I just heard that Forescee Hogan-Rowles, one of The Wave’s original “most influential people of South L.A.,” has filed to run next year for city council member for the 8th District!! I was concerned about what we were going to do about a viable candidate for that seat after President Barack Obama took our shoo-in, Karen Bass, away from us. (He needs her, so I’m not mad at him — anymore!) But Forescee Hogan-Rowles, president and CEO of the Community Resource Center, with a world of community and economic development experience and achievements, has stepped into the breach.

And her timing is most fortuitous, as I just happened to have intercepted a confidential communique last week which shows the incumbent 8th district council member is vulnerable to a candidate just like her. The document reads as follows:

“Polling from the June primary contests shows that Bernard Parks’ negatives remain high from his landslide loss to Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas in November 2008. Parks’ favorable ratings were previously in the high 60s, but have stayed in the low 50s since his disastrous campaign. According to California Opinion Surveys polling, Parks’ negative ratings are at 30, severely cutting into his positive ratings. The only other elected official with worse ratings than Parks was Gov. [Arnold] Schwarzenegger.

“The polling reveals that Parks could be vulnerable to a challenge in the current anti-incumbent climate, especially if the right candidate surfaces. The best profile to challenge Parks is not a typical politician. Instead, it’s someone without a record as an elected or appointed official, such as an African-American teacher, nurse or firefighter with a clean record, community involvement, roots in the community and even grassroots involvement. A ‘teacher of the year’ is ideal, experienced but young — or even with more experience and older. But as Ridley-Thomas and Bass and now Holly Mitchell have shown, voters are looking for the next generation of leadership in the African-American community.”

I am not at liberty to say who wrote this and where it came from, but I can say that somebody paid a lot of money to an expert for this opinion and I got it for free! I’ll never look down my nose on that old adage about being in the right place at the right time.

CLEARED AND SUED — The House Ethics Committee cleared 37th District Rep. Laura Richardson of any wrongdoing in regards to a foreclosure dispute over a house she owns in Sacramento. The panel had been investigating allegations of unethical doings involving the house, which Richardson lost to foreclosure, was sold to a third party and later regained by the congresswoman. The Office of Congressional Ethics looked into whether Washington Mutual, the mortgage company, provided Richardson an improper gift and whether the neighbors who cleaned her yard did as well. The Office of Congressional Ethics dismissed part of the case and forwarded the rest of it to the Ethics Committee, which voted unanimously last week to dismiss the case against Richardson after a seven-month investigation.

In the meantime, Lee Davis, a former candidate who lost to Richardson in the Democratic primary election last month, filed suit against the congresswoman alleging voter fraud for the second time last week. In her suit, which also names the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s Office as a defendant, Davis claims Democratic voters in 300 precincts were given ballots that eliminated her name and that of candidate Peter Mathews. She alleges that in one precinct, candidate Terrance Ponchak’s name was missing from the ballot.

Davis alleges other incidents of fraud, as well, and she is asking the court for an injunction against the certification of Richardson as the winner of the June 8 election. Davis filed a similar fraud suit against Richardson when she lost to her in 2007, the year Richardson was first elected to Congress. It was thrown out of court because it was filed after the deadline to contest the race and because the vote differential was too small to effect the outcome of the race. The second suit is scheduled to be heard in court on Aug. 6.

THIS AND THAT — I’ve learned that the county investigators are completing the final report on the Culver City police killing of Lejoy Grissom for submission to the Justice System Integrity Division of the District Attorney’s Office. It seems that they have 90 days from the incident to complete their investigation and they are now somewhere between 63 and 70 days.

The YWCA Greater Los Angeles will honor multiple grand slam tennis champion and entrepreneur Venus Williams with its Phenomenal Woman of the Year Award at a luncheon July 13 at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel scheduled from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Proceeds will benefit the YW’s Job Corps program and urban campus. Faye Washington, the YW’s CEO, said Williams “is the quintessential example of our event theme,” which is “Saluting Women who Change the Game.” Information: (213) 251-1328.

The Los Angeles Board of Education Tuesday approved the appointment of LAUSD veteran Jess Womack to the position of interim inspector general. Previously, Womack served as deputy general counsel in the Office of the General Counsel for LAUSD. Womack is a former president of the Langston Bar Association and the Southern California Chapter of the American Corporate Counsel Association. He is on the board of the Los Angeles County Bar Association and the Los Angeles Conservancy.

Speaking of the school district, I was just notified that the LAUSD’s Office of Communications and Media Relations will take 40 unpaid furlough days beginning this month due to budget cuts in the district’s operations. Oh my goodness! What am I going to do without my Gayle Pollard-Terry and Susan Cox? Who’s going to handle my African-American concerns, of which I continuously have many? When it comes to LAUSD, I require somebody Black to talk to at all times, as I am absolutely certain it is a racist entity.

You know, I’m confused about those electronic digital license plates state Sen. Curren Price is pushing in the Legislature. Exactly what are they? And where will they be — on my car or on state cars? ‘Cause I don’t want any ads on my car for anything or for any reason. Heck, I already hate bumper stickers! So, am I going to be driving along listening to my CDs and watching a variety of electronic ads flashing on the license plates of the cars in front of me? Am I not going to be distracted by these things? I thought they wanted our undivided attention on the road. What’s the point in criminalizing the use of cell phones while driving when they’re looking to put winking and blinking ads in our faces. We might as well keep texting while driving, at least we’d be handling our own business. I don’t understand this thing, me.

AND FINALLY — The other day, the BP oil company people sent out a press release stating it is okay for their employees to talk to the press(!). The headline of the release read: “BP Reinterates Media Access Policy.” At first blush, one would think that the company’s literate employees responsible for communicating in the English language are no more competent than their engineers who pump their oil and foul our waters. But I remembered that the English write “labour” and “colour” and such, so maybe “reinterates” is the English spelling for “reiterates.” Yeah, that must be it.