The long decay of Van Nuys Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley

• May 13, 2023

On Monday last, I drove to Van Nuys/Sherman Oaks Park for a pickup softball game. I left the house at 8 a.m., which should have left plenty of time to reach my destination.Unfortunately, the 101 was extra grouchy and Waze sent me meandering through a labyrinth of surface streets, including a long jog north to Sherman Way before heading south on Van Nuys Boulevard.

What a demoralizing ride.

Besides the soul-robbing gridlock every Los Angeles mayor since Jose Vicente Feliz in 1781 has pledged to reduce, the ride down Van Nuys Boulevard was a journey through a dystopian gauntlet of boarded-up storefronts, abandoned sofas, overflowing trashcans and homeless shanties abutting graffiti-splattered cinderblocks and plywood.

What was once the epicenter of commerce and culture in the San Fernando Valley is now so depressing, even the X-rated video store went out of business.

When a neighborhood is too seedy for a dirty book store, it’s more than a cry for help.

Back in the “American Graffiti” days of car and sock hops, Van Nuys Boulevard was where the cool kids congregated for burgers and Cokes, cruising and kissing.

Men shopped for slacks and fedoras, while women tried on shoes and lunched with the ladies.

The trendy shops are long gone, replaced by bodegas selling beer and lottery tickets and bongs. “For Rent” signs in multiple languages have yet to produce any takers.

  (Courtesy of Doug McIntyre)

Like my men’s room disaster, lots of things undid Van Nuys Boulevard and countless other once thriving neighborhoods.

Tastes changed.

Demographics changed.

Kids flocked to the Westfields and Gallerias, choosing malls over main streets.

Then the internet crushed what was left of mom-and-pop commerce.

Why fight traffic and risk a ticket at a parking meter?

Why get hit up by panhandlers begging?

Or fall victim to an unprovoked attack by a tragic lost soul who should be in a mental hospital or rehab facility, but has been condemned to the streets?

When the customers stopped shopping and the kids stopped cruising, stores started failing and landlords lost their shirts.

Not even the adult bookstore survived the downfall of Van Nuys Blvd. (Courtesy of Doug McIntyre)

Buildings started to decay. Our city councilors and mayors ignored the pleas for help, first in English, then in Spanish, now in every language.

It wasn’t one thing that did in Van Nuys Boulevard, just as it isn’t just one thing causing name brands like Whole Foods and Nordstrom to pull out of downtown San Francisco, and everyone but junkies to bail on downtown Portland, Oregon.

The disaster dominos tumble one after the other.

Mayor Karen Bass should take the same drive I took last Monday, Sherman Way to the Government Center on Van Nuys Boulevard, but only if she sits up front.

You can’t see the real Los Angeles through tinted windows in the back seat of a taxpayer-funded, chauffeured SUV.

Doug McIntyre can be reached at: [email protected]. His novel “Frank’s Shadow” is available for preorder at BarnesandNoble.com and Amazon.com.

​ Orange County Register 

Prison guard union tool and drunk driver Dave Min touts endorsement from police union

• May 13, 2023

Democratic state Sen. Dave Min was elected to the California Senate in 2020 thanks to a massive spending binge by the California prison guard union.

The union spent about $1.5 million elect Dave Min, who in turn voted to give them massive raises and giveaways (worth over $500 million) as soon as he took office. That’s money that could have gone to classrooms or health care, but Dave Min doesn’t care about any of that. He chose to reward his friends at the prison guard union, because they helped him snag a title he could use in his inevitable bid for Congress.

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It’s against this backdrop that Dave Min is now touting the endorsement of the union which represents Los Angeles police officers for his campaign for Congress. Yes, he had to go all the way to Los Angeles, out of the congressional district, to find a police union willing to endorse him at this stage in the race.

Min is touting this endorsement not long after his arrest for putting lives in danger by driving drunk through a red light in Sacramento. Police unions are known for being amoral and even immoral, so their endorsement of public safety threat and drunk drinker Dave Min is no surprise.

