Anais Franco was just nine years old when she first stepped foot on American soil, leaving what she knew behind, her life in Mexico.
“I remember entering the U.S. through [the] San Ysidro Port of Entry,” said Franco., now a 29-year-old woman. “An African- American man greeted us and allowed us to come in, while my mom was left behind. She was detained by Border Patrol.”
Franco and her mother were separated for two weeks. And later reunited with her mother who was released by border patrol.
During the two decades she has called America her home, she has made big plans for her life, and she has made impressive progress. Franco is a substitute teacher and she intends to go to grad school to obtain a master’s degree in education so she can become a school psychologist.
But Franco is also among the thousands of immigrants who were facing the prospect that her life’s plans would end up as broken dreams. President Donald Trump intended to end the Deferred Action of Childhood Arrivals —– sometimes called DACA, more often described as the Dream Act, as in the American Dream.
The program, created by President Barack Obama, has protected more than 700,000 young immigrants from deportation. DACA advocates went to court to stop Trump’s plan, but the president’s team kept filing appeals. Finally, the case had reached the Supreme Court and Franco worried about being sent back to a country that now seems foreign to them.
Yet, on June 18, the Supreme Court blocked the Donald Trump administration’s plan to end DACA.
“It means that we don’t have to go to sleep every night wondering if the next day ICE is going to show up at my door and take me back to the country I know a little bit of,” Franco said.
The court ruled 5-4 ruling in favor of the Deferred Action of Childhood Arrivals, formally known as DACA.
“We do not decide whether DACA or its rescission are sound policies,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts wrote. “We address only whether the agency complied with the procedural requirement that it provide a reasoned explanation for its action.”
Roberts was joined by the courts four more liberal members in upholding the executive action by the Obama administration that established the program.
Susana Rouillon, has a similar story to Franco. She came from Peru to America when she was 15 years old from Peru.
“We lost everything, our house, and the business my dad had,” Rouillon said.. “My dad couldn’t pay the money he borrowed from the bank … so the bank took over our house.”
Her family decided to try their luck in the United States, which they have been calling “home” for the past 17 years. She plans to get her bachelor’s in sociology from the University of California Riverside.
“It gives us hope and strength to keep moving forward and fighting for our rights, while at the same time, a little peace of mind,” Rouillon said. “It’s hard to live in fear of what could happen with your whole life and what you are building in this country, more now that I’m pursuing higher education.”
This program started back in June 2012, and it allowed DACA recipients to live in the United States without the threat of deportation and allowed them to get work permits and apply for driver’s licenses.
“The fact that this ruling still allows them to continue to work and go to school and look for that future is an extraordinary victory,” said Aracely Saavedra, an immigration specialist from Long Beach.
Saavedra is a law graduate who is preparing for the bar examination to become an immigration attorney and in the process has assisted in many immigration cases pro bono.
Back in November 2014, the Obama administration wanted to expand the program as an executive action and established a new program and call it the Deferred Action for Parents of American and Lawful Permanent Residents formally known as DAPA. That program was going to delay deportations for parents of U.S. citizens.
In June 2016, DAPA ended effectively as did the expansion of DACA.
In September 2017 Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Trump administration would end DACA.
“He doesn’t grasp the concept of legal immigration, he is trying to cut every venue or avenue they can use to actually have an immigration benefit,” Saavedra said. “He has made it very clear that he is anti-immigration. He doesn’t support it even though his own wife is an immigrant.”
As of now, the issue is far from being settled. The court decided that Trump’s decision to cancel DACA was illegal and that Trump does not have the authority to cancel the program, unless he follows the proper procedures to do it the right way.
“A misconception that people have is that we are criminals or that we don’t contribute to society, that we go to school for free and also that we have access to free healthcare,” Rouillon said.
On the day of the ruling former President Obama tweeted in support by saying “Eight years ago this week, we protected young people who were raised as part of our American family from deportation. Today, I’m happy for them, their families, and all of us. We may look different and come from everywhere, but what makes us American are our shared ideals.”
“The next big step for DACA is a path to citizenship, so we could have better opportunities like jobs so we can grow personally and professionally,” Rouillon said. “Most importantly, … be an example for other people to not give up and keep dreaming.”
By Ron Linden, Contributor; Andrea Serna, Arts Writer; Melina Paris, Editorial Assistant
In times like these, of uncertainty, when so much is unknown as we shelter-in-place, people instinctively reach toward what soothes them. For many in San Pedro that elixir is art and community. Pat Carroll, affectionately known as Pedro Pat, seemed to know this. She was an advocate for the arts. Pat died peacefully, June 21, on her 81st birthday.
Pat was born in 1939 and grew up on a ranch in the San Fernando Valley. She graduated from the University of California Los Angeles in 1961 and earned her masters in business administration in advertising and marketing from Pepperdine University.
Pat enjoyed studying Italian and traveling, so much so that Italy and Ireland became prime destinations for passport adventures. She also worked for the Kubota Tractors, which was at one time based in Torrance. Pat was always quick to roll up her sleeves and work for the good of the community. Her first major volunteer project was participating in building a Habitat for Humanity Global Village in Belfast, Ireland in 2000. When she returned, Pat took on the role of registration manager for the 1,400 volunteers working on a December 2000 blitz-build in Wilmington, Calif. After retiring in 2005, Pat took on more responsibilities in Habitat’s volunteer home and community building nonprofit. For the 2007 San Pedro/Los Angeles Jimmy Carter Work Project, Pat coordinated meals for over 2,000 volunteers for one week as they built 16 homes for low-income families.
