What is the living wage LAUSD workers are striking for?

• March 23, 2023

How much is enough?

If you ask the LAUSD workers who have staged a three-day strike this week for better pay, hours and working conditions, they’ll say “enough” is clearly more than they’re earning.

SEIU Local 99, which represents the 30,000 Los Angeles Unified School District employees, wants to elevate their pay to a living wage. Union officials say they’ve been negotiating with the district for months with little progress.

Pay levels vary among the bus drivers, custodians, cafeteria workers and special education assistants who walked off the job, depending on tenure and hours worked. But the average employee wage — which takes in many who work part-time schedules — is $25,000 a year, according to the union.

That equates to $12.02 an hour without vacation time. And it’s not nearly enough, according to the MIT Living Wage Calculator.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology tool was developed to help communities and employers calculate local wage rates, allowing residents to meet minimum standards of living.

The minimum wage for a single adult in Los Angeles County with up to three children is $15.50 an hour, or $32,240 a year, the calculator says, while the county’s “living wage” for a single adult with one child is $43.81 an hour, or $87,620 a year.

In households with two adults and one working with no children the living wage is $32.46 an hour. That jumps to $40.74 with one child and $45.69 with two children.

In households with two working adults and no children the living wage for each adult is $16.23 an hour, the calculator says. In households with one child that jumps to $23.98 an hour, and $30.15 an hour for households with two children.

Yolanda Cota works 30 hours a week and earns $24 an hour as a special education assistant. But she’s off during the summer months, which eats heavily into the income she needs to pay for rent, groceries and utilities.

“The $24 an hour I earn is the cap … and I also have two kids,” the 39-year-old Sylmar resident said. “I’m paying $1,700 a month in rent, and I also spend about $400 a month on gas and groceries. Everything is going up, and that doesn’t count my car payment, insurance on the car and all of the other expenses I have.”

Her husband also works, bringing in additional income, Cota said.

“Before I was married, I was also waitressing to help pay the bills,” she said. “Many of the employees have to work two jobs to get by. I’d like to be working 40 hours a week.”

Alec Levenson, a research scientist with the Center for Effective Organizations at the USC Marshall School of Business, said workers employed by school districts are operating in a workplace dynamic that was developed 70 years ago when readily people accepted the jobs as part-time work to supplement a spouse’s income.

“There’s a challenge there because as a society we think people should be paid on the basis of how much they work, which is reasonable,” he said. “But it can be hard for someone to take a part-time job and then try to fill in the gaps.”

The LAUSD employee woes speak to the struggle of keeping up with Southern California’s ever-increasing costs. Many are strapped by high housing costs, rising gas prices and inflation-weighted trips to the grocery store.

CoreLogic said high home prices are edging many prospective buyers out of the market. In February, the median price for a home in the six-county region was $690,000, and Los Angeles County’s median price was $765,000 — well out of reach for many prospective buyers.

“High mortgage rates and the resulting eroded affordability continue to challenge Southern California housing markets,” Selma Hepp, CoreLogic’s chief economist, said in a statement earlier this month.

SEIU Local 99 is seeking a 30% pay hike over time, more reliable hours for part-time workers and a crackdown against employee harassment. The district’s latest offer was a 23% wage hike over the next few years with a 3% retention bonus.

Lynneier Boyd-Peterson, who has been a bus driver with LAUSD for 31 years, makes $29.70 an hour. But she also works just nine months a year. That three-month summer gap and the three weeks schools are closed during the holidays make a difference, she said.

“Some of our bus drivers are homeless,” the 47-year-old Lancaster resident said. “They’re sleeping in their cars. We used to have cookouts at the yard where the buses park so those people could get some food, but the school district won’t let us do that anymore. That stopped five years ago.”

Members of the teachers union, United Teachers Los Angeles, have joined the striking workers in solidarity.

Boyd-Peterson said some bus drivers can work occasional routes during the summer if they’re available, but there’s never a guarantee.

“What I’d really like to get is respect,” she said. “Many times, management doesn’t respond to us as individuals, and they talk down to us like we’re nothing.”

​ Orange County Register 

Baseball legend Reggie Jackson discusses his legacy ahead of documentary

• March 22, 2023

Reggie Jackson’s baseball resume is the stuff of legend: 563 home runs (making him 14th all-time); 14-time All-Star; a Most Valuable Player Award and five World Series-winning teams – three times with the Oakland A’s and two with the New York Yankees. He also became the first player since Babe Ruth to hit three homers in a World Series game.

Jackson’s outsized baseball achievements landed him in the Hall of Fame, but that’s not how he wants to be remembered.

During his playing days, Jackson brimmed with confidence and famously was quoted describing himself as “the straw that stirs the drink” on the Yankees. (Jackson has disputed saying the quote; the reporter who quoted him continues to stand by it.) He was the subject of endless media coverage, most of it focused on his titanic blasts and larger-than-life personality.

Now Jackson, 76, is the subject of “Reggie,” a Prime Video documentary that premieres March 24. Naturally, the film celebrates his career, including those 1977 World Series home runs against the Dodgers, plus another the following year to finish off Los Angeles as well as a bit on his five seasons and 123 homers with the Angels.

