My essay in today's CITYWATCH:
Will Janice Hahn Save Us from Forces of Greed?
Repealing Density Bonus Bill
By Brady Westwater
Right now – while your children lie asleep in their beds – you may get a phone call at 3 AM when a neighbor finds on his computer a notice about a massive apartment building being built next door with far too few parking spaces, zero open space, vastly more units and considerably more height that the property is legally zoned for.
And in exchange for your neighborhood's permanent loss of parking, mature trees, green spaces for children to play in, light and air - and in exchange for all the increasing gridlock and congestion – this neighborhood-destroying new development will include a handful of affordable units that will invariably be far fewer in number than the ones in the usually rent controlled apartment building being torn down for the new building. And there will not be a thing you or any of us will be able to do to stop this.
Nor will all of us combined be able to stop even one of the tens of thousands of other developments of this type throughout our city that have just been 'legalized' – even though every single one of them will violate our neighborhood approved specific and community plans.
So we will have all to suffer the negative effects of inappropriate development – and far fewer affordable rent-controlled housing units throughout our city - thanks to the city council's recent approval of the biggest payoff developers have ever received in this city.
In fact, right now – throughout our city - sleeper cells of developers and architects are designing massive, neighborhood busting complexes of the type you and your neighborhood council – mistakenly – thought your community plan protected you against.
Now you may ask – how can this be happening?
And why now?
SB-1818 … popularly called the Density Bonus bill … in all its various forms, has been around for many of years. It is one of two types of laws passed in Sacramento that infringe upon our rights to plan our own future.
The first type mandates a certain amount of affordable housing in each city and mandates that city's will provide adequate housing for all of its citizens. This type of legislation ensures that each city provides its fair share of low income housing – and most people support this type of a general mandate.
Then there is the second type of law that strips cities of the right to protect single family and lower density neighborhoods and make it illegal for cities to fully consider congestion, public safety, traffic and the historic character of neighborhoods when permitting new housing. All too often this law type is lobbyist driven and disproportionately rewards developers for including even a tiny amount of low income housing in their projects.
And Los Angeles had no choice but to approve a law of this type … SB1818 … because it is a state law that legally requires the city to do so.
So what can we do about this? What can we do to stop the bulldozing of the historic and low density neighborhoods of our city?
Well, the answer was proposed at last Saturday's LA NC Congress meeting when Janice Hahn described her fight against the Los Angeles version of SB1818 that the city council just passed. Her audience had a suggestion for her. Some of us proposed she introduce a bill demanding that the state legislature repeal this now infamous SB1818 – and every other law that steals from the citizens of this state the right to protect our existing neighborhoods.
And it's important to remember that repealing these bills does not in any way repeal the legal requirement for California cities to build their fair share of affordable housing. All this will do is to allow each city to develop its own plan to meet these still state-mandated goals.
SB1818's repeal also does not keep the city of Los Angeles from passing each of the rules the City Council just passed should the city feel these are the rules we should be following.
Its repeal would allow us to achieve the same goals and to do so after we have created our own guidelines that respect our community plans. And our laws can also be rewritten so that there is a correlation between increased density and a real world increase in affordable housing units.
So this bill's repeal will protect our neighborhoods, slow the destruction of existing affordable housing units – and allow construction that creates a net increased in affordable housing units.
So why would any member of the LA City Council not support this? There is one reason - and only one reason only.
Right now, because a local version of SB1818 is mandatory, members of the city council can vote for developer-enriching, affordable-housing bulldozing, neighborhood- destroying laws by claiming they are being forced to do so by a state law.
But if that law goes away – then they can no longer use that excuse.
Of course, we all know that no single member of our city council would ever stoop to doing that. So there should be no problem getting a 15–0 vote on this and have it ready for the Mayor to sign within say… thirty days?
So Janice – are you ready to introduce that bill?
And NCs' – are we ready to support her?
If so, look for an example of a resolution your neighborhood councils might want to consider passing in the next issue of CITYWATCH. It’s time to get past the talk stage and start walkin’ the walk.
And also look for an announcement soon from the LANCC Economic Development Committee on its upcoming forum on 'How to Build Financially Sustainable – And Neighborhood Friendly – Affordable Housing.’
(Brady Westwater is a writer, a long-time downtown and neighborhood council activist and Chair of the LA NC Congress Economic Development Committee. Westwater is a regular contributor to CityWatch. He can be reached at: bradywestwater@gmail.com
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Grand Avenue Dead Horse Kicking!
Below is my latest CITYWATCH essay:
Grand Ave Project: Usual Suspects Looking for Dead Horses to Kick
Dubai or Not Dubai
By Brady Westwater
When the Grand Avenue Project obtained equity financing from Dubai two weeks ago, all the usual suspects quickly took to their hobby horses to exhume dead horses to kick. And, as expected, the easiest expired equine to batter was the claim Los Angeles taxpayers are giving away hundreds of millions of their tax dollars to the developers – which now include the Royal Family of Dubai.
Unfortunately, the people making these claims are either not familiar with the complicated financial aspects of the project – or, if they do understand them, they choose to ignore them for their own political benefit.
The reality is that not one cent you or I are currently paying is being given any developers – royal or commoner - to enrich themselves. Instead, in an increasingly risky financial market, and despite the increasing cost to the developer, and the daily more difficult real estate market – Related (the developer) is still going ahead without asking for any changes in the development agreement.
As far as the current agreement, let's look at the supposed 'hundreds of millions' of dollars being given to developers, to quote Walter Moore, among others.
Exactly as before, the only direct subsides the developers are getting is an rebate of future tax revenues from the project– about $66 million - $60 million from the future hotel tax and the $6 million future parking tax for 20 and 5 years respectively. That's right. The only direct subsidy is coming from money that would only happen if the project is built.
Not one dime being given to the developers is coming from existing revenues. And the only reason there is a parking tax rebate, is because the City/County have mandated that the public parking – but not the condo or hotel parking – be subsidized at below market rates. And, as for the hotel, the only other major hotel being built Downtown - at LA Live - is also getting a temporary rebate on its hotel tax, which the city agreed to in order to get enough new hotel rooms built to stop the flow of red ink from the convention center; a rebate, I might add, that is far less than all the sales, property and other taxes the hotel will generate for LA.
So whether you agree – or disagree –with that strategy – (and there are very legitimate reasons to disagree with it and I would have structured it somewhat differently myself) that is a policy precedent the city made prior to the approval process of Grand Avenue so the LA LIVE hotel could be competitive with existing hotels – many of which are non-union with lower operating costs - that have long since amortized their development costs.
What most people forget though is that to get to the point where those two subsidies kick in- the developer also had to grant a massive public benefits package to get the approvals to build. Union jobs at the hotel and 100% unionized construction crews, requiring Related to pay far higher salaries than most other LA developers, job training programs, and other community benefits; costs that add far more to the project than the subsidies they are receiving. The biggest public benefit is the requirement that 20% of all the units in the project will be rented at not just far below market value – but, in some cases, likely below even the cost of maintaining those units. And as with much housing of this type – it will be financed though tax increment funds that are restricted to affordable housing – and cannot be used anything else, along with the sale of bonds.
So that is money that will eventually flow through to the residents of those units – and not the developer.
Additionally - there are two things no one ever discusses about this project.
First, should it cost more to build these affordable units – or it costs more to maintain them over the years – 100% of that overage will come not from us – but from the developer. Second, the only thing that will make serious money on this project is the sale of condos and the rental of market rate units. But 20% of those units will either not make the developer a dime - or might even cost them money.
Now to put that in perspective - imagine you own a store – and you had to sell 20% of everything in it at no profit – or even a loss; or suppose you work at a factory and 20% of the hours you work – you don't get paid. And just as a store only has so much shelf space to sell from and you have only so many hours a day in which you can work – Related is only allowed to build so many condos.
So would you agree to those terms?
Of course not.
Or, at least, not unless you were given other incentives to enable you to afford to do so.
And one thing no one ever talks about. In 99 years – the taxpayers of Los Angeles – will own the land free and clear.
Lastly, Waller Moore says that the city and the county should use an upcoming meeting where they have to approve the new financing package – to bail out of the project; that we should withdraw from the project based on the reasons why CALPERS pulled out. Well, CALPERS pulled out because pension funds have to demonstrate they can meet their short term ongoing needs; so their investments need to demonstrate they will be secure in the short term – and not just – the long run. A country such as Dubai (which will be only a minority limited partner) is the perfect passive investor. They are looking at the long term – just as the city and county are - financial benefits of the project.
And since Related has already paid for the property – even before getting their final approvals - the only way the city/county can terminate the deal is if they can prove that the new lender is financially incapable of funding their part of the project. So if the city and county lawyers can't prove that, the developer will win a law suit that will dwarf any money we are putting into this project.
But to know that, of course, one would have to have actually read – and understood – the financial documents about the Grand Avenue project. (Brady Westwater is a writer, community activist and a regular contributor to CityWatch. )
Grand Ave Project: Usual Suspects Looking for Dead Horses to Kick
Dubai or Not Dubai
By Brady Westwater
When the Grand Avenue Project obtained equity financing from Dubai two weeks ago, all the usual suspects quickly took to their hobby horses to exhume dead horses to kick. And, as expected, the easiest expired equine to batter was the claim Los Angeles taxpayers are giving away hundreds of millions of their tax dollars to the developers – which now include the Royal Family of Dubai.
Unfortunately, the people making these claims are either not familiar with the complicated financial aspects of the project – or, if they do understand them, they choose to ignore them for their own political benefit.
The reality is that not one cent you or I are currently paying is being given any developers – royal or commoner - to enrich themselves. Instead, in an increasingly risky financial market, and despite the increasing cost to the developer, and the daily more difficult real estate market – Related (the developer) is still going ahead without asking for any changes in the development agreement.
As far as the current agreement, let's look at the supposed 'hundreds of millions' of dollars being given to developers, to quote Walter Moore, among others.
Exactly as before, the only direct subsides the developers are getting is an rebate of future tax revenues from the project– about $66 million - $60 million from the future hotel tax and the $6 million future parking tax for 20 and 5 years respectively. That's right. The only direct subsidy is coming from money that would only happen if the project is built.
Not one dime being given to the developers is coming from existing revenues. And the only reason there is a parking tax rebate, is because the City/County have mandated that the public parking – but not the condo or hotel parking – be subsidized at below market rates. And, as for the hotel, the only other major hotel being built Downtown - at LA Live - is also getting a temporary rebate on its hotel tax, which the city agreed to in order to get enough new hotel rooms built to stop the flow of red ink from the convention center; a rebate, I might add, that is far less than all the sales, property and other taxes the hotel will generate for LA.
So whether you agree – or disagree –with that strategy – (and there are very legitimate reasons to disagree with it and I would have structured it somewhat differently myself) that is a policy precedent the city made prior to the approval process of Grand Avenue so the LA LIVE hotel could be competitive with existing hotels – many of which are non-union with lower operating costs - that have long since amortized their development costs.
What most people forget though is that to get to the point where those two subsidies kick in- the developer also had to grant a massive public benefits package to get the approvals to build. Union jobs at the hotel and 100% unionized construction crews, requiring Related to pay far higher salaries than most other LA developers, job training programs, and other community benefits; costs that add far more to the project than the subsidies they are receiving. The biggest public benefit is the requirement that 20% of all the units in the project will be rented at not just far below market value – but, in some cases, likely below even the cost of maintaining those units. And as with much housing of this type – it will be financed though tax increment funds that are restricted to affordable housing – and cannot be used anything else, along with the sale of bonds.
So that is money that will eventually flow through to the residents of those units – and not the developer.
Additionally - there are two things no one ever discusses about this project.
First, should it cost more to build these affordable units – or it costs more to maintain them over the years – 100% of that overage will come not from us – but from the developer. Second, the only thing that will make serious money on this project is the sale of condos and the rental of market rate units. But 20% of those units will either not make the developer a dime - or might even cost them money.
Now to put that in perspective - imagine you own a store – and you had to sell 20% of everything in it at no profit – or even a loss; or suppose you work at a factory and 20% of the hours you work – you don't get paid. And just as a store only has so much shelf space to sell from and you have only so many hours a day in which you can work – Related is only allowed to build so many condos.
So would you agree to those terms?
Of course not.
Or, at least, not unless you were given other incentives to enable you to afford to do so.
And one thing no one ever talks about. In 99 years – the taxpayers of Los Angeles – will own the land free and clear.
Lastly, Waller Moore says that the city and the county should use an upcoming meeting where they have to approve the new financing package – to bail out of the project; that we should withdraw from the project based on the reasons why CALPERS pulled out. Well, CALPERS pulled out because pension funds have to demonstrate they can meet their short term ongoing needs; so their investments need to demonstrate they will be secure in the short term – and not just – the long run. A country such as Dubai (which will be only a minority limited partner) is the perfect passive investor. They are looking at the long term – just as the city and county are - financial benefits of the project.
And since Related has already paid for the property – even before getting their final approvals - the only way the city/county can terminate the deal is if they can prove that the new lender is financially incapable of funding their part of the project. So if the city and county lawyers can't prove that, the developer will win a law suit that will dwarf any money we are putting into this project.
But to know that, of course, one would have to have actually read – and understood – the financial documents about the Grand Avenue project. (Brady Westwater is a writer, community activist and a regular contributor to CityWatch. )
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Latin Grammys at Broadway's Million Dollar Theater Tonight???? UPDATE!
When I saw Broadway was closed between 4th and 3rd this afternoon, I was told that the Latin Grammy's were being held tonight. Does anyone know if that is true? I can't find anything on-line saying that.
UPDATE! Above link to Downtown News explains the event....
UPDATE! Above link to Downtown News explains the event....
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Kate Coe For Oscar Producer!
Over at FISHBOLWLA Kate Coe links to a number of chatting class suggestions about how to improve the Oscars, all of which are worth reading. But I like her suggestions best:
In today's LA Times, Patrick Goldstein, that brick-throwing radical, suggests that the Oscar producers are too old, too stuck in variety shows and that recruiting some fresh ideas from ESPN or FOX Sports might save the broadcast "event".
We think forget sports, and look at reality shows.
Why not have the Best Song nominees warbled by the Best Actor nominees, ala American Idol?
Screenwriters can try their luck at acting out their scripts.
Editors should recut each other's movies into very short YouTube films.
And new hosts? Why not Sarah Silverman and Margaret Cho with Gary Busey working the red carpet? Other than the whole good taste issue.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Good Magazine Taken In By Poverty Pimp!
The above CURBEDLA story will take you to the GOOD MAGAZINE link about 'journalist' Sam Slovick's 'expose' of Skid Row.
Well, below you will find a copy of my post exposing not just Sam Slovick's previous lies about Skid Row - but also how when he had a chance to publicly support (in the LA Weekly article) a program to get kids off of Skid Row - he instead lied about the program's existence - among many other things - to make himself look better.
He is the very worst kind of poverty pimp; someone who exploits the homeless to promote himself and his career, no matter how much damage he does to their lives.
http://lacowboy.blogspot.com/search?q=slovick
Saturday, March 11, 2006
LA Weekly's Lies About Kids On Skid Row!
So I pick up a copy of this week's LA WEEKLY and on the cover is a familiar looking kid I have seen around. Then when I saw his name, I recognized him as the kid who had made a film about Skid Row. I then started to read the article by Sam Slovick and while I had some misgivings about the first line - more on that later - when I saw that the article opened talking about the kids at the Union Rescue Mission - I thought - great!
The local media was finally going to talk about what is going right on Skid Row.
This is because the Union Rescue Mission last year closed escrow on an incredible ranch in the foothills of the Angeles National Forest - over 70 acres of heaven. And the 10 buildings on the ranch are going to be converted into transitional housing for up to 250 single mothers and children where they can live off of Skid Row before they are transitioned back into permanent housing.
http://www.urm.org/partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID312006CHID630778CIID2103146,00.html
But since a handful of NIMBY's who live miles - yes, miles - from this secluded canyon ranch are giving the project some grief - I felt it was great that the LA Weekly was going to tell LA about this wonderful project and how it should be supported.
So I started reading - and reading - and reading - and reading... and there was - nothing. Absolutely - nothing about this project.
Instead, the entire article was devoted to bemoaning the fact that there was zero - yes - zero - political will to do anything to get women and children off of Skid Row. And not a single word about the URM program that is about to get so many of the kids and their mothers off of Skid Row - even though the Union Rescue Mission was the setting for both the opening - and the closing of the article.
Then, besides completely ignoring the single most important aspect of kids on Skid Row - the story was also filled with so many factual inaccuracies that it calls into question everything in the story.
To list just a few errors (and I am being more than charitable in calling these 'errors'):
The article states that single moms not staying in shelters usually share 10-by-10 rooms with other single moms with an average of 9 to 10 people in each of these ten-by-ten rooms with no kitchen or bath.
Well, other than the sheer physical impossibly of this being usual - the amount of money single moms with four or five kids have can get would allow each of them to get a lot more than a 10-by-10 room. And when I asked around today if this type of arrangement was at all 'usual' - I was met with laughter.
City Central? There is no such neighborhood in Los Angeles. The business center of the downtown is called Central City and the larger Skid Row area is called Central City East.
