New Blog and Website for LA City Issues: LACityUpdate.com

With national presidential elections taking over a lot of local media coverage, time to fire up a new website and blog to cover all the local neighborhood council/community issues that affect your community. Go to http://lacityupdate.com to check it out. It links to this companion blog, http://ladailyblog.com. (Formerly Neighborhood Council Blogspot.)

Here are some things sent to my inbox. A lot of the stuff blogged here will be from the emails people send me. And if you go to the website (http://lacityupdate.com), I put together some links to the news stories I liked from other sites.

Court Rules on Blogger's Individual Rights: Where plaintiff served subpoena on Internet service provider seeking disclosure of identify of anonymous poster on financial message board who made allegedly defamatory comments about her, trial court erred in refusing to quash subpoena because online messages--while offensive and demeaning to plaintiff--did not constitute assertions of actual fact, and plaintiff therefore could not state a viable cause of action that overcame defendant’s First Amendment right to speak anonymously on Internet.
Krinsky v. Doe 6 - filed February 6, 2008, Sixth District
Cite as 2008 SOS 906
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JUST WHAT IS NEEDED IN PICO RIVERA; AN EXPENSIVE SECOND ASSISTANT MANAGER: The city has hired a second assistant city manager to ease staff workloads and to provide new expertise during new development projects, City Manager Chuck Fuentes said.

According to Fuentes, Jeff Prang, mayor pro tem for West Hollywood and special public affairs assistant to Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, brings new skills to the city's management staff.

"We're looking forward to getting lots of good service out of him," Fuentes said.

Prang, 45, will be paid an annual salary of $136,716 for his services to the city, the entry-level salary for an assistant city manager. While Fuentes and Assistant City Manager Debbie Lopez say they believe Prang will be worth the extra cost to the city and that his services are necessary, some say the city does not need a second assistant city manager.

"I don't see a need for a second city manager," Councilman David Armenta said. "When you have a lot of construction, when we're building, you have a need. But the developments are pretty much coming to an end."

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