Ed Reyes

Los Angeles River Opens to Boaters For First Time Since 1930s

For the first time ever -- well, not really ever, but almost -- the Los Angeles River will be open to kayakers and fishermen (and women). This new era of openness starts Monday, Memorial Day, and lasts through Labor Day. This welcome mat applies to a 2.5 mile stretch of the river near downtown:

Los Angeles Voter Guide May 21, 2013: Mayor, Weed Measures, City Council, City Attorney, LAUSD Board and The Works

Here's a quick guide to the key races and issues on the May 21, 2013 ballot in the city of Los Angeles. Los Angeles Mayoral Race: Read this fascinating dissection of the five main behavioral and philosophical differences between 2013 Los Angeles mayoral candidates Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti, ... More >>

L.A. City Council Approves Meatless Mondays

If you want more validation for choosing not to eat meat today, the Los Angeles City Council just gave it to you. On Friday, L.A. became the largest city in America to support the Meatless Monday campaign when the City Council voted unanimously, in a 12-0 vote, to support the resolution.

Meatless Mondays: L.A. City Council's Wealthy, $178,789 Salaried Members Tell Los Angeles Households, Many of Which Rely on Frijoles

Also See: L.A. City Council Approves Meatless Mondays in Squid Ink. The Los Angeles City Council really failed a pop quiz showing how disconnected, overpaid and puffed-up its 15 elected politicians have become, when it voted 14-0 to urge L.A.'s 3.8 million residents to adopt Meatless Mondays. Woul ... More >>

L.A. Violates Your Due-Process Rights

How residents unearthed 200,000 words of phony findings City Hall used to illegally approve a skyscraper at Hollywood and Gower

Marijuana Dispensary Police Unit Considered to Enforce L.A. Pot Shop Ban

It's hard to figure out how serious the L.A. City Council is about closing down all of the city's dispensaries. While the body's vote last week was a nail in the coffin of our town's nationally prominent cannabis culture, you have to consider the history: The City Council has been trying to regulat ... More >>

Marijuana Dispensary Ban Considered at L.A. City Hall Tomorrow

Updated at the bottom with the committee's momentous moves. First posted at 8 a.m. Hope you're getting your rest this holiday weekend. Because tomorrow's a big day for the medical marijuana scene in Los Angeles. The L.A. City Council's Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) committee will take u ... More >>

Porn Condom Enforcement Issue to be Worked Out by ... L.A. Arts Committee?

The L.A. City Council made a history when it voted to require condom use at on-location porn shoots in our fair metropolis. But history still awaits. We reported last week that a top city official has requested that a report on how to enforce this rule be put off until almost the end of summer. N ... More >>

Helen Kim Takes on L.A.'s Old Guard

Rising star of Koreatown's Generation K

Future Fugly: Wilshire Grand Development at 7th & Figueroa, Downtown

Feast your eyes on the future. By 2015, the bustling, glowing corner of 7th & Figueroa downtown will have replaced the just-shuttered Wilshire Grand hotel with this concoction of stores, ads and vague glowing glass volumes.

Tom Leykis, 'Misogynist' Radio Host, Tries to Donate $50,000 to Bryan Stow Attacker Reward Fund; L.A. City Council Says No Way

Is Tom Leykis unworthy of helping Bryan Stow?​Cash is cash. And cash toward a noble cause, no matter who's behind it, is cash worth accepting. You'd think the L.A. City Council could appreciate this -- they're more than willing to let sketchy lobbyists make it rain on far less noble bank accou ... More >>

How Lobbyist John Ek Gets His Way at City Hall

Wilshire Grand Hotel: Los Angeles Digital Skyscraper Goes to a City Council that Has Little Idea What It's Approving

By Tibby Rothman and Jill Stewart Wilshire Grand Hotel rendering done at such an extreme angle it's nearly impossible to see light effects.​Update: The City Council has approved the top-to-bottom lighted Wilshire Grand Hotel project.  The vote will read as "unanimous" officially, yet one co ... More >>

Jews and Latinos Band Together for Ultimate L.A. Domination

4urpets.comThis is not a joke: Jonesy the Mexican Rabbi​Wow. This is epic. This is like the U.S. of China. Or Alien plus Predator... or the merging of Home Depot and Wal-Mart. Or the lovey part of "Westside Story," if Tony was Jewish, or whatever. In today's issue of the Jewish Journal, Jonah Lo ... More >>

City of L.A. Still Investing Over $1 Million in 200-Car Executive Fleet

Destination 360Hey -- if we're gonna sit in traffic, might as well do it on city dime​LA Daily News columnist Kerry Cananaugh keeps it short and sweet today with a ball-busting column on those 200-plus "car crazy" city employees who just can't bring themselves to give up their city-funded ride ... More >>

Yet Another Major Study Finds Kids Get Sick Living Near Freeways, When Will L.A. City Council and Antonio Villaraigosa Take Action?

Gregory BojorquezL.A. City Council President Eric Garcetti​How many prominent studies does it take for Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to keep more kids from getting sick? That's the huge, underlining question that now comes up after a very re ... More >>

Pot Shops Rejoice: Much Of L.A. City's Dispensary Rules Knocked Down

The notorious K.F.C: Legal again?​Updated after the jump with emergency rules being considered by the City Council. First posted at 5:15 p.m. Speak of the devil. Much of the pot shop ordinance that the Los Angeles City Council took so long to finally get on the books was blocked by a judge Fr ... More >>

L.A. Council People Hahn, Reyes, Cardenas, Whine About Death Threats Following City's Boycott Of Arizona

​Updated after the jump with a response from Hahn's chief of staff, who says there was no whining involved. First posted at 1:10 p.m. We've ribbed the Los Angeles City Council for taking easy, painless stances (cat declawing) while putting off hard choices (pension reform), but in the case of ... More >>

City of Airheads: Villaraigosa Dismantles L.A.'s Vaunted Library System

Mayor mirrors Detroit's disastrous choice

L.A. Should Sue Arizona, Says Council President Garcetti

Eric Garcetti.​Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti on Wednesday proposed that L.A. join a class-action lawsuit against Arizona over its controversial immigration law. The challenge in Phoenix federal court is being carried out by the Mexican American Legal Defense and several civi ... More >>

Picketing Planed For Lakers Game Against Arizona Team

Activists opposed to Arizona's controversial immigration law plan to picket the Lakers Western Conference finals game against the Phoenix Suns at Staples Center Monday. They've expressed particular ire for Lakers' coach Phil Jackson because he hasn't voiced opposition to the law. "We are not happy ... More >>

L.A. Council's Travel, Lavish Accomodations Questioned

​A recent report by NBC4's Colleen Williams (pictured) questions the Los Angeles City Council's sometimes-lavish travel arrangements, especially in light of City Hall's $585 million deficit and impending layoffs. The station found that the mayor and council spent $70,000 on travel in 2008 and ... More >>

L.A. Councilman's No Vote On Arizona Boycott Explained

Councilman Greig Smith.​So, you're a municipal representative in a city where nearly one of every two people is Latino, and you had the sole "no" vote on a measure that would boycott Arizona over an immigration law most Latinos (seven out of 10) oppose? The law allows police to ask people the ... More >>

L.A. City Council Approves Arizona Boycott

​The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday approved an economic boycott of Arizona over the state's new immigration law that would allow police to ask people they stop for proof of legal immigration status. L.A.'s move, which only councilman Greig Smith opposed, would ban official city travel ... More >>

Council Committees Inch Toward Final Pot Shop Law; Dispensary Crackdown Expected In May

​Two Los Angeles City Council committees approved nearly $1,600 in fees for medical marijuana dispensaries, marking the beginning of the end for hundreds of pop shops that will be wiped out by a city ordinance that severely limits where they can operate. The fees will fund criminal background ... More >>

In Face Of City Hall Budget Crisis, Everybody Goes To Washington

​You might have gotten the idea somewhere that the city's facing a historic budget crisis with 4,000 layoffs planned, departments closing, libraries cutting hours, less cops on the beat, and fire engine companies being furloughed. But someone has yet to inform the Los Angeles City Council that ... More >>

Many On Council Admit To Having Smoked Pot

​As the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday gave its final approval to a law that would shut down hundreds of medical marijuana dispensaries in the city, several City Council members recalled their own relationships with the drug. KPCC (89.9 FM) reporter Frank Stoltze queried the representati ... More >>

LAPD Chief Beck Flip-Flops On Pot Shops

​With the City Council poised to vote on a medical marijuana ordinance, Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck has drastically changed his line on how much crime medical marijuana shops causing crime in L.A. Why? We don't know. But in an interview with the Los Angeles Daily News over ... More >>

