LOS ANGELES

PLANNING WATCH--Real estate interests have sucked up so much of the oxygen at LA’s City Hall that patently false predictions about an impending LA’s population boom continuously pop up  – like methane bubbles at the LaBrea Tar Pits.(Photo above: Methane bubble at the LaBrea Tar Pits: A picture-perfect metaphor for the perpetual forecasts of a Los Angeles population boom.)  

EASTSIDER-I’m guessing that less than five percent of registered voters in California pay any attention to how our California legislature does business.

ONE MAN’S OPINION-The Problem: People who have too much want more at the expense of people who do not have enough.

YOUR NC BUDGET VOICE--The Neighborhood Council Budget Advocates recommended that the Mayor present his Proposed Budget on February 1^st, 80 days earlier than the charter mandated date of April 20^th. 

DEEGAN ON LA-The dog eat dog world for survival was upended a few weeks ago when it became cat versus cat, followed by cat versus car on the 405 freeway.

GELFAND’S WORLD--The annual neighborhood council congress occurred over the weekend and much hilarity ensued.

WE ARE THIS CLOSE--Had the recent 7.1 earthquake and other ongoing seismic shocks hit less than 200 miles northwest of Ridgecrest/China Lake, ten million people in Los Angeles would now be under an apocalyptic cloud, their lives and those of the state and nation in radioactive ruin. (Northridge quake in 1994.)    

@TheGussReport – We kick-off this column with a shout-out to Scott Johnson over at Mayor Sam for his take on one on my recent political nuggets about LA LEY’s cultural appropriation of the LAPD.  

SOUTH OF THE 10--The L.A. County Board of Supervisors (BOS) are sending mixed signals when it comes to states and residents’ rights to choose. Specifically, Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas who runs from votes concerning residents’ rights to choose.

GUEST WORDS-Actress Felicity Huffman could be reading this from prison.  Huffman got 14 days for paying some smart dude to take her daughter’s SAT. (Photo above, Felicity Huffman (left) and Lori Loughlin)

VIEW FROM HERE-On September 11, Evan Dawson, host of Rochester's WXXI's “Connections” had a program on climate nihilism, and discussed author Jonathan Franzen's recent piece in the New Yorker, basically arguing that it's time to spend more effort preparing for climate catastrophe rather than trying to avoid it through small, personal acts of environmentalism. 

ALPERN AT LARGE--Keep LA Moving will hold a national conference in Mar Vista on October 5th to address the impacts of road diets such as the Venice Blvd. Road Diet that--no matter what its over-empowered proponents state--still has devastating and ongoing impacts on businesses, mobility, and quality of life. 

EASTSIDER-The September GPNC meeting was packed to the gills. Even more unusual, the guts of the meeting (and reason for a 50+ turnout) was . . . Street Vendors. And they were pissed. 

THE CITY--We’re not against the police. We’re not against the police department, but we are against police who commit misconduct (and those who help cover it up).

WORLD WATCH-I could not possibly applaud enough the young men and women who flooded the streets in hundreds of cities around the world demanding from their government to take immediate and long-term action to combat climate change.

NEW GEOGRAPHY-To understand how American democracy has worked, and why its future may be limited, it’s critical to look at the issue of property.

IMPEACHMENT WATCH--“Has Trump finally gone too far?” There’s a headline you’ve seen a thousand times.

PLANNING WATCH-Los Angeles, like most American and global cities, is facing three, inter-connected crises.

JUSTICE -The Los Angeles County Department of Probation is overcharging probationers from county jails and state prisons with fines and fees they can’t afford, while the Board of Supervisors directs the cash into county coffers before compensating victims, according to a lawsuit filed September 20 by a grassroots group of formerly incarcerated Angelenos. 

WHISTLEBLOWER WATCH--House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Richard Neal is reportedly sitting on a credible and "potentially explosive" whistleblower complaint alleging that President Donald Trump attempted to influence an IRS audit of his tax returns.

BACKTALK--In regard to your article on the Brentwood Community Council, I think there are a few things that you got wrong and am rather surprised that you wrote a public piece without doing the investigative reporting such a piece would require.