Looking ahead to the State of the City

Mayor Villaraigosa will return to an old theme in this week's State of the City speech, says Rick Orlov in the Daily News. The speech will be at Jefferson High School on Wednesday, and will center on the mayor's education efforts rather than on the city's financial crisis.

Villaraigosa will get away from those pressing issues of structural deficits, employee layoffs and reductions in service.

Instead, he will again become the education mayor, focusing on the reforms he and the Board of Education he helped elect have launched to improve the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The speech is expected to focus on how the reforms he is pushing will provide more opportunities and educational choices for young people.

For those with short memories, here's the mayor's 2006 State of the City speech when he unveiled his original, more ambitious education ambitions.

Also in Orlov's Monday Tipoff column:
Longtime L.A. political figure Joe Scott announced his retirement from DA Steve Cooley's office. Scott, 80, was a political reporter and columnist for the Herald Examiner, and published "The Political Animal" newsletter for insiders. Since then he has been an adviser to former Mayor Richard Riordan and Cooley's chief spokesman. Scott, who blogs at The Body Politic, tells Orlov he'll come out of retirement to help Chief Assistant District Attorney Jackie Lacey if she runs for DA next year.