Fanning the Flames in a Crowded Theatre: A Deconstruction of the SP Homeless Forum pg. 2 Rancho LPG Hearing Postponed: Local Activists, State Senator Tell Different Stories pg. 3 Real Talk on Phamiliar Ground: A Local Brand of Hip Hop pg. 11 Michael’s Pizzeria Adds to Stock of Authentic Italian Cuisine in Long Beach pg. 12
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Protesters Make A Chump Out of Trump
South County Labor AFL-CIO chairman and Vietnam War veteran Ray Cordova, at the microphone, flanked by State Sen. Isadore Hall III, right, and San Pedro Democratic Club president Robert Bandin, left, join protesters at the USS Iowa to greet GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump who gave 13-minute speech at a conservative PAC fundraiser. Photo by Phillip Cooke.
September 17 - 30, 2015
ore than 300 demonstrators picketed presidential candidate Donald Trump’s visit to the USS Iowa from just Other demonstrators expressed similar sentiments. beyond the parking gates of the Pacific “Even though I live out in Orange County, Trump does not belong in Battleship Center on Sept. 15. They came to the Southern California with his hate speech,” Mark Richardson, 34, said. waterfront from throughout Southern California, Andy Chamers, 64, of San Pedro, came to rally with his 17-year-old including Carson, Costa Mesa, Wilmington and son, Andrew. San Pedro. “I just wanted to make my voice heard and offer my support of The Dump Trump forces provided the perfect immigrants and working people in general,” Chamers said. “I just think r ito Ed g gin na By Terelle Jerricks, Ma backdrop for State Sen. Isadore Hall to promote he’ll be a terrible president. I just hate to think what he would do to his Senate Resolution 39, which calls for the the country. Just about everything he says are code words for racist, anti-working class ideology. state to divest from all Trump-related businesses in response to celebrity candidate’s I’m actually really perturbed that so many people have fallen for it. Some people really like him but purposeful race-baiting. some people have been duped by him. The man’s a charlatan. He’s declared bankruptcy. He’s not even Long Beach resident Jeremie Gates was disturbed by the traction the Trump competent in his chosen field.” campaign has seemed to pick up. The younger Chamers expressed similar sentiments. “I went to school around here and I like the diversity,” said Gates, a recent graduate “I just don’t want a racist in the White House,” he said. “Someone like that doesn’t belong in an of Palos Verdes High School. “From what I can tell from Donald Trump’s platform, office that governs a country full of immigrants. He said, ‘Immigrants don’t belong here.’ That doesn’t he’s generating a lot of enthusiasm, but he’s going in the wrong direction and trying to make any sense. That’s like saying strawberries don’t belong in strawberry pudding. Yes, they do. It’s repress society. I see that as being potentially detrimental to the United States.” [See Trump, page 6]
S ERVING TH E SE VE N C OMMUNI T I E S O F T HE S A N P E DR O | L ON G BEAC H H ARBOR AREA
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Committed to Independent Journalism in the Greater LA/LB Harbor Area for More Than 30 Years
Fanning the Flames in a Crowded Theater By Terelle Jerricks, Managing Editor
September 17 - 30, 2015
Serving the Seven Communities of the Harbor Area
The Sept. 3 homeless forum at the Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro wasn’t so much about airing grievances and coming up with solutions as it was about de-escalating tensions in the community while gearing up townsfolk for the fight to roll back Proposition 47. The measure reduces many nonviolent felonies to misdemeanors as long as the perpetrator doesn’t have a violent past. Voters passed the proposition in November 2014. The forum also was about masking inconvenient truths. The format of the event featured five panelists—including Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Homelessness Policy Director Greg Spiegle, Los Angeles Police Department Sgt. Deon Joseph, LAPD Harbor Division Capt. Kathryn Meek, Special Assistant City Attorney Capri Maddox and Harbor Interfaith Services Coordinated Entry System Regional Coordinator Shari Weaver—answering pre-selected questions that were gathered on Councilman Joe Buscaino’s Facebook page. Not surprisingly, most of the questions came from a law enforcement angle, thereby giving most of the speaking time to Joseph, Maddox and to a lesser extent, Meeks. Buscaino’s office showed video interviews with four of the 76 “success stories” his
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Los Angeles Police Department Sgt. Deon Joseph at the San Pedro Homeless Forum Sept. 3. Courtesy of the Council District 15
emergency response team was able to get off the street and into permanent housing. All of them were among the residents of the encampments near the Beacon Street post office and Ante’s restaurant in the past year. Among them was Denise Vigil, also known as Neecee, whose struggles have been documented in the past year in Random Lengths. Not long after the forum finished, Neecee was seen outside San Pedro City Hall with her sleeping bag, belongings and her Section 8 voucher in hand. Nora Vela, director of Helping the Homeless in Need, the group behind the tiny houses in San Pedro, took Neecee into her home for the night. The episode called into question either the effectiveness of Buscaino’s Emergency Response Teams or his office’s integrity on the issue. The next day a message was left with Branimir Kvartuc, Buscaino’s communications director, but he has yet to respond. Joseph repeated his mini online documentary about the police officer who “single-handedly got 150 people off the streets.” Later he mentioned that he helped about 730 people who were in danger of being kicked out of their home. Joseph prefaced his allotted 15 minutes by saying he wasn’t going to engage in demagoguery against the homeless, but was going to engage in some truth telling based on his 18 years of
experience working Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles. It should be noted that Joseph had the benefit of a seven-and-a-half-minute Facebook video documentary show before the forum to introduce him and the LAPD perspective on the problem of homelessness. The following is deconstruction of the video:
The Hi-Jacking of the Moral High Ground
Joseph has endless gritty hard luck stories for people accustomed to watching John Walsh’s America’s Most Wanted or some other crime drama. Some of his stories are heartwarming. But his solution to homeless question calls for city residents to “come to a political middle ground between NIMBYs (not in my backyard) and the lefties.” He said the lefties just want to let the homeless stay where and as they are, while NIMBYs don’t want them in their communities. His explanation was simplistic and just not true. Homeless advocates are not proposing to leave people out on the streets, but this is how the entire discussion of homelessness is framed. “There’s fallout to leaving the homeless where they are,” said Joseph to Buscaino during the video as they walked in downtown Los Angeles’ Skid Row. “Some of these people aren’t really homeless.” [See Forum, page 4]
Community Announcements:
Harbor Area Coastal Cleanup Day
Spend Sept. 19 enjoying the coast while helping the environment. Join the international effort to “Adopt a Beach” on Coastal Cleanup Day. The clean-up area will include the inner and outer beaches of Cabrillo Beach. Participants are encouraged to bring their own reusable water bottles, buckets, bags and gloves to help reduce the amount of trash generated in the cleanup. Time: 9 a.m. Sept. 19 Details: www.coastal.ca.gov/publiced/ccd/ccd. html Venue: Cabrillo Beach, 3720 Stephen M. White Drive, San Pedro
Ready Long Beach Community Emergency Preparedness Expo
Come out and learn about how to be prepared for an emergency at this event presented by Long Beach CERT (Community Emergency Response Team). There will be activities and information for the whole family. • Experience the “Shakey Quakey” house • Build an earthquake kit • View a preparedness puppet show • Watch fire department safety demonstrations • Purchase emergency supplies and equipment • Sign up for free CERT classes Time: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 19 Cost: Free Details: CERT@longbeach.gov Venue: Heartwll Park, 5801 E. Parkcrest St., Long Beach
Report Street Needed Repairs in NW San Pedro
The Bureau of Street Services scheduled a small asphalt repairs truck for the Northwest San Pedro Neighborhood Council District to perform small asphalt repairs on Sept. 30. Email your suggestions to Board@ NWSanPedro.org by Sept. 21. Include the exact address and specifics about the problem. If it is a pavement issue, explain whether is it a pothole, eroded pavement, bump or uneven road or resurface need. If it is a sidewalk issue, report whether it is uplifted and/or broken. Include any helpful notes. Time: Sept. 21 Details: Board@NWSanPedro.org
Control Panel LA
Call for Muralist Proposals
The San Pedro Arts, Culture and Entertainment Committee and the San Pedro Waterfront Arts [See Announcements, page 5]
Local Activists, State Senator Tell Different Stories By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor
On April 10, activists working to counter the public safety threat posed by the Rancho LPG facility came away impressed and hopeful that significant action would finally be taken after a meeting with State Sen. Isadore Hall and his district director, Heather Hutt. But early this month, neighborhood councils pulled out of a “community town hall” that Hall had called for October, saying it fell far short of the “state hearing” which they had initially been promised. They said it appeared to be merely a repeat of past public hearings, which have done nothing to address the threat. “Thank you....but, no thank you, I am no longer involved,” Janet Gunter wrote to Hutt in a Sept. 2 email. “When we met with Sen. Hall… he was adamant about the need to distinguish ‘his’ event from other community meetings by emphasizing it as a ‘state hearing.’ It makes sense. He also said that he would draft legislation… which at a later time when I brought this up… you dismissed stating that ‘The senator never said he would draft legislation.’ Well, in fact, he did.” Two days later, after the Northwest Neighborhood Council Sustainability Committee withdrew its support as well, Hutt received an email from the committee vice-chair, Darlene Zavalney: “I have advised the Warner Grand Theatre to cancel our commitment for that date. Once a date for a state hearing is approved I will be happy to reschedule with the theatre.” Hall intends to reschedule. “Heather phoned me after I sent this and assured me that the senator is committed to this hearing and is trying to get it scheduled for the first quarter of next year,” Zavalney said. “I told her we too are committed to the hearing and to let us know as soon as she has a date.” When Hall spoke with Random Lengths on Sept. 11, it was almost as if none of this had happened. He seemed eager to restate his commitment. “We all want the same things. We all believe in the same things,” Hall said. To back that up, he restated the promise of a state hearing in the first quarter of 2016, the earliest it could be scheduled through the Committee on Environmental Quality, which has jurisdiction, he explained. Hall was aware of the past problems with meetings that went nowhere, but only in a general way. “I understand that there have been meetings
in past,” he said, citing Reps. Janice Hahn and Henry Waxman, as well as Los Angeles City Councilman Joe Buscaino as officials who’ve convened past efforts. “I don’t know the specifics of what they produced, only that people were not satisfied.” Hall said he wanted to change that but, “I just got here, I need time to be able to look into the situation and come up with some tangible approach.” But the state senator’s expression of eager determination is hard to square with activists’ descriptions of how his early interest and attention seemed to fade over the following months. It also doesn’t acknowledge how much information activists have provided Hall and his staff to get him up to speed, as well as their detailed description of the problems. Things were much different after the initial April meeting. “There is a glimmer of hope that Hall will do
something, because his staff person, Heather, is a sort of a ‘no nonsense’ person and kept us for about an hour going over the facts and possible ways to proceed,” said retired oil industry consultant Connie Rutter on April 12. “I’m more hopeful than I’ve been since I started working on this.” During the next two months, Rutter provided a wealth of information. Three main areas, which Random Lengths has referenced before, included (1) the long, and heavily compromised history of legislation dealing first with toxics, then with hazardous flammable substances; (2) the specific properties of propane and butane, and how they’ve been misrepresented and misunderstood, and (3) the multiple problems with the patchwork of state and local regulatory oversight, especially local fire departments’ lack of capacity to serve as front-line agencies. While all three problem areas are important to understand the issues surrounding Rancho, the fractured schematic of government regulation is what Hall, as a state senator, is ideally positioned to deal with. What’s more, other hearings by the Environmental Quality Committee have had similarly broad concerns. [See Postponed, page 6]
