LA Mayor Garcetti talks transportation funds and Measure C, DNC Chair Tom Perez on the future of the Democratic Party, the state of LA's bike infrastructure.
LA Mayor Garcetti on police discipline policy, funding an accelerated Metro expansion, and the 2024 Olympic bid
Take Two's A Martinez spoke with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. The conversation included the newly passed Measure C that revised how the police disciplinary procedures, his recent trip to Washington D.C. to secure transportation funds for the city, and how that factors into L.A.'s bid to host the 20204 Olympics.
Measure C reformats police review board to where three civilians will make decisions about police discipline. Mayor Garcetti was a strong proponent of the measure and helped in its development.
On the panel selection process
That’s what we have to determine with the city council. It give us the power – as we do with every other city employee by the way – for the discipline board, someone who’s not in the chain of command – no conflict of interest but trained civilians who can actually take the evidence, make a recommendation, and make sure that people have due process when they’re accused. Right now, whether the Department of Water and Power or a zoo employee, the police system was a little antiquated and put together by Lieutenant Parker before he was Chief Parker after World War I, it finally going to be updated and be like the rest of the city.
I think that it would probably be good to have some people that have had experience in law enforcement but are either retired or have worked in the field not as police but as civilians. You want some people that have that judgement, have that experience One of those two. But I think you also want fresh and outside eyes. One of the criticisms is civilians are always more lenient on police officers. The flip side of that is, if you have command officers who are in the chain of command, they’re probably not going to go against the recommendations of their bosses. We want a fair shake. We want to hold people accountable that have broken the law or have broken policy. But also want to make sure that that’s not tainted by anything too.
A path to improvement?
Every other city department has a different system. We don’t take people, for instance, in the library department, pick senior librarians and put them on a discipline panel because, are they going to go against the head librarian who want to discipline somebody or vice versa? Are they going to go soft because they know somebody? What they do is, they have people who have no stake in the department make a decision, almost like a jury does, based on the evidence they have. So, I think it’s much fairer, both for getting the bad folks out, and making sure the petty stuff results in people becoming better police officers rather than them getting some sort of over the top discipline that usually leads to lawsuits and a lot of taxpayer dollars.
Earlier this week, Mayor Garcetti was in DC and asked transportation secretary Elaine Chao to fast track over a billion dollars for the last stage of the Metro line to Westwood, right where a potential Olympic athletes village would be.
Securing federal funds
We had a great meeting with Secretary Chao. I testified on Capitol Hill as well lobbying on behalf of the nation’s mayors – because I chair our task force on infrastructure for all of the U.S. mayors in the U.S. Conference of Mayors – to put forward a trillion dollar infrastructure package. That’s needed. It’s something the democrats are talking about. It’s something the administration is talking about.
But for the subway specifically, we already got it approved. The environmental work is done. We had a finish date of 2025 to get to Westwood which is really only about getting the money. Now that voters passed Measure M, we can accelerate that probably by about 5 years. But we can accelerate that by another 5 or 6 years if the feds step up as they’ve done on every other segment of the subway – give us about 40% of the funds. So, we’re lobbying for that.
The budget that President Trump but out zeroed out these sorts of funds. But then other parts of the administration said, don’t worry, that’s just the budget. We’re still going to see these things. I was there to make sure doesn’t get zeroed out and to say, your support of the Olympics which they’ve been very good about – as have both parties and both houses – really depends on being able to get this public transportation there. So, I’m optimistic we can get that in and accelerate, by a decade, the finishing of the Purple Line.
Traffic in Los Angels was an issue raised by the Olympic Committee they visited LA to evaluate the city for the 2024 Olympics last week. But President Trump's proposed budget doesn't seem to have room for large-scale infrastructure projects.
Completing the Purple Line and winning the Olympic bid
I think we’re in a great position. We have the Olympic Committee out here last week. It was an amazing visit. Literally, one of them said to me, we’re looking for a hole in your proposal and we can’t find one. The traffic was actually, they thought, managed incredibly well. And we didn’t stop the traffic or put officers out there. We told them very honestly that we weren’t going to have kids and marching bands. We weren’t going to dress up the streets. Paris did a little bit of that, our competitor. But we just said, we want you to have an honest look at our city. And they were excited that for two and half weeks, they can get around very easily using the Olympic lanes that we’ll have on our HOV lanes. But it would be certainly great to have that subway there. It doesn’t 100% depend on it but we think that getting 20 minutes from athletes village down to Downtown to see some of the events at places like Staples Center or to compete, that would absolutely be the nail in the coffin and help us get this done.
Quotes edited for clarity and brevity.
To hear the full interview with Mayor Garcetti, click the blue Media Player above.
