Meet up to plan the subway

Want to have a say in what your subway will look like and where it will go?

As planners prepare to extend the subway westward, Metro is headed back to the Westside for a new series of community meetings this spring.

The meetings, which begin April 12, will feature updates on station planning, locations and design. Metro’s last round of community meetings in the fall of 2009 regularly attracted hundreds of people.

This time around, Metro officials will provide preliminary information on the five alternative routes for the extension currently under review. These proposed routes would add branches and stations at varying points throughout the Westside, including stations at Wilshire/Crenshaw and in the Westwood/UCLA area.

Information and community input from the meetings will be considered before Metro releases a Draft Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report (Draft EIS/EIR) this coming summer. Technical analysis and development plans in the Draft EIS/EIR will be made available for public review before construction begins on the project.

Meeting schedules and summaries of past meetings are available here.

Posted 3/31/10

Veggie smugglers, beware

In L.A. County’s canine workforce, you’ve got your glamour hounds– dogs who can sniff out a multimillion dollar drug cache faster than you can say “film at 11.” And you’ve got your rough-and-ready patrol dogs—the ones renowned for collaring runaway bad guys in mean back alleys.

But where, oh where is that rare breed of dog who can take down a rogue shipment of dandelion greens, bok choy and parsley? To which the county agriculture department says: Meet Ebony and Tahoe.

The new dogs on the beat, together with their handlers, inspectors Hung Truong and Rogelio Carranza, are the pioneering members of the county’s new Agricultural Detector Dog Program.

Truong and Carranza recently traveled to Georgia for a 10-week course at the USDA National Detector Dog Training Center. There, they met their new dog partners and got to work on illicit produce detection.

The training initially involved teaching dogs to scratch at boxes in which handlers had placed five different fruits—guava, mangoes, stone fruit, oranges and apples. Then “non-target boxes”—containing items like clothes, candy and shampoo—were added to the mix, with treats bestowed on the dogs when they continued to scratch at the fruit-filled boxes in the midst of the other packages.

Since February, the team has been on the job in Los Angeles County, conducting inspections at FedEx warehouses and planning to expand soon into UPS and U.S. Postal Service facilities as well.

The stakes are high. An unwelcome pest that hitches a ride on, say, some homegrown peaches could quickly become established here.

“An infestation of such pests could cost California millions of dollars in crop and job losses, increased pesticide use, and quarantines that impact trade,” according to a new brochure on the program.

“The granddaddy of all pests that we don’t want to have infesting this county are the fruit flies,” says Dave Cassidy, quarantine deputy for the Department of Agricultural Commissioner/Director of Weights and Measures. “By stopping it before it even gets here, that’s the cheapest method.”

The effort is being funded with $311,205 in federal money passed along by the California Department of Food and Agriculture—an arrangement approved Tuesday by the Board of Supervisors. The funding covers all expenses associated with the program, including dogs, training and human salaries.

The team already is earning kudos for its work. Ebony, a Lab mix, was prominently featured in a recent pest report put out by the California Department of Food & Agriculture. In the best just-the-facts style of the police blotter, under the headline “LA County’s New Detector Dog Team’s First Find!” it said:

“On March 5, 2010, at about 8:00 a.m. at the FedEx in Santa Fe Springs, Ebony responded to an unmarked box sent from Arizona.

Inspector Truong and supervisor Carmen Rieger opened the unmarked box and found it contained dandelion greens, bok choy, dill, green lettuce, and parsley.”

What sounded like an innocent salad bar became considerably less appetizing when you learned about the garnishes it was carrying.

“The mixed vegetables appeared home grown and contained ants, aphids, mites, slugs, springtails, wasps, and moths. One of the insects was a big-headed ant (Pheidole sp.) which is a Q-rated pest. The shipment’s contents were destroyed by freezing.”

The discovery came as a shock—not least of all to Truong, who thought he was looking at an olive oil shipment.

As for her compensation for the big find—“We call it ‘Jackpot,’ ” Truong says. “Instead of one piece of treat, we give ‘em four… They’re working for the treat, but they’re also working for us, so we praise ‘em up. I give her belly rubs, too.”

Tahoe, a purebred Labrador who weighs in at 70 pounds, has been making his share of finds, too, recently detecting an unmarked shipment of leeks coming from Michigan, according to Carranza, his handler.

It’s important work—and something that humans just can’t do. Unless a produce shipment is leaking, smelly, “taped weird,” or “coming from a high-risk area,” human inspectors have to rely on correct labeling to tell them what to inspect, says Rieger, the teams’ supervisor. But with dogs sniffing out the packages—correctly labeled and otherwise—as they come down the conveyor belt, human inspectors can devote more energy to properly investigating what they find.

