Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Tuesday
A developer received approval Tuesday from the LA City Council to build 1000 rental units on land surrounding the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. "Blvd6200" had the wide support of both elected officials and community leaders and is part of a major redevelopment initiative in the area surrounding the Hollywood-Vine Metro Red Line Station. The project will be a major economic boon to the area; its just that renderings on their website are quite ugly.It was 50 years ago that a 27 year old Councilwoman named Roz Wyman called then Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley and invited him to bring his team to Los Angeles. O'Malley had just been turned down by a New York City bureaucrat to build a new stadium in Brooklyn. And the rest is history.
Council President Eric Garcetti rounded up the troops for a two day City Council retreat in San Pedro. He was looking for "the next great idea." Apparently he didn't get any. Dennis Zine however proved he knows how to work a laptop computer.
Governor Schwarzenegger wants to sell the California Lottery in order to raise some dough for the state. Capitol Weekly notes best practices for the lottery that could actually increase revenues far more than what Arnie could pick up for the games in a fire sale.
LAist has an excellent profile of the NoHo Arts District. This is one of the most detailed and accurate portrayals I've seen in some time.
And finally, BoiFromTroy and Zach Behrens were hoping that the new Wilshire Subway would pass through West Hollywood. Its not going to happen. Though Zach's choice of the word "shafted" is sort of ironic.
Labels: Mayor Sam's Hotsheet
Posted by Mayor Sam @ 7/18/2007 12:01:00 AM
8 Comments:
Per the D N, Westfield has received approval from Dennis Zine to expand its mall to include a huge 4-star hotel, condos, more retail. He says the traffic "will be mitigated." He and Smith always get a pass when it comes to development, cuz either no one cares about the valley or they're all too busy sweating in the heat and driving in to clog up the westside.
In 1969, Cathedral High expelled him, the rebellious junior from East L.A. who led student protests, joined fist fights and held a 1.4 GPA. Last December, 29 years later, the small Catholic boys' school awarded its prodigal son a diploma, a class ring and a school jacket at an evening in his honor.
For Antonio Villaraigosa, 46, now speaker of the California State Assembly, the diploma from Cathedral was sweet vindication -- and, among his honors, he said, "maybe the most treasured, meaningful I've received so far."
Villaraigosa's long and unlikely journey from a tough barrio childhood to the second most powerful position in California government is a page out of the American myth.
The oldest son of a Mexican-American secretary and a Mexican immigrant who abandoned the family when Antonio was five, he credits the mother who believed in him, a teacher who recognized his potential and paid his SAT fees, and a university system that gave him a chance.
"The poster child for affirmative action," Villaraigosa calls himself. "I wouldn't be in this job today if I hadn't gone to UCLA in an era when the state and the university were taking a chance on kids like me."
Grateful for what he calls "the golden era, the California of opportunity" that gave him a chance to flourish, Villaraigosa has been a champion of educational opportunity since his election to the Assembly in 1994 and an outspoken advocate for public education.
By Villaraigosa's own account, the "crown jewel" of his legislative career is "and will always be" Proposition 1A -- the $9.2 billion bond measure to build and modernize California public schools, colleges and universities approved overwhelmingly by voters last November.
The largest education bond in U.S. history, it was a long shot when Villaraigosa was sworn in as 63rd speaker of the California Assembly just a little more than a year ago. Few political pundits thought it possible to devise a compromise agreement between diverse and conflicting interests and win the necessary support of two-thirds of the legislators.
"It was one of the most difficult things I was ever involved in negotiating," said Terry Anderson, who has worked for the state Senate for 19 years, currently as a legislative aide to Senate President Pro Tempore John Burton. "The interests were so entrenched, and there was so much money involved. Villaraigosa wanted it to happen, and he set up the dynamics to make it happen."
The speaker made the education bond his top priority, seeking to craft language that developers, local governments and educators and their unions could live with, as well as Republican legislators whose support was needed to put the measure on the ballot.
Recalled Stephanie Halnan, director of institutional advocacy for the University of California and a former educational consultant for the speaker: "In eight months, he was able to do something previously thought impossible."
With only 43 Democrats in the Assembly at the time and 41 votes needed to keep his speakership, Villaraigosa couldn't afford to make enemies. But, according to Halnan, he took that chance.
"Sometimes leading means stepping out in front before people are willing to go there, which is at your own peril," she observed. "When he stepped out on the comprehensive proposal for schools, saying, 'I support this proposal,' it was very controversial; it could have potentially caused a rift."
In a profession loaded with "type A" personalities, Villaraigosa is known as one of Sacramento's hardest workers. In the contentious world of politics, he's seen as a coalition builder,liked and respected even by his ideological opponents.
UC Regent Ward Connerly -- who successfully spearheaded the anti-affirmative action resolution SP1 in the Board of Regents and Proposition 209 at the ballot box and is taking the crusade to other states -- considers himself a "big fan" of Villaraigosa.
"He forges consensus without betraying his own convictions," Connerly said. "He's one of those politicians who talks about win/win so that no one feels butchered in the debate."
