DEPARTMENT OF HOW-DUMB-DO-THEY-THINK-WE-ARE

The mayor's own poll found that 53 percent of the people feel the city is "pretty seriously off on the wrong track," according to George Sanchez in the Daily News.No indication if anyone actually thinks the mayor is on the right track.

So what's the mayor's take on that: "Like all Americans, Angelenos are suffering the effects of the national mortgage crisis, high fuel and food prices, and are anxious for our national leaders to help hard-working families and not just the large Wall Street banks," said spokeswoman Janelle Erickson.

And LAUSD: 73 percent think it's doing a poor or just fair job.

Superintendent David Brewer's response: "That's nothing new."

LITTLE GIRL GUNNED DOWN IN LAWLESS GANG ATTACK IN SOUTH L.A. --
A witness told KNBC-TV that she heard the gunfire and then saw the girl being held by her mother. Capt. Dennis Kato said it appeared that the gunmen were firing at a group of male youths nearby.

The gunmen reportedly ran off and escaped through a nearby alley. The corner, which is near the LAPD's 77th Street Division station, was soon flooded by scores of police officers, who cordoned off the area and began searching for the attackers and interviewing witnesses.

ARNOLD TURNS THE STATE BUDGET FIASCO INTO A CIRCUS WITH A PHONY PLAN TO MAKE STATE WORKERS (TEMPORARILY) PAY FOR POLITICAL INCOMPETENCE

Brilliantly running up a $15 billion budget deficit even as state revenue soared, the govenor and the state legislature are now a month overdue in meeting their constitutional responsibilities to write a spending plan for the new fiscal year.

So why not create a constitutional crisis about something else and distract public attention from the real issue?

Great minds have guided Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to come up with a scheme to reduce the wages of 200,000 state workers to the federal minimum wage of $6.55  an hour to conserve cash in the treasury. The move, of course, is only temporary -- and probably impossible to do in actuality because of the way computers spit out paychecks -- and the workers will eventually get their full pay.

It's the big headline in the Times over a breathless story without context or irony -- a story that suggests exclusivity although Google counts 206 news articles on the subject already today.

The Democrats, innocent lambs and compassionate advocates of working people that they are, are outraged by the governor's stunt. They are prepared to defy his executive order. They are prepared to fight it in the courts and on the streets. They are prepared to do anything to distract attention from their own failure to act responsibly with the people's money.

Is it any wonder that many people are fed up with our government at all levels and most people have given up and pay no attention?

GANGS RUN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD, OFFICIALS SQUANDER YOUR MONEY -- ISN'T THAT THE PERFECT TIME FOR THE MTA TO VOTE TO SEEK A TAX INCREASE?

Excellent breakdown today by Steve Hymon on the MTA board voting today on yet another half-cent per dollar tax sales tax hike -- the third -- to fund transportation projects.

The board almost certainly will vote to put the $30 billion, 30-year plan on the November ballot despite the fact there is no agreement on what it should be spent for, despite the fact it would not generate enough money to complete most of the projects, despite the fact it was designed to give something incomplete to everybody just to get votes.

Still, the MTA has spent a fortune on polls and focus groups to give them confidence they can hoodwink the public into approving the tax in the middle of a recession. Besides, the contractors are hurting and need the business.

$14 MILLION IN YOUR L.A. HARBOR MONEY TO AMUSE CRUISE SHIP TOURISTS: IS IT A TRAFFIC STOPPER OR A TRAFFIC HAZARD?

With 100-foot high plumes of recycled water, the new one-acre, $14 million fountain at L.A.'s Harbor has San Pedro residents questioning the city's sanity. Officials, of course, think they've got a hit with cruise ship tourists who will love the opera music  that accompanies the watery display at the main entrance to the terminals near the Viincent Thomas Bridge where traffic has come to a halt.

MONEY GOES DOWN THE DRAIN AND POOR KIDS HAVE NO PLACE TO SWIM -- THAT'S WHY WE NEED A GANG TAX

Two years ago, it took an audit of the Department of Recreation and Parks to show half the city's 54 swimming pools had serious infrastructure problems and six were closed altogether. Fortunately, the audit also "discovered" $21 million in loose cash in the department's books which helped make some repair. Some of that money went to replace pipes at the Reseda poolwhich was damaged in the 1994 earthquake and closed in 2001. "But when workers filled the pool last week, some 250,000 gallons of water leaked out of an old steel pipe that was not part of the repair program," the Daily News reports. So the repair money went down the drain because the fixed the wrong pipes and now Councilman Dennis Zine wants to use the proposed gang tax to build a new pool.


BAD NEWS: FREEWAY FIX WILL MAKE STREET TRAFFIC WORSE;
GOOD NEWS: THERE'S NO MONEY TO DO THE WORK

Proving the news media matters, the state has spent hundreds of millions of dollars fixing the wretched 101-405 interchange and now has agreed with environmentalists on a plan for a new bridge from the 405 south to the 101 west that protects a corner of the wildlife refuge. The problem is traffic from Burbank Boulevard will be pushed onto local streets and residents are upset. On the upside, it's all talk since the state is bankrupt and has to raid transportation bond and tax money to pay salaries.

SHORT TAKES:

Steve Lopez says Locke High School in Watts is off to a promising start under Green Dot charter school management.

The Wall Street Journal has joined the pack with straight-faced coverage of Councilwoman Jan Perry's proposed one-year ban on new fast food restaurants while the whole council moves ahead on banning plastic bags at supermarkets. Mayor Sam draws a connection with the city's failure to deal with illegal immigrants who commit murder and other crimes.

L.A. city officials were warned Monday in a "high priority alert" from Chief Legislative Analyst Gerry Miller that a deal is near in the state legislature that will cost L.A. $150 million this year and create a budgetary -- and political catastrophe -- when next year's budget is put together in the spring.

"On top of the $350 million gap the CAO projected for 2010
during the budget this past spring, that could mean a total
hit to the City of half a billion dollars in fiscal year 2010," 
Miller wrote City Council members and their chiefs of staff.


"Below is some additional information about the proposal and
strategies calling and writing the governor and legislative
leaders. Anything you can do to contact the State and let them
know how seriously this will impact us and all cities would be
helpful. It is critically important to try and get the governor
not to pass an emergency resolution, which is the first step
in the borrowing. From the governor's statements, he is opposed
to the borrowing.  However, given the State's situation, there
will be significant pressure to put a plan in place very soon
and it is important to communicate our strong opposition."

The State could run out of cash in early August, and legislators are
considering borrowing against Prop 1A, but also Prop 42, Prop 63, 
Prop 10, and Prop 49.

The state Department of Finance "has prepared a scenario where they
could justify taking Prop 42 (for relief of transportation congestion)
without any obligation to repay. No one has seen the text of that scenario."

