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Life & Times Transcript
12/13/07 Coverage of Town Hall Los Angeles speakers on Life and Times is made possible by a grant from the Boeing Company. Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times -- A record number of foreclosures is creating surprising problems that no one anticipated. Lou Juarez>> We have a tendency of receiving probably three or four complaints on a daily basis. At times, you don't know, you know, who the property owner is anymore because he has vacated the premises. Val Zavala>> And then, a sci-fi classic from the fifties meets twenty-first century technology. Our critics will tell us if it's a good match. It's all straight ahead 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>> The mortgage crisis is bad and they say that it's going to get worse, but some towns have been hit particularly hard, like Hemet in the Inland Empire. There, foreclosures are having an unexpected impact on things like public health. How is that? KCET's Jeffrey Kaye has our story. Jeffrey Kaye>> In the southern California city of Hemet ninety miles east of Los Angeles, the real estate mortgage crisis has turned into a public health problem. Lou Juarez>> We're at the early stages of larvae. Jeffrey Kaye>> Mosquitoes are breeding in the back yard pools of abandoned homes. The insects can carry diseases. With home foreclosures in Hemet soaring, the number of neglected swimming pools is on the rise. Lou Juarez>> The public health hazard would be West Nile Virus, which can be fatal. Jeffrey Kaye>> Mosquito control technician Lou Juarez works for Riverside County inspecting and fumigating so-called green pools. He says that his workload has doubled over the past year. Lou Juarez>> We have the tendency of receiving probably three or four complaints on a daily basis. At times, you don't know, you know, who the property owner is anymore because he has vacated the premises. There's been a foreclosure on it. Our intentions are to go in as quickly as possible and as soon as possible so we could avoid any potential health hazards. Jeffrey Kaye>> Besides the green pools, the color of the mortgage crisis in Hemet is brown. Dying front lawns and for sale signs make foreclosed homes easy to spot. Some remaining residents of Hemet's many housing tracts say their neighborhoods are starting to feel like suburban ghost towns. Michelle Holshouser>> It's becoming barren. Everybody is leaving. I think this house was empty for about eight months and then somebody moved in and they're getting ready to leave. The house across the street was empty and they lived for about, I'm going to say, eight months and left. Jacqui Yungen>> Now you've got people who know that these houses are vacant that are coming around and they're jumping in the pools. They're going into the houses. We have eleven houses on this one block that are all vacant. Jeffrey Kaye>> The Hemet real estate market wasn't always this bleak. Once a farming and retirement community, Hemet is in a region known as the Inland Empire that, in recent years, saw a boom in residential construction and one of the largest population explosions in the United States. Attracted by relatively low home prices and easy credit, Hemet became an affordable real estate refuge, a bedroom community for families unable to buy homes in coastal areas. Between 2000 and 2005, as the population increased, home values doubled. Owners used their properties as ATM machines. Buying binges helped fuel the local economy, as business people fondly remember. Adele Sadler>> Five years ago, you no sooner listed them, then they would sell right away. Bobby Calloway>> A lot of people went and refinanced their houses, put the cash in their pockets and then came and bought cars. Seth Weinger>> It was actually pumping money into the area because people could take a loan out and spend it on RVs, boats, cars, toys, you know, all the things that they didn't need and then figured, "Oh, we'll just sell the house for more money and get out of it." Jeffrey Kaye>> That was then. Now for sale signs are everywhere. Home sales are at their lowest level in a decade. The number of foreclosures tripled in the past year and Hemet home values are falling, says real estate agent Adele Sadler. Adele Sadler>> Well, I've seen some that as much as twenty-five percent dropped. Jeffrey Kaye>> Twenty-five percent? Adele Sadler>> Yeah, I have. Jeffrey Kaye>> And are they moving at that price? Adele Sadler>> Some are and some aren't. It just depends. There just isn't that many buyers out there right now. Bobby Calloway>> It all trickles down into each and everybody's own little business, you know, how it affects us. Jeffrey Kaye>> Bobby Calloway owns the local Chrysler dealership. With the real estate boom gone bust and an uncertain economy, people are holding on to their money. Like other businesses in town, car dealers are making adjustments. >> "I could show you some used ones if you want to see the used ones. I'll