The LA Fire Department arrived in Houston Monday to help with flood rescues.
In Houston, the LA Fire Department task force assists with search-and-rescue operations
All eyes continue to be on Houston this morning, where catastrophic flooding from Hurricane Harvey continues to endanger thousands of stranded people. More than 3,200 have so far been rescued.
Search and rescue teams from the Orange County, Riverside, and Los Angeles Fire Departments are helping with the rescue effort in southeast Texas. The LA Fire Department team arrived in San Antonio on Monday but was on standby until this morning.
Take Two caught up with Assistant Chief Carlos Calvillo, who is on the ground with the LA Fire Department task force. He was in the process of being deployed as Take Two host A Martínez spoke with him.
"We are a heavy equipment task force, so you can't take the vehicles and personnel into these areas without the proper equipment," said Calvillo.
"We figure once the water will subside, then it will be more of a foot beat to do some search and rescue efforts in the region."
To listen to the full interview, use the blue media player at the top of the page.
Did Prop 13 cause LA's housing crisis?
Proposition 13 limits how fast property taxes can grow, and depending on who you talk to, people either love it or hate it.
"It’s without a doubt one of the stupidest tax rules in the history of taxes," says economist and hater Chris Thornberg, who says Prop 13 deserves most of the blame for the housing crisis. "Ultimately, I think it’s 90 percent."
Prop 13 was created to help beleaguered homeowners
California voters in 1978 passed Prop 13 by a wide margin, and the effort was the brainchild of the late Howard Jarvis.
At the time, he was a 74-year-old with slicked-back hair, eyes squinting through square-shaped glasses, frequently photographed as he was shaking his fist in the air.
"Some people thought he was irascible," remembers his right-hand man, Joel Fox.
But he was just an everyday guy who made tax reform his mission. In the years leading up to Prop 13, Jarvis launched several failed campaigns against higher taxes in California.
There was a perfect storm of events in 1978, though, that helped him sway voters. The energy crisis made things like gas expensive. The economy was shaky.
Then homeowners got socked with a big jump in their property taxes.
"Some of them had to move if they couldn’t afford it," says Fox. "I think the worst case scenario was that a home that you lived in and loved and built up, you might have lost."
He adds that, at the time, the state government was sitting on a big cash surplus, too.
Jarvis tapped taxpayers’ frustrations that they were getting poorer as California’s coffers were getting richer. That eventually led voters to approve his idea: Proposition 13.
Why Prop 13 gets the blame for the housing crisis
Proposition 13 locks in a property tax that's 1 percent the purchase price of a home. After the first year, the tax cannot increase more than 2 percent of that original bill.
Fox says it's been a great thing for Californians for 39 years because it helps people stay where they are. If it weren't around, he says, then there would be even more people on the streets.
"People on fixed incomes are the first ones you’d look at at potentially losing their home," he says.
However, Prop 13 does have its detractors, who think its problems have compounded over the years, culminating in the current housing crunch.
"People understand how ridiculous this rule is," says economist Chris Thornberg, "people who benefit from it – people like me!"
His argument rests on supply and demand. A community depends on taxes to pay for things like schools, firefighters and fax machines, and a city can't pay the bills if there's a limitation on a revenue stream like property taxes.
"It’s financially bad for cities to want residential units," he says, "and as a result of that, every city is biased against wanting housing."
Thornberg says Prop 13 has led cities to prefer commercial and industrial developments like offices and factories.
This is where Economics 101 comes in: If Prop 13 discourages cities from building a steady supply of homes, then demand for what’s already out there – and their prices – goes up and up and up.
"You have to rebuild the tax system around incentivizing cities to want new population," he says.
But does 86ing Prop 13 really solve the problem?
For another opinion, we turned to USC housing expert Richard Green, who says Prop 13 has an effect on the cost of living in California.
"The lower property taxes are, house prices tend to be higher," he says, and he estimates it amounts to a 5 to 10 percent bump.
That can be modest or big depending on how you look at it.
But Joel Fox doesn't believe the housing crisis would disappear if Prop 13 went away.
"Prop 13 has been a scapegoat for everything," he says. "If property taxes go up, housing prices may drop some, but you’re still going to have not enough homes from too many people and it’s still going to be a problem."
He points the finger at something else for the crunch, though, that we should cover.
