Antonio Villaraigosa was his usual charming self last night when he dropped by the latter-day secession group Valley Vote to spend 90 minutes or so auditioning his re-election pitch and addressing concerns from overdevelopment to overpaid city workers.
He even said nice things about me even though we disagree on a lot of issues. I got to chat with a lot of these truly concerned citizens who have worked long and hard for a better city whether it's L.A. or the Valley.
Before the mayor arrived, I got a chance to make my own pitch which is that nothing great will happen unless business, civic, social groups of all types across the city unite around a handful of core issues -- like quality schools, safe streets, healthy neighborhoods and good jobs -- and become the third force in city politics equal to the unions and developers/contractors/lobbyists.
Both Antonio and I were warmly received which tells you a lot about the decency of these people and their eagerness to embrace anyone who offers any hope at all at making L.A. a better city.
What intrigues me about everyone who lives inside the bubble of City Hall -- is how the world they operate in makes such perfect sense to them when it seems so corrupt to me. This is true of every politician and staff member and bureaucrat I know even ones who are cynical about what's going on.
Somehow, they can't see that inflated salaries and benefits, civil service rules that reward and protect low achievement and sloppy contracting practices that give away fortunes are the problem.
The mayor is certainly no exception.
His scheme to raise taxes, fees and rates while cutting services almost seems to make a kind of insane sense when you listen to the innocence with which he says that every new dollar he takes in from the public, he'll reduce services by $1.50. He blithely explains away giving pay raises that far exceed inflation even as the economy was sinking, even blaming the economists for not predicting things would be as bad as they are.
As always, he rests his case on the reduction in crime and makes the city's new plans for massive development without community input sound like smart growth.
I'm not going to belabor the point because I'm putting up video of the event. It's the first time I ever tried to shoot with a video camera or post it online. So it'll be pretty amateurish at best. Click here for his answer to a question on city salaries, the Tennie Pierce case is here and here for the first segment of his talk, Part II is here, Part III is here.
Ron Kaye is the former editor of the Los Angeles Daily News where he spent 23 years helping to make the newspaper the voice of the San Fernando Valley and fighting for a city government that serves the people and not special interests.
Twice in recent years, Los Angeles Magazine listed Kaye among the city’s most influential people, specifically in the area of politics. Kaye has been variously described in the media as the “accidental anarchist,” “the Patrick Henry of the San Fernando Valley” and a “passionate populist.” He is now committed to
carrying on his crusade for a greater Los Angeles as an ordinary citizen. Previously, Ron worked at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner,
Associated Press, Cleveland Plain Dealer and The Australian as well as papers
in Fairbanks, Alaska and Yakima, Wash. He also wrote for Newsweek magazine, The Guardian in London and the National Enquirer.
Ron,
Maybe it's my media player, but the audio on the three links is barely audible. Not to worry, there isn't one thing that Villar could say to defend the indefensible! The city is corrupt to the core; and the smiling, charming, unctuous mayor will NEVER be able to convince me otherwise! Does he think We the People are part of his constituency of third world, non-English speaking illegals? Does he think we do not read the fine reporting in such papers as the Daily News? Does he think we live outside of the caldron of corruption that is bubbling over right under our nose?
I would love to have been there! Thank you, Ron! You are a hero!!!
Not to exonerate the Mayor, who's disappointed me in being too linked to the Mexicans on Council who have no shame about turning the whole city into an extension of Mexico -- I voted for him, hoping he'd keep his word to represent ALL the people equally, but he can't stand up to the Mexican and pro-illegal special interests. From garment industry companies that openly employ illegals and use that as an excuse to tell ICE to butt out of L A., and not to even support taking more active steps to get rid of illegal gangbangers and criminals like the Mexican national Pedro Ortiz who was arrested last week for molesting a 6 year-old: the latest in a string of similar attacks on children, and with a rap sheet that included felonies and returning after being deported. Until the Mayor gets real on the the financial and criminal costs of illegal immigration, all the attempts to deal with the city deficit are a joke.
