Town Meeting

In a move to inform Inglewood residents about proposed expansion at Los Angeles International Airport and provide details about the residential soundproofing program, Assemblyman Curtis Tucker Jr. (D-Inglewood) will sponsor a town hall meeting today. The meeting will be held at Morningside School Auditorium at 10500 S. Yukon Ave. in Inglewood from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Los Angeles International Airport's neighboring community and labor organizations are hosting a town hall Saturday in response to the L.A. City Council's approval this week of a $4.76-billion renovation project, which includes a controversial plan to move the northernmost runway closer to homes in Westchester and Playa del Rey. The town hall will “discuss the next steps towards addressing broken promises and the lack of accountability by...

Suggestions for the future of Duarte, developed by 75 residents in a strategic planning process, will be presented at a town meeting Monday from 7 to 9:30 p.m. at City Hall, 1600 Huntington Drive. The project was designed to explore issues affecting the city and to plan for the next 20 years. Five task forces studied economic development; educational, cultural and recreational issues; health and medical services; municipal services and public safety, and environmental aesthetics.

President Obama and Mitt Romney will go head-to-head Tuesday in their most challenging debate format: the town hall, where they will field questions from more than a dozen undecided voters sitting a few feet away as millions of Americans watch from home. Both men have held dozens of town halls with voters over the years, yet neither has sparkled in that setting. Each is cool and cerebral, often seeming more comfortable behind a lectern. The event in Hempstead, N.Y., moderated by CNN's Candy Crowley, will put them in a format tailored to produce interaction with voters, rather than heated exchanges with each other that fire up their supporters.

What is being dubbed as a national town meeting to show that environmental protection and economic growth are not mutually exclusive will be held Monday in Port Hueneme. The Naval Construction Battalion Center will host participants from throughout the county at the satellite-connected workshop. The daylong seminar includes an interactive teleconference with an expert panel that includes Henry Cisneros, secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

U.S. Rep. Ed Royce (R-Fullerton) and House Budget Committee Chairman John R. Kasich (R-Ohio) will hold a town meeting Saturday to update the public on the latest proceedings of balancing the budget. The meeting will be from 10 a.m. to noon at the Sequoia Conference Center, 7530 Orangethorpe Ave., in Buena Park. Information: (714) 992-8081.

If a recently authorized study goes the way Mayor George Mirabel hopes, Bell may implement a citywide series of town meetings, a concept similar to the old New England style of local government. The City Council this week authorized city staff members to study the cost and the equipment needed to conduct a series of meetings in different locations in the city, said Denise Underwood, assistant city clerk.

A town meeting on sustainable development, including a video presentation by Vice President Al Gore, will be held today at the Furama Hotel at 8601 Lincoln Blvd. in Westchester. This event is an outgrowth of President Clinton's programs seeking to link economic growth and environmental protection, organizers said. Sponsors include the proposed Playa Vista development on the Westside, the city of Los Angeles, the city of Manhattan Beach and the USC's Sustainable Cities Program.

Preservationists trying to save the historic Fox Theater will hold a town meeting at 7 tonight at Plummer Auditorium. The Fullerton Historic Theater Foundation has raised $300,000 and the city has pledged $1.5 million to help the organization buy the 1920s-era downtown theater, which the owner has offered to sell for $3.3 million.

U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) will host a town meeting in Ventura on April 14 during a Senate recess. Boxer will meet with the public from noon to 1:30 p.m. at the Ventura College Theater on Loma Vista Road. "Town meetings offer constituents a forum where they can bring their concerns and ideas to me directly and where we can openly discuss the important issues facing California," Boxer said. The senator has scheduled a second town meeting later in the day in Santa Barbara.

This post has been corrected.  See note below for details. Jew Pond likely will not be Jew Pond much longer. Mont Vernon, N.H., voted Tuesday night to petition to have the moniker changed. It was not a unanimous vote. Feelings were mixed on the subject in the small New England town. "Here in New England, there's a lot of history and tradition," Rich Masters, health officer for Mont Vernon, told The Times on Wednesday, "and a lot of folks highly value that.

