Council, planning and power in Los Angeles.
Two months into the terrazzo repaving, a council committee asked the hard questions about cost and schedule. Staff said the work was on track; members asked what happens when the ground says otherwise.
Parents near a Hollywood elementary school learned this week roughly where their long-standing request stands: far down a ranked list, behind corners with a documented crash history. The formula, one mother said, waits for the collision it is meant to prevent.
City staff were due to bring the council a firm construction schedule this month for the long-delayed skate park. Instead they asked for a further review, and the families who have waited years left with little new to hold.
With a shortfall shadowing the spring budget, the neighborhood improvements that live on the margins — a skate park, sidewalk repairs, tree trimming — are the ones most exposed.
A council committee heard three hours of testimony on a plan to slow traffic on a residential corridor where parents say drivers treat the street as a shortcut.
Citation data show tickets against open-top tour vehicles cluster tightly at a few chokepoints near Highland and Vine. Operators say the city eliminated the loading zones and then wrote them up for stopping where the zones used to be.
Residents told a council committee the neighborhood has waited more than a decade for a skate park that keeps stalling on funding, drainage and review. A council office says it is close. It has said so before.
A council motion asks staff to study building affordable apartments on a municipal lot near the Boulevard. Supporters call it obvious. Merchants who rely on the spaces call it a threat.
With Sunday's ceremony at the Dolby Theatre, the blocks around Hollywood and Highland brace for rolling closures. Businesses outside the security perimeter say the show empties their sidewalks more than it fills them.
Residents and merchants have complained for years about the amplified narration and diesel idling of the star-map buses. A council committee took up a proposal to move and thin them.
