In Thick Of Bribery Scheme, Mark Ridley-Thomas Gave This Richly Ironic Advice

By Daniel Guss

@TheGussReport on Twitter - An amusing part of watching wonky and tedious government meetings is when agitating gadflies such as Zuma Dogg, Wayne Spindler and the late John Walsh make, and sometimes sing, obnoxious public comments that get under the skin of tightly wrapped politicians.

For example, there's the nugget from 2018 that we're going to revisit today, when then-LA County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who was convicted last week on seven federal corruption counts, interrupted Spindler's button-pushing for, what he described as, a "point of personal privilege."

If only Ridley-Thomas had followed his own advice.

If only all politicians did.

To read the whole column, head on over to DanielGuss.Substack.com and sign-up for my free newsletter.  Also follow me on The Twitters @TheGussReport.

Why Eric Garcetti and Mike Feuer Should Cancel Themselves

 By Daniel Guss

@TheGussReport - LA's Buffoon Bros of Miscarriage and Corruption, Mayor Eric Garcetti and City Attorney Mike Feuer, should spend the coming holiday season reshuffling their future plans.

Eric Garcetti and Mike Feuer

Photo Credit: LA Times

In Garcetti's case, he should pick up the house phone and ring President Joe Biden to withdraw his nomination to become the next U.S. Ambassador to India.  Feuer should withdraw from the Mayor's race and see whether any of the other candidates would welcome his endorsement.  If those candidates are smart, they'll politely decline and change their phone number.

Garcetti and Feuer are more likely than not on the verge of being booted from those pursuits and instead creating mortifying footnotes for their forever Wikipedia pages.  

Better for them to quit rather than being publicly shown the door.

Beyond Garcetti's comprehensive failure as al calde of the second largest American city, everyone from his right-hand man Rick Jacobs to his disgraced former chief of staff Ana Guerrero (and those who covered up for them at the LAPD and City Attorney's office) have been exposed for the bullies and harassers many have long-known them to be, as shown by a series of mortifying exposés and depositions.  It is not possible that these issues have escaped the notice of the FBI and Biden advisors. 

The point is that Garcetti is responsible for all that literally took place right in front of him, and more. The buck is supposed to stop with a chief executive, but Garcetti hasn't taken ownership for any of it, including his welcoming Guerrero back into his office after a lengthy suspension for indiscriminately abusing everyone from little-known locals to historic and accomplished women of color like Dolores Huerta.

As for things that took place right in front of Garcetti.....

Rick Jacobs, Eric Garcetti and others

Photo Credit: LA Times

In fact, logic suggests that someone in the White House, perhaps chief of staff Ron Klain, may soon dial up Garcetti and "politely suggest" that Garcetti do exactly as I recommend.

That way, Garcetti can take his rightful place alongside his inglorious predecessors, like "The 11% Percent Mayor" Antonio Villaraigosa and traffic court judge James Hahn.  He can join some corporate boards, teach a college class and be shown on the 11pm sports report cheering on the Dodgers and Lakers.

I left the Rams out of that thought, because, despite Garcetti's untruthful claims that he "brought the NFL back to LA," they in fact play in the world's greatest stadium in a city he never represented; Inglewood, California.  Sure, Inglewood is in "LA," but that's LA County, where Garcetti has never been an elected official. 

Garcetti failed to get that stadium built in downtown LA as Farmer's Field, though he squandered much time posturing about it, as I pointed out in the Huffington Post a few years back.

And that's the rosier of the two futures outlined in this column.

Our crystal ball says things are much bleaker for Mike Feuer.

It is delusional that someone who is being investigated by the State Bar of California and whose office was raided by the FBI and whose legal hire, Paul Paradis, agreed this week to plead guilty to a $2.2 million kickback scheme while running that scam under the auspices of Feuer's office, thinks he will be elected to succeed Garcetti as Mayor!

Maybe delusional isn't the right word.  Nuts.  Feuer would have to be nuts to believe that.

Mike Feuer

Photo Credit: KTLA

But it's so much worse than that for The Frazzled 'stache of LA City Hall.   

Despite his assertions to the contrary, the U.S. Department of Justice says that Feuer's office knew that Paradis astonishingly represented both the plaintiff and defendant in the scandalous LADWP / PricewaterhouseCoopers lawsuit.

