#commercial real estate Inland Empire

[moorerealestategroup]

Moore Real Estate Group is a commercial real estate firm with offices in Los Angeles, Inland Empire, and San Diego. The founders are Matthew and Jennifer Moore, a husband and wife team who believe that educating people about real estate valuation, investment, and development can be an avenue to improving the quality of life in communities locally and globally.

[reveal-the-news]

Regional Economy Showing Signs of Strength, Despite Risk Factors

Regional Economy Showing Signs of Strength, Despite Risk Factors

Business activity in the Inland Empire rebounded in recent quarters, with slack in the residential real estate market offset by growth in commercial development, UC Riverside economists said Thursday. The UCR School of Business Center for Economic Forecasting and Development released its quarterly Inland Empire Business Activity Index, which shows the regional economy experienced a 2.8% annual…

[samarinindustrial]

Just Listed for SALE:  Freestanding 3,607/SF Office Building.  Leased to 2 tenants with one tenant vacating in September an Owner/User could buy and occupy while collecting rent from the other tenant.  Contact me for details:  Noah.Samarin@DAUMCommercial.com 

[tanadrin]

Land Tenure and Property in Seileshrant

About two hundred years ago, the world ended for the people of Seileshrant. Global political instability driven by resource constraints due to climate change, a series of bad political decisions by world leaders, and the ensuing breakdown of the international order led to a general nuclear war. In the aftermath, a collapse of international trade and damage to infrastructure led to starvation and pandemics. It was, for the people of that era, very much like their most pessimistic predictions for the future. And yet, those that looked around in the aftermath could not help but realize one simple fact: they had survived. And there was nothing to do, but to keep on living.

Two things did not happen that they had feared. For one, people did not instantly revert to barbarism. This prediction, that the post-nuclear world would be home to cannibal kings and roving plunderers, proved to be the lurid fantasy of those who, by want of attention to the relevant scientific literature, failed to understand how humans actually react to sudden catastrophe. And it failed to understand the keenest pain felt by those whose world had been annihilated by war: in the absence of that world, they wanted to rebuild it as swiftly as possible. The second thing that did not happen is that humanity did not revert to technological ignorance or luddism. The only hope of rebuilding the things that they had lost, after all, was in mastering and deploying every bit of technical knowhow they had on hand. The destruction of roads and cities and factories, coupled with the deaths of billions, did indeed trigger a massive economic contraction whose effects would be felt more than two centuries later, and it is an unescapable truth that some knowledge, irrelevant for the long decades of initial rebuilding, was lost--knowledge like how to manage transcontinental logistics effectively, or operate ports that handled millions of tons of cargo annually--but the civilization that preceded Seileshrant wrote and recorded information obsessively. Not only physical science, but art and philosophy and history and a hundred other disciplines carried on very much as before, incorporating this catastrophe into themselves like they had the plagues and collapses of empire before.

So, yes: four hundred years ago, the world ended, in Seileshrant and everywhere else. But then it continued to spin; and, looking about themselves, the survivors noticed that they were stuck with the world that came after. And so with heavy hearts they set about their task--and resolved to build a world that was, if they could manage it, a little bit better than the one they had lost.

Seileshrant sits along a wide inland sea, an inlet of the great ocean; primevally, its land was a strip dense conifer forests, pinned between the mountains and the open ocean. From the inlet whence the country draws its name hundreds or thousands of smaller bays, sounds, and fjords cut into the land, producing a thick scattering of islands along the shores, and spreading across the bays like stepping-stones. The climate is temperate, on the warmer side, and oceanic. The winters in Seileshrant are mild, but very wet, while summers are drier. Four hundred years ago, Seileshrant was home to two large cities, one to the south and one to the north. Both are now sprawling ruins; the total population of Seileshrant now is only a little more than three-quarters what the population of those cities were at their peak; it is about one million people. The current largest city and economic hub of Seileshrant is Green Mountain, with about three hundred thousand people, located roughly halfway between the two great ruined cities. The name is an old one, from the prewar era, though perhaps one not entirely well-translated.

Seileshrant borders are not quite firmly delineated. To the east are high mountains, and beyond that a country that is very sparsely populated. This definitely does not belong to Seileshrant . Its people are organized into far smaller communities, and though friendly with the people of Seileshrant , too independent-minded to consider themselves culturally the same. To the west, of course, is the ocean. North, along the island-specked coast, the population gradually thins out, and the towns there participate less often in the great projects and major cultural events that seem to define Seileshrant for its people. To the south, after the land bends sharply westward, abruptly cutting off the inland sea, there is an allied state organized along much more centralized lines. It and Seileshrant and dozens--hundreds, really--of other communities on the same continent are loosely confederated. A common rule of law runs throughout the hemisphere, both an assurance of individual rights and a safeguard against any other catastrophic wars that might devastate the planet. But this is still a postapocalyptic world. The states are smaller, the populations more thinly spread, the difficulty of travel greater, than they were in a century or two or more before the end of the world, and the dream of a single world united in harmony is perhaps even more distant for the people of Seileshrant than it is for our own.

This is not a utopia. This is by no means a perfect world. The people of Seileshrant would be the first to tell you that. They have lost so much that the grief of it still overwhelms them sometimes, even two hundred years later. They would be the first to tell you that if that great disaster had been averted, if people had just been a little less stupid, if they had been a little more hesitant to lash out with the worst of weapons, well, who knows what kind of world they would be living in? What kind of wonders they’d have achieved by now? But it doesn’t really bear thinking about, because that’s not the world they live in. Thus the motto of Seileshrant: “the world that is given to us.”

The constitutive political unit of Seileshrant is the “neighborhood.” It’s a technical term, now quite divorced from the folksy connotations it was originally intended to inspire. (Such is the fate of all bureaucratic terminology!) Originally intended to denote a small part of an urban community, a neighborhood designates a contiguous physical expanse that can contain anywhere from dozens to thousands of households. A neighborhood is the formal administrator of its territory, but not the actual owner of property, and while neighborhoods may level certain kinds of taxes to pay for their own upkeep, they also don’t directly manage larger pieces of infrastructure. What they do manage, most importantly, is housing. For Seileshrant, “housing” is all physically occupied real estate, residential and commercial. (Industrial is a slightly distinct case in some circumstances--agricultural, polluting, and location-specific industries are managed differently.) By general custom, housing is managed by lottery: when a unit of housing falls vacant, a lottery is held among those wishing to move into the neighborhood, or that unit specifically, weighted if necessary to accomodate people with specific needs (e.g., a ground floor apartment for someone who can’t manage stairs). If the wait list for housing is very long, this is generally seen as a sign that a neighborhood needs more housing. It falls to the neighborhood to build it, funded by taxes or a grant. This process is automatic; the organic laws which establish a neighborhood generally instruct that the building committees “shall” begin planning procedures when a certain waitlist threshold is reached. It can be delayed, but not indefinitely; a long and ever-growing waitlist is generally seen as a sign that a neighborhood’s leadership is neglecting its job.

No housing is owned. Indeed, the concept of “ownership” of real estate doesn’t exist in Seileshrant. The tenant--the resident, we should say; they pay no rent or property tax--has the right of quiet enjoyment of their home. They cannot be evicted. All persons of majority age (and minors under various conditions) are guaranteed a home. You might want to opt to live with your friends if you’re young; the wait list can be shorter if you’re willing to have roommates. Commercial property works much the same way: businesses--which as legal entities are a unionized workplace with a persistent identity--occupy storefronts and workshops and small factory spaces on much the same basis; if they move or dissolve, the space is reallocated according to a weighted lottery, administered by the neighborhood, though under standards enshrined by law throughout Seileshrant.

Very large, very specialized endeavors--ports, hospitals, power plants, wastewater treatment--will be the common task of groups of neighborhoods. These are “towns,” but it’s important to note that towns do not need to be contiguous and have flexible membership. A neighborhood can also belong to more than one town at a time. Towns levy taxes to fund major common projects, but their area of operations is mostly limited to what we would think of as municipal-scale works. Importantly, neighborhoods unhappy with their town can, to a limited extent, opt to join another for some purposes. A sewer system is hard to reconfigure, but if you want a different garbage pickup service, that’s a bit easier to rearrange. Some towns are highly specialized and offer only one service: the South Seileshrant Power Town runs a nuclear plant that thousands of neighborhoods use, and does nothing else. Others are functionally independent cities: Green Mountain Town coordinates almost every public service in Green Mountain.

Every town, every neighborhood that isn’t a part of a town, and the unincorporated rural areas of Seileshrant are organized under the auspices of the Seileshrant Coordinating Committee, a body of directly elected officials organized via a set of more than two dozen statutes. Various communities in the Seileshrant region have decided to what extent they want to participate in the SCC’s activities; most are signatories to every statute; some to only a majority, some to only a few. As a result, the authority of Seileshrant’s collective elected government varies, although certain essential laws (like those banning murder) always have force everywhere; and all of Seileshrant is strongly influenced by the same common body of legal customs.

The SCC manages pensions and basic income; it pays for healthcare and heavily subsidizes the Seileshrant Free University; it also manages the major wilderness reserves. In setting certain statutory minimum rights, the SCC has a big effect on how real estate is managed in Seileshrant--but it, also, is not in any real sense the “owner” of property or land. Rather, in all Seileshrant, the governing principles behind how land or a building or a space is disposed of is: 1) is it being used? 2) Does someone want to use it? 3) Will the use they want to put it to have negative effects on those around them? 4) Can these effects be reasonably mitigated? You cannot open a fireworks factory next to a preschool, generally speaking; but the system is designed to enable, not to inhibit, the productive use of space.

A special case might seem to arise in those circumstances, when a resident or commercial user of property makes immovable improvements to land or a building. To treat the cases in ascending order of complexity: basic resident rights mean there are some things (putting up pictures, painting, redoing your kitchen) a neighborhood cannot and would never forbid. The costs of upkeep beyond basic maintenance for a house or apartment fall to a neighborhood and not the resident, which might seem like an incentive not to take care of your home--but because nobody is ever going to kick you out, and you’ll probably be living their a long time, that is in fact a very strong incentive to take good care of the place you live in. After all, the unit you live in is in a very real sense exclusively yours--no one else has a right to be there. You just can’t sell it when you’re done with it.

What about if you build your own house on unoccupied land? For one, you automatically have the right to live there. Indeed, it’s yours as long as you want it--no evictions, remember? And you can even pass it on to your heirs: residential rights can be bequeathed under certain circumstances, including that of a house you built yourself. The only thing you or your heirs can’t do is 1) sell it, or 2) let it stand empty. If you have a house in Green Mountain, and your aunt leaves you a house up north, you have to pick one or the other to live in. The one that’s empty will go in the lottery.

What about non-residential structures--say, specially built factories or mines or farms? Is it worth it to invest money and time and labor in improving property you can’t sell? Well, yes--productive improvements are productive improvements. And businesses enjoy similar, if a little more limited, rights to occupation as individual residents. The SCC will even help fledgeling cooperatives undertake new tasks with loans or subsidies if they think their business will be especially economically beneficial to the region. What you cannot do is extract rents.

