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Councilmember Tim McOsker introduced a motion to revive a zoning code that could ban the construction and operation of private detention centers for unaccompanied kids.The L.A. City Council took a step toward reactivating a zoning code that could prohibit the construction and operation of private detention centers for unaccompanied children.
The ordinance is meant to prevent private facilities from contracting with federal law enforcement agencies like ICE, according to Councilmember Tim McOsker, who introduced the motion last week.: The zoning ordinance was first introduced in 2019 in response to President Donald Trump’s immigration policies during his first term. The file was drafted in 2021, but was never officially adopted, and therefore it expired in 2024.The City Council last week voted to revive the file and update the drafted zoning code in response to immigration raids.The L.A. City Council has taken a step toward reactivating a zoning code that could prohibit the construction and operation of private detention centers for unaccompanied children. The ordinance is meant to prevent private facilities from contracting with federal law enforcement agencies like ICE, according to Councilmember Tim McOsker, who introduced the motion last Wednesday. The zoning ordinance was first introduced in 2019 in response to President Donald Trump’s immigration policies during his first term. The file was drafted in 2021, but was never officially adopted, and therefore it expired in 2024.“The concern, of course, was the worry that profiteers, private entities working with the federal government, were creating detention centers across the country,” McOsker said during the council meeting. “Those were creating human rights violations and poor living conditions, disease, death and harms that were unconstitutional to residents of the United States.”In response to the raids, the city has limited power, but McOsker said it has authority over land use and he's asking the city to consider wielding that power. “Do we want to prohibit private detention centers in every zone in the city of Los Angeles?” McOsker said. He added that L.A. has an opportunity now to update its zoning laws to regulate private detention centers. McOsker said he doesn’t know of any proposed private detention centers in L.A., but that the facilities have been reported in at least eight states. “Those states are blue, and those states are red, and what is uniform across is that local residents do not want to have private detention centers in their communities,” McOsker said.The city attorney and the city’s planning commission will review the 2021 draft ordinance. It’s unclear when it will come back to the City Council for consideration.In order to comply with the terms of a major court settlement, the city of Los Angeles will need to cut spending on current homelessness programs by $181 million. At least that’s the conclusion outlined in a city report released earlier this month.The recommended cuts have alarmed some homeless service providers — and the clients they serve. Programs potentially on the chopping block include efforts to provide street medicine to unhoused people with poor health, hygiene programs that place showers and restrooms near encampments, and safe parking spots for people living in their cars.to hear from homeless services providers and unhoused people about what these potential cuts would mean, and why advocates for unhoused people disagree with the framing of the report's conclusions.In order to comply with the terms of a major court settlement, the city of Los Angeles will need to cut annual spending on homelessness programs by $181 million. At least that’s the conclusion outlined in a city report released earlier this month. The recommended cuts have alarmed some homeless service providers — and the clients they serve. Programs potentially on the chopping block include street medicine programs that serve unhoused people in poor health, hygiene programs that place showers and restrooms near encampments and safe parking lots for people living in their cars., citywide homelessness spending reductions of up to 15% are needed in order to divert money toward creating 12,915 new shelter beds or housing units. This requirement is the linchpin of theTecle said the city now appears to be pitting the need for new shelter beds against services that don’t count toward the terms of the settlement. “Safe parking is not a strategy that fits into traditional boxes of homelessness services,” Tecle said. “We're not a shelter in a traditional sense.” But with more than 11,000 people in L.A. living in vehicles, the city should be trying to expand the number of designated parking lots that provide bathrooms, security and case management to people trying to find their way back into housing, Tecle said. Until the first safe parking site in L.A. launched in 2018, Tecle said, “there was no program that was serving people directly that were experiencing vehicular homelessness.” He said his organization now oversees 143 parking spots across the city. “It was this