Endorsements for the June 7 primary

Over the last two months, our editorial board has surveyed hundreds of candidates, conducted several dozen interviews and issued dozens of endorsements in races across Southern California. Here are our endorsements to date. You can read full endorsements on our website in the Opinion section. Statewide office

Lanhee Chen for state controller

Lance Christensen for state superintendent of public instruction

Los Angeles County

Robert Luna for Los Angeles County sheriff

Jeffrey Prang for Los Angeles County assessor

Bob Hertzberg for Los Angeles County supervisor

Rick Caruso for mayor of Los Angeles

Scott Silverstein for Los Angeles City Council

Hydee Feldstein Soto for Los Angeles city attorney

Stephanie Clements for Los Angeles city controller

Kelly Gonez and Nick Melvoin for Los Angeles Unified School Board

John Kennedy and Jason Lyon for Pasadena City Council

Orange County

Cecilia Iglesias for Board of Supervisors in District 2

Doug Chaffee for Board of Supervisors in District 4

Pat Bates for Board of Supervisors in District 5

Todd Spitzer for district attorney

Al Mijares for Orange County superintendent

Mari Barke, Lisa Sparks and Tim Shaw for Orange County Board of Education

Yes on Measure B in Newport Beach

Riverside County

Jeff Hewitt for Board of Supervisors

Lara Gressley for district attorney

San Bernardino County

Jesse Armendarez for Board of Supervisors

Curt Hagman for Board of Supervisors

Treasure Ortiz for mayor of San Bernardino

Fred Shorett for San Bernardino City Council

A few weeks ago, I made a quick trip to New York for my mom’s 90th.

I landed at JFK at 5:30 p.m. and took the AirTrain to Jamaica, the Long Island Railroad to Penn Station and the 2 Train to Times Square. As I lugged my roller bag up from the subway, I glanced at my watch: 6:50 p.m., pretty good time from JFK to midtown on a Wednesday. After congratulating myself for taking public transportation, I noticed the blinking marquee on 41st Street, “Mr. Saturday Night staring Billy Crystal!”

Why not?

I had 10 minutes to make the curtain.

At 6:55 p.m. I purchased one ticket at the box office, fifth row, dead center, for 125 smackers. An usher took my luggage and I settled into my seat to enjoy the show.

Which I did.

Crystal is a star for a reason, plus the show was cowritten by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, my former bosses in the TV racket, who happen to be brilliantly talented and very nice fellows to boot.

Now, many of you are undoubtedly saying, “A fool and his money are soon parted,” and if you’re not a theater person, I can understand why. Still, by today’s standards, $125 for a fifth-row center seat is actually a steal — not quite a tank of gas, right?

But what if you don’t have $125 to spend on a whim?

Or even after months of scrimping and saving?

The legendary Broadway producer, Emanuel “Manny” Azenberg, in a recent TEDxBroadway conversation said, “When ‘A Chorus Line” opened the top ticket price was $15, and now it’s $250 to $500. We’ve chased away an audience.”

And it ain’t just Broadway. In 1979, just a few years after “A Chorus Line” debuted, Lakers fans could get floor seats for $15. Now that same seat goes for $2,750 or more in the after-market. No wonder we don’t see Jack Nicholson as often as we used to.

Baseball has traditionally been the most financially fan-friendly sport. It has to be with a 162 game season and all those seats to fill. Still, prime Dodger tickets cost more than I paid for my first three cars, while a single Rams ticket is going for more than tuition, room annd Board for my BA in English from Stonehill College, Class of ’79.

Good seats to the recent

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Paul McCartney concert at Sofi Stadium were so pricey you had to be a former Beatle to afford them.

In the age of deep-pocket entertainments, short-term profits threaten not only the long-term survival of major league sports, concerts and theater, but the creative integrity as well.

“Broadway has become a theme park,” says Azenberg. “The shows should be in Orlando.”

And speaking of theme parks, a day at Disneyland has become like a day in Davos, Switzerland. A one-day pass sells for $104. Each.

The bottom line is the only line. As long as people continue to pour through the turnstiles, ticket prices will remain high, but the “haves and the have-nots” are now also the “see and the seenots,” with the many millions priced out of experiences they once enjoyed, furthering fracturing a culture already deeply divided along political, racial, gender and generational lines.

You get what you pay for in this life, right? But is that still true when a tallboy of Bud Light goes for $16.15 at Dodger games?

@SOCALOPINION

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