Many other kinds of property also don’t exist in Seileshrant. You can’t own part of a company; there are no stocks. All companies are owned entirely by their workers, per SCC regulations. Companies can still split and merge as their workers see fit, but they’re much more like democracies than dictatorships. If the lack of capitalistic investment seems like it would inhibit economic growth, remember that Seileshrant’s economy is far smaller than our own; any benefits it might be missing out on there are probably comparatively small. Seileshrant has no legal concept of intellectual property. Artists have the moral right to be identified as the creator of their work, and certain kinds of limited copyright exist, but these are more akin to choosing which Creative Common license you want to distribute your work under, with preventing other people from selling copies of your work or close derivatives being assumed as the default. It is always legal to redistribute copies of artistic works for free. Most movable property is covered under the law of possessions, which gives rights of exclusive use and bequest to the things you keep in your house, or on your person, or otherwise haven’t intentionally abandoned, even more strongly than it does to housing. And businesses have the same rights to the fruits of their common labor, at least until they’re sold or abandoned.

In general, a Seileshranter would be a little puzzled at our ideas about property, namely the way in which we exercise a kind of sovereign metaphysical authority over space. In Seileshrant, law and custom is much more narrowly focused: it is geared at solving in practical terms certain problems of competing uses and desires. Either you’re using a thing or you’re not, and if you’re not, someone else is generally permitted to use it. The system has its limitations, but it also has several salubrious effects: lacking a concept of property, as well as sovereignty, has perhaps given the Seileshranters a much more nuanced attitude toward how they think about shared spaces and objects in their communities; what communal administration of space looks like when it doesn’t have to demonstrate that is possesses metaphysical authority; and, indeed, what their government is for and what it is supposed to be doing at any given moment.

[singleserver84-blog]

Real Estate Expert Inland Empire Will Handle Complicated Legal Disputes

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NAR: Fla. Home to the Top 5 Commercial Markets. NAR’s index identified the following 16 markets as the hottest in commercial real estate in the first quarter: 1. Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL 2. Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, FL 3. West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Delray Beach, FL 4. Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Deerfield Beach, FL 5. Fort Myers, FL 6. Savannah, Ga. 7. Austin, Texas 8. Boston-Cambridge-Nashua, Mass. 9. Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario (Inland Empire), Calif. 10.Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, Ga. 11.Asheville, N.C. 12.Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise, Nev. 13.Bend-Redmond, Ore. 14.Charleston-North Charleston, S.C. 15.Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin, Tenn. 16.Provo-Orem, Utah #parkplacenetwork #commercialrealestate https://www.instagram.com/p/CeHbwR3Plds/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[livinginlandmarketing]

In California’s Inland Empire, the supply chain doesn’t just flow. It gushes.

Logistics dominates the former citrus powerhouse where almost 5 million live. For better or worse, the region’s present and future are tied to mammoth, sleek-walled warehouses and an 18-wheeled armada connecting the fruits of overseas labor to shopping aisles and doorsteps.

That change hit light speed during the the coronavirus pandemic, which spiked demand for online shopping and warehouses to store goods bought virtually with one-day delivery. In 2020, the top 500 North American retailers generated $849.5 billion in online sales, up 45.3% from 2019 and the biggest jump since 2006, Forbes reported.

“What we see happening on the ground today is a result of our choices as a society, to shop more online, to change the way that we acquire products,” said Juan Perez, Riverside County’s chief operating officer.

The story of the Inland warehouse boom has chapters in geography, globalization and demographics — take out a chapter and the ending changes. It’s a long-running drama pitting those who see logistics as the best option for a low-skilled workforce against those who blame warehouses and the diesel-belching trucks filling them for poisoning the air, clogging freeways and paying low wages.

A logistics area at San Bernardino Avenue and California Street in Redlands is seen Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Saia LTL Freight facility on Santa Ana Avenue in Fontana is seen Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Trucks at a Walmart distribution center in Eastvale are seen Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

The Costco distribution center in Jurupa Valley is seen Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

The Amazon Fulfillment Center on San Bernardino Avenue in Redlands is seen Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

An industrial area at San Bernardino Avenue and California Street in Redlands is seen Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

The Union Pacific Railroad facility in Bloomington is seen Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021. Freight trains haul goods offloaded at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to Inland Empire warehouses. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

The Union Pacific Railroad facility in Bloomington is seen Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021. Freight trains ferry goods from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to Inland logistics centers. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

The Costco distribution center in Jurupa Valley is seen Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

The Costco distribution center in Jurupa Valley is seen Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Semi-trucks make their way up California Street in Redlands on Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Saia LTL Freight facility on Santa Ana Avenue in Fontana is seen Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Industrial and logistics facilities in the vicinity of Nevada Street, south of San Bernardino Avenue, in Redlands are seen Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Warehouses on the north side of the 60 Freeway at Etiwanda Avenue in Jurupa Valley are seen Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Warehouses in the vicinity of Nevada Street in Redlands are seen Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021. Because of several factors, the Inland Empire has become a hub for the logistics industry. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

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It’s also a story that — like the logistics industry — keeps growing:

From 2004 to 2020, the Inland logistics footprint roughly doubled to almost 600 million square feet, according to commercial real estate firm CBRE.

The number of Inland “big box” distribution centers grew 54% from 463 in 2009 to 711 in 2020, according to Statista, a market and consumer data firm.

In 2019, the Inland Empire was home to 21 of the nation’s 100 biggest logistics leases, the California attorney general’s office reported.

An estimated 40% of the nation’s consumer goods come through the region, Bloomberg News reported, and the logistics industry employed almost 1 in 8 Inland workers as of early 2021.

Amazon is Riverside County’s second-largest employer, according to the county budget report.

And these examples don’t include the planned World Logistics Center, which will bring 40 million square feet — 705 football fields — of warehouse space to eastern Moreno Valley.

The Inland region is “one of five or six locations like this in the world” for logistics, said Paul Granillo, president and CEO of the Inland Empire Economic Partnership. “The question we as a region need to grapple with is how do we take advantage of the economic engine that this sector is for us.”

In fighting new warehouses, residents often ask why something else — a shopping center, for example — can’t be built instead.

Jeff Greene, chief of staff to Riverside County Supervisor Kevin Jeffries, said a developer reportedly looked into building an outdoor retail plaza similar to Rancho Cucamonga’s Victoria Gardens in Mead Valley, a rural unincorporated area where warehouses are popping up.

“The population density (and) the demographics just don’t come anywhere close to penciling out,” Greene said.

While cargo planes fly to Ontario and San Bernardino, Inland logistics owes its scale to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in San Pedro Bay. Both ports are about 65 miles from Riverside.

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Unlike San Francisco and Seattle, San Pedro Bay has the geography and infrastructure to handle a large volume of seaborne cargo, said Juan De Lara, an associate professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California and author the book “Inland Shift: Race, Space and Capital in Inland Southern California.”

The rise of Asian manufacturing in the past 40 years “created an incredible flow of goods coming through San Pedro Bay,” said Nick Vyas, founding executive director of the Randall K. Kendrick Global Supply Chain Institute and USC’s Marshall School of Business.

“As we look at this volume coming in, a lot of this volume had to be absorbed,” Vyas said. “We needed the warehouse spaces so when goods come in, we can store them.”

At first, that meant port-adjacent warehouses. But Los Angeles County started running out of logistics space and in recent years, L.A. County warehouses have been converted into lofts and workspaces, said Jay Dick, a CBRE executive.

Troy Plotkin, vice president of operations for Approved Freight Forwarders, a shipping company in the City of Industry, called the Inland Empire “the next closest place, really, to get freight out of the port and yet stay in this very large clientele base.”

At least 20 million consumers are within a two-hour drive of the region, he said, adding that Inland warehouses can be built with higher ceilings, which cuts costs because goods can be stacked higher.

Roads, rail, land, workers fueled warehouse growth

As the logistics industry moved eastward, it followed existing roads and rail lines. The launch of the U.S. interstate network in the 1950s led to the 10 Freeway, which runs from Santa Monica to Florida, and the 15 Freeway, which flows Inland and through Las Vegas to Montana.

A 1964 renaming of highways christened what is now the 60 Freeway connecting Riverside to L.A. The 10, 60, and 15 converge in Mira Loma, a neighborhood in Jurupa Valley that was an early hotbed of warehouse activity in Riverside County.

In the 1800s, Inland railroads replaced stagecoaches and brought in settlers and tourists, said Juliann Emmons Allison, a UC Riverside professor studying sustainability and environmental policy. But starting in the 1980s and continuing through the early 2000s, railroad companies spent tens of millions of dollars upgrading their facilities to move large volumes of goods more efficiently, De Lara said.

All that was needed was flat, vacant land — “You can’t build a warehouse on the hills,” Dick said — and the Inland Empire had plenty of it, along with a ready-to-go workforce.

A pro-logistics argument is “we have the least educated workforce in Southern California,” Greene said. “These people aren’t going to work in biotech … so therefore, warehouses are the best thing they can get. And that’s been kind of their pitch.”

Roughly a third of Inland households are under the $50,000-income level, compared to 25% for Orange County and 29% for San Diego County, 2019 census data shows. About 20% of residents in Riverside and San Bernardino counties have a bachelor’s degree or higher. In Orange and San Diego counties, it’s 41% and 40%, respectively.

The Inland area’s need for jobs grew in the 1980s when Kaiser Steel closed in Fontana and the 1990s when Norton Air Force Base closed in San Bernardino and March Air Force Base downshifted to become March Air Reserve Base.

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Norton became San Bernardino International Airport and, in 2016, the agency responsible for redeveloping Norton announced that the 9,000-plus jobs lost in the closure had been restored. Amazon accounted for about a third of them.

Warehouse jobs are available in the Inland Empire “but it does nothing to change (the community) if you keep bringing the things here that are lower wages,” Allison said.

Catherine Gudis, a UC Riverside history professor, sees parallels between warehouse workers and those who toiled in farm fields a century ago. “It’s an exploitation of labor for the purposes of gaining the greatest value out of the cheapest possible production of the commodity,” she said.

There’s a line of thought that the Inland Empire “has always served the coastal communities,” Allison said.

“So land becomes more expensive there and those areas become places where people live, and these Inland counties become places that support those people,” she said. “So there’s also kind of an extension there that you’re not going to put your warehouses in Irvine. You’re going to put them out here.”

It’s no coincidence that whiter, wealthier communities are less likely to have a warehouse next door, Inland social justice activists said.

In May, the South Coast Air Quality Management District board, which is tasked with helping Inland residents breathe easier in a region with routinely poor air quality grades, passed new regulations targeting pollution from warehouse-bound diesel trucks. In making their case for the new rules, district officials said those living within half a mile of a warehouse “are more likely to include communities of color.”

Those whose shopping habits support warehouses are farthest from them and “people of color get all the burden,” said Andrea Vidaurre, policy lead for the Inland-based People’s Collective for Environmental Justice. The disproportionate number of warehouses in minority communities is “environmental racism,” Vidaurre said, adding that 80% of the warehouses her group studied were in zip codes where mostly people of color live.

More than half of residents in Riverside and San Bernardino counties are Black or Hispanic, compared to 39% for San Diego County and 36% for Orange County, according to 2019 census numbers.

Paul Granillo, CEO of the Inland Empire Economic Partnership, seen Monday, Aug. 5, 2019, said the growth of logistics is “a reality that we have to deal with. This is a new way for people to purchase things.” (File photo by Jennifer Cappuccio Maher, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

Granillo defended the logistics industry and its growth.

“What is the remedy? We’re not gonna purchase anything? Fulfillment is the new retail,” he said. “It’s growing at a much faster rate than anyone predicted. This is a reality that we have to deal with. This is a new way for people to purchase things.”

Granillo added: “We need to look at the complexity of what this sector is comprised of and not just run to our corners and point fingers.”

Was logistics focus a choice?

