On the Buscaino Grants
(RLn, “Joe Announces Winners of ‘Buscaino Grants,’ July 8-21, 2021)
I have respected your reporting in the past but in allowing your name to be attached to bogus claims about The Beach Cities Alliance grant, certainly reduces your credibility. You draw attention by suggesting that BCA was in some way behaving in an underhanded manner in their grant application. After setting the stage for the reader to become suspect of this organization you belatedly slip in “The longtime councilman’s aide explained that Bridge Cities Alliance has had issues with the IRS website reporting their updated status, which the IRS says is due to COVID-19 staffing. The bottom line is that BCA is a qualified nonprofit.” You raised an issue with no “there there”
I have no idea if you have animus toward BCA or members of it’s board; but many of us are aware that James [Allen the publisher] uses his paper to attack leaders and board members of nonprofits in town- often with unfounded claims. He has done it before and no doubt will do it again. His problem this time might be Mona Sutton? If so, it is likely because: 1. She is a very successful businesswoman, 2. She is the long standing president of the Harbor PD CAC, and 3. Refuses to advertise in the RLN. Or perhaps 4. Is that she and her wife Leslie Jones, are highly respected in our community for their good works; for which the community has often honored them.
When James is unsuccessful in his bullying elsewhere, he uses his paper. This disagreeable habit of his has caused many fine people in this community to avoid the Central Neighborhood Council saying they cannot risk his ire being used against their organizations. Others resign from the board not wanting to spend their volunteer time dealing with a bully and his frequent disruption of meetings.. This may sound harsh but actually I am just telling “truth to power” in this case the power is the publisher of your paper.
Linda Alexander, San Pedro
Ms. Alexander,
To your first question, no, I don’t have personal animus towards the board of the Bridge Cities Alliance. My rationale for reporting on these grants the way that I did was not only because it was newsworthy, but that it deserved critical attention given the way the councilman conceived, created and executed the grant program. The story was also intended to address questions of fairness and transparency, which were raised prior to my reporting on the winners of the grants (raised by a few of the nonprofits who participated from throughout the district). But because the grant process was ongoing and no one was willing to publicly “bite the hands” attempting to feed them, they didn’t go on the record. But we did, to the best of our ability, investigate those questions.
For us, Bridge Cities Alliance was just one of the questions that emerged. We first reported on the anti-hate organization in 2018 when it organized San Pedro’s first Pride event after rallying against hate following an anti-gay incident. Originally headed by Aiden Sheffeld-Garcia, his partner and other leading civic leaders representing San Pedro’s LGBTQ community (including Mona Sutton and Leslie Jones) and their allies, the organization provided an important contribution to this Harbor town’s civic life. So we paid attention. But a number of the original board members moved away, and the organization’s website ceased being updated and then disappeared entirely.
At its inception, Bridge City Alliance was founded as a 501(c)(3). When we heard grumblings that their status was indeterminate, we followed up and found, via www.causeiq.com and irs.gov, that the organization’s 501(c)(3) had been revoked in November 2020. We had also searched Guidstar.org and found no listing at all. This is why we reached out to Councilman Buscaino’s senior aide, Branimir Kvartuc, and asked him. While Kvartuc provided an explanation, the lack of a paper trail of a nonprofit that is supposed to exist has been unsatisfying. Their nonprofit status should be of interest to you also because your neighborhood council gave them a Neighborhood Purpose Grant which can only go to qualified nonprofits.
As for the coverage of the local neighborhood councils and your assertion that the publisher of this newspaper uses it to bully people, I assert that he uses this paper as a bully pulpit, advocating for greater civic engagement, transparency and democracy — a pushback against this town’s tendency to take care of the public business in private spaces under manufactured consent. James Allen’s role is obviously complicated by the fact that he serves on the Central Neighborhood Council even while he exercises his bully pulpit at his discretion. It’s the reason why any particular issues he personally wants to address are relegated to his At Length columns while a reporter focuses on reporting on the Harbor Area’s neighborhood councils to the best of his ability.
Terelle Jerricks,Managing Editor
And Then More Criticism
I am tracking your ongoing efforts to exploit the Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council from within as a method of generating stories for your newspaper. That is a matter of public interest and our stakeholders, including advertisers in your newspaper, have a right to know that and how you do this.
I share the broadly held concern that your interest in chairing the Port Committee is primarily to force yourself into port meetings to berate port officials and, again, to manufacture stories and troll for quotes for your paper. I have not invited you to port meetings because of your extensive history of throwing tantrums there that undermine the council, its efforts, and its official actions. Such behavior reflects poorly on your council and neighborhood. Further, exploiting a government role to join meetings that are closed to the press gives Random Lengths News a level of press access unavailable to other media outlets. It also gives RLN a de facto press exclusive to which meeting participants have not consented.
