Novelist, poet, memoirist, teacher, advocate Luis Rodriguez writes about City Attorney Carmen Trutanich’s ill-considered tagger injunction idea in Friday’s LA Times.

Luis is the author of the classic Always Running and something of an icon in many circles. Although he’s a friend, I can honestly say that most anything he writes is worth reading, but this piece is particularly on point for the public discussion of the moment.

Here’s the opening:

Forty years ago, I was a gang member and a tagger, an aerosol graffiti artist. No doubt this was vandalism — my canvases were the walls of businesses, homes, schools, any public place.

I was just the sort of kid City Atty. Carmen Trutanich is targeting with his proposed civil injunction against taggers, a court order that would allow taggers to be arrested for merely hanging out together, an act that for most of us would be legal.

Now I am a homeowner, co-founder of a thriving cultural center and bookstore, a writer/poet with 14 published books and a gang intervention expert. I am a father, grandfather and law-abiding citizen. I invite you to listen to my story and judge whether the city attorney’s injunction is right for Los Angeles.

At age 16, in 1970, I was a high school dropout and drug user. I had met a youth worker at the community center that served my East L.A.-area neighborhood. He saw something in me I couldn’t see: an artist, a leader, a contributing member of the community. He offered me a deal — if I returned to school, he’d help me get training and work as a muralist.

Who knows why I finally agreed – for two years, I had told this guy to drop dead. But he never gave up on me. I learned mural painting at the old Goez Art Gallery on 1st Street. I had a mentor in Alicia Venegas. The youth worker persuaded the principal of the high school to let me come back, even though I had been kicked out for fighting when I was 15. I graduated. Then, from 1972 to 1973, I painted murals at the youth center, a local library branch and several businesses, the latter with 13 other gang members…

It gets even better….so read the rest here.

PS: Mr. City Attorney, I hope you’re reading this. Luis is the real deal. I promise.

PPS: Okay, just in case, here are a few more clips from Luis’ essay-–for those of you who aren’t going to click through.

We have so many ways to send young people to prison, and very few to keep them out. And we still have a terrible gang problem.

Like most Angelenos, I don’t want any more vandalism, violence or drug wars. But I know this: In hard times, we need more imagination, more healing, more innovation, more grace. Another injunction is simply the wrong way to go.

….AND…

All the research tells us that getting troubled kids involved in the arts is far less expensive and has longer-lasting positive results than punishing the art out of them. “Tough on crime” doesn’t impress me — I know it’s tougher to care. Even LAPD Police Chief William Bratton has said we can’t arrest our way out of this crisis.

We have so many ways to send our young people to prison, and few to keep them out……..”Tough on crime” doesn’t impress me—I know it’s tougher to care.

I want those words on bumper stickers, refrigerator magnets…or maybe tattooed on our collective wrists, as reminders. Better yet, written in indelible ink on our on our hearts.

I’ll be on Deadline LA today, KPFK’s half-hour weekly show on the Media, hosted by Barbara Osborn and Howard Blume.

We’ll be talking about:

1. How well or poorly LA is spending its gang intervention $$…

2. What LA County is doing—and not doing— with its gang violence reduction dollars.

3. Those faulty numbers behind the claims of a crime spree by those who oppose the state’s early budget-driven release of prisoners.

Tune in!

Yesterday I complained that the city has not given funds to Homeboy Industries despite the fact that the Homeboy programs are in trouble financially, and are regularly serving more people than all the other city gang-violence-reduction programs combined. (More on those numbers next week.)

(And for a brand new development on the Homeboy/mayor’s office issue, please watch for Tim Rutten’s Saturday column.)

So, if the city hasn’t given funds to Homeboy, how is it spending its gang reduction dollars?

On Tuesday, the city’s gang czar, Reverend Jeff Carr (more properly known as the director of Gang Reduction and Youth Development—AKA GRYD, love those acronyms), gave his progress report to the LA City Council detailing how the city’s $24 plus million in gang funds have been spent in the period from January 1 to June 1, 2009, and what we as taxpayers and residents are getting for our money.

