Life & Times - Transcript

About Us \| Contact Us

Life & Times Transcript

06/23/06

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

Does blight make right? When does the government have the right to take your home or business?

Ben Blue>> You have people, out of town developers, coming in wanting to put in a luxury hotel and they want to kick out the people that have struggled through the years and survived.

Val Zavala>> And then, a chance to see life from a new perspective. A video artist puts cameras on critters.

These stories and more next on tonight's Life and Times.

Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val Zavala>> Hollywood is going through a four hundred million dollar renovation and it wouldn't be possible without something called eminent domain. That's when the government has the right to seize rundown property and develop it for the public good. But what is rundown and does blight make right? NewsHour correspondent, Spencer Michels, has our story.

Spencer Michels>> In the heart of Los Angeles at the famous corner of Hollywood and Vine, Bob Blue is fighting to preserve his sixty year old family luggage store from the clutches of redevelopment. The city has given him ninety days to move out.

Bob Blue>> It's wrong to steal land, if you will. It's wrong to steal business. It's wrong to the community.

Spencer Michels>> Bernard's Luggage is in an historic neighborhood that declined in the 1990s and, according to the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, needed a major facelift.

Leron Gubler>> When we hit rock bottom, there were numerous boarded-up buildings along Hollywood Boulevard. Panhandlers, homeless everywhere. There were prostitutes as well.

Spencer Michels>> With the Chamber's support, the city's redevelopment agency invoked eminent domain on Blue's store so that it can replace it and thirty other small businesses with a luxury hotel, housing units, upscale shops and restaurants.

Leron Gubler>> The redevelopment agency had the ability to make things happen including the eminent domain tool. You need that because, once an area starts spiraling downward, there's no way to bring it back unless people start investing in the community.

Spencer Michels>> But Blue doesn't want to sell or move. He has posted a huge movie-style billboard over his store to gain public support.

Bob Blue>> I think this fight is about big business versus small business and existing business. We have people, out of town developers, coming in wanting to put in a luxury hotel and they want to kick out the people that have struggled through the years and survived.

Spencer Michels>> What bothers Blue the most is that his private property is being condemned and sold not for a road or a school, but to private developers and at a price authorities set and not what the owner thinks it's worth.

Bob Blue>> I didn't even know that they could use eminent domain for private use, so it got thrust upon me.

Spencer Michels>> Eminent domain is an old practice of taking private property, sometimes blighted, for a public use. The Constitution recognizes it as long as there is just compensation and the Supreme Court has upheld it many times, most recently last June in its ruling in the Kilo case in Connecticut where the Justices ruled that this private home could be seized by the city and sold to a private developer if the transaction would benefit the public.

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in the five to four decision, "promoting economic development is a traditional and long-accepted function of government." But the Court also said, "nothing precludes any state from placing further restrictions on eminent domain." The decision set off a storm of political activity across the nation, across political lines, mostly among those who believe eminent domain is being abused.

>> "This petition is a petition to limit the government's authority to eminent domain peoples' properties."

Spencer Michels>> These paid workers are trying to gather nearly a million signatures so that voters in California will get a chance to severely restrict the use of eminent domain and make it illegal to transfer private property to a private developer.

This petition drive and similar campaigns in six other states plus a slew of bills before state legislatures are gathering steam. In fact, bills with varying provisions have already passed in thirteen states. Political consultant, Kevin Spillaine, is organizing the California Protect Our Homes campaign whose initial financing, up to two million dollars, comes from a Libertarian group which seeks to limit government.

Kevin Spillaine>> This Kilo decision has basically energized the population. They're upset. It's really an issue about government needing to be restrained.

Spencer Michels>> Tim Sandefur, a staff attorney with the property rights group, Pacific Legal Foundation, is helping shape some of the new proposals.

Tim Sandefur>> People don't have the right to take away your property just because they think it would be better for society. Private property is a right, not a privilege, and they don't have the right to take it away from you just because they think it would be in the public's interest, whatever that might mean. It's not in Mr. Blue's interest.

Spencer Michels>> The reaction to Kilo has alarmed John Shirey who directs the California Redevelopment Association.

John Shirey>> There's been a backlash to that decision and I think it's going to result in legislation that won't be good. It's a reaction to a lot of emotion.

Spencer Michels>> Shirey contends that the backlash is being used by lawyers and politicians for their own purposes.

John Shirey>> What's in jeopardy is that what we do through redevelopment will be greatly hampered, but we also need to keep in mind that a lot of the legislation and, here in California, the voter initiatives that are out there go far beyond the issues that were in the Kilo case.

Spencer Michels>> Shirey says new laws could drive up the cost of acquiring property for roads and schools, restrict legitimate attempts to regulate land use, to say nothing of stopping needed redevelopment. In San Jose, officials are afraid the Kilo backlash could derail its attempts to turn its aging and blighted neighborhoods around. But San Jose also exemplifies how just the specter of redevelopment often brings fear, especially in residential areas.

