LOS ANGELES

CAL MATTERS-Hoping to save California taxpayers some money after spending nearly $1 billion to fight wildfires last year, three officials say it’s time to look at purchasing disaster insurance for the state.

VOTER DISCRIMINATION--Legislators in Oregon and California have introduced bills this month to give more teenagers the right to vote.

IMMIGRANTS HAVE RIGHTS TOO-A California lawmaker has launched a bid to block the state from contracting with companies that funnel intelligence to federal immigration agents, in a move that would bolster the state's protections for undocumented residents targeted by the Trump administration. 

ALPERN AT LARGE--Ya wanna know what's funny? The way that the majority of ALL residents, regardless of socioeconomic status, race, geography, and immigration status keep pushing and paying for more transit amenities AND parking but are told the former is great while the latter is a "no-go". 

WORDS COUNT-The day-long testimony of Michael Cohen - "a loser with nothing to lose" who knows where the bodies are buried, and thus Trump's worst nightmare - gave us the sordid if cleansing spectacle of "a liar, lout, thug, bully, scumbag, and admitted criminal (testifying) about his former client and our liar, lout, thug, bully, scumbag and criminal in chief."

EASTSIDER-So why would a happily retired 74-year old politician named Jackie Goldberg be running for the LAUSD School Board? As it turns out, for very good reasons. 

GELFAND’S WORLD--The way that one Washington Post columnist summarized yesterday's congressional hearing, Donald Trump is guilty of 5 felonies if Michael Cohen told the truth.

ONE MAN’S OPINION-The universe of laws is bizarre, obtuse, and shifting. As Natalie Wolchover writes in the New Yorker Magazine, “A Different Kind of Theory of Everything,” while physicists work to understand the universe, their endeavor is shadowed by the Rashomon effect.

PLANET WATCH--The planet’s biggest nightmare is coming to life. It may be a bigger threat much sooner than ever before realized simply because it’s accelerating!

ANIMAL WATCH-Council President Herb Wesson last week admitted to replacing carpet in his office with laminate because of vermin infestation, but jokingly suggested employees be subjected to "an army of cats" to rid Los Angeles City Hall of rats (the four-legged ones.)   

PLATKIN ON PLANNING-The first efforts to prime the media pumps for a giant real estate giveaway program, California Senator Scott Wiener’s proposed Senate Bill 50, also dubbed the Son of SB 827 or SB 827 2.0, are out of the gate. So far, the arguments marshalled to bolster Wiener’s legislation fall flat, as I explain below. 

@THE GUSS REPORT-Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti on Saturday finally scrubbed down fetid conditions surrounding LA City Hall that led to a rat and flea infestation believed to have sparked a recent typhus outbreak. 

HEALTH POLITICS--over the last year, Americans have seen some of the worst measles outbreaks in decades. The once-eradicated disease is now endangering the health and lives of people from New York to Washington, where the governor recently declared a state of emergency.

BCK FILE--Last Friday’s Florida massage parlor prostitution sting operation that had netted Patriots owner Robert Kraft may have been the talk around the water cooler.

ALPERN AT LARGE--As someone who both co-sponsored the motion of a six-month, transparent, input-oriented Venice Blvd. road diet about two years ago, and who played a key advisory role to enabling the late and brash-talking Bill Rosendahl come out of nowhere to become CD11 Councilmember, I'm pretty sure Bill would have the following to say about the Venice Blvd. Road Diet suddenly on the LA Transportation Committee agenda:  

GELFAND’S WORLD--Los Angeles city government functions in a strange way. We have the usual departments like Water and Power and Recreation & Parks, but each is overseen by something called a commission.

DEEGAN ON LA-How much does it cost in campaign contributions for a developer to get the special approvals they want from a City Councilmember, a member of the council’s Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) committee, or even the Mayor?

ONE MAN’S OPINION-At first glance the question seems incongruous. Publisher Sutton called for the KKK to ride again at night, slaying socialists and communists. "Seems like the Klan would be welcome to raid the gated communities up there," Sutton wrote. By “up there,” Sutton meant Washington D.C. 

CALMATTERS- “Gaslight” was a 1938 British play, set in the 1880s, about a man who manipulates his wife into believing she is going insane to suppress her suspicions about crimes he is committing. 

ALPERN AT LARGE--A sad and outraged nation is all up in arms and shocked (Shocked, I tell you, just shocked!) that Empire actor Jussie Smollett--an actor and Trump-hater extraordinaire--is guilty of a phony, made-up hoax to either keep his job, get more money, and perhaps just a continuation of a mentally-ill modus operandi that this man has done before. 

RANTZ & RAVEZ-The current situation at Los Angeles City Hall is interesting, very suspicious, possibly criminal and an overall embarrassment for many of LA’s elected officials, as well as for those of us who pay to keep City Hall running: the taxpayers.