In discussing the people he sees in the courtyard of the Midnight Mission:
Another example of that is when he tags the kids of Skid Row as - 'Skids' - a term I have never heard before and a term none of the people I talked to today who work with these kids has ever heard before. However, one woman who does work with these kids on a daily basis, said it was shameful that the writer would tarnish these kids with a slur like that. Later, when he talked about the mother of one of the kids he profiles - he referred to her as - 'a walking disaster'.
Now you imagine how traumatized that kid will be when he reads that description of his mother in the LA Weekly? If that does not qualify as child abuse - I don't know what does.
His description of the project - Safe Sleep Room - at the Midnight Mission:
But, lastly, his biggest lie is to hide from the reader the truth of what is happening on Skid Row; a new program large enough to hold every single mother and her children currently sleeping in shelters on Skid Row. And yet - here are his quotes about the lack political will to do anything about getting kids off of Skid Row:
Eleanor Roosevelt once famously made a distinction between those who merely curse the darkness and those willing to light a candle.
Well, cursing the darkness is no longer enough for the LA Weekly.
When the Weekly discovered someone has at last lit a candle for the children of Skid Row - they feel compelled to blow it out.
# posted by Brady Westwater @ 12:34 AM 7 comments links to this post
Well, below you will find a copy of my post exposing not just Sam Slovick's previous lies about Skid Row - but also how when he had a chance to publicly support (in the LA Weekly article) a program to get kids off of Skid Row - he instead lied about the program's existence - among many other things - to make himself look better.
He is the very worst kind of poverty pimp; someone who exploits the homeless to promote himself and his career, no matter how much damage he does to their lives.
http://lacowboy.blogspot.com/search?q=slovick
Saturday, March 11, 2006
LA Weekly's Lies About Kids On Skid Row!
So I pick up a copy of this week's LA WEEKLY and on the cover is a familiar looking kid I have seen around. Then when I saw his name, I recognized him as the kid who had made a film about Skid Row. I then started to read the article by Sam Slovick and while I had some misgivings about the first line - more on that later - when I saw that the article opened talking about the kids at the Union Rescue Mission - I thought - great!
The local media was finally going to talk about what is going right on Skid Row.
This is because the Union Rescue Mission last year closed escrow on an incredible ranch in the foothills of the Angeles National Forest - over 70 acres of heaven. And the 10 buildings on the ranch are going to be converted into transitional housing for up to 250 single mothers and children where they can live off of Skid Row before they are transitioned back into permanent housing.
http://www.urm.org/partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID312006CHID630778CIID2103146,00.html
But since a handful of NIMBY's who live miles - yes, miles - from this secluded canyon ranch are giving the project some grief - I felt it was great that the LA Weekly was going to tell LA about this wonderful project and how it should be supported.
So I started reading - and reading - and reading - and reading... and there was - nothing. Absolutely - nothing about this project.
Instead, the entire article was devoted to bemoaning the fact that there was zero - yes - zero - political will to do anything to get women and children off of Skid Row. And not a single word about the URM program that is about to get so many of the kids and their mothers off of Skid Row - even though the Union Rescue Mission was the setting for both the opening - and the closing of the article.
Then, besides completely ignoring the single most important aspect of kids on Skid Row - the story was also filled with so many factual inaccuracies that it calls into question everything in the story.
To list just a few errors (and I am being more than charitable in calling these 'errors'):
Some live - off the radar - in makeshift apartments - small 10-by-10-foot rooms with no kitchens or bathrooms in buildings that don't require IDs, credit checks or security deposits. These are usually shared by a couple of single moms with four or five kids each.
The article states that single moms not staying in shelters usually share 10-by-10 rooms with other single moms with an average of 9 to 10 people in each of these ten-by-ten rooms with no kitchen or bath.
Well, other than the sheer physical impossibly of this being usual - the amount of money single moms with four or five kids have can get would allow each of them to get a lot more than a 10-by-10 room. And when I asked around today if this type of arrangement was at all 'usual' - I was met with laughter.
You could throw a rock from the Ford Hotel where Franklin stays and hit a sleeping senator in silk pajamas staying at a five-star hotel if the window was open and your aim was true... well, you might need a slingshot, but you get the point.Well, yes, I DO get the point. The nearest hotel that any senator might stay in - much less a five star hotel - is the Biltmore. And that is well over one mile - about sixteen blocks - from the Ford Hotel. Now if he had just said a stone's throw and meant that as a metaphor, that would be wrong - but at least barely understandable as hyperbole. But to them modify that you might need a sling shot to propel a rock for - 16 blocks, is clearly meant to deceive the reader about the geography of Skid Row.
But what about my friend Joey camped out in the Midnight Mission's courtyard in the middle of the festering wound known as City Central?
City Central? There is no such neighborhood in Los Angeles. The business center of the downtown is called Central City and the larger Skid Row area is called Central City East.
In discussing the people he sees in the courtyard of the Midnight Mission:
All appear to be in need of a bath and a good 10 years of intensive psychiatric treatment, and even then you probably wouldn't want to leave them unsupervised around the kids.Now I know a number of these people - and while they have battled alcohol and drugs, most of them do not need - nor do they appear to need - the 10 years of intensive psychiatric treatment the writer claims they need. And to suggest that even then, it would be unsafe to allow your kids around any of them after ten years of treatment is absurd. But this is typical of the way the writer unfairly demonizes the homeless in this article.
Another example of that is when he tags the kids of Skid Row as - 'Skids' - a term I have never heard before and a term none of the people I talked to today who work with these kids has ever heard before. However, one woman who does work with these kids on a daily basis, said it was shameful that the writer would tarnish these kids with a slur like that. Later, when he talked about the mother of one of the kids he profiles - he referred to her as - 'a walking disaster'.
Now you imagine how traumatized that kid will be when he reads that description of his mother in the LA Weekly? If that does not qualify as child abuse - I don't know what does.
His description of the project - Safe Sleep Room - at the Midnight Mission:
It's relatively clean, but it's stinky and creepy and dank.I have been in that room many times, and it is not relatively clean - it is immaculately clean and it is less than a year old. Granted many of the homeless have not showered, but the room itself is clean and odorless - and this spacious, beautifully designed room is in no way - creepy - unless you feel that just being around the homeless is creepy (which he evidently does) - and the room is in no way the dank, which means, overly damp or humid.
But, lastly, his biggest lie is to hide from the reader the truth of what is happening on Skid Row; a new program large enough to hold every single mother and her children currently sleeping in shelters on Skid Row. And yet - here are his quotes about the lack political will to do anything about getting kids off of Skid Row:
... compassion in lieu of any legitimate political will to get children off Skid Row.
It's going to take lots of that famous political will. I've been living down here for a while now. I'm not sure the prognosis is good.
Eleanor Roosevelt once famously made a distinction between those who merely curse the darkness and those willing to light a candle.
Well, cursing the darkness is no longer enough for the LA Weekly.
When the Weekly discovered someone has at last lit a candle for the children of Skid Row - they feel compelled to blow it out.
# posted by Brady Westwater @ 12:34 AM 7 comments links to this post
Monday, February 18, 2008
Real World Economics
One of the reasons why I rarely get into national 'political' issues is the lack of anything resembling real debate, real world solutions - or even the possibility of anyone ever asking a real world question that should be asked.
The below article's handful of facts demonstrate just screwed up both the press's and the politician's view of this country is when compared to the reality.
February 10, 2008
Op-Ed Contributors
You Are What You Spend
By W. MICHAEL COX and RICHARD ALM
Dallas
WITH markets swinging widely, the Federal Reserve slashing interest rates and the word “recession” on everybody’s lips, renewed attention is being given to the gap between the haves and have-nots in America. Most of this debate, however, is focused on the wrong measurement of financial well-being.
It’s true that the share of national income going to the richest 20 percent of households rose from 43.6 percent in 1975 to 49.6 percent in 2006, the most recent year for which the Bureau of Labor Statistics has complete data. Meanwhile, families in the lowest fifth saw their piece of the pie fall from 4.3 percent to 3.3 percent.
Income statistics, however, don’t tell the whole story of Americans’ living standards. Looking at a far more direct measure of American families’ economic status — household consumption — indicates that the gap between rich and poor is far less than most assume, and that the abstract, income-based way in which we measure the so-called poverty rate no longer applies to our society.
The top fifth of American households earned an average of $149,963 a year in 2006. As shown in the first accompanying chart, they spent $69,863 on food, clothing, shelter, utilities, transportation, health care and other categories of consumption. The rest of their income went largely to taxes and savings.
The bottom fifth earned just $9,974, but spent nearly twice that — an average of $18,153 a year. How is that possible? A look at the far right-hand column of the consumption chart, labeled “financial flows,” shows why: those lower-income families have access to various sources of spending money that doesn’t fall under taxable income. These sources include portions of sales of property like homes and cars and securities that are not subject to capital gains taxes, insurance policies redeemed, or the drawing down of bank accounts. While some of these families are mired in poverty, many (the exact proportion is unclear) are headed by retirees and those temporarily between jobs, and thus their low income total doesn’t accurately reflect their long-term financial status.
So, bearing this in mind, if we compare the incomes of the top and bottom fifths, we see a ratio of 15 to 1. If we turn to consumption, the gap declines to around 4 to 1. A similar narrowing takes place throughout all levels of income distribution. The middle 20 percent of families had incomes more than four times the bottom fifth. Yet their edge in consumption fell to about 2 to 1.
Let’s take the adjustments one step further. Richer households are larger — an average of 3.1 people in the top fifth, compared with 2.5 people in the middle fifth and 1.7 in the bottom fifth. If we look at consumption per person, the difference between the richest and poorest households falls to just 2.1 to 1. The average person in the middle fifth consumes just 29 percent more than someone living in a bottom-fifth household.
To understand why consumption is a better guideline of economic prosperity than income, it helps to consider how our lives have changed. Nearly all American families now have refrigerators, stoves, color TVs, telephones and radios. Air-conditioners, cars, VCRs or DVD players, microwave ovens, washing machines, clothes dryers and cellphones have reached more than 80 percent of households.
As the second chart, on the spread of consumption, shows, this wasn’t always so. The conveniences we take for granted today usually began as niche products only a few wealthy families could afford. In time, ownership spread through the levels of income distribution as rising wages and falling prices made them affordable in the currency that matters most — the amount of time one had to put in at work to gain the necessary purchasing power.
At the average wage, a VCR fell from 365 hours in 1972 to a mere two hours today. A cellphone dropped from 456 hours in 1984 to four hours. A personal computer, jazzed up with thousands of times the computing power of the 1984 I.B.M., declined from 435 hours to 25 hours. Even cars are taking a smaller toll on our bank accounts: in the past decade, the work-time price of a mid-size Ford sedan declined by 6 percent.
There are several reasons that the costs of goods have dropped so drastically, but perhaps the biggest is increased international trade. Imports lower prices directly. Cheaper inputs cut domestic companies’ costs. International competition forces producers everywhere to become more efficient and hold down prices. Nations do what they do best and trade for the rest.
Thus there is a certain perversity to suggestions that the proper reaction to a potential recession is to enact protectionist measures. While foreign competition may have eroded some American workers’ incomes, looking at consumption broadens our perspective. Simply put, the poor are less poor. Globalization extends and deepens a capitalist system that has for generations been lifting American living standards — for high-income households, of course, but for low-income ones as well.
W. Michael Cox is the senior vice president and chief economist and Richard Alm is the senior economics writer at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
The below article's handful of facts demonstrate just screwed up both the press's and the politician's view of this country is when compared to the reality.
February 10, 2008
Op-Ed Contributors
You Are What You Spend
By W. MICHAEL COX and RICHARD ALM
Dallas
WITH markets swinging widely, the Federal Reserve slashing interest rates and the word “recession” on everybody’s lips, renewed attention is being given to the gap between the haves and have-nots in America. Most of this debate, however, is focused on the wrong measurement of financial well-being.
It’s true that the share of national income going to the richest 20 percent of households rose from 43.6 percent in 1975 to 49.6 percent in 2006, the most recent year for which the Bureau of Labor Statistics has complete data. Meanwhile, families in the lowest fifth saw their piece of the pie fall from 4.3 percent to 3.3 percent.
Income statistics, however, don’t tell the whole story of Americans’ living standards. Looking at a far more direct measure of American families’ economic status — household consumption — indicates that the gap between rich and poor is far less than most assume, and that the abstract, income-based way in which we measure the so-called poverty rate no longer applies to our society.
The top fifth of American households earned an average of $149,963 a year in 2006. As shown in the first accompanying chart, they spent $69,863 on food, clothing, shelter, utilities, transportation, health care and other categories of consumption. The rest of their income went largely to taxes and savings.
The bottom fifth earned just $9,974, but spent nearly twice that — an average of $18,153 a year. How is that possible? A look at the far right-hand column of the consumption chart, labeled “financial flows,” shows why: those lower-income families have access to various sources of spending money that doesn’t fall under taxable income. These sources include portions of sales of property like homes and cars and securities that are not subject to capital gains taxes, insurance policies redeemed, or the drawing down of bank accounts. While some of these families are mired in poverty, many (the exact proportion is unclear) are headed by retirees and those temporarily between jobs, and thus their low income total doesn’t accurately reflect their long-term financial status.
So, bearing this in mind, if we compare the incomes of the top and bottom fifths, we see a ratio of 15 to 1. If we turn to consumption, the gap declines to around 4 to 1. A similar narrowing takes place throughout all levels of income distribution. The middle 20 percent of families had incomes more than four times the bottom fifth. Yet their edge in consumption fell to about 2 to 1.
Let’s take the adjustments one step further. Richer households are larger — an average of 3.1 people in the top fifth, compared with 2.5 people in the middle fifth and 1.7 in the bottom fifth. If we look at consumption per person, the difference between the richest and poorest households falls to just 2.1 to 1. The average person in the middle fifth consumes just 29 percent more than someone living in a bottom-fifth household.
To understand why consumption is a better guideline of economic prosperity than income, it helps to consider how our lives have changed. Nearly all American families now have refrigerators, stoves, color TVs, telephones and radios. Air-conditioners, cars, VCRs or DVD players, microwave ovens, washing machines, clothes dryers and cellphones have reached more than 80 percent of households.
As the second chart, on the spread of consumption, shows, this wasn’t always so. The conveniences we take for granted today usually began as niche products only a few wealthy families could afford. In time, ownership spread through the levels of income distribution as rising wages and falling prices made them affordable in the currency that matters most — the amount of time one had to put in at work to gain the necessary purchasing power.
At the average wage, a VCR fell from 365 hours in 1972 to a mere two hours today. A cellphone dropped from 456 hours in 1984 to four hours. A personal computer, jazzed up with thousands of times the computing power of the 1984 I.B.M., declined from 435 hours to 25 hours. Even cars are taking a smaller toll on our bank accounts: in the past decade, the work-time price of a mid-size Ford sedan declined by 6 percent.
There are several reasons that the costs of goods have dropped so drastically, but perhaps the biggest is increased international trade. Imports lower prices directly. Cheaper inputs cut domestic companies’ costs. International competition forces producers everywhere to become more efficient and hold down prices. Nations do what they do best and trade for the rest.
Thus there is a certain perversity to suggestions that the proper reaction to a potential recession is to enact protectionist measures. While foreign competition may have eroded some American workers’ incomes, looking at consumption broadens our perspective. Simply put, the poor are less poor. Globalization extends and deepens a capitalist system that has for generations been lifting American living standards — for high-income households, of course, but for low-income ones as well.
W. Michael Cox is the senior vice president and chief economist and Richard Alm is the senior economics writer at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
LA Observed's Los Angeles Script Project Misplaces Subway Terminal Building! UPDATE!
LA Observed launches today a reader written collective screenplay project. You can get all the details at the above link. It sounds like fun. But for a project named after this city, it's a little embarrassing when the first scene is set in a building that is really miles from the actual scene.
(UPDATE! - Got a very nice note from the author - Eric Estrin - of the site - and the correction has been made and the plot of the story... is thickening....
So go over and stir the plot pot yourself.
EXT. SUBWAY TERMINAL BUILDING - DUSK
RUSSELL NAPOLITANO, 48, rumpled sportcoat, scuffed satchel,
but still and dignified with a ramrod posture, strides
toward a chain-link fence on Lucas Ave. He slips unnoticed
through a bent section of fence and moves down a slope
alongside the graffiti-covered Toluca Substation toward an
abandoned tunnel embedded in a hillside.
Now while the description of Lucas Avenue and the tunnel was once upon a time correct - it has not been for sometime as the now sanitized tunnel is presently in the rear yard of a major housing project. But the real boner was moving the Subway Terminal Building from Fourth and Hill Street in the heart of Downtown to Echo Park adjacent Bevelry Boulevard. On the other hand, though, maybe this is supposed to be a science fiction script and it was moved there by a bored space creature.
(UPDATE! - Got a very nice note from the author - Eric Estrin - of the site - and the correction has been made and the plot of the story... is thickening....
So go over and stir the plot pot yourself.
EXT. SUBWAY TERMINAL BUILDING - DUSK
RUSSELL NAPOLITANO, 48, rumpled sportcoat, scuffed satchel,
but still and dignified with a ramrod posture, strides
toward a chain-link fence on Lucas Ave. He slips unnoticed
through a bent section of fence and moves down a slope
alongside the graffiti-covered Toluca Substation toward an
abandoned tunnel embedded in a hillside.
