The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach once again reported progress at the Clean Air Action Plan stakeholder advisory meeting held online via Zoom on Oct. 19, but serious questions loom over the two largest polluting sources — port trucks and ocean-going vessels — and the continued lack of a timeline raises serious accountability concerns.
The ports once again touted their progress since 2005, diesel particulate matter (DPM) down 20%, nitrogen oxide, which contributes to smog, down 44%, sulfur oxide, which contributes to particulate matter, down 97% and greenhouse gasses down 29%, all achieved with a 20% increase in container throughput — although ship arrivals were down 30%, due to significant increases in ship size. Those gains were front-loaded in the early years of the CAAP, described as “low-hanging fruit” by Chris Cannon, POLA’s director of environmental management. But there was no analysis of more recent progress, or lack thereof — such as the delay in implementing the clean truck fee, finally scheduled to be considered by both ports the first week in November.
Trucks and ocean-going vessels contribute 98% of sulfur oxide, 71% of nitrogen oxide, 70% of greenhouse gasses, and 45% of diesel particulate matter. Rail (27%) and harbor craft (24%) are significant DPM contributors, as well as NOx contributors (12% and 11% respectively), while cargo handling equipment contributes 16% to greenhouse gasses. No other sources contribute more than 7% to one kind of pollution, so the predominant importance of ships and trucks is vividly clear.
When it comes to ships, the vessel speed reduction program has more than 90% compliance, with a 12-knot speed limit from 20 or 40 nautical miles off Point Fermin incentivized by reduced dockage fees on a fleetwide basis. The two ports also have ship incentive programs, with reduced dockage fees for cleaner ships, based on the international environmental ship index, which ranges from zero (base rate engine performance) to 100 (no emissions).
In Los Angeles, Tier II ships are discounted $750 if they score 40 to 49, $2,500 if higher, while Tier III ships are discounted an additional $5,000. At Long Beach, tier II ships are discounted $600 if they score 25 to 47, $3,000 if they score 48-53, and $6,000 if higher, while Tier III ships are discounted an additional $3,000.
Tier III ships are significantly cleaner, but much rarer, too. In response to questions by Richard Havenick, chairman of the Environment & Sustainability of the Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council, Morgan Caswell, POLB Manager of Air Quality Practices, said that POLB had received just 15 Tier III vessel visits in 2020, and did not expect rapid growth. There was a rush to begin building Tier II vessels before the Tier III standard became effective in 2016, she acknowledged, “and we do expect it will take some time for the turnover to those cleaner Tier III vessels. We understand that vessels have a very long lifetime.” But even Tier III vessels are far from zero emission. POLA’s 2020 figures were similar: 18 vessels: 7 container ships, one cruise ship and 10 tankers.
On the truck side, participants objected to the low $10 container fee, delays in moving to zero emissions and inadequate protections for misclassified truckers. Michael Munoz, a researcher with the LA Alliance for a New Economy, neatly summarized the predominant concerns, beginning with misclassification.
“So long as you allow companies who consistently break the law by misclassifying port truck drivers, there will always be costs being passed on to drivers whether it’s a $10 fee, a $75 or the cost of purchasing or maintaining a new truck. Those costs will eventually be passed along so long as the ports turn a blind eye to misclassification,” Munoz said.
But misclassification also connects to the issue of zero emissions, he explained.
“Our fear is that by incentivizing near-zero emissions trucks, the ports will be prolonging the problem of misclassification and the burning of fossil fuels which will undoubtedly delay the adoption of zero emission trucks,” he said.
He applauded POLA “for committing that any funds raised by the clean truck rate fund will be used for zero mission technology,” a step POLB hasn’t taken, and warned:
By not dealing with misclassification and pushing natural gas trucks, the ports will be shooting themselves in the foot. Data collected by CARB attempting to measure the progress towards emissions goals established by the Bus and Truck rule shows that trucks driven by misclassified drivers have lower compliance levels. That’s because trucking companies are illegally passing along maintenance costs onto the drivers, who have to delay truck maintenance to provide for their family or simply can’t afford upgrades to newer, cleaner trucks.
In short, the ports are still ducking the hard problems at the heart of transitioning truck and vessel fleets to zero emissions. But they can’t keep ducking them forever.
The Department of Public Social Services (DPSS) is urging eligible families in Los Angeles County to take advantage of the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) 2021 Child Tax Credit (CTC) by claiming the benefit by the November 15, 2021 deadline.
The American Rescue Plan increases the CTC to provide up to $300 per month per child under age six, and up to $250 per month per child ages six to 17. The IRS reports that CTC will help lift nearly 4.1 million children above the nationwide poverty line and reduce child poverty by more than 40 percent.
DPSS is working to inform local families, particularly those in hard-to-reach ethnic and non-English speaking communities.
“Our department is on a mission to inform local families who are at the highest risk of missing out on the 2021 ACTC and who we know need it most,” said DPSS Director Antonia Jiménez. “This tax credit is essential to the many families who will benefit from it,” Jiménez said.
Most eligible families receive CTC payments automatically, but many who are considered “non-filers” or those who do not normally file income taxes, will need to confirm their eligibility. Families that haven’t filed a tax return for 2019 or 2020 will need to claim their CTC by visiting GetCTC.org, Code for America’s simplified tax filing portal.