That alone should result in a suspension of Feuer's law license, if not out and out disbarment, even if he didn't personally profit from the bribery, which could include campaign donations to his nascent mayoral campaign.

And yes, I do speculate that Feuer has already spoken with white collar criminal defense law firms to potentially represent him.  One would have to be a nuts (there's that word again) to be raided by the FBI and not immediately pick up the phone to find one.

But to think he still has even a remote chance of becoming mayor?  

Come on.

Then again, maybe Feuer's counting on LA making the same dumb choices for mayor as it has for the past 20 years with Hahn, Villaraigosa and Garcetti.

Hmmmph.  Perhaps he's on to something.

Nevermind, then. We'll simply say this.  If Feuer runs, he will finish with fewer votes than any other major candidate and perhaps even fewer than the spectacular 9,115 votes hauled-in (without spending a dime) by Venice street performer David "Zuma Dogg" Saltsburg in 2009, when he finished in 4th place in a field of ten.   

That's the over/under for Feuer should he stay in the race. Nine thousand one hundred and fifteen votes.  We will see whether Feuer gets fewer than Zuma Dogg.

Of course, there's more to this story than just that.   

What about the names that keep Mike Feuer up at night and whether and when they might resurface?  That's precisely why Feuer's deputy at City Council meetings, one Strefan Fauble, has established a pattern and practice of illegally censoring this column from participating in the meetings of late and his peers continually failing to cure and correct such abuses, as outlined in upcoming complaints, plural, to the State Bar of California.

(Daniel Guss, MBA, was runner-up for the 2020 Los Angeles Press Club journalism award for Best Online Political Commentary and was a runner-up in 2021 too. He has contributed to CityWatch, KFI AM-640, iHeartMedia, 790-KABC, Cumulus Media, KCRW, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Magazine, Movieline Magazine, Emmy Magazine, Los Angeles Business Journal, Pasadena Star News, Los Angeles Downtown News, and The Los Angeles Times in its Sports, Opinion and Entertainment Sections and Sunday Magazine among other publishers. Tell your friends to follow him on The Twitters @TheGussReport, and DM him there to join his distribution list for early story notifications, tips and more.)

Mayor Sam on .................. Afternoon Briefs Assignment

The Mayor Sam Blog is out and about on multiple bloggin assignments as we post briefs below regarding USC, City of Commerce, Los Angeles Rams ............, and a tease (via the Boulevard Sentinel Newspaper) on a breaking scandal regarding a local Chamber of Commerce, once connected to the late CD-14 City Council Legend Art Snyder.

The Mayor Sam is out and about Breaking News on Political Scandals.

Read more »

A Public Service Announcement for Jose Huizar from Zuma Dogg

.@MayorSam: tell @JoseHuizar to take down his campaign signs, paid w clarts fund money. They are magnet for graffiti. pic.twitter.com/uDBqlVykoq
— Zuma Dogg (@ZumaDogg) March 7, 2015

Call A Wahmbulance for Richard Alarcon

Here's a guy, who a jury said broke the law and sold out his communities, including Sunland-Tujunga, getting lots of crocodile tears from nice old ladies awaiting the second coming of Tom Bradley to nice but confused Sun Valley grillmasters who rub shoulders and esteem themselves with local pols while telling other communities to "deal with" the effects of their latest "project."

Anyway, when I think of things these days regarding the state of the city, I ask myself, "What did Zuma Dogg tell us 3-5-10 years ago?" Fortunately, I can easily search the archives of Mayor Sam or one of Zuma's many blogs to find just that. Or even a Google search turns up a treasure trove.

Alarcon once said he didn't want Zuma Dogg dictating policy. But in the end, Zuma Dogg was right about so many things and Alarcon is now a convicted criminal.

The former Councilman has been convicted of perjury and lying about his residence so he could dump an Assembly seat he had been elected to a month before and take up one more lucrative term on the LA City Council. This is not about voters, not about the people, not about community, it's about these people securing as more power and prestige as possible and securing some kind of payday so that they don't ever have to work a real job.

Once the voters start to get how things work, they might start sending a message and vote for people who will actually do the people's business. In the meantime, Richard Alarcon has a message for the dopey voters.

It's Five Years Later and Time to Ask (Again): Was Zuma Dogg Right About Infrastructure?

With the recent break in a major water main in West Los Angeles that has wrought significant damage upon UCLA, one has to ask (again) has LA densified so much and put so much stress upon it's late 19th/early 20th century infrastructure that it is now crumbling under the weight of all this development?