While geography and demographics laid the groundwork for logistics, so did land-use policy, said Jeffries, who was first elected Riverside County supervisor in 2012.

Riverside County Supervisor Kevin Jeffries said of the prevalence of warehouses in the area that “we’ve done this to ourselves.” (Courtesy of Riverside County)

“I would argue that the county for many years had the welcome mat out for logistics and perhaps you could argue still does,” said Jeffries, whose district, especially south of Riverside and west of the 215 Freeway, is ground zero for logistics.

For example, Jeffries said his county’s development impact fees, levied on development projects to offset their burden on public services, incentivize logistics.

Perez, Riverside County’s operations officer, said fees are based on studies of how growth affects roads and other public services. Logistics projects fees “proportionally … are somewhat lower” than for other projects, Perez said.

It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison between warehouse traffic and shopping center traffic, Greene said.

“All the warehouse vehicles are slow, giant … diesel-y vehicles,” he said. “Getting stuck behind a passenger vehicle … isn’t nearly as annoying as getting stuck behind a semi.”

Riverside County’s development fees are being reviewed and new rates should be established by year’s end, county spokesperson Brooke Federico said.

San Bernardino County does not have development impact fees, but looks at project impacts on a case-by-case basis, spokesperson David Wert said via email. Land Use Services Director Terri Rahhal said in an email that county zoning rules “are not organized to make it easier or harder for particular land uses.”

Logistics projects are in a land-use category that requires conditional-use permits, which have more public transparency as well as “more intensive design review and conditions of approval,” Rahhal added.

Developers also benefit from decades-old zoning maps that make it almost impossible to reject warehouses because they’re an allowed land use, Jeffries said.

Warehouses “seem to have zero obligation to be a partner in the community to make those communities better,” he said. “You can come in, you can build your big ugly boxes, you can clog all the roads with tractor-trailer rigs. But you don’t have to really help with anything.” 

In 2019, Jeffries proposed a Good Neighbor Policy to help unincorporated communities with large warehouses. Among other rules, the policy called for trucks to be limited to five minutes of idling, truck bays and loading docks to be at least 300 feet from homes and lighting to be directed downward into a project’s interior.

Riverside County’s Board of Supervisors passed the policy by a 3-2 vote, but not before changing it so supervisors could decide whether to enact the rules in their districts.

What else is there besides warehouses?

There are glimpses of an Inland future beyond logistics.

Inland leaders hope the California Air Resources Board headquarters under construction in Riverside and medical schools at UC Riverside and California University of Science and Medicine in San Bernardino — the first classes enrolled in 2013 and 2018, respectively — will foster the types of high-paying, high-end jobs enjoyed in coastal California.

Renewable energy could be key to Riverside County’s future economy, Perez said, noting there’s demand for clean energy and “we’ve got land and a lot of sunlight.”

Meanwhile, the supply chain shows no signs of slowing down.

“I think (logistics) is a major employer and will continue to be,” Granillo said.

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“As we look at the next generations of logistics to create even better-paying jobs, more technical jobs … it’s an opportunity to bring companies doing innovative work in the logistics area to our region.”

Plotkin, of Approved Freight Forwarders, lives in Moreno Valley and commutes to the City of Industry every day.

Truck traffic frustrates Plotkin, too, but he believes “there’s a lot of things the (logistics) industry is doing responsibly … they’ve worked on improving the vehicles and emissions” and logistics companies volunteer in the community and donate to local charities, often without fanfare.

Still Jeffries remains frustrated by the number of warehouses rising, saying “we’ve done this to ourselves.”

“We’re accepting what should not be high on our list an industry — yeah, we’ve got to have it out here — we’ve got 2.4 million customers (in Riverside County),” he said. “But do we have to be the center of the universe of logistics?”

-on September 29, 2021 at 05:51AM by Jeff Horseman

[randomtowns]

25 Worst, Rebutted

Continuing the list from the previous post. In that previous post, I found most of the towns on the USA Today list to be not deserving of their place. There seemed to be a particular bias against Georgia. Others were expected, and others were obvious given their statistics. All of these trends continue for the top 25 worst places to live as follows. Let’s get started with more Georgia bashing...

Avon Park, FL Been there? No

Avon Lake is one of a string of towns along US 98 south of Orlando. It features several housing developments from the 1950s, where unchecked land speculation created networks of streets plotted in otherwise undesirable stretches of land, offering housing sites with little or no infrastructure just on their location in Florida. Coastal Florida is one thing, but its inland is another entirely. It’s an agricultural region, with cattle ranching and timber vital regional industries. That sort of industry often creates what exists here: a large community of poor with just a few in the wealthy ownership classes. The article points to Avon Park's nearly 20% unemployment rate, and that 1/3 of its residents are below the national poverty line. Its also adjacent to a bombing range that bears its name.

Lawrenceville, GA Been there? Yes

Lawrenceville is a bit of a microcosm of how the Atlanta suburbs, particularly in Gwinnett County, have changed in the past 20 years. It developed as a bedroom community for the city early on, with its easy access to freeways, but gradually saw an influx of African-Americans and Latinos, changing the dynamic of the area and bringing down housing values. Lawrenceville now has a poverty rate of over 21%, and the article likely zeroes in on the town due to its higher cost of living being so close to Atlanta, and it has one of the highest median home values for any town on the list.

Winton, CA Been there? No

Winton is a small, unincorporated town located on the railroad tracks between Merced and Turlock. Like many towns in the region, it’s majority Latino (71%) and is focused on agriculture. The article points to its high 20% unemployment rate and its staggering 24% poverty rate. Looking on StreetView, it looks like a nice enough town, with well-kept middle-class homes and no real signs of blight. Even its downtown area looks pretty healthy. I couldn’t find much info on why Winton has such poor numbers, so it would be interesting to talk to people to find out what’s going on here.

Phelan, CA Been there? Yes

Yes, there had to be at least one town from this region on this list. Maybe I’m just not getting it, but the High Desert region north of San Bernardino, anchored by Victorville, has always seemed like such an awful place to live. Phelan is a network of unzoned neighborhoods etched into the desert, centered on a couple of strip malls north of Highway 138. Phelan’s median home price is the highest on the list, at over $200,000. It’s too close to the Inland Empire to reap the benefits of cheap desert land. People come out to buy acreage and to not live on top of one another. But there are few services, as pointed out by the article, and it’s still a poor area, with an 18% poverty rate.

Robstown, TX Been there? No

Robstown is a small town just outside Corpus Christi. Robstown is 93% Hispanic, most of them poor, as it has a 41% poverty rate, one of the highest on this list. Robstown has several colonias on its fringes. Colonias are federally-recognized neighborhoods, usually in incorporated areas, where housing is substandard and infrastructure, such as clean water, is lacking. Robstown is also reported as having a crime issue, something that was disputed formally by city officials, which seems to have caused the mention of it to be removed, but its ranking mostly unchanged.

Douglas, AZ Been there? Yes

Aw, Douglas... It’s an isolated border community in Cochise County. Yes, it’s a dumpy town with a lot of abandonment. And the article points out that it’s poor, with a 29% poverty rate. Douglas was an important mining and railroad town through much of the 20th century. In the later part of the last and into this century, the community saw an economic boom from the Border Patrol and the influx of retirees. But this is waning, and the town is estimated to have lost 8% of its population in 2018. Douglas’ fortunes may have changed.

Buenaventura Lakes, FL Been there? No

A large neighborhood south of Orlando and east of Disney World that has been lumped into its own CDP. The area looks nice enough, with sweeping suburban streets lined with middle-class homes, several parks and even a library branch. But the article points out the tough realities: the median income here is well below the national rate while its proximity to Orlando means its cost of living in relatively high. The article points to a lack of supermarket access, but I counted two on the north side of the community and two to its south, including a Publix. This may seem like the town is undeserving, but the crime rate here is also 49% higher than the national average. The neighborhood is heavily Hispanic, with 44% reporting Puerto Rican heritage and 69% reporting speaking a language other than English in the home. This is not the first time we’ll see the Orlando area on here.

Chaparral, NM Been there? Yes

I remember reading about Chaparral years ago. The author had heard about the community, and drove through it, noting the menacing looks he received from people and the run-down nature of the community. It’s a small community etched into the Chihuahuan Desert north of El Paso, just over the state line. Its proximity to Fort Bliss likely means it’s largely reliant on it for employment. And its straddling of both state and county lines means that services are likely lacking, particularly police protection. But the article points to a sobering fact: the poverty rate here is over 43%, the highest on the list and making it one of the poorest places in the country.

Immokalee, FL Been there? No

Unlike its neighbor, Lehigh Acres, who also makes an appearance on this list, Immokalee is an agricultural community established as a railroad town in the 19th century. Immokalee has continued to grow as local tomato farming has flourished, but the town remains horribly poor, with a poverty rate of 42%, which makes it potentially the poorest town in Florida. The population is just 3% white, with the majority (70%) being Hispanic. This is made more ironic by the location of Ave Maria, a newer, very wealthy, Catholic planned community, started by the founder of Domino’s Pizza, just a few miles south of Immokalee. The town additionally sits adjacent to Seminole tribal lands, and they’ve put in a casino on the south side of town.

Lancaster, SC Been there? No

We had to have at least one South Carolina town on the list. Lancaster sits between Charlotte and Columbia, well east of Interstate 77. Andrew Jackson, the controversial president more associated with Tennessee, was born here. With a university campus and a number of historic sites, it seems like Lancaster would be okay, but it is horribly poor. The article lists a 34% poverty rate, a 15% unemployment rate, and points out that half of the town’s residents live on less than $31,000 per year.

Micco, FL Been there? No

Coastal Florida on the list? The article seems to hit Micco on its opioid death rate. The income levels are somewhat misleading as it’s largely a retiree community, with a median age of 69, and mostly composed of mobile home communities, including the massive Barefoot Bay development at the CDP’s northern edge. Most of the community is a few unrelated neighborhoods, with its commercial core along Highway 1. Brevard County in general is known to suck, but I’m not sure that Micco should be singled out as the suckiest.

Berea, SC Been there? Yes

Located just northwest of Greenville, Berea seems like any suburban area, with a mix of middle-class and mobile homes. The article mainly hammers on the 25% poverty rate, and with a reasonable median home price, that does potentially cause issues. In driving through (I believe this is the location of the Walgreens where the cashier seemed horrified that I was buying condoms), I recall it being a little run-down, but not particularly poor. But there may be more going on here than what’s in the numbers or what can be seen from the roads.

Laurinburg, NC Been there? No

Laurinburg sits near the South Carolina state line about 50 miles southwest of Fayetteville. Despite being an education center, with the Laurinburg Institute preparatory school and St. Andrews University located within town, the article points out that the town is flush with poverty. Over 1/3 of its residents are below the poverty line, and the unemployment rate sits at 14%. Additionally, the town has had a long streak of stagnated growth, growing less than 1% between 2000 and 2010, and losing an estimated 5% of its population between 2010 and 2018. The town seems to have crime issues as well, with above-average rates. Until 2019, the town regularly appeared on “most dangerous towns” lists for North Carolina.