Now while the description of Lucas Avenue and the tunnel was once upon a time correct - it has not been for sometime as the now sanitized tunnel is presently in the rear yard of a major housing project. But the real boner was moving the Subway Terminal Building from Fourth and Hill Street in the heart of Downtown to Echo Park adjacent Bevelry Boulevard. On the other hand, though, maybe this is supposed to be a science fiction script and it was moved there by a bored space creature.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Eli Broad's New Museum - Or - Even When Eli's Wrong - Eli's Still Right!
Below is a slightly expanded version of my recent CITYWATCH article about Eli Broad. LACMA and the Los Angeles Times:
Eli Broad has just donated to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art a new $56 million art museum designed by architect Renzo Piano. He added to that gift an additional $10million to buy art for it. For this craven act he was, of course, properly reprimanded by the Los Angeles Times.
My first run-in with Eli and his 'misguided' concept of the public good was at the start of the Grand Avenue project process. He had the foolish idea that selecting a developer with deep pockets and the ability to survive downturns was more important than hiring the developer attached to the best architect. For that reason, I attended numerous meetings to denounce the third rate architect his favored developer, the Related Companies, had proposed.
Unfortunately, Related won. But two architect changes later, Frank Gehry was hired for what may be his only major commercial project in LA and, at a time other projects are being canceled, Grand Avenue will rise, notwithstanding current misinformation. So Grand Avenue ended up with a deep pocketed builder, a first rate local architect – and a project that will be built.
Eli Broad's most current crimes against nature, according to the Los Angeles Times, start with his showing part of his art collection at LACMA some years ago without his committing to donate the collection to LACMA. This was considered a mortal sin by the LA Times since some collectors have gotten the imprimatur of showing their collection at a museum – and then sold off their collections at auction. Except, Eli has been buying and not selling at auctions and he has promised to keep his collection intact in a foundation. He never profited from that show.
Next, he had the nerve to hire his own architect and pay for all the costs of the new museum building himself when no one else would.
As background, some years ago, it was realized that LACMA needed considerably more exhibition space and that the existing campus had to be redesigned. A plan by Rem Koolhaas was commissioned and approved and Eli promised the first $50 million of the needed $300 million that had to be raised.
The problem was - the fund raising started – and ended - with him.
Then a public bond issue to help fund the project failed at the polls.
So Eli committed to a $50 million-plus building as part of the first phase of the redesign – and to also pay for a master plan so that future projects could be funded by others in the future.
With that jump start, the needed $156 million for phase one was soon achieved – and over $200 million has now been raised. The extra money will go into programming, endowment growth, and art acquisitions.
He also agreed to have the galleries in 'his' building (BCAM - the Broad Contemporary At Museum) to be named after other donors, he did not restrict what art could be shown and he did not ask for curatorial influence other than some input in the initial show.
Clearly an out of control ego here.
Christopher Knight of the Times then finds the show offensive because all the art in it looks… expensive. He is also appalled that much of finest - and the most expensive (which is not always the same thing, of course) - work of the last century was created by white males (with not enough local women or artists of color in the collection) and that the Broad collections reflect the tastes of… the Broads.
All of which is… total bull shit.
There are dozens of local collectors buying local women and artists of color – and our museums will soon be filled with their works. But no one in LA is buying – in quantity - museum quality work of the most expensive artists of the second half of the last century. The Broad's collections also have many younger LA artists and many younger woemen aritsts and aritsts of color. But LACMA director Michael Govan chose instead to show the unique strengths of the Broad's collections; the masterworks that few oteher people are buying and donating to museusm.
The Broads are filling a gap no one else is filling for LACMA while others are buying the artists Knight feels the Broads should also be buying.
As for the collection having the Broad's taste – again, there is no requirement that the new building has to show any of their work. The museum is free to select – or reject – anything from any of the Broad Collections.
That brings us to the final attack. Eli has decided – for now - to keep his 2,000 works of art – 600 of which were purchased in the last two years – and he is still buying – in a foundation museums can borrow from – with LACMA always having first choice in selecting what to borrow.
Now, I have to admit when I first heard this, I was a little put off – until I saw the small fraction of his collections within the new building. I then realized how many of even these works of art would not be on view once the building was recurated a year from now to tell the story of 20th Century art.
I also thought of all the paintings I have seen over the years at his foundation that were not on display – and which would never be on display if they all belonged to LACMA.
So, reluctantly, I realized he was right.
Art should be seen. And at the rate at which he is buying, no museum will ever be able to show but a fraction of his art. So under his plan more people will be able to see…. more art. Now I don't know about you – but that sure sounds like a hanging crime to me.
Ironically, by not donating his collection, but allowing LACMA to borrow whatever they want from it, Eli is removing his personal taste from the equation of what is shown in the building – and he allows LACMA director Michael Govan – and all future directors – the maximum artistic freedom – and flexibility.
So this solves all of the reasons why Christopher Knight has for attacking Broad’s collections. Assuming, of course, those reasons have anything at all to do with the real reasons for the always highly personal attacks by the LA Times on Broad. (Brady Westwater is a writer, community activist and a regular contributor to CityWatch. ) _
Eli Broad has just donated to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art a new $56 million art museum designed by architect Renzo Piano. He added to that gift an additional $10million to buy art for it. For this craven act he was, of course, properly reprimanded by the Los Angeles Times.
My first run-in with Eli and his 'misguided' concept of the public good was at the start of the Grand Avenue project process. He had the foolish idea that selecting a developer with deep pockets and the ability to survive downturns was more important than hiring the developer attached to the best architect. For that reason, I attended numerous meetings to denounce the third rate architect his favored developer, the Related Companies, had proposed.
Unfortunately, Related won. But two architect changes later, Frank Gehry was hired for what may be his only major commercial project in LA and, at a time other projects are being canceled, Grand Avenue will rise, notwithstanding current misinformation. So Grand Avenue ended up with a deep pocketed builder, a first rate local architect – and a project that will be built.
Eli Broad's most current crimes against nature, according to the Los Angeles Times, start with his showing part of his art collection at LACMA some years ago without his committing to donate the collection to LACMA. This was considered a mortal sin by the LA Times since some collectors have gotten the imprimatur of showing their collection at a museum – and then sold off their collections at auction. Except, Eli has been buying and not selling at auctions and he has promised to keep his collection intact in a foundation. He never profited from that show.
Next, he had the nerve to hire his own architect and pay for all the costs of the new museum building himself when no one else would.
As background, some years ago, it was realized that LACMA needed considerably more exhibition space and that the existing campus had to be redesigned. A plan by Rem Koolhaas was commissioned and approved and Eli promised the first $50 million of the needed $300 million that had to be raised.
The problem was - the fund raising started – and ended - with him.
Then a public bond issue to help fund the project failed at the polls.
So Eli committed to a $50 million-plus building as part of the first phase of the redesign – and to also pay for a master plan so that future projects could be funded by others in the future.
With that jump start, the needed $156 million for phase one was soon achieved – and over $200 million has now been raised. The extra money will go into programming, endowment growth, and art acquisitions.
He also agreed to have the galleries in 'his' building (BCAM - the Broad Contemporary At Museum) to be named after other donors, he did not restrict what art could be shown and he did not ask for curatorial influence other than some input in the initial show.
Clearly an out of control ego here.
Christopher Knight of the Times then finds the show offensive because all the art in it looks… expensive. He is also appalled that much of finest - and the most expensive (which is not always the same thing, of course) - work of the last century was created by white males (with not enough local women or artists of color in the collection) and that the Broad collections reflect the tastes of… the Broads.
All of which is… total bull shit.
There are dozens of local collectors buying local women and artists of color – and our museums will soon be filled with their works. But no one in LA is buying – in quantity - museum quality work of the most expensive artists of the second half of the last century. The Broad's collections also have many younger LA artists and many younger woemen aritsts and aritsts of color. But LACMA director Michael Govan chose instead to show the unique strengths of the Broad's collections; the masterworks that few oteher people are buying and donating to museusm.
The Broads are filling a gap no one else is filling for LACMA while others are buying the artists Knight feels the Broads should also be buying.
As for the collection having the Broad's taste – again, there is no requirement that the new building has to show any of their work. The museum is free to select – or reject – anything from any of the Broad Collections.
That brings us to the final attack. Eli has decided – for now - to keep his 2,000 works of art – 600 of which were purchased in the last two years – and he is still buying – in a foundation museums can borrow from – with LACMA always having first choice in selecting what to borrow.
Now, I have to admit when I first heard this, I was a little put off – until I saw the small fraction of his collections within the new building. I then realized how many of even these works of art would not be on view once the building was recurated a year from now to tell the story of 20th Century art.
I also thought of all the paintings I have seen over the years at his foundation that were not on display – and which would never be on display if they all belonged to LACMA.
So, reluctantly, I realized he was right.
Art should be seen. And at the rate at which he is buying, no museum will ever be able to show but a fraction of his art. So under his plan more people will be able to see…. more art. Now I don't know about you – but that sure sounds like a hanging crime to me.
Ironically, by not donating his collection, but allowing LACMA to borrow whatever they want from it, Eli is removing his personal taste from the equation of what is shown in the building – and he allows LACMA director Michael Govan – and all future directors – the maximum artistic freedom – and flexibility.
So this solves all of the reasons why Christopher Knight has for attacking Broad’s collections. Assuming, of course, those reasons have anything at all to do with the real reasons for the always highly personal attacks by the LA Times on Broad. (Brady Westwater is a writer, community activist and a regular contributor to CityWatch. ) _
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Eli Broad's New Museum - Or - Even When Eli's Wrong - Eli's Still Right!
Below is a slightly expanded version of my recent CITYWATCH article about Eli Broad. LACMA and the Los Angeles Times:
Eli Broad has just donated to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art a new $56 million art museum designed by architect Renzo Piano. He added to that gift an additional $10million to buy art for it. For this craven act he was, of course, properly reprimanded by the Los Angeles Times.
My first run-in with Eli and his 'misguided' concept of the public good was at the start of the Grand Avenue project process. He had the foolish idea that selecting a developer with deep pockets and the ability to survive downturns was more important than hiring the developer attached to the best architect. For that reason, I attended numerous meetings to denounce the third rate architect his favored developer, the Related Companies, had proposed.
Unfortunately, Related won. But two architect changes later, Frank Gehry was hired for what may be his only major commercial project in LA and, at a time other projects are being canceled, Grand Avenue will rise, notwithstanding current misinformation. So Grand Avenue ended up with a deep pocketed builder, a first rate local architect – and a project that will be built.
Eli Broad's most current crimes against nature, according to the Los Angeles Times, start with his showing part of his art collection at LACMA some years ago without his committing to donate the collection to LACMA. This was considered a mortal sin by the LA Times since some collectors have gotten the imprimatur of showing their collection at a museum – and then sold off their collections at auction. Except, Eli has been buying and not selling at auctions and he has promised to keep his collection intact in a foundation. He never profited from that show.
Next, he had the nerve to hire his own architect and pay for all the costs of the new museum building himself when no one else would.
As background, some years ago, it was realized that LACMA needed considerably more exhibition space and that the existing campus had to be redesigned. A plan by Rem Koolhaas was commissioned and approved and Eli promised the first $50 million of the needed $300 million that had to be raised.
The problem was - the fund raising started – and ended - with him.
Then a public bond issue to help fund the project failed at the polls.
So Eli committed to a $50 million-plus building as part of the first phase of the redesign – and to also pay for a master plan so that future projects could be funded by others in the future.
With that jump start, the needed $156 million for phase one was soon achieved – and over $200 million has now been raised. The extra money will go into programming, endowment growth, and art acquisitions.
He also agreed to have the galleries in 'his' building (BCAM - the Broad Contemporary At Museum) to be named after other donors, he did not restrict what art could be shown and he did not ask for curatorial influence other than some input in the initial show.
Clearly an out of control ego here.
Christopher Knight of the Times then finds the show offensive because all the art in it looks… expensive. He is also appalled that much of finest - and the most expensive (which is not always the same thing, of course) - work of the last century was created by white males (with not enough local women or artists of color in the collection) and that the Broad collections reflect the tastes of… the Broads.
All of which is… total bull shit.
There are dozens of local collectors buying local women and artists of color – and our museums will soon be filled with their works. But no one in LA is buying – in quantity - museum quality work of the most expensive artists of the second half of the last century. The Broad's collections also have many younger LA artists and many younger woemen aritsts and aritsts of color. But LACMA director Michael Govan chose instead to show the unique strengths of the Broad's collections; the masterworks that few oteher people are buying and donating to museusm.
The Broads are filling a gap no one else is filling for LACMA while others are buying the artists Knight feels the Broads should also be buying.
As for the collection having the Broad's taste – again, there is no requirement that the new building has to show any of their work. The museum is free to select – or reject – anything from any of the Broad Collections.
That brings us to the final attack. Eli has decided – for now - to keep his 2,000 works of art – 600 of which were purchased in the last two years – and he is still buying – in a foundation museums can borrow from – with LACMA always having first choice in selecting what to borrow.
Now, I have to admit when I first heard this, I was a little put off – until I saw the small fraction of his collections within the new building. I then realized how many of even these works of art would not be on view once the building was recurated a year from now to tell the story of 20th Century art.
I also thought of all the paintings I have seen over the years at his foundation that were not on display – and which would never be on display if they all belonged to LACMA.
So, reluctantly, I realized he was right.
Art should be seen. And at the rate at which he is buying, no museum will ever be able to show but a fraction of his art. So under his plan more people will be able to see…. more art. Now I don't know about you – but that sure sounds like a hanging crime to me.
Ironically, by not donating his collection, but allowing LACMA to borrow whatever they want from it, Eli is removing his personal taste from the equation of what is shown in the building – and he allows LACMA director Michael Govan – and all future directors – the maximum artistic freedom – and flexibility.
So this solves all of the reasons why Christopher Knight has for attacking Broad’s collections. Assuming, of course, those reasons have anything at all to do with the real reasons for the always highly personal attacks by the LA Times on Broad. (Brady Westwater is a writer, community activist and a regular contributor to CityWatch. ) _
Eli Broad has just donated to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art a new $56 million art museum designed by architect Renzo Piano. He added to that gift an additional $10million to buy art for it. For this craven act he was, of course, properly reprimanded by the Los Angeles Times.
My first run-in with Eli and his 'misguided' concept of the public good was at the start of the Grand Avenue project process. He had the foolish idea that selecting a developer with deep pockets and the ability to survive downturns was more important than hiring the developer attached to the best architect. For that reason, I attended numerous meetings to denounce the third rate architect his favored developer, the Related Companies, had proposed.
Unfortunately, Related won. But two architect changes later, Frank Gehry was hired for what may be his only major commercial project in LA and, at a time other projects are being canceled, Grand Avenue will rise, notwithstanding current misinformation. So Grand Avenue ended up with a deep pocketed builder, a first rate local architect – and a project that will be built.
Eli Broad's most current crimes against nature, according to the Los Angeles Times, start with his showing part of his art collection at LACMA some years ago without his committing to donate the collection to LACMA. This was considered a mortal sin by the LA Times since some collectors have gotten the imprimatur of showing their collection at a museum – and then sold off their collections at auction. Except, Eli has been buying and not selling at auctions and he has promised to keep his collection intact in a foundation. He never profited from that show.
Next, he had the nerve to hire his own architect and pay for all the costs of the new museum building himself when no one else would.
As background, some years ago, it was realized that LACMA needed considerably more exhibition space and that the existing campus had to be redesigned. A plan by Rem Koolhaas was commissioned and approved and Eli promised the first $50 million of the needed $300 million that had to be raised.
The problem was - the fund raising started – and ended - with him.
Then a public bond issue to help fund the project failed at the polls.
So Eli committed to a $50 million-plus building as part of the first phase of the redesign – and to also pay for a master plan so that future projects could be funded by others in the future.
With that jump start, the needed $156 million for phase one was soon achieved – and over $200 million has now been raised. The extra money will go into programming, endowment growth, and art acquisitions.
He also agreed to have the galleries in 'his' building (BCAM - the Broad Contemporary At Museum) to be named after other donors, he did not restrict what art could be shown and he did not ask for curatorial influence other than some input in the initial show.
Clearly an out of control ego here.
Christopher Knight of the Times then finds the show offensive because all the art in it looks… expensive. He is also appalled that much of finest - and the most expensive (which is not always the same thing, of course) - work of the last century was created by white males (with not enough local women or artists of color in the collection) and that the Broad collections reflect the tastes of… the Broads.
All of which is… total bull shit.
There are dozens of local collectors buying local women and artists of color – and our museums will soon be filled with their works. But no one in LA is buying – in quantity - museum quality work of the most expensive artists of the second half of the last century. The Broad's collections also have many younger LA artists and many younger woemen aritsts and aritsts of color. But LACMA director Michael Govan chose instead to show the unique strengths of the Broad's collections; the masterworks that few oteher people are buying and donating to museusm.
The Broads are filling a gap no one else is filling for LACMA while others are buying the artists Knight feels the Broads should also be buying.
As for the collection having the Broad's taste – again, there is no requirement that the new building has to show any of their work. The museum is free to select – or reject – anything from any of the Broad Collections.
That brings us to the final attack. Eli has decided – for now - to keep his 2,000 works of art – 600 of which were purchased in the last two years – and he is still buying – in a foundation museums can borrow from – with LACMA always having first choice in selecting what to borrow.
