Community Alert
Possible New Property Improvement District to be Discussed Join City Councilman Joe Buscaino at a community meeting on May 7 to discuss the possibility of forming a property based business improvement district along Gaffey Street in San Pedro, from Summerland to 18th Street. Meeting starts at 6 p.m. Venue: San Pedro Inn & Suites Location: 111 S. Gaffey St., San Pedro
RANDOMLetters Are Fish Wet? Are Angelenos Angry?
Some Angelenos are angry. They feel betrayed. Their Charter is being trampled. Their civil service has been corrupted. Their voice at City Hall has been muffled. Increasingly, they’re treated like mushrooms. Yes, some Angelenos are angry! Angelenos know they’re being ripped off. They’re aware that over half the City budget goes to support an under-utilized workforce. They also know the Mayor and Council mismanage employees— treat them, collectively, as “The
Help.” Indeed, the Mayor and Council are a major part of the problem. They lie about the size of their workforce. The Mayor claims to have a staff of 94 employees, when in fact, the number reported by the Controller’s Office is 180. Similarly, the Council says it hires 108 employees. But the Controller’s number is actually 344. The Mayor and the Council want Angelenos to think they’re doing everything possible to cut costs. They laid-off hundreds of employees and forced thousands to take unpaid furloughs. But they found $15,000,000 to fund
a useless Board of Public Works because, critics say, that provides jobs for 5 campaign contributors. Under City procedures, probationary employees must demonstrate their fitness for the job by the actual performance of their assigned duties and responsibilities. Here’s how that requirement is spelled out in the civil service rules: Sec. 1.26. PROBATIONARY PERIOD means the working test period during which the employees is required to demonstrate his/her fitness by the actual performance of the duties and responsibilities of his/her position and during which he/she may be
terminated without right of appeal… Now, in light of this Rule, why is the LAPD allowed to use the same rating form to evaluate probationary performance in such diverse classes as Clerk, Painter, Delivery Driver, Accountant, Photographer, Storekeeper, Garage Attendant, Welder, Equipment Mechanic, Equine Keeper, Nutritionist, and 100 other job classes in which the Police Department utilizes civilian employees? Angelenos may ask what it is about probationary rating that the Mayor, Council, Police Chief don’t understand. Are they baffled
by Rating Content? Well, ratings are supposed to focus mainly on the probationer’s job performance, including personal traits and work habits essential to their work. Samuel Sperling Monterey Park
Response to DOJ Decision on Kent State Shootings
This letter is in response to the articles covering the Justice Department’s decision not to reopen the probe of the 1970 Kent State shootings. Well, it appears the ghosts of Tin Soldiers and Nixon are coming back to the Kent State More Letters/ to p. 10
from previous page
Women Unite at Rally
A demonstrator at the We Are Women rally on April 28.
May 4 - 17, 2012
insults to women. Under a proposed law changes in Georgia, rape victims would no longer be “victims” but termed “accusers.” Arizona legislatures have advanced a bill which will require women to obtain permission from their employers to have birth control covered by their health insurance; using birth control for a non-medical reason would become a basis for termination. A lawmaker in Indiana refused to sign legislation honoring the 100th Anniversary of the Girl Scouts, claiming that they support abortions and a homosexual agenda. (Funny, I did not see these positions on my last box of Thin Mints.) Our children and schools face devastating budget cuts while Big Oil enjoys billions in tax subsidies. White women still earn 77cents to the dollar for doing the same job as a white male. For Latinas, the earnings are much less, 58 cents, and that’s those whose jobs have not been shipped overseas, while the virtues of the Lilly Ledbetter act are debated by the GOP. Unite Women.org is compiling a comprehensive data base of the thousands of pieces of litigation being proposed and enacted across the United States and will also prepare score cards for legislative voting records on women’s issues. Politicians be forewarned: Women will know and remember in November 2012 (and at every other election) who had stood with them.
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any more. I am so grateful for those two courageous women who decided on February 19, 2012 to post a call on Facebook to “Unite Against the War on Women.” For that humble beginning, more than 30,000 have joined this newly minted and grass roots organization, UniteWomen.org. Our members represent a new wave of feminism, the beginning of the Women’s Spring and, I can only hope and pray for the end of centuries of sex-based oppression. Whether or not you want to use the term, there is a “war” going on in America. Some call it a “War Against Women.” As my friend and colleague Jan B. Tucker has noted, it is really a cultural war in which “control freaks and religious fanatics are trying to turn the clocks back 60 years, if not more.” I, for one, refuse to stand on the sidelines. I have never been an official member of a feminist group, but I have accepted the call to action by UniteWomen.org. We have marched and rallied but there is much more work to be done. Women across the United States are being stripped of their rights and denied equality. In 2011, states enacted 135 new reproductive health laws, 60 percent of these restrict access to abortion services. Personhood amendments have been proposed in a number of states: these laws would criminalize all abortions even those performed to ensure the safety of the mother or to terminate a pregnancy which is the result of rape or incest. These laws would effectively outlaw many forms of contraception and could subject a woman who miscarries to criminal prosecution. All of the major GOP Presidential candidates have signed a personhood pledge. Mitt Romney would defund Planned Parenthood which provides cancer screening and mammograms to poor and uninsured women across the United States. Rick Santorum said he would allow states to “outlaw” contraception. So much for small government. While our military spending grows and the richest citizens enjoy huge tax breaks, small and big towns are making budget decisions which have direct impacts on women. In Topeka, Kan., domestic violence was decriminalized as a costcutting measure. Maryland officials ended all funding for a pre-school program for children from low-income families because they felt the mothers should be at home with their children, not working. Two-thirds of the elderly poor are women and they face serious cuts to programs which provide them with assistance for housing and meals. Rush Limbaugh’s tirade against Sandra Fluke was only one of a series of the recent
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