Local Politics

L.A. Redistricting Commission's Final Map: Still a Mess of Gerrymandered Land Grabs

At an exasperating L.A. Redistricting Commission meeting last Wednesday night that lasted into the wee hours, commissioners tried to address a whopping 75 community complaints, re: their hilariously gerrymandered first try at new voting districts for Los Angeles. The "proposed list of adjustments" ... More >>

Koreatown Roars Against Gerrymander

Sleeping tiger says no more splitting

L.A. Redistricting: Bernard Parks' District 8 Looks Like a U.S. Army Tank

This is the second chapter in a (badly Photoshopped) series on the L.A. Redistricting Commission's gerrymandered new voting districts. Previously: "Eric Garcetti's District 13 Looks Like an Evil Squirrel." It's one of the most blatant land grabs in L.A. redistricting history: Westchester, an up-and ... More >>

L.A. Redistricting: Eric Garcetti's District 13 Looks Like an Evil Squirrel

Simone Wilson​While gazing at the recently proposed boundaries for L.A.'s 15 voting districts -- which is clearly what we like to do in our spare time -- we realized that the gerrymandered City Council District 13 is the spitting image of an evil squirrel. And so begins our (badly Photoshoppe ... More >>

The Five Most Furious Reactions to the Redistricting of Los Angeles

As insanely boring -- and incomprehensible to the average voter -- as the redistricting of Los Angeles may be, it's kind of a big deal. We understand the apathy. In a city where only a little over 10 percent of eligible voters turn out for municipal elections at all, they can hardly be expected to ... More >>

Joe Buscaino Beats Warren Furutani for Los Angeles City Council District 15: A Humiliating 2012 Thumping of the Party Establishment

By Hillel Aron It seemed as if half of San Pedro packed the Crowne Plaza Hotel ballroom late last night for a blowout victory party for local boy Joe Buscaino who won the Los Angeles City Council District 15 race. Things got wild as newcomer Buscaino beat dull lifer politician Warren Furutani. Furu ... More >>

Assemblyman Mike Davis, Running for L.A. City Council, Will Fit Right in: He Voted 'No' on 0.01% of Assembly Bills

Few voting bodies are as creepily hive-minded as the Los Angeles City Council. In 2011, under the leadership of former City Council President Eric Garcetti (now running for mayor), the group of 15 local politicians, who also happen to be the highest-paid councilmembers in the country, voted unanimo ... More >>

Illegal-Immigrant Impound Policy Elevates Into Political War: Mayor, LAPD Chief vs. City Council, Police Union

It's common knowledge, by now, that DUI checkpoints around L.A. County double as illegal-immigrant crackdowns. It works like this: Illegals aren't allowed to hold driver's licenses in California (a public-safety outrage for another day), so when they're asked to show their licenses at a DUI checkp ... More >>

Eric Garcetti Wrote Measure H, Now He's Working Its Loopholes

Stupidest Things Said by Los Angeles Civic Figures in 2011

Eric Bauman, L.A. Democratic Party Kingmaker

Elevates the ossified, keeps out L.A. talent

Joe Buscaino vs. Warren Furutani for L.A. City Council: Police Union's New 'Public Safety First' Yard Signs Could Sway Election

lapd.comNow on 6,500 lawns across L.A.​Like in national elections, it takes a democracy-numbing amount of time and money to win a political post in Los Angeles. Just ask Ron Kaye, LA Daily News editor turned City Hall watchdog. (If you ever feel like witnessing a city official burned at the ... More >>

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa Wants Occupy L.A. Gone By Monday

​Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa wants Occupy L.A. to decamp by next Monday, according to notes of a meeting between the mayor's office and Occupy protesters.The mayor's office and the protesters are trying to work out an agreement. But those negotiations took a big step backward today, following discl ... More >>

Jan Perry Quits as L.A.'s Council President Pro Tem After Backroom Deals Leave Her in The Cold

Jan Perry.​Strange. Jan Perry has had no trouble with the backroom planning leading up to the L.A. City Council's rubber-spine stance on a proposed stadium that would be plopped down onto taxpayer property. She's as gung-ho as they come, even if the process has been less than transparent. But ... More >>

Skid Row vs. Gensler

Who should get $1 million in poverty funds, the rich or the poor?

