The City Project seeks a Development Director for all programmatic and operational fundraising. The ideal candidate will have a track record in successfully maintaining existing donor relationships, as well as developing new opportunities. The individual should possess excellent relationship-building, public speaking abilities and writing, as well as interpersonal skills. This individual will have excellent follow-through and be highly results-oriented and self-motivated.

The Development Director will be supervised by the President and Counsel in implementing a sustainable development plan for The City Project. Salary and benefits commensurate with experience. The City Project is an equal opportunity employer.

Responsibilities:

Integrate the substantive work of The City Project with the development work.

Donor Relations:
• Manage significant foundation, government and corporate funder relationships (submission of proposals, reports, correspondence, periodic updates, additional stewardship materials)
• Identify and cultivate a portfolio of current and prospective funders
• Provide strategy and support for annual giving and fundraising events
• Follow up with funders at regular intervals

Writing:
• Prepare and submit grant proposals, including budgets and supporting materials, for a range of public, corporate, and foundation sources
• Prepare reports, correspondence, mailings, and fundraising appeals

Information Management:
• Manage paper and electronic donor information so that information is current, relevant and available to staff. This includes tracking funders and all prospective and current individual donors.
• Participate in the annual budget and strategic planning processes, as well as help define fundraising goals and objectives for each program, including events.

Other duties as assigned.

Qualifications:

The City Project operates in a very fast-paced environment and is a growing organization. Candidate must be creative, flexible and be able to effectively multi-task, as well as prioritize and meet deadlines. Excellent organizational, analytical and problem-solving skills are desired. Candidate must be articulate, persuasive, and persistent. Confidentiality, strong personal and professional integrity, tactfulness and good judgment are critical.

Minimum qualifications include a four-year college degree, preferably in subject matter relevant to The City Project’s work. Excellent research and writing are required for the position, as is the ability to manage concurrent projects with minimal supervision, and work closely and cooperatively with others.

A well-qualified candidate will also have the following:

• A passion for civil rights and environmental issues.
• At least two years of experience in independently drafting, reviewing and finalizing grant proposal in at least two of the following: foundation grants, government grants, and corporate sponsorship.
• Demonstrated experience in stewarding relationships and securing grants from foundation, corporate and government sources.
• Experience with financial projections, reporting, and strategic planning.
• Strong attention to detail and ability to accurately proofread documents in final application form.
• Ability to work independently and take initiative.
• Ability to present ideas and recommendations in a logical and concise manner.
• A professional demeanor and an ability to interact effectively with the general public, donors, foundation representatives, clients, staff and Board of Directors.
• Strong computer and internet skills, including use of Windows and Mac software programs, digital images, spreadsheets, and donor database software.
• Experience in a non-profit organization is preferred.
• Bilingual skills in Spanish desirable, but not required.
• Event planning and implementation experience a plus.

How to Apply: Please send a cover letter, a resume with references, and a writing sample via email to: The City Project, Attn: Erica Flores Baltodano, ebaltodano@cityprojectca.org. No phone calls please.

Learn more about the work of The City Project at www.cityrprojectca.org.

The City Project celebrates Women’s History Month

Built in 1902 and bought by the Janes family, the Janes sisters operated Misses Janes Kindergarten in their home. The school attracted the children of early Hollywood celebrities such as Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Cecil B. DeMille, Noah Beery, Jesse Lasky, and the Chandler Family .

Learn more about Monuments: Diversity, Democracy and Freedom.

Visit the Heritage Parkscape online and on flickr.

The City Project celebrates Women’s History Month.

The City Project celebrates Women’s History Month March 2009.

The residence of Mary Foy, the first woman to hold the office of City Librarian for Los Angeles in 1880.

Learn more about Monuments: Diversity, Democracy and Freedom.

Visit the Heritage Parkscape online and on flickr.

The City Project Celebrates Women’s History Month

The YWCA Hollywood Studio Club was designed by architect Julia Morgan and opened in 1926, offering low-cost housing for young women hoping to make it in the movies.

