September 9, 2009 | 3:13 pm

A City in Need of Leaders

Posted by  David A. Lehrer

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I was on vacation for several weeks in August and have spent the past few days catching up on the local news that the International Herald Tribune didn’t cover.  It was in that process that I discovered the sad news that the Autry National Center, one of this city’s jewels, has decided to shelve its plans for a renovation and expansion of its facilities.

The $175 million dollar project would have nearly doubled the size of the facility and continued the trajectory of the Autry into being a world class site for the viewing and study of Native American art and artifacts. Besides the cultural and artistic implications of the renovation, the renovation would have created in excess of 1,000 jobs in an economy where every single job matters.

This seemed as close to a “no brainer” as there is in the world of municipal politics—artifacts that can’t be displayed at the Autry’s Southwest Museum would be preserved and displayed in the newly renovated and expanded facility, the neighbors, the Native American community leadership and Griffith Park advocates all agreed. Unfortunately, in the byzantine world of Los Angeles politics there are no “no brainers.”

City Councilman Jose Huizar, utilizing the perks of power and the ability of a councilman to erect roadblocks to progress without ever having to himself lead and create, derailed the project.

In a blatant attempt to extract concessions for the Southwest Museum located in his district, a museum now run by the Autry but long ignored and neglected by its neighbors, he placed excessive demands on the Autry—itself a non-profit that has been buffeted by the economy. He insisted on its pledge to support the Southwest in perpetuity as a museum—a commitment few responsible corporate boards, let alone non-profits, would, could, or should ever make.

When the Autry finally said that enough was enough and it was shelving the project, Huizar—in Casablanca-like innocence—-said the decision caught him “by surprise.” One wonders how far he thought he could push before it would be too much for the Autry to bear. Now, he and his colleagues have no one to squeeze to gain the revenues they hunger to disburse.

This sad tale makes transparently clear what many have seen developing, a troubling vacuum in leadership that speaks for the benefit of the city as a whole. Each of the council members have fiefdoms over which they rule, but strikingly absent is a voice speaking out for what is good for the larger city beyond the narrow confines of a single district.

It takes leadership with guts to assert itself and simply state the obvious and the necessary—-renovating a well run facility that will give hundreds of thousands of people the opportunity to view unique artifacts trumps the complaints of neighbors of an ignored and run down 100 year old building which has not garnered much attention or concern for decades.

Would that we had that kind of leadership in this city—-instead, we have bad decisions, bad policy and as a result everyone loses.

September 3, 2009 | 6:39 pm

Is California Governable—A Lively Debate

Posted by  David A. Lehrer

In case you missed our recent broadcast program on the question of “Is California Governable?” you can listen to the both the KPCC broadcast and the subsequent Q&A session.

Community Advocates hosted the discussion together with the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy and NPR station KPCC.

The panelists were outstanding and the discussion illuminating—-each participant was familiar with the realities of politics, finance and the “real world.” They were former Speaker of the Assembly Bob Hertzberg, former State Senator and Director of the Department of Finance, Steve Peace, president of the California Federation of Teachers, Martiy Hittleman, and president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers’ Association, Jon Coupal. The moderator was Larry Mantle of KPCC’s Airitalk.

To listen to the program simply follow these links: Program and Q&A colloquy.

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August 31, 2009 | 7:24 pm

So-called “reverse racism” is after all … just plain old racism

Posted by  Joe R. Hicks

Imagine, if you can, that white political elites in a major American city, with a majority white population, were openly attempting to unite voters behind keeping political power and control in the hands of whites, in the form of a white mayor.  “After all,” they’d say, “it’s the way thing should be.”  Mayors had always been white – at least in recent memory.  Without a moment’s hesitation, most people would identify this for what it clearly is … racism. 

Racially polarized voting schemes of this ilk are linked with America’s ugly and dark past, when whites often conspired to keep blacks from achieving political power – often utilizing violence to prevent blacks from voting in Southern states. 

Now however, in the city of Atlanta, Georgia, black political elites have hatched a campaign to unite blacks in an effort to defeat the only white candidate in an upcoming mayoral race.  The explicit aim is to keep the office of mayor in the hands of blacks.