Linda Alexander, a civic leader, community volunteer and a long time friend of Pat’s noted that it was during the Habitat for Humanity housing buildout that Pat was introduced to local businesses and the San Pedro Chamber of Commerce.
Here, she found her niche. She served five years on the Board of the Grand Vision Foundation (Friends of the Warner Grand Theatre), and served two terms on the Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council. She was involved in the early days with the Community Redevelopment Agency funded Arts, Culture & Entertainment District — which transitioned into the nonprofit San Pedro Waterfront Arts District. Pat served as Chair of the Arts District and was the principal website administrator.
She earned her moniker in part because of her 10-year commitment to highlighting artists and their work through her monthly First Thursday Art Walk tours of the galleries throughout San Pedro’s downtown Waterfront Arts District. In many ways, Pat was the cloth that lovingly enveloped the arts district in terms of both art and the business of it, as she lifted it up in every aspect from her tours, her work on the Central Neighborhood Council, her support of the historic Warner Grand and Grand Vision with all of its programs and her volunteer efforts.
Pat is survived by her brother, Matthew Carroll, and his wife Marilyn in Colorado; her niece, Mailan Woods; her nephew Michael Carroll, and his wife Beth; and her great niece Melanie Woods. A Pat Carroll Memorial Fund at Angels Gate for Artists Continuing Education is being set up under the guidance of Amy Erickson, the executive director of the Angels Gate Cultural Center.
Pat’s memory has elicited an outpouring of love from San Pedro artists as they realize they will miss deeply both her presence and her spirit for life. Following are tributes to Pat Carroll from the San Pedro arts community.
Pat was a beautiful, gentile soul. She had a passion for the arts. She beat the drum and did the leg work in support of our local galleries and artists in San Pedro. We will all miss her wonderful smiling face about town.
—Anne Olsen Daub and Eugene Daub, San Pedro painter and sculptor
Pat Carroll loved life and art and people and all things Italian. Her contributions to San Pedro through her volunteer work and support for organizations, such as the library, her art tour and committee work will set an example to all of us as to how to live a memorable and meaningful life. Viva Pat Carroll!
—Ann Weber, artist
We met Pat nearly 10 years ago as she voluntarily set up a program, guiding art seekers to the many studios and galleries on the First Thursday Art Walk in San Pedro. It started out with a small group but Pat, with her enthusiasm and determination, soon saw a spike in interest and the numbers kept growing! Pat understood how important these tours could be in developing a deeper appreciation of the arts.
— Ray and Arnée Carofano, photographers and owners of Gallery 478, San Pedro
Pat Carroll was a true supporter of the arts. Pat was committed to her monthly tour group and at Michael Stearns Studio we always looked forward to our visit from her group. The artists that worked diligently on exhibitions were pleased and flattered that she brought people much like her, curious, intelligent and appreciative of fine art. She will be missed. It will be hard to imagine the art walk, someday when we all go back on the streets again.
— Andrea Serna, gallery coordinator, Michael Stearns Studio @The Loft and freelance arts writer
“Pedro Pat” will be fondly remembered for her many contributions, including many years of guided First Thursday Art Walk tours, her willingness to stay engaged with this community and her devotion to arts education. She was a role model for graceful aging and continuous learning.
As the managing director of the nonprofit Arts District, I reported to her when she was our first board chair. She was a clear-eyed pragmatist, who rose through corporate management when women had to wear hats and gloves.
— Linda Grimes, managing director of the San Pedro Waterfront Arts District
Pat will be remembered for her curiosity and enthusiasm, her fearlessness when engaging esoteric and unfamiliar art and artists and her tireless commitment to the San Pedro arts community. She often asked me to speak to her First Thursday docent group to explain curatorial choices, selection of artists, conceptual underpinnings, and so on.
On more than one occasion my comments were peppered with profanities (always affirmative mind you) and Pat would reassure me that my “slips of tongue” were just fine with her. I’ll always appreciate her for that. Rest in Power, Pat.
— Ron Linden, artist and curator, TransVagrant Projects
This year, the LGBTQ+ community, had more to celebrate than pride month. The Supreme Court ruled that a landmark civil rights law protects gay and transgender workers from workplace discrimination.
“Finally. Today, the law, justice, and fairness are on our side,” said Kevin Jennings, CEO of Lambda Legal in a statement released on June 15, the day of the ruling. “Our nation’s highest court confirmed what Lambda Legal has argued for years, that discrimination against LGBTQ+ workers is illegal.”
In the 6-3 decision, the court ruled that under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, federal law prohibits discrimination on sexual orientation or gender identity. With this ruling, workplace anti-discrimination protects LGBTQ+ people in all states in the U.S.
“The protection we now have on a federal level means an indescribable amount. For years being gay or transgender has been criminalized,” said Morgan Billings, co-executive director for Temecula Valley Pride.
Before the ruling, states like Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennesse, Texas, and West Virginia were allowed to fire people who identify as gay or transgender.
“In several states before this ruling, it was completely acceptable on a legal level to be fired for your sexual orientation or gender identity,” Billings said. “So being a person who is gay and transgender, I would be worried when exploring the idea of living in different states. Always wondering if I would have job security. So this ruling is definitely one step closer to equality on all fronts for LGBTQ+ people.”
Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Justices Neil M. Gorsuch, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan voted in favor of the protections. Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Brett M. Kavanaugh voted against.
This decision is a huge victory for the LGBTQ+ community and a major loss for the Donald Trump administration. Since the day President Trump took office, his administration has been a nonstop onslaught against the rights of the LGBTQ+ community.
“We now look to Congress to address the critical gaps in our federal civil rights laws by passing the Equality Act,” added Jennings.
May 14, 2019, Trump announced his opposition to the Equality Act, which would guarantee protections for LGBTQ+ people under the nation’s existing civil rights laws.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the bill, but the U.S. Senate has yet to take any action on the Equality Act.
In the workplace alone the Trump administration supported employment discrimination against LGBTQ+ people. On Aug. 23, 2019, the justice department filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court.
On June 12, 2020, Trump’s administration announced that it was eliminating a Barack Obama-era regulation that prohibited discrimination in health care against transgender patients.
On April 12, 2019. Trump and Mike Pence banned transgender people from serving in the military, which is also when the Department of Defense came up with the “deploy or get out” policy, which would remove any military personnel living with HIV from services based on their status.
“People are just homophobic and transphobic,” said Karama Blackhorn, Queer Center Resource Center cCoordinator at California State Univerity Dominguez Hills. “A lot of people say that trans people and queer people are predators trying to steal their kids, that’s what I’ve grown up hearing and politicians say about me.”
This fight is not the only fight that LGBTQ+ people have to face. According to the Human Rights Campaign, last year advocates tracked at least 27 deaths of transgender people in the U.S.. The majority were black transgender women. This year alone there has been at least 16 more deaths.
“Every day that queer people are out in public being themselves, they are at risk of being attacked by someone who is filled with blind hate,” Billings said.
For years, Lambda Legal has appeared in courtrooms across the nation arguing that discrimination of sexual orientation or gender identity is, by definition, discrimination on the basis of sex and therefore prohibited by federal law.
“With this ruling, we have become freer as a country. People are more apt to be themselves. A lot of other countries are not as forgiving when it comes to the LGBTQ+ community, ” said Clementina Quevedo, a Marine operations chief.
“The gods visit the sins of the fathers upon the children.” — Euripides (c. 485-406 B.C.)
Racism is still a problem in America. If you subscribe to the idea of “American Exceptionalism” — the belief that America is exceptional and better than other nations — you are a part of the problem. All of us who think we can claim to be the exception to exceptionalism, must now bear witness to the sins of the fathers visited upon the generations. So here we are, a week after the 244th anniversary of our nation’s forefathers declaring independence, we are still arguing over the clause, “All men are created equal.”
Clearly you thought this had been settled back in 1865 when the Confederacy lost the Civil War and the enslaved were freed or that the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution settled the issue of who were citizens and exactly what their civil rights were. And just to make sure these rights were set in stone, the U.S. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866. Most of this was glossed over in your high school history class while you were consumed by sex and the latest music craze.
All of these things were done well before the first Confederate statue was ever erected. Gen. Robert E. Lee, when declining an invitation to erect statues on the battlefield in Gettysburg said, “I think it wiser not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife and to commit to oblivion the feelings it has engendered.” Which was a very gentile way for the Confederate general to say we should bury the past along with 618,222 soldiers who died on both sides. I would add most of which were white men fighting over whether black people’s involuntary servitude status should end.
Which brings me to the realization that since that war, and for a long time prior, white people have been arguing with each other over the status of black people (and others of color) in our country. And it wasn’t for the lack of some very eloquent and highly educated black voices to call on the consciousness of America to rectify this original sin. From Frederick Douglass down to Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Angela Davis to name just a few — the names of black American academics, writers and intellectuals fill volumes on the subject. These are books that many conservative Americans never read. Yet, something changed this time with the murder of George Floyd caught on a cell phone as he died at the hands of white Minnesota police officer. Suddenly Black Lives Matter wasn’t just a slogan exclusively for black activists but a rallying point for a multi-ethnic, multi-generational uprising that has shocked the collective consciousness — not just here but around the world.
Suddenly (even though it’s not really sudden), you have white students and elders marching alongside people of many shades to protest injustice. This has by its very diversity woken up America, the media and challenged Congress.
Then as a response we have Donald J. Trump on this Fourth of July giving a speech at one of the great national monuments — Mount Rushmore. Here’s his response:
One of their [the democratic left’s] political weapons is “Cancel Culture” — driving people from their jobs, shaming dissenters, and demanding total submission from anyone who disagrees. This is the very definition of totalitarianism, and it is completely alien to our culture and our values, and it has absolutely no place in the United States of America. This attack on our liberty, our magnificent liberty, must be stopped, and it will be stopped very quickly. We will expose this dangerous movement, protect our nation’s children, end this radical assault, and preserve our beloved American way of life.
In our schools, our newsrooms, even our corporate boardrooms, there is a new far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance. If you do not speak its language, perform its rituals, recite its mantras and follow its commandments, then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted and punished. It’s not going to happen to us.
Make no mistake: this left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution. In so doing, they would destroy the very civilization that rescued billions from poverty, disease, violence, and hunger, and that lifted humanity to new heights of achievement, discovery, and progress.
