Don Shirley: Pianists make history
Iris Schneider on Annie Leibovitz
The Times also named the editor who will oversee presidential campaign coverage and hired LZ Granderson, formerly of ESPN, as a hybrid sports and culture columnist.
Archive: Politics
The Times also named the editor who will oversee presidential campaign coverage and hired LZ Granderson, formerly of ESPN, as a hybrid sports and culture columnist.
A Change.org petition by Rob Eshman asks Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to make it happen.
Cities again barred from prosecuting the homeless. Hands across the aisle at USC. Much more.
The LAT also loses sports reporter Lindsey Thiry to ESPN and previously lost White House correspondent Brian Bennett to Time.
Fox 11 morning anchor Elex Michaelson will host the 10:30 p.m. show.
The mayor has now been to the four early nominating states for the 2020 presidential election. But Monday it's a speech in Los Angeles.
The LA Times staff voted union but there's a lot more going on. Val Zavala retires from KCET. Remembering Ed Moses and Greg Critser.
LA Times journalists vote on a union this week. Plus the most-clicked story of 2017, Hollywood women organize, notes on media politics and place, and selected tweets.
The scandal that won't go away. An LAT columnist apologizes. Job movies, an invite from the New York Times and other media notes.
LA Observed Notes: Covering Harvey, Dodgers flailing, an editor change in LA, media notes, Angels Flight shuts again
Today's Bullet Points include LA Times newsroom love for a fired editor, pink blobs in Echo Park, media notes and selected tweets.
Bullet Points: A horrific jail death. Food writers in Tuscany. The LA Times follows on Canter's. A media promotion, a hire, and the celebrity terminal at LAX. Plus a difficult long read.
Bullet Points: An LA Republican discusses Trump. Nazis in LA. A new reporter in town. Tommy Hawkins dies.
Bullet Points: Attacking the Jews in Charlottesville. Zócalo on the move. USC Village. Transitions at City Hall and the Times.
Nazi and racist scum in Virginia, Trump equates, and a nation shakes its head. Plenty of media and politics notes and selected tweets.
Our occasional gathering of notes on media, politics and place with selected tweets.
LA Times explains how many times it gave USC a chance to comment on a dean's secret life. Plus LAT buyouts, media people doing stuff and selected tweets.
The dean of newspaper science writers is apparently retiring at age 98. Slacker! Plus a ransomware attack at KQED and CalBuzz calls it quits for now.
NPR staffers won't face a strike. Obits for Martin Landau, George Romero, Bill Smith and Tenny Tenusian. Selected tweets.
Plus what some LA media people are doing and selected tweets from the past week.
Sen. Franken was on KPCC Friday and is talking about his new book in Beverly Hills (twice) and in Glendale.
Plus it's time to pay attention to the Dodgers, Roxane Gay is in town, media people doing stuff and selected tweets.
"Left, Right & Center is one of KCRW’s most popular shows, on air and as a podcast..."
Chock full of Monday observations on media and media people, politics, place and more. Plus a good week for selected tweets.
Our irregular compendium of media, police and place with selected tweets.
There will be yet another expensive and even smaller special election in Los Angeles later this year.
Our occasional roundup of news and observations from the media, politics and place. Plus selected tweets and more.
Walters says his politics column, around since 1981, will live on in a new home.
The total jumped 23 percent over last year despite many more homeless people being moved into housing. So it could have been even worse.
Our occasional roundup of news and observations from media, politics and place. With some selected tweets.
Our occasional roundup of news and notes on media, politics and place. Plus selected tweets.
Also: Monica Rodriguez elected to the Los Angeles City Council. Board of Education member Steve Zimmer lost.
Our occasional roundup of media, politics and place news and notes.
Our occasional roundup of news and observations on media, politics and place. Plus selected tweets.
Media and politics notes for the new week, plus selected tweets.
Challenger to Councilman Gil Cedillo says he remains in the race for May 16 runoff.
"As Mayor, there’s no issue I spend more time on," Garcetti says in his annual state of the city speech.
You probably have heard of David Fahrenthold by now. Ex-LAT journalists re-uniting at CNN. Octavia Butler, Bob Miller, politics notes.
"He is not merely amusing. He is dangerous," Monday's editorial says. "He has made himself the stooge...for every crazy blogger, political quack, racial theorist, foreign leader or nutcase peddling a story."
"Nothing prepared us for the magnitude of this train wreck," the Los Angeles Times says of Donald Trump in a full-page editorial. Plus: Paul Magers, the Groundlings founder and more.
Soon-Shiong looks to be moving on Ferro. Variety snags an editor. Another Los Angeles Magazine editor leaves.
He's under 50 percent in the final vote tally and becomes the first councilman since 1999 to face a reelection runoff.
Media and politics notes from all over, plus media people news, some place notes and selected tweets.
The county homeless measure and Gil Cedillo's reelection are too close to call, but there will be runoffs for the school board and in the Valley's council district 7.
Nick Ut's retirement. Key editors jump from the LA Times. Downtown News sold. Plus many more notes and observations.
Keith Boyer, a veteran with the Whittier Police Department, was 53 and a father. He was shot by a recent parolee.
The conservative talk show host and Chapman law professor is on a roll with Trump.
News, notes and observations of media, politics and place. Plus selected tweets.
Trump's orders to block refugees and travelers from Muslim countries - even U.S. legal residents - caught Homeland Security by surprise. Protesters and lawyers flooded the airport.
Hard to imagine a bigger change to the infrastructure and environment of the Westside.
Our occasional roundup on media, politics and place from multiple sources.
A few hundred thousand people on the streets all day and no arrests of any kind. Lots of great signs though.
Media, books, politics and place and a few tweets.
Our occasional roundup on media, politics and place from a variety of LA Observed sources.
Media notes to end 2016, plus politics, place, selected media tweets and more.
Media and politics notes, observations on place and much more.
A extra big helping of our occasional roundup of media, politics and place notes.
One candidate who might have had a chance against Eric Garcetti cites "our nightmare of a national election" in getting out of the 2017 race.
Our occasional offering of media, politics and place noted from assorted sources.
New attorney general appointed. An anchor leaves the news desk. What to do with P-45.
Councilman Jose Huizar has had enough already, tweeting "If we acquiesce to his falsehoods, we fall victim to tyrannical government."
Donald Trump tweets his way to the top item again by inventing a new conspiracy. Plus much more.
Our semi-regular column of media and politics notes, with other news and observations.
Some observations, plus a weekly dose of media and politics notes.
There's no surprise that Attorney General Kamala Harris was elected to succeed Barbara Boxer in the U.S. Senate. The news is that California voters also approved legal marijuana, kept the...
Franklin Pierce won with the help of early LA figures like the Californio Andres Pico.
Queuing to vote across LA, Trump's last stand, and why the sports department hates election night.
The second memo of the fall election cycle reminds reporters and editors that social media is on the record.
Gigantic Frank Gehry project on Sunset Boulevard approved. Kudos for LAT's Sea Breeze investigation. Notes on Campaign 2016, 2017 and 2018. And more.
LA Times investigations afflict the powerful. LA's homeless shame. Notes on media, politics and place.
LA Times loses a top Hollywood voice. Dodgers go home. More Trump and Clinton notes.
Author, activist and former California state assemblyman and senator Tom Hayden has died in Santa Monica after a lengthy illness.
Because there's more going on than Donald Trump's get-even war on America.
First time the f-word got in print since 1998, the paper says. The explainer is less revealing about the Trump tapes landing on Saturday's page 10.
Interesting news from downtown, sadness in Palm Springs and a bad week for Trump and his ilk. Plus much, much more.
Los Angeles can breathe again. The day no one wanted to come has passed.
Everywhere else the election is the main story, but here it's also about Vin Scully.
Our occasional roundup on media, politics and place.
Edelman represented the Westside and the Fairfax area for 29 years and led the fight for children's services, AIDS treatment, mental health services and the arts.
From his home on Rockingham Avenue in Brentwood, where he and his wife Betty hosted countless salons and strategy meetings, Stanley Sheinbaum played a key role in LA and world events.
Hillary Clinton's pneumonia takes her out of California to start the week. Inside the gentrification of Grand Central Market. More media, politics and place.
Joe Hicks, the co-founder of Community Advocates Inc. and a long-time media commentator on race and columnist in Los Angeles, died Sunday.
Herb Wesson has received five default notices for being late with mortgage payments.
The councilman from the northeast Valley stayed less than one term.
Villaraigosa was married to Patricia Govea at a hotel in San Miguel de Allende.
The Secretary of State gave Joe Shammas a certificate saying he finished second to Rep. Tony Cardenas. Then he took it away.
Villaraigosa talked down speculation that he might end the week as chair of the
Democratic National Committee.
"Don’t use your social media feed to pan or praise candidates, parties or their positions," a memo from the managing editor reminds reporters.
Donald Trump piñatas are a staple at shops in the Los Angeles piñata district these days.
After 3,304 morning newsletters since 2007, he's off to start a new media company with partners from Politico.
This is the kind of completely new development turn for Los Angeles that should get a thorough debate in the political arena but that rarely does.
Shooters apparently firing semi-automatic weapons hit at least 11 police officers in Dallas tonight at an otherwise calm protest over police shootings of unarmed suspects in other cities.
It's Kathryn Barger and Darrell Park in the 5th district.
People see what he backs as a politician, but they don’t see what he’s willing to fight for, says Los Angeles Magazine.
The Green Dot charter schools founder says he's in "to disrupt the political establishment and turn our city around."
There's nothing going on, but the trick is to make it look like there is for a few days.
President Obama and his family spent Fathers Day weekend in Yosemite Valley and appeared to be appropriately blown away.
Trump adds the very mainstream Post to the list of neutral orgs he doesn't want covering him.
Cherry picking of some results that stand out from the others.
$1 billion effort with the Republican National Committee kicks off here May 25.
We have a very beautiful state here. Absolutely beautiful.
Old friend of LA Observed Steve Greenberg offers up this take on Ted Cruz and his new running mate.
The time was 1972. Sanders says, "I would never vote for a bum like that!”
Assemblyman Roger Hernandez is accused of domestic abuse by his wife, a Baldwin Park City Council member.
Before the former Charles Manson follower could actually get parole, the full state parole board and Gov. Jerry Brown would have to approve.
Son of the former Assembly speaker got out of prison Sunday thanks to act by then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
There's good news and bad news for Westside drivers in the president's schedule of fundraiser appearances this trip.
The first liberal 4-1 majority looks almost certain after this year's elections.
Women really, really detest the Republican frontrunner, who polls worse than Dick Cheney or George H.W. Bush at their lowest.
The longtime Westside councilman and television host entered hospice care last month.
Aides of the Valley councilwoman and their family members have been called into a grand jury over $5 and $10.
He breaks the news at a Town Hall lunch meeting then takes it to Twitter.
The California primary on June 7 is very much in play for Republicans.
The former LA County coroner will return on an interim basis to keep things running.
Organizers say the measure belongs on a city ballot to be locally debated.
With his convictions overturned on appeal, Alarcon says he is a candidate for Congress in the Valley.
Mark Fajardo was here less than three years and says the department is understaffed due to budget issues.
The mountain lion's long-term prognosis doesn't get any better on the news that he's probably preying on the LA Zoo's animals now.
Anthony Rendon becomes Speaker, Trump trouble in Silicon Valley, candidate trouble for the Democrats in Simi Valley and more.
"I’m hurting and I’m sad and mad...I’m beginning to feel the city isn’t good for me anymore," Gigi Graciette vents.
Los Angeles needs a mayor whose goal isn't climbing the ladder to the next office, Mitchell Schwartz says.
On its first day under a new publisher, though I don't know if it mattered, the Los Angeles Times editorial board used very strong rhetoric in an editorial blasting...
Competing ballot measures on housing in LA. Rising crime rates. Winter heat is back. And much more.
He is at home in Mar Vista and "gravely ill," his successor, Mike Bonin, announced on Facebook.
In an unexplained reversal, the state attorney general's office says it is reviewing the LA sheriff's department's handling of the substitute teacher.
The LA Times covers the political rift at the commission like a huge outrage story.
All other news: secondary.
The president has fundraisers in Hancock Park and a taping in Burbank for the Ellen DeGeneres Show.
Plea deal with federal prosecutors would cap prison time for Lee Baca at under a year, reports say.
O'Donnell, 47, pushed Gov. Brown to sign California's new right-to-die act, which won't take effect until later this year.
Catching up to a week's worth of media moves and hires, political notes and a whole lot more.
Allison Wisk has been deputy politics editor at the Dallas Morning News and has a J.D. degree. Also: New reporter in Sacramento.
"Bridging the Divide: Tom Bradley and the Politics of Race" runs Thursday night at 8 p.m. on PBS SoCal.
Carl Marziali is the former VP for media and public relations at USC.
After losing badly in his try to join the LA City Council, Davis is now on the media side of the presidential campaigns.
Trump's first test with actual voters falls short. Not a great result for Hillary Clinton either.
California's Secretary of State put his family in a Burbank hotel about six weeks ago.
Steve Barr in photo by Kris Krug on Flickr via LA Weekly. Add Green Dot Charter Schools founder Steve Barr to the menu of candidates that might run against Mayor...
He's a Democratic strategist and environmentalist and a neighbor of the mayor's in Windsor Square.
There could be a train to the Inglewood stadium but the current earliest date is 2035.
Some details are getting out about the federal criminal investigation that seems to involve City Councilwoman Nury Martinez and her staff. City Hall reporter David Zahniser reports in the LA...
Former LA City Councilman state lawmaker Richard Alarcon and his wife have already served their sentences in a case about where they officially lived for voting purposes.
Aides for elected officials get to go where news cameras can't. But the Gas Co. got Sherman to take the videos down.
Developments at Porter Ranch. Penske buys Indiewire. Univision buys the Onion. A fake Politico reporter. Local finalists for the National Book Critics Circle. And much more.
"If the wellhead fails," says a physical sciences professor, "It will be a horrible, horrible problem."
Majestic Yosemite Hotel and Half Dome Village just don't sound like Yosemite. Fix it.
The sidewalk on Prosser Avenue in Rancho Park has been a trip-and-fall waiting to happen since at least 2012. We have the pictures.
Wendy Greuel with Bill Clinton at Langer's Deli during the 2013 mayoral campaign. Photo: Gary Leonard. Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel were City Hall allies, and I believe friends, before...
Selected items from the media, our in box and other LA Observed sources.
It's the first time the LAPD chief has recommended charges in the killing of an unarmed suspect.
Next for Porter Ranch, Year 30 of the homeless crisis, a busy week for the LAFD and more.
Three stops including San Gabriel and at the Jim Henson studios on La Brea Avenue in Hollywood.
Managing editor will run the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative in LA. Also: what the LA Times wants in its next California politics editor.
Several state agencies are ordered to take a role in getting SoCal Gas to stop the methane venting above Aliso Canyon.
Notes and news items that amassed during the holiday break around here.
For the first time in a long while, crime is up in all categories and in all police divisions across Los Angeles.
The downtown civic push to (re)reinvent Pershing Square took a step forward today with the naming of four final design concepts from which the actual plan will be chosen.
Rep. Brad Sherman analyzes the language used, the likelihood that the writer was Muslim, and whether LA officials were right to act.
"It’s the climate equivalent of the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico," the Guardian says. More than 3,000 Angelenos remain out of their homes.
LA Unified closed all of its schools based on a crude email threat that many experts dismissed almost immediately as a probable hoax. Schools are open today.
Kuehl gets the last word after one of the regulars calls the Jewish supervisor an "anti-Semitic scumbag."
"If Los Angeles had another 100 Leonard Shapiros we'd be in a lot better shape than we are today," his wife wrote in a 1984 letter to the editor.
Catching up from the holiday on politics and media notes, plus a lot more.
New manager for the Dodgers. Growth politics in LA. Women in Hollywood. Lots and lots of media notes. And more.
Cannick was arrested by the LAPD while covering a Ferguson protest in DTLA as a reporter last November.
Two black women -- an executive rousted at gunpoint and the chief of police -- have varied perspectives of the same incident.
Another missile launch coming? That homeless state of emergency pledged in LA never happened. Plus more.
In the end he did endorse Clinton, but it took the mayor's staff a while to get there.
The short-term rental service defeated Measure F in Tuesday's election by 55% to 45%.
A weather change. Tarantino plans to apologize. A new spokeswoman for Kuehl. More politics, media and place.
There are openings for deputy director of communications, speechwriter and press secretary, per LinkedIn.
Yahoo Politics profile says LA's mayor may be the future of the Democrats. Plus Garcetti on the set of "Brooklyn Nine-Nine."
Water flows in the LA aqueduct again. Vin Scully repeats next year is his last season. Los Fezil. And more.
A drone knocks out power. La Opinión endorses Kamala Harris. Media notes. And much more.
Catching up to news from politics, media and place. Plus more.
Biden won't run. DWP rates to rise. 99.9 percent chance of an earthquake. Media moves, the Murdoch brothers and more.
A community forum in Jefferson Park was cut short by protesters and, in front of TV cameras, the mayor was hustled out through a pressing crowd.
At least 18 reporters on Hillary Clinton are women. "No one can remember a political press corps this heavily female," says Politico.
Catching up on politics and media news, job moves and some notes on place. Including: Metro losing riders.
He is a bean counter "actually worth writing about" and the point man in City Hall on the homeless issue, says the Downtown News.
The Center for Investigative Reporting got the story rolling. Now Steve Lopez is on the case.
Hoffenblum was a Republican strategist who created the nonpartisan and respected California Target Book.
Read the memo: Myers is the California political and government editor at KQED in the Bay Area and a longtime Sacramento media hand.
She will launch the California Playbook, Politico's west coast edition of Mike Allen's Playbook. "Within weeks," Politico says.
Andy Bales caught the trifecta of Skid Row infections — E. coli, strep and staph — and now uses a wheelchair. "Conditions on Skid Row are worse than they have ever been…"
That June gathering of power players and civic activists at Tony Pritzker's home is going public with a discussion event at LACMA.
Gregory Caruso was the unflinching young guy sitting just left of Jake Tapper and creating a lot of social media buzz.
Essential Politics so far looks as if it will aggregate Times coverage of the presidential campaign and other politics news, with some narrative and analysis tying items together.
Media moves, crime politics, fires, LA bike gangs observed and much more.
Byers will be the senior reporter for media and politics at CNNMoney and CNN Politics.
In early August we published a blogger piece about Williams, convicted in the murder of Los Angeles police officer Thomas Williams in 1985.
Mayor Garcetti and Council President Wesson will talk about the City Council's Olympics vote way out in Santa Monica.
Items include Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, Daniele Watts, Eric Garcetti, Frank Gehry, Aja Brown, Wes Craven, Serena Wlliams, Jessica Mendoza, Claudia Puig and more.
Jeff Millman is going to work for the effort preparing LA's bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics.
The City Council says OK but there are some official hurdles still to jump.
Politics and media moves. New homeless numbers. Stephen Colbert's guests. NYT newsletters. Kirk and Anne Douglas will give it away. And more.
Mayor Eric Garcetti on Monday signed an executive order ordering departments to report back with ways to reduce traffic deaths in Los Angeles -- to zero.
Jerry Brown on "Meet the Press." Toni Atkins on "News Conference." A crossword creator dies. And much more.
Dave Lesher named to run start-up CalMatters. News from City Hall and the county, and much more.
City Council members have other ideas on some of the mayor's favorite things. Plus: Calling the pols on setting impossible goals.
He heads out today to the Central Valley after last night's Hillary Clinton fundraiser -- which at least one neighbor didn't appreciate.
The city's utility overcharged by about $44 million while trying to roll out a new, apparently flawed billing system.
He's also the most influential City Council president since John Ferraro and possibly ever.
Can you help this ex-Marine get her old uniform back? Lots of politics, media and place for a desk-clearing Friday.
The Republican who goes back to the original community college board in LA wants to follow 36 years on the Board of Supervisors with a term on the state Senate.
At $100, it’s the hottest little ticket among Hollywood Democrats because it gives them a first chance to see the former mayor's new Hollywood Hills pad.
Statewide officials and the county Supes are next. Garcetti is an "earnest booster" who needs to get to the hard work, Times publisher says.
Trump vs. Megyn Kelly but not on Fox. Bernie Sanders in LA today. Amazing ratings for GOP debate but not "True Detective." James Poniewozik to NYT TV beat. Drone racing. And more.
"Unfortunately, our concerns are becoming reality," the LAT opinion side says in its latest report card.
City Hall politics, media items, books news and place notes, including Maria Sharapova at Gjusta.
Reports are that Ontario will reimburse LA for its investment at the airport and settle a lawsuit alleging poor management.
Council member Mitch O'Farrell jumped in the new Hollywood pool fully clothed.
Identity theft, manslaughter and driving under the influence were among the convictions of Uber drivers that would bar them driving an LA taxi.
Herb Wesson's report card, Ted Rall fights back and new mountain lion cubs in the Santa Monicas. Plus more.
Politics, media and place with a little news thrown in. Catching up from the weekend.
The narrative of Mayor Eric Garcetti as an overly cautious waffler continues to take hold.
As LA-based 3 Wire Sports urged last month, Boston is no longer an obstacle to Los Angeles getting the 2024 Summer Games.
Times editors give another letter grade. CBS2/KCAL promotes Amber Lee. Key and Peele to end their Comedy Central show. More politics and media notes.
Biden was in town. Ex-LA Times reporter takes a job in City Hall. Fernando Valenzuela becomes a citizen. And California's hangup on superheroes. Plus more.
The action brings the county in line with Los Angeles City Hall. Over to you Long Beach, Glendale and Santa Clarita.
The LA Times editorial board wants Controller Ron Galperin to think bigger and be noisier.
Los Angeles is getting credit for trying to fix the technology side of the old-fashioned and embarrassing way that the U.S. conducts elections.
Connie Llanos, formerly of the Daily News, works now for Councilman Curren Price and was a spokesperson for Wendy Greuel in the 2013 mayoral campaign.
Ridley-Thomas and more politics notes, DeAndre Jordan stays with Clippers, new hosts at NPR's All Things Considered and more.
Chief executive office is weakened and now if you run the hospitals or mental health services, you again have to report to an elected politician.
New LA Times analysis shows the downward trend in LA crime stats is over and that crime is up in all major categories except homicide.
The PGA Grand Slam of Golf is looking for another home, while conservative opinionist Jonah Goldberg calls out Trump for damaging the Republican Party.
Bill Cosby's old admission. Donald Trump coming to LA? Record audience for soccer as U.S. champions come to LA Live. Plus much more politics and media.
Dylan Byers of Politico reports the hiring of Roll Call editor-in-chief Christina Bellantoni to be Assistant Managing Editor for Politics -- a title that does not currently exist.
Marrero left La Opinión in December after 24 years to work for new LA County Supervisor Hilda Solis. She's going to back to work on election coverage.
Jim Newton will write the next book on Jerry Brown "and the creation of modern California." Plus Diana Wagman, Holly Madison, William Mulholland, Josh Kun and more.
On the eve of his second anniversary in office, the mayor faces a test on the homeless issue. He changed his tune last night on Warren Olney's show.
Parks and LaBonge check out of the City Council. SCOTUS to take on labor union fees. Gravel yards. Much more politics, media and place.
Supreme Court decides 5-4 that Americans do have a basic right to marry and that states can't single out same-sex couples.
The 13-0 vote allows construction to begin soon at the former May Co. building at Wilshire and Fairfax.
In a 6-3 decision with the majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Supreme Court ruled it was clear that Congress intended for healthcare tax credits to be available in all states.
UCLA and the Sean Combs arrest. Minimum wage, homeless camps and farewell to Tom LaBonge at City Hall. Plus more.
Catching up with a plethora of items on politics, media and place including news this morning from the Supreme Court.
Sarah Dusseault is fresh off guiding the unsuccessful supervisor campaign of Bobby Shriver.
The LAPD's street closure guidance for today and Friday stretches from Pacific Palisades to Pasadena and Highland Park.
Jim Dear, the former mayor, walked out of last night's city council meeting after an "incoherent rant" that included a "Lord of the Flies" reference.
The measure, which could come up next week, seeks to have LA County follow the city of Los Angeles in imposing a new, higher minimum wage.
The City Hall press corps seems to be tiring of the mayor's style.
Obama gets here mid-afternoon Thursday and Clinton has at least three local fundraisers the next day.
The mayor left the city at a tense moment for a Georgetown fundraiser, then obfuscated in the face of questions by the Times.
Politics, media, books and place for a new week, plus a couple of tweets.
A retired video technician is charged with steering $4 million in contracts to friends and back to himself.
Sure, you don't care and nobody you know in LA cares, but Page Six and Politico do care what Finke thinks about the presidential derby and who she has voted for.
The officers who shot and killed Ford in South LA were partly justified but also acted partly outside of department policy.
A judge says the media can have the calendars of two suspended senators facing federal charges. Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon also halts late-night free rides.
Mayor Garcetti helps UCLA launch a new journal edited by former LA Times reporter and editor Jim Newton, with help from some former LAT colleagues. The first topic: policing and the science of safety.
Minimum wage. Drought shaming. A new head of LAX. Emmy nominees. Gawker unionizes. Plus media moves and much more.
Donna Bojarsky and friends unveiled a new group Future of Cities: Leading in LA at the hilltop Pritzker residence.
The former anti-Vietnam War activist and state lawmaker suffered the stroke May 21.
Obama heads over to Tyler Perry's place for a June 18 fundraiser, and Clinton stops in at Tobey Maguire's the next day.
Plans for the 6th Street bridge. Anne Gust Brown profiled. More talk of exemptions from the $15 minimum wage. How much do City Council members pay their help? Drivers for drunk senators. And more.
I've been storing up for a few days.
Santa Barbara oil spill. Norms gets status. Reaction to David Ryu's election and David Letterman's farewell. Plus much more.
Columbia co-author questions data provided in last year's news-making study by a UCLA co-author.
He become the first Korean-American elected to the Los Angeles City Council. The race wasn't that close.
The council votes 14-1 to tell the city attorney to draft an ordinance that would make $15-an-hour the minimum wage in the city of Los Angeles by 2020. Mayor Garcetti signed on to the final deal.
Marines die in Nepal. The City Council's new secretive ways. LANG parent no longer for sale. Another jab at LAT from Jeff Gottlibeb. Plus more politics, media and place.
Sanchez is running. Brown and Napolitano make up. A good point about almonds and water. Another LATimesman leaves for political PR. And more.
Seligman says she "has helped end the careers of some of the most corrupt members of Congress, targeted the NRA and its allies, exposed front groups covering for corporate interests, and rooted out misinformation in the media."
Plus Antonio Villaraigosa's new actress-girlfriend, restaurants come and go and a big day for a Dodger.
Nice one-day haul for the Democratic candidate, but she's also in the spotlight for agreeing to take money from even bigger donors.
The LA Times has tapped Washington bureau chief David Lauter to run the presidential campaign coverage. Read the memo.
So somebody else did. Screen grab from CarlyFiorina.org.
The ACLU drops its support after the policy allows officers to view footage before writing reports. Chief Beck also says he won't release footage publicly.
Decker "will become our signature voice on California politics," says today's memo from the top editors.
A morning roundup of politics, media and place plus some tweets of the day.
Hollywood checks are the main target, of course, with an evening reception hosted by Haim Saban and Casey Wasserman.
Politics, media, place and some tweets of the day.
The lead blogger for many years at Mayor Sam's Sister City died Wednesday after a visit to the dentist.
Garcetti has his night, but was anybody listening. Is Hollywood divided on Clinton or what? Politico to launch California Playbook.
Last week's emergency fund drive was just what it sounds like — full survival mode, says an analysis in OC Weekly.
The City Council has paid dearly to get some of the pending liabilities off its docket. They might still try to make you pay for their sidewalk damage.
News and notes from LA Observed on politics, media and place plus a couple of tweets of the day.
Jeb Bush to raise cash in Bel Air. Supes look to raise minimum age. A new column in Daily News. More notes on politics, media and place.
Consumer columnist David Lazarus has been getting more openly anti-Republican on his Twitter feed. So get ready for cat videos.
Some news and notes of politics, media and place to get the week started.
Hewitt is breaking stories, getting the GOP candidates on his radio show and filling the role of most respected pundit by the Republican establishment, a new profile says.
The Obamajam trope is old and tired, and even I'll admit it was kind of parochial to begin with. But today, the LA Times loves it.
There's been some shuffling in the lineup of political advisers to the stars and big donors. And a new candidate for the Board of Supervisors.
The president arrives Thursday afternoon to do Jimmy Kimmel and a fundraiser, then stays overnight.
Phil Washington is currently general manager of Denver's Regional Transportation District.
Bruce Feirstein, the Los Angeles-based contributor to Vanity Fair, devotes this month's investigative VF chart to a compare-and-contrast.
The mayor also filed the paperwork to begin raising money for 2017.
Read the memo: The mayor's top spokesman is off "to pursue new opportunities."
On the day after Tuesday's sleepy city election, everyone seems to be suddenly concerned that almost no one votes in Los Angeles anymore.
Councilwoman Nury Martinez also reelected and Marqueece Harris Dawson elected to LA City Council. One runoff awaits.
A year ago friends were saying the former mayor had no assets and was living in an apartment. Now he buys in the Hollywood Hills.
Some LA City Council, some U.S. Senate, some Republican state convention and more.
Ana Marie Cox is still writing about politics and in her latest piece talks about her faith and being a liberal Christian.
Kamala Harris doesn't poll well. Dinging Garcetti. Countdown to Tuesday's elections. Media notes on Harvey Levin, Bill O'Reilly and more.
State Sen. Isadore Hall is already running, so Buscaino said today "my future is here in Los Angeles, not 3,000 miles away."
Will the former mayor aim for governor in 2018 — or have we seen the last of Antonio Villaraigosa the candidate? Who will dare run against Kamala Harris?
Overtures to big D.C. law firms did not find a comfortable fit for the Democrat who battled Big Tobacco and Big Pharma.
The PAC is holding a Latino-flavored fundraising reception at City Club on Flower Street.
The Star Wars Episode VII director and his wife are hosting a Santa Monica fundraiser for Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who is a candidate for the open City Council seat in South LA.
A new Field Poll finds that would be Republican Condoleeza Rice. Villaraigosa doesn't stand out.
She has been deputy editor in Sacramento. Here she will be an editorial writer. Read the memo here.
Times endorses Cindy Montañez in the Valley. Why City Hall's special interests love shifting the election years. Garcetti on Snapchat. A final David Carr column. Kicking off Oscars week. Plus more.
Plus: Molina and Huizar debate. California's aging voters. LA's non-voters. And more.
Sometimes the choices newspaper editorial boards make are not fully predictable. Here are the latest in a few races.
"While Ethan has apologized for regrettable and insensitive comments, they do not reflect the views of Governor Bush or his organization and it is appropriate for him to step aside."
She has her first local campaign fundraiser for the Senate race tonight in Bel Air. Plus: Gavin Newsom forms 2018 committee.
Memorial service for Rick Orlov set. Janice Hahn may run for Supes. Promotions at KCRW. More politics, media and books notes.
No replacement host or centrist for the long-running show has been named.
We are more than a little offended, says the Sacramento Bee in an editorial.
One of the last of the original politics bloggers wants out before he burns out. He also hopes to write a book.
Ex-councilman could not go in the backyard, but he could drive downtown, take meetings and play a lot of online poker.
Willie Brown urges the birthday boy not to run. The national media is on the Villaraigosa beat now. Plus Gloria Molina.
Billionaire environmentalist says it was a hard decision, but climate change is his key fight -- it "will define the success or failure of our generation."
The former mayor sups with Eric Garcetti and Kamala Harris as he tests his prospects for 2016. Many links inside.
The former Daily News managing editor and head of Fleishman-Hillard in LA, now 66, has one client and some friends.
The state attorney general will make it official, via online post, that she's running for the Barbara Boxer seat in the Senate.
Newsom's exit makes the path more open to Attorney General Kamala Harris, but don't forget Democrats Antonio Villaraigosa and Tom Steyer.
Before moving on to Hollywood, Kaltman was a press deputy to Jim Hahn and Wendy Greuel in City Hall.
The former mayor said he might run for Boxer's Senate seat and scored a lot of coverage — some even favorable.
Sen. Barbara Boxer announced today that she will not seek another term in 2016. "I want to come home."
Jim McDonnell visits with Larry Mantle at KPCC, sits with Conan Nolan at KNBC and allows backstage access to photographer John McCoy of the Daily News.
Autopsy shows that the mentally ill black man in South LA was shot in the side, arm and back. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck met the media and took questions.
A glowing puff piece in the Columbia magazine declares Eric Garcetti the "very model of the modern mayor." He blogs, he tweets, he has a mountain bike and he speaks Spanish.
Garth, a small, pugnacious political consultant, always said that in a campaign Bugs Bunny beats Daffy Duck -- the smooth unruffled character beats the berserk fool.
The New Yorker takes a serious look at the future of Los Angeles taxicabs through the eyes of Eric Spiegelman, the president of Mayor Garcetti's taxi commission, and a believer that taxis can move into the app era.
None of it matters until this final certified list of the candidates who actually completed their paperwork to run for office and get on the ballot. Only one City Council member is unopposed.
Mayor Eric Garcetti and his advisor, seismologist Lucy Jones, unveiled an earthquake plan for Los Angeles that requires vulnerable pre-1980 apartments to retrofit within five years. Concrete buildings at risk get 25 years.
The longtime politics writer and columnist for Spanish-language La Opinión is leaving the paper to become the communications deputy for new county Supervisor Hilda Solis.
Richard Alarcon moved up his jail date but was sent home with an electronic monitoring device.
Solis' new chief deputy is a former reporter at the Los Angeles Times — and Solis' executive assistant was assistant to the LA Times editor. Plus more Solis and Sheila Kuehl staff news.
The seizure of 20 boxes of documents suggests the feds are investigating the contracts for iPads pushed by ex-Supt. John Deasy and approved by the Board of Education.
The deputy in Controller Ron Galperin's office will become Vice President of Projects at the Times. She was the youngest deputy mayor in the Villaraigosa administration.
Mayor Garcetti supports LAPD on protester arrests. Hillary Clinton got $300,000 to speak at UCLA. A political consultant advertises. An LA TV veteran retires. Plus Jian Ghomeshi, Cargoland, bacon-wrapped hot dogs and more.
Monday is the day when new county officials are sworn in. Sheila Kuehl has tapped a veteran of Zev Yaroslavsky's office to be her chief deputy. Details of the day inside.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, in China on a trade mission, posed at the Great Wall with City Council members Joe Buscaino, Mike Bonin, Curren Price and Gilbert Cedillo
First-time candidate Patty Lopez has defeated Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra in a cliffhanger between two Democrats in the 39th Assembly district. Jeffrey Prang wins the Assessor race.
Former mayor says the current mayor "has a lot to learn” and is surrounded by weak people.
The LA Times veteran devotes his final column to a menu of proposed fixes, such as expanding the City Council, abolishing the school board and doing away with term limits.
Here is the video I mentioned the other day of Vin Scully's amusing send-off to termed-out county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. Also: A longer video celebrating Yaroslavsky.
Among the speakers were former mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, former supervisor Yvonne Burke and current board chairman Don Knabe, LACMA director Michael Govan, the former county CAO David Janssen and (via video) Vin Scully. Sheila Kuehl received a very warm reception.
The inexperienced candidate who appears to be unseating fellow Democrat Raul Bocanegra in the Valley's 39th Assembly district has expanded her lead to 235 votes.
I first wrote about negotiations between the Owens Valley and Los Angeles over the noxious dust that blows off of Owens Lake 25 years ago. So it seems a little bizarre that they finally have a deal both sides can live with.
They are both Democrats so there is not a whole lot at stake politically, but the still-continuing race in the Northeast Valley's 39th Assembly district is intriguing. Incumbent Raul Bocanegra could lose.
Reston will stay in LA and cover politics and the 2016 presidential campaign for CNN's digital side and the TV network.
Elizabeth Warren visits with LA and Hollywood progressives. City Council races start to take an interesting shape. Still counting in that Valley assembly race, possibly "the biggest political upset of the year" in LA. Monday columns and much more.
I haven't yet read former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan's autobiography, but Jim Rainey of the LA Times has. Rainey covered City Hall when Riordan was mayor.
After 20 years on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, Zev Yaroslavsky is getting ready to leave his offices in the Hall of Administration.
This news from the state geologist won't be good for the developers of the proposed Millennium Hollywood tower or their friends in City Hall.
Kuehl got 52.8 percent of the vote and will form, with Mark Ridley-Thomas and another newcomer, Hilda Solis, a majority of public union-backed supervisors on the board.
Election results are coming in slowly despite the abysmal turnout. Sheila Kuehl and Ted Lieu are leading, McDonnell elected sheriff, more inside.
The Republicans will control both houses of Congress for President Obama's final two years in office.
The polls close in LA County today at 8 p.m. and mail-in ballots need to be received by today or dropped off at a polling place. A roundup of news items.
Supervisor Yaroslavsky says he remains neutral in the race between Sheila Kuehl and Bobby Shriver, and he asked Shriver to stop claiming otherwise. Plus more politics notes.
Mankiewicz died last week in Washington of heart failure. Among his many roles in public life, he announced the death of Robert F. Kennedy in the darkness of a Los Angeles morning.
Ramon Cortines, now 82, takes over the LA schools system for the third time. This time he's an interim while a search is made for a successor to John Deasy.
The school board is likely to name an interim replacement in the morning. LA School Report was first to report that Deasy was out.
The former councilman and state lawmaker is banned from ever holding office again and must perform 600 hours of community service in his old Valley district. Alarcon's wife gets no jail time.
Back from three weeks away from the routine with a hefty offering of items in politics, media, sports and more. Catching up will continue all week.
If publisher and Shriver backer Austin Beutner had any role in the decision, it doesn't show. The editorial says Sheila Kuehl "best embodies the qualities needed for the new era."
I'm still traveling and trying not to pay close attention to LA politics or media, but this is too intriguing to pass up.
Doug Dowie, the former Fleishman-Hillard executive and Daily News managing editor who went to federal prison, is back in business in the LA area with a new communications venture.
No campaign manager, advertising, debates or web page. But there is now a Tanaka campaign video on YouTube.
But neither will Perez commit to an endorsement either way. Coverage is starting to crank up for the showdown in the Eastside and Downtown district.
Roderick Wright says he'll leave the state Senate on Sept. 22. Two incumbent assemblymen announced they would run to fill his seat.
That's another Democrat going down for cheating on the residency laws. I wonder if that's going to keep happening.
"It has been 30 years since I have had a depression that has weighed this heavily on me, so I am in new territory," the California secretary of state told the LA Times. There also have been tax liens due to missed tax payments.
Termed out supervisor tells the LA Times that she has moved into the district and hired a campaign manager. "I am concerned that there is only one woman on the City Council."
The Hahnies came out for a reunion and Mayor Garcetti had nice things to say about the mayor who brought Bratton to the LAPD and defeated Valley secession.
Minimum wage raises are popular with the people, but Garcetti risks his image as a politico who can work with business and labor. Having Eli Broad at your kick-off event doesn't hurt.
After stories by KPCC and the LA Times, and a critical internal report, the LAUSD superintendent agrees to re-bid the hugely expensive project to equip classrooms with tablet computers.
David Montero, who got to the Register last year, will cover LA county government and some general assignment.
Retired school principal George McKenna won the vacant seat on the Los Angeles Unified school board in Tuesday's runoff, using his long name recognition and backing by UTLA to defeat Alex Johnson in the divisive runoff.
The LA Times' weekend revelation about under-played numbers of aggravated assaults has legs — the IG will look into years of LAPD stats and the department put out a statement. Plus more.
The Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 today to defeat a push by Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas to create a civilian oversight board that would help guide the troubled Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky cast the key no vote.
Garcetti was absent for a lot of local news during his summer vacation. Plus: Does Garcetti have a big enough vision for LA?
The City Council returned this week from a summer recess, but the office of Mayor Eric Garcetti informed the media that "Mayor Garcetti will be traveling with his family out of the state from July 25 until August 4."
Between the Brentwood high-roller breakfast and Trade-Tech, President Obama made a stop on Fairfax to have lunch and swap some stories.
Advantage Garcetti: He posts a YouTube message to officers since the union doesn't want him to speak at stations.
Former Councilman Richard Alarcon and his wife were acquitted on most charges, but convicted on enough. Alarcon said he would probably appeal.
Obamajam potential looks to be centered in Hancock Park and around the Four Seasons Hotel this afternoon and evening, then tomorrow in Brentwood and downtown at Trade-Tech.
Actually, what I received was an invitation from the Democratic National Committee to enter a contest to win a trip — to Los Angeles! — during President Obama's upcoming trip. I don't have to contribute to win, though they hope I will.
Assistant Chief Ralph Terrazas would be the LAFD's first Latino chief.
Neighbors were shocked to learn that the absentee owner of the decrepit shack on Eucalyptus Avenue was the mayor of Los Angeles.
John Duran got 16 percent of the vote in the Board of Supervisors primary, a bloc that was coveted by Shriver and co-finalist Sheila Kuehl. Now she says it's no big deal since she already won West Hollywood.
Shriver has effusive praise for California's groundbreaking law, but never mentions who sponsored it. Could that be because it's Sheila Kuehl and she's running against another Shriver?
The former speaker wants to start the recount in Kern County and go from there. Won't be fair if more counties are not included, says Betty Yee's consultant.
President Barack Obama is scheduled to visit the Los Angeles area again on July 23 to speak at a DNC fundraising dinner and reception.
Superior Court Judge Rolf M. Treu ruled Tuesday that the longstanding state laws which ensure job security for public school teachers are unconstitutional because of the harm done to students, especially low-income minority children, by incompetent classroom teachers.
The lineup didn't change overnight, but some of the November general election races came into sharper focus.
Sheila Kuehl leads the race for Zev Yaroslavsky's seat, Jim McDonnell comes close to an outright win for sheriff, and it looks like a Republican versus a Democrat in the final race to succeed Henry Waxman. Plus a lot more.
Nothing that you would probably call truly great is envisioned, but the idea is to freshen up the streetscape a bit — in one strip per City Council district.
Campaign 2014 primary races saunter toward the end, SCOTUS won't hear James Risen case, Isla Vista fathers meet, what the Academy will pay LACMA for May Co., Long Beach Register may cut back, and much more.
After being lobbied by Mayor Eric Garcetti and river activists, the Army Corps of Engineers said it would recommend an ambitious $1 billion makeover of 11 miles of the Los Angeles River upstream from downtown. "The greatest thing to happen to the river since it was paved over,” say advocates.
Garcetti, Yaroslavsky and others witnessed the signing of papers this morning in Washington. "As public transit milestones go, they don’t get much bigger than this," Yaroslavsky blogged.
Mayor Eric Garcetti's staff has posted another set of Facebook photos showing him as a regular guy. This time he's riding a bike to work in Koreatown
I guess nobody at the Daily Mail recognizes Steven Soboroff, the president of the Los Angeles Police Commission — dismissed as a "jolly older gentleman" and a "pensioner" in a Fail story on Rihanna attending a Clippers game while dressed.
She was a member of the Communist Party, a participant in the militant Black Panthers, and was prosecuted (and acquitted) for murder and conspiracy for a courthouse shootout. At 70, Davis is back as a regent's lecturer after a long career at UC Santa Cruz.
Bruce Springsteen played for the president and Conan O'Brien quipped about the traffic impacts of Obama's fundraising drop-ins in LA. Inside: The president's local day.
President Obama will fly into LAX on Wednesday and attend the USC Shoah Foundation’s 20th anniversary dinner in Century City, as well as Democratic campaign fundraisers.
The Donald Sterling story was featured on "Face the Nation" and in the opening segment of "Saturday Night Live," plus Barbara Walters interviewed V. Stiviano.
Howard Sunkin opens a new firm with City Hall lobbyist John Ek. Read the email inside.
Selective catching up after staying away from the LA news for a little while. Don Sterling fallout, politics, media, more.
Gov. Jerry Brown posted this photo to Facebook Monday. "Back to the future! Cruising in my old blue Plymouth."
Two of Politico's bigger names are relocating to Los Angeles from the East Coast. It sounds less strategic and more about personal situations.
Question: Can the New York Times Magazine cover LA Westside politics without saying "Botox Belt" or "Nate 'n Al's"?
Myers' Clinton ties could be a factor if Hillary Clinton runs for president. Before she became the first female press secretary at the White House, Myers worked in LA City Hall.
In his first State of the City speech, Garcetti doesn't make much news but lists some early accomplishments and some plans.
Before Mayor Eric Garcetti could give his first state of the city address this afternoon, the LA 2020 Commission appointed by Council President Herb Wesson stole his thunder a bit by announcing yesterday the civic group's ideas to improve LA. But that's OK, because everybody sounds underwhelmed.
Broad tells Los Angeles Magazine the city needs "better political leadership and better citizen and corporate leadership than it’s had." He also confirms he is still trying to buy the LA Times.
County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas' Twitter account posted this pic of the boss grabbing a pic of his own after a meeting with young Jewish leaders in the Crenshaw district.
Breitbart CA will be about "stories worth telling about the successes of the conservative movement in California and the failures of the left-wing establishment." Plus more.
Douglas Emhoff went to USC law school, Harris to UC's Hastings College of Law. Both are 49 and have not divulged a date.
David Letterman announces he will step down in 2015 and quips he always knew "when this show stops being fun, I will retire 10 years later."
President Barack Obama today nominated U.S. Attorney André Birotte Jr. to be a judge on the U.S. District Court
Los Angeles Magazine is posting the full video this week of a breakfast session with Mayor Eric Garcetti held last week at the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel. He chats in the free-flowing interview with editor Mary Melton.
The San Francisco area lawmaker, a Democrat running for Secretary of State, is due in federal court for arraignment right about now. Yee was arrested this morning along with a shadowy San Francisco figure known as "Shrimp Boy" during raids by the FBI and others.
The morning's news includes an obituary of Ron Smith, the mostly Republican political candidate who ran big campaigns in Los Angeles, San Francisco and statewide.
Warren Olney gets the party started at tonight's SPJ event. Next week it's the Press Club.
An April 5 fundraiser for Board of Supervisors candidate Sheila Kuehl is billed as "A Night at the Movies with Zelda" — and the contribution levels are right out of her old show, "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis."
Los Angeles Magazine continues its series of "Big Shots" interviews by Giselle Fernandez with Rep. Xavier Becerra, who says the lack of immigration reform in Congress is frustrating but is not due to racism.
The mayor held a wide-ranging interview with reporters and editors and said the city cannot afford raises for workers for a few years.
Eric Garcetti picked a good few days to be in Mexico City on a trade mission (the subject of today's LA Observed segment on KCRW.) Toronto's goofy mayor was in town to do Jimmy Kimmel and take Twitter pictures at City Hall.
Celeste Fremon has covered for many years the foibles and scandals of Lee Baca's sheriff's department, and in the new issue of Los Angeles Magazine she gets more than 10,000 words to explain for newcomers the "morass" that formed under the management of Baca and top deputy (and now candidate) Paul Tanaka.
Ron Calderon's charges could bring up to 396 years in federal prison and Tom could face 160 years, if convicted. Tom surrendered this morning and Ron is expected in court Monday.
Obama talks California drought — then goes golfing on a lush green course in the desert? Brand-name consultants for Williamson, a Villaraigosa aide joins the LAFD and more.
The New York Times has been building a new politics and data team to replace Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight blog. UCLA political scientist Lynn Vavreck will be a regular contributor. Plus more.
The race to succeed Rep. Henry Waxman in the 33rd congressional district just got more crowded. Miller will take a leave from KCRW and his Washington Post column.
The LA City Council wants action on the Weather Channel-DirecTV dispute — weather or not you agree.
For five years during the Great Depression, Shirley Temple was the most popular movie star in America of any age. Her popularity saved 20th Century Fox. She later became an ambassador and prominent Republican.
Greuel is going with old Villaraigosa hands to run her campaign this time, but Ace Smith and Sean Clegg also advised one of the so-called independent PACs that pushed Greuel for mayor last year.
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky put out a statement this morning confirming that he will not run for the Henry Waxman seat in Congress. (In case you were going to ask.)
Mayor Eric Garcetti and LA Weekly politics writer Gene Maddaus have a different view of how the mayor is doing so far. "His head is swirling with ideas, but...his record is surprisingly thin," Maddaus writes.
CD 33 contributed millions to President Obama's election campaigns. The district hasn't been up for grabs for four decades. And it's home to the likes of Jeffrey Katzenberg and Haim Saban.
Peter Marx has been vice president of business development at Qualcomm Labs and vice president of the technology and digital studio at Mattel.
Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey has revamped her media office with a trio of former journalists. Office veteran Jane Robison gets a new title and the office is on Twitter.
Ted Lieu gets in. Wendy Greuel pays down some debt. Remembering the Henry Waxman legacy. Ed Edelman endorses Bobby Shriver. The political tension between Gloria Molina and Kevin de Leon. Plus Dan Schnur, a City Hall move and more.
Greuel doesn't live in the Westside and coastal district, but the law doesn't mind — the voters may be another story. The list of other candidates still may be long.
Marcie Edwards, Mayor Eric Garcetti's choice to become general manager of the Department of Water and Power, worked at the utility for 24 years before taking a senior job in Anaheim. Most recently she has been the Anaheim city manager.
Rep. Henry Waxman's decision to retire rather than run for another term makes available one of the Democrats' most valuable congressional districts.
“At the end of this year, I would have been in Congress for 40 years,” Waxman said. “If there is a time for me to move on to another chapter in my life, I think this is the time to do it."
Barbra Streisand and Mayor Eric Garcetti were among the attendees at the Fremont Place home of "Everybody Loves Raymond" creator Phil Rosenthal.
John Scott and his wife both gave up Los Angeles sheriff's department careers out of concern about the direction under Lee Baca. Now Scott gets the rest of the year to leave his mark.
The Inglewood Democrat is the first member of the California legislature to be convicted in criminal court since the 1990s. He could face eight years for lying about his address.
For many Hollywood Democrats, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is apparently their number two choice for president in 2016, after Hillary Clinton. He was in Brentwood Thursday night for a fundraiser.
The mayor says anti-poverty money will go south of the 10 freeway, but there is a lot of upset and finger pointing.
Garza is going to Sacramento to be the... — well, you have to click and go inside to get her new job.
Buck McKeon, the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, won't go through another reelection battle this year, Politico reports. His district includes the Santa Clarita Valley area.
The city-owned SUV that Mayor Eric Garcetti rides around in struck and injured a female pedestrian at 2nd and Spring streets, outside the Los Angeles Times building. An LAPD driver was behind the wheel. The victim was taken to the hospital by LAFD ambulance.
"I might run for something in the future, but I just don’t think I want another campaign now,” former controller and mayoral candidate Wendy Greuel said Thursday. Here's who is in.
Mayor Eric Garcetti announced this morning that Ron Nichols, the general manager of the city's Department of Water and Power for three years, will leave at the end of the month. A letter from Nichols said he was going for personal reasons.
The California state geologist released revised earthquake fault maps today as required by state law — with possible big consequences for development in Hollywood and in the city of West Hollywood.
Media say that Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca informed the county's elected supervisors and his key staff that he will announce on Tuesday. Gone by end of the month. Long Beach police chief Jim McDonnell reportedly looking at getting in the race.
Skelton, the Los Angeles Times columnist in Sacramento, notes in his latest column that he had his first story in the paper 40 years ago — a front-pager about Ronald Reagan heading into the final year of his two terms as governor. "Unbeknown to most people outside this business, nothing is more important to a news reporter — short of accuracy — than landing on Page 1," he says.
Peter Dreier offers the New York City mayor some advice from the progressive side after eight years of Antonio Villaraigosa. Plus: Bill Bratton takes over (again) at the NYPD.
The hike means that most workers with the Coalition of L.A. City Unions have received increases totaling 24.5 percent since 2007, the Times says.
The editorial board of the New York Times refers to Edward Snowden as a "whistle-blower' and says it is time that the Obama Administration offer him a safe way home.
The director of USC’s Jesse Unruh Institute of Politics quit the Republican Party a few years ago and plans to run as an independent. Alex Padilla is already in the race.
Rep. Henry Waxman posted a letter today to Tribune CEO Peter Liguori asking for more information about the company's intended spinoff of its newspapers and how it will affect the Los Angeles Times. Plus: Two more LAT retirements.
When Orange County congressman Dana Rohrabacher and his family moved out of their rented Costa Mesa home last year, they reportedly left behind "a shockingly horrific pigsty, a dump worse than a college fraternity house."
While Mayor Eric Garcetti and his family are headed off to Australia today for a ten-day vacation, his staff has posted an invitation to suggest what the city can do better next year.
KPCC is continuing to hire in strategic areas, but the Sacramento bureau is closing and three reporter slots were eliminated. The growing newsroom is now 95 strong, one of the biggest in LA in any medium.
While today's indictments were not unexpected, Baca said, "it is nevertheless a sad day for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. We do not tolerate misconduct by any deputies."
Angela Spaccia, the former assistant city administrator in Bell, was found guilty today on 11 of 13 counts of felony corruption, including misappropriation of public funds. She was found not guilty on one charge; another ended in a hung jury.
Barbara Jones, who covers the LA Unified School District and the Board of Education for the Daily News, is leaving the newspaper business to become the chief of staff to board member Tamar Galatzan.
LaMotte died this morning while in San Diego for the annual convention of the California School Boards Association. The longtime member of the Los Angeles Board of Education from South LA was first elected in 2003.
Clear Channel is moving Limbaugh from KFI to KTLK — which will drop 'progressive talk' and become The Patriot 1150, with Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck also on board.
This will make Bratton the only cop to have run the NYPD, the LAPD and the NYPD again (and be mentioned in London papers as a possible head of Scotland Yard.)
Sebastian Ridley-Thomas won outright tonight in the special election in the 54th Assembly District.
Former governor Gray Davis, former city attorney Carmen Trutanich and high-profile defense lawyer Mark Geragos are co-hosting a $1,500-per-napkin fundraiser for Baca next week.
Sacramento Bee opinion page columnist and senior editor Dan Morain is moving up to editor of the editorial pages. Morain, 58, previously worked at the Los Angeles Times and the Herald Examiner.
During a half-hour stop this evening at the Beverly Hilton before heading up the canyon to Magic Johnson's home, President Obama met with the family of Gerardo Hernandez, the TSA officer who was killed during this month's shooting at LAX. The President also met with two TSA officers who were wounded.
Los Angeles Magazine says in the new issue that Miguel Contreras, the labor leader who died in 2005, was having an extra-marital affair with a state senator for nine years.
After starting the day in Seattle and San Francisco, President Obama is scheduled to arrive at LAX this afternoon just about the time the peak traffic hits the streets. Here's what we know about how to reduce your risk of Obamajam.
President Obama is finally making up for the September trip he cancelled and will attend fundraisers next week at three homes, including Magic Johnson's, and speak at the DreamWorks campus in Glendale.
There is some unhappiness on campus that more students weren't invited to Tuesday's appearance by the ex-president and Laura Bush. But not a lot of unhappiness.
Amy Wakeland, the wife of Mayor Eric Garcetti, attended Thursday night's meeting of the Windsor Square Association to break the news. A new slate of events are on tap, she says.
Six members of the Los Angeles City Council spotted at Pike Place Market in Seattle.
Last night's Hillary Clinton for president fundraiser at the Exchange club on Spring Street featured addresses by former city controller Wendy Greuel and City Councilwoman Nury Martinez, among others.
In an joint opinion piece in the Los Angeles News Group papers, former mayor Richard Riordan and LANG columnist Tim Rutten write that the Los Angeles schools spend a lot more on students than district officials know or admit — with much lower results than they also will admit.
Al Jazeera America calls its scoop on a sealed FBI affidavit that accuses State Sen. Ron Calderon of taking more than $60,000 from phony Hollywood producers in exchange for legislation on better tax credits "an investigation that could become California’s biggest legislative scandal in more than two decades."
Days of backstage political drama end with the district's top official and the school board agreeing that he will continue to run the place until 2016.
This just in: Villaraigosa has been hired to replace Dodger manager Don Mattingly and will also take over as West Coast adviser for Cheetos.
One of Villaraigosa’s first projects will be to lead the newly-formed USC Villaraigosa Initiative for Restoring the California Dream.
Huizar spoke to Times reporter David Zahniser — in a stairwell — before today's City Council meeting.
LA's former mayor joins public relations firm Edelman as a senior advisor with no specific role disclosed. That's at least four gigs that we know about.
Vilma Martinez, until recently President Obama's ambassador to Argentina, is among the five appointees of varying political background who will guide things for the mayor at the Port of Los Angeles.
"I just couldn't resist," Garcetti posts on Facebook. Check it out.
City Council President Herb Wesson is billed as the "special guest" at a fundraiser on Tuesday to launch Councilman Jose Huizar's reelection campaign. Awkward timing, eh?
The suit says that Englander himself made offensive sexual comments and allowed the culture to permeate his office. Englander said he was "surprised" by her allegations.
Hours after former deputy chief of staff files job retaliation lawsuit, Councilman Jose Huizar admits having "an occasional and consensual relationship" but denies her allegations.
The current Los Angeles Fire Chief, Brian Cummings, will retire in February, Mayor Eric Garcetti just announced. An acting chief has been named.
Of the 84 people chosen by Garcetti to serve on boards and commissions, at least three-fourths are friends, former staffers, campaign backers or relatives of campaign backers.
Dowie is the former Daily News managing editor who went to federal prison in 2011 on charges arising from the overcharging of the DWP for PR work during the Hahn Administration. Dowie ran the LA office of Fleishman-Hillard.
First President Obama dropped his plans to come to Los Angeles when the Syria crisis heated up last month. Now the pinch hitter, First Lady Michelle Obama, has also cancelled....
Shopping center developer Rick Caruso told Los Angeles magazine that he was all set to run for mayor last year until his family hesitated. No longer a Republican, he says he still may run someday and he hopes that Eric Garcetti is bold enough to risk his job every day.
The ex-chief of staff to mayors Antonio Villaraigosa and Richard Riordan talks about not getting late-night calls from City Hall anymore, her last traffic ticket and the dearth of women at the City Council horseshoe. Plus Alice Walton too.
Only one holdover from the Villaraigosa planning commission — plus two key Wendy Greuel backers in the last election and some more Garcetti contributors.
"Due to a lapse in government funding, this account will not be active until further notice."
Insipid web listicle omits the inconvenient truths that Garcetti is married and a father.
Democrats who were disappointed they didn't get to see President Obama in Hancock Park last week will get the chance to open the checkbook for First Lady Michelle Obama.
The Legislature's flurry of last-minute approvals includes measures to raise the California minimum wage to $10 an hour, let undocumented immigrants obtain a legal driver's license and allow immigrant lawyers to practice law.
With the Dodgers heading to the playoffs, the former City Council member who helped get them to LA gets an award. Garcetti chief of staff Ana Guerrero is also dubbed one of ten LA women of the year. Here's the list.
From his initial comments, it sounds as if Soboroff intends to be heard from in the post.
The company has been battling allegations that it operates an illegal pyramid scheme and criticism from a national Latino group.
The president was to speak at the AFL-CIO national convention here and appear at yet another Hollywood fundraiser. Discussions over Syria take precedence, apparently.
It's not clear in Monday's LA Times story about the controversy over Airbnb rentals in Silver Lake that the editors realize that the neighborhood isn't a legal entity and doesn't have its own "officials."
President Obama's September 9 trip into Los Angeles isn't only to keynote the DNC fundraiser that night in Hancock Park. He also will address the national AFL-CIO convention that will be here for four days that week.
The layoff reaper finally came for ABC7's bureau chief in Sacramento. Now there will be no Los Angeles area TV stations with a presence around the state Capitol.
The council opted for the opt-in version of the mural ordinance, requiring that neighborhoods take an affirmatives act before murals would be allowed in areas zoned for residential use. A final vote is needed next week.
He talks with Giselle Fernandez of Los Angeles Magazine about leaving AEG, his breakup with Phil Anschutz, regrets about the NFL stadium deal and the leadership potential of Eric Garcetti.
Mayor Eric Garcetti has decided to reactivate the mayor's office of immigrant affairs, which existed briefly at the end of the Hahn administration. Linda Lopez, a political scientist who had been associate dean for diversity and strategic initiatives at USC's Dornsife College, will run the office.
Invitations went out today for a very exclusive sit-down with the president at a location not yet revealed, says The Hollywood Reporter.
Bob Filner signed a resignation letter and agreed to leave on Aug. 30. The San Diego City Council approved a deal with Filner this afternoon.
Mayor Eric Garcetti announced today that he will be concluding his active service with the Navy Reserve at the end of the year.
The LA Observed segment on KCRW tonight covered the database created by Controller Ron Galperin to compare the salaries paid at the Department of Water and Power to those paid to other city of Los Angeles employees. The LA Currents website has gone further and massaged Galperin's data a bit to tease out easier comparisons.
Boyle Heights, Wilshire Boulevard Temple and Gov. Jerry Brown all come in for some East Coast observation. Brown at 75 "is the oldest governor in the nation and about to become the longest-serving governor in the history of California."
Three photos from the Los Angeles Public Library collection show the emotion of the morning that Robert F. Kennedy died, a day after winning the California primary election and probably the Democratic nomination for president.
Steve Soboroff, Paula Madison and two other new faces will give the Garcetti police commission a new look. Emanuel Pleitez gets a pension commission slot.
Katz is vice president of the Brookings Institution and founder and co-director of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program. He contributes to The Atlantic Cities and has written a book, "The Metropolitan Revolution: How Cities and Metros Are Fixing Our Broken Politics and Fragile Economy."
Included on the politically important panel are close friend Sean Burton, former City Council member Jackie Goldberg and others with connections.
Francine Godoy, who left Councilman Jose Huizar's staff in April for a job with the Department of Sanitation, reportedly says in a complaint that she was harassed and endured retaliation because of her gender and "refusal to engage in sex." Huizar's spokesman said the councilman "strongly and emphatically denies the assertions."
Former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has secured at least one university gig for the next phase of his political life. Harvard announced today that he will be a visiting fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics.
When President Obama dropped off the news radar last night in the Valley, he didn't just go to bed and watch Showtime or Evelyn Taft. (Oh wait, they are not on most TVs in Los Angeles this week.)
We think so! Not counting Reagan in his acting days (because who knows, he was local for a long time, and a lot of actors lived in the West Valley.)
Jacobs is founder of the Courage Campaign, a big part of the effort to discourage Tribune from selling the Los Angeles Times to the conservative Koch brothers, and a big fundraiser for Garcetti.
All of the streets that the LAPD is warning drivers to avoid during President Obama's brief visit to the area today and Wednesday are out in the Valley. Obama lands...
I just glanced at the New York Times home page and there at the top were the faces of Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti, standing awkwardly at some long-forgotten debate in the mayoral race. No, it wasn't my web browser's cache or a mistake by the Times. It's a story by LA bureau chief Adam Nagourney.
The awkward bed that Mayor Eric Garcetti has made with former radio anger talk host Kevin James continues to be one of the weirdest pairings in City Hall. But it's those who believed in James' right-wing rantings who are the most upset.
There are a few new details now about President Obama's trip to the Los Angeles area on Tuesday to appear on the Jay Leno show. Here's what we know.
LAT puts staffers on the Garcetti beat, the Board of Supervisors, MTA and a new assignment to explore the use of power here and around California.
Former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa turned up on MSNBC on Wednesday talking with Chris Hayes about the new program, approved by the police commission this week, that lets accusers and cops voluntarily talk out accusations of racial profiling in front of a mediator.
President Obama is returning to California for a two-day swing that will include a stop at NBC in Burbank for his sixth appearance on "The Tonight Show."
San Diego Mayor Bob Filner continued today to hang on to the last remaining threads of his all-but-dead political life. The San Diego Democratic committee and DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz added their calls that he resign.
The Los Angeles Times has made official what we noted back on June 18: Phil Willon has moved from the Riverside bureau to be the interim bureau chief in Sacramento. Plus more moves in Sacto and Washington.
This move on Wednesday by the City Council means that Martinez can handle some business for the council district in the Valley, before she is formally sworn in as the new council member. Also: how she won.
Martinez defeated Cindy Montanez tonight for the vacant seat on the Los Angeles City Council — in a battle of former San Fernando City Council members who represent rival factions of Northeast Valley Democrats. That's a 30-point swing from the primary election results.
Politico has some terrific detail on the year-long negotiations aimed at keeping data analyst-blogger Nate Silver at the New York Times — and on what the Disney-owned ESPN and ABC offered to reel him in. Silver's role at ABC will be more extensive than first reported.
Silver will be a regular on the Keith Olbermann show and contribute to ABC News during political seasons, according to the NYT's Brian Stelter.
A divided federal appeals court in Virginia ruled today that Pulitzer-winning New York Times reporter Jim Risen must testify in the criminal trial of Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA staffer who the government charged under the Espionage Act with leaking classified material to Risen for his 2006 book, “State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration." A previous judge had said the First Amendment protects reporters such as Risen.
The march of appointments by new Mayor Eric Garcetti continues. He names two city councilmen to the Metro board, plus activist "Jackie" Dupont-Walker.
Bryan Frank, who posts pics of the scene last night, regrets not being there when reporter Dave Bryan and photographer Scott Torrens were assaulted. Mayor Garcetti urges peaceful protest tonight.
Mayor Eric Garcetti's office announced this morning that the boss will be returning to Los Angeles several days early, "out of an abundance of caution." He also offers to help "resolve" a protest supporter's ticket.
Mayor Eric Garcetti's whereabouts as his police department is on tactical alert are not publicly known. The press schedule released to the media says only that he will be gone at least through Friday, July 19, ending up in Washington.
Archbishop Jose Gomez steps into the national debate on immigration reform in his new book. He reminds people that this land was Catholic and Spanish-speaking before it was American, but Daily News columnist Tim Rutten calls the work strange and confounding.
Mayor Garcetti announced his most interesting appointments so far. In addition to Kevin James and Matt Szabo on the public works board, he named former Pasadena mayor Rick Cole as deputy mayor for innovation and the budget.
Eric Garcetti knows his audience: When on HuffPost Live... Watch the whole interview here.
Buying Tribune newspapers is not on the front burner -- but possible, says the head of Koch Industries.
Perry was only out of a job for one day. Garcetti makes a bunch of other appointments as well. The whole list is inside.
Josh Joy Kamensky helped stage Eric Garcetti's first campaign for office out of his Silver Lake apartment. As an OG, and as a writer who can be amusing, he offers some suggestions to the new mayor.
Villaraigosa's press secretary joins the Garcetti administration. City Attorney Mike Feuer announces some key appointments.
Coleman was part of the big sex discrimination lawsuit by women at Newsweek in 1970, then became the newsmagazine's San Francisco correspondent, then the first female press secretary for a California governor.
Eric Garcetti took a ceremonial oath of office from Kenia Castillo, an 8th grader at Luther Burbank Magnet Middle School in Highland Park, on Sunday evening while his wife, Amy Elaine Wakeland, looked on. Garcetti will become the 42nd mayor of Los Angeles at midnight tonight. Excerpts from his speech inside.
Eric Garcetti will take the ceremonial oath of office in the 6 p.m. hour in the swelter on the west steps of City Hall. He intends to call himself the "salesman-in-chief" for Los Angeles and in his speech will pledge to bring more jobs to the city. Here's the program as scheduled.
Shot at noon Saturday outside the door to the mayoral suite in Los Angeles City Hall. Click for more.
Mayor-elect Eric Garcetti was sworn in for real today on the island in Echo Park Lake. The Sunday event is for show and includes the other new city officials and a public party in Grand Park.
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals today abruptly lifted its injunction that barred same-sex marriages while Proposition 8 finished its course through the legal system. Soon after, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa married Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo in a ceremony at Los Angeles City Hall.
Deputy Mayor Torie Osborn addresses her note to the staff but uses it to defend the legacy of Antonio Villaraigosa, who she calls a great mayor and a better boss. Jane Usher sends her exit email to the media.
Gregory Rodriguez of Zocalo Public Square calls his exit essay on the mayoralty of Antonio Villaraigosa "Why I’ll Miss Our Flawed Mayor.".
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa made his most direct comment yet about his future political plans in a conversation with "Airtalk" host Larry Mantle on KPCC. He doesn't say when he would run for governor, which is kind of crucial. More inside.
Mayor-elect Eric Garcetti just announced that the chief of staff in his City Council office, Ana Guerrero, will fill the same role when Garcetti moves down to the mayor's third floor suite. "Ana was the key player in my work to cut budget costs and revitalize neighborhoods," Garcetti said in a statement. "Together, we're going to build on this foundation with new solutions to fix City Hall and strengthen communities citywide."
Councilman Paul Koretz interrupted Dave Davies' encore at the Canyon Club in Agoura Hills to present the former Kinks member with a proclamation — then he sang along on "Living on a Thin Line."
Mayor-elect Eric Garcetti has public events on his calendar most days already. On Sunday afternoon, he came to the annual Mar Vista Neighborhood Association block party on Barry Avenue with his wife, Amy Wakeland.
As I mentioned earlier, the Obamajam potential for Friday's short visit by President Obama is not bad. He's coming in mid-morning and leaving early afternoon so the driving disruption should be localized. But it's still Santa Monica in tourist season, so traffic could be a challenge.
Former assemblyman Dario Frommer and attorney David Fleming, a big player in the San Fernando Valley secession crusade a decade ago, are the co-chairs of Robert Hertzberg's bid to get back into elected office.
When his term ends July 1, making Villaraigosa a bachelor free agent, he apparently wants to move even further to the west. A source tells LA Observed that Villaraigosa is looking hard at Venice (or already there.)
The FBI isn't saying why, citing a court's seal on the search warrant, but media reports say it relates to a corruption probe in Los Angeles County. Calderon is from Montebello.
President Obama will drop into Santa Monica on Friday for a Democratic Party fundraiser, but he won't be stopping into the Santa Monica High School graduation like some students hoped. The White House schedule has Obama arriving at LAX about 10:30 a.m. and leaving via Air Force One around 2 p.m.
City Attorney-elect Mike Feuer named his transition team today. The co-chairs are police commission president Andrea Sheridan Ordin and former Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg. The co-executive directors are Miriam Aroni Krinsky and Alex Ponder. Inside: team members and the communications director.
Rich Llewellyn, currently the chief of staff to City Councilman Paul Kortez, was the first chief of staff for Eric Garcetti when he joined the City Council in 2001. Llewellyn moved over to City Hall East as chief deputy to City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo.
A long piece called Access Hollywood in the current Mother Jones examines Jeffrey Katzenberg as the latest deep-pockets kingmaker in American politics. The story starts with Katzenberg being wooed by Paul Begala and three other Democratic operatives in a private dining room in Beverly Hills. He goes on to give or raise $30 million for President Obama's reelection.
Former Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg finished out of the money when he ran for mayor in 2005, and until now has resisted the urge to run again. He announced at a reception up in Sacramento tonight and posted to Facebook.
The consultants for Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti talk to Warren Olney about what went right and what went wrong in the just-concluded race for mayor of Los Angeles — and John Shallman repeats his complaint that the LA Times coverage didn't help.
John Shallman, the Valley-based lead consultant for Wendy Greuel's campaign for mayor, didn't care for Times columnist Jim Newton's analysis of what went wrong. He also suggests the Times cheerled for Eric Garcetti, saying in a piece for the LAT website that "The Times was to Eric Garcetti what Fox News was to Mitt Romney."
You would be hard-pressed to find a more complimentary opinion piece about Eric Garcetti as the future mayor than Harold Meyerson's op-ed column in the Washington Post. Plus the LA Times looks at Amy Wakeland's role in Garcetti's political life.
A story with more anecdote and commentary than actual data or on the record sources argues that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will struggle to keep up his "one percent" lifestyle.
Gary took photos throughout the runoff campaign for mayor between Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel. Here is a selection of our favorites.
Quotes often tell the story. These are from a variety of sources, all uttered today as far as I can tell. "One of the worst run campaigns I've ever seen in my life," a veteran LA political strategist says of the Greuel campaign.
It's not just labor. Elected officials such as Gloria Molina and Jose Huizar backed Wendy Greuel, but Eric Garcetti "represents the 2.0 model of Latinos in LA," argues the former editor of Ciudad magazine.
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky welcomes the election of Eric Garcetti, Mike Feuer and Ron Galperin as "a new generation of leadership for the city." He says he's comfortable with his decision last year not to run.
Eric Garcetti chose a playground in Echo Park for his debut as the mayor-elect of Los Angeles. He thanked Wendy Greuel for a good campaign and says they will always be friends.
The voter turnout in Tuesday's Los Angeles city election will be shamefully low by the time the ballots are all counted. But it won't be the 19 percent that some in the media are using.
In order to become the first woman mayor of Los Angeles, analysts believed that Controller Wendy Greuel needed to win a majority of female voters and pick up a solid majority in her home turf in the Valley and, as the somewhat less liberal of the candidates, win the niche of Republicans who vote in LA. Kevin James' endorsement was crucial in the end.
Today seems like a good day to bring back out the cute photo that Eric Garcetti posted to Facebook a few years ago, of him and his father Gil. "Nice mustache, Dad!," Garcetti wrote.
Eric Garcetti is 42 years old, the youngest mayor of Los Angeles in more than a century, and he will be the city's first Jewish mayor. He won with 53.9 percent of the vote to 46 percent for Wendy Greuel.
The Loyola Marymount exit poll conducted by students under the Center for the Study of Los Angeles forecasts Eric Garcetti will win the mayoral election with 54 percent of the vote. In actual votes counted so far, Wendy Greuel is slightly ahead.
Greuel and Garcetti vote. Both will hit the Apple Pan this morning — at almost the same time. A ton of Campaign 2013 links from across the US. More phone numbers for me to call from Greuel. Plus: Tanaka slams Baca again. Fox 11 promotes Pablo Pereira. KCET promotes Juan Devis. Sherwood Forest gets postal recognition. And SoCal firefighters head for OKC.
After two full weekend days of campaigning, Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel were back at it before sunrise this morning. Here's a snapshot of the day, the weekend and the final hours of Campaign 2013.
Before airing a documentary about the Park Avenue building where Koch and a lot of other rich people live, the president of WNET gave the mogul a call and offered to water things down. It didn't help: Koch still resigned from the station's board.
The ten-point Garcetti lead over Greuel that only the USC-LAT poll found last month has shrunk a bit. But it's better for Garcetti than the dead heat that the last major poll in the race found.
As Latinos’ numbers and influence continue to rise, they are feeling optimistic. African-Americans see their hard-earned political gains jeopardized by a declining population share. Whites are the most satisfied with how things are going in their neighborhoods.
The women's magazine thinks that Greuel's first politics mentor was Tom Brady, but gets to the bottom of her preferred "go-to look."
Gold will cover the money and politics beat for the WashPost. Before she started covering national politics and government, Gold covered the 2001 and 2005 races for mayor of Los Angeles between Antonio Villaraigosa and James Hahn and the City Hall beat.
As a user's guide for voters, the LA Weekly's Gene Maddaus summarizes some areas where there is daylight between Garcetti and Greuel. Such as on education, development, the DWP — minor issues like that.
Doug McIntrye of KABC and the Daily News comes out for Greuel, but after all her husband is his agent. Plus: The candidates fan out for Mother's Day and the Garcetti daughter makes a video appearance. And a roundup of media coverage.
There has never been an LA mayor who grew up on the San Fernando Valley side of the city's geographic and cultural divide. Good story in the Times on Greuel and Garcetti — but look what Austin Beutner says.
City Controller hopefuls Dennis Zine and Ron Galperin sat down with Warren Olney on "Which Way, LA?" to debate issues in the race. They are both trying to persuade voters they will continue the role of controller as watchdog of city spending, even though that is kind of an exaggerated image.
In the latest financial reports filed by the mayoral candidates, Eric Garcetti has a big edge in cash left to finish the final eleven days of campaigning. But in the end, more money may be spent on Greuel's behalf.
if you were hoping for an uplifting message about why you should vote for Wendy Greuel to be your mayor, you will be disappointed. At least she is on TV again. Clip inside.
In making my choice, says publisher David Abel, "I hope to prod many of my friends, who, like me, have remained uncommitted to date, to again engage in electoral politics and to vote."
Rosalind Wyman will throw out the first pitch before tonight's game with the Diamondbacks at Dodger Stadium. Roz Wyman was the youngest member of the Los Angeles City Council in 1957 when she joined with Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley and county Supervisor Kenneth Hahn to bring the team to LA.
The weekly's editorial hopes that Garcetti "would grow in the job," and says it's "a pity" that Greuel is too close to unions. It's the LABJ's first endorsement for mayor.
After Sunday, there are only two more weekends before the next mayor is chosen. I still don't detect much bubbling interest among the populace, but Garcetti did get about 150 people to come out to the Tapia Brothers farm in Encino on Sunday. Inside: The latest news and coverage.
A group of Jewish real estate men that migrated over from Nibbler's in the 1990s sits down every Sunday morning and receives politicians — including Greuel and a Garcetti — and has welcomed both Yitzhak Rabin and Vicente Fox.
When I was on Facebook tonight, this invitation popped up for a Wendy Greuel fundraising reception in Venice scheduled for Friday. Notice the ad next to the invite.
No one knows how seriously the Koch brothers might want to buy the Tribune newspapers — or how they might run them if they did become publishers — or even what kind of buyer the Tribune board is looking for. (If any.) But liberal groups have been campaigning on the prospect of a Koch-led LA Times, and now the candidates for mayor and controller have signed on.
Mark your Obamajam calendars. President Obama will fly in for a series of Democratic fundraisers, including a luncheon at Peter Chernin's home in Santa Monica.
Chad Molnar will be the chief of staff to incoming Westside city council member Mike Bonin. Laura McLennan will be deputy chief of staff. Both work for Councilman Bill Rosendahl, as did Bonin.
A new USC Price/Los Angeles Times Poll in the mayoral race is good for Eric Garcetti and bad for Wendy Greuel. The poll of 500 likely voters finds Garcetti in front, 50% to 40%, and with leads among Latinos, younger voters and women. Greuel also is not getting the solid base in the Valley she hoped for. Details inside.
Challenger Mike Feuer is sitting pretty good with a month to go in the runoff race for city attorney. Trutanich would need to win a big majority of the undecideds to keep his job.
All the electronic billboards I usually see on the Westside were turned off today. The companies that operate 77 digital boards in the city of Los Angeles, Clear Channel and CBS Outdoor, were told by a judge to darken the signs by 5 p.m.
Wendy Gruel's new TV spot in the Los Angeles mayoral race focuses on gun violence and says she will work with police and mental health experts to improve safety. She is shown driving and also mentions a murder-suicide at her family's hardware business. Watch inside.
Los Angeles Superior Court judge Terry Green has ordered that Clear Channel Outdoor and CBS Outdoor turn off most of their digital billboards in Los Angeles by 5 p.m. today. These are some of the signs that the City Council told the companies they could fire up as part of a controversial settlement deal in 2006 that allowed the conversion of up to 840 existing billboards.
Ed Leibowitz wrote the 2009 cover story for Los Angeles Magazine that pronounced Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa mostly a failure at the end of his first term. The cover image went a long way toward turning the mayor's media treatment at the time.
Padilla, the former president of the Los Angeles City Council, says that "last November, more than 10 MILLION Californians did not vote. I’m running for Secretary of State to change that."
Antonio Villaraigosa is scheduled to deliver his eighth and final State of the City speech as mayor starting at 5 p.m. in Royce Hall at UCLA. His people are billing the address as a call to mayoral hopefuls Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel to seriously address education issues. He also gets personal about his life arc. Inside: full text of the prepared speech and the opening video.
Controller Wendy Greuel will officially unveil the backing of Rep. Maxine Waters at a 10 a.m. media op on the City Hall steps. A couple of hours after Team Greuel alerted the media, Councilman Eric Garcetti's campaign posted to YouTube a video of Rep. Karen Bass endorsing him.
