Seattle Prep, a private Catholic school in Seattle, has agreed to pay a $2.425 million settlement to a former student who alleged she was sexually abused by a former teacher and softball coach. The lawsuit, filed in 2022, accused the school of turning a blind eye to the coach’s actions off the field.
The victim’s attorneys, Darrell Cochran, founding partner, and Bridget Grotz, senior associate, of Pfau Cochran Vertitis Amala law, argued that Seattle Prep authorities were aware of the teacher’s history and the risks he posed to female students. The attorneys expressed their belief that the school should have recognized the dangers inherent in teachers selectively targeting students.
The former student filed the lawsuit against Seattle Preparatory School, alleging that the school willfully ignored the coach’s misconduct. The school had previously denied the allegations. In a recent statement, Seattle Prep confirmed that the case was resolved last month and pertained to events that occurred over 20 years ago. The school emphasized that the settlement was not funded by tuition, donor funds, or assets.
According to the statement, a former coach and teacher at Seattle Prep had an inappropriate relationship with a former student, which primarily occurred after the student had graduated. The school asserted that it has cooperated with the victim’s attorneys and followed due process. Seattle Prep also highlighted the implementation of necessary safety programs and practices to prioritize the well-being of its students. The school acknowledged treating the plaintiff with compassion and respect and honoring her request for confidentiality.
The former coach, who later became the school’s athletic director, worked at Seattle Prep from 1992 to 2006. The release stated that he reportedly harassed several female students during his tenure. The victim alleges that throughout her high school career, she was subjected to grooming, harassment, and sexual abuse by her former softball coach. The release described the coach’s repeated violation of boundaries, including being overly attentive and flirtatious, arranging private meetings, contacting her at inappropriate hours, and attending unofficial team bonding events.
The Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) Dr. Musa A. Aliyu, has called on all Nigerians to adopt preventive measures in fighting corruption.
The Chairman made this call through the Commission’s Secretary, Mr. Clifford O. Oparaodu, when the American Business Council (ABC), paid him a visit at the ICPC headquarters.
Oparaodu stressed the importance of adopting preventive methods in fighting corruption as he highlights the prevention aspect of the Commission’s mandate.
He noted that ICPC through its Public Enlightenment and Education Department has set up Anti-Corruption Clubs (SACs) in schools to enlighten the younger generation on the dangers of corruption and to enlist their support against corruption.
He particularly stressed that since greed, poverty, abuse of office and other vices have stalled the fight against corruption in Nigeria, it’s important that Nigerians take the fight against corruption personally to boost economic development.
“The fight against corruption cannot be done by the anti-graft agencies alone,” he said.
Meanwhile, Dr. Joe Abah, Country Director Development Activities International (DAI), and Steering Committee member Private Sector Development for Democracy Forum (PSDDF), said his forum has focus on questions revolving around the level of corruption, lack of accountability and decline of trust in governance.
He stated further that as Nigeria celebrates 25 years of unbroken democracy, the forum’s objectives also include addressing issues of corruption, strengthening democracy, reinforcing democratic institutions, promoting capacity building and civic education; land tenure reforms and data-driven dialogue.
Abah stressed the need for institutions to collaborate to rid the nation of corruption as the government cannot win the fight alone.
ICPC Calls For Preventive Measures To Tackle Corruption is first published on The Whistler Newspaper
The catastrophic Camp Fire roared through Northern California’s Butte County in 2018, charring the landscape, taking 86 lives and destroying countless homes and habitats in the town of Paradise.
The deadliest wildfire in modern U.S. history at the time, the fire spread at the rate of 80 football fields a minute at its peak, scorching the hearts and minds of the people who live there, especially the children.
That’s why the Butte County Office of Education sent trauma-informed arts educators into the schools, to help students cope with their fear, grief and loss. Buildings can be repaired far more quickly than the volatile emotions of children scarred by tragedy. Long after the flames died down, the heightened sense of fragility that often follows trauma lingered.
“The people displaced from Paradise were suffering from acute trauma, running for their lives, losing their houses and being displaced,” said Jennifer Spangler, arts education coordinator at Butte County Office of Education. “This county has been at the nexus of a lot of impactful traumas, so it makes sense that we would want to create something that directly addresses it.”
Even now, years after the conflagration, many residents are still healing from the aftermath. For example, the county has weathered huge demographic shifts, including spikes in homelessness, in the wake of the fire, which have unsettled the community. All of that came on the heels of the 2017 Oroville dam evacuations and longstanding issues of poverty, drug addiction and unemployment, compounding the sense of trauma.