Now, I have to admit when I first heard this, I was a little put off – until I saw the small fraction of his collections within the new building. I then realized how many of even these works of art would not be on view once the building was recurated a year from now to tell the story of 20th Century art.
I also thought of all the paintings I have seen over the years at his foundation that were not on display – and which would never be on display if they all belonged to LACMA.
So, reluctantly, I realized he was right.
Art should be seen. And at the rate at which he is buying, no museum will ever be able to show but a fraction of his art. So under his plan more people will be able to see…. more art. Now I don't know about you – but that sure sounds like a hanging crime to me.
Ironically, by not donating his collection, but allowing LACMA to borrow whatever they want from it, Eli is removing his personal taste from the equation of what is shown in the building – and he allows LACMA director Michael Govan – and all future directors – the maximum artistic freedom – and flexibility.
So this solves all of the reasons why Christopher Knight has for attacking Broad’s collections. Assuming, of course, those reasons have anything at all to do with the real reasons for the always highly personal attacks by the LA Times on Broad. (Brady Westwater is a writer, community activist and a regular contributor to CityWatch. ) _
Downtown FREE Comedy Walk - TONIGHT!
First, come Downtown for the ART WALK - www.downtownartwalk.com and then see the new Comedy Walk.
Six Simultaneous 90-minute Shows, 30 Top Comedy Acts!
Valentine’s Day Feb. 14, 8:30pm-10pm, downtown Los Angeles
FREE TICKETS: www.comedywalk.com
Come early and check out the Downtown Art Walk: www.downtownartwalk.com from noon to 9 PM and then join us on the Comedy Walk from 8:30 - 10 PM all within one block and a half of Fifth and Spring Streets.
HOSTS: Garrett Morris, Ernie G, Melody Murray, Stefany Northcutt,
Claudine Guerrero, and Kimberly Douglas.
COMEDIANS: Nidhal Arbaza, Chris Adams, Amanda Alva, Joe Bartnick,
Competitive Awesome, Ernie G, Rene Garcia, Michael Goldstrom, Mark
Gonzalez, Hair of the Mangy Dog, Erik Lundy, Martha Marion, Annie
McKnight, Rebecca Meisl, Dave Mishevitz, Garrett Morris, Alex Nussbaum,
Sal Rodriguez, Melanie Reno, Iliza Shlesinger, Todd "JT" Thomas, Scott
Vinci, Joe Wilson and more.
VENUES: Downtown Comedy Club, the Palace Theatre, the New LATC, the
Wyatt Earp Room at the Alexandria, and the Onion Room and the Backstage
at Spring Arts Tower.
COMEDY WALK performers have appeared on Carpoolers, Pushing Daisies,
Saturday Night Live, and Seinfeld. They've appeared in televised comedy
performances on Comedy Central Comic Groove, Comedy Central Live at
Gotham, Comedy Central Premium Blend, Comic's Unleashed, BET Comic View,
and HBO Def Jam. They've been on radio with National Lampoon Radio, The
Playboy Morning Show, Sirius, and XM Radio. They've appeared live at the
Comedy Central Stage, the Comedy Store, the HA HA Club, The Ice House,
The Improv, and the Laugh Factory.
* Parking in the garage at Main and 6th for $5
Venue #1
Downtown Comedy Club
501 S Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
200-seat club
Hosts: Garrett Morris & Kevin Garnier
1. 8:25 Host Warm-Up
2. 8:30 Rene Garcia
3. 8:40 TBA
4. 8:50 Todd Thomas
5. 9:00 Rebecca Meisl
6. 9:10 Joe Bartnick
7. 9:20 Melanie Reno
8. 9:30 Sal Rodriguez
9. 9:40 Annie McKnight
10. 9:50 Garrett Morris
Venue #2
Palace Theatre
ALL LATINO COMEDIANS TONIGHT!
630 S. Broadway
Los Angeles, CA 90013
1,100-seat theater
Host: Ernie G
1. 8:25 Host Warm-Up
2. 8:30 Amanda Alva
3. 8:40 Sal Rodriquez
4. 8:50 TBA
5. 9:00 TBA
6. 9:10 Mark Gonzalez
7. 9:20 Rene Garcia
8. 9:30 TBA
9. 9:40 TBA
10. 9:50 Ernie G
Venue #3
The New LATC
Los Angeles Theater Center
514 S. Spring St., Theater #4
Los Angeles, CA 90013
80-seat cabaret
Host: Kimberly Douglas
1. 8:25 Host Warm-Up
2. 8:30 Mark Gonzalez
3. 8:40 Melanie Reno
4. 8:50 TBA
5. 9:00 Iliza Shlesinger
6. 9:10 Erik Lundy
7. 9:20 Competitive Awesome
8. 9:30 Joe Wilson
9. 9:40 Alex Nussbaum
10. 9:50 Joe Bartnick
Venue #4
Wyatt Earp Room
Alexandria Building
212 W. 5th Steet
Los Angeles, CA 90013
1,000 sq. ft. SRO
Host: Melody Murray
1. 8:25 Host Warm-Up
2. 8:30 Alex Nussbaum
3. 8:40 TBA
4. 8:50 Joe Wilson
5. 9:00 Nidhal Abaza
6. 9:10 Hair of the Mangy Dog
7. 9:20 Michael Goldstrom
8. 9:30 Chris Adams
9. 9:40 Martha Marion
10. 9:50 Dave Mishevitz
Venue #5
The Onion Room
Spring Arts Tower
207 W. 5th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
1,400 sq. ft. SRO
Host: Stefany Northcutt
1. 8:25 Host Warm-Up
2. 8:30 Erik Lundy
3. 8:40 Competitive Awesome
4. 8:50 Michael Goldstrom
5. 9:00 Annie McKnight
6. 9:10 Dave Mishevitz
7. 9:20 Scott Vinci
8. 9:30 Todd Thomas
9. 9:40 TBA
10. 9:50 Iliza Shlesinger
Venue #6
The Backstage
Spring Arts Tower
211 W. 5th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
1,600 sq. ft. SRO
Host: Claudine Guerrero
1. 8:25 Host Warm-Up
2. 8:30 Hair of the Mangy Dog
3. 8:40 Scott Vinci
4. 8:50 Chris Adams
5. 9:00 Martha Mason
6. 9:10 Amanda Alva
7. 9:20 TBA
8. 9:30 Nidhal Abaza
9. 9:40 Rebecca Meisl
10. 9:50 TBA
For details see www.comedywalk.com.
Six Simultaneous 90-minute Shows, 30 Top Comedy Acts!
Valentine’s Day Feb. 14, 8:30pm-10pm, downtown Los Angeles
FREE TICKETS: www.comedywalk.com
Come early and check out the Downtown Art Walk: www.downtownartwalk.com from noon to 9 PM and then join us on the Comedy Walk from 8:30 - 10 PM all within one block and a half of Fifth and Spring Streets.
HOSTS: Garrett Morris, Ernie G, Melody Murray, Stefany Northcutt,
Claudine Guerrero, and Kimberly Douglas.
COMEDIANS: Nidhal Arbaza, Chris Adams, Amanda Alva, Joe Bartnick,
Competitive Awesome, Ernie G, Rene Garcia, Michael Goldstrom, Mark
Gonzalez, Hair of the Mangy Dog, Erik Lundy, Martha Marion, Annie
McKnight, Rebecca Meisl, Dave Mishevitz, Garrett Morris, Alex Nussbaum,
Sal Rodriguez, Melanie Reno, Iliza Shlesinger, Todd "JT" Thomas, Scott
Vinci, Joe Wilson and more.
VENUES: Downtown Comedy Club, the Palace Theatre, the New LATC, the
Wyatt Earp Room at the Alexandria, and the Onion Room and the Backstage
at Spring Arts Tower.
COMEDY WALK performers have appeared on Carpoolers, Pushing Daisies,
Saturday Night Live, and Seinfeld. They've appeared in televised comedy
performances on Comedy Central Comic Groove, Comedy Central Live at
Gotham, Comedy Central Premium Blend, Comic's Unleashed, BET Comic View,
and HBO Def Jam. They've been on radio with National Lampoon Radio, The
Playboy Morning Show, Sirius, and XM Radio. They've appeared live at the
Comedy Central Stage, the Comedy Store, the HA HA Club, The Ice House,
The Improv, and the Laugh Factory.
* Parking in the garage at Main and 6th for $5
Venue #1
Downtown Comedy Club
501 S Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
200-seat club
Hosts: Garrett Morris & Kevin Garnier
1. 8:25 Host Warm-Up
2. 8:30 Rene Garcia
3. 8:40 TBA
4. 8:50 Todd Thomas
5. 9:00 Rebecca Meisl
6. 9:10 Joe Bartnick
7. 9:20 Melanie Reno
8. 9:30 Sal Rodriguez
9. 9:40 Annie McKnight
10. 9:50 Garrett Morris
Venue #2
Palace Theatre
ALL LATINO COMEDIANS TONIGHT!
630 S. Broadway
Los Angeles, CA 90013
1,100-seat theater
Host: Ernie G
1. 8:25 Host Warm-Up
2. 8:30 Amanda Alva
3. 8:40 Sal Rodriquez
4. 8:50 TBA
5. 9:00 TBA
6. 9:10 Mark Gonzalez
7. 9:20 Rene Garcia
8. 9:30 TBA
9. 9:40 TBA
10. 9:50 Ernie G
Venue #3
The New LATC
Los Angeles Theater Center
514 S. Spring St., Theater #4
Los Angeles, CA 90013
80-seat cabaret
Host: Kimberly Douglas
1. 8:25 Host Warm-Up
2. 8:30 Mark Gonzalez
3. 8:40 Melanie Reno
4. 8:50 TBA
5. 9:00 Iliza Shlesinger
6. 9:10 Erik Lundy
7. 9:20 Competitive Awesome
8. 9:30 Joe Wilson
9. 9:40 Alex Nussbaum
10. 9:50 Joe Bartnick
Venue #4
Wyatt Earp Room
Alexandria Building
212 W. 5th Steet
Los Angeles, CA 90013
1,000 sq. ft. SRO
Host: Melody Murray
1. 8:25 Host Warm-Up
2. 8:30 Alex Nussbaum
3. 8:40 TBA
4. 8:50 Joe Wilson
5. 9:00 Nidhal Abaza
6. 9:10 Hair of the Mangy Dog
7. 9:20 Michael Goldstrom
8. 9:30 Chris Adams
9. 9:40 Martha Marion
10. 9:50 Dave Mishevitz
Venue #5
The Onion Room
Spring Arts Tower
207 W. 5th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
1,400 sq. ft. SRO
Host: Stefany Northcutt
1. 8:25 Host Warm-Up
2. 8:30 Erik Lundy
3. 8:40 Competitive Awesome
4. 8:50 Michael Goldstrom
5. 9:00 Annie McKnight
6. 9:10 Dave Mishevitz
7. 9:20 Scott Vinci
8. 9:30 Todd Thomas
9. 9:40 TBA
10. 9:50 Iliza Shlesinger
Venue #6
The Backstage
Spring Arts Tower
211 W. 5th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
1,600 sq. ft. SRO
Host: Claudine Guerrero
1. 8:25 Host Warm-Up
2. 8:30 Hair of the Mangy Dog
3. 8:40 Scott Vinci
4. 8:50 Chris Adams
5. 9:00 Martha Mason
6. 9:10 Amanda Alva
7. 9:20 TBA
8. 9:30 Nidhal Abaza
9. 9:40 Rebecca Meisl
10. 9:50 TBA
For details see www.comedywalk.com.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Classy Credit By Nikki Finke To Joel Stein!
Last night when Joel Stein, as a WGAW member, heard in Shrine Auditorioum that the writers would - after all - be allowed to vote on the new proposed contract before returning to work - he messaged that to the Los Angeles Times and gave them the scoop.
Nikke Finke then got the email from the Times and, rather than texting someone in the Shrine - and waiting for a response - she went with the breaking news - and credited it to Stein.
A classy gesture from the lady who has owned this story from the beginning.
Nikke Finke then got the email from the Times and, rather than texting someone in the Shrine - and waiting for a response - she went with the breaking news - and credited it to Stein.
A classy gesture from the lady who has owned this story from the beginning.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Getty Gets One Of 20th Century Photography's Greatest Series Of Works!
I had no idea Irving Penn's 252 full length photos of people at work he began in 1950 and continuing for decades was still in his possession. But it no longer is; instead it belongs to the people of Los Angeles, thanks to the Getty.
Now we only need a building big enough to display the photographic riches of the Getty Museum.
Stay tuned.
Now we only need a building big enough to display the photographic riches of the Getty Museum.
Stay tuned.
February 7, 2008
Getty Museum Acquires Penn Photographs
By RANDY KENNEDY
The subjects of the velvety black-and-white pictures are not exactly Irving Penn’s elegantly dressed, or undressed, regulars: a plump charwoman with her bucket and brush; a bespectacled seamstress draped with her measuring tape; a deep-sea diver disappearing into his monstrous helmet and suit.
But Mr. Penn considered these blue-collar portraits, called “The Small Trades,” some of the most important of his long and influential career. He began taking them in the summer of 1950 for Vogue, the magazine with which he has become synonymous, and now they have finally found a home together at a museum. On Wednesday the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles announced that it had acquired the entire series, 252 full-length portraits of workers — waiters, bakers, butchers, rag-and-bone men — that it called Mr. Penn’s most extensive body of work.
“This is a set of images that the Getty has been thinking about and wanting to get for several years,” said Virginia Heckert, an associate photography curator at the Getty, who helped negotiate a deal with Mr. Penn, who sold some of the pictures and donated others. “In the last year it finally managed to come together. It’s a very exciting acquisition for us.”
Mr. Penn, now 90, began the portrait project in Paris for a Vogue series on that city’s workers. He continued it for another year after the assignment, seeking out workers in London and then in New York, where he lived, asking them to come to his studio in their work clothes and carrying the tools of their trade.
Unlike the photographs of August Sander, who took more naturalistic, anthropological portraits of German tradespeople and professionals usually in the settings where they worked, Mr. Penn’s portraits, perhaps owing to his training as a painter and a fashion photographer, are more formal and personal. He posed each subject against a neutral background and tried to use natural northern light.
“There is something quite theatrical about the presentation of Penn’s subject to the camera,” Ms. Heckert said. “They’re basically on a stage.”
But because of the isolated setting, the pictures also seem to reveal something about the people as individuals, not just as functionaries. “It’s really about the subject presenting himself in a more intimate setting to his photographer,” she added. “It’s a more psychological relationship between the artist and the subject.” She added that, at a time when abstraction was becoming the dominant mode in the art world, Mr. Penn’s decision to dedicate himself to art portraiture was important and made the series even more significant. “He didn’t want to go away from the subject but to find a way to describe it in utter detail,” Ms. Heckert said.
Weston Naef, the Getty’s senior photography curator, said that the museum had been working to acquire the series for more than five years, but the sticking point had been copyright ownership of the images. In many cases, he said, Mr. Penn and Condé Nast, which owns Vogue, share the copyrights to Mr. Penn’s images. And the Getty, which had long insisted that it be given copyright power over the trade series, along with the master set of the photographs, decided in the end to abandon the copyright demand.
“This was a real advance for this institution to be able to do that on such a large scale,” said Mr. Naef, who added that when it comes to copyrights for Mr. Penn’s work, “it is always a complicated story.” (He and Ms. Heckert declined to say how much the museum paid for the silver-gelatin and platinum prints, whose sale was negotiated by the Pace/MacGill Gallery.)
In recent years Mr. Penn has been engaging in negotiations that have placed important pieces of his work at prominent institutions like the Art Institute of Chicago and the Morgan Library & Museum in New York. Mr. Naef said that the Getty made a compelling case that the workers’ portraits would be well served at the museum, which has extensive holdings of Sander’s work, for example, and one of the best photography collections in the world. The Getty plans an exhibition of the images in September 2009.
“We think he’s one of the greatest living artists in any medium,” Mr. Naef said. “And we like to focus on whole bodies of work. We’re seeing these pictures as if they’re Monet’s waterlilies, a single coherent body of work.”
And in the span of Mr. Penn’s work, he said: “They’re absolutely seminal. They’re like Jasper Johns flags or Rauschenberg’s ‘combines.’ ”
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Is Matt Drudge Dead?
While I still check Matt Drudge throughout the day and clink on his links, when it comes to breaking news - he's increasingly not the place to go. Tonight's election returns coverage painfully demonstrate the gap between the old Drudge and the new Drudge.
Until recently - he would have sneaked leaks about exit polls during the day, had constant coverage of incidents at polling paces around the country (instead of just a few) and then - once the vote counting started - he would have been the first to list the first calls from networks and wire services.
But tonight...
Tonight there was little updating and the list of called states was at times... hours... old. There was also zero unique informtion on the results.
Maybe it's too many hours spent in the Miami sun and too many years in exile from LA in a resort town. Or maybe it's just when you're on top for too long - the hunger is gone.
But, whatever the reason, the old Matt Drudge is dead and he will be missed.
Until recently - he would have sneaked leaks about exit polls during the day, had constant coverage of incidents at polling paces around the country (instead of just a few) and then - once the vote counting started - he would have been the first to list the first calls from networks and wire services.
