LOS ANGELES

PLANNING WATCH-Like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, for whom there was, “Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink,” today’s homeless and over-crowded find themselves awash in a sea of vacant residential units – continuously expanding -- that they cannot afford.

TENANTS RIGHTS-The CARES Act is supposed to freeze evictions for tens of millions of renters. But nobody’s enforcing the law. 

LOS ANGELES-- With media-saturation coverage of COVID-19, three New York billionaires will try to take advantage, moving quietly and swiftly through approvals to build two skyscrapers on the active Hollywood Earthquake Fault in Los Angeles.

EASTSIDER-At the Monday Investment Committee Meeting, CalPERS staff quietly pulled its Consent Calendar Proposal for further “delegated authority” to staff.

AN ONGOING SERIES-“You can pay me now, or you can pay me later.” -- from FRAM oil filter advertisements. 

RANTZ & RAVEZ-All our lives have drastically changed in the past month.

ALPERN AT LARGE--As stated in my last CityWatch piece, we did NOT start this crisis.

GUEST WORDS-The COVID-19 pandemic is different from anything most communities and the business community have ever faced—and yet, in many ways, it’s also a more extreme version of the same challenges we confront every day, the need to reach the more vulnerable communities across Los Angeles County.

GUESTWORDS-As controversies about the “reopening” of America loom over our lives, nothing seems as intrinsically irrelevant -- yet possibly as critically important -- as how soon major spectator sports return. 

@THE GUSS REPORT-It’s all about the testing, LA politicians repeatedly tell us.

ONE MAN’S OPINION-The ubiquitous nature of Corruptionism is what caused our horribly incompetent response to Covid-19 and could result in our society’s demise. 

VOICES-Last month my wife and I walked through Carthay Circle, a neighborhood sandwiched between Fairfax and Beverly Hills between Wilshire on the north and Olympic on the south.

@TheGussReport – Of the many titles people wear during their life, the one for which Lori Golden will most widely be remembered is that of Founder, Chief Editor and Publisher of the widely distributed, San Fernando Valley-based, The Pet Press, the ubiquitous Pennysaver-like newspaper found in every veterinary office, pet adoption center and high-kill pound* across Southern California.

DEEGAN ON LA-In these uncertain bad times, we can see goodness everywhere, showing us that there are many angels in the City of the Angels.

GELFAND’S WORLD--By this I mean something that goes on and on, sometimes becoming horribly painful and always, even for the noncombatants, an enduring irritation – months that creep into years and, in a worst case scenario, half a decade. And every night on the TV news, we are told the latest death toll. 

VOICES-This morning, I waited in line for 45 minutes to get into Trader Joes Grocery in Burbank.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING CRISIS-The City of Los Angeles continued to see more Ellis Act Eviction applications filed in 2020 by landlords and developers. 

PERSPECTIVE--Covid-19 and climate change are testing a food system that critics say has lost its resilience.

LETTER TO DEPT OF PLANNING-On April 13th I received a Courtesy Notice email regarding an online hearing scheduled for Thursday, April 23, 2020, for the proposed real estate project at 1309 Pacific in LA’s San Pedro neighborhood (CPC-2019-4908-DB-SPR). 

PUBLIC HEALTH-Our planet is out of balance. This year, on April 22, 2020, we celebrate the 50^th Anniversary of Earth Day.

SKID ROW-I’m writing on behalf of the Skid Row Neighborhood Council-Formation Committee (SRNC-FC), "Skid Row Public Space Task Force," ISSUES AND SOLUTIONS, and "We, the People of Skid Row," who know that the first casualty of COVID-19 in URM contracted the disease weeks ago.