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The San Pedro Chamber of Commerce will host Los Angeles City Controller Ron Galperin for a presentation on his Control Panel LA. The presentation will be at the Grand Annex in San Pedro on Sept. 24. Registration and networking starts at 7:30 a.m. Time: 7:30 a.m. Sept. 24 Venue: Grand Annex, 434 W. 6th Street, San Pedro
Rancho LPG Hearing Postponed
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[Forum, from page 2]
Homeless Forum
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September 17 - 30, 2015
Serving the Seven Communities of the Harbor Area
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interagency crackdown. Joseph said the gang had co-opted the bathrooms and started charging the homeless to use them while allowing paid drug and prostitution customers to use them free—all happening within blocks of the LAPD’s headquarters, the city attorney’s office and district attorney’s office. He also called the initiatives such as more public bathrooms and tiny houses noble ideas, but ultimately ill-conceived. He cites examples of how they failed in downtown Los Angeles. He says these initiatives encourage human
He said that he gets five contacts per week from family members looking for their loved ones. Yet, who knows if those families were broken or dysfunctional in any way that caused these folks to live in the streets in the first place, or if these families simply didn’t have the wherewithal to care for their loved ones before they turned to the streets. His narrative stemming from his experience has a way of covering up some of the dynamics that lead people into homeless, particularly if they are dealing with mental illness. Frequently we hear that there aren’t enough shelter beds to accommodate those who are sleeping in the streets. But because of the framing of the conversation, donated tents and tiny houses are now “dens” of drug 15th District City Councilman Joe Buscaino convened a community forum on abuse and prostitution homelessness at the Warner Grand Theatre on Sept. 3. Courtesy of Council District 15. and an irritant from a law enforcement perspective. In so many words, trafficking, drug sales and drug overdoses. Joseph spent considerable time in the documentary video it makes cops’ job harder. In the video, Joseph said there are five major discussing the 27 Andy Gump toilets that were missions on Skid Row that collectively provide installed in Skid Row back in the 1990s. The 9,000 meals per day, in addition to providing problem here is that he doesn’t address how to clothes, support services for drug addiction, deal with the proliferation of human fecal matter on public streets. housing and jobs. Joseph subtly hints at how the LAPD’s Council District 14 includes Skid Row and much else of downtown Los Angeles. According negative perception from the early 1990s to the last homeless count, there were a little more politically impacts their work in the streets when he discusses the LAPD’s warning that the Andy than 6,000 homeless residents in the district. “Some people become obese living on the Gump toilets would cause crime to skyrocket in streets because they eat what they want to eat,” Skid Row. “Of course, we’re the big bad LAPD, so they Joseph noted. Homeless advocates would agree with him brought it in anyway,” Joseph said. But perhaps the biggest issue with this part of on the best ways a concerned citizen can help the homeless, which includes providing hygiene kits the discussion is that San Pedro is not downtown and perhaps directing them to nearby services. Los Angeles. There are 6,000 homeless people Joseph makes a strong argument about not in Council District 14 and about 1,500 in all giving money or buying food for the homeless. of Council District 15, and there are only Interestingly enough, this is an area in which 376 homeless people in San Pedro. The most dominant gang in San Pedro, when last checked, Vela and Joseph actually agree. Since Vela began her outreach efforts by was Rancho San Pedro. There are several other handing out 12 tacos, she has been preparing gangs in the Harbor Area, but the Harbor Area is balanced and sometimes vegan meals. She not downtown Los Angeles. To Joseph, this forum wasn’t just about regularly hands out hygiene kits and has gone so far as to build portable toilets and showers for dealing with the homeless, but about cutting a few individuals. That’s a lot further than many the police some slack in how they deal with people are willing to go to help another human the homeless and amending or ending Prop. 47. Basically, he argued that the inability to arrest being, especially in San Pedro. There’s a reason the LAPD was under addicts in possession of drugs in quantities a consent decree for 10 years, and it wasn’t legally labeled as “personal use” is hamstringing because they were interested in community the police. In reference to how the police deal with the policing. Joseph hints at this a few times during mentally ill, he blamed society for not giving the homeless forum. During the forum, Joseph categorizes the them tools other than handcuffs and a gun. He doesn’t elaborate further on the point. At the end homeless into four categories: • Good people doing the best they can under of the night, the only apparent solution was more resources for Harbor Interfaith. unfortunate circumstances. Aside from Shari Weaver asking property • Good people with addictions leading them owners to accept Section 8 vouchers and Spiegle’s to criminality, such as theft. • Bad people with redeemable qualities, such discussion about the lack of affordable housing, as gang members, who turn their lives around there was no serious discussion about increasing affordable housing. Buscaino, at the end of the and become assets to the community. night, noted that there are 311 supportive housing • Predators that prey on the weak. units that were either already available or about Joseph uses the example of the Downtown to become available at the Blue Butterfly Villa, Gangsters, comprised of Bloods and Crip gang Vermont Villas 127th Street Apartment and the El [See Forum, page 5] members. This group was the target of a 2014
[Forum, from page 4]
Segundo apartments. The question is how many, and how long were these available? The councilman said he also wrote letters to the mayors of neighboring cities requesting their buy-in in creating supportive housing in their respective cities and forming a South Bay Committee on homelessness to discuss best practices and solutions. Make no mistake about it, just about all of the initiatives the councilman spoke about that Thursday night are worthwhile initiatives. But, if the bottom line to ending homelessness is securing permanent housing for our most chronically homeless, then he’s essentially saying that the best that we can do in the immediate future is get 311 of our 376 homeless people off the street, give or take a dozen. The councilman did well to highlight Shari Weaver, the face of Harbor Interfaith Services in its role as the lead agency for Service Planning Area 8 of the Coordinated Entry System. Weaver repeatedly noted that she works with a really great team in reaching out to our community’s most hard to reach and most difficult to help populations. Spiegel’s discussion of increasing the affordable housing stock and improving transitional care and housing for those being release from prisons, hospitals, and foster care didn’t go unnoticed, but certainly unappreciated.
Community Announcements:
Harbor Area
Give Online Input On LB City Budget
The City of Long Beach is in the midst of its budgeting process for the 2015-2016 fiscal year, which begins in October. Two community surveys are available to provide input on the budget. Visit http://longbeach. budgetchallenge.org/pages/overview to suggest how to balance the budget. Visit https://www.surveymonkey. com/r/LBBudget to suggest priorities for the budget. Did you know that Long Beach City College offers English as a Second Language classes for free? There are several ESL classes open for Fall Semester at the PCC Campus. There is no California residency requirement to take ESL classes. Cost: Free Details: (562) 938-3037; http:// tinyurl.com/LBCCFallSchedule Venue: LBCC, PCC Campus, 1305 E. Pacific Coast Highway, Long Beach
Sheriff Takes Lead on Body Cameras
Following a successful pilot program, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department is preparing to implement a policy of body cameras for all patrol personnel. Seventeen deputies and two supervisors at the Carson station participated in the six-month pilot program from October 2014 through March 2015. Law enforcement in many jurisdictions are adopting the cameras to address useof-force complaints, among other issues. Chris Marks, promoted to captain of the Carson station this past November, has managed the body camera program for the past two years, including when he was at the Temple City station. He talked about it being a priority for the station and the department. “The deputies who tested [the cameras] here and in Century and Temple City and Lancaster all liked having the cameras,” said Marks.. “It tells their side of the story.” The captain estimated the department has to procure cameras for about 5,000 patrol personnel, as well as develop a training staff and resolve camera-related issues. “There are a lot of challenges,” he admitted. For example, the Sheriff’s Department must develop policies and procedures to determine what must be recorded, under what circumstances video footage may be released to the public and when content may require being redacted— for example, for privacy considerations when a video may involve juveniles, he said. The massive volume of data that the cameras will be collecting is another consideration. “We estimate that on an average day we’re going to record anywhere from 2,000 to 4,000 hours of video,” Marks said. “We’re going to have to keep those videos for a minimum of two years.” He added, “We’re talking to the board of supervisors and working with the district attorney’s office” because of the possibility of needing extra funding and staff to make sure the department is responsive to requests for any footage from body cameras and to ensure compliance with the Freedom of Information Act and other applicable law. —Lyn Jensen
Watch, ANSWER and the Sierra Club. Industry voices were also heard, including Pilar Hoyos of Watson Land, and representatives of several labor organizations that work in oil. Many of the speakers’ concerns centered on three issues: Setback to be required between oil wells and homes or other structures. The current draft of the code requires 500 feet. Many speakers urged a setback of 1,500 feet or even more. Support of a ban not only on fracking but on all “high intensity petroleum operations,” including acidizing, gravel packing, cyclic steam and steam injection. Currently, the draft code provides for the city manager to make exceptions that would “allow drillers to apply for permits” to frack should they find it “necessary.” Several speakers termed this a “loophole” that must be closed. Another point of contention is whether the city manager would administer the new oil code, or if the city would hire a petroleum administrator. Luis Perez of Marine Research Specialists testified at the July meeting how fracking in California is very different from what’s happening in other states due to its geology. California does not have large amounts of oil shale, which is what’s being fracked in states like Oklahoma and Pennsylvania. Perez said much of Los Angeles County
September 17 - 30, 2015
LBCC Offers ESL Classes
By Lyn Jensen, Carson Reporter The Planning Commission adjourned its meeting on Sept. 8 without taking up Carson’s oil code. Itwill take up the item again at its Oct. 13 meeting. Commissioner Barbara Post said she hoped the commission could bring the final version of the oil code up for a vote in October. She complained the commission had been adding and deleting parts of the code for some time. At the end of the commission’s four-hour meeting on July 28, they voted, 5-3 with one abstention to continue the code-related agenda items until Sept. 8 and hold at least one more workshop. Now, they have delayed action again. Commissioner Jan Schaeffer said after the July meeting there were still many questions the commission has to answer, including setback requirements for oil wells near residences. “I would like to have more information on SB 4 [the state’s new law that regulates fracking],” Schaeffer said. “Are we stepping over the bounds of what we can regulate?” She added that given the complexity of the issue, she could not give a timetable for any new oil code to be implemented. More than 50 people spoke at the July meeting, including representatives of the Carson Coalition, Food & Water
The Local Publication You Actually Read
[Briefs, from page 3] District’s Public Art Program seek the qualifications and proposed renderings of muralists who want to participate in a project in the downtown San Pedro Arts District. The mission is to promote San Pedro’s authentic arts, culture and entertainment character, through advocacy, marketing and education activities. Deadline: 5 p.m. Oct. 2 Details: http://tinyurl.com/ callformuralists
Planning Commission Delays Oil Code After Fracking Protest
consists of porous sandstone not conducive to fracking. He called fracking in the Los Angeles area, “unlikely…not a widespread technique.” One speaker, resident and sometime council candidate Rita Boggs, asked Perez if he had a science degree. He said he did, in environmental science. His company, Marine Research Specialists, was hired by Carson to assist with drafting a new oil code. Much of the July meeting centered on whether Carson would risk industry lawsuits by banning fracking. “I’m against fracking in residential areas,” Mitoma said. “If nobody’s doing it and nobody wants to do it, then if you want to sue us, sue us.”