The illegal immigration is also what's behind the relentless overbuilding all over the city, and using AB1818 as an excuse to further the agendas of Ed Reyes and colleagues, to put gigantic, high- density, low-income subsidized projects with no parking spaces required even, ALL over the city, anywhere within 3 blocks of a bus stop. These are "projects" in all but name. SCAG's own presentation to Council and stats show that ALL net population growth will be from Hispanic immigration (most illegal) and their high birth rates, which already make up 3/4 LAUSD and will soon be even more. The middle class, "anglos," and legal residents of all races are in a net EMIGRATION which will intensify as soon as Sr. Reyes and company start their invasions.
Unfortunately, now that you've left the Daily News, Ron, they're even more PC than the L A Times, and won't mention illegal status or costs no matter what the hundreds of comments on their reader blogs say. A huge part of our city, County (especially hospitals and jails) and LAUSD budget shortfall is providing services to illegals that take away from services to citizens, on top of the wasteful overtime and lifetime pensions city unions have wrested.
BUT having said that, it's fair to point out that no one else in City Government was exactly on the ball when it came to the economy, either. Karen Sisson, the Chief Financial Officer who should have known more than anyone, admits she was surprised by the waste, overtime the thousands of workers who have six-figure salaries (which pad their pension benefits). She has also said that these financial woes, especially in healthcare facilities and social services, have been here for a decade or more (coincidentally, when illegal immigration reached a critical mass), masked by a booming real estate market.
Bernard Parks, head of the Council Budget Committee, also clearly did nothing to reign in spending, being right up there as a major user of "fee waivers," too. He then tried in a desperate move to swipe the trash fee promised designated for cops, into the hopelessly mismanaged General Fund. Meanwhile the more liberal Councilmembers including Hahn, Rosendahl and Alarcon were more concerned with continued raises for workers "to pull them up into the middle class," while laying more taxes on legal citizens in the middle class (driving them out by decreasing quality of life).
Greig Smith is right on waivers, though: those which ARE a benefit to the city as they're all supposed to be, like Oscars and Marathon, and bring in billions of revenue, are priceless -- but the endless Mexican festivals from El Grito to Fiesta Broadway, Cinco de Mayo, Blessing of the Animals, Huizar's Winter Wonderland on top of the Santa Parade, to another big one last weekend, and May Day march for "illegal rights," need to provide private sponsors or be cut back. These are a major source of police OT, and Bratton himself told the Times some months ago that he'd like to see this cut back -- it makes his LAPD budget look inflated when he has no say in these events.
Jack Kyser and other private economists may have warned the Mayor and others, but no one else in City Government did anything to curb waste either. Only now are they realizing how much OT they're paying everyone from gardeners up, how much the CRA and Housing waste in salaries and contracts to incompetent construction companies, how some depts. are understaffed and therefore paying enormous OT, while others have employees sitting around waiting to retire on their pensions.
The county has been the same, with three times the budget (they claim to be OK, but the collapsed healthcare facilities and jails bely that), and the state is worst of all. All of them spent like drunken sailors while a small segment of the population kept buying property.
Poor Susan. You get what you voted for.
Ron, the audio is pretty low and that annoying cough. OH MY GOD. I can barely continue listening. I know that's not your fault, but it's pretty awful. Next time you'll have to move away from that cougher. Every 30 seconds, cough cough. 30 seconds later, cough cough.
Lady, give up the cigs.
The Mayor makes it seem like he's the one that gets picked on for working for the city. The quiet tones of his presentation make him sound like he's sharing very private thoughts with a select audience, but he's still a stranger to truth-telling. It's the topics he does NOT bring up for discussion that represent the substance of his real faults as Mayor.
There must be other cities that don't have such calamity in their fiscal structure- does L.A. have to re-invent the wheel in how money is handled for effective operation? Services that were included in taxes suddenly need to be separately charged now, and then hiked again? And what about ballot measures that rely on deception that are crafted by our city officials? Then these elected reps of ours act outraged when the idea of being in the country lawfully might be a qualification in screening for at least SOME benefits.
He and council members go to enough meetings in their travels. Maybe they should add to the list those conferences that talk about operating a city government.
The mayor said he was at a "Mother's Day brunch with my family"- he must have meant his "children" but he tends to blur his terms at every level anyway.