Tuesday, October 7, 2025
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Vacation Rental Ordinance

RLn
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Vacation Rental Ordinance

By Kevin James

In 2018, the City of Los Angeles adopted its Home-Sharing Ordinance which requires that short-term rentals must be a primary residence. Therefore, the Home Sharing Ordinance prohibits short-term rentals in non-primary residences.

With the City’s goal being to limit short-term rentals to protect long-term housing and
neighborhoods, limiting short-term rentals to just primary residences is important, and makes sense.

What does not make sense, and what has housing advocates concerned, is the City’s subsequent move to propose the so-called Vacation Rental Ordinance.

The first page of the Vacation Rental Ordinance states that it creates clear rules and regulations to control the growth of the [vacation rental] industry, protect long term housing supply, prevent citywide and geographic overconcentration, address community concerns about abuses, and compliment the Home-Sharing Ordinance.

And how will the Vacation Rental Ordinance achieve these goals? The answer is in the very
same sentence that lists the goals — and the answer is unbelievable.

The Vacation Rental Ordinance states on the very first page that by legalizing and regulating short-term rentals in non-primary residences all of the great things listed above will happen.

The Vacation Rental Ordinance claims that by legalizing short-term rentals in non-primary residences growth of the industry will be control[led], long term housing supply will be protect[ed], citywide and geographic overconcentration will be prevent[ed], community concerns about abuses will be address[ed], and the Home-Sharing Ordinance will be compliment[ed].

This is obviously wrong. The truth is that the opposite will occur. The Vacation Rental Ordinance opens the floodgates for short-term rentals. If the City legalizes short-term rentals in non-primary residences by adopting the Vacation Rental Ordinance, growth of the industry will expand, long term housing supply will be under attack, citywide and geographic overconcentration will proliferate, community concerns about abuses will be lost in the sheer volume of new short-term rentals, and the Home-Sharing Ordinance will be forever compromised and effectively eliminated.

When you legalize an industry, it grows. To claim otherwise defies logic. Proponents of the Vacation Rental Ordinance owe Angelenos answers to the following questions:

How does legalizing short-term rentals in non-primary residences control growth of the industry?
How does such legalization protect long term housing supply?
How does legalization prevent citywide and geographic overconcentration?
How does legalization address community concerns about abuses?
And how does legalization of short-term rentals in non-primary residences compliment the Home Sharing Ordinance that expressly prohibits short-term rentals in non-primary residences?

The true effect of the Vacation Rental Ordinance is the opposite of its stated intent, and the result could be a $7 billion loss of available long-term housing stock.

When it comes to the homelessness crisis in Los Angeles, one thing the city must protect is our affordable housing stock. And the City Attorney’s office currently has very few ways to protect it.

But one way is through enforcement of the city’s Home Sharing Ordinance.

So the last thing we want to do is interfere with our ability to enforce the Home Sharing Ordinance. Unfortunately, the Vacation Rental Ordinance interferes with our two most effective enforcement tools in the Home Sharing Ordinance.

First, there is a requirement that short-term rentals must be a primary residence. The Vacation
Rental Ordinance harms this restriction because it allows properties other than primary residences to be listed as short-term rentals. So it is creating a loophole in this critical part of the Home Sharing Ordinance.

Second, there is a prohibition of listing rent stabilized units as short-term rentals. The Vacation Rental Ordinance hurts this restriction because it adds a whole new level of investigations on potentially thousands of new listings when the City Attorney’s Office and city departments are already severely understaffed for enforcement of the Home Sharing Ordinance.

The Vacation Rental Ordinance ends up being an invitation for hosts and commercial operators to continue to ignore the Home Sharing Ordinance because the city will now have several thousand more of these listings to try and keep up with.

So while the proponents of the Vacation Rental Ordinance may be well-intentioned, passage of this ordinance actually could result in an acceleration of our low-income and affordable housing crisis.

There is a reasonable ball park figure on what this Vacation Rental Ordinance will cost the City of Los Angeles in lost housing stock. Just by taking the 14,700 units the Vacation Rental Ordinance permits and then multiplying that number by a reasonable average value-per-unit in Los Angeles of $500,000 – you get a total of over $7 billion dollars.

That is what we are facing here.One could call the Vacation Rental Ordinance the $7 billion dollar blow out to long-term housing stock in Los Angeles.

Kevin James is an attorney, the former President of the Los Angeles Board of Public Works, and a candidate for Los Angeles City Attorney

What Build Back Better Could Mean

Paul Rosenberg
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What Build Back Better Could Mean

For the second time in a generation, a Democratic president has taken office in the midst of an economic catastrophe overseen by a Republican predecessor. Joe Biden, who was vice president last time, seems to have learned his lesson — it needs a big response, something on a generational scale — and almost everyone in the Democratic Party agrees. But not quite. And two hold-out senators could spell disaster — not just for Biden’s agenda, or the Democratic Party, but for American democracy and the future of the planet as well. If the plan doesn’t pass, climate action appears doomed, and Donald Trump could well be re-elected in 2024, again with millions fewer votes.

“It’s not sufficient to build back,” after the pandemic, Biden said on the campaign trail, “We have to build back better.” And he had a specific focus in mind. “Throughout this [coronavirus] crisis, Donald Trump has been almost singularly focused on the stock market — the Dow and Nasdaq — not you, not your families,” he said in his kick-off campaign speech near his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania. “If I’m fortunate enough to be elected president, I’ll be laser-focused on working families, the middle-class families that I came from.”

