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COVID-19 Report

Reporters Desk
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COVID-19 Report

New COVID-19 Cases Continue to Be Highest Among People Under 50; COVID-19 Deaths Highest Among People Over 50

Public Health March 20, confirmed 56 new deaths and 521 new cases of confirmed COVID-19. In total, Public Health has identified 1,213,784 cases of COVID-19 across all areas of L.A. County and 22,777 deaths.

 Younger people continue to drive community transmission of COVID-19 in the County. Over 70% of the new cases today are from people under the age of 50 years old; conversely, 93% of today’s reported deaths are people who are over 50 years old. Residents between the ages of 30 and 49 years old have the highest percent of new cases at 33%, followed by residents between the ages of 18 and 29 years old, comprising 24% of all new cases. 

As COVID-19 case rates, hospitalizations, and deaths continue to decrease in L.A. County, Public Health urges residents to continue exercising caution as more sectors reopen and some activity restrictions get lifted. Because certain activities can resume or reopening protocols are revised, that does not mean that those activities are safe or without risk. The pandemic persists, and whenever there are more opportunities for interactions with people not in your household, there can be more opportunities for transmission of the virus. 

Since LA County is in the Red Tier of the State’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy, private gathering can occur indoors with up to three separate households, with masking and distancing required at all times. Outdoors is still safer than indoors. People who are fully vaccinated can gather in small numbers indoors with other people who are fully vaccinated without required masking and distancing. 

Gatherings, even with people you know who have no symptoms and have tested negative, can still result in spread of the virus to many people. The risk of spread increases when people are not diligent about consistently and correctly wearing face masks or keeping their physical distance and when people gather indoors.

Over 3 Million Doses of the COVID-19 Vaccine Administered in Los Angeles County

As of March 19, nearly 3,235,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered to people across Los Angeles County. Of those vaccinated, 1,057,794 people received second doses and 25,170 people received the single dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. 

Beginning the week of March 22 the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (Public Health) is expecting to receive 280,000 vaccine doses. This allocation includes approximately 6,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The County expects to receive more Johnson & Johnson vaccine at the end of the month.

For information about who is eligible for COVID-19 vaccine in L.A. County, how to make an appointment if it is your turn, what verifications you will need to show at your vaccination appointment, and much more, visit: www.VaccinateLACounty.com (English) and www.VacunateLosAngeles.com (Spanish). Vaccinations are always free and open to eligible residents and workers regardless of immigration status.

Details:www.publichealth.lacounty.gov.

Solar And Storage Project Comes To Wilmington Senior Center

Reporters Desk
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Solar And Storage Project Comes To Wilmington Senior Center

Long caught in industry’s shadow at the Port of Los Angeles, locals in the community of Wilmington are about to go green. 

At the Wilmington Senior Center, 31.2 kilowatt DC, or direct current, of solar and 40.6  kWh storage capacity were installed February 2021 by way of a new project, GRID Alternatives Greater Los Angeles or GLA’s “Green Harbor” initiative — a combination of energy and battery storage.  It will provide adaptability during climate disasters and long-term energy independence for Banning Park’s twenty-year-old senior community. It was designed by nonprofit GLA with financial support from The 11th Hour Project (a program of the Schmidt Family Foundation) and a $25,000 Solar Moonshot Program grant,  managed by Hammond Climate Solutions, funded by Left Coast Fund. 

Living in the Harbor area, amid the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach brings with it issues of health concerns. The region has been called LA’s most burdened residential and industrial neighborhood in environmental health reports, like the Los Angeles and Long Beach Maritime Port Health Impact Assessment Scope. It sites “1) continued health inequities in communities impacted by port operations; 2) benefits of the Health Impact Assessment process for the ports; and 3) the possibility of collaboratively understanding project benefits and developing mitigations for adverse health impacts.”

For the Wilmington Jaycees Foundation, which operates the Wilmington Senior Center, the cost saving benefits of solar will enable it to expand its services. In addition to meal delivery, transportation, providing activities, education programs and social services, the center aims to offer COVID-19 vaccinations during the pandemic which has significantly affected low-income areas and communities of color.

“With these savings on our electric bill, we will be able to program an additional part-time staff person to  provide direct service,” said Gary Kern, Executive Director at the Wilmington Jaycees Foundation. 

Communities like those in the Harbor area have a stake in the transition to renewable technologies, as levels of pollution and the associated health impacts demonstrate. 

“Especially during these times, when  health disparities in our most vulnerable communities can’t be ignored, there is powerful symbolism when a mainstay like the Wilmington Senior Center goes green,” said Ashley Christy, GLA Executive Director.

The need for environmental justice in Wilmington is clear. Support for this construction project by The 11th Hour Project helps further the goals of the senior center’s staff to be both financially and environmentally sustainable. Wilmington Jaycees Foundation staff anticipate a $500 per month bill savings through this system will be instrumental as meal service programming expands to let five more Wilmington seniors participate daily — matching the growing needs in the neighborhood. 

In the Harbor area, residents live with 100 tons of daily smog emissions coming from two large ports. GRID GLA, which makes solar power accessible for local environmental and economic justice communities,  envisions resiliency improvements at Wilmington Senior Center as the first of multiple green projects. Clean power and storage for the only 20-acre open space in Wilmington — unblighted by extractive industry — serves as an environmental justice project model for similar neighborhoods that historically deal with disparities. 

Following completion of the ninety-six-panel system with storage, future Green Harbor projects surrounding the ports will include solar and resiliency improvements within council District 15 including San Pedro’s Toberman Neighborhood  Center and “cool roof” projects with solar for homes near LADWP’s gas-powered Harbor Generating Station. 

The Harbor area has a great investment in fossil fuels, Danny Hom project leader at GRID GLA said, but at the same time, if the region doesn’t partner in showing the viability of clean energy, it will get left behind.

Details: www.GRIDLA.org.

Metro Fairless System Initiative Town Hall

Reporters Desk
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Metro Fairless System Initiative Town Hall

Metro is studying how to eliminate fares on buses and trains and it wants to hear from you.

