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Sunday, December 23, 2007

Sunday Morning Mimosa


JM, Blame the homeless: Splattering Hyperion Bridge, Atwater, 12.21.07 (see earlier items)

Joseph Mailander a guy in laelsewhereemail

I love this term from this Downtown News headliner on yet another to-be-shelved CRA report on what to do with industrial downtown: "Employment Protection Districts." You want to make all of LA an "employment protection district"? Just stop filling the ballots with fraudulent tax measures like S!

Maybe coming from Estolano-Goldberg in the future: "Employment Preservation Overlay Zones"...

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The median price of a home sale in southern Cal has fallen over ten percent from November 2006---and in LA County it's fallen 12 percent, the Daily News says. What that means: more leasing of recently-built spec condos meant to be sold. More rentals in a town that badly needs more homeowners. What else it means: the homeowner-to-renter ratio, already the worst in the nation among big cities, will get even worse.

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Steve Lopez takes the opportunity of the new Zellian climate as an open platform for his personal-vendetta hostility towards the Catholic Church. It's bad enough when former fishwrap of record scribes don't do any investigative journalism around the City; it's twice as bad when you blow a bunch of space doing so tongue-in-cheek. He should apologize to his editors, if he won't to the Church or the readers who expect good-faith content.

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Rumor has it that the Sam Zell Times' subscriber base average age skews into the fiftysomethings, even as it has likely dropped into the 600,000s, but it might be getting even older, if stories like this become the norm. Maybe the former fishwrap of record is more for people who remember what a newspaper actually used to be?

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Only the City of Gardena could turn a skate park into a long, drawn-out community crisis. Funds were encumbered from the County in 2002, and still no skate park, five years later. But now it looks like one is finally coming at last.

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Your Venti Java Chip Frappe, or else...In a scene that must have seemed straight out of Pulp Fiction, three men from my dear old home town of Hawthorne robbed 13 people at a South Bay Starbucks Wednesday night. They sped away at speeds of up to 100 per but were caught the same night. At least when Starbucks robs you, they don't do it at gunpoint.

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14 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said:

Does anyone believe that Lopez would ridicule a rabbi?

December 23, 2007 9:46 AM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

Questions for Joe concerning Yurt Town:

Where exactly is this land "along the river south of Downtown?" Do you have Assessor's Parcel Numbers, or at least some cross-streets?

Who owns the land? If the City does not own it, how long will it take to acquire it? Can it be acquired through eminent domain?

Do the yurts comply with building codes? Does the entire development comply with zoning codes? If not, how long will it take to change the building codes, change the zoning codes, and/or rezone the site? What are the political ramifications of such efforts?

Who will maintain and police the yurts and the grounds they sit on? Taxpayers?

What policies must be put into place to force the homeless off Skid Row and into yurts?

How would social services be provided in Yurt Town? Who would pay for them?

Joe, you bring up Yurt Town every so often on this blog but you are woefully short on details. If you are truly behind this concept, you will answer these questions.

Political will cannot rise from ambiguous, half-baked pleasantries, even if accompanied by heart-breaking photographs.

December 23, 2007 11:07 AM  

Blogger Joseph Mailander said:

Joe, you bring up Yurt Town every so often on this blog but you are woefully short on details.

Oh, really? As a matter of fact, you bring it up way more often than I do, friend.

But by the way, I'm not short on details; you just haven't been paying attention. I call it "Transformation Town" or "T-Town" for short (please click link to find a more balanced response to my proposals than yours).

So just sit tight, troll. Your day is coming; no need to post to every thread. In the meantime, think about what's better for your boss's boss's boss: maintaining the status quo and continuing to pig out at the public trough, or actually doing something about homelessness.

December 23, 2007 2:14 PM  

Blogger Joseph Mailander said:

Here are some better yurts than the Mongolian ones Peter featured:

Pacific Yurts

BTW, some cities in Chile have already done this: solve the homeless problem with yurts in the short term, then let the public-trough developers fight it out for yurt-replacement housing, usually cinder-block housing, for the long term.

December 23, 2007 2:20 PM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

Joe, nice yurts, but what about plumbing, sanitation, security, maintenance, etc.? Here's even cheaper housing:

http://mooreslore.corante.com/archives/images/Soweto.JPG

Oops, kinda makes the homeless too visable. Scratch that.

December 23, 2007 2:32 PM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

One more try on the link:

http://mooreslore.corante.com/
archives/images/Soweto.JPG

December 23, 2007 2:39 PM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

I see that this blog is dropping in traffic and ratings. Joseph Mailander has silly ideas about housing he thinks the Mayor should listen to him but the Mayor does not even know him.

If Zuma Mutt is spending his time playing investment advisor and not posting on the blog he doesn't even care anymore and nobody is reading.

This blog continues to be a joke.

December 23, 2007 3:00 PM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

Joe, you didn't answer a single one of my questions.

-- "Troll" who actually does something about homelessness rather than prattle off ideas with no elaboration.

December 23, 2007 6:03 PM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

"I see that this blog is dropping in traffic and ratings."

It's Christmas you moron and there are still people blogging.

December 23, 2007 6:05 PM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

It's ranked #9 this week. What's wrong with that? Why don't you stop reading it until the ranking increases, then.

December 23, 2007 6:33 PM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

Go 6:33. Ya, you tell 'em.

December 23, 2007 6:44 PM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

Estolano-Goldberg, some friendly advice.

Someone must've finally decided that the eggheads were wrong. You follow the current gameplan and this is what you get. Nobody wants to live in a L.A. that will resemble Shanghai, optimistically, or Bangladesh, realistically. Those massive federal subsidies (ie. welfare, education, anti-crime), to prop up the illusion of normalcy, won't be available much longer.

They've ruined enough neighborhoods as it is. And, business is running away in droves, since the Mexican Mafia took over Tombstone. You girls need to grow some balls and tell the developers to eF off.

December 23, 2007 7:23 PM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

Joe:

Your posting is absolutely right. The LA Times is slowly losing its relevance. No one cares about a bunch of stupid old boomers reliving their hippie days in a commune.

Murdoch paid a 60% premium over the share price for DowJones to get the Wall Street Journal . . . because it matters.

The Sulzberger family fought off Morgan Stanley in a shareholder fight over the NY Times . . . because it matters.

Who wanted the LAT? A naive, guilt-ridden billionaire, a hollywood predator, and a grocery-chain magnate.

Who won the LAT? Sam Zell, otherwise known as "The Grave Dancer."

I think this tells you all that you need to know.

December 23, 2007 8:01 PM  

Blogger Unknown said:

Downtown will never attract full time residents until the criminals and intoxicated homeless are gone. I looked at a hip, cool, trendy rehabbed loft there 25 years ago. There were two vagrants asleep/passed out on the stoop. Back to the burbs for me...

Nothing has changed since then. The city just wants to help developers make money selling $500K "lofts" when they should get out of the planning and let artist types find cheap digs there and develop the area organically.

December 23, 2007 10:44 PM  

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