Morning Buzz: Thursday 2.1.07

Social engineers want parking to cost much more than it does, but for everybody else the tab is climbing to unpleasant levels. Especially at night in Hollywood and in office-rich places such as Century City and downtown. Says Roger Vincent in the Times: "Basic economics — rising demand and declining supply — explain the parking price surge. With five years of economic growth adding a stream of new buildings and residents, many lots and garages are filling up or disappearing. Housing developers in particular have converted downtown and Hollywood lots into residential buildings. With downtown land prices now surpassing $300 a square foot, it doesn't make economic sense to buy land just to use it for parking, consultants say. The rise in prices also underscores the region's transformation from an extended suburbia into a more densely occupied urban center with the kind of parking challenges more common in major metropolises such as New York or Chicago."

Anschutz Entertainment Group and various developers, attorneys and cable TV executives gave the most to Mayor Villaraigosa's committees set up to raise cash — free of the usual campaign limits — for his education ambitions. "Some of these contributors...maintain close relationships with Villaraigosa and have had business dealings with the city," the Times says. "But a spokesman for the mayor's government excellence committee said that contributors are not buying access to the mayor but simply supporting his cause." The money paid for lawyers, staff and other expenses. LAT

Times labor writer Joe Mathews sees a potentially big victory for labor. DN story.

Is it true there's been a run on rubber stamps at the downtown Staples store? LAT

Orange County Supes made an all-out push even after Mauk's resignation letter was hand-delivered. It worked. LAT

Federal judge Dickran Tevrizian withdrew his name from consideration for the U.S. Attorney job in Los Angeles, the Times says. LAT

The LA Weekly's Marc Cooper compares recent Times' and Daily Journal stories on the Skid Row crackdown and says they were from different sides of the moon. The LAT's Richard Winton swallowed the LAPD line so efficiently the editors should send Chief Bratton an invoice, Cooper writes, while the DJ's Anat Rubin "got the real story, a big, fat, juicy and important story, and one that the Times completely overlooked in its rush to publish a puffer." LA Weekly

The LAPD's crackdown on Skid Row homeless is creating acute new homeless problems around the city. Anyone not see that coming? LAT

On the same day that Boston was shut down by a movie promotion device that some mistook for bombs, federal officials said they will sue the Los Angeles Times and Paramount Pictures to recover costs from last April's dud promo for Mission: Impossible III. The device placed in newsboxes to play the M:I3 theme when the box was opened spurred bomb calls all over town. The VA hospital near Westwood claims to be out $90,000 and the sheriff's bomb squad blew one up near Santa Clarita. LAT

The blogger L.A. City Nerd announced awards in various categories, including to Blogging.la as the blog that best promotes Los Angeles, Eric Richardson as "the blogger most likely to be a City Nerd in my absence," and LAFD blogging spokesman Brian Humphrey as citizen of the year.

The Times op-ed rightie is Q-and-A'd by CityBeat.

Of course East Los Angeles isn't actually part of any city, but they've been waiting for this for a long time. LAT

But Jonathan Gold says in today's LA Weekly, "Carney’s serves the best hamburgers and hot dogs available in a train car on the Sunset Strip, and this, most of the time, is enough."

Daily News staff writer Brad Greenberg guests on "AIrtalk with Larry Mantle" at 10:30 am to talk about the issue roiling the community of Oak Park.

The mayor will come out for Richard Vladovic in the race for the Board of Education's 7th district seat. Noon, outside the auditorium at San Pedro High School.