California Watch - General Assignment

Study attempts to reveal science behind 'gaydar'

Susanne Rust — Thu, 17 May 2012 07:05:02 +0000

Susanne Rust

When a scholarly journal published a study this week on the purported existence of "gaydar," the reaction ranged from "no duh" to offended.

Just how can someone accurately predict a person's sexuality based on a fleeting glimpse of a photograph?

But the new research from the University of Washington may shed some light. The researchers suggest that gaydar is a complex mental process that involves not only identifying particular facial features, but also those features’ configurations and relationships to one another.

The research appears in this week’s journal of the Public Library of Science.

We all make snap judgments several times a day, every day, when encountering strangers.

“We call it intuition,” said Nicholas Rule, a psychology researcher at the University of Toronto, who was not involved with this study. “When you get on a subway car and have only a split second to figure out who you’re going to sit next to, you’re using those first impressions.”

And according to scientists, we’re actually pretty good at making accurate snap judgments.

There are the obvious ones, such as telling the difference between a man and a woman, or gauging a person’s race or ethnicity, or assessing someone’s economic status.

But according to Rule and others’ research, we also can tell Mormons from non-Mormons (apparently, Mormons have healthier-looking skin), Democrats from Republicans (Democrats look kinder, Republicans more dominant), and we can apparently predict – based on high school photos – how long someone is going to live (something to do with impulsivity).

Sexual orientation is another area people have an ability to detect, the Public Library of Science article states.

In this latest research, Joshua Tabak at the University of Washington and his co-author, Vivian Zayas at Cornell University, tested the ability of college students to judge sexual orientation.

They collected photos from Facebook in which the target had identified himself or herself as gay or straight. In order to make sure that there were no “clues” or extra-physical “giveaways,” they excluded photographs in which people were wearing obvious makeup or glasses, had visible piercings or sported facial hair.

They then showed the photographs to the college students. But they let the students see each photo for only 50 milliseconds, which is about a third of the time it takes for a person to blink.

The researchers found that the students were better at guessing a person’s sexual orientation than you’d expect by chance. They also found that it was easier for the students to peg a woman’s sexual orientation – they did this 64 percent of the time accurately – than a man’s – which was around 57 percent of the time.

But in order to figure out how the students were making their snap judgments, the researchers turned some of the photos upside down.

According to Tabak, researchers have been unclear as to whether particular facial features – such as the eyes, nose or mouth – are the telltale sign or if it’s how the features are configured on the face – such as the distance between the eyes or the orientation of the lips relative to the chin.

Psychologists know that we have specific neurons that are used when assessing these configurations. However, if you turn a photograph upside down, these neurons don’t fire. They become useless.

Tabak found that the students still could tell sexual orientation when a photograph was turned upside down, but their accuracy decreased. He said this indicated that we’re using both feature assessment and configuration and that we use configuration to enhance our snap judgments of sexuality.

Both he and Rule said this kind of research, while interesting, could also have policy implications. The reality of gaydar, they say, undercuts arguments and laws, such as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," that rely on the premise that if sexuality is kept a secret, it will eliminate homophobia.

Others, however, say this kind of research has no place in policy discussions and might instead serve anti-gay agendas.

Aaron Belkin, director of the Los Angeles-based Palm Center, an advocacy group for LGBT members in the armed services, said he was "almost" offended by the research and was skeptical that it had any policy implications.

"Whether or not people's perceptions about the sexual orientation of another are accurate, the need for anti-discrimination legislation is just as urgent," Belkin said. "You can have an inaccurate perception and still discriminate."

Being able to pinpoint someone's sexual identity by physicality "does not necessarily have any effectiveness on laws designed to protect" groups of people who might be discriminated against, said Belkin, who is also an associate professor of political science at San Francisco State University.

Belkin also pointed out that there is no way of knowing in this experiment whether some of those people photographed were gay and calling themselves straight.

Both Belkin and Cathy Renna, a gay-rights advocate and managing partner of Renna Communications, said this kind of research implicitly condones stereotyping, even if that is not the intent.

