Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Thursday

Explosive new charges at Zuma Times.  Zuma Dogg reports that tipsters are telling him that President Obama is fuming that Mayor Villaraigosa and the City Council took Obama stimulus money for "shovel ready" projects and funneled it to the City's general fund to plug up the budget gap.  Obama apparently has cut off the supply of spendalus money to LA because of this.  Even worse for the Mayor, Zuma's source says pensiongate indictments are coming down soon.

Phil Jennerjahn, Carlos Alvarez, Zuma Dogg, Joe B and Mayor Sam all support the taco trucks. And so do the county courts.  A Superior Court judge overturned a ticket issued to a taco truck owner for violating a City law that limited the amount of time a taco truck can park in a specific location.  Story at LAist and SaveOurTacoTrucks.org.

CurbedLA reports that residents around Dodger Stadium tired of game fans parking in front of their homes have taken to putting up their own no parking signs.  Now that it has been blogged about I am sure the City will take action against these folks.

Popular San Fernando Valley schoolteacher Mary Ann Farber will be retiring after 18 years in the classroom at Beckford Elementary.  Story at Beckford Parents Blog.

The dumbasses at LADOT are at it again.  In cities like New York, San Francisco, San Diego, etc. pedicabs are all the rage.  But LA has this odd paranoid control freak mentality and they've been illegal for years.  So when rules were written by the Department that would effectively regulate the cabs out of business the folks on the Transportation Commission had the sense enough to tell staff they were on crack and to redo the whole thing. Among LADOT's lame-ass rules not mirrored even in nanny state San Francisco were that the cab operators could not wear Hawaiian shirts and that passengers must wear helmets. Read the rest at Streetsblog.

Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Monday

Prediction: Expect NIMBYs - including candidate for Mayor Zev and Clowncilman Tom LeBong - opposed to development at Universal Studios and the Universal City Metro Station to use the fire at the Studios as a further reason to block the development plans that would - among other things - bring the famed NBC Studios from Burbank into the City of Los Angeles.

In light of a ridiculous idea for the City to create business preferential parking districts as a way to raise money, CityWatch takes a look at the whole concept of the districts which allow residents/homeowners in a given area to snatch up street parking from non-residents. I've never been in favor of these districts as I see them as an unconstitutional taking of public streets for a select few. A stakeholder tells CityWatch's Ken Draper that he finds the districts exclusionary sayng “We have to ask: whose street is this anyway?” Our property lines end at the curb. We all pay taxes. The streets belong to all of us. What gives me the right to tell you you can’t use your taxes-paid-for street?"

Zuma Dogg's story on the latest in the court case against Proposition R features a photo essay that makes me think maybe life isn't so easy for some of our City Council members.

Billboard wackos may not like this but cities like Los Angeles have provided public restroom facilities that clean themselves and are partially funded by advertising. The arrangements make available the restrooms and other street furniture at no cost to cities.

Rumor has it that Britney Spears is being considered to appear in the latest Broadway production of Grease portraying Sandy, the part made famous in the film by Olivia Newton-John. However there is no official confirmation of the casting at present.

Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Tuesday

Our sources are telling us there was one barn burner of a session at Monday night's meeting of the Sunland-Tujunga Neighborhood Council's Land Use Committee meeting. Tipsters say a representative of Councilwoman Wendy Greuel's office, in trying to explain the backroom deal between City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo and Home Depot to place a controversial branch of the store in the mountain community, made essentially "circular comments" that provided no answers. Frustration and emotion ran so high that one committee member broke down in tears and expressed that she has "lost faith in the whole process." I suspect its going to get a whole lot uglier before the matter is resolved.

Following our big time expose that City Planning Director Gail Goldberg is allegedly a big time beer fan, the department is leaking like a sieve and lots of information is coming our way. It will take some time to parse it all but here's the latest tidbit: Planning Department employees who happen to be minorities say they're getting passed over for promotions and that an outside investigation and lawsuits may be in the works. Our sources tell us that Goldberg and her second in command, Michael LoGrande allegedly have frequent meetings at a local sports bar to drink beer and make changes to department staffing.

Last year the City Clowncil agreed to big time pay increases for city workers - more than the private sector would ever get - and now that the City is in a big budget crisis the Clowncil wants to reopen negotiations and take some of those raises back. But it seems as if the unions are not taking the Clowncil's calls.

A well known Valley NIMBY is griping in a local publication about SB 1818. You know that's the state law that basically allows developers to overrun local zoning laws if they provide some level of "affordable housing." Of course the NIMBY is up in arms but what she doesn't realize is that it's the NIMBY/CAVE/BANANA mentality that drives this very nonsense (as well as the need for developers to be shaken down by local politicians). If the market drove development, scams like SB 1818 wouldn't happen, there would be stronger reasons for developers to develop smart and it would create genuine "affordable housing." However in the current environment developers and land owners can not make the best and highest use of their land.

In the same article the same NIMBY is also aghast that the City has come to the conclusion that preferential parking districts "are turning neighborhoods with public streets into what are essentially gated communities accessible only to the residents and their guests." I've always felt that these districts - which limit parking only to those people who live next to the streets that they are created on - are on a shaky constitutional ground. When you consider that the streets are maintained with gasoline and property taxes paid by more than just the local residents, the preferential parking districts are unfair.