What is remarkable, though, is the arrogance of Dave Min to continue wasting everyones time with his congressional campaign.

Dave Min should drop out immediately. Any Democrat supporting him has no integrity.

Sal Rodriguez can be reached at [email protected]

​ Orange County Register 

Home prices fell in 61% of Orange County. Did your ZIP drop?

• May 13, 2023

March 2023 OC home price change by ZIP from CoreLogic (Map by Flourish)

Home prices fell in the past year in roughly three of every five Orange County neighborhoods.

Countywide, the median selling price was $990,000 in March – off 3% in a year, according to CoreLogic data. Sales totaled 2,109 existing and new homes – off 34% in a year.

The market has cooled as rising mortgage rates and a shaky economy scared off house hunters. But it hasn’t been an across-the-board drop.

In 51 of 84 Orange County ZIP codes, prices have fallen since March 2022. That’s 61% of the county. And 71 ZIPs saw one-year sales declines or 85% of the county.

How did your ZIP code fare? Please note homebuying trends at the neighborhood level can be volatile. Check the graphic below …

In 51 of 84 Orange County ZIP codes, prices dropped since March 2022. That’s 61% of the county. And 71 ZIPs had one-year sales drops, or 85% of the county. (SCNG / CoreLogic)

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​ Orange County Register 

Watering, weeds and what to do about gophers in your garden

• May 13, 2023

1. Be on the lookout for two noxious weeds that require extreme vigilance to remove them from the garden. The first is false garlic (Nothoscordum inodorum). Its flowers and foliage may fool you into thinking that they belong to some sort of desirable type of onion or garlic until you see the plant proliferate and defy eradication. The problem is the inordinate number of bulbs a single bulb may produce. Bulbs may be so small that you cannot see them so that when you remove a clutch of them underground, carve out an additional pocket of soil around them so as to make sure no more are present in that spot. The other defiant garden weed is nutgrass (Cyperus esculentus). It forms nut-like tubers and digging them up is one strategy for defeating them but you are likely to miss some tubers, since they grow down as far as 18 inches. However, if you consistently pull all nutgrass leaves as soon as they appear for several years, you will eventually starve the tubers.

2. Greg Alder (gregalder.com), a pre-eminent vegetable and fruit gardener in Southern California, advocates the use of a Cinch trap for taking care of a gopher problem. He promotes the use of traps in general since only by trapping a gopher can you be sure it’s gone. Other traps work but the advantage of this one is that a minimum of digging is required to set the trap. All you do is excavate soil at the top of the tunnel with a trowel and set the trap inside. A shovel is not needed. Alder enthuses that “the Cinch simply catches gophers more often” than other traps.

3. You can plant almost anything at this time of year as long as you make watering your top priority. The smaller the plant, the more attentive you need to be to its watering needs. Plants of any description growing in five-gallon containers or smaller should be watered every day for the first two weeks after they are planted. If you miss a single early morning watering, you may see your new plants burnt up by the end of the day. Mulch, of course, will give you a reserve of water in the soil that can be your plants’ salvation on extremely hot days at any time of the year.

4. Zucchini squash is one of the easiest plants to grow. Many of the fruits and vegetables we harvest in our backyards are smaller than the versions we see of them at the grocery store. Yet without even trying, you can grow zucchini fruits far bigger than the grocery models. Yet zucchini is tastier when harvested earlier in its development, at about the size you see it in the produce department, at the stage where you can pierce through its skin with your thumbnail. If you see no fruit on your zucchini or other squash early in the season, this is due to all the flowers being either male or female. Later in the season, flowers of both types are formed. “Zucchini Love” (Storey Publishing, 2023), by Cynthia Graubart, features zucchini in the 43 recipes found in the book.

