July 12, 2018 

City New Service 

 

A state commission voted today to begin the process of dissolving the Sativa Water District, which has come under fire in recent months for delivering brown water to customers in Compton and Willowbrook.

 

The Local Agency Formation Commission voted unanimously in favor of eliminating the district, after hearing boisterous testimony from residents, many of whom wore shirts that read “Clear Water, Clean Start.”

 

“Sativa Board members have ignored their responsibilities, abused their positions and even had the nerve to give themselves bonuses, all while their customers dealt with brown, dirty tap water,” County Supervisor Janice Hahn, who sits on the commission, said in a statement following the vote. “We are dissolving this district and focusing our energy on finding a capable, trustworthy agency to take it over.”

 

Hahn and fellow Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas have proposed having the county take over operation of the district while its management is transitioned to another agency. They sent a letter to the State Water Board on Tuesday asking that the county be appointed interim administrator of the district.

 

LAFCO, which reviews and sets boundaries for special districts and municipal service providers like water agencies, has been aiming to disband Sativa for years, based on its lack of financial wherewithal and other problems.

 

However, recent complaints by residents faced with brown water coming out of taps after Sativa flushed sediment from its pipes increased momentum for the idea.

 

Sativa, which serves roughly 1,600 customers in Willowbrook and Compton, has faced challenges in meeting its mandate since 2005, according to LAFCO Executive Officer Paul Novak. In 2012, a review cited “management inefficiencies, lack of financial strength and failure to follow state requirements regarding independent audits.”

 

Those weaknesses have become more critical in the face of aging infrastructure requiring $10 million to $15 million in repairs virtually “right away,” Novak said.

 

LAFCO encountered fierce resistance to its earlier efforts to dissolve Sativa and residents continued to vote for its board, despite reported mismanagement, nepotism and turnover.

 

“I think that dynamic has changed,” Novak told City News Service.

 

Public health officials sampled the discolored water and concluded that it posed no health risk, but customers were still reluctant to drink or use it for cooking or bathing, resorting instead to bottled water and calling public officials to complain.

 

Residents will have a strong voice in the matter because if 10 percent or more of registered voters or property owners served by Sativa oppose the dissolution plan during a “protest period,” an election will be triggered.

 

With LAFCO voting to dissolve the district, the problem remains as to what agency will serve customers who pay rates that are “the lowest of any water retailer in the area,” according to Novak.

 

Sativa customers pay a flat $65 per month fee for unmetered service.

 

Compton has indicated a willingness to pick up the 30- to 50-odd homes in that city that are served by Sativa, but has not been willing to take on customers in Willowbrook who make up roughly 95 percent of the customer base.

 

An outside consultant working for LAFCO in 2012 recommended wrapping Sativa’s largely residential service area into the Central Basin Municipal Water District’s jurisdiction.

 

However, that agency is a water wholesaler without retail customers and has had management problems of its own, leading LAFCO to reject the proposal. In 2015, state auditors said the Central Basin agency was mismanaged to the point of financial instability.

 

Novak said four private, investor-owned utilities are interested in serving Willowbrook customers, but LAFCO doesn’t have the authority to turn over service to a private entity. It’s possible that the Public Utilities Commission or other state regulators could facilitate that shift.

 

Three of the four serve adjacent communities and all four would have the ability to structure favorable financing for repairs and spread costs over a broader customer base. That would be key to avoiding a huge, unsustainable shock to Willowbrook residents’ budgets.

 

The four companies are California American Water, a subsidiary of American Water; Golden State Water Company, a subsidiary of American States Water Company; Liberty Utilities Co., a subsidiary of Canadian company Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp.; and Suburban Water Systems, a subsidiary of SouthWest Water Company.

 

The first three parent companies are publicly traded and the fourth is owned by institutional investors advised by J.P. Morgan Asset Management.

 

Sativa’s general manager, Maria Rachelle Garza, has been placed on administrative leave following a report by the Los Angeles Times that the agency hired people to pose as Sativa supporters at a town hall hosted by Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragan, D-San Pedro.

 

Four Compton residents filed a lawsuit against Sativa and its five board members on Monday, accusing them of failing to provide quality drinking water, misappropriating tax dollars and placing a financial burden on its low-income customers, the newspaper reported.

July 05, 2018 

By Danny J. Bakewell, Sr. 

Executive Publisher 

Chairman Emeritus NNPA/ 

Black Press of America 

 

General Motors (GM) reported a net profit of $1.1 billion in the first quarter of 2018.  GM Chairman and CEO Mary T. Barra stated, “Results this quarter were in line with our expectations…… We are on plan to deliver another strong year in 2018.”  We would like to know what are Barra’s expectations when it comes to GM’s stated commitment to inclusion and diversity? 

 

Across the nation readers of the Black Press are brand loyal consumers.  The millions of African Americans that read our newspapers and who visit our websites and who engage our social media channels all are questioning why GM is not more supportive of the Black Press given the increase in GM car sales to Black America.  Corporate respect presupposes reciprocity and equity in the marketplace.

 

During the past five to seven years, the relationship between GM and the National Newspapers Publishers Association (NNPA), the Black Press of America, the nation’s largest, oldest and most trusted national trade association of African American owned newspapers and media companies, has significantly deteriorated in terms of GM’s annual advertising spend with the NNPA.  In the publishing sector of the economy, advertising spend is a fundamental indicator of how a commercial leader such as GM values and respects its customer base.

