City Council Meeting

Submitted by occupation blog on

occupation blog's picture

The following draft of a resolution was added to the ones found in "Memos" below  in this blogspace authored by Councilmember Richard Alarcon.

Responsible Banking Draft Ordinance

Summary of Intent

Problem:

The City of Los Angeles has nearly $30 billion in cash and investments (including City pension funds) but does not have a system by which it can clearly review the financial activity in our communities with which we do business.

Solution: Responsible Banking

Transparent Reporting for Banking Partners: Financial institutions that contract for the City of Los Angeles will be required annually to submit data detailing their lending activity and provide a statement on Community Reinvestment Goals specific to Los Angeles (which the City of Philadelphia has required from the financial institutions their City has deposits with since 2002).

“Report Cards” Grading Local Investment: The City Treasurer will compile and publish an annual report ranking each financial institution that receives City dollars on a Community Reinvestment Scale as measured by the amount and type of investment in Los Angeles, or the lack thereof.

Contracting Preferences for the Highest Scores: Contracting preference will be given to the top performing financial institutions, and the lowest performers will face possible divestment. Examples of types of information that should be used to determine positive reinvestment in Los Angeles.

  • ·The number and type of permanent loan modifications approved to prevent mortgage foreclosures in Los Angeles.
  • ·Small business lending information, including number of loans to businesses with annual revenue of $1 million or less in Los Angeles.
  • Number and location of branches and other service delivery locations in Los Angeles to ensure equitable distribution in ALL neighborhoods.

Those who support this measure encourage the public to attend the finance meeting on Monday, November 21 Room 1010 at 2:00 p.m. to help push this forward for a vote by the City Council.

There were several paid speakers who spoke out against the resolution.  During public comment featured a Letter from the L.A. Chamber of Commerce stating that banks had invested 41 million dollars in city and community programs.  several unpaid speakers who were in favor of the resolution.

15 Comments

ep021765's picture

We Haven't Had Thousands of People in the Streets

Submitted by ep021765 on

Don't get me wrong, I'm having a good time bullshiting with everyone on the lawn of city hall, but it's time to march.  It's time to put thousands of people into the streets so the world gets the message!  This saturday's  International Solidarity March @ 10:00 am is a good start.  Let's see what we can do.  More important, let's see what the LAPD is going to do.

Thought you might like this poster.

Deborah DeStefano's picture

Let's Keep it Positive!

Submitted by Deborah DeStefano on

Why 'expect' police violence?  Why even suggest it?  Bad thing to do. Frown

Look how many people are posting their anger on their butts on FB instead of getting out there?  Things ARE organized and being accomplished.  WE HAVE TO PREVAIL.

The racist groups will disappear, there are ordinances about 'the purpose' of occupants.  

I am glad to say that so far this is very well organized by seasoned activists, community leaders, and the community at large.  

If you are just having fun bullshitting, you are part of the problem.  Get active so someone else can get your free food, free clothes, books and more.  This isn't a party. 

Get off your groovy butt and march, there are marches every single day.  You don't see them because you are 'partying'.  

Just because you have no confidence in the success of this occupation, keep your bad vibes to yourself.  This is a matter of survival for the planet and the people that occupy it (and other life).  

If you're not part of the 1%, buckle down and get serious and contribute to this urgent cause. 

 

LAPD question

Submitted by Supersean on

Is Occupy Los Angeles costing the LAPD extra money for officers/overtime? It would be a shame to put any extra costs incurred for our demonstration onto the taxpayers.

The Bigger Question

Submitted by lt2002 on

Where are we going with this.  Don't get me wrong, I love the peaceful demonstration. However I feel that there is no call to action. I think that the speak series is wonderfully edicational for those occupiers in front of City Hall, it's a great start, however we need to do more. Call to action in a peaceful manner. I have been waiting for this movement for quite sometime. I knew it was coming. We need to start making changes, have a stronger voice. If we don't, we only have ourselves to blame. How can we expect morally bankrupt business owners as well as our elected officials to hold anyone accountable if  we don't have a stronger voice and hold them accountable. Again I am all about peacefull protest, however we also need to stand our ground. If we don't how will anyone take our demands seriously enough to address.

LT

Symbolic victory

Submitted by mattcornell on

It's important to remember that 99% of City Council votes are unanimous.

http://www.calaware.org/blog/comment-downsize-l-a-city-council-to-a-part-time-role/

Also, this resolution is mostly symbolic, as the banking restrictions, which would have given the measure real teeth, were dropped due to pressure from bankers. 

LA City Council is the highest paid in the country, and they are swimming in corporate money. It's easy for them to endorse Occupy LA, because the organization, thus far, has failed to make any critique or demand on the city itself. 

Who is kidding whom?

Submitted by Victor on

We should be extremely skeptical of such hypocritical and token efforts as a City Council resolution sympathetic to Occupy Los Angeles.  These City Hall officials, along with the Mayor, are the same people who have given hundreds of millions of dollars in wealth and income transfers to Eli Broad, Phillip Anschutz, and many other high powered real estate speculators through outright grants, through cheap loans, through subsidized infrastructure, and through waivers of fees and zoning and environmental requirements.  

They are the same people who have made the LAPD the leading US police agency in terms of domestic spying and surveillance under the rubric of the war on terrorism.  

