Crime and Gascon Continue to Dominate the Headlines
Quote of the Week
"In ecological economics, we’ve tried to make a distinction between development and growth. When something grows, it gets bigger physically by accretion or assimilation of material. When something develops, it gets better in a qualitative sense. It doesn’t have to get bigger. An example of that is computers. You can do fantastic computations now with a small material base in the computer. That’s real development. And the art of living is not synonymous with “more stuff.” People occasionally glimpse this, and then we fall back into more, more, more." This Pioneering Economist Says Our Obsession With Growth Must End
Herman Daly
Emeritus professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy
Former senior economist for the World Bank
Big Picture
Crime, of all types, continues to dominate the headlines and emotions are running high. In light of that I wanted to share one more piece on the topic of LA District Attorney George Gascon.
The campaign to recall Gascon is moving forward as the LA County Registrar-Recorder completed a random sampling last week for verification of petitions and now they will proceed with a "full check of all signatures submitted."
This initiative is the tip of the spear of the growing opposition that includes the two remaining candidates for LA Mayor, Rick Caruso. who continues to condemn him, and Karen Bass, who continues to distance herself from him.
President Biden has even weighed in on the topic of progressive DAs. On the day after Boudin was recalled last month, President Joe Biden told reporters, “I think the voters sent a clear message last night: Both parties have to step up and do something about crime, as well as gun violence.” He reminded everyone that his budget called for more money to hire and train more cops.
CA Governor Gavin Newsom took another approach, recently telling Fox News 11 LA that he doesn't 'know enough' about Gascon's job performance to determine if he's doing a 'good job' and he's 'deeply concerned' with some of the criticism that Gascon has received.
Meanwhile Gascon continues to push back. Last Thursday he stated that a June ruling by a three-judge panel of the California Second District Court of Appeal mandating prosecutors file such cases “sets a dangerous precedent” in the Golden State.
Garscon argued that "The court is effectively taking the charging decision out of the prosecutor’s hands — the core function of a prosecutor’s office." He event went further ordering all prosecutors to remove strike priors on any existing cases, where meant some heinous offenders were exempt from the use the law moving forward.
Maybe he read the tea leaves from the recent primary election were Eunisses Hernandez, a 32-year-old community activist and public policy advocate, beat the sitting City Councilman Gil Cedillo in District 1 seat. Hernandez supports abolishing the police. This is a pretty extreme stance because we live in a world where the gap between the way things ought to be and the way things are is just too enormous to close overnight.
The reality is no matter the outcome of the recall there are still complex issues that need to be dealt with. For instance:
Defense attorneys tell me that there are broad categories of crimes that don't involve weapons that no longer result in any jail time if the person pleads no contest, gives up the right to a trial, and engages in a plea bargain with the prosecution. These defense attorneys believe that there are some sentences now that are potentially too long and lots of dispositions that are probably too short.
Many categories of behavior - such as domestic violence that involves punching - result in absolutely no jail time now. While a long prison sentence, could render these men (and they are almost all men) unemployable. It is possible that we have made a mistake by not subjecting more of these men to shorter jail sentences.
At a certain point, there is a diminishing return on the lengthy prison sentence as someone acclimates to life in the system and becomes detached from the outside world. But defense attorneys tell me that it is remarkable to see the profound impact that even a short stint in jail can have on someone. It's an impact that is not replicated by a 52 week domestic violence class or 12 months of summary probation.
Should there be a cap on the discrepancy allowed between the plea bargain disposition and the amount of time someone would get if convicted at trial? It seems like some differential is necessary or else no one would acknowledge their crimes in an expeditious manner. On the other hand, does there come a point where the discrepancy is so large that some people (who may be factually innocent) are entering guilty pleas who might otherwise go to trial if they were not so afraid of the much-longer sentence that could be in store for them.
Defense attorneys say that when prosecutors secure convictions people are given time, but they are let out much, much sooner. Does Gascon believe that the LA County Board of Supervisors, or LA voters, need to approve new money to build a large new jail - perhaps near the Pitchess Detention Center near Magic Mountain?
As we get people off of the street and into rehab, is Gascon comfortable taking them into custody and then doing what are known as "conditional releases" - meaning, they are only being released directly to a residential drug treatment facility. I have heard of people getting the chance to do drug rehab -- but they stay free - and while waiting to start rehab, they keep using, and using, and committing new crimes. It could open you up to the charge of "criminalizing homelessness" -- but some people think it is necessary.
I strongly believe that we need to move beyond just the political statements from our Mayoral candidates, current council members and county supervisors and start asking the right questions, because with or without a successful recall there is still a lot of work to be done to put policies in place that will help reduce the desire some have to commit a crime.