Is this racism?  It has been long-argued that since racism is rooted in power and domination, it is something that exclusively belongs to whites.  According to this “racism’s a white thing” view, blacks are incapable of racism.  However, being a racist has nothing to do with power or money.  One only has to hold to the belief that his or her racial group is superior to others.  Ask a white person who’s been on the receiving end of black hate crime if blacks are capable of racist behavior.  You’ll get an earful.

The specious claim that racism is tied to white wealth and power is also particularly silly in the face of undeniable racial progress that’s occurred over the past generations.  The “racism’s a white thing” argument falls flat when stacked against actual societal realities: today, most blacks are solidly ensconced in the economic middle-class; there is observable, high-profile black leadership in corporate boardrooms; some of the most powerful, influential and wealthy people in the film, music and entertainment industries are black; and there has been dramatic black success at all levels of politics.

Not only has a black man been elected president, the nation’s attorney general is also black, as were the last two secretaries of state.  They are emblematic of a largely post-racial society that can is also reflected in the presence of influential political figures from the halls of Congress to governor’s mansions. 

In many of the nation’s major cities, the mayors are black, and often so are the heads of law enforcement agencies.  The contention that blacks have not achieved wealth and power is largely the product of an investment in a political agenda that continually attempts to portray blacks as victims of a racially hostile nation.

The population of Atlanta is 57 percent black, with a surging population of young whites who have been drawn back to the city by recent gentrification efforts.  However, for 35 years all of the mayors of Atlanta have been black, which has apparently led to a view that there is black entitlement to the mayor’s seat.

This year, Atlanta’s office of mayor is up for grabs, and with a handful of blacks running against a single white candidate the fear is that the black candidates will split the vote, allowing City Councilwoman Mary Norwood – the lone white candidate – to win.

To prevent this, something called the “Black Leadership Forum” has allegedly disseminated an email that essentially calls for a unified front among blacks to vote for their preferred (black) candidate to ensure the defeat of Norwood.

Atlanta has often been viewed as the center of the “New South,” a revival of business, culture and progressive racial attitudes.  It is argued that Atlanta led the way with the election of Maynard Jackson as mayor in the 1970s.  Dubbed “ATL” by the hip-hop crowd, the city has become a Mecca for the nation’s black elites from business to music and film. 

Atlanta was also the home, however, of Martin Luther King, Jr. who undoubtedly would have opposed efforts on the part of anybody to racially polarize an election.  As the former executive director of the Los Angeles office of Dr. King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, I can state with confidence that he would have been especially outraged by an effort of this sort coming from self-styled black leadership. 

There can be no racial entitlement to an elected office.  Propagating views of this kind should be seen for what it is … racism.  To be sure some black Atlanta residents have been repelled by the bigoted campaign and have rejected the message of entitlement coming from the Black Leadership Forum and its allies.  Hopefully, come the election, the citizens of Atlanta – black as well as white - will elect the best person for the position, irrespective of skin color.  If they do, there can be no doubt that Dr. King would be pleased.

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August 7, 2009 | 4:24 pm

California’s Future Is At Stake

Posted by  David A. Lehrer

In this era of “spin” and media manipulation, it is rare to have the opportunity to transcend the fog of dissembling and get a glimpse of what really goes on in the world of politics and government.

Next week, Community Advocates is co-hosting with the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy and NPR station KPCC a “mock constitutional convention” for California.

What could and should state leaders do to insure that the fiasco and disarray that we witnessed in Sacramento over the past six months never occur again?

We have a panel of experienced leaders for this to-be-broadcast program who are familiar with the realities of politics, finance and the “real world”—-former Speaker of the Assembly Bob Hertzberg, former State Senator and Director of the Department of Finance, Steve Peace, president of the California Federation of Teachers, Marty Hittelman, and president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers’ Association, Jon Coupal. The moderator is Larry Mantle of KPCC’s Airtalk.

If you want to learn about what really is going on and how California can fix it, come to the

National Center for the Preservation of Democracy (111 North Central Avenue in Little Tokyo) next Wednesday, August 12th, at 7:00 PM

.

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July 31, 2009 | 3:46 pm

Teachers Unions and Change—Again

Posted by  David A. Lehrer

It must be in the air.