5. The following crops are reliably grown by direct seeding in the garden now: bean, beet, carrot, cilantro, dill, leek, radish, spinach, sunflower, turnip. Tomato eggplant, pepper, collard greens, rosemary, and lavender are best grown from transplants. Those that grow reliably in the garden from either seed or transplants include corn, bok choi, chard, cucumber, fennel, lettuce, melons, basil, fennel, squash of all kinds, and pumpkin.

Send your questions and comments about plants and gardening practices to [email protected].

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​ Orange County Register 

Why Mother’s Day is the most hated day in the restaurant industry

• May 13, 2023

Mother’s Day is one of the busiest days for the American restaurant industry, presenting a massive operational challenge to restaurants. That’s why it gained a reputation among waiters and restaurant staff as one of the most grueling days on the calendar.

“Every server knows that working on Mother’s Day is hell. In fact, if I die and go to hell, I completely expect it to be Mother’s Day. 365 days a year,” wrote Darron Cardosa, in his book “The Bitchy Waiter: I’m Really Good at Pretending to Care.”

What’s so bad about it? From big groups that show up in waves (“most of us are here!”), to food-fussy kids to splitting the check dramas and coffee-cup lingerers, restaurants hate this holiday. This year is expected to be particularly challenging as high inflation and rising menu prices give some restaurant-goers an extra sense of entitlement.

“The anticipation alone can make you anxious,” said Joe Haley, an abstract artist who works as a server at a Quincy, Massachusetts, Italian-American restaurant. It gets “jam-packed. People are calling at the last minute for a reservation, there are other people who made multiple reservations so Mom could have her pick and they never cancel… people who take out their mother once a year tell you ‘Nothing can go wrong!’” he said.

But it does. With big tables, a few late arrivals can kick a kitchen into chaos. “And every family has at least one black sheep or in-law who can’t be relied upon to save their lives. Mother’s Day: I dread it,” Haley added.

Chefs, servers and owners said that this year guests have set their expectations high: Special occasion meals in a time of rising food prices. In a post-pandemic world, luxury — or rather the appearance of luxury and excess — is “in.” Across the country, customers will get aggravated if their $30 eggs Benedict isn’t dolloped with caviar on Sunday.

Tastes have changed, literally, since Covid, said Chef Art Smith, who has been personal chef to Oprah Winfrey and Jeb Bush. He will be serving hundreds of Mother’s Day meals at his four restaurants including his Homecomin’ at Disney Springs at Walt Disney World.

The people who visit? “They’re drinking more. They want more carbs — If it’s mac and cheese, it has to be the cheesiest. But they want salads, and they want more veg sides, too. They just want more.”

A busy day for restaurants

The National Retail Federation forecasts that Mother’s Day spending will reach $35.7 billion this year, with a record $5.6 billion alone spent on a meal or outing, up 6% from last year. It’s the second-busiest day in the restaurant business, eclipsed only by Valentine’s Day, according to online reservations site OpenTable.

Mother’s Day presents “an operational challenge,” said Shawn Walchef, owner of five Cali BBQ eateries in the San Diego area. “It’s the busiest day of the year and also the day guests have the highest expectations. He foresees some fuss over tables on the patio — “In Southern California, everyone wants to sit outside.”

For many restaurants, this is the first big holiday since 2019 that hasn’t been overshadowed by the pandemic. “It’s a lot of people getting together who haven’t seen each other in a while,” said owner Binh Douglas, who opened Main Prospect in Southampton, New York, about 18 months ago.

He expects that guests Sunday will be spending about 40% more than usual, and that a third of the adults will add the $19.95 “bottomless mimosa” to their meal. Fortunately, egg and seafood prices have come down in the last few weeks, he said.

Rising prices

But inflation has left its mark on Mother’s Day brunch. At the Breakers in Palm Beach, Mother’s day brunch in The Circle restaurant is $250 per person (up from $160 in 2019) with unlimited Champagne cocktails and a harpist who goes from table to table.