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Trump Dumps on the Iowa
[Trump, from page 1]
strawberry goddamn pudding.” Ray Cordova, chairman of South County Labor AFL-CIO and a Vietnam veteran, served as the emcee for Hall’s press conference but he was the speaker that got the most enthusiastic applause as he recalled Trump’s service record, or lack thereof. Cordova described how he and his five younger brothers received draft notices during the Vietnam War. His mother had to walk each son to the train station to see them off to war. Cordova said his research of Trump’s record with the Selective Service shows Trump received 8 draft notices between 1964 and 1972—four more than he has publicly acknowledged. “On July 28 of 1964, he went to the draft board and was classified as a 2S—that’s a student deferment,” Cordova explained. “He went back again on Dec. 14, 1965, and he got deferred again. On Nov. 12 ,1966, he was classified as 1A and was eligible for the draft. Less than three weeks later he was back on student deferment. Then in Jan. of 1968, he was brought back on student deferment again. On July 9 of 1968, he was classified as 1A eligible for the draft at the end. He immediately went back to the draft board and was reclassified as 1Y, which meant you could only be drafted in the event of a national emergency. On Feb. 19, 1972, he was classified as 4F. That means you’re not physically, mentally or morally capable of military service. Which of those three was it, Donald Trump…mental, physical or moral? “How dare he stand on that battleship. Now
he wants to be commander and chief? San Pedro has three words for him: ‘Forget about it!’” The rally organizer, San Pedro Democratic Club president Robert Brandin, spoke as a veteran and supporter of SR 39. “Divest from Trump,” Brandin said. “The USS Iowa isn’t just a ship. It represents freedom, inclusion, liberty and justice. To have someone like Donald Trump stand on it and spew nonsense about what he thinks it is to be an American is unacceptable. “What about the 65,000 immigrants who have served in the U.S. military?” Brandin asked. “They courageously risked their lives for the country they call home.” SR 39 condemns discrim- Protesters greeted Donald Trump at the entrance to the USS Iowa in San Pedro on Sept. 15. Photo by Phillip Cooke. ination in any form on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, sexual response. “They’re bringing freedom, they’re bringing orientation, gender identity, or disability, and “I can’t imagine someone who would say hope and they’re bringing a reminder that calls for an end to hate speech and racist rhetoric something so odious as, ‘They are sending so America is great and will remain great because by all presidential candidates. many of their people with problems to us; they’re we are an inclusive country. You don’t have to The resolution condemns Trump in particular, bringing drugs; they’re bringing crime; they’re be Mexican to be deeply offended by Trump’s calling for all of California, including business bringing rapists,’” Hall said. “No, Mr. Trump, comments …Donald Trump doesn’t know what and individuals, to divest from him, the Trump they’re not… [See Trump, page 7] Organization and any affiliated entities. Hall, who is running for Congress in the [Postponed, from page 3] 44th district, said the content of Trump’s rhetoric regarding Mexican immigrants deserves such a
Rancho Hearing Postponed
September 17 - 30, 2015
Serving the Seven Communities of the Harbor Area
Local Families Join the Fight Against Mesothelioma
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By Terelle Jerricks, Managing Editor Hundreds of runners are going to gather at Paramount Ranch in Agoura Hills Sept. 27 to raise money to support Pacific Mesothelioma Center research into a cure for asbestos related cancer. Mesothelioma is a rare form of cancer that develops from cells that form the protective lining, covering many of the internal organs of the body. This cancer is most commonly caused by asbestos exposure. The outer lining of the lungs is the most common site for the cancer, but it can also appear in the lining of the abdominal cavity, the sac that surrounds the heart, or the sac that surrounds the testis. Typically, people who develop mesothelioma have worked in careers such as mining, where they inhaled or ingested asbestos fibers, or were exposed to airborne asbestos dust and fibers in other ways. Washing the clothing of a family member who worked with asbestos also creates a risk for developing mesothelioma. According to asbestosnation.org, an informational website funded by EWG Action Fund, a group whose mission is to protect health and the environment by educating the public and lobbying on a wide range of environmental issues, mesothelioma deaths in Los Angeles County represent a fifth of the 20,500 lung cancer deaths in the county every year. People stricken with the disease suffer from shortness of breath due to fluid between
the lung and the chest wall, and chest pain. While there is no known cure, local families aren’t allowing this disease to defeat them. The surviving family of Charles Jarvis, a Los Angeles man who died of mesothelioma in 2012, hosted a fundraising dinner to provide financial support for Serena and her husband Saul Ayala. Serena was a nurse at Kaiser Permanente. She’s no longer able to work and her insurer, Kaiser, is refusing to pay for specialized care at UCLA’s Comprehensive Mesothelioma Program. More than 125 people attended the dinner, which raised more than $1,700, in addition to more than $1,500 raised through a Go Fund account. Jarvis served his country as a Navy veteran in the Vietnam War, where he was a boiler tender. When he returned home, he went on to work as a welder and maintenance engineer. He later worked at the Los Angeles Sanitation District plant on Figueroa Street for from 1992 until he was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2011. Having witnessed first-hand the need for advancements in treatments for this disease, the Jarvis family chose to continue fighting against mesothelioma in his honor. Clare Cameron, executive director of the Pacific Mesothelioma Center noted that more than 400 participants walk in solidarity to honor those who have lost the fight against mesothelioma and to raise money for research. “To date, PMC has raised over $5 million in the campaign to fund new research in the fight against mesothelioma,” Cameron said.
Rutter said her efforts are principally focused on pushing officials to restructure state-level oversight. “They have to fix the CUPA (certified unified program agency) problem,” she said. “That is, the local fire departments were made responsible for administering about six different state programs all dealing with hazards, but the problem is (obviously) that the fire departments don’t have the budgets, manpower or expertise to handle the programs. So the first thing is
Plains Pipeline Spill Followed Pattern of Violations
Federal regulators have found serious safety violations with Plains All American Pipeline—the company responsible for the recent Santa Barbara-area oil spill, under the same corporate parent that runs Rancho LPG. On September 11, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration proposed six violations from inspections begun in 2013, 20 months before the spill, which came from one of the lines subject to the inspection. Although it could have assessed a civil penalty up to $2,000,000 for violations after 4 January 2012, and $1,000,000 for those before, PHMSA “decided not to propose a civil penalty assessment at this time.” PHMSA said that Plains failed to properly document pressure tests on tanks and failed to keep adequate records on how it would prevent spills in sensitive environmental areas, or respond if one did occur. Robert Bea, known as “the master of disaster,” told the AP, “In all the documentation I have reviewed concerning the pipeline, I have never seen evidence of any advanced risk assessment and management processes being used by Plains.” Bea has also been highly critical of Rancho LPG, expressing the view that it cannot be made safe, but needs to be shut down.
eliminate CUPA, and put administration and enforcement back into the hands of other state agencies. That’s number one.” Next, Rutter thinks Hall should correct the misrepresentation of Rancho’s “worst-case scenario,” which underlies the fiction that the facility is safe “The CalARPS (accidental release prevention) rules repeat the error that EPA has not yet fixed,” she said. “An unrealistic ‘worst case’ is possible for LPG because EPA caved to the American Petroleum Institute, which asked to limit the release time to 10 minutes—actually in the realm of fantasy.” Rutter says state-level action should be focused on cutting through all the confusion. “Those two state programs need to be altered so Rancho can’t keep claiming compliance,” she said. “They can only do that now because the rules create a false sense of handling the problem. A third problem is centered on the local permitting for Rancho’s citing in the first place.” There are multiple reasons the facility would not be approved if proposed today, but it’s been allowed to continue under grandfathering provisions, even when the law clearly indicates it shouldn’t. “When the site changed its method of operation from in-by-sea/out-by-pipeline to inby-pipeline/out-by-train or truck, there should have been an up-to-date EIR, if the city had done its job,” Rutter pointed out. Given that state law controls the EIR process, this also represents something Hall is best situated to take on. Whatever initial good will may have been lost, a state hearing during the first quarter of 2016—which Hall promised Random Lengths— could go a long way toward regaining it. And the priorities laid out by Rutter would make a pretty clear roadmap.
[Trump, from page 6]
Trump on Iowa it means to be an American.”
Trump’s 15 minutes on the Iowa
Trump took to the stage on the USS Iowa at 6 p.m., just minutes after Hall’s press conference concluded. Although he had promised to lay out his national security platform, Trump instead delivered a 15-minute, bullet-point speech that seemed lifted from one of his episodes of reality TV, which typically applied the same sketch to different sets from Mobile, Ala. to Southern California: • “Illegal aliens” are bad…I’ll kick ‘em out and build a wall. America’s leadership is weak… I’ll grow military and show the world how great a leader I am. • “Current leaders can’t negotiate…Read my book, The Art of the Deal.” •“Veterans Administration is slow…I’ll tear it down and build it from scratch.” The following are some of the highlights or low points, depending on your ideological persuasion:
Andrew and elder Andy Chamers at the Sept. 15 Dump Trump rally. Photos by Terelle Jerricks.
[See Trump, page 19]
[See Astroturf, page 19]
Graphic by Suzanne Matsumiya
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epublican presidential candidate Donald Trump visited the USS Iowa on Sept. 15 to discuss his national security platform. In protest, thousands signed a Change. org petition telling the Pacific Battleship Center that Trump is not wanted in San Pedro. Local progressives formed pickets lines outside the gates of Pacific Battleship Center on Harbor Boulevard—the home of the retired warship. Facebook was filled with negative comments about the decision to welcome the rising GOP star to San Pedro, home to some of the most active labor unions in America. The Pacific Battleship Center’s chief operating officer and president, Jonathan Williams, tried to duck questions about the partisan nature of the event by noting that as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, the Pacific Battleship Center can’t endorse or promote any political candidate and that it provides a community platform to all groups and organizations, regardless of political affiliation. However, given the political universe of the center’s influential board members, Jeff Lamberti and Becky Beach (reported in Random Lengths News’ “Trouble on the Iowa” series in 2014) the assertion that the battleship is somehow a political neutral ground is dubious, at best. The Trump visit was organized by Veterans for a Strong America, a self-described grassroots organization committed to ensuring that America remains a strong nation by advancing liberty, safeguarding freedom and opposing tyranny. The group is behind the swiftboating attacks on presidential candidate Hillary Clinton over emails related to the U.S. embassy attack in Benghazi, Libya while she was secretary of state. Millions of dollars have been spent on congressional hearings, but hours of testimony over the past three years have found no wrongdoing, intelligence gaps or security lapses. The group is also known for its attacks against the Barack Obama administration following the killing Osama Bin Laden in 2012. The group accused the president of taking undue credit for the operation during his 2012 run for reelection. According to Federal Election Commission filings, it spent $125,000 as an “independent” organization supporting Mitt Romney in that election cycle. Joel Arends, chairman of Veterans for a Strong America, is a decorated Iraq War
veteran and longtime member of the Army Reserve and the National Guard. According to a 2012 profile in Mother Jones, Arends got his start in politics as a South Dakota Bush-Cheney field director in 2000. In 2006, he worked for Craig Dewey, the state director of Americans for Prosperity, an advocacy firm that launched astroturf campaigns on everything from Wisconsin’s fight against unions to public school segregation. Arends and Dewey later went into business— starting a plethora of astroturf issue groups— fake grassroots organizations that mask monied sponsors of right-wing causes—including Combat Veterans for Congress, a Sarah Palin-
September 17 - 30, 2015
Recent Palos Verdes High School graduate, Jeremie Gates at the Dump Trump Rally, Sept. 15.
By Terelle Jerricks, Managing Editor
The Local Publication You Actually Read
“The veterans hospitals obviously have problems, they are not properly run and when you have to wait long hours and long days and then in some cases the doctor says, ‘I’m sorry but I’m going on vacation,’ believe me it does not get much worse than that,” Trump said. “So, we’re going to create a whole new system; we’re going to take the system apart and if they’re not doing the job, the veterans are going to go to private doctors and private hospitals and we’re going to reimburse those doctors and those hospitals. You’re going to get the greatest service of any veterans in any country because you deserve it.