This has the looks of another quality endorsement day for mayoral candidate Wendy Greuel. Plus: She and Eric Garcetti talk about City Hall finances. And Garcetti to roll out Councilman Tom LaBonge.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said today that President Obama doesn't plan to weigh in on the Los Angeles mayoral race. Both Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel are Democrats and Obama supporters.
Mayoral candidate Eric Garcetti has a 10 a.m. presser scheduled with Kevin James, the former radio talk show host who came in third in the March 5 city primary election. They are doing the deed outside the Van Nuys city hall, officially the Valley Municipal Building, on Sylvan Street.
The chess game of South LA endorsements in the mayoral race continues. Today at 11 a.m., City Councilman Bernard Parks is scheduled to publicly endorse Eric Garcetti at the Garcetti headquarters on south Crenshaw Boulevard.
This is kind of fun to watch. Hours after Eric Garcetti put out the word that he was endorsed by City Councilwoman Jan Perry, and before the media op was even held, Wendy Greuel's team announced that she has been endorsed by Magic Johnson. That presser is scheduled for 1 p.m. outside the West Angeles Church of God in Christ on Crenshaw Boulevard.
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky writes on his blog that his position on same-sex marriage didn't evolve so much as flip 180 degrees after a conversation with his daughter a decade ago. He says now that in 2008 he presided at the wedding of City Clerk June Lagmay and her partner.
They have called a joint media op for 11 a.m. "to discuss the LA mayor's race" at the 28th Street YMCA. It's an auspicious time for Garcetti to roll out an endorsement by Perry, if indeed that's what happens. People were starting to ask where Garcetti has been.
Greuel includes Mayor Villaraigosa as an example of a leader who has failed to bring jobs or fix the economy, just days after hiring one of his top deputies to be her campaign manager.
Gil Cedillo falls short of 50% and has to face Jose Gardea in the runoff. There's no change in the order of finish in the mayoral race or other contests, but as expected the low voter turnout to be moaned about creeps up to 20.79 percent.
Not unexpectedly, both Los Angeles mayoral candidates — Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti, or their staffers for them — showed their support for gay marriage by switching their Facebook profile images on Tuesday. As you can see from the screen grab, Councilwoman Jan Perry did not.
"I saw this strength of Wendy's first-hand in 1994, when she was a valued member of my administration's Department of Housing and Urban Development," Clinton says in a statement. "When the Northridge Earthquake struck -- causing so much loss of life and destruction -- Wendy sprang into action."
Controller Wendy Greuel's campaign for mayor made headlines for the wrong reasons in the past few days, losing four key operatives with experience on the Obama campaign, bringing in two new key people, then switching up campaign managers — against a backdrop of what the LA Times calls "missteps." She did, however, add the support of Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas.
Former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan signed on today as an unpaid adviser to Wendy Greuel, shortly after former mayoral candidate Steven Soboroff endorsed Eric Garcetti. Several months ago, Riordan dismissed all the candidates as a bunch of losers.
They are meeting any media that comes out on a Saturday afternoon at the Doll Factory, the Temple Street home of the Derby Dolls near downtown. Unless they are going to strap on skates, I'm assuming this is where Pleitez announces he is endorsing Garcetti in the runoff for mayor. Plus: Greuel gets Emily's List.
Former congressman, defeated last November in that costly and bruising battle in the Valley with fellow Democrat Brad Sherman, has signed on as a senior policy adviser with the largest law firm on Washington's K Street.
The County Federation of Labor's political unit voted to endorse Wendy Greuel for mayor after she told a closed-door meeting, "I'm gonna stand with labor, not stand up to labor." County Democrats, meanwhile, gave more support to Eric Garcetti but failed to make an endorsement.
Campaign consultants for Greuel, Garcetti and Perry dissect the mayoral primary races that are behind us — turnout is the story — and look cautiously ahead. Meanwhile, the Sacramento Bee's cartoonist lampoons Angelenos for not voting.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa nominated the former state assemblyman, school board president and college board president -- and losing candidate for City Council -- to the Board of Public Works. That's the city's one true plum full-time paid commission.
On the day after Los Angeles voters eliminated the also-rans for mayor and other offices, the survivors began jockeying for position for the 11-week sprint to the runoff. Greuel got another union behind her, Garcetti dropped that oil lease in Beverly Hills and hands were wrung about voter turnout.
The New York Times was right on top of the Los Angeles mayoral election results, but they still have problems with the name of finalist Wendy Greuel. They only left out one letter.
The vote counting in Tuesday's City of Los Angeles primary election provided no real surprises. Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel will face off in a May 21 runoff for mayor, as every poll said that they would. There will be runoffs in the other citywide races, and in at least two City Council districts.
Mayor Villaraigosa "missed signals" from the NFL indicating problems with the AEG stadium plan, says a Yahoo football writer. "The problems with the plan are numerous, but the most essential one is the economics."
Front-runners Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel got out early Sunday and took the campaign for mayor to the streets. Unlike Saturday, at least a few TV cameras followed along — and LA Observed too.
Trutanich, who is running for reelection in Tuesday's election, has suspended campaign activities. His mother, Esther, died this afternoon at San Pedro Hospital from complications involving pneumonia.
SpaceX capsule in trouble, digital billboards ruling, California's dry winter, mayoral candidates and Hollywood, Pleitez still running, LA invites South Pasadena journo to vote, 99 essential LA restaurants and more.
Wendy Greuel called the media to her Van Nuys Airport-adjacent headquarters this morning to attack Councilman Eric Garcetti for endangering children and profiting from oil drilling near Beverly Hills High School. Except it appears that no oil has been drilled for under Garcetti's property, no children have been endangered, and any profit has been extraordinarily slim.
The pope leaves Rome, Bradley Manning pleads guilty, LA asks for OK to remove homeless property in TB fight, who will buy the LA Times?, indie spending tops
$3 million in mayoral race, Jan Perry's old tax liens and more from the campaign trail.
Wendy Greuel goes negative, Kevin James goes noir, Boxer urges history, Linda Griego recalls history and a roundup of media coverage in the race for City Hall. Election is next Tuesday.
Channel 7's long-time political reporter, John North, is retiring at the end of this week. The newsroom in Glendale got a memo announcing North's departure from news director Cheryl Fair.
How power works here, sobering wisdom on mayoral candidates from Mike Woo, a doctor spends $150K on Greuel, Jan Perry day in the media plus much more. Election Day is a week from today.
Yet another controversy over a mayoral campaign mailer by candidate Jan Perry. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky released a statement this morning criticizing Perry's use of his name in a mailer. He does not endorse Perry.
Newton on Garcetti and UTLA, new union spending for Greuel, the Kevin James and Jennifer Aniston connection, Rick Orlov's Monday Tipoffs, the voters aren't voting, new endorsements and who the Socialists like (or don't like) for mayor — plus a roundup of more media coverage of the races.
Trying to trick voters with the fake Republican tag is a loser's move, said John Burton, chairman of the California Democratic Party. "To suggest that Wendy Greuel is anything other than a proud Democrat is absurd.”
Thursday's latest filing of campaign finance reports in the mayoral race shows the top two candidates essentially as matched in fundraising as they are in positions on the issues. There's no real news in the numbers.
There are at least two schools of thought on the long-standing practice of holding Los Angeles city elections in odd-numbered years. The former city controller argues that bundling with the national elections will raise voter participation. But maybe that's not the problem.
Debate carried on Channel 7 finds the candidates for mayor firming up their positions. Plus: A video spot for Greuel, Mr. D'Arcy's DWP, Zine's Mountaineer and links to media coverage galore.
Former Los Angeles city attorney Rocky Delgadillo's home in Wilshire Park was gutted by fire over the weekend. Delgadillo, his wife and two boys — and the family dogs — escaped the early morning fire.
The LAT praise is better than lukewarm, but not quite love. Garcetti has "the most potential to rise to the occasion and lead Los Angeles out of its current malaise.... At this time, out of this field, he's the best choice." Also this: "It is hard to see how [Greuel] would rise to the challenge..."
Former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt — I guess we should call him the Dodger Stadium parking lots owner now? — shows up in the filings as a donor of $50,000 to Working Californians to elect Wendy Greuel Mayor 2013. That's the officially independent committee that says it will use big contributions from labor and the entertainment industry to buy TV ads for Greuel.
A letter from the FAA to city officials says it would be within federal policy to charge the school just $1 a year rent for its facility on the west side of Van Nuys Airport at Saticoy Street. Although the city of Los Angeles airports department runs VNY, the FAA is allowed to dip its bureaucratic fingers into all kinds of policy areas at airports.
Spielberg, Katzenberg and Geffen lead the way with $150,000. Boxer will headline fundraiser at Haim Saban's Feb. 20. Plus: Will Ferrell video for Garcetti and more campaign notes.
Here is the second 30-second TV spot from the Wendy Greuel for mayor campaign. Script and video inside, plus a response from Eric Garcetti.
Councilman Eric Garcetti is the first of the mayoral candidates, I believe, to air a TV spot in Spanish. He calls it "Comprobado" and speaks in Spanish about his record. Watch.
I moderated a town hall of the five leading mayoral candidates on Sunday in Hancock Park, and their plans for Getty House — the official city residence — became an issue. Plus the cost to Wendy Greuel of her half-baked LAPD expansion plan, the Times endorses Galperin and more campaign coverage from the weekend.
Supporters of Measure A on the March 5 ballot say that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will take part in a Monday news conference announcing support for the sales tax increase, along with LAPD Chief Charlie Beck and LAFD Chief Brian Cummings.
Roger L. Simon was a novelist and screenwriter who went through a very public political conversion from left to right in the early 2000s. His blog hammering on the left turned into Pajamas Media and now into a conservative website and video outlet called PJ Media.
For Wendy Greuel's mayoral campaign, these were a couple of good if expected endorsements. She has campaigned hard in the Valley. The National Women's Political Caucus of Los Angeles County also announced its endorsement.
In the race for mayor of Los Angeles, Councilman Eric Garcetti doesn't have a record of accomplishment that stands out among the others, or better connections, or more popular positions, or much more money. One advantage, though, with some voters is his image as a blogger, bike rider, composer, chef and performer — like at last night's appearance alongside Moby.
The political adviser for Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and other Hollywood figures signed a letter to industry activists asking for contributions of $15,000 to an independent expenditure committee that plans to air commercials pushing Wendy Greuel for mayor.
This cannot be called a surprise. Losing candidates for DA don't usually have happy careers in the office after taking on the boss.
Both Greuel and Garcetti have bases in Hollywood. The race is pitting mogul against mogul, agent against agent, says the Hollywood Reporter.
KPCC's press release last week for its mayoral debate coming up on Wednesday night talked about the "four major candidates for mayor" who would be taking part. I guess some discussions ensued. Here's how the release reads now.
Los Angeles Magazine in a new piece up today calls Kevin James "the surprise of the mayor’s race." The story, though, is really about how candidate James has softened the kinds of things he used to say when he was an anger talk radio host.
For some reason, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa sent out a statement on Friday trying to quash once and for all any talk that he will be taking a job with the Obama Administration before his term ends June 30. Which likely means he wasn't going to get an appointment.
Ex-mayor Jim Hahn is handling small claims cases in the Santa Monica courthouse, living nearby with his wife and enjoying not being in the spotlight. "It's a pretty great thing to be mayor of Los Angeles," Hahn tells KCRW's Saul Gonzalez. But, "I have to say this is the happiest time of my life."
Salma Hayek endorses Eric Garcetti for mayor: "He has the heart of a hero. He's romantic..." She also cites that he plays piano, gardens, cooks and speaks Spanish and French as well as English. Watch the video.
Wendy Greuel's platform to run for mayor is that, as city controller, the audits by her office found $160 million "in waste and fraud." It's the theme of her first 30-second spot going on the air today. Watch here.
Not every single story story out of Washington on Ray LaHood leaving the Obama Cabinet mentions Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa as a possible successor. Just most of them.
Tyrone Ricky Freeman, the former president of Service Employees International Union locals 6434 and 434-B, was convicted Monday on federal charges of embezzling tens of thousands of dollars from the union that represents home healthcare workers. "This was a case about abuse and betrayal,” said U.S. Attorney André Birotte Jr. of Los Angeles.
Fred Davis posts his first hit video on Garcetti, Greuel and Perry, plus barreling across the Valley with Dennis Zine at the wheel and Monday is TV debate night.
Jack Klunder, the president of the Los Angeles News Group and publisher of most if not all of the chain's newspapers, is not a voter in the city of Los Angeles. But he has given $750 to mayoral candidate Kevin James, in three separate contributions since 2011, and also reportedly provided him with tickets to Lakers, Dodgers and Kings games.
Teddy Davis, a top press spokesman for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa since 2011, was announced today as the director of strategic communications for Maryland governor Martin O'Malley. Expect to see a series of these exits in the coming months.
Pity the poor tourists of the future. One of the most minor-league things about Los Angeles is that today's politicians too easily give in to the urge to name things — buildings, freeway legs, intersections — for people. Alive or dead, famous or not.
The reason that the office of city controller is viewed as a fiscal watchdog and audit factory is due largely to Laura Chick, who came before Wendy Greuel. Chick's endorsement helps City Hall newcomer Ron Galperin.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Councilman Eric Garcetti and labor leader Maria Elena Durazo were among the select partiers. Inauguration celebrants danced past 3 a.m. to "Love Train" and "We Are Family."
Diversity makes the news, Times video of the candidates, a media coverage roundup and more — including a wonderful Steve Lopez line summarizing Antonio Villaraigosa.
The president of the Board of Public Works apologized for unspecified actions and said she has learned that her top job is "being a mom." Possible prosecution still looms for leaving her 11-year-daughter alone in City Hall to go drinking on a Friday night.
The union representing rank-and-file LAPD officers today gave its mayoral nod to Controller Wendy Greuel.
Kitty Felde, KPCC's reporter in Washington, connects the dots and sees an opportunity for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in the second Obama Administration, "should his personal life survive the vetting process."
Mayoral candidate Eric Garcetti is sitting today for what the Reddit online community calls an AMA. He posted about two hours ago: "Hi I'm Eric Garcetti, Los Angeles City Councilmember and candidate for Mayor. Ask me anything. I will be back around 4:00 PT to answer your questions."
Arrests in Nordstrom Rack robbery-assault, Murdoch quips about buying the LA Times, The Atlantic pulls sponsored blog post extolling Scientology, Councilman Alarcon says son is homeless in the Valley, Ace Smith to run independent expenditure campaign for Greuel, Lady of the Lake returns to Echo Park Lake and more.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa did the talk show circuit in Washington on Sunday, then spent Monday there talking about immigration reform and telling reporters and Latino leaders that they will likely be seeing a lot more of him. He again evaded questions about taking a job with the Obama Administration, but KPCC's Kitty Felde said that as Villaraigosa listed what he's proud of doing here in LA, he "sounded more like he was auditioning for a job."
Daily News profiles Greuel, Perry hangs in, the mayor's hollow claim on LAPD strength, the energizer mayor and more notes for a Monday.
What you need to know about the fundraising race, coveting Obama and the Clintons, talking about housing, Greuel moves into South LA and more from around the campaigns.
Carmen Trutanich is, of course, the incumbent city attorney. I guess those future meetings with the mayor's office will be kind of chilly.
The former congresswoman from the Eastside and San Gabriel Valley is expected by many to run for the Board of Supervisors when Gloria Molina is termed out in 2014.
Sheen didn't say whether his comments about Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa partying with him in Baja for two hours and being able to "drink with the best of 'em" were untrue — but late this afternoon Sheen did apologize "if any of my words have been misconstrued.”
Actor Charlie Sheen tells TMZ that his photograph with an arm around Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was taken in Sheen's suite at the new Hotel El Ganzo near Cabo San Lucas. He also says that this was not just a brief photo encounter as Villaraigosa suggested under questioning Sunday by NBC 4's Conan Nolan on "News Conference."
Controller Wendy Greuel's prospects of being elected mayor "depend largely on how effectively she can repel" criticism that her publicized audits are for show and that her record, including a vote for the big 2007 raise for city employees, mark her as a City Hall insider, LA Times political writer Michael Finnegan says.
Villaraigosa tells Conan Nolan on NBC 4's "News Conference" that he was in Cabo San Lucas on vacation, bumped into Charlie Sheen in the hotel, and that Sheen asked to take a photo. "I'm in the picture taking business. I've never said no to anyone that wants to take a picture."
The first of our regular updates looks at the Temple Beth Jacob debate, a Friday zing war between Garcetti and Greuel, who's covering the campaign for the LA Times and more.
Tonight's mayoral candidate forum from Beth Jacob synagogue will be live streamed on the website of the Jewish Journal. Good choice, since the forum moderator is Jewish Journal president David Suissa.
Rep. Janice Hahn has been profligate with the press releases recently — but this one is actually worth mentioning.
I'm catching up on some locally prominent deaths I've missed during the holiday slowdown. Video inside: 17 minutes of "In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida."
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa showed up in a Twitpic by Charlie Sheen from the actor's new hotel bar that opened last night in Baja California. A spokesman for the mayor confirms he is in Mexico until Jan. 2.
With a few days left in the year, the number of murders in the city of Los Angeles has crept up and will likely surpass 300 for the first time since 2009. Total crime declined for the tenth straight year.
Gun holders queued up in cars around the block at Exposition Park to exchange guns for Ralphs gift cards in front of the Sports Arena — no questions asked. Long lines were also reported at the Van Nuys Masonic Temple.
Longtime employes of Junior's Deli at the Rancho Park end of Westwood Boulevard were told today that the Westside landmark will close before the end of the year. A rent hike from the landlord is to blame, along with slumping business, say the sons of Junior's late founder.
In her editor's note introducing the January issue of Los Angeles magazine, Mary Melton doesn't sound too wowed by the candidates who are running for mayor. The next leader of...
The Los Angeles Times ran a Sunday editorial urging people to recognize that the election on March 5 is a big one that could shape the future of the city for years to come. They're right, you know.
With Rutten on the editorial page, and Al Martinez on the front page, the Daily News now offers its readers two columnists with something like 80 years between them at the Los Angeles Times.
Rick Orlov in the Daily News looks at the lineup of ballot argument signers for the City Council's proposed sales tax increase. Some members are for it, some against. Same with labor.
The certified names and ballot titles from the city clerk for mayor, city attorney, controller, city council, board of education and community college district board of trustees.
The current death toll in Newtown, Conn. stands at 28, 20 of them children aged five to ten.
Rep. Howard Berman won't go out quietly after most of three decades in Congress, ending as a respected senior member of the House foreign affairs committee.
A judge issued a bench warrant today for former city of San Fernando mayor Mario Hernandez, who failed to show up and testify at the trial of his ex-girlfriend, the former San Fernando City Councilwoman Maribel De La Torre.
The governor's office made the announcement this afternoon.
Board of Public Works president Andrea Alarcon's future as an LA political figure got a little more clouded today, at least temporarily.
And that's not even the most spent this year on a California congressional race.
Reaction to the news that Henry's will close has been swift and intense. Krekorian felt moved to post a lengthy statement denying that his office is aware of any development plans for the site.
I chatted briefly Wednesday with hospitalized city attorney candidate Mike Feuer. He said he's up and around, isn't in too much pain, and even got to drink some apple juice. He should be out of the hospital in a few more days.
It will remain a ticketing offense to park at a broken meter in LA. But for the first time, valet parkers have to be licensed and insured.
The jaws of life were needed to free city attorney candidate Mike Feuer from his damaged Toyota Prius, and he is in intensive care in stable condition, campaign strategist John Shallman now says. Feuer tweets his thanks to @LAFD and @911LAPD.
Of the 2,066 voters who mailed in ballots, 73 percent voted to tax property owners in order to obtain funding for the $125 million loop mostly along Broadway and Hill.
President Obama today tweeted that he would like Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz to remain as chair of the Democratic National Committee. That's one post Antonio Villaraigosa won't get.
Feuer's Prius was hit by a truck that ran a red light. The candidate for city attorney will remain in the hospital for a few days, but his campaign says the injuries are not life threatening.
When the Center for the Study of Los Angeles sent out undergrads to conduct exit polling of voters on Nov. 6, the center had them tack on questions about next year's mayor's race. Meanwhile: Garcetti wins the endorsement of Valley Democrats.
"Progress will continue as Metro remains focused on delivering a dozen new transit projects and 15 highway improvement projects that voters approved four years ago in passing Measure R."
Also: Measure J, the transit tax extension, ends with 66.11 percent of the vote, and needed 66.66 percent to pass. How close did it come? If you take the 2,863,951...
Richard Bloom leads Assemblywoman Betsy Butler by 1,705 votes in this afternoon's essentially final update on the Nov. 6 election from LA County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan. Bloom posted a resignation message on Facebook.
Both the Times and Daily News are reporting, with somewhat differing details, that Board of Public Works president Andrea Alarcon was at the Doubletree Hotel in Little Tokyo when her unattended 11-year-old daughter was taken from City Hall to a nearby LAPD station about 11:45 on a recent Friday night, following a party.
Santa Monica mayor Richard Bloom said he expects to be sworn into the state Assembly on Monday. Measure J creeps closer yet, but almost certainly won't pass.
On Wednesday's show, I'm told that KCET's "SoCal Connected" digs into the ties between Supervisor Don Knabe, his son Matt Knabe, and the clients of Matt's lobbying firm, Englander Knabe and Allen.
Those signs are outdated and never were a perk, and they are coming down, says the spokesman for Councilman Mitchell Englander.
How Latino voters go could obviously be a big factor in deciding the next mayor, especially if the Latino vote falls heavily toward one candidate. Controller Wendy Greuel took a big step on Monday, announcing the endorsements of State Sen. Alex Padilla and two members of the City Council.
Interviewed by Warren Olney on KCRW's "Which Way, LA?," former mayor Richard Riordan rejected criticism by Mayor Villaraigosa and others that his pension reform plan would have cost the city money. Plus: Little digs at Herb Wesson, Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti.
Federal prosecutors in Sacramento intend to seek a prison sentence of 97 months for Kinde Durkee, the Los Angeles-area political campaign treasurer who pleaded guilty to absconding with more than $7 million in funds she managed for Democratic candidates, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
Really, America? Tomorrow is three weeks from the election, and they're still counting votes. For the first time — these are not recounts, folks.
Former mayor Richard Riordan and his Save Los Angeles group are shutting down the effort to place a pension reform measure on next spring's city of Los Angeles ballot.
At least one high-spending SuperPAC achieved its goal in the November election. That SuperPAC belongs to Michael Bloomberg, the media mogul and billionaire mayor of New York City. It spent $3 million to defeat Rep.Joe Baca.
The story on Board of Public Works president Andrea Alarcon being in trouble for the handling of her 11-year-old daughter inched forward a tiny bit on Friday.
"My daughter is my top priority and nothing could be more important to me than her well-being," says the president of LA's Board of Public Works. "In order for me to be the best parent possible, I have decided to seek professional help and treatment." Her 11-year-old daughter was found unattended in City Hall at almost midnight.
After the city Department of Building and Safety quietly posted the location and permit status of every billboard structure in the city, KCET mapped the data and drew some conclusions about billboards in Los Angeles.
The LAT's weekend story about Republican media adviser Fred Davis vowing to raise and spend $4 million in independent expenditures for mayoral hopeful Kevin James is the most interesting thing to happen in that race in awhile. Both Greuel and Garcetti are already using it to raise money. It's the subject of tonight's LA Observed segment on KCRW.
Former mayor Richard Riordan spent Tuesday night at St. John's for observation and tests after calling the paramedics because of dizziness and chest pains. Riordan was released the next day and says he did not have a heart attack.
Villaraigosa was in a forgiving mood about that "Failure" cover back in 2009. He even joked about his "General Petraeus moment."
Analysis by Gallup and UCLA Law's Williams Institute suggests that the gay and lesbian vote for Obama was big enough to matter. That would certainly add to gay political clout if the belief takes hold.
The New York Times statistical guru made a strong case at FiveThirtyEight for the Angels' Mike Trout to win the American League's Most Valuable Player Award.
One of the remaining unsettled California congressional contests has been won by Democratic challenger Ami Bera. Dan Lungren, the former Long Beach area lawmaker who has also been the state's attorney general and the Republican nominee for governor, lost by more than 5,000 votes. The margin on election night was fewer than 200 votes.
In which the third floor at City Hall fills up and numerous staffers and reporters post Facebook pictures of themselves with Snoop Dogg and a certain new Lakers center. Video from the office of Councilman Joe Buscaino.
Wilbur Woo immigrated to Los Angeles in 1921, became the head of his family's Chungking Produce Co., a vice president of Cathay Bank, and emerged as a top Chinese American community leader in Los Angeles. Woo, a Republican, was the top contributor when his son, Democrat Michael Woo, ran and became the first Chinese American elected to the Los Angeles City Council.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is being talked up as a possible chair of the Democratic National Committee during President Obama's second term, should there be a change.
City Councilman and candidate for mayor Eric Garcetti up in the saddle, posted to his TwitPic account in October with the message "Happy Horse Day." While we're on the subject,...
Councilwoman Jan Perry's move last week to re-brand herself as the business-minded reform candidate in the race for mayor is at least "viable," Times columnist Jim Newton says. What choice does she have really?
On Sunday it was mayoral hopeful Wendy Greuel's turn to go for a trail ride with the equestrians of Chatsworth. It's a rite of political passage in LA: we even have a pic of Antonio Villaraigosa in the saddle.
Self-serving questions from constituents for the 'Ask Paul" column on AOL Patch are actually written by the councilman's press deputy. But let's hope you knew that.
The mayor vows he's staying, but his new reformer mode sounds a lot like a statewide candidate. This week he kisses and makes up with Los Angeles Magazine, three years after the "Failure" cover.
Men by a wide margin opposed requiring condoms on porn actors in LA County. Women, by an equally large margin, favored condoms. Blacks favored condoms. Whites opposed the new rule, strongly. Voters in the city of West Hollywood also rejected the condom mandate for porn films.
Patrick Frey and his wife, both veteran prosecutors in the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office, are victims of one of the more despicable political dirty tricks practiced in America these days. Over his blogging.
I know that it's already Thursday night and the election post-mortem period is all but over. But my wonky side is still eating up the numbers and inside analysis.
Snyder represented Northeast LA's 14th district on the Los Angeles City Council for 18 years, until 1985. He was a City Hall deputy before that. Born in Los Angeles, Snyder attended Los Angeles City College, Pepperdine University and USC. He became a lobbyist after leaving office and was living in Huntington Beach, where he owned Don the Beachcomber, when he died in his sleep on Wednesday.
Carmen Warschaw was a major figure in Democratic politics in Los Angeles and beyond for decades. Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky announced her death today at the Board of Supervisors.
Here are the stats from the Registrar-Recorder of Los Angeles County:
With 100% of the precincts counted, but not all of the ballots, Santa Monica mayor Richard Bloom leads Assemblywoman Betsy Butler by 218 votes. That's out of 138,342 votes already counted. The county hasn't said how many provisional and uncounted ballots it thinks it has.
California voters went 59 percent for President Obama, 39 percent for Mitt Romney. It's largely, but not totally, a coastal thing. But Obama lost 2.7 million voters in California since 2008.
The measure to extend the transit sales tax beyond our lifetimes in order to pay for projects now got almost 65 percent of the vote, but needed 66.67 percent. LA County Democratic Party chair Eric Bauman blamed the loss on "the special interests and conservative forces."
Howard Berman and Laura Richardson lose their seats in Congress, Councilman Tony Cardenas goes to Washington, Jackie Lacey wins DA of Los Angeles County, Prop. 30 leads, the death penalty stays, three strikes as we know it goes, and from now on LA porn actors have to cover up. Plus more.
NBC and CNN were first to declare Barack Obama the winner, I think. The LA Times sent out its tweet calling the race for Obama a few minutes later. At 8:30, it's pretty much a sweep of the major media.
The contributions came through two nonprofits with right-wing ties, Americans for Job Security and The Center to Protect Patient Rights, that do not have to report their sources of funds. The $11 million pumped into the fight against Prop.30 and for Prop. 32 is "the largest contribution ever disclosed as campaign money laundering in California history," the FPPC says.
Nate Silver, the polls and stats analyst whose FiveThirtyEight forecasts runs in the New York Times, wrote Saturday that President Obama is "now better than a 4-in-5 favorite to win the Electoral College, according to the FiveThirtyEight forecast. His chances of winning it increased to 83.7 percent on Friday, his highest figure since the Denver debate and improved from 80.8 percent on Thursday."
He has the complex algorithm to back up saying that President Obama is the favorite to win on Tuesday. But all he needs, he says, is this: Obama is ahead in Ohio.
As of Thursday afternoon, about 549,000 mail ballots have already been returned to the LA County Registrar-Recorder. Just over a majority, 50.59 percent of the ballots, have come back from Democrats. Some 29.65 percent have come in from Republicans.
The City Council's deal several years ago to introduce digital billboards to Los Angeles is likely to be invalidated by the 2nd District Court of Appeal, a panel of the court's judges told lawyers on Tuesday.
Measures to raise the California sales tax (Proposition 30) and to extend the already-higher sales tax in Los Angeles County (Measure J) are up for a vote on the November 5 ballot. Now City Council President Herb Wesson is floating the idea of an additional half-cent sales tax increase within the city of Los Angeles to be voted on next March.
A judge on Monday set Assessor John Noguez's bail at $1.16 million, the amount the prosecutors allege he cost taxpayers by lowering property tax assessments for the clients of a consultant accused of bribing Noguez.
The former City Controller sent out email this afternoon endorsing her successor in next year's mayoral election. Here's the full text of what she said.
Los Angeles-based political satire with a message from Lost Moon Radio, which has a show Friday night at Club Fais Do-Do.
DA investigators arrested embattled Assessor John Noguez this morning at his home in Huntington Park. Allegations include bribery and corruption. Two others were also arrested.
Maury Weiner was Mayor Tom Bradley's first chief of staff and a key figure in the black-Jewish liberal coalition that helped elect Bradley in 1973 and that was dominant in city politics for awhile. More recently Weiner was chairman of the Tom Bradley Legacy Foundation at UCLA. Weiner died on Sept. 30.
Well this can't be good. The heated acrimony in the bitter race between Reps. Howard Berman and Brad Sherman boiled over into something a bit more...unseemly. At one point, Sherman roughly grabs his more senior colleague and shouts, "Do you want to get into this?" Then a lawman arrives to calm things down. Videos inside
Statement just in from developer Rick Caruso, putting an end to speculation that he would join the mayoral race late.
The Coro community in Los Angeles is reporting online the death last night of John Greenwood, the president of Coro Southern California and a former president of the Board of Education. More details to come.
Candidates for mayor in next spring's election have already raised $9.2 million — including the $1.8 million collected by Austin Beutner before he dropped out. Reports filed on Wednesday show City Councilman Eric Garcetti with a slight lead in both the total money raised so far and in the amount taken in during the latest reporting period — as you can see in our handy charts.
Councilman and mayoral candidate Eric Garcetti is not only a Rhodes Scholar who plays jazz piano. He also was in a junior high school breakdancing group and has the moves to prove it.
LA Times City Hall reporter Kate Linthicum was struck by how many personal bridges that ailing Councilman Bill Rosendahl appeared to burn in a speech today about his decision not to run for reelection.
Here's the full text of the email that just landed around the 11th council district (Brentwood to LAX, basically) from Councilman Bill Rosendahl. He tells supporters that he intends to become a cancer survivor, but is dropping his reelection campaign and endorsing chief deputy Mike Bonin.
"One of the toughest, and strangest, congressional races in the country is between two Los Angeles incumbents...Democrats," the national audience learned on "All Things Considered."
"I try to advocate for a certain group. And not just for Latinos, but for immigrants," he tells Ana Garcia of NBC 4.
Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who has been fighting cancer, plans to announce in a letter to his district tomorrow that he will not seek reelection in the spring, the LA Times reports.
Mervyn Dymally served as California's lieutenant governor during Jerry Brown's first term as governor in the 1970s and also at various times represented the Compton area and southern LA County in Congress, the state Senate and the Assembly (twice.) His career as an elected office holder spanned four decades, starting with the Assembly in 1963.
President Obama arrived at LAX a little after 1 p.m. and went right to a private gathering of donors in Trousdale Estates before tonight's concert and exclusive dinner downtown.
After President Obama's fundraising concert in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday, he will travel up to Keene and formally establish a national monument on the site of labor leader Cesar Chavez's gravesite and former home.
A comedic message from the Fung Brothers urging Asian Americans in the San Gabriel Valley to vote.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, who recently paid $20 million for a think tank at USC, gets a segment on "60 Minutes" tonight to give just enough mea culpa on the whole cheated-on-Maria thing to sound like it was a blip. But at the Daily Beast, Ann Louise Bardach says the chronology given to CBS' Lesley Stahl and in Arnold's new memoir is anything but true
That story yesterday out of the Los Cerritos Community News tying developer Rick Caruso's properties to the emerging probe around tax reductions by Assessor John Noguez drew a strong objection today from the fill-in assessor appointed by the Board of Supervisors. "Several erroneous conclusions based on nonexistent evidence," says a letter to the paper's publisher from Santos Kreimann.
Garcetti gets Salma Hayek but few LA names, a bunch of other endorsements, what will be in the news today and more.
Rick Caruso, the wealthy developer who's mulling a run for mayor as a self-financed candidate, received special treatment and substantial property tax reductions from the office of county Assessor John Noguez, then donated thousands to Noguez's political efforts, according to the Los Cerritos Newspaper Group.
"When you meet with people in the legislature in Sacramento, the most striking thing is how stupid everybody is," says Bloomberg News' Josh Barro
Ad buyers have inquired about TV time in November, sources say, and Caruso also reportedly begged off a sizable commitment of money to pension reform citing large upcoming political expenses of his own. We'll see.
Former City Controller Laura Chick found herself in a feud with City Attorney Carmen Trutanich almost as soon as he took office in 2009 — with her endorsement, by the way. Now she's with Mike Feuer, and calling Trutanich a liar and a demagogue. There's a backstory.
The Los Angeles Times editorial page on Sunday endorsed Rep. Howard Berman in the big Democratic Party battle in the San Fernando Valley. "The Times supported Berman in the first round of voting, and we're sticking with him in the head to head" over Rep. Brad Sherman.
Gene Maddaus at the LA Weekly got the list of contributors to the account City Attorney is using to make good on his promise to raise $100,000 for after-schol programs if he broke his previous promise not to run for any office other than the one he now has. (Which he did.)
Politico reports that Rep. Laura Richardson, already under reprimand for pressuring her staff to work on her campaign, is now accused by the House Ethics committee of retaliating against and intimidating aides who cooperated with the earlier investigation.
Councilman and candidate for mayor Eric Garcetti plays the part of the Los Angeles mayor in the forthcoming film, "End of Watch." They got together with campaign supporters at a preview screening.
Washington, charged with defrauding banks by falsely claiming identity theft, is one of more than 40 arrests this year of staffers at the county probation department.
City Clerk June Lagmay just announced that the proponents of a referendum to undo the Los Angeles City Council ban on medical marijuana outlets submitted enough signatures to force the issue. Or, as Lagmay's office puts it, "has achieved sufficiency." One of three things now has to happen.
On Sept. 11 at the Hollywood Bowl, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky narrated the Abraham Lincoln parts of it “A Lincoln Portrait,” by Aaron Copland. Watch the video.
The differences between Reps. Howard Berman and Brad Sherman are few, says the Daily News editorial, "but they're significant....We urge a vote for Howard Berman."
An email to Los Angeles area Obama donors says the concert evening will be "a large scale event with multiple performers and speakers preceding the President’s remarks," the Hollywood Reporter says. Good news on the Obamajam front: it's a Sunday night.
City Councilman Eric Garcetti plans to "outline some of his thoughts on the future of Los Angeles" in a Thursday evening speech at Los Angeles City College.
The Los Angeles City Council gave preliminary approval of new campaign rules that raise contribution limits to $700 in City Council races and $1,300 in citywide races. Plus more matching funds.
Reps. Howard Berman and Brad Sherman are both liberal Democrats, more or less. But they also are fighting for their political survival in a San Fernando Valley congressional district that is about 26% Republican in registration, and by now most of the Democrats (48%) have probably long made up their minds who to vote for. So this has been claim a Republican week.
Looking gaunt after losing 45 pounds, and using a walker, Rosendahl said he will decide by the first week of October whether he will run for reelection next year.
NPR's Ina Jaffe calls the West Los Angeles "campus" of the Department of Veterans Affairs "one of the most fought-over pieces of property in Los Angeles." Indeed.
Renata Simril, deputy mayor for economic development when James Hahn was in the corner office, will be the team's new senior vice president for external affairs. The new director of community relations comes from the Villaraigosa Administration.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is busted on "The Daily Show" for his presiding over that bogus voice vote on the platform changes (re: God and Jerusalem) at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte.
Rep. Howard Berman's latest television ad in his race with Rep. Brad Sherman is pegged to the service that Berman provided in the Valley after the devastating 1994 Northridge earthquake.
At the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, the powers that be clearly signaled they want Janice Hahn to stay in Congress.
For those of us in Los Angeles, one of the subplots of the Democratic convention this week in North Carolina will be the omnipresence of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. How will he go over on a national stage? Will he emerge from Charlotte with a changed profile, pro or con? How many news media interviews will he manage to squeeze in? Before the convention's first TV session, we know the answer to the last question.
Seth Rosenfeld's book "Subversives: The F.B.I.’s War on Student Radicals, and Reagan’s Rise to Power” looks at how Ronald Reagan, both as a liberal turned anti-Communist crusader in Hollywood then as candidate and governor, helped the FBI and made use of his relationship with FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to get information not available to others. Some of that assistance involved his children, daughter Maureen and son Michael.
The five-ton Mercedes Unimog U1300 isn't usually street legal in California, says Yahoo Autos. But Arnold Schwarzenegger has the money to customize and as the ex-governor he may know how to get his way with the regulations.
With Ayn Rand in the media conversation around Paul Ryan and the Republican convention, here's a look at the home that Rand used to occupy in Northridge. And what a house it was — if it still existed, the Richard Neutra design might conceivably be the most architecturally renowned home in the San Fernando Valley.
Author Michael Connelly is known for his LA mystery novels, but he lives in Florida these days and sat down in Tampa with Warren Olney on KCRW to talk about the sides of town the Republicans may not be seeing.
David Chalian is the Washington bureau chief for Yahoo who last month floated that weak and mysterious story asking if Antonio Villaraigosa was poised to become the first Latino president. Today he was fired over something he said during a webcast at the Republican convention.
One of Rep. Brad Sherman's new videos focuses on what he's done for the San Fernando Valley. The second, titled "Courage," is built around William Isaac, a former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. who gives Sherman kudos for his opposition to the TARP bank bailout. View them here.
Married political analysts Sherry Bebitch Jeffe and Doug Jeffe don't pundit-ize in print together very often, I don't believe. But they forecast the November election's "defining moments" in a piece at Fox and Hounds Daily.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa isn't doing much for the people who elected him this week — and he'll likely do even less next week when the Democrats meet. He's in Tampa now doing CNN every morning with Soledad O'Brien, filling the role of Democratic counterpoint to the Republican convention. He also sat down Monday with KPCC's Larry Mantle and mingled with the gathered journalists on the convention's Radio Row.
"The High Sierra beckons," Brown's Twitter feed says....
Now that he's out of the race for mayor, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky warned that whoever does get the job will be faced with an immediate financial crisis and echoed Richard Riordan's warning that the unions must be tamed.
Former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan sounds pretty disappointed that Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky opted out of the race for mayor. Of the candidates who are in the race, Riordan said Thursday, "I think we have to look hard for other candidates" — and joked that his best suggestion for voters might be "to move out of the city." A Garcetti spokesman replied, "Dick's out of control."
Rep. Howard Berman is airing two new campaign spots that push his record on issues in the Valley and show him being thanked by the Republican father of a soldier killed in Iraq. Also, rival Rep. Brad Sherman today alleged that Berman "enriched" his brother with campaign funds.
City Controller Wendy Greuel and Concilman Eric Garcetti put out statements on Zev Yaroslavsky's decision to remain on the Board of Supervisors and not join the field seeking to become mayor of Los Angeles.
Zev Yaroslavsky said today that he will finish out his term on the county Board of Supervisors and not make a bid to become mayor of Los Angeles. "While I have never been a supporter of term limits, I do believe that four decades is long enough for any citizen to hold elective office, especially in an executive capacity."
Mayoral candidate Wendy Greuel unveiled three more endorsements today that are actually kind of interesting. One of them is Robert Hertzberg, the former Speaker of the Assembly who ran for mayor in 2005 as sort of a voice from the Valley, lost in the primary then joined Antonio Villaraigosa's campaign and had the title role in the transition.
Two stories in the news today about Republican campaign specialists with national reputations and roots in liberal Los Angeles: Matthew Scully, the former speechwriter for George W. Bush and Sarah Palin, and demon sheep creator Fred Davis.
A news story in the LA Times calls the California Teachers Association "arguably the most potent force in state politics." But Times columnist Michael Hiltzik writes "Who really wields political power in Cal? Not the teachers union, but the 1%, and they want even more!" His Sunday column blasts Prop. 32, a conservative-backed measure to undercut union influence.
That the south side of working class Mar Vista is upset about declining city services is a less joke-producing turn of events than exclusive Holmby Hills making noises about leaving Los Angeles. But the chances of the Mar Vista-to-Culver City movement going anywhere are equally non-existent.
"Millions of us have hit this obstacle over the last ten years," Councilman Bill Rosendahl says of his cancer. "We're optimistic about this." He also plans to make a video with the mayor candidates.
City Attorney Carmen Trutanich kinda sorta comes through with some of the $100,000 for kids that he promised as penance for violating his no-run pledge. But mostly not. "It was a stupid pledge to begin with," his flack said Thursday.
The Valley's battling Jewish Democrats debated Wednesday night in a Catholic school cafeteria in Sherman Oaks — first time since the June primary — and if anything the race is getting nastier. Our columnist Bill Boyarsky was there, as were other interested journalists and a crowd that was a bit on the old side.
When First Lady Michelle Obama ended her fundraising swing through Los Angeles today, the presence of Rep. Howard Berman by her side was noteworthy when viewed through the lens of Democratic politics. Berman was invited to the Ladera Heights luncheon and Rep. Brad Sherman was not.
Sharon McNary, a KPCC political reporter, unfolded her story on Twitter, which is fitting I guess since it began with her looking at VP candidate-designate Paul Ryan's Twitter account and becoming curious that he follows just one other account.
The judge presiding over Councilman Richard Alarcon's preliminary hearing today is M. L. Villar de Longoria, the sister of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
A really nice, detailed and clearly told cover story in the LA Weekly by Gene Maddaus reconstructs how corruption and under-the-table payments at the Coliseum offices came to be commonplace under general manager Pat Lynch — while the appointed overseers on the Coliseum Commission failed to oversee. It came to light only due to an accident, Maddaus writes.
In her bid to become the first mayor of Los Angeles from the Valley since Sam Yorty, Controller Wendy Greuel has put together an early list of supporters that has some range to it.
There's also a private benefit concert with Yo Yo Ma at the home of architect Frank Gehry.
The new USC Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy will be housed in the Price School of Public Policy. Initial members of the board of advisors include Henry Cisneros, Vicente Fox and George Shultz.
Councilman Bill Rosendahl writes that a persistent back pain led him to the doctor. He says he will run for reelection to a third term.
Richardson, the Democratic House member from the Long Beach area who is in a reelection fight, improperly used House resources for campaign and personal purposes and compelled congressional staff to work on her campaign, the House Ethics Committee's subcommittee on investigations said today in a report.
Tyrone Ricky Freeman, who used to be president of Service Employees International Union Local 6434, was indicted Tuesday afternoon by a federal grand jury on charges of embezzling tens of thousands of dollars from the union that represents tens of thousands of home healthcare workers.
I'm assuming there's no actual impetus for the story, other than a lazy sidebar to the symbolic role Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has been cast in for the Democratic convention later this summer. He does says in the story that he would like to be governor.
City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who the LA Times calls a longtime proponent of legalizing marijuana, told David Zahniser that he has had his own medical marijuana prescription for a decade. The pot helps him with painful neuropathy in his feet, Rosendahl says. He also has taken campaign money from pot dispensaries and their supporters.
For the first time since a class of new firefighters was inducted in 2009, the Los Angeles Fire Department will crank up the hiring and training of recruits. The numbers won't be big — 300 slots over the coming two years.
James Rainey has been covering media as a reporter since his bosses at the Los Angeles Times dropped his media column back in October. He will now post items to the paper's Politics Now blog, per Friday's note to the newsroom from national editor Roger Smith.
There have been some developments, political and media, since we last checked in on the congressional race in the Valley between incumbent Democrats Brad Sherman and Howard Berman. Today's serve came from the Sherman side.
For the first time in history, California-born residents constitute a majority of the state's total population. Native Californians are now the state's only majority. Here's one thing that could mean.
Gov. Jerry Brown convened the local faithful at Union Station to sign the bill that authorizes the state to sell $4.7 billion in bonds to build 130 miles of high-speed rail track between Bakersfield and Madera. The bill also helps fund LA transit projects.
Another former member of the Cudahy City Council, Osvaldo Conde, has agreed to plead guilty to federal extortion and bribery charges. He joins the former mayor, David Silva, and another official who formally agreed last week to plead guilty to federal charges.
The Democratic strategist who joined the Howard Berman reelection campaign in March as a senior advisor is taking full charge of everything, campaign sources say. That would be a big and serious shift in approach by Berman, who for decades kept his political campaign machinery tightly in the hands of his brother Michael. For the first time, Berman is also using an outside pollster.
Kim announced today that he's resigning as general manager of the city's Department of Neighborhood Empowerment on August 4 — and departing Los Angeles — to take a position in San Diego. This means he's out of the race for the 13th Council District, the crowded derby to choose a successor next year to termed-out mayoral candidate Eric Garcetti.
Willis Edwards, part of the Robert F. Kennedy for president campaign in Los Angeles in 1968 and later a key member of the Tom Bradley adminsitration at City Hall, died today of cancer. He was the longtime president of the Beverly Hills/Hollywood Branch of the NAACP.
You may have noticed that Sheriff Lee Baca is under intense scrutiny for his management of the Los Angeles County jail system. Nonetheless, Gov. Jerry Bown just announced he is appointing Baca to the Board of State and Community Corrections.
The red-handed bribery in support of a marijuana store is bad enough. But it's the other corruption, including vote tampering, that's really chilling.
Last night on Facebook, Mayor Villaraigosa's deputy chief of staff updated his profile photo and included a sly comment: "Hmmm...I feel like this pic makes me look like I'm running for office. Perhaps I should change it ... ;)" Today he let it be known that he has submitted his resignation to the mayor and will join the crowded race for the open City Council seat in the 13th district.
A Sacramento judge rejected activist Molly Munger's argument that Jerry Brown's tax measure should not be listed first on the November ballot. Munger's group, Our Children, Our Future, said it won't appeal. "We're moving on," said spokesman Nathan Ballard.
The small but curiously interesting city of San Fernando has slid one more step into the bizarro world. Both of the City Council members who last year were reveled to be dating sought and received temporary restraining orders against the other, citing a violent argument over a disputed iPad.
Greg Krikorian, the Republican candidate in the Glendale area's 43rd assembly district, said it was his wife's debt and that she filed for bankruptcy protection
Eric T. Fresch, the city of Vernon's attorney and top administrator during many of the years that have been under investigation lately for financial improprieties, was found dead by rangers last night on the shoreline of Angel Island State Park in San Francisco Bay. He had been dodging a state subpoena to talk about the city's finances.
All but five of the 70 state parks that were listed for closure will remain open either due to arrangements with private donors or money included in the state budget.
Fill-in county assessor Santos Kreimann took over this week and has reassigned two of the top deputies to John Noguez, who's on leave during a DA investigation into his office. Both had contributed to Noguez's political campaigns and were promoted after his 2010 election.
It's Paige St. John, who won the Pulitzer Prize in investigative reporting last year in Florida. Read today's newsroom announcement.
My favorite piece of advice is to beware the campaign consultant who wears a suit. Here's why.
But today’s ruling "must be seen as only a partial victory," says the Los Angeles mayor who is a key surrogate for President Obama's campaign. "The Supreme Court’s decision does allow Arizona to implement the law’s most problematic and potentially most harmful section: the ‘papers please’ provision."
The liberal policy and politics magazine in Washington with the LA connections says it received a grant that pushed recent donations over $1.2 million, ensuring continued operation for now.
Some of the young Hollywood hotties who met privately with President Obama on his last visit to Beverly Hills are combining on a June 29 fundraiser for the president's campaign, the Hollywood Reporter says. Jared Leto chairs, but the participants include the not-so-young such as David Fincher and Peter Frampton. Details and names inside.
Mayor Villaraigosa has appointed Andrea Sheridan Ordin to fill a term on the city's Board of Police Commissioners — a panel she sat on for five years earlier in the mayor's administration. Most recently she was the county counsel, a post she retired from earlier this year.
The union that represents some of the Los Angeles Superior Court support staff facing layoffs on Friday offered to have workers go unpaid for one work day a month in lieu of the job reductions. The offer was rejected late Thursday, the Daily Journal reports tonight.
The Los Angeles City Council today blocked the airport's plans to offer free wireless at LAX, complaining that the deal reached by airport officials did not pass the smell test. Not that it was really going to be like other cities' free wireless — you would likely have to watch an ad — but it sounded better than the $9.95 that T-Mobile charges LAX inmates now.
Longtime county staffer Santos H. Kreimann was proposed by county CEO William Fujioka to take over as chief deputy assessor. Kreimann has been Director of Beaches and Harbors for three years and change.
Both the Washington Post and the New York Times have taken note this week of the committee funded by Marc Nathanson that is spending big bucks on behalf of Rep. Howard Berman in the Democrats' congressional district showdown in the Valley.
This weekend's edition of "Wait Wait..Don't Tell Me" on NPR stations worked in a question about the caper we reported here a few weeks ago in which Rep. Brad Sherman either added or removed his mother from a campaign mailer. He later joked about it. See what the panel said.
Before leaving Beverly Hills this morning, President Barack Obama met privately at his hotel "with two dozen of Hollywood’s hottest young stars, urging them to involve themselves in his re-election campaign." Plus a pool report from View Park.
Before leaving town for Nevada, President Obama is scheduled to speak this morning at a private fundraising breakfast in View Park, the community perched on the northern side of the Baldwin Hills with the awesome views of Downtown and the Hollywood Hills.
President Obama began the fundraising day on Wednesday by flying to San Francisco (with Giants legend Willie Mays on board Air Force One and at his side) then on down to Los Angeles. He appeared tonight at the LGBT Leadership Council gala at the Beverly Wilshire, where Ellen DeGeneres and "Glee" star Darren Criss provided the entertainment, then at a more private dinner a little ways away in Beverly Hills hosted by "Glee" creator Ryan Murphy and his fiance David Miller.
Election night reporters who opted for the Carmen Trutanich headquarters in San Pedro, or were sent there by an editor or producer, ended up with the best story. The onetime frontrunner in the race for District Attorney self-destructed so badly that his ability to hold on to his job as Los Angeles City Attorney next year has to be in doubt.
3:30 a.m. update: Sherman beats Berman, Hahn beats Richardson, Lacey beats them all and Trutanich may be the biggest loser of this election. More inside with links and late results.
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals declined today to convene an 11-judge panel to rehear last February's 2-1 decision that California's Proposition 8 against same-sex marriage violates federal constitutional guarantees. Today's decision sets up a showdown over gay marriage at the U.S. Supreme Court.
President Obama returns to Los Angeles late Wednesday afternoon for yet another campaign fundraising appearance, this time at the the Regent Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills. The event is a gay and lesbian community fundraiser for Obama. Here is some early traffic guidance.
He asks the county Board of Supervisors to appoint a Chief Deputy Assessor to run the office while he is gone. Noguez is under investigation by the DA's public corruption unit over allegations of improper tax assessments to benefit political campaign contributors.
Edwards, speaking outside the court, praised the jurors for taking the time to “reach a fair and just result under the evidence of the law.” “Thank goodness that we live in a country that has the kind of system that we have.”
Councilman Joe Buscaino, a former LAPD cop, went with firefighters from Watts to put out a sizable fire in an alley. While there, he made a quip about the city firefighters outperforming LA county firefighters.
In an April op-ed piece in the Washington Post timed to the Supreme Court's consideration of Arizona's anti-immigrant SB-1070, Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez wrote that "I am deeply concerned about the human consequences if Arizona’s law is upheld." Excerpt and link
What was mostly at stake today was where to put the Century City station — the MTA board stayed with Constellation Avenue and Avenue of the Stars, inside the development.
Rep. Howard Berman's camp thinks that Rep. Brad Sherman and his flacks just can't get their stories straight. I don't know. I think it's just the dry sense of humor we saw on The Colbert Report. You decide
Sascha Rice's film on her grandfather, the late two-term governor Edmund G. (Pat) Brown, aired tonight at 10 p.m. on the PBS station for Los Angeles. A lot of good that does you, I know. I see "California State of Mind: The Legacy of Pat Brown" on the schedule again for Wednesday at 9 p.m. and June 2 at 10 p.m., on the station's digital channel 50.2. It airs tomorrow night at 8 p.m. on KLCS. Read up
At least one journalist tried to warn Los Angeles County voters people before they elected Noguez in 2010. That was Jeffrey Anderson, who was reporting on corruption in the unwatched southeast cities long before the LA Times rediscovered Bell and went on to win a Pulitzer.
Mayor Villaraigosa's budget calls for adding 50 more part-time parking officers to walk foot beats in crowded areas such as Downtown, Hollywood and North Hollywood. There already were 100 of these part-timers hired last year. It's all about bringing in more fines.
The MTA board held a hearing today to listen to concerns from Beverly Hills about the agency's desire to tunnel under Beverly Hills High School and locate the Purple Line station inside Century City at Constellation Avenue. For various reasons some in Beverly Hills would like the station to be on Santa Monica Boulevard and the tunnel re-routed from beneath the school.
District Attorney candidate Carmen Trutanich had asked the Attorney General to look into "suspicious political activity," citing the DA's inability to produce his old personnel file. Today, AG Kamala Harris says there will be no investigation.
Los Angeles County's elected tax assessor, John Noguez, should resign, District Attorney Steve Cooley told a gaggle of reporters today. It goes further than his pretty harsh comments yesterday about the investigation into the assessor's alleged dealings with campaign donors and clients of consultants who sell their ability to get property tax bills lowered. "I don't think he should be there,'' Cooley is reported saying. "In my view, he should resign in light of everything that's come out publicly and because it's interfering with the discharge of that important office's critical functions."
Some Valley voters are getting campaign mail that shows Rep. Brad Sherman with his wife and three young children. The lucky ones also get his mother, apparently photo-shopped in to the same scene.
The plan cooked up by politically connected investors to deliver water from a remote corner of the Mojave to thirsty Southern California cities refuses to die after more than two decades. How the LA Times can do a new story on Cadiz without mentioning Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa or Arnold Schwarzenegger (and barely mentioning their pal who is at the center of things, Keith Brackpool) is a mystery. Note: No time for the Morning Buzz today.
District Attorney Steve Cooley made his first public comments about his unit's investigation into possible corruption in the operation of county Assessor John Noguez. If anything, it sounds as if the investigation is white hot.
He's making a fuss about his old DA employment file being missing. But his people knew in 2008 that it couldn't be found, the LA Weekly says.
Not a good day on the newspaper editorial pages for City Attorney Carmen Trutanich, who wants to be seen as the frontrunner in the district attorney race. "Trutanich is not the disaster portrayed by many of his critics," the Times says, adding the inevitable but.
This is the official transcript from the White House of what President Obama said from the stage at last night's Democratic fundraiser at George Clooney's home in Studio City.
President Obama told the guests at tonight's Democratic Party fundraiser in Studio City that his comments yesterday on completing his move into the yes column on same-sex marriage were "a logical extension of what America is supposed to be." Plus notes on who attended, what else Obama said during his 19-minute talk.
Rep. Howard Berman, not Brad Sherman, was invited to meet the president's helicopter at Bob Hope Airport this evening in Burbank. Berman then was swept into the car with Obama and got to discuss the weighty matters of state — or perhaps the Wolfgang Puck menu — on the drive to George Clooney's house for the big fundraiser in Studio City. I'll score that as a major point for Berman.
Some recent political analysis had Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and his call for a Democratic Party platform plank supporting gay marriage posing a potential problem for President Barack Obama. I'm not sure it really did pose such a problem then, but Obama has put it out in front of the voters now, for better or worse.
Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Krekorian, who represents Studio City, says he has been told that the area south of Ventura Boulevard around Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Fryman Canyon will be pretty much a mess between 8 and 10 p.m. on Thursday. He also confirms that President Obama will stay overnight in Beverly Hills, as on recent trips.
President Obama returns to Los Angeles on Thursday to separate more Democrats from their $40,000. He's going to George Clooney's house in Studio City's Fryman Canyon, but how he will get there nobody's saying. The president will overnight somewhere in the LA area — back in Beverly Hills or does a new hotel get to host Obama this time?
Word got out this morning that Austin Beutner was telling friends and supporters that his quest to become mayor of Los Angeles next year was over. Mark Lacter had an item earlier at LA Biz Observed. Here's Beutner's statement this afternoon.
Parking fines in Los Angeles are already way disproportionate to the crime, but in his desperation to balance his budget Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is planning to ask for the sixth increase in his time in office. Is it a policy move because parking violations are becoming some kind of civic nuisance? Uh, no. It's about money — and parking after the street sweeper comes could cost you a day's pay.
In "one of the most competitive congressional races in recent history," the Daily News editorial is asking voters to cast ballots for Democrat Howard Berman and Republican Susan Shelley. That leaves out the Valley's other big congressional incumbent, Brad Sherman. Here's what they say in this morning's editorial.
A supposedly independent committee that is spending money on behalf of Rep. Howard Berman in the big San Fernando Valley showdown is too close to the congressman, says the campaign of rival Rep. Brad Sherman.
The office of City Councilman Richard Alarcon released a statement this morning repeating that Alarcon and his wife, Flora Montes de Oca Alarcon, are not guilty of the voter fraud and perjury charges filed yesterday by District Attorney Steve Cooley.
Superior Court judge Kathleen Kennedy dismissed the DA's two-year-old perjury and voter fraud case against City Councilman Richard Alarcon and his wife, Flora Montes de Oca Alarcon, saying the prosecution failed to present evidence to the grand jury that undercut its case. Prosecutors indicated they would refile the charges.
Ann Ravel, the chairwoman of the state's Fair Political Practices Commission, is giving up for now on trying to force bloggers to disclose payments they receive from political campaigns. She's moving instead to seek voluntary disclosure by bloggers for the November election, but isn't holding her breath. "I don't think there's going to be a large amount of voluntary disclosure," she says.
Cartoon by Steve Greenberg.
As part of its CityThink efforts, Los Angeles magazine hosted another of its breakfast conversations this morning at Kate Mantilini, this time with Ben Hecht, the president and CEO of Living Cities. The May issue features a return of the 52 Great Weekends feature, and a profile of KFI power talkers John and Ken, and a Q&A with Controller Wendy Greuel.
Several Downtown streets will be closed temporarily and Metro bus lines detoured for May Day rallies and marches today. "Street closures will begin as early as 6 AM for the participant assembly area located on Broadway between 11th Street and Olympic Boulevard, as well as for the rally area located on Broadway between 1st Street and Temple Street," the city says. "Street closures for the rest of the route will begin as early as 9AM." Check the map.
The Washington liberal politics and policy magazine edited by Kit Rachlis, the former Los Angeles magazine editor, is in financial trouble. "I'm extremely hopeful that we'll be able to raise the money," Rachlis told Michael Calderone of the Huffington Post. Nonetheless, staffers were told last week that if donors don't cough up about $500,000, there was a possibility that "the Prospect's last issue as currently constituted would be the July/August issue."
The Berman campaign is rolling out a video spot with the backing of Betty White, the seemingly timeless former star of TV's "Golden Girls." She appears in the commercial with actress Wendie Malick talking up Berman, who is facing fellow Democrat Rep. Brad Sherman in the June primary. Berman is "the Valley leader who fights for the humane treatment of all animals," says White, who is known as an animal activist. "And he has very nice blue eyes." Watch the video.
A piece in Orange Coast magazine focuses on the dilemma in OC's Newport Harbor where the good Republicans of Balboa Island either believe the Pacific is rising and need an $80 million seawall — and soon — or they believe Rush Limbaugh and friends that global warming is a creation of the loony left.
In his column over at the Jewish Journal, Bill Boyarsky looks at the ballot battle over a judgeship that once again appears to be a case of a challenger trying to capitalize on a sitting judge having an ethnic name. The highly ranked incumbent is Superior Court Judge Sanjay T. Kumar. The challenger is a guy named Smith. And that's all most voters will know when they look at their ballots.
Think this is serious? Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck and the president of USC, C.L. Max Nikias, all threw a press conference this morning to try to assure parents, students and potential students — here and abroad — that the neighborhood around the campus is safe. More cops and prosecutors are among the steps.
The Hollywood Reporter includes in its May 4 issue a 20-page special report on politics that "examines the complicated relationship between Hollywood and politics." It leads with a profile by contributing editor Tina Daunt of Obama fundraisers and power couple Ted Sarandos, the chief of content for Netflix, and Nicole Avant, the president's former ambassador to The Bahamas. "Sarandos is the man everyone in Hollywood wants a meeting with," says the trade. Included is what THR is calling "a guide to 20 of the biggest political players in Hollywood, including George Clooney, J.J. Abrams, Haim Saban and Ron Meyer."
Enthusing about those Hollywood arson fires, Villaraigosa vs Jerry Brown, Fred Karger's Sexy Frisbee video kicked off YouTube, a condom billboard in Van Nuys and Blogdowntown's original blogger leaves town.
The California Women's Conference started by the wife of Gov. George Deukmejian in 1985, and made into a big event by Maria Shriver, will go on in September — under new organizers and without Gov. Brown.
The news late last week from the LA County coroner must have hit some of Andrew Breitbart's more conspiracy-minded fans hard, kind of like the dissonance felt by the followers of that old clergyman who keeps proclaiming — then surviving — the end of the world. He died at 43 of heart disease and hardening of the arteries, the coroner concluded. Andrew did like his steak.
Lucy Delgado, the founder of the Mothers of East Los Angeles activist group that formed to fight construction of a prison in Boyle Heights, died on April 11. She lived her entire life in Boyle Heights.
I missed this note on Alice Walton's site this morning. The City Hall reporter who launched The City Maven in 2010 as a newly minted master's degree holder will now blog on the KPCC website. Read more
The New York Times wants your help identifying people in photos by the late Garry Winogrand from the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles in 1960.
Dennis Romero at the LA Weekly is reporting that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa stormed out of an MTA board meeting this morning after county supervisor Mike Antonovich, who is also on the board, characterized the mayor's call for extending the Measure R sales tax by saying something like communities are going to be "gang-raped again."
Steve Soboroff, the former city commissioner and candidate for mayor who took a brief spin with Frank McCourt at Dodger Stadium last year, has become pretty well known for his personal typewriter collection. We've written about it a few times, other blogs have. Now it's the LA Times' turn.
Some of Rep. Brad Sherman's fundraising during this election cycle — he's in a tough fight in the Valley with fellow Democrat Howard Berman — is actually being carried on the books as money raised for his 2014 reelection campaign. Now that's being an optimist.
The cover of the April 14 issue of The Economist: Americans play hardball.
"Management controls over Coliseum spending were weak or nonexistent," the city controller finds, but the Coliseum Commission dings her for not doing her job.
Rick Santorum suspended his presidential campaign on Tuesday, but did not immediately endorse Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination.
A judge decided today that City Attorney Carmen Trutanich can't call himself Los Angeles Chief Prosecutor as a candidate for District Attorney. But look how he can list himself on the ballot.
Romney spoils the party for California, more financial trouble for City Hall, Alarcon court case update, how one profiles Sheriff Baca, Jonathan Gold in the green room and more.
Endorsement in DA's race, a meeting for Brad Sherman, parsing the Farmers Field EIR and more.
City Attorney opinions "failed to exercise the skill, prudence, and diligence required of attorneys when they are formulating advice," says the mayor's lawyer. The chief deputy city attorney scoffs in response.
Paul attracted a healthy crowd of about 5,000 for Wednesday night's rally in the tennis stadium on campus.
Sheriff's official takes inmate golfing, City Hall moves forward on ban of paper bags, stadium EIR to propose widening of 101 freeway, LAPD radios out for 12 hours and more.
Republican candidate Rick Santorum claimed he read somewhere that 7 or 8 UC and CSU campuses don't even offer U.S. history — and isn't that outrageous, angry real Americans?
More Assessor shenanigans, pepper spray at Santa Monica College, USC to get Coliseum, City Hall wants to charge you for paper bags, list of Peabody Award winners and big remodeling at the Huntington.
Douglas retired last year as executive director of the California Coastal Commission, a regulatory entity he helped create.
Warren Olney will host a little radio debate tonight between the Valley congressmen who are running against each other.
Water main breaks in the Fairfax area and why, donor to the Assessor gets a big tax break, changes to high speed rail, Ron Paul coming to UCLA, Al Martinez grieves and museums join the Google Art Project.
Jon Regardie, editor of the Downtown News, has some Mobius Strip-inspired fun with the Los Angeles Fire Department's confusing messages about its response time on fire and ambulance calls.
The seldom-seen head of the AEG empire says if necessary he will buy an NFL team himself and move it to Los Angeles.
In this audio clip, Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz showed up unprepared to be grilled about Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa by KABC talk host Doug McIntyre.
More investigations of the sheriff's department, can the new Dodgers buyers make a profit?, another award for California Watch, and Toronto looks to LA as a model of transit.
The Sacramento Bee announced the death of the paper's editorial cartoonist on Friday of cancer.
The campaign treasurer for many California Democrats pleaded guilty this morning in federal court in Sacramento.
Mayor and the city retirement age, a tunnel for NoHo, Lohan walks away a free woman, the Langer's effect on the Expo Line, what's in the new Slake and a nice feature on downtown photographer-artist Ed Fuentes.
Pasadena police zig on Kendrec McDade case, more Dodgers sale reaction and head-scratching, Adelson says Gingrich is at the end of the line, assemblyman quits the Republican Party, "Downton Abbey" ratings are boffo and KCAL's Chuck Hollis has died. Plus more inside.
hort stack for today. I'm out early to take part in an exercise for the city's Survey LA program of identifying historic properties around Los Angeles.
Federal prosecutors are expected to recommend 11 to 14 years in prison for the Democratic campaign treasurer, Politico reports.
Racial profiling at the LAPD, DiFi is running just quietly, gun-toting lawmaker gets probation, suing over Newhall Ranch, more waste and possibly worse in the sheriff's aero division, and more.
Republican candidate for president Mitt Romney has a $2,500-a-person fundraiser scheduled Tuesday night at the Century Plaza.
Brown's tax plan has the lead, Garcetti's toughness issue, Orlov's Tipoff, new 9/11 book by ex-LA Times reporters, the old Mary Pickford studios in West Hollywood endangered and chatting with...
John Schwada, the former Fox 11 reporter and LA Observed contributor, goes to work for Rep. Brad Sherman's campaign.
The state capital reporter and blogger for KQED in San Francisco (and by extension for other public radio stations around California) is going to be the political editor for Sacramento's ABC-TV affiliate.
Six people, including the former longtime gneral manager Patrick Lynch, were named in a 29-count felony indictment from the Los Angeles County Grand Jury unsealed today.
Short jokes at the Herb Wesson roast, Jackie Robinson's history in Sanford, Kim Kardashian gets flour-bombed, and more.
Mayor Villaraigosa just announced that he's appointing the police department's former crime stats head as Interim Director of Statistical Analysis and Review at the fire department.
Mayoral candidate Austin Beutner is providing this map letting residents click on any Los Angeles Fire Department station to see the local response time stats.
LAFD ordered to give the info, Yaroslavsky's deadline, Maxine Waters' nepotism, another young Kennedy comes through town, fracking in Inglewood and more.
Baca's jails and LAFD response stats, Game Change's Steve Schmidt, remembering the old LA Weekly, LA Times' first female news reporter, Cathy Seipp and more.
This reporter's tip sheet from the Obama campaign seems like it just went out prematurely. Note the subject line.
Brandon Hall, who ran Sen. Harry Reid's reelection campaign and some other big Democratic wins, has been named senior advisor to Rep. Howard Berman's campaign and put in charge of day to day operations.
An ambulance for Porter Ranch, hating the paper bag ban idea, LAUSD hires ex-TV reporter to run social media, New York Times cuts back on free articles, a possible return of McDonnell/Douglas the radio show, and more.
Media and politics notes now that my Internet is working again, plus a couple of radio programming notes.
The City Council went forward with the new districts drawn by the committee headed by Council President Herb Wesson's deputy, prompting strong words from Jan Perry.
California primary could matter for the Republican nomination, redistricting vote likely today, revisiting the Spring Street green lane again, weatherman Kyle Hunter alleges job discrimination, California Watch wins another honor and Tom Hoffarth explains why he wrote about that bogus Dodgers bidder.
DA's race field set, no answers in Mitrice Richardson death case, sheriff's staffers are blocked from seeing Witness LA blog, 70,000 stop sign tickets from those cameras in the mountains, plus dependency court on "SoCal Connected" and more.
Plus: who from Los Angeles was invited to attend dine at the White House tonight with Britian's Prime Minister David Cameron.
Villaraigosa insulted at state Capitol, fire chief does the mea culpa, doomsday budget at LAUSD, KTLA can't say if John and Ken are off the air, the prisoner who became an expert on hieroglyphics, and more notes.
More backlash to bad LAFD response data, downtown lobbyist types raise money for Janice Hahn, GOP's Jon Fleischman featured, a "downtown" condo that isn't, NBC 4's annoying news crawl during "SNL" and the NYT does Long Beach State.
Doonesbury's abortion strips, Romney's California challenge, McCourt and the LA Marathon, and more for a Monday.
Ethics Commission raises LA campaign limits, LAUSD district redrawing, a "Desperate Housewives" courtroom spoiler and more.
Prosecutor Mario Trujillo will drop his campaign for Los Angeles County DA due to recent health news, the LA Weekly's Gene Maddaus reported Thursday.
This morning on KPCC's "Airtalk with Larry Mantle," fellow Coliseum commissioners City Councilman Bernard Parks and county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky pointedly disagreed with each other over the panel's closed-door negotiations with USC to take over the historic stadium.
Koreatown vs Wesson, Shimon Peres in town, a local media figure stays busy after retirement, who's playing Cesar Chavez in the movie and palm tree rustlers on the freeway.
High speed rail's costs soar again, how Trutanich is cheating after-school kids, Garcetti as hipster and Latino, more problems for Emmis, another correction on the Hollywood sound studio that burned — and a way to get your fiction judged by Michael Connelly and Denise Hamilton.
Mitt Romney won six states, but lost to Rick Santorum in Tennessee and Newt Gingrich in Georgia.
Arrests in Sacramento, Schwarzenegger fined, a comment on food writing, Fox 11 hires, another studio musician dies and more.
I can't put it any better than reporter Jack Dolan in the LA Times.
The Wendy Greuel for mayor campaign put out a release today naming the senior players. The primary election is one year from today.
Raising money for marriage equality, Rush Limbaugh, Riordan and Trutanich, politics and media notes and more.
The Carmen Trutanich for DA campaign paid marketing firms to rustle up YouTube views for his campaign videos, then sent out a press release crowing about how the videos' popularity showed the city attorney had broad support, the LA Times reports.
Mickey Kaus, a Democrat who was one of right-wing web mogul Andrew Breitbart's friends from across the ideological aisle, writes at the Daily Caller that Breitbart always believed the charges...
Rebecca Schoenkopf, the former editor of the CityBeat weekly in Los Angeles and a longtime blogger as Commie Girl (as well as other journalistic pursuits) is the new editor of Wonkette
Andrew Breitbart was deeply engaged on a mystery project that would mark "a transition into a different kind of journalism," his chief deputy tells the LA Weekly.
Albert Abrams surrenders to FBI, redistricting moves forward, John and Ken not on KTLA, yet another new section from the Huffington Post and more.
Andrew Breitbart's websites announced thus morning that the conservative commentator and founder of a number of news and political websites died overnight of natural causes.
Dreier, the chairman of the House Rules committee, is another congressional veteran to see his career altered, and possibly ended, by redistricting.
Police Commission modifies impounds for unlicensed drivers, most support ever for gay marriage, new proposal to make abortion more widely available, more bike lanes coming in county, fewer fees to visit the forest and the end of Studio City's Sushi Nozawa.
The senator, elected a year ago from the Antelope Valley, was diagnosed 20 years ago with limited scleroderma.
Time magazine reports that "until last week, the mayoral tale of Villaraigosa was starting to look like a box-office bomb."
Dogs in restaurants, that tragic after-school fight in Long Beach, USC's Selden Ring Award and more.
Villaraigosa's pre-Oscar party, the political Chacons of southheast LA county, state fish and game leader bags a mountain lion, waiting for layoffs at the LA Times, Kobe breaks his nose plus a selection of good reads from the weekend.
Politics commentator Sherry Bebitch Jeffe has awarded her "first annual" political Oscars on NBC LA's Prop Zero blog. Gov. Jerry Brown wins best performance by a Democrat.
LAPD chief Charlie Beck had a bit more to say today about his comments yesterday in favor of issuing a special drivers license to undocumented residents who pass the tests....
From the Daily News, an 80-year-old woman in a wheelchair tries to get over the hump caused by a street tree in Northridge.
Noguez denies wrongdoing, Cedillo complains about being redistricted out of his home, LA Weekly vs. Trutanich, new media people hires in the mayor's press office, EsoWon Books moves and more.
"When something doesn't work over and over and over again, my view is that you should reexamine it to see if there is another way that makes more sense," said the LAPD chief.
Berman-Sherman debate coverage, Bernard Parks on redistricting maps, Villaraigosa now an Obama co-chair, Steve Lopez remembers his father and more.
New York Times bureau chief Adam Nagourney sat down for an hour-long interview with Antonio Villaraigosa and gave his record as mayor a midterm examination, concluding that things are looking up after a few down years.
Democratic Reps. Brad Sherman and Howard Berman are facing off at 7:30 p.m. at Temple Judea in Tarzana. Republican Mark Reed is also taking part — in fact he kind of gets featured billing as the outlier in the race for the heavily Democratic 30th district.
Baca chided by Times, county politics, Chevron politics in El Segundo, Magic Johnson's new network, another defection from Village Voice Media and the success of "Grammar Girl" plus more.
Assessor John Noguez under investigation, Sheriff Baca sorry for breaking the law, Rep. Brad Sherman not moving and more.
The Great Eastern, the Chinatown landmark in San Francisco where President Obama made one of those "unscheduled" stops on Thursday's campaign swing, still offers a $48 bowl of braised shark...
Xi Jinping's day in LA, Herb Wesson politicizes the City Council, Richard Alarcon's bad week, why Stephen Colbert took off, the LAPL takes to Pinterest and remembering the heyday of Gold's Gym in Venice.
The White House has provided an official account of what President Obama had to stay last night at the fundraiser in Holmby Hills.
Obama moves on to OC, China's Xi Jinping arrives, redistricting panel redraws council districts again, Rep. Laura Richardson in hot water again, and Jim Ladd is back on the air — again.
President Obama is scheduled to land at LAX about 4 p.m. After that traffic could suck for awhile in the corridor from Brentwood to Beverly Hills.
Cold rain expected, an audit of Animal Services, Frisbee rules to back for rewrite, redistricting gets testy, Villaraigosa on chairing the Democratic convention, and a disabled placard stunt with Steve Lopez and Dennis Zine.
Roy Brewer is a despised historical figure by many in Hollywood, but not by Ronald Reagan researcher John Meroney.
But it sounds as if he the mayor will be named chair of the Democrats' convention in Charlotte, with an announcement possibly tomorrow when President Obama is here in Los Angeles.
Assemblyman Mike Feuer formally announced his candidacy for City Attorney this morning. He lost to Rocky Delgadillo in 2001.
Nonprofit funds vanish, Whitney Houston goes home to Newark, FPPC softens oversight of candidates, Dems endorse Janice Hahn, Bernard Parks comes back from surgery and blogging Dudamel's trip to Venezuela.
The entertainment highlight of the Democratic Party's state convention this weekend in San Diego was apparently the unusually harsh words from Reps. Brad Sherman and Howard Berman, aimed at each other.
Why LAUSD paid Mark Berndt to go away, dangerous stalker escapes from mental hospital, Pete Schabarum says term limits has missed the mark, sheriff watchers speculate on a shakeup and debating whether Carmen Trutanich is indeed a liar.
City Attorney Carmen Trutanich made it official and announced this morning that he is running for District Attorney of Los Angeles this year.
Justice Kennedy and Prop. 8, Speaker Perez and tuition, Grammy party gets into Getty House, no city for East Los Angeles, Lana Del Rey draws a big crowd in Hollywood and more.
Judy Graeme noticed an especially bad sidewalk rupture on Prosser Avenue, just below Pico in Rancho Park.
Jerry Brown's pardons, DWP's high pay, renaming City Hall East, LAT's Korea reporter headed for Las Vegas, a new book and more.
Rick Santorum claned up on Tuesday, but it's Mitt Romney whose record on immigration will be skewered by the mayor in Washington.
He shows up at the Lakers training gym going up against Rick Fox, and at the LAPD asking then-Chief Bernard Parks for a detective job, in this 2001 video spoof.
"Proposition 8 served no purpose, and had no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California,” the court said.
Awaiting the Prop. 8 ruling, Brown takes a hit, Pete Wilson joins Romney, helicopter traffic reporter laid off, getting the burrito story wrong and a blogger takes on Wikipedia.
As City Attorney Carmen Trutanich inches closer to his inevitable admission that, yes, he is running for DA despite previously saying he wouldn't, some law enforcement say his campaign has been fudging its endorsement list.
Rick Caruso leaves the Republican Party, Jim Newton goes to a Supes meeting, city reduces Occupy LA damage bill, Sacramento Bee fires its altering photographer, Miramonte Elementary closes for two days plus more.
The Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation apologized on Friday for deciding to cut most of its financing to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screening.
Jefrey Katzenberg, Berman-Sherman, Prop. 8 and a reporter moves back to the LA City Hall beat.
AEG to unveil convention center plans, Trutanich to sue Northern Trust, Larry Mantle to talk about Westside vs Eastside, "Marketplace" retracts plus a job opening at AP Los Angeles.
Berman-Sherman are in one orbit, Richardson-Hahn in another with fewer zeroes.
Who attended the First Lady's fundraiser last night, Steve Lopez on high speed rail, the Coliseum's bags of cash, opening juvenile court to the media and reopening the Pulitzers deadline. Plus Susan G. Komen drops Planned Parenthood.
In the last presidential election, Tribune Company boss Sam Zell's most prominent statement about politics — other than "it's unAmerican not to like pussy" — was that his preferred candidate would be "anybody but Clinton."
When the last campaign fundraising reports came in six months ago, Austin Beutner's camp crowed how he was setting the money pace for the 2013 candidates for mayor. This time, they are pooh-poohing any of that.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi entertained Hollywood political players last night with her plans for regaining a Democratic majority in November. Plus: Obama's biggest Hollywood bundlers.
Fired teacher arrested for lewd conduct on 23 children, Michelle Obama comes to town, a redevelopment agencies explainer, film critics who lost their cars to the Hollywood arsonist get some wheels, Ed Padgett talks about LAT firing, and more.
Periodic campaign reports are due Tuesday, so the day before brings the press releases trying to grab a headline (or prevent a headline) for a factoid that matters little at this stage.
Former speaker and losing candidate for mayor releases a statement (through campaign strategist John Shallman) saying thanks but no thanks.
