Gangrey
Vol. I · No. 1Prolonging the Slow Death of NewspapersEst. 2026

The Stakeout

You gotta love the reporting on this story about the LA supervisor who gets busted by the Times. I wonder if you were writing this, what would you have done differently? Reporters Jack Leonard and Matt Lait: Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke, who was elected to represent some of the county's poorest neighborhoods, is living in a gated Brentwood home, despite laws requiring her to reside in the predominantly South Los Angeles district she serves.
In an interview with The Times two weeks ago, Burke said it was only on weekends and special occasions that she used her Brentwood home — a 4,000-square-foot residence with a swimming pool and tennis court that she and her husband have long owned. She said she lived at a 1,200-square-foot townhouse in Mar Vista, on a busy street just inside the border of her district.
But over a three-week period in which she was observed by Times reporters, Burke spent every weekday evening at her Brentwood house, in the district of Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. When confronted by reporters Wednesday, Burke changed her story and acknowledged that she has rarely slept in the Mar Vista townhouse, which she has declared as her primary residence since she purchased it more than a year ago.
She conceded that the time she has actually spent there amounts to "maybe a month or two."

In an interview with The Times two weeks ago, Burke said it was only on weekends and special occasions that she used her Brentwood home — a 4,000-square-foot residence with a swimming pool and tennis court that she and her husband have long owned. She said she lived at a 1,200-square-foot townhouse in Mar Vista, on a busy street just inside the border of her district.

But over a three-week period in which she was observed by Times reporters, Burke spent every weekday evening at her Brentwood house, in the district of Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. When confronted by reporters Wednesday, Burke changed her story and acknowledged that she has rarely slept in the Mar Vista townhouse, which she has declared as her primary residence since she purchased it more than a year ago.

She conceded that the time she has actually spent there amounts to "maybe a month or two."

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