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Gun And Bomb Attack Threat Closes Los Angeles Schools In Likely Hoax

Gun And Bomb Attack Threat Closes Los Angeles Schools In Likely Hoax

By Alex Dobuzinskis and Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) — Los Angeles shut more than 1,000 public schools on Tuesday over a threatened attack with bombs and assault rifles, sending hundreds of thousands of students home as city authorities fended off criticism that they over reacted to what federal officials later said was most likely a hoax.

The federal officials, who asked not to be identified, echoed an assessment by New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton that the decision in Los Angeles was an “over reaction” and that New York had received a similar threat.

The emailed threat, which authorities said was “routed through Germany” but likely more local in origin, came less than two weeks after a married couple inspired by Islamic State killed 14 people and wounding 22 others at a county office building in San Bernardino, just 60 miles (100 km) away.

“Based on past circumstance, I could not take the chance,” Los Angeles School Superintendent Ramon Cortines said at a news conference.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said he backed the decision by Cortines, and Police Chief Charlie Beck said it shouldn’t be second-guessed in the face of a threat that was “very specific to Los Angeles Unified School District campuses.”

Beck said the email mentioned assault rifles and machine pistols and implied the use of explosives. He said that officers would search all of the district’s campuses.

But the unprecedented move at the second-largest public school system in the United States left some 643,000 students and their families scrambling to make last-minute alternate arrangements and drew wide criticism.

A law enforcement source told Reuters that Los Angeles authorities ordered the closure to allow a full search of about 900 public school facilities without consulting with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which takes the lead on any potential terrorism investigation. Some public schools in the city remained open as did most private schools.

New York’s Bratton said that city’s school system, the largest in the United States, had received “almost exactly the same” threat but deemed it non credible.

“L.A. is a huge school system,” said Bratton, who had served as police chief in Los Angeles. “To disrupt the daily schedules of half a million school children, their parents, day care, buses based on an anonymous email, without consultation, if in fact, consultation did not occur with law enforcement authorities, I think it was a significant over reaction.”

Garcetti denied that assertion, saying that officials had contacted federal law enforcement officials.

Congressman Brad Sherman, a Democrat from California, told CNN that the person who sent the email claimed to be an extremist Muslim, but said the text of the message gave reason to doubt that.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio also cited word choices in the note as a reason that city considered the threat a likely hoax, saying that the avowed Muslim who wrote it failed to capitalize “Allah.”

Two federal officials, who asked not to be identified, also expressed skepticism to Reuters.

Cortines, in defending his decision to take such a dramatic step, said that the threat stood out from most that the district received in its seriousness and scope, referencing multiple campuses and mentioning backpacks and other packages.

“It is very easy for people to jump to conclusions and I have been around long enough to know that usually what people think in the first few hours is not what plays out in later hours,” Garcetti said. “But decisions have to be made in a matter of minutes.”

Police Chief Beck said it was “irresponsible” to criticize the decision in the aftermath of the Dec. 2 attack on a regional center in San Bernardino, California, east of Los Angeles.

That massacre and other mass shootings have pushed the issues of militant Islamism and gun violence to the forefront of the U.S. presidential campaign.

Students already at school were sent home, officials said, and families rushed to come up with alternate plans.

“It’s disappointing,” said Trinity Williams, a high school student who dropped off her younger sister at elementary school, only to find it was closed. The two traveled on to Williams’ high school before they realized the whole system was shut down.

“I was supposed to give an essay in class today, and finals are Friday,” Williams said. “I can’t afford to miss a day.”

Lee Stein, parent of a fifth grader at Ivanhoe Elementary School, said he heard about the closure via a news alert to his phone, which he confirmed by calling the principal.

Other parents used social media to vent frustration at having learned about the closures from the news media, rather than directly from the schools.

Ronna Bronstein, who has two sons in grade school, said she was trying to find out more about the incident while shielding her younger child from the news.

“I don’t want him to be frightened to go back to school tomorrow,” she said.

(Alex Dobuzinskis, Sara Catania, Sue Horton and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles, Daniel Wallis in Denver, Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago and Mark Hosenball, Susan Heavey and Doina Chiacu in Washington, D.C.; Writing by Scott Malone and Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Jeffrey Benkoe, Grant McCool)

Photo: A sign at Hamilton High School is pictured reading “School Closed” in Los Angeles, California December 15, 2015. REUTERS/Jonathan Alcorn

Shelter From The Storm: Homelessness At Its Worst Since The Depression

Shelter From The Storm: Homelessness At Its Worst Since The Depression

The scale of the homeless population is so massive, it’s difficult to visualize. But Ian Frazier, writing in The New Yorker, comes close when he illustrates it: “Yankee Stadium seats 50,287. If all the homeless people who live in New York City used the stadium for a gathering, several thousand of them would have to stand.”

