LA's Measure H; Beverly Hills' Measure Q

Since 1997, the Los Angeles Unified School District has raised $20 billion, $14 billion from four bond measures and the rest from matching funds. That money is for building new schools and re-building old ones, and there's still $6 billion left. But now, LAUSD has come up with Measure Q, yet another bond issue to raise $7 billion more, as Howard Fine reports for the LA Business Journal.

Meantime, in affluent Beverly Hills, the burning issue is a referendum on the City Council's decision to allow the Beverly Hilton Hotel to remake itself into something resembling New York's Waldorf-Astoria, along with two luxury condo towers 16 and 18 stories high. The Beverly Hilton is at the intersection of Wilshire and Santa Monica Boulevards. Martha Groves covers the lifestyles of Beverly Hills residents, rich, famous and otherwise.