Inside the game of L.A. politics, the word is out: We don't really need next year's citywide elections because the results are already in.
The "Committee of 225" -- the godless clique of lobbyists, developers, contractors, union bosses and the like -- who buy the politicians (and get a handsome return on their investment) are unanimous that Villaraigosa has a second term locked up.
His puppet on a string, Councilman Jack Weiss, is as sure a thing for City Attorney as Big Brown for the Triple Crown. He can't be stopped, or so they believe.
And don't even bother to think about City Controller. Everybody loves Wendy Greuel even though the councilwoman for all her good works has failed to demonstrate the feisty independence that made Laura Chick the only standout elected official in L.A. in the 21st century.
That's the book on L.A. politics. And for good reason. They've got all the money from that aforementioned godless clique of lobbyists, developers, contractors, union bosses and the like who make up what passes for a political establishment -- a leadership cadre that has failed with rare exceptions to demonstrate the capacity to think beyond its own greedy interests.
So why don't we just call the whole thing off. We don't really need elections if hardly anybody votes and the outcomes are pre-determined like in Russia where Putin does whatever he wants and handpicks his successor who does what he wants. In Russia, of course, nearly everyone votes so the Putin dictatorship at least has a certain legitimacy.
Think of the money we'd save. Why we could give bonuses to every city worker.
Being a dreamer, I've never accepted that. Sometimes there's an upset even in games that are fixed.
There aren't many examples of that in recent L.A. history but the election of Richard Riordan in 1993 is one. It took a ton of his own money to win the mayor's race that was fixed for the darling of the municipal socialists, Mike Woo, but he did it and was able to turn the city around and make some progress towards creating a government that actually serves the people.
So money matters. But you don't have to be rich or have rich friends to build a big political warchest as Obama has shown in collecting hundreds of millions of dollars from people who contributed $100 or less.
Tonight, at the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association meeting, some activists from Sunland-Tujunga's "No Home Depot" campaign are going to sit down with some SOHA activists to talk about what they could achieve together.
It could be the start of something big.
Just think about it: If activists on local issues from across the city created a Big Tent coalition with neighborhood councils and local Chambers of Commerce and Kiwanis and residents' groups and churches, there would be a force to be reckoned with.
Fifty bucks a head would be a big pot of money and if they touched their friends and family for a few bucks more, why there'd be enough to change the face of L.A. politics.
OK, I'm a dreamer. I've admitted that. But is it really that hard? Aren't there some of you out there who have the organizing ability to put together email lists from different groups and begin to coordinate and communicate to a broad audience?
This isn't about ideology. It's about paving streets and mobilizing communities to clean out the gangs and getting value for our tax dollars.
I found a home in L.A. nearly 30 years ago I thought I'd never find. I've fought City Hall as a newspaperman at the Herald-Examiner and the Daily News and I've seen change for the better.
Nothing but greed holds the Committee of 225 together today. It is weak and will crumble in the face of People Power. Even now, they back down on the slightest sign of public opposition as they did in the move to charge a buck a book at the public libraries or the closing down of the city-funded public access Channel 36.
The battle for L.A. can be won.
That's my dream but it's not a fantasy It just needs all you people who are active, involved in community, and care about other people to come together, right now.
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 Naitonal Enquirer.
The most bitter pill of all to swallow is that Villar was catapulted to the mayor's office with a paltry, inconsequential 289,000 votes (if my memory serves me correctly). Voter apathy rules in this city!!!
I have no doubt that the next election is in the bag! The greedy and avaricious developers, lobbyists, etc. have the dumbest, most power hungry, little mickey mouse puppet by the string...and money talks!
The only chance we have of changing the status quo is to come up with a super-star candidate with great name recognition and appeal. Don't forget...L.A. is la la land! In the back of my mind, I keep thinking of a "Dirty Harry', Clint Eastwood type of guy! Is he still a conservative? Anyway, you know what I'm trying to say. We have to appeal to the unwashed masses!
Unless and until we crush the Mexican mafia that is controlling this city, we are doomed! We must start at the top and work our way down...a herculean task! But it can be done...one crook at a time!
Find the right candidate, and the money will follow!
Sorry buddy, I'll take the greedy and avaricious developers and lobbyists over the racists.
"Nothing but greed holds the Committee of 225 together today. It is weak and will crumble in the face of People Power. Even now, they back down on the slightest sign of public opposition as they did in the move to charge a buck a book at the public libraries or the closing down of the city-funded public access Channel 36.
The battle for L.A. can be won.
That's my dream but it's not a fantasy It just needs all you people who are active, involved in community, and care about other people to come together, right now."
