Angeles City

Villaraigosa Goes to Harvard

For a minute there it was unclear what our none-too-camera-shy ex-Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was going to do with his bespoke-suited self after leaving office last month. Well, turns out he'll be taken care of by a $97,380-a-year pension for his years as a public servant, the folks at the Los Angel ... More >>

Mission Creep at the L.A. Fire Department

The LAFD has become a huge mobile health clinic. And that's simply unsustainable

Why The F is Los Angeles Taking So Long to Count Our GD Votes?

Polls have been closed for three and a half hours, and the Los Angeles City Clerk has managed to count less than 50,000 votes. At least LA County had that damn fog as an excuse. LA Times columnist Steve Lopez is going absolutely bonkers on twitter: it could take three weeks for city to count vo ... More >>

Los Angeles City Council District 7 Primary: Absentee Ballot Results Show Felipe Fuentes Leading Pack

In the Los Angeles City Council District 7 race, frontrunner and former state assemblyman Felipes Fuentes will most probably run away with the contest. That's not to say he's the best candidates in the world -- he's actually known as the "Worst Legislator in California." But rivals Jesse David Barr ... More >>

Marijuana Initiative That Would Limit L.A. Pot Shops Approved For Signature Gathering

One of two initiatives that wants to regulate marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles was approved for signature gathering. This one wants to cut the number of shops to 128 or so. Los Angeles City Clerk June Lagmay announced today that an initiative that would limit dispensaries in town to those that ... More >>

David Maghamifar, CSULB Grad From Italy, Dies When Car Flies off Pier at L.A. Harbor

The 25-year-old whose car flew off Pier 300 at the Los Angeles Harbor on Saturday afternoon has been identified as David Maghamifar. A Facebook profile that appears to belong to the victim says he grew up in Genova, Italy -- attending high school at Liceo Classico Emiliani -- before moving to SoCal ... More >>

L.A. Fire Response Times: Mayor Rips Into City Attorney, Demands Release of Public Info

Never have we seen two L.A. city departments stage a fight so brazenly hostile in the public square. In a new seven-page letter from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's office to City Attorney Carmen Trutanich's office (embedded below), mayoral counsel Brian Currey claims the latter is holding the public ... More >>

L.A. Firefighters Reveal Devastating Effects of Budget Cuts on Anonymous Blog

Although Firegate just erupted in the public square this week, local firefighters have been watching the downward spiral of their Los Angeles City Fire Department with every whack to its budget. An anonymous blog called LAFDDeployment.com was created in summer 2011. It encouraged firefighters to...

Anthony Almeida Harassed by Fellow LAFD Firefighters Over His Catholic Priest Sex Abuse Claims: Department Will Pay $500,000

Chris Yarzab​Looks like the boys in the station had quite a laugh over firefighter Anthony Almeida's legal claims that he was abused by a Catholic priest. And now the Los Angeles Fire Department must pay nearly $500,000 because officials failed to stop the razzing. The U.S. Equal Employment ... More >>

Shepard Fairey Sticker-Bombs L.A. Department of City Planning

Los Angeles City Planning - Code Studies via Facebook"Shepard Fairey sticker bombs City Hall," writes the department.​Update: LA Weekly speaks with the recipient of the package, who is positively tickled. Interview at the bottom. Uh-oh -- the fight between muralists and the L.A political mach ... More >>

Fire and Police Unions Will Protest Fire Chief's Plan: Will Budget Decisions Run on Fear or Facts? VIDEO

Fire Chief Millage Peaks actually has a backbone​RonKayeLA reports that Friday morning United Firefighters Los Angeles City union leader Pat McOsker will lead a "massive outpooring" of firefighters to the City Council meeting. T.V. cameras are likely to follow. It's budget talk time and McOs ... More >>

The 42 Most Powerful People in Los Angeles*, According to the Downtown News

AEG CEO Tim Leiweke: He's got downtown Los Angeles in his hands​*Well, technically just in downtown Los Angeles, but that's where all the big players make all their big decisions anyway, right? Just ask a pissed-off Daily News outsider in the Valley. Jon Regardie at the LA Downtown News knows ... More >>

March 8 2011 Los Angeles Election Results at Your Fingertips: Click Here for Winners and Losers

Will Mona Field, a college trustee for years, be called to account by voters?​Beginning at 8:30 pm tonight, the Los Angeles City Clerk will issue the first Election Day results for seven Los Angeles City Council races where Jose Huizar, Bernard Parks, Tom LaBonge and other long-timers face ch ... More >>

Letters: Brothel Moms and Daughters

Illicit Pot Shops In L.A. Get A Reprieve As City Determines Only 41 Would Be Legal Under Its New Law