But tonight...
Tonight there was little updating and the list of called states was at times... hours... old. There was also zero unique informtion on the results.
Maybe it's too many hours spent in the Miami sun and too many years in exile from LA in a resort town. Or maybe it's just when you're on top for too long - the hunger is gone.
But, whatever the reason, the old Matt Drudge is dead and he will be missed.
Monday, February 04, 2008
If You Only Read One Article All This Week...
Read Jill Levoy about her LA County Homicide blog. It tells the story of how political correctness and a fear of honestly dealing with race both at the Los Angeles Times - within the city and the county as a whole - has allowed so many neighborhoods to become unscrutinized killing grounds.
And still the Los Angeles Times newsroom - even today - is always far more interested in pandering to demagogues on any issue involving race and taking the cheap shot rather than asking any of the hard questions that need to be asked if we are to ever have any solutions to our collective problems whenever race is involved.
Below is just the opening of her piece:
And...
And more at the linked article above....
And still the Los Angeles Times newsroom - even today - is always far more interested in pandering to demagogues on any issue involving race and taking the cheap shot rather than asking any of the hard questions that need to be asked if we are to ever have any solutions to our collective problems whenever race is involved.
Below is just the opening of her piece:
This newspaper typically covers about 10% of the homicides in Los Angeles County each year. They are often the most sensational or shocking: a baby hit by a stray bullet, or a celebrity murder.
But for the last year, the paper's website, latimes.com, has recorded every homicide. It was my idea. I reported on crime for the paper, and I wanted readers to see all the killings -- roughly 1,000 violent deaths each year, mostly of young Latinos and, most disproportionately, of young black men. The Web offered what the paper did not: unlimited space.
So the Homicide Report, as it was called, began with the simplest of journalistic missions: exposing a painful, largely unseen problem.The first list of homicide victims, published just over a year ago, contained the names of 17 people. Eight were Latino. Six were black. Two were of Cambodian descent -- killed in a double homicide. None were white. Most were in their 20s.
Readers responded strongly. "Oh my God," began one of the first posts by a reader. "The sheer volume is shocking," wrote another. "Almost like they're disposable people," wrote a third.
Two or three homicides occurred in the county per day, on average. As the report developed, I filled notebooks with police jargon, scrawling the same details over and over. "Male black adult" or "Male Hispanic" -- accompanied by addresses in Compton, Florence, Hawthorne, Boyle Heights or Watts.
The coroner provided a basic list of victims. But much of the information about the killings had to be wrung from police agencies spread across 400 square miles, or from crime scenes or victims' families. I worked mostly out of my car, fanning to the south and east of my office.
Many agencies were not used to releasing details. One police press official was surprised to learn that victims' names were public information: No reporter had ever asked him for that, he said.
When I first presented a list of victims to the state Department of Motor Vehicles for photos, the clerks were baffled. Twenty young people every week? "What is this?" one asked. "Did a plane crash?"
One could know the numbers in the abstract yet still be unprepared for the sheer volume, similarity and obscurity of the victims. Los Angeles County's homicide rate was on the decline, and 2007 was destined to be one of the least violent years in a generation. Yet the concentration of killings remained the same -- a pocket epidemic of violent death among black and Latino men in neglected corners of society.
There was Manuel Perez, 17, whose homicide I chanced to hear mentioned in a detectives' staff meeting. As soon as I put his name on the site, a comment was posted: "I miss you so much, Manuel."
There was Fernando Tello, 15, Latino, stabbed, who took a week to die at a hospital. Isaac Tobias, 23, black, had no DMV record. Valdine Brown, 28, also black, seemed to have disappeared altogether: The coroner had a record of his death in a hospital, but the detectives had never heard of him. Eventually it was revealed that Brown's killing was filed under one of his many aliases.
At a crime scene in the Los Angeles Police Department's Newton Division, lifelong friends of a victim said they knew him only by a nickname. At another scene, a family had no recent photographs of their 19-year-old son. For some of those victims, a police mug shot was the only record of their presence in the world. A detective in Watts once asked me to run a photo of an elaborate norteño-style belt buckle, the only clue to the identity of a victim whose body had been burned.
Detectives routinely admitted that the names and ages they had recorded for victims were, at best, conjecture: Many victims, including illegal immigrants or career criminals, had lived entirely underground.
And...
The Homicide Report made no distinction between a celebrity and a transient. Each got the same typeface, the same kind of write-up. If you were the victim of a homicide, you made the blog.
The report included the race of each victim. Newspapers traditionally do not identify homicide victims by race. But failing to include race also served to disguise the disproportionate effect homicide has on blacks and Latinos.
I had met many people -- most of them black -- who had been bereaved not once, but twice -- and, in a couple cases, three times -- by the slaying of an immediate family member. Giving readers anything short of a full and accurate picture of this surfeit of bereavement seemed indecent. Some readers, though, were critical. The practice "just feeds into stereotyping of minorities," one wrote.
The blog's readership slowly grew. The death of "Sinister" drew more than 100 emotional posts at the end of the year as readers segued from grief and anger into an impassioned debate about race and murder.
Police agencies gradually grew more cooperative. A sheriff's deputy who throughout the year had been exceptionally helpful sent an e-mail in December praising the effort. He closed: "My younger brother was murdered . . ."
And more at the linked article above....
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Giants Win Super Bowl - But LA Times Front Page Still Says - Patriots on verge of perfection
Not only did they miss the end of the game - but they also missed - by considerable time - the winning touchdown.
LA Times Front Page SuperBowl Coverage Now One Quarter And Two Touchdowns Behind New York Time's Front Page!
And LA Times sports section still missing Patriot's last touchdown.
LA Times 15 Minutes Late In Updating Giants Last Touchdown!
I wonder if the Times will update its website before the game is over. Begining to look doubtful.
UPDATE!
Turns out the story on sports page has been updated - but the incorrect score still shown on front page of website.
UPDATE!
Turns out the story on sports page has been updated - but the incorrect score still shown on front page of website.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
San Zell Sells Tribune Studios To Locally Based PE Firm... Hudson Capital!!
This deal makes sense for both sides. It enables Sam Zell (and the employees of the Tribune empire) to pay down the debt on the recent acquisition and it transfers one of the oldest studio lots to private hands that are committed to running film and TV studios in Hollywood.
In the long run there undoubtedly will be some mixed, higher density uses on these old lots - but as long as the amount of square footage dedicated to actual production remains the same - or increases - everyone wins.
This example shows how preserving appropriately zoning industrial land can create jobs as opposed to the job destruction currently happening downtown by a misapplication of the same concept to no longer appropriately zoned land.
LA 01 29 08
ZELL SELLS 2: READY FOR HIS CLOSE-UP?
Benjamin Mark Cole
Real estate titan Sam Zell will soon sell the storied 10.5-acre Tribune Studios in Hollywood for $130 million to Los Angeles-based Hudson Capital LLC, a private equity real estate house, according to sources familiar with the transaction.
The closely watched sale is the first disposition of real estate for Tribune Co. under its new owner, Sam Zell.
It is the second studio buy in five months for Victor Coleman, managing partner at Hudson, who was known for years as Chairman Richard Ziman's sidekick at the old Los Angeles-based Arden Realty Inc., the public REIT. Arden was acquired by Trizec and GE in 2005, and Trizec was then acquired by Brookfield Properties (nyse: BPO) in 2006.
Only last September, Coleman and Hudson Capital grabbed the 16-acre Sunset-Gower Studio lot (the old Columbia Pictures studio), in a $200 million transaction.
Coleman declined to comment yesterday, saying "in one or two days I can talk." Cushman & Wakefield was retained last year to shop the Tribune lot, also on Sunset Boulevard.
Some observers regarded Coleman's second act -- the buying of the Tribune studios, known locally for its KTLA-5 television broadcasts – as brilliantly written, both for short-term operational reasons, and as a long-term land banking play.
"The two lots are just a stone's throw apart," said a longtime market observer. "The movie business is like a lot of businesses, in that it is a matter of logistics. If you have that many more soundstages close by to offer a Disney, that many more alternatives to meet their just-in-time deadlines, then you are that much more competitive."
John Tronson, principal with the Ramsey-Shilling Co. brokerage, said the second studio buy reveals that "Coleman has become comfortable with the studio business, comfortable he can keep the stages rented at good prices."
Until the recent writer's strike, demand for stages was strong, and some fretted Hollywood didn't have enough to keep show business in town.
The wholesale conversion of the Tribune and Sunset-Gower lots to "higher and better uses" is not probable anytime soon, said Tronson. "The position of the (Los Angeles) City Council on this is pretty clear: they want the stages to stay, that they are irreplaceable assets."
But in order to entice Coleman to keep filming, the city would likely offer inducements, such as leniency in zonings for additional entertainment industry-related buildings on the lots, such as creative office space.
Others have speculated that outsized studio lots, in densifying urban locations, will eventually go the way of used car lots, or other land-hungry enterprises, such as the old Marineland theme park in Palos Verde, or Gilmore Field just south of Hollywood, where midget auto racers circled the oval track, back in the 1930s.
"Sooner or later, the pressures just eat up the land," said one broker.
The pressures seem to be mounting in Hollywood. For decades a backwater in Los Angeles, in the 1990s Tinseltown began to revive, boosted in part by the city-subsidized the Hollywood & Highland mall on Hollywood Boulevard. (built by Trizec, it failed and was acquired by CIM Group at a vast discount; CIM now owns many top sites along Hollywood Boulevard.) The mall was connected to a new subway stop, and there has been a residential and nightlife renaissance as well.
Indeed, more than $3 billion worth of development is slated within Hollywood's 1,107 acres, according to the City of Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency.
At Hollywood and Vine alone, the former crossroads of movie and radio businesses, at least $1.2 billion in developments with more than 2,000 housing units are underway or planned, including the huge Hollywood & Vine mixed-use project by Legacy Partners, which will house a W Hotel.
Ramsey-Shilling broker Tronson reports retail rents have risen steeply in recent years, while Hollywood office priced doubles to $400 a square footin
2007 from $200 a square foot in 2004 according to reports issued by brokerage Grubb & Ellis.
Coleman's latest acquisition, the Tribune lot , is steeped in Tinseltown lore, having been bought by Warner Bros. in 1920. "The Jazz Singer," the first talkie ever produced, was shot there, starring Al Jolson. Paramount Pictures bought the lot in 1954, and shot TV shows, including the long-running serial "Gunsmoke."
Tribune Co. acquired the property in 1986 from Gene Autry's Golden West Broadcasting, which had purchased the lot in 1963. Until his recent death, veteran newscaster Hal Fishman anchored the KTLA news from the studio almost every night for nearly 40 years.
Of course, the Chicago-based Tribune Co., a media conglomerate, was acquired last year by Zell, who is now selling off assets in part to pay down debt. Sound familiar?
In the long run there undoubtedly will be some mixed, higher density uses on these old lots - but as long as the amount of square footage dedicated to actual production remains the same - or increases - everyone wins.
This example shows how preserving appropriately zoning industrial land can create jobs as opposed to the job destruction currently happening downtown by a misapplication of the same concept to no longer appropriately zoned land.
LA 01 29 08
ZELL SELLS 2: READY FOR HIS CLOSE-UP?
Benjamin Mark Cole
Real estate titan Sam Zell will soon sell the storied 10.5-acre Tribune Studios in Hollywood for $130 million to Los Angeles-based Hudson Capital LLC, a private equity real estate house, according to sources familiar with the transaction.
The closely watched sale is the first disposition of real estate for Tribune Co. under its new owner, Sam Zell.
It is the second studio buy in five months for Victor Coleman, managing partner at Hudson, who was known for years as Chairman Richard Ziman's sidekick at the old Los Angeles-based Arden Realty Inc., the public REIT. Arden was acquired by Trizec and GE in 2005, and Trizec was then acquired by Brookfield Properties (nyse: BPO) in 2006.
Only last September, Coleman and Hudson Capital grabbed the 16-acre Sunset-Gower Studio lot (the old Columbia Pictures studio), in a $200 million transaction.
Coleman declined to comment yesterday, saying "in one or two days I can talk." Cushman & Wakefield was retained last year to shop the Tribune lot, also on Sunset Boulevard.
Some observers regarded Coleman's second act -- the buying of the Tribune studios, known locally for its KTLA-5 television broadcasts – as brilliantly written, both for short-term operational reasons, and as a long-term land banking play.
"The two lots are just a stone's throw apart," said a longtime market observer. "The movie business is like a lot of businesses, in that it is a matter of logistics. If you have that many more soundstages close by to offer a Disney, that many more alternatives to meet their just-in-time deadlines, then you are that much more competitive."
John Tronson, principal with the Ramsey-Shilling Co. brokerage, said the second studio buy reveals that "Coleman has become comfortable with the studio business, comfortable he can keep the stages rented at good prices."
Until the recent writer's strike, demand for stages was strong, and some fretted Hollywood didn't have enough to keep show business in town.
The wholesale conversion of the Tribune and Sunset-Gower lots to "higher and better uses" is not probable anytime soon, said Tronson. "The position of the (Los Angeles) City Council on this is pretty clear: they want the stages to stay, that they are irreplaceable assets."
But in order to entice Coleman to keep filming, the city would likely offer inducements, such as leniency in zonings for additional entertainment industry-related buildings on the lots, such as creative office space.
Others have speculated that outsized studio lots, in densifying urban locations, will eventually go the way of used car lots, or other land-hungry enterprises, such as the old Marineland theme park in Palos Verde, or Gilmore Field just south of Hollywood, where midget auto racers circled the oval track, back in the 1930s.
"Sooner or later, the pressures just eat up the land," said one broker.
The pressures seem to be mounting in Hollywood. For decades a backwater in Los Angeles, in the 1990s Tinseltown began to revive, boosted in part by the city-subsidized the Hollywood & Highland mall on Hollywood Boulevard. (built by Trizec, it failed and was acquired by CIM Group at a vast discount; CIM now owns many top sites along Hollywood Boulevard.) The mall was connected to a new subway stop, and there has been a residential and nightlife renaissance as well.
Indeed, more than $3 billion worth of development is slated within Hollywood's 1,107 acres, according to the City of Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency.
At Hollywood and Vine alone, the former crossroads of movie and radio businesses, at least $1.2 billion in developments with more than 2,000 housing units are underway or planned, including the huge Hollywood & Vine mixed-use project by Legacy Partners, which will house a W Hotel.
Ramsey-Shilling broker Tronson reports retail rents have risen steeply in recent years, while Hollywood office priced doubles to $400 a square footin
2007 from $200 a square foot in 2004 according to reports issued by brokerage Grubb & Ellis.
Coleman's latest acquisition, the Tribune lot , is steeped in Tinseltown lore, having been bought by Warner Bros. in 1920. "The Jazz Singer," the first talkie ever produced, was shot there, starring Al Jolson. Paramount Pictures bought the lot in 1954, and shot TV shows, including the long-running serial "Gunsmoke."
Tribune Co. acquired the property in 1986 from Gene Autry's Golden West Broadcasting, which had purchased the lot in 1963. Until his recent death, veteran newscaster Hal Fishman anchored the KTLA news from the studio almost every night for nearly 40 years.
Of course, the Chicago-based Tribune Co., a media conglomerate, was acquired last year by Zell, who is now selling off assets in part to pay down debt. Sound familiar?
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Since No One Else Will Post On The New Holiday Inn Downtown - I guess I have to!
I usually leave new projects postings Downtown to several Downtown blogs that have the time and energy to post all the details and photos of new developments. But since the new Holiday Inn Downtown is about to pull its permit and start demo - plus it is scheduled, if my info is correct - to somewhat unrealistically expect to open later this year - I guess I should make the announcement before it actually opens:
A long term lease has recently been signed by Holiday Inn on the... drum roll... on the newer of the two old Title Insurance Buildings on the west side of Spring Street between 4th and 5th Streets - across the street from the new hotel being permitted by Tom Gilmore for his partners.
This blog shall now resume it's regularly highly irregular postings.
A long term lease has recently been signed by Holiday Inn on the... drum roll... on the newer of the two old Title Insurance Buildings on the west side of Spring Street between 4th and 5th Streets - across the street from the new hotel being permitted by Tom Gilmore for his partners.
This blog shall now resume it's regularly highly irregular postings.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Reason 4389 Why LA Needs A Museum About Itself!
It an article about preserving the historic concrete bridges crossing the the Los Angeles River in today's LA Times is the below quote:
The idea that the LA river had even one - much less ... many... metal truss bridges in the 1840's... is bizarre enough... but when it appears the article is suggesting the bridges built after 1910 were to replace some of those recently destroyed 1840's bridges, it verges into science-fiction.
The bridges in question, most of which were constructed between 1910 and 1930, were part of a campaign to deal with a river that was prone to flooding and had destroyed many of the metal truss bridges built in the 1840s.
The idea that the LA river had even one - much less ... many... metal truss bridges in the 1840's... is bizarre enough... but when it appears the article is suggesting the bridges built after 1910 were to replace some of those recently destroyed 1840's bridges, it verges into science-fiction.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Mayor's Business Committe Snubs Neighborhood Councils!
