LOS ANGELES

CONNECTING CALIFORNIA--The county sheriff is the problem child among California elected officials. No office is less accountable, or more reliable in producing scandal.

CAL MATTERS--Mention Pacific Gas & Electric to Victor Porter, and the response is nothing like the bland non-opinion most Americans have of the companies that provide their electricity. (Photo above: Erin Brockovich speaks to Paradise wildfire victims.)

HOSTED BY BRETT SHEARS-- Our guest for this episode of the EmpowerLA Podcast is Ken Draper, a founding Board Member from the Mid City West Community Council and Editor-Publisher for LA’s most notorious watchdog, CityWatch.

DEEGAN ON LA-High tech will step up in 2019 to help make life a little easier for the homeless in LA, thanks to a new app called “Get Help for Homeless.” It will give first responders in Los Angeles access to medical, mental health, recovery and shelter resources for homeless people. 

GELFAND’S WORLD--It's been a demanding year. We've had several of the worst brush fires in the history of California. In the northern part of the state, the death toll has been astonishing, at more than 80 in one incident.

MUST READ-In recent decades, I have been one of those celebrating the power of urbanism: the capacity of cities and towns to create economic dynamism, expanded life choices, opportunities for active living, and healthier, more resource-efficient lifestyles.

ONE MAN’S OPINION-By last week, We the People had deteriorated to a state of FUBI or F’d Up Beyond Imagination.

ALL THAT MONEY CAN’T BUY-Imagine you were the most powerful person in the world for a second. Yes, really. What would you do?

CAPITAL & MAIN--It’s over. Following a 21-hour, all-night bargaining marathon, United Teachers Los Angeles president Alex Caputo-Pearl and Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Austin Beutner appeared with Mayor Eric Garcetti on Tuesday morning, the sixth day of the L.A. teachers’ walkout, to announce a tentative settlement of the first Los Angeles teachers strike in 30 years. 

ALPERN AT LARGE--Being homeless is NOT a crime, but it is a sad state of human affairs, and really has no place in a modern, civilized nation such as ours. That said, urinating and defecating and breaking into a person's yard and/or home certainly IS. 

NEW GEOGRAPHY--The decisions by Amazon and Google to expand into the New York area have led some pundits to claim that the nation’s high-tech economic future will be shaped in dense urban areas.

FIRST PERSON-The collusive settlement of the UTLA-LAUSD strike just announced on the morning of January 22 by LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner, UTLA's President Alex Caputo-Pearl, and LA Mayor Eric Garcetti predictably fails to consider the real reasons for LAUSD's longstanding failure to educate its predominantly minority and still segregated student population.

PLATKIN ON PLANNING-The current FBI investigations of City Hall corruption are over due.  Hopefully, the FBI will now reach past the low hanging fruit of sweetheart pay-to-play deals to uncover hard facts and produce indictments of higher levels of corruption. 

EASTSIDER-Are Charter Schools really public schools like they claim? It depends on your definition. And the recent UTLA strike isn’t going to resolve the issue. 

OTHER WORDS--The Supreme Court just paved the way for Trump’s ban on transgender people serving in the military to move ahead, at least pending other court challenges.

@THE GUSS REPORT-Cue the music: Here she comes to save the day! On Tuesday, Jan Perry, a former Los Angeles City Councilmember, threw her hat into the race to replace Mark Ridley-Thomas as the Los Angeles County Supervisor from its Second District.

ONE MAN’S OPINION-If one could explain how America went from the United States of America to the present mess, it is unlikely anyone would take the time to listen. 

DIVIDED ON THE BORDER-There are things that go unquestioned in the national discussion.

RELIGION VS. THE LAW--Four women were found guilty of misdemeanors and are facing possible prison time for leaving jugs of water and canned food in the Arizona desert for migrants braving the scorching triple-digit temperatures during the summer of 2017.

CAL MATTERS REPORT--When Sheila Kuehl of Santa Monica became California’s first openly gay or lesbian legislator in 1994, a cartoonist depicted the occasion.

EDUCATION POLITICS--I walked the line in ’89.  I was a teacher in Los Angeles Unified School District when the teachers’ union (UTLA) led the last teachers’ strike.