“Butte County already had the highest adverse childhood experiences (ACES) scores in the state,” said Spangler. “We’re economically depressed, with high numbers of foster kids and unstable family lives and drugs. I think the fire was just another layer, and then Covid was another layer on top of that.”
Theater’s healing nature
Chris Murphy is a teaching artist who has worked with children in Paradise public schools as well as those at the Juvenile Hall School. He believes that theater can be a kind of restorative practice, helping students heal from their wounds in a safe space.
“Arts education is so effective in working with students impacted by trauma because the creative process operates on an instinctual level,” said Murphy, an actor best known for voicing the role of Murray in the “Sly Cooper” video game franchise for Sony’s PlayStation. “All arts are basically a way to tell a story and, as human beings, we are hard-wired to engage in storytelling as both participant and observer. A bond of mutual respect and trust develops among the group as they observe each other’s performances and make each other laugh. Over time, the environment takes on a more relaxed and safe quality.”
A print-making class at Pine Ridge Elementary. (Butte County Office of Education)
Another teaching artist, Kathy Naas, specializes in teaching drumming as part of a social-emotional learning curriculum that helps students find redemption in the visceral call-and-response rhythms of the drum circle.
“Trauma is powerful and is connected to something that occurred in the past,” said Naas, a drummer who is currently performing with a samba group as well as a Congolese group based in Chico. “Drumming occurs in the present moment and engages the brain so much that fear, pain and sadness cannot break through.”
Not just ‘natural’ disasters
To be sure, the use of trauma-informed arts ed techniques goes beyond natural disasters. Many arts advocates believe that these techniques can help children cope with myriad stressors.
“Now more than ever, these cycles of traumatic events, they just keep coming,” said Spangler, who modeled the Butte program after a similar one in Sonoma County in the wake of the devastating 2017 Tubbs Fire.
Children who have experienced trauma may experience negative effects in many aspects of their lives, experts warn. They may struggle socially in school, get lower grades, and be suspended or expelled. They may even become involved in the child welfare and juvenile justice system.
A drumming class at Palermo Middle School. (Butte County Office of Education)
“An individual who has been impacted by trauma, especially ongoing toxic stressors like a home environment with addiction, neglect or abuse, develops a brain chemistry that is detrimental to cognitive function … essentially locking the brain in a fight-flight-freeze cycle,” Murphy said. “With this understanding of what the trauma-affected student is going through, I use theater arts to disrupt the cycle.”
It should also be noted that delayed reactions are par for the course when dealing with post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD), experts say. Some children will show their distress readily, while others may try to hide their struggle.
A mental health crisis
Coming out of the pandemic, the healing power of the arts has been cast into wide relief as public health officials seek tools to grapple with the youth mental health crisis.
“Music can, in a matter of seconds, make me feel better,” said U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy during an arts summit organized by the White House Domestic Policy Council and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). “I’ve prescribed a lot of medicines as a doctor over the years. There are few I’ve seen that have that kind of extraordinary, instantaneous effect.”
Drumming can help build empathy, Naas says, because it allows for self-expression but also encourages a sense of ensemble, listening to others and taking turns.
“Drumming is a powerful activity that creates community,” said Naas. “What I notice about drumming with children is that students become excited, motivated, and fully engaged at the very start. They reach for the rhythms and begin exploring the drums right away.”
Fighting the isolation
Arts and music can nurture a visceral feeling of belonging that can help combat the isolation that often follows a tragic event, experts say. This may also provide some relief for those grappling with the aftershocks of the pandemic.
“The truth is we are all dealing with hardships associated with the pandemic and with learning loss, and we know that the arts, social-emotional learning and engagement can create a healing environment,” said Peggy Burt, a statewide arts education consultant based in Los Angeles. “Children need to heal to develop community, develop a sense of belonging and a sense of readiness so that they can learn.”
The families of Butte county know that in their bones. Trauma can fester long after the emergency has passed, after the headlines and the hoopla. Turning tragedy into art may be one way to heal.
“I’ve seen it over and over in these classrooms, the kids quiet down, they’re calm, they’re focused,” said Spangler. “You can see the profound impact the arts have on the kids every day.”