If you were looking at things from the outside over the past four years, it would look like the plot of a crazy movie that only a genius screenwriter could concoct: A celebrity narcissist gets elected president with the help of Russian trolls, and then nearly destroys the economy through his self-indulgent incompetence and mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic — failings for which he frequently blames non-white people and science via his habitual use of social media. Through it all, the only consequence he suffers is impeachment, but is never convicted.
The plot becomes increasingly bizarre after he attempts to rig the system in such a way as to allow him to hang on to the presidency, whether he won or lost the election. He refuses to concede, pressures Congress to decertify the results. He even goes as far as to incite his followers to storm the capital in an insurrection threatening to hang the vice-president. When this fails, he’s impeached a second time, but his loyal party again refuses to convict despite the voluminous evidence of his guilt.
He leaves office in disgrace, but the “big lie” continues, allowing him to raise millions of dollars for his discretionary use in challenging the vote results in the already certified elections in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia. In Georgia, the disgraced former president faces a range of possible charges — including conspiracy and election fraud. His followers, still donning signs and t-shirts claiming, “he won” and “stop the steal,” are blind to his corruption.
Dozens of books are written about the fall and decline of this president. In one it is reported a senior military advisor says he was deeply shaken by the assault, and he was certain the president “had gone into a serious mental decline in the aftermath of the election, now all but manic, screaming at officials and constructing his own alternate reality about endless election conspiracies.”
Meanwhile, back in Congress, the majority party starts an investigation into who, how and why the assault on the U.S. Capitol actually happened. As they dig into the evidence, they find a trail that leads back to the former president’s inner circle of operatives, several groups of white nationalist militias, and the stunning revelation that social media has been profiting from fanning the flames of hate speech and dissension all the while. The former president was the perfect protagonist for the social media algorithms that inspire hate speech around the world that are now being exposed in Congress by a whistle blower about one prominent Silicon Valley tech corporation.
In the aftermath of the insurrection, the pandemic and economic decline caused by it, the new president is sworn in under heavy protection promising bipartisanship to “build back better.” And yet the very party that supported the aborted coup attempt finds the new president and the nation at a divide that seemingly cannot be bridged.
Out west during this time there are massive wildfires, drought and a resurgence of the pandemic while some of the opposition party refuse to wear masks or get vaccinations that have proven to be effective against the disease. In California, the resistance is so virulent that they initiate a recall of a most popular governor and succeed in getting a special election called. It loses by nearly two to one but has the effect of nearly creating one more crisis just as the next one begins — the supply chain congestion at our ports.
I could end this twisted story here, but as you know it is yet unresolved. The pandemic is still with us, and the ex-president is still not indicted and still in denial. The opposition party is still hell bent on stopping any reforms or indeed governing with any sense of urgency to address climate change, voting rights protection, infrastructure, police reform, immigration reform, and in various states are doing their best to reverse civil rights, deny access to women’s health care and abortion and impeding the battle against the COVID-19 disease. Unfortunately, this isn’t a far fetched movie plot but the strange reality we’ve lived through.
From a distance, I see this as a monumental failure of our political and economic systems to plan for just such a crisis. The term “systems” is kind of a stretch. The pandemic exposed the lack of coordinated efforts from the very beginning from the federal down to the states and counties. From the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institutes of Health to various private hospital corporations — none were prepared for a delusional president. None were prepared for the “just in time” delivery model to not function. It was however through the resilience of the American workers and a few dedicated leaders that brought courage, food and comfort to people during this crisis.
However, the legal mechanisms that have been in place for centuries, the economic model and the new media technologies that have evolved rapidly in the last decades as well as the politics of the past seem to have all betrayed us.
At one point, back in March of 2020 when the country shut down and shipping ground to a virtual halt, there was a certain pause that revealed a truth that couldn’t be denied — that when the American consumers stopped spending their $13 trillion annual consumption everything stopped economically. That ultimately is a lot of power in the hands of the majority of the people, not the billionaires nor politicians. This and the shock of 700,000 U.S. citizens dying because of ineptitude is perhaps the only thing that awakened enough of us to the threat posed by a celebrity narcissist bent on destroying our nation.
Perhaps in retrospect he deserves begrudging thanks for showing us just how vulnerable and precious what we have actually is. But I’ll only be satisfied once he is indicted and convicted then put away.
The thing is systems are only as good as the people who run them and the world is still wondering if ours still works.
Telling stories around a fire is one of the most ancient forms of entertainment.
So says producer and director Melanie Jones, the host and resident witch of Scary Stories at Angels Gate Cultural Center. Jones describes eerie tales as a release valve for people’s genuine fears.
For 19 years, actors have performed almost 200 individual stories, offering a unique program each October for one night only — the Saturday before Halloween. The performance takes place outside in the amphitheater at Angels Gate Cultural Center around the bonfire.
Stories can connect humans, consciously and subconsciously. When it comes to scary stories, Jones said they’re also important because most stories have resolutions — generally somebody triumphs. In scary stories, oftentimes, the main character doesn’t triumph but they give latitude to what you can imagine is possible, so … the things that are bothering you seem more local and accessible.
“They’re not zombies or ghosts or demons, you know?” Jones said. “People like to be scared as long as they know that they’re safe. They like the adrenaline rush and the contemplation of the unknown is something we all do. The Scary Stories also give a nice metiér [environment] for that.”
Jones equated that rush to the experience of seeing something scary in a film, then later, you can’t get that image out of your mind. But when you’re having an auditory experience and you are creating your own images, she said what might last in your mind are certain repetitive sound effects that are stand-ins for characters or emotions for stories. The listener is much more in control of how much they want to react.
