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Tag: county supervisor

  • Commentary: A fence might deter MacArthur Park crime and homelessness, but is it enough?

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    My first reaction, when I heard about the proposed $2.3-million fence around MacArthur Park, was skepticism.

    Yeah, the park and the immediate neighborhood have long dealt with a nasty web of urban nightmares, including homelessness, crime and a rather astonishing open-air drug scene, all of which I spent a few months looking into not long ago.

    But what would a fence accomplish?

    Well, after looking into it, maybe it’s not the worst idea.

    Skepticism, I should note, is generally a fallback position for me. It’s something of an occupational duty, and how can you not be cynical about promises and plans in Los Angeles, where each time you open the newspaper, you have to scratch your head?

    I’m still having trouble understanding how county supervisors approved another $828 million in child sexual abuse payments, on top of an earlier settlement this year of $4 billion, even after Times reporter Rebecca Ellis found nine cases in which people said they were told to fabricate abuse allegations.

    The same supes, while wrestling with a budget crisis, agreed to pay $2 million to appease the county’s chief executive officer because she felt wronged by a ballot measure proposing that the job be an elected rather than appointed post. Scratching your head doesn’t help in this case; you’re tempted instead to bang it into a wall.

    Drone view of MacArthur Park looking toward downtown Los Angeles.

    (Ted Soqui/For The Times)

    Or maybe a $2.3-million fence.

    The city of L.A. is primarily responsible for taking on the problems of MacArthur Park, although the county has a role too in the areas of housing, public health and addiction services. I made two visits to the area in the last week, and while there are signs of progress and slightly less of a sense of chaos — the children’s playground hit last year by an arsonist has been fully rebuilt — there’s a long way to go.

    In a story about the fence by my colleague Nathan Solis, one service provider said it would further criminalize homelessness and another said the money “could be better used by funding … services to the people in the park, rather than just moving them out.”

    The vast majority of people who spoke at the Oct. 16 meeting of the Recreation and Parks Commission, which voted unanimously to move forward with the fence, were adamantly opposed despite claims that enclosing the space would be a step toward upgrading and making the park more welcoming.

    “Nothing is more unwelcoming than a fence around a public space,” one critic said.

    “A fence can not solve homelessness,” another said.

    The LAPD underwater dive unit investigates activity in MacArthur Park Lake.

    The LAPD underwater dive unit investigates activity in MacArthur Park Lake.

    (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

    Others argued that locking up the park, which is surrounded by a predominantly immigrant community, recalls the ridiculous stunt that played out in June, when President Trump’s uniformed posse showed up in armored vehicles and on horseback in what looked like an all-out invasion of Westlake.

    But another speaker, Raul Claros — who is running against Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez in the 1st District — said he’d spoken to residents and merchants who support the fence, as long as it’s part of a greater effort to address the community’s needs.

    Claros said he has three questions: “What’s the plan? What’s the timeline? Who’s in charge?”

    Hernandez, by the way, is not opposed to the fence. A staffer told me there’s a fence around nearby Lafayette Park. Other fenced parks in Los Angeles include Robert Burns Park, adjacent to Hancock Park, and the L.A. State Historic Park on the edge of Chinatown, which is locked at sunset.

    As for the long-range plan, the Hernandez staffer said the councilwoman has secured and is investing millions of dollars in what she calls a care-first approach that aims to address drug addiction and homelessness in and around the park.

    Eduardo Aguirre, who lives a couple of blocks from the park and serves on the West Pico Neighborhood Council, told me he’s OK with the fence but worried about the possible consequences. If the people who use the park at night or sleep there are forced out, he said, where will they go?

    “To the streets? To the alleys? You know what’s going to happen. It’s a game,” Aguirre said.

    Last fall I walked with Aguirre and his wife as they led their daughter to her elementary school. They often have to step around homeless people and past areas where dealing and drug use, along with violence, are anything but infrequent.

    Families and others should be able to feel safe in the park and the neighborhood, said Norm Langer, owner of the iconic Langer’s deli on the edge of the park.

    A visitor takes in the view at MacArthur Park.

    A visitor takes in the view at MacArthur Park.

    (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

    “I completely understand why you’re skeptical,” Langer told me, but he said he’s seen improvements in the last year, particularly after fences were installed along Alvarado Street and vendors were shut down. Police say some of the vendors were involved in the drug trade and the resale of stolen merchandise.

    “The point isn’t to limit access,” Langer said. “The fence is intended to improve safety and quality of life for the people who live, work, and spend time here. It gives park staff a fighting chance to maintain and restore the place, especially at night, when they can finally clean and repair without the constant chaos that made upkeep nearly impossible before.”

    LAPD Capt. Ben Fernandes of the Rampart division told me police are “trying to make it not OK” to buy and use drugs along the Alvarado corridor. Drug users often gather in the northeast corner of the park, Fernandes said, and he thinks putting up a fence and keeping the park off limits at night will help “deflect” some of “the open-air usage.”