For Vernon Mayor Hilario Gonzales, Pay Cut Makes Retirement More Enticing

Hilario "Larry" Gonzales​Vernon Mayor Hilario Gonzales may have resigned Monday because he got tired of defending the city from corruption charges. But he also had "economic reasons" for leaving City Hall, according to John Van de Kamp, the city's ethics adviser.The Vernon council members recently ... More >>

Occupy L.A.: City Council Resolution Supports Anti-Wall Street Protesters, Lets Them Keep Sleeping on Front Lawn

Council District 11 via TwitterCouncilman Bill Rosendahl bonds with the many characters of Occupy L.A.​L.A. City Councilmembers Richard Alarcon and Bill Rosendahl introduced a resolution to support the Occupy L.A. movement today -- a gesture that would essentially attach the City of Los Angele ... More >>

Brenda Barnette's Animal Services Mishaps

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

Beverly Hills to Gift Floundering City of Bell $10K in Restructuring Advice

Beverly Hills City Manager Jeff Kolin feels bad for Bell.​Cities don't come more opposite than Bell and Beverly Hills. The former is 90 percent Latino, with an average household income of $30,000 per year. Its city government is drowning in an impossible pile of debt, and residents are still ... More >>

Eric Garcetti Makes It Official: He's Running For Mayor

Eric Garcetti​Update 3:14 p.m.: Zev Yaroslavsky will jump in "sooner rather than later."Councilman Eric Garcetti announced this morning that he's running for mayor.Garcetti's entry into the race has been expected for months, and the chatter had been picking up lately that he would announce soon af ... More >>

Farmers Field or Blade Runner Stadium?

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

Buy Spray Paint in L.A., Give Your Address And ID For a Possible Police File Under Councilman Dennis Zine's Anti-Graffiti Proposal

Krylon​Updated at the bottom with reaction from the ACLU, which says this might not survive a constitutional challenge (what with freedom of speech and all). First posted at 2:35 p.m. Dennis Zine is the L.A. City Councilman who successfully got Aaron Brothers to back off its graffiti-themed b ... More >>

L.A. City Councilmember Jose Huizar Has Missed Half His Meetings This Summer

No one plays hooky like Jose Huizar.​Leave it to Ron Kaye, former editor of the LA Daily News (til' he got too crazy -- read: too Valley -- for that shit), to comb through the L.A. City Council's abysmal attendance records for the last couple months, callin' out councilmembers on their devil-m ... More >>

NFL Stadium Hearing at L.A. City Hall Draws Hundreds of Football, AEG Lovers; Answers Few Questions

AEG​When LA Weekly reporter David Futch showed up at L.A. City Hall this morning for a hearing on Anschutz Entertainment Group's proposed L.A. football stadium, he thought he was in for just another L.A. City Council meeting. What Futch failed to realize is that, when one attends a meeting on ... More >>

Beverly Hills Versus the Westside Subway

Red-Light Cameras: L.A. City Council Split on Whether to Nix 32 Expensive, Unpopular Ticket Traps

Illustration by Kyle T. Webster$500 richer?​The red-light rebels of L.A. were all kinds of thrilled yesterday to learn that the LAPD's Board of Police Commissioners had voted 5-0 to tear down incriminating cameras placed at 32 of the city's busiest intersections, just waiting for a careless ca ... More >>

City of Vernon in Fight to Death With Assembly Speaker John Perez

Charlie Beck, L.A. Police Chief, Required to Cut $40 Million to Balance Budget, But Given No Guidance

Kyle T. Websteroops ​Today L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will receive amendments made by the City Council to his 2011-12 proposed City budget. The big issue is more than $40 million that Villaraigosa had wanted to borrow on commercial paper. That debt plan has now been trashed, and the bur ... More >>

L.A. City Council Claims to Have Solved Budget Shortfall -- But Their $7B 'Plan' Tiptoes Around Unions, Makes No Real Plans at All

Council Prez. Eric Garcetti: game face.​This morning, the LA Daily News and Daily Breeze throw around the word "realistic" in their wire-service headlines on the City Council's 2011-12 budget, approved last night. How horribly misleading. The piece begins with an eerie quote from City Council ... More >>

Eric Garceitti, City Council President, Yet to Take Action For Budget Transparency

Kyle T. Webster​L.A. Mayor Antonio Villlaraigosa's proposed 2011-12 City budget is anything but transparent, as illustrated in L.A. Weekly's Broke and Broken. Even the simple basics -- the number and cost of his own staff -- are calculated with smoke and mirrors. Today City Council will begi ... More >>

Mayor Villaraigosa's Plan to Borrow $50 Million on Commercial Paper Dumped, Neighborhood Councils On Axing Block, What Else? JUST IN

Kyle T. Webster​Less than 60 minutes ago Jay Handal received a "courtesy call." Handal chairs a committee for the 93 neighborhood councils called the Neighborhood Council Budget Advocates. "Basically they are gutting and shutting down the neighborhood council system," Handal says. L.A. May ... More >>

Los Angeles: Broke and Broken

City Council clueless about vast, hidden costs in Villaraigosa's $6.9 billion budget

Does Million Trees L.A. Honcho Lisa Sarno Think Her Job Is To Help People Make Friends?

