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From Los Angeles Times

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L.A. faces $72-million budget shortfall

Official calls for cuts to police, city attorney's office, street services and elsewhere. The costs of cleaning up after windstorms and the Occupy L.A. encampment could add to the red ink.

by David Zahniser, Los Angeles Times

December 3, 2011

Less than six months into its fiscal year, the city of Los Angeles faces a $72-million budget shortfall, raising the prospect of new cuts in services in coming weeks, according to a report released Friday.

City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana, budget advisor to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the City Council, issued an interim financial status report calling for nearly two dozen city agencies to absorb a combined $21 million in reductions.

Santana warned that the shortfall could grow once city officials calculate the cost of cleanup in the wake of this week's ferocious windstorms and the two-month encampment outside City Hall by Occupy L.A.

"These are unforeseen problems that we have to pay for one way or the other," Santana said in an interview. "The timing was not helpful."

Santana called for reductions of $4 million to the Los Angeles Police Department, $1.7 million to the city attorney's office and $1.3 million to the Bureau of Street Services, which is charged with maintaining the city's 6,500-mile network of roads and highways. He also said he needs four more weeks to find an additional $20 million in potential cuts for this year's budget, which covers the 12-month period ending June 30.

William Carter, chief deputy to City Atty. Carmen Trutanich, voiced dismay about Santana's report, saying his boss had been trying to set up enough money in his department's budget to reduce the number of furlough days imposed on his office's staff.

Right now, most of Trutanich's employees are taking 36 unpaid days off per year, Carter said.

"Obviously, you can't operate a prosecution and litigation office with part-time lawyers, and certainly not when our caseloads have stayed the same and in some cases, increased," he said.

Santana said that with a shortfall expected to exceed $200 million for the fiscal year starting July 1, officials are "running out of options" for balancing the budget.

In his report, Santana said the state's ongoing financial crisis could complicate the city's effort to puts its budget back in balance next year, taking away money for libraries and other services. He also warned that the city could take another financial hit if a court ruling eliminates the city's Community Redevelopment Agency in coming weeks.

Under state law, if the redevelopment agency is dissolved, the city must find places for its 200 remaining employees, Santana said.

State lawmakers are "not going to give us the money, and yet we're required to keep" the 200 remaining employees, he said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-city-budget-shortfall-20111203,0,979798,print.story

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Handling the next occupation in L.A.

Although the city's restraint in dealing with the Occupy L.A. protesters is laudable, no one should be allowed to sleep in the park. Enforcing that rule will save the city future grief.

December 3, 2011

The Los Angeles Police Department and city leadership have received well-deserved praise for their successful eviction of the Occupy L.A. protesters from the grounds outside City Hall last week. Smooth communication, a smart policing approach and a disciplined, restrained force combined to defuse a situation that had confounded police from New York to UC Davis.

Now that the occupation is gone, this is a moment to reflect on a lesson from the encounter that should guide city leaders going forward. It comes from the same philosophy that undergirds much of modern policing: the landmark work of James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling, authors of the "broken windows" theory. Their article of that title, first published in 1982 by the Atlantic magazine, gave rise to community policing, which has come to mean everything from smart community relations to tough enforcement of low-level crimes. It is that latter meaning that was lost in the early moments of the Occupy L.A. protest and that is worth reconsidering now.

As Wilson and Kelling explained, small offenses give rise to larger ones. The neighborhood that is allowed to decay breeds crime; the police who allow minor miscreants to get away with littering or urinating on sidewalks or failing to appear for court dates eventually encounter those same men — they are almost always men — as burglars, robbers or murderers. One of the lessons of "broken windows," then, is to confront small crimes assertively, and respectfully, to safeguard society from the consequences of decay and increased criminality.

In Los Angeles, city officials bent over backward to accommodate a group of protesters they in some ways admired — and who, in some ways, deserved that admiration. This page even applauded the city's restraint. But what we didn't anticipate is that once demonstrators were allowed to spend one night on the City Hall lawn, it became harder to deny them a second. And then harder still to deny them a third. Given the ambiguity of their demands, it became unclear what would ever cause them to leave, short of force.

