Santa Ana clears homeless from its Civic Center, Indio Police Department will deploy drones at Coachella, residents react to a green Silver Lake Reservoir.
A California lawmaker with ties to Trump could be eyeing Paul Ryan's gig
Each week, Take Two looks back at California's most important political stories for the segment State of Affairs. This week:
- House Speaker Paul Ryan is on his way out; now a California lawmaker with close ties to Trump is eyeing his seat.
- Senators Diane Feinstein and Kamala Harris grilled Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg — but their techniques were a little different.
- President Trump requested National Guard troops for California's southern border. On Wednesday, Governor Jerry Brown said "ok," but issued some caveats. Now, they're both calling it a win.
Claremont McKenna's Jack Pitney says it's a calculated move by Brown:
Jerry Brown was trained by Jesuits and Yale Law professors, so he's very good at making fine distinctions, and in this case, the distinction helps him keep California out of the crossfire. If he had flat-out refused, Trump would have said: "he's not standing up against crime." If he had gone with what Trump wanted, he would have come under criticism from the left. This way, he can take a stand against crime and, at the same time, not hurt undocumented immigrants.
Incidentally...
- The Public Policy Institute of California is out with a new survey, and it's deja vu all over again: Gavin Newsom is in the lead, followed by Republican Jon Cox.
Guests:
- Carla Marinucci, senior editor for Politico's California Playbook.
- Jack Pitney, Roy P Crocker professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College
Orange County's Civic Center is no longer a massive homeless encampment
How Los Angeles changed the way we eat out
When you go out to a nice restaurant, you probably expect a cool modern space and a lot of choices on the menu. If the restaurant is particularly high-end, maybe the chef has even been on T.V.
Well it wasn't always that way. Andrew Friedman is the author of "Chefs, Drugs and Rock and Roll." He said that if you went out for a so-called nice dinner 40 years ago, it meant just one thing.
That almost always meant that you were going out for a French meal, and it probably meant that you were dining out on a very similar menu -- duck a l'orange, cassoulet, very standard-issue French cuisine.
Then, in the 1970s and 80s, the way we go out to eat began to change, and Southern California played a big role in that shift, Friedman said.
There were young Americans being drawn to kitchens, creating plated dishes that were unique to them. It started to make cooking seem like something expressive and something personal, something that might make you kind of well known or put you on the cover of a magazine... I think Los Angeles, in terms of how open minded it was, was definitely on the cutting edge. Some of the most inventive food was happening [there].
Friedman laid out some of SoCal's biggest contributions to the food world and the chefs behind them.
California Cuisine
Before the cooking style had even been given a name, California cuisine was being pioneered by a lesser known SoCal chef. Bruce Marder may not be a household name, Friedman said, but perhaps he should be.
Marder had the technique and the inventive California spirit to create food with a wide range of influences, Friedman said. At his restaurant California Cafe, which later became the West Beach Cafe, Marder was trying it all, from salads to salsas, and his duck tacos became the stuff of legend. Now California cuisine has come to mean a lot of things, but it can be defined as a lighter cooking style with a diverse list of dishes, Friedman said.
Multi-Cultural Menus
When Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken started City Cafe in L.A. in the 1980s, they had a more traditional French menu, Friedman said. However, the two women quickly branched out from that. They would travel to different countries and bring back their favorite dishes to serve in their restaurant, Friedman said. Feniger and Milliken were ground breakers with their eclectic international menu that put Mexican street food next to Indian samosas.
L.A. was also one of the first cities where chefs were opening multiple restaurants with different styles of cooking, Friedman said. Marder, for example, followed up his California cuisine-focused West Beach Cafe with a modern Mexican venture called Rebecca's Restaurant.
Restaurant Design
Modern art on the walls, outdoor seating, and the open kitchen are all design trends that started in SoCal, Friedman said.
Michael's Santa Monica played a big part in changing how restaurants look, not just how they cook, Friedman said. Michael himself wanted to move away from the stuffy, fine-dining image so he dressed his waiters in colorful Ralph Lauren uniforms, not black ties and put half of his dining room outside.
Celebrity Chefs
Now we're used to seeing chefs on T.V., Friedman said, but when Wolfgang Puck starting making regular appearances on Good Morning America, it was a novel idea.
