Los Angeles Times: D.A. called out county supervisors on jail vote that violated state law

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey appears at a news conference on June 29, 2015. Lacey sent a letter to county supervisors last week saying that their vote on a jail plan had violated the state’s open meetings law. (Mel Melcon)

By Abby Sewell
August 19, 2015

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey notified the Board of Supervisors last week that their vote on a controversial downtown jail plan violated the state’s open meetings law, the latest in a string of incidents in which the board has run afoul of the Ralph M. Brown Act.

In a letter sent last Thursday and released to The Times on Wednesday, Lacey told the board that its Aug. 11 vote on the jail plan did not comply with the Brown Act, which requires that officials give the public adequate notice when they plan to discuss an issue so that anyone can participate.

The board voted last week to move forward with the design and construction of a new 3,885-bed jail to replace the dilapidated Men’s Central Jail.

But the jail plan did not appear on the publicly posted agenda before the meeting. Instead, the supervisors added the vote to an item on the agenda involving a new multimillion-dollar program to divert mentally ill criminal defendants from county jails.

Lacey headed up a task force focused on the diversion issue. The Brown Act letter, written by Assistant Head Deputy Sean Hassett, advised board members that the item that appeared on the agenda “involved implementing a comprehensive jail diversion plan, and made no mention of the jail construction projects, thus violating the public’s right to be notified.”

The letter asked the board to “cure and correct this violation at its earliest convenience by setting the matter on an agenda for proper reconsideration and discussion.”
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The Lou Desmond & Company Show: Children Grow Up in San Bernardino Motels, CA Pensions, and Donald Trump’s Success

Monday, August 17, 2015 – 05:00 p.m.

The Lou Desmond and Company Show is broadcasting from the Toyota of San Bernardino Recording Studios!

On the show today, Estimable Economist Jay Prag joins Lou on the show. First, NPR featured a story about children in San Bernardino who grow up in motels described as “meth addict summer camp.” What do stories like these do for the city’s image?

After that, there are proposed changes for the state’s pension funds. Is there a reason that public employees pensions shouldn’t be altered? Or after the market crash should they take a cut like private sector workers? Finally, why is it that Donald is resonating with likely voters?

To listen to the full show, click here.

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The Washington Post: Backers fear old weaknesses stalk Clinton campaign

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks at the Iowa Democratic Wing Ding at the Surf Ballroom Friday, Aug. 14, 2015, in Clear Lake, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel) (Charlie Riedel/AP)

By Anne Gearan, Karen Tumulty and Dan Balz
August 15, 2015 at 9:03 PM

It was supposed to be different this time. After the wounds of 2008, many of them self-inflicted, Hillary Rodham Clinton rebooted for 2016 with a new message, new advisers and new energy.

But two dynamics have crystallized this month, suggesting the New Hillary is hobbled by old weaknesses. Once again, worried supporters see signs of a bunker mentality in response to bad news about her e-mail server and other controversies, and they see a candidate who can seem strangely blinkered to the threat posed by a lesser-known challenger.

“A lot of the people who were hired by the campaign were new to the Clintons,” said a prominent Democrat who counts both Hillary Clinton and former president Bill Clinton as friends. “I kind of assumed it would be different. But it hasn’t changed.”

That Democrat and other supporters requested anonymity in order to discuss the shortcomings of a candidate whom they still overwhelmingly support and think can win the White House. Several supporters said that while no one is pulling the fire alarm, they see worrisome patterns emerging.

Among them: insularity, rigidity and a sense that the operation is tone-deaf to changes happening around it.

The concerns come as Hillary Clinton is weakened by forces both within and outside her control, allies outside the campaign said. And if her campaign is doing some things well — raising money and organizing in early states — Clinton has not been able to shake off basic questions about her skills as a candidate.

Her campaign has been slow off the mark in responding to the surprising surge in national support for Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, several Democrats said. That’s one reason Vice President Biden and his allies are pondering a challenge to Clinton.

Meanwhile, the confusing saga of Clinton’s private e-mail system took what many Democrats saw as a chilling turn last week, with more news about the FBI’s investigation into the potential mishandling of classified material on Clinton’s home computer server. Clinton is not the target of the investigation but, in the words of one Democrat, no one wants their candidate’s name in the same sentence as “FBI.”

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InlandPolitics: The Clinton Slow-Drip Update

Tuesday, August 18, 2015 – 10:00 a.m.

Here’s the latest from the Hillary Clinton slow-drip, death by a thousand cuts, political blowout.

The number of emails containing potentially classified material jumped from 60 to 305 late Monday. To read the article published in The Washington Times, click here.

