News Briefs

Sen. Diane Feinstein sent a letter to President Obama asking him to bypass Congress and designate over one million acres of land between Palm Springs and the Nevada border as national monuments under the 1906 Antiquities Act. Two bills previously sponsored by Feinstein to protect the area over the past six years have languished. >>read more

An environmental group has purchased $10.1 million worth of Lake Tahoe land including scenic meadows, forests, and trout streams in order to preserve wildlife there and increase California's water supply. The purchase amounts to over 10,000 acres. >>read more

The Los Angeles City Council voted 12-2 to support a sweeping new mobility plan that would focus on increasing bicycle and pedestrian safety and reducing car usage by reshaping streets with medians, widened sidewalks, and over 300 miles of dedicated bike and bus lanes, at the expense of car lanes. >>read more

A deal between the cities of Los Angeles and Ontario ends a dispute over the decline of LA/Ontario International Airport. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Ontario Mayor pro tem Alan Wapner announced the signing of a Settlement Agreement Term Sheet which will lead to the transfer of ownership of ONT to the Ontario International Airport Authority subject to approvals. >>read more

Officials with the Imperial Irrigation District have proposed a smaller plan for restoration of the Salton Sea, reducing the cost from $9 billion to $3.15 billion. >>read more

Developers in Los Angeles will face more extensive scrutiny if they decide to build near earthquake faults under new rules in Los Angeles. The Westside, the South Bay, and northeast Los Angeles will be the three main areas covered by new scrutiny under a program advanced by Mayor Eric Garcetti. >>read more

The state Department of Water Resources sharpened plans for the construction of two 30-mile-long tunnels on the Sacramento River, releasing hundreds of pages of documents in its environmental impact statement detailing the project's changes from the original 2006 plan worth $15 billion. >>read more

Plans to build a $5 billion, 6.3-mile tunnel to close the "gap" of the 710 freeway are gaining headway as both the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments recommended that project as the best option. The tunnel, which would have two lanes in either direction and would be completely underground for 4.2 miles. >>read more

Two environmental groups have sued the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the Secretary of the Interior for opening up 400,000 acres of public land in Southern California for fracking, which they claim violates the National Environmental Policy Act. >>read more

California's $68-billion high speed rail is facing setbacks in its construction throughout the proposed route from San Francisco to Los Angeles. >>read more

In the first phase of a landmark redevelopment deal many years in the making, the U.S. Navy transferred nearly 300 acres of its old Treasure Island/Yerba Buena Island naval base to the City of San Francisco to redevelop the campus into 8,000 homes in exchange for $55 million to the Navy. >>read more

More than four decades after a graduate student proposed adding a "green belt" of wildlife habitats, parks, and recreational areas in a rim circling the San Fernando Valley, Rep. Adam Schiff is pushing to add as much land as possible "Rim of the Valley Corridor" to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area in the Los Angeles area. Backed by a broad coalition including the National Park Service, the designation would protect of the 1,000-square-mile area from future development and preserve puma and bobcat habitats, along with forests and fossil beds. "For us, it's a complete and utter enhancement," Las Virgenes Homeowners Federation president Kim Lamorie told the LA Times. "Our [residents] are always competing to get the National Park Service - to purchase land in and around our homeowners associations and rural villages.... Property values go up when you're surrounded by open space." 

The Los Angeles Planning Commission advised the City Council to adopt the city's proposed Mobility Plan 2035 (pdf), update the land use element of 35 community plans, and adopt an ordinance to implement new street standards and complete street principles. >>read more

Another group has arisen in the long-running battle to challenge Proposition 13. A coalition of several public employees unions and other interest groups, the Make it Fair organization seeks to place a measure that would upend Prop. 13 on the 2016 statewide ballot. >>read more