Beverly Hills, FL Been there? No

Beverly Hills is a small CDP of mostly a namesake neighborhood located about 90 minutes north of Tampa, between Highways 19 and 41. The crime rate is slightly elevated, the unemployment rate is above average, and the poverty rate is very high, at 28%. Looking at the median home value plus a general StreetView scan, I think this has to do with the late 2000s real estate crash hitting this isolated exurb particularly hard, and it’s just had a slow but steady comeback. Low home values are going to inevitably attract lower-income people, and lower-income people often mean elevated crime rates. This doesn’t seem to be a particularly bad town though, especially when you consider how generally awful this mess of sprawl that oozes north from Tampa is in terms of quality of life. So I don’t know why this area was singled out. Residents seem to agree, as an article published in response to this in a local paper printed incensed responses from local officials and a valid general criticism of these lists.

Silver Springs Shores, FL Been there? No

Located just outside Ocala, the CDP is mainly a neighborhood. The article again points out high unemployment and a poverty rate also above 28%. And I think the same is happening here: a hard crash in home values and a slow recovery has depressed the community, resulting in elevated crime (making recovery harder) and a lower income rate. On StreetView, it’s easy to see that there are still a number of abandoned homes in the area, with others appearing run-down or not maintained. Again though, it’s a little unfair to single out a downtrodden neighborhood in a crappy part of Florida, so I don’t know that this needs to have its place in the search engine dynamic ruined by this appearance.

Shady Hills, FL Been there? No

The article may just be trying to prove my point about the rural counties north of Tampa being particularly crappy. Unlike nearby Beverly Hills though, I think this one is a little more deserving. There are A LOT of abandoned and dilapidated homes in this area. A lack of zoning and sensible development has left the area all over the place in terms of what’s around, but it’s mostly small houses and mobile homes. The article doesn’t like its elevated poverty rate (ironically well below that of both Beverly Hills and Silver Springs Shores) or lack of services, and points out a slightly elevated drug death rate. I don’t know that anyone is going to be upset about its place here unless they are trying to sell local property.

La Homa, TX Been there? No

Let’s get off the Deep South’s back and go back to bashing poor sections of Texas. 38% poverty and 14% unemployment are striking without the context of the region. La Homa is a CDP on the western edge of the Rio Grande Valley’s urban area. It’s pretty much all colonias (see Robstown above), but appears to mostly have running water, trash collection, and paved roads. The population is over 97% Hispanic. If you’re familiar with this region, then none of this will be particularly surprising. The Valley is a tremendously poor region of mostly recent immigrants and first-generation citizens. Services are few, economic opportunities fewer, and it’s a pretty depressing place to live, it seems.

Conyers, GA Been there? Yes

Conyers is a majority-black suburb of Atlanta and the county seat of Rockdale County. Its place on the list mostly seems to be due to its poverty rate, at 30%, and it’s slightly elevated median home price, which means that it’s likely a large portion of residents are spending way too much on rent. In fact, the article also points out that the homeownership rate in Conyers is just 28%. It’s a small, middle-class bedroom community, but it also has a sizable retail district with its place on Interstate 20. It doesn’t seem particularly poor or particularly bad for Georgia. In fact, its location among pine-covered hills is attractive. However, it does have a crime problem, with a rate more than double the national average, but mostly elevated by its property crime rate.

Golden Valley, AZ Been there? Yes

This is a rough area. Like a few other communities on this list, Golden Valley is less town more than a lot of roads laid out haphazardly across the empty desert and parceled out. You can build pretty much what you want and live how you want out here, in this community 90 minutes or so from Las Vegas and just west of Kingman. Driving the back roads is a little scary due to the area’s reputation as a meth production hub. There’s good people out there, of course, but there are also people who would kill you for your shoes. The article mainly knocks it on its unemployment and poverty rates, and points out its isolation. And it is really is isolated. There are a couple of gas stations and other businesses along Highway 68, which bisects the CDP, but residents are entirely reliant on Kingman.

Poinciana, FL Been there? No

I’ve never been to Poinciana (it’s out there), but I’m familiar with it. It’s the largest community on this list, at over 67,000 people, but it’s still an unincorporated CDP of subdivisions etched out into the swamplands south of Orlando. And what a distance to Orlando: it’s a minimum 1-hour drive into town, on roads that are constantly plagued with traffic. But I mainly know Poinciana for its place as the poster child of the late 2000s housing crash in Florida. A small retirement community up to that point, Poinciana was heavily developed just before the crash, with most construction being large houses. The values plummeted, and people left when their underwater mortgages were foreclosed on. The homes were resold to poorer, mostly non-white residents, while the wealthier found homes in areas closer in. But the article points to the area’s lack of services as its main issue. For almost 70,000 residents, there is a Walmart, a Publix, and a small Latino-focused supermarket, surrounding by just a few restaurants along a single strip of roadway. This puts residents at the northern end of the community at a minimum of 5 miles from any sort of retail businesses. To make things worse, the main route north out of Poinciana is a two-lane toll road.

Irondale, GA Been there? No

Irondale is a far-flung Atlanta suburb, along US 41 just south of Jonesboro. It has a high poverty rate, at 26%, but the article focuses on its violent crime rate, which is significantly higher than the national average. The median home value is likely statistically offset by a huge mobile home park included as part of the CDP, but the home values appear to decreasing as the area becomes less desirable and its distance from Atlanta more of an issue.

Beecher, MI Been there? No

Anyone familiar with Michigan is probably surprised to see that this is the state’s only appearance on this list. But leave it to Flint. It’s not quite Flint: Beecher is a CDP just north of Flint and outside the city limits. However, it’s pretty much suburban Flint. Many of the long-abandoned homes have been demolished, but what’s left are overgrown, empty plots next to small and dilapidated homes. There are well-maintained houses and pretty lawns, but there are also unpaved streets. The article points to its crippling unemployment rate of 23%, one of the highest on the list, and that that rate has been sustained and likely resulted in the 38% poverty rate. But past the terrible weather, the perpetually dismal economy and having to say you’re from Flint, Beecher’s crime rate is at least close to the national average.

Fair Oaks, GA Been there? Yes

The list wasn’t quite done with suburban Atlanta, and finishes its trashing of the region by rounding out each side of the city with a shot at one of its small northern CDP suburbs. Fair Oaks sits directly across the road from Dobbins Air Force Base, stuck between the cities of Smyrna and Marietta. Many of the homes were built before the base, and the base only worked to depress their values. Restrictions on flights over the community have been periodically negotiated, but the small sizes of the homes and its location in the heart of Cobb County has brought in a large number of poorer Latino and African-American residents. With a 32% poverty rate and an excessive crime rate 38% above the national average, only its relatively close proximity to freeways and much wealthier areas to the east make it seem like it has hope still.

Donaldsonville, LA Been there? No

In Louisiana, being a majority African-American town is not a good sign. Not because there’s anything wrong with the people, but it means that racism is going to keep a lot of people away. Historically, it shows that not many people want to live there, especially when it’s a town of this size. Donaldsonville is poor. A 39% poverty rate places it as the poorest place in Louisiana. It’s struggled economically. An industrial and river town, historically, the town has seen little if any benefit from the energy production to the south partially due to the highway configuration, which routes traffic well around the town to use the nearby Sunshine Bridge. Though it’s located along the famous River Road, Louisiana Highway 1, Donaldsonville is too far from the plantations and on the wrong side of the river to be viable as a stop, with its portion taken up by heavy industry, including the nearby ammonia plant.

Yazoo City, MS Been there? No

And you thought that there was just going to be that one little entry from the Mississippi Delta? No, the authors continue their bashing of the South by pointing to the oddly-named town’s embarrassing numbers: 20% unemployment, and a 42% poverty rate. Plus, they point out maybe the worst statistic: 20% of resident households live on an income of $10,000 or less per year. Like most of the area, Yazoo is majority African-American. Well away from the Mississippi River, it doesn’t seem to reap much benefit from its location beyond the typical Mississippi involvement in timber. The downtown area is mostly abandoned, with boarded-up shops, made all the more sad by music perpetually piped in on outdoor speakers. With its Amtrak station and Delta location, Yazoo has attempted to make good on the region’s Blues tourism. But it seems like the generational poverty so famous here is going to stick around for a few more generations, unless someone can offer a dramatic solution.

[moorerealestategroup]

Moore Real Estate Group is a commercial real estate appraisal and consulting firm. We provide valuation services in the Los Angeles, Inland Empire, and San Diego areas. Beyond summarizing relevant data, we strive to present educated analysis, opinions and recommendations to support clients in making informed investment decisions.

[younghologramdreamland]

Moore Real Estate Group, one of the best Commercial appraiser in Inland Empire, Los Angeles and Upland It provides various types of commercial property like retail space, Industrial & Business Parks, Office Space and Residential acreage.

Call us for know more 9097585660

[altekmediagroup]

12th Annual Connecting Faith & Business Summit

12th Annual Connecting Faith & Business Summit

Attracts Nationally Recognized Speakers and UnSung Heroes in Business & Service

Thursday, October 10, 2019 in Riverside, CA – September 10, 2019 -- The 12th Annual Connecting Faith & Business Summit will bring business and faith based leaders together from the Tri-County region of San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange Counties, on Thursday, October 10, 2019 at the Riverside Convention Center. The program will kick off with Registration, Lunch and Networking, and Meet the Vendors at Noon, followed by rotations with business experts in an array of disciplines volunteering their time to help both businesses and non-profits scale with the right resources and partners. Concurrent with the expert rotations, business owners seeking financing will be able to go to a newly featured Green Room for a Lender Match. Community Banks, Regional Banks, National Banks and Non-Profit Lenders will be available to meet with prepared business owners and non-profits on the financing programs available to assist a business or non-profit with working capital, lines of credit, commercial real estate and equipment financing, and related business financing needs. Lenders invited to participate include Wells Fargo Bank, U.S. Bank, Union Bank, BBVA Compass, Citizens Business Bank, Comerica Bank, Pacific Premier Bank, Cathay Bank and CIT Bank. Following the expert rotations, a dynamic program has been planned to inspire, to equip and to educate participants. The theme of this year’s conference is Family Businesses Connecting Faith & Business. Dr. Keanon Alderson, Professor at California Baptist University, Riverside and family business expert will moderate the afternoon program slated to kick off at 3:00 p.m. A panel of family business owners will feature an engineering company founded by the father and passed down to his son; a second generation franchise operation that is now run by the children; and a car parts distributor run by a husband and wife. Jeff Abbot from Convene, a faith based business coach group and Chair of the local IE Barnabas Chapter, will moderate the panel. Two leading professionals in their field will provide business tips for participants, including Marcus Piquet, RPB, CPAs, will discuss ESOPS – an option for family businesses to exit and elevate their employees; and Vikita Poindexter, Poindexter Consulting, an expert witness for HR issues and human resource consultant will discuss what employers should look out for with Dynamex and other new state personnel laws. The highlight of the afternoon will be the inspiring business journeys of the 2019 Connecting Faith & Business Award winners who have been selected in the following categories – Character Award, Faith through Works and the Development Award. The program will also recognize two incredible Civic leaders who are known for their faith in how they govern as Mayors of local cities – Mayor Acquanetta Warren, City of Fontana and Mayor Rusty Bailey, City of Riverside. The program and networking will conclude by 6pm. We urge that the conference does not stop on Thursday. On Sunday, October 13th, we have designated that day as Business Sunday. We are encouraging churches and faith based leaders to take time to pray for business leaders within their congregations or houses of worship. We have shared ideas on other steps faith based groups can take on Business Sunday by hosting a meet and greet; or planning coffee with business owners, or something meaningful that says to business leaders, we recognize your sacrifice and the difference you are making in communities and families as job makers. If churches need ideas for Business Sunday, visit www.connectingfaithandbusiness.com. The Connecting Faith & Business Summit started in 2007 when AmPac Tri-State CDC launched its operation as the nation’s only faith based Certified Development Company (CDC or 504 Lender) in the country, determined to lead the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) in connecting faith and business. The goals: to intentionally market to business owners who had a personal or business tie to the faith based community. After consultation with its Pastor’s Advisory Committee and a visit with the SBA’s District Director from Orange County, Adalberto Quijada, it was settled. We would establish a conference to bring business and faith based leaders together for education, inspiration and meaningful connections. AmPac was determined to do it right here in the Inland Empire. AmPac often reflects on the very first Summit where about 75 participants attended. The first keynote speaker was a well- known business leader in Riverside and throughout the State, as well as a decorated war veteran, Mr. Robert Wolf. Mr. Wolf re-counted a time in war when one of his colleagues in battle was saved from an enemy attack when a stray bullet to his head hit his head gear but it did not hit him because his Bible was under his helmet. He quipped in his speech to the audience of business and faith based leaders, “If you have ever had to make payroll, you are a person of faith.” The conference has grown significantly over the past 11 years, with the same firm commitment to allow business leaders and faith based leaders to come together to learn best practices and new tools; to meet resource partners, and establish meaningful connections around their faith. The conferences have been known to draw tears and stories of victory overcoming obstacles that can only be explained by miracles of faith. The goal is for participants to leave the conference with “right now” implementation strategies to scale and to thrive, and to be propelled by their faith to know that nothing is impossible with God. The initial partnership with the SBA for the first conference extended to the SBA partners, including the IE Small Business Development Center, the IE Women’s Business Center, SCORE Chapters and an array of banking partners and non-profit partnerships committed to connecting faith and business including Thrivent Financial and KSGN, Family Friendly 89.7FM. These partnerships continue today and new sponsors have joined this effort, including Wells Fargo Bank, Citizens Business Bank, US Bank, Union Bank, Cathay Bank, BBVA Compass, Comerica Bank, KKLA 99.5 FM, Entrepreneur’s Insurance and a host of other friends and partners. Learn more about the conference by visiting www.connectingfaithandbusiness.com or go to www.ampac.com to register today. All Pastors and faith based leaders are provided complimentary admission to the conference and may contact AmPac directly to register at 909-915-1706. Read the full article

