Law Enforcement

Crime alerts for Encino, Cypress Park and 12 other L.A. neighborhoods
Crime reports are up significantly for the latest week in 14 L.A. neighborhoods, according to an analysis of Los Angeles Police Department data by the Los Angeles Times' Crime L.A. database. Seven neighborhoods reported a significant increase in violent crime. Encino was the most unusual, recording three reports compared with a weekly average of 0.7 over the last three months. Cypress Park topped the list of seven neighborhoods with property crime alerts.
Los Angeles Times

Anti-DUI crackdown nets 500 arrests
Nearly 500 DUI arrests have already been made throughout Los Angeles County since Friday in the leadup to July 4, the Avoid the 100 DUI Campaign announced Wednesday night. Law enforcement officers from around the Southland have already been out in force in a crackdown on motorists who drive while impaired during the Independence Day holiday period. The campaign officially began last Friday.
City News Service

$50,000 reward for info in West L.A. murder
The City Council approved a $50,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of two apparent gang members wanted for the Jan. 3 shooting death of an 18-year-old LAPD police explorer recruit in West Los Angeles. David Morales was walking north on Sawtelle Boulevard near Pearl Street with a friend when they were approached about 7:30 p.m. by two Hispanic males believed to be between 16 and 20 years old, police said.
City News Service

5 men wanted for questioning in fatal shooting at Sherman Oaks restaurant
Detectives are looking for five men wanted for questioning in the shooting death of a worker at a Sherman Oaks restaurant, police announced today. Raul Lopez, 38, was killed Friday, June 29, after an argument with customers at Hoagies and Wings on Ventura Boulevard. Police said someone called Lopez derogatory names and threw a chair at him. Lopez picked up the chair and tried to get the five men in the group out of the restaurant.
Los Angeles Daily News

LAPD to install 16 wireless surveillance cameras in Topanga, West Valley divisions
Soon, somewhere in the Valley, the police will be watching from the sky. Sixteen wireless surveillance cameras will be placed in about 10 weeks around the Los Angeles Police Department's Topanga and West Valley divisions, which cover 66 square miles and about 450,000 people. The city Police Commission approved a plan Tuesday to spend nearly $680,000 on the camera system if the mayor approves a contract with Reston, Va.-based CelPlan Technologies. So where will they go?
Los Angeles Daily News

At 11, he gets to blow his horn with the big guys of LAPD Concert Band
When he was 5, Jordan Friedman wanted so much to play with the LAPD Concert Band that he sat in with a wooden trombone. Six years later, the Northridge 'bone buff's got some real brass - an LAPD uniform and L.A. Police Band shield - and some serious trombone chops. Wednesday, the youngest-ever musician in the 98-year-old Los Angeles police band performed with his police musician grandfathers during a Fourth of July celebration at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.
Los Angeles Daily News

Ballot Measures

California voter imperative: Stop payroll deception on November ballot
A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding limitless political donations from super political action committees makes it an even greater imperative that California voters defeat a measure on this November's statewide ballot. The payroll deception measure, officially titled the Special Exemptions Act, claims to be about "stopping special interests," but it would actually award special exemptions to corporate special interests.
LAPPL Blog

Pensions

State to override local pension votes?
Legislative Democrats are exploring whether they can politically and legally override local pension reforms enacted by voters. San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders sounded the alarm in a confidential letter sent this week to Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles. "As a charter city, it is our right and our duty to ensure that our fiscal house is in order," Sanders wrote in the letter, obtained by U-T San Diego.
San Diego Union-Tribune

State Budget

Government labor unions give ground in California as budgets are squeezed
When California's largest public employee union announced Tuesday that its members accepted another year of furloughs, it was one more sign that government labor unions are moving to make concessions. Although Service Employees International Union Local 1000's contract doesn't expire until next year, the union said two-thirds of the voting rank and file supported an agreement reached with Gov. Jerry Brown that mandates 12 unpaid days off over the next 12 months.
Sacramento Bee

City Government

Price of Los Angeles Zoo admission, traffic tickets to go up
It will cost more to go to the Los Angeles Zoo and to park illegally in the city. In separate actions, the City Council approved a $5 increase for parking tickets citywide and hiked zoo admission prices for the second time in two years. The hikes will bring in $8 million more on the tickets and $720,000 for the zoo. "What we are trying to do is make the zoo as self-sufficient as possible as we look at all our options," City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana said.
Los Angeles Daily News