L.A. City Council

High Court Ruling That Cities Can Ban Pot Shops Might Be Too Late For L.A.

The California Supreme Court today ruled that cities like Los Angeles can indeed ban pot shops through zoning if they so desire. Too late? After unsuccessfully trying to ban dispensaries, the L.A. City Council is backing a May 21 ballot initiative that would allow 100 or so of the marijuana busines ... More >>

Puppies Victorious: L.A. Shelter Pets Will Not Be Left Alone Overnight

After the head of L.A.'s city animal shelters proposed leaving dogs, cats and other animals home alone overnight at the facilities to save money, the animal-rights world (and unionistas worried about jobs) had a field day. And they were victorious:

Toxic Train or Green Railway? L.A. Harbor Neighbors, Environmentalists and Long Beach Officials Fight Los Angeles

By Christina Schoellkopf The job-creating $500 million Burlington Northern Santa Fe railway plan is heading to the Los Angeles City Council for a vote on the Environmental Impact Report even as a top environmental group says working-class families and children in polluted Wilmington will be subject ... More >>

Proposition A Sales Tax Increase Will Slam Los Angeles Poor, Profs and Students Say at Protest

Please also read Proposition A Sales Tax Increase: Do People Trust the L.A. City Council? By David Stamp Los Angeles City College poli-sci teacher Salvador Sanchez says "Nobody has time for this but we have to do it" -- it being to ask L.A. voters to defeat Prop. A, a tax increase on the March 5 b ... More >>

L.A. Sales Tax Hike: Will $211 Million Increase Fix City's Problems?

Do people trust the City Council?

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 >>

Garbage Monopolies Coming to L.A.?

Unions, enviros, push hard to ban free-market trash removal.

L.A. Public Libraries Restore Hours After Voters Rose Against Villaraigosa Budget Cuts

While Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the L.A. City Council continue to deal with lingering budget deficits, there's one bright spot amid the darkness -- L.A. public libraries are now open longer. Starting today, the added hours at the city's 73 libraries is the second phase of returning the public ... More >>

Marijuana Dispensaries Banned in L.A. Per City Council Vote

See our updates, including a hail-Mary proposal to save some dispensaries, at the bottom. The L.A. City Council today voted to put an end to the city's infamous and numerous marijuana dispensaries, citing neighborhood concerns and court rulings that have questioned a city's right to regulate the re ... More >>

Marijuana Dispensary Ban Passed by L.A. Committee: Only One Vote Left Before Pot Shops Wiped Out

You've heard it before: The L.A. City Council is trying to ban all marijuana dispensaries from the streets of Los Angeles. But things just got real. Councilman Jose Huizar's proposal was solidified into an ordinance today -- meaning only one single meeting on July 22 stands between our current pot- ... More >>

L.A. Overspends by $27,378 an Hour

Two key perks: free gas and cars

Skateboard Bombing Down Hills Banned in Los Angeles

Thanks to a few kids who like to fly down hills on their skateboards, as they've done since the dawn of the sport, the L.A. City Council today voted to ban such "bombing." Not only that but, essentially, in the city of L.A., skateboarders will soon have to obey traffic rules just as a driver or bic ... More >>

LAFD Response-Time Scandal

Chief Cummings' plummeting morale problem

Medical Marijuana Ban in L.A.? City Officials Botched Regulation, Now Want Prohibition

Medical weed ban heads to City Council

Mandatory Condoms in Porn Becomes Law in L.A. For Location Shoots

Ed Carrasco​Updated at the bottom: They did it. First posted at 6:05 a.m. This will likely be the day that will live in infamy ... for people who make boom-boom cinema. The L.A. City Council is expected to give final approval to a measure that will require condoms for porn performers who wor ... More >>

Buscaino vs. Furutani

L.A. City Council race is about preserving lifer politicians

L.A. City Council Moves Toward $8.4 Million Tax Giveaway to Mutual Fund Investors Yet Vows Allegiance to Occupy?

yunguyen666​The L.A. City Council is a fairly liberal bunch. It voted last month, for example, to support the Occupy L.A. movement, which holds the bailed-out, tax-loophole-rich banks and investment houses of Wall Street responsible for the Great Recession and its aftermath. But strangely the ... More >>

Farmers Field Roadside Billboard Risks

Expect a big jump in distracted, dangerous drivers, expert says

Brenda Barnette's Animal Services Mishaps

Do unproven groups and extremist Pamelyn Ferdin have City Hall's ear?

Farmers Field or Blade Runner Stadium?

The downtown NFL arena deal allows a sea of billboards, congestion and millions in public costs

Warren Furutani and Paul Koretz: Separated at Birth? Why do People Who Parrot One Another Run for Los Angeles City Council?

Keith PlocekWarren Furitani, separated at birth from ... Paul Koretz?​Lots of folks want to run for the Los Angeles City Council District 15 seat being abandoned by Janice Hahn, recently elected to Congress. Voters will probably soon realize that several of the CD 15 candidates sound exactly t ... More >>

Red Light Cameras in L.A. Could Become Extinct After City Council Declines to Save Them

dullhunk​Guess all the lobbyists in the world couldn't give this program the green light. The city's much-hated red light cameras have been quagmired out of existence after the L.A. Police Commission said they must go and their defenders on the L.A. City Council couldn't muster enough votes t ... More >>

Zev Yaroslavsky Will Replace Antonio Villaraigosa as Mayor, Experts Predict

If Zev runs, he’s the man to beat in 2013

City Council Pays for Needless Study By Not Doing Its Homework

L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's Failed Green Revolution: City Cuts Losses, Sells Clean Tech 'Cornerstone'

sci-arcThe mayor in October 2010, with Clean Tech architect hopefuls​Throughout his campaign, his rocky term and his innumerable trips to Washington, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has sold himself as Mother Nature's closest ally. His devotion to expanding freeway-mangled Southern Cal ... More >>

