Showing posts with label LOS ANGELES. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LOS ANGELES. Show all posts
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Los Angeles public schools open doors to ‘corporate brand identity’
(Wow, I'm almost afraid to check out how this works out in a few years.--jef)
This algebraic equation, brought to you by Coca-Cola?
Thursday, December 16th, 2010
Absurd as it may sound, that will soon be a figurative reality for many students in Los Angeles county, as public school officials there have announced a plan to solicit corporate sponsorship to help grow their budgets and retain staff.
In a unanimous vote, the board decided yesterday to allow "corporate brand identity" proliferation throughout the facilities of the Los Angeles Unified School District. The district's policy would allow corporate donors to earmark what programs they'd like their money to support, be they sports, arts or academic.
While not the first school district to do so, Los Angeles is certainly the largest, according to The New York Times. The move comes amid one of the state's worst budget crises ever.
The discussion of private money being diverted to aid public schools is not a new one and is not without controversy, but there are reasonable advocates on both sides of the issue.
When two Sheboygan, Wisconsin high schools changed the names of their cafeteria kitchens to "the Kohler Credit Union kitchens" in 2006, critics lined up to attack the plan as indicative of America's social decline. But the schools took in $45,000 for the re-namings, according to USA Today, and promptly put the cafeterias up for sponsorship next at $300,000 apiece.
That translated into more teachers, higher salaries and newer books, supporters said.
Similar words were echoed by Los Angeles school board members, according to the Times.
"This is really our way to be responsive to that reality; we need to look for other sources of revenue," Melissa Infusino, the district's partnerships director, was quoted as saying. "As uncomfortable as it may be for folks, it’s less comfortable to get rid of programs or go through more layoffs."
The board also agreed to shorter summers, with students leaving classes on June 1 and starting again on Aug. 15.
Los Angeles public schools served nearly 700,000 students in the 2007-2008 season, according to district figures.
Monday, July 12, 2010
U.S. Marines Train with Los Angeles Police Department
Camp Pendleton Marines went to one of LA's toughest neighborhoods
By JULIE WATSON
July 12th, 2010 | NBC
A tough-talking, muscular Los Angeles police sergeant steadily rattled off tips to a young Marine riding shotgun as they raced in a patrol car to a drug bust: Be aware of your surroundings. Watch people’s body language. Build rapport.
Marine Lt. Andrew Abbott, 23, took it all in as he peered out at the graffiti-covered buildings, knowing that the lessons he learned recently in one of the city’s toughest neighborhoods could help him soon in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
“People are the center of gravity and if you do everything you can to protect them, then they’ll protect you,” he said. “That’s something true here and pretty much everywhere.”
Abbott was among 70 Camp Pendleton Marines in a training exercise that aims to adapt the investigative techniques the LAPD has used for decades against violent street gangs to take on the Taliban more as a powerful drug-trafficking mob than an insurgency.
The Marines hope that learning to work like a cop on a beat will help them better track the Taliban, build relationships with Afghans leery of foreign troops and make them better teachers as they try to professionalize an Afghan police force beset by corruption.
The troops believe they can learn valuable lessons from the LAPD, which has made inroads into communities after highly publicized abuses, from the videotaped beating of Rodney King to corruption in an anti-gang unit.
“Their role is to win the hearts and minds of the community and that’s what they did,” said Marine Staff Sgt. Brendan Flynn, who also works as a Los Angeles police officer and will be deployed to help train Afghan police.
The weeklong exercise — unbeknownst to the public — involved Marines dressed in jeans and T-shirts observing drugs busts, witnessing prostitution arrests and even following a murder case. It was the largest group of Marines to embed with the city’s officers.
Abbott, of Long Island, N.Y., rode with Sgt. Arno Clair, a 16-year veteran with salt-and-pepper hair who swims up to a mile a day.
During their afternoon together, police handcuffed a bus driver — moments after he was caught by an undercover officer with $25,000 worth of crack cocaine outside an apartment complex in a south-central Los Angeles neighborhood long plagued by violent gangs.
The tattooed suspect wearing an earring and baggy shorts seemed a world away from the ragtag, Kalashnikov-toting Taliban fighters, just as the streets of south-central Los Angeles are from the dusty villages of mud-brick houses in Afghanistan.
But in many ways, police in Los Angeles’ crime-ridden neighborhoods use the same skills that Marines say could help them.
