The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has drawn a line on homelessness, voting 3-2 to support a challenge to an expansive 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that forbids local governments in nine Western states from enforcing laws against camping or sleeping on sidewalks or in other public places unless overnight shelter is available.

That ruling came in September 2018. In invalidating a Boise, Idaho, law against sleeping on public lands, Judge Marsha Berzon wrote that “just as the state may not criminalize the state of being ‘homeless in public places,’ the state may not criminalize conduct that is an unavoidable consequence of being homeless — namely sitting, lying or sleeping on the streets.’” Berzon wrote for a three-judge panel.

Ted Olson, the former U.S. solicitor general who won the Bush v. Gore case before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000, is among the attorneys working with the city of Boise on an appeal. Los Angeles County will file an amicus brief in support of the appeal.

Republican Supervisor Kathryn Barger and Democrat Supervisor Janice Hahn co-sponsored the resolution to file the brief. Democratic Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, a member of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s state homelessness task force, surprised some observers by being the third vote for the resolution. Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and many big-city Democrats have endorsed policies that emphasize helping and sympathizing with the homeless. Garcetti has called homelessness “the moral and humanitarian crisis of our time.”

Supervisor: Don’t accept ’emergency’ as ‘new normal’

But Ridley-Thomas said in a statement that he was “fed up. The status quo is untenable. … We need to call this what it is — a state of emergency — and refuse to resign ourselves to a reality where people are allowed to live in places not fit for human habitation. I refuse to accept this as our new normal.” Los Angeles County has nearly 60,000 homeless people, according to official estimates, more than double the numbers seen 20 years ago.

Supervisors Sheila Kuehl and Hilda Solis, both Democrats, voted no on the resolution, saying homelessness should not be criminalized. Kuehl also said she feared what a “terrible” U.S. Supreme Court might decide in its ruling.

Activists blasted Barger, Hahn and Ridley-Thomas not only for lacking compassion but for reinforcing the narrative of President Donald Trump that homelessness is out of control in coastal California.

“We can’t let Los Angeles, San Francisco and numerous other cities destroy themselves by allowing what’s happening,” Trump said last week.

The president has used Twitter to depict leaders of these cities as hapless and paralyzed in responding to declining quality of life caused by homelessness. He also dispatched Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson to visit Skid Row in Los Angeles last week and said he wanted to help California deal with its homeless problem.

But the nature of possible federal help is unclear. Trump has suggested that homeless people might be rounded up and housed on federal property or military bases, but civil-rights lawyers say the president has no authority to forcibly relocate individuals who have not committed federal crimes. 

The Associated Press reported that Carson might link federal housing grants to local governments’ efforts to make it easier to add housing by limiting regulations. That approach would parallel efforts by Newsom and lawmakers led by state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, to weaken local zoning rules that they say enable NIMBYs to block new housing.

After a brief lull in 2017, there’s now another embarrassing chapter in Los Angeles County’s emergence as an epicenter of American political corruption.

Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar has been stripped of all his council committee assignments after having his home and office raided by the FBI earlier this month. Law enforcement authorities have been tight-lipped about their probe so far, but speculation has focused on Huizar’s close relationships with developers and his now-former role as chair of the powerful Planning and Land Use Management Committee, which reviews all large development projects that come before the City Council.

It’s the second time in six months that the city’s planning approval process has faced criminal scrutiny. In June, it was revealed that the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office was investigating the city Department of Building and Safety over allegations of “unauthorized purchases, falsified invoices and $24,900 in payments to a consulting company that did not exist,” the Los Angeles Times reported. Five members of the department’s technology office have resigned or retired, including the division’s chief, Giovani Dacumos, who was named in most of the allegations.

Huizar replaced Antonio Villaraigosa as the 14th District’s councilman in a 2005 special election after Villaraigosa became mayor. The district includes most of downtown Los Angeles as well as Boyle Heights, Highland Park and Eagle Rock.

The first Mexican immigrant elected to the City Council, Huizar has repeatedly won re-election easily. But his political standing has taken several hits this fall. Besides the FBI raid, two former staffers have sued him, saying they faced retaliation when complaining about Huizar favoring an aide he was allegedly having an affair with as well as requiring them to do personal favors like picking up his dry cleaning or moving his wife’s car so it wouldn’t be ticketed. Huizar had previously admitted to having an affair with an aide in 2013, but he was cleared in a related sexual harassment lawsuit.