L.A. City Council Takes Anti-Gun Stance, Agrees With Obama That Gun Magazines Should Have 10-Round Ammo Cap

Is L.A. the next Tucson?​Aside from the fact that this was the biggest L.A. City Hall time-waster since the Arizona boycott (FYI: nothing from Arizona was ever boycotted), we'd like to note that a few scattered Angelenos were feeling pretty huffy about yesterday's H.R. 308 resolution -- aka, b ... More >>

Maria Elena Durazo and Richard Riordan Lead Mixed Coalition on Measure L, To Save Los Angeles' Shuttered Libraries

Villaraigosa and the L.A. City Council still sit on millions of dollars in personal fat.​Finally, a big coalition is urging approval of Measure L on the March 8 ballot, which would save the decimated Los Angeles public library system from anti-library Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who, as mentio ... More >>

L.A. City Council Candidate Mitchell Englander, Heir To The Incumbent, Nears Half-Million Mark As Top Competitor Brad Smith Drops From Race

Mitch Englander For City CouncilSitting pretty in District 12​Update: The race is back on! District 12 Candidate Brad Smith says: "One week ago, we had to put this campaign on hold because of very real issues that anyone working in today's economy can identify with; today, those issues have be ... More >>

Los Angeles Loosens Dispensary Rules, Lets 180 Pot Shops Live On

We've been told this deep-fried pot shop doesn't meet the city's rules. But it's still open.​The L.A. City Council made it official Wednesday: Many pot shops that would have been put out of business by the city's strict new dispensary rules are saved. Be thankful, potheads. The council made i ... More >>

Food Trucks Will Require Special Permits Under L.A. City Move

Special city permits might be in order for taco trucks like this one.​Following L.A. County's move to grade food trucks the same way restaurants receive letters (A through C, depending on cleanliness), the L.A. City Council jumped on that bandwagon Wednesday. It voted to draw up a law that wo ... More >>

Some On Los Angeles City Council Seem Ready To Welcome California Pot Legalization With Open Arms

Good to know where the L.A. City Council stands on green issues.​What happens in L.A. if the state legalizes pot? The Los Angeles City Council was expected this week to vote on a measure that would put a local tax on marijuana sales before voters in March. In other words, if Prop. 19 passes, ... More >>

L.A. City Council Approves A Contract With A First: Workers To Pay For Health Care

​The L.A. City Council approved a new contract with the city's Engineers and Architects Association, whose 5,000 members agreed to become the first city employees to share in the cost of their health care. The Weekly reported on the contract agreement with the engineers, including the new conc ... More >>

L.A. City Council: Helping 7-Eleven Go Upscale?

​ The L.A. City Council has two food related items on the agenda today, in a sign of the continuing momentum of food activists who are either ameliorating hunger and reversing the decades-long trend toward bad, processed food, or being annoying nanny staters wasting Council time while bigger ... More >>

Library Parcel Tax Defeated

​As expected, the L.A. City Council today opted not to put a parcel tax on the November ballot to restore library funding.It would have cost the city $4.2 million to place the measure on the ballot, which is money the city doesn't have. But the council was also wary of asking voters for a new tax ... More >>

Lieutenant Governor of Paper Clips

Janice Hahn, a product of the L.A. City Council, hopes to be a heartbeat away from governor of California

Is The L.A. City Council In Denial Over Budget Mess?

​We've been snickering about it for quite sometime, but the Los Angeles City Council's feet-dragging distaste for all things budgetary (the city is now looking to pare down a $585 million deficit) seems to be inspiring more-and-more late-night-style quips. The latest (and perhaps greatest) co ... More >>

City Hall's 2010 DWP Debacle

How Beutner, Carr, Carson, D'Arcy, Freeman, Greuel, Raj, Santana, Szabo, Villaraigosa & Co. pushed L.A. to the cliff edge

Parking: A Fine Mess

Fines jacked up by L.A. City Council send strapped Angelenos into community service

NPR Gets L.A.'s Medical Weed Facts All Wrong

Maybe NPR has been reading too much of the Los Angeles Times coverage of this city's pot shop problem, or maybe one of its reporters is relying too heavily on the word of local politicians, but a recent post on the NPR blog gets many facts wrong about L.A.'s medical weed ordinance and all the hub-bu ... More >>

Slashing L.A. City Council Pay to $90K

Can pissed-off Angelenos cut the nation's richest city council salaries by half?

On City Officials: Useless and Overpaid? Or Just Weekly Hyperbole?

On Chandler, L. Ron and a treeless L.A.

Plus: In defense of Michael Jackson

#&*0#&!!! Mad at the City Council

(Not) Silencing the Little Guy: L.A. Public Access Video Picks for Zuma Dogg, Squirt Salon, Full Disclosure & Neighborhood Point of View

My childhood memories of public television are foggy, at best, and are mostly frustrated recollections of trying to imitate quirky painting instructor Bob Ross. The Joy of Painting, please. An entire masterpiece in 30 minutes -- 30 minutes! He made those "happy little trees" look so easy, didn't he? ... More >>

Shutting Down Public-Access TV

AT&T and L.A. City Hall quietly lead a national push to silence the little guy

Digital Billboards Become a Bohemian Blasphemy

Silver Lake, Hollywood, the Valley and Westside take on City Hall's anti-green transformation of LA

Jack Weiss, City Council District 5

Endorsements

Our recommendations in the March 4 Los Angeles municipal election

Endorsements: Part 2

Our recommendations in the April 10 Los Angeles city election