From coast to coast, homelessness in America is rising.

According to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s biennial report, which was published Monday, the homeless population in Los Angeles County increased 12 percent over the last two years. Encampments—such as tents, makeshift residences, and people living in vehicles—increased 85 percent to 9,535, the report notes.

The Los Angeles Times blames the rising homeless population — 44,369 since January — in part on gentrification. With rents increasing and new luxury residences replacing the cheap hotels, motels, and single-room apartments that offered sanctuary to the poor, housing for the transient is growing scarce.

The increase in homelessness is exacerbated by the changes wrought by gentrification, but is rooted in a lack of funding for shelters and other services, once handled by the city, which have now largely fallen on the shoulders of religious not-for-profit groups. High unemployment rates and a void of legal protections has hindered progress further.

Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti has pledged to eliminate homelessness among veterans in the area, offering to house all homeless vets by the end of the year. Though Garcetti said that this project was more than halfway done, the number of homeless veterans remains at about 4,400, only 6 percent lower than it was two years ago.

This news comes after the Obama administration offered $30 million in grants and services to Los Angeles County, which has the largest homeless-veteran population in the nation.

New York City maintains a legal right to shelter for its homeless, but it has more than its share of issues when handling its homeless population. Homelessness in New York is the highest it has been since the Great Depression—60,167 people are homeless, meaning about 1 in every 152 New Yorkers lives on the street.

Homelessness “is both the problem and the symptom,” says the Bowery Mission, an organization that has provided services to help New York City’s homeless for over 130 years. According to its mission statement, homelessness is both the result and cause of “chronic substance abuse, financial instability caused by unemployment or underemployment, mental illness, domestic violence, sexual victimization, and more.”

However, as in L.A., it’s not all terrible news. The homeless population has dropped 5 percent since Mayor Bill de Blasio took office. The record decrease — 92 percent in the borough of Queens, for instance — does not diminish the fact that the majority of the homeless are situated in the city’s center. “Nearly 60 percent of New York City’s unsheltered homeless population is in [midtown] Manhattan,” according to prominent advocacy group Coalition for the Homeless.

City officials announced that they will commit $100 million in annual spending to measures aimed at ameliorating the homeless crisis. The money will be directed toward more affordable housing, legal assistance, and job training, according to a recent New York Times article.

But one problem stands out from the reports on the Los Angeles and New York City homeless populations: The statistics are underreported, reflecting how difficult it is to accurately record the total number of people living without permanent shelter.

Furthermore, many of the unsheltered homeless reject help. “Normally they will not accept service unless it’s on their own terms,” reports the Times.

Recovery for the homeless is a multitudinous process. The Bowery Mission’s stance is that any effective solution will need to take into account the individual’s spiritual, physical, and emotional needs, and that the homeless should not be pushed to the fringes of our cities.

Photo: J J via Flickr

California Gov. Brown Orders Cities To Cut Water Use By 25 Percent Due To Long Drought

California Gov. Brown Orders Cities To Cut Water Use By 25 Percent Due To Long Drought

By Bettina Boxall, Chris Megerian, and Matt Stevens, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

PHILLIPS, Calif. — Standing in a brown field that would normally be smothered in several feet of snow, California Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday ordered cities and towns across the state to cut water use by 25 percent as part of a sweeping set of mandatory drought restrictions, the first in state history.

The directive comes more than a year after Brown asked for a 20 percent voluntary cut in water use that most parts of the state have failed to attain, even as one of the most severe modern droughts drags into a fourth year. It also came on the day that water officials measured the lowest April 1 snowpack in more than 60 years of record-keeping in the Sierra Nevada.

Wearing hiking shoes and a windbreaker in an area that normally requires cross-country skis this time of year, Brown announced the executive order in a Sierra Nevada meadow that provided a dramatic illustration of the state’s parched conditions.

“We’re standing on dry grass,” Brown said. “We should be standing on five feet of snow.”

Emphasizing that the drought could persist, Brown said Californians must change their water habits. “It’s a different world,” he said. “We have to act differently.”

The order touched virtually every aspect of urban life. Cities have to stop watering the median strips that run down the middle of roads. The state will partner with local agencies to remove 50 million square feet of grass — the equivalent of about 1,150 football fields — and replace it with drought-tolerant landscaping.

State agencies will create a temporary rebate program to encourage homeowners to replace water-guzzling appliances with high efficiency ones. Golf courses, campuses and cemeteries must cut their water use. New developments will have to install drip or microspray systems if they irrigate with drinking water. Water agencies will discourage water waste with higher rates and fees.

The order aims to reduce the amount of water used statewide in urban areas in 2013 by 25 percent. Local agencies that have been slow to conserve since then will feel the order’s effects most dramatically.

Felicia Marcus, chairwoman of the State Water Resources Control Board, said local agencies will receive targets for cutting water use based on how well they’ve done so far.

