Headlines: Budget, Lofts, Air Base

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School Funding Score is Settled

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has cut an education budget deal that promises to spend an extra $5 billion on schools over the next decade and placate a political foe that has worked overtime over the past year and a half to make his life miserable, the Sacramento Bee reports. As part of its May budget revision, the Schwarzenegger administration has settled a lawsuit brought by state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell and the California Teachers Association that accused the Republican governor of shortchanging schools last year by some $3.2 billion. Under terms of the agreement, the administration will propose Friday to add $2 billion to its Proposition 98 “base” funding for the current fiscal year and the one that begins July 1. In addition, it will ask the Legislature for another $3 billion in “settle-up” funds to be paid through 2013-14.



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L.A. Council Imposes One-Year Ban on Loft Conversions


Acknowledging that the rapid gentrification of downtown, Hollywood and other parts of Los Angeles is making it harder for the poor to afford housing, the Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday approved a moratorium on the conversion or demolition of low-cost residential hotels across the city, the Los Angeles Times reports. The action will have the largest effect in downtown Los Angeles, where a boom in loft conversions is spreading to the edges of skid row, and raises concerns about the future of the 240 residential hotels that for generations have housed some of Los Angeles’ poorest residents. The moratorium, which goes into effect immediately, will last a year but could be extended for up to a second year as the city drafts a long-term plan for low-cost housing in the city.



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Soaring Costs Hit Lifestyles


Sergie Mendoza makes $60,000 a year customizing cars at a Canoga Park garage – an income that in most places would afford him a middle-class lifestyle. Instead, Mendoza plans to move his wife and two children to a place where the American dream costs a lot less. Californians such as Mendoza are increasingly finding it harder to make ends meet, according to a Public Policy Institute of California report to be released today, the Los Angeles Daily News reports. The study is also critical of the criteria for the federal poverty line, which is based on income and doesn’t take into account the cost of living in a specific region. After adjusting for home prices, the percentage of Los Angeles County residents living below the poverty line increased from 15 percent to 18 percent, placing it among the 10 highest-poverty counties in the nation, the study found. California’s ranking among the states and Washington, D.C., rose from 15th to third.



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Old Air Force Base Rockets Toward a New Future


Rocket scientists are enjoying a new Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo, but their old home looks like a war zone as developers make way for a mixed residential development, the Daily Breeze reports. Demolition of the 42 acres should continue through August, said Jeff Dritley , managing partner of Kearny Real Estate Co., which owns the former base land at Aviation and El Segundo boulevards in Hawthorne. After razing is complete, Kearny is slated to sell the land to Newport Beach-based William Lyon Homes. In place of the monolithic Cold War-era structures that once dotted the land, the builder will construct 625 condominiums and single-family houses likely available for purchase by early 2008, said Hawthorne Councilman Gary Parsons.



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