UPDATE: I've spoken with Ben Austin who is now working part-time as an assistant city attorney mainly working on litigation involving health care providers and he's paid somewhat less than the salary in the city database. He also works part-time for the Green Dot charter schools on educational issues, an arrangement approved in advance by the City Ethics Commission officials.
Personally I like Rocky Delgadillo, L.A.'s City Attorney, and Ben Austin, the Democratic political consultant Rocky hired as his "director of communications" when he took office back in 2001.
But when I start going through the city salary database put up by the Daily News along with hard-hitting stories on the outrageous pay of city workers, I find this entry:
CITY ATTORNEY ASST CITY ATTORNEY AUSTIN,BEN B $119,031.66
And that makes me mad as hell.
Throughout city government -- government at all levels really -- there are vast public relations operations paid for by the taxpayers.
For the most part, these aren't people who spend a whole lot of time communicating what is actually going on behind the scenes to the public, or providing the public useful information to better understand what government is actually doing.
They are there for one purpose and one purpose only: To make the politicians look good, to make the bureaucrats look good. In fact, their principal mission is to mislead the public about what's going on.
Many political operatives in government at all levels have told me they use most of their brain power to come up with storylines for the press and the public that have nothing to do with what's going on in private behind closed doors.
And their contributions to elected officials come on top of the campaign consultants and political manipulators who are paid out of political funds that are raised by giving so-called "access" to various special interests who are more than happy to pay a penny on the dollar for political favors that will make them millions.
Now I don't want Ben fired. I want all public relations and politicial consultants paid for with taxpayer dollars fired.
The function of government is not to make politicians and bureaucrats look good. It's -- in theory at least -- to serve the public and, in this regard, that should mean providing a steady stream of information to the public so voters can make intelligent judgments about whether they are being properly served or not.
If you don't think all the cost of all these p.r. types adds up to a big chunk of money, you're wrong. The mayor alone has 24 staffers making more than $100,000 a year and the City Council 36 in that class. More than a few of those people are basically p.r. and political people. Every single department has highly-paid people doing similar work.
This is one of the many blatant abuses of power that have come to be accepted as common practice.
If any of our elected officials had any read integrity, they would have clerks posting every appointment, every phone call, every day so the public would have the same knowledge about what they are doing as the lobbyists, contractors and other special interests.
That would give new meaning to public access, lift the veil of secrecy from government operations and ensure that the actions of politicians were honest and above board. But don't hold your breath.
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.
I'm not sure Austin wants Rocky on his resume.
i wonder how much Laura Chick is being paid to keep her mouth shut!
Austin has not worked for Rocky for years. He works for Rob Reiner. If he is still drawing a city salary, THAT is a story.
Most of heard of the "blue wall of silence" in the LAPD. Well, that's nothing compared to the Dept of Planning and Dept of Building and Safety's WALL OF SILENCE. They have engaged in many indirect alliances to profit their political allies and developers, illegal signoffs enabled by "don't ask/don't tell, blind-eye enforcement.
If you wish to hinder those illegal activities, DON'T ALLOW VILLARAIGO AND GARCETTI TO CONSOLIDATE DEVELOPER SIGNOFFS (so called efficiency, puh). DON'T GIVE PLANNING OR BUILDING AND SAFETY ANY MORE POWER OR CONCEALMENT!!!!
They are very slick and devious. They will attempt it soon under the guise of saving the city money.
I heard you on Doug McIntyre's show this morning. You're right - the LA Times only covers what's going on in Sacramento, Washington and the rest of the world, but neglects the corruption right here in our front yards.
The Daily News, once again, is doing a great job keeping LA citizens informed. Initially, I was worried that once you left the Daily News that the paper would stop covering the issues that affect the taxpayers.
Rocky Delgadillo is also the ONLY main elected official who's refused to cut his budget at all: the Councilmembers and Controller Chick agreed to a 6% cut. This would be one thing if the guy weren't a complete idiot (although you find him affable -- lots of stupid and greedy people are). But his office loses every case it tries, and the high profile ones are farmed out to lawyers making $750/hr. up, with teams of lawyers and assistants behind them, making the actual hourly rate extremely scary. And they still lose.
Now the moron wants to use 11 outside firms to start preparing against the hundreds of filed and to be filed cases against the city from last year's march for illegal rights, at a cost of $5-10 million to START. The Mayor vetoed that, down to 2 outside firms; Chick and others suggest that we need more in-house competent attorneys, since the 500 or so he's got don't seem enough.
Rocky personally negotiated the sell-out deal with ClearChannel/CBS Outdoors, which gave them the right to put up MORE and BIGGER, including lighted 7-story billboards, instead of taking down the thousands of illegal ones that were up. The Council told him to get ClearChannel to pay inspection fees (which would be earning us millions) but instead, they're keeping up the illegal signs, putting up the lighted ones against community protests, and other companies now want to do the same. Of course, this might have something to do with the fact that ClearChannel gave Rocktard some $500K in free ads for his winning campaign -- over anti-billboard attorney Mike Feuer. And ClearChannel recently threw their bought boy an unseemly, ritzy Beverly Hills party just because he's so likeable. This moron should be removed for insubordination and financial treason, for his billboard dealings alone.
(Ron, if you're not up on this issue, read Christine Pelisek and Jill Stewart's pieces in the L A Weekly; David Zahniser in the Times had the story, too, and Patt Morrison did a commentary on it. This is one thing the Daily News missed, since their short, populist pieces don't get to the bottom of these more complex dealings.)
Frankly, I don't want my Councilman's office cutting too much, since we want to reach our reps when we need them. My local Field Deputy gets under $39,000 according to the Daily News database, and the Sr. Field Deputy just over $60,000. These people take a lot of s-it from the people in my district, show up at NC and HOA meetings at night, etc. Although I think they get city cars to use, but still, they deserve it a lot more than spinners like this guy who a commenter says doesn't even show up at his city-paid desk, or the dozens at DWP making over $200K plus company cars. And over 200 people at LAWA make over $100,000 -- for doing WHAT I'd like to know.
Now Marcus Allen demands $300K to take over as CAO from Sisson, who may not have been a strong personality and certainly didn't influence anyone from the Mayor to Budget Committee Head Bernie Parks to cut back before the crisis hit them in the face -- but as a lobbyist, his credentials are dubious and his greed unseemly.
Reason he and all these hundreds of people are getting huge six-figure salaries is apparently as a base for their pensions, which are based on the highest figure earned over a 12-month period. They're lifetime pensions, available for as few as 10 years worked, with retirement at age 50 or 55, the latter age getting even more benefits. THIS has to be stopped at once for future hires. (Even leftie Rosendahl broached that subject, but was trounced by the city unions, of course -- too bad, someone has to have the cajones to take back the city from the unions.)
I'm so disappointed that you like Rocky. I mean, you are entitled to like him as a person, but I hope you don't mean that you like him as a City Attorney?!
What is wrong with this city Ron? Please explain it to me because I just don't get it.
Did you read the Times' article today about how the two administrators who failed to report child sexual abuse at a Southgate school have NOT been fired, but have been returned to their jobs?
This was a decision made at the highest level, by Brewer himself.
I don't know very much about Brewer but this decision alone has turned me against him. LAUSD likes to put out LOTS of PR saying that "children are first" and how they have made oh so many improvements in recent years.
However, when it comes down to hard decisions, like this one, time and time again they FAIL the children. The powers at the highest level fail to protect kids, FAIL TO FOLLOW THE LAW OF THE LAND, give offenders a little slap on the wrist, and then send them back to make $80,000 a year for failing to follow the law.
Why? That's all I want to know. Why?
Is it because Brewer just doesn't understand education? Is it because he's trying to kiss up to a special interest group or the union? Is it because he's afraid to take a stand? Is it because he lacks common sense and good judgment?
Or is it because he simply doesn't care about kids?
Or is it all of the above?
What bothers me the most about LAUSD is that it is shaped and molded by HORRIBLE decisions time and time and time again. This latest decision by Brewer simply adds to the long and pathetic list of horrid decisions. Nothing has changed---everything remains the same. Same miserable trend, different players.
And all this goes on as the children of L.A. suffer. They suffer each and every day.
Then we wonder why they drop out. If no one cares about you, why stay in school?
That's the bottom line. Brewer has taught the children at this Southgate school that he simply doesn't care about them and that it's perfectly OK for a sub to have sex with a minor.
That's what he has taught the teens and forever and ever they will have no respect for him, for the administrators, or for their school because of the hypocrisy of it all.
I wonder now if these administrators are going to discipline kids when they break the school rules?
How can any kid with half a brain put up with this? And why should they?
Ben Austin currently works for Rocky. He renewed his state bar membership just a few days before being put on Rocky's payroll as an assistant city attorney (one of the highest paid positions in that office).
(This is a reply to Huh, who said, "Austin has not worked for Rocky for years. He works for Rob Reiner. If he is still drawing a city salary, THAT is a story.")