“I love it,” says Carranza, 49, a 20-year department veteran. “Right now, I think it’s better with my dog. I’m not alone.”

Posted 3/30/10

Foster homes to be investigated

Responding to the brutal death of a two-year-old toddler, Los Angeles County’s child welfare chief on Tuesday promised a broad emergency examination of all foster home agencies under contract with the county, which are responsible for the well being of more than 5,800 children.

The goal, said Department of Children and Family Services Director Trish Ploehn, is to swiftly determine that there are “are no children left in danger.” She added: “For the children in foster homes, we are doing a 100 percent review.”

Ploehn, who’s been under fire for a series high-profile child deaths in recent months, told the Board of Supervisors that county social workers will visit 2,500 foster homes with a detailed “physical environment checklist” aimed at determining whether they share the type of unsafe and illegal conditions found in the South Los Angeles home where toddler Viola Vanclief died on March 4. The children themselves, Ploehn said, will be interviewed and asked, among other things, whether they’re being properly fed and how many adults reside in the home.

The review was requested in closed session last week by the supervisors after disclosures of Viola’s death, who, according to a newly released Coroner’s report, suffered blunt force trauma and extensive internal injuries. The homes that will be inspected are part of a network of Foster Family Agencies (FFA), paid by the county and primarily responsible for ensuring the safety of children in homes they oversee, including hiring independent social workers to conduct inspections.

On Tuesday, those 58 agencies were reduced by one.

Acting on a recommendation by Ploehn, the board unanimously voted to terminate the contract of United Care, the foster agency that had placed Viola in one of its 88 homes.

That home was run by Kiana Barker, a licensed foster parent who had been the subject of five earlier neglect or abuse complaints, including one in which it was determined that she’d neglected her own daughter. Barker had an earlier conviction for theft, but had succeeded in obtaining a state license.

She told police investigators that she’d accidentally struck Viola with a hammer while trying to free her from a bed frame in which she’d become tangled. Also living in the house was Barker’s boyfriend, James Julian, a convicted armed robber. Both were arrested on suspicion of murder in Viola’s death and released without charges, pending results of the continuing criminal probe.

Child welfare investigators turned up evidence at Barker’s home of apparent lax supervision by United Care.

The agency failed to notice, for example, that Julian was living there, a violation of state law because of his criminal record. Julian had tried and failed to obtain a license as a foster parent in 2007. He and Barker had a 6 month-old child together.

Appearing before the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, United Care’s executive director, Craig Woods, said revocation of his contract would be a “premature rush to action” based in part on “grossly inaccurate” media accounts. “United Care has a stellar 21-year track record,” he said, “and this one event should not warrant the termination of our contract.”

Woods said that the social workers hired by his agency twice made surprise visits to the home in February and found no clothing or other evidence that Barker’s boyfriend was living there. Barker had also signed a sworn statement to that effect, United Care’s executive director said.

In an exchange with Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, Woods said he was unaware that padlocks had blocked access to some rooms in the home, contrary to foster home rules. Woods also said he did not know that several video cameras were stationed around the home. The purpose and precise location of the cameras were not clear.

Woods also insisted that Barker’s prior theft conviction should not be considered as part of the revocation. Many foster parents, he suggested, have obtained licenses despite non-serious criminal records. In fact, he contended that “as many as half” of foster parents in Los Angeles County have criminal records and were able to get exemptions from the state to get licenses.

But Gary Palmer of the state’s Department of Social Services said Wood’s number is “totally false.” Palmer, chief of the technical assistance and policy branch for community-care licensing, said the exemption figure in Los Angeles County is an average of 5 percent.

Under the emergency review, meanwhile, county social workers and auditors also will take a more comprehensive examination of a randomly-selected sample of about 600 homes that are overseen by Foster Family Agencies. This review will be conducted by social workers from the Department of Children and Family Services and representatives from the County Counsel and Auditor-Controller offices. Also participating will be agents from the state.

Ploehn promised that the investigation would be complete by early May and that she would come back to supervisors with data and recommendations by May 15.

Posted 3/30/10

A key man for a new gang plan [updated]

Pacoima is about to see a lot of Greg McCovey.

In this east San Fernando Valley neighborhood, the veteran probation official will soon become the point man for L.A. County’s long-awaited and multi-faceted anti-gang initiative, which the Board of Supervisors is scheduled to review on Tuesday.

Pacoima is one of four gang hotspots that, under the initiative, would be a testing ground for a new approach by the county, placing a much heavier emphasis on gang prevention, in addition to suppression. The other areas, spread across the county, are: Harbor Gateway, Monrovia/ Duarte and Florence/Firestone, home to one of the region’s most entrenched gangs, Florencia 13.