That promise is clearly reflected in the fully paid-for 10-year $3.5 trillion Build Back Better plan, which makes major investments in childcare, education, healthcare and housing just to bring America in line with its international competitors. Its climate agenda and broader environmental agenda will benefit families far beyond the 10-year time-frame.

The local impact would be dramatic, according to Harbor Area representatives.

“The Build Back Better plan would make transformational investments in addressing the toxic air pollution from trucks and ports,” said Congresswoman Nanette Barragán. “It would make it possible to replace polluting trucks and cargo handling equipment with new zero-emissions technology. This would dramatically improve air quality in our region, especially for communities of color near the Port of Los Angeles.”

Congressman Alan Lowenthal agreed. “The scope of investments we’re looking at will absolutely be transformative for families and for our district,” he said. “Climate investments will have a huge impact greening the port and expanding electric vehicle infrastructure, while investments in the care economy — including child care, the price of medicine, home care and the cost of college — will provide critical support to many people while creating good jobs.”

Catching Up With The Rest of the World

Yet, aside from the climate investments, the vast majority of the spending would only help us to catch up with the average of where other countries already are.

“We’re among the first in the world to guarantee access to universal education,” Biden said in a major speech in Howell, Michigan on Oct. 5. “Now, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development ranks America 35th out of 37 major countries when it comes to investing in early childhood education as a percent of GDP.”

We spend less than 4% of the international average. The OECD average is $14,400, the U.S. spends just $500. As sociologist Jessica Calarco tweeted, “Other countries have social safety nets, the US has women.” Biden’s plan would change that, moving us more toward the average. It would make attendance at licensed child care centers free for the lowest-earning families, with a cap of 7% of family income for those earning up to twice the state’s median income. It would also provide universal preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds, and — in its current version — raise the pay of child care workers and preschool teachers to the level of kindergarten teachers.

The child care and the pre-K programs will cost $250 billion each over 10 years, but will likely pay for themselves several times over in the lifetimes of the children through increased productivity, and reduced health care and social spending costs. Another program will add free community college, for another $100 billion, so that the current standard of 13 years of free public education — established in the 1890s — will expand to 17 years. (There is also expanded support for four-year colleges via a variety of programs.)

A similar logic can be seen in other programs as well. For example, a White House fact sheet notes that in 2018, “we spent less than one quarter of the average that other advanced economies spend on workforce and labor market programs as a share of GDP.” The Build Back Better plan includes $80 billion in a variety of workforce development programs. Biden’s stated goal is to create one to two million apprenticeships over the next 10 years.

America is also an outlier in providing paid family leave. According to the OECD, on average, “mothers are entitled to just over 18 weeks of paid maternity leave around childbirth,” but the U.S. is “the main exception” by offering none “on a national basis.” And while paid leave for fathers is not universal, the OECD average is 8.1 weeks. The Build Back Better plan would provide up to 12 weeks of paid family leave annually, replacing 85% of wages up to $290 per week ($15,080 annually), and decreasing percentages beyond that. We wouldn’t be a world leader, but we would at least join the modern world.

Similarly, the Build Back Better plan extends the refundable child tax credit that provides families with $3,000 per child 6 years old and above, and to $3,600 per child under 6. It began under the American Rescue Plan, running through the end of this year, and is projected to cut child poverty by 45% according to research from Columbia University. The Build Back Better plan would extend it through 2025.

Similar credits in Europe have long resulted in much lower child poverty rates, so once again, we would simply be catching up with where the rest of the developed world already is. Together with two other child tax credit programs its cost would be $400 billion. It’s money well spent, as Nobel laureate Paul Krugman observed. “The evidence for high returns from spending more on children is much stronger than the evidence for high returns to spending on roads and bridges (although we should do that, too),” he wrote. “So every year that we don’t increase aid to children, for example by expanding the child tax credit, leads to decades of wasted human potential.”

To catch up on healthcare would require something like Medicare for All, since we’re the only advanced industrial nation without universal healthcare. But the Build Back Better plan would significantly improve coverage, with $210 billion for expanded Obamacare subsidies, $200 billion to expand Medicare in red states that didn’t expand it under Obamacare, $250 billion for long-term home care for seniors and the disabled, and $370 billion to expand Medicare coverage for dental, vision and hearing services, and lower the eligibility age to 60. It would also empower Medicare to negotiate drug prices, saving more than $456 billion over 10 years (according to the Congressional Budget Office) and limiting out-of-pocket costs for recipients to $2,000 per year.

Finally, it would dedicate $300 billion for housing & homelessness — which we’ve under-invested in for almost 50 years — and $700 billion for a range of climate programs that also have a significant working-class and middle-class focus, particularly on the job-creation side. The two largest programs are a roughly $300 billion package of tax incentives to increase the use of wind and solar power and electric vehicles, and a $150 billion proposal known as the Clean Electricity Program, would reward electric utilities that switch to renewables, and penalize those that don’t.

The Arguments Against

A number of specious arguments have been made against the plan. Some say it’s too big. While the total cost of $3.5 trillion sounds large — and it is — it’s just 1.2% of the projected GDP over the next 10 years and, as already noted, it’s fully paid for. This is done with $2 trillion in taxes (on corporations and individuals earning over $400,000), the Medicare drug price savings, improved tax compliance from increased Internal Revenue Service funding, and macroeconomic effects. And while some have raised fears it would lead to inflation, a Sept. 15 letter from 15 Nobel Prize-winning economists argued just the opposite. “Because this agenda invests in long-term economic capacity and will enhance the ability of more Americans to participate productively in the economy, it will ease longer-term inflationary pressures,” they wrote.

