Volume 78, Issue 2 | www.elaccampusnews.com | Wednesday, SEPTEMBER 23, 2020 | Single copy free - additional copies 50 cents
Former professor appointed police commissioner BY SONNY TAPIA Staff Writer
Former East Los Angeles College Political Science Professor Maria Calanche was appointed to the Los Angeles Police Commission to replace Commissioner Sandra Figueroa-Villa. Calanche was confirmed unanimously by the LA City Council, after her nomination by Mayor Eric Garcetti, on September 2. When Garcetti announced his nomination for the appointment of Calanche on August 25. He said in his public announcement that she would be a vital voice for the city’s leadership in 21st century policing. Calanche has been an advocate for the youth of LA through her work with her non-profit, Legacy LA. She is executive director and founder of the organization, which she started in 2007. ELAC Political Science Professor Consuelo Castro spoke about Calanche’s qualities and capabilities to perform in the newly assigned position. “Calanche is an excellent fit for this position. She is an articulate community based activist who is well versed on police and community relations,” Castro said. Castro said that when Calanche left the Social Science Department, the other faculty were sad to lose her, but ultimately they understood that she was doing great work in the community. Castro hired Calanche as a parttime professor and saw her work ethic and organization skills as a huge plus to what she was working toward. “She can be counted on to be a strong and fair voice on behalf of the community in addressing police
practices,” Castro said. “She understands the problems the community, especially young people, have faced in its relations with the police. She is a problem solver and can be counted on to include important stakeholders in representing the community.” When she started Legacy LA, there was a 60 percent dropout rate according to the Los Angeles Unified School District. Calanche felt it was because her community lacked the proper resources to advocate for the youth in Ramona Gardens. This organization focuses on engaging with youth in her home community of Ramona Gardens and its neighboring cities. Legacy LA offers case management and counseling services for youth in the community from sixth grade through college completion. The Through Our Eyes program, offers youth and Los Angeles Police Department officers a chance to communicate through workshops and courses. The goal of this program is to break the communication barrier between what young people of color and the police. “The program is youth led and youth developed. The point of the program is to teach police officers and help them understand how the youth feel,” Calanche said. Calanche said that it can be difficult for young adults and teenagers to really communicate with the officers when they are being questioned. Legacy LA focuses on promoting leadership programs through after school tutoring and workshops, as a dropout prevention tactic. Calanche remembers how difficult it was for young people to
CN/ GIL MILANES
A LOOK INTO THE PAST—Maria Lou Calanche in 1999 helping students.
communicate with police in general and she wanted to stop that from happening. She feels that the new appointment will allow her to connect more with the community now that it has a direct connection with a police commissioner. “I think it is a great opportunity for me. It is also an opportunity for the community to have someone on the police commission that has a connection with youth,” Calanche said. “The youth will have access to a person in a higher position to contact and connect with,” she said. Calanche talked about implementing a youth advocate to the police commission that could speak on behalf of the youth that are being stopped by police. The advocate would act as a neutral mediator for the youth being questioned. She feels that this would add a sense of equality for those that
do not understand what they are being questioned for. The City Council and Police Commission have been discussing a way to react to non-violent 911 calls by sending social service workers instead of police to handle the situation. “The police would be a backup plan for those types of calls if they escalated. I fully believe in trying to make that happen,” Calanche said. Along with the discussion of sending social service workers, Calanche believes the police need to do a better job when handling calls in communities of color. She said that communities of color deserve high quality public safety along with making sure everything is safe on both ends. Calanche is looking across the nation at different models of policing to gain ideas to bring to the other members of the commission. In the past months, protests for
the Black Lives Matter movements The 2020-2021 total budget for have spread across the nation due the LAPD is $3.14 billion and $1.86 to the death of George Floyd and billion to policing after the $150 more recently the shooting of Jacob million in cuts made by the City Blake. Council and Mayor Garcetti. This has sparked a police response Calanche believes she can across the nation with tear gas and advocate for proper disbursement rubber bullets shot toward protesters of the funds that she has access to in the streets of their cities. on the commission. Calanche spoke about the protests “Police need more training in and whether or not the police are mental health and social justice responding the proper way to the classes to create more empathy protester’s actions. toward situations police face,” “Obviously, it is hard to be a Calanche said. police officer because you are She said that a lot of the training trying to allow people to protest for police is military-like instead while protecting private property. I of empathetic toward communities. feel the city of LA, the mayor and One job of the Police Commission the chief are very aware and also is that every week they review any sensitive to how people are feeling,” use of force by officers in arrests. Calanche said. Any time an officer discharges “We are trying very hard to ensure a weapon, it is investigated by that the way we police is sensitive to the commission and the officer’s the way things are happening. You Inspector General. just don’t want police to get hurt, but The Police Commission decides the department whether or not is doing what it the officers were can.” within policy or “The youth will have She continued not, based on by adding that access to a person in body cam footage the department other forms of a higher position to and is focusing evidence. on safety and contact and connect I f t h e the needs of commission finds with.” protestors that that an officer was have the right to outside of policy, be upset and the it does not have right to be there. the power to fire MARIA LOU CALANCHE Los Angeles Police Commissioner Calanche officers from their believes that the position. That is rubber bullets the responsibility and tear gas are not something that of the Board of Rights, which is warranted by police during the consists of the officer’s peers and protest and should be a last resort. fellow LAPD members. Teaching and believing in protest “Yes, Michael Moore should be is something that she advocates ultimately held accountable for the for, but did not have a response officers’ actions that reside under his about whether or not the police are jurisdiction,” Calanche said. trained to detain without killing or brutalizing protestors.
