With an online guide for names like "Villaraigosa", we thought it's time to help educate Angelenos on other elected officials whose names often get mis-pronounced. Now,we don't have an handy audio files like the Mayor has for his name, but we've done our best to help you pronounce their last names phonetically. Councilman Tom LaBonge: luh-BONJCounty Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky: yaar-o-SLAV-skeeCouncilman Jose Huizar: WEE-sarDon't even get us started on how to pronounce the City's name (or......

This past Saturday, the Boardmembers, stakeholders and guests of the Woodland Hills Warner Center Neighborhood Council met at the WH Marriott for an all-day Retreat and Board Workshop. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky opened the session with a passionate dissection of SB1818 and the LA's City Council current approach to bringing the City into compliance with State law. Calling the law "a poorly thought-out effort to create affordable housing" Zev contends that LA's proposed ordinance "places......

Yellow = City of Santa Clarita, Blue = Las Lomas Project, Purple = Los Angeles | Source: City of Santa Clarita [pdf] We don't understand why no one wants the Las Lomas project, a proposed 5,500 unit/555-acre development, to be built between the 5 and 14 freeways just north of Los Angeles' border. Come on, how cool would it be to live between two freeways so close together! Not to mention two other freeways......

"Found on sidewalk near Hope & 8th" Ball-busting: The City of Los Angeles is considering mandating spaying and neutering for all cats and dogs because shelters are overcrowded and so many animals go unadopted. Enforcement is expected to be easygoing, as in if your pet minds its own business you'll stay under the radar, but if your neighbor logs in a complaint about your barking dog and his junk is still ready to make......

The general consensus about last night's one-hour Golden Globes "Awards Show" (quotation marks make for great sarcasm indicators, yes?): Less than stellar. The snorefest reading-of-the-nominees and "the winner is" naming was about as thrilling as the reading of a will, with Time's Richard Corliss declaring in his post-mortem that the reporters delivering the news "all sank into a sea of blandness and blondness." Local Latino politicians are endorsing Barack Obama in his Democratic Presidental......

The first time I was in Compton, I didn't even know it until later when I was at a restaurant looking at the menu and noticed the address. It appeared the world's stereotype was wrong, maybe gone or I just happened to be in the "right" part of town. "Compton is beautiful, there are horse ranches there," a co-worker who grew up there told me at a previous job a few years before my......

That's what Orange County Fire Authority Chief Chip Prather said this morning:If we had more air resources, we would have been able to control this fire. Instead we've been stuck in this initial attack mode on the ground where we hopscotch through neighborhoods as best we can trying to control things. But OCFA is not the only frustrated agency in Southern California, as losses grow to an estimated $1 billion in San Diego County......

Last night came and went, but we know a select bunch of aware Angelenos turned off their lights last night for Lights Out LA, a program in San Francisco and Los Angeles asking residents to turn off lights for one-hour in the name of conserving energy. Alisa Pugha in Koreatown participated and she spoke to LAist last night. "So just as Light Out LA starts, my power starts dimming. What the fuck?" The anonymous blogger,......

As the Sunday morning sunrise warmed the lawn of the San Gabriel Mission, dedicated celebrants gathered with the Pobladores 200 to recognize LA’s upcoming 226th birthday by retracing the steps of the original settlers who established El Pueblo de la Reina de Los Angeles in 1781. San Gabriel is quite proud of its contribution to the “birth” of Los Angeles and a significant contingent of enthusiastic San Gabriel volunteers were on hand to outfit and......

The LA Times has definitely had its fair share of scandals in the near past with firings and hirings. Yet recently, content wise, the watchdog coverage of scandalicious politicians has been riveting. There is Mayor V and then there was the daily pounding of Rocky Delgadillo. The newest politician in the ring is 74-year-old 2nd district county supervisor Yvonne Burke who represents Watts, Culver City, Compton, South LA, Hollywood, Marina Del Rey, Inglewood to......

An Antelope Valley resident once told me that the slogan of Palmdale was "Why throw it in the trash when you can throw it in the front yard?" It was so rude. I loved it. Palmdale and Lancaster always feels worlds away. Many of the thoroughfares have names like Avenue R-12 or Avenue P-8. Only a select few are lucky enough to live on Avenue Q (who doesn't like puppets singing about STDs and......

Who said emergency preparedness has to be boring? If you live, work or spend a good amount of time in Topanga, this free downloadable document is a must. The team that designed this 17 chapter disaster guide did an extremely beautiful job putting this visually exciting document together. And why did they do it? Here is the introduction from County Supervisor Yev Zaroslovsky: I am honored to present the inaugural edition of the Topanga......

Q: What do you call a road with five to seven lanes of traffic in one direction, if the only way to exit this road is by going to the right? Pose that question to most Angelenos and the answer would be "a freeway, stupid!" But they'd be wrong. The answer is the increasingly popular proposal by LA County Supervisor Zev Yarolslavsky to convert Olympic and Pico boulevards into one-way streets in order to......

Maybe it’s because of its residents' blogginess, but these days everyone seems to know that downtown LA is booming. However, flying way below the radar is Koreatown. Yes, you already know it’s the place to go for your late night barbecue and karaoke needs, but the boozin’, beef-eatin’ hood (best known to those outside LA as one of the places ravaged by the 1992 riots) has quietly been getting a $1 billion makeover that......

As we discussed last week, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is in Washington D.C. today telling the rest of America why LA and its surrounding area is getting ripped off from federal investment. If we get jammed in traffic, we can't deliver for the rest of the U.S. Here are some facts: This delegation is part of the kick off of Access Washington, D.C. 2007, a trip sponsored by the L.A. Chamber and Mobility 21. Southern......

We didn't say it. Tony Bell said it to the LA Times' Steve Hymon. Who is Bell? Bell is the communications director for Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich. And to be fair, Bell thinks "light rail down one of the major east-west streets on the Westside might be the better solution." So trains are not totally out. Here's another Bell quote: "The supervisor understands — as do most county residents — that we......

Mayor Tony has a busy Sunday scheduled for this weekend, but we're glad to see he's blocked off the entirety of tomorrow to pulling for the underdog Bruins as they square off against Tommy Trojan and the Song Girls. Saturday, December 2, 2006 1:00 PM - PASADENA - Mayor Villaraigosa will cheer on the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Bruins as they go up against the University of Southern California (USC) Trojans in......

The whole airports/power-failure fiasco last night was started by one car hitting one pole up in Palmdale. L.A. Times profiles K-Mozart 105.1 FM and founder/owner - Saul Levine. The station is worth an estimated $100 million and Levine won't sell it. Good for him, we don't want this station to go away. While the article speaks of the other full time classical station in town, K-USC 91.5 FM, Angelenos should not forget about a......

LA County Supervisor Yvonne Braithwaite Burke will retire after 40 years in politics. She was the first African-American woman elected to the California State Assembly. While there will be many heartfelt farewells for the 73-year-old, more interesting will be the race for her seat. The 5-member Board of Supervisors controls the pursestrings for the County and is vastly powerful; so far, Mark Ridley Thomas, Herb Wesson and Bernard Parks are rumored to be possible......

The NFL season begins tonight in Los Angeles... well sort of. To kickoff the Raiders and Patriots, the NFL will have concerts at the Coliseum (site of Super Bowl I), Detroit (site of this year's Super Bowl XL), and Foxborough (where tonight's game will take place). Kanye West will headline the Coliseum concert, and props to the NFL for not giving into pressure and yanking him because he expressed an opinion. While discussion continues......

It didn't seem appropriate in the days after Hurricane Katrina to talk about what some had been whispering. Sports, after all, was the least important issue for people to deal with in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. But as the whispers grew louder, the story forced its way into the news, and now LAist is responsible for covering it. Yesterday, County Supervisor Mike Antonovich suggested the Coliseum play host to the New Orleans Saints......

What do City Councilmember Tom LaBonge, County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, and the city of Beverly Hills have in common? Well, yes, they all think Jamie Foxx is a shoo-in for Best Actor (and who doesn't?), but they're also all in favor of extending the Red Line subway westward along Wilshire, all they way out to Santa Monica. This astounding consensus, which Councilmember LaBonge has tirelessly worked to build, didn't carry much weight for the......

The first LA mayoral debate, hosted last night at the Museum of Tolerance, probably wasn’t on the radar of local voters. Many are still worn out from the long presidential campaign that ended just a month ago; others are simply wrapped up in the holidays. KNBC forged ahead, though, sponsoring and airing the debate, which featured the station’s Colleen Williams as moderator. She was joined by panelists Jose Ronstadt of KWHY, which also aired......

State Senate candidate George Runner and his wife, Assemblymember Sharon Runner, are poised to be the first husband and wife team to serve in the Legislature at the same time. George Runner was first elected in 1996 to serve in the Assembly and was termed out in 2002. His wife succeeded him and was up for re-election yesterday. Republican Audra Strickland, wife of termed-out Assemblymember Tony Strickland, also looks to be headed to Sacramento......