Past President Guzman also refused to send you as council representative to port meetings for your combative and counterproductive tactics, and I witnessed you shout at him, question his integrity, and throw a fit about his decision at a public board and stakeholder meeting. Ironically, that outburst illustrated why Mr. Guzman refused to send you in the first place. Soon after, you fired Mr. Guzman from his reporting job, correct? Or did he quit following your attacks?
Be forewarned that as long as you remain on the council, such negative, abusive, bullying, and counterproductive behavior will be exposed and put down. Fight the port on your own time or your paper’s, Mr. Allen, but you will not abuse and manipulate this council into doing your dirty work.
Louis Caravella,President, Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council
Mr. Caravella,
This is the third email from you attacking me personally over issues that are not a matter for our neighborhood council to consider. What should be considered is your continued breach of the Code of Civility with your personal attacks against a member of the council, your open hostility towards me personally and your acquiescence to allowing for the continuation of the “private meetings” with the NC presidents and POLA officials. Which I might add, has no protection from being reported to the general public because you and others often report the items from these meetings in public.
These same public relations initiatives by POLA are readily available through other sources. These are all questions I will toss back to you as well as your continued use of your title of president and email signature to appear as though you are speaking on behalf of the CeSPNC board when you are not authorized to speak for the board — a violation of our bylaws.
That you are more obsessed with blocking any criticism by me or others of POLA or having someone who has the expertise to ask critical questions only shows how you are more interested in being accepted by the power structure than you are in representing the issues of our constituents to the various power structures of the city.
I have to point out that over the course of the last four years there have been more efforts and political maneuvering to limit my influence on the CeSPNC than there has been on actually delivering real representation on the core issues of homelessness, port pollution, critical infrastructure and real quality of life matters.
Yours and Ms. Alexander’s continued personal attacks against me, your unfounded assertions and false claims with no supporting evidence are in fact slander. That many of these same allegations have been repeatedly brought up in the course of official council business only distract from the issues at hand, and I find detrimental to allowing for civil discourse.
You, not I, have continued to disrupt meetings by your biased use of the power of the chair, your unfair use of the parliamentary procedures and the thinly veiled animus you direct towards me and any initiatives I bring forth as motions. All of which are clearly documented in the recorded meetings of late.
As such your actions are considered personal harassment, conduct unbecoming to an officer of our council and simply petty.
Your abuse of power is showing and needs to be curbed.
James Preston Allen, Publisher
Crackpot Corruptionism
The California Employment Development Department and the Department of Fair Employment and Housing (have they ever read the Unruh Act?) are my definition of corruption. Gov. Gavin “CrackpotCorrupt” Newsom paid contractors $236 million dollars to fix the EDD computer system, but not the phone lines. A federal Judge ordered the city’s politicians and lawyers to spend $1.2 billion dollars to fix the County 2% homeless problem.
The city Mayor is poised to sign an anti-tenant harassment ordinance that has as many teeth as a newborn baby gumming away.
(Relocating to LA, anyone?). Drafted in 2017, it is a piece of cake that has taken officials four years to learn how to copy and paste from other laws. LAMC section 41.33 is lifted almost verbatim, but the final draft removed the state law definition of “harassment” (CCP 527.6). The ordinance will apply to single family homes, condominiums, and rent controlled units; “an act or omission” (failure to respond to tenant complaints) will be actionable; refusal to accept rent will be harassment; “substantially” interfering with tenant peaceful enjoyment is unlawful; the tenant must give the landlord “reasonable time” to repair ( civil code 1942.4 says 35 days). The city claims tenants made over 40,000 harassment and housing complaints.
Maybe this harassment law will solve the city’s homeless, housing, harassment, and employment (EDD) problems all at one fell swoop! For more info, see City clerk file number 14-0268-S13 at website LACityClerkConnect.
Juan Johnson, Los Angeles
Re: Mayor Garcetti’s Nomination asAmbassador to India
Governing a city as magnificent, complex and diverse as Los Angeles is no easy feat, and Mayor Garcetti has done a remarkable tour of duty. For more than two decades of service, he has led with head and heart. I salute him for his notable contributions to Los Angeles — and respect his commitment to continued public service.
While a disruption in leadership will bring unanticipated challenges – transition also creates room for ingenuity and opportunity. It is incumbent upon the City Council to lean into this change, and work with collective nimbleness, perseverance, compassion, and the pursuit of justice, to address the myriad of issues facing this city – of which the homelessness crisis and recovery from the pandemic remain front and center. In the end, “It’s all about leadership.”
CouncilmemberMark Ridley-Thomas, Los Angeles