But the element that drove him to overcome his wariness and participate in the film is that it looked beyond the home runs to tackle issues of racism faced by athletes of color during his heyday and by aspiring executives today. The fact that baseball continues to fail miserably when it comes to providing opportunities for diversity when hiring managers and front-office executives frustrates Jackson to no end.

“It impacts the future of the game, too,” he said during an interview this week in a Manhattan hotel. “If you have more diversity, you’ll get ideas from a broader perspective and have a more well-rounded product.”

The film looks back at how racism in baseball, the media and the country back in the 1960s and ‘70s shaped and fueled him. At one point, he notes that Hank Aaron, a Black man, received hate mail and death threats while chasing Babe Ruth’s home run record, but Pete Rose, who is White, was cheered for his pursuit of Ty Cobb’s hit record.

“I was a fierce competitor, but racism did take its toll on me as a player — you get tired and your concentration gets fragmented,” he said during our interview before adding that every Black person in America faced this exhausting conundrum.

A lifetime of racism often left him burning with anger, he said. “I was in my mid-50s before I settled down. I didn’t care to cover it up and I was truthful about it so I wouldn’t have done a documentary back even in my 50s. I was too amped, still.”

Jackson also hopes the film would help restore the sense of his dignity that he felt was stripped away by the White media and fans who interpreted his confidence and swagger as pure arrogance. (That attitude still plagues baseball; for example, Jackson’s ex-teammate Goose Gossage has berated Latino players, calling them showboats for playing with joy and enthusiasm.)

“People said I was an egomaniac and that’s why I hit home runs in the postseason — they’d say, ‘Reggie plays better when he’s on television,’” Jackson said. “Really, I just handled pressure well.”

(Indeed he did. In nine post-seasons with Oakland and the Yankees, “Mr. October” batted .300, well above his .262 regular season average. For stats fans, his OPS – on-base plus slugging percentage – in those playoffs and World Series was a whopping .944 versus his .846 regular season tally.)

In the film, Jackson chats with former teammates like Vida Blue, Joe Rudi and Rollie Fingers about their shared experiences.

“It was hugely important for me to include them, but I couldn’t get all the people I wanted into the documentary because I didn’t have control of it,” he said. “That broke my heart.”

Jackson also talked with Aaron shortly before his 2021 death. That conversation helps Jackson highlight baseball’s lack of diversity among its managers and front-office executives. Aaron notes that his role with Atlanta is meaningless, that he has a front office job so the powers that be could point to that as a sign of progress.

“He had a name on the office and nothing else,” Jackson said in our interview. Aaron died a month after their talk and Jackson said mournfully, “He said to me, ‘Reggie I always wondered if the color of our skin was a curse.’ Hank Aaron died sad.”

In one scene, Jackson talks to Yankee owner Hal Steinbrenner about the paucity of minority executives. Steinbrenner’s platitudes clearly frustrate Jackson who left the Yankee family to join Jim Crane and the Houston Astros as a special adviser. Houston already had Dusty Baker, one of the game’s few Black or Latino managers, and since the film was finished the Astros have hired Dana Brown, now the game’s only Black or Latino general manager.

“I won’t take any credit for that,” Jackson said during our interview. (Don’t worry, Jackson has not become overburdened by modesty. The man who once prophesied that “if I played in New York, they’d name a candy bar after me” dropped an aside during our conversation that “I’m one of the best-known car collectors in the country.”)

His point here is that leveling the playing field “is up to ownership and it’s not happening fast enough.” (He also praises Crane’s humility, calling up a text on his phone to show that Crane – who interviewed four Black candidates out of six total – is equally uninterested in being saluted for this decision.)

The film recounts Jackson’s failed attempt to buy, with a group that included Bill Gates and Paul Allen, the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1990s (he planned to give shares to legendary Black players Aaron, Willie Mays, Frank Robinson and Bob Gibson) and talks about falling into depression after that failed.

In our conversation, he said he also fronted an attempt the following decade to buy the A’s – he pulled up on his phone a letter that showed that his group’s offer would go $25 million beyond any other. His effort did not receive support from then-commissioner Bud Selig. When I asked if he felt there was concern about having an outspoken and honest Black man as an owner, he responded with his own question that referenced some White Hall of Famers: “Do you think if I was Mike Schmidt or George Brett this would have happened?”

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Jackson recalled being surprised that Richard Lapchick, who heads The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, called him an activist. “I didn’t know I was one because I think of an activist as someone who’s difficult and outspoken and unruly,” Jackson says. “I’m not that. I’m just for what’s right. Treat me right, bro.”

Still, Jackson sounded a bit like an activist at the end of our conversation when he said he was a little disappointed that the documentary didn’t always emphasize what was most important to him. I asked for one thing that was edited out that he’d like to have in the record books and Jackson pointed to work his Mr. October Foundation does helping prepare minority children for STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) careers.

“I wanted to talk about how my career impacted my future,” he said. “I’d rather be remembered and lauded for helping pave the way for those who followed and for what I do to help lift underserved communities than for my home runs and baseball career.”