To make this possible, they are determined to tear down every statue, symbol, and memory of our national heritage.
Excuse me, but this is nothing more than gaslighting and accusing others of what he himself is guilty of. Here is a lying hypocritical tyrant who continually accuses his adversaries of the very same actions that he has committed himself. He shames dissenters, demands total submission from his associates and underlings, threatens and censors the press, recites political mantras and promotes his own brand of fascism. He does this even as he acts solicitously with our nation’s adversaries and curries favor with the world’s autocrats, dictators and oligarchs. The term, “treasonous,” comes to mind.
Trump is perhaps the best foil with which white America can now have the argument over what America owes black Americans. For surely their blood has stained this land as much as my ancestors, earning them a proper place of actually being equal. Black Americans have fought, suffered and died to be equal in this nation and this is a special burden specifically for white America to rectify. Racism is defined here specifically between white and black America but it affects all.
And one last thought … the cultural revolution that he so mistakenly brings up that is corrupting American values started when Chuck Berry took Rhythm and Blues and turned it into Rock & Roll and teenagers across the land started dancing to it and when Jackie Robinson started to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers and white fans cheered.
The cultural revolution is the embracing of a national diversity that expresses the one core American creed that all people are created equal and we should all enjoy the freedoms of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This only became mainstream in the 1960s with the civil rights and anti-war protests and songs and the rest shall we say, is history. This is something that the liar-in-chief knows so little about. And still the argument over racism in America comes down to a contest between two white men in their 70s trying to explain what freedom looks like to a country that is made up of many different shades of color.
Former POLA president Nick Tonsich sued for $5 million in fraud complaint
“This is a Wright brothers moment!” Pasha Terminal’s then-vice president, Jeff Burgin, exclaimed on July 12, four years ago. “We’re standing on the cliff with some wings strapped to our arms. We know we can fly, we’re just not sure how far.”
But Burgin now seems more like Icarus, plunging into the sea, taking a much more prominent partner down with him — former Port of Los Angeles Commission President Nick Tonsich. At the time, he was touting Pasha’s Green Omni Terminal, intended to be the Port of LA’s showcase all-electric terminal. But on May 8, his former employer—headquartered in Northern California—sued him for $5 million, along with Tonsich, whose firm, Ocean Terminal Services, also known as OTS, allegedly received at least $4.25 million in overbilled invoices on a shady crane services contract — by far the largest sum of money involved in the scheme.
The suit is a counterclaim in response to a suit OTS filed in February, after Pasha terminated the contract in December.
“In response to the suit, Pasha began reviewing invoices over the life of the OTS contract,” the suit read. It explains:
On inspection, the invoices revealed significant discrepancies between the tonnage that was reported to POLA and the volume of tonnage on which OTS charged Pasha. Pasha realized that it had been overcharged for tonnage, including being charged for tonnage from berths not covered by the OTS Agreement.
Pasha also conducted an investigation into Tonsich’s relationship with Burgin and uncovered the illegal kickback scheme.
Pasha had not known about any of this prior to its investigation because Tonsich and Burgin actively concealed their scheme from Pasha corporate headquarters and executives.
The suit includes four counts of action: fraud, aiding and abetting fraud, breach of contract and unfair competition. The same day, Pasha also filed a direct answer to the OTS suit, asserting 35 affirmative defenses.
Tonsich also had a stake in the OMNI Terminal project, getting a $3.75 million grant via another company he owns, Clean Air Engineering-Maritime, better known as CAEM, for technology that’s failed to deliver.
Former senior vice president, Jeff Burgin
In that case, ethics regulations would have blocked the Port of LA from giving him the grant, but the port allowed Pasha — meaning Burgin — to include Tonsich’s speculative technology in its package grant proposal, with no subcontractor bidding process.
Tonsich’s history of sliding around the rules goes back more than 20 years. In 1999, just one year after founding his own law firm, Glaser Tonsich & Brajevich, he landed a $200,000 no-bid contract from the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority — a joint project of the ports of LA and Long Beach. By 2005, the Los Angeles Times reported that his firm had racked up a total of $1.25 million in no-bid contracts with ACTA, the vast majority approved while Tonsich was president of POLA’s board.
But now that long history may be coming to an end.
“The scheme was simple: OTS issued invoices to Pasha that were inflated or, in some cases, completely made up,” the suit alleges. “The invoices improperly added tonnage from other berths not covered by the contract to make the invoices bigger. Burgin would approve the inflated tonnage numbers and, at times, even increase the tonnage based on what he believed he could ‘get away with.’ Other times, OTS issued multiple invoices for the same charge or billed Pasha at rates not allowed by the contract.”
A table included shows that Pasha’s overbilling grew from $244,677 in 2011 (13.95%); to $1,271,958 in 2015 (66.4%); before tapering off slightly to $898,698 in 2016 (54.25%). The total overbilling, $4,259,684, was $45.9% of the total billed in those five years.
OTS provided “maintenance and repair work” on three cranes located at Pasha’s Berth 174-181 container terminal, but — approved by Burgin, while hidden from Pasha’s corporate management in Northern California — Tonsich billed Pasha based on cargo at Berths 154 and 206-209 as well.
Beyond that, the suit charges, they “set up phony companies using vacant addresses at POLA,” and generated phony invoices for work never done. The majority of activity charged was undertaken by Burgin. He was the inside man, and thus Pasha’s initial internal inquiry has turned up far more information about how he operated.
