My Sunday Column: Water (wars) provide a lesson in government — and the reason why cynicism has won

Posted on June 14, 2013 by

Many government meetings are broadcast live and archived with a vast array of official records posted online. Mainstream media may be on financial life support, but more than half the adult population still reads a newspaper daily, in print or digital form, as part of their news overload from radio and TV and their blogosphere favorites.

We’ve never been so well-informed — or so cynical about our government and society.

Evidence of this is the long-term decline in voting, even with mail-in ballots. Polls show the vast majority of voters are unhappy with the endless political wars and the sense that they are working for the government, rather than the other way around.

A little knowledge may be a dangerous thing, but it appears a lot of knowledge is even worse, as Stanford political scientist Morris Fiorina argues in a new book titled, “Disconnect: The Breakdown of Representation in American Politics.”

I bring this up in the context of one of the longest-running political conflicts in Southern California — the water wars.

No subject is drier for most people than water, but the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California — which supplies much of the water to nearly 20 million people across six counties — has a long history of interesting battles, mostly in recent decades between its two largest customers, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the San Diego County Water Authority.

San Diego harbors deep-seated grievances backed by lawsuits over the high price Metropolitan charges to pipe its allotment of water out of Imperial County and circuitously supply its communities — battles it nearly always loses, thanks to the clout L.A. has regionally.

The latest round last Tuesday was no different.

It seems that Metropolitan is awash with a $549 million surplus — 60% of that coming over the last two years — and with more than a $100 million in excess revenue expected next year. Not too bad for an agency selling 20% less water than in 2008 because of conservation programs and additional local supplies.

The surplus includes $75 million more than Metropolitan rules allow as the maximum for unrestricted reserves, so as bureaucrats suggested what comes naturally — spend it. They proposed using a third for capital costs, a third to pay down future unfunded liability for employee health care, and a third to be determined later.

San Diego wanted its share of the money back — more than $16 million — and to have the 5% rate increase due on Jan. 1 rolled back to 3%, which would add even more to the local kitty to ease rate-hike pressure or free up money for infrastructure.

Several other water agencies, including Long Beach, Beverly Hills, San Fernando and Fullerton, agreed with San Diego on most of the issues.

So did Burbank. Water officials sent a tough letter to the Metropolitan Water District on Monday, expressing how they were “disappointed, to say the least, to be informed so late about the rapid accumulation of funds in the Financial Reserve accounts … a surprise of this nature and magnitude is damaging to both our interests. It calls into mind our collective credibility.”

The city stood to get nearly $600,000 from the refund plan, and even more if the rate hike was reduced.

Glendale — with a refund of nearly $900,000, plus $300,000 more with the rate rollback — was ready to join the resistance, but had a last-minute change of mind. So Councilwoman Laura Friedman — the city’s member on the Metropolitan Water District board of directors — accepted the city staff recommendation and joined with L.A. in providing a 75% majority based on voting power related to the size of each agency.

“Basically, we felt it was a question of pay now or pay later,” said City Manager Scott Ochoa. “We liked the idea of getting money back, but it wasn’t enough to make a big difference in what we do, so paying down debt, reducing unfunded liabilities made some sense. We all have those issues.”

The L.A. County Chamber of Commerce and other supporters of the keep-the-money, keep-the-rate-hike strategy offered similar arguments, stressing the point that nobody knows what the future holds: drought, water shortages, tougher environmental regulations, higher costs for the State Water Project, and Gov. Jerry Brown‘s $14 billion plan for massive twin tunnels through the Sacramento Delta.

In other words, Metropolitan has your money and it’s keeping it as a kind of “rainy-day water fund” just in case.

My instinct is that Burbank was right to want the money now and Glendale was wrong to go along with the crowd.

I may be biased, since San Diego Water buys a small ad on my blog and I’m a long-time critic of the L.A. DWP’s multitude of abuses. But I’ve talked at length with Ochoa and Friedman, and I think they should have stuck to their guns and taken the money now — especially because Glendale, like most cities, is in the process of imposing a series of utility rate increases.

Given the obstacles California voters — for good reasons — have put in the way of government raising taxes, I know it’s easier by far to raise rates and fees because all it takes to justify them is to run up the costs of providing services, even if they come from higher payroll costs, loose contracting practices, sloppy management or dream projects for a perfect world.

If they spend the money, they can, under the law, recover every penny from you.

That’s what got so many of our cities, counties and the state in so much trouble over the years. Just because they can do it, doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.

(THIS ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED SUNDAY IN THE GLENDALE NEWS-PRESS)

Posted in DWP, Glendale-Burbank, Hot Topics, Los Angeles | 8 Comments

Why Government Robs You Blind: Because It Can — They Make and Enforce the Laws and Frighten You into Submission

Posted on June 10, 2013 by

Between pass-throughs and rate hikes and surcharges and transfers to other uses, you might have noticed your bills for water and power have been soaring for years.

