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{"source_url": "https://www.latimes.com", "url": "https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-01-01/column-steve-lopez-predictions-for-the-new-year", "title": "Column: The year is 2020 and so is my vision: Some predictions for the new year", "top_image": "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/fa5b034/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3510x1843+0+413/resize/1200x630!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F47%2F90%2F7353082f465fbc08f40c7661fb60%2Fla-me-lopez-hollister.JPG", "meta_img": "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/fa5b034/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3510x1843+0+413/resize/1200x630!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F47%2F90%2F7353082f465fbc08f40c7661fb60%2Fla-me-lopez-hollister.JPG", "images": ["https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/fa5b034/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3510x1843+0+413/resize/1200x630!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F47%2F90%2F7353082f465fbc08f40c7661fb60%2Fla-me-lopez-hollister.JPG", "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/0e/c6/b86a8b4b43a793259deb28a32a56/latlogoinverse.svg", "data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==", "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/aad5dc0/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1125x1125+438+0/resize/100x100!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fe2%2Fa4%2F9cb47c95a3033dfa95cf2d32614f%2Fimg-5bb25164-turbine-lanews-steve-lopez-20130507", "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/b9/f5/1c9278c94a439e28f5150c679d6f/logo-full-black.svg", "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/ea8934f/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3510x2669+0+0/resize/840x639!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F47%2F90%2F7353082f465fbc08f40c7661fb60%2Fla-me-lopez-hollister.JPG"], "movies": [], "text": "Here we go again, starting off on a new year and a new decade. The year is 2020, and my vision is too, so here\u2019s what I see coming:\n\nThe sea will rise, the ground will shake, the fires will rage, the state will sue the Trump administration every Tuesday and sometimes on Thursday, some people will flee, others will arrive, the cost of housing will rise, the number of homeless people will grow, and the bullet train will not leave the station.\n\nWait a minute, that was last year\u2019s prediction.\n\nActually, call me naive, but I\u2019m going to go out on a limb this year and predict a bit of movement in 2020 on new strategies to address homelessness.\n\nAdvertisement\n\nDo not misread that. I said \u201ca bit of.\u201d Homelessness is here to stay in California, where wealth drives up prices, we don\u2019t build enough new housing, and far too many people earn wages that don\u2019t cover the rent.\n\nBut the public demand for solutions has heated up, and the state is exploring ways to put more roofs over more heads.\n\nAnd if all goes as planned, a Hollywood pilot program based on an Italian model will begin an ambitious effort to shred bureaucracy and other impediments to housing and serving the area\u2019s most severely mentally disabled residents.\n\nThe project is fraught with challenges, but this early in the year, I\u2019m pretending to be an optimist.\n\nAdvertisement\n\nExcept when it comes to the Dodgers.\n\nStop wondering when they\u2019re finally going to win another World Series. I can tell you right now the next victory parade will be in 2038, when Clayton Kershaw\u2019s son is in the starting rotation. The Dodgers signed an $8-billion-plus broadcast deal with the devil in 2013, leaving thousands of loyal fans without TV coverage, and I hereby predict the blackout curse will not end for another 18 years.\n\nThe Clippers, however, will win the NBA championship. No, not the Lakers, who don\u2019t work as hard as the Clippers. Write it down and take me to lunch when it happens.\n\nSpeaking of lunch, I predict this will be the year the Los Angeles Times corrects a grave oversight and adds Los Tacos, on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, to its list of best restaurants.\n\nThis is not food you should eat. It\u2019s food you deserve to eat, especially if you just lost your job, someone left you, or Donald Trump gets reelected.\n\nGo with the #3 combination, and thank the heavens you live in a corner of the world where you can get cheese enchiladas at 3 a.m., should the need arise (open 24 hours, and I once had lunch there with billionaire Eli Broad, I kid you not).\n\nWhile I\u2019m on the subject of restaurants, I\u2019m reminded of my pet peeve of 2019.\n\nYou walk into a restaurant, they ask if you have a reservation, you say yes, and they say \u201cperfect.\u201d\n\nAdvertisement\n\nThey ask if you\u2019d like tap water or bottled water, you say tap, and they say \u201cperfect.\u201d\n\nThey ask if you\u2019d like anything else, you say no just the bill, and they say \u201cperfect.\u201d\n\nMy question:\n\nWhy?\n\nThis is all the more reason to eat at Los Tacos. Nobody says \u201cperfect,\u201d and they might not even talk to you, which is OK.