It was the kind of week when you thought that if you bumped into just one more political candidate, you’d run away and barricade yourself in your home. It always gets that way during election time. You realize that you have not heard an original public utterance since sometime last year, and can barely keep […]
Month: July 2018
L.A. Lawyer
It’s the end of an epoch in the Los Angeles City Attorney‘s Office.James Hahn, having held that office for what could be a record four terms, must now leave. And now it’s someone else‘s turn to be elected city lawyer.But whose? While it’s the second-highest city elective office, its low-six-figure salary reduces the job‘s allure […]
Fairness Dictates
Without putting the county‘s finances even slightly out of joint, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors this week managed to raise by 50 cents the $6.25 hourly salaries of its 74,000 home health-care workers. This came despite the state’s refusal to pay what county officials say is Sacramento‘s own fair share of the workers’ […]
Coming Alive
By winning the face-off with Los Angeles‘ mayor and police chief last week, the Los Angeles City Council finally did something in this millennium to justify its existence. Better still, what it did might, after a generation of failed tries, create an LAPD that reflects the city’s 21st-century needs.Of course, there were short-term reasons for […]
The Code of Cordoba
The subtle entity known as Cordoba Corporation used to thrive on bad publicity. Cordoba has bid for contracts as diverse as building demolition and subway construction, though lately it has been doing computer-programming work. Formerly located solely in Los Angeles, it now also lists offices in Irvine, Oakland and — not surprisingly — Sacramento. That‘s […]
The Part-Time Machine
NOW PLAYINGTrump Administration Sued By Several US States Over 3-D GunsSessions defends Rosenstein in impeachment moveFederal Judge Rejects Trump, Lawsuit ContinuesVladimir Putin Does Not Plan To Reject The US DollarThe EU Reportedly Simplified Their Talk With Cue Cards For Donald TrumpWhite House to Hide Donald Trumps Calls With Foreign LeadersTrump’s Attacks On NATO Are Like […]
Battle for Prosperity
By October’s second weekend, it was clear to everyone in town that an end to labor strife was somewhere in the unseeable distance.The MTA outage was in its fourth week. Daylong, rolling strikes closed King-Drew, the county‘s third busiest public hospital, and curtailed services at Harbor-UCLA, the number-two medical center. The increased confidence of county […]
The Bereaved
With coffee, cookies and a sorrow appropriate to the removal of a brain-dead relative‘s life support, the city attorney, five City Council members, Police Commission president, chief deputy mayor, Assistant U.S. Attorney General Bill Lann Lee and two unnamed others celebrated the signoff of the federal LAPD consent decree.”This is not a celebration,“ stressed Councilwoman […]
Where Money Didn’t Talk
All over America, in the months before this millennial election, campaign-spending records fell like grain under the harvester’s scythe. Some big spenders were big winners. The nation’s champ spender, of course, was Democrat Jon Corzine, who, according to the Associated Press, spent more than $60 million to become senator-elect of New Jersey. Well, it was […]
Upheaval Update
In all its ocean-linerly majesty, the Los Angeles Times veered a few degrees from its usual course last week better to scrutinize the ongoing crisis in Los Angeles’ ramshackle Department of Health Services. The story, which could have appeared at any time over the past year, spoke of endless waits in clinics, understaffed wards, crowded […]