You’re invited to join a Telephone Town Hall March 31, to share your opinions on how a fareless system could impact the way you use transit. 

The Fareless System Initiative study is underway, and a leading concept has emerged – an 18-month fareless pilot program that could provide free rides on Metro buses and rail service for low-income riders starting in January 2022, and expanding to all K-12 students in August 2022. The purpose of the pilot is to test the feasibility of a fully fareless system. At the conclusion of the pilot in June 2023, Metro will evaluate the possibility of a fully fareless system. Metro invites you to learn more about this concept. The Town Hall meeting will also be an opportunity for you to share your feedback.

There are three ways to participate.

  1. To pre-register and receive a phone call when the Town Hall begins, register at: https://tthm.wufoo.com/forms/metro-telephone-town-hall-signup/
  2. To listen in live the day of, call 888.400.1932 (English) or 888.400.9342 (Spanish) at 6:30 pm
  3. Join via your web browser.

The Town Hall will also be translated into Armenian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese.Time: 6:30 to 7:30 March 31.

One Year, One Crisis, Two Restaurants

Richard Foss
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One Year, One Crisis, Two Restaurants

Two views of eateries coping with the pandemic, from a veteran and a newcomer

James Brown sounds pensive as he mused on how the pandemic may affect the psychology of his customers. 

“There’s going to be people that just really don’t want to be around people, at least at first. They want restaurant food, but are too nervous to sit down and eat it there. Others have told me they’re super excited to know that we’re reopening, they want to sit inside and feel like they’re getting the dining experience again. They dream of watching a Dodger or Laker game in a convivial environment.” 

James opened San Pedro Brewing 22 years ago and developed a sufficiently loyal customer following that the restaurant has stayed open with to-go business. That’s a feat for a sports bar, a style of dining more associated with grub that is just good enough to be enjoyed while distracted by the game. James has offered a higher standard than that and reconsidered his menu items for the take-out environment, but he only made one major change.

San Pedro Brewing Co. restaurateur James Brown pours a Port Town brew. Photo by Arturo Garcia-Ayala

“We have a really nice bone-in ribeye steak, our most expensive item, but it just doesn’t travel well. If you get it medium rare, which is the way that I like them, they’re cold by the time you get home … We made some other changes in packaging, like boxes that vent steam so the fries would arrive crisp, and I investigated all sorts of other technologies. I saw a program on Channel 5, the tech guy, and he interviewed some engineer that invented this little disk that you put in to go boxes, and it sucks up all the moisture and keeps your things crispy. I called them up and asked for a sample and they said no, and the minimum order was 10,000 at 25 cents each. OK, good luck, man. We just assume that when people order fries to go and they have a long drive, there’s that risk.”

Outdoor dining was a lifeline, but people didn’t spend money the way they had before. 

“In normal times we do 50% food, 50% alcohol. This past year it was 70/30, because we don’t have people coming up in ordering at the bar, getting shots and sitting around with friends. It wasn’t uncommon that people would be there for two hours watching a game, but now we’re having to ask them to move on after 90 minutes. One bright spot is that we’ve been selling a lot of growlers of our beer, 32 ounces to go. A lot of people have been drinking at home and wanted our fresh beer, and I hope they developed a taste for that.”

The other bright spot is that the move into the streets has made downtown lively and given it a stylish uniform look.  

“We have 17 parklets now, built to the same specifications, and I think it looks as good as any other town around. If you drive down Second Street in Long Beach they’re all different, and I think it doesn’t look that great. The Property Business Improvement District was smart to do that, spend a good amount of money building these parklets and keep them uniform.”

While James Brown’s customers who were missing sports could tune in a rerun at home, Jae Woo’s had no such outlet. Jae opened sushi specialist Otosan in Belmont Shore during the pandemic, and had to figure out how to operate without a pivotal component of a high-end establishment. 

“That experience where you sit at the counter and interact with the chef, develop that relationship, get something that’s fresh that day, that’s off the table in this environment. In lieu of that we focused on creating a very thoughtful experience even at home. We chose items that we thought would survive the trip home. For our noodle soups, we separate the noodles from the broth so that the noodles don’t get soggy on the trip. We tried offering omakase (chef’s choice) meals but had to stop, because with sushi, temperature is such an important element. It’s not the same if the rice isn’t warm, and the fish is not the right temperature, the way it is when you eat it within 15 seconds of it being made.” 

Since the restaurant opened during the pandemic, Jae’s servers have never had the experience that draws people to a high-end sushi bar. Instead, they have had to cope with service patterns that are unpredictable. 

“One day we’d have a lot of staff and never get busy, so everyone’s bored and unmotivated. The next day you think you’re going to be slow, and then all of a sudden, it gets crazy and stressful. Having people that can be flexible on your team is probably the biggest piece of our success.” 

Jae hasn’t had to ask people to vacate tables, but organized the menu subtly so she wouldn’t have to. 

“We don’t have any happy hour where people would be sitting for a long time, and I’d like to have coffee service and a dessert program, but those have to wait. We had to stay aware of the fact that right now the only thing we can accommodate is people eating full meals and then taking off right after that. Our customers seem pretty mindful of what’s going on and know we have pretty limited space. I was concerned about that, but it hasn’t really been a huge problem.”

Like James, Jae knows that some people may not feel comfortable dining out for some time, but she strikes an optimistic note. 

“It’s going to take a long time before people are mentally where they were at pre-pandemic. Even with precautions, even after they’re vaccinated. I’m hoping that the people that are excited to dine out will offset the portion of the population that is reluctant to do that yet. I think that when people start feeling comfortable in public, they’re going to go back to what they love. They’re gonna snap right back to it. I think so. I hope so.”

Otosan

Location: 6460 Pacific Coast Highway, #140, Long Beach 

Details: otosan-sushi.com, 562-431-1334 

San Pedro Brewing Company

Location: 331 W. 6th St., San Pedro. 