"It’s so interesting because it plays into the idea that there are stereotypes that exist because there are commonalities in certain groups of people that pop up," Renna said. "But there are always those, maybe a majority, that don't fit those stereotypes."

"What’s the point?" she said. "There’s real harm that can happen when we allow people to make assumptions. The reality is it is very easy to stay in the closet and not have people know you are LGBT. There are thousands upon thousands of people who have done it for years and decades."

California Watch staff named Pulitzer finalists

California Watch — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 23:36:19 +0000

Erica Perez/California Watch Reporter Corey G. Johnson and his colleagues at California Watch spent months sifting through tens of thousands of pages of state records.

The staff of California Watch and the Center for Investigative Reporting was named today as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in the local reporting category for exposing regulatory breakdowns in the way seismic safety standards are met at public schools.

The local reporting prize went to Sara Ganim and members of The Patriot-News staff in Harrisburg, Pa., for their coverage of the Penn State sex scandal involving former football coach Jerry Sandusky. It was one of 14 journalism awards announced today by Columbia University, which administers journalism’s most prestigious awards.

The other local reporting finalists were A.M. Sheehan and Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling of the Advertiser Democrat in Norway, Maine, a weekly newspaper that exposed problems with a federally supported housing program.

At California Watch, roughly 50 staff members and contributors helped produce an initial 19-month series “On Shaky Ground” and follow-up reporting in 2011. “Being part of the Pulitzer conversation is a great honor, considering we haven’t been around that long,” said Editorial Director Mark Katches.

Corey G. Johnson was the lead reporter on the project. He began work on it shortly after arriving at California Watch in September 2009. Johnson was assigned by his editors to write an update on seismic safety at schools pegged to the 20th anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake. But he soon began to untangle issues with the way regulators had overseen billions of dollars in public school construction.

With his colleagues at California Watch, Johnson went on to find that thousands of school buildings were being occupied even though they did not meet seismic safety requirements. Bad inspectors missed major defects or falsified reports – while being rewarded with more work. And the state made it practically impossible for schools to get much-needed seismic repair money.

Johnson became a virtual embed inside the state architect’s offices, spending months sifting through long-forgotten documents and using a hand truck to move around 30 boxes of case files. As The Poynter Institute said in a story this week about the series:

Over the course of a year, Johnson took three vacation days off from the project, mostly to sleep, he said. He spent so much time digging through the documents that insiders began to notice his diligence and leaked him information. One source sent him a hard-drive brimming with internal e-mails and data. But he began to also notice that as he asked for documents, some government records were being changed. His investigation had touched a nerve and everyone, it seemed, knew this was going to be an explosive story.

Johnson identified schools with missing wall anchors, dangerous lights poised above children, poor welding, slipshod emergency exits and malfunctioning fire alarms. All these problems had been red-flagged by regulators and then lost in a swamp of paperwork. In many cases, local school officials overlooked warning signs in a race to complete new facilities during an unprecedented school building boom.

The initial “On Shaky Ground” series published in April 2011 and appeared in more than 150 news outlets across the state, including many of California’s largest daily newspapers. Last month, the series also was named the winner of the national Scripps Howard Award in public service.

“Media outlets typically jump all over disasters after the fact – to understand what went wrong,” said CIR Executive Director Robert J. Rosenthal. “Our staff detailed systemic regulatory shortcomings before the next big quake, leading to swift and far-reaching reforms that may help California avert future tragedies.”

Johnson, Erica Perez, Kendall Taggart and Agustin Armendariz obtained and reviewed more than 30,000 documents. The staff compiled a first-of-its-kind interactive database featuring every public K-12 school in the state. Parents have been able to use that database to see if their child attends school near seismic hazards or if schools have seismically unsafe buildings. Robert Salladay, CIR’s senior editor, and Katches served as primary editors on the project.

Forging unique partnerships to broaden distribution of “On Shaky Ground,” California Watch contacted news outlets across the state about a month before publication and provided data we compiled. Major newspapers and hyper-local websites were encouraged to pursue local angles with the data provided by California Watch. Many did.