Marines are in charge of training Afghanistan’s army and police but often have no police experience themselves. Their success in building effective police forces is considered key to stabilizing the country and allowing foreign troops to withdraw.
Marines also are changing their approach, realizing that marching into towns to show force alienates communities. Instead, they are being taught to fan out with interpreters to strike up conversations with truck drivers, money exchangers, cell phone sellers and others.
The rapport building can net valuable information that could even alert troops about potential attacks.
Marines can gather intelligence by picking up the notebooks, receipts and other papers left behind in raids that could provide insight into the opium business the Taliban uses to buy their weapons, Afghan expert Gretchen Peters said.
She told Marines before the Los Angeles patrols that they should follow the lead of some Afghans who have gone from using the term “mujahadeen” or “holy warrior” to identify the Taliban to calling them gangsters.
That, she said, shows how fed up the villagers are with being extorted by them and calling them gangsters will win them over.
“Think of the Taliban as the Sopranos in turbans,” she said. “I think essentially they’re criminals.”
Peters, who has written extensively about the Taliban being a criminal network, has been talking to troops across the country before they deploy to Helmand Province, a top opium-producing region.
Afghanistan supplies 90 percent of the world’s opium, the main ingredient of heroin, and is also the leading global supplier of hashish. Last year, opium seizures soared 924 percent because of better cooperation between Afghan and international forces.
In the end, the police training mission is what will win the war, said Marine 2nd Lt. Jared Siebenaler, 24, of Hastings, Minn., who spent the past six months training police in Afghanistan. But he acknowledged their police mission faces enormous challenges.
Siebenaler said many recruits tested positive for drugs, arriving to work high on hashish if they came at all. Supervisors were believed to be skimming money off their officers’ measly salaries. One force had men from two tribes who could barely stand each other.
And then there’s the language barrier between Marines and the Afghan police.
But like most police work, getting past issues of trust and cultural difference begins with a brief encounter on a street.
As Clair and Abbott cruised past a row of dilapidated homes, the police sergeant told him to notice how a person’s walk and dress changes from street to street, and whether children are playing or hurrying by.
Crime here increases with summer’s heat, he said, encouraging Abbott to identify the violence-trigger in Afghanistan, such as at the end of the poppy harvest.
“What’s happenin,’ man?” Clair said, waving his hand out his window to a man who looked away in disgust.
“If they are on the fence about police and they say ‘hi’ back, then at least we’ve dealt with that issue, and if they don’t, then at least I know who I’m dealing with around here,” he told Abbott.
By JULIE WATSON
July 12th, 2010 | NBC
A tough-talking, muscular Los Angeles police sergeant steadily rattled off tips to a young Marine riding shotgun as they raced in a patrol car to a drug bust: Be aware of your surroundings. Watch people’s body language. Build rapport.
Marine Lt. Andrew Abbott, 23, took it all in as he peered out at the graffiti-covered buildings, knowing that the lessons he learned recently in one of the city’s toughest neighborhoods could help him soon in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
“People are the center of gravity and if you do everything you can to protect them, then they’ll protect you,” he said. “That’s something true here and pretty much everywhere.”
Abbott was among 70 Camp Pendleton Marines in a training exercise that aims to adapt the investigative techniques the LAPD has used for decades against violent street gangs to take on the Taliban more as a powerful drug-trafficking mob than an insurgency.
The Marines hope that learning to work like a cop on a beat will help them better track the Taliban, build relationships with Afghans leery of foreign troops and make them better teachers as they try to professionalize an Afghan police force beset by corruption.
The troops believe they can learn valuable lessons from the LAPD, which has made inroads into communities after highly publicized abuses, from the videotaped beating of Rodney King to corruption in an anti-gang unit.
“Their role is to win the hearts and minds of the community and that’s what they did,” said Marine Staff Sgt. Brendan Flynn, who also works as a Los Angeles police officer and will be deployed to help train Afghan police.
The weeklong exercise — unbeknownst to the public — involved Marines dressed in jeans and T-shirts observing drugs busts, witnessing prostitution arrests and even following a murder case. It was the largest group of Marines to embed with the city’s officers.
Abbott, of Long Island, N.Y., rode with Sgt. Arno Clair, a 16-year veteran with salt-and-pepper hair who swims up to a mile a day.
