Courtesy Sen. Kevin de León’s office

As many as 7,000 low-income Los Angeles residents could eventually take part in a state-funded electric car sharing program that rolled out last week.

State and city officials celebrated the soft launch of the endeavor — which aims to improve air quality by cutting carbon emissions — at an L.A. affordable housing complex.

City officials hope to establish as many as 100 vehicles as part of the pilot program, which the state is partially funding through a $1.6 million award. The city expects to use an additional $8 million “in in-kind city resources and private operator investment in equipment and operations,” according to L.A.’s  Sustainable City plan.

The state money comes from California’s controversial cap-and-trade program, designed to curb the state’s reliance on fossil fuels. Critics call it a pollution tax that unfairly burdens large industries.

State Senate leader Kevin de León speaks at roll out of electric car sharing program in L.A.
Photo courtesy de León’s office.

“Fighting smog and climate change so that our kids can breathe clean air requires more transportation options that don’t rely on dirty fossil fuels,” state Senate leader Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, said in a press release. “This electric car-sharing pilot project offers a glimpse of the future, and represents the type of shift in policy, infrastructure, and behavior that we need.”

Officials say the project will educate residents about car sharing and transportation alternatives, install electric vehicle charging stations and introduce an electric car sharing fleet.

Specifically, it will “provide affordable last mile/first mile solutions for low-income families and other residents who do not own a car or need a second car for trips requiring a light duty passenger vehicle,” according to L.A.’s  Sustainable City plan.

“Our EV car sharing pilot is a perfect example of how our state’s cap-and-trade dollars should be put to work: providing transportation options for Angelenos in need, and helping us achieve our clean air goals outlined in my Sustainable City plan,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti added in the news release.

The program is formally called the Car Sharing and Mobility Options in Disadvantaged Communities Pilot Project. It is run by the California Air Resources Board, and originated last year after the Legislature and Gov. Jerry Brown signed two of de León bills, SB1275 and SB535, according to the Senate leader’s office. Those laws direct CARB to invest the state’s cap-and-trade revenue into programs that bring clean air and jobs to communities heavily impacted by climate change and poor environmental quality.

Contact reporter Chris Nichols at chris@calwatchdog.com or on Twitter @ChrisTheJourno

As the New York Times opined in a full-throated editorial, the hike “challenges Congress and other states, particularly New York. In Congress, the latest Democratic proposal calls for a federal minimum wage of $12 an hour by 2020. That would be adequate, if a bit on the low side, and a huge improvement from the current $7.25 an hour, the level since 2009.”

Regulating the future

Yet pro-hike analysts have already begun to make the case for further increases by downplaying the relative significance of the $15 benchmark. According to FiveThirtyEight, for instance, “$10 is a more accurate reflection of what low-wage Angelenos will actually experience,” thanks to inflation and cost of living.

“Los Angeles’s minimum wage won’t go up to $15 tomorrow,” FiveThirtyEight observed. “Instead, the hike will be phased in over the next five years. Assuming inflation holds more or less steady, $15 an hour in 2020 will be worth the equivalent of about $13.75 today.”

“But the bigger issue is that $15 doesn’t go as far in Los Angeles as it does in most of the rest of the country. Not even close. According to data from the Council for Community and Economic Research, it costs workers about 40 percent more to live in Los Angeles than in the average American community. That means that $15 in L.A. is the equivalent of less than $11 in the U.S. overall.”

In fact, however, the City Council’s vote has made such waves because it ratchets up the minimum wage “not just once but forever, with automatic annual hikes starting in 2022,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

That has city business owners on edge, the Times added. “The requirement aims to ensure that wages keep pace with cost-of-living increases, but business advocates say it could cripple entrepreneurs’ ability to adjust wages to unpredictable economic conditions — effectively enshrining automatic annual layoffs when times get tough.”

Going national

For labor advocates, however, the L.A. vote represented a capstone achievement in California, where minimum wage increases were recently passed at the municipal level throughout the Bay Area. Well aware that the $15 mark was first established by activists on the other side of the country, labor organizations quickly set their sights on the rest of the U.S., as one official told the Washington Post:

“How L.A. got to that number is rooted in the activity generating from the East Coast, where New York fast-food workers raised this as a demand, starting their first strikes two years ago,” says Laphonza Butler, president of the Service Employees International Union’s home care workers unit in Los Angeles. “It has just become the vernacular of the workers movement. And when Mayor Garcetti introduced his proposal at $13.25, we all knew that wasn’t enough.”

To begin consolidating the California gains that could launch a nationwide effort, local activists have turned their sights on the L.A. metro area as a whole.

“Campaigners for a $15 minimum wage are targeting Los Angeles County and a cluster of nearby cities to swiftly cement and expand their victory,” the Guardian noted. “The coalition of organised labour, civic activists, religious leaders and ordinary workers hopes to create a domino effect by persuading L.A. County and incorporated cities such as Long Beach, Santa Monica, Pasadena and West Hollywood to follow the city of L.A. and increase their minimum wages to $15 an hour too.”

Political alternatives

Under pressure to offer up a constructive option, as opposed to simply digging in against the hikes, business leaders have begun to consider pushing an increase in the so-called earned income tax credit. “The process is simple: You file a tax return, and the government sends you a check,” wrote Warren Buffett in the Wall Street Journal. “In essence, the EITC rewards work and provides an incentive for workers to improve their skills. Equally important, it does not distort market forces, thereby maximizing employment.” As wage-hiking activism continues, however, one question will be whether Americans wind up supporting both higher mandated wages and bigger tax credits.

