Along with his billboard motions today, City Council President Eric Garcetti introduced a motion to create an Echo Park Film District "to help promote cooperation between film companies and the neighborhood’s local businesses and residents," as a press release states. "The creation of the Echo Park Film District would set special conditions and guidelines to give the surrounding community and the City Council office more information and notice about productions in Echo Park neighborhood. The......

A Gardena City Councilman introduced a motion to making wearing baggy pants illegal, allowing police to hand out citations for such a violation. "Councilman Steve Bradford introduced the measure, arguing wearing pants that hang below the waist, exposing skin or underwear, amounts to indecent exposure," the Daily Breeze reported but Bradford told KCAL9 he introduced this as a way to start the conversation among residents. Last night, the council was to possibly vote on the......

Photo by Lboogiepeace via Flickr Church of Scientology stories are usually left for the internet and are rarely the subject of mainstream media stories. But when two women stood up to City Council last week (video) to tell them what it's like to be a neighbor to the church's L Ron Hubbard Way location during weekly street closures for special events, the Council listened and continued the motion rather than approving it in order......

At Wednesday's LA City Council meeting, non-Scientologist and resident of L Ron Hubbard Way, Sammi Franklin, and free speech advocate Lisa Derrick stood in the chambers at city hall to explain what it's like to live on a street closed down every weekend of the year. As in past years, the Church of Scientology requested that the weekly event be considered a special event by the city in order to close the public street,......

Photo by Malcolm Tredinnick via Flickr Today, the LA City Council will be voting to endorse two federal bills. It's only symbolic in nature for the city to do so, but it helps when the bills hit the House and Senate or the differences committees. Federal Railroad Safety Improvement Act of 2007 (H.R. 2095) has already been passed--the House did last year and the Senate did by a unanimous vote on August 1st. The......

Photo by GarySe7en via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr After passing out of the transportation committee last week, the motion to extend Metro Red Line service to 3:00 a.m. Thursday through Saturday nights from November 1st to January 3rd will be considered by City Council today. Because Metro doesn't have the funding for the expanded service, the "service would be supported in part by private sponsorhips," the motion states. If passed, the city will......

Photos via Treesavers' website Jerry Peace Activist Rubin followed through with what he said he would do if he had to after a year of battling with the city of Santa Monica over trees. Yesterday, he tied himself to a ficus tree that was being dug up and removed. Santa Monica Police arrested him for "resisting or interfering with a police officer." In a letter posted on the Treesavers' website, a writer says Rubin's......

After the LA Weekly printed their in-depth investigation of the Grim Sleeper, a serial killer named by the paper because he stopped killing for 13 years (but now is back), the LA City Council voted today to award $200,000 (KCAL says $500K) to anyone who supplies information leading to his arrest and conviction. "In a packed press conference not far from City Council chambers this morning, Councilman Bernard Parks called for the huge reward. He......

After a two week break, the Los Angeles City Council is back to business. Today, they passed two motions of note. They extended the the year long moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries for another six months (remember last year when the DEA raided a dispensary in Hollywood as council voted on this?). The city is looking to draft regulations covering the facilities and the city attorney's office needs more time to create a policy "that......

The city's primary nominating election is hardly on the radar of voters because it's on March 3rd, months after what the nation is focusing on right now--the Presidential election. But earlier this month, in the only City Council race that's going to be a fight, a hacker attacked 5th District hopeful Paul Koretz's website (do you live in CD5? Check this map to see). It finally relaunched on Monday, three weeks after the site was......

The City Council has been looking at closing an access gate on the Ballona Creek Bike Path because in the vicinity of the 405 Freeway of crime. One such incident just happened. Via an e-mail sent to Streetsblog LA, here are some highlights: Under the 405 two gang members (this is what the police believe) threw another bike in my path, causing me to crash, and then sprayed me with pepper spray and took my......

An empty council chambers at City Hall | Photo by Mr. Littlehand via Flickr Somehow, LAist ended up on this unofficial Neighborhood Council e-mail blast list. Today, a humorous one came in about the DNC. The subject line is "Tell me CITY COUNCIL is not PARTY POLITICAL." The rest by the author, Daniel Wiseman, as follows: The CITY COUNCIL will go into "recess" for the next two weeks. Why? ...because they have worked hard......

Photo by leochi via Flickr The City Council is voting today on one-year gang prevention contracts for six organizations to work with at-risk youth. But what defines a child as at-risk and likely to join a gang? The Daily News lays it out: lack of parental supervision; early childhood aggression; delinquent beliefs, including acceptance of antisocial behaviors; negative life events; having peers involved in deviant behavior; a commitment to street-oriented peers. If passed, six......

In an attempt to give the public more information about the nutritional value of the fast food they're consuming, County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky is presenting a proposal next week that would require fast food restaurants to post calorie counts on menus: If the measure is successful, Los Angeles County would be following in the footsteps of New York and a handful of other municipalities nationwide that already have implemented calorie counts on the menus......

For some, taking a shopping cart out of a parking lot and using it to haul their purchases home is a regular practice. But this habit has multiple consequences, with companies having to hire retrievers to comb the neighborhoods in search of wayward carts, carts becoming regular hallway fixtures in some apartment buildings, and stores having to absorb the cost of the lost carts--which in turn often means having to raise prices, since most metal......

