The real problem not mentioned here is that the city has to comply with the State SB1818, which requires an allowance for more density/height as long as the developer includes some affordable units in their buildings. This is the real probelem, the one-size fits all bill, which lets a developer override the local Community Plans, making the buildings higher, denser and closer to low-density areas as long as they claim that some of their units are "affordable." What counts as "affordable" is another issue, since they might still be out of reach for most residents, yet ruin the neighborhood anyway. The worst part is that they can also significantly cut down the parking their offer, or even offer none. So while this sounds awful, even Gail Goldberg has said she hates it but is stuck with it, which is what Eric Garcetti claims -- in fact, he claims that the city has toned down the state plan. Problem is, most of us don't know who's telling the truth.

RE: LA City Council’s plans for high density residential high rises catering only to the interests of wealthy developers without any consultation with, or participation by, communities negatively impacted by the high rises. This phenomenon is occurring throughout the United States, where predatory corporations invade the community, destroy its traditions, its water, its nature, and the way it does business without the community having any say. –And when communities pass their own ordinances attempting to regulate these corporations, the state moves in and trumps the local ordinances with statewide statutes protecting only the corporation.

For example, in Pennsylvania, when Southampton Township, Franklin County, in Pennsylvania enacted an ordinance designed to protect against predatory agribusiness corporations destroying their land and water resources, big business immediately contacted state officials who enacted into law specifically prohibiting all municipalities from implementing any laws or policy contrary to “state law”, in effect, ordering all municipalities to welcome such polluters into their localities “...so long as the agricultural operation does not have a direct adverse effect on the public health and safety.” Of course, the state officials acting in concert with the polluting corporate agribusinesses ignored the fact that the ordinance was passed in the first place because the agribusinesses were, and continue to be, a direct threat to the public health and safety. See 3 Pa.C.S.A. § 315 (Pennsylvania statute).

To make matters even worse for the people to try to regulate polluting corporations, “If the court determines that the local government unit enacted or enforced an unauthorized local ordinance with negligent disregard of the limitation of authority established under State law, it may order the local government unit to pay the plaintiff reasonable attorney fees and other litigation costs incurred by the plaintiff in connection with the action” (3 Pa.C.S.A. § 317), which is another way of destroying the township. Bend to the corporate will or become bankrupt.

In the Pennsylvania legislation cited above the word “person” is used. In Santa Clara County. v. South. Pac. Railroad, 118 U.S. 394 (1886) the Supreme Court held, with its chief justice stating at p.396 of the opinion that the court did not even want to hear oral argument on the issue, that a corporation is a “person”:

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE said: The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the
laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does.

Thus, it was Judges, coming from the elite class, protecting the interests of the propertied, and especially the corporations, and not the Congress or a state legislature or the people themselves – and certainly NOT the U. S. Constitution or a federal statute -- who corrupted the ordinary, common sense definition of“person” to include corporation. (And in the rare instances of judges ruling in favor of the people, such as for reproductive rights for all women living in the U. S., then when given an opportunity, when the elitist judges once again recapture the Court as they now have done, they reduce the issue to a “state” issue, and not a “constitutional” one, making the right of reproductive privacy for all humans residing in the United States subject to each of the states’ legislatures enactments; whereas, property and corporations – non-living fictional constructs -- continue to be protected by the constitution. ).

The corruption of the ordinary, common sense definition of the word “person” has found its way into the California Corporation Code:

§ 31015 Corp.: "Person" means an individual, a corporation, a partnership, a limited liability company, a joint venture, an association, a joint stock company, a trust or an unincorporated organization.