A view of Dvorak School of Excellence from the ally near Shantiey Smith and Sadaria Davis went missing. May 10th, 2023. Photo by Sebastin Hidalgo for City Bureau
by Trina Reynolds-Tyler, Invisible Institute, and Sarah Conway, City Bureau
This story is part four of Chicago Missing Persons, a two-year investigation by City Bureau and Invisible Institute, two Chicago-based nonprofit journalism organizations, into how Chicago police handle missing person cases reveals the disproportionate impact on Black women and girls, how police have mistreated family members or delayed cases, and how poor police data is making the problem harder to solve.
When Latonya Moore got home from the police station just before sunrise on May 29 after reporting her daughter Shantieya Smith missing, she was exhausted but unable to sleep. She worried that police didn’t take her report seriously.
“Police weren’t doing what they were supposed to do, so I had to do it on my own,” she says.
She immediately organized a search with family members and friends. They put up fliers in gas stations and stores in the neighborhood and drove around, talking to as many people as they could.
They even checked out the abandoned apartment building where Sadaria Davis had been found dead earlier that month. “We took off the chain. The door was unlocked. There was still her blood on the floor,” Moore remembers. Fearing the worst, Moore and her army of volunteers had brought sticks and bats — but the building was occupied by squatters, and Smith was nowhere to be found.
Meanwhile, Moore wondered why police hadn’t come by to ask her any questions or collect any evidence. She had told officers that Smith had left her phone at home, but days after filing the report, officers still hadn’t picked it up. Desperate for clues, Moore browsed her daughter’s recent calls and text messages — even exchanging several messages and calls with a man who Moore, to this day, believes to be her daughter’s murderer.
On June 4, Moore held a press conference in front of the same police station where she had first reported her daughter missing. With the Rev. Robin Hood by her side, she questioned why police hadn’t made an effort to look for her daughter.
“I’m praying she’s okay,” Moore told WGN 9 News. “I don’t want to think the worst, though.”
Downplaying the case, then-Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson hosted his own press conference 10 days later. “The two young ladies we are speaking about were involved in narcotics sales, prostitution, using narcotics together,” Johnson said, referring to Davis and Smith. Moore says her daughter did not use drugs. City Bureau and the Invisible Institute could not independently verify a connection between Smith and Davis outside of the person with whom they were last seen. The medical examiner later said Smith had no illegal drugs in her body.
Latonya Moore says she hopes police will take missing person cases more seriously, rather than blaming the victims. (Photo: Sebastián Hidalgo)
Nine Black families interviewed for this story said they felt neglected and disappointed in the Chicago Police Department’s handling of their loved one’s missing person cases — services a majority believed were denied because their relatives were Black.
People searching for their missing loved ones felt abandoned and revictimized by Chicago police. In the face of rude behavior, unanswered phone calls, and slow or lackluster investigations where evidence was fumbled or even lost by detectives, friends and family had to conduct their own searches and collect their own evidence.
In worst-case scenarios, people believe police delays and missteps allowed their loved ones to be murdered, leaving perpetrators uncharged or cases unsolved. Moore still wonders if Smith would be alive if police had followed up quickly, examined Smith’s phone, and immediately questioned the man Smith was last seen with.
If you’re Black and you come up missing, nobody cares.
SHIRLEY ENOCH-HILL
Shirley Enoch-Hill believes she will never find out what happened to her daughter, Sonya Rouse, who dreamed of being a news anchor. When Rouse went missing in 2016 at age 50, Enoch-Hill immediately suspected Rouse’s boyfriend, whom she claims physically abused her daughter throughout their relationship.
According to police documents, an Illinois Department of Corrections official offered to arrange an interview between police Detective Brian Yaverski and the boyfriend (who was in an IDOC work release program), but Yaverski “decided to wait.” More than a year later, the boyfriend died of a suspected fentanyl overdose, and Yaverski never interviewed him. (Reporters contacted Yaverski for comment, but he did not respond. CPD media affairs also did not respond to a request for comment.)
Enoch-Hill remembers crying when she heard Rouse’s boyfriend had died, because she felt the truth of what happened to her daughter was gone forever. “There is no closure. … It was like she disappeared off the face of the earth,” she says. “If you’re Black and you come up missing, nobody cares.”
Black families and advocates for missing persons say police officers often use dismissive language, sometimes citing personal details about the missing person in a way that places the family and the potential victim at fault. Johnson’s comments about Davis and Smith in June 2018 are just one prominent example.