[samarinindustrial]

[stephsmith321]

SMITH v. PALISADES NEWS

Originally published on v. PALISADES NEWS September 30, 2019

STEPHANIE SMITH, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. PALISADES NEWS et al., Defendants and Appellants.

Court of Appeals of California, Second District, Division One.

Filed September 30, 2019.

Attorney(s) appearing for the Case

Jassy Vick Carolan, Jean-Paul Jassy and Elizabeth H. Baldridge for Defendants and Appellants.

Katie Townsend ; Davis Wright Tremaine, Kelli Sager , Rochelle Wilcox , and Nicolette Vairo for Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and 21 Media Organizations as Amici Curiae for Defendants and Appellants.

Law Offices of Ben Eilenberg and Ben Eilenberg for Plaintiff and Respondent.

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

WEINGART, J.*

I. INTRODUCTION

Plaintiff Stephanie Smith is a mother of five young children, and lives in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. She also owns warehouses in the Inland Empire used for large scale marijuana farming, and before her cannabis real estate ventures was found guilty of performing liposuction without a license. After her warehouses and personal residence were raided by law enforcement, the mash-up of motherhood, prior criminal history, and large-scale cannabis production proved to be journalistic catnip. Numerous press articles appeared—locally, nationally, and overseas—talking about the police raids and describing Smith as a suburban mom and alleged drug “queenpin” who made millions in connection with a huge marijuana growing operation.

In response to the police activity and resulting press coverage, Smith issued several public statements. She also gave a press interview. She described herself as a well-known and recognized leader in large-scale cannabis real estate development. She denied any wrongdoing by her or her tenants. She argued that authorities were out of touch with modern thought about cannabis and needed to change their approach to stop thwarting the public’s embrace of legalization. She also embraced the term “queenpin” as complimenting her cannabis industry leadership.

After the initial flurry of press coverage and Smith’s public statements, defendant Palisades News (a small community newspaper in Smith’s residential neighborhood) published an article about Smith that largely referenced prior coverage from other, much larger, news organizations. Smith responded by suing Palisades News for defamation. Palisades News filed a special motion to strike under the anti-SLAPP statute.1 There being no dispute the Palisades News article involved protected activity, the trial court focused on whether Smith had shown the required probability of prevailing on her defamation claim. The court, believing Smith was not required to show Palisades News acted with actual malice, found she had demonstrated a prima facie case and declined to strike the claim. For the reasons explained below, we reverse.

II. BACKGROUND A. The Parties

Defendant Palisades News is published both in print and electronically. Defendant Sue Pascoe is the newspaper’s editor, and writes articles for the publication including the one about Smith at issue in this matter. Defendant Matt Sanderson also works for the newspaper, and was tangentially involved in publishing the article about Smith.

Plaintiff Smith holds herself out as a commercial real estate developer and landlord. While she does not operate a cannabis distribution business herself, she leases buildings to commercial cannabis operators. Smith has publicly commented that renting to cannabis businesses is more lucrative than renting to other tenants, with demand so high that in one instance she received triple the rent she initially asked. She previously worked as an office manager for a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon. Following patient complaints of botched operations, she was found guilty of a misdemeanor for assisting in liposuction procedures without a medical license. In 2013, she was sentenced to 3 years of probation.

B. The Law Enforcement Raid of Smith’s Properties and Subsequent News Coverage

On December 13, 2017, police raided three warehouse buildings belonging to Smith, as well as Smith’s home in Pacific Palisades. That same day, local television channel KTLA reported that police were stating the warehouses contained very large and sophisticated marijuana growing operations with tens of thousands of plants. KTLA also reported police said Smith paid for the buildings in cash, and that she had not obtained the required permits for a marijuana business. KTLA reported police were saying a search warrant was served at Smith’s home, that she was detained pending further investigation, and that police expected to arrest her.

Also on December 13, 2017, the local CBS News affiliate ran an article on its website under the headline “Mom, 43, Made Millions Per Month on Pot-Growing Operations, Police Say.” The article said “San Bernardino police busted a major marijuana grow operation” and that “officials say the drug kingpin behind the grow was actually a drug queen—and a mother from a ritzy Pacific Palisades neighborhood.” The article reported the operation had more than 24,000 plants, and that while this type of “huge operation is normally associated with a druglord, . . . this stash belonged to 43-year-old mom Stephanie Smith of Pacific Palisades, police said. Smith was making millions of dollars per month running the operation, sources said.”

The Associated Press reported on the raids on December 13 and 14, 2017. The December 13th article stated that tens of thousands of marijuana plants were seized from several locations in San Bernardino, including a building near police headquarters. The article further reported that Smith owned the buildings where the raids occurred, and that she was arrested on suspicion of illegally cultivating marijuana. The December 14th article said police “raided a weed `fortress’ on Wednesday, seizing 35,000 marijuana plants and shutting down an operation they believe was bringing in millions of dollars a month.” The article said that Smith owned the searched properties, but “she was not arrested or charged with a crime.”

On December 18, 2017, the Daily Mail (a United Kingdom newspaper) reported on the raids under the headline “EXCLUSIVE: California drug `Queenpin’ is spotted shopping for designer bikinis days after police seized 18,000lbs of marijuana from her multi-million dollar weed fortress which she says is a `proper business.’ “Smith gave an interview to DailyMailTV, saying she was going to get a license in San Bernardino once they were available. Smith asserted she ran a proper business, and therefore was not concerned about possible criminal charges or jail time. The Daily Mail also referenced Smith’s conduct and conviction in the liposuction matter. The San Bernardino Sun, The Washington Times, Miami Herald, Kansas City Star, Seattle Times, Daily Caller, and FoxNews.com also ran articles about the police raids, which repeated many of the statements above.

On December 20, 2017, Smith released an official statement. The statement, from which some later articles quoted, said Smith was “disappointed to explain that these military style raids are the way City leaders handle zoning issues,” and “[s]torming into my home and pointing assault weapons at me . . . because a building I own doesn’t have the proper zoning permits is not acceptable. . . . Attempting to smear me as an illicit drug lord is laughable for countless reasons, the least among them is that medical marijuana is legal and the voters in California have asked for over a decade that our representatives create laws that work for safe access—not work against it. . . . The raids on our local cannabis businesses, who want to be regulated and taxed and have asked repeatedly for local government to simply follow the laws approved by the citizens, is clearly out of step with the will of the voters and a sensationalized military response to a respected, peaceful female entrepreneur is an abuse of power. [¶] The age of prohibition has ended and I welcome a more sensible approach to cannabis regulation. Professionals in the cannabis industry, including landlords, growers, producers and processors, can only hope that the powers that be do not continue to react in such an expensive, heavily armed, and contradictory manner that directly thwarts the will of the majority of our citizens.” Smith also posted photos of the raid online, accompanied by a statement that “[r]aiding a woman and toddlers with SWAT in full gear and guns is absurd.” Various press outlets printed portions of this additional statement.

Smith made a further public statement on December 22, 2017 via Facebook where she embraced the description of her as a “queenpin”—”The government attempted to smear me as a #QueenPin. They thought associating me with cannabis would embarrass me. They were wrong. Being a leader in cannabis is no different than being a leader in any other legitimate industry. I accept the complement [sic]. I am a Queenpin indeed. . . .” Smith went on to give her own description of a “queenpin” as a “non-stop doer,” “advocate to many, and community leader,” and a “[s]trong, accomplished, determined fighter. . . .” She closed by asking if there are “[a]ny other Queen Pin’s out there?” with the hashtags #QueenPin, #MyRights, #Notavictim, #Survivor, and #SHARE.

C. The Palisades News Article

On January 2, 2018, the Palisades News published an article about Smith entitled “Palisadian Stephanie Smith Gains Marijuana Notoriety.” The article began by saying Smith “was busted on December 13 for operating an allegedly illegal marijuana-growing operation in San Bernardino.” The article went on to reference prior coverage, including from KTLA and CBS News. It noted that “[a]ccording to KTLA, police issued a search warrant for Smith at her home . . . and she was detained there. [¶] The case received national media attention, with headline writers calling the attractive 43-year-old a `queenpin.’ CBS News reporters said police reported that `the huge operation is normally associated with a drug lord’ and `Smith was making millions of dollars per month running the operation.'” The article also relayed that “KTLA reported that Smith had paid cash for two warehouses and a home for the operation.” It further discussed that “[t]his was not Stephanie Smith’s first brush with the law” and provided details about the prior liposuction matter.

The day after the Palisades News article, Smith made another public statement. The statement did not reference the Palisades News article. Smith described herself as “a well known and recognized leader in large-scale cannabis real estate development. . . .” She claimed “[t]he tenants in my buildings were compliant with the laws of the State of California and had applied for licenses from the City of San Bernardino multiple times only to have their applications rejected for technicalities. . . . In attempting to terrorize my family and smear me as an illicit drug lord, the Mayor [of San Bernardino] embarrassed himself and showed that he [is] out of touch with modern thought about [the] cannabis industry. . . .” Like her prior statements, the January 3, 2018 statement was reported in the press.