San Pedro has an affinity for scary stories and mysteries. Because of the town’s long history, tales tell of haunted houses [The San Pedro Haunting] and buried treasures [#rudecindas_buried_treasure] from residents past.
“This is old land as far as human beings go,” Jones said. “Native cultures have roots here and it’s a natural harbor. I think as long as humans have lived in this [wider region], humans have lived here because it would be a logical place to be.”
And of course, Jones noted, the light-hearted fixation with pirates — including the San Pedro High School Pirates. There were probably some pirates here, Jones posited while noting the “crazy sailor town vibe” that San Pedro had through the two world wars. Even the site where Scary Stories takes place, at Angels Gate, Jones said, is pretty spooky.
She mentioned the gun emplacements at Angels Gate where massive offshore guns were located.
“It’s a place of ancient violence,” Jones noted. “Scary stories are often stories of violence of some kind. And those bunkers … There’s a mythology about those bunkers under the hill, that are right next to where we do our Scary Stories.”
Jones has walked through there, where guns were stored and she said they’re pretty creepy.
She even mentioned a mythology about a very sick criminal individual who set up house there for a while.
“Any place that has had human beings living on it for a long time has its share of scary stories that happened,” Jones said. “Murders, treacheries of various kinds, scary criminals, people going crazy, we’re human beings … that’s what we do. I’m sure San Pedro has had its fair share of all of that.”
Acting is in her story
The Scary Story producer and director got interested in acting very young, doing her first professional show at 16. Jones worked in repertoire in different places around the country. She also worked in Hollywood and has continued her associations with the theater. Although she’s stepped away from stage acting right now, Scary Stories is her focus in terms of performing.
“And it’s definitely performing,” Jones said. “Of course you don’t get to use your body. It’s not visual so a lot of things like that are not available but it’s all in the ear, there’s a lot you can do with … voice and sound, like taking on different characters and voices. People’s imaginations will fill in the rest.”
Like the tale of Dead Aaron, in the virtual version of Scary Stories in which “the corpse refuses to lie down and be dead” storytellers use humor to mix it up a little. Jones designed the program to be friendly to families, so the stories tend to be shorter. The narrators get people accustomed to trusting their ears, relaxing in the environment and allowing themselves to listen. Jones said she tries not to scare you too much — although she revealed the last story in this year’s program is pretty unsettling.
The live program includes the campfire, different actors/storytellers and sound effects. Last year they couldn’t meet live because of COVID-19, so Jones created a virtual show.
This will be the first year Scary Stories is having two different programs and two different venues. Jones decided this year to keep both the virtual and live shows going. Each program is distinct from the other but the essence of it is very similar to its original setting.
Scary Stories are suitable for all ages. Complete with sound effects, the virtual version is similar to the live shows including the visual of burning fire. And if you listen at home, Jones encourages you to turn the lights off, light some candles and listen.
Jones is excited to perform live again. Performing virtually was a good challenge she said, which she enjoys, too because she also does all the technology — the sound effects and mixing.
“I think that we have sorely missed being able to gather together in groups,” Jones said. “There’s plenty of space up there and we’re going to make sure people have plenty of distance and wear their masks, so that it will be safe for everybody. I’m really excited to be in a group of people and to share scary stories.
“The witch is definitely my alter ego now. People ask me, what are you going as? I’m like, are you kidding me? I’m a witch.”
Scary Stories, Live and Online
Produced and directed by Melanie Jones. With Heather Handwerk, John Charles Meyer, Cathy Skubik and Bill Wolski reading works by Gahan Wilson, Susan Price, Ruskin Bond, Libba Bray and Charles Dickens, among others. Donations gratefully accepted. Distanced seating and masks are required. Or, gather around the virtual fire at home for a unique online program.
Beta Operating is in line to get another $11 million to drill four new wells off the coast
SAN PEDRO BAY — Amplify Energy’s 3-1/2 hour delay in shutting down its pipeline after a low pressure alarm was just the first indication of systemic failures contributing to California’s most recent offshore oil spill. Signs of the spill were reported to the Coast Guard even earlier, as numerous residents either smelled the odor, or saw an oil slick as early as 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 1.
But Amplify’s operational failure was enabled by governmental failure at every level, from local to national, as quickly became evident.
On Oct. 6, Capital and Main reported that the City of Long Beach had signed a 20-year lease with Amplify on a pumping station in June 2020 “that could extend the pipeline’s life through 2040,” when it would be more than 60 years old — about double the initial expected lifetime, according to Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
“A lot of platforms and pipelines when they were constructed in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, the oil companies said their expected lifespans is 30 years, and were already well past that for most of these new platforms and pipelines,” Monsell told Random Lengths News. “It’s high time to shut it all down, and start decommissioning it all.”
In fact, the 1985 environmental impact report for the Plains All American Pipeline that ruptured in 2015 “determined that the risk of a spill more than doubles as the pipeline aged from 20 to 40 years,” Monsel wrote on Oct. 8, when CBD filed a notice of intent to sue the Joe Biden administration if it fails to “reexamine the offshore oil industry’s threat to California’s endangered species and their habitats,” in light of the oil spill as well as well new information not previously considered, as called for in the Endangered Species Act.
This was but one of a series of actions CBD has been involved in trying to hold the Biden administration to his campaign promises of vigorous action to combat catastrophic climate change. The Biden administration’s inconsistent actions reflect a deeper pattern of systemic failures, primarily with respect to flawed environmental analyses under the Donald Trump administration, and the Biden administration’s failure to re-examine them.
