Today is election day! Patt Morrison joins the show to tell us about the colorful history of LA's mayors of yore, plus, workplace wellness programs are becoming costlier, musician Helado Negro joins us to talk about his new album, Steve Proffitt explains how the iconic Mamas and the Papas song "California Dreamin'" came to be and much more.
LA's mayors of yore were a colorful cast of characters (Photos)
CORRECTION: A previous version of this segment page said that Werner Cohn was mayor of Los Angeles. The correct name is Bernard Cohn. Apologies for the mistake.
Today is election day, the day to cast your vote for who will be the next mayor of our fair city. As elections go, this one's been a pretty tame so far, with no high profile scandals, no Berman-Sherman style fisticuffs, and no hanging chads.
But as KPCC's Patt Morrison reminds us, the legacy of L.A. mayors is filled with racy stories and characters seemingly plucked from the pages of a Raymond Chandler novel.
RELATED: Check out KPCC's voter guide to prep for the election
They got away with up to, and maybe including, murder when they were mayors. In the 1850s we had a mayor named Stephen Foster. This was a man who used chain gangs for public works, because there were no public pension problems there!
The City of L.A. didn't really have a police department, it had volunteers, and so at one point the Mayor Stephen Foster resigned his mayorship to lead a lynch mob, and then voters put him back in office.
We had lots of multicultural mayors, we had Mexican mayors, we had French Canadian mayors. One of them was Damien Marchessault. He thought California should be split into two states. He ran for mayor and served as mayor for a couple years, as most of them did then, but then he became the water overseer, which was a much more important job than mayor and it earned about 50 percent more than mayor. But he couldn't do that job, the city streets turned into a sinkhole, he was a gambling man, he messed around and so he killed himself in the council chambers.
This was in the '20s and '30s when there was a resurgence of the Klu Klux Klan across the country and in Southern California. For a while the KKK ran the Anaheim city council and there were conclaves in Los Angeles. This man John Porter was very puritanical in many ways. He wouldn't drink alcohol even in France because there was prohibition in the United States, and yet he was a leader in the KKK.
Charles Sebastian was a police chief who crusaded against vice int he city, but he had his own particular vices. It turns out that he was having an affair on the side with a woman he gave a pink silk bathrobe to, a woman he took on joyrides in a police car, and finally his wife turned him in. Went to the newspapers with a letter he'd written to his paramour when he was on an out of town trip with his wife. One line was "I wish you could have been along instead of the old hay bag."
Bernard Cohn was appointed to fill the term of a mayor who had died in office, and he only served a couple of weeks. He made headlines long after his mayorship, it turned out that he had a Jewish family on one end of town and a Catholic Latino family, an illicit family, on the other end of town and had six children by that woman.
After his first wife died he married the second wife, the Catholic woman, but he arranged for his coachman to steal the marriage certificate so that widow and children after Cohn died were out of luck financially.
Tom Bradley's election in 1972 was groundbreaking in Los Angeles, electing a black mayor with a coalition of essentially African Americans and Jews after a period of rioting and unrest in the 1960s. This was supposed to be a new era. Tom Bradley served for 20 years, he left office right after the L.A. Riots, so he'd been bookended by that.
This is a man who was called the Sphinx of Spring Street because he was so unflappable and so cool and yet when he was first sworn in there were neo nazis protesting at his inauguration. He showed a sense of humor that most of us didn't see. He looked out across these protesters and said, "I is da Mayor."
Mayor Sam Yorty thought his fact had been stolen from him. I interviewed him in his Studio City home, he was the last mayor from the San Fernando Valley. Tom Bradley had so many things named after him, he had an airport terminal at LAX. Sam Yorty said, look, I started the Convention Center and all I got was a meeting room named after me.
Yorty was the first mayor of the television era, he used to go on Johnny Carson and play the banjo. He really made a name for himself nationally, but didn't do quite so well locally.
In fact, Los Angeles has had Latino mayors back into the Mexican era because the city was founded more than 200 years ago, so of course we had Mexican mayors. But one mayor, Cristóbal Aguilar, was attacked in the Yankee era because his English wasn't very good, so he lost. But we owe him a great debt of thanks, the City Council had voted to privatize the city's water system, and he vetoed it, so thank you, Mayor Aguilar.
Fletcher Bowron, he was much beloved by the city, he was mayor for more than 15 years. His fellow guardsman called him "Old Chubby Cheeks." He had a great sense of the politics of joy , he loved LA and he helped bring it into the modern era, and that's one mayor I would have liked to have interviewed.
Workplace wellness programs are getting costly
Most companies have wellness programs, which provide free flu shots, blood pressure checks, and the like. But a growing number of businesses are changing the definition of a “wellness” program. Some are charging workers more for health insurance if they smoke or are overweight. Others are reducing their contribution to workers’ health care coverage, and requiring the workers to take steps to get that money back.
