Morning Buzz: Friday 4.11.08

County health director abruptly quits

Who would want that job? Anyway, Dr. Bruce A. Chernof said his resignation was unrelated to failed negotiations to find a new operator for Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital. The county Department of Health Services faces a projected budget shortfall of $750 million over the next two years. LAT, DN

Zine proposes changes to Special Order 40

Councilman Dennis Zine would have the LAPD report the immigration status of gang members to the feds. LAT

Grand Avenue and Dubai royals

The royal family of Dubai gets 45% ownership of the Grand Avenue Project and $95 million in Los Angeles taxpayer subsidies. LA Weekly

LACMA 'looks like Janice Dickinson'

The museum is "doughy, and bloated, and sluglike, and despite its new infusions of Eli Broad’s lovely money – and maybe even because of them – it hasn’t aged well. The new Serras in particular, sprawling Jabba-like over 20,000 square feet on the first floor of the new Broad Contemporary, are like sticking two lips filled with 200 tons of collagen each on a desperate and crazy lady’s melting face," writes new Wilshire Boulevard arrival Rebecca Schoenkopf. CityBeat

Decline of the local TV anchor

They're not as important to the viewership of local news, say some int he field. Story is pegged to the exits of Harold Green and Ann Martin from KCBS/KCAL. LAT

Plastic bags would cost you 25 cents each

Assemblyman Mike Davis, D-Los Angeles, proposed state law to require the fee on grocery and pharmacy bags. DN

Belzer to fill in for Randi Rhodes

Actor Richard Belzer will take over the Air America slot vacated by Rhodes for the next week at least. HuffPost

Watch out Wilshire and Santa Monica

Beverly Hills seems poised to add new condos and a Waldorf-Astoria hotel at the Beverly Hilton corner to plans already approved for the adjacent Robinson's site. LAT

Prosecution rests against Pellicano

Times counts 79 charges remaining against all the co-defendants after 28 were dropped yesterday. "The reduction in charges is not expected to significantly alter possible prison terms." LAT

Heeb heading west?

Overheard at a party: the New York magazine is opening an L.A. office and the editor in chief is moving here. Expect more of a Hollywood sensibility.

Another fired LANG editor blogs it out

Mike Rappaport lost his job as business editor of the San Bernardino Sun and Inland Valley Daily Bulletin and writes, "I should have known what was coming. I had been at the top of [editor Steve] Lambert's hit list in January 2005 when he suspended me for a week for specious reasons at a time when I was battling sleep apnea. I thought we had gotten past that, but as veteran sportswriter Paul Oberjeurge points on in his excellent blog, Lambert never forgets." American Hologram