Two leading examples are the Willow Master Development Plan in the Western Arctic, which would have resulted in up to 250 wells producing an estimated 590 million barrels of oil over 30 years, and Lease Sale 257, the largest off-shore lease sale in history, covering 80 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico, projected to produce up to 1.1 billion barrels of oil and 4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas over the next 50 years. Both were approved under Trump, using a modeling approach that ludicrously concluded that not drilling for massive quantities of oil would result in more greenhouse gases. After a court rejected this approach in the Arctic case in mid-August, the Biden administration announced it would reexamine the Trump plan. But it has since scheduled Lease Sale 257 for Nov. 17, despite being sued to stop by CBD and others.
California’s off-shore oil fields are far smaller, but more high-profile, making long-term costs more visible and questionable decisions more obvious, even as the underlying arguments are virtually identical. Flawed climate costs modeling and inadequate endangered species analyses are common threads.
“The Endangered Species Act requires federal agencies to evaluate the impact of their actions on threatened and endangered species and their habitats,” Monsel explained. “But when new information comes to light that reveals effects … they haven’t previously considered, that triggers a duty to re-initiate consultation to reevaluate what those impacts are.”
The sheer size of the oil spill was an example of such new information — initially reported “more than 17 times larger than what the agencies considered in their existing ESA analyses,” the letter noted. It was later revised downward, but “It’s still significantly larger than what was analyzed in the existing opinion,” Monsel said, which is unfortunately not unusual.
“It’s pretty common across the board for the federal government to blow off the possibility of an oil spill, relying on things like inspections and existing regulations to find that an oil spill is unlikely, and in the event that it happens it will be small and not have any significant impact,” she said, adding, “We see time and time again that that’s simply not the case, that these oil spills are part of the inevitable result of this dirty dangerous industry, and I think that a lot of those risks are heightened off California because of how old a lot of the infrastructure is.”
The letter was sent the day after CBD released an analysis finding that “since 1986, nearly 1,400 oil and gas pipeline leaks, spills and other incidents in the Golden State have caused at least $1.2 billion in damages, as well as 230 injuries and 53 deaths.”
Off-shore incidents are a relatively small percentage, but their visibility and impact looms large, both for endangered species and their habitats, and for neighboring communities, as highlighted in a congressional field hearing held in Irvine on Oct. 18, chaired by Irvine’s own representative Katie Porter, and co-chaired by Long Beach Rep. Alan Lowenthal.
Porter drew attention to the substantial subsidies Amplify and its subsidiary, Beta Operating, had received, noting that Amplify “received $5.5 million in pandemic relief last year, only one year after they purchased massive stock buybacks to line the pockets of their shareholders,” in addition to two subsidies for Beta Operating. First, Porter noted, “They got nearly $20 million from the federal government specifically because the oil wells are at the end of their lives and are not producing much oil, which makes them less profitable so taxpayers are being asked to pay to encourage oil production in the Pacific Ocean by giving oil companies millions of dollars to do it.” Second, “Beta Operating is in line to get another $11 million to drill four new wells off the coast because that $11 million dollars is needed in their words to make production economic. So taxpayers are being asked to pay Beta to drill new wells.”
These subsidies hearken back to the 1970s oil crisis, when they might have seemed to make sense to panicked politicians, but the fossil fuel lobby has kept them in place long after public support has evaporated. Provisions to end them are part of the Build Back Better package, specifically crafted by Porter.
But, “The witnesses here with us today will reveal a different kind of subsidy for oil and gas companies,” Porter said, “An involuntary subsidy that occurs when the community bears the cost of oil drilling’s pollution. When a locally-owned business like [West Caught Fish Company owner] Mr. [Scott] Breneman’s that has been in the family for four generations loses tens of thousands of dollars because of the leak, that’s his subsidy to oil and gas. When a hotel loses its bookings overnight that’s its subsidy for oil and gas. When the fragile decades-long effort to recover a species under the endangered species act is finally showing progress but an oil spill puts it all at risk, that’s a cost of oil and gas too.”
Globally, fossil fuel subsidies were $5.9 trillion in 2020
These kinds of subsidy — what economists call the “externalized costs” of fossil fuels — are far larger than the direct subsidies from government, whether they’re deadly serious, such as premature deaths from pollution, or based on sheer misperception, as is the case with Breneman, who catches his fish 60 to 100 miles beyond the oil spill, in pristine, 3,000-foot deep water.
“In the ’90s my dad went through the oil spill that was off Seal Beach,” Breneman testified, “In our fish market the same exact response from the public — scared, worried the product’s contaminated all the way up — the huge ripple effect — all the way up to the wholesalers I deal with outside of Orange County. They had concerns from their customers, their restaurants,” he said. “In the ’90s, I watched my dad struggle for months to get it back to back to where it was. And I’m seeing the same exact thing happen here.”
According to a recent working paper from the International Monetary Fund, “Globally, fossil fuel subsidies were $5.9 trillion in 2020 or about 6.8% of GDP and are expected to rise to 7.4% of GDP in 2025.” However, “Just 8% of the 2020 subsidy reflects undercharging for supply costs (explicit subsidies) and 92 percent for undercharging for environmental costs and foregone consumption taxes (implicit subsidies).” Eliminating government subsidies in the Build Back Better plan would go a long way toward cutting that 8% down to zero. But to protect Scott Breneman and the rest of us in that 92%, nothing short of ending the drilling will do.
