LOS ANGELES

@THE GUSS REPORT-While the official hand-off of the LA City Council presidency from Herb Wesson to Nury Martinez doesn’t officially take place until January, it is effectively already underway. Wesson is supposed to represent Council District 10 until the end of this term, but now leaves meetings early, if he shows up at all. 

PERSPECTIVE--Krekorian, Koretz and Ryu: The Flying Circus caucus of the Burbank Airport Noise Task Force. Never confuse them with the Wright brothers or Chuck Yeager.

GELFAND’S WORLD--It’s sobering to consider that we’ve now reached a milestone in this twenty-first century. We are at the one-fifth point of the 2000s.

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT--Last month, I joined fellow faith leaders on the steps of the Hall of Justice to deliver a letter urging Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey to stop seeking the death penalty.

DEEGAN ON LA-The day of reckoning is less than 90 days from now: Primary Election Day, March 3, 2020. This is when several incumbent City Councilmembers will have had to convincingly explain to voters just what they have done about the number one issue across the city:

ONE MAN’S OPINION-“They have ears, yet they do not hear” has always been true. December 4, 2019 was no exception.

RANTZ & RAVEZ-It was early Sunday morning and I was at a drive-thru car wash in the West Valley wiping down my car.

CONNECTING CALIFORNIA--Is it still worth getting to know your neighbors? 

CLIMATE POLITICS-As the ecological crisis deepens, nearing the infamous Tipping Point – taking us closer to planetary catastrophe – we are being led to believe that an imminent “greening” of the world economy will deliver us from a very dark future.

@THE GUSS REPORT-There are big post-mortems on why California Senator Kamala Harris failed miserably in her campaign to become the 2020 Democrat nominee for president.

ALPERN AT LARGE--Part of the problem with making laws is that they have to be enforced.

EASTSIDER-Boy do we have a feast of elections in 2020; City Council (even numbered districts), County Board of Supervisors (District 2 & 5), District Attorney, LAUSD (all but one), Assembly District 43 & 53), and a bunch of Cities and Judges! Here’s an overview. 

PLANNING WATCH-The mainstream and alternative press are in rare agreement that the worsening climate crisis places humanity at the abyss.

CAL BUZZ-California Sen. Kamala Harris quit the presidential race Tuesday not because, as she put it, “My campaign for president simply doesn’t have the financial resources we need to continue.”

THE CITY--The Los Angeles City Council just unanimously passed a law that tightens the rules on how much money developers can contribute to their political campaigns.

ONE MAN’S OPINION-“Two people tell The Daily Beast they’ve heard Trump talk about how he’d like to have the now-cleared Clint Lorance, Matthew Golsteyn, or Edward Gallagher show up at his 2020 rallies, or even have a moment on stage at his re-nomination convention in Charlotte next year. Right-wing media have portrayed all three as martyrs brought down by “political correctness” within the military.” (The Daily Beast Nov 26, 2019)

OTHER WORDS-“Is Trump a racist?” I have two answers to that question. First, most white Americans misunderstand racism solely as intentional beliefs held by individual racists who hate people on the basis of race.

ALPERN AT LARGE--Gone is the Bush/Clinton/GW Bush era where it was encouraged for as many Americans as possible, including young people and minorities, to be homeowners.

EDUCATION POLITICS-Charter-law reform may have come to California, but the free-market logic of schools-of-choice programs continues to divide.

@THE GUSS REPORT-Love him or hate him, most everyone who follows Los Angeles politics would agree that termed-out LA City Council president Herb Wesson knows what’s going on in virtually every corner of the City of Los Angeles, and especially within City Hall. 

NEW GEOGRAPHY--Anyone who needed a poll by the LA Times and LA Business Council Institute to tell them that overwhelming numbers of Angelenos consider homelessness the city’s biggest problem hasn’t been paying attention for quite a while.