That's what happened to Kimberley Macgregor, a bookkeeper at a Ralphs supermarket in Burbank. Up until this year, Ralphs automatically gave employees $550 to use towards their $1,000 health insurance deductible. Now it has slashed that amount to $175, but it will contribute up to an additional $575 if Macgregor chooses to do four of the seven "healthy activities" offered by the company, such as joining a gym or getting a checkup.
Sitting at her mother's kitchen table, Macgregor flips through Ralphs' wellness program, a glossy pamphlet featuring an array of fruits and vegetables and a woman meditating.
Macgregor opts first for a biometric screening that uses a blood sample to check things like cholesterol and blood pressure.
“All and all it’s good for you because it gives you awareness of where you stand when it comes to health issues and maybe it can catch diseases early so that you have enough time to change it,” she says.
Macgregor says she’ll do the activities to offset her health care costs, but she finds the whole thing a bit creepy.
“Your health is not between your doctor and you anymore,” she says. “You might as well invite the insurance company to sit in that little chair to the right and you might as well invite the company that you work for to...be in the room with you with your doctor.”
Approximately 78 percent of companies offer wellness programs, from free flu shots and health fairs to health insurance discounts if you join a gym. -- American Institute for Preventive Medicine
The union representing Macgregor and about 65,000 Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons members agreed to this approach. Covered spouses or domestic partners also can participate in the wellness program.
But at least one union official isn’t happy about it. Kathy Finn, a negotiator with the Southern California branch of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), says at first glance the wellness program looks great because for each activity workers can earn back about $150 towards their deductible.
“But in my opinion it’s kind of like it’s a stick masquerading as a carrot,” Finn says. “If you compare it to what we had just in our last contract, we took something away and we’re forcing you to earn it back.”
Ralphs parent company Kroger and the California Grocers Association did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Finn says the union took the deal because it was the best i t could do.
“If somebody does participate, their deductible didn’t go up, their copays didn’t go up, there’s no additional cost on them. So in the environment that we’re currently in that was seen as a very, very good deal,” she says.
But there’s a problem: workers often don’t take advantage of wellness programs. For example, last year only 10 percent of grocery union members in the wellness program chose to get a physical. About 60 percent of UFCW members are eligible to participate in the program.
Finn says the union sends lots of e-mails, newsletters and snail mail about the program, but the message isn’t getting through.
Kimberly Macgregor wasn’t even aware of this year’s change to her deductible, and she’s a union shop steward. She says she found out about it when a reporter contacted her.
“They need to make it a little more convenient for us to jump through their hoops so that we can take advantage of their programs and their funding,” Macgregor says.
In 2012, 13 percent of employers reported rewarding or penalizing workers for meeting or not meeting certain health goals like losing weight or lowering their cholesterol. By 2015, that number could rise to 74 percent. -- Towers Watson 2012 Health Care Trend survey of midsize and large employers, "Health Care Changes Ahead."
But even with good rates of participation it’s unclear that wellness programs make people healthier.
“I think the key question is really going to be how effective are these programs in modifying behavior among high-risk employees who are low-wage employees,” said Dr. Kevin Volpp, Director of the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
If lower-paid workers fail to take advantage of a wellness program, Volpp says, they will suffer a disproportionate financial hit.
Meanwhile, American workers will be seeing a lot more of these programs. A survey shows more than half of large businesses are considering adopting wellness plans with financial penalties in coming years.
And Volpp says the trend is towards even tougher-minded wellness programs.
“Most of the action is going to be in employers moving to using outcome-based incentives to a much greater degree,” he says.
In an outcome-based program, workers pay more for health insurance if they fail to get in better shape – by not lowering their cholesterol or losing a certain amount of weight, for example. That could end up costing the worker thousands of dollars.
President Obama’s health care law supports this trend. Under Obamacare, employers can impose an even larger financial penalty starting next year.
In Southern California, the grocery workers union expects Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons to push for an outcome-based approach when contract talks resume next year.
Is there a certain type of activity you would like your company to include in its wellness program? Send us a tweet at @KPCC.
This story was produced in collaboration with the California HealthCare Foundation Center for Health Reporting, a nonprofit news organization that focuses on California health issues. Based at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, the center is funded by the nonpartisan California HealthCare Foundation.
[This story was corrected on March 5, 2013. The original version stated an incorrect amount for Ralphs' original contribution towards its workers health care deductible, as well as the final amount it is offering to cover.]
New Music Tuesday: The 'Invisible Life' of musician Helado Negro
A new album from Helado Negro called "Invisible Life" comes out today. This is his third album, one that he made in his apartment in New York.
Negro's sound is a sort of indie psychadelic funk with beats and loops, and while it sounds very modern, his roots come from his Ecuadorian past.