“This is not a novel threat to us. Time and again Californians have suffered at the hands of offshore dwelling drilling,” Lowenthal said. “Preventing new offshore drilling is a crucial first step. … But we also must work together to wind down the current productions and demand that companies decommission their platforms, their wells, and their pipelines and clean up the mess they have left behind.”
Prevailing currents keep the immediate dangers of off-shore oil away from San Pedro and Wilmington. But the underlying logic threatens us in another way: The same oil crisis rush that led to the questionable decisions about Amplify’s pipeline was also responsible for the Rancho LPG facility, now owned by Plains All American, the same company responsible for the 2015 Santa Barbara oil spill. As Random Lengths has previously documented, that facility has a three-mile blast radius, putting tens of thousands of residents’ lives at risk.
“Like the disregarded pipeline safety concerns pertaining to the ocean pipelines, exemptions to compliance were also awarded to this LPG site,” activist Janet Schaaf-Gunter noted in comments to the Harbor Commission on Oct. 21. “The regulatory exemptions included were from the LA Fire Dept., the American Petroleum Institute, the Dept. of LA Building and Safety, etc. Meaning that the facility never even met the lower regulatory threshold of that time!”
So far, we’ve been lucky. But how much longer can our luck last?
In related news:California Secures Assistance for Businesses Impacted by Southern California Oil Spill
Gov. Gavin Newsom Oct. 27, announced that the U.S. Small Business Administration or SBA has approved federal disaster assistance for businesses in the region impacted by the recent oil spill. The administrator of the Small Business Administration declared Orange County a disaster area, which makes available disaster assistance in the form of low interest loans. The declaration includes Orange County and the adjacent counties of Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego.
Gov. Newsom earlier this month proclaimed astate of emergencyin Orange County to support the work underway to protect public health and the environment.
Dr. Anyes Van Volkenburgh, controversial owner of the Peninsula Pet Clinic in San Pedro, is suing the protestors who demonstrated in the vicinity of her business for $21.5 million, according to court documents.
The demonstrators protested near her office on Aug. 16 and Aug. 28. Their complaints included overcharging for services, being rude to customers, and mistreating and misdiagnosing animals. Van Volkenburgh filed her lawsuit on Sept. 10.
In general damages, Van Volkenburgh claims $1 million for pain, suffering and inconvenience, $1 million for emotional distress, $3 million for injury to reputation and $6 million for infringement of copyright, trademark and trade reputation. In addition, she claims special damages of $900,000 in loss of earnings, $2 million in loss of earning capacity, as well as $500,000 for security, $875,000 for pre-judgement interest and $200,000 for attorney’s fees. She is also seeking $6 million in punitive damages.
Van Volkenburgh is suing 13 of the protestors, plus the Facebook group and page dedicated to shutting down her business. She is also seeking a temporary protective order or temporary restraining order against the 13 named defendants, plus up to 200 unnamed people in the Facebook group.
According to the court documents available on the Peninsula Pet Clinic’s website, the lawsuit says that all of the protestors named in the lawsuit, plus the 200 unnamed people in the Facebook group, “have intentionally and recklessly entered and trespassed on Peninsula’s leased premises at the Clinic and the frontage, front sidewalk and parking lot, on multiple occasions within the last 60 days.”
In addition, it accuses them of blocking the entrance to the clinic, as well as its parking lot and nearby sidewalk, after having been given notice not to enter the clinic or surrounding area. It does not specify why the clinic would have the authority to prevent protestors from entering the surrounding area.
It also accuses the protestors of “disruption and harassment tactics, such as running in and out of the Clinic and surrounding area, swarming, surrounding, yelling and shouting at staff, new customers and existing customers, making defamatory statements, making slurs, using their cars and trucks to block the area, honking their car and truck horns to cause noise, all in an effort to disrupt Peninsula’s legitimate business activities through harassment and scare tactic,s [sic].”
The suit also claims that the clinic gave written notice to each of the defendants to not enter the premises, but does not specify if it means just the 13 named defendants or the 200 unnamed people in the group, nor does it specify how this was done.
The lawsuit says that the defendants made statements that “Peninsula had committed a crime, that Peninsula was a murderer, that Peninsula intentionally harmed animals, that Peninsula and staff were not professional veternarians [sic] and animal caregivers, that Peninsula were incompetent in their practice of veterinary medicine, that Peninsula was overcharging Clients, that Peninsula is unfair to its customers, and that Peninsula employed unfair business practices [sic].”
The lawsuit says these statements are false. It also says the defendants harmed the clinic’s reputation, as well as “general damages including shame, embarrassment, mortification, and hurt feelings.”
The lawsuit also accuses the named defendants and up to 200 members of the Facebook group of conspiracy to commit the already listed acts.
On Aug. 25, the Peninsula Pet Clinic posted on its Facebook page a screenshot from the private Facebook group, where a member of the group asked for other members to submit complaints against the clinic to the Veterinary Medical Board.
“And what else have they leaked???” the clinic said in the caption. “What other juicy material evidence do we have that can be used in court? Thank you for the anonymous tip, Stranger. Good work. Keep it coming.”
On that same day, the clinic’s Facebook page criticized the Los Angeles Police Department, Harbor Division. It said one of the officers was a member of “a criminal Facebook group,” and accused him of “aiding and abetting” the protestors.
“Is this why the police stood by and did nothing, allowing criminals to attack an upstanding business?” the clinic wrote. “Are they protecting one of their own and his criminal alliances?”
