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Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Councilman Herb Wesson -- both former speakers of the state Assembly -- are scheduled to be in Sacramento on Tuesday to witness the historic swearing in of Assemblywoman Karen Bass.
They are to be joined by former San Francisco Mayor and Speaker Willie Brown to see the passing of the gavel from Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez to Bass.
More than two-thirds of Los Angeles city workers earned overtime last year, totaling $355 million, even as the mayor issued a directive to curtail such payouts, a Daily News review has found. Beth Barrett in the Daily News.
More than 29,000 employees worked overtime in the 12 months through April, with nearly 1,500 earning more than $50,000 each in overtime pay alone.
The soaring OT has become a major contributor to a gross annual city payroll that now costs $120 million more to compensate the same size work force as a year ago, according to a Daily News review of salary and overtime data obtained from the City Controller's Office under the California Public Records Act.
And de
Police radio: $5,000.
Uniform and accessories: $1,620.
Service pistol and ammunition: $1,300.
Protecting and serving the nation's second-largest city: priceless.
If you think gas and food prices are high, try outfitting a new Los Angeles Police Department recruit. Jason Kandel in the Daily News.
Prices for everything from buttons to badges and bullets are way up, boosting the cost to outfit a single recruit to $9,000 this year, up 20percent from last year.
"It's a lot of
Tipoffs: Who local superdelegates support in presidential race; 5th district race gets crowded..
As Los Angeles grapples with its largest budget deficit in history, lucrative compensation packages for thousands of city workers are driving much of the gap, and there's little end in sight. Beth Barrett in the Daily News.
In the past year alone, gross annual payroll costs have soared $120 million for nearly 48,000 city employees - $90 million of that going to 35,000 civilian and sworn workers - and bumped the total payroll up to $3.2 billion, or nearly half Los Angeles' $7 billion budget.
While city leaders seek to close a looming $406 million budget shortfall with everything from fee hikes to service cuts, a Daily News review of salary data shows more than 21,000 city workers take home $70,000 or more a year and more than 6,000 take home more than $100,000.
Cit y Salary Database
Maintaining and boosting Southern California's transportation system over the next three decades could cost some $531 billion and require new taxes, tolls and user fees, a regional planning group said Friday. Harrison Sheppard and Kerrty Cavanaugh in the Daily News.
In its latest 30-year plan, the Southern California Association of Governments spelled out a range of projects that the region desperately needs to keep people and goods moving - from high-tech maglev rail lines to low-tech pothole repairs.
And the region has to plan for at least an additional 6million people in the next 30 years, said Gary Ovitt, immediate past president of SCAG and a San Bernardino County supervisor.
"That means more vehicles and more people traveling," he said. "We really want to get these projects done - and we would love to do even more because we can't afford to take the risk that we don't implement changes to improve the quality of life."
Nielson Weng always expected it would take hard work to get into college - but he never imagined it would be quite this suspenseful.
Weng is a prize catch for colleges - valedictorian at El Camino Real High, president of six school clubs, an immigrant success story. But despite all that, he's been placed on the waiting lists at five colleges to which he applied. Connie Llanos in the Daily News.
And he's not alone as colleges this year are faced with a surge of applicants - higher than even during the peak baby boomer years - and have resorted to putting more students than ever on the dreaded "wait list."
That means even as their friends are celebrating this month as college acceptance letters come in, many more students such as Weng are left in limbo, waiting and wondering.
"It isn't fair," s
A botched street-beautification project that snarled downtown Canoga Park for three weeks came at a hefty price: $303,650. Dana Bartholomew in the Daily News.
And city officials demanded Friday to know what went wrong and why work has yet to begin on the three new crosswalks at the heart of the project.
"I want some answers," said Councilman Dennis Zine during a City Council investigative hearing, which was referred to a committee. "As a representative of that community, I'm very upset. I want some answers."
With government funding drying up, a local private foundation has gathered donations to buy 485 acres in the Verdugo Mountains for public open space.Kerry Cavanaugh in the Daily News.
The Fond Land Preservation Foundation will dedicate the open space acquisition today, adding another piece to a growing swath of public land in an area eyed for development.
"Most people would not have guessed that it was still possible to purchase 485 acres of open space in the city of Los Angeles," said Bill Eick, a Shadow Hills resident and member of the Fond foundation's board of directors.
While Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa wants to let the "shoe shine guy" comments of radio's Rush Limbaugh pass without comment, MALDEF officials are stepping forward to challenge the talk show host on his behalf.
John Trasviña, President and General Counsel of MALDEF, sent a letter objecting to Limbaugh's description of the mayor.
On May 5, Limbaugh appeared on FOX News to discuss Sen. Hillary Clinton's joke that he had a crush on her. Limbaugh responded with a story about how former President Bill Clinton allegedly "hit on" Limbaugh's date and introduced Villaraigosa to Limbaugh in order to distract him.
"The fact that your stated first impression of [Mayor Villaraigosa] was to consider him "a shoeshine boy" instead of the elected mayor of America's second largest city speaks volumes about your view of America and the role or status of people who do not fit your preconceived notion of what an elected official should be," Trasviña wrote.
"Perhaps as our community continues to increase its presence as the teachers, lawyers, professionals and civic leaders that our country depends on, you will finally move beyond your outdated mindset which attempts to exclude an entire American population from being the leaders of this nation."
Here's another example of the internet gone wild this week.
Numerous reports from London were that Police Chief Bill Bratton was either a) Leaving to become top cop there or b) planning to spend more time consulting with London's new mayor, Boris Johnson.
Neither is the case.
``I have had no conversations with Mr. Johnson,'' Bratton said in a
statement released late Thursday. ``I have not spoken with any members of his administration, and I have not been approached to act as an adviser as it relates to matters of crime reduction.''
The London tabloid Daily Mail and numerous other internet sites reported that Johnson said he was naming Bratton as an adivsor to develop a
"zero tolerance" program for grafitti and othe rminor crimes.
Bratton had served as a consultant to former London Mayor Ken Livingston on a vareith of security matters as well as with teh British national government, so the thinking was not completel out of line.
``I would certainly be willing to do so, if asked, for the new mayor in
my official capacity as chief of the Los Angeles Police Department,'' Bratton
said.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's nominee to oversee Los Angeles' finances is facing growing opposition from the City Council over his lobbyist connections and his request for a $290,000 salary - far higher than the pay of the current city administrative officer. Kerry Cavanaugh in the Daily News.
The mayor nominated his former chief deputy, Marcus Allen, in March and since then Allen has been meeting with council members to lay out his plans for the post and discuss his salary request, which is $70,000 more than the salary of outgoing CAO Karen Sisson.
The pay request comes even as the city faces a $406million budget shortfall and would make Allen the fourth-highest-paid official in the city - making even more than the mayor.
Despite a massive budget shortfall facing the city, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa assured San Fernando Valley business leaders on Thursday that he plans to continue business-tax reforms to reduce costs and simplify procedures.Daily News.
In a far-ranging speech about his proposed $7.01 billion budget and Los Angeles' economy, Villaraigosa told those attending the annual summit-style meeting of the Economic Alliance that he recognizes the need to encourage businesses to open and remain in the city.
"These are tough economic times," Villaraigosa said. "The fact is a lot of economists, a lot smarter than I am, didn't see this coming. A year ago, no one expected us to have the problems we are to the extent we are.
Los Angeles prosecutors and police told hundreds of Sylmar and San Fernando residents Wednesday that an injunction limiting gang movements is needed to stamp out a violent San Fernando Valley gang, despite fears that the measure would criminalize their communities and cause home values to plummet. Brandon Lowrey in the Daily News.
The injunction was requested last month against the San Fers, one of the San Fernando Valley's oldest gangs, which has ties to the drug trade and the Mexican Mafia.
"This is a long-term problem and a gang injunction is truly a long-term solution," said Bruce Riordan, head of anti-gang operations for the City Attorney's Office.
Ambitious state plans to unclog one of the world's busiest interchanges could slice into a popular San Fernando Valley wildlife refuge or close a heavily used 101 Freeway on-ramp.Sue Doyle in the Daily News.
Traffic planners say the options, outlined in a recently released environmental impact report, are crucial for boosting traffic flow from the southbound San Diego Freeway to the northbound Ventura Freeway.
Built in the 1950s, the freeway connector was designed to handle up to 1,500 vehicles an hour but now has been swamped with 1,790 autos per hour.
Angelenos selling condominiums shouldn't have to pay the city $150 to fund an affordable-housing process that has never produced homes for low-income residents, according to a review by city officials. Kerry Cavanaugh in the Daily News.
The Daily News reported last year that since April 2007, residents selling condos have confronted a little-known law that gives the city of Los Angeles the right of first refusal to buy most condominiums built after 1974.
The city has always waived its right to buy the condos, but last April the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles began charging sellers $150 to cover the administrative cost of the processing the waiver.
Los Angeles city officials on Wednesday called for tighter regulations on how all contracts are awarded as they moved to clear two contested contracts doled out for work at Los Angeles International Airport. Daily News.
Members of the City Council's Trade, Commerce and Tourism Committee said they want to avoid the types of problems and conflicts over contract awards that have plagued the Los Angeles World Airports agency. With multibillion-dollar modernization of LAX on the horizon, the agency is headed by an executive director appointed last year.
"We have to make sure that there are no questions so that we can go ahead and do the work that we all support," Councilwoman Janice Hahn said. "I am all for modernization of the airport. We all know it needs to be done and done quickly.
California and the United States are in the midst of a mild recession brought on by the bursting housing bubble and higher gas and energy prices, the Milken Institute is reporting today.Daily News.
In an economic forecast, the institute says California is suffering the most and that the economic ills are not expected to ease soon.
"If the U.S. economy has the sniffles, California has a full-blown cold - with all the associated aches and pains," the report said. "California will experience a more severe recession than the nation overall, but the recession will still be mild by historical standards."
The Los Angeles Board of Water and Power Commissioners on Tuesday approved a new electrical rate restructuring plan that charges higher rates for customers who use the most electricity.Kerry Cavanaugh in the Daily News.
If approved by the City Council, the plan would create three rate tiers from June through September, and a so-called hot zone - including the San Fernando Valley, the Eastside and South L.A. - in which residents would get to use more power before they are bumped into a higher rate tier.
Environmental groups praised the plan as a way to push energy conservation, while neighborhood council leaders requested better outreach and information for residents who may face big bills this summer when higher electricity rates and the rate restructuring kick in.
Boxy, oversized houses on small lots would be banned in most areas of the city under a new mansionization ordinance approved by the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday. Kerry Cavanaugh in the Daily News.
The rule comes after three years of debate over whether the city should limit the size of new homes to protect neighbors and neighborhood character.
"The city of Los Angeles is a city of great neighborhoods and the only way to keep it that way is to protect it," said Councilman Tom LaBonge, who proposed the mansionization ordinance.
Just steps away from the flurry of car pools and Metro buses clamoring down the Harbor Transitway, a man lay curled on the ground, sleeping soundly. Sue Doyle in the Daily News.
Wedged against a concrete bike rack, the 47-year-old schizophrenic, swathed in a thick winter jacket and red sweat pants, was hidden behind two paper bags stuffed with groceries.
"At least he's spending his money on food and not on alcohol or drugs," Suzanne Newberry, a counselor and nurse with the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, said as she peered into the sacks.
Reviving a long-standing debate, the Los Angeles Fire Commission on Tuesday began preparing to phase out dealings with the operator of its youth Explorer program because of its relationship with the Boy Scouts of America.
In a 5-0 vote, the panel asked for a legal opinion from the City Attorney's Office to determine whether the Learning for Life program is separate from the Boy Scouts, which condemns homosexuality.
"It is not our intention to suspend the Explorer program," Commission Chairwoman Genethia Hudley-Hayes said. "Our issue is simply of legal concern that cannot be ignored ... to make sure we are not in violation of any policy of the city of Los Angeles. The city clearly has a nondiscriminatory policy."
Grappling to cover a projected $406 million budget shortfall, a Los Angeles city panel on Tuesday continued to explore potential cuts and fee increases - particularly on parking tickets - to close the spending gap.Daily News.