Details: sanpedrobrewing.com, 310-831-5663 

From WriteGirl to Strong, Free-Thinking Women

Melina Paris
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From WriteGirl to Strong, Free-Thinking Women

Never underestimate the power of a girl and her pencil 

“I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life’s a bitch. You’ve got to go out and kick ass.” —Maya Angelou 

Amanda Gorman has accomplished a prolific number of great feats at only 23 years old. Most prominently — as everyone outside of the literary world has come to know her as the youngest poet to ever do so — she delivered her poem The Hill We Climb at President Joe Biden’s inauguration. Both the poem and Gorman garnered international acclaim.

Gorman at first wrote songs and her third-grade teacher encouraged her to keep writing. At that time, Gorman has said, she felt like an outsider but her teacher made sure she felt valued as a writer. In that class she wrote her first set of poems and eventually developed a love for journaling. 

But another part of Gorman’s early life has served as a major force in the forming of the young poet and activist — WriteGirl, a Los Angeles-based creative writing and mentoring organization, whose 200 volunteer women writers serve more than 500 girls annually. Among other things, WriteGirl has a 100 % success rate of helping its high school seniors both graduate and enroll in college. At WriteGirl, ripe with social intellect and concern for justice and equity, Gorman gained a holistic writing foundation. 

Two of Gorman’s mentors spoke about the impact of WriteGirl on young girls and about Gorman, who they described as a driven young woman.

“She joined WriteGirl at 14, through her high school years, until we helped her get into Harvard,” said Keren Taylor, executive director of WriteGirl. “We can’t certainly take all the credit for Amanda. She went to Harvard and has been involved in a multitude of organizations, but we did give her her start and … we were influential in many ways and [in] putting some positive direction into her life and into her formative years.”

Launched in 2001, WriteGirl brings the skills of professional women writers to teenage girls who don’t have access to creative writing or mentoring programs. As a hallmark, WriteGirl encourages girls to explore all different forms of writing and to read writers who they’re unfamiliar with, including in poetry, journalism, song writing, screenwriting and fiction. This creates more well rounded writers and sets WriteGirl apart from other organizations as it helps girls explore all styles of writing. Their voice emerges after so much experimentation and exposure to varied writing styles.

Gorman’s other mentor is Laurie Geltman, her high school music and guitar teacher at New Roads, the socio-economically progressive private school in Santa Monica. While impressed by her student, Geltman didn’t perceive Gorman’s success as an overnight event.

“For anybody that knew Amanda, she was extraordinary,” said Geltman, who joked that the young Gorman always carried a clipboard.

“She might have had a pencil and paper, but [she] was very adult the way that she [took] notes,” Geltman said. “She cared about staying on top of things in the classroom. She was diligent and she displayed leadership qualities. She was both an ambassador to the United Nations and the youth poet laureate. 

“Amanda is her generation’s Maya Angelou.” 

Gorman’s connection to Angelou is twofold, as the second Black poet laureate to recite a poem at a presidential inauguration and Angelou is  the young poet’s role model.

Geltman has volunteered with WriteGirl for 15 years as a songwriter at its summer workshop. She taught Amanda guitar in eighth grade. She recalled when Malala Yousafzai came out, it was a big deal at New Roads because some of the tenets of the school are social justice and environmental stewardship.

After learning about how Malala fought for girls’ education in Pakistan, Gorman applied for a fellowship to participate in an annual meeting on women’s rights at the United Nations headquarters in New York and got it.

“The organization that [Gorman] started in high school,” Geltman said. “One Pen, One Page, was inspired by Malala.”

Geltman said these are the things that students grow up with and New Roads deserves credit. It instilled ideas of independent thinking, critical thinking and social justice in Gorman. This was coupled with WriteGirl’s philosophy of not being competitive but rather being supportive and about the girls’ intrinsic power. 

WriteGirl stays in touch with Gorman, as it does with most of their alumni, trying to find new opportunities for them and making introductions.

“We realize they still need a lot of support,” Taylor said. “There’s still more of the world to navigate.”

This is fundamental to WriteGirl. In their long term journeys, it helps high school girls with their confidence, Taylor said. Once they get into college, identify the type of writing they want to do and as they find their voices, helping them on this long arc requires hard work to maintain communication systems. WriteGirl trains its staff to understand the nature of those long term relationships and how to support a young woman even during those times when mentors may have to stop and are no longer involved. 

“Seeing Amanda deliver her poem at the inaugural was a wonderful, prideful moment,” Taylor said. “But it’s also wonderful to see the impact that she has on so many others. That ripple effect … Not only are we helping girls but … we’re helping them become world citizens who want to give back to the world.”

Another WriteGirl alumnae has also realized fame. Arielle Davis, an economics student at University of California Los Angeles, joined WriteGirl five years ago. An abuse survivor, Davis credited WriteGirl for empowering her with the writing skills she needed to share her story. Davis has said the group is the first place she encountered free-thinking women.

“Now the world is getting the chance to see some of these young girls we’ve been working with,” Taylor said. “We just got finished doing a partnership with FoxTV and Arielle … one of our more recent alums. She wrote a beautiful poem in honor of Women’s History Month, [https://tinyurl.com/writegirl-davis.] It’s [an] amazing short film that comes to life because of Arielle’s poem,” Taylor said.

WriteGirl Ways

A typical exercise at WriteGirl is “Soapbox.” Each girl gets on the mic and rants about anything for 30 seconds. As a vehicle for teens to get their ideas out, it’s often followed with writing. WriteGirls start to see the connections between their emotions and their ideas — what they should put on paper. 

“Not the flowery language that sometimes school pushes you into using but more of the visceral, this is what I’m thinking, … what I’m feeling,” Taylor said.

They ask the girls to write about things they care about, like a letter to their mother. The girls explore things deeply personal and meaningful for them, allowing for ideas to come forward.

“By encouraging them to explore their senses … it gets the girls to the paper and they instantly start writing,” Taylor said. “Give a girl enough of those experiences, she won’t fear the blank page anymore.” 

