L.A.’s new city attorney Carmen Trutanich stopped by The Times on Thursday to speak with the editorial board about his first few months in office. Trutanich received the editorial board’s endorsement in the March election, in which he defeated then-Los Angeles City Councilmember Jack Weiss.

The meeting lasted for about an hour. Below is a link to a recording of the conversation; as always, feel free to leave a comment.

Click here to listen

--Kevin Patra

Watching Arlen Specter's health-care town meeting on CNN this morning, I experienced the predictable panic of the liberal elitist. Who let these people in?  When did democracy start resembling a Jerry Springer show? When they're finished killing health reform with their paranoid rantings, will these yahoos target the First Amendment?

Then I mentally caught my breath.

Assuming, as I do, that the town-meeting loudmouths aren't all Republican robots, their suspicions of bureaucrats snooping on their medical records and Medicare operating ethical suicide parlors aren't that different from liberals' distrust of the CIA and the NSA.

Suspicion of Big Government always has had its liberal and its conservative incarnations, and sometrimes politics brings the extremes to touch and mean one thing. I think it was Peter Beinart who first pointed out that opposition to the Patriot Act came not just from ACLU-ish liberals but also from right-wing libertarians -- the "black helicopter crowd."  

Liberals don't want the government to hoard and computerize DNA information about people who have been arrested. Conservatives don't want Washington to know who owns a gun.

Anti-statism wasn't the only obsession of the crowd that gave Specter grief this morning. Another theme was the imprtance of denying health care to illegal aliens, who ought to be deported anyway. Then there was the mention of tort reform, not usually a preoccupation of "ordinary Americans." (Here I do suspect  some Republican puppetry.)  But, like it or not, suspicion of government is, as Rap Brown would say, as American as cherry pie.

-- Michael McGough

Bet you thought that the business of your publicly elected California Legislature was, well, public, since your public dollars pay these public servants to make public decisions in the public's Capitol building. Is there a theme in that sentence? There ought to be, especially with the editorial board today bemoaning the Assembly's decision to expunge the record of the individual votes of its members on whether or not to allow drilling off the Santa Barbara coast. In other words, you can't find out how your own Assembly member voted.

Assembly members sometimes complain, privately, that their constituents just don't understand how difficult it is to make laws and balance a budget. But making the very public process of lawmaking into a secret ritual doesn't help matters. On the contrary, it makes Californians feel like they are part of the stuff being fed into the meat grinder.

The board also weighs in on the latest maneuvers to stop a worthy bill that would extend hate-crime laws to cover crimes against gays and lesbians. Since conservative lawmakers in Washington D.C. weren't getting anywhere with the specious argument that halting hate crimes against people because of their sexual orientation would somehow impinge on the perpetrators' freedom of speech and religion, they've come up with a new tactic: making certain hate crimes a capital offense, thus changing the congressional conversation from one about equal rights to one about the death penalty.

And though the people of Afghanistan have a million good reasons to mistrust the election process, the editorial board notes the importance of holding new presidential elections and giving voters hope that they can, at least eventually, have an impact on changing the government that has turned out a disappointment to many of them.

On the other side of the fold, Tim Rutten reprimands Police Chief William Bratton for the timing of his departure from Los Angeles and some of the dealings that took place beforehand:

...The manner and timing of Bratton's departure is almost breathtakingly irresponsible. It also raises troubling questions about his relationship with Michael Cherkasky, the court-appointed monitor who evaluated the LAPD's compliance with the federal consent decree, and about Cherkasky's role in convincing the federal judge to terminate oversight of the department.

And a professor in Mexico calls on President Obama to do more than praise Mexican President Felipe Calderon for his courage in the war on drugs; he must also remind Calderon that the human-rights abuses that his army is accused of in that war are unacceptable.

Photo: Philip Scott Andrews / AP

The opinion pages offer two reactions today to LAPD chief Willam J. Bratton's announcement that he will be leaving the department in October, three years ahead of the end of his term.

From the editorial board:

Bratton was the right person in the right place at the right time, and it wasn't because of some East Coast brand of toughness and bluster. It turned out, in fact, that in addition to being a talented leader and police administrator, Bratton had an unusual knack for understanding the histories and sensitivities, the needs and demands of Los Angeles communities.

Photo credit: David McNew / Getty Images

Iran's show trial last weekend of at least 100 reformist politicians, journalists and foot soldiers is part of an ugly trend that will not only weaken the position of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it could derail talks with the United States concerning Iran's nuclear ambitions, according to today's lead editorial.

The Times also weighs in on a proposal for the city of Los Angeles to approve a $30-million loan to renovate the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood so it can accommodate performances by acrobatic troupe Cirque du Soleil. The city's projections that a 10-year run of the popular attraction would generate 858 jobs seems more based on federal loan requirements than reality; the city should reject the loan.

