Gov. Gavin Newsom cleaning alongside a Los Angeles freeway on 8/8/2024 (Photo: gov.ca.gov)
Gov. Gavin Newsom And That Weird L.A. Homeless Encampment Cleanup Photo Op
It all feels so staged – that strange highway cleanup press event
By Evan Symon, August 9, 2024 1:14 pm
Governor Gavin Newsom is really serious about homeless encampments. He wants you to know that. Scratch that. He really, really wants you to know that. Just, you know, try not to think back what he was doing with encampments his first five and a half years in office and, it looks like he has done some amazing things as of late.
Like last month, when he gave his new executive order where he basically said that that the state can now remove homeless encampments because of safety and health and environmental issues, give more funds to local governments for increased mental health and substance abuse help, and gives more funding for shelter and affordable housing. Many homeless advocates and a few lawmakers blasted this decision, but so many more approved it. Even Republicans gave him their rare line of “Wow, great job Gavin!”, with the worst things said that he should have done this years ago and that GOP lawmakers had the idea first. (Which they did).
Newsom even doubled down on the order this week by saying that state funding would be pulled from any city or county who weren’t doing enough to clear encampments and put people into shelter. Speaking in L.A. on Thursday in t-shirts and jeans, AKA the closest things to work clothes he owns, Newsom said “I want to see results. I don’t want to read about them. I don’t want to see the data. I want to see it.”
Which brings us to why exactly he was in Los Angeles on Thursday. It was a mix of further stressing his his recent charge on homeless encampments, but also helping CalTrans cleanup roadsides and highways through his Clean California Initiative. Yes it was a suit-less and Cotopaxi-less Gavin Newsom doing, well, this:
According to his Twitter, his photo op helped underscore his executive order intent of the homelessness crisis by addressing it with “urgency, dignity, and compassion.”
The homelessness crisis must be addressed with urgency, dignity, and compassion.
The state has provided unprecedented resources for local governments to address dangerous encampments — and provide individuals with the care and services they need.
No more excuses. pic.twitter.com/9mikuKCDGz
— California Governor (@CAgovernor) August 9, 2024
His press release went deeper, saying that “Following Governor Newsom’s recent executive order directing state agencies to urgently address homeless encampments with dignity and compassion, today the Governor helped clean up multiple sites in Los Angeles County through the state’s Clean California initiative.”
But what really went on on Thursday? Simple: Photo op.
First of all, it is pretty bad optics. Despite his very own San Francisco and other cities in NorCal doing similar cleanups, he just had to choose L.A. for this. He chose L.A. for a reason, and it wasn’t a good one.
Second, it all feels so staged. Wherever Newsom is, things have already been sorted somewhat. One photo literally shows the work crew far ahead of him with a lot of clean space between them, showing that most of the work had been done and they found a good photo spot. Another photo has him picking up trash on a pretty clean median.
Newsom was out there, and he legitimately did some clean up work. But the photos either really didn’t sell it, he didn’t do a whole lot, or were really poorly thought out. Oh, and let’s not forget him in that median photograph not even having a safety vest on. CalTrans must have some new safety guidelines. All he did was walk a little stretch of freeway for a bit. Honestly, it would have been more impressive after the fact if no media was there and it came out he did it anyway. Still, at least he is working for the state instead of, say, doing a very, very off-putting podcast.
Bad photo op aside, the statement on withholding funding was a strong one, especially in the middle of L.A. County where some County officials are against his order (although not most cities in the county interestingly enough). And that adds more context why he was there. He wants everyone on board, especially the largest population County in the state.
Which adds to the confusion. All he really had to do was get some L.A. lawmakers up in Sacramento to flank him during a speech like the one he gave in L.A. Then add on, like work with Dems and the GOP to further this even more. If he wanted to, he could have even said that the push was to help prepare L.A. for the next several years as a dry run on cleaning up encampments, as the city hosts World Cup games in 2026, the Super Bowl in 2027, and then the Olympics in 2028.
Newsom had the momentum for his encampment order going into Thursday. But he just staged a bad photo op and pretended to help out CalTrans for a bit. All the while wearing a hat, t-shirt, and jeans combo that didn’t scream “Governor” or “Working man”, but rather “marketing consultant for a boutique firm down in Santa Monica”.
He has a lot of people on his side on his newest encampment order. The Thursday clean up was his first stumble on this.
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In the photo near the pi$$ mattress, I wonder if he knew which way the tongs of the rake were supposed to go, or was he shown. And was there a luxury traveling shower in his motorcade, so he could get out of those filthy work clothes and wash back his hair.
In all sincerity when he was under the overpass raking the trash, he should have been wearing an N95 he could catch something without a mask. Just saying….. We wouldn’t want him to contract some virus or something
Election 2024 clean up – after November – Expect way more RVs, Tents, and garbage.
I have questions….
Why does he think that picking up trash is impressive? Is it because he thinks we think this makes him look brawny? Hard-working? Empathetic? Cuz it doesn’t.