WriteGirl gives its mentors a lot of training, or deprogramming from bad writing workshops or classes that make rules and obstacles that prevent “the flow.” It’s about keeping it visual and tactile and sensory. 

WriteGirl is a community, Taylor said. She especially feels it in the pride that the entire organization has about Gorman and her journey. 

“WriteGirl has been the community that I would like to have in the world,” Taylor said. “When things are rough in the pandemic, in politics, in any way, it’s my WriteGirl community that repairs my heart and soul and my faith in individuals and the kindness and joy and creativity of  writers and creators. It’s been on my mind, especially as we’re all here in boxes and in isolation.”

Taylor encapsulated how WriteGirl — its joy, support of a girl’s authority over herself and connecting to those passionate ideas — was exemplified in Gorman’s poem.

“That [was] my greatest joy in watching her perform at the inauguration,” Taylor said. “It was the throughline between what Amanda was doing up there and what WriteGirl is.”

Random Letters: 3-18-21

RLn
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Random Letters: 3-18-21

Faux Disaster Assistance

State Employment Development Department employees told me they issued a “Notice of Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Award” and then deny benefits and they said they do it all the time. I reached out to ascertain the unemployment code on this contradiction; not one response from Gov. Newsom. Thousands of applicants may have received EDD (PUA) award letters that the EDD refuses to pay out. 

The site disasterassistance.gov states, “No disasters declared for individual assistance were found for” Los Angeles, California. The city plans to spend over $88 million for youth programs, neighborhood beautification, job and business programs, nonprofit services; $14 million for policing alternatives, administrative $4,250,680.35 out of $81 million given to the Homeless Services Authority and eviction defense services. A total 500 households of single parents in Curren Price’s district may receive $1,000 a month for 12 months. (In 2015-2019 there were 1,383,869 households in LA). Is East Los Angeles excluded? $7.75 million to pay for “unarmed response” to homelessness and nonviolent calls. Surely there is no shortage of money in Los Angeles. A federal Judge in December 2020 (case 2:20-cv-02291 filed 3/10/20) said he did not expect city officials and homeless advocates to help more than 60% of the homeless. Millions of dollars but I bet not one penny for mandatory affordable housing.

I support minimum mandatory 85% across the city affordable housing to include extremely low income, very low income, and low and moderate income tenants. 

G. Juan Johnson, Los Angeles

Re: The Dark Side of Carson’s New Development

Great title for that article. Shame most of it was just printing a bunch of lies from City officials with zero attempt to confirm or deny what you were told. 

I, and a few others, could clarify all of that, yet nobody searched us out, to my knowledge. 

Claire from the article could have set up a meeting, so your paper didn’t come off as a rag, that simply prints city press releases.

The part you did do well, however, were the interviews with Claire and Patricia. Kudos for that, at least.

Feel free to contact me if you’d like a more realistic picture of this threat not only to our parks, but eventually to many of the 20-plus other parks in the City of Carson.

Jstn Green, Carson

We published a follow up to “The Dark Side of Carson’s New Development” at www.randomlengthsnews.com that goes into detail how COVID-19 lockdown restrictions and altered Brown Act rules eased the path for the Imperial Avalon development to a fait accompli.

Terelle Jerricks, Managing Editor

Three Hours and 19 Minutes

U.S. Army Lieutenant General Charles Flynn needs to be taken into custody immediately by the FBI for facilitating the right-wing domestic terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. 

Contact FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. at 202-324-3000, and tell the FBI to arrest Lt. Gen. Charles Flynn as an accessory to the murder of Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick.

Charles Flynn is the younger brother of convicted felon and fellow insurrectionist traitor Michael Flynn, the Russian asset and National Security Adviser for Vladimir Putin’s puppet Donald Trump. Trump (of course you will recall) is the disgraced, defeated, deranged, delusional former president.

Three hours and 19 minutes went by before traitor Trump’s intransigent Pentagon (publicly shamed by the television news networks during disapproving live coverage) was finally forced to send National Guard troops in response to the domestic terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol by pea-brained, pro-Trump psychopaths who insist they were following demonic Donald’s demands.

Cop-killing conservatives like Charles Flynn belong in prison, not in uniform! A court-martial will be unnecessary once Lt. Gen. Flynn is dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army, which should have happened on January 7th. Flynn should have already been arrested and in jail without bail awaiting trial on charges of sedition and facilitating the capital murder of a police officer at the U.S. Capitol. There will be no presidential pardon this time for this Flynn brother.

Charles Flynn needs to be tried transparently and publicly as soon as possible in a civilian court of law, as opposed to the usual Defense Department coverup of crimes committed by those in command. An inexplicable delay of 3 hours and 19 minutes only means one thing — Lt. Gen. Charles Flynn is guilty as hell! Lock Flynn up!

Jake Pickering, Arcata, Calif.

Looking for Fair Shake

Terelle Jerricks
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Looking for Fair Shake

It was news to Jeff Steiman that there was a deal on the table that would pay Imperial Avalon Mobile Home Park Estates residents like him up to $86,000 plus relocation fees and the right to live in the developments once built. Carson Mayor Lula Davis Holmes said as much in an interview with Random Lengths News days after she was sworn into office this past January. 

But perhaps the biggest problem is the planning commission’s acceptance of the Relocation Impact Report submitted by Faring Capital, which states the soonest residents can be made to move out is January 2022. Despite resident protests, the Carson City Council refused to — or rather, couldn’t consider delaying the Relocation Impact Report hearing until after the COVID restrictions were lifted. Lack of high speed internet for Zoom meetings and translators were just the tip of the iceberg in Carson.

Steiman is a 50-something-year-old resident at the Imperial Avalon Mobile Home Estates Park and network administrator. He noted that without an environmental impact report, which can take years depending on toxins yet to be cleaned from the soil, Faring Capital couldn’t begin developing the property. According to his reasoning, why the rush?

“A lot of it is because the environmental report they can’t get passed because Carson sits on a landfill,” Steiman said.

