Mayors

Nearly seven years ago, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa launched a program to plant 1 million trees. Since then, the city has planted more than 400,000 trees - in fact, 407,000 and counting. So is the program a success or a failure? As Villaraigosa prepares to leave office, should we be thrilled to have 400,000 trees we otherwise wouldn't have had, or should we be disappointed that his campaign promise has gone less than half fulfilled? And here's another question: Should we care?

Los Angeles mayoral hopeful Wendy Greuel stepped up attacks on rival Eric Garcetti on Tuesday, repeating ethical accusations brought up at Monday night's televised debate and adding a new one - that Garcetti accepted thousands in donations at a fundraiser hosted by an ex-felon. Greuel, the city's controller, called the media to her Boyle Heights campaign office to reiterate recent attacks against Garcetti that she says call into question his ability to lead a city as large and complex as Los Angeles.

Ten weeks before he leaves office, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Monday offered a $7.7-billion budget that would begin reversing years of cuts to basic city services such as tree trimming and sidewalk repairs while avoiding employee layoffs and furloughs. Buoyed by an estimated $111-million uptick in revenue, Villaraigosa's spending plan for the coming year provides money to add 65 firefighters, purchase 533 new vehicles at the Los Angeles Police Department and trim an additional 35,000 trees - leaving the city on its most solid footing since it was engulfed in crisis five years ago. The mayor also offered a long-term blueprint for financial recovery that would require the city's elected officials to be far less generous to their public employees than he and the council were during his eight-year tenure.

The complaint I hear most often about this race for mayor of Los Angeles is that the candidates, Controller Wendy Greuel and Councilman Eric Garcetti, spend too much time talking in generalities without providing details about what they'd do. But when it comes to the city budget, the two candidates are so lost in the details that they often seem to be missing the big picture. They may get a bit of a break this week with the city's finances. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is expected to release his final budget Monday, and sources say the shortfall it anticipates has shrunk: Once projected at more than $200 million, it's now said to be just over $100 million.

The race for Los Angeles mayor takes another turn tonight at 7 when City Councilman Eric Garcetti and City Controller Wendy Greuel face off in a televised debate, the third since the candidates finished as the top vote-getters in the March 5 primary. The broadcast on NBC4 and KPCC-FM (89.3) will beam from USC's Health Sciences Campus next to Los Angeles County/USC Medical Center. Monday's contest comes a day after a USC Price/Los Angeles Times Poll found Garcetti with a 50% to 40% lead among likely voters.

Despite stubborn financial problems and reductions in city services, a majority of L.A. voters give departing Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa good marks, a USC Price/Los Angeles Times poll has found. In a telephone survey conducted last week, nearly 53% of respondents said they had a favorable view of the mayor, who was barred by law from seeking a third four-year term. He leaves office this summer. Nearly 42% of voters said they viewed Villaraigosa unfavorably. Whites were about evenly split -- 46.3% viewed the city's first Latino mayor in modern history favorably; 46.9% had an unfavorable view.

Record spending will continue in the last remaining race for a seat on the Los Angeles school board, as a political action committee has put together a war chest of about $600,000 to use on behalf of a candidate endorsed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. In all, the Coalition for School Reform, which is spearheaded by the mayor, has raised nearly $4.5 million for three Board of Education races to support candidates who would back the aggressive policies of Supt. John Deasy and pledge to keep him on the job. Contributors praise Deasy for including student test scores in teacher evaluations and limiting job protections that they view as impediments to academic progress.

Eric Garcetti has opened a commanding 10-point lead in the Los Angeles mayor's race over rival Wendy Greuel, whose dogged fight to win the backing of public employee unions appears to be undercutting her on her home turf in the San Fernando Valley, according to a new USC Price/Los Angeles Times poll. A month before the May 21 runoff, likely voters favored Garcetti over Greuel by 50% to 40%. The survey also found no sign of success for Greuel's effort to gain an edge among women by highlighting her potential to make history as the city's first female mayor.

Former President Bill Clinton, stumping for Wendy Greuel in Los Angeles on Saturday, castigated the voter turnout in the mayoral primary as "ridiculous. " "We can't tolerate … the kind of low turnout you all have in these mayors' races," Clinton said of the 20.8% of registered voters who cast ballots in the March primary. "It's ridiculous. There are too many people in Los Angeles, of all ages, that have a big stake in the future. " The former president, who endorsed Greuel in March, lauded her resume as he spoke to scores of her supporters at Langer's Deli.

Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti are to meet Friday night for a debate at Univision's studios, and political observers are eagerly wondering whether they will see a repeat of Wednesday's faceoff before the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn., the testiest L.A. mayoral debate yet. In that matchup, the rivals each charged that the other could not be trusted to oversee the city's Department of Water and Power. On Thursday, Greuel, who has been painted by some as the candidate beholden to the DWP because of its union's spending on her behalf during the mayoral primary, sought to counter that perception by accusing Garcetti of doing the union's bidding during a contentious 2009 ballot measure campaign.