At the family-packed McLoone’s Boathouse in West Orange, New Jersey, also home to a waterfront buffet, brunch has gone to $54.95 from $49.95 in 2019.

Pricing is touchy. “Your Mother’s Day meal can’t be obnoxiously expensive,” said Derek Axelrod, co-owner of Manhattan’s Upper East Side T bar restaurant. Their Mother’s Day menu will likely be upwards of $100 person, but won’t turn much of a profit, he said. They’re counting on liquor sales to do that. Meanwhile T bar is adding touches like a fois gras, cranberry and chicken parfait to the menu.

Servers and owners are also under pressure to “push the lobster.” Seven different restaurants at the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas are serving Mother’s Day meals that include lobster (The resort’s round-up of all its Mother’s Day menus notes that a subsequent gondola ride is an additional $39).

Ophelia, a rooftop restaurant near the United Nations in New York, solves the “luxury” problem neatly by offering a menu in which Mom gets it all: fried quail egg, lobster, filet mignon, waffles and smoked salmon — but be warned: it’s a $59-per-person presentation of “petite bites.”

In Naples, Florida, the hamburger at the Veranda E restaurant on Sunday will be brought under glass, and a cloud of smoke will rise up as it is uncovered. “That’s new for us,” says owner Mary Brandt, who will have four generations of women from her family at the restaurant.

To maximize profits and seating, chain restaurants are changing, too. Ruth’s Chris Steak House, which has locations in about three-dozen states, is opening several for breakfast or brunch on Mother’s Day; at the Fort Worth location, there will be wild blueberry pancakes. And some Red Lobsters are giving Moms a coupon for 10% off their next meal — even including off the Ultimate Endless Shrimp Feast.

So, book now, and tip your server. Of all holidays, Mother’s Day is considered so stressful for workers that the National Restaurant Association recommends that owners ensure that their servers are “fed and properly hydrated” and should be given a “combat-duty” bonus — especially the mothers on staff who work the shift.

Server Joe Haley, in Quincy, has a better idea: “Why can’t you people just make your Mom breakfast?”

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​ Orange County Register 

Tom Campbell: The House Problem Solvers Caucus can help avoid debt ceiling calamity

• May 13, 2023

Congress is sharply divided along political lines. On any given issue, however, there is often a large majority of each house that favors a particular solution to a problem. Even so, a bill presenting that solution might not be allowed a vote.  Speakers of the House of both parties have refused to allow a bill to come to a vote on the House floor unless a majority of their party favors the bill. Majority rule has thus deteriorated into control by the 25% most right or left members of Congress, from the safest districts.

Into this breach, the House Problem Solvers Caucus (supported by the No Labels national organization) has stepped forward. Thirty-one Republicans and 32 Democrats comprise this group. They have offered a common-sense solution to the present debt ceiling deadlock. On behalf of “the rest of us,” those more concerned with good outcomes than partisan victories, the Problem Solvers’ solution should be allowed to succeed. Here’s how it can.

The Problem Solvers have harnessed the annual budget process to resolving the debt limit fight.  The annual expiration of appropriation bills on October 1 brings serious consequences. The Constitution requires “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” Once the money appropriated for a government program from a previous year has been spent, another appropriations bill must be enacted or that government program ceases. Social Security is not affected because it is on permanent appropriation, but the military and all other “discretionary” spending is not.

This kind of government shut-down actually occurred ten years ago, when Sen. Cruz held back appropriation bills for sixteen days to protest the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”).

The Problem Solvers propose a temporary extension of the debt ceiling to the end of the year. They call for the creation of a bipartisan commission of experts, not congressmembers, who would create a package of long-term budget solutions, to be presented as a whole without allowing for amendment. That is the process that worked in 1983 to avert bankruptcy for Social Security and Medicare. Democrats did not want to postpone the vesting age for these entitlements; Republicans did not want to increase the federal tax for those programs. The commission’s eventual package included both, and a majority of Congress approved it, since it was the only solution being offered.