D. The Defamation Lawsuit

Smith did not serve Palisades News with a retraction demand within 20 days of the article’s publication, but asserts she did so later at some unspecified point in time.2 On March 14, 2018, Smith sued the Palisades News, Sue Pasco, and Matt Sanderson (collectively hereafter Palisades News) for libel/defamation, false light, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Smith did not sue any other news organization or reporter, including those organizations and reporters whose statements the Palisades News repeated in its coverage.

Smith claimed the Palisades News article contained three defamatory statements: (1) that she “was busted on December 13 for operating an allegedly illegal marijuana-growing operation in San Bernardino”; (2) that she was making “millions of dollars per month running the operation” and the operation was of a size normally associated with a “drug lord”; and (3) that Smith “paid cash for two warehouses and a home for the operation.” Smith claims these statements were false because she did not operate a cannabis business but was merely a landlord. Smith also asserts she did not make millions of dollars a month and did not pay for the operational sites in cash. She further alleged that to the extent the Palisades News was republishing information from other news organizations (which it largely was, including two of the three quoted statements she claimed were defamatory), the newspaper and its journalists knew or had reason to know of the falsity of the statements. Smith claimed the defamatory statements in the Palisades News caused disruptions to her business, and reputational harm with other Pacific Palisades residents.

E. The Ordinance Challenges

Soon after Smith filed the defamation action, two companies controlled by Smith filed suit in San Bernardino County challenging the cannabis ordinances of the cities of San Bernardino and Colton. Smith and her attorney both spoke to the press, and were quoted in articles about the lawsuits and the muddled legal landscape facing marijuana-related entrepreneurs in California following the passage of Proposition 64. The suits challenging the ordinances remained pending during the trial court’s consideration of the defamation claim against Palisades News. Smith also helped spearhead a petition to add an initiative to the City of San Bernardino’s November 2018 ballot concerning the City’s cannabis ordinances and encouraged city residents to vote in the upcoming election.

F. Defendants’ Anti-SLAPP Motion

Palisades News responded to Smith’s defamation lawsuit by filing a special motion to strike pursuant to the anti-SLAPP statute. After taking the matter under submission, the trial court issued a written ruling granting the motion as to the false light and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims, and denying it as to the defamation cause of action.3

The court found the complaint alleged protected conduct. It further found Smith “is a limited purpose public figure in connection with municipal ordinances governing marijuana facilities” because she sued the cities of San Bernardino and Colton over their ordinances, spoke to the press to advocate her position, and thereby interjected herself into that controversy. The court found Smith was not a limited purpose public figure for purposes of the defamation claim, however, because the Palisades News “article that Plaintiff is a marijuana operator did not pertain to the ordinances that were challenged by Plaintiff in her lawsuits.”

The court found Smith had made a prima facie showing that the statements were defamatory, and was not required to prove actual malice to survive the special motion to strike. Finding the burden shifted to defendants, the court found Palisades News failed to establish any affirmative defense at the special motion to strike stage.

Palisades News filed a timely notice of appeal. We have jurisdiction pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 904.1, subdivision (a)(13).4

III. DISCUSSION A. The Anti-SLAPP Statute and the Standard of Review

Our colleagues in Division Eight of this District recently summarized the application of the anti-SLAPP statute to a defamation cause of action in Dickinson v. Cosby (2019) 37 Cal.App.5th 1138 (Dickinson). We begin our analysis by quoting their cogent summary.

“The Legislature enacted the anti-SLAPP statute to address the societal ills caused by meritless lawsuits filed to chill the exercise of First Amendment rights. (§ 425.16, subd. (a).) The statute accomplishes this end by providing a special procedure for striking meritless, chilling claims at an early stage of litigation. (See § 425.16, subd. (b)(1); Rusheen v. Cohen (2006) 37 Cal.4th 1048, 1055-1056.)

“The anti-SLAPP statute establishes a two-step procedure to determine whether a claim should be stricken. In the first step, the court decides whether the movant has made a threshold showing that a challenged claim arises from statutorily-defined protected activity. (Rusheen v. Cohen, supra, 37 Cal.4th at p. 1056.) Here, the parties agree, as do we, that [Smith]’s defamation claim[ ] arise[s] from protected activities.5 We focus, therefore, on the second prong of the analysis: whether [Smith] has shown of probability of prevailing on her claims. (Navellier v. Sletten (2002) 29 Cal.4th 82, 88.)

“To show a probability of prevailing, the opposing party must demonstrate the claim is legally sufficient and supported by a sufficient prima facie showing of evidence to sustain a favorable judgment if the evidence it has submitted is credited. (Zamos v. Stroud (2004) 32 Cal.4th 958, 965.) `In deciding the question of potential merit, the trial court considers the pleadings and evidentiary submissions of both the plaintiff and the defendant (§ 425.16, subd. (b)(2)); though the court does not weigh the credibility or comparative probative strength of competing evidence, it should grant the motion if, as a matter of law, the defendant’s evidence supporting the motion defeats the plaintiff’s attempt to establish evidentiary support for the claim. [Citation.]’ [Citations.]’ (Taus v. Loftus (2007) 40 Cal.4th 683, 713-714.) We accept as true the evidence favorable to the plaintiff. Further, a plaintiff must establish only that the challenged claims have minimal merit to defeat an anti-SLAPP motion. (Soukup v. Law Offices of Herbert Hafif (2006) 39 Cal.4th 260, 291.)

“We review the denial of an anti-SLAPP motion de novo. (Park v. Board of Trustees of California State University (2017) 2 Cal.5th 1057, 1067.)” (Dickinson, supra, 37 Cal.App.5th at pp. 1154-1155, fn. omitted.)

B. Smith’s Has Not Demonstrated a Probability of Prevailing on Her Defamation Claim 1. Required Elements for Defamation

“A statement is not defamatory unless it can reasonably be viewed as declaring or implying a provably false factual assertion [citation], and it is apparent from the `context and tenor’ of the statement `that the [speaker] seriously is maintaining an assertion of actual fact.’ [Citation.] . . . `California law permits the defense of substantial truth,’ and thus a defendant is not liable `”`if the substance of the charge be proved true. . . .'”‘ `Put another way, the statement is not considered false unless it “would have a different effect on the mind of the reader from that which the . . . truth would have produced.”‘ [Citation.]” (Carver v. Bonds (2005) 135 Cal.App.4th 328, 344.)

A “private person need prove only negligence (rather than malice) to recover for defamation.” (Brown v. Kelly Broadcasting Co. (1989) 48 Cal.3d 711, 742.) However, “[w]hen a defamation action is brought by a public figure, the plaintiff, in order to recover damages, must show that the defendant acted with actual malice in publishing the defamatory communication.” (Denney v. Lawrence (1994) 22 Cal.App.4th 927, 933 (Denney).) Whether a plaintiff is a public figure is determined by the court. (Stolz v. KSFM 102 FM (1994) 30 Cal.App.4th 195, 203.)

2. Public Figure Test

In Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. (1974) 418 U.S. 323 (Gertz), the United States Supreme Court recognized two different categories of public figures. The first is the “all purpose” public figure who has “achiev[ed] such pervasive fame or notoriety that he becomes a public figure for all purposes and in all contexts.” (Id. at p. 351.) “For the most part those who attain [all-purpose public figure] status have assumed roles of especial prominence in the affairs of society. . . .” (Id. at p. 345.) Such status is not lightly assumed—for a plaintiff to be deemed an all-purpose public figure, there must be “clear evidence of general fame or notoriety in the community, and pervasive involvement in the affairs of society. . . .” (Id. at p. 352.) Neither party argues, nor does the record demonstrate, that Smith has the requisite level of fame, notoriety, or pervasive involvement in the affairs of society to be an all-purpose public figure.

The second category is the “limited purpose” or “vortex” public figure who “voluntarily injects himself or is drawn into a particular public controversy and thereby becomes a public figure for a limited range of issues.” (Gertz, supra, 418 U.S. at p. 351.) “Unlike the `all purpose’ public figure, the `limited purpose’ public figure loses certain protection for his reputation only to the extent that the allegedly defamatory communication relates to his role in a public controversy.” (Reader’s Digest Assn. v. Superior Court (1984) 37 Cal.3d 244, 253-254 (Reader’s Digest).)

3. Smith Is a Limited Public Figure

The trial court found Smith was a limited purpose public figure in connection with municipal ordinances governing marijuana facilities. It based that decision on Smith suing two municipalities over such ordinances and speaking to the press to advocate her position. We agree that Smith was a limited purpose public figure, but for different reasons. The trial court relied on Smith’s voluntary acts after the Palisades News article. It instead should have focused Smith’s acts before publication, and whether they made Smith a limited purpose public figure at the time the Palisades News article was published. We find Smith’s voluntary prepublication acts made Smith a limited purpose public figure, and for a public controversy broader than the one identified by the trial court.

To characterize a plaintiff as a limited purpose public figure, three elements must be present. First, “there must be a public controversy. . . .” (Gilbert v. Sykes (2007) 147 Cal.App.4th 13, 24.) Second, “the plaintiff must have undertaken some voluntary act through which he or she sought to influence resolution of the public issue.” (Ibid.) Third, “the alleged defamation must be germane to the plaintiff’s participation in the [public] controversy.” (Ibid.) We discuss each of these elements in turn.

a. Existence of a Public Controversy

A public controversy exists when the controversy at issue was debated publicly and had foreseeable and substantial ramifications for nonparticipants in the debate. (Gilbert v. Sykes, supra, 147 Cal.App.4th at p. 24.) Smith does not seriously dispute a public controversy exists here. For some time, there has been a significant and ongoing public debate regarding the legalization of cannabis, how legalization will impact local communities, and how best to regulate the manufacture and sale of cannabis to mitigate any adverse impacts on local communities and their residents. (E.g., Union of Medical Marijuana Patients, Inc. v. City of San Diego (2019) 7 Cal.5th 1171 [ordinance regulating location and operation of marijuana dispensaries “capable of causing indirect physical changes” to city environment and thus subject to environmental review]; City of Riverside v. Inland Empire Patients Health & Wellness Center, Inc. (2013) 56 Cal.4th 729, 762 [marijuana regulation is “an area that remains controversial”].)

b. Voluntary Acts to Influence Resolution of Public Controversy

To become a limited purpose public figure, a plaintiff must undertake some voluntary act through which he or she seeks to influence resolution of the public controversy. “It is not necessary to show that a plaintiff actually achieves prominence in the public debate. . . .” (Copp v. Paxton (1996) 45 Cal.App.4th 829, 845.) Instead, “it is sufficient that the plaintiff attempts to thrust him or herself into the public eye.” (Ampex Corp. v. Cargle (2005) 128 Cal.App.4th 1569, 1577 (Ampex).) Smith sought to do exactly that through her public statements following the raid and prior to the Palisades News publication. Smith’s public statements were not confined (as the trial court held) to challenging municipal ordinances, but were a much broader commentary on how laws regulating cannabis are applied and enforced, accompanied by advocacy for a different approach.

Smith contends her public statements were not voluntary because Palisades News forced her to respond to its defamatory and false reporting. It is true that “a defamation defendant cannot create a defense by creating a controversy from the content of defamatory statements” and “a plaintiff does not become a public figure simply by responding to defamatory statements. . . .” (Mosesian v. McClatchy Newspapers (1991) 233 Cal.App.3d 1685, 1702.) But Smith’s argument ignores the actual chronology of events. There was a public controversy regarding cannabis regulation before any alleged defamatory statements. Smith did not simply respond to the Palisades News article. Instead, she released multiple public statements seeking to influence public perception of the police raids and San Bernardino’s approach to cannabis businesses before Palisades News published its article.