CIR’s in-house broadcast team produced segments that that aired in every major California media market. The main text stories were translated into Spanish, Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese. With KQED Public Radio, which helped report the series, the project was broadcast on public radio.

The staff also went to great lengths to raise awareness about the importance of earthquake preparedness. For young schoolchildren, a coloring book was created and produced in five languages with help from KQED, Patch and American Public Media’s Public Insight Network.

More than 36,000 books were distributed at no charge to schools and nonprofits. Safety packets with whistles and ID cards were handed out at community events across the state. An iPhone app enabled users to pinpoint quake faults near them. The app, which is available for free through the iTunes store, includes preparation checklists and a flashlight.

After the initial series ran last April, reporters continued to mine records. In December, Taggart and Johnson exposed problems at two school districts that served as case studies of a broken system. In both places, serious structural flaws were identified by inspectors and then buried under concrete or behind drywall by contractors who had fallen behind schedule and didn’t want to incur more delays.

On Shaky Ground: A look at seismic safety in California schools

Census: In 1940, Calif. led country in education

Joanna Lin — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 07:05:02 +0000

Joanna Lin

U.S. Census BureauThis 1940 map identifies major cities, mountains and rivers in California.

The National Archives released for the first time yesterday individual records from the 1940 Census – unleashing an online treasure trove of 3.8 million pages eagerly awaited by genealogists and researchers.

The country has changed substantially in 72 years: Its population has ballooned to nearly 309 million from 132 million. Alaska and Hawaii were not yet states. California's entire population, 6.9 million, was less than Los Angeles County's today.

California's population in 2010, more than 37 million, was the nation's largest. In 1940, it was the nation's fifth-largest, trailing New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Ohio. But California led the nation in other ways, including educational attainment.

While just 24.5 percent of Americans had earned at least a high school diploma in 1940, more than 37 percent of Californians had – the highest rate in the country. It also had the highest rate of college graduates among states, 6.8 percent, and was bested only by Washington, D.C.'s 11.1 percent.

In 2010, 80.7 percent of Californians were high school graduates and 30.1 percent held at least a bachelor's degree. While higher than in 1940, those rates are no longer the nation's highest: 85.6 percent of Americans now have at least high school diplomas, and 28.2 percent are college graduates. Wyoming has the nation's highest rate of high school graduates, 92.3 percent, and Massachusetts has the highest rate of college graduates, 39 percent.

What else has changed in California since 1940? Here are more facts about the Golden State, then and now, as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau:

Only six California cities in 1940 had populations of 100,000 or more: Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Diego and San Francisco. In 2010, 67 cities had populations greater than 100,000.
Nearly 87 percent of Californians were American-born in 1940. In 2010, 71.6 percent were born in the United States, including 53.8 percent in California.
The 1940 Census recorded Californians in three primary categories for race: white (95.5 percent), Negro (1.8 percent) and other races (2.7 percent). Unlike in the 1930 Census, people of Mexican birth or ancestry who were not Indian or other nonwhite races were identified as white in 1940.
In 2010, the census asked more detailed questions about race and origin, with 57.6 percent of Californians identifying as white, 6.2 percent as black or African American, 1 percent as American Indian and Alaska native, 13 percent as Asian, 0.4 percent as native Hawaiian and other Pacific islander, 17 percent as other, and 4.9 percent as two or more races. Among all races, 37.6 percent identified as Hispanic or Latino.

USC: Diversity may be peaking in S. Calif.

More than half of Calif. residents born in state

Palo Alto is California's most educated city

Help us name our new children’s section

Ashley Alvarado — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 17:39:10 +0000

Ashley Alvarado

It’s an especially exciting time to work at California Watch and the Center for Investigative Reporting. In recent weeks, we’ve been honored with the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions, the Scripps Howard Award for public service and the George Polk Award. Merger talks continue with The Bay Citizen. And soon, we will unveil a new section of the website dedicated to kid-friendly material.

