From LEED to LID: A green-building primer

New Year’s resolutions tend to fade by February, but Los Angeles County’s resolve to green-up home and commercial construction has the permanence and force of law.

On January 1, major elements of the green-building ordinance approved by the Board of Supervisors in 2008 go into effect, requiring new construction in unincorporated areas to be more sustainable and less polluting. Together with mandates that went into effect in 2009, the county’s new rules are among the nation’s most comprehensive, affecting projects from single-family homes to office high-rises.

The rules are complex and filled with language best understood by builders and planners. But the rest of us need not sit in the dark. So here’s a quick primer to shed a little (energy efficient) light on the subject:

• Upcoming projects will increase energy efficiency, cut greenhouse gas emissions, utilize sustainable construction materials and cut water use.

• Requirements govern both buildings and landscaping, but vary according to the size and type of the project.

• The ordinance requires builders to use LID, or Low-Impact Development, practices to save and recycle rainfall. Rather than shunting run-off to storm drains, the rules that went into effect in 2009 mandate the use of materials such as porous pavements. These let rainwater seep into the water table, thus increasing the drinking water supply while keeping dirty run-off away from our beaches.

• All commercial development must follow LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, building standards. Developed by the U.S. Green Building Council, LEED rules force builders to use efficient building methods and materials to reduce energy use, greenhouse gases and other pollution. Under the new restrictions, the bigger the project, the tougher the LEED standards. Small projects need only meet basic LEED benchmarks. Projects over 25,000 square feet have to follow LEED Silver standards. Residential projects with more than four units can choose between following LEED or two other stringent sets of standards.

• To slow the flow of construction debris to county landfills, builders must reuse or recycle at least half of the waste materials.

• Unlike other green building codes, L.A. County’s ordinance applies to single-family homes. For example, new homes must be 15 percent more energy-efficient than required by the prevailing state standards. Outdoors, the new codes limit the use of grass to 25 percent of a lot’s area and require the use of drought tolerant plants and low-flow irrigation.

High-profile projects that, if approved, are expected to seek building permits under the new rules include expansions at Pepperdine University and Universal City as well as a large residential development at Tejon Ranch.

A green holiday postscript

The Department of Public Works has posted a handy guide to Christmas tree recycling in communities across Los Angeles County. Strip off the lights, ornaments and tinsel and put that bad boy curbside on the day specified for your area.

The glitter days may be over, but the trees have one last role to play: most will be chipped up and turned into “alternative daily cover” in landfills, while the others will be transformed into mulch or compost. Last year, more than 350,000 Christmas trees were picked up as part of the recycling program run by the county’s sanitation districts. As for dealing with the rest of the seasonal excess—metallic wrapping paper, we’re talking to you now—check out the public works department’s tips for leaving a greener holiday footprint next year.

Unlikely duo writes new script for inmates

As a Hollywood executive, Scott Budnick produces buddy movies with a twist, like “The Hangover,” this summer’s gross-out comedy about the aftermath of a lunatic Vegas bachelor party, which has been nominated for a Golden Globe.

But he’s also starring, albeit far more quietly, in a real-life buddy production.

The high-energy film executive teamed up with a young prison inmate to create a new state program that gives an educational boost to L.A. County juvenile inmates who, at age 18, are facing time in California’s tough adult prisons. Launched last year, the Youthful Offender Pilot Program so far has placed about 50 juvenile offenders in safer settings with better educational and job training programs.

“I love a challenge,” says Budnick, 32. “This is a population that no one really cares about. These guys are demonized, and some people think they can’t be rehabilitated. It’s not true.”

A good number of these young inmates—eight of them—are at the medium security California Rehabilitation Center in Norco, near Riverside, living in a “college dorm” decorated with murals of Albert Einstein and astronaut Neil Armstrong and featuring quiet study rooms.

There, these young charges of the penal system, along with nearly 100 older inmates, have been allowed to participate in an already existing, federally-funded college program for inmates under the age of 35. They take correspondence courses ranging from art to pre-calculus and watch DVD lectures on four new flat screens.

From Budnick, they’ve learned lessons of another sort.

“He don’t have to do none of this for us,” says Michael Tavarez, 18, from La Puente, who arrived at Norco this spring after a conviction for assault with a deadly weapon. “He has his own life, but he’s doing all this just to help us out.”

The idea for the program actually started with an inmate named Prophet Walker, who was sentenced to six years for assault with great bodily harm. He had been one of Budnick’s students in a writing program at Juvenile Hall in Sylmar, where he earned a high school degree.

