LA Podcast - Paved and Confused

Scott, Alissa, and Rachel dry off after yet another flash flooding event and absorb a new report that says LA County could eliminate half of its pavement. Casey Wasserman is leaving his own company but will apparently stay on as LA28 chair (?!?) as more elected officials call for him to step down. And LA’s City Council searches for more ways to not build more housing near transit by delaying implementation of SB79 as many places as possible.

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SHOW NOTES

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Melrose stores flooded again and business owners are blaming the city’s lack of response. Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky is calling for an investigation: "The response was delayed, inadequate, and local businesses were left dealing with flooding and damage”

Elsewhere: food delivery bots can’t swim, Santa Monica channel in Rustic Canyon lost all its concrete, Trader Joe’s parking lot floods store in Silver Lake

Alissa would like to remind everyone we would have had stormwater gardens to stop the flooding on Melrose if former councilmember Paul Koretz hadn’t killed the Uplift Melrose project

The new DepaveLA study from Accelerate Resilience LA shows that LA County contains 488 square miles of pavement — that’s about the size of the city of LA — and nearly half of it may be unnecessary

Accelerate Resilience LA’s Devon Provo writes about LA County’s sustainability plan, which calls for “the first explicit depaving target from a major U.S. public agency, signaling an emerging shift in how policymakers are rethinking infrastructure” — but it’s only 1,600 acres by 2045

There are incentives for property owners to reduce impermeable surfaces through Measure W, also known as the Safe Clean Water Program

Flooding happens pretty much exactly where we paved over old creeks, which are easy to see thanks to maps from UC Irvine’s Flood Lab that show flood risk. Unsurprisingly, LA’s Black communities would be hit the hardest in a major flood

Last Friday, after dozens of the artists he represents fled his agency due to his ties with sex traffickers Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, Casey Wasserman announced he was selling his entire companyand issued a heartfelt apology to his employees

Yet he will stay on as LA28 chair, because the board voted to keep him. Here’s a really good Guardian story that sums it all up, with some very angry quotes from Councilmember Monica Rodriguez

Alissa wrote about “LA28's big gamble” over at Torched

LA Mayor Karen Bass finally said she thought Wasserman should step down

CNN: LA mayor calls for head of 2028 Olympics to step down over Epstein ties 

West Hollywood had a rally with survivors and Councilmember John Erickson said he was introducing a resolution to call for Wasserman’s resignation

More state representatives have called on Wasserman to resign, including a statement from the LA County delegation (although some said they didn’t know they were signed on)

Sports Illustrated’s Michael Rosenberg puts the emails in context and argues why Wasserman is a liability

NOlympics LA: LA28 Chair Casey Wasserman: A Lifelong Pattern of Abuse 

LAist: “How much housing is LA actually building?”

LA’s planning department has delivered a plan to delay SB79 effectuation (also in StoryMap form), the new state law requiring cities to build more (as in taller and denser) housing around high-quality transit stops

Come learn about SB79 implementation on Thursday evening and why LA Forward, Abundant Housing LA, and others are supporting Option C in the planning department's proposal

Meanwhile, Beverly Hills has a thoughtful plan to reluctantly implement SB79 (which the city only has to do for a ¼-mile area around at the three new D line stations) 

Although Beverly Hills is also forced to approve multiple “builders remedy” projects because the city didn’t build enough housing

This episode was produced by Sophie Bridges (allegedly)

The reporting and analysis you hear in the show is put together by our rotating cast of producers and co-hosts every week. All opinions expressed on the show are solely those of co-hosts and may not represent the views of LA Forward