Around the Halls: August 31 - September 2

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — Today is Monday, August 31, and it's tomorrow that things around City Hall get interesting. Tuesday's City Council agenda includes a reconsideration of the proposed new signage ordinance complete with a tangle of amending motions. Also on the agendas: residential hotel appeal fees and the potential sale of a historic fire station.

MONDAY: No meetings today as Council eases its way back from recess.

TUESDAY: Council's in session and five committee agendas join it on the calendar.

At Council, item 2 is CF 09-0600-S130, fee increases for services provided by the Department of Building and Safety.

Item 15 is a second consideration for the Broadway Design Overlay District, CF 09-1884. Ordinances to be passed by council typically have to appear on the agenda twice.

Item 21, CF 08-0644, is a new fee structure for hotels that want to appeal city designation as residential hotels. The Housing Department's handling of these designations was a major point of complaint when the item came before committee.

Items 40 and 41, CF 05-0872-S391 and CF 05-0872-S461, are denials for Hardship Exemptions filed by medical marijuana dispensaries at 111 E. 9th and 748 S. San Pedro.

All of that is small peanuts compared to item 50: the signage ordinance. A report, a minority report and amending motions on CF 08-2020 start on page 26 of the agenda and run to page 33. We will attempt to make sense of what all this means for Downtown later this afternoon.

At the newly-created Information Technology and Government Affairs committee, CF 09-2034 asks the Department of General Services to get an appraisal for historic Fire Station 23, on 5th east of Los Angeles. The motion says that "a local developer has expressed interest in acquiring this property" for a business. Daniel Taylor and his Center for History, Art and Culture have been attempting to raise funds to restore the structure as a cultural center.

WEDNESDAY: Council's in session, as are two committees.

At Public Works committee is CF 09-1730, a motion to name the intersection of 6th and Central as "Officer Charles P. Williams Square." Williams was the first African American LAPD officer to die in the line of duty, killed responding to a suspect at a brothel.