In a different post, also from Aug. 25, the clinic accused the officer further.
“Police officer who sides with criminals,” the clinic wrote. “Now that’s a fraud if I’ve ever seen one.”
LONG BEACH — Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón announced that a Long Beach Unified School safety officer was charged today with murder in the shooting death of an unarmed 18-year-old.
“We must hold accountable the people we have placed in positions of trust to protect us,” District Attorney Gascón said. “That is especially true for the armed personnel we traditionally have relied upon to guard our children on their way to and from and at school.”
Eddie Gonzalez was charged with one count of murder. His arraignment is expected to occur Oct. 29, at the Los Angeles County Superior Court, Long Beach Branch.
On Sept. 27, Gonzalez was patrolling an area near Millikan High School in Long Beach when he noticed an altercation between 18-year-old Manuela Rodriguez and a teenage girl.
Rodriguez got into the rear passenger seat of a nearby car. Gonzalez allegedly fired his handgun at the vehicle, striking Rodriguez.
She was taken to a hospital where she died approximately a week later.
The case remains under investigation by the Long Beach Police Department.
On Oct. 20, the Los Angeles City Council voted 12-2 to enforce a rule that would prevent homeless people from sitting, sleeping, or storing property on the sidewalk within 500 or 1,000 feet of 54 sites across the city. Councilwoman Nithya Raman and Councilman Mike Bonin voted against the motion, saying it violated the very provision it proposed to enforce. Eleven of these sites are in council district 15. Six of these locations are in San Pedro, and two are in Wilmington.
“While I am pleased the City is finally making good on its promise of clean streets for neighborhoods that accept shelters, safe parking, and other solutions to homelessness, this new process is slow, unnecessarily bureaucratic, and monopolizes valuable resources,” said Councilman Joe Buscaino in a press release.
On Oct. 27, Buscaino introduced three motions requesting to ban homeless people from 161 additional locations, all in CD 15. The next city council meeting is on Nov. 2, and the council may act on these motions then.
The 11 sites in CD15 where the council already agreed to the ban are all homeless shelters, where homeless people are prohibited from lying within 1,000 feet. The other sites are in council districts 2 and 3, and some are underpasses, bridges, parks, schools and libraries, where homeless people cannot lie within 500 feet. In both cases, homeless people are only prohibited from lying where the city council has specifically banned them. The council was voting to enforce Los Angeles Municipal Code 41.18, an anti-camping law which went into effect Sept. 3, but had not yet been enforced.
“For the first time in years, the City of Los Angeles will prohibit camping in select public spaces,” Buscaino wrote. “But this is just the beginning. In the near future, I will continue to add new locations, while at the same time supporting the creation of more transitional housing, like tiny homes, so that everyone can come inside and we can see an end to all street camping in Los Angeles.”
People that work for the city will first offer housing or other services to people camping at the sites. Then they will provide a clean-up, which usually involves forcing homeless people to throw away most of their possessions. Two weeks later, the city will put up signs saying people are prohibited from lying in the area.
Councilwoman Nithya Raman said the council was not following the steps it set forth, which the council adopted in September. The first step is that a council member introduces a motion, and homeless engagement teams and multidisciplinary teams fill out encampment assessment forms. The second step is that housing resources and other services are identified and whoever is the lead develops an outreach plan. This is followed by engagement with the homeless people, i.e., city workers try to convince them to go into temporary housing. In steps 3 and 4, the city chooses a date to clean up, and confirms it with the Los Angeles Department of Sanitation. Two weeks after the actual clean up, the lead submits a report on data about housing placement. It’s only after all of this that a council member is supposed to introduce a resolution about putting up signs prohibiting camping in that area.
“I don’t doubt that there has already been outreach to many of the locations that are before us in these resolutions,” Raman said. “I know a lot of council members did talk about the fact that outreach has been regularly happening. But we are being asked today to vote on 54 locations between these four resolutions with no documentation for us, or for the public, that this step-by-step process that we just codified has been followed.”
Councilman Mike Bonin agreed with Raman.
“I’m sure a lot of work has been done,” Bonin said. “But it still isn’t to the level of what we committed to as a body. I’m concerned about us losing the commitment to the street engagement strategy and not making sure that it is adequately resourced.”
Public commenter Rob Kwan said it was stunning to see the long list of sites where camping would be banned.
“I heard that you’re going to be spending $3 million on metal signs,” Kwan said. “That’s three quarters of the ethics commission’s annual budget. We’ve had three former city council members indicted in the last few years, and you’re going to spend three quarters of the ethics commission’s annual budget on metal signs criminalizing the unhoused.”
Buscaino argued in his press release that the city was making it more complicated than necessary.
“This current 30-step process is unnecessary,” Buscaino wrote. “Which is why I am working on placing a measure on the next ballot so that voters can approve an approach that acts with urgency to eliminate street camping in Los Angeles.”
According to the press release, Buscaino’s ballot measure will provide emergency housing for everyone on the streets, as well as drug and mental health services. It will also ban encampments in public areas.
“Anyone who needs a bed will get one, but a choice to refuse housing and services will result in an order to move on,” the press release says.
The press release did not specify how it would create emergency housing for every homeless person in the city, nor did it say how quickly. It also did not address permanent supportive housing.
Amber Sheikh, head of the CD15 Working Group on Homelessness, CD15 city council seat candidates Danielle Sandoval and Tim McOsker, Shari Weaver, director of the coordinated entry system at Harbor Interfaith Services, and Capt. Jay Mastick of the Los Angeles Police Department Harbor Division did not respond to requests for comment on this story.