Thank you, Ron, for being on our side. Let's go people!!!!! IT IS OUR CITY AND OUR HOME. WORTH FIGHTING FOR!!!!
I'm not so sure that Big Brown is going to win the Triple Crown and I'm not so sure as Observor says that the greedy and avaricious developers and lobbyists are not racists also.
I already sent my check to Walter Moore. By the way Observer how is it that whenever someone disagrees with the 'victicrats' in this town, you cry 'racism' instead of debate issues on the merits?
Give me a break neighborhoodwatchdog. when somebody says the "Mexican Mafia" is running the city, it's racist - and not a way to build any support.
Observor...
The "R" word is losing it's luster! Facts are facts! The Mexicans, aka "La Raza", aka "The Race"...are running this city! L.A. is a carbon copy of the most corrupt country on the planet..Mexico! Villar, Nunez, Alarcon, etc. are ALL agents of Mexico! L.A. is a kleptocracy...just like Mexico! L.A. is a landfill for third world illiterate illegal aliens, drug cartels, and gangs. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that members of City Council are on the payroll of the cartels! Why else would they NOT deport illegal gangbangers? Why else would they condone illegal activity?
The new breed of Mexicans and Central Americans are a scourge on our society. L.A. represents the third worlding of a first world society! And it's spreading like a cancer throughout the entire nation!
10:50 am: Thanks for making my case.
10:50 anon: I agree someone's in the hands of the Mexican Drug Cartel, but it's DA Steve Cooley -- his main challengers, Asst. DA Steve Ipsen and non- Attorney Albert Robles both detail how he's in the pay of the criminal lawyers who defend the elected officials of Bell, Cudahy, Maywood, Lynwood Huntington Gardens, etc. (all those S of LA cities), who are firmly in the pay of the Mexican drug cartels. Remember how he promised to get these known criminals if he got elected over Gil Garcetti? "Only" 8 years later, he's not only NOT managed to, but has pulled off his crack DA's who were getting to close to indictments -- can't make things too unpleasant around the DA's office, which his challengers say he runs "Like a Third World Dictator."
He's also got a policy of not touching illegal alien gangmembers at ANY level, including the Pedro Espinozas, who shot Jamiel Shaw, or Pedro Diaz, the illegal, multiply-jailed and deported/ returned felon child molester, recently busted again for molesting a 6-year old girl. It's HIS job as DA to bust felons.
So while I agree that Bratton is discouraging enforcement even of the weak teeth that do exist in SO40 to nab illegal gangmembers and felons (cops say it would be "career suicide" to actually touch the illegal issue), pandering to the Mexican Mafia who panders to the Mexican population in general, which provides the "gimme" base for their socialist redistribution policies, with support of the Mexican government to which their loyalties ultimately lie -- the DA is just as complicit and ultimately responsible for felonies. IF Cooley wanted to enforce the law, he'd send out a strong image to that effect and start doing it, instead of doing the opposite. Ipsen confirms that Cooley IS wanting Shaw, Sr. to back off with his awkward proposed Law to actually deport illegal felons -- if he starts there, it could extend to those his criminal attorney friends are protecting much higher up.
What this shows is, you don't have to be Mexican to be in the grip of the Mexican Mafia -- and if they've already got their hands in City Hall, start by looking at Cooley.
(Then look at Richard Alarcon, the far-left "progressive" socialist who tried to annex a part of CD2, Greuel's district, just before he got married so that his new wife's property could end up in HIS district, and he could re-zone it for high density. This unseemly landgrab -- which included dozens of homes and hundreds of people -- was squelched only when David Zahnizer ran the story. THEN look at what's going on in CD14 and Reyes' districts, with the Housing Authority and "affordable housing" and CRA money schemes...)
No doubt all 4 Mexican Councilmembers have their hearts in Mexico. Witness, at the last City Council meeting in Van Nuys, where they are just once a month, they spent two hours with Cinco de Mayo presentations, mariachi music, some woman singing in Spanish about leaving her heart in Mexico, with ALL of them, making clear they were in a world of their own, the dozens of peole of Van Nuys didn't exist. Then they all had to make speeches about this, especially stammering fool Reyes and Cardenas, making a pompous analogy between their shooting Maximilian of Austria, the puppet ruler of Napoleon (which gives Cinco de Mayo its pretext to drink tequila, and is not their actual holiday of independence), and our history of freedom. THEN that wasn't enough, Alarcon and his sister had to choose that day to drone on and on about Cesar Chavez Day, with every one of the Mexicans and half-Mexican Garcetti having to gas on again.
