Which Way, L.A.?

Lynwood: Small-Town Politics, Big-Time Money?

The City of Lynwood lies at the junction of the Long Beach and Century freeways, right next to Watts. Its 70,000 citizens earn a per capita income of $9500. Its part-time City Council makes $9600--plus lavish foreign travel, the use of credit cards to buy dinners and tickets to shows in New York, and $900 fees for attending back-to-back meetings that often last only minutes. Some of Lynnwood-s part-time officials make more than $100,000 a year, nearly four times that of the Long Beach City Council, which is six times larger. How can one of the state-s poorest cities support some of its highest paid politicians? We hear from a whistle-blower in that city, the director of Loyola Marymount University's Center for the Study of Los Angeles, and an immigration expert from the World Policy Institute. Reporter-s Notebook: Using the Past to Gauge a Sustainable Future Despite an abundance of plans, Los Angeles has become synonymous with urban sprawl, and that growth is not going to stop. So, the Haynes Foundation has invited some heavy thinkers to gather to consider the future of Los Angeles, in terms of its past. Tomorrow-s keynote speaker will be Greg Hise, a professor of urban planning at USC and author of Eden by Design.