Which Way, L.A.?

Going Around Prop. 13 with a Split-Roll Business Tax

Property taxes at Disneyland are $.05 a square foot, compared to $10 for the San Francisco's Transamerica Pyramid, but not because they-re different businesses in different places. It's because of Proposition 13. Approved by voters in 1978, the measure put a lid on property taxes, which were rising so fast that residents were being driving out of their homes. But the new rules also apply to business, which has produced some strange distortions. Now, even some Republicans think it-s time for a change, to help solve the state-s budget crisis and give homeowners a better break, too. Is it time to touch this -third rail- of California politics? We hear from a veteran political strategist who-s run hundreds of Republican campaigns and the head of a business-oriented advocacy organization. Making News: Fox-s Party Heads toward Defeat in Midterm Mexican Election Three years ago, Mexico-s new President Vicente Fox toppled the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which had ruled the country for 70 years. But in elections coming up Sunday, Fox and his National Action Party, or PAN, may be in for a setback themselves. Denise Dresser is a Professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute in Mexico City and a visiting fellow at USC. Reporter's Notebook: The Microcinema Movement In 1895, the first public showings of motion pictures took place in the basement of a Parisian caf-. Now, more than 100 years later, movie buffs who want an alternative to Hollywood-s big-screen fare can visit "microcinemas," which look more like basements than multiplexes. Independent filmmaker Gerry Fialka runs the independent 7 Dudley Cinema at the Sponto Gallery in Venice.