latimes--2020-10-09--Nursing home residents want to vote, but amid a pandemic, it is harder than ever

The convergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and election season has complicated this year ’ s voting for residents of nursing homes , assisted living facilities and other long-term care centers .
Many seniors who need help to get or fill out their ballots may be stymied by shifting rules about family visits .
Voting procedures — whether in person or by mail — are under increased scrutiny , adding to the confusion .
Facilities that used to host voting precincts likely won ’ t do so this year because of concerns about the spread of COVID-19 .
“ We ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into the public right now , we ’ re more vulnerable , and our immune systems are compromised anyway , ” said Janice Phillips , a 14-year resident of Village Square Healthcare Center , a skilled nursing facility in San Marcos , Calif. “ We ’ re basically locked in.
” Phillips , 75 , who has rheumatoid arthritis , has voted by absentee ballot for years without problems .
This year , she is encouraging her fellow residents to vote by mail as well .
She works with the facility ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , to make sure folks are registered .
As president of the resident council , Phillips has also raised the issue at community meetings .
Older Americans are a consistent voting bloc courted by both parties .
According to AARP , 71 % of Americans 65 and older voted in the 2016 presidential election , compared with 46 % of people 18 to 29 .
“ For many older adults , it ’ s a point of pride for them that they ’ ve voted in every election since they were 18 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ director of California ’ s Long-Term Care Ombudsman Assn .
But hardly anyone has been allowed inside skilled nursing facilities since the start of the pandemic , except for staff members and the occasional state health official , or family members in certain circumstances .
In California and beyond , facilities are beginning to open up in counties with low transmission rates , since federal rules changed in September to allow for more lenient visiting policies .
At the same time , outbreaks continue to plague some senior facilities , despite improved testing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ On Wednesday , Santa Cruz County health officials reported a major outbreak at the Watsonville Post-Acute Center , which has infected 46 residents , killing nine of them , and infecting 15 staff members .
California officials are pressing nursing homes and senior centers to give residents who want to vote the opportunity .
The Department of Public Health on Oct. 5 sent a letter to all those facilities , explaining they have an obligation to inform and assist residents with voting , including what actions are permissible for staffers to undertake in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about maintaining a safe environment through the election by limiting nonessential visitors , properly using protective gear such as gloves and handling ballots as little as possible .
In years past , civic groups such as the League of Women Voters would stop by to give presentations on what ’ s on the ballot .
Candidates for local office would hit nursing homes to make pitches .
“ In the context of a pandemic , we just can ’ t do it this year , ” said Michelle Bishop , voter access and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Network .
Before the pandemic , nursing homes and assisted living facilities also often served as polling places .
Residents could easily access voting booths , often set up in a lobby or community room .
That was especially important because nursing homes are likely to be accessible to people with mobility problems , Bishop said .
Otherwise , facilities would often organize bus trips and outings to polling places .
In California , the last day to register to vote online or by mail is Oct. 19 , though voters can register @ @ @ @ @ @ @ day .
All registered voters will receive a ballot in the mail , and those postmarked by Nov. 3 will still be counted in California for 17 days after the election .
Advocates say it ’ s important for newer residents at skilled nursing facilities to make sure they ’ ve registered at their new address or have plans to get their ballot delivered to them from their former homes .
Other states are also sending ballots to all registered voters by mail this year on various time frames .
All states permit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ polling stations to request an absentee ballot .
Once they have a ballot in hand , some older adults need help from family or staff at their facilities to complete it correctly and send it back to election officials .
The federal directive to relax visiting rules could ease some of that pressure , but the situation varies by facility .
For people whose relatives can not help them , it may fall to staff members to set up calls and video chats between residents and their families , or provide the assistance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t allow nursing home staffers to help with ballots to avoid influencing votes .
Even if they can assist , employees may be stretched too thin to help .
In a year when nursing home staff members are spending an extra hour each day putting on protective gear , there isn ’ t always extra time to make sure every resident is registered and voting , said Dr. Karl Steinberg , chief medical officer for Mariner Health Central , a nursing home management company in California .
“ There ’ s a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and it ’ s been exacerbated by this ” pandemic , Steinberg said .
“ This year , with all the chaos , there may be less staff time available to help people with voting.
” Tracy Greene Mintz , whose business , Senior Care Training , trains senior care workers , is responsible for staffing at 100 nursing homes in California .
She said she started ringing alarm bells about voting rights in August .
“ Elected officials do not care about nursing homes , period , ” Greene Mintz said .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ vote and don ’ t make contributions.
” She asked the California Department of Public Health , which surveys skilled nursing facilities every six weeks about COVID-19 infection control , to add a question on how facilities were planning for elections .
The department declined .
So she set up webinars with facility administrators and the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder/county clerk to go over information on how to submit and track absentee ballots .
She has also urged state officials to provide a statewide plan that facilities could use as a blueprint .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ out by a trade group , the California Assn .
of Health Facilities .
Still , California is in better shape than some other states , said Raúl Macías , a lawyer with the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice , a law and public policy institute .
Elsewhere , residents may have to apply for an absentee ballot , and sometimes must provide a reason they can ’ t vote in person .
California also has the Voter Bill of Rights , which allows individuals to designate someone to help @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ballot .
In some states , such as North Carolina , assistance can come only from designated bipartisan voting assistance teams , which may be harder to recruit during a pandemic , Macías said .
No matter the state , state and county elections officials and facility administrators should draft voting plans , said Bishop , of the Disabilities Rights Network .
It will help staff know the proper way to assist residents without influencing their votes , and residents know their voting rights .
“ There is a bit of a gray @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Bishop said .
“ It ’ s one of the years when we start asking , ‘ Whose responsibility is it ?
’ Who cares ?
We have to get it done.
” If they can ’ t get access to ballots or need help , California residents can contact the state ’ s long-term care ombudsman program , which can investigate complaints , help them resolve the issue and take the problem to the Department of Public Health if it can ’ t be fixed .
This story was produced by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which publishes California Healthline , an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation .
KHN is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente .

“There’s a perennial workforce shortage in nursing homes, and it’s been exacerbated” by the pandemic, an expert says. “This year, with all the chaos, there may be less staff time available to help people with voting.”
The convergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and election season has complicated this year’s voting for residents of nursing homes, assisted living facilities and other long-term care centers.
Many seniors who need help to get or fill out their ballots may be stymied by shifting rules about family visits. Voting procedures — whether in person or by mail — are under increased scrutiny, adding to the confusion. Facilities that used to host voting precincts probably won’t do so this year because of concerns about the spread of COVID-19.
“We’re basically not allowed to go out into the public right now, we’re more vulnerable, and our immune systems are compromised anyway,” said Janice Phillips, a 14-year resident of Village Square Healthcare Center, a skilled nursing facility in San Marcos, Calif. “We’re basically locked in.”
Phillips, 75, who has rheumatoid arthritis, has voted by absentee ballot for years without problems. This year, she is encouraging her fellow residents to vote by mail as well. She works with the facility’s activities staff, going resident by resident, to make sure folks are registered. As president of the resident council, Phillips has also raised the issue at community meetings.
Advertisement
Older Americans are a consistent voting bloc courted by both major political parties.
According to AARP, 71% of Americans 65 and older voted in the 2016 presidential election, compared with 46% of people 18 to 29.
“For many older adults, it’s a point of pride for them that they’ve voted in every election since they were 18,” said Leza Coleman, the executive director of California’s Long-Term Care Ombudsman Assn.
But hardly anyone has been allowed inside skilled nursing facilities since the start of the pandemic, except for staff members and the occasional state health official, or family members in certain circumstances. In California and beyond, facilities are beginning to open up in counties with low transmission rates, since federal rules changed in September to allow more lenient visiting policies.
At the same time, outbreaks continue to plague some senior facilities, despite improved testing of staff and other safety measures. On Wednesday, Santa Cruz County health officials reported a major outbreak at the Watsonville Post-Acute Center, which has infected 46 residents, killing nine of them; 15 staff members were infected.
California officials are pressing nursing homes and senior centers to give residents who want to vote the opportunity. The Department of Public Health on Oct. 5 sent a letter to all those facilities, explaining they have an obligation to inform and assist residents with voting, including what actions are permissible for staffers to undertake in helping voters. It also includes advice about maintaining a safe environment through the election by limiting nonessential visitors, properly using protective gear such as gloves and handling ballots as little as possible.
In years past, civic groups such as the League of Women Voters would stop by to give presentations on what’s on the ballot. Candidates for local office would hit nursing homes to make pitches.
