Marc B. Haefele

Photo by Virginia Lee Hunter It was freezing in the Los Angeles City Council Chamber last Friday afternoon. "They must have turned off the heat," another reporter said. Though it was 70 degrees outside, it felt like 40 indoors; I sneezed as I zipped up my jacket and put on......

Photo by Virginia Lee Hunter After two years during which the Los Angeles city-charter-reform process had all the exhilaration of the America’s Cup race, the game suddenly turned into tournament pingpong last Friday, with what seemed like a new serve every moment. Most of the action involved our mercurial mayor,......

Photo by Ted Soqui It was Mike Davis who came up with the concept of Fortress Los Angeles, in his book City of Quartz: a Southern California city-state where, as the population diversifies, exclusion replaces inclusion. Davis’ grim reverie flew in the face of Mayor Tom Bradley’s multicultural dream and......

He’s not on the membership lists, and, possibly because he’s dead, he’s been a no-show at meetings. Yet by now it is fairly obvious that the shade of former Los Angeles Mayor Frank Shaw is one of the determining forces on both of the current Los Angeles charter-reform commissions. Shaw’s......

Another tale of terror from the front page of the Daily News: Guess what? Those rascals downtown at City Hall have launched a sneak attack — by low-income apartments — upon the sorely-tried San Fernando Valley. Appropriately, the article appeared on Pearl Harbor Day. "Much of the growth is targeted......

Photo by Kathleen Clark Last August, the overcrowded City Hall East garage lost a row of parking spaces. Each of those spaces now has an "Electrical Vehicle Only" sign and a battery charger the size of a wall furnace. Since the row’s revamping, I’ve seen exactly one electric car parked......

Photo by Debra DiPaolo Important admissions are best tendered with discretion. Cardinal Roger Mahony took the trouble recently to sit down for a low-key discussion that recognized many serious past divisions with the local Jewish community. The Germans have quietly acknowledged that they are finally looking back, even before both......

Photo by Kathleen ClarkThe recent ejection of Inspector General Katherine Mader by the minions of LAPD Chief Bernard Parks was perhaps the department’s most retrograde move since the beating of Rodney King. I say this even though I never thought Mader showed extraordinary aptitude in the job she acquired two......

Photo by Kathleen ClarkEven if you knew Lawry's California Center during the years when it flourished, it was kind of hard to explain it to out-of-town friends. But you had to explain, because you so often ended up taking them there. Why? Because it was so inexplicable. There on Avenue......

When you think Carson, you think car dealer Don Kott long before you think wheeler-dealer Michael Ovitz. Carson is a residential city that socially and geographically bridges the distance between Compton and Torrance. It's got Nissan Motors' U.S. headquarters, a Cal State campus, Kott's sprawling auto dealerships and an IKEA-anchored......