"That CEQA thing, you might want to jump it ahead," he says.
Read more about the arguments for and against CEQA and its role in the housing crisis.
Berkeley mayor condemns scattered violence from Sunday's protests
On Sunday, thousands of people were at Berkeley's Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Park to hold demonstrations against bigotry. While the event was largely peaceful, some far-left groups did instigate violence against conservatives who were present.
The Berkeley Police Department reported 13 people were arrested at Sunday's demonstrations after black-clad anarchists attacked people.
Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin spoke with Take Two's Libby Denkmann on Monday. He praised those who peacefully protested against hate but condemned anyone who perpetrated harm against others.
To hear the full conversation, click the blue player above.
How should California reconcile its (very) racist history?
In August 2017, protesters, counter-protesters and white supremacists converged on Charlottesville, Virginia.
What started as a rally against the removal of a Confederate statue quickly devolved into a melee.
The violence added fuel to a national reckoning already underway — a debate over how we as a nation remember infamous men, now on the wrong side of history.
In California, the timbre of that conversation sounds a little different, but there are some common threads: There are 109 federally recognized American Indian nations here. Several suffered at the hands of the state's earliest settlers.
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Despite this, the names of those responsible for their annihilation live on, according to Benjamin Madley. Madley is an associate professor of history at UCLA, and author of the book, An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe.
"California's legislature convened for the first time in 1850, and one of its very first orders of business was banning all Indian people from voting, barring those with one-half of American Indian blood or more from giving evidence for or against whites in criminal cases," Madley said.
The legislation effectively stripped the state's natives of their ability to participate in the legal system.
"This amounted to a virtual grant of impunity to those that attacked them," Madley said.
The state's early leaders didn't stop there, however. Madley said they soon legalized "white custody" of American Indians, leading many to become "unfree" laborers and indentured servants.
"Right here in Los Angeles, one lawyer recalled that: 'Los Angeles had its slave mart and thousands of honest, useful people were absolutely destroyed in this way,' " Madley said.
He adds that, between 1850 and 1870, L.A.'s American Indian population fell from 3,693 to just 219. That drop, he said, is due in large part to California's American Indian labor policies.
Infamous names live on
Benjamin Madley said the names of the men responsible for the systemic oppression and killings of California's native people continue to be "hidden in plain sight."
"In 1878, Serranus Hastings donated $100,000 to found the Hastings College of Law in San Francisco," Madley said. "So California's oldest law school is named after a man who helped to lead the assembly, the financing and the state sponsorship drive for the genocidal Eel River Ranger state militia expedition of 1859, which killed perhaps 500 or more California Indians," Madley said.
And there are more. Madley said names like Stanford (University), Fremont (City), Carson (Carson Pass), Kelsey (Kelseyville), each played a pivotal role in the eradication of California American Indians.
Time for healing?
"Addressing the complex legacies of the genocide in California is an ongoing process," Madley said.
Governor Jerry Brown acknowledged Madley's book in 2017, saying, "Madley corrects the record with his gripping story of what really happened: the actual genocide of a vibrant civilization thousands of years in the making.”
Madley said acknowledging the past, as Brown has, can set a standard for other states reviewing their histories through modern eyes. But he said that's only part of the struggle — determining the next steps will require collaboration.
"That's something that needs to happen with the joint participation of state officials, government officials at the federal level, California Indian people and other California citizens."
More L.A. history
- The ugly, violent clearing of Chavez Ravine before it was home to the Dodgers
- A mob killed a tenth of LA’s Chinese population. 150 years later, there's a push to remember
- The secret, sordid history of Threemile House, a den of iniquity on the edge of 1890s LA
Gov. Brown, Dem lawmakers agree on affordable housing bond
After a lot of negotiation, Governor Jerry Brown and Democratic leaders reached a deal on a package of bills Monday evening.
Lawmakers agreed to a 4-billion dollar bond to help fund low-income housing and subsidize loans for California veterans.
For more, Take Two spoke to Ben Adler, Capitol Bureau Chief for Capital Public Radio.
Press the blue play button above to hear the full interview.
Is California on the verge of bail reform?
'The Bail Trap' video game shows the real consequences of the bail system
When it comes to the California bail system, there's a lot to unpack. But sometimes the simplest way to understand something is to put yourself into the situation and go through the motions... virtually.