“In the context of a pandemic, we just can’t do it this year,” said Michelle Bishop, voter access and engagement manager with the National Disability Rights Network.
Advertisement
Before the pandemic, nursing homes and assisted living facilities also often served as polling places. Residents could easily access voting booths, often set up in a lobby or community room. That was especially important because nursing homes are likely to be accessible to people with mobility problems, Bishop said.
Otherwise, facilities would often organize bus trips and outings to polling places.
In California, the last day to register to vote online or by mail is Oct. 19, though voters can register in person up to and including election day. All registered voters will receive a ballot in the mail, and those postmarked by Nov. 3 will still be counted in California for 17 days after the election. Advocates say it’s important for newer residents at skilled nursing facilities to make sure they’ve registered at their new address or have plans to get their ballot delivered to them from their former homes.
Other states are also sending ballots to all registered voters by mail this year on various time frames. All states permit seniors or people who have trouble reaching polling stations to request an absentee ballot.
Once they have a ballot in hand, some older adults need help from family or staff at their facilities to complete it correctly and send it back to election officials. The federal directive to relax visiting rules could ease some of that pressure, but the situation varies by facility. For people whose relatives cannot help them, it may fall to staff members to set up calls and video chats between residents and their families, or provide the assistance to residents themselves.
Some states don’t allow nursing home staffers to help with ballots to avoid influencing votes. Even if they can assist, employees may be stretched too thin to help. In a year when nursing home staff members are spending an extra hour each day putting on protective gear, there isn’t always extra time to make sure every resident is registered and voting, said Dr. Karl Steinberg, chief medical officer for Mariner Health Central, a nursing home management company in California.
“There’s a perennial workforce shortage in nursing homes, and it’s been exacerbated by this” pandemic, Steinberg said. “This year, with all the chaos, there may be less staff time available to help people with voting.”
Tracy Greene Mintz, whose business, Senior Care Training, trains senior care workers, is responsible for staffing at 100 nursing homes in California. She said she started ringing alarm bells about voting rights in August.
“Elected officials do not care about nursing homes, period,” Greene Mintz said. “They assume residents don’t vote and don’t make contributions.”
She asked the California Department of Public Health, which surveys skilled nursing facilities every six weeks about COVID-19 infection control, to add a question on how facilities were planning for elections. The department declined.
So she set up webinars with facility administrators and the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder/county clerk to go over information on how to submit and track absentee ballots.
She has also urged state officials to provide a statewide plan that facilities could use as a blueprint. She wrote one herself that was emailed out by a trade group, the California Assn. of Health Facilities.
Still, California is in better shape than some other states, said Raúl Macías, a lawyer with the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a law and public policy institute. Elsewhere, residents may have to apply for an absentee ballot, and sometimes must provide a reason they can’t vote in person.
California also has the Voter Bill of Rights, which allows individuals to designate someone to help them fill out and drop off their ballot. In some states, such as North Carolina, assistance can come only from designated bipartisan voting assistance teams, which may be harder to recruit during a pandemic, Macías said.
No matter the state, state and county election officials and facility administrators should draft voting plans, said Bishop, of the Disabilities Rights Network. That would help staff know the proper way to assist residents without influencing their votes, and residents know their voting rights.
“There is a bit of a gray area on whose responsibility this is,” Bishop said. “It’s one of the years when we start asking, ‘Whose responsibility is it?’ Who cares? We have to get it done.”
If they can’t get access to ballots or need help, California residents can contact the state’s long-term care ombudsman program, which can investigate complaints, help them resolve the issue and take the problem to the Department of Public Health if it can’t be fixed.
This story was produced by KHN (Kaiser Health News), which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation. KHN is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.


latimes--2020-10-09--With Prop. 14, California voters will be asked for more borrowing to keep stem cell research going

Evangelina Padilla-Vaccaro is the poster child for a disease she doesn ’ t know , an illness she doesn ’ t remember .
The energetic young girl who is happiest playing outside was born without an immune system , prompting months of uncertainty over whether she would survive .
That was until a clinical trial that received funding from a 2004 bond measure in California offered hope — and then a cure for severe combined immunodeficiency , a condition often called bubble baby disease .
Now , with the money from that bond running out , supporters of the state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ taxpayers for a new infusion of cash .
If approved , Proposition 14 would authorize the sale of $ 5.5 billion in general obligation bonds for the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine , known as CIRM , for stem cell studies and trials .
With interest , the bond could cost the state $ 260 million per year , or $ 7.8 billion , over the next 30 years , according to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst ’ s Office .
“ It took years of research for Evangelina ’ s therapy , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Alysia Padilla-Vaccaro of Corona .
“ We need to build on other cures and treatments .
This will save us money over the long term.
” Proposition 14 has no organized opposition and , so far , no one willing to put their money into fighting it — but the measure does have critics .
Newspaper editorial boards , including those at the Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle , have opposed it .
Opponents include CIRM board member Jeff Sheehy , who says the state shouldn ’ t take on new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that medical advances attributed to the previous stem cell bond have been overstated .
The campaign to pass the 2004 ballot measure told voters that the bond would save millions of lives and cut healthcare costs by billions .
Critics say that ’ s not been the case to date , although supporters of this year ’ s measure note that they never intended those results within 16 years .
“ Paying with debt means that money comes before education , healthcare and housing , ” said Sheehy , the only member of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Debt is paid for first [ under the rules of the California Constitution ] .
Not only are we spending 30 years into the future , we are saying we will pay for this before anything else we need in the state .
I don ’ t think voters understand that.
” California taxpayers created CIRM in 2004 when voters approved Proposition 71 , a $ 3-billion bond that will have cost the state an additional $ 3 billion in interest by the time it ’ s paid off .
CIRM @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , new laboratories and training programs , but unallocated funds ran out last year .
Proposition 71 passed with 59 % of voters in favor , aided by celebrities including actors Michael J .
Fox , who has Parkinson ’ s disease , and the late Christopher Reeve , who was paralyzed from the neck down .
That ballot measure also created a state constitutional right to conduct stem cell research , an effort to counter then-President George W. Bush ’ s decision to cut off federal funding following religious opposition to using @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a group of Republican members of Congress wrote a letter urging President Trump to reinstate those restrictions , which supporters of this year ’ s measure say underscores the need for California to continue to separately fund stem cell research .
Proponents of Proposition 14 say the measure will help find new treatments and cures for chronic diseases and conditions , including cancers , spinal cord injuries , Alzheimer ’ s , Parkinson ’ s and heart disease .
They say the previous bond advanced research and treatments for more than 75 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fatal blood disorders that were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration .
Without new funding to keep the program going , supporters of Proposition 14 say groundbreaking medical discoveries and lifesaving research will be slowed or stopped .
Alzheimer ’ s disease researcher Dr. Larry Goldstein , who works at UC San Diego , said the state ’ s stem cell agency fills a void in critical grant funding .
He said industry , venture capital and federal funding is available , but often goes toward research showing promising results in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ needed , however , to move a scientific discovery to that point .
That gap , which he said is referred to as the “ valley of death ” in research , has been filled by CIRM grants .
“ It was getting more and more difficult to fund novel , risky and creative scientific projects , ” Goldstein said .
“ CIRM has done a good job of funding parts of my research that were particularly risky that have led to a particular payoff.
” Sandra Dillon said the potential payoff to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ taxpayers ’ money .
Dillon was 28 years old when she was diagnosed in 2006 with a rare form of blood cancer called myelofibrosis .
At the time of her diagnosis , Dillon said there was no treatment options or cures .
The survival rate was five to seven years , she said .
“ My doctors said we could treat the symptoms as I got sicker , ” said Dillon , who is now 45 .
Over the years she did get sicker , becoming chronically fatigued , her body often aching @ @ @ @ @ @ @ skin crawling .
The San Diego resident was able to enroll in an experimental trial that received funding from Proposition 71 .
The treatment pushed her cancer into remission .
“ Continuing the funding and research is essential , ” Dillon said .
“ There are still things we need to solve and people are out there making the same plea I was making .
I want people to have a chance to get the same kind of answer I was given.
” In the case of now 8-year-old Evangelina Padilla-Vaccaro , who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pay for a clinical trial at UCLA where her stem cells were genetically re-engineered and returned to her body to rebuild her immune system during the first months of her life .
There have now been around 50 babies cured of the rare disease , according to CIRM .
“ If this passes , there will be other parents telling the same story as me , that science was there to keep their family whole , ” Alysia Padilla-Vaccaro said .