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency or EPA Oct. 27, announced $6,198,689 in funding for five grants to support research on existing and novel surrogates for detecting and monitoring viruses that are excreted with feces in wastewater that is intended for water reuse applications.
The reclamation and reuse of wastewater has the potential to increase the nation’s total available water resources. When recycling wastewater, a chief public health concern is the risk posed by the presence of viruses that can infect humans, which can be difficult to reduce with traditional sewage treatment approaches. EPA expects the research from these grants will provide information that will enable wastewater operators, reuse projects, and state and local regulators to ensure the public is protected from these viruses when reusing municipal wastewater for various reuse applications.
The following groups are receiving funding under these Nationals Priorities grant awards:
Barnstable County Department of Health and Environment and Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, Mass., to identify wastewater technologies and treatment processes capable of removing viruses to allow safe reuse of the treated wastewater, and to evaluate the use of five surrogates as possible indicators for presence of human viruses during treatment processes.
Tulane University, New Orleans, La., to develop a better understanding of viruses in different wastewater systems and design improved viral surrogate approaches that address challenges and shortcomings of current methodologies, including low concentrations of viruses in wastewater, detection, and a lack of specificity for addressing human health risk.
University of California – Irvine, Irvine, Calif., to conduct research that will result in recommendations of the best methods for identifying the viral risk for non-potable water reuse and standard operating procedures for these methods.
University of Michigan – Ann Arbor, Mich., to develop surrogate-based frameworks for virus control through water recycling facilities.
Water Research Foundation, Denver, Colo., to identify chemical and/or viral surrogates for virus reduction during wastewater treatment processes in real-world systems and create reduction methods for each treatment process.
Dr. Sharma Henderson, known by friends and supporters as Dr. Sharma, knows that running for elected office isn’t for everybody. The long-time educator and perennial volunteer believe those seeking office are usually opportunists. But for people who are genuine about doing the work, it’s weary having to constantly validate who you are over and over again.
Dr. Sharma recounted a back and forth in which she was engaged on social media before arriving at our scheduled interview. A poster had concluded their remarks with, “So who really lives in the district because that’s going to determine my vote.”
According to Dr. Sharma, if we focus more on the issues, it’s easily discernible who lives in the district. You discern it by their service, what they talk about in their lives in their own home, and who knows them in the community.
“Meet Me at the DoubleTree”: Why Carson needs places in town to hang out.
“That will tell you far more than what they say their address is,” Dr. Sharma said.
Dr. Sharma has lived in the City of Carson for 15 years, but grew up in South L.A., primarily in Baldwin Hills Village (Not Baldwin Hills) colloquially known as the Jungles. She said she experienced all of the things that a low-income black girl in the ghetto could experience from gang violence to both of her parents struggling with drug addiction.
“My family was on every government program under the sun,” she said.
Dr. Sharma explained that she came to see education as her primary means to change her life. She did well in school and went to USC for her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and a doctorate from Pepperdine University.
It is because of her background that she pursued a career in the nonprofit and education sectors.
As an Upward Bound graduate, she pays it forward by doing a lot of college preparation work with high school students.
Upward Bound is a federally funded educational program that is a part of a cluster of programs now referred to as TRiO, all of which owe their existence to the federal Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 (the War on Poverty Program) and the Higher Education Act of 1965. Implemented and monitored by the United States Department of Education, the goal of Upward Bound is to provide disadvantaged students better opportunities for attending college, particularly students from low-income backgrounds, first-generation college students, and rural areas.
She is also a grant writer, a craft she learned from the federal perspective from Upward Bound — an experience she says, served her well.
Professionally, she has done a lot of consulting work in the public and private sectors, but she said her passion has always been her community work involving advocacy and outreach. Nonprofit work is her heart and soul.
Dominguez Channel Stench Dr. Sharma is happy Carson residents have been motivated if not driven to participate in Carson’s civic life as a result of the hydrogen sulfide stench from the Dominguez Channel. She just wishes that there is more of that level of engagement on a regular basis. Residents have reported being made physically ill from the stench, resulting in taking time off from work and otherwise impacting finances and quality of life. Dr. Sharma thinks it’s unfortunate it took a crisis having a direct physical impact on people’s health to get Carson residents to use their voice.
The one positive outcome of the Carson stench: more residents are getting involved and holding their electeds accountable.
“I’m glad to see people speaking up and voicing their concerns and learning about who’s in charge of what,” Dr. Sharma said. “That excites me.”
What she would like to see is greater engagement by Carson’s city council with residents, and for the city to acquire data on the experiences of Carson residents to address issues that are really impacting residents.
“I know that they know their responsibility is to protect the city,” Dr. Sharma said. “It shouldn’t have to be where we have a stench and now everyone’s trying to figure out what to do with the channel.”
But she has little confidence that the city council as it is currently composed will do what is necessary. To her mind, everything is rigged to secure the best interest of those who are on the city council today.
“We don’t have a mission statement,” Dr. Sharma said. “We don’t have a strategic plan. We don’t have a vision statement. There are no priorities,” she said. “There’s nothing driving the council. It’s all whatever they think off the cuff in terms of decision-making… They argue about who gets to set the agenda. But whoever gets to set it, what is it based on? There’s no forward-thinking. It just kind of happens. That’s how they roll.”