To approve the Problem Solvers’ compromise today, an unusual procedural step is available to get around the normal practice that bars any vote from getting to the floor without a majority of the majority party’s support. Five of the 31 Republican Problem Solver Congressmembers need to join the Democrats in the House in signing a discharge petition.

This procedure actually worked in 1999, when I was in Congress. Along with other moderate Republicans, and almost all the Democrats, I participated in a discharge petition signed by more than half the members of the House. That compelled Speaker Newt Gingrich to allow a vote on campaign finance reform.

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Republican Problem Solvers can expect some partisan criticism for signing. I certainly did. However, they would hold a strong hand. The Democrats’ discharge petition includes only the debt ceiling extension. The Republican Problem Solvers could insist it include the Commission element as well, or they would remove their signatures from the petition. Once a “discharged” bill is headed to the House Floor anyway, the Speaker can offer to allow a different version, including the Commission element, to be considered through the Rules Committee, and he would certainly do so.

Extreme partisanship has caused a breakdown in our country’s governance. However, we can take heart that just a handful of responsible members of Congress can still overcome the most pernicious effects of this polarization.  The discharge petition, and an independent commission to work out sensible solutions neither party would adopt alone, are vehicles to accomplish that end.

Tom Campbell was a five-term U.S. congressman, California state senator, and California director of finance. He is a professor of law and a professor of economics at Chapman University. He left the Republican party in 2016 and is in the process of forming a new political party in California, the Common Sense Party.

​ Orange County Register 

Catherine Blakespear: To protect LOSSAN rail corridor, we need to act fast and think big

• May 13, 2023

There it was — the headline flashing across phones and computer screens — the San Clemente hillside below Casa Romantica was giving way, and the rail tracks below were in danger. Train operations ceased “for the foreseeable future.”

Less than two weeks after being fully reopened to limited passenger rail traffic, the line had to be shut down again on April 27, with rail riders being forced to take a bus bridge adding inconvenience and time to what should have been a lovely nonstop train ride.

Sadly, for those paying attention, it was hardly a surprise. The rail line’s vulnerabilities have become increasingly clear in recent years as erosion and climate change have jeopardized the track’s security and stability. Nearly every portion of the line — from northern Santa Barbara County to San Diego County — has experienced operational issues due to weather-related events that are projected to worsen in years ahead.

The LOSSAN corridor, which stands for Los Angeles-San Diego-San Luis Obispo, serves six counties with a population of 20 million and is vital to the movement of freight and passengers through the region. The line is the second busiest intercity passenger rail corridor in the United States.

But as important as it is now, LOSSAN stands to be even more important in coming decades, as the state seeks to reduce carbon emissions, improve mobility through increasingly dense regions and reduce reliance on cars and freeways.

That’s why the state Senate has created a subcommittee — the Transportation Subcommittee on LOSSAN Rail Corridor Resiliency — to tackle the issue. Much thanks to Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins and Transportation Committee Chair Lena Gonzalez for recognizing the significance of this matter and establishing this subcommittee.

On Tuesday, we will hold our first hearing and begin a high-level assessment of the rail line’s value and long-term needs. Frankly, it’s long overdue.

Local and regional government agencies, such as SANDAG and the Orange County Transportation Authority, have been working hard on the issue for years, but what we need now is a state-level perspective that evaluates the entire LOSSAN line and our vision for it, working in partnership with both the federal government and local agencies.

Looking across the globe, we see that other modern nations — in Europe, in Asia — have made rail the centerpiece of highly efficient transportation networks. Even in this country, the Northeast rail corridor is essential for commuters and movement among the East Coast’s largest cities.

There is no shortage of great examples of what the LOSSAN rail corridor could become. Here’s what I aim to accomplish. First, work to identify the regional, state and national benefits of this line.

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Second, look holistically at how we’re supporting the corridor and work to optimize state and federal investments. Third, evaluate the corridor’s needs and create a framework for prioritizing projects, so we all work together on a smart plan that benefits everybody instead of competing against each other for investments in particular segments.

