Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Monday

 Guadalajara International Book Fair

All hell breaking loose in LA and the Mayor is traveling once again, this time south of the border down old Mexico way. But its city work he'll be inspecting a book fair pavilion built in Guadalajara with millions of dollars of your money.  That's the part the old fishwrap scribes forgot to tell you. You may remember when, much to the Clowncil's chagrin, that it was this blog that broke the story of this wasteful and misplaced spending. (And before you race baiters have a cow this would be wasteful and wrong whether the book fair is in Mexico, Luxembourg, Tokyo or Pasadena.)

It's become a way of life.  Water main breaks over the holiday weekend Saturday in Hancock Park and Sunday in Highland Park.  Perhaps if the DWP wasn't so busy trying to elect Chris Essel they could do their job.

We sat on this story when we first became aware of it because it just seem so unbelievable but Paul Hatfield reports that CD2 Candidate Paul Krekorian's home in Valley Glen was recently stalked by  suspicious figure.  Witnesses told police they spotted and confronted an Anglo man who appeared to be between the ages of 40 to 50 stalking around taking photographs outside the home. Photos of this home have shown up in Essel campaign literature. While it is not clear if the individual is directly involved with the Chris Essel campaign it is a possible sign how far this campaign has gone. Krekorian filed a report with the LAPD and sent a letter to Essel urging her to keep her campaign operatives away from his family.

Speaking of CD2 Paul Krekorian appears to be winning in the online wars. On the social networking site Facebook, Krekorian has 2944 friends while Chris Essel only has 310.

SLAP Happy members of AARP and other suburban cranks think that medical marijuna and digital billboards are the scourge of LA life when anyone under 50 will tell what LA needs is jobs and commerce (notice as businesses leave the City's financial condition worsens?).  Now Mayor Villaraigosa is the latest AARP member on board with this nuttiness while Nuch's and Cooley's Barney Fife like obsession with it all is making Republicans look even worse than we already do!

The ever classy Betty Pleasant continues her jihad against Councilman Bernard Parks.  This time when the Councilman was correct to bring up ethics issues around the appointment of Angela Reddock to the City's Fire and Police Pension Board Ms. Pleasant for sure saw a conspiracy.  At issue was Reddock's refusal to disclose various clients she represents.  At a time when the city's pensions are a mess there is nothing more vital than full transparency from those who will provide oversight.

And finally, please take a few moments to read an excellent post from Central City East Blogger Don Garza. Don, who wrote for years from a tough existence living in SRO housing in Skid Row, has recently bootstrapped himself into better living conditions and is on a determined mission to better his life.  Don talks about not really feeling like he ever fit into the lifestyle of Skid Row and even less so now when he visits.  Garza writes "I am skid row adjacent, but am living in a different culture where social norms are followed, where there are consequences to what we do, where civility can have it's day. Skid Row was not like that."  Memo to local journos; your pub may want to buy this piece from Don.

A Night Against The Status Quo

Governor Schwarzenegger crashes and burns. Jack Weiss loses. An amazing night. But wait there's more.

Earlier Tuesday evening (on Twitter) I called the race in the LA Community College Seat 2 contest for Tina Park over incumbent Angela Reddock, it is now certain that Park will win, current returns with 86% of precincts reporting show Park with 54% of the vote over Reddock with 46%. Reddock had the LA Times but looks Park, who was backed by the LA Republican Party, had the voters in an unexpected win.

It had also looked like insider favorite Paul Koretz was handily defeating Neighborhood Council candidate David Vahedi but very recent returns with 82% of the precints show that Vahedi has closed the nearly 6 point gap he had all night and now the race is extremely tight, way too close to call at this point. If Koretz still wins, it won't be a strong victory if this trend holds.

Other than LA Community College Seat 6 candidate Robert Nakahiro losing to incumbent Nancy Pearlman nearly 62% to 38% it looks like overall a smashing defeat for the status quo and political insiders. That just may be the mood of the voters overall these days. Perhaps elected officials may start taking the people seriously now. Or not.