understanding of a systemic gap that needed to be filled,” he said. “We feel like we've shown that value to this point, and we want to continue to do so into the future.”Advocates for unhoused people disagreed with the framing of the city spending report. They argued the court has never required the city to cut vital programs for people living on the streets. “The city's CAO is recommending cutting essential services for unhoused folks to meet that obligation,” said Shayla Myers, an attorney with thewho represented the interests of unhoused people in the case. “But that's not the result of this litigation. That is the result of city planning.” Myers said the city could instead divert funds from expensive encampment sweeps or look toward lower cost ways to help Angelenos get housed. The CAO report identified motel rooms through Mayor Karen Bass’City Council members sounded frustrated with the report’s recommendations in a Feb. 4 meeting of the council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee. “We are faced with an extraordinarily strange set of recommendations here,” said committee chair Nithya Raman. “Recommendations that, to me, seem to fly in the face of what this council has said we’ve wanted, which is to expand the number of people that we are serving.”“Nothing in this report is a certain action that this council is going to take,” she said.against incumbent Karen Bass, a former ally, said there would be time for further debate before the city adopts its next annual budget in June. “Between now and then, my focus is on protecting effective frontline services, meeting our legal obligations, and making sure any changes actually help us house more people — not fewer,” Raman said.The report said the city could save about $15.7 million by cutting street hygiene programs, $3.6 million by defunding 11 safe parking sites, and nearly $5 million by cutting support forParticipants at one Safe Parking LA site in West L.A. said shutting down the program would put them further from securing stable housing. Daya Baran sits behind the wheel of his Mercedes Benz where he has stayed following a divorce and job loss.Daya Baran — a former investment banker who took to living in his Mercedes Benz following a divorce, job loss and eviction — said he rarely got enough sleep before coming to this site. “There are always people who actually try to steal, try to rob you while you're in your car,” Baran said. “It's safer here. You know the people. There's security here. There's restrooms.” Still, Baran said, there are moments when he craves a real mattress instead of his car’s back seat. At the gym, he’ll sometimes take a breather from working out and lie down on a yoga mat.Providers say LAHSA’s evaluation is flawedWhen LAist asked what went into that determination, Christopher Yee, a LAHSA spokesperson, said only 44% of safe parking spots were occupied in the last fiscal year. “In this time of constrained budgets, it is critical to invest in solutions that have demonstrated the most consistent success,” Yee said in an email. But Safe Parking L.A. leaders said 86% of their spots are currently filled. In an email, Tecle said safe parking spots cost the city about $40 per night, much less than other shelter programs. “Aggregating all providers together and labeling the model ‘ineffective’ ignores performance differences and avoids a serious evaluation of what is actually working,” Tecle wrote. “If the City wants efficiency, the answer is precision — not using an axe to eliminate one of the most cost-effective early interventions we have.” George Robert Pratt III, another participant at the West L.A. site, said he’d been spending nights at the lot for about a year. At 72, he lives on Social Security payments of about $1,300 per month, not enough to afford an apartment of his own. “This place needs more housing, especially affordable housing,” said Pratt, who grew up in L.A. “There's a lot of old people on the streets, out here living on the sidewalks, and I feel for them.” For now, Pratt said he feels fortunate to have his 2002 Ford Explorer, which he has outfitted with a mattress. If this site were to be shut down, he said, he could always go back to parking on various city streets, out of the way and hidden from public view. “This thing's pretty incognito, and I didn’t stay in one spot long enough to get anybody's attention,” Pratt said."I know better than that."The Los Angeles mayor's race is shaping up to be a doozy, with the late announcement by City Councilmember Nithya Raman that she’ll challenge her longtime ally incumbent Karen Bass. We've compiled a list of the candidates.The next mayor will face enormous challenges, including the continuing rebuilding efforts from the Palisades Fire, the ongoing homelessness crisis and preparations for the 2028 Olympics.There are 40 candidates in all. The list does not include former L.A. schools superintendent and businessman Austin Beutner, who dropped out at the last minute because of the death of his daughter. Nor does it include billionaire developer Rick Caruso, who declined to stage a rematch against Bass. He lost to her in 2022, despite