Almost five years ago to the day I wrote the following at this august blog:

Though I haven't always agreed with Zuma Dogg on development in Los Angeles for some time the erstwhile observer, advocate and now Council Candidate has issued clarion calls about overdevelopment in Los Angeles and its impact on an aging infrastructure.

I had hearkened back to a warning that Mr. Dogg, in his own inimitable style issued a year earlier, in 2008:

And oh yeah, are you adding 35% more roads, police, fire, trash collection AND WATER!!! THERE IS NOT ENOUGH WATER TO ACCOMMODATE ALL OF THIS ADDED DENSITY -- AND YOU KNOW THIS. AND YOU WILL NEED WATER TO COOL YOU OFF BASED ON WHERE YOU ARE ALL HEADED FOR THIS. Besides the infrastructure -- THIS WILL CAUSE A SERIOUS WATER PROBLEM!!! WARNING...WARNING...THIS IS NOT A TEST!!!

That's not supposed to happen.

A huge amount of this development coming from affordable and homeless (such as the controversial Day Street Apartments in Sunland-Tujunga) housing that is incentivized through various city regulations and programs and has created a growth industry around growth? Again, Zuma answered that question way back when George Bush was still President and Donald Sterling didn't have a clue who V. Stiviano is. 

It'll take a minute to type up a comedy review exposing all the shady angles, but basically, if you agree to add 10% affordable housing; a developer can increase density by 20% on your project. 20% affordable housing=35% added density "bonus" (incentive).

Go back seven years and Zuma gives the prescription that should have been filled a long time ago that easily foreshadowed incidents such as the Westwood main break, earlier failures of LA's electrical system and countless other infrastructure debacles in just the last few years.

"B-ruined" (Hat tip to Joseph Mailander)

All of this density is being created without the proper infrastructure to accommodate the added demand.

Back in those days, too, there was another guy with a different kind of a bully pulpit, that is radio talk show host Kevin James, who knew deep the failures and corruption of local government, so much so that he gave up his radio career to run for Mayor and state the case for reform and to bring our infrastructure up to snuff.

James didn't win for Mayor but he earned the role of President of the city's Public Works Commission, the key organization to deal with all of the city's pipes, roads, bridges, wires, etc. He said the right thing during the campaign, but following the Great Flood of Westwood, what did President James have to say?

We've been saying these things for almost ten years now. It is time for the residents to wake up. Or, perhaps you like surfing down Glendon?

By the way, I totally agree with Zuma now on development.

Be a Bloggin Pay Pal in uncovering "Waste, Fraud and Abuse" in the CD 14 CLARTS Fund

Presenting the Mayor Sam/ Zuma Dogg "Waste, Fraud and Abuse Pay Pal Telethon".

Uncovering "Waste, Fraud and Abuse" can be a bloggin, costly endeavor, considering this response from the Office of City Controller Wendy "The Villar Greuel" to a California Public Records Act request.  

** Dear Bloggin Friends,

As we know from the "audit for media coverage" endeavors of Mayoral Candidate and City Controller Wendy "The Villara Greuel", uncovering "Waste, Fraud and Abuse" in the Public Sector, is not an inexpensive undertaking (especially when political capital is at stake).

But for us as mere bloggin crusaders of openness and transparency, the cost of uncovering nefarious abuse of public funds is not cheap.

As documented here at Mayor Sam, the stonewalling by CD 14 City Councilman Jose Huizar, in regards to ascertaining past usage of CLARTS Fund proceeds, has been an arduous journey.

Thus, as City Controller Wendy Greuel's staff has now finally develop the program to process our requested information, we ask for your Pal Pal support.

Your kind contribution would support the continuing work of blogs such as Mayor Sam and the Zuma Times in uncovering "Waste, Fraud and Abuse". Thus, enabling "The Villar Greuel" to maintain her focus on the Special Interest priorities of IBEW "Boss Brian D'Arcy" and other campaign contributors.

In the days ahead, we will provide the daily update of the "Pay Pal Tote" as our "Bloggin Waste, Fraud and Abuse Pay Pal Telethon" nears its appointed Election Day end.

Give the love of Pay Pal today and help the bloggin community, truly to uncover "Waste, Fraud and Abuse".