In an in-depth review of the mayor's proposed $7.01 billion budget, the City Council's Budget and Finance Committee called for further studies into delaying certain building programs, shifting some service hours to accommodate the public and searching for other revenue sources.
Chief among new potential revenue sources is a possible increase in an array of parking fines.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has decided discretion is the better part of valor.
Or, you don't get into a shouting match with the man who owns the microphone.
Rather than respond to the slight by radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, the mayor is letting pass a slur being seized on in the blogosphere.
Limbaugh, on his radio show, was talking about a recent time when he met with former President Clinton and Villaraigosa:
"I shook [Clinton's] hand, he left, comes back [with] the mayor of Los Angeles," Limbaugh said. "I thought it was a Secret Service agent, maybe a shoeshine guy. Turns out he gives me his card, I said, 'Oh, my gosh, it's the mayor of Los Angeles.'"
Villaraigosa aides said the mayor had heard the story several months ago and didn't believe it merited a response. "He's been called worst than that," one aide said.
l
Residents in the sweltering San Fernando Valley, South L.A. and the eastern half of the city would get a slight break on their power bills during the summer months under a proposed Department of Water and Power rate restructuring plan that seeks higher rates for those who use the most electricity. Kerry Cavanaugh in the Daily News.
The rate plan sets three tiers of rates based on power usage, and it allows residents in the "hot zone" to use more electricity before they are bumped into the higher-rate tier. The Board of Water and Power Commissioners will consider the proposal on Tuesday.
Angelenos who have air conditioning, pool pumps, multiple plasma TVs, old refrigerators and other power suckers would pay a premium for their electricity. People who live in smaller homes without air conditioning and with minimal power usage would pay lower rates.
Plans to send a subway rumbling below Westside streets to link the traffic-choked region to Eastside rail lines have been narrowed to four possible routes estimated to cost up to $6.5 billion.Sue Doyle in the Daily News.
And even with no available funding source, Metro is forging ahead and preparing what it hopes will eventually be an attractive package to federal officials who have not offered any financial support for a subway beyond repealing a 1985 ban last year on federal money for construction under Wilshire Boulevard.
"There is a long way to go before the subway extension can become a reality," said Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, a Metro board member. "But building support for, and selecting, a preferred route is the prerequisite to the next difficult step - finding a way to pay its $450 million-per-mile cost."
Most Los Angeles residents love the city but are troubled by the high cost of living, the lack of government accountability and a widespread sense that no area is getting its fair share of services - the same sentiment that fueled the San Fernando Valley secession drive, according to a survey released today. Daily News.
Living in Los Angeles is "enjoyably frustrating," said one of the 65 people who participated in a daylong conference in September put together by the Accenture Institute for Public Service Value as part of the international consulting firm's study of the views of people living in eight major cities worldwide.
Descriptions offered by other participants included "creative," "stressful," "diverse," "eccentric," "crowded," "disorganized" and "a city where anything is possible."
Tipoffs: What wouyld you pay to have your name on the new police hq?
Call Doris Wise Montrose of Woodland Hills an atypical child of a Holocaust survivor. To mark Holocaust Remembrance Day, she likely won't be attending any of the commemorations around Los Angeles. Tony Castro in the Daily News.
"Remembering and memorializing is all good and well," says Montrose, who heads up Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors Los Angeles, an ad hoc political advocacy group.
"But I believe in taking steps that go beyond rhetoric. I'm an activist."
Facing one of the worst job markets in years, many college grads will head back to school in the fall to bag an advanced degree in fields such as law or business while they wait out the hard times. Barbara Correa in the Daily News.
But for grads who absolutely need a paycheck, experts advise: Send your resume to the federal government, Mervyns or Target or a health-care provider.
"With the economy not doing well, people are thinking they'll get into a graduate program and sit it out for a while. Historically, that's what goes on," said Wendy Margolis, director of communications for the Law School Admission Council, which tracks law school applications and test registrations.
- Soaring prices at the supermarket are taking their toll on families across the Southland as the rising cost of everything from milk to eggs is stretching already-thin finances to the limit. Susan Abram and Sue Doyle in the Daily News.
The Melgar family used to load up the cart at Costco with jugs of nuts and tire-size cheese wheels, but those days are over. Special cookies and treats for the three kids are left on the shelves. And restaurant dining has become too much of a luxury.
"We are trying to economize at home," said Norma Melgar, who plans to shut off her cell phone to help offset the rising food costs. "Little by little, we are cutting back."
Despite the economic downturn, San Fernando Valley businesses are upbeat about their prospects, with more than half expecting sales growth in 2008, according to a survey set to be released this week. Gregory J. Wilcox in the Daily News.
The annual survey - conducted by the San Fernando Valley Economic Research Center at California State University, Northridge - revealed optimism among the owners of midsize businesses in key segments of the local economy.
"I was a little bit surprised by this, given all the (gloomy) news that's going on. These are key industries, and they are the industries that are generating jobs, so that's good news for the Valley," said Daniel Blake, CSUN economics professor and director of the research center.
Less than two years into the tenure of Los Angeles Unified Superintendent David Brewer III, all responsibilities for day-to-day operations at the district have quietly been shifted to a veteran educator who has been a key adviser to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Naush Boghossian in the Daily News.
Under the shift, all of the LAUSD's top senior personnel now report directly to Ramon Cortines, who played a crucial role in the mayor's efforts to reform the district and who now will report on district operations to Brewer.
District officials say Cortines' experience will allow Brewer to focus on big issues. But others are questioning whether it indicates that the school board is losing confidence in Brewer.
Los Angeles' population has surpassed 4 million for the first time, officials announced Thursday.Harrison Sheppard in the Daily News.
While state officials said last year that L.A. had passed that milestone on Jan. 1, 2007, they said final tabulations on that earlier estimate showed the city's population was actually 3.996 million.
However, the city's population grew 1.2 percent last year to reach 4,045,873 residents as of Jan. 1, 2008, according to the state Department of Finance.
Linking the need for immigration reform to a renewed call for officials to end raids on businesses, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Thursday complained that the federal government needs to revise its priorities.Daily News
"When Immigration and Custom Enforcement doesn't have the resources to go after criminal gang members, they shouldn't be targeting legitimate businesses," Villaraigosa said at a MacArthur Park news conference as demonstrators gathered for a May Day rally and march.
"It is time for the federal government to acknowledge it has a failed immigration policy and (instead) put its resources where it would do the most good."
Villaraigosa released a study prepared by the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. that examined three industries in Los Angeles that have high levels of immigrant workers - fashion, furniture manufacturing and food.
The strike involving nearly 300 paramedics and emergency medical technicians in the Antelope, Santa Clarita and San Gabriel valleys has ended.Jerry Berrios in the Daily News.
AMR, a private ambulance company that contracts with Los Angeles County, and the International Association of EMTs and Paramedics came to a tentative labor agreement Wednesday night.
"The strike is over," said AMR spokesman Jason Sorrick. "Our employees are coming back to work. We are moving forward, and we will continue to provide the best emergency service to the citizens we serve."
A simmering dispute between a prominent Jewish philanthropist and the head of the Los Angeles chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference reached a resolution Thursday with the two agreeing to look beyond their own issues.Daily News
In a meeting in the Beverly Hills mansion of Daphna Ziman, Ziman and the Rev. Eric Lee - brought together by religious leaders from New York City and Atlanta - said they will work together to try to eliminate racism and anti-Semitism in the community and beyond.
The two also said they hope to develop some cross-cultural events between African-American and Jewish youngsters. The two said they mutually agreed not to discuss the incident that had caused the rift - a dinner at which Ziman was being honored by an African-American group and was on the receiving end of remarks by Lee that she said were anti-Semitic.
Thousands of people are crowding the streets of downtown Los Angeles, many carrying yellow signs and others with American flags, descended on downtown Los Angeles as part of the annual immigration rights march.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said he would not attend the protest.
"I've not been a shrinking violet when it comes to this issue," Villaraigosa said. "I don't feel the need to be at every march."
One of the big issues for immigrants recently has been the recent raids by Immigration and Custom Enforcement on downtown employers.
Just one month after Los Angeles Unified offered space on its campuses for nearly 40 charter schools, district officials said Wednesday they have withdrawn seven of the offers and are considering yanking five more.Naush Boghossian in the Daily News.
The withdrawals come amid a growing outcry by the teachers union as well as charter schools and traditional schools unhappy with the prospect of sharing dozens of campuses.
In a letter outlining the plan, Senior Deputy Superintendent Ray Cortines said he decided to withdraw the offers based on the "instructional impacts the charter co-location would impose."
A guide to street closures during the May Day marches.
Facing a civilian oversight commission skeptical about LAPD's investigation of racial profiling complaints, Chief William Bratton said Tuesday he will launch a wide-ranging review of police practices. Rachel Uranga in the Daily News.
Members of the Los Angeles Police Commission said during their meeting Tuesday that they were baffled by internal LAPD findings that no officers engaged in racial profiling, despite hundreds of complaints in 2007.
Commissioner John Mack, a longtime civil-rights activist and former head of the Urban League, ticked off the complaints, scoffing at investigators who cleared hundreds of officers of wrongdoing.
St. Bernardine of Siena Parish in Woodland Hills has donated nearly $1.5 million of its savings to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles to help fund last year's multimillion-dollar settlement of clergy sex abuse cases.
The donation is unprecedented in the archdiocese, which has called on 101 churches with identified savings of at least $1 million each to help offset the more than $660 million payout to victims of clergy sexual abuse, according to archdiocese spokesman Tod Tamberg.Tony Castro in the Daily News.
"While it may not sit well with everyone in the parish, it is an extraordinary gesture of community and family on the part of St. Bernardine Parish," said Tamberg, who called the gift "emotionally moving."
Cardinal Roger Mahony was out of town Tuesday and not available for comment on the donation.
The donati
While Los Angeles grapples with the largest budget deficit in city history, all but one group of city employee unions have refused to reopen their contracts and consider concessions.Kerry Cavanaugh in the Daily News.
Unions representing police officers, firefighters, airport peace officers, engineers and architects, and managing city attorneys all declined when City Administrative Officer Karen Sisson requested that they come to the negotiating table to talk about contract changes to save the city money.
One group - the Coalition of L.A. City Unions - has agreed to negotiate with Sisson's office - because its contract included a reopener clause that requires discussions if city revenue drops 1 percent.
A bill to study adding greater portions of the San Fernando Valley to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area passed through Congress on Wednesday and is headed to the White House, where President Bush is expected to sign it. Harrison Sheppard in the Daily News.
The study would look at a proposal to create a Rim of the Valley Corridor - adding some 500,000 acres of mountain land above the San Fernando, La Crescenta, Santa Clarita, Simi and Conejo valleys to the existing protected parkland.
The bill was co-authored by U.S. Reps. Brad Sherman, D-Sherman Oaks, and Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena.
Identifying herself as the former, former, former, Jackie Goldberg made a rare appearance at City Hall on Tuesday, urging the City Council to hire more gang workers and provide more youth jobs.
Goldberg, a former school board member, former council member and former assemblywoman, is now working at UCLA and in Compton, she said.
"These are the mean streets and I do mean mean streets," Goldberg told the council as part of an appeal made by a group calling itself the Community Justice Coalition.
Goldberg warned that the city could be in for a long, hot summer involving gangs unless action is taken to hire more gang workers and try to create jobs for young people.
"If you would just hire the people who are on the gang list (of the LAPD), this would be a far different city," Goldberg said.
Gina Marie Lindsey, executive director of Los Angeles International Airport, will meet behind closed doors this morning with City Councilwoman Janice Hahn to explain allegations of cronyism tied to at least one airport contract. Art Marroquin in the Daily Breeze.
Lindsey asked to meet with Hahn after a story in Saturday's Daily Breeze outlined how Los Angeles-based developer DMJM was selected as project manager to oversee more than $5 billion worth of upgrades over the next decade at LAX.
