Mayor gets gang programs
Faced with growing public pressure to quell gang violence in Los Angeles, the City Council signed off Wednesday on a plan to turn over all of the city's gang-intervention and -prevention programs to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for at least 18 months. Daily News.
The 12-0 vote marked a victory for the mayor and City Controller Laura Chick, who had been pushing for mayoral control of the programs - which spend an estimated $19million a year - with as few restrictions as possible.
The vote also ends nearly two months of acrimony between Chick and Councilman Tony Cardenas, who chairs the council's Ad Hoc Committee on Gangs and had resisted giving Villaraigosa control of the programs.