In response, Tonsich’s lawyers filed a demurrer on June 16, seeking to remove him from the lawsuit, and leaving Burgin holding the bag. “Neither OTS nor Mr. Tonsich are alleged to have knowledge or involvement in these separate schemes other than to supposedly receive payments from Mr. Burgin,” the demurrer claims. That they were actually multi-million dollar over-payments simply amounts to “an issue of contract interpretation,” it argues, and “Pasha cannot twist this contractual interpretation dispute into a fraud claim against OTS and Tonsich.”
But a contract designed for the purpose of fraud is surely an essential part of the fraud. And, the groundwork for everything was laid in the initial crane services contract “that included highly irregular terms (e.g., payment based on tonnage rather than man hours) and that locked Pasha into a long-term arrangement (10 years plus options to extend/renew).”
As the suit explains, “crane services are almost always priced based on manning, not tonnage. This is because tonnage is not necessarily proportional to the amount of crane maintenance and repair services that will be required.”
But it’s ideally suited for an over-billing scheme — one that can almost run on autopilot.
As a lawyer since 1989, Tonsich obviously played the lead role in laying this foundation. The unprecedented use of tonnage rather than hours clearly enabled him to bill for shipments at other terminals — and then use this very defense against any accusations of fraud. Plus, the long-term nature of the agreement (versus one to three years, as is normal) was designed to keep the scheme going as long as possible.
In violation of Pasha’s procurement policies, Burgin signed the contract on behalf of Pasha without any review from Pasha’s corporate headquarters or legal department, the suit alleges. It all started when POLA stopped providing crane services to terminal operators. The logical response—which most operators took—would have been to directly hire the same crane service workers that POLA had used, and pay them standard ILWU contract wages. There would have been no added overhead. But instead, Burgin signed a contract with OTS.
“On paper, this decision made no sense,” the suit states. “OTS had no experience in crane maintenance, had no track record, and only had one or two other clients.”
However, both Burgin and Tonsich had previous patterns of behavior leading to this decision. The suit notes previous examples of Burgin defrauding Pasha — particularly a prolonged scheme involving Dunrite Construction, which billed $5.5 million for work that was never done “with kickbacks going to Burgin” — and notes:
Tellingly, before the OTS contract was signed, Burgin told another Pasha executive that he was going to invest in and become a partner in a crane maintenance company. Shortly thereafter, Burgin approved the OTS contract. By his action, it is very possible that Burgin has an ownership interest in OTS.
If this proves to be the case, that’s game over for Tonsich’s attempt to blame everything on Burgin. As for Tonsich himself, this isn’t the first time he’s gotten a contract with little or no track record or scrutiny. It’s virtually his modus operandi. A 2005 Los Angeles Times article cited the 1999 no-bid contract with the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority mentioned above, as well as another almost-simultaneous example:
Tonsich’s firm was one of 25 approved to handle police misconduct cases [in response to the Ramparts scandal] by the city attorney’s office when [James] Hahn headed that office. All of them had substantial experience defending public agencies except Tonsich’s firm, which cited just one case on its application….
Tonsich’s clean air firm, CAEM, also followed the same pattern. It received a $1.5 million grant from POLA in 2012, as we reported in May 2016, when Wilmington-based activist Jesse Marquez raised the issue in a letter to POLA:
Tonsich had claimed to be a part owner of ACTI, but the company claimed it rejected his ownership bid, and that afterward Tonsich formed Clean Air Engineering-Maritime to compete with them. As of 2012, ACTI had a working prototype, Tonsich’s company did not, yet his company got the $1.5 million grant without a competitive bid process.
When we asked if POLA had evidence to the contrary of the claim that CAEM had no experience, port spokesman Arley Baker replied, “The CAE system is made by Tri-Mer. You can read about their experience in this technology at tri-mer.com.”
However, Tri-Mer had actually developed its technology working with ACTI — as confirmed in a 2009 letter from Tri-Mer to ACTI, which also noted that “This customer [TraPac] is not going to work with ACTI under any circumstances … this is written in granite.” Tonsich was also TraPac’s lawyer. Thus, the “experience” Tonsich claimed was actually that of his competitor’s.
Pasha’s lawsuit sheds further light on this episode.
It notes that “Tonsich had formerly been a lawyer for ACTI handling collections,” but that Tonsich had a falling out with ACTI’s owner, Ruben Garcia, after ACTI applied for a $2.5 million pollution control grant at POLA, as part of the China Shipping Agreement, which was initially approved:
However, the Los Angeles City Attorney told Garcia that ACTI was conflicted out because Tonsich was its lawyer and had worked on the China Shipping settlement while a commissioner. Garcia agreed to withdraw the grant application. Tonsich was furious, and told Garcia that the grant was the money Tonsich was putting into ACTI as his investment in ACTI. Garcia refused to make Tonsich a partial owner.
Tonsich then formed his competing company CAEM, stole ACTI’s intellectual property relating to its emissions control systems, and used that information to illegally obtain contracts and grants from POLA.
