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LOS ANGELES

DOWNTOWN

NEWS

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10-18

August 9, 2010

Volume 39, Number 32

INSIDE

Downtown Living

Text “COAST” to 69302

Coast Career Institute Your Best Education

www.coastcareer.com

W W W. D O W N T O W N N E W S . C O M

Dancin’ for Dollars photo by Gary Leonard

How a Single Mom Made a Skid Row Business a Player in the Street Dance Scene

Wilshire Grand project needs a public subsidy.

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Bringing back the Belasco Theatre.

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The Ranger$ are a popular group in the jerkin’ dance scene (R&B performer Raz-B holds the sneaker). They are sponsored by Vlado Footwear, based Downtown on Maple Street.

Chick-fil-A squawks into Downtown.

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What’s on the Menu?

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by RichaRd guzmán city editoR

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earing skinny jeans and oversized colorful shirts, four teenage boys sway into a small glass storefront in the middle of Skid Row. They are greeted warmly by Jill Kim, a thin, slightly shy 40-something single mom from South Korea.

Hip-hop music plays in the background as the boys saunter over to a wall that is covered with sneakers on display. There are gold and silver high tops with chains for laces; shiny red hightops with Velcro lacing; yellow, lime green, pink and green low tops with white soles; and a pair of bright red sneakers that 16-year-old Langsten Higgins picks up.

“I could stand on my toes all day in these,” he said, sizing up the size 10s for their jerkin’ potential. Higgins and his friends are in a hip-hop and dance group called The Ranger$. They are at Vlado Footwear, a Maple Street shoe company started by Kim and her brother, Ted Chun, 15 years ago to cater to the hip-hop lifestyle. see Vlado, page 9

Games Utilities Play Mayor Beutner Has His Hands Full With DWP Comeback Tour by Jon RegaRdie executive editoR

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Nisei Week takes over Little Tokyo.

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26 CALENDAR LISTINGS 29 MAP 30 CLASSIFIEDS

$50

t’s hard up here for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. In the past few years, the behemoth that is both part of the city and its own separate fiefdom has been battered like a Little Mermaid piñata at a 6-year-old’s birthday party. A series of pipe ruptures quickly water ThE rEgarDiE rEpOrT

spouted into a public relations disaster, while a merrygo-round of general managers — the nine in the past decade is enough to field a baseball team — have provided the type of consistency that serves only to confuse the citizenry while empowering the union that represents DWP workers. Then there was the war waged in the spring over efforts to boost power rates. It climaxed when the department threatened to withhold a $73 million transfer to

the cash-strapped city, and while the DWP commission insisted that, gosh golly gee it sure wasn’t blackmail, almost everyone who doesn’t work for the department viewed it as exactly that. The DWP and the City Council went all Gladiator on each other. The elected leaders worked the Outrage Meter, and a slew of potential mayoral candidates laid down the type of licks that will look great in 2013 campaign literature. By the time the fracas ended, the department had been pummeled, at least in the public eye. The DWP was left with all the appeal of Hugh Grant after his infamous 1995 encounter with prostitute Divine Brown. All of which brings us to the very curious present. This week, the DWP will launch a public outreach campaign, which while ostensibly about letting Angelenos have a voice in long-term energy plans, feels more like a comeback tour. It’s kind of like Hugh Grant redux, with the department playing the part of see DWP, page 8

TICKET & YOU COULD WIN...

photo by Gary Leonard

Austin Beutner’s biggest test since joining the city in January will begin this week with a DWP public outreach tour. It starts at the Ferraro Building at First and Hope streets on Thursday at 7 p.m.

A 2011 BMW 750 LUXURY SEDAN

OR $65,000 CASH! Many more great prizes.

SUPPORT THE MIDNIGHT MISSION TO PURCHASE TICKETS CALL 877-338-2968 See complete details and rules at

www.WinnersChoiceMidnightMission.com

Tickets also available at: Midnight Mission | 601 S San Pedro St. • Bolt Barbers | 460 S Spring St. • Urban Noodle | 118 West 4th St.


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