Trump and the USS Iowa
endorsed political action committee that pushed “fiscally conservative” veterans to run for office; and the Coalition for Cures Not Cloning, a firm set up to combat stem-cell research. They also oversaw efforts to roll back Environmental Protection Agency regulations, punish businesses that dealt with Iran and ban Shariah law in South Dakota. Arends has called Sharia law an emerging and ever-present threat. He is linked to prominent Islamophobe Frank Gaffney. Gaffney is the publisher and associate author of Shariah: The Threat to America, a policy paper published by the Center for Security Policy, a conservative national security think tank based in Washington, D.C. The report has been widely
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Stumping on Fear and Arrogance San Pedro Stands up to Fear Mongering By James Preston Allen, Publisher
T
September 17 - 30, 2015
Serving the Seven Communities of the Harbor Area
he Veterans for a Strong America fundraiser aboard the USS Iowa was promoted as Republican candidate Donald Trump’s first speech detailing his national security policy. It lasted all of 13 minutes. Donning a red baseball cap emblazoned with the campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” Trump’s bombastic rhetoric only added gasoline to the enflamed passions of those who called his stump speeches on illegal immigration racist “hate speech.” This, while the leader of the USS Iowa Battleship Center non-profit, Jonathan Williams, feigned political neutrality. A few hundred anti-Trump demonstrators comprised of community activists, union members and Latino leaders protested outside the Pacific Battleship Center’s fence on Harbor Boulevard. They listened to State Sen. Isadore Hall (D-35 District) speak on his divest-from-Donald Trump campaign, which passed the State Senate on Sept. 11. Known as California Senate Resolution 39, Hall explained that his resolution condemns racist hate speech by all presidential candidates and calls on the State of California to divest from Donald Trump and all of his enterprises. The crowd cheered for the speakers and booed every mention of Trump’s name. “Collectively we send a message that we won’t stand for hate speech…he is here in San Pedro to mislead America,” Hall said as an effigy of Trump bobbed up and down behind, silhouetted by the outline of the famous World War II battleship. “Whatever empty promises he makes today he is disqualified to be commander in chief,” Hall announced. Hall then concluded his comments with, “I only have one thing to say to you, Donald Trump—You’re fired!” Hall’s final comment seemed to encapsulate the protesters’ sentiments precisely. Then something strange happened. As Hall’s press conference closed, the Port Police loosened access to the parking lot and the protesters poured in to within 100 feet of the USS Iowa, where Trump had just arrived. It was a moment made for TV news, as the lines were clearly drawn between Trump supporters on the fantail of the ship underneath the big guns and the crowd yelling at the fundraiser attendees to “Dump Trump”—possibly into the harbor. Most of this drama never made it onto the
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nightly news, even though seven or more media companies were covering the event. Clearly, the Veterans for Strong America, which promoted and benefited from this event, is a political astroturf organization using its connections to the state of Iowa and the Republican leadership of the Pacific Battleship Center board of directors to use the ship as a symbolic backdrop for what otherwise was just a crass use of patriotism for political benefit. Although VSA had basically no money in their coffers until today, they have been busy trying to swiftboat Hillary Clinton by suing the federal government for Clinton’s emails over an issue that’s largely been resolved by numerous congressional committees over the past three years. Veterans for a Strong America founder Joel Arends introduced Trump at the rally Tuesday night and gave him their endorsement. The whole situation calls into question Pacific Battleship Center CEO Jonathan Williams’ “apolitical” position on the event and puts the center at odds with the museum’s landlord, the Harbor Area’s labor unions, the rather strong Democratic leadership of both the City of Los Angeles and the majority of Harbor Area voters. The 18th century essayist Samuel Johnson once said, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” Besides the misuse of this historic battleship, Donald Trump is clearly the modern definition of the term. Trump says he is going to “Make America Great Again” by increasing the size of the military by pouring more money into it. He said that with him as commander and chief, Americans are going to win so much that they are going to get bored with winning. He doesn’t explain which wars he’s planning on fighting (or winning). Hall noted that with all the money that is being spent on nuclear submarines, the greatest threat the United States has ever known, ISIS, doesn’t even have a rowboat as far as he knows. Yet Trump’s call for even greater spending on the military comes at a time when the infrastructure needs of this country are greater than they have ever been and our ability to compete in the world economy hinges on the ability to train the workforce in generations to come. Lastly, all I can say is that in business when I’m confronted by an egotistical blowhard who says, “Trust me,” I hold onto my wallet and run the other way. And that’s my advice for anyone who is even mildly considering voting for Trump. Publisher/Executive Editor James Preston Allen james@randomlengthsnews.com Assoc. Publisher/Production Coordinator Suzanne Matsumiya Managing Editor Terelle Jerricks editor@randomlengthsnews.com
“A newspaper is not just for reporting the news as it is, but to make people mad enough to do something about it.” —Mark Twain Senior Editor Paul Rosenberg Vol. XXXVI : No. 19 Published every two weeks for the Harbor Area communities of San Pedro, RPV, Lomita, Harbor City, Wilmington, Carson and Long Beach. Distributed at over 350 locations throughout the Harbor Area.
Assistant Editor Zamná Ávila zamna@randomlengthsnews.com
I Want My Country Back By John Gray, RLn Contributor
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he other morning my friend Charlie and I went down to the south end of our town, (“Peedro”), to have breakfast. As we approached the coffee shop entrance, we could hear someone talking in a loud voice. We entered, looked around and saw an older white man engaged in a rant. We knew he was local and his message was, “I want my country back.” My first thought was, “Is he talking about the United States?” If so, Native Americans should be first in line to get this country back. The man made pejorative jabs at President Barack Obama and newly approved Attorney General Loretta Lynch. He stated that since there is a black president and attorney general, racism is over in the United States, so what more do those people want? Expectedly, his next targets were Mexicans and Mexican-Americans: there are “too many and they use too much resources—I want my country back!” All I could think was the old guy wanted to go back to a time when Afro-Americans were called colored people and Mexican-Americans were called wetbacks. He wanted to go back to a time when, if you were a white man, you could have anything you wanted. We were not really listening, but overhearing, the man complaining about gays, abortion, welfare and how liberals are now running the country. I wanted to tell the man racism is not over
Columnists/Reporters Lyn Jensen Carson Reporter B. Noel Barr Music Dude Lori Lynn Hirsch-Stokoe Food Writer Gina Ruccione Restaurant Reviewer Andrea Serna Arts Writer Melina Paris Culture Writer Calendar 14days@randomlengthsnews.com Photographers Terelle Jerricks, Phillip Cooke, Tommy Kishimoto, Betty Guevara Contributors Ivan Adame, John Gray
Cartoonists Ann Cleaves, Andy Singer, Matt Wuerker Design/ Production Adam Adame Suzanne Matsumiya Advertising Representatives David Johnson rlnsales@randomlengthsnews.com Adam Adame reads@randomlengthsnews.com Editorial Intern Arlo Tinsman-Kongshaug Display advertising (310) 519-1442 Classifieds (310) 519-1016 www.randomlengthsnews.com
because there is a persistent de facto element that remains alive. I wanted to tell the old guy he is not owed any explanation about how anyone conducts their life. I would have told him that despite all its problems, the United States is the best country in the world. Isn’t that the mantra of the conservative? “Love it or leave it.” I wanted to suggest that as civilized evolution would have it, generations become more learned, informed, understanding and accepting of the differences of others. Can we agree to disagree or do we become urban terrorists? As natural selection mandates societies, people must adapt to changing landscapes and realize change does not necessarily render one a victim in one’s own time, even as colors of power change. Overall the old guy reminded me of an Old West cowboy who has outlived his relevance and is asking “What do I do now?” Social change is inevitable. We all know that, don’t we? One can remain in denial, be angry and keep on crying to the choir that “I want my country back.” But it’s too late. If anything, the old guy and those of similar thought must share the United States. Think of the Native Americans—it was compromise, share or perish. Are they going to get their country back? No way, José. John Gray is a retired parole agent and a life long San Pedro resident.
Random Lengths News editorial office is located at 1300 S. Pacific Ave., San Pedro, CA 90731, (310) 519-1016. Address correspondence regarding news items and news tips only to Random Lengths News, P.O. Box 731, San Pedro, CA 90733-0731, or email to editor @randomlengthsnews.com. Send Letters to the Editor or requests for subscription information to james @ randomlengthsnews.com. To be considered for publication, all Letters to the Editor should be typewritten, must be signed, with address and phone number included (these will not be published, but for verification only) and be kept to about 250 words. To submit advertising copy email adv@randomelengthsnews.com or reads@ randomlengthsnews.com. Extra copies and back issues are available by mail for $3 per copy while supplies last. Subscriptions are available for $36 per year for 27 issues. Random Lengths News presents issues from an alternative perspective. We welcome articles and opinions from all people in the Harbor Area. While we may not agree with the opinions of contributing writers, we respect and support their 1st Amendment right to express those opinions. Random Lengths News is a member of Standard Rates and Data Reporting Services and the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. (ISN #0891-6627). All contents Copyright 2015 Random Lengths News. All rights reserved.
Wall Street can’t be an island unto itself separate from the rest of the productive economy whose only goal is to make as much money as possible. I fear very much that the financial system is even more fragile than many people may perceive. Millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages, while virtually all new income goes to the people who need it the least. In fact, the top 14 wealthiest people
RANDOMLetters Dump Trump from Our Own Backyard
Local residents speak out at Trump National Golf Course about the Republican candidate’s radical and unsubstantiated comments on immigration. The group, pictured on the right, organized by the Harbor Chapter of Witness for Peace Southwest, a Latin American Solidarity organization, called attention to Donald Trump’s “Billionairism,” and to the unequal power and influence afforded to our nation’s most wealthy class. What Trump and those that support his comments don’t understand or cannot admit, is that desperate immigration from Central America and Mexico has been fueled, in large part, by U.S. military and economic policies in the region over the past 35 years. The Reagan Wars of the 1980s in Central America, coupled with the economic and social sabotage of Mexico by U.S. Trade and Drug policy, and the Republican-backed 2009 coup in Honduras. The trauma of these legacies is what is forcing people, including small children, to leave their communities to seek refuge here. In many ways, it is blowback from an militaristic foreign policy in Latin America, and until we come to terms with it, we will never be speaking the full truth about immigration from that region. We, here, are witnessing for that truth to come out. Rachel Bruhnke San Pedro
Community Alert Phone Extortion Scam Alert
Marina Pointe Homeowners Assoc. versus Barking Dogs
The judgment in the alleged barking dog case in the Marina Pointe Homeowners Association is completely insane. The Homeowners Association was granted a judgment for payment of two lawyers’ fees in the sum of $32,000 by the Long Beach Superior Court Judge Vicencia in July. This happened while I took care of my sick 83-year-old father abroad. Now the Association has put a lien over my home to recover the fees. This is mere harassment by the Association to take my home. This is the second lien the Board has placed on my home since 2012. Dr. Irene James San Pedro
Open Letter to POLA, City Officials
New Petition from ForestEthics demanding the Oil Train Secrets Dear Executive Director Seroka, Gov. Brown, Reps. Hahn and Lieu, Sen. Hall, Assemblyman O’Donnell, LAUSD Richard Vladovic, Councilman Buscaino, Mayor Garcetti: The current port and City of LA contract with “infamous” Plains All American Pipeline operated Rancho LPG, now allows (for a fee of under $1200/mo) the daily transport of highly explosive propane gas (each 30,000 gal. rail car has a blast radius of .42 mile) to traverse a rail that falls within 1,000 to 3,500 feet of four different schools. This flagrant risk to students and residents alike must stop. In 2005 there was a total derailment at Channel and Gaffey Streets. Miraculously, those tank cars did not rupture. This reckless disregard for public safety must end! If we
are forced to endure a tragic and deadly event, it will be at the hands of irresponsible officials who have ignored their duty to safeguard their respective constituents. All of you well understand this extraordinary threat...yet you do nothing to prevent it. The shame will be spread amongst you. Link to petition at http://www.forestethics.org/action/ students-in-blast-zone Janet Gunter San Pedro
On Goldman Sachs
September 17 - 30, 2015
It’s time to break up the banks. The greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior on Wall Street drove this country into the worst recession since the Great Depression. Their casino-style gambling has helped divert 99 percent of all new income to the top one percent. And it has contributed to the most unequal level of wealth and income distribution of any major country on earth. In the midst of all of this grotesque inequality sits a handful of financial institutions that are still so large, the failure of any one would cause catastrophic risk to millions of Americans and send the world economy into crisis. If it’s too big to fail, it’s too big to exist. That’s the bottom line. I introduced legislation in Congress that would break up banks that are too big to fail. Banking should be boring. It shouldn’t be about making as much profit as possible by gambling on esoteric financial products. The goal of banking should be to provide affordable loans to small and medium-sized businesses in the productive economy, and to Americans who need to purchase homes and cars. That is not what these financial institutions are doing. They’re instead creating an economy which is not sustainable from a moral, economic, or political perspective. It’s a rigged economy that must be changed in fundamental ways. Let’s be clear who we’re talking about: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, and other institutions; they’re all too big to fail. So they must be broken up.
