Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Tuesday

How much will they loan Zev for the Hollywood Bowl?
The Cast of Pawn Stars

Members of the Community Redevelopment Authority board are debating whether or not to give two buildings in South LA free to a real estate developer. Of course their beef isn't over the socialist notion of a public government agency taking private property and giving it to other private parties but whether or not the proposed use (clothes manufacturing) is a "green" industry or not. And you ask why LA is so screwed up!

Local boondoggle of the decade award: the ill-fated attempt to move the Los Angeles Children's Museum to LakeView Terrace (on the site of the legendary Corral country music nightclub).

The City of LA may need to give up operation of the Zoo, Convention Center and even it's animal shelters. For the first time in we don't how long a City official got it absolutely right when City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana told the Daily News "We have to look at what the core mission of the city is." Here's an answer Miguel: pretty much anything that is NOT police, fire, safety or keeping the streets in good condition.

Don't worry that American Idol, The Simpsons or Glenn Beck will not be served up to you via Time Warner Cable. They're getting closer and well before the time Dick Clark airs Thursday a deal will be reached. See? Didn't I tell you?

Local boondoggle of the next decade award: The County of LA Stupidvisors making a risky multi-million dollar loan to LA Opera using a note secured by the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion itself as collateral. What's next? Will they pawn the LaBrea Tar Pits? Kudos to Mike Antonovich for at least having the balls to say no.

Mayor Villaraigosa will talk about his great year on Patt Morrison's KPCC radio show Tuesday.

Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Monday

Janice Hahn and Tom LaBonge | Photo by Jim Winstead; used under Creative Commons license.

Deputy Mayor Diego Alvarez will take on a new position one that is charged with bringing light rail closer to LA's airports.  First step will be for Alvarez to get the Green Line a few blocks closer to LAX via the new Expo Line however the City Council has asked for a study to bring either the Green or Expo lines actually into the airport.  The other task will be to work with the MTA to bring the Gold Line to Ontario Airport. 

CurbedLA notes an LA Times report that notes a significant drop in violent and property crimes in LA.  Does anyone find this coincidental with the increase in medical marijuana dispensaries in the City? Imagine if we out and out legalized the stuff.  I'm just sayin'.

Betty Pleasant not taking a holiday break from running her mouth tries to spin away on her beloved Mark Ridley Thomas' near million dollar office renovation scandal.  Ms. Pleasant says the offices are as raggedy as when Kenneth Hahn left them back in 1992.  Isn't there an after-Christmas sale Betty can hang out at?

Speaking of the Hahns, here's a fun website for you to check out.

Doug McIntyre pens a good piece for the Daily News.  Mayor Villaraigosa said he had a great year.  Too bad it sucked for the rest of Los Angeles.

It appears a new end of the year tradition is Time Warner's annual spat (remember last year with Viacom or 2006 and 2007 versus the NFL?) with some provider of programming and threats from both sides that the channels will go dark.  Each side attempts to enlist TV viewers as soldiers in the war for one or the other.  This year it's TW vs Fox as the two media behemoths tussle over fees as the current agreement expires.  As in every year a last minute resolution will occur as TW needs the programming and Fox needs the eyeballs.  In the meantime cable companies and television stations will become less and less relevant thanks to broadband based programming sources such as YouTube, uStream, Roku, Hulu and others.

Good tip from our friend Brian Humphrey at the LA Fire Department.  Don't be stupid and burn Christmas wrappings nor your Christmas tree in the fire place.  Now that the gifts are open it's time to take that tree down.  Put it out on your curb (if it won't fit in your green bin) on your regular trash pickup day and the City will collect it for recycling.  Or you can take it to any number of drop-off points.

Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Friday

The LA Times has a profile of Mayoral candidate Walter Moore of who Cal State Fullerton professor Raphael Sonenshein, said "somewhere between a minor candidate and major candidate. If someone's going to have a splash, it's going to be him . . . but it's not nearly enough to unseat the mayor." Also uncovered by the report is that Moore did not contact the family of slain teenager Jamiel Shaw before pursuing his death as a campaign issue, "We actually heard about it on the radio. We weren't happy with that,"Althea Shaw told the Times. Councilman Dennis Zine accused Moore of playing politics with Jamiel's death telling the fishwrap "The fact is, I just don't think it's appropriate to use a tragedy to run for public office."

In the Times piece Moore also states that "You got people butchering goats in their frontyard. You've got barnyard animals running around." I haven't seen any goat butchering and I don't know if that's a Wiccan ritual but when it comes to barnyard animals maybe Moore means South LA.  Janice Hahn has a solution though - allow each home to have one rooster.  However that might mean a ban from Jan Perry on Kentucky frying those chickens.

Sea creature antics big news at Pulitizer Paperweight winning WWG's "blog."  "An octopus at the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium opened a valve on its tank and flooded the place with seawater."

Speaking of our favorite faux Pulitizer prize winning suburban Anglo crank, fresh from the Sherry (Shirley?) Bebbitch-Jeffe cocktail circuit, Westside White Guy blurbs the Zuma Dogg-Craig Rubin incident story and somehow works in a gratituous slam on Weekly Deputy Editor Jill Stewart, one of the only media "outlets" in town that doesn't - unlike Old Kev - take it up the patoot from Villlaraigosa and the LA kleptocracy  - and completely misrepresents a story she's written.  Westside White Guy can push for his press club martini stained status quo but as his beloved fishwraps fold and the government he supports is slowly getting unmasked, the world as Roderick knows it may soon be coming to a drastic and sad end.

I've been having big problems this week with Time Warner cable internet and so have others.  Apparently the cable provider has been the victim of denial of service attacks by hackers.  Credit, Time Warner?

Time Warner Cable Internet Spotty Tonight

My internet connection appears to be very spotty tonight.  I called Time Warner and their customer service line has a recording saying that if you're calling because you're having internet trouble you don't need to stay on the line because they're "working on it."

If you don't see a hot sheet tomorrow now you know why.