Wee ones will be able to color our “Ready to Rumble” book on earthquake safety right on the site; parents can order or download a copy for home use. Plus, we’ll launch an occasional series of videos featuring Sunny, the California Watchdog, as he helps children understand the issues we report on, like lead in jewelry and the need for clean drinking water.

There’s just one thing we’re missing: a name for the kids’ section. We’ve narrowed down our list to three favorites and need your help to decide what we’ll call it. Voting will remain open through Friday. Thank you!

Center for Investigative Reporting, The Bay Citizen explore merger

Center for Investigative Reporting — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 23:57:35 +0000

Center for Investigative Reporting

The Center for Investigative Reporting and The Bay Citizen agreed today to formally explore a merger, a move that would combine the oldest nonprofit investigative news group in the nation with a startup newsroom focused on the San Francisco Bay Area.

The boards of both organizations signed a memorandum of understanding to begin working out details of merging their two staffs. The deal still has hurdles to clear before a merger can be completed.

Phil Bronstein

Former San Francisco Chronicle Executive Editor Phil Bronstein and CIR’s current executive director, Robert J. Rosenthal, will lead the combined organization.

Bronstein will assume the role of executive chairman of the newly constituted 19-member board of directors. In his new role, a paid position, Bronstein's focus will be on overall strategy and audience engagement. He will emphasize fundraising and developing new ways to sustain the nonprofit.

Bronstein, 61, has served as chairman of the CIR board since January 2011. He played a key role in brokering a potential merger after he was approached to be the next chief executive officer of The Bay Citizen.

Robert Rosenthal

“I've been a journalist in the Bay Area my entire adult life and have deep roots and affection for the extraordinary and unique culture here,” Bronstein said. “There is more innovation, activism and civic involvement in this region than anywhere in the country. This is the basis for engaging people where we all live. With our unified nonprofit model, we can bring together combined talent, technology, investigative power and creative skills to serve the public in dynamic ways.”

Jeffrey Ubben, chairman of the The Bay Citizen board, said he is believes the merger “bodes well for an informed and engaged Bay Area.”

“Together, we will draw on the vision and talents of each of our high caliber staffs, and ultimately become stronger and more effective than the sum of our parts,” Ubben said.

As executive director of the combined operation, Rosenthal will oversee day-to-day operations of a staff that will number about 65 people. He also will play a key role in creating a vision for the merged organization.

Rosenthal, 63, joined CIR in 2007 and has guided the nonprofit at a time of unprecedented growth. The editorial operations will report to him.

In 2009, CIR launched California Watch, the largest investigative reporting team in the state. CIR added a video unit last year that has enabled the newsroom to produce stories for print and TV media partners across the country.

“We will now be able to bring our combined strategies for engagement and accountability journalism to a region of the country that can best embrace it,” Rosenthal said.

The addition of The Bay Citizen would give CIR its first local reporting hub and an expanded technology team to create reporting apps and tools around data, Rosenthal said. Though just two years old, The Bay Citizen has developed a loyal membership. The Bay Citizen also brings with it a solid fundraising base as the merged nonprofit attempts to develop revenue strategies that will help make it sustainable.

The Bay Citizen will continue to produce local and regional enterprise reporting, Rosenthal said, and California Watch will continue to produce statewide stories. CIR’s reporters, meanwhile, generate national and international investigations. But Rosenthal noted that some CIR stories can be localized for The Bay Citizen’s audiences, and some local stories can be broadened in scope.

“Because it's the Bay Area, stories we do here will also be of interest to audiences across the country and around the world,” Rosenthal said.

The 35-year-old Center for Investigative Reporting has grown rapidly – from a small newsroom with about a $2.3 million budget three years ago to a $5 million news organization. CIR has produced stories for some of the most recognizable news brands in the country, including Frontline, PBS NEWSHOUR, “60 Minutes,” The Washington Post and Newsweek. California Watch has boosted CIR’s distribution to include hundreds of news outlets in California.

