Los Angeles to Hire Vets, Homeless, Former Gang Members; Missouri Inmates Ask for the Gas Chamber
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Also: Pittsburgh goes after bad landlords and there’s no way to know who’s doling out construction contracts to whom in the New Mexico legislature.
Here’s some of what we’ve been reading today…
LOS ANGELES, California: Mayor Eric Garcetti has vowed to work to end chronic homelessness and to help veterans, and this week his Workforce Restoration Program announced it will be looking to hire homeless people, veterans and former gang members to fill some of the 5,000 full-time positions with the city Garcetti plans to add in the next fiscal year, reports the Los Angeles Daily News. “The program marks the biggest effort by City Hall since the Great Recession to address vacancies and retirements at the city,” according to the newspaper. “Thousands of positions have been left unfilled since 2008 to cut costs, leading to complaints about a drop in city services, including street cleaning and tree trimming.” [Los Angeles Daily News via the Daily Breeze]
KANSAS CITY, Missouri: Lawyers for two death-row inmates have petitioned the Show Me State to execute them in a gas chamber rather than by lethal injection, reports The Associated Press. The men reportedly suffer medical conditions they say would make lethal injection cruel and unusual punishment. One suffers malformed blood vessels, and the other has a slow-growing brain tumor. One of the men asked to be killed by a firing squad as a possible second alternative. But according to the AP the state has no working gas chamber, and state law does not authorize firing squads. According to the Kansas City Star, 18 Missouri inmates have been executed over the past 24 months. [AP, The Kansas City Star]
PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania: City council members on Wednesday delivered what the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette calls “a one-two punch” to landlords. The council first preliminarily approved a proposed permit fee that would help track absentee landlords and pay for inspections, and then it approved a nondiscrimination law that would require landlords to participate in the nation’s low-income Section 8 housing voucher programs. Mayor Bill Peduto has pushed for the permit fee. “Not all landlords are created equal,” his chief of staff told the newspaper. Final vote on the bills is scheduled for Tuesday. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]
ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico: Each of the 112 lawmakers in New Mexico every year personally allocates tax money for brick-and-mortar projects, but there’s no transparency around the process, reports New Mexico In Depth. The website asked the lawmakers to make public how much they have given and to whom, but only two lawmakers have agreed to share the information. From 2010 to 2014, lawmakers reportedly gave out roughly $271 million for 1,700 projects. New Mexico In Depth has vowed to “keep a running tally of lawmakers who have consented to share their information publicly and will post updates regularly. We’ll keep doing this up to and through the 2016 legislative session if we have to. The session begins January 19 in Santa Fe.” [New Mexico In Depth]
GRAND FORKS, North Dakota: City officials are sorting through the aftermath of what they say looks like an early-morning Tuesday arson attack on a popular Somali restaurant, reports The Forum News Service. It’s been a tough week for the restaurant, which is called the Juba Coffee House. On Thursday, someone sprayed the words “go home” under the Nazi SS symbol on its front window. After firefighting crews put out the blaze Tuesday, fire marshals and police detectives picked through the debris. “As a community, we come to the aid of our friends and neighbors who are hurting, and we rally around them,” said Mayor Mike Brown. He also said it was too early to say whether the fire was the result of racially motivated arson. The Grand Forks Herald reported on Wednesday, however, that security video showed a figure breaking the front window minutes before the fire broke out. The city helped put the restaurant in touch with local charities. Fire damage was estimated at $90,000. [InForum, Grand Forks Herald]
John Tomasic is a journalist who lives in Boulder, Colorado.
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