But the biggest problem facing the plan is the simple, publicly unexplained opposition of two Democratic senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Manchin has spoken in vague generalities (opposing “an entitlement society” for example), Sinema hasn’t spoken at all. Neither has been willing to negotiate specifics, which is how legislation normally gets done, and they’ve dragged out the process significantly, while the media mischaracterizes it as a battle between progressives and “moderates.” But as Joan Walsh noted at The Nation, “The ‘left’s’ version of the reconciliation bill totaled $6 trillion; it was already cut back to $3.5 trillion.” The vast majority of genuine moderates are fully on board.

So it’s almost the entire party vs. two senators who’ve been unwilling to even negotiate. For months, they’ve been asked, “Tell us what you want to cut” and they’ve refused to say.

“It is really not playing fair that one or two people think that they should be able to stop what 48 members of the Democratic Caucus want, what the American people want, what the president of the United States wants,” Senator Bernie Sanders said on Oct. 7.

After that, word leaked out that Manchin wanted Democrats to choose just one of three family-supporting programs — the expanded child tax credit, paid family leave or subsidies for child care — all of which were overwhelmingly supported by West Virginia voters by 46 to 53% in a late August Data For Progress poll. So, rather than say which super-popular program he wanted to cut, he put the onus on everyone else — a move that would certainly cause further divisions.

Sinema has been even less helpful. She’s opposed to two things she’s championed in the past. First, she came out against having Medicare negotiate drug prices in late September, just after a drug company-backed dark money group launched ads supporting her. Drug companies have become major donors for her. Second, on Oct. 8, the New York Times reported that Sinema, who began her political career as a Green Party activist, “wants to cut at least $100 billion from climate programs” as part of her effort to slash the plan’s size.

Behind all the obfuscation, Manchin and Sinema simply oppose what their voters want in favor of special interests that support them. Majorities in both states support Biden’s plan by more than 2-1, according to September polling from Data for Progress: 68-25 in West Virginia and 65-28 in Arizona. While corporate influence in the Democratic Party has declined significantly in the past decade, it appears to have just enough clout to upend Biden’s primary piece of legislation. How much can be salvaged remains to be seen. But we should never forget the scope of what was proposed, and how much better life in America could be. It’s clearly possible, and it’s clear what’s standing in the way.

Cases Among People Experiencing Homelessness Decline

Reporters Desk
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Cases Among People Experiencing Homelessness Decline

With continued countywide slowing transmission of COVID-19, cases among people experiencing homelessness have declined from 188 weekly cases in August to 107 new cases reported this week Oct. 13.

The number of new cases reported this week includes 67 cases from previous weeks that have been newly identified as cases associated with people experiencing homelessness and are in the new case totals.

Tragically, seven people experiencing homelessness passed away from COVID-19 this week. To date, 9,307 people experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles County have tested positive for COVID-19 and 244 people who were experiencing homelessness have passed away from COVID-19. Of these people who passed away, 116 were sheltered, 78 were unsheltered, and for 50 people who passed away, their shelter status was unknown.

There are 1,225 providers administering vaccinations to people experiencing homelessness; together, they have administered over 59,702 doses of COVID-19 vaccine across Los Angeles County; 30,285 people experiencing homelessness are fully vaccinated.

The County continues to work closely with partner organizations to vaccinate and protect people experiencing homelessness from COVID-19 and is offering first, second, and third doses to eligible people.

Mark Ridley-Thomas, Former University Dean Charged in Federal Grand Jury Indictment

Reporters Desk
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Mark Ridley-Thomas, Former University Dean Charged in Federal Grand Jury Indictment

Longtime politician Mark Ridley-Thomas and the former dean of the School of Social Work at a university in Southern California were indicted Oct. 13, on federal corruption charges that allege a bribery scheme in which a Ridley-Thomas relative received substantial benefits from the university in exchange for Ridley-Thomas supporting county contracts and lucrative contract amendments with the university while he served on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

The 20-count indictment alleges that Ridley-Thomas, now a member of the Los Angeles City Council, conspired with Marilyn Louise Flynn, formerly a tenured professor and the dean of the university’s School of Social Work, who agreed to provide the Ridley-Thomas relative with graduate school admission, a full-tuition scholarship, a paid professorship, and a mechanism to funnel Ridley-Thomas campaign funds through the university to a non-profit to be operated by the relative.

In exchange, the indictment alleges, Ridley-Thomas supported contracts involving the Social Work School, including contracts to provide services to the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) and Probation Department, as well as an amendment to a contract with the Department of Mental Health (DMH) that would bring the school millions of dollars in new revenue.

Ridley-Thomas, 66, of Los Angeles, and Flynn, 83, also of Los Angeles, were informed of the indictment this afternoon and have agreed to appear for their arraignments in United States District Court in the coming weeks.

