LA WEEKLY: Mike Gatto Wants You to Weigh in on World's First Wiki-Made Law

MikeGatto.wikispaces.com

By Dennis Romero - LA Weekly

In what is being trumpeted as "the first purely crowdsourced piece of legislation in the United States," L.A. state Assemblyman Mike Gatto is inviting you, the average citizen, to help draft a new law.

He has turned to Wikispaces to let anyone -- anyone! -- weigh in on this proposal, and the lawmaker has vowed to introduce the final product in the legislature no matter what he ends up with.

But before you start jumping around and saying, Legalize it!, an idea that would surely dominate this exercise, there is a caveat:

Gatto has limited this experiment to probate law, the regulation that covers the wills and estates of the dead and how this wealth gets transferred.

This is why, his office states:

To narrow down the submissions in this first trial of the process, Gatto is asking bill drafters to focus their proposals on changes to the California probate code. This subject matter was selected because it is one where large numbers of specialists exist with an interest in participating (lawyers, CPAs, etc.), but also, since almost everyone has had some experience in handling the death of a loved one, large numbers of the public are also likely to have an opinion on how California's relevant laws could be improved.

So there you have it. Not as fun. But just as experimental. For example, you could try to change the law regarding who gets a decedent's property when there's no will.

But Gatto has warned folks who might get excited by the process that coming up with a proposal, no matter how just or far out, would only be the first step.

The bill would have to be green-lighted by numerous committees, both houses of the legislature, and Gov. Jerry Brown. That's an uphill battle even for no-brainer proposals like extending California's last-call-for-alcohol time beyond 2 a.m.

Gatto is excited nonetheless, saying this is a better way than sometimes-extreme citizen initiatives or even President Obama's own online petitions.

The lawmaker says:

This is a great way for people to have a voice in their government. Too often, special-interest groups draft legislation. In contrast, 'crowdsourcing' a bill on the Wiki platform will allow for a fully transparent brainstorming, drafting, and editing process that will incorporate ideas from a large group of people. The collective wisdom of the public will choose the final product.

The collective wisdom of the public? Be careful what you wish for.

You can read this article and more at the LA Weekly HERE

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Mike Gatto is the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee in the California State Assembly.  He represents Burbank, Glendale, La Cañada Flintridge, La Crescenta, Montrose, and the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Atwater Village, East Hollywood, Franklin Hills, Hollywood Hills, Los Feliz, and Silver Lake. www.asm.ca.gov/gatto 

LA WEEKLY: L.A. Carpool Lanes Open to All at Night? It's Possible

Photo by Mark Leuthi; (from LA Weekly)

By Dennis Romero Wed., Jun. 26 2013 at 8:01 AM

Ever get ready for a night out and hop on the freeway in anticipation, only to meet total gridlock ... at 10 in the evening?

Yeah. That's L.A. for you. And what's really infuriating is when you look to your left and see a wide open ghost town of a lane. The carpool lane. A bill making its way through Sacramento would open that extra lane for your nighttime enjoyment:

AB 405 by Mike Gatto of Burbank would allow "single-occupancy vehicles to access the high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes during non-peak hours," according to a statement from his office.

Yes, you'd be able to use those lanes your tax dollars pay for -- lanes meant to alleviate traffic and encourage carpooling during rush hour, not after-hours -- later at night.

The bill passed the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee unanimously yesterday, Gatto's office announced.

While carpool or HOV lanes are open to commuters after-hours in the Bay Area, it's not the case in L.A. You're punished because you don't drive a Prius. And that's not right. Gatto:

"Carpool lanes are supposed to provide an incentive for carpooling during peak travel hours, and be good for the environment. I support these goals. But when motorists are stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic at midnight while carpool lanes sit empty, those goals are not met."

Albert Valles - Flickr (from LA Weekly)

The bill says no new carpool lanes will be established after July 1, 2014, unless they're open to all after-hours. It also specifies that stretches of the 134, 170, 5, 210 and 57 be open to single motorists during non-rush hours.

Gatto:

"There is no reason for drivers to be stuck in traffic when a late-night accident or mysterious slowing clogs the rightmost freeway lanes, while the carpool lane sits empty."

Are you behind this, party people?