Mayor Pro Tem Jim Dear had the same thought. In mid-2019, Faring Capital, a developer, purchased the property. Imperial Avalon Mobile Home Parks Estates has been operated as a mobile home park since the early 1970s. Faring Capital notified residents of its intention to close the park via a letter dated Sept. 20, 2019 and conducted an initial outreach meeting on Oct. 9, 2019. 

“When the original letter went out it said 18 to 24 months,” Mayor Pro Tem Jim Dear said. “I went to the new owner and I suggested to them, ‘Why don’t you make it a time frame of 5 years to 10 years instead’ and they agreed to it because of other circumstances. I guess they agreed to extend it an additional one year because the 2-year period would have been over in January of 2021, but I was able to succeed in getting it to January 2022.

Councilman Cedrick Hicks urged the process to be pushed to 2024 because of the pandemic.

“Now, I would like to have it extended longer. As you know, the developer is looking at other factors like getting a development agreement, getting funding from [other] sources … for their project and so forth,” Dear said.“But I’m saying it, ‘Let’s give the senior citizens more time to make that major, major adjustment in their life.’” 

City Attorney Sunny Soltani hosted a meeting with the residents to discuss park closure

issues and answer questions on Nov. 4, 2019. Mobile home park residents acquired legal counsel for representation. Faring Capital, thereafter, only conducted individual meetings and responded to inquiries through 2020.

Around April 4, 2020, amid COVID-19 restrictions, Faring Capital sent a letter updating residents on the status of the park closure process. On April 8, 2020 Faring Capital completed its Relocation Impact Report application. By April 10, park residents received a public hearing notice before the planning commission along with a copy of the RIR and relevant appraisal information. The planning commission meeting hearing was scheduled for July 7, 2020.

The Iceberg

The City Attorney’s office sent a letter to the park residents’ legal counsel around May 5, 2020, informing them of the opportunities park residents would have to participate in the public hearing in real-time on May 13, 2020. 

In addition to the means of participation specified in the public hearing notice, the letter stated that all residents who wished to submit public comments during the hearing in real-time, as well as the residents’ legal counsel and homeowners’ association president, would be invited to join the Zoom meeting to do so. Residents wishing to simply observe the hearing in real-time without offering public comment could watch it on the city’s PEG channel or streamed live on the city’s website.

However, the problem is that many of the park’s residents are seniors and are not tech savvy. Also, since the start of the pandemic, Gov. Gavin Newsom has relaxed and/or amended Brown Act rules for public meetings to make them compliant with COVID-19 restrictions. This also has meant less access to city officials, public documents and public meetings for concerned citizens.

At least three Imperial Park residents complained about this in lengthy letters blasting the appraisal process and the accommodations made for less tech savvy residents who are seniors and individuals with physical challenges.

Nowhere was this more apparent than when residents began requesting that the public meetings on the Relocation Impact Report and other public hearings take place after the COVID-19 restrictions were lifted — some in handwritten letters on lined paper. 

Imperial Avalon resident and HOA president, Peggy Anderson, strongly objected to the online hearing format, noting that a large number of residents didn’t have access to a computer let alone the internet. 

“Due to COVID-19 restrictions we have been unable to meet as a group to discuss anything and we can’t meet with our legal council [sic],” Anderson wrote. “Our attorneys asked everyone in power for a postponement and heard nothing back as of this writing. On Oct. 1, 2019, Mayor Robles promised the park residents ‘due process.’ Where is the due process when half of those affected can’t participate.”

Imperial Avalon resident Brian Lee echoed the same points but was specifically pointed about the lack of high speed internet at the park to even participate in a Zoom call as well as lack of services to accommodate various language barriers at the park.

“Imperial Avalon Mobile Estates lack high-speed internet operations, as AT&T DSL is the only option for the park,” Lee wrote. “Currently, AT&T DSL fails to provide adequate speed and reliability for basic streaming services. This will also result in low attendance not by choice of the residents, but by the situation they are forced into.” 

“The mobile home park population has a diverse range of ethnicities,” Lee said. “For many of the residents, English is not their first language. Interpreter support has previously been provided for other meetings related to this issue and must continue to be provided including this meeting. The minimum request for transportation services are but not limited to: Spanish, Korean, Japanese, Tagalog, and assisted-hearing devices.” 

The same complaints were lodged ahead of the Oct. 28, 2020 meeting. Mobile home owner Linda Harding was one of those complainants who asked the city for more time.

“The City of Carson should clearly think about putting a moratorium on closing this park until the pandemic is at the very least in The Minimal Stage,” Harding said.

Carson City Council hosted a special meeting on Oct. 28, 2020 at Dignity Health Sports Park to allow mobile home residents of Imperial Avalon to express their concerns about the park closure.

Julie Lopez, the homeowners association attorney, was present in the workshop on Oct. 28, 2020  that was set up after the mobile home owners protested in front of city hall. She argued about the timing of the process and the risk of her clients being at the highest risk of contracting the virus.

“We objected vehemently and repeatedly to the city council hearing going forward in the middle 

of a pandemic,” Lopez said. “The courts were shut down for months, we had no jury trials. Everything was on hold. If there was ever a time when a local government could postpone a hearing like this, it was during this pandemic.”

The proposed Imperial Avalon Park development is not the only controversial development to get rushed through this era of COVID-19 restrictions. In San Pedro, residents recently learned that the Red Car line along the waterfront was a casualty of the new One San Pedro Development that’s set to replace the Rancho San Pedro public housing. In Watts, a huge swath of the Watts Cultural Crescent, a key part of the 55-year-old neighborhood dream for green space, was sold to a private developer with no public notice or meeting. 

Appraisals Sticking Point

The way the coach appraisals were conducted continue to be a sore point for residents. Residents were told that they would “be made whole in 2019.” 

“The City Attorney [Sunny Soltani] promised to do it when she met with us back in 2019,” Steiman said. “The expression they were using, and I’m talking about seniors now, ‘We will make you whole.’ They’re far from whole, and they know it.”