Proponents of Proposition 14 have raised $ 12.3 million for their campaign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ raised in opposition .
The largest funder of the campaign is real estate investor Robert Klein , who drafted the previous ballot measure and , once passed , went on to be CIRM ’ s first chairman — a move that sparked criticism from lawmakers .
That wasn ’ t the only criticism the stem cell agency has faced .
The state ’ s independent Little Hoover Commission wrote in 2009 that the agency ’ s “ governance structure is not adequate to protect taxpayers ’ interests or serve its own ambitious goals.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 2012 that CIRM had “ conflicts of interest , whether actual or perceived.
” The 2004 ballot measure placed CIRM outside the oversight purview of state lawmakers and the governor , allowing changes to the agency only if a bill is approved by 70 % in each house of the Legislature and signed by the governor .
That structure remains the same under Proposition 14 .
Proposition 71 mandated that CIRM ’ s board comprise officials from California universities and other research institutions , patient advocacy groups and biotech firm executives , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for CIRM funding .
Under Proposition 14 , the governing board would increase from 29 members to 35 .
Supporters of the November ballot measure say strict conflict-of-interest rules are in place to ensure board members are not voting on funding for their own institutions .
However , previous instances have drawn concern , including a situation in 2007 when CIRM board member John Reed attempted to reverse the institute ’ s decision to reject a grant to his nonprofit medical research institute , prompting a warning letter from the state ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s president at the time , Alan Trounson , left the agency to join the board of Stem Cells Inc. , which had received millions in funding from CIRM .
“ The history of this agency hasn ’ t been a smooth ride , ” said Sheehy , who was appointed to the CIRM board in 2004 .
Sheehy said he ’ s been dismayed by claims now being made by proponents of Proposition 14 that he said mischaracterize some achievements as being the direct result of CIRM funding when the agency @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a major drug was developed with CIRM ’ s funding , the state would receive a royalty , patent or licensing revenue .
To date , the agency has received $ 462,433 , a fraction of what voters were told the state would take in .
A Proposition 14 spokeswoman said 900 patents have been filed as a result of CIRM funding and “ royalties are on the way.
” Sheehy said he is doubtful that the bond-paid research will result in the level of returns proponents are claiming .
He said claims @ @ @ @ @ @ @ halt are not true and that CIRM ’ s bond money would be replaced with other private and federal funding sources .
“ The state can ’ t just keep giving money to this forever , ” Sheehy said .
“ It was never meant to be a permanent thing .
It was for a specific unmet need that doesn ’ t exist anymore .
”

Evangelina Padilla-Vaccaro, 8, was born with no immune system and a disorder commonly known as bubble baby disease. She’s been treated and cured with help from money from a previous stem cell bond in California. She and her mother, Alysia Padilla-Vaccaro, enjoy time together at her grandmother’s home in Corona.
Evangelina Padilla-Vaccaro is the poster child for a disease she doesn’t know, an illness she doesn’t remember. The energetic young girl who is happiest playing outside was born without an immune system, prompting months of uncertainty over whether she would survive.
That was until a clinical trial that received funding from a 2004 bond measure in California offered hope — and then a cure for severe combined immunodeficiency, a condition often called bubble baby disease.
Advertisement
Now, with the money from that bond running out, supporters of the state’s stem cell agency are asking taxpayers for a new infusion of cash. If approved, Proposition 14 would authorize the sale of $5.5 billion in general obligation bonds for the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, known as CIRM, for stem cell studies and trials.
With interest, the bond could cost the state $260 million per year, or $7.8 billion over the next 30 years, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office.
“It took years of research for Evangelina’s therapy,” said the girl’s mother, Alysia Padilla-Vaccaro of Corona. “We need to build on other cures and treatments. This will save us money over the long term.”
Proposition 14 has no organized opposition and, so far, no one willing to put their money into fighting it — but the measure does have critics. Newspaper editorial boards, including those at the Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle, have opposed it. Opponents include CIRM board member Jeff Sheehy, who says that the state shouldn’t take on new debt while facing a pandemic-induced deficit and that medical advances attributed to the previous stem cell bond have been overstated.
The campaign to pass the 2004 ballot measure told voters that the bond would save millions of lives and cut healthcare costs by billions. Critics say that’s not been the case to date, although supporters of this year’s measure note that they never intended those results within 16 years.
“Paying with debt means that money comes before education, healthcare and housing,” said Sheehy, the only member of the CIRM board to oppose Proposition 14. “Debt is paid for first [under the rules of the California Constitution]. Not only are we spending 30 years into the future, we are saying we will pay for this before anything else we need in the state. I don’t think voters understand that.”
California taxpayers created CIRM in 2004 when voters approved Proposition 71, a $3-billion bond that will have cost the state an additional $3 billion in interest by the time it’s paid off. CIRM used that bond money for research grants, new laboratories and training programs, but unallocated funds ran out last year.
Advertisement
Proposition 71 passed with 59% of voters in favor, aided by celebrities including actors Michael J. Fox, who has Parkinson’s disease, and the late Christopher Reeve, who was paralyzed from the neck down. That ballot measure also created a state constitutional right to conduct stem cell research, an effort to counter then-President George W. Bush’s decision to cut off federal funding amid religious opposition to using human embryonic stem cells. Last month, a group of Republican members of Congress wrote a letter urging President Trump to reinstate those restrictions, which supporters of this year’s measure say underscores the need for California to continue to separately fund stem cell research.
Proponents of Proposition 14 say the measure will help find new treatments and cures for chronic diseases and conditions, including cancers, spinal cord injuries, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and heart disease. They say the previous bond advanced research and treatments for more than 75 diseases, including two cancer treatments for fatal blood disorders that were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Without new funding to keep the program going, supporters of Proposition 14 say, groundbreaking medical discoveries and lifesaving research will be slowed or stopped.
Alzheimer’s disease researcher Dr. Larry Goldstein, who works at UC San Diego, said the state’s stem cell agency fills a void in crucial grant funding. He said industry, venture capital and federal funding is available but often goes toward research showing promising results in late-stage trials. He said money is needed, however, to move a scientific discovery to that point. That gap, which he said is referred to as the “valley of death” in research, has been filled by CIRM grants.
“It was getting more and more difficult to fund novel, risky and creative scientific projects,” Goldstein said. “CIRM has done a good job of funding parts of my research that were particularly risky that have led to a particular payoff.”
Sandra Dillon said the potential payoff to California residents sickened by disease is worth taxpayers’ money. Dillon was diagnosed in 2006 with a rare form of blood cancer called myelofibrosis. At the time, Dillon said, there were no treatment options or cures. The survival rate was five to seven years, she said.
“My doctors said we could treat the symptoms as I got sicker,” she said.
Over the years she did get sicker, becoming chronically fatigued, her body often aching, and she experienced the feeling of her skin crawling. The San Diego resident was able to enroll in an experimental trial that received funding from Proposition 71. The treatment pushed her cancer into remission.
“Continuing the funding and research is essential,” Dillon said. “There are still things we need to solve and people are out there making the same plea I was making. I want people to have a chance to get the same kind of answer I was given.”
In the case of now-8-year-old Evangelina Padilla-Vaccaro, who goes by Evie, CIRM funding helped pay for a clinical trial at UCLA in which her stem cells were genetically reengineered and returned to her body to rebuild her immune system during the first months of her life. There have now been about 50 babies cured of the rare disease, according to CIRM.
“If this passes, there will be other parents telling the same story as me, that science was there to keep their family whole,” Alysia Padilla-Vaccaro said.
Proponents of Proposition 14 have raised $12.3 million for their campaign; there have been no funds raised in opposition.
The largest funder of the campaign is real estate investor Robert Klein, who drafted the previous ballot measure and, once it passed, went on to be CIRM’s first chairman — a move that sparked criticism from lawmakers.
That wasn’t the only criticism the stem cell agency has faced. The state’s independent Little Hoover Commission wrote in 2009 that the agency’s “governance structure is not adequate to protect taxpayers’ interests or serve its own ambitious goals.” The National Academy of Sciences said in 2012 that CIRM had “conflicts of interest, whether actual or perceived.”
The 2004 ballot measure placed CIRM outside the oversight purview of state lawmakers and the governor, allowing changes to the agency only if a bill is approved by 70% in each house of the Legislature and signed by the governor. That structure remains the same under Proposition 14.