I have traveled abroad and seen the potential of what rail can be. We deserve, and can have, a truly competitive, reliable and resilient rail option that our region can use for generations.

As Southern California confronts its many challenges, investing in rail makes more sense now than ever. It’s time to move beyond the month-to-month crisis of reacting to the latest eroding hillside or flood, and plan more thoughtfully for the rail corridor’s future success.

Catherine Blakespear is a state senator and chair of the Senate Transportation Subcommittee on LOSSAN Rail Corridor Resiliency. 

​ Orange County Register 

Myth and reality of the City by the Bay

• May 13, 2023

On a visit up north last week, cornily, before going out to dinner, I put Tony Bennett on the Bluetooth speaker as I got dressed: “The loveliness of Paris seems somehow sadly gay/The glory that was Rome is of another day/I’ve been terribly alone and forgotten in Manhattan/I’m going home to my city by the Bay.”

While I’ve lived in Northern California, it was not in San Francisco, so it was never my home. But, just as my colleague Steven Greenhut did the other week and wrote about in these pages, I was curious for a visit, after years of reading in the national press about what a horrific cesspool it had become.

In a word: Not.

It remains one of the most beautiful, civilized cities on the planet. Are there unhoused people? There are — far, far fewer, though, from what I saw in four days of roaming it, than in Los Angeles. I saw precisely one tent encampment. One person sleeping in a doorway. We took a cable car down to the Financial District. There we found the only truth in the truisms being circulated — sidewalks almost empty. Not because people are scared of the homeless. Rather, businesses emptied out during the pandemic, and few office workers have returned. You can consequently get a seat and a martini at the counter at the Tadich Grill, oldest restaurant in California, rather too easily.

Strolling over to Market Street in search of the supposed hellhole, we had our one uncomfortable encounter with a street person causing a ruckus inside a See’s store. Tall, headphoned, clearly unwell, he picked a fight with the apparently Filipina clerks, claiming they wouldn’t give him free candy samples, and told them to go back to where they came from. One yelled, “Hey, I was born here, and I’m calling the cops. She called. In what I swear was under 10 seconds, an officer — who must have been standing outside — came in and escorted the man out. First and last live people trouble we saw in the supposedly troubled town.

You  can find trouble when you look for it. Disgusted former progressive Michael Shellenberger’s famous book “San Fransicko: How Progressives Ruin Cities” is all about that. The former gubernatorial candidate and nuclear power advocate cites the problem of human waste on the sidewalks in Baghdad by the Bay and how the city spends $100 million a year just to clean them. I consequently expected to see, well, crap everywhere. In miles of walking those sidewalks last week, ever looking down for … trouble, I finally found it. Once. Gross. But the small armies of city workers with pickup sticks also left the cleanest, most litter-free big city I’ve seen around the world, ever.

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We had lunch with our friend Laurie, who lives in quiet Bernal Heights. I asked her about the national myth of SF as a sewer. “I take BART downtown once a week,” she says. “Lots of people in the station fencing stolen toiletries.” Sketchy guys aside, “I’ve been here 37 years, and it’s not any worse now. The police have been hanging around a lot lately, and it cleans up nice.”

San Francisco does that. I think its problem among Americans who rag on Nancy Pelosi but have never been to the City is that, like only New York and New Orleans among our great urban places, it’s kinda not America. Some Americans are scared of its urbanity. It’s the sort of place where you walk into a corner store, like at Mason and Taylor, late at night and neighbors are in just to kibitz and watch the Warriors game. One customer took us out to show us his building next door on wildly steep Mason, with weird carved seals guarding the stairs. “Used to be a men’s club — of a special kind,” he winked.

I don’t know what kind that was. But for Californians, San Francisco still feels like home.

Larry Wilson is on the Southern California News Group editorial board. [email protected].

​ Orange County Register