Is it just me or is the behavior of what passes for the political aristocracy of L.A. beginning to look a like it did during the last days of the French royalty and the Russian tsars?
Take for example the mayor and his entourage heading off to Israel on the dime -- quite a few dimes at that -- of the customers of the Department of Water and Power who have just been slugged with yet another big rate hike supposedly to rebuild the infrastructure that was allowed to rot while contractors and employees got rich on sweetheart deals.
Or how about Councilman Greig Smith -- who has fought so hard to get a sane and modern garbage policy -- skimming a quarter of a million dollars of revenue from the much-despised Sunshine Canyon Landfill to go globetrotting with City Council staffers in Europe where a Coke costs $15 or so in U.S. currency.
I'm not trash-talking in bringing these things up. They're just pieces in a mosaic of arrogant conduct and wanton disregard for the people of the city -- people mind you that are seeing their federal income tax rebates gobbled up by city tax hikes, who can't afford $4 a gallon in gas to sit in gridlocked traffic trying to get to work, and are living in fear of losing their jobs and their homes.
It's like everywhere you look there are signs of privilege and self-indulgence.
The new L.A. airport director subverts the contracting procedures to reward old pals with a lucrative deal, but skates because nothing is in writing and nobody involved is hauled before a grand jury to testify under oath about exactly what went down.
Even city watchdog Controller Laura Chick whitewashed the deal while finding the process was a lot less than wholesome. Obviously, she's in a good mood since she also hailed the great strides made in cleaning up the adolescent, illegal and costly misconduct in the Fire Department.
And the man who would be the people's lawyer, lackluster Councilman Jack Weiss, has taken a noblesse oblige attitude about consorting with felons as long as he can raise a lot of money for his campaign for City Attorney next year.
Weiss shows no shame about well-connected public relations operative Steve Sugerman holding a $500 a person fundraising event June 10 in Santa Monica even though Sugerman admitted to felony misconduct in the DWP/Fleishman-Hillard billing case. Of course, Weiss isn't alone in seeing nothing wrong with the involvement of Sugerman who operates freely in City Hall despite having confessed to bilking the city.
Then, there's the report by Thom Senzee published here that District Attorney Steve Cooley has enough empathy for sexual predators that he won't use the full force of the law against them like other prosecutors across the state.
I could go and on but I'm in Philadelphia having a good time with friends and family and my outrage meter isn't running as high as normal.
Hopefully, yours is and you're working up a lather and will start taking note of these kinds of rotten excesses and get off your duffs and do something about it.
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.
Ron's right. Things aren't going to change downtown until we start sending a very powerful and consistent message to our elected officials that either they change or out the door they go. The problem is that Jack and gang actually don't think that people won't mobilize against them. I guess his memory is short given that the recall organizers in his District came pretty close to ousting him. The easiest way to show our outrage is to vote, especially in City sponsored elections in 2009. Past election turnout is always poor, and confirms to the downtown group that we just don't care what they do. The next way is to start sending emails and placing telephone calls to City Hall letting them know you are paying attention. Frankly, if we don't invest some of our precious time, we'll look back on these days as the "good times."
Ron's right. Things aren't going to change downtown until we start sending a very powerful and consistent message to our elected officials that either they change or out the door they go. The problem is that Jack and gang actually don't think that people won't mobilize against them. I guess his memory is short given that the recall organizers in his District came pretty close to ousting him. The easiest way to show our outrage is to vote, especially in City sponsored elections in 2009. Past election turnout is always poor, and confirms to the downtown group that we just don't care what they do. The next way is to start sending emails and placing telephone calls to City Hall letting them know you are paying attention. Frankly, if we don't invest some of our precious time, we'll look back on these days as the "good times."
I know that decrying this trip to Israel as a junket is a popular theme in populist blogs right now, but frankly, I don't see it as a big deal that the Mayor is making his first international trip since the aborted one to Mexico last year (coming home for May Day "melee.") Israeli security experts and environmentalists have visited L A on a couple of occasions, giving us valuable info re: LAX security, ports, etc., being an international leader in the field, and they're also world leaders in using reclaimed and sea water for irrigation in a most hostile geographic and political environment. Their climate and topography is much like L A., especially the hot, arrid Valley which wasted enormous amounts of water and is given water and electricity rate breaks, too. We need a radically different approach.