The indictment outlines a scheme in 2017 and 2018 in which then-supervisor Ridley-Thomas sought benefits from Flynn and university officials to benefit his close relative – described as “MRT Relative 1” in the indictment – who is Ridley-Thomas’ son Sebastian at a time when his son was the subject of an internal sexual harassment investigation in the California State Assembly, likely to resign from elected office, and significantly in debt. Ridley-Thomas allegedly wanted to help secure paid employment for his relative to minimize any public fallout for them both in the wake of the sudden resignation from office. Meanwhile, the Social Work School was facing a multimillion-dollar budget deficit, which threatened the school’s viability as well as Flynn’s position and reputation as the school’s longtime dean.

As part of the bribery scheme, Ridley-Thomas and Flynn allegedly took steps “to disguise, conceal, and cover up the bribes, kickbacks, and other benefits defendant Ridley-Thomas and his relative received, which included concealing the official acts Ridley-Thomas agreed to perform and did perform in exchange for the financial benefits. The pair also concealed, according to the indictment, the true purpose of the money funneled to Sebastian’s nonprofit through the university, which also violated multiple university policies regarding the funding of nonprofits.

Within weeks of Ridley-Thomas contacting Flynn in May 2017 about his son wanting a postgraduate degree from the university, Flynn began a campaign to secure both university admission and a full scholarship for the relative. Flynn wrote in an email that she “intend[ed] to open every door” for Ridley-Thomas’ son, whom she noted was closely related to the then-supervisor, the indictment alleges. When a university official said Ridley-Thomas had “lots of discretionary money” and should give the university “$1M each year for three years,” according to the indictment, Flynn responded that she and another university official intended to offer the relative a full scholarship, characterizing the exchange as a “full scholarship for our [Social Work School] funds.”

During a June 2017 meeting, Ridley-Thomas and Flynn allegedly reached a quid pro quo agreement, which Flynn later memorialized in a confidential letter she had hand-delivered to Ridley-Thomas. The indictment alleges that Flynn’s letter detailed her expectations that Ridley-Thomas would steer new contracts with DCFS and Probation to the Social Work School and secure a lucrative amendment to an existing Telehealth-DMH contract. With the new amendment, Flynn expected the Telehealth contract to generate approximately $9 million per year for Flynn’s Social Work School.

In exchange for Flynn’s efforts to help Sebastian, the indictment alleges that Ridley-Thomas took a series of official actions, including voting in August 2017 to approve a motion to establish a partnership between the county and Social Work School and voting in October 2017 to approve a motion, related to “Probation University,” that would create a new county payment source for the school. Flynn told university officials in emails that she was “very happy to see that [defendant Ridley-Thomas] was as good as his word” and that he was “really trying to deliver,” the indictment alleges.

In the fall of 2017, Ridley-Thomas and his son began soliciting from Flynn and other university officials a paid professorship for Sebastian while concealing that he was the subject of a sexual harassment investigation. By December 2017, in conjunction with speculation that Sebastian could be forced out of office, Ridley-Thomas and his son increased their efforts to secure a paid faculty position for Sebastian’s efforts that included Ridley-Thomas exerting pressure on another high-ranking public official to support the Telehealth contract amendment.

On December 14, 2017, about an hour after Ridley-Thomas emailed Flynn saying the high-ranking public official was “ready to go,” Flynn expedited Sebastian’’s enrollment at the university, instructing that the admission should be given the “highest priority,” according to the indictment. Flynn also agreed, despite the school’s multimillion-dollar budget deficit, to tap the Social Work School’s endowed funds to award a scholarship. At Flynn’s direction, Sebastian received a full scholarship worth $26,000 for the 2018 spring and summer terms.

The day after learning that the high-ranking public official was “ready to go,” Flynn also endeavored to quickly secure the paid professorship, even though Sebastian’s dual student-faculty status would violate university policy. On December 15, 2017, Flynn allegedly sent an “urgent” email to a university official, urging the official to get the offer letter “out before the holidays” to Sebastian’ “in the interests of showing MRT [defendant Ridley-Thomas] that we can deliver.” The university thereafter offered Sebastian the paid teaching position with a salary of $50,000.

When Sebastian received an email on February 13, 2018 indicating that the usual hiring process had been waived for his paid professorship, Sebastian forwarded the email to Ridley-Thomas, who then emailed Flynn the same day to discuss the “Probation Reform motion.” Days later, when Flynn emailed Ridley-Thomas to request a profitable amendment to the Telehealth-DMH contract, Ridley-Thomas responded to Flynn: “Your wish is my command.”

In addition to obtaining university admission, a full scholarship and the paid faculty position, Ridley-Thomas also sought to help his son become the director of a nonprofit. In December 2017, Ridley-Thomas donated $100,000 in campaign funds to a fiscal sponsor (Fiscal Sponsor A) supporting the nonprofit Sebastian was planning to head (Nonprofit A). Concerned about the optics of a politician donating campaign funds to benefit the politician’s relative, Fiscal Sponsor A refunded the $100,000.

Sebastian then abandoned efforts to head Nonprofit A, founded a new nonprofit (Nonprofit B) with a new fiscal sponsor (Fiscal Sponsor B), and began raising money for Nonprofit B in order to take a salary, obtain healthcare benefits and hire staff. According to the indictment, while soliciting official action from Ridley-Thomas during a meeting on April 26, 2018, Flynn agreed to funnel $100,000 from the Mark Ridley-Thomas Committee for a Better L.A. through the university and Social Work School to Fiscal Sponsor B for the benefit of Nonprofit B and, in turn, MRT Relative 1. Around this time, Flynn allegedly told a university official that the school would get the Telehealth contract but that she had to do a “favor” to get it.

