Please Don't Vote for Scott Svonkin on May 17th, Thank-you!

Lydia Gutierrez on May 17th!

May is nearly upon us with a run-off election to contend with. This one is for a seat on the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees.. The candidates are the highly qualified Lydia Gutierrez and the infamous food spewer and tantrum thrower Scott Svonkin. Please do us all a favor and keep Scott Svonkin away from the adult table, will ya? Mars Melnicoff has a new piece up at the LA Weekly that serves as part 2 in her series on the misadventures of Mr. Svonkin. Part 1 is here.  Yet another reason not to vote for Scott Svonkin here.

Please stop this one man self-serving disaster in his tracks-Vote Lydia Gutierrez on May 17!

Learn more about Lydia.

Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Thursday

Keep dreaming

In a real body blow to residents of North Hollywood and surrounding areas, Curbed LA is reporting that the iconic Valley Plaza in North Hollywood, a long time shuttered and vacant retail site will not be coming back to life for the foreseeable future. Valley Plaza had been owned for the last 10 years by developer J.H. Snyder, who promised but never delivered on a $333 million redo complete with restaurants, retail space, movie theaters, and even sound stages for the film industry.  Instead, J.H. Snyder has now handed the property back (foreclosure?) to the lender, Istar.  A sad day for our friends in NoHo.

Mayor Villaraigosa gave his annual "State of the City" address yesterday, titling it "A New Contract", whatever that means. Something about 300,000 potholes that he's going to fill, port traffic up, fixing education, blah, blah, etc. City Maven live blogged the speech perfectly!

Food sprayer and LACCD candidate Scott Svonkin continues to catch heat for his deceptive absence from Tuesday night's San Gabriel School Board meeting. Our mention yesterday of his lying about being ill in order to attend and schmooze at a LA Democratic Party event at UTLA was picked up and expanded on by the LA Weekly. We're also receiving reports that Scott fled the event as soon as he realized he was being photographed by our sources.

Apparently, we really are the City of Angels.

Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Wednesday

Scott Svonkin playing hooky?

LACCD candidate Scott Svonkin was supposed to be at the San Gabriel School Board meeting Tuesday night. If you'll recall, Scott is an elected member of the San Gabriel School Board and is required to attend these meetings to deal with the many issues facing schools and students in the district .

Unfortunately, at the San Gabriel meeting it was announced that Scott was really "sick" and just could not make the meeting.

Imagine our surprise when Scott Svonkin was spotted the very same night at the UTLA Headquarters on Wilshire Blvd as the photos above show. Hmm, does he look ill to you?  I guess schmoozing with UTLA reps was way more important than being at a boring old school board meeting.  Learn more about Scott and his problems at this LA Weekly story.

UPDATE: This was a LA Democratic Party event being held at UTLA headquarters. This was not a UTLA meeting.

The CGOP continues it's slow and painful descent into total irrelevance. The latest blow comes from GOP finance chairman, Jeff Miller, the California GOP's top fundraiser, who has announced that he quits due to infighting and losing elections.

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Saturday Ultra-Briefs

Scott Svonkin in his element

Mars Melnicoff  has a revealing story in the current LA Weekly on LACCD candidate and food sprayer, Scott Svonkin. I even get a quote in the piece!

Two senior building inspectors for LADBS are caught in a sting taking bribes to sign off on construction projects. Why does this feel like a "tip of the iceberg" story?

Happy 85th Birthday Hugh Hefner!

If it's 2012, it's time for Phil Jennerjahn to lose another race for office!

Some things in life are a given; Death, Taxes, and Republicans hate women.

Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Wednesday

City Council candidate, Stephen Box, continues to pick up the endorsements, this time from our little blog and from our good friends at Griffith Park Wayist.

Wisconsin Gov Walker's draconian attempt at stripping away the collective bargaining rights of public employees is backfiring and instead is having the opposite effect of reinvigorating the American labor movement. The Koch Brothers will not be pleased.

On Monday, Governor Walker ordered the state capitol to be cleared of protesters. On Tuesday, a Federal judge ordered Walker to knock off the dictator nonsense and reopen the people's house (thanks Mazy!).

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