You ain’t seen nothing yet — utilities are the certain cash cow for government at all levels, a reservoir of money that can be used just about anyway your elected officials want if they are lucky enough to operate their own water and/or power systems like the LADWP.com (a web address that makes clear it’s a business, not a government agency).

What with the Colorado River supply evaporated and the Owens Valley in revolt against being dried out for the benefit of LA and the state incapable of resolving the endless water wars between north and south, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is your broker, your advocate, your protector.

Not an honest one to be sure but it’s all you got to be confident that when you turn the tap, water of a heavily chemicalized nature will flow.

This is a desert after all and if you were down to your last drop of the precious fluid, you would pay just anything for it.

That’s the viewpoint adopted by public and private agencies increasingly in recent years to drive up your water rates dramatically with even sharper increases on the table and planned for years to come with the likelihood that more of your water will come from recycled what you flush down the the toilet and other reuses that require even more chemical treatment.

Now the MWD like the LADWP and other water agencies have decided to squeeze every cent they can from you under threat that you will be left high and dry if you don’t pay up.

Of course, you know nothing about this.

MWD is as obscure as a critically important public agency could be. It supplies most of the water to nearly 20 million people who are represented by political appointees from six counties of Southern California.

The MWD is awash in your money. Here’s the annual percentage increases imposed  since 2008: 6%, 14%, 20%, 7.5%, 7.5%, 5% and 5% more come Jan. 1.

Wow, you might say, water is getting really expensive. But that isn’t the case. The main problem is you are using less water even in these dry times when rainfall and snowpack are low.

The MWD supplied 2.26 million acre feet of water in 2008, 2.16 million in 2009, dropping to 1.77 million in 2010 and staying in that range with 1.70 million acre feet anticipated this year and next.

It is the charges to cities and water companies that have soared while the MWD budget itself has remained more or less the same at $1.8 billion a year.

What has changed is the reserve fund, the rainy day water fund to deal with the unforeseen.

The 7.5% rate hike in 2012 produced a surplus of $97 million but that didn’t stop the MWD Board — dominated by LA and its satellite cities sort of like the Soviet Union and its satellite countries — from rejecting calls for a modest 3 % hike this year, imposing a 5 % increase instead.

The result is a windfall surplus of $217 million in the 12 months ending June 30 and a reserve fund so awash in cash that it has $549 million in the bank — $75 million more than it is allowed to have in reserve by its own rules and state law despite metrics on debt, costs and infrastructure needs that are as healthy as they have ever been.

So why does the MWD want to hoard even more money by changing the rules they made and sticking to a 5% rate increase that will add even more money?

And why does the LADWP which fought for nearly 50 years to eliminate property taxes as a major source of revenue rather than water sales now want  to slug homeowners and businesses with increased charges when LA has by far the highest property valuations?

It’s politics, all part of a back room deal you’re not supposed to know anything about, part of a grand scheme being hatched in smokeless rooms by the governor, legislators and power brokers in our cities and counties.

All they want is your money anyway they can get it even as in this case they don’t even know what to do with it.

Only one major organization is fighting this, the San Diego County Water Authority, whose paid “Get the Facts” advertisement outlining its long war over MWD policies is in the upper right hand corner of this page.

You can read the letter they sent to MWD officials here (2013-0605_MWD Board Items 8-1 and 8-2-1) and you can read the MWD board’s motions here (06112013 BOD 8-1 B-L-1) and here (06112013 BOD 8-2 B-L-1).

What San Diego wants is to have the $75 million in surplus charges returned to the agencies — all of which are seeking higher and higher rates for water as well as power — and could use the money to reduce the burden on their ratepayers.

It would mean a 21 percent refund or nearly $16 million to LA, nearly 22 percent or more than $16 million to San Diego that has long-standing grievance over MWD’s unfair  charges for transferring its water supply from the desert and relative amounts to all the cities and agencies that rely on MWD that offers no serious explanation of why it wants to hoard the public’s money. Here’s the chart:

 

 

Posted in City Hall, DWP, Glendale-Burbank, Hot Topics, Los Angeles | Tagged , , | 23 Comments

My Sunday Column: Giving into IBEW Blackmail or Fighting It — With Rates Soaring, the Moment of Truth Is Near

Posted on June 8, 2013 by

In Glendale, utility workers found their paychecks a little smaller last week — the price of the inability of their union, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 18, to negotiate an initial contract two years after winning the right to represent them.

Down the road, Pasadena Water and Power workers are all steamed up over the city’s resistance to give in to their demands on terms for a new contract that would move them closer to matching the sweetheart deal enjoyed by their union brothers and sisters at the L.A. Department of Water and Power thanks to IBEW business manager Brian D’Arcy, the perfect model of a ruthless old-fashioned union boss.

Seen by many big shots as the “smartest and toughest guy at City Hall,” D’Arcy is having an unusual run of bad luck.

He gambled millions of dollars of his member’s money on getting a patsy elected L.A. mayor — an over-the-top play that backfired, made the union the target of negative ads and media criticism, and was widely blamed for the defeat of Wendy Greuel, who had the backing of nearly all of the city’s business, labor and civic elite.

