Politics and governing

News, observations, opinions and links

SB 50: It will be a fight to remember

bill-300.jpg As explained by a team of Los Angeles Times Community News reporters, Senate Bill 50 touches the sanctity of a home and the independence of local officials by allowing high rise apartments next to single family dwellings. Nowhere is this clearer than in the Orange County suburbs explored by the reporters.

The Philosopher Mayor

garcetti-gary-angel-wings.jpg Mayor Eric Garcetti was in a philosophical mood at lunch Wednesday.

USC's Crosstown: Saving L.A. by the numbers

xtown=map-grab.jpg Crosstown, a non-profit news organization run out of the USC Annenberg School of Journalism, is a fascinating effort to improve L.A., neighborhood by neighborhood, with data, computer science, mapping and journalistic curiosity.

Supervisor Barger worries about the homeless

kathryn-barger-hersite.jpg County Supervisor Kathryn Barger shares mixed feelings of many officials as they contemplate public reaction to growing number of homeless on the streets

Galperin's numbers fall short of telling homeless story

bill-300.jpg Larry Mantle, host of KPCC's AirTalk, expressed the frustration of almost everyone dealing with homelessness when he interviewed City Controller Ron Galperin: "Trying to get one's arm around this thing, very challenging, Ron."

Feuer and his outside lawyers

City-hall-night.jpg Amid the fuss about the private outside lawyers hired by City Atty. Mike Feuer to litigate a big case, I wonder why there wasn't anyone among his office's more than 500 lawyers who could do the work at city pay.

Feuer tackles homeless frustrations

wilshire-homeless-camp.jpg City Atty. Mike Feuer was his usual knowledgeable self as he explained what he'd been doing to combat Los Angeles' seemingly incurable affliction of homelessness.

Garcetti frustrated by decades-old homeless crisis

garcetti-homeless-msg-grab.jpg I don't want to let Mayor Eric Garcetti off the hook but in confronting homelessness, he is dealing with a decades-old tragedy that is woven deeply into Los Angeles' fabric.

Councilman Harris-Dawson and SB50

City-hall-night.jpg The fight over SB50, the housing density measure, is far from over even though the measure has been shelved by a powerful Senate committee chairman.

Garcetti criticizes SB 50 delay

bill-300.jpg Mayor Eric Garcetti has strongly disagreed with the legislature's dumping SB 50, the controversial bill encouraging developers to build big apartments and condos in areas zoned for single family homes.

Rough time for highly controversial SB 50

la-linea-cropped.jpg Legislation encouraging the building of tall multiple dwellings around transit lines in single-family neighborhoods faces obstacles in Sacramento.

What if the gun owners in America were also the liberals?

stephanie-alison-walker-iris.jpg "Friends with Guns" at the Road Theater in North Hollywood may challenge some of your core beliefs.

Doug Jeffe: a remembrance

doug-jeffe-mecoy.jpg Campaign manager Douglas Jeffe, who died in a tragic accident last week, combined skill, intelligence, compassion and humor in a career that made him respected by friends and foes and placed him in the middle of the most tumultuous years of California politics.

Politicians, pay your bill

theluxe-lao.jpg When you stay at a hotel, or throw a big event there, you usually don't get out the door without paying. That wasn't the case with prominent L.A. politicians at the downtown Luxe City Center Hotel.

Elizabeth Warren at the Alex Theatre

LAO_ElizabethWarrenW_Rebecca&DavidTokofsky.jpg Gary catches up with Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren in Glendale.

Rats, demon cats and politicians from LA to Washington

rats-los-angeles-1924.jpg Kitty Felde: Don't be too embarrassed, Los Angeles. City Hall isn't the only political palace overrun by rodents.

John C. Reilly and Jackie Goldberg

LAO__JackieGoldberg_JohnCReilly.jpg Former school board member Jackie Goldberg wants to return to elected office.

The death of Lyndon LaRouche and lessons unlearned

lyndon-larouche.jpg Joel Bellman: We laugh at the comically deranged LaRouche because "it can't happen here." It already has.

Green New Deal

LAO__GreenNewDeal_MayorGarcetti.jpg Mayor Eric Garcetti's press conference announcing his decision not to upgrade three natural gas-burning power plants the city operates along the coast.

Madeleine Albright

LAO__MadeleineAlbright.jpg The Secretary of State for President Bill Clinton was in Culver City.

Rorschach and Rashomon on the Washington Mall

washington-mall-video-grab.jpg Joel Bellman: The recent media blowup over the Covington Catholic kids and the tribal drummer at the Lincoln Memorial may have been too much ado, but it was about something.

Wesson cautious on city hall probe

City-hall-night.jpg Careful Herb Wesson won't say much about the federal investigation of LA city hall.

March for public education

LAO__UTLA_Rally.jpg A UTLA rally downtown during the run-up to the teachers strike.

Poverty shapes the schools dispute

lasud-kids.jpg No matter how the dispute between the teachers union and the Los Angeles school district ends, poverty, the root cause of failure in L.A. schools, won't go away.

Read the memo: LA Times losing big on search traffic

lz-granderson-via-lat.jpg 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.

City hall's poisoned PLUM

City-hall-night.jpg The Los Angeles City Council's Planning and Land Use Management Committee is known for short as the PLUM committee. PLUM is perfectly descriptive.

Cheers for Gov. Brown and his pardon of Rod Wright

rod-wright-2014.jpg Gov. Jerry Brown's pardon of former State Sen. Rod Wright focuses attention on one our most useless laws, the one imposing residency requirements on elected lawmakers.

Maria Elena Durazo

LAO__MariaElenaDurazo.jpg The former Los Angeles County labor leader celebrated her election to the state Senate.

A serious night at Central Library

central-library-lao.jpg Wednesday night, the downtown central library continued its community involvement with a deep dive into one of the most important aspects of civic life--the courts. It was serious and detailed.

Put Jamal Khashoggi Square outside the Saudi consulate on Sawtelle

saudi-consulate-google.jpg A Change.org petition by Rob Eshman asks Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to make it happen.

Can talk therapy cure LA's civic malaise?

future-of-cities-crop.jpg Joel Bellman: I've been asking myself that question after attending not one, but two civic conversations this month dealing with the future of cities.

Ryu says Korean Americans must step up

bill-300.jpg "It's about equity. It's about opportunity," City Councilman David Ryu told the Los Angeles Current Affairs Forum.

UCLA study calls for rent control tightening

bill-300.jpg UCLA report convincingly links rent increases and the housing shortage to the homelessness which afflicts the LA area today.

Their most frightening experience

christine-blasey-ford-pool-sipa.jpg Joel Bellman: My male students tend to write about their insecurities around a loss of power; Women, the terror of a sexual assault or domestic violence.
Drill down
Bill Boyarsky
In case you missed it
Donald Trump piñatas
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Future of Cities
foc-cocktails.jpgAbout 500 people turned out for new group's first LA leadership summit.
Father and daughter
garcetti-with-maya.jpgMayor Eric Garcetti and his daughter, Maya, at Gary Leonard's gallery.
Republicans for Voldemort
republicans-voldemort-vdt.jpgSpotted near the Malibu civic center. Veronique de Turenne
LaBonge signs off
labonge-last-day.jpgTom LaBonge's final moments at the City Council horseshoe (with Gary Leonard in the background.) Photo: Branimir Kvartuc.
Villaraigosa's new crib
villaraigosa-home.jpgFormer mayor buys a $2.5 million contemporary in Beachwood Canyon.
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