June 2008 Archives

I promised five double-doubles to the person who comes closest to guessing how much money the mayor raised at the end of the June 30 reporting period and if my info is correct Ethel B. gets the In-N-Out prize -- regular, with onions or animal style.

The tip I've heard is Villaraigosa hauled in somewhere between $1.6 million and $!.7 million to scare off as many challengers as possible. God knows what that will cost taxpayers although my rule of thumb is L.A. politicians come cheap so the bill for making special interests happy could be spectacular.

If I'm right, Ethel B. gets the prize with a guess of $1.65 million...though we'll have to test her crystal ball for possible doping. Congratulations Ethel, bon appetit!

I don't make this stuff up: No Home Depot activists finally got their chance Monday to examine 1,000 pages of city documents in the long-running controversy but the city's Dispute Resolution Program facilitator had them searched when they arrived and kept cops around in case they turned violent.

"You just can't be too careful these days," the facilitator told the two activists.
 
"And will Home Depot be searched and guarded when they show up for their appointment?"

"Absolutely," he assured us.

You can read the full story for yourself at the  No Home Depot website.

All I know is that it's no way to treat the people of this city for standing up for their basic civil rights.
 

You got to feel for Walter Moore. Maybe he should just call himself "Wally" and dress up and act like Rodney Dangerfield who plays an obnoxious talk show host in a 1997 movie that at least got some reviews.

Whatever your politics, you ought to support Moore at least getting looked at by the local media, having his public fund-raising events at least get a brief notice and at least have examined why his constituency  is so aroused by Jamiel's Law which would crack down on illegal immigrants in gangs.

But poor Walter gets totally ignored in the media -- except for radio talk show hosts like Doug McIntyre on KABC and blogs like Mayor Sam.

Moore held a fund-raiser at Cal State Northridge on Saturday and 300 people showed up so he can get a crowd. He raised about 10 bucks a piece from them to put his campaign warchest at $107,000 so he'll qualify for city matching funds. But he got no press coverage. Stories written about the upcoming mayoral election.state Antonio Villaraigosa as the only announced candidate and refer to the fortune he's raising for his campaign and the possibility that billionaire developer Rick Caruso who's vacationing in Italy is the only possible serious candidate who might challenge him.

In the eyes of the media, it's a coronation, not an election.

This isn't new. Across the country, the corporate media are complicit with the vast machinery of big government, big money and big politics. It's been that way a long time, ever since half the papers in the country went out of business in the 1950s  and 1960s because of  their inability to compete with television.

All that was left of a once free and vibrant press was corporate ownership of mostly monopoly newspapers. Gone were the 12 papers in New York, the eight in L.A. with a variety of owners and a variety of politics, styles and points of view. Instead, what we got was journalism that reduced politics to on the one hand this and the other hand that as if there were only two ways to see any issue. The result was apathy, alienation, the loss of freedom of expression and the vital public conversations that lead to compromise and progress.

Some think it's all an overt conspiracy but that wasn't my experience in my 44 years in newspapers and publications of various types in many parts of the country.

What there was and is today is a conspiracy of consciousness, a shared belief of journalists that what they're told by the vast army of political operatives and politicians -- and what they tell each other -- is the American political reality, that the political reality inside the world they operate in is the political reality of  Americans.

That is the big lie.

(This article was written for Nina Royal's North Valley Reporter and published in the current issue distributed this weekend.)

All across Los Angeles, thousands of people -- many of whom I've gotten to know over the years -- have been fighting City Hall to preserve, protect or improve their neighborhoods.

These are often long, drawn-out struggles that test their endurance, their ability to organize and mobilize their neighbors whether it's to get a streetlight or crosswalk, stop or modify a development, crack down on criminals and nuisances or the hundreds of other issues that come up from time to time.

Often, they are treated with arrogance bordering on contempt, drowned in meaningless lip service, beset with bureaucratic obstacles or overwhelmed by the clout of insiders -- the developers, contractors or the influence peddlers who posture as lobbyists, lawyers, p.r. types or consultants of one type of another. And, of course, there's the unions.

I don't honestly know how so many never give up and stay true to their cause.

I've been fighting City Hall too out of my own sense of right and wrong but I was also paid for it as an editor at the Daily News. Now that I'm retired from that role and blogging and involved as a community activist I can speak openly about my motivation and personal beliefs.

Like most of the people who don't get involved, I could go on just fine and look the other way and pretend not to see the giant flashing billboard around the corner, the megastore down the street, the McMansion at the corner or the failure of my neighborhood schools.

In fact, I do that in a lot of ways but what I can't stomach is what has happened to L.A. during the last 30 years, an era in which city government has become owned and paid for by special interests who have no sense of purpose beyond their own greed.

The result is L.A. is at the tipping point.

The recent DWP public relations stunt to drop 400,000 black plastic balls on a reservoir in Silver Lake led me to take a closer look at the utility's 2006 annual water quality report which claimed "all' water everyone in L.A. drank that year met "all" state and federal health safety standards.

But hidden in plain sight in the fine print in language that obscured the truth was the fact that much of the water contained contaminants above those standards. The DWP, following inadequate environmental laws, claimed the opposite by taking an average of all its water tests -- not specifying how long and in what areas people got tainted water that far exceeded the average for the year.

Well the 2007 DWP water quality report came out this week and probably showed up in your mail in the last day or two.

Again, DWP General Manager David Nahai -- the conservationist whose personal use of water far exceeds the average L.A. residents -- again hides the truth behind a lump sum annual average.

"Last year, all 200 billion gallons of water supplied to the 4 million residents of Los Angeles met or surpassed all health-based drinking water standards," Nahai wrote.

Again, the DWP acknowledges that chlorine used to disinfect water sometimes results in creation of carcinogens that studies suggest could be harmful to health, especially to pregnant women and unborn fetuses. The department continues to promise to use chloramines instead of chlorine soon, something that has been an issue for years.