    The park has a nice soccer field and a lovely bandstand, among other popular attractions, but many parents told me they’re reluctant to visit with their children because of safety concerns. If a fence helps bring back families, many of whom live in apartments and have no yards, that’s a good thing.

    But as the city goes to work on design issues, questions about enforcement, opening and closing times and other details, it needs to keep in mind that all of that is the easy part.

    It took an unforgivably long time for L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and other elected officials to acknowledge a social, economic and humanitarian crisis in a place that’s home to thousands of low-income working people.

    The neighborhood needs much more than a fence.

    steve.lopez@latimes.com

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    Steve Lopez

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  • L.A. County moves to keep ICE away from data that show where people drive

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    Los Angeles County is moving to add more checks on how federal immigration officials can access data collected by the Sheriff’s Department that can be used to track where people drive on any given day.

    County supervisors voted Tuesday to approve a motion, introduced by Supervisor Hilda Solis, to beef up oversight of data gathered by law enforcement devices known as automated license plate readers.

    It’s already illegal in California for local law enforcement agencies to share information gleaned from license plate readers with federal agencies such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement without a warrant.

    But after a summer of ramped-up deportations, the county supervisors decided to impose more transparency on who’s requesting license plate data from the Sheriff’s Department — and when the agency provides it.

    The change will create a clear policy that the data cannot be “disclosed, transferred, or otherwise made available” to immigration officials except when “expressly required” by law or if they have a warrant.

    “In a place like Los Angeles County, where residents depend on cars for nearly every aspect of daily life, people must feel safe traveling from place to place without fear that their movements are being tracked, stored, and shared in ways that violate their privacy,” the motion states.

    Supervisor Kathryn Barger cast the sole no vote. Helen Chavez, a spokesperson for Barger, said the supervisor voted against the motion because it calls for the county to support a bill that would limit the amount of time law enforcement can keep most license plate data to 60 days. Law enforcement has opposed that bill, she said.

    Across the country, law enforcement agencies use cameras to collect data on millions of vehicles, poring over the records for clues to help find stolen vehicles, crime suspects or missing persons.

    A sheriff deputy’s patrol car is equipped with a license plate scanner. The plate numbers are instantaneously processed and if the registered vehicle owners are wanted for felonies or certain types of misdemeanors, if they are registered sex or arson offenders or if an Amber Alert has been issued, an alarm will sound to alert the officer.

    (Los Angeles Times)

    The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement it has roughly 366 fixed licensed plate readers from Motorola Vigilant and 476 from Flock Safety in contract cities and unincorporated areas. An additional 89 mobile systems from Motorola are mounted on vehicles that patrol these areas.

    The department said its policy already prohibits it from sharing data from plate readers, known as ALPR, with any entity that “does not have a lawful purpose for receiving it.”

    “LASD shares ALPR data with other law enforcement agencies only under an executed inter-agency agreement, which requires all parties to collect, access, use, and disclose the data in compliance with applicable law,” the statement read. “LASD has no current agreements for ALPR data sharing with any federal agency.”

    Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement that the agency has multiple resources at its “fingertips to ensure federal law is enforced in Los Angeles, and throughout the entire country.”

    “These sanctuary politicians’ efforts to stop the Sheriff’s Department from cooperating with ICE are reckless and will not deter ICE from enforcing the law,” McLaughlin said.

    Southern California law enforcement departments — including LAPD and authorities in San Diego, Orange and Riverside counties — have been accused of routinely flouting state law by sharing license plate data with federal agents. A recent report from CalMatters cited records obtained by the anti-surveillance group Oakland Privacy that showed more than 100 instances in a single month when local police queried databases for federal agencies.

    “When you collect this data, it’s really hard to control,” said Catherine Crump, director of UC Berkeley’s Technology & Public Policy Clinic. “It’s no different from once you share your data with Meta or Google, they’re going to repackage your data and sell it to advertisers and you don’t have any idea which of the advertising companies have your data.”

    Even with the board cracking down on data sharing, advocates say it’s nearly impossible to ensure federal agents are barred from license plate data in L.A. County.

    Dave Maass, the director of investigations for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said private companies that operate in California still collect and sell data that ICE can use.

    U.S. Customs and Border Protection also has its own license plate readers around Southern California, he said.

    Maass said even if a county bars its local sheriff’s department from sharing data with ICE, it’s difficult to guarantee the rule is followed by the rank-and-file. Immigration officers could informally pass on a plate number to a deputy with access to the system.

    A patrol car with a license plate scanner

    An L.A. County Sheriff’s Department patrol car equipped with a license plate reader can scan somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 plates a day.

    (Los Angeles Times)

    “Maybe they run the plate,” Maass says. “Unless there’s some public records release from the Los Angeles side of things, we just really don’t know who accessed the system.”