Steiman said the city didn’t require an appraisal comparison, noting that it isn’t required by law. At the July 7 hearing on Imperial Avalon’s Relocation Impact Report, Soltani discussed a study conducted by relocation specialists showing that there were no comparable mobile home parks in 50 miles of Imperial Avalon Mobile Home Estates. 

“They skirted [Carson Municipal code] by saying, ‘well we can just do a peer review with the guy we choose. Let the owners’ appraiser do the actual appraisal,’” Steiman said. “They skirted that so I can show you what the difference looks like, plus we’re in the process of getting an appraiser where you can actually see what fair market value is compared to what this is.”

Carson City Council wanted to create a more equitable situation despite the circumstances. 

“Well, [Robles] had a council majority on his side apparently so because of that and the staff pushing it at the time,” Dear said. “His staff [the Planning Commission and City Attorney were] listening to the mayor instead of the people. The consequence was that the staff and also the [mayor appointed] planning commission were cooperating [with Faring Capital].” 

The first on-site appraisals were conducted by Faring Capital’s certified appraiser, James Netzer. Netzer concluded that the park’s overall appraisal was $13 million. Netzer actually went from coach to coach and evaluated all 200 lots. When divided by the 200 lots that comprises Imperial Avalon Estates, it works out to an average of $65,000 per coach. James Brabant, hired by the city, peer reviewed Netzer’s work.

The result of the appraisal and the city’s peer-review process, where the following three options residents could choose from:

Option A, residents would be given relocation assistance and fees to move to another park. Very few residents would be able to move due the declining number of parks in the first place and very few spots in the parks that remain. Additionally, most parks won’t allow mobile homes older than five  years old. Only 10 of the 203 mobile homes were eligible to be relocated within 50 miles.

Option B, residents would be given a lump sum payment that would include the appraised on-site value of the mobile home exchange for the mobile home title without any liens attached. If a resident still has a mortgage, Faring Capital would use that lump sum to pay off that mortgage or lien and the resident would get whatever is left, plus relocation costs. 

Option C would apply to residents whose households qualify as extremely low income, very low income, or low income households and want to relocate to an available rental unit owned by an affiliate of Faring Capital. The resident would receive 30% of the appraised on-site value of the mobile home in exchange for the mobile home title, lien free. In addition, the resident would receive a guaranteed right to tenancy at a Faring Capital-affiliated development for 10 years at Affordable Housing rent levels, consistent with the resident’s income qualifications based on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The approval of the Relocation Impact Report on July 7, 2020 guaranteed that the earliest residents could be asked to leave was January 2022.

“The eviction date is a factor determined by the owner of the property, not the city, because it’s private property and they own it, and they can close it,” Dear said. “But if you want to do the right thing then they’ll be more equitable in the evaluation of the property.”

At the July 7 Relocation Impact Report Hearing, Tim Tatro of Tatro and Lopez LLP, the Homeowners Association attorney, seeming to assuage fears that residents were trying to nix the deal no matter what, told the council and former Mayor Albert Robles that they were solely trying “to make the pie a little bit bigger for the residents so that none of these nearly 400 people end up homeless.” 

Dear suggested that getting the full appraised value of each coach was not the goal, but softening the blow of what was coming was.

“Let me say this, they told me that they will do the right thing … that they would be fair and equitable,” said Dear. “So, I just hope that they keep to their word. They seem like reasonable honest people, but you know the proof is in the pudding.”  

The city council result was adjusted to add Brabant’s values, have the coach owners receive the purchase price and what they have paid for rent control. Dear motioned a proposal to Fairing Capital to adjust Option C. Imperial Avalon Community Development Director Darren Embry agreed to increase the offer of 10 to 20 years in the new development and 45% of the appraised value to residents who choose Option C.

“Certainly anything that’s better than what the residents had before I would support and recommend to the residents and HOA board,” Tatro said.

Councilmember Jawane Hilton  requested a continued dialogue for fair market value and Option C to contain 100% of the coach value. Steiman still doesn’t think residents got the best deal possible. He argued that what the city offered in appraisals of onsite coaches was according to the valuations by the National Automobile Dealerships Association, which Steiman describes as a Blue Book for mobile homes.

“They are not giving these people fair market value [for their mobile homes], which means that a lot or most of the coaches which, let’s say, were built in the 70s and 80s, which on their own are worth pretty much nothing…” Steiman explained. “So instead of giving them $100,000 in the fair market they’re giving them $35,000.”

A few of the residents had had their coaches privately appraised, with some generating values that were twice what was reflected by Netzer’s appraisal. This and other layman’s price comparisons conducted by the residents themselves have contributed to their sense of being hoodwinked. 

Hands Tied By State Law

But perhaps the biggest issue of all is that residents feel unheard and that both the developer and the city used COVID restrictions and resulting adjustment of public meeting rules to dodge scrutiny.

In all of this, the city’s ability to mitigate the potential harms mobile home residents were tied by state law. During the Oct. 28 hearing on Imperial Avalon park, City Attorney Soltani explained the city poured resources into lobbying for a change in the law to give cities more control over mitigation efforts. The law that was passed and enacted January 2021 stopped short of the city’s goal with the clause, “The steps required to be taken to mitigate shall not exceed the reasonable cost of relocation.” 

The City also failed to get the new law to apply retroactively, leaving Imperial Avalon residents out in the cold nevertheless. Soltani explained that this left the city to mitigate as much as possible under existing law as possible. In other words, the city was left saying, “we did our best under the circumstances.”

This answer was little consolation to Imperial Avalon residents. As for Steiman, he says he wasn’t so worried about himself. 

“I just didn’t want this being done as ‘oh poor seniors’ and see them kind of sitting on the corner,” Steiman said. “I want their stories to be heard and seen as people.”

Editorial Intern Iracema Navarro contributed to this story.

Carson City Council Fail to Fill Vacant Seat, Proceeds to Special Election

Joseph Baroud
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Carson City Council Fail to Fill Vacant Seat, Proceeds to Special Election

At a March 11 meeting, Carson’s city council voted to hold a special election to fill the council seat vacated by recently elected mayor, Lula Davis-Holmes. A special election is now necessary after the council failed to appoint someone at the meeting as nominations repeatedly ended with a 2-2 split. Mayor Holmes and Councilman Cedrick Hicks were on one side and Council persons Jim Dear and Juwane Hilton were on the other.

