The Daily News reports on an effort by Los Angeles County officials to cut their runaway office supply budget. Thanks to a system that allows employees to choose their own supplies, the county spends $195,000 a year on pens alone. Kris Vosburgh, Executive Director of the HJTA, applauds the effort by County CEO Bill Fujioka to stop this waste of taxpayer money.

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While the weather in L.A. is usually sunny, Reuters News has a stormy forecast for Mayor Villaraigosa. With a $212 million budget shortfall, falling property taxes and 15% unemployment, the mayor is poised to become a lightning rod for city employee unions, who staunchly oppose layoffs and pay cuts for their members.

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As this article in the Los Angeles Daily News shows, the new retirement plan for Metropolitan Water District employees will affect significant parts of Los Angeles County in addition to Orange County and San Diego. This plan, which will raise record high pensions even higher, would have already gone into affect had several counties not begun to protest, delaying the vote until the 13th. There's still time to make your voice heard!  Read more >>

LOS ANGELES -- Some good news in the midst of the recession greeted Los Angeles water customers when, on March 25th, the Los Angeles Superior Court issued a tentative ruling in L.A. v. All Persons finding the City's practice of padding water bills to pay for unrelated City expenses to be unconstitutional.  Read more >>

A major collision between the interests of the public in knowing how well they are being served by elected officials, and those of politicians who believe their stature should give them immunity from scrutiny is now taking place in Los Angeles. The side of full disclosure is being represented by the city controller while the side of secrecy is being defended by the city attorney.  Read more >>

As Proposition 13 reached its 30th anniversary on June 6th, there were no protests over high property taxes in the Golden State. Proposition 13 still has it opponents and critics, but in recent polls voters still support Prop 13 by the same two-to-one margin it passed by three decades ago.  Read more >>

The League of California Cities and their developer allies have constructed an initiative that has nothing of substance on the inside, and to further confuse the voters, they are featuring its support by the League of California Homeowners, Inc. While this attractive name may cause many voters to think this is a broad-based statewide homeowners organization, it is actually a corporation whose primary function is to act as a contractor referral service.  Read more >>

The state legislative analyst recommends the state do away with the mortgage interest deduction for homeowners. Senate leader Don Perata and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez have promised to seriously consider this recommendation. And there are, of course, the usual rumblings from the education lobby that Proposition 13 must be jettisoned.  Read more >>

Los Angeles is run by the public-employee unions for the benefit of the public-employee unions, and all other considerations are secondary.  Read more >>

Koko the gorilla, a resident of the Los Angeles Zoo, had become quite adept at picking the pockets of the zoo keeper. One day Koko used the zoo keeper's key to let himself out of his cage, and ambled over to the snack shop. Climbing onto a bar stool, he grunted "Water." When the man returned with a bottle of Aquafina, Koko handed him a $20 bill from the zoo keeper's wallet. Guessing the gorilla wasn't too smart, the man gave Koko one dollar in change. "We don't get a lot of business from the animals here," the man remarked. Koko snorted, "At $19 for bottled water, I'm not surprised."

Koko is not the only Los Angeles resident paying too much for water. And the snack shop isn't the only water purveyor hoping that its customers aren't too smart.  Read more >>