Misconduct at 10 cities and water district since 2006

Huizar joins a long list of officials – mostly Democrats – who have faced serious accusations of wrongdoing in Los Angeles County since 2006. A 2016 overview by CalWatchdog found 21 officials with 10 cities and a water agency had been targeted by law enforcement over that span.

The list: Bell, Carson, Central Basin Municipal Water District, Commerce, Cudahy, Lynwood, Maywood, Montebello, South El Monte, South Gate and Vernon.

The range of offenses ranged from outrageous – the Bell city manager and City Council looting the city treasury of tens of millions of dollars – to the mundane – council members using city government credit cards at strip clubs and for party weekends in Las Vegas.

The main theory about why the county has so much corruption has to do with the inability of watchdogs to keep track of public officials’ wrongdoing, especially with many local newspapers disappearing. There are 88 incorporated cities and more than 500 government agencies and special districts in the county’s 4,083 square miles.

Study says Chicago only region with more convictions

This has led to the argument that the corruption is no surprise given that Los Angeles County is the most populous in the country. But a 2012 University of Illinois study of all federal corruption convictions since 1976 found the L.A. region was ninth in per-capita rates of corruption convictions – meaning they were far more common than in most metro areas. L.A. was second to Chicago in total convictions.

Bill Boyarsky, a veteran journalist who served on the city of Los Angeles’ ethics committee, told Southern California Public Radio in 2012 that he was unsurprised by the findings.

“There’s always been a long, long history of corruption and bending the law in the Southland,” he said. “This area is so vast [and] there’s so much going on that the corruption hasn’t been shown-up yet.”

Diaper benefit

Good morning. Happy Hump Day. It’s the last day of the legislative session. While we wouldn’t rule out last-minute fireworks, we aren’t expecting them. Instead, there will be a flurry of more modest bills (modest in scope, not necessarily in importance). 

For example, low-income Californians could soon receive a monthly, $50 benefit for diaper purchases, according to a bill approved by the Legislature on Tuesday.

The monthly benefit would be given for each child two years old or younger, with a requirement that the money be spent only on diapers.

The benefit would not begin being awarded until 2020, and is expected to cost around $14 million to $18 million annually as part of the CalWORKS welfare program.

CalWatchdog has more:

In other news:

• Democratic Congresswoman Janice Hahn, who is running for a seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, “may have to refund more than $280,000 in contributions from political action committees after county election officials alleged that her committee probably violated campaign finance rules,” reports the Los Angeles Times.
• “Gov. Jerry Brown will decide whether to eliminate California’s 10-year time limit to bring rape and child molestation charges after several women were precluded from bringing cases against actor Bill Cosby,” writes The San Jose Mercury News/AP.

• “New California parents would be able to take unpaid time off without losing their jobs under revived legislation that cleared the Assembly on Tuesday. The 43-15 vote for Senate Bill 654 marked a critical step in the once-dead measure’s revival. A nearly identical bill fell in the Assembly Labor Committee in June,” reports The Sacramento Bee. 

• “Lawmakers on Tuesday narrowly rejected an effort to create new disclosure rules for California political mailers and money gathered from several donors into a single contribution,” reports the Los Angeles Times.

Assembly:

• In at 10 a.m.

Senate:

• In at 10 a.m.

Gov. Brown:

• Attending the 20th Annual Lake Tahoe Summit, which will focus on water quality. Capital Public Radio has more. 

Tips: matt@calwatchdog.com

Follow us: @calwatchdog @mflemingterp

New follower: @elmayedda

The measure is unusual in that it assigns cleanup costs to the producer of a product instead of to its users. But many officials throughout Los Angeles County depict themselves as overwhelmed by the problem posed by proper disposal of the medical waste, especially items that pose health risks to trash handlers.

Burbank recycling coordinator Kreigh Hampel told KPCC that this waste is “one of the things we’re completely ill-equipped to take. … We just had one of our biggest days ever just a few months ago where we had almost 27 1/2 pounds of needles come through the line. The workers up there have leather gloves, but there are no gloves made that can stop a fine, little puncture from a needle.”