The $3-million plan—several years in the making—calls for a collaborative and coordinated effort among multiple county agencies to ensure that services are directed at juveniles who’ve been accused of gang membership and identified as high-risk for re-joining a gang. The services, which are designed to parallel stepped up law enforcement, also would be provided to families of these individuals.

The Chief Executive Office (CEO) is recommending to the board that, in each of the four targeted areas, the initiative would begin by focusing on 25 juvenile probationers whom the county will attempt to steer from the gang life by bolstering mental health, welfare and economic services. Overseeing each of those four areas will be a “site coordinator” directing several “work groups” responsible for specific facets of the strategy, including providing more parks and library services aimed at the larger community.

McCovey is the first—and, so far, the only—site coordinator selected.

A 20-year Probation Department veteran, he’s anxious to get to work. “This is a great opportunity to bring together a broad array of services to help the community and our (gang) families,” McCovey says. “It’s exciting.”

McCovey, 50, has a good resume for understanding and combating gang culture. In his last assignment in the Probation Department, he directed the intake decisions about where to send minors in juvenile halls throughout the county. Before that job, McCovey directed the Probation Department’s post-release programs from juvenile camps, so he’s seen what happens when gang probationers re-enter the community.

For the past year, McCovey has been on loan to the CEO’s office to help refine the county’s gang plan. He spent time exploring all four neighborhoods in the pilot project, meeting with residents and community groups. And within the next few weeks, he’ll begin interviewing the families of Pacoima probationers to determine which 25 juveniles are at high risk for returning to gangs unless they—and their families—get help.

Pacoima is unique among the four areas because it falls entirely within the City of Los Angeles, McCovey says. That will make some aspects of his job easier because the city already has instituted its gang prevention and patrol initiatives, which are serving as models for the county.

McCovey will work closely, for example, with Los Angeles’ Gang Reduction Youth Development program, the city’s own prevention effort, launched in 2007. The city’s Summer Night Lights program of nighttime soccer, basketball and cultural programs already is in place in Pacoima. The county plans to export similar programs to county parks in the other three demonstration areas.

McCovey says his greatest challenge may be to ensure that county agencies involved in the proposed anti-gang initiative can quickly bring their unique assets to the gang problem without duplicating efforts.

“There are a lot of different groups out there doing good work,” McCovey says, “and we don’t want to overlap.”

If the Board of Supervisors gives a green light to the latest phase of the plan, McCovey expects to start full-time early next month. When not on the ground in Pacoima, he’ll be based in the CEO’s office downtown with the other soon-to-be-selected coordinators.

“I’m very aware of the barriers that kids face when they return home,” McCovey says. “What I want to do is break down those barriers to ensure they have every opportunity to succeed.”

Posted 3/25/10

Updated 4/6 /2010:

The Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the latest phase of the county’s long-anticipated gang reduction initiative after it was amended to modify personnel plans and costs. Among other things, the plan establishes pilot programs to better coordinate anti-gang strategies in four key neighborhoods plagued with gang issues.

Most of the changes Tuesday involved the four “site coordinators” of the pilot programs who would oversee the program in their areas and direct the delivery of services by county departments and local gang prevention groups.

Under the original plan, the coordinators potentially could be hired from several county departments playing key roles in the anti-gang initiative. The plan also included $871,000 for departments to “backfill” for individuals selected as site coordinators.

But an amendment introduced by Supervisor Michael Antonovich required that all four site coordinators be selected from the Probation Department because the plan, for now, focuses primarily on gang probationers. Supervisor Don Knabe proposed a second amendment that cut the money needed to back-fill for the coordinators, meaning the Probation Department would essentially have to absorb the costs.

Antonovich’s amendment also restricted the uses of $400,000 in gang prevention funding in county parks to exclude expenditures on field trips, food and prizes and other items with no direct bearing on gang reduction.

Potentially negligent foster care agency may lose county contract

Deeply dismayed by the blunt-force trauma death on March 4 of two-year-old toddler Viola Vanclief in a foster-care home, the Board of Supervisors this week authorized a formal “Do Not Use” order for United Care, Inc., the foster-family agency that supervised the home and 87 others in Los Angeles County. More than 200 children currently placed in those homes will be reassigned to other foster-care facilities. The agency had initially been placed on “hold, do not refer” status shortly after the incident was first reported.

At this Tuesday’s meeting, the Board will consider terminating United Care, Inc.’s County contract completely. Since Viola’s death, five previous abuse complaints have emerged about the foster-parent currently under investigation in that case, including a substantiated 2002 case of neglect of her own biological child. Since 2001, United Care itself had repeatedly been accused of permitting abuse and neglect in its supervised foster homes, and at least three dozen referrals were later substantiated.

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