SoCal Report (Silent T)

A few things in the part of the state that gets sun which caught my eye:

• Full public financing of municipal elections will be on the agenda at tonight's Santa Monica City Council Meeting. Solidly progressive City Councilman Kevin McKeown raised this issue earlier in the year and couldn't get a second, but they ran a staff report, and both Common Cause and the League of Women Voters are pushing this hard. Just like everything else, we'll need to win the Clean Money battle from the bottom up.

• This complete crackup of the Minuteman Project is so hilariously predictable that it should be a reality show. I can't wait for the twists and turns and the backstabbing. You put a bunch of power-hungry authoritarians in the same group, who knew that they'd start fighting each other for control? Fascinatin'.

• You might want to think twice before eating in LA - the biggest produce wholesaler in the city, the 7th Street Market, was cited for multiple violations, including rat infestation. Never been, not going now.

• I wish I had the time to write the badly needed very long series of articles about the proposed LNG terminal off the coast of Malibu. This would be an environmental disaster for the coastline, yet the Governor has given tacit support to BHP Billiton to build it. This blog is a great resource for this story. Look at this part:

Environmental Protection Agency political appointees used non-existent analysis and misled the public when they reversed course and rejected tough smog rules for the proposed Cabrillo Port liquefied natural gas terminal off the Malibu coast, the chairman of the House Investigations Committee said Monday.

Rep. Henry Waxman also accused top EPA officials of refusing to hand over key documents detailing the 2005 decision by a White House political appointee to overrule regional EPA officials on a key decision about whether the Cabrillo Port proposal can go forward.

The news from Washington comes as BHP Billiton and its lobbying firm have hired another two close associates of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, to press the case behind the scenes for Cabrillo Port. That facility faces key licensing decisions next month, and could be operating on Malibu’s coastal horizon in three years.

It looks like Assemblyman Lloyd Levine has withdrawn his support for the LNG Terminal, which is key.

• New op-ed columnists at the LA Times. Surprise, there are less now than there were - cost-cutting rulez! Also, somehow, Jonah Goldberg kept his slot (then again, I actually like his op-ed today), though Arianna Huffington, Adam Hochschild, Gustavo Arellano (Ask a Mexican!) and Sandra Tsing Loh come aboard as "contributing editors," which I think means they'll write op-eds but won't be paid as staff op-ed writers.