And Times editorial writer Karin Klein relates her own experience with the "cash for clunkers" law, which has stirred up a feeding frenzy at local car dealerships: "At Hyundai, we watched a family leap into an Accent for a test drive after two other cars were snatched out from under them. We never did find a salesman."

Speaking of which, columnist Jonah Goldberg thinks the whole federal car-buying subsidy program is a clunker. Washington's notion that paying people who already own working cars so that they can buy new ones and junk the old is reminiscent of French economist Frederic Bastiat's "broken windows" fallacy, Goldberg says: Though it might benefit bankers and car makers, it doesn't take into account the economic stimulus that would have resulted if the car buyers had instead spent their money on more useful things.

And just when you thought it was safe to get out of Iraq, political science professor Barbara F. Walter asserts that it isn't. History shows that countries that have fought civil wars are likely to do it again, and that countries that end their civil wars with compromise settlements often return to fighting unless there is a third party present to enforce the peace. Most experts believe the U.S. would have to remain in Iraq for five to 10 years past the current 2011 withdrawal deadline to avert another outbreak of hostilities among Iraq's competing factions.

Finally, constitutional law professor Ryan Coonerty thinks the problem with California's government isn't an excess of democracy, but too little. Coonerty favors doubling the size of the Legislature, which could be accomplished without excessive spending by cutting lawmakers' current salaries ($116,000 a year) in half. Smaller districts would allow the people to hold their representatives more accountable, he argues.

Illustration credit: Paul Tong / TMS

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa got his newsweek cover, his Los Angeles Magazine cover and a few others in between -- so now it's the City Council's turn. The full council is featured on the August cover of LAJEMM, the Los Angeles Journal for Education on Medical Marijuana.

I heard several reports yesterday of this very impressive-looking, full-color, glossy-covered 14 x 10 magazine being distributed in stacks around town. As of this posting, the July issue is still highlighted at the Web site, and it has an inset of the council. But holy smokes -- the August cover makes the council members look like poster children for medical marijuana.

Or maybe that should be "medical marijuana" (with quotes), because while some of the full-page ads in the 208-page book emphasize health and healing, many don't bother with the medical niceties and instead discuss their "quality strains," "clones," "friendly staff," etc.

It's an interesting addition to the discussion over whether and how cities should regulate medical marijuana dispensaries. Here's the Times' recent editorial encouraging the council to move forward with regulations, but there is obviously a lot more to be considered: Can or should the city regulate advertising? Can or should the city take any role in verifying the medical use of marijuana? Did Californians, in adopting Proposition 215 in 1996, really intend to roll back all restrictions against recreational marijuana use? Or did they mean, as the ballot measure said, to protect people from prosecution only for medical use of the plant?

And, did the City Council members know they were posing for a magazine cover?

The Los Angeles City Council plans to vote Tuesday on a proposal that would bring a new Cirque du Soleil show to the Kodak Theater for a 10-year run, provided that the city agrees to provide a $30-million federal loan from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The loan program is specifically for projects that promote economic development and job creation. Proponents of the Cirque du Soleil proposal, including the Community Development Department that gave the OK earlier this week, say the show would create more than 900 jobs at the theater and the Hollywood and Highland complex. The report that details a plan for the jobs that will be created is still under wraps, however.

The Cirque du Soleil show is expected to fill 85 percent capacity, as most Cirque shows do across the globe, event though tickets will cost $110 each, and the show will run twice a day. Officials at the CDD say the demand is there and tourists will come to Hollywood just to see the show.

The editorial board is mulling this proposal over, and we'd like to hear your thoughts on it. Click here to find the full report on the loan.

--Catherine Lyons

Credit: AP Photo/THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Jacques Boissinot

Today's Times editorial page tells FINA to get a grip. Or, rather, loosen its grip. FINA -- that's Fédération Internationale de Natation Amateur to you -- is the body that governs competitive swimming, and it recently said non to the high-tech, full-body polyurethane suits that have helped swimmers set new world records. Don't fear the modern world and its innovations, the editorial says:

But short of a swimsuit fitted with motorized propellers, or high-jump shoes soled with rocket boosters, there's little reason to reject improved design and materials based on skittishness about the records set and broken in seemingly less time than the 20 minutes it takes to don one of the new swimsuits. Fans like to compare performances of the past with those of the present. Who's the greater golfer, Tiger Woods or Arnold Palmer? Sporting events should be a contest among athletes, not between current athletes and the ghosts of athletes past.

The editorial page also says it's high time for Los Angeles to weed out the medical marijuana joints ... sorry ... dispensaries ... that can't or won't abide by reasonable restrictions. Like not being next door to a school. Or a bong supplier: "If the city doesn't regulate its dispensaries, there's a chance the Drug Enforcement Administration will, with results many Californians would rather avoid."

