Zach Behrens

Of the $33 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for the U.S Department of Agriculture's wildfire protection efforts, California is only slated for $1.5 million so far and that's for Northern California. "The project work will include fuel reduction work near communities, Forest Service recreation facilities, and access routes and will also maintain facilities to reduce deferred maintenance while making crews available for fires suppression when needed." This comes as the state...

This last Saturday, Crumbs Bake Shop opened their doors on yet another location, this time in the West Valley city of Calabasas. And in the tradition of their grand openings, they'll celebrate by giving 1,000 cupcakes away next Saturday beginning at 10 a.m. That's one per person, first come, first serve. At previous openings like at Glendale and Beverly Hills, there were lines around the block before the shops even opened, and the free...

Photo by tannazi via Flickr Billboard blight activist Dennis Hathaway has combed through the proposed sign ordinance released last week (download a copy here) and has found a bit of everything reflecting the good and the bad. There's lots of good, but if you're against sign districts--think Hollywood & Highland, a major commercial district in the city--then Hathaway sees a problem: The most serious problem with sign districts is that in essence they hand...

You should never drink and drive and to remind you of that, the LAPD is hosting two sobriety checkpoints tonight. One will be located at Vermont and 11th in the Koreatown area from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. Further South, the other checkpoint at Broadway and 51st Street from 7 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. As the LAPD explains, "The purpose of the sobriety checkpoint is to reduce the number of traffic collisions involving intoxicated...

Enjoying the wildflowers | Photo: Pink Sherbet Photography via Flickr It's Friday, so that means more updates from the Thomas Payne Foundation in their weekly Wildflower Hotline update. Here's what's going on in the immediate area: Downtown Los Angeles is even sporting some natives, just check out the Cornfields area, near the Los Angeles River. This park features a great display of Lupinus sp. (lupines), Layia platyglossa (tidy tips), a bit of Eschscholzia californica...

Photo by jondoeforty1 via Flickr Is the above post-Dodger Game traffic jam scenario familiar? Last year, the city did a pilot program called the "Dodger Trolley." It whisked baseball fans to and from Dodger Stadium and Union Station (and some stops between). If the city is to do it for the 2009 season, it would cost $400,000, but with the current budget shortfall and economy, finding the funding has not happened yet, Eric Richardson...

What's taking so long with that tall building at Sunset & Vine? No one really knows, even the real estate and development experts at Curbed LA can't figure it out, but some recent on-site sleuthing helped clue them in: "We were told by some of the friendly construction workers that they believe the project will be finished by this summer. July was one month pegged as an end date," they wrote. The Sunset &...

As Metro continues to refuse to release Google Transit to the public (even though it's basically ready to go), we've found that Metrolink went a step further than just letting Google use the data. "Metrolink has made its schedule and stop information available to anyone who wants it in the Google Transit Feed Specification," wrote Metrolink's Public Information Officer Francisco Oaxaca in the comments section of LAist yesterday. "We hope that developers will use...

Photo: LA Wad Earlier this week, a Gold Line train was being pulled out of the Boyle Heights tunnel by a truck for testing on the new tracks when a coupling device between the train and truck broke sending the train back into the tunnel with an operator on board. Luckily, no was hurt and the train stopped somehow in the tunnel. "If the train had kept going, it would have exited the tunnel...

At Joshua Tree National Park | Photo by truello via Flickr A bill that would have added around one million acres of land to the National Wilderness System, including 280,000 acres in California, failed to pass the House of Representatives Wednesday by two votes. Republicans felt it had too many unnecessary earmarks. But the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009 could head back to congress for another vote giving it one more chance....

USC journalism student Alexander Comisar tried to interview LA County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky about the day in a the life of a politician. The press representative said "no" so Comisar confronted Yaroslavsky during public comment at a meeting this week. "Your Press Deputy told me that as a point of policy, you don't do interviews with students because it isn't your responsibility to help us with our homework." That seemed to catch the 3rd...

Photo by troshy via Flickr With billboards and supergraphics as one of the hot topic items at city hall, a new staff report and proposed city sign ordinance has finally been released. It will be voted on next week Wednesday at a City Planning Commission. "It is critically important that persons concerned with visual blight and the spread of commercial advertising in our public spaces understand how this ordinance addresses--or fails to address--those issues,"...