Shower of Hope partners with ELAC for housing BY JEREMY ARIAS Staff Writer
KEEPING IT SIMPLE—ELAC Campus News first place for College best website.
Campus News wins first place BY ERICA CORTEZ Staff Writer
East Los Angeles Campus News won first place in the student news website contest competing with four-year and two-year colleges when the Los Angeles Press Club hosted their 62nd Southern California Journalism Awards on Aug. 29. Campus News came in first place. University of Southern California’s Annenberg Media came in second. Following in third, was Santa Monica College’s The Corsair. “We beat a well known four-year school,” Jean Stapleton, Campus News’ Adviser. Campus News was competing with Southern California four-year colleges. “Going up against four-year colleges is tough when you are a junior college. So, knowing that you can still get those results from any college, just speaks to the overall quality of our education,” said Anastasia Landeros, former Campus News staff member and
News Briefs
Editor in Cheif. The Campus News website has been going strong since 2011. Stapleton said that other schools might sign up for a commercial webiste creator Campus News was different. “We developed the website from scratch,” Stapleton said. The website has progressed and improved with much help throughout the school semesters. “It is a group effort,” said Steven Adamo, Campus News’ Art director. “It was a big surprise and a good one because for an artist, a lot of jobs shrilled away because of the Covid-19 and it was a good thing to lift me up.” Since the semester of Spring 2020, due to Covid-19, Campus News staff has had to step away from its usual newsroom it works from every week to create the paper from their homes. Although it is a different atmosphere releasing stories and articles to the college, Campus News website has made it possible to still cover news, even with a closed campus.
Live yoga sessions
Campus News is praised by the Judges from LAPC as a “clean, simple and responsive” website. The method to maintain that reputation was “To make it user friendly,” according to Landeros. “User ability is really important because you want to reach out to as many people as possible. “So even if people are not techsavvy, they are going to be able to go to your website and get the news without use of any training to navigate the site,” Landeros. Campus News is already brainstorming ideas on how they can surpass the standard to keep that top place for next year. “We’re constantly raising the bar and right now we’re trying to get it so we don’t just put our stories in on Wednesdays, but we get them in all during the week,” said Stapleton. Campus News is also looking into expanding its audience into the social media world. “With social media, it gives the importance of spreading the stories not only on our website, but to Twitter and the other social media platforms.” Adamo said.
The Health Center is having live yoga sessions on Instagram. Starting Tuesday to Nov. 3 on every Tuesday from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m to 10 a.m. For those interested, join on Instagram at @elacstudenthealth
East Los Angeles College and The Shower of Hope partnered to create a pilot program to bring interim student housing to at-risk ELAC students. The Shower of Hope is an organization dedicated to help serve the people suffering homelessness in Los Angeles with services such as bringing mobile showers to several locations around the city. The partnership originally began with the Los Angeles Community College District, but was passed down to ELAC due to their proximity to the first property that The Shower of Hope was able to secure. Digital flyers were sent to student emails and shared online on the ELAC website detailing the requirements to apply. The applications are only open to male students between the ages of 18 to 26, since it is still only a pilot program, but The Shower of Hope anticipates having housing for students of other genders within the next six months. The Shower of Hope also plans to give priority to the non-male students who have already applied and are seeking housing. Other requirements include having applied for financial aid and being enrolled in at least nine units with a 2.0 grade point average during their participation in the program. “It is a four-bedroom house that has plenty of open space. Every room has two beds for students to share a room,” said Raymond Mora, a representative from The Shower of Hope who is on site
Free theater workshop
assisting with the program. “The house was completely furnished prior to the student arrivals. All the necessities are provided by the organization,” he said. Mora described that their current property can only house eight students due to COVID-19 and CDC safety guidelines. The house is currently at half capacity and The Shower of Hope is still looking for another four students to offer housing to.
“The house was completely furnished prior to the student arrivals. All the necessities are provided by the organization.”
RAYMOND MORA
Shower of Hope representative
The first month in the program is free. After the first month, a monthly rental fee of $250 is required in order to stay. However the fee can be waived by completing 15 hours of volunteer work per week. According to Mora, the organization gauges the students’ interests and assigns volunteer work based off of that, or can assign them to one of various community organizations partnered with The Shower of Hope. Though this program is fairly recent, student homelessness and
The Center Theater Group is having a free boot camp for ELAC’s Working in Theater fall series from Oct. 13 to Dec. 18 from noon-1:30 p.m. There will be 10 Tuesday sessions. Application deadline is Sept. 18. For more information www.centertheatregroup.org
housing insecurity is not a new issue for some ELAC students and staff. “Even before the pandemic, rates of college student homelessness were high and even higher for community college students,” said Cecilia Cruz from the ELAC Student Health Center. The California legislature analyzed college student homelessness and attempted implementing potential solutions like the Assembly Bill 302 (2019), that offered nightly parking lot access to homeless students living in their cars. Cruz said that ELAC doesn’t have a precise count of at risk students, but for reasons like job insecurity, l a y o ff s a n d u n e m p l o y m e n t skyrocketing after the pandemic, the rates of student homelessness have unfortunately increased. Students interested in interim student housing or have questions regarding non-male applications may contact Cecilia Cruz at cruzc3@elac.edu or Raymond Mora at Development@ TheShowerOfHope.org. If students do not qualify for Hope Housing, the organization will still ensure that they connect them to the proper resources.
CARES Act Deadline
The CARES Act, federal monies for COVID-19 relief, deadline is on Oct. 11. For more information email with name, Student ID number and email address to CARES_scholarship@ELAC.Edu.