With bloggin respects,

Scott Johnson in CD 14

** Los Cerritos Newsgroup Reporter Randy Economy has pledged the first $20 dollars. Who will match Randy in the spirit of outing "Waste, Fraud and Abuse"?

  

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Donna Williams <donna.williams@lacity.org>
To: redspotincd14@yahoo.com
Cc: Claire Bartels ; Ruby Love <ruby.love@lacity.org>
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2013 4:48 PM
Subject: CA Public Records Act Response

Jose, I made sure it was costly to ascertain what you have done with the CD 14 CLARTS Fund.

Dear Mr Johnson:
We have determined that the data extraction cost is $130.00 for CLARTS fund records.  If you would like to receive the records, please mail a check payable to the City of Los  Angeles addressed to:            City of Los Angeles            Office of the Controller            Attention: Donna Williams            200 North Main St., Ste. 300            Los Angeles, CA 90012 Upon receipt of your payment we will provide the records .If you have any questions, please contact me. 
-- Donna Williams Executive Administrative Assistant Office of the Los Angeles City Controller 200 N. Main Street, Suite 300
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Your thoughts ..............
Scott Johnson in CD 14 

Times: Greuel may have missed red flags in fight against Home Depot

Public Advocate of the Community

UPDATE: Audio - Zuma Dogg tells story of chance meeting with woman alleged to be at center of alleged Wendy Greuel PR campaign against Home Depot.

Something I learned this week...always listen to Zuma Dogg.

Completely plugged in, even in retirement, and nearly always prescient, the former radio executive turned performance artist turned community advocate has really never steered me wrong.

Last week, ZD brought to my attention a story that I thought was irrelevant, old news and not likely to catch attention in the milieu of the Mayoral race.

I was wrong.

Today, the LA Times published a story that, in seeking to block a controversial Home Depot in Sunland-Tujunga, at the time part of her then City Council District, Greuel may have failed to disclose her business interests in a local building supply firm. 

Full disclosure, I was for the Home Depot before I was against it and currently live less than a quarter-mile from the site. I still believe, for many reasons, blocking the Home Depot was good for the community.

Co-Owner of Frontier Building Supply
Wendy Greuel, Candidate for Mayor

In the Times story by Jack Dolan, several ethics officials remark that Greuel should have recused herself from votes on the Home Depot matter. The story alludes the matter could come before the state's Fair Political Practices Commission.

Greuel's position is that her business would not be affected by the Home Depot.

Beyond the surface level issue of Greuel's ownership of Frontier Building Supply, a San Fernando Valley based construction supply firm with a branch in Oxnard, Zuma Dogg presented additional potentially even more damaging allegations against Greuel.

In a blog post last week, reprinted from a 2011 post authored by Mr. Dogg, the advocate/blogger presents claims that City Hall insiders told him that Greuel allegedly hired a PR firm to assist her with the Home Depot fight.

It must be noted that these allegations are from anonymous sources and are not verified. We are happy to publish information to the contrary. That being said, the Times article is interestingly timely in light of the information Zuma presented to me last week and has published at his blog.

We will continue to follow this up and extend the offer right here to present any rebuttals from the Wendy Greuel campaign.

Morning Briefs on "Redrawing the Los Angeles Political Machine" for Thursday

Who is the infamous City Council President Herb Wesson staffer Michael Bai? Link here to read LA Weekly's Hillel Aron's missive on the controversy behind Bai and the Koreatown slapback on Redistricting.

Moving onwards with their once in a decade endeavor to recreate fifteen campaign shakedown zones, the City of Los Angeles Redistricting Committee made a one night stand in the center ring of the City Clowncil chambers last evening. And judging from various sources, drama was not lacking ........

CD 14 Chief of Staff Ana Cubas.

From the Arroyo Seco Journal's post on last night's marathon theatrics, it seem that CD 14 Chief of Staff Ana Cubas was playing regional bias with the speaker cards.

Controversy colored the conclusion of tonight’s five-hour long City Council Redistricting Commission hearing. At 11 p.m., City Controller Wendy Greuel’s appointee to the commission, Helen Kim, alleged that Councilmember Jose Huizar’s Chief of Staff had handled speaker cards for the first two hours of the hearing, making sure that speakers from Council District 14 were heard early on. This had the effect, according to Kim, of moving the many Korean Americans present to the bottom of the speaker card pile. 

..... and we have more witnesses to Cubas "card playing".

