LOS ANGELES

@THE GUSS REPORT-This column tried to call into Tuesday’s LA City Council meeting just hours after it was announced that another of its own, Jose Huizar, had been arrested on RICO/racketeering charges. (Former Councilmember Mitch Englander is expected to change his federal corruption plea to guilty in early July.) 

RANTZ & RAVEZ-“A Failure of the Leadership of the City” -- Rick J. Caruso, developer of the Grove, the Commons and other shopping centers when asked about the recent riots in Los Angeles that caused major damage to his property and others in Metropolitan LA. 

SKID ROW-In light of recent events, "We, the People of Skid Row" feel the need to speak out about what's happening in our community. 

GELFAND’S WORLD--Bill Hopkins was a man with a dry sense of humor and a passion for improving the lot of his fellow humans.

CLIMATE POLITCS--Over the past 20 years, like clockwork, severe droughts have hit the Amazon every five years with regularity 2005, 2010, 2015. Of course, droughts have hit the Amazon rainforest throughout paleoclimate history, but this time it’s different.

CONNECTING CALIFORNIA--There may be no better symbol of Sacramento’s failure as California’s capital than the 18-foot-tall stainless-steel sculpture outside the city’s downtown sports arena.

GUEST COMMENTARY-Los Angeles does not need so much a defunding of the LAPD as a transition of their mission back to one of civic engagement and public protection. 

DEEGAN ON LA-The lights that have been out in vacant apartments and condos across Los Angeles may start to burn brightly if voters approve a vacancy, or “empty home,” ballot measure if it appears in the November election. 

GELFAND’S WORLD--How did Donald Trump do on his grand comeback tour this weekend?

REAL ESTATE POLITICS-Sam Zell, chairman of Equity Residential and Equity LifeStyle Properties, is worth $4.8 billion.

GUEST WORDS-Southeastern Los Angeles County is a jumble of small cities containing mostly poor and/or immigrant residents who have been clobbered by the COVID-19 pandemic and the deep recession it induced.

ALPERN AT LARGE--Juneteenth just happened. July 4th is coming up.

CLIMATE CHANGE POLITICS--Never before this year 2020 has the world-famous Doomsday Clock registered only “100 seconds-to-midnight.” 

VOICE OF PEACE-My wife and I are both professionals who teach and counsel individuals and couples about how to handle their conflicts better.

PLANNING WATCH-To much of the public “Department of City Planning” brings up images of widespread gentrification, a former Director of Planning paying a $281,000 fine for lobbying his former colleagues on behalf of real estate developers, and hundreds of eyes averted from FBI investigations and indictments of their bosses accepting bribes to approve major projects.

ELECTION POLITICS-Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speak during a press conference following a vote in the U.S. House on ending US military involvement in the war in Yemen, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., April 4, 2019.

GELFAND’S WORLD--We’ve experienced two weeks of protests and marches demanding that American cities and police forces reform the way they treat people.

LA WATCHDOG--The City Council’s fully loaded budget of over $55 million is less than transparent.

@THE GUSS REPORT-On Wednesday morning, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott introduced to a national television audience a proposed plan for police reform.

GUEST WORDS--As we all looked on, in horror over the murder of Mr. Floyd, we, collectively as a nation, thought something must be done; a tipping point was reached.