Even though no homes have been taken by eminent domain in the prosperous Nagle Park area, concern over what could happen has prompted a rebellion. These residents are furious their aging neighborhood was designated a redevelopment zone. Beth Shafran-Mukai, who calls herself a political progressive, says it's absurd to call this area of million dollar homes blighted.

Beth Shafran-Mukai>> We know we are a beautiful, historic neighborhood of generally single-family homes on the edge of a downtown frame and our city is focused on development and increasing tax revenues. Our concern is that, over the years, we will see the edges of our neighborhood gobbled away and that people will indeed lose homes.

Spencer Michels>> Association members have become more alarmed since the Kilo decision and are helping gather initiative signatures.

Sue Bernham>> For me, more than even the neighborhood, it is the loss of our rights as citizens and human beings. With each thing that is taken away, it brings us closer to a Soviet state almost and, to me, that is frightening.

Spencer Michels>> In San Francisco's largely African-American community, long before Kilo, there was suspicion and hostility toward redevelopment and eminent domain. Kilo has only added to it. Bayview Hunters Point has a high crime rate. Proposals to redevelop the decaying area which during World War II was home to a major naval shipyard have met serious resistance and much of that stems from an infamous urban renewal project in the 1960's when another largely black San Francisco district, the Fillmore, was bulldozed and the population evicted in the name of progress. Patricia Wright, now a chef for the San Francisco Giants, grew up in the Fillmore.

Patricia Wright>> I was one of the people that was swept away. I remember losing my friends, my families, my mother and father's Victorian building that we grew up in.

Spencer Michels>> After the Kilo decision, Wright, today a resident of Bayview, began working with neighborhood newspaper publisher, Willie Ratcliff, to circulate anti-eminent domain petitions.

Willie Ratcliff>> Well, the point is, you take away the state law that allows private eminent domain, one private party taking property from another.

Spencer Michels>> But Bayview Hunters Point needs government help to upgrade buildings, remove blight and reduce crime, says Angelo King, who chairs the Citizens Advisory Committee for Redevelopment.

Angelo King>> No. Eminent domain shall not be used on any legal occupied dwelling unit, period, regardless of zoning or anything else. So our intention from the very start was that nobody's home would ever be taken by eminent domain.

Patricia Wright>> I don't believe it.

Spencer Michels>> Why not?

Patricia Wright>> Because I've seen it happen. My greatest fear is that the community will be gone.

Spencer Michels>> The Pacific Legal Foundation's Tim Sandefur doesn't trust the politicians either.

Tim Sandefur>> Under the rationale of cases like Kilo, anything that the politicians believe is good for the public is sufficient grounds for the use of eminent domain.

John Shirey>> Local officials are loathe to use eminent domain. They avoid it whenever possible.

Spencer Michels>> Afraid of the political backlash to Kilo, the redevelopment lobby intends to sponsor its own mildly-restricted legislation hoping to head off more drastic measures that could halt redevelopment in its tracks.

Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times".

Val Zavala>> How is it that Los Angeles came to be the center of the immigrants' rights movement? Well, of course, we have millions of immigrants here, but that's not the whole story. It actually began back in the 1970s when minorities and labor unions came together to claim political power.

Now a new documentary captures the dramatic events of Los Angeles's history from the triumph of Los Angeles's first Black mayor in 1973 to the victory of Antonio Villaraigosa. The documentary is called "The New Los Angeles" and it begins with the story of Mayor Tom Bradley who led Los Angeles for an unprecedented twenty years.

Tom Bradley>> "Tonight was the fulfillment of a dream, the impossible dream."

Val Zavala>> Maria Elena Durazo is a long-time labor leader who plays a prominent role in the film.

Maria Elena Durazo>> Working people made the history of electing Tom Bradley and making the changes in this city and electing Antonio Villaraigosa. With all due respect to our prominent political figures, had it not been for the day-to-day struggles of organized communities, of organized workers, we would not be the greater city that we are today.

Val Zavala>> Kerman Maddox, also featured in the film, is an expert on Los Angeles politics.

Kerman Maddox>> Tom Bradley is the only mayor we've had, Val, who's been elected to five four-year terms. He served from 1973 while I was in high school to 1993. It never happened before and it will never happen again.

Tom Bradley>> "This is not just a victory for Tom Bradley, not just a victory for the campaign, but a victory for progress, a victory for our children. Thank you very much."

Val Zavala>> The film looks at how multi-racial coalitions were crucial to Bradley's and later Villaraigosa's victories.

Kerman Maddox>> It was a watershed moment for the city of Los Angeles because they proved to the rest of the nation that an African-American could be elected mayor in a major city that did not have a predominant Black population.