The wage increase is to be phased in over time, so the immediate impact may not be felt. But businesses ought to keep score when the effects hit so that officials will be cognizant of the consequences. If the wage increase does not cause economic disruptions and businesses do not actually leave Los Angeles, the business community’s credibility will suffer in the face of a mere exercise in rhetoric.

The vote to pass the minimum wage increase was 14 to 1. The council gets to vote once more on the measure after an ordinance is drafted by the city attorney, but the lopsided vote indicates there is no turning back. The council even set the wage above the recommended level offered by Mayor Eric Garcetti, who initially proposed an increase to $13.25 an hour.

The city council’s version contains an inflation clause and offers an extra year for small businesses and nonprofits to comply.

However, the business community does not consider these admissions enough. Ruben Gonzalez of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce said, “There is simply not enough room, enough margin to absorb a 50 percent increase in labor costs over a short period of time.”

The chamber’s president and CEO Gary Toebben wrote to his members about the many small business owners who testified in various hearings on the measure. He wrote, “They also talked about the likelihood that in order to provide a wage increase for some employees, they would have to reduce hours for others.”

Toebben noted wryly, “Last week, there were banners hanging throughout City Hall celebrating Small Business Week. There are many small business owners in L.A. who don’t feel like the city is celebrating them today.”

Earlier on the day of the vote, the Los Angeles County Business Federation (BizFed) released a survey on business conditions in the area. According to a release from BizFed, “The city of Los Angeles stood out again as being cited most frequently by employers as unfriendly.  Santa Clarita and Glendale were ranked in the top 5 most business friendly cities, which is notable because officials from those two cities are actively courting city of Los Angeles businesses in light of the proposed city of Los Angeles minimum wage increase.” (Author’s emphasis.)

So what will Los Angeles businesses do? Once the minimum wage law takes effect will there be jobs lost or hours cut? How many businesses move to a different location? Business credibility is on the line. Crying wolf and not acting will damage efforts to turn around what many decry as unfriendly business policies.

[row][double_paragraph][accordion][acc title=”L.A. Wage Increase (on July 1 of each year)”]2016: $10.50 per hour
2017: $12.00 per hour
2018: $13.25 per hour
2019: $14.25 per hour
2020: $15.00 per hour[/acc][/accordion][/double_paragraph][double_paragraph][accordion][acc title=”Small Businesses Increase (on July 1 of each year)”]2017: $10.50 per hour
2018: $12.00 per hour
2019: $13.25 per hour
2020: $14.25 per hour
2021: $15.00 per hour[/acc][/accordion][/double_paragraph][/row]

L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti praised the actions of the City Council and said in a press release:

“Today, help is on the way for the 1 million Angelenos who live in poverty. I started this campaign to raise the minimum wage to create broader economic prosperity in our city and because the minimum wage should not be a poverty wage in Los Angeles.”

The approval of the wage raise is a success for people like Albina Ardon, a McDonald’s employee from Los Angeles and an active member of the Fight for $15 LA. She wrote in a press release:

“By voting to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, the Los Angeles City Council has just shown what workers are capable of when we stick together. People used to think we had no chance, but we are steadily winning the fight by demanding $15 an hour to lift our families out of poverty.

 

“People like me, who work hard for multibillion-dollar corporations like McDonald’s, should not have to rely on food stamps to survive. My life would be completely different if I were paid $15 an hour. I could afford groceries without needing food stamps, my family could stop sharing our apartment with renters for extra money, and I’d be able to provide my daughters with some security.”

Anna Chu, vice president of policy and research at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, said raising the minimum wage “is one of the most direct actions that policymakers can take to raise wages for low-income workers.”

“While the sample size is still relatively small, cities that raise their minimum wages have seen drops in unemployment more often than not, belying the doomsday claims of those who oppose such increases. Cities have led on the issue of raising the minimum wage, and they are seeing the benefits of workers having more money in their pockets and more economic security.”

But not everyone views the increase as a positive change. The California Restaurant Association said in a press release yesterday that they were “disappointed the Los Angeles City Council voted in favor of an extreme approach to a minimum wage increase.”

“The California Restaurant Association has advocated for a comprehensive minimum wage increase that ensures the higher wage is targeted to those that need it most.

 

“Unfortunately, the City Council voted in favor of a policy that:

• Excludes total compensation, which would provide owners the ability to create wage equality between tipped and non-tipped workers.
• Limits a teen wage to ages of 14-17, for only 160 hours, thereby restricting access to entry-level jobs that teach youth the skills they need to succeed.
• Attaches further wage increases to the Consumer Price Index, which is the equivalent of putting the minimum wage on auto-pilot and ignoring any economic impacts or other factors.”

Economic Professor David Neumark of UC Irvine wrote in an L.A. Times article on Sunday that “[s]imply requiring employers to pay $15” per hour would not solve the market forces at hand that cause low wages and a lower standard of living:

“In fact, data indicate that minimum wages are ineffective at delivering benefits to poor or low-income families, and that many of the benefits flow to higher-income families. That’s because minimum wages target low wages rather than low family incomes. And many minimum-wage workers are not poor or even in low-income families; nearly a quarter are teenagers who will eventually find better-paid jobs. …

 

“Yet another reason to be wary of raising the minimum wage is that modest job loss overall may mask much steeper job loss among the least skilled. Economists use the phrase “labor-labor substitution” to describe employers responding to a higher minimum wage by replacing their lowest-skilled workers with higher-skilled workers, whom they are more willing to hire at the higher minimum.”

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.”