​ Orange County Register 

All-County Girls Water Polo Team: Orange Lutheran’s Lauren Steele is the O.C. player of the year

• March 22, 2023

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ORANGE COUNTY PLAYER OF THE YEAR

Lauren Steele, Orange Lutheran, Jr.

Orange Lutheran goalie Lauren Steele never backed down from a challenge during her biggest moments of the girls water polo season.

Penalty shot in league at Mater Dei … block. Late breakaways by Los Alamitos in the CIF-SS Open Division semifinals … block, block. Fast start by Foothill in the final … four blocks in the fourth period.

Yet for all her responses in high-leverage situations, Steele made perhaps her most daring maneuver during her freshman year of high school in Connecticut.

She moved to Southern California, in part, to play a higher level of water polo. She shifted her classes online to 5:30 a.m. and trained at 6-8 Sports’ academy in Fountain Valley.

“Never looked back,” she said.

This winter, Steele helped lead Orange Lutheran to its first Open Division championship. For for efforts, the UCLA committed junior is The Register’s player of the year for 2022-23.

“She was the difference, I think, between us and other teams,” Orange Lutheran coach Brenda Villa said Steele, selected the Open Division player of the year.

“She’s just a student of the game. She knows the shooters. She’s trained a lot. It amazes me that a kid from Connecticut has been able to jam in so much water polo.”

Steele showed major progress in her second season at Orange Lutheran.

The 6-foot goalie led the Lancers (27-3) to two tournament titles and the Trinity League championship during the regular season. They won the Barnett Holiday Cup and Irvine SoCal tournament.

Steele was selected the outstanding goalie at the Irvine SoCal event and MVP of the Trinity League.

She continued her sizzling play in the postseason, recording nine saves in the semifinals and 11 in the finals.

Steele also set a valuable example with her composure and communication with teammates.

COACH OF THE YEAR

Brenda Villa, Orange Lutheran

Orange Lutheran girls water polo coach Brenda Villa shared several lessons from her decorated career with her players but one proved especially valuable.

The four-time Olympian stressed composure in her first season guiding the Lancers, a trait she often displayed on the pool deck with players, officials and opponents.

It was Orange Lutheran’s ability to embrace that lesson that helped it rally from a four-goal deficit in the CIF-SS Open Division final to beat top-seeded Foothill 11-8. And it’s a big reason why Villa is the Register’s Orange County coach of the year.

“Her calming us and reminding us, ‘OK, let’s go back on everything we’ve practiced this whole year’, that really helped us instead of just being mad at us,” Orange Lutheran goalie Lauren Steele said of Villa. “Staying level-headed and knowing, ‘OK, maybe I made a bad play on this play but I’m going to get the next one’ is huge and that’s what really helped us in the finals.”

FIRST TEAM

Lauren Steele, Orange Lutheran, Jr., GK (Player of the year)

Kamryn Barone, Santa Margarita, Sr.

The Stanford signee earned CIF-SS Division 1 player of the year after scoring eight goals, including the winner in sudden-death overtime, against Long Beach Wilson in the final. She finished with 80 goals and 70 steals.

Ryan Chalupnik, Newport Harbor, Jr.

The center drew plenty of double teams but remained a dangerous scorer and led the team in drawn exclusions to help lead the Sailors to the CIF-SS Open Division playoffs.

Allison Cohen, Orange Lutheran, Fr.

The attacker was not only the Lancers’ top perimeter scoring threat but also a gifted passer and defender in their run to the CIF-SS Open Division title.

Rachel Gazzaniga, Foothill, Sr.

The USC-bound utility player and Crestview League MVP dominated at 2 meters and helped power the Knights to the Division 1 CIF Southern California Regional title and a runner-up finish in the CIF-SS Open Division.

Olivia Krotts, Mater Dei, Sr.

The Princeton committed center was a force at 2 meters and helped the Monarchs finish second in the Trinity League and reach the CIF-SS Open Division playoffs.

Olivia Ouellette, Los Alamitos, Sr.

The UCLA commit led the Surf League champion in scoring with 85 goals and also guarded 2-meters for one of the best defensive units in the county.

Charlotte Riches, Laguna Beach, Sr.

The Princeton-committed center scored 57 goals and drew 51 exclusions/penalty shots to help the Breakers reach the CIF-SS Open Division playoffs.

SECOND TEAM

Ava Knepper, Laguna Beach, Jr.

Deirdre Murphy, Foothill, Jr.

Sara Naulty, Orange Lutheran, Sr.

Joey Niz, Los Alamitos, Sr., GK

Anna Reed, Newport Harbor, Sr., GK

Olivia Slavens, Los Alamitos, Sr.

Sofia Umeda, Orange Lutheran, Jr.

THIRD TEAM

Aubrie Anderson, Corona del Mar, Sr.

Sydney Chapman, JSerra, Jr.

Gabby Gaetano, El Toro, Sr.

Natasha Kieckhafer, Santa Margarita, Sr.

Rachel Kirchner, Foothill, Sr., GK

Helene Macbeth, San Clemente, Sr.

Lauren Schneider, Laguna Beach, Sr., GK

FOURTH TEAM

Sophia Bunnell, Santa Margarita, Jr., GK

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Presley Jones, Laguna Beach, So.

Holliss Munchoff, Mater Dei, Sr.