be glad to do that for you." Jeffrey Kaye>> The Chrysler dealership has cut staff and reduced advertising. It's gone from selling mostly new cars to used ones. Bobby Calloway>> And that's kind of what's been our success through these hard times is selling a less expensive car that a person would normally be buying a brand new car that might be in a price range of twenty, twenty-five or thirty grand. What's selling now is a used car that's, you know, ten to fifteen thousand dollar price range. Jeffrey Kaye>> Businesses involved in home construction and remodeling are more directly affected by the real estate slowdown. Red Peryea owns a contracting company. Red Peryea>> Very definitely, our business has slowed down. We have a landscaping company and a construction company as well and it has definitely affected us to the point that we don't have as many jobs going, like one or two at a time as opposed to three or four at a time. Jeffrey Kaye>> So what are you doing to adjust? Red Peryea>> To adjust, what we're trying to do is reach out into doing new things that we didn't do before. I didn't do a lot of carpeting before, but now, hey, I'll go into carpeting now. Jeffrey Kaye>> Workers in the construction trades, many of them immigrants, have seen jobs dry up and paychecks cut. Emilio Oliva is a drywaller from El Salvador. He says that his income has dropped from three thousand to fifteen hundred dollars a month. Emilio Oliva>> It's much harder now to make the rent and earn enough to do anything. I'd say, in a month, we only get about fifteen days of work. Jeffrey Kaye>> And Oliva's current job is going to end sooner than planned. Emilio Oliva>> Here, they haven't sold a single one. And since they aren't selling, the company isn't going to build more homes on this site. Jeffrey Kaye>> Peggy Hoppe, manager of Hemet Escrow Company, has laid off three employees. As foreclosures mount, she worries about the vulnerability of borrowers. Peggy Hoppe>> You see young kids come in here, young couples, and you see that they're going to be paying fifteen or eighteen hundred dollars a month. You take yourself back to the time when you were those ages. You know, that's a big payment, so you always just kind of hold your breath for them and hope they make it. Jeffrey Kaye>> But some hope to take advantage of the real estate market's changing fortunes. Builders have cut prices and offer moving deals for willing buyers. Karen and Tom Mixon sold their Hemet house. It was on the market for four months and they got thirty thousand dollars less than they asked for, but they're expecting to buy a home in a nearby area at a bargain price. This one was about to be foreclosed on by the bank. Loni Vogler>> "Well, that'll save you a lot of money." Jeffrey Kaye>> Loni Vogler, the Mixon's real estate agent, says an over-supply of homes relative to the demand is forcing down prices. Are the Mixons in pretty good shape? Loni Vogler>> Right now, as buyers, they're in great shape. Jeffrey Kaye>> Why? Loni Vogler>> Because they have good credit, they've got money to work with and they've got their home sold. So now is the fun part. Now we get to shop. Jeffrey Kaye>> House buyers aren't the only ones benefiting from the current climate. Real estate agents say that sales of manufactured homes are up as homeowners in over their heads downsize and move to mobile home parks. Renters are also finding good deals as property owners unable to sell homes at prices they want instead rent them out. I gather there's just a lot of rental property available. Seth Weinger>> There's a lot. The more there is, it's kind of supply and demand. The rents will come down. People will lower their rents to try to keep something in there more out of desperation. They'd rather have something coming in than nothing. Jeffrey Kaye>> Real estate speculator Seth Weinger says that he's reluctant to make too many concessions. Seth Weinger>> We're lowering rents, we're trying to do things the right way, but we're not giving away three months free rent and no security deposit, which you see signs in some of the apartment complexes for things like that right now in order to try to fill space. Jeffrey Kaye>> Many Hemet businesspeople are optimistic saying the current downturn is one of many periodic cycles that will soon run its course. I'm Jeffrey Kaye for Life and Times. 