All The Details You Need To Understand The LA School Strike. And Other News
By
LAist Staff
Published Mar 21, 2023 6:30 AM
Rally sign at the UTLA and SEIU99 Rally in Downtown Los Angeles
(Ashley Balderrama
/
LAist)
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Los Angeles Unified campuses are mostly closed to students today as some 65,000 workers and teachers go on strike to demand higher wages and benefits. The walkout is is expected to last through Thursday, unless the district and the union, SEIU Local 99, can reach a deal. That seems unlikely.
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Yesterday, the two sides were supposed to go into confidential mediation but it fell apart. Max Arias, the union’s executive director, said that was because school district officials shared it with the media.
“We want to be clear that we are not in negotiations with LAUSD,” Arias said. “We continue to be engaged in the impasse process with the state."
This shutdown has been looming since last month when L.A. school workers, including cafeteria cooks, nurses and custodians, voted to go on strike and the teachers’ union, United Teachers Los Angeles, said they’d join in solidarity. Mariana Dale has all the details here.
These school closures will affect more than 400,000 students, but there are wider ripple effects as well, forcing parents to shift work schedules and employers to adjust. District and city officials have responded with resources for parents: online activities, food pickups, supervised rec centers and even the L.A. Zoo will allow free admission to students. Here is a list of all that is expected to be made available here.
As always, stay happy and healthy, folks. There’s more news below — just keep reading.
In addition the rain, it's expected to get pretty windy out there today. Here's some extra details and tips on how to navigate the storm.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is considering new rules ahead of the eviction moratorium scheduled to sunset March 31. If passed, the motion would prohibit landlords from terminating a residential tenancy without cause, among other measures. We break down what this means for renters.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has traveled all over the state, talking up plans for reforms in mental health, homelessness and criminal justice. Here are some of the big takeaways from his four-day tour.
Cases of colorectal cancer — and deaths due to the cancer — are rising among younger people. Here’s what you should know about screening for it and protecting yourself.
Amazon is laying off another 9,000 employers as the technology sector contracts. The layoffs are expected to happen over the next few weeks and will affect cloud platform departments, advertising and the Twitch video service.
Twitter's communications email went dark after mass layoffs late last year. CEO Elon Musk announced this weekend that it now responds to press inquiries with a single poop emoji.
*At LAist we will always bring you the news freely, but occasionally we do include links to other publications that may be behind a paywall. Thank you for understanding!
Wait! One More Thing ... The Extra Hoops And Extra Costs Affordable Housing Builders Face In LA
Monopoly board with view of the game's most affordable properties
(txking
/
iStock.com)
In this third installment of a four-part series on the construction of affordable housing we first brought you last week, LAist’s Ted Rohrlich examines why it costs so much to build an “affordable” unit in L.A. County.
These apartments, funded with federal tax credits, are averaging around $600,000 to complete. If that sounds like a lot to you, it probably should. But answering the question of exactly how out of line the costs are is complicated. Affordable housing developers shoulder costs that market-rate housing developers don’t face.
“No one in their right mind would do what we do,” said Steve PonTell, then president and CEO of the nonprofit development firm National Community Renaissance of California. “Market-rate development is easy compared to some of the hurdles that [we] have to jump.”
The big question is whether these extra hoops make it more expensive to produce affordable housing compared to regular market housing — where developers don’t have to reveal their costs. To learn more, read Ted Rohrlich's latest article here.
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