In the tables we find that the disinfection process in 2007 led to levels of trihalomethanes (TTHM) that average 68 units, which is slightly below the standard of 80. However, the range was 18 to 132 units, meaning a lot of water exceeded the standard.

The same was true for haleoacetic acids, another by product of disinfection, which averaged 42 units compared to a standard of 60. However, the range was 7 to 173 units.

Not to worry though, if you want to take DWP's word for it
.

Hooray for urban cyclist Stephen Box who's the lead organizer for the July 14 Bastille Day protest at City Hall. He won this week's L.A. Times' Bottleneck Blog contest by submitting this photo and report on a Hollywood traffic hazard you wouldn't believe.

"This patch of roadway abomination is found on Western Avenue, northbound approaching Lexington. It is part of a much larger network of roadway cracks, gaps and holes that keep Western Avenue cyclists alert...

"It wasn't until a bus rolled by that I realized that the pothole was actually a series of asphalt islands that "floated" or moved independently of each other, offering a sophisticated "suspension" quality to the roadway, evidence that perhaps this was not simply another pothole network but perhaps an experimental LADOT roadway innovation! The "comfort lane!"

 "The roadway is so broken that the safest place to ride is out to the left edge of the curb lane,  maintaining a straight line and controlling the lane. The cyclist above demonstrates the correct lane positioning for Western Avenue. This is true for many of the larger boulevards in the area, from Vermont and Western to Hollywood and Sunset.

"To those who might argue that the cyclist should give up the lane to motor vehicle traffic and ride the gutter pan, another obstacle awaits! Granted, the city of Los Angeles has a grate replacement program under way, but it only covers an average of  5 grates per Council District. Grate! Great!

"Ultimately, I'd gladly trade all the promises of a network of bikeways in the sweet by-and-by for a simple roadway maintenance program that puts a priority on keeping the curb lanes ridable. The big streets really can work for many, they actually get across town, there's space, when traffic is flowing it's a great place to ride...but the potholes!

"Clean up the curb lane, it's good for cyclists and that is good for all of us!"

This is one of the many reasons Stephen has gotten involved in trying to make L.A. a great city instead of a pothole hell without anywhere near the number of bike lanes a great city of the 21st century should have.

What do you think is wrong with L.A.? What do you want to see happen that would make it the city you think is great? When will you get mad enough to do something about it?

People from all over L.A. are committed to coming to City Hall to air their gripes at noon July 14 and help launch the Saving L.A. Project -- S.L.A.P. -- a citywide coalition of concerned citizens who are ready to work together to Take Back L.A. and Demand A Great City.

That's the slogan we've come up with for the Bastille Day rally at City Hall at noon July 14.

It is meant to launch a new era in L.A., to give birth to a democratic movement that empowers the people and the communities to solve the growing problems caused by a failing educational system and a failing government.

The battle for a greater Los Angeles will not be won through pleading for our leaders to solve the city's problems or through a series of reforms or at the ballot box.

It can only be won through people power. Thousands of people across the city have worked hard to make their communities better and become angry and frustrated by the lip service, the indifference, the arrogance, of a system taken hostage by special interests.

The Saving L.A. Project -- S.L.A.P. -- is organizing a rally for July 14, Bastille Day, the moment the French Revolution began, to launch a movement that will bring together people who love L.A. and want to see change. The protest will start at noon at the South Lawn of City Hall.

Already, people from San Pedro to Sunland-Tujunga and many neighborhoods between them have committed to come to the rally and dump their grievances at City Hall and demand redress.

It is the start of something big. In numbers there is strength and by forming a coalition of concerned citizens we can make a difference, something dozens of local community groups have been unable to achieve over decades of struggling.

Take Back L.A. -- Demand A Great City. That's the theme of the protest. And greatness is our goal.

Great schools where every child is given the opportunity to learn and realize their full potential.

Great neighborhoods, free of gangs and the constant menace of violence, where families can live in safety.

Great businesses that add to the quality of life and provide great jobs.

We must confront the traffic congestion now by finding solutions that give people the choice between walking, biking, busing or driving from place to place.

We must become partners in every development to make sure that every project enhances the quality of our lives.

L.A. is a great place and now it must become a great city before it is too late.

The path we are being led down is the road to ruin, a city of rich and poor. A great city is built around the middle class and offers opportunity to all to achieve that It is not built out of mansions in guarded enclaves and slums under the control of hoodlums.

The people of the city must become full partners with the government in deciding how L.A. moves forward and that can only be achieved by having the power to help or hurt our political leaders. For too long, developers, contractors and public employee unions have held all the power and the residents of L.A. are left begging for what they believe will protect or improve their lives.

The Saving L.A. Project will change that  by forming a united front. We don't have to agree on everything. We just need to support each other in our efforts to make our communities better and our city greater.

Come to the Bastille Day rally. Join hands with your neighbors. This is the birth of real democracy in L.A. where the people are the bosses and the politicians and bureaucrats are the public servants.

Think about this: The city has $8 billion to spend every year but it somehow can't provide even basic services.

That's more money than City Hall has had in history, yet there is a $400 million deficit that has been papered over and there aren't enough cops, housing inspectors, planners, traffic engineers or -- now we learn -- cleanup crews.

The Times today exposes  the travesty of neighborhoods waiting up to two months for Public Works crews to clean up unhealthy filth left by illegal dumpers, ignoring visible evidence that might lead to those responsible and blaming the lack of staff for its failure.

"We can only run so fast, and right now we're running as fast as we can," said Bruce Howell, the Public Works bureaucrat who oversees alley-cleaning. He's paid $107,824.32, according to the Daily News city salary database, presumably to make excuses and avoid accountability.

Of course, when the mayor and Councilwoman Janice Hahn were about the hold a self-promoting publicity event in Watts a few months ago, trash littering three alleys nearby suddenly got cleaned up -- three weeks after being reported.