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>> Congress passed the No Child Left Behind law in order to hold every school in the country accountable for educating our kids. Well, now the schools are about to be graded and about a hundred of them in California have reason to be nervous. Ninety-nine school districts in California, including Los Angeles Unified, have been notified that they haven't met the federal standards. Technically, they could be taken over or even closed down. Come January, state officials will meet to decide what to do with the under-performing districts. In the meantime, the state's top education official, Jack O'Connell, spoke with students at Town Hall Los Angeles. I had a chance to ask him about the impact that the No Child Left Behind law has had on local schools. Are there districts in California that are at risk of not meeting those standards? Jack O'Connell>> There are districts that are at risk of not meeting the No Child Left Behind threshold and schools that are at risk of not meeting the No Child Left Behind threshold. Val Zavala>> Wow. Does that mean that the No Child Left Behind standards are really high and really tough? Jack O'Connell>> I think that they're unrealistic for many of our schools. The starting line is not the same for all students. I mean, we know that and the federal government does not recognize that. Val Zavala>> So if LAUSD or other district shouldn't meet that threshold, what could happen to them? I mean, technically, the law could have the state take over. Jack O'Connell>> We would try to assist to a greater extent than we do now with additional responsibilities from the state. We would certainly bring in a team to help provide technical expertise. We would bring in additional people. Contract, perhaps, with a university, with other colleges nearby, to try to assist the school district. This is all about making sure that our students are prepared for this hyper-competitive global economy. Val Zavala>> But it seems as though it's unrealistic or not likely that the state of California is going to take over the second largest school district in the country (laughter). It's not going to take over LAUSD. So even if LAUSD should fall below the threshold, it's not going to be taken over, is it? Jack O'Connell>> No. We certainly don't want any type of takeover of any school district, Los Angeles or any other. I don't believe we have the capacity to intervene on the number of schools. It would be school site, in all likelihood. Right now, we're looking at trying to engage nearly a hundred schools that have fallen behind. They're in what we call program improvement. So we have nearly a hundred schools today that we're taking some extraordinary efforts towards. Not to take over in that sense of the word, but providing more intervention, more guidance. Val Zavala>> I've heard a lot of teachers and administrators complain about No Child Left Behind and it does, obviously, have flaws. But do you think, overall, are you glad that it's passed or do you really want it see it reformed? Jack O'Connell>> I really would like to see No Child Left Behind fixed. Let me tell you, a good feature of No Child Left Behind is to focus on our subgroups. No Child Left Behind actually had two additional subgroups that misstated that we have since conformed. Val Zavala>> Subgroups meaning? Jack O'Connell>> Subgroups based upon ethnicity, special education, low socioeconomic background. Val Zavala>> Oh, kids who really need the extra -- Jack O'Connell>> -- kids that need the extra help. NCLB has been good in that area. It's impossible for a school to be given the thumbs up, to meet the growth targets, without making sure that all of your subgroups are also moving in the right direction. Val Zavala>> Oh, so a lot of them will basically exclude those groups and they'd look like they would achieve a lot. Jack O'Connell>> That's right, and we don't want that. Val Zavala>> You're forcing them all to be inclusive? Jack O'Connell>> That's correct. Now that said, we have problems with NCLB. The measurement for their standard is not preferable for me. They use this arbitrary status mark. They think that all students, all schools, the starting line is the same and we know it's not. I'm one that wants to base our accountability model based upon improvement, growth, year after year. It's a much more accurate and fair portrayal of how well the school is performing. In addition, No Child Left Behind has never been fully funded. We need to make sure that the funding for the requirements that come from No Child Left Behind and the interventions that are clearly going to be required that that funding will be forthcoming. The good news is, all students are learning. All of our subgroups are moving in the right direction. Latino students, African American students, English language learners, low socioeconomic students, special education, moving in the right direction. That's the good news. Here's the bad news, Val. We're not closing the achievement gap. We really do have an achievement gap in the state of California and it's real, it's stark, it's persistent and it needs to be addressed. We need to have that well-skilled, well-educated, analytic problem-solving workforce. The great risk, I firmly believe, to the state of California remaining the sixth or seventh or eighth largest economic engine in the world is not having that well-skilled, well-educated workforce. So that has to come from these subgroups that continue to lag behind their peers. So that has to be our focus. Val Zavala>> And those subgroups are those less privileged students. Many of them are not college-bound. Jack