LA City Council approves millions to clean abandoned, graffitied skyscrapers
Abandoned skyscrapers in downtown Los Angeles have become a canvas to graffiti artists. Windows of a 30-story abandoned building have been spray painted as the latest LA tourist attraction is proving to be problematic for the city and law enforcement.
City Mayor Karen Bass has called the site a hazard and safety concern.
“I guarantee you tragedy will take place there if that place is not boarded up quickly,” Bass said.
City officials said people are not only illegally climbing the skyscraper to spray paint but also using it as a base to jump and parachute from, as shown in a video from a paraglider.
Now, the city is dishing out millions to keep people out and clean the building up. The building has been an uphill battle for the city because of its owner, China Oceanwide Holdings Group. The developer abandoned the building in 2019 after plans for a plaza fell through.
According to Councilman Kevin de León, taking control of the project and making some of it given its current condition will cost the city $2 billion. The city plans to pay to fence off the property and clean the graffiti.
The City Council wanted Oceanwide to handle the costs but the developer did not respond to its immediate request, leaving the city to approve funding upfront while a city attorney tries to recoup the money from Oceanwide.
It’s not only taxpayer money going toward the building debacle right now, city resources are also being expended.
The Los Angeles Police Department has spent more than 3,000 hours patrolling the site, and officers are now patrolling 24 hours a day due to heightened public interest.
The department has arrested 18 people so far, and the city is urging people to stay out of the abandoned area.
Organized retail crime is spreading fast. Would these solutions stop it?
People have long called shoplifting a victimless crime. Who gets hurt beyond the big-box retailer? As organized retail crime becomes more prevalent, violent and bolder, claims of it being harmless go out the window.
Along with retailers losing tens of billions of dollars a year to organized retail theft, employees have been attacked during “smash and grabs.” Fear then ripples through the stores, and “retail shrink” can result in higher prices for customers.
“These are not victimless crimes, especially in the case where Angelinos are attacked through force or fear,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said.
Law enforcement cracks down
Los Angeles is afflicted more than any other city in the country, according to the National Retail Federation. Like many other cities and states, this year Los Angeles launched a task force to tackle organized retail crime. It features 22 full-time investigators dedicated to the crime.
“Those who commit these crimes will be caught, they will be held accountable, and we will work to address this issue,” Bass said.
In South Florida in October, following a nine-month multi-agency investigation, authorities charged 14 people with stealing more than $20 million in merchandise this year alone.
“It is well-organized, it is profitable, it is criminal. This is the modern-day mafia and criminal organizations that we’re taking down,” Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody said.
But crime rings are like weeds: Pull one and another pops up. So any crackdown needs to get to the root of the problem: How to deter the crime in the first place.
Store solutions
Retailers have tried solutions like locking up items that are most often stolen. That’s done to their own detriment, according to top retail consultant Burt Flickinger.
“Locking up the merchandise can reduce sales by anywhere from 12 to 20% or more,” Flickinger said.
Another option for retailers is checking receipts at the door.
Would that stop you? No, not at all. What, some lady’s gonna, ‘Hey sir, sir!’ By that time, I’ve already got the stuff in my car and while they’re trying to pull up the phone, I’m already out of the parking lot.
KGW news report
Portland’s KGW reporter Kyle Iboshi recently interviewed convicted felon and retail crime ring leader Martin Castaway in prison. Castaway is serving a 7-year sentence for theft.
“Does the presence of a security officer or loss prevention change your decision whether to go into a store or not?” Iboshi asked.
“Not really. If I see a security dude with a gun, I know he can’t touch me,” Castaway replied.
Castaway said he would have second thoughts about shoplifting only if there was a police officer on the scene.
Police as retail security
In one year, police in the greater Tampa, Florida, region logged nearly 17,000 calls to Walmarts. That’s two calls an hour, every hour, every day, according to a 2016 Tampa Bay Times analysis.
In Clearwater, Walmart called police after a man drank a 98-cent bottle of sweet tea in the store without paying. The police response and subsequent jail time cost taxpayers $1,230, the Times reported.
For years, Walmart’s been criticized for putting too much of its security burden on police.
“Instead of treating security as an expense the way most of the rest of retail does, in Walmart’s defense, treat security as an investment the way Target and Kroger and the independents do so well,” Flickinger said.
The Times analysis showed local Walmarts generated four times as many calls as nearby Targets.
Target, which recently closed nine stores around the country over organized retail crime, says they’ve made significant investments in hiring more security team staff and third-party guard services as well as using theft-deterrent tools.
Walmart, meanwhile, announced plans to reopen an Atlanta-area store that was hit by arsonists last year. When the store opens in May, it’ll have a new feature: a police workstation inside.
“If you’re thinking about you’re going to go into this Walmart and do some shoplifting or a robbery or whatever, you see this APD logo, and you’ll say, ‘Eh, not today,’” Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said.
It’s not a solution for every store, and one possible solution isn’t at the store at all.
The online crackdown
The bipartisan INFORM Consumers Act took effect in June. The new law requires online marketplaces to verify and share identifying information on high-volume third-party sellers.
