Robert Greene

Groundless Logic

Robert Greene
When Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was criticized last week for taking a ride to Rosa Parks’ Detroit funeral on a corporate jet owned by Ameriquest Mortgage Company, his lawyer made it clear that because of previous ties the mayor “had already concluded that he would recuse himself from all city matters”......

Antonio’s Special Seat

Robert Greene
It was a sad occasion, but a dream invitation for Antonio Villaraigosa — a chance to speak at the funeral of civil-rights icon Rosa Parks, on national television, alongside Bill Clinton, Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan, with Aretha Franklin providing the hymns. The mayor flew to Detroit last week, spoke,......

Bonded in L.A.

Robert Greene
The residents of Los Angeles County, who said no along with the rest of California to all eight statewide propositions on the special election ballot, showed they also knew how to vote yes on Tuesday by approving local Measure Y, the fourth installment of a school construction and maintenance bond......

Team Antonio Scores

Robert Greene
They were in uniform, like a cricket team, except instead of white flannels they donned identical City Hall regulation bluish-grayish suits and variations on the red power tie. They left their group hug in the VIP room at Salesian High School in Boyle Heights Tuesday night and strutted their stuff......
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Herb the Inevitable

Robert Greene
Herb Wesson still speaks of his election to the Los Angeles City Council on November 8 as a mere possibility, something that is not written in the heavens as inevitable. “Lord willing, if I am so blessed,” he begins statements of what he would do as the representative of Council......
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Damn, Not Another Election

Robert Greene
It’s almost Election Day. Again. Your ballot is full and you better show up. This is the most important electoral decision you’ll make in your life. Since the last election. Until the next one. No joke. It’s the little ones, the quiet ones, that can do all the damage. A......
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José vs. Nick

Robert Greene
There must have been a hundred people packed into Nick Pacheco’s campaign headquarters, and they were pumped. Boyle Heights teens, Eagle Rock moms, volunteers from around L.A.’s Eastside. They all agreed that Pacheco had been a terrific city councilman who brought improvements and city money to what had been an......

On Native Ground

Robert Greene
Gardening books must be written on another planet. They have chapters on overwintering your potted lemon tree indoors. Pictures of bare rose branches with the mulch carefully placed below. Instructions on digging up dahlia tubers so they don’t freeze.Huh? This is Los Angeles. You stick it in the ground and......

A Mayor Fit for a Mansion

Robert Greene
An exasperated-looking guy with a video camera and his equally frantic soundman push into the room full of neighborhood leaders, and from the podium, Antonio Villaraigosa looks over and flashes one of his famous grins. “I want to apologize to you,” the mayor of Los Angeles says, interrupting his own......

Driving in Utopia

Robert Greene
Compared with the way it used to be, Andrea Nunn’s daily marathon of home-to-school-to-office commuting is a snap. She backs her Toyota RAV 4 out of her Porter Ranch driveway by 7:30 each weekday morning to drop her 12-year-old daughter, Brianna Gallardo, at school in nearby Granada Hills. Then, like......