Proposition 71 mandated that CIRM’s board comprise officials from California universities and other research institutions, patient advocacy groups and biotech firm executives, which are the same groups that apply for CIRM funding. Under Proposition 14, the governing board would increase from 29 members to 35.
Supporters of the November ballot measure say strict conflict-of-interest rules are in place to ensure board members are not voting on funding for their own institutions. However, previous instances have drawn concern, including a situation in 2007 in which CIRM board member John Reed attempted to reverse the institute’s decision to reject a grant to his nonprofit medical research institute, prompting a warning letter from the state’s ethics watchdog.
In 2014, CIRM’s president at the time, Alan Trounson, left the agency to join the board of Stem Cells Inc., which had received millions in funding from CIRM.
“The history of this agency hasn’t been a smooth ride,” said Sheehy, who was appointed to the CIRM board in 2004.
Sheehy said he’s been dismayed by claims now being made by proponents of Proposition 14 that he said mischaracterize some achievements as being the direct result of CIRM funding when the agency’s role was limited. If a major drug was developed with CIRM’s funding, the state would receive a royalty, patent or licensing revenue. To date, the agency has received $462,433, a fraction of what voters were told the state would take in. A Proposition 14 spokeswoman said 900 patents have been filed as a result of CIRM funding and “royalties are on the way.”
Sheehy said he is doubtful that the bond-paid research will result in the level of returns proponents are claiming. He said claims that crucial research will come to a halt are not true and that CIRM’s bond money would be replaced with other private and federal funding sources.
“The state can’t just keep giving money to this forever,” Sheehy said. “It was never meant to be a permanent thing. It was for a specific unmet need that doesn’t exist anymore.”


latimes--2020-10-09--Column One: L.A. Pride at 50: 'In the beginning it was about visibility. We're here. We're queer. Ge

Column One: L.A. Pride at 50: 'In the beginning it was about visibility. We're here. We're queer. Get used to it.'

Lillian Faderman can tell you exactly where she was standing on June 28 , 1970 : at the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue .
She no longer feels the tears that coursed down her cheeks at that busy corner on that summer night .
But she will never forget the scene that caused them : hundreds of people marching down Hollywood Boulevard in the nation ’ s first legally permitted gay pride parade .
There were men bedecked in fairy wings .
Go-go dancers on a flatbed truck .
The Metropolitan Community Church choir in flowing robes singing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just remember thinking , ‘ This is so fantastic , ’ ” Faderman said of that long-ago celebration .
She was 30 at the time , and she watched the parade in front of a diner called Coffee Dan ’ s , her partner by her side .
“ I remember crying .
Who could believe [ the parade ] would happen in this area , where it was so scary to be gay ?
” Over the last 50 years , that first ragtag parade evolved into the annual L.A .
Pride @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drawing hundreds of thousands of spectators and costing millions of dollars to stage .
But what should have been the biggest celebration in its long history — its 2020 golden anniversary bash — was a dim vestige of every Pride event that went before it .
Live Pride functions were canceled because of the coronavirus , replaced in late June by a televised and live-streamed “ virtual parade , ” which felt like a three-hour Zoom meeting with commercials and Disney rainbow merchandise .
An All Black Lives Matter march to pay homage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 14 , the date originally chosen for the 2020 Pride event , in West Hollywood , Pride ’ s usual place ; it , too , was mired in controversy .
When L.A .
Pride emerges from quarantine at some foggy date in the future , chances are it won ’ t look much like its old self .
The parade , which moved to West Hollywood in 1979 , is leaving its longtime home and heading off for parts unknown .
West Hollywood officials must reimagine a future without the blockbuster event @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to great acclaim in 1984 .
The Christopher Street West Assn.
, which has produced L.A .
Pride from the start and owns the name , must find a new venue for the parade .
While organizers figure out what L.A.
Pride ’ s next chapter might bring , they would do well to look to the celebration ’ s past : to the painful events that led to that first foray down Hollywood Boulevard ; to the men and women who were there 50 years ago , whose numbers are dwindling fast @ @ @ @ @ @ @ partying were in better balance .
To the summer of 1970 .
In June 1969 , New York police had raided a Greenwich Village gay bar called the Stonewall Inn .
Unlike at other raids , this time the patrons fought back , changing the face of the gay rights movement .
As the first anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion neared , activists in New York wanted the uprising commemorated around the country .
Looking to Los Angeles , they wrote to Morris Kight , a well-known peace activist and co-founder of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ organizing an event .
What happened next depends on whom you talk to .
This is how the Rev .
Troy Perry , founder of the Metropolitan Community Church , tells it : “ Morris said , ‘ I think we ought to have a demonstration.
’ I said , ‘ No , no , no .
I think we ought to have a parade .
This is Hollywood , this is L.A. ... Let ’ s celebrate our pride.
’ ” The first time Perry , Kight , and their friend Bob @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Commission to ask for a parade permit for Hollywood Boulevard , Perry did the talking .
He wore a black suit and a white minister ’ s collar .
The permit was in the church ’ s name .
The men decided not to use the word “ homosexual ” right off the bat .
They figured their chances with the conservative commission might be better that way .
They were wrong .
The commissioners already knew who they were .
They pressed Perry about just whom he represented .
They asked about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quote marks , ” said Perry , whose church was one of the first in the world to embrace homosexuals , as they were referred to at the time .
Finally , he ’ d had enough .
“ I said , ‘ I represent the homosexual community in Los Angeles , ’ ” Perry recounted .
“ You would have thought I ’ d shot someone in the room .
It got very nasty , very quick .
I could hear it in their voices .
[ Police Chief ] Edward M. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rather have thieves and burglars march down the street.
’ ” The commission granted the parade permit , but with onerous conditions , including a $ 1-million bond “ to pay for the property damage that will happen when people throw rocks and bricks at you , ” Perry said .
And a $ 500,000 cash bond to pay for police to protect the gay marchers .
The three men left .
Kight called the ACLU , which sued the police commission .
Eventually , a judge found in their favor .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , just two days before the parade was set to kick off .
“ We thought we were going to lose , and we didn ’ t even have a parade ready , ” Perry said , laughing .
“ We called every gay and lesbian group we knew of .
I told one group , ‘ Listen , we ’ re having a pet section .
Tell them they can walk their pets.
’ ...
They showed up with their birds , dogs , a boa constrictor.
” One young participant marched @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a doggy version of a sandwich board , signs hanging down its furry sides that read , “ We don ’ t all walk poodles.
” Man and dog made Time magazine .
Five years later , Christopher Street West invited Davis to take part in the 1975 celebration of Gay Pride Week .
The police chief , to nobody ’ s surprise , declined .
“ I would much rather celebrate ‘ GAY CONVERSION WEEK , ’ ” he wrote to the Pride celebration organizers , “ which I will gladly sponsor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ find a way to convert gays to heterosexuals .
“ Very truly yours , E.M. Davis , Chief of Police ” For Faderman , that first pride parade was an exorcism for the haunted corner of Hollywood and Highland , “ a wonderful scene in 1970 to answer those bad memories of the 1950s.
” The police harassment .
The secrecy .
The shame .
Coffee Dan ’ s , where she watched the inaugural event , was her high school hangout in the 1950s , where “ the gay kids ” would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there — mostly the boys .
And one girl , Frankie Hucklenbroich , who “ was busted , ” Faderman said , “ because she was very butch and very tall.
” “ We were teenagers , ” said Faderman , now 80 and a renowned historian of LGBTQ life .
“ She was looking for a job .
I suggested maybe she couldn ’ t find one because she wore pants .
So she borrowed a skirt and high heels , maybe from a drag queen , and a tailored jacket.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s to wait for Faderman after a futile day of job hunting , she was quickly arrested — for being a man dressed as a woman .
She protested , telling the officers they had it all wrong .
She was a woman , she told them .
Really .
“ The police matron took her into the bathroom , ” Faderman said , “ and made her prove it.
” Police harassment of gay men and lesbians lasted long beyond 1957 , when Hucklenbroich walked out of that coffee shop restroom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Faderman wrote in a 2003 memoir , “ looking as if she ’ d been flogged.
” Three people who were killed by police or died in Los Angeles Police Department custody in 1969 and early 1970 were remembered at the first gay pride parade down Hollywood Boulevard .
Banners , signs and fliers at the event pleaded for the LAPD to investigate the deaths , to no avail .
Biographer Mary Ann Cherry likens that marching memorial half a century ago to the nationwide anti-racism protests in 2020 after Breonna Taylor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ killed .
“ It was very much as we say now : ‘ Say their names , ’ ” Cherry said .