KCET's weekly news show "SoCal Connected" will receive this year's Public Service Award from the Los Angeles Press Club for exposing "lavish and out of control spending at the Los Angeles Housing Authority.
SAG Awards winners, Gov. Brown defends high-speed rail, Mayor Villaraigosa on CNN and at USC, a question for Carmen Trutanich, who runs the LAPD and a detective goes on trial for an old murder.
Ace Smith and Sean Clegg, the longtime Nothern California-based political advisers to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, have left the mayoral campaign of businessman Austin Beutner in the days since he gave a policy speech criticizing City Hall.
Foo Fighters for Obamajam, Wesson punishes City Council rivals and an LAPD detective arrested, plus more.
Friends of the environmental attorney Roger Carrick held a well-attended life celebration last night at Para Los Niños, the Downtown childrens' center where he was on the board and the former chairman.
San Fernando ticket controversy, James Franco upsets USC and more
I guess it's good news that the president's main venue on Feb. 15 will be in Holmby Hills, at the home of soap opera producer and writer Bradley Bell and his wife Colleen.
An architecture student made a jigsaw puzzle out of Chicago's 50 wards
News, politics and media notes plus a melting Prius
The secret City Council district maps were released publicly today, revealing whose ox is being gored. As she foreshadowed, Councilwoman Jan Perry is among the gored.
The Obama Victory Fund is sending out an invitation to upcoming Obama reelection events offering local high rollers some options on how to get past their upset at the president's stance on SOPA and PIPA.
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky isn't a fan of the coverage of his proposal to cut back on the amount of time wasted listening to the same gadflies at Board of Supervisors meetings. And he really didn't care for the Los Angeles Times story about it this past weekend.
Fighting over LA turf in redistricting, a post-election chat with Joe Buscaino, Steve Lopez stakes out disabled placard cheaters, LAPD will search the Calabasas landfill for gun and tough words for Frank McCourt from ex-Dodgers exec.
Eleven Oscar nomoinations for "Hugo," nine best picture candidates, Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. goes to trial with Dick Clark, Westfield will serve food at LAX, Cadiz water project is back, an Occupy protester gets jail for hitting cops, plus the New York Times moves Hancock Park to "downtown Los Angeles."
Sherman wins a round against Berman, what sets the two congressmen apart besides their backers, Jim Newton on Herb Wesson, Channel 4 rebrands news, and more.
Rep. Gabrielle Gifords to leave Congress, Simpson case detective Philip Vannatter dies and more.
Newt Gingrich got 40 percent of the vote in Saturday's South Carolina primary, well ahead of both Mitt Romney (27 percent) and Rick Santorum (17 percent) — "upending the Republican race for the presidency."
The acting police chief in the city of San Fernando has been placed on administrative leave during an investigation into an allegation that he fixed a traffic ticket for Fred Flores, an aide to Rep. Howard Berman
Rick Perry out, Jerry Brown at City Hall, Antonio Villaraigosa at breakfast in Washington, a new radio talk show and Jonathan Gold's eulogy to Angeli.
Clearly, top Hollywood executives feel burned that President Obama has stopped backing their very controversial pet measures to fight content piracy. But enough to drop their support? Two views from Hollywood websites.
Online protests today against the Stop On-line Piracy Act in the House and the Senate's Protect Intellectual Property Act appear to be having an effect.
Wikipedia and other sites go dark, Brown coming to town after speech, Alarcons in court, Hahn on Buscaino's election and more, including a book sale by the original MTV veejays.
LAPD cop Joe Buscaino won't have to do any more patrols if he doesn't want to. He was elected to the Los Angeles City Council Tuesday with 60 percent of the vote to just under 40 percent for Assemblyman Warren Furutani.
The Sacramento-oriented weekly published by the York family of Malibu announced today that Thursday's ink-on-paper edition will be the last. The publication will continue on the web.
Berman raising money fast, Brown's State of the State coming, Yaroslavsky gets exasperating, plus HuffPo, NPR's Alex Kellogg and a girls' basketball team on the Eastside.
On Tuesday, the race between Joe Buscaino and Warren Furutani comes to a close. On KCRW today I talked about what I'll be watching for on election night. Plus: a roundup of media coverage.Politics page
The former Utah governor went before the cameras in South Carolina this morning and formally pulled out of the race for president. He called on the remaining Republican candidates to clean up their acts.
This year's showdown in the Valley between Reps. Howard Berman and Brad Sherman does more than just echo the 1980 fight in Sacramento when Berman tried to unseat fellow Democrat Leo McCarthy as Speaker of the Assembly.
High speed rail, impounding the cars of unlicensed drivers, a Wendy Greuel audit, growth at the Natural History Museum and more.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will be in Washington from Tuesday to Friday next week in his role as head of the US Conference of Mayors.
President Obama's reelection team has furnished donors with a list of more than 190 well-known Americans who the campaign hopes will stand in for the president during the year.
Jerry Lewis, the dean of the California Republicans in Congress, confirmed today what's been around for a few days now
Student murdered in the Valley, City Hall park plans, making fun of TV critics, Olivia Munn gets naked, interviewing with Arianna Huffington, the KKK's membership roster in OC and more.
At 7 p.m. on KCRW's "Which Way, L.A.?," City Council candidates Warren Furutani and Joe Buscaino talk about the 15th district race that culminates this coming Tuesday.
The Service Employees International Union in California will announce today its backing of Rep. Howard L. Berman in the San Fernando Valley showdown with fellow Democrat Rep. Brad Sherman.
Judge OK's Dodgers deals, LAUSD may propose parcel tax, City Hall faces life without the CRA, a new editor for Huffington Post and more.
The 13-1 preliminary vote today would remove to need to spend $4 million to $5 million on a ballot measure — by adopting the measure's provisions.
The event was held in the Compstat room at the new Police Administration Building, was hosted by Chief Charlie Beck, and included red and white wine for an audience of Civic Center types, reporters and cops.
Politics, media and more.
Stodder, you may recall, reported to federal prison authorities last February to serve a term for his part in the Fleishman-Hillard episode that roiled City Hall a few years ago.
In my weekly commentary segment tonight with Lisa Napoli, we talk about media-shy Colorado mogul Phil Anschutz and his local right-hand, Tim Leiweke.
The former Assembly Speaker and unsuccessful candidate for mayor says he can win and she can't.
Those wacky Burkharts, Chargers to stay in San Diego, LA's potholes in the NYT, arguing Proposition 13 and more.
Tony Blankley, the former Reagan speechwriter and press secretary to Newt Gingrich in Congress who was the conservative presence on KCRW's Left, Right and Center, died Saturday after battling stomach cancer.
The Republicans had their own local primary election fight between House incumbents brewing due to redistricting. But Rep. Elton Gallegly said Saturday he won't run, leaving the district to fellow Republican Rep. Buck McKeon.
The number of links to coverage of last night's forum between Reps. Howard Berman and Brad Sherman (and their Republican accessories) has kept growing through the day. So I'm gathering them here.
Berman and Sherman, John and Ken, Buscaino and Furutani, and more.
Burkhart charged, heat records, lawmakers return to Sacramento, endorsements in the 15th council district and the Huffington Post moves into science now.
Take My Picture Gary Leonard.
She resigned as ambassador to the Bahamas and will return to Los Angeles "to help fix the president's troubled relationship with the entertainment industry." Plus: Keith Olbermann, Berman-Sherman.
Joe Torre joins Caruso bid for Dodgers, Wesson wields the gavel, Jan Perry as mayoral candidate, more on the deputy who nabbed the arson suspect, MTV caves to Movie Smackdown and an auxiliary bishop admits fathering two children.
Villaraigosa's fiscal health game, LAWA looking for PR help, Dukakis jumps into Sherman-Berman, the Union-Tribune rebrands in San Diego and an L.A. journalist writes about the death of his brother over the holidays. Plus it's caucus day in Iowa.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa says at the presser that Burkhart has been booked on one count of arson. Chief Beck says they got their man.
Greuel joins City Council President Herb Wesson and the Times in backing the LAPD cop in the race. For the Times, the endorsement comes with a caution that Buscaino is not all that impressive.
Steve Greenberg's LA Observed cartoon on Jerry Brown makes Joel Pett's selection on the LAT op-ed page.
Bethania Palma Markus was until recently a reporter for the LANG papers east of L.A.
ProPublica landed a major California investigation this week, using internal memos to show how the Democrats secretly and very successfully manipulated the new congressional district lines.
Heikes is the former LA weekly editor. Read the memo on the new Sacto reporter.
The office of City Attorney Carmen Trutanich has just distributed a summary of Occupy members charged, sentenced or awaiting a resolution of their arrests in the Nov. 30 raid outside City Hall
A roundup for a holiday week.
After my post last night about Mayor Villaraigosa attending Sunday's Broncos-Patriots game, City Hall reporters put the key questions to the mayor and his staff.
he Los Angeles Times has tapped Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and columnist David Horsey to revamp the Top of the Ticket politics blog with cartoons and commentary.
Gov. Jerry Brown's wife, Anne Gust, just tweeted this picture of hubby doing a pushup.
Dan Walters, the venerable political presence in Sacramento, is the latest holdout to fall.
City Council tensions, Bay Area's Warren Hellman dies, giving credit to Dalton Trumbo and celebrating Esther MCCoy, plus more.
Getty Images photographed Villaraigosa on the Denver sideline with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, left, and Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
It's not the respondents who call themselves likely voters, though they lie too.
Pomona Freeway stays closed, State Senate pays for sexual claim against Rod Wright, Villaraigosa defends Asia trip, Hahn won't endorse and another housing authority report tonight on "SoCal Connected."
60 freeway stays closed into weekend, Laura Chick endorses Buscaino, Gerald Rivera coming to L.A. talk radio, the Kinde Durkee story, Golden Globe nominations and the owner of Junior's Deli dies — plus more.
LAUSD cuts, animal shelter tech fired, a 2006 view of Herb Wesson, the Christian film John Atterberry was working on, a Lenin bust on La Brea and more.
It can't be a bad sign for your chances when the incoming president of the City Council publicly endorses your campaign to be elected to said council.
More Housing Authority, poll says Brown looks good on taxes, Brokaw and Olney to be feted, and more.
The libertarians at Reason.tv made an entertaining video on traveling by rail from LAX to Burbank, accompanied by their research on how much the public subsidizes the transit system.
Good deed by music writer Kevin Bronson, Ridley-Thomas responds to Times, Mike Downey has an idea for the Dodgers, Steve Lopez writes on his father's deteriorating choices and Bill Moyers returns to KCET
You can probably guess handle the Secret Service used for the actor.
City Councilman Paul Krekorian's latest emailed newsletter got my attention, and not for any of the headlines or stories.
Prop. 8, Kinde Durkee, Walmart pepper spray, Occupy LA arrestee and more.
On January 1, a new amnesty program allows drivers who ignored their traffic tickets before 2009 to pay half of what they owe and clear their record. The Legislature saw...
Berman's friends in the House are lending their name to a "California wine tasting" fundraiser next week in Washington.
In stories posted within minutes of each other, one top deputy to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa says the mayor most everything, and another says he knew nothing.
Even though Mayor Villaraigosa's office now admits the boss approved the sweet golden parachute with Rudolf Montiel, interim Housing Authority chief Ken Simmons "is resigning at the Mayor's request."
KCET quotes deputy chief of staff saying Villaraiogsa knew of and approved deal with Rudolf Montiel.
Edison says the power is on, more Housing Authority on KCET, who really runs the jails, Romney leaves town with $1 million, Joan Didion on "Bookworm" and more.
Mayor chooses distance from Housing Authority scandal, DWP approves water rate increase, more politics and media notes, plus the most powerful images of 2011.
I was told by City Hall late tonight that Villaraigosa's group did fly out to Chongqing without incident. Plus a fashion report on Lu Parker.
Candidates who don't clean up their old campaign signs.
Controller Wendy Greuel and her predecessor issue letters on the deal given Rudolf Montiel.
Raphael J. Sonenshein, the Cal State Fullerton professor, author and analyst of Los Angeles politics, has been named executive director of the Edmund G. “Pat” Brown Institute of Public Affairs.
Voters want a do-over on high speed rail, DWP board takes up rate hike, a different Villaraigosa joins the Young Democrats, naming a Navy ship after Cesar Chavez and more.
Brown's poll numbers, $1 million-plus for Rudy Montiel, JIm Newton calls for a raise in DWP rates, and Giuliana Rancic goes for the double mastectomy.
Lumachi died early Saturday in a car accident in Florida, where he was attending a conference in St. Petersburg.
He cites distractions and blames enemies and the media, of course.
San Fernando Mayor Mario Hernandez is expected to face a crowd calling for his resignation at next week's City Council meeting, but his girlfriend will be in Israel.
Media and politics notes, plus a Hollywood obituary and more.
Tonight's report, at 8:30 p.m., focuses on extravagant spending by the agency and its officials, including on personal items.
San Gabriel Valley catches a break from winds, Occupy LA arrestees still in jail, Villaraigosa headed to Asia and Cuomo coming to town, plus more.
Protesters occupy railroad tracks in a German forest to block a train carrying nuclear waste.
Ed Fuentes, the Downtown photographer and muralist, examines the case for preserving the mural created on the plywood box that city crews had erected in the Occupy LA camp to protect a fountain.
Winds close schools and more, Baca was told of jail abuse but did nothing, Occupy LA aftermath and more.
Photographer Iris Schneider has been documenting the Occupy LA camp almost from the start, and she went back this morning to see what remains.
High winds, Westwood loses four movie screens, an old local pol dies and more.
The breakdown is 290 booked for failure to disperse, one for battery on a police officer and one for interfering with an officer.
Raid looks like it's about to happen.
Gov. Brown on pepper spray, mayor tested by Occupy LA, Chief Beck tweets, blaming the tar pits and more.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is telling the media today that last night's deadline on Occupy LA came and went as planned, and that there will definitely be an eviction showdown if protesters refuse to leave, but he repeated that the eviction would come when it "makes sense: for police officers and the protesters.
Rep. Waters is next in line to become ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services committee.
Police said the arrests were of protesters who refused to get out of the street opposite City Hall or who threw things at officers. The camp remains, but smaller.
Villaraigosa hits the airwaves, somebody is polling on Rick Caruso, Arianna Huffington interviews Scarlett Johansson and more.
Some campers have left, the crowd has grown with sympathizers, and there has been milling in the traffic lanes of 1st Street at Spring, inhibiting passing cars but no actual trouble. Police presence: light.
Supporters of Occupy LA have been sounding the alarm all day about a supposed LAPD raid of the encampment after tonight's midnight deadline. But the LAPD says: who, us?
After that time, say Mayor Villaraigosa and LAPD chief Beck, the curfew banning overnight use of the City Hall park will be enforced. KInda sorta.
The mayor's office has put out the call for a 4 p.m. media op in his 3rd floor conference room "regarding Occupy LA and the closure of City Hall Park."
Why bring in a cop, and pay his consultants' fee, when there's a whole university worth of independent scholars who could recommend how to revisit the use of pepper spray against UC Davis students.
Deputy Mayor Matt Szabo told reporters today that Occupy LA will be cleared out some time next week, and the mayor's office followed with a statement.
Possible end days for Occupy L.A., City Hall PR deal collapses, foreclosed homes become parks, plus politics and book notes.
Former LAPD chief William Bratton has been tapped by the University of California to lead the official examination of the UC Davis pepper spraying of passive student protesters.
City offers Occupy LA a deal, that City Hall PR contract gets messy, a new dance company from Benjamin Millipied, new board members at the Press Club and Father Dollar Bill dies.
Republican presidential front-runner (at least in California) Mitt Romney will be in town Dec. 6 for a fundraiser at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
Ed Fuentes imagines the UC Davis pepper spray cop being given community service on the new bike lane on Spring Street in Downtown Los Angeles.
UC president decries pepper spraying, mayoral candidates unsettling to watch, Beck's big test, and Wesson's too.
The national focus of the Occupy activities has suddenly become the University of California at Davis, showing the massive power (once again) of YouTube to capture relatively unfiltered events and disseminate them widely to great effect.
A small but determined group of students has been occupying tents outside the East Los Angeles College administration building.
Lowering expectations on Natalie Wood case, tearing down the 6th Street bridge, media notes and a local sports death.
Randy L. Rasmussen of the Portland Oregonian newspaper took this photo Thursday of a woman being hit in the face with pepper spray during an Occupy protest in downtown Portland.
He will spend a year as advisor to the Sierra Club and Michael Brune will be the top officer.
Few events in a young activist’s life, says the historian and author, are
"as memorably disturbing as the first time you look into cop’s eyes a few anxious inches from your face and find only robotic murderous hatred staring back at you."
U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney sanctioned Justice Department lawyers and ordered the FBI to pay monetary sanctions over the government lying about its surveillance of SoCal Muslim groups.
More on Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner, latest on Occupy, Trutanich endorses Buscaino, and the National Entertainment Journalism awards.
Current president Eric Garcetti will nominate Councilman Herb Wesson to succeed him.
Curbed LA made this video on life inside the Occupy L.A. camp on the lawns around City Hall.
The California Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the proponents of banning gay marriage can take the place of state officials defending the initiative in court.
Sounds like the choreographed sort of street protest crackdown, with marchers and police each playing their part.
The Daily 49er at Cal State Long Beach covered the arrests Wednesday of protesters at the Cal State trustees' meeting.
Protesters blocking Figueroa St. this morning, Beck mellow on Occupy L.A. camp, more state budget cuts coming, court to rule on Prop. 8, Kovacik sues over Polo Lounge attack and more.
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky blogs that the jail, built mostly during the Kennedy Administration, is "a deeply depressing place, filled with 4,000 or more men crammed into dank cells." With photos.
Lefty icon Paul Krassner and conservative culture warrior Andrew Breitbart actually got together by mutual assent to discuss their respective world views.
Simon did unpaid work for Texas Gov. Rick Perry's presidential campaign for awhile. Plus: Tina Dupuy on Occupy.
Villaraigosa to make "major address," City Council reneges on South L.A. park, killing the City Hall lawn is a good thing, KOST-FM goes holiday and a Munchkin dies.
Citywide "holiday filming restrictions" limit filming activity, street closures and lane closures between Nov. 21 and January 2.
AEG and Gensler released fresh looks at the proposed Downtown football stadium.
LAPD chief Charlie Beck said Tuesday that he expects long negotiations today with Occupy L.A. on a timeline for protesters to leave the camp outside City Hall.
Mayor wants to trim trees too, the dangers of ignoring Mexico, Chelsea Clinton, Teresa Hughes and The Wave goes Christmas.
Occupiers have been told they will be arrested if they don't leave. The police showed up at 1 a.m.
Bids are due on Friday to work four months for the City Council's redistricting commission, for as much as $100,000.
Items from the in-box on Wendy Greuel, Gil Cedillo and more.
Motivations behind political campaign donations by Hollywood figures are more complex than they might seem, Variety's Ted Johnson writes.
Hundreds of law enforcement officers from across the Bay Area encircled the Occupy Oakland camp at about 5 a.m.
Rep. Howard Berman looks like the big winner on the dollar side.
Punishing deputies with jail duty, Stevie Wonder drops in at Royce Hall, USC enrolls most foreign students and more.
Mayor Antonio Villaraiogsa got a nice long chunk of free time on CNN's "State of the Union" with Candy Crowley Sunday and said, among other things, that the number...
City Councilwoman Jan Perry talks with Conan Nolan on NBC 4's News Conference about the city's redistricting process being tainted by politics.
The sign here was out front of The Pie Hole, a new dessert and coffee spot in downtown's Arts District.
In the cold open from "Saturday Night Live," Gov. Perry has a bit of trouble finishing his points.
Romenesko, the Geffen Playhouse, Evelyn Martinez, Haskell Wexler, Winston Doby and more.
The news site has been a welcome addition from day one, reporting on City Hall moves and politics without rants, hidden agendas or anonymous comments.
Change at the top at county jail, Villaraiosa wants to borrow Measure R funds, what Occupy LA plans for Friday, Kirsten Dunst, Tyler Shields and the Getty acquires some photos.
So it should be a friendly CD 15 runoff, right? Plus: Buscaino consultant denies he sent gloating email.
Leaked poll in the mayor's race, costs of Occupy LA mount, Valley Democrats endorse Sherman over Berman, Metro's blogger calls for Dodger Stadium to move Downtown, and more.
This sets up what should be an interesting and potentially brutal showdown in the 15th council district.
Occupy Wall Street organizer David DeGraw spoke at Occupy L.A. on Sunday night and said focus would shift to the Los Angeles encampment during the New York winter.
La Opinión political columnist Pilar Marrero has reactivated her blog with a post about Latino immigrants as a sleeping giant in U.S. politics.
Galperin lost the race for City Council in the 5th district to Paul Koretz in 2009.
Mayor appeals to car dealers, Madeline Janis steps down, Yaroslavsky takes a ride, Playboy moves back to Beverly Hills, Kirk Honeycutt out at THR and more.
Mayor Villaraiogsa shows up at the Breeders' Cup in Louisville with old friend Keith Brackpool.
Baca (and Lohan) and the jails, Durkee and the money, Jim Ladd gets to say goodbye, UCLA warns patients and more.
He's not toast, maybe, but the odds are getting longer.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa today announced the death of USC professor of public policy Harry Pachon, founding board member and past executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund.
Jan Perry leaves council leadership post, ethics inquiry for Rep. Laura Richardson, "Funny Girl" postponed, "Twilight" star does a good thing and more.
O'Malley and other possible Dodger buyers, Occupy Oakland, Jerry Brown shuts down transparency website, more Gensler fallout, Walter Mosley's L.A. childhood, Google opens in Venice and more.
Lindsay Lohan, Guy Crowder, John Cage, Edward Headington and more.
Durazo tells City Hall that Occupy LA should stay, Occupy Oakland wants a general strike, Freedom sells its TV stations, finalists for entertainment journalist of the year and much, much more.
It's Alexander Bustamante, a prosecutor in the Major Frauds Section of the U.S. Attorney's office, where he has worked since 2002.
High speed rail even more costly, legal opinion says some campaign donations can be given twice, a warning about Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, members of the jails commission and more.
Tonight's radio commentary: a quick take on the media infatuation with the color and authenticity of Occupy L.A., and the challenge for the politicians inside City Hall.
Baca's staff warned of jail brutality, Occupy LA and SFV, a new editor for Company Town, pressure on Village Voice Media over sex ads, plus more.
Making ready for the coming week, with Jim Ladd, Zev Yaroslavsky, Steve Lopez, Dawn Hudson and more.
Democratic Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi of Castro Valley was charged with felony grand theft after being caught on video surveillance allegedly shoplifting more than $2,000 worth of merchandise.
Weed is the divisive issue, says Natasha Vargas-Cooper at The Awl.
Brown's pension reform, John & Ken at Occupy L.A., Occupy SFV is next, the City Maven Radio Hour and more.
McCourt and baseball talking about him selling the Dodgers, how Oakland weighs on city officials hoping to move Occupy L.A., redistricting challenges rejected, dumb burglars and get this: Big Fur is actually based in West Hollywood, the first city to ban fur sales.
It appears the relationship is chilling between City Hall's politicos and the encampment of protesters outside on the lawn.
Stephen Colbert offers up alternatives to the campaign ad showing Herman Cain's campaign manager smoking.
Supes OK more Newhall Ranch homes, city spreads out pension costs, car wash workers unionize, one paper adds a book section and honoring Wanda Coleman.
Mayhem in downtown Oakland at this hour after police fired gas cannisters into a crowd that refused to disperse near 14th and Broadway.
Before leaving the Beverly Wilshire this morning, President Obama had a meeting with "some of the entertainment industry's high-level executives, as well as talent representatives with access to the industry's top stars and musical acts," THR says.
The White House and NBC have released excerpts of President Obama's sit-down with Jay Leno, taped this morning in Burbank for tonight's show.
Roger L. Simon's mostly politics and media operation is morphing from the L.A.-based Pajamas brand into PJ Media, as he explains.
It could have been worse. The final segment of Obamajam was avoided when the President flew by chopper from Burbank to LAX.
Villaraigosa on pensions and taxes, where in Asia he's going, Obamajammers tweet, what Steve Jobs said about the New York Times and more.
Everyone — including Rand — knew its study saying crime went up when marijuana clinics closed smelled funny, but now Rand has gone the rest of the way.
L.A. gets acquainted with a new level of Obamajam while President Obama himself stops for takeout and politics at Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles.
Chinese carmaker BYD opens but where are the jobs, Hollywood heavies schedule Elizabeth Warren funder, Villaraigosa planning trip to Asia, Harold and Belle's sweet deal, urging a bigger mall in Woodland Hills and tiring of Occupy L.A. Plus more.
There's not much new to know since we filled you in last week.
LA Observed contributing photographer Iris Schneider has been down on the lawn at City Hall shooting portraits of some of the participants in the Occupy Los Angeles encampment and protest.
HuffPo, Lohan, CareNow, LAPD's tweeting detective, apron parking and more.
President Barack Obama is scheduled to arrive at LAX on board Air Force One between 4:30 and 5 p.m. on Monday, the White House just announced.
The show will air next Tuesday, the night after fundraisers in the Hancock Park area.
An unfamiliar lull in California elections, jail visitor beaten while cuffed, sewer bills go up, L.A. to consider making homeowners responsible for sidewalk damage, Maxine Waters and controversy, and a quake drill this morning.
Mary Grady, the LAPD spokesperson for ten years until this past June, has been named Director of Public and Media Relations at Los Angeles World Airports.
Audio interview with Norman Corwin, initiative targets illegal immigrants, Hiltzik on 9-9-9, city cool to Occupy L.A. on banks, John & Ken apologize, and former Rep. Marty Martinez dies.
Steve Greenberg's latest editorial cartoon.
The new Citizens Commission on Jail Violence, created on a unanimous vote of the Board of Supervisors, will have seven members yet to be named.
Shalit freed, Supes take up jail oversight, campaign fund losses, girding for Berman-Sherman, part 2 of the LAT vs. Kabbalah and more.
New spoof from Funny or Die.
LAT goes after Kabbalah, LAPD loses a bunch of submachine guns, Baca tries a few steps of the mea culpa on jails, state politics crave L.A. city jobs and lots more inside for a Monday.
Former president Bill Clinton was the final speaker at Friday evening's memorial service for Edie Wasserman at UCLA’s Royce Hall.
Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton are around this weekend to celebrate the former president's 65th birthday and raise money for the William J. Clinton Foundation.
McCourt's big gamble, FPPC and Kinde Durkee, deputies' code of silence, killing the lawn at City Hall and Politico loses reporter over plagiarism. Plus more.
No official word yet from Bob Stern or Tracy Westen, but the board's chair has sent an email and former board member Art Agnos confirmed the news.
Pretty good month for Los Angeles in the print and web pages of the Atlantic, leading with Kate Bolick's cover story on what's happening to marriage now that men are on the decline.
Citizens commission will be asked to “conduct a review of the nature, depth and cause of the problem of inappropriate deputy use of force in the jails, and to recommend corrective action as necessary.”
President Obama will be the featured guest at a second Hancock Park-area fundraiser on Oct. 24, this one at the home of producer James Lassiter.
When President Obama returns to Los Angeles Oct. 24, the Futuro Fund event will be held at the Hancock Park area home of actors Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas.
Worst mass killing in OC history, new sheriff abuse report, feds to target media in pot war, Art Walk tonight and KCSN gets rock star support.
California Watch says federal prosecutors are preparing to target newspapers, radio stations and other media outlets that advertise medical marijuana dispensaries in the state.
Bust in Hollywood cellphone hacking, Jerry Brown and labor, L.A. County is hiring, woman defends LAFD over naked pictures and we now know the schedule for Farmers Field environmental review.
Alexander Hugh, the Koreatown developer nabbed for illegally contributing reelect Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in 2009, was fined $183,750 by the city's Ethics Commission this morning.
Jerry Brown's unpredictability, sheriff's culture, the L.A. River, the Boston Globe and Whitey Bulger and more.
Columbus Day closures, plus Gov. Jerry Brown bans open carry of handguns and more, why Sheriff Baca should not step down, more local candidates file and more.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa issued a statement praising Gov. Brown for signing the law that lets California high school grads who are undocumented apply for college financial aid.
President Obama will be jetting back into Los Angeles this month for a political fundraiser aimed this time at Latinos.
Gov. Jerrry Brown has been busy disposing of the bills sent to his desk by the Legislature.
Requiring drivers to slow to 15 miles an hour while passing a bicyclist closer than three feet is not going to fly.
Sheriff Lee Baca should step down, "at least temporarily," Times columnist Steve Lopez says in a column.
Forget that stuff about only low-level offenders being part of the state's transfer of cases back to Los Angeles County.
Prince Frederic von Anhalt, better known to the world (if at all) as Mr. Zsa Zsa Gabor, puts up a billboard on Sunset Strip.
In her last story before leaving the Daily Journal for Warren Olney's team at KCRW, staff writer Anna Scott details lucrative outside consulting by Michael Gennaco's county-funded Office of Independent Review.
The Board of Supervisors has the votes to dump Don Blevins as head of the county's troubled Probation Department, but Celeste Fremon says it appears he will get the chance to resign.
We didn't exactly answer the question of who rules California, but last night's Zócalo panel at the Museum of Contemporary Art did get into some interesting insights about the state and its cultural touchstones.
Warning Obama about Solyndra, warning victims about clemency, Villaraigosa wrong on prisoners, new book from Jim Newton, Red Line turnstiles and remembering Gregg Miller and Amy Pressman.
The suit on behalf of plastics manufacturer Hilex-Poly relies on the state's Proposition 26, which says fees levied on Californians should only cover the cost of a service.
Brian Alexik goes free, Kinde Durkee's lifestyle, Baca listens in the jail, Jerry Brown and running again, plus more HuffPost announcements and a local media death. And: is Henry's Tacos worthy of historic status?
Tonight at MOCA, I'm on a panel where the question is posed by Zócalo Public Square and the USC-Huntington Institute on California and the West.
"SoCal Connected" begins a new season tonight on KCET with stories on deteriorating sidewalks and the link between obesity and fast food in L.A.
Miguel Angel Corzo, president and CEO of the new LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes near the historic Plaza, has been removed and there have been layoffs.
Villaraigosa on CNN, John & Ken play the phone number card again, Pico-Union left out of stadium talk and more.
Pat McOsker became the first candidate in the 15th city council district to put a video ad on the local cable channels. Watch.
Prison realignment on NPR, LA Weekly loves those porn eyeballs, media notes, an LAPD detective and Milton Bradley arrested, plus six characters you'll see outside the Conrad Murray trial.
Supervisors Mark Ridley-Thomas and Don Knabe joined Warren Olney on "Which Way, L.A.?" to continue the conversation over redistricting.
Lolita Lopez is a Harvard graduate and former sports anchor and reporter at WPIX. Also: Shane Goldmacher to leave LAT.
Is Sly Stone really homeless? Reports of abuse by jail deputies, Controller powers, Christie here to raise money, Fox sues the Dodgers and more.
Some Latinos were moved from Gloria Molina's district to Don Knabe's, and voila, there were four votes to leave the Board of Supervisors' districts pretty close to what they are today.
Mike Bonin, the chief of staff to Councilman Bill Rosendahl, posted to Facebook some illuminating census data about Los Angeles city council districts.
LA County Probation Chief Donald Blevins has been informed that he's no longer needed, according to Celeste Fremon at Witness L.A.
City Council President Eric Garcetti was one of the 850 speakers who signed up to address the Board of Supervisors this afternoon on the divisive issue of political redistricting.
If you were caught in traffic near Sunset Boulevard between Beverly Hills and Brentwood between 9:30 and 10 a.m., that was just President Obama heading for his helicopter.
Air Force One departure time, transportation for Farmers field, Supervisors' redistricting, Parks endorses Perry, the LAT catches on to the Sly Stone is homeless story and more.
So far the timing of the president's moves across the Westside seems to be smooth and on schedule.
President Obama woke up in San Francisco, is in La Jolla now for a fundraising lunch and will be in L.A. this afternoon.
More fundraising after Obama, what to make of Yaroslavsky, Feuer waits on Trutanich, City Hall staff moves, a newspaper here is hiring, and the Angels beat the Dodgers. Plus more for Monday.
Presidential visits (of both parties) typically create the most intense surface street traffic jams most of us have ever seen in L.A., but they tend to be localized and avoidable if you just plan ahead.
The 2011 Congress of Neighborhoods got a visit from the mayor, heard from city officials about how to influence decisions, and shared some tips on how to act at meetings.
Rep. Howard Berman today endorsed Los Angeles City Councilman Tony Cardenas in his bid to win the Valley's newly drawn 29th congressional district.
Bad week for Feinstein, MTA will hire locally, more famers markets, porn and the fire truck, vandalism at an Obama office, Patrick Goldstein on being Jewish and more.
Rapper and singer-songwriter B.o.B., Adam 12 and the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles will provide the entertainment at House of Blues.
Politics don't favor a Latino seat, Mexico's president comes to town, crime and pot shops, Rainey poses a question on class, World Peace gives away money and more plans for Pacific Standard Time.
Kinde Durkee, the campaign treasurer suspected of absconding with the funds of many California Democrats, has been avoiding the cameras since her release on bail.
FPPC might ease limits for Durkee victims, Villaraigosa still in D.C., Jan Perry gets an endorsement, Cenk Uygur joins Current TV and more.
Historian Richard White provides a dose of reality for the romantic notion of high-speed trains zipping across California, just like in "France, Japan, and now China."
In court documents filed Friday, City Attorney Carmen Trutanich asked for $2,500 for each day that the Beverly Hills company allegedly violated Los Angeles rules.
Emmy winners, Durkee fallout on campaigns, some candidate chatter, getting longer yellow lights in L.A., media notes and two journalist obit notes.
To go with her first story this week in the print Hollywood Reporter, former City Hall reporter Tina Daunt has also joined the staff as the trade's contributing editor for politics.
The Jewish Journal intends to keep a close eye on the divisive local race.
Hollywood's disappointment with Obama, Republicans come to town, audio of Tim Rutten and more.
Maria Shriver makes her return to journalism by interviewing philanthropist Wallis Annenberg in the new issue of Los Angeles. Plus: 50 local women who are game changers.
After years using the paper's website to push Republican talking points, Malcolm will take his blog to Investors Business Daily.
Romney still leads GOP race here, Zev and Latinos, possible end to the city's freelancer tax, a Hollywood hustler, a new blog with folks from the old lefty LA Weekly and today's LA Times comes wrapped in Kardashians.
LA Observed columnist John Schwada's reporting on the emerging political story over the Bay Area solar venture Solyndra Inc. has gotten a fair bit of attention.
Durkee money may not be replaceable by campaigns, Obama approval plummets in California, high-speed rail "a mistake," running Doonesbury, Shriver makes the cover (as a reporter), tiger cub dies at the zoo and more.
The president and the mayor could benefit from each other's help.
The obscurely powerful Central Basin Municipal Water District is in the news again — in more ways than one.
John Calley dies, more Durkee victims, Feuer files to run in L.A., a new Villaraigosa press secretary and more.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein said today she doesn't know yet the exact losses, but says her campaign fundraising account has been "wiped out" in the scandal growing around popular Democratic treasure Kinde Durkee.
Expo Line phase to Santa Monica breaks dirt, ghost of Howard Jarvis, a new candidate for city Controller, Hollywood conservatives booked, Nikki Finke has another hissy fit and more.
Another bill to ease CEQA, ignoring City Hall audits, speculation on Yaroslavsky and more.
The White House list of invited guests sitting in First Lady Michelle Obama's box for the president's jobs speech tonight includes Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Tamara Washington, "a single mother."
City Council President Eric Garcetti tossed his name in the crowded ring this morning.
AEG bill advances, Amazon cuts a tax deal, Villaraigosa to D.C., Saul Gonzalez moves from KCET to KCRW and more.
It's hot in the media tent in Simi Valley, plus more.
The newest contributor at LA Observed is John Schwada, the longtime reporter in Los Angeles who was recently let go by Fox 11.
U.S.S. Iowa win for San Pedro, Sacramento's scary week, shark fin ban, a new LAFD chief and media notes galore.
Arraignment for Kinde Durkee, the Burbank campaign treasurer accused of stealing as much as $677,000 from at least one of the hundreds of Democrats she works for, was postponed until Friday.
Many cities ban plastic bags, but Los Angeles city councilman Paul Koretz also wants to forbid stores from providing you with paper bags.
On tonight's "Which Way, L.A.?" on KCRW, lawyer David Pettit of the Natural Resources Defense Council introduced his comments about AEG's bill in Sacramento by saying that he — and NRDC — want the downtown NFL stadium to be built.
The government's accusations against the big Democratic campaign treasurer are substantial.
Showdown today at the Board of Supes, thinking about Sacramento, a new land use website, a Downtown blog signs off, a tree falls in Echo Park and much more for a short week.
There's no use denying it: the political season is upon us.
Good item regarding the perpetual presence of family members named Calderon in the 58th Assembly district at the eastern end of Los Angeles County.
Chip Jacobs, the co-author of "Smogtown: the Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles," observes on Burke being partners with the world's worst air polluter.
There are the San Diego folks, who are protective of the Chargers, and then a broader problem: the rest of the state don't much like L.A.
Many in Hollywood (and especially in Valleywood) wish the looming primary fight between the two Democrats would just go away.
Amazon offers to trade jobs for taxes, Liu confirmed, maneuvering in congressional districts, Obama to La Jolla and A.J. Duffy suddenly sounds like a suit. Plus more.
President Obama will be in West Hollywood on Sept. 26 for two entertainment-themed fundraisers. The return of Obamajam will be on a Monday night.
Goodwin Liu, Villaraigosa's new USC connection, Andrea Alarcon profiled, big changes at KOST-FM, Artest on 'Dance With the Stars' and more.
Perez rejected on Vernon, moves in CD 15 and Villaraigosa's legacy years.
Villaraigosa's legacy, remapping backlash, getting a ticket while paying the parking meter, riding out Irene, Five Card Stud, Cinema Treasures and more.
The Orange County city is under fire from the budget-slashing wing of the Republican establishment, writes Tad Friend.
LAPD officer stabbed, AEG threatens again over stadium, Trutanich now wants signs off Santa Monica buses, and more.
Villaraigosa woos Hollywood, Feinstein doubts the subway money is there, S.A. Griffin and the Times on Scott Wannberg, CBS web writers sign a guild deal and most ridiculous parking sign ever?
But don't buy any advance tickets, and if you're a band, cash the check quick and get out of town.
Heat wave in the valleys, Cardenas claims an endorsement, de Leon bails on Vernon, Arbitron's impact on L.A. radio, and Nikki Finke to do voiceovers.
Amazon's donations, airport commissioner resigns, new assignments for the City Council, Joe Francis surrenders, rabbis go Hollywood and more.
My weekly column this evening centered on the redrawing of political lines in California, mostly on the new districts that will see Reps. Henry Waxman, Howard Berman and Janice Hahn seek reelection outside their traditional home turf.
We'll see if this holds up once people realize it could mean this weekend's Sunset Junction street festival has to be cancelled
Burbank man nabbed for feeding birds near airport, those Santa Monica Mountains stop sign cameras, Times employees settle suit, Patrick Range McDonald profiled, Bay Area writer says Hollywood stole his script, prolific TV director dies and much more.
With City Attorney Carmen Trutanich making two campaign-style stops in the Valley last week, Rick Orlov writes that his "'exploratory' campaign for district attorney is starting to look more and more like the real deal."
Rep. Howard Berman may face reelection in a new (if still Democratic) district, and a likely opponent from his own party in Rep. Brad Sherman. But his Hollywood friends are still with him.
County supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky finally had something to say about the newly drawn election districts submitted by colleagues Gloria Molina and Mark Ridley-Thomas.
Arianna Huffington will be in her old spot on the left of KCRW's "Left, Right & Center" panel for this afternoon's show.
Obama and illegal immigrants, civil rights probe of Antelope Valley sheriff's, bus bench politics, Carey McWilliams and more.
Those Paso Robles settling ponds look like something from before the dawn of sewage treatment, says Mark Gold of Heal the Bay.
LAUSD's test scores beat the mayor's, Brown backs high-speed rail, AEG wants more protection, Suzanne Marques gets a promotion and photogs in Long Beach watch out. Plus of course, Bratton won't run Scotland Yard.
Villaraigosa and Prop. 13, Jerry Brown scales back, those Latino supervisor districts, city fires Standard and Poor's, designs for Farmers Field and a new CicLAvia date.
Molina moves Yaroslavsky toward East L.A., the other maps sacrifice Knabe.
Los Angeles is "is only beginning to realize the impact" of L.A. Times layoffs and other media cuts on civic life, the mayor says.
Rembrandt drawing recovered, remapping mania all over, Al Martinez writes about his disease, the LAT discovers the House of Davids, and which obscure local agency uses cameras to write 15,000 tickets a year at $175 each. Plus: who could play Gov. Rick Perry in a movie?
A stadium endorsement, Howard Berman vs. Brad Sherman, Rainey on Schwada, Ross Porter gets a gig and more media and politics notes.
Bus benches start to disappear, USC's veto power over NFL in Coliseum, an anchor in London, News-Press loses again and Tobar calls L.A. a third-world city.
The ABC News Senior White House Correspondent gives tips to the new army of virgin journalists that will be spun by national campaign machines before it ends in 2012.
Peter Douglas' exit from the Coastal Commission, California's electoral vote, the view from London, covering high-speed rail, the City Council re-votes on Farmers Field, James Franco and porn, plus "Los Angeles Plays Itself."
Peter Sanders, the Wall Street Journal's former aerospace writer in Los Angeles, begins Monday.
State budget already in trouble, bullet train gets even more expensive, remapping politics at county, dinner at Rupert's, an ovation for "The Help," and invoking God to get through the news. Plus good news from Bryan Stow's hospital room.
City Council members Bill Rosendahl and Herb Wesson propose that Friday be John Schwada Day in the city of Los Angeles. Plus: Joe Saltzman.
LAT calls for stadium approval, Rutten on KPCC, KFI leads morning ratings, inside The Wrap, production begins on "Mad Men," plus zombies in Topanga.
On my trip to Seattle, my hotel room window looked out at the baseball stadium. We got to our seats in five minutes.
In first class with Will Ferrell, Antonio Jr.'s mural project, the LAT's slimmer editorial page, the last purchase at Village Books, plus politics and media notes.
Last March, you might remember, journalist Chip Jacobs posted never-seen photos that his brother Paul remembers taking on June 4, 1968, hours before presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was mortally...
I'm back in town and digging through email and phone calls and newspapers. Thanks to Mark Lacter for a great job keeping the front page going.
The LAPD's anti-gang unit today raided the city's six animal shelters and confiscated the service weapons of animal control officers as part of a gun audit of the Animal Services department, the Daily News is reporting.
Albert Abrams resigned Wednesday from the city's Board of Neighborhood Commissioners, where he was the president, after computers were seized during an FBI search at his home last Friday.
They argue that the changes will reduce the financial incentives for solar power by up to 40 percent.
There's some newsroom grumbling over timing.
The governor says the debt-ceiling crisis was "a very dangerous and sorry spectacle."
L.A.'s mayor is turning to his buddies in Sacramento for help in paying out the $42,000 in fines.
Hate to break this to all you miscreants out there, but you've never had to pay your ticket.
By the time it's over, these folks might need to raise upwards of $3 million to stay competitive.
When dealing with pro football, don't ever assume anything.
Generally, the redrawing is likely to benefit Democrats more than Republicans.
Don't expect too many surprises at City Hall.
Faced with stepped-up scrutiny, pilots might want to pull back a touch,
You have to wonder whether it's worth all the time, effort and political maneuvering.
Too much money has been spent on pet projects.
The City Council just voted 13-0 to kill off the program,.
A $25,000 raise given to the guy in charge of the Coliseum's not-so-savory finances appears to have done the trick.
A release just sent out notes that Trutanich's exploratory committee has raised $507,000, and claims the endorsements of former mayor Richard Riordan and Sheriff Lee Baca.
Brown nominates Goodwin Liu to state high court, Democratic gains under new districts, red-light cameras likely ending, websites of ex-TV reporters and more.
Before she left the City Council, Rep. Janice Hahn made the motion that City Hall East — the white boxy building across Main Street from actual City Hall — be renamed for her brother, the former mayor.
Amazon politics, Villaraigosa's legacy and new platform, Hector Tobar book on Chilean miners, Olivia Wilde's journalism roots, white flight into the cities and more.
Does Billy Bob Barnett want to protect the citizens of Los Angeles, or is this political payback? You decide.
Chuck Manatt was co-founder in Los Angeles of the law firm now called Manatt, Phelps & Phillips and served as national (and California) chairman of the Democratic Party and co-chair of Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign for president. Manatt died Friday night at a Richmond, Va., hospital of complications from a stroke.
The L.A. culture war between drivers and bicyclists was in full view this morning on KPCC's "Airtalk.
The Los Angeles city parking and traffic officer who was filmed in uniform spanking and fondling the breasts of a porn actress has been fired, the city says.
City Council hopefuls get a date, Garcetti gets an NYT story, Cenk Uygur gets mad and Katzenberg says the movies "suck." Plus more.
City Controller Wendy Greuel's news release cites reports about theft of animals and fraudulent time sheets at the Lincoln Heights shelter as the reason to launch a "comprehensive review."
Republican candidate for president Mitt Romney was at the Valley Plaza shopping center in North Hollywood today, using it as a photo op for some claim about jobs and the economy.
Whether Garcetti can deliver on any of the conditions is an open question, but here is his letter addressed to CAO Miguel Santana and the council's legislative analyst, Gerry Miller.
Zev, AEG's stadium, Maxine Waters, Rick Perry and Mitt Romney, this month in Los Angeles magazine, Paris Hilton walks out then come back, plus more.
New deputy mayor, new library hours, a new rainbow for Sony and a vote for Bill Simmons' Grantland.
Villaraigosa spokeswoman Sarah Hamilton heads home to Chicago, the mayor cuts a transportation video and more.
In tonight's episode of "The Closer" on TNT, City Council President Eric Garcetti returns to his role as "Los Angeles Mayor Ramon Quintero."
Headline you knew was coming: "Post-Carmageddon crashes snarl L.A. freeways." A full menu of Monday items inside.
Quick stack for a summer Friday. "California's district maps needed to be reformed in the worst way. Unfortunately, they were," writes Sherry Bebitch Jeffe. NBC PropZero A new state law...
Patrick Range McDonald, a staff writer at the Weekly, has been tapped to co-write the memoir of former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan.
Redistricting doubts, BH versus the subway, animal shelter probe in Lincoln Heights, plus is the city's campaign matching funds law now unconstitutional?
Lots of politics today: Hahn win analysis, Padilla not running for mayor, political stakes of the 405 closure, charges against Rod Wright reinstated and more. Plus: who wins, Harry Potter or Carmageddon?
With the final election night ballots counted, and most of the mail-ins tabulated, the county registrar says it's 54.56 percent for Democrat Janice Hahn and 45.44 percent for Republican Craig Huey.
L.A.'s new parolees, Westwood's FlyAway bus, LA Weekly piles on Zooey Deschanel, water main breaks in the Valley, new gigs for Laurie Pike and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the non-story of the month: secession from California.
Bob Drogin, a longtime foreign and national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, will be the deputy in Washington. Read the memo.
Ramona Hahn, the mother of Councilwoman Janice Hahn and Superior Court Judge James Hahn, the former mayor, died today.
Villaraigosa and Prop. 13, Hahn v. Huey coming to a close, HuffPost expands again, William and Kate's last day in L.A. and Robert Hilburn will spin the discs.
Gaye Williams has most recently been an advisor to Austin Beutner, the former deputy mayor who is running for the top job in 2013.
Toll lanes coming to 10 and 110, Zine makes it official, Hahn and Huey face off for first time, hating "Page One" and more.
New KCET programs named, Sharon Waxman on "Deal From Hell," Ken Auletta on Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg, L.A.'s shrines to the Virgen de Guadalupe and more.
Fox News hacked, Villaraigosa calls for raising the debt ceiling, a new year at the City Council and more.
Shriver's filing in Los Angeles Superior Court cites irreconcilable differences and seeks shared custody with ex-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of their two sons.
A short stack for the holiday getaway day.
NIgerian flies to LAX on fake boarding pass, Getty House wall is only a fence, Villaraigosa tweets to Conan, plus more.
A brief roundup today.
Revjsed concept maps for redistricting of congressional districts in California may have moved San Gabriel Valley Republican David Dreier out of the Democratic strongholds where the first round of maps appeared to place him
Jean Harris. a former Deputy Mayor of San Francisco and an icon of the lesbian political community in California, died Sunday in Palm Springs.
Make that "very, very sad," says the woman who as a young city council member in the 1950s played a key role in closing the deal to bring the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.
Stadium snookerage, A.J. Duffy prepares to yield, Stelter to write a book, AP hiring, Zocalo announces a poetry prize and a petition for Vin Scully. Plus more.
New York Times media reporters have takes this weekend on two L.A.-based fixtures on the current media scene.
Topics include L.A.'s children's museum, LudoBites, Westside Pavilion parking, the 405, Los Angeles magazine and more.
Civic leader Steve Soboroff was brought in as vice chairman of the Dodgers two months ago and became, for a short time, Frank McCourt's most vociferous public defender.
I don't know what's going on at Roy Romer Middle School in North Hollywood, but after watching this video posted today at YouTube, if I were on the school board or a news assignment desk, I'd get somebody out there tomorrow.
Enviro review for AEG's stadium idea, upset over Autry and Southwest Museum, a local Knight Challenge winner, LAT's editor plays photog and more.
LAX food concessions awarded, county CEO's challenge, Rizzo lists his home, Crenshaw High snags Kareem for graduation and more politics and media notes.
Controller John Chiang will be a guest on KCRW's "Which Way, L.A.?" at 7 p,m, to talk about his decision earlier today that legislators continue to forfeit their pay due to Gov. Brown's veto of the budget.
DiFi approval sags, stadium questions remain, right turn cameras in Council today, harbor commissioner quits, plus media notes and more.
The left-side activist group Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy is being targeted by an anonymous foe who has, apparently, paid a Sacramento opposition research firm to pummel local officials with requests for any documents or contacts with the group and its director, Madeline Janis.
California Republicans favor Mitt Romney so far, Villaraigosa takes a stand on wars, LAT backs AEG's stadium, plus more politics and media notes from the weekend.
Brown's veto, a local Republican supports tax extension vote, Molina denies sexting, reviews of "Page One" and Nic Harcourt leaves KCRW.
An anonymous donor in Bellingham, Washington sent Los Angeles County a casher's check for $10,000 with a handwritten note: In this time of economic difficulties, governments need all the...
Los Angeles magazine gathered quite a crowd Wednesday night in the lobby of 5900 Wilshire, the tall office tower across from LACMA that the magazine shares with Variety, the New York Times and other media outlets.
Sexting and Mike Molina, Villaraigosa on 'Meet the Press,' Hefner's runaway bride, Jim O'Shea's book, Huffington makes Rita Wilson an editor and accusations against Shaq. Plus more.
Rep. Anthony Weiner reportedly told House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi last night at the White House that he would step down today.
William and Kate will be Downtown, Wilshire bus lane, Prop. 8, Rick Caruso and more.
Political consultant Michael Trujillo disagrees with writer Joel Fox on the comparison between the Los Angeles of 1993, when Republican businessman Richard Riordan was elected mayor, and the condition the city will be in when voters choose again in 2013.
Craig Huey, the Republican running against Janice Hahn in the 36th congressional district, says he had nothing to do with it and called the video "inappropriate [and] highly offensive."
Mildred Baena and her 13-year-old son by Arnold Schwarzenegger sat down with Hello magazine, and she describes crying with Shriver.
Lawmakers without degrees, Wilshire bus lanes, how is HuffPost actually doing, returning to Dodger Stadium and more.
Small business advocate and politics writer Joel Fox, the name partner behind the Fox & Hounds Daily website, checked out mayoral candidate Austin Beutner and possible candidate Rick Caruso last week at separate appearances in the Valley.
Mehserle gets out of jail, Brown takes to YouTube again, a resignation at Airports, Michelle Obama and Republicans come to town, HuffPost hires again and much more for a Monday.
Today was the last day for longtime Los Angeles Police Department media relations spokeswoman Mary Grady.
The servers are reportedly jammed, but here's the link for the draft maps of congressional and legislative districts put forth this morning by the California Citizens Redistricting Commission.
Redistricting, police budget politics, the football stadium and more.
Robbery-Homicide takes over Bryan Stow case, 29,398 fewer state cellphones, John & Ken OK a tax vote by Republicans, Times and Daily both say no on red-light cameras, and more.
Todd DeStefano, who resigned in January as the Coliseum Commission's long-time events manager, "collected tens of thousands of dollars in private payments from liquor and soft drink companies, television and...
Three months before Rep. Weiner sent a photo from his Twitter account to a 21-year-old Washington State college student, the conservatives were warning young women on Twitter to be wary and speculating about a sex scandal.
KPCC's John Rabe seems a little perturbed that the police commission has overruled the LAPD staff and voted to discontinue the red-light cameras that spew out dubious tickets at 32 intersections around Los Angeles. It's moire about L.A. drivers though.
Budget, prisons, Villaraigosa's newest deputy, Garcettis at the White House, KNBC's new channel, the worst actor and actress and an exciting new Dodger. Plus more notes.
The Los Angeles Police Commission voted unanimously Tuesday to reject a new contract the LAPD wants with the firm that runs the city's 32 red light cameras.
New Weiner disclosure involves a porn actress, Loretta Sanchez may lose her district, Lacey makes a campaign video for DA, plus Schwarzenegger, Frank Buckley, Marc Cooper, D.J Waldie, Ron Kaye and more.
Richard Bloom is getting in the race to succeed the terming-out Julie Brownley. Torie Osborn, the onetime adviser to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, is also in.
Christina Villacorte of the Daily News has the more human story of the pain caused by thefts by a trustee.
Scott Pelley took the anchor chair on the CBS network's flagship news program tonight, and the only real suspense was how would his show cover the Anthony Weiner sex scandal.
Andrew Breitbart, the Westside-based conservative activist and website mogul, doesn't always hit the targets he aims for on the left. On Monday, though, he leveled New York Rep. Anthony Weiner with a clean check.
The lactation consultant and self-described “children’s rights advocate” who was behind the anti-circumcision effort says she'll drop the bid before beginning to collect signatures.
A quick roundup of news and notes.
Mayor names new DOT head, stadium suspect stays in custody, Greuel on TV, James Arness dies and more.
John Edwards indicted, Jack Kevorkian dies, Tim Leiweke threatens, Hector Tobar columnizes, Denise Hamilton reviews and more.
Now the green band trailer for "Girl With a Dragon Tattoo," PPIC's poll and Jerry Brown's taxes, Greuel subpoenas, more.
It's April Fool's Day in June, or seems like it.
California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye spoke out today in Beverly Hills on the remark that Assembly Majority Leader Charles Calderon made at a recent hearing on his bill to strip her of some powers to oversee the courts
Matt Fong, a Republican who served as California's elected Treasurer for a term in the 1990s, died today of skin cancer at home in Pasadena.
Ramirez a suspect in Nevada shooting too, Parks wants to split City Attorney office, what people don't know about Prop. 13, plus David Bergstein, Roger Ailes, David Folkenflik, Nikki Finke, Pandora Young, David Beckham, Charles Fleming and more.
We crossed over the 8,000 followers barrier at Twitter this weekend. Plus: Parking and politics on LA Observed on KCRW.
The FBI's probe at City Hall grows, Newton on the Republican vote for mayor, unhappy white folks, Waldie on The Atlantic's look at local cities, interesting chefs of Downtown and Mike Brown is introduced later today as the Lakers" new coach.
The New York Times Magazine has a little feature where it looks at interesting people's homes.
School board race decided, saga of Streisand's Malibu compound, McCourts talk settlement, the Brattons send off Elaine's, and a new baby in L.A. media land. Plus more.
The MTA board passed its largest annual budget ever, held fares at current levels, gave support to — but declined to fund — a Crenshaw rail station at Leimert Park, and approved 7.7 miles of interrupted peak-hour bus lanes on Wilshire Boulevard.
Briefly: LAPD "satisfied" with lineup involving suspect in Bryan Stow case, but still no charges filed. LAT Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas urges that the Crenshaw light-rail line stop at Leimert Park...
Lakers close in on Mike Brown, LA's vanishing children, housing commissioners living the good life, CNBC anchor Mark Haines dies and a local TV anchor tweets her lunch with political analysts. Plus much more.
What the SCOTUS ruling on prisons means, searching for more Dodger Stadium suspects, Antonio and Zev face to face, a new NYT columnist and more.
The L.A. Times' groping stories about Arnold Schwarzenegger were the right thing to do in 2003, and they look even better now that his secret life has come out.
County jail for two, Greuel's fundraising lead, Caruso's next speech, Ricky Jay's book of KCRW commentaries and more.
Here's an explanation for why DA Steve Cooley did not encourage the City Attorney to run for his job.
TMZ posts the documents showing that Gov. Schwarzenegger paid the down payment on Mildred Baena's house in Bakersfield.
A Notice of Intent to Circulate a Petition that would make most circumcision a misdemeanor was filed with the city of Santa Monica this week.
When Controller Wendy Greuel was on the City Council, her office made use of the special desk to handle, um, delicate requests from elected officials for special handling of parking tickets.
A quickie round-up today.
It will be Democrat Janice Hahn and Republican Craig Huey in the July 12 runoff to succeed Jane Harman in Congress.
A quick roundup this morning.
Charlie LeDuff, then at the New York Times, remembers Mildred Baena as well-endowed but not much of a cook. It's the backstory that's amusing, however.
On tonight's "Which Way, L.A.?" on KCRW, the Times' Jim Newton came on to lay out the calm outsider's view of why the county Board of Supervisors is all torn apart over the work of CEO William Fujioka. Then the Supes came on.
The only real surprise is that Craig Huey, the unknown Republican businessman who finished second in the 36th congressional district, didn't get more votes. Here's why.
Arnold follows, Cooley follows, Fujioka follows, a marriage engagement in L.A. media land and more.
With 100 percent of precincts counted, Craig Huey looks to have edged his way into the runoff with Janice Hahn while Debra Bowen and Marcy Winograd peeled off Democratic votes.
Tracy Weber details getting some of Schwarzenegger's victims to talk days before the election in 2003, but wonders if it mattered.
The housekeeper that bore Arnold Schwarzenegger's child is Mildred Patricia Baena, according to TMZ and Radar Online in separate reports.
MSNBC's lineup much of the day has been beamed from a stage set up in Exposition Park. Here's a clip.
District Attorney Steve Cooley says this term, his fourth, will be his last and he endorsed chief deputy Jacquelyn Lacey to succeed him.
An Ottawa cartoonist may have just gotten lucky, but the Daily Mail had details before Arnold was governor.
Election day, Brown's budget, those FlyAway buses to LAX run up a huge deficit and a bunch of media and politics notes.
At least there was no groping, eh?
Endeavour launches as Exposition Park awaits its arrival, state Democrats smell a two-thirds majority, the bungling of high-speed rail, more analysis of Caruso's speech, a gay CNN anchor plus books and authors and a bunch of media notes.
Interrogating LAUSD librarians, Sean Clegg on Caruso's speech, Drudge Report hires, Al Martinez on the "assassination" of bin Laden, plus Phil Jackson and more.
Rick Caruso continued to play coy about his plans to run for mayor, but in the luncheon speech at Town Hall Los Angeles we told you about this morning he got in some jabs at the city's politicos.
Brown back at work appointing Democrats, no charges against ex-EAA chief, where Maria Shriver might be living and more.
I guess we'll get some clues about the mayoral aspirations of developer Rick Caruso this afternoon.
The research and development grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for "Bridging the Divide: Tom Bradley and the Politics of Race" is the only such grant in the state, Rep. Karen Bass said.
Inside the LAPD's red light photo unit, Greuel's cellphone audit, Brown's cuts, Villaraigosa's lunch at Drago yesterday, Rainey on those Schwarzenegger groping stories from '03, Hillary Swank's looks and much more.
The elected county Board of Supervisors, and not their CEO William Fujioka, would run the Department of Children and Family Services and the probation department if a 3-2 vote on Tuesday holds up.
On this week's LA Observed column on KCRW, I argue that Gov. Jerry Brown's nonchalant informality certainly works as media imagery and can be refreshing. It can also seem like lack of preparation or inattention to detail.
Regarding the breakup of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver's 25-year marriage, there's a his version and a her version.
More on Schwarzenegger-Shriver split, Cynthia Ruiz moves to Port job, the sheriff's own gangs problem, a Republican in the South Bay and the whale carcass in San Pedro. Plus more.
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver released a statement tonight saying they are living apart "while we work on the future of our relationship."
The Kam Kuwata USC award will be given to a student or students who have demonstrated a strong interest in campaign politics and provide them with financial support to work on behalf of a candidate or cause that inspires them.
The City-County bureau concept is coming back again, with longtime staff writer Rich Connell in charge.
New value-added data on teachers from LAT, judges like Bob Dylan, LAPD legal settlements, the Legislature dumbs down and a bow tie in honor of Kam Kuwata. Plus a lot more for a Monday.
Federal grand jury subpoenas have come in, there's been a guilty plea, and a USC fraternity sues for being held up for bribes.
In an email sent by his exploratory campaign for mayor, first-time candidate Austin Beutner asks his contacts to talk him up — and particularly to mention Richard Riordan and that Los Angeles Magazine profile.
A top baseball official starts making the case against McCourt, plus Dianne Feinstein, Herb Wesson, Steve Lopez, Truthdig, Jackie Cooper and more.
Hotel taxes, Olvera Street, Geraldo Rivera, the Dalai Lama and 10 years after Bonny Lee Blakely's murder.
CIA chief Leon Panetta is interviewed by Jim Lehrer tonight on PBS NewsHour.
Villaraigosa doings, Feinstein on Trump, Capitol Weekly's top 100, Michael Kinsley, Moby — and are William and Kate coming to L.A.?
Nobody knows nuthin' yet, but the LA Weekly went ahead and asked a half-dozen local political figures to handicap the 2013 race for mayor anyway.
Deasy hires a team and pays them well, Host International is back in the game at LAX, labor concessions at City Hall, plus Crenshaw rail, Vernon, Kelly Candaele and more.
Climate change and water, the state of Black Los Angeles, a parking tickets audit and a new role for book agent Steve Wasserman — plus more.
A round-up of news, politics and media notes and other observations to get the week started.
Pool reporter from the LA Times gets the name of Obama's restaurant wrong. Can't say she wasn't warned.
There is no article in Tavern, and no solid news on how to avoid traffic from president Obama's visit this evening.
More on President Obama's visit, baseball v. McCourt, the subsidy behind the downtown NFL stadium and Riordan's backing of Beutner, plus Rick Dees, WeHo's John J. Duran and more.
A year later in the Gulf, Bell's whistleblower, Villaraigosa's budget, when Obama moved to Indonesia and Grete Waitz.
Former mayor Richard Riordan will formally endorse his pal, Austin Beutner, this morning at a media op in the produce district.
President Obama is scheduled to land at LAX at about 2:45 P.M. Thursday. He then has to get to the Sony lot for a 4:30 fund-raising appearance, then up to Tavern in Brentwood for dinner and another fundraiser.
Ex-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger "feels shitty" when he looks in the mirror, but he's happy about his accomplishments and defends reducing the prison sentence of Esteban Nunez.
Brown helps the prison guards, stadium plan would give valuable development rights to AEG, county budget talk — plus Austin Beutner, Eric Garcetti, Nate Holden, James O'Keefe and more.
President Obama will visit the Sony lot in Culver City and Tavern in Brentwood to meet with Hollywood donors.
Sheriff Baca urges support for Trutanich as DA, Vincent Bugliosi writes about God, the Los Angeles Review of Books debuts a website, and it's Pulitzer day for the newspaper types. Plus more.
The latest to form a fundraising committee is Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich, who filed so he can accept checks to finance a run for District Attorney, if DA Steve Cooley decides not to seek reelection in 2012.
No Dodger Stadium arrests, Trutanich endorses Hahn, former Daily News editor dies and public radio stations raise money for Japan. Plus more.
It gives us an idea of how he will portray himself — his campaign is "grassroots," of course, and he loves the city and has a "proven track record."
With today's news that Austin Beutner will file as a candidate for mayor, and his exit as a top deputy to Mayor Antonio Villaraigoisa, Los Angeles magazine picked a good time for its profile of Beutner.
State of the city reactions, Dodgers come home to new security, Leiweke lashes out and more.
Mary Matalin sits in for Arianna Huffington these days.
Lots of politics and media notes, plus the artwork hidden in Woody Woodpecker cartoons and Flip cameras RIP.
Turns out that former Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs was instrumental in getting Ackerman Student Union built.
NPR's Ombudsman says KPCC acted on its own to pull Planned Parenthood spots, and could have explained it better.
Ticket quotas, lawmaker gifts, more reaction to the death of Kam Kuwata and the Webby nominations, plus more media notes.
Kam Kuwata, a Democratic campaign strategist in California for at least 25 years, was found dead in his Venice condo Monday.
The most pointed barbs were by Jon Wiener, the author and UC Irvine historian (plus KPFK commentator) who blogs for The Nation.
A summary of news, notes and observations to kick off the week.
Mayor Villaraigosa will return to an old theme in this week's State of the City speech, plus Joe Scott retires.
The county Board of Supervisors might just have some surprise jurisdiction over AEG's plan for a football stadium next to Staples Center, a Times reporter found.
Spots that credit Planned Parenthood as a sponsor of KPCC programming will be pulled off the air during the government shutdown debate in Washington.
Kerry Cavanaugh noted in her column yesterday in the Daily News that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa isn't the only City Hall politico to pay a price for taking free tickets (though...
It's confirmation, if you needed any, that the beating of a Giants fan and the spreading perception of a violent tone at the stadium is a big issue that City Hall and the Dodgers hope to contain.
The mega Tower Lane construction project was withdrawn Thursday by the owner.
Since nothing else is getting done in Sacramento, they may as well as fill some openings.
David Folkenflik's piece for All Things Considered on NPR thing put a different sparkle on the story.
Mayor Villaraigosa's negotiated deal with the FPPC to pay a $42,000 fine over not reporting free tickets "highlights the need for that agency to clarify its regulations," says Laurie Levinson of Loyola law school. Plus more
Everything around the LAX retail concessions is about politics and the practice of influence — do you think services that disappointing and overpriced would fly in the real world?
Sites getting a jump on April Fool's Day.
Opening day at Dodger Stadium, 'tragedy" at the community colleges, no Plan B for Jerry Brown, KCET staffers forced to sign NDAs, Chapman University gets into the film business and Alycia Lane tweets against naked women.
Tom Schabarum, a Seattle novelist, says his father the conservative county supervisor was never homophobic despite notable clashes with the gay community.
The discussion continues on that Robert F. Kennedy campaign photo from 1968 Los Angeles.
My Mar Vista neighbor, Councilman Bill Rosendahl, will talk on KCRW about raising chickens.
Look for a warmer day, Brown on YouTube again, Rosendahl gets a Lopez column, Anaheim votes to go after the Sacramento Kings and Amy Tan sells a new book.
Check out the latest posts at wendygreuel.com.
Bloomberg moved a story tonight saying that AEG's financial guarantee to the city on the NFL stadium the company wants to build near L.A. Live "falls short" of the assurances offered on Staples Center 13 years ago.
Tonight's Which Way, L.A.? on KCRW delved more deeply into today's City Council approval of the special lighting rules for the Korean-backed project planned for the Wilshire Grand hotel site at 7th and Figueroa.
Taxi contract at LAX, campaign endorsements, Nikki Finke on medical leave, Jonathan Gold's obituary of Nate Dogg and more.
Gov. Jerry Brown (and Mark Lacter) may want to do away with the city Community Redevelopment Agency, but it's a hit at least with the Los Angeles Conservancy. The group is giving the CRA one of its nine yearly preservation awards.
Robert Gibbs and Facebook, LAT looks again at value-added evaluation, DWP politics, Leiweke honored, a star push for Adam West and more.
Those two aides around Robert F. Kennedy's car remain unidentified, but there's a factual question now: when was the photo actually taken?
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa doesn't make MSNBC's list of Latino politicians whose stars are on the rise. Look who does.
Smithsonian withdraws bid for historic murals, LAUSD's Deasy won't take $55,000 raise, a City Hall exit, art and books notes and a local media obituary.
If AEG gets the go-ahead to build its NFL stadium and events center on the footprint of the existing Los Angeles Convention Center, L.A.-based Gensler will be the designer.
There will be no change in the election night results: Councilman Bernard Parks has squeezed out a reelection win with 51.2% of the vote over challenger Forescee Hogan-Rowles, who received...
Brown signs cuts, Republicans file initiatives, bus service cuts, lawyer Leonard Weinglass dies and more.
Councilman Dennis Zine, the West Valley Republican, typically dresses in drag to do his bit for a laugh at the annual political roast thrown by City Hall lobbyist Arnie Berghoff. On Thursday night, Zine was the politico in the hot seat.
Brown's support slipping, Feinstein's too, Montiel's severance, Ed Harris as McCain, press photographer honors, La Villa Basque and more.
Never-published photo shows Sen. Robert F. Kennedy greeting well-wishers outside the Biltmore on election day in June 1968, hours before he was shot across town at the Ambassador Hotel.
More cold rain coming, Jerry Brown's biggest problem, massage parlors are back, studying the San Andreas and more.
Last week in the Valley, something like 450 people turned out at a raucous community meeting called to discuss the restriping of upper Wilbur Avenue to add left-turn and bike lanes.
The imprisoned former Fleishman-Hillard executive and Daily News editor lost an appeal that sought to require his former employer to pick up some legal bills.
Brown looks good in Field Poll, LAPD hiring, lunch with Warren Christopher, HuffPost hires again, James Beard nominees, more media notes and a new book on Roy Campanella.
One of the most eagerly awaited discoveries from the 2010 census (at least for me) is to find out how many people actually live in the Downtown neighborhoods after more than a decade of in-movement.
Montiel, who has run the agency since 2004, six months ago tried to evict nine tenants who had protested outside his home.
Jerry Brown takes to YouTube, Republican convention aftermath, a bigger city council, GLAAD awards and more media and politics notes — plus more for a Monday.
The Secretary of State in the Clinton Administration and longtime Los Angeles civic leader and Democratic politics figure died Friday at home of complications from bladder and kidney cancer,
More on Japanese radiation, state budget cuts, Smear arrested, Villaraigosa and Carlos Fuentes on the radio and SPJ cancels tonight's event.
A cartoon by Donna Barstow featuring J. Brown, Lady Lockyer and the new cool kids.
City Council veteran Jan Perry did what everyone expected her to do and filed the papers to form a fundraising committee for a 2013 mayoral bid. Nice and quiet, no...
Rebecca Mansour, who lives in Hollywood and got an MFA from American Film Institute, is in Sarah Palin's inner circle as message crafter and social media defender.
Kevin James, who does midnight to 3 a.m. on KRLA, is throwing his microphone in the 2013 race for mayor in Los Angeles.
An abbreviated batch of politics, media and news notes today.
As Gov. Jerry Brown and the Democrats go looking for Republican votes to pass a state budget, one of the political realities they face is that elected Republicans in California fear being picked on by KFI's afternoon talk hosts, John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou.
Los Angeles Sheriff Lee Baca has let Congress know before that he doesn't cotton to broad-brush slams on the Muslim community. He was back at it today, telling the panel...
Colleges, fish, a ton of politics notes and an update on La Villa Basque, all inside.
Times columnist Steve Lopez plays TV reporter on tonight's "SoCal Connected" on KCET for a story billed as a look at the politics of bringing the NFL back to a new L.A. stadium.
David S. Broder, 81, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Washington Post often called the dean of the Washington press corps, died Wednesday in Arlington, Va. of complications from diabetes.
Bell voters throw the bums out, more election and census coverage, NPR's chief resigns over Tea Party comments and more.
The only City Council incumbent who has to sweat out the final count late into the night is Bernard Parks. The others could go to bed early.
City Hall had tabulated absentees only until about 10:30, but now some votes cast today are starting to come in. Bernard Parks is the only incumbent City Council member anywhere...
Where to follow results tonight, plus Ruben Gonzalez resigns over Bernard Parks mailer.
On election day the Times finally covers the community college races, more LAX concession bids tossed out, questions about the AEG stadium and designs for an Expo line station in Westwood. Plus more.
New web editor at LA Weekly, candidates for mayor file papers, more media and politics notes.
My weekly column on KCRW -- on the air at 6:44 p.m. -- praises the L.A. Times' series on the community college building program but notes that the college trustees on the ballot Tuesday will still be invisible to most voters.
John Bogert writes about his cancer, political jostling for Tuesday and 2013, free parking near polls, HuffPost hires six — plus Rashida Jones, Tate Donovan and the Dominator anniversary....
A little of this, a little of that on the last weekend before Tuesday,
Times does a terrific job on its community college investigation, but lets the college trustees off the hook in Tuesday's election.
KCET and Annenberg News21 have co-produced a piece on Rich Goodman, the 27-year-old political novice who is running against Councilman Tony Cardenas.
Satellite launch from Vandenberg fails, Trutanich dismisses charges against protesters, city campaign notes, NYT editor on L.A. radio and the last founding member of The Mattachine Society dies.
Rodney King day, more community college waste, DA Cooley promotes a key aide, rave review for "The Hollywood Sign" and more.
City Council President Eric Garcetti and his wife, Amy Wakeland, have moved from their long-time home in the Elysian Heights section of Echo Park.
Jeffrey Goldberg, national correspondent for The Atlantic, blogs at the magazine's site that a quote used by LAT columnist Tim Rutten has an unusual origin.
Jerry Brown and police pensions, Kamala Harris and gay marriages, Jamie McCourt and a judge, and Laemmle announces that the Music Hall will stay open at least another year.
It's Legionella bacteria at the Playboy Mansion, Christina Aguilera released without charges after drunkenness arrest, and Frank Rich leaves the New York Times for New York magazine. Plus more politics and media notes.
In this week's column, on the air at 6:44 p.m., I discuss the pros and cons of Measure L on the March 8 ballot and come down on the side of the libraries.
Archbishop Jose Gomez takes the crooked staff, Times urges defeat of three city councilmen, print pieces on Charlie Sheen, more politics and media notes and a book on the Hollywood sign.
Jeremy Bernard, Darryl Morden, Cardinal Mahony and more.
Brown to get support of L.A. Chamber for taxes, Tom Campbell to run Chapman Law, Villaraigosa wants higher wall around Getty House, plus Charlie Sheen, Cardinal Mahony, Frank McCourt, Chris Erskine, "Glee" and more.
Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown will sign copies of his memoir, "Against All Odds: My Life of Hardship, Fast Breaks and Second Chances" at noon Friday at Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena.
State Department warns journos in Libya, Alarcon cleared of one accusation, Abby Sunderland memoir sells and more books notes.
The former editor of Los Angeles magazine and the LA Weekly starts April 18 at the progressive policy/politics magazine based in Washington, DC.
Apple after Jobs, Cardinal Mahony's mixed legacy, Lohan back in court, politics and media notes and the Ciclavia route.
Rahm Emanuel, the former White House Chief of Staff and brother of Ari and Zeke, avoided a runoff by drawing 55% despite the presence of five other candidates.
It's all about academy voters' second and third choices for Best Picture. 'Social Network,' maybe.
Hijacked couple killed by pirates, 6 quake deaths in New Zealand, Philip Bruce leaves NPR West and more local media and politics notes.
Politics and media notes, plus obituaries.
Stadium progress, Board of Ed campaign spending, more politics and media notes, a Scientology book and a fight over the term urban homestead.
Veteran firefighter battling for his life, Jerry West statue unveiled and the mayor's stadium committee meets.
John Stodder, the other former Fleishman-Hillard executive convicted a few years ago, reports to federal prison authorities tomorrow. He posts a farewell note on Facebook.
Zocalo Public Square is joining with Arizona State University and the New America Foundation to launch the non-partisan Center for Social Cohesion, "dedicated to studying the forces that shape our sense of social unity."
Lisa Richardson, an L.A. Times editorial writer from 2006 until recently, has joined the staff of Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas as Senior Deputy for Communications.
Borders to close 17 SoCal stores, Brown hiring freeze, special election winners, LAUSD's budget, more politics and media notes and the NYT gets a local dateline amusingly wrong.
Coliseum manager out, Villaraigosa appoints to the DWP commission and more.
Bowen, the California Secretary of State, announced today that she will be a candidate in the special election to replace Jane Harman.
Salaries in Bell, DiFi backs Hahn, Colorado researchers still upset at the Times and a Valley beagle wins at Westminster.
Jimmy Orr, the deputy editor for LATimes.com, is getting the promotion to managing editor, online.
No knives at the Grammys, Patsaouras writing memoir, Saenz on short list for state Supreme Court and city election endorsements.
Cathleen Decker will oversee all aspects of Los Angeles Times national campaign coverage between now and November 20102.
Brown's L.A. area appearances, the race to replace Harman, Democratic senators coming for Hollywood's money, authors back Measure L for the libraries and more.
Under previous city attorneys, protesters arrested for failing to disperse and blocking streets were usually prosecuted for infractions and fined.
Gov. Jerry Brown caught a Southwest flight this morning from Sacramento to Burbank — no press aides, no entourage, no security and no special seating.
In a story exploring the bios of the group appointed by Mayor Villaraigosa to report to him on the wisdom of AEG's downtown stadium, the Associated Press's Jacob Adelman cuts to the chase right in the lede.
Politics. media and other items from the in-box.
City Councilman has a Sacramento fundraiser scheduled next month for an Assembly run in 2012.
AEG chief Tim Leiweke kept to the us versus them message in remarks today to reporters asking him about public doubts over his company's NFL stadium plans for Downtown.
Looks as if Keith Olbermann is teaming up with a cable channel with an even smaller audience than MSNBC.
'm getting used to the idea that there might be a football stadium dropped behind Staples Center, but if Phil Anschutz and friends want Angelenos to buy into the idea, they better come up with some better assurances — and drop the classless us versus them attacks.
Looks like there will be yet another p[ening and possible special election in the South Bay to Westside crescent.
Ahmed Zewail, a Nobel prize winner in chemistry who is a professor at Caltech, returned to Egypt Sunday as a potential leader of his native country and called on Hosni Mubarak to give up power.
Michael Trujillo talked about putting a political bullet in between Rudy Martinez's forehead (sic) and called on other aides to spread dirt on Huizar's opponent.
Media and politics notes from around L.A. and the web.
Venice-based Kausfiles blogger and former U.S. Senate candidate Mickey Kaus has a new web home.
The Los Angeles Film School wants to build a large new classroom building at the Ivar and Selma intersection where the Hollywood farmers market has operated on Sundays since 1991.
Doug Dowie is the former Daily News managing editor who was convicted of mail fraud and other charges as head of the Fleishman-Hillard PR office in Los Angeles during the administration of then-mayor James Hahn.
Downtown stadium, City Hall, Egypt and more.
Tim Leiweke met this week with Speaker John Perez, and with labor's backing for Farmers Field I have to bet Perez will give the Anschutz company whatever it wants.
The proposal to dedicate a lane each way of Wilshire Boulevard to Bus Rapid Transit during the hours when the street is already at its most packed has picked up a new obstacle in Westside Councilman Bill Rosendahl.
The biggest political threat to the AEG stadium deal might be skepticism among die-hard Angelenos (and sports fans) who have heard it all promised before.
Pardon my mixed sports metaphors. After this morning's pep rally for the Downtown NFL football stadium, Mayor Villaraigosa announced the members of a "blue ribbon commission" to evaluate the proposal...
Mark's right over at LA Biz Observed. AEG's stadium show this morning, officially to announce the naming of Farmers Field but more importantly staged to make the downtown NFL stadium...