"She asked for a meeting with me because I had expressed some concerns with these very serious allegations," said Hahn, who chairs the council's Trade, Commerce and Tourism Committee, which oversees LAX.
A growing number of immigrants and their children is pushing Latino voting strength in California to record levels and could alter local legislative and congressional races in coming elections, according to an analysis of potential new voters released today.Tony Castro in the Daily News.
By 2012, immigrants and their voting-age children could potentially represent 29 percent of California voters, according to findings by Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees based in Sebastopol, Calif.
But those estimates could be misleading, according to Jaime Regalado, executive director of the Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Institute at California State University, Los Angeles, and a leading political expert.
With the highest concentration of senior citizens in the nation, Los Angeles County is bracing for a surge in needed services as the elderly population is expected to double to nearly 3 million over the next two decades. Dana Bartholomew in the Daily News.
And in a bid to get ahead of the expected increase in demand, officials on Monday announced a countywide initiative with nearly every department aimed at improving services to seniors and making it easier for them to find and qualify for benefits.
"The strength of this new administrative structure is the ability to get multiple departments to improve services to specific target populations and to work together," Chief Executive Officer Bill Fujioka said.
Nearly two years after Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa vowed to find $1.8 million in city funds to bring more tourists to the San Fernando Valley, the region has yet to see a single penny for the effort. Daily News.
Widely hailed as a way to bolster an ailing economy, the money would have been the first to be used to specifically highlight Valley sites and accommodations. The mayor's pledge came after years of efforts by Valley advocates to get dedicated funding for tourism.
"Promoting the Valley as a tourist destination makes good economic sense," Villaraigosa said in making the announcement in November 2006. "Tourism boosts our economy and creates jobs. I will work ... to find the resources needed."
A skeptical Los Angeles City Council panel began its review Monday of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's proposed $7.01 billion budget, even as a coalition of city worker unions vowed to fight plans for layoffs and mandatory furloughs. Daily News.
Led by Councilman Bernard Parks, the council's budget and finance committee questioned exactly how the mayor is closing a $406 million shortfall and whether city revenues will achieve expectations amid what some say is a three-year economic downturn.
Parks and panel colleagues said they are concerned the mayor has proposed balancing the budget with about $200 million in one-time revenues - rather than confronting the fact that L.A. spends more money than it brings in.
While Los Angeles might be the nation's second-largest city and sit just a few hundred miles from one of the world's leading high-tech hubs, city efforts to tap into the booming Wi-Fi trend are being snubbed. Sue Doyle in the Daily News.
Tennessee bus riders can access free wireless Internet while zipping past old battlefield sites in Chattanooga. A pay-to-use Wi-Fi system is being installed for riders on a 35-mile rail line roaring past tumbleweeds and cactus from Fort Worth to Dallas.
And in San Francisco, a private company is rolling out a wireless technology to let commuters on Market Street soar through cyberspace on any wireless carrier.
Diabetes among pregnant women and teenagers more than doubled in six years, a concern among physicians who say the disease increases the chance of miscarriages and birth defects, according to a study released today. Susan Abram in the Daily News.
Of the more than 175,000 patients who gave birth in about a dozen Kaiser Permanente hospitals from 1999 to 2005, twice as many births were to women with TypeI and TypeII diabetes, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published in the May issue of Diabetes Care. The American Diabetes Association funded the study.
The conditions are unlike gestational diabetes, which develops during pregnancy but can disappear after a baby is born.
Tiooffs: Villaraigosa will be in town this year for immiigration rights rally.
For nearly two decades, the Los Angeles Unified School District has relied on its staff to flush hundreds of campus drinking fountains every day to help lower any lead levels in the water, but tracking began only six months ago on whether the procedures are being properly carried out.
News that the nation's second-largest school district has not vigorously protected its children's water comes just days after school officials acknowledged that high lead levels were found in a drinking fountain at Woodlake Elementary School in Woodland Hills.Susan Abram in the Daily News.
While acknowledging that staff members in charge of flushing water fountains and keeping logs on it were negligent on some campuses, Superintendent David Brewer III and other LAUSD officials are trying to reassure parents that their children have not been at risk.
But some parents remain skeptical about whether it is safe for their children to drink water from school fountains.
Amid a contentious battle over a proposed Home Depot, city officials tried to cool tempers Saturday by hosting a community dialogue aimed at finding a middle ground between warring factions. Rick Coca in the Daily News.
About 200 community residents attended, although organizers had been expecting up to 1,000.
Although a few supporters, including Home Depot employees, noted the project would likely bring more jobs to the community, most in the crowd were against it.
Alicia De La Cruz hears the words city and county prosecutors use to describe her and her neighbors and is left puzzled.
Can they be talking about us?
"Virtual prisoners in their homes."
"They cannot go to the local market without being assaulted and robbed by San Fer gang members."
The alarming portrayal came in a 14-page request earlier this month for a gang injunction to severely limit the movement of the San Fers, one of the San Fernando Valley's most menacing gangs - with ties to the drug trade and the Mexican Mafia.
Rachel Uranga in the Daily News.
The Daily News is in the process of switching to new servers, so postings will be sporadic at best for the next several days.
Days of free and open roads are dimming in Los Angeles after the federal government offered $213.6 million to launch a one-year toll road pilot program by the end of 2010 in an effort to boost speeds on three sluggish freeways.
With a promise to keep traffic flowing no slower than 50 mph in car-pool lanes converted to express lanes, toll lanes will straddle freeways through Pasadena and between downtown Los Angeles and east Los Angeles County. Sue Doyle in the Daily News.
Motorists cruising the Harbor Freeway could also see toll lanes, depending on how far the federal money stretches with the one-year program shared by Caltrans and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
"This is a great day for us," said Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. "This is one important tool to relieve traffic and gridlock in this area."
The toll lanes are designed to enforce congestion pricing, a strategy that aims to make driving freeways more expensive during peak traffic times so noncommuters will stay off the roads during rush hours.
In a major shift for the San Fernando Valley - long known as "the 818" - a state panel on Thursday authorized a 747 area code for all new numbers in the region starting next year.Harrtison Sheppard in the Daily News.
But for residents proud of their singular area code and the identity it has lent the area, it signifies a fundamental change. For some, it seems even to strike at their personal identities.
"I have a friend in art school in New York who was so homesick she had `818' tattooed on her arm," said Johnny Fernandez, 30, of Sherman Oaks.
"It's definitely a Valley culture thing."
About 85 percent of students in Los Angeles Unified School District's Class of 2008 have passed the state's exit exam - required to receive a high school diploma - but English learners continue to lag, with just 53 percent passing the mandatory test. Naush Boghossian in the Daily News.
The overall results are up 1 percentage point from the same time last year, when 84 percent of the Class of 2007 had passed the English and math tests of the California High School Exit Exam.
The results are up 6 percentage points over the Class of 2006 at the same time.
The top two contenders for a coveted Los County Board of Supervisors seat tore into one another Thursday, each saying he could better represent the sprawling 2nd District from mid-Los Angeles to Carson and each claiming to be the stronger supporter of Sen. Barack Obama. Brandon Lowrey in the Daily News
In one of the opening blows, Los Angeles City Councilman Bernard Parks said he was a true public servant while his opponent, state Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas, D-Los Angeles, was merely a politician.
"I've seen public service rather than political process," Parks told a crowd of about 250 people at the Westside Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles.
To help the city of Los Angeles out of its current budget crisis, would you be willing to pay up to $4 an hour for metered street parking? Kerry Cavanaugh in the Daily News.
How about a $125 surcharge on traffic violations?
Or a luxury tax on electricity used by homes larger than 5,000 square feet?
The options were among the fees and tax hikes considered by the City Council on Wednesday in its first-ever "revenue day," designed to help close a $406 million shortfall that is the largest in Los Angeles history.
He's a disabled Vietnam veteran. She's a retired teacher who spends most of her pension on health insurance. Dana Bartholomew in the Daily News.
Arnie and Marilyn Bernstein are among an estimated 1million Angelenos with a rent-controlled apartment.
But if voters kill rent control in a June ballot measure, the Bernsteins say, their monthly payment would jump from $876 to $1,300 - a 48 percent increase.
"We couldn't afford another apartment," said Marilyn Bernstein, 62, of Canoga Park, who has lived in the one-bedroom unit for 21 years. "We'd be living under a bridge - like `Tent City, here we come.' The possibility of lifting rent control would be devastating."
Concerned about granting up to $65.5 million in tax breaks for Grand Avenue redevelopment even as the city grapples with its largest budget shortfall in history, Los Angeles officials on Wednesday insisted the project's benefits will outweigh the costs. Daily News.
"We are making sure that this is all there is," Chief Legislative Analyst Gerry Miller said. "What we believe is this money is needed to help build the hotel and we will get a lot more in other revenue that we otherwise wouldn't receive."
Defense of the tax breaks came just days after Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa proposed a $7 billion city budget that seeks to hire more police and firefighters but slashes city spending and proposes dozens of new fee hikes for Angelenos.
For more than a decade, the Lancaster City Council has unknowingly been following the wrong procedures when appointing Planning Commission members, officials recently discovered. Karen Maeshiro in the Daily News.
Traditionally, commission members have been appointed by individual council members and then ratified by the council as a whole.
But newly elected Mayor R. Rex Parris discovered that state law actually requires the mayor to make the appointments and submit them to the council for ratification.
Today is Denim Day in Los Angeles and all the city officials made sure they wore denim to commemorate a serious topic of domestic abuse.
"We want everyone to know that Los Angeles is not a sanctuary for domestic abuse," Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said. "Coming from a family where there was domestic abuse, I can tell you what it does to a family. Men should respect women,."
And, while the topic was serious, it was also curious to note the different styles.
Some, like Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, looked comfortable in a faded pair of jeans.
Others, like Villaraigosa, had neatly pressed jeans and wore boots with it.
And, then there was Councilman Dennis Zine. He wore a matching denim jacket and jeans, prompting some to be thankful there isn't a leisure suit day at City Hall.
First the good news: Home sales in the San Fernando Valley increased for the third consecutive month in March, according to reports released Tuesday. Gregory J. Wilcox in the Daily News.
But now the bad: Sales and prices remain in a free fall and foreclosure woes show no signs of easing anytime soon.
From Glendale to Calabasas during March, 642 properties changed owners, up 17 percent from February but down 52 percent from a year ago, according to the San Fernando Valley Economic Research Center at California State University, Northridge.
Los Angeles' money crunch rippled across City Hall on Tuesday as officials began to flip through hundreds of pages of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's budget and found major cuts spread across city agencies. Kerry Cavanaugh in the Daily News.
To fill a $406 million shortfall while still hiring police and firefighters, Villaraigosa has proposed cutting analysts and clerical and maintenance workers. Warning of tough choices, he has slashed travel budgets, cut park rangers and plans to stop payment to cable access Channel 36.
And on Tuesday, some city leaders began to fight back.
Despite criticism over how it spent $2.2 billion in previous bond funds, the Los Angeles Community College District board is expected to vote today on placing another bond measure of up to $5 billion on the November ballot. Connie Llanos in the Daily News.
If it passes, Los Angeles city residents could expect to pay $17 to $25 more in taxes per $100,000 of assessed property value to cover the bonds.
The decision comes even as district officials say they have more than $1 billion remaining from two previous bonds and about 200 unfinished projects.
But with 27 construction projects under way - including some at Harbor College in Wilmington - and several new vocational demands on the horizon, that money won't last long.
"We are spending about $15 (million) to $20million a day on construction," said Larry Eisenberg, director of facilities,
Los Angeles city officials marked Earth Day on Tuesday by enacting what they called one of the most progressive laws in the nation, requiring developers to comply with green building standards on major projects. Daily News.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who had recommended the policy, signed it into law just hours after the City Council voted 14-0 to adopt the standards.
Under the measure, developers of projects larger than 50,000 square feet are required to meet green building codes for water and energy efficiency, as well as for improved indoor air quality and drought-tolerant landscaping.
Early exit polls paint startingly different pictures of the Pennsylvania voters.
CNN has Clinton winning a clear majority of while males and seniors. Over at MSNBC, they say the biggest factor for voters is bringing about change, a factor that generally has favored Obama.
