MY Hero W>H>O FIXES…LACITY Governance?

Vernon Nickerson TCHR-of-im(perfect)/perfectHRMNYS

7 min readOct 11, 2022

Si se puede! So I think I just sent thousands of folks my ideas about logical consequences as a viable alternative to our USA extant jurisprudence system. Read on and decide for your self. HINT: start from my response at the bottom and read up. Or not. Same Difference. ENJOY!

On Mon, Oct 10, 2022 at 6:52 PM Godfrey Plata <godfrey@laforward.org> wrote:

An update, friends —

Thanks to you, as of this afternoon, we’ve sent over 3500 messages to local, state, and federal officials calling for the resignations of our three city council members… yes, the form has been updated to represent that demand for all three! (You may also know that Ron Herrera, labor leader who was also in the conversations, will be resigning, according to the LA Sentinel.)

KEEP GOING and keep spreading the word about our easy to use tool to apply pressure to our city council members, vis a vis their elected policy-making colleagues: laforward.org/resign.

Additionally, we will be hosting a Zoom teach-in on Wednesday, 10/12 at 8pm on “Transforming City Hall,” which will explore structural changes that have been proposed by various activists, movement groups, and even city council members, to help ensure LA City Council evolves to provide fairer representation for Angelenos. The spirit of this teach-in is to direct our attention to what’s beyond attaining these resignations, and to provide a platform for any further calls to action that may be necessary when we get to mid-week. To register for this teach-in, head to https://www.laforward.org/events/transform-city-hall.

And of course, if you haven’t registered to walk with us for ULA yet, please do!! :) laforward.org/ula — Venice will be a great place to catch our collective breath away from all of this, right?

We’re here to keep you in the loop on what we can do to make LA the place we want it to be!

Keep strong,

Godfrey

Dear Godfrey Plata:

Yes, it is good that all involved in the vile, mean-spirited, petty, banal, and extremely unprofessional conversation leave elected office. HOWEVER, and this is crucial for any and all future reforms, Mr. Herrera and all three LA CITY COUNSELPERSONS present, as well as their immediate families, need assessment, diagnosis, and treatment. Even if they never change, it is far more important that the rest of us understand what led up to their gathering and having that horrifying conversation.

To begin with, who taped the conversation? It appears to be a subconscious (?) or conscious desire to someday be heard — a cry for help, or an FBI/NAACP/CON.BLK.CAUCUS/REUTERS/AP/CBS/MSNBC?? informant willing to do jail time, as all surreptitious taping in CA is against the law. In fact, the only reason this story broke was because a Judge ruled it was newsworthy and therefore not covered by extant law. Who is ready to step into the substantial leadership vacuum created by their immediate departures? All politics in the USA is adversarial. So, WHO profits from their departures? WHO loses from their departures?

Continuing this theme of removing and replacing key BIPOC political leaders, it is tragic to lose De LEON BECAUSE he was actually succeeding in ending chronic homelessness for residents of his district. I do not know anything about the other folks, perhaps they were only ever in it for their generational wealth building, but someone should look at that aspect too.

Here’s a radical, corrective, logical set of behavioral consequences that need to quickly be considered*:

1.) THEY MUST NOW govern in 100% transparency, no more privacy for any of them in the workplace. They each must take up to 3 years of half-time hours to research and write their first-person historical narrative. Each narrative will be self-published for free public consumption. This goes to my earlier point about the rest of us understanding what drove them to hateful speech.

2.) MAKE DeLeon the CZAR TO END HOMELESSNESS IN 12 months after the Presidential elections have ended in 2024.

3.) Make all four and their families permanent LOS ANGELES CITY residents and forbid the next 5 generations of their families to become candidates for elected and or appointed office. No exceptions for any reason. NOTE here the two-fold goal of logical behavioral consequences: a.) extinguish unwanted behaviors and b.) disincentivize all recidivism.

My conclusion: It’s cheaper to keep them and apply logical consequences! Keep them in office/ with my RCLSOBCTNTQBC*

BEST,

VernonNickersonSchoolcoach

90406–1201

Aaa-bbb-cccc

—

Godfrey Plata (he/him)

Deputy Director | LA Forward Action

godfrey@laforward.org

213.800.5935

— — — — — Forwarded message — — — — -

From: Godfrey Plata <godfrey@laforward.org>

Date: Sun, Oct 9, 2022 at 10:56 PM

Subject: Call for resignation with one click… and more!

To: <la-forward@googlegroups.com>

Friends,

I can’t believe I had to use that subject line.

It’s late as I send this email — the day started off with a fantastic morning of canvassing for #YesOnULA (which included four folks who had never canvassed before!!), and then quickly slid down a rabbit hole when I checked the news, texts, and Twitter about the leaked tapes exposing incredibly oppressive behind-the-scenes city council conversations (leaked by the Los Angeles Times and through damning audio shared by KNOCK LA). I’ve spoken to a few folks since first finding out about the tapes that have shared my same experience: every hour that went by, it all just felt heavier and heavier, worse and worse. I sincerely hope that each of you is finding a way to take care of yourself in the midst of incredibly harsh and harmful language.

If you’re not obsessively tracking LA Forward Action on social media (follow us on Instagram | Twitter | Facebook), then you should know that we’ve made it easier for you to send a letter with just one click to your local, state, AND federal officials to call for Council President Nury Martinez’s resignation — laforward.org/resign. There is much accountability needed all around, but we’re not quite adept yet at being able to differentiate the programming for our magical “automated send” tool — so we decide to target efforts first on the council president. All credit to our ED David Levitus for thinking about the possible pressure we could build by using this tool, and by spending his Sunday night building it technologically.

Undoubtedly, there is more to come, and quickly, over the coming days. Let’s stay in community together and figure out how we can make this the city we aspire it to be: one more fair and just than the one we are in now.

Until we have more insight into what might be our next most strategic actions, know that we are STILL planning on door-knocking for #MeasureULA next Saturday and Sunday in Venice at 10am on each day. Sign up at laforward.org/ula. On Saturday, we’ll be hosted by our friends at Venice Community Housing in case you want to learn more about their work! We really need your help to win this. Measure ULA is literally policy we can win for more affordable housing, without having to wait for our (corrupt) decision-makers for approval. Let’s make LA the city we deserve.

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In solidarity,