On Wednesday, Austin Beutner, the new publisher and CEO of the Los Angeles Times, will, hopefully, shed light on the future of the paper when he speaks to civic leaders at Town Hall Los Angeles.

As a Times alum and columnist for LA Observed, always on the lookout for a story, I put together a list of questions the audience could ask Beutner:

You head the Los Angeles Times Media Group, part of the Tribune Publishing Co., which also owns the Baltimore Sun, Chicago Tribune, Daily Press of Newport News, Virginia, the Hartford Courant, The Morning Call of Allentown, Pa., The Orlando Sentinel and the Sun Sentinel of South Florida. Will the Tribune Publishing Co. sell the Los Angeles Times or any of these other papers?

What’s the business outlook for the Los Angeles Times?

You report to Jack Griffin, CEO of Tribune Publishing Co. who oversees strategic priorities and day-to-day print and digital operations. He’s known as a hard charging boss with what the New York Times called a brusque management style. How much say will he have over the day-to-day operations of the Times?

Will the challenging financial outlook for newspapers force additional reductions in the Los Angeles Times staff? Will you make those decisions or will they be done with the advice and consent of Griffin and other Tribune Publishing Co. executives?

As co chair of the Los Angeles 2030 Commission and a candidate for mayor as well as a top mayoral advisor, you were deep into Los Angeles governance. How will that shape Times editorial policy?

And are you part of the editorial board deliberations on policy and candidates?

Can we expect more reporters covering local government?

How is the L.A. Times planning to stay relevant to a region whose population and geography are among the most diverse in the world? What is the role of a news organization in an internationally important city like Los Angeles? Will there be changes in coverage of ethnic communities?

What can we expect for sports, entertainment, cultural and business coverage?

What improvements can we expect for the digital operation, including the web site and apps for mobile devices?

One of the most fascinating elections of the year is still going on in the northeast San Fernando Valley's 39th Assembly district where unknown, unsung Patty Lopez is holding a narrow lead over Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra, who has been considered a future candidate for lower house speaker.

Dakota Smith, covering the race for the Los Angeles Daily News, wrote on election night “it was a stunning takedown of an entrenched politician.” Bocanegra had collected more than $600,000 compared to Lopez’ $10,000, reported Smith. Both are Democrats. The district includes Sylmar, Pacoima and the city of San Fernando.

By Friday night, with 6,000 or more ballots to be counted, Lopez held a 46-vote lead over her opponent. Brad Hertz, the lawyer representing her in the count proceedings, told me it may take days to officially complete the tally.

Nobody seems quite clear how Lopez did so well. The Daily News’ Smith noted that Lopez has been a representative for the North Valley Occupational Center and a Los Angeles Unified School District volunteer. “I’m just a humble little housewife, “ Lopez told Matt Thacker of the Post-Periodical web site. “I didn’t expect it. My main purpose was to raise my voice high enough to the government so they could hear our needs.” Professor Fernando Guerra, a well-known Loyola Marymount politics expert, “struggled to recall Lopez’ first name” after the election and called the election results ‘one of those freak things,’” Smith wrote.

Bocanegra’s team told Smith that Lopez was helped by Republicans.

What may be most significant is that the race was shaped to some extent by two new California election laws. One requires a runoff between the top two finishers in the primary. Lopez had 23.6 percent of the vote compared to Bocanegra’s 62.5 percent. The second law put the drawing of legislative district lines in the hands of an independent commission. That ended the old practice of districts that favored incumbents. We may be seeing more of these unexpected results in the future.

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There was something admirably contrarian about the way Sheila Kuehl successfully campaigned for Los Angeles County supervisor against her more dynamic, sometimes explosive opponent Bobby Shriver.

Shriver was eager to overwhelm audiences, opponents and reporters with his points, delivered in a bang-bang manner. During an interview, he was so eager to convince me of his accomplishments that he pointed a finger at my nose, stopping just short of touching it. “That’s raising ‘in your face to a new level,’” commented a colleague.

Kuehl also wanted to sell herself to journalists and audiences. But her real interest was digging into complex issues—foster children, mental illness and others. I could imagine her saying, “the hell with sound bites and entertaining audiences. Let them eat statistics.”

In the end, their styles and personalities--on display at candidate forums, debates and editorial boards--weren’t the most important factor in the campaign. As Maloy Moore reported in the Los Angeles Times Friday, smart, end-of-the-campaign spending was what mattered. Overall, Shriver outraised Kuehl $4,888,760 to $4,717,904. But as a fascinating graphic accompanying Moore’s story showed, a rush of contributions from union-affiliated donors brought Kuehl almost even with Shriver and financed a final days wave of mailers, television and other advertising.

Now the big question is this: Did all that money put her in the county employee unions’ pockets? The same goes for the other new supervisor, Hilda Solis, the only Latino on the board. Solis has been invisible during the campaign. Anointed by the local labor chiefs to be the successor to outgoing Supervisor Gloria Molina, she cruised to victory in the primary and hasn’t been heard from since. Before that, she was in Washington in the low- profile cabinet post of labor secretary. Solis, a former state legislator, has offered no idea of what she’ll do in county government. What kind of leadership, for example, will she provide in increasing Latino representation on the board, such as enlarging it?

As is always the case with the secretive county government, finding out what the new board is doing will be a challenging job for the only watchdogs around, the news media. It’s a great challenge to the Los Angeles Times, with its revived California section, to lead the way.