MIDNIGHT SUN STILL BLAZES — We residents in a corner of Councilman Dennis Zine’s 3rd District are still bathed in perpetual light owing to those huge spotlights shining down on us from poles in the alley behind our homes. Zine’s office knew nothing about the installation of the lights until we began complaining about them. So, his field deputy, Jose Martinez, has been assigned to get to the bottom of the problem. Martinez learned “a person” had requested that lights be installed in the alley behind our homes because crime was occurring in it.

My neighbors and I knew nothing of these alleged crimes and we were not favored with any discussions with Department of Water and Power or any other city entity about the need for spotlights to shine upon our properties. It seems then that in response to “a person’s” request, the DWP installed 51 spotlights at evenly spaced intervals along the 1.2-mile stretch of the alley extending from Roscoe Boulevard to Hesperia Street at great cost to the city! (I know because I personally counted them.) When did the age-old concept of vox populi get discarded in favor of vox unum?

Despite the outcry against the lights, the DWP balks at the notion of removing them because of the additional great cost to the city that would entail. That’s their bad. DWP had no business installing them without a request from the majority of the people affected, as is done for everything else, such as for the speed bumps which the majority of my neighbors requested and haven’t received. Yet “a person” can request and obtain 51 spotlights that ruin the lives of a couple of hundred people?! That’s municipal madness! I think we’re living in the End Times. This is proof.

Frankly, we don’t necessarily want the lights removed, just turned off. In fact, my neighbors are not that concerned about the 51 lights along the entire alley route, just the nine lights between Zelzah Street and the access road from White Oak Avenue that are shining on us. The issue is on the agenda of the neighborhood council meeting Monday night and we will be there.

VILLARAIGOSA WATCH — Prompted by a recent school site incident and a persuasive letter of invitation from a student, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and LAPD Comdr. Harlan Ward attended a school assembly at the LAUSD’s Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies to discuss safety issues with the student body. Before the mayor agreed to attend, an aide informed the school administration that the mayor requires a “pop-up tent” under which he can stand so he can be shielded from the noonday sun. The school official was told: “If you don’t have one, you have to buy one.”

Everybody who heard about this decried it. As is the case with all public schools, SOCES has no books, no paper, zero supplies and teachers with layoff notices, yet the mayor — who is the titular head of the cash-strapped school district — requires schools to buy tents to protect his olive complexion! That’s not right. I would have told him to stay the hell in City Hall and just send the cop. …

The mayor did find a venue that fitted him just right — the star-studded annual White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner with the Obamas in Washington, D.C., last weekend. Villaraigosa, a star from another galaxy, was seen amid the glitzy and glamorous Hollywood celebrities strolling the red carpet before the dinner and was called over to the ET microphone where he admitted that this 2009 shindig was the “fourth or fifth” correspondents’ dinner he had attended. …

Meanwhile, back on Earth, the mayor met his even change: Councilwoman Janice Hahn, who put the kibosh on Villaraigosa’s attempt to create a new top management position at the Port of Los Angeles for former Assemblyman Wally Knox — and pay him an annual salary of $205,000! The mayor put this matter before the City Council one day after the panel voted to begin the process of laying off 400 city employees because of the city’s pending $530 million budget shortfall. Hahn led the fight against this ludicrous and ill-timed job-creating gambit, which the council rejected with a face-slapping 14-0 vote. Kenny Hahn’s kid did good.

TRU OR FALSE — Here’s something voters in Tuesday’s runoff election need to know: Last year, attorney Carmen Trutanich, candidate for city attorney, represented a low-income property partnership, Sheraton Town House LP, when it was facing 44 misdemeanor charges brought by the City Attorney’s Office for unsafe and unsanitary conditions at 639 S. Commonwealth Ave. The building is a two-story hotel converted to 142 apartment units designated as an affordable housing project whose tenants’ rents are based on their income. Various city agencies had been citing Sheraton Town House for a variety of health and safety violations on a regular basis since June 15, 2007, until the total reached 44 and the City Attorney’s Office filed criminal charges against the owners.
In dismissing conflict of interest concerns about his candidacy for city attorney, Trutanich said in a Times story in February that he was “currently defending two clients in litigation with the city.” He said those cases involved an oil refinery and a boat works, but he did not reveal that he had been and still was defending Sheraton Town House against the city of Los Angeles from Aug. 4, 2008 until its final hearing on April 23, 2009. Trutanich’s omission raises the question of whether there are still more active cases that could pose conflicts of interest should he become city attorney.

WELCOME HOME — Former City Councilman Robert Farrell’s wife, Windy Barnes, has just returned to the Southland after being all the rage in Asia since February. My favorite singer of gospel, jazz, R&B and everything else, Windy created a new role for herself as one of the premiere American jazz divas in high demand in Asia, having performed extensively in Shanghai, Beijing, Macau and throughout Japan. She called me from Bangkok, where she was performing in a club located on the top of a 64-floor skyscraper. Windy is preparing to star in a musical comedy entitled “Gospelrella,” directed by actor Ted Lange and opening at the West Angeles Theater in mid-June.

THIS AND THAT — A sistah, Suzanne Blake, was named last week as the first principal of the LAUSD’s new visual and theater arts high school scheduled to open downtown on Sept. 9. The new school will initially enroll 1,200 students from throughout the district and educate young artists, musicians, actors and dancers. Blake, who grew up in the Valley, is married to Grammy Award-nominated musician Mitchell Foreman, sees her new job as an opportunity to combine her two passions: The performing arts and her commitment to public education.

Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas named attorney and voting rights advocate Richard P. Fajardo to his staff as senior deputy for justice and public safety issues. … In one of her final acts as one of the longest-serving members of the LAUSD board in history, Julie Korenstein donated $320,000 to 122 schools she has represented in District 6 for 22 years. … Ward AME Church will host a lay ministry weekend Saturday and Sunday. A seminar will be held Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon on “Thriving in These Economic Times” with presentations on Census 2010, housing, jobs and business opportunities and identity theft. Assembly Speaker Karen Bass will speak at the church Sunday at 3 p.m.

AND FINALLY — You people need to stop asking me what I think of the alphabet soup being served up in Tuesday’s election. I told you what I thought of those tax-increasing measures in the general election, but you ignored me and voted more taxes upon yourselves anyway. Now you’re fed up and mad about the heavy taxation coming down upon us. So I’m not saying anything this time, as I realize it doesn’t make any difference anyway. After all, life in the End Times requires only that we repent, love one another and await the Rapture.