You can read this article and more at the LA Weekly HERE

Mike Gatto is the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee of the California State Assembly.  He represents the cities of Burbank, Glendale, La Cañada Flintridge, the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Atwater Village, and portions of the Hollywood Hills and East Hollywood.  www.asm.ca.gov/gatto

LA WEEKLY: Is LAPD Chief Charlie Beck More About Spin Than Solving Hit-and-Run Epidemic?

By Patrick Range McDonald - Tue., Jun. 11 2013

The Los Angeles Police Commission will receive a long-awaited report from LAPD Chief Charlie Beck on Tuesday morning about L.A.'s serious hit-and-run epidemic. Judging from a copy of that report, it looks as if Beck is more interested in repairing public relations damage than solving a major public safety problem.


"The report is all spin to get around the elephant in the room," says Don Rosenberg, an L.A. resident whose son was killed by an unlicensed driver and has been keeping close tabs on the LAPD's response to the hit-and-run crisis. "They don't have a good story on hit and runs, and tried to come up with something else."

L.A. Weekly first exposed the controversy in the widely read 2012 cover story "L.A.'s Bloody Hit-and-Run Epidemic," which caught the attention of L.A. City Councilman Joe Buscaino and California State Assemblyman Mike Gatto.

In December, former Weekly staff writer Simone Wilson reported that there "is no LAPD task force or organized city effort to address the problem, yet the numbers are mind-boggling. About 20,000 hit-and-run crashes, from fender benders to multiple fatalities, are recorded by the Los Angeles Police Department each year.

"That's huge, even in a city of 3.8 million people. In the United States, 11 percent of vehicle collisions are hit-and-runs. But in Los Angeles, L.A. Weekly has learned, an incredible 48 percent of crashes were hit-and-runs in 2009, the most recent year for which complete statistics are available. According to data collected by the state, some 4,000 hit-and-run crashes a year inside L.A. city limits, including cases handled by LAPD, California Highway Patrol and the L.A. County Sheriff, resulted in injury and/or death. Of those, according to a federal study, about 100 pedestrians died; the number of motorists and bicyclists who die would push that toll even higher."

In January, Councilman Buscaino asked the LAPD to come up with a report to explain what efforts the police were taking to curtail hit and runs.

But that report, signed by Beck, focuses largely on attempting to pick apart the Weekly's cover story, with some mention of what the police are actually doing to combat hit and runs such as holding press conferences and community meetings to alert the public and solicit help in apprehending an individual.

"The councilman is saying we have too many hit and runs. What are you doing about it?" says Rosenberg. "And Beck goes into something else and tries to massage statistics."

Buscaino was unable to comment before the Weekly's deadline.

But Assemblyman Mike Gatto, who represents neighborhoods in L.A. and has been pushing forward a hit-and-run law to extend the statue of limitations for such an offense, tells the Weekly that "more needs to be done" to solve L.A.'s hit-and-run crisis and hopes that Beck will take an "all-hands-on-deck approach" to solve it.

Gatto's office read the LAPD report. After coming up with a questionable statistical formula, Beck's findings state that L.A.'s hit-and-run rate was "comparable to other metropolitan cities in the nation." Gatto says that "runs contrary to what I hear from my constituents."

Rosenberg adds, "They totally ignored public safety" in the report.

What will L.A. police commissioners say?


Send feedback and tips to the author. Follow Patrick Range McDonald on Twitter at @PRMcDonald.

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You can read this article and more at the LA Weekly by clicking HERE

LA WEEKLY: Hit-and-Run Blowback on LAPD

Excerpts from last weeks LA Weekly article on the hit-and-run epidemic that continues to plague Los Angeles.  A special thank you to my staff for their many volunteer hours working to apprehend Damian Kevitt's assailant.

ILLUSTRATION BY IVAN MINSLOFF / LA WEEKLY

Doctors try to save bicyclist's remaining leg as legislator calls for crackdown

Comments (24)By Jill Stewart Thursday, Mar 28 2013

The hit-and-run driver of the minivan that struck bicyclist Damian Kevitt one morning near Griffith Park must have felt and heard the impact. He probably saw Kevitt caught on his hood. Yet as horrified eyewitnesses gaped, the driver — a young, well-groomed Latino — took off down the on-ramp to the 5 freeway, sucking Kevitt under his minivan and dragging him 600 feet.

Trapped facedown, the 36-year-old cyclist was battered against the pavement, shearing off parts of his feet and big areas of skin. As he tried to free himself by grabbing at the road, the ends of some of his fingertips were ground off.

Seconds later, a motorist saw Kevitt's bloodied body roll into the second lane of the I-5. Kevitt's life was saved only because the quick-thinking driver used his car to create a safety zone, shielding the victim's body from the freeway traffic rushing past.

After the Feb. 17 incident, doctors at County/USC Medical Center were forced to amputate Kevitt's shattered right leg. But they repaired his broken wrists, arms and ribs, and soon, Kevitt and his doctors will be engaged in a heroic battle to save his maimed left foot, possibly by transplanting a muscle and healthy veins from Kevitt's back. (A previous effort to transplant a muscle taken from his abdomen to his left foot failed...)

...Coverage by local TV stations, coupled with anger from the local bicycling community, has generated unusually strong interest in the case. On Sunday, two aides to state Assemblyman Mike Gatto, Justin Hager and Jason Insalaco, joined the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, L.A. Critical Mass, Midnight Ridazz, CHP and others to leaflet cars and talk to spectators, soccer players and dog walkers who use the Ferraro Soccer Complex near the Los Angeles River on Zoo Drive, where Kevitt was struck...

...Investigators have a few important clues: The minivan, described as gray or white, bore a red-and-white "Se Vende" sign — and a phone number to call. According to CHP, that phone number, partially memorized by eyewitnesses, has a 213 area code and ends in 0776. A $25,000 reward offered by the city and the highway patrol seeks information that will lead to an arrest and conviction...

...Insalaco and Hager have gone to the soccer fields every few days, passing out a flyer seeking the public's help. "We feel the driver almost had to be someone involved in soccer that day," Hager says. 

Even as Gatto's aides work to drum up leads, the state assemblyman is tackling the bigger crisis. As the L.A. Weekly first reported, L.A. is in the grip of a little-discussed, decadelong hit-and-run epidemic. Drivers in the city flee nearly half of all collisions — more than 20,000 hit-and-runs annually. Nationally, 11 percent of collisions are hit-and-runs. In L.A., that rate has ranged in recent years from 42 percent to nearly 50 percent...

...Assembly Bill 184, authored by Gatto, would extend the statute of limitations on hit-and-runs from one year to three years. The bill cleared the state Assembly Public Safety Committee several days ago...

...Hit-and-run victim Don Ward, a bicyclist with Midnight Ridazz, memorized most of the license plate of the Jaguar driver who struck him and put him in the hospital a few years ago. Then Ward himself caught the driver — by calling Jaguar body shops. LAPD had informed Ward that they'd need a couple of weeks just to run the plate numbers.

The driver, convicted of "misdemeanor property damage" for crushing Ward's bike, was high-powered City Hall lobbyist Glenn Gritzner. Since it was too late to test Gritzner for drugs or alcohol by the time he was apprehended, a judge sentenced him to just 30 days of trash pickup.

"He didn't even have his license suspended," says Ward, who joined the leafletting of the soccer fields Sunday...

...Gatto's staff has investigated another possible law — one requiring auto body shops to report suspicious damage to law enforcement via email — but says it will take time to assess the costs and technical challenges of implementing such a law.

Even so, Gatto says police can do far more. "The story of Damian Kevitt being repeated and kept in front of people might force the government to act," the state assemblyman says. "This has been going on since way back, long before anyone could blame budget cuts."

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You can read this entire article and more at the LA Weekly by clicking HERE

Mike Gatto is the chairman of the Appropriations Committee of the California State Assembly. He represents Burbank, Glendale, La Cañada-Flintridge, and the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Atwater Village, and portions of the Hollywood Hills and East Hollywood.   www.asm.ca.gov/gatto

LA Weekly: Hit-And-Run Loophole Lets You Walk After 3 Years; Mike Gatto Wants That Fixed

Highlights from Dennis Romero's article in LA Weekly: 

In the wake of Simone Wilson's excellent LA Weekly coverage of the city's hit-and-run crisis, including the revelation that nearly half of all vehicle collisions in town involve people who flee the scene, an L.A.-based state lawmaker wants to do something about it. 

State Assemblyman Mike Gatto... says he'll propose closing a loophole that allows hit-and-run suspects to avoid prosecution after three years. You see, ... 

... under current law, the window for prosecuting a hit-and-run suspect runs out three years after the date of the incident, Gatto spokesman Justin Hager explained to us...

Courtesy Marie Hardwick X-ray image from a hit-and-run victim in L.A. 

...Under language Gatto's office is working on, people could be prosecuted based on the time they are actually identified as suspects, giving authorities a fresh, three-year clock for possible prosecution... 

...Gatto said he identified with our follow-up story about how bicyclist Don Ward was struck by a hit-and-run driver in Echo Park in 2009 and lived to hunt down the suspect.
The bicyclist that got hit -- that's the route I take home. You put yourself in that person's shoes. 

[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]

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You can read the entire article and more at LA Weekly by clicking HERE

Mike Gatto is the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee of the California State Assembly.  He represents the cities of Burbank, Glendale, La Canada-Flintridge, La Crescenta, Montrose, the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Atwater Village, and portions of the Hollywood Hills and East Hollywood.   www.asm.ca.gov/gatto  

AB 1616, The California Homemade Food Act: What You Need to Know

Highlights from Rachael Narins article in LA Weekly:

...When bread baker Mark Stambler's homemade bread operation -- he was selling in a few local markets -- was shut down by health inspectors in 2011, Stambler decided to do something about it... 

...Thanks to the help of Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-CA) the law [AB 1616] -- which includes two types of permits -- was written, passed and went in to effect on Jan. 1... 

...So what does the law mean to you, the aspiring Cottage Food Operator (CFO) and which type of permit should you get, if any? There is a lot more to it than what we are able to cover here, but this is a good place to start. The Department of Public Health has a FAQ page with lots of additional information... 

...A cottage food law course is being created, and when it is implemented, all permit holders will be required to take it within 90 days of the permit being issued... 

...Once you have all of that established, there is still the matter of being a real, registered business. You need to be paying taxes. If you rent your home, the lease must allow for a home business. You should check with your municipal zoning office to make sure home businesses are allowed where you live. You should also be insured and have a food handlers license. None of those are prerequisites, but without them, the permit won't help you much...

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You can read this entire article and more at LA Weekly by clicking HERE

See a five minute video of the story behind AB 1616 and learn more about Assemblyman Mike Gatto's support for Mark Stambler, Patricia Kline, and other Cottage Food businesses by clicking HERE

Mike Gatto is the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee of the California State Assembly.  He represents the cities of Burbank, Glendale, La Canada-Flintridge, La Crescenta, Montrose, the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Atwater Village, and portions of the Hollywood Hills and East Hollywood.   www.asm.ca.gov/gatto  

Governor Brown Signs California Homemade Food Act Into Effect

By Jenn Garbee Fri., Sep. 21 2012 at 2:51 PM - Breaking homemade brownie news: Governor Jerry Brown signed the California Homemade Food Act (AB 1616) into effect today. If you've been following the bill, backed by local Assemblyman Mike Gatto, it allows the "limited" sale of "non-potentially hazardous foods."


According to a statement from the Governor's office, the bill aims to "help small and fledgling businesses produce and sell food made out of their homes under a more streamlined regulatory structure." Get more after the jump.

There are caps on the amount of bread you can literally make. In 2013, gross sales are limited to $35,000; in two years, that amount increases to $50,000. "Limited sale" means primarily directly to another consumer, with a few smaller retail exceptions. In general, selling Blenheim apricot jam to your boss is now perfectly fine (we recommend you charge him/her a hefty premium), but going after Whole Foods shelf space is not (you'll still need a commercial kitchen for that). And yes, the health department will still be involved in your new home baking venture.

More pressing: What do government regulators consider non-hazardous? Breads, dried fruit and nuts, jam, nut butters, granola, popcorn, teas and homemade cookies and pies are among the products that are fair game -- as long as they don't contain dairy or meat fillings. In other words, your homemade blue ribbon cherry pie is perfectly safe, your favorite Aunt Irma's coconut cream version is potentially hazardous. Good to know.

Get more details on the cottage food law at the Sustainable Economics Law Center. 

Read this article and more at LA Weekly by clicking HERE

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Mike Gatto is the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee of the California State Assembly.  He represents the cities of Burbank, Glendale, and the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Los Feliz and Silver Lake.  E-mail Mike at: assemblymember.gatto@assembly.ca.gov, or call (818) 558-3043.

Website of Assemblyman Mike Gatto: www.asm.ca.gov/gatto