CityWatch Los Angeles
Politics. Perspective. Participation.
GELFAND’S WORLD - On Monday, October 17, L.A. City Council acting president Mitch O'Farrell held a press conference where he announced that he had taken committee assignments away from Kevin de Leon and Gil Cedillo.
LA POLITICAL SCANDAL - With every crisis comes an opportunity. The City of Los Angeles is undergoing the worst political crisis we have seen in decades.
Los Angeles is a massive city. It is the second largest city in the United States, with a metro area population of over 12.4 million.
THE VIEW FROM HERE - LA County has over 251,000 vacant units and only 66,000 homeless people. The city has about 44,000 homeless.
LA TRANSPO - One of the newest light rail Metro projects, the West Santa Ana Transit Corridor, will serve an under-served area of Los Angeles County. Where is the latecomer, time delaying, disruptive and unnecessary monorail alternative?
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW - Rarely do I walk away in an interview impressed, thinking “this is what true leadership looks like”, and even more rarely would it be a Democrat.
LA TRANSPO - In a two minute signal cycle of a two way single street, half the time is given to Continuous Flowing Through Traffic in opposing directions and the other minute allows local traffic movements as well as major boulevard crossing traffic to occur.
EDUCATION - California’s Department of Education has finally acknowledged the obvious: It is arbitrarily delaying the release of results from this year’s round of academic testing.
GUEST COMMENTARY - A year after Los Angeles adopted an ordinance to protect renters from harassment by taking their landlords to court, the law has largely failed its purpose.
UNHOUSED - The homelessness crisis in Los Angeles just didn’t happen out of nowhere.
RANTZ and RAVEZ - Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman’s office fails to act and replace a worn and frayed American Flag at a park in her district after being notified by a Valley resident on September 19, 2022.
GUEST COMMENTARY - In just over a month every voter in the State of California will be having their ballot mailed to them.
UNHOUSED IN LA - The figures on homeless youth in Los Angeles County are bleak. Statistics released Thursday estimate that more than 9,100 youth in the region lack a safe place to live.
PLANNING WATCH - Distraction is widely used by magicians, card cheats, and local government officials to legalize otherwise illegal real estate projects.
THE EASTSIDER - Last month, I wrote a couple of articles on how LA City and LA County are handling the homeless crisis.
THE VIEW FROM HERE - They say everyone has a special talent and TrickyRicky’s specialty seems to be being a calumniator par excellence. (Since Caruso has elevated falsehoods to an artful form, it is only proper that we select fancy names for his malady.)
LA TRANSPO - The City and its transit riders deserve another chance at shade and shelter. Here's how:
ACCORDING TO LIZ - Sacramento and its Department of Education have been blamed for the failing literacy of California children, money has been poured into studies but there has been little observable improvement.
THE VIEW FROM HERE - This rule of politics explains why most voters end up voting for the lesser of two evils.
PLANNING WATCH - The Planning Report’s 30 year old article by Richard Platkin on the Ventura/Cahuenga Boulevard Specific Plan is still mostly current and correct.
GUEST COMMENTARY - For much of the 20th century, Los Angeles symbolized the future. Over the course of the century, the population grew 40-fold to nearly four million people.