>> "Every day I clean fifteen rooms. In each room, this is what I do. I make the beds."

Val Zavala>> The film documents the effort to organize immigrant workers.

Maria Elena Durazo>> "We had to make a change in Los Angeles that would connect the struggles, that would be bigger, that would be progressive, that would change the landscape, change the politics, just change the way that workers and working families were treated."

We would not be doing the things that we're doing today had it not been for the last twenty to thirty years of real organizing in our communities. That set the tone for that today. We have community benefits agreements. If there is going to be economic development, then working people have to benefit.

Val Zavala>> Lyn Goldfarb produced and directed "The New Los Angeles" as part of a four-part PBS series on California and the American dream.

Lyn Goldfarb>> We are the largest majority-minority city in the country and we are also, you know, in the forefront of political change from the living wage legislation, which is guaranteeing more than a minimum, almost twice the minimum wage, for workers in Los Angeles. When I learned how immigrants have played an important role in electoral politics, it doesn't matter whether you can vote or not.

Miguel Contreras>> "We have the best army of activists. Many of them are immigrant workers."

[Film Clip]

Miguel Contreras>> "A lot of them come out and walk streets with us to make sure to get out the vote. They don't have to be citizens to help get out the vote. What matters is they care about this country."

Val Zavala>> The documentary includes an interview with late labor leader, Miguel Contreras. His widow, Maria Elena Durazo, has succeeded him.

Maria Elena Durazo>> Having lived so much of that myself, having lived so much of that with my husband, it's a real tribute also to his role and I'm glad to see a film that shows what Miguel did for Los Angeles and that it won't be forgotten.

Val Zavala>> When they started the project, the filmmakers didn't know that, in 2005, Angelenos would elect their first Latino mayor in more than a century. It gave an unforeseen ending to "The New Los Angeles".

Antonio Villaraigosa>> "Our purpose is to bring this great city together. Our purpose is to draw fully and equally on the rich diversity of all our communities and neighborhoods."

Val Zavala>> Do you think that it was harder to govern Los Angeles in the 1970s and 1980s, or is it harder to govern Los Angeles for Villaraigosa today?

Kerman Maddox>> I think it's more difficult for Villaraigosa today because we have so many wedge issues. There's so much tension between the ethnic communities. When Tom Bradley was elected, he was trying to develop Los Angeles as a major city. You didn't have the tensions that we have today and, if so, they seemed to be below the radar. Also, you didn't have the 24-7 news cycle. So there are a lot of things we did in City Hall that, frankly, never leaked.

The problem nowadays is, with a twenty-four hour news cycle, people want information and they want it now. People also want solutions and they want them now. So I think the challenges for Villaraigosa are greater and the tension that exists in communities are greater. Plus, the resources in government, Val, are not there today as they used to be in the 1970s and 1980s.

Fernando Guerra>> "If you fast-forward America, it will -- I mean, it's a demographic reality that it will be majority-minority. What that means is that white Anglo Saxon, Protestant and Catholic, the Europeans, will be less than fifty percent of the population. How Los Angeles responds to the incredible immigration and diversity that exists is going to be a model for the United States. How we create a stable transition is critically important to the incorporation of immigrants and minorities into the political, social and economic system of the United States."

Antonio Villaraigosa>> "Together, we can make a difference, to make this city the city that it can be."

Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address:

Life and Times
4401 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, California 90027

You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org.

Val Zavala>> Have you ever thought about trying life out as something other than a human? Like, say, an armadillo or a duck or even a wolf? Well, the closest we'll probably ever come to cross-species experience is the work of video artist, Sam Easterson. Take a look.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> This is what life looks like from a goat's perspective. It's clearly all about the food.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> And this is a chick's point of view. It's all about quick moves.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> A tortoise, on the other hand --

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> This is the work of video artist, Sam Easterson, who has spent the last eight years putting video cameras on mammals, insects, birds and even a tumbleweed. It started when he was a landscape architect student in New York. He was fascinated with the idea of using sheep to cut lawns. He had fooled around with video cameras, so he thought why not put a camera and a recorder in a knapsack and strap it onto a sheep?

Sam Easterson>> It was a lot of fun. It was a successful project and I just decided to keep going, yeah. I sort of had this idea to create this really large project over the course of many, many years, creating this library, if you will, of all these animal cams.

That first one was pretty low-tech and really the next sort of phase in that evolution was an armadillo that I did, I don't know, about a year later. This was a small camera that was just mounted on the back of this armadillo right behind the ears.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> Now how do you capture an armadillo long enough to attach a camera to it?

Sam Easterson>> You know, my job is really quite easy. I'm sort of the coordinator for all this. I have someone, a handler or a veterinarian, who does this for me.

Val Zavala>> Oh, okay.

Sam Easterson>> So I'm just organizing all this work. This is a pig here sort of wallowing in the mud.

