dumped, or came from another area,” Lumbruno

What the Headlines Don’t Explain About Racism

By James Preston Allen, Publisher

With Juneteenth just now being made a federal holiday, one would think that America is making great strides in being less racist — systemically or otherwise. And as much of a milestone as this appears to be and as much as the recent recognition of the Tulsa massacre is — making Juneteenth into a federal holiday will no more cure racism in America than Veterans Day stops us from going to war again.

You see, since the Civil War and the passage of the 14th Amendment, the battle ground has been and continues to be about voting rights — as in who gets to vote and who doesn’t. What most high school history books don’t mention are the means by which the South resisted Reconstruction following the Civil War. History books don’t delve very deeply into the racially-based violence perpetrated against African Americans at that time. Terrorism was used to end Reconstruction and suppress the Black vote and install an aparthied system that we have colloquial called Jim Crow. Through the intervening years, the argument over voting rights has mostly been an argument between powerful white men over whether Black people, women and other people of color should have the same rights as they do. Frequently, challenges to white supremacy were met with violence, extra judicial lynchings and murders by white people. If you have any doubts about this, just search history of race riots in America and educate yourself.

Immediately following the Civil War, political pressure from the North called for the full abolition of slavery. The South’s lack of voting power led to the passing of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, which in theory granted Black-Americans and other minority males equality and voting rights. Although federal troops remained in the South to protect these new freedoms, this protection was withdrawn as a compromise to ensure the election of

Rutherford B. Hayes as President in 1877. By the time this compromise was made, the North had lost its political will to protect voting rights in the name of reconciliation with the South. The continued existence of the Black Codes and the emergence of segregation helped erase most of the freedoms guaranteed by the 14th and 15th amendments.

It took nearly another 100 years of struggle to restore full voting rights to all Americans. For the majority of Americans (60.7% non-hispanic white) this history has been ignored, purged or not taken into account as it doesn’t seem to reflect their history. In other words we can’t be held liable for what our ancestors may or may not have done to your ancestors. I can tell you that when I was growing up in Southern California and going to a nearly all white high school, nothing was taught about racism even as civil rights issues were on the news nightly. If not for my parents’ political activism, reading Soul On Ice by Black Panther leader, Eldridge Cleaver and an unfortunate trip to Washington, D.C. on the very night Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, I too, might have been oblivious to the plight of communities of color.

Like many of my generation, my consciousness was born of this era. The Watts insurrection, the Vietnam War demonstrations, the flagrant police abuse and the criminalization of drugs all amounted to a systemic oppression that is still embedded in our laws and institutions today. These are the issues that the Black Lives Matter demonstrations confront. This is what Critical Race Theory analyses and Stacy Abrams in Georgia exposes. This is what Fox News, Ted Cruz and others on the far right try to deny.

As I watched from afar last summer, memories of another time came back to haunt me like a ghost from the past, whispering in my ear “the past isn’t dead. It’s not even the past.” A new generation has emerged, and they have ripped the rag off the faces of the old white guys who continue to stand in the way of progress. The times are still a changin’ Mr. Dylan, but “the wheel’s still in spin.”

So don’t try to fool yourselves about the current struggles over voter suppression in many states, the Arizona recount supporting the “Big Lie,” and the filibuster of voting rights legislation in the U.S. Senate this week are all attempts at resurrecting Jim Crow. That we here in Southern California have remained ignorant to much of this history was only revealed by the recent recognition of the tragedy of Bruce’s Beach. Our story, in this regard, is not so unique.

Here in the San Pedro Harbor Area, whose chapter of the Ku Klux Klan violently attacked ethnic dock workers attempting to strike for better conditions under the Wobbly banner — those dockworkers adopted the motto, “An injury to one is an injury to all.” This motto was later adopted by the International Longshore Workers Union a decade after the mass incarceration of the IWW unionists and the arrest of noted author Upton Sinclair at San Pedro’s Liberty Hill in 1923. This history is memorialized at the monument of the same name near 5th Street and Harbor Boulevard. The building, which housed the KKK headquarters, still stands on 10th Street — a silent reminder of our forgotten history. Yet, here we are left with this uncomfortable legacy and the statue of Stephen M. White down by Cabrillo Beach.