After the Ridley-Thomas campaign funds were transferred through the university to Fiscal Sponsor B, Ridley-Thomas voted on July 31, 2018 in favor of the amendment to the school’s Telehealth agreement that would sustain the program for an additional year and was consistent with the terms Flynn previously requested of Ridley-Thomas.

Both Ridley-Thomas and Flynn are charged with one count of conspiracy, and each defendant is charged with one count of bribery. The indictment also charges both defendants with two counts of “honest services” mail fraud and 15 counts of “honest services” wire fraud.

The conspiracy count alleged in the indictment carries a statutory maximum penalty of five years in federal prison. Each bribery count carries a maximum possible sentence of 10 years. Each of the mail fraud and wire fraud charges carry a statutory maximum penalty of 20 years.

Guitars for Afghan Girls

Melina Paris
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Guitars for Afghan Girls

Local Musician Ventures To Teach Musical Stars

In 2014, following the reporting of a 2012 terrorist attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, Lanny Cordola, a Los Angeles musician and cofounder of Magdallan [a Christian metal supergroup] packed up his guitar and left for the country to see how he could help. He later returned to Afghanistan and engaged in youth work, teaching guitar to teenagers of the war-torn country.

“The plan is to make this an entity where [the girls] can travel the world, play music, tell the story about their lives and the people of Afghanistan,” Cordola says.

He calls these girls The Miraculous Love Kids. Cordola has been teaching them guitar and together with Cordola, the girls have recorded videos of them performing virtually alongside huge American musicians like Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, Sammy Hagar, The Bangles, The GoGos, The Runaways, Tom Morello, Nick Cave and others.

Cordola, who was born in Harbor City, gained much of his success in Hollywood in the mid 1980s to ’90s. The guitarist, songwriter and producer has also been a member of glam rock bands Giuffria and House of Lords.

He spoke to RLN from Pakistan, to which he relocated on the very last day of the American pull out of troops from Afghanistan. He waited until he had to leave. His visa was about to expire. Now, he is trying to raise awareness and funds to get 12 particularly vulnerable girls with their families out of Afghanistan. Because of their video exposure and the toppling of the government to Taliban forces, these girls are now targets.

The last time the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, in the late 1990s, it banned music. So far, this time, it hasn’t outlawed music officially but the possibility has a chilling effect.

“I was at the end of my journey in the matrix of mainstream music and was looking for a way to give a voice to the war torn, poverty stricken kids through music — 25,000 that perish painful deaths each day due to poverty and war,” Cordola said.

The need to get them out is urgent.
Cordola first went to Afghanistan in 2014 because he heard the Taliban had killed two little girls. He said he was angry and mortified. He had been travelling to Pakistan and he said fate had it that he could go to Afghanistan and meet the family of these two little girls. Being a musician, he had his guitar with him thinking he would play for the children.

Upon seeing him, eight-year-old Mursal, the youngest sister who survived that attack, asked Cordola, “Will you be my teacher?”

“[It’s] not even a part of my nature,” he said. “Because I’m a band guy, a studio guy. I’m not the kumbaya guy. These kids opened up a whole portal into my spirit that I became the kumbaya guy.”

The names of her sisters were Parwana, who was 9 or 10, and Khorshid. Cordola noted that they don’t have birthdays and they don’t know exactly how old they are.

“What struck me … I mean, I want to work for non-violence and peace in the world,” Cordola said. “But … when you go to these horrible places, you might have to put that aside to defend and help some of these kids who are so vulnerable. My thought was, I can no longer live in a world where I cannot do at least something to respond to this evil. I had the opportunity to get over there and meet the family and the sister that survived that attack. That’s a whole other story. She is the most incredibly complicated troubling girl I’ve ever met in my life, Mursal.”

Since the events in Afghanistan, Cordola said he’s been going through four kinds of phases: shock, sadness, outrage and gratitude from people who care.

“I just got an email from Cindy Brady of The Brady Bunch [actress Susan Olsen of the 1970s sitcom, The Brady Bunch],” he said. “She lent me her support and Rich Williams from a band that I love, Kansas, and of course, Tom Morello has been stellar and Nick Cave has been stellar. Vicki Peters from the Bangles, in the music community and then just everyday, simple, cool, humble people sending me messages.”

Cordola said it humbled him to the core. Celebrity means nothing to the former session musician unless it’s going to help humanity in some way — the least of our brethren, he said.

“I’m trying to get out three messages, Cordola said. “The Taliban, ISIS and these creatures; they’re not Muslim. For those of us who have a spiritual bent, they feel like a demonic force.

“The other message is that every day, 25,000 children die because of these monsters, because of poverty and war. The third thing is I’m trying to wake up the music community to start being a bigger voice for the Miraculous Love Kids. That’s what they are to me. They are … little MLKs. They want to be activists now. We actually are doing In The Name Of Love [U2] which is about Martin Luther King and I’m trying to get a hold of Bono now. They sing it so beautifully. Martin Luther King, who is a big influence on us, said, ‘An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere.’ It’s priorities … taking care of the vulnerable. That’s what The Miraculous Love Kids is all about.”

Cordola said he’s 100% committed. People have asked him why he doesn’t just give this up … he did his best. He said he could never give this up. Right now in Pakistan he has a friend named Todd Shea. Shea is the founder of CDRS or Comprehensive Disaster Response Services, CDRS is a nonprofit registered in the U.S. and Pakistan for disaster relief and development work.