The rats must have loved  the delay.

What really ought to concern people who want a great city instead of what we got is that the mayor, the Board of Public Works and the council are so out of touch with their responsibilities as the nation's highest paid municipal officials that they didn't know about this breakdown in basic services.

With the Times asking questions, the mayor's office went into high gear. Emergency meetings were held at the highest levels, urgent reports were being prepared and threats of crackdowns were being made.

"The department's response time for this cleanup work is totally unacceptable by any measure," said Villaraigosa spokesman Matt Szabo. "The mayor is not interested in explanations or excuses . . . [and] believes that the bureau is in need of structural change. And he will hold his managers accountable for implementing this change."

Take him at his word. Heads will roll and private firms will be hired in place of city workers to clean up litter faster and cheaper. The revolution at City Hall is under way.

Oh no, that will only happen when the community -- neighborhood councils, resident groups, service clubs, Chambers of Commerce -- join together and take back L.A. and go to work to create the kind of city that's good for people and good for business, a city where the politicians and bureaucrats know it's the people who are the bosses -- not the fatcats, union bosses, developers, contractors and lobbyist machine.

So come all ye faithful to City Hall at noon on Bastille Day July 14 and let City Hall know that a coalition of concerned citizens is forming and the revolution to save L.A. has begun.

Buoyed by polling data that shows just how gullible the public is, the mayor has jumped into the well-orchestrated campaign to build momentum for a third half-cent sales tax to support public transit projects.

We've seen what a great job they've done with the previous two half-cent taxes: Congestion gets worse and worse. And the middle of a recession when people are losing their homes and their jobs and can't afford $5 a gallon for gas or the soaring cost of food staples is a pretty poor time to add yet another tax on top of all the other fee and rate hikes already in place.

Of course, contractors and their agents will donate millions to the campaign -- a small price to pay for billions in return.

That the mayor chose the subway to reveal he's aboard this gravy train is interesting. My understanding has been they've come up with relatively small projects in every part of L.A. County to sucker the public in and then plan to use the money freed up elsewhere in the Metro budget to fund the "subway to the sea" -- which is the real goal.

And that's the problem. Subways are great but we can't afford that now when there's so many other needs to make this a great city. The Orange Line Busway in the Valley was
cheaper and faster to get running and ridership wildly exceeds all expectations.

Combining affordable solutions with tougher regulations on rush-hour truck traffic and requirements that large employers stagger working hours would get relief now and cost a lot less.

But solving the problem of congestion isn't the goal; making the insiders richer is. 

Thanks to David Coffin of the Westchesterparents.org blog here's some facts about your city leaders -- the people who blithely jackup your DWP rates and want you to drink recycled toilet water -- you don't want to miss:

Coffin reports: The annual average per person water consumption of LADWP customers is 56,576 gallons per year or 163,000 gallons for the average 3 person household.

• H. David Nahai (DWP General Manager) - 434,220
  (a staggering 310% times more than my household!!)
• Rocky Delgadillo (City attorney) - 423,368 gallons 
• Mayor Villaraigosa - 386,716 gallons 
• Jack Weiss - 254,320 gallons  
• Bill Rosendahl - 230,384 gallons
• Tony Cardenas - 219,912 gallons
• Greig Smith - 219,164 gallons 
• Dennis Zine - 194,480 gallons 
• Wendy Gruel - 190,740 gallons
• Jose Huizar - 142,120 gallons 
• Eric Garcetti - 88,264 gallons
• Janice Hahn - 83,776 gallons
• Bernard Parks - 35,156 gallons

Thanks David, you've put their hypocrisy into perspective

What a day -- a David Nahai twosome.
 
So under siege over how much water he's using for his 6,000 square-foot mansion in the hills, DWP General Manager David Nahai came clean today in the Daily News -- twice as much water and more than three times as much electricity than the average ratepayer.

So much for his passion for the environment and conservation and piping toilet water treated repeatedly with toxic chemicals to the homes of the little people.

My head is still spinning from all the p.r. spinning Nahai is doing to turn his ostentatious consumption of precious resources into a virtue -- an opportunity to lecture us on what we should be doing to reduce water and power use. Credit Alan Middlestaedt at Witness L.A. for raising the issue.

Call Nahai irresponsible: "Your gardener sets the sprinkler and it goes off at night, you're sleeping, and the bill comes along and you pay it," he said.

But don't call him elitist: "Yes, it may be that I'm blessed with having more assets than some and less than others, but I'm constantly mindful of those people within the city who aren't as able to fend for themselves," he said. "Contrary to the thought that I'm making some kind of elitist statement here, I'm opening up my private life and I'm saying, `Here is what I've discovered and here's what I want to do to reduce both my usage and my expenditures. Can you do the same?'"

Actually, I can and I didn't have the privilege of his supposedly understaffed department sending out a team to audit my lifestyle.

Like Nahai, I have low-flush toilets and I recirculate water in my pool and I have a low-energy, low water consuming washing machiine. Unlike him, I have other low energy appliances as well. You could fit five of my houses inside his so you can bet I don't have anywhere near the amount of light bulbs or air conditioning use.

Here's an idea: Instead of gouging the little people with endless rate hikes, what if we  determine the average residential use of water and power and start charging people sharply higher rates when they go above that. And for people like Nahai maybe we should charge five to 10 times the average rate.

Every story needs a villain, and DWP General Manager David Nahai has achieved that status in the political story of L.A. in record time.

At least that's what many members of neighborhood councils, community activists, DWP managers and media mavens who have encountered Nahai's arrogance and glib glossing over of the truth are saying.

But that's only the half full glass of water view of the millionaire real estate lawyer turned environmentalist.

Every story also needs a hero and David Nahai is definitely that if you read the hagiographic puff piece in L.A. magazine's July issue by Kevin Roderick, the expert in all things media in L.A., defender of the L.A. Times'  hack pack and public relations consultant.