For many in Los Angeles, there will be this faint sense of regret for the past without any recognition of the present as they protest the homeless camps on the Venice Boardwalk or at Echo Park. The thing is, the past is still hiding in plain view, right in front of us, as we drive past the unsheltered encampments here in the wealthiest state in the union.

What the homeless stats attest to is that some 34% of the 64,000 living on our streets are African American. This, in a county where the total population of African Americans is 7.9%. Just let that sink in for a moment.

The causes of homelessness are many and the answers are few. Providing shelter will end homelessness. It won’t cure racism.

Should America Outlaw Homelessness?

“Housing First” is the solution that has been embraced by countries around the world. Time to repudiate the failed Reaganomics experiment and take it seriously again here in America

By Thom Hartmann

America has a massive homelessness problem. We could solve it in a decade or less with a simple solution that has worked very well in Japan, Denmark, Singapore and even parts of Canada.

Simply outlaw homelessness.

Not as in “make homeless people outlaws”: we’ve already done that. It hasn’t worked particularly well.

What I mean is to mandate the federal government end homelessness. And the easiest way to do that is to house the homeless and insure that others don’t fall into homelessness because of health or economic crises.

Homelessness, after all, simply means people without homes. The solution? Give them a place to live.

Anyone old enough to remember can tell you that before Ronald Reagan cut funding for public housing and Section 8 subsidies by half in the first year of his first term, there wasn’t much of a homelessness problem in America. Reagan justified this and subsequent cuts in a speech saying that homelessness in America was a choice.

But, prior to Reagan, homelessness was so rare in the US that, as Henry Graber noted for Slate:

A 1976 history of low-income housing in America made the impossibly foreign

[See Homelessness, p. 9]

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DC Dems need to learn a lesson from Texas progressives

When the Texas GOP majority attempted to ram a racist and unAmerican voter theft bill through the Texas House, it was the Democratic minority who dramatically walked out of the capitol to stop the bill from passing.

Many of the leaders of that group were Our Revolution-endorsed candidates, and we couldn’t be prouder. This victory is a great example of why our grassroots organizing is so damn important — to take on the GOP’s growing extremism, we need bold progressives, not corporate Democrats.

Washington D.C. Democrats should take note of the courage of what we just pulled off in Texas.

Even with a minority, we showed a heck of a lot more spine than the corporate Democrats allowing the filibuster to block all progress.

Jim Hightower,

Austin, Texas Trump Attacked Me Constantly

Throughout much of his presidency, Donald Trump attacked me constantly — literally hundreds of times on Twitter, in interviews, even during meetings with foreign heads of state. He accused me of treason, said I should be investigated, and that someone needed to “do something” about me.

I always wondered whether his constant badgering of his Attorneys General to go after me would cause them to do so. I never imagined I would need to be concerned about such things in this country — that was the stuff of petty dictatorships, not the United States of America.

But last month, I learned that Trump’s Justice Department secretly subpoenaed records from Apple that pertained to me, one of my colleagues on the Intelligence Committee, members of my staff, and family members, even a minor child. Then they got a gag order so that we would not know. This is unprecedented.

Already, the Department has agreed to an Inspector General investigation into what appears to have been a partisan effort to go after vocal critics of the president and using the Justice Department to do so.

It is shocking and appalling, and yet, not at all surprising.

For years, first Jeff Sessions and then Bill Barr badly politicized the Department, to the point where the former president could call for his allies, like Roger Stone and Mike Flynn, to have their sentences reduced or their cases dismissed entirely, and the Justice Department would do so. He also wanted to use the Department to go after his perceived political enemies.

The harm Trump did to the Justice Department, where I served with pride for six years, will last more than a decade. We must do a full assessment of the damage, and develop stronger guardrails to protect the Department’s independence in the future.

But this week’s revelations also remind me just how grateful I am to you. For your support. For your faith. And for your help during those terrible four years and since.

Adam Schiff, Congressman

28th District, Calif.

[Homelessness, from p. 8] Homelessness

observation that “the housing industry trades on the knowledge that no Western country can politically afford to permit its citizens to sleep in the streets.” The word homeless, in those days, was used mainly to describe persons displaced by war or natural disasters.