Professor Mark Levine at University of California Irvine introduced the two men. Levine met Shea through an associate who did relief work in Pakistan after the 2005 earthquake. Both musicians, Cordola and Shea are interested in doing humanitarian work with music. They have been working together ever since they met.

The original plan to get 12 girls out of Afghanistan turned into 36, to include the girls’ families. Cordola said it’s been a complete disaster so far.

“So many false hopes,” Cordola said. “So much of this talk. I don’t speak that [nonprofit] language and that’s why I was never really embraced by the American embassy or any NGOs and they didn’t like the fact [I’m an] outsider. Now maybe a few of them are waking up because [people] are writing about me.”

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Disaster relief at Ground Zero.
On Sept. 11, 2001, Shea was headed to a recording studio to rehearse for his upcoming show at CBGB when he got a call from his manager saying “Turn the TV on, something terrible has happened.”

“I dropped what I was doing and started heading to the towers,” Shea said. “It changed my life because I immediately went into relief work after that and kind of put my music career in the dirt. My manager was Sid Bernstein, the guy that brought The Beatles and The Rolling Stones to America. He was retired [then] but got behind my music. He was good to have on my team.”

After 9/11, Shea realized he was good at logistics and supply chain for first responders.

“After a week at Ground Zero I left there changed. What I learned about myself at Ground Zero armed me with the knowledge and intention to go forward and use that knowledge to help in disaster situations.”

Since then Shea has been involved in disaster situations in Pakistan and in several hurricanes and other disasters in America and various conflict zones or camps including Belize, Kuwait, the Philippines, Japan, Haiti and Bangladesh.

Shea said right now there are a couple problems with the MLK girls. Almost none of them or their families have passports. Further, the Pakistani government is trying to keep this relief situation under control. Shea said he understands what they’re doing, but to get to a third country without their passports, the girls are going to be refugees and be located in a refugee camp for a while no matter what. Getting them out of Afghanistan is problematic but possible. The passport office and the agencies involved in processing passports are not fully functional. It could take months. They are considering getting them to Pakistan with just their birth certificates and then try to get their passports over time.

In Pakistan, Shea and his organization can take care of these girls and it’s where Cordola happens to be right now.

“We think it’s a good option if we can get them here and get Pakistan’s permission to keep them here at least within the next year, so we can have time to figure out what to do with them. We’re appealing to the Pakistani government … and recently sent letters to get permission to have them here with us.”

Shea said they don’t need Pakistan’s money or for the government to take care of the girls or house them. They want time to process the paperwork, get the passports and then process the cases onward so that number one: they get the girls out of a dangerous place so they are safe. Number two: it buys them time to figure out where they want to bring them, which isn’t necessarily the United States. That’s only one option. Shea said Cordola is considering Norway and other European countries like Bulgaria. But those are just possibilities.

“Lanny is really on to something with what he’s done with these girls,” Shea said. “Because of this terrible thing happening we don’t want to lose that some of these girls have shown a real talent and interest in music and they have already collaborated with some of the greatest musicians and groundbreaking female rock bands.

“[It] was always about how we could use the fame and the good fortune of some of the world class musicians to reach their fan bases about the plight of children in these countries,” Shea said. “To use music … to really understand what these children around the world go through and how so many die every day of poverty, starvation, war. [It’s] to wake people up [to] this awareness, which unfortunately, we haven’t really seen since the 1960s, when music was important enough to change things.”

Shea said it would be nice if really big stars were aware of what Cordola has been doing for years and support it long term, so they can get these girls out and help in an emergency situation.

Shea said they would love to have stars help with the larger message of helping children around the world who go through these issues. He asserted this is something Americans and music fans don’t understand on the deepest level. They don’t have that full understanding of just how connected we all are and how a child in the middle of Afghanistan, some refugee camp or in Africa, or South America or even in the areas of the U.S. there are people who are very poor and live very tough lives and don’t have all the opportunities and things afforded to them that some more fortunate souls have.

“ … We can’t expect children to grow up in poverty born of extremism in these environments and think they are going to come out to be citizens who have empathy and understanding about the world,” Shea said.

He encourages people who want to do something but don’t know where to start, to just start. The doors will start opening.

“We have a real opportunity but it’s going to take awareness,” Shea said. “Lanny and I feel like the musicians of the world can do something about this but they’re largely asleep. If they did, and their audiences were exposed to more of that, then we could have a better chance of someday being where we want to be.”

Musician Steps Up
In the meantime, musician Tom Morello released a statement on behalf of the Miraculous Love Kids. Cordola has received more than 1,500 letters and emails — most of it positive. And some are donations.

“Tom Morello is like a secular saint,” Cordola said. “That dude cares about the world. He played with our girls on the song Sweet Dreams [Eurythmics]. When you see the one girl, Jelly Bean, she just knows this is Mr. Tom and he’s a really good guitar player. She has no idea he’s a world renowned guitar maestro. When you see the video and they’re trading licks, I’m like a proud father because I’m like a father to some of these girls.”

When we spoke to Cordola, the girls were all with their families, not with him. Cordola did that by design. He deliberately kept everything small.

