August 18, 2016
City News Service
The median price of a home in Los Angeles County rose by 8.5 percent in July, compared with the same month a year ago, while the number of homes sold dropped by 12.6 percent, a real estate information service announced on Wednesday.
According to CoreLogic, the median price of a Los Angeles County home was $531,500 last month, up from $490,000 in July 2015. A total of 7,285 homes were sold in the county, down from 8,333 during the same month the previous year.
In Orange County, the median price was $640,000 last month, up 4.1 percent from $615,000 in July 2015. The number of homes sold dropped by 10.4 percent, from 3,685 in July 2015 to 3,301 last month.
A total of 21,705 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 down 11.3 percent from 24,472 in June and down 10.7 percent from 24,317 in July 2015.
The median price of a Southern California home was $465,000 in July, the same as June but up 6.2 percent from $438,000 in July 2015.
“The nearly 11 percent year-over-year drop in Southern California’s July home sales marked the largest annual decline for any month in almost two years, while the 11 percent June-to-July sales decrease was the largest in five years,” said Andrew LePage, a research analyst for CoreLogic. “However, there’s a caveat involving a quirk of the calendar in that this July had 20 business days for transactions to be recorded in the public record compared with 22 business days in both June 2016 and July 2015.
“The last time sales dropped sharply, about 12 percent, between June and July was in 2011, which was also the last time the month of July had only 20 business days for recordings. The average number of home sale transactions recorded daily in July 2016 was only about 2 percent lower than in both June 2016 and July 2015.”
August 11, 2016
Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell, L.A. County District Attorney Jackie Lacey and Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens have all come out in favor of preserving California’s death penalty.
The death penalty should be “for the worst of the worst,” McDonnell said Monday night at an event dubbed, “Mend, Don’t End California’s Death Penalty.” Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens also spoke at the event, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The officials’ goal is to oppose Proposition 62, which would replace executions with life without parole, and support Proposition 66, which aims to speed up executions in California.
Lacey cited the case of the “Grim Sleeper” serial killer, who received the sentence on Wednesday, saying at a news conference in Monterey Park that the death penalty should be reserved for the few cases involving "evil, reckless disregard for human life."
Former Los Angeles County District Attorney Gil Garcetti said in a statement to The Times that he has reversed his position on the death penalty, opposing it because “it's a total waste of money and of no useful purpose.”
“Every attempt to change the failed death penalty system over the past 40 years has made it worse and more expensive,” he said. “Prop. 66 is no different.”
August 04, 2016
By McKenzie Jackson
California Black Media
Recent college grads and job seekers under the age of 31 have only a week to fly into a job applicant pool for a well-paying gig that an official with one Southern California African-American aviation group calls the chance of a lifetime.
The Federal Aviation Administration, the national aviation authority of the U.S., is accepting applications from entry-level candidates across the U.S. for air traffic controller positions from August 8 to 15.
Quentin D. Miles, Regional President of the National Black Coalition of Federal Aviation Employees Western Pacific, said young, college-educated African-American job hopefuls need to take the opportunity to apply for aviation jobs.
“There are ample opportunities because we are hitting another retirement wave both in air traffic control and airway transportation specialist,” he said. “We really want our community, African-Americans, know these jobs are out there.”
In a statement, the FAA said applicants for the position of Air Traffic Control Specialist-Trainee need to set-up an account on www.USAJobs.gov as soon as possible in order to apply for the highly competitive position.
“The agency expects more than 25,000 applications for approximately 1,400 positions during the seven-day job opening,” the statement read.
Good jobs are something black college grads across the nation are in short supply of. A 2014 study by the Center for Economic Policy Research revealed 12.4 percent of black college graduates between ages 22 – 27 are unemployed. For all college grads in the same age range the rate was 5.6 percent.
The San Diego-based Miles said the FAA is looking to particularly hire African-Americans in order to increase diversity amongst its workforce.
“There are very few of us, but we are working with the agency and our coalition to get the word out,” said Miles of the NBCFAE. “We want to increase the numbers of blacks in this field.”
The career aviation man said over 20,000 FAA jobs will be open within the next three to five years across the country. Miles said some of the positions including the air traffic controller role, pay upwards of $70,000 to $100,000 a year.
Air traffic controllers guide pilots, their planes and 2.2 million daily passengers from taxi to takeoff, through the air and back safely on the ground again. The FAA statement said air traffic controllers receive a wide range of training in controlling and separating live air traffic within designated airspace at and around an air traffic control tower, radar approach control facility, or air route traffic control center.
“As a new ATCS, you will spend your first several months of employment in an intensive training program at the FAA Academy located in Oklahoma City,” the statement reads.
FAA administrator Michael Huerta said in the newsletter the aviation authority “provides the safest, most efficient airspace system in the world and we need exceptional people to support our mission.”
