As a lifelong practitioner of advocacy/immersion journalism, I have constantly raged against all kinds of inequities, injustices, mistreatment and neglect of human beings everywhere by governments and their officials, public agencies and their employees and religious institutions and their leaders, but I can’t remember ever having to use my pen to rant against a situation that directly affects me and my immediate neighborhood — until now.

The city of Los Angeles’ Department of Water and Power has removed night from me and my neighbors and we are so mad about it that heretofore quiet, middle-class, law-abiding people are threatening acts of violence unless darkness is restored unto them.
This is the situation: Almost a month ago, some entity (which we’ve learned was the DWP) installed a series of tall, closely spaced spotlights in the alley that runs behind our houses for blocks and blocks. These spotlights shine directly on our homes every night — from the moment the sun goes down in the west and rises again in the east, perpetual light shines on us. We have no night. Everybody else in the world has a night, but not us. The spotlights bathe south-facing bedrooms, interfering with my neighbors’ ability to sleep, giving rise to headaches, fatigue, anger, extreme irritability and threats to shoot down the things. We cannot enjoy pool parties and other normal outdoor activities on our property because of the giant lights that shine upon us.

Since I’m the queen of the neighborhood and viewed as someone with influence, I was asked by a delegation from my street to see what I could do to bring back the night. I called our councilman, Dennis Zine and related our complaints and expressed our outrage at this assault on our property and our quality of life. A council field deputy said: “The DWP installed those lights and we have received many complaints from residents about them. We are working to resolve the problem.”

Yeah, I bet. But as far as we’re concerned, this problem can be easily resolved: Just turn the damned things off! Why are they there? Where does the DWP get off shining lights on our property? Who’s paying for them? Who told them to do it? We didn’t! We asked Zine for speed bumps last year. Instead of speed bumps, we got spotlights! My sleep-deprived neighbors are getting fed up and they’re talking about shooting out the offending lights and then going over to Zine’s house and shining lights in his bedroom. Ahhh! Community action: the mother’s milk of my career.

OF PARKS AND PARKER — Things are moving along nicely toward defeating another one of Councilman Bernard Parks’ hare-brained ideas — to wit, the retention of the name Parker Center for the new police administrative building. The Police Commission held a public discussion on the issue Tuesday and commissioners were unanimous in their denunciation of retaining the name of that racist pig, the late LAPD Chief William H. Parker, on the new building. Led by Commissioner John Mack, who fought against the Parker regime back in the day, all of the commissioners expressed their opposition to retaining the Parker name on the new facility.
Leo Branton, the noted attorney who practiced in Los Angeles for 60 years, spoke to the commission against the Parker name. Branton knew Parker and his carnage well, as he was the one who provided legal assistance to the city’s steady stream of Black and Latino victims of Parker’s racist police policies and practices. Peter Bibring, staff attorney for the ACLU of Southern California, also spoke to commissioners, detailing Parker’s institutionalized brutality and disregard for the rights and civil liberties of minorities. Activists Monica Harmon of East L.A. and Jasmyne Cannick of South L.A. urged the commissioners to repudiate Parks’ motion to retain Parker’s name.

You know, while Parks is the prime mover of the Parker Center gambit, his City Council motion is supported and signed by three other council members: My own Zine (who needs to be getting me my speed bumps and turning off those damn lights), Grieg Smith and Jan Perry. The full City Council will debate the issue and vote on the Parks/Zine/Smith/Perry motion next Wednesday so we can all gather in City Hall and fight this thing, and I can have a drink of mother’s milk.

IMPORTANT GUESTS — Councilwoman Janice Hahn met with Janet Napolitano, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Monday at which she urged the Obama cabinet member to put more focus on L.A. Port security because any interruption in port operations would be devastating to this country. “I expressed that the port is being shortchanged out of security dollars. Customs brings in $12 million a day and I’d like to see a percentage of that money stay at the port, where it’s generated,” Hahn said.

Assemblyman Curren Price hosted HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan in South L.A. last week with whom he discussed steps to prevent neighborhoods from becoming economically depressed and blighted areas as the result of the nation’s recession. Price took Donovan to an abandoned home that has been rehabilitated and made suitable for sale as affordable housing with funds provided by Obama’s economic stimulus plan.

Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas led Arthur T. Leahy, the new CEO of the MTA, on a tour along the Crenshaw Transit Corridor, which is part of a major project to improve public transit services along the 10-mile stretch of Crenshaw, between Wilshire and El Segundo boulevards. Ridley-Thomas directed the tour of proposed transit stops along the corridor, whose mobility needs have been well documented in many studies for more than 15 years.

“Major transit investments planned for the corridor will improve mobility in the Crenshaw Transit Corridor and serve as an economic engine for the 2nd District,” the supervisor said. “I hope to restore public trust and confidence in the corridor project,” he added.

AND FINALLY — I am writing this on Tuesday, April 14. By midnight tomorrow, the federal and state governments are expecting me to send them a couple of good-sized checks as payment of taxes on my income. I hate this more than you can know, but yet I do it simply because I’m told that if I don’t I’ll go to jail and/or be relieved of all my money and everything I own. But apparently, that’s not true. A whole lot of people don’t pay taxes and nothing happens to them. There it is in last Friday’s L.A. Times: The state reports that that lying developer Chris Hammond of Marlton Square notoriety owes $504,000 in unpaid income taxes this year — up from $231,000 in unpaid income taxes he owed two years ago. He’s not paying his taxes, so why should I? Not only is Hammond not paying, neither are singer Dionne Warwick, who owes $2.18 million, and comedian Sinbad, who owes $2.5 million.

In fact, the state says 250 Californians have delinquent income tax bills owing a total of $143 million! How is that possible? Why aren’t they locked up? I’ve heard that a similar degree of scofflawness occurs with the city’s business tax remittals, as millions of dollars in unpaid taxes are simply languishing on the city books while the debtors are carrying on with their lives and businesses without a care in the world. I don’t get it and I don’t like it. This makes me madder than anything — almost mad enough to see what would happen to me if don’t pay up tomorrow.