Drug companies question wisdom of approach

Santa Clara County reportedly has a similar law. But pharmaceutical companies appear ready to step up efforts to assign them a costly new task when the party involved is the most populated county in the United States:

“We agree that it’s really vital that consumers dispose of their medicines properly,” says Priscilla VanderVeer, spokeswoman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a national trade association.

But “a mandated costly and frankly inefficient take-back program is not the way to do that,” she says. “There are cheaper, less burdensome ways to dispose of medicines.”

VanderVeer says a mandatory program would force a liability risk onto pharmacies that handle controlled substances. A better option, she says, would be to educate residents about proper disposal and to promote voluntary drug drop-off sites, such as those offered by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and some pharmacies.

That’s from KPCC’s reporting.

Mattress law set precedent for requiring help in cleanup

Forcing producers to help oversee the cleanup of the goods they make has a precedent in California. In September 2013, Gov. Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 254. The Waste360 website reported that “the law requires mattress manufacturers to create and manage a mattress recycling organization that will provide recycling services to municipalities for free. The program will be financed by a visible mattress recycling charge, or ‘eco-fee,’ which will be collected from consumers at the point of sale.”

The mattress program, which began gearing up this January, draws criticism from mattress makers.

Ryan Trainer, president of the Mattress Recycling Council, told Capitol Public Radio earlier this year that “at the end of its useful life, a used mattress has relatively low value. It’s a very bulky product and so we don’t want to handle it multiple times before it gets to the recycler and in turn to the scrap markets where the foam and steel can be reused in making new products.”

But so far mattress companies haven’t sued over the law, as some expected when it was first discussed several years ago.

The Census Bureau estimates that 23 percent of state residents meet its alternative definition of impoverished. A 2011 study done by the Public Policy Institute of California and the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality, which also took into account cost of living, put L.A. County’s poverty rate at 27 percent. With the cost of rent ballooning since then, that figure may be low. But the established data suggest that at least 2.7 million of the county’s 10.2 million residents are in poverty. That’s about the same number of people as the population of Chicago — America’s third-largest city.

Now a new study by the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, with the help of public opinion research firm Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz and Associates, has come along that puts a face on this poverty and what it means to have so little money in a place as expensive as Los Angeles County. (Here’s the UCLA summary; here’s a slideshow.) It’s based on interviews with 1,401 county residents.

Perhaps the harshest finding was the extent of economic insecurity among Latinos, the largest ethnic group in the county. Some 44 percent of Latinos, and 54 percent of Latino men (including those of all incomes) worried about going hungry, more than double the rate of any other ethnic/racial group. Also, 44 percent of Latinos worried about going homeless, much higher than any other group, including a majority of men.

Economic fears extend to households making $90K

Other findings:

• 29 percent of all those surveyed feared becoming homeless and 31 percent worried about not having enough money for food. Almost one in four households making $60,000 to $90,000 a year — 24 percent — worried about going hungry.

• Latinos were far more concerned about the cost of living, especially housing, than any other ethnic group. Satisfaction with housing costs was highest among people over 65.

• Unhappiness with the quality of life is highest in the inland area stretching from the San Fernando Valley south through central Los Angeles to the communities surrounding Interstate 5 in south Los Angeles.

Former Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky told the Los Angeles Times that the survey findings were a stark reminder of “the clear differences by class, by economic standing, even more so than the racial divide. … Economic differences seem to be the fault line in our county. It really paints a picture of a Los Angeles that is two worlds.”

Blacks, whites most likely to be upset with public schools

On racially tinged questions, the UCLA study had some results that may surprise.

• Despite years of reports about problems with English-language learner programs, Latinos were far less likely than African Americans to be upset about the quality of public schools. Blacks, whites, college graduates, people with post-college degrees and people with household incomes more than $150,000 were most consistently critical. High school dropouts were most satisfied with public education.

• Despite a perception of racial gaps on the state of race relations, the UCLA study showed, on a scale of 1 to 100, “almost total agreement … [among the] county’s whites (78), Latinos (75), African Americans (77) and Asian-Americans (74)” about the quality of their relations with other ethnic and racial groups.

• African Americans and whites are most worried about the negative effects of immigration.

