Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Tuesday

DWP boss Ron Deaton was planning to retire in January following his heart troubles during a trip to Costa Rica. Now, the LA Times says that the 42 year long highest paid city employee (telephone tax watchers: this guy makes $345K a year) is not so sure and may stay on.

Councilman Tom LeBong does an interview with Halloween blog Creepy LA and discloses his costume for this year: an LADOT traffic officer. In the meantime the City Council earmarked nearly another $2 million to one of LeBong's favorite causes, the revitalization of Griffith Park, which will surely raise the hackles of activists fighting commercialization of the park.

If you've been wondering where Mayor Villaraigosa has been, he's in Nevada looking for voters for Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Faux economist Jack Kyser of the Los Angeles Economic Development Commission was given an award by his own employers. As Walter Moore has pointed out Kyser is not trained as a economist and despite getting many local journalists to hang on his every word he has had some goofy theories. Still even Kyser thinks the massive pay raises given by the City to municipal employees is way off the mark.

I don't know if Jose Huizar will try to make this walk, but Franklin Avenue is doing another annual walk through LA, covering the length of Pico Boulevard from LA to Santa Monica. If you're interested, visit their site and sign up.

Downtown LA via CurbedLA reports that at least $120 million in downtown Quimby funds can't be accounted for by the Department of Recreation and Parks. Hopefully the District Attorney is going to take a look at this. As you know developers are required to pay these funds to the City to build new parks, but none have been built Downtown. And they want your phone tax money!

How does Wal-Mart get around NIMBYs and politicians who block them from opening big stores? Just open up smaller stores.

Capitol Weekly reports that Governor Schwarzenegger vetoes bills at a rate twice that of Gray Davis or Pete Wilson. The more bills vetoed the better I say.