Paging City Hall, Paging City Hall

By Steve Lopez

Matt Szabo, are you there? Amir Sedadi, is your phone out of order?

Szabo, press secretary to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, has not answered my questions about whether transit boss Jaime de la Vega has put his Hummer up for sale or whether the mayor has talked to him about it.

If Sedadi, one of the supervisors in traffic enforcement, would return my call, I'd like to know the outcome of the investigation into the ticket one of his traffic officers gave to a bald cancer patient with an oxygen tank. And I'd also like to know if such a ticket has anything to do with a quota requirement.

Meanwhile, keep checking the Bottleneck Blog for posts by my colleagues Shelby Grad, Jean Guccione and others. I'll weigh in on occasion, too, and we're hoping to begin a contest soon in which the smartest comments by readers get special treatment each week on the blog.

In other news, downtown activist and professional problem-solver Brady Westwater is about to tackle traffic, and the man who calls himself L.A. Cowboy informs me of a big meeting Saturday at 11 a.m. at Los Angeles City College. Westwater, chairman of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Councils Congress, says the meeting will feature the preview of "a new program that might permanently alter traffic in this city by changing the commuting patterns." Speakers will include James Okasaki, a former assistant manager at LADOT, and Allyn Rifkin, a former LADOT engineer.

For more information, check out www.lacowboy.blogspot.com on Friday, or email Westwater at bradywestwater@gmail.com