June 7, 2018
By Jennifer Bihm
Contributing Writer
Reverend Kelvin Sauls of Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles, recently announced that he would transition now, from inside the church’s four walls to share his ministry with the community at large. More than words to spread the Gospel, Sauls said he wants spread it through his actions, most notably in the areas of homelessness, immigration and racial and environmental justice. His unequivocal commitment to the upliftment and betterment of “the least of these” will remain, he said.
“As Pastor Sauls transitions from his pastoral leadership at Holman United Methodist Church, he is committed to following God’s call on his life in ministry and the vow that he made as an elder in the United Methodist Church to ‘lead the people of God to faith in Jesus Christ, to participate in the life and work of the community, and to seek peace, justice, and freedom for all people,’” said a spokesperson for Sauls via a statement released Monday.
In his six-year tenure as the Senior of Pastor Holman United Methodist Church Sauls is described by people who knew him as having “displayed courageous and visionary leadership through his passion for bridging multi-racial, multi-ethnic and multi-generational congregational vitalization for meaningful community transformation.”
He was born and raised on the south side of Johannasburg in the Republic of South Africa. Confirmed in the Methodist Church in his youth Sauls was very active in church leadership. But it was the backdrop of the system of Apartheid in his country that nurtured a spiritual warrior in Sauls that would lead him to a style of activism that interwined mobilization and action with spiritual leadership, a style he would keep to as a Bishop’s Leadership Scholarship brought him to America to pursue a higher education.
Now, “In his six-year tenure as the Senior of Pastor Holman United Methodist Church he has displayed courageous and visionary leadership through his passion for bridging multi-racial, multi-ethnic and multi-generational congregational vitalization for meaningful community transformation,” said Sauls’ spokesperson via this week’s statement.
Sauls had been involved in a variety of causes while leading the congregation at Holman, usually ones that promoted his mission of fostering an environment of “hope and healing.” He headed up the Promoting Healthy Men Conference and the Women Rising event both earlier this year. He has also hosted notable people at Holman from Minister Louis Farrakhan to Senator Kamala Harris.
With his transition, Sauls told the Sentinel Tuesday, that he is leaving a message for his congregation.
“They need to continue to leverage their legacy,” he said.
“[They need to leverage it] in such a way, that they can continue a progressive and prophetic work in serving all of the members in the community.”
Sauls said he feels congregational vitality is measured by “relevant and impactful ministries with cutting-edge and ingenious partnerships with historic and contemporary grassroots social justice organizations, the philanthropic sector, business and city, county and state governmental collaborations…”
“Through his bold and bridge-building, collaborative and adaptive leadership, Holman has been re-launched as a progressive, prophetic, prevailing, and Pan-African faith-based and hope-filled humanitarian movement,” wrote Sauls’ spokesperson.
“His leadership has enabled Holman to re-emerge as the community hub for social justice. His innovative Community endeavors include launching the Brenda Marsh-Mitchell Gospel Stage at Taste of Soul, hosting Navidad en el Barrio with the Brotherhood Crusade, and vibrant and enhanced Freedom School program.”
In his 22 years of ordained ministry, Rev. Sauls has served both local congregations and general agencies in the United Methodist Church. Pursuing synergy between personal holiness, social holiness and environmental holiness, he said, is at the core of his involvement and collaboration with community-based organizations for local, regional, national and global collective and transformational impact. He said that his solidarity with migrants and immigrants resulted in his collaboration with Rev. Phil Lawson in co-founding the national and international movement, Black Alliance for Just Immigration (www.blackalliance.org). In addition to serving as the current Board Chair of BAJI, Rev. Sauls serves on the Board of Directors of National Justice for Our Neighbors (www.njfon.org), a national United Methodist program resourcing affordable and quality legal services for immigrants.