The Local Publication You Actually Read
The Los Angeles Police Department Robbery-Homicide Division is issuing a warning to the public about a recent rash of phone scams involving a threat that a family member is being held hostage, and will not be released until the victim’s family wires money. The victims are contacted by a suspect who states they are holding a family member hostage. The caller then demands money to be wired, or they will kill or hurt the hostage. The suspect advises the victim to go to an ATM to withdraw money, and then send the money via wire services. Other variations of the extortion include the caller contacting miscellaneous businesses for “Protection Money.” The phone calls are originating from Mexico. Anyone with information or questions regarding this crime is asked to call (213) 486-6840.
Photo by Alma Bruhnke.
saw their wealth grow more last year than the bottom 130 million have in total. We must break this cycle to save the middle class in America. I’m running for President of the United States because I believe that it is incumbent on us to try to take back our country from the billionaires and make it thrive again for the working and middle class. Breaking up the banks is a critical part to making that a reality. Sen. Bernie Sanders Vermont
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California Confidential:
The Price of Justice
September 17 - 30, 2015
Serving the Seven Communities of the Harbor Area
By Zamná Ávila, Assistant Editor Imagine coming out of your favorite coffee shop to find a bunch of witnesses surrounding your freshly sideswiped car, telling you the driver who did it just drove away. That’s what happened to ACLU lawyer Jessica Price after returning to her 2005 Acura from a local Starbucks in North Hollywood on May 11, 2014. “This guy just hit it and flipped off the witnesses,” Price said. Fortunately, one of the witnesses took down the license plate before he disappeared. Unfortunately, Price soon learned, the driver’s license plate was afforded “confidential status” by the State of California. Vehicles with confidential license plates conceal the addresses of local, state or federal employees, their spouses and their children. State law allows police officers, state public defenders, district attorneys and judges to request that their address be kept confidential. By late June of last year, Price’s insurance company, Bristol West Insurance Group, discovered the vehicle that hit her belonged to a Los Angeles Police Department officer. Five months later, Price’s insurance company told her the driver not only had confidential plates, but was uninsured at the time of the collision. One LAPD spokesman said he couldn’t believe this would be something one of the department’s own would do.
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“If that is true, I can tell you one thing, that person should not be a police officer,” he said. Another LAPD spokesperson, Norma Eisman, said situations involving accident reports are treated like any other accident report. In the case of hit-and-run collisions, Department of Motor Vehicles records are available and Internal Affairs gets involved. When Price reached out to the LAPD, she was told the officer whose car hit hers had applied for confidential status while working for the Long Beach Police Department a few years before. Therefore, the LAPD’s hands were tied. Her request that the LAPD cooperate with her insurance company and provide the name of the officer whose vehicle was involved was denied because the LAPD said a prosecutor needed to first investigate the issue. Six months after the collision, Bristol West told her it was referring the case to its litigation department. By December 2014, Price had reached out to Long Beach City Manager Patrick West. However, she wasn’t given any information about the vehicle involved in the hit-and-run, so she filed a complaint. Her complaint was answered two months later. The Long Beach City Attorney rejected her claim, stating that “neither the city nor employees were liable” because the “employee involved was no longer an employee
of the city since 2007.” This was a catch-22 situation. In February 2015, the insurance company said it was forwarding the $1,632 case to a collection agency. Price was told this “happens whenever we can’t find insurance information.” The collections file is still open and the company is still trying to reach the officer. The problem is that collection agencies are legally not allowed to contact a person at his or her place of employment. The collection agency told her that if it were unsuccessful, the file would go back to the insurance company, uncollected. Around that time, LAPD Officer Fernando Cuevas, who was identified as the owner of the vehicle that sideswiped Price’s car. This past May, the California DMV responded to a Public Records Act query from Price stating that there were, at the time, an estimated 150,184 vehicles registered in the Confidential Record Program. Price contacted Random Lengths News and told her story. Both the LAPD and the LBPD were contacted about their policies regarding these situations.
The DMV stated it was only able to give out 2014 and 2013 statistics. According to the DMV, as of Jan. 2, 2014, there were 489,233 driving records with address confidentiality. There were about 8,313 agency name variations. As of April 12, 2013, there were 360,058 vehicle records with address confidentiality and about 11,000 agency name variations. This is nearly a 36 percent increase in just one year. “Insurance companies have access to the current registration record, with addresses on file,” read an email from Artemio Armenta, a DMV representative. “If the registered owner has address confidentiality on file, they will get the name of the employer (for example: LAPD, SD Superior Court, etc.) “Insurance companies may submit their inquiries to the DMV through their requester code.” LBPD explained how it handled confidential license plates: “This is managed by our Accident Investigation and Traffic Detail,” said Megan Zabel, a spokeswoman for the department. “There is a DMV form that eligible employees can fill out, and it is submitted by the police department to the DMV. If they meet the criteria within the law, then DMV will grant confidentiality. This is done on a voluntary basis, only if the employee wants it. They are not required to have their plates confidential.” The department will send notice to the DMV if an employee with confidential plates has been terminated or has been convicted of a crime, but the law states that they get to keep the confidentiality for up to three years to allow time for an appeals process. If an employee retires or resigns from the department in good standing, the law allows [See Confidential, page 19]
Phamillia wearing Dead Broke Entertainment sponsor Badfish Clothing. Photo by Phillip Cooke
San Pedro’s Local Brand of HIp Hop ready for Export
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By Terelle Jerricks, Managing Editor
[See REAL TALK, page 16]
ACE: Arts • Cuisine • Entertainment
hether it’s country music, blues, rock, rhythm and blues or rap, storytelling is one of the most important and most basic elements of successful songwriting. I recently asked San Pedro rapper, Jacob “Phamiliar” Cerna of Dead Broke Entertainment who his musical idols were. He named Nas, Mos Def a.k.a. Yasiin Bey, Eminem, and Jay Z. Aside from being masterful in stretching multisyllabic verses, turning double entendre metaphors and linguistically playing with words like gun play, these artists — whether they were telling their own stories or stories of people they knew — also are masterful storytellers. Another thing these artists had in common is that they now have legacies. For his legacy he told me he wants to be known as an artist who told the truth, and who, when he rhymes, other emcees think twice about challenging him. But more than anything, he wants to be remembered as a real artist. I started paying attention to Phamiliar after watching one of his Hot 16 YouTube videos a couple of months ago. The videos were produced by Luke von Duke. The “hot 16” is a reference
to his rhymes on a 16-bar music sheet. I watched YouTube videos going back three or four years and liked what I saw. His strongest works, at least lyrically, were the ones where the songs were hyper-localized, where basically only people who lived in Pedro would get it. For example, in “Pedro State of Mind” Phamiliar raps about San pedro over the instrumentals of Jay Z’s “Empire State of Mind.” Phamiliar is certainly a skillful wordsmith. It’s evident in his latest mixtape, My Out-of-Body Experience, which was released in 2014. “Glass House” and “Mirror My Star” are my favorite tracks on the album. Phamiliar explained that he was going through a lot personally while he was making music for that album. Though I poked and prodded, he wouldn’t speak in any detail, but the lyrics themselves are raw with emotion, even when he doesn’t get specific. The album vacillates between braggadocio and redemptive to inspirational and back again. “Real hip hop is about the content, not just talking about money, women and cars, about what you have and what others don’t, but about what could be done,” Phamiliar said. “That to me is real hip hop.” At 29, Phamiliar has been rapping for half of his life. With a wife and two daughters, it’s only natural that the art reflects the maturity that comes with those life changes. Fortunately, he and his management, Dead Broke Entertainment, are on the same page on that front.
September 172015 – 30, 2015 September 17 – 30.
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Michael’s Pizzeria: An Authentic Italian Cuisine Experience W
By Gina Ruccione, Cuisine and Restaurant Writer
September 17 – 30, 2015
Independent And Free.
hen people want to talk to me about good Italian food in the Harbor Area, I get agitated. I shift uncomfortably in my seat and brag that I’ve lived in Italy. I’ve eaten tomatoes sweeter than apples. I’ve had mozzarella that will change your whole perspective on cheese. The rant goes on—blah, blah, blah. Some people call me picky. And, that’s fine. I try to explain that I grew up watching Italian women dance around the kitchen adding a little of this and a little of that. It was completely mesmerizing. They did it without cookbooks, without measuring cups or spoons; it was full of passion, zest and it translated into this fervor for life that I rarely see in the United States. So, as you could imagine, when I finally decided to have lunch at Michael’s Pizzeria in downtown Long Beach, I was holding the bar pretty high. The good news is that the food was outstanding. The bad news? Well, there is no bad news. If you haven’t tried Michael’s Pizzeria in Long Beach, now would be a good time to get it together. I’ll take it upon myself to help you
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Photo by Tommy Kishimoto
navigate the menu. Antipasti: There are two appetizers that absolutely must be ordered: Arancini Bolognese and Fiori Di Zucca. Arancini in Italian means “little oranges.” Don’t worry, you’re not ordering orange slices for an appetizer. These little rice balls are stuffed with cheese, Bolognese sauce and then deep-fried to resemble little oranges. Fiori Di Zucca literally means “pumpkin flowers.” These were outstanding. The delicate flowers are stuffed with ricotta, gently fried and served with basil pesto and a honey drizzle. They were light, crispy and a wonderful combination of sweet and savory. I ate all of them. Insalate: Salads should be balanced, fresh and full of complementary components. The Riccia con Frutta was my favorite salad on the menu. Some people might be over kale, but I’m not quite finished with it. Even if you don’t like kale, you might like this salad. Baby kale with seasonal stone fruit (plums), Gorgonzola cheese, almonds and red onions. Each component was easily identifiable and complemented each other nicely.