Phil Anschutz' football stadium at L.A. Live would be called Farmers Field under a $700 million naming-rights deal with Farmers Insurance to be announced tomorrow.
The state's new Citizens Redistricting Commission voted unanimously this afternoon to hire Rob Wilcox as Communications Director.
Joel Epstein, one of the more single-minded transit advocates in town, argues that fans of the rapid express buses on Wilshire should stage a massive work slowdown before Friday's City Council meeting to vote on the boulevard bus lane.
Los Angeles Magazine columnist Anne Taylor Fleming covered Jerry Brown when he was governor the first time, then became good friends with his sister Kathleen.
Instead of national face time on MSNBC, the liberal ranter spent this State of the Union speech live-tweeting on Twitter.
Gene Maddaus of LA Weekly and Jim Newton of the Times eyeball the city attorney as a candidate for DA.
Keith Olbermann announced on the air that tonight's "Countdown" show was his last, and the network followed quickly with a press release.
Councilman Bill Rosendahl to undergo heart procedure, and more news notes.
The City Council made the appropriate noises then signed off on Mayor Villarigosa's appointment of outsider Ron Nichols to head the Department of Water and Power.
Sargent Shriver, a close confidante of brother-in-law John F. Kennedy and first director of the Peace Corps, died today in Bethesda, Maryland. Also: Dale Fetherling, Tom Ferguson.
Councilman Jose Huizar and his staff have been keeping score on people and institutions in his district, grading them in writing on how well they support His Councilmanness and, more pointedly, the degree of their opposition to him
But he says it was worth it, despite the toll on his family.
Miguel Angel Corzo, President and CEO of L.A. Plaza de Cultura y Artes, announced a halt to the archaeological excavation where the remains of early Angelenos have been found.
Brad Smith got the endorsement of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party the other night in the 12th district City Council race in the west Valley. On Thursday, Smith dropped out of the contest.
On gun violence, signs of life in the economy, Boyarsky on redevelopment and schools, and the return of Angeleno Datebook.
LAO Contributor Jenny Price, who has written here before about guns and her brother's killing, at Native Intelligence.
I'm not sure where Ron Kaye's grand plan to topple the L.A. City Council with a slate of candidates stands, but he'll be columnizing on Sundays in Glendale and Burbank.
After a three-hour closed-door session, City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana said the City Council had voted unanimously to submit a parking garage concession agreement to potential private operators. But no details.
Ex-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declares victory on pension and budget reform.
Ed Lee, San Francisco's administrative officer, was appointed and sworn in today as the city's first Chinese-American mayor.
I was tied up most of the day, but these were highlights from other contributors to the site. Think books and politics, with a little fashion.
Today's column: the rising political dominance of the Bay Area at the expense of Southern California.
LA Observed contributor Deanne Stillman was outside the University Medical Center in Tucson on Sunday for the outpouring of public support for the six victims killed in Saturday's shooting and for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who remains in intensive care with doctors optimistic about her chances for recovery.
San Francisco Police Chief George Gascón said he had no idea when he walked into Mayor Gavin Newsom's office that he would be asked to take over as District Attorney.
Bunch of developments in the campaign by AEG's Tim Leiweke to rush through approval of a football stadium next to Staples Center and, he hopes, secure an NFL team to play there before Ed Roski's proposed stadium in Industry gets one.
Representative Gabrielle Giffords was making an appearance at a Safeway in north Tucson this morning when a young gunman walked up and shot her at close range in the head.
Doug Dowie, the former power broker as head of the Fleishman-Hillard PR office in Los Angeles during the mayoral administration of Jim Hahn, has been ordered to report to federal prison on Feb. 4. Same for John Stodder, his underling at Fleishman, the LAT says.
L.A. Democratic Party chairman Eric Bauman was right in our post last night. Associate Justice Carlos Moreno has resigned from the California Supreme Court, effective Feb. 28.
Eric Bauman, the chairman of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party, has posted on Twitter that Justice Carlos Moreno of the California Supreme Court has submitted his resignation to Gov. Jerry Brown.
The Root looks at the history, who's in power now and some reasons why black clout is declining.
Both KPCC's "Airtalk" (in the morning) and KCRW's "Which Way, L.A.?" (coming up at 7 p.m.) featured Republican Tom McClintock of Northern California and Democrat Brad Sherman from the Valley going at it.
Cost to donors of inauguration party: Schwarzenegger $2 million, Brown under $100,000.
New governor Jerry Brown will propose budget cuts in the coming days that "would touch nearly all Californians, eliminating local redevelopment agencies, shrinking social service benefits, shuttering parks and reducing library hours."
Brown leads with restoring confidence in government and creating jobs. Oh, did I mention this is from his 1975 inauguration speech?
Esteban Nuñez, son of the former Assembly speaker, had been sentenced to 16 years in prison for his role in the October 2008 stabbing death of a student during a fight near San Diego State. The governor's executive action, on his last day in office, commutes the sentence to seven years.
Among the new state officials of various kinds are Susan Kennedy, Schwarzenegger's chief of staff, his press secretary and Kimberly Belshé, his cabinet secretary for health and human services.
City Councilman Greig Smith has compiled his favorite City Hall stories into a self-published book from Xlibris.
Architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne makes a civic splash in the L.A. Times by pointing out that the Downtown NFL stadium Tim Leiweke and Casey Wasserman are pushing is another case of Los Angeles going about it all wrong.
Riordan to close two restaurants, Zine recuses over girlfriend, Yvonne Burke and Matt Toledo get state appointments and is Hollywood L.A. neighborhood of the year?
Tying up loose ends on the Bell story, Disneyland turns away crowds, re-thinking the Gray Davis recall and more.
Steve Greenberg closes the book on the Schwarzenegger era.
My final KCRW column of 2010 looks back at how this hasn't been an auspicious year for Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
Oscar ballots go out, the falling murder rate, new execs at KCET and more.
S. Ireve Virbila, Patrick O'Connor, Brian Lowry, Ryan Kavanaugh, David Kipen and more.
Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado, running out of time on his term, took an action today that got him some media coverage.
Jerry Brown, the Downtown Art Walk, even Lindsay Lohan. And more.
City councilman Dennis Zine declined to talk about the controversy over his dating a lobbyist for Tutor-Perini, but he did ask the City Attorney whether he should recuse himself from an upcoming key vote involving the firm.
Neighborhood councils, Hollywood, City Hall politics and more.
For the first time since 1920, California's congressional delegation will not grow in the shuffle of seats that occurs after each 10-year census.
Former city Controller Laura Chick sent an email release announcing that Governor-elect Jerry Brown's transition team has let her know they will be shutting off funds for her state office of inspector general.
Certified list from the Los Angeles City Clerk covers city council, school board and community college board races.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa put out a news statement shortly after the Senate on Saturday blocked a vote on the DREAM Act.
The Hollywood Farmers Market can continue in its current location and size for 90 days while the market and L.A. Film School continue to negotiate. From the market's side, former Councilman Michael Woo has circulated an email detailing why a final agreement didn't get done.
Kathleen Brown, the former state Treasurer and Los Angeles schools official, is moving from her post as Goldman Sachs’ West Coast head of public finance to avoid conflicts over her brother, Governor-elect Jerry Brown.
Right about now, at 5 p.m., AEG is formally unveiling prospective designs for the Downtown stadium it wants to build in place of the Convention Center's West Hall.
Jim Newton began his new weekly op-ed column in the Times with a piece on the failings of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
Trish Ploehn was removed Monday as director of Los Angeles County's Department of Children and Family Services, after months of turmoil and increasingly critical reports.
Mayor Villaraigosa is suddenly making a lot of speeches, including today in New York. What's up? And why did the Times miss his big hit on UTLA?
The plan to sell off the city parking garages is not going over well in Westwood Village.
Michael Speier departs Deadline.com and other media notes.
If the Universal City development project goes through, the size of the city of Los Angeles will grow by 44 acres. How's that, you may ask?
A memo obtained by Media Matters shows how Fox News staffers were directed to use the preferred Republican phrase in place of "public option" in the Obama health care plan....
Lee Kanon Alpert said today he will step down as president of the Department of Water and Power commission at the end of the year.
Various media are reporting that Elizabeth Edwards has died of complications from breast cancer.
Going on the air in about 20 minutes to talk about AEG's proposal for a Downtown football stadium. The piece airs at 6:44 p.m. (my usual Monday spot) and is...
News, notes and observations from the weekend.
Three members of the Imperial Stars band were charged by District Attorney Steve Cooley, for blocking the Hollywood Freeway last month.
Heal the Bay president Mark Gold isn't a fan of the Department of Water and Power reform measures that may appear on the March ballot in Los Angeles.
The official Christmas tree in the rotunda, or the pressroom tree?
Kamala Harris will take her victory lap on Tuesday with "a major announcement regarding the race for California Attorney General."
Hector Villagra, legal director of the Americal Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, will succeed Ramona Ripston as head of the organization.
Back from some holiday travel and going through the piles on my desk.
Steve Cooley conceded that he has lost the race for attorney general to Kamala Harris, but the vote count goes on.
The latest secretary of state count gives Democrat Kamala Harris a 53,764-vote edge over Republican Steve Cooley in the election for attorney general.
Kristina Schake joins the White House as communications director for Michelle Obama. Maryna Hrushetska leaves as director of the Craft and Folk Art Museum.
It's unofficial, of course, but City Council President Eric Garcetti has been closely following the count in the attorney race between Kamala Harris and Steve Cooley and crunching the numbers almost daily.
This afternoon's official update of the attorney general count gave Kamala Harris a lead of 30,730 votes over Steve Cooley, up a little from yesterday's lead.
Christmas is coming early to the good folks at the Los Angeles Times. Not only is owner Sam Zell conceding he won't be active in a post-bankruptcy Tribune Company, I'm told that the Times is getting back operational control of the Tribune Washington bureau.
I'm not sure these daily updates are needed anymore. The race for California attorney general is clearly going down to the wire, which might be located about two weeks from here.
As the counting of votes in the attorney general race rolls into its second week, the rhetoric level is climbing.
Latest from the Secretary of State has Kamala Harris pulling away from Steve Cooley, but with 774,000 votes still to be tallied.
With today's votes, including a bunch from Los Angeles County, Kamala Harris has regained the lead over Steve Cooley by 5,576 votes.
The Daily News' Tony Castro writes on his personal blog that despite Alex Padilla's talk of running for mayor, the state Senator from Pacoima really wants to be in Congress.
The latest memo from the Steve Cooley campaign quotes senior consultant Kevin Spillane analyzing the late vote count in the Attorney General race and how having the Republican Party affiliation by his name hurt Cooley in Democratic Los Angeles County.
The City Maven website — "turning Los Angeles City Hall inside out" — officially launched today, by Alice M. Walton, the former City News Service reporter in City Hall who's just back from graduating at the top of her class with a master's at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism.
At the conclusion of Tuesday's counting, Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley leads by 43,212 votes over Kamala Harris.
Republican Steve Cooley's lead in the race for attorney general stands at 19,189 in this morning's update from the Secretary of State.
Nice piece in Sunday's L.A. Times on the success of Zócalo Public Square and the people behind the discussion forum, led by founder Gregory Rodriguez.
Steve Cooley has erased Kamala Harris' lead and gone up up by 22,817 votes as the late vote counting stands now in the state attorney general race.
Back to the 1970s with Jerry Brown, from Steve Greenberg.
MSNBC's president has suspended talk show host Keith Olbermann indefinitely for donating to three Democratic candidates.
Jerry Brown will be governor again because he won the coast.
That's a lot of outstanding ballots in a race where Kamala Harris leads Steve Cooley by just 9,364 votes (out of 7,215,055 already tabulated.)
Proposition 19 passed on the coast of California, from Los Angeles to Sonoma counties, and in the mountains of Mono and Alpine counties. Everywhere else in the interior, no dice.
Back in the day of Jerry Brown I, noted Los Angeles artist Don Bachardy painted the official portrait for the gallery of governors in Sacramento. Only the work didn't go over so well.
One of the stranger election graphics: a day of the dead theme at L.A. Forward, where Oscar Garza and Carmen Dixon Rosenzweig live-blogged election night.
Gov. Schwarzenegger's tweeter just posted a pic of the governor congratulating the world champion San Francisco Giants.
Steve Cooley is going ahead with plans to host 20 or so big contributors in a luxury suite for tonight's Lakers-Kings game in Sacramento.
Governor-elect Jerry Brown committed his first flip-flop in this morning's news conference, saying he would not move to Sacramento after all.
The L.A. Times looks at 14 polls released in the final 10 days of the campaigns for governor and U.S. Senate and says the one that came closest to the final numbers was — ta-dahhh — its own LAT-USC poll.
Dana Milbank says Tuesday's election for Fox News Channel was the culmination of two years of hard work to bring down Barack Obama - and it was time for an on-air celebration of a job well done.
Kamala Harris leads Steve Cooley in the race for attorney general by 38,519 votes with more than 96% of the precincts tallied, including all of them in Los Angeles County.
Visit the Secretary of State site for the latest statewide and county by county vote totals.
The youngest California governor since the 19th century is now the oldest to be elected. Jerry Brown's email to supporters went out a little before 1 a.m.
Attorney general candidate Steve Cooley has scheduled a 10:30 a.m. presser with Sheriff Lee Baca and City Attorney Carmen Trutanich in front of the sheriff's department offices in Monterey Park.
It was a Republican rout across most of the country and especially in the House of Representatives, but here in California the Democrats swept the statewide ticket except possibly for attorney general.
Watch as Jim Lehrer hosts an interactive live-streamed web version of NewsHour, with columnists Mark Shields & David Brooks.
Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle threatened to shut out the media, and look how fast the blackout hit LATimes.com.
Today's Washington Post checks in on California First Lady Maria Shriver, starting at this year's Women's Conference in Long Beach, and pronounces her a little testy -- and also a force to be reckoned with..
Paul Glickman, the news director at Pasadena public radio station KPCC, argues in an Op-Ed piece in the Orange County Register that the evidence shows NPR doesn't have a liberal news slant.
Jim Newton, the former editorial page editor at the Los Angeles Times, is about finished with his biography of President Dwight Eisenhower and will be coming back to the paper with an Op-Ed column starting in December, just in time for the city election cycle to ramp up.
When President Obama won two years ago, local Democrats filled the Century Plaza ballroom, and the lobby — and lined up around the block outside. A less festive mood is expected Tuesday night, and the Dems are also going for a new venue.
Joe Mathews is sitting this one out, he writes in a piece called Your Vote Doesn't Count at Zocalo's website.
The Los Angeles City Clerk has helpfully emailed that candidates for City Council in the March 8, 2011 election — technically, the Primary Nominating Election — "may begin filing documents Nov. 8 indicating their intention to seek candidacy."
An odd 30-minute TV infomercial that director Francis Ford Coppola produced in 1980 and that "effectively ended California Gov. Jerry Brown’s campaign for president" has been posted by the Calbuzz political website.
The L.A. Times website this morning has been featuring a blog post by Andrew Malcolm trumpeting that, based on a new Gallup Poll, Republicans are "poised to reap historic gains...
Meg Whitman's bus pulled into the Burbank Marriott (after circling Bob Hope Airport) for a quick rally this afternoon before a few hundred supporters. Plus more notes.
Here's Steve Greenberg's final election-related cartoon before voting ends on Tuesday.
The female Asian elephants, called Tina and Jewel, are coming on open-ended loan from the San Diego Zoo.
The Jewish perspective on pot "is ambivalent, and observant Jews could plausibly take either side of Proposition 19," a rabbi says in the Jewish Journal. Plus: Allison Margolin.
The number one most favored brand among Democrats appears nowhere among the top ten most favored brands among Republicans. Same for the reverse: Republicans' favorite brand is not among Democrats' top ten.
Today's MTA vote approving the Wilshire subway route leaves out the West Hollywood detour and the politically sensitive Crenshaw station, leaves undecided the dicey political question of just where the tunnel will go under Century City and Beverly Hills, and should put to rest for now Mayor Villaraigosa's inoperative "subway to the sea" meme.
An editorial in today's Financial Times urges California voters to pass Proposition 19: "the Golden State should vote to legalise dope."
Read the email from Michael Gennaco claiming that a Times reporter mischaracterized his position and his words.
On Monday, the national audience for Eddie “Piolin” Sotelo’s morning radio show heard President Barack Obama answer questions for 21 minutes.
President Obama's remarks at the public rally, as released by the White House, are after the jump.
Crowds are already forming, and streets already closing, in the USC area for President Obama's campaign rally this afternoon. But some new plans to be aware of: the White House...
What President Obama talked about in the Bay Area tonight, in advance of Friday's rally at USC.
Democrats have risen to 51.4% of L.A. County voters, with Republicans at 23.6%.
Roger Ailes throws a three-year deal worth $2 million at Juan Williams after he's fired by NPR.
The designated tweeters for the candidates for governor have weighed in on tonight's playoff game. Note the subtly different styles.
Organizers of an L.A. event to coincide with the Oct. 30 Rally to Restore Sanity being put on in Washington, D.C. by Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show" say they have a new venue.
Sounds as if Jerry Brown playing ball with the editorial board, and Meg Whitman declining, mattered in the end.
Kholos began volunteering with Tom Bradley's campaign for mayor in 1969 and became the first press secretary after Bradley was elected in 1973.
City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana warned the City Council on Friday that spending is running $63 million more than expected.
The Mercury News in San Jose has stopped cutting for now and is looking to even add a Sacramento reporter and a Silicon Valley reporter.
Ex-LAPD chief William Bratton is the new board chairman of Kroll, the security firm, and former Los Angeles city councilman Jack Weiss runs the L.A. office.
Steve Greenberg's cartoon for LA Observed on Meg Whitman and Latino voters.
KFI News tweeted shortly after midnight that former Bell city administrative officer Robert Rizzo had posted bail and been released from jail.
Actually, the folks at Live Talks L.A. are making ten pairs of tickets available to LA Observed readers to catch P.J. O'Rourke in conversation with Judy Muller.
Old Cuba hand Ann Louise Bardach remembers that Jerry Brown, while mayor of Oakland, "violated U.S. sanction law during a trip to Cuba by using a CIA turncoat as a travel agent."
Neither candidate's camp will give a reason for ditching tomorrow's scheduled radio showdown on KGO in the Bay Area, says Politico. * Added: The only real question, says the San...
"It's time for a change," says the Daily News editorial endorsing Carly Fiorina over Sen. Barbara Boxer.
The Los Angeles Times may have decided to be a Republican mouthpiece when it comes to political blogging, but the editorial page has endorsed Democrats Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer.
Channel 34's website has cut up the weekend debate between the candidates for governor into sixteen bite-size video segments.
Shumate, a former deputy chief of staff to Gov. Pete Wilson, was advising both Carly Fiorina and Steve Cooley in this year's election cycle.
Ken Silverstein, the Washington editor and blogger for Harpers who used to be an investigative reporter at the D.C. bureau of the L.A. Times, is moving on to do investigative reporting for Global Witness and take a fellowship with the Open Society Institute.
City Controller Wendy Greuel will release an audit tomorrow of the city's 32 red light cameras, discussing why they weren't placed at the most dangerous intersections and concluding that the program "cannot document conclusively an increase in public safety."
They're live on Channel 7 here. After the debate, at 7 p.m., Warren Olney will convene a panel to analyze it live on "Which Way, L.A.?" on KCRW.
H. David Nahai, whose short stint as general manager of the Department of Water and Power for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa ended last year, is joining the Los Angeles law firm of Lewis, Brisbois, Bisgaard & Smith as partner.
Steve Soboroff and Frank McCourt share a PR rep and a mutual admiration, apparently.
The poll findings, based on likely voters being more Republican this year, have Democrat Jerry Brown leading Meg Whitman 49%-44%. Barbara Boxer leads Carly Fiorina 51%-43%.
Davis, who did the famous Demon Sheep spot for Carly Fiorina and ads for John McCain this year and the Barack Obama-Paris Hilton spot in 2008, "is perhaps the most sought-after ad man in politics," the Washington Post says in a feature with photos by Jonathan Alcorn.
Councilman Tony Cardenas' office is also looking to hire a deputy for communications. Deadline to apply is Friday.
It's amazing Rick Caruso doesn't fall over, as much leaning as he's doing on the question of running for mayor in 2013.
First Deputy Mayor and DWP chief Austin Beutner guests with Warren Olney on "Which Way, L.A.?" tonight at 7 p.m. and talks about the department and the chatter that he...
With the lifeguards at Zuma, inside the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, why we love Helen Mirren, plus an analysis from our own Mark Lacter on the prospects of (and arguments for) bankruptcy by the city of Los Angeles.
Bill's hard at work on a future book and needs to pull in from his writing on politics for awhile.
District Attorney Steve Cooley is on live TV now announcing the charges and arrests. Former city manager Robert Rizzo is accused of misappropriating more than $5 million in public funds....
In Pomona, "even a feel-good wedding story turns out to be nuts."
The former U.S. Senate candidate finds a new home for Kausfiles, which left Slate during his campaign for U.S. Senate.
Longtime California Republican hand Sal Russo is riding high with the success in GOP primaries of tea party candidates.
Howard Fineman, who the New York Times calls "one of the more recognizable pundits on cable television and a correspondent for Newsweek for 30 years," is leaving the magazine to become a senior politics editor at The Huffington Post.
Bruce Lisker's lawyer says that a representative of Attorney General Jerry Brown's office asked to delay consideration of Lisker's legal status until mid-November — in other words, after the election.
State Sen. Roderick Wright, the Democrat representing Inglewood and environs, pleaded not guilty today to eight felony charges that he lived outside his district and voted fraudulently. He was indicted Monday and the indictment was unsealed tod
In a preliminary move that will eventually have to be validated by the City Council, the City Ethics Commission voted to bar top officials from taking free tickets to concerts and sports if the donor has business pending before the city.
"We're very pleased to have the endorsement of former President Bill Clinton," says Jerry Brown's spokesman Sterling Clifford. Brown also releases a new anti-Whitman ad....
ow they have gone too far. The Department of Water and Power, already in the running for least popular city agency, has closed its cafeteria to the public,
City Council President Eric Garcetti takes a turn as the fictional mayor of Los Angeles on tonight's episode of The Closer on TNT.
Five hours after tweeting that his plane was "wheels up" on the trade mission to Asia, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger added a little barb aimed at Sarah Palin.
The Chief Deputy Mayor says he'll be gone by the end of the month, after just a year.
The live debate between Sen. Barbara Boxer and challenger Carly Fiorina is set for Wednesday, Sept. 29 from 1 to 2 p.m. as part of the Patt Morrison show on KPCC.
Ground was broken on a $9 million interpretive center for the American Tropical mural at Olvera Street.
Former City Councilman Richard Alatorre and his lobbying partner, ex-Assemblyman Mike Roos, won't be prosecuted by the DA for violating the law that requires lobbyists to register and declare their clients, even though prosecutors concluded they did the deeds.
City Attorney Carmen Trutanich has recommended that the City Council's Board of Referred Powers disqualify the group of restaurants bidding against incumbent LAX concessionaire HMS Host, whose top lobbyist is a campaign contributor.
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, answering a question from Patt Morrison in the weekend LAT, says he has no real regrets about not running for mayor against Tom Bradley in 1989. And as for 2013?
Steve Greenberg's tribute to his cartooning inspiration, plus funeral information for Paul Conrad.
Writer, filmmaker and Los Angeles political figure Kelly Candaele has launched Politics and Films to write about feature films and documentaries from a political perspective.
For decades, Paul Conrad's cartoons in the Los Angeles Times were conversation starters, debate shapers and eyeball attractors. He was one of the paper's best known journalists, the one sure to draw the longest lines at book signings and other public appearances.
Better late than never, I guess. The L.A. Times looks today at the Los Angeles-spawned Andrew Breitbart phenomenon, though not as deeply as national pubs have. One interesting note: a...
After wallowing in the politics of golf carts for seven years, the Recreation and Parks commission voted Wednesday to cancel its search for a new golf cart concessionaire at city courses and will use department employees
KCRW is preempting "Which Way, L.A.?" to carry the Senate campaign debate between Barbara Boxer and Carly Fiorina tonight.
The bill, carried in the Senate by Gil Cedillo of Los Angeles, received just 14 votes on the final night of the legislative session.
That's the analysis of The Atlantic politics editor Marc Ambinder, who took Ken Mehlman's announcement that he is, after all, gay.
The inquiry that Councilman Bernard Parks' office blames on Wave columnist Betty Pleasant has been dropped and will not result in criminal charges, according to David Demerjian, who heads the District Attorney's public integrity division.
Tani Cantil-Sakauye was unanimously confirmed today by the Commission on Judicial Appointments as the next chief justice of the California Supreme Court....
This mass email just went out from the Democratic National Committee's Organizing for America project.
Obledo, a co-founder of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and sometimes called the "Godfather of the Latino Movement," was Gov. Jerry Brown's health and welfare secretary from 1975 to 1982.
That review is already several months old without turning into an Alarcon-style investigation.
Eli Broad insists that Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky's news website misquoted him saying that his art museum will definitely be built Downtown on Grand Avenue.
Well, we know he hasn't been violating the city's watering ordinance.
The Board of Supervisors today approved its part of the deal to lure Eli Broad's art museum to Downtown. After the vote, Broad called it a done deal despite the formality of another vote scheduled Monday by the Grand Avenue Authority.
From the Beverly Hilton to Hancock Park and back they go, compliments of the feed by Jonathan Weisman of the Wall Street Journal to the White House press corps.
Rep. Maxine Waters held a press conference in Washington this morning, appearing with her chief of staff and grandson, Mikael Moore, to deliver a presentation complete with a PowerPoint slide show.
City Council President Eric Garcetti posted this childhood photo to his Facebook wall: "Nice mustache, Dad!"
Jon Fairbanks joined the staff of Councilman Bill Rosendahl today.
Joe Hicks, the former ACLU spokesman and executive director of the L.A. Human Rights Commission who's made a new career of dinging the left, is taking his lefty-turns-right shtick to a new show he's hosting called The Minority Report at Pajamas Media's video channel.
Longtime California political writer John Marelius, lately at the San Diego Union-Tribune and previously at the Daily News for 15+ years, has been appointed to a state Fair Political Practices Commission task force to reform and simplify the Political Reform Act. Plus other media notes.
Add KPCC to the list of websites offering a searchable database of city of Los Angeles employee salaries, built from the file that Controller Wendy Greuel made available.
Hugh Hefner will be on from the Playboy Mansion, and there's a California politics panel that includes the LA Weekly’s Jill Stewart and legal analyst Roger Cossack.
I thought Michael Linder had made a real impact covering City Hall since he joined KABC in March, 2009 and opened a bureau in the civic center.
Controller Wendy Greuel has unveiled an online searchable database of salaries for most City of Los Angeles employees.
Rep. Maxine Waters talks about the ethics charges against her on "Which Way, L.A.?" at 7 p.m. on KCRW. Also: Tavis Smiley talks to Garry Shandling tonight on his PBS...
Councilman Richard Alarcon has put out a statement saying he's innocent of the charges and that he lives at the house on Nordhoff Street where the district attorney says he fraudulently registered to vote.
The KFI bad boys haven't been kind to her in the past, so there's some newsworthiness to Whitman's appearance.
Federal judge Chief Vaughn Walker in San Francisco has ruled California voters' ban on same-sex marriage is invalid.
City Councilman Richard Alarcon has informed city officials that he expects DA Steve Cooley's grand jury will issue an indictment today charging him in connection with his residency issues, the Times says.
The federal court in San Francisco says that tomorrow is the day for the much-anticipated ruling on the constitutionality of the measure banning same-sex marriage in California.
City Controller Wendy Greuel issued a letter to Mayor Villaraigosa and the City Council tonight saying she is taking steps to post the salaries of all city employees on line.
President Obama will return to Los Angeles in two weeks for a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee fundraiser at the home of John Wells, says Ted Johnson at Variety.
The Los Angeles Democrat's lawyers have said she made appeals to the Treasury Department not on behalf of OneUnited Bank, where her husband had been on the board, but on behalf of the National Bankers Association.
In the San Fernando Valley secession election in 2002, state Assemblyman Keith Richman received the most votes and would have become the first mayor of the newly formed sixth-most populous U.S. city if voters had allowed the split.
The last of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's original team of top advisors at City Hall, Deputy Chief of Staff Jimmy Blackman, will leave on August 13.
It turns out that the property tax add-ons levied by the City of Bell have its residents paying a higher rate than in any local city but Industry.
Mayor Villaraigosa, KFI's John & Ken, Cardinal Mahony.
Mark Winogrond, who served Mayor Vilalraigosa as interim planning director and vetted his 2006 selection of Gail Goldberg, strongly rips the selection of Michael LoGrande as city planning director.
Here's the release from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's office on Michael LoGrande, his new nominee to take over the city planning department.
Ed Roski, the real estate developer who wants to build an NFL stadium in the City of Industry, made his first comments to the media since a rival stadium project emerged in Downtown Los Angeles.
Mayor Villaraigosa will name zoning administrator Michael LoGrande to be city planning director, and also talked to Rick Orlov about the Daily News' challenge to show he hasn'[t checked out.
The email listerv for mostly liberal journalists that used to be called Journolist is in the news again, this time over remarks by KCRW's publicist and producer.
County Supervisor Don Knabe is the chair of Metro this time around and, as such, learns how to drive a bus.
The Daily News says Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has gone AWOL and kicks off a series of editorials "calling out Villaraigosa for his apparent lack of interest."
While it's way too soon to know whether political activist Ron Kaye's campaign to mount City Council challenges will gain any traction, electoral or otherwise, the make-up of his organization has already sparked controversy.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch praise the choice of Grand Avenue for Eli Broad's modern art collection.
MAPLight has culled the top ten lobbyists for 2007-2009 (by client payments) and who they represent out of the City Ethics Commission's reports.
California Watch's site called Politics Verbatim compiles the actual words spoken by the candidates for governor in a searchable database.
California Chief Justice Ronald George will retire rather than seek to keep his seat on the state's high court in November's election, the chief justice just announced. The Republican appointee...
PETA is sending out alerts hipping the media to a 6:30 p.m. protest against the Ringling Bros. circus at Staples Center by Olivia Munn, the actress and Daily Show correspondent whose billboard adorns the Sunset Strip.
It's taken until now to reach an accord over access, but reach they have. Excluded are bloggers, freelancers and other non-employed journalists unable to get a card from the LAPD.
Well, you can't say the Los Angeles Times isn't fully embracing its odd and increasingly controversial strategy of going partisan Republican — and only Republican — in its national politics blogging.
"I am deeply disappointed," DA Steve Cooley say in a statement on Switzerland's decision to release Roman Polanski rather than send him back to Los Angeles.
The office of Board of Public Works president Cynthia Ruiz sent an invitation to local fashion people inviting them to take part in a meeting on the city's role in September's "Fashion Night Out," in partnership with Vogue magazine.
Since the real estate bubble popped, "ideas have disappeared from the political landscape of Los Angeles," Jerry Sullivan of the Garment & Citizen argues in a piece at New Geography.
Business tycoons push a Downtown street car, Ron Tutor talks, Schwarzenegger is lonely, eBay's contributions to Brown and more inside.
The New York Times has a story about Howard Sunkin, the Dodgers senior vice president for public affairs, being paid $401,395 in 2007 by the Dodgers Dream Foundation — at a time when the team charity's budget was only $1.6 million.
Lonnie David Franklin Jr. was arrested today — this morning actually. But tomorrow at 11 a.m., Mayor Villaraigosa and LAPD chief Charlie Beck will front for a bevy of suits — including two statewide candidates — at a media op in the Police Administration Building to "announce the circumstances surrounding the arrest.
At least six of Councilman Richard Alarcon's staffers have received subpoenas to testify Wednesday in front of a grand jury looking into where the boss actually lives.
Before I head off to survey the far-flung reaches of the empire for the 4th, some notes from the week.
That four-page ad for Universal's King Kong attraction in the Los Angeles Times this morning really drove the Los Angeles County Board of Supevisors, well, ape.
The powwow with AEG representatives included Speaker John Perez, Senate leader Darrell Steinberg and Maria Elena Durazo, head of the L.A. County Federation of Labor, James Wagner reports in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.
They're calling it retirement, effective July 16.
The Senate bill that would have made Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich the state's only city attorney with the power to make mischief via grand jury has quietly died in committee,
Talk host Kevin James on KRLA is moving to the 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. slot to make room on the station schedule for Glenn Beck (mornings) and Dennis Miller (8 to 11 p.m.) and says he will start doing reports on neighborhood councils all over L.A.
The suit filed Friday by John Shallman and Shallman Communications reportedly says they are owed nearly $150,000 by Councilman Bernard Parks for work on his 2008 race for county supervisor.
Mayor Villaraigosa took a step toward toning down the controversy over his practice of taking free tickets from companies with major business before City Hall, compliments of Steve Lopez and the L.A. Times.
Matthew Butcher, who was shot during a robbery at a marijuana clinic in Echo Park, was the 27-year-old son of Julie Butcher. She is a longtime leader of the Service Employees International Union in Los Angeles.
This morning's L.A. Times story didn't know how much cash was obtained in casinos and gaming rooms using state-issued debit cards. Now they know.
The LA Weekly calculated the possible value of the free tickets that Mayor Villaraigosa's office acknowledges he accepted and came up with $50,000, "and perhaps as much as $100,000" depending...
Fox 11's John Schwada is riding the Mayor Villaraigosa ticket story hard.
Roz Wyman, elected to the City Council at 22 in 1957 — and a key player in getting the Dodgers here from Brooklyn — was one of the featured guests last night at Los Angeles Magazine's Women's Leadership reception.
While the politicians and unions haggle over whether the next round of city worker layoffs will actually happen, at the Los Angeles Public Library they already are happening.
Meg Whitman's first general election campaign ads targeting Latinos will run later today during the Mexico-France match at the World Cup.
Ed Roski Jr. and Majestic Realty Co. have hired Ben Porritt, who was a spokesman for John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, to help work on the project to build an NFL stadium in the City of Industry.
In case you were wondering why the Los Angeles Times is the only big newspaper that pays a full-time staffer to blog partisan attacks on Obama and the Democrats — and not exactly sophisticated attacks — you're not alone.
City Controller Wendy Greuel's said Thursday, in releasing her financial audit of the Department of Water and Power, that that the agency had enough money to make its budgeted $73.5-million transfer to the city treasury even without a rate increase.
Nearly 200 acres of grassland and oak trees at the junction of the Ventura Freeway and Las Virgenes Canyon Road have been acquired by the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority.
Carly Fiorina was caught on an open microphone laughing at Sen. Barbara Boxer's hair — "so yesterday" — and voicing surprise that Fiorina's fellow Republican, Meg Whitman, began the general election campaign today by going on Sean Hannity.
Little matters less on election night than early results; since the statewide count is still at about 36% I won't bother with numbers. But in many races we know what...
Longtime political activist and Hollywood public relations strategist Stephen Rivers died Monday after a long battle with cancer.
For the 40th anniversary of Christopher Street West and LA Pride, Mayor Antonio Villarigosa opened Getty House to a Sunday afternoon soiree attended by Speaker John Perez, Councilman Bill Rosendahl and other gay community leaders from politics and beyond.
Phil Willon has covered City Hall for the L.A. Times, with an emphasis on Mayor Villaraigosa, for two years. He's going back to Riverside.
Yeah, that's 30 for Helen Thomas, who is 89.
I noticed quite an outpouring of grief and and surprise on Facebook from friends, labor activists and colleagues on today's death of John Delloro, reportedly of a heart attack.
One still photograph survives from that night in 1962 when Marilyn Monroe famously sang a seductive "Happy Birthday" to President John F. Kennedy. It's now for sale in West Hollywood.
The New Yorker's Connie Bruck weighs in this week on the U.S. Senate campaign in California, with a focus on Republican Tom Campbell.
Jerry Brown's first TV ad of the governor's race says it's all about excessive partisanship and Sacramento not working
Blogger-turned-fringe candidate Mickey Kaus has posted a couple of video spots on YouTube. Unions and Democrats are the bogeymen, but his mother and his alma mater Beverly Hills High School...
The governor just named Dan Schnur of USC's Unruh Institute to be chair of the Fair Political Practices Commission.
Joint LA Times-USC polling rolled out in a series of weekend stories.
It turns out that John Schwada's
Reaction to the Israeli raid on a flotilla of ships headed to Gaza, leading to nine deaths, was sufficiently strong that Jacob Dayan, Israel's consul general in Los Angeles, held a Monday afternoon news conference at his home.
The judge overseeing the Associated Press lawsuit against Shepard Fairey — over his famous "HOPE" poster of then-candidate Barack Obama — told the Los Angeles artist that he is likely to lose in court.
OC political blogger Jon Fleischman wonders if talk about tearing down the West Hall of the Los Angeles Convention Center to accommodate an NFL stadium shoots in the foot Mayor Villaraigosa's attempt to lure the big Comic-Con convention away from San Diego.
Steve Greenberg's editorial cartoon on Proposition 16 needs a little more size than they usually get in the media box at the top right of the main page. So I'm...
Today's powwow between the City Hall press corps and City Council president Eric Garcetti (plus members Jan Perry and Dennis Zine) over media access was on the record after all....
At least one political consultant was chuckling over the weekend about the Los Angeles Times using a photo of Assemblyman Hector de la Torre when the paper meant to endorse Dave Jones. "
City Hall reporters have a noon appointment with Council President Eric Garcetti and pro-tem Jan Perry (or their representatives) to discuss the new access restrictions for the council chambers that...
The LA Weekly's annual LA People issue is always a savvy glimpse into the local culture and a good read. Here are ten.
"Commissioner Gary Pierce is the Forrest Gump of Arizona politics."
If you believe that Meg Whitman really was 50 points ahead of Steve Poizner in March, the news that her lead is down to 9 points in the latest poll from the Public Policy Institute of California will be stunning news indeed.
President Obama's head table at tonight's White House state dinner for Felipe Calderon, the president of Mexico, includes Speaker of the Assembly (and Villaraigosa cousin) John Perez (with Jason Seifer), County Fed chief Maria Elena Durazo, TELACU leader David Lizárraga, farm workers' legend Dolores Huerta and Univision host Maria Elena Salinas.
The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor just sent out a helpful press release informing the world that the boss, Maria Elena Durazo, will attend the state dinner for Mexico's president Felipe Calderon on Wednesday night.
In the latest in Los Angeles Magazine's City Thinkers conversations on the status and future of our great metropolis, former Controller Laura Chick chats with editor Mary Melton.
The City Council ended a long day of give and take by passing a $6.7 billion city budget for next fiscal year. The balanced budget raises fees and reduces services, adds $5 to parking fines, proposes a billboard tax, and keeps the pressure on unions to accept concessions or face up to 26 furlough days and as many as 761 layoffs.
The City Council voted 13-0 during its budget session today to keep replacing LAPD officers who leave, despite budget cuts that threaten layoffs elsewhere in the vast city workforce. The decision will maintain a force of 9,963 officers.
Republican consultant Allan Hoffenblum, who publishes the California Target Book, takes a crack at analyzing the fall congressional and legislative races, with a big caveat and a warning to the GOP.
California's three largest NBC stations — KNBC here in Los Angeles plus the outlets in San Diego and the Bay Area — are going in together on a new blog launching today called Prop Zero. Reporters, anchors and others will contribute, including Conan Nolan at Channel 4.
This time it's The New Yorker and Rebecca Mead who go driving in Los Angeles with Andrew Breitbart, the rising right-wing media mogul who makes no pretense that for him it's all about defeating the left.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Father Gregory Boyle are scheduled to chat with Patt Morrison on KPCC at 1:35 p.m., talking about the financial collapse of L.A's best-known anti-gang organization.
The council’s action today "fell short of a total boycott or canceling all of the city’s $58 million worth of contracts with Arizona companies."
Longtime Fox 11 political reporter John Schwada isn't so sure he likes the compromise media access rules put forth last afternoon by City Council President Eric Garcetti's new press deputy.
This morning's crackdown on City Hall media access during City Council meetings is being reworked enough that the reporters are less concerned — and escorts won't be required.
California Democratic Party chairman John Burton didn't exactly say "f--- you" to the reporter from Calbuzz.
Every decade or so, it seems, the City Council moves to close off the area behind the third-floor council chambers to reporters. Eventually it gets opened again when the pols remember, hey, it's useful to have quick encounters with reporters that don't require a full-on calendar appointment back in the office upstairs.
I've ranted a little bit before about the second-rate practice of naming freeways and other big public works for minor political players and less-than-extraordinary do-gooders — I believe I said...
That's the market value of the city-owned parcel near Disney Hall that officials are thinking of giving to Eli Broad at $1 a year for his art museum and offices for the Broad Foundation
Mayor Villaraigosa's statement commends the selection.
Esteban Nuñez, 21, the son of former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, and a co-defendant had faced a murder charge in the 2008 stabbing death of a college student in San Diego.
Max Palevsky sold Scientific Data Systems to Xerox in 1969 for $1 billion, then used his money to collect art and to finance liberal causes and campaigns, including those of George McGovern, Jimmy Carter and Tom Bradley for mayor.
Posted from the Twitter account of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, with this text: "Happy Cinco de Mayo!"
Filmmakers Lyn Goldfarb and Alison Sotomayor are taking a new tack in their push to make a feature documentary on the life of the late mayor Tom Bradley. They have sent out a pitch for funds saying, "If the Hollywood Sign said Tom Bradley, would we allow his story to be forgotten?"
The parent company of the LA Weekly and OC Weekly, and more pertinently of Phoenix New Times, has battled through the years with the out-of-control local sheriff Joe Arpaio. Now, in a note to readers, Village Voice Media executive editor Michael Lacey and CEO Jim Larkin say they are underwriting the cost of the ACLU's legal challenge to the new Arizona immgration law.
Mayor Antontio Villaraigosa today named defeated City Council candidate Christine Essel to be the top executive of the Community Redevelopment Agency.
For tomorrow's NBA playoff game, the Phoenix Suns will wear jerseys that rephrase the team name into Spanish: Los Suns.
Rick Caruso and his wife Tina are hosting a fundraiser at their home in Brentwood for City Council member and lieutenant governor candidate Janice Hahn
Connie Bruck's profile of Haim Saban went online an hour ago at The New Yorker — all 11,299 words.
Controller Wendy Greuel will release an audit on Monday at City Hall that her office says shows city departments were unable to locate hundreds of pieces of equipment and other items purchased with taxpayer funds.
There's an 11,000-word piece on politically active L.A. mogul Haim Saban coming in Monday's New Yorker by writer Connie Bruck, but the best story might be in what has gone on behind the scenes.
There have been more than a few chuckles at City Hall about Austin Beutner's title in Mayor Villaraigosa's administration. When this invitation for an event tomorrow landed, at least one longtime City Hall hand almost snorted corn flakes out of his (or her!) nose.
At a news conference today, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa came out in favor of the city of Los Angeles boycotting Arizona over that state's new law putting cops into the business of enforcing immigration laws.
Is anybody surprised? Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and City Attorney Carmen Trutanich reportedly met last night and came to an agreement that essentially splits the difference on budget cuts for the...
Cardinal Roger Mahony is ramping up his advocacy for immigrants, with an address scheduled for Monday at Fordham University in New York called "Immigration Reform: A Moral Imperative" and a new website launched today by the archdiocese.
Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota is having a fundraiser Friday night at the House of Blues on Sunset Strip that's calling on his Saturday Night Live days.
four-minute clip from "The Garden," Scott Hamilton Kennedy's Oscar-nominated documentary about the South Central Farm saga, is today's featured pick at Telegraph 21, a new video magazine for documentary films out of New York and Barcelona.
Candidate Steve Poizner's book about teaching at Mt. Pleasant High School in San Jose makes act one of this week's "This American Life" on NPR.
Host Conan Nolan will put questions to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Republican candidate for governor Meg Whitman on this weekend's "KNBC News Conference." Proposition 17 and its impact...
City Attorney Carmen Trutanich followed up top aide Jane Usher's email critical of the mayor's budget with his own communication, saying that Villaraigosa's spending plan "shows a remarkable lack of leadership and imagination" and is a management failure.
This time, actually, the former planning commission president who now advises City Attorney Carmen Trutanich used an email to attack Mayor Villaraigosa.
Austin Beutner will be on "Which Way, L.A.?" on KCRW this evening at 7:30 p.m. to talk about his plans for serving awhile as interim head of the Department of Water and Power (while still doing the rest of his $1-a-year job as deputy mayor and jobs czar.)
A roundup of coverage and reaction following Mayor Villaraigosa's State of the city speech.
Mayor Villaraigosa was at LAX to see off President Obama this morning.
President Obama's official remarks at the Democrats' fundraiser, as provided by the White House Media Affairs office. After the jump....
Seema Mehta of the Los Angeles Times is the pool reporter with the president in Exposition Park. Here's the first pool report, via the White House press office. About 1,000...
David Cay Johnston's visiting blogger piece for LA Observed on Friday about his experiences covering Daryl Gates and the LAPD in the early 1980s has been getting some nice attention and attracting favorable emails. Johnston will be a guest on "Which Way, L.A.?" with Warren Olney on KCRW at 7:30 p.m.
In a post Sunday on his blog, Cardinal Roger Mahony calls the new Arizona statute "the country's most retrogressive, mean-spirited, and useless anti-immigrant law."
Jerry Brown, shown with L.A. political consultants Julie Buckner and Donna Bojarsky, turned up Saturday night at the Calbuzz dinner at Cafe Pinot during the Democrats' state convention. Brown kibbitzed with Demo adviser Garry South, Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, Patt Morrison and other media types, including LA Observed.
President Obama will arrive a little before 5:30 p.m. Monday to raise L.A. campaign cash for the Democrats — Sen. Barbara Boxer and the DNC specifically — and wreak a little unfortunate havoc with local mobility. At least it will be a Monday, so the natural afternoon traffic should be a bit lighter than usual — but there's a Kings playoff game at Staples Center at 7 p.m.
AEG's Tim Leiweke and sports mogul Casey Wasserman are considering reviving the NFL stadium plan they first aired eight years ago.
Mayor Villaraigosa will announce Monday, as expected, that he is appointing Austin Beutner to be interim general Manager of the Department of Water and Power.
Who knew opera could be so contentious? Fan Rip Rense reams LAT critic Mark Swed for not reporting on loud booing, while a heckler who interrupted a lecture on the Ring Festival was almost evicted by Zev Yaroslavsky.
A long piece in USC's student-run Neon Tommy (by senior editor Hillel Aron) follows Ron Kaye on his crusade to foment, as he calls it, "the birth of democracy in L.A." The story captures Kaye as a 68-year-old white ex-newspaperman from the far west end of the Valley who wants to create a "new revolution" that goes beyond the early-2000s secession campaign he stage-managed as managing editor of the Daily News.
It's the 4.8% increase the City Council wanted, not the higher rate that Mayor Villaraigosa originally sought and that the DWP commission tried to force through last time. For the...
City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana came back to work today, less than three weeks after his March 26 DUI arrest and subsequent announcement that he would seek treatment....
The City Council went ahead today and approved the same level of electricity rate hike it offered two weeks ago, but this time the increase — of 0.6 of a...
Janice Hahn and Gavin Newsom both officially crowed this afternoon that she (or he, respectively) won the endorsement of the California Labor Federation in the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor. While technically true, they both left out a key part.
Illogical as it sounds, a panel of experts convened by the city has concluded that last year's siege of water main breaks was triggered by the DWP's Monday-Thursday watering restrictions creating higher pressures on aging pipes.
What had been expected for the past few months is now official, says the blog LGBT POV: "The measure to repeal Prop 8 in 2010 failed to collect the nearly...
Starting tomorrow, all Los Angeles city libraries are closed on Sundays. The Central Library in Downtown is open 10 to 6 other days, and stays opens until 8 p.m. only on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
A day after saying things were looking better, City Hall is back to describing a $222.4 million budget deficit for the current fiscal year that ends June 30.
Hundreds of dump trucks a day have been driving through a Sylmar neighborhood to dispose of sediment from the Station Fire.
That immediate budget crisis the mayor, the City Council and the CAO have been talking about? Not happening. Money has been found to pay city employees using a transfer from the reserve fund and some newly discovered cash.
More budget wrangling, a power grab, a credit downgrade and a lawsuit -- and that's not all.
Jeremy Oberstein, the communications deputy to City Councilman Paul Krekorian, noticed a Los Angeles Fire Department alert about a fire at a familiar address. He tweeted: @LAFD I live there!!!!!! Is it bad?! Half an hour later, this follow-up scrolled across Twitter.
Sponsored by parents at Wonderland Avenue Elementary School in Los Angeles and posted at Funny or Die. It's pretty good.
The press release from City Controller Wendy Greuel says the audit is intended to "determine if DWP had the necessary funds to complete the anticipated Power Revenue Transfer to the City’s Reserve Fund.
Probably not really, but political blogger Mickey Kaus's previous statements that he didn't intend to actually win against Sen. Barbara Boxer in the Democratic primary have been used by the party to deny him a speaking spot at the upcoming state convention.
City Attorney Carmen Trutanich filed this morning for an injunction naming 80 suspected drug dealers active in the Skid Row area of Downtown.
Mark is following today's moves in the poker game about City Hall and DWP finances over at LA Biz Observed....
In a day of bad news on City Hall's financial crisis, Controller Wendy Greuel grabbed the biggest headline.
The L.A. Times editorial board on Sunday explained its approach to this year's upcoming election endorsements. In recent years, The Times' editorial page has most often endorsed Democrats, but we...
Kobe Bryant, Brian D'Arcy, Ron Kaye, John Forsyth and more.
The fundraiser we told you about awhile back for Sen. Barbara Boxer and the Democratic National Committee will be held April 19, with President Obama the headliner. There will be...
The investigative reporting venture based up north is looking to add another enterprise reporter and a new position for them, public engagement manager.
The Department of Water and Power board of commissioners defied the City Council and voted this evening for a higher rate hike than the council had endorsed yesterday. Barely an...
David Allen, columnist and blogger for the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, spotted this regulatory perplexer in Downtown's Pershing Square.
No one until recently has been a better or more high-profile friend of Bill Clinton than L.A. billionaire Ron Burkle, but now "the symbiotic relationship has ended with great acrimony."
The 4.5% hike in the electricity rate applies to businesses and residents. It's less than the rate hike requested by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and he was lukewarm afterward about the council's 8-6 vote
City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana announced Sunday that he will temporarily step down from his City Hall post and enter an alcohol treatment program.
With a GQ piece said to be in the works, the L.A. Times was first into print with a reconstruction of Mike Penner's painful transformation into Christine Daniels and back again.
Turns out that Willie Brown is more than an ex-Speaker and ex-Mayor who writes a lively California politics column for the San Francisco Chronicle.
The City Administrative Officer was arrested by the California Highway Patrol about 12:15 this morning in Covina after attending last night's Los Angeles Political Roast downtown. Santana, who was driving his city car when arrested, issued a written statement through the mayor's office this afternoon saying he would seek counseling.
The Time magazine that hits print tomorrow will have a piece by Steve Oney on Andrew Breitbart, the Brentwood-based right-wing media impresario and culture war provocateur. The story covers the rise of Breitbart's website empire and his driving passion to conquer liberal influence on American culture and politics.
In case you doubt the importance that both political parties put on activating and exploiting bloggers, here's an example. It's an email LA Observed just received from the
Director of Online Media Outreach at the House Republican Conference.
The city attorney's office says 20 new cease-and-desist letters have gone out and that at least eight supergraphics have come down or will shortly.
Today's weekly commentary looks in on the election season gathering steam in California, with mentions of Meg Whitman, Steve Poizner, Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom, Janice Hahn and Mickey Kaus.
"Marketplace" aired a story today that looked at how Google ads were used to good effect by the Scott Brown Senate campaign in Massachusetts.
Mickey Kaus posts that Slate was quite prepared to let him keep blogging about politics as a candidate for U.S. Senate, perhaps in the form of a Diary of a Longshot. But he made the decision to step off the site for now, "though I reserve the right to come crawling back."
Prize-winning author John McPhee is Michael Silverblatt's guest today at 2:30 p.m. on KCRW's Bookworm. McPhee's most recent book is "Silk Parachute." Tonight at 8 p.m. on KCET's SoCal Connected,...
While City Hall cuts everything in sight, seven City Council members have resisted a voluntary cut in pay. Here they are.
President Obama plans to visit Los Angeles in mid-April and speak at a fundraiser for Sen. Barbara Boxer.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca testified before the House subcommittee on Homeland Security today and, before he was done, had accused a Republican congressman of acting "un-American.
Ann Bardach has been sitting on this piece of information until the right moment, which is now: Rielle Hunter used to be her tenant in West Hollywood. As tenants go she was pretty good, if peculiar.
You don't have to follow French pollitics to know how David Martinon came to be the consul general in Los Angeles, though it helps.
Only one California political hopeful got featured in Sunday's New York Times Magazine, answering Deborah Solomon's questions. That would be Mickey Kaus, who talks about why he's running against Sen. Barbara Boxer.
Remember: Pacific Daylight Time resumes its rightful place in the natural order of things on Sunday.
CNBC's Jane Wells talks to Mayor Villaraigosa and author Joel Kotkin about the city's self-inflicted budget crisis and whether Los Angeles should, perhaps, go bankrupt. Villaraigosa vows there is no...
There's a catch: the firm wants City Hall approval for 20 of its disputed supergraphics.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is telling supporters that he will announce Friday he is running for lieutenant governor, Capitol Weekly editor Anthony York reports.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa endorsed Councilwoman Janice Hahn in her bid for the Democratic nod to be lieutenant governor. "Sticking with a vote he needs on the City Council," Rick Orlov...
Each member of the county Board of Supervisors gets $3.4 million a year to spend on pet projects and doesn't have to account for it to the public — or share much info at all, according to a Times story.
Pollner replaces Jim Seeley as the top city of Los Angeles lobbyist in Washingto
Variety has restored that missing "Iron Cross" review to its website and says it was only down for factual vetting in response to a legal threat, not because of...
City Attorney Carmen Trutanich kept to his vow to go after more illegal supergraphcs, obtaining four more arrest warrants on people allegedly tied to sign violations at Hollywood and Highland. No million-dollar bail this time.
Tonight at Getty House, Mayor Villaraigosa is hosting a pre-Oscars reception for Academy Awards nominees
It's impossible to know with this group if anything is ever final, but the initial group of 542 positions being eliminated went out to department heads with a message from Mayor Villaraigosa’s chief of staff, Jeff Carr, that “full cooperation” was expected.
City Attorney Carmen Trutanich tells KTLA's Eric Spillman that the $1 million bail he got for that sign misdemeanor at Hollywood and Highland was based on the public safety threat...
Slate blogger Mickey Kaus posted at Kausfiles that news of his run against Sen. Barbara Boxer got out sooner than he hoped and explains a little of what it's all about.
Yeah, don't call 911 to ask about possible 911 surcharges.
Mickey Kaus, the Slate blogger who delights in needling his fellow Democrats, liberals and the L.A. Times — and even sometimes a Republican — confirms via email that he's looking...
Jerry Brown plans to announce officially that he's running for governor, and other notes from the day.
The curiously high bail amount levied on illegal sign purveyor Kayvan Setareh was slashed by 90% after he agreed in court today to take down the supergraphic he posted at Hollywood & Highland, scene of the Oscars in less than a week.
A judge went along with City Attorney Carmen Trutanich's request for $1 million bail for a man charged with three misdemeanors for posting an illegal sign near the Oscars theater in Hollywood.
The city's lower credit rating, while expected, "will almost assuredly increase the city’s cost for borrowing money."
Since our post yesterday, the audio now is just Gavin Newsom sounding clueless about the post of lieutenant governor, though in this exchange it's the Hahn group that looks a bit like amateur hour.
Warren Olney, out several weeks after a bike accident, returned today to the hosting chair on KCRW's "To the Point" and "Which Way, L.A."
The lawyer-blogger at Copyrights & Campaigns says the candidate may well face a lawsuit for using Sam Cooke's "Wonderful World" in her video slam on Gavin Newsom.
She's worried enough that her campaign staff has put together a short video mashup of Gavin Newsom saying he doesn't know what the state's lieutenant governor does.
A New York Times blog story tonight on Gavin Newsom "the Twitter prince" feels so 2009 — gushing about his Twitter followers but failing to say they don't matter.
The moves would eliminate about 56 positions, saving about $3.2 million in the city general fund.
emember those defenses Supt. Ramon Cortines put up to justify his seat on the board of Scholastic Inc. — an arrangement that paid him $150,000 last year?
Former Speaker Karen Bass made it official this morning that she is running in the 33rd congressional district. Her announcement was timed with a release from Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas saying he's endorsing her.
An unsealed legal filing reveals details about L.A. artist Shepard Fairey being the subject of a federal investigation for "potential violations" of laws prohibiting evidence tampering and perjury.
Democrat Andrew Westall has dropped out of the race in the 43rd assembly district, citing the weekend death of Charmette Bonpua, his colleague and the chief of staff for Councilman Herb Wesson.
Former U.S. Solicitor General Kenneth Starr is leaving as dean of Pepperdine University Law School to become president of Baylor University in Waco, Texas.
Valley-based campaign consultant Julie Buckner is opening InYoga Center, a studio with boutique, in the former Dutton's bookstore on Laurel Canyon Blvd.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (at the home of attorney Bruce Broillet and his wife Norah) and Sen. Mark Warner are among the Democrats holding L.A. area fundraisers during the congressional recess.
City Councilman Herb Wesson's chief of staff died this morning in Las Vegas, where she had suffered an aneurysm while visiting a week ago, Wesson's spokesman announced this afternoon.
A little afternoon news and notes roundup, plus my script for today's LA Observed commentary on KCRW.
Superintendent Ramon Cortines got the payments for sitting on the board of Scholastic Inc., which has done $16 million in business with L.A. Unified in recent years, the LAT says.
Everybody's citing Democratic sources confirming that Rep. Diane Watson won't run for reelection to Congress this year. Former Speaker Karen Bass is expected to run with Watson's backing.
Jack Kavanagh has been producing Rough & Tumble, "the single most essential news source for California political junkies," since 2002 and has logged more than 35 million page views.
Time again for the newest Southern California bestseller lists, fresh through Sunday's sales at local independent bookstores.
No decisions were made, but there was a lot of noise — Mayor Villaraigosa spoke to the City Council for more than two hours — and of course the deficit grew a bit more.
The head of the SCLC in Los Angeles accuses the mayor and his staff of dissing African Americans, especially in comparison to Latinos.
Back home in Echo Park, the former director of communications for the National Endowment of the Arts talks about discovering that in politics, being right is no substitute for looking like you're right.
Chief Deputy City Attorney contends in a memo apparently making its way around City Hall that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's order to lay off 1,000 city employees has no teeth under the city charter
The 9th district City Council member walked in to the office of Jewish Journal editor Rob Eshman and made it clear that she's running in the 2013 race for mayor.
In Meg Whitman's first TV ad, the original verbiage about her three decades of living in California has been quietly changed to "many years."
“My goal is to get things noticed,” Republican media consultant Fred Davis tells Mark Z. Barabak of the L.A. Times, discussing his instant cult classic ad for Carly Fiorina's Senate...
John Edwards is certainly doing his part to sell books. His dying reputation propels two onto this week's Southern California bestseller lists.
The talk of politics from coast to coast. Video link And now with Pink Floyd soundtrack....
NYU journalism professor and media critic/innovator Jay Rosen argues in a Visiting Blogger post that The Wrap fell for a tale about GOP consultant Frank Luntz going Hollywood.
Villaraigosa spokeswoman tweets early details.
Neil was the Los Angeles Times' Pulitzer-winning automobile columnist who sued Sam Zell and Tribune over management of the paper.
Facing a room full of people demanding that the City Council not enact layoffs or other tough steps to solve its growing deficit, that's just what the council did. Council...
Southers' letter to the editor has a bit of a chiding tone to it.
We enter act three of the ritual drama that accompanies budget cuts at L.A. city hall.
Leading with Rep. Jackie Speier saying she's out of the Democratic race for attorney general.
Former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown was a good friend of, and frequent subject of, the late columnist Herb Caen. Brown is doing a decent job of emulating Caen's political...
Blog coverage was the best way to find out what went on.
Fuel's billboards around town may be illegal, but the city of Los Angeles isn't the one posting violation notices on them.
Former City Councilman Jack Weiss will run the Los Angeles office of Altegrity Risk International, the new international investigations firm that William Bratton left the LAPD to establish.
Frank Stoltze of KPCC had some fun asking each member of the Los Angeles City Council — before today's final vote on the medical marijuana ordinance — if they had ever smoked pot.
California's prisoner release program is Warren Olney's main topic tonight on "Which Way, L.A.?" on KCRW.
The City Council finally was able to pass a medical marijuana regulation ordinance that a majority of council members could live with. Tuesday's vote was 9-3.
Today's New York Times Magazine takes its crack at deciphering for the rest of us the bitter divorce between the ideological fanatics of the Little Green Footballs blog and its creator, Angeleno musician Charles Johnson.
Steve Appleford in the current LA Weekly describes "a tidal wave of publications aimed at the L.A. medical-marijuana community and its previously untapped well of advertising dollars."
It turns out if there's a market for liberal talk radio, it isn't yet ready for prime time.
The Supreme Court's Republican appointees cleared away long-standing law and ruled today that corporations and labor unions have the same First Amendment rights as American citizens and, thus, can spend as much as their officers want to influence federal elections.
Edwards admitted in a statement on Thursday that he is the father of Frances Quinn Hunter, the 2-year-old daughter of his former mistress, Rielle Hunter. Edwards has been denying it ever since the National Enquirer reported Edwards' tie to the child.
Mayor Villaraigosa won't be heading to Washington for the U.S. Conference of Mayors this week after all. "Out of an abundance of caution," spokeswoman Sarah Hamilton says, he'll be staying...
When he was mayor, Jim Hahn made the daily trip from San Pedro to City Hall — none of that Getty House stuff for him. As a new judge at the Ed Edelman Children's Court, he has 1,500 at-risk kids under his responsibility.
California Politics carries the title line "the Los Angeles Times on politics and government in the Golden State," but in practice most of the items (at least today) are written by Anthony York, editor of the independent Capitol Weekly.
The City Council voted 11-3 for an ordinance requiring medical marijuana stores to be located 1,000 feet from places where children gather — including schools, parks and libraries. A final vote has to wait until at least next week.
Philanthropist Eli Broad and county Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas jointly signed a Martin Luther King Day piece at the Huffington Post that calls poverty the biggest civil rights issue and advocates for a single-payer system of health care.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Sheriff Lee Baca, Speaker Karen Bass, City Council President Eric Garcetti, Assemblyman Mike Feuer and former Controller Laura Chick spoke Sunday at a swearing-in ceremony for new City Council member Paul Krekorian in the Van Nuys City Hall.
Councilman Richard Alarcon now concedes he hasn't been staying at the Panorama City home his wife owns in his council district for three months, citing a break-in and attempted squatting...
Los Angeles City Council member José Huizar and his wife, Richelle Rios, welcomed Aviana Rose this morning at 11 o'clock.
Search warrants were served this week at homes owned by Alarcon's wife in Panorama City (in his district) and Sun Valley (not.)
That's the headline on a good Timothy Egan perspective piece on broken California currently getting high billing on the New York Times website.
It now costs more to insure Californian municipal debt against default than it does bonds issued by the central Asian country satirized in "Borat."
District Attorney Steve Cooley has apparently thought it over and decided the exploratory committee he announced yesterday is the real thing. "The exploration phase was very brief,” he quips in...
At last night's neighborhood meeting on air pollution around Santa Monica Airport, Los Angeles councilman Bill Rosendahl made sure the audience knew that his colleague Jan Perry, who also attended, was thinking seriously about running for mayor — in 2013.
District Attorney Steve Cooley today announced the creation of a committee to let him start raising money to go after the Republican nomination for state attorney general.
Corporations with records of pollution violations, criminal probes and fraud allegations are sharing in the millions of dollars being doled out in federal stimulus funds, California Watch says in an investigation running in newspapers across the state today.
Twenty paragraphs into a sob story about Hawaii's lack of Republicans, you find out the governor of seven years is one.
This was the week that developer Rick Caruso got the next mayoral race — whether in 2013 or sooner — pretty much underway.
Co-founder Joe Cerrell remains as chairman emeritus of Cerrell Associates, the Larchmont public affairs firm. Hal Dash, the company's president for 21 years, becomes chairman and CEO. Current executive VPs...
Los Angeles-based media impresario and culture warrior Andrew Breitbart launched his latest website.
Heal the Bay's Mark Gold proposes three green initiatives the mayor should focus on in the remainder of his term.
The annual exercise in revealing the city's crime rate is will be held at the new police headquarters.
Developer and unrequited mayoral candidate Rick Caruso is hosting a fundraiser for governor candidate Jerry Brown on Feb. 2 at Caruso's home in Brentwood. His support could be a nice...
Perceived lack of follow-through and some specific trouble cases were dealt with, according to story.
Eric Bailey will be communications director of Consumer Attorneys of California.
California Watch christened its website with a report on how politicians of both parties and their supporters routinely funnel money through county-level political party committees.
Unions for the LAPD and the county's deputy sheriffs will try to get along and influence the race for governor.
One of the choices is everybody who might run for mayor in '13.
The Republican says he'll announce after the holidays and bowl games.
The City Council member from down San Pedro way will be employing a bunch of Democratic consultants, starting with Garry South.
The L.A.. Times ran another investigative collaboration with ProPublica on lax enforcement that lets problem nurses keep working. There's a pretty good summation of how 92 digital billboard came...
Click on the cartoon to view it bigger. More by Steve Greenberg....
Thirty-two Los Angeles intersections now have cameras installed to generate traffic tickets and, thus, revenue for the city and the company that runs the cameras. Contrary to the original intent,...
The White House just announced that Andre Birotte Jr, the inspector general of the Los Angeles Police Department, has been nominated by President Barack Obama to be the U.S. Attorney...
Mayor Villaraigosa hit on a way to resolve things at the troubled Department of Building and Safety. He is moving Robert "Bud" Ovrom, his deputy mayor of Economic Development, to...
Dan Morain landed as communications director for the Consumer Attorneys of California in February after 27 years at the Los Angeles Times, the last chunk of that in the Sacramento...
This is a holiday week around LAO, so expect light posting. Here's a slimmed down Morning Buzz. An L.A. Times editorial urged Controller Wendy Greuel to appeal the ruling that...
That's City Councilmember Janice Hahn and former mayor James Hahn in the front row, flanking their parents at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, site of the county's free holiday concerts. This...
LAPD chief Charlie Beck reiterated that he will keep Special Order 40, which instructs officers not to question people solely to ascertain their immigration status. Don Novey, the political...
Getting rid of teachers who don't work out, the city's plans for Owens Lake and just how much Supervisor Molina meddled in the building of the Gold Line — plus...
Whitman leads the Republicans, SAG nominations, fear of the drinking water and what to do about the bar at the LAPD academy — plus much more after the jump....
Superior Court Judge Mark V. Mooney ruled that the City Charter does not give the elected controller the power to audit the elected city attorney's office or programs within the...
Andrew Breitbart's Los Angeles-based family of aggressively right-wing websites will soon grow by one. Big Journalism's target will be what Breitbart calls the "Democratic-media complex” and the stated goal will...
Golden Globes nominations, the Dodgers salary-dump Juan Pierre, another look at the porn business and the mayor calls in from Copenhagen — plus more after the jump....
The Democrats' next Speaker of the Assembly, John Perez, will be Conan Nolan's guest on "KNBC News Conference" Sunday at 9 a.m. State Senator Gloria Romero of East Los Angeles...
LA Observed columnist Bill Boyarsky has his say about the campaign in the 2nd City Council district, then I have mine on KCRW at 4:44 p.m. Sometimes in the randomness...
Krekorian goes back to Sacramento, Art Torres gets a raise, another reporter move at the Times and City Hall's beacon shone last night. More news and notes after the jump....
The 8½-mile light-rail line would run from the Expo Line at Exposition Boulevard to the Green Line at Imperial Highway in El Segundo. The route chosen today follows Crenshaw Boulevard...
More by Steve Greenberg...
Ordin, currently vice president of the Los Angeles police commission, is expected to be named Los Angeles County Counsel at next week's Board of Supervisors meeting. She held top jobs...
KTLA reporter Eric Spillman is once again on the case to discover where Mayor Villaraigosa is going, who he's meeting with and how much it is all costing. On the...
KNBC's Fred Roggin is testing an online and digital-channel show called The Filter that may go on real TV over Channel 4 next year. Roggin has various observers and commentators...
John Perez to be elected Speaker today, Essel wasted $156 per vote to lose, a pregnant woman murdered in Venice and more after the jump....
Newly elected Los Angeles City Council member Paul Krekorian guests with Warren Olney on Which Way, L.A.? at 7:30 p.m. on KCRW. Former school board member David Tokofsky and parent...
Santa Monica city councilman Richard Bloom was sworn in today as the south coast representative on the California Coastal Commission, succeeding Larry Clark of Rancho Palos Verdes. More than a...
Lawyer and former state assemblyman Walter Karabian won't be charged by the DA over Saturday's incident in which a parking attendant was allegedly struck by Karabian's car at the USC...
Day after on Krekorian over Essel, Garcetti admits interest in mayor or Senate, Judge Real off the Alex Sanchez case, and the battling McCourts agree on something finally. More after...
State assemblyman Paul Krekorian has a 2,000 vote lead over Christine Essel with 37% of the precincts counted, but that percentage could be misleading. Most of the votes were cast...
The Times says the Los Angeles City Council opted to allow only 70 medical marijuana outlets, the LA Weekly says it's 137. In any case, there already are ten times...
More excessive radiation from CT scans, delays on the Expo Line, surviving six months on a bus bench in the Valley, and voting ends today in the 2nd district —...
Looking at all the labor money in the CD 2 race, old LAPD riot helmets headed to Washington state, and artist Richard Ankrom's guerrilla freeway sign has been found. Plus...
Former state assemblyman Walter Karabian was booked on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon for allegedly running over a parking attendant at the Coliseum before today's USC game. He...
The blogger behind Little Green Footballs talks to Neon Tommy about his explosive post, Why I Parted Ways With The Right, that announced he was fed up with the hyperpartisan...
Polanski at home in his chalet, Time chases Meg Whitman and more after the jump. Also see today's Mark Lacter morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and follow Mark and...
Schwarzenegger years labeled a disappointment, a newspaper calls for getting rid of the lieutenant governor, and you can now get Reagan on your iPhone. Plus more after the jump. Quick...
A former employee of the City Attorney's office is "a person of interest" in the investigation into how all deputy city attorneys received mailers claiming their boss, Carmen Trutanich, would...
Speaker Karen Bass told reporters in Sacramento this afternoon that Los Angeles assemblyman John Perez has enough Democratic votes lined up — including hers — to become speaker. She implied...
How long has the index page for the City of Los Angeles website been offline? Unable to load file report_error.htm: File E:/stellent/idcm1cons/data/users/report_error.htm is not present. One source says it has...
The recently disemployed KABC talk radio host is now a front page columnist at the Daily News twice a week — Wednesdays and Sundays. There's even a little ad campaign...
See more by Steve Greenberg in the LA Sketchbook archive. Click to view larger....
Today's handicapping in Sacramento is that Assemblyman John Pérez may have the votes to be elected Speaker, with Kevin de León alive in the race too. Pérez, the Democratic caucus...
Tiger Woods cops to transgressions, water main break eats a Lexus, Sam Zell gives up one title and La Opinión goes hyperlocal — plus much more after the jump....
City Attorney Carmen Trutanich checked himself into an undisclosed hospital on Saturday for tests related to abdominal pains. "He should be released tomorrow or the next day," spokesman John Franklin...
Posts on the Rosemead City Council, like in most of the 88 cities in Los Angeles County, are meant as part-time pursuits — they pay $2,318 a month. But since...
It has admittedly been a long time since I looked at Charles Johnson's blog Little Green Footballs, and I don't find myself picking up all that much from Pajamas Media,...
In her new book "Going Rogue," best-selling author Sarah Palin claims to wrap herself in the flag of UCLA legend John Wooden. But, um, the quote she attributes to Coach...
Mervyn Dymally has held a lot of official posts -- Lieutenant Governor, congressman, assemblyman for starters -- and even though he lost his last election bid last year, he isn't...
Schwarzenegger's bad day at the track, Angeles Crest stays closed and an exit chat with CRA's Cecilia Estolano, plus more after the jump. From the long weekend: New Hollywood site...
Steve Greenberg's first Jerry Brown cartoon for LA Observed, I do believe. Click the toon to see it bigger. More in the LA Sketchbook archive....
Quick roundup for getaway day: Roman Polanski was granted bail and possibly house arrest in Switzerland, but an appeal is pending. L.A. Now Pot dispensaries could continue to accept cash...
The interim Lieutenant Governor won't be Richard Riordan, or Robert Hertzberg, or Laura Chick...or even Janice Hahn. It's state Sen. Abel Maldonado, Gov. Schwarzenegger's favorite Senate Republican. Maldonado is from...
Bratton may want his old NYPD job back, Meg Whitman is following the Sarah Palin act, and more evidence of political sleaze in the city's pension systen. Plus: how many...
The founder and chairman of Green Dot Public Schools is stepping down to work on “national education issues,” a spokeswoman for Barr said Friday. Barr will become chair emeritus of...
When Peter Hong left the Los Angeles Times on a buyout during the last staff paring, he hinted at a gig to be named. It's this: the former real estate...
OK, at least one more Gavin Newsom item. A day or so after the San Francisco Chronicle editorialized about Newsom turning into "a mystery man," he finally sat down with...
Beck's popular first order, Leiweke calls Trutanich's bluff, what it's like to be 33, gay and a deputy mayor, and the LAT's Rainey weighs in on Ruth Seymour. Plus a...
Today's Financial Times carries a story from Oceanside, Calif. on the differences in opinion in town over sending more Marines from Camp Pendleton to Afghanistan. The story, by Los Angeles...
Now that City Council member Janice Hahn is running for Lieutenant Governor, the pace of press releases is creeping up inexorably toward one a day. The latest introduces the new...
When San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom dropped out of the race for governor two weeks ago, one chapter of his political life ended and a new, stranger one began. The...
Click to view larger. See more by Steve Greenberg in the LA Sketchbook archive....
OK, Mark Gold of Heal the Bay, how do you really feel about the owner of Malibu's Paradise Cove getting a big break from the state's clean water regulators, despite...
Patrick McGreevy likely wrote about Keith Brackpool and the Cadiz water scheme in the Mojave Desert when he was a City Hall reporter for the L.A. Times, given that Brackpool...
DWP has a new theory on water main breaks, Xavier Becerra in trouble with the Speaker, a book deal for Andrew Breitbart and more after the jump. Yesterday's posts are...
The City Council this morning unanimously confirmed Charlie Beck as chief of the LAPD. He was then sworn in by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and received the badge from Council...
Memo from Tony Pierce, blog editor of the L.A. Times, about a traffic rush over the weekend that gave the paper's national politics blog its biggest day yet — and...
Beck's confirmation vote, Villaraigosa gets a Thai massage, Broad still talking museum with Beverly Hills and much, much more in today's catch-up buzz. Tucked neatly after the jump,. as usual....
LA Observed columnist Bill Boyarsky was a friend of the late Doug Ring and describes his role in preparing Bill to be an effective ethics commissioner in City Hall, and...
From the mayor's office: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa issued the following statement regarding the death of Douglas R. Ring: “I am deeply saddened by the death of my friend Doug Ring,...
Tough situation in the mid-city area, Susan Kennedy's future with Schwarzenegger, Playboy's possible sale and more after the jump — including a Larchmont shop trying to change the rules it...
Developer, lawyer and philanthropist Doug Ring was discovered at the Brentwood home he shares with his wife, former City Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, the L.A. Times' news blog says. Ring and...
Back from the holiday with a reading of the Jerry Brown tapes, a conspiracy theory about Charlie Beck, big layoffs at Current TV in L.A. and more after the jump...
More on that secret taping of reporters by a Jerry Brown aide, Beck moves forward and the City Council is gone to Texas. Plus more, of course, after the jump....
That innovative new website for Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky that we told you about in May has gone live. It features a blog by Yaroslavsky and stories about county news and...
Sacramento's withholding tax increase, a new hit on Nikki Finke and fare hikes at Metrolink, plus much more after the jump. From the weekend: Mark Lacter on the Toyota scandal...
Los Angeles can't even prevent illegal billboards from going up — mainly because City Hall don't really want to — but in Brazil, Sao Paulo has become what may be...
I'm told the political chatter at Saturday night's big True Blue dinner at the new Police Administration Building — to raise about $2 million for the Police Foundation and honor...
Ben Golombek, the communications deputy to Controller Wendy Greuel, is marrying Meghan Loper, Public Policy Director at Majestic Realty, on Saturday out in La Quinta. Thus, he will be out...
The first L.A. Times/USC poll will run in Sunday's and Monday's papers and will cover a bunch of topics. Some of the findings the Times is teasing: 51% of Calfornia...
Journalist Joe Mathews uses an Op-Ed piece in the Times to propose that Gov. Schwarzenegger appoint him for the vacant job of lieutenant governor. I know you're considering smart politicians...
My take on the Charlie Beck selection — I hope he's the guy to finish off the old, unprofessional LAPD culture once and for all — airs at 4:44 p.m....
Region 9 of the Environmental Protection Agency covers California, Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada, the Pacific Islands, and over 140 tribal nations. The new administrator is Jared Blumenfeld, director of the San...
More analysis of Charlie Beck, plus the state's big water deal, blacks and pot in Pasadena, Andrew Breitbart and more after the jump. Also see Mark Lacter's morning headlines at...
Cecelia Estolano has resigned as CEO of the city's Community Redevelopment Agency after 3½ years. Mayor Villaraigosa's release says she will join an environmental firm, Green for All. Estolano had...
One furlough day every two weeks for department heads, policy analysts, council aides and some other non-union workers will save $2 million. The council's budget is still short by $100...
Six statewide polls will be conducted between now and the November 2010 election, to be called the University of Southern California College of Letters, Arts & Sciences/Los Angeles Times Poll....
Mayor Villaraigosa and police chief-nominee Charlie Beck came out of Getty House at 11:06 a.m. The police commission and other invited guests are gathered in front of the residence on...
All three live news shows on local TV — on chanels 2, 4 and 7 — are at the scene of an officer-involved shooting and LAPD standoff in South Los...
Mayor Villaraigosa at 10:16 sent out a Twitter post saying "Meet Charlie Beck, my choice to lead the LAPD," with a link to this bio. The Rev. Carr connection: Villaraigosa's...
KPCC News, KNBC and ABC7 have joined the L.A. Times in reporting they confirmed that Mayor Villaraigosa will name deputy chief Charlie Beck to run the LAPD. Beck was rumored...
More by Steve Greenberg...
LAPD veteran Charlie Beck is Mayor Villaraigosa's choice for police chief, the L.A. Times is reporting online. More buzz after the jump. Also see Mark Lacter's morning headlines at LA...
Mayor Villaraigosa plans to announce his selection for chief of police at 11 a.m. tomorrow at Getty House. Have you noticed how, since the mayor's new image shapers came in,...
Scott Gerber stepped down as spokesman for the state Attorney General, saying he was guilty of "serious errors in judgment" for taping reporters' phone calls without their knowledge or consent....
Waiting until Tuesday for the new chief, more parsing of Gavin Newsom's exit, plus more after the jump — including anniversaries for the Sports Arena and the Herald Examiner....
Mayor Villaraigosa summoned the three finalists for chief of the LAPD to Getty House for a second round of conversations and photo ops, then put out the word that he...
After the city built its plans for a Downtown clean-tech corridor around Italian rail car maker AnsaldoBreda, and the MTA bent over backwards to work with the company despite its...
That surreptitious taping of reporters' phone calls — apparently illegally — by a press aide to Attorney General Jerry Brown is causing quite a fuss in the Bay Area. The...