Learn more about Monuments: Diversity, Democracy and Freedom .

Click on the image to see more pictures on flickr.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — This sprawling metropolis is built atop one of the richest oil basins in the world. Wells dot the city landscape, some hidden behind hollow building facades much like a Hollywood movie set, or, in the case of Beverly Hills High School, encased in a tower painted with flowers.

For decades it had been assumed that one oil field, the historic Inglewood, just minutes from the downtown skyline, would eventually play out, that the nodding pumpjacks would give way to an elaborately planned, two square-mile park.

But in 2004 Houston-based Plains Exploration & Production Co., which had acquired the drilling rights from Chevron, used new technology to discover that only 35 percent of the reserves had been pumped out and began to drill the first of what would eventually become 600 new wells over the next 20 years. This renewed push for oil was helped along by county and state regulators who determined that the additional wells didn’t require any environmental review.

One state engineer charged with granting new permits apparently saw himself as more of a cheerleader for Plains than an impartial regulator, according to e-mails acquired by the Associated Press and an investigation by the state auditor. Not only did he own stock in the company whose wells he was approving, he solicited donations from the oil companies he regulated for his wife’s nonprofit.

”Just keep up the good work,” state regulator Floyd Leeson wrote to a high-ranking Plains’ official in March, 2005, ”and I will TRY to keep (my boss) from hitting you guys with any more retarded fines … Remember, I’m on YOUR side … go PXP!”

The lack of oversight is now at the center of a lawsuit filed by several environmental and community groups who want stronger environmental standards applied to the Inglewood field. This includes a comprehensive health study, decreasing the number of wells the company can drill per year and requiring the company to drill farther away from residential areas. . . .

Crude was discovered here in 1924, a time when the area was just empty fields and environmental regulations were decades from being enacted. Production peaked a year later when 176 new wells were drilled, but by the 1990s an average of less than four new wells were drilled per year.

As the decades passed, residents began to settle near the Inglewood field. Baldwin Hills, one such community, was nicknamed the ”black Beverly Hills” where the likes of Ray Charles and Tina Turner once lived. Now, ranch style homes and palatial mansions oversee swaths of dirt and scrub where oil pumps bob behind chain link fences.

After estimating an end date for drilling sometime this decade, a park plan was drawn up and voters approved funding to create the largest new urban park in the country.

”Everybody assumed the oil was a diminishing resource, that the owner at the time was in good conscience saying ‘We’re almost done here’ and here’s the unfortunate part — nobody gets it in writing,” said David McNeill, the head of the Baldwin Hills Conservancy, created years after then producer Chevron sold the oilfield.

It wasn’t until 2006, when noxious fumes leaked out and forced home evacuations that many residents discovered the drilling wasn’t going to end anytime soon. Many were unaware that Plains, using 3-D imaging to discover where the crude remained, had ramped up drilling in 2004.

In addition to drilling as deep as 10,000 feet, the company also applied a technique where water is injected into ground under high pressure to push the oil to an area where it can be pumped out. The first of the new wells averaged 800 barrels of crude daily. . . .

Before the county issued a temporary moratorium on new drilling in June 2006, Leeson approved 24 new wells in three days, a process that at the time could take take weeks. That year Plains tried to get more wells permitted than any other year in the oil field’s history, according to the lawsuit.

In an interview with the Associated Press, [one of Plains' vice presidents, Steve] Rusch said the exchanges with Leeson were in the past and the company ”wants to move forward,” and has gone to great lengths to be transparent with the community. . . .

In 2007 the county held hearings and eventually created a special set of regulations governing drilling in Inglewood. Drilling was capped at 600 wells.

Rusch said that the company voluntarily funded an environmental review and agreed to adopt more regulations because they felt it was the best way to address community concerns. The new standards include more restrictions on noise, a cap on the number of wells Plains can drill before triggering additional reviews and a third party environmental coordinator to ensure that the company is in compliance.

Rusch said that, as a result, Inglewood is the heaviest regulated onshore oilfield in the state if not the country. Last year, the company paid $10.2 million in taxes to the county.

”We’re not willing to leave so this can be turned into a park,” said Rusch. ”There’s a lot of speculation about the inadequacies of the (new environmental regulations). Let’s test them.”

The community and environmental groups were in no such mood. By the end of 2008, they had filed four separate lawsuits. A judge consolidated the suits into one, which is expected to go to trial in April.

The suit, in addition to its lack of oversight allegations, also contains claims of environmental racism. It says that the Inglewood field has not been cleaned up or disguised as oil fields have been in wealthy white sections of of Los Angeles. . . .

Read the rest of this article by AP Reporter Noaki Schwartz in the New York Times . . .

View images and a map of the Baldwin Hills community and oil field on Google News . . .

Learn more about the community lawsuits against the County and the oil company at www.greaterbaldwinhillsalliance.org.

The AP article about the Baldwin Hills community, park and oil field has been picked up in over 300 stories . . .

LA StreetSummit 2010
Biking, Walking and Beyond

Where: LA Trade Tech College
Date: Saturday, March 20, 2010
Time: 10:30am-5pm

Speaking at the LA StreetSummit 2010:

Carl Anthony, former President of Urban Habitat and former head of the Sustainable Metropolitan Communities program at the Ford Foundation.

Anthony is a nationally recognized leader in the African American community who has been in the forefront of linking sustainability, regional equity, healthy communities, and environmental justice for more than four decades.

Charles Gandy, Long Beach City Mobility Coordinator

Gandy is a recognized expert in community design and has played a catalytic role in Long Beach’s efforts to make that city one of the premier bike and pedestrian friendly cities in the country.

Seeking workshops and panels on topics including bicycling, street design, healthy communities, economic development and more.

Online at: www.lastreetsummit.org
Email: info@lastreetsummit.org
Phone: (323) 259-1494

Sponsored by: Kaiser Permanente and Urban & Environmental Policy Institute Occidental College

Register at www.lastreetsummit.org

The Los Angeles Times reports that the United States Department of Education is reviewing school districts across the nation for compliance with civil rights laws that prohibit discriminatory impacts based on race, color or national origin.  The Department has started compliance review with the Los Angeles Unified School District.

This is the same approach The City Project has relied on in our physical education campaign to enforce physical education and civil rights laws.  We reached an agreement with the Los Angeles school district in December 2009 (see below).

We are taking the physical education and civil rights campaign to the state and national levels.

* * *
From the Los Angeles Times, March 9, 2010, http://bit.ly/akZazN

The Office for Civil Rights, an arm of the U.S. Department of Education, is charged with enforcing laws that protect students from discrimination on the basis of sex, race, national origin and disability status.

“This is about helping kids receive a good education, the education they deserve,” said Russlynn Ali, the department’s assistant secretary for civil rights. “This is about raising the bar and closing the achievement gap.” . . .

Both the district and the federal agency represented the review as friendly, but enforcement options are available, including the withholding of federal funds, referrals to the Justice Department and pursuing court injunctions. More likely, the department will provide technical assistance. . . .

The ultimate goal of federal officials is to exert pressure on L.A. Unified and other school districts to close the achievement gap that separates white, Asian and higher-income students from low-income, black and Latino students. The federal government has the authority to examine practices that harm groups of students, even in the absence of intentional discrimination.

* * *

Physical Education, Student Health and Civil Rights: LA Public Schools Adopt Implementation Plan

The Los Angeles Unified School District, in response to a community campaign, has adopted a plan to enforce physical education requirements requiring an average of 20 minutes of physical education in elementary schools every day and 40 minutes in middle and high schools. The school district, the second largest in the nation, is enforcing education and civil rights laws to help promote academic performance and youth development and reduce obesity and diabetes. The plan will ensure that schools provide properly credentialed physical education teachers, meet the physical education minute requirements, maintain reasonable class size averages, and provide quality facilities for physical education.