He also co founded the Priority Africa Network (www.priorityafrica.org) , the South Los Angeles Transition Age Youth, Foster-care and Homeless Collaborative (www.southlatay.org), Justice not Jails, a program that facilitates opportunities for individuals to re-enter society from prison.
He was appointed by Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles to serve as a Commissioner on the Los Angeles Housing Services Authority (www.lahsa.org), a city and county agency to invoke and implement strategies to end homelessness.
According to Rev. Sauls, he “lives out his passion to health equity through the prevention of, and intervention around HIV/AIDS and STIs locally and globally by serving on the Board of Directors of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (www.aidshealth.org).”
“With a vision for, and commitment to move underserved communities in South Los Angeles from health disparity to vitality,” Sauls serves on the Dean’s Advisory Council of the School of Medicine at Charles Drew University (www.cdrewu.edu). And, “With economic equity as indispensable to his holistic approach to community transformation”, Rev. Sauls is a founding Board member of the Black Cooperative Investment Fund (www.bcif.org). Seeking synergy between social justice and environmental justice, Rev. Sauls is the co-founder of a grassroots environmental justice movement in Los Angeles, Standing Together Against Neighborhood Drilling (www.stand.la.org).
There will be a Sending Forth Worship Celebration for Pastor Sauls and his wife Rev. Judi Wortham Sauls, an ordained Minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, is scheduled for Sunday, June 24 at 11am at Holman United Methodist Church. A Community Celebration is scheduled for Saturday, June 30, at 5pm at the Conga Room in LA LIVE!!
As of press time no announcement had been made about Sauls’ replacement.
June 7, 2018
By Susan Cox
Special to the L.A. Watts Times
More Southern California Edison customers may qualify for financial assistance to help pay their utility bills through an assortment of income-qualified programs that offer bill discounts and free energy-efficiency products and services.
Effective June 1, income guidelines for 2018-19 income-qualified programs — California Alternate Rates for Energy, Family Electric Rate Assistance and Energy Savings Assistance — have been updated and may increase the number of SCE customers eligible for financial support.
That’s good news for low-income customers facing economic hardships or who need help paying their utility bill.
“We’re here to support our customers and help those eligible for CARE and FERA income-qualified programs lower their monthly bill and electricity usage,” said Jill Anderson, SCE vice president, Customer Programs & Services. “The recent income guideline changes will help SCE serve even more eligible customers who qualify for these and other programs.”
The CARE program provides SCE’s income-qualified customers a discount of about 30 percent on monthly electric bills. The FERA program gives a 12 percent discount on monthly electric bills to qualified households of three or more.
Both CARE and FERA help eligible customers stretch their dollars to more effectively manage their utility costs with discount rates, particularly those on limited incomes or who participate in at least one of 10 government public assistance programs.
Under the Energy Savings Assistance program, customers may qualify for a free, new energy-efficient replacement refrigerator, lightbulbs or other energy-saving appliances or energy conservation services that can help them save money on their SCE electric bill.
Among the energy-saving products and services the program provides are:
• An energy-efficient replacement refrigerator
• Wall air conditioner
• Evaporative cooler
• Pool pump replacement
• Free weatherization services
• Energy-efficient lighting, such as fluorescent lightbulbs
• Other energy-saving products and services.
To learn more about SCE’s income-qualified programs, visit sce.com/billhelp or call 1-800-736-4777.
June 7, 2018
City News Service
Some revenue from cannabis sales taxes and fees would be used to create a neighborhood health fund with the goal of revitalizing communities damaged by the war on drugs under a plan advanced today by the Los Angeles City Council.
On a 12-0 vote, the council directed the city attorney to draft an election ordinance and resolutions to place a ballot measure before city voters in the Nov. 6 general election entitled the Cannabis Reinvestment Act, which would set aside a certain amount of tax money collected from pot sales for the health fund.
The money collected for the fund would include a 1 percent gross receipts tax on all commercial activity, a $5 surcharge for tickets sold for a temporary cannabis event and a $5 surcharge for any test of cannabis products conducted by a licensed commercial cannabis testing laboratory.