Both boards met over the weekend to negotiate terms of the memorandum of understanding. While most Americans watched the Super Bowl, merger attorneys and board members hammered out details. By late Monday, only a few issues remained, including whether The Bay Citizen and CIR would issue separate press releases about the formal merger talks. (It was decided to do one joint release.)

The combined budgets of the two organizations add up to more than $10 million. A final budget target has not been announced. A small transition team from CIR and The Bay Citizen will begin working on the fine details of merging the two operations, including developing a business plan and building an organizational chart. The transition is expected to take several weeks. During that time, the newsrooms will continue to run independently.

Mark Katches

Rosenthal said Mark Katches, CIR’s editorial director, will play a crucial role in determining the merged organization’s editorial strategies.

Katches, 48, has edited two Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting projects and three Pulitzer finalists in the last eight years. CIR hired him in 2009 to build California Watch. He was promoted to editorial director for all of CIR last April.

“Much of the success of CIR and California Watch is directly attributed to Mark’s skills as an editor and as a visionary entrepreneur,” Rosenthal said. “We are both looking forward to working with The Bay Citizen and its staff to create a very special organization.”

Combining the two newsrooms will present challenges. Through its California Watch operation, CIR has forged relationships with local media partners like the San Francisco Chronicle and KQED. In contrast, The Bay Citizen has positioned itself as a competitor to the Chronicle, and it produces stories every Friday and Sunday for The New York Times’ regional pages, also a competitor of the Chronicle and other Bay Area news outlets.

Another delicate issue to resolve: The Bay Citizen newsroom staff has voted to join the local newsroom union. The larger CIR newsroom staff is not part of a union. Other questions remain about The Bay Citizen’s focus and mission – which has included culture and sports coverage – and how that will mesh with CIR, which is known for deeper-dive investigative and explanatory reporting. The merger must be approved by the California attorney general’s office.

The deal comes at a critical time for The Bay Citizen. In September, its first editor, Jonathan Weber, announced he was leaving after 16 months at the helm. In October, Chief Executive Officer Lisa Frazier tendered her resignation. Her last day was Monday.

Warren Hellman

In December, founder Warren Hellman died. And in January, The Bay Citizen’s interim editor, Steve Fainaru, announced plans to leave.

Of all the changes in leadership, Hellman’s death perhaps left the biggest void. The banjo-picking billionaire founded The Bay Citizen with $5 million in seed money in 2009. He recruited close friends to contribute millions more to the organization. His death will pose fundraising challenges for the merged organization.

Hellman created The Bay Citizen out of concern that strong local reporting had diminished due to severe cuts at the San Francisco Chronicle and other local news outlets.

How the two staffs come together will be closely watched, according to Bay Area-based media industry analyst Ken Doctor.

“In the short term, it's a vote of confidence in the California Watch model, one with more ramping revenue streams and partnerships than a purely local model,” Doctor said. “If it works, 49 other states will be watching.”

Rosenthal said he is looking forward to working closely with Bronstein.

"At CIR, Phil has been a terrific chair the last year, and since I joined the organization, he has been highly supportive of me,” Rosenthal said. “The CIR board knew of my vision when I joined the organization. I have had tremendous freedom and support in implementing that vision. They have understood the challenges we faced and allowed me to take risks and follow my instincts in a way that was almost impossible in a corporate, traditional setting. I know that will continue as we move forward. This is a huge challenge, not without risks, but it is going to be fun for all of us to be part of building a truly unique, special and important public service news organization."

Identity theft, credit card fraud on the rise

Agustin Armendariz — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 08:05:04 +0000

Agustin Armendariz

Credit card theft is on the rise, according to the latest crime estimates. Last year, about 8.6 million U.S. households, or 7 percent, experienced some form of identity theft, up from the 6.4 million that fell victim to identify thieves in 2005, according to Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates.

The total financial losses for those households totaled $13.3 billion. In most cases, identity thieves obtained victims' existing credit card information, the bureau reported. The data includes both attempted and successful use of the stolen information. Although the number of identify theft cases increased, the study found that fewer households suffered a monetary loss in 2010. The estimates indicate that nearly a quarter of victims avoided a financial loss.