Kirra Pantaleon, Foothill, Fr.

Maddy Scarth, Huntington Beach, Sr.

Sofia Smith, Sunny Hills, Sr.

Ashley Wallin, University, Sr.

​ Orange County Register 

OC prosecutors can proceed with case against man accused of igniting massive Holy fire

• March 22, 2023

A judge has denied a defense request to remove the Orange County District Attorney’s Office from prosecuting the man accused of igniting the extensive 2018 Holy fire, determining there is no evidence that the agency’s top lawyer made comments jeopardizing the right to a fair trial.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Patrick H. Donahue’s decision, announced during a hearing on Wednesday, March 22, in a Santa Ana courtroom, clears the way for an upcoming jury trial for Forrest Clark, who is charged with intentionally starting a blaze that began in Holy Jim Canyon, near Trabuco Canyon and in the Cleveland National Forest, and destroyed 23,000 acres in Orange and Riverside counties and a dozen cabins.

Donahue acknowledged that Todd Spitzer, during his successful 2018 campaign to head the DA’s Office, referred to Clark as a “monster” and said he believed Clark should be considered for the death penalty rather than life without the possibility of parole, which is currently being sought. But the judge added that he found no evidence Spitzer has done anything improper in the case.

“Mr. Spitzer has never made a (courtroom) appearance in this case,” the judge said. “He hasn’t made any comments since being sworn in as DA. There is nothing to show there is a conflict in this matter.”

The defense attorney had said Spitzer committed himself to a position on an open case, and could have dissuaded investigators from pursuing a different suspect.

The motion to recuse was opposed by the DA’s Office and the state Department of Justice, the agency that would have most likely inherited the Clark case had local prosecutors been taken off of it. Attorneys with both agencies argued there was no evidence that the Spitzer’s comments had led to any conflict in the case.

The case against Clark — as outlined in testimony during a 2018 preliminary hearing — relies heavily on threats Clark was accused of making against his fellow canyon residents, as well as Clark telling an investigator who asked if he caused the blaze, “No, but maybe.”

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​ Orange County Register 

L.A. school strike symbolic of California union growth

• March 22, 2023

”Survey says” looks at various rankings and scorecards judging geographic locations while noting these grades are best seen as a mix of artful interpretation and data.

Buzz: The Los Angeles Unified School District strike comes as California government workers fuel nationwide growth in union members.

Source: My trusty spreadsheet looked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ annual study of union membership and analysis of that data by UnionStats.

Topline

California’s job market is different than much of the nation, and union membership is a prime example.

California added 149,000 union members last year – 54% of organized labor’s overall 273,000 U.S. gain.

Last year, California governments rushed to refill jobs that were pruned during the pandemic era’s lockdowns. That hiring spree helped organized labor as 54% of California government workers are union members.

Consider that in 2022, state and local governments added 111,000 California union jobs. So 75% of union growth statewide in 2022 was government workers like those on LA’s school picket lines.

Or look at 2022 union growth this bigger-picture way: 40% of the nation’s new union members were California government workers.

Details

California is easily the nation’s No. 1 union hotspot with 2.62 million members – 18.3% of the U.S. total. Next comes New York at 1.68 million, Illinois at 735,000, Pennsylvania at 715,000, and Ohio at 641,000.

And its leadership in new union workers for 2022 growth was followed by Texas, up 64,000, then Michigan at 49,000, Ohio at 45,000, and Alabama at 34,000.

But 18 states lost union members last year. New York had the biggest drop (50,000), then Oregon, off 37,000, Florida, off 34,000, Minnesota, off 34,000, and Indiana, off 33,000.

Taking into account California’s huge job market, union additions statewide in 2022 equaled 6% growth, No. 23 among the states, and triple the 2% growth nationally.

Bottom line

Organized labor’s clout – as measured by the share of the overall workforce – is expanding in California but down nationwide.

Last year, 16.1% of California workers were organized labor members vs. 15.9% in 2021. The nation’s 10.1% union share of workers was down from 10.3% in 2021.

Note that only three states have larger segments of their workers in unions: Hawaii at 21.9%, then New York at 20.7%, and Washington state at 18%.

And where do unions have the least power? Only 1.7% of all South Carolina workers are unionized, then North Carolina at 2.8%, South Dakota at 3.1%, Virginia at 3.7%, and Utah at 3.9%.

Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at [email protected]

​ Orange County Register 

Who buys electric cars in California — and who doesn’t?

• March 22, 2023

By Nadia Lopez and Erica Yee | CalMatters

In Atherton, one of the nation’s richest towns, giant oaks and well-manicured hedges surround gated mansions owned by some of Silicon Valley’s most prominent billionaires, basketball stars, tech executives and venture capitalists.

Each set on an acre of land, six-bedroom estates, brick-paved pathways, neoclassical statues and cascading fountains are on full display. But increasingly, another status symbol has been parked in these driveways: a shiny electric car — sometimes two.

This tiny San Mateo County community — with an average home value of almost $7.5 million and average household income exceeding half a million dollars — has California’s highest percentage of electric cars, according to a CalMatters analysis of data from the Energy Commission. About one out of every seven, or 14%, of Atherton’s 6,261 cars are electric.