Below is my story in today's CITYWATCH:
LA Biz Committee Bans NCs from 21st Century Los Angeles
Economy & Jobs
By Brady Westwater
(BACK STORY-Fifteen months ago, the Mayor appointed 26 community leaders to an Economy and Jobs Committee and charged them with developing specific action recommendations for economic development and the creation of jobs. The committee’s report … containing 100 recommendations … was released. What follows is Brady Westwater’s analysis of that report. To read that report and to follow along with the analysis, visit: www.laejc.org )
When 26 people were appointed to master plan 21st Century Los Angeles's economy – not one member was chosen to represent Neighborhood Councils despite the fact we are the only group created to advise the city.
Those 26 people then asked 200 more people over a period of 15 months to participate in their discussions – and, again, not a single one of those people listed in the 141page report was chosen to represent neighborhood councils.
And in the entire 141 page report about the future of Los Angeles –there is exactly one mention of neighborhood councils. And that is their recommendation that we should be investigated.
The 141 (including the introduction) page report does not even once call for us to be talked to or worked with or consulted with – even though many other groups and organizations are being asked to participate. Instead, Russell Goldsmith and his 25 co-conspirators made it clear the only relevance of neighborhood councils in the future of this city is that we need to be investigated.
Now for the good news.
The report lists 100 action items - some which are actually realistic and specific enough to do some good, plus there are a handful of blatantly dishonest political cows of the type which drive jobs out of this city (and which need to be butchered), but, surprisingly, there are also some strikingly honest examples of just how badly business is treated in this city by every level of government – and why employers and jobs are fleeing Los Angeles.
Now due to the size of the report I'll just hit a few highlights that might be of interest to NC's and leave out the airport and the harbor sections since they can be addressed by NC's in those areas.
___
Page 18 – In the revitalization of South Los Angeles section, the report calls for rebuilding the housing projects of South Los Angeles with mixed income communities – but with at least a 1-for-1 replacement of subsidized housing and – miracle of miracles – it calls for a financially self-sustaining business model of having the market rate housing paying for the costs of building the subsidized housing. (Note: The first meeting this spring of LA NC Congress Economic Development Committee will be a forum on how to create sustainable affordable housing in Los Angeles.)
___
On Page 20, they go back to their old ways by trying to blackmail developers into subsidizing developments in less desirable areas, other than their own, before they can get a building permit, thus forcing their tenants to have to pay higher rents. Now granted, as proposed, this is only a program for city owned land – but as the CRA has shown – the law means little when it comes to individual board members expanding their powers of coercion when behind closed door.
A real world solution to this problem would be for the builder to develop a business model – with the city's help – that would make the less desirable site financially self-sustainable – but of course that would require creativity and intelligence on the city's part.
___
Page 23 – Developing a better educated workforce. There are a lot of excellent ideas here, but the biggest needed change is ignored.
Besides there being inadequate vocational training in high school – the requirements for graduation from high school make absolutely no sense in some areas – particularly in mathematics.
While students going to college, or who will be in a field that requires algebra or geometry, should be taking those classes, 90% of students have no need for either. I myself took AP algebra, geometry, calculus, trigonometry and physics – but not once have I ever needed to use any of that other than the most elemental of algebraic equations which I could just as easily have learned in math classes. It was all a waste of my time.
But today we are destroying an entire generation of students who are being turned off from school – or forced to drop out because they cannot handle a subject they have no need to learn. And, this does not affect our need to have scientists or engineers. If anything, freeing up teachers to teach those who really want to learn those subjects will benefit everyone. We need to keep kids in high school long enough to graduate and then decide if they want to go to college or not.
___
Page 39 – Create Creative Community Zones with live/work spaces as job incubators. Great idea, except in the one area this was organically happening – the Downtown former industrial district – live work spaces have been made illegal by the CRA and the Planning Department in their never ending quest to drive jobs out of Los Angeles.
___
Page 47, 55, 115- and many other pages. Horror story after horror story about how City Hall today goes out of its way to destroy businesses in Los Angeles. After ten years of bringing jobs and businesses to Downtown I can say that 90% of my time is spent overcoming roadblocks the city has created. And in just the last six months – this nightmare has gotten so bad I wonder if it's even worth trying any more. But page 116 also identifies one of the few heroes of City Hall – Jorge Guzman - and from personal experience I can verify he's… Greeeat!
The one major obstacle that they fail to identify – though - is the fire department's building inspectors. They can take up to a year to approve a virtually finished building by having inspection after inspection – and asking for new changes on each inspection and then a new inspector will disapprove what another inspector had approved and ask for everything to be ripped out and redone and then another inspector with show up for one day, disapprove those 'approved' changes – and then vanish forever. And it never ends.
For month after month after month, they will never tell the builder what it is they want him to do. The only possible answer is that the LAFD is on the payroll of competing cities to bankrupt every business in Downtown Los Angeles.
___
Page 57- Just when you think that intelligent life might exist in this city – you run across something like recommendation number 80; the proposed "Economic Prosperity Element' for the General Plan – not to be confused with very similar prewar 'Japan Co-Prosperity Sphere' or 'Mao's Great Leap Forward'. This terrifying proposal would require anyone who builds anything in LA to be responsible for providing for the 'life goals' of everyone in the area they are building. Yes – 'life goals".
It is the kind of innocuous camel's nose in the tent proposal that is meant to seem harmless when you read it, but which is really meant to be a tool for special interest groups to cripple business in this city. So I'm curious as to which special interest group slipped this Trojan Horse into the plan. And if anything remotely like this passes, every shakedown artist in LA will be lined up whenever anyone wants to build anything, making LA the new Detroit.
___
Page 59-Preserving appropriate industrial zoned land is a good idea –but two horribly bad policy suggestions are made here which are then 'supported' by the report's dishonest manipulation of the facts.
The proposals are: freezing the amount of industrial land in Los Angeles –whether or not it is creating jobs – and permanently outlawing both parks and live/work housing starting at the end of the Arts District for the entire length of the LA River through Downtown Los Angeles.
Yes - not a single park will ever be allowed within Downtown proper along the river nor will any housing or jobs for the creative live/work communities, the report claims to be interested attracting to Los Angeles, ever be allowed. This will condemn the most densely populated part of the city, the most park poor part of the city on a per capita basis – to a parkless future and a river lined with concrete, railroad tracks and warehouses filled with a handful of low paying jobs.
The report begins by falsely stating there are only two reasons for the flight of manufacturing jobs from LA – the lack of properly zoned land and the lack empty industrial buildings.
Not mentioned is that the biggest demand in LA is for warehouses with very few and very low paying jobs.
Not mentioned is that the real reason factories are leaving LA is that it is no longer economically feasible to manufacture most items in any high cost city such as Los Angeles.
Not mentioned is that most of these jobs are going overseas since even low cost rural areas in the South and the Mid-West can no longer support those jobs.
Even more dishonest are the false comparisons between retail jobs and 'high paying industrial jobs' given for Downtown when the real choice is between much higher paying jobs created by live work creative and light industrial mixed use communities and the far lower paying jobs that are already leaving those areas.
In parts of the city such as Downtown – this plan will drive high paying jobs and creative industries out of Los Angeles and will kill countless future jobs. In fact, both the Planning Department and the CRA have refused to publicly debate charges their salary comparisons for Downtown are totally fraudulent when they announced that all public workshops on this subject were canceled. They cannot afford to allow the truth to get out.
___
Page 63 – Trying to get LA's proper share of State and Federal funds. Excellent stuff – except it misses that LA is also shortchanged when it comes to getting money from major private foundations. They need to go back and review how much cities such as San Francisco and New York get from the large foundations compared to Los Angeles.
___
Page 70 – The need for Los Angeles to have an actual city department for economic development. Now there's a no-brainer. We are likely the only major city without such a department and we have the lack of jobs and businesses to prove it.
___
Now even though I have largely covered items which I have questions about – that doesn't mean that 90% of the report isn't pretty good stuff; it's just that any item that needs to be publicly debated by the Neighborhood Councils needs to be identified ASAP. So let me know what ticking time bombs I may have missed – or other suggestions for improvements concerning the report's recommendations.
And since this committee appears to have gone out of its way to make certain no one they spoke with was asked as a spokesperson for the neighborhood council movement (even though they did speak with individuals who inadvertently had NC connections), we must be pro-active on this subject … particularly since the process for implementing these proposals appears even more top down driven than the process that developed the 100 recommendations.
Ironically, that could be the Committee's ultimate failure, if fail it does; their failure to engage the public in the process and their failure to allow for any public participation in the debate before determining their recommendations; and now their current failure to call for the NC's – or any community based groups – to help in evaluating and implementing these proposals.
So read the report and let me know if you think we should get involved in a citywide debate on this report and if we should ask to be formally represented on the implementation committees.
Or, if we should just 'receive and file'.
(Brady Westwater is a writer, a long-time downtown and neighborhood council activist and Chair of the LA NC Congress Economic Development Committee. He can be reached at: bradywestwater@gmail.com
Read the complete LAEJC report at: www.laejc.org )
LA Biz Committee Bans NCs from 21st Century Los Angeles
Economy & Jobs
By Brady Westwater
(BACK STORY-Fifteen months ago, the Mayor appointed 26 community leaders to an Economy and Jobs Committee and charged them with developing specific action recommendations for economic development and the creation of jobs. The committee’s report … containing 100 recommendations … was released. What follows is Brady Westwater’s analysis of that report. To read that report and to follow along with the analysis, visit: www.laejc.org )
When 26 people were appointed to master plan 21st Century Los Angeles's economy – not one member was chosen to represent Neighborhood Councils despite the fact we are the only group created to advise the city.
Those 26 people then asked 200 more people over a period of 15 months to participate in their discussions – and, again, not a single one of those people listed in the 141page report was chosen to represent neighborhood councils.
And in the entire 141 page report about the future of Los Angeles –there is exactly one mention of neighborhood councils. And that is their recommendation that we should be investigated.
The 141 (including the introduction) page report does not even once call for us to be talked to or worked with or consulted with – even though many other groups and organizations are being asked to participate. Instead, Russell Goldsmith and his 25 co-conspirators made it clear the only relevance of neighborhood councils in the future of this city is that we need to be investigated.
Now for the good news.
The report lists 100 action items - some which are actually realistic and specific enough to do some good, plus there are a handful of blatantly dishonest political cows of the type which drive jobs out of this city (and which need to be butchered), but, surprisingly, there are also some strikingly honest examples of just how badly business is treated in this city by every level of government – and why employers and jobs are fleeing Los Angeles.
Now due to the size of the report I'll just hit a few highlights that might be of interest to NC's and leave out the airport and the harbor sections since they can be addressed by NC's in those areas.
___
Page 18 – In the revitalization of South Los Angeles section, the report calls for rebuilding the housing projects of South Los Angeles with mixed income communities – but with at least a 1-for-1 replacement of subsidized housing and – miracle of miracles – it calls for a financially self-sustaining business model of having the market rate housing paying for the costs of building the subsidized housing. (Note: The first meeting this spring of LA NC Congress Economic Development Committee will be a forum on how to create sustainable affordable housing in Los Angeles.)
___
On Page 20, they go back to their old ways by trying to blackmail developers into subsidizing developments in less desirable areas, other than their own, before they can get a building permit, thus forcing their tenants to have to pay higher rents. Now granted, as proposed, this is only a program for city owned land – but as the CRA has shown – the law means little when it comes to individual board members expanding their powers of coercion when behind closed door.
A real world solution to this problem would be for the builder to develop a business model – with the city's help – that would make the less desirable site financially self-sustainable – but of course that would require creativity and intelligence on the city's part.
___
Page 23 – Developing a better educated workforce. There are a lot of excellent ideas here, but the biggest needed change is ignored.
Besides there being inadequate vocational training in high school – the requirements for graduation from high school make absolutely no sense in some areas – particularly in mathematics.
While students going to college, or who will be in a field that requires algebra or geometry, should be taking those classes, 90% of students have no need for either. I myself took AP algebra, geometry, calculus, trigonometry and physics – but not once have I ever needed to use any of that other than the most elemental of algebraic equations which I could just as easily have learned in math classes. It was all a waste of my time.
But today we are destroying an entire generation of students who are being turned off from school – or forced to drop out because they cannot handle a subject they have no need to learn. And, this does not affect our need to have scientists or engineers. If anything, freeing up teachers to teach those who really want to learn those subjects will benefit everyone. We need to keep kids in high school long enough to graduate and then decide if they want to go to college or not.
___
Page 39 – Create Creative Community Zones with live/work spaces as job incubators. Great idea, except in the one area this was organically happening – the Downtown former industrial district – live work spaces have been made illegal by the CRA and the Planning Department in their never ending quest to drive jobs out of Los Angeles.
___
Page 47, 55, 115- and many other pages. Horror story after horror story about how City Hall today goes out of its way to destroy businesses in Los Angeles. After ten years of bringing jobs and businesses to Downtown I can say that 90% of my time is spent overcoming roadblocks the city has created. And in just the last six months – this nightmare has gotten so bad I wonder if it's even worth trying any more. But page 116 also identifies one of the few heroes of City Hall – Jorge Guzman - and from personal experience I can verify he's… Greeeat!
The one major obstacle that they fail to identify – though - is the fire department's building inspectors. They can take up to a year to approve a virtually finished building by having inspection after inspection – and asking for new changes on each inspection and then a new inspector will disapprove what another inspector had approved and ask for everything to be ripped out and redone and then another inspector with show up for one day, disapprove those 'approved' changes – and then vanish forever. And it never ends.
For month after month after month, they will never tell the builder what it is they want him to do. The only possible answer is that the LAFD is on the payroll of competing cities to bankrupt every business in Downtown Los Angeles.
___
Page 57- Just when you think that intelligent life might exist in this city – you run across something like recommendation number 80; the proposed "Economic Prosperity Element' for the General Plan – not to be confused with very similar prewar 'Japan Co-Prosperity Sphere' or 'Mao's Great Leap Forward'. This terrifying proposal would require anyone who builds anything in LA to be responsible for providing for the 'life goals' of everyone in the area they are building. Yes – 'life goals".
It is the kind of innocuous camel's nose in the tent proposal that is meant to seem harmless when you read it, but which is really meant to be a tool for special interest groups to cripple business in this city. So I'm curious as to which special interest group slipped this Trojan Horse into the plan. And if anything remotely like this passes, every shakedown artist in LA will be lined up whenever anyone wants to build anything, making LA the new Detroit.
___
Page 59-Preserving appropriate industrial zoned land is a good idea –but two horribly bad policy suggestions are made here which are then 'supported' by the report's dishonest manipulation of the facts.
The proposals are: freezing the amount of industrial land in Los Angeles –whether or not it is creating jobs – and permanently outlawing both parks and live/work housing starting at the end of the Arts District for the entire length of the LA River through Downtown Los Angeles.
Yes - not a single park will ever be allowed within Downtown proper along the river nor will any housing or jobs for the creative live/work communities, the report claims to be interested attracting to Los Angeles, ever be allowed. This will condemn the most densely populated part of the city, the most park poor part of the city on a per capita basis – to a parkless future and a river lined with concrete, railroad tracks and warehouses filled with a handful of low paying jobs.
The report begins by falsely stating there are only two reasons for the flight of manufacturing jobs from LA – the lack of properly zoned land and the lack empty industrial buildings.
Not mentioned is that the biggest demand in LA is for warehouses with very few and very low paying jobs.
Not mentioned is that the real reason factories are leaving LA is that it is no longer economically feasible to manufacture most items in any high cost city such as Los Angeles.
Not mentioned is that most of these jobs are going overseas since even low cost rural areas in the South and the Mid-West can no longer support those jobs.
Even more dishonest are the false comparisons between retail jobs and 'high paying industrial jobs' given for Downtown when the real choice is between much higher paying jobs created by live work creative and light industrial mixed use communities and the far lower paying jobs that are already leaving those areas.
In parts of the city such as Downtown – this plan will drive high paying jobs and creative industries out of Los Angeles and will kill countless future jobs. In fact, both the Planning Department and the CRA have refused to publicly debate charges their salary comparisons for Downtown are totally fraudulent when they announced that all public workshops on this subject were canceled. They cannot afford to allow the truth to get out.
___
Page 63 – Trying to get LA's proper share of State and Federal funds. Excellent stuff – except it misses that LA is also shortchanged when it comes to getting money from major private foundations. They need to go back and review how much cities such as San Francisco and New York get from the large foundations compared to Los Angeles.
___
Page 70 – The need for Los Angeles to have an actual city department for economic development. Now there's a no-brainer. We are likely the only major city without such a department and we have the lack of jobs and businesses to prove it.
___
Now even though I have largely covered items which I have questions about – that doesn't mean that 90% of the report isn't pretty good stuff; it's just that any item that needs to be publicly debated by the Neighborhood Councils needs to be identified ASAP. So let me know what ticking time bombs I may have missed – or other suggestions for improvements concerning the report's recommendations.
And since this committee appears to have gone out of its way to make certain no one they spoke with was asked as a spokesperson for the neighborhood council movement (even though they did speak with individuals who inadvertently had NC connections), we must be pro-active on this subject … particularly since the process for implementing these proposals appears even more top down driven than the process that developed the 100 recommendations.
Ironically, that could be the Committee's ultimate failure, if fail it does; their failure to engage the public in the process and their failure to allow for any public participation in the debate before determining their recommendations; and now their current failure to call for the NC's – or any community based groups – to help in evaluating and implementing these proposals.