“ They were three fellow homosexuals — one , transgender — who were killed at the hands of the LAPD : Larry Turner , Howard Efland and Ginny Gallegos.
” Cherry wrote about the three deaths , Pride 1.0 and the politics that shaped the event ’ s early days in “ Morris Kight : Humanist , Liberationist , Fantabulist : A Story of Gay Rights and Gay Wrongs , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ original organizers .
“ Marching in any of the first gay pride parades took unprecedented displays of courage , ” Cherry wrote .
“ To ‘ come out ’ in 1970 could be seen as openly admitting to being a deviant , evil or perverse.
” But to march down the street , “ declaring oneself a homosexual , ” she continued , “ would surely mean the mark of insanity.
” Each time , he marched as a proud gay man .
He marched in 1970 , during the first gay pride @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but got a traffic jam instead .
In 1988 , when hundreds of purple and white balloons were released in memory of those who died of AIDS .
In 1994 , when gay and lesbian LAPD officers marched in uniform for the first time , cheered on by an estimated 250,000 spectators .
In 2014 , when two same-sex couples were honored as the lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit that struck down California ’ s ban on same-sex marriage .
And Romanoff marched in 2017 as grand marshal with his husband , David @ @ @ @ @ @ @ honored the 50th anniversary of a different milestone in gay history : the Black Cat protests of 1967 .
Two years before the Stonewall Rebellion , Romanoff helped organize one of the first large public demonstrations anywhere for gay rights .
The action sprang from a series of LAPD raids on Silver Lake gay bars , including the Black Cat Tavern , which resulted in dozens of arrests and left several men and women badly beaten .
Romanoff is 84 now .
His eyes are still bright blue , but his memory has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ last known organizer of the Black Cat protests .
He is one of a small group of men and women still around who witnessed the birth of L.A .
Pride .
And he is believed to be the only man or woman who has marched in every L.A .
Pride parade .
( There was none in 1973 , and 2020 succumbed to COVID-19 . )
He plans to take part again in 2021 .
He marches , he said , because of Mother Bryant , an elderly gay man , whose real @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Romanoff and his friends about respect and resilience over meals at a Horn & Hardart automat in the 1950s in New York City .
Mother Bryant was born in the late 1800s in small-town America and came of age at a time when , he told Romanoff , if the police found out you were gay , they would “ come by almost every day and beat you until you moved out of the town.
” They didn ’ t want you arrested , he said .
They wanted you gone .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the table , ‘ When you get to be my age and live in this world , you have to remember one thing , ’ ” Romanoff recounted .
“ ‘ You have to respect yourself and respect the world .
And you have to be proud of who you are and not ashamed , because that ’ s how God made you.
’ ” Romanoff marches , he said on a sunny morning at the end of Pride Month in June , “ for human rights .
I ’ ve marched @ @ @ @ @ @ @ marched for Black people ’ s rights .
I ’ ve done all sorts of things , because while one person in the country is less than another , we haven ’ t achieved what we need.
” He marches , he said , “ because I ’ m not ready to quit yet.
” He marches because the work is not done .
It ’ s anyone ’ s guess what L.A .
Pride will look like in 2021 .
For half a century , it was a reflection of LGBTQ life @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about visibility .
The ’ 80s mourned the thousands of gay men who died of AIDS .
Some 21st century parades celebrated marriage equality and other civil rights issues .
In 2017 , Pride turned into the Resist March , a protest against the election of President Trump .
In recent years , however , Pride has been slammed as too white , too male , too drunk , too expensive , too corporate , too frivolous .
It was as if everyone had forgotten how and why it all began .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said , was another example of Christopher Street West ’ s stumbling ; the association did not reach out to the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter before announcing the march .
Gerald Garth is a CSW board member and a member of All Black Lives Matter .
He acknowledges that “ the West Hollywoods of the country , a lot of the LGBT-affirming spaces ... have turned into this young , white , male-dominated space.
” But he said CSW “ has really begun to address its history and its legacy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s problem , said West Hollywood Councilman John Duran , as the council prepared to vote on the event ’ s fate in late July , is that the parade and festival “ lost sight about what the whole weekend was supposed to be about.
” In June , Duran and Councilman John D ’ Amico proposed that the city open production of the annual parade and festival to bidders other than Christopher Street West .
The association responded with a letter to the West Hollywood City Council : L.A .
Pride @ @ @ @ @ @ @ CSW ’ s president at the time , declined to comment on the departure .
Sharon-Franklin Brown has since been named president of the CSW board ; she is the first Black transgender woman to serve in that capacity .
Brown said in late September that the group would “ be announcing news regarding L.A .
Pride 2021 in the next few days and months.
” Three days after CSW announced its departure , the West Hollywood council voted to start a “ visioning process ” to figure out how residents want their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scheduled to vote in late October on hiring a consultant to guide the process .
Moving forward , Duran said , anything goes : “ I think we have to be prepared to just open all the structure , the framework , the limiting boxes , the past , and start with a completely clean slate.
” For her part , Faderman hopes Pride celebrations never wipe the slate completely clean , never forget where they came from and why .
“ Not only as a historian , but as someone who came @ @ @ @ @ @ @ well the truly bad old days , ” she said .
It ’ s not as if the LGBTQ community “ has reached nirvana.
” Far from it .
“ I just remember how terrible it was for us , ” she said .
“ In every direction .
Wherever we looked .
”

Lillian Faderman can tell you exactly where she was standing on June 28, 1970: at the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue.
She no longer feels the tears that coursed down her cheeks at that busy corner on that summer night. But she will never forget the scene that caused them: hundreds of people marching down Hollywood Boulevard in the nation’s first legally permitted gay pride parade.
There were men bedecked in fairy wings. Go-go dancers on a flatbed truck. The Metropolitan Community Church choir in flowing robes singing “Onward Christian Soldiers.”
“I just remember thinking, ‘This is so fantastic,’” Faderman said of that long-ago celebration. She was 30 at the time, and she watched the parade in front of a diner called Coffee Dan’s, her partner by her side. “I remember crying. Who could believe [the parade] would happen in this area, where it was so scary to be gay?”
Over the last 50 years, that first ragtag parade evolved into the annual L.A. Pride observance, a controversial, three-day extravaganza drawing hundreds of thousands of spectators and costing millions of dollars to stage. But what should have been the biggest celebration in its long history — its 2020 golden anniversary bash — was a dim vestige of every Pride event that went before it.
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Lillian Faderman, a renowned historian of LGBTQ life, attended her first pride parade in 1970. It was “a wonderful scene in 1970 to answer those bad memories of the 1950s,” said Faderman, now 80. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune)
Live Pride functions were canceled because of the coronavirus, replaced in late June by a televised and live-streamed “virtual parade,” which felt like a three-hour Zoom meeting with commercials and Disney rainbow merchandise.
An All Black Lives Matter march to pay homage to Black transgender people was held June 14, the date originally chosen for the 2020 Pride event, in West Hollywood, Pride’s usual place; it, too, was mired in controversy.
When L.A. Pride emerges from quarantine at some foggy date in the future, chances are it won’t look much like its old self. The parade, which moved to West Hollywood in 1979, is leaving its longtime home and heading off for parts unknown.
West Hollywood officials must reimagine a future without the blockbuster event in their city, which was incorporated to great acclaim in 1984. The Christopher Street West Assn., which has produced L.A. Pride from the start and owns the name, must find a new venue for the parade.
While organizers figure out what L.A. Pride’s next chapter might bring, they would do well to look to the celebration’s past: to the painful events that led to that first foray down Hollywood Boulevard; to the men and women who were there 50 years ago, whose numbers are dwindling fast; to a time when politics and partying were in better balance.
To the summer of 1970.
**
The scene outside New York’s Stonewall Inn in 1969, one week after police raided the bar. The patrons fought back against police, changing the face of the gay rights movement. (REDUX)
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L.A. Pride began with a letter.
In June 1969, New York police had raided a Greenwich Village gay bar called the Stonewall Inn. Unlike at other raids, this time the patrons fought back, changing the face of the gay rights movement.
As the first anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion neared, activists in New York wanted the uprising commemorated around the country. Looking to Los Angeles, they wrote to Morris Kight, a well-known peace activist and co-founder of the Gay Liberation Front, asking him about organizing an event. What happened next depends on whom you talk to.
This is how the Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the Metropolitan Community Church, tells it: “Morris said, ‘I think we ought to have a demonstration.’ I said, ‘No, no, no. I think we ought to have a parade. This is Hollywood, this is L.A. ... Let’s celebrate our pride.’”
The Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the Metropolitan Community Church, was one of the organizers of the first L.A. Pride parade in 1970. (Josie Norris/Los Angeles Times)
The first time Perry, Kight, and their friend Bob Humphries went before the Los Angeles Police Commission to ask for a parade permit for Hollywood Boulevard, Perry did the talking. He wore a black suit and a white minister’s collar. The permit was in the church’s name. The men decided not to use the word “homosexual” right off the bat. They figured their chances with the conservative commission might be better that way.
They were wrong. The commissioners already knew who they were. They pressed Perry about just whom he represented. They asked about “this ‘church,’ in quote marks,” said Perry, whose church was one of the first in the world to embrace homosexuals, as they were referred to at the time. Finally, he’d had enough.
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“I said, ‘I represent the homosexual community in Los Angeles,’” Perry recounted. “You would have thought I’d shot someone in the room. It got very nasty, very quick. I could hear it in their voices. [Police Chief] Edward M. Davis said, ‘I’d rather have thieves and burglars march down the street.’”
The commission granted the parade permit, but with onerous conditions, including a $1-million bond “to pay for the property damage that will happen when people throw rocks and bricks at you,” Perry said. And a $500,000 cash bond to pay for police to protect the gay marchers.
Morris Kight (with umbrella), co-founder of the Gay Liberation Front, leads a protest in 1970 amid a battle for a parade permit in L.A. (ONE Archives at the USC libraries.)
The three men left. Kight called the ACLU, which sued the police commission. Eventually, a judge found in their favor. But by then, it was June 26, just two days before the parade was set to kick off.
“We thought we were going to lose, and we didn’t even have a parade ready,” Perry said, laughing. “We called every gay and lesbian group we knew of. I told one group, ‘Listen, we’re having a pet section. Tell them they can walk their pets.’ ... They showed up with their birds, dogs, a boa constrictor.”
One young participant marched with his Alaskan husky, which wore a doggy version of a sandwich board, signs hanging down its furry sides that read, “We don’t all walk poodles.” Man and dog made Time magazine.
Five years later, Christopher Street West invited Davis to take part in the 1975 celebration of Gay Pride Week. The police chief, to nobody’s surprise, declined.
“I would much rather celebrate ‘GAY CONVERSION WEEK,’” he wrote to the Pride celebration organizers, “which I will gladly sponsor when the medical practitioners in this country find a way to convert gays to heterosexuals.
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“Very truly yours, E.M. Davis, Chief of Police”
**
For Faderman, that first pride parade was an exorcism for the haunted corner of Hollywood and Highland, “a wonderful scene in 1970 to answer those bad memories of the 1950s.” The police harassment. The secrecy. The shame.
Coffee Dan’s, where she watched the inaugural event, was her high school hangout in the 1950s, where “the gay kids” would congregate. The police would arrest them there — mostly the boys. And one girl, Frankie Hucklenbroich, who “was busted,” Faderman said, “because she was very butch and very tall.”
The Rev. Troy Perry, in black, with his partner, Steve Jordan, and Perry’s mother, Edith Allen Perry, during the first L.A. Pride parade in 1970. (ONE Archives at the USC libraries)
“We were teenagers,” said Faderman, now 80 and a renowned historian of LGBTQ life. “She was looking for a job. I suggested maybe she couldn’t find one because she wore pants. So she borrowed a skirt and high heels, maybe from a drag queen, and a tailored jacket.”
But when Hucklenbroich arrived at Coffee Dan’s to wait for Faderman after a futile day of job hunting, she was quickly arrested — for being a man dressed as a woman. She protested, telling the officers they had it all wrong. She was a woman, she told them. Really.
“The police matron took her into the bathroom,” Faderman said, “and made her prove it.”
Police harassment of gay men and lesbians lasted long beyond 1957, when Hucklenbroich walked out of that coffee shop restroom, her face pale, her eyes, Faderman wrote in a 2003 memoir, “looking as if she’d been flogged.”
Three people who were killed by police or died in Los Angeles Police Department custody in 1969 and early 1970 were remembered at the first gay pride parade down Hollywood Boulevard. Banners, signs and fliers at the event pleaded for the LAPD to investigate the deaths, to no avail.
Biographer Mary Ann Cherry likens that marching memorial half a century ago to the nationwide anti-racism protests in 2020 after Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd were killed.
Advertisement
“It was very much as we say now: ‘Say their names,’” Cherry said. “They were three fellow homosexuals — one, transgender — who were killed at the hands of the LAPD: Larry Turner, Howard Efland and Ginny Gallegos.”
“To ‘come out’ in 1970 could be seen as openly admitting to being a deviant, evil or perverse.” — Biographer Mary Ann Cherry in ‘Morris Kight: Humanist, Liberationist, Fantabulist: A Story of Gay Rights and Gay Wrongs’
Cherry wrote about the three deaths, Pride 1.0 and the politics that shaped the event’s early days in “Morris Kight: Humanist, Liberationist, Fantabulist: A Story of Gay Rights and Gay Wrongs,” her 2020 biography of one of the original organizers.
“Marching in any of the first gay pride parades took unprecedented displays of courage,” Cherry wrote. “To ‘come out’ in 1970 could be seen as openly admitting to being a deviant, evil or perverse.”
But to march down the street, “declaring oneself a homosexual,” she continued, “would surely mean the mark of insanity.”
**
Alexei Romanoff marched down that street 49 times.
Each time, he marched as a proud gay man.
Alexei Romanoff, 84, is one of a small group of men and women still around who witnessed the birth of L.A. Pride. (Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times)
He marched in 1970, during the first gay pride parade, when the LAPD feared violence but got a traffic jam instead. In 1988, when hundreds of purple and white balloons were released in memory of those who died of AIDS. In 1994, when gay and lesbian LAPD officers marched in uniform for the first time, cheered on by an estimated 250,000 spectators. In 2014, when two same-sex couples were honored as the lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit that struck down California’s ban on same-sex marriage.
And Romanoff marched in 2017 as grand marshal with his husband, David Farah. That year, the parade honored the 50th anniversary of a different milestone in gay history: the Black Cat protests of 1967.
Two years before the Stonewall Rebellion, Romanoff helped organize one of the first large public demonstrations anywhere for gay rights. The action sprang from a series of LAPD raids on Silver Lake gay bars, including the Black Cat Tavern, which resulted in dozens of arrests and left several men and women badly beaten.
Protests in February 1967 outside the Black Cat bar in Silver Lake. (ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives)
Romanoff is 84 now. His eyes are still bright blue, but his memory has begun to fade. He is the last known organizer of the Black Cat protests. He is one of a small group of men and women still around who witnessed the birth of L.A. Pride.
And he is believed to be the only man or woman who has marched in every L.A. Pride parade. (There was none in 1973, and 2020 succumbed to COVID-19.) He plans to take part again in 2021.
He marches, he said, because of Mother Bryant, an elderly gay man, whose real name he never knew, who taught Romanoff and his friends about respect and resilience over meals at a Horn & Hardart automat in the 1950s in New York City.
Mother Bryant was born in the late 1800s in small-town America and came of age at a time when, he told Romanoff, if the police found out you were gay, they would “come by almost every day and beat you until you moved out of the town.” They didn’t want you arrested, he said. They wanted you gone.
“He said to a group of us at the table, ‘When you get to be my age and live in this world, you have to remember one thing,’” Romanoff recounted. “‘You have to respect yourself and respect the world. And you have to be proud of who you are and not ashamed, because that’s how God made you.’”
A contingent of the Gay Liberation Front during the 1970 L.A. Pride parade. (ONE Archives at the USC libraries)
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Romanoff marches, he said on a sunny morning at the end of Pride Month in June, “for human rights. I’ve marched for equal rights. I’ve marched for Black people’s rights. I’ve done all sorts of things, because while one person in the country is less than another, we haven’t achieved what we need.”
He marches, he said, “because I’m not ready to quit yet.”
He marches because the work is not done.
**
It’s anyone’s guess what L.A. Pride will look like in 2021.
Participants of the All Black Lives Matter march in Hollywood on June 14, 2020. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
For half a century, it was a reflection of LGBTQ life in Southern California. The 1970s were about visibility. The ’80s mourned the thousands of gay men who died of AIDS. Some 21st century parades celebrated marriage equality and other civil rights issues. In 2017, Pride turned into the Resist March, a protest against the election of President Trump.