Negro, whose real name is Roberto Carlos Lange, recently dropped by the studio to talk about his music and the making of his latest album.
How the iconic tune 'California Dreamin' came to be
Now we follow up on the story we did last week about Massachusetts's search for a state rock song. We asked YOU what you think California's state rock song should be.
Some said the fairly well-known tune "California" by the group Phantom Planet, and of course Tupac Shakur's "California Love" was a popular choice.
But by far, the favorite was "California Dreamin'", by the Mamas and the Papas:
Like almost every song, there's a story behind "California Dreamin," but this one is pretty unique.
Fifty years ago in 1963, John Phillips was a struggling songwriter and musician living in New York when he wrote "California Dreamin'." He was also one-forth of the Mamas and the Papas, along with his wife, Michelle, Denny Doherty and Cass Elliot.
Two years later, the band was living in L.A., and barely getting by. They'd cut one single, but it went nowhere, so John Phillips was pitching songs to other artists, and he managed to get "California Dreamin'" to a guy named Barry McGuire.
He was a former folk singer, and a member of a fresh-faced group called The New Christy Minstrels, who'd gone sorta hippy, and had a hit with a protest song:
Barry McGuire was going back to the studio, trying to find a hit to follow up Eve Of Destruction. His producer was Lou Adler, a guy who is now a legend. He hired a few members of a famous group of studio musicians known as The Wrecking Crew to record the backing track. Barry suggested the Mamas and Papas do the back up vocals.
According to Dayton Howe, the engineer on the recording, Lou Adler was so impressed with the Mamas and Papas, he gave them a $100 bill as a down payment on a contract. Then, he took the backing track and replaced Barry's vocals with Denny Doherty, one of the Papas. He went up an octave, and it gave the song that sort of wistful longing that helped make it a hit.
But there were a few other things. You know the break in the middle of the song, where the flute comes in? The man playing that solo, on an alto flute, is Bud Shank. Jazz fans will know him as an important part of the Cool Jazz movement. He reportedly improvised the solo on the spot, one take, but in the original recording, Barry McGuire played a harmonica.
The harmonica didn't jive well for anyone, so Barry McGuire's version ended up as a track on an album that went nowhere. But "California Dreamin'" put the Mamas and the Papas on the map, and although it stalled at number four on the charts, the group's next single, "Monday, Monday," made it to number one.
The Mamas and the Papas version had that special something that gave it real staying power. Michelle Phillips is still around, and Lou Adler? He's 80 and still the coolest guy in the business, but Cass Elliot, Denny Doherty and John Phillips are all gone. The record was so beautifully produced, from the first note to the last, it still sounds fresh today. Even though I would probably vote for Tupac, or maybe Joni Mitchell's "California," or there's even a really great Ray Charles version of "California Here I Come," "California Dreamin'" is clearly the front runner for the state song.
President Obama nominates new EPA, energy officials
Yesterday, President Obama nominated environmental official Gina McCarthy to head the EPA and MIT professor Ernest Moniz as energy secretary. If they join the Cabinet, they could be key in pushing through the kind of climate change regulations that eluded the administration during the past four years.
To explain is John Broder, Washington correspondent for the New York Times.
New standards for teaching climate change coming to public schools
Climate change often comes up in policy debates, in news stories, but there's one place where the hot topic isn't discussed much: public school classrooms.
That's about to change.
This month, new standards for teaching science will be released and for the first time, and they will include a recommendation to teach kids about the evidence for man-made climate change starting as early as elementary school.
For more on this we're joined by Stacy Feldman, an editor at Inside Climate News.
Online gaming spreads with an eye on California
New Jersey is going all in. Governor Chris Christie has signed a bill making his state the third in the nation, after Nevada and Delaware, to legalize internet gambling.
The move could net New Jersey an estimated $436 million in revenue. With that kind of money potentially on the table, is California ready to ante up, too?
State Sen. Lou Correa introduced a bill late last year that would allow state-approved websites to take bets for online poker, while Sen. Rod Wright is behind a proposed law to allow some brick-and-mortar operations in California to open up their own Internet sites.
David Schwartz, director for the Center of Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, explains what's at stake to get Californians in on the action.
The enduring popularity of the SimCity franchise
Today marks the launch of the first new SimCity game in over a decade, SimCity 5.
To the uninitiated, SimCity is a simulation that lets players build their own metropolises, complete with high-rises, streetcars, even wind turbines. The fun doesn't stop there. You can destroy cities with meteor attacks and zombie invasions. You know, like in real life.
Even though the game's been around for decades, fans on the Internet have been buzzing about the release of SimCity 5. With more on what makes SimCity so enduring is Jamin Warren, founder of the video game magazine and website Kill Screen.