After a six-week break in presidential primary elections, voters in Pennsylvania go to the polls today in what all analysts agree is a make-or-break election for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton against Sen. Barack Obama.
At one point, Clinton held a 20-point lead in the state, but Obama has narrowed that substantially in recent weeks.
The betting now is on the margin of victory, although most agree if Clinton wins by one vote, she will call it a mandate to continue on to North Carolina and Indiana in their upcoming primaries.
The real test, however, could come later this week, when Clinton calls the money people to try to raise the money needed to continue the race.
At stake today are 158 delegates to the Democratic National Convention. Like all Democratic primaries, they will be decided on the proportion of vote.
With the Los Angeles Police Department exceeding hiring goals and only a small number of recruits saying a bonus program has motivated them to join, a city panel took steps Monday to limit the payout to lure candidates. Daily News.
The City Council's Public Safety Committee urged the LAPD to end the $5,000 signing bonus after the class beginning next week graduates.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa outlined his proposed $7 billion budget on Monday, using a North Hollywood street maintenance yard as the backdrop, to warn of hard times ahead for the city as he seeks to deal with a $406 million shortfall.
Details of the budget are to be available at the Mayor's website including links to his formal announcement, a budget summary and the budget itself.
The mayor is saying that street maintenance and repair would not be cut under his budget nor would there be a slowing in the police hiring plan he has adopted.
But, there will be several fee increases to pay for the city's operation, from libraries to trash to golf.
The budget plan now goes to the City Council's Budget and Finance Committee which will review the plan and make its own recommendations on spending.
The L.A. trash fee hikes enacted over the past two years were never enough to cover the cost of hiring 1,000 police officers, and even Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's proposed increase this year won't cover the full expense of expanding the force, city records show.Kerry Cavanaugh in the Daily News.
The findings come after Villaraigosa told Angelenos in 2006 that he would raise the monthly garbage collection fee from $11 to $28 over four years to pay for 1,000 more Los Angeles police officers, boosting the ranks to 10,000 and making the department the largest in city history.
While previous mayors' efforts to raise the trash fee were shot down, residents and neighborhood councils endorsed Villaraigosa's plan to boost public safety by accepting a 150percent rate hike to pay for more cops.
Faced with the most severe economic conditions in nearly two decades, Los Angeles city and county officials today will unveil budgets that are expected to call for wide-ranging service reductions while also asking residents to pay more to finance government. Daily News.
The budget squeeze comes as property and sales taxes - two of the main revenue sources for local governments - have plummeted to a combined loss that is expected to have a devastating impact.
The last time there was a drop in year-over-year sales tax revenues was in the early 1990s amid the last national recession.
After all these years, Larry Flynt says he's bored with pornography. Rachel 'Uranga in the Daily News.
So what's his new turn-on? Attacking hypocrisy - "the biggest danger" to American democracy - by exposing politicians such as former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and his $4,000-an-hour prostitute, and Idaho Sen. Larry Craig and his men's room peccadilloes.
While he's at it, Flynt would like to run Cardinal Roger Mahony out of town after first tarring and feathering him over his role in the Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal.
Tipoffs: Police Chief Bratton defends LAPD's Special Order 40.
A Granada Hills community garden. An NHL star's tiny red Prius. A Sylmar solar effort. A Pacoima area cleanup. Grass-roots activists across L.A. and the San Fernando Valley are doing what they can to help reduce our footprint on this Earth and ease everything from pollution and global warming to bulging landfills. Their stories illustrate a simple truth: It all starts with a single step by each of us to build a healthy, prosperous, sustainable environment for a new generation and hope for the planet.Daily News.
The bad news is that the Midfield Satellite Concourse at Los Angeles International Airport will not be built by January 2012, breaking a promise made just eight months ago by airport executives. Art Marroquin in the Daily News.
The good news is that the airport will still be able to accommodate the Airbus A380 and other superjumbo jetliners by building more contact gates on the back side of the Tom Bradley International Terminal.
"I think the Midfield Concourse will be done in late 2012 or early 2013 now, but we'll have those new gates built at the Bradley Terminal by January 2012," said Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, who heads the council's Trade, Commerce and Tourism Committee.
In a move to stamp out one of the San Fernando Valley's most notorious and violent gangs, the city on Thursday sought one of its most sprawling injunctions against the San Fers to curtail its influence in the Northeast Valley. Daily News.
District Attorney Steve Cooley and City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo are seeking an injunction that would place severe limits on the gang's estimated 900 members to meet in public, intimidate witnesses and sell or possess drugs, weapons or graffiti tools.
Citing cases of intimidation of young people, the random shooting of a man baby-sitting his 1-year-old nephew and the beating of people walking on the street, officials said the San Fers have acted as if they are above the law.
"For too long, the San Fer gang has used intimidation, violence and fear to hold this community in the San Fernando Valley hostage to its insidious activities," Delgadillo said.
In a sign of the increases Angelenos will face as the city grapples with a massive budget crunch, the Los Angeles Public Library is proposing a $1 fee to have a book transferred between branches. Kerry Cavanaugh in the Daily News.
The fee is one of several new charges and increases that could take effect July 1 to help the public library system cope with budget cuts brought on by the city's $406 million deficit.
Already, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has said he will seek to raise residents' trash fees this summer to pay for more police officers.
The years-long battle over a proposed Home Depot in Sunland- Tujunga has been one of the nastiest, dirtiest land-use fights in recent Los Angeles history. Kerry Cavanaugh in the Daily News.
There have been charges of racism, plots of corporate skulduggery, shouting matches and millions of dollars spent to sway public opinion on both sides of the debate.
But now, dozens of volunteer mediators from the City Attorney's Office are planning a massive outreach next weekend to bring 1,000 community members together to find out whether everyone can just get along and whether a compromise is possible.
State officials ordered California's largest health insurers to reinstate 26 improperly canceled health policies Thursday and said they plan to review thousands more in coming months. Harrison Sheppard in the Daily News.
The order was the first action out of a two-year investigation into whether insurers regularly violate state law when canceling policies.
The state Department of Managed Health Care is planning to review the case of every Californian who has had a health insurance policy canceled in the past four years - a number expected to exceed 10,000.
"We couldn't find any evidence that these (26) people should have been rescinded," said DMHC spokeswoman Lynne Randolph.
The dream of bringing the NFL back to Los Angeles is being revived by developer Ed Roski today, with his plans for a 75,000 seat stadium in the City of Commerce. Industry.While he is planning a news conference to announce details, nearly all the plans are on his website.
What stands out are a few things that are lacking:
Among them:
--He has no source of outside financing, with the state legislature pulling a bill that would have allowed a diversion of funds.
-- He has no football team. The NFL says it will not expand and there is no indication any team really wants to move.
-- Is it really an effort to build a stadium for the NFL or to develop a shopping center-office complex?
Councilman Dennis Zine and his proposals to try to limit paparazzi's made the Daily Show on Wednesday night in an interview with reporter Rob Riggle.
Launching a pitched battle against Los Angeles Unified over plans to dole out more space for the growing charter-school movement, the teachers union said Wednesday that it will aggressively campaign against traditional schools sharing sites with the popular independent schools. Naugh Boghossian in the Daily News.
Demonstrations by parents and teachers and community meetings have already begun, just days after the district offered space to more than three dozen charter schools - the most so far - as part of a settlement of a lawsuit challenging the LAUSD's lagging efforts to share its facilities under Proposition 39.
But some schools and teachers said the plans are too disruptive because they include mixing some elementary and secondary students and allocating classrooms that already are in use.
With fire season rapidly approaching, firefighters and homeowners across Southern California are bracing for a scorching summer amid concerns that potentially hotter-than-normal temperatures and fierce Santa Ana winds could ignite blazes even worse than last year's devastating wildfires.Jerry Berrios in the Daiiy News
Last year, fueled by the driest year on record in Los Angeles that left the region tinder-dry, massive wildfires throughout Southern California destroyed hundreds of homes and scorched more than 500,000 acres.
"It's the worst fire season ever, this one coming up," said Los Angeles Fire Department Assistant Chief Greg West.
Southern California real estate took another beating in March when prices plunged by record amounts and foreclosures accounted for nearly 40 percent of sales, an industry tracker said Tuesday. Gregory J. Wilcox in the Daily News.
Price declines ranged from 18.5 percent in Los Angeles County to 28.2 percent in San Bernardino County, said La Jolla-based DataQuick Information Systems, and indicate that the housing slump is deepening.
For the entire six-county region, the median price tumbled 23.8 percent, also a record, to $385,000. That's $120,000 in equity lost over the past 12 months and the lowest price since April 2004.
Look out 818, here comes the 747.
The telephone area code that has defined the San Fernando Valley for two decades is running out, and a new one may be approved as early as next week. Troy Anderson in the Daily News.
A recent judicial decision recommended that the 747 area code be assigned only to new telephone lines in the Valley, rather than forcing half the area's residents to switch their existing numbers.
But that option also means that Valley residents would always be required to dial the full number, 10 digits with the area code, even when calling a neighbor in the same 818 zone.
Despite already raising Los Angeles residents' trash fees, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is expected to propose hiking the monthly refuse-collection bills even higher next week, to $36 - triple the cost of just two years ago. Daily News.
The increase would hit as Angelenos have begun feeling the pinch of an economic downturn and seeing their household expenses rise, with higher prices for everything from gasoline and food to water and power.
But Villaraigosa said L.A. must try to raise a variety of fees - including those for trash collection - to close a $406 million budget shortfall and meet his promise to expand the police force by 1,000 officers.
A coalition of Los Angeles homeowner groups has filed the second lawsuit in the past two weeks challenging a recently adopted city rule that allows developers to build taller, bulkier buildings if they include affordable units. Kerry Cavanaugh in the Daily News.
The case filed by the Environment And Housing Coalition Los Angeles - a group made up of 17 homeowners associations from the Westside, Valley and Mid-City areas - also relies on a legal strategy proposed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's top planning appointee to fight the adopted density-bonus ordinance.
Last month, city Planning Commission President Jane Ellison Usher sent an e-mail to community groups, laying out a legal strategy to fight the ordinance and urging them to move swiftly in filing suit.
Even as Los Angeles city officials launched a new approach to fighting street gangs Tuesday, another victim of the violence issued a heartfelt plea for quick action to stem the problem. Daily News.
"I love him dearly. I raised him the best I could and encouraged him to make a difference in life," said Donna Brown, the mother of Clifton Hibbert Jr.
Hibbert, a 22-year-old California State University, Northridge, student who planned to become a lawyer, was gunned down in March while driving through downtown Los Angeles with his friend Kenneth Patterson.
As the Los Angeles Police Commission continues to review changes in how its SWAT teams operate and are composed, the report on its has drawn some strong criticism from Robert Parry, who posts over at Friendly Fire.
For his complete analysis, read on
Despite a financial crisis that threatens to cripple Los Angeles with everything from service cuts to layoffs, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa pledged Monday to continue boosting the ranks of the Police Department and pouring money into ridding city streets of gang violence.
For the second consecutive year, Villaraigosa centered his State of the City address on preventing and reducing gang crime - including adding four gang-reduction zones to eight created last year and spending $18 million in hands-on gang programs in those 12 hard-hit communities. Daily News.
"Public safety is the first obligation of government," Villaraigosa said during his address at LAPD headquarters.
"When you don't have safe streets, everything falls apart. People become isolated. Kids turn into prisoners. Jobs evaporate. Families struggle just to survive."
Even as Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa delivered his last citywide speech Monday before beginning a re-election campaign, political observers said he faces a challenging year ahead narrowing his focus and delivering on his promises for improvements to the city. Daily News.
In his third State of the City address, Villaraigosa outlined plans to attack Los Angeles' gang and financial crises, but political and city analysts said the mayor now needs to demonstrate to Los Angeles - and the state - that he can effect real change in governing the nation's second-largest city.
"Last year was a difficult year for him and, even though he seems on the uptick now, he has to have measurable deliverables," said Jaime Regalado, director of the Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Institute at California State University, Los Angeles.