O'Connell>> We know not every kid is going to college and that's okay, but what's not okay is to not have every student prepared for success in his or her lifetime. Val Zavala>> And that's where career technical education comes in? You're a big proponent of that. Jack O'Connell>> I am a big proponent of career technical education. So is Governor Schwarzenegger. We've really had some significant success in career technical education. Val Zavala>> First describe, you're talking about technical jobs like electricians? That kind of thing? Jack O'Connell>> Yes. We want people to be able to make a living. But it's not just turning the clock back. We know that many of these jobs are going to change. In fact, a recent study out of Stanford says that seventy percent of the jobs today require some education, some learning, after high school. There's another report that's come in just recently that projects that, in the year 2010, there's going to be ninety percent of the jobs requiring some education after high school. Now that could be an apprentice program, it could be a vocational program, it could be the military. But we need to make sure that our students have access to higher education and that all of our students need these higher level critical thinking skills, analytic skills, problem-solving skills. You read some of these so-called blue collar manuals. The reading levels are as challenging, as rigorous, as any college textbooks. We also know that many of these students are going to have multiple jobs, multiple careers, during their lifetime. So the old school thinking of just let's identify a student when that kid is thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years old and teach one particular task, that's gone because that task isn't going to be around forever. So we need to make sure that we prepare students with an academic foundation so that they can be prepared for their future and, at the same time, learn real world skills. Val Zavala>> Jack O'Connell, State Superintendent of Schools, big job, but thank you so much for taking it on. Jack O'Connell>> Thank you for having me. Val Zavala>> Superintendent Jack O'Connell was a guest of Town Hall Los Angeles. For information on future events and speakers, you can go to their website at townhall-la.org. 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. Larry Mantle>> Welcome to FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC. Our first film this week is a futuristic sci-fi movie starring Will Smith in "I Am Legend". It's adapted from a Richard Matheson novel and it's the third time that the story has made its way into a film. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> I'm joined this week by critics Claudia Puig of USA Today and Wade Major of boxoffice.com and L.A. CityBeat. Claudia, what did you think of "I Am Legend"? Claudia Puig>> Well, I think if you were to choose the last man on earth, you might want to choose Will Smith because he has that charisma to burn and he potently gets into this role in a physical way. He's a very physical actor. He buffs up for the role. I think he does a fine job and I think, for the first half of the movie, it works fine. It's, of course, based on the novel by Richard Matheson which has been remade a couple of times before, once with Charlton Heston, once with Vincent Price. I think Will Smith was a wise choice, but I do think that it deteriorates into kind of a schlocky B movie that becomes almost a zombie movie. Although it's very interesting to see New York completely isolated and not a sign of humanity except for Will Smith and his dog (laughter) and he has a nice bond with his dog, it falls apart. I think his performance is fine, but ultimately, it just -- Larry Mantle>> -- the movie doesn't cohere. Claudia Puig>> It doesn't cohere. Larry Mantle>> Wade, what did you think? Wade Major>> I'm one hundred percent in sync on that. I think this is both the best and the worst adaptation of "I Am Legend". It's the first one actually to use the title of the novel. I still think "Omega Man" is a better movie because "Omega Man" is a movie for adults. This is so frustrating because for about, you know, sixty-five or seventy percent of the movie, it feels like it's going to be the movie that it needs to be. It feels like it's going to finally be the novel and then you kind of feel the influence of the studio suits saying, "Oh, there's not enough here for that fifteen year old male videogame playing audience. We need to sort of throw more zombies and more CGI creatures at them." Then it kind of loses its adult trajectory and it plays more to the youth. I think, if you're an adult and you're going to this movie expecting something like a real sci-fi movie with head and with teeth, you know, you're going to finally lose at the end. It's so frustrating. But it's partly a really good movie. It just doesn't go all the way. Larry Mantle>> Khaled Hosseini's novel, "The Kite Runner", wasn't only a bestseller, but a true literary and cultural sensation and the film has been eagerly awaited as well. It's out this week. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> Wade, what did you think of "The Kite Runner"? Wade Major>> You know, "The Kite Runner" is a good film, but it's not as good as it should be. Again, this is a case where you just feel them pulling their punches in order to appeal more to a mass audience. It is, of course, based on the Khaled Hosseini novel which was an extremely popular and very successful novel. But the story that is set in Afghanistan sort of pre and during the Taliban and this epic tale of a family sort of torn apart and a young man trying to get back in touch with his roots, when you hear Taliban, terrorism, all of that, you start imagining really horrible things. The movie kind of has these rose-colored glasses on. It wants you to sort of feel for the character without necessarily making you feel all the horrible things that we know were a part of that particular place in time and history. So as a result, I think it's a film that makes far too many compromises relative to what it really should be, but it's still a good film. Larry Mantle>> Claudia? Claudia Puig>> I actually agree completely. I think the book had more depth to it, more grit to it. You did learn a lot more about the situation in Afghanistan early with the soviet invasion and later with the Taliban. You got a sense of really what was going on in a much more visceral way and the movie does pull away from that. However, having said that, I think there were some really impressive performances by young child actors. A boy by the name of Zekeria Ebrahimi and then another boy who played Hassan who is the kite runner, for whom the book and the movie are named, Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada, if I didn't completely destroy that name. He has got this amazingly emotional face and your heart breaks for him. I think the older actors, the person who plays Amir as he grows up, is also quite good and the father is good. I think the performances are very good, but I think there's just something missing. It's good, but it's not great. Larry Mantle>> And finally this week, the latest film from one of America's greatest moviemakers, Francis Ford Coppola. "Youth Without Youth" stars Tim Roth. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> "Youth Without Youth", Claudia? Claudia Puig>> I feel like I lost any vestige of youth I had watching this movie. It was as ponderous as its title. It's just Francis Ford Coppola and, of course, he's made things that I have loved. This is ambitious and it's beautiful to look at in some scenes. The cinematography is quite striking. It's mind-numbingly tedious. It's completely convoluted and oftentimes incomprehensible. Yet it's got this nice moody lighting, an evocative score. You're kind of going along and you just wish you knew what was going on (laughter). Tim Roth plays a man who is struck by lightning and sort of becomes a superman, both intellectually and he reverses in age and becomes youthful. There is a love story there and there is magical realism and there is mystery and there's a thriller. It's quite the hybrid, but it doesn't work. Larry Mantle>> "Youth Without Youth" sounds like without end in Claudia's view. What about for you, Wade? Wade Major>> You know, at the end of this movie, I thought to myself, "This makes no sense. I'm completely confused. This is a convoluted mess and I can't wait to see it again." I'm a huge Coppola fan, grew up on Coppola films and I've kind of seen him take this Orson Welles trajectory in his career where he peaked very early. I think he's struggling with the fact that, as he gets older, he doesn't seem to be able to recapture the genius and the success that he had very early on. To me, this movie is a little bit of his own personal couch trip. He's sharing with us all of his anxieties and his obsessions. You know, the novel by Mircea Eliade, I think is the way you pronounce it, I think her novel is a good sort of framework on which he can hang all of those obsessions, but it doesn't make any sense. Nonetheless, it's ravishing to look at. The music is wonderful. I think the fact that it kind of fuses a little bit of "Slaughterhouse-Five" with "Sybil" in this weird way, it still doesn't make any sense, but it's interesting. So I can't recommend it to anyone but those who really, really just can't get Coppola out of their system. Larry Mantle>> Thanks for joining us for another FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC joined by critics Claudia Puig of USA Today and, from boxoffice.com and L.A. CityBeat, Wade Major joining us as well. Please tune in next week at the same time for another FilmWeek on Life and Times. Val Zavala>> KPCC public radio broadcasts a longer version of FilmWeek Fridays at eleven a.m. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. 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:  | |
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