Mayor Davis-Holmes has said she favored a candidate that would allow the city council to be reflective of Carson’s ethnic diversity  The main splitting point arose under the perception that the council needed a more diverse representation. The council is currently made up of three African-Americans and one white person. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 23.8% of Carson’s residents were African-American and 27% were white in 2019. The Hispanic percentage of the population exceeded both at 37% while the Asian population made up 26.7% of Carson’s population.

In a March 2 council meeting, Davis-Holmes expressed this as being one of her biggest concerns moving forward. She said that Carson had always been a leader in diversifying its council to adequately represent its population but feels the city has been losing this identity over the years. 

“We don’t have a Filipino on our council. We don’t have a Latino on our council,” Holmes said. “I’m just concerned that if we’re forced to go to an election, we may still not have that.”

But she also said that if the residents of the city choose someone who she doesn’t feel would bring about the diversity she’s mentioning, she’d be content with the peoples’ choice. Hilton on the other hand, didn’t agree with the notion of not wanting to appoint another African-American to the council because it would decrease diverse representation and felt that diversity in this context meant something other than race.

Councilman Hilton argued for a broader notion of diversity — one that considers qualifications.

“When we talk about diversity, I want to quickly point out that diversity isn’t only about color,” Hilton said. “We could appoint a woman tonight and the council will be diverse. It’s not just about color. It’s based on qualification. So many people are looked over based on color, not their qualifications.”

The council considered 46 applicants but none were able to get three of four available votes needed to get the interim seat that would last until the election in November.

One of Jim Dear’s nominations was reserved for former council member Elito Santarina who served Carson from 2003 to 2017 in different fashions as a mayor pro tem and a council member. Former city manager and California State University Public Administrator Jerry Groomes was one of Hilton’s nominations. 

The next course of action, which was the only thing the council was able to agree on will be to hand the decision over to the city’s residents for the Nov. 2 election.

“I think it’s best that we allow the residents of Carson to determine who’s going to be the person to represent district four,” Hicks said. “All of us have been elected to sit at this desk and I hope that we will put this back on the residents so that they can make the determination.”

Buscaino’s Hammer and Nails Solutions

James Preston Allen
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Buscaino’s Hammer and Nails Solutions

By James Preston Allen, Publisher

Joe Buscaino was first elected to the Los Angeles City Council District 15 on Jan. 17, 2012 to fill the vacancy left by Janice Hahn, following her successful bid for the U.S. House of Representatives. He had no previous elected experience unless you count class president at San Pedro High School or raising enough money to be honorary mayor just before running for council office. His previous career, after graduating from California State University of Dominguez Hills with a Bachelor of Arts degree in communication, was as a  Los Angeles Police Department officer. This explains his police-centric view of city governance and his total reliance on digital communications, which circumvent the local media whenever possible.

By contrast, this publication gets daily press releases from Gov. Gavin Newsom, Mayor Eric Garcetti and Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn just to name a few electeds. From Buscaino’s office, by contrast, we get a onceweekly diet of filtered self-promotional “good news” about him. It’s the Good News Joe selfie report that comes out on Fridays. And it never carries a disparaging word about anything.  

In these reports, by Buscaino’s propagandist Branimir Kvartuc, you would come to believe that everything is just hunkydory here in the 15th District, that he had made steady gains in addressing the homeless crisis, crime and making his district the envy of all the city. The truth is far more complex and self-evident as both crime and homelessness have increased beyond what palliative actions he has used to cure either. 

His approach to most things that can’t be glossed over or constricted by court orders ends up appearing more like enforcements than solutions. It’s a bit like if you only have a hammer every problem looks like a nail.  

On homelessness, it would appear on the surface that he and the city are making great strides with several Bridge Home shelters opened and finally a “tiny home” village being constructed and lots of apartments being built. And yet, the average homeless count from 2020 showed that even with all the efforts the City and County of Los Angeles made to provide shelter for the 63,703 homeless, the population increased by 12.7%.  One can only guess what a year of the pandemic will actually cause as the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority count was postponed due to COVID-19 this year.

While the LAPD and Buscaino have backed off the strict “no camping on public property” laws, mainly because the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the city of Boise, Idaho in a landmark decision, local citizenry continue to cry out in opposition to public encampments, both in support for more solutions and against them as being a blight. If not for federal Judge David O. Carter holding the city council’s feet to the fire over enforcement without beds, things would be far worse. One of the few items that never made it into Buscaino’s propaganda reports is that Judge Carter actually convened his court in the council chambers to grill all 15 council members on exactly what they were going to do. Shortly thereafter, the “pallet (tiny) homes’’ made an appearance on the 15th District office’s to-do list. 

Now tiny homes wouldn’t seem to be much of a big deal except for the fact that the sudden awareness five years ago of the homeless problem countywide came about because the Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council supported a young activist by the name of Elvis Summers to build tiny homes for a few people living without shelter down on Beacon Street. This spurred an anti-homeless social media uprising that was heard all the way down at city hall and picked up by every news outlet in Southern California.

Prior to this, Buscaino considered homelessness a nail and enforcement measures the hammer. He wouldn’t listen to the community activists who understood the issues.  At the time, I explained to those who were listening that what we have is an octagonal problem trying to be solved with a three-point solution.  Today the councilman has an eight-point program that has evolved by order of the judge, but which hasn’t done more than take a few hundred souls off the streets. Well at least it’s something, but still not enough. And now he wants to drag this hammer and nail approach to the mayor’s office. It would be different if he was actually building something out of wood, but he’s not.

Back when the NIMBYs rose up waving the Saving San Pedro banner against the tiny homes, they were all for their Sicilian hometown boy. But the day after he announced his run for mayor, the majority of them on Facebook wouldn’t support him for dog catcher. His detractors on both the right and the left criticize him for the same failures, albeit from opposing perspectives. The homeless crisis seems to be the main focal point with few affordable housing units being built or even proposed among the various developments he has tried to rush through city planning. And then there are the continued enforcement sweeps to clean up encampments where no sanitation services are provided, no safe campsites are provided and the local residents rightly complain about the squalor.

What Buscaino doesn’t get is that he has had the power to cure much of the homeless crisis from the very beginning, he just wasn’t willing to listen to anything outside of his own social media bell jar that conflicted with his hammer and nail approach. 

In light of the recent Chaleff Report on LAPD response to the demonstrations last summer, it seems unlikely that electing a former police officer for mayor would get wide support. That he is so committed to being a cop in this era of defund and reimagine policing isn’t going to garner much support from the growing array of LAPD critics citywide. Especially since he has not supported any of the most popular public safety reforms.

In the end, Councilman Buscaino’s rather boosterish approach to leading the district has left many wondering if he’s qualified to lead the largest city in California when what is really needed is leadership that listens to the people and actually fixes the problems.

A Shot In the Arm

Hunter Chase
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A Shot In the Arm

Injecting vaccines in the Harbor Area

By Hunter Chase, Community News Reporter

Most people have spent the pandemic trying to avoid people infected with COVID-19, which has killed more than 532,000 in the United States alone. The 60 people on the staff of the Harbor Community Health Centers have done the opposite — they have been treating people with COVID-19, and as a result, 10 of them have been infected at different times.

Now, they are no longer putting themselves in as much risk. They have been vaccinated with the Moderna vaccine, which is 94.1% effective. They have just begun vaccinating other people.

“We’re going to essentially follow the tier groups,” said Jennifer Chen, a nurse practitioner and director of clinical operations at the Harbor Community Health Centers in San Pedro.

While the centers have three locations, only the location at 6th Street offers vaccinations.

“We have this outdoor area that we’re setting up, because [patients] have to be monitored for 15 to 30 minutes post-vaccination,” Chen said. “So you want to make sure we have enough social distancing room to accommodate that.”

Vaccinations for patients 65 and older began on March 3, and will move to the next tier as each group is completed. 

The centers requested 300 doses of the Moderna vaccine, but will only receive 100, said Tamra King, CEO of the centers. The centers now receive 100 doses every week.

Prior to receiving the vaccine, the 60 staffers at the centers were just as susceptible to infection as the rest of the public. Because of the cases of infection among the staff, further preventive measures were put in place.

“We did weekly testing for all staff until we had … no negatives for a few weeks,” Chen said. “Any employee essentially who says they don’t feel well, have a fever or anything like that, we test them right away.”

King said the staff has had no COVID-19 cases for six or seven weeks.

“It’s definitely calming down amongst the staff,” King said.

When administered, the vaccine feels like a standard flu shot; it only stings a bit, Chen said. Most people don’t feel any immediate effects, but later that day or evening some people have reported sore arms, fevers, chills or fatigue, and some get headaches or nausea.

Not everyone that gets the vaccine has side effects, but among those who do, those side effects tend to be stronger after the second dose. If a person experiences a strong allergic reaction to the first dose, said person should not get the second dose. This has already happened to one of the people that received the vaccine at the centers.

Unfortunately, there are few treatments for COVID-19 that are scientifically proven. One uses monoclonal antibodies, which can act as substitute antibodies to restore, enhance or mimic the immune system’s attack on cells’ infusion centers. Chen has been in communication with the county of Los Angeles about how to refer patients to infusion centers for these antibodies.

“Other than that, we do very symptomatic treatment,” Chen said. “We treat the cough and cold with over-the-counters; if they need inhalers, we’ll give those.”

The staff monitor infected patients, especially if their oxygen saturation is fluctuating. If necessary, they administer supplemental oxygen.

“We don’t have good, solid therapies for … the moderate to more severe disease,” Chen said.

Patients who need treatment for severe symptoms are referred to a hospital.

As vaccinations have become the focus of the fight against COVID-19, the role of testing is evolving.  The centers have been doing “COVID clinics” in the afternoons for four days a week, where they offer testing and treatment.

“When we started, [the clinics were] filling up pretty quickly,” Chen said. “If we tested 10 people, maybe one to two would be positive. Recently, in the last couple weeks, we haven’t really had that much demand for testing anymore.”

King said they are only testing patients who have had prolonged, direct exposure to someone who was infected, or are showing symptoms of COVID-19.

“We’re not really doing like the big drive-through testings, [we’re not] doing the general public,” King said. “We just don’t have enough supplies.”

Before they allow patients to enter the building, they ask screening questions, such as if they have had any symptoms or exposures. The staff also checks patients’ temperatures.

“We are able to handle most of our visits through telehealth, which really decreases the foot traffic coming through the clinic,” Chen said.

The staff at the centers have a better handle on COVID-19 than they have previously — but this is mainly because cases have been going down.

“If cases were to pick up again, we would be in a very similar situation because there’s no good outpatient treatment necessarily besides the monoclonal antibodies, and we haven’t really developed a very streamlined workflow of getting people into infusion centers to get those if they were to need it,” Chen said. “Treating the symptoms, that’s pretty much all we have.”

During a recent spike in cases, emergency rooms were full and ambulances were not taking anyone except the more severe cases. If there is another spike, the same challenges could return.

The centers have also struggled at times with their supply of personal protective equipment, or PPE.

“We did have kind of a glove scare last month where we were running extremely low on gloves,” Chen said.

The staff has had instances of running low on masks and face shields as well but were eventually able to replenish their supplies. They also had a shortage of needles when the vaccines first rolled out, but this is no longer an issue.

Most people that visit the centers are there for reasons unrelated to COVID-19. They still get patients for physicals and check-ups, as well as routine follow-ups for diabetes, hypertension, asthma and abdominal pain.

The Harbor Community Health Centers are currently the only clinics in San Pedro where you can get a vaccination. Other locations can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/vaccination-locations/myturn.ca.gov.

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