Friday desk clearing *

• The City Council approved shortage year water rates that will hit users with a hefty new charge if they don't reduce water consumption. Via release
• That federal indictment director John McTiernan was waiting for in the Pellicano case? It came. LAT
• LACMA has reopened its French sculptures garden with palm trees added by Robert Irwin. Unframed
• City Housing Department general manager Mercedes Marquez has been nominated as assistant secretary for community planning and development at HUD. White House
• A source told the Jewish Journal that the USC and Hebrew Union College-Jewish institute of Religion are working on a deal to fold the Hebrew's L.A. campus into USC as a Jewish studies program. God Blog
• If John Garamendi does go for Congress instead of governor, that could make for easier relations between LAT City Hall reporter Phil Willon and his sister Beth Willon, the spokeswoman for Garamendi. Capitol Weekly
• Nancy Rommelmann revises her teenage view of Mariel Hemingway's "Manhattan" fashion in a guest post at The Foodinista
• Understanding the labyrinth of water systems feeding the desert that is southern California requires a divining rod with GPS, but the politics are a lot simpler. Harvey Englander at Fox & Hounds
• Anne-Marie O'Connor, a UPI stringer in Guatemala in 1983-4, is back there with a piece on the secrets about those who disappeared in those days. Wash Post
• "Radical L.A.: From Coxey’s Army to the Watts Riots, 1894–1965" by Errol Wayne Stevens looks at how conflict between the right and left shaped the city’s character. University of Oklahoma Press
• Area code 747, and ten-digital local calling, come to the 818 this weekend. LAist, LAT

* Added: USC explains its side of the John Ziegler publicity stunt this week at Annenberg, along with some dialogue between bloggers Marc Cooper and Patterico.

My KCRW commentary today found flaws in the proposals to elect the next police chief or to change the rules to give William Bratton a third term. LA Observed on KCRW