(True, there seems a political aspect to this, since L A has the second-largest community of Jews and Israelis in the country after FLA -- and that state has many retired people of more modest means, not the Hollywood contingent. Look at all those weekly presentations to Greeks, Armenians, Koreans, etc., they all cater to their voting blocs. But I'm actually keeping an open mind as to what ideas they bring back, not to mention, it's protocol to make return visits in such cases. Weiss is connected to the top leaders of Israel, so it's natural he should go, and I know that most in the community support him, and that recall didn't come anywhere near succeeding, and was called off before the count to avoid public embarrassment about their low figures. Zine's connection as CM of a district with many Valley Jews, including Tarzana, is a little more tenuous, but if he brings back ideas from Israel that inspire him to replant his huge, water-wasting West Valley flower garden and green lawn and share it around, the better.)
As for LAWA being a participant and sponsor, I was extremely surprised to learn that LAX has the most advanced water reclamation practice of any government entity in the city -- separate pipes for non-potable/reclaimed water for all outdoor needs, and potable/ separate water pipes only for humanly ingested needs.)
Greig Smith has made modest examples with his own home, but frankly, it surprises me more that he's going to six very expensive countries with staff of Rosendahl and Cardenas to study trash -- what expertise do those staffers have? And aren't the Sunshine Canyon revenues otherwise going into the depleted general fund?
Smith is right that we're not making money off our trash and recycling, as other governments are -- but that includes recycling fraud at the local/county level, which Steve Ipsen keeps pointing out goes on under Steve Cooley's watch because his friends and supporters seem to be involved in it. (Judging by how Cooley pulled the crack Asst. DA working on this fraud off the case, and she quit to work for the feds.) I'm going to want to see what specifics Smith and those staffers come back with, though. (Why are just the staffers of Rosendahl and CArdenas going? Usually, it's because their bosses are of on a still different junket -- or, must keep quorum for Council right now, and their turn for junkets will come.)
Janice Hahn makes many foreign trips, far more than the Mayor, and just came back from Israel herself, plus makes visits to HER "sister city" in Italy, Ischia, and MANY other cities on our dime. Tom LaBonge uses his position as promoter of the "Sister Cities" program to globetrot all around the world to dozens of cities, from Asia to Germany. The MExicans go to Mexico and Central America often, and they've been to Israel and Europe, too.
So to make such a big deal of this one trip seems like a distraction from bigger issues, which include improving traffic and mass transit, over-development and uncontrolled immigration, mainly illegal, which contribute to this, environmental crises (water and air included), reducing gangs violence and crime in general, and the impact of all this on our budget.
Ellen Vukovich:
"The easiest way to show our outrage is to vote, especially in City sponsored elections in 2009."
"The next way is to start sending emails and placing telephone calls to City Hall letting them know you are paying attention."
Ellen, how do you mobilize enough citizens to invest that 'precious time', to care enough and believe they can actually do something about it? How do you get the information to large numbers of people? 'Scandal' seems to have become almost mundane, hardly lifting an eyebrow.
The deck is stacked! The third worlding of L.A. is complete. When Gray Davis was recalled 6 years ago, English-speaking Americans were still the majority...but no more! We put all of our eggs in one basket and prayed that he would keep his campaign promises. But Arnold became the terminator...he wimped out on us!
Villar put the final nail in the coffin. The Mexicans declared victory! Now..we have Reyes and Alarcon raising their ugly heads!
Villar is serving His constituency...the Mexicans..legal and illegal! In return for greasing the palms of the greedy developers, he is given carte blanche to pillage and plunder our treasure and ride rough shod over citizens.
The gangs are given high priority protection...Bratton is a puppet on a string...and Delgadillo belongs in debtor's prison.
If Steve Cooley had any guts, he would start cleaning out the abhorant Mexican corruption in the cities of southeast L.A....i.e., Huntington Park, Bell, Vernon, Lynwood, Maywood, Cudahy, etc. This is the heart of the Mexican mafia and the drug cartels. It's a den of iniquity and corruption surpassing that of Mexico!
Unless and until we get the Mexican kleptocracy out of L.A....we are doomed! Period!!! L. A. is a failed State!