So read the report and let me know if you think we should get involved in a citywide debate on this report and if we should ask to be formally represented on the implementation committees.
Or, if we should just 'receive and file'.
(Brady Westwater is a writer, a long-time downtown and neighborhood council activist and Chair of the LA NC Congress Economic Development Committee. He can be reached at: bradywestwater@gmail.com
Read the complete LAEJC report at: www.laejc.org )
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
And Besides The New Map Book...
... the LA Times might want to invest in a new server.
Server Unavailable
We are sorry, but the server is temporarily unavailable. Please try back later.
Thank you for visiting latimes.com.
Forget The Style Book - What The LA Times Needs is a Map Book!
Every major magazine, publisher or newspaper has its own style book or uses a standardized style book to settle questions of punctuation and grammar. As for issues of civic geography, though - Los Angeles Times reporters are clearly on their own. Reading the names they 'creatively' append to the neighborhoods of this city, it is clear many of them need GPS to find their own homes.
Now I grew up on Westmoreland - 312 S. Westmoreland - eight blocks south of that location - and at that time my neighborhood was called Mid-Wilshire. It was considered well west of the Westlake District which was largely east of the former Westlake, now McArthur Park. Today, the neighborhood seems to be increasingly part of the ever expanding Koreatown, though the new Thomes Guide now calls it Mid-Wilshire.
The subject property, though, is not only eight blocks further - it is even north of the Hollywood Freeway, an area no one living there back then, much less now would ever dream of calling being the Westlake District.
But just to make certain the city had not somehow designated that area as 'Westlake' - I checked out the fire station that serves that address on the city's website. It turns out to be just blocks from the fire (the Number 6 Station) and is called - Angeleno Heights - even though it is located at 326 N. Virgil which is not particularly near Angeleno Heights, though the old station might have been in that area. All other city agencies call the area either Hollywood/Wilshire or Rampart.
So even the City of LA knows better to call that area Westlake.
So here's my solution.
Granted what any one neighborhood is - or should - be called is a bit problematic (which is why CURBED LA sometimes runs 'name that nabe contests'). So this is even more reason why the LA Times - with community input - should put together a map with the most accepted name - or names - of each neighborhood so clueless reporters don't have to look at a Thomas Guide and make wild ass guesses.
Because this happens way too often and said reporters all too often end up looking like... assess.
Cluttered conditions hindered firefighters, L.A. authorities say.
By Victoria Kim, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 22, 2008
City firefighters discovered a man's body after extinguishing a fire early Monday morning at a Westlake home with "extreme pack-rat conditions," officials said.
The blaze in the 500 block of North Westmoreland Avenue was reported shortly after 1 a.m., said d'Lisa Davies, a Los Angeles Fire Department spokeswoman.
Now I grew up on Westmoreland - 312 S. Westmoreland - eight blocks south of that location - and at that time my neighborhood was called Mid-Wilshire. It was considered well west of the Westlake District which was largely east of the former Westlake, now McArthur Park. Today, the neighborhood seems to be increasingly part of the ever expanding Koreatown, though the new Thomes Guide now calls it Mid-Wilshire.
The subject property, though, is not only eight blocks further - it is even north of the Hollywood Freeway, an area no one living there back then, much less now would ever dream of calling being the Westlake District.
But just to make certain the city had not somehow designated that area as 'Westlake' - I checked out the fire station that serves that address on the city's website. It turns out to be just blocks from the fire (the Number 6 Station) and is called - Angeleno Heights - even though it is located at 326 N. Virgil which is not particularly near Angeleno Heights, though the old station might have been in that area. All other city agencies call the area either Hollywood/Wilshire or Rampart.
So even the City of LA knows better to call that area Westlake.
So here's my solution.
Granted what any one neighborhood is - or should - be called is a bit problematic (which is why CURBED LA sometimes runs 'name that nabe contests'). So this is even more reason why the LA Times - with community input - should put together a map with the most accepted name - or names - of each neighborhood so clueless reporters don't have to look at a Thomas Guide and make wild ass guesses.
Because this happens way too often and said reporters all too often end up looking like... assess.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
LA Times Scoops Drudge and New York Times On Actor Heath Ledger's Death In NYC!
The LA Times, citing the AP, says the NYPD reports actor Heath Ledger, was found dead.
Monday, January 21, 2008
What Really Happened At The LA Times! He Just Wasn't That Into You!
After reading dozens of stories both on and off-line on the sudden mutual parting/firing/resignation of now former Los Angeles Times Editor James O'Shea due to proposed staff reductions/no staff reductions/refused staff reductions plus proposed budget cuts/budgets not being increased/budgets not really being cut, but still effectively reduced - it finally appears that each of the stories/spins/rationalizations have some degree of reality/non-reality.
But the bottom line appears to be pretty much what was first said by Publisher David Hiller:
While I met Jim O'Shea a number of times, I never really got to know him as I've gotten to know other people at the Times. Nor did any of the people I talk to most at the Times ever really get to know him, which could have been part of his problem.
But, more likely - it was a generational barrier. Print is dying and the web is the future. Increasingly news aggregation is going to be as much of the future as news gathering and a somewhat new set of editorial skills will be needed to separate the wheat from the chaff, and the bloom from the bluster, to mix a metaphor.
Even more importantly, though, will be the necessary ability to customize what news each individual reader can receive, the ability to create a greater interactivity and integration of the Times into each reader's daily life - and the hunger to want to take advantage of all those new realities and challenges.
But the bottom line appears to be pretty much what was first said by Publisher David Hiller:
While Mr. O'Shea insists that he was fired, Mr. Hiller said it was a mutual decision, but he said that "at some point it is more semantic. The fact is we didn't see eye-to-eye." Mr. Hiller said even before their disagreements he had expected Mr. O'Shea to be a transitional editor at the paper, serving only a year or two. "It was a question of whether we do it now or six months from now," he said, adding that he expects to soon make additional changes at the paper.
While I met Jim O'Shea a number of times, I never really got to know him as I've gotten to know other people at the Times. Nor did any of the people I talk to most at the Times ever really get to know him, which could have been part of his problem.
But, more likely - it was a generational barrier. Print is dying and the web is the future. Increasingly news aggregation is going to be as much of the future as news gathering and a somewhat new set of editorial skills will be needed to separate the wheat from the chaff, and the bloom from the bluster, to mix a metaphor.
Even more importantly, though, will be the necessary ability to customize what news each individual reader can receive, the ability to create a greater interactivity and integration of the Times into each reader's daily life - and the hunger to want to take advantage of all those new realities and challenges.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Artists Showing At Zero One Tonight!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
ZERO ONE GALLERY
NOTE NEW ADDRESS & PHONE:
746 S. Los Angeles Street
The Santee Village
Los Angeles, CA 90014
(213) 984-4901
EMAIL: info@01gallery.com
WEBSITE: 01gallery.com
GALLERY HOURS: 12-6PM, Tuesday-Saturday, and by appointment
SHOW TITLE: “Dysmorphic Visualization Syndrome”
OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday January 19, 2008, 8PM - Midnight
SHOW LENGTH: January 19 through February 29, 2008
ARTISTS IN SHOW: Recent work by Mear One, Michael Knowlton, Retna, Sandow Birk, Saber, Anthony Ausgang, Yem, Dave Leamon, Raul Gonzalez, Mark Heresy, Axis, Daniel Johnston, Haze, Van Arno, Chaz Bojorquez, Gomez-Bueno, Nuke, Christof Kohlhofer, Mark Gash, Tomata du Plenty, Richard Duardo, Kalynn Campbell, Vyal, Steve Olson, Brian Smith, Rudy Calderon, Robert Williams, Bad Otis Link, Jerzy Skolimowski, Gary Baseman, Jim Ganzer, Robert Williams, Wahorn, Lisa Adams, Eloy Torrez, Eyeko, Jeffrey Valance, Greg Jezewski, Germs and Vyal.
MEDIUM: Paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, and sculpture
DESCRIPTION: What these artists have in common, apart from their long association with the groundbreaking Zero One Gallery, is that they are pioneering members of the current D.V.S. movement that is rocking today’s art world. This exciting new movement that is influencing growing numbers of young artists around the world like a snowball inexorably rolling down the mountain-getting bigger, badder, and bolder-is, in effect, telling us that the effects of technology do not merely occur on the level of concepts and ideas, but, far beyond that, they alter your sense ratio and patterns of perception.
This is the inaugural show in the stunning new Zero One Gallery space in downtown L.A.’s“gallery row”.
ZERO ONE GALLERY
NOTE NEW ADDRESS & PHONE:
746 S. Los Angeles Street
The Santee Village
Los Angeles, CA 90014
(213) 984-4901
EMAIL: info@01gallery.com
WEBSITE: 01gallery.com
GALLERY HOURS: 12-6PM, Tuesday-Saturday, and by appointment
SHOW TITLE: “Dysmorphic Visualization Syndrome”
OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday January 19, 2008, 8PM - Midnight
SHOW LENGTH: January 19 through February 29, 2008
ARTISTS IN SHOW: Recent work by Mear One, Michael Knowlton, Retna, Sandow Birk, Saber, Anthony Ausgang, Yem, Dave Leamon, Raul Gonzalez, Mark Heresy, Axis, Daniel Johnston, Haze, Van Arno, Chaz Bojorquez, Gomez-Bueno, Nuke, Christof Kohlhofer, Mark Gash, Tomata du Plenty, Richard Duardo, Kalynn Campbell, Vyal, Steve Olson, Brian Smith, Rudy Calderon, Robert Williams, Bad Otis Link, Jerzy Skolimowski, Gary Baseman, Jim Ganzer, Robert Williams, Wahorn, Lisa Adams, Eloy Torrez, Eyeko, Jeffrey Valance, Greg Jezewski, Germs and Vyal.
MEDIUM: Paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, and sculpture
DESCRIPTION: What these artists have in common, apart from their long association with the groundbreaking Zero One Gallery, is that they are pioneering members of the current D.V.S. movement that is rocking today’s art world. This exciting new movement that is influencing growing numbers of young artists around the world like a snowball inexorably rolling down the mountain-getting bigger, badder, and bolder-is, in effect, telling us that the effects of technology do not merely occur on the level of concepts and ideas, but, far beyond that, they alter your sense ratio and patterns of perception.
This is the inaugural show in the stunning new Zero One Gallery space in downtown L.A.’s“gallery row”.
Zero One Gallery Opens Downtown TONIGHT!
The Art Party of the Year happens tonight when over 25 year old Zero One Gallery reopens in Downtown Los Angeles. John Pochna has assembled a who's who of LA aritsts for his debut show - and many of them will be in attendance. More details later!
ZERO ONE GALLERY
presents:
DYSMORPHIC VISUALIZATION SYNDROME
Opening Night: This Saturday -> January 19th. 8pm - Midnight
Showing: January 19th through February 29th
746 SOUTH LOS ANGELES STREET
SANTEE VILLAGE
BTWN 7th and 8th Streets
LOS ANGELES, CA 90014
213.984.4901
ZERO ONE GALLERY
presents:
DYSMORPHIC VISUALIZATION SYNDROME
Opening Night: This Saturday -> January 19th. 8pm - Midnight
Showing: January 19th through February 29th
746 SOUTH LOS ANGELES STREET
SANTEE VILLAGE
BTWN 7th and 8th Streets
LOS ANGELES, CA 90014
213.984.4901
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Just Made Front Page Of LA Times Website!
Bit of a shock to pull up the Los Angeles Times website - and right in the middle of the page - is my name...
When it comes to proposed cuts - it's never the administrators sitting in offices in Sacramento - just the services taxpayers use.
-Brady Westwater, on Gov. Schwarzenegger's plan for state parks
I knew it was a money quote the second I wrote it... but not that money...
When it comes to proposed cuts - it's never the administrators sitting in offices in Sacramento - just the services taxpayers use.
-Brady Westwater, on Gov. Schwarzenegger's plan for state parks
I knew it was a money quote the second I wrote it... but not that money...
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Wilshire Books Remaindered! Book Store Closing Major Civic Loss!
Kevin over at LAO brings the sad news that Lee has shuttered Wilshire Books in Santa Monica - the finest bookstore - book for book - of any bookstore I have ever been anywhere in the world. It was the Norton Simon of bookstores.
Lee's selective buying - though curating is the more appropriate verb - of his collection - and it did feel more like a personal collection than a bookstore - made shopping there an education in itself, a voyeur's delight. A substantial part of my collection was purchased there over the years - and as my fortunes (and health) ebbed and waned - was also sold back to him - and then bought back from him.
And added to his unparalleled quality of stock - he also had the fairest prices in town - plus he paid the highest prices for his books. Now if that sounds contradictory - it isn't. By selling at a low price, he kept turning over his stock on a regular basis - and by buying back his own stock - he likely sold many books over and over through the years.
And whenever he found the odd treasure for a particular client - it would be waiting for us hidden away under his desk when we next came in - and always at a price right for our specific pocketbook.
Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons - I have not been there or seen Lee for a couple years and do not know how he is doing - so if anyone out there knows him - please let me know.
Here is part of Kevin's piece:
Lee's selective buying - though curating is the more appropriate verb - of his collection - and it did feel more like a personal collection than a bookstore - made shopping there an education in itself, a voyeur's delight. A substantial part of my collection was purchased there over the years - and as my fortunes (and health) ebbed and waned - was also sold back to him - and then bought back from him.
And added to his unparalleled quality of stock - he also had the fairest prices in town - plus he paid the highest prices for his books. Now if that sounds contradictory - it isn't. By selling at a low price, he kept turning over his stock on a regular basis - and by buying back his own stock - he likely sold many books over and over through the years.
And whenever he found the odd treasure for a particular client - it would be waiting for us hidden away under his desk when we next came in - and always at a price right for our specific pocketbook.
Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons - I have not been there or seen Lee for a couple years and do not know how he is doing - so if anyone out there knows him - please let me know.
Here is part of Kevin's piece:
An LA Observed reader who works at Cal State Long Beach stopped by Wilshire Books in Santa Monica and found the store cleared out. "Quietly closed at the end of December," he writes. The store had been there since at least the 1970s, and I found one website that proclaimed, "The world's best bookstore is Wilshire Books, on Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica, California. It is small and perfect in every way in which a bookstore ought to be perfect. Prices are fair, never more than accurate reflections of the market; frequently bargains." The review is so enthusiastic, let's hear more:
"Its shelves are fastidiously maintained in strict alphabetical order (something ordinarily unheard-of among used bookstores, most of which are dusty if not actually dirty, and whose stocks are rarely in any order at all).
It's a small room. If you go there in search of a particular title, you may be disappointed; but if you go looking for interesting books, you'll find plenty. The proprietor, Mr Lee Peffer, exercises his taste and discernment in purchasing stock: it's varied and lively. I get the feeling that I'm in a private library, except that everything's for sale!"
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Comedy Walk Turns Out To Be A Laughing Matter!
Yes, all thirty comics showed at all six venues and each time I poked my head in as I ran around taking care of last minute details - people were laughing. And many of these people had never been to our part of Downtown anytime - much less at night - and they were amazed by the packed sidewalks along Main Street during Art Walk night.
And considering this was an idea that we decided on... December 29th... that our first Comedy Walk would be on... January 10th.... and that were unable to lock down our venues until 36 hours before the event - leaving us for no time to really get any marketing out - the turnout was amazing on a cold January night.
See you all next month.
And considering this was an idea that we decided on... December 29th... that our first Comedy Walk would be on... January 10th.... and that were unable to lock down our venues until 36 hours before the event - leaving us for no time to really get any marketing out - the turnout was amazing on a cold January night.
See you all next month.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Thursday FREE Comedy Walk Line-Up Posted!
The first monthly - ALL FREE - Downtown Comedy Walk just announced a stellar line up of 30 comedy acts running from 8 PM - 9:30 PM as part of the Downtown Art Walk. Visit over 30 art galleries from noon to 9 PM - and then enjoy 30 different comic experiences at SIX different venues - all free - this Thursday January 10th, 2008.
http://www.comedywalk.com/
http://www.downtownartwalk.com/
Also available will be restaurants, bars, live music, stores and an indy bookstore. And you will get a rare chance to see the historic Tiffancy-designed Palm Court Ballroom (home of the Downtown Comedy Club) at the Alexandria, the inside of the historic 1910 Palace Theatre and the historic lobby of new LATC - again - all for free!
http://www.comedywalk.com/
http://www.downtownartwalk.com/
Also available will be restaurants, bars, live music, stores and an indy bookstore. And you will get a rare chance to see the historic Tiffancy-designed Palm Court Ballroom (home of the Downtown Comedy Club) at the Alexandria, the inside of the historic 1910 Palace Theatre and the historic lobby of new LATC - again - all for free!
Comedy Walk Comes To Art Walk - This Thursday!
Yes, more free - totally free - performances by more comedians than you can shake a rubber chicken at are headed to Downtown's Gallery Row Art Walk this Thursday; January 10th, from 8 - 9:30. Among the venues are the historic 1910 Palace Theatre on Broadway, the Los Angeles Theatre Center and the Tiffany designed Palm Court at the Alexandria Hotel. A total of SIX venues in a two block area - along with 30 art galleries open from 12 noon to 9 PM.