What’s significant here is at least three-fold: First, Tonsich’s role as a lawyer handling collections was a rare example where his involvement was arguably innocent — it was a minor role with no relationship to POLA. Second, there was a sharp contrast between Garcia, who abided by the city’s ethics ruling, and Tonsich, who was furious. Third, Tonsich evidently was depending on his relationship with the port (thus validating the city attorney’s judgment) — at least in advancing his claim that ACTI should make him a partner, for what he had supposedly done.
Tonsich’s actions have repeatedly drawn criticism over the years, but he’s always managed to wriggle his way out of legal difficulties, in part because of the lax corporate political culture in which the city and the Port of LA is embedded. He’s betting he’ll be able to do it once again. But this lawsuit represents a much more serious effort to hold him accountable than what he’s accustomed to. And, the broader political culture is obviously changing as well.
The City of Los Angeles does not want the Los Angeles Police Department to be the lead agency for homeless outreach, said Captain Jay Mastick of Harbor Division. The LAPD works in a supportive role with the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority and the Bureau of Sanitation’s Watershed Protection Division. The department is charged with providing protections for both organizations while they do their jobs.
“It is the department’s position that we don’t want to be in the homeless business; we want to be in the security and safety business, as more of a guardian model, more so than an enforcement model when it comes to homeless issues,” Mastick said.
Homeless Outreach Proactive Engagement unit, or HOPE unit is the primary group that the LAPD uses to interact with homeless people. Cleaning and Rapid Engagement, or CARE, is the primary tool the LAPD uses to clean up homeless encampments. CARE is coordinated by the Unified Homelessness Response Center.
“The HOPE unit [is] right now focused out of the South Bureau, which serves all of South Los Angeles; they come out and facilitate cleanups and also offer wraparound services,” Mastick said.
There are three major homeless encampments within Harbor Divison’s jurisdiction. The first is in San Pedro, on South Beacon Street and W. 8th Street; the second is in Harbor City, on McCoy Avenue and Lomita Boulevard; and third is on East F Street and Broad Avenue in Wilmington. Mastick said the Harbor Division has a quality of life unit that goes to these encampments and facilitates cleanups when the HOPE unit is unavailable.
Mastick said officers who participate in cleanups have a training curriculum for dealing with homeless people, but he has not attended.
“Police are extremely good at what they do and what they’re trained to do,” said Amber Sheikh Ginsberg, who heads the Council District 15 Working Group on Homelessness. “Of course, I wish they had more training. But they aren’t trained social workers or case managers.”
Sheikh Ginsberg said it’s not the best idea to give police the role of working with folks that are vulnerable, traumatized and possibly mentally ill.
“They’re trained to be on high alert all the time because they’re trained to be taking on jobs that are dangerous, that are, you know, responding to really high-need, high-risk situations,” Sheikh Ginsberg said. “And, it’s definitely not the right approach to managing individuals experiencing homelessness.
“Our police do amazing work, and … what they do I could definitely never do, [but] they are not social workers, they are not caseworkers and they are not trained or given the proper training to do that. So, I do not think it’s a good alignment to have them out there working with individuals experiencing homelessness in any of those ways.”
Mastick said that the problem of homelessness should be dealt with using a proper balance of resources, outreach, wraparound services and cleanups.
“It is not the department’s position to criminalize homelessness; that’s not the department’s position at all,” Mastick said. “It’s more of dealing with it on a systemic level.”
The Harbor Division will still respond to calls for service and to crimes committed against homeless people, or by homeless people, Mastick said. The Harbor Division has had homeless people as victims of crimes, as well as suspects and witnesses.
“Back in January we had a homicide at the homeless encampment located at 8th and Beacon,” Mastick said. “So, that is absolutely a law enforcement concern. It will take the highest priority and we’ll come out that night, and deal with the homicide like we would deal with any other homicide, in a professional, comprehensive matter.”
Sheikh Ginsberg said there is room for the LAPD to scale back its interactions with homeless people.
“The way for us to solve this is for everyone to do what they do best and for everyone to do what they are trained at doing,” Sheikh Ginsberg said. “We have great caseworkers, social workers out there working to place people into housing, or get people the services they need, or even just begin relationships with people.”
These social workers are trained to work with people that have struggled with substance abuse or mental health abuse or have been through trauma, including the trauma of living on the streets. Police do not receive the training and support that they would need to do that job effectively, Sheikh Ginsberg said.
“A lot of our Harbor Division police officers … try their hardest, honestly, given their lack of knowledge, experience and training,” Sheikh Ginsberg noted. “I have seen a lot of Harbor Division police officers truly try to just tap into their own humanity and try to come at it with that while trying to keep everyone as safe as possible. That being said, [it’s] not an ideal situation.”
Mastick believes the LAPD could have less interaction with homeless people in the future.
“In terms of seeking resolution, long-term lasting solutions for that, I believe the department as a whole would like to see our role out of that equation,” Mastick said.
However, for the police to have less interaction with homeless people, there are a few things Mastick said would need to happen.
“We’d have to have a lead agency that goes out there and deals with the issue effectively, Mastick said.
Sheikh Ginsberg recognizes that there are some larger issues around LAPD working with homeless people generally in Los Angeles, but she believes that the Harbor Division has a pretty good relationship with most of the homeless people with whom they work, it’s just a small percentage of the homeless population.
“In the Harbor Area, you know how many folks are experiencing homelessness right now?” Sheikh Ginsberg asked, rhetorically. “The percentage that they probably interface with is probably closer to 10% of the actual [total homeless] population.”