All this seems academic now that it's over, but the next group of squatters may be skinheads or anti-immigration zealots — protesters City Hall may enjoy less as neighbors. Going forward, a word of advice to the city leadership: No one should be allowed to sleep in the park. It closes at 10:30 every night for everyone. Enforcing that rule forcefully but thoughtfully — without regard to the message of those attempting to violate it — will save this city plenty of grief.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-lapd-20111203,0,7057340,print.story

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Syria committed crimes against humanity, U.N. panel finds

The U.N. Human Rights Council condemns Syria for 'gross and systemic violations' in a resolution that diplomats say calls for action by the main U.N. bodies and the International Criminal Court.

by Alexandra Zavis, Los Angeles Times

December 2, 2011

Reporting from Beirut

The United Nations' top human rights forum on Friday condemned Syria for "gross and systematic violations" after an independent panel found evidence suggesting the country's security forces had committed crimes against humanity.

The resolution approved by the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva adds to pressure on President Bashar Assad's increasingly isolated government, which has faced multiple rounds of sanctions for its violent crackdown on an 8-month-old uprising.

Diplomats said it was also a call to action by the U.N. Security Council and General Assembly and the International Criminal Court, although there was no direct mention of those bodies in the approved version of the text.

It referred to the "main bodies" of the U.N. and urged them to "take appropriate action." It also established the post of a special human rights investigator to investigate abuses in Syria.

Syria's allies on the Security Council, Russia and China, vetoed a resolution in October condemning Assad's handling of the unrest, in part because they said it could set the stage for a Libya-style military intervention.

Russia and China were among four countries that voted against the resolution at a special session. Of the Human Rights Council's 47 members, 37 voted in favor of the resolution and six abstained.

The independent panel of experts commissioned by the council released a report Monday documenting what it described as systematic, widespread and gross violations of human rights, including torture and the killing of children, shooting unarmed demonstrators and raping detainees.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay urged the council to refer the alleged crimes to the International Criminal Court in the Hague, saying that more than 4,000 people, including 307 children, had been reported killed since March, when major protests against Assad's regime began.

"The Syrian authorities' continual ruthless repression, if not stopped now, can drive the country into a full-fledged civil war," Pillay said. "The international community needs to take urgent and effective measures to protect the Syrian people."

Syria's ambassador to U.N. offices in Geneva, Fayssal Hamwi, said the panel's report was "not objective." Syrian authorities dispute the U.N. figures and say the bloodshed has been caused armed gangs backed from abroad, which they say have killed more than 1,100 security force members.

But Reuters news agency quoted the U.S. ambassador, Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, as saying that evidence left no doubt about the complicity of Syrian authorities. "We've set the stage in a very substantive way for strong action by the U.N. if other entities choose to take the opportunity," she said.

In Syria, government news outlets and opposition activists reported large demonstrations for and against Assad's regime on Friday, when protesters regularly take to the streets after midday prayers.

At least 13 people were reported killed, including two who allegedly died under torture, according to the Local Coordination Committees of Syria, a major opposition coalition. Journalists are heavily restricted in Syria, making it difficult to verify either side's account.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-syria-un-20111203,0,4269234,print.story

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From Google News

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Police Officers Find That Dissent on Drug Laws May Come With a Price

PHOENIX — Border Patrol agents pursue smugglers one moment and sit around in boredom the next. It was during one of the lulls that Bryan Gonzalez, a young agent, made some comments to a colleague that cost him his career.

Stationed in Deming, N.M., Mr. Gonzalez was in his green-and-white Border Patrol vehicle just a few feet from the international boundary when he pulled up next to a fellow agent to chat about the frustrations of the job. If marijuana were legalized, Mr. Gonzalez acknowledges saying, the drug-related violence across the border in Mexico would cease. He then brought up an organization called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition that favors ending the war on drugs.

Those remarks, along with others expressing sympathy for illegal immigrants from Mexico, were passed along to the Border Patrol headquarters in Washington. After an investigation, a termination letter arrived that said Mr. Gonzalez held “personal views that were contrary to core characteristics of Border Patrol Agents, which are patriotism, dedication and esprit de corps.”

After his dismissal, Mr. Gonzalez joined a group even more exclusive than the Border Patrol: law enforcement officials who have lost their jobs for questioning the war on drugs and are fighting back in the courts.

In Arizona, Joe Miller, a probation officer in Mohave County, near the California border, filed suit last month in Federal District Court after he was dismissed for adding his name to a letter by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, which is based in Medford, Mass., and known as LEAP, expressing support for the decriminalization of marijuana.