Villaraigosa aide Lisa Sarno, middle, receives an award.​It seems we struck a nerve at the Los Angeles Mayor's Office the other day when we wrote about Antonio Villaraigosa's long-suffering Million Trees LA project. The much-publicized program kicked off in 2006, and few people, if any, know ... More >>

LA's Budget Problem: More Like City Employee Bonus Problem

Do you smell something? ​L.A. City Council member Bill Rosendahl calls it "gold in the gutter." L.A. watchdog Ron Kaye likens it more aptly to "pennies in the gutter." They are talking about what is actually changeable in Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's proposed 2011-12 budget. 85 percent of the ... More >>

Laying Odds on Mayoral Race

2013 Los Angeles Mayor Race: Who Has the Best Chance of Replacing Antonio Villaraigosa?

Who will replace this guy, Antonio Villaraigosa, as the next mayor of L.A.?​Update: Link to L.A. Weeklyexclusive on who the experts say will be the next mayor. Believe it or not, someone wants to be the next mayor of Los Angeles in 2013, when Antonio Villaraigosa will be termed out of office ... More >>

Antonio Villaraigosa's 2011-2012 Budget Debate Starts Today: Can the Mayor Stop City Hall's Overspending of $52,168 an Hour?

Firing the budget proposal debate: fire safety cuts​Last week, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced his proposed 2011-12 budget, designed to stop City Hall from overspending by $1.25 million per day, or $52,168 per hour. Next, the L.A. City Council must tell Villaraigosa thumbs up or ... More >>

With Cultural War Brewing in West Hollywood, Will Mayor John Duran Shake Up Status Quo?

Ted SoquiWest Hollywood Mayor John Duran​Will John Duran, who was installed last night as the new mayor of West Hollywood, shake up the status quo with the help of recently elected City Councilman John D'Amico? That's the big question in West Hollywood political circles these days -- in 2010 ... More >>

Huge Subsidy for Stadium Architect

Villaraigosa quietly plans to hand Gensler $1 million meant for the poor

L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's 2011 Budget: Nobody Fired, But 1000s of City Workers, Mainly LAPD, Must Choose Between Furloughs or Blows to Benefits

LAPD-City Hall relations are about to get a lot hairier​The city budget is here! The city budget is here! (Much like the Royal Wedding. Almost.) It's not the finalized budget for 2011-2012 -- many grueling meetings separate us from that glorious summer day -- but we have before us the mayor' ... More >>

Austin Beutner Retires From The Mayor's Office To Make Way For 2013 Run

Austin Beutner​After a little more than a year in government, private equity baron Austin Beutner has resigned from the office of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a move that frees him up to campaign for his boss's job in 2013.Beutner also filed paperwork today with the city Ethics Commission that will ... More >>

Ali Saleh Chosen as Bell's Next Mayor as City Turns New Leaf Following Salary Scandal

Ali Saleh.​We told you he was going for the gig, and he got it. On Monday night Bell's new City Council elected Ali Saleh as mayor. In a town that's overwhelmingly Latino, with allegations of corruption levied at former officials who were white and Latino, the newcomers installed a real outs ... 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 >>

Manhattan Beach Sex Payoff

City manager Dolan got $270,000 — instead of being fired for misbehavior

Digitally Ad-Wrapped Skyscrapers Coming to L.A.?

Jan Perry opens a new front in the Los Angeles billboard wars

West Hollywood 2011 City Council Election: John D'Amico Sworn In, Says WeHo Starts 'New Spring'

Ted SoquiWest Hollywood City Councilman John D'Amico​John D'Amico, the challenging candidate who placed first in the hotly contested West Hollywood City Council election two weeks ago and ousted incumbent Lindsey Horvath, was sworn into office on Monday night at West Hollywood Park Auditorium ... More >>

Los Angeles Measures I and J Election Results: Big Backing for Reform of the Department of Water and Power

Kyle T. WebsterVillaraigosa claimed LA faced bankruptcy, and got his rate hike.​Update: Hands down, these two L.A. DWP reform measures are the huge winners tonight. As of 12:20 a.m. Wed., Measure I had 77.35 percent yes, and Measure J had 81.27 percent. Early election returns for March 8, 2011 s ... More >>

Bell Recall Election Results: New City Council Slate Wins

Ted SoquiBell last summer.​Bell residents on Tuesday had a chance to make historic change and recall its embattled City Council in favor of new slates. They recalled four council members. The results included victories for Ali Saleh, Nestor Valencia, Violeta Alvarez. Danny Harber was elected ... More >>

West Hollywood 2011 City Council Election: Vote Not Completed, Abbe Land, John D'Amico and John Heilman in Lead

​Update: New figures and analysis on WeHo City Council race. Since approximately 930 provisional ballots still need to be verified and counted, the hotly contested West Hollywood City Council race cannot be called tonight. So far, 522 votes separate first place Councilwoman Abbe Land from ... More >>

Bell Election: Ali Saleh Likely to Seek Mayor's Seat

Ali Saleh: Bell's next mayor?​The ballots have barely been counted and already it looks like Bell City Council winner Ali Saleh will seek the mayor's job. That could happen as early as late March, when, we're told, the first meeting of the new council is likely to take place. Here's what Sal ... More >>