Now he faces contract talks with new L.A. mayor Eric Garcetti, who owes him no favors and will be emboldened to hold the line on wages and benefits at a time when the economic recovery remains fragile and ratepayers are being socked with a steady stream of big rate hikes.

All of those factors may have come together to convince D’Arcy — better known for making threats and obscene gestures to reporters than giving interviews — to sit down for a lengthy chat with L.A. Times columnist Patt Morrison, who produced a revealing Q & A last week in which the union boss, in typical fashion, blamed everyone else for what went wrong and deflected all responsibility for anything except to enrich the IBEW and its members.

Greuel’s consultant was “tone deaf” and ran a “crappy campaign.” His critics are the “right-wing apparatchiks” who see union workers as the “enemy.” Utility workers have it hard because they have to deal with “pretty cranky people all day long” — you know, like the people who pay the bills for inflated salaries and benefits and expect good service.

“My responsibility is to look after the welfare of my members,” D’Arcy declared.

Really? That’s all?

Is that any different than the bankers and speculators who brought down the economy, wiped out the savings and nest eggs of millions, foreclosed on their homes and then got bailed out by taxpayers?

Or the companies that poison the air, the water and the land in the name of profits?

Or all the politicians who have turned public service into self-service, selling their votes to the highest bidder?

Greed is accepted these days but that doesn’t mean that it’s good. It is a symptom of how we have lost our moral compass, forgotten that our fates are all bound together; and D’Arcy is a symbol of what has gone so wrong.

It’s too early to celebrate how the laws of karma have caught up with D’Arcy, but it has been a long time since anyone stood up to his bullying the way Glendale did in imposing its year-old last and final offer that included the 1.75% pay cut that took effect last week.

Or the way Pasadena did in rebuffing the IBEW tactic of packing the City Council chambers and denouncing officials for failing to invest more in infrastructure — as if they cared about anything other than higher wages and lucrative perks.

That’s a joke, of course, to anyone who has seen how D’Arcy operates, how he used threats of turning off the lights and busting politicians who got in his way to win contracts in L.A. with raises that gave his members a 40% to 50% premium over others in the city, and raised expectations of getting the same deals among utility workers throughout the region.

Apart from police and fire, utilities are the most important service provided by local governments that own their own water and power agencies. That includes cities like Glendale, Pasadena, Burbank and Los Angeles. All of them have to deal with the IBEW.

Each of these municipal utilities is seeking a long succession of annual rate hikes to provide the cash needed for long overdue capital investments in infrastructure, to cover the rising cost of increasingly scarce water supplies, and to meet escalating demands for green energy sources.

Glendale and Pasadena have scheduled hearings on rate hikes and L.A. is gearing for even sharper increases as pressure builds to end its reliance on cheap, dirty coal-fired plants.

A lot is at stake at a time when many, even in the public sector, are losing ground economically and America is increasingly a two-class society.

Blowing hot air as usual, D’Arcy told Morrison: “If you want to vilify me, I’m fair game, but vilifying my members is just wrong. They’re middle-class people, and somehow that’s a crime in this economy.”

The average wage of LADWP workers is $100,000 a year; for my money, that puts them in a pretty affluent class compared to the average person who is paying the bills.

You can sit on your hands and let D’Arcy blackmail your city officials, as he has done so often for so long, or you can stand up and visibly let them know it’s time to rein him in and look after the interests of ratepayers and taxpayers.

Or you’ll all be singing that old union song with an ironic twist in the lyric: “I’m working for the union, I’m working for the union till the day I die.”

(THIS ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED SUNDAY BY THE GLENDALE NEWS-PRESS)

Posted in City Hall, DWP, Glendale-Burbank, Hot Topics, Los Angeles | 10 Comments

The Antonio to Eric Handoff: LA’s Quality of Life Disaster — Deregulating Planning, Zoning and Building Code Enforcement

Posted on June 3, 2013 by

EDITOR’S NOTE: Former LA City Planner Dick Platkin, now Adjunct Instructor of City Planning at USC’s Price School of Social Policy, originally wrote this article on the devastating impact of the merger of LA Planning and Building and Safety Department for KCET. This is the most far-reaching issue threatening the quality of life in every neighborhood yet it is being rushed forward by the current mayor and the mayor-elect with the unanimous support of the City Council without the massive citywide protests from residents that it deserves.

By Dick Platkin

Before the election the Wall Street Journal described Eric Garcetti as a business-friendly centrist Democrat. After the election, the same newspaper described the Mayor-elect as a business-friendly liberal Democrat.

Does either political label actually mean anything when it is now applied to municipal politics – especially when they are applied to the core issues of planning and zoning regulations and their enforcement, and building code regulations and their enforcement?Since the new mayor is one of the architects of the city planning culture and legislative structure that he will inherit, we can assume that these policies and practices will seamlessly continue from the Villaraigosa Administration to the Garcetti Administration.