Bureau of Justice Statistics, "Identity Theft Reported by Households, 2005-2010"

The estimates are derived from the National Crime Victimization Survey conducted annually by the U.S. Census Bureau for the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Each year, the data is obtained from a sample of 76,000 households comprising nearly 135,300 people who mirror the demographic makeup of the country as a whole. From these responses, the Bureau of Justice Statistics can estimate the likelihood of victimization by identity theft or other crimes for the population as a whole, according to the bureau.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics defines identity theft as the unauthorized use or attempted misuse of an existing credit card or other account, the unauthorized use of personal information to open a new account or for other fraudulent purposes, or a combination of those.

On its website, the U.S. Justice Department describes a few of the ways in which criminals get access to personal information. They include digging through trash for documents with account and contact information, as well as taking advantage of transactions made by consumers in public places – for example, punching in a credit card number on a phone or laptop or providing it in a conversation with a hotel or rental car company.

California man caught with 300,000 identities

State colleges, alumni groups reap $6.6M in credit card royalties

New federal agency wants your credit card complaint

Artists restore Chicano Park murals, symbols of '70s political struggle

Patricia Leigh Brown — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 08:05:03 +0000

Patricia Leigh Brown

Todd Stands

More than 40 years before Occupy protesters camped in New York's Zuccotti Park, Oakland's Frank Ogawa Plaza and elsewhere, Chicano activists in San Diego wielding paint and primer transformed a bleak urban netherworld into an epic work of art.

On April 22, 1970, this turbulent piece of ground in the shadows of the San Diego-Coronado Bridge became a conduit for a displaced community’s rage. That day was the beginning of a 12-day occupation by residents of Barrio Logan, the historic heart of the city’s Mexican American community, which resulted in Chicano Park: a seamy underbelly of massive gray concrete freeway ramps and pylons re-imagined by muralists as dazzling public art.

“Our idea was always to paint this place,” Mario Torero, one of the park’s original muralists, recalled on a recent Saturday. “We told the story of the colors and dreams of our ancestors, painting new faces of our sad and glorious history on the pillars and screaming in full rage.”

But over the decades, the 72 or so murals, created in the heat of political struggle and maintained by volunteers, had begun to show their age. Considered a major example of the Chicano mural movement – which flourished in California between 1969 and 1975 – the park’s concrete canvases were deteriorating, the pillars subject to 40 years of vibrations from five lanes of traffic carrying some 85,000 cars a day across the bridge.

After a decade of dealing with red tape, restoration of 20 murals by their original artists has finally begun, with the first stroke of paint by Torero and other artists applied this past June.

“We’re the only artists in history who come back to restore our own murals,” said Guillermo Rosette, a member with Torero of Los Toltecas en Aztlan, the artists collective that created the park’s first mural in 1973.

The restoration is being financed with $1.6 million in federal transportation enhancement money. Although funds were approved in 2002, they did not become available until this year, mired in details like lead abatement, development of a technical manual and copyrights for the mural artists so that restoration would not have to be outsourced.

“Caltrans is in the business of building and maintaining transportation systems,” said Martin D. Rosen, the agency’s former senior environmental planner and cultural resource specialist and a champion of the park. “Clearly, mural art is not something they knew how to deal with.”

The murals are a powerful blend of politics, myth and history – looming images of Mayan ruins, triumphant Mexican heroes, contemporary themes like farm labor and poverty. In “Colossus,” an early mural by Torero and others, the figure of Atlas appears to be straining under the weight of the Coronado Bridge.

“This is our movement symbolically represented, embodying the tremendous effort of the community,” Torero explained.

With restoration now under way, a festive mood resembling a barn raising is inhabiting the park. On a recent weekend, working artists, some hoisted on boom lifts to reach the tops of pillars, were joined by hip-hop dancers, families eating carne asada and men listening to scratchy Mexican romance music on an old record player teetering on a plastic stool.

Among the artists was Rosette, who now lives in Taos, N.M., and has just finished restoring “Chicano Park Takeover,” a three-month effort that included three weeks of cleaning the concrete by hand. He noted the tools of his trade – paints, gels and sealants – have made big technical leaps since the 1970s.

