July 06, 2017
City News Service
A black former production supervisor for a Riverside County waterworks manufacturing compay was awarded $2.8 million Thursday by a Los Angeles jury that found he was discriminated against because of his race and that his employer failed to prevent his mistreatment.
The Los Angeles Superior Court jury reached the verdict after about two days of deliberations in 56-year-old Rickey Moland's lawsuit against McWane Inc., which does business in its Corona facility as Clow Valve Co.
The panel also found that the company acted with malice, oppression or fraud, triggering a second phase to determine whether punitive damages should be awarded to the Victorville resident. His attorney, Carney Shegerian, recommended that Moland be given an additional $23 million in punitive damages from McWane Inc. after presenting testimony that the company made $9.4 billion from 2011-16.
In his opening statement, Shegerian said Moland was called the “N” word and other racially offensive names in a case he said that sounded more like something from decades ago rather than 2012.
Moland began working for Clow Valve in June 2010 and was the first black supervisor to ever work at the facility, according to his court papers. One co-worker called Moland the “N” word as he was walking away from the plaintiff and two others regularly used the offensive term against him “and made it clear to Moland” that they “did not care for him,” according to Shegerian.
Moland said he complained to management in February 2012, but nothing was done.
Instead of addressing the “rampant racism” at Clow Valve, management fired Moland in 2012 after he endured “over a year of mistreatment and bigamy,” according to Shegerian.
June 29, 2017
By Niele Anderson
Contributing Writer
On June 27, Greater Los Angeles African American Chamber of Commerce (GLAAACC) hosted a breakfast at their headquarters in Ladera Heights to encourage more minority-owned businesses to participate in the fairly new Airbnb Trips platform. In November of 2016, the company launched Trips, transitioning the company from a website for booking lodgings to a full-service travel company. Trips is part of Airbnb (Air Bed and Breakfast) vision to make travel easy by immersing travelers in local communities and providing access to unique and authentic experiences.
Trips offers two services for now: Experiences, like going truffle hunting or driving classic cars, which are led by locals, and places recommended by local residents. Think of it as going on vacation and visiting the excursion guest desk, but the desk is an app. Locals and businesses create the “Trips” (excursions), set the price, lead the excursions, and keep most of the earnings. It’s an 80 /20 split. It gives existing businesses and community organizations a new vehicle to promote their brand, products, mission and vision. To qualify for the program, you have to meet the criteria of credibility, aspect perspective, and participation. Music and sound was provided by JiJi Sweet who kept the presentation upbeat as Airbnb representatives spoke to the GLAAACC audience and answered questions.
David King, Airbnb director of Diversity discussed the “Trips and Experience” concept and how important diversity was to the process, stating “experience happens across all neighborhoods.” The hope was to give local entrepreneurs local access to Airbnb’s base of more than 200 million users and unlock a powerful new marketing channel. More importantly, Airbnb’s Trips platform allows tourism dollars to be diversified to smaller, local businesses and shared throughout the city, including in underserved communities.
Trips now shows up in the Airbnb app; initially the ability to browse and book experiences was available in only 12 cities: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, Detroit, Havana, London, Paris, Florence, Nairobi, Cape Town, Tokyo, and Seoul. Recently, the company added Trips to cities that include Shanghai, New York City (Harlem for now), and Singapore. Airbnb plans to have Trips available in 51 cities globally by year’s end.
GLAACC’s mission is to advocate and promote the economic growth and development of the African American business community by focusing on legislative advocacy, as well as identifying and developing business opportunities and strategic business alliances.
To learn more about Airbnb Trips visit www.airbnb.com/new. To learn more about GLAACC visit www.glaaacc.org.
June 22, 2017
City News Service
The median price of a home in Los Angeles County rose by 6.8 percent in May, compared with the same month a year earlier, while the number of homes sold jumped by 4.8 percent, a real estate information service announced Wednesday.
According to CoreLogic, the median price of a Los Angeles County home was $560,500 last month, up from $525,000 in May 2016. A total of 7,585 homes were sold in the county, up from 7,240 during the same month the previous year.
In Orange County, the median price was $695,000 last month, up 6.7 percent from $651,500 in May 2016. The number of homes sold rose by 1.9 percent, from 3,612 in May 2016 to 3,682 last month.
A total of 23,478 new and resale houses and condos changed hands in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and Orange counties last month, according to CoreLogic. That was up 15.8 percent from 20,278 in April and up 5.2 percent from 22,327 in May 2016.
The median price of a Southern California home was $492,000 in May, up 1.4 percent from $485,000 in April and up 7.1 percent from $459,500 in May 2016.
“Healthy demand continues to meet a relatively low inventory of homes for sale, helping to nudge prices higher,” said Andrew LePage, research analyst with CoreLogic. “Last month’s Southern California median sale price rose to within three percentage points of its all-time high, but in inflation-adjusted terms, it remains 15 percent below the peak reached a decade ago — a peak made possible by a lot of very risky home loans.”
June 15, 2017
City News Service
The city of Los Angeles will need more than 164,000 new apartment units by 2030 to keep up with demand, according to a study released Monday by the National Multifamily Housing Council and the National Apartment Association.
Demand for apartments in Los Angeles and elsewhere nationwide will be pushed by population growth, immigration and lower rates of home-buying, according to the report.
Between 2011 and 2016, an average of 5,980 investment-grade units were built annually in Los Angeles. By comparison, L.A. will need to average 9,647 units per year in the future to reach the needed level by 2030, according to the study.
Investment-grade apartments are usually larger properties, which are likely to attract attention from large institutional buyers like insurance companies or real estate investment trusts. Nationally, 4.6 million units will have to be built, according to the report.
Los Angeles is currently experiencing a housing crunch, as over the last several decades construction has not kept pace with the population growth, which has led to rising rents and a lack of affordable units, numerous studies have found. As a result, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti set a goal in 2014 for the city to construct 100,000 new housing units by 2021, and the city is about halfway to achieving the goal.
Among the latest study’s other findings:
• Los Angeles will need all types of apartments and at all price points;
• there are an estimated 1.2 million apartments in Los Angeles; and
• Los Angeles apartment developers, owners and managers, and their residents, contribute $63.1 billion to the local economy annually.
Authors of the study said builders will not only need to expand L.A.’s supply of apartments, but renovate or replace older units. Across the U.S., it’s estimated that 51 percent of apartments were built before 1980, mostly in the Northeast.