An internal Chicago Police Department source familiar with how the department has handled cases over the years says this attitude comes from a difficult truth: “Chicago is one of the most segregated cities in the country. … It’s raising the elephant in the room. There are simply higher crime rates and poverty rates [in Black neighborhoods],” the source says.
In other words, “The whole narrative is that she’s not deserving to be looked for or deserving to be protected,” says La’Keisha Gray-Sewell, founder and executive director of the Girls Like Me Project, which empowers Black girls in Chicago. “Instead police will say she was on drugs or she was a, quote unquote, prostitute.”
Even former Supt. Johnson has come to understand the terrible consequences of that attitude, eventually apologizing to Moore for what he said at that 2018 press conference. “Just [because of] who they are or where they come from or their lifestyle, that doesn’t mean the police shouldn’t take it as serious, because we should,” he told City Bureau and the Invisible Institute in a January interview. “Somebody loved that person.”
Teresa Smith had a similar experience after her 65-year-old mother Daisy Hayes went missing May 1, 2018. Hayes was a loving and caring grandmother who was always the life of the party, Smith says. Yet when Smith tried to ask police for help, “They assassinated her character. [They said,] ‘We know your mom frequents the liquor store,’” Smith recounts. “Like that has something to do with anything?”
Similarly, City Bureau and the Invisible Institute found 11 other Black women who accused officers of abusive and dismissive language in an analysis of 54 police misconduct complaint records from 2011 to 2015, where the complaint was related to a missing person case.
Rather than receiving help from officers, Smith says she was yelled at by them, even though, according to a police report,t Hayes’ boyfriend was seen entering her apartment empty-handed and later caught on surveillance footage dragging a heavy suitcase down to the parking lot dumpster, then covering it with trash.
According to the police report, it took one week for police to assign a detective to the case, despite the fact that Hayes should have been classified as “at-risk missing” due to her age. Hayes is one of four cases discovered by City Bureau and the Invisible Institute (including Smith, Rouse and Bohanan) that show delayed response by police in at-risk cases, against police best practices and CPD’s internal guidelines.
The Rev. Robin Hood speaks to reporters to advocate for increased health services on Chicago’s West Side in May 2023. Hood has supported many families of missing persons over the years, especially to garner press attention when they believe police have not done enough. (Photo: Sebastián Hidalgo)
Chicago police data should provide a window into whether police do or do not respond quickly to missing person cases. However, police records obtained by City Bureau and the Invisible Institute show enormous gaps, not only in data points that are left blank, but in the data that police do not even attempt to gather.
After a person reports their loved one as missing, how long does it take for officers to show up for a preliminary investigation? How much time do officers spend on this investigation before they alert the Missing Persons section? Do these times vary based on race, sex, age, and location? Currently the Chicago Police Department’s missing persons data makes it difficult to answer these questions definitively.
Nowhere on the CPD missing person report is there a place to note the date or time when loved ones first reach out to officers. Moore’s trip to the police district May 29, 2018, is denoted as “date reporting officer arrived,” a data point that is meant to log when a beat cop shows up to gather evidence for a preliminary investigation, according to police policy. Yet Moore says police did not come to her house until nearly four days after she reported her daughter missing.
Former Commander Patricia Casey, who oversaw the missing persons desk in the Youth Investigation Division, says that if a missing person complaint is filed at a police station, “then [police should] have a car go over to the missing’s home and see if they could look around.”
Additionally, the “officer arrival time” is missing in a large number of these cases. For the data set from 2000 to 2021, officer arrival time is missing for about 17% of cases. In the most recent five years of our data set, 2017 to 2021, officer arrival time is missing for about 45% of cases.
CPD has never taken data collection seriously.
TRACY SISKA, FOUNDER, CHICAGO JUSTICE PROJECT
Diving into police data can be onerous, but with the volume of cases for missing persons, it would be a more comprehensive way to evaluate police claims about how they handle investigations.
“CPD has never taken data collection seriously, and it goes throughout the ranks. It is an institutionalized problem,” says Tracy Siska, founder of the Chicago Justice Project, which studies data across the criminal justice system.
Family members of the missing say their loved ones are not simply data points, but they worry police treat them that way.
“We had to put our feet down, do footwork, press conferences, marches,” says Smith about the search for her mother. It took pressure from the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization, a community group known as KOCO that organizes a yearly march for missing and murdered Black women and girls in Chicago, to bring attention to her case. “With the police, when it comes to us, we’re nobody.”