Obesity rates in the school district are above the national average. Evidence suggests that physical education of sufficient quantity and quality helps prevent childhood obesity. In addition, physical education and civil rights laws require equal access to physical education in California’s public schools to alleviate unfair disparities based on race, color or national origin.

The implementation plan is the result of a strategic campaign by The City Project, a policy and legal non-profit organization in California whose mission is to achieve equal justice, democracy and livability for all, working with teachers, parents, health and community activists, and school officials, including Superintendent Ramon Cortines and Physical Education Advisor Chad Fenwick.

The campaign includes five major elements. First, the teachers’ union United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) organized a public campaign to support physical education. Second, The City Project filed administrative complaints under education and civil rights laws to require the school district to enforce physical education requirements. Third, the school board unanimously adopted a resolution to enforce physical education and civil rights laws. Fourth, the district staff, under the leadership of Superintendent Cortines and Mr. Fenwick, adopted the implementation plan. Fifth, the campaign relied on social science research published by the California Endowment and others highlighting the relationship between physical education, obesity, and health disparities based on race, ethnicity, and income.

The school district serves over 600,000 K-12 students in over 770 schools. 92% are students of color, and 74% are low income (qualify for free or reduced meals).

Active Living Research, a national program office of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is funding a study to assess the impact of the physical education campaign on student’s health. The principal investigators are Robert García, Executive Director and Counsel of The City Project, and Sarah E. Samuels, Dr.P.H., M.Ed., of Samuels & Associates. Dr. Elva Arredondo of San Diego State University and UCLA’s Dr. Brian Cole will serve as expert consultants on the evaluation.

“The physical education plan is the result of successful teamwork, including coalition building, multidisciplinary research, media, policy and legal advocacy. This is likely to be a replicable model in other states or countries,” according to Chad Fenwick, the Physical Education Advisor in the school district.

“Enforcing physical education and civil rights laws in Los Angeles is a best practice example to help students move more, eat well, stay healthy, and do their best in school and in life. We will take this campaign to other school districts that do not enforce physical education laws,” according to Louis García, a Staff Attorney with The City Project.

James Sallis, of Active Living Research at San Diego State University, noted, “Studying the implementation plan and campaign is a great opportunity to evaluate a multi-component campaign to improve physical education, which is an essential strategy for getting children active.”

The article by Robert García and Chad Fenwick entitled Social Science, Equal Justice, and Public Health Policy: Lessons from Los Angeles, is published in the Journal of Public Health Policy (2009) 30, S26-32, and is available here.

The public school campaign is a “tipping point in the physical education revolution,” according to the online journal Peaceful Playgrounds, available on the web here.

The administrative complaints were filed by parents Ike and Irene Kaludi; physical education teacher Cathy Figel; youth groups Anahuak Youth Sports Association, Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles, and Antes Columbus Football Club; and health advocates California Pan Ethnic Health Network (CPEHN) and Prevention Institute, working with The City Project.

The school district’s plan will improve education for all students:

[R]esearch indicates that physical education quantity and quality are particularly deficient for less affluent students, and those in racial and ethnic groups who are at high risk for being overweight and/or obese. According to the California Endowment . . . youth with the fewest resources are at the highest risk for health problems. Many students are not passing the state- required fitness test, and there are large disparities by race and ethnicity. Compared to non-Hispanic white and Asian girls, national data shows Black and Hispanic girls were less physically active. Less than 30% of students met all six standards in Grades 5, 7, and 9. Racial and ethnic differences are consistent with the pattern of lower quantity and quality of physical education in low resource schools serving mainly students of color. In Grade 5, for example, 34% of non-Hispanic whites passed all six standards, compared to 23% of Blacks and 20% of Latinos.

The complete plan applying physical education laws, as well as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, California Government Code Section 11135, and applicable regulations, is available by clicking here.