Moreover, Smith’s comments preceding the Palisades News article did not just respond to prior press coverage but instead sought to address statements from city officials and influence public perception of the city’s enforcement efforts. These public statements gave Smith prominence in the public controversy concerning cannabis regulation. Smith acknowledged this fact, describing herself as a “well-known and recognized leader in large-scale cannabis real estate development” in a statement the day after the Palisades News article. Smith did not become a “well-known and recognized” figure overnight—her public recognition preexisted the Palisades News article and was not solely the result of the prior press coverage but also her public advocacy.

The lone authority on which Smith relies to claim she is not a limited purpose public figure is Time, Inc. v. Firestone (1975) 424 U.S. 448 (Firestone). In that case, a weekly news magazine published an article about a marital dissolution proceeding between the plaintiff wife and her husband, who were both wealthy and prominent socialites. The United States Supreme Court held the dissolution proceeding was not the type of public controversy to which Gertz referred in describing limited purpose public figures, but instead involved a private family matter. (Id. at p. 454.) Additionally, the wife did not voluntarily inject herself into a public forum—she had no alternative to using court proceedings if she wanted to get divorced. (Ibid.) While she held a few press conferences “in an attempt to satisfy inquiring reporters,” that did not convert her into a public figure. (Id. at p. 454, fn. 3.) The Court based this holding on (1) the fact the press interviews should have had no effect upon the merits of the legal dispute or its outcome, (2) no such effect was intended by the wife, and (3) the press conferences were not designed to inject the wife into “the forefront of some unrelated controversy in order to influence its resolution.” (Ibid.)

The facts here are quite different. Smith was the subject of public police investigation involving search warrants. As discussed above, the subject matter of that investigation—the regulation of cannabis businesses, and where and how they operate—are matters of public interest and controversy. Unlike the plaintiff in Firestone, who did not seek to influence the outcome of the court proceeding, Smith’s comments to the press attempted to impact the police investigation and city officials otherwise involved in that investigation. Her comments also injected Smith into the forefront of related controversies concerning cannabis in an attempt to influence their resolution in a way favorable to her and her business. Smith became a limited purpose public figure when she “actively and openly sought to influence public officials and in that manner affect the public decision process for determining the uses to which land in [San Bernardino] County may be put.” (Hofmann Co. v. E.I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co. (1988) 202 Cal.App.3d 390, 404, abrogated in part on other grounds as recognized in Kahn v. Bower (1991) 232 Cal.App.3d 1599, 1606-1608.)

Smith’s public comments prior to the Palisades News article are much closer to the facts of Denney, supra, 22 Cal.App.4th 927 than Firestone. In Denney, the plaintiff’s identical twin brother committed a murder. The killing generated intense local media publicity because both brothers were sheriff’s deputies. The plaintiff gave the press a photograph to use in connection with a newspaper article and was interviewed twice by a reporter. After these actions, a local newspaper printed a letter to the editor the plaintiff alleged was defamatory. The Denney court found plaintiff was a limited purpose public figure because he “voluntarily involved himself in the public debate and attempted to influence public opinion” by promoting a version of facts favorable to his brother. (Denney, supra, 22 Cal.App.4th at pp. 934-936.)

Following the raid and in the days before the Palisades News article, Smith similarly voluntarily involved herself in the public debate and attempted to influence public opinion by promoting a version of the facts favorable to her. She complained “that these military style raids are the way City leaders handle zoning issues,” and that it was “not acceptable.” She asserted the police actions were “clearly out of step with the will of the voters,” and there needed to be “a more sensible approach to cannabis regulation” that did not “directly thwart[] the will of the majority of our citizens.” She claimed “[t]he tenants in my buildings were compliant with the laws of the State of California and had applied for licenses from the City of San Bernardino multiple times only to have their applications rejected for technicalities.” She expressed pride in “[b]eing a leader in cannabis” and “a Queenpin indeed.”

There are two rationales for the public figure doctrine. One, as discussed above, is that the individual has voluntarily exposed themselves to public scrutiny through their statements and actions, including the increased risk of injury from defamatory falsehood, and must accept the consequences. (Reader’s Digest, supra, 37 Cal.3d at p. 253; Stolz, supra, 30 Cal.App.4th at p. 203.) The second is that “[s]uch persons ordinarily enjoy considerably greater access than private individuals to the media and other channels of communication. This access in turn enables them to counter criticism and to expose the fallacies of defamatory statements.” (Reader’s Digest, supra, 37 Cal.3d at p. 253.)

The record before us bears out the second rationale as well as the first. The press reported on Smith’s public statements before and contemporaneous with the Palisades News article. Following the Palisades News article, Smith continued to be able to publicize her views, including about the lawsuits challenging the San Bernardino and Colton ordinances. She additionally was featured in a favorable March 31, 2018 article in the Los Angeles Times (a publication with far greater reach in Los Angeles than the Palisades News) along with one of her prominent tenants, B-Real of multi-platinum hip-hop recording artists Cypress Hill, where she was able to respond to publicity surrounding the San Bernardino raids.

c. The Allegedly Defamatory Statements Were Germane to Smith’s Participation in the Controversy

Lastly, for the limited public figure doctrine to apply, the alleged defamatory statements must be germane to the plaintiff’s participation in the public controversy. The public controversy at issue (and into which Smith voluntarily injected herself) was much broader than simply municipal ordinances governing marijuana facilities. It encompassed who should operate such businesses, where those operations should take place, what type of permitting and regulatory process should exist for such operations, and how violations of regulations should be policed. The three allegedly defamatory statements were germane to this debate over the permitting process, law enforcement efforts surrounding that permitting process, and whether Smith was the type of individual worthy of licensure.

4. Smith Did Not Make a Prima Facie Showing of Malice

To survive a special motion to strike a defamation claim, a limited purpose public figure like Smith must establish the requisite probability that she can prove the allegedly defamatory statements were made with knowledge of their falsity, or with reckless disregard of their truth or falsity. (Ampex, supra, 128 Cal.App.4th at p. 1578.) Smith submitted no evidence, and does not contend, that Palisades News knew anything in the article was false. She instead argues Palisades News acted in reckless disregard of the truth or falsity of the allegedly defamatory statements.

For reckless disregard to exist, there must be sufficient evidence to permit the conclusion that Palisades News entertained serious doubts as to the truth of the statements it published. The ultimate issue is the good faith of the publisher. (Reader’s Digest, supra, 37 Cal.3d at p. 257.) The subjective belief of Palisades News concerning the truthfulness of the publication—that is, the attitude of Palisades News toward the truth or falsity of the material published and not its attitude toward Smith—is what matters. (Ibid.) As examples of actions not taken in good faith, the United States Supreme Court has given examples such as “where a story is fabricated by the defendant, is the product of his imagination, or is based wholly on an unverified anonymous telephone call.” (St. Amant v. Thompson (1968) 390 U.S. 727, 732.) Nor will a defense of good faith “be likely to prevail when the publisher’s allegations are so inherently improbable that only a reckless man would have put them in circulation. Likewise, recklessness may be found where there are obvious reasons to doubt the veracity of the informant or the accuracy of his reports.” (Ibid.)

Smith does not argue the Palisades News article was fabricated, the product of imagination, based on unverified anonymous tip, or that the content of the story was inherently improbable. The record shows that in making the three statements alleged to be defamatory, Palisades News relied on prior reporting from reputable organizations. Indeed, two of the identified statements were expressly attributed to those prior sources—KTLA and CBS—in the Palisades News article.

Instead, Smith argues reckless disregard can be inferred because Palisades News did no independent investigation. For example, it never attempted to contact Smith or the San Bernardino Police Department to determine if the allegations levied by the police were correct. Smith also points to inconsistencies in the prior press coverage (such as whether Smith was arrested, differences in how many others were arrested, and discrepancies in the number of plants allegedly in the warehouses) that she argues should have prompted a reasonable person to do independent investigation.

However, “reckless conduct is not measured by whether a reasonably prudent man would have published, or would have investigated before publishing.” (St. Amant v. Thompson, supra, 390 U.S. at p. 731.) “The failure to conduct a thorough and objective investigation, standing alone, does not prove actual malice. . . . A publisher does not have to investigate personally, but may rely on the investigation and conclusions of reputable sources. `Where the publication comes from a known reliable source and there is nothing in the circumstances to suggest inaccuracy, there is no duty to investigate.'” (Reader’s Digest, supra, 37 Cal.3d at pp. 258-259.) Moreover, the complained-of inconsistencies related to minor, collateral details about the raids.

Because Smith has not made the required showing of malice, we need not address whether she carried her burden to establish that the statements were false, that the Palisades News article caused the damages she alleges as opposed to the prior publicity, or other elements of her prima facie case. To survive a special motion to strike, Smith had to make a sufficient prima facie showing of facts sufficient to sustain a favorable judgment. (Navellier v. Sletten, supra, 29 Cal.4th at pp. 88-89.) Her failure to produce evidence of malice, one of the necessary elements of that prima facie showing, is fatal in and of itself.6

IV. DISPOSITION

The trial court’s order denying the special motion to strike is reversed. The matter is remanded with directions to grant the motion in full and enter judgment in Defendants’ favor. Defendants are awarded their costs on appeal.

ROTHSCHILD, P.J. and BENDIX, J., concurs.

FootNotes

* Judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution.1. “SLAPP stands for `Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.'” (Lam v. Ngo (2001) 91 Cal.App.4th 832, 835, fn. 1.) For clarity, we refer to a “SLAPP” or “anti-SLAPP” motion as a “special motion to strike”—the language used in the statute (Code Civ. Proc., § 425.16, subd. (b)(1)).2. To recover general or punitive damages for any alleged libel, a plaintiff must request correction within 20 days of the statement(s) claimed to be libelous, and the publisher must refuse the request for correction. (Civ. Code, § 48a; Anschutz Entertainment Group, Inc. v. Snepp (2009) 171 Cal.App.4th 598, 640-641.)3. Smith filed a notice of appeal, but that appeal was dismissed on September 19, 2018 pursuant to California Rule of Court 8.100(c) for failure to pay the required filing fee. As Smith did not pursue appellate review of the claims struck by the trial court, we do not further address her false light and intentional infliction of emotional distress causes of action.4. All unspecified statutory references are to the Code of Civil Procedure.5. Section 425.16, subd. (e), specifies categories of protected activity. The Palisades News article included statements made in connection with an issue under consideration or review by an executive body (the San Bernardino Police Department) in an official proceeding authorized by law (a judicially authorized search warrant) (§ 425.16, subd. (e)(2)), statements made in a public forum in connection with an issue of public interest (§ 425.16, subd. (e)(3)) and conduct in furtherance of the exercise of the constitutional right of free speech in connection with an issue of public interest (§ 425.16, subd. (e)(4)).6. Given Smith’s failure to produce evidence of malice, we also decline to address amici curiae’s invitation to recognize a neutral reportage or wire service defense under California law.

[gingerandwry]

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - Week 2

After the sweltering, unseasonable heat during my first week in Rio, the forecast for the next week called for rain. It’s rained everywhere I’ve been so far, but the short bursts and high temperatures meant that the rain did not hold me back. I was not prepared for the flood that was heading toward Rio.

I approached Monday trepidatiously, unsure when the clouds would burst and end my day. But it was sunny and hot as usual (and especially humid) when I woke up so I walked up to the lagoon and over to Leblon. The lagoon offers some lovely views from the running/cycling path that surrounds it.