CalMatters’ statewide analysis of ZIP codes reveals a strikingly homogenous portrait of who owns electric vehicles in California: Communities with mostly white and Asian, college-educated and high-income residents have the state’s highest concentrations of zero-emission cars. And most are concentrated in Silicon Valley cities and affluent coastal areas of Los Angeles and Orange counties.

This racial and economic divide may be unsurprising — but it illustrates the mammoth task that California faces as it tries to electrify its 25 million cars to battle climate change, clean up its severe air pollution and reduce reliance on fossil fuels. Under a state mandate enacted last year, 35% of cars sold in California, beginning with 2026 models, must be zero-emissions, ramping up to 68% in 2030 and 100% in 2035.

Electric vehicles parked at a home in Atherton on March 16, 2023. (Photo by Martin do Nascimento)

But if people who buy electric cars are largely white or Asian, highly educated, wealthy, coastal suburbanites, will the state’s transformation succeed? Will new electric cars be attainable for all Californians — no matter their race, income and location — in the coming decade?

High upfront vehicle costs, lack of chargers for renters and inadequate access to public charging stations in low-income and rural communities hamper California’s ability to expand EV ownership beyond affluent parts of the Bay Area and Los Angeles area.

The cost of new electric cars is the most obvious factor driving the racial and income disparities in who buys them: The average as of February was $58,385 — about $9,600 more than the average car — although it dropped from about $65,000 last year. Lower-end fully electric cars start around $27,500.

Kevin Fingerman, an associate professor of energy and climate at California State Polytechnic University Humboldt, said the primary reason why more people in white, affluent, college-educated communities own electric cars is that they tend to be early adopters of new technology, with easier access.

“California is prioritizing the rapid electrification of the light-duty vehicle sector and it’s right in doing so. But it’s going to be important in the process to make sure that there is equitable access,” said Fingerman, who co-authored a study on racial and income disparities to electric vehicle charging.

To rapidly electrify the fleet, state officials must address the roadblocks causing the wide gaps in electric vehicle ownership: Expanding the state’s public and in-home charging networks, funding more rebates for low and middle-income residents and increasing the pool of used electric cars. The goal is to give consumers confidence in the reliability and affordability of the cars and reduce their anxiety about limited range and charging availability.

“As more electric vehicles are on the road, we’re going to need to be creative about policy solutions to address those issues to make sure that the benefits of owning an electric vehicle are shared across the demographics in the state of California and beyond,” Fingerman said.

A portrait of electric car hotspots

About 838,000 electric cars were on California’s roads in 2021, and under the state mandate, it’s expected to surge to 12.5 million by 2035.

No statewide data exists to break down the race or other demographic characteristics of California’s car buyers. But CalMatters compared the ZIP codes of 2021 electric car registrations with Census information on the race, income and education of people in those ZIP codes. (Electric cars include battery-only models, plug-in hybrids and fuel-cell electric vehicles. ZIP codes with fewer than 1,000 residents were excluded from the analysis.)

California’s highest concentrations of electric cars — between 10.9% and 14.2% of all vehicles — are in ZIP codes where residents are at least 75% white and Asian. In addition to Atherton, that includes neighborhoods in Los Altos, Palo Alto, Berkeley, Santa Monica and Newport Coast, among others.

In stark contrast, California ZIP codes with the largest percentages of Latino and Black residents have extremely low proportions of electric cars.

In the 20 California ZIP codes where Latinos make up more than 95% of the population — including parts of Kings, Tulare, Fresno, Riverside and Imperial counties — between zero and 1% of cars are electric.

And 17 of the 20 communities with the highest percentage of Blacks have between zero and 2.6% electric cars. (Los Angeles’ relatively affluent Ladera Heights and two Oakland ZIPs have between 3.3% and 4.7%.)

Still, not all communities with a lot of electric car drivers are majority white. Four of the top 20 EV ZIP codes have more Asian residents than white. For instance, more than three-quarters of residents in Fremont’s 94539, which is ranked 14th with 11.4% of registered cars electric, are Asian.

Income seems to be a main driver of the disparities, according to CalMatters’ analysis. Most of the median household incomes in the top 10 exceed $200,000, much higher than the statewide $84,097. Typical home values in those communities exceed $3 million, according to Zillow estimates.

In contrast, electric cars are nearly non-existent in California’s lowest income communities: only 1.4% of cars in Stockton’s 95202, where the median household income is $16,976, and 0.5% in Fresno’s 93701, where the median is $25,905. Most are plug-in hybrids, which are less expensive.

Also, at least three-quarters of residents in the top 10 communities for electric vehicle ownership have a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Rural and remote parts of the state — even the entire Central Valley — also are left out of the top ZIP codes with electric cars. With limited charging access, rural residents who drive long distances fear they’ll get stranded if their car runs out of juice.

“It makes sense why we would see way more concentrations of EVs in densely urban areas or populated areas,” Fingerman said. “The barriers to people owning electric vehicles across the demographics in the state are real. But they’re solvable.”

Black and Latino residents — who make up almost half of California’s population — are less than half as likely as whites to have access to a public charger, according to the study Fingerman co-authored. Disparities in access are also higher in areas with more multi-unit housing, the study showed.