During their afternoon together, police handcuffed a bus driver — moments after he was caught by an undercover officer with $25,000 worth of crack cocaine outside an apartment complex in a south-central Los Angeles neighborhood long plagued by violent gangs.
The tattooed suspect wearing an earring and baggy shorts seemed a world away from the ragtag, Kalashnikov-toting Taliban fighters, just as the streets of south-central Los Angeles are from the dusty villages of mud-brick houses in Afghanistan.
But in many ways, police in Los Angeles’ crime-ridden neighborhoods use the same skills that Marines say could help them.
Marines are in charge of training Afghanistan’s army and police but often have no police experience themselves. Their success in building effective police forces is considered key to stabilizing the country and allowing foreign troops to withdraw.
Marines also are changing their approach, realizing that marching into towns to show force alienates communities. Instead, they are being taught to fan out with interpreters to strike up conversations with truck drivers, money exchangers, cell phone sellers and others.
The rapport building can net valuable information that could even alert troops about potential attacks.
Marines can gather intelligence by picking up the notebooks, receipts and other papers left behind in raids that could provide insight into the opium business the Taliban uses to buy their weapons, Afghan expert Gretchen Peters said.
She told Marines before the Los Angeles patrols that they should follow the lead of some Afghans who have gone from using the term “mujahadeen” or “holy warrior” to identify the Taliban to calling them gangsters.
That, she said, shows how fed up the villagers are with being extorted by them and calling them gangsters will win them over.
“Think of the Taliban as the Sopranos in turbans,” she said. “I think essentially they’re criminals.”
Peters, who has written extensively about the Taliban being a criminal network, has been talking to troops across the country before they deploy to Helmand Province, a top opium-producing region.
Afghanistan supplies 90 percent of the world’s opium, the main ingredient of heroin, and is also the leading global supplier of hashish. Last year, opium seizures soared 924 percent because of better cooperation between Afghan and international forces.
In the end, the police training mission is what will win the war, said Marine 2nd Lt. Jared Siebenaler, 24, of Hastings, Minn., who spent the past six months training police in Afghanistan. But he acknowledged their police mission faces enormous challenges.
Siebenaler said many recruits tested positive for drugs, arriving to work high on hashish if they came at all. Supervisors were believed to be skimming money off their officers’ measly salaries. One force had men from two tribes who could barely stand each other.
And then there’s the language barrier between Marines and the Afghan police.
But like most police work, getting past issues of trust and cultural difference begins with a brief encounter on a street.
As Clair and Abbott cruised past a row of dilapidated homes, the police sergeant told him to notice how a person’s walk and dress changes from street to street, and whether children are playing or hurrying by.
Crime here increases with summer’s heat, he said, encouraging Abbott to identify the violence-trigger in Afghanistan, such as at the end of the poppy harvest.
“What’s happenin,’ man?” Clair said, waving his hand out his window to a man who looked away in disgust.
“If they are on the fence about police and they say ‘hi’ back, then at least we’ve dealt with that issue, and if they don’t, then at least I know who I’m dealing with around here,” he told Abbott.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
More Cities on Brink of Bankruptcy
Posted By: Kate Kelly | CNBC Reporter
26 May 2010 | 11:01 AM ET
The possibility of a bankruptcy filing by the city of Harrisburg, Pa., the state capital, looms large these days—and it could be the first in a series, say some Wall Street traders.
Harrisburg, population 55,000, owes nearly $70 million in debt payments this year, and it's unclear where that money will come from.
Harrisburg now has one of the lowest credit ratings of any municipality in the United States.
Harrisburg Mayor Linda Thompson told CNBC Wednesday that she had assembled a group of bond stakeholders, the city council and other interested parties to work out the crisis "so that we don't become the poster child of the world in terms of bankruptcy."
Municipal bond underwriters are monitoring Harrisburg, which has struggled to contain the costs of financing a troubled incinerator project.
In 2003, the city borrowed $125 million to expand and retrofit its incinerator, which officials thought would make money for Harrisburg. The incinerator re-opened five years later, but it's turned out to be nothing but a money drain.
On May 1, the city missed a $452,282 loan payment related to the incinerator.
Raising taxes or selling assets, like real estate or parking lots, are options for Harrisburg. So is a restructuring plan—either inside or outside of bankruptcy.
If Harrisburg does file for bankruptcy, it would do so under Chapter 9—which is employed by cities, but rarely. In one closely watched case, the city of Vallejo, Calif., has been in Chapter 9 since 2008.