Facts or No Facts, L.A. City Council Still Plows Ahead on Medical Weed Law

Whether they were taking their cues from medical marijuana advocates or still dreadfully ill-informed, several Los Angeles City Council members continued to throw around bad numbers and loose facts as they worked for hours on a medical marijuana dispensary ordinance yesterday.L.A. City Councilman De ... More >>

L.A. River Goes Corporate: Land To Be Developed For Beautification

Friends of the Los Angeles River​The concrete jungle that is the Los Angeles River just got its own corporation this week. According to the Associated Press (via KPCC, 89.3 FM) the Los Angeles River Revitalization Corporation will get to buy, sell and develop property along the river from the ... More >>

Cash For Pot Is Cheating, Judge Says; City Moves Forward To Allow It Anyway

FoxMoses Griffin.​At this point Moses himself could descend from the mountaintops with a declaration that thou shalt not sell freakin' pot in retail storefronts and the Los Angeles City Council would move ahead with its ordinance to allow cash-for-marijuana in L.A. This week a superior court ... More >>

Council Committees Shake Down Potency Of Proposed Pot Ban

The political will just isn't there on the part of the City Council to deal with the out-of-control pot dispensary business in Los Angeles. That much was clear today when a joint committee meeting passed along the city attorney's proposed near-ban of medical marijuana businesses like an unwanted joi ... More >>

L.A. Citizens Stop $500 Fee on Neighbors Who Challenge Developers

City Council backs the little guys for once

Abortion "Holocaust Survivors" to Protest at Corn Field Rally

​When Congress members and others opened the doors of town hall meetings to hear constituents' views on health care reform, they never dreamed of what was waiting for them on the doorstep. By now we're familiar with the images of red-faced elders shouting down meek Congressmen, or of gun-toting ac ... More >>

City's 'Live/Work' Definition to Change

BlogDowntown reports on a little change in city ordinance English that will have a big (and beneficial) effect on developers. Yesterday, reports Eric Richardson, the L.A. City Council's planning committee instructed the city attorney to draft a change in the definition of what constitutes "live/work ... More >>

L.A.'s Reefer Revolution

City Hall's yawning loophole for pot dispensaries spawns a Woodstock economy

Villaraigosa & Garcetti Backed the Arrested Anti-Gang Expert Alex Sanchez

In a shocking development in the gang world today, the FBI has arrested high-profile anti-gang expert Alex Sanchez at his Bellflower home on federal racketeering charges, according to the Associated Press. Homies Unidos Executive Director Alex SanchezAs executive director of the Los Angeles-based, n ... More >>

Business Interests Fight Proposed Sign Ordinance

Lobbyists, union members and representatives of business owners in Los Angeles provided a unified front yesterday in their opposition to the city's proposed sign ordinance. "A business without a sign is no business," said Gary Toebben, president of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. Toebben ... More >>

City Council's Birthday Gift to Scientology

LAist and L.A. Observed are among those questioning why the L.A. City Council, in the depths of an economic sinkhole, voted to waive $3,000 in city fees for the Shrine Auditorium celebration of L. Ron Hubbard's birthday. Zach Behrens quotes from Councilman Bernard Parks' motion: "This annual celebra ... More >>

Suspect Arrested in Echo Park Boy's Shooting

At a 5 a.m. news conference today, the LAPD announced it had captured a man suspected in the shooting death of 4-year-old Roberto Lopez Jr. The boy and a sister had been walking near their Echo Park home three days ago when a man on the street opened fire on a car. A single bullet fatally struck Lop ... More >>

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 >>

L.A.'s Proposition B: The Most Sneaky

It repeals a ban on low-income housing taller than two stories. It just doesn't say so

Billboards Gone Wild: 4,000 Illegal Billboards Choke L.A.'s Neighborhoods

Is City Hall corrupt, or just inept?

Do As We Say, Not As We Do

Smart growth’s biggest boosters still love suburban living

to the Rescue . . . Not

What does your council member say about Bill’s plan to save Lincoln Place?

Cowboys and Indians

Gene Autry vs. Southwest Museum: Piracy or preservation?

New Egos and Agendas

The battles ahead for the City Council

Your City Council (Not) at Work

What keeps L.A.’s politicians from delivering on their progressive dreams

Up On A Roof

Plan for school playground atop garage has critics hitting ceiling

Progressive L.A. Convenes