Los Angeles City Council Rejects BDS (tags)
BDS shot down in Los Angeles
San Diego Queers Split Over City Redistricting (tags)
San Diego?s Queer community has split over their response to the redrawing of district lines for the City Council. On one side are the members of the self-styled ?LGBT Redistricting Task Force,? who are pushing a major redesign of the city?s Queer-influenced District 3, pushing out the people of color and less affluent Queers in City Heights and adding more upscale neighborhoods like Mission Hills and Bankers? Hill to the Hillcrest/North Park core of the district. On the other side are Queer residents of the City Heights community of Azalea Park, who bought there because gentrification had priced them out of Hillcrest and North Park and now find themselves threatened that they will no longer be represented by a Queer Councilmember. The current District 3 is San Diego?s most ethnically diverse; the district proposed by the LGBT Redistricting Task Force and the Hillcrest Town Council will be 70 percent white.
Two Openly Gay Councilmembers Debate Sales-Tax Increase (tags)
Rival City Councilmembers Todd Gloria and Carl DeMaio — the first two openly Gay men elected to the San Diego City Council — spoke at the Hillcrest Town Council September 14 and debated Proposition D on the November 2 ballot. This would allow the city to raise its sales tax one-half cent for five years to plug the $72 billion hole in its current budget — but only after the city implements 10 “reforms” reducing its pension obligations to workers and making it easier to privatize city jobs. But even in Gloria’s relatively liberal district, the polite but hostile response from the audience made it clear the measure will be a tough sell to city voters.
San Diego Common Cause Debates Strong-Mayor Government (tags)
On June 8 voters in San Diego will decide whether to make the city's experiment in a strong-mayor form of government permanent. The ballot measure will also increase the size of the City Council from eight to nine (at a cost of $1 to $1.5 million per year) and increase the threshold for sustaining a mayor's veto of a Council action from five votes to six. San Diego's branch of Common Cause debated the issue February 13 and questioned whether the strong mayor has made local government more or less accountable, and whether the real purpose of strong-mayor is to increase the already massive influence of business and developers over local government.
City Hall Scandal Hits Baltimore After “The Wire” Exits (tags)
There is never a dull moment in Baltimore, Maryland. It seems as soon as HBO’s “The Wire” program left town, our Mayor, Sheila Dixon, became the subject of a state corruption probe. It’s all mostly about two fur coats and some travel trips with an ex-boyfriend. At the time, he was a developer doing business with the city. Does it add up to bribery or is it a tempest in a teapot? The Grand Jury holds the answer to that question. Stay tuned.
Leuren Moret Describes Vicious Attacks on Whistleblowers (tags)
June 15, 2006 by Leuren Moret To the Berkeley City Council and City Manager:
Hope Springs . . . at the South Central Farm (tags)
Last month, the Trust for Public Land negotiated purchase option with developer Ralph Horowitz that depended on the City coming up with a $5M match for $6M raised by the South Central Farm. Five days ago, the City reneged on the deal. Friday, with three days left, the Farmers and their supporters, ever hopeful, demanded that Mayor Villaraigosa step up to support the Farm.
San Bernardino City Council Turns Down Racist Petition (tags)
In a too-close vote, the San Bernardino City Council voted against the Illegal Immigration Relief Act Ordinance, and turned it over to the voters.
Why the Farmers Must Win (tags)
In its Saturday editorial, the Los Angeles Times reduced virtually all the civic concerns of the historically neglected South Central to “niceties” and condemned a swath of the district to being a “concrete-and-asphalt” wasteland,“ "a seemingly endless sweep” of “industrial warehouses, packing plants, and junkyards.” It proclaimed that developer Ralph Horowitz must triumph, and the South Central Farm must be razed. The Times was wrong.
Who hired ex-CIA agents to snoop around the city attorney?
Ballots across the West promise Power to the people (tags)
Public ownership of electric power is an idea whose time has come – at least in San Francisco, Las Vegas and in the Big Sky state of Montana. Voters in these western locales have a chance to vote Nov. 5 for ballot questions that open the way for city or state takeover or buyout of private utility companies.
Neighborhood Councils: Democracy or Crap? (tags)
Per the new L.A. City Charter (1999), we will have Neighborhood Councils, for better or for worse. The activist community in L.A., which seems to be gaining momentum, is perhaps the only constituency that can stop these councils from becoming a total sham.