Oscar Wilde once described a cynic as somebody who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. So what do you call someone who knows the purported "value" of something without discussing the price?

How about "an L.A.-area politician"? The L.A.-area politicians and political hacks who are...

I don't generally make it a habit of watching other cities' council meetings. It's not a question of lack of interest; I just don't have the time. Initially, I found it a bit surprising that there seem to be a devoted number of people who watch our own council meetings....

We've all had a little bit of time now to digest Governor Brown's pension reform proposal, along with the various reactions. As an elected official who has recognized the need for systemic change when it comes to municipal salaries and benefits and has pushed for it since being elected in...

Kelly Thomas changed everything.

As someone who believes that local government is the best form of democracy -- after all, it's the closest to the people -- I recognize that it can be among the most frustrating forms of government when it fails us. We almost have come to expect...

The initial Metro Century City seismological studies were released in October. To nobody's surprise, they showed that it would be "impossible" for Metro to build a station along Santa Monica Boulevard, but "perfectly safe" to build the station on Constellation, a few hundred feet to the South.

Not...

(Read Part 1 here.)

There is not a little bit of irony in the fact that unions are trying to place the blame for the current pension systems' unsustainability on Wall Street. It is, they say, the losses on Wall Street which depleted the PERS endowment and has...

You've gotta hand it to our governor: there's nothing black and white about him. Less than three weeks after signing into law the anti-city, pro-union bill AB 646 which would make collective bargaining more cumbersome and force cities to spend large sums of money on "fact-finding," Governor Brown made his...

Oh, the indignity of it all. On the day of UCLA's embarrassing 48-12 drubbing at the hands of Arizona, transit advocate Matthew Hetz in a Citywatch article tries to smack down the university's hopes of a "UCLA/Westwood" subway station which actually would be deserving of the name. He...

This article is not about the Century City subway station. Let's for a moment assume that birds are chirping, children are playing, the sun is shining and everyone is pleased as punch at the Century City alignment. Let's assume the tunnel is smack dab between Santa Monica Blvd. and Constellation...

Last month I went to a special meeting of the Independent Cities Association, a group of LA County cities working together on any number of issues, including promoting the important policy of local control. The special meeting was held at a Downtown LA restaurant and a presentation was made by...

August 12 - I don't live in Fullerton. I don't have friends in Fullerton. In fact, as far as I know, I've never knowingly been to Fullerton, unless Interstate 5 bisects Fullerton on the way to Disneyland.

Fullerton may only be 35 miles from my home, but if you had...

Leave it to Joel Epstein to connect his experience of running down an innocent deer in rural Nebraska with the proposed Constellation station of the Westside Subway extension. Seems Epstein could be running the bulls in Pamplona, climbing Kilimanjaro or surfing the waves of Bondi Beach, and he'd...

Bait-Switch-Fix. That was the subtext of last week's press conference in Century City which neatly did the bidding of Century City developers hoping to increase their property values with the benefit of a subway station adjacent to their properties. Well-orchestrated, well-rehearsed and misleading, the message of the press conference participants...

Politicians in California are seldom accused of suffering from long-term vision, so when Gov. Jerry Brown killed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's ill-advised plan to sell off a number of state-owned buildings it was a most pleasant surprise. Schwarzenegger's plan would have sold off valuable state-owned assets for a short-term...

In a recent editorial, the LA Times opposes potential legal proceedings to confirm a public easement against a property owner who wants to build a mega-development on the border of Franklin Canyon Park. Says the editorial:

A Beverly Hills councilman who opposes the development plans characterized the...

While other cities faced with financial crises are looking at massive budget cuts, reductions in service levels, lay-offs and furloughs are all real possibilities. There are discussions and ballot measures in various cities to roll back government employee pensions and benefits.

With all the talk about belt-tightening, Measure 2P in...

Welcome, back. And I smile when I think how it must have been. Well, I know what a scene you were learning in. Was there something that made you come back again?
--John Sebastian

Joel Epstein. You've done it again. I'm not quite sure how I should react to...

On Oct. 28, the Metro Board will meet to decide what to include in the Final EIR. I'm guessing they will ask for both the so-called Constellation alternative, as well as the Santa Monica alternative to be considered for the Century City station.

So the final decision won't be made...

When Tip O' Neill remarked that "All politics is local," he probably wasn't thinking about Beverly Hills.

Or maybe he was. Because in the throes of the upcoming March 3 City Council election the town that is known as "the place where the world comes to meet" has instead...