\n\nAnother pet peeve of 2019: the New York Times telling Californians how we\u2019re doing or how we\u2019re feeling.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s the End of California As We Know It,\u201d we were informed in October. The NYT explained to us rubes that \u201cat the heart of our state\u2019s rot\u201d is \u201ca failure to live sustainably.\u201d\n\nWe are not without sin, but as I pass another electric car, look beyond a cluster of windmills and into the glare of solar farm reflections, huh?\n\nAdvertisement\n\nThen, this week, the NYT began its latest doomsday story with a flimsy anecdote about someone who had lived in the Bay Area since 2004, ran for office in San Francisco, lost, and moved to Denver with her family because of California\u2019s many problems.\n\nGood riddance, say I.\n\n\u201cCalifornia is at a crossroads,\u201d said the NYT.\n\nGuess what? Everybody is; every city, every state is at a crossroads.\n\nThe country is at a crossroads.\n\nWe\u2019ve got a president who said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in New York and get away with it, and it turns out he wasn\u2019t kidding.\n\nA president, I might add, who is actively and aggressively trying to pollute our air and water, who believes scientists are crackpots, who is an inspiration to white supremacists, who has whiffed on all his major campaign promises (a list topped by cheaper, better healthcare for all), but for all that, could still get reelected.\n\nThat, my friends, is a nation at a crossroads.\n\nCalifornia, to be clear, does indeed have major social and economic problems, which we don\u2019t need help identifying, thank you very much, New York Times. And it also has major assets.\n\nKind of like New York.\n\nExcept that New York doesn\u2019t have our beaches, and in the year 2020, in the noble cause of beach access for all, Gov. Gavin Newsom and I will kayak together from Gaviota State Park to Hollister Ranch.\n\nA few months ago I got a call from Newsom\u2019s office asking if I could meet him in Gaviota, so we could paddle north. I had written about the Hollister residents\u2019 long fight to keep us locked out, and their argument that if the great unwashed want to visit, they can test the often treacherous waters and attempt to visit by sea.\n\nJerry Brown never asked me to go kayaking. Ronald Reagan didn\u2019t call and say, hey, let\u2019s go for a horseback ride, amigo. Arnold Schwarzenegger never invited me to go hiking (though he once called and asked me to meet him in Long Beach for a cigar, and I happily obliged).\n\nBut this year, if Hollister residents continue to flout the public\u2019s constitutional right to access all the state\u2019s beaches, they will have to answer to me and the governor and a motley flotilla of scurvy sea dogs. We will arrive by sea, plant a flag and fight to the death. You read it here first.\n\nBear with me now, because if you\u2019re stealing a break from the Rose Parade, or a ballgame, or you\u2019re having trouble lifting your head off a pillow, I have just one last observation to share before you embrace the new year.\n\nIt\u2019s sad to note that two more newspapers in California have ended their run, as reported by my colleague Brittny Mejia. Sierra County\u2019s Mountain Messenger, once published by Mark Twain, and the Martinez News-Gazette, which I used to read daily, are going out of business.\n\nThose losses \u2014 the silencing of voices \u2014 are blows to the community and to the mission of keeping the bastards honest.\n\nNo newspaper operates without blind spots and deficiencies, but there is no bigger news operation west of the Hudson than the Los Angeles Times, and no greater source of accountability journalism in California.\n\nIn this, my 45th year as a journalist, my colleagues in sports, in entertainment, in foreign, national, state and local news, are a daily inspiration, and I\u2019m proud to be their colleague. I\u2019m still a reader first and learn multitudes each day by going online or by turning pages.\n\nThanks to subscribers for your continued support (and shame on those who read without subscribing). In these tumultuous political times, I\u2019m reminded of the Thomas Jefferson quote on the old Times parking lot in downtown Los Angeles:\n\n\u201cWere it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.\u201d\n\nHappy new year.\n\[email protected]", "keywords": [], "meta_keywords": [""], "tags": ["Things to Do"], "authors": ["Steve Lopez Is A California Native Who Has Been An L.A. Times Columnist Since He Has Won More Than A Dozen National Journalism Awards For His Reporting", "Column Writing At Seven Newspapers", "Four News Magazines", "Is A Three-Time Pulitzer Finalist For Commentary", "In", "For His Columns On Elder Care", "For His Columns On Income Inequality In California", "For His Columns On Housing", "Homelessness. He Is The Author Of Three Novels", "Two Collections Of Columns"], "publish_date": "Wed Jan 1 00:00:00 2020", "summary": "", "article_html": "", "meta_description": "Among columnist Steve Lopez's outlook for 2020: Will this be the year the L.A. 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