Normally, I'd hold my nose and look the other way but given my passion for exposing the waste, inefficiency and corruption at the City Hall's most powerful and insulated institution and Roderick's holding himself as up the ultimate arbiter of all things journalistic, I cannot let this article headlined "Troubled Waters" go unnoticed.

Let's start with the fact that the closest there is to a critical voice comes from a group out in Mojave worried about power lines. The rest is quotes that glorify and turns of phrase that befit a man who walks on water.

To Owens Valley victims of DWP's pillage, Nahai is "the one Angeleno the locals trust" as "they are laughing easily with a natty figure who is sporting a black turtleneck and an English boarding school accent and hovering at the mayor's shoulder."

Nahai's sermons are "persuasive stuff," he's "uncommonly engaged" in the details, he's called "a Middle Eastern James Bond," he scored "one of his early victories" by misusing (my word) the accidental death of a firefighter to justify rate hikes while  he "deftly handled an unexpected media storm" and "stared down the critics...For Nahai, turning the agency into one of the environmental good guys is the fun part."

June 30 is the end of the six-month reporting period for candidates running in next year's city elections.

In an effort to scare away challengers, Antonio Villaraigosa has pulled out all stops to raise so much money from every quarter -- New York, Chicago, San Francisco, maybe even Israel -- that he's certain to haul in quite a bundle.

The one who guesses closest to the exact dollar amount the mayor has raised will win five coupons for double-doubles at IN-N-OUT.  All you need to do is sign up now (on the promo onthe right) to volunteer, participate or just stay informed about the Saving L.A. Protest at City Hall at noon on July 14, Bastille Day and email your guess to ANTONIOCASH@AOL.COM.

The deadline is midnight Friday June 27. All entries must include your email address and at least a first name. I'll be the judge (on this one you can trust me).

And just for fun go to Mayor Sam's blog and check out the brilliant campaign bumper stickers for possible mayoral candidates. For some reason, the only announced challenger, Walter Moore, is so far left out so check him out at his site.

Antonio, won't you please come home?

I don't begrudge you enjoying the perks of office like a totally unnecessary $250,000 junket to Israel paid for with huge rate and fee hikes you imposed on me and my neighbors.

Some of us like myself have lost our jobs; others live in dread of losing theirs. We're all paying nearly $5 for gas and higher prices to put food on the table, to get our garbage picked up, for water and power for our houses, which are worth two-thirds what they were just a short while ago.

But I got to question why you ran around the country supporting a candidate for president you didn't even like that much and it pisses me off seeing you jet-setting around to raise millions of dollars from people who want a piece of the action in L.A. -- money intended to make next year's mayoral election meaningless because you chased away the strongest challengers.

Do you really think your job is to be the King of L.A. and our ambassador to the world?

You somehow created a $500 million deficit while the city treasury swelled from one of the biggest housing and economic booms in history.

You promised to take over the failing public school system and turn it around and when your plan fizzled you turned to a backdoor takeover on the back of a previously failed LAUSD superintendent just to save face.

You boast of how violent crime has fallen but the credit goes to the police chief appointed by the previous mayor and to the people of this city who demanded massive reform of a militaristic police force and spent hundreds of millions of dollars to bring it about.

And now you have the nerve to tell us not to wonder why you're everywhere but here because you're a big shot mayor of a big time city, not the mayor of "some small town in desert somewhere."

Actually, a lot of people in L.A. do feel like they live in a small town somewhere in the desert, a neighborhood with a look and feel they like, an identity and sense of place that they're fighting to preserve against the onslaught of overdevelopment and unplanned urbanization that you and your colleagues are backing.

Don't get me wrong, I love you, man. I admire your charm and personality, and how you treat everybody like they're a friend you care about. I know you know what's the right thing to do.

But we didn't hire you just so you can party with the cool people and wear expensive suits and drink fine wines. We elected you mayor to do the job for us, to stand up to those who seek only their own advantage.

It's not enough to run around town sweet-talking us and spinning the truth about what's happening to the city.

We want leadership to fix our schools, to get traffic moving, to attract good jobs, to make our  neighborhoods more livable and more environmentally sensitive. We want the heavy hand of the law to come down hard on the gangsters who rule over so many neighborhoods and we want programs that keep out kids from becoming hoodlums.

We're fed up with the arrogance of power and the smug pretentions of elites that don't give a damn about the struggles of the middle class or the people struggling to get to the middle class.

We want a government that treats us with respect and respects our values, not a government that wastes our money manipulating us for the benefit of narrow interests.

We want a seat at the table of power so that our voices are heard and responded to.

Antonio, won't you please come home and get to work at the job of being mayor and starting fixing what's broken. Stand up for the people and the people will go to work with you to begin to make L.A. the great city it could become.

My only qualification for the job of deciphering L.A. Times stories that do their best to obscure the truth about what the hell is going on in this town might be the two years I studied Sanskrit in college, a dead language much like that often used by the city's dominant news source.

"L.A. generosity flows in Mid-City..City puts up millions to see real estate group CIM finish Midtown Crossing development"

Those are the headlines above a story today at the bottom of the California section. The story backs in softy to an account of how CIM Group, a well-connected Westside developer that has flourished in the last 15 years often with the help of its City Hall connections.It isn't mentioned on the front page of latimes.com and can only be found two clicks later well down on the website's local news page.

Eventually, we learn CIM has projects, some in serious trouble, that the city and city employee pension funds have been throwing good money after bad at, particularly the Midtown Crossing project at Pico and San Vicente.

Despite misgivings of its members, the Community Redevelopment Agency recently called for the city to up its subsidy from $5 million to $14 million in the project. You can bet the mayor along with Councilman Herb Wesson who has been very helpful to CIM twisted a few arms to get that vote.