Several immigrant rights groups Monday decried proposed changes in Special Order 40 to target illegal immigrants in criminal gangs, saying any move to change the rule in such a way would single out minorities and weaken civil liberties. Daily News.
Members of the Mexican American Political Association, Labor Community Strategy Center and Hermandad Mexicana said the long-standing rule has been effective in encouraging immigrants to report crimes, and existing laws are sufficient to deal with criminals.
"Our concern is that the gang database now includes anyone who police think is a gang member, without verification," said Manuel Criollo, a spokesman for the Labor Community Strategy Center.
Paramedics and emergency medical technicians in portions of Los Angeles County will take a step closer to the picket line today when union leaders file a strike notice with American Medical Response, a private ambulance company serving about a dozen cities in the county. Jerry Barrios inj the Daily News.
The roughly 300 employees who work in three zones - the San Gabriel Valley, the Antelope Valley and Santa Clarita - want better wages and benefits. AMR sent a proposal Monday, but the union rejected it.
"The offer does not meet our demands," said Matthew Levy, national director of the International Association of EMTs & Paramedics. "... We just can't agree to their terms."
The number of psychiatric beds in public hospitals has fallen dramatically across California and the nation - with the Golden State now dedicating Susan Abram in the Daily News.
While the ratio in California mirrors the national average, it represents a sharp drop over the past five decades - from 340 beds per 100,000 people nationwide in 1955, according to the report by the national nonprofit Treatment Advocacy Center.
"The results of this report are dire and the failure to provide care for the most seriously mentally ill individuals is disgraceful," said Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, president of the Arlington, Va.-based center that advocates for treatment of the mentally ill.
It is well past noon on a recent weekday and Jaime Armando has finally concluded that, for the fourth day in a row, he likely won't find any work. Tony Castro in the Daily News.
"A year ago, I was working four and five days a week, but this year it's been more like one day in five," says Armando, a 19-year-old Guatemalan immigrant who daily hangs out along Vanowen Street and Canoga Avenue with other day laborers looking for work.
"But that means that tomorrow ... tomorrow, I should get work."
Welcome to the life of day laborers in the San Fernando Valley, caught in the grip of an economic downturn that arguably takes the worst toll on those on the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder.
With the death of her 18-year-old son still a vivid memory, Martha Torres released a balloon with his name on it Sunday to bring attention to those who have died at the hands of another. Robert S. Hong in the Daily News.
"This is a new experience for me," said the Burbank woman, whose son, Oscar, was killed in 2005 in Glendale by a driver who was later convicted of second-degree murder. "At least we know that somebody will remember them."
Torres joined dozens of other families at Rose Hills Memorial Park and Mortuary on Sunday to pay tribute to their slain loved ones and advocate for the rights of victims' families in the judicial process.
This 23rd annual event, put on by nonprofit Justice For Homicide Victims, began about noon atop one of the park's grassy slopes where nearly 200 gathered, some wearing pins with photos of lost loved ones.
For thousands of Los Angeles Unified School District employees, tax time this year has been even more stressful than usual. Harrison Sheppard in the Daily News.
The district's payroll system fiasco resulted in about 3,400 incorrect W-2 forms being mailed to employees earlier this year, leaving many of them worried about facing penalties if they file late or incorrect tax returns as Tuesday's filing deadline approaches.
As of Friday, however, district officials said they've managed to resolve most of the outstanding tax filing issues.
District chief operating officer David Holmquist said there are about 50 employees who still have issues to resolve with their W-2s and another 200 who may have had problems with incorrect contributions to an employee retirement plan.
Tipoffs: City officials look to clarify -- and possibly change -- Special Order 40. Mayor caught between his job and national politics.
The city of Los Angeles must build nearly 113,000 new housing units by 2014 to meet the needs of a growing population without worsening the shortage of affordable homes, according to a new city study. Kerry Cavanaugh in the Daily News.
Some 25 percent of the homes need to be affordable for poor and lower-wage workers, yet new development in Los Angeles is primarily for wealthier buyers and renters, according to the study.
The housing development target - plus strategies to meet the goal - is laid out in the city's draft Housing Element, which is now being considered in public workshops around the city.
The goal of the report, said Principal City Planner Jane Blumenfeld, is to lay out city policies that will help L.A. build 113,000 new homes.
Today's homebuyers are turning someone else's economic nightmare into their American dream. Gregory J. Wilcox in the Daily News.
And while there are not many buyers in most markets, they share a common trait: tenacity.
They are striking deals in a market with a distinct yin - record low sales - and yang - soaring foreclosures that are pushing supply up and prices down.
Some are buying their first homes after meeting the tightest credit standards in years. Some properties are attracting multiple offers again, and selling for more than the asking price.
Does this mean that the long, steep slide is over? Probably not.
Thousands of Los Angeles Unified parents and students packed the Los Angeles Convention Center Saturday for a parent summit, to get advice on everything from identifying attention-deficit disorder to improving their children's test scores. Rick Coca in the Daily News.
Parents and students were offered the chance to air some gripes, interact with school board members and hear directly from Superintendent David Brewer III during some of the more than 50 seminars and activities at the 12th annual Parent Summit.
During a workshop with school board members, Jenny Mangandi, a 13-year-old student at Thomas Starr King Middle School in Los Angeles, complained that substitute teachers are used too often in one of her classes and that her school is overcrowded.
Faced with a city budget crisis, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Friday said he is proposing eliminating 767 city jobs while also raising a variety of fees and fines to help close a $406 million deficit. Kerry Cavanaugh in the Daily News.
While Villaraigosa was short on details, he said he would reveal more information when he releases the 2008-09 budget later this month.
And he made it clear that layoffs and dramatic service cuts are planned.
"We're looking at the biggest budget deficit in L.A. history, and we're going to have to make the tough choices," Villaraigosa said.
Calling it a response to public outrage over gang crime in Los Angeles, Councilman Dennis Zine said Friday he wants to alter the LAPD's long-standing Special Order 40 by allowing officers to question gang members about their immigration status. Daily News.
Opposed by immigration-rights activists, the amendment would bolster already existing relationships with immigration officials and require police to report gang members who are in the country illegally.
But it would not alter the crux of the 1979 rule that prohibits officers from asking crime victims about their immigration status.
"These are people who are terrorizing their own communities," Zine said. "They are extorting business for protection money. They are victimizing their own communities. We need to give gang officers another tool to deal with the problem."
Residents and city officials are concerned over a plan to open a new jail at the Mira Loma Detention Center, believing it could lead to increased crime and other problems for local neighborhoods. Karen Maeshiro in the Daily News.
"We don't want it here. The immediate response of myself, citizens, people who I have talked to is, `We have got one, thank you very much,"' Lancaster Councilwoman-elect Sherry Marquez said, referring to the state prison already in Lancaster.
"Go look for another piece of property to put the jail. We've got our share."
Grappling with a growing caseload, Los Angeles County's massive court system is increasingly threatened by antiquated, cramped facilities and dozens of buildings that are at risk in an earthquake, officials acknowledged this week. Troy Anderson in the Daily News.
Of the county's 50 court facilities, fully two-thirds fail to meet seismic safety standards, according to county data.
And officials at Los Angeles County Superior Court, and the District Attorney's Office and the Public Defender's Office said courthouses have become so crowded that in some cases inmates are escorted in handcuffs and leg irons through public hallways to their courtrooms.
The state Supreme Court delivered a setback to a group of hotels near LAX, upholding Los Angeles city officials' efforts that began nearly two years ago to require the hotels to pay about 2,000 workers a "living wage," officials said Thursday. Daily News.
The court ruled late Wednesday that it would not hear an appeal of the case, finding that the city acted properly when it changed an initial ordinance on the issue last year to avoid a referendum on the move.
The Supreme Court ruling overturned a lower-court decision that had sided with the hotels.
Whether its members are ripping down illegal signs or battling over street-sweeping days, the Woodland Hills Neighborhood Council is out in full force with efforts to continually improve the area. Sue Doyle in the Daily News.
When they're not cleaning tree wells or pulling weeds from sidewalks, they're fighting for gates and other improvements outside Woodland Hills Elementary School.
"We are doing good, but our worst enemy is the city bureaucracy," said Heath Kline, a five-year neighborhood council member and director of the community services committee.
Perhaps because he's a historian, retired professor Daniel Walker Howe can look on one of the most eventful days of his long career and reduce a lifetime achievement to a simple postscript. Tony Castro in the Daily News.
That's how he informed his wife, Sandra, in a note asking her to rendezvous with him near UCLA on Monday.
"Meet me at 6 in the St. Alban's parking lot," the note read.
"P.S. I won the Pulitzer."
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.
Despite last-minute questions over surcharges that will boost customer bills even more, the Los Angeles City Council gave final approval Wednesday to raise residents' water and power rates beginning this summer. Kerry Cavanaugh in the Daily News.
Money from the controversial rate hikes will help pay for upgrades to the city's aging water and electrical systems.
Under the approved plan, water rates will increase 3.1percent July 1 and another 3.1percent July 1, 2009.
Power bills will increase 2.9percent in June, another 2.9percent July 1 and an additional 2.7percent July 1, 2009.
When fully implemented in July 2009, the rates will increase average customer bills by $87 per year.
Even as the Los Angeles Unified School District grapples with wide-ranging problems, including lagging student test scores, more than a dozen San Fernando Valley schools were honored Wednesday by the state for exemplary academic performance.Naush Boghossian in the Daily News.
The recognition is a coup for the Valley, where 16 of the newly honored schools, or two-thirds of all California Distinguished Elementary Schools named in the LAUSD this year, are located - and also where the bulk of such schools in the area are perennially found, district officials believe.
"We've been working really hard in the Valley for a very long time to bring scores up and improve schools. It didn't just happen yesterday," said school board member Julie Korenstein, who has represented the Valley for 21 years.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has directed officials to investigate phone-company charges after hearing from a woman who said her monthly phone bill hit more than $1,000 because of calls from her jailed son.Troy Anderson in the Daily News.
"For the first nine months of my son's incarceration, my monthly phone bill has been over $1,000," Evelyn Arong told the board on Tuesday.
"I can't see what possibly would justify this outrageous markup for phone service. I would never have thought my phone bill would be such a major expense."
Councilman Richard Alarcon said the protests of the City Council over the DWP are meaningless unless they vote to reject the increase.
"There is the old saying of sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me," Alarcon said. "Well, our sticks and stones is our vote."
However, the council rejected his pleas and voted 13-1 to approve the power rates, with Alarcon dissenting, and 11-3, with Hahn, Zine and Alarcon dissenting to approve the water rate increases.
Councilwoman Janice Hahn said part of the problem facing the DWP is the lack of public trust.
Complaining that officials did not include the cost of surcharges to buy natural gas in their figures, Hahn said she was tired of the "I'm shocked this is going on" attitude of the department managers.
"I will probably end up voting for this, but we need to make sure we have more transparency with the public," Hahn said.
Councilman Dennis Zine said it was a big reason for creating a separate oversight committee of council appointees. Also, there is a proposal to have a separate study of the annual transfer from the DWP to the city's general fund.
Councilman Richard Alarcon, who indicated he wanted more detail on the work to be done in his district with the new rates, said he remains opposed to the increases because of the lack of detail.
"I cannot support this rate increase without knowing what it means for my district," Alarcon said. "I don't know how we can vote for this until we knows what it means for the city."
Councilman Richard Alarcon, who indicated he wanted more detail on the work to be done in his district with the new rates, said he remains opposed to the increases because of the lack of detail.
"I cannot support this rate increase without knowing what it means for my district," Alarcon said. "I don't know how we can vote for this until we knows what it means for the city."
Councilman Richard Alarcon, who indicated he wanted more detail on the work to be done in his district with the new rates, said he remains opposed to the increases because of the lack of detail.
"I cannot support this rate increase without knowing what it means for my district," Alarcon said. "I don't know how we can vote for this until we knows what it means for the city."
Taking the advice of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's top planning appointee, a Valley Village woman has sued the city over a new rule that allows developers to build taller, bulkier buildings if they include affordable units. Kerry Cavanaugh in the Daily News.