The fact that about 23 percent of state residents are barely getting by has helped fuel the push for a much higher minimum wage and prompted renewed interest in affordable housing programs. It’s also put the focus on regional economic disparities, especially the fact that Silicon Valley and San Francisco are the primary engine of state prosperity.

While the tech boom and the vast increase in housing prices it has triggered in the Bay Area are national news, prompting think pieces and thoughtful analyses, the poverty picture in the state’s largest population center isn’t covered nearly as fully. Although the fact is plain in Census Bureau data, it’s not commonly understood that Los Angeles County is the capital of U.S. poverty. A 2013 study by the Public Policy Institute of California and the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality based on 2011 data found 27 percent of the county’s 10 million residents were impoverished, the highest figure in the state and the highest of any large metro area in the U.S. The study questioned long-held assumptions about poverty being worst in rural areas.

But there are reasons to think the rate in Los Angeles County is significantly higher than the 27 percent reported in 2013.

The first is that many surveys of poverty struggle to account for undocumented immigrants, who often work for cash and don’t show up in wage surveys. The Pew Research Service in 2009 estimated that undocumented individuals face poverty rates “nearly double” those of Americans in general. Los Angeles County has by far the most undocumented immigrants, estimated by PPIC to be 815,000 in 2013.

The second is that the cost of housing has surged in Los Angeles County over the past four years even as wages have stagnated. The average rent of an apartment countywide is expected to be $1,800 by year’s end, with the biggest percentage jump in poorer communities in the San Fernando Valley.

Poverty-related stress takes heavy toll

A summer report by Southern California Public Radio laid out a grim picture of the toll this mass poverty takes on the young.

New research shows the mere fact of being poor can affect kids’ brains, making it difficult for them to succeed in school.

 

Los Angeles public schools — where more than 80 percent of students live in poverty — illustrate the challenges for these students. …

 

Children living in poor neighborhoods are more likely to suffer traumatic incidents, like witnessing or being the victims of shootings, parental neglect or abuse. They also struggle with pernicious daily stressors, including food or housing insecurity, overcrowding and overworked or underemployed, stressed-out parents.

 

Untreated, researchers have found these events compound, affecting many parts of the body. Studies show chronic stress can change the chemical and physical structures of the brain.

 

“You see deficits in your ability to regulate emotions in adaptive ways as a result of stress,” said Dr. Cara Wellman, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at Indiana University.

 

Dendrites, which look like microscopic fingers, stretch off each brain cell to catch information.  Wellman’s studies in mice show that chronic stress causes these fingers to shrink, changing the way the brain works. She found deficiencies in the pre-frontal cortex – the part of the brain needed to solve problems, which is crucial to learning.

 

Other researchers link chronic stress to a host of cognitive effects, including trouble with attention, concentration, memory and creativity.

SCPR had a follow-up report that showed Los Angeles schools simply didn’t have the resources to help affected students in a comprehensive way.

Newspapers around the Golden State have focused on this seeming contradiction.

This story is from this week’s Orange County Register:

It’s a conundrum statewide: Officials demand that people conserve water. People respond, and water use goes down. But less water sold means less money flowing into public coffers, so prices rise to make up for lost revenue.

 

Folks feel that they’re being punished for conserving. But what else can the water agencies do to cover fixed costs, which don’t fluctuate like the rain? …

 

Southern California cities and water districts are selling less water now than they did back in 2003, but are bringing in much more money nonetheless, a Register analysis found. Rising rates are an integral part of that equation … . The cost of water has doubled and rates at most agencies have risen in recent years, and is expected to rise even more.

‘The financial logic is inexorable’

Last week saw a similar piece in the San Diego Union-Tribune:

Whenever drought hits, Californians invariably do their part to save water. They cut back on watering lawns, shorten showers and fix leaks.

 

This conservation ethic has taken hold quickly during the current drought. Ratepayers in San Diego County and elsewhere in the state are meeting or often significantly exceeding their state-mandated reduction.

 

Now for the unpleasant but predictable sequel. As water use goes down, the rates charged are going up. And many of those good citizens, who are dutifully pitching in for the public good, are outraged. But the retail water agencies, who directly supply residential, business and agricultural customers, say they have little choice.