Yet interest in electric cars is high across all incomes and races, according to a 2019 survey conducted by Consumer Reports and the Union of Concerned Scientists.

About a third of survey respondents making $50,000 to $99,999 a year and under $50,000 a year expressed some interest in an electric car as their next purchase. People of color also expressed interest, with 42% saying they would consider an electric vehicle as their next car.

Affordability: ‘The average person can’t afford to buy’ an EV

Christopher Bowe, 48, of Hayward in Alameda County, considers himself an early adopter of new technology. He purchased his electric Ford F150 Lightning new for $70,000 late last year.

Bowe lives in a ZIP code where only 2% of cars are electric, but he lives next to Fremont’s 94539, where it’s 11.4%, so he regularly sees a lot of drivers with electric models.

Bowe, who makes a little more than $100,000 a year working for FedEx, said his income and living situation made it easy for him to opt for an electric vehicle: He lives in a single-family house with residential solar, which allows him to charge at home and keep his electric bill low.

Bowe had always been interested in buying an electric vehicle, but finding a pickup truck that suited his needs was a challenge for years. The 2022 F-150 Lightning was one of the first electric trucks to hit the market, and it sold out quickly.

“I’ve always been a truck guy and everything previous was kind of small, underpowered,” he said. “I’m a 300-pound guy. I like being up above the traffic and being able to see out in front of me. It fits my body size better.”

Bowe worries that the state’s 2035 timeline for 100% new electric models could be moving too fast because of the lack of affordable options. He said automakers should be given incentives to offer more affordable options.

The California Air Resources Board did build some incentives into its mandate: Automakers qualify for credits toward meeting their zero-emission sales target through 2031 if they sell cars at a 25% discount through community-based programs, or if they offer passenger cars for less than $20,000 and light trucks for under $27,000.

Automakers say they are working to speed up production and develop more affordable models. Tesla in January slashed prices for all models by 20%, which made the cars eligible for a $7,500 federal tax credit. Base prices are now $55,000 and $90,000. Two weeks later, Ford cut the price of its most popular Mustang Mach-E by 6% to 9%, to a starting price of $46,000.

“We are producing more EVs to reduce customer wait times, offering competitive pricing and working to create an ownership experience that is second to none,” said Marin Gjaja, Ford’s chief customer officer. “We will continue to push the boundaries to make EVs more accessible for everybody.”

David Reichmuth, a senior engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists who studies EV market trends, said the state’s mandate will help drive the market and lower prices, narrowing the gap between electric models and gas cars over the next 12 years.

“We know that new car buyers, both gasoline and EV buyers, are more affluent than the general population and more affluent than used car buyers,” Reichmuth said. Nearly half of all new cars nationwide are bought by households with incomes exceeding $100,000, according to his study based on 2017 data. “As the new rules kick in, we’re going to see a greater number of options go electric. That’s also going to make these vehicles more affordable.”

In the meantime, state and federal rebates and grants are critical to making the vehicles more affordable, said air board spokesperson Melanie Turner.

The air board last year approved $326 million in purchase incentives for low-income consumers, Turner said. Eligible residents can receive up to $15,000 for a new electric car and up to $19,500 for trading in a gas car — an increase of $3,000 from the state’s previous offerings. The programs accept applications from residents with incomes at or below 300% of the federal poverty level — equivalent to $43,740 for an individual or $90,000 for a family of four.

In recent years, however, the programs have experienced inconsistent and inadequate funding. Last year low-income consumers were turned away — funding had run out and waitlists were shut down because of backlogs.

Problems with the Clean Vehicle Assistance Program were resolved last year, Turner said. “We paid all the applications on the reservation list and we are getting ready to reopen the program with new criteria soon,” she said.

The state credits can be combined with new federal tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act. Through 2032, eligible car buyers — with caps on income and price – can get up to $7,500 for a new electric vehicle and up to $4,000 for a used one.

“We are hoping this boost in incentives for clean car purchases will help to make a difference,” Turner said.

Electric cars require far less maintenance and have lower operating costs than their gas-powered counterparts, making them less expensive over time. Car drivers will save an estimated $3,200 over 10 years for a 2026 electric car compared to a gas-powered car, and $7,500 for a 2035 car, according to the air board’s estimates.

‘We need better options for renters’

Charging remains one of the biggest concerns for people who own or are interested in buying an electric vehicle. California has about 80,000 public chargers, with another estimated 17,000 on the way. But the state will need 1.2 million for the 7.5 million electric vehicles expected on the roads by 2030.

Many people residing in apartments or condominiums are reliant on public charging stations because they don’t have chargers in their buildings’ parking garages. A standard level 2 charger costs between $500 and $700, plus installing an electricity meter costs $2,000 to $8,000 or more, according to Pacific Gas & Electric.

Urvi Nagrani, 35, of Los Altos in Santa Clara County, charges her 2021 Chevy Bolt at public stations. She lives in an accessory dwelling unit with no home charger.

“People living in Silicon Valley have home chargers,” she said. “But we need to have better options for renters because it hasn’t gotten much better for me as a renter.”

