Tonight's City Council meeting is expected to be a long one.  Up for discussion is the development of 4043 Irving, a block south of downtown.

Front Page Online is reporting that LA County has approved of the City Council's plan to use a privately run Hawthorne animal shelter for most of the animals picked up in Culver City.  The city uses County animal control services and the normal procedure is to use the County's facility in Carson.

At last night's meeting, the Culver City Council voted 5-0 to negotiate a contract with the Spca Animal Shelter in Hawthorne. 

CC is currently contracted with LA County for animal control, which means we use the county's animal shelter in Carson.  But that shelter has been widely criticized, and animal rights supporters, including Vice Mayor Gary Silbiger and Councilman Chris Armenta, were strongly in favor of switching to the Hawthorne shelter run by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

County officials at the council meeting last night said their supervisors at the county would probably be fine with delivering the majority of CC animals to Hawthorne instead of Carson.  The next step is to get that in writing from the county, then to get the contract with the Hawthorne shelter.

The most interesting part of this story, though, is not the outcome of the animal shelter vote.  It's the process and the politics that led to Monday's vote.