Here’s your hint as to what is the most accurate political label to describe this planning legacy: The deregulation of land use is well on its way at City Hall, albeit obscured by such misleading phrases as “elegant density” or “transit-oriented districts.”In some policy circles government regulations are considered to be the bane of economic prosperity.  In fact, this was this outlook that gave rise to the deregulation of the telecommunications and aviation sectors under Ronald Reagan and the financial sector under Bill Clinton.

At the local level this siren song of deregulation is now focused on zoning, an administrative approach to regulate land uses approved by the United States Supreme Court in 1926 (Village of Euclid, Ohio v. Ambler Realty Co.).  Under zoning, local governments have the legal authority to control public and private land, including land use categories, as well as building use, size, height, parking requirements, and setbacks.

Zoning also means that speculators cannot easily and quickly move into and out of real estate projects based on rapidly changing market conditions.

To put it bluntly, rigorous zoning is a barrier to real estate bubbles, such as the Great Recession that began in 2008.  It cannot stop the business cycle, but cities with strong zoning ordinances and procedures can smooth out the bumps.

In Los Angeles, a city whose economy has been stagnant for over two decades, advocates of deregulation are now focused on the city’s elaborate zoning code, including its regulatory expansion through the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

Put simply, these advocates of deregulation – in and out of City Hall — believe that Los Angeles will flourish if its regulatory “impediments” to speculative investment are eliminated.

But all that glitters is not gold.  Zoning deregulation is already underway in Los Angeles, but it will not prove to be the economic cure-all proclaimed by its boosters for several reasons.

Most of Los Angeles is not privately owned land 

Only about 20 percent of the entire land area of Los Angeles is privately owned.   The remainder is freeways, railroad rights-of-way, streets, parkways, sidewalks, parks, schools, power lines, horse trails, and many other public and quasi-public land uses.   Therefore, these areas are neglected when planning is reduced to zoning, and zoning is abridged through deregulation.

Furthermore, zoning deregulation is not capable of rectifying the slow deterioration of the city’s public infrastructure and public services.

It can’t sweep streets, pick-up garbage, fill potholes, repave crumbling sidewalks, or construct ADA-required curb cuts.  It can’t plant an urban forest or implement the City’s bicycle master plan.  It can’t maintain public parks and revive cancelled recreation programs.   It can’t install streetlights on dark streets or sweep them during the day.

Zoning deregulation can’t address a complaint heard throughout the entire city:  Los Angeles is filled with zoning and building code violations that undercut the quality of life in neighborhood after neighborhood, problems that are seldom addressed through code enforcement and prosecution, even when residents submit multiple complaints.

But what about the city’s private owned parcels?  It is technically correct that many of these lots are overlaid with special zoning conditions (i.e., T’s, Q’s, and D’s imposed by prior legislative actions).

They give the appearance of a tough zoning regime, but the Department of City Planning administratively clears these conditions as part of the building permit process.  For better or worse, the public seldom knows about these conditions, their internal ministerial (administrative) approvals, and the resulting building permits.

This means that the city’s Department of Building and Safety approves most, certainly over 80 percent, of the city’s building permit applications “by-right”.   Among the remaining 20 percent of cases that need relief from the zoning code, the Department of City Planning quickly handles most of them behind closed doors.

While these cases technically require a formal decision, and the public could, in theory, appeal these actions, this seldom happens.  The primary reason is that no one is mailed a notice about these cases, and the written approval letters are only sent to immediately adjacent property owners.  This means that the first inkling that most neighbors have of a project’s official approval is the sound of bulldozers and hammers when construction begins.

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Posted in 2013 LA Elections, City Hall, Development/CRA, Hot Topics, Los Angeles | Tagged , , , , | 43 Comments

My Sunday Column: The Valley’s Missed Opportunity

Posted on June 1, 2013 by

The meeting started late and it started badly, with a 10-minute argument about approving the minutes of the last meeting. Then it headed downhill.

Issues that were raised were sent to committees for further study, though no one was quite sure which members were on them or when they would be able to meet.

Welcome to the San Fernando Valley Council of Governments — a three-year-old coalition that was supposed to finally, belatedly, bring the cities of Glendale, Burbank, San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Los Angeles together to develop plans and raise funds to solve transportation and other regional problems like every other part of the county has been doing for so long.

But the Valley COG is not like the others. It was set up to fail.

There are 13 members: one council member from each from the smaller cities, seven council members who represent parts of the Valley in Los Angeles, and the two Los Angeles County supervisors who carve up the region, Mike Antonovich and Zev Yaroslavsky.

Amazingly, every one of them has veto power. Even more incredibly, each of the smaller cities contributes $10,000, the same amount L.A. and the counties contribute, for a total annual budget of $60,000, a fraction of the funding provided to other COGs.

As the dysfunction has become painfully apparent in the last six months, it was inevitable that the politicians would need to find a fall guy.

