Villaraigosa

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has been selected chairman of this summer's Democratic National Convention, elevating his role as a surrogate in the Latino community and raising his national profile at a time Villaraigosa considers his political future. A formal announcement was scheduled Wednesday in Washington, with the mayor planning to join President Obama on Wednesday night for a presidential fundraiser in Los Angeles. As convention chairman, Villaraigosa will wield the gavel during the event in Charlotte, N.C., which opens with a festival on Sept.

In a twist on a theme that has flared up on the national political stage, labor unions representing Los Angeles city workers are accusing Democratic Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa of waging war against women, saying most of his proposed layoffs would hit jobs traditionally held by female workers. In his proposed budget now under review by the City Council, Villaraigosa calls for eliminating 231 filled positions. Individual employees who would lose jobs have not been identified, but roughly 90% of the positions targeted are clerk, secretarial and other jobs mostly held by women.

Ask Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa whether he covets Gov. Jerry Brown's job and he answers: "If this were about running for governor, I wouldn't be tacking Prop. 13 on my forehead. " That certainly makes sense, at least based on conventional wisdom. As Villaraigosa pointed out in a Sacramento Press Club speech last week, the revered property tax limitation law is a political "third rail," although he challenged Brown to muster "the courage to test the voltage. " The governor brushed off the mayor.

Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa is pursuing another big boost in parking ticket fines, leaving some of them 70% to 90% more expensive than the year he was elected - and several times the region's inflation rate. With the latest proposed hikes, the city would collect about $40 million a year more than during Villaraigosa's first year in office, much of it from street-sweeping violations that leave many residents fuming. The mayor's budget calls for the street-sweeping penalty to reach $78, more than in any neighboring city and, in certain cases, nearly twice the amount charged elsewhere in Los Angeles County.

Re "Mayor urges Latinos to back Obama," July 13 In an address at the National Council of La Raza conference, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa urged Latinos to vote for Barack Obama as the best hope to reform the federal immigration policy. In his address, he invoked immigrants at Ellis Island and was thankful that there had not been a wall to keep Irish immigrants out. The mayor is either ignorant of the facts of Ellis Island immigration or just blatantly misstating them. Those who arrived through Ellis Island applied to enter the country legally, and not all who applied were admitted.

. Jeff Carr was a strapping soccer star who dreamed of turning pro while attending a small Christian college in Idaho. Instead, he became an evangelical minister, a community advocate in L.A. and a key player in City Hall as the budget crisis forced a wave of layoffs and service cuts. As Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's chief of staff, Carr heads a second-term leadership group charged with invigorating a mayoral agenda that has been wide on ambition but, in the view of many, narrow on accomplishment.

In politics, as in commerce, there are times when you have to grow to survive. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa believes that's the case with his 30/10 transportation initiative, which is why he's in Washington on Wednesday arguing for a national version of the plan that its improbably bipartisan backers are calling America Fast Forward. Essentially, 30/10 proposes using federal loans to leverage the half-cent sales tax increase to which 67.9% of Los Angeles County residents agreed when they passed Measure R. Those loans, which would be secured by the sales tax revenues, would allow the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to build the 12 transit projects specified in the measure in a single decade rather than over three as originally anticipated.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa ordered the shutdown of the Occupy L.A. encampment on City Hall grounds at 12:01 a.m. Monday, saying officials can no longer "maintain the public safety of a long-term encampment," according to a statement issued Friday. Villaraigosa said the city's General Services Police Department, which enforces the law in city parks, will walk through the encampment handing out bilingual fliers and give verbal notice that the park will close. Social workers will also visit the encampment, according to the statement.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa had unusually sharp words Wednesday for unidentified high-level bureaucrats within the city's Department of Water and Power. At a meeting with Times opinion writers and editors, the mayor said his recent fight with the City Council over boosting electricity rates was made harder by the utility's own resistance to change. Though he nominates the DWP general manager and appoints its board, the real power is held by utility supervisors who "control the bureaucracy."

Deep budget cuts to the Los Angeles park system in recent years have resulted in shortened park hours, fewer youth programs and closed pools. Now, as city lawmakers take up Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's proposed budget for the coming year, a new coalition is lobbying for restoration of park funding. The consortium of conservationists, community leaders and unions, led by developer Steve Soboroff, earned a small victory Monday when two City Council members joined a news conference and signed a pledge to protect parks.

Setting the stage for a battle with city employees and fellow elected officials, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called Friday for the elimination of 669 city jobs - 231 through layoffs - even as he also sought to add police officers and restore some Fire Department services. The bulk of the job cuts proposed in the mayor's new $7.2-billion budget would affect civilian employees at the Los Angeles Police Department, where 159 clerks, secretaries and other administrators would be put out of work.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa came into office seven years ago with a remarkably ambitious agenda, proposing to solve many of L.A.'s most intractable problems: He would be the mayor who fixed the schools, cleaned up the gang problem and beefed up the Police Department. And, most important, he branded himself as the city's "transportation mayor. " Some of these promises have been fulfilled, yet progress in most areas has been incremental and not necessarily attributable to Villaraigosa.

Even as city workers protested planned cuts outside, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa avoided talk of layoffs during his annual State of the City address Wednesday. He chose instead to cheerlead a proposed ballot measure that he said would allow the region to rapidly expand its transit system. The mayor devoted only five paragraphs in his seven-page speech to his proposed budget, which is due to be released Friday. He has previously said the budget will include "a large number" of layoffs.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's bid to indefinitely extend a transportation sales tax marks perhaps a last chance to jump-start what he hopes will be the cornerstone of his legacy: dramatically expanding rail service in L.A. A year before he leaves office, the mayor is desperate to break a logjam that has stalled his vision of quickly building a sprawling, interconnected rail system, including a subway extension across the traffic-clogged Westside....

Faced with a congressional stalemate over transportation funding, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa wants county voters to approve an indefinite extension of a half-cent sales tax used for transit projects. A proposed November ballot measure will be a centerpiece of Villaraigosa's State of the City address Wednesday evening at Paramount Studios in Hollywood, according to the mayor's office. It marks the latest effort by the mayor, who is trying to cement a legacy as a transportation visionary during his final year in office, to borrow against future tax revenues and rapidly expand L.A. County's transit system.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa drew cheers from environmentalists just over two months ago when he issued a new political promise: eliminating coal from the Department of Water and Power's fuel mix by 2020. Instead of waiting a decade to see if that promise comes true, a Sacramento-based advocacy group decided to stage a publicity campaign thanking the mayor. It bought advertising space on city bus kiosks showing a smiling picture of Villaraigosa and the word "Successful."

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Chief Administrative Officer Miguel Santana are putting the final touches on the budget that the mayor will introduce to the City Council on Friday. All signs are that it will open a bruising debate, with the predictable calls for sacrifice to close a budget shortfall of more than $200 million. Layoffs seem a near-certainty, and the search for new revenue is an inescapable part of the solution. There is much to bemoan in all of this. No one wants to put more workers on the street in a slow economy, nor is there much enthusiasm at City Hall or elsewhere for tax hikes to prevent even greater cuts.

As Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa works to bring the city's finances under control, he's made some laudable moves, but his actions today are constrained by two decisions from earlier in his tenure that limit his options. The first came in late 2007, when the mayor and other city leaders approved a five-year package with the coalition of unions representing most civilian city workers that promised 5% raises each year. The second was in response to the economic downturn that blew up the assumption that the city could afford those raises.