Take The Bail Trap, from Brave New Films, a nonprofit that uses all forms of media to focus on social justice. It's an 8-bit video game that lets you "play" the bail system from three different perspectives:
- Kevin is a 35-year-old IT manager. He's white.
- Theresa is a 19-year-old college student who's African American.
- Julio is a 42-year-old construction worker.
All three characters were arrested for their involvement in a shoplifting incident. But what happens to them afterward couldn't be more different.
Ready to play? Take Two's Lori Galarreta gave "Bail Trap" a try.
Big takeaways
- The Kevin experience was the dream. With $400,000 in savings at the time of his shoplifting arrest, paying bail and hiring a private lawyer was a piece of cake.
- Theresa was another story. She was in jail for eight days before she was able to make her $500 savings grow to the $2,000 she needed for a bail bond down payment. By the end of it, she had no job, no car and would probably have to retake her last semester of school.
- Playing as Julio was by far the bleakest experience. With only $50 in his savings and no financial support from friends or family, he's forced to take a plea deal which tarnishes his record with a felony. The felony causes him to lose his job and public housing.
- It's clear the message this game is trying to send is that this system disproportionately favors those with money.
Why would Brave New Films make this game?
Tara Vajra, Brave New Films' head of production, explained the game was part of a bigger effort the nonprofit was working on.
"Last year we embarked on a larger campaign about bail and bail reform," Vajra said. "So the game came about as a way to also try to give an experience of how frustrating and how unfair bail is to people who don't have money."
Designer Emilia Larsen came up with the premise of the three experiences, Vajra said.
"We came up with the three different storylines, roughly based on the real stories that we were coming across in our research. And I think the most shocking thing for us that we really wanted to highlight was ... if you do have money to pay your bail, you get it all back when you come to your court date. It actually costs you nothing.
However, for the other two stories, for Theresa and Julio, who are based on real people that we interviewed ... they don't have that amount of money so it ends up costing them so much more for the same privilege to just get out and live their lives."
So just to be clear, this game is not for fun. It's an engine of empathy, designed to shine a light on the bail experience.
"We know that bail is not a game. It's not something we're trying to make light of in any kind of way, quite the opposite. We are trying to make it accessible and informative in a new kind of packaging. In a way that people might be interested in actually learning about and learning through.
Bail seems like something we all assume we might know about, but the reality is that there's so much more that we probably aren't aware of in terms of how egregious it is unless you've actually been through it yourself."
To listen to the full segment, click the blue play button above.
Tuesday Reviewsday: Bomba Estereo, and Héctor Lavoe and Celia Cruz find a new audience
Every week, we hear from our music experts on what's new and fresh. This week, Take Two contributor
brings us a real treat. Here are his picks.
Artist: Various, including Hector Lavoe and Celia Cruz
Album: Fania Records, Santiago Sessions
Our first selection is the new EP called Fania Records, Santiago Sessions. It's a remix EP of six classic songs from the Fania catalog and features legends such Hector Lavoe, Ray Barretto, Tito Puente and Celia Cruz, among others.
And there is no one like Hector Lavoe and his classic "Aguanile.” Now, with the producing skills of DJ Jose Marquez, that classic takes on a whole new meaning thanks to a new version without taking anything away from the original.
If you want to compare the new to the original, check out this classic performance.
The remix is all rooted in the percussion: the congas by Bobby Wilmore and Lazaro Galarraga takes it to the next level and Claudio Passavanti's work on piano and bass also gives new energy to the song.
“Herencia Africana” features the legendary Celia Cruz as the song honors her African roots. The new version is cool and thanks to a few added elements, the composition continues to shine with Sidy Maiga on the djembe (drums) and Balla Kouyaté on the balafon (xylophone). The producing is sharp, the contributions are perfectly matched to Cruz’s unmistakable vocals.
Artist: Bomba Estereo
Album: Ayo
The Colombian group Bomba Estereo’s new album is catchy, experimental and fun and powerful at the same time. This time the sound takes music fans into a magical place, which is Ayo, the title of the album. A spiritual journey through music is a major part of this album and it’s also experimental and the kind of music that shows a different side of Bomba Estereo, who has fans all over the world as this 5th studio album continues to reach audiences as the band tours in the U.S. an beyond. The album does have an experimental vibe, but the vibrant sounds that Bomba Estereo brings to music is never lost.