Val Zavala>> Oh, gee.

[Film Clip]

Sam Easterson>> Part of the reason I like this work is, you know, you get to sort of elevate these animals which you might not think of a lot of the time as, you know, television-worthy to that level.

Val Zavala>> He's using his snout like a shovel.

Sam Easterson>> Yeah, I know. I love how he goes underwater too, sort of bubbling his way through the mud.

Val Zavala>> Easterson doesn't limit himself to mammals. He's also hitched rides with insects like this housefly who found it a little hard to fly with a tiny camera on his wing. This tarantula did better.

[Film Clip]

Sam Easterson>> For me, on this particular day when I was kneeling down in the desert, I just noticed how beautiful those hairs were standing up on the tarantula's legs and I couldn't ignore those. So I had to bring those into focus and sort of bring that animal alive.

Val Zavala>> What were some of the hardest ones?

Sam Easterson>> I think the wolf was pretty hard.

Val Zavala>> The wolf. Okay, let's take a look at the wolf.

[Film Clip]

Sam Easterson>> This is a juvenile Timber Wolf that is chasing after a squirrel that's burrowed itself into a hole. There's the hole right there. He's sniffing his way. He's got a bead on that squirrel housed in there.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> Oh, my gosh.

Sam Easterson>> I love how he tries to dig that squirrel out of there.

Val Zavala>> I'm sure that squirrel is so far down there.

Sam Easterson>> We're walking along and the wolf came across, by chance, a garter snake. You can sort of see the wolf here. You see its shadow and then, all of a sudden, there's just a flurry of activity and there appears the garter snake.

Val Zavala>> Whoa, that was really fast. Let's see that again.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> Easterson actually has clients, mostly museums, who want an interesting element for an exhibit. This wolf video was to accompany an exhibit on dogs. Now I'm told that, on the "Animal Planet", they do this kind of thing. They put cameras on animals.

Sam Easterson>> There are definitely moves in the last few years. The BBC, National Geographic. They were sort of born from a scientific agenda. This is very much born from an arts agenda, so it's sort of very qualitative data.

Val Zavala>> Now you've put them on birds?

Sam Easterson>> Yeah, I have. Oh, this is a clip from a pheasant that's taking off.

Val Zavala>> A pheasant?

Sam Easterson>> This is pretty rough to watch, but there's a lot of drama in a bird taking off and not posed for this sort of rough look oftentimes.

[Film Clip]

Sam Easterson>> This is a hawk -- or a falcon, excuse me.

Val Zavala>> A falcon. Wow.

Sam Easterson>> The camera is attached to the falcon's leg. Then throughout the landscape, we implanted receivers. This is its wing here and leg. You can see the landscape there. It's sort of flapping to sort of even itself out, but it's coming in for a landing right now and this, below here, is the desert landscape. You can see it there sort of adjusting its flight path a little bit. These are shrubs down below. You can sort of see its wing here and there and it plops down for a landing.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> For a smoother ride, he turns to ducks. And then an alligator.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> And then an alligator.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> Have you ever lost a camera in water? You've got pigs going through mud and the alligators and ducks.

Sam Easterson>> I think I've lost one, yeah, in the water. During the alligator shoot, I know I lost one for sure.

Val Zavala>> Easterson's equipment can fit into a kit the size of a large shoebox.

Sam Easterson>> This is a lens here. It weighs about an ounce. This is the antenna that transmits the signal and this is the battery pack that provides the power for both the lens and the antenna.

Val Zavala>> And do animals ever notice the camera?

Sam Easterson>> This is one of my favorites. This is one of those moments again. This is a cow that's wearing a camera. Some of the other cows noticed the camera on the cow's head and they came up and tried to figure out what's going on. They tried to give the camera a lick (laughter).

[Film Clip]

Sam Easterson>> This is a quick shot of a buffalo. He's at the head of a stampede that he's sort of leading, sort of thundering.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> How did you know to pick the lead buffalo?

Sam Easterson>> I had some help there.

[Film Clip]

Sam Easterson>> Then this is sort of out a little bit later in the prairie, butting heads with another buffalo that wants to be in charge. You see the male dominating this other male here.

Val Zavala>> He's accumulated a library of about fifty different animals and insects and one tumbleweed. So how far does he want to take it?

Sam Easterson>> I don't know. I didn't think I'd really be doing this eight years later and, having captured all this, I'm not quite sure where it's going. I mean, every year there seems to be something, you know. I guess I wouldn't rule anything out.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> If you'd like to see more of Easternson's work, you can check out his website at anivegvideo.com. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.

Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Sponsored in part by:


Home \| Features \| Arts \| Health/Science \| OC Edition \| L&T Blog \| Archives \| About Us \| Contact Us \| Privacy Policy \| Terms of Use © 2007 COMMUNITY TELEVISION OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA