Actor-director Vincent Gallo, the quotable gentleman infamous for his tiffs with fellow Hollywood entertainers (and blowjob scene with Chloë Sevigny in "The Brown Bunny"), has taken on possibly the biggest grumble of his career: He's suing the City of Los Angeles. more ›

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa made a hardly shocking yet distressing announcement at the City Administrative Officer Investors Conference at the Grammy Museum today. He called for massive layoffs of city employees. more ›

How would you design the ideal urban park? What features would you add to the wishlist? The Los Angeles Parks Foundation (LAPF) and the USC School of Landscape and Architecture teamed up to conduct a study with USC students to develop the "Ideal Urban Park" for the City of Los Angeles. A dedication ceremony is slated for this afternoon. more ›

City Controller Wendy Greuel announced today that Los Angeles could have an extra $23 million in the bank had officials not dragged their feet to approve permits for advertising on street furniture. more ›

They says one man's misfortune is another man's gain, and this might hold true per a new Department of Recreation and Parks initiative. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced a plan last week to inject more green into L.A.'s urban 'hoods by building 50 new "pocket parks" throughout L.A. by March 2012. Of the 50 parks, 10 will spruce up the sites of foreclosed homes. more ›

Los Angeles is out of large parcels of land that can serve as community parks, so the plan is to go small, but be prolific. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced Wednesday that 50 new "pocket parks" will be set up all over L.A. over the next two years as a way to put more green spaces in our urban neighborhoods. more ›

The L.A. City Attorney's office is suing the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, alleging that the hotel illegally displayed supergraphic advertising on its exterior walls. C'mon, L.A.! Hollywood needed to know when "How to Train Your Dragon" was hitting theaters! more ›

Book borrowers, rejoice: Your favorite Los Angeles Public Library Branch will resume its hours of operation on Mondays, starting July 18th. Thank Measure L, the ballot initiative L.A. voters passed back in March: That's where the funds are coming from. more ›

To help make it easier for developers to obtain permits, today Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa opened a new office to handle the bureaucracy. "The Development Services Case Management Office will include staffers from the planning, building and safety, engineering, transportation and water and power departments," explains KPCC. more ›

Downtown Los Angeles' homeless population won a battle with the City this week, after an injunction reaffirmed Thursday guaranteed that a homeless person's property cannot be seized and destroyed if left unattended on the street. more ›

City of Los Angeles employees managed to waste about $1M on cellphones, says City Controller Wendy Greuel in an audit released yesterday aimed at uncovering the spending habits of seven departments when it comes to cellular technology. Said Greuel of her findings: "My audit demonstrates that our technology policies need to keep pace with technology. Cellular phone service contracts are constantly evolving and we should not pay a penny more than we have to - ever." more ›

How can the Los Angeles Fire Department spend less without compromising the invaluable services they provide to residents? Budget cuts to the department as proposed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa call for the permanent closure of 30 fire trucks and paramedic units and the elimination of 300 firefighters, according to KPCC. However, the plan is being met with resistance, including from the firefighters' union, whose president says the cuts will lead to "unnecessary deaths." more ›

Today Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa revealed his budget plan for the City of Los Angeles, and while it did not include layoffs, it did include furloughs. "In an effort to close a $457.5 million deficit, the mayor is calling for 26 furlough days for city workers who will not get cost-of-living raises as part of their contracts, and 36 furloughs days for employees scheduled to get raises," explains the Daily News. more ›

With under 12% of the registered voters in the City of Los Angeles either going into their polling place or filing a ballot by mail, the March 8th Primary Nominating and Consolidated Election saw to it the passage of the bulk of the measures and the maintaining of the status quo in most council districts with the re-election of incumbents. more ›

A budget memo released today by the City Controller's office indicates that there are 18 City Departments on track to be a combined $31.9 million over their current budgeted salary appropriation by the end of the fiscal year 2010-2011. more ›

Taggers who leave their marks on public property will soon find their handiwork showing up in a new kind of gallery. City officials and the Los Angeles Police Department are launching a four-division pilot program that will centralize visual evidence of tags to create a database that will be used to gather evidence for prosecution and restitution. more ›

The City of Los Angeles has a job opening for a gig that pays just over a grand a month, and comes with a one-year contract. Bids open next week for a job as a beaver trapper, reports the Daily Breeze. Although it's a City job, the beaver trapping will actually go down in the Owens Valley on a piece of land similar in size to the city of Los Angeles. L.A.'s next beaver-trapper will be charged with "protecting Department of Water and Power equipment and operations that bring water to Los Angeles." more ›

Who knew golf carts were such a hot bed of controversy, as well as a microcosm for the perils of local government? After 40 years of operation by J.H. Kishi Co., the golf cart rental biz on municipal golf courses in Los Angeles is now being run by the City, and things are getting off to a rocky start, according to the Daily News. more ›

Three architectural firms, including Gensler, the firm that oversaw L.A. Live development, will strut their visions for AEG's new "L.A. Events Center" with a public unveiling of proposal renderings during a a press conference at 5:00 p.m. tomorrow. more ›

Starting tomorrow and lasting through Monday, several streets in Hollywood will have closures and parking restrictions due to Sunday's Hollywood Christmas Parade. more ›

The City of Los Angeles is one step closer to four years ago after yesterday's City Council meeting, when a study concerning the possible adoption of a Google-based e-mail system was approved, reports the Daily News. more ›

Phil Willion on the LA Times "LA Now" blog reports that the City of LA found enough private donors to cover their $1 million share of the Lakers parade Wednesday. Previously it was agreed between Staples Center owner Anschultz Entertainment Group would split the $2 million cost evenly with the city. There will be a news conference later this afternoon announcing this plan. more ›

LA Times columnist Steve Lopez had what he thought was an ingenious way to gather the candidates City of Los Angeles voters have to choose from in Tuesday's Mayoral election. His plan was to get them together to chat and to determine "who makes the best French dip sandwich in Los Angeles, Phillipe the Original or Cole's?" he explains in his column this weekend. more ›

MOCA's grim financial outlook is no secret, and although there has been public mobilization to help raise the profile of the museum's plight and show whoever will pay attention that Angelenos want their art, some see the changes that need to come as being more fundamental. more ›

In a press conference held at 8:00 this morning, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa addressed the continuing concerns for the City of Los Angeles created by the Sayre Fire, which is being battled by a "unified command" of the LA Fire Department, the LA County Fire Department, the US Forestry Service, and the LAPD. more ›

Saturday at noon marked the deadline for hopeful candidates to take out filing papers for the March 3rd local election for multiple local offices from City Council to School Board, including the Mayor's. Those hoping to run have "until Dec. 3 to return their nominating petitions and qualifying signatures of eligible Los Angeles voters," explains the LA Times' Opinion LA blog. more ›

With 100% of precincts reporting, voters in the city of Los Angeles seem to have passed three of the four measures on yesterday's ballot, each of which have different majorities needed to pass. more ›

For the past 25 years, local preservation group Hollywood Heritage has been in charge of maintaining Wattles Mansion, a 1907 historic home bought by the City of L.A. in 1968. The preservation group has had an arrangement with the Parks Department for running the property, but now they are being handed their 30-day notice for having "failed to properly maintain the 101-year-old landmark," according to the LA Times. more ›

In light of ongoing news about the city's budget crisis (a predicted $295 million dollar deficit), information about the number of people employed by the city who earn more than $100,000 is not sitting well with some. more ›