Email Author Howard Blume

2002 Stories by Howard Blume

• Taxing Times

  published December 26, 2002

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• Quaking Over Belmont

  published December 19, 2002

  Over the last 3 million years, a lot happened in greater Los Angeles that had nothing to do with starlets. The mighty San Gabriel Mountains... More >>

• Riordan the Meddler

  published November 28, 2002

  Ex-mayor is out to dump the renegade school-board member who tried to stop a project that benefited his law firm Only one L.A.... More >>

• A Deal-Maker’s Demise

  published November 21, 2002

  EVEN BY HIS OWN ELECTRIC STANdards, state Senate leader John Burton delivered a lightning bolt in a recent letter to the Planning and... More >>

• Still Dreamin’ in the Valley

  published November 14, 2002

  IN POLITICS, MONEY USUALLY BEGETS DESTINY, and the smart money lined up early against Valley secession, with most smart politicos following... More >>

• A Man Out of Time

  published November 14, 2002

  It‘s telling somehow that Irv Rubin was critically injured in a paroxysm of violence. Rubin, who headed the Jewish Defense League, was a... More >>

• Overcrowded and Overdrawn

  published November 7, 2002

  The L.A. school district has started the nation‘s most complex and expensive school-construction program without having the mone... More >>

• Reading, Writing and Rats

  published October 24, 2002

  MAYBE YOU THINK THAT A SCHOOL WITH FILTHY, UNUSABLE BATHROOMS is a bad thing. Maybe you also think it's deplorable to deprive... More >>

• The End of New Times

  published October 10, 2002

  Los Angeles New Times, the second largest alternative weekly in the L.A. area, is shutting down, silencing a quirky and inconsistent, yet... More >>

• A Class Operation

  published September 26, 2002

  A certain church rooftop off Wilshire Boulevard offers a fine view of the shuttered Ambassador Hotel, which the school district has been trying... More >>

• Return to Sender

  published August 22, 2002

  It isn’t the Second Coming of rent control, but a bill that would move a little money from the pockets of bad landlords to those of uprigh... More >>

• The Parent Trap

  published August 22, 2002

  With an upcoming $3.35 billion school-bond vote, L.A. Unified wants to project a new image -- sleek, professional, responsive, successful. But... More >>

• Shadow Over Schools

  published June 6, 2002

  Larry Levine has learned his lesson about schools and secession. These days, when he goes before a group of Valley residents to argue against... More >>

• Reason To Sing the Blues

  published May 30, 2002

  You’d have to forgive patrons of culture for waxing poetic about Governor Gray Davis -- a cautious, calculating politician who is generall... More >>

• Dueling for an Education

  published May 9, 2002

  Steve Melendrez knew there’d be tough days when he signed up two of his sons for a new program at Ivanhoe Elementary, one that promised to mak... More >>

• Not Such a Hot Deal

  published April 11, 2002

  A contract that was supposed to provide air conditioning for 150 schools has instead cost the school district $19.3 million without buying a... More >>

• Dancing Through Life

  published March 28, 2002

  In the end, Paul Kennedy -- a community force as a tap teacher and choreographer -- suffered the cruelest of fates for a hoofer: He lost his... More >>

• Dumb and Dumber

  published March 28, 2002

  Questionable means to achieve questionable ends are the all-too-frequent shadowy traffic of government. But four members of the L.A. school... More >>

• Belmont Reincarnated

  published March 21, 2002

  A year ago, the half-finished and abandoned Belmont Learning Complex was as dead as dead gets: School-board President Caprice Young said she... More >>

• So Long, Mr. Mayor

  published March 14, 2002

  Photos by Slobodan Dimitrov It was a telling moment for Richard Riordan, and it happened a year ago, well before his disastrous bid for... More >>

• Return to Neverland

  published February 28, 2002

  When former Colorado Governor Roy Romer took the job of L.A. schools superintendent in July 2000, one issue looked like a no-brainer: It was... More >>

• A Tale of Two Belmonts

  published February 7, 2002

  Is the oil-field site of the Belmont Learning Complex, the nation’s most expensive and notorious high school construction project, safe for ... More >>

• Reject Me, Please

  published January 31, 2002

  As many as 70,000 families apply for some 15,000 magnet-school openings; this year‘s application deadline was January 18. A winning draw ca... More >>