For now Mr. Gascon remains a lightening rod for all things that are bedeviling California. Some things are fair game, but the time has come for all of our public officials to elevate their leadership role to invest more in capacity building and shaping a culture of the change we need to build stronger communities.
CA's Unemployment Debt
Despite sitting on surpluses, California, New York, Illinois and Connecticut allow fees to rise for businesses as they spend money on other programs. (WSJ)
Their unpaid debts to the federal government ranging from tens of millions of dollars to more than $15 billion and if they aren’t fully repaid by Nov. 10, as officials in the four states envision, the federal government will:
Start charging $21 per employee annually on all businesses in the states next year.
In addition, state taxes on businesses to fund their unemployment programs will go up by varying amounts.
California was the first to borrow funds, in May 2020, and took out the largest loan. Its balance grew to a high of nearly $24 billion in September of 2021. In negotiations for a budget that took effect this month, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed spending $3 billion of a nearly $98 billion budget surplus to pay down its unemployment-insurance debt to the federal government, which currently stands at $18 billion. The Democratic-controlled legislature pared the request down to $1 billion in a budget Mr. Newsom signed in June.
What's Next: The state plans to reimburse small businesses for the federal surcharge beginning in 2024, according to budget summary documents. Legislators said they preferred this approach to paying down the debt because it gave immediate relief to employers, and legislative officials said California law limits the size of direct appropriations to cover the debt.
LAUSD's New Leader Earning High Marks
Supt. Carvalho has been working to rally the city around a district that is projected to lose 100,000 students over the next decade. (The74)
Decisions: He’ll soon need to make tough calls about closing schools and moving staff. That could put him on a collision course with the district’s notoriously tough teachers union as it prepares for upcoming contract negotiations.
Issues:
Teacher vacancies
Broken air-conditioners
The district still has $2.5 billion in relief funds to spend
He believes the state’s— and especially Los Angeles’s — practice of allowing charter schools to co-locate in buildings with traditional schools, is “divisive.”
He’s sought help from the Los Angeles City Council to relocate homeless encampments away from school grounds and child care centers.
Graph: Data shows that despite declining enrollment — the black line — the number of school-based positions have grown. (Los Angeles Unified School District)
Unions: The union is proposing a 20% raise over the next two years, smaller class sizes and $5,000 retention bonuses for counselors and other support positions. They argue that with roughly $3 billion in reserves, now is not the time to be making cuts.
Great Intentions: He has also taken personal responsibility for some students — more than 40 who were chronically absent during the pandemic — and donated $8,000 from his early paychecks to provide some with scholarships.
The Shrinking of the Middle-Class Neighborhood
A smaller share of families are living in middle-class neighborhoods, places where incomes are typically within 25 percent of the regional median. (NYT)
New Pattern: The population of families making more than $100,000 has grown much faster than other groups, even after adjusting for inflation, and the number of families earning less than $40,000 has increased at twice the rate of families in the middle.
Nationally: Only half of American families living in metropolitan areas can say that their neighborhood income level is within 25 percent of the regional median. A generation ago, 62 percent of families lived in these middle-income neighborhoods.
Chart: Metro LA's share of residents living in middle-income neighborhoods declined to 37% from 42% between 1990 and 2020.
The Slow Loss of LA's Affordable Housing
Dual forces from the public and private sectors are set to converge on Los Angeles in the coming decade, removing thousands of affordably priced homes from the market at a crucial time for residents who are unable to pay the steadily increasing prices now common in the city. (Bisnow)
Data: In LA County, there are 10,698 units with covenants set to expire within 10 years. (9% of all affordable units in the county.) Most of those (7,973) are set to expire within five years, according to the California Housing Partnership’s Affordable Housing At Risk 2022 report.
What comes next: Upon expiration owners are able to flip the units to market-rate rents, opt out of certain programs or sell their properties.
Background
The vast majority of housing that low-income renters can afford is naturally occurring affordable housing — units that, because of their location, condition and other factors, rent below market rates.
What's Next: The city’s housing department put together a report laying out how many units were at risk of losing their affordability and make recommendations about how to preserve them. The policy recommendations hasn't been publicly released.
Some Ideas Floated
Draft ordinance that would give “mission-driven nonprofit affordable housing developers” the first option to buy properties whose covenants have expired. State funds may be made available to LA.
The city of LA is devising a plan to make an offer on a 124-unit building in Chinatown where the affordability covenants are set to expire in 2024. The building isn't actually on the market, but the city wants to buy it in an attempt to keep the renters in place.
The Local Rental Owners Collaborative, a pilot launched in the spring of 2021, offering grants to 52 rental owners in South Los Angeles who are people of color. The program aims to keep ownership in the hands of local, independent landlords and keep tenants in their homes. In the end, one or two buildings that participated in the program ultimately sold, but the vast majority didn't.