ZIP code 94024, where Nagrani lives, ranks fifth statewide in percentage of electric vehicles. Of its 19,089 car registrations, 13.4% are electric. Nagrani said there are plenty of public charging stations available — but some are broken or occupied, with long wait times.

Even worse, she often takes long road trips and experiences many more challenges finding reliable chargers on the road. Navigating the apps showing the locations of charging stations can be confusing.

“There are trade-offs,” she added. “I got my EV with very clear eyes.”

Nagrani said she leased her Chevy Bolt for $196 per month when she had a $180,000-a-year job . She was recently laid off from her tech job, joining thousands of others in Silicon Valley who are suddenly unemployed.

Richard Landers, 75, a retiree in Santa Monica, earns more than $200,000 a year from his investments. He loves his Tesla 2015 Model S, which he bought new for about $90,000 that year.

“It’s a wonderful drive, I have had essentially no maintenance requirements in seven years and I feel good — not perfect, because it’s still a car — about my reduced environmental impact as a driver,” he said.

Landers, who lives in a mid-rise condominium, said he wouldn’t have switched to an electric vehicle if he couldn’t charge his car in his garage. Landers had Southern California Edison install an electric meter and hired an electrician to equip his parking space in the condo’s garage with a charger, which cost him about $2,500, he said.

Landers’ 90402 ZIP code ranks sixth on the list of California areas with the highest percentage of electric vehicles — 13.3% of its 8,178 cars. But even there, charging is a big problem for his neighbors in Santa Monica’s multi-family dwellings, he said.

“Having the ability to charge at home is very important to making electric vehicles attractive and practical for most people,” he said.

Landers worries that delayed progress in installing chargers in multifamily buildings could delay the transition to electric vehicles.

It’s a widespread problem that state leaders have been trying to address. By January 2025, a new law passed last year will require the state to adopt regulations requiring businesses to install charging stations in existing commercial buildings. Another 2022 law will require new and existing buildings, including hotels, motels and multi-family dwellings, to install charging stations.

The state is helping fund some of these chargers through grants, including a recent investment of $26 million for 13 projects in multi-family homes, said Hannon Rasool, director of the California Energy Commission’s fuels and transportation division.

The rural dilemma: ‘They don’t want to get stuck’

Kay Ogden, 62, an avid environmentalist and executive director of the Eastern Sierra Land Trust, has driven her Ford Mustang Mach-E SUV for a little more than a year. She loves her electric car, which she purchased new for about $60,000.

But Ogden, who lives in the Sierra Nevada foothills 18 miles northwest of Bishop, said her rural community’s lack of public chargers has been a big issue for her. There aren’t enough reliable, working chargers or fast chargers for non-Teslas In Inyo County.

San Mateo County has 4,398 public chargers serving its 747 square miles, while Inyo County has just 49 chargers across its massive 10,140-square miles — home to just 19,000 residents but visited by hundreds of thousands of hikers, skiers, anglers and other tourists. Sierra County, with 3,300 residents, has just one public level 2 charger.

Ogden often drives long distances — at least 80 miles per day — to work, buy groceries and obtain services such as medical care. The region’s cold temperatures also can substantially reduce an electric car’s range.

Ogden initially had range anxiety so she started looking for a hybrid, but changed her mind to avoid purchasing another vehicle with an internal combustion engine reliant on fossil fuels. She chose a model with a longer range, 275 miles, to help ease her anxiety.

“Going from gas, going fully electric seemed so scary,” she said. “But hybrids still have internal combustion engines. So I evolved. I decided, I’m just jumping in. I’m going for it. I’m going to go electric.”

Bob Burris, deputy chief economic development officer at the Rural County Representatives of California, which represents 40 counties, said rural residents have widespread interest in electric vehicles, but the lack of public chargers has deterred many.

“They might have charging in their homes, but it is still a challenge for them to go anywhere,” he said. “They don’t want to get stuck on the side of the road, or if they’re escaping from a wildfire or a natural disaster and you need to move without readily available public charging.”

None of the top ZIP codes with high concentrations of electric vehicles are in the middle of the state — including the vast Central Valley — or in eastern counties. Instead, they are congregated along the coasts in populous parts of the Bay Area and Los Angeles, according to CalMatters’ analysis.

The unpredictability of charging stations in Sierra Nevada towns has been deeply frustrating, Ogden said.

“I go to charge at a certain place and three out of five are broken, or they’ve been vandalized and maybe there’s snow or trash piled up by one and you can’t get to it,” Ogden said. “The companies need to be held accountable for having chargers that are listed on apps that don’t work.”

More than half of 3,500 drivers in a nationwide survey, conducted by the consumer advocacy group Plug In America, reported encountering problems with broken public chargers. Another survey by the air board found barriers to charging and broken chargers.

State officials do not track numbers of broken chargers, Rasool of the California Energy Commission, said. But state lawmakers last year passed legislation establishing a reporting mechanism for broken chargers at publicly funded stations. The state also plans to inspect state-funded chargers to assess how many need repair, he said.

The new law, however, “doesn’t give us the authority to require (reports) from a fully privately funded charging station,” he said. “We’re very committed, but we do think we need to ensure the whole network — whether we fund it or not — is reliable for drivers.”