At 18, Walker was shipped to an adult facility in Blythe, a rough setting for a young guy determined to right his life. Despite the environment, Walker continued to pursue his education and steered clear of the gangs that ruled the roost. After two years of lobbying prison officials, he won a bed in the lower-security Norco and a seat in its coveted educational program.

Given his own experiences, Walker figured there must be some way for other juveniles who’d done well during their incarceration to sidestep the more dangerous adult prisons, which he believed were undermining rehabilitation.

So, in 2008, he turned to Budnick for help. And the executive turned the challenge back on Walker, telling the inmate that, if he came up with a good plan, he’d sell it to prison higher-ups. In fact, Walker came up with a very good plan.

He proposed revamping the scoring system that state correctional officials use to place new inmates in prisons so that it rewarded juveniles who behaved well during their incarceration. Budnick jumped on the idea. A week later he arranged a meeting in Sacramento with Scott Kernan, who oversees inmate classifications for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation as undersecretary for operations.

Kernan was quickly receptive. He shared concerns that younger inmates can get “thrown to the wolves” in tougher, high-security facilities, making rehabilitation even more remote. “We hope this will help avert some of those problems,” Kernan says.

If an inmate and an outsider teaming up for prison reform wasn’t enough of a Hollywood ending, Walker, now 22, earned parole in November after completing an associate’s degree behind Norco’s walls. In January, he’s scheduled to start classes at Loyola Marymount University as an undergraduate engineering student.

“It’s amazing,” Walker says of his accomplishments. “I’m still coming down from the high.”

As for Budnick, he says he’s driven to help the young inmates because most people see them as a “disposable population” best locked up and forgotten.

Budnick, who grew up in a nice Atlanta neighborhood and says he never got in trouble, believes that kids in tougher neighborhoods are afflicted by the same lack of awareness of consequences as teens in more affluent areas. The difference, he says, is that guns are more pervasive in some neighborhoods. “If you grow up like me in the suburbs, the kids get in a fight and it’s not a big deal,” he says. “Here, everyone’s armed, and it takes it to a different level.”

Budnick is president of Green Hat Films, the production company of director Todd Phillips. Besides “The Hangover,” Budnick also has producer credits for “Starsky and Hutch” and “School for Scoundrels.” He’s an executive producer of another upcoming Phillips buddy film, “Due Date” with Robert Downey Jr., which was shooting this fall.

One morning in November, Budnick played hooky from filming at the Ontario Airport to visit his friends at the college classroom at Norco, the sprawling prison that houses 4,680 inmates.

“Molina, you keeping up with your work?” he asks Luis Molina, 20, from Van Nuys. Molina arrived in March, after time at Folsom State Prison for attempted murder and robbery.

“Alfaro!” Budnick greets Anthony Alfaro, 23, from Santa Monica, who entered the program last year and says he is “halfway to an associate’s degree.” Convicted of attempted murder as a teen, he’s now planning on enrolling in college after parole in two years and hopes to get an MBA someday. “I’ve got a lot of ambition,” he says.

Like Walker, Alfaro entered the state prison under the old rules, and was assigned to Centinela State Prison in Imperial County. And, like Walker, he too had known Budnick from the InsideOUT Writers group as a juvenile inmate in L.A. and stayed in touch.

One day, he was on lockdown at Centinela when, out of the blue, officials told him he’d just gotten a new deal.

“They said, ‘I don’t know who you know, but you just got a transfer,” Alfaro recalls.

In the classroom at Norco, Budnick praised the inmates’ progress in a macho style that aimed to encourage without being saccharine.

“Hey Van Pelt!” he calls out to Don Van Pelt, the program’s administrator, within Alfaro’s earshot. “I’m shocked these guys know how to do PowerPoint presentations!”

Across the classroom, the intense Alfaro, whose left forearm is covered in tattoos, smiles.

To remain in the program, the students have to complete assignments as well as stay out of fights and gangs. “So far, we have not had any of Scott’s guys kicked out,” says Van Pelt, referring to Budnick.

The young inmates understand that if they foul up they’ll get sent back to the tougher prisons. “Not a lot of good opportunities come in life,” says Gerardo Vasquez, 19, of La Puente, serving time for armed robbery. “Scott gave us an opportunity, so now we got to take it and get the best out of it.”

Goodbye 2009, hello free Metro rides

Saying farewell to a whole decade means a whole lotta revelry this New Year’s Eve. So if you plan on partying like it’s 2009, here’s a tip: leave your car at home.

Going Metro is not only the safer and more environmentally-appealing way to go—it’s free during prime revelry hours and open all night. (Good news if your resolutions happen to include going green, being sociable and saving money in 2010.)