“You’re rewarding the early adopters … and you’re saying to the laggers, ‘You have to make a change,'” she said.

The water board will release draft regulations in mid-April to implement the order. It plans to approve the regulations in early May.

Most of the burden of enforcement will fall on local agencies. If they don’t follow the governor’s order, the state can fine them as much as $10,000 a day.

Many Southern California agencies are already taking steps called for in Brown’s order. For instance, under a turf rebate program administered by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, spokesman Bob Muir said homeowners are planning to remove almost 89 million square feet of turf, the equivalent of more than 59,000 front yards. It’s unclear whether Brown’s mandate for 50 million square feet of lawn replacement includes work already done by local agencies.

Similarly, Los Angeles already has a tiered water-rate structure to encourage conservation.

Although Southern California water managers said it might be tough for some cities to meet the 25 percent target, they welcomed Brown’s action.

“It’s the right time. It’s a proper directive,” said Rob Hunter, general manager of the Municipal Water District of Orange County.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti praised the executive order, noting that last year he called for a 20 percent cut in the city’s water use by 2017.

In Long Beach, Water Department General Manager Kevin Wattier said the order would have the biggest effect on water districts that use much more water per capita than Long Beach and Los Angeles.

“The governor understands we don’t have time to allow any voluntary measures to work,” said Mark Gold of the University of California, Los Angeles’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. “This is such a growing crisis that mandatory conservation was absolutely necessary.”

Lester Snow, executive director of the California Water Foundation and former state secretary of natural resources, said even more restrictions may be necessary in the future, such as banning all outdoor water use.

“We’re probably going to need more action before we’re through the summer,” he said.

Brown issued his order at Phillips Station, about 90 miles east of Sacramento, where state workers conducted a manual snow survey as part of statewide readings that revealed that the water content of the Sierra Nevada snowpack was only about 5 percent of the average for April 1. That is the lowest for the date in records going back to 1950.

The Sierra snowpack accounts for about 30 percent of the state’s water supply, and although major reservoir storage is better than it was last year, there will be little snowmelt to replenish reservoirs this spring.

Nurit Katz, UCLA’s Chief Sustainability Officer and co-chair of a UC system-wide water task force, said every campus has created a water action plan focused on reducing consumption. UCLA is installing artificial turf on its intramural field, retrofitting fixtures such as toilets and developing a smart water filtration system. Combined with other efforts, the campus expects to save millions of gallons of water each year, she said.

Some critics of Brown’s order said it didn’t do enough to address agricultural uses, which account for the majority of California’s water use. Adam Scow, director of Food & Water Watch California, called the order disappointing.

“The governor must save our groundwater from depletion by directing the state water board to protect groundwater as a public resource,” Scow said in a statement.

Brown’s order requires agricultural districts in depleted groundwater basins to share data on groundwater use with the state, and Marcus said the measure isn’t about “finger-pointing.”

“It’s about everybody having to step up in these tough times,” she said. “The agricultural community is already being hit very hard.”

For the second year in a row, Central Valley growers without senior water rights are likely to get no supplies from the valley’s big federal irrigation project. Last year farmers idled about 500,000 acres for lack of water, and this year they may be forced to leave even more cropland unplanted.

“Some people want to say, ‘What about the farmers?’ And farmers want to say, ‘What about those people watering their lawns?'” Brown said. “We all have something to do, and we can all do a little better.”

(c)2015 Los Angeles Times, Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

Photo: Uvas Reservoir, Santa Clara, Calif. February 1, 2014. (Ian Abbott/Flickr)

Would An L.A. Minimum Wage Hike Push Businesses To Nearby Cities?

Would An L.A. Minimum Wage Hike Push Businesses To Nearby Cities?

By Chris Kirkham and Tiffany Hsu, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

LOS ANGELES — In less than four years, Tony Yanow has boosted Golden Road Brewing’s production nearly sixfold, making beers from the Atwater Village brewery a mainstay in supermarkets across California.

He employs 300 workers in Los Angeles at the brewery and his Mohawk Bend restaurant. As part of a planned expansion, he expects to hire at least 100 more — but most of them may not be in the city.

As lawmakers consider potential minimum wage increases to as high as $15.25 an hour by 2019, Yanow is planning to expand into Orange County and is considering a new project in Glendale.

“I love LA, but that doesn’t mean it’s my best bet,” he said. “Do you want to go somewhere where you can make money, or do you want to go somewhere where they’re stacking the cards against you?”

Los Angeles’ minimum wage would apply only within city limits. So the city’s unique geography — stretching from the northern reaches of the San Fernando Valley down to the port in San Pedro — provides plenty of options for business owners looking to avoid higher labor costs.

Dozens of municipalities directly border the city, but only two — Santa Monica and West Hollywood — are pondering raising their minimum wages.