The rural county organization is helping local governments access public money and streamline their permitting process for building new charging stations.

“If there’s a pretty robust charging system in rural areas, there’s going to be more people interested in buying EVs,” Burris said. “I don’t think we’re going to hit our goals as a state unless rural areas are included a bit more than they have been in recent years.”

​ Orange County Register 

Clippers’ Paul George likely out the rest of the regular season

• March 22, 2023

A worst-case scenario became the best-possible news for Clippers’ Paul George, who was diagnosed with a sprained right knee Wednesday.

Less than 24 hours after appearing to hyperextend his right knee, an MRI revealed that the All-Star wing suffered a less dire injury. George will be evaluated in two to three weeks, according to the Clippers.

George landed awkwardly after his leg, his knee bending backward, after colliding with Oklahoma City Thunder guard Lu Dort while going for a rebound with 4:38 left in the 101-100 loss. George immediately fell to the floor, clutching his leg. He was eventually helped off the court by Clippers staffers without putting pressure on his leg.

The prognosis could put George back in the lineup between April 5-13 – given there isn’t any ligament damage – four days after the regular season ends. Anything more serious and it could spell the end of the season for George and deliver a blow to the Clippers’ title hopes.

The Clippers (38-35) are fifth in the Western Conference with nine games left, all against conference teams. They play the Thunder again Thursday.

The news of George’s injury cast a pall over the Clippers locker room after the game. The few remaining players, however, said the team needs to move forward and not dwell on the situation.

“We have to overcome it, you have to, especially for him,” Nicolas Batum said. “We got to stay focused on who we have on the court. You know, we got good guys, great players anyway, so we’ve been there before. One team who has been there before it’s us.”

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Last season, the Clippers were without Kawhi Leonard, who missed the entire season after having surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament and they lost in the play-in portion of the playoffs.

This season, managing the health of George and Leonard has been foremost with the team. The two have been playing well lately. In 55 games, George had been averaging 23.9 points, 6.1 rebounds and 5.1 assists while shooting 45.6% form the field and 37.5% from 3-point range. Leonard is averaging 23.8 points, 6.3 rebounds and 3.8 assists, while shooting 51.2% from the field and 41.5% from behind the arc.

​ Orange County Register 

For 13 days, this Northern California teacher hiked nearly 2 miles through snow to get to school

• March 22, 2023

The classic “old grumpy grandpa” saying goes something like this: “Back in my day, we walked 15 miles to school in the snow! Barefoot! Uphill! Both ways! And we liked it that way!”

For Eagle Peak Middle School eighth grade science teacher Paula Abajian, there is some truth in that saying for her, as she spent 13 days hiking through snow and ice to get access to a vehicle, to then drive or be driven to school. Monday evening, March 13, was the first day she could finally drive the road to her home since the snowy weather started on Feb. 22.

Eagle Peak teacher Paula Abajian hiking through snow to get to school.

For Abajian, the logistics were as follows. She and her husband and two young children live at 2,500 feet above sea level in the mountains above Willits. The road to their home is on a north-facing slope, with several feet of snow accumulating on it from all the storms and not melting much due to the lack of sun on the north face. Midway through the series of storms, the snow melted somewhat but then froze and turned to ice. The road was simply impassable near her home for close to three weeks.

From Abajian’s home, it was a 1.76-mile hike, according to her Apple Watch, downhill to access transportation, hence a 3.52 round trip daily, for a total of over 40 miles through the snow for the duration of the adventure.

“The snow early on was lovely,” says Abajian. “but as it got icier and more compacted, it was difficult to walk on.”

There were also additional logistical challenges for Abajian and her family. With her home being off the electrical grid and solar powered, eventually, the cloud cover prevented sufficient charging of the home’s batteries. At one point, she was hauling up gas cans for the generator to run power for the house.

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On most days, she was hiking in the morning before sunrise and getting home in dim light or darkness. Her backpack would regularly be filled with food and provisions for home. Many days her children would stay with grandparents in town, but there were a few times they would hike in and out. “My daughter would take two steps forward in the snow, and one step falling back,” says Abajian.

Animal tracks along Paula’s route to and from school.

Abajian’s colleague at Eagle Peak, fifth-grade teacher Mackenzie Erickson, lives down the hill from Paula, and would often give her rides to school. One day the duo simply could not make it, even from Erickson’s house at a lower elevation. For Paula, this was a 3.52-mile round trip hike to not get to school. On another exceptionally stormy day, Paula could simply not leave her house.

“Paula has a deep sense of dedication to the profession,” says Erickson. “It was an adventure. We were glad to help, and it wasn’t entirely safe at times, but we are a community that supports each other. It was super amazing with all of the snow, even though it was also hard.”

Abajian summed up the experience by saying, “Overall, it was beautiful to be outside with nature and see the animal tracks, and I did close my exercise ring on my watch every day, but I am glad it’s over.”

Abajian shared stories of her adventures with her students, and they begged her to have a field trip up to her house to go sledding.

We had to cut my interview with Paula a little short as she had to go pick up her kids from school due to a flood warning.

Eagle Peak teacher Paula Abajian hiking through snow to get to school.

​ Orange County Register