Reagan famously cut taxes on rich people (the top 74% income tax bracket dropped to 35%) and homelessness exploded. And the taxes haven’t gone back up, and homelessness has gotten worse.

Today a third of homeless people in New York City, for example, are families with children. One-in-three of those homeless families include an adult who has a job.

Finland just declared they intend to end all homeless in that country over the next six years. They’re giving rooms, apartments and homes to homeless people — without preconditions that they get a job, get sober, or anything else. They just get a home. Everything else follows that.

It’s an international movement, in fact, called Housing First, kicked off in the 1980s by Canadian psychologist Sam Tsemberis, that has been adopted in cities and towns on three continents.

The Finns estimate that simply giving homeless people housing will cost the country 15,000 Euros per year per homeless person less than the current cost of jails, emergency medical services, courts, crime, etc.

Housing the homeless in America will require building or acquiring housing for homeless people who are capable of taking care of themselves, and providing mental health services and institutions for those who are so impaired they can’t care for themselves.

The problem here is that having government house the homeless involves the government spending money, which means we’d have to raise that money by increasing taxes, which means that the billionaires who control the political systems of most of America loudly object.

Morbidly rich people, after all, don’t have to interact with homeless people on the streets or worry about homeless people peeing in their yards or breaking into their houses in search of food or things that can be sold to acquire food.

This isn’t rocket science.

Just give people housing. And run our economy in ways that working people at the bottom of the economic ladder are making enough money to be able to afford to live in the communities where they work.

Wealthier democracies around the world have largely done it by purchasing or building those homes and apartments and providing housing to people who have none.

We did it here in the 1960s with LBJ’s Great Society programs that cut poverty in this country about in half in a decade. Until Reagan destroyed them.

We talk about homelessness in America as if it’s a normal state of nature or the predictable outcome of the human condition. It is neither.

Homelessness is the consequence of greed, pure and simple. Greedy wealthy people who the Supreme Court allowed to own politicians and then refuse to pay their fair share of taxes.

If we could just get past that Republican obstacle, we could end homelessness here in the U.S., too.

People who are homeless because they are mentally ill or addicted need a place to live and mental health services. People who are homeless because of poverty need housing and either a good job or a reasonable subsidy.

Yes, it may involve directing money and resources to a few people who are “unwilling to work“ and thus would be deemed by Republicans as “parasites.” A healthy society can afford a few such people; the quality of life for everybody else will improve so much it’s actually a great investment, as the Finns have shown.

“House the homeless” and “Make sure working people can afford a place to live.”

It’s a simple solution that has been embraced by countries all around the world. Time to repudiate the failed Reaganomics experiment and take it seriously again here in America.

Thom Hartmann is the #1 progressive radio talk show host in the U.S. and a New York Times bestselling author. He publishes the Hartmann Report, an independent daily podcast. Tax Rates And big Pharma Profits

Almost a decade ago, Occupy Wall Street appeared on the scene. It quickly adopted class language and pointed out that the top 1% had tripled its income over the past three decades while most everybody else’s remained stagnant.

US Uncut activist and professor Paul Bucheit sent out letters to conservative economists asking them to either defend, explain or justify this. He received one response (from Thomas Sowell).

Perhaps with ProPublica’s recent discovery that America’s richest 25 people paid paltry or no taxes over the past 20 we should start asking them to justify, defend or explain why Michael Bloomberg and ditch diggers are at the same tax rate.

And let’s not stop there. According to another recent piece on Truthout, the amount Big Pharma has paid to its shareholders during the pandemic is enough to buy vaccines for the entire population of Africa. This is an industry that benefits handsomely from government research. Why is this happening? We deserve answers.

Steve Varalyay

Torrance

As you know, The Beacon House Association of San Pedro is a long-term residential recovery program for men seeking to end their addiction to drugs and alcohol. In addition to evidencedbased clinical treatment we follow the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous as well as offer career and social skills development programs. All of this comes at no charge to our residents or their families. We do not require insurance.