Last month, city Planning Commission President Jane Ellison Usher sent an e-mail to community groups, criticizing the recently adopted density bonus ordinance and laying out a legal strategy to challenge it.
On Thursday, homeowner Sandy Hubbard filed the first lawsuit using Usher's suggestions. A group of home and business owners is also considering a lawsuit.
It could be a compromise or it could be a showdown today when City Council leaders propose their version of how to reorganize gang intervention programs. Kerry Cavanaugh in the Daily News.
City officials agree that Los Angeles spends millions of dollars each year on gang-prevention and -intervention programs, without tracking how the money is spent or whether the programs deter gang crime.
But for the past two months, Controller Laura Chick and Councilman Tony Cardenas have battled over the best way to reform the system.
Cardenas has challenged that proposal, saying it would consolidate power with the mayor and diminish council and public oversight. He wants to create a new department to oversee gang-intervention and -prevention programs.
Now, with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa planning to unveil his reorganization of gang-intervention programs Monday duri
Los Angeles police are drawing their guns less often than last year. But when they do, they're killing more criminal suspects than before, according to an LAPD report released Tuesday. Rachel Uranga in the Daily News.
In the first quarter of the year, police killed 12 suspects - twice the number of suspects killed over the same period last year.
Still, the number of officer-involved shootings in the period fell to 15 from 18.
"We are still trying to put some context to this and figure out why," Capt. Kris Pitcher, head of the LAPD's Force Investigation Division, told the civilian Police Commission. "There are so many factors involved, you can't attribute it to one particular issue."
As part of a larger plan to build libraries throughout Los Angeles County, the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved $16.5 million for construction of a new Topanga Library.Troy Anderson in the Daily News.
The 11,293-square-foot library at 122 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd. will replace the Las Virgenes bookmobile that serves the area now.
Area residents must currently travel to Agoura Hills or Malibu to access full libraries.
The grieving parents of a Los Angeles teenager who recently lost his life to gang violence pleaded with city officials Tuesday to take aggressive steps to boost city safety. Daily News.
Fighting back their anguish, Jamiel Shaw Sr. and his wife, Anita, were surrounded by family members and supporters at City Hall as they told how the death of their son has taken an emotional toll.
"Every day we are reminded of what happened," Jamiel Shaw Sr. told City Council members, as he broke down..
Rapid development jeopardizes the future of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, threatening up to 1,000 species of plant life and hundreds of animals, according to a report to be released today. Susan Abram in the Daily News.
Nearly 1,300 acres of private land within the recreation area is lost each year to development, which could add up to 70,000 lost acres by 2062 - a little less than half of the entire park, according to the National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy group.
To protect the area, the government would have to buy some $62 million worth of private land, but the National Park Service hasn't had any funding for acquisition of land since 2000, according to the NPCA.
With complaints about graffiti rising, a Los Angeles city panel called Monday for expansion of a pilot program to install more video cameras across the city to capture taggers on tape and aid in their arrest. Daily News.
The City Council's Public Safety Committee asked for a report on how to fund the program and work with neighborhood councils to identify the worst locations in the city.
Since 2000, the city has had 60 cameras operating at various sites under a program run by the Office of Community Beautification under the Board of Public Works.
Steve MacDonald, the head of Film L.A., is leaving the organization that issues film permits and serves as a liaison with local government, announced Monday he is leaving to go to work for an investment firm.
"The last four years have been both challenging and rewarding, and it has been an honor working with so many excellent people in the industry, government, community and civic arenas," MacDonald said.
He is going to work as managing director of Strategic Development Solutions, a firm rhat provides private equity for economic development in under-served areas of the country.
No word on his successor.
Even as Los Angeles Unified finally boosted efforts last week to give charter schools more space on district campuses, the move has caused dissent that could lay the groundwork for conflict between the district and the popular education movement. Naush Boghossian in the Daily News.
Two months after LAUSD settled lawsuits challenging lagging efforts to share its facilities with the independent schools, the district has offered space on traditional campuses to 39 charter schools - the majority of the 54 that applied.
The placement offers are the most the district has ever made and triple the 13 space assignments it offered last year.
TIPOFFS: Mayor sounds a simliar theme, ex-schools chief returns to LAUSD.
After four decades in urban development, Robert D. Voit has left his imprint on more than $1 billion in construction projects across Southern California, Arizona and Nevada. Connie Llanos in the Daily News.
But it's the $500 million Warner Center skyline - at the heart of Woodland Hills and long regarded as San Fernando Valley's downtown - that the veteran developer considers his most significant legacy.
Voit's vision in the 1970s for an urban hub amid the tree-lined hills and suburban single-family neighborhoods would later be hailed as a jewel of development.
More than 15,000 people have signed up for a federal security card permitting access to sensitive areas of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach since enrollment opened nearly four months ago, according to the Transportation Security Administration. Art Marroquin at the Daily News.
While federal officials say local enrollment figures are "on pace," critics of the Transportation Worker Identification Credential program argue that registration is moving along at a snail's pace.
Steep enrollment fees, a lack of accessible registration centers and poor planning on the part of federal authorities were cited as the leading reasons for the poor turnout so far, according to port executives and union leaders.
Even as Los Angeles County's sprawling court system seeks to mete out justice, security is becoming a growing concern as the number of threats against its 600 judges, commissioners and referees has more than doubled in the past two years. Troy Anderson in the Daily News.
Threats against court personnel surged from 99 in 2006 to 267 last year, according to court records. And as violence and threats have risen, security costs have soared from $132 million three years ago to $169 million.
In recent years, a court commissioner and his wife were gunned down at their home, a judge's child was threatened at school, an attorney was shot repeatedly outside the Van Nuys Courthouse, and a judge's wife was kidnapped and killed.
"It's rare when a week goes by and I don't get some kind of call from the sheriff about a threat or something else involving our courts," Los Angeles Superior Court Presiding Judge J. Stephen Czuleger said.
"We've had many cases in which a witness has been threatened or the local public defender says they have a gang member who is very upset and is going to take action against a witness, a lawyer or the judge."
With Los Angeles International Airport in the midst of a multibillion-dollar renovation, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Monday will welcome officials from around the world to discuss how to make airports more environmentally friendly. Daily News.
The three-day C40 Airports and Climate Group meeting at the Biltmore Hotel is expected to include delegates from London, Chicago, Seattle, Montreal, Warsaw, Mexico City, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, Jakarta, New York, Philadelphia, Seoul, Stockholm and Zurich.
Delegates from around California also are expected to attend.
Villaraigosa has made the greening of Los Angeles one of his top priorities, with a number of initiatives at LAX including replacing gas-powered vehicles with alternative-fuel vehicles, using electric power for aircraft on the ground and using only renewable power at the remodeled Tom Bradley International Terminal.
As election season comes to a close in this city of 171,500, five candidates are vying for two available city council seats. Voters go to the polls on Tuesday. Jerry Barrios in the Daily News.
Amid a budget crisis that has city officials preparing for layoffs and scrambling for savings, the Los Angeles City Council is sitting on some $12 million in spending money. Kerry Cavanaugh in the Daily News.
Cash allocated annually from the city budget, along with money from the sale of city property and from advertising revenue, is set aside for individual council members to fund pet projects ranging from community events to street improvements.
But with a budget deficit this year and a shortfall estimated at $450 million next year, some city leaders are eyeing the funds to help close the gap.
Freshman Assemblyman Felips Fuentes, D-Sylmar, will be giving the Democratic response on Saturday to President Bush's weekly radio address.
In it, he will go after the federal government on the impact of federal policies -- particularly the census undercount and unfunded mandates -- as part of the reasson for the state's financial problems.
The link for the remarks is at:http://democrats.assembly.ca.gov/Newsline/Audio/20080405RadioAddressEnglishCensusFuentes.mp3
Among his remarks: "For too long the Bush administration has taken California’s hard earned tax dollars and rewarded us with costly and ineffective unfunded mandates.
"Indeed, while Republicans in Sacramento propose cutting our state budget to the bone, laying off teachers and closing state parks, California’s federal tax dollars are being shuffled to states that refuse to pay for the services they need, states mostly controlled by Republicans."
Los Angeles Councilman Bernard Parks picked up the endorsement of the board of directors of the new BizFed organization in his race for the 2nd Supervisorial District against state Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas, D-Los Angeles in June.
BizFed Chairman David Fleming cited Parks record in supporting business and offering incentives to companies to remain in Los Angeles.
"We are confident that his background as the chief of police and as a council member make him the ideal candidate to resolve some of the most pressing issues facing the county," Fleming said.
Ridley-Thomas has picked up the support of most labor groups in the county.
The race is to fill the seat being vacated with the retirement of Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke.
Los Angeles Councilman Bernard Parks picked up the endorsement of the board of directors of the new BizFed organization in his race for the 2nd Supervisorial District against state Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas, D-Los Angeles in June.
BizFed Chairman David Fleming cited Parks record in supporting business and offering incentives to companies to remain in Los Angeles.
"We are confident that his background as the chief of police and as a council member make him the ideal candidate to resolve some of the most pressing issues facing the county," Fleming said.
Ridley-Thomas has picked up the support of most labor groups in the county.
The race is to fill the seat being vacated with the retirement of Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke.
Although still near the bottom in writing skills compared with other large urban districts, Los Angeles Unified eighth-graders have made significant gains in the past five years and outpaced both state and national improvements, according to a national report released Thursday. Naush Boghossian in the Daily News.
The LAUSD - along with districts in Atlanta and Chicago - improved overall writing scores "significantly," according to the Nation's Report Card from the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
The assessment is designed to measure whether students can communicate effectively in essays, letters and stories.
"For our middle schools, this was really a significant growth and an improvement," said Esther Wong, assistant superintendent of planning, assessment and research at the LAUSD.
Despite several recent high-profile killings that boosted Los Angeles' homicide rates, overall violent crime in the city fell slightly in the first three months of the year - and dropped 6 percent in the San Fernando Valley. Rachel Uranga in the Daily News.
The drop comes after months of grim and heartbreaking tales of Angelenos grappling with violence on the city's streets.
Although homicides citywide jumped 20 percent - with 101 people killed in Los Angeles in the period - they fell 10 percent in the Valley.
Still coping with the fallout of last year's disastrous May Day immigration-rights rally, the LAPD's top brass said Thursday that they will use lessons they learned to better-police this year's march. Aron Miller in the Daily News.
During a City Hall briefing with local journalists, Cmdr. Sandy Jo MacArthur reviewed the problems Los Angeles police encountered - and created - during last year's May 1 rally at MacArthur Park, including poor coordination, planning and communication and too many decisions left up to individual officers.
Many of those issues were addressed in a scathing October LAPD report in which the department - and specifically Chief William Bratton - took responsibility for the breakdown.
As his one-year term as Glendale mayor comes to an end, Ara Najarian said Thursday that the city is experiencing a metamorphosis from a sleepy bedroom community to one of California's top cities. Rick Coca in the Daily News.
Addressing about 360 people at the Chamber of Commerce's annual mayoral State of the City and awards luncheon at the Glendale Hilton Hotel, Najarian said that with the soon-to-open $400million Americana at Brand serving as the city's "centerpiece," the future has arrived in Glendale.
"We are on a threshold of entering a new era in this city," Najarian said.
Costs of a new downtown Los Angeles police headquarters have soared $150 million over projections - to more than $453 million - because the city's Bureau of Engineering has failed to provide adequate oversight and management, City Controller Laura Chick said Thursday. Daily News.
The 10-story building at First and Spring streets is scheduled to open next year as a replacement for the aging Parker Center.
But after releasing an audit performed by KPMG for $187,000, Chick said city engineers lost control of the project and the LAPD had to step in to deal with the design firm.
Socking Angelenos with higher water and power bills beginning this summer, the Los Angeles City Council gave initial approval Wednesday for the Department of Water and Power to raise rates to fund improvements to the city's aging utility infrastructure.Kerry Cavanaugh in the Daily News.
The decision came after more than three hours of debate and staunch opposition by dozens of neighborhood council members who warned that the higher utility bills will strain already struggling households.