Grace Yoo of the Korean American Coalition, a prominent force behind the movement to unite Koreatown in one council district, accused the commission of treating the local Korean community with no respect. 

Yoo said that she watched Ana Cubas, Huizar’s Chief of Staff, help with the cards, and that people who came in after others moved past the early arrivals in the line. 

Was the audience made known of any geographical order of speakers? Judging from this ..........

Councilmember Eric Garcetti appointee Robert Ahn opined that if preference is going to be given to a certain region, that fact should be announced. He questioned why a council staff member was handling that task rather than commission staff 

We also have a Zuma Dogg sighting with comments of course ..............

Your thoughts..............
Scott Johnson in CD 14

Saturday Morning Quickies: Occupy LA getting violent and other news

Zuma Dogg faces harsh backlash from the "Red Rabble on the South Lawn" 

** Please excuse my politically incorrect premise, but are we nearing the 28 day of Occupy LA? This because as the "Old Gray Hag on Spring Street" reports, the "occupy women" are becoming more agitated with two acts of violence taking place yesterday via female assailants.The violent upswing via the assorted members of the "Red Rabble on the South Lawn", especially among the female comrades, should come as no surprise considering the increasing unsanitary conditions, mixed with excessive drug use and sex, would cause one's female balance to go wacko. BTW, the Times made no mention of the Free Speech assaults on Zuma Dogg. 

** Former City Councilman Paul Koretz endorsee and Jack Weiss contributor Ron Galperin is the third candidate to pull papers for City Controller in 2013. Galperin joins CD 3 City Councilman Dennis Zine and activist Cary Brazerman, in seeking to replace the "Valley Greuel" as Controller.

** Mayor Antonio Villar allocated a good portion of his 11% wok time as Mayor, to crafting a letter to Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, expousing on the need for local ownership of the Los Angeles Dodgers (ie. someone I know that will continue to comp me into the stadium).

Your thoughts and great Saturday to all.

Scott Johnson in CD 14  .

Zuma Dogg's Free Speech Rights assailed by Occupy LA Mob

Zuma Dogg with CD 11 City Councilman Bill Rosendahl.

From Zuma Dogg at Occupy LA today ** We will post video shortly---Scott Johnson.

VIDEO: Zuma Dogg is "attacked" by ANGRY OCCUPY LA crowd, as they try to prevent his free speech in a public park.

In this video from 10/28/11, Zuma Dogg set up his amp, to sing and deliver his political message (as protected by the U.S. Constitution). As soon as he began, he was quickly surrounded by an angry mob, who tried to prevent him from expressing his own message. The attempts to prevent the "Jackie Robinson" of Free Speech exercise (@ZumaDogg) included encroachment; shoving; pushing; shouting in close proximity/blocking my camera and movement; continually shutting off my amp; screaming at me what I was allowed to do -- and how I was allowed to do it; stealing the power cord to my amp, at which time I was told I could have it back "IF" certain conditions were met; and you can hear, when I am allowed a moment to start speaking, I do so in a regular/non-shouting tone...then the crowd further harasses and I have to try to get on top of the mob that is directly in front of me. It is a big park. No reason my movements and expression had to be limited/impinged.

Controller Greuel and Councilman Zine: Lets play "Look for the $10,000 CRA Logo"

The pandering political duo of City Councilman Dennis Zine and City Controller Wendy "Valley Greuel".

In the spirit of City Councilman Dennis Zine's Audit and Governmental Efficiency Committee proposal that would require all municipal workers to report fraud, waste and abuse within city government. We provide this opportunity to Zine and Greuel to lead by example and find the waste of CRA money in the photos below, as noted in Zuma Dogg's excellent post on CD 14's CASA 0101 CRA Outreach Contract. We provide the pertinent information for your task between the photos from the CASA 0101 CRA Contract..  

 Inclusion of CRALA logo on CASA 0101

website, social media pages (Facebook,

Myspace, Twitter) and on bi-monthly

E-blasts. (The latter has over 3100 addresses)

$10,000

We await your findings in the near future, or maybe this was another tired act in political pandering?

Your thoughts..............

Scott Johnson in CD 14

Los Angeles Politics HotSheet for Thursday

The wheels coming off the bus is a term that seems to have been used quite a lot lately, but it's probably an apt one to describe the campaign of UFLAC President Pat McOsker for CD15. Here in our pages we've chronicled (as well as other blogs) McOsker's apparent foul temper and even fouler mouth. Those qualities generally do not endear one to others and that appears to be the case here.  McOsker has failed to gain the endorsement of his own union and may face a vote asking him to step down as head of the union next week.
Read more »

Sorry, Carmen?