Civilian panels are only as effective as the people in them
Measure C has passed, paving the way for a civilian-only board reviewing police discipline in Los Angeles. But the question is: what’s next?
To find some answers, we can look to the dozens of other cities that have civilian oversight panels. “What this really is, is a 'due process mechanism,'” says Richard Rosenthal, who studies civilian oversight. He says Measure C isn’t really oversight because the panel doesn’t possess any real investigative power.
The panel has the power to change how police chief’s discipline officers. They can tell the chief that punishment is too harsh. But they can’t say that the disciplinary action should be harsher. But, Rosenthal says, that doesn’t mean they’re toothless.
Rosenthal has a long relationship with police conduct auditing. He served on the unit that investigated officer Rafael Perez, opening up a police corruption case that became known as the Rampart Scandal, and he was the director of police oversight in Portland, Denver, and British Columbia.
According to Rosenthal, the research shows that most important thing here will be who ends up serving on these panels. “It almost doesn't matter what the background of the person,” says Rosenthal. “It's really who the person is. And what their philosophies are, and morality, and how they approach their basic work.”
"So," he adds. "It's very difficult to choose these people."
To listen to the entire interview, please click on the blue player above
Hundreds of California foster children are arrested when they lash out
California's foster children are some of the state's most vulnerable people, and the trauma out of being separated from loved ones means they may develop emotional problems.
So some might act out.
In certain shelters and group homes around the state, that's led to children as young as 8 being arrested.
In 2015 and 2016, at least 485 arrests, citations and detainments were made for alleged criminal offenses by foster children in shelters and group homes.
"When you are in pain, in anguish and in desperation, and the treatment of the foster care system is jail, handcuffs and arrest, in the moment it's only worsening your trauma and your crisis," says Karen de Sá, investigative reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle.
She joins Take Two about her latest story, "Fostering Failure: how shelters criminalize hundreds of children."
Interview highlights
The setting for your latest story is the shelter and group home system for foster kids in the state. Can you describe how it works?
These are the 10 shelters in the state that children come to when they are first taken into foster care, right after they're removed from their homes by social workers.
Traditionally, they've stayed anywhere from a few hours to a few months on end.
These are places by nature where kids are very, very frightened. They're despairing and, in some cases, angry.
So they can be very tumultuous and extremely emotional environments.
Many children might go to a shelter, but your story focuses on those who might act out. What are examples of what some of them have done that got them into trouble?
I wouldn't characterize it as "bad behavior."
I think that there is the expectation and a complete understanding that children who have not only suffered severe neglect or abuse at home, but who have had the traumatic experience of being ripped from their parents, however flawed, they're known to exhibit behaviors that can be difficult for caregivers to manage.
They can be angry, punch holes in the walls, they can fight with other kids.
But it's really something that folks who are familiar with the psychological state of children who are in this situation say is pretty predictable.
Do experts say there is a better method of action as opposed to arrest?
One thing is to keep kids out of group settings unless they absolutely need to be there.
Children need to be families, they need to be in homes.
If they have to be in a residential program, the response should be a mental health one and not a police one, whenever possible.
There are ways to deescalate behaviors and explosive incidents. There's ways to talk kids down and to come at them with a soothing approach as opposed to a punitive and aggressive approach.
One foster youth you talked with, Brandy Olalia, had an emotional blowup at age 15 while in a group home. She was arrested and sent to juvenile hall. Ultimately charges were dropped against her. Brandy's 20 now. How did that incident affect her?
When she got arrested and spent a month in jail, it made her more angry, more bitter, more terrified.
Five years later, every time she talks about this, she's really wracked with this terror of this experience.
As fragile as Brandy is, all Californians should hope that we would treat with her with care and loving kindness instead of the opposite.
The practice of calling the police is not a practice every shelter employs. Some have only a handful of incidents over the years. Why is there a disparity and not a standard practice among all these providers?
I think it has to do a lot with the culture and training and orientation.
Is the default to call 911? Or is the default, let's rap around with some effective behavioral interventions?
It sounds really clunky, but it's really ways to use the knowledge we have, now, about how trauma impacts behavior to help the children through these crises.
Listen to the full interview with de Sá by using the blue audio player above.
DNC Chair Tom Perez 'bullish' about party's ability to take back House
Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez is in California, gearing up to speak at the state party's convention in Sacramento.
Before his big speech, Perez talked to Take Two about the DNC's approach. It includes a summer program to train newly energized Democrats how to organize politically. It's one way the party hopes to win more down-ballot races in 2018.
Highlights
I've read story after story about how California is the key to the Democrats' hope of taking back the House of Representatives. How important is California when it comes to winning the House in 2018?