Our blog of earlier this week about teachers unions and the forces—from Washington to Sacramento—that are pushing for serious reform is being echoed from some serious sources.

We wrote,

The weeks ahead will give us a clue as to where the priorities of local teachers’ unions lie—-are they all about themselves and continue to view as a potential threat every piece of information and datum that administrators might have about how they perform; or are they willing to work cooperatively to help move our schools and students forward?

This morning the Los Angeles Times opined about the role of teacher accountability and the need for teachers unions to participate in the changes that are around the corner:

Now that politicians are speaking up for students, their next task must be to engage California teachers in meaningful discussions about how to shape accountability in ways that make sense in the classroom. Student scores are obviously part of a teacher’s job, but they should not be the only issue, or even the single most important one. Nor should low-performing teachers be summarily fired, but tenure robs administrators of the authority to compel improvement. If union leaders want a role in these discussions, they’ll need to abandon their hidebound positions and take a place at the reform table.

Today the New York Times wrote very much the same thing:

Similarly, the process requires states to develop systems that evaluate teacher performance, taking student achievement into account. States must also be required to make sure that poor and minority students finally get a fair share of high-quality teachers. But that requirement will be meaningful only if the states are forced to develop serious teacher-quality measures.

Something is happening, and it’s happening in the right direction.

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July 30, 2009 | 2:41 pm

A Time for Introspection

Posted by  David A. Lehrer

The story that blared across the nation’s newspapers and news networks about the arrest of Orthodox Jews on money laundering charges has struck a note of understandable concern in much of the Jewish world.

Some of the concern has been focused on how the media reporting of the arrests of bearded rabbis is perceived in the outside world. Another, more profound, aspect of the response is the concern with the internal dynamic in some quarters of the Orthodox (and its Haredi subset) world that tolerates the conduct that has been alleged in the criminal complaints.

A particularly thoughtful article appeared in The New York Jewish Week by Mark Charendorff:

Is it possible that there is something in the Orthodox community in general and the haredi community in particular that creates fertile ground for this type of fraud? I’ve too often witnessed, here and in Israel, a perverse notion that we few who feel bound by the laws of God are free to flout the laws of man. That the seriousness with which we hold halacha (Jewish law) forces us to view state law as trite, flawed — unimportant at best, a nuisance at worst.

***
We see the same sort of flouting of laws in Israel today by some members of the haredi community — whether it is rioting to protest the opening of parking lots on the Sabbath or stone throwing and garbage burning to support a woman suspected of starving her toddler son. Municipal services recently had to be suspended in these neighborhoods out of fear for the safety of city workers.

Yes, I know — a few bad apples. But where is the outrage? Where are the haredi leaders jumping up to protest? Where are the public vigils or the excommunications? This is a community that is pretty good at enforcing standards of behavior when it is motivated to do so. Have we actually convinced ourselves that we can be good Jews and bad people at the same time?

Many years ago, when I first heard Rabbi Norman Lamm speak, the then-president of Yeshiva University accused his fellow Orthodox Jews of losing sight of the forest of Torah because of the trees of halacha. Those words were never more true than today. Is it really possible that we, as Orthodox Jews, believe that we can create better societies and more caring communities by avoiding raspberries for fear they may have bugs in them while not holding ourselves to even the basic standards of law and decency? Is it really possible that we believe we are in greater danger from women appearing at the pulpit than from rabbis appearing in a perp walk? Perhaps it is time to stop waiting for the perfection of the world that will come along with the building of the Third Temple and engage in perfecting ourselves and the communities we live in.

The Jewish community ought to use this tragic opportunity for some introspection. We should ask ourselves, as Charendorff queries, “where is the outrage? Where are the haredi leaders jumping up to protest? Where are the public vigils or the excommunications?” Their absence is troubling.

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July 29, 2009 | 7:24 pm

Black Crime Rates in the Spotlight

Posted by  Joe R. Hicks

It has now been revealed that the dirt-bag who apparently took the life of 17-year-old Lily Burke is a 50-year-old transient man, someone who had many previous run-ins with the law.  As someone who has a two young daughters, one the exact age of Burke, this hit close to home – as it did for many parents across the country.  After media coverage made no reference to the race of the alleged killer, pictures of the suspect revealed that Charles Samuel is a black man.

