A ruling this month by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals which holds it is unconstitutional to ban homeless people from sleeping on the streets is likely to complicate the attempts to crack down on homelessness problems by local governments in California.

While the ruling involved a 2009 law adopted by Boise, Idaho, it is binding on California, which is one of the states under the 9th appellate court, which is based in San Francisco.

“[J]ust 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,’” Judge Marsha Berzon wrote for a three-judge panel.

The finding that the law is a cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment was welcomed by activists who have long argued that such restrictions make being poor a crime.

Maria Foscarinis, executive director of the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, told the Idaho Statesman that “criminally punishing homeless people for sleeping on the street when they have nowhere else to go is inhumane, and we applaud the court for holding that it is also unconstitutional.” Her group provided an attorney to the handful of Boise homeless men and women who sued over the city’s law.

If Boise does not appeal the ruling, the 9th Circuit will have expanded on the protections for the homeless that it created in 2007. The appellate panel ruled then that Los Angeles could not ban people from sleeping outside when shelters were full.

Legality of living in cars is next battleground

Meanwhile, the next fight over homeless rights in California has already emerged. It involves regulations in many cities that have the de facto effect of banning people from sleeping in their vehicles, even if the practice is not specifically singled out.

In Los Angeles, for example, a city ordinance that bans overnight parking in residential areas and a growing number of such restrictions in commercial areas have made it increasingly difficult for vehicle dwellers to find anywhere to sleep. This has made life difficult for the estimated 15,000 people who live in their cars, trucks or recreational vehicles in the city. The policy prompted sharp criticism from some quarters this spring over a perception that City Hall was insufficiently sympathetic to those without shelter.

City officials in San Diego and Santa Barbara are going in the opposite direction, starting trial programs in which car dwellers are allowed to use a handful of designated parking lots overnight – so long as they meet a handful of rules meant to preserve public safety and to minimize littering and public defecation and urination.

But San Diego may have to expand its program or develop other new policies as well. Last month, federal Judge Anthony Battaglia issued an injunction banning the city from ticketing people for living in their vehicles.

Unlike in the other high-profile federal cases involving city laws and homelessness, Battaglia’s argument wasn’t based on the idea that penalties which appeared to single out the homeless were cruel and unusual.

Instead, he concluded that “plaintiffs have shown a likelihood of success on the merits of their claim that the ordinance is vague because it fails to alert the public what behavior is lawful and what behavior is prohibited.” He noted that some people were given tickets merely for reading books in their cars.

The injunction is not permanent, but Battaglia indicated he is likely to make it so in coming months.

Earlier this summer, the Tim Draper-backed plan announced that it had obtained enough signatures to get on the ballot, grabbing national headlines about whether such a plan had any realistic chance of getting voter approval.

But in its ruling Wednesday, the state’s high court unanimously blocked the initiative “because significant questions have been raised regarding the proposition’s validity and because we conclude that the potential harm in permitting the measure to remain on the ballot outweighs the potential harm in delaying the proposition to a future election.”

The lawsuit was filed by The Planning and Conservation League, an environmental group, which argued that the measure amounted to an amendment to the California Constitution, meaning it would require the two-thirds approval of the Assembly and the state Senate to get on the ballot.

“Proposition 9 was a costly, flawed scheme that will waste billions of California taxpayer dollars, create chaos in public services including safeguarding our environment and literally eliminate the State of California – all to satisfy the whims of one billionaire,” Howard Penn, executive director of the Planning and Conservation League, said in a statement. “We are thankful for the opportunity to save Californians from having to vote on a billionaire’s folly.”

The “Three Californias” plan proposed splitting the state up into California, Northern California and Southern California in an attempt to improve things like the state’s infrastructure and education system.

Under the plan, Northern California would go from the San Jose area and extend to the Oregon border. Southern California would start in Fresno and cover most of Southern California, including the Inland empire and San Diego, and California would include Los Angeles County and extend up the coast to Monterey County.

In addition to the legal hurdles, the proposal came with many question marks, like the transactional costs of actually breaking up the state’s university systems, public works projects and other governmental services.

However, the state Supreme Court’s ruling doesn’t completely end the effort, as the justices noted that the measure may be able to qualify for a future ballot, depending on a final ruling on the legality of the proposal.

“The whole point of the initiative process was to be set up as a protection from a government that was no longer representing its people. Now that protection has been corrupted,” Draper said in a statement posted on Facebook. “Whether you agree or not with this initiative, this is not the way democracies are supposed to work. This kind of corruption is what happens in third world countries.”