“These scammers are having a heyday, particularly online,” Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) said. “We want to make sure that we eliminate the opportunity for these…defrauders and scammers to be able to sell online and hold these platforms accountable for checking out who the sellers are.”
“It can make a modest difference on the rogue sellers,” Flickinger said, “but no material changes in reducing crime today.”
Community solutions
Flickinger said the real solutions come from the community, like East Harlem’s Abyssinian Development Corporation, a nonprofit born out of the Abyssinian Baptist Church.
The group helped bring Pathmark to a relative food desert and used profits from the lease to reinvest in housing, economic development and social services.
“An area that everybody said was not saveable because the junkies had wrecked it for 40 or 50 years, and in a matter of a few years, it was first a requiem and then a whole East Harlem Renaissance,” Flickinger said.
The renaissance would last less than two decades. Following a building sale, bankruptcy and a spat between development partners, Pathmark shuttered in 2015, leaving residents with few affordable food options.
This is the final installment of a 3-part series on organized retail crime. Here is Part 1 and Part 2.
An LA firefighter made $700k. Here are the highest-paid public officials in the US
It’s well known that the president makes $400,000 a year and members of Congress make $174,000. But there are some state and city officials in the U.S. who make so much money that they’re in the top 10%, and even the top 5%, of earners in this country.
Here are just a few:
University sports coaches
The highest-paid employee in at least 40 states is a university football or basketball coach.
University of Alabama’s Nick Saban is making $11.7 million this year. That doesn’t make him a “one percenter,” that makes him a “one-tenth percenter.”
Saban is followed closely by Clemson University’s Dabo Swinney, who makes $10.54 million and University of Georgia’s Kirby Smart, who earns $10.5 million in salary. However, Smart earns bonuses if the Bulldogs go to the playoffs or earn a title.
Highly-paid elected officials
District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser earns $250,000 a year while members of the district’s council make $115,000. Bowser’s salary is nearly four times the median per capita income in the district, which according to the latest census was just under $64,000.
The boss earns less
There are highly-compensated mayors who are paid less than people who work for them.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s total compensation was $357,084 in 2022. But the highest paid employee in the city was the managing director of Retirement Services who made $620,353.
Six-figure overtime
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass makes $301,588 a year. While the mayor’s salary is impressive, it is still thousands of dollars less than the city’s highest paid employees.
Who are they? Here’s a hint: they wear suits and drive around in really expensive trucks.
They are firefighters.
Thanks to overtime, three of them were the highest paid employees in Los Angeles in 2022, coming in at $699,478, $583,585, and $580,214.
The state controller’s list of the city’s highest paid employees is filled with firefighters because low staffing requires them to work extra hours.
Cost-Of-Living Adjustment (COLA)
Los Angeles, District of Columbia, and San Francisco are three of the most expensive cities in the country.
When adjusting for the cost of living, the mayor of Omaha, Nebraska, actually makes about $45,000 more than New York City Mayor Eric Adams because it costs 165% more to live in NYC.
Omaha’s mayor makes $114,068, which is the equivalent of $302,743 in New York. Adams earns $258,000.
Perks
In addition to money, perks also factor into the value of jobs. As a perk, four U.S. mayors get to live in an official residence, like Gracie Mansion in New York City.
It’s tough to put a price tag on that but a nearby 3-bed 3-bath condo on the Upper East Side is renting for $12,500 a month.
One popular perk for city managers and school district superintendents is a car allowance. The city manager in San Antonio gets at least $500 a month. At that rate, he could lease a Tesla Model 3 and still have money left over to pay insurance.
But perhaps the best perk is a $100,000 non-taxable travel account for the president – finally, an explanation for all of Biden and Trump’s weekends away.
Texas Gov. Abbott sends 42 migrants on bus to downtown Los Angeles
The latest migrant bus trip arrived in Los Angeles on Wednesday, June 14, with dozens of migrants being sent from Texas. Many of the 42 migrants on the bus were from Latin American countries, including Honduras and Venezuela. One person had an immigration appointment in New York.
“Texas’ small border towns remain overwhelmed and overrun by the thousands of people illegally crossing into Texas from Mexico because of President Biden’s refusal to secure the border,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, R, said in a statement. “Los Angeles is a major city that migrants seek to go to, particularly now that its city leaders approved its self-declared sanctuary city status. Our border communities are on the frontlines of President Biden’s border crisis, and Texas will continue providing this much-needed relief until he steps up to do his job and secure the border.”
After the bus dropped the migrants off in Los Angeles, they were cared for by city agencies and charitable organizations at St. Anthony’s Croatian Catholic Church near downtown. In a statement, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, D, said she had instructed city departments to prepare to accept migrants from out of state after Republican governors began sending asylum-seekers to Democratic states in recent months.
“This did not catch us off guard, nor will it intimidate us. Now, it’s time to execute our plan,” Mayor Bass said in the statement. “Los Angeles is not a city motivated by hate or fear and we absolutely will not be swayed or moved by petty politicians playing with human lives. We are a city that seeks to treat all people with dignity and compassion and we will continue to work closely with non-profit organizations, including the L.A. Welcomes Collective, as well as with our County, State and Federal partners.”