But several council members said they were convinced the city must invest in its infrastructure quickly, particularly after Firefighter Brent Lovrien was killed last week in a Westchester explosion triggered by a faulty 60-year-old power cable.
Fran Pavley and Lloyd Levine were colleagues at one time, fellow liberal Democrats from the San Fernando Valley who served together in the state Assembly and often voted the same way on big issues.Harrison Sheppard in the Daily News.
But, as often happens between former colleagues in the era of term limits, today the two are running against each other for the same state Senate seat - to represent West Los Angeles, the West Valley and Oxnard and to succeed Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Los Angeles, who will be termed out at the end of this year.
The knives have come out as Levine, still in the Assembly, and Pavley, who was termed out, both have well-funded campaigns, deep ties in the Valley and similar ideologies - and each is slashing at the other's effectiveness.
Renewing its opposition to federal raids at medical marijuana facilities, the Los Angeles City Council went on record again Wednesday in urging the federal Drug Enforcement Administration to allow the city to regulate the clinics.Daily News.
"We have put a moratorium in place on all new clinics until we develop regulations," Councilman Dennis Zine said. "Our goal is to bring the sale of medical marijuana under control so it is accessible to people who truly need it.
"This is about the compassionate use of a medicine that helps sick people."
The council voted 9-1 to support a state resolution on the issue after a number of people who use medical marijuana testified on behalf of the resolution, saying it is a key to helping them enjoy a decent quality of life.
Setting the stage for a divided City Council to wrestle over who should oversee anti-gang programs, a key committee Wednesday asked department heads to come up with a plan to place it under mayoral control. Rachel Uranga in the Daily News.
Though the plan could take weeks to pass through several other committees, it further pits two opposing ideas - and their disputing backers - against each other.
"I think this will be a healthy debate," said Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, who authored Wednesday's motion and sits on the three-member Audits and Governmental Efficiency Committee that unanimously passed it. "It's been a political battle rather than about the battle for our kids."
A reluctant and divided Los Angeles City Council gave preliminary approval on Wednesday to increases in both the water and power rates.
In an separate votes, the council backed the increases, 9 percent over three years for power rates and 6 percent over two years for water, that is charged by the Department of Water and Power.
The proposal includes creation of a 15-member oversight committee appointed by City Council members.
A final vote is scheduled for next week.
The DWP last raised power rates in 1992 and water rates in 2006. When fully implemented in 2009, the power rate increases will add about $8 a month to the average resident's home. The water rates will cost about $1 a month.
DWP General Manager David Nahai told the City Council the rate increases are needed even if the utitlity stops its annual transfer of money to the city's general fund.
"What these rate increases do is allow us to go out and borrow money at low interest rates," Nahai said. "The transfer is a de minimus issue for us."
The transfer of funds, approachng $200 million a year, long has been a source of criticism among those who question the DWP rates.
Councilwoman Jan Perry, in a compromise designed to head off some of the debate, called for increasing rates for one year -- 2.9 percent for power and 3.1 percent for water -- to see how well the DWP performs in improving its infrastructures.
Included in the proposal are a number of detailed reporting requirements by the agency on its work plan as well as a new oversight committee to make sure it is performed as promised.
Councilman Bill Ropsendahl, linking the death of Firefighter Brent Lovrien last week to a freak explosion, held up a foot-long piece of cable that he said was similar to what was involved in the accident.
"This is what caused the death of Firefighter Brent Lovrien," Rosendahl said. "This shows the deterioriating infrastructure we have in Los Angeles and is a wake-up call for us to make improvements."
Rosendahl said there is between 12,000 and 15,000 miles of the cable -- some as much as 60 years old -- throughout the city.
The public testimony has started, drawing objections from several speakers.
The biggest problem, says Jack Humphreville of the Neighborhood Councils, is the lack of trust with the DWP and that it will use any rate increase solely for infrastructure work.
The agency is seeking a 6 percent increase in water rates over two years and a 9 percent hike over three years for power rates.
The Los Angeles City Council is expected to pick up its debate on proposals by the Department of Water and Power to increase rates for both its services.
We will be blogging through the debate to provide updates.
There is more than the city';s financial woes on Mayor Antonio Villoaraigosa's mind when he goes to Sacramento today.
The Sacramento Bee reports he is also holding a 41,000 per person fundraiser tonight for his 2009 re-election campaign.
The paper reports:
"His evening fundraiser is at Ella Dining Room & Bar in downtown Sacramento, with an influential list of hosts, including Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, lobbyists like Soyla Fernandez and Darius Anderson, members of the Tsakopoulos clan and Bob White, the former chief of staff to Gov. Pete Wilson.
"Others hosting Sacramento fundraisers today include Sen. Alan Lowenthal, GOP Assembly candidate Brian Nestande (if the name sounds familiar to grizzled Capitol veterans, he's the son of former Assemblyman Bruce Nestande) and Assemblyman Curren Price."
As he waited his turn for free food at an anti-poverty center in Pacoima, Jose Contreras bit his lower lip and shook his head. Tony Castro in the Daily News.
"I've never had to beg for food," said the recently unemployed 32-year-old San Fernando warehouse worker. "But with no money and not having eaten in several days, I was hungry."
It is a story heard increasingly these days at San Fernando Valley food-distribution centers, not only from the long-term poor, including many senior citizens, but also from growing numbers of people like Contreras - victims of a worsening economy.
Sources at Los Angeles television stations KCBS-TV (Channel 2) and KCAL-TV (Channel 9) confirmed that their stations have fallen victim to the same series of newsroom cuts that have affected other CBS owned-and-operated affiliates throughout the country.David Kronke in the Daily News.
Among those departing are Harold Greene and Ann Martin, who co-anchor the KCAL newscast at 4 p.m. and the KCBS newscast at 6 p.m. Both have decided to retire when their contracts expire on June 1. In all, fewer than 20 have lost their jobs at the two local stations.
Reporters Jennifer Sabih and Jennifer Davis also were let go, the Hollywood trade magazine Variety reported.
Plans to open two new Los Angeles police stations - including the $37 million Topanga Police Station in the San Fernando Valley - could be delayed as long as six months amid the city's continuing financial problems.
Daily News.
While the Los Angeles Police Department has increased by more than 300 officers over the past two years, the LAPD said plans to open the new Valley and Mid-City stations can't be finalized until the city approves its budget for the coming year.
That means the stations - set to open late this year - now won't open until early next year as the department waits to learn whether funding is available for staffing and whether the LAPD has enough of certain types of officers to man the stations.
"We have enough patrol officers, but there are concerns if we have enough detectives and administrative personnel," City Councilman Greig Smith said. "We won't know until we take up next year's budget if we will have the staff necessary to open as planned in October or if we will have to wait."
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will release his budget proposal later this month. It will then be reviewed by the council.
Free parking for Angelenos who tool around in hybrid vehicles could soon be coming to an end.
That's because just days after extending the benefit to 2011, the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday reversed itself and said it now wants to study the cost of the program as the city faces dramatic budget problems. Daily News.
"This was a great incentive when we first did it," Councilman Bill Rosendahl said. "But hybrids don't need assistance from us. They already are getting a benefit from the savings they get by not having to buy $4-a-gallon gas
In a rare public review of how city officials decided to settle the hazing case of former Los Angeles Firefighter Tennie Pierce, the City Council was told Tuesday that the city at the time faced much greater losses amid ongoing controversies at the Los Angeles Fire Department. Daily News.
Attorney Brian Sun of the firm of Jones Day, which received $1.4 million to review the case, said the city was facing a difficult time in defending itself in the Pierce case.
Pierce sued the department, alleging harassment and discrimination, after colleagues fed him spaghetti that had dog food in it.
Coping with a projected $500 city shortfall next year, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa heads to Sacramento on Wednesday to meet with state leaders to keep funding coming to the city.
Villaraigosa has a full agenda in meeting with state leaders, including Senate President Pro-Tem Don Perata, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, Assembly Speaker-Elect Karen Bass and ., Senate Pro-Tem Elect Darryl Steinberg, among others. Members of the city's Assembly and Senate delegations also will be seen.
As Los Angeles County supervisors consider a nearly $700 million plan to overhaul the jail system, a report set to be released today highlights a critical need to stop using the nation's jails as "asylums" to warehouse the homeless, mentally ill, addicted and those charged with immigration offenses. Troy Anderson in the Daily News.
The report by the Washington, D.C.-based Justice Policy Institute finds communities are bearing the cost of a massive increase in the nation's jail population, which has nearly doubled in less than two decades.
"As other metropolitan areas have demonstrated, there are effective, strategic ways to reduce a jail population without compromising public safety," said Mark Rosenbaum, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.
V Australia Airlines will make its American debut in December, when it launches 10 weekly round-trip flights between Sydney and Los Angeles International Airport, officials announced Monday. Art Marroquin in the
Daily News.
The news comes as restrictions are being lifted on airline carriers traveling between the United States and "the land down under," thanks to an "open skies" agreement also signed Monday.
City officials and executives from V Australia - the international offshoot of Virgin Blue Airlines - announced the service during a news conference at LAX.
The bitter weekend divorce between two actors unions in upcoming contract talks with Hollywood producers mirrors a scene from a daytime soap opera - the genre where the whole spat started.AP in the Daily News.
The Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists have long sniped at each other over who better represents some 44,000 actors who are members of both groups.
The last straw, according to AFTRA President Roberta Reardon, was when the Screen Actors Guild leadership encouraged actors in the soap drama "The Bold and The Beautiful" to abandon the federation a month ago in "a relentless campaign of disinformation and disparagement."
TIPOFFS:
Controller Laura Chick and Councilman Tony Cardenas have differing ideas on how to solve the gang problems in the city.
It's 5 a.m. when a bleary-eyed Gary Orozco pulls away from his Fontana house and heads to Los Angeles to visit his grandmother. Sue Doyle in the Daily News.
Taking on the responsibility to check on her after his uncle died, the 21-year-old makes the weekly 50-mile drive before sunrise to beat the heaviest morning traffic.
And often, it's not before 8p.m. when Orozco dares to venture back on the freeway and return to his home in the Inland Empire.
"It's kind of a pain when I get to Hollywood," Orozco said. "But, still, it's to see my grandma."
In a region where the car is king, Orozco is among millions of Southland residents who plan their days around traffic virtually without a second thought.
- CSUN professor Aida Metzenberg has cherished more than a decade of teaching genetic counseling, a graduate-degree program available on only 30 campuses in North America. Conniei Llanos in the Daily News.
But amid continuing budget squeezes, California State University, Northridge, is cutting the program that melds the study of genetics and medical counseling.
"I was shocked," Metzenberg said, adding that she is hopeful a donor might come forward to save the program. "I never thought this would end."
The program's elimination is the latest casualty at colleges across the Southland that have been struggling with years of financial trimming - and bracing for more if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's $386 million proposed cut to the CSU system is approved.
Stepping up disagreements with Los Angeles City Controller Laura Chick over the future of anti-gang programs in the city, Councilman Tony Cárdenas on Thursday questioned the intent of Chick's proposal as well as its impact on existing programs. Daily News,
"We will not allow politics to infiltrate this process," Cá rdenas said at the end of a lengthy meeting examining Chick's "Blueprint for an Anti-Gang Strategy."
Among other things, the plan recommends most of the programs be transferred to the office of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
Nearly three years after the Los Angeles Unified School District launched efforts to implement tougher graduation requirements, the program has been plagued by disorganization and confusion with little accountability or oversight, according to an audit obtained by the Daily News. Naush Boghossian in the Daily News.
While the "A-G Resolution" requires all students to take college-prep courses in order to graduate, a scathing internal district analysis has found that so far the voluntary rollout has been ineffective and implementation has been spotty.
And the audit warns that without significant improvements, LAUSD students are not only at risk of failing to meet college eligibility requirements but also of failing to graduate from high school.
Six months after netting a $10million anonymous donation, leaders of the once-troubled Children's Museum of Los Angeles say the facility is on track to open in a year. Dana Bartholomew in the Daily News.