If the U.S. had not pulled out of Afghanistan, Cordola’s plan for the girls was for them to go on a U.S. tour ― a goodwill tour ― and to meet musicians like Brian Wilson. He also wanted to start work on a docu-series and to record at Sun Records in Memphis. Lastly, he wanted to take the MLKs to see their namesake memorial in the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

“To go to these great places where Martin Luther King did his great works, [to] the Grand Canyon, a proper tour like that,” Cordola said. The plan was I wanted to get some [of the girls] to the US next year, but because of COVID, that is a whole other level of complexity,” Cordola said.

One of the songs in MLKs repertoire is Peter Gabriel’s Red Rain. Cordola described the amazing reaction the girls had to it.

“[They heard] the song, the kids [were] up and they started clapping, like it was a stomp and singing. It was like these kids have just changed my whole perspective on life and music.”

Raising the funds is for their future, Cordola said. The next step is working to do everything he can to get them out. It’s driving him crazy. The best place for them is in Pakistan.

“I talk to them daily,” Cordola said. “My mantra is ‘please listen to me, and I will listen to you.’ And they do listen.”

Details: miraculouslovekids.org and www.cdrsworld.org

Watch Buscaino Run

James Preston Allen
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Watch Buscaino Run

And now it’s the LA Mayor’s race

I’ve been watching Joe Buscaino run for something since before he ever got elected to anything ― including councilman for Council District 15. From the very beginning, even as an LAPD Senior lead officer, it was clear he was running for something with his popular cheery disposition and dimpled smile, but it wasn’t obvious for what. Clearly his cheerleader manner and personality needed an audience, but I was always suspicious of his ability to lead by consensus behind a vision of what Council District 15 needed, wanted and aspired. But he did know how to play to his base in San Pedro.

What we have experienced since his election is his reacting without fully understanding complexities, like his proposals for addressing homelessness for example. What we have seen is his grandstanding on hot-button issues to make political points and then exhibiting tone-deafness to anything that approaches criticism. He is not the candidate that Los Angeles needs or desires to address the current state of the city.

Currently while the ships pile up at the Ports, and as a result of a misplaced anchor we have seen the first major oil spill off the coast of Southern California in years and then the accumulation of hydrogen sulfide (think rotten egg smell) in the Dominguez Channel, which runs through his district ―Buscaino has not said a word. Instead, he’s out trumping up support for his anti-homeless camping ordinance, and his communications deputy Branimir Kuvartic is out assaulting and insulting the general population who show up at his made-for-Fox-News press conferences.

Now San Pedro, from whence Buscaino comes, has a lot in common with the rest of the aging historic neighborhoods of Los Angeles ― broken sidewalks and cracked gutters, plenty of illegal ally dumping, a fair amount of street crime, increasing rents and shortage of affordable housing. Of all of these very basic municipal concerns Buscaino can only now say that he’s addressing the housing shortage, but not with enough affordable units. What makes Pedro somewhat unique is that it’s the “biggest small town in all of L.A.” and while people here may have short fingers, they do have long memories ― Pedro is not the kind of place that easily forgets broken promises.

In San Pedro, no one crosses swords with a seated councilman nor insults wealthy philanthropists, both of whom ply the local charities with honey-butter donations and favors in exchange for their silence or nodding acquiescence. Get on Buscaino’s wrong-side and the favors dry up. The extent to which some few will whisper things to a reporter, do so only if their names aren’t attached. I ask, “What country do you live in where you can’t speak freely?” This as the locals place their hands over their heart and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Sometimes, I think this town is too small for its own good or that the council office has too much power when placed in the wrong hands. The L.A. City Council is far too powerful for the common good and too easily corrupted. I am a supporter of Mike Feurer’s proposal to double the number of city council seats and halving their salaries. It’s not a perfect solution but a step in the right direction would not come from Buscaino.

However, back to the missteps and missed opportunities of Buscaino’s ten years in office. During the homeless crisis he was late to the game on shelters and was only able to clear the pedestrian right-of-ways around the Beacon Street Post Office because of the federally funded program, Project Room Key, which I’ve heard will be ending soon. He was a late adopter of the Bridge Home Shelters and the tiny homes (which as I’ve told you before he adamantly opposed at first) and wouldn’t have stopped police enforcement of the homeless without a court order and scolding by a federal Judge David O. Carter. In other words, he’s always been late to the solutions and something other than a leader during a crisis ― even during the pandemic.

None of these late solutions would have ever made it into Buscaino’s weekly self-serving email newsletters if there wasn’t a selfie attached to it. This, every intelligent San Pedran knows, but few will utter out loud for fear of reprisals. This in itself is the reason I believe that the majority of Joe’s hometown won’t even vote for him in the coming L.A. mayor’s race.

Clearly, up until a few weeks ago, this race was between him and City Attorney Mike Feuer, even though there are lesser known candidates who have declared. But with the announcement of Councilman Kevin de León and Congresswoman Karen Bass (two candidates with far more progressive credentials and city wide recognition than Buscaino), this has placed Buscaino in an “also ran” position. If he keeps running to the right of everyone else, he’s bound to get a majority of the dwindling Republican votes in the city, which if you understand him is the right place for him ― a minority candidate in an increasingly majority democratic land. The reality is he’s a Democrat in Name Only or a DINOsaur in other words.

Buscaino is seriously out of step with the political shift happening in the greater L.A. region and is curiously misrepresenting San Pedro at city hall ― it’s time for him to find employment elsewhere.

I wonder if he’s actually running for mayor or just running away from San Pedro?

