What’s happening today?
The LA City Council’s Public Works committee is supposed to discuss how to preserve services, and the needed workforce, in order to maintain Los Angeles’s street lights. LA city has struggled in recent years to have enough money to keep the lights on – quite literally the idiom used to signify whether an organization is solvent. At one point, they were estimating that the time it takes for city workers to get to fixing your street light could stretch from an already lengthy one year to even two years.
A 3rd Geese op-ed on whether DSA-LA should endorse Nithya Raman just posted – and this one is in favor of doing that. The authors dub Nithya Raman LA’s “pothole populist” who will carry out the “sewer socialism” being re-popularized by Zohran Mamdani. The authors write that “to build class consciousness and a socialist Los Angeles, we must actively contest and obtain power, and deliver for the people who live in this city. Socialist leadership therefore means endorsing Nithya Raman.”
What just happened?
As LA city officials tackle an ‘uncommonly silly law,’ an unsheltered journalist points to others that may be hiding in LA city’s codes
The Los Angeles City Council just voted to repeal a city law that says, “No person shall play ball or any game of sport with a ball or football or throw, cast, shoot or discharge any stone, pellet, bullet, arrow or any other missile, in, over, across, along or upon any street or sidewalk or in any public park, except on those portions of said park set apart for such purposes.” The punishment for violating the law could be a $1,000 fine and six months in jail under what the repeal-motion’s author, Council member Bob Blumenfield describes as an “uncommonly silly law.”
LA’s municipal codes are filled with funny little laws like that, according to Rooflesser, an unsheltered investigative journalist who on Tuesday happened to be complying with a notice issued by LA city officials that said she needed to remove her home that was near a river. The municipal code the city had cited in the notice was LAMC 63.44, which she told The LA Reporter, also happens to permit a variety of other activities, including “engaging in magic,” which was in the definition for what the codes mean when it says, “a performer may perform.” Rooflesser had been ordered to remove her encampment on the day of her birthday, which she celebrated nearby in a much less dignified environment than she would have liked. She joked that she was feeling more like “Oscar the Grouch.” A neighbor did bring cupcakes. And she got a surprise visit from a friend.
Rooflesser’s latest piece of journalism is about LA Alliance’s now-deceased unhoused complainant
While it can be said that Rooflesser is also “engaging in magic” of a sort, she does regularly engage in journalism. Be sure to read Rooflesser’s recent piece, “Dead Men Don’t Settle,” profiling the now-deceased unhoused complainant in the LA Alliance case, Gary Whitter, whose interests have loomed, largely unnoticed, amid the legal wrangling that has taken place over the years in this case. Rooflesser writes that LA Alliance’s complaint “describes a generic experience that rings true to the life of an unsheltered person. It seems real enough, except that we get no sense of who Gary is. Is he funny or serious? Is he sharp or incoherent? Is he flamboyant or stoic?
“Our enigmatic plaintiff is described as deeply affected by society’s superficial preoccupation with appearances. Embarrassment and shame are at the forefront in the only information we have about him.”
You can also listen to Rooflesser read the article here.
A few more things…
Los Angeles City Council staffers are finally recognized as a union, according to LA Material.
LA Public Press checks in on the nation’s only strip club union.
LA Taco’s Daily Memo provides an overview of a key case playing out in LA courts that could limit ICE raids.
Environmental groups are hosting a mayoral forum on Sept. 3.
Billboard and stadium interests are spending big in Inglewood elections, according to this article by Isaiah Murtaugh Barish of LA Local.
Liz Chou, Thank you sooo much for getting dirty with me and putting yourself on the receiving end of Los Angeles’ City “services” in the name of real “boots on the ground” reporting. Your heart and grit are unmatched! @LA Squawk Box @The LA Reporter