While it is not easy to say no to State’s nine million public school and higher education students, it is easy to say no to the educational-industrial complex that is expected to spend over $10 million to buy our approval of a ballot measure authorizing the issuance of $15 billion of general obligation bonds.   This […]

“I’m shocked, shocked to find gambling going on here.” Like Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains) in the 1942 classic movie, Casablanca, City Council President Herb Wesson and his fellow members of the City Council were shocked, shocked when the FBI raided the offices and home of Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar in November looking […]

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (“ILWU”) and the Pacific Maritime Association (“PMA”), an organization that represents the Pacific Coast maritime industry, have entered into an agreement that will allow APM Terminals, a subsidiary of Maersk, the giant Danish shipping company, to proceed with its $1.3 million infrastructure improvement program that will allow APM to […]

The special election for the $500 million parcel tax that will benefit the Los Angeles Unified School District is a little more than three weeks away.  As a result, we will be bombarded by mailers and advertisements urging us to reject or support Measure EE, inappropriately named the “Quality Teacher, Class Size Reduction, and Local […]

United Teachers Los Angeles, the union that represents over 30,000 teachers, is spending millions to seize control of the Los Angeles Unified School District.  If UTLA is successful, the union will use its influence to eviscerate charter and magnet schools, adversely impacting approximately 200,000 students. There are two ways that voters can halt this power […]

The Los Angeles Unified School District voted on Thursday to place on the June ballot a “leap of faith” parcel tax designed to raise $500 million.  This tax will be based on the square footage of any building in the 710 square mile area served by LAUSD. This represents a 7% increase in our real […]

Angelenos and the City of Los Angeles dodged a potentially fatal bullet on Tuesday, November 6, when 58% of the City’s voters said NO to Charter Amendment B, which, according a Los Angeles Times editorial, was “one of the most ill-conceived, half-baked measures to come out of City Hall in years, and that’s saying something.” […]

Liability claims against the City of Los Angeles have caused continuing nightmares for the City’s budget mavens. Over the last five years, the total payouts and settlements for legal actions totaled $541 million, an average of $108 million a year, double the amount for the previous five years (2009-2013) of $264 million, an average of […]

Charter Amendment B: Shall the City Charter be amended to allow the City to establish a municipal financial institution or bank? The proponents of the November ballot measure that would allow the City of Los Angeles to establish a bank tell us that it would be an independent entity, free of political interference, because it […]

On Tuesday, November 28, the politically appointed Board of Water and Power Commissioners rubber stamped the transfer of $242 million of Ratepayer money from the DWP’s debt burdened Power System to City Hall without any meaningful discussion. There was no documentation that disclosed how the Department determined the $242 million transfer.  Nor did the Board […]