Editor’s Note:In this article, anonymous sources have their names and credentials checked and double-checked by reporters and editors, though their identities are not revealed to the public. Sources may be granted anonymity if they provide unique and critical perspective or information and are at risk for personal or professional harm if their identities are revealed.
This story is part of the Chicago Missing Persons project by City Bureau and Invisible Institute, two Chicago-based nonprofit journalism organizations. Read the full investigation and see resources for families at chicagomissingpersons.com
When they were done with the dead man, they dropped his corpse off at a local hospital.
The plot to ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ playout this past week in Ohio when two women reportedly “propped up a dead man in their car to withdraw hundreds of dollars from his bank account”, according to a report from the NY Post and the Star Beacon.
When they were done with the dead man, they dropped his corpse off at a local hospital, the report says.
Ashtabula Police Chief Robert Stell told the Star Beacon: “Before dropping him off they went through a bank drive-thru with him propped up in the passenger seat so that the teller could see him. … They tried to withdraw money from his account. The bank had allowed this previously as long as they were accompanied by him.”
The women managed to withdraw “about $900”, according to the Post.
When the women brought the dead man, 80 year old Douglas Layman to the emergency room, the medical staff were initially unaware of his identity.
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However, authorities later managed to track down Loreen Bea Feralo, 55, and Karen Casbohm, 63, who dropped the body off and were able to identify him. They reported that he had passed away at his residence in Ashtabula, as per the police records.
Feralo was “convicted of reckless assault, possession of drug paraphernalia, criminal trespass, driving under the influence, theft and attempted possession of drugs,” the NY Post wrote. The women were also charged with theft and gross abuse of a corpse, the report says.
Ashtabula Prosecuting Attorney Cecilia Cooper commented: “We filed charges against two women. Karen Casbohm and Loreen Bea Feralo were charged with gross abuse of a corpse and theft.”
EXCLUSIVE: Trump Is Right To Oppose TikTok Ban, MTG Tells Alex Jones
Abia State Governor, Dr. Alex Otti, has called for a thorough investigation into the recent student protests at Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike. The protests, sparked by a increase in student fees, resulted in the university’s closure.
During a meeting with the university management on Tuesday, Dr. Otti stressed the importance of identifying the underlying reasons behind the student unrest. He emphasized that a comprehensive investigation, free from preconceived notions, is crucial to prevent future disruptions.
“It is important that you get to the root of the matter,” Governor Otti stated. “If the investigation panel does not do a thorough job, you may not get to the root and one of the ways to solve a problem is not to prejudge it. That (prejudging) will close your mind to every other suggestion.”
The Governor pledged his commitment to collaborating with the university administration and other stakeholders to facilitate the resumption of full academic activities. He acknowledged the negative impact of academic disruptions on students’ education and future prospects.
Governor Otti also announced the planned establishment of an Agricultural Business Incubation Centre at the university. He directed the Commissioner for Agriculture and the Principal Secretary to the Governor to collaborate with the university on this initiative. Additionally, the Governor assured the university administration that a longstanding legal dispute with the Abia State Internal Revenue Service would be resolved through an out-of-court settlement. He stated, “There is no way, we as a government would take you to court… We are going to look into it and discontinue it. It doesn’t make sense.”
Governor Otti further committed to addressing the university’s ongoing challenge of obtaining a Certificate of Occupancy for its land. He plans to involve the university and its surrounding communities in finding a solution to this issue.
‘Get To The Root’ – Gov Otti Wants To Know Why There Was Unrest At Michael Okpara University is first published on The Whistler Newspaper
During his 2024 State of the Union address, President Joe Biden referred frequently to his “predecessor,” who happens to be the expected Republican nominee trying to deny him reelection this year.
Without using Donald Trump’s name, Biden focused part of his March 7 speech on his many contrasts with his presidential predecessor, which Biden said extended to management of the nation’s finances.
Trump’s administration “added more to the national debt than any presidential term in American history,” Biden said. “Check the numbers, folks.”
We did.
Experts say it’s hard to draw a straight line between any president and the debt accrued on their watch. But beyond that, there are different ways to view the numbers, and some of them are not favorable to Biden’s assertion.
Biden left out that the debt under his watch is on pace to exceed Trump’s one-term debt accumulation by the end of his current term, Jan. 20, 2025. During his first three years, Biden already accumulated $6.32 trillion in debt. For his final year, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has projected a deficit of $1.582 trillion. Add those two figures together and you get $7.902 trillion as Biden’s four-year total.