 

The financial logic is inexorable. If you sell less of something, to balance the budget you must either cut costs, raise the price, or a combination of both, the agencies say.

The Los Angeles Times also reported on sharply rising rates in areas served by the L.A. Department of Water and Power, but without the context of recent conservation drives.

Agencies ‘uncomfortable’ with conservation

David Sedlak, a professor of civil engineering at UC Berkeley and a water infrastructure expert, suggested this issue is a little bit more complicated in an op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle:

Water utilities have an uncomfortable relationship with conservation. They prefer that we consumers gradually reduce per capita water use as our region’s population grows so they don’t have to make costly investments in new supplies. When we abruptly start cutting water use during a drought, the utilities fear the resulting plunge in their revenue. They have good reason to worry: During the last drought, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power had to lay off workers when it experienced a $70 million revenue shortfall after customers answered the city’s call for conservation by decreasing water use by 30 percent.

 

Some of the blame for the misconception about the relationship between water consumption and the cost of providing water lies with how we are billed for water. To incentivize conservation, California’s utilities have created complex billing schemes in which rates go up when consumers use more than a reasonable baseline allocation of water. This is an effective way of rewarding conservation and making life a little easier for low-income families, but it feeds into the mistaken idea that water is a commodity rather than a fixed-price service.

But to consumers shocked by higher bills, just about any justification is likely to produce a sharp response or be dismissed as double-talk. Here’s how San Diego resident John Oliver responded to a Union-Tribune story about conservation forcing higher costs:

“And this is yet another reason why I refuse to cut my use below the level I want to use water at,” he wrote on Facebook. “Anyone who falls for this ‘There’s a drought, it’s terrible, we all have to do our part, but not the smelt or the almond farmers or the developers or the poor or the sick or the elderly or the illegal aliens’ nonsense is a fool.”

It also now takes just one click to go from the department’s landing page to the reports. The most recent annual use-of-force report now covers the first half of 2014. The site now provides a 2013 officer discipline report for the fourth quarter.

The website also cites the decree requirement for the posting of the reports, which comes from the 2000 consent decree between the LAPD and the U.S. Department of Justice in the wake of the Rampart scandal in which a gang unit connected to the division was infected with corruption. The decree mandated:

“Under the terms of the agreement with the Justice Department, the LAPD was required to make available on its website reports on use of force and complaints to include “a summary of all discipline imposed during the period reported by type of misconduct, broken down by type of discipline, bureau and rank…”

The LAPD, like other law-enforcement bodies around the United States, has vowed to be more open with in its police procedures in the wake of last year’s spate of fatal police encounters with young men in several cities.

On Jan. 22, Cmdr. Andrew Smith, an LAPD spokesman, told the Los Angeles Times the department’s failure to post the reports was “not intentional, and the department would be posting the latest reports.”

Sheriffs

Ironically, the LAPD’s lax condition came to light in a Dec. 31, 2014 report on another law-enforcement agency. It was the County of Los Angeles Office of Inspector General’s “Recommendation to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for Public Data Disclosure.”

The report mainly pointed out the county sheriff’s office has been deficient in posting officer discipline action on its website.

But it also revealed the LAPD had not posted its quarterly summary of officer discipline since 2012 or its annual use of force report since 2010. Yet both data sets were supposed to be posted under the terms of the 2000 consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice that ended in May 2013.

The department had failed to post quarterly discipline reports since the 3rd quarter of 2012, seven months before the decree requiring the reports ended. It does not appear, though, that the department violated any oversight provisions.

According to the Inspector General’s report:

“In 2009 and 2010, the LAPD published on its website ‘Annual Use of Force Reports.’ Although it appears this practice was shortlived, these reports were detailed as to statistics on officer-involved shootings, animal shootings, unintentional discharge incidents, and other uses of lethal force or force resulting in significant injury.”

Further, the information was deemed difficult for a viewer to find:

“The Use of Force Annual Report and the Quarterly Discipline Reports were not easily accessible on the LAPD’s website. These reports were found under the subheadings of ‘Police Commission’ and ‘Special Assistant for Constitutional 11 Policing.’ A citizen unfamiliar with these terms and their meaning might find it difficult to find these reports.”

An email to Smith regarding the updated site and the lack of current reports on the website was not returned. And a person answering the department’s media line requested an email query, which was also not returned.

The reports are especially valuable in a state in which all law enforcement disciplinary records are uniquely private, said Peter Bibring, a lawyer with the ACLU of Southern California. “It’s only through these reports that the public has any idea what’s going on,” he said

He understood there can be a lag time as the disciplinary process for an officer runs its course, “but just the number of instances of force should come fairly promptly.”

Body cameras and transparency

Last December, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti promised every LAPD officer soon would be wearing a body camera.

“The trust between a community and its police department can be eroded in a single moment,” Garcetti said during a press conference to announce the initiative. “Trust is built on transparency.”

But LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said any video coming from the body cameras would not be released under the state’s public records law, claiming the investigative records exemption.

“I think people misunderstand transparency as having everybody and all the public have access to everything,” Beck told the Times. “And it isn’t so much that as having the ability for oversight by multiple entities outside of the Police Department. I think that’s the meaning of transparency.”

In the past, Beck has been more welcoming of a transparent application of policing, although his endorsement of such came with an interpretation of the state’s public records law.

Upon his appointment in 2009, he told a gathering of LA Times editors and reporters that part of being a police officer is the understanding that “you give up some right to anonymity that most other people enjoy. Unfortunately, state law doesn’t agree with me on that.”

In a recent message posted on the LAPD site, Beck asserted “trust is built on the truth and truth is displayed through transparency.”

By Dave Roberts

“A sense of confidence in the courts is essential to maintain the fabric of ordered liberty for a free people. And three things could destroy that confidence and do incalculable damage to society: that people come to believe that inefficiency and delay will drain even a just judgment of its value; that people who have long been exploited in the smaller transactions of daily life come to believe that courts cannot vindicate their legal rights from fraud and over-reaching; that people come to believe the law — in the larger sense — cannot fulfill its primary function to protect them and their families in their homes, at their work and on the public streets.”

— Former Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren E. Burger

California’s “fabric of ordered liberty” is being torn to shreds by the state’s latest round of budget cuts to the judiciary. In the past four years the judicial branch has suffered $653 million in cuts — a nearly 32 percent reduction in general fund support —  $606 million of it taken from the trial courts alone. The current state budget siphons an additional $544 million from the judiciary.

The cuts “have a serious impact on the ability of the courts to provide timely due process in California,” said California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye at a Judicial Council meeting in San Francisco on Friday.

Cantil-Sakauye invited William Robinson, president of the American Bar Association, to discuss the budgetary impacts.

“When I read the headlines from Sacramento, San Francisco and other communities around the state, like so many other Americans, I am stunned,” said Robinson. “There is really no time to fret about the truly devastating effects of a billion dollars in cuts to our courts. Who could ever have envisioned that in our lifetime the courts would be experiencing this?”

California is not alone in its judicial devastation; 42 states cut funding to their judiciaries last year, according to Robinson. His home state of Kentucky has cut judicial funding by 45 percent since 2009.

“In times of financial crisis our courts actually face more demand, more pressure for delivering justice,” he said. “And yet the money shrinks and shrinks and shrinks. But our judiciary is a co-equal branch of government and deserves to be funded as such. The courts are the linchpin of our constitutional democracy. No one would seriously consider for budgetary reasons closing a firehouse or a police station or a hospital emergency room one day a week — it’s unthinkable. But our courts are the emergency room of democracy. That’s where the triage for constitutional rights is administered and decided upon case after case after case.”

But instead of performing triage for constitutional rights, the courts are performing triage on themselves as they deal with the fiscal hemorrhaging.

Hemorrhaging

• Los Angeles County has mandated unpaid days off, known as furloughs, and has laid off 329 employees and 574 positions are vacant.
• San Francisco has instituted furloughs, laid off 78 and has a 29 percent vacancy rate. The lines and wait times for service are longer and backlogs are growing.
• Alameda County, where Oakland has one of the highest crime rates in the country, has instituted furloughs, laid off 97, eliminated services at two courts and reduced hours at another court.
• Contra Costa County has permanently shut down a criminal courtroom, closes the family and civil courtroom when the judge is on vacation or out of town and may shut it down altogether. In addition to furloughs, 120 positions have been eliminated, there is a 27 percent vacancy rate and self-help legal services may be cut in half.
• Kern County has instituted furloughs, has a 9.6 vacancy rate and the Bakersfield family law court is so busy that by 10 a.m. the appointments are filled up for the rest of the day.
• Mendocino County has imposed furloughs, laid off 21 percent of staff and permanently closed its Willits court, forcing residents to travel to the Ukiah courthouse.
• Mono County has a 33 percent vacancy rate, resulting in delays in processing filings and citations, has reduced customer service and is experiencing low morale from the overworked staff.

Furloughs

One of the hardest hit is San Joaquin County, home of bankrupt Stockton with a crime rate not far behind Oakland’s. It has instituted furloughs, laid off 45 and has 91 vacant positions, representing 26 percent of its staff. Mandatory psychiatric evaluations have been cut in half for most criminal cases, a significant number of small claims hearings have been eliminated due to insufficient staff, court reporters have been eliminated unless required by statute, and they still use typewriters to process juvenile delinquency cases.

Jennifer McMahan, a research attorney in San Joaquin County Superior Court, described in a letter to the Judicial Council just how sorry a state the courthouse is in, noting that she started work there in an area known as “the dump” because it was literally filled with mounds of trash.

“Every corner you turn in our courthouse has something wrong: duct tape holding the carpet together, roaches taking over the bathrooms and hallways, mini blinds falling on judges in their chambers,” wrote McMahan. “My supervisor, a woman who has been a professional for over 20 years and worked for the court for well over 10 years, currently works out of a storage closet at the end of a public hallway.”

Also victimized by the budget cuts are non-English speakers. One interpreter told the Judicial Council about Grace Ho, a blind Cantonese woman living in a San Jose apartment infested with bedbugs, resulting in her throwing away much of her belongings. When she took the landlord to court for restitution, the court did not provide an interpreter. Her friend stepped in to help, but much of the legal proceeding was lost in translation. Teresa Molina said in Spanish (translated by an interpreter) that when she was in court, her 13-year-old daughter had to translate for her because the court did not provide one.

Although judicial fingers of blame for the budget crisis have been pointed at Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature, the judiciary’s own bureaucratic incompetence has resulted in a significant waste of taxpayer dollars. Last year a state audit revealed that the effort to computerize the judicial branch was seven years behind schedule and had a seven-fold cost overrun to $1.9 billion from the originally estimated $260 million. In March the Judicial Council finally pulled the plug on the boondoggle.

Court waste

The Administrative Office of the Courts, which was responsible for that boondoggle, was blasted in a report in May by a judicial committee. “Many of the AOC’s management functions — including the manner in which it carries out its decisions, plans projects, and exercises fiscal options — are flawed, lack transparency, and require a major revision,” the report states.

The AOC’s staff metastasized from fewer than 300 in 1992 to more than 1,100 in 2010. In the process, it became top-heavy, unwieldy and developed a culture of control rather than of service. According to the report, “Widespread concerns exist that budget information has not been effectively or accurately communicated, and that obtaining budget information is difficult. It is difficult to understand what is funded or how it is funded. Whether justified or not, there is currently a lack of faith in the fiscal information released by the AOC. It does not appear that management has made accurate and timely financial information a priority.”

The Judicial Council has also been blasted by the Alliance of California Judges. Last year it wrote that the council’s refusal “to authorize additional trial court relief of at least $82 million while preferring a large central bureaucracy, a questionable computer system, and also refusing to briefly delay site acquisition and preliminary work for costly court construction that is nowhere close to breaking ground, demonstrates that the problem at its heart is an issue of governance.”

The accusation that the problem is an issue of governance could be leveled at the executive and legislative branches as well. While California’s Neros fiddle, the state’s residents continue to get burned.

By Steven Greenhut

SACRAMENTO — A Sacramento area family is mourning the death of their mentally disabled son, who was shot to death by a sheriff’s deputy after the family had called the sheriff’s department for help in restraining him. Newspaper accounts suggest the deputy ordered the young man — a severe germophobe — onto the ground, which sparked intense struggling. After a tussle, the deputy shot the man in front of his family.

As is typical, the sheriff defended the officer and said that he was well within his rights to use deadly force, which is no doubt true given that current law gives officers wide latitude to restrain and even kill people. Comb through newspapers across the country and one will find many incidents of officer-involved shootings and aggressive behavior by the authorities, who, as an aside, increasingly look like paramilitary rather than community officers. Police say society has become more dangerous, but crime rates are falling even during tough economic times. The number of officers killed on duty is at record lows.

In my view, the reason for the incidents is the nature of policing has changed. Following the 9/11 attacks, officers have convinced themselves that every member of the public is a potential threat. Every local police department is awash in grants from “Homeland Security” to buy the latest toys and weaponry. Attitudes have changed and the local police aren’t your friends any more.

Calling the cops

From a practical standpoint, these incidents remind us to think carefully before calling for police help. From a policy perspective, it’s time for a wide-ranging debate about use-of-force issues that’s not dominated by police unions and their political courtiers.

This is from the Los Angeles Daily News this week: “Abdul Arian, the 19-year-old Winnetka man killed in a hail of police bullets on April 11, was buried Tuesday at the Pierce Brothers Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood. … [M]any attendees who knew Arian expressed anger about the way he died, following a car chase through the San Fernando Valley that ended on the 101 Freeway … .” Arian is pictured nearby.

I’ve written about such shootings at the hands of deputies and police officers. Sometimes they are justified, but often the killings leave me wondering whether those officers would have reacted as they did had it been their child driving the car or their mentally ill son squirming on the ground.

Many people have been outraged at the tragic killing of Trayvon Martin in Florida and liberal critics have blamed those “stand your ground” laws that allow the use of deadly force by ordinary citizens when they are under attack rather than forcing them to retreat before defending themselves.

Such laws might embolden people, but I wish these critics — who insist on putting a racial tilt on a matter that has far broader implications — would also look closely at government-sanctioned use of force. If “stand your ground” laws embolden armed citizens, what happens when armed officials are given the broadest legal latitude to kill and also are protected by their departments and their unions?

Police officers sometimes have to use deadly force. We all understand that. It’s an oftentimes tough job. But we keep seeing the fruits of America’s slide down that slippery slope toward a police state: 6-year-olds searched at airports, armed police patrolling the halls of junior high schools, drones deployed over U.S. skies to crack down on crime, SWAT teams arresting the sellers of unlicensed raw milk, armed agents shutting down peaceful medical marijuana clinics, code officers and other regulatory agents granted the powers and weaponry of peace officers, trigger-happy police who seem to reach for their weapons before trying other, less-deadly alternatives.

We’ve become a society of checkpoints and searches and increased surveillance wherever we go. We have federal officials who monitor bank accounts and gain added powers to snoop on us, broad anti-terrorism laws that allow the authorities to detain citizens indefinitely without due process. Many conservatives applaud these expansions of power because of their concern about terrorist threats and street crime. Liberals applaud them also, given how eager they are to use government to “improve” our society. The more laws and regulations one passes, the more authorities one needs to enforce them.

Where’s the criticism?

Whatever happened to civil libertarians, who must be in hiding somewhere? Why aren’t Christians — who are more than willing to flex their political muscle on gay marriage and other issues — talking about the impact of these policies on the least among us, or thinking seriously about those in jails and prisons?

We’re creating a brutal and inhumane society. This is from a recent Los Angeles Times article: “A Los Angeles County commission investigating jail abuse heard tearful testimony … from clergy and civilian monitors who worked in the lockups and said they witnessed deputies assaulting inmates and bullying witnesses to keep quiet. One jail monitor broke down as she recounted being intimidated by a deputy whom she said saw beat an unconscious inmate. A weeping jail chaplain described deputies calling him a rat after he reported another beating.”

When officials misbehave so egregiously, it undermines our society and our form of government in deep and disturbing ways.

Ultimately, it is up to we, the people, to push the pendulum back in a more sensible direction. Since 9/11, Americans have placed their security over their freedom, but I’m sensing an understanding of the problem among serious people from all political perspectives.

When Americans think about public employee issues these days, they think about the pension crisis.

But as serious a problem as that is, the biggest public-employee issue relates more directly to who we are as a people and what kind of society we want to live in. We need to demand that the authorities behave more like members of our community and less like an invading army.