For details go to: www.comedywalk.com and http://www.bgfa.us/daw/
And did I mention this is all - free! Now I know I am a little late in reporting this, but I've got an excuse. I've been kinda busy setting it up and haven't had the time to blog about it.
For details go to: www.comedywalk.com and http://www.bgfa.us/daw/
And did I mention this is all - free! Now I know I am a little late in reporting this, but I've got an excuse. I've been kinda busy setting it up and haven't had the time to blog about it.
Monday, January 07, 2008
How Affordable Housing Can Triumph Over Unaffordable Government!
Can NC's Rescue Affordable Housing from City Hall? Or, It’s the Money Stupid!
CITYWATCH article
By Brady Westwater
Everyone has a wish list for 2008 – but it's useless to speak of new projects for tomorrow when we can't pay today's – much less yesterday's -- bills. Add our city's declining revenue and escalating salary hikes – and we are suffocating with a permanent structural deficit. But there are two types of feasible real world solutions.
First, regarding expenditures: any new project, prior to approval, needs to have an identified revenue stream - as much as possible - along with a business plan which – again, as much as possible – will make the project financially sustainable from earned income, other sources of funding – or from direct or indirect long term benefits from the project. Almost everyone agrees on a need for environmentally self-sustainable projects; now NC's need to also ask for new city projects to have financially sustainable business plans.
We also need to determine the long term financial impacts of all the city's actions and the city needs to find creative ways to provide services that do not involve the expenditure of city funds. We need to find ways to get other entities – public and private - to do their share and we have to stop duplicating services and facilities within the city family and with other governmental agencies.
The city as a whole also needs to examine every existing program (setting aside the sacred cows of political correctness) and honestly debate what services the city should provide and how the city can best accomplish these goals within its existing budget. Then a rigorous – and fully independent - cost benefit analysis also needs to be done for each of these programs.
If this restructuring of the city's budget should to be done through a Little Hoover style commission or through an independent of City Hall citizen's commission, is debatable. It is not debatable that our current system of budgetary priorities is broken.
Second, on the revenue side, politicians are finally realizing we cannot continually raise taxes to cover budget deficits. Businesses – and people – are already fleeing Los Angeles and California due to our unsustainably high tax structure. The only way we can increase tax revenues is by attracting taxpaying businesses, tourists and events. To do that, we need to have people with proven track records in the business world develop a realistic economic growth plan for LA. We also need to work together to change the city's current schizophrenic attitude ( i.e. saying one thing – but then doing the exact opposite) towards business.
But enough about theory; let's look at one set of specifics.
Traffic gridlock, housing the homeless and affordable housing for working class families are among the city's most intractable problems. Systemic solutions proposed for all these problems are always beyond the city's financial capacities and yet are also always totally inadequate to the problems.
So how do we develop a realistic business plan for creating affordable housing - and supportive housing for the homeless – plus also helping middle income and below families – while also addressing rush hour traffic congestion?
First, the city needs to stop spending city money on fully subsidizing a handful of units. The affect on the overall housing market is non-existent. Too few people are rewarded and it is done in such a way that it is inherently unfair. Second, we need to accept what study after study has told us – the more regulated and the harder it is for builders to develop market rate housing – the more expensive all housing becomes for all people.
Third, once we have community approved zoning plans for how much housing will be built in each neighborhood, we need to allow the market to build enough market rate housing to moderate everyone's housing costs.
Only by creating enough new market rate housing can we slow down the gentrification of the vast stock of affordable housing which can never be replaced once lost. Doing that alone will save far more lower cost housing than can ever be built though government action. In addition, we need to stop the inappropriate density bonuses that are destroying many of our already overbuilt neighborhoods.
Finally, we need a vastly larger program of subsidized housing for the homeless and for low and moderate income families. The city and the CRA need to only fund financially sustainable housing projects.
The hundred million dollar trust fund should be buying land from developers who have to sell in the current slump. That land should then be sold to non-profits – or profit-making entities- that will build and operate mixed use projects that combine market rate workforce market with lower income subsidized housing - plus retail and – possibly – some office space when appropriate. These transactions would be no money down with the city receiving a mortgage.
Now the key point is that the number apartments that will be subsidized in each complex will ONLY be determined once it is known exactly how many units need to be sold or rented at market rates to cover the subsidy for the low income units. That will guarantee that each project will be financially self-sustainable. And in supportive services buildings, enough retail or market rate units will be required to fund those services.
Once the construction loan is re-financed, the city gets paid back with interest.
This is what makes it a true revolving fund. Once the model is proven, a billion dollar bond issue can be passed to be paid off, not by taxes, but by the repayment of the mortgages.
There are many questions and seemingly logical objections to a program like this – and all of this needs to be publicly debated – as does how this type of program, when combined with an additional no cost to the city program now in the works - can reduce rush hour traffic.
And, each of these discussions – as well as discussions about how to bring more jobs to Los Angeles and how to deal with the coming budget crunch - will be addressed at a series of citywide meetings hosted by the Economic Development Committee of LA Neighborhood Council Congress, along a wide variety of other city wide and local organizations, starting this spring.
Neighborhood councils can rescue affordable housing from City Hall by providing a positive and workable plan and using their influence to get the plan into the light of day. What a year 2008 could be for NCs. What a perception-changing legacy for councils to achieve.
If you would like to work with the LANCC Economic Development Committee on these projects, please email Brady Westwater at bradywestater@gmail.com.
(Brady Westwater is a community activist and a writer. He chairs the LA Neighborhood Councils Congress Economic Development Committee and is a contributor to CityWatch.) _
CITYWATCH article
By Brady Westwater
Everyone has a wish list for 2008 – but it's useless to speak of new projects for tomorrow when we can't pay today's – much less yesterday's -- bills. Add our city's declining revenue and escalating salary hikes – and we are suffocating with a permanent structural deficit. But there are two types of feasible real world solutions.
First, regarding expenditures: any new project, prior to approval, needs to have an identified revenue stream - as much as possible - along with a business plan which – again, as much as possible – will make the project financially sustainable from earned income, other sources of funding – or from direct or indirect long term benefits from the project. Almost everyone agrees on a need for environmentally self-sustainable projects; now NC's need to also ask for new city projects to have financially sustainable business plans.
We also need to determine the long term financial impacts of all the city's actions and the city needs to find creative ways to provide services that do not involve the expenditure of city funds. We need to find ways to get other entities – public and private - to do their share and we have to stop duplicating services and facilities within the city family and with other governmental agencies.
The city as a whole also needs to examine every existing program (setting aside the sacred cows of political correctness) and honestly debate what services the city should provide and how the city can best accomplish these goals within its existing budget. Then a rigorous – and fully independent - cost benefit analysis also needs to be done for each of these programs.
If this restructuring of the city's budget should to be done through a Little Hoover style commission or through an independent of City Hall citizen's commission, is debatable. It is not debatable that our current system of budgetary priorities is broken.
Second, on the revenue side, politicians are finally realizing we cannot continually raise taxes to cover budget deficits. Businesses – and people – are already fleeing Los Angeles and California due to our unsustainably high tax structure. The only way we can increase tax revenues is by attracting taxpaying businesses, tourists and events. To do that, we need to have people with proven track records in the business world develop a realistic economic growth plan for LA. We also need to work together to change the city's current schizophrenic attitude ( i.e. saying one thing – but then doing the exact opposite) towards business.
But enough about theory; let's look at one set of specifics.
Traffic gridlock, housing the homeless and affordable housing for working class families are among the city's most intractable problems. Systemic solutions proposed for all these problems are always beyond the city's financial capacities and yet are also always totally inadequate to the problems.
So how do we develop a realistic business plan for creating affordable housing - and supportive housing for the homeless – plus also helping middle income and below families – while also addressing rush hour traffic congestion?
First, the city needs to stop spending city money on fully subsidizing a handful of units. The affect on the overall housing market is non-existent. Too few people are rewarded and it is done in such a way that it is inherently unfair. Second, we need to accept what study after study has told us – the more regulated and the harder it is for builders to develop market rate housing – the more expensive all housing becomes for all people.
Third, once we have community approved zoning plans for how much housing will be built in each neighborhood, we need to allow the market to build enough market rate housing to moderate everyone's housing costs.
Only by creating enough new market rate housing can we slow down the gentrification of the vast stock of affordable housing which can never be replaced once lost. Doing that alone will save far more lower cost housing than can ever be built though government action. In addition, we need to stop the inappropriate density bonuses that are destroying many of our already overbuilt neighborhoods.
Finally, we need a vastly larger program of subsidized housing for the homeless and for low and moderate income families. The city and the CRA need to only fund financially sustainable housing projects.
The hundred million dollar trust fund should be buying land from developers who have to sell in the current slump. That land should then be sold to non-profits – or profit-making entities- that will build and operate mixed use projects that combine market rate workforce market with lower income subsidized housing - plus retail and – possibly – some office space when appropriate. These transactions would be no money down with the city receiving a mortgage.
Now the key point is that the number apartments that will be subsidized in each complex will ONLY be determined once it is known exactly how many units need to be sold or rented at market rates to cover the subsidy for the low income units. That will guarantee that each project will be financially self-sustainable. And in supportive services buildings, enough retail or market rate units will be required to fund those services.
Once the construction loan is re-financed, the city gets paid back with interest.
This is what makes it a true revolving fund. Once the model is proven, a billion dollar bond issue can be passed to be paid off, not by taxes, but by the repayment of the mortgages.
There are many questions and seemingly logical objections to a program like this – and all of this needs to be publicly debated – as does how this type of program, when combined with an additional no cost to the city program now in the works - can reduce rush hour traffic.
And, each of these discussions – as well as discussions about how to bring more jobs to Los Angeles and how to deal with the coming budget crunch - will be addressed at a series of citywide meetings hosted by the Economic Development Committee of LA Neighborhood Council Congress, along a wide variety of other city wide and local organizations, starting this spring.
Neighborhood councils can rescue affordable housing from City Hall by providing a positive and workable plan and using their influence to get the plan into the light of day. What a year 2008 could be for NCs. What a perception-changing legacy for councils to achieve.
If you would like to work with the LANCC Economic Development Committee on these projects, please email Brady Westwater at bradywestater@gmail.com.
(Brady Westwater is a community activist and a writer. He chairs the LA Neighborhood Councils Congress Economic Development Committee and is a contributor to CityWatch.) _
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Peyton Manning Can Act?
After half-watching the recent history on Saturday Night life on NBC while computer multi-tasking, I though I'd check out the current crop of 'not ready for prime time players' since I had watched the show regularly since the Eddie Murphy days.
I soon noticed one fairly tall but very low key guy had a nice dead pan delivery. Two sketches later - I discovered the cast member was... Peyton Manning (and, yes, besides having facial recognition syndrome, I do live under a rock) and that he can actually act.
But then he did a sketch about a basketball player not wanting to return to the court after the first half and then doing a crazy ass dance to Herb Alpert's Casino Royale (and you had to have been there for that to make any sense). A Steve Martin type of goof ball zaniness that was - if anything - even looser than Martin.
I mean - who'd have thunk? Peyton Manning - physical comedian extraordinaire? So I decided to see if the clip was on YouTube, but it wasn't any more. But what I did find was an entire genre of Peyton Mannning dance imitator videos. And one of the better ones is linked to up top.
OK. Fun's over. Back to writing Op-Eds and heavily footnoted policy papers on... Downtown Industrial Planning Directives...
I soon noticed one fairly tall but very low key guy had a nice dead pan delivery. Two sketches later - I discovered the cast member was... Peyton Manning (and, yes, besides having facial recognition syndrome, I do live under a rock) and that he can actually act.
But then he did a sketch about a basketball player not wanting to return to the court after the first half and then doing a crazy ass dance to Herb Alpert's Casino Royale (and you had to have been there for that to make any sense). A Steve Martin type of goof ball zaniness that was - if anything - even looser than Martin.
I mean - who'd have thunk? Peyton Manning - physical comedian extraordinaire? So I decided to see if the clip was on YouTube, but it wasn't any more. But what I did find was an entire genre of Peyton Mannning dance imitator videos. And one of the better ones is linked to up top.
OK. Fun's over. Back to writing Op-Eds and heavily footnoted policy papers on... Downtown Industrial Planning Directives...
Thursday, January 03, 2008
It's... Curbed Gate! Curbed LA Has Contest With Non-Existent Prize!
Yes! The bitterly fought contest among various Los Angeles Neighborhoods for the title of the most improved neighborhood of 2007 - said by some to be the most horrendous carnage since the War of The Roses, the most blood letting since the final ninety days of the Thirty Years War and the least important war since.... like forever - was all for naught!
The once prized Curbed Cup turns out - not to exist!
Yes! The whole contest turned out to be a fraud!
Well, that cup may not not exist now, but by next Tuesday at 6:30, when the next board meeting of the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council takes place - something resembling a cup with the names Curbed and Historic Core on it better be in the lobby of the Los Angeles Theatre.
Or else.
And as far as... what else.. can mean.... go over to Luke Ford's blog and type 'Brady Westwater' into his search engine.
www.Lukeford.net
Consider yourself warned!
The once prized Curbed Cup turns out - not to exist!
Yes! The whole contest turned out to be a fraud!
Well, that cup may not not exist now, but by next Tuesday at 6:30, when the next board meeting of the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council takes place - something resembling a cup with the names Curbed and Historic Core on it better be in the lobby of the Los Angeles Theatre.
Or else.
And as far as... what else.. can mean.... go over to Luke Ford's blog and type 'Brady Westwater' into his search engine.
www.Lukeford.net
Consider yourself warned!
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Judge Crater, Loch Ness Monster And Big Foot Still Missing - But Methuselah Appears On CBS!
Or at least that was how old a newly bearded David Letterman appeared on his show tonight. Older yet, alas, were his jokes. Now for the reviews:
Round one - Surprising, Leno was a lot funnier (with 'no' writers) in his monologue than Letterman was with his monologue - and it was also two or three times longer. Leno by a landslide.
Round two was Leno with a Jib Jab tape and Letterman with some bantering with his crew. Clear edge Leno.
Round three was questions from the audience with scripted questions setting up skits for Letterman - and an open mike with real questions from the audience for Leno. Hard to call, but at least a tie; but with degree of difficulty added, slight edge to Leno.
Round four Letterman's top ten list delivered by striking writers, weak to decent material (but a lot weaker than what's on Nikki Finke) but with horrible delivery by writers. Leno brought out Huckabee. Winner Letterman, by default.
Round five - Leno still Huckabee, Letterman Robin Williams. Landslide for Letterman.
Final Results - who knows? But Leno showed that for at least one night - no one would know there was a strike from his material. But when it comes to his guests, well, that's another matter.
Round one - Surprising, Leno was a lot funnier (with 'no' writers) in his monologue than Letterman was with his monologue - and it was also two or three times longer. Leno by a landslide.
Round two was Leno with a Jib Jab tape and Letterman with some bantering with his crew. Clear edge Leno.
Round three was questions from the audience with scripted questions setting up skits for Letterman - and an open mike with real questions from the audience for Leno. Hard to call, but at least a tie; but with degree of difficulty added, slight edge to Leno.
Round four Letterman's top ten list delivered by striking writers, weak to decent material (but a lot weaker than what's on Nikki Finke) but with horrible delivery by writers. Leno brought out Huckabee. Winner Letterman, by default.
Round five - Leno still Huckabee, Letterman Robin Williams. Landslide for Letterman.
Final Results - who knows? But Leno showed that for at least one night - no one would know there was a strike from his material. But when it comes to his guests, well, that's another matter.
Unless You Want to Gamble with Your Life - Better Have a Heart Attack in a Casino - And Not a Hospital!
There are some interesting reasons why this is true in the above link, but as someone who barely survived a recent trip to Downtown's California Hospital emergency room where the attending doctor seemed intent on torturing me to maximize the hospital's profits (and then lying about it afterwards), the last place anyone should get sick at - is at a hospital....
Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 2, 2008
People who suffer a life-threatening alteration in heart rhythms are more likely to survive if they are in a casino or airport than if they are in a hospital, researchers said today.
Doctors already knew that more than half of those who suffer such attacks in airports and casinos survive. But a new study in hospitals shows that only a third of victims there survive -- primarily because patients do not receive life-saving defibrillation within the recommended two minutes.
Nearly 40% of hospitalized patients who received defibrillation within two minutes survived to leave the hospital, compared with 22% of those for whom the response took longer, researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
LA Observed's 2007 LA Obits
Kevin has his usual year end list of prominent Angelenos (Kevin's spelling - not the one I prefer) who have passed in the last year and I was stunned by how many of them were friends of mine - and many of them, good friends.
Some like Steve Criqui were so young, I'm still shocked to see their name on an obit list, others like Cathy Seipp, despite how long they were ill, my brain still defaults to them still being here with us and with a few others like Carol Baker Tharp, their passings are so recent that the grief is still with me.
The one obvious missing obit, for me at least, was Downtown and Arts District activist and leader, Joel Bloom, but I am sure there are others.
Some like Steve Criqui were so young, I'm still shocked to see their name on an obit list, others like Cathy Seipp, despite how long they were ill, my brain still defaults to them still being here with us and with a few others like Carol Baker Tharp, their passings are so recent that the grief is still with me.
The one obvious missing obit, for me at least, was Downtown and Arts District activist and leader, Joel Bloom, but I am sure there are others.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
