Time For Your Check-Up, Mr. Mayor

Political Observers Analyze Eric Garcetti’s First Year in Office

You can say this about the first year of Eric Garcetti’s term as the mayor of Los Angeles: At least he has succeeded in taking New York down a peg by (good-naturedly) embarrassing the Big Apple’s mayor on national television. Poor Bill de Blasio performed a miserable rendition of “I Love L.A.” because he lost a bet with Garcetti over whether the L.A. Kings or New York Rangers were going to win the Stanley Cup. Of course, Garcetti was being judged during that victory lap, too—the F-bomb he dropped during …

The Dirty Politics That Saved the Santa Monica Mountains

Grassroots Organizing, Race, Nepotism and, Yes, Environmentalism, Collided in a Colorful 1971 L.A. Election

At the time, it seemed just another political dirty trick—a phony newspaper mailed to residents of the San Fernando Valley. But that newspaper, called the Record, turned out to have …

Cal Poly Pomona’s Michael Woo

The Former L.A. City Councilman on What It Would Take to Get Him Back Into Electoral Politics and Why He Keeps Quiet in Elevators

Michael Woo is the dean of the College of Environmental Design at Cal Poly Pomona. An urban planner, he served on the Los Angeles City Council for eight years and …

Dear Elites, L.A. Doesn’t Need Saving

What a New Report on the City’s Apathy Gets Wrong

When your city’s civic leaders issue a big report called “A Time for Truth,” it’s natural to wonder if they’re admitting that everything they’ve told you in the past is …

Los Angeles Is Not a Sin

‘Chinatown’ Was a Movie, Not a History of Our Water. It’s Time to Stop Thinking Our City Is Real-Life Film Noir.

Newsflash! Los Angeles, a famously dry place, this month has been suddenly inundated. The source is not rain, not El Niño. Nope, we’re experiencing a flash flood of commentary tied …

Politics Reporter Alice Walton

Tweeting Close Encounters of the Cockroach Kind

Alice Walton is politics reporter for KPCC; previously, she created and published TheCityMaven.com, a news site on L.A. politics. Before participating in a panel on why there are so few …