Politics

Election’s eve. Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel will be criss-crossing the city today in a last-dash effort to sway undecided voters. After two years of campaigning, the hard fought and expensive campaign for mayor of L.A. comes to an end tomorrow.
A new USC-L.A. Times poll gives Garcetti a seven-point lead over Greuel – 48 percent to 41 percent – with 11 percent of likely …

Just a few more days before you go to the polls.  Let’s review, shall we?
We’re in the final stretch, so here’s some information you need to know about the candidates and propositions before you punch, pull or bubble-in that ballot.
KCRW’s Warren Olney, host of Which Way, LA? and To The Point joined us, as did KCRW reporter Saul Gonzalez, who’s been covering some of the campaigns …

This Tuesday is the Los Angeles general election. Thousands of paid canvassers have taken to the streets to get out the vote. And there have been lots of TV ads that have been increasingly negative.
Much of the money for these efforts isn’t actually coming from the campaigns. They’re coming from outside expenditure groups – PACs. They can pretty much say and do whatever they …

Top prosecutor. The city attorney’s race came to “Which Way, L.A.?” last night as KCRW’s Warren Olney conducted separate interviews with the candidates in Tuesday’s run-off election. The incumbent, Carmen Trutanich – or “Nuch” as he’s commonly known – finds himself in an uphill battle to keep the job that he won in a surprise victory four years ago.
After pledging not to run for another …

Voters will head to the polls on Tuesday to vote for the next mayor of Los Angeles and several other key offices. But will there be a flood of ballots, or merely a trickle?
Used to be, a lot more votes were cast in L.A. during big city elections. Here we are on the cusp of selecting a new mayor for the second most populous …

 
Campus threat. A 19-year-old student has been detained as a “person of interest” in connection with threats to Santa Monica College and East L.A. College and lockdowns have been lifted at the schools. 

Police got a call around 8 o’clock this morning from a man identifying himself as a student, saying he was going to bring an assault weapon to the schools and shoot up …

Governor’s budget. Gov. Jerry Brown’s latest budget proposal includes more money for schools, and less money for just about everything else. Even with state revenues surging, Brown’s revised budget trims $1.3 billion from the plan he presented in January.
Brown says there’s no guarantee the surge in tax revenue will last. And he says California’s finances remain unstable because of the federal sequester budget cuts …

Dealing with defiance. The L.A. Board of Education is due to vote tomorrow on a landmark resolution that would ban suspensions for what’s called “willful defiance.” The move comes amid a growing belief in some quarters that suspending students for disruptive behavior is counterproductive.
“Willful defiance” can involve anything from cursing at a teacher to incessant talking or failing to wear a school uniform. The …

On today’s Mixer, we welcomed Gene Maddaus from the LA Weekly and Howard Blume, the education reporter from the Los Angeles Times.
There are a couple of new polls that came out this week. One comes from the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State Los Angeles, showing 46% of likely voters backing Wendy Greuel and 45% who back Eric Garcetti.
Nine percent are still undecided.
The Cal State survey shows Greuel polls …

Neck and neck. A new poll finds a virtual dead heat in the L.A. mayor’s race with less than two weeks to go before Election Day.
The results are good news for Wendy Greuel. The City Controller trailed in earlier surveys, but the new poll by the Pat Brown Institute at Cal State L.A. gives her a one-point lead over City Councilman Eric Garcetti – …

Green light for rail yard. Depending on whom you ask, the $500 million port railway yard that’s planned four miles from the docks will either solidify the local ports’ position as the key West Coast hub for international shippers and reduce pollution – or unnecessarily put tens of thousands of South Bay residents at risk of noxious emissions.
Despite objections from environmental groups and neighboring …

Normally Hollywood’s favorite game is figuring out who will be nominated, and who will win, in the big awards ceremonies. But right now the biggest guessing game in Hollywood is figuring out who will be tapped by President Barack Obama for some plum diplomatic posts.
KCRW’s Steve Chiotakis handicapped the odds with Matthew Belloni, executive editor at The Hollywood Reporter.
A White House announcement on the …

Immigrant tally. A new study confirms that the national debate over immigration reform is as important in Los Angeles as anywhere in the country.
One in 10 adults in L.A. County either crossed the U.S. border illegally or overstayed their visa, according to a report by USC researchers. In some parts of Koreatown and South L.A. that number is 1 in 3.
The report by USC’s …

Pot shots. Now that the state Supreme Court has upheld the right of cities and counties to ban pot shop shops – what’s next for medical marijuana in California? And what about the three medical pot initiatives that will be on the Los Angeles city ballot two weeks from now?
The court’s unanimous decision means that a 1996 California ballot measure approving medical marijuana notwithstanding, …

Home stretch. They weren’t exactly making nice, but when pressed both candidates for mayor of Los Angeles said their opponent was basically honest. Still, City Controller Wendy Greuel and City Councilman Eric Garcetti found plenty of other things to disagree about during their latest debate.
Moderator Jim Newton of the L.A. Times noted the sharply negative tone of the campaign in recent weeks and asked …

The L.A. mayor’s race is entering the final-stretch run, with Monday being the final day to register  to vote in the May 21 election. In today’s mixer: union money, endorsements, and the dangers of texting.
Our panelists: Hillel Aron, a contributing writer to the LA Weekly, and Kate Linthicum from the Los Angeles Times.
So what happened this week? Candidates Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti, are …

Congress is in the midst of debating a proposed bill that would grant some type of amnesty to the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants.
Meanwhile, a different debate is happening in some of Orange County’s major evangelical churches. Pastors are joining other Christian leaders to push for immigration reform. But they’re finding resistance among their congregants, some of who are actually leaving their churches in …

Another week has passed in LA politics and the race for mayor is getting uglier between City Councilman Eric Garcetti and City Controller Wendy Greuel.
The runoff is Tuesday, May 21.
Both attacked each other’s integrity in Monday’s debate and now are running TV ads. Garcetti’s the newest entrant on the ‘boob tube’. (Can we even call it that anymore? There are no more tube TVs.)
But …

Who will be the next LA mayor? Do you have questions you still want answered?
With just a few weeks left until Election Day, it’s time to get beyond the campaign rhetoric and 30-second commercials in the race for mayor of Los Angeles. Candidates Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti visit Zócalo for a live debate. They’ll take questions—and follow-ups—from Warren Olney, host of KCRW’s “Which Way, L.A.?”
It’s a chance to demand specifics …

Who’s in first? A new poll finds a dramatic turnaround in the L.A. mayor’s contest – with City Controller Wendy Gruel edging ahead of City Councilman Eric Garcetti by three percentage points. But not everyone is convinced it reflects the true state of the race. The poll by Survey USA It shows Greuel with 45 percent support, Garcetti with 42 percent, and 13 percent …