Business owners also worry about losing customers if they raise prices to cover higher costs. Why not just buy that cheaper car wash, hamburger or piece of clothing in a neighboring city? While minimum wage advocates argue that higher pay for workers would translate into more spending, opponents worry the economic boost would migrate across the LA border.

Neighboring cities such as Burbank have a history of making aggressive plays to attract new businesses.

“There’s at least 40 jurisdictions that’ll be happy to pick our pocket,” said Ruben Gonzalez, senior vice president at the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. “Everywhere in the city, you can point to people who can move down the road and serve the same clientele.”

Los Angeles’ geography differs widely from that of other cities that have passed minimum wage increases, such as Seattle and San Francisco, which have more contiguous borders and compact city centers. That means there has been little if any research that would apply to the wage hike being considered in Los Angeles.

“We really don’t know what we’re dealing with,” said Christopher Thornberg, an expert on the California economy who is the founding partner of Beacon Economics. “This is a very aggressive hike they’re talking about, in the context of a very convoluted geographic area.”

Other economists argue that little evidence suggests that LA will see any large-scale exodus of businesses. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has cited academic work showing minimal economic disruption in nearby counties with differing minimum wages.

“I understand the feeling,” he said in an interview, “but on balance, it actually creates much more business activity.”

Garcetti said he believes neighboring municipalities would follow Los Angeles’ lead. Their leaders wouldn’t want their cities to become “poverty pockets,” he said.

“Are people going to want to set up, live or be in places where there’s a lower income? I don’t think that they will,” he said. “They’re going to wait and see. And I think once we do it, they’ll say, ‘Oh, OK, the sky didn’t fall.'”

Chris Tilly, director of the University of California, Los Angeles Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, acknowledged that any citywide push remains “an experiment.” But he argued that the overall benefits would outweigh any displacement.

Any hit the city takes from businesses locating elsewhere probably would be offset by growth in higher-paying jobs and increased spending, Tilly said.

Whether existing companies leave depends on the reasons for locating in Los Angeles in the first place — such as proximity to ports and other infrastructure, economists said.

High-end hotels and restaurants, which are among the top minimum wage employers, tend to serve a clientele that congregates in urban areas, said Alan Berube, deputy director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution.

But the city could well lose jobs that are less tied to their location, such as entry-level posts in marketing, design or human resources.

Matt Lynch doesn’t have a lot of wiggle room when it comes to wages.

He’s president of Build Rehabilitation Industries, a nonprofit based in San Fernando Valley’s Sylmar neighborhood that works with mentally disabled workers, giving them job training and an income performing low-skilled work.

He has to compete with other firms by offering companies the best price to perform certain jobs, such as packaging candy or boxing screws and washers.

If the minimum wage is raised in Los Angeles, he could lose out to companies in Burbank and Santa Clarita that have lower wages, he said.

“This just makes us totally uncompetitive with any organization that does something similar,” said Lynch, who said his workers make an average of $10 an hour.

Jennifer Freund faces a similar problem. She’s president of Corporate Impressions LA, a printing and packaging company in North Hollywood that produces books, jackets for vinyl records and customized retail packaging.

She’s operated throughout the San Fernando Valley since 1982, but she isn’t sure how she can swallow a 40 percent increase in labor costs for nearly half of her 30 employees. Moving outside the city would be expensive, she acknowledged, but she believes the long-term benefits could be worth it.

“If it’s going to cost me that much more in labor, it becomes a very easy business decision,” she said.

Yanow, of Golden Road Brewing, said he is “beyond sympathetic” to the plight of low-wage workers. But he thinks raising the minimum wage on a citywide basis isn’t helpful to them. They’ll pay higher prices and struggle more to find work.

And his business couldn’t stay competitive.

“I’m not going to be able to sell beer made in LA to Angelenos for a price that will compete with beer made in other places,” he said. “How is that fair to me as an Angeleno?”

Golden Road and Mohawk Bend are staying put in Los Angeles, and Yanow is developing another project in the city. But he had been planning a separate mixed-use site with a restaurant, brewery and space for other tenants in a 40,000-square-foot building near the brewery in Atwater Village. Already frustrated with city permitting, Yanow began rethinking the venture in September, when Garcetti announced his wage proposal.

Officials in Glendale, meanwhile, have been courting Yanow to expand there, sending gift baskets and offering a “concierge service” to help navigate municipal hurdles. He’s considering taking the bait.

He expects to set up another, larger brewery project in Orange County.

“I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” he asked. “It’s not because I’m being greedy. It’s because I want my business to survive.”

Photo: John Dunne checks a lager for clarity and carbonation at Golden Road Brewing, which would be hit with higher labor costs if Los Angeles were to raise its minimum wage, on December 12, 2014. (Gary Friedman/Los Angeles Times/TNS)