Another example of protecting corporations as if they are humans at the expense of real human beings is what Bush’s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) did to California and other states and utilities during the energy crisis manufactured by criminal corporations like Enron. FERC urged California and many utilities to purchase long term power supply contracts. “Energy traders call this type of transaction ‘blend and extend’ because the contract is a mix of short- and long-term prices.” “Cleaning Up FERC’s Mess”, San Francisco Bay Guardian, p.7, Feb. 13-19, 2008 (Guardian is suing the owner of LA Weekly). FERC then realized that the short-term prices were unjust and unreasonable and ordered refunds on charges which exceeded an administratively-determined just prices. However, FERC would not allow adjustments of the long-term prices based on a “public interest standard” which considered the welfare of the companies, not of the public, i.e., the consumers!

In the case before the Ninth Circuit, Public Utility Dist. No. 1 v. F.E.R.C., 471 F.3d 1053, 1057 (9th Cir. 2006), the Court ruled as follows:

We hold that FERC erred both in its procedural reliance on Mobile-Sierra [fn4 OMITTED] and in the substantive standard it used in determining that the contracts at issue did not affect the public interest. FERC's reliance on Mobile-Sierra was misplaced because its grant of market-based rate authority lacked a mechanism to provide effective, timely relief from unjust and unreasonable rates due to market dysfunction, thereby creating a gap in the FPA's protection against excessive energy prices. Although we would remand to FERC solely because its application of Mobile-Sierra was therefore procedurally improper, we further hold that the agency's finding that the challenged contracts do not affect the public interest was based on a substantively erroneous mode of analysis. A remand is therefore necessary to allow FERC the opportunity to review these complaints in the first instance in light of these holdings and determine whether the challenged rates meet the statutory standard. Emphasis added.

Rather than do what the Court ordered FERC to do, FERC took the case to – guess where? – that Court which has never met a corporation it did not like – in fact, did not love and embrace -- the U. S. Supreme Court -- now the most conservative it has ever been since Roosevelt packed it with judges willing to rule, once in awhile, for us, the people. Behind the Supreme Court move was of course the sellers who probably will be able to thwart the public interest and force their unfair long-term prices on the public already defrauded by their criminal schemes to game the market so eagerly deregulated by California legislators.

L.A. City Council is no different, no matter whether the mayor is a democrat like Villaraigosa and Hahn, or a Republican, like Riordan, as shown by the collective insanity of City Hall under both Republican and Democrat regimes to continue to provide our tax dollars to developers who themselves live in McMansions with thousands of square feet using huge amounts of our energy and water resources to sustain living in such ugly mansions which themselves are built on acres of land generally surrounded by high fences and loads of security. City Council and the developers then dictate to us L. A. residents that – if we can afford it – we should be happy living in five hundred square feet in high rises with no green spaces and a view often only of the building next door built too close for human comfort Villaraigosa and the Councilpersons like their predecessors will always capitulate to the corporations, distorting the meaning of the “public interest” into protection of the welfare and safety of the corporation over that of the welfare and the safety of the people. City Council will not act on our behalf. As Upton Sinclair, that grand socialist who was almost elected governor of California, and the author of “Oil” on which the film “There Will Be Blood” put it: “It is difficult to get a man [sic] to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

We Americans must unite to challenge corporate tyranny and despotism. We first must demand that Congress pass curative legislation specifically defining “person” wherever that word is found in the U. S. Constitution and in all federal statutes, rules, and regulations to mean only human beings. Otherwise, City Councils like ours will force large condo buildings on old stable neighborhoods without any say whatsoever by those who have to live with those huge buildings which after all add more traffic congestion and more pressure on already overburdened public utilities, such as water, sewers, and electricity, we will be held hostage to whatever a corporation decides it wants to charge us for energy, like electricity, with the blessings of government (As Hitler, said, the perfect state is the government and the corporation coming together [to oppress us all] to which Sinclair joined: “Fascism is capitalism plus murder.”), and we will have laws enacted against our local officials should they ever enact laws to protect the public against corrupt corporations.

Patricia J. Barry
634 S. Spring St., Ste 823
Los Angeles, CA 90014
Tele. 213.995.0734
fax 213.995.0735
email patjbarry@yahoo.com

I'd like to really thank the LA Weekly for getting this story out there. Maybe the secession movement will gain some needed momentum from it.