Click to view larger. See more by Steve Greenberg in the LA Sketchbook archive.

Curbed LA introduced a bold new look today, bringing the site more in line with others in the company's spreading empire, with more obvious links to the sister sites. We've got a major re-visualizing in the works ourselves (maybe), so I'm interested in some of their choices. From the explainer:

Since Curbed LA launched in November 2005, the visual look of this site has changed little. That was, until early this morning when the switch flipped on the aesthetic overhaul now seen before you. Do come in and make yourself comfortable.

For readers of Eater LA, the design will be familiar—it's a look based on the new feel brought to that family of blogs last month. For those who haven't seen this new look before, couple quick notes. We're aiming to make it easier to access recent news about individual neighborhoods—look for clear neighborhood links to the right of each post, and a full neighborhood list down the right column.

Check it out. I notice they're now segregating anonymous comments from those left by registered visitors.

OK, Mark Gold of Heal the Bay, how do you really feel about the owner of Malibu's Paradise Cove getting a big break from the state's clean water regulators, despite evidence that "Paradise Cove has long been one of the most polluted beaches in Santa Monica Bay?" Gold feels this way:

How did the most egregious serial Bay polluter of the 21st century get away with so many violations?

The Regional Water Board staff and attorneys made some egregious errors of their own in enforcing the case. Picture a serial felon getting released on probation because the police failed to read the accused his Miranda rights. That’s what happened here.

It's a tale of raw sewage forgiven, Gold says: "All of those men, women and children that got sick from swimming in the sewage polluted waters of Paradise Cove in the last 10 years have the Regional Board and the Kissel Co. to thank."

Patrick McGreevy likely wrote about Keith Brackpool and the Cadiz water scheme in the Mojave Desert when he was a City Hall reporter for the L.A. Times, given that Brackpool is one of the best connected guys in the building. (You thought Antonio Villaraigosa, a former employee and drinking buddy of Brackpool's, goes to Iceland with KB every summer for the weather?) Now McGreevy is in Sacramento and has found money for Cadiz, and a whole bunch of other projects of questionable necessity, buried in the huge water bond that the Legislature voted to put on the California ballot.

Lots of talk and kudos today for Ruth Seymour, who announced to her staff last night (see her note) that she will retire as head of KCRW. Larry Mantle opened his show on rival KPCC this morning with more than a minute of praise, calling her announcement "a historic day in public radio." Seymour's news also got the final segment on Mantle's "Airtalk." "Ruth Seymour is a giant in public radio," Mantle said. "A truly unique figure in public radio, and worthy of a great deal of credit for the contributions she has made to the growth of public radio."

Tonight on KCRW's own "Which Way, L.A.?", Warren Olney said "she's been a pioneer in public radio" and talked with guests about her creation of the eclectic format (mixing a range of music with news and commentary) and enduring programs such as "Politics of Culture" and "Left, Right & Center." "Ruth saved Weekend Edition," said former music director Tom Schnabel, describing how she raised money and lobbied in Washington for NPR to keep that show. "She breaks all the rules of public radio and succeeds." Ira Glass also described her role in supporting his "This American Life."

Seymour told Sharon Waxman of The Wrap that "I just felt it’s time. There comes a moment where you say, 'It’s time to leave. You’ve been here more than 30 years. You’re in your 70s.'

"Media is in the process of tremendous change. More and more we don’t really know where it’s going to end up. I think it can benefit from new leadership."

Seymour also said she hears less comments about her distinctive New York voice than in the past: "I became an acquired taste. At the beginning, people like me never got near a microphone. Now regional accents are quite common....But I’ve lived here since the early '60s."

From this morning on LA Observed: Full text of Seymour's letters to staff and KCRW listeners and the station news release.

Photo by Marc Goldstein

DWP has a new theory on water main breaks, Xavier Becerra in trouble with the Speaker, a book deal for Andrew Breitbart and more after the jump. Yesterday's posts are summarized here for a quick scan.

Ruth Seymour, who built KCRW into a National Public Radio power, sent a letter to radio station staffers last night saying she will retire at the end of February. She has run the station based at Santa Monica College since 1977. Here's her note:

Dear Staff,

I want to give you a heads-up on some dramatic news.

I've made the decision to retire as General Manager at the end of February. I will be speaking personally to many of you in the coming weeks but I wanted to make sure that you heard this from me before it becomes more public.

For almost all of you, I am the only manager you've known. Some of you go back with me to John Adams Jr. High. We have a lot of history together.

We have created a family of sorts down in the basement. We have laughed and cried together, quarreled and made up. We've welcomed new wives and husbands and lots of babies, some of whom plan to run the station themselves someday.

The College is required to engage in certain procedures to choose a new manager and they have embarked on the process. I will be here to hand off the station to my successor.

Nothing is harder than to announce that you're leaving and then try to manage for the next few months. So I hope you'll make it easy for me.

I'm attaching a letter which will be sent to the membership. Please read it.

I'm sure I'll get a chance to talk individually to everyone of you in the days to come.

With love and gratitude - Ruth

The letter to station supporters is after the jump, followed by a press release going out this morning. Santa Monica College has begun the process of selecting a new general manager.

