LOS ANGELES

@THE GUSS REPORT-If the government of the City of Los Angeles wanted to make its First Amendment troubles even worse than they were last week, it is doing a fine job of that as it seeks to tighten decorum rules on potty-mouthed critics at its public meetings. 

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE-Anybody who's dealt with the Department of City Planning (DCP) in recent years knows that the quality of their environmental assessments is questionable. 

SOCIAL JUSTICE POLITICS-Saturday morning the stage was set for a toe-to-toe battle between two men running to be the next Los Angeles County Sheriff, arguably the most powerful political position in Los Angeles. 

DIRTY POLITICS--In the debate over Proposition 10, UC-Berkeley Professor Kenneth T. Rosen is not the independent expert he wants Californians to believe he is.

EASTSIDER-When the City Council can’t achieve a 15-0 vote by their usual “Brown Act? What Stinkin’ Brown Act” methods, the result gets messy … very messy.

CHATMATES--This is a response to Bob Gelfand’s piece, “Taking Issue with the Author Who Has Issues… With How the Left Presents Itself.” 

BELL VIEW--Just before retiring from the Supreme Court in 2010, Justice Stevens took one last crack at Justice Scalia’s judicial philosophy.

CORRUPTION WATCH-The County of Los Angeles has revealed another aspect of the Garcetti’s housing fraud.

GUEST COMMENTARY-Is everyone fit for college? Is everyone going to be working in the tech world? The answer is NO. 

GELFAND’S WORLD--It's the ultimate irony -- watching professional climate-change deniers quoting the predictions of modern science.

RANTZ & RAVEZ-In my last CityWatch article on August 30, I wrote about a Rave (a good deed) and how I assisted a man in search of his wife’s purse and cell phone after she forgot them in a shopping cart and drove off.

PLATKIN ON PLANNING-Los Angeles’s sidewalks are far more than broken-down, unsafe concrete slabs long ignored and now overdue for major repairs.

CAL MATTERS--As fate would decree, both of California’s U.S. senators, Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee, both played starring roles in last week’s confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, and both had personal political agendas. (Photo above: Senator Kamala Harris, left, with Senator Dianne Feinstein.)

ALPERN AT LARGE--One of the most sacred parts of the trust between government and its constituents (or, restated, the citizenry which is SUPPOSED to be the #1 constituency) is how government spends its money. 

CLIMATE POLITICS--The Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco this week is positively thick with solidarity.

DEEGAN ON LA-The Miracle Mile has it all:

VOICES--Once upon a time, in a town at the far end of the city, stakeholders actually got what their taxes paid for, and lived in a place that had very few homeless, vagrants and drug dealers.

CORRUPTION WATCH-The mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead said, “seek simplicity and distrust it.”

GELFAND’S WORLD--Back in 1964, Roger Miller wrote King of the Road.Maybe it wasn't quite at the level of perfection of Dang Me,but it does speak to our current homeless question. 

BCK FILE: FOOD DEMOCRACY-At least several times each week, well-heeled Angelenos gather at galas to raise money for various causes.

ALPERN AT LARGE--In my last piece on those Bird scooters showing up everywhere, I may have come across as too "anti-scooter", which is not consistent with the pro-mobility efforts I've pursued for many years.