During that same meeting, Councilwoman Janet Hahn* said that, given the progress report, now is the time to take another run at a bond measure to fund additional gang programs. A new Measure A, so to speak.

With all respect to Janet, having now read the 67-page report, I think we need to slow down and think this one through a little.

(The LA Times Rob Greene did an opinion piece/blog post on the matter of the proposed bond that is very much worth reading—both for its own sake, and for some additional background.)

Okay, well what about that report?

What exactly has city done thus far in the first six months of 2009? What have we gotten for our gang $$$?

Simple question, but even having marched my way through Jeff Carr’s acronym-infested report twice, I find it tough to answer.

Two things the city has done are easy to list.

1. In May, the mayor’s office along with the LAPD, Ralphs Markets and some other partners, sponsored a citywide gun buy back program that collected 1700 firearms…. This is a nice thing, and symbolically reassuring. As for whether homeboys from this or that gang actually turned in their Tech 9’s in order to get a supermarket gift card. Well, when these programs have been done in the past, in LA and other cities, there has not been any measurable result in terms of gun violence. In other words, the buyback is not a violence reduction strategy as much as it is something of a public perception stunt. But, okay, better to do it than not. Getting guns off the street, even if many of them are old, broken guns, can’t hurt.

2. Number two accomplishment is the fact that the GRYD office, along with Parks and Rec and the LAPD et al, has launched its second Summer Night Lights program, a program of which I am an ardent fan. It consists of forking over the funds necessary to have sixteen parks in some of the city’s most violence prone areas extend their hours until midnight four nights a week (Wednesday — Saturday) during the two month period between July 8 and September 5.

Sure SNL is a small bucket out of the very big ocean known as LA gang violence, but it’s a simple and straightforward program. Each park sponsors additional activities during those later hours, and each hires ten kids from the community to work in the park. That’s 140 more kids who have summer jobs, assuredly a good thing.

When you give kids something fun to do with their time they are less likely to get bored and then get into trouble. Period. Nothing complicated about that.

I DO have a slight problem with SNL being painted as the main reason for a drop in crime in those target areas during those months since I suspect that has more to do with the fact that the 14 areas are flooded with cops during the SNL hours. But okay, why quibble? It’s a small program, but a good one. GO SUMMER NIGHT LIGHTS!

But these are small side programs. As for how the city has spent the main part of our intervention and prevention dollars…..I’ve batted the topic around with quite a few people in the days since Jeff presented his report and am still left with more troubling questions than answers.

…..TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK

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When you get a minute, skim through the report yourself.

In the meantime, I’m heading out to shop for lots of barbecue supplies— now that I’ve reclaimed my backyard patio furniture and the Weber from the black widows. (The spiders were tough, but I was tougher.)

Happy Friday afternoon!

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* NOTE: Earlier I wrote “Jan Perry” when I really and truly meant to write Janice Hahn. Apologies to both Jan and Janet. A brain freeze in the hot weather is the best explanation I can offer.

When newly elected City Attorney Carmen Trutanich was sworn in on Wednesday, one of the more interesting things he announced was his plan to hire 200 investigators that would allow his office to have what amounts to its own small police force. Trutanich hinted that such a group might, among other duties, provide a kind of check and balance watch dog function for the LAPD.

Here is what the LA Times reported about Trutanich’s speech:

“We’re going to build this unit, we’re going to fund it, we’re going to get them automobiles, we’re going to have a regular police force,” the city attorney said. That force…..might even be responsible for keeping an eye on the LAPD, he said.

“I don’t want to see a need for another consent decree,” Trutanich said, referring to the federal restraints imposed on the LAPD after the Rampart Division corruption scandal. “If there’s something that we need to do to supervise LAPD to make sure that they comply, let the independent police department — the bureau of investigation — do that supervision. Why do we have to make millionaires out of private lawyers?”

This is a rather interesting idea. Although some police watchers would like to see the Federal Consent Decree stay in place, others like myself, think it has long outlived its usefulness and is no longer an “engine of reform” for the department. Instead of stimulating further correction or improvement in the department, U.S. District Judge Gary Feess has come to resemble a vaguely abusive foster parent who demands adherence to pointless and demeaning rules—like the financial disclosure requirement for gang and narcotics officers.