Since the only employee is Executive Director Robert Scott, there were no other candidates. For more than a quarter century, Scott has been a driving force behind efforts to organize the Valley politically and economically, the last man standing from the Valley secession movement when others have moved on or been co-opted by the downtown power structure.

The focus of last week’s meeting was the same as several previous meetings: Find candidates to replace Scott, who has irritated some with his aggressive efforts to change the voting rules and get enough funding so the COG can get projects moving.

There are 18 candidates, including Scott, who will be considered at a special meeting June 17 or 24, depending on whether all 13 members can make it.

Getting members to meetings is a big problem, even though they are only held every two months, and on Thursdays, when there are no conflicts with other meetings.

Last week, only five of the 13 members showed up — Chairman Ara Najarian of Glendale, Jesse Avila of San Fernando, Marsha McLean of Santa Clarita and Paul Krekorian, one of the L.A. seven, and Yaroslavsky. Three others sent aides so they had a quorum.

Through a series of reports, the two professional politicians — Krekorian and Yaroslavsky — expressed repeated irritations that bookkeeping and financial operations were not up to the high standards they are used to in their giant governments with tens of thousands of employees.

There was some good news from the county Metropolitan Transportation Authority: Money left over from local projects can be used in the region — a long list that does not include improvements to the Ventura (101) Freeway through the Valley, as Coby King, chair of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., noted in a presentation.

“It is one of the most congested routes in the world,” King said, adding that “not talking about the 101 doesn’t do anything to fix the 101 … I know it’s a political hot potato, but we need to stop ignoring it.”

Yaroslavsky, long-time MTA board member and representative of much of the Valley, demanded King be specific: what problems, what solutions?

“If we approve something this global, than anything is possible,” he warned, recalling that proposals a decade ago to double-deck or widen the freeway created an uproar. “It could be interpreted by some that we are looking to get back into what was politically explosive in 2002 … I don’t know what this means, other than trouble.”

Added Krekorian: “There’s no need to reinvent the wheel here. There’s been a lot of studies over the course of decades. There have been task forces convened, summits held.”

It was agreed, unanimously, to find out what’s already in the files and to consider, down the road, convening a task force to propose specific fixes someday.

With that, Santa Clarita’s McLean triggered another round of hand-wringing by asking for support for a resolution urging the Valley legislative delegation to vigorously oppose Gov. Jerry Brown‘s plan to “borrow” $500 million dollars earmarked for local governments from the cap-and-trade program.

“We all know how well they pay back loans,” she said. “Once it goes into the general fund, we have no say in it. It just disappears … I don’t know what you need to know beside that.”

Krekorian needed to know a lot, raising unanswerable question after question about possible effects on state finances and casting doubt that a “generic statement, ‘Don’t take our money’” would be taken seriously in Sacramento.

“We just don’t have enough information to make an informed decision … I don’t have anything in front of me,” he said.

But he gave in when it was pointed out that Bob Blumenfield is chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee and councilman-elect for the West Valley. He will be joining the COG board on July 1.

The Valley COG represents a missed opportunity for a region with more than 2 million people, 20% of the county.

It’s why the subway ends as it reaches the Valley, why light rail skirts Burbank and Glendale, why every other part of the county is getting major transit projects.

Unless the rules of the Valley COG are changed dramatically, the region will remain badly underserved — exactly the way officials downtown in the county Hall of Administration and L.A. City Hall want it to be.

(THIS ARTICLE APPEARS IN THE SUNDAY GLENDALE NEWS-PRESS)

Posted in City Hall, Community Activists, Glendale-Burbank, Hot Topics, LA County, Los Angeles, The Valley | Tagged | 11 Comments

How Garcetti Sold Out Even Before He Was Sworn In

Posted on May 29, 2013 by

It took Antonio Villaraigosa all of six weeks after taking the oath of office in 2005 to destroy all hope for his time as mayor by approving raises of up to 6 percent a year for five years for the overpaid and underworked DWP employees.

With just over a month to go before he takes the oath of office as mayor, Eric Garcetti already has shown his true colors by approving of the merger of the Planning and Building and Safety departments under the unqualified Michael LoGrande.

Although absent for the unanimous vote, Garcetti issued a statement:

“Making it easier to open a business in L.A. is key to our economic recovery, and I’m hopeful consolidation can result in significant savings of time and money. I want to send a clear message that customer service — red tape — will be the priority at City Hall.”

What else would expect from someone who declared the day after winning election that the recession is over and the city’s problems solved.

Read where the slave to the rich and powerful Planning Director LoGrande explained three weeks ago in the Planning Report how he will destroy the quality of life for millions with this new power.

Read how the stooge carrying this piece of devious dealing, Mitch Englander, gutted all safeguards and standards today from his motion.

Read the Council file and see how little time and effort went into adopting a revolutionary change that allows every project to be put up for sale to fund political corruption.