She said that the homeless people that Harbor Division works with struggle with substance abuse or mental health.
Mastick said the Harbor Division responds to calls that complain about homeless people — things like blocking the sidewalk, defecating on the street, as well as the buildup of trash. But it does not typically respond as the lead agency, but rather in a supportive role.
On July 1, the Los Angeles City Council voted 12-2 to reduce the LAPD budget by $150 million in the next fiscal year. Councilman Joe Buscaino and Councilman John Lee voted against the motion.
The application of those cuts and their impact on specific services is an ongoing process, Mastick said. “But in terms of radio calls for service, if we have a crime we’re still going to come,” he said. “And I can tell you that five years from now, 10 years from now, if we get a victim of a crime who indicates a crime happened, we’re going to come out.”
Capt. Mastick is in command of some 344 patrol officers in Harbor Division on a rotating 28-day deployment. It is uncertain at this point how many officers would be freed up if they were not policing the homeless or being the first responders to mental health crises. According to a recent Los Angeles Times analysis of the last 10 years of 911 calls for service a small percentage of them were for violent crimes.
Sheikh Ginsberg does not believe the city should direct LAPD resources to serve homeless individuals — unless it’s a high risk, criminal situation.
“To just be responding to people’s needs, it’s honestly silly to have policemen do it,” Sheikh Ginsberg said. “We should be allocating funding, more funding, to have folks that are trained do it.”
Sheikh Ginsberg believes there is a large misconception about the phrase “defund the police.”
“It’s not about taking police away from us, it’s about using the limited resources we have in smarter ways that once again, everyone is doing what they do best,” she said.
“Defund the police” is a rallying cry that has seemed to gain notoriety as protests continued across the country, following weeks of civil unrest after the tragic killing of George Floyd.
Organizations such as Black Lives Matter have been demanding that local governments take away large portions of their city’s police budget and reallocate the money to social programs that would benefit the community. The goal is to shift the focus from police intervention in every circumstance to letting counselors and other mental health professionals handle situations that even police say they are not well-equipped to handle.
An example of this call for change is a statement from the Black Lives Matter Long Beach website. It reads:
“We call for the end to the systemic racism that allows this culture of corruption to go unchecked and our lives to be taken.
“We call for a national defunding of police. We demand investment in our communities and the resources to ensure Black people not only survive, but thrive. If you’re with us, add your name to the petition right now and help us spread the word.”
Floyd was a black man who was killed by a police officer who suffocated him with his knee for eight minutes and 46 seconds on Memorial Day. The killing of Breonna Taylor, who was shot in her bedroom by Louisville Metro Police Department officers on March 13, 2020 during a “no-knock” investigation, has also been a huge motivator in calls to shift funding from police.
The black community, in general, has been fed up with police encounters resulting in the deaths of black individuals over the years, and the recent deaths of Floyd and Taylor are very reminiscent of similar victims such as Freddy Grey, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice and Michael Brown, whose deaths within the past decade have sparked the conversation on police misconduct against African-Americans in the United States.
Data from Mapping Police Violence shows that out of the 1,000 people who were shot and killed by police between 2013 and 2019, about a third of those individuals were black, and about 17% of them were unarmed.
A graph from BBC News also shows that while African-Americans only make up a little over 13% of the U.S. population, they made up for 23.4% of police shooting fatalities in 2019.
Some cities have taken action by either defunding or disbanding police departments. In Minneapolis, the city council announced it is working toward disbanding the city’s entire police department. In Los Angeles, City Council President Nury Martinez recently proposed cutting $150 million from the Los Angeles Police Department Budget.
There have been no official moves by the Long Beach City Council to defund the police in Long Beach, despite pressure from many residents to do so. The only measurable action by the council was its vote on June 16 to ban the use of a carotid artery restraint tactic that Long Beach Police Department officers had previously been permitted to use to detain suspects.
Some residents do not believe this is enough to solve the problem of racial injustice in Long Beach.
“We demand justice for all black people in Long Beach, that will bring up all marginalized people in Long Beach,” said one resident for public comment. “This has gone far too long. It needs to end. The people are in the streets. Listen to the people in the streets!”
Other allies in the community, such as The Center Long Beach, have shown their support for defunding the police. Porter Gilberg, who is the executive director of the LGBTQ center, said that his organization was one of over 200 LGBTQ organizations across the country who have called for transformational change in policing. He believes that this moment in time serves as an opportunity to look at how much money is being allocated to the police, and see how much of that budget could go into services that are better equipped to handle situations such as community outreach and mental health distress while reducing over-policing in the community.
“When we think about the LGBTQ community’s role, we are a community that is over-policed,” Gilberg said. “We are a community that experiences disproportionate rates of arrests and incarceration. We experience higher rates of unemployment, so a lot of our community is often forced into underground economies. And when there are resources that reduce that over-policing, reduce that over-incarceration and actually create opportunities for everyone to thrive, LGBTQ+ community members and members of the community that are not LGBTQ+ will have safer, healthier communities.”
Other residents of Long Beach have been demonstrating their frustration through a number of different protests across the community. On May 31, thousands of residents marched along Downtown Long Beach, before being met with widespread looting and Long Beach police officers firing rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. City officials later called on the National Guard to help stop the rioting and looting.
