City Councils

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa offered a bleak financial forecast for city government over the next two years on Saturday, warning that deep cuts to services and other belt-tightening measures would be unavoidable because of the worsening economic downturn. Villaraigosa said the city's budget shortfall could exceed $400 million next year, far worse than expected.

New York's City Council on Thursday opened the door to a third term for billionaire Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has argued that his business and political experience is needed to lead the city through its financial challenges. After a day of debate, the council approved legislation allowing city officeholders -- including council members -- to serve three consecutive four-year terms. Bloomberg's second term is up at the end of next year.

Westminster became the first city in America with a Vietnamese-majority city council after a final tabulation of votes Monday shifted the winners in two Orange County cities. Two Vietnamese American candidates who had been trailing after initial vote counts on election day emerged as winners when the Orange County registrar certified the final results of the Nov. 4 election. In Westminster, Truong Diep initially trailed Penny Loomer by 1,500 votes.

The March 3 Los Angeles city election campaign came into sharper focus Thursday, with the final list of candidates emerging in what will probably be the two most competitive races -- city attorney and the race to replace Councilman Jack Weiss. Six people are running to replace Weiss, whose district stretches from Century City to Sherman Oaks. Meanwhile, five candidates -- including Weiss -- are vying to replace City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo, who is being forced out by term limits.

It was an uncommon public gesture of dissent in the staid council chamber of this deeply conservative suburb of more than 400,000. The City Council meeting opened with a brief prayer offered by a Baptist minister, and then six council members stood for the Pledge of Allegiance. The seventh, attorney Tom Rawles, remained seated. He refused to say the pledge, he later said, to protest the war in Iraq. Rawles' silence during the opening of the Jan.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California has sued Los Alamitos, saying city officials censored programming on a public-access cable TV channel. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court in Santa Ana, says City Council members violated the 1st Amendment by canceling reruns of two politically oriented shows on LATV-3, a Time-Warner cable channel in Los Alamitos and Rossmoor. Los Alamitos officials disputed the allegations.

One thing is certain: Carson Public Works Commissioner Jan Schaefer got bopped on the back of the head with a bunch of papers. That's on tape. She didn't get hit in the eye, as Mayor Jim Dear was quick to claim. But was the blow enough to send her reeling to the floor in apparent agony? Or was her fall spur-of-the-moment melodrama? Was it a heavy bop or a light bop? These questions have been circulating inside and outside of Carson all week.

His arms stuffed with campaign signs and brochures, Ambrosio Medrano spent a recent evening knocking on neighborhood doors and telling voters why he deserves a seat on the City Council in this month's election. He'd take care of cracked sidewalks, he said, and improve trash pickup. "Besides," Medrano told one voter while standing on the front stoop, "I was an alderman here before and I did a very good job representing the people."

Regardless of how he eventually performs in his new job, newly elected Temple City Councilman Fernando Vizcarra has already earned one distinction that few other city council members can claim: He won because of a coin toss. Friday's strange tie-breaker came about because of a quirk in the state elections code that allows ties to be decided by chance -- although runoff elections are an option.

Sierra Madre voters have narrowly adopted a measure to preserve the city's small-town character by limiting building height to two stories and allowing a maximum of 13 dwellings per acre, a proposal that opponents said threatened to deter quality development and limit tax revenue. The Measure V initiative passed by a slim margin of just 93 votes in Tuesday's election, garnering 1,796 votes, 51% of those cast.