 

Today, the NNPA is a trade association of Black-owned businesses that serve the vital social, economic, political, and cultural interests of 47 million African Americans.  The Los Angeles Sentinel along with 215 other NNPA member publications remains on the frontlines of the long and protracted struggle for freedom, justice, equality and empowerment.

 

The disturbing erosion in the annual amount that GM has spent and is spending with the Black Press of America in terms of advertising dollars is in direct contravention and contradiction of the fact that during the last 10 years African Americans have increased their overall buying of GM manufactured cars and trucks throughout the United States.

 

In the February 2018 edition of Fortune, a reference was made to a new report issued by Nielsen entitled “Black Dollars Matter: The Sales Impact of Black Consumers.”  The report documented that while African Americans are 14 percent of the U.S. population, we are “responsible for $1.2 trillion in purchases annually.”

 

The Los Angeles Sentinel welcomed the news in 2014 when Mary Barra became the automotive industries first female CEO because we had hoped that GM would begin to take the issues of diversity and inclusion more seriously.  The unfortunate truth, however, is that if it wasn’t for some GM executives like a Jim Farmer, the Black Press in America as far as GM is concerned would have long gone out of business because the decline in the vital lifeblood of advertising dollars invested and spent in our businesses annually.

 

GM had its problems and needed a bailout and some say a handout from congress. One of the constituents that was key to that approval was the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). GM would never have received the bailout if they had not had the full support of the CBC. Many of those members talk to those of us in the Black Press and we said we thought GM was worthy of their support because they employ so many Black people throughout the nation and we could not afford that level of unemployment if GM were to fail.

 

In spite of that, after they received their bailout, we went to GM and because they were moving on without doing any marketing or advertising to the one of their most loyal bases which was the African American community, who literally over indexed to GM. There was a time when we went to GM, they made a substantial commitment to the Black consumer through the Black Press and advertising with the Black Press. GM has a multi-billion-dollar advertising budget and yet they do not support or advertise with the Black community commensurate to the degree in which we support them and their brand. That is just flat-out WRONG.

 

The facts speak for themselves:

 

2011 GM ad buy with NNPA was $7 million and yet by 2013 it was down to $2.6 million

 

2014 GM ad buy with NNPA was $1.75 million

 

2015 GM ad buy with NNPA was $1.83 million

 

2016 GM ad buy with NNPA was $1.85 million

 

2017 GM ad buy with NNPA was $2.20 million

 

Will 2018 see GM recommit to spend advertising dollars more than was spent back in 2011 with the Black Press?  Only Chairman and CEO Barra can answer this question.

 

For example, here in the city of Los Angeles, which is the second largest media market in the nation, the Los Angeles Sentinel continues to be very successful in developing and presenting one the largest and most impactful multicultural marketing and regional events in the history of Los Angeles: The Taste of Soul Family Festival in October of each year.  In 2016 GM contributed $100K as a corporate sponsor, but in 2017 without any explanation GM decided not to contribute at all, abandoning the Black consumer and the Taste of Soul community that drew more than 350,000 people to the day-long massive gathering on Crenshaw Boulevard.  It was not only a missed opportunity for GM, it was also an undeserved slap in the face to the Los Angeles Sentinel.

 

Since she was named the CEO of GM in 2014, unlike her predecessor that met with the Chairman of the NNPA, Barra has not even afforded the Black Press an opportunity to meet with her in person at GM headquarters in Detroit.  Although GM has been a long-term partner and supporter of the NNPA, it is strategically important for both GM and NNPA to meet about this matter as soon as possible. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE.

 

WE ARE ASKING FOR THE CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS AND ITS PRESENT CHAIRMAN, CONGRESSMAN CEDRIC RICHMOND, TO HOLD CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS ON GM BECAUSE THIS IS DISRESPECTFUL AND RIDICULOUS. WE ARE NOT ASKING FOR A BAILOUT OR A HANDOUT, WE ARE JUST ASKING FOR RESPECT AND RECIPROCITY FOR BLACK CONSUMERS AND BLACK PRESS THROUGHOUT THIS NATION.

 

DO NOT TAKE BLACK CONSUMERS AND THE BLACK PRESS FOR GRANTED. BLACK LIVES MATTER. BLACK-OWNED BUSINESSES MATTER. BLACK NEWSPAPERS MATTER. DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION SHOULD BE MORE THAN A RHETORICAL CORPORATE UT­TERANCE. GENERAL MOTORS HAS THE ABILITY, BUT DOES IT TODAY HAVE THE COMMITMENT?

 

Sincerely,

 

Danny J. Bakewell Sr., Executive Publisher

 

Los Angeles Sentinel and L.A. Watts Times

 

Chairman Emeritus NNPA (Black Press of America)

 

More articles on GM to follow. Visit www.lasentinel.net for up to date news.

June 21, 2018 

Associated Press 

 

Charlottesville’s new police chief has been sworn in.

 

RaShall Brackney took the oath of office Monday afternoon in the City Council’s chambers.

 

Brackney is the first permanent successor of Chief Al Thomas, who retired in December after the release of a scathing report about the law enforcement response to a violent white nationalist rally in August.

 

Brackney is a former George Washington University police chief and a 30-year veteran of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police.

 

She said in brief remarks that she was honored to be chosen and pledged to personally get to know the community.

 

Mayor Nikuyah Walker said she believed Brackney would work to bridge a divide between the city's citizens, especially African-American residents, and law enforcement.

 

Brackney is Charlottesville’s first African-American woman to serve in the job.