"One scenarios is that the legislature agrees to release far more Bond
money than originally planned, in an effort to back-fill other local
funds taken. The political problem is that voters were promised that
this was additional money, not back-fill money."

Miller's advice to city officials is to send letters to the governor
and key legislators.

Why that sounds almost like ordinary people pleading for mercy from our
high and mighty government officials, formerly known as public servants.

One of the interesting elements of this is that I've heard public speeches
by three city council members from different parts of the city recently use
almost the exact same language in describing the city's own budget crisis
was covered up raiding every dollar lying around and various tricks of
papering over the problem.

"You got to meet Lucille Saunders."  I must have been told that half a dozen times in the past few weeks. '"She's the one who gets things done."

At the Saving L.A. Project's Bastille Day rally at City Hall I did get to meet Lucille and spend a few minutes with her. My wife spent a lot of time with her and told me later, "You've got to really meet Lucille. She's amazing."

Lucille Saunders, psychotherapist in private practice and longtime community activist, has taken a bead on the No. 1 problem in Los Angeles: Out-of-control development without a coherent plan for making the city better for its residents, workers or businesses.

She's found the fatal flaw -- and she's trying to drive a stake through the heart of City Hall's corruption.

What has been going on for years as anybody who has paid the least bit of attention knows is that our public servants have been selling out the public interest to developers.

What Saunders has found is that City Hall is violating state law and the city's own general plan for development -- and the violations have been going on for a decade.

Saunders and the La Brea-Willoughby Coalition she leads sued the city last month with the help of attorneys Sabrina Venskus and Emilee Moeller. They don't want money, only for the city to obey the law. Here is the suit, click on the link to download:
labrea.pdf.

"We will not be diverted from what we're asking. We will not be co-opted," Saunders told me."There's audits and procedures required by law that must be done... or the city cannot know whether developing is outpacing infrastructure. The city hasn't followed the rules since 1998."

If Saunders wins, we ought to build a statue to her on the South Lawn of City Hall.

Victory would mean the judge imposes a moratorium on city approval of zoning changes and changes to specific community or the general plans until the monitoring and reporting is completed. It also would force officials to sit down at the table of power with the people and figure out what kind of city this is and how the quality of life can be improved for all and make sure new projects enhance, rather than degrade, the urban environment or face the consequences with an increasingly organized and effective electorate.

Naked City Rule No. 1: It doesn't matter what you know...It matters who you know
Tim McOsker, former chief of staff to Mayor Jim Hahn, has joined Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw in the law firm's government and global trade practice group, according to the Daily Journal. McOsker joins others at Mayer Brown with insider solid connections in LA. Former state legislators Bob Hertzberg and Dario Frommer and former Clinton Administration Cabinet member Mickey Kantor. McOsker cites the better commute for his move from Christensen, Glaser, Fink, Jacobs, Weil & Shapiro.


FORGET ROBBING THE RICH TO HELP THE POOR; IN L.A. WE ROB THE MIDDLE CLASS TO HELP THE RICH AND THE POOR

Former U.S. Sen. John Edwards joined Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa at the Yankee Apartment building in downtown Los Angeles on Monday to announce creation of the New Generation Fund, a $100 million program for affordable housing. There has long beeen a lot of questions about just what that means in a town like L.A. with the highest ratio of apartment dwellers and soaring rates, fees and taxes that squeeze the struggling middle class. "Fifty percent of L.A. families can't afford the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment," the mayor told KPCC. "Housing is the cornerstone of the American dream. But it's slipping through the fingers of too many working families." I wonder if that includes Candy Spelling, widow of TV mogul AAron Spelling, who paid a record $47 million for the top two floors of a Century City residential tower under construction.

 

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER BACK ROOM CITY HALL DEAL IN THE WORKS

Local neighborhood councils have had their eye on MTA's plans to turn the Orange Line parking lot into a mixed-use housing development but if they had a clue about what''s going on behind the scene they would be really worried. Rick Orlov in the Daily News reports JPL West is the front-runner to get approval from the MTA board. But there's heavy back room politicking going on with proposals from Henry Cisneros and Nick Patsaouras competing for the lucrative deal. And then there's the specter of the Valley's No. 1 fixer Councilman Tony Cardenas ready to step in. "They can choose who they want," Cardenas said. "But, when it comes down to it, the project has to go through the city planning process. That's where I will make my objections known."

WOULDN'T IT BE NICE IF WE ALL GOT PRIVATE WARNING LETTERS WHEN WE VIOLATE THE LAW -- LIKE LAWMAKERS

The state's (Un)Fair Political Practices Commission, in theory the public's watchdog on official corruption, has reached a new low with its decision to stop even the pretense of enforcing campaign finance laws. Patrick McGreevy in the Times reports the FPPC, now run by (who else?) ex-legislator Ross Johnson has decided electoral fraud isn't really worth more than a warning letter without public notice. Forget fines or prosecution. Under Johnson, the number of warning letters has jumped tenfold from 30 to 294, the amount of fines levied fallen in half.

IS THIS THE 21ST CENTURY? IS L.A. READY FOR BICYCLES ON THE STREETS?

The road rage incident that nearly killed a cyclist in Mandeville Canyon recently has sparked interest in whether L.A. ought to do something about safety on our broken streets. Martha Groves in the Times takes a look at the building controversy and notes the city has hired Alta Planning and Design, a transportation planning consultant based in San Rafael, Calif., to study the issue. "Los Angeles is a very challenging environment to ride in, given the condition of roadways, the storm grates that will eat your wheels, the lack of formal bike lanes or bike paths, and just a lack of respect and a lack of awareness from motorists about the rights of bicyclists," said Matt Benjamin, an Alta transportation planner. The starting point ought to be the Santa Monica's proposed transportation plan which seeks to slow vehicles, speed public transit and make the streets safe for cyclists and pedestrians of all ages.

DAN WALTERS GOES AFTER ANTONIO'S BROKEN PROMISE ON HIRING COPS

The top Sacramento commentator wrote about Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's vow to put 1,000 more cops on the city's dangerous streets and proposed to raise trash collection fees to provide the money. "Every new dollar residents pay for trash pickup," the mayor promised in a city news release, "will be used to put more officers on the streets." Walters think people ought to know he wasn't telling the truth.

Dressed appropriately for the occasion writer, performer and NPR commentator Sandra Tsing Loh, author of "A Year in Van Nuys" and public school advocate, speaks at the Saving L.A. Project's July 14th Bastille Day rally at City Hall.

KABC morning talk show host Doug McIntyre speaks to the Bastille Day rally at City Hall.

Green Dot Charter School head Steve Barr speaks to Bastille Day Rally

City Controller Laura Chick's remarks at the Bastille Day rally

Noel Weiss, an attorney long active in community affairs, speaks at the ralley

City Councilman Dennis Zine speaks at the Bastille Day rally

Clean money advocate Wayne Williams speaks to the Bastille Day rally

Videos by Michael Cohen

REAL ESTATE FIRM EXPOSES HOW SUBSIDIES MAKE THE RICH RICHER

David Zahniser in the Times tells the story of the real estate development firm, Bond Companies, which funneled $82,000 in contributions to city politicians and ballot measures and boasted in a 24-page brochure that it can generate huge profits. Its secret: Persuade city, state and federal officials to let them tap millions of dollars in taxpayer funds to subsidize their projects. In seeking investment capital from a city pension fund, the firm boasted that the $41 million in subsidies it's getting for Blossom Plaza, a mixed use development in Chinatown, will help it turn a 42 percent profit. CRA officials were red-faced and harrumphing about tighter rules. "It confirms my worst fears," said Robert Blue, who spent the last three years on the Hollywood Studio District Neighborhood Council. "Whatever the developers propose, whatever subsidies they request, it's all rubber-stamped."

DWP'S NAHAI DOES IT AGAIN: HOW TO NOT MAKE FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE

At a community meeting out in the High Desert, DWP GM David Nahai was booed and heckled when he tried to bull his way past opposition to running high-tension power lines near where people live instead of along Interstate 10. It's a long-running controversy and Nahai had to apologize for past DWP lies and deceits as he tried his usual technique of appearing to be sensitive to critics while trying to run roughshod over them. Here's a report from Ron's Log (no relation): "Mr. Nahai expressed some annoyance and frustration and occasionally became defensive at the fact that several people were not there to listen but only to say their piece, a piece which they may have mentally written well before this meeting and did not acknowledge what Mr. Nahai considers his own great openness and sensitivity to environmental issues. Mr. Nahai had better get used to that, or else just send PR flunkies to future meetings."




JITNEYS IN L.A.? WHAT A NOVEL (OLD) IDEA TO GET PEOPLE MOVING NOW

Mayor Sam ate at Dick Riordan's "Original Pantry" restaurant downtown and found inspiration to want to revive the former mayor's idea for jitneys to jockey people to wherever they want to go in a neighborhood -- an idea that's better than doing nothing for 25 years while the long overdue subway to the sea gets built.

It was all a bit surreal the scene at L.A. City Coilege on Saturday.

After a meeting of the Alliance of Neighborhood Councils, about 10 or so of us gathered to plot how the Saving L.A. Project (SLAP) will proceed in our effort to overthrow the government of Los Angeles. As we talked, over the loudspeakers in the background, came the voice of the king of the city, none other than Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who was praising himself and the several hundred young people who had spent a couple of hours participating in the mayor's "Day of Service."

Their worthwhile efforts were being rewarded with entertainment and  a catered lunch under the shade of rented tents compliments of  the Department of  Water and Power, now flush with extra cash thanks to hefty rate hikes, and Home Depot, anxious to win friends in its fight with Sunland-Tujunga residents, among other sponsors.

The mayor was in his best cheerleading voice as he talked about his commitment to selfless service while around the corner out of sight our small cadre of rabble rousers was debating whether it was right for those engaged in this civic-minded rebellion to use city facilities for our meetings sort of like Trotsky and Lenin asking to use Czar Nicholas' palace to organize the Russian Revolution.

I lost track of what Antonio was saying as a consensus formed in our group that this revolution of ideas to make L.A. a great city and the effort to organize the community to break the stranglehold on power by a corrupt insider political culture was not going to go hat in hand to beg for favors from City Hall.

Adding to the weird vibe at the Alliance meeting was the presence of Controller Laura Chick, increasingly stepping out from the pack at City Hall.

She opened the Alliance's program by voicing her disgust at the failure of the mayor and the City Council and the bureaucracy to do their jobs with even a modicum of competence and sense of public service.
 
The city has "no clear vision...no strategic plan" in case of an earthquake or terrorist attack despite million of dollars in grants to provide for public safety in a crisis, she said. It was a theme that came up over and over as she fielded questions about gangs, development, transportation and other issues.

A lot of people shared their issues and viewpoints at Saving L.A. Project's July 14th Bastille Day rally. Here's videos of part of my remarks.

Videos by Michael Cohen

A friend visiting from out of town wanted to play golf today so we headed over to Griffith Park and reached the ninth hole at Harding Golf Course where there's a snack shop surrounded by a large asphalt-covered area.

A city employee was hosing leaves off the asphalt and had been at his task for a long while from the looks of the mud puddles and mini-ponds forming downhill as he inched forward with his hose.

Isn't it illegal for you and me to hose down our driveways, or at least regarded as an anti-social waste of water, especially as we are faced with a water shortage crisis later this year and are being forced to pay higher rates so we can drink recycled toilet water one of these days.

Clearly, the rules that apply to ordinary people don't apply to the city. And that goes for just about everything. including the state open meetings law which city officials are enforcing ruthlessly against neighborhood councils even as the City Council cuts back room deals and routinely holds closed door meetings that violate the law.

My sensitivity to this waste of a precious resource was heightened recently by the continuing series of items at laist.com by Stephen Box on buses and other public agency vehicles left idling for long periods of time, presumably so drivers can stay cool and comfortable in the air conditioning.

He's taken pictures all over town of city, county and state vehicles left idling, waste=ing fuel that has gotten ridiculously expensive as we all know and polluting the air which is still the nation's dirtiest as we all know.

One of my favorite examples involves the Orange Line  buses that run across the Valley from North Hollywood to Warner Center. They are idling in the picture with the drivers chatting nearby so it's not the Valley heat that's the issue.

My pal Antonio missed his calling. With his gift for turning the truth on its head, he could have been the greatest salesman of his era. He could have been rich.

Of course, he does live like a rich man in an elegant mansion, surrounded by servants and gofers, chauffeurs and bodyguards, wined and dined at the finest joints, his every need looked after. First class all the way.

On "Which Way L.A.?" Wednesday night,  the master salesman sold a worn-out used city as if it were the hottest property in the world, his lackluster record as a gold-plated standard of achievement and his inattention to his job while jet-setting around the world --- well, it's a sacrifice that he makes for us.

He reminded me of the governor down South I knew who got caught taking bribes and proclaimed: "Sure I stole but I stole for you."

How an intelligent guy like Warren Olney could let him get away with this is beyond me, unless of course he was happy to let the mayor get away with murdering the truth.

I'm not going to make this easy for you and parse every sentence. It's too important that you listen to it yourself.

Olney did ask some tough questions but they turned into softballs because he didn't ask tough follow-up questions and certainly didn't provide the relevant facts that would have put the lie to the mayor's outlandish claims that he's a miracle worker who fixed the schools, got traffic moving, solved the gang problem and saved L.A.

OK, he actually said he's courageously tackled all those problems and is making great progress and would solve them all if only the penny-pinching public would give him the "resources."

The No. 1 point that Olney ducked in helping the mayor turn his re-election campaign into a coronation was the money.

There's the mayor's unchallenged claim that people from all over the world are donating the millions he needs to chase away challengers because they love L.A. Sure, a few might have some business they want to do in the city but really folks they're giving generously because they love this town.

How could anyone interview the mayor and not slam him for turning the biggest revenue surge in the city's recent history into the city's biggest budget shortfall in history?

OK, Ryan Seacrest did earlier in the day but Olney? It must be love.

How could anyone interview the mayor for most of half an hour and not tabulate all the fee increases and rate hikes and new taxes and not ask where all those hundreds of millions of dollars went?

Don't look to me for answers. I'm just an unemployed newspaperman with nothing better to do than ask some tough questions.

It was 1970 when Walt Kelly's Pogo first uttered that unforgettable phrase.

The Vietnam War had dragged on for years and sapped the nation's energy, divided it in half and left it paralyzed.

We have not recovered.

We are lost in another fruitless war. We still have no effective national health care system or immigration policy and little or no progress has been made in dealing with most of the nation's problems. A fundamental economic restructuring is going on and the government is timid and slow to react. The two political parties are more remote from the people at every level of government than ever. The public is more dissatisfied and fearful than ever.

And so we play the blame game. Blame Bush. Blame Arnold. Blame Antonio. Blame whoever you want. It's not going to change anything Just don't blame yourself.

As I see it, this is a free country and when we stagnate for 40 years and let ourselves be divided by a poltical system taken hostage by big labor and big moneyed interests, we have nobody to blame but ourselves.

And that's truer for the state of things in L.A. today than anywhere. I've played the blame game myself, probably a lot more than most of you. The corrupt culture of City Hall. The political careerists strutting around as if they were princes and princesses when they should be acting like public servants and doing the bidding of the people who put their trust in them.

From time to time, I've also made the point that the real problem is us. We accept their lip service and the smiles as if they were genuine and keep them in office. Powerless, we get preoccupied fighting over every narrow, local issue without looking up and seeing the same things are going on all over the city. We quarrel with each other over the rules of governance rather than charging in and doing something about the problems themselves.

The result is that people who know better sit on the sidelines believing nothing they do could make a difference. Most people pay no attention at all.

That's the way I see things and it's why I've proposed we set aside our differences and our egos and come together in a united front, a people's coalition, the Saving L.A. Project.

It isn't going to be easy to come together for the common good. There's no easy solutions to what's broken. I only know that talk is cheap, especially my own. That nothing good is going to come of this effort without those of you who have worked so long and hard for your communities buy into the idea that we can achieve more together than alone and take ownership of the Saving L.A. Project.

After all these years of preaching from above without actually having to do anything, I'm giving what I can and so are a lot of other people. For great things to happen, we're all going to have to look in the mirror and accept responsibility for our portion of what's gone wrong or we can keep on being part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

The enemy is us and we can do something about that. And if we do, we can start doing something big that matters, that is all-iniclusive, that forces our political, business and community leaders to partner with us.

That's what democracy and freedom are all about. That's what L.A. should be about.

By Anonymous Commenter

Graduate students looking for a master's thesis in political science or
journalism take note: Two incredibly important stories collided
yesterday in L.A. and their implications will dramatically help shape the
city in the next decade and beyond.

About 150 grass roots activists showed up for Ron Kaye's rally on the steps of City Hall. Directly across the street, the Los Angeles Times was firing an equal number of
journalists.

If you don't think these two events are connected, you haven't been
paying attention.

The Times, one of the city's most influential institutions, is being
wracked by a financial crisis that will change the newspaper forever.
If some people in Chicago - Chicago for God's sake! - get their way,
you won't even recognize it in a year.

If you are among the privileged classes who's depended on the paper to
cover your ass, forget it. That's over.

Meanwhile, the former editor from the city's "other newspaper," which
makes the Times' financial situation seem robust, uses the Internet to
organize a grass roots rally of activists fed up with City Hall. For a
city of four million, the blogging critics instantly pointed out, the
turnout was small.

But it would be a mistake to measure its importance by counting heads.
You've got to read the hieroglyphs:

 --  Why would three members of mayor's staff show up to monitor the
event, with the press secretary for the chief executive of the nation's
second largest city making the inane statement that the group and the
mayor were on the same side? Can't he read?

 --Why would Laura Chick, a City Hall denizen for nearly two decades
want to speak?

 --Why would Dennis Zine, who was ridiculed in Ron Kaye's blog less
than two weeks ago, show up with a silly shield and position himself as
sympathetic with a crowd that most council members privately consider
little more than annoying rabble?

 -- Why would reporters from throughout the city cover a meeting of 150
people in a city of 4 million?

 -- And why would anonymous comments on a variety of blogs clearly
indicate an organized campaign to discredit Ron Kaye?

Answer these questions in a well written thesis (spelling counts) and
you'll not only get an A, but you'll go a long way in understanding how
this shifting dynamic might just change the face of L.A. politics.

For those who came from every corner of L.A. to City Hall on Monday, something good and positive happened at the Saving L.A. Project's rally.

There was a feeling of belonging, of being among people like yourself who care deeply about the community they are part of, of being among people who have worked long and hard to make their dreams come true and kept alive their spirit in the face of official resistance and the apathy of so many.

For a couple of hours, they felt hope that they were there at the birth of a movement that finally would bring to life the real spirit of the city -- the spirit of the freest place on earth, a place where dreams really can come true.

These aren't people who dream of wealth or glamor or stardom or the pleasure of libidinal excesses. Theirs are more mundane dreams: Good schools, safe streets, healthy neighborhoods, a good life for themselves and others.

There were in all 200 or so people there, 135 signed up to be part of this people's coalition. Most of the rest already were involved.

Here's how the Daily News, Times and City News Service covered Monday's Bastille Day rally, which also got coverage local radio and TV news shows.

"The political institution of LA is corrupt," Kaye told a sizable crowd yesterday afternoon. "We've got to take them down and be the boss."

The crowd, which was mostly white and middle-aged, clapped, cheered, and egged Kaye on to say some more. It was the first public rally for the former editor's brainchild called The Saving LA Project, and it showed, at the very least, that a groundswell of frustrated citizens were now willing to speak up, organize, and hit the streets. The politicians will be watching Kaye's follow through.

Daily News:

Ex-editor holds  fix-L.A. rally

I've struggled mightily to find the words and ideas to hand you all the perfect Contract for a Great Los Angeles. But it's not that simple.

I only know what I know and I know others know a lot more than I. So let me share with you my ideas as talking points so you'll have time to think about it when we get together at the Saving L.A. Project's Town Hall meeting to turn this ad hoc group into an organization that will bring real democracy and change to our city.

We're shooting for Saturday Aug. 2 at a central location and a time to be announced.

For this to mean anything, for it to matter, we have to live and breathe the ideals of democracy and offer love and respect for each other, to find the common ground and strive together for something greater than ourselves.

That's what I believe, for what it's worth.

So as food for thought, I offer the best I've come up with as:

.Talking points for a Contract for a Great Los Angeles

To achieve an end to the dominance of narrow special interests in our governmental institutions, we call on all our elected officials to join with the people in signing the Contract for a Great Los Angeles.

For too long, City Hall and the Los Angeles Unified School District have failed to serve the public interest, manage the public treasury and provide the leadership needed to create a safe, prosperous and sustainable city.

To restore the faith and trust of the people, we put forth these demands:

I. Full support for remaking the public school system.

II. Put the people's interest above all others by officially recognizing that ownership of public institutions by the people is necessary to create great schools and great neighborhoods;

III. Open all government records, actions and dealings to the public in a timely manner.

IV. Toughen ethics and campaign finance laws and provide independent oversight and enforcement.

V. Expand the authority of neighborhood councils as the first reviewer and responder on local issues.

VI. Reduce the salaries of elected officials by 25 percent and political staff by 25 percent to bring them in line with other major cities, and increase the council to make districts smaller.

VII. Working with community groups, develop low-cost immediate traffic congestion solutions that balance interests of pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles while looking for longer term solutions that improve mass transit.

VIII. Create an independent Little Hoover Commission with subpoena power and the authority to investigate any aspect of city operations.

IX. Require new development to be environmentally sensitive, sustainable and consistent with the quality of life of the community.

X. Deliver real help to those who help themselves and place a high priority on home ownership and affordability of housing..

(This article was published Sunday in the Daily News.)

Taking back Los Angeles

By Anon2
This comment was posted today in response to earlier postings by Sandra Tsing Loh and Ellen Vukovich on to save L.A. public schools

I think everyone can agree that we would like to have the following, for free (or for our tax dollars and deductible charitable contributions), and within a short drive or walk of our houses:

1) strong academics
2) safe environment

Some would also like to have some diversity and less materialism and elitism, but others want the opposite on all three things (although few would admit that).

Regardless of exactly what we want, most would also prefer all of this was possible without much parental effort.  That is, if we could get away with it we would like to free ride on the efforts of others, including parents of prior generations of students who established such a great school.

A few would like nothing better than be involved at a micro-manager level, often to the detriment of their kids and the regret of their kids' teachers and principals, but that's another story and they are the exception.

All Sandra's saying, if I'm reading her correctly (and all I'm saying if I'm not) is that she found this latter preference was impossible to achieve within the LAUSD. 

The former goals, though, are not impossible in LAUSD if you are willing and able to get involved and if you do the work to investigate all of the options.  For instance, you may not be zoned for Emerson, and it may not be a magnet, but you can still apply to and go to the SAS program as a permit kid because there is space.  So, she (and I) have investigated and worked our way through the system and have found it is not as bad as it is described in the papers and by neighbors with distant recollections and it actually can be quite good (especially if you also want diversity and a lesser amount of materialism and elitism).

The impetuous fool in me came out a while back and I declared publicly I was going to engage in an act of civil disobedience and carry a bag of garbage down to City Hall on Bastille Day and deposit it as an act of civil disobedience.

Foolish I might be but I'm a man of my word and on Monday I'll bring a bag of garbage and leave it on the steps of City Hall as a symbol of protest, an expression of my anger over soaring trash and other fees and the declining quality of life in the city I love.

I've learned since I made that declaration that we don't need acts of civil disobedience to change L.A. from a city rotting in the failure of its leadership to a city rising on the energy of its people.

The outpouring of support from hundreds of dedicated people from all over the city who have worked so hard for so long to make our community better has helped me to see the light.

We have the numbers. We have the knowledge and the skill. We have the leaders in community groups of one type or another to take power from the special interests without acts of defiance.

Nothing but greed holds the power structure together and it will crumble in the face of a united community. Our elected officials are held hostage by the unions, developers and contractors who flatter their delusion of self-importance with the money that keeps them in office.

From the Eastside to the Westside, from San Pedro to the Valley, I've heard over and over similar stories of frustration with our city government and our elected officials, and with their neighbors hiding behind indifference and ignorance.

The issues may be different in different neighborhoods, in different communities of interest, but the experience is the same. We get the runaround while special interests are buying access and favors.

It's time to put aside the differences and find the common ground that brings us together as people, as residents of L.A., as people who want a great city with great schools and great neighborhoods.

The power structure has used these differences -- race, class, needs, values -- to keep us separated and weak, begging for crumbs from the table of power while the insiders feast on the city's wealth.

We need to change the system. We need to seize power and make our government accountable to us, to do what we want.

There's only one way for this happen. It's through a community coalition that is united in support of each other, united in demanding openness, honesty, accountability and respect for the people of the city.

This is America and the basic civil rights of the ordinary men and women of L.A. have been trampled upon for too long. We have a right to own our schools, our neighborhoods and our city.

On Monday -- Bastille Day when the French Revolution began more than 200 years ago -- people from every part of L.A. are coming to City Hall at noon to Take Back Los Angeles -- Demand A Great City.

We don't need garbage to symbolize our frustration. We need each other.

We'll listen to each other's stories of the failure of city government to serve us and the failure of the schools to serve our children. We'll talk about overdevelopment and bad development, traffic congestion and poor public transit and we will open the dialogue on how to solve these and so many other problems now and in the long run.

We need to learn from each other. We need to understand each other. And we need to come up with solutions that achieve the greatest good for the greatest number.

We know there are no easy answers. But through an honest and open public conversation we can do a lot better than what we've been doing.

Whether there are 30 of us or 300 come to City Hall on Monday, this will be the start of something big, something great. It's not going to come from high from the people in power. It's going to have to come from the grassroots, from you.

This rally is only the first step. We will follow up quickly with a town hall meeting to organize our coalition of the people. And we will build on that and grow more confident with each success and see those on the sidelines step forward into the public arena.

That's my dream anyway, fool that I might be. But I know now that there are others who share that dream and are willing to help make it come true.

Skeptical as he should be, Rob Eshman, editor-in-chief of the Jewish Journal, wrote a column  published online Wednesday under the headline Take back L.A. -- the theme of Monday's noon rally at City Hall -- based on the realization  that  "we're fast becoming a second-rate city."

Eshman observes "public safety is broken...education is broken...public health care is broken...transportation is broken...those Neighborhood Councils don't have enough power, the L.A. City Council and Board of Supervisors have too many constituents....."

He writes:

"Now there is a movement afoot to change that. The unlikely agitator is a middle-aged Jewish man in Woodland Hills, Ron Kaye.

"Kaye, the former editor of The Daily News, has put together the Saving L.A. Project (yes, SLAP). The idea is to inspire and empower citizen activists across the city to voice their anger at the way things are, and to come up with a "Contract for L.A." outlining a bold, future-oriented agenda for the city.

"The group will hold its first rally on Monday, July 14, at noon on the steps of City Hall. "People from around the city of Los Angeles will come together," reads the group's Web site, www.savingla.com, "to demand that our city leadership join the people in making Los Angeles a great city."

"I took issue with Kaye when he backed Valley secession back in 2002. It struck me as a misguided protest, whose end result would be to create another huge bureaucracy side by side with Los Angeles' existing one.

"But now I think he's onto something.

"'I came to the conclusion that the problem is us," he told me by phone. "We don't seize power. We let them use our money to run circles around us."

"'The Internet has leveled the playing field somewhat, helping citizens organize, spreading important local news in a town whose main paper has all but abdicated that role. Saving L.A. hopes to inspire "a lively public discussion," said Kaye, and stiffen the spine of leaders like Villaraigosa. "If we have enough energy and can define the agenda," he said, "maybe these people will do what they have to do."

"Monday, July 14, at noon Ron Kaye will be on the steps of City Hall -- mad as hell.

"I'll be there, too."

 

By Sandra Tsing Loh
(A writer and performer, Ms. Loh appears regularly on Public Radio's Marketplace with "The Loh Down" and on KPCC with "The Loh Life."  and has written several books, including "A Year in Van Nuys." This article was submitted as a comment to "Come back to LAUSD and make a difference.)

Thanks to all for a frank and amazing discussion, although I always
wonder what it means to comment "anonymously."  (Does that reflect a
fear LA's roving Armenian gangs will come after one online?  Presumably
the ones who don't graduate and hence cannot type?  We digress.)

All questions of morality aside, here is a practical flea's eye--or
parent's--view of the LAUSD.  In certain middle-class, educated,
more-tending-towards-white generation(s) before ours (I am 46 and my
daughters are elementary-aged), there was an unspoken assumption that
most urban public schools were the pits, and it was completely socially
acceptable to move to where the white people were or grab a silk-lined
parachute into private school.  The mentality was to each his own, and
the faster better-heeled families could pull that portcullis down
behind them the better.

Unfortunately, such dog-eat-dog thinking is a bit like strip-mining in
that it leaves behind, for the next generation of families, a blasted
dog-eat-dog landscape.  When I started looking at kindergartens for my
older daughter in 2004, houses in a "good school district" like La
Canada started at $1 million while tuition at a "good" private
kindergarten started at $15,000/year (now it's more like $20,000).
Such are the economics of fear which, while destructive for new
families with more than one child and limited incomes, are fabulous at
lining the pockets of Realtors, private schools, private school
"counselors," and (inadvertently) the city of Portland.

So that's why many of us have our children in the LAUSD.  We love this
city--its vitality, its energy and yes, its diversity--we're staying,
and we simply can't AFFORD to parachute our children out and away from
the world in which we live. 

Did you hear the one about the top L.A. water official who uses twice as much water as the average guy and wants other people to drink recycled water because there's not enough to go around?

Not funny? How's this: The head of the Long Beach water agency uses one-sixth as much water for his family of five as David Nahai, the head of L.A.'s DWP, does for his family of five.

I'm dying out here trying to get a laugh.

So not only does Long Beach water chief Kevin Wattier conserve himself but he's got the whole town doing it. Water consumption in Long Beach in June was at a 10-year-low for that month. It was 5.7 percent lower than any in June in a decade, 10.5 percent below the 10-year average and for that last 12 months Long Beach is using 7 percent less water than the average of the last 10 years.

Now that's funny, you got to admit. Especially when you know L.A.'s water use is just about at the average of recent years -- 2.4 percent lower than last year but 20.5 percent higher than two years ago.

So next time you hear the mayor, your City Council member or David Nahai talk about how "green" they are, you can laugh in their face certain in the knowledge that they are hypocrites and deceivers.

It's Long Beach that's green and every water official knows why. Kevin Wattier didn't talk about conserving water, he did something about it -- last September -- when he figured out that California is facing a water crisis. Demand exceeds supply and it's not a temporary problem.

"We're really in trouble," Wattier told me. "We need to make permanent lifestyle changes. Everybody in Southern California needs to permanently reduce their water use. We're at the tipping point and we need to face reality."

UPDATE Hope Boonshaft, head of Hill & Knowlton's L.A. office, said in an email that Steve Sugerman and his P.R. firm are not involved at all in the contract with the Harbor Department and will not be involved in any H&K dealings with the city or county of Los Angeles. "We have an alliance with The Sugerman group to help in our general public affairs and other offerings such as real estate and transportation ...but nothing in the City of Los Angeles...nor so far with any government," she said.

t seems like only yesterday that the city banned public relations contracts with private firms after the uproar over the DWP/Fleishman-Hilliard scandal but it's been three years so I guess the statute of limitations has run out.

What other explanation could there be for the recent approval by the Harbor Commission of contracts worth $1.3 million, and probably more over time, to well-connected public relations firms Hill & Knowlton and the Rogers Group. Insider connections and looking after pals? Money to burn with a $4 billion port expansion in the works?

I know $1.3 million doesn't sound like much these days but it's 50 percent more than the city could scrounge up to keep some parks in tough parts of town open until midnight this summer -- a program critics mock as an economic stimulus by spurring late-night drug sales by gang members.

And why shouldn't gangsters get rich if City Hall is going to pump money into P.R. firms that are going through a rough time during the economic downturn.

It makes me wonder if the hoodlums have the same kind of insider influence that helped the Rogers Group and Hill & Knowlton land the port contracts to do what sounds like pretty routine tasks properly done by the executives and officials of the Harbor who are handsomely rewarded for whatever it is they do.

Supposedly, these firms will "develop a public outreach and education program to promote its new Clean Air Action Plan...(and) develop additional efforts, and create an informational program to help the port get more federal funds for its programs," according to Rick Orlov's story in the Daily News.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is going to have to decide whether to go back to the bad old days and end the ban on these P.R. deals that was imposed after the DWP's sweetheart contract with Fleishman Hillard led to criminal investigations and the conviction of three of the P.R. firm's executives and a $6 million settlement from the company.

A city official recently took me to task for not balancing criticism of City Hall with praise for what it does right like picking up the garbage and patrolling the streets.

Well, I never thought  doing the job you  were  paid to do was all that praiseworthy but the mail yesterday brought information from the Department of Sanitation that does deserve some notice

It's called Smart Gardening Classes and includes free shade trees and subsidized compost bin sales ($20 for an $80 compost bin) along with classes in recycling and water-wise gardening. The program is available monthly at Griffith Park with special classes at Pierce College on July 19 and Eagle Rock Recreation Center on Sept. 20.

Information is available at www.lacity.org/san or by calling 213-485-2260. There, see I can say something nice if it makes L.A. a greener and better city -- even if it's subsidized by taxpayers.

Councilman Dennis Zine's Chief of Staff, Cliff Ruff, reports today that Planning Deputy Jonathan Brank has been assigned to deal with the illegal conversion of a house in my neighborhood into a tenement apartment. "He will expedite the citation through the process and demand City Attorney enforcement of the violations...It is our goal to fix it and hold the owners accountable."

UPDATE: Police intend to seek criminal charges against a motorist involved in a road rage  incident that seriously injured two cyclists in Mandeville Canyon on July Fourth. Laist.com has shocking photos and the story.

 You've heard the story now of how the city is destroying my neighborhood by passively standing by while a single-family house has been turned into a tenement apartment building and how commenters say the same thing is happening in their neighborhoods.

But did you know that golfers at city courses now have to show driver's licenses to prove they really are legal residents of L.A. even as City Hall resists asking for the same kind of proof from illegal immigrant gangsters who commit crimes, violent or otherwise.

And then there's the astonishing case of the LAPD's handcuffing and searching bicyclists for not having a front light -- one of a growing number of incidents logged at laist.com that suggests the LAPD has decided cyclists, not gangsters, are the real menace to our society.

SoapBoxLA.com reported on the incident that occurred last Wednesday in Hollywood and it seemed so outrageous I decided to call the cyclists involved myself.

The story involves a high-tech software developer, a young woman and a UCLA doctoral candidate in mathematics who were cycling home from Echo Park to the Westside when they were treated the way the LAPD used to treat hoodlums in its militaristic glory days under Daryl Gates.

The cyclists -- Alex Thompson, Paul Bringetto and Andrea Tzvetkov -- saw a Latino man slowly riding his bike being pulled over and handcuffed. They didn't know the man but they decided to stop and observe what was happening because that's the protocol adopted by activists who are demanding a Cyclist Bill of Rights.

Officers Corona and Stine did not like being watched and certainly didn't like Bringetto asking what was going on.

"It's like they equate bikes with poverty and poverty with criminals and think they can get away with anything," said Thompson, the doctoral candidate who will be blogging about the incident today at Westside BikeSide, an activist website.

He recalled Corona telling Bringetto, "Mind your own business."

Bringetto: "What did he do wrong?"

Corona: "Don't move. Stay there."

Bringetto: "We're just here to observe."

Corona: "You're going to jail."

Chapter Four: Zine's cop-out

Much of city government took days off in advance of the holiday so I was lucky to run into Councilman Dennis Zine who had the first shot at stopping the illegal conversion of a single family house in my neighborhood into a three-unit apartment building

It was Thursday night and I was a guest on "Primetime Zine," the councilman's monthly talk show hosted by Lee Kanan Alpert on Time Warner Cable's public access channel. The invitation came before I found out Zine was one of the suspects in the mystery of who was killing my neighborhood.

With American flags flying from atop his SUV, Zine pulled into the Time Warner Cable parking lot and strutted up to me with two aides in tow. He wore an American flag tie, had an American flag lapel pin and carried a flag in his hand and was in the mood for a fight, if not a revolution.

I told him I was going to bring up the illegal conversion on air, that my neighbors were frustrated that neither he nor other city officials seem to take the issue very seriously and were so upset they were signing petitions.

"You're wrong. They have a permit," he snapped, insisting his staff did all it could by referring my neighbors' complaint back in March to the Department of Building and Safety. (My neighbor, a retired doctor, doesn't share that point of view, having spent hours waiting in Zine's office in a futile effort to actually talk to the councilman).

They have a permit to illegally convert a house into an apartment? And all you did was refer the complaint to Building and Safety?

"It's right here in the Building and Safety files," he said, waving printouts downloaded by a staffer. "We looked into it today and it's all perfectly legal. You're wrong."

What ensued was a heated discussion between two people who have had a lot of heated arguments over the years but still get along in a funny sort or way given the volatile nature of their personalities.

By Ellen Vukovich

Community correspondent

I have a small proposal which could have large implications for changing LAUSD schools. At minimum, it would stir things up. At maximum, it might even succeed.  

Imagine if parents with children in private schools enrolled them in their neighborhood public schools. Instead of paying tens of thousands for school tuition, they could donate one-half of that money to help to pay for what LAUSD no longer provides -- like supplies, art, music and shop classes along with some field trips.

This is key: Parents could take the time and dedication they currently lavish on private schools and do the same for their children's new schools.

Can you imagine if every neighborhood school was filled to the brim with parents and children that way? Can you imagine how that would inspire the teachers and staff?  Students might be inclined to want to learn. 

Over the last few years, friends have told me of their experiences with their children going to private schools. Excellent academic programs. A strong support system thanks to active parent participation. Catered lunches.  Themed parties and after-school events.

I went to LAUSD schools and we had some of that too.

UPDATE: laist.com riffs off of Lopez column and mentions the Bastille Day rally, observing, "The Saving L.A. Project seems to directly answer everyone's questions when it comes down to what's wrong and how to fix it: While we need great leaders, we need each other more."

L.A. Times star columnist Steve Lopez visited Chicago recently and was struck by the dynamism of  a city with strong leadership and the will to make things better -- a sharp contrast to what he sees happening in our city.

In his column Sunday,  Lopez asks a series of rhetorical questions to show just how big a difference there is between the city of Big Shoulders and what we all might agree is our city with no guts -- views that are similar to what I wrote about after my recent visit to Chicago.

He writes about how Chicago, under the leadership of Mayor Richard Daley, gets things done while L.A. under Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa languishes. "(Villaraigosa''s) self-induced loss of momentum, along with funding shortages and a City Council that never veers from its quest for mediocrity, have conspired to knock the shine off Antonio's Holy Card smile."

Lopez and I spoke at length Thursday about this tale of two cities and he mentions the Bastille Day July 14 rally at noon at City Hall, calling the idea of leading a public revolt -- in the absence of real leadership by our elected officials -- "the least rewarding of all L.A. challenges."

He closes by saying, "OK, I'm all for revolution. But at least for a while, couldn't we work out an exchange program in which we trade Villaraigosa for Daley and see what happens?

His skepticism is appropriate until enough of us come together and demonstrate we can force City Hall to respond to our concerns instead of giving us lip service and the special interests our money.

The publicity for the rally is welcome. We've printed up thousands of fliers to promote the rally and we need people to distribute them far and wide so email me and we'll figure out how to get some to you. I can also send you an email copy of the flier and the letter that community activists are sending out all over town.

From Boyle Heights to Westchester, from West Hills to San Pedro, people are committed to coming down to City Hall on Monday July 14th. There is your chance to shake the foundations of City Hall and begin the process of bringing real democracy to L.A. and empowering the communities to stand up together to a failing power structure.

Take Back Los Angeles -- Demand A Great City. Join the Saving L.A. Project.

What can you say about the Fourth of July, American Independence Day, that isn't already a cliche?

The only thing I can think of is to say something about the hundreds of people I've met since I left the Daily News and gotten out in the community as an ordinary citizen. Sure, I knew there were a lot of people who really want to make our city great but I didn't really understand just how many, just how hard they have worked, just how much they know and just how frustrated they are by the resistance of City Hall.

It's what triggered in me the belief that if we all came together -- the people of all backgrounds, all beliefs, all races and religions -- we can beat the problems we face and make life better for us all.

OK, it's a cliche but it's my cliche and I believe it. So listen to this Frank Sinatra version of the song that embodies that for me:
Frank Sinatra - 05 - The House I Live In (That's America To Me).mp3

Chapter Three: Westside Rentals

One of the mysteries that befuddled me about this case was how a single-family house became three apartments with six bedrooms, four bathrooms, three kitchens and a studio apartment. In 2,047 square feet. With a combined rental asking price of $5,500.

No, it's not exactly solving the affordable housing problem but it does prove people can live in incredibly small spaces like ants.

My investigation took me to Westside Rentals, the company with the sign in front of the illegal conversion that's threatening the well-being of Tract 17111, my neighborhood.

If you believe the L.A. Times, Westside Rentals provides a great service to the public and is a very successful business allowing landlords to put up listings free and charging prospective tenants $60 to see them. In a story on May 2 under the headline "How I Made It," the Times informed us that owner Mark Verge's Santa Monica-based company employs "80 people and lists about 20,000 apartments, houses and rooms for rent."

No mention is made that at least three of those listings at the time were for an illegal conversion that had been cited by the Department of Building and Safety for construction without a permit

Verge said his first big purchase when he got rich with his westsiderentals.com website was a $50,000 race horse named "Hide from the Bride" and he dreams of doing a reality TV show called "Rental Man" His motivation for getting into the rental listing business was pretty idealistic: "The business had a really bad name to it."

Since he is an idealist who advises "Meet everyone and treat them all the same" I figured I'd give him a call and see if he could take me through how the owners of this house found two tenants already and are looking for a third for the big unit, three bedrooms, two baths, $2,095 a month -- a $400 drop in the original asking price.

I asked to talk to Verge , explaining I was a journalist, and was immediately put through to Kevin Miller, head of operations, who was cordial and open about the fact the company is merely a go-between. Landlords put up their listings, people search the listings, contact the landlord and decide whether to rent the house or apartment.

"It's all their own business," he said. "We don't get involved at all."

I noted the contract people agree to when signing up is extremely long and detailed and frees Westside of all responsibility. So what happens when there are complaints, I asked.

"We don't get involved in that. It's all 'he said,' 'she said.' You got to take it with a grain of salt. We're not the police."

I'm a newspaperman, or was for 44 years, and it's painful to see what's happening.

My paper gets thinner and thinner and the staff gets smaller and smaller to the point people who work at the Daily News and people who read it wonder if it can survive. It's happening all over the country as advertising revenue dries up and it happened today, again, at the L.A. Times.

The Times' announced today that it will cut the space in the paper by 15 percent and lay off 150  editors and reporters, about 17 percent of its staff. It will bring the total editorial staff to about 700, compared to the peak of 1,200 a few years back.

For those who lose their jobs -- and I had to look a lot of them in the eye when I told them their jobs at the Daily News were being eliminated -- it's a personal catastrophe. There's not a whole lot of jobs that use the same skill sets. There's not a whole lot of jobs that are as much fun as newspapering.

Many papers will not survive the current problems or become little more than small, very local news operations online and in print.

But the Times is in a class by itself. A lot of its resources are tied up in news gathering in faraway places around the world, around the nation, that are expensive operations and of lower value to most readers. Despite its pretentions, The Times after all is not the New York Times or Wall Street Journal or Washington Post for that matter.

You can bet a lot of the cuts will come from out of town news operations and for the first time in nearly 50 years the Times will have to become a Los Angeles newspaper.  I have said many times, not without some irony, that the Times is criminal in its neglect of L.A., its lack of vision for Southern California, and that it would be a better paper with 600 reporters and editors than it was with 1,200.

Few in the business agree with me and the whining and caterwauling you'll hear over these cuts will drown out all contrarian views.

Twenty years ago, I produced a story at the Daily News headlined "City of Lmits" that spelled out how a century of growth at any price must come to an end -- the nation's dirtiest air, worst traffic congestion, sprawl over five counties, soaring poverty, loss of good-paying jobs, gang-infested neighborhoods -- imperiled the Southern California dream.

I still think that story by reporter Karen West was the truest and most important story I was ever involved in.

Not much has changed in the last two decades. In fact, the problems have gotten worse. And the city, county and state have done little or nothing to develop strategies to deal with these issues.

Growth at any price is still at the heart of public policy despite the lip service occasionally paid to the environmental and quality of life issues.

And to me that's a crime. It's why I so passionately believe that only a grassroots movement, a people's revolution, can turn things around. It's why I'm hoping we'll get a large crowd to City Hall on July 14 to launch a concerned citizens coalition that can snowball into a region-wide movement that will seize control of the political system and turn things around.

I know a lot of people believe that's a pipedream. So be it. A lot of people also believe it's the only strategy that will create a balance of interests and power between labor, business and the communities.

At the heart of the problem is the belief that we always have to have more and newer instead of enough and better.

I caught up with the neighbor lady Monday. It was hot, like only the Valley can be, when I walked to the corner and took a look at the house illegally converted into apartments.

There was a guy who didn't look all that healthy trying to get his car started in the driveway and sign in front: For Rent, Westside Rentals. I wrote down the phone number.

As I talked with my neighbor I looked around her house. It was filled with memories and memorabilia of the 50 years she and husband had lived there. A good life, the house they raised their children in and sometimes look after their grandchildren in now. It was home, she said, and I knew what she meant.

I hadn't had a home, a real home, since I was 18 until I moved into Tract 17111 as it's identified in government documents. For my wife and I and our son, our little bungalow was home, too, a happy home. It's what the Valley is all about, middle-class tracts like ours where neighbors know