Republicans expect San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer to help them gain ground, what USC can do to combat gentrification label, new coffee shop is focused on LGBT community.
San Diego Mayor makes his case for a "new California Republican"
Earlier this week, San Diego mayor, Kevin Faulconer, spoke about his vision for the "new California Republican."
"It's time to offer California a GOP with broad appeal again," Mayor Faulconer said. "Because a vibrant competitive Republican party is good for our state."
Mayor Faulconer's vision for the party includes policies he thinks the GOP should embrace and what individuals they should better serve.
"Clearly, he has his eyes on the potential for moving up in some sort of statewide role," Michael Smolens, government and politics reporter for the San Diego Union Tribune, told Take Two's A Martinez.
While Mayor Faulconer has dismissed the notion of running for governor, Smolens said that the San Diego mayor's party has embraced the idea of him expanding his influence.
"I think the Republicans are also tired of losing. California is becoming bluer and bluer by the day. There's no statewide GOP official in the office now. He still obviously wants to be a statewide player and maybe help form a real change in the California Republican party."
Quotes have been edited for clarity.
To hear the full conversation, click the blue player above.
Are young people's views on race really that different from their parents?
The racial violence in Charlottesville has a lot of people wondering why race relations in this country continue to be so fraught.
With each generation, the country shows signs of making progress, then racial tensions boil over yet again, causing us to question that assumption.
As diversity increases, the Brookings Institute reports the millennial generation will play a big role in transitioning America into the 'minority majority' nation it's supposed to become in 2044.
But is this increased diversity translating into less racism among younger generations?
Take Two spoke with Peter Levine, associate dean at Tufts University's Tisch College of Civic Life.
To listen to the full segment, click the blue play button above.
USC Village tries to address gentrification concerns
Thursday marks the official opening of USC Village. The campus extension stretches across 15 acres, adding three million square feet of student housing, green space, retail and academic facilities.
And it cost a cool $700 million bucks. USC Village has been three years in the making and included a lot of community input.
Still, anti-gentrification activists have concerns about uniting one of LA's poorest neighborhoods with one of its wealthiest universities. KPCC's Josie Huang has been reporting on USC village. She spoke to A Martinez about the school's efforts.
To listen to the full segment, click the blue play button above.
LA City Councilman Jose Huizar on why he opposes a homeless housing project in Boyle Heights
Thanks to city and county voters, Los Angeles has a lot more funding in the pipeline to tackle homelessness. But money isn't the only barrier.
This week, a panel of the L.A. City Council disappointed homeless advocates when it approved a request for further review of a proposed housing development in Boyle Heights.
The facility is intended to provide 49 units of supportive housing, including for mentally ill homeless people. The site: an empty lot on 1st and Lorena Streets, between Evergreen Cemetery and El Mercado shopping center and restaurant, a spot where Metro once considered building a Gold Line Station.
The Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council signed off on the plan in July 2015, and the city's planning department approved it in 2016.
But the owners of El Mercado oppose the development and appealed to the city. On Tuesday, the Council's Planning and Land Use Management Committee granted the request to take another look at the environmental approval for the proposed building. The appeal still has to go before the full council for a vote.
The committee's decision means at least a delay, possibly a permanent roadblock for another homeless housing project in L.A.
In November, city voters approved Measure HHH, green-lighting $1.2 billion in bonds for building housing and facilities. County voters followed up by passing Measure H, a quarter-cent sales tax hike focused on homeless services.
It seems business owners, officials, and community activists, however, have yet to get on the same page.
In June, the non-profit Mercy Housing dropped its bid to convert the Golden Motel near Temple City into permanent supportive housing after the building's owner decided to go with a different buyer in the face of community pushback. Neighborhood protests over proposed housing and homeless storage lockers have slowed or scuttled projects in Venice and San Pedro.
L-A City Councilman Jose Huizar chairs the Planning & Land Use Management Committee, and the proposed building is in District 14, which he represents. He joined A Martinez on Thursday on Take Two.
What exactly happened on Tuesday? Homeless services groups like the United Way say they're very disappointed.
Yes. And I worked with United Way on a number of issues to support homelessness. In fact I, along with Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson, are the co-authors of Measure HHH, which the voters approved to bring 10,000 new units of homeless housing to L.A., the most we've done in decades. And unfortunately this is an example of how not to go about proposing these types of projects in local neighborhoods.
What was wrong with it?
The environment consultant for the project had reviewed documentation--this is what's called phase one environmental--they recommended a phase two environmental, which would test the soil for environmental contamination. And none was done, and in fact there is an old oil well there, that we don't know if the soil is in fact contaminated or not. So they need to do that extra work.
But didn't the city planning department say that isn't an issue?
Well, when you have two different opinions on that, you err on the side of caution. I've chaired the Planning and Land Use Management Committee for some time now, and we always ask for phase two.
But aside from the environmental issues, this is a project that's existed since 2004 when the MTA proposed to build retail on this site. And I agree with that. I think from a planning perspective you have El Mercado, which is a cultural center right next door with mariachis playing every weekend, and that whole block is commercial. From a planning perspective that would make sense.
In fact on Tuesday, what we saw is that a majority if not all the people opposing the project are the local residents. People who live around the neighborhood. And the people supporting it were affordable housing advocates [who] do not live in the community.
If you want to propose these types of projects in communities -- and through Measure HHH as we approve more projects to move forward to build more affordable housing and homeless housing -- we need to have community support in order for these projects to move forward.
Is this a project that potentially could benefit from HHH funding?
No. This project will not use any HHH funding. I don't believe they have any HHH funding.
In fact, our first round of approvals for HHH funding happened about a month ago, and it wasn't included.