He cites his family, but pundits are circling around bad poll numbers and faltering fundraising. "It is with great regret I announce today that I am withdrawing from the race...
Superior Court Judge Terry Green today ruled that the City Council's 2006 agreement that led to hundreds of new digital billboards all over the city was invalid because it exempted...
District Attorney Steve Cooley's office announced today there was insufficient evidence of illegal actions by cops and commanders — merely "questionable tactics" — in the 2007 rampage by police in...
No hate angle in synagogue shooting, a Burbank cop kills himself on the street, and Villaraigosa's unfunded subway dream after the jump — plus more. Also see today's Mark Lacter...
Former City Councilman Jack Weiss is the latest blogger finding a home on the Jewish Journal website. (There are 25 others.) His first (I think) post recalls when Gene Bartow...
This morning's L.A. Times editorial agrees with the state Fair Political Practices Commission that ex-Speaker Fabian Nuñez did not break the law in his travels and schemings with donor funds,...
The House ethics committee voted to go to full investigations of allegations against Rep. Maxine Waters and Rep. Laura Richardson. "The votes on Waters and Richardson marked the first time...
The Flash Report's Jon Fleischman spots a coded message to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in the margin of a San Francisco Chronicle editorial about the governor's embedded finger to Assemblyman Tom...
The L.A. Times' Scott Glover says it appears the FBI is doing the final vetting of LAPD Inspector General Andre Birotte Jr. for likely appointment by President Obama as U.S....
Readers of The Independent in Great Britain will get their own report tomorrow on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's email finger sent to state assemblyman Tom Ammiano, with whom the governor recently...
Scholar and political analyst Raphael Sonenshein was executive director of the Los Angeles Appointed Charter Reform Commission, wrote the book on Los Angeles governance, and understands how City Hall is...
Fabian Nuñez cleared, Steve Lopez sees the gynecologist, an assistant chief comes to class and an interesting look inside the New York Times newsroom — plus Sam Zell's regrets and...
Pretty shocking numbers in the nationwide crackdown on child prostitution, Hollywood restaurateur booked in death of fetus, new political endorsements and Anderson Cooper's ratings in the tank — plus much...
TMZ's cameras caught Maria Shriver, the wife of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, parking her Escalade in a Santa Monica red zone for almost an hour. She released a statement this afternoon...
Bad circulation numbers for the L.A. Times, the mayor steps out with Lu Parker, new controversy around David Lizarraga and a media apology — plus more after the jump, of...
City Attorney Carmen Trutanich enjoyed a split decision this morning, getting a Daily News editorial in favor of his bully approach to governing, and an L.A. Times editorial that rebuked...
MTA goes for the subway, Sheriff Lee Baca on TMZ, Trutanich vs. Leiweke and more. After the jump. Also see today's Mark Lacter morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and...
Leiweke vs. Trutanich and more politics after the jump. Also see Mark Lacter's morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and follow Mark and Kevin on Twitter....
Pater Wallsten, a star in the Los Angeles Times Washington bureau that became the Tribune chain's bureau, has jumped to the Wall Street Journal. He will cover national politics, "an...
News and notes are hidden after the jump. Also see today's Mark Lacter morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and follow Mark and Kevin on Twitter....
Following his toss-down of the gauntlet last night (reported first at LAO, I feel like saying), TMZ boss Harvey Levin guests tonight on "Which Way, L.A.?" to talk about the...
I just heard interim DWP chief S. David Freeman say on Patt Morrison that the rash of water main breaks is all perception: the result of a quicker news cycle,...
Associated Press has filed new court papers in its case against artist Shepard Fairey, and contends that in admitting his deception over use of an AP photo of Barack Obama...
The San Diego editorial writer who is upset that the L.A. Times blew off coverage of the Metropolitan Water District pensions controversy is intrigued by a new angle — that...
Blogger offers three finalists for LAPD chief, Polanski staying put and more. After the jump....
Reporter Eric Spillman of KTLA finally got the data he has been seeking on the public cost of providing security for Mayor Villaraigosa's trips to Africa (with Spillman's Channel 5...
Falcon and the snow job, interviewing begins for LAPD chief and more news and notes after the jump. Also see today's Mark Lacter morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and...
Rick Caruso, president of the Los Angeles Police Commission when William Bratton was hired to run the LAPD, argues in a Visiting Blogger post at LA Observed that now is...
Times op-ed columnist Tim Rutten wants LAPD chief William Bratton to stop offering his departing wisdom about the way Los Angeles works. From today's column: The flaw in Bratton's reform...
The Los Angeles artist says in a statement that he actively tried to conceal which photo he worked from in creating his Hope poster of Barack Obama. It was an...
The real reason David Hockney relocated from Los Angeles to Yorkshire is that the U.S. wouldn't allow his partner back into the country, Tyler Green says in chiding the...
Anschutz, Schwarzenegger, Nahai and more, after the jump. Also see today's Mark Lacter morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and follow Mark and Kevin on Twitter....
Former president Bill Clinton wrote this week that "Lili Smith was a beautiful girl...taken from her family and friends far too soon." Smith is the daughter of political consultant Ace...
Daniel Weintraub, the columnist for the Sacramento Bee opinion pages since 2000 and before that a reporter in the capital, is leaving the paper on Friday. He will be starting...
Former DWP chief David Nahai would be paid up to $27,300 a month from Oct. 7 through Dec. 31 to "provide consulting services and provide knowledge transfer" about the job...
Police commissioner Robert Saltzman says the board is under pressure to let the Boy Scouts continue to run the LAPD's Explorer program, despite the group's violation of the city's policy...
I've mentioned several times how few reporters cover the county Board of Supervisors anymore, and how the pols would like a bit more attention. Nonetheless, the Supes have acted to...
The Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs tomorrow will unveil its annual state of the city report—six experts weighing in on aspects of Los Angeles' health. Economist Jack Kyser lays...
The giant Metropolitan Water District buckled to public and media pressure and yanked off its board agenda for today new five-year contracts that "would have hiked employee pensions 25 percent,...
Gotcha! TMZ's paparazzi have caught California First Lady Maria Shriver violating the state's hands-free law at least three times in the past few days. The last time came this afternoon...
Roundups of the bill signings in Sacramento, a flash-flood watch and remembering the Staples Center issue of the LAT Magazine, plus much more after the jump. Also get today's Mark...
Sounds like a compromise to me: City council president Eric Garecetti says there are eight votes to keep hiring enough recruits to match attrition from the LAPD, and Mayor Villaraigosa...
It's Columbus Day, which means most people work and go to school, but banks, post offices, courts, libraries and federal, state, county and city offices are closed. Trash pickup in...
That question is being asked by San Diego Union-Tribune editorial writer Chris Reed, who can't believe the L.A. Times has written repeatedly about the $82,000 David Nahai will get after...
Andrew Adelman, the former general manager of the city's Department of Building and Safety who was accused of raping a woman he met in a bar, won't be prosecuted, DA...
Schwarzenegger at a Democratic fundraiser, the coming initiative war and that South L.A. woman is still missing in Malibu Canyon. Those items and more after the jump. Remember, Mark Lacter...
Los Angeles magazine hosted one of its periodic breakfast gatherings with newsmakers this morning at The Foundry on Melrose, with LAPD chief William Bratton invited to give an exit interview...
A strongly worded Times editorial today frames the exit of David Nahai as head of the Department of Water and Power in the context of a "larger struggle" for control...
More moves in Trutanich v. Greuel, cop cars from Australia and the Dodgers begin the playoffs — plus more after the jump. Mark Lacter is off for a few days...
The Department of Water and Power commission made official the hiring of S. David Freeman as temporary general manager at $325,000 a year, while facing more political heat over paying...
Mayor Villaraigosa's most non-negotiable agenda has been his push to hire 1,000 more LAPD officers, even as crime rates fall. The City Council has been pushing back, a little, and...
Departed DWP chief H. David Nahai would continue to receive his salary through the end of the year under an arrangement considered by the Department of Water and Power commissioners....
Clinton in town to endorse Newsom, H1N1 vaccine is coming and Adam Carolla's podcast, plus the return of Frosty, Heidi and Frank to the airwaves. Those and more are below...
In the media follows to Friday's exit of DWP chief H. David Nahai, the L.A. Times noted that his "support within Villaraigosa's office had eroded dramatically, and Brian D'Arcy, the...
Nahai, the former commissioner at the Department of Water and Power who Mayor Villaraigosa put in charge of the agency in 2007, has been in stormy weather almost the whole...
Chicago falls out of the Olympic chase early, new models of arts journalism on display and AG Jerry Brown vows to look at ACORN and how its workers got taped....
Earthquakes in L.A. North, prayers for Samoa and hoopla for Dudamel below the jump, with much more of course. Mark Lacter's morning headlines are at LA Biz Observed. Also be...
DreamWorks founders Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, as expected, are co-hosting a fundraiser for Jerry Brown on Nov. 18. "This will be a big launching pad for his...
Today's Daily News editorial endorses Valley city councilmember Greig Smith's flouting of the city's water law by irrigating his lawn three times a week instead of two. In a city...
The LAT's media ponderer, James Rainey, catches up with and gives the once-over to three recently reported cases of a newsmaker hiring a journalist to deliver its news directly to...
Schwarzenegger's new tax plan, Meg Whitman's Sonny Bono defense, American Apparel's firings and more after the jump. Get Mark Lacter's morning headlines over at LA Biz Observed, and you can...
Instead of taking steps to reduce graffiti, the City Council voted unanimously today to require new mansions behind gates in the hills of Encino be covered in graffiti-resistant surfaces. Actually,...
Republican candidate for governor Meg Whitman didn't vote until she was 46. Her spinners want to make it into a plus, but Steve Greenberg isn't buying. LA Sketchbook archive...
Polanski's role in his own arrest, more outrage on Kittridge Street, and water mains go national. Those topics and more below the jump. Also catch Mark Lacter's morning headlines at...
In a tentative ruling, U.S. District Judge Audrey B. Collins denied a move by Liberty Media to invalidate the city's blockage of 16 supergraphics the company wants to post around...
The LA Weekly says a federal prosecutor alleged in court documents that Miguel Contreras, the labor leader who died just before the 2005 city elections, conceived a scheme to defraud...
The New York Times columnist of three decades died today of pancreatic cancer at a hospice. Safire had been a speech writer for President Richard Nixon and an influential conservative...
Mayor Villaraigosa and the unions got their way — the Italian rail car builder with the spotty record will now be the provider of choice for L.A.'s transit future. The...
Gov. Schwarzenegger today named Keith Brackpool to the state horse racing board. Brackpool is the friend-of-Antonio and water speculator who employed Mayor Villaraigosa as a consultant when he was between...
City Councilman Greig Smith defies the city's rules on use of sprinklers at his home, and insists he saves water by doing so....
Not much surprise in the 2nd City Council district: Assemblyman Paul Krekorian (34%) will face Christine Essel (28%) in the December runoff. Only 14,525 people voted, a bit more than...
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is billed as the special guest at a fundraiser reception next Tuesday for New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine at the Beverly Hills home of Rhea Perlman and...
In the morning news: a couple of local genius grant winners, a big gang raid, voting in the Valley and a bunch more notes. Also see Mark Lacter morning headlines...
The city's grant to keep Channel 36 on local television was negotiated back into the City Hall budget a few months ago, but now apparently the whole operating budget —...
More water main breaks, Dick Cook's bad day, John Edwards' bad decision and more in Morning Buzz, tucked below the fold. Don't forget to check out Mark Lacter at LA...
The City Council voted unanimously to offer early retirement to 2,400 employees in lieu of layoffs and furloughs. LAT, Ron Kaye Producer John Wells was elected president of the...
I'm still catching up (with email and sleep), so just a quick run through this morning with some news and items from the past few days. Tucked after the jump....
I guess Steve Greenberg isn't too impessed by the Clinton-Newsom alliance. See more of Greenberg's cartoons for LA Observed in the LA Sketchbook archive....
Federal prosecutor Eileen Decker, chief of the national security section in the local U.S. Attorney's office, is joining the Villaraigosa administration as deputy mayor for homeland security and public safety....
It's Thursday and Kevin's returning today so here are just a few tidbits to get things started: They might not be able to say yea or nay on that early...
Looks like Janice Hahn, who has served on the LA City Council for the last eight years, has set her sights on Sacramento again. From Phil Willon at the LAT:...
It took seven long hours but the LA City Council managed to find consensus on that controversial union worker retirement plan. The decision? To decide later. David Zahniser and Maeve...
It's Wednesday and what? No new outbursts to report? Emotional ones, no. But two more water mains burst in the San Fernando Valley overnight. And what do water officials have...
It's pretty unusual to see a former president make an endorsement for governor so early in the campaign - and there will be those who see Clinton’s decision to side...
It's a newsy Tuesday in which leakers assure us Barack Obama called Kanye West a "jackass" and George W. Bush referenced Hillary Clinton's fat ass. Ahhh, the joys of civil...
Remember that early retirement plan Antonio Villaraigosa helped craft with labor unions earlier this year? Seems it's looking a bit iffy. Here are David Zahniser (Hi Dave!) and Maeve Reston,...
It's Monday (sorry) and the Station Fire continues to burn. Three weeks, $90 million and 160,000 acres later, with full containment in sight, news reports turn to living conditions at...
Moving on up: Villaraigosa press secretary Matt Szabo becomes deputy chief of staff. One of his first priorities will be to tackle the city's worsening financial situation. (LAT) Warhol art...
It's the 8-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and while the memorial at Ground Zero remains mired in money woes and petty (are there any other kind?) politics,...
No surprise that the sordid tale of now-former OC assemblyman Michael Duvall has gone viral. Just a few minutes ago, a google search brought back thousands of hits. We've got...
The now-former OC assemblyman says on his Web site that the decision to resign was based on his "inappropriate story-telling" and should not be viewed as an admission that he...
That's the obvious takeaway after Wednesday's resignation of OC Assemblyman Michael Duvall, who inadvertently boasted of his sexual conquests over an open microphone. From the LAT: As TV camera crews...
Prez appears to be allowing for lots of wiggle room on whether the health care package should provide some sort of public-insurance program, the most controversial (and some would argue...
According to his statement on his Web site, the OC assemblyman says "I have come to the conclusion that it would not be fair to my family, my constituents or...
In case you haven't heard (and the whole world will have heard in another few hours), Assemblyman Michael Duvall has a big mouth when it comes to his sexual trysts....
District officials begin the year $140 million in the hole - and that's after $869 million in cost-cutting measures. Already, students can expect crowded classrooms, fewer teachers and limited services....
OK I'm biased, but I thought we had a fun 30 minutes with authors Richard Rayner and John Buntin talking about Los Angeles' dark and storied past. Here's the audio...
An update to the Morning Buzz: the Bay Bridge between Oakland and San Francisco re-opened at 6:30 this morning after emergency repairs went quicker than expected. Also: As Witness LA...
Mitch Englander, the chief of staff to City Council member Greig Smith and a longtime City Hall figure, has landed the first press release of the next race for City...
Talk about Bratton and Villaraigosa leads today's news and notes, and be happy you aren't commuting in the Bay Area today. Also see today's Mark Lacter morning headlines at LA...
Withering under an assault by high-powered lobbyists, the City Council decided Friday not to award a new contract to run the golf carts at city courses. Instead, the current contractor...
Departing Villaraigosa chief of staff Robin Kramer and publisher-education adviser David Abel both sent Bill Boyarsky emails about his LA Observed post on the mayor and charter schools. Bill talks...
The new, less-useful KFWB that debuts Sept. 8 as "News Talk 980" will start with an 18-hour marathon of Dr. Laura — most of that reruns.
Ted Kennedy's letter about Sirhan — plus more politics, fires and books — in the news and notes hidden below the jump. Also see Mark Lacter's morning headlines at LA...
California's high speed rail commission is set to award a big PR contract tomorrow to Mercury Public Affairs, the firm run by Gov. Schwarzenegger's top political advisor and his former...
Those entrepreneurs behind the Flying Pigeon bicycle shop in Highland Park featured in yesterday's L.A. Times are the sons of Saeed Ali, chief of staff to Councilmember Richard Alarcon. (Meanwhile,...
Improving fire conditions and a familiar name appointed to the Board of Public Works lead this morning's news and notes. Also see Mark Lacter's morning headlines at LA Biz Observed,...
That is the question explored by journalist John Buntin in a new piece for Governing magazine. Buntin comes at the subject with extensive background: he's the author of a new...
Bill Boyarsky has been absent from LA Observed since February writing a book and taking some vacation. The book hits stores in September — and looks truly gorgeous. "Inventing L.A.:...
Scaled-back Buzz this morning, due to news and other commitments. Mark is back at LA Biz Observed, with a note of thanks to readers. The Metropolitan Water District is picking...
The weekend interview on the Wall Street Journal opinion page is with Eli Broad. In a discussion about education reform, Broad offers this explanation for why his Broad Superintendents Academy...
Still on the point of Mayor Villaraigosa rebooting for the second term, his office has released the info on 11 newly named commissioners. Armand Arabian, the former Associate Justice of...
Today's segment discusses the rebooting of the Villaraigosa administration with the exit of chief of staff Robin Kramer and addition of Jeff Carr and Jay Carson. The commentary airs at...
Steve Greenberg's take on the late Sen. Edward Kennedy. See more by Greenberg in the LA Sketchbook archive....
Fires and more Villaraigosa shakeup follows lead the news and notes tucked after the jump. Follow LA Observed updates on Twitter through the day....
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's first major staff shakeup goes like this: Rev. Jeff Carr, his Director of Gang Reduction and Youth Development who has been taking a more prominent administration role,...
Shakeup in the mayor's office and more, tucked after the jump. Mark Lacter remains on hiatus at LA Biz Observed. Follow LA Observed on Twitter....
Add Cardinal Roger Mahony to the legions releasing official condolences and praise on last night's death of Sen. Edward Kennedy. From the Archdiocese of Los Angeles: Cardinal Roger M. Mahony...
News and notes are tucked away after the jump. Mark remains away at LA Biz Observed; follow LAO on Twitter through the day....
Rep. Henry Waxman talks to guest host Marc Cooper on KCRW's Politics of Culture at 2:30 p.m. today. The main topic is the congressman's new book, "The Waxman Report: How...
Today's news and notes are hidden after the jump. Follow Mark Lacter and Kevin on Twitter....
All that stuff about Michelle Delgadillo's business dealings was investigated by the U.S. Attorney's office in San Francisco and will not lead to any charges, according to ex-city attorney Rocky...
Today's news and notes are hidden after the jump. Mark Lacter will return later this week at LA Biz Observed. Follow Mark and Kevin on Twitter....
MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and the L.A. Times' Andrew Malcolm, who increasingly seems like a Fox News embed writing the paper's main politics blog, are going at each other. I have...
Workers are losing their jobs at restaurants on the Miracle Mile stretch of Wilshire Boulevard as customers opt out for lunch trucks. "We all average $15,000 to $18,000 in rent,...
© Steve Greenberg. May not be reused without permission of the artist News item: the county Board of Supervisors moved forward with a plan to ask the University of California...
News and notes are hidden after the jump. Follow updates here or on Twitter during the day. Mark is on hiatus at LA Biz Observed....
KTLA reporter Eric Spillman stayed on his minor obsession with Mayor Villaraigosa's trip to Africa with Channel 5 colleague Lu Parker and has some new details. The eight-day trip, which...
News and notes are tucked away after the jump. Also see LA Biz Observed and follow Mark and Kevin on Twitter....
Calbuzz revisits the saga of Jerry Brown interceding to help jailed pro-life crusader Joan Andrews — a story that involves Mother Teresa, Schwarzenegger chief of staff Susan Kennedy (then field...
Self-described Glendale City Council gadfly Barry Allen will accept $100 checks asking him to continue his watchdog activities — or $100 to leave town. More at Jewel City Juice, the...
Marlene Canter, the former school board president who clashed with Mayor Villaraigosa over his school reform plans, has been appointed to the city ethics commission by City Council president Eric...
Mark Saylor, the former L.A. Times editor who got his start in crisis PR at Sitrick and Co., has been hired to represent the Georgian breakaway republics of South Ossetia...
News and notes are hidden after the jump. Also see today's Mark Lacter morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and follow Mark and Kevin on Twitter....
Tim McOsker, who was the chief of staff for Mayor James Hahn, is taking a leave from the Los Angeles law office of Mayer Brown to become Senior Director for...
News and notes are hidden after the jump. Also see today's Mark Lacter morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and follow Mark and Kevin on Twitter....
Mayor Villaraigosa has a 1 p.m. media op to hit the firefighters union for its latest contract negotiating ploy: a mailer that uses photos from last year's Chatsworth Metrolink crash....
State inspector general Laura Chick, the former City Controller, will be interviewed by KCBS' Dave Bryan at today's lunch gathering of the Current Affairs Forum hosted by Emma Schafer. Besides...
New police commissioner and more in the news and notes after the jump. Also see today's Mark Lacter morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and follow Mark and Kevin on...
Former City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo began today as counsel at Goodwin Procter LLP in Los Angeles, in the firm's litigation department. He will have the leeway to continue his run...
News and notes are hidden after the jump. Also see today's Mark Lacter morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and follow Mark and Kevin on Twitter....
Former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton will appear together on stage at the Gibson Amphitheatre on Feb. 22 as headliners in the American Jewish University's Public Lecture Series....
KFI's Eric Leonard is reporting online that Andrew Adelman, the general manager of the city's Department of Building and Safety, is being investigated by the LAPD as "the prime suspect"...
Today's news and notes, hidden after the jump, were delayed by a computer crash. Also see today's Mark Lacter morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and follow Mark and Kevin...
Steve Greenberg found the one possible upside to California's school textbooks growing more and more out of date. Click on the cartoon to see it larger. LA Sketchbook archive...
President Obama has nominated Dolly Gee, managing partner at Schwartz, Steinsapir, Dohrmann & Sommers, and Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Jacquelyn H. Nguyen to the U.S. District Court bench...
Today's Buzz is tucked away after the jump. Also see Mark Lacter's morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and follow Mark and Kevin on Twitter....
Jennifer McLain has left the San Gabriel Valley Tribune to pursue a master's degree in public administration at USC. She posts at Leftovers from City Hall, the paper's politics blog:...
Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the 88-year-old mother of Maria Shriver, is in critical condition at a Massachusetts hospital. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is there with the family, a spokesman said. Eunice Shriver,...
In an interview with the New York Daily News, LAPD chief William Bratton said he would not run for elective office, but left open the possibility that he would return...
New City Attorney Carmen Trutanich in the dunk tank at the office's family picnic held at the Los Angeles Police Academy. More photos, including District Attorney Steve Cooley dunked,...
Today's news and notes are after the jump. Also see today's Mark Lacter morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and follow Mark and Kevin on Twitter....
More than three dozen journalists, nearly 20 cameras and city officials packed in the mayor's conference room for LAPD chief William Bratton's announcement that he's leaving for New York and...
Police chief William Bratton and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa have a 12:15 p.m. media availability in the mayor's office. The Los Angeles Times' Joel Rubin reports "Bratton is expected to announce...
The story in tomorrow's Los Angeles Daily Journal, by reporters Ciaran McEvoy and Greg Katz, says the investigation involves payments by Voter Improvement Program Inc. Federal authorities are investigating Los...
Also see today's Mark Lacter morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and follow Mark and Kevin on Twitter....
A judge today threw out a lawsuit against the city by the mother of Suzie Peña, the 19-month-old toddler killed by an LAPD bullet during a 2005 SWAT action prompted...
Another aspect of the governor's line-item vetoes that hasn't gotten a lot of attention. Click the cartoon to see it larger. See more in LA Sketchbook by Steve Greenberg....
See more from Steve Greenberg in LA Sketchbook...
News and notes are after the jump. Also see Mark Lacter's morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and follow Mark and Kevin on Twitter....
Patt Morrison will be talking to Eric Spillman of KTLA, whose blog post I mentioned here yesterday, and I presume others about Mayor Villaraigosa jetting off to Iceland so soon...
News and notes are tucked away there after the jump. Also see today's Mark Lacter morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and follow Mark and Kevin on Twitter....
Who is the first female Congress member mentioned on The Hill's new list of the 50 Most Beautiful hill people? Why, our own Rep. Maxine Waters, who comes in at...
News and notes are hidden after the jump. Also see today's Mark Lacter morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and follow Mark and Kevin on Twitter....
Mayor Villaraigosa has been busy online today, sending out Twitter updates (and email) on his new Ask a Mayor feature, replying to this morning's dissing of LAX and, just forty...
A Los Angeles County Superior Court jury today assessed $370 million in damages against Guess? Inc. co-founder Georges Marciano for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress in a case...
News and notes are hidden after the jump. Also see today's Mark Lacter morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and follow Mark and Kevin on Twitter....
Eric Jaye, Gavin Newsom's longtime political strategist, tells the San Francisco Chronicle's Matier and Ross that "there was a fundamental difference in how to run" the mayor's campaign for governor....
Some week-starting news and notes for today are after the jump. For a quick look back at the past week at LA Observed, click here. Also see today's Mark Lacter...
City Council President Eric Garcetti grabs Wendy Greuel's old suite on the fourth floor where they keep the elected inmates. Same square footage but more windows, says Rick Orlov at...
Oil drilling off Santa Barbara and borrowing of transportation funds from local governments are dropped. Mayor Villaraigosa tweets that it's a big victory for cities, plans 4:15 news conference. "This...
Whoa, the news and notes run a bit long today — that's what happens when you take the night off. The buzz is after the jump. Also see Mark Lacter's...
Sacramento's fragile deal on the state budget is in the best tradition of California governing, according to editorial cartoonist Steve Greenberg. See more of LA Sketchbook by Greenberg in...
Mayor Villaraigosa is apparently looking for a director of speechwriting, based on this job posting that just dropped in the mailbox. Salary commensurate with experience, and who knows, you may...
News, notes and observations are after the jump. Also see Mark Lacter's morning headlines at LA Biz Observed and follow us on Twitter....
Well, that honeymoon's over. Twenty-two days into City Attorney Carmen Trutanich's term, campaign backer and ex-Controller Laura Chick called him a liar and a demagogue this morning on Doug McIntyre's...
Wednesday's news, notes and observations are after the jump. Also see Mark Lacter's morning headlines at LA Biz Observed and follow us on Twitter....
Manny Ramirez was hit on the left hand by a pitch early in tonight's game at Dodger Stadium. He shook the hand and flexed his fingers for a few minutes,...
LA Biz Observed has followed some of the state budget fallout over there. Cal State university and colleges trustees raised student fees 20% and furloughed employees, as California's higher ed...
Tuesday's news, notes and observations are after the jump. Also see Mark Lacter's morning headlines at LA Biz Observed and follow us on Twitter....
Deal requires "significantly scaling back many services that have been offered to residents -- particularly the elderly and the poor -- for years," says the LAT story. More: Bee, Capital...
State Sen. Alex Padilla's title as campaign chair may help Gavin Newsom grab some Latino votes away from Jerry Brown, but even Padilla's political mentor — James Acevedo — says...
Monday's news, notes and observations are after the jump. Also see Mark Lacter's morning headlines at LA Biz Observed and follow us on Twitter....
In her weekend column, Daily News editorial page editor Mariel Garza imagines what the mayor might have written if he had sent back postcards from his recent Africa trip. The...
Thomas Saenz talks about the MALDEF job and being passed over by the Obama Administration. NPR's Tell Me MoreMarc Haefele says the debate over paying for police services during the...
The former City Councilman and current planning commissioner will be dean of Cal Poly Pomona’s College of Environmental Design, effective July 30. Release after the jump....
Quick first read of the day's news and notes is after the jump. Also see Mark Lacter's morning headlines at LA Biz Observed and follow us on Twitter....
Busy day on the local politics front: State Sen. Alex Padilla was named statewide chairman of Gavin Newsom's campaign for governor, a pretty blatant appeal to SoCal Latino donors and...
Nightlife and hotel impresario Sam Nazarian is Mayor Villaraigosa's choice to fill the Chris Essel opening on the Board of Airport Commissioners. A release from Villaraigosa is going out this...
Today's Daily News, in an editorial, reminds new City Attorney Carmen Trutanich that as a candidate he promised to reverse Rocky Delgadillo's legal opinion that prohibited audits of his office...
Quick first read of the day's news and notes is after the jump. Also see Mark Lacter's Wednesday morning headlines at LA Biz Observed and follow us on Twitter....
Tina Daunt, who writes the Cause Celebre political column for the L.A. Times' Calendar section, posted on her blog that she's taking time off to care for her ailing father....
Thomas Saenz, Mayor Villaraigosa's in-house legal counsel, will become president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund next month. Saenz, 43, says in the Los...
A quick first look at today's items on politics and the city, with a media obit. Inside after the jump....
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has changed his office's tune on donations to defray expenses of the Michael Jackson memorial, saying this morning that providing police services is what cities do and...
Well, he is if his Twitter posts are real. @villaraigosa Good to be back in LA! And good to see @revcarr 's work in action: check out this Summer Night...
Former UCLA chancellor Charles Young filed suit asking the California Supreme Court to invalidate the state's 2/3 vote requirement for raising taxes. Dan Walters More chest-beating and attention-seeking by...
I don't know — I'm kind of thinking Steve Greenberg is no fan of the distracting digital billboards popping up around Los Angeles. With the issue due to get hot...
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is trying to remove its Los Angeles president, Rev. Eric P. Lee, over his support of gay marriage. It's reopening the rift over African American...
Abbreviated Friday edition... Chief Bratton says he's selling his Los Feliz home to get free of the unused pool and will buy another home in or around Los Angeles. L.A....
Joel Kotkin posits five suspects in a new piece at Forbes. It took some amazing incompetence to toss this best-endowed of places down into the dustbin of history. Yet conventional...
Catching up to this via the SoCal Minds blog: Pepperdine law professor Douglas Kmiec, a regular on op-ed pages and elsewhere in the media, was nominated by President Obama to...
The Getty remains closed today due to that mostly contained fire in Sepulveda Pass, and Sepulveda Boulevard is still closed from Sunset to Mulholland. LAT, KNX Capitol Weekly's Anthony...
Steve Greenberg picks up on the local politics of the Michael Jackson event seen 'round the world. Click to view larger; see more cartoons by Greenberg in the LA...
AEG chief Tim Leiweke, asked by Mark Coogan on Channel 2/9 to respond to Councilman Dennis Zine's demand that the company cover the public costs of the Jackson memorial, sounded...
Wags are cackling that Mayor Villaraigosa is on vacation in Africa and missing the city's biggest media day in years — all those cameras, perhaps a billion people watching L.A....
Who's the ringmaster of the circus in Sacramento? We are, ultimately. Steve Greenberg nails it. See more by Greenberg in the LA Sketchbook archive....
So to attend the Michael Jackson memorial, you have to be a web user, able to print your instructions, have free time today and the transportation to get to...
Today's New York Times Magazine devoted more than 8,000 words to the question: "Who can possibly govern California?" Reporter Mark Leibovich gets at his inquiry through Gavin Newsom, the other...
Did Lu Parker go along, as she implied she would in that first public glimpsing of the couple at Chevalier's bookstore a month ago? Mayoral spokesman Matt Szabo isn't saying....
An elected San Francisco supervisor has been agitating up there for details on the cost of Mayor Gavin Newsom's security detail, without much luck. Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, however, easily tracked...
Steve Hymon, who covered the City Hall beat (and later transportation as the Bottleneck blogger) for the Los Angeles Times, is back again, at least virtually. This time, he's doing...
Emanuel Pleitez is the 26-year-old who may have played a bit of a spoiler role in the 32nd congressional district by taking votes from Gil Cedillo in the Democratic primary...
Channel 5 reporter Eric Spillman posted the photo on Twitter of his KTLA colleague, the mayor's girlfriend, in the invited crowd at Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's pre-swearing-in church gathering this morning....
Homies Unidos director Alex Sanchez was denied bail even though former Senator Tom Hayden offered his home as security and support at the hearing included a deputy to City...
One day before she would have left elective office, Governing magazine features former Los Angeles City Controller Laura Chick on its July cover. She stepped down early, of course, to...
LAUSD chief Ramon Cortines said he was taking "appropriate personnel action" against the principal and athletic director of Birmingham High School for letting Sacha Baron Cohen (as gay character "Bruno")...
Just passing this along, but the source — Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo — isn't known to go off half-cocked. Marshall posts tonight that Rep. Henry Waxman was taken...
Assembly Democrats passed a budget package Sunday night without Republican votes. A veto by the governor is expected. LAT, Bee, Register Decisions by the U.S. 9th Circuit were overturned...
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James K. Hahn — yes, the former mayor — did the honors yesterday as his younger sister, Janice Hahn, took the oath of office for...
Levin was a familiar sight around the Westside signing up voters — which Bob Pool at the Times says she did six days a week for 36 years. Levin's son...
Well, let's call it partly politics and partly law enforcement, with some union advocacy for seasoning. It's the new blog of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which posts today...
Today's Michael Jackson mourners in Hollywood are able to get to his actual Walk of Fame star instead of radio host Jackson's star, where they gathered yesterday. Gatherings also...
Anish Mahajan, 34, a member of the Mid City West Community Council, was selected for the 2009-10 class of White House fellows. He's the only Indian American in the group....
Wave columnist Betty Pleasant writes there was a dust-up at the Lakers victory parade when star Kobe Bryant refused to ride with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. She says: The cause of...
State budget talks go nowhere again, so the state may soon have to issue IOUs instead of checks to the people it owes. Rough & Tumble roundup, Which Way,...
The Democrats' latest budget plan in Sacramento appears to be dead on arrival. Rough & Tumble Kudos to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for having the guts to enter...
Take a look at more Steve Greenberg cartoons in the LA Sketchbook archive. Click on any cartoon to view it bigger....
A judge has ruled that the Los Angeles city controller does not have the powers to conduct performance audits of the other elected city officials, siding with City Attorney Rocky...
A few minutes ago, at 6:30, Mayor Villaraigosa's Twitter feed came alive: villaraigosa Today I announced that I will not be running for gov of CA. LA needs a leader...
Steve Lopez had a column ready for the LAT website on Mayor Villaraigosa giving up his dreams of living in the governor's suburban estate. Of course L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa...
The mayor of San Francisco would very much like to have the endorsement of the mayor of Los Angeles. Newsom sends out this reaction to Villaraigosa dropping out: As a...
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa blows off locals and goes to CNN's Wolf Blitzer for his announcement a minute ago that he will not run for governor. Good call, though it makes...
Steve Greenberg was inspired by today's Los Angeles Times Poll story showing higher approval ratings for the LAPD. See more by Greenberg in LA Sketchbook....
Per Rick Orlov, City Council candidate Christine Essel will go with John Shallman as consultant, Tom Berman as campaign manager and John Fairbank and Jonathan Brown of Fairbank Maslin Maullin...
Mayor Villaraigosa plans to appear on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer" at 1 p.m. PDT and make some kind of statement about his plans on running for...
Authorities in Iran "acknowledged that the number of votes cast in 50 cities exceeded the actual number of voters, state television reported Monday following assertions by the country’s supreme leader...
LAUSD Supt. Ramon Cortines spoke to friends of Los Angeles Magazine at breakfast this morning and called out the teachers union, which had plans to demonstrate at his home this...
The mess in Sacramento is so bad that Steve Greenberg helps them finish their sentences. See more of LA Sketchbook by Greenberg in the archive. Click the cartoon to...
Staples Center owner Phil Anschutz's Clarity Media Group closed the deal to buy the conservative mag from Rupert Murdoch. Here's a report in Anschutz's Washington Examiner, via Romemesko....
Big political giver Jerry Perenchio, Casey Wasserman and other donors as yet undisclosed have answered Mayor Villaraigosa's call to help pay for the city's share of the Lakers parade costs....
The City Council cancelled its Wednesday session to allow members to attend the Lakers parade. City Clerk L.A., area designers took some big honors at last night's Council of...
Los Angeles City Council members Dennis Zine and Jan Perry and City Attorney-elect Carmen Trutanich riding in Sunday's L.A. Pride Parade. Below, San Francisco's Gavin Newsom and Antonio Villaraigosa...
Local Iranian-Americans demonstrated today against the election results and ensuing violence in Tehran, in the usual spot outside the federal building on Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood. Jonathan Alcorn has...
Due to a snafu in the new Post- 9/11 GI Bill, California veterans won't get the aid for private colleges that vets in other states do. That's because, officially, the...
The Sacramento home owned by Rep. Laura Richardson of Long Beach gets her more ink than anything she has done in Congress. This time, the L.A. Times revisits the situation...
The L.A. Times was forced to run a correction because Michael Douglas forgot that he hosted a 1991 event honoring his father, Kirk Douglas. The anonymous blogger known as...
The state Coastal Commission reportedly just turned down the City of Los Angeles application to create permit parking districts near the beach in Venice. The vote was 9 - 1...
Just a month after Donald Trump ruled that Carrie Prejean could keep her title despite giving her views on same-sex marriage, she's been dethroned as Miss California after all. The...
Phil Anschutz is said to be close to a deal with News Corp. to buy the conservative Weekly Standard. LAT Numero Uno grocery magnate George Torres was released from...
Click on cartoon to see bigger. More LA Sketchbooks by Steve Greenberg...
All of Rocky Delgadillo's senior aides have been placed on tenure tracks that will make it hard for incoming city attorney Carmen Trutanich to replace them. Among the aides...
You remember Cadiz — that was the venture to bank water beneath the distant Mojave Desert, then pipe it into urban Southern California, envisioned by Friend-of-Antonio (and many other Democrats)...
Call me crazy, but I'm thinking that Steve Greenberg isn't persuaded that all the marijuana dispensaries around town are medically necessary. Catch more Greenberg cartoons in the LA Sketchbook...
State assemblyman Paul Krekorian, whose district centers on Burbank, is renting an apartment in the 2nd Los Angeles city council district while he ponders whether to run for the open...
Westside city councilman Bill Rosendahl admits that he is actively considering a run for the U.S. Senate if Dianne Feinstein steps down in 2012. This even though, as the LA...
An editorial in the Daily News says the prospect of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa running for governor with the city in deep financial crisis is a no-win situation. He should not...
Cardinal Mahony wagers a case of wine on the Lakers, a councilman resigns in disgrace, David Carradine is found hanged and more, including the local gay Asian-American mayor. Mark Lacter's...
Can't call it a debunking exactly, but Rick Orlov gets denials all around on the Jack Weiss to get $200,000 as homeland security deputy for the mayor meme. Same on...
Mayor Villaraigosa put forth Cindy Miscikowski, the former City Council member from Brentwood, for the port commission spot vacated by S. David Freeman. Release after the jump. Also at City...
Schwarzenegger's plea, the Lu Parker/Villaraigosa talk continues, those Chinese are still at LAX, books by Barbara Streisand and Choire Sicha, a journalist gets a job and more. Mark Lacter's LA...
At last Friday's LA Observed rooftop party at the Formosa in Hollywood, city attorney-elect Carmen Trutanich stuck around for some fairly extended conversations with revelers. Celeste Fremon reports on hers,...
Steve Lopez thinks that Mayor Antonio Villaraiogsa's latest 30-something television news squeeze could learn something from the last one. Call her immediately, he advises. Heh heh: I don't know Parker,...
Phil Willon, who covers Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for the L.A. Times, posted at L.A. Now that Channel 5 reporter-weekend anchor Lu Parker told KTLA officials that she and the mayor...
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa dropped in Saturday at the opening of actress Melissa Joan Hart's store Sweet Harts in Sherman Oaks. He's getting a hug from Valley restaurant and real...
Wow, it's June already. Today's Morning Buzz has much talk about Antonio Villaraigosa and his intentions, more questioning of the Los Angeles magazine failure cover, plus some other politics and...
The trickle of local Obama supporters receiving appointments as ambassadors is not quite a flood yet, but it's reached stream status. The latest is Munger, Tolles & Olson partner Vilma...
John McCain will do the deed at a Meg Whitman event today in Orange County. That will give her McCain, Mitt Romney and Pete Wilson in the early stages of...
Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky is adapting to the new media order by revamping his official website to be more newsy under the guidance of Joel Sappell, who used...
City Attorney-elect Carmen Trutanich announced that former Speaker Robert Hertzberg and former District Attorney Robert Philibosian will co-chair his transition team. Jane Usher, the former president of the city planning...
More by Steve Greenberg. Click on the cartoon to view it full-sized....
An investigative series in the Contra Costa Times up north says that an environmental program to benefit the delicate Sacramento-San Joaquin delta instead provided cash and cheap water for wealthy...
LA Observed editorial cartoonist Steve Greenberg responds to yesterday's Proposition 8 ruling, and the reactions to the decision. See more by Greenberg at the LA Sketchbook archive. Click on...
Former Occidental College classmate Lisa Jack's circa-1980 photos of Barack Obama will be at the M+B Gallery in West Hollywood starting Thursday night. "I'm sure Hillary would have paid a...
Gov. Schwarzenegger proposed cutting deeply into health and welfare, letting non-violent felons out of prison a year early and closing most state parks as a start on closing the...
Looks like the most action by Proposition 8 opponents will be at 6 pm Downtown at Pershing Square, 7 p.m. in West Hollywood at the corner of Santa Monica and...
Anthony Pacheco unexpectedly announced his resignation as of July 1, saying in a letter to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa that he needs to return full-time to his law firm job. Pacheco...
Vote of the electorate is upheld by the California Supreme Court on a 6-1 split, but the court ruled unanimously that existing same-sex marriages will also remain valid. Longtime Supreme...
See more by Steve Greenberg in his editorial cartoons archive at LA Observed. Click the cartoon to view bigger....
Federal court oversight of the LAPD that was agreed to in a consent decree nine years ago "has been a resounding success, and it should at last be allowed to...
Past Villaraigosa backer Eli Broad hasn't sounded very positive toward the mayor lately, and in today's L.A. Times he seems to include Antonio Villaraigosa among the leaders who need to...
Villaraigosa supporter and Occidental College professor Peter Dreier has some problems with the Los Angeles Magazine cover package that declared Mayor Villaraigosa a failure. (Whole story is online now.) Here's...
See more by Steve Greenberg in his editorial cartoons archive at LA Observed. Click cartoon to view bigger....
Steve Cooley, Carmen Trutanich and David Zahniser analyze what the election results mean for the mayor and City Hall. KCRW/WWLA, KPCC/Airtalk Raphael Sonenshein guesses that "this train wreck is...
The governor (or his ghost tweeter) is pretty busy on Twitter. Ironic, perhaps, that he takes refuge from the Sacramento budget storm at a community college, given how hard they...
Editorial cartoonist Steve Greenberg sees the new City Attorney-elect Carmen Trutanich as a potential man of steel at City Hall. See more by Greenberg. Click cartoon to view bigger....
More post-game election pondering: Deep cuts inevitable now, affecting services of many kinds. LAT, Bee, LAT (on schools), Rough & Tumble, DN, Which Way L.A.? Calls for a constitutional...
From the desk of Carmen Trutanich: The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Last night, the citizens of Los Angeles took a gigantic leap toward changing...
Top Carmen Trutanich adviser (and future City Hall East staffer?) Jane Usher sent a letter to the new City Attorney-elect's supporters thanking them and urging them to be patient with...
Election aftermath LAT, NYT, WSJ, Bee, CalBuzz Arguably the end of an era in California politics – the Schwarzenegger era. Anthony York/Capitol Weekly Carmen Trutanich's victory margin over Jack...
Gov. Schwarzenegger conceded defeat two hours after the polls closed, and said Democrats and Republicans must now work together to close a $21 billion budget deficit. The five budget propositions...
Next week's "Evening With President Obama" at the Beverly Hilton, the president's first major fundraiser since taking office, has added some name entertainment: Jennifer Hudson and Earth, Wind & Fire....
The former CNN correspondent who reinvented himself as a Los Angeles-based multimedia journalist for Yahoo was named one of 24 new Nieman Fellows at Harvard. He's the only one from...
More in LA Sketchbook by Steve Greenberg. Click on the cartoon to see it bigger. Steve Greenberg bio and email...
Rick Orlov notes that City Council president Eric Garcetti is now Lt. Garcetti in the Naval Reserve, up from ensign....
At the city council's meeting today on the impending budget cuts, council president Eric Garcetti apparently was noticeably pointed in defense of colleagues who felt roughly handled in comments last...
More in LA Sketchbook by Steve Greenberg. Click cartoons to see bigger. Steve Greenberg bio and email...
Former Speaker Willie Brown says Sacramento is in "total panic" believing the tax props will lose on Tuesday's ballot, and he blames years of bad decisions by the governor...
Los Angeles Magazine's cover package calling Antonio Villaraigosa a failure as mayor also includes suggestions from a dozen SoCal experts, observers and advocates of various ilk. Author D.J., Waldie, for...
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger returns to LA Sketchbook for a second day in a row. Tells you something about what's in the news. As always, click on the cartoon to...
Gov. Schwarzenegger threatens drastic cuts at the state level, in some cases even if the props pass on Tuesday. Rough & Tumble, WWLA, Airtalk Candidate for governor Meg Whitman...
On the right, how Los Angeles Magazine played Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on the cover in December 2006. My piece on the mayor was a mix of skepticism and marvel at...
Judy Chu's consultant Parke Skelton tells LA Observed that the reason Richard Ziman's name was belatedly taken off the invitations for this week's Chu fundraiser at Ziman's home is that...
Yesterday's news that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to auction off the historic Los Angeles Memorial Colisuem to help ease the state's budget mess caught Steve Greenberg's attention. As always,...
The June cover of Los Angeles Magazine, out in a few days, bears a portrait of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and one word blazoned in white ink across the page: Failure....
During Monday night's fundraiser for Judy Chu at the Daphna not Richard Ziman home, city airport commissioner Christine Essel was pitched to the crowd as a candidate to succeed Wendy...
The boiling bi-coastal scandal involving Wetherly Capital Group, a New York pol and some Villaraigosa commissioners is likely the reason that Monday night's Beverly Hills fundraiser for congressional candidate Judy...
Today's post is from an Angeleno whose Twitter profile describes him as a "digital marketing nerd and writer with a fondness for Hollywood, webseries, widgets and wine," retweeted by @LAWeekly:...
This cartoon was created by Steve Greenberg several weeks ago when the Los Angeles City Council was still debating whether to finish the elephant enclosure at the L.A. Zoo....
Channel 4 devoted ten minutes on its 5 p.m. newscast yesterday to saying goodbye to retired anchor Paul Moyer, despite the memo last month saying there would be "no...
An anonymous, no questions asked gun exchange program by the LAPD netted 40 assault-style weapons and a rifle with a grenade launcher among the 1,700 guns turned in. "We...
George Sanchez, hired just last fall to cover the LAUSD for the Daily News, stepped up to be bought out Friday. Cityside staff down to nine reporters and columnist...
Fix the basic unfairness of Proposition 13 that lets multi-million dollar mansions get away with lower property taxes than you or your neighbors pay and the state might not...
Steve Greenberg is the editorial cartoonist for LA Observed. There's an archive of his cartoons on the site, and a page with his his bio and email contact. Click...
An appeals court in Iran freed journalist Roxana Saberi from prison. CNN, NPR, LAT The Service Employees International Union was included on a conference call between the Obama Administration...
Former Los Angeles-area assemblyman Louis Caldera has had to resign as director of the White House military office over the controversy involving a flyover of New York for an Air...
Here are more editorial cartoons for LA Observed by Steve Greenberg, plus his bio and email contact. Click on the cartoon to see bigger....
Another angle to the now-controversial appointment of ex-Assemblyman Wally Knox to a $205k job at the Port of Los Angeles — an appointment blocked this week despite the mayor's desire...
Sean Harrigan, president of the Los Angeles Fire and Police Pensions board, resigned today a month after receiving a letter from the Securities and Exchange Commission asking him to identify...
The Carson city council spent a chunk of its meeting last night talking about Lyndon LaRouche's "Homeowners and Bank Protection Act of 2007." The item was on the agenda at...
Now this is interesting, given the perception held by some that Mayor Villaraigosa heads into his second term weaker than before. At today's City Council meeting, Councilwoman Janice Hahn raised...
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said yesterday that the time is right to debate legalizing marijuana for recreational use in California. SF Chronicle, Bee Rep. Jane Harman has toned down her...
The L.A. City Council voted today to extend the citywide moratorium on new digital billboards and supergraphics. It runs now until June 24, while the pols continue to ponder a...
A federal judge issued a TRO stopping the city of Los Angeles from taking action against unpermitted supergraphics erected on at least 18 buildings by Sky Tag. LAT The...
George Kieffer, partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips and former chair of the L.A. Chamber of Commerce, was appointed a University of California regent, according to Shane Goldmacher of...
Click for bigger More by Steve Greenberg...
NBC picked up four dramas and two comedies for its fall lineup but "left several questions unanswered until later this month." Variety, The Wrap, Finke Rep. Jane Harman went...
More by Steve Greenberg Click cartoon to see bigger...
That Long Beach State student and two other L.A. County residents are confirmed cases of the new H1N1 or swine flu. More local cases are expected, but the outbreak appears...
At least seven May Day marches are scheduled today around L.A., including four in Downtown. LAT, DN Only 14 percent of registered voters approve of the California Legislature's performance,...
Now that Shaq, Magic and the NRA have chosen up sides, City Attorney rivals Jack Weiss and Carmen Trutanich will take their gutter fight to tonight's Which Way, L.A.? on...
Here's today's editorial cartoon by Steve Greenberg. Click on it for full size; here's Steve's website....
Scientists studying the current swine flu virus say it doesn't look to be as fatal as past strains, and may be less dangerous than the usual flu. Meanwhile, a...
The commission that sets legislator salaries fell one vote short of approving a 10% pay cut for the California lawmakers who failed to pass a state budget for so many...
I'm pleased to say that Steve Greenberg will be contributing original editorial cartoons to LA Observed; this is his first. Steve is an editorial cartoonist, illustrator and graphic artist...
A Mexican child who died in Texas [fixed] is the first confirmed U.S. death from swine flu, and a Marine at Twentynine Palms may have swine flu and has...
Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman caused a stir Sunday night at Disney Hall by announcing from the stage it would be his last U.S. performance because of the nation's military...
Times staffers Jessica Garrison and Kim Christensen went big on Sunday's page one with an expose on oft-accused L.A. slumlord Frank McHugh. Money grafs: For more than 50 years, McHugh,...
"It was supposed to be the Valley's first public museum, our own Disney Hall," says a Daily News editorial. Instead, the plan to relocate the Children's Museum to Hansen Dam...
Deputy Mayor Arif Alikhan has been appointed Assistant Secretary for the Office of Policy Development in the Obama Administration's Department of Homeland Security. His current boss, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, has...
Mayor Vilaraigosa's office has put out a statement thanking the embattled Boks for his service. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa released the following statement today regarding the resignation of the Department of...
A commuter bus caught fire on the Ventura Freeway this morning, causing 30 passengers to be treated for smoke inhalation. AP The Republican leader in the Assembly also handed...
From Capitol Weekly: "Assembly Speaker Karen Bass abruptly rescinded 5 percent pay increases for dozens of rank-and-file members of the Assembly staff, citing concerns the pay raises might jeopardize the...
Rep. Jane Harman denied any wrongdoing in the quid pro quo allegations involving suspected Israeli spies, and in a letter to the AG called her wiretapping an abuse of...
In a meeting today with Times editors and reporters, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was asked if he could guarantee that his ally, Councilman Jack Weiss, would win the City Attorney runoff...
My post yesterday on NBC closing its bureau in Sacramento should have pointed out that ABC still maintains a fulltime presence in the state capital. Nannette Miranda, of course, has...
You know how state employees are being threatened with unpaid furloughs and salary cuts — and how Mayor Villaraigosa is asking city staffers to voluntarily give up some pay? And...
Rep. Jane Harman's wiretapped conversation was with an AIPAC supporter who said Haim Saban would withhold campaign funds from Speaker Nancy Pelosi to help Harman become chairman of the...
Congressional Quarterly columnist Jeff Stein wrote the piece getting a lot of play today about Rep. Jane Harman being snagged in a National Security Agency wiretap, apparently telling a suspected...
The NBC bureau in the state capital is shutting down. It fed stories to KNBC Channel 4 and the other California stations. Here's an email going around from reporter Mike...
The Numero Uno supermarket founder and president was convicted today on federal charges that include racketeering and solicitation of murder. Somewhat of a surprise to court watchers, apparently. Steven Mikulan...
Mayor Villaraigosa's budget to be unveiled at 11 a.m. will include plans to reduce salary costs 10%, some department mergers and privatizing, and cuts even in the police and...
The City Council approved shortage year water rates that will hit users with a hefty new charge if they don't reduce water consumption. Via release That federal indictment director...
The mayor is bringing S. David Freeman, the former head of DWP, back from the harbor commission to be his deputy on environmental issues, says David Zahniser. LAT Lt....
Massie Ritsch, the former L.A. Times politics desk writer and editor who has been Communications Director at the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, is heading for the Department of...
Coverage of the local tea parties. LAT, DN, Breeze, KPCC News, Patt Morrison audio, Pajamas Media The campuses overseen by Mayor Villaraigosa would be especially hard hit under the...
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took his campaign for state propositions 1A through 1F to the Los Angeles Times building tonight, telling an invited crowd of opinion shapers and readers that "the...
While director John McTiernan awaits a new indictment over his use of wiretapper Anthony Pellicano in a divorce case, he's pushing a new documentary that alleges the Pellicano prosecution was...
Rob Wilcox, director of communications for City Controller Laura Chick, will be the chief of staff in her new office in Sacramento. Gov. Schwarzenegger named Chick to be the state's...
Fox News' hyping of today's anti-tax tea parties is a "team effort" that includes the news anchors and has been "building up to the protests with Super Bowl-style intensity."...
Mayor Villaraigosa had a busy TV day, appearing at boxer Oscar De La Hoya's retirement announcement and delivering his fourth State of the City speech down in Harbor City. The...
A full-page ad on Page 9 of today's L.A. Times takes Councilman Jack Weiss to task for a proposed development near Cedars-Sinai. It's signed by Cary Brazeman as president of...
Times columnist Hector Tobar picks up on the paper's look at state Sen. Gil Cedillo's lavish spending on restaurants, hotels and gifts and says "it's never been a better time...
On-location film shooting in the Los Angeles area has fallen to the lowest level on record, due to labor troubles, the economy and runaway production. But off-site TV shooting...
Jerry Gillam covered California government and politics for 40 years, most of that time in the Sacramento bureau of the Los Angeles Times. He left the Times in 1995. Gillam...
Now that State Sen. Gil Cedillo is running for Congress, his campaign expense reports get more attention. What popped out to the LAT's Michael Finnegan was the expensive meals at...
Los Angeles planning commissioner Ricardo Lara has to live in the city to be on the commission. He's also raising money to run in the 50th assembly district, which is...
In this case, Mary Anne Ostrom of the San Jose Mercury News is "Silicon Valley's top political writer," says Capitol Alert's Peter Hecht. Ostrom is joining the gubernatorial campaign of...
Yes, the headline is intentional. The City Council voted 14-zip today to reject a drought surcharge on water bills for now. The vote had as much to do with the...
A "California doctor" and others who speak out against gay marriage in a TV spot have been busted as actors. A gay rights group got hold of the audition video...
A student worker in the Hall of Administration no longer has to peel the labels off Arrowhead water bottles and paste on generic county labels. The Board of Supervisors has...
Wally Knox is stepping down from the city's DWP board to take the newly created position of deputy executive director of external relations at the Port of Los Angeles....
Mayor Villaraigosa told city unions that to avoid layoffs, workers need to defer raises, cut work hours and pay more for retirement benefits. The Times editorialized for the plan....
Right-of-center blogs that used Pajamas Media as their advertising service are back on their own. The L.A-based PJM is dropping its blog ads network and will focus on PJTV, its...
Mayor Villaraigosa has called an 11 a.m. news conference to announce steps to avert thousands of city layoffs. "The City currently faces a Fiscal Year 2009-10 deficit of $530...
Los Angeles city officials are considering the immediate layoffs of 400 workers and eliminating an additional 2,800 positions in the months ahead, according to union officials. LAT A 30-year-old...
City Controller Laura Chick will be leaving her job a little sooner than scheduled. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is naming her the state's inspector general, overseeing the billions of dollars in...
The troubled museum-in-waiting near Hansen Dam in Lake View Terrace has taken steps to file for Chapter 7 protection, at least partly due to the impact of a scam, per...
A local journo wonders in email if the new Yvonne Brathwaite Burke Park in Marina del Rey, near where the retired county Supervisor used to claim she lived, will have...
More than 400 judges in Los Angeles County make more than the chief justice of the U.S. AP Bob Hertzberg is back in Sacramento reinvented as a government reformer,...
The party itself was probably pretty loud — a black-tie bash for old pol Willie Brown's 75th birthday, at Mayor Villaraigosa's official residence in Windsor Square. What was quiet about...
County Supervisors pay a student worker to peel the labels off bottles of water and replace them with a customized county label so that Arrowhead won't get free publicity...
That is, if it ever really existed. From Martin Zimmerman at Up to Speed, the LAT's auto blog: The California Air Resources Board said...it has no plans “at this time”...
A. Jerrold "Jerry" Perenchio, the former chair of Univision, has donated $1.5 million to back two of the May special election measures being pushed by the governor. It's the...
David Zahniser takes a post-Measure B look at Brian D'Arcy, who runs the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 18 at the DWP. LAT Three high-level managers forced out...
Author and Slate blogger Mickey Kaus has several friends at the Los Angeles Times, but for years he has been advocating the demise of the paper — partly in the...
Essentially nobody voted anywhere in this week's special election to pick Mark Ridley-Thomas's successor in the 26th state Senate district. But in the precinct that covers the USC campus, the...
Chief Bratton endorses another candidate — this time in New York City. L.A. Now KPFK suspends "anti-Semitic hatefest" show "La Causa" for six weeks; its followers blame the Jews....
Mayor Villaraigosa named attorney, philanthropist and former city commissioner David Fleming to the board of the Metropolitan Water District. (This gets Fleming off the MTA board, opening up a second...
Times film columnist and blogger Patrick Goldstein responds to Variety's weekend package on bloggers and says of Peter Bart: "He's launched his own blog, which you'd have to call...
The Roundup picks up that reporter Jordan Rau is leaving the L.A. Times Sacramento bureau, apparently not as part of today's layoffs. Presuming that Rau won't be replaced, the Sacto...
Times media columnist James Rainey wrote over the weekend about how political pros love one unintended consequence of the wane of mainstream news outlets and the rise of blogs —...
Rick Orlov offers the L.A. politics obituary for City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo: "Could be remembered as the loneliest guy in City Hall." DN The 151 pages of sign regulations...
Former Los Angeles members of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense got together at the Lucy Florence Coffeehouse and Cultural Center in Leimert Park for a screening of "41st...
The deficit-facing city council has made noise recently about halting its practice of waiving the fees levied on community events — but for sci-fi writer and Scientology founder L. Ron...
Tina Daunt says in the Times that President Obama bedded down at the Century Plaza. The Beverly Hills Courier, however, reports that he was at the Beverly Hilton and has...
It was a squeaker, but here's the final breakdown on Measure B, the solar energy jobs program pushed by the mayor, city council and the DWP union in the March...
President Obama stayed at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza [or not; see below] on this trip into L.A. rather than bed down in one of the mansions around town, and...
LA Observed's TJ Sullivan was credentialed into President Obama's town hall this afternoon in Costa Mesa and sent along some photos. He'll have more later at his website. In the...
Sen. Alan Cranston's 1986 reelection campaign was the first one I covered where Hollywood celebrities rode along on just about every bus trip across California. They would be introduced at...
There's about to be a fresh news outlet covering politics. Would you believe AOL? The Wrap reports that the service has hired Melinda Henneberger of Slate, and formerly of the...
In addition to the previously reported round of media events on Wednesday and Thursday, the White House has added what it's calling a "town hall" with President Obama at the...
The Occidental College alum will be here Wednesday for the first time as president — in Long Beach, Costa Mesa in OC and Pomona. He's also going to tape a...
The Getty plans to slash its operating budget nearly 25% for the coming fiscal year, "an emergency response to investment losses that have totaled $1.5 billion since July and...
President Obama has appointed a Maryland state official to head the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division, meaning that Villaraigosa adviser Thomas Saenz didn't get the job. The Daily Journal reported...
The newcomers include John Kim, co-director of the Advancement Project and director of the Healthy City Project, appointed to the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners. He's from Highland Park. Release after...
When Alex Comisar of NeonTommy, the USC news website that recently launched, was rebuffed in an interview request of Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, he took it public and confronted Yaroslavsky in...
Mark Lacter at LA Biz Observed has been following today's jailing of Bernard Madoff in New York, the New York Times story on Rep. Maxine Waters' questionable involvement with OneUnited...
A tentative agreement between the county and UC would reopen the emergency room and other inpatient services at Martin Luther King-Harbor Medical Center near Watts by 2012. The hospital would...
Former Assembly Speaker and Los Angeles mayoral candidate Robert Hertzberg is becoming the Democrats' half of the bipartisan co-chair arrangement at the head of California Forward, which supports reform of...
A coalition of groups including California Common Cause, the Center for Media Justice, the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College and the LA Alliance for a New Economy...
The KFI talk hosts helped draw an estimated 8,000 people to a tax revolt rally in Orange County on Saturday. (Here's the Register story, and the Orange Juice blog.) The...
Mark Arax, the former Los Angeles Times reporter based in Fresno, is joining the staff of the state's Senate Select Committee on Air Quality, a new committee headed by Sen....
Controller Laura Chick, in a statement this morning, said she has been asked a lot about running for the 2nd district seat that will be vacated by Councilwoman Wendy Greuel,...
With one 9th district precinct left to count, plus whatever else is left over, the solar and jobs measure trails by 1,322 votes. If that holds up, it's a stunning...
In the 1 a.m. bulletin from the City Clerk, a bit over 89% of the precincts have been counted and nearly all of the mail-in ballots. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is...
Aurelio Rojas, a reporter for the Sacramento Bee, is the new communications director for L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas. An item at Capitol Morning Report says that Rojas used to...
KPFK's weekly news review "Deadline L.A." is airing a special on the city election today at 2 p.m. with guests Marial Garza, Daily News editorial page editor, and Robert Greene,...
While you haven't been watching your politicians at work in Sacramento, they have added some unrelated charges to the cost of a ticket. Here's the breakdown of the tab for...
Sara Catania hasn't been running fulltime to get ready for her first marathon — though she certainly has been running plenty (see Run On), and recently completed the first race...
The Daily News grits its teeth and endorses Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa again this time, just as it did four years ago (saying then "Villaraigosa...represents the future.") This time, there's less...
Lame-duck Controller Laura Chick elaborates in The Planning Report on her opposition to the solar measure on Tuesday's city ballot. From the interview: Its egregious to put something on the...
From a David Zahniser story buried on page B9 in today's L.A. Times: Of the 363 lobbyists who worked the corridors of Los Angeles City Hall last year, no one...
The city of Los Angeles could face nearly a $1 billion — that's with a B — shortfall in the 2010 budget year because of a "mammoth bailout needed...
Officers from the LAPD met mayoral candidate David "Zuma Dogg" Saltsburg at tonight's campaign forum, took him to the Wilshire station and questioned him about an accusation that he directed...
Soto, who left office last year after missing significant amounts of time in Sacramento due to illness, apparently died today. She was at least 82. A statement from Speaker Karen...
In a follow to her audit of City Hall gang programs a year ago, Controller Laura Chick says there is still a long ways to go. ReportUnlike in L.A., next...
The L.A. Times editorial board, in a slap to the mayor and City Council, recommends a no vote on Measure B: Set aside, for a moment, the secretive and rushed...
Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the actress who married San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom, made "The Trouble With Romance" before they met. It has been out since Feb. 1 on Netflix and...
Is this an anybody but Jack Weiss for city attorney statement? Only Rep. Maxine Waters knows for sure, but the press release quotes her saying, in part: "Carmen Trutanich grew...
Rep. Hilda Solis is the new U.S. Secretary of Labor, so there will be an election out east to replace her. The vote was 80-17 after Republican leadership in the...
Thomas A. Saenz, the in-house counsel to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, has been selected to head the U.S. Department of Justice's civil rights division, the Los Angeles Daily Journal reports today...
Fox News shouter John Gibson did not compare Attorney General Eric Holder to a monkey with a bright blue scrotum, and thus the Huffington Post regrets the error. Live by...
City Attorney candidate Jack Weiss scheduled a press conference this morning to announce the backing of some local enviros, including Ed Begley Jr. and Heal the Bay's Mark Gold. But...
The editorial page at the Daily News came out against both Measure B, the solar energy and jobs program, and Measure E, which is billed as a way to give...
Former city Controller Rick Tuttle had considered running in the open race to replace Jack Weiss on the City Council. He opted against, and now has thrown his backing to...
I'm told now that the pending wave of departures from the Los Angeles Times newsroom will be split into two phases: with voluntary departures and a relatively small number of...
CityBeat this week brings out-of-work classical music critic Alan Rich back into print, at the expense of freelance critic Donna Perlmutter, who wrote for CityBeat for five years (and was...
Republican state Senator Abel Maldonado of Santa Maria crossed over in a vote held about dawn, and lawmakers finally passed last year's budget with California on the brink of financial...
Freshman Republican Curt Hagman from Chino Hills tells Capitol Weekly that he was at home in Sacramento last night when he heard a crash. Outside he found a man and...
The Los Angeles Times editorial board delivered a slap to the mayor's pick, Jack Weiss, and endorsed Carmen Trutanich for City Attorney. Voters could assemble a fairly good city attorney...
On Saturday, Father Daniel Berrigan's Vietnam-era protest drama, "The Trial of the Catonsville Nine," opens at The Actors' Gang in Culver City. And on Wednesday, L.A. Theatre Works begins a...
Tonight on Which Way, L.A.?, Warren Olney gets Controller Laura Chick (con) and former DWP general manager David Freeman (pro) into a spirited back and forth over the merits of...
The Los Angeles Times editorial pages don't get as much use out of their website as I expected — the blogroll would have been light in 2006, for instance —...
Former planning commission chair Jane Usher is co-hosting a Feb. 18 fundraiser in Hancock Park for city attorney candidate Carmen Trutanich. "Trutanich lacks the staunchly Democratic, Westside, Ivy League credentials...
Eight candidates have filed papers to run in the March 24 special election to fill the vacancy in the 24th Senate district created when Ridley-Thomas was elected to the Board...
Mayor Villaraigosa was on Which Way, L.A.? tonight talking up his water restrictions to the KCRW audience, Patt Morrison continued her daily run through the challengers on KPCC with Zuma...
The Jewish Journal is streaming video of Israeli consul general Jacob Dayan giving minute-by-minute analysis of election returns from Tel Aviv, with an audience of journalists and Israelis on hand....
Former EBay Chief Executive Meg Whitman, who is 52, announced today that she'll be a Republican candidate for governor next year. Former Gov. Pete Wilson will be her campaign chairman....
Marc Haefele's comparison of Thursday's Drew Street demolition to something out of the Middle Ages struck a nerve in the City Attorney's office, which sent over a response: The February...
Journalist Marc Haefele found this week's media event at the demolition of the former Avenues gang home in Northeast Los Angeles more than a little unsettling. A bunch of pols...
Sam Sayyad, the husband of Rep. Hilda Solis, paid $6,400 this week to settle small Los Angeles County tax liens against his auto business dating to 1993, USA Today reported....
County supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky just sent a letter to Los Angeles Times publisher Eddy Hartenstein urging him to reconsider his decision to fold local news into the A section and...
City Controller candidates Nick Patsaouras and Wendy Greuel have picked an odd issue to bicker over: who attended Mayor Villaraigosa's recent birthday party at the Santa Monica home of certified...
The City Council voted 11-4 to go ahead with plans to build the elephant enclosure at the Los Angeles Zoo, despite the presence of some low-grade celebrities arguing against it....
Along with their invitations for a Jan. 31 fundraiser in the Hollywood Hills for Council President Eric Garcetti, potential contributors got a personal note from Obama fundraising chief Yolanda Parker....
Newly powerful Reps. Henry Waxman and Howard Berman are the key draws at a Sunday gathering at USC of the Jewish Federation's New Leaders Project. They will be honored along...
City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo's final term has five months and change to run, so today comes word that he has filed papers to let him raise money for a second...
Syndicated columnist Robert Scheer has been dropped from the San Francisco Chronicle Op-Ed page. The editor told him his take on world affairs and politics had become "predictable," to which...
Journalist Joe Mathews has become the latest advocate of a narrow SoCal position to argue that taking his side is somehow a test of whether President Barack Obama truly means...
The website switched over right about 9 a.m. PST....
The big day is here. Barack Obama becomes the 44th U.S. president a few ticks before 9 a.m. Pacific time. Most TV networks will be live from Washington, D.C. at...
KNBC plans to air Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's State of the State speech live at 10 a.m. The station's Mekahlo Medina says they will post text messages from viewers on the...
Democratic and Republican consultants with a lot of experience in Los Angeles — and in California more generally — have formed a new firm to work on ballot measures. LFM...
Anti-Zionist protesters blocking the entrance to the Israeli consulate on Wilshire Boulevard today broke up after LAPD chief William Bratton showed up and intervened. The Jewish Journal posted video and...
State Sen. Gloria Romero has dropped her interest in running for the Hilda Solis seat in Congress. Romero said today she will run as planned for Superintendent of Public Instruction...
Looks like the former K-Mart store on Foothill Boulevard will stay empty. Home Depot has given up trying to get approval — over concerted neighborhood opposition — to open a...
Aron Miller, who recently served a stint as interim city editor at the Daily News, has given notice that he's leaving the paper and journalism. He's been on the Woodland...
Whether or not City Hall actually wants to take control of billboards is open to interpretation, but today the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out a challenge to...
City Council President Eric Garcetti and Amy Elaine Wakeland, his longtime partner, were married Sunday at a small ceremony attended by the couple's parents and close friends, his office announced...
The latest web venture from Drudge Report West Coast man Andrew Breitbart goes live Tuesday. Big Hollywood, he says, "is not a 'celebrity' gabfest or a gossip outpost - it...
Henry Casas, deputy chief of staff for Councilman Jose Huizar, has been arrested on suspicion of felony domestic violence. Casas, 40, was booked in Van Nuys on New Year's Eve...
"I always keep my options open." — LAPD Chief William Bratton, dismissing speculation he was a candidate for London police chief "Barack's better half not only has stature but...
D.J. Waldie picks up on my post on Jane Ellison Usher's resignation as chair of the city planning commission and runs with it at his KCET blog. He starts with...
In Sunday's New York Times Style section, Rep. Linda Snchez recounts leaking the news of her unmarried pregnancy to the LAT's Patt Morrison — "I thought, we need to sort...
Camille Johnston, who left as the Dodgers' director of communications in 2007, lands with the Obama Administration as Special Assistant to the President and Director of Communications for the...
Contributors to the Obama inauguration fund are being wooed with the promise of hard-to-score tickets to the Washington events around the January 20 festivities. New cheaper packages have been added...
Should a new public school in Carson be named for Cesar Chavez or slain LAPD officer Randal Simmons, as originally proposed? Daily Breeze Add Sen. Gil Cedillo and the...
Ron Kaye, the former Daily News editor who is reinventing himself as a political activist, at the end of a long blog rant about the city's solar energy boondoggle: "I...
State Sen. Gloria Romero says to count her in on the derby to replace Hilda Solis in Congress. Solis will be Barack Obama's labor secretary. Other names being tossed around...
Google News still returns just one hit for coverage of Sen. Barbara Boxer's presser yesterday in Culver City (see Morning Buzz.) But there was also a report by Kitty Felde...
Looks like there will be an opening in the ranks of local Latino Congress people after all. Word out of Washington is that Rep. Hilda Solis will be nominated as...
Heavy snow (by SoCal standards) has closed highways in and out of the Antelope Valley, San Gabriel Mountains and San Bernardino Mountains and of course over the Grapevine on...
Roger Snoble announced today that he will leave soon after seven years as CEO of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Release after the jump....
Pilar Marrero at La Opinin reports that Rep. Xavier Becerra pulled his name from consideration as U.S. trade representative. Column en espaol. (And now in English, partially, at Politico.) So...
Mayor Villaraigosa has appointed investor and former Warner Bros VP (and Clinton Admninistration staffer) Sean Burton to the citywide planning commission. Also: Attorney Justin Sanders to the Community Redevelopment Agency...
From the Daily News: An editorial in Tuesday's paper, "Turf war costly," incorrectly reported that the City Attorney's Office hired an outside law firm to sue the city controller in...
Planning commission president Jane Usher resigned, confirming gossip that swept offices this week, saying she needs a job and offering the mayor some advice in her exit letter. LAT,...
South El Monte mayor Blanca Figueroa has been given an 11 p.m. curfew. She's been known to stay in her office at city hall deep into the pre-dawn hours, but...
This morning the City Clerk held the random drawing to determine the order that names will appear on the March ballot in Los Angeles. Names starting with Z will lead...
Claude Brodesser-Akner, host of The Business on Mondays on KCRW, took a stand on the show against the resignation of Rich Raddon from the L.A. Film Festival over his support...
The Los Angeles Unified school board approved 5-2 a buy out of Supt. David Brewer's contract, clearing the way for Ramon Cortines, who had been the mayor's chief education adviser,...
The Loyola Marymount exit polling showed a 61% approval rating for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, 58% in the Valley. Voters who were asked their choice in the mayoral election next year...
LAUSD chief David Brewer emerged this afternoon to say he wants the school board to exercise the buy out clause of his contract, but he apparently declined to answer media...
Christopher Lisotta at Frontiers magazine says that Marjorie Christoffersen, the manager at El Coyote who threw a few bucks to the yes of Proposition 8 campaign through her church, has...
Supt. David Brewer plans to make a 2 p.m. statement, media reports say. The Daily Breeze reports that Brewer will step down as head of the Los Angeles Unified School...
The Atlantic author Caitlin Flanagan and Benjamin Schwarz, the magazine's national and literary editor, weigh in on the post-Proposition 8 debate on today's New York Times Op-Ed page. In particular,...
Tying Barack Obama's appointment of Xavier Becerra and Eric Holder to the Carlos Vignali commutation controversy from the Clinton years. LAT Times editorial calls Becerra a bad choice, describing...
Embattled LAUSD Supt. David Brewer is scheduled to be on KPCC with Patt Morrison at about 1:30 p.m....
The attempted putsch of LAUSD Supt. David Brewer was put on hold because Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte, the lone black member, did not attend the board's closed session. LAT, DN...
Esteban Armando Nuez, the 19-year-old son of the former Assembly Speaker, was arrested Tuesday in connection with the stabbing death of a 22-year-old college student at a party in San...
Media and politics tidbits from around the greater Los Angeles universe. Controller Laura Chick is quoted on the CBS Evening News in a story about the impact of car dealers...
Actually, KPCC's Frank Stoltze did take note of the quiet milestone that District Attorney Steve Cooley began his third term yesterday. Cooley is the first DA in 70 years to...
SF Weekly writer Benjamin Wachs is trying to watch all 7.5 hours of State of the City videos posted by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom on his new YouTube channel....
In the contest to become the mayor more likely to lose to Jerry Brown in the 2010 Democratic primary for governor, Gavin Newsom gets a leg up by releasing...
Politics, media and assorted news briefs from the greater Los Angeles universe. Heavy fog in Sacramento aborted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's flight from Santa Monica, so he made his fiscal emergency...
Columnist Bill Boyarsky argues that the Dodgers should help pay the cost of the city's shuttle bus to Dodger Stadium from Union Station. It could cost the city $350,000 next...
Torie Osborn, former executive director of Liberty Hill and adviser to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa — as well as a campaign leader against the LaRouche initiative in 1986 — has been...
The former king of the gay Los Angeles political strategists (a key campaign adviser to the late Mayor Tom Bradley) is now blogging on the Obama election and Proposition 8...
Two pieces in the current Jewish Journal — by Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and LA Observed columnist Bill Boyarsky — frame the Proposition 8 battle and the ascent of Rep. Henry...
Evan Halper succeeds Virginia Ellis as chief of the Los Angeles Times bureau in Sacramento. Here's the memo sent to the troops about 5 p.m.: To: The Staff From: David...
Former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nez, about to be termed out of the legislative high life, will join Mercury Public Affairs, LLC, as partner and co-chair. The Los Angeles Democrat will...
SEIU President Andy Stern announced today that Tyrone Freeman, the politically connected head of the union's United Long-Term Care Workers local, would be banned for life and asked to repay...
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger named unwilling mayoral candidate Rick Caruso to the joint agency that oversees the Memorial Coliseum. Rick Orlov at the Sausage Factory says there's no word yet which...
Capitol Weekly has put together capsule summaries of what there is to know about the newly elected Los Angeles-area politicos who will be swarming into Sacramento on Dec. 1. Here's...
Kevin Fry, the president of Scenic America, was interviewed in The Planning Report about the Los Angeles billboard situation. Excerpt: The city of Los Angeles has surrendered its built environment...
Termed-out L.A. state Senator Sheila Kuehl hasn't lined up that next political gig yet so today she was appointed to a $132,178 per year post on the state's Integrated Waste...
Hendrik Hertzberg, senior editor of The New Yorker, calls Proposition 8 "a fight that should have been won" and credits some in the gay community with rightly self-critiquing what went...
The New York Times dedicates five staffers to covering the Obama White House, including for the first time a video journalist. Former LAT reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg remains on the...
Sergeant Paul M. Weber takes over as president of the LAPD officers' union. He has been a VP and replaces Tim Sands, who will retire from the department next month...
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and City Council President Eric Garcetti have summoned the media for a 1:30 pm "major announcement regarding the financial status of the City."...
Politico's Jeffrey Ressner compiled short bios on the seven insiders who he calls Barack Obama's real friends in Hollywood. "Obamas tightly knit circle is mostly Chicago-based, but there is a...
The Obama inauguration committee is offering a cool package of tix — and it only works out to $12,500 per person! From: "Yolanda " Cookie " Parker" Date: Thu, 20...
The Los Angeles Times, which never had trouble making gobs of money until very recently, is loving the Obama phenomenon so far. The paper's hawking of front pages and other...
The news, according to Patt Morrison, is that it's not news that Sanchez isn't married to the father. Morrison writes on the LAT Op-Ed page: You're practically the first to...
Retired USC Annenberg professor and CBS News correspondent Murray Fromson writes at the Huffington Post that Sam Zell has gotten off too easy for destroying the Los Angeles Times Washington...
Tomorrow's Daily Journal will report that the City Council did not approve the proposed settlement of legal claims for victims of the LAPD's misbehavior in MacArthur Park last year. The...
The Supreme Court in San Francisco announced today it will hear arguments in March on the validity of Proposition 8, and asked the litigants to include in their written submissions...
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa today appointed Stephanie M. Rodriguez to the city Board of Transportation Commissioners. Rodriguez, director of public affairs at KCAL/KCBS, fills the unexpired term of Paul Kim. Also...
Now that she's the lamest of political ducks, the DA's office has decided not to prosecute Supervisor Yvonne Burke for allegedly living in Brentwood — outside her district — while...
And now, some stuff I missed because I was actually working. Let's start here at LAO: Today's biz headlines (Japan is in recession) and an answer (hah) to the subprime...
Why am I blogging on a Saturday night? Because PCH to Santa Monica, where I was supposed to meet friends for dinner and a movie, is a parking lot. An...
First more than a thousand anti-Prop 8 protesters gathered at the Mormon temple in Westwood. Now, after employees reported receiving an envelope filled with white powder, the temple has been...
Here's another body blow for our hometown paper -- Virginia Ellis, the Times' Sacramento bureau chief, is retiring. She'd been planning to leave last year but, when asked to please...
Did anyone really think the same-sex marriage issue in California was over? According to a new story in Capitol Weekly, the move to repeal Prop 8 is already taking aim...