As I write this, the nation’s president is about to sit down with Henry Louis Gates and Sergeant James Crowley to have a few beers and chat about the recent arrest of Gates by Crowley.  Obama had suggested that Crowley’s actions in arresting Gates represented the stupidity of the Cambridge, Massachusetts police department and dredged up the specter of racial profiling – something subsequently revealed to have had nothing to do with the arrest of Gates as a “disorderly person.”

The incident at Gates’ home in Cambridge, and resultant intervention by a sitting U.S. President in what was essentially a localized police matter has ignited a national political firestorm.  Mainstream media have endlessly covered the events (often badly), political bloggers have been all over the issues like a cheap suit, and race hustlers from coast to coast have emerged from the woodwork to claim that the arrest of a high profile black academic is proof positive that racism is still society’s number one problem.

Okay, that’s what race hustlers do – but while they opportunistically seek political advantage and work the old terrain of white liberal racial guilt, the real issues underlying the mythology of so-called “racial profiling”—-something that was re-surfaced by the president’s comments—-ignores the larger question of why black men in this nation are “disproportionately” housed in our prisons and jails. 

While Obama speaks either in an ill-informed or ideological way about “disproportionate” treatment of blacks in the nation’s criminal justice system, statistics do not lie.  Young black men (between the ages of 18 and 24) commit murder at ten times the rate of whites and Latinos.  Based on this disproportionate level of violent criminal behavior, police are stopping and arresting more black male suspects based on actual rates of criminality, not whim and caprice.  To blame police for arresting high numbers of black suspects is unfair and could be characterized as blaming the messengers for the unpleasant news that they have no choice but to impart.

Thanks to aggressive police actions, homicide is down in the City of Los Angeles, as it is in many major cities across the nation.  But as an indication of the disproportionate level of black crime, in 2003—-39 percent of the city’s 505 homicide victims were black, and 36 percent of the murder suspects arrested for all of the city’s murder were also black. This is in contrast to the fact that only 11 percent of the city’s population is black.  According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 94 percent of all blacks killed nationally between 1976 and 1999 were killed by other blacks.

So, when the president sits down with Sergeant Crowley and Professor Gates and perhaps engages in a lecture about unfair treatment of blacks by the criminal justice system, and the injustice of “racial profiling” let’s hope the Sergeant stops him short.  I expect that he will recite the stats on black crime that might adjust his attitude – unless the President really does have an agenda that encompasses many of the mythologies of the past.

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July 28, 2009 | 6:54 pm

A Test of Commitment

Posted by  David A. Lehrer

Something is happening in the world of public education—-the US Department of Education is serious about reform and we will soon have the opportunity to see who will help them effect the changes that are so desperately needed.

Over the past few weeks Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, has been explicit in speeches to teachers’ groups that a significant provision of the huge stimulus package that impacts teachers and their students is contingent on real reform. States that want some of the “Race to the Top” funds must have in place methods to evaluate teachers based on test score data of their students, anathema to many teachers’ unions. This past weekend, President Obama buttressed the Secretary’s call by explicitly sending a message to California, “You cannot ignore facts, that is why any state that makes it unlawful to link student progress to teacher evaluation will have to change its ways.”

It should be no great shock to Californians concerned about education reform that our state has an explicit bar on using student test scores to evaluate teachers. In fact, just a few months ago, United Teachers of Los Angeles went a step further by refusing to even administer assessment tests to their pupils, presumably fearing that the tests MIGHT in the future be used to evaluate their performance as instructors. We have previously written about UTLA and its irrational positions.

Although state law bars the State of California from using student test score data, it is silent about how districts use the information. Presumably, if UTLA and other local unions don’t object, California could be in compliance with federal law and the much needed funds will flow our way.

The weeks ahead will give us a clue as to where the priorities of local teachers’ unions lie—-are they all about themselves and continue to view as a potential threat every piece of information and datum that administrators might have about how they perform; or are they willing to work cooperatively to help move our schools and students forward?

Hopefully, the fact that a Democratic president, who owes much to labor and its teacher unions, has taken this position is a sign that the “times they are a changin’” and the teachers unions might just come around.

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