Zach Behrens

In addition to the $70 million Los Angeles could lose via raided redevelopment funds, another $166 million could be lost if $120 million in property tax revenue and $66 million in gas tax revenue are taken to fix the state budget, which will be voted on later this week by state legislators. The County of Los Angeles also stands to lose major funding, which could have long term effects in the billions. The county...

Photo: blogdowntown As new residents flock to downtown, so do businesses. Last week, City National Corp. announced that it will move its corporate headquarters and subsidiary, City National Bank, from Beverly Hills to downtown Los Angeles. "The move is symbolic in nature -- few if any personnel will make a move -- but is important in terms of Downtown's place in the financial world," according to blogdowntown. "While Downtown Los Angeles was historically home...

Photo: ve®onica Tomorrow, the City Council will likely vote to change the Los Angeles Marathon's date back to a Sunday in March after last year forcing organizers to choose a holiday Monday to avoid conflict with religious institutions on Sunday, the traditional day for a race. In the end, traditionally hot and sunny Memorial Day was chosen only to scare off a large number of runners from registering. "The issues surrounding the date change...

The writers at Forbes, who reference Los Angeles as a "sea-side city," have deemed that the best kind of street food offered here are fish tacos. Forget burritos, Portland nabs that. Forget the eclectic assortment of non-traditional street food like Kogi BBQ, the Green Truck, Sprinkles, etc. Seattle wins that category. And forget all the reindeer sausage that lines L.A. streets--Anchorage Alaska wins that. Here's what Forbes has to say: "This sea-side city’s most...

Photo: sirimiri As part of the environmental review analysis, Metro is continuing their ongoing and weekly effort to study conditions below the surface for the possibility of a subway to the Westside. This week, the majority of the light drilling will take place in West Hollywood overnight. Spots include San Vicente/Melrose, Santa Monica/Ogden, Santa Monica/Fairfax and Santa Monica/Sweetzer. Crews will also be seen in Los Angeles along Wilshire Blvd during the day: Wilshire/La Jolla...

The crowds outside LAX | Photo: stuloh Another day, another suspicious package. Unattended luggage caused officials to evacuate a portion of LAX this morning. Shortly after 11 a.m., the bag sitting next to a Tom Bradley Int'l Terminal ticketing counter and bearing no name tags began emitting an alarm-type sound. Airport police cleared the area, moving about 500 travelers and employees into the streets. The LAPD bomb squad arrived and via an X-Ray machine,...

A fire was already burning in the Castaic area when an Amtrak bus nearby on the 5 Freeway caught fire--"exploded" according to news reports--and spread flames into the grass. The Sloan fire has reached heights of 3,000 feet elevation and is persisting in the 103 degree weather of the Santa Clarita Valley. However, good progress is being made, according to the Angeles National Forest's Twitter. Even without the fire, the Santa Clarita Valley and...

Where there's a will, there's a way. For years, the owner of Annandale Canyon in Pasadena wanted to develop his property into 24 luxury homes. But neighbors fought it, even imposing a tax on themselves to raise over a million dollars in order to assist the city in purchasing the land. In total, it was sold for $6.2 million with funds coming from the tax, a Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy grant (even though the...

A West LA waitress at a Hamburger Hamlet was found guilty of 34 felony counts of identity theft and credit card fraud was sentenced to 5 years probation and a $3,000 fine. "April DuBoise, 29, used a "wedge" -- a small skimming device that reads and stores data from a credit card for downloading to a computer -- over a 1 1/2-month period while working in early 2006 at the Hamburger Hamlet restaurant at...

Photo by LA Wad via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr A survey conducted on behalf of Metro found that residents still support Measure R, which boosted LA County's sales tax up a half cent in order to raise $30 to $40 billion for transportation projects. However, it also found that people feel projects are moving too slowly to get the region out of gridlock. According to the LA Times, the poll of 605 registered...

Kogi spicy pork taco | Photo by oranges are not the only fruit via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr Not even 24 hours after a post on LAist about Baja Fresh's suspiciously sounding Kogi BBQ-like menu spread through Twitter, the Orange County based company has changed their word usage and released the following statement by Chuck Rink, president of Fresh Enterprises, which owns Baja Fresh: Baja Fresh wants to clarify that our Korean BBQ...

Photo by jvoves via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Two weeks on the job and Carmen Trutanich is making his mark, making heads turn and fighting the fight, whether you like it or not. Because the bar was one of the first to take a risk and open in the new downtown, a big Happy 5th Birthday to the Golden Golpher! Cheap lunch date? Lucky Strike downtown is offering a recession deal...