The page also raises a glass to President Obama, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the guy who arrested him, Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley. See, they're having a beer in the White House today to talk over old times ("Dude, remember that time you came to my house, and I yelled at you, and you arrested me, and the president took my side, and then he backed down? That was cool."). We don't deal with the fact that the president's beer of choice, Bud Light, is now foreign-owned.

OK, turn the page. Op-Ed leads off with Israeli blogger Yisrael Medad and his observation of a Jewish day of lamentation -- and his assertion that the U.S. stance toward the status of Jerusalem has created "another lamentable situation between the two nations."

UCLA law professor Gary Blasi, a persistent thorn in the side of cities trying to "clean up" homelessness rather than help the homeless, takes on Santa Monica for its aggressive enforcement:

The city's budget documents praise "the rigid enforcement of laws and ordinances to discourage" what it calls "encampments." The budget included $250,000 for "homeless intervention" but also $240,000 for a panhandling education campaign, presumably to reduce giving to people perceived to be homeless. And last winter, Santa Monica closed pickup locations from which homeless people could get to cold-weather shelters in adjacent cities.

Read previous Blasi Op-Ed articles in the Times here.

And Jersey girl Meghan Daum compares her state of birth with her new home. Is L.A. New Jersey West?

And yet it's also the way both places are blessed with a commendable lack of smugness about themselves. Just as New Jersey lives in the shadow of New York and Philly, Southern California is forever contending with the sanctimonious posturing of Northern California. We are perpetually being told our coastline isn't as dramatic and our populace not as literate. San Franciscans refer to their town as The City and do a lot of chest-thumping about how the taxi drivers quote Rilke and the sourdough starter dates back to the Gold Rush.

You know, Meghan, the West Coast has the sunshine.

But, I guess, down on the shore everything's all right.

Photo: Martin Bureau / AFP / Getty Images

Iraq still owes $24 billion in reparations to Kuwait for Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion and attempted conquest, but now Iraq has problems of its own. Should it still pay? The Times editorial page says Kuwait should consider reducing reparations in the name of stability in that part of the world:

Plenty of bankers would give their eye teeth for 50 cents on a dollar owed, and Kuwait already has received that. Iraq's political and economic development is in the interest of its neighbors, as well as of the United States. Kuwait should consider reducing reparations, and its proposal to reinvest some of the remaining debt in Iraq would benefit both countries.

The page also gives props to Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of Florida for his vote for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor -- and for trying to keep the high court from being just another panel for political appointments:

During the Alito hearings, Graham reminded Democrats that "elections matter." He was true to his word Tuesday in supporting Sotomayor. "I didn't feel good about the election, but we lost," Graham said. Then he offered his colleagues a lesson in political science: "What I'm trying to do with my vote is to recognize that [during the Bush administration] we came perilously close to damaging an institution, the judiciary, that has held this country together in difficult times."

And we round out the page with more props, this time for L.A. residents and their response to the drought:

Let's consider the very real possibility that Los Angeles residents saved water because they take the drought seriously. They have a high degree of environmental awareness. They want to conserve -- even if that means their lawns may turn brown.

On the Op-Ed page, we offer a collection of punditry from around the nation on the state budget. Also, author Helen Winternitz calls on the U.S. and other western nations to support Congo -- the former Zaire -- in part by accepting China as the nation's primary creditor.

And Kathy J. Sackman, president of United Nurses Assns. of California/Union of Health Care Professionals, takes Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to task for undermining oversight of nurses. Sackman says more oversight of her union's members is better:

The board should implement a better tracking system so that comprehensive records of allegations against individual nurses are maintained (both in-state and out-of-state) and compared against any new claims. And finally, the board should recruit enforcement monitors to guarantee that action recommended by the board against individual nurses is completed and that any required oversight during a probationary period is fulfilled.

Photo: Gustavo Ferrari / EPA

*Updated at bottom of post with additional links.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Monday that he wants a change in city business tax law. It's late. Is it too late? 

Maybe you saw the July 10 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal and in Reason Magazineby Rick Newcombe of Creators Syndicate, who wrote that Los Angeles' tax bureaucracy was driving his business from town.

In a nutshell, city tax authorities issued a ruling in 1994 that set the company's business tax classification (more on that in a minute), then changed its mind 13 years later and reclassified the company into a higher category. 

So Creators Syndicate suddenly has to start paying higher annual business taxes? No, that's not even the big deal here. The problem is that the ruling applies retroactively, so the company owes back taxes for years starting in 2004, according to Newcombe's op-ed. But even that's not the big deal. Because the company, ahem, "underpaid" for several years, it owes interest. And penalties. As if the Creators Syndicate had been cheating, rather than relying in good faith on the city's earlier ruling.

That's very L.A., and very bad for business. On Monday, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa acknowledged that the practice was neither fair nor reasonable, and he called for a change in city law, with retroactive effect for companies caught in a Creators Syndicate-type situation (although the mayor did not name the company).

For any actual change, it has to go through the City Council, which must hold hearings and adopt an ordinance.