LOS ANGELES

PLATKIN ON PLANNING-Sometimes it is important to step back from the weighty city planning and environmental issues confronting Los Angeles to focus on the small, personal steps we can take to make LA a more attractive and sustainable city. This is why I want to focus on drought tolerant gardens, something the minority of Angelenos who live in single-family homes can act on. 

PERSPECTIVE-California has got its own version of a Runaway Train, a 1985 Oscar-nominated movie about escaped convicts who steal a train. It does not end well, as the out-of-control consist hurdles towards a violent end, with the lives of the convicts and their hostages at stake. 

EASTSIDER-In lieu of my normal straight reporting job on these events, let me just say my take-away from Tuesday evening’s DWP Reform Forum, organized by the Pat Brown Institute and CSULA, is all in the headline above -- after attending this forum, trying to put DWP Governance Reform on this year’s ballot would be a colossal mistake. 

HERE’S WHAT I KNOW-(CityWatch reported this disturbing story … an example of how money blinds, how greedy green can overwhelm green parks and wildlife … earlier this month. This is a sad follow to that story.) The Make Good Group LLC, a marketing agency that bills itself as The Social Impact Company, is behind the three-day, multi-stage AngelFest that could bring 65,000 visitors per day to the Sepulveda Basin (photo above) this October, but not without continued pushback from neighbors and conservation groups including the Audubon Society. 

MY LA--"The City Came into Being To Preserve Life, It Came for the Good Life" – Aristotle, from the walls of the Tom Bradley Room atop City Hall, quoted by Mayor Garcetti in his opening remarks at the PBI DWP Reform Forum. 

BAD DEAL KEEPS GETTING BADDER--Now, this very week, is time for Time Warner to have a fire sale on its obnoxiously priced SportsNet LA channel, not just for the good of Los Angeles and Dodger fans, but to save its own hide. 

GUEST WORDS--It is not impossible to tell how Hiram Johnson  … great American progressive and one-time California governor … would be keeping score on his Progressive Era reforms, and in particular the initiative process. He would clearly see some successes to set beside the shortcomings the Bee editorial board pointed out last week. 

GUEST COMMENTARY--Good intentions are great until they lead to unfavorable outcomes. Unfortunately, California’s state legislature’s good intentions may push Los Angeles residents into a tough spot. 

WORKERS TAKE A BREATH--Hoping to avoid a costly ballot fight, California lawmakers and labor unions on Saturday reportedly reached an agreement to raise the state minimum wage to $15 an hour gradually by 2023. 

GUEST WORDS--With some of the richest celebrities in the world — and thousands of people on the streets — Los Angeles is the definition of an economically divided city. 

DEEGAN ON LA-Have you ever heard of an “urban heat island?” Do you know how it affects our environment? Do you know how developers can use carbon management techniques to help offset the effects of the heat and carbon impacts generated by the tall vertical masses they want to build? 

NEIGHBORHOODS LA--Oh no, Los Angeles's most entertaining homeowners association seems like it might be getting its shit together. But at least it's going out in a blaze of restraining orders and nasty emails.

FOX ON POLITICS--Labor unions, legislative leaders and the governor came together on a minimum wage deal to presumably keep a minimum wage initiative off the ballot – presumably because there is more than one way to get on the ballot. More on that later.

TRANSIT POLITICS--Having just returned from Charleston, Savannah, and Atlanta for a weeklong family vacation, I can assure you that cities both small and large do what they can to encourage a local economy, encourage proper neighborhood preservation and densification, and create jobs and affordable housing.  

EDUCATION POLITICS-Every week for the last five years I have been contacted by what seems to be a never ending parade of targeted senior teachers. These are the professionals that are at the top of the salary scale who make up 93% of teachers being charged and subsequently removed from their careers at LAUSD.

THIS IS WHAT I KNOW--A Los Angeles neighborhood grassroots matching funds program may have opened the door to a second candidate landing in hot water. LA City Council Member Nury Martinez is under Federal investigation in connection with her 2015 reelection efforts.

RETIREMENT POLITICS--More than seven million people—over one-fifth of California’s population—work without a path to retirement. They have neither a 401(k) — the so-called “roller-coaster plan” tied to the stock market — nor a traditional pension that was once considered a worker’s right and which is now a rare species outside of government employment or the public education system.

BUSINESS WATCH--Recently, when my firm, Spectrum Location Solutions, completed a study that found about ten thousand companies left California in the last eight years, it hardly surprised leaders in the business community. 

REVITALIZATION POLITICS--In the early 13th century, a wealthy merchant’s son knelt before a crucifix in a small, crumbling chapel near Assisi, a village in Italy, and received a message from the Lord: “Go, Francis, and repair my house, which as you see is falling into ruin.”

INSIDER VIEW--After Target tried to construct a patently illegal store at the corner of Sunset and Western in Hollywood, the courts ordered Target to stop construction. 

Upset that it could not build a 75 foot store in a zone which limited the height to 35 feet, Target decided to continue the legal fight while changing the law so that its illegal building would be legal. 

EASTSIDER-I know it must seem like I beat up on the City of Santa Monica. I have to admit, though, it’s just so easy to do. But hey, it’s only fair to commend them when they get one right -- in this case, their recent June 2015 Home Sharing Ordinance.