Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Thursday

The LA City Council has yet again put off a vote on medical marijuana dispensaries.  At issue is the debate over the limit on where the collectives could be located.  A restriction limiting medical pot shops within 1000 feet of residential areas could effectively put them out of reach of many patients citywide.  Staff has to go back to the drawing board to see what impact the registration may have.

The first benefit of the election of Paul Krekorian over Chris Essel to the City Council may have already been realized: the Council Wednesday delayed a vote on controversial DWP raises.  Mindful of the message sent by voters, and the crushing blow to the IBEW in the bitter defeat of their candidate Essel, Council members are likely looking to tread lightly.

The economy is putting the bite on financing for the shady Downtown Grand Avenue project AKA monument to Eli Broad.  Hamburger Jan Perry is fighting with the developer over altering the project while an LA County planner says the entire boondoggle should be scrapped.  Paul Novak, a deputy to County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, told the LA Business Journal "We need to rethink what goes on that land and how the county and city can maximize their returns."

Following the gala Michael Jackson funeral at the Staples Center newly elected City Attorney Carmen Trutanich told the City Council he had evidence of "criminal" wrongdoing related to the event. Yet five months later the City Attorney has not come forward with any charges or even the slightest detail as to what the hell we was talking about.  In the meantime Trutanich's lack of action is standing in the way of the City receiving a donation from funeral producers AEG. Makes sense, AEG doesn't want to cough up funds to cover the city's cost if it thinks its going to be prosecuted for something.  Trutanich's silence has even caused supporters such as Dennis Zine to call on the City Attorney to put up or shut up.  The Council has called Trutanich to come forward and splain himelf; it appears Nuch has told them to take a hike.

And finally an interesting report in the LatinoLA blog.  San Fernando Valley realtor Trish Bautista chronicles the evolution of how real property is sold to Latinos in Los Angeles. Thirty years ago, nearly impossible for Latino immigrants to realize the dream of home ownership, realtor George B. Izquierdo set out to connect Latinos to real estate services and founded Las Casas Realty based in Highland Park.  Since then Izquierdo has become a leader in providing home buying, mortgage and related services.  The secret behind his succcess? Izquierdo says "We can afford to be kind."

Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Friday

My dad reads Mayor Sam everyday and when I don't write he is concerned if I am okay.  Don't worry Dad, I was out of town on business and forgot to tell everyone.  I'm back now and ready to have fun with the dum-dums again.  Special thanks to all the Mayor Sam burros who kept the lights on, with a big welcome back to Red Spot.  Lots of good stuff from the team below my crap here.


What makes Council Member "Hamburger" Jan Perry annoying to the the Lincoln High 90031 blog? Perry's "arrogance on ethical issues."  Though she owns a home inches from the controversial Grand Avenue project and stands to see her property values increase Perry has failed to recuse herself from a number of votes on the matter.

The unions representing many of LA's public employees must be really scared of Carmen Trutanich becoming City Attorney as they plan to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars of their members' money to oppose him.  In the meantime, a parade of activists turned public comment at Tuesday's Council meeting into a bashing session on Trutanich's opponent, Council Member Jack Weiss.

Is the Daily News' Rick Orlov getting lazy? A story about redevelopment at the fabled Laurel Plaza shopping center in North Hollywood contains a few rookie errors by the "Dean of City Hall reporters." First off Orlov says the property is located at Burbank and Laurel Canyon (it's actually at Oxnard about a mile north of Burbank Blvd) and that the former mall once contained movie theatres (it never did).  He also quotes a pipe dream of Tom LeBong's; that is to ask the developers to work with the MTA to extend the Red Line to the area.  That will never happen.

Voters who approve big government bond initiatives based on the promises of politicians should take the following bait-and-switch into consideration.  One of the promises of multi-million dollar bond measures offered up by the Los Angeles Community College District was to turn the site of the former Van De Kamp's Bakery in Glassell Park into a satellite campus of Los Angeles City College providing post-secondary education to residents of Northeast LA.  Looks like the LACCD is going back on it's promise and instead of a college satellite the facility will house a labor center and a charter middle school, both of whom will pay rent to the District.  Obviously, residents are up in arms.

Open Thread for Friday

Rick Orlov: Chick goes with Trutanich: City Controller Laura Chick, who has battled City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo over her authority to audit his office, said Wednesday she is throwing her support to a city attorney candidate who would side with her position.

LA Weekly: Jan Perry's Grand Avenue Conflict: An L.A. politician votes for public subsidies that boost her home's value.

LA Weekly: Should LA City Council Agree to Slash It's $178,789 Salaries?: 15 richly paid politicians are happy to cut their pay — by 2.5 percent?

Curbed LA: WeHo Taxi Rates Set to Raise: Hey, drunkies, soon you'll have to pay more to come home from a West Hollywood bar.

Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Wednesday

Zuma Dogg got an interesting phone call.  According to his tipster former DWP head and "Green Cowboy" David Freeman - one of the chief boosters of  the shady solar killing initiative Measure B - allegedly an assistant whose allegedly brother owns a solar panel manufacturing firm in China.  You may remember that Council President Eric Garcetti has stated that the solar panels bought by the DWP under Measure B would have to come from China. And what's worse the tipster alleges that Mayor Villaraigosa visited the solar panel plant  in China on his visit there.

Is Measure B in trouble? Bill Rosendahl is being wishy-washy about his support for the controversial plan; now reports say that CM Janice Hahn is similarly neutral.  It appears some Members of the Council are hearing from their constituents in big numbers and B is becoming something some of them may want to distance themselves from.

Looks like The Related Cos. - the developer behind the controversial Grand Avenue development project - doesn't have enough dough to start the project so they will be forced to pay a $250,000 per month penalty to the Los Angeles Grand Avenue Authority until they break ground.  The economy is definitely a factor here; why not let them off the hook and put an end to this boondoggle, also known as Eli Broad's Mausoleum?

Word on the street - City Council member and Controller candidate Wendy Greuel is not happy that the city's Engineers and Architects have endorsed her opponent Nick Patsaouras.  Apparently Wendy was overheard whining that the union didn't support her.

Despite Britney Spears' $27,000 awards show ring, the gift bags worth the cost of a new Lexus and the free guitars, video games and liquor provided to artists who show up to the Grammys, they still managed to shake down the near bankrupt city of Los Angeles for $125,000. And the City Clowncil gladly gave it to them at a time when the City is running a deficit and event waivers have been turned off for the City's community and non-profit organizations.

There's always fun in the small cities that surround or are surrounded by Los Angeles.  Though they all almost provide far better local services, they often have their own special dramas and delicious soap operas.  The latest is in the City of San Fernando, not to be confused with the San Fernando Valley, where Council members Julie Ruelas and Jose Hernandez were recalled Tuesday by significant margins.  Ruelas will be replaced by Ernesto Hernandez who voters chose over Ralph Arriorla and Jose Hernandez will make way for Brenda Esqueda who bested Henry Romero.

The social networking site Facebook has banned its members from posting photos of mothers breastfeeding their babies.  What does this have to do with LA? Well, it was back in the 90s when a then Assemblyman Antonio Villaraigosa passed a law that made it legal to breastfeed in public without getting arrested for indecent exposure.  Well, we all know that Antonio likes, well never mind, I won't go there.

Speaking of social networking sites, looks like Kevin Roderick of LA Observed wants to be Mayor Villaraigosa's friend.

Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Monday

Zuma Dogg was chosen over Walter Moore to help write the ballot argument against the City's "affordable housing" measure which goes before the voters in November.  In a two part hosting here and here, Zuma Dogg gives a preview of his opposition to the measure: His claim that funds set aside for emergency housing for battered women, seniors and other people in need will actually go towards the construction of the controversial Grand Avenue project.

The story about former Presidential candidate John Edwards' rendezvous with his admitted mistress prior to a meeting with Mayor Villaraigosa gets weirder.  The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the meeting was arranged by Robert McGovern, a friend of Edwards' paramour, Rielle Hunter, and a self-described new age guru and spiritual healer.


Dennis Zine has joined with a group of Republicans who are opposing Proposition 8, the measure on the state ballot this November that would overturn the California Supreme Court's ruling to legalize gay marriage. Other Republicans joining the coalition include Governor Schwarzenegger and Ward Connerly, the African American conservative activist who sponsored Proposition 209 which overturned affirmative action in California.

Let me preface this by the fact that I absolute hate cigarette smoking and discourage anyone from doing it.  That being said we don't need to government to make this decision for people. Bitter Bernie is planning to introduce legislation to ban all outdoor smoking.

An animal activist blog is taking Mayor Villaraigosa to task for eating the delicacy foie gras.  Foie gras is the liver of a goose or duck that's been enlarged by force feeding the bird fattening food through a pipe.  The liver expands, the bird gets sick and then it's harvested for it's fat liver which is cooked up at restaurants like the Mayor's favorite, Patina.  We also learn from the blog that the Mayor allegedly drinks $140 bottles of wine on the city dime for his lunches.

Barack Obama's ten year old daughter Malia is apparently not a fan of Britney Spears or Paris Hilton.  According to the presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee Malia is quick to turn the channel if either of the pop culture divas show up on TV. On the other hand, Malia is a big fan of Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus and has forgiven her for her recent photo controversy.

If you didn't have a chance to catch the blog over the weekend, here are a few things you may have missed.  First off, Full Disclosure Network reports that the price tag for the LAUSD's school construction bond measure will actually be double that of the $7 billion that is being talked about now, as well, if the bond passes state law will require all California taxpayers to kick in another $7 billion for LAUSD construction.  Next, the LAUSD will pay $50 million to a company controlled by a political associate of Mayor Villaraigosa to purchase a school construction site.  And LA Times bloggers were instructed to not blog about the recent story about John Edwards and his visit to his now admitted mistress at a local hotel.  By the way the Times justifies their spiking of the story at their "Readers Representative" blog.

Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Monday

The Grand Avenue boondoggle becomes even more so. Developer Related Companies now says that the project has to be delayed at least 16 months due to current market conditions. LA County Supervisor Mike Antonovich is angered by the moving; stating that other developers may have bid or been considered had they known the project deadline would be moved. Antonovich is now calling for the project to be put back out to bid. How about we go one better - cancel the thing now before it sucks billions and billions of dollars of tax money from police, fire, parks, streets, education and more.

Doug McIntyre admits that he forgot to vote last Tuesday. I too, for the first time in many years did not cast a ballot. Doug's reason is he was busy and engaged with other things; mine was I was pretty sick in bed. As bad as that seems, McIntyre and I are of the same mind: why bother? Voter participation is so low that the brain dead masses that do vote can be so easily manipulated by the special interests and idiocy reigns supreme. On a sidenote, given how abysmally low voter turnout was, we don't want to hear any more electeds complaining about Neighborhood Council election turnout.

Zuma Dogg has made a habit for many to watch Los Angeles City Council meetings on Channel 35 on cable TV within the City. However residents of Upland and Ontario will no longer get coverage of City Council meetings in those cities as the local cable operator, Time Warner, will no longer cover them.





Now that Hillary Clinton's dropped out of the Presidential race, Mayor Villaraigosa has jumped on the Barack Obama bandwagon. And maybe it's helping: a recent poll shows the Illinois Democrat capturing up to 62 percent of Latino vote over Senator John McCain.

They've been installed all over Los Angeles but an unusual coalition of the NAACP, the Libertarian Party and environmental groups are joining up to place a measure on the ballot to reject traffic cameras in Cincinnati, Ohio.

When it comes to potential Presidential daughters, blogger Meghan McCain appears to be one of the more interesting to come down the pike in a while. The 23 year old recent Columbia University grad is traveling with her father - Senator and Republican Presidential nominee John McCain - and blogging the campaign from the Gen Y point of view. Looks like Meghan will most likely be the next Eleanor Mondale or Ron Reagan.

How about $100,000,000?

Not content to soil their own barren consumer dystopia, financiers in Dubai attempt to jump-start the ailing, ill-fated Grand Avenue project to the tune of $100,000,000.

What kind of money comes from Dubai? Most people of culture think that Dubai is the most architecturally monstrous place on the planet, and their developers are both ecologically and aesthetically irresponsible---as was Kaufman & Broad when Eli was building suburbs in Orange County. But whatever your taste may be, you can bet something is terminally awful about a project when the developer has to resort to Monopoly money from a foreign shiekdom just to pull a damn demo permit on a parking garage.

Sunday Morning Mimosa

JM, Mourners/Labyrinth, Forest Lawn Glendale, 9.13.07


Joseph Mailander a guy in la • elsewhere • email

Aw...damn it. Suzanne Pleshette, 1937-2008. Yet again: lung cancer.

Here's a blog devoted to aggregating stories relevant to transportation in LA: LosAngelesTransportation.blogspot.com.

Oh, really? The Downtown News quotes Related Cos.' Bill Witte on why there's been no groundbreaking on Grand Avenue as yet: "The groundbreaking is more of a symbolic event," Witte told Los Angeles Downtown News last week. "It has little to do with where we are in the project schedule. We are continuing ahead, and we have the wherewithal to do it."

We have two words explaining the groundbreaking delay: Frank Gehry. Gehry won the commission in 1989; the Disney Hall groundbreaking came only in 1999.

But we already told you so. Or did you already forget how the Disney Hall was delivered a decade late and a hundred million over budget?

BTW, add the Downtown News' Anna Scott to the City's short roster of very dependable City reporters worth following.

Gail "GPS" Goldberg's bizarre Historic Employment Preservation Zone downtown is shutting down the highly successful loft movement there, the LA Business Journal notes. "“Under this policy, it looks like it could remain a parking lot for years to come. It’s a shame, not to allow the evolution of a unique neighborhood."

Murders on the perimeter: a body is found with stab wounds under an overpass in Porter Ranch. Homicides at a party in Long Beach; problems in Compton, altogether totalling eleven shootings, reported in the Times.

Missed this last week, but it turns out Al Martinez is a member of the Writer's Guild. And family think he's looking more like Homer Simpson every day. So why not a column reflecting on why the purportedly pro-Union Mayor hasn't been jawboning the studios?

You are exactly one leap year away from inaugurating a new President. So hold on.

A little late, but…

...very cool: Los Angeles’ original blogger interviews Los Angeles’ original dystopian writer.

In the debut issue of New Angeles (a downtown/eastside monthly), Ken Layne interviews Mike Davis—author of some of my faves, including City of Quartz and Ecology of Fear—on the eastside renaissance, smart growth, and the Grand Avenue project. Take a moment and check it out. Still cynical, still Mike Davis.