I think we can pick up a number of seats in California: Dana Rohrabacher, Mimi Walters... Darrell Issa is another example of someone who barely squeaked by before, and now he's doing the same-old, same-old. He's not really in touch with his constituents.
It's not just Democrats who have pre-existing conditions. That's why we're going to be very, very active here. I'm very bullish about the opportunities to take over the House of Representatives in 2018 and the Senate for that matter.
What is the national party structure doing to make some of the things you mentioned happen?
We're working hand-in-glove with our colleagues who help elect people in the House and in the Senate, making sure that we're coordinating on sending organizers out. I firmly believe that a big part of what we have to do as Democrats is make more house calls, be present in communities —not just in the two-month run-up to the election, but 12 months a year.
This summer, for instance, we're rolling out what we're calling a Resistance Summer, and we're not doing it alone: We're doing it in partnership with so many allies in the labor movement and the progressive community. Our goal is to make house calls across America, to knock on doors, to have virtual house parties so that we are listening and learning from voters about what is keeping them up at night and being very clear about what we stand for.
Press the blue play button above to hear the full interview.
President of United Teachers Los Angeles on major shift in school board politics
Votes are still being counted in Tuesday's L.A. school board election. But it's already clear that backers of charter schools won a victory.
Their candidate defeated incumbent school board president Steve Zimmer and another charter-backed candidate leads a tight race for the East Valley seat.
This looks to be a major shift in school board politics and defeat for the teachers union.
Alex Caputo Pearl is the president of United Teachers Los Angeles. He spoke to A Martinez about the defeat.
Interview Highlights
Your group spent a lot of time, and a lot of money on your candidates in Tuesday's election - and charter school proponents also spent a lot of time and money. What happened?
"We spent money that comes out of a $9 a month donations from classroom teachers and we were not able to come close to matching the amount of money that was put in by outside billionaires who put over $10 million dollars into the school board race, making it the most expensive school board race in U.S. history and more expensive than most big city mayor's races and U.S. Senate races. So, this is a big problem that we've got billionaires out to privatize public education and set up a separate and unequal system and also while they're at it, do something that's undermining democracy."
What's the real division here? Why do teachers have a beef with the charter school movement?
"They're legally allowed to set up a separate and unequal system. They're legally allowed to not abide by conflict of interest laws and financial transparency laws and so what we're concerned about is that the ultimate undermining of the civic institution of public education which has always been a bedrock in our society."
You HAVE to work with the school board. What's your game plan, and how can teachers get a fair deal, and avoid a strike, which would be bad for everybody, but especially for kids?
"We're going to make sure that we continue our working relationship with Michelle King, she's the superintendent who comes out of decades of education experience, as a parent, as a teacher, as an administrator and of course we're going to work with school board members who have the best interest of maintaining the civic institution of public education and not just breaking it up to put public money in the hands of private interests, private charter school corporations. So, who are members who are willing to work with us of course, we're going to work with them."
To listen to the full segment, click the blue play button above.
The Ride: When it comes to bicycling, LA is no Portland. But it's trying
More than 100 million Americans spend at least some time cycling around. But it's rare for people to use bicycles as their main form of transportation in cities like L.A., where many riders don’t want to risk tangling with bigger, faster cars.
"As bike advocates, we see more and more people every year who want to ride bikes," said Tamika Butler, executive director of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition. "On Bike to Work Day, we see people stop and honk at us and cheer, and we say, 'Why aren’t you biking?' They say, 'I don’t feel safe.' We have to create an environment where folks know we care about them."
The annual budget the L.A. City Council is voting on today calls for $3 million to fund its ambitious Vision Zero plan, which aims to reduce traffic fatalities 20% by the end of this year. To achieve that goal, L.A. Department of Transportation chief Seleta Reynolds says the city would need $80 million to help redesign streets with things like protected bike lanes and road diets that slow traffic down and make streets safer.
July 1, Measure M's half-cent sales tax increase takes effect in L.A. County to help fund transportation projects. Over the next 40 years, two percent, or an expected $2.4 billion, will go toward active transportation infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians. While many of the specific bicycle projects Measure M would pay for haven't yet been identified, Metro plans to break ground in 2023 on closing the gaps in the L.A. River bicycle path, including a 12-mile stretch from Canoga Park to Glendale, another stretch in the San Fernando Valley and from downtown to the cities of Vernon and Maywood. That work is expected to be completed in 2025.
Metro is currently funding a number of projects to support cycling. On Friday, it will open a new bike hub at its Vine Street station in Hollywood. Bike hubs are places for riders to securely park their bicycles, and also get services like repairs and buy bike parts. Metro has one bike hub in El Monte already and plans to open another in Culver City next year. Metro's bike share program will expand to Pasadena this summer and to Venice and the Port of Los Angeles by the end of the year.