    Under the motion passed Tuesday, the sheriff department would need to regularly report what agencies asked for license plate data to two county watchdogs groups — the Office of Inspector General and the Civilian Oversight Commission.

    “Having somebody who is somewhat independent and whose role is more aggressively overseeing reviewing these searches is actually quite a big deal,” Maass said.

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    Rebecca Ellis

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  • Judge halts construction of massive warehouse project after scores of homes demolished

    Judge halts construction of massive warehouse project after scores of homes demolished

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    A Southern California developer must halt construction of a controversial industrial park in San Bernardino County that has displaced scores of homes, after a judge found flaws in the project’s environmental impact report.

    County supervisors in late 2022 green-lighted an industrial real estate firm’s proposal to remove 117 homes and ranches in rural Bloomington to make way for more than 2 million square feet of warehouse space. Several environmental and community groups sued the county soon after, alleging that the approval of the Bloomington Business Park violated numerous regulations set out in state environmental and housing laws.

    Nearly two years later, and after more than 100 homes have already been leveled, San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Donald Alvarez ruled last week that the county’s review of the project did not conform with the state law intended to inform decision-makers and the public about the potential environmental harms of proposed developments. He said construction of the warehouse project must stop while the county redoes the report in a manner that complies with the law.

    A San Bernardino County spokesperson declined to comment on the ruling because it is the subject of active litigation. The developer, Orange County-based Howard Industrial Partners, said it would appeal portions of the ruling and predicted that delays to the overall project would be short-lived.

    The 213-acre industrial park came with trade-offs familiar to communities in California’s Inland Empire that are being asked to shoulder the sprawling distribution centers integral to the storage, packaging and delivery of America’s online shopping orders.

    The environmental impact report found that the development would have “significant and unavoidable” impacts on air quality. But it also would bring jobs to the majority Latino community of 23,000 residents, and the developer pledged to provide millions of dollars in infrastructure improvements.

    And because the warehouse project would be about 50 feet from Zimmerman Elementary, the developer agreed to pay $44.5 million to the Colton Joint Unified School District in a land swap that would usher in a state-of-the-art school nearby.

    For Bloomington residents and community advocates who have been fighting the explosive growth of the warehouse industry in the Inland Empire, the court’s decision is being viewed as a victory.

    Ana Gonzalez, executive director of the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said her organization has challenged a couple of warehouse approvals annually for the past five years. The lawsuits typically end in settlements that award the community extra protections, such as air filters and HVAC systems for nearby homes. She said she’s never before seen construction stopped in its tracks.

    “To see the way this one turned out just gives us hope, and it ignites that resilience that our community needed to keep fighting,” Gonzalez said.

    Still, she said, the timing is bittersweet.

    “I don’t know at this point if we could ever get the homes that were there back,” Gonzalez said. “To see the community being wiped out in Bloomington is really heartbreaking.”

    The ruling raises broader questions about the rigor of San Bernardino County’s process for approving warehouse projects, which have become a mainstay of the county’s economy. While proponents say the developments bring much needed jobs to the region, many residents living in their shadows lament the pollution, traffic and neighborhood disruption.

    In Bloomington’s case, the project in question fractured the community. Some people who sold their homes to make way for the industrial park say they got a good price and were happy to move on, while many of the neighbors left behind see a future with 24-hour truck traffic and a hollowing out of the community’s rural culture.

    Alondra Mateo, a community organizer for another plaintiff in the suit, the People’s Collective for Environmental Justice, said the many residents who have spoken out in public hearings, raising concerns about the environmental impacts of the Bloomington Business Park, were told that the county was adhering to the required environmental review process.

    “For the court to take a look at all the evidence and then agree with us,” Mateo said, “is such a big, powerful win to our community that has honestly been gaslit for so long.”

    Candice Youngblood, an attorney with the nonprofit environmental law group Earthjustice, which represented the plaintiffs, called the county’s environmental report “deficient.” She said the court’s findings are “a testament to the fact that this document reflects cutting corners at the expense of the community and in the interest of industry.”

    In a nearly 100-page ruling, Alvarez determined that the county had violated the California Environmental Quality Act by not analyzing renewable energy options that might be available or appropriate for the project, and not adequately analyzing construction noise impacts.

    Alvarez found the county failed to analyze a reasonable range of alternatives to the project; and failed to sufficiently analyze how air emissions would impact public health. Despite finding the project would have unavoidable impacts on air quality, the county determined using zero-emission trucks would be an economically infeasible form of mitigation — a finding that Alvarez deemed “not supported by substantial evidence.”

    But he ruled against the plaintiffs on several issues, rejecting their arguments that the county failed to analyze the project’s traffic impacts; failed to adequately analyze environmental justice issues; improperly analyzed operational noise impacts; and abused its discretion by failing to translate key portions of the report into Spanish.

