Compare New York’s beleaguered City Hall with L.A.’s and be glad you live here. The last time I looked, Mad Rudy Giuliani’s charming Georgian headquarters was sealed off by cops and barricades. Protesters now get arrested and held overnight under the authority of Gotham’s power-maddened burgermeister, who — having begun his mayoral career with dramatic […]
Category: LA Weekly
The Charter End Game
Maybe I’ve just been lucky. But I never before have been compelled to consider who’s the dumbest Los Angeles City Council member. It’s not as important as knowing who’s the smartest, or most venal. Or least honest.As the fiscal year wanes, however, I think we do need a tentative negative-intelligence assessment. So here we go: […]
After the Fall
So what happens now? The Los Angeles City Council’s firm majority stood firm to the last against the passage of the new city charter. Now the members of that same majority get to be the ones who implement it. What a great idea. But nothing here is quite that simple — except, perhaps, the voting […]
Cruel Britannia
IF YOU READ ONLY ONE HISTORY OF WORLD WAR I IN YOUR life, make sure Niall Ferguson’s The Pity of War isn’t it. For starters, the book isn’t really a history, or even a systemic commentary on what, to much of Europe, remains the major event of the 20th century. Ferguson defines his task as […]
The Living-on-the-Edge Ordinance
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A Long-Unsought Benefit
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 […]
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 […]