Treasury Department data shows the gross federal debt rose by about $7.8 trillion on Trump’s watch.
President Barack Obama during his two presidential terms oversaw a debt increase of more than $9.5 trillion, which exceeds Trump’s total.
But the White House told PolitiFact that Biden used “any presidential term” to refer to single, four-year terms, and the figure during Trump’s four-year term was higher than any previous four-year presidential term.
That backward-looking distinction is notable.
So far, debt under Biden’s watch has risen by a little less than $6.7 trillion. That’s smaller than Trump’s total — but again, Biden is on pace to exceed Trump’s mark by the time his term ends.
Another way to analyze this debt is more favorable to Biden, though the White House did not offer it as justification after PolitiFact inquired.
The day after Biden’s speech, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a Washington-based group that studies fiscal policy, wrote that Trump had signed legislation or executive orders that added $8.4 trillion of new borrowing over 10 years, about half of it in pandemic relief.
The group said this was more than any prior president in dollar terms, and also more than Biden. The group said it had not recently updated its estimate for Biden but said that it was “significantly smaller” than Trump’s amount.
Why president-to-president comparisons are hard
However, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget’s method highlights a challenge of assigning debt to any president.
Using the group’s method, much of the debt allocated to Trump will not show up in the federal ledger until years after he left office in 2021. This reality gets even trickier once mandatory payments are considered.
Much of the current federal debt stems from mandatory payments, such as those for Social Security and Medicare. These began spiking when the baby boom generation started drawing heavily from these programs around 2010.
Generations of politicians in both parties approved and modified these programs long before Trump took office.
“It is always challenging to figure out how much spending was on whose watch,” Steve Ellis, president of the federal budget-watching nonprofit group Taxpayers for Common Sense, told PolitiFact for a related 2023 fact-check.
Trump’s biggest single federal debt spikes came from the initial rounds of coronavirus relief legislation in 2020. Trump signed them, but they passed with broad bipartisan support.
“Everyone, including me, said it was worth it, and without it, things would have been worse,” Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the center-right American Action Forum, told PolitiFact in 2023. “So, (it’s) not fair to blame Trump exclusively for something everyone thought was needed.”
Our ruling
Biden said the Trump administration “added more to the national debt than any presidential term in American history.”
Trump did accumulate more debt during his term than any previous president’s single term, and also more than Biden has accumulated so far in his tenure. But Biden’s tenure isn’t over yet.
Projections say that Biden’s four-year term debt will exceed the total debt accumulated under Trump. Also, assigning debt to a particular president can be misleading because so much of it traces back to decades-old, bipartisan legislation that set the parameters for Social Security and Medicare.
The statement is partially accurate but needs additional context, so we rate it Half True.
Approximately three million Californians are impacted by minimum wage, which is currently $16 per hour.
A restaurant is considered “fast-food” when you must order and pay for food first. The fast-food industry comprises about 500,000 employees making minimum wage. On April 1, minimum wage for “fast-food employees only” will rise 25% to $20 per hour under AB 1228. The minimum salary will be twice the minimum wage or $83,200 per year. However, only fast-food employees working foremployers having 60 or more locations nationwide are eligible.
This is nothing more than an illegal financial shakedown of McDonald’s and others extorting them to pay 25% higher minimum wages for having locations outside California jurisdiction, which is unconstitutional. These corporate fast-food employers are not receiving equal protection under the law. Our 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, … nor [shall any State] deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” This amendment is also known as the Equal Protection Clause.
Earning minimum wage requires only minimum labor effort having no education or skill. Not unlike Social Security or unemployment benefits, minimum wage was never intended to be a “living wage.” A living wage is NOT a right; it is earned. If an individual chooses not to complete high school or not to attend college to gain an essential education, skill, or trade to greatly increase their employability and earning potential, that is their right. Individuals are not entitled to a “living wage” because of their poor life choices.
The State of California has no business rewarding these individuals who are lacking education and skills. If an individual wants a career within the fast-food industry, that’s between them and their employer. If not for minimum wage jobs, many employed in the fast-food industry would be unemployed. Some can’t even speak English.
AB 1228 is sponsored by Assemblyman Chris Holden, (D) of Pasadena. The single largest racial/ethnic group in Pasadena is Hispanic. And 60% of all fast-food workers in California are Hispanic. Unfortunately, AB 1228 wreaks of racism; favoring one ethnic group or nationality over others. I dare not speculate how many are undocumented from Mexico.
