Darrick Rainey

Please see today's L.A. Weekly cover story, "L.A. Mayor With Baggage Seeks Job: Antonio Villaraigosa's quest for Wall Street, Washington and wealth," and check out the mayor's original, unedited schedule, obtained by the Weekly, at the end of the next page.

In 2008, L.A. Weekly obtained Mayor Villaraigosa's official work schedule and discovered that he spent only 11 percent of his time on direct mayoral work. Critics dubbed him "the 11 percent mayor." Four years later, as he leaves office, we revisited his calendar. We found that Villaraigosa is deeply devoted to photo ops, ceremonies and travel, spending just 15 percent of his day on core duties such as deciding upon policy or weighing laws. He spends 42 percent of his working hours traveling outside Los Angeles.

During the 15-week period from September 1 to December 16, 2012, he logged roughly 1,234 hours of official work, 12 hours a day. He divides his time into the same five categories we unearthed in 2008: Trips, Gap Time (getting from event to event), Personal Time/Blacked Out, Ceremonial or PR, and City Work.

Here's the breakdown by category of how he really spends his time, 2012 versus 2008:

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Chris Yarzab

Just couldn't quite reach the ballot box.

>Update: Prop. D is far ahead and the only medical pot measure with more than 50 percent of the vote, as required to win. Vote-counting continues like molasses at City Hall. See details at bottom. First posted 8:57 p.m.

Early election returns show Proposition D strongly leading measures E and F as voters in Los Angeles decide whether to severely restrict the number of medical marijuana shops or allow them to open in dozens of new neighborhoods.

It was a matter of speculation all day today whether marijuana users, both recreational and medicinal, weighed in at the voting booth in great enough numbers to influence the citywide vote. As one journalist quipped on the campaign trail, "Did they remember to vote?" The Battle of the Blunts has been raging for months:

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Matthew Mullins

The neighborhood adjacent to the Pico-Robertson intersection could call the L.A. mayoral race.

Wendy Greuel or Eric Garcetti will be the new mayor of L.A. thanks to Precinct 9001492A, a micro-neighborhood in South Robertson where voters in the March primary were about equally divided between Garcetti and Greuel, Kevin James came in third and Jan Perry trailed in fourth.

In fact, the South Robertson precinct closely mirrored how L.A. voted as a whole.

So when its residents -- of Alcott Street, Oakhurst Drive and Durango, Canfield and Oakhurst avenues -- vote on May 21, they, along with other precincts who closely mimicked the citywide primary election, could play the role of bellwether.

After all, they think like the rest of L.A. So who is Precinct 9001492A in South Robertson voting for? We asked. They said ...

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Ken Lund / Flickr

The Bell corruption trial was all about a City Council that allegedly paid itself to attend make-work committee meetings. Those meet-ups ultimately added up to six-figure salaries in a town whose residents are mostly working-class.

In Compton, a similar scandal could be shaping up. KCET teases this morning that it has discovered a similar payment situation for Compton City Council members:

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Fred Harper

Herb Wesson

Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson and other council members better hope they don't have any embarrassing emails or texts on their computers or cell phones.

In a hard-charging legal move on Thursday, Beverly Hills civil rights attorney Leo Terrell sent out California Public Records Act requests to Wesson, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, City Attorney Carmen Trutanich, each City Council member, and other government leaders.

The attorney, who has filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles, hopes to obtain potentially damning evidence that Wesson and other council members unlawfully used race as the basis for redrawing maps for council districts 8, 9, and 10.

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Freedom to Marry/flickr

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa

Update and correction: An upset mayoral aide says they've achieved a lot and were more than willing to talk. See next page.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraiogosa has a legacy problem.

Leaving office on June 30 after eight years at the helm, Villaraigosa's highly publicized Million Trees L.A. initiative is something of a bust, with the city nowhere near his 2006 promise of planting one million trees over several years.

A whole bunch of powerful folks are quietly defensive about the embarrassing failure. The Mayor's Office refuses to talk with L.A. Weekly about it, and same goes for Million Trees L.A. executive director Lisa Sarno. TreePeople founder Andy Lipkis is staying mum, too ... hmmm.

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Train Chartering and Private Rail Cars

Life after LAPD and LAFD? It can all be yours thanks to $1 mil personal DROP accounts.

KCET has a blockbuster report on the bizarre DROP program approved by voters under Mayor Richard Riordan when LAPD morale was so low -- thanks to the Rampart scandal -- that City Hall was at that time desperate to stop a rush of early cop retirements.

Now, says a probe by KCET's Judy Muller, the DROP perk is sacrosanct and cops and firefighters are getting very rich -- awarded interest-bearing accounts of $800,000, $939,000 and $1 million. In a blatantly fake process, they "retire," get the money, then get "rehired" the very next day. KCET hounded Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to probe this. His aides ducked. Villaraigosa says LAPD's been cut to the bone, asking voters to back Proposition A, a city sales tax hike, on March 5:

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Villaraigosa

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has been on the fence, or at least noticeably quiet, about a proposed sales-tax hike that will come before L.A. city voters March 5.

Today the Yes on A campaign revealed that our leader is giving Proposition A his support.

According to a statement from the camp Villaraigosa will join the initiative's main backer, City Council President Herb Wesson, ...

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401(K) 2012

For previous stories see "Corruption at Building and Safety," and also "Bud Ovrom, L.A. Building and Safety Manager, Accidentally Outs Himself as a Scheming Media Manipulator in FBI Bribery Scandal."

A third L.A. building inspector has pleaded guilty in a federal bribery scandal that has rocked City Hall.

Authorities say that from 2007 to 2010 Samuel In took $30,000 in dirty cash from people hoping to get their projects approved in Koreatown.

And, they say, he pleaded guilty. The U.S. Attorney's Office states today:

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Lucy Rendler-Kaplan / Flickr

Does the city of L.A. essentially deprive you the right to challenge parking tickets it issues?

A man named Jeff Galfer thinks so. He's the lead plaintiff in a new class action lawsuit that alleges the city violates your constitutional rights by making it difficult to appeal a parking ticket.

According to the suit ...

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Read more about Wendy Greuel's housing record: "Rent Activists Hit Greuel and Garcetti."

Update, 1:05 p.m.: City Controller Wendy Greuel's office releases a statement, after the jump.

Los Angeles City Controller Wendy Greuel, who's running for mayor, is stirring up outrage with a recommendation that could return L.A. to a time when slum housing conditions went largely unchecked by the city.

Greuel wants to move housing code enforcement away from the Housing Department and to the troubled Department of Building and Safety -- even though her own audit shows numerous problems with DBS.

"It would be a disastrous thing to follow through on," says tenants' rights activist Larry Gross, who promises that other activists will strongly oppose and fight the recommendation.

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D.J. Prator

LAPD officer giving ticket in downtown

With a camera and a web site, D.J. Prator fought the law and won -- and saved downtown drivers hundreds of dollars each in the process.

Last night, SoCal Connected's Laurel Erickson reported how Prator got a "no right turn" sign at the intersection of 7th Street and Broadway in downtown taken down in a matters of weeks after catching the city red-handed for setting up what appeared to be a ticket trap.

The city usually spends years taking away such a road sign. The extraordinarily fast action was "like an admission of guilt," Prator tells L.A. Weekly, that the some city official was up to something very sketchy.

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Councilman Mitch Englander

By now it's common knowledge that Los Angeles City Council members love their perks and holidays. Just read the L.A. Weekly cover story "Los Angeles on $300,00 a Year." But now they're taking time off from dealing with important city business -- it's officially called a "recess" -- for a major conference they don't even attend.

Alice Walton, KPCC's political reporter, notes that only two council members are attending the National League of Cities conference this week in Boston -- while everyone else is running for another office, taking trips elsewhere, or just laying low. And it's not merely a one-time occurrence.

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Svenstorm

Elephants in traveling shows could join condoms and plastic bags in the list of things L.A. wants to ban.

Within the next six months, you will no longer be able to buy a pet from a pet store in Los Angeles. You won't be able to shoot a porn without the actors sheathing up. And plastic bags? The city council has banned those too.

So what's next?

Elephants. Specifically, circuses with elephants.

Spurred by the Los Angeles-based Animal Defenders International, or ADI, the L.A. City Council's Personnel and Animal Welfare Committee voted Tuesday to send the full Council legislation banning the use of elephants in traveling shows and exhibits that stop within city limits.

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Sales tax: No, no, no

The L.A. City Council voted 10-4 today to put a half-cent sales tax increase on the March ballot. But all of the candidates for citywide office opposed it.More »

Wendy Greuel: Keeping it vague

The top contenders in the race for L.A. mayor have a lot in common, but there is one key strategic difference. As council members, Eric Garcetti and Jan Perry have to vote on issues that come up at City Hall. Wendy Greuel, the city controller, does not.More »

Antonio Villaraigosa and Carmen Trutanich

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa came into office promising to eliminate the city's persistent deficits. And as he heads out the door, having cut 5,000 positions, the deficits are still there.More »

Kevin Scanlon

One union has already come out swinging against a new plan from former L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan to privatize future pension investments.

Last night, former Mayor Richard Riordan told the L.A. Weekly that he was about submit papers to start gathering signatures for a charter amendment that would completely overhaul how pensions are doled out to city employees. (The papers will be submitted Monday morning.)

The SEIU -- which represents about 10,000 city employees -- is already fighting back.

"Contrary to what Richard Riordan says, his pension plan wouldn't save L.A., it would wreck it," union president Bob Schoonover said in a statement. "The plan is wrong-headed, lacks factual support and just plain mean."

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Signage framing installed at Midtown Crossing

Mid-City resident Robert Portillo and his neighbors can't catch a break, and developer CIM Group seems to only want more.

The newest clash between these two sides started last Friday, when Portillo and his neighbors saw construction workers at the CIM-owned Midtown Crossing shopping center suddenly erecting three large frames for signage on a huge wall that's already caused much blight in the neighborhood.

"It adds more blight upon blight," Portillo tells L.A. Weekly.

The newest development is another surprise Portillo and his neighbors didn't see coming.

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Kevin Scanlon

Richard Riordan

Long sounding the alarm for city employee pension reform, former L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan is no longer waiting for the City Council and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to come up with the big fix.

On Friday morning, Riordan will file papers with the City Clerk so he can start a signature-gathering campaign and ultimately place a pension reform initiative on the May 2013 ballot. The former mayor says that if voters approve the measure, the city will save "hundreds of millions of dollars" every year by 2017 and an upwards of a billion dollars by 2020.

In an exclusive interview with L.A. Weekly, Riordan explains that his dramatic move, which will pit his campaign against powerful city employee unions and City Hall politicians, is to "prevent the city of Los Angeles from going bankrupt, and preventing the closing of our parks and severe damages to services. In short, it's to stop us from becoming a third-world city."

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