The El Coyote manager who donated to Proposition 8 through her church probably should not have been invited to the press conference....
Anger — and the resulting finger pointing — continues apace over the passage of Proposition 8, which appears to have added a ban on same-sex marriage to the California Constitution....
Back from the holiday...here are some news notes. The Supreme Court rules that the Navy's interest in conducting sonar tests whenever it wants trumps concerns about the damage to sea...
Congrats to former City Controller Rick Tuttle, who was married tonight to Rebecca Rona. I'm told the festivities at UCLA's Faculty Center attracted, among others, Reps. Howard Berman and Brad...
Noon on Saturday was the deadline for candidates to file their declarations of intent to run in the March 3, 2009 primary election in the city of Los Angeles. No...
Developer Rick Caruso has been saying for a while that his running for mayor is only a question of when, not if. Well, it won't be this time, he announced...
TJ Sullivan roamed among the anti-Proposition 8 demonstrators who gathered at the Mormon Temple on Santa Monica Boulevard, a couple of days too late to sway the election. Photos over...
Demonstrators upset by the passage of Proposition 8 began at the Mormon temple on Santa Monica Boulevard and have moved to Wilshire and Westwood boulevards, closing both streets. They're targeting...
Former Los Angeles mayor James Hahn was appointed a Superior Court judge today by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. So were 16 other lawyers, six of them deputy district attorneys. Here's an...
Here are some photos and videos from last night in Leimert Plaza, center of the largely African American neighborhood where Barack Obama's election was a cause for a public celebration....
Californians who voted: For Barack Obama: 6,194,012 Against parental notification before teen abortion: 5,071,449 To retain same-sex marriage: 4,806,595 Proposition 8 to define marriage as only between a man and...
The Hyatt Century Plaza was rocking with so many Barack Obama supporters last night that long lines formed outside, before the polls closed, just to get in the hotel. Those...
TJ Sullivan is checking out polling places and found this line outside the Cheviot Hills Recreation Center. More locales at Native Intelligence....
Word from Sacramento is that Bill Stall, the Los Angeles Times' Pulitzer-winning editorial writer, died today after suffering from emphysema. The Times is working on an obituary, and colleague Karin...
The Los Angeles Times Washington bureau, one of the last pre-Tribune strengths of the paper still mostly intact, has been told that Chicago will announce this Friday that the bureau...
Sam Zell's contributions in this election cycle include $20,000 to the McCain Victory Committee on May 6 and another $20,000 to McCain-Palin Victory 2008 on Sept. 16. Previously, all we...
Just when you were hoping the campaign ads would stop already on TV, the Los Angeles City Clerk puts out word that filing opens Monday for candidates in the city...
Barack Obama and John McCain? Feh. How about Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas. The L.A. Theatre Works production of "The Rivalry" by Norman Corwin, starring David Strathairn and Paul...
Board of Supes candidate Mark Ridley-Thomas doesn't wait until election day to vote with his family. He votes early with his family....
Longtime L.A. Unified school board member Julie Korenstein announced today she won't seek reelection, just days after her colleague Marlene Canter said the same thing. That's two open seats in...
Who better to talk about Obama's infomercial than Ron Popeil, the king of the informercial? NPR's "All Things Considered" put some questions to the master. Audio...
From the LA Observed video archive, Sen. Barack Obama came to Los Angeles in February 2007 and drew an excited crowd long before he pulled ahead of Sen. Hillary Clinton....
Variety managing editor and politics writer Ted Johnson blogged about his marriage to Stewart Scott, presided over by West Hollywood City Councilman John Duran, in the context of Proposition 8....
Department of Water and Power commissioner Nick Patsaouras told activist Ron Kaye that he will run for City Controller next year against current city council member Wendy Greuel. It's an...
LAPD chief William Bratton's phone message for Barack Obama "challenged Republican John McCain's 'record on policing issues and extolled Obama's,'" he told the L.A. Times. Bratton said he got involved...
I caught up with Rick Caruso tonight at The Grove — not by accident — and asked if he intends to go for it and challenge Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's reelection...
LAPD chief William Bratton co-authored an Op-Ed piece in the New York Daily News that posits Osama Bin Laden wants to influence the Nov. 4 election: "If history is any...
Jacob Soboroff, who produced and appeared in more than a dozen LA Observed videos, is now executive director of the voting reform group Why Tuesday. He and new best pal...
Controller Laura Chick calls her audit finding a backlog of 7,000 unprocessed rape evidence kits "one of the most startling and important audits " since she was elected seven years...
In a long blog post at Opinion L.A., editorial page editor Jim Newton says the paper's editorial supporting Barack Obama has gotten a near-record response and was written wholly without...
Los Angeles bureau chief for the New York Times Jennifer Steinhauer and L.A.-based staff photographer Monica Almeida have completed one of those cross-country road trips to gauge voter sentiment. It's...
Does this editorial seem a tad bleak? The world of America as we know it in the first decade of the 21st century is a dark, money-in-the-mattress place of foreclosed...
Nelson Rising, who ran Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley's campaign for governor in 1982, sounds pretty certain that Barack Obama won't suffer any "Bradley effect" backlash from white voters misleading...
For the first time since backing Richard Nixon in 1972, the Los Angeles Times editorial board has publicly endorsed a candidate for president. It's also the first time ever that...
This time only Sacramento was worse than Los Angeles, among the 56 Metro areas that Nielsen meters. But then, the Dodgers were on and, as usual, the debate did not...
Both The New Yorker and Los Angeles have pieces on Arianna Huffington in their current issues. The New Yorker profile by Lauren Collins (with the photo here by Jonathan Becker)...
"I entered politics because the America of my dreams includes everyone, not just a few," Antonio Villaraigosa wrote with his check to the campaign fighting the state ballot initiative that...
Heal the Bay founder Dorothy Green has passed away, according to a release from Mayor Antonio Villarigosa's office. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa issued the following statement today on the passing of...
I'm told the Los Angeles Times mailroom opened a hand-scrawled letter today that read "death to Obama" and contained a white powder that triggered a call to the FBI and...
The former City Hall power broker and commissioner was sentenced today to state prison in connection with the pay-to-play scandal during the Jim Hahn years. In particular, Wong carried water...
If you've been following the saga of the former Miramar resort beside the 101 freeway in Montecito, there's been actual movement you might be interested in. The Montecito planning commission...
Charles Gerencser says he is leaving Southland Publishing, where he oversaw LA CityBeat and New Angeles Monthly, on Oct. 17 to join the Barack Obama campaign as a fundraiser and...
The Women's Conference created by Maria Shriver and hubby returns to Long Beach on Oct. 22. The program includes MSNBCs Chris Matthews moderating a conversation on leadership and the economy...
"Carne asada is not a crime," attorney Phil Greenwald said again, perhaps for the last time, after DA Steve Cooley's office said Friday that it would not appeal a judge's...
Nielsen says that last night's Biden-Palin debate drew a much larger television audience — 45% of households in the 55 biggest metered metro areas — than the earlier McCain-Obama debate....
Our columnist Bill Boyarsky has been on the national campaign trail this year for Truthdig, and as he used do to for the Times as a columnist and political reporter,...
The top grossing release at LATimes.com for the month of September was Gloria Steinem's Op-Ed piece called Palin: wrong woman, wrong message. The latest monthly update from website executive editor...
Valley congressman Brad Sherman's office sent out a seven-page analysis explaining in some detail why he still opposes the financial package being voted on soon in Congress. Sherman has gotten...
Today's L.A. Daily News letters page published this overtly political note from Richard B. Scudder, chairman of the board of MediaNews Corp., the company that owns the paper. Patriotic ideals...
With John McCain staying in Washington for the Senate vote on the bailout measure, Cindy McCain and Todd Palin will fill in at tonight's Century City fundraiser. Kelsey Grammer and...
The perking up of Downtown has reached the point that Sen. Hillary Clinton is scheduled to appear at an Obama fundraiser at the hipster bar The Edison on Oct. 4....
Garrett Therolf gets a partner in the Times' big but lonely office tucked away in the Hall of Administration on Temple Street. Molly Hennessy-Fiske has worked in Washington, Baghdad and...
The city council of Bell Gardens has hired itself a new city manager — and it's Steve Simonian, the former chief of investigations for District Attorney Steve Cooley. What's intriguing...
No felony charge for Kanye West in that scuffle with a photographer at LAX. Reuters New editor assignments on the L.A. Times city desk — involving Nita Lelyveld and...
A state appeals court says the ballot measure that extended the term limits for Los Angeles City Council members will stand. Five incumbent council members are running for reelection based...
Heal the Bay is out with a new beach report card today saying that California's beaches were much improved this summer due to a monitoring program — but that Gov....
In a personal reflection on his county website, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky writes about going to the scene of the Metrolink crash in Chatsworth and talking with the relatives of victims....
Mitchell Schwartz, a veteran of Bill Clinton, Barbara Boxer, Gray Davis and Antonio Villaraigosa campaigns, is state director of the Barack Obama campaign. Schwartz is also president of the Los...
Tina Fey won Emmy awards for acting, writing and being one of the executive producers on "30 Rock," which got the trophy for outstanding comedy series. Fey then took a...
Los Angeles police commissioner Robert Saltzman was married on Saturday night to Edward Pierce, who retired as the general counsel and vice president for legal affairs of GeoCities. In addition...
City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo put up an entry this morning at the Huffington Post titled "Protecting families from McCain's broken health care plan." Sample: In the name of "choice," the...
The son of Councilman Herb Wesson has left the building at the Bernard Parks for Supervisor campaign, where he was field director or campaign manager, depending on who's talking. And...
Brad Pitt announced today that he will donate $100,000 to oppose Proposition 8, the November initiative that seeks to re-eliminate same-sex marriage in California. "Because no one has the right...
Steve Lopez visits in today's column with Dorothy Green, the longtime water activist and founder of Heal the Bay who is in hospice care for metastasized cancer. She is 79,...
OK, here's a last report (I think) from Tuesday night's Obama funder in Beverly Hills. On his way in to the event, former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan — a...
Here's what the pool reporters filed from Beverly Hills for the traveling national media and the locals. Pool Report No. 1 Sept. 16, 2008 Beverly Hills, Calif. No News....
An LA Observed source who is at tonight's Barack Obama fundraiser (the cheaper one at the Beverly Wilshire, not the $28,500 shindig at the Greystone Mansion) messaged that it was...
State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner made official Monday what's been expected for months: He's formally exploring a run for governor in 2010. From the Sacramento Bee: The state's only Republican...
Atlantic magazine and its writer Jeffrey Goldberg are unhappy that Los Angeles photographer Jill Greenberg turned in manipulated photos of John McCain for a story, then announced that she had...
Labor unions that already put up more $4.5 million to elect Mark Ridley-Thomas to the county Board of Supervisors plan to spend millions more, says Garrett Therolf in the Times....
Here's the most interesting blog post I read all day. Political scientists at UCLA who asked students to rate the faces of hundreds of American candidates found that Alaska Gov....
Potential attendees at Barack Obama funders next week at the Greystone estate in Beverly Hills and the Beverly Wilshire are being enticed with the prospect of Barbra. Friends: Great news!...
Western intelligence sources think that Californian-turned-al Qaeda propogandist Adam Gadahn may have died in CIA-directed attacks by unmanned predator aircraft on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, says a writer...
Quick update from an item this morning: Principal Donna Tobin posts at the Walter Reed Middle School website that "permission to use the front of our school for the Republican...
Sen. John McCain "has been relatively aggressive when it comes to tapping into the pool of Hollywood donors who, like their counterparts on the Democratic side, often give over concerns...
The backdrop photo chosen to illustrate John McCain's speech last night sure appears to be Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood. No one has said why a school in...
It's a long way from Beverly Hills High for disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. LAT story. Previously: Backhanded compliment...
Los Angeles-based Republican consultant Mike Murphy calls the choice of Sarah Palin "cynical" and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan says the neophyte's pick means the race is "over." They had...
Top of the Ticket has reached #85 on the Technorati hit parade, LATimes.com executive editor Meredith Artley says in her wrap-up for August. More highlights: Total traffic to the Times...
Today's New York Times story says right up high in the fourth graf that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin announced her daughter Bristol's pregnancy "after a swirl of rumors by liberal...
Amy Goodman, the host of Pacifica Radio's Democracy Now, was arrested Monday during a demonstration near the Republican National Convention. She was apparently trying to discuss with cops the...
Bill Boyarsky, posting dispatches from the Democratic gathering at Truthdig.com, concluded that this convention marked a welcome end to big media dominance of political reporting. This from a media veteran...
La Opinin columnist Pilar Marrero relaunched her politics blog in Spanish for the Democratic convention, and it sounds like she will keep it going on the La Opinin site and...
New York Times calls the choice of the anti-abortion, conservative Christian with less than two years in office (she is 44) a "roll of the dice, a gamble that an...
Scott Martelle has been busily covering the presidential election for the Los Angeles Times, including many posts to the Top of the Ticket blog. But he was tapped on the...
Variety Managing Editor Ted Johnson blogs at Wilshire and Washington that one of the men arrested in what was first thought to be a plot against Barack Obama was staying...
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has been making the rounds and got some face time on MSNBC this afternoon — outside of prime time — but City Controller Laura Chick...
KCRW's convention package includes online video shot by producers for Warren Olney's show in Denver. They have found an Obama lookalike, protesters and "dancing Democrats," plus an interview with Charlie...
Bil Boyarsky is covering the Democratic convention scene for Truthdig and his featured story today is about the abortion issue at the Interfaith Gathering held in Denver by religious leaders,...
Barack Obama will announce Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware as his running mate in a few hours, the New York Times, L.A. Times and Washington Post all agree....
With Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, City Council President Eric Garcetti and assistant president Wendy Greuel headed to Denver for the Barack Obama investiture, Councilwoman Jan Perry is in charge. The Downtown...
Only one problem with that: Tyron Freeman's union contributions on behalf of Board of Supervisors candidate Mark Ridley-Thomas are mostly so-called independent expenditures. So the money officially never got into...
Orange County-based Kevin Drum moved his Calpundit blog persona over to Washington Monthly as Political Animal and began getting paid for his politics blogging four years ago. Now he's been...
The head of the United Long-Term Care Workers, an SEIU local that is the largest in California, takes a leave in the aftermath of Times stories showing how the union...
The Central City Association, which presses Downtown interests at City Hall and worked hard to get into Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's good graces after backing Jim Hahn big in 2005, announced...
The FBI's investigation of City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo seems to center on his wife Michelle's businesses and income, the Times reports. It's clear the Times had been digging on the...
Patrick O'Connor, the Daily News' editorial cartoonist, has some fun with the upcoming change of venue to Denver for City Hall electeds attending the Democratic convention. See it big...
Today's San Francisco Chronicle reports that "FBI agents have begun a criminal investigation of Los Angeles City Attorney Rockard 'Rocky' Delgadillo, a one-time rising star of California politics whose career...
The South L.A. activist pleaded guilty to attempting to bribe a witness in a criminal case involving his daughter, Jasmin Eskew. Ali's sentence was enhanced because of a 1992 robbery...
Zach Behrens at LAist test-drives the city's new website for searching and keeping tabs on City Council files, motions and votes....
At the urging of the City Council, City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo agreed to suspend his lawsuit against Controller Laura Chick and she agreed to suspend her review of his office...
The city Ethics Commission did go ahead this morning and levy almost $15,000 in penalties against Councilman Jose Huizar for misusing his campaign accounts, partly to do opposition research on...
Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo today filed a civil court challenge to block Controller Laura Chick from asserting the power to audit his office, and she called in the...
The Times' Paul Pringle weighed in Saturday with an investigative piece saying that the SEIU-affiliated United Long-Term Care Workers local headed by Tyrone Freeman, and a related charity, have been...
Echo Park author Sarah Miller has an amusing piece in the Times opinion pages Sunday about John Edwards' former extra-marital squeeze, who rented the room Miller had vacated in a...
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky has posted a personal piece at his county website explaining why he pushed to require fast-food stores to list the calories of their fare on menus. Yaroslavsky...
ABC News has an interview between Bob Woodruff and the former (and not future) VP candidate, confirming the affair with videographer Rielle Hunter. Edwards says he doesn't love her, that...
In the face of political and media criticism over the DWP board spicing up the future pension of COO Raman Raj, CEO David Nahai just released a statement saying never...
Supervisor Gloria Molina joined the two Republicans on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to reject placing a sales tax increase question on the November ballot, citing friction between...
Top of the Ticket finished atop the blog rankings at the L.A. Times again this past month, with the celebrity driven stuff just behind. Peter Viles' L.A. Land continues to...
Actor George Clooney is the featured attraction for the Geneva event on Sept. 2. Here's the email sent to potential Barack Obama donors: Subject: A Reception with George Clooney in...
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa hired Miriam Long, now a senior deputy for Supervisor Yvonne Burke, to be his deputy mayor for education, youth and families. From the release: For 12 years,...
Bill Boyarsky, LA Observed's occasional politics columnist, is a finalist in nonfiction for the 2008 book award from the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association. It's for "Big Daddy: Jesse Unruh...
Lt. Gov. John Garamendi announced this morning that, as expected, he will run for governor in 2010. Bee...
This week's piece by Kelefa Sanneh starts out exploring TV and radio commentator Tavis Smiley's criticism of Barack Obama's candidacy and looks into Smiley's enterprises, which are based in Leimert...
Tom Hogen-Esch, associate professor of political science at Cal State Northridge and co-author of "Local Politics: A Practical Guide to Governing at the Grassroots," argued in La Opinin that the...
Rick Orlov's column today reports that State Sen. Sheila Kuehl denies through an aide that she is looking to move into the city of Los Angeles and run for the...
I received an email statement from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa this morning that announced he would skip tonight's banquet in San Francisco for the Human Rights Campaign, a mainstream gay community...
Mickey Kaus has the email from Los Angeles Times blog editor Tony Pierce telling the paper's bloggers not to go there on the John Edwards-tryst-in-Beverly Hills story: Subject: john edwards...
Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke was named today by House Democrats to the independent panel that is supposed to review conduct by members of Congress. But as the...
The former City Hall power player was convicted on 14 counts of bribery, perjury and other charges stemming from influence peddling while he was a commissioner in the Jim Hahn...
A federal grand jury has been secretly probing whether attorney Pierce O'Donnell violated federal campaign laws by asking employees of his law firm to contribute to the 2004 presidential campaign...
Sharon Waxman, free of the New York Times label next to her name, blogs a question: how long can the mainstream media ignore the National Enquirer story saying that John...
A pretty contentious exchange this afternoon between "Which Way, L.A.?" host Warren Olney and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa began with the mayor quipping "long time, no interview." Olney then started peppering...
Brendan Huffman, president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Association since early 2006, said he plans to resign at the end of the year. "I'm just ready for something else,...
It's Don Pierro, a former public affairs fellow at Coro. Release after the jump....
Ron Kaye's first try at post-Daily News movement organizing drew more than 100 potential activists to the City Hall lawn on Monday. David Zahniser in the Times set the scene...
Councilman and Board of Supervisors candidate Bernard Parks scored some CNN time this morning during all the hot talk about that satirical New Yorker cover picturing Barack and Michelle Obama...
District Attorney Steve Cooley sent a letter to the chairman of the state Board of Parole Hearings strongly opposing the compassionate release from prison of Manson family killer Susan Atkins....
At the L.A. Times' Top of the Ticket blog, many of the reader comments posted about former Bush spokesman Tony Snow's death have been tasteless — to say the least....
City Council president Eric Garcetti, who represents Hollywood, said provisions added to the project will help alleviate concerns that the 16-story residential project next door will affect Capitol Records' underground...
Los Angeles County CEO William Fujioka has abruptly ended his weekly Monday media briefings, saying he'll now be available by phone. But when the Times' Garrett Therolf called Fujioka to...
Former deputy mayor (to Hahn) Troy Edwards testified under immunity yesterday at the Leland Wong trial and detailed the gift of sexual favors linked to Wong at a Bonaventure Hotel...
Catching up on this: Monday's Los Angeles Daily Journal cited sources saying that Councilman Jack Weiss has raised $1.1 million for next year's open race for City Attorney. Weiss has...
Ex-Daily News editor (and future candidate?) Ron Kaye is encouraging readers of his politics blog to bring their trash to City Hall on July 14. Bastille Day — get it?...
The subject is the Alexandria Hotel, the Rosslyn Lofts project and City Hall's support of an $8 million subsidy for alleged slumlord Ruben Islas. Tibby Rothman, in the LA Weekly,...
Why Villaraigosa held back data on trash fee When he raised the trash fee, Mayor Villaraigosa said "Every new dollar residents pay for trash pickup will be used to put...
Gene Maddaus reports in the Daily Breeze that ties to Supervisor Yvonne Burke led to the Peace & Joy battered women's shelter in Carson being allowed to operate despite filth,...
LA Observed columnist Bill Boyarsky recently completed a five-year term on the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission. He was appointed after writing Controller Laura Chick a letter suggesting that the...
The Sacramento Bee pulled together details on nine of the campaign fundraisers that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa held between June 21 and July 1. Included are snippets giving LAT reporter David...
KCRW's popular Friday afternoon politics gabfest has added a blog. If you want to argue about Bob, Arianna, Matt and Tony or discuss things with Left, Right & Center producer...
City Hall's new water police won't have to look far for offenders of the rule against mid-day watering. Me and everyone else on the sidewalk during the noon hour just...
San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom filed papers for a campaign committee that lets him start gathering contributions for a possible run for governor in 2010. He's the first of the...
Don White, a longtime Los Angeles political, social and labor activist, died in his Los Angeles apartment and was discovered on June 20. White had been a Los Angeles Unified...
Six events at least, including a bunch involving contributors with business (or potentially so) pending at City Hall. David Zahniser touches on them at the Times' local blog, but for...
City Controller Laura Chick wants to audit the City Attorneys Workers Compensation Program. City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo declined her request to turn over records, so she is using the subpoena...
A remarkable editorial in this morning's Daily News admits the paper got used in the news story earlier this week about DWP chief David Nahai offering up data on his...
You know that L.A. Times-Bloomberg Poll this morning that had Barack Obama up by 12 points? The Gallup tracking poll out today disagrees in a big way. It says the...
Alan Mittelsteadt blogs that the Daily News and reporter Beth Barrett — he calls her "the Queen of Spoon-Fed Journalism" — got snookered into running DWP chief David Nahai's planted...
From now until November, expect the presidential candidates to be a giant pain in L.A.'s butt. Motorcades shutting down entire freeways, etc. For Barack Obama's appearance Tuesday night at the...
Eric Lynxwiler and I will be the featured speakers in Westwood today at 4 pm at the inaugural literary salon of the Friends of the Westwood Library. It's a benefit...
Right after he got back from his week in Israel, Mayor Antonio Vllaraigosa took off for a Conference of Mayors gathering in Florida where he will work in a weekend...
Maria Elena Durazo, executive secretary of the County Labor Federation, will join Mayor Villaraigosa and his coterie of city employees and Jewish community leaders on the trip to Israel that...
Mayor Villaraigosa has appointed Alicia Maldonado to the Housing Authority, Margarita C. Garr to the Housing Authority, Marsha Hirano-Nakanishi to the Commission for Children, Youth and Their Families and Christopher...
The Ethics Commission today fined Los Angeles Councilman Herb Wesson $3,000 for taking campaign money above the limit and and Councilman Richard Alarcon $2,650 for various violations of the campaign...
Joel Sappell, who vented recently in the American Journalism Review about Sam Zell and other changes that led him to flee the Los Angeles Times, started today as Deputy for...
The Huffington Post blogger's decision to tape, and then post, Bill Clinton slamming Vanity Fair writer Todd Purdum is still being discussed and dissected all over the politics and mediasphere....
Jon Regardie at the Downtown News imagines an address by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in advance of this week's trip to Israel. Selected quips: Many people have asked why I am...
The saga of the Long Beach deadbeat continues. The Press-Telegram's Paul Eakins reports today that Rep. Laura Richardson didn't pay a $735 mechanic's bill on her 740iL BMW — didn't...
She's the Huffington Post Off the Bus blogger who recorded Bill Clinton's three-minute rant about Vanity Fair writer Todd Purdum — and who earlier captured Barack Obama's critique of "bitter"...
Former candidate for mayor Bob Hertzberg told a bunch of friends at lunch at The Palm that he won't be running for anything next year. David Zahniser blogged it. Previously...
Author and urban affairs expert William Fulton says a challenge to Mayor Villaraigosa "would be a haberdashers dream," but he doesn't buy that developer Rick Carsuo would go after a...
Department of Water and Power chief David Nahai has hired former Assemblywoman (and City Council candidate) Cindy Montaez to do whatever it is that pols do at the big-spending agency....
State Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas came out on top in the race for the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, but fell way short of a majority. He and Councilman Bernard...
Tom Waldman is the chief of staff to Los Angeles school board member Tamar Galatzan (and he formerly was press secretary to Rep. Howard Berman.) He's also the author of...
Stripped across the bottom of today's front page is a paid ad banner for a candidate in the 27th congressional district. The day before the election. The paper could make...
Oh, let somebody win on Tuesday so it can all be over. KPCC's Frank Stoltze went out walking the district with the candidates for a long story during "Morning Edition"...
Bob Hertzberg is also sniffing around a challenge to Mayor Villaraigosa — or a run for city attorney against Jack Weiss — the former Villaraigosa friend and foe tells...
Yesterday it was a freelancer who argues that District Attorney Steve Cooley has gone easy on Jessica's Law. Today it's Doug Dowie, who worked with Kaye at the Daily News...
Shopping-mall mogul and former Jim Hahn commissioner Rick Caruso says he's considering a challenge to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa next year. He tells the Times' Tina Daunt, for her Cause Celebre...
Andrew Malcolm, the former New York Times correspondent and Laura Bush press secretary (as well as part-time Karl Rove assistant), talks about his conversion from L.A. Times editorial writer to...
Let's see, what's new: Cornel West, the author and Princeton professor of religion, will address campaign workers at the Ridley-Thomas headquarters at 6:30 pm. Both candidates replied to LAT questions...
After Tuesday's Los Angeles Times endorsement of Bernard Parks, a tip came in claiming that the members of the Times editorial board actually preferred Mark Ridley-Thomas in the race for...
Bad crash on Crenshaw Five people, including two children, died when a red-light runner sped through the intersection of Crenshaw and Florence. Two of the victims burned to death inside...
Business and tribal interests located far from the open Inglewood-Compton area Senate district have spent more than $715,000 in independent expenditures to elect ex-assemblyman Rod Wright over rival Mervyn Dymally,...
Linda Douglass, the former television reporter here who is now a contributor editor at National Journal, will join the Barack Obama presidential campaign as a senior strategist and "senior campaign...
Lots of people have gotten caught in the foreclosure vise — but Rep. Laura Richardson? The Democrat won last year's special election in the Long Beach-Compton area, loaning her campaign...
The former chairman and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America — and target of the Napster generation's ire — was named political director and Washington editor-at-large for the...
California Supreme Court chief justice Ronald George gives a two-hour interview to the LAT's Maura Dolan and talks about the court's milestone same-sex marriage ruling: "I think there are...
Stories planted this morning in the Times, Daily News and Wall Street Journal unveil Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's billion-dollar agenda to re-invent Los Angeles' relationship to water. Villaraigosa and DWP chief...
Under fire for his ties to lobbyists Arnie Berghoff and Harvey Englander, former Villaraigosa deputy Marcus Allen withdrew his name from consideration for the job of city administrative officer. He...
Proposition 98 is sold to voters as an anti-eminent domain measure, "but really carries the long-standing agenda of interests that want to extinguish rent control and block water and air...
Councilwoman Hahn responds on her blog to the Fox 11 report that sided with two cops suing the city and tied Hahn to the mother of a Grape Street gang...
Regarding yesterday's item from the Daily Mail about LAPD Chief William Bratton advising the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, Bratton says there has been no contact between them: I have...
Looks like LAPD chief William Bratton could be traveling out of the city more than ever. The mayor of London just announced that he has signed Bratton to help advise...
BongHwan Kim moved up from assistant to become interim general manager of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment after last November's death of Carol Baker Tharp. On Tuesday, Mayor Villaraigosa put...
The pundits pretty much agree that Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign has reached the realistic end, after she lost big today in North Carolina and perhaps won by only a...
For a campaign strategist, does Ace Smith get a lot of coverage or what? In the LAT over the weekend, the consultant for Antonio Villaraigosa's mayoral campaign — and before...
The May issue of W (with Cameron Diaz on the cover) proclaims Arianna Huffington more influential than ever, with her new book doing well and the Huffington Post "arguably the...
On Saturday, candidates Bernard Parks and Mark Ridley-Thomas squared off over what makes them different in the race to succeed Yvonne Burke on the county Board of Supervisors. Here's the...
The Times is moving California political writer Phil Willon onto the Los Angeles City Hall beat. The memo from California Editor David Lauter waxes on a bit about the importance...
There are four weeks weeks and change left until the June 3 primary showdown to decide who inherits the black seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. It's...
Louis Sahagun reports for the Times that "thousands of dockworkers at all 29 West Coast ports, including Los Angeles and Long Beach, took the day off work today in what...
Our blogger-columnist Bill Boyarsky covered a march Downtown on Friday by 700-1,000 janitors and renters of the slum housing around MacArthur Park. It got him thinking about the two (or...
The Los Angeles city clerk's automated email notification of upcoming City Council agendas just gave notice of a budget committee meeting that includes members Nick Pacheco and Cindy Miscikowski. Wait,...
Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon will guest on Sunday's "KNBC News Conference," hosted by Laurel Erickson at 9:30 am on Channel 4. She wants to ask him about the...
The Miguel Contreras Learning Complex is one of LAUSD's newest, most gleaming schools — even if it did take Craigslist intervention to open the swimming pool to the public last...
The Home Depot project on Foothill Boulevard that ran into a mountain of community opposition is back on the agenda. The store applied to City Hall for a permit to...
Councilman Bernard Parks and State Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas, the candidates for county Supervisor in the June primary, are scheduled for their only televised debate on Thursday at 6:30 at the...
Erstwhile and future minor candidate for mayor Walter Moore proves a lightweight in an email exchange with L.A. Times editorial page editor Jim Newton, blogged by Ron Kaye. According to...
From ex-editor Ron Kaye's new blog: In my mind, it's time for people to make a stand for what they believe in, to act like the free people Americans are...
He was on this week talking about the Britney Spears-inspired anti-paparazzi law that LAPD chief William Bratton says is not needed. "Rob Riggle does a fine job of grilling the...
His business partner in the politics site is Henry Copeland, the founder of Blogads and a longtime friend of Layne's. Layne tells Tony Pierce of the LAT blog Web Scout...
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, becoming the go-to voice raising questions about the urbanists' rush to let developers densify new areas of Los Angeles, took his cause to Sunday's LAT Opinion section....
The Rev. Eric Lee, head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in L.A., today sent an apology to Daphna Ziman, the philanthropist who stalked out of an African American awards...
PolitickerCA has a blind item saying that Doug Dowie, the former president of Fleishman-Hillard in L.A. whose conviction on wire fraud is on appeal, is doing some work for political...
Why do two separate City Hall items when they can merge into one? The City Council just voted 11-3 to approve the increases in Department of Water and Power rates....
Labor's Dave Sickler adds the CRA to his resume, which previously logged stops at the city's Board of Public Works and the executive suites at DWP. Esther Cepeda joins the...
This cartoon by Rob Tornoe runs today under the headline "Sam Zell must be very proud" at PolitickerCA. That is the relatively new local outlet of a national chain of...
Charlton Heston wrote a lot of letters to the editor. Today's L.A. Times excerpts some the paper received. Sample: Spike Lee's threat IN a fit of pique at the Cannes...
Monday was the state AG's birthday. The governor from 1974 to 1982 — before that a member of the original elected board of the Los Angeles Community College District, then...
Freshman state Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes — the ex-chief of staff to Alex Padilla in City Hall who dropped out of the 2007 race to succeed his boss on the City...
The L.A. County Business Federation, that new biz group that hopes to rival labor in political heft, made its first candidate endorsement today: Councilman Bernard Parks for county Supervisor. Not...
City ethics commissioner Bill Boyarsky heard from friends what the scene was like inside the exclusive, closed "VIP reception" before last week's political roast at the Century Plaza. He posts...
Sen. Hillary Clinton used her entrance on "The Tonight Show" (Channel 4, 11:35 pm) to defuse the mocking over her tale about dodging gunfire in Bosnia while First Lady. "I...
The Los Angeles City Council was asked yesterday to endorse a 40-hour moratorium on homicide over this coming weekend. After much discussion, they wouldn't call for the moratorium exactly but...
Voting rights advocate Paul H. Turner will be put forth to take Rob Saltzman's seat on the city ethics commission, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced. California Common Cause, where Turner used...
CityBeat's L.A. Sniper columnist Alan Mittelstaedt captures Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky's persuasive argument that the Times' cutback of local coverage through the years contributes to the city's bad traffic by letting...
Fabian Wesson, wife of City Councilman (and former Speaker) Herb Wesson, has opened a committee to explore running for the Assembly in 2010 when Speaker-elect Karen Bass is termed out,...
The City Council will wait a week to vote on the hike sought by the Department of Water and Power. Time for more politicking study. The Daily News, which has...
Newsom, one of the California mayors who might run for governor in 2010, said today in the state capital that it's "wildly premature" to consider running but added he "surely...
Chief administrative officer Karen Sisson is returning to her alma mater, Pomona College, to be vice president and treasurer. She has been CAO since December 2006 and before that was...
As we suggested yesterday in Payback time. Became official at 11 am....
Chief William Bratton has scheduled an 11 am press conference tomorrow with State Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas, the candidate for county Supervisor. They don't officially label it an endorsement event. But...
Well, just a new name. Jamie Court has abandoned the snooze-inducing Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights in favor of...ta dah...Consumer Watchdog.org. Broadcasters everywhere will no doubt applaud the switch....
The Los Angeles City Council voted 10-5 this morning to stop work on the annexation application of the heavily lobbied Las Lomas project in Newhall Pass. Rick Orlov and Kerry...
Chief Bratton gave his side of the SWAT report controversy, and talked about having women in the unit, this afternoon on "Patt Morrison" on KPCC. (Audio.) Mayor Villaraigosa was also...
New U.S. Attorney Thomas OBrien redistributed the 17 lawyers in the public integrity unit in Los Angeles among the major fraud and organized crime sections, the Recorder reports. The San...
The Downtown News' Jon Regardie saw some news in Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa repeating to Charlie Rose the company line that will he run next year for a second term. In...
KNBC Channel 4 has tapped David Markland, a "city captain" at LA Metblogs, to write a couple of items a day under the California Faultline banner. He will focus on...
Oscar Medrano Jr., 47, was picked up by sheriff's deputies at his Gardena jewelry store on suspicion of molesting a 14-year-old girl. No charges filed as yet. Worth noting, I...
Elizabeth Hill announced Thursday she will retire from her "dream job" as Legislative Analyst at the end of the year. "It's time for a new chapter in my life," said...
Looks like it's down to Villaraigosa cousin and labor favorite John Perez. Arturo Chavez, an aide to Sen. Gil Cedillo, and Ricardo Lara, an aide to Speaker Fabian Nez, have...
Here's a YouTube video of New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, at UCLA yesterday, declining to make an endorsement in the presidential race but saying nicer things about Barack Obama. Of...
Rep. Howard Berman, in his 13th term, today was officially named chairman of the House committee on foreign affairs, replacing the late Tom Lantos. Originally a supporter of the Iraq...
The latest entry on the Los Angeles Times politics blog comes from a new — but no longer unexpected — source. It's credited not to one of the Times' bloggers...
The best political contest of the year in Los Angeles, by far, is the showdown between Councilman Bernard Parks and State Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas to be anointed the next Los...
Jane Galbraith is leaving as director of communications for Councilman Tom LaBonge after six years to work in the public affairs group at the Department of Water and Power. She...
You've read about the story, now here's the invitation. Tomorrow night's event for City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo was put together, reports David Zahniser in the Times, by Ken Spiker and...
One is that Speaker Bass is related to State Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas, reports Shane Goldmacher of the Sacramento Bee. She also went to Hamilton High, same as Rep. Howard Berman,...
Harrison Sheppard is returning to the Woodland Hills office, where he will do a mix of editing and reporting, the Sacramento Bee's Capitol Alert says. Sheppard went up to Sacramento...
Mark Lacter and I were just on "Airtalk" talking with Larry Mantle about the buyouts at the Times and other local papers. You can hear it in the archives at...
Assemblywoman Nell Soto, the 81 year-old Democrat from the San Gabriel Valley, hasn't been in Sacramento since at least September. She has been out ill. She also hasn't filed the...
News and politics did well in the LATimes.com stats for February, so maybe there's hope yet. Politics blog Top of the Ticket led the pack of in-house blogs in February...
The former California insurance commissioner, who resigned in 2000 amid corruption allegations, is now a deputy sheriff in Florida. And he just shot somebody: a domestic violence suspect with a...
The eminent domain measure on the June ballot would also phase out some rent control laws, potentially resulting in a $15 million windfall for Sam Zell's Equity Lifestyle Properties Inc.,...
Los Angeles assemblywoman Karen Bass has the votes to become Speaker, the Sacramento Bee reports. Fiona Ma, the San Francisco Democrat who tried to get the job, conceded that Bass...
David Gershwin has been chief of staff to Council President Eric Garcetti since 2005. He is leaving to be a vice president of Cerrell and Associates. Ana Guerrero moves up...
Staff editor-blogger Don Frederick plays it a little coy but says the latest Times/Bloomberg national poll, due to post about 4 pm our time, will show "Obama has erased the...
Murray was in the Assembly for four terms, ran a slate mailer in South L.A. with Mervyn Dymally and spawned ex-legislator Kevin Murray. Willard's name figures prominently today in a...
Even poli sci professors, columnists and all-around political pundits are doing it. Raphael Sonenshein, who's all three and the author of books about Los Angeles politics, is writing the Jews...
Councilman Herb Wesson entertained a lunch crowd at the Current Affairs Forum the other day with some fairly open comments about his political decision making. He didn't run for the...
A day after stepping down from the Community Redevelopment Agency board, labor leader John Perez joined the crowded (for now) race to succeed termed-out Speaker Fabian Nez. Perez's entry is...
The L.A. Police Protective League took umbrage at Times columnist Tim Rutten's chiding of Mayor Villaraigosa for injecting a bit of politics into his TV time at the funeral of...
Councilman Jose Huizar and his wife Ricchelle welcomed Simon Luis Huizar at 3:10 am. The baby was delivered at Arcadia Methodist Hospital weighing 7 pounds, 10 ounces and measuring 20...
I listened to Sam Zell answer questions Thursday night at the Hammer Museum, then afterward shook his hand and chatted a bit about the Times and newspapers. First time I'd...
Slate editor Jacob Weisberg gave a little shout out to LA Observed in his remarks last night at a book party at Arianna Huffington's home. Actually, he noted that I...
Montorio says he was 'surprised' at firing New boss Russ Stanton walked in on Friday and summarily fired the Times managing editor for features. "It was really quite brief and...
The Republican National Committee convened its winter retreat for major donors this weekend at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, presenting Karl Rove and figure such as RNC chairman Robert Duncan —...
Holiday hours today so no Morning Buzz, but stuff has still been piling up on my desk. City Council members are lining up to object to Controller Laura Chick's move...
Joel Stein and his mother, Clinton supporter Rosalind Byrd-Leszczuk, were guests on today's "To the Point" episode examining the support for Barack Obama. Others talking with Warren Olney on KCRW...
President Felipe Calder�n of Mexico was in Chicago and the Bay Area yesterday. Today he'll address the Legislature in Sacramento and visit the Napa Valley, then be greeted at LAX...
Inspectors from the state's Department of Health Services visited the busy emergency room on Feb. 1 and said they would issue a citation of "immediate jeopardy" due to overcrowding and...
Marc Cooper sinks the hooks on Speaker Fabian Nez at the LA Weekly website: With great pride, I accepted the honor a few months back of being labeled 'the state's...
Two state lawmakers want to see what Sacramento can get for the land under the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. They say the proceeds could help out the state budget shortfall....
The Breeze mentioned yesterday that Michael Molina has moved from chief of staff for Councilwoman Janice Hahn to senior director of government affairs for Los Angeles World Airports. Hahn's communications...
City Councilman Richard Alarcon and his wife, Flora Alarcon, welcomed Camilla Isabella Alarcon into the world this morning. She was born at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills...
Democrats in the state Senate have agreed to make Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento the chamber's next leader. That means Alex Padilla, the former president of the Los Angeles City Council,...
There is no shortage of candidates looking to replace Speaker Fabian Nunez now that the voters have rejected the term limits modifications that would have kept him in the Assembly...
Doug Johnson at the Rose Institute's blog has an interesting twist on the usual California divide between the Democratic coast and the Republican interior (itself an update on the old...
In a pop-up window on the Downtown News website, the weekly says: County Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke will endorse Bernard Parks in the race to succeed her, Los Angeles Downtown...
Barack Obama and former president Bill Clinton both called in to El Cucuy de la Maana's radio show this morning. A suspicious device ignited a fire at a home owned...
City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo stepped into the controversy over the unique-to-Los Angeles requirement that independent voters who want to be counted in the Democratic primary be sure to color in...
American Apparel's website and an email are urging people to vote for Obama and McCain, and give a list of reasons why not to vote for Clinton. But Politico's Ben...
A reader sends this photo of the sign hanging outside his poll location on South Genesee in the Pico-Fairfax neighborhood. He also observed a pirate flag hanging over the voting...
Polls are open from 7 am to 8 pm for those who still vote the old fashioned way. Close to half of all California votes will be cast absentee, sent...
It's a big get out the vote day all over town. Former president Bill Clinton will hit four churches in the morning: City of Refuge in Gardena at 8 am,...
Joe Mathews, who's covering the presidential campaign, will leave the Los Angeles Times sometime after Super Tuesday to join the New America Foundation as a California Fellow. Other ex-Timesmen already...
This whole battle for the Latino vote between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama keeps getting more intriguing. Today, the state's biggest Spanish-language newspaper endorsed Obama, saying the historic moment he...
La Opinin confirmed the paper will endorse a Democratic and Republican candidate in tomorrow's edition, CandidatoUSA reports. The endorsement, first in the paper's history for a primary, will be posted...
First presidential endorsements by the LAT since Richard Nixon in 1972. On Barack Obama: "Either of the Democratic candidates would make a strong nominee. But just because the ballot features...
Prompted by the $25,000 spent by the LAPD to escort Britney Spears to the hospital, Councilman Dennis Zine said today he'll push for an ordinance that would create a "personal...
Recalled ex-Gov. Gray Davis, whose fumbling created Arnold Schwarzenegger as a (sort-of) Republican leader, received a standing ovation from the Democrats when he was introduced before last night's debate. We...
Torie Osborn, Mayor Villaraigosa's senior advisor on the homeless and poverty, left the City Hall staff at the end of January. Her departing email to colleagues says it's been nice...
The most popular radio host in Los Angeles — and probably the nation — gave Sen. Edward Kennedy the royal treatment this yesterday morning, before Kennedy's pro-Obama appearance in East...
Sometime LA Observed contributor Jacob Soboroff got Mayor Villaraigosa, Stevie Wonder and Diane Keaton on video talking to him about the media's role in increasing or decreasing voter participation. Soboroff...
Wolf Blitzer just took the stage and did the obvious sound check for the Kodak: "And the Oscar goes to...." Big laugh. 4:51 Blitzer tells the audience there are...
One of the benefits of scoring an assigned seat next to IN Los Angeles magazine's Karen Ocamb: free photos....
Invited debate attendees (and those who bought tickets on the free market) are filing in to the Kodak Theatre through boisterous crowds of supporters with Obama and Clinton signs...
From the roof of Hollywood and Highland a few minutes ago, compliments of Karen Ocamb at IN Los Angeles....
The Daily News' Beth Barrett has posted a story saying that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has taken $10,500 in campaign funds from indicted Chicago entrepreneur Antoin Rezko and his relatives or...
The last surviving Republicans battered each other and invoked Reagan — without evoking him — last night in Simi Valley. Now it's Clinton and Obama's turn to whack away at...
Two weeks after making a pledge of neutrality in the Republican race, Gov. Schwarzenegger is expected to endorse John McCain tomorrow. LAT, William Bradley...
Irene Hirano will step down next year as president of the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo. But that's not her big news. She also become engaged to Sen....
Several dozen of the 500 news media and bloggers credentialed for Thursday night's CNN-Politico-L.A. Times Democratic debate did a walk-through this afternoon at the Kodak Theatre. David Bohrman, CNN's Washington...
Former Daily News publisher Tracy Rafter is chief executive of the new Los Angeles County Business Federation scheduled to be formally announced today with 44 member organizations representing more than...
The candidates will all be here this week, at least for Wednesday's Republican debate at the Reagan library in Simi Valley and the Democrats' face-off on Thursday evening at the...
How happy was the Barack Obama camp to get Maria Elena Durazo on board a couple of weeks back? Pretty happy, apparently. Today the executive secretary of the L.A. County...
Because it feels like a briefs kind of day. Departing eBay chief Meg Whitman is talking to Republicans about her running for Governor in 2010. LAT Small pet turtles are...
A tribute to retired City Hall powerhouse Ron Deaton last evening brought out "a who's who in the city of Los Angeles," in the words of City Council member Wendy...
29 LAPD officers may face May Day melee charges LAPD officials will submit a report naming 29 officers responsible for 72 different allegations to the District Attorney's Office and the...
Two legendary ex-Lakers are jostling for position over presidential endorsements. Nico Pitney at the Huffington Post: Unbeknownst to him, basketball legend-turned-author Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was pulled into the 2008 campaign fray...
You may remember awhile back (June 2006, actually) that the L.A. Times editorial page said it would resume making presidential candidate endorsements. Those plans survive the change in editors, publishers...
Council President Eric Garcetti cancelled this morning's meeting after using the internal City Hall squawk box to beseech members to show up. When a quroum of ten didn't appear, he...
It's Oscar nominations morning Witching hour is 5:30 am Hollywood time. Find out if you were nominated at the official site. For post-game analysis, take your pick of these or...
"I still have no memory of the trip to Costa Rica or anything that happened," Ron Deaton, once the most powerful figure in City Hall, tells Rick Orlov in the...
Although the Los Angeles Times is listed as one of the sponsors (along with CNN and Politico) of the presidential campaign debates behind held here Jan. 30 and 31, the...
Arnold admits his early positions were bogus He says inexperience and naivete were behind things like calling for mass elimination of state departments. (But it fooled enough voters to get...
Hillary Clinton campaigned today at Citizens of Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Compton and at Cal State Northridge — Andrew from Here in Van Nuys got some pics of everyone...
Democratic hopeful John Edwards is in town today. He'll drop in at SEIU Local 721, the public service workers, after noon and be endorsed by Councilman Richard Alarcon and SEIU...
Dubious media events most likely to make tonight's local news At 8 am, the media masses are invited to Burbank to observe the casting of actor statuettes for the SAG...
Media man-about-town Richard Rushfield is, these days, recognized mostly for his reviews of "American Idol" in the L.A. Times, where he's the website's entertainment editor. In his freelance life, Rushfield...
Barack Obama is stopping in at the Los Angeles Times this afternoon for a meeting with the editorial board. Tonight he has the big fundraiser in Rustic Canyon with the...
Riordan and Hahn veteran Diego Alvarez was appointed Deputy Mayor for Legislative and Intergovernmental Relations. This makes him Mayor Villaraigosa's chief liaison to federal, state and local governments and agencies....
City Council steps in on LAPD financial disclosure The Police Protective League gets through to council members with its protests over the rules for narcotics and gang cops. The Council...
Democratic contender Barack Obama has scheduled a "roundtable on economic opportunity" at a private home in Van Nuys tomorrow afternoon. He's also got a fundraiser Wednesday night at the Pacific...
This evening's CNN-Los Angeles Times-Politico poll shows California support for Sen. Hillary Clinton running strong — she beats Obama 47-31% in the state, with Edwards pulling 10%. Here are some...
The Center for Public Integrity has launched a website to keep track of the millions pouring into the presidential campaigns. Obama, they report, won the New Hampshire money primary. The...
Clinton defies the polls and the pundits and wins New Hampshire, 39% to Obama's 36%. McCain takes the Republican side, leaving Romney with the silver again. The Huckabee juggernaut stalled...
Safiya Jones, communications director for Councilman Bill Rosendahl, checks out. Her exit email: Dear All, It is with deep respect and gratitude that I say farewell to all of you....
Tina Daunt posits in her Cause Celebre column in today's Calendar that Hollywood's Hillary contingent is on the verge of buying tickets on the Barack Obama bus. On desks all...
Unhappy with the LAPD's new financial disclosure rules for drug and gang cops, the L.A. Police Protective League has bought radio time on KFWB and KABC for an ad that...
Democratic Rep. Tom Lantos announced today he has cancer of the esophagus and will leave Congress at the end of his term. Lantos, who represents the Bay Area, has been...
The Internet has spoken — no Los Angeles story came close to surpassing the interest in Antonio Villaraigosa and his affair with Telemundo rising star Mirthala Salinas. First came the...
Question: Where will Mayor Villaraigosa and Chief Bratton drag the media to announce the 2007 crime stats? AKA, a "historic reduction in homicides and violent crime." Presser is Wednesday at...
Let's face it, the fun place to be for a politics junkie right now is Iowa. Mayor Villaraigosa flew in Saturday (after skiing in Aspen with his kids, reportedly) to...
Remember when the City Council got around that whole referendum thing by, wink wink, making a few changes to its living wage policy for the LAX-area hotels? It worked. A...
A long story at Editor & Publisher.com on newspaper political blogs ledes with the veteran reporter who co-writes Top of the Ticket, the L.A. Times campaign blog. The story muses,...
The erstwhile LA Observed video maker pulled up to the Des Moines Register's Republican debate in Johnston, Iowa in a horse and buggy, trying to make a point about outdated...
No way the mayor's organizers could let this one slip away. Parents and teachers at six LAUSD campuses — including one of the high schools Mayor Villaraigosa attended, Roosevelt —...
Anonymous residents of Rancho Palos Verdes have demanded, through an attorney, that the city produce eleven years of public records — "all documents, communications, e-mail, memos, contracts and other writing...
Among them is director Oz E. Scott, appointed to the Cultural Heritage Commission. Release with bios follows....
Remember Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, the journalist who quit the L.A. Times in a huffy outburst and resurfaced as a successful novelist? (And who more recently mourned the death of Cathy Seipp.)...
Before a City Council committee voted yesterday to tentatively approve a controversial condo project in Van Nuys Valley Village, a planning staffer for the city called the developer and told...
In addition to his blog here at LA Observed, Bill Boyarsky is a regular columnist for Robert Scheer and Zuade Kaufman at Truthdig. They actually pay him, unlike here, and...
Ted Johnson, the Variety managing editor who writes the trade's politics blog, Wilshire & Washington, posts about Sen. Hillary Clinton's appearance Saturday at a local environmental gathering: At [a] global...
Michael Aguirre began "investigating" San Diego's PBS station after cancellation of a show where he was a frequent guest. As soon as light was cast on his stunt, he dropped...
Heidi Klum tries to appear charmed at the gift of pumpkin bread from Councilman Tom LaBonge, but most of the Victoria's Secret Angels seem — let's call it wary. Perhaps...
Events are starting up for Bill Boyarsky's major political history from University of California Press, Big Daddy: Jesse Unruh and the Art of Power Politics. Unruh, of course, was the...
USC's Norman Lear Center and pollster John Zogby tested for the link between political leaning and taste in entertainment. They conclude that 37% of the nation bleeds red, 39% fit...
During today's discussion of the expansion at Holy Cross hospital in the Northeast Valley, Councilman Richard Alarcon made City Hall reporters sit up in their chairs and look at each...
Another of Speaker Fabian Nuez's legal dodges to squeeze money out of special interests has been uncovered. The LAT's Nancy Vogel and Evan Halper report that companies like AT&T, Verizon...
In January the Sacramento Bee baffled people by going against the trend and moving its online political coverage behind the pay wall — a high wall at $499 a year....
Pajamas Media's Ron Rosenbaum has got some chatter going with an item that hand-wrings about media gossip that the L.A. Times is sitting on an explosive story about sex and...
Hmm, guess it was all pre-arranged. Mayor Villaraigosa today will nominate H. David Nahai for the vacancy at the head of the Department of Water and Power. He quit the...
Ron Deaton made it official that he won't be returning to the top job at the Department of Water and Power. He either resigned (Times) or retired (Daily News) —...
State Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas has formed an exploratory committee to run for Supervisor Yvonne Burke's seat and filed his intent papers today. He told the Downtown News, "I am a...
Both the Times and Daily News have stories today on efforts to quietly reach a severance settlement with Gloria Jeff, the not very effective chief of the city Department of...
Assembly Speaker Fabian Nez has been taking a pounding in the Times for his extravagant spending with money stuffed in his pockets by the interests who grease lawmakers in this...
Lauritzen died today of a brain tumor, according to the Board of Education and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. He lost his reelection campaign for the board earlier this year. Lauritzen had...
Council President Eric Garcetti has been close to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa since the new administration took over in 2005, even though Garcetti actually endorsed then-Mayor Jim Hahn for reelection. Now...
With another of its occasional Sunday packages railing about city salaries, the Daily News posts online a database listing the name and salary of all 8,500 workers at the Department...
Mayor Villaraigosa has dumped Department of Transportation chief Gloria Jeff and replaced her with longtime City Hall hand Rita Robinson. Jeff lasted a year and a half, after being presented...
The Advocate, feeling pretty good after celebrating its 40th anniversary, is proud that news features editor Sean Kennedy scored an interview with Sen. Hillary Clinton at the recent Logo/Human Rights...
Tom Tugend in the Jewish Journal has more details on the incident where city building inspectors ordered an Orthodox shul to halt its services on the eve of Yom Kippur,...
Mayor Villaraigosa signs off on a deal brokered by Council President Eric Garcetti. It's less, obviously, than the $2.7 million Pierce and the City Council agreed to last year, but...
Marc Cooper is joining the Huffington Post as special correpondent and will direct coverage of the 2008 political campaigns for OfftheBus.net, a co-venture of the Huffington Post and NewAssignment.net, NYU...
Missed these in yesterday's flood of email — new appointees by Mayor Villaraigosa to the Cultural Heritage Commission and other city boards. Details after the jump....
Bill Boyarsky went back to the ethics commission yesterday for the first time since his fellow commissioners didn't elect him president. In fact, nobody seconded his nomination. They didn't let...
Constitutional law scholar and media quotemeister Erwin Chemerinsky was all set to be named dean of the new UC Irvine law school — he even signed the contract — but...
Remember when former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan was so perturbed at the L.A. Times that he dallied with starting his own rival paper? He even produced a prototype of...
After Ruby De Vera finished third in the 2005 City Council race that elected Jose Huizar, her boss — Councilman Ed Reyes — fired De Vera as his office manager....
The Times has a piece tomorrow saying that Mayor Villaraigosa and some other local electeds use more water at home than normal people — in some cases much more. OK,...
Controller Laura Chick says that "in our enthusiasm to put his expert abilities to work again for the city of Los Angeles, we lost sight of how this contract would...
Republicans in Los Angeles are being offered $15 to show up at an upcoming taping of the "Half Hour News Hour" on Fox. From the email: The Half Hour News...
Former Assemblyman Paul Koretz put himself in the running for the 5th council district race that will be fought the next two years over the seat to be vacated by...
Jonathan Diamond is leaving the City Attorney's press office after a bit more than two years. He had been assistant managing editor at the Los Angeles Business Journal, and plans...
Big weekend story in the LAT — a solid gotcha: L.A. official steered work to relatives Nearly $800,000 in contracts, often with inflated prices, went to family and firms with...
Dakota Communications political consultant Rick Taylor didn't like having his tactical memo exposed by the group fighting a Home Depot store in the Sunland area. So, in a not so...
A memo from political adviser Rick Taylor lays out Home Depot's plans to stack a City Council meeting next week with supporters of the store's desire to open a new...
Art Marroquin is leaving City News Service for the Daily Breeze, where he will take over the LAX and Port of Los Angeles beat. That's a major beat for the...
Lots of L.A. city council members are happy about this — a judge rejected a challenge to the ballot measure that extends their term limits. Voters in Los Angeles passed...
Invitations have gone out for a Sept. 8 Barack Obama fundraiser at Oprah Winfrey's home in the Santa Barbara area. The ante for entry is the usual $2,300, but those...
Fed up with delays in opening the filled-and-waiting swimming pool at the Miguel Contreras Learning Complex, activists have posted their own Craigslist ad to help the city hire the necessary...
Former Los Angeles city administrative officer William Fujioka, 55, was hired today by the Board of Supervisors as the countys chief executive officer, at an annual salary of $310,000. He...
Department of Water and Power general manager Ron Deaton is in an intensive care unit in Costa Rica "with his family by his side" after suffering what a DWP statement...
Steven Maviglio, deputy chief of staff to Speaker Fabian Nez, called the LA Weekly's Marc Cooper the state's worst political journalist on the state Democrats' website. Cooper calls it a...
The city council voted unanimously today to keep Eric Garcetti in the president's chair. Councilwoman Wendy Greuel also stays as pro tem. Garcetti re-appointed Jan Perry to the position of...
The Times editorial page calls Rocky Delgadillo "unfit" to be City Attorney and urges he do the right thing and resign. Under the headline "The honorable thing," the paper says:...
Two Southern California legislators, Sen. Edward Vincent and Assemblywoman Nell Soto, have been away from the Capitol injured or sick for six months of the 2007 legislative session — but...
Yesterday it was Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa giving a coveted spot on the full-time, paid Board of Public Works to labor attorney Julie Gutman. Today it's a bunch of commission appointments....
Now Michelle Delgadillo has business tax problems, but abruptly took care of them Friday in advance of a new round of stories. LAT, DN Popular progressive and previously faceless...
Now this should get interesting. LA Weekly political reporter David Zahniser, the hottest property on the City Hall beat, is jumping to the L.A. Times to cover Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa....
A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that former Fleishman-Hillard executives Doug Dowie and John Stodder should remain free on bail while their cases are...
Word out of the Santa Monica courthouse is that Michelle Delgadillo came in this morning, pleaded no contest and received twelve months probation on top of paying fines. Stories forthcoming....
Michelle Delgadillo, wife of the city attorney, has an outstanding warrant for her arrest for failing to appear in court nearly nine years ago on charges of driving without insurance,...
Yes, the wife of City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo was driving the city-owned GMC Yukon when it hit a pole in 2004. Yes, he'll pay for the repairs — he wrote...
The Times editorial page launched a Rocky Watch box this morning that counts the days until City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo "comes clean" about who was driving his city-owned GMC Yukon...
The mogul's backing of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is called "the political equivalent of the Oscar" in the Cause Celebre column by Tina Daunt that plays on this morning's LAT...
It's amazing what basking in the Paris Hilton media glare can do for your profile. Even Radar Online is now covering Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, posting today about...
Today's New York Times reports on the rapprochement between LAPD chief William Bratton and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who "had not spoken to each other in 10 years....
Former editorial writer Andrew Malcolm handles the West Coast, Washington bureau editor Don Frederick the east for Top of the Ticket. What can one more blogger bring to the nation's...
Yes! Sometimes things just work that way. The DN editorial page staff has launched a new blog where editor Chris Weinkopf (from the right), editorial writer Mariel Garza (leftier) and...
State Assemblywoman Nell Soto, who is 80, has been out with a bad case of pneumonia since March — not that the political media has noticed. The San Gabriel Valley...
The Sacramento Bee's subscriber-only Capitol Alert reports today on a nasty fight between Valley assemblyman Lloyd Levine and his former chief of staff, Stuart Waldman. Levine fired the aide last...
The Times' Sacramento blogger Robert Salladay, who took the buyout, signed off this afternoon. Political Muscle will continue in some guise, he writes. From his farewell post: The Political Muscle...
The former city comissioner, already waiting trial on bribery and other charges, will be arraigned tomorrow on a new conflict of interest felony that stems from his time on the...
The L.A. Weekly's David Zahniser is out with a cluster of stories on one of the least talked-about big stories in Los Angeles: the push by planners, pols led by...
The Bush Administration has settled on Thomas O'Brien, chief of the criminal division for the U.S. attorney's office here and a former gang prosecutor in the district attorney's office, to...
The vote counters finally called it a day and proclaimed Georgia Mercer the winner in the March 15 runoff election for the L.A. Community College District. She edged challenger Roy...
Patrick McGreevy, a fixture at City Hall for the L.A. Times, is transferring to the buyout-impacted Sacramento bureau. Memo after the jump....
This time it's the city of Claremont getting all umbraged up about the Claremont Insider, recounted on the blog of San Garbriel Valley Tribune city editor Edward Barrera. Previous: Foothill...
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson won't announce Monday at the L.A. Press Club after all. His campaign sent out an urgent notice that the Millennium Biltmore downtown is where he'll...
That consulting contract we exposed on Tuesday that would have given newly elected state assemblyman Felipe Fuentes $20,000 in city funds for services to the 7th district, where he had...
Felipe Fuentes, the former chief of staff to 7th district councilman Alex Padilla, is on today's ballot running in the special election in the 39th assembly district to replace Richard...
Ace Smith, the strategist behind Antonio Villaraigosa's win in 2005, is now working on the presidential campaign of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. The weekend San Francisco Chronicle called him a...
Some stuff that caught my eye over the weekend... Chief Bratton is in treacherous waters trying to satisfy both the police union and the people of the city in the...
The anonymous Foothill Cities news and gossip blog pulled its recent posts on goings-on at Pomona city hall after receiving a cease-and-desist threat from the Pomona city attorney. The city...
Daniel Weintraub reports on the Sacramento Bee's Capitol Alert website that Robert Salladay, who writes the LAT's Political Muscle blog from Sacramento, plans to take the buyout. Here's the item,...
Since January, KMEX here has been blanketing its Spanish-language audience with encouragement for green card holders who are eligible to apply for U.S. citizenship. Now the project is going nationwide...
Valerie McDonald, daughter of the late Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald, added her name to the list of candidates in the 37th district special election and picked up the endorsement of Rep....
Mayor Villaraigosa, Chief William Bratton and police commission president John Mack have called a 3:30 news conference that the mayor's office bills as "to discuss changes in LAPD command staff"...
"I am not in prison! At least not yet, not for a few more weeks and hopefully never," John Stodder says in a Dear Friends email to city staffers, friends...
Three swastikas and an anti-Semitic message were found this morning on the front door of Councilman Jack Weiss' Sherman Oaks field office. The red-and-black Nazi symbols were printed on sheets...
Sen. Dianne Feinstein's opposition on behalf of neighbors posed too great an obstacle and the FBI will look for another location to build its new L.A.-area headquarters. The feds had...
The L.A. Times Sacramento bureau is looking to bring in a new body to help cover Gov. Schwarzenegger. Here's how the offer went out to the newsroom: From: Janet Clayton,...
Last week the staff of Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald put out the word that she would take a leave of absence to recuperate from an unstated form of cancer. Now AP...
The Center for Responsive Politics broke out the by-state contributions to the '08 presidential candidates: Sen. Hillary Clinton leads the way in mining California for bucks so far. Here are...
In the new W, former Variety scribe Gabriel Snyder explains the role of Hollywood political consultants and updates the roster of who works with whom. Noah Mamet, for instance, wrangled...
We posted a note when Dave Lesher opened a California office for the New America Foundation, so it's only right to observe that he's leaving. Lesher, the former editor of...
A three-judge panel of the state's 2nd District Court of Appeal unanimously kicked aside Mayor Villaraigosa's quest to rewrite democracy in Los Angeles and take power over the schools. They...
Assemblyman Lloyd Levine's office helpfully sends along the news that the boss just finished the Boston Marathon. His time was 3:10:03, good for a pace of 7:15 per mile. Levine...
Mayor Villaraigosa named Olga Garay as general manager of the Department of Cultural Affairs. She was Program Director for the Arts for eight years at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation...
The Daily News politics blog, mostly silent since March, has come back to life. Rick Orlov introduces himself from City Hall in today's Sausage Factory post. Excerpt: In my real...
President Bush has an evening fundraiser in Brentwood, there are accidents on both sides of the 405 near Wilshire, and the northbound Pasadena is backed up near I-5. Luckily, Bush...
Waiting to hear just when (or if, considering appeals) he goes to federal prison in the Fleishman-Hillard case, Doug Dowie is writing up a storm. In addition to the screenplays...
LAPD chief William Bratton did the deed today and requested a second term. "It's been an honor and a privilege to serve as Los Angeles' chief of police," he said...
The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics ran the numbers on victorious Tribune suitor Sam Zell and calls him a political contributor who gives generously to both Democrats and Republicans. "Double-giving...
Student journalists at Occidental College dug through old literary magazines to find two poems that Sen. Barack Obama published in 1982. "What better than the poetry of a 19-year-old college...
President Bush gave Attorney General Alberto Gonzales a vote of confidence last night, but why let that ruin a good story? This morning's Daily Journal speculates on possible replacements for...
Technically, I guess it's the booboo of the week because it was in last Thursday's LA Weekly issue. But I just noticed: The article Nasty Battle for Classroom Control [March...
Mayor Villaraigosa is expected by many to eventually endorse Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for president, but for now he is saying nice things about several of the Democrats and being...
In this week's The Z Files, posted to the LA Weekly website more than a day early, David Zahniser reports on a recall move against 5th District councilman Jack Weiss...
Claudia McMahon joins the staff of Councilman Dennis Zine today as communications deputy. "She comes to us with a wealth of media experience including several years as a senior producer...
Mayor Villaraigosa's main photo op for Monday will be to announce that the only African and sole female elephant at the Los Angeles Zoo is being retired to the Performance...
Sacramento Bee reporter Aurelio Rojas visits with Doug Dowie (his former boss at UPI) in today's paper and says the story of the ex-editor and Fleishman-Hillard power broker "has parallels...
Assemblyman Richard Alarcon wins a seat on the City Council without a runoff, pulling 54.6% to Monica Rodriguez's 27.9%. (She was the one endorsed by all the newspapers.) Two precincts...
David Abel, publisher of The Planning Report and Metro Investment Report, now has a colloquium named after him. "Rethinking Governance in the Age of MySpace.com" will be held Thursday night...
The LA Weekly's David Zahniser asks how it is that Assemblyman Richard Alarcon spent more than $415,000 running for election when he didn't have an opponent. Zahniser's answer: "For starters,...
The dimensions of departing airports chief Lydia Kennard's deal to keep a hand in the pot at LAX are becoming clear. Nice deal, if you can get it. The Board...
Adolfo V. Nodal was general manager of the city's Cultural Affairs Department from 1988 until the Hahn Administration took over City Hall in 2001. (He left in January 2001, during...
Gov. Schwarzenegger took his vision of post-partisan love to the National Press Club in Washington and invoked the image of his cigar-sharing refuge back home in Sacramento: "In the courtyard...
The mayor today also nominated his new top people to run the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment. Carol Baker Tharp, the former executive director of Coro Southern California, gets the general...
David Zahniser in the LA Weekly ferrets out the story behind 4903 La Calandria Way, an El Sereno home where City Councilman Jose Huizar may or may not have lived...
When former Assemblywoman Cindy Montaez made like the good Democrat and dropped out of the race for City Council to make way for State Sen. Richard Alarcon, you just knew...
LA Observed's Jacob Soboroff took his video camera behind the scenes at today's crowded Barack Obama rally at Rancho Cienega Rec Center and chatted with Councilwoman Janice Hahn, Channel 4...
A memo just sent around the New York Times newsroom by executive editor Bill Keller announces a new political editor and greater attention to covering the 2008 campaign on the...
A 20-foot-long sign criticizing President Bush was purloined from a building facade on Abbot Kinney Sunday night. Venice Paper reports that "to steal the sign, thieves broke into [a] private...
The press release for this evening's Occidental College rally for former student Barack Obama uses the familiar nickname Oxy just like the locals do — but spells it Occi as...
National editor Suzanne Daley wishes the former L.A. staff correspondent well in a newsroom note posted at Romenesko: Charlie was part of the team that won the Pulitzer for the...
Hey, thanks. More than 75 caption ideas came in for the photo of Mayor Villaraigosa and Paris Hilton visiting at a Grammy party. Some cutlines were wittier than others, some...
The City Council vote was 13-0 for the new high-rise and shopping district to surround Disney Hall. "This is a historic day for Los Angeles," said Eli Broad, who has...
This YouTube video from Charlotte, North Carolina shows that we aren't alone in having regulars who amuse at city council sessions and other government meetings. He looks meek, but give...
First there was "Jack Dunphy" opining anonymously at the National Review Online. Now there is Sgt. Sunil Dutta writing in the latest issue of The Nation, under his real name,...
Thomas Mauk, the man who wouldn't be L.A. County CAO, wasn't the first to reject a deal with the Board of Supervisors. Dr. Joshua Perper, the Broward County (Fla.) Medical...
Politics in the small cities spread across Los Angeles County are often more colorful and vicious than those downtown. (Witness today's LA Weekly piece on threats against a citizen in...
Aaron Gross, the deputy chief of staff to Councilman Bill Rosendahl, is moving down to the third floor to be the City Council liaison for Mayor Villaraigosa. Taking Gross's place...
While debating the war at National Review Online two years ago, Times op-ed columnist from the right Jonah Goldberg offered the following wager: Let's make a bet. I predict that...
Ryan Knoll and Scott Schmidt, the Republican political and communication consultants behind RSC Partners, are the new landlords at LA Voice.org. Creator Mack Reed made it official tonight that he...
Convicted and sentenced former Fleishman-Hillard exec Doug Dowie has optioned a screenplay to Jonathan Sanger, a producer on The Elephant Man, The Producers and Vanilla Sky. "It's kind of an...
While the English-language media has largely given Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a pass for his latest musings on ethnicity, Daniel Hernandez blogs that today's La Opinin went with a headline that...
City News Service has moved an advisory saying the Board of Supervisors rehired David Janssen, luring him out of retirement with a promise of new powers....
Considering that Controller Laura Chick billed Karen Sisson last night (and in a Jan. 16 press release) as the new City Administrative Officer, this announcement has a tinge of anti-climax...
Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald got some attention in today's Washington Post, but not the kind she orders her press aides to go get. The paper's Lois Romano says that Millender-McDonald, whose...
The City Elf blog went out to Controller Laura Chick's panel on "Women at the Top" last night and posted a report. On the panel were some of the highest-powered...
We told you yesterday afternoon that Rebecca Schoenkopf became the third exit in a week from the OC Weekly, and said her farewell "Commie Girl" column would run today. Well...
In San Francisco, that is. Mayor Gavin Newsom's former deputy chief of staff and current re-election campaign manager, Alex Tourk, resigned Wednesday after confronting his boss about an affair Newsom...
Bill Boyarsky directed the Times reporters covering the county Board of Supervisors for more than ten years. He doesn't blame Thomas Mauk for fleeing from the CAO job before he...
The City Council just voted 14-0 to rescind the living wage ordinance it imposed last year on LAX-area hotels. If the council had not caved, a referendum qualified by business...
FBI investigators have contacted current and former city officials in Monrovia and Fontana about Rep. Gary Miller's land sales, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune reported this morning. The Brea Republican,...
Doug Dowie insisted he was innocent in a three-minute speech to the court before sentencing. John Stodder gets 15 months. The Times web story doesn't say where they will serve...
KFWB and City News Service are reporting that Thomas Mauk, who the Board of Supervisors announced yesterday had accepted the job of chief administrative officer of Los Angeles County, has...
Catching up to a Rick Orlov story from the weekend (and Steve Hymon's in the Times), Controller Laura Chick says she is considering a return to the City Council when...
Thomas G. Mauk, the executive officer of Orange County since 2004, will start March 12 as chief administrative officer of Los Angeles County. The Board of Supervisors offered him the...
Mayor Villaraigosa gave the Democratic Party radio address this morning and said, with regard to the war in Iraq, "it's time for a new direction." Bipartisanship was the bigger theme,...
Cathy Warner, who is 63, announced her diagnosis at Tuesday's meeting of the Whittier City Council. "It's a responsibility as elected folks to make sure that our constituents know that...
Politico, the new politics website, has a nice early scoop. The site posted the full 140-page battle plan for the Rudy W. Giuliani presidential campaign that was reportedly lost in...
The Sacramento Bee today announced a big new risky online gamble: a premium politics website called CapitolAlert that costs a whopping $499 a year and gives subscribers early access to...
The PR industry anony-blog Strumpette is making fun today of Villaraigosa press deputy Matt Szabo. He came up in Steve Lopez's recent Los Angeles Times column on Hummer-driving transportation aide...
Martin had been chief of staff to Mayor Richard Riordan back in the day. A fellow Riordan Administration alum, City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, today named her general counsel for Los...
Rick Orlov gives a sneak peek at tomorrow's Tipoff column in the Daily News to LA Observed video blogger Jacob Soboroff — psst, there's a good item about City Attorney...
Judge Dzintra Janavs denied a motion by the mayor's lawyers to delay enforcement of her December ruling that AB 1381 is unconstitutional. The whole issue is headed to the state...
The Engineers and Architects Association at City Hall has voted to accept the recent contract deal negotiated with the city. Website....
Former Fleishman-Hillard executives Doug Dowie and John Stodder received a sentencing reprieve until January 30. They were convicted last May of federal charges in the overbilling of the city Department...
Can't remember the last time we posted so much on the weekend, including Mark Lacter's exclusive memo from LAT publisher David Hiller on rethinking the Times website. The menu for...
What a story. Two high-ranking city traffic engineers, Gabriel Murillo and Kartik Patel, were charged Friday with breaking into the city's automated traffic system and disabling the lights at four...
Now this is cool. The Jewish Journal has turned up and posted on its website an audio recording of the Rev. Martin Luther King giving a sermon on Feb. 26,...
There was yesterday's piece in the Christian Science Monitor (which prompted some email), now outgoing chief administrative officer David Janssen says Los Angeles County needs a powerful executive to make...
All that bravado about making the party scene on crutches is so last week. Gov. Schwarzenegger's office just announced that his broken femur will keep him away from tomorrow's inauguration...
Today's Christian Science Monitor takes up the question of whether Los Angeles County should have its own elected executive. Reporter Daniel Wood takes off from Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky's remarks at...
City news junkies will soon start hearing more about the "912 Commission." More formally called the Neighborhood Council Review Commission, it is required by the City Charter revamp that created...
We urged City Hall reporters to make the calls last week. Nobody got a story out of it, and now the news breaks on its own: Lydia Kennard is stepping...
You can't make this stuff up. Some gems from the archive: Antonio and the schools: Mayor Villaraigosa began the year talking tough about taking over LAUSD, compromised in the Legislature...
City ethics commissioner Bill Boyarsky took the on-line ethics course required of Los Angeles officials and found the exercise filled him with mixed emotions. "Campaign contributions -- the target of...
Judge Dzintra Janavs bitch slapped Mayor Villaraigosa over his LAUSD compromise, David Zahniser writes in the LA Weekly. Greg Stacy found out the hard way, after 600 weeks writing...
Former president Gerald Ford died today, Betty Ford announced. No location was given, but the Fords were residing in Rancho Mirage on the desert near Palm Springs. Ford lived to...
Print reporters who have to work the dead week between Christmas and New Year's are always scratching for news to fill the time and the papers, so here's a live...
Ex-mayor Richard Riordan already owns the Original Pantry downtown and Gladstone's 4 Fish on Pacific Coast Highway. Now he's close to closing a deal for the venerable Mort's Deli in...
A recent email reminded all the lawyers in City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo's criminal branch never to talk to reporters without clearance — and how they should recognize a newsworthy legal...
Superior Court Judge Dzintra I. Janavs this afternoon threw out AB 1381. The law that Mayor Villaraigosa and friends pushed through the Legislature would have given the mayor power over...
Not much of a hiatus today, it appears — but I promise to make up for it tomorrow. Peace in our time: the city and the Engineers and Architects Association...
Four in ten California voters (41.5%) cast their November ballots absentee. Los Angeles County voters not so much: just 26% of those who voted used the convenient absentee method. (Contrast...
In July, Ryan A. Jimenez left the staff of the Geffen Playhouse to become press secretary for Maria Shriver in Sacramento. He abruptly departed that job last week, says the...
Yeah, the former head of LAPD internal affairs cops to the affair with a sergeant under his command — but only for three years! Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally apologized (sort...
Nate Holden, the ex-city councilman and state legislator, bopped into the HMS Bounty on Wilshire Boulevard last night confident of two things. For 40 years the political consulting firm of...
The list of co-chairs for Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's inaugural includes leading California Democrats Pelosi, Feinstein, Boxer, Villaraigosa and Nez — and even a few Republicans such as Pete Wilson...
When Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally got in trouble recently over issuing fake badges to friends and campaign contributors, he called the fellow Democrat who was assigned to investigate, Hector De La...
Both Felipe Fuentes and Cindy Montaez have been persuaded to drop out of the 7th council district special election and make way for Richard Alarcon. I assume Fuentes will now...
My cover story on Antonio Villaraigosa's first eighteen months as mayor has gone online at the still-in-transition Los Angeles magazine website. The piece delves into the roots of the mayor's...
School board incumbent David Tokofsky, a critic of the mayor's bill to dilute the board's powers, has filed papers with the City Clerk dropping his campaign for reelection, according to...
Jan Perry and her estranged husband, Douglas Galanter, blame him and his business problems for falling $270,000 behind on taxes and being late on mortgage payments. Legal separation papers and...
On January 1 Mayor Villaraigosa becomes responsible for three clusters of L.A. Unified schools — three high schools and the elementary and middle schools that feed students to them. It's...
There will be a new lineup of Los Angeles Times editors managing coverage of the next presidential race. The desk will be bicoastal: one editor in Washington, one here in...
Richard Bloom, the mayor from 2002 to 2004, is back again after the bi-annual dance of the slates on the Santa Monica City Council. You probably have to live there...
William Morris has sent along the press release on former Villaraigosa deputy Cecile Ablack, who we told you Friday was going Hollywood. The flackage — which notes that Chris Petrikin,...
Political Muscle, the Times' Sacramento politics blog, sees a certain resemblance between Borat Sagdiyev and newly elected state Assembly member (and ex-L.A. City Council member) Mike Feuer. Can you tell...
Political theater plays out: Mayor Villaraigosa accepted the fire chief's resignation this morning. Just now William Bamattre faced the cameras at a station in Panorama City, said the politics got...
Sure, the city promoted William Bamattre to fire chief eleven years ago hoping he would clean up the station house culture of abusing women and minorities that kept raising its...
If it seems as if State Sen. Richard Alarcon is always running for something, you aren't wrong. Last year he campaigned in the primary for mayor and lost, then immediately...
LAist redesigns wider with biggified headlines and pictures. For more on the dustup at USC's Daily Trojan, check out blogger Brendan Loy's rant-like dissection. The food blog Amuse-Biatch (just...
An email floating around Democratic circles suggests more turnover is in store for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's media operation. Press Secretary Joe Ramallo recently moved up 1st Street to run communications...
City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, through chief deputy Rich Llewellyn, has asked the City Council to waive its attorney-client privilege and divulge what it was told about the hazing case involving...
The Daily News' new columnist, writer of the weekend piece about Mayor Villaraigosa's childhood and personal exaggerations, has been around Los Angeles journalism since he landed a column at the...
Mayor Villaraigosa used his veto power for the first time and killed the $2.7 million payout to firefighter Tennie Pierce that was negotiated by City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo and approved...
After UC Irvine historian and controversial Los Angeles chronicler Mike Davis was called a "Marxist apocalypticist" by Gregory Rodriguez in the LAT's Current section on Sunday, he fired off an...
Mayor Villaraigosa wants to say something about the City Council's $2.7 million settlement with firefighter and hazing victim Tennie Pierce and has summoned the media at 4 pm. Talk radio...