    Youngblood, with Earthjustice, said the ruling forces the county to restart the environmental review process, including providing community members with new opportunities to weigh in on the project’s impacts.

    Mike Tunney, Howard Industrial Partners’ vice president for development, said the company was “pleased” by the court’s ruling upholding portions of the environmental report. He said the ruling would result in “minor revisions” to the report, which the county would “quickly address.”

    “We are committed to making the necessary adjustments to address the issues identified by the Court,” Tunney said in a statement. “We will simultaneously pursue an appeal of portions of the Court’s ruling that threaten a $30 million major flood control project which is already under construction to prevent ongoing flooding that has negatively impacted the community for decades.”

    This article is part of The Times’ equity reporting initiative, funded by the James Irvine Foundation, exploring the challenges facing low-income workers and the efforts being made to address California’s economic divide.

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    Rebecca Plevin

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  • Ex-probation chief’s suit alleges L.A. County fired him for being a whistleblower

    Ex-probation chief’s suit alleges L.A. County fired him for being a whistleblower

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    Former Los Angeles County Probation Department chief Adolfo Gonzales, who was fired last March amid widepread dysfunction at the agency’s juvenile halls, alleges in a lawsuit that he was ousted for reporting dire staffing shortages to state regulators.

    Gonzales’ two-year, one-month tenure was marked by near-constant controversies. But in a lawsuit filed last month, he argued that county supervisors decided to terminate him only after he was frank with inspectors from the Board of State and Community Corrections about the agency’s staffing crisis.

    The board, referred to as the BSCC, has the power to shut down juvenile detention facilities if inspections reveal that conditions aren’t up to state standards.

    “Gonzales candidly reported to the BSCC inspectors the staffing shortages in Probation Department which caused lack of compliance with various California State regulations and mandates,” the lawsuit says. “As a result of Gonzales’ reports to BSCC, he was terminated by the County.”

    The state board declined to comment. Mira Hashmall, outside counsel for L.A. County, called the lawsuit baseless.

    “The Probation Department suffered from a lack of leadership under Adolfo Gonzales, which is why his employment was terminated,” she wrote in a statement to The Times. “He is no whistleblower.”

    Under Gonzales’ leadership, the perennially struggling agency careened from one problem to the next. There were more lockdowns, more fights and fewer staff members to deal with them. Deputies said they were too scared of the violence inside the juvenile halls to come to work. Youths were traumatized too, forced to urinate in their locked rooms because no one was around to let them out.

    Gonzales’ attorney, Michael Conger, said his client’s account of staffing issues heavily influenced a Jan. 13, 2023, report from state inspectors, which found, among other shortcomings, that the county’s two juvenile halls were dangerously short-staffed. Months later, the board would shut down the two halls after the county repeatedly failed to improve conditions.

    Conger said it was Gonzales’ “candid” portrayal of staffing problems that led to his termination two months later.

    The state inspection was not the only embarrassment Gonzales’ agency suffered in the months leading up to his firing, however. On Feb. 11, 2023, The Times reported that Gonzales overrode an internal disciplinary board’s recommendation to fire an officer who had violently restrained a 17-year-old. After The Times’ report, a majority of the Board of Supervisors called for Gonzales’ resignation.

    Gonzales’ attorney said this was not what earned the board’s ire.

    “We don’t believe that had anything to do with it,” he said. “That was a complete non-issue. They were not mad at that.”

    Records show the county spent more than $900,000 on Gonzales during his stint with the department.

    By the time he left, Gonzales had received $927,000 in compensation, according to county salary data. It’s unclear if that figure includes other perks Gonzales was entitled to under his employment agreement with the county, which promised relocation costs and severance pay.

    According to his employment agreement, reviewed by The Times, Gonzales was entitled to up to $25,000 to relocate from San Diego, where he worked for five years running the county’s Probation Department.

    Records show he also received $172,521 — equivalent to six months’ salary — as severance pay after he was fired.

    The board replaced Gonzales with Guillermo Viera Rosa, promising a new chapter for the long-troubled agency. But so far, his tenure has been plagued by the same staffing crisis that haunted his predecessor.

    A report released Thursday from the county’s Office of Inspector General found that “dangerously low staffing levels” had contributed to the chaotic Nov. 4 escape of a youth from Los Padrinos juvenile hall. After several teens attacked a staff member, one briefly escaped to a neighboring golf course.

    At the time of the incident, only one staff member — who had never before been assigned to juvenile halls — had been in the unit with 14 youths, the report’s authors found. The report notes the staffing level violates state law, which requires the agency maintain a ratio of one staff member for 10 youths.

    That day, the Probation Department had scheduled 100 staff members to work at the facility — the minimum required in order to operate.

    Sixty of them didn’t show up.

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    Rebecca Ellis

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