Port of Los Angeles Statement on 24/7 Operations Announced by President Biden

Reporters Desk
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SAN PEDRO – Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka Oct. 13, met with President Biden. The President announced initiatives to address current supply challenges, including moving to 24/7 operations at the Port of Los Angeles.

Following is a statement from Executive Director Seroka regarding President Biden’s announcement regarding 24/7 operations.

“Operational details are being discussed and worked out with the supply chain stakeholders. The significance of today’s announcement is the commitment from industry leaders responsible for moving goods on behalf of American consumers and businesses to open up the capacity needed to deliver. It’s a call to action for others to follow.

“We have heard directly from the President, the Vice President, Secretary Buttigieg, National Economic Council Director Deese, and Port Envoy Porcari. We have a lot of work ahead. The Port of LA is called America’s Port because the cargo we handle reaches every corner of the country. In the days ahead, we are committed to continuing to be the convener to ensure the supply chain delivers for the American people.”

Details: www.youtube.com/Efforts-to-Address-Global-Transportation-Supply-Chain-Bottleneck

 

Monumental Broadband Legislation Signed Into Law

Reporters Desk
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Monumental Broadband Legislation Signed Into Law

Gov. Newsom Oct.8, signed into law Senate Bill (SB) 4 by Senator Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach) and Assembly Bill (AB) 14 by Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry (D-Winters) to advance digital equity in the state and provide high-speed internet access to more Californians. These new laws will complement the recent $6 Billion budget investment passed this summer for broadband infrastructure deployment projects by ensuring last mile connections are realized and providing sustainable, long-term funding, which will bring an additional $1.5 Billion over the next 10 years.

Details: https://sd33.senate.ca.gov/sb-4-broadband-all-act-energy-utilities-communications-committee

Gov. Newsom Signs SB 567, Correcting 14 years of Unjust Criminal Sentencing Procedures

Reporters Desk
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Gov. Newsom Signs SB 567, Correcting 14 years of Unjust Criminal Sentencing Procedures

Gov. Gavin Newsom Oct. 8, signed SB 567 into law to modify the criminal sentencing process. SB 567 creates a presumption of sentencing judgement of imprisonments and enhancements not to exceed the middle terms, unless there are circumstances in aggravation of a crime that justify the imposition of the upper term. The bill requires that when an upper term is imposed, the facts underlying the circumstances must be submitted to the jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt. SB 567 is part of this year’s criminal justice reform efforts brought forth by Senator Steven Bradford (D-Gardena).

Before 2007, the law required that judges impose a middle term in sentencing unless there are circumstances in aggravation or mitigation of a crime that warrants a lower or upper term. The law allowed a judge to determine what the aggravating and mitigating circumstances are after consideration of various items such as the trial record, the probation officers’ report, statements in aggravation or mitigation submitted by the parties, the victim, or the victim’s family.

In 2007, the Supreme Court of the United States held in Cunningham v. California held that California’s determinate sentencing law was unconstitutional. The court ruled that California law impermissibly allowed judges to impose an upper/maximum term based upon aggravating facts that were never presented to a jury and deemed to be true beyond a reasonable doubt, thus violating the 6th Amendment to the United States Constitution right to a trial by jury.

As part of an urgency measure that year, the Legislature adopted a temporary law (SB 40) allowing judges to impose any of the three sentencing terms so long as they state a reason for any of the sentencing terms. This has led judges to apply the maximum sentence without granting defendants the opportunity to have a jury review and determine the truthfulness of alleged aggravating facts.

SB 40 was only supposed to be in effect only until January 1, 2009, until a review of the criminal sentencing process could be had, and a more permanent solution could be achieved. Until now, no permanent solution has been achieved, and a law meant to be a temporary solution in reaction to Cunningham was extended multiple times, with the current law designated to sunset after December 31, 2021.

SB 567 will take effect on January 1, 2022.

Padilla, Bonta Briefed on O.C. Oil Spill Investigation and Response

Reporters Desk
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Padilla, Bonta Briefed on O.C. Oil Spill Investigation and Response

U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), a member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and California Attorney General Rob Bonta Oct. 11, traveled to Orange County for a tour and a briefing from the Coast Guard and other emergency response officials on the investigation and response to the oil spill off the coast of Huntington Beach.

Padilla reiterated the need to end offshore drilling along California’s coast and the urgency of acting on the climate crisis.

“It is unacceptable that Californians are once again facing the devastating effects of an offshore oil spill,” said Senator Padilla. “The trade-off between oil production and environmental harm is simply not one we should be making any longer, especially given how fossil fuel emissions are exacerbating the climate crisis. Already, this oil has seeped into environmentally sensitive wetlands, endangering birds and other wildlife, and forcing the closure of beaches that are the economic engines of entire communities.”

Senator Padilla recently joined Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) in calling on Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and other involved agencies to investigate the oil spill and make public the results of the investigation and commit to clear timelines of safety regulations, such as inspections, shut-off valves and leak detection systems, in existing pipelines. Padilla is also a cosponsor of the West Coast Ocean Protection Act—a bill that would ban oil and gas drilling off the coasts of California, Oregon, and Washington—and has called for this bill to be included in the Senate version of the budget reconciliation process.

Following the briefing, Senator Padilla and Attorney General Bonta answered questions from the media about their visit. Listen to the recording here: www.youtube.com/Emergency-Response-to-Huntington-Beach-Oil-Spill

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