Photo by Tommy Kishimoto
Let me digress before we get into the serious stuff. Of all things to consider when choosing an Italian restaurant, the most important tidbit I can give you is that everything should be made inhouse. All of it. From the sauce to the sausages, [See PIZZA, page 16]
October 1
Richard A. López Studio Art Sale
The estate of artist Richard A. López announces a major studio sale. All works 50% off. Visit ralopezart.com. Image: Nude in Pink, by R. A. Lopez. The collection contains landscapes, figurative works and abstract acrylic on canvas paintings. Richard A López studio is located at 372 W. 7th St., San Pedro. Call (562) 628-4334.
Studio Gallery 345
Pat Woolley and Gloria D Lee Studio
Gallery 345 and Pat Woolley and Gloria D Lee offer paintings books prints and other contemporary art pieces. 1st Thursdays 6-9 p m; appointments please call Pat 310 374 8055 or Gloria 310 545 0832. 345 W 7th Street San Pedro CA 90731
Michael Stearns Studio 347
New Constructions and Assemblies By James Preston Allen
Michael Stearns Studio Presents New Construction and Assemblies James Preston Allen Through November 2, 2015 Please join us for an evening with artist James Preston Allen Thursday, Oct. 15 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Michael Stearns Studio 347 is located at 347 W. 7th St., San Pedro for more information contatct: Michael Stearns Studio 347 is located at 347 W. 7th St., San Pedro. Call (562) 400-0544 for information or appointments.
South Bay Contemporary
VIA NEGATIVA: THE TRANSCENDENCE OF THE UNREAL
Via Negativa: Transcendence of the unReal Artist Talk: on First Thursday October 1, from 4 - 6 pm with Curator, James MacDevitt and selected artists. Exhibition continues, 6 - 9 pm .Open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thurs., Fri. and Sat. (call when you arrive) (310) 429-0973. South Bay Contemporary, At the LOFT, 401 S. Mesa St., 3rd floor, San Pedro. www.southbaycontemporary.com
All Talent Productions LIGHT MY FIRE
ACE: Arts • Cuisine • Entertainment
The Life of Jim Morrison and the Doors is recreated in a way that only the ‘ Wild Child’ himself would do it. Everything is here in this rocking show from his days at UCLA to discovering music in Venice, Ca to his untimely death in Paris. A live band plays you all the classics, live and in your face. Join us for a turbulent and psychedelic ride back to the 1960’s! Sunday, September 20, from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM For Tickets / Information (702) 7426109 AllTalentproductions.com
September 17 – 30, 2015
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September 17 – 30, 2015
Independent And Free.
In Time, Brothers’ Dream, A Delgado Brothers Documentary Melina Paris Music Columnist
Entertainment Sept. 18
Fantana A tribute to Santana plays at the local brew hub on Friday night. Time: 10 p.m. Sept. 18 Cost: $3 Details: http://sanpedrobrewing.com Venue: San Pedro Brewing, 331 W. 6th St., San Pedro The Good Foot Come see The Good Foot perform latin, soul and funk music along with a list of guest DJs. Time: 9 p.m. Sept. 18 Cost: $5 to $7 Details: www.alexsbar.comVenue: Alex’s Bar, 2913 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach Paula Santoro Brazilian singer Paula Santaro is one of the greatest of her generation. Her four albums feature dozens of collaborations with artists including Guinga, Nivaldo Ornelas, Pacífico Mascarenhas and Eduardo Neves. Time: 8 p.m. Sept. 18 Cost: $20 Details: (800) 403-3447; http://alvasshowroom.com Venue: Alvas Showroom, 1417 W. 8th St., San Pedro
Sept. 19
Just off a great performance that pulled in
Repeat O’fenders These classic rockers invade the local brew hub on Saturday night. Time 10 p.m. Sept. 19 Cost: $3 Details: http://sanpedrobrewing.com Venue: San Pedro Brewing, 331 W. 6th St., San Pedro Seduction A fun and sexy modern cabaret fused with classic burlesque and exciting circus elements. Enter the den of delicious dames, tantalizing gentlemen and acrobatic aerialists. Time: 9 p.m., Sept. 19 Cost: $15 Details: http://longbeach.harvelles.com Venue: Harvelles, 201 E. Broadway, Long Beach
Sept. 20
Long Beach
Get Dead The San Francisco-based punk rockers Get Dead perform live alongside Clowns and The Darlings. Time: 9 p.m. Sept. 24 Cost: $8 to $10 Details: www.alexsbar.com Venue: Alex’s Bar, 2913 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach
Sept. 25
Flying Squad plays San Pedro Brewing These rockers go airborne at the local brew hub. Time: 10 p.m. Sept. 25 Cost: $3 Details: http://sanpedrobrewing.com Venue: San Pedro Brewing, 331 W. 6th St., San Pedro The Mad Reckless Ridicula Imitatio Productions brings this show of burlesque and modern dance to Harvelle’s. Time: 9 p.m. Sept. 25 Cost: $10 - $20 Details: http://longbeach.harvelles.com Venue: Harvelles, 201 E. Broadway, Long Beach
Sept. 26
Circus of Sin Fire dancers, contortionists and aerialists machinate in this Femme Fatale cabaret. What could go wrong? Time: 9 p.m. Sept. 26 Cost: $15 to $25 Details: http://longbeach.harvelles.com Venue: Harvelles, 201 E. Broadway, Long Beach Muse Tribute A rousing imitation of Muse, the English rock band known for energetic live performances will take place at the local brew pub. Time: 10 p.m. Sept. 26 Cost: $3 Details: http://sanpedrobrewing.com Venue: San Pedro Brewing, 331 W. 6th St., San Pedro Boogaloo Assassins and Jungle Fire These latin soul outfits promise an evening of killer heat. Time: 9 p.m. Sept. 26 Cost: $10 to $12 Details: www.alexsbar.com Venue: Alex’s Bar, 2913 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach
Sept. 29
Folk Revival Festival The Tillers top a bill that features Willy Tea Taylor, Ruby Force, Sean Wheeler and Zander Schloss. Time: 12 p.m. Sept. 20 Cost: $8 to $10 Details: http://www.alexsbar.com Venue: Alex’s Bar, 2913 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach
The Dirty Little Secrets A combination of random standup comedians and burlesque by the Dirty Little Secrets Time: 8:30 p.m. Sept. 29 Cost: $10 Details: http://longbeach.harvelles.com Venue: Harvelles, 201 E. Broadway, Long Beach
Sept. 21
The Toledo Show In a world of film noir soul, twisted tales are told through the eyes of the City of Angels’ falling angel, Toledo. Time: 9 p.m. Oct. 1 Cost: $10 to $20 Details: http://longbeach.harvelles.com Venue: Harvelles, 201 E. Broadway, Long Beach
Chris Cornell - Acoustic Higher Truth Tour The Grammy Award winner, famed as a frontman for Soundgarden and Audioslave, shares his music and lyrics at the Warner Grand Theatre. Time: 8 p.m. Sept. 21 Cost: $45 to $80 Details: www.ticketmaster.com Venue: Warner Grand Theatre, 478 W. 6th St., San Pedro
Sept. 22
Sept. 24
The Toledo Show In a world of film noir soul, twisted tales are told through the eyes of the City of Angels’ falling
Oct. 1
Community/Family Sept. 19
San Pedro Festival of the Arts San Pedro Festival of the Arts (formerly the SP TriArt Festival) is hosting its 9th annual event featuring dance, music and crafts. In recent years, the event became known for its dance performances and within the last two years, its live music performances. This year’s headlining bands are Identity Crisis and Lisa Haley & the Zydekats. Dance companies like ArteLuta Capoeira, CyberYoga, Ruby Karen Project/ Orange County Aerial Arts are also featured.
September 17 – 30, 2015
The Dirty Little Secrets A combination of random standup comedians and burlesque by the Dirty Little Secrets will sizzle you up. Time: 8:30 p.m. Sept. 22 Cost: $10 Details: http://longbeach.harvelles.com Venue: Harvelles, 201 E. Broadway, Long Beach
ACE: Arts • Cuisine • Entertainment
a big crowd at the Sept. 6 New Blues Festival at Long Beach’s El Dorado Park, Joey Delgado of The Delgado Brothers spoke briefly about the band’s upcoming documentary, In Time, directed by Lance Mungia. The title of the film is also the name of a song on Learn to Fly, The Delgado Brothers’ last album. In Time was filmed a more than two years ago, but Delgado said it is going to be a five-year process, so it’s still in rough form. The Delgados are hoping for additional funding to help them complete the film by next year. Originally, they started an Indiegogo account to raise funds. Now, they are applying for a Sundance grant program for films that are already in process. “In Time screened two years ago in Monrovia, and more 500 people attended and loved it,” Delgado said. “The premise of the movie is all about my older brothers growing up in the East Los Angeles rock ’n’ roll scene in the 1960s. That is how we started out playing. My brother Bob, the bass player in our current band, was the one who started guiding us to the blues, the real blues. We were able to learn it first-hand”. The Delgado Brothers have a rich history of performing and a special relationship with their fans in East Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Valley. This past May they shot additional footage at The Carrie Hamilton Theater in Pasadena. At that time, there were some songs missing from the original filming so the Delgado’s put together a performance with a 7-camera shoot. Many of the songs recorded that day will make it into the film. Delgado comes from a family with eleven children. The older generation of brothers started the family’s musical tradition, playing roots and rock music in East Los Angeles. The elder brother, Eddie, was in a group
called the Ambertones. Another brother, Bobby, had a career as bassist with Thee Exotics. These groups contributed to the start of Chicano Soul and were instrumental in influencing the next generation of local musicians, like Los Lobos and Tierra and, of course, the next generation of The Delgado Brothers. Younger brothers Joey, Bobby and Steve formed the Delgado Brothers band. Delgado described their sound as a Texas style, similar to older blues of artists like T Bone Walker, older B.B. King and Muddy Waters. In Time will be released to the Delgado Brothers’ friends and family first, then will be available worldwide on iTunes. When the film is completed it will have a screening at a local theater. “The Delgado Brothers have been playing for 45 years and I’m proud of the fact that we’re still trying to create new music and we’re still relevant,” Delgado said. “We don’t try to rely on our past successes. We just keep creating and keep playing and we love what we do.” Details: http://delgadobrothers.reverbnation.com
FluteSonic Orchestra The group features Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra principal flutist David Shostac and his students. Time: 3 p.m. Sept. 19 Cost: Free Details: (310) 316-5574; www.palosverdes.com/classicalcrossroads Venue: First Lutheran Church & School, 2900 W. Carson St., Torrance
angel, Toledo.
Time: 9 p.m. Sept. 24 Cost: $10 to $20 Details: http://longbeach.harvelles.com Venue: Harvelles, 201 E. Broadway,
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Time: 1 to 6:30 p.m. Sept. 19 through 20 Cost: Free Details: www.lachoreographersanddancers.org Venue: Ports O’’Call Village, 1199 Nagoya Way,
San Pedro
Folk Revival Festival 2015 You can’t fake the folk, and the third annual Long Beach Folk Revival Festival will serve “true American music” in a jamboree with all the fixin’s: beards, banjos and craft beers. Time: 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sept. 19 Cost: $20 to $60 Details: folkrevivalfestival.com Venue: Rainbow Lagoon Park, E. Shoreline Drive, Long Beach
Sept. 20
Latino Heritage Festival Celebrate the diversity within the Latin American experience through live performances, art, vendors, and food and drink for sale. Time: 11:30 a.m. to 5p.m. Cost: Free Details: (562) 437-1689, www.molaa.org. Venue: Museum of Latin American Art, 628 Alamitos Ave, Long Beach Lost Bird Project Five birds driven to extinction in modern times are sculpted by Todd McGrain’s project to memorialize them. The film follows McGrain as he searches for the locations where the birds were last seen in the wild and installs his large bronze sculptures in their memory. Time: 4 p.m. Sept. 20 Cost: $10 Details: www.pvplc.org Venue: Peninsula High School Theater, 27118 Silver Spur Road, Rolling Hills Estates
Theater/Film Sept. 18
Independent And Free.