The 17,855 emails related to a close advisor to Hillary Clinton, the State Department said never existed two years ago, have now materialized. To read the article at Breitbart.com, click here.

This never-ending saga and cover-up isn’t ending anytime soon.

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The Sacramento Bee: Dan Walters: California has big housing shortage

By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
August 8, 2015

• California needs at least 150,000 new units a year
• Current production is just two-thirds of that
• Should developers be required to provide low-income housing?

California’s severe housing crisis is easy to describe – supply too low, prices too high.

The state’s population is still growing, albeit slowly, and as it adds about 350,000 bodies each year, it needs at least 150,000 new units of housing to keep pace.

We’re not meeting that standard. Housing construction, as high as 213,000 units in 2004, plummeted to 36,000 in 2009.

It has since rebounded somewhat and now approaches 100,000 units, mostly rental apartments, but that’s still well short of demand.

Therefore, the demand-supply gap still widens, particularly in coastal areas. Both prices of single-family homes and rents have skyrocketed, hammering low- and moderate-income families.

During the 2010-14 period, for example, Los Angeles County’s population grew by nearly a quarter-million, but it added fewer than 40,000 housing units. During the same period, San Francisco, despite its geographic limitations, grew by nearly 50,000, but built fewer than 10,000 housing units.

The obvious solution would be to build more housing.

However, as a recent report from the Legislature’s budget analyst, Mac Taylor, points out, our development and construction costs are very high.

Moreover, many coastal communities are very hostile to new projects they see as generating more traffic and other environmental effects.

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Los Angeles Times: L.A. will transfer airport ownership back to Ontario

Los Angeles and Ontario battled for years over ownership of LA/Ontario International Airport. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

By Dan Weikel
August 5, 2015

After years of litigation and contentious negotiations, Los Angeles has agreed to transfer ownership of struggling LA/Ontario International Airport back to the city of Ontario, The Times learned Wednesday.

The deal reverses a 30-year-old acquisition and marks a retreat from the vision of Los Angeles’ airport agency as an ascending, regionwide air travel powerhouse with major branch operations in the Inland Empire and Palmdale.

The high desert airfield, once planned as a sprawling “intercontinental jetport” by L.A. officials, was never completed and was turned over to Palmdale officials two years ago.
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The tentative agreement with Ontario calls for Los Angeles World Airports to be reimbursed for its investments in the facility, job protection for the facility’s 182 employees and the settlement of a lawsuit in which Ontario sought to regain control of the airport.

The Inland Empire city allowed Los Angeles to operate the airport beginning in 1967 and handed over ownership in 1985 on the condition that L.A. officials do their best to attract airlines to the facility.

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After the number of annual passengers dropped from 7.2 million in 2007 to 4.2 million in 2012, Ontario sued, alleging that Los Angeles mismanaged the airport and violated its agreements. L.A. airport officials denied the allegations, blaming the decline on the worst economic recession since World War II.

The lawsuit was scheduled to go to trial Aug. 17 in Riverside County Superior Court.

Returning the airport to Ontario will require approvals from the Federal Aviation Administration and multiple local government agencies, a process that could take a year, sources familiar with the deal said.

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Los Angeles Times: After years of scandal, L.A. jails get federal oversight, sweeping reforms

By Cindy Chang and Joel Rubin
August 5, 2015

Capping years of scandal, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has agreed to federal oversight of its jail system in an effort to end abuse of inmates by sheriff’s deputies and to improve chronically poor treatment of mentally ill inmates.

The agreement announced Wednesday establishes an independent monitor, overseen by a federal judge, who will make sure the reforms are carried out. Richard Drooyan, a former Los Angeles Police Commission president who served on a blue-ribbon commission that was highly critical of Sheriff’s Department operations, was appointed as the monitor.

The move comes as federal prosecutors continue to pursue criminal charges against several sheriff’s officials, including the department’s former second-in-command — Undersheriff Paul Tanaka. Prosecutors already have won convictions against deputies accused of abusing inmates or of obstructing federal investigators looking into jail violence.

Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies use electronic devices to log the location of each inmate in the High Observation Mental Health Housing unit in the Twin Towers Correctional Facility.

Last June, federal officials stated their intent to seek the agreement in a strongly worded report that described a spike in jail suicides, many of which they termed “preventable.”

Sheriff Jim McDonnell, who took office in December and previously served on a citizens’ commission on jail violence, says he welcomes federal oversight of the nation’s largest county jail system. Many of the reforms required by the settlement are completed or well underway, he said.

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