Rupert Murdoch pulls the plug on the Judith Regan book and the Fox TV special. "We are sorry for any pain that his has caused the families of Ron Goldman...
Myths of Antonio: In a big blow-out on the Daily News front page, Tony Castro uses psychiatrists and psychologists to analyze Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's exaggerations about his past. Attempts to...
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky says he's actively looking for support to put a county executive initiative on next year's ballot. Voters have rejected the idea of an elected county exec before,...
In 1999 contractor Dillingham-Ray Wilson filed a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles for withholding payment for work done at the massive Hyperion Sewage Treatment Plant on the coast...
New logo, typeface, departments and architecture to the magazine, which celebrates 45 years in December. It's the Power Issue, hitting newstands now with pieces by me on Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa,...
After today's Ethics Commission meeting, the panel's vice president writes, "Give me a cynical old pol who at least keeps his or her word...We voted 4-1 to send a public...
No challengers filed against City Council members Wendy Greuel, Tom LaBonge and Greig Smith by Saturday's deadline. Minor rivals tentatively filed their intentions to run against Herb Wesson, Bernard Parks...
Bill Boyarsky, the newest LA Observed contributor, used to be city editor of the Los Angeles Times, wrote a local column called "The Spin" for many years, and created the...
David Hiller, the new L.A. Times publisher who pushed out editor Dean Baquet last week, gave $1,000 to the Republican National Committee as recently as 2003. Since 2000, while an...
Ah, the rich cultural history, snow-capped mountains and sun-kissed beaches. Sounds lovely — too bad the Vernon link on Supervisor Gloria Molina's county website doesn't point to the strange little...
Up-to-the-minute results for selected races Click for the latest: Measure H (L.A. housing bond) — needed 2/3 to pass. Measure R (term limits/ethics) — surprise runaway. Rest of L.A....
The Downtown News steps out of character with an 1,100-word editorial defending the LA Weekly's decision to run a story reporting that labor leader Miguel Contreras died in a botanica...
Among all the election roundups and wrapups that will come your way before Tuesday, this one sounds different. Saturday's "Deadline L.A." on KPFK will extend to an hour and preview...
If you are queued up for a Guadalajara Dog at Pink's tonight about 8:15 and notice a faintly familiar, wonkish-looking man trying to cut the line, don't worry. It's just...
Yesterday's upheaval at the LA Weekly — first detailed here — sent observers of the paper and staffers buzzing into the night about what the future holds. At the afternoon...
News editor Alan Mittelstaedt is out and controversial columnist Jill Stewart is coming in to edit local news coverage. Mittelstaedt pushed the recent story on Miguel Contreras's death and has...
Rob Reiner's California Children and Families Commission, also known as the First 5 Commission, is the target of a stinging state audit. The commission "failed to properly award millions of...
Emilia Wright and Michael Wright, the daughter and son-in-law of Democratic Assembly member Karen Bass, died when their car went out of control on the southbound 405 freeway at La...
First, let me say that I want West magazine to flourish. I think it should be, and on some Sundays is, an important home for California-oriented journalism. Just today the...
Occidental College professor Peter Dreier, a leader of L.A.'s progressive political sphere, calls David Zahniser's story on the Miguel Contreras death cover-up "irresponsible, gutter, tabloid journalism, with no redeeming value"...
By popular demand, KCRW is moving the replay of Left, Right & Center back to Friday evenings at 7 pm. The politics talk show starring Matt Miller, Robert Scheer, Arianna...
City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo has made a bunch of senior personnel moves, including appointment of his first "special counsel to the City Council." That sensitive hand-holding job goes to Senior...
In most election years, the Los Angeles Times Poll would be out in the field this week with a final look at the governor's race and the other statewide offices...
LA Weekly news editor Alan Mittelstaedt was mentioned only obliquely in departed columnist Harold Meyerson's email blast last night. Mittelstaedt writes the new L.A. Sniper column, which Meyerson called a...
I didn't set out to post two Harold Meyerson items in a row, or three LA Weekly items. News is unpredictable, though, and they are all related. Meyerson, the newly...
Another David Zahniser headline grabber in tomorrow's LA Weekly: When labor leader Miguel Contreras collapsed of a heart attack last year, he wasn't in his car as the quasi-official line...
U.S. District Judge Terry Hatter ruled today that a ten-year-old legal agreement with the Bus Riders Union that prodded the MTA to spend $1.3 billion to improve service for the...
John Shallman, the campaign consultant for Measure R on the Los Angeles ballot, will soon be receiving a letter from City Controller Laura Chick, if he hasn't aready. She opposes...
New campaign ads for the billion-dollar housing bond on the Los Angeles ballot debut tomorrow, on cable and broadcast TV. Here's a sneak peek on YouTube. They were shot by...
Is La Opinin spinning its coverage of the scare letter sent to Orange County Latinos by Republican congressional candidate Tan Nguyen? Gustavo Arellano of the OC Weekly raises the question...
Daily News columnist Mariel Garza offers newly chosen L.A. Unified superintendent David L. Brewer some sage tips on how politics works in Los Angeles. Abridged: In L.A., it's all about...
Los Angeles magazine's RJ Smith takes notice of David Zahniser's run of noteworthy stories in the LA Weekly (and previously in the Daily Breeze) and pronounces him the top beat...
Today's San Francisco Chronicle editorial page wishes David Brewer luck but finds his selection to run L.A. Unified — and everything about the new governance here — rather curious. While...
Mayor Villaraigosa's office has issued a second statement on the selection of Vice Admiral Brewer to head the Los Angeles Unified School District. It's considerably more let's-get-along than yesterday's "deeply...
Admiral David Brewer, the newly designated superintendent of L.A. schools, will kick off this afternoon's Patt Morrison show at 2 pm on KPCC. He apparently will address working with Mayor...
Rep. Jane Harman isn't just wealthy, she is the most wealthy member of the House of Representatives, according to a database at the Center for Responsive Politics. Today's Daily Breeze...
While the mayor is away in China, the L.A. school board — in its last gasp as an important elected body? — today announced it will give the superintendent job...
The Board of Education was joined by Rep. Diane Watson (a former board member), the League of Women Voters, the California School Boards Association and the PTA in today's lawsuit...
Why yes, it is. On the cover of her new book, Democratic campaign steerer-turned-columnist and USC law professor Susan Estrich strikes an Ann Coulter pose. The pic, in fact, mimics...
NBC 4 was first to go with the story last night, but today's Times and Daily News have many more details on the Grand Jury testimony alleging sexual favors paid...
Channel 4 got pretty excited tonight about an Ana Garcia investigative report that Troy Edwards, a deputy mayor under Jim Hahn, ran up $18,000 in bills for massages and sex...
In today's story about Republican congressman Mark Foley's suggestive emails to congressional pages of the underage male variety, The Hollywood Reporter grabbed the wrong photo. After an urgent call for...
The mayor's office completed its appointments to the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment board and announced the new members of the East L.A. and South Valley planning commissions. Familiar names if...
The Orange County District Attorney's office is attacking the Times again, this time focusing on an investigative reporter working on a story about the office's chief spokeswoman, Susan Kang Schroeder,...
When the developer of controversial Runkle Canyon threw up new fences to keep out prying eyes, residents at the west end of Simi Valley upped the ante. They got hold...
The liberal Episcopal congregation in Pasadena won't turn over the emails and other documents requested by the IRS. The church's 26-member vestry voted unanimously to not cooperate in the government...
City Administrative Officer Bill Fujioka let it be known today that he will retire at the end of the year, giving the mayor another senior slot that he gets to...
Times columnist Steve Lopez met the former mayor at Yang Chow in Chinatown yesterday, and they talked about Hahn's new improved life out of the public eye: a steady lady...
Mayor Villaraigosa is taking the show on the road, heading first to London and Manchester next week at the request of Prime Minister Tony Blair to speak about global climate...
The California Clean Money Campaign emailed supporters last night that co-founder and chairman Ted Williams died yesterday morning.. Funeral services will be Thursday at Mt. Sinai. An excerpt of the...
Steve Sugerman, the first former Fleishman-Hillard executive to be sentenced for overbilling the city and other PR clients, today received three years probation and 250 hours of community service. Before...
The children's section of the Central Library downtown provided the setting for Gov. Schwarzenegger to sign the bill shifting some control of Los Angeles schools to Mayor Villaraigosa. "Today we...
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and State Sen. Gil Cedillo rode together as teenagers on the Eastside* and did battle arm-in-arm in the labor movement before teaming up when both got elected...
The anonymous blogger at Los Angeles City Nerd says that Councilman Bernard Parks hosted a Monday Night Football viewing party starting at 4 pm yesterday in the "media room" at...
The Wave reports that the civil rights attorney and former police commissioner died last night when her car plummeted down a slope near her home in the Hollywood Hills. Lomax...
The Los Angeles Times launched its California Politics website and blog today, four days after it was promised. There are links to today's LAT stories out of Sacramento, video of...
Once again a politician caught being himself in an unguarded moment says he has no idea how such words would ever come out of his mouth. Gov. Schwarzenegger apologized for...
The state's 2nd District Court of Appeals stayed a judge's order yesterday that the City Council's term limits measure should be taken off the November ballot. It stays on pending...
The governor of California, discussing the only Latina Republican in the state Legislature with chief of staff Susan Kennedy: "She seems to me like Cuban," Schwarzenegger says. "She's not Mexican,"...
Don't go looking for the new Los Angeles Times blog that was supposed to launch today as part of a new website, California Politics, per managing editor Doug Frantz's memo...
At yesterday's Angelides and Villaraigosa rally in South Los Angeles, I sat for a time with Pilar Marrero, the political columnist and Features Editor for La Opinin. In today's paper...
I haven't checked back to compare his past talk, but it feels like LAPD Chief William Bratton has been cranking up the rhetoric. In his latest monthly missive on the...
A New Republic piece critical of the County Human Relations Commission for honoring Maher Hathout of the Muslim Public Affairs Council has fueled opposition from the American Jewish Committee,...
Mayor Villaraigosa stumped for fading Democratic contender Phil Angelides today in San Francisco and in South Los Angeles, but it was the mayor's quick thinking this afternoon at Foshay Learning...
LAPD chief William Bratton could be headed for Scotland Yard or the mayor's office — of New York City. Or he could stick around Los Angeles for another five-year term....
Fear of the long knives from Chicago is rampant again in the Los Angeles Times newsroom at First and Spring streets downtown. You know people are skittish when a rumor...
SoCal talk radio host and blogger Hugh Hewitt's message and worldview can almost always be reduced to a simple statement: Republicans good, Democrats bad. On yesterday's nationally syndicated show, he...
At today's victory performance in South Los Angeles for his school reform measure, Mayor Villaraigosa and his aides pretty much stuck to the script: enthusiastic cheerings kids, lots of talk...
Democratic strategist Chris Lehane says Mayor Villaraigosa's school reform victory tonight in Sacramento show his political juice, but calls it "a very short-term win [and] an extraordinary long-term political gamble...
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's school bill got to 30 ayes in the Assembly before the voting was suspended about 5:20 pm. His side expects to get over the top before the...
The vote was 23-14. AB 1381, aka the Gloria Romero Educational Reform Act of 2006, now goes to the Assembly for a thumbs up in the education committee and a...
The blog of the Center for Asian Americans United for Self Empowerment disagrees with observers, I guess most notably DA Steve Cooley and the Daily News, who say that whether...
Anna Richardson is the former British late-night TV personality who said that Arnold Schwarzenegger pulled her onto his knee, fondled her and asked if her breasts were real after a...
I just received an email from a local editor-in-chief which reads, "David Zahniser's piece in this week's LA Weekly .. is brilliant. I'm jealous." The subject of the rave is...
Pay to play is back in the news, in a big way. Former Hahn Administration power broker Leland Wong pleaded not guilty this morning to a twenty-count Grand Jury indictment...
NBC4 yesterday ran a half-hour special report on the political fight over the future of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Didn't see it, but the station's website has a...
Superior Court judge Dzintra Janavs (her again!) ordered about 200 "essential" city workers not to join the walkout called for tomorrow by the Engineers and Architects association at City Hall....
Blogger Zach Behrens (In the Oaks and LAist) is running for a seat on the Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council. He's unopposed, so it looks like he should be addressed in...
Mayor Villaraigosa took his LAUSD campaign to UTLA's leaders on Sunday in La Quinta and got a good reaction, despite some catcalls at the start. Up north in San Francisco,...
In my Politics piece this month for Los Angeles magazine, while talking about South L.A. black politics post-Yvonne Burke I observe that reporters typically resist assignments at the county Hall...
A judge told Newhall Land and Farming that it can go ahead with the Riverpark project. The Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Santa Clara River and...
Bob Sipchen went to Sacramento for the show today and says that Supt. Roy Romer and Board of Education president Marlene Canter have given up trying to substantially alter the...
They talked and talked first for going on three hours, but in the end the City Council fell into line behind Mayor Villaraigosa and voted unanimously to endorse his LAUSD...
The Central City Association, the lobbyists for downtown business interests, endorsed Mayor Villaraigosa's bill in the Legislature to put the Los Angeles schools partly under his control. We'll see in...
The Times has posted the full list of its anointed 100 most powerful Southern California players. After the first ten, which I gave you here this morning, they are in...
It's not as surprising as, say, usually reliable Hollywood Democrats Spielberg, Katzenberg and Saban endorsing Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, as they did last week. Mel Gibson has well-known religio-conservative leanings. Still,...
The City Council imposed new rules of decorum for public speakers at the thrice-weekly meetings: one minute instead of two, no addressing a specific council member (let's see them defend...
This all began back on July 21 when longtime ACLU member Joel Bellman released an open letter to Ramona Ripston, head of the Southern California ACLU, protesting an award to...
Mayor Villaraigosa's preferred course toward reform of the LAUSD — Assembly bill 1381 — came up for endorsement before the the City Council's Intergovernmental Relations committee this morning. When no...
News out of Mayor Villaraigosa's office is that Rafael Lpez will serve as interim executive director for the Commission on Children, Youth, and Their Families, and Ken Simmons will do...
Rushmore Cervantes is general manager of El Pueblo, the City Department with responsibility for Olvera Street. He will come to City Hall East as Controller Laura Chick's chief deputy controller....
The Times editorial page today follows the Daily News in wagging the finger of shame at the politicos and local leaders who lined up to throw money at disgraced ex-councilman...
There's some chatter out there about today's Daily News editorial lambasting last week's Holmby Hills fundraiser for Martin Ludlow, the ex-councilman who had to give up his County Fed post...
Karen Constine, the former chief of staff to Laura Chick and director of the California Film Commission under Gov. Gray Davis, gets the mayor's nod. Details in the following press...
KCRW thought they had U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad all lined up to guest with Warren Olney on "To the Point" at 1 pm, but the station regrets to...
Longtime ACLU of Southern California supporter Joel Bellman yesterday circulated an open letter to executive director Ramona Ripston protesting the group's decision to honor Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the...
Supt. Roy Romer used today's "state of the schools" speech to stress that campuses are getting better under his watch and to blast Mayor Villaraigosa for deploying "propaganda" that undermines...
Back in April 2004, when he was under full attack for the Fleishman-Hillard deal with DWP that began under Dick Riordan, then-Mayor Jim Hahn banned PR contracts with city agencies....
LA Weekly's Steven Leigh Morris looks at how the Latino Theater Company, which had never run a theater and possessed few assets, was awarded control of the city-owned Los Angeles...
Things seem kind of cozy down in the second city. The newly elected mayor of Long Beach, Bob Foster, will be "officially sworn in" today by the columnist for the...
When I posted in the Morning Buzz about Rick Orlov's story on the relatively new Los Angeles Civic Alliance, the members' names had not yet been included on the Daily...
The Chronicle of Philanthropy has a new job posting of some importance to Mayor Villaraigosa and his Los Angeles Unified School District ambitions: Position: Superintendent of Schools Organization: Los Angeles...
Came across a nice shot of the council chambers at City Hall the way it (and the elected members) looked during President Franklin Roosevelt's first term. The caption info identifies...
CityWatch is out with an extra edition on the weekend election of downtown activist Brady Westwater as chair of the Neighborhood Council Congress. Westwater (right, with vice chair Jim Alger)...
Lawyer Helen Zukin is City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo's newest appointee to the City Ethics Commission. Zukin, a temporary judge in the Los Angeles County Superior Court system, previously chaired the...
Protesters looked on as bulldozers began ripping out the South Los Angeles community garden where Mayor Villaraigosa couldn't broker a deal to mollify property owner Ralph Horowitz. Convicted...
Los Angeles airport chief Lydia Kennard today described $1.2 billion worth of coming improvements to LAX: an expanded Bradley International Terminal, realignment of the southernmost runway to improve safety and...
Brad Friedman's Los Angeles-based liberal blog has been all over the vote irregularity issues in the Busby-Bilbray congressional race in San Diego County. Friedman is scheduled to appear tonight on...
Speaking of Animal Services, the department recently accepted an offer from Hooters to throw a benefit bikini contest. Hooters has done it for other animal causes, and for this one...
The Los Angeles Department of Animal Services—whose chief, Ed Boks, has a blog—has begun giving websites a little piece of code that will display a pitch to adopt specific pets...
Mayor Villaraigosa and the MTA unions will announce—and I quote—a "historic settlement" at the transit agency's office tower at 1:15 this afternoon. The mayor's office says it's historic because it's...
I haven't mentioned it much because it's frankly kind of lame, but for 111 days the Times has kept two goldfish in an aquarium supposedly living on water taken from...
As Mariel Garza notes in today's Daily News, Saturday will mark Antonio Villaraigosa's anniversary as mayor. With murmurs out of Sacramento that the mayor's school compromise may be no sure...
Developer and big-time Villaraigosa contributor Richard Meruelo was banned from building on his land near Union Station for five years for tearing down some dilapidated structures without permits, as...
Antonio Villaraigosa added another first to his resume on Saturday. He became the only mayor to play in the annual Hollywood Stars softball game at Dodger Stadium. Along with Lou...
Civil rights attorney—and long-time thorn in the side of local law enforcement officials—Stephen Yagman has been indicted on nineteen counts of income tax evasion. The indictment dated June 1 was...
The Associated Press story out of Sacramento bills this morning's agreement (earlier post) on the LAUSD as a compromise in which Mayor Villaraigosa gets a little control over the schools,...
Hmm. This will incite more grumbles that the mayor's trip to Sacramento was at least partly a choreographed show. Villaraigosa, Democratic leaders in the Legislature and the teachers unions today...
I reported the other day on John Stodder's motions for a new trial or acquittal in the Fleishman-Hillard billing case. Doug Dowie, his former boss at Fleishman, also filed similar...
Tribune chief Dennis J. FitzSimons vows to stand up to the big bad Chandlers. A spill of cooking oil closed three lanes of the Long Beach Freeway this...
I didn't notice this anywhere else, but the Daily Breeze story on yesterday's dueling Sacramento dog-and-pony shows over LAUSD control mentions that Mayor Villaraigosa has retained KP Advocates to help...
The elections director in King County, Washington is coming here to take the job of chief deputy registrar of Los Angeles County. Dean Logan's tenure in Seattle has been anything...
John Stodder, the former Fleishman-Hillard executive convicted last month of wire fraud in the exaggerated-billings case, filed motions today seeking acquittal or a new trial, alleging the government failed to...
Today's Daily Journal carries an Erin Park story saying that the City Attorney's office spent $10 million on an outside law firm to defend the city against a lawsuit over...
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's commencement speech Friday at UCLA praised his mother Natalia for supporting him and addressed the news that African American enrollment is down. "I worry for the future....
Patrick O'Connor cartoon in the Daily News. Full uncropped version....
Well I lied; my desk is anything but clear. Here are some final news notes from the day though. Have a good weekend: The Times replies to this morning's...
Sheriff's deputies arrived in force at the South Central Community Garden this morning to carry out court-ordered evictions and make arrests. IndyMedia posted a first bulletin at 5:20 am and...
The New York Times looks from afar at Jerry Brown's quest to be attorney general of California—a quest that figures to take a big step forward with tomorrow's whuppin' of...
Convicted editor-turned-Fleishman-Hillard executive Doug Dowie called no defense witnesses in his trial, but he sat down at the Pacific Dining Car for an exclusive interview with two of his former...
♦ USC isn't thrilled about the mayor's (and others') plan to drastically alter the Coliseum's innards to entice the NFL. University prez Steven Sample's letter uses phrases like "athletic program...
Folks in Colorado have much more connection to Roy Romer than Angelenos do. Before he came down to Los Angeles to run the school district, the 77-year-old superintendent served three...
Sure we all know that Mayor Villaraigosa has spent a lot of time on the road—but this much? Dean Singleton, Zuma Dogg and Doug Dowie are also in the news....
Seems that City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo's resume, and his image, have been a tad inflated all this time. Patrick McGreevy in Saturday's LAT: In various speeches, campaign ads and written...
CJR Daily—"real-time media criticism from the Columbia Journalism Review"—has watered down its recent praise for the Los Angeles Times series about problems with the Kaiser Permanente kidney transplant problem. The...
Councilman Tom LaBonge's penchant for handing out loaves of pumpkin bread made by nuns at Hollywood's Monastery of the Angels makes the pages of this week's Los Angeles Independent. Notice...
It's not every day that a guy goes home from a bad day in federal court—conviction on twelve felonies—and blogs about life. Former Fleishman-Hillard VP John Stodder, of course, has...
Franklin Avenue caught Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's appearance on "American Idol" last night, telling finalist Katherine McPhee that she was to sing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." She's the first Angeleno to...
Fired Fleishman-Hillard boss Doug Dowie and his former deputy in the Los Angeles office, John Stodder, were found guilty today of cheating on billings to the city Department of Water...
It's hard enough campaigning for state Attorney General against Jerry Brown when no one in Northern California has heard of you or has an opinion. But when you are in...
It's always been a mystery why Highland Avenue through the heart of Hollywood is so poorly engineered—especially the lack of left-turn signals at Hollywood Boulevard, given the number of vehicles...
The Los Angeles Police Department launched its official blog with a burst of opinion (a rebuttal to an editorial in the Daily News) and a welcome message from Chief William...
♦ Answer: Mayor Villaraigosa, Sheriff Baca, Lakers owner Jerry Buss, Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, Magic Johnson, Natalie Cole, Johnny Grant and Councilman Tom LaBonge. Question: Who shows up when Channel...
One day after Alex Padilla showed his hand and announced the endorsement of City Council President Eric Garcetti and nine council colleagues, Cindy Montaez countered with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The...
In case there was any uncertainty, yes Mayor Villaraigosa did depart from yesterday's march podium to fly to Dallas and join Gov. Schwarzenegger in pitching National Football League owners. Today...
No hug for Villaraigosa's school plan, social engineering at Hollywood and Vine, ten percent raise for cops, Fred Muir on the stand and journalists plan to meet tonight in Spanish....
Would you believe 200 luxury boxes and 24,000 fewer seats for most events, but with 15,000 of them designated as club seating? Those are some of the details of...
The May cover of Los Angeles pushes 52 Dream Weekends, but the talker story of the month is Jesse Katz's piece on the pets we kill and Ed Boks, newly...
You know the story going around today about threats against Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa over his immigration position? Jazmn Ortega had it April 14 as the lede in La Opinin, quoting...
Sunday's New York Times has a piece about the origin of the friendship between supermarket czar Ron Burkle and former President Bill Clinton. dating it to the aftermath of the...
City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo's quest to become the attorney general of California just isn't picking up much momentum. The Field Poll out today shows former governor Jerry Brown with a...
Bob Kholos was a KMPC and Radio News West radio reporter in Los Angeles who became the first press secretary for newly elected mayor Tom Bradley in 1973. At a...
Budget day for the mayor, bad news in the LAT for Cardinal Mahony, the LA Weekly profiles half of Los Angeles and Dean Singleton closes in on three Norcal newspapers....
Mayor Villaraigosa came up with some surprises in the school takeover details tucked into his State of the City rally speech this evening. He proposed a school board with diminished...
Speaking of mispronouncing City Hall names, I listened tonight to the audio stream of LAPD chief Bill Bratton taking calls on the "Ask the Chief" segment on this afternoon's Patt...
With every passing day it becomes less common to hear the mayor's name mangled as Veela-ga-rosa or Veeya-gree-osa. By the time he runs for president, everybody should have the pronunciation...
It's Pulitzer day in newsrooms, UTLA day on the school reform front, and rehearse for the big speech day in the mayor's office. Today's Morning Buzz also touches MediaNews Group,...
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa hasn't had a lot to say about immigration lately. It wasn't high on his agenda until 500,000 or more people marched through downtown. He did a media...
A light serving today since I'm driving back to L.A. from upstate, but you should turn the page anyway for some Devin Brown news, some media tidbits and a clutch...
Residential trash pickup in Los Angeles has been free (meaning taxpayer-supported) pretty much forever, but as of today the officially sanctioned term for that is "subsidized." Mayor Villaraigosa proposed to...
Antonio plans to impose a trash fee as the build-up to The Big Speech continues...Monique Moret names names in the Fleishman-Hillard trial: recognizable names...plus racism in the LAFD, black market...
Mayor Villaraigosa will unveil his master strategy for taking control of the Los Angeles Unified School District in a speech next Tuesday, while the teachers union plans to beat him...
Lots of City Hall tongues clucking about the news (published in the Daily Breeze) that Stacey Jones, the #2 exec at the Port of Los Angeles, is leaving after 25...
♦ Authorities released surveillance tape of suspects in the killing of Deputy Maria Rosa. ♦ Opening statements in Dowie-Stodder trial. ♦ Three ski patrol members at Mammoth Mountain died when...
Downtown's largest property owner gets his name in the media again—this time coming into the sights of LA Weekly investigative reporter Jeffrey Anderson for razing a new, possibly toxic purchase...
Left unsaid in today's LAT story on the mystery illness of Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald is that her son was in federal court in Pasadena yesterday appealing his conviction on corruption...
A jury in Orange County ruled that City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo improperly retaliated against a deputy in his office and ordered the city to pay $1.5 million to Lynn Magnandonovan....
For months the leadership of City Hall's Engineers and Architects Association has been chasing Mayor Villaraigosa around the city—literally. They show up to disrupt his events and media appearances. Today,...
♦ Deputy City Controller Ruben Gonzalez is leaving Laura Chick's staff after four years to be a vice president at Englander and Associates, the lobbying firm headed by Harvey Englander. Gonzalez...
♦ As expected, Mayor Villaraigosa did recommend Cecilia Estolano to be CEO of the Community Redvelopment Agency. Villaraigosa's CRA commissioners have to approve her, but they could just mail that in....
...you do things like this and send out press releases on it: Los Angeles City Councilmember Alex Padilla today announced that he has filed an amicus brief in support of...
Rick Jacobs, the Howard Dean campaign chair in California and regular chipper-in of thoughts at the Huffington Post, really didn't like the phone call he got from Los Angeles politics...
Scary talk about bird flu, a third deputy sheriff dies, Cecelia Estolano for CRA chief, Los Angeles lawyers breaking away and a little online dust-up between CBS and the Times'...
♦ Deputy Maria Cecilia Rosa's death was homicide, not an accident, with robbery the apparent motive. The Sheriff's Department says her gun had not been fired. ♦ About one hundred Westchester High...
News that Sharon Stone will guest star on the new Showtime series "Huff" as a larcenous "high-powered Los Angeles public relations executive" caused the PR industry blog Media Orchard to...
Everybody is vowing to get tough if students walk out again today, but we'll see how that goes...Villaraigosa's political squeeze...Bratton calls the freeway swarms "insanity" (and he's right)...That just might...
Mayor Villaraigosa is meeting about the immigration demonstrations this afternoon with LAPD Chief William Bratton, Sheriff Lee Baca, Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Roy Romer and the district's police chief Lawrence...
♦ Former West Basin Municipal Water District board member R. Keith McDonald, convicted on ten felony counts of corruption, has asked to delay prison so he can care for his ailing...
From the City News Service wire: Eds: At 3:30 p.m., Andrew Ahlering, a candidate for the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, will hold a news conference to discuss his...
Every Los Angeles political story has a backstory. At his blog, John Stodder takes off from the recent news about Sunshine Canyon landfill to reconstruct how, when he was the...
Gustavo Arellano at the OC Weekly's blog gets in the face of "Chicano yaktivists" (his term) who are attacking Daniel Hernandez of the sister LA Weekly for his hard-hitting story...
Turn the page for items on Dean Singleton's California strategy, Sheriff Baca's Compton strategy, a Saudi prince gets booed at Town Hall Los Angeles, celebrities at the fashion shows and...
Marco Firebaugh, a Democratic candidate for the state Senate in the 30th district of southeast Los Angeles County, died this morning or last night. Liver illness is reportedly the cause....
New York mayor Michael Bloomberg stepped before the cameras today at P.S. 282 in Brooklyn and introduced Antonio Villaraigosa as Alcalde Veea-ga-rosa, before correcting his pronunciation (and switching, mercifully, to...
The Valley Industry and Commerce Association, arguably the most influential advocacy group for the Valley, this morning named Brendan Huffman its new president. Huffman is currently the director of public...
Turn the page for Orlov's return...how Heidi Fleiss got bugged and screwed...a new lead Tinseltown Spywitness...Huffington's mea culpa...political theater downtown...and the return of Fashion Week. Those items and a lot...
♦ The Daily News talks up public financing of city election campaigns, but ethics commissioner Bill Boyarsky—who proposed it—writes in the LAT that he's getting tired of wasting his time: "I...
♦ Rep. Maxine Waters' and her husband's presence at the SEIU's endorsement interviews in January has candidates in an uproar and got the attention of the FBI, the Los Angeles Wave...
If you have Flash installed, you can click below to watch Council President Eric Garcetti's video about Mayor Villaraigosa from last night's Los Angeles Political Roast. (Earlier post.) If you...
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's political ambition, lust for the spotlight, desire to take control of the schools and supernaturally white teeth all came in for some playful ribbing at tonight's Los...
Because it feels like a notesy kind of day... The Cultural Heritage Commission will recommend to the City Council that the Derby in Los Feliz be declared a historic-cultural monument....
Dan Laidman, who became the new guy in the Daily News' City Hall bureau just last summer, is jumping to Copley News Service to fill the shoes of David Zahniser....
Seeing old friends in federal court...fining Pierce O'Donnell and Martin Ludlow...Giving Steve Cooley a pass...Arnold and Sirhan...Tear-downs in Century City...and Larry King gets no respect again. Those items and quite...
Media and blog coverage of the South Central Community Garden mostly celebrates a story line of plucky, poor South L.A. residents banding together in agrarian fellowship to stand up to...
Bad enough that the mayor and his wife can't go to the movies without being reported on, as we noted yesterday. Now someone else who claims to have been at...
Either L.A. County's Board of Supervisors stood up to the final lobbying swarm or all the deals for friends got written into the staff recommendations. But the Supes today OK'd...
Chris Arellano—the school board candidate without the degrees he claimed and with the criminal record he played down—has dropped out of the runoff campaign, the LA Weekly reports online. City...
Bob Hertzberg's moribund website BIGIdeas4LA.com has finally been taken off life support and allowed to pass into the Internet afterlife:...
Linking Brad Grey to Pellicano through Linda Doucett...two heads for Universal?...those stinking badges for friends of Lee Baca...seeing purple along Wilshire Boulevard...Robert Altman's new heart...your NCAA brackets...and borrowing a familiar...
Police chief William Bratton's unofficial bicoastal lifestyle makes the news again. Bratton released his travel records to the Los Angeles Times' Patrick McGreevy, who calculated that the chief was outside...
LAPD crime maps go interactive (left)...It's going to be cold and windy today...Praising Brokeback despite the Oscar upset...blocking traffic for the mayor...questions but few answers about Herb Wesson Jr....reviews of...
"It is clear from this initial review that there is a disturbing lack of transparency and accountability at LAUSD." Release after the jump....
The mayor today offered up Gloria Jeff to run the Department of Transportation, subject to City Council approval. Jeff resigned last month as director of the Michigan Department of Transportation,...
Laura Chick locks and loads to talk about schools...the mayor gets ready to name a transportation chief...Daniel Hernandez on secret talks to save the South L.A. farm...Ludlow pleads after being...
Just over ten percent of registered voters in the 2nd Board of Education district cast ballots in Tuesday's election—for a total of 13,561 votes. So much for the persuasion of...
Runoff for school board...more strangeness around the Ferrari Enzo crash...Rob Reiner's campaign chief steps out of the limelight...L.A.'s blogging pet czar blasts the Animal Defense League...while Cardinal Mahony seeks a...
First reviews of the Oscars and Jon Stewart: not good. Also, Arnie Berghoff's diabetes roast gets some scrutiny, the Times finds waste in the local bioterrorism budget, Villaraigosa promises to...
Maria Elena Durazo was chosen to head the County Federation of Labor, just ten months after her husband, Miguel Contreras, died while serving in the post. From the Times: Durazo,...
If nothing else, Christopher Arellano has found a way to deflect scrutiny from the $200,000 he has taken from UTLA. But the Times and Daily News miss a big chunk...
KPCC's Adolfo Guzman Lopez aired a late Thursday update reporting that Board of Education candidate Chris Arellano has fudged his campaign claims of multiple college degrees from USC and UCLA....
La Opinin reported today that Christopher Arellano, the labor candidate in the East Side school board race, was convicted of robbing a Pioneer Market in 1992, then had a second...
Villaraigosa warns of red ink and loves Crash...Jim Hahn gets $800 million to play with...Martin Ludlow and Octavia Butler are remembered in much different ways...big meeting today at Yahoo in...
Sam Lanni, the owner of Safari Sam's, has gone public with a rant about City Hall bleeding him dry before he can open his long-awaited club on Sunset Boulevard in...
Channel 5 is promoing up close and personal time with Corina Villaraigosa on tonight's Prime News at 10 pm. They call it the first prolonged TV interview she has given...
The war of words between the United Farm Workers union and the Los Angeles Times continues. To catch you up, the Times in January ran an investigative series on the...
Full plate for a Friday morning: Plaschke rips the silver from Sasha Cohen's neck, Steve Cooley's least favorite Mexican fugitive is nabbed, the Writers Guild invites Cheryl Rhoden to stay...
Maria Elena Durazo watch begins, the Z Man appears in the LA Weekly, "Ask a Mexican" cracks Column One, questions about Ed Boks—all this and an old murder in Alhambra...
Another near-miss at LAX, Vin Scully signs on for three more years (but that's probably it), chiding Erin Aubry Kaplan on race, the editor of the LAT's Home section moves...
After taking the weekend to ponder his future, County Fed executive secretary-treasurer Martin Ludlow quit today and says he is cooperating with the federal investigation into violations of campaign laws...
Would you believe Jackie Goldberg for school superintendent? Rampant talk of that, plus good press for Alan Rothenberg, the mystery ooze of Olive Street takes a toll, a fresh crop...
Murder sprees in Venice (maybe) and the gangland of Panorama City-North Hills...How Darry Sragow came to hire former Roy Romer advisor Glenn Gritzner at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal is the...
I have a piece on Council President Eric Garcetti in the March issue of Los Angeles, out but not online. It talks about his rising national profile—from involvement in the...
* Newest shorts at the bottom... ⇒ More subplots in the Anthony Pellicano affair, a thirteenth defendant and Leslie Abramson joins the case. Also, the Times says anonymous witness 'Johnny...
Today's Daily Journal (no link) features a front-page piece on John Stodder, the indicted former Fleishman-Hillard executive turned blogger who I began telling you about last month. Erin Park reports:...
Rumors about Villaraigosa intimate Martin Ludlow swept California political circles all week and finally make it into print in Friday's LAT: Sources say the former city councilman may take a...
The February issue of TPR talks to Corbin Smith, project manager of the Getty Villa transformation, and also with Chief Legislative Analyst Gerry Miller and Playa Vista president Steve Soboroff....
Mayor Villaraigosa's press conference du jour was to announce the members of his newly created panel on homeland security. Councilman Jack Weiss co-chairs with Deputy Mayor for Homeland Security and...
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Speaker Fabian Nez plan to campaign on the Eastside tomorrow for Mnica Garca, their anointed candidate for the open school board seat to replace Jos Huizar....
Today's front pagesNew York Times See/Read Washington Post See/ReadLA Times See/ReadDaily News See/ReadDaily Breeze See/ReadPress-Telegram See/Read Register See/ReadStar-News Read Variety ReadHwd Reporter ReadLa Opinin Read Slate: Today's Papers Terry Christensen wasn't...
Today's front pagesNew York Times See/Read Washington Post See/ReadLA Times See/ReadDaily News See/ReadDaily Breeze See/ReadPress-Telegram See/Read Register See/ReadStar-News Read Variety ReadHwd Reporter ReadLa Opinin Read Ovitz and Pellicano, ugly details...
Loyalty to Jill Murphy may have finally been Barry Munitz's undoing, the police commission waffles, going after Deaton, bomb on the 210 and another batch of morning media notes—all after...
At a news conference out in the Valley this afternoon, Mayor Villaraigosa said he made an offer yesterday to Sheriff Lee Baca to help out on the jail rioting mess....
Three lead items out of the largest local bureaucracy in the nation, none of them good news...plus Hiltzik lashes Keith Brackpool, no retraction for the UFW, the best and worst...
New ones are added to the tail end through the weekend.... ⇒ Robert Parry, who frequently contributed when LA Observed took comments, returned last month from Iraq duty as a...
LAUSD superintendent Roy Romer has told the school board that he wants to leave by September, nine months before his contract expires, the Jewish Journal just reported on its website....
An exclusive on the new boss at "California Connected," a $15 million payday for three LAPD cops, Rocky's legal memo to the police commission and more Barry Munitz farewells—plus the...
I had not heard of Willie Grace Campbell until Karen Wada profiled her in Los Angeles Magazine in 2004, writing that she "has changed American politics, one cup of tea...
Finger pointing aside, it sounds like President Bush's morning disclosure of more details about the four-year-old Al Qaeda plot to bomb Library Tower (he called it 'Liberty Tower') did catch...
The Breeze has a follow on the Metropolitan Water District not hiring Mayor Villaraigosa's preferred candidate, Richard Katz. The agency offered the top job to its attorney Jeffrey Kightlinger. Says...
Real Estate Journal has a free link to yesterday's WSJ story about developer Rick Caruso. * Also: I added the link I meant to include this morning to the LA...
Mayor Villaraigosa has filled out the city's Board of Transportation Commissioners with the daughter of State Sen. Richard Alarcon, a former deputy to Nate Holden and a former senior cop,...
Jack Weiss steps in on the police commission ruling, more jail riots, the gang war rages in Watts, girls behind bars, more left-turn arrows—it's a busy morning here at the...
The LA Weekly website posted a (perhaps final?) Rob Greene story saying that the multi-agency investigation of SEIU Local 99's help for Martin Ludlow's City Council campaign has uncovered widespread...
The LA Weekly editor has posted a defiant response to the United Farm Workers demand for a retraction of an earlier column he wrote lauding the Times series and chastising...
City Council members Herb Wesson and Bernard Parks want to rename 17th Street (between Norton and Bronson avenues) for the late attorney. The Board of Education OK'd Johnnie L. Cochran...
Richard Katz reportedly doesn't get the MWD gig, friends of Cesar Chavez turn their legal guns on Marc Cooper, everybody it seems is investigating the SEIU's outpouring for Martin Ludlow,...
Doug Dowie scores some points but not a knockdown, the police commission mums up, "Today" takes the Chino shooting story, a new Nina Zero review and paying tribute to the...
State Controller Steve Westly has hired Ed Sanders as his Director of Public Affairs in Southern California. Sanders used to be chief of staff for then-councilman Martin Ludlow. Westly also...
Mayor Villaraigosa is lobbying hard to install his campaign advisor and former Assembly colleague Richard Katz at the head of the Metropolitan Water District—and MWD board members feeling the pressure...
Eyewitness News goes hi-def, James Frey has a few words for the LAT, the Downtown News loses patience with Villaraigosa and a former mayor goes in for a tuneup—plus a...
Jack Weiss makes his ambition more or less official, Anthony Pellicano comes back to town, the Ambassador gets a proper send-off, Channel 13 News adds a comic, more bad news...
City Controller Laura Chick's latest audit dings the Department of Transportation for letting $5 million collected from developers as "traffic mitigation funds" go unused. "There is something very wrong with...
David Zahniser, the Copley News Service reporter in City Hall whose work appears mostly in the Daily Breeze, is jumping to the LA Weekly. He presumably fills the spot opened...
Prominent attorney Pierce O'Donnell admitted pleaded no contest to charges of laundering campaign funds to then-City Attorney Jim Hahn's first campaign for mayor in 2001. The Times originally reported that...
Looks like there's finally a new head of LACMA, Tom LaBonge finally makes it in Column One, County Health finally comes clean about the hepatitis A outbreak, Nikki Finke finally...
In the news this morning, the FBI looks at that videotaped shooting by a deputy in Chino...misreading Los Angeles...quitting James Frey...buying off Stuckey...and Hollywood's gay thing analyzed from a couple...
Mayor Villaraigosa's aides made available English and Korean translations of his Spanish-language response to the State of the Union address. To those who heard Villaraigosa during the campaign, he returned...
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa ordered flags at city buildings lowered to half-staff in honor of the civil rights leader and widow of Dr. Martin Luther King. She died at age 78...
Chief Bratton makes a finding in the Devin Brown killing, Guerdon Stuckey gets an offer, Richard Meruelo didn't lay a million on the Center for Law in the Public Interest,...
Expect something as soon as this week on the NFL-in-the-Coliseum front, the L.A. Business Journal says. Also, look what's in our drinking water, how's your algebra, Mike Piazza returns to...
State Sen. Gil Cedillo led a junket—er, fact-finding trip—to New York City this week to look into how that city has improved its homeless problem. If you wondered where City...
City Controller Laura Chick adds her name to the list of pols lining up behind Mnica Garca for the open seat on the L.A. school board. City Councilmembers Jose Huizar...
Scenes from Mayor Villaraigosa's media availability this morning in his third floor conference room at City Hall: ⇒ First words: "Why is it so dark in here?" The mayor steps...
Antonio maps out his war plan for conquering the school board, Rocky takes it on the chin (twice), gang war in Watts and every Oscar-eligible film of 2005—plus Byron Miranda,...
Controller Laura Chick, in releasing her latest city audit, said the Los Angeles Fire Department "lacked strong and decisive leadership, and a clear and understandable vision." She began the audit...
This won't help Mayor Villaraigosa convince people his desire to take over the LAUSD isn't at least partly a scheme about political power. In a report to the Joint Commission...
This is the anniversary of the Metrolink disaster near Glassell Park. Unrelated, we think, fictionating non-fictionist James Frey will guest on Oprah to address the literary hubbub he has created....
Mt. Vernon Middle School, in Mid-City near Venice and Crenshaw, will be renamed for the late attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. The LAUSD board made the decision last night. "This...
Antonio Villaraigosa will give part of the Democratic response to next Tuesday's speech—the part in Spanish. His remarks will be broadcast from the mayor's City Hall office over Spanish-language networks....
Meruelo rejected...AOL targets Beverly Hills...spotting old Three Stooges locations...the end of DVD Exclusive...plus some blogs observed, the front pages of eleven newspapers and more after the jump....
Joel Stein's going to get letters [finally?—ed.] for writing that its wussy to "support the troops" if you oppose the war. Also if you fly a yellow ribbon. And don't...
The new issue of The Planning Report has a Q-and-A with departing L.A. planning director Mark Winogrond, a discussion with planning commissioners Jane Usher and Robin Hughes, and urban critic...
A new week begins with happy birthday greetings to the mayor, a glitch at KPCC, the Defamer-in-chief in Vanity Fair and a dustup between Cathy Seipp and a New York...
Times coverage of the Civic Center figures to pick up in February. Editors today posted the lineup for the newly re-created unit that will cover local government and politics, and...
You can end the week with a Wall Street Journal look at Dave Dreier, a thousand Valleyites out of work, possible trouble for Ron Deaton at DWP, a new Times...
The mayor draws a crowd in Sherman Oaks, the UCLA controversy, bunch of reporter moves at the Times and Long Beach cops still can't find their shotguns...that and much more...
Councilman Bernard Parks didn't care for the Times' weekend story on the surplus city land in his district that he wants to sell to a developer, three years after the...
City Controller Laura Chick is profiled on tonight's Life & Times on KCET at 6:30. Longtime LAT pop music editor and critic Robert Hilburn, who is stepping down this month,...
In the morning news rodeo, op-ed newcomer Erin Aubry Kaplan dumps on Herb Wesson, what the Golden Globes could do to slow immigration, why you won't see many A380's at...
Smelly beaches in the South Bay, no new Wal-Mart in the Valley, horny females on Channel 2 and the winners of the Golden Globes—plus where Alex Padilla will eat breakfast...
The House that Jack Kent Cooke Built might be no more, air rights are hot again downtown (and so is Richard Meruelo), Tad Friend expounds on Los Angeles car chases...plus...
⇒ Port commission chief S. David Freeman is profiled by Deborah Schoch in the Times: "Freeman, the brash and innovative former head of the city's Department of Water and Power,...
Council president Eric Garcetti released his new committee assignments this afternoon. They follow after the jump. Included are new chairs for the Housing, Community and Economic Development committee (it used...
Saving the convention center (really Staples Center) hotel and the mountain yellow-legged frog, photo op of the day, missing shotguns at the Long Beach PD and a sell-out for the...
In today's morning roundup: Anthony Pellicano has a fool for a client, the City Council returns to life, counting the homeless, and saving the Convention Center hotel—plus Bert Blyleven moves...
Another Pellicano case guilty plea, Arnold's illegal problem, Patterico and Hiltzik go mainstream, DA Cooley wants to reform three strikes—plus the end of the UFW series, Michael Eisner, Mack Reed,...
The UFW urges emails to the editor of the L.A. Times, Chick and Romer cozy up, one less obstacle for New Times and a stalwart of the Los Angeles Rams...
Turn the page for the fill-in on Gov. Schwarzenegger's fat lip, the latest on the Times' UFW investigation, Eric Garcetti week at the city council, Sheriff Baca's defense of Compton,...
Gail Goldberg was the city planner of San Diego. Her hiring by Mayor Villaraigosa to run the show in Los Angeles was disclosed Saturday and will be formally announced Monday....
They filled up the council chambers this morning for Bill Roberston, the former head of the county Federation of Labor who died in December. Martin Ludlow, the fed's current chief,...
Today's LAT editorial page delivers on its Rose Bowl wager to say something nice about Texas: "Any state that gave us Lance Armstrong, Lyle Lovett and Larry McMurtry can't be...
The LAT was right on top of this local obituary. Saxophone-playing, small-government maverick Ernani Bernardi died yesterday. He served eight terms from his beloved Van Nuys before leaving the city...
Jennifer Forkish, the press deputy to Valley councilman Dennis Zine, starts Jan. 17 as Director of Local Government Relations for the California Grocers Association in Long Beach. And catching up...
Rob Greene, the LA Weekly's man at the Civic Center, suggests thirteen power grabs that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa should add to his portfolio this year. A sampling: The Los Angeles...
We're number two! USC lost the Rose Bowl and the national championship to Texas 41-38. Thirty-two of those points came in the last quarter. Today's front pagesNew York Times See/Read...
Today's front pagesNew York Times See/Read Washington Post See/ReadLA Times See/ReadDaily News See/ReadDaily Breeze See/ReadPress-Telegram See/Read Register See/ReadStar-News Read Variety ReadHwd Reporter ReadLa Opinin Read Slate: Today's Papers ♦ Unless the L.A....
Los Angeles' City Planning Department is breaking out of the hiring freeze years and inviting twenty new planners to sign on the team "to help launch dynamic new initiatives to...
Welcome back to work. Since it's been awhile, I'm letting it run long... Today's front pagesNew York Times See/Read Washington Post See/ReadLA Times See/ReadDaily News See/ReadDaily Breeze See/ReadPress-Telegram See/Read Register...
If they are not there already, later today I'll be adding these noteworthy new participants in the L.A. blogosphere. Bill Bradley is the California political analyst with the mostest Schwarzenegger...
KCET's charity auction this week on eBay included lunch with incoming president of the city council Eric Garcetti. Billed as "a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get your viewpoint heard," bidders were...
Dodgers owner Frank McCourt recently and very quietly proposed building a 65,000-seat football stadium on the parking lots at Dodger Stadium for a new NFL team he would own, the...
Two emails came in this morning about the city's ballyhooed pothole repair effort. One, from Bureau of Street Services chief William Robertson, lectures that I shouldn't have been so skeptical...
⇒ City Controller Laura Chick turned up the heat today on schools Supt. Roy Romer, making a public records act request for all federal, state, county, and internal audits of...
Mayor Villaraigosa's photo op du jour was the ceremonial filling of a North Hollywood pothole—reputedly pothole number 80,173 to be repaired since September 24. That would mean an impressive (or...
Bruce Seaton, the interim executive director at the Port of Los Angeles, informed the city today he will retire in January after thirty-five years. He was due to be replaced...
Mayor Villaraigosa has appointed architect Alejandro Ortiz to complete the board of the Community Redevelopment Agency. He replaces the commission appointment of architect Mark Rios, who withdrew in October. Release...
Attention hill people: the City Council took away your street parking during "red flag" fire alerts just in case a fire truck might want to come up your street some...
Lucys El Adobe Cafe near Paramount Studios has been prime Democratic turf since Gov. Jerry Brown made it his L.A. headquarters in the 1970s. His long romance with Linda Ronstadt...
Residents of Laurel Canyon trekked downtown and waited four hours to address the City Council about a hillside development matter. When it came their turn to speak, twelve of the...
Four people were found dead on one day in different places on Skid Row, none of them due to crime. The City Council got the news just before creating a...
Thirteenth district councilman (and soon-to-be Council President) Eric Garcetti today announced the hiring of David Gershwin as his chief of staff. Gershwin left the office of current Council President Alex...
More than 2,000 people (LAT; AP says "hundreds") viewed the body of executed murderer Tookie Williams Monday at a mortuary on South Vermont. Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan and Snoop Dog...
The L.A. Times website plans to launch tomorrow a new Flash-driven service feature called L.A. Off the Map. The first un-Timeslike installment has staffer Pete Metzger, on video wearing shorts,...
⇒ The Daily News' Beth Barrett takes off from last week's nugget (and follow-up) about City Council time off to compare the L.A. council's pay and perks to other cities....
Animal activists don't have Guerdon Stuckey to kick around anymore. If they want to protest the new guy, they'll have to find out the home address for Ed Boks, who...
Mayor Villaraigosa has gone back to the Broad Foundation (from where he lured Chief of Staff Robin Kramer) and signed up Marcus Castain to be his Associate Director for Education,...
They almost had him: City News Service was alerted to a 4:30 pm press conference, but Guerdon Stuckey changed his mind and refused to step down as head of Animal...
David Zahniser reported in this morning's Breeze that Mayor Villaraigosa's deputy chief of staff, Jimmy Blackman, gave Guerdon Stuckey the word that he's out as head of the Animal Services...
The L.A. Times is dropping the shell that remains of its national edition. Once a full-scale newspaper sold on the street in Washington and New York as part of a...
Tomorrow's meeting of the City Council rules and elections committee will take up an urgent matter of supreme interest to the electeds: how many days off to build into next...
The police commission voted to publish its decisions on use of force by LAPD officers, but without names. Union head Bob Baker of the Police Protective League applauds the move:...
Mayor Villaraigosa today appointed his commissioners for the Board of Information Technology. Natalie Cole, publisher of Our Weekly, is among those named. Full release with bios after the jump. *...
Mayor Villaraigosa appears before the police commission at 9:30 am to urge more transparency in use of force investigations by the Inspector General. The LAT does an advancer on the...
Don't miss posts from the weekend on the DreamWorks sale, the QM2, Richard Pryor's passing and a little media roundup. On to today: ♦ The state Supremes nixed a stay of...
Larry Grisolano ran City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo's successful 2001 race and, more importantly, was directing the race against Jerry Brown to get the Democratic nomination for state attorney general. He...
Mayor Villaraigosa's State of the Valley speech included his hopes for a denser, more urban Los Angeles than most in the Valley probably want: "This old concept that all of...
Services for former Los Angeles city councilman Marvin Braude will be held Monday at 11 am at University Synagogue on Sunset. Braude represented the Westside for thirty-two years. Statements released...
City Controller Laura Chick just put an end to the chatter that she is considering a run for state Controller—by announcing that she isn't going for it after all. Just...
Mayor Villaraigosa and relevant supporting characters will appear at Berth 87 in the harbor to announce the new appointee to run the Port of Los Angeles. * 1:15 pm update:...
District Attorney Steve Cooley's office has decided no criminal charges are warranted in the LAPD shooting death of thirteen-year-old Devin Brown. The question was whether officer Steve Garcia broke the...
Those of you who were still cozying up to Richard Fausset of the Times' third-floor bureau can scratch him off the holiday party list. He is shipping out to Atlanta...
Andrew K. Antwih is the mayor's new Chief Legislative Representative in Sacramento. A native of South Los Angeles, Antwih has been chief consultant to the Assembly transportation committee and has...
Extending the subway out Wilshire Boulevard is essential—and only didn't happen originally because of white fears about "those people" coming to the Miracle Mile and Beverly Hills, bus rider D.J....
LAT notable: Patrick McDonnell, now the LAT's bureau chief in Buenos Aires, wrote about his two years in Baghdad in the Times' Sunday magazine...Steve Lopez helps his Skid Row violinist...
Todd Purdum, the former Los Angeles bureau chief for the New York Times who also has covered the White House, will depart the paper's Washington bureau at the end of...
Perhaps taking a cue from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, City Controller Laura Chick has offered to oversee an audit of school district administrative operations. "As the independently elected Controller for the...
Robert Greene in the LA Weekly observed the welcome ritual for L.A.'s newest city council members and says they fit in like familiar veterans—and for good reason. On their first...
At 1:30 Mayor Villaraigosa will announce a deal to scale back the old LAX expansion plan (and settle the lawsuits) at a command audience of pols: two Congress members, two...
Charles Crumpley, Money Editor at the New Orleans Times Picayune since 2002, starts Jan. 1 as editor of the Los Angeles Business Journal, the staff has been told. LAO reported...
L.A. County health director Thomas Garthwaite resigned today in a closed session of the Board of Supervisors. He has accepted a position as chief medical officer of Catholic Health East,...
Mayor Villaraigosa didn't announce any public events for today, but he was plenty busy. He spoke at the joint swearing-in of new City Council members Herb Wesson and Jose Huizar....
Author and former state Sen. Tom Hayden had a strong letter in Sunday's Calendar section praising the Times for tough coverage of the Getty. But, he writes, much more scrutiny...
Nearly a dozen posts made their way onto the blog during the so-called holiday break, including the first (exclusive) list of which familiar names look to be leaving the L.A....
⇒ The Paul Williams-designed Holmby Hills home adjacent to Harvard-Westlake (formerly lived in by Bruce McNall and Ronald O. Perelman) will be saved and moved to Pasadena, the NYT says....
City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo got a visit at home Friday from tenants facing eviction from the Lincoln Park Garden Apartments in Venice. The Venice Paper says that about thirty of...
♦ Alex Padilla on Monday endorsed Eric Garcetti as his successor in the City Council president's chair. Let the record show that on May 27, LAObserved posted: "Alex Padilla will remain...
The mayor made his appointments to the board that hears appeals from employees in the city's civil service system. Former United Teachers Los Angeles president John Perez is one of...
♦ Curveball was a screwball and the Germans knew it, but President Bush exaggerated his bad info on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction anyway, the Times said in Sunday's lede story...
Rep. Brad Sherman of Sherman Oaks has been using JDate under the name of "jim2005ofDC, according to The Hill in Washington. A spokesman for the Democrat confirmed the revelation for...
♦ Yeah, curator Marion True shouldn't have taken that $400,000 loan from two wealthy art collectors right after the Getty acquired their collection. Today's front pages New York Times See/Read Washington...
♦ More cuts are coming within weeks, Times Editor Dean Baquet confirms in a staff story about his shutdown of the Outdoors section (reported here yesterday) for financial reasons. "I made...
Catching up with a longer-than-usual helping of Monday morsels... ♦ The Times' powerful package on conservator scams was three years in the making: among other things, a prime example of the...
♦ Remember last week when Nissan denied having made the decision to leave Gardena for Tennessee? At a press event today in Nashville the company will cease the denials. Exit 1,300...
♦ You know how Washington Mutual has been letting anyone take cash from their ATMs for free? Not anymore. ♦ To see whether Jose Huizar eked out a clean win in the...
Voters rejected every one of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's so-called reform measures, as well as the other propositions on Tuesday's ballot. The only one that could even be considered close was...
♦ Mayor Villaraigosa will vote today in his new neighborhood in Hancock Park-adjacent, not back in Mount Washington. Meanwhile, don't expect any L.A. Times exit poll data. Too expensive this time...
In addition to this big serving of Monday items, don't miss the late-Friday postings about Bob Scheer, some media moves and a shakeup of the LAT's City Hall coverage... ♦ Ethics...
Reporter Matt Myerhoff is leaving the L.A. Business Journal to be communications director for Councilman Greig Smith...Lots of newsroom buzz at the Daily News about the futures of Business Editor...
Assistant Managing Editor Janet Clayton has fielded complaints about the depth, breadth and savvy of Times' local political coverage since she became the Metro staff boss last year. Late Friday...
In addition to the newsy posts below about Nissan and Chief Bratton, here are some morning nuggets... ♦ The City Council approved an unusual tax-exempt bond scheme that could be worth...
Mayor Villaraigosa's new police commission overruled LAPD chief William Bratton and decided that a detective who shot an unarmed burglary suspect was in the wrong. This kind of rebuke hasn't...
The city's Planning Department is "an agency caught in a time warp of past practices, old procedures, and outdated technology," Controller Laura Chick said in releasing her office's review of...
Yes, some tweaks to the look and the front pages box. The latter drove the former. The box now has separate links to view the actual front pages (where available)...
Expect some traffic disruptions downtown this morning around the funeral of former Rep. Edward Roybal. Services begin at 8:45 am Monday at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels, followed...
Pajamas Media has inked Judith Miller as keynote speaker for its Nov. 16 launch in New York (according to Roger Simon) and added Austin Bay to the editorial board...L.A. Times...
Thanks for all the suggestions about the Front Pages box. I intend to tinker with both design and function when I get the time this weekend. So far, the Washington...
Today's front pages New York Times LA Times Daily News LB Press-Telegram OC Register IV Daily Bulletin La OpininMore local newsVariety Hollywood Reporter CBS-2NBC-4 ABC-7 Fox-11KPCC SoBay Daily BreezePasadena Star...
Not everything, but a little something to get the day going... ♦ Chief Bratton says he'd like to stay around for a second term, starting in 2007. ♦ City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo...
Mayor Villaraigosa scooped the local media with a statement on the passing of former councilman and congressman Edward Roybal. He was 89 and is the father of Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard....
Council president Alex Padilla's campaign for the state Senate just press-released the backing of LAPD chief Bill Bratton. The primary election isn't until June, but judging by the rush of...
♦ "We're going to try to keep an open mind until we can see what will happen...there are definitely a range of reactions and emotions," LA Weekly Editor Laurie Ochoa told...
David Zahniser reports in the Daily Breeze on the search for a new executive director of the Port of Los Angeles. Not that it's a hard job or anything: Help...
♦ The national board of the Screen Actors Guild caucused in Santa Monica on Sunday and fired executive director Greg Hessinger and three of his aides. Variety's hed: "Thesps gone wild."...
Robert Greene opens his LA Weekly analysis of the current 14th council district campaign with a little history. He describes a 2003 rally where newly minted school board member Jose...
During his campaign for mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa tried not to remind voters too often of his past leadership of the ACLU of Southern California. (Jim Hahn, conversely, pointed it out...
♦ City Hall lobbyists now have to disclose online their clients, the issues they advocated and how much they got paid every three months. Daily News ♦ Hollywood waits and worries over...
At yesterday's airport commission meeting, the Breeze reports, new executive director Lydia Kennard said she was negotiating with The RAND Corporation about how to implement the think tank's anti-terrorism recommendations...
Trying to get more distance from the corruption stench that blew out of LAX and enveloped the Hahn administration, Mayor Villaraigosa's airport commission today created an Office of Ethics and...
A correspondent who reads the City Council files closer than I do sends paper from last week showing that Mayor Villaraigosa has withdrawn last month's appointment of architect Mark Rios...
Mayor Villaraigosa today named an "independent peer review panel" to look into the idea of a Wilshire Boulevard subway west of Western Avenue. He wants a report in November. The...
A little bit late today... ♦ Mayor Villaraigosa asked for an outside review of the DWP's power failures and appointed Forescee Hogan-Rowles to the agency's board. ♦ Doug Dowie won't get to...
♦ Robert Iger and Steve Jobs make nice, and will start making ABC shows available on the new video Ipod. ♦ Add a new pro to the ranks of local bloggers about...
♦ Tonight is Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's walk-on role on the George Lopez sitcom on ABC. Daniel Hernandez in the LAT analyzes the bilingual press conferences and other evidences of "the Latino...
Over the weekend City Council president Alex Padilla was elected president of the League of California Cities, essentially a lobbying arm for city officials in the state. The question now...
Since Columbus Day is not one of our two dozen company-paid holidays here at LAObserved LLC... ♦ The Supreme Court hears oral arguments this week in Garcetti v. Ceballos, the case...
Follow-ups, catch-ups and clearing off the desk for Columbus Day... ♦ Sunday's L.A. Times fronts a Steve Lopez column about his violin-playing street person, Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, taking in the stage...
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told Israeli Foreign Ministry officials this week that he will lead a delegation of local businesss leaders to Israel next year. Last month, the Korea Times disclosed...
♦ Mayor Villaraigosa nearly filled the Tom Bradley Room on the top of the City Hall tower with media there to hear him recite the accomplishments of his first 98 days...
Mayor Villaraigosa did indeed name his citywide planning commission this afternoon. In addition to ex-councilman and former candidate for mayor Mike Woo, the appointees are former Tom Bradley deputy Jane...
Mayor Villaraigosa visited USC this morning for the school's 125th anniversary and talked up his own first hundred days in office. It's been a theme this week. He has already...
♦ Marc Weingarten reports in today's New York Times on a bitter lawsuit here in L.A. between singer Leonard Cohen and the manager he says looted millions from his accounts while...
Slow start to the day due to other commitments... ♦ Former Tribune reporter John Cook has posted a PDF of this week's New Yorker story on Tribune, the Times and Dean...
♦ Adelphia blames equipment failure related to the Topanga fire for depriving thousands of their "Desperate Housewives" fix. ♦ Mayor Villaraigosa's plan for improving schools falls into the hands of the Times'...
As predicted by David Zahniser and Doug Irving in the Breeze, Mayor Villaraigosa today named Lydia Kennard to replace Kim Day as executive director of Los Angeles World Airports, the...
In addition to last night's items on the Times stories by Ken Auletta and the Wall Street Journal, here are some other things you might want to know about: ♦ Getty...
Kim Day got the offer she couldn't refuse to leave as head of LAX personally from Mayor Villaraigosa's in-house counsel Thomas Saenz and deputy chief of staff Marcus Allen, according...
♦ Tempers flared during the ten hours the city council locked itself in to finally select Gerry Miller as the CLA to replace Ron Deaton, Rick Orlov reports in the Daily...
Looks like the Wilshire International Pavilion and its well-connected neighbors in the Windsor Square Association are at war again. Black mourning tarps have been draped over the entryway and sculptures...
Gerry Miller is the new Chief Legislative Analyst for the City Council. He has been the acting CLA and was previously executive officer in the second-floor suite. Council President Alex...
♦ The school board picked up Supt. Roy Romer's option for another year. ♦ The state medical board opened an investigation of the St. Vincent's physicians who sold a liver transplant to...
Last Friday, the City Council quietly referred to its education and neighborhoods committee a motion asking the City Attorney's office to prepare an amicus brief for federal court supporting the...
♦ St. Vincent's did a liver transplant on a Saudi national who was #52 on the waiting list, collecting $339,000 from the Saudi Arabian embassy and screwing a patient at UCLA...
♦ Rachel Uranga reports in the Daily News on the phenomenon of L.A. immigrants skipping English to learn whatever is spoken in their neighborhood: "Peruvian immigrant Miguel Aliaga always knew that...
Light day on the blog. I'll be at USC judging the Online News Association awards for this year. ♦ I know a true con man never stops conning, but this is...
Today's CityBeat says the Animal Liberation Front is taking credit for smoke-bombing the Bunker Hill Towers downtown as part of its campaign against Gordon Stuckey, general manager of the city's...
Let's hope L.A. smells better today... ♦ Today's LA Weekly declares war on air pollution with a thirty-page special package that looks closely at the threat posed by ultrafine particles and...
Happy Wednesday... ♦ DWP workers got the big raises they were demanding: up to 28% over five years. The Council voted 10-3 to go along. DN, LAT ♦ Bill Burke withdraws from...
Mayor Villaraigosa is planning a trade trip to Japan, China and South Korea in January, the Korea Times says. His traveling partners will be closely observed. It was on Jim...
A sampling of starters for the day... ♦ Simon Wiesenthal died in Vienna at age 96, the center on Pico Boulevard announced. Standing ovations in every temple in L.A. on Friday...
Mayor Villaraigosa today named his members of the Community Redevelopment Agency board. He kept on labor activist Madeline Janis-Aparicio and added John Perez from labor, community activist Brenda Shockley, architect...
Marc Haefele's cover profile of Controller Laura Chick in the current L.A. Alternative Press ("Control Freak") explains why reporters love Chick and her audits of city departments: She hands them...
You didn't really think I was going to let the mayor get up on a horse without taking photographic note of the occasion, did you? Antonio Villaraigosa rode an LAPD...
♦ In today's New York Times, Dennis McDougal reports that the Writers Guild is sitting on millions of dollars owed to writers it can't find—no-names like Tom Clancy, Mira Nair and...
Later items are added at the bottom... • The Times takes a look at the all the traffic tunnel schemes being contemplated for Southern California. Some people still don't like to...
Mayor Villaraigosa today named Mark Winogrond to be the city's interim planning director. Here's an interview with him in The Planning Report last year and the transcript of a roundtable...
• Mayor Villaraigosa confirms that, yes, his family will be moving to Getty House, at least part-time. A day earlier, he was still being cagey. Next week, one of the...
Copley News city hall reporter David Zahniser reports in today's Breeze that Mayor Villaraigosa wants to move his family into Getty House after all. The official residence at 6th and...
• Michael Kinsley's departure from the LAT rates a bylined story in the New York Times, and to a cynic maybe that alone was good enough reason to give him a...
On your City Hall press corps lineup card, delete Ryan Oliver from the L.A. Daily Journal. He's going to the criminal courts beat. Add Erin Park, who used to staff...
• Remember when tabloid publisher David Pecker claimed his rags didn't go easy on candidate Schwarzenegger just because they were in business together? Turns out he also "didn't" try to hush...
Sen. Barbara Boxer forayed into the Valley today to endorse Alex Padilla for the state Senate race in the 20th district. The city council president picked up California's other U.S....
City Controller Laura Chick likes that job title so much that the next political office she is looking at is state Controller. She confirms for Rick Orlov in the Daily...
On his trip out to Tujunga today, Mayor Villaraigosa named three more fire commissioners: Jill Furillo, Southern California director of the California Nurses Association (and the Tujunga connection); administrative law...
Posting will be light today... • Mayor Villaraigosa safaris out to Tujunga this morning to unveil his appointees to the Fire Commission. If you don't know where that is, well, it's...
Last night's opening of Dead End at the Ahmanson Theatre certainly attracted a crowd. It was the debut play of Michael Ritchie's reign as Artistic Director of Center Theatre Group,...
There was a bit of movement today in the traffic jam facing the Democrats over the 20th Senate district in the Valley. Incumbent Richard Alarcon is vacating to run for...
• Screenwriter Tom Benedek shoots his own unproduced scripts—literally, with a .45-caliber pistol—and mounts them as art. His exhibition "Shot by the Writer - Works on Paper: 1982-2004" opens this month...
Some appetizers: • Marc Cooper of the LA Weekly and the Nation will be the guest host on KCRW's Left, Right and Center, today at 2:30 and 7 p.m. It's his...
One of Mayor Villaraigosa's campaign promises has come due. On September 17, he is booked to go horseback riding through Chatsworth with the local neighborhood council. "The Mayor and...
The political blog Mayor Sam's Sister City is not anonymous any longer. Two of the ring-leaders came out of the closet in a post today, after the Times asked them...
Welcome to September... • Seems like every gas station between Hollywood and Santa Monica went to $3-plus a gallon overnight. The 76 station at Olympic and Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills...
A little morning briefing... • Brian Cullen, the suspected killer of model Iryna Singerman, was found dead in a Tijuana motel room. Authorities say he killed himself with a bullet to...
• The L.A. Conservancy threw in the towel on the fight to save the Ambassador Hotel from demolition. The school board votes today on a plan to donate $4.9-million toward conserving...
• KCAL and KTTV each won nine local Emmy Awards on Saturday night. Among the top honors, KCBS won for best daytime newscast ("CBS2 News" at 6 a.m.) and best daily...
* Late adds pinned to the end... This one is a week old, but I don't care. Enjoy the L.A. River as you've probably not appreciated it before, through a...
• Jill Murphy, the Getty's 33-year-old chief of staff with no art background, is leaving and apparently won't be missed. Her mentor since college at Cal State Sacramento, Barry Munitz, concedes...
The New York Daily News reports today that Mayor Villaraigosa will host a fundraiser here on Monday for Fernando Ferrer, the Democrat who is trying to unseat Michael Bloomberg as...
The former ABC News reporter who worked closely with Chief William Bratton in New York and followed him to the LAPD is leaving for Washington. Miller, who has been the...
Mayor Villaraigosa's new police commission today chose John Mack to be president of the panel that oversees Chief Bratton and the LAPD. He was president of the Los Angeles Urban...
Tonight's Which Way, L.A.? with Warren Olney looks at the issues of race and class in the fight over King-Drew Medical Center. Elected county Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Yvonne Brathwaite...
Wayne Tanda, the general manager of the city Department of Transportation, up and resigned today after just three years. That means Mayor Villaraigosa will get to put his own person...
Mayor Villaraigosa filled open slots on a slew of commissions today. The appointees include the wife of county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, the former husband of Controller Laura Chick, and Kelly...
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's appointments to the Department of Water and Power commission are as previously rumored and reported: Mary Nichols, Nick Patsaouras, David Nahai, Bill Burke and Edith Ramirez. Bios...
Rick Orlov's Tipoff column in today's Daily News quotes the best line that the late city councilman from "the great Ninth District" (as Lindsay used to say) ever mangled. During...
Mayor Villaraigosa will be the guest editor for the next collection of student writing from 826LA, the Dave Eggers-inspired group based in Venice. The students are from his alma mater,...
• City Council President Alex Padilla was "near tears" during an intense closed-session fight over hiring a new legislative analyst for the council, the Times' Steve Hymon reports. There are two...
Denise Fairchild has been thinking of running against former Speaker Herb Wesson for the open 10th district seat on the City Council. She hired Villaraigosa adviser Parke Skelton to get...
• The last radio station to be located in Hollywood leaves Friday at 11:05 p.m., Bob Pool says in the LAT. • All the high-profile ankling from The Firm, the once-hot Hollywood...
• Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys throws up a new hurdle for NFL football coming back to Los Angeles. Times • Big raises for DWP employees has Julie Butcher and SEIU...
Rikki Klieman, the Court TV legal analyst and wife of LAPD chief William Bratton, is guest hosting for the vacationing Bill Handel on KFI this week. Her marquee guest on...
Erwin Baker used to be the Times' City Council reporter and by virtue of longevity was crowned the "dean of City Hall reporters" before that dubious label fell to either...
Mayor Villaraigosa's pro-environment appointments are analyzed by Copley's David Zahniser in today's Breeze. He includes Mary Nichols and David Nahai, who he reports are expected to be named to the...
Mayor Villaraigosa has appointed Robert M. Saltzman to the City Ethics Commission. Saltzman is Associate Dean of the University Of Southern California School Of Law. Yes, he's the same Robert...
Terree Bowers left his job as chief deputy to City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo recently to specialize in white-collar criminal defense as a partner at the downtown law firm Howrey LLP....
The Dodgers didn't make any deals at the baseball trading deadline, but Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa added some key players today. Cecile Ablack is the new Deputy Mayor for Communications. She...
This is going to be a light mid-summer week for me. But here's something to get you started. • The hoary old Olympic Auditorium—excuse me, the Grand Olympic—has been sold to...
New L.A. councilman Bill Rosendahl from the Westside is interviewed by Howard Fine in this week's L.A. Business Journal. Rosendahl says that he has created an "Ambassadors Club" to tap...
Richard Llewellyn Jr., chief of staff to Councilman Eric Garcetti, is moving over to City Hall East and upstairs as Chief Deputy City Attorney, Rocky Delgadillo announced today. He previously...
Neighbors describe Joseph Radisich as a helpful Mr. Nice Guy and love that he lives upstairs. Problem is, as David Zahniser reports in today's Daily Breeze, those neighbors are in...
Lawyers for the Times and DA Steve Cooley argued that the Board of Supervisors violated the Brown Act—the state's open meeting law—by deciding behind closed doors to shut the trauma...
Council President Alex Padilla announced Thursday that, just like all the rumors say, he is running for the state Senate seat being vacated in the Valley by Richard Alarcon. Still...
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa takes the gavel today for his first meeting as chair of the MTA. It's his luck that the rotating chairmanship belongs this year to whoever is mayor...
Mayor Villaraigosa names his Board of Harbor Commissioners at 10 a.m. at the Cruise Ship Promenade in the port. The Times' Deborah Schoch and Richard Fausset, and David Zahniser in...
Scoop for Copley's David Zahniser: he reports in the Daily Breeze that Mayor Villaraigosa will name anti-LAX activist Valeria Velasco, attorney Alan Rothenberg and UCLA professor Fernando Torres-Gil to the...
* Updated with additions at the bottom. Howard Fine says on the front of the L.A. Business Journal (free) that "Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa plans an ambitious economic development agenda reminiscent...
• Mayor Villaraigosa plans to announce his appointments to the airport commission Monday morning. They will be introduced at a photo op at Lincoln and Sepulveda—good for visuals, not so much...
It will start up in the next few months and likely focus on local politics, an exec of the L.A. Newspaper Group tells James Nash in the L.A. Business Journal...
The City Council is taking up its new committee structure today, including the return of Intergovernmental Relations as a separate panel. If all goes smoothly Council President Alex Padilla is...
This week's light posting has been due to me being out and around on assignment. It's likely to continue today. Late shorties will be tacked on to the tail end....
Former Mayor Jim Hahn will try to make it rain as managing director for Chadwick, Saylor & Co., the Brentwood real estate and investment firm run by Coliseum Commission president...
City Controller Laura Chick released an audit today that found "serious accounting issues" at the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. When Jim Hahn was mayor and the two political figures...
• The Daily News lost Sports Editor Michael Anastasi to the Salt Lake Tribune not too long ago and now is losing another his successor. Doug Jacobs is leaving to be...
• American Media CEO David Pecker confirms in the New York Times that part of the controversial magazine deal with Arnold Schwarzenegger was that the tabloids would lay off when he...
Burbank councilwoman Stacy Jo Murphy's arrest on suspicion of gun and cocaine violations in connection with the Vineland Boyz gang prompted woman-in-the-news stories in the Daily News and Times. Both...
No surprise, but word out of City Hall is that Larry Frank, staff director at the UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education and a certified Friend of Antonio from...
Looks like labor leader Julie Butcher's car was torched in her front driveway in Highland Park. The head of the Service Employees International Union local at City Hall found her...
Bobbi Murray does the honors for CityBeat. Ludlow's ascension to executive secretary of the County Federation of Labor is due to be voted on next week, adding some punctuation to...
Geez, you try to skate by for a few hours and stuff starts to pile up in the in-box... • Former Burbank mayor and current city councilwoman Stacey Jo Murphy was...
Mayor Villaraigosa today named the police commissioners who will get to clean up the mess from the killing of Jose Raul Pea and his nineteen-month-old daughter, now identified by the...
LA Unified Supt. Roy Romer's Friends of L.A. Schools fund raised contributions mostly from construction firms, textbook publishers and other school contractors, the Daily News reports. Romer insists there is...
• Police on Monday revised the facts in that fatal weekend shootout in South L.A. First, it was in Watts. The name of the dead father was changed to Raul Pea....
Summer weekends when there is no fog at the beach are no time to be blogging. But here are some items that fought their way out of the pile. • Shots...
Antonio Villaraigosa was up early and out on the streets Thursday to put on the right face in the aftermath of the London terrorist bombs. He appeared with Chief Bratton...
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announces his appointees to the MTA board and a deputy mayor for transportation tomorrow at the Patsaouras Plaza near Union Station. First he'll ride the Gold Line...
Civil rights attorney Thomas Saenz is joining the Villaraigosa administration as the mayor's chief ethics officer and legal advisor. The L.A. Business Journal says Saenz has been vice president of...
For the journos out there, the key contacts in the mayor's press office are Press Secretary Joe Ramallo, who came from Villaraigosa's city council staff, and Janelle Erickson, most recently...
Grandpa Villaraigosa strolled to City Hall between Corina and his granddaughter, with a few thousand of his closest friends right behind. As a couple of people pointed out on the...
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is expected to return longtime enviromental activist Mary Nicols to the DWP board (she was there under Tom Bradley) and appoint John Mack to the police commission,...
Edgy it's not, but the Times' not-quite-a-blog on inauguration week has had some pretty good items. Today Steve Hymon went to Hahn's free exit lunch on the City Hall portico...
I've also copied below the Villaraigosa transition's list of diginitaries attending the Friday swearing-in. It's for readers whose enjoyment is in the details. I count 43 consuls-general and Mexico's ambassador...
Mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa will be sworn in to office on Friday by Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. Reinhardt is something of a lightning rod...
At the Times' online Inauguration Notebook, Daniel Hernandez looks at how the local Spanish-language media has been getting ready for the Villaraigosa era. Hoy has been running a front-page countdown...
Someone who observed today's City Council farewell to Cindy Miscikowski emails that both Hahn and Villaraigosa showed up (along with ex-members Zev Yaroslavsky and Joy Picus.) The video tribute included...
Outbound: • Hahn chats with Tina Daunt about the future, goes dirt-bike riding with Jackson and Katrina, and tries to score Rolling Stone tickets for the Hollywood Bowl: "I've seen the...
LATimes.com is posting a running Inauguration Notebook. It's starting out slow, though Daniel Hernandez picked up on the not-intended-for-the-public job applications showing up on the Villaraigosa website. The Times also...
You might not want to be around the Civic Center on Friday unless you are there to partake in the festivities. Here's the word from Villaraigosa Central. [* Plus an...
L.A. Business Journal editor Mark Lacter gives the details on long-time political reporter Howard Fine's shift onto some new beats. His email also says that next week's issue will add...
On Friday morning the long windup ends and Antonio Villaraigosa's term as mayor actually begins. To prepare, the Times interrupted former government editor and City Hall ace Jim Newton's book...
The mayor-elect told the Times that cuts are necessary to correct a growing deficit. He declined to get specific, but said "people are going to be surprised" by what he...
Bob Hertzberg, Eric Garcetti and Bernard Parks all came out Tuesday as supporters of former Speaker Herb Wesson's candidacy for the city council. He wants the 10th district seat soon...
Martin Ludlow's coronation as labor boss of L.A. County hit a snag when some unions refused to go along. Instead of the 10th district city councilman sailing through at a...
Jim Hahn — I'll have to check, but I believe he is the mayor of Los Angeles — makes a rare public appearance on Saturday in San Pedro. He will...
• Change is coming to the third floor press rooms. At the City News Service desk, Art Marroquin is coming up from San Diego to take over for Erin Park, who...