They are the same people who have laid off many public employees, while furloughing those lucky enough to keep their jobs.  They also increased their deductions while reducing their benefits, as well as nickle and dimed retirees.  The payback for hanging in there is that public employees have gotten

smeared by many elected officials, despite their walk-through handshakes and sympathetic resolutions.

Furthermore, the elected officials in City Hall instituted regressive taxes in the form of extra fees while ignoring the inequality of Prop 13, which benefits commercial property much more than single family homes.  Despite these regressive taxes, the public still experiences reduced services and crumbling infrastructure.

The point is that City Hall – in the form of elected officials and many managers -- represents the interests of the 1 percent just as much as Congress does.  Any movement intent on addressing issues of economic and political equity can begin right here in Los Angeles, in the building next to where Occupy Los Angeles is camped out.

I completely agree with you

Submitted by MeliJune on

I completely agree with you Victor. And i feel one of the major threats for these elected politicians is election. Lets remind the people who these folks are, who they really represent, and advocate either their impeachment or non re election. 

Repeal SBX211

Submitted by dan cooper on

I would like to see senate bill SBX211 Repealed and restore Due Process and give the courts back to the people. I believe that the core of the problem that our nation is in now is due to politicians taking bribes / capaign contributions and then selling out the people by violating their sworn oath to uphold the constitution and the laws. Exaples of the Retro Acive immunity that was given to either governmental agency's or to corperations that have romoved our rights to privacy and the right to Due process and have put us all into such debt that my sons will never br able to even pay off the interest. 

 HISTORY OF RETRO ACTIVE IMMUNITY IN THE UNITED STATES

1. given for illegsl use of torture

2. given for illegal merger of banks (we can see the effects of that now)

3. given to telecom company for illegal wire taps. (Fisa bill that led to the patriot act)

4. given to Judges for taking bribes. (SBX211)

 SBX211 does not restore due process

SBX211 violates Article 1 section 9

SBX211 violates the 14th amendment (no equal protections)

SBX211 violate checks and balances between legislative and Judicial powers.

Judges do not disclose the county payments at the onset of any trial where the county is either a party to the case or has a financial interest. (Judges violate Judicial codes of ethics)

Judges refuse to recuse themselves when requested under CCP 170.1

Judges find themselves unbiased and then file an order striking statement.

 SBX211 is evidence of conspiracy of the California legislative branch of government to cover up the multiple felony's committed by the Judicial branch of government. By an act of Legislation, California's judicial branch has admitted to be corrupt.

 SECTION FROM SBX211

This bill would provide that no governmental entity, or officer or employee of a governmental entity, shall incur any liability or be subject to prosecution or disciplinary action because of benefits provided to a judge under the official action of a governmental entity prior to the effective date of this bill on the ground that those benefits were not authorized under law.

(NO ONE SHOULD BE ABOVE THE LAW)  SBX211 IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL



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Not only do judges get paid a

Submitted by dan cooper on

Not only do judges get paid a state salary of $178,789.00 a year with medical and retirement benefits up to 75% of their salary, with the additional county of payments $57,688.00. For the year of 2010 only, the county of Los Angeles paid 460 judges $57,688.00 each = $26,709,544.00. So far to date almost $400 million in illegal payments to judges. The Los angeles superior court judges make more money then the United States Supreme Court judges (the highest court in the land). 

Another governmental agency to watch over banks.

Submitted by dan cooper on

This will not work. there has already been agency's to watch over banks but they too become currpted, If they are exposed for breaking laws or regulations they could simply pay bribes / campaign contributions and receive immunity from prosecution. Robert kennedy spoke out against retro active immunity..."QUOTE" (The very idea of "retroactive immunity" ... is so radical, so repugnant to the most basic principles of the "rule of law," that only one prior attempt can be found in recent history (at least from my research): the efforts by some in Congress (in 1965) to enact a law retroactively legalizing the mergers by six large banks which clearly -- as a federal court found -- were illegal under our nation's antitrust laws. 

The banks knew when they merged that they were almost certainly violating anti-trust laws. But they did it anyway. And when courts began ruling that their behavior was illegal, they ran to Congress to demand that a law be passed granting them amnesty, claiming that the consequences would be ruinous if they were held accountable under the law. )

But the very concept of retroactive amnesty, the idea that corporations could break the law and then have Congress pass a special law legalizing their lawbreaking conduct, was so profoundly offensive to Sen. Robert Kennedy (who had been the Attorney General when the banks broke the law with their mergers), as well as then-Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, that they engaged in extraordinary efforts to try to put a stop to this Congressional travesty.

If Robert Kennedy was able to stop them at that time in our history then we would most certainly not be in this possition today. What will happen in the future now that it is legal for judges to take bribes?

How could you bring evidence of corruption and violations of the LAW when you have a court that has been granted RETRO ACTIVE IMMUNITY for taking bribes. 

The change must start with the courts. Without a fair and unbiased court you can not have JUSTICE, YOU CAN NOT HAVE THE RIGHT OF DUE PROCESS. In the constitution the right to due process is stated over and over again. Our founding fathers knew the dangers when judges could be bought. They knew the dangers when the financial institutions became too big. 

 

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