All Metro trains and buses, including the Orange Line busway in the San Fernando Valley, will be offering free rides from 9 p.m. Thursday till 2 a.m. Friday. The Orange Line, along with Metro’s Red, Purple, Blue, Green and Gold Line trains, will be running every 20 minutes from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m., with regular fares kicking in after 2 a.m.

Then, if you want to cheer on Sully (a.k.a. hero pilot Captain Chesley Sullenberger III) as he leads the 121st Rose Parade starting at 8 a.m., Metro’s Gold Line will be running extra trains into Pasadena on New Year’s Day. Later in the day, a train-shuttle combo will get you to the Rose Bowl, where the Ohio State Buckeyes are playing the Oregon Ducks starting at 2:10 p.m.

For a full rundown on the public transportation options as Los Angeles rings in 2010, check out Metro’s blog The Source or call 1-800-COMMUTE (266-6883).

Sheriff’s overtime practices criticized [updated]

Los Angeles County auditors have found that hundreds of Sheriff’s Department employees are racking up such significant amounts of overtime that they may be undermining their job performance.

In a just-released report, the Auditor-Controller’s office said that 348 sheriff’s employees had worked the equivalent of an extra six months a year in overtime—substantially boosting their income while raising questions about internal controls and public safety.

“Employees who work significant amounts of overtime may not be physically/mentally capable of performing their jobs,” wrote Auditor-Controller Wendy L. Watanabe. “In addition, we noted that non-emergency overtime is not always pre-approved, and management does not always monitor individual overtime worked/reported for compliance with work schedule limitations.”

Among other things, auditors examined the top 20 overtime earners in the department, finding that the vast majority of them had violated rules prohibiting excessive double shifts or stringing together more than 12 consecutive days of work.

“Sheriff’s timekeeping staff are supposed to issue notices for work rule violations such as the ones we noted,” according to the audit report. “However, timekeepers did not identify 32 of the 44 violations noted in our testwork.”

Independently, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky’s office in recent months also examined the department’s top overtime earners because of the large sums being spent and concerns that deputies could be risking their effectiveness by working too many hours.

Yaroslavsky’s staff found that, in 2008, at least 10 deputies more than doubled their salaries with overtime. One deputy with a base pay of $105,561, for example, collected an additional $130,214 in overtime, bringing his annual pay to $235,775.

He was one of at least 15 deputies and sergeants who earned more than $200,000 because of overtime, according to county records.

The auditor’s overtime examination focused on the period between March 2007 and February 2008. It was undertaken as part of a broader effort by the Auditor-Controller to study payroll and personnel issues throughout the Los Angeles County bureaucracy.

As a result of its findings, the Auditor-Controller’s office called on the Sheriff’s Department to implement new overtime policies and tighter controls. Auditors began their latest report by noting that the Sheriff’s Department had exceeded its overtime budget by an average of 104% during the past five fiscal years—or an average of nearly $83 million annually.

Sheriff’s officials, responding to the findings, noted that overtime for fiscal year 2008-2009 was dramatically reduced as department vacancies were filled, meaning fewer overtime hours were needed to backfill by existing personnel.

In its response, which is attached to the audit, the department also said some of the officers cited for working multiple double shifts and excessive consecutive days were assigned to Special Enforcement Bureau, Narcotics and Homicide, where they “are sometimes required to respond to unplanned and/or critical events…While the units make every attempt to schedule their personnel in order to avoid such violations, in the interest of public safety, it is sometimes unavoidable.”

Besides the sheriff’s use of overtime, the Auditor-Controller also examined other financial issues within the department, including industrial accident payments, leave accounting, monitoring of bonus eligibility, processing employee terminations and data security. In these areas, too, auditors found problems.

For example, the auditors reviewed the cases of 25 employees who were on extended sick leave and found that eight, or 32%, were potentially “overpaid” $7,000 apiece because of a lack of rigorous oversight of documents that were being filed. Auditors found similar overpayments in a review of industrial accident cases.


[Updated 12/22]

The Board of Supervisors today unanimously approved a motion by Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Gloria Molina that would bring more oversight and accountability to overtime usage in the Sheriff’s Department.

Among other things, the motion directs the Chief Executive Officer to report back to the board on January 19 with strategies for identifying and implementing new overtime policies and controls.

In one of the most significant reforms, the motion directs the CEO, with help from the Auditor-Controller, to monitor Sheriff’s employees whose overtime earnings exceed 50 percent of their regular salaries. The goal for such reviews is to identify the kind of work schedule violations that were uncovered by auditors and that raise questions about whether job performance is being risked by excessive overtime.

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