Read how their evil intent is couched in this mission statement as assuring the preservation of the quality of life in the neighborhoods when it is the exact opposite:

The mission of the Department of City Planning and Development is to create, implement and enforce policies, programs and codes that realize a vision of Los Angeles as a collection of healthy and sustainable communities and neighborhoods. The Department strives to ensure that each community and neighborhood has a distinct sense of place, based on a foundation of mobility, economic vitality, and improved quality of life for all of its residents.

Not that it matters much or that the 2,000 members of the moribund Neighborhood  Council system or the thousands of others involved in myopic homeowner and resident groups are going to do anything about this but you might note that the PLUM Committee only wants officials to hold “meetings with various industry organizations (DIAC, CCA, AIA, BIA, BOMA, VICA), Plan Check Neighborhood Council, and Chambers of Commerce.”

You could stop this but you won’t any more than Wendy Greuel would conduct audits for “waste, fraud and abuse” or Garcetti will denounce how the Planning Commission without hesitation  two days after the election approved a 96-unit condominium project in Winnetka in the Valley for felonious developer Chuck Francoeur.

You might remember Greuel made a big deal about Garcetti taking money from a felon and a few days later looked ridiculous when it was exposed she took money from Francoeur and supported his development deals.

She compounded her own political folly by calling for rules requiring developers to reveal their criminal backgrounds when seeking taxpayer money for their projects — whatever good that would do.

Nah, fahgettaboudit, the sun is shining and happy days are here again. I just couldn’t help myself, couldn’t stop from pointing out the game is over before it began.

Posted in Uncategorized | 51 Comments

My Sunday Column: Memorial Day’s Lost Meaning Relevant Again — Healing the Wounds of a Nation Divided Against Itself

Posted on May 25, 2013 by

In the dismal Los Angeles election cycle that mercifully concluded on May 21, much was made about the lack of women in high places if Wendy Greuel didn’t win the mayor’s race.

Greuel herself played the gender card over and over, with pictures of her happy family on every mailer and email, her young son nearly always at her side at weekend and other events, reiterating how being a mother, a wife and woman in a man’s world made her especially qualified to run a complex and troubled city of nearly 4 million people.

To emphasize the point, she lined up support from many prominent women, such as Sen. Barbara Boxer, who appeared in ads and recorded messages for robo-calls that stressed the need for a woman in the mayor’s office.

Yet, she lost and lost badly — by eight percentage points in what was supposed to be a close race.

A long list of explanations has been offered for what went wrong in a surefire campaign that was helped by millions more in independent expenditures than winner Eric Garcetti had, thanks to the generosity of the police, fire, Department of Water and Power and other public employees, plus former President Bill Clinton, former Mayor Richard Riordan and L.A.’s most popular current figure, Magic Johnson.

Maybe she just wasn’t woman enough, as some have suggested, or maybe well into the 21st century in one of the world’s most cosmopolitan and diverse communities, gender and race aren’t the political trump cards so many believe them to be unless somebody makes an issue of it.

In the Hollywood City Council District 13 contest, labor darling John Choi, backed heavily by the city’s powerful unions, supposedly tried to drive a wedge in the Little Armenia community — but still lost to the underfunded Mitch O’Farrell.

It backfired, helping to solidify the Armenian community behind O’Farrell just as a similar effort worked to the advantage of Zareh Sinanyan in Glendale’s recent election.

The Armenian community already was energized by the flap caused by accusations of racial profiling at Assemblyman Mike Gatto’s event to select delegates to the state Democratic Party Convention when the controversy erupted over Sinanyan’s hateful comments on YouTube several years ago.

Nothing brings people together like feeling they are being attacked, which is why the Armenian community came together so strongly to help Sinanyan narrowly win a Glendale City Council seat despite the controversy.

The lesson I take from this is that heavy-handed politicking on race, ethnicity, gender or other cohorts — a detestable word used to enchain us in identity boxes that only are a small part of who we are — is turning voters off, or even getting a reaction opposite from the one that was sought.

Call it wishful thinking, but at a time when we seem to be engaged in an uncivil war and hell-bent on our own destruction, from Washington to Sacramento to City Hall, there are signs that ordinary people are starting to wake up and think for themselves.

It is an undercurrent that needs to go viral and push us in our personal and political lives toward greater tolerance of our differences in values and greater respect for each other’s needs and interests, even when they conflict with our own.

On this Memorial Day weekend, it is worth remembering that the holiday was originally called Decoration Day when it was introduced right after the end of the Civil War as a way to reunite the country and honor the 1.3 million soldiers who died — Confederate and Union soldiers.

Just before the start of the war, Abraham Lincoln, in his famous “A house divided against itself cannot stand” speech that cost him election to the U.S. Senate in 1858, presciently warned about where the intensifying debate over slavery was heading.

“I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free,” he said. “I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.”