“We have to revisit the numbers we’re reporting and what they mean,” Commander Dominic Choi told Southern California Public Radio. “We’re not caseworkers, so we can’t follow up.” In other words, they don’t know what those contacts mean. Police aren’t allowed to say anything given confidentiality requirements. And they are law-enforcement officers – not social workers – so it’s unreasonable for them to act like caseworkers even when they engage in something that resembles casework.

Supporters of the plan say it could provide needed aid to homeless people, but opponents argue that social workers rather than police are best able to offer needed assistance.

Basically, the officers go to the homeless encampments a few days before city workers come by to demolish the structures, clean up the mess and shoo people away. The officers give them warning and referrals to receive help with food, medical care or housing. The LAPD says that more than 3,500 of the homeless accepted some referral. But the news report says that it’s “unclear” how many of them then received services. And homeless advocates note that accepting referral isn’t a big deal. Who isn’t going to accept the information from a police officer?

The LAPD wants the public to believe that this is about helping the homeless. But Choi, who heads the effort for the agency, told the radio network that the main mission of the program is to protect city workers and enforce health regulations. That’s a reasonable point. But too often police give fines and citations to homeless people. Given homeless people’s lack of resources and myriad problems, that might not be the most helpful approach, given that the referrals may seem like an afterthought.

Then there was the case last year where Los Angeles police officers shot to death a homeless man on Skid Row. Even though the DA and police commission found the shooting to be justified, it’s not unusual for homeless people to distrust police visits. Given the rampant mental illness and drug-abuse problems among the homeless population, if the city increases police interactions this could realistically lead to more deadly encounters.

“We have to do something,” Choi was quoted as saying. Indeed. But the main question is whether that something should come from the police department or from social workers.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

It’s just the latest piece of evidence on the state’s housing crisis, as residents confront a shrinking supply of homes and rising costs, leading many to wonder if they’d be better off elsewhere.

“When you then ask them where they would relocate, they’re often throwing up their hands,” poll director Mark DiCamillo said, according to the LA Weekly. “Millennials seem to be the most likely to say they’d consider leaving.”

The uneasiness about the market appears most dramatically in the Bay Area, where 65 percent of those polled said they’re facing an “extremely serious” housing affordability problem.

But even in Los Angeles and San Diego, 59 percent and 51 percent, respectively, have considered re-locating over housing affordability issues.

The IGS poll sampled 1,200 registered California voters from late August through early September.

In Los Angeles specifically, a recent analysis found that a person needs to earn over $109,000 per year to afford a two-bedroom apartment in the city, with the assumption that renters are spending 30 percent or less of their income on housing.

Across the entire state, the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $1,750 and a two-bedroom averages $2,110.

“These are very dramatic findings,” DiCamillo added, according to the Mercury News. “In every region of California, the rising cost of housing has crept into the consciousness of voters.”

The median price of a single-family home rose around 7 percent year-over-year to $565,330 in California this past August – and in Santa Clara County, the heart of Silicon Valley, the median price jumped a shocking 17.9 percent year-over-year to $1,150,000. 

The state Legislature is taking notice, passing 15 bills this month relating to housing affordability, seeking to increase the pace at which housing construction takes place.

For example, Senate Bill 2 and Senate Bill 3 provide new funding for low-income housing, while SB35 attempts to streamline the approval process for construction in municipalities that fall behind Sacramento’s housing goals.

While California boasts some of the highest earners, it also has the nation’s highest poverty rate when housing costs are factored in, resulting in a heightened sense of urgency in a state that has some of the biggest regulatory hurdles for new home building.

As CalWatchdog reported earlier this week, the San Diego Chargers are much closer to moving to Los Angeles, having gotten the formal blessing of team owners at a meeting in Irving, Texas, to leave if they choose by the Jan. 15 deadline the NFL established a year ago. But the situation in Oakland with the Raiders seems cloudier — at least in California media, as opposed to websites that specialize in the NFL.

With the Raiders, the seeming good news for fans who want the team to stay starts with the fact that the Oakland City Council and the Alameda County Board of Supervisors appear enthusiastic about working with Fortress Investment Group, which is led by NFL Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott and billionaire investor Wes Edens, on a stadium plan. On Bay Area talk radio, supporters of the plan have dropped hints of having deep-pocket supporters who might come forward to minimize how much taxpayers would have to pay for the billion-dollar-plus new stadium the Raiders and the NFL want.

NFL officials who have criticized San Diego officials for their response to the Chargers’ stadium needs are offering praise for what’s happening in Oakland.

ESPN reported this week that the league told Oakland’s leaders to not worry about the threat the team would leave even though Nevada state leaders have committed to provide $750 million in public funds for a $1.9 billion NFL stadium in Las Vegas. The team would only have to pay $500 million toward the stadium, with the rest of the tab largely picked up by Las Vegas Sands chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson. One of the world’s richest persons, Adelson hopes to end up a minority or majority owner of the team.

The implication of the remarks by NFL executive Eric Grubman to ESPN is that the league very much wants the Raiders to stay in Oakland even if a better deal is available in Las Vegas. When allowed to comment anonymously, officials with other NFL teams have said that the league should be wary of having a team in the city that is the capital of American sports gambling.

Raiders may sue to leave if NFL owners say no

But optimism about Oakland keeping its team is less apparent on Pro Football Talk, a niche website now affiliated with NBC Sports that has broken dozens of stories in recent years because of its network of NFL insider sources. Site founder Mike Florio wrote this week that Adelson and Raiders owner Mark Davis were struggling to finalize a deal that would bring the team to Las Vegas.

But Florio has long depicted the Raiders’ exit as close to a done deal. On Nov. 22, he reported that Davis would sue the NFL to allow his team to move to Las Vegas if he could not get the support of three-quarters of the league’s 32 owners to relocate his team, as NFL bylaws require.

Davis’ father, NFL Hall of Famer Al Davis, successfully sued the league after it sought to block him from moving the team from Oakland to Los Angeles, where it played from 1982 to 1994 before moving back to Oakland.

Florio has interviewed Mark Davis dozens of times off the record. While he honors the rules and doesn’t quote Davis directly, the impression his coverage always gives is that the Raiders owner sees becoming the first major pro sports franchise to set up shop in Las Vegas — a tourist-centered metropolitan area with 2.1 million residents — as akin to a no-brainer.

Many reporters have also made the obvious point that the Raiders’ image as edgy, unconventional outsiders conforms with Las Vegas’ image.

Florio believes a final decision will be made by September.

Is another NFL team joining the Rams in Los Angeles? 

Good morning. TGIF. Just because we rarely get the opportunity, today we’ll start with sports. 

The St. Louis Rams may have once again become the Los Angeles Rams, capping off the biggest suspense story in the National Football League, but the controversy over the city’s final lineup of teams has flared up yet again.

In San Diego, where the Chargers have gone down to the wire with city officials on a possible move that once looked like a done deal, the next twist depends on voters. 

Although analysts and fans have cautioned that one NFL team may be plenty for Los Angeles, especially so soon on the heels of the Rams’ return, the stadium deal holding the Chargers’ future in the balance has failed to rally popular support.

CalWatchdog has more. 

In other news:

• “Los Angeles may be the latest opponent of a proposed bullet train route through San Fernando Valley horse country. Councilman Paul Krekorian has filed a motion to oppose an above-ground high-speed rail route fought by residents from Lake View Terrace to Shadow Hills, who say the foothills train would destroy the environment, kill horse-related businesses and put an end to an equestrian way of life. The Los Angeles Daily News has more.

• “A national gun control group that helped write California’s Proposition 63 released a study Thursday indicating that thousands of felons disqualified from owning guns are keeping their firearms in this state and most others because of the lack of an effective enforcement mechanism,” reports the Los Angeles Times.

• “One published media report this month said the campaign to legalize marijuana in California had raised $18 million. Within days, other major news outlets pegged the total at just one-third that amount, while a nonprofit campaign watchdog group said the figure was $11 million. Why the conflicting numbers?” The Orange County Register has more. (We can tell you part of the problem is the Secretary of State’s confusing and redundant website.)

• LA Weekly explains every ballot measure in haiku. Our favorite is for Prop. 66:

  “If you want the state
  To execute more people
  This one is for you”
• And The Weekly Standard writes that U.S. Senate candidate Loretta Sanchez’s strategy to unite Latinos and Republicans could be the playbook for future campaigns.  

Legislature:

• Gone ’til December. 

Gov. Brown:

• Will attend Native American Day celebration at the Capitol in Sacramento. Approximately 11:30 a.m.

Tips: matt@calwatchdog.com

Follow us: @calwatchdog @mflemingterp

New follower: @ethanmcbride031

But old assumptions that Brown’s main foes would be environmentalists and trial lawyers have been undercut repeatedly in recent weeks. Instead, perhaps his most formidable obstacles to making the Golden State more hospitable to new construction are local officials eager to maintain control over what their communities look like. Across California, they’re preparing or considering ordinances that require local voter approval of projects of a certain size or density or otherwise put hard limits on certain types of development — measures that would block key provisions of Brown’s plan.

A recent Voice of San Diego article noted such efforts in Del Mar, Costa Mesa, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, El Dorado County, Cupertino and Gilroy. Among the requirements that those communities may impose: requiring voter approval of most new construction higher than two stories and creating zones in which any construction required ballot OKs.

NIMBYism popular in many communities

Critics claim this would worsen the California housing crisis, not help it. But in city after city, officials say they are responding to local sentiment.

This gets to a key weakness of Brown’s strategy: While there is a growing understanding that the best way to relieve California’s housing crisis is by adding more stock, people are often only enthusiastic about the idea in the abstract. When it comes to one’s own community, enthusiasm usually wanes as part of a “not-in-my-backyard” attitude.

A classic example of this NIMBYism is now playing out in Millbrae, just south of San Francisco, in the region with the highest housing costs in California. A proposal to build 300-plus homes with office buildings and retail space next to a Bay Area Rapid Transit station — a prototypical “smart growth” project — is facing growing opposition.

The project would be on 116 acres already owned by BART. It complies with local housing policies and comes after years of complaints from area residents that their children can’t afford to live near them.

But at a July 12 City Council meeting, residents jammed the chambers to warn the project would worsen crime and traffic and harm quality of life. According to a local newspaper account, one resident even said the BART effort amounted to a criminal enterprise — “like the Wild West for outlaws to come and take stuff.”

Former San Francisco mayor touts status quo

That same day, the San Francisco Chronicle printed an op-ed by former Mayor Art Agnos blasting Brown’s housing proposal and offering a defense of the status quo of strong regulation. Agnos challenged the idea that adding more housing stock is the best way to bring down housing costs and said “rent stabilization” — i.e., rent control — should be an option for every city.

Agnos also called for more government funding for affordable housing programs that critics say amount to lottery programs which only help a relative handful of families.

From 1993-2001, Agnos was the western regional director for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. On his personal website, he depicts his efforts to help poor people find housing in San Francisco with government subsidies as a rousing success story.

Agnos doesn’t mention this claim in the Chronicle op-ed.

Good morning. Happy Hump Day. 

Sure as the sun rises every morning, every election cycle Playboy legend Hugh Hefner gives to Loretta Sanchez’s congressional races — having given $10,400 to Sanchez’s Senate campaign.

By now, everyone in Orange County and Washington knows the story: Hefner gives to Sanchez and occasionally it gets her in trouble. But Hefner doesn’t appear to have a connection with Sanchez’s congressional district, and she’s known mostly for her policy expertise in military and national security issues, so answering “why” is challenging, although it most likely has to do with who Sanchez unseated 20 years ago to get to Washington: “B-1” Bob Dornan.

CalWatchdog has more.

In other news:  

• Remember the Orange County jailbreak earlier this year? New information shows “sheriff’s deputies failed to search construction workers and school instructors working inside the jail,” while “jailers did nothing to inventory potentially dangerous or useful tools being carried into the jail, or to make sure that the tools left with workers, even after sharp cutting blades were left behind on two occasions near inmate housing areas prior to the escape,” writes The Orange County Register. Oops!
• A new report suggests that the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department is not weeding out low-performing deputies in their first year, which potentially causes problems later on and in life-or-death situations. The Los Angeles Times has more.
• And two bills that would have increased transparency of law enforcement, including increased access to police disciplinary records and body camera footage died on Tuesday in the state Senate. The Los Angeles Times has more.
• And The Sacramento Bee writes what it’s like for two innocent men and their struggles to get money for years spent in prison. 

Assembly:

• Full day of hearings. 

Senate:

• Full day of hearings.

Gov. Brown:

• No public events announced.

Tips: matt@calwatchdog.com

Follow us: @calwatchdog @mflemingterp

New followers: @joshrogin @latinostrategy

“The game will be played at the soon-to-be built $2.6-billion Inglewood stadium, which is scheduled to open for the 2019 season,” the Los Angeles Times reported. 

In a joint statement with Inglewood Mayor James Butts, L.A.’s Eric Garcetti praised the deal. “The Los Angeles region is built to host the Super Bowl. We helped forge this great American tradition at the Coliseum when it began in 1967; and we’re thrilled to bring it back where it belongs for Super Bowl LV.”

Sinking San Diego

Until very recently, speculation had swirled that Los Angeles might lose favor to San Diego, where delicate League plans to sustain football in the city could wind up in jeopardy. “San Diego previously has hosted three Super Bowls, the last being Super Bowl XXXVII when the Buccaneers beat the Raiders to cap the 2002 season,” the Sporting News recalled. But with the franchise’s future still uncertain, “the NFL does not want to lose the San Diego market. The league wants to keep the Chargers in San Diego to have two Southern California markets and two future Super Bowls in a region that has a population of some 23 million,” the site added. 

But thorny city politics would have had to be swiftly surmounted. At the NFL owners’ quarterly meeting in Charlotte, ESPN reported, NFL owners heard “a progress report on the stadium issue in San Diego, which will include a summary on whether a citizens’ initiative ballot measure in November will require a simple majority or a two-thirds vote,” as required by California state law. 

That situation was complicated further by a court decision, under appeal, that could change the League’s calculus. The nearly $2 billion stadium the city has planned to build, according to stadium advisor Fred Mass, “remains on target to collect 100,000 signatures by the first week of June, creating a buffer in order to have enough signatures certified,” noted ESPN. Nevertheless, “a recent court decision involving the city of Upland ruled a citizens’ initiative is not a measure by the local government, but by the citizens. And therefore since the tax is imposed by the citizens, that constitutional provision does not apply. The city of Upland is appealing the decision to the state Supreme Court.” 

Rewarding the Rams

Los Angeles, meanwhile, had long anticipated that the League could reward it for luring back the Rams by handing it hosting duties. “Almost from the moment the Rams were given the green light, the wheels were in motion to secure hosting rights to the Super Bowl,” the Los Angeles Daily News observed. “Upon approving the Rams return home, the NFL immediately added Los Angeles to the host ballots for Super Bowl LIV an LV, along with Atlanta, South Florida and Tampa Bay.”

“To put in perspective what a Super Bowl means financially to the hosting city and state, a study completed by the Seidman Research Institute, W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, determined that Super Bowl XLIX and related events two years ago in the Phoenix area produced a gross economic impact of $719.4 million for the entire state. L.A. wants a piece of that pie.”

Although L.A.’s success in landing the big event owed a great deal to the excitement and money surrounding Rams owner Stan Kronke’s huge Inglewood stadium development project, a rule tweak could have ultimately pushed the bid into the end zone. “The NFL appears to have changed a longstanding rule that requires stadiums to operate for two years before hosting a Super Bowl, with L.A.’s bid specifically in mind,” as Curbed Los Angeles reported. 

The latest measurement …  showed that the “snowpack is growing quite nicely.”

 

Frank Gehrke, chief of the California Cooperative Snow Surveys Program for the California Department of Water Resources, said the measurement was 130 percent of average at Phillips Station off Highway 50 near Sierra-at-Tahoe Road. He says the storms are making a difference in building snowpack so far this winter.

 

“These are not major storms, but they are making a difference in terms of snowpack accumulation,” Gehrke says. Gehrke says “this snow is not going anywhere” and will be important for “reservoir recovery.”

 

Both the depth and water content at Phillips Tuesday were the highest since 2005, when a depth of 77.1 inches and water content of 29.9 inches were recorded, according to the DWR.

While the snowpack is the most crucial measurement, since the water it provides lasts for months to come and helps communities statewide, the drought news was also good on many other fronts. Here’s one example:

San Francisco recorded an impressive 6.94 inches of rain during the month, far above the 4.5 inches it averages in January and the most the city has seen in any January since 2008 … . The total, in fact, is more than the city received over the past five Januarys combined. (Don’t forget: San Francisco saw no rain for the first time in 165 years of record-keeping in January of last year.)

That’s from the San Francisco Chronicle.

Water officials: Too early to ease tough rules

But as the Sacramento Bee reported, state officials object to any complacency on the drought front:

California’s drought regulators agreed Tuesday to extend water conservation mandates through the end of October. The decision came in spite of increasing evidence that El Niño is delivering better-than-average precipitation, including an encouraging measurement of the Sierra Nevada snowpack recorded just hours earlier.

 

The new regulations adopted by the State Water Resources Control Board mean urban Californians will have to reduce their water usage between March and October by about 23.4 percent compared with the baseline year of 2013.

 

That represents a slight easing of the existing mandates expiring this month, which require a savings rate of 25 percent compared to 2013. Sacramentans will be among the main beneficiaries of the relaxed rules, as the state board voted to ease requirements for hot inland communities where it takes more water to keep trees and lawns alive.

Nevertheless, as CalWatchdog reported on Jan. 19, state officials have already acted to ease conservation rules announced by Gov. Jerry Brown a year ago. Bureaucrats appear to be trying to strike a balance — acknowledging good news on the water supply front without discouraging conservation efforts that have been strikingly successful at times.