Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Tuesday

As Carmen the Clown and Jane the Joke go after pot shops many property owners and real estate experts say the shops have been good for the local economy.  One study even says the dispensaries have pumped over $100 millions of sales tax into government coffers.  However NIMBY types, such as Dangerous Enemy of Freedom Lisa Sarkin, are out to use the government to prevent something that should be legal for consenting adults.  If anyone needs to spark up a doobie and mellow out it is certainly Enemy Sarkin. Oh Betty Pleasant too.

Councilman Dennis Zine has worked hard to bring a much needed Costco to Woodland Hills.  Folks need the jobs and residents like to shop there otherwise Costco wouldn't risk the capital to invest in the area.  Still some wacko NIMBYs with plenty of time and their hands (perhaps some other folks who need to smoke some pot or at least get more sex than they may be currently getting) are calling for Zine to be impeached.  Anyway nimrods City Council members can't be impeached.  They are recalled.  And as Phil Jennerjahn found out it's a hell of a nut to crack. Even well organized and wealthy stakeholders couldn't muster a recall of the then most hated member of the Clowncil, Jack Weiss.

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Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Friday

Getting down to the wire in the 5th Council District race. Candidate David Vahedi is accusing his opponent Paul Koretz of ethics violations and has filed a complaint against Koretz with City and State officials. Vahedi claims that Koretz has violated borrowing and expenditure limits and is co-mingling campaign funds with other monies. Vahedi campaign consultant Phil Giarrizzo accused Koretz of being a career politician "who will do anything to get elected." In the meantime, Koretz picked up the endorsement of a past CD5 Councilman, County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky.

A sign that Mayor Villaraigosa may not be running for Governor of California? The Mayor is ditching this weekend's California Democratic State Convention in Sacramento, citing needing to deal with budget issues at home. Since we've never known Antonio Villaraigosa to miss a photo op and chance to gladhand - even when there's work to be done (remember his attending a Dodger game in the luxury box with owner Frank McCourt when the Valley was on fire last year?) - something must be up. Steve Maviglio of the California Majority Report suspects that Villaraigosa "couldn't compete in the convention buzz with the other major candidates gunning for gubernatorial prize," and that the Mayor fears "a cold shoulder from organized labor" over his recent budget policies and job cuts.

The new Metro Gold Line light rail route will be the first transit line to have a name in both Spanish and English following a recent MTA vote. CurbedLA thinks that Bill O'Reilly will have a fit over it; I suspect Walter Moore would be much angrier.

Friday is City Controller Laura Chick's last day in office as she heads to Sacramento Monday to hopefully keep Arnold from cooking the books. For those of Mayor Sam readers working in City Hall, stop by Chick's office for coffee and cookies. Now with Chick gone and Wendy Greuel not stepping in until July 1; who signs the checks? Not the Mayor I hope!

And finally, big congratulations to long-time purveryor of press releases to Mayor Sam, publicist extraordinaire Ginny-Marie Case who will wed her fiance Alexander on Saturday. Best wishes to the happy couple!

Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Sunday

The LA Times reports that District Attorney Steve Cooley's office is investigating former City Councilmember turned lobbyist Richard Alartorre on ethics issues.  Though officials are not talking much about the investigation the inquiry centers around alleged lobbying of City Council members and other officials Alatorre may have done though he was not properly registered as a lobbyist.  Alatorre has been involved with consulting work on the controversial development project Las Lomas, a 5000+ home planned community in the Newhall Pass andvarious airport related contracts.


If you had forgotten that State Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas was elected to the County Board of Supervisors, he has a plan to make sure to remind you.  Ridley-Thomas will be sworn in Monday at the County Hall of Administration with a ceremony befitting a Presidential inaguration.  Marching bands, chors, military color guards, singers, TV anchors and stars galore will be on hand for the festivities

Every time in history that the railroad has come to town it's changed the area around it.  And now the same thing is happening in Eastside communities like Boyle Heights as the MTA's Gold Line heads eastward with an extension of the rail line that runs from Pasadena to Downtown.  Interesting story in the LA Times chats with residents looking for upscale retail that has evaded them for decades are divided among those who feel the community could lose it's primarily Latino, working class feel.  That being said change is already come to the area and completion of the rail line will only do the same.

Everyone from the guys who own Google to Hollywood actors are lining up to buy one but Chris Paine, director of the film  Who Killed The Electric Car?, already has one of the much anticiapted Tesla Roadsters, an electric vehicle which gets the equivalent of 120 miles to the gallon and can do zero to sixty in 3.9 seconds.  Paine writes at the Revenge of the Electric Car blog that curious Sheriff's officers on Ventura Boulevard pulled Paine over and that Paine has also given a ride to Council President Eric Garcetti.  Besides being such a fabulous piece of engineering that is great for the environment, the Tesla is a testament to free enterprise as the company, headquartered here in California, was built with private investment (mostly from Silcon Valley sources) and not the government (nor government bailouts).

MSNBC talking head Chris Matthews says he isn't but reports are that he's lining up a campaign staff for a run at  Arlen Specter's Pennsylvania US Senate seat.  Initial polls show Matthews running well behind the 80 year old liberal Republican but that's apparently because voters don't know him well enough.  No truth to the rumors that Anderson Cooper and Greta VanSusteren are eyeing Senate runs.

Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Monday

The City is going broke yet salaries continue to skyrocket. The Daily News has compiled a database of city salaries. The list of employees who make over $200,000 a year is staggering, including LAPD Chief Bratton who makes $300,000 a year to tell his constituents where to go. City Chief Administrative Officer Karen Sission makes $220,000 and her replacement - Marcus Allen - wants another $70,000 per year. Do these people know this is the taxpayer's money not theirs?

Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Arnold Schwarzenegger all say that immigrants to the United States need to learn English. Schwarzenegger, an immigrant himself who came to America not knowing how to speak English urges Spanish speaking immigrants to turn off Telemundo and watch English television. However, Joe Mathews of the Washington Post disagrees; his view is that local Spanish television news does a superior job of covering the municipal scene.

A transit blogger says that Mayor Villaraigosa's and Supervisor Antonovich's Gold Line extension encourages sprawl and should be ditched in favor of two light rail lines that would serve Glendale and Eagle Rock.

In the Daily News Sunday, Doug McIntyre recounted a recent road trip across the country which allowed him to reflect on life here in LA. While Councilwoman Janice Hahn is reportedly paying gang members to fight gang crime she's been working on ownership of chickens in Los Angeles, a serious issue facing our city.

There could be something sinister happening in Hollywood; development of the area's first skyscraper on the former site of CBS's Columbia Square at Sunset and Gower. Strangely, the project's website is blank.

A group of Black Republicans are raising funds on the notion that the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican. According to the group the civil rights leader registered GOP in 1956.