In recent years, however, Pride has been slammed as too white, too male, too drunk, too expensive, too corporate, too frivolous. It was as if everyone had forgotten how and why it all began. The All Black Lives Matter march, critics said, was another example of Christopher Street West’s stumbling; the association did not reach out to the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter before announcing the march.
Gerald Garth is a CSW board member and a member of All Black Lives Matter. He acknowledges that “the West Hollywoods of the country, a lot of the LGBT-affirming spaces ... have turned into this young, white, male-dominated space.” But he said CSW “has really begun to address its history and its legacy of noninclusion.”
Part of L.A. Pride’s problem, said West Hollywood Councilman John Duran, as the council prepared to vote on the event’s fate in late July, is that the parade and festival “lost sight about what the whole weekend was supposed to be about.”
In June, Duran and Councilman John D’Amico proposed that the city open production of the annual parade and festival to bidders other than Christopher Street West. The association responded with a letter to the West Hollywood City Council: L.A. Pride was leaving town.
Alexei Romanoff, third from right, and his husband David Farah march with members of UFCW Local 770 in the 2017 L.A. Pride parade. Romanoff is believed to be the only man or woman who has marched in every L.A. Pride parade. (Courtesy of UFCW Local 770)
Estevan Montemayor, CSW’s president at the time, declined to comment on the departure. Sharon-Franklin Brown has since been named president of the CSW board; she is the first Black transgender woman to serve in that capacity.
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Brown said in late September that the group would “be announcing news regarding L.A. Pride 2021 in the next few days and months.”
Three days after CSW announced its departure, the West Hollywood council voted to start a “visioning process” to figure out how residents want their city to celebrate Pride. It is scheduled to vote in late October on hiring a consultant to guide the process.
Moving forward, Duran said, anything goes: “I think we have to be prepared to just open all the structure, the framework, the limiting boxes, the past, and start with a completely clean slate.”
**
For her part, Faderman hopes Pride celebrations never wipe the slate completely clean, never forget where they came from and why.
Column One A showcase for compelling storytelling
from the Los Angeles Times. More stories
“Not only as a historian, but as someone who came out in the 1950s, I remember well the truly bad old days,” she said.
It’s not as if the LGBTQ community “has reached nirvana.” Far from it.
“I just remember how terrible it was for us,” she said. “In every direction. Wherever we looked.”
Times staff writer Hailey Branson-Potts contributed to this article.


latimes--2020-10-09--Bound by duty and love, some L.A. Armenians are joining the battle lines in their homeland

David Koroghlyan and his two boys were visiting family in Armenia when fighting broke out on Sept. 27 with neighboring Azerbaijan over a tiny separatist region on the border of the ex-Soviet republics .
Within days , Koroghlyan put his 10- and 11-year-old sons on a plane back home to Los Angeles .
He was staying behind to join the fight .
Now training 12 hours a day with a volunteer group of soldiers , Koroghlyan could be called to the front lines any day .
“ I ’ m not sure if they know that they might not see @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wife Susan , who asked that her last name not be used for safety reasons .
Koroghlyan is one of a number of Armenian Americans living in Los Angeles who have uprooted their lives — leaving loved ones and careers behind — to help their home country as it fights a reignited war for its claim to the ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh , which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan .
Armenians refer to it as Artsakh .
Thousands of Armenians have taken to the streets of Los Angeles to protest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ demanding politicians back their cause .
But Southern California — home to the largest Armenian population in the United States — has also become a a central staging area for relief efforts .
The region has long been at the center of efforts to commemorate the Armenian genocide , and many believe the stakes are now very high for the future of their homeland .
The fighting in the contested region touches many Armenian Americans on a personal level .
“ Everyone either has fought and has memories of that , or lost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Or today has a cousin , a nephew , a neighbor , a somebody who ’ s there , ” said Salpi Ghazarian , director of USC ’ s Institute of Armenian Studies .
“ So , you know , if my cousin ’ s going , my God , you know , what am I doing sitting here ?
” Hostilities are now at their fiercest since an uneasy truce in 1994 ended a war over the region that claimed about 30,000 lives in the late 1980s and the early 1990s .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ self-ruled by ethnic Armenians , who make up the majority of the population of about 150,000 .
Many local Armenians see echoes of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 in the current war , Ghazarian said .
Turkey , whose ancestors Armenians blame for the genocide , has strong ethnic ties with Azerbaijan and has announced its support for its ally in the revived war .
“ So all of us are somehow connected to this , ” Ghazarian said .
Syuzanna Azizbekyan , 23 , said it was great to see the rallying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but felt she could be of more use in Armenia , where she was visiting family when the war broke out .
She decided not to board her scheduled flight back home on Wednesday .
Instead , she ’ s staying in Armenia ’ s capital Yerevan , as a volunteer with the defense ministry helping with the humanitarian side of the war effort .
Part of that involves relocating families fleeing the war zone , which is six hours to the south .
“ My time is needed here .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more than I would be able to help there , ” Azizbekyan said in a midnight video call from Armenia .
“ Our country is so small and our population is so , so small that I personally have been the hand that feeds.
” Just over a month ago , Azizbekyan was living with her parents and brother in San Gabriel , taking a break from studying for her pharmacy degree at West Coast University .
Sometimes she said she scrolls through photos on her phone to see how different life was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the war .
Her fiance , Vardges Zakaryan , a Glendale resident , said he supports her decision .
“ Originally , I was kind of shocked .
At the end , we both talked it out and I was pretty happy she wanted to stay , ” Zakaryan said .
“ To be honest , I wish I was there to help out.
” Both Zakaryan and Azizbekyan were born in Armenia and moved to the U.S. as teens after securing green cards .
They met while she was working at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
After dating for about three years , they got engaged in Las Vegas just before the pandemic swept over the U.S.
They ’ re now planning their wedding while more than 7,000 miles apart — across an 11-hour time difference .
Although Azerbaijan ’ s population is about triple that of Armenia , a relatively small number of Azerbaijani Americans live in California , with higher concentrations up north , according to members of the community .
Ulduz Azar , an officer of the Azerbaijan Cultural Society of Northern California , said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also been raising money to send to Azerbaijanis who have lost family members or whose homes have been destroyed .
“ We ’ re all very , very worried and tense , ” Azar said .
“ We are trying to do our best to help those who are impacted.
” Laurence Broers , a scholar on the conflict , said Azerbaijan instigated this attack .
However , he said the country still sees it as a defensive war — to reclaim lost land .
Azerbaijani officials view the contested territory — as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ belonging to Azerbaijan .
Nasimi Aghayev , Azerbaijan ’ s consul general in the Western U.S. , said about 800,000 Azerbaijanis were forced to flee their homes as a result of the war that ended in 1994 .
Aghayev accused Armenia of working in concert with Russia , which has a military base on Armenian soil .
Urged by European Union leaders alarmed by the escalating conflict threatening to draw in regional superpowers , talks were planned this week among the U.S. , France and Russia in Geneva .
Neither Azerbaijan nor Armenia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Both sides see the land as theirs .
As of now , Azizbekyan ’ s return flight is scheduled for Monday , but she said there ’ s no guarantee she ’ ll get on the plane .
“ I told myself I wouldn ’ t leave until the war was done , just so I could celebrate , ” Azizbekyan said .
“ Because that ’ s what that ’ s what we ’ re all waiting for — just that one day where they say , ‘ Hey , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coming back home.
’ ” Susan , the wife of David Koroghlyan , was born and raised in Glendale — home to the largest Armenian community in Southern California .
She said she would make the same trip her husband did if she didn ’ t have her small boys to worry about .
She said she isn ’ t sleeping much .
Every 30 minutes , she checks online for updates about the fighting .
Now , with her husband overseas , she is about to say goodbye to her brother , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a real estate agent living in Monrovia , is frantically gathering supplies to bring over to Armenia to help soldiers and civilians alike .
He plans to leave in a few days .
Avakian , 34 , said his family has been in the U.S. since the late 1960s .
They were one of the first Armenian families in Glendale and watched the city transform , he said .
But no matter how many miles they put between their homeland and themselves , the conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh has never seemed far @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and after , grew up with this .
This has been looming over our heads , ” Avakian said .
“ So , here it is , a resolution .
Here ’ s a chance.
” There is anxiety and worry .
Avakian is leaving a fiancee .
He ’ s in the middle of closing house sales and a mountain of paperwork that he needs to wrap up and hand off .
But there ’ s also relief , Avakian said .