He does however read the winds of political change. His homeless solutions have been failures and are filled with graft, cost over runs and political hackery. The shelters he built are more than 50% empty. The state is deep in debt. He actually said Biden was fit and running a “master class” presidency. He’s termed out. If Kamala doesn’t win and he’s not elevated to a cabinet position, he enters a political desert until 2028. He has to look like he’s doing something…
the entire CA state senate and assembly Democratic members should have joined him to see the results of their policies.
Steve, I agree completely. Near the end of WWII when the US military discovered the concentration camps they declared martial law and made the people in the adjacent towns clean up the dead bodies. The townspeople new about the camps and were complicit in the holocaust. California politicians are complicit (and responsible) here and should be ordered to clean up the transient filth.
Excellent idea, Steve Rogers , considering that they won’t even take our phone calls once they are elected.
We Need to Defund Politics !
Also- Those are possibly the only photos I have seen without his concel-carry suits surrounding him.
—–Maybe he is holding out for Head of HUD !
Food for Thought: John Kobylt, KFI-AM 640, pointed out that Gov Gavin Gruesome realizes his “legacy” —- now that he is politically washed-up at the moment with nowhere to go —- will be a California awash in homeless-vagrants and violent crime and he is panicked. He is full of it as usual with this recent showboating “clean-up” photo-ops & etc. but is hyping up the self-righteous anger and threatening to withhold money anyway in order to point the finger of blame elsewhere. As usual, he wants to be able to SAY he did something even if what he says (and then doesn’t do) only makes things worse.
John Kobylt, however, with a twinkle in his eye, suggests L.A. County residents should take advantage of the Gov’s preening and self-righteous lecturing on this and hammer the L.A. County Board of Supervisors — the majority of whom have dug in their heels to NOT address the recent Supreme Court decision (we know why*) — to get cracking on homeless-vagrant cleanup as their political blood brother Gavin wants them to do. (Gavin refrained from dragging in L.A. Mayor Karen Bass to his blame-fest but of course she and her entourage have dug in their heels against this too.)
L.A. County Board of Supervisors – contact info available at each supervisor’s website
https://lacounty.gov/government/board-of-supervisors/
Kathryn Barger = sensible
Janice Hahn = sometimes sensible
Holly, Lindsey, Hilda = NOT AT ALL sensible and they are the voting majority
If you are so inclined, send them any thoughts you may have about how they must follow Gavin’s execute order to clear out and clean up homeless-vagrant encampments starting NOW or state money will be withheld.
(* “we know why” – their disgusting and shameful dependence on the Homeless Industrial Complex)
Urgent! Urgent! It’s an election year.
Thank you, Show for the contact info for these ‘wonderful people’ , ( I am trying not to curse,lol).
While reading your post and the ideas that John Kobylt shared on KGO , I started to wonder if our ‘selected’ officials are suffering from a type of mental illness.
It seems that there must be some sort of ‘block’ there, at least in California.
I imagine that block comes from the lobbyists and glad handers that promise a lifetime of power, regaurdless of success or failure.
No Excuses-
Maybe its opposite day,month,years !
I think you are on to something, Mary. The power is like a drug and, having had a little taste of it, there are an alarming number of people who, like addicts, will do ANYTHING to get more and more and more of it. Doing the right thing to keep the I.V. drip going is apparently too hard. If they even know what the right thing is. Seems they just don’t think that way.
You’d think that the Board’s voting majority would feel a greater sense of responsibility about the power with which they have been entrusted, given that L.A. County is the most populous county in the U.S., at 10 million people living in its 88 municipalities. But apparently not.
As you hinted, The Opposite of common sense is the default. The voting majority routinely vote for ruinous policies that have resulted in skyrocketing violent crime, a growing population of homeless-vagrancy, and a waste of taxpayer money that is mind-boggling. Oh, and let’s not forget refusing to fire the destructive Fake Covid Doctor Barbara Ferrer —- to this day.
Will we be able to vote these people out soon? Or at least one more of the radicals? To create a new sensible majority? Guess we’ll see.
He’s probably wearing $200 jeans and an $80 T-shirt.
AND, he’s paying his personal photographer TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS to capture this inanity…
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/08/celebrity-photographer-earns-200000-annually-gavin-newsoms-office/
Oh, brother! This SO ANNOYING! As you know…
It appears that Newsom is cleaning up his legacy, so that in 2028, when he is running for president he can say that he cleaned up the homeless problem in California. He also tried to get laws that sort of helped close some of the problems that were caused by prop 47. It didn’t work but he can stand on the podium and with a straight face say he tried. Everything he is doing now and in the future is to set himself up for the national stage.
HA! Looks like the L.A. Mayor Karen Bass’ delusions multiply daily.
“L.A. Mayor Karen Bass says 2028 Olympic games will be car-free”
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4822378-los-angeles-mayor-2028-olympics-car-free/
If you live down here, or even if you don’t, you are well-aware of the daily violent attacks —– stabbings, shootings, beatings to unconsciousness and then dragged onto the tracks or freeway, etc., —- on random people minding their own business trying to commute on the L.A. Metro public transportation system. Not to mention open drug use, armed robbery, sexual harassment and intimidation, filth, etc.
Good luck, Karen Bass, and thanks so much for all you do to to expand this stinking hell hole! And many thanks to Gov Gavin Newsom too for his many contributions to our 3rd world status!
Enjoy your liquor!