Dr. Sharma is unafraid to say what she means and able to cut to the bone the problems affecting her district and the city at large.
She notes that the city council members have their own vested interests and the way things have been up until now has served them well. The diminutive level of engagement with all Carson residents up to this point has led to complacency — a complacency that has gone unchallenged. And in the instances where the city council’s complacency is called out, it’s not being heard in places and spaces that matter.
“I get appalled when I see people even on social media say, ‘that’s why I don’t vote.’” Dr. Sharma said. “Not only is that the wrong attitude, [but that’s also] exactly what [this city’s electeds on the city council] are banking on.
Dr. Sharma says her number one goal, above and beyond anything, is to disrupt the status quo and change things so that there’s a responsible and responsive government that actually cares about what people think.
“They’re only going to care if people make them care,” Dr. Sharma said. “And in order to have that happen, you have to inform people. You have to empower them and encourage them and let them know how much power they do have in Carson.”
With all due respect to the Sheriff’s deputy who told me we don’t have any hoods in Carson, that’s not okay because I feel very hood-like where I live.
On Crime Dr. Sharma is generally chagrined at the degree the Carson Sheriffs are applauded for their work. It is just that it hits different when you don’t feel safe in the community the Sheriff’s department and the city council are supposed to protect.
“I know I’m not safe in my community,” the self-proclaimed super-volunteer said. “I don’t leave things in my car. I have bags and bags of stuff because [thieves] keep breaking into my vehicle.”
Dr. Sharma says she doesn’t feel safe walking outside her door at certain times and night because of all the drug dealers and people getting high. She said she has told some of the members of the city council about her issues and shown video footage of people swirling around in her backyard.
“What I’ve gotten as a response from some of the people on the council is, ‘Oh we need to move you out of there.’ No, that’s not the solution,” Dr. Sharma said. “We need to deal with the issues. But when you don’t have to live with it … When the people who vote for you and support you don’t have to live with it … When you’re numb to what’s going on … When you’re okay with whatever the level of crime … Until there’s zero crime, you shouldn’t be applauding anything.”
The Carson Volunteer Stroke Center Association founder recounted a conversation she had with a Sheriff about crime in Carson.
“With all due respect to the Sheriff’s captain who told me we don’t have any hoods in Carson, and I’m like, no, that’s not okay because I feel very hood-like where I live,” Dr. Sharma said.
While Dr. Sharma is not a medical doctor, she has policy prescriptions for the problems that ail the city of Carson.
The good doctor believes that the fourth district probably has one of the higher concentrations of renters in it because of the abundance of apartment complexes there. But even within the complexes, there are a lot of modest units that are owned.
“I live in Avalon Greens, which is a small condominium complex. It used to be military housing,” Dr. Sharma explained. “The units are 700 to 736 square feet. That’s tiny. So even for someone who owns something in that area, it’s a small piece of property.”
She said one of the things she has been pointing out to the city is that there isn’t much accessible data that are very specific to the fourth District and the City in general.
“What I’d like to see is a community-wide citywide needs assessment so that we’re not talking about things just in general … so that we could really address things specifically,” Dr. Sharma explained. “How many renters do we have? How many of those rentals or even the homes that are owned are overcrowded? We have a homelessness problem in Carson, but we don’t know how many of those people are folks who have a mental illness, which we know is common, but we don’t know how many of those folks are simply unemployed or underemployed.
Dr. Sharma goes further and explains that a needs assessment can be used to determine what’s going on that’s creating this crime.
“My perception is that we have a lot of young people who lose their direction,” Dr. Sharma explained. “It’s not enough to just have our Explorers program. We need significantly more.”
She acknowledges that the city has its college prep courses, a robust sports program, and lots of parks, but she says it’s not enough and that no one is doing anything to promote and amplify that.
“We have a lot of undereducated and unemployed people,” Dr. Sharma explained.”What do they do when they have nothing else to do? They rob and steal.”
She believes the city should be using the sheriff’s department and its resources more effectively. That there should be more task forces assigned to areas where there are concentrated crimes.
She highlighted the fact that the city had to pay $1 million more for its contract with the Sheriff’s department because the county had its own budgetary issues.
“That’s all well and good, but we didn’t get anything additional for that extra million dollars,” she said. “That’s not okay.”
Dr. Sharma noted that the city had started the Carson Community Foundation and instead of using that foundation as a 501c3 charity to bring in donations and grant funds to address some of these issues, the city used it as a pass-through for funds that it was already getting donated from local businesses.
Now the foundation is just sitting there doing nothing, Dr. Sharma explained, and the city went back to the old way of getting money directly from businesses.
“Well, we have the capacity with that nonprofit arm, as a Community Foundation, to bring in additional monies and resources,” Dr. Sharma said. “I’m a grant writer by trade. I’ve amassed over $40 million in funding for organizations to do these kinds of programs. Why are we not using that to access funds that as a city, we cannot acquire … funds that can be used for programs and services to increase community policing efforts in the city. The Sheriff’s department has some deputies who have started a Carson Cares program. We’ve been working with them through the Sheriff’s Station Support Foundation to try to more formalize that effort and bring in more programs and services, but so much more if the Carson Cares Program was working in partnership with the city and bringing in more specified resources.
Dr. Sharma argues that there needs to be a strategic plan with goals and priorities about public safety when developing an agenda for the city. She says every council agenda should address the numbers that do exist because Carson does not have zero crime.
“That needs to be on every agenda,” Dr. Sharma said and it’s not.