The put-upon people of Van Nuy, who included real constituents with real concerns, not just the same old gadflies, expressed anger at how inappropriate these Mexican pomps were at that time and place, making them wait hours before public comment -- but it went over all their heads. (Of course, Hahn had a long thing, too.)
These 4 Mexicans and bleeding heart liberals like Rosendahl who support anything with "affordable housing" in the title, with support for their own reasons by Perry and Parks etc., make no secret that their open agenda is to move their "huddled masses" of illegals bursting out of their self- made slums, into the heart of the westside, hills and Valley from Sherman Oaks to Thousand Oaks.
They're using the sham of AB1818, which lets them designate anything within 1500 feet (3 blocks) of a bus stop a "transit corridor," so they can put in Project 8 Projects with NO parking spots, for very low-income people. As Reyes says, his vision is "to put social values ahead of property values," and HOA's and NC's who don't like it, tough; "If they won't let us do this, as legislators, it's in our power to do so anyway."
(Ron, you mention that fool Woo, who was mercifully beaten as Mayor by Riordan -- he's back as Planning Commission member, supporting this socialist "vision" to shove these low-income highly-dense projects with NO parking into all areas, intentionally making traffic and parking so hellish that people will be forced out of their cars into subways that currently don't go anywhere. Straight jackets, anyone?)
Bill Boyarsky in the Jewish Journal and Steven Leigh Morris in L A Weekly have touched on this issue, peripherally. Jane Usher and Zev Y have commented from a public policy perspective -- but none of them have had the guts to take on the true underlying issue, the shamelessness of the Mexicans in pushing their ethnocentric agenda.
Observer is a Shill/ Staff Member for this Mexican clique, and his hostility shows that they're concerned and surprised that the "marks," the "wealthy westsiders" who've been held hostage by their own liberal views, are waking up and might actually stop them.
Ron, if you want to "lead a revolution," you need to come up with a more coherent agenda to FIGHT, starting with the nuts and bolts of these development/ zoning issues which most directly impact quality of life. Everything else -- illegal immigration and the crime it breeds -- are interlinked with this. But if you're going to keep pitting the Westside AGAINST the VAlley (my only gripe with your days as DN Editor, and your emphasis now), you're going to end up alone, and the enemy of the "group of 225" you can't fight. But remember, many of these people LIVE in the westside and hills, and these zoning wars affect them and their property values, too, and as investors, they don't want to see the Valley decline, either.
In that regard, I actually think it's good that the Mayor is hooked up with these "big" powers that be: they'll keep him from joining the crazy Communist faction of Alarcon, Reyes, and Gil Cedillo -- beyond some rhetoric. A Mexican in the pockets and on the leashes of the Traditional Old Boys' Network (which includes Riordan) is better than in the pockets of the Mexican Drug Cartels.
One of the reasons why why City Hall has failed its citizens is our fault - unless you have happened to take the time to vote. Literally hundreds of people vote in each Council District elections (Council Members represent about 225,000 people). So that means the residents of Los Angeles are inadvertently changing the definition of a democracy - the minority are making the decisions for the majority.
By the way, Michael Feuer is going challenge Jack Weiss for City Attorney. And, I think one-half of the Council seats are up for grabs. So, this is the time to feel and seize the power, people.
I wouldn't be so sure about Villar being mayor for a second term. People are so fed up with the mess this city is in and all the hikes in services they will go out and vote him OUT. I've heard many people saying they will campaign hard to get rid of him because of all the illegals he has brought to this city. He has so much baggage and has no accomplishments to speak of. He will say he'll take credit for LAPD ranks increasing knowning full well cops can't stand him. Sometimes it takes people really fed up with a situation that will get them motivated. I think the horrible job Villar has done as Mayor is that motivation, I pray.
Where'd you get your idea that Feuer will challenge Weiss? There's been talk of Hertzberg, all kinds of people, but it's nothing but smoke. Feuer was the most impotent Council member we ever had in CD5, all high and mighty and superior-acting to the rest, couldn't forge Coalitions, just ticked everyone off. And when he ran for City Attorney last time, he couldn't even beat Rocky Delgadillo.
His record in Assembly has been nothing but tax raises, and his big issue now is wanting to push through legislation which would allow tax hikes to be approved with a bare majority instead of a 2/3 vote. Hardly the mood of the voters right now, to make it easier to tax them. Besides, he doesn't have the backing of the "group of 225" Ron was talking about; IF in fact they're influential, they're going with Weiss, who's also tight with Bratton and the feds on national security and crime. Feuer would be dumb to run for the same office and lose twice -- he's gone into private life before to bide his time, and probably will again.