Los Angeles Dragnet is reporting rumors that City Attorney Carmen Trutanich is planning to drop his bid for District Attorney.

And this is just as the Nuch Machine was learning how to spin comments on MayorSam.

We do not know if the recent change to our comment policy put an end to the former tuna worker's campaign; most notably it was payback from Jan Perry and reports of disarray in his office. And maybe a little bad karma for leading Zuma Dogg down the primrose path.

The frontrunners for the DA race, to succeed the retiring Steve Cooley, are prosecutors Alan Jackson and Jackie Lacey.

UPDATE: More bad news for Carmen - Jackson announces that he has raised nearly $250K so far for his race.

Los Angeles Politics HotSheet for Monday

The well reported Martin Declaration by Deputy City Attorney Claudia Martin isn't helping Carmen Trutanich much. Going into next week the City Council is looking to emasculate Trutanich by pulling various functions from his office and handing them to private attorneys.  We discussed this matter at length on Live LA Saturday Night this past weekend with blogger and activist Zuma Dogg and Deputy DA David Berger.

Jerry Brown and the State Legislature are taxing online purchases, leading to e-tailer Amazon shutting down thousands of mom and pop affiliate businesses in California.  Who's behind this travesty? Liberal Democrats? Well, yea, but there's a bigger villain here: Wal-Mart.  Amazon is prepping a ballot measure.


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Zuma Dogg Robocalls Against Janice Hahn

Is Janice Hahn trying to distance herself from Mayor Villaraigosa and the City Council?

Like him or not, Zuma Dogg is almost always right and ahead of the game.  LA's fighter of fraud, waste and abuse is robo-calling against Janice Hahn's campaign for Congress.

Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Tuesday

Paul Hatfield makes a good point that downtown development projects no longer need multi-million City subsidies.  However he thinks the money would be better spent in North Hollywood, where bringing back desperately needed retail back to North Hollywood is de rigeur.  That is, however, if you really think taxpayer money better spent on public safety and other vital needs should go to ANY development.

If the builders of California's bullet train switch the route to run over the Grapevine instead of a circuitous one that goes through the Antelope Valley, they can save millions of dollars, avoid potential earthquake issues and detour around some NIMBYs in upscale portions of Palmdale (is there such a thing?). But gravy train Republicans from Palmdale are up in arms.

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Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Monday

I recently read an essay by John Taylor Gatto (no relation to Mike Gatto or Daulton Gatto I presume; that they share a surname must be purely coincidental) on what a ridiculous notion our warehouse model of public education is.  We see more games as played by the LAUSD and the teachers' unions as Westchester's local high school is going from the traditional model to that of being a magnet school, more like a university beckoning those how have means to get to what is perceived as a beacon in an educational swamp.  Westchester need not worry! This may be an opportunity to drive their children towards charter schools, private schools and home schooling - new models of education that don't lump the masses into a pre-fab sludge of forcing children to fit into cookie cutters and disrespect the vastly different learning style of each kid.  There, I said it.

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Sunday Afternoon Snack

When I was a teen visiting my cousins in Iowa, they were amazed that we had lemon trees in our front yard, at my San Fernando Valley Home.  It hadn't occurred me to me that while trucks brought lemons to the Midwest for lemonade and meringue every summer, they had never seen a lemon tree.

Orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit and tangerine trees are commonplace in the yards of many Los Angeles homes.  An outgrowth of the citrus truck farming that was prevalent, particularly in the San Fernando Valley.  More so, the planting of these trees was one of many inducements to migrants to Southern California, the dream of sunshine all the time and the option to step out your back door and within moments be enjoying fresh squeezed orange juice.

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Zuma Dogg Nails Huizar's Vernon Intentions

We reported the other day on Jose Huizar's move to attempt to have the City of Los Angeles annex the struggling and shady nearby berg of Vernon.  Other bloggers noted it as a noble, democratic effort on the part of Street Hassle's favorite messiah next to Mike Gatto, but Zuma Dogg makes it very clear what's behind the move:

Money.  More precisely, a renewable energy scam with deep tentacles into the highest level of LA's elected leaders.

Read more about at Zuma's blog.