On June 14, more than a hundred people gathered for a car caravan stretching from North to Central Long Beach and ended in a protest outside of the Long Beach Police Officers Association Headquarters.
Random Lengths News reached out to the Long Beach Police Association and the Long Beach City Council, but leaders of the Long Beach POA and councilmembers were unable to respond by press time.
Long Beach Blues Society is one of two dozen local organizations selected for support by the RuMBa Foundation’s emergency fund which supports arts organizations during Covid-19. Long Beach Blues Society received $50,000 of the 1 million dollars awarded which allows development of a comprehensive online music curriculum for LBUSD and Long Beach youth.
The organization will also provide a limited number of one-on-one online tutoring spots for local youth musicians.
In addition, Long Beach Blues Society will boost and bolster existing programming, adapting their educational concert model to align with the state’s pandemic phasing system to allow for outdoor family blues concerts along with other small group based jam sessions. The nonprofit will also take it’s Bedside Beats program online to continue to connect with children and youth with lengthy stays at Miller Children’s Hospital.
Incorporator and Board Secretary, Bill Grisolia said of the grant: “Arts are such an important part of growth, especially in youth, they have a profound impact; They help shape who youngsters become. Long Beach students have been cut off overnight from this vital area of education and growth. Thank you RuMBa Foundation for recognizing this need and helping us educate children during covid-19, bringing fun while they’re away from their friends.”
Shortly after the first cases of COVID-19 were detected in California, in late February and early March, the state aggressively took protective measures to flatten the curve of coronavirus spread, by discouraging the emergence of large, closely packed crowds. Crowded classrooms transitioned to online learning; office workers “sheltered at home” and telecommuted to work; teeming shopping malls were closed downs. Only “essential workers” were allowed to travel to and from work.
And the prevention measures worked! While New York hospital intensive care units (ICUs) were swamped with critically ill COVID-19 cases in spring, California seemed to have dodged that bullet. But there was a blind spot in the state’s aggressive measures. While some essential workers, such as physicians and nurses, were provided with N-95 masks and personal protective equipment (PPE), other essential workers were overlooked: farm workers; meat and produce packers; truck drivers, grocery clerks, automobile mechanics, gardeners, construction workers, and nursing home attendants. These workers, largely Latino or other minorities of color, were exposed to the coronavirus while performing their essential jobs, but were not provided with PPE, and often did not have medical insurance or a regular physician to consult.
“The policies of sheltering at home, working from a distance, and supporting children learning their lessons at home had a huge blind spot,” said David E. Hayes-Bautista, Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and co-author of this report. “Farm workers cannot plant tomatoes from home. In order for the rest of us to eat, they have had to work shoulder to shoulder in large crews nearly every day, often without personal protective equipment, usually without health insurance, and without a regular source of care.” Hayes-Bautista noted that other essential workers labored under similar conditions, such as grocery store clerks, who may have a hundred customers or more pass within arm’s length during a shift at the cash register. He concluded that only recently have these workers been recognized as essential workers, no less important to the state’s health than physicians and nurses treating patients in a hospital. Starting in April, certain groups in California, as elsewhere in the nation, began to object that these preventative measures were restricting their personal freedom to play on a beach or sing with friends in a bar. They pushed the state to re-open prematurely. By mid-May, California was in the process of re-opening on an accelerated basis, despite public health officers’ warnings that a rapid re-opening would lead to a new surge in COVID-19 cases.
“The measures that ‘flattened the curve’—social distancing, face coverings, and eliminating dense crowds of people—slowed the spread of the contagion,” said Paul Hsu, an epidemiologist with the Fielding School of Public Health at UCLA and co-author of this report. “But once we relaxed the controls, the virus surged again, and we are now worse off than wewere at the end of April.”
He added that the result has been a tragic upswing in cases in California, as expressed in the “case rate”: that is, the number of cases per 100,000 population. This report shows the percent increase in COVID-19 case rates by race/ethnicity, in the fateful period between Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, 2020. All racial/ethnic groups experienced huge growth in their case rates between these two holidays. The Asian case rate had the smallest increase, at 59.9%. All other groups had higher percent increases: the Native Hawai’ian/Pacific Islander case rate rose by 72.6%; the white and Black case rates nearly doubled (89.1% and 89.8%, respectively). The Latino case rate more than doubled, with a 147% increase.
The report also details, for each race/ethnic group, its respective case rate for Memorial Day and its corresponding rate for the Fourth of July. The Asian rate grew from 113.7 cases per 100,000 population to 181.8; the Native Hawai’ian/Pacific Islander rate grew from 437.0 per 100,000 to 754.2; the white rate grew from 98.0 to 185.3; the Black rate grew from 167.9 to 318.7; and the Latino rate had the highest growth, from 230.0 to 570.0 cases per 100,000 population.
The San Pedro Bridge Home site opened July 6 and welcomed its first resident the next day on Tuesday morning. The Bridge Home in Wilmington is on track to open within the next two weeks.
If not for this public health crisis, dozens of people would have attended the opening to see the space and feel the excitement. Many people worked together over the past two years to bring this solution to our community. Both the Mayor and Councilman Buscaino recognized the work of this community in making Bridge Home San Pedro a reality.
In this video, head of Council District 15 Committee on Homelessness, Amber Sheikh Ginsberg leads you through a tour of the sparkling new facility that will house 100 people affected by homelessness. Find out all about the promising new Bridge Home below.