“It lets us turn up the volume,” he said of the mural’s new vibrancy. “It’s just like Santana and ‘Black Magic Woman.’ ”

Patricia Leigh Brown/California WatchGuillermo Rosette recently restored this mural, "Chicano Park Takeover," which depicts the story of the park's creation.

The park’s history is worth retelling: The bisecting of the Barrio Logan neighborhood by I-5 and the Coronado Bridge, resulting in a concrete “roof” supported by massive gray pillars, displaced at least 1,500 families. With a population of 20,000 in its heyday in the 1940s, the historic neighborhood was rezoned as industrial in the 1950s, ushering in junkyards, auto-wrecking operations, plating and chemical companies, and today, a legacy of environmental and air quality issues.

In 1967, community leaders began demanding a neighborhood park under the bridge. When the California Highway Patrol started building a substation there, hundreds of residents formed a human shield to stop construction. They displayed signs in Spanish with statements like, “More houses, less junkyards,” and they hoisted a Chicano flag from a telephone pole.

The use of murals as a tool of political resistance is a long Mexican tradition. “Imagine the park without murals,” said Tommie Camarillo, chairwoman of the Chicano Park Steering Committee, who has been volunteering at the park for 41 years. “It would look like a concrete jungle.”

The park has had its share of controversies – among them an attack by white supremacists in the late ‘70s and proposals for a seismic retrofit that would have destroyed the murals. But today, as Gail Perez, an ethnic studies professor at the University of San Diego, noted in La Prensa San Diego newspaper, Chicano Park serves as the ombligo – or sacred center for all who visit – its murals inseparable from community struggle.

“It’s the Sistine Chapel of California,” said Rosen, the former state Transportation Department official. “I have a feeling of reverence every time I go there.”

Patricia Leigh Brown/California WatchThe park continues to inspire spontaneous new artistic creations, such as this Papier- mache Day of the Dead altar that 36-year-old Danlive Urbina constructed earlier this month to honor his parents.

California Lost is an occasional series examining challenges facing neglected communities around the state.

Cities increasingly use receiverships to deal with blighted homes

Kendall Taggart — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 08:05:04 +0000

Kendall Taggart

Lokibaho/istockphoto.com

Cities throughout California are grappling with foreclosed homes and struggling or recalcitrant homeowners whose properties have become eyesores. Now, an increasing number of local authorities are initiating health and safety receiverships, a legal process in which control of the property is temporarily taken from the owner and placed with a court-appointed officer.

“It’s really an emerging field and an emerging resource that cities are turning towards,” said Dean Pucci, director of the receiverships division for the law offices of Jones & Mayer.

Remedies that local agencies typically used during the past decade may no longer be possible, as city code enforcement budgets have been slashed and an increasing number of homes are cited for serious code violations.

Mark Adams, president of the California Receivership Group, said his business has increased 30 to 40 percent in the last year alone.

Receiverships can offer cities a less expensive way to address properties that present health and safety risks.

“Fines and penalties are one thing, but they don’t get the property fixed,” Adams said. “The distinguishing factor of health and safety receiverships, in relation to more traditional tools of code enforcement, is that the project actually gets completely rehabilitated.”

Courtesy of Jones & MayerThis house in Oxnard was recently placed in receivership.

If a city opts to have a property placed in receivership, the receiver borrows money against the property to pay for the cleanup. To make the loan appealing to a commercial lender, loans taken out under a health and safety receivership are given priority status over all other loans that might be against the property, with the exception of tax liens.

Vacant and rundown properties have been an increasing problem for the city of Richmond. Trisha Aljoe, the city prosecutor for Richmond and special counsel to other Bay Area cities, said the houses she has seen placed in receivership were horrific. In Concord, a mother and daughter were living in a house filled with mold and holes in the ceiling. It ultimately had to be gutted.

