To be perfectly honest, I never quite trusted Hal Bernson, the longtime councilman from the Northwest Valley.
For one thing, Hal admired his council contemporaries from his early years, men who engaged in more than a few visible deals that stunk. And for another, Hal had a few stinkers of his own.
Greasing the skids of government never has bothered me as much as nothing getting done that benefits the public. In that regard, Hal on a few occasions would challenge my criticisms with a lecture about how well the city operated to get done what people wanted. He was particularly eloquent when discussing the efficiency with which garbage trucks came by every week right on time and, he would note, it didn't cost homeowners a dime.
I bring this up in the context of my call yesterday that we protest the city's new policy of double taxation for trash pickup by going down to City Hall on Bastille Day July 14 and putting a bag of garbage on the steps as an act of civil disobedience. My good friend Teddy says we should call it the "L.A. Tea Party."
There's good reason to choose garbage as our symbolic tea. L.A.'s trash policy itself fails the smell test.
The problem isn't the picking up of the trash regularly but how much it costs and what happens to it afterwards.
All anyone should want in this regard is cheaper and better.
Private trash haulers do the job cheaper than the city and that becomes especially true when you look at the billions of unfunded liability the public faces to provide lifetime health care and lucrative pensions to city workers.
And then there's the issue of better. The city faces staggering long-term landfill costs to dump trash at Sunshine Canyon Landfill -- something arranged with the duplicitous connivance of Bernson and his friends -- and elsewhere in a manner that is environmentally destructive and largely unnecessary.
This is the 21st century and the technology is in use all over Europe to turn trash into energy, to recycle massive quantities of refuse and minimize the use of landfill space.
Ironically, Bernson's longtime aide and now successor, Greig Smith, is leading L.A.'s efforts to join the modern world. I've made fun of his taking a bunch of council aides on a $250,000 junket to Europe to see how modern trash policy works.
It's hard to see what he or others will learn other than the fact the dollar is not the Euro and doesn't go far in France or Germany.
The plain fact is that by privatizing garbage collection and using advanced technology, we could have cheaper, better and greener service than we have to today or the city has plans for tomorrow.
And that's a big part of the reason we should take provocative actions to force City Hall to put public policy ahead of private interests.
All anyone should want in this regard is cheaper and better.
Private trash haulers do the job cheaper than the city and that becomes especially true when you look at the billions of unfunded liability the public faces to provide lifetime health care and lucrative pensions to city workers.
And then there's the issue of better. The city faces staggering long-term landfill costs to dump trash at Sunshine Canyon Landfill -- something arranged with the duplicitous connivance of Bernson and his friends -- and elsewhere in a manner that is environmentally destructive and largely unnecessary.
This is the 21st century and the technology is in use all over Europe to turn trash into energy, to recycle massive quantities of refuse and minimize the use of landfill space.
Ironically, Bernson's longtime aide and now successor, Greig Smith, is leading L.A.'s efforts to join the modern world. I've made fun of his taking a bunch of council aides on a $250,000 junket to Europe to see how modern trash policy works.
It's hard to see what he or others will learn other than the fact the dollar is not the Euro and doesn't go far in France or Germany.
The plain fact is that by privatizing garbage collection and using advanced technology, we could have cheaper, better and greener service than we have to today or the city has plans for tomorrow.
And that's a big part of the reason we should take provocative actions to force City Hall to put public policy ahead of private interests.
Ron Kaye is the former editor of the Los Angeles Daily News where he spent 23 years helping to make the newspaper the voice of the San Fernando Valley and fighting for a city government that serves the people and not special interests.
Twice in recent years, Los Angeles Magazine listed Kaye among the city’s most influential people, specifically in the area of politics. Kaye has been variously described in the media as the “accidental anarchist,” “the Patrick Henry of the San Fernando Valley” and a “passionate populist.” He is now committed to
carrying on his crusade for a greater Los Angeles as an ordinary citizen. Previously, Ron worked at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner,
Associated Press, Cleveland Plain Dealer and The Australian as well as papers
in Fairbanks, Alaska and Yakima, Wash. He also wrote for Newsweek magazine, The Guardian in London and the National Enquirer.
This applies to yesterday's and today's postings.
I'm not sure enough people can be attracted to trash City Hall's steps, appealing as the idea is.
Hell, we can't even get them out to vote, [22% statewide; a more abysmal 16.48% in L.A.County] and when L.A.'s numbnuts do vote, they vote in their own worst interests, like being conned and lied into passing the phoney phone tax.
I admit it; it took everything I had to drag myself and the dog to the mile-away voting station.
If eminent domain and protest votes against Bloomenfield, Waldman and Cooley hadn't been so important to me, I wouldn't have shown up.
Lot of good it did. Bloomenfield and Cooley won, but the Levine protest vote for Pavley did work. But who really knows anything about her.
Sonny Sardo couldn't best the entrenched David Dreier, and when Sheila Kuehl's termed-out number comes up, it's a foregone conclusion that which ever Democratic political croney is picked to take her place, he or she will be elected.
Ron - you said "It's hard to see what he or others will learn other than the fact the dollar is not the Euro and doesn't go far in France or Germany."
Don't you read the LA Times??? Or your own (former) newspaper???
Greig Smith's RENEW LA initiative is already well under way. The city council has adopted it as city policy, and the first conversion technology plant is expected to be built by 2010. This will reduce the trash going to the landfill, raise money, create jobs, benefit the environment, etc.
See what the world has said about Greig Smith's RENEW LA Plan is doing for L.A.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Renew+LA%22
I missed the move of City Council to accept Greig Smith's RENEW plan so now I congratulate Greig for accepting the onerous responsibility of his District 12. A refreshing change from Hal Bernson... It has been a long, long time.
As for the negative comments, we don't need false loyalties, the L.A. TEA PARTY is going to take place and I will help in every way, Ron.
Machine politics are so negative because they benefit only the few who are the promoters. This country was founded on the principle that all of us are created equal, that we all have inalienable rights - that of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
If you are presently "a user" of the people, quit while you are ahead.
Why should you? Because you have been aided and abetted by ignorance promoted in the LAUSD which kept most of the people defenceless against your nefarious scheme of self-aggrandizement. We need to break up this monster of a District so that education takes place.
The popular word today in politics is CHANGE.
IT IS TIME FOR A CHANGE RIGHT HERE STARTING WITH CITY HALL. THEY NEED TO PAY ATTENTION TO IMPROVING OUR CITY NOT CONTINUING TO USE IT AS THEIR PRIVATE PLAYGROUND. Teddy Howell, Council District 12.