The latest Los Angeles Times blog to fade away is L.A. Land, which never seemed to quite recover its mojo from last year's departure of originator Peter Viles. When real estate reporter Peter Hong left the paper last month on a buyout, the blog became less necessary. Now what's left of the real estate news and observations has been folded into Money and Company, the main blog produced by the paper's business writers. Some commenters said they'll miss it, others were ready to let it go. Best of the lot:

You know, part of LA Land's problem was that the Times mixed residential real estate pieces with "houses of the stars" pieces and commercial real estate pieces, such that the blog really didn't have any focus. You are apparently attempting to correct this by further blurring the focus of LA Land by combining residential real estate, houses of the stars, and commercial real estate with business news, economic regulatory news, wall street news, and general economic trends. Don't you think this is really losing what little focus you had?

Back in April, based on these stats, L.A. Land was doing way better than most Times blogs. Also folded in are California Consumer and Up to Speed.

The billboard one (and ex-candidate for governor) has filed what Matthew Belloni of The Hollywood Reporter calls "a hilarious, $500,000 breach of contract lawsuit against the Community Redevelopment Agency." Angelyne, it seems, was forced out of her Selma Avenue apartment to make way for the big development at Hollywood & Vine.

In addition to paying her $89,000 in relocation fees, the CRA agreed to "use commercially reasonable efforts to receive and forward" Angelyne's mail to her new address.

The city [of Los Angeles] and its development partners apparently haven't been forwarding all of Angelyne's mail to her PO Box in Beverly Hills, which she claims is a breach of the 2008 agreement. Yes, she's suing because she hasn't received all her fan mail.

OK, maybe it's slightly more serious than that. But not much.

Photo cropped from The Hollywood Reporter

The LA Weekly's editorial staff is down to six full-time employees: three editors (Drex Heikes, Jill Stewart and Tom Christie) and three reporters, according to a story at USC's Neon Tommy on Heikes, the recently hired top editor with a past at the Los Angeles Times. [* Neon Tommy counted way wrong or was led astray: The Weekly has at least 18 full-time staffers. See below.] But the Weekly's financial plunge hit bottom last spring, Heikes says — "I wasn't here, but from what I understand, there were sparks on the pavement....there was just nothing left" — and he now has the OK from Village Voice Media to hire again. There are "positions available for a full-time reporter and news blogger," the story says.

"The way this'll get structured is the way I ran the Sunday magazine at the [L.A.] Times," he said. "Everything will come through that basket right there [knocks on desk]. I'll read everything...."

In an interview at the Weekly's offices in Culver City, Heikes said he did not sign on to preside over an organization in decline. At the top of his agenda: reclaiming the Weekly's legacy of pioneering investigative journalism and its street-level awareness of L.A.'s music and art scenes. He's already overseeing heavy investment in the Web as a primary delivery vehicle for the Weekly's goods.

The new editor echoed past voices from the Weekly in describing his editorial approach: "I see it from the ground up, not top down. I don't want us covering [Los Angeles Mayor Antonio] Villaraigosa like a rock star like the Times did for a few years until they got tired of him. What's going on in the streets? Let's work up from that."

[skip]

He said the open reporting position attracted 429 applicants, including Pulitzer Prize winners.

Heikes helped the Las Vegas Sun win a Pulitzer earlier this year.

* Actually:: Heikes emailed the Neon Tommy reporter that the Weekly has many more than six fulltimers: "If I told you six full-time employees, I misspoke badly. The Weekly has more than three times that number, which includes reporters and editors and copy editors, designers, web team, listings reporters and so on." Among them are music editor Randall Roberts and web editor Erin Broadley.

Photo of Heikes: Kevin Grant / Neon Tommy

Since we broke the news Friday night about Eli Broad's museum talks with Santa Monica, there have been copycat blog posts — plus a nice mention by Tyler Green at Modern Arts Notes — and a Mike Boehm story in Monday's L.A. Times detailing how Broad is still talking to Beverly Hills and a third mystery city. With the Santa Monica City Council taking up the Broad topic tonight, LAT architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne considers the Beverly Hills and Santa Monica sites and reports rumors that Westwood and UCLA may be in the running.

The [BH] location, surrounded by mostly low-rise buildings, has the advantage of being far closer to the geographical center of L.A. than the Santa Monica location, where Broad might run the risk of creating an institution instantly seen as the Westside's version of MoCA. But its unorthodox shape could pose problems. Great architects can make nearly any parcel of land work, but the easiest solution here is a building with the size and shape of an ocean liner....

A museum in that [SM] spot would face fewer constraints than one in Beverly Hills. It could slip rather comfortably into a neighborhood that is already walkable and relatively lively at street level. Its architect, theoretically, would have more freedom in shaping the building’s volume than would be the case in Beverly Hills. But the museum, given its location in the city’s administrative core, might over time begin to be seen as a Santa Monica civic building as much as an Eli Broad building.

Hawthorne says officials for UCLA and Culver City both deny being engaged in any current discussions with Broad.

Tonight's "Frontline" on PBS "examines the life and death of Neda Agha Soltan," the woman whose killing on the streets of Tehran elicited a huge reaction around the world — and signaled that activism in Iran had become more perilous.

Here's my first post on Neda in June, with some of the main follow-ups.