Tuesday July 17 was the first set of meetings of the newly constituted City Council. It was indeed strange not to see John Mirisch on the dias for the first time in 17 years. And it made a difference. Questions were raised about the propriety and wisdom of accepting a donation offered by the State of Israel toward the planned October 7 memorial. It is highly unlikely that John Mirisch, an enthusiastic backer of the memorial, would have raised any such questions.

A new concept for this memorial has been approved in place of an earlier concept that was deemed too expensive. The early one that was rejected is still depicted in front of the City Library on Rexford Drive. Council has agreed that the City could contribute a maximum of $500,000 toward the project and that no groundbreaking occurs until the entire actual cost is in hand. Much of the City’s contribution has already been expended.

It remains my view that one condition for the creation of this elaborate memorial is that it must enjoy substantial community support. There is no better way to show real support, rather than lip service, than to donate. According to the City’s website which shows and quantifies donations, it appears that fundraising is going very slowly.

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I have advocated that the City appoint one of its employees to manage all things Metro. [The Metro Czar]. A current example of what is needed relates to the operation of the La Cienega station. It is important to point out that the station is being kept very clean and the security measures initiated by Council seem to be working well.

However, one important operational aspect is not working as it should. It is vital that only fare payers be permitted to enter or exit the station and this is accomplished by the Tap In/Tap Out with a payment card requirements. The La Cienega station has so-called emergency exits that are supposedly for use only in an emergency and are equipped with an alarm that sounds whenever they are used. However, no alarm sounds when the La Cienega station emergency exits are used and riders (and I) have observed that many passengers use them.

This should be fixed and it is more likely that it would quickly be fixed if a City employee was tasked with communicating with Metro about operations.

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I recently commented on the fact that when the New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority announced that it was hiring people to clean the subways, it received many thousands of applicants for those jobs that paid approximately $21 per hour.

Then I read a Wall Street Journal story about One Beverly Hills (OBH) that focused on a penthouse condominium on top of one of the hi-rise buildings that has a price tag of $200 million. It included a quote from the OBH executive managing the project that said: “We think $200 Million for the penthouse is a great value” and added that “the developers believe there is a deep market for condos of this caliber…”

Given that we have so many new billionaires, I have no doubt that the OBH executive is correct that $200 million is a bargain for an attractive apartment in this development.

To me, it is a sad commentary that many thousands of our countrymen and women would regard a $21 per hour job cleaning subways as an attractive improvement in their lives while there are some for whom dropping $200 million for one of their residences is of little consequence.

Is this type of wealth disparity sustainable?

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Ironies abound in today’s USA.

I greatly enjoyed the recently concluded FIFA World Cup for men’s soccer.

One event of note was the very controversial involvement of President Donald Trump in attempting to overturn a FIFA decision to suspend U.S. star striker Folarin Jolauluna Balogun before a key match. Mr. Balogun, who was of Nigerian heritage and raised in the United Kingdom, was eligible to play for the U.S. because of his accidental “birthright citizenship”.

Shortly before giving birth to Mr. Balogun, his mother had been visiting the US and, because of her advanced pregnancy, the airlines would not allow her to return home to the UK. So he was born here and enjoys birthright citizenship. And he chose to play for the US Men’s National Team rather than the UK or Nigeria.

As you may know, Mr. Trump has recently gone to extraordinary but unsuccessful efforts to terminate that pathway to citizenship.

There are approximately 35 other countries that afford so-called birthright citizenship including Canada, Mexico, most of Central America, many of the largest countries in South America and several Caribbean countries.

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There are several announced candidates for the two open seats on the Board of Education, most notably Jackie Kruger and Kimberly Lifschitz who have children in the District schools and have been very active with the schools. I do not know whether current Board President Judith Manouchehri will run again. I sent her a note a few days ago asking about her intentions and offering to discuss the pro’s and con’s of her candidacy. Notably, there is a distinction between creative new programs and the way members of the Board of Education conduct themselves. Both are important.

As of press time, I received no response from Ms. Manouchehri.

On Tuesday, in the lawsuit challenging the Board’s disregard of its ByLaw which required that Dr. Stern be elected Vice President of the Board and then President, the Court rejected the District’s efforts to avoid providing documents and Board Members to appear for their depositions. On April 9, the court had ordered the same discovery. The District had ignored that requirement forcing further expensive and pointless litigation activities.

Importantly, the District could have resolved this dispute and avoided substantial litigation expenses simply by complying with the bylaw which governed the December 2025 elections and offering a long overdue apology to Dr. Stern for their false allegations.

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Last week, a major water pipe of the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP) burst, flooding nearby Sunset Blvd and surroundings in West Hollywood and threatening the water supply. I asked Dr. Barry Pressman, the City’s representative and Vice Chairman of the board of the Metropolitan Water District (MWD) that supplies the City’s water supply what direct affect, if any, this has on us.

He explained that:

“The MWD supplies the City mainly through what is known as the Santa Monica Feeder which passes very closely to the DWP line that burst. It was necessary to shut down the Santa Monica Feeder while the repairs were being undertaken.

“The City was then supplied by a secondary source known as the Sepulveda Feeder which comes South with water from Northern California. The pressure in this feeder is lower making it problematic to service the hills. Accordingly, the shutdown of the Santa Monica feeder was delayed a few hours to allow the Beverly Hills Department of Public Works to fill the pressure tanks in the hills to try to obviate this issue. I have not heard of any problems in the City’s supply.”

I also asked whether the MWD had any issue with aging water lines.

Dr. Pressman responded that:

“Many of the MWD conveyance lines are nearing end of life but I don”t know the age of the SM or Sepulveda feeders. The Board recently approved a budget increase of over $300 million annually for repairs and replacement added to the previous annual budget for Operations and Maintenance (which includes repairs and replacement, bringing the total to greater than $1.1 billion. This put pressure on the rates but with much effort the Board kept the rate increase for the next two years to about 6.6% /year.”

He concluded:

“Water availability is an expensive proposition to maintain, but the cost of water at the tap is still only about 1 cent a gallon—compare that to the price of bottled water (which may lack essential minerals) which I estimate to be about 3200x greater in restaurants.”