Joan of Arc Artistic director Aaron Ganz turns to Joan of Arc for Theatre Elysium San Pedro’s latest original, theatrical adventure, weaving acting, dance, visual art and music into a special telling of the young French girl chosen by God to lead an army and pay the ultimate price for her bravery and sacrifice. Time: 7:30 p.m. Fridays through Sundays Sept. 11 through Oct. 4. Cost: $25 Details: www.sanpedrorep.org Venue: Theatre Elysium San Pedro Rep., 311 W. 7th St., San Pedro
Sept. 24
N*gger Wetb*ck Ch*nk This compelling and comedic play — written by three men who were tired of being typecast and discriminated against because of the color of their skin — directly confronts racial slurs and stereotypes while stimulating cultural awareness and acceptance. Time: 8 p.m. Sept. 24 Cost: $25 Details: (562) 985-7000 Venue: Carpenter Performing Arts Center, 6200 E. Atherton St., Long Beach
Sept. 25
Henry IV, Part I Often considered Shakespeare’s most perfectly crafted play, the story follows Prince Hal through his early years as a cut-purse and companion to the drunken Sir John Falstaff, Shakespeare’s greatest comic creation. A talk with the cast and director will take place Oct. 18. Times: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, Sept. 25 through Oct. 24 Details: www.littlefishtheatre.org Venue: Little Fish Theatre, 777 S. Centre St, San Pedro September 17 – 30, 2015
Oct. 4
The Edwards Twins Get set for an energetic performance of mimicry and music as the Edwards Twins meticulously morph into dozens of your favorite celebrities. Time: 2 p.m. Oct. 4 Cost: $38 Details: (562) 985-7000 Venue: Carpenter Performing Arts Center, 6200 E. Atherton St., Long Beach
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Private Eyes Steven Dietz’ 1996 dark comedy tells a tale of
Oct. 1
adultery among a group of theater people in an ever-dissolving sequence of plays within plays within plays. Time: 8 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, Oct. 1 through 22 Cost: $27 Details: (310) 512-6030 Venue: Little Fish Theatre, 777 Centre St., San Pedro Sondheim on Sondheim An intimate portrait of famed composer Stephen Sondheim (creator of Tony Award-winning musicals Company, Sweeney Todd, Follies, Into the Woods, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and more) in his own words and music.. Time: 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturdays, and 2 p.m. Sundays, Oct. 14 to Nov. 8 Cost: $34 to $54 Details: http://ictlongbeach.org Venue: International City Theatre, 330 E. Seaside Way, Long Beach
Art Crossing Boundaries Experience the photographs of DeAnn Jennings and Nancy Webber. An artist reception is scheduled from 4 to 7 p.m. Sept. 19. Time: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 19 through Nov. 14 Cost: Free Details: (310) 233-4411 Venue: Los Angeles Harbor College, Fine Arts Gallery, 1111 Figueroa Place, Wilmington Breathing, Los Psychogeographies Enjoy Tam Van Tran’s Breathing and Dewey Ambrosino’s Los Psychogeographies. Time: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Mondays and Thursdays, 12 to 8 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, through Oct. 1 Cost: Free Details: (562) 938-4815; tnorris@lbcc.edu Venue: 4901 E. Carson St., Long Beach Sextet This group exhibition by painters Katy Crowe, William Mahan, Yong Sin, Gary Szymanski, Marie Thibeault, and Ted Twine represents a variety of styles. Crowe is an abstract painter of lyrical, reductivist leaning whose gentle meditations on natural and geometric shapes and structures belie a stubborn, complex and informed aesthetic. Veteran Los Angeles artist Mahan is known for large-scale works based on real-life places and events and painted with a directness that often belies their sophisticated drawing, color and fracture. In Sin's work the simple becomes unexpectedly elaborate; the ordinary metamorphose into distinctiveness. Szymanski breaks the silence of his geometric pursuits by presenting selected text pieces, which have been a parallel concern of the artist all along. In Thibeault's paintings landscape functions as a metaphor both literally and symbolically. Twine's work engages the viewer in a tug-of-war between abstract and figure painting. Time: Through Sept.19 Cost: Free Details: (310) 600-4873; www.TransVagrant. com. Venue: Warshaw Gallery, 600 S. Pacific Ave., San Pedro A Garden of Excesses: Ángel Ricardo Ricardo Rios The massive paintings and deft drawings of Ángel Ricardo Ricardo Riosblend organic, vegetal forms with allusions to the erotic in fantastic displays of sensual excess. Expressed in vibrant colors with a quick, sure hand, or made using his body to apply paint, his meld of Expressionist and Neo-Baroque explorations appear part abstraction and part dreamscape, recalling the theatrical presence celebrated in the Spanish Baroque. Time: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays, and 1 to 4 p.m. Sundays, through Oct. 4 Cost: Free Details: (310) 541-2479; pvartcenter.org Venue: Palos Verdes Art Center, 5504 Crestridge Road, Rancho Palos Verdes
[REAL TALK, from page 11]
REAL TALK ON PHAMILIAR GROUND
Tee Pina founded Dead Broke Entertainment in 2005. In the early days his lineup included local artists Lucabrazzi, Word Play, Ill Nate and others. Today, Dead Broke Entertainment is putting all of its energy into Phamiliar. Pina started off as A DJ rocking the wheels of steel as far back as the mid-90s. I mentioned the last group I covered in these pages, SMCI, headed by Paul “P-Millz” Miller and Bubb Watts and even Luke Von Duke when he was still doing the rock-hip-hop thing back in the late 2000s. They either moved on creatively to some other kind of music or took a prolonged and possibly permanent hiatus from music. I’ve always believed the reason hip-hop culture hasn’t thrived in the Los Angeles Harbor Area was the lack of space provided for it. Pina blames the lack of cohesiveness in the South Bay’s and Harbor Area’s hip-hop community for the lack of a scene supporting local artists. “If you don’t make it as an artist, you can still write for someone,” explained Pina, noting that there are ways to contribute even when you haven’t made it to your destination as an artist. “If you don’t make it as a brand you make it as an artist. That’s too much skill to let go to waste.... We just gotta keep working.” “There’s a lot of jealousy and people just don’t want to conform … everybody just wants to be
them instead of joining together,” he said. “We’re not like other guys out here who produce something then wait for something to happen. We can’t wait for nothing to happen. We always try to have four or five shows per month, even if they’re just open-mics or whatever.” With the growing popularity of the battle rap leagues on YouTube, I wondered why more West Coast artists weren’t taking advantage of it to gain recognition. Sure, we have Dumbfounded from Korea Town and Daylyte from Compton, but I’ve always found it surprising that more West Coast underground artists aren’t surfacing, given the growth of battle rapping culture on social media, and the money and attention that’s being generated by battle rap leagues such as King of the Dot and Ultimate Rap League. Phamiliar has a few battles under his belt and he has shown he could be a microphone fiend, but he and Dead Broke Entertainment has kept attention on making music. Essentially their gaining market share the old fashion way– performing where they can get in and pushing MP3s and CDs. Phamiliar has already finished his first single, “Get Right,” on his still unnamed, upcoming album.
[PIZZA, from page 12]
Michael’s Pizzeria:
the less they order from food purveyors, the better. Italians take food seriously. It has always been that way and it will forever be that way. It is innate and deeply rooted in the culture. If someone is trying to serve you something they didn’t make by hand, it’s disingenuous, un-Italian and already lacking a key ingredient: passion. OK, back on the food train. Of course, Michael’s Pizzeria makes everything in-house or at their sister establishment and my favorite butcher shop of all time, Working Class Kitchen. Pizza: Their pizzas are totally authentic, wood fired-Napoli-style and perfect in every way. The Margherita pizza is my favorite. It’s so simple but the ingredients are so fresh that it must be ordered and consumed on a regular basis. The Porchetta is also phenomenal. Porchetta? It’s a savory, fatty, moist, boneless pork roast — so yes, it should be on pizza. Add a little pesto, red peppers and
housemade smoked mozzarella and you can’t go wrong. For some variety, try a Pizza Bianca, or one without tomato sauce. Try the Guanciale Pizza. Guanciale is an Italian cured meat made from pork jowl and its name is derived from the word guancia, which means “cheek” in Italian. It’s a milder smoked meat and it comes on the pizza with mozzarella, goat cheese, stone fruit and a little bit of honey. The Lasagna Napoletana was exceptional, too. Michael’s Pizzeria is open for lunch, dinner, happy hour and brunch on the weekends. Details: (562) 491-2100; www.michaelspizzeria.com Venue: Michael’s Pizzeria, 210 E. 3rd St., Long
Beach
Gina Ruccione has traveled all over Europe and Asia and has lived in almost every nook of Los Angeles County. You can visit her website at www.foodfashionfoolishfornication.com.
Iconic Mugshots T
he concept of justified law-breaking is considered through the mug shots that captured iconic actors, musicians, artists and activists during the booking process. The artists exhibiting their work are Mark Metzner, Alan R Papaleo, Reidar Schopp, Steven Amado, Cora RamirezVasquez, Ray Vasquez, and Harmony Azul Vasquez. An artist reception is scheduled from 5 to 9 p.m. Sept. 19 Time: Through Oct. 24 Cost: Free Details: http://tinyurl.com/GalleryAzulMugshots Venue: Gallery Azul, 520 W 8th St, San Pedro
San Pedro Festival Arts Returns
Lamonte Tales Goode, founder of the CyberYoga. File photo
By Terelle Jerricks, Managing Editor
T he ever-evolving SP TriArt
Time: 1 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Sept. 19 and 20 Cost: Free Details: www.TriArtSP.com Venue: Ports O’ Call Village, 1199 Nagoya Way,
San Pedro,
ACE: Arts • Cuisine • Entertainment September 17 – 30, 2015
Festival–now transformed into the San Pedro Festival of the Arts–appears to have found a home at Ports O’ Call Village, which during the weekend of Sept. 19 will once again be the place where Southern California’s most incredible top dance troupes perform their most incredible moves. Actually, the most interesting part of this year’s festival is the close linkage of yoga and contemporary dance forms. Dance theaters such as CyberYoga and manGO Dance Theatre are headed by professional dancers, who also teach the physical and mental discipline of yoga. CyberYoga is headed by Lamonte Tales Goode, a self-taught dancer whose style draws from break dance, hip-hop, acrobatics and yoga. According to his website, http://cyberyoga.la, Goode created a signature fusion style of gravity-defying balance and dance moves that captivate audiences. The evidence is Goode’s performance at the 2014 Los Angeles Zouk Congress, two minutes during which Goode executed moves requiring a great deal of balance, strength and flexibility, while creating tension with his speed. Diana Cummin, the head of manGO Dance Theatre, is an award-winning artist, educator and choreographer, who teaches dance and yoga in the Kinesiology and Dance departments of Los Angeles City and Pierce community colleges. Comprised of a diverse and multiage ensemble of dancers, manGO Dance Theatre’s mission is to connect communities through dance in traditional and nontraditional spaces. For manGO, this translates into performance art in alleys, lobbies and beaches, as well as stages. The wide range of venues means video is the best and main way to appreciate what they do. The Torrance-based ArteLuta Capoeira derives from capoeira, the Afro-Brazilian martial art that combines elements of dance, acrobatic movements and hand-to-hand combat, and serves as a reminder of the inter-connectivity of art disciplines. Capoeira was developed in the 16th century, mainly by West African descendants who incorporated native Brazilian influences. The dance and playful nature of the form was deployed at the time to disguise the training of its practitioners so as to appear non-threatening. Varal, the one-named founder of ArteLuta Capoeira, learned the art form from masters in his home country of Brazil. He has continued training and passing on knowledge and tradition to new generations in Southern California. The San Pedro Festival of the Arts is increasingly turning Southern California into a hot spot for cutting-edge choreography, according to Louise Reichlin, who took the helm four years ago, after the death of founder Joe Caccavella in 2012. Reichlin explained recently that the festival’s new name change is partly about better reflecting the festival’s change in direction. She said that after five years of pulling off increasingly
success events at Ports O’ Call Village, she was looking to create a clean slate to impress potential donors and create a new identity in the minds of festival goers. And she has. A couple of years ago, Festival of the Arts formed a partnership with Alvas Showroom, which has booked stellar bands for the live music component. Unlike the first year, when the festival’s musical lineup was a laundry list of styles, including tribute bands and local combos playing covers, this year’s festival has just one headlining band each day: Identity Crisis from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Saturday and Lisa Haley and the Zydekats from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Sunday.