About the Harrisburg situation, Jim Lebenthal, head of public affairs for the longtime municipal-bond underwriter, Lebenthal & Co., said that while filing for Chapter 9 would be a small matter in the scheme of things, it's "emblematic" of the larger economic struggles that cities face right now. "If it can happen in a state capital, my God, it can happen anywhere," said Lebenthal.
The overall problem is that the $2.8 trillion muni bond market, long considered one of the safest havens for investors, now faces a daunting level of debt, as cities from Los Angeles to New York struggle with an array of headaches, including less tax revenue and high labor costs.
According to remarks made by Harrisburg mayor Thompson in April, the city spends rought 70 percent of its annual budget on labor.
Cities can always raise taxes to fight a budget shortfall. But costly projects, fewer people in the workforce and more demand for city services can make budgets tough to square these days.
Financial firms underwrite bond offerings for cities and public-works projects, and the default rate on muni bonds has historically been quite low—less than 1 percent—compared to nearly 13 percent for corporate bonds, according to ratings agency figures.
In that sense, the Street encourages investors to go long municipalities.
But investors and the Street can also short munis through credit default swaps, or CDS policies that pay out if an entity defaults.
The Markit MCDX, an index that tracks the cost of insuring against default of a basket of 50 municipalities, is on a recent high of $173,000 for $10 million of protection on a five-year bond—a point last reached near the beginning of this year. A swap that would pay out if the state of Pennsylvania defaults cost $112,000 for the same $10 million amount.
26 May 2010 | 11:01 AM ET
The possibility of a bankruptcy filing by the city of Harrisburg, Pa., the state capital, looms large these days—and it could be the first in a series, say some Wall Street traders.
Harrisburg, population 55,000, owes nearly $70 million in debt payments this year, and it's unclear where that money will come from.
Harrisburg now has one of the lowest credit ratings of any municipality in the United States.
Harrisburg Mayor Linda Thompson told CNBC Wednesday that she had assembled a group of bond stakeholders, the city council and other interested parties to work out the crisis "so that we don't become the poster child of the world in terms of bankruptcy."
Municipal bond underwriters are monitoring Harrisburg, which has struggled to contain the costs of financing a troubled incinerator project.
In 2003, the city borrowed $125 million to expand and retrofit its incinerator, which officials thought would make money for Harrisburg. The incinerator re-opened five years later, but it's turned out to be nothing but a money drain.
On May 1, the city missed a $452,282 loan payment related to the incinerator.
Raising taxes or selling assets, like real estate or parking lots, are options for Harrisburg. So is a restructuring plan—either inside or outside of bankruptcy.
If Harrisburg does file for bankruptcy, it would do so under Chapter 9—which is employed by cities, but rarely. In one closely watched case, the city of Vallejo, Calif., has been in Chapter 9 since 2008.
About the Harrisburg situation, Jim Lebenthal, head of public affairs for the longtime municipal-bond underwriter, Lebenthal & Co., said that while filing for Chapter 9 would be a small matter in the scheme of things, it's "emblematic" of the larger economic struggles that cities face right now. "If it can happen in a state capital, my God, it can happen anywhere," said Lebenthal.
The overall problem is that the $2.8 trillion muni bond market, long considered one of the safest havens for investors, now faces a daunting level of debt, as cities from Los Angeles to New York struggle with an array of headaches, including less tax revenue and high labor costs.
According to remarks made by Harrisburg mayor Thompson in April, the city spends rought 70 percent of its annual budget on labor.
Cities can always raise taxes to fight a budget shortfall. But costly projects, fewer people in the workforce and more demand for city services can make budgets tough to square these days.
Financial firms underwrite bond offerings for cities and public-works projects, and the default rate on muni bonds has historically been quite low—less than 1 percent—compared to nearly 13 percent for corporate bonds, according to ratings agency figures.
In that sense, the Street encourages investors to go long municipalities.
But investors and the Street can also short munis through credit default swaps, or CDS policies that pay out if an entity defaults.
The Markit MCDX, an index that tracks the cost of insuring against default of a basket of 50 municipalities, is on a recent high of $173,000 for $10 million of protection on a five-year bond—a point last reached near the beginning of this year. A swap that would pay out if the state of Pennsylvania defaults cost $112,000 for the same $10 million amount.
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