The museum, blasted in an audit last year for little oversight and few donations, has revamped its board and is raising funds, said Cecilia Aguilar Glassman, the museum's executive director.
"I would have to say that fundraising efforts since last summer are going extraordinary well," she said. "Everybody's goal is the same: to open in March 2009."
With fears that proposed bus cuts in rough neighborhoods - and in areas of the county with no other transit - could harm passengers, Metro authorities are moving to review plans that had been designed to save the agency $21million. Sue Doyle in the Daily News.
Metro's board voted this week to review the proposed changes, which would take place in June, and officials said they will coordinate changes in service with other city and municipal bus operators.
Twice a year, the transit agency evaluates its nearly 200 bus lines for efficiency and ridership and recommends service changes.
Stepping up disagreements with Los Angeles City Controller Laura Chick over the future of anti-gang programs in the city, Councilman Tony Cárdenas on Thursday questioned the intent of Chick's proposal as well as its impact on existing programs. Daily News.
"We will not allow politics to infiltrate this process," Cá rdenas said at the end of a lengthy meeting examining Chick's "Blueprint for an Anti-Gang Strategy."
Among other things, the plan recommends most of the programs be transferred to the office of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
Wading into the hot-button issue of immigration in the Southland, the Los Angeles City Council and a group of community leaders Wednesday denounced a federal measure that would require verifying that workers are in the country legally before being hired. Daily News.
Calling it mean-spirited and intentionally divisive, the council voted 11-1 to oppose the measure proposed by Rep. Heath Shuler, R-N.C., that would beef up border patrols and use a computerized system to verify job candidates' legal status.
"We have something more compassionate and humane from the National League of Cities that we would like to see implemented," Councilman Dennis Zine said.
Fighting back against the rash of violence by street gangs, Watts residents are joining with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa this morning to create a walking school bus to accompany children through gang territory to Florence Griffith Joyner Elementary School, 1963 E. 103rd St.
It is part of the safe passage program the city has had in effect for some time to insure children walking to and from school lare proteced.
The area selected is near the Watts-Wilkmington Arm housing project.
Later in the day, Villaraigosa is meeting with U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey to discuss city-federal policies on dealing with gangs.
In the first two months of this year, losing a home to foreclosure was almost as common for families as buying a home in the San Fernando Valley area. Gregory J. Wilcox in the Daily News.
During January and February, there were 1,084 foreclosures and 1,335 sales of houses and condos in Valley communities from Glendale to Calabasas, according to the San Fernando Valley Economic Research Center at California State University, Northridge.
By comparison, during the first two months of 2007 - also in a slumping market - there were just 235 foreclosures and 2,481 sales.
Naughty messages scrawled on school bathroom stalls have taken on a new cyber-twist with a Web site that promises college students "always anonymous ... always juicy" gossip. Connie Llanos in the Daily News.
But some of those posting on JuicyCampus.com have put up such nasty comments that a growing chorus of students and lawmakers is denouncing the site and calling for action.
On Tuesday, the California Attorney General's Office said it will review a request by state Assemblyman Alberto Torrico, D-Fremont, to investigate the site.
Armed with a laptop and the names of tens of thousands of police officers across the country, a Southland entrepreneur is raising the ire of law enforcement with an online, five-star rating system similar to those used for teachers. Rachel Uranga in the Daily News.
Less than a month old, RateMyCop.com has gotten 100,000 hits a day, with users leaving comments - good and bad - about their interactions with cops, founder Gino Sesto said.
He runs the site out of his two-bedroom home and said he thinks it's a fair way to hold law enforcement accountable.
Suicide rates among police officers in Los Angeles and San Diego are higher than their counterparts in other big cities cited in a report considered Tuesday by the Los Angeles Police Commission. AP in the Daily News.
The data was included in a study presented by Police Department psychologists who are in the process of retooling the agency's suicide prevention program.
The report said 19 Los Angeles police officers killed themselves between 1998 and 2007, while only seven died in the line of duty during that time.
Faced with a massive budget crunch, the Los Angeles City Council moved quickly Tuesday to raise zoo admission prices - by as much as 40 percent for children - but balked at boosting water and power rates amid widespread public opposition. Daily News.
The zoo hikes are expected to bring in $450,000 toward cutting a projected $20 million budget deficit this year, even as a city official called Tuesday for a review of dozens of other proposals designed to save money or raise revenue for the city.
But amid a campaign by neighborhood councils decrying proposed Department of Water and Power rate hikes, the council deferred any action until early next month.
A divided Los Angeles City Council delayed action on proposals to increase water and power rates charged by the Department of Water and Power. The matter is to return next week for a vote.
The council said it wanted more time to study the impact of the increase _ 6 percent over two years for ater and 9 percent over three years for power.
The money is to be used to rebuild the department's aging infrastructure. Included in the motions is creation of oversight committees to make sure the department spends the funds as promised.
Officials are considering a complete delay in the water rate action because of a pending court hearing challenging the transfer of water funds to the the city.
Councilman Jose Huizar, discussing how the Los Angeles school board won voter approval by providing specifics on what would be built.
DWP Commission President Nick Patsouras agreed.
"We will be able to show you every project in every district as it occurs," Patsouras said.
DWP General Manager David Nahai agreed, pointing to the massive amount of work to be done.
"We have 350,000 poles, 125,000 transformers and each one of those are a separate project," Nahai said.
Oversight became the buzzword among officials as they debated the proposed DWP rate increases.
Several oversight committees will be watching the agency if the various proposals go through.
First, there is the existing Neighborhood Council oversight committee.
Also proposed, is an oversight panel of city officials, to provide quarterly updates to the City Council on the progress of various projects.
A third oversight committee of citizens was proposed by Councilman Dennis Zine, with each of the 15 council members appointing someone from their district to look over the utility.
DWP General Manager David Nahai said he welcomed all the oversight.
"We welcome the chance to wash away doubt," Nahai said.
With Los Angeles City Council members beginning their debate, Councilwoman Jan Perry said part of the problem is the DWP's reputation.
"The need is clear, but there is hesitation," Perry said. "Some of it has to do with trust."
Councilwoman Wendy Greuel said the concern she and others have is whether it will improve reliability of service _ which has been hampered in the past two years with power outages.
The public hearing on the proposed rate hikes has begun, with a number of representatives from different neighborhood councils voicing protests to the increases.
"We need to listen to what the neighborhood councils are saying...we don't know how the money is being spent," one speaker said.
Another, Humberto Camacho, complianed there are no guarantees all the money from the increases will be spent on the DWP's aging infrastructure.
The public hearing on the proposed rate hikes has begun, with a number of representatives from different neighborhood councils voicing protests to the increases.
"We need to listen to what the neighborhood councils are saying...we don't know how the money is being spent," one speaker said.
Another, Humberto Camacho, complianed there are no guarantees all the money from the increases will be spent on the DWP's aging infrastructure.
The Los Angeles City Council this morning is set to debate increases to both the water and electric rates charged by the Department of Water and Power.
We will be posting updates through the debate here. As always, comments are welcome.
Even as homicides have spiked this year in Los Angeles, more than 400 police officers are unable to fight crime on the streets because they are filling in on a backlog of administrative and other tasks that should instead be performed by civilians, according to an audit released Monday. Daily News.
Renewing a call to hire more civilians for the LAPD, City Controller Laura Chick said that amid funding cuts and attrition, the department has more than 600 vacant civilian posts - from clerks and typists to analysts - and that many of the jobs are now being performed by sworn officers.
"There is no question that Los Angeles is one of the most under-policed big cities in America," Chick said in releasing the audit with LAPD Chief William Bratton.
A long-sought effort to install cameras in police cars moved a step closer Monday when a Los Angeles panel recommended approving a $5 million pilot program with IBM. Daily News.
In a 3-1 vote, the City Council's Public Safety Committee urged adoption of the contract despite questions about how IBM's contract could be $10 million to $15 million less than the next-lowest bidders.
"It seems to me it should raise some questions about the (request for proposals) when you have such a disparity," Councilman Bernard Parks said.
Councilma
The median price of a Los Angeles County home plunged a record 20 percent, or $117,010, in February from a year ago as sales continued their free fall as foreclosures increased, a trade association said Monday. Gregory J. Wilcox in the Daily News.
During February the county's median price fell to $467,200 from $584,210 last year, said the California Association of Realtors. It's the second consecutive record drop, percentage wise.
Sales in the county fell 42 percent from February 2007 and slipped 10.5 percent from January, the association said.
City officials broke ground Monday on the third and final phase of the $375 million NoHo Commons project, designed to transform the heart of town into an upscale commercial development with retail, entertainment and residential space.Sue Doyle in the Daily News.
Spanning three acres at the corner of Lankershim Boulevard and Weddington Street, the final part of the project will cost $79.4 million and will include a seven-screen Laemmle movie theater, a 700-space parking garage, an 182,000 square-foot office building with retail and the relocation of the historic Phil's Diner from Chandler Boulevard.
"NoHo Commons is nothing less than a blockbuster hit," said Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa at the groundbreaking ceremony Monday morning.
During the past two decades, state officials have thrown billions of dollars in tax credits and other incentives at a program designed to revitalize poor areas such as Pacoima with little way of measuring its effectiveness.
Earlier this year, budget- strapped California extended the nearly $400 million-a-year program through 2021 - and the governor even expanded it by adding eight enterprise zones designed to create jobs and boost the economy. Brandon Lowery in the Daily News.
The zones provide tax credits for businesses that hire eligible employees - including the disabled, veterans, American Indians, those laid off in a poor economy and those with criminal records. The money also can be used to buy machinery and machine parts.
But while business leaders and politicians defend the 42 enterprise zones as economic boosters, experts concede there is no definitive way to calculate how many jobs they actually have created or how effective they have been.
TIPOFFS::Rumors, concerns at Neighborhood Councils; Controller Laura Chick and Councilman Tony Cardenas headed for round two in gang dispute.
For Cindy Neal, last week's stunning meltdown of a top Wall Street investment bank and continuing stock market turmoil were just the latest reminders of today's grim economic realities.
Amid a slumping housing market, the 32-year-old Santa Clarita resident recently quit her job in the real estate industry and is studying veterinary medicine. To save money with soaring gas prices, she has cut back on day care for her son, shops at less-pricey stores and has reined in spending on eating out.. Harrison Sheppard in the Daily News.
And she's watching the unfolding turbulence in the nation's financial system with a wary eye.
"It's so unpredictable to have any money in the market," she said. "I almost think it would be better to pull all your money out and put it under a mattress. At least you can't lose anything that way. ... Right now, I don't know there's any answer out there other than just try to cope."
Just three months into the job, the new head of L.A.'s Department of Water and Power has reshuffled top management with new and promoted personnel who will rake in $2.2 million a year in combined salaries. Beth Barrett in the Daily News/
The management shift comes even as the City Council next week is scheduled to vote on the utility's request to hike power rates 9 percent over the next three years and water rates 6 percent over the next two years.
But General Manager H. David Nahai, who replaced career bureaucrat Ron Deaton on Dec. 1 as head of the $4.5 billion utility, said that by eliminating some top positions and not filling several others, the DWP ultimately will save $920,000 a year in high-level salaries.
And he said
It's an idea that grips at the heart of every Los Angeles politician: Get rid of the city-paid calligraphers who write those exquisite proclamations that are handed out like candy at City Hall and instead computerize the work. Daily News.
Estimated savings: $500,000.
Or cut all the specialized training programs for city workers, including the use of a Zen master to teach employees how to "center" themselves.
Estimated savings: $18,000.
Or end all those "fee waivers" City Council members grant constituents for special events.
Estimated savings: $2million to $4million.
Even as Los Angeles tries to trim its expenses amid a budget crisis, new data show that the city spends $3.6million a year on cell phones - up 26percent from five years ago. Kerry Cavanaugh in the Daily News.
And costs have tripled and quadrupled in some departments as city workers have switched to more expensive PDAs and BlackBerrys to stay connected.
But with Los Angeles facing a $400million to $500million deficit next year, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has pushed city managers to cut cell-phone expenditures.