The fund would be used to support youth leadership and civic engagement, after-school programs and educational opportunities, as well as improved local health services in minority communities “as they recover from pernicious drug laws,” according to a motion introduced by Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson.
Marijuana has been legal for recreational sales and use in California since Jan. 1, and the Los Angeles City Council drafted a series of rules and regulations last year in preparation for the new industry.
Harris-Dawson, who represents many Latino and African-American neighborhoods in South Los Angeles, outlined his support for the health fund in a letter to the Rules, Elections and Intergovernmental Relations Committee before it considered a vote on the fund in May.
“Even as we stand on this precipice, we must recognize that we stand squarely in the shadow of the unjust War on Drugs. This atrocity targeted Angelinos of color, decimated neighborhoods, ripped families apart and criminalized the illness of addiction,” Harris-Dawson wrote. “Today, we have an opportunity to build new systems and shape an industry in ways that recognizes wrongs, respect all residents, and intentionally builds a more equitable society.”
Citing several Drug Policy Alliance studies, Harris-Dawson said that 80 percent of people federally incarcerated for drug offenses are black or Latino, and that black Angelinos are arrested for marijuana possession at seven times the rate of whites.
June 7, 2018
By Jennifer Bihm
Contributing Writer
The mother of a 34 year old rapper who was slain in Los Angeles seven months ago, is still grieving, she said, even as two suspects have been arrested and subsequently released. Kim Maxwell Harris, 63, lost her son Iyayi Amayo, a local talent in San Luis Obispo known as Da Cali Kid, November 9 after what police concluded was some type of altercation left him with a fatal stab wound. She and her family hope to keep Iyayi’s memory alive through his music and through the type of love he spread when he was alive.
“Iyayi was so kind,” Maxwell Harris told the Sentinel recently.
“His name means faith [in Nigerian].”
The local performer attended school in the Westchester and Windsor Hills areas of Los Angeles before finishing high school in San Luis. There, he joined a rap group called Danjarus Syndicate, before forming Public Defendaz in 2006. His younger brother Victor Pulido remembered the glory days.
“When he did his first show, he brought me on the stage with him,” Pulido told the L.A. Times last year.
Pulido is working on some of Iyayi’s final music, which is included on a posthumous EP, L805 (805 being the San Luis Obispo area code, where Iyayi enjoyed most of his fame). The rapper has opened for major acts like Ice Cube, E40, Slick Rick and Two Chainz.
“If they came to the coast, we were rocking their shows,” fellow rapper and group member Andre Baker told the Times.
“On stage, Amayo’s energy was “explosive. Amayo was always moving and interacting with fans. There was not a stale moment.”
According to news reports, Iyayi was stabbed in the wee hours of the morning November 9, 2017 on West 42nd Street and Walton Avenue in Vermont Square.
Detectives think Amayo, 34, was involved in a dispute with other people before he was killed. At the time they said they were focusing on several people but were and still are looking for additional witnesses, said Los Angeles Police Det. Chris Barling.
Other fellow band members described Iyayi’s passion for music as “infectious”.
Studio sessions would last until dawn, said Cassidy Wright
“He was like a jazz artist, he’d just start vibing out to whatever ideas or instrumentals were thrown out. He delivered a fly message that connected with the people.
He was very open minded and had an infectious happiness about him,” Wright told the Times.
Maxwell Harris remains proud of her son’s fame and the impact he had on all those who knew him.
“More than 200 people attended his funeral,” she told the Sentinel.
“To see that was just… being with Iyayi was like being with a movie star.”
Maxwell Harris goes to group therapy now to get her through, she said.
“I’m a part of Mothers of Murdered Children, a club I never wanted to join,” she told the Sentinel.
“I’m going to miss him,” said friend Oris Martin III said. “I just hope they find the person who left him out in the world so cold.”