Zach Behrens

Neighbors walk the median, soon-to-be park, at a planning meeting in 2008 | Photo by Zach Behrens/LAist Studio Oaks Park, named that way because it stretches between the two Los Angeles city neighborhoods, will start to become a reality next week when construction crews enter Phase 1 of the project. The Park, which is really a large median that divides a 2,000 foot stretch of Ventura Boulevard from residential homes, is a vision of...

Okay, random. LAist reader Jon Zack was walking on the beach yesterday when he saw this 5 foot plaster-made snowman between the walking path and the water. "He looked happy, but a little melty," he joked. And it's still there, he says. A few minutes past 4 p.m., his girlfriend found it near a wooden fence against the path....

Planning for the weekend, the weather is looking to be pretty sweet. Basically, today through Sunday, the weather will be in the 70s on the beaches, low 80s inland and a little hotter in the hills and Valley, according to the National Weather Service. Oh yes, for the win. The skies will remain clear and sunny until Sunday night and Monday morning, when patchy clouds and fog will roll on in before it once...

The Obama Administration certainly likes Los Angeles a lot more than the Bush one. President Barack Obama has already done a Los Angeles visit, now it's his counterpart's turn. Vice President Joe Biden will be in town tomorrow to highlight the progress of the Recovery Act, according to the White House today. He'll be touring the Esperanza Community Housing Corporation in South LA with Mayor Villaraigosa, Rep. Xavier Becerra and Ron Simms of the...

Los Angeles is in heavy need for watchdog websites like this. Now, thanks to MapLight Los Angeles, you can easily search campaign contributions to Los Angeles city politicians by date, industry and more. The information has always been available via the City Ethics Commission website, but MapLight parses out the data to be more easy-to-use and accessible. For example, City Attorney candidate has taken $8,500 from the Outdoor advertising services industry--you know, billboards and...

Chief Bratton | Image via LA Weekly It's frowned upon for police chiefs to endorse candidates during campaigns. But so far, Chief William Bratton has endorsed candidates appearing on next Tuesday's ballot, including City Attorney hopeful Jack Weiss. “If Weiss gets in, he is going to owe Bratton,” warned former Chief Daryl Gates in an LA Weekly story by Daniel Heimpel today. That would be a "real problem since one of the city attorney’s...

Now here's not a fun way to start your second term in office. The June cover of Los Angeles Magazine will hit homes and newsstands with a cover story, actually an open letter, perhaps to put Mayor Villaraigosa back on track to serve Los Angeles and not his political career when his new term begins on July 1st. "We are bitter because you promised us so much," a teaser reads on LA Observed. "What...

Bell Cab introduced the city's first hybrid taxis in Los Angeles today in what politicians hope is the just the first of many in the city's fleet of 2,303. Controller-Elect and current Transportation Committee Chair, Councilmember Wendy Greuel requested the city to create a green taxi plan and today challenged other cab companies to follow suit. "Taxi's in Los Angeles might be different colors on the outside, but my goal is for them all...

Star Trek made a killing this weekend for obvious reasons: it was really, really good and it didn't matter if you were a Trekkie or not. And the fact that it wasn't 100% green screen and computer generated graphics was one of the redeeming factors. “So much incredible stuff happens in Star Trek that I wanted to keep it feeling as real as possible,” Director J.J. Abrams said in production notes provided by Paramount Pictures, via Wired Magazine's Underwire. “I didn’t want to have it all be green screens and CG.”

Photo by A.C. Thamer via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Looking at next week's special election, Governor Schwarzenegger's Department of Finance says the state budget deficit will be $15.4 billion if Props 1A through 1E pass, $21.3 billion if they fail. A nice new bar opens in downtown this week. Welcome BottleRock to the South Park neighborhood (they have another location in Culver City). 2008 High School Dropout Rate announced today: 34.9%...

One of the six endangered California Condors released at Pinnacles National Monument in 2003 has died at the Los Angeles Zoo. After the bird was found shot, it was brought to Los Angeles to be treated, but died Monday due to complications from lead poisoning after the bird ingested lead ammunition from hunters (oddly enough, the gunshots and ingestion were not related). On the brighter side of things. Two condors (313 and 303 if...

Former Miss USA and New York and more recently California's pageant director Shanna Moakler today resigned citing the recent Miss California controversy. "I cannot with a clear conscious move forward supporting and promoting the Miss Universe Organization when I no longer believe in it, or the contracts I signed committing myself as a youth," she said in a statement. "I want to be a role model for young woman with high hopes of pageantry,...