What's astonishing about this story is that near the end of it we learn why we the taxpayers are giving away our money to rich developers.

"Redevelopment officials argue that without the subsidy CIM Group would achieve a financial return of only 7 % on its project -- lower than typical developments. Still unclear is how much advertising revenue the company would obtain by winning approval of the special sign district."

The sign district, being sought by CIM pal Herb Wesson, would allow the company to make a lot of money because the site could have signage that "display 'supergraphics' -- vinyl advertisements permitted by city law only in special cases."

So there you have it: They're going to give away our money to fat-cat developers who aren't satisfied by a 7 % return on their investment in order for them to make 20 % on a project that will create a lot of low-paying retail jobs and poison the visual environment with hideous signage that encourages materialistic obsession.

Of course, that's just the interpretation of a failed Sanskrit scholar whose headline across the top of the paper's front page might have read:

"CITY HALL GIVEAWAY...Taxpayer money goes to boost developer's profits"

The soap opera continued Thursday with Home Depot announcing it cancelled the June 24 open house at Mt. Gleason Middle School because LAUSD officials asked them to -- contradicting the district's own statements.

And the home improvement giant, as part of its shifting strategy, said it was submitting plans for a scaled-down store in Sunland-Tujunga, two-thirds the size of most of its stores. It also provided more details about its plans in an effort to overcome well-organized opposition in the community.

The No Home Depot activists disputed some of Home Depot's assertions, saying, "It is unfortunate that Home Depot is blaming the STA for their own mistakes, creating a 'hostile environment', and accusing us of preventing people from getting information."

This is fascinating community conflict that will play out a long time. The community has become well organized and blocked Home Depot's efforts at every turn but the company has enormous resources and clearly is committed to opening the store.

Stay tuned.

"You're starting to see the average person start to push back," he said. "There's a lot of skepticism." -- Jack Kyser, chief economist for the L.A. Economic Development Corp. in the Daily News today.

L.A.'s best reporter Beth Barrett revealed today exactly why our electricity rates are soaring: To pay for overdevelopment of the city that's destroying our neighborhoods, to feather the nest of powerful DWP union boss Brian D'Arcy, to add bureaucrats to the bloated DWP management and to make their work space more comfortable.

And, of yeah, to spend what's left over on fixing the power grid that was allowed to rot because all the money was going to overpaid staff to buy their loyalty to support a political system that serves itself and a variety of special interests.

Even the head of the DWP Board of Commissioners is squeamish about General Manager David Nahai's plan to hire 1,000 more employees -- something the public is only now learning about with the rate hikes set to take effect July 1. And we only learn about it because of enterprisinig reporting, not because the plan was put out in public for debate.

"I think (the DWP) is gearing up too fast," said Patsaouras. "We need the dollars for infrastructure, but that doesn't give us a blank check in every part of the department to spend."

Nahai claims there was extensive review by city officials, neighborhood councils, oversight committees and others of his "overall budget." That's like his recently disclosed claim that "all" the water DWP provides meets all safety standards. All of it does on average but a lot of the water we're drinking doesn't meet those standards. So yes, the overall budget was reviewed but we only now learn the specfics buried in the fine print and not publicly debated.

Contrary to Nahai's claim, I've heard over and over in recent weeks from those involved that the DWP is not living up to the spirit of its Memo of Understanding to fully disclose what it's doing and work closely with neighborhood councils.

Jack Humphreville, a member of the neighborhood councils' DWP oversight committee, told the Daily News that the utility had promised that the money from the rate hikes would be spent on infrastructure -- not support and office staffers at the downtown headquarters.

"I understand the need for the infrastructure," he said. "But to the extent it's going into other areas, it's not kosher."

UPDATE: Home Depot cancels June 24 meeting at Sunland-Tujunga meeting at school.

n following up the controversy over LAUSD issuing a permit to Home Depot to hold an "open house" in Sunland-Tujunga next week, I asked officials a series of questions and got a written response.

I also spoke with School Board Member Julie Korenstein who represents the area who said the officials in the district's Beyond The Bell program which manages civic center permits and other non-school issues were "just doing their job...as if it were an everyday permit."

She added: "I'm sure Home Depot would be far better off doing it in a neutral place...They're setting up what could be a problem."

Her reference was to the fact the No Home Depot activists are as welcome as anybody else at the Mt. Gleason Middle School event.

As for LAUSD, here's the bottom line: "The permit has been issued and the permit applicant will be permitted to use the facility in accordance with the rules and guidelines."

Here's the full statement from LAUSD's Beyond The Bell officials:

Question: According to the LAUSD website, school sites are available to nonprofits and by extension to community groups for what are pretty benign purposes, which are also spelled out in the state law on public school sites . Why was Home Depot, a highly profitablecompany, given a permit when it hopes to use the meeting to profit indirectly by winning public support for its story?

Answer: The civic center permit was given to Mr. Abraham Mercado who requested use of the facility to conduct a meeting open to the public.  Mr. Mercado submitted an application for a "public meeting re: Home Depot."  A meeting to discuss matters of general or public interest qualifies for a civic center permit.  The District's civic center permit application process is intended to be fair and neutral to all applicants.  We do not judge whether a proposed use is worthy of the use of a school facility because such a subjective determination could result in discrimination.  Mr. Mercado also checked the box indicating that no fees or charges or contributions would be collected at the public meeting.  If Mr. Mercado had indicated that he was going to collect fees, charges or contributions at the meeting, his application would have been denied.

The issuance or denial of an application for a civic center permit is not an indication or LAUSD's support or disapproval of a proposed use or activity.  Permits are granted to individuals, groups, and organizations (non-profit and for profit) based on the activity.  Examples of private and commercial venture groups/companies/associations, etc. that have been granted civic center permits in the past are: 20th Century Fox, Northrop Grumman/Litton, Tribune/KTLA, Ticketmaster, Fidelity National Title Company, Galpin Ford, and Cedar-Sinai Medical Center Group.  Education Code section 38130-38139 and the Rules adopted by the Board of Education for LAUSD apply to the issuance of civic center permits.  Education Code section 38130 and LAUSD Board Rules 1301 and 1302 do not restrict the issuance of civic center permits to solely non-profits or not-for-profit organizations.
 

Come with me back in time a decade ago and listen to the story of San Fernando Valley secession and what we learned about the rights of the people who pay the bills.

Quite siimply, we learned that all the streets and sidewalks, all the sewers, water lines, power poles and lines, all the the municipal buildings, all the parks, everything that a private individual or business doesn't hold the deed to belongs to the legal fiction known as the City of Los Angeles, Inc.

None of it belongs in any sense to the people, the people who create the government to serve them -- of, by and for them -- and who pay the taxes, fees and rates that paid for the city and support it with their money. So when breakup was the issue, we were told the Valley as a city -- the nation's sixth largest, richest, safest and most intergrated big city -- owned nothing.

Everything public would belong to the City of L.A. even though it was not in L.A. but in the wannabe City of the San Fernando Valley.

Now it's 2008, and the city can't afford to maintain its property except  for coming up with $300 million to turn City Hall into a palace of  gold and marble and $500 milion to build a new police station to beautify downtown for skyscraper developers.

The property issue of the moment is sidewalks. The city ended its policy of fixing sidewalks just about the time the official policy of City Hall became giving every dollar available to pad the salaries of city employees' paychecks and grease the palms of developers and contractors.

The result is a 75-year backlog of broken and crumbling sidewalks that are hazardous to your health and lead to numerous claims and lawsuits.

Enter Assemblywoman Audra Strickland, a Republican from Westlake Village where the sidewalks and streets are in perfect condition She has proposed AB 1985 that would "hold the owner of the property on which the sidewalk is located liable for the repair and maintenance of the sidewalk."

Those are the words of L.A.'s Chief Legislative Analyst Gerry Miller and his assistant Roslyn Carter Phillips who last week sounded the alarm that City Hall's right to ownership without responsibility was under siege.

I have long mocked the idea that all the campaign money and favors bestowed on politicians brought special interests what has been euphemistically called "access."

Developers, contractors, anyone wanting to profit from government get to meet privately (i.e. secretly) with elected officials, their staffs and the bureaucracy and gather information not publicly available and to set the terms of the discussion by conveying what is in their self-interest before anyone else has a say.

This is usually done for these special interests by lobbyists, lawyers, public relations experts, consultants and political strategists who have long relationships with the government officials, relationships that are both personal and professional, and enriched by the flow of political money and advice, both free and paid for.

Most of these contacts and the business transactions they involve never even bubble to the surface, never even become public knowledge. And when they do, it is far down the road. At the point ordinary citizens become aware of what's going on, the game is up. With limited  knowledge of the fine details, relatively inexperienced at such games, the public is easily dismissed as NIMBYs, easily beaten

I knew this was a great injustice. But until I got down on the ground as a community activist myself in the last two months I didn't know just how great an injustice it is.

In hearing first-hand the frustration of community groups who just want a legitimate voice in the political process, a seat at the table of power, I got angry, angry enough to decide something dramatic had to be done to change the situation.

That's why I called for the Saving L.A. Protest at noon on July 14 at City Hall, to take the first step in creating a citywide coalition of concerned citizens who would be able to mobilize to change the rules of engagement at City Hall, to change the way the process works, to make government accountable to the people.

It's a tall order I know. But the system has grown so arrogant and abusive that we need what my friend Teddy says is a Boston Tea Party to ignite the public's emotions and get something going.

Just look at how Steve Sugerman, a onetime deputy mayor, and Richard Alatorre, a longtime elected official  -- admitted felons who were convicted for crimes involving public corruption -- are getting rich operating deep inside City Hall \. They have total access to the mayor and everyone else while the public comes with hat hand to be ignored during their two-minutes before the City Council or double-talked when they try to get information.

Former Fleishman-Hillard p.r. executive Sugerman pleaded guilty to a federal wire fraud charge, saying he thought his boss Doug Dowie wanted him to overbill the Department of Water and Power yet he's the point man earning a fortune peddling his influence for the massive Playa Vista development, the Southwest Museum and other clients with city busiiness.

He's registered as a lobbyist but claims most of his income doesn't come from actually peddling influence directly to the pols; it comes from helping clients manipulate the political process so you, the people, aren't entitled to know that.

And Jack Weiss -- the wannabe top city law enforcement officer as City Attorney -- thinks nothing of having Sugerman host a recent fund-raiser for him. We'll never really know how much was raised at the event because the biannual reports don't show anything but the date the check was written, not who attended the event and when the deal was cut.

I know now I will not be alone in a Bastille Day protest at City Hall.

So many others have stepped forward and said they too are fed up with the arrogance and failure of our city government that I know there will be a decent crowd at high noon on the 14th of July.

The question is whether there will be enough decent people to become an army that storms the bastille and shakes the foundation of L.A.'s corrupt political culture.

Saving L.A. -- that's the mission. Celebrating L.A. the place and demanding that it becomes a city, a real city where we all come together around a vision of something greater than ourselves, a great city.

We are at the tipping point. Too much greed. Too much poverty. Too many problems left  unsolved. Bad schools, over-development, traffic congestion, neighborhoods held hostage by gangs, official indifference to the values of the people, fragmented and weak communities -- L.A. teeters on the brink.

It doesn't have to be that way. We can have great schools and great neighborhoods, great streets and great parks, great busineses and great jobs. We can be greener and safer.We can be happier.

But we will never achieve that when all the leadership gives us is choices between paying twice for garbage collection or fewer cops, between power outages and water shortages and higher rates, between something bad and something worse.

