VOICES

VOICES--Recently, the LA Times wrote an editorial urging our LA City Councilmembers to “put the brakes on all these tax breaks,” and as a Los Angeles taxpayer, I couldn’t agree more. The piece mentioned several specific examples of tax breaks conceded by “City leaders,” worth “half a billion dollars that have been approved in recent years,” to fund various hotel projects underway in Downtown Los Angeles. Moreover, there was a tax break recently awarded by the City councilmembers to a private Hotel developer worth $103.5 million dollars that was taken without public or council comment. 

VOICES-The main problem that I have with Trump's border wall is its outmoded usefulness in the 21st century. Let's face it, walls are not only a part of a different time period, they are part of a different mindset.  

VOICES--In 1986, CBS reporter Lesley Stahl went with her husband and daughter for a valedictory meeting with President Ronald Reagan before ending her stint as a White House correspondent. (She would later return to cover George H.W. Bush as well.) Before she went in, Stahl was told to ask no questions. When Reagan appeared, Stahl was faced with a befuddled man who did not seem to know where he was. 

VOICES--One year has passed since LA voters approved $1.2 billion in Measure HHH to end LA’s homeless crisis — and the City Council and Mayor Eric Garcetti have failed to erect a single unit of homeless housing.

VOICES--Los Angeles is in the throes of an unprecedented housing affordability crisis, with homelessness at historic highs.  So why does our planning department see fit to allow developers to buy up affordable, rent-stabilized buildings and convert them to luxury, million-dollar condominiums? 

VOICES--The state Legislature has repeatedly beaten down common-sense attempts to fix the most egregious flaws in the social-engineering experiments known as Prop. 47 and Prop. 57.