From ponchos to pink slips - will city officials crack down on #OccupyLA? Governor Brown's proposed pension reforms. Knowing your medical mind. LAUSD & UTLA battle over Public School Choice as outside groups push for broad reform. Anita Hill re-imagines home and the American dream.
From ponchos to pink slips – will city officials crack down on #OccupyLA?
Protesters at Occupy LA have been camped out at City Hall for more than three weeks. Dozens of tents cover the grounds, and for a long while Los Angeles City Council didn't just look the other way, it expressed gung-ho support with a formal council resolution. Now it looks as though occupiers may be over-staying their welcome.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Wednesday the encampment "cannot continue indefinitely." He has directed city officials to propose a new location for the demonstration. Occupy LA has responded in a statement: "As for a time stamp on our departure, there is none.... We are resolved to continue our peaceful occupation."
How long will the peace sustain? Earlier this week, police in Oakland cracked down on the occupation movement there. A nasty scene with riot squads and tear gas led to even more unrest.
WEIGH IN:
Could the same scene play out at Los Angeles City Hall? What laws are protesters breaking? Why haven't those laws been enforced over the past few weeks? Where would the movement relocate? Would occupiers comply? How long could this go on?
Guest:
Carmen Trutanich, Los Angeles city attorney
Richard Alarcón, Los Angeles City Council member, 7th District – Covering the northeast section of the San Fernando Valley, the 7th City Council District includes the communities of Pacoima, Lake View Terrace, Panorama City, Mission Hills, North Hills, and Sylmar
P.J. Davenport, activist with OccupyLA; freelance television and multi-media producer
Governor Brown's proposed pension reforms
Governor Jerry Brown is warning that the state can no longer afford its current employee pension system, and he’s holding a news conference today to lay out proposed changes. Some of the revisions are subject to legislative approval, others would go on the 2012 ballot; most are in line with those he outlined last March and would combine elements of traditional guaranteed pensions with a 401(k)-style plan.
Some major changes include raising the benefit age for new employees from 55 to 67, prohibiting retroactive pension increases and banning pension payments for anyone convicted of a work-related felony. He also wants to put an end to two common pension-boosting practices: giving workers pre-retirement raises, known as “spiking” – and “air time,” which allows employees to buy extra credit.
Some of these revisions come from the GOP camp and could serve to alienate Brown’s labor supporters. The unions representing public workers have made several pension-related concessions in recent years, and their leaders have vowed to fight to preserve existing retirement benefits. Republicans, who have been hammering at the pension system for years, are happy that Brown is embracing some of their ideas, but fear the changes won’t go far enough to pull the state back from the financial brink.
WEIGH IN:
Will the governor’s proposals chill relationships with his labor supporters? How would these changes affect the public employee workforce? Will new hires be able to save enough for their future under the new plan? Could raising the retirement age result in higher health costs for the state? Are the revisions too little, too late? Will this plan save California from, as one fiscal watchdog group put it, “going the way of Greece?”
Knowing your medical mind
When it comes to your health, are you a maximalist or a minimalist? A believer or a doubter? Do you lean towards naturalism or technology? These are all key aspects of your medical mind – your own prescription for making medical decisions.
Between our doctors, the internet, friends and family we’re deluged with medical advice. How do we choose which path to take? Do you rely on statistics, seek out new therapies, shy away from side effects? Do you trust your grandmother’s remedies over the latest drug-of-the-moment? In their new book, Drs. Jerome Groopman and Pamela Hartzband share the stories of people making big decisions – options for battling cancer, choosing between statins or lifestyle changes to treat high cholesterol, interpreting their loved ones’ end-of-life preferences – and explore the belief systems and experiences that shaped their choices.
The decision to watch and wait, rather than have a new type of surgery, may have more to do with your own tolerance for risk than your confidence in the surgeon. This book doesn’t tell you what medical decisions to make. But it does offer some insight into how and why you make those decisions, and that knowledge, the authors say, may help you to have more confidence in your choices.
WEIGH IN:
Do you trust your medical mind? Could understanding the medical choices you make improve your health - even save your life?
Guests:
Jerome Groopman, M.D. and Pamela Hartzband, M.D., authors of “Your Medical Mind: How to Decide What is Right for You”
LAUSD & UTLA battle over Public School Choice as outside groups push for broad reform
Leaders from the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and the United Teachers Los Angeles union (UTLA) have been in closed-door discussions this week. What exactly they’re negotiating remains a bit of a mystery.
The 3-year teacher contract expired this past June. But according to UTLA, full contract negotiations haven’t yet begun. The primary focus seems to be about Public School Choice (PSC), which allows outside groups to apply to take control of failing schools.
In August, the school board agreed to keep charter schools out of the next round of Public School Choice. Insiders say that in return, the board hoped that UTLA would agree to a district-wide reform contract by November 1. But will they? And if not, what other proposals are on the table?
Meanwhile, several outside groups, including The United Way, The Urban League, Alliance for a Better Community, Families in Schools, Asian Pacific American Legal Center and Communities for Teaching Excellence, have joined the fight to pressure both UTLA and LAUSD to “stop putting the interests of adults ahead of children.” The groups are pushing for changes largely supported by Superintendent John Deasy, such as giving schools more freedom to do their own hiring, making student achievement part of any teacher evaluation process, raising the bar on tenure eligibility and allowing bonuses and raises for high-performing teachers. Even if Deasy supports these reforms, it remains to be seen how various board members will respond.
WEIGH IN:
What – if anything – will be agreed to by Nov. 1? Do LAUSD board members support Deasy’s proposals? Or might some fall towards UTLA? How are rank and file union members responding to all this? Will student test scores become part of how we grade teachers? We’ll talk with the top dogs in the fight, Superintendent John Deasy and UTLA President Warren Fletcher.
Guests
:
John Deasy, superintendent of Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD)
Warren Fletcher, president of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA)
Anita Hill re-imagines home and the American dream
The topic of sexual harassment became the focus of a national debate on Oct. 11, 1991 as lawyer Anita Hill testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that she had been sexually harassed by then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. The committee and the Senate ultimately decided to confirm and appoint Thomas, who has held the post for the past two decades.
Since then, Hill said she received over 25,000 letters mainly from supporters on what the Thomas hearings meant to them. Her testimony sparked a debate on sexual harassment and gender inequality in the workplace. Her experience and those letters inspired her to write her new book, “Reimagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race, and Finding Home.”
In her book, she expounds on how much of our access to opportunity is defined by where we live. She says it determines for many people the kind of schools their children will attend and whether or not they will have access to quality, healthy food. In particular, she uses the foreclosure crisis that many Americans have taken a hard-hit from, to call for a new understanding about the importance of home and its place in the "American Dream." She uses various stories to talk about discrimination in predatory lending practices, and how inequality needs to be addressed by the current administration.
WEIGH IN:
How does the subprime mortgage crisis shed light on inequality in America? How has the economic meltdown affected our conception of the "American Dream"? Does the "American Dream" exist for everyone? What does equality mean to you?
Guest:
Anita Hill, author of "Reimagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race, and Finding Home"; professor of social policy, law, and women's studies at Brandeis University
Professor Hill will be in conversation with KPCC’s Patt Morrison tonight, Thursday, Oct. 27th at 7pm at the Los Angeles Public Library, downtown. More info can be found here.