The fast-food employers having 60+ locations nationwide have no intention of absorbing additional labor costs. Based upon the total number of fast-food employees, California consumers could potentially pay nearly $4.16 billion dollars in increased minimum wages covered by fast-food consumer price increases. Because these fast-food purchases are taxed at about 8% on average, the total cost to California consumers could be nearly $4.5 billion dollars annually.
Fast-food “value menus” have become a cruel joke. Most senior citizens and low-income families can no longer afford to dine at McDonald’s. All the fast-food restaurants have been raising their prices in anticipation of April 1. The $5 Cravings Box at Taco Bell Paradise is now $10, a 100% increase.
What about the other 2.5 million employees in California making $16 per hour not employed in the fast- food industry? Employees working within retail sales, hospitality, healthcare, and all other labor sectors are not receiving equal protection under the law. What about the employees working at retail corporations such as Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Lowes, and others having 60+ locations nationwide? They are being discriminated for not working in the fast-food industry. And those fast-food employees working for employers having 60+ fast-food locations individually located inside airports and markets are exempt.
Panera Bread, having 60+ locations nationwide, is exempt because they are also a bakery. However, Subway, which bakes its own bread, is not exempt. AB 1228 is chock full of unlawful exemptions and ineligibilities. The AB 1228 Minimum Wage is not based on merit, education, or skill, but ultimately based solely on an individual’s employer having undertones of racial preference.
A Temporary Injunction needs to be filed in Federal Court prior to April 1 to pause implementation of AB 1228 until which time a “Class Action” lawsuit can prove AB 1228 is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause. These plaintiffs should include the 2.5 million Californians working in the non-fast-food industry, those ineligible individuals working in the fast-food industry, and all corporate fast-food employers having 60+ locations nationwide outside California jurisdiction. These plaintiffs are not receiving equal protection. All Californians, individuals and corporate entities, deserve and demand equal protection under the law guaranteed by our 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Marty Piatt is an architect and author living in Paradise.
President Joe Biden did not talk much about climate change in his wide-ranging and offertimes gleefully combative State of the Union address on Thursday night — his last before the election in November. He didn’t mention his landmark climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, by name, and didn’t devote more than a few sentences to climate policy on the whole.
The President did make a bit of environmental news, however: he announced that the American Climate Corps, the green-jobs training program he started last fall through an executive order, will triple in size by 2030 — from 20,000 people to 60,000. And as has been the subtext to the program from the beginning, that will mean a lot more young Black and brown Americans setting out on green careers in the coming years.
Based on the Civilian Conservation Corps, a Depression-era jobs program that put unemployed men to work doing everything from planting trees to building cabins on federal land across the country, and inspired by the Green New Deal, Biden’s Climate Corp aims to train Americans for the jobs that will hopefully be at the heart of a decarbonized economy.
And thanks to the President’s Justice40 initiative, 40% of the projects undertaken by the Climate Corp and 40% of its members will be from so-called environmental justice communities that are on the front lines of the climate crisis.
But unlike the CCC, which gave jobs to some three million men during the nine years of the program, the Climate Corps is quite small in comparison, with an initial cohort of 20,000. The expansion will give it a significant boost, however, and allow the administration to somewhat surpass the demand that they have seen thus far: according to a February announcement of a USDA Corps program, more than 50,000 people have said they are interested in the program.
“President Biden is already building a better America,” Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey, a coauthor of the Green New Deal, said in a statement, “including by heeding our movement’s call by establishing and now pledging to triple the historic American Climate Corps.”
A federal green jobs program like the one proposed in the Green New Deal was initially included in the climate legislation that became the IRA, but West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin (who has deep ties to his state’s coal industry as both a businessman and a politician) withheld his vote in part over its inclusion.
Ironically, the flood of federal money made available for green infrastructure projects through the IRA will still help support the President’s more ad-hoc approach to establishing the Climate Corps. The White House is also working with agencies across the federal government, like USDA, and a number of states that have already established their own green job-training programs to find funding for the Climate Corps without having to go through Congress.
That approach managed to get the program off the ground, and receive such a groundswell of interest and support — but also threatens its longevity too. Because it’s backed only by an executive order it’s a climate program that could easily and readily be undone if Biden loses the election in November.