(THIS ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED SUNDAY BY THE GLENDALE NEWS-PRESS)

Posted in 2013 Election, 2013 LA Elections, City Hall, Glendale-Burbank, Hot Topics, Los Angeles | 30 Comments

Happy Days Are Here Again in This Temple of Democracy

Posted on May 22, 2013 by

Sunshine peeks through the clouds, the cynics with all their money and power vanish to their private enclaves, double-dipping Dennis Zine roars off on his Harley to his posh desert hideaway never to be seen again — the costliest, most tediously painful, anti-climactic city election is finally over.

Happy days are here again in this wonderland called L.A.

Enjoy it while you can because come July 1 order will have been restored, Garcetti will be BFF with everyone from Bill Clinton to Brian D’Arcy, Galperin will have his marching orders from labor and the party, and Feuer will posture and preen to the same political pretenses without even being told.

All’s well that ends well. Nothing really changes.

L.A. — you got to love it, the light and dark, the creative genius of it so visible in a new generation of artists, chefs, entrepreneurs and gangsters, so fading in an old guard that sees itself as so much better than the millions of minions so far below, the poor, the immigrant, and most of all the bourgeoisie they despise as nothing more than cash cows.

It has always been that way in L.A.

Nothing that happened Tuesday is going to change that unless you believe in miracles, believe that a man who has known privilege all his life, who believes that City Hall is “a temple of democracy,” a man who has trouble keeping his word will “rise to the occasion,” as editorial fantasists put it, and find strength and courage to stand up with love and respect for all for the greater good.

Unknown to world of self service that clothes itself in the noble language of public service, something great and wonderful is happening, mainly among the young in all their diversity filled with hope and mutual respect.

A new culture filled with promise is being born.  Like everyone who has ever been drawn to the place where dreams are manufactured and sold, their imaginations are lit by the myths of unlimited freedom and endless possibility.

It is not the discontent of the alienated, apathetic and defeated that needs to be tapped but the dreams of something better of those who seek their destinies without access or control by the world where all that talks is power and money.

It’s the beauty of the existential dilemma of living in L.A. now that the Grand Coalition of business, labor and civic elites that bet on a loser who, like them, was incapable of articulating a single idea, not even a single phrase, that contained a word of truth, of real hope.

Garcetti has barely a month to put an agenda on the table that sends the unions, the developers, the political apparatchiks, the big shots reeling back on their heels and inspires the forgotten and ignored.

We don’t need sound bites and pieties. We need leadership, bold and courageous.

If Garcetti wants to be President like most politicians, he needs to make his mark now or he will find he won’t even be mayor all that long.

Democracy isn’t about voting, especially when the system is so closed that it’s always a choice between the lesser of two evils.

It’s about empowering people to feel they matter and that they can be effective at achieving their goals individually and collectively to create a community that reflects their values, meets their needs and serves their interests.

This is L.A. and nothing can stop any of us in our pursuit of private dreams and personal lives wherever that journey may lead us. It’s our collective lives that are lacking.

Maybe that’s why we have been so indifferent, so myopic and self-absorbed, so disengaged that we let the forces of greed and selfishness in all their forms operate without impunity for the last three decades.

Personally, I set out five years ago this month to do what I could to make a difference.

I posted 1,910 blog items, drafted 161 others and killed 3. I started protests and activists groups, went to hundreds of meetings, created an online citizen journalism project. It was all for nought except to know in my heart that I did what I could.

Now, it’s time to get on my shiny new bike and start riding down the billion-dollar bikeway in the L.A. river channel from Winnetka to Long Beach even if it takes me five more years.

Posted in 2013 Election, 2013 LA Elections, City Hall, Hot Topics, Los Angeles | Tagged , , , | 43 Comments

This Is Matrix City — Blue Pill or Red Pill: The Choice Is Yours

Posted on May 21, 2013 by

 

It really doesn’t matter how you vote today, whether you vote for a pixie like Wendy or a pixie like Eric, a user like Feuer or a mooch like Nuch, a swine like Zine or a right Ron named Galperin.

Or even if you don’t vote at all.

Because none of those people will be in charge come July 1. There has been a coup d’etat, bloodless and Invisible, at least to the naked eye.

The elite of the city, such as they are, are now fully in charge of the power and money and the political system.  There is no point of contention between them, no disruption from without that they cannot resolve satisfactorily for the furtherance of their vision and the enhancement of themselves.

What you think, feel, believe, want is no longer relevant. The cabalists have an agenda with all the answers.

City Hall may teeter on the brink of bankruptcy but the simple truth is that the leadership of the city has been bankrupt a long time.

This is a city divided, insiders and outsiders. The irony is those on the inside and those on the outside who are blind to the truth live in a dreamland indifferent to the crumbling the streets and sidewalks, the failure of our schools, the poor public services, the spreading poverty and lack of decent jobs – indifferent unless they can exploit the malaise to further themselves.

You are living in the “Matrix,” a world of delusion that has been pulled over your eyes or you can escape through the rabbit hole and embrace reality.

Red pill or blue pill — the choice is your.

You can remain oblivious to what is really happening around you or start to live .

You can choose the blue pill and wake up and believe whatever you want to believe, remain oblivious to what is really happening around you and never give a damn again about anyone or anything else, just like everybody else.

