Entries tagged 'government'

the process of plopping a new police headquarters next to city hall in downtown los angeles ground a little further forward today, when the board of public works voted to approve the final environment impact report along with the waiver to go forward with unmitigated issues (like traffic).

my fiancée celia and i were there to lend our support. we tried to get one of the community members speaking to raise the example of how la gran marcha would have shut down the police headquarters at its new location, but he chose not to bring it up.

not a surprising outcome, but still a little disappointing.

(the picture is of kjell hagen, one of the founders of gallery row, addressing the board.)

lapd caught the sheriff’s department apparently dumping a former inmate in downtown, or actually relocating them from over near the men’s central jail to vaguely near the midnight mission.

the sheriff’s department claims they dropped the man off at the food line for the mission (at 10am on a tuesday). but if i remember correctly, one of the features of the new mission was supposed to be that the food line didn’t go out on the street. it seems like an easily verifiable (or falsifiable) statement — too bad the reporters didn’t.

blogging.la follows up on the old proposal for the city of los angeles to adopt open source and apply the money saved to hiring more police officers, and finds that the proposal appears to have gone off the rails. i wish i could say i was surprised.

but something that comes out in the report filed about current open source usage by the city is there are several departments using mysql, including the city ethics commission, and several others that think they could use it. cool.

i got my renewed drivers license yesterday (less than a week after renewing it online!) and besides putting the donor sticker on my card, i also registered with the donate life california site. it’s cool that they’ve made it so painless to register for organ donation.

since i registered online, my new license has my old picture. it also has my old weight — fifteen pounds too high, and that gap is growing. i thought i remembered reading once that you should get a new license if the weight on your card is off by more than ten pounds, but i couldn’t find anything about that on the renewal site. and given the choice between renewing online and having to go in, it was an easy call.

the los angeles times reports about graffiti-style murals in boyle heights that don’t pass muster with the art cops. there’s even a few (undersized) pictures.

at grand performances, the emcee usually points out that the state of california spends the least amount of money on the arts, per capita. here you have privately-funded art that the government is deciding has to be destroyed just because it didn’t get to stick its fingers in the pot. be careful what you wish for.

i think the los angeles downtown news actually managed to scoop eric on his election as treasurer of the downtown los angeles neighborhood council.

there is something like $2 million earmarked for “pedestrian improvements” on broadway in the latest federal transportation bill, and according to the most recent story, $400,000 for crosswalk bumps on temple street near downtown.

i’m still trying to figure out why it is that federal money is going towards these things that should be locally funded.

next tuesday is “is california governable? a conversation with gray davis, pete wilson, george deukmejian, and jerry brown” at the dorothy chandler pavilion, the latest zócalo event.

i got an email inviting me to the “private vip reception” after the event. i don’t know if that’s anything special, or just the usual post-event reception that zócalo does. if it is special, someone has made a grave mistake: a vip reception is hardly some place for someone whose fashion choices don’t rise above which t-shirt to wear and just barely scrapes by with the social skills to order lunch.

(here’s a brilliant shirt: “what would macgyver do?”)

zócalo will be having one of their events at the dorothy chandler pavilion later this month, “is california governable? a conversation with gray davis, pete wilson, george deukmejian, and jerry brown.” that’s four former governors for the price of none — it’s a free event.

they also have an upcoming event with wonkette’s ana marie cox, and one at the california plaza with the editor-in-chief of the hollywood reporter and joel stein, everyone’s favorite hollywood-wannabe opinion columnist for the los angeles times.

tony pierce’s story about jury duty is brilliant. the disappointing part is that he didn’t make it on a jury — imagine the stories if he had.

• downtown los angeles neighborhood council: hosted in las vegas, nevada
• hollywood neighborhood council: hosted in the bay area, california (i think)
• grass roots venice neighborhood council: hosted in santa monica, ca
• greater griffith park neighbrohood council: hosted in houston, texas
• hollywood hills west neighborhood council: hosted in henderson, nevada
• west hills neighborhood council: hosted in phoenix, arizona
• reseda neighborhood council: hosted in baltimore, maryland
• midtown north hollywood neighborhood council: hosted in san jose, california
• historic highland park neighborhood council: hosted in littleton, colorado
• arroyo seco neighborhood council: hosted in phoenix, arizona (maybe)
• east hollywood neighborhood council: hosted in vancouver, british columbia, canada
• central hollywood neighborhood council: hosted in dulles, virginia
• empowerment congress north area neighborhood development council: hosted in st. louis, missouri
• coastal san pedro neighborhood council: hosted in san pedro, california (on a residential cable line)
• mid city west community council: hosted in providence, utah
• neighborhood council of westchester-playa del rey: hosted in chicago, illinois
• northwest san pedro neighborhood council: hosted in dallas, texas
• pico neighborhood council: hosted in seattle, washington
• palms neighborhood council: hosted in baltimore, maryland
• porter ranch neighborhood council: hosted in fort lauderdale, california
• silver lake neighborhood council: hosted in henderson, nevada
• south robertson neighborhood council: hosted in providence, utah
• west van nuys/lake balboa neighborhood council: hosted in lansing, michigan
• westside neighborhood council: hosted in pasadena, california
• wilmington neighborhood council: hosted in kenosha, wisconsin
• mar vista community council: hosted on a dsl line, perhaps in mar vista, california
• la citywide alliance of neighborhood councils: hosted in spokane, washington

except for the two using what are probably residential connections, none of the neighborhood councils managed to find a host within the city of los angeles. (pasadena and santa monica are close, but not quite.)

the east hollywood neighborhood council wins some sort of prize for managing to host outside of the united states.

what i don’t get is why each of the neighborhood councils needs to fend for themselves on this. the city of los angeles appears to have its own datacenter, and surely it would make sense for them to just plop a machine in the rack to handle all of these. heck, it would be like a two-week job (four weekends?) to knock together a basic neighborhood council website toolkit with calendar, weblog, forums, etc.

(for the record again, this site is hosted in los angeles, in koreatown.)