Paul Cauley

City Council members expressed concern Monday that the cost of installing the city's new computerized payroll system has escalated from $13 million to $24 million as the project has fallen a year behind schedule. Members of the council's Budget and Finance Committee called Monday for a shake-up of the team managing the Los Angeles payroll system.

The city of Los Angeles' lucrative Sepulveda Basin miniature golf franchise should be promptly given to the highest bidder, a Solvang-based firm, a city budget analyst has advised. A report released Friday by the city administrative office questions why city parks officials recently decided to delay award of the franchise.

The plaintiff in a civil lawsuit against two Newport Beach political consultants collapsed during the third day of the trial in Orange County Superior Court and had to be hospitalized. Paul McCauley, a 45-year-old accountant from Sherman Oaks, became ill while listening to testimony from a witness in the case, which pits him against powerful direct-mail gurus William Butcher and Arnold Forde. McCauley was taken to Western Medical Center-Santa Ana where he was in stable condition Monday night.

In their first official response to the San Fernando Valley's bid to leave Los Angeles, city leaders Wednesday flatly rejected the proposal that the fates of key departments be dealt with after a secession vote. In a report to the Local Agency Formation Commission, officials said the proposal by secession group Valley VOTE to dismantle the Water and Power, Harbor and Airports departments after the secession vote would be financially reckless.

Taking sides in a dispute between the mayor and the city's top bureaucrat, the Board of Public Works will act next week on a contract to build a $20-million police dispatch center in the San Fernando Valley, board President Ellen Stein said Thursday. Acting City Administrative Officer Paul Cauley had asked the board to delay until he has completed a study into whether the city could save $7 million by moving the 911 project to Sun Valley.

The Los Angeles City Council on Friday approved a $34-million government center for the San Fernando Valley--a project that both secessionists and foes claimed as a symbol of their conflicting causes. More than a decade in the works, the Marvin Braude San Fernando Valley Constituent Service Center, named after the former councilman, will consolidate many city offices spread throughout the Valley into one three-story structure in Van Nuys.

DreamWorks SKG may have dropped plans to build a new film studio, but that didn't stop Los Angeles City Council members Tuesday from bickering over where it should be built if the firm eventually has a change of heart. A motion to offer DreamWorks a package of financial incentives to build a movie studio in North Hollywood was broadened Tuesday to include a dozen other sites, including Northridge, Wilmington and East Los Angeles.

Bowing to pressure from Mayor Richard Riordan, city officials awarded a $37.7-million contract Wednesday for new 911 centers in downtown Los Angeles and West Hills, projects approved by voters nearly seven years ago. Tutor Saliba Corp. of Sylmar, which turned in the lowest of three bids, was picked and plans to begin construction in a few weeks on the newly expedited project. Some 8,400 callers to 911 hang up each month because operators cannot get to them quickly enough, according to LAPD Capt.

In their first official response to the San Fernando Valley's bid to leave Los Angeles, city leaders Wednesday flatly rejected a proposal by the group advocating secession to put off decisions on the future of key city departments until after an election, and expressed concerns about the fate of the city's 40,000 employees.

The Los Angeles City Council on Friday approved a $34-million government center for the San Fernando Valley--a project that both secessionists and foes claimed as a symbol of their conflicting causes. More than a decade in the works, the Marvin Braude San Fernando Valley Constituent Service Center, named after the former councilman, will consolidate city offices now spread throughout the Valley into one three-story structure in Van Nuys.