Leblon is adjacent to Ipanema and almost indistinguishable. It’s known to be quieter and more laid back (and ritzier it seems). And on Monday morning the crowd was much older, kind of a Palm Beach to Ipanema’s Miami. I walked along the beach on the delightfully, swirly designed sidewalk promenade that lines the beaches all the way up to Leme (and some of the city streets too). I reached the base of Dois Irmaos, the iconic peaks that cap the beach’s eastern end, and enjoyed the views from the Mirante do Leblon there. And then I walked inland to my real destination: BB Lanches. In “The Beastie Boys Book” the band mentions that this is their favorite juice bar in Rio, and they named one of their songs (”Suco de Tangerina”) after an item here. So naturally I had to stop by for some tangerine juice.

With no sign of rain yet, I took an Uber to the Urca neighborhood at the base of Pao de Acucar. Just south of the Morro de Urca is Praia Vermelha, a small sheltered beach. At the end of the beach is Pista Claudio Coutinho, a popular 2k walking path that wraps part way around the hill. It’s a pleasant jungle stroll where you can hear waves crashing below and take in expansive views of the ocean and nearby islands.

I reached the end of the trail, turned around and walked back to the beach and up to the west side of the hill. The Urca neighborhood felt very distinctive. It begins with a small marina full of little fishing boats and then turns into a cute residential area, tucked in to the base of Acucar. Most of the homes are modest (with a few princely estates, especially up the hill), and there is just one small commercial strip. The most notable feature is the Mureta, or sea wall, that looks out over the city and the bay. It’s a popular place to sit, hang out, drink beer and enjoy a quiet moment in this hectic city. The area feels like a small coastal town unto itself. In fact Urca is actually where the city of Rio started before it moved farther north. And there are still a few military bases here, presumably protecting the city from seaborne attacks.

With clouds forming, I decided to head home. I took a short nap, and when I awoke, rain was pounding the city, dumping buckets while thunder and lightning jolted the sky. This continued for several hours, and when I walked outside for dinner, a river was gushing down the street (which must be why it’s called Rio...). Water was up to my ankles on the sidewalk and my calves in the intersection. Fortunately I did not have to go far to eat dinner before I retreated back to my apartment. The rain calmed down a bit by midnight but it did not stop until....

Tuesday around 3pm. Rio normally receives 95mm in April. In nine hours on Monday night it got 246mm. Some neighborhoods saw walls of water taking out cars, and some favela endured mudslides (which killed at least three people). Apparently the lagoon overflowed too. My friend here said he had never seen anything like it in 15 years here. I was relieved that the event was as cataclysmic as it seemed to me and not a commonplace carioacan affair. The rain was less intense on Tuesday, but the city was recovering from the impact so many things were closed. I had to cancel my plans and stay shut in.

On Wednesday I re-emerged and headed to the Museu de Arte Moderna. It’s looking a little run-down these days but still has a good collection of mostly Brazilian art from the 20th century. It’s displayed according to traditional painting subjects (landscape, portrait, still-life, etc.), and they have some fun with modern artists’ takes on the classics. I particularly enjoyed the last exhibit on illusion and how context changes art.

My day took a turn for the frustrating after that. I wanted to go to the Flamengo FC match at Maracana stadium on Thursday night. I bought tickets online, but this being Brazil, it was not so simple. First I had to print out a voucher, so I asked my friend to do this at his office, then I met him to pick it up. Then I brought the voucher and my passport and credit card to one of Flamengo’s stores. There I was informed that I had bought student tickets so I could not use them (the website said nothing about this). The game was sold out, so I could not get other tickets. My tickets were supposedly refundable (minus the service fee of course), but as of this writing, the money had not been returned. I was disappointed not to get to see Maracana, a legendary stadium, but mostly annoyed at having to go through this big hassle for nothing. I know that Latin American countries require saintly patience, but I was really missing good ol’ American (and Silicon Valley) efficiency at that point.

Nevertheless, I persisted. I stopped by Igreja Sao Francisco de Paula, a gorgeous church whose interior is covered with intricately detailed carvings. It looks more like an opera house, but with the refreshing lack of gilding it felt more tasteful than the other churches I’ve seen.

I carried on to Museu Nacional de Bellas Artes. The collection is supposedly formidable, but most of the museum was closed for construction and/or exhibit rotation. Really just a few rooms upstairs were open, as well as two hallways with some busted-up Grecian marble statues that were copied from the Louvre and some oddly configured side rooms that did not look interesting. (Brazil does not seem to be aware of central air conditioning since most buildings have separate A/C units for each room (if any at all). This fits uncomfortably with places like museums that should be open and lend themselves to a flow, rather than a series of rooms behind closed doors.) After a short look around I stopped for some beers then returned home for the night.

On Thursday the clouds had mostly parted and the sun was high and hot again, so I could resume my outdoor activities. I took a car back to Parque Lage (the first place I visited when I arrived) so that I could take the steep hike up to Cristo Redentor. It was only upon reaching the trailhead-- some ten minutes into the park-- that a security guard informed me the trail was closed due to the rain. Thwarted again. I explored some more of Lage (which is just a small section of the tropical Parque Nacional de Tijuca, something I would now not be able to see) before calling another Uber to take me to the Corcovado train station.

The “Christ the Redeemer” statue is probably the most iconic, recognizable feature in Rio. The most popular way to get to it is on a small old train that slowly runs up the steep incline three times an hour. Stepping off the train and up a few flights of stairs, the view at the top is spectacular. Corcovado hill is right in the middle of the city, and it’s one of the tallest, so you can see everything, past Maracana in the north, past Niteroi across the bay and past Dos Irmaos to the south. I was pleased with how much of the city I could identify at this point and with the realization that I had covered a good chunk of it. The statue itself, while a feat of engineering, is nothing special, as it’s meant to be viewed from afar. (I’ve actually been surprised at how small it is. I think I’m used to aerial photos taken from above it where it seems to loom over the whole city. Or as Homer Simpson put it, “It’s like he’s on the dashboard of the entire country.”) The journey has two notable downsides tho. One: all the tourists, clogging the best viewpoints and all taking the same photos of themselves with their arms outstretched under the statue. The other drawback is the waiting. When I arrived the next available train was almost two hours off (although you can make reservations online). Then you wait to board the train. Then you sit on the train for 20 minutes, mostly looking out at dense, unspectacular forest. Then you wait for an opening to take the photos you want. Then you wait to board a drain down and then another 20 minute ride. There are so many hills around; I wonder if any others offer a similarly thrilling view while being more accessible. At the very least, I would take a van up (which they offer from a few parts of the city) since the train adds considerable time and nothing more than kitsch value.

When I was back in the Cosmo Velho neighborhood, I walked east to its other attractions. The first is Largo do Boticario, an old square surrounded by colorful colonial houses near a babbling brook in a jungle canopy. One hundred (plus) years ago, it must have been a charming area reminiscent of an old Portuguese plaza, but it’s completely decrepit now. (Apparently the buildings have been bought by a hotel company that will restore them.) Farther up the road is the brand-new Casa Roberto Marinho. Roberto founded Globo, now a huge Brazilian media empire. He restored this Mediterranean villa and grounds as his home and hosted who’s-who parties in the 1960s and 70s. The building has now been turned into a private museum to display his art collection, with a heavy emphasis on modern Brazilian art. The works are phenomenal and the home and gardens beautiful. You really get a sense of what it might have been like to hobnob at one of his parties. After that it was time to call it a day and have a relaxing evening at home.

Before I went to bed I developed a stomachache that kept me up much of the night. (In Brazil a lot of restaurants offer cheap per-kilo buffets; it’s probably best not to eat at these places at the end of the night.) The next morning I still felt ill and tired so I stayed in bed most of the day. Bummer since my days in Rio were nearing an end.

I felt well enough (and well-rested enough) on Saturday to get myself to the ferry for Ilha de Paqueta. This is a car-less island deep into Guanabara Bay. I mostly wanted to go to see the views from the ferry, but the island is nice too. I rented a bike and rode around the perimeter (without stopping you could do this in under 30 minutes). The shore is dotted with little beaches and parks and (questionably) Brazil’s only baobab trees. Other than a small commercial area near the dock, the rest is full of homes (and a cemetery). I really enjoy enclosed, flat bicycling like this, and it was a nice, calm respite from the city. For the people of Rio it seems to be a mostly working-class getaway-- the beaches are not really that nice but the general environment is. I was mostly intrigued by the locals who live there. Although there is no local economy the island seems to encompass the full social strata-- large gated mansions, lovely cottages, modernized townhouses, abandoned waterfront estates, even a favela. It’s so Brazil to have all of this side-by-side on a tiny, beautiful island.

After a few hours I took the ferry back to the city. I stumbled upon a street party (Rivalzinho) and ambled around it a bit. I returned home and chilled out on my final Saturday night in town.

And then I awoke for my final day in Rio. I had planned to walk or bike around, but the on-and-off light rain showers made that less desirable. So I walked over to Copacabana beach since I still had not been. (Yes it’s one of Rio’s most famous sites, but Ipanema is a better beach, and I’m not much interested in hanging out on the beach anyway.) Copa is beautiful indeed, especially its graceful northeastward curve.

It made me consider what makes Ipanema and Copa so special and enticing. I realized that for both the natural beauty lies in the views: the jutting peaks at the ends, the water and the mountains and islands on the other side. But the immediate surroundings are not lovely at all-- the beaches are thick with barracas (vendors) and lined with densely-packed, (mostly) unattractive high-rises. It’s a very different approach than we take on the US west coast. There, beaches tend to be removed from cities and kept close to their natural state. Where there is nearby development it is usually minimal and often “beach-appropriate”, e.g. boardwalks, cottages, surf shacks, etc. But I’m not sure which I prefer. While I love an unspoiled, untouched beach (which Rio has if you go farther out), I like the way they incorporate their beaches into the city. It’s not pretty in a natural sense but it does add to the urban appeal. Perhaps on the west coast in our drive to “protect” our coastline we are actually under-utilizing public space. That said, Rio’s beaches do have two huge drawbacks. One, the vendors: it’s nice to know you can get anything you want right on the beach but it’s impossible to relax with someone in your face trying to sell you something every few minutes. And two, the stench: the waters here must be seriously polluted because every time I approached an open body of water (ocean, bay or lagoon), I was hit with an overpowering, stomach-turning scent of human waste. It doesn’t blanket the shoreline so you can settle into a spot out of smell’s way, but good luck getting there without wanting to vomit in your mouth.

And so my time in Rio drew to a close. (Well not before one final aggravation. For my flight to Brasilia, I was departing from the smaller Santos Dumont airport, which is on a tiny strip of land in the bay next to downtown. I opted for a window seat so that I could look out over the city as we took off. But on this plane, 7F did not have a window, just a wall. It was torture. Thanks Gol Airlines!) Rio is a beautiful, exciting city, and I enjoyed my adventure there. However I left with mixed feelings and wonder if I will return. The longer I spent there the more I missed things I take for granted at home: pedestrian right-of-way, good customer service, lower urban density, leafy greens, buildings that aren’t walled off, friendly strangers, punctuality.... And as much as I complain about our gay scene, it’s relatively friendly and low-attitude, unlike Rio’s. Rio is a big city that comes with big city people and problems, and despite its sweltering heat, it can be a cold place, at least to an outsider. I had a fantastic visit, perhaps just a few days too long. And I think I would like to return but next time it will be with friends or a loved one so that I can share all the good times the city has to offer.

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