Around the Halls: October 13 - 15

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — It’s Monday, October 13th, and the city’s off today in honor of Columbus Day. Tuesday and Wednesday the wheels of City Hall are back in motion, bringing talk of finances. Loans are getting restructured, and the city’s setting up a Finance Day.

MONDAY: Unlike you, the city gets Columbus Day off.

TUESDAY: Council and four committees are in session.

At Education and Neighborhoods committee, item 3 is CF 08-0410. It’s a motion that would allow neighborhood councils to use the city’s online Early Notification System to send out agendas and in exchange reduce the number of physical locations those agendas need to be posted. Physical posting of neighborhood council agendas has long been unreliable, and the city’s online system is already up and working.

There’s nothing particularly of interest on a very short Council agenda.

WEDNESDAY: At Housing, Community and Economic Development, item 4 is CF 08-2541, a report from CRA asking for Council approval to restructure nine loans with SRO Housing Corporation and take a number of other steps to bring its accounts with the city up to current. The non-profit affordable housing developer has 24 loans with the city totaling $34 million.

At Trade, Commerce and Tourism committee, the second item doesn’t have a council file, but involves labor issues at the Convention Center. The agenda lists it as “Los Angeles Convention Center staff and others to present verbal report relative to working conditions and potential labor dispute of food service workers at the Convention Center.”

At Council, item 55 (CF 08-2735) sets October 21 as Finance Day, where council will hold a single-topic meeting addressing how the current financial situation affects the city.

At Public Works committee, CF 08-1512 would allow the city to charge escalating administrative penalties for the removal of illegal signs and handbills posted on the public right-of-way.