Robin Kramer will return to the third floor of City Hall as the chief of staff to Mayor Villaraigosa; she previously served in the same capacity for Richard Riordan. The...
• Mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa took the official oath privately in his office, with Corina and children Antonio Jr. and Natalia Fe attending. It doesn't take effect until July 1, of course....
The first Villaraigosa inaugural invitations are going out. As you can see on the full-page PDF file, dining and dancing with the mayor-elect won't come cheap. For the June 30...
Mayor-elect Villaraigosa flies to Fort Worth today to speak to the National Association of Hispanic Journalists convention. Meanwhile, the Times' Patrick McGreevy and Jessica Garrison confirm yesterday's post that a...
Councilman-elect Bill Rosendahl is going to take the ceremonial oath of office at Venice Beach. He will do it Saturday, July 2, from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. The email...
Since the so-called 3-12 work schedule for officers went into effect, crime is down [pretty much everywhere...] and morale and recruitment are up, but it takes longer to get a...
Former Fleishman-Hillard executives Doug Dowie and John Stodder were in federal court Monday and got an extension on their conspiracy and wire fraud trial. Their attorneys said that more than...
The Daily News' Rachel Uranga lands the first story since the election about Corina Villaraigosa, "a soft-spoken educator and mother who shies away from the limelight...." Her father was a...
People are buzzing about how L.A.'s mayor is suddenly spotted everywhere these days, giving speeches, meeting the folks, dedicating a new ride at Universal City, throwing out the first ball...
Today's Daily Journal report on Steve Sugerman, the latest ex-Fleishman-Hillard exec to face charges, says that prosecutors expect Doug Dowie to plead guilty when he appears in federal court Monday...
Now we know who one of the key government witnesses will be against Dowie Dowie and John Stodder, the former Fleishman-Hillard executives charged with fraudulent billngs and conspiracy. Steve Sugerman,...
• Antonio Villaraigosa intends to become chairman of the MTA board when he takes ofice. The mayor gets to appoint three other MTA members, and he vowed to look at extending...
• As expected, Martin Ludlow will leave the City Council to take over the County Federation of Labor. He will make $37,000 a year more than Miguel Contreras, the late...
Union leaders have called a noon news conference, presumably to announce that Councilman Martin Ludlow has been named executive secretary of the County Federation of Labor. The Times story quotes...
Antonio Villaraigosa's chief media adviser in the campaign, David Doak, has signed on to do the same for Fernando Ferrer in New York. Ferrer is a Democrat who trails the...
That was the amount in so-called independent expenditures — not subject to limits — during this year's city election campaigns, the Times' Jeff Rabin reports. In the mayoral runoff, one...
Soon-to-be-ex Mayor Jim Hahn gave his first extensive interview since the election to Rick Orlov of the Daily News. Orlov has known Hahn a long time and wrote that the...
An evolving post, with the newest items at the bottom: • If true, this will open up some movement in local politics. According to email from a senior staffer at City...
The Times identifies Steve Sugerman, a former Fleishman executive and ex-Riordan deputy, as one of the unnamed (and uncharged) co-conspirators. The LAT also says that Dowie is likely to be...
Mayor Hahn is seeking soft landing spots for some of his key aides. He has moved to appoint chief of staff Tim McOsker to the City Employees' Retirement System board...
City Controller Laura Chick, whose audits brought some attention to the Fleishman-Hillard PR contracts, released this statement about today's indictment of City Hall figure Doug Dowie. "I want to congratulate...
City News Service has moved an urgent advisory, saying that Doug Dowie, the former head of Fleishman-Hillard public relations in Los Angeles, has been charged with conspiracy and fraud. The...
Antonio Villaraigosa's Washington trip went well, with the mayor-elect being asked to sign copies of his Newsweek cover and getting good reviews. He spoke to a Latino Leadership lunch ("attended...
The LA Weekly's recurring Weekly Literary Supplement has a cover piece on eighteeen local independent presses, sidebars on Tosh Bermans TamTam Books, Feral House, Tsehai Publishers and Josh Kun writing...
Copley's David Zahniser details in today's Daily Breeze the different hats worn by Fernando Guerra, the Loyola Marymount professor and commentator on local politics who also has made $71,509 so...
• Sean Bonner at blogging.la discovers a parking meter scam run by street people in the toy district downtown. • Tim McGarry, a frequent commenter on L.A. blogs (and here when I...
Ever heard of Angelo Mozilo? He is chairman and CEO of Countrywide Financial Corp., and king of the L.A. Business Journal's list of highest-paid local executives. His take last year:...
Antonio Villaraigosa won't be the mayor for another month and a day, but his election continues to fascinate the media. Two profilish stories this weekend, in the Timeses of Los...
Here are some items from the week. Posting over the weekend will be sporadic at best. • Los Angeles magazine celebrated this month's comedy issue last night with drinks, schmoozing and...
Author, urban expert and New America Foundation fellow Joel Kotkin is emerging in the media as the most determined early critic of Antonio Villaraigosa's election as mayor. In this week's...
The council has apparently avoided a fractious showdown over leadership of the body. According to a good source at City Hall, a deal has been brokered under which Alex Padilla...
Here's the full list, from Abayari to Ziman. Thanks to everyone for the veritable deluge of files this morning. (* Late arrival: Here's the ethics pledge the transition team members...
Hal Netkin, the city's shrillest anti-immigrant gadlfy, won't be charged over that driving incident at a Minuteman Project protest in Orange County. Garden Grove police originally arrested Netkin after his...
The mayor-elect announced Thursday that Bob Hertzberg will chair his transition team of 81 members, among them business and labor leaders, environmentalists, developers, artists, educators, community leaders, neighborhood council members,...
Valley dingbat Hal Netkin ran a phone bank during the mayoral election that called voters with automated anti-Villaraigosa messages. He's obsessed with immigrants and the mayor-elect, and on his website...
Mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa won't live in the Windsor Square home that was donated to the city for use as an official mayor's residence. He will continue living on Mt. Washington....
Jeffrey Anderson in the LA Weekly checks in on the father whose family name has figured prominently in two mayoral elections, and finds more questions looming about Horacio Vignali than...
Westside developer Mark Abrams has a date in court this afternoon to be arraigned on two felony counts and ten misdemeanors alleging he laundered $21,000 in excess campaign contributions to...
Friends and supporters of Mayor Jim Hahn who want to hold on to their clout (or at least retain some access to power at City Hall) are busy trying to...
As I reported (sketchily) back on May 15, former Riordan chief of staff Robin Kramer is taking a lead role in the Villaraigosa transition. She moved into the 15th floor...
First, from the swirl of politics. Newsweek puts Antonio Villaraigosa on the cover of Monday's issue, using his landslide election as the peg for a story about Latino power. An...
On his first day as mayor-elect, Antonio Villaraigosa met Wednesday with LAPD chief Bratton, did the Crenshaw photo op I razzed him about yesterday, met with L.A. Unified superintendent Roy...
Santa Monica's news website The Lookout attended the election-night party for Bill Rosendahl in a Venice home equipped with a bowling alley in the bathroom, a glass encased showroom for...
Villaraigosa won at all income and education levels, among men and women, and at all age levels except 65 and older. After all the talk about Bernard Parks and the...
It's customary for major candidates in L.A. to face the media and take questions the day after an election. Jim Hahn did, showing up at his Wilshire Boulevard headquarters at...
2005 Turnout 30.61%Villaraigosa260,72158.7%Hahn183,74941.3%Final semi-official/City Clerk 2001 Turnout 37.67% Hahn304,79153.53%Villaraigosa264,61146.47% Antonio Villaraigosa swept in by a landslide to become the first Latino mayor-elect of Los Angeles since Cristobal Aguilar in the...
It's kind of rough and thin on compelling content, but at least LATimes.com is trying some new stuff. Snapshots from Election Day have been posted so far from four separate...
Today is — finally — Election Day in Los Angeles. Relatively few will vote, municipally speaking, but at least it was fun, right? The network morning shows, banking on history...
An anonymous, right-side political blog called Informed Sources posts that it has quickly registered the web domain names Villaraigosa2009.com and Antonio2009.com. After Villaraigosa wins the Los Angeles mayoral runoff election...
Councilman Villaraigosa gets on a bus at 7 a.m. today in North Hollywood and, at least in theory, will keep making stops until the bus lets him off to vote...
Between Hahn and Villaraigosa, I count thirteen campaign stops at Christian churches today, most of them in South L.A. Both are also working in an appearance (Hahn at 1:20, Villaraigosa...
On this final Saturday of the mayoral marathon, the boys are heading back to the delis. After stopping in at three Shabbat services, Antonio Villaraigosa hits Art's in Studio City,...
The mass for Miguel Contreras began with "Amazing Grace" and ended with a mariachi version of "De Colores." In between there was applause from the crowd inside the Cathedral of...
The four key strategists in the race for mayor are studied in today's Times by Carla Hall. They are quintessential political junkies so well-known that, like "J.Lo" and "Britney," people...
• Dodgers owner Frank McCourt refinanced his debt today, borrowing $250 million and using it to pay off loans from Bank of America and News Corp. that he needed to buy...
The horses can sense the finish line in the race to be mayor, and the crowd's on its feet. With less than a week until Tuesday's culmination of all this...
Yesterday's Newsday column quoting friends of LAPD chief Bill Bratton about his New York aspirations was the talk of City Hall and the police department, the Daily News' Beth Barrett...
LA Weekly political editor Harold Meyerson pens a Powerlines obit of his friend Miguel Contreras on the Weekly website. I imagine it will also run in the paper this week....
Newsday's Ellis Henican devotes today's column to the idea that LAPD chief William Bratton — he calls the chief "Hollywood Bill" — is preparing for life after Los Angeles and...
* Updated at the bottom... • Villaraigosa called for an investigation of Nick Tonsich, the president of the harbor commission whose financial dealings were the subject of a Times takeout on...
• Pierce College out in Woodland Hills is offering a course this summer that could be the answer to high gas prices. Fundamentals of Mule Driving, also known as Equine...
Villaraigosa51% Hahn40%The front runner's lead has shrunk from 18 points a month ago to 11 points now, but the latest (and probably final) L.A. Times Poll found Antonio Villaraigosa...
Times columnist Al Martinez has been around a long time. And he apparently has seen quite enough of the current campaign for mayor. His verdict: Unimpressed. Some snippets: Once upon...
Rick Orlov says the worst job is the staffer assigned to shadow the other candidate's events, tape the remarks and try not to get assaulted. For Hahn the duty has...
On the second-to-last Sunday of the mayoral runoff, the Times doesn't reveal a new poll (maybe Monday?) but does land profiles of Hahn and Villaraigosa focused on the formative...
How respected — or powerful — was the late Miguel Contreras? When the news spread Friday that the labor leader had passed away, Mayor Jim Hahn and Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa...
Organized labor's most influential Los Angeles leader apparently suffered a fatal heart attack late Friday. Contreras suffered from type 2 diabetes; most media sources put his age at 52, but...
Hear that roar? Those are the after-burners kicking in on Air Villaraigosa. For the period from April 3 to April 30, the councilman raised $2,211,367 to Mayor Hahn's $763,325. Viewed...
• Friday's City Council meeting was cancelled so those who wish can attend the funeral of slain LAX police officer Tommy Scott. Why do I expect it will be a mayoral...
Editors of the Times' op-ed page were surprised and chagrined to learn the other day (from the Daily Breeze via L.A. Observed) that Tuesday's commentator Fernando J. Guerra is not...
Longtime L.A. scribe Jan Golab, author of the 1993 book The Dark Side of the Force: A True Story of Corruption & Murder in the LAPD and a writer for...
Ouch. Harold Meyerson leads today's LA Weekly column with a great Jim Hahn anecdote. Recently, he writes, four Stanford academics studied the effect on voters of a politician's appearance by...
The day after Villaraigosa launched a TV blitz calling his rival an ethical slug, Hahn fired back Tuesday with his own spots that slam those controversial Florida donations that Villaraigosa...
In today's Daily Breeze, David Zahniser looks at the nearly $1.5 million being spent on the mayoral runoff outside the usual $1,000-per-person contributions limit. Legally, the money has to be...
A new website, LAPDauthors.com, compiles links and information on books by almost two dozen current and former Los Angeles Police Department officers, from Bill Parker to Joseph Wambaugh to Bill...
Democratic strategist Darry Sragow, a free agent in the mayoral race, turns to the headline cliche to explain Antonio Villaraigosa's new commercial, which began airing Monday. It rips Jim Hahn...
Ex-mayor Richard Riordan will be on KCRW's Which Way, L.A.? with Warren Olney this evening at 7 p.m. Riordan, who's backing Villaraigosa, will talk about the schools in the mayoral...
In Gregory Rodriguez's op-ed piece in today's Times, we get some fascinating personal insights about the men who are running for mayor. I learned that Jim Hahn does not like...
By now everyone should know that more people live in the Los Angeles portion of the San Fernando Valley than in any U.S. city except New York, L.A., Chicago, Houston...
Politics reporter Howard Fine in the Business Journal adds to what has been a less-than-fun week for Antonio Villaraigosa's campaign, writing in the new issue: What is it about Antonio...
• Zankou Chicken in Glendale was vandalized with red paint after the owner chose to stay open last Sunday, the day commemorating the killing of 1.5 million Armenians in Ottoman Turkey...
District Attorney Steve Cooley just jumped into the fray over Antonio Villaraigosa's $1,000 campaign checks from workers (and their families) at two Florida firms that want to sip from the...
After realizing that his own little ethics scandal isn't going away, Antonio Villaraigosa announced Thursday he will return the $1,000 checks donated to his campaign by employees of two Florida...
The mayor "has never contacted me in the four years hes been in office, Rep. Maxine Waters tells Betty Pleasant in The Wave. "He has never been in my office...
Police chief Bill Bratton said this morning that six LAPD officers will face administrative discipline for their role in the arrest last June of Stanley Miller, a suspect who was...
* Newest at the bottom, including Bill Lockyer out of the race for governor... • Looks like an interesting cover package in LA Weekly on apartment living, under the theme of...
This is a one-source item, but I believe a pretty good (if confidential) source. The source says that Council President Alex Padilla tomorrow will endorse Antonio Villaraigosa for mayor. Padilla,...
Good piece of enterprise reporting by Copley's David Zahniser, who found that 19 employees of Miami-based Travel Traders, which operates hotel gift shops, are listed as giving $1000 each to...
Antonio Villaraigosa's campaign is enticing supporters to attend a Saturday rally with the candidate and "a national political figure." It's John Kerry, the Times says. Meanwhile, Villaraigosa and Hahn showed...
Antonio Villaraigosa's first on-air thirty-second ad of the runoff campaign is out. The theme is his commitment to education. Villaraigosa mentions that his wife is a teacher (but not that...
The LAT today joins the media pack on the Huffington Post, with an arch quip from ex-Timesman Tom Rosenstiel: "Is this a new kind of communication: a unique, elite blog-salon?...
Long but terser-than-usual roundup, due to a books-filled weekend away from the computer. It was great to chat with old friends, new readers, media people and bloggers and to hear...
Following Mayor Hahn's opening bid of three appointees to the L.A. school board, Antonio Villaraigosa came back Thursday and bid up the pot, saying whoever is mayor should have final...
Councilman Eric Garcetti uses his blog mostly to keep the 13th district informed about local happenings. This week there are items on a visit by Gen. Tommy Franks and a...
Robert Greene at the LA Weekly recites "a few of the critical details" that Mayor Hahn left out of Monday's State of the City speech. For instance, while it's true...
Yesterday's City Hall settlement with Fleishman-Hillard over inflated billings gave a glimpse of the competition between two ambitious politicians, City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo and Controller Laura Chick. In announcing that...
The mayor hopeful has raised almost $1.2 million in two weeks and reports reaching the $1.8 million official fundraising cap for the runoff. The cap will be lifted, however, because...
On Monday morning, Mayor Hahn packed the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center on Washington Boulevard with his mother and sister, friends, supporters and department heads to hear the annual State...
Only saw the last half of Sunday night's mayoral snipefest, but what I caught was not pleasing. Neither candidate came across to me as visionary, commanding or likable. Villaraigosa, in...
It could be this week's LAT Poll showing Villaraigosa with an 18-point lead and a month to go, or the Bob Hertzberg-Bernie Parks-Magic Johnson endorsements, or the weight of everything,...
INT. CROWDED SUNLIT ATRIUM DAY County Supervisor GLORIA Molina introduces BOB Hertzberg, after they don white coats for tour of high-tech medical laboratory with ANTONIO Villaraigosa. They lose the...
Today's Times sort of covers the candidate's East Coast fundraising swing, which stopped in New York, Washington and South Florida. No details are reported of Tuesday's private New York breakfast...
Howard Fine reports on the L.A. Business Journal website that Bob Hertzberg will come out for Villaraigosa tomorrow in the Valley. Fine cites "a source close to Hertzberg." The Villaraigosa...
City Controller Laura Chick and Councilman Bernard Parks will appear in a new run of cable TV ads for Antonio Villaraigosa to begin right away, his campaign announced. In her...
The county Supes, reacting to more deaths at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, yesterday ordered county health chief Thomas Garthwaite to physically move his office to the troubled hospital....
Today's LAT Poll says that even whites in the Valley and blacks in south L.A. favor Antonio Villaraigosa by a wide margin, after going big for Jim Hahn in 2001....
During a trial status conference Monday for John Stodder, the ex-Fleishman-Hillard executive indicted for his alleged part in overbilling the city DWP, Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam D. Kamenstein disclosed that...
Villaraigosa goes out to Bob Hertzberg's home turf in Sherman Oaks this morning to accept the endorsement of "a leading Los Angeles entrepreneur." He's bringing Dick Riordan with him. The...
Rabbi Steve Weil, who harshly criticized Mayor Jim Hahn's campaign last month, now says he believes that zealous Jewish community volunters, not Hahn campaign staffers, are responsible for forged signatures...
OK, now we know: Antonio Villaraigosa has outraised Mayor Jim Hahn by about a third in the opening weeks of the runoff campaign. Hahn reported $407,795, compared to his rival's...
The cover story in CityBeat charts the "terrible rise, fall, and slow resurrection" of the former Eastside power broker Richard Alatorre. Chip Jacobs writes that Alatorre could have been a...
Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa released his appointment calendar since taking office in 2003 in response to a Times demand, but Mayor Jim Hahn cited security reasons for his refusal — even...
In an LA Weekly cover story, Robert Greene analyzes why a city council thought to be the most progressive ever just two years ago has not delivered. Mayoral politics and...
Antonio Villaraigosa's campaign filed his contribution report a day early, showing that he has raised $653,255 in the past four weeks. The reports aren't due at the city Ethics Commission...
In today's Daily Breeze, David Zahniser provides more details about the latest turn in the investigations into possible pay-for-play and other kinds of corruption involving city contracts and the Hahn...
It's common for the city council to end each meeting by adjourning in memory of residents who recently died. Today, the council went further. The entire day's agenda was cancelled...
Federal and county prosecutors looking into the Hahn administration have recently asked for detailed information about the mayor's trip to Asia in 2002 with then-commissioner Leland Wong, members of the...
Jewish Journal senior editor Howard Blume has an interesting media piece on the refusal of reporters at the Daily News and LA Weekly to pursue long-rumored details about Mayor Hahn's...
Ex-mayor Richard Riordan, who backed Bob Hertzberg in this year's primary, is returning today to the Villaraigosa fold, the Daily News' Rick Orlov reports. Riordan had endorsed Villaraigosa in the...
Photographer Gary Leonard's archive of 40 years of Los Angeles ephemera and artifacts—menus, flyers, concert tickets and other hard to replace historical items—was soaked by a leaky roof in his...
Remember Fleishman-Hillard? The PR agency's former boss in Los Angeles, Doug Dowie, has filed a wrongful termination lawsuit over losing his $370,000-a-year job in January, the L.A. Business Journal reports....
So far today—and it's still early!—the Hahn campaign has challenged Villaraigosa to stop hiding and debate, the Villaraigosa camp has responded by calling that "the ultimate act of chutzpah" and...
Regarding Monday night's political theater-slash-debate at CSUN, the print reporters pretty much agreed: Times: "Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn and his challenger, Antonio Villaraigosa, tangled over trust and leadership...
I noticed ex-councilman Nate Holden standing around when Mayor Hahn posed for the cameras last week at Galpin Motors, but I didn't chat him up. Rick Orlov did, and reports...
The Times' Mark Z. Barabak writes Sunday that the replay between Hahn and Villaraigosa echoes the 1973 rematch between Tom Bradley and Sam Yorty, but only to a degree. The...
* Updated All three dailies (Times, Daily News, Daily Breeze) top their Saturday campaign stories with Mayor Hahn's Friday attack on Antonio Villaraigosa that he's untrustworthy and pandered to voters...
LAist's Josh Strike says that ex-mayor and current education secretary Richard Riordan was humbled yesterday at LAX. With about 500 people in the security line at Terminal One, Riordan tried...
The other night, DA Steve Cooley told some reporters that Robert Blake was guilty as sin and a miserable human being. He also remarked that the jury that acquitted him...
The mayor said today he would reserve a seat on every city commission for members of neighborhood councils. I presume that includes the juice commissions like planning, airport, harbor and...
The black-Latino political coalition that could make 2005 different than 2001 for Antonio Villaraigosa moved a good bit closer to reality today. Rep. Maxine Waters, who was with Jim Hahn...
Some collected items, from here and there (updated a couple of times): • District Attorney Steve Cooley told the SPJ gathering Tuesday that Robert Blake is "as guilty as sin. He...
The Hahn campaign just released the list of eight debates the mayor has agreed to participate in with Antonio Villaraigosa. First one is next Monday. The one that stands out...
James Nash of the L.A. Business Journal has posted a web story that Richard Alarcon will announce tonight that he is endorsing Villaraigosa for mayor, as he did in 2001....
First in a series, I think. EXT. GALPIN MOTORS PARKING LOT DAY Noise from 405 Freeway and Van Nuys Airport traffic drowns out voices. Cameras and reporters record as BERT...
When last seen at Canter's deli, Bob Hertzberg was chasing after Mayor Jim Hahn with a kitchen sink. On Monday, they sat down at Art's—at Hahn's request—to talk about a...
Loyola Law School election expert Rick Hasen looks at the election night Inka job by City Clerk Frank Martinez and concludes it was not "ballot tamperingas some have suggestedor sound...
LAT profile I: In her piece on labor boss (and Hahn airport commissioner) Miguel Contreras, Matea Gold goes quickly to the Godfather card: "With his wireless glasses, slightly cherubic face...
David Abel, public policy consultant and publisher of The Planning Report, argues in this week's Outside the Tent that dumbed-down media are largely to blame for the city's pathetic voter...
The Jewish Journal story about forged Hahn endorsement signatures has legs. The Times and the Daily Breeze picked it up in Saturday's paper after Rabbi Weil and two others held...
Betty Pleasant is a contributing editor to the Los Angeles Wave and writes the paper's gossipy Soul Vine column, mostly about black community politics. In the run-up to the mayoral...
Joel Kotkin, still in disbelief about Bob Hertzberg's inability to make the runoff, writes in Friday's Jewish Journal that Jewish political clout in L.A. is on the wane and ain't...
The city attorney just elected to a new term filed to run for state attorney general. Delgadillo says in the Times, "I've said all along I want to fight for...
The mayor has to go negative to cut into Villaraigosa's vote, but by now his own numbers are so low he may not be believed, says a Times piece by...
Updated occasionally, newest at the bottom. • Bob Hertzberg tells the Daily News he's undecided about what the future holds for him. • That Friday Times piece on Estrich v. Kinsley is...
Los Angeles City Clerk Frank Martinez, a recent Hahn appointee, had election workers use blue ink to color in ballot "bubbles" that were only partly filled, the Daily News reports...
Times columnist Steve Lopez writes today that he ran into councilmen Alex Padilla and Tony Cardenas at Pete's Cafe downtown on election night and got into a discussion about whether...
No surprise that City Controller Laura Chick came out today in support of Antonio Villaraigosa. She endorsed him four years ago, and in the city council Villaraigosa backs her wish...
Catching up on my reading: • LA.com catches Susan Estrich un-wowing at the William S. Paley Television Festival. On her website, Estrich sort-of apologizes for bringing up Michael Kinsley's health in...
Media coverage of Day One of Round II all predicts a campaign high in invective. The Times says Hahn begins as the trailer in this sequel. On page A20 the...
Jim Hahn opened his press conference at noon with a smile and a quip—"now the fun begins." A cursory look at yesterday's results, however, shows the challenge the mayor faces....
Villaraigosa33.07%Hahn23.68%Hertzberg22.15%Parks13.37%Alarcon 3.59%99.19% of precinctsLatest results from City Clerk Unless there's an unexpected change, it's Antonio Villaraigosa versus Jim Hahn in the May 17 general election for mayor. Just like it was...
• In the 11th council district, they couldn't settle it. Runoff between Bill Rosendahl and Flora Gil Krisiloff. • Controller Laura Chick waited to see which good friend got in the runoff,...
Things are pretty quiet around City Hall today, with most of the press and many of the political staffs engaged on the election. But out of City Hall East comes...
David Kipen of the San Francisco Chronicle, "Day to Day" and KCRW asked each of the Big 5 candidates for mayor to name their favorite book and also recommend one...
Election Day I is finally here. Final campaign wraps in the Times, Daily Breeze and Daily News. Daniel B. Wood of the Christian Science Monitor gets in on the last...
SurveyUSA is the polling operation that uses the recorded voice of KABC news anchor Marc Brown to ask questions and lets respondents answer without talking to an actual human. They...
It's the day before the day before the real race for mayor begins. In the main daily stories, the Times decided to cover the gamut: From black churches to Jewish...
Mayor Hahn's campaign schedule for Sunday includes stops at several black churches, Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles, Canter's on Fairfax and Farmers Market. Bob Hertzberg's first deli is Brent's in Northridge,...
Rolling into the final weekend, the candidates are riding buses, filling the airwaves and sniping at each other. All in the name of getting out the vote. • Times roundup: The...
E-Day minus four: • He's baaaack: Carlos Vignali returns to L.A. politics in a new Hahn ad that hits both Villaraigosa and Hertzberg for writing letters on the crack dealer's behalf....
Tom Hayden and Mike Woo both ran for mayor and lost to Richard Riordan. In this week's CityBeat, they have some things to say. First Hayden, who wrote an essay...
In the news on Election Day minus five (* updated with new entries at the bottom): • Talkin' 'bout Enron: Hahn's hit at Hertzberg and Villaraigosa over their campaign contributions...
* Updated below The Times' Jeffrey L. Rabin reveals that for two months Bob Hertzberg has refused to disclose the law clients that have paid him $1 million a year...
Pressroom buzz at tonight's mayoral debate inside CBS Television City was less about what the candidates were saying and more about the latest Los Angeles Times Poll, to be published...
• Bob Hertzberg called on Mayor Hahn to remove airport commissioner Miguel Contreras, DWP board vice-president Sid Stolper, and commissioners Julie Butcher, Tyrone Freeman and Sergio Rascon. Each are officials of...
Today begins the last full week of the first heat in the race for mayor. The top news for Monday is that Channel 2 may delay airing its own debate,...
Bob Hertzberg's suggestion to break up the L.A. Unified School District is more of an idea than a plan, since even the candidate admits there won't be any specifics unless...
A new round of campaign contribution reports hits the paper today. Bottom line: you'll be seeing a lot of Hahn and Villaraigosa on TV between now and March 8, even...
That's not a surprise, since the paper was a major cheerleader for his candidacy four years ago. This time, though, the Weekly is not as enthusiastic. Were disappointed and even...
A reader emails that the top item on the official city website for councilwoman Janice Hahn is a link to her testimony at the Billy Graham Crusade held last November....
From a City News Service story this evening: About two dozen African American political, religious and community leaders announced a dual endorsement today of two City Council members who are...
Now that the race to finish second in the mayoral primary seems to be a fight to the death between Hahn and Hertzberg, the latter's manuevers to inoculate himself against...
Here's how valuable a nod from Controller Laura Chick has become in local politics. Even though Chick has endorsed Bill Rosendahl in the wide-open 11th council district race, rival candidate...
After months of attacking Jim Hahn as a corrupt empty suit—including a new mailer depicting the mayor with a bumper sticker that reads "I brake for campaign contributors"—Bob Hertzberg called...
Bob Hertzberg sat down last week with editors and reporters at the L.A. Business Journal. The accompanying profile in this week's issue is free online, but the interview is for...
Today's Sunday Opinion section in the Times offers little info boxes (with photos) on the records and reputations of the main political advisers in the race for mayor. Excerpts: Bill...
"Jack Dunphy" is the pseudonym of a politically conservative LAPD veteran who contributes to National Review Online. His most recent piece rails about the "carnival of racial pandering" he says...
* Updated with excerpts The paper says Sunday that a spirited runoff betwen Antonio Villaraigosa and Bob Hertzberg would be good for the city, and doesn't name a favorite—only that...
Today it's the Hertzberg campaign's turn to stumble in public. Somebody over there sent out a mass email boasting that KCAL-9 commentator Kerman Maddox (who is a Parks supporter) proclaimed...
Sherry Bebitch Jeffe submits to questions about the mayor's race from CityBeat editor Steve Appleford, who noticed that she is the expert debate reporters go to when they need some...
No blog, especially not this one, can post on everything. There is just too much going on. So we pick and choose. One of the surest ways an item makes...
Last time I sat in the lobby of Laura Chick's suite in City Hall East, the most prominent photo showed the controller with her friend Bob Hertzberg. She selected him...
Who knew that blogger Mickey Kaus' call for the L.A. Times to run more gossip about the private lives of politicians would have such legs. First John Carroll used the...
Joe Scott, who worked in the Bradley and Riordan campaigns for mayor and has covered races—and who is researching 1930s Los Angeles for a book—takes issue with the meme repeated...
The Times asked Bob Hertzberg for the details of his call to break up the L.A. school district and reports today there aren't many specifics to know. The closest thing...
Fresh off losing in the city council, which won't let voters decide if they want a sales tax boost for more cops, LAPD chief William Bratton warns on the Times...
They are more capsules than profiles, if the 839 words spent on Richard Alarcon in Monday's paper are typical. (Compare to the Times and LA Weekly.) The rest are coming...
This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention. Sunday's Daily News editorial says of the paper's choice: Fortunately, there are four qualified candidates with a strong...
As expected, the name of Carlos Vignali has surfaced in the mayoral race. But this time it came from Bernard Parks, who charged that Jim Hahn's TV spots about Vignali...
Richard Alarcon is 51, a crack bowler, lives with his mother in the Valley when he is in town, has two grandchildren, calls Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation his favorite...
Ex-mayor Richard Riordan formally endorsed Bob Hertzberg for mayor this afternoon on the "John and Ken Show" on KFI. Not much surprise there—Riordan's wife Nancy Daly has been co-chair of...
From the L.A. Business Journal website (which updates with local breaking news these days:) Charges were dismissed Thursday against six associates of trial attorney Pierce ODonnell who were accused of...
Controller Laura Chick gave reporters the memo she shared privately with Mayor Hahn's challengers only after the LA Weekly filed a Public Records Act request, the Weekly's Jeffrey Anderson writes...
The candidate who was making $1 million a year as a lawyer—then tried to move his kids out of private school and cut their child support when he gave up...
Tensions ran high in the City Council chambers. The police chief and fire chief strode about in uniform, councilmembers railed and the mayor's sister berated council President Alex Padilla. But...
The chief-turned-councilman insists in his Times profile by Tina Daunt that he's not running for mayor just to avenge the humiliation of having his 37-year LAPD career ended by Jim...
Mayor Hahn's shift of $100,000 to each neighborhood council for street repairs that we told you about yesterday earned stories in this morning's papers. (Times, Daily News, Breeze) Hahn's move...
Today's profile in the Times touches on the major turns in the life of Antonio Villaraigosa, but it's clear that, at least in the primary, these set pieces won't be...
Antonio Villaraigosa didn't get the endorsement of the animal activists at Citizens for a Humane Los Angeles (Walter Moore did), but he's not giving up on their votes. After the...
You have to admire the chutzpah of the strategic brains behind Mayor Hahn's reelection campaign. Just hours before tonight's first televised debate in front of the Citywide Alliance of Neighborhood...
The Times, following its long-established pattern, has writers working on personal profiles of each of the main contenders in the mayor's race. On Monday Hahn gets his 2600 words. Noam...
Updated through the weekend Lesbian chic: Screenwriter and "L Word" creator Ilene Chaiken is profiled in Sunday's NYT Arts section. "In 1999, after writing a magazine article about same-sex couples...
Jim Hahn holds the record for citywide elections won, and just as many voters think Los Angeles has improved while he's been mayor as deteriorated. But in the first independent...
City Controller Laura Chick has decided—after all—to divulge what she told the challengers to Mayor Hahn in their private meetings last week. Chick's office informed the City Hall press corps...
The Times and Daily News build spot stories around Valley attorney Fred Gaines, a prominent Hertzberg supporter, who says that he observed DWP commission president Dominick Rubalcava introduce Mayor Hahn...
Prosecutors announced today that they will not file charges against LAPD officer John Hatfield, who was videotaped last June using a flashlight to hit prone car-theft suspect Stanley Miller. DA...
City Controller Laura Chick is responsible for objectively auditing the performance and fiscal integrity of city government, including aspects of the mayor's office. So some eyebrows were raised when the...
In his new TV spot, a gargantuan Bob Hertzberg strides like a giant through city streets, crouching to point out problems like traffic and poor schools. His promise to make...
John Beard: The Wall Street Journal devotes most of a TV column to the Fox 11 anchor's cameo appearances on series such as "24" and "Arrested Development." Tim Iacofano, a...
That must have been some hearing in Superior Court yesterday over the DA's money-laundering case against trial attorney Pierce O'Donnell. The Daily Journal (sub req'd) wrote that "the hearing was...
Times columnist Steve Lopez tries to keep up after meeting Bob Hertzberg for breakfast at 7 a.m. We learn that the candidate hangs out at the Donut Factory as well...
The LA Weekly's Jeffrey Anderson posted a great scoop [the Weekly has fixed the link] on the paper's website this afternoon: City Controller Laura Chick had each of the four...
The Daily Journal reported yesterday (not online) that plea negotiations in trial attorney Pierce O'Donnell's money-laundering case broke down over his "inability—or unwillingness—to provide incriminating evidence about Mayor James Hahn's...
City Council president Alex Padilla apparently didn't care much for the tactics used yesterday by fellow councilmember Janice Hahn (the mayor's sister) to lobby for a sales tax hike for...
Candidate (oops, I mean Mayor) Jim Hahn is holding a press conference at Hollywood and Highland tomorrow morning to "announce his plan to end all dropped cellular phone calls and...
Back in Septemer 2003, Alan Arkatov walked down the hall from the downtown office he rented at Fleishman-Hillard and told his pal and F-H boss Doug Dowie that they were...
Just when you were starting to care, the mayor's race is almost over. Well, the easy part anyway—the first heat to the March 8 primary. Then we begin again with...
After posting the latest cash on hand in the mayor's race on Thursday night, I wondered how much of the $7 million raised has come in via small contributions. Remarkably...
O'Dwyer's Report, a monthly pub for the PR trade, doesn't think much of all the scrutiny directed at Fleishman-Hillard's controversial activities in Los Angeles. The cartoon showing the agency being...
Candidates for mayor have now raised $7 million in contributions for the upcoming battle of the airwaves, and have accepted another $2 million in public matching funds. They filed reports...
City councilman Eric Garcetti blogged his inside-the-yellow-tape observations of the Glendale train wreck. His reelection campaign blog also includes photos of the carnage and of fellow councilman Tom LaBonge on...
The City Council voted yesterday to borrow enough money to hire 250 (Times) or 300 (Daily News) new LAPD officers this year. Both papers cite Valley councilman Greig Smith as...
Political analysts Arnie Steinberg and Raphael Sonenshein will be guests on Larry Mantle's Airtalk this morning at 10:30 (KPCC, 89.3 FM) to talk about the race for mayor. At 11:30,...
City Council President Alex Padilla told the Current Affairs Forum Monday that the vote on a tax hike for hiring more cops should be delayed until next year. The L.A....
What is it with City Hall and websites that encourage people with gripes to vent anonymously without standing behind their assertions? Yet another new anonymous site, Blog City Hall, has...
From here on out, the race for mayor of Los Angeles is a sprint. With luck some Big Issues will be debated before March 8. Without a doubt there will...
It shows up in Jim Hahn's latest campaign disclosure filings with the city Ethics Commission. The fund took in donations of $11,000 before the end of the year and spent...
The Daily News page-tops a pro-business report by frequent L.A. critic Joel Kotkin—and not usually so biting Jack Kyser—complaining that city officials are more concerned with social issues than creating...
Finally, someone has made a connection between local politics and hockey that I can give a link. It's a fleeting connection, but still. NBC Sports contributor Evan Weiner has a...
The Roundup, it's called, is from the editors at Political Pulse and AroundtheCapitol.com. It joins Rough and Tumble ("a daily snapshot of California public policy and politics") in linking to...
Two televised mayoral debates are being sponsored next month by the Citywide Alliance of Neighborhood Councils. With that name, you might think it's an alliance of the 80-some official neighborhood...
Muff Singer was married to former Los Angeles City Controller Rick Tuttle. She died Sunday at home after a long battle with ovarian cancer. She was 62. Singer worked in...
Off to a fast start: Red carpet: The guv and his missus seemed to enjoy their prime table—and their time in front of the cameras—at the Golden Globes. In the...
The cover piece in the CityBeat issue that came out Thursday happened to recite the litany of investigations, ethical questions and connections swirling around Jim Hahn's run for reelection. Stormy...
A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted former Fleishman-Hillard senior VP John Stodder on 11 counts of wire fraud. These are felony counts and allege that he "participated in a...
• The L.A. Times has an obit today on Marcus Arnold, who rocketed to Internet stardom as a 15-year-old legal expert on AskMe.com. Turns out Arnold died back on May 1,...
The mayor's race got a little snippy today. This morning I guess Bob Hertzberg unveiled something he calls the Commuters' Bill of Rights. The Hahn campaign responded, over spokeswoman Julie...
Where it counts in January, that is. The mayor's got $2.4 million in the bank to spend on ads and getting out the vote, compared to about $1.6 million for...
Antonio Villaraigosa's campaign sent email to supporters this afternoon claiming that he's leading the race for mayor based on a poll released today by the Hertzberg campaign. The first problem...
Hertzbucks up: Bob Hertzberg disclosed Sunday that his campaign for mayor has raised $2.2 million, double what he reported in September. He now has nearly $1.6 million on hand. We'll...
In the news: Laura vs. Rocky: City Controller Laura Chick accuses City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo of blocking her audit of $29.6 million in fees paid to private law firms. (Daily...
[* Updated after the "More" link below] In today's LA Weekly, Civic Center reporter Robert Greene argues that even though most eligible Angelenos don't vote in races for mayor, the...
JimHahn.org is the last of the mayoral campaign websites to get started. It's got the usual bio and endorsements (he leads with the labor unions and puts Eli Broad well...
Staffers at Fleishman-Hillard offices around California were told this afternoon that Doug Dowie, who had been on paid leave, is "no longer with the firm." If you've been paying attention...
In last week's Dissonance column in LA Weekly, Marc Cooper lambasted the County Federation of Labor's endorsement of Jim Hahn over longtime labor activist Antonio Villaraigosa in the mayor's race....
Despite spending more than $4.8 million on marketing, the Department of Water and Power has lost most of the people who signed up for its Green Power Program. The Daily...
Los Angeles was slightly less homicidal again last year. The number of murders fell from 517 to 511, half of those in South L.A. and 6 in 10 due to...
Yesterday, it was El Segundo suing Los Angeles over the plan to renovate LAX. (Three more lawsuits are expected this week.) Today, Mayor Hahn reopened the air war between L.A....
In a front page story in the latest L.A. Business Journal, Howard Fine says internal campaign polls show Antonio Villaraigosa and Bernard Parks—the two council members in the mayor's race—ahead...
Both Monday political notes columns glance at Antonio Villaraigosa's campaign website, which was relaunched last week. Rick Orlov in the DN says that Villaraigosa is borrowing from the Hertzberg play...
Striking a symbolic blow for legions of frustrated Angelenos who have schlepped downtown to address the City Council only to be insulted and ignored, a state appeals court ruled last...
Posting will be light through New Year's Day. But I will probably add a few notes here during the coming week, with the freshest at the bottom. See you all...
Last night's debate featured some spirited back and forth sniping between the candidates, mostly directed at (or by) Jim Hahn. Talking to reporters afterward, the mayor defended his administration against...
Around the race for mayor: • We know what Richard Alarcon will talk about at tonight's debate. The state Senator filed papers yesterday pushing a ballot measure to ban city contractors...
Edited since first posted LAist has found a sure-fire way to get more City Hall readership, at least for the day. The blog has posted a Q-and-A with Rick Orlov,...
LAVoice.org has competition for its series keeping tabs on the web presence of the five top candidates for mayor. In the Downtown News, Jon Regardie submits their websites to expert...
Adding to Mayor Hahn's labor sweep this week, the Police Protective League officially threw its endorsement his way today. No surprise there, since the LAPD rank-and-file are happy with the...
The county Federation of Labor hears from the candidates for mayor today and then votes on an endorsement, Rick Orlov says in the Daily News. Last time, the umbrella group...
The New York Daily News' Rush & Molloy say that the prospects of LAPD chief Bill Bratton being appointed Homeland Security chief by President Bush are weakened by his association...
Joe Scott wrote a notes column called "The Body Politic" that ran on page two of the Herald Examiner during the 1980s. It was a must-read for politics junkies. Before...
Second-tier mayoral candidate Walter Moore is so determined to play with the big boys that he is loaning his campaign $100,000. The attorney told the Daily News he hopes the...
Political and media hands have been lamenting the demise of the annual holiday party thrown in Hancock Park by the Times' Janet Clayton and her husband Michael Johnson. For many...
Updated through the weekend, newest at the bottom • Mayor Jim Hahn and councilman Bernard Parks both opened their 2005 campaign headquarters on Saturday. Hahn's (photo provided by his campaign) is...
David Goldstein at CBS 2 apparently had the story last night (it's in the Daily Breeze today). A 78-year-old Lancaster man walked into the LAX police station last Saturday to...
Mayor Hahn's connection with Fleishman-Hillard continues to cost him. Today, it's headlines about candidate Antonio Villaraigosa asking the city Ethics Commission to look into the mayor's role in the public...
Robert Greene nails it in the LA Weekly: It is high opera, a classic tale of ambition, betrayal, revenge and perhaps even a little lust and greed. It has to...
For the second day in a row, the papers run stories about bad reaction to Mayor Hahn's political plays with city commissions. This time it's about his appointment last month...
* Updated with newest posts at the bottom • The February issue of Hustler will carry the story by Michael Collins and Mark Cromer that liberal critics of Rep. David Dreier...
Jim Hahn's administration at City Hall has a rep for removing commissioners without any thanks for their volunteer time (only the Public Works commissioners get a salary). Sometimes the firing...
Today's political notes columns are light on City Hall items, but Rick Orlov does mention the new blog by Ken Reich, the former Times political writer, that we reported on...
* Updated all weekend, newest posts at the bottom • A new (to me) blog of L.A. street photography: The Streets are Alive, by Nitsa of Streets of Los Angeles, where...
If nothing else, last night's televised debate removed any doubts that the mayor's race is going to be a rancorous, negative and highly personal clash. The challengers pounced on Jim...
The candidates for mayor come together tonight at the Musuem of Tolerance (and on KNBC and KWHY at 7 p.m.) and hope that somebody—anybody—cares at this early point in the...
Candidate Bob Hertzberg is out today with another online-only ad, vowing that his first priority as mayor would be to splinter the Los Angeles Unified School district into smaller pieces....
Police commisioner and developer of The Grove Rick Caruso says he'll bankroll a drive to put Mayor Hahn's sales tax hike for more cops on the May ballot if the...
• Tonight's "Jeopardy" is the game when champion Ken Jennings is finally dethroned. He won $2.5 million on 74 shows before losing in a match taped in September. The new champ...
In a Q-and-A with the Downtown News, outgoing chairman George Kieffer of the L.A. Chamber of Commerce praises Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ("I think we have a very pro-business governor") and...
By one media measure, the contest between Jim Hahn and his pursuers to finish first or second on March 8 kicks into higher gear today. After weeks of mostly event...
By some reckoning, Rick Orlov of the Daily News is the dean of L.A. City Hall reporters. He's been there a long time, knows a lot, and is respected. Add...
As expected, the county Board of Supervisors voted to shut down the trauma center at South L.A.'s troubled King/Drew Medical Center. Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke abstained, leaving the vote 4-0...
The next generation of Los Angeles City Hall reporters and deputies won't have to learn how to spell Miscikowski. The councilwoman from the Westside who is losing her seat next...
The mayor has just named Yolanda Fuentes to one of five coveted (translation: high-salaried and full-time) seats on the Board of Public Works. I'm not saying this move is motivated...
On the news and opinion website American Reporter, San Pedro correspondent and activist Robert Gelfand gives Controller Laura Chick and the Times credit for putting pressure on the Hahn Administration....
These details are from Copley L.A. bureau reporter David Zahniser, whose story in the Daily Breeze looks at Fleishman-Hillard's other contract, not with the DWP but with the Port of...
Associates of Mayor Hahn approached State Sen. Richard Alarcon three months ago about helping him run for controller instead of mayor, Alarcon says in Patrick McGreevy's Inside Politics column in...
In Saturday's Times and Daily News, Controller Laura Chick keeps up the heat on Fleishman-Hillard and Mayor Jim Hahn over their mutually beneficial relationship. Chick posted online at her official...
Some comments by councilman Ed Reyes in this week's LA Weekly cover story got him in trouble with his fellow council member Tom LaBonge. In the story about Reyes' efforts...
* Updated through the day • Mark Schubb reads the LAT website closer than most, and finds another case of promotional copy for a car dealer being posted as a news...
A week after saying he couldn't make it, Mayor Jim Hahn has decided to attend the Dec. 2 League of Women Voters campaign debate after all. Spokeswoman Julie Wong says...
The City Controller's Fleishman-Hillard audit has legs: all three local dailies run second-day stories with new details, and the Daily News opines with wishful thinking in an editorial that Laura...
The City Council said no deal to the $540,000 consulting contract negotiated with former Port of Los Angeles executive director Larry Keller. One of the objections is that he's a...
City Controller Laura Chick said today that her audit found $4.2 million in "unsubstantiated, unsupported, and questionable charges" billed to the city by Fleishman-Hillard for public relations services. PRWeek reports...
A long-awaited business tax reform plan pushed by Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti is due to be voted on in the City Council Wednesday, with good prospects of passage. They...
The Times reports that Mayor Jim Hahn's latest failure to persuade the city council to expand the LAPD could haunt his reelection campaign. In the Daily News (story not online),...
A national Gallup Poll of people who don't live in Los Angeles—and by the looks of it have never visited—rates L.A. as the third most unsafe big city in America....
Doug Dowie, still on administrative leave from Fleishman-Hillard, filed a legal response Friday that denies the City Attorney's lawsuit allegations that, under Dowie, the PR firm padded its billings to...
Both the Times and the Daily News do stories today on Mayor Jim Hahn's decision to skip a Dec. 2 debate that Channel 4 plans to air. His campaign spokeswoman,...
Out in Sherman Oaks, neighbors are divided against each other over closing a walking bridge across the Los Angeles River that connects Rye Street and Sunnyslope Avenue. Councilwoman Wendy Greuel...
In theory I'm all for the city's latest crackdown on illegal rush hour parking. Being the only car holding up a lane of traffic these days is uncool, to say...
Prospective candidates in the March 8, 2005 primary election took out papers for a second day on Tuesday. There will be stories written, but no real news. It's just a...
Mayoral candidate Bob Hertzberg has turned his website, ChangeLA.com, into the most complete online digest of local politics news. This morning there are 24 entries, many from the Times and...
Mayor Jim Hahn is wasting no time swinging into campaign mode. He spoke up for expanding the LAPD on Warren Olney's Which Way, L.A.? Monday (audio here). On Tuesday he's...
The anonymous, female "A3G" is a former federal law clerk whose blog Underneath Their Robes treats federal judges as celebs—"a combination of People, US Weekly, Page Six, The National Enquirer,...
Erin Aubry writes in today's LA Weekly that councilman Bernard Parks was the toast of the city's black leadership a year ago, but not anymore now that he's running for...
The city commission that runs the Department of Water and Power formally offered the general manager job on Tuesday to Ron Deaton, the city council's chief legislative analyst. He will...
Jim Hahn was asked yesterday about the Times' stories alleging that one of his contributors, Mark Alan Abrams, put together $300,000 in contributions for the mayor and may have received...
It was news last year when Mayor Hahn's top communications adviser and campaign manager Matt Middlebrook left the City Hall staff for a VP position at Fleishman-Hillard in San Francisco....
Developer Mark Abrams helped channel $300,000 to the mayor's campaign accounts, got a seat on Hahn's political executive committee and successfully urged him to appoint Abrams' attorney to the planning...
The city's Chief Legislative Analyst, Ron Deaton, could be voted on by the Department of Water and Power board on Tuesday, and swiftly get city council confirmation to the $311,362-a-year...
Mayor Hahn today announced that David Wiggs, on medical leave as general manager of the DWP, has resigned. In his place Hahn has asked his DWP commissioners to appoint Ron...
Five residents of Antonio Villaraigosa's 14th district say they will try to recall the councilman for jumping into the mayor's race after pledging he would not run. "We believe Mr....
DA Steve Cooley's Public Integrity Division is interested in the harbor commission's controversial awarding of a lucrative contract to the former executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, Larry...
After saying she would sit out next year's campaign, former Rep. Bobbi Fielder announced last week that she is backing Jim Hahn again, Rick Orlov notes in the Daily News....
The Los Angeles Business Journal continues to give bigger play than other media to the various official investigations keeping the denizens of L.A. City Hall gossiping these days. In this...
The former Deputy Mayor for communications under Richard Riordan—and then press secretary to First Lady Laura Bush—inked a deal to become Vice President of Corporate Communications here for Univision, reporting...
Councilman Bernard Parks let the 4th Floor know by email tonight that he was not pleased with a recent item. After dishing out some (gratuitous to me) insults, Parks concluded...
Mayor Hahn just created a new telecom panel to study the possibility of providing wireless Internet access everywhere in Los Angeles. From the release: Chairing Mayor Hahn's advisory panel will...
Both Steve Lopez and Patt Morrison write columns in today Times playing off the governor's quip about getting no sex from Maria for two weeks after his speech at the...
With the first stage of approval expected today for Mayor Hahn's compromise LAX makeover, airport commissioner Miguel Contreras—whose more relevant day job is head of the Los Angeles County Federation...
Mayoral candidate Bob Hertzberg's campaign has a curious take on those endorsements that Antonio Villaraigosa picked up yesterday from Jewish elected officials on the Westside and in the Valley, reputed...
The 26 acres of mostly parking lots north of Staples Center where Phil Anschutz and partners want to build a mega-hotel and entertainment complex is some of the most high...
The City Hall insider blog 4th Floor is on a distinctly unwonkish roll. Yesterday the blog speculated that Mayor Jim Hahn has a new sweetie (he's separated but not divorced,...
LAPD chief Bill Bratton's anti-terrorism commander, John Miller, has turned in the handguns he was caught with while boarding at LAX a few weeks back. Miller, the ex-ABC newsman who...
While everyone else is consumed with the current election, the L.A. political establishment is increasingly caught up in the next election. In today's Times, Patrick McGreevy counts noses and finds...
If you got caught up in some disruption in Century City and Beverly Hills today, it was just an evacuation drill. Some 6,000 workers in the twin, 44-story Century Plaza...
Nine members of the city council objected Thursday to the Port of Los Angeles giving a contract to former executive director Larry Keller, whose marketing deal could earn him more...
Mayor Jim Hahn's reelection campaign still leads in the money race, but the rivals are moving closer. Bob Hertzberg filed reports yesterday showing he had raised more than anyone elese...
Larry Keller's departure as executive director of the Port of Los Angeles last month seemed remarkably clean and free of acrimony. Well, David Zahniser reports in the Daily Breeze that...
All four major reelection challengers to Mayor Jim Hahn have come out against his compromise plan for the redesign (call it modernization or expansion, if you prefer) of Los Angeles...
• In the Downtown News, Anschutz Entertainment Group president Tim Leiweke suggests that more upheaval is coming in the local sports scene. With the Clippers' lease to play at Staples Center...
Now that the Dodgers have lost, Mayor Jim Hahn owes a sweet treat to his counterpart in St. Louis. He promised something from "a legendary L.A. institution, Cobbler King," but...
This is the week the school board might decide the fate of the Ambassador Hotel. On Sunday, board member David Tokofsky offered a new plan that he says could spare...
Bill Cosby announced Thursday that he's backing ex-LAPD chief and current councilman Bernard Parks for mayor in next year's election. Rick Orlov has a few grafs in the Daily News....
Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa was late to get started raising money for his latest bid to become mayor, but he's catching up in a hurry. He has collected nearly $650,000 since...
Nora E. Vargas was named today as the first director of the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs, a newly created fiefdom within Mayor Jim Hahn's staff. From the release issued...
A potential supporter of Bob Hertzberg for mayor signed up through his website to receive email updates on the campaign. The first offering to hit her In Box did not...
Mayor Jim Hahn rode out to Victory and Sepulveda yesterday to announce another batch of steps for making traffic flow better on 35 major streets. It's nothing more innovative than...
Rick Orlov writes prominently about the City Hall insider blog in today's Daily News. The 4th Floor has yet to disclose much in the way of inside dish, focusing more...
In this week's New Yorker, Tad Friend's Letter from California gets up close and personal with San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom. The headline reads "Going Places." The story is not...
Mayoral candidate Bob Hertzberg was first out of the gate with a website, ChangeLA.com, and a blog. The content has not been scintillating, but since the last time I looked...
One of the story lines about Jim Hahn's mayoralty is how the Valley provided his margin of victory — with most Valley leaders endorsing him — then supposedly developed a...
The picture with today's Times story about city councilman Greig Smith injuring a skateboarder with his car is not Smith, but one of his campaign contributors. City police commissioner Alan...
The Times is out with a 2,800-word Style profile of Doug Dowie, the newsman-turned-PR exec who is the central figure in the ethics questions about Fleishman-Hillard and its deals with...
The city council only meets three times a week, always scheduled to start at 10 a.m. Tuesday's meeting didn't begin until around 11 when a quorum of members finally rolled...
What does it take for the mayoral candidates to make nice to each other? Apparently, the chance to fete kingmaker Bill Wardlaw and his wife, federal appeals court Judge Kim...
For months, mayoral sibling Janice Hahn has been pressuring for a change in top management at the Port of Los Angeles. She even let it slip in June that her...
Questioning the facts and reasoning behind the lefty rhetoric of UC Irvine historian Mike Davis (author of City of Quartz and The Ecology of Fear is a recurring Los Angeles...
Several locals of the Service Employees International Union — representing 350,000 workers — endorsed Jim Hahn's releection yesterday. Last time, all but one local backed Antonio Villaraigosa, who used to...
City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo's staff has not been a model of stability. In August, his office confirmed that Delgadillo's communications director, Eric Moses, was moving into a new role. The...
The new City Hall blog 4th Floor reprints a terse email from Mayor Jim Hahn reminding staffers who drive city cars to obey parking signs and pay their tickets. It...
Let's see, in recent months the city Department of Water and Power has been in the news for lax management of the $20 million it has paid Fleishman-Hillard for ordinary...
4th Floor is named for the level in City Hall where all of the elected city council members have their offices. The floor teems with ambitious aides who know what's...
Sunday's Fall Fashion issue of the Times magazine asked stylist Eddie Schachnow to rate the candidates for mayor on their fashion sense. Some excerpts: James Hahn: He could really loosen...
The city's law covering political contributions reads that officials should not solicit donations from anyone with official business before them. The Times has a front-page story today reporting that two...
The overheated race for mayor won't be the only local contest worth following once the national referendum on good vs. evil is over in November. The fight for the right...
Mayor Jim Hahn came out swinging yesterday against Bernard Parks, the police chief he essentially fired in 2001 who's now running against him from a safe seat on the city...
The proposed new Los Angeles County seal — without the old Kenny Hahn-designed crosses, oil derricks and goddess Pomona — made its first public appearance Wednesday. If approved next week,...
The Rev. Cecil Murray departs his post as pastor at First AME Church on Sept. 18, after 27 years with the most prominent — and politically connected — congregation in...
In today's Times, the rivals to Jim Hahn's reelection next year signal their intention to attack his record on making Los Angeles "the safest big city in America," one of...
Dominick Rubalcava is president of the commission that oversees the city Department of Water and Power. In an interview with the L.A. Business Journal's Howard Fine, he defends the department's...
The magazine's September issue out now is a good one, and I'd say that even if I didn't have the cover story on Mayor Jim Hahn and his political conundrum....
• They're out there: George Noory sends "Coast to Coast AM" into the overnight air from a studio on Ventura Blvd. (LAT Mag) • Business as usual: Mayoral candidates still raising money...
L.A. Observed is pleased to introduce a new Premium Sponsor: The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. The community paper is published weekly on Fridays. Click on the logo at...
Yes, blook. Ian Williams in the LA Weekly uses the term to describe the recent books by Arianna Huffington and the sister-brother team of Amy and David Goodman. He calls...
Almost from the moment that city controller Laura Chick endorsed Jim Hahn for reelection, she has been making noises about changing her mind. After all, her audits of problems in...
Antonio Villaraigosa called some reporters to his Mt. Washington home today and told them in interviews that he is running for mayor. The Times' Jessica Garrison was first up with...
Mayor Jim Hahn made a point of announcing today that he has been briefed by homeland security secretary Tom Ridge and that Los Angeles is not the target of any...
In today's papers, city controller Laura Chick pulls further away from her early endorsement of Jim Hahn for reelection. She accuses the mayor of poor leadership and gets into a...
In an email sent to the staff today, embattled PR giant Fleishman-Hillard announced a ban on corprate campaign contributions, set up a hotline for employes to report questionable practices directly...
He wasn't included on the schedule on the wires, but they let mayor Jim Hahn speak at the convention Wednesday in Boston. He got three minutes at midday, "watched by...
Mayoral candidate Richard Alarcn, the state senator and former councilman from the Valley, unveiled his campaign website Tuesday. Yes, for better or worse, he has an AlaBlog. The Daily News...
MSNBC's gang of convention bloggers is a strange group. It crosses the spectrum from Pat Buchanan to Willie Brown and includes Ron Reagan and a couple of Democrats steeped in...
With no suspense to be had in the big hall, the L.A. mayor's race was the talk of the California delegation at breakfast yesterday morning. The Weekly's Harold Meyerson blogs...
Marc Cooper blogs at the LA Weekly on the most lavish and well-attended party that he (and many in the California delegation) have enjoyed so far in Boston. It was...
Edited and updated Rick Orlov in the Daily News notes that both the L.A. City Council and the county's Board of Supervisors shut down for the week because a majority...
An L.A. Times front pager today on Fleishman-Hillard says the agency prides itself on its skills at crisis management, but was slow to recognize that it violated the guiding rule...
Howard Sunkin will work upstairs in the office, not on the mound. The longtime City Hall lobbyist has been named the team's senior vice president for public affairs. He comes...
Steve Lopez asks in the Times today what DWP customers got for the $20 million paid to Fleishman-Hillard for PR services (his answer: an 11% rate increase). He also plucks...
Jessica Garrison in the L.A. Times takes a first crack at the "tangled web of onetime alliances, betrayals and broken relationships" that will be in play in the coming mayor's...
Last week, a Times editorial called for the head of Frank Salas, the acting general manager of the city Department of Water and Power who approved questionable billings by the...
Fleishman-Hillard has suspended Doug Dowie, the former head of its Los Angeles office and architect of the agency's political practice, while investigating charges from ex-employees that bills to the city...
It's been a while since Fleishman-Hillard has made the news, but above the fold on today's front page, the Times says that the politically connected PR giant routinely inflated its...
One of the things I like about Staples Center is the view of downtown's city lights you see when you burst out the doors into the night after a game....
Attorney Pierce O'Donnell on Monday picked up another list of charges that he laundered illegal campaign contributions to Jim Hahn in 2001, this time from the city's ethics commission. If...
There are now more than 80 city-sanctioned "neighborhood councils" around Los Angeles, each with $50,000 a year to spend on whatever. In many cases, the elections to choose board members...
Janice Hahn, the mayoral sister and councilwoman from San Pedro, paid for a $100 Cinco de Mayo dress out of her office contingency account. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Assn. folks...
Jim Hahn opens up about being a working almost-single father in an interview with Mary McNamara in today's Times. That life now includes two households; Monica lives elsewhere in San...
Rick Orlov's lead story in today's Daily News also tops the Daily Breeze that's on the street, if not on the website. It looks at Mayor Hahn's conundrum — he's...
The Downtown News continues to work its way through City Hall anointing various 35-and-under "movers and shakers." This week they are David Gershwin, the press deputy to council president Alex...
The lede and first few grafs of an AP story about the ex-mayor and candidate for governor in today's San Luis Obispo Tribune: SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - State Education Secretary...
A judge dismissed the libel case of the stuntwoman who sued Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his campaign staff for erroneously telling reporters she had a criminal past. The L.A. Times...
I spoke to Jim Hahn and Antonio Villaraigosa today, and it's clear both are preparing to go another round. Hahn talked up his record of hiring Chief Bratton, lowering the...
That's the cover line on CityBeat's lead story on the reinvention of Bernard Parks from police chief-turned-councilman into mayoral candidate. Dean Kuipers went out on the campaign trail with Parks...
Dunphy is the pseudonym of an LAPD cop who writes columns about life in the department, with a dose of conservative political viewpoint thrown in, for National Review Online. In...
Mayor Hahn's attempt to defuse community tensions over the arrest and apparent LAPD-inflicted flashlight beating of Stanley Miller hit a couple of snags Monday. African American activist Najee Ali of...
Candidate for mayor Bob Hertzberg relaunched his web presence Monday with a new site at ChangeLA.com. He posted a multimedia ad and, hoping to take a page from Howard Dean,...
That's what Chief Bratton, Mayor Hahn and many community spokespeople are saying about the response over the coming weeks and months to the videotaped arrest of car theft suspect Stanley...
The Los Angeles Business Journal's Howard Fine reports (pay only) this week that councilman Antonio Villaraigosa "appeared to be leaning strongly" toward entering the race for mayor. In an interview,...
I didn't see last night's TV coverage (if any), but the defection of four Jim Hahn commissioners got Bob Hertzberg's campaign for mayor the trifecta of local print coverage: stories...
Councilman and ex-police chief Bernard Parks' entry certainly makes the coming mayor's race in Los Angeles more interesting. He doesn't have any money yet (while Jim Hahn has a lot,...
A year ago, Mayor Hahn's $9 billion plan to modernize LAX was on the fast track and city councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski was persona non grata with the mayor's friends and...
The Animal Defense League's favorite tactic to press for more humane treatment of pets at city shelters is to picket with amplified sound in front of the homes of city...
The L.A. Times team investigating city corruption hasn't been turning up big stories, but it does come up with interesting revelations Monday on Hahn Administration parks commissioner Christopher Hammond. It...
While Jack Nicholson and friends cheered on the Lakers win tonight in the NBA finals at Staples Center, Jim Hahn and his staff (and a half-dozen or so reporters) watched...
Back in April, Mayor Jim Hahn responded to controversy over city spending on expensive but politically sensitive public relations contracts by promising to get rid of them. It was a...
Candidate for mayor Bob Hertzberg got a bit of attention in April for starting a campaign blog and discussing on it his nickname of Bob Hugsberg. But I guess the...
Former L.A. Times Magazine staff writer David DeVoss, who freelances for Smithsonian and elsewhere, dishes on Mayor Hahn and L.A. city government in the latest Weekly Standard: Tall, slim, and...
Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa's people were successful last week at getting the media to bite on a labor-sponsored poll showing that he would begin the mayor's race (if he gets in)...
Harold Meyerson uses his LA Weekly column to call on Antonio Villaraigosa to run for mayor again. Villaraigosa admits that, while he is co-chairing the Kerry campaign (and by most...
The Los Angeles Independent is out with a profile of Joe Cerrell, the Democratic political campaign and PR macher who got his start with John F. Kennedy. At age 68,...
City councilman and former police chief Bernard Parks is said to be close to announcing if he will be a candidate for mayor against Jim Hahn next year (officially, Parks...
L.A. Observed has learned that former staffers in the Los Angeles office of Fleishman-Hillard have been getting friendly calls from the St. Louis home office, requesting their cooperation in an...
The grand juries investigating possible City Hall corruption have grown interested in contracts between the Port of Los Angeles and a Shanghai-based consultant, William Wong, the L.A. Business Journal says....
Eric Garcetti closes his week on Slate with a tribute to his city council district staff, which includes speakers of Spanish, Tagalog, Armenian, and Russian. He does an interview with...
Mack Reed of LAVoice.org listened to Mayor Jim Hahn this morning on the Kevin and Bean show and was not amused. The chitchat reads to me like the kind of...
The Tree People, a committee meeting, a press conference, a council meeting, a reception at Getty House and the Hollywood Entertainment Museum, then home at 8:30 p.m. (Each of councilman...
Today in Slate, councilman Eric Garcetti reveals that while he represents Silver Lake (and lives in Echo Park), his roots are Val. He grew up in Encino and hung out...
City Councilman Eric Garcetti is writing the Slate Diary this week. In his first entry, Garcetti begins his Saturday helping to paint over some graffiti in Historic Filipinotown then moves...
While Mayor Hahn culls lucrative PR deals from the City Hall budget, the big bucks are being made in contracts handed out to law firms. The city paid $18.9 million...
Criminal-defense attorney and former county prosecutor Steve Meister used to be an aide to L.A. City Controller Laura Chick, she who passed along audits and allegations to DA Steve Cooley...
Candidate Bob Hertzberg still doesn't know if he will be allowed to reduce his sons' support payments because his income will drop as he runs for mayor, but he found...
Water bills will go up 11% next month, bumping the average household's monthly nut by $2.40 (LAT) or $2.94 (Daily News). The Times story by Patrick McGreevy credits the influence...
The Monday roundups of political items in both the Daily News and the Times look ahead to the coming race for mayor. Rick Orlov leads with Bob Hertzberg's mission to...
We're at the point in the news cycle where the contenders and would-be challengers to Mayor Jim Hahn get most of the attention. Today on the front page of the...
Former deputy mayor Joy Chen, who left the Hahn Administration in April, has turned up with a big job at the international headhunting (oops, I mean executive search) firm Heidrick...
Mayor Jim Hahn's directive to city officials last week to end expensive outside public relations contracts appears to exempt many services, the L.A. Business Journal reports (free) on the front...
Antonio Villaraigosa tells the Times that he has known since losing on election night in 2001 that he would run for mayor again. The only question is when. He says...
For mayor of Los Angeles, that is. Writes Harold, no Hahn man to begin with, in today's LA Weekly: Against all odds, L.A. is going to have itself a bang-up...
The federal grand jury investigating the city commissions wants to talk today with its first commissioner, James Acevedo, a Valley-based political consultant appointed by Mayor Hahn. Acevedo directed the first...
The Sacramento Bee columnist would appear to be no fan of Jim Hahn as mayor. Hahn and his mayoral reign have been likened, not without cause, to Gray Davis and...
The Daily News' James Nash reports on an unusual court hearing yesterday where Bob Hertzberg's ex-wife asked that he be stopped from running for mayor. Karen Moskowitz argued that Hertzberg...
All those competitors who have been taking potshots at Fleishman-Hillard for its city contracts may rue the day. Mayor Hahn today called for all outside public relations deals with the...
Ex-city councilman Rudy Svorinich Jr., now a City Hall lobbyist, is raising eyebrows for distributing a newsletter that boasts of his prowess at getting his clients to donate cash to...
How seriously do the bosses back at Fleishman-Hillard headquarters take the public relations agency's media hits here in Los Angeles? Pretty seriously, according to a story in today's St. Louis...
David Zahniser, the City Hall bureau chief reporter for Copley News Service, writes in the Sunday Daily Breeze that insiders are "amazed" at Mayor Jim Hahn's political vulnerability. Only a...
Add Robert Hertzberg, the former state Assembly Speaker, to the list of candidates who will be running against Mayor Jim Hahn for the next year. Hertzberg is a moderate to...
Fleishman-Hillard's St. Louis headquarters announced today that the PR giant will withdraw from its three controversial Los Angeles city contracts. The agency has gotten a ton of bad publicity lately...
The wife of Hahn fundraiser Ted Stein, herself a member of the city's Board of Public Works Commissioners, voted four times to benefit Kaiser Permanente during the time the HMO's...
Mayor Hahn's appearance at the City Ethics Commission yesterday to argue for his package of reforms drew four television cameras and merited stories today in the Times, Daily News and...
The U.S. Attorney has subpoenaed the emails of Port of Los Angeles executive director Larry Keller, as part of the unfolding probe of possible city department corruption, the Times' Noam...
Police chief Bill Bratton, a favorite of the New York tabloids, has been out of the city for 128 days since the start of 2003, the Daily News toted up...
U.S. Attorney and District Attorney investigators separately looking into L.A. city corruption have begun to cooperate and are expected to merge into a single probe, the Times' Greg Krikorian and...
Laura Chick disclosed Thursday that she will run for reelection next year rather than go after Mayor Jim Hahn's job. So far she's yet to take back her early endorsement...
Talk is around City Hall and other PR shops in town that the FBI served subpoenas yesterday on Fleishman-Hillard in connection with the federal grand jury looking into possible corruption...
Bernard Parks will start raising money to run against Mayor Hahn, the man who ended his LAPD career. He tells the Daily News: "People from throughout this region look to...
The president of the city Airport Commission resigns but denies in strong terms any suggestion of corruption. In his statement, Stein also blasts City Controller Laura Chick, whose audit of...
City Controller Laura Chick announced yesterday that she plans to use her audit powers to dig into the $9 million public relations contract between the Department of Water and Power...
The L.A. Times investigative team chasing the City Hall corruption story is out with a piece that says an engineering company, URS, has told the feds it lost business at...
Mayor Hahn's chief of staff Tim McOsker played a part in last week's resignations by three deputy mayors and is seeing his authority grow, the Business Journal reports in a...
Deputy mayor Troy Edwards had been Jim Hahn's connection to the airports and harbor commissions, where questions have been raised about a link between campaign donations and the awarding of...
Deposed police chief, now councilman, Bernard Parks and his probable run for mayor are examined in a nicely done profile by Robert Greene in the LA Weekly. Hes not just...
New York's tabloids still think L.A. police chief William Bratton is pretty hot stuff when he returns to his old haunt. He turned up in the Post's Page Six gossip...
Rick Orlov in the Daily News reports that former police chief, and current councilman, Bernard Parks is expected to announce for mayor "any day now." Remember, Jim Hahn refused to...
Before USC law professor and op-ed meister Erwin Chemerinsky heads off to Duke this fall, he has agreed to advise Mayor Hahn on how the city's big money-rich departments should...
Jim Schachter, a former assistant business editor at the L.A. Times now at the New York Times, was in line for, but did not get, the NYT business editor job...
The lede in today's piece on Mayor Jim Hahn in CityBeat by Charles Rappleye: Theres no question Mayor Jim Hahn is a strange political bird. Laconic and dewy-eyed, timorous and...
Noam N. Levey, the new guy in City Hall for the Times, takes stock of the potential lineup of challengers to Mayor Jim Hahn and finds enough interest out there...
State Senator Richard Alarcon opted out of running for mayor of the Valley in the secession election in 2002, but he's about to become the first candidate to pull papers...
Los Angeles County DA Steve Cooley isn't going away now that he was reelected Tuesday in a walk. And yesterday, he told reporters for the first time that fundraising by...
USC constitutional law professor Erwin Chemerinsky begins at Duke University in the fall. His wife, Catherine Fisk, a labor law professor at USC, also is moving to Duke. Chemerinsky was...
Busy day in L.A. City Hall. In the morning, the City Council by a vote of 15-0 banned some kinds of political fundraising by appointed commissoners and lobbyists. Mayor Hahn...
Mayor Jim Hahn isn't real happy that City Council president Alex Padilla got a City Hall guard to let him into the mayor's locked office over the weekend, ostensibly to...
Here's an odd story out of Los Angeles City Hall by David Zahniser in the Breeze. Seems that Alex Padilla, the president of the City Council, and the chief of...
Attention City Hall (cc: Fleishman-Hillard): Mark Matassa has been the Times assistant metro editor overseeing city and other local government coverage. He's headed back to Seattle (where he has family)...
David Zahniser of the Daily Breeze is one of the first, if not the first, City Hall reporters to step back and ask what's up with controller Laura Chick. He...
With $1.3 million already in the bank for his reelection campaign, and two grand juries breathing down his administration's neck, Mayor Hahn on Thursday proposed sweeping new restrictions on political...
Doug Dowie is out as general manager of the Los Angeles office of public relations giant Fleishman-Hillard. But there are two spins swirling around the move announced today in the...
City commissioners have donated more than $800,000 to local campaign coffers in the past five years, the Times reports today. That is over and above what the commissioners raise as...
In an interview with city controller Laura Chick in this week's CityBeat, Chip Jacobs credits her audits of city commissions with exposing the seamier side of local politics. She peeled...
Deputy mayor Troy Edwards, who appears to be caught up in the investigations of corruption swirling through City Hall, is the subject of a man-in-the-news story on the front page...
Under the headline "City Hall Probe Widens," the Daily News reports that new federal grand jury subpoenas went out Thursday to officials in three departments -- Airports, Harbor and Water...
Deputy Mayor Troy Edwards testified before the corruption grand jury yesterday, the Daily News reports. Says the paper's Beth Barrett: Edwards was a key fund-raiser in Hahn's 2001 mayoral campaign,...
The City Council voted Wednesday to add Los Angeles to the list of 230 cities, counties and other government bodies opposed to parts of the USA Patriot Act, which President...
Best smirk-inducing line in today's LAT story on Leland Wong, a top City Hall fundraiser and all-around operator. Wong said he was unaware of a $100 limit on gifts to...
Responding to a growing sense of a corruption scandal, Mayor Hahn yesterday banned his commissioners from getting involved in interviews of city contractors they would later vote on. Hard to...
The city's political class was abuzz last week about former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg acting more and more like he wants to run against fellow Democrat Jim Hahn. The election...
The headline is from a keeper quote in today's L.A. Daily News destined for a long life in local newsrooms and political circles. The story by Rick Orlov and Beth...
Good Michael Hiltzik column in the L.A. Times about Francisco Pinedo, who is trying to bring a bunch of new private-sector jobs to South Los Angeles but has run up...
In announcing indictments Monday against 14 developers and subcontractors for illegal campaign donations, DA Steve Cooley said that major residential developer Alan Casden is a target of the prosecution. The...
Both the L.A. Business Journal and the Daily News are reporting that the District Attorney is asking questions about the awarding of contracts by the Hahn Administration's Board of Airport...
Just back from a junket to Israel with assorted city officials, city council president Alex Padilla is scheduled to jet off again -- to Sweden on Dec. 8 to learn...
While the MTA shutdown and the supermarket strike-lockout linger on, city attorney Rocky Delgadillo, council president Alex Padilla and councilman Jack Weiss are in Israel on a 10-day junket paid...
Laura Chick -- she's the city controller in Los Angeles -- has hired veteran City Hall hand Miriam Jaffe for the new post of director of government and community affairs....
Bill Rosendahl, a familiar figure in local politics who has hosted public affairs shows on Adelphia for 16 years, plans to step down this month and announce he is running...
A week ago, three L.A. Times reporters -- Ralph Frammolino, Nicholas Riccardi and Ted Rohrlich -- had a solid front-page investigative story that I missed as I retreated into my...
On the gala night Disney Hall opened, Mayor Jim Hahn tried to hold a gathering of city and state officials and their aides at Getty House -- that would be...
The Daily Breeze's Ian Gregor says that Mayor Hahn's vision for L.A. International faces a new hurdle. Mayor James Hahn’s $9 billion LAX modernization plan fails to fulfill its stated...
L.A. city councilman Jack Weiss is known around City Hall as a profligate issuer of press releases and, in the great tradition of Westside representatives, for pursuing myriad causes. His...
The next ballot measure that Los Angeles voters may get a chance to decide (after the Davis recall) is whether to cancel the city council's ban on lap dances in...
Patt Morrison's Inside Politics column in the L.A. Times reports the City Hall rumor that if Bustamante is elected governor, new councilman Tony Cardenas will return to Sacramento as the...
City officials say it cost Los Angeles taxpayers $183,000 to close streets and direct traffic at the Bob Hope memorial service in the Valley on August 27. According to David...
Mayor Hahn missed the deadline to appoint or replace 20 city comissioners, which under the city charter means council president Alex Padilla now gets to make the choices, the Times'...
The Democratic Leadership Council in Washington has reached out to tap L.A. city councilwoman Wendy Greuel as the group's "New Democrat of the Week." Here they explain why....
Not the Schwarzeneggers, though Carla Hall writes in the L.A. Times today on Maria Shriver's more prominent role in THAT campaign. No, the family to watch may be the Rubalcavas....
Strikingly similar stories in the Times and Daily Breeze today on Matt Middlebrook's resignation as top communications aide to mayor Jim Hahn. Both stories talk about Middlebrook running Hahn's campaigns...
It appears to go back to Alan Casden's contributions in the 2001 mayor's race, when he backed Antonio Villaraigosa, the L.A. Times says. Casden's Beverly Hills offices were searched Thursday...
Two weeks ago in his first column for the Northeast Observer, ex-councilman Nick Pacheco was handicapping Richard Riordan's run for governor on the day Schwarzenegger announced. Ouch. This time he's...
Conservative pundit Robert Novak writes in today's column that Schwarzenegger changed his mind and ran in the recall because he found his good friend Dick Riordan too "confused and disorganized"...
Former city councilman Nick Pacheco -- the guy nudged from office by Antonio Villaraigosa -- has a new column starting today in the Northeast Observer. He says that Richard Riordan's...
That's from the website that has been cheering on the Huffington candidacy, Run Arianna Run. An email from the site says that her concerns about being on the same ballot...
Councilman Parks -- yes, the former chief of police -- isn't impressed by the exploits of his two 50-something council colleagues who volunteer as reserve officers and found themselves in...
There won't be a big new jail built smack between the Japanese National Museum in Little Tokyo and the Hompa Hongwanji Buddhist Temple. Good. Jails have to be somewhere, but...
Rick Orlov points out that Tony Cardenas has been on the L.A. city council for less than a month, and already is planning a fundraiser. At the harbor, 30 miles...
He tells Dean Kuipers at CityBeat that he still can't believe he lost the West Side city council seat, he grasps why L.A. voters would never send him to Congress...
In honor of the first-ever recall moment. Stewart plays it down the middle in her new Capitol Punishment column, referring to "the dopes trying to recall Gray Davis and the...
A nod from Bernard Parks, the ex-LAPD chief turned city councilman, decided the derby for council president, Howard Fine reports in the lead story in Los Angeles Business Journal. If...
"Airhead" is the Daily News' term, not mine. The DN editorial page calls Mayor Hahn's plan to modernize LAX either a bad idea or a boondoggle, and also predicts that...
I actually spent an enjoyable hour at LAX recently. I wasn't flying, just picking up my co-Observers. Getting in and out was painless (it was 9 at night). Got a...
New at LA Observed
Clinton fundraises in LA
Jim Henson Studios on La Brea became a presidential campaign stop on Thursday.
Brown declares disaster area
The natural gas leak above Porter Ranch now qualifies for various government actions. Story
Performing arts with cheer
Donna Perlmutter closes out 2015 with productions downtown and on the Westside.