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The City Project Celebrates Women’s History Month

Constructed in 1917, the Van Nuys Women’s Club is one of the oldest social institutions in the San Fernando Valley.

Learn more about Monuments, Diversity, and Democracy.

Editorial

New York Times March 10, 2010

Providing poor defendants effective appointed counsel is more than a constitutional obligation. It is a concrete measure of the nation’s commitment to equal justice under law. Yet indigent defense offices across the nation have been allowed to sink into crisis. They have fallen victim to insufficient financing, overwhelming caseloads and a slew of policies that hamper effective representation.

The civil legal aid system is no less challenged. Short on resources, local offices supported by the Legal Services Corporation, the federal agency that provides legal assistance for low-income Americans in civil cases, must turn away about half the eligible individuals who contact them for help with life-altering issues such as child custody or saving their homes from foreclosure.

One rare piece of good news is that Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. has made it his mission to try to narrow this gap in the administration of justice. To lead his campaign, he has hired Laurence Tribe, the prominent Harvard Law School professor and constitutional scholar.

The basic, sound idea is to look at ways indigent legal services can be improved, including by creating incentives for states to make better use of pro bono legal assistance, and help the growing number of people who represent themselves navigate the courts.

Realistically, Mr. Tribe cannot be expected to solve all the financial and other problems impeding the delivery of indigent legal services. But in applying his formidable teaching and advocacy skills, he can be a catalyst for bolstering stressed criminal and civil legal service providers and finding fresh strategies for serving more Americans with their urgent legal needs.

A conservative advocacy organization in Washington, Keep America Safe, kicked up a storm last week when it released a video that questioned the loyalty of Justice Department lawyers who worked in the past on behalf of detained terrorism suspects.

But beyond the expected liberal outrage, the tactics of the group, which is run by Liz Cheney, the daughter of the former vice president, have also split the tightly knit world of conservative legal scholars. Many conservatives, including members of the Federalist Society, the quarter-century-old policy group devoted to conservative and libertarian legal ideals, have vehemently criticized Ms. Cheney’s video, and say it violates the American legal principle that even unpopular defendants deserve a lawyer.

“There’s something truly bizarre about this,” said Richard A. Epstein, a University of Chicago law professor and a revered figure among many members of the society. “Liz Cheney is a former student of mine — I don’t know what moves her on this thing,” he said.

On Sunday, Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, issued a joint letter criticizing the “shameful series of attacks” on government lawyers, which it said were “unjust to the individuals in question and destructive of any attempt to build lasting mechanisms for counterterrorism adjudications.”

The letter was signed by a Who’s Who of former Republican administration officials and conservative legal figures, including Kenneth W. Starr, the former special prosecutor, and Charles D. Stimson, who resigned from the second Bush administration after suggesting that businesses might think twice before hiring law firms that had represented detainees. Other Bush administration figures who signed include Peter D. Keisler, a former acting attorney general, and Larry D. Thompson, a former deputy attorney general.

The letter cited “the American tradition of zealous representation of unpopular clients,” including the defense by John Adams of British soldiers charged in the Boston Massacre, and noted that some detainee advocates, who worked pro bono, have made arguments that swayed the Supreme Court.

Ms. Cheney’s video referred to the lawyers as the “Al Qaeda Seven,” and accused the Justice Department of concealing their names, which were later revealed by Fox News. . . .

Professor Epstein . . . said he found it “appalling” to see people equating work on detainee cases with a dearth of patriotism. He was a co-author of a brief in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court case argued by Neal Katyal, now the principal deputy solicitor general and a lawyer under scrutiny from Ms. Cheney’s group. The court ruled that the Bush administration’s initial plans for military commissions to try detainees violated the law.

“You don’t want to give the impression that because you oppose the government on this thing, that means you’re just one of those lefties — which I am not,” he said.

Read the rest of this article by John Schwartz in the New York Times . . .