Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Tuesday

The replacement for The Jay Leno Show?

Did candidate for Lt Governor Janice Hahn jump the gun in announcing that half the City Council has endorsed her bid for the seat? We found alerts in both Google Reader and Google Search with a list of Hahn endorsements but at press time the link to the post was now re-directing to the main campaign website and none of that content could be found.  What gives? Did someone pull back an endorsement?

A Superior Court Judge ruled that the City Council violated the state's open meeting act when voting to turn the South Central Farm into a shopping center.  The Clowncil should have given supporters of the farm, as well as the general public, 72 hours notice to mobilize and speak out.  You may remember this was the farm that Councilman Dennis Zine showed up at in the dead of the night wearing his LAPD uniform and scared the crap out of the farmers.

Secession from the Los Angeles Unified School District is happening but one school at at time.  Applications to take over thirty LAUSD schools by various outside organizations were flowing into the District before a deadline of Midnight Monday evening.  Even the UTLA has applied to take over the schools which is like your abusive spouse buying you an engagement ring as the divorce becomes final.

Paul Krekorian continues to keep campaign promises as he saved some at-risk trees in Sunland-Tujunga which also saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in unnecessary assessments for property owners.  Yet blogger and former Mayoral candidate Phil Jennerjahn continues to bizarrely tag Krekorian as a Socialist.

Now that Jay Leno's 10:00 p.m. talk show on NBC is moving back to late night NBC has to find new programming to fill that hour.  One of the options is yet another program in the "Law and Order" franchise based in LA. Yet producer Dick Wolf already tried this with the 2003 series "LA Dragnet" which featured Al Bundy as Joe Friday. Still if the Law and Order LA does come to fruition imagine all the fun cameos with folks like Mayor Villaraigosa, Tom LeBong and Phil Jennerjahn.

And finally for some reason once again a bunch of folks rode the LA Metro wearing no pants.  Not sure anyone in LA even noticed.

Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Monday

On Friday the City Council approved funding for a yet another "anti-gang" program.  Under this program six different non-profit organizations will redeive $500,000 in public funding each to "reach" at least 100 kids who might be at risk for joining gangs.  If you haven't done the math, that's $5,000 per kid.  Extrapolate that out to the estimated 150,000 gang members in Los Angeles and you're looking at $750,000,000.  Considering that 20% to 60% of gang members are in the country illegally, passing Jamiel's Law and deporting these scum (who prey primarily on other illegal aliens who are otherwise hard working and law abiding ) would make a huge dent in the gang population.

Despite efforts by some community leaders to seek a moratorium on construction in Los Angeles, the City Council approved plans that would allow for the construction of over 100,000 new homes in the City in the next five years. Rita Villa of the Studio City Neighborhood Council. told the Daily News, "The message I take away is that the goal of the city of Los Angeles is growth, almost to the point of uncontrolled growth."

Two years ago the South Central Farm was bulldozed to make way for a warehouse.  You may remember this was the farm where former motorcycle cop and continual disappointment Council Member Dennis Zine showed up as an LAPD reserve officer, carrying a gun in the middle of the dark night to scare the crap out of the farmers.  Now activists who are attempting to block the development are accusing Mayor Villaraigosa of dropping his support for their efforts due to his receipt of $1.3 million in campaign contributions from the developers.

A while back, we gave you the list of taxes, fees and bonds you could be paying for following the November election. The Daily News counts up the latest additions to the list and the bill keeps growing.  Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association told the news "What's happening is the taxpayers are under assault like we've never seen before."

Though she voted yes on a measure to place a controversial $7 billion school construction bond on the November ballot, School Board Member Tamar Galatzan says she did so with "considerable reluctance." Galatzan feels that in general financing construction via bonds is unfair in that only property owners foot the bill.  Gee, ya think?

Despite the fact that the DWP is suing the firm, accussing them of allegedly overbilling the utility millions of dollars on contracts, the Los Angeles Department of World Airports approved a two year contract extension to Colorado-based CH2M Hill Inc. According to City News Service, the DWP filed a federal lawsuit against CH2M Hill in June, accusing the company of marking up the bills of subcontractors and then passing the increased cost on to the city. A May 2007 audit found CH2M Hill officials overbilled the DWP by $3.3 million to $4.5 million.

A doctor who runs a fitness website takes exception with Jan Perry's goofy fast food ban for South Central.  Perry and her colleagues on the City Council think that people who live in the area are obese because there are too many fast food locations in the low income community.  Dr. Michael Appelbaum, who is also an attorney, says "The problem is more calories in than out, no matter the source or income bracket. The problem is also moron politicians who do not recognize the real problem. There are no "healthy" foods, only healthy eating. But there are idiots in charge."  I think that sums it up pretty well.

A British man has decided to take his bride's last name instead of the other way around.  An English newspaper reports than an American trend is to "mesh" last names and a good example of that is Los Angeles Mayor Antontio Villaraigosa who "meshed" his last name of Villar to his wife's surname or Raigosa.  No mention in the article if the former Mrs. Villaraigosa will take back custody of Raigosa name in their pending divorce.

Prediction: Declining demand, a strengthening dollar and growing supplies will continue to push oil prices lower with the cost at the pump for a gallon of gas falling well below $3 a gallon before the November elections.  This is good news for the consumers; bad news for Barack Obama and Mayor Villaraigosa's transit tax scam.