Accounts of Villaraigosa's inclusive political style include the generous -- some say too generous -- budget he granted members of the Assembly's Republican caucus and the right he gave them to name the vice chairs of Assembly committees.
"I don't believe they [the minority party] should be treated like a vanquished people," Villaraigosa told the Los Angeles Times.
When he loses an important battle, as when 209 became law, Villaraigosa typically responds with strategic pragmatism.
"It wasn't enough to criticize and vilify the other side," he said of the backers of 200. "At the end of the day, it's not enough to lament and wallow in defeat, but to do something about it."
Affirmative action once helped Villaraigosa through UC's doors. After Prop 209 outlawed those programs, he carefully weighed what he could do. One potential arena was the Board of Regents, where he is a member ex-officio.
"I could sit there and scream louder and obviously carry a bigger stick than most of the other individual regents, as speaker," Villaraigosa recalled. "Or, I could identify what we agree on. All the proponents of 209 said they agreed that we have to increase eligibility, that diversity's a good thing."
He decided "to challenge the proponents of 209 at their word -- that they were committed to leveling the playing field." The strategy was to focus on outreach programs that had a track record of success -- among them mentoring, tutorial, SAT preparation and advance placement programs. To those who argued that such initiatives might dilute the quality of the students entering the university, Villaraigosa talked about unequal access to SAT prep classes and high school honors and advanced placement courses, and the role of outreach in helping to level that playing field.
"I was able to convince people that some of those issues were important," said Villaraigosa. "I got unanimous support from the Board, including Ward Connerly and others."
Villaraigosa called on individual regents to support programs to increase access and eligibility. And, in top-level negotiations over the 1998‚9 state budget, he made outreach funding a condition for agreeing to the rest of the package.
In the words of UC President Richard Atkinson, then-Governor Pete Wilson ultimately signed "the best budget of the decade" for the university. It included $33.5 million in new money for UC outreach programs. Total support for these programs is expected to more than double the $65 million spent in 1997‚98, with more than $2.7 million going to Berkeley's programs.
At times, Villaraigosa also has devised his own direct outreach efforts. Last spring, after the UC campuses made their undergraduate admissions decisions under the new constraints of 209, he penned a letter urging underrepresented minority students accepted by Berkeley and UCLA to enroll.
In a public service announcement broadcast by hundreds of local stations in the state, he made a similar appeal.
"It was a brief message saying who he is and what his background is," recalled Executive Director of University Outreach Margaret Heisel, who heads up UC's system-wide efforts to get underrepresented students eligible for UC admission and to ensure their success once admitted.
"The effect was above and beyond individual students," Heisel said. "It was on the popular airwaves, a message the whole community heard -- not just the student, but younger brothers and sisters, parents, grandparents: 'This university belongs to you. Come be part of it.'"
by Cathy Cockrell
I guess city council doesn't care what this development will do to increase the already traffic conjested area. What a bunch of lame asses. Its amazing how fast they pass something like this when its for developers. Does Eric Garcetti have any idea the mess this will cause on Hollywood Blvd? These losers on council are a joke.
If the Wilshire subway were to pass through West Hollywood (which does not touch Wilshire), it wouldn't be the Wilshire subway, would it?
Maybe the boi-sterous bloggers should stop messing around with a project that will be hard enough to get built as it is and start advocating for the additional funds to build a spur to West Hollywood. If they really think getting a subway to West Hollywood is all that important, maybe they should actually advocate for the feds to redirect war money to domestic needs such as mass transit, and maybe even for the public to stop whining about problems they refuse to pay enough taxes to solve.
12.54 AM- What's the point here? Is it that Villaraigosa impressed some people in 1998? Might be clearer with some attribution of source and DATE. This is not a new story. That might not be so bad if there were something added by you. Did you just find this clipping somewhere?
6:10: "Yes" is the reply to most of your sentences. Except for Eric Garcetti.
Developers drive the city council decisions, they fill the coffers of the politicians at all levels, and over-population, high-density impact and the like have no importance to developers. Only profits matter.
None of this is new, it's just that it's getting to the point where people are not able to ignore it anymore.
Plans for continued development seems immune from any real control and the quality of life in L.A. suffers more everyday- but what does the Council (and Board of Supervisors- approving Santa Clarita projects, for one thing) do to preserve quality and to look into the future consequences?
What do our elected and appointed officials do about that for us? Not much from what I see. They profit in terms of fame and career growth and they leave their snail trail all over us, leading to their next office.
They don't care. They don't have to.
Mr. Memtor, We heard you cancer? it true! Or did you get HIV, or your using this cancer to cover up your track? How does your family feel about yor illness?
Isn't this supposed to be the Hotsheet for Wednesday, not Tuesday?
Robert Moses was not just some New York bureaucrat. He created nearly all of New York's infrastructure. He also was called upon to design systems for many other cities. He was extremely powerful and probably one of the few people who could get the better of Walter O'Malley.
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