Newsletter: Elections, freeway traffic, cults and gurus

Nov. 1, 2014 12 AM PT

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Welcome to the second edition of Essential California, The Times' weekly newsletter breaking down the news and issues facing the Golden State. I'm Shelby Grad, the California editor, and here's my look at stories from the week that you shouldn't miss. Sign up here: Get the essential California newsletter.

Election Daze

If you haven't already sent your mail-in ballot, and are more inclined to DVR past a political ad than to watch it, here's a brief California election guide:

A very useful breakdown of each proposition on the ballot - and what are the money interests behind them.

In the history-making department, take a look at Prop. 47, which would reduce a host of crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. The New York Times editorial board says California is leading the way on "justice reform," and our editorial board says the measure would "do a great deal to stop the ongoing and unnecessary flow of Californians to prison for nonviolent and nonserious offenses."

Jerry Brown is barely putting on a campaign for reelection while Neil Kashkari is fighting hard, but nothing seems to be connecting. Neither is making any hay of the elephant in the room: California's massive high-speed rail project.

The Sacramento Bee has been truth-squading many of those political TV ads

In Malibu, the big election debate is whether the city is being ruined by chain stores. Matt Stevens' dispatch from PCH looks at two big-name millionaires, Steve Soboroff and Rob Reiner, who have squared off over the contentious ballot measure.

Down in Anaheim, Disney is donating to City Council candidates who support a proposed streetcar line that would run to the Magic Kingdom. The Orange County Register has the numbers.

L.A.'s voter turnout has been on a steep decline. Times data analyst Ben Welsh dug through decades of paper files to produce a dramatic graphic showing that you have to go all the way back to the epic Sam Yorty-Tom Bradley battles to find the peak.

Los Angeles turnout sinks to historic lows

Traffic Tie-Ups

When the recession hit a few years ago, many noticed that their commutes got slightly better because there were few people driving to jobs each day. Well, the economy has been getting gradually better, unemployment is down, and, yes, traffic is on the increase again. Times reporters Dan Weikel and Sandra Poindexter crunched the numbers, finding that commute times in L.A. and the Inland Empire are rising at a faster rate than those in Orange County.

View the graphic

Who has the worst commutes? Our research shows that it's residents of Corona, El Monte and Moreno Valley. Better commutes? Thousand Oaks, Oxnard and Ventura. Check out this great graphic for more details.

Our freeway system simply can't handle the number of cars it carries today. But reporter Rong-Gong Lin II went to the archives and found that only a fraction of the freeways once planned for L.A. ever got built. Imagine a freeway connecting the Hollywood Bowl to LAX - or another linking Century City to Silver Lake. Check out the what-if map.

Quirky California

The last few weeks have been a reminder that California has long been the capital of gurus, cults and all sorts of "alternative" thinkers. First, John-Roger died. He was the founder of the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness church, which in the 1970s and 1980s gained much fame, some controversy and a big Hollywood following. Then, Joan Quigley, best known as Nancy Reagan's astrologer, died in San Francisco. As our obituary reported, Quigley said her White House work "went far beyond mundane scheduling to matters of diplomacy, Cold War politics and even the timing of the president's cancer surgery."

Curbed L.A. devoted a week to examining the cults and quirky people of L.A., posing the bigger question: Why did L.A. become such a magnet?