We understand the complexity of homelessness and the diverse set of needs required to move toward a solution. Beacon House offers any man the time he needs to build a foundation of sobriety and to develop the career and social skills to find purposeful work. Beacon House is not the answer for every man, nor do we claim to be the end all and be all for men living on the streets.

Our door is always open.

We have residents from across all of LA City and have had men from 39 states, two U.S. territories, and two foreign countries find their way to Beacon House.

Our phone number is 310-5144940x880 for intake.

Mitch Harmatz

Executive Director, The Beacon

House Association of San Pedro Department of Labor Announces Proposal to Protect Tipped Workers

WASHINGTON, D.C. — On June 21, the U.S. Department of Labor announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to limit the amount of non-tip producing work that a tipped employee can perform when an employer is taking a tip credit. The proposed rule clarifies when an employee is working in a tipped occupation and when a worker has performed such a substantial amount of non-tipped labor that an employer can no longer take a tip credit and must pay the full federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour to the worker. The proposed rule also clarifies that an employer may only take a tip credit when tipped employees perform labor that is part of their tipped occupation. It also clarifies that if an employee performs work that directly supports tip-producing work for a substantial amount of time that worker is no longer performing labor that is part of the tipped occupation.

The department invites comments from the public on the proposed rule at www. regulations.gov. The comment period closes Aug. 23.

Prieto, another East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice organizer said.

Carlos Ovalle, vice president of the River Park Coalition, also called it “the embodiment of environmental racism,” going on to say: In the nearly 50 years since I moved to

Long Beach I’ve seen my friends, neighbors and family members suffer the consequences of pollution resulting mostly from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Please end this project. My mother passed away in my arms vomiting blood running from the inside out because of two different types of cancer.

Please end this project. My father passed away in my arms desperately gasping for air, asphyxiating slowly like a fish out of water from pulmonary fibrosis. Please end this project. My four younger brothers and myself suffer from leukemia, brain cancer, kidney cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, asthma, endocrinological and neurological disorders. None of this is hereditary. It is due specifically to environmental damage from the pollution due to shipping and transportation.

There was one lone voice who spoke in support of the SCIG, Chris Wilson with Los Angeles County Business Federation.

“Our ports have seen significant measurable increase in trade activity during the pandemic that underscores the crucial need for infrastructure improvements, [specifically, the SCIG],” he argued.

But Ovalle disagreed.

“Please end this project,” Ovalle said. “It exists only to facilitate shipping and commerce that in the

Paola Dela Cruz-Pérez, youth organizer with East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice. File photo

end has but one purpose: to create exorbitant profits for the few at the cost of our health and our life.” Missing and Outdated Data

Both NRDC and AQMD drew attention to outdated data in the revised draft EIR, as did Andrea Hricko, a retired professor at the USC Keck School of Medicine, who has commented at SCIG public meetings since the 2000s. And Jesse Marquez, founder and executive director of Coalition For A Safe Environment, drew attention to absent emissions data about the full work cycle of trucks servicing the SCIG.

“You are using your models and not actually identifying all the sources that we have identified in the past public comment periods over the past seven or eight years,” Marquez said. “For example, your project emissions baselines are underestimated and they did not include the 1,000plus truck trips a day coming from their point of origin. They are leaving all over Los Angeles County, Orange County and wherever they’re coming from, and those distances and those emissions were not included.”

Additional trips to get fuel and pick up empty chassis are also ignored.

“There are in Wilmington, for example, over 100 container storage yards and many of the storage yards also store chassis,” he noted. “Many of those containers must also be fumigated.”

This adds even more mileage that has never been included in POLA’s models. But overlooked changes drew even more attention.

“We note that changes in the circumstances under which the SCIG project was analyzed in the 2013 Final EIR have occurred, and new information is available and should be analyzed,” AQMD’s MacMillan said.

“The port attempts to correct its earlier CEQA violations by providing an ‘updated’ ambient air quality analysis and cumulative impacts analysis. But both are unreliable and misleading because they rely on out-of-date information and are not supported by common sense,” NRDC’s Jonas-Day said.