City Hall has more than enough money to solve the city's problems. But too much is given away in sweetheart contracts and giveaways to developers and contractors for no purpose other than to maintain the system of failure. Too much is spent in ways that don't matter and too little on ways that would make our lives better and our communities more livable.

We need to spend our money smarter to create the kind of choices people want and the city needs. We need to raise the standards and create the kind of a city where we can choose to walk or ride a bike or take a bus or drive when we leave our homes to go to work or play. We need to able to choose between a good public school or a good charter school. We need good choices, not choices between the lesser of two evils.

The  leadership of this city is incapable of real change. It will take the people. It will take you to step forward and get the revolution started by joining the Saving L.A. Protest and make it a S.L.A.P. in the face of our elected officials, a wakeup call that the rules are changing, that the people are taking over.

I'm just a voice in the crowd. But people are stepping forward who have spent years working in the trenches to make their neighborhoods better, who know how to organize and make this happen. It will take more people to pull this off, to volunteer and turn this into something big and the start of something bigger.

So let me know if you're coming, if you want to help figure out how we make this protest a celebration of the spirit of L.A.'s people and their hopes for the future. We don't need to get mad to get even. We can come together and party and if there's enough of us there, they'll get the message.

This city belongs to you and me. So let's take our gripes and grievances down to City Hall and leave them there as a petition for redress. Every neighborhood, every group has their own set of issues, their own values. We don't need to agree on anything except our right to a government that serves us, not special interests, and our respect for each other's right to be empowered to affect public policy.

This S.L.A.P. in City Hall's face can be the beginning, the dawning of a new L.A. Come join the party!
 


 

Reader Stan Sugarman's letter responding to LAUSD board member Julie Korenstein's statement::

Ms. Korenstein,

Thank you for your response.  I must inform you that the information given to you by the School Superintendent is incomplete and incorrect.  The Civic Center Act within California's Education Code does not permit businesses, or their representatives, usage of public school facilities as Home Depot wishes to do.  If the permit specifically states that Home Depot, as a business, is the entity making the facility request then the permit is illegal.  Therefore, the permit given to them is illegal and must be revoked.  I ask that you proceed with this immediately.

For your information, the Civic Center Act is available for viewing on the Internet, as EDUCATION CODE SECTION 38130-38139 .  It's web address is:

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=edc&group=38001-39000&file=38130-38139

As you read in Section 38131, you will note that it does not provide for a for-profit business to utilize public school facilities for it's own business motives.  It indicates that these groups can use the facilities: citizens, parent
teacher associations, Camp Fire girls, Boy Scout troops, veterans'
organizations, farmers' organizations, school-community advisory
councils, senior citizens' organizations, clubs, and associations.

Here's the latest twist in why LAUSD changed the policy on its website with regards to school facilities only being available to non-profits (see story below). Sunland-Tujunga community activists got this statement emailed  late Friday afternoon from local school board member Julie Korenstein:
 
This is in response to your mail, objecting to the issuance of a civic center permit and expressing concern and dismay that we are supporting and promoting Home Depot's business.  This is not true.
 
I received the following information from the Superintendent's Office:
 
"The Civic Center Act mandated by the California Education Code provides that each and every public school is a civic center of the community in which the school resides. As a civic center, the members of the public and other organizations may meet and discuss any subjects pertaining to the educational, political, economic, artistic, and moral interests of the citizens of the communities.  
 
Therefore, Los Angeles Unified School District is mandated to uphold the civic center permit policy in a fair, neutral, and transparent process.  The issuance or denial of an application for a civic center permit is not an indication of LAUSD's support or disapproval of a proposed use or activity.  Whether a civic center permit can be issued is based on the intended use of or the activity. We cannot discriminate against applicants and we cannot make judgment determinations as to whether the applicant's purpose is worthy of the use of a school facility."
 
As you may know, the District was very concerned about the original report and wanted a much more in-depth study done of the impact on the schools and the community.
 
I wish there would have been something else we could have done.  I share your frustration.  Please make sure you are well represented so that your concerns can be heard.

Respectfully,
Board Member Julie Korenstein
Board District 6

UPDATE: I haven't been able to connect with LAUSD on the subject but I'm told that despite what the website says about non-profits only, the district has permitted developers and other commercial interests to use school sites in the past. And that's my point public rules for the public and private rules for special interests is the hallmark of LAUSD and City Hall for that matter.

It has been a long-standing policy of the LAUSD to allow the use of public school facilities after hours only to non-profit organizations.

That's why the Sunland-Tujanga community got so aroused when it found out Mt. Gleason school was being turned over to Home Depot for a community meeting June 24 to win support for its effort to convert a closed K-Mart into one of their stores.

They started an email campaign that inundated school officials this week with complaints that giving a permit to one of America's most profitable companies violated the district's own rule.

Whatever you might think about the community's years long fight to keep Home Depot out of Sunland-Tujunga, you should be concerned about how LAUSD solved the controversy.

This is what they put up on district's website today:

Civic Center Permits

---

 
The major function of the Civic Center Permit Office is the issuance of the appropriate permit to allow for the use of school facilities in conformance with the California Education Code mandate and the Board of Education rules, which require that each and every public school facility be made available as a civic center to members of the community and non-profit organizations for supervised recreational activities, meetings and public discussions, when regular school activities are not disrupted.

To qualify for a permit:
A group must be non-profit.(Incorrect)
Updated 6/12/08: The activity requested must be not for profit.

Poof, the problem is gone. Just change the rules. And for that I think the district with an unbroken record of failing millions of students for 30 years deserves the Chutzpah Award for pure blatant utter contempt for the public.

You got to give the bloated, overpaid and incompetent bureaucracy credit for nakedly showing exactly how they deal with all kinds of problems. Cross out the wrong answer and put in the right one. In a word, cheat.

That's exactly why the district fails. It gets the answers to problems wrong every day but instead of learning from its mistakes and getting better, it simply crosses out failure and writes in success That way there's no accountability, no growth.

