Maybe it’s because the rest of this fair state doesn’t always have its largest city’s interests at heart. But almost any time the Legislature proposes a law exclusively affecting Los Angeles, it’s a rotten deal.Two years ago, for instance, Sacramento proposed to ease the law on the breakup of cities — but only in Los […]
Month: July 2018
The Mayor Blinked
After two years during which the Los Angeles city-charter-reform process had all the exhilaration of the America’s Cup race, the game suddenly turned into tournament pingpong last Friday, with what seemed like a new serve every moment. Most of the action involved our mercurial mayor, who, having started the day like Attila the Hun, went […]
Adieu to Alatorre
It was freezing in the Los Angeles City Council Chamber last Friday afternoon. “They must have turned off the heat,” another reporter said. Though it was 70 degrees outside, it felt like 40 indoors; I sneezed as I zipped up my jacket and put on my hat. You always get these portents when you least […]
Chartered Out
The absentee landlord of this placewhere I used to live had his own way of settling disputes among us tenants. He’d listen very carefully to you asserting your right to keep a bicycle on your shared veranda. Then he’d tell you he’d think about it. A day or two later, you and the other disputant […]
Let the Sunshine In
About 25 years ago came a quietrevolution in local politics. Previously, governing agencies had tended to hold decisive get-togethers out of the public eye. Many deeds were decided upon and done that might not have been done at all had anyone out of the power loop been observing the process.Back then, local politicians sometimes even […]
Parade’s End
I love a parade. And that is exactly what marched through the Los Angeles City Council last Wednesday. It was the Unified Charter Parade, and everyone else who was there seemed to love it too.If the parade lacked brass bands and fire engines, it had speeches and celebrations: There was Erwin Chemerinsky at his most […]
Out and No Wonder
The City Hall system worked last month. That itself is news. Events showed that the city’s substandard general managers can actually be ushered out the door without undue resort to violence.This certainly runs against the dogma according to Mayor Richard Riordan, who has long been snorting that he ought to have the power unilaterally to […]
The Eastside’s Prague Spring
All that’s changed now; there’s been a local Velvet Revolution. The posters are for Victor Griego, Armando Hernandez, Cathy T. Molina, Juan Marcos Tirado, Alvin Parra, Juan J. Gutierrez. Who are all these people? And while we’re at it, where have all the Richard Alatorre posters gone?Yes, King Richard has finally abdicated. Now all of […]
The Grand Finale?
Comrie had an interesting role in the charter endgame. City CAO since the early ’80s, he had been disempowered by the Riordan administration when, early on, it grabbed most of his budgetary responsibilities. Over the past year, Comrie appeared to be clinging to his increasingly symbolic city job simply to ensure — without any detectable […]
Credibility Chasm
It is the normal policy of this newspaper that its contributors not respond at length to critical letters to the editor. In the case of a letter from a taxpayer-salaried top city official denying his own demonstrated incompetence, however, such response is seriously warranted.J. Paul Brownridge is, at the moment, still the six-figure-salaried treasurer of […]