This November, Los Angeles County voters will be asked to support Measure J, a much-needed investment in our transportation system that would start up seven transit projects and eight highway improvement projects within five years and complete them within fifteen, providing traffic relief along with 250,000 good jobs. Measure J is a remarkable opportunity to put the county back to work modernizing our transportation system. It does this not by raising taxes but by extending by another 30 years the half-cent transportation sales tax voters approved in 2008.

This blog post originally appeared on KCET's Artbound as part an ongoing partnership with Arts for LA. It is reposted with permission.

The California Arts Council announced over $650,000 in grants to arts organizations statewide as part of its “Creating Public Value” grant program.  Nineteen organizations in Los Angeles County will receive a total of $168,000 in support.