LOS ANGELES

ALPERN AT LARGE--To many of us who remembered the dream of more responsive Los Angeles city government with respect to transportation and planning, and who remember the push for Neighborhood Councils and Neighborhood Plans, the year 2016 is part of an interesting turning point with respect to how Mayor Eric Garcetti and other City Hall officials chose to work with their citizens. 

GELFAND’S WORLD--I had heard about the fight over Yosemite naming rights, but you have to see it to really feel it. In previous years, visitors arriving through the southern entrance would pass the Wawona Hotel.

D.C. DISPATCH-Taking over Henry Waxman’s job is no easy undertaking.

President Donald Trump attacked California on Thursday for doing what he and his administration asked it to do: agreeing to deploy state National Guard members to help the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency.

ALPERN AT LARGE--Despite the attempts of sneaky and agenda-driven idiots, ideologues, and creepy developers to ruin the good that transportation does for an economy, and for civilization, we're now getting into the BORING, the TUNNELING portion of our mass/rapid transit efforts for 21st-Century Los Angeles.

TACTLESS IN SF--Editor’s Note:On Tuesday, April 17, SB 827 died in the California State Senate Transportation and Housing Committee by a 7-4 vote.

EASTSIDER-Mayor Garcetti got ahead of a critical vote by the Metropolitan Water District over the Delta Tunnels, aka WaterFix, with his very own Daily Newsarticle about a New Mulholland moment. If you believe his tale, I know where the Tooth Fairy lives. 

PRESENT TENSE--The most controversialstate housing bill in recent memory died with a pretty resounding thud.

CORRUPTION WATCH-In the U.S., the term Fourth Estate means the media. The first three estates are the three branches of government -- the Executive, the Legislative and the Judicial.

GUEST COMMENTARY--On Monday, Mayor Garcetti gave his State of the City speech in the People’s Hall, City Council Chambers. 

GUEST WORDS--California’s transportation future is bright. In every area of transportation innovation, California-based companies are leading the way.

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL—Just when the Trumpster had you convinced that Americans had lost that touch of humility that once accompanied its braggadocio, along comes a life altering crisis and an airplane full of heroes … and humility. Gives us pause. Maybe our DNA hasn’t been totally rewritten. Maybe there is hope. Take a look.  Let me know what you think.

FIRST PERSON-Could somebody explain to me why an unprovoked and senseless attack by Salman Abidi in 2017 on an audience of predominantly innocent children watching an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England is called “terrorism,” while systematic government-sanctioned unprovoked attacks on predominantly innocent children in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and elsewhere are referred to as "collateral damage"? 

GELFAND’S WORLD--Shakespeare's Richard III is a disturbing play to experience at any time, but it is particularly haunting in this era of ostentatious, authoritarian public lying.

GUEST COMMENTARY--In this once-reasonably-fair democracy in the year of our ostensible Lord 2018, two African-American guyssitting peaceablyin a Philadelphia Starbucks waiting for a friend to show up for a meeting were charged with "trespassing" by Starbucks staff, asked "politely" three times to leave, and thenarrested by a swarm of six cops when they declined to do so. 

TRANSIT TALK-Senate Bill No. 827, as newly amended in the Senate on April 9, 2018, was introduced by Senator Wiener, with principal co-authors Senator Skinner and Assembly Member Ting, and co-author Senator Hueso. It stirred a hornet’s nest when introduced, and the recent amendments have not calmed the swarm of angry hornets, but it did clarify their transit definitions: 

ALPERN AT LARGE--Our society has been burned so hard, and from all sides, by those breaking the rules getting rich--and at the expense of those following the rules--that this article might appear to be woefully naive and out of date.  Rules are for suckers, and lawbreakers WIN too damned often to decry the lack of rules, right? 

BCK FILE-When Dr. Asif Mahmood decided to throw his hat in the ring, he pledged “not to take a penny from insurance or pharma or tobacco, which place an obstruction between the common man or woman and their right to healthcare.”

EDUCATION POLITICS-Under District rules, every charter that is submitted to the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) for approval must contain District Required Language (DRL). Some of this language simply ensures that the charter conforms to the California Education Code. Other sections cover requirements specific to the LAUSD, like conforming to the Chanda Smith Modified Consent Decree.

@THE GUSS REPORT-Big, rich crocks teeming with irony landed on the LA Times last week, and the news got worse for it by the minute. 

CORRUPTION WATCH-The use of code words has no honest role in clean government. Yet this is exactly what the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye, does. Using code words to signal to other people in the corrupt judiciary hierarchy, she makes her dictates known but escapes responsibility for her actions.