Dey via Flickr​The Los Angeles City Clerk on Wednesday stated that only 41 of Los Angeles' marijuana dispensaries are eligible to stay open under the strict pot-shop ordinance that went into effect in June (PDF). However, the clerk stated, other shops would be allowed to operate until lawsuits ... More >>

L.A. City Controller Greuel Launches Nation's Largest Municipal Salary Database

​In an attempt to increase transparency following the recent Bell salary controversy, Los Angeles City Controller Wendy Greuel unveiled on Friday a database of city employee pay rates, making Los Angeles the largest city in the nation to post salaries of their employees online, she says. "Th ... More >>

Francisco Garcia Ortega, L.A. Homicide No. 131: 31-year-old Man Killed in Gang-Related Attack in South Los Angeles

​The Los Angeles Police Department detectives arrested three suspects who allegedly killed South Los Angeles resident Francisco Garcia Ortega. According to detectives, Ortega, 31, was fatally attacked on June 8 at 5:55 p.m. in the front yard of a residence in the 1100 block of West 54th Street ... More >>

Deborah Alvarado, L.A. Homicide No. 124: 37-year-old Woman Fatally Stabbed by Boyfriend

A 37-year-old woman was allegedly stabbed to death by her boyfriend June 3. Los Angeles Police Department officers found Deborah Alvarado of South Los Angeles lying in the roadway in the 100 block of Mountain View Avenue near Beverly Boulevard around 8:30 p.m. Thursday after they received a call ab ... More >>

Anne Ward, L.A. Homicide No. 115: Elderly Woman Killed in Murder-Suicide

A 77-year-old woman who was found dead along with her husband in what appears to be a case of murder-suicide has been identified as Anne Ward. View Larger Map On May 20, at around 9 a.m., Los Angeles Police Department officers discovered Ward and her husband suffering from a single gunshot wounds ... More >>

Some L.A. City Purchases Found Languishing Unused For Years -- Or Not Found At All

​Los Angeles City Controller Wendy Greuel on Monday planned to release an audit showing that some city departments can't locate items that have been purchased on the taxpayers' dime. Greuel teased some of her findings in a statement released over the weekend: The audit looked at 254 items and ... More >>

Breaking: L.A. City To Run Out Of Money By May 5 (Updated)

Wendy Greuel.​Los Angeles City Controller Wendy Greuel said Monday that the city will be run out of money by May 5 partly as a result of the Department of Water and Power's refusal to hand over a promised payment to the general fund of $73 million. "The question I have been asked most often d ... More >>

Kendall Williams, L.A. Homicide No. 63: 18-Year-old South Los Angeles Girl Shot and Killed While Talking with a Group of Friends

Google Maps​Los Angeles Police Department detectives are looking for the suspects responsible for killing a teenage girl and shooting her friend March 27. Kendall Williams,18, and a group of her friends, including a 22-year-old man, were talking on the sidewalk in the 900 block of West 68th ... More >>

Vanessa Rankins, L.A. Homicide No. 57: Three injured, Woman dies in Pacoima gun attack

Google Maps​A Pacoima woman who was shot along with three others has died of her injuries. Los Angeles Police Department officers responded to a radio call of an "ADW shooting in progress" near Pala Avenue and Pinney Street in Pacoima around 10 p.m. March 23. When the officers and Los Angel ... More >>

Los Angeles City Budget Wars: Ambulance Called During Council Debate On Cutting Ambulances

​During a Los Angeles City Council debate this week about cutting the city fire department's ambulance service to save money, a council aide collapsed, and one observer stated in an email forwarded to the Weekly that it took an ambulance 20 minutes to arrive. The incident seemed to put an excl ... More >>

Fire Department Cuts Could Have Contributed To Two Deaths, Union Official Says

LAFD​City fire union president Pat McOsker called on the City Council on Wednesday to reinstate full staffing at the Los Angeles Fire Department, the lack of which, he argues, could have contributed to two recent deaths. In August the council imposed what the union calls intermittent, fire-co ... More >>

Council Moves Closer To Closing Most Pot Shops

The Los Angeles City Counci​l on Tuesday was one step closer to closing a vast majority of medical marijuana dispensaries in the city by capping the number of allowed pot shops at 137 -- the number of survivors from the days before the city's (overturned and generally ignored) 2007 moratorium ... More >>

L.A.'s Medical-Weed Wars

How the potheads outwitted Antonio Villaraigosa and the L.A. City Council

L.A. City Council Members Set To Earn More Pay Than The Governor Of California

​Thats right folks. If the a state pay commission has its way the governor's salary and those of other state elected officials will get an 18 percent reduction starting next month, putting the pay for Los Angeles City councilmembers in a rarified air above that of the governor of 36 million pe ... More >>

Judge: L.A. City Council's 2006 digital billboard settlement is "poison"

Slamming the Los Angeles City Council's bizarre 2006 "settlement" with billboard giants Clear Channel and CBS Outdoor as "poison," Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Terry Green tossed out the backroom deal that handed huge outdoor advertisers a multi-billion-dollar gift to erect more than 800 glaring ... More >>

$4 Million Jackson Memorial Cost to Taxpayers?

By Tibby Rothman City Hall is begging Jackson fans for alms, but upset L.A. residents face paying a king's ransom for the memorial to the King of Pop, Michael Jackson. During the hours leading up to today's globally viewed memorial, the Los Angeles Police Department and other city offices were str ... More >>

Rocky Delgadillo Dreams of Being California Attorney General?

City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo got slammed by voters in his last run for California Attorney General, losing to the "old man," as twenty-somethings call Attorney General Jerry Brown. Now, City News Service says he is thinking of trying again. Brown, of course, was a comeback king who pulled the crap ... More >>

Human Rights Watch: L.A. County has U.S.'s largest rape kit backlog

Los Angeles County has the largest rape kit backlog in the United States, according to a report released today by Human Rights Watch. More than 50 reporters, rape kit advocates, city workers and cops gathered today at a 40-minute press conference outside Los Angeles City Hall to hear the bleak ne ... More >>

Watchdog Group Will Release Report on Rape Kit Backlog in LA County

Human Rights Watch will release a report tomorrow about the rape kit backlog in Los Angeles. The much-anticipated report, entitled "Testing Justice: The Rape Kit Backlog in Los Angeles City and County," is purportedly the first comprehensive study about the issue. The 68-page report reveals that t ... More >>

Measure B fine print: DWP's scooter and wind power debacles

By Daniel HeimpelThe battle over Measure B, City Hall's solar plan that sped through Los Angeles City Council at the speed of light, is heating up like a photo-voltaic panel under summer sun. During a special hearing at City Hall early this week, Council member Tony Cardenas pressed DWP bureaucrats ... More >>

Brillante Mendoza’s Serbis: Cinema Inferno

Dirty movies and gritty life as one in Filipino raunch fest

City Report Calls For Digital Billboard Ban -- Kinda

City planners are causing a stir with a report released today that calls for banning all new digital billboards -- with a huge exception.The much-anticipated Department of City Planning Recommendation Report, obtained early by L.A. Weekly, comes just weeks after the Los Angeles City Council approved ... More >>

Update on Sayre Fire in Sylmar: Biggest Arson Investigation in Los Angeles history?

Updated at 4:53 pm and revised number of homes burned Los Angeles police and fire officials are now floating the chilling possibility that they may find bodies inside the Oakridge Park mobile home neighborhood once they get a handle on the Sayre Fire, still only 10 percent contained. By their calcul ... More >>

Sylmar fire in Los Angeles could become a "siege"

NOTE: This post is about the Sylmar fire in October of 2008. For news on the Sylmar fire of November 15, 2008, click here. Note: 10:41 a.m. update regarding the Martin Mars amphibious craft capable of dropping thermogel. With a wall of fire hundreds of feet long in places, wind-driven smoke billow ... More >>

Los Angeles City Councilmember Calls for Tougher Billboard Ban

Los Angeles City Councilmember Jack Weiss introduced a motion yesterday that would address and fix the colossal problems that have been raised in court cases challenging the city's sign ordinance. The motion calls for the city's planning department, Department of Building and Safety and City Attorne ... More >>

Was the Universal Studios Fire an accident?

Early reports are calling the fire that gutted three acres of Universal Hollywood's back lot an accident. However, it is unclear what caused the June 1 fire and whether the studios antiquated sprinkler system hampered the firefighters' efforts to save its famous tour relics, including its gargantuan ... More >>

Laurence Tribe v. City of Los Angeles

It looks like the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office may have its hands full on June 4 when it goes up against leading First Amendment attorney Laurence Tribe in the case Metro Lights v. City of Los Angeles. Tribe, who is nationally recognized as one of the foremost liberal constitutional law sch ... More >>

Voter Guide: the Pros and Cons of the Initiatives, February 5 Ballot

Making sense of the issues

Anti-gang Founder Marroquin Gets Prison

“No Guns” leader peddled guns while City Hall paid him to fight gangs Hector Marroquin founder of the gang intervention group No Guns, was sentenced today to eight years in prison after pleading no contest to weapon charges. Charged alongside 51-year-old Marroquin was his 25-year-old girlfriend ... More >>

The Critics Speak

The First Annual L.A. Weekly Film Poll

Hahn vs. Hahn

Janice tries to invoke reason in her brother�s gang injunctions

Voting Guide

Endorsements

The Weekly�s recommendations in the March primary

L.A. Weekly�s 23rd Annual Theater Award Information

The Belmont Site Cannot Be Made Safe

It is both unique and uniquely dangerous

Print-Out Ballot Guide