More than 100 prisoners, many shaved and tattooed, crowded into the hard pews of the Men's Central Jail chapel and craned their necks to get a good look at "The Man. " Sheriff Lee Baca, the top authority figure in Los Angeles County's troubled jail system, had summoned them for a rare town-hall-style meeting Saturday morning. The reason for the gathering? Allegations of abusive behavior on the part of jail guards and the disclosure of a federal law enforcement probe into Baca's jails.

Executive Tim Leiweke, spearheading a drive to build a downtown NFL stadium, said AEG this week will present a revised financing plan to the city, one that calls for less money in bonds and contractually obligated revenue to cover them. Leiweke, speaking Monday night at a town hall meeting in Mar Vista, said the original request of $350 million in municipal bonds to relocate the West Hall of the Convention Center, where the proposed Farmers Field will sit, will be reduced to "the high $200 millions.

Should government agencies pick up the meal costs when spouses of elected officials attend out-of-town meetings and conferences? A Southeast Los Angeles County water district did just that, to the tune of several thousand dollars. In explaining a policy change two years ago, a staffer for the Central Basin Municipal Water District wrote in an internal email that spouses "help bring a different atmosphere to the business discussions between directors and other guests. " The staffer acknowledged that the policy could result in "questioning by reporters and auditors on these types of reimbursements.

It was the town hall meeting that was the talk of the town. President Obama held a one-hour live Internet chat from the Palo Alto headquarters of Facebook Inc. on Wednesday to stump for his plan to reduce the deficit. While it's too soon to tell whether his deficit-reduction plan will succeed, Obama's presence gave an immediate status boost to Facebook, which has risen from tiny start-up to potential market value of more than $50 billion in seven years. "It is significant as it is a reminder that Obama is our first cybergenic president in the same way Kennedy was our first telegenic president," said Paul Saffo, Silicon Valley futurist and managing director of foresight at Discern Analytics.

A Los Angeles Unified School District trustee has advised Woodland Hills residents that they may have to sue the school system if they want to block 600 charter school pupils from being sent to Taft High. Board member Steven Zimmer's suggestion came as hundreds of parents and students crowded into Taft's multipurpose room last week to protest the district's offer to turn over 24 of the high school's classrooms to Ivy Academia. Ivy Academia's operators would send pupils in grades 6 through 12 to the west San Fernando Valley high school under the tentative offer.

Officials at the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace will hold a town meeting Thursday night to coincide with President Bush's speech accepting his party's nomination for reelection. Participants will be able to watch the speech on a big screen TV in the library's main theater. Afterward, a panel of political analysts will provide analysis, said library spokesman Kevin Cartwright. "We did this for the President's State of the Union address and it was a big success," he said.

Four Orange County Republican congressmen on Saturday will host a town meeting, during which they are likely to bash President Clinton's economic plan as well as hear from constituents about the job they are doing. The Orange County meeting is part of a nationwide series of forums that will be held by GOP House members Saturday. The town meetings are a vehicle for Republicans to campaign against the President's economic package and to promote a GOP alternative.

A man who was wounded in last week's shooting rampage in Tucson was apprehended by authorities Saturday after he allegedly threatened a "tea party" activist at a town hall meeting of victims and eyewitnesses of the attack. James Eric Fuller, a 63-year-old Democratic activist, was arrested after shouting "You're dead!" at Tucson Tea Party spokesman Trent Humphries, said Pima County Sheriff's Department spokesman Jason Ogan. Fuller was shot in the knee and back Jan. 8 when a gunman opened fire, killing six and injuring 13, including Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Adding indifference to injury, the Supreme Court this week refused to hear the appeal of a woman who was ejected from a speech by President George W. Bush because she had an antiwar bumper sticker on her car. The case would have provided the court the opportunity to rule that citizens who pose no threat of disruption may not be barred from presidential events that are advertised as open to the public. In 2005, Leslie Weise and Alex Young obtained tickets for a Bush town hall meeting on Social Security held in Denver.