Requirements for the job include being a U.S. citizen, being 31 or younger on Aug. 15, passing a medical examination, security investigation and the FAA air traffic pre-employment tests. Candidates must speak English clear enough to be understood over communications equipment and have three years of progressively responsible work experience or a Bachelor’s degree or a combination of post-secondary education and work experience that totals three years. Job inquirers must also be ready to move to an FAA facility based on agency staffing needs.
Miles said getting a job with the FAA should be something recent black college graduates seek to do. He said becoming an air traffic controller or air traffic transportation systems specialist ranks high on almost any jobs list.
“This is a golden opportunity,” Miles said. “It’s a wonderful opportunity for employment. These jobs because the pay and the benefits are so excellent.”
In fact, air traffic controller is a career in the in-demand fields of accounting, business, computer science and engineering, which have lower unemployment rates. Glassdoor, a jobs and recruiting website, said plenty of top-notch jobs are appearing in the technology, finance and professional services industries.
Glassdoor and UC San Diego Extension recently conducted surveys that determined what the hottest jobs are based on career opportunities, base salary and open positions. The jobs listed included accountants, data scientist, human resource manager, marketing manager, nurse practitioner, software developers, market research analysts, and computer network architects.
Mary Walshok, associate vice chancellor of public programs and dean of UC San Diego Extension, said in a statement that the careers show both the value of a college degree and also the need for specialized training as technology is continuously reshaping the job market and the economy.
“As Marc Andreessen recently opined, ‘Software is eating the world,’” Walshok said. “That fact is true in almost every top emerging career whether it be health care or marketing or financial analysis. It’s not enough to just know the fundamentals; you have to use technology to provide new insights.”
July 28, 2016
By James Clingman
“Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.” Matthew 25:21
In recent days we have heard much about efforts to demonstrate our frustration and anger about the killing of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. Boycotting malls and various stores, depositing funds into Black-owned banks, are important and have had some positive effects. We must do more of the same, but in a more strategic and organized manner.
Are Black folks, the recipients of $1.2 trillion annually, poor stewards of this tremendous amount of money and, thus, unable to obtain economic empowerment because of our slothfulness? Is that why we find ourselves in “outer darkness,” continuously attempting to “show” others how much money we spend instead of redirecting more of our money to ourselves?
The Parable of the Talents is quite fitting for Black people, in general; of course we fit the description of the last steward who buried his talent in the ground and did not multiply it. Unfortunately, we have used our billions in income to buy everything someone else makes, no matter the cost.
If we cannot demonstrate our ability to manage the resources we have, the small things, how will we ever gain authority over the larger things? How will we ever change the behavior of corporations when it comes to supporting us the way they do other groups? If we refuse to shop at Target, for instance, but go to Walmart instead, what’s the gain? What’s the impact of staying away from the mall for a day or two, or even a week, and then return to spend all the money we withheld?
Martin Luther King, Jr., stated in his final speech, “I call upon you to take your money out of the banks downtown and deposit your money in Tri-State Bank. We want a ‘bank-in’ movement in Memphis.” That was 1968. Here in 2016, in response to the murders of two Black men some of us are finally getting it. In Atlanta, there was a call for Black folks to open accounts at Citizens Trust Bank. My question was: Why would it take two dead brothers to get Black people in a majority Black city to put their money in a Black bank that has been in their community since 1921?
Don’t get me wrong; I am glad to see the effort, and I trust the bank will not be used as an ATM machine where folks put money in on Friday and take it all out on Monday. I am, however, bewildered over someone having to die before we followed through on such a practical solution by Martin Luther King, Jr., nearly fifty years ago. Is this just another fad, another temporary gesture of outrage, or just another feel-good sign of our frustration?
Additionally, I know “for everything there is a season,” and the effort taking place now in Atlanta at Citizens Bank, started by noted entrepreneur and rapper, Killer Mike, is the right message. Yes, there have been other messengers, but if he is the one that gets our people to respond, not only do I applaud our people, I also applaud Killer Mike. I had a chance to speak with him on the Carl Nelson radio show and he impressed me as a brother who is not egotistical and not concerned about being the HNIC in this issue. He was very respectful and open to learning more about the history of his efforts and willing to listen to recommendations. I appreciated that and look forward to working with him.
Back to the stewardship issue and how it relates to our reactions not only to police shootings of Black people, but also to our overall position in this country. Boycotts, if sustained, can work, but “work” to do what? Yes, they may turn the tide of recalcitrant corporations that only care about our dollars, which we give to them without reciprocity. However, the “work” that any economic sanction effort should and must produce is economic empowerment for Black people. Our efforts cannot be centered on hurting someone else; they must be done in an effort to help ourselves. Thus, we must have a strategic plan and an organized movement to redirect the money we withhold back to our own businesses as much as possible.
As for depositing our money in Black banks, we must do our due diligence, meet and develop relationships with bank managers, and I would recommend doing what the Collective Banking Group (Now called the “Collective Empowerment Group”) did back in 1995 up to this present day. The group wrote covenant agreements with the banks and held them accountable for what they said they would do for their members in return for their deposits.
We must practice good stewardship if we want to be empowered.