“First, the air quality analysis relies on baseline data from 2010, eleven years ago. This is illogical and results in misleading conclusions,” she explained. “Many changes have occurred since 2010 that are relevant to the analysis — from changes in the entities operating at the project site to changes in regulations affecting air quality. For example, the 2010 baseline conditions include significant emissions from the operation of Cal Cartage at the proposed project site, even though Cal Cartage is no longer in operation there.”

Hricko went into this analytic lapse in greater detail.

“In 2019, POLA issued a lease to the Toll Group, which was to employ only one third of the workers Cal Cartage was to have, meaning fewer truck trucks and less emissions,” Hricko said. “I sent emails today to dozens of Port of Los Angeles staff asking if the Toll Group was actually in full operation at the old Cal Cartage site and how many employees it currently has. I got no responses except for one POLA staff person telling me I should file a formal California Public Records Act request to get that information. Without knowing today’s situation, we cannot know if truck counts and initiated action are still correct 10 years later.”

This isn’t the only example of crucial missing data Hricko cited.

“It’s relevant to the port’s honesty to note that in late April, the port suspended one of its monitoring sites,” Hricko stated. “Suspiciously, it was the one that the port admits has the highest emissions at the port. I’ve been stonewalled by port staff asking why it’s suddenly depriving the public of this critical emissions information. What is the port trying to hide from the public, anyway?”

Jonas-Day cited further data problems as well.

“Second, the revised air quality analysis attempts to provide more detailed information about the timeline of ambient air pollution impacts in the surrounding community by using six ‘benchmark years,’”she said. “But this fails a common-sense test because two of the six ‘benchmark years’ for which the agency predicts expected air pollution effects from the SCIG project have already passed. The port should revise its analysis to reflect the

[News Briefs, from p. 4]

To help address the problem of affordable housing, Standard Communities has partnered with the City of Carson and CSCDA to bring broader affordability to the Union South Bay Apartments. Under a state program, the rent levels for these units will be set at 35% of household income at 80% to 120% area median income levels making the units accessible to working professionals.

At 615 E. Carson Street in Carson, the Union South Bay Apartments were completed in 2020. It comprises two five-story buildings on an approximately five-acre site and has 357 units. In addition, the mixed-use community features more than 28,000 square feet of commercial space. Details: www.ci.carson.ca.us/content/files/ pdfs/housing/

LA County May Keep Dining Al Fresco LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn said that outdoor (or al fresco) dining should be one of the things restaurant-goers hold on to after the pandemic subsides. Supervisors Hahn and Kathryn Barger co-authored a motion to support two state bills: one on outdoor dining and the other to expand liquor licenses.

The Supervisors voted June 8, to support state bills SB 314 and AB 61, expanding outdoor dining in California and making expanded liquor licenses permanent, respectively.

The board will also be developing guidelines for a permanent outdoor dining program in Los Angeles County. Barger and Solis also offered a second motion directing the county’s CEO to come up with guidelines for expanding outdoor dining options and helping restaurant owners transition to permanent plans.

LA County Expands Mental Health Crisis Response Teams LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors June 8, passed a proposal by Supervisor Janice Hahn and co-authored by Supervisor Kathryn Barger to expand the county’s Psychiatric Mobile Response Team or PMRT program.

Los Angeles County’s Psychiatric Mobile Response Teams are teams of unarmed mental health professionals who respond directly to a person experiencing a mental health crisis. Twenty-five Psychiatric Mobile Response Teams operate across the county, between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., and 12 teams operate between the hours of 5 p.m. and 2 a.m. and on weekends. The average response time is often two hours and the teams are not available to respond between the hours of 2 a.m. and 8 a.m. — limiting their ability to be a viable alternative to law enforcement.

The motion does two things to expand the county’s Psychiatric Mobile Response Team network.

First, it asks the county to develop a plan to expand PMRTs to be available 24/7 before 2022.

Second, it asks the county for a plan to use new federal funding available through the American Rescue Plan to expand and improve the PMRT network to respond to crises across the county faster.

The effort to expand these teams comes just one year before the first nationwide mental health crisis hotline, 9-8-8, launches in summer 2022. Dialing 9-8-8 will be an alternative to 9-1-1 and will connect people with the Psychiatric Mobile Response Teams when necessary. Details: www.ile.lacounty.gov/SDSInter/bos/ supdocs/pmrt