But whether receivership is the right option for cities depends almost entirely on the value of the property and whether the receiver will be able to get a loan against the property, Aljoe said. She added that Richmond has come close to having properties placed in receivership, but for now is still relying on other tools.

Billy Owens, a code enforcement officer in Bakersfield and president of the California Association of Code Enforcement Officers, estimates code violations in his city have risen 30 to 40 percent in the last four years. Meanwhile, his staff has been cut from 16 to nine. For now, the city has been able to recoup any rehabilitation costs it incurs through tax liens on the property and has not resorted to health and safety receiverships.

Other cities, such as Whittier and Eureka, have been active. Whittier has had roughly 15 properties placed into receivership in the last four to six months, according to Pucci, whose firm serves as the city’s attorney.

Foreclosure crisis persists with little relief in sight

Investors to plead guilty to foreclosure auction rigging

More than half of Calif. residents born in state

Agustin Armendariz — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 08:05:04 +0000

Agustin Armendariz

Just a little more than half of California residents were born in the Golden State, with about another quarter born in a foreign country, according to current estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Most people in the United States reside in the state in which they were born. In Louisiana, more than three-quarters of residents were born there, the highest percentage of any state. In California, a slim majority – 54 percent – were born in state. Nevada had the lowest percentage of residents born in state, with less than a quarter of its population born there.

The last time the Census Bureau checked, it found that people most often moved for employment-related reasons when the move was of 500 miles or more and for housing-related reasons when it was 50 miles or less, according to a report analyzing geographic mobility in the United States between 2008 and 2009.

Estimates from the 2010 American Community Survey for California
Born in state of residence	Born outside state of residence	Foreign-born
54%	18%	27%

The Western region of the country had fewer residents born in state than any other region. Among the Western states, Utah has the highest percentage of residents born in state, with 62 percent, and in Montana and New Mexico, more than half of all residents are natives.

In the Midwest, 70 percent of residents live in their native state, the most among all regions.

A report [PDF] and statement released by the Census Bureau this week highlight the data points from its 2010 American Community Survey that illustrate the mobility of U.S. residents.

State's population center near Bakersfield

State projected to add 4.3M people by 2020

More than 13,000 online maps provide historic view of state

Agustin Armendariz — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 08:05:04 +0000

Agustin Armendariz

This week, the U.S. Geological Survey added 13,688 historical California topographic maps to its online archive, hundreds of which date back to the 1800s. From the Gold Rush town of Downieville in the Sierras to El Cajon in the hills above San Diego Bay, the maps provide a picture of California from before the 20th century through the past decade.

Library of CongressA 1934 photo shows historic buildings from the Gold Rush era in Downieville.

Downieville sits on the North Fork of the Yuba River in Sierra County, where gold was plentiful in the mid-1800s, according to the Sierra County Chamber of Commerce. In 1851, the town had a population of 5,000 people, only 25 of them women, according to a National Park Service history. On the USGS map surveyed in the late 1800s, the Goodyears Bar sits along the river just down the hill from the Pliocene mine and about 12 miles or so from Whiskey Diggings. The population boom brought on by the Gold Rush made it one of the biggest towns in California, and it missed becoming the capital by one vote, according to the chamber.

U.S. Geological SurveySurveyed 1885-1888

In the southern part of the state near the Mexican border, El Cajon sat 18 miles east of San Diego in 1886 and was a booming agricultural town, according to an account [PDF] in the San Diego Union at the time.

U.S. Geological SurveySurveyed in 1891

There are more than 3,000 places in California covered by the maps in the archive, with 28 maps of Truckee dating from 1891 through 2000. Situated east of Donner Pass along the Truckee River, the town of Truckee was along the Central Pacific Railroad line in 1891. The 2000 map focuses mostly on the town but still shows the location of the saw mill that appears on the map made more than a century earlier.

"These maps harken back to California's past, when its awesome topography could make a simple trip for staples a daylong journey in a horse-drawn buckboard," USGS Director Marcia McNutt said in the announcement. "The uses of these maps for scientists, historians, educators and even by those who simply want to be reminded of a time when life moved a little slower are limited only by our imagination."