On the other hand, for the LAPD to police itself has not proved to be a good solution either. The arrangement has satisfied the union—the LAPPL—but despite the best efforts of Bill Bratton and his capable command staff, there are changes that remain to be made in the LAPD’s ” culture,” and more trust that still needs to be built with the city’s other stakeholders.

Thus having another law enforcement entity providing a check and balance could be a concept worth exploring.

It is unclear what such a structure would look like. And certainly there are potential pitfalls. It would not do to have bad blood between two of the city’s law enforcement agencies. Plus, since there’s a hiring freeze in city government, Trutanich will have to do some creative cost cutting elsewhere in his budget to find the funds to hire his proposed swarm of detectives.

Yet I hope Trutanich does pursue the notion. It is one among a number of intriguing ideas being floated by the City Attorney’s office in the past few weeks that are worth watching as they are developed.

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photo by Francine Orr for the Los Angeles Times

This weekend I had a short but interesting chat with our soon-to-be City Attorney, Carmen Trutanich.

Now, let me say at the outset that I have had mixed feelings on the issue of who really ought to have replaced Rocky Delgadillo. It was a contentious and mud-fraught race with people whom I like and respect on opposite sides of that battle.

But, one thing I do know for certain, like it or not, Carmen Trutanich received the most votes and, come July 1, he will take over as LA’s City Attorney.

So it behooves us….or me in this case….to get to know the man.

My first swipe at this endeavor took place on Friday night at Kevin Roderick’s LA Observed 6th Anniversary Party, a decidedly swell affair that was held one-story up in the balmy night air at the Formosa Cafe’s roof garden.

(The guest list and photos may be found here at LA Observed. The everybody-showed-up crowd was an indication of how much influence that LA Observed—a mere blog, doncha know—has gained in the six years of its existence. Go Kevin!)

After talking with a string of editor/writer pals, and a drolly intelligent retired LA Sheriff’s Department commander (nobody’s more fun to talk shop with than smart cops), I waded further into the crowd and happened to spot Trutanich.

I introduced myself and, after a bit of opening chit-chat, I asked him what he intended to do about gang violence reduction—other than, you know, gang injunctions.

“I have several things I plan to do that won’t cost any money and have been proven to work,” he replied confidently.

Sure, I thought. Like new gang injunctions, instead of the old gang injunctions. How irritatingly predictable.

But that’s not what Trutanich said.

He said he thought one of the keys to lowering gang violence was to offer alternatives to gangs, specifically employment for former gang members. (I am paraphrasing here, as I was taking mental, not written notes.) Therefore, when he went after law-breaking corporations, Trutanich told me, “…instead of fining those companies, I’m going to make them set aside a certain number of jobs for guys who want to get out of gangs.”

Hmmmm. It was an unexpectedly simple and good idea. What was more, it was likely doable.

Right now, one of the huge problems for LA’s wrap-around job training and referral services for recovering gangsters and newly released parolees, is that given the economic climate, jobs for former homeboys have almost entirely dried up and blown away. This means that scores of men who honestly want to change their lives, are having a terrible time finding legal means to make the money to pay their rent and to buy their baby’s diapers. When people with advanced college degrees are out of work, why would one hire a former felon who may or may not have a GED?

But, by using jobs, not fines, as a penalty, the City Attorney could potentially produce a bunch of new positions and, in so doing, introduce reluctant corporations to the experience of giving back to the community by hiring from the so-called at risk pool of employees. (The truth is, once most company managers try hiring former homeboys, they find themselves—not burned, as they have feared—but moved and enthused by the experience.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Embedded in the middle of the mayor’s S.O.C. speech, there was one innocent sounding paragraph that has 76 of the city’s important community agencies in a justifiable state of panic. The paragraph was this one:

We are going to better connect help to the people who need it by creating 21 Family Source Centers located in our hardest-hit neighborhoods. Where people will be able to seek assistance for themselves and their families, file for critical tax credits, access affordable medical care, and benefit from programs at every level of government – and all on a single form. Each year, this program will serve at least 50,000 people.

Here’s the problem. Those nice, spanking new (as yet to be built) “Family Source Centers” will need to be funded.

And funding, in case you haven’t noticed, is a bit tight these days. So to create his new pet one-stop shopping centers, the mayor reportedly intends to yank funding from a money cache known as the Community Development Block Grant fund.

Unfortunately, that money is funding the aforementioned 76 existing organizations and has been, in many cases, for over 20 years. In some cases 30 years. We’re talking about an impressive list of service providers that range from well-known day care centers, homeless shelters, senior care centers, pre schools, mentoring programs, after school programs, low-cost legal services, services for persons with disabilities, jobs programs……and on and on and on.

These are proven programs that are already woven into the fabric of the communities they serve. They provide services on which the poorer communities have come to depend. In other words, they cover many of the same neighborhood needs that the mayor wants to provide in his new Family Source Centers. Except that they don’t have “City of Los Angeles” over their doors, as one mayor’s office staffer helpfully pointed out when questioned about the funding switch.

Now these 76 neighborhood organizations are being told, “Bub-bye. Lovely knowing you. Must run. I’ll be taking your bank account with me.”

Put another way, the mayor seems to have decided to reinvent 21 nice new wheels all monogrammed with his name…and to do so he’s tossing out the existing working wheels, which does not sound terribly wise—and is, one would guess, a lot more expensive.

Read the rest of this entry »

Okay, he gave it. It was pretty good. Antonio can be quite moving when he puts in the effort. The man does, after all, have skills. And, since he is planning to run for Governor, he did put in the effort.

The LA Times has a nice rundown on the main part of the speech, which had to do with what the city was going to do to help itself and its residents survive this economy. (You can find the speech in full after the jump.)

Apart from the economy et al, there was one other significant section of the speech. And that was the last big section, the stuff about education.

Antonio praised charter schools in a big way—in particular Green Dot and its takeover of Locke High School—which, now that it is eight months into its first school year, can be tentatively labeled a real and very heartening success, even though it is still early days.

AV also praised the new Alliance charter that has opened up to rave reviews on the Cal State LA campus.

Rather than fight the charters, Villaraigosa made clear that the district must actively partner with them—thus giving a loud message to the union leadership (We’re talking to you, Mr. Duffy) that they need to get over their charter aversion and start making some deals.

None of this was new. Antonio was just swaying to the popular music of the moment, educationally speaking, and telling us to sing along.

But he assuredly set the right tone. Charters are the reform leaders right now. Anybody paying attention knows that. But the mayor saying so gave it a nice official stamp.
Read the rest of this entry »

The fight continues.

First let me apologize mightily for not researching this part of the issue more rigorously myself. I’m smack in the middle of figuring out final grades for my USC and UC Irvine journalism classes, and those tasks hold the high card with my time for the next couple of days.

So instead of any pithy opinions from me, we have a new volley from the participants, or rather from their spokespersons.

Yesterday I posted an email from Laura Chick’s communications director, Rob Wilcox who was replying to comments made last week by Rocky Delgadillo’s communications director, Nick Velasquez, about how many times Chick had or had not audited Delgadillo in the past.

Later yesterday, Velasquez came back with a rebuttal, which is posted below:

Enough with the straw man fallacies, Mr. Wilcox.

Let’s stick to the facts.

Over the past 7.5 years, the Office of the City Attorney has been subjected to 33 fiscal audits by the City Controller. That’s right, 33.

The majority of these audits fall under the Controller’s Internal Control Certification Program (ICCP) — a comprehensive audit of various components of our Office’s financial operations.

The ICCP provides Departments/Offices that successfully pass the audit with more flexibility and independence in the way they do business.

The ICCP is not a one time deal. The Controller reviews and scores the Departments’/Offices’ fiscal operations several times each year in follow-up audits.

If a Department does not pass, fiscal certification is taken away and more restrictive financial controls are put in place.

Prior to 2001, the Office of the City Attorney had failed its ICCP audits and had not achieved fiscal certification.

In 2002, under a new administration, the Office of the City Attorney became certified (passing the ICCP audit) and has maintained such certification since, passing every one of the many ICCP audits conducted in subsequent years.

The Controller’s Office has conducted the ICCP reviews/audits more than two dozen times over the last 7.5 years in the City Attorney’s Office alone. All data released by the Controller’s auditing staff is available upon request.

In addition to these ICCP audits, a petty cash audit, Dispute Resolution Program audit and Bank Account audit have been conducted as well, bringing the total number of audits to 33 over the past 7.5 years. 33 audits.

Nick Velasquez
Director of Communications
Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office

Alright, gentlemen (and Madam Controller), I humbly recommend that, before we take this line of discussion any further, perhaps everyone could take a minute in the office and do, say, 100 stomach crunches and four or five sets of pushups.

Admittedly, it won’t solve the To Audit or Not to Audit question, but at least it will promote upper body strength, muscle tone and cardiovascular health, all worthy goals to which to aspire as we bushwhack through this holiday season on our way to the brave new year.

I have just learned to my dismay that there is a very good chance that Governor Schwarzenegger’s primary gang violence reduction initiative may be scrapped before the month is out.

The possible cuts that are suggested by the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office, are laid out in this 28-page report. As you will note, the gov’s gang program is on page 28 of the LAO’s list of chopping block recommendations.

This has LA’s gang prevention/intervention world in a state of upset, and calls and emails are going out from many quarters as I write.

Here’s the full story: As the economy continues to crash and burn, grant money available to nonprofits that provide gang intervention and prevention services has tightened to the point of strangulation meaning that even such longtime and successful gang intervention programs like Homeboy Industries are struggling to pay bills. (As I wrote yesterday) To make matters far worse, those served by such programs are in increasingly precarious circumstances due to the same worsening economy, so the need for those programs is much greater than usual.

Given all this, it was incredibly comforting to hear that, on a conference call a few weeks ago, a representative of Governor Schwarzenegger’s office said that, even with all the budget hacking taking place, the one thing that would definitely not be touched by those legislative slashers was the governor’s California Gang Reduction, Intervention and Prevention Program (CalGRIP). (Details here.) The program, which was announced in May 2007, was just too important, assured the gov’s spokesperson. So not to worry. It is safe, safe, safe.

Fast forward to this week and, well, about those “too important” and “safe” thingies? Nevermind.

In a state senate budget committee hearing scheduled for this morning, CalGRIP is going to be discussed for termination (or death, or assassination. Pick your word of choice.)

Yesterday, I spoke to Crystal Taylor who is one of the people at the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office most expert about these issues. Taylor said she gave CalGRIP about a 50-50 chance of being killed. Maybe more.

And if it is killed, what would happen to the grants promised for this coming January to cities like LA, and to programs like Homeboy? Will recipients like these at least get the grants that have been previously agreed upon?

Uh, no. They won’t, said Taylor, who agreed this was a deeply unpleasant scenario. “See the legislature has already picked all the low hanging fruit,” she said. So the LAO had no choice but to recommend anything else that conceivably might be picked.

Bottom line, Cal GRIP will be discussed today, and there will be a cut or don’t cut vote before Christmas. But, for the moment anyway, things are not looking good.

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ONE MORE THING: As we all know, Mayor Villaraigosa announced his own gang violence reduction strategy last spring, most of which has yet to be rolled out. One part of his strategy that did get rolled out right away, however, at least in part, is called the GRP (Gang Reduction Program. Can’t somebody come up with the more interesting set of acronyms? Please? Pretty please?).

One part of that GRP that has been up and running is a juvenile reentry program that helps kids to transition successfully into non-gang lives when they get out of County probation camps. The plan is to prevent young men and women from getting stuck in the revolving door that, at present, claims nearly 70 percent of the juveniles we lock up. The available research is pretty definitive about the need for these kinds of strategies to get kids off the repeating cycle.

Thus far, the program looks like it is indeed effective. (Although it is too soon to quantitatively evaluate.)

Only one problem: the city hasn’t paid its GRP providers, like Homeboy, in three months. This is $29,000 per month–times three, or nearly $90 grand—that the programs have been fronting for the city. And no one seems to know when and if that money will ever be paid.

It’s going to be a long year.

NOTE: FOR THE UPDATE FROM ROCKY’S OFFICE, BE SURE TO SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM.

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Okay, the Los Angeles City Council voted on whether to authorize $100,000 for City Controller Laura Chick to hire an attorney to defend herself in the lawsuit filed against her by City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, and the council said NO, as Laura Chick expected that they would.

[see backstory below]

The 11 to 1 vote was to tell both offices, that of Delgadillo and Chick, to “stand down” with their tit-for-tat lawsuit. (Wendy Greuel, who is running for city controller, was the sole YES vote.)

Chick said she had no freaking intention of standing down, (or words to that effect) that she wants this matter to be settled and that, at this point, the court is the only way to get a definitive decision as to whether or not she has the power to audit the programs of LA’s public officials. So, she’s going forward. Get used to it!

After the vote was taken, Chick went on to say that she was going to hire attorney Fredric Woocher on her own dime and then Woocher could, at a later date, sue the city to reimburse his fees.

(So if she’s hiring him with her own money then why would he be the one who…. ? Oh never mind.)

Naturally, before and after the vote, there was much in the way of grandstanding on the part of all concerned.

Bernard Parks, who is the chair of the Budget and Finance Committee, was one of the strong NO votes who spoke against authorizing the $100,000.

“I’ve never seen the city of L.A. ever give an employee money to sue us,” Park said.

(Note to Bernie. Technically speaking, the money at issue would have been used to allow an employee to defend herself against a lawsuit from another city employee. Maybe you don’t want to fork over the bucks anyway, but let’s at least be clear on the issue.)

Wendy Greuel spoke in favor of the hundred grand in funding and noted, quite rightly, that the city attorney has a conflict of interest in the case.

“We have voted on numerous occasions in the Budget Committee and others to provide outside counsel when there is a conflict by the city attorney’s office,” she said, according to the City News Service. “The controller deserves the same type of representation in this, no matter what your opinion is on the position that has been taken.”

Point, Wendy.

On the other hand, the city is hurting for cash and spending big bucks on attorneys fees so city officials can wave lawsuits at each other is a bit….how to put it?…..vexing.

Meanwhile, essential nonprofits in Los Angeles are on the verge of going under, while equally essential city agencies are hideously underfunded. Any of the above could put that same money to much more satisfying and productive use than throwing it down the rat hole that this lawsuit constitutes.

The last people in this mess who need to be handed great gobs of public cash are the private attorneys who, if this suit goes forward, are (one way or the other) going to get it.

Bottom line: Rocky, let Laura do the goddamn audit. We understand you don’t like it. Okay, we see other agendas too. But transparency, transparency, transparency. Public accountability is a good thing. You know the mantra.

Just do it.

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UPDATE:

Nick Velasquez from the City Attorney’s Office just posted the following in the comments section, which I felt was moving up to the front page:

1. The City Attorney is not now using, and has not ever used, outside attorneys to sue the Controller. The matter is being handled in-house, by our own attorneys.

2. As is customarily done, the CAO’s office has assigned outside counsel from its CAO outside counsel conflicts panel to represent individual City employees targeted with subpoenas by the Controller. But for the action of the Controller, in subpoenaing City employees, there would be no money spent on outside Council.

3. With regard to oversight of this office, the Controller has conducted more than 20 financial audits of this office over the past 8 years, and we have passed each one with flying colors. Any suggestion that there is no oversight of this office or accounting of its spending is totally false. It is an effort to confuse the issue and the voters.

The Charter allows the Controller to conduct financial audits of other elected officials. The Charter does not, however, allow the Controller to conduct performance audits of other elected officials – which would allow one elected official to evaluate the performance of another elected official. The Charter reform commission correctly saw that evaluation as the job of the voters. They also recognized the potential for political mischief-making by a politician charged with evaluating the performance of other politicians.

So, clearly, there’s more than one side to this question.

Interestingly, I know that the Controller is getting ready to audit the mayor’s gang program, one year in, to look at what Jeff Carr and company has done with the money, one year in. Is that a performance audit or a financial audit? I’ll get back to you with an answer.