The city's Energy and the Environment Committee met this morning and passed a water waste crackdown plan, making way for a full city council approval, which will likely occur in September. "The 'drought busters' plan crafted by the Department of Water and Power seeks to punish residents who water their lawns between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., car owners who wash their cars without 'shut-off devices' on their hoses and restaurants that serve water without......

Councilman Tom LaBonge suggested bringing back the Cold-War era air raid sirens back into use in 2003. That, so far, has never gone through. But in light of the recent earthquake last Tuesday and considering how poorly people are prepared, he's called for the City Council to ask Gov. Schwarzenegger to declare the first Friday of every month “Emergency Preparedness Day” in California. It would be a monthly reminder to have schools hold drills and......

City Council seats are up for grabs in the March 2009 election for odd numbered council districts. Save for Jack Weiss of Council District (CD) 5, who plans his next campaign for City Attorney, all incumbents are planning on re-running and all but one have raised a significant amount of cash and most are going at it unchallenged, according to David Zahniser at the LA Times: CD1: Ed Reyes has raised $75,225.00 CD3: Dennis Zine,......

City Controller Laura Chick was scheduled to speak to the LA City Council today about her most recent report on the city not being as emergency and disaster prepared as it should be (.pdf). Following the earthquake, her office sent out this notice at 12:37 p.m,: City Controller Laura Chick will address the City Council regarding Councilmember Jose Huizar's motion regarding her recent Emergency and Disaster Preparedness audit. The audit uncovered deficiencies in the City's......

An LA City Council committee has made a unanimous decision to ban new fast-food restaurants in South LA for one year; the decision goes to the full council and the mayor this week. Spearheaded by Councilwoman Jan Perry, the ban would "prevent fast-food chains from opening new restaurants in a 32-square-mile area, including West Adams, Baldwin Village and Leimert Park. The moratorium would be in effect for one year, with the possibility of two......

Styrofoam food containers will be banned in city buildings, at LAX, and at city-sponsored events beginning next July and plastic bags will be ordered pulled from store checkout counters July 1, 2010, in accordance with a ban approved today by LA City Council. The decision comes just weeks after a similar measure in Manhattan Beach passed despite the threat of a lawsuit. Malibu banned plastic bags in May and the debate stalled on the issue......

What? So, Metro is set to vote this week on a mixed-use residential/commercial development that will literally be feet from the Orange Line Sepulveda station in Van Nuys (you know, in that huge parking lot no one uses). "When they first came to me about it, it was supposed to be all residential," Councilman Tony Cardenas, who represents the area, is quoted saying in the Daily News. "Now they are talking about having commercial development."......

Following in the footsteps of Los Angeles (even calling it a fiscal emergency and all, too) and other area cities, LA County's second largest city, Long Beach, will consider putting a phone tax on November's ballot at a meeting Tuesday night. The City Council will also vote on placing a parcel tax on the ballot that would raise $571 million for an infrastructure plan that would improve "improve hundreds of miles of streets, sidewalks and......

Photo by Pro-Zak via Flickr It's 11:45 a.m. and City Council is in session getting ready to vote on an item supporting Metro's proposed half-cent sales tax for transportation projects. Their vote would also tell Metro which projects are priorities for the city, including the possibility of a downtown streetcar and getting the Green Line to actually hit LAX. Councilman Jose Huizar spoke up to get some clarification on projects within the city. "Is......

Photo by Jonathan Alcorn (Sundogg) via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr When the beaches at Venice, Dockweiler, Playa del Rey and Del Rey Lagoon get packed with over 100,000 people, the city has to deploy and/or extend services to make sure things run smoothly and that the afternoon and nighttime beach exodus doesn't hinder the neighborhood streets too much. But to do that, purely for administrative reasons, the City Council must go through a......

Yesterday, the LA City Council voted for increases in fees for things relating to the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (like the boot fee went up $30 to $150). What the majority of the city deals with are parking meters, which are going to a minimum rate of $1.00 an hour citywide (but remember, it's prorated, so a quarter is 15-minutes). Some high usage parts of the city will have higher fees, costing up to......

Councilwoman Jan Perry made do with a one-year moratorium on the addition of new fast food restaurants in South Los Angeles that went into effect last year, but now she's gearing up to fight the battle of the bulge in a more permanent way by asking for a complete ban on new fast food joints in the area. According to the Los Angeles Business Journal, "The ban is intended to stop the proliferation of eateries......

Photo by Susan Catherine via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr Special Order 40 is a nearly 30-year-old law in Los Angeles that prohibits Los Angeles police officers from asking people about their immigration status. Part of the intent is to get more community cooperation when investigating a crime. Illegal immigrants who witness or know something about a crime would more likely avoid police because of their status without the order. A 2006 citizen filed......

By the end of 2008, there will have been three elections, the last one being the Presidential. But after that, things won't be calming down as major city races head into full swing mode. Councilwoman Wendy Greuel will run for City Controller and City Controller Laura Chick will probably run for City Council. But of note is who will run against Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for the biggest job of all? Rumors and talk of who......

Photo by AZAdam via Flickr Only 102 of the 958 city buildings expected to get CFLs have installed the energy-efficient lightbulbs and City Controller Laura Chick is saying that the program is not going fast enough. So far, the city has replaced enough to save $1.5 million on the annual $27-million power bill. However, replacing the bulbs came at the price of $5 million, but costs are expected to be recovered over time with......