spending more than $100 million of his own money.The primary election is in June. If nobody gets a majority of the vote, the top two finishers will face off in a November runoff.The Los Angeles mayor's race is shaping up to be a doozy, with the late announcement by City Councilmember Nithya Raman that she’ll challenge her longtime ally incumbent Karen Bass. The next mayor will face enormous challenges, including the continuing rebuilding efforts from the Palisades Fire, the ongoing homelessness crisis and preparations for the 2028 Olympics. There are 40 candidates in all. The list does not include former L.A. schools superintendent and businessman Austin Beutner, who dropped out at the last minute because of the death of his daughter. Nor does it include billionaire developer Rick Caruso, who declined to stage a rematch against Bass. He lost to her in 2022, despite spending more than $100 million of his own money. And L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath opted not to run at the Friday night before the Saturday deadline for filing. The primary election is in June. If nobody gets a majority of the vote, the top two finishers will face off in a November runoff.Karen Bass, 72, is the incumbent. She’s a native of South L.A. who previously served in the state Legislature as speaker of the Assembly and as a member of Congress.She has several early endorsements and a campaign war chest topping $2.4 million raised so far. None of the other candidates are listed in the latest Ethics Commission report as having raised any money. Nine members of the 15-member City Council back Bass, as do a number of labor unions and business groups. She touts a drop in homelessness and the lowest crime rate in 60 years as among her accomplishments. But she’s been criticized for her handling of the Palisades Fire. Bass was out of town when it broke out and there have been reports that she urged the city Fire Department to water down a report assessing the agency’s response to the fire. Nithya Raman, 44, is in her second term on the L.A. City Council, representing District 4, which stretches from Silver Lake to Sherman Oaks in the San Fernando Valley She was born in India and moved to the U.S. with her family when she was 6 years old.She was the first person in nearly two decades to oust an incumbent council member when she was first elected in 2020. Raman, an urban planner, was also the first in a wave of progressives elected to the council with the backing of the Democratic Socialists of America. She is also aligned with YIMBY groups that want more housing density in the city. Housing is a top issue for Raman, who has helped lead the fight for stricter rent control measures. She founded a nonprofit in L.A. called SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition that provided direct aid like meals and showers as well as case management. It does not appear that there is a website for Raman's mayoral campaign. Her page on the city website can be foundAdam Miller, 56, is a tech entrepreneur from West Los Angeles who co-founded Better Angels, a nonprofit focused on preventing homelessness and building affordable housing. He made his fortune developing education software.Miller’s company was called Cornerstone OnDemand. The publicly traded company was sold in 2021 to a private equity firm for $5.2 billion, according to the Los Angeles Times. According to his website, Miller grew up in New Jersey and went to graduate school at UCLA. He said L.A. is not short on resources, compassion or talent but on leadership — and that he can provide that leadership. He has said he’ll spend some of his own money on his campaign but that he’ll also raise money from contributors.Pratt lost his home in the Palisades Fire and has been an outspoken critic of Bass’ handling of the fire. HePratt has said he would direct the Police Department to cooperate with federal immigration authorities to catch criminal unauthorized immigrants. He is endorsed by Richard Grenell, the former director of national intelligence in the Trump Administration. The Rev. Rae Huang, 43, is a Presbyterian minister and community organizer who is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. She is the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants and grew up on the East Coast.As deputy director of Housing Now! California, Huang directed statewide campaigns to make housing affordable and end the displacement of working class communities, according to her website. She is also an organizer with Clergy for Black Lives, a collective of Southern California faith leaders who advocate for racial justice, police accountability and support for the Black Lives Matter movement. She touts how she led efforts to expand tenant protections under SB 567, which closed loopholes in “no-fault” just cause evictions and imposed stricter penalties on landlords for violations. Huang also points out that she supported the passage of a social housing study bill SB 555, which requires the state to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the opportunities for the creation of social housing. Huang has said she wants to