Just yesterday, in our homeless committee, we approved the guidelines for HHH funding. And we asked for decentralization of services. That is, in the past, the city and the region has centralized its services in Skid Row and Hollywood and certain parts of the city. But we have seen that this policy doesn't work. For example in Skid Row, it's called the containment policy that started in the 1980s where you continued to move all services to one location. But it's not good for the people who go get those services and it's not good for the neighborhood.
Now as we do that, we're going to face many more challenges as we try to locate these types of services in areas throughout the city that historically have not gotten the services. So we adopted a policy that states that we will now start to give more points to applications for HHH funding if you go into areas that have little to no services for homeless.
Is this project dead?
It's not dead. [We] just asked for additional environmental review. Now Community of Friends, the developer, has the choice to do the additional environmental review or not do the project.
They should do the appropriate environmental review. They have their choice to do that whether they want to proceed or not.
But aside from that, they have to do a lot more community outreach to get support. And I've always said, my own personal opinion is it's not the right location for planning principles.
Councilman, you don't believe that this is a case of NIMBY-ism in Boyle Heights. But we've seen protests in Venice and San Pedro [over homeless facilities]. Temple City neighbors recently succeeded in stopping the Golden Motel from being converted to homeless housing.
Where will housing projects like this go, if every neighborhood fights development?
And it's going to become a bigger issue.
Now we have thankfully $1.2 billion, which the voters approved for the city to sell bonds over a ten-year period and build 10,000 units. Along with that, we have guidelines they say we need to go to areas that historically have not had these types of services.
So these types of issues are going to become more prevalent in the future. We have proposed within measure HHH primarily permanent supportive housing. Now this will ask for us to build housing, and in those housing units to provide services to help individuals get back on their feet.
There's a lot of examples where these types of projects go into neighborhoods and they're just like any other apartment. You can't even tell or you can't tell that they are serving special needs people or homeless individuals if done right.
But to summarize, this is going to become more of an issue as we disperse HHH dollars, and we hope to go into neighborhoods that typically have not had these type of services, because it's good for the homeless who come from those neighborhoods. If they are in a neighborhood they know and understand, it's easier for them to get back on their feet.
And we should no longer continue to concentrate the services in certain neighborhoods. But as we do that, the neighborhood and the operators have to have the discussions. If it's a good operator, it should not pose any disruption or problems to the local neighborhood.
After Charlottesville, Dodge ends promotion of Roadkill Nights, GM CEO leaves Trump panel
The violence in Charlottesville has dominated the news all week, affecting seemingly everything -- including cars. The white supremacist who drove into the crowd last weekend, killing Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others, was behind the wheel of a Dodge Challenger.
Coincidentally, Dodge was using Twitter to promote a series of drag races called Roadkill Nights near Detroit, which were taking place the same day as the violence in Charlottesville, Automotive News reports. Roadkill is the name of a drag racing magazine and a web site sponsored by Dodge, and the car maker had been using the hashtag #RoadKillNights to promote the event as recently as Tuesday, when Dodge deleted the posts.
Also as a result of Charlottesville, President Trump's business advisory councils disbanded. Several U.S. CEOs quit in protest over Trump's response to the violence, including General Motors CEO Mary Barra, who issued a statement. "General Motors is about unity and inclusion and so am I," the statement said. "Recent events, particularly those in Charlottesville, Va., and its aftermath, require that we come together as a country and reinforce values and ideas that unite us -- tolerance, inclusion and diversity -- and speak against ... racism, bigotry and any politics based on ethnicity."
Cuties Coffee Bar, in East Hollywood, is home away from home for LGBTQ community
Joseph Bultman drove 40 minutes from Santa Clarita to East Hollywood, just to visit Cuties Coffee Bar.
"I just tried the cold brew for the first time," he said. "And you know, I think that might be my new favorite drink."
But it wasn't the coffee that brought him to the blue-and-pink cafe. His friends had been talking about Cuties on Facebook for a while, and Bultman had heard it was LGBTQ inclusive. As a gay man, he wanted to check out the space.
Bultman, and many of his friends, came to visit Cuties during an event called Queers, Coffee, and Donuts. The shop was packed. In the grand scheme of LGBTQ venues, Bultman insisted that a place like Cuties is important.
"There are not enough queer-friendly spaces that are also, like, alcohol-free," he said. "It's mostly just bars and there are a lot of people in recovery. There are a lot of people that are under age that want to have their own space."
There are bars, resource centers, and there are places like coffee shops
The co-owners of Cuties, Virginia Bauman and Iris Bainum-Houle, don't believe cafes are replacing bars. They believe the community needs all of these places to be healthy. Coffee shops just fill a different role than clubs do.
"Coffee shops are accessible in a different way than bars and clubs," Bauman said. "So coffee is something that a lot of sober people can enjoy. Bars and clubs can be hard spaces for that.
"It's also cheaper to come to a coffee shop than it is to go to a bar or club. There's no cover. The drinks start at $3, not $6."
For many, the LGBTQ community needs every space it can get
Having an inclusive coffee shop is more than just serving coffee. Jodi Pacheco-Davis, who teaches at Cal State University in Fullerton, has studied the effects of coffee shops on the LGBTQ community in Long Beach. For Pacheco-Davis, what starts as a place where people get coffee can become so much more.
"[You] have a space where you can go and drink coffee together," Pacheco-Davis said. "Or, you know, play a game. Or just talk about politics, or organize a rally or a protest."
For Virginia Bauman and Iris Bainum-Houles, the co-owners of Cuties, their shop already started out that way. It's part of a movement where LGBTQ people are being more visible as entrepreneurs, as business owners. And, by doing so, making inclusivity the norm instead of the exception.
"I want entire businesses owned by trans people," Bauman said. "I want entire businesses owned by queer people. I want our space to be as great and as big and as powerful as possible."
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