Regina Freer
Regina Freer is a Professor, Politics; Advisory Committee, Urban and Environmental Policy, at Occidental College, Los Angeles.
Freer's research and teaching interests include race and politics, demographic change, urban politics, and the intersection of all three in Los Angeles.
Her current project is a political biography of Charlotta Bass, an L.A.-based African-American newspaper editor and activist who ran for vice president of the United States in 1952. Freer also serves on the board of the Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research and the Center for Juvenile Law and Policy at Loyola Law School. She is a former member of the funding board for Liberty Hill Foundation's Seed Fund.[1]
Liberty Hill Commissions Training Program
Liberty Hill Commissions Training Program Sponsorship Committee members: Sheila Kuehl (Chair), Director, Public Policy Institute at Santa Monica College and former State Senator; Dean Hansell President, Board of Fire & Police Pension Commissioners; Lara Bergthold, Principal, Griffin Schein; Aileen Adams, Deputy Mayor of Strategic Partnerships Office of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa; Stewart Kwoh, President, Asian Pacific American Legal Center; Kathay Feng, Executive Director, Common Cause; Tom Saenz, President and General Counsel, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF); Torie Osborn, Deputy Mayor of Neighborhood and Community Services Office of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa; Larry Frank, Deputy Chief of Staff, Office of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa; Pascual Romel, Deputy Mayor for the Environment, Office of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa; Nolan Rollins, President & CEO Los Angeles Urban League; Helen Torres, Executive Director Hispanas Organized for Political Equality (HOPE); Regina Freer, Professor, Occidental College, Vice President, Planning Commission; Sharon Delugach, Community Engagement Coordinator, American Federation of Teachers; Roxana Tynan, Executive Director Los Angeles for a New Economy (LAANE). Honorary Co-Chairs: Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, Assemblymember Jimmy Gomez, Assemblymember Holly Mitchell, Assemblymember Bob Blumenfield.[2]
History
The Progressive Los Angeles Network (PLAN) was formally launched in December 1999. PLAN was founded and built on the success of the 1998 Progressive L.A. Conference which was co-sponsored by a number of local and national institutions and organizations including Occidental College, The Nation Institute, Liberty Hill Foundation, LA Weekly and the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. The Progressive LA Conference "was an overwhelming success and gave participants a sense that the growth of a wide variety of progressive social movements had reached an important threshold. As a result, attendees and others within the progressive movement in Los Angeles expressed a desire to participate in further discussion about how to develop a common agenda that is community based, inclusive and brings together the wealth of experience and knowledge of organizers, activists, and researchers".
In 1999, the organizers of the 1998 Conference consulted dozens of grassroots, community, labor, and environmental leaders about how to capitalize on the conference's momentum. Participants decided to develop a community-driven network that could develop a public policy agenda and action plan for Los Angeles, using the resources and knowledge of public policy experts and the experience and leadership of influential activists and organizers in Los Angeles. This network became PLAN.
While PLAN evolved into less of a formal network over the years, the network members and task forces that came out of the PLAN process remained active players in areas of "social and economic justice, livability and democracy in L.A." Most recently, four PLAN members, Bob Gottlieb, Mark Vallianatos, Regina Freer, and Peter Dreier published a book outlining the history of the progressive movement in Los Angeles and the evolution of PLAN. In addition, PLAN participated in the development of the document "Planning for a Livable City."[3]