expand public housing in the city of L.A., provide free bus service and reduce spending on the Police Department investing instead in more unarmed crisis responders.If you're enjoying this article, you'll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less.Following reports of local police assisting federal immigration agents with raids and detentions of citizen observers across Southern California, state lawmakers have introduced a bill seeking to outlaw such collaboration., dubbed the Protect California Rights Act. The bill would ban local law enforcement from helping federal agents with operations based on racial profiling, efforts to stop First Amendment speech or actions involving unauthorized military weapons.At a news conference, Pérez said: “Californians deserve to feel safe. They deserve to trust that the officers sworn to protect them will not be used to intimidate them. And they deserve a state government that stands firmly on the side of civil rights and constitutional protections.”The bill is co-sponsored by ACLU California Action. Executive Director David Trujillo said if the bill passes, Californians who’ve been subject to illegal activity by local law enforcement could take their case to court. “The courts will be able to then step in and order local law enforcement to comply with our laws here in California,” Trujillo said.The news conference featured speakers who have been detained by local police in incidents related to federal immigration actions. Jose Madera, director of the Pasadena Community Job Center, said he was arrested last month by Pasadena police while tracking the movements of an alleged ICE agent. “The perception of the community,” Madera said, “is that local police were protecting ICE agents and not protecting us, the residents, legal observers.”The Trump Administration and top officials at the Department of Homeland Security have consistently pushed back on efforts to curtail their aggressive enforcement of immigration policies. White House border czar Tom Homan on Sunday, for example, rejected Democrats calls for ICE officers to stop wearing masks,Filmmaker Frederick Wiseman has died. The celebrated documentarian started making documentaries that captured the weirdness and wonder of everyday life in the mid 1960s and did not stop untilFilmmaker Frederick Wiseman has died. The celebrated documentarian started making documentaries that captured the weirdness and wonder of everyday life in the mid 1960s and did not stop until"I usually know nothing about the subject before I start," he said at the black-tie ceremony."And I know there are those that feel I know nothing about it when it's finished!" Wiseman was extremely prolific. He made roughly 50 documentaries, many of which chronicled the inner workings of institutions as diverse as the Idaho state legislature "He has a way of finding in reality some of the most surreal, absurd moments that I've ever seen anywhere," Morris said."And it seems like the entire scene is populated by women except for the janitor standing by the exit door, looking nervously on with his hands folded over his crotch," Morris said."To me, this is really almost as good as it gets." Morris added Wiseman was a mentor to him and a close friend. After Morris lost both his father and brother to heart disease, and was worried about his own fate, the filmmaker said Wiseman organized medical help for him."I can even credit Fred with saving my life," Morris said. Frederick Wiseman was born in Boston in 1930. After serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War and living in Paris during the 1950s, he taught law at Boston University.It was taking his students on field trips to Bridgewater State Hospital, a Massachusetts prison facility for the criminally insane, that compelled the then law professor to direct his first, and most famous, filmAfter its seemingly benign opening, the movie captures the appalling conditions under which the inmates are kept, with unblinking scenes of bullying, force feeding, strip searches and squalor.was so shocking, the state of Massachusetts managed to get it banned from public screenings for more than two decades. "In order for anyone to see that film, for years you had to sign a declaration saying that you were a professional in one of the following fields, like criminology, law or film studies," said film scholar Barry Keith Grant, author of"It gave him a lot of notoriety and it helped establish his career," Grant said. Over the years, Wiseman became known for his meticulous, hands-on process. He directed, produced and edited his movies. In a"I was there for three months, every day for twelve weeks, probably twelve, fourteen hours a day," Wiseman said of the shoot, adding he amassed 170 hours of footage."So the ratio between film shot and film used is about 60 to one." Wiseman's films were also known for their prodigious length, running for as long as six hours."I don't tailor the length to meet any commercial needs," Wiseman said."I assume if people are interested, they'll watch it, whether it's 75 minutes or three hours."
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