Puck has a great personality, Friedman said, but he was also an incredibly talented chef and his skills in the kitchen were what made him famous. He first job was at the French Bistro, Ma Maison, which he helped turn into a Hollywood hotspot in the 1970s. Puck then went on to start his first flagship restaurant, Spago, which became the start of a culinary empire.
13 fantastic things to do this Friday the 13th weekend: April 13-15
UCLA launches crowdsource fundraiser for immigrant students
There's no doubt about it, getting a college education is expensive. It can be tough for anyone to afford.
But many of California's immigrant students face even greater challenges on a variety of fronts, and those challenges have shifted under new White House immigration policies.
In response to the evolving needs of the university's foreign-born students, UCLA launched a fundraising campaign to help called #UCLAForAll.
The campaign aims to help specifically undocumented students, but also those who are under DACA or at UCLA under students visas and affected by current travel restrictions.
Abel Valenzuela serves as Special Advisor to the Chancellor on Immigration Policy. He works with fellow faculty, administrators, and students to come up with ways to help students get to graduation day, regardless of immigration troubles.
Highlights from Abel Valenzuela's interview on Take Two:
Studying while undocumented is even more expensive
Many undocumented student's don't receive full funding from the campus and that's because there are restrictions on what sorts of funds undocumented students might receive from the state of California. And it also depends on your status. So, I good number of undocumented students have about 40 percent of their financial aid unmet.
Changes in immigration policy created a demand for more resources
We would be augmenting resources that UCLA already invests. This heightened issue has just added additional costs and additional anxieties. So it's causing more students to seek counseling or legal services. This crowdsourcing campaign will help full that gap.
UCLA plans to share their strategy for dealing with immigration challenges with other schools
This is something that is serious and real and UCLA, I am proud to say, is taking a lead. And we are also working with other private as well as public institutions to share what we're doing so that we growing this effort to other campuses. We know that other campuses are concerned about this matter as well.
The Silver Lake Reservoir is turning green and smells weird, but don't freak out
Los Angeles East-siders have noticed the water in the Silver Lake Reservoir is looking a little more green than before.
The reservoir doesn't actually provide drinking water anymore. It's been sequestered from the water system for years.
Still, news reports quoted residents alarmed by the color, and who said they noticed a smell coming from the water.
https://giphy.com/gifs/1nPCJf44goZvCNllOb
Silver Lake residents on the reservoir's greenish hue
On our visit to the reservoir, discerning eyes did register a change. People we spoke to described the water as "aqua," "blue-green," and "atypical." But the tone was less alarmist, and more in keeping with the simple appreciation of the natural landscape.
Others didn't even notice.
Most who did were not concerned.
"This is Silver Lake so I’m sure there’s a lot of people that are overreacting," said Danielle, a local resident who declined to share her last name. "But I think that its normal for bodies of water to change color."
The wildlife also appeared to take the change in stride.
So, should we freak out?
In a word: no.
“Change in color is to be expected as we go through the seasons," said Jonathan Leung, Assistant Director of Water Quality for LA's Department of Water and Power.
"We’re getting a lot more sunlight this spring and summer and so nutrients that are in the water will start to form into other types of wildlife including algae. And ultimately, there will be aquatic wildlife, grazers and plankton that form, and then those will die off in the fall and winter.”
But don't panic when you hear about algae. That’s not to be confused with the toxic algae bloom that can be harmful to an ecosystem. Leung says there’s nothing dangerous with this run-of-the-mill algae growth.
The notable difference in color has more to do with the water finding its balance after the reservoir was drained in 2015. “I think what we’re seeing right now is a contrast between when we recently refilled the water with distribution-system-water and it’s kind of returning to its natural state now,” said Leung.
DWP typically tests the reservoir every week or two, but they’ve done so four times in the last week, just to quell concerns.
But what happens if toxic algae does appear?
DWP has a handful of emergency procedures if dangers do befall the Reservoir, ranging from earthquakes to toxins. “Mother Nature really takes care of it pretty well," said Leung. "But if for some reason we need to intervene, we can do some type of chemical treatment such as chlorine or other mechanisms."
Maintaining a still body of water will demand some structural updates in the long run though. "We are going to build a system that if there is some type of oddity or intervention required, we will have better capability with some infrastructure to do that," said Leung.
So in Silver Lake, at least for the time being, it appears you can still enjoy scenic walks with the dog - green water and all.