And that's exactly why the people of Sunland-Tujunga feel that no matter what happens, the Home Depot store will be shoved down their throats Their experience with the city is no different than with the schools and that's what I'm hearing from people all over the city.

For my money, there is only one answer and that's to change tactics and to stop playing by the rules of a rigged game.

So if you care about the schools or the quality of life in your neighborhood or any other issues that affect your life because of local policies, join me and other community activists in a protest at City Hall on July 14, Bastille Day, the day the French Revolution began.

I'm arm-weary like a prizefighter who's pounded and pounded on an opponent who just won't go down for the count so I need a break from beating on L.A. I think I'll kick the state of California for a while. OK, I can't help myself, the city, too.

A thought keeps sticking in my mind about the appointment of former Assemblywoman Cindy Montanez to a part-time Department of Water and Power gig -- first reported here on June 3 -- at the handsome rate of $150,000 a year. GM David Nahai said that as a special advisor she will handle regulatory and legislative duties, which I assume means she'll be a lobbyist and influence peddler for the utility every so often at City Hall and Sacramento.

DWP Board President Nick Patsaouras shocked many by publicly criticizing the appointment because Montanez will still maintain her $130,000 a year state post on the  California, Unemployment Insurance Appeals. Board.

But the unflappable Nahai was unshaken by criticism of this blatant double-dipping patronage problem, assuring the public: "The appeals board, as you may know, is an engagement that is only one day a month."

Thanks David, I'd forgotten that. Tens of millions of dollars a year are spent by the state to keep up the lifestyles of political hacks, their families and friends.

Ever senstive to the struggles of the ordinary working stiff, Nahai thought nothing of telling him and her -- people whose federal income tax rebate is being stolen by higher taxes and fees imposed by the city and state -- that paying Montanez $8,500 a day is, as you may know, perfectly fine. You can bet Cindy does a fair-minded job of balancing the interests of employers with those of workers when she hears appeals of unemployment cases.

And you can double up on that bet on whether she'll have to do very much for her $12,500 a month in DWP ratepayers money.

What stuck in my mind about Nahai's comment was that the Unemployment Appeals Board was high on the list of 117 state boards and commissions recommended for elimination four years ago and it made Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's short list of 88.  That would still have left more than 100 in place

"Last year, all 227 billion gallons of water supplied to the 4 million residents of Los Angeles met or surpassed all health-based drinking water standards." -- David Nahai, overview to the 2006 Department of Water and Power water quality report.

That's a pretty bold and all-encompassing statement made by Nahai who was then the president of the commission overseeing the DWP and is now its general manager.

Now Nahai is a lawyer and he may be able to spin that statement so that it's true but only if the operative word is all. Because many of those gallons of drinking water contained levels of carcinogens and other contaminants that did not meet the state and federal standards that Nahai's statement suggests they did, according to the details in the report.

So his assertion that all L.A.'s water "met or surpassed" those standards is true only when the levels of carcinogens and other contaminants are averaged out over 12 months. I'm no expert in figuring out whether the gallons that didn't meet the standards harmed anyone or not but I do know they could have so Nahai's guarantee is totally misleading.

My information is that it has been long-standing DWP policy to "hide in plain sight" the water supply  problems. The reports over the years paint a glowing picture of the quality of L.A.'s drinking but the dense details that only experts could decipher paint a more troubling picture.

I raised questions Tuesday over the DWP's grandstand p.r. stunt at Ivanhoe Reservoir in Silver Lake where 400,000 black plastic balls were dumped in the water to keep sunlight from causing a chemical reaction between chlorine and bromine which produces the carcinogen bromate. My point was the reservoir is a century old and the 600,000 people in Silver Lake and South L.A. served by it must have been getting doses of bromates over the years.

At Griffith Park, Interrrupted blogger Donna Barstow raised questions about what chemical reactions will occur on the plastic balls during four years in the sun and water.

And the health issue sparked my friend, street-hassle blogger Joseph Mailander to post a lengthy comment here expressing concern over what he believes could be a cancer cluster in the Silver Lake area.

"There are so many people in our Los Feliz, Silver Lake, and Echo Park communities who have contracted some form of cancer over the past few years---it's virtually one of every five people we know who live here for a long time...I believe you would find a disproportionately high incidence of cancer, pointing to some environmental influence."

I also received information from a knowledgeable source that DWP officials have been well aware that a disinfection byproduct called trihalomethanes has spiked sharply at times, particularly when decaying plants and other organic compounds are present as they are in open reservoirs like Ivanhoe.
.

Ellen  Vukovich
Community Correspondent
 

I hate to admit it, but I still like living in Los Angeles.

Well, not exactly Los Angeles, but the San Fernando Valley, primarily Sherman Oaks.  That's why I volunteer my time to help keep my community a nice place to live and work in. 

However, I feel like vultures are circling around us like downed prey. I realize that our relatively traffic-less part of Ventura Boulevard and laid back Valley lifestyle could soon be devoured by a pro-development City Hall. 

Of course, we will fight to keep that from happening. The Valley has long been known for active community involvement but, that's no excuse for sitting on the sidelines, no matter where you live and work.  

Frankly, our generally great So Cal weather almost makes for a good trade-off between our worsening traffic congestion, and degradation of a once-affordable quality of life.

For those yearning to escape into a swimming pool, our mostly sunny days means we actually get to take pleasure in doing something the City does right.  Namely, taking a swim in a nearby Olympic-sized swimming pool owned and operated by LA.

The fact is this City run facility works very well -- clean and clear filtered water, hot water in the showers, and convenient hours reminds me that Los Angeles is still capable of doing something beneficial for the public, at a relatively modest cost to them.

And, yes, I do take note that I am a contradiction -- I spend more time out of the water stating what needs to be fixed in Los Angeles than remembering to say some parts do work well, such as non-toilet water filled swimming pools.