Or you can take the red pill and see things as they are, a wonderland of unlimited freedom and possibility where the tyranny of the majority holds no power over you.

The lie or the truth – the choice is yours.

Posted in 2013 Election, 2013 LA Elections, City Hall, Hot Topics, Los Angeles | Tagged , , , | 11 Comments

My Sunday Column: Brains, talent, too much ambition — Paul Krekorian Angers Many in Little Armenia by Role in CD 13 Race

Posted on May 19, 2013 by

In the costliest and most vicious City Council race of the Los Angeles election season, the battle for Hollywood has shattered beliefs about Armenian solidarity, with Paul Krekorian‘s role seen as causing deep rifts in the community.

Little Armenia in East Hollywood is a key battleground area where Krekorian’s endorsement of labor union darling John Choi and the heavy-handed tactics that are being employed against Mitch O’Farrell, a popular council staffer, have enraged many local community leaders.

They claim Choi, a new resident of the district, with Krekorian’s help, hired Armenian campaign workers from Glendale to staff phone banks and walk door-to-door to confuse thousands of newly registered voters who are mostly immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

“Choi workers are telling voters they’re calling from my office and going to people’s homes and using my name and saying that I’m for Choi and telling old people that they’ll lose their low-income housing and benefits,” said Sam Kbushyan, son of a prominent Little Armenia restaurateur and the third-place finisher in a primary field of 12 who more than doubled Armenian voter registration during his campaign.

Choi, for his part, has repeatedly denied the accusations, claiming its actually O’Farrell’s workers misrepresenting themselves.

Kbushyan’s harsh words are repeated over and over by Little Armenian community leaders who are working hard to elect O’Farrell, a veteran staffer in mayoral candidate Eric Garcetti‘s council office who is highly regarded in the neighborhoods as responsive to their concerns.

Between them, Choi and O’Farrell got barely a third of the votes in the March primary. They have raised close to $800,000 combined, gotten $436,000 in public matching funds, and received, at last report, nearly $800,000 in independent expenditures, with Choi having better than a 2-1 money advantage.

“They’re calling Paul a traitor — it’s so unfair of them to ignore all that he has done for the Armenian community as a private citizen, a Burbank school board member, a state Assemblyman and now a councilman,” said Krekorian spokesman Jeremy Oberstein.

He suggested Kbushyan and others prominent in Little Armenia groups are not authentic community leaders and pointed to Krekorian’s original statement of why he was backing a candidate in the 13th District, especially one perceived as an outsider being promoted with union money to consolidate power on the council.

“John Choi has shown he knows what it takes to preserve vital city services like street paving, filling potholes and building parks despite budget cuts. He’s my choice for City Council because we need strong leaders like him in the tough days ahead,” Krekorian had said.

Others in the community offer a different take on why Krekorian, who represents a North Hollywood-based district in the East San Fernando Valley, would put his credibility on the line in this race.

“He’s trying to show to the unions that he did something they wanted, that he supported John Choi, so later, when he runs for mayor, they will support him. It’s all politics,” said Edgar Makhshikyan, a long-time resident who co-founded the Little Armenia Chamber of Commerce and heads the Little Armenia Homeowners Association.

“When Sam Kbushyan was the candidate we had no problem, we were all together and working hard for him and for our community. Then, after the primary, Paul Krekorian got involved and because of him, we have these problems.

In contrast to Choi, O’Farrell is seen as “a good person, an honorable person who has helped us every time,” said Garo Keurjikian, honorary mayor of Little Armenia and owner of a towing and auto repair business.

“I don’t want trouble, but Krekorian is dividing the community. It’s a dirty business. They just want to take votes from the old ladies and confusing people. They are doing the wrong thing. I don’t like that.”

In its endorsement of O’Farrell, the L.A. Times sounded similar concerns raised by the Little Armenia community leaders, noting Choi’s lack of history in the district and his deep union ties.

The Times said, “It was troubling during the primary when he promised at an endorsement meeting with the Service Employees International Union: “You are going to be on the inside. We are going to decide who to open the door for.”

For my money, that goes directly to why Krekorian unnecessarily got involved. I helped him win the special election to City Council after a long discussion about issues and values and watched him do all the right things for six months as he used his intelligence to learn the nature of the L.A. political game.

Then, he became its most eloquent and articulate defender of its most preposterous policies that ignored the concerns of residents, policies that served the unions, developers, contractors and the corrupt political machine itself, rising day by day to positions of greater importance and influence.

To my mind, he’s got that “lean and hungry look” that makes those with too much ambition dangerous. That’s sad, since he has the brains and talent to stand on his own and be a real leader, instead of a panderer to special interests.

(THIS COLUMN WAS PUBLISHED SUNDAY IN THE GLENDALE NEWS-PRESS)

Posted in 2013 Election, 2013 LA Elections, City Hall, Community Activists, Glendale-Burbank, Hot Topics, Los Angeles | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments