The troubled city of Bell has appointed a new city manager. The town in southeast Los Angeles County has been plagued by mismanagement. Eight former officials have been charged with public corruption. And the city is reported to be close to insolvency.

Doug Willmore

Doug Willmore spent less than ten months as the city manager of El Segundo. He was fired in February, soon after he brought to light a sweetheart deal between the multi-billion dollar oil company Chevron and the city. For two decades, Chevron had paid millions of dollars less in taxes than other refineries in the state.

Willmore’s proposal to significantly increase the acreage tax paid by Chevron met swift resistance. Willmore sued the city for wrongful termination as a whistleblower. City officials denied the dismissal was related to Chevron.

Willmore’s predecessor in Bell, Robert Rizzo, left the position in July 2010 after it was revealed that he was making almost $800,000 a year. Willmore is expected to sign a three-year contract for $175,000 a year.

In a statement, Willmore said “I don’t shrink from the issues that Bell faces, and I think the future is a bright one.”

Stuart Milk

Stuart Milk doesn’t think his uncle, the slain San Francisco politician Harvey Milk, would have been surprised by President Obama’s recent declaration of support for gay marriage.  But in the year 1978, when Milk was assassinated in City Hall with then-mayor George Moscone, gay marriage wasn’t the point, or even a possibility.  Equal rights was the goal, and Milk’s campaign and election as one of the nation’s first openly gay politicians was a milestone in the slow march toward acceptance.

Harvey Milk

We’ve traveled far since his murder, at least in the United States, Stuart Milk told us today when he dropped by the studio on his way to a commemoration of his uncle in West Hollywood.  But, he says, while the situation has changed here, life is still oppressive for people in 75% of the world.

To advance the cause of equal rights, and to keep his uncle’s memory alive, Stuart Milk co-founded the Harvey Milk Foundation.  Now, he travels the world to tell his story and advocate for freedom–and against hate crimes.  Tomorrow would have been Harvey Milk’s 82nd birthday, and a few years back, the California legislature declared May 22nd as Harvey Milk Day. Here’s a link to events around southern California, and the world, in his honor.

Here’s what Stuart Milk had to say:

The Los Angeles City Council today approved a $7.2 billion budget for the city.

LA City Councilman Paul Krekorian

The council made close to $70 million in cuts to several city departments. It delays layoffs until next year, but also cuts 400 unfilled city positions. And it increased parking fines.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa first proposed the budget. It closes a $238 million deficit but leaves next year’s budget nearly $200 million in the red.

The budget also increases the city’s emergency reserve fund by $7.5 million, just shy of the city’s 5 percent goal.

“In a perfect world, this would not be my choice of budgets,” said Paul Krekorian, chair of the City Council’s Budget and Finance Committee. “But we don’t live in that world. We live in a world of limitations right now and the economic reality that causes us to have to take pain and difficult measures to live within our means and I think that we’ve done that.”

Listen to more of the interview with Councilman Krekorian below:

The state of California is facing severe budget cuts, including for education.

Los Angeles High School. Photo by waltarrrrr via Flickr/Creative Commons.

The number of school districts reporting perilous financial situations is at an all-time high – 188 statewide, 27 in Los Angeles County alone.

That means that across the state, 2.6 million children go to schools facing financial difficulty.

The Inglewood Unified School District issued a negative certification in the second interim report to the state, while 26 other Los Angeles County schools gave qualified certifications, including Los Angeles Unified, South Pasadena Unified, Antelope Valley Union High, Lancaster Elementary, Lynwood Unified and Paramount Unified.

KCRW’s Steve Chiotakis spoke with Tom Torlakson, Superintendent of Public Instruction for the State of California.

This weekend, United Farm Workers’ delegates gathered in a convention hall in Bakersfield to observe the 50th anniversary of the union and celebrate the life and achievements of UFW founder Cesar Chavez. In the 1960s and 70s, the UFW made labor history by organizing poor and exploited farm workers across California and the Southwest, a group of workers that were once viewed as impossible to organize. It was work that turned Chavez into one of the most identifiable figures in organized labor and the face of the Mexican-American civil rights movement.

But over the past two decades membership in the UFW has plummeted to fewer than 5,000 members, and many say the union has lost it’s clout and hunger to organize.  This weekend’s convention was used by the union as a way to honor its past, while also sending the signal that it was still relevant. I drove up to Bakersfield to see how the UFW is doing more than three decades after its greatest victories.

There are over 400,000 farm workers in California, only a small percentage of them are unionized

Marc Grossman, a long-time aide and spokesman for Cesar Chavez, in Chavez's Office

Below, tour Chavez’ office with Marc Grossman.

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One of the first men to set root in LA from Tavehua, Oaxaca, Mex. Photo by Carmen Vidal Balanzat, Sonic Trace videographer

Sonic Trace-- part of KCRW’s Independent Producer Project– is a multimedia project and radio series  bringing you stories that explore the three age-old questions about community and immigration in Los Angeles.

¿Por qué te fuiste? ¿Por qué te quedaste? ¿Por qué regresaste?

Why do people leave? Why do others stay? And, what makes people go back (in either direction)?

Sonic Trace is a story-telling and documentary experiment that will bring you stories that begin in the heart of Angeleno neighborhoods and end in Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

The idea of Sonic Trace came from my personal history. I grew up in  Miami during the big immigration wave of the late 80s and 90s. We were all local to somewhere else, but loyal to Kendall–a condo-style suburb of recent immigrants. I hated Miami, but loved my friends. I imagined a dot and a line connecting Tirza to Tegucigalpa, Mauricio to Havana and Michelle to Tucuman. I knew everything about these cities through their stories. And in turn, I lived in those cities whenever I went to their parties, stayed over for dinner or got scolded for not understanding the local custom. But local to where? To Miami or Honduras?

Guelagetza dancers in LA

We will explore how Koreatown turned Korexico;  jump onto food truck routes–mic in hand–across LA’s urban sprawl; and bring you stories from inside churches where Canjobal (Guatemala) meets Zapotec (Southern Mexico) in the heart of South Central.

Want to get involved? Are you a designer or an architect? Help us build our sound booth.

Have a great story to pitch? Tell us, email us at: anayansi@kcrw.org

A mini-model of the beloved cathedral of Santa María de Tavehua Photo by Carmen Vidal Balanzat, Sonic Trace videographer

Are you or your parents from Mexico or Central America?  Do you have Angeleno friends, colleagues or neighbors from the region? Do you know why they left, how they got here and if they want to go back? What does Los Angeles mean to them? Where is home?

Collaborate with Sonic Trace, pitch us your story and help us trace your version of Los Angeles, on both sides of the border.

Sonic Trace is produced by Anayansi Diaz-Cortes and Eric Pearse Chavez. It is brought to you by KCRW, Zeega and Localore, a national initiative produced by AIR, the Association of independents in Radio, incorporated and with financial support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The project will go live in Fall 2012. In the meantime, pitch us your story and help us trace your version of Los Angeles, on both sides of the border.

You can also find us on Facebook and on Twitter.

Los Angeles Police Department officials on Friday confirmed two Southern California men were arrested for the killings of USC students Ming Qu and Ying Wu.

Police said the likely motive for the April 11 shootings was robbery. From the Los Angeles Times:

At a news conference, Police Chief Charlie Beck declined to go into details but said police have linked the slayings, which stunned the USC campus, to other crimes police believe were committed by the pair.

Police identified the suspects as Bryan Barnes, 20, of Los Angeles, and Javier Bolden, 19 of Palmdale. They were expected to be booked into the 77th Street Division jail Friday night and held without bail.

Earlier this week, the parents of the graduate students, who were Chinese nationals, filed a wrongful death suit against the university.

Read the full Times story here.

Photo by Abel Gutierrez

Ever since the Southwest Museum closed its doors several years ago, supporters have been clamoring for the Mt. Washington landmark to reopen. Now they’re getting their wish, to a point.

Starting this weekend, the Autry National Center will invite the public back to the 98-year-old museum – L.A.’s oldest – on a limited basis. The Autry took over an insolvent Southwest in 2003. Ever since, it’s been trying to convince often-skeptical fans, patrons and city officials that its stewardship is the best thing for the world-class collection.

Photo by Abel Gutierrez

People can now decide for themselves. The Southwest will be open on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. But visitors will only get to see a fraction of the museum’s 250,000-item trove of Native American art and artifacts. Most of the items, including clothing, pottery, basketry, weapons, kachina dolls and sculpture, are packed away after being cleaned up and catalogued in a $9 million conservation effort funded by grants and private donations. Select items from the collection will end up at the Autry’s Griffith Park museum and much of the rest will be stored at a new 100,000-square-foot research facility under construction in Burbank. What remains will be on display in Mt. Washington. In addition to the exhibits, the Autry says visitors to the Southwest will get an inside look at the conservation process. Admission and parking are free.

Photo by Abel Gutierrez

The question remains: Will the Southwest extend its hours so more people can visit? Autry National Foundation President and CEO, Daniel Finley is non-committal on that point. He says public demand will determine if new days and hours are added to the schedule. I spoke with him about the collection, the reopening and the Autry’s oversight of the Southwest.

Elizabeth Warren

While you were lining up to try to get your hands on some Facebook stock, Francois Hollande’s plane was struck by lightning. That and other stories you may have missed this week.

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By Gateman1997 via Wikipedia

It’s a big weekend for the Staples Center, as L.A.’s three teams are all playing games there this weekend. Just up the road at their stadium the Dodgers are leading their baseball division. A crew at the Staples Center will have just 80 hours to set up for six playoff games in professional basketball and hockey. Also this weekend, the country’s largest stage cycling race will finish in downtown LA. Listen below as Warren talks  to Matt “Money” Smith, co-host of the Petros and Money show on Fox Sports Radio.