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September 17 - 30, 2015
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DBA/legal filings Fictitious Business Name Statement File No. 2015231510 The following person is doing business as: Garret Garage Door, 1536 W. 25th St., San Pedro Ca 90732, Los Angeles County. Registered owners: Garret R. Joyce, 2503 S. Carolina St. #A, San Pedro, CA 90731. This Business is conducted by an individual. The date registrant started to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed above: N/A. I declare that all information in this statement is true and correct. (A registrant who declares as true information which he or she knows to be false is guilty of a crime.) S/. Garret R. Joyce, Owner. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Los Angeles on Sept. 08, 2015. Notice--In Accordance with subdivision (a) of section 17920. A fictitious name statement generally expires at the end of five years from the date on which it was filed in the office of the county clerk, except as provided in subdivision (b) of section 17920. were to expires 40 days after any change in the facts set forth in the statement pursuant to section 17913 other than a change in the residence ad-
dress of a registered owner. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before the expiration. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious business name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 1411 ET SEQ., Business and Professions code). Original filing: 09/17/2015, 10/1/2015, 10/15/2015, 10/29/2015
Fictitious Business Name Statement File No. 2015229526 The following person is doing business as: Zvending, 2840 Peck Ave., San Pedro, CA 90731, Los Angeles County. Registered owners: Michael John Zvanich,2840 Peck Ave., San Pedro, CA 90731. This Business is conducted by an individual. The date registrant started to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed above: N/A. I declare that all information in this statement is true and correct. (A registrant who declares as true information which he or she knows to be false is guilty of a crime.) S/. Michael John Zvanich, Owner. This
[to following page]
[Confidential, from page 10]
California Confidential them to keep the confidentiality indefinitely. “If an employee moves from one law enforcement agency to another (what we usually refer to as lateraling to another agency), the employee should re-submit a request through the new employing agency so it reflects on their DMV status where they are employed, but either way, they are still entitled to the confidentiality,” she said. “The DMV record will reflect the name and insurance carrier of the individual; it only conceals the individual’s home address.” Zabel explained that if a hit-and-run accident occurred within the Long Beach jurisdiction and the reported license plate turned out to be the confidential plate of an LBPD employee, then a criminal and
internal investigation would be launched. “I can only speak to what would happen in Long Beach,” Zabel said. “The Accident Investigation Detail would handle the criminal investigation into the hit-andrun. Internal Affairs would handle an internal personnel investigation if it is believed an employee was involved in any kind of misconduct (being involved in a hit-and-run accident would most likely be considered misconduct).” But the consequences of such an investigation. After all, driving without insurance and leaving the scene of an accident are both against the law. The process is different if the accident happens in another city, because Long Beach would not be in charge of the
investigation. The California Department of Insurance said it could not comment on the matter because there could be variables, referring back to law enforcement. Price’s insurance company also was called, but no one has responded to repeated calls. In the end, because of confidentiality rules the insurance company and collection agency are not able to get the driver’s license suspended or take him to court, because they only release the address of an employer and the name of the insurance company, but not other relevant information such as date of birth. The other problem is at least two LAPD officers share the name of Fernando Cuevas. Without the cooperation of either the Long Beach or Los Angeles police departments, it’s nearly impossible to find out the exact number of Southern California officers named Fernando Cuevas.
DBA/legal filings [from previous page] statement was filed with the County Clerk of Los Angeles on Sept. 03, 2015. Notice--In Accordance with subdivision (a) of section 17920. A fictitious name statement generally expires at the end of five years from the date on which it was filed in the office of the county clerk, except as provided in subdivision (b) of section 17920. were to expires 40 days after any change in the facts set forth in the statement pursuant to section 17913 other than a change in the residence address of a registered
owner. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before the expiration.The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious business name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 1411 ET SEQ., Business and Professions code). Original filing: 09/17/2015, 10/1/2015,
10/15/2015, 10/29/2015
The City of Los Angeles Harbor Department (Harbor Department) has prepared a Notice of Preparation (NOP) of a Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Report for the Berths 97-109 [China Shipping] Container Terminal Project. The NOP and Environmental Checklist is available for review at: Port of Los Angeles Environmental Management Division, 222 W. 6th Street, Suite 900, San Pedro, CA 90731; Los Angeles City Library, Central Branch, 630 W. 5th Street, Los Angeles CA 90071; Los Angeles City Library, San Pedro Branch, 931 S. Gaffey Street, San Pedro, CA 90731; Los Angeles City Library, Wilmington Branch, 1300 N. Avalon, Wilmington, CA 90744. The NOP is also available on the Port of Los Angeles’ web site: http://www. portoflosangeles.org under the Environmental tab. A scoping meeting will be held on October 7, 2015, at 6:00 p.m. at the Board Room at the Harbor Department Administration Building, 425 S. Palos Verdes Street, San Pedro, CA 90731.
For additional information, please contact the CEQA Project Manager, Lisa Ochsner, at (310) 732-3675.
The NOP and Environmental Checklist is available for review at: Port of Los Angeles Environmental Management Division, 222 W. 6th Street, Suite 900, San Pedro, CA 90731; Los Angeles City Library, Central Branch, 630 W. 5th Street, Los Angeles CA 90071; Los Angeles City Library, San Pedro Branch, 931 S. Gaffey Street, San Pedro, CA 90731; Los Angeles City Library, Wilmington Branch, 1300 N. Avalon, Wilmington, CA 90744. The NOP is also available on the Port of Los Angeles’ web site: http://www.portoflosangeles. org under the Environmental tab. A scoping meeting will be held on October 7, 2015, at 6:00 p.m. at the Board Room at the Harbor Department Administration Building, 425 S. Palos Verdes Street, San Pedro, CA 90731. Written comments on the NOP can be submitted until October 19, 2015, and should be mailed to Christopher Cannon, Director of Environmental Management, Port of Los Angeles, 425 S. Palos Verdes Street, San Pedro CA 90731. Comments sent via e-mail should be addressed to ceqacomments@portla.org. Comments sent via email should include the project title in the e-mail’s subject line and a valid mailing address within the email. For additional information, please contact the CEQA Project Manager, Lisa Ochsner, at (310) 732-3675.
Meanwhile, her insurance company has paid out $1632, of which she has paid a $1,000 deductible.
[Astroturf, from page 7]
Behind the Astroturf Curtain panned as a document that manages to work in every possible conspiracy theory about Muslims. There’s no way to know who’s funding Veterans for a Strong America, and how it spends its money since it is registered as a 501(c)4—a “social welfare” group that can engage in political activities without disclosing its donors. In other words, a political action committee. While there is very little overlap in Beach’s and Arends’ political ties, they
do exist in the same political orbit and they are tied to the same political causes. In 2014, Random Lengths— as part of a series of stories about the troubles on the USS Iowa—reported that Beach served both the elder and younger Bush administrations and was a political operator on the state level for more than a decade while working as an administrative assistant to Iowa state senators Mary Kramer and Jeff Lamberti (currently serves as president of the Pacific Battleship Center’s board of
directors). Since 2008, Beach has formed strong ties to former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and is actively involved in two Palin political action committees, SarahPac and ShePac, that are tied to Islamophobic movements and other far right causes. The Pacific Battleship Center may bill itself as a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, but the political ties of the board’s top executives may make a lie out of the center’s chief operating officer.
[Trump, from page 7]
TRUMP
That’s going to be broken down into something very special. Right now, we have illegal immigrants who are treated better, by far, than our veterans. It’s not going to happen anymore.” Were he to become president, his administration would come out with plans in a very short time, Trump said. “We’re going to build up our military,” he said. “We’re going to make our military so big and so strong, and so great and it will be so powerful that I don’t think we’re ever going to have to use it. Nobody is going to mess with us. That, I can tell ya. And, we’re going to have a president who is respected by Putin and who’s respected by Iran.” Trump went on to say that the silent majority, as he called his party, is back. “And, I think we can use it somewhat differently,” he said. “I don’t think we have to call it a silent majority anymore because they are not silent. They’re disgusted with our incompetent politicians, disgusted with the people giving our country away; they’re disgusted with the people who tell our border patrol agents, who are good people doing their jobs, to allow people to walk over the border right in front of them and they’re standing there, helpless, and people just pour into the country. They’re disgusted when a woman that is nine
Costa Mesa resident, Mark Richardson. Below, State Sen. Isadore Hall III used the rally to promote SR39, his bill calling for divestiture of the state’s Trump-related business. Photos by Terelle Jerricks.
months pregnant walks across the border has the baby and you have to take care of it for the next 85 years.” Note: In Dallas, he suggested that instead of calling it the Silent Majority, “maybe we should call it the noisy, the aggressive, the wanting to win majority…We’re going to be getting so many victories that it’s going to be coming out of your ears.”
September 17 - 30, 2015
Written comments on the NOP can be submitted until October 19, 2015, and should be mailed to Christopher Cannon, Director of Environmental Management, Port of Los Angeles, 425 S. Palos Verdes Street, San Pedro CA 90731. Comments sent via e-mail should be addressed to ceqa comments@portla.org. Comments sent via email should include the project title in the e-mail’s subject line and a valid mailing address within the email.
The City of Los Angeles Harbor Department (Harbor Department) has prepared a Notice of Preparation (NOP) of a Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Report for the Berths 97-109 [China Shipping] Container Terminal Project.
badge and abusing the privilege of confidential license plate protection to avoid paying up for scraping the driver’s side of Price’s car while it was parked outside a Starbucks.
The Local Publication You Actually Read
NOTICE OF PREPARATION OF A DRAFT SUPPLEMENTAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORT FOR THE Berths 97-109 [China Shipping] Container Terminal Project
NOTICE OF PREPARATION OF A DRAFT SUPPLEMENTAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORT FOR THE BERTHS 97-109 [CHINA SHIPPING] CONTAINER TERMINAL PROJECT
At this point, Price’s only course of action is to sue every officer in the LAPD named Fernando Cuevas, and let the courts decide which one of them is hiding behind a
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September 17 - 30, 2015
Serving the Seven Communities of the Harbor Area