“More and more members of the law enforcement community are speaking out against failed drug policies, and they don't give up their right to share their insight and engage in this important debate simply because they receive government paychecks,” said Daniel Pochoda, the legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, which is handling the Miller case.

Mr. Miller was one of 32 members of LEAP who signed the letter, which expressed support for a California ballot measure that failed last year that would have permitted recreational marijuana use. Most of the signers were retired members of law enforcement agencies, who can speak their minds without fear of action by their bosses. But Mr. Miller and a handful of others who were still on the job — including the district attorney for Humboldt County in California and the Oakland city attorney — signed, too.

LEAP has seen its membership increase significantly from the time it was founded in 2002 by five disillusioned officers. It now has an e-mail list of 48,000, and its members include 145 judges, prosecutors, police officers, prison guards and other law enforcement officials, most of them retired, who speak on the group's behalf.

“No one wants to be fired and have to fight for their job in court,” said Neill Franklin, a retired police officer who is LEAP's executive director. “So most officers are reluctant to sign on board. But we do have some brave souls.”

Mr. Miller was accused of not making clear that he was speaking for himself and not the probation department while advocating the decriminalization of cannabis. His lawsuit, though, points out that the letter he signed said at the bottom, “All agency affiliations are listed for identification purposes only.”

He was also accused of dishonesty for denying that he had given approval for his name to appear on the LEAP letter. In the lawsuit, Mr. Miller said that his wife had given approval without his knowledge, using his e-mail address, but that he had later supported her.

Kip Anderson, the court administrator for the Superior Court in Mohave County, said there was no desire to limit Mr. Miller's political views.

“This isn't about legalization,” Mr. Anderson said. “We're not taking a stand on that. We just didn't want people to think he was speaking on behalf of the probation department.”

Mr. Miller, who is also a retired police officer and Marine, lost an appeal of his dismissal before a hearing officer. But when his application for unemployment benefits was turned down, he appealed that and won. An administrative law judge found that Mr. Miller had not been dishonest with his bosses and that the disclaimer on the letter was sufficient.

In the case of Mr. Gonzalez, the fired Border Patrol agent, he had not joined LEAP but had expressed sympathy with the group's cause. “It didn't make sense to me why marijuana is illegal,” he said. “To see that thousands of people are dying, some of whom I know, makes you want to look for a change.”

Since his firing, Mr. Gonzalez, who filed suit in federal court in Texas in January, has worked as a construction worker, a bouncer and a yard worker. He has also gone back to school, where he is considering a law degree.

“I don't want to work at a place that says I can't think,” said Mr. Gonzalez, who grew up in El Paso, just across the border from Ciudad Juárez, which has experienced some of the worst bloodshed in Mexico.

The Justice Department, which is defending the Border Patrol, has sought to have the case thrown out. Mr. Gonzalez lost a discrimination complaint filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which sided with his supervisors' view that they had lost trust that he would uphold the law.

Those challenging their dismissals are buoyed by the case of Jonathan Wender, who was fired as a police sergeant in Mountlake Terrace, Wash., in 2005, partly as a result of his support for the decriminalization of marijuana. Mr. Wender won a settlement of $815,000 as well as his old job back. But he retired from the department and took up teaching at the University of Washington, where one of his courses is “Drugs and Society.”

Among those not yet ready to publicly urge the legalization of drugs is a veteran Texas police officer who quietly supports LEAP and spoke on the condition that he not be identified. “We all know the drug war is a bad joke,” he said in a telephone interview. “But we also know that you'll never get promoted if you're seen as soft on drugs.”

Mr. Franklin, the LEAP official, said it was natural that those on the front lines of enforcing drug laws would have strong views on them, either way. It was the death of a colleague at the hands of a drug dealer in 2000 that prompted Mr. Franklin, a veteran officer, to begin questioning the nation's drug policies. Some of his colleagues, though, hit the streets even more aggressively, he said.

Mr. Franklin said he got calls all the time from colleagues skeptical about the drug laws as they are written but unwilling to speak out — yet.

“I was speaking to a guy with the Maryland State Police this past Saturday, and he's about to retire in January and he's still reluctant to join us until he leaves,” Mr. Franklin said. “He wants to have a good last couple of months, without any hassle.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/03/us/officers-punished-for-supporting-eased-drug-laws.html?pagewanted=print

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