“ Have you ever had a moment where you figured @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do ?
” he said .
“ That ’ s it.
” Some , like Glendale resident Alec Baghdasaryan of Glendale , would like to travel to help in the campaign .
But at 62 , he said he can ’ t risk getting infected with the coronavirus while traveling to Armenia , let alone to the besieged separatist region , where he operates a branch of a software company and co-owns a hotel .
This past week , he found out devastating news .
Kevork Hadjian , his close friend of nearly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fight on the front .
Baghdasaryan called Hadjian “ truly a beautiful person.
” A tenor , Hadjian frequently sang for children at a poetry festival Baghdasaryan organized at his hotel in the city of Shushi .
Hadjian was supposed to sing at a church event in Glendale this past spring , but the event was canceled due to the pandemic .
“ You know , as a human being , you don ’ t want any human being to get injured .
Either side , ” Baghdasaryan said .
“ It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up and you can not find a solution peacefully .
”

David Koroghlyan was visiting family in Armenia when violence broke out on Sept. 27 in a tiny separatist region between neighboring Azerbaijan in the southern Caucasus. He stayed behind to fight.
David Koroghlyan and his two boys were visiting family in Armenia when fighting broke out on Sept. 27 with neighboring Azerbaijan over a tiny separatist region on the border of the ex-Soviet republics.
Within days, Koroghlyan put his 10- and 11-year-old sons on a plane back home to Los Angeles. He was staying behind to join the fight.
Now training 12 hours a day with a volunteer group of soldiers, Koroghlyan could be called to the front lines any day.
“I’m not sure if they know that they might not see their dad again,” said his wife Susan, who asked that her last name not be used for safety reasons.
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Koroghlyan is one of a number of Armenian Americans living in Los Angeles who have uprooted their lives — leaving loved ones and careers behind — to help their home country as it fights a reignited war for its claim to the ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. Armenians refer to it as Artsakh.
A man walks in front of a destroyed house after shelling in the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region’s main city of Stepanakert on Thursday during the ongoing fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed region. (Aris Messinis /AFP / Getty Images)
Thousands of Armenians have taken to the streets of Los Angeles to protest the hostilities, blocking major freeways and demanding politicians back their cause. But Southern California — home to the largest Armenian population in the United States — has also become a a central staging area for relief efforts.
The region has long been at the center of efforts to commemorate the Armenian genocide, and many believe the stakes are now very high for the future of their homeland. The fighting in the contested region touches many Armenian Americans on a personal level.
“Everyone either has fought and has memories of that, or lost someone and has memories of that. Or today has a cousin, a nephew, a neighbor, a somebody who’s there,” said Salpi Ghazarian, director of USC’s Institute of Armenian Studies. “So, you know, if my cousin’s going, my God, you know, what am I doing sitting here?”
More than 1,000 people supporting Armenia with flags, signs and songs, gathered in protest of the Los Angeles Times, which used a quote from the consul general of Azerbaijan in an article about the conflict in the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region between Armenia and Azerbaijan, outside The Times headquarters. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)
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Hostilities are now at their fiercest since an uneasy truce in 1994 ended a war over the region that claimed about 30,000 lives in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. Since that cease-fire, Nagorno-Karabakh has been self-ruled by ethnic Armenians, who make up the majority of the population of about 150,000.
Many local Armenians see echoes of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 in the current war, Ghazarian said. Turkey, whose ancestors Armenians blame for the genocide, has strong ethnic ties with Azerbaijan and has announced its support for its ally in the revived war.
“So all of us are somehow connected to this,” Ghazarian said.
Syuzanna Azizbekyan, 23, said it was great to see the rallying in Los Angeles, where she lives, but felt she could be of more use in Armenia, where she was visiting family when the war broke out. She decided not to board her scheduled flight back home on Wednesday. Instead, she’s staying in Armenia’s capital Yerevan, as a volunteer with the defense ministry helping with the humanitarian side of the war effort. Part of that involves relocating families fleeing the war zone, which is six hours to the south.
“My time is needed here. And my energy and effort is needed here more than I would be able to help there,” Azizbekyan said in a midnight video call from Armenia. “Our country is so small and our population is so, so small that I personally have been the hand that feeds.”
Just over a month ago, Azizbekyan was living with her parents and brother in San Gabriel, taking a break from studying for her pharmacy degree at West Coast University. Sometimes she said she scrolls through photos on her phone to see how different life was like before she decided to devote herself to the war.
Her fiance, Vardges Zakaryan, a Glendale resident, said he supports her decision.
“Originally, I was kind of shocked. At the end, we both talked it out and I was pretty happy she wanted to stay,” Zakaryan said. “To be honest, I wish I was there to help out.”
Both Zakaryan and Azizbekyan were born in Armenia and moved to the U.S. as teens after securing green cards. They met while she was working at an AT&T store in Glendale. After dating for about three years, they got engaged in Las Vegas just before the pandemic swept over the U.S.
They’re now planning their wedding while more than 7,000 miles apart — across an 11-hour time difference.
Although Azerbaijan’s population is about triple that of Armenia, a relatively small number of Azerbaijani Americans live in California, with higher concentrations up north, according to members of the community.
Ulduz Azar, an officer of the Azerbaijan Cultural Society of Northern California, said her local community in San Francisco has also been raising money to send to Azerbaijanis who have lost family members or whose homes have been destroyed.
“We’re all very, very worried and tense,” Azar said. “We are trying to do our best to help those who are impacted.”
Laurence Broers, a scholar on the conflict, said Azerbaijan instigated this attack. However, he said the country still sees it as a defensive war — to reclaim lost land. Azerbaijani officials view the contested territory — as well as seven adjacent districts — as belonging to Azerbaijan.
Nasimi Aghayev, Azerbaijan’s consul general in the Western U.S., said about 800,000 Azerbaijanis were forced to flee their homes as a result of the war that ended in 1994. Aghayev accused Armenia of working in concert with Russia, which has a military base on Armenian soil.
Urged by European Union leaders alarmed by the escalating conflict threatening to draw in regional superpowers, talks were planned this week among the U.S., France and Russia in Geneva. Neither Azerbaijan nor Armenia have signaled that a cease-fire is near. Both sides see the land as theirs.
As of now, Azizbekyan’s return flight is scheduled for Monday, but she said there’s no guarantee she’ll get on the plane.
“I told myself I wouldn’t leave until the war was done, just so I could celebrate,” Azizbekyan said. “Because that’s what that’s what we’re all waiting for — just that one day where they say, ‘Hey, it’s over. The boys are coming back home.’”
Susan, the wife of David Koroghlyan, was born and raised in Glendale — home to the largest Armenian community in Southern California. She said she would make the same trip her husband did if she didn’t have her small boys to worry about. She said she isn’t sleeping much. Every 30 minutes, she checks online for updates about the fighting.
Now, with her husband overseas, she is about to say goodbye to her brother, George Avakian, too.
Avakian, a real estate agent living in Monrovia, is frantically gathering supplies to bring over to Armenia to help soldiers and civilians alike. He plans to leave in a few days.
Avakian, 34, said his family has been in the U.S. since the late 1960s. They were one of the first Armenian families in Glendale and watched the city transform, he said.
But no matter how many miles they put between their homeland and themselves, the conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh has never seemed far away.
“Everybody my age, and after, grew up with this. This has been looming over our heads,” Avakian said. “So, here it is, a resolution. Here’s a chance.”
There is anxiety and worry. Avakian is leaving a fiancee. He’s in the middle of closing house sales and a mountain of paperwork that he needs to wrap up and hand off.
But there’s also relief, Avakian said.
“Have you ever had a moment where you figured out exactly what you were supposed to do?” he said. “That’s it.”
Some, like Glendale resident Alec Baghdasaryan, would like to travel to help in the campaign. But at 62, he said he can’t risk getting infected with the coronavirus while traveling to Armenia, let alone to the besieged separatist region, where he operates a branch of a software company and co-owns a hotel.
This past week, he found out devastating news. Kevork Hadjian, his close friend of nearly a decade, died after volunteering to fight on the front. Baghdasaryan called Hadjian “truly a beautiful person.”
A tenor, Hadjian frequently sang for children at a poetry festival Baghdasaryan organized at his hotel in the city of Shushi. Hadjian was supposed to sing at a church event in Glendale this past spring, but the event was canceled due to the pandemic.
“You know, as a human being, you don’t want any human being to get injured. Either side,” Baghdasaryan said. “It’s sad that situations like this come up and you cannot find a solution peacefully.”