Giving us one more reason to consider remembering the November election for the rest of our natural lives, Long Beach City Council voted 8-1 last night to put Mayor Bob Foster’s $571 million infrastructure improvement plan on the ballot in about three and a half months.
In other words, it’s now known as the Long Beach [...]

Heather Burke is the most-seriously injured of three members of Councilwoman Suja Lowenthal’s staff who were riding in a small car that was broadsided Friday afternoon by a bobtail truck that apparently ran a red light at Third Street and Atlantic Avenue in downtown Long Beach. Also injured were Ramon Aguilar and Chief of Staff Broc Coward. [...]

Maybe there’s something I’m not understanding, but $89,000 buys you an automatic toilet. In Seattle.
According to the New York Times, which monitors such activity, the city of Seattle spent $5 million fours year ago to install five automated public toilets around town. Now it’s, well, shitcanning the whole project and selling the commodes on eBay.
Explains [...]

Mayor Bob Foster gets the profile treatment from Paul Eakins in this morning’s Press-Telegram, and his $571 million plan to rebuild the city’s infrastructure gets a separate examination.
Foster’s own take on his plan–which according to the P-T will require Long Beach City Council to “unanimously approve a declaration of fiscal emergency”? He doesn’t think it [...]

Coverage continues of the death Saturday night of alleged burglary suspect Deshoun Kenyon Torrence, 18, of Lake Elsinore.
The Press-Telegram, LBReport.com, and the Los Angeles Times are all in, and ask the question we’re all wondering: why he died.
There’s no real answer yet (The Los Angeles County Coroner is scheduled to perform an autopsy today) but [...]

As reported by the Press-Telegram, LBReport.com and the Los Angeles Times, here’s what’s been said thus far about the burglary suspect who died in police custody Saturday night.
He was Deshoun Kenyon Torrence, 18, of Victorville–and according to the Times‘ Victoria Kim, he “reportedly screamed for help as he was being detained by neighbors,” who allegedly [...]

Mayor Bob Foster is expected to say more this morning about his $570 million plans to rebuild streets, sidewalks and alleys–plus the more bureaucratic-sounding storm water management systems–but already we know more than we did about what’s in store.
In this morning’s Press-Telegram, Paul Eakins reports on a 102-page streets audit City Auditor Laura Doud released [...]

Douglas Dollarhide, who became Compton’s first black mayor in 1969, has died at age 85, the Los Angeles Times and Press-Telegram report this morning.
The classical music lover first won election to Compton City Council in 1963, by a mere 75 votes. His ascent to mayor six years later “symbolized the demographic transformation of what was [...]

No, they’re not actually cooking yet at Johnie’s Broiler–AKA Harvey’s Broiler, the authentic 1950s Downey drive-in that was illegally demolished a year and a half ago.
But as Samantha Gonzaga writes in this morning’s Press-Telegram, crews are finally out there sifting through the rubble, saving what’s left to be saved, and getting it ready to become [...]

What should become of 61-year-old Bellflower truck driver Jerry Cress?
As John Canalis writes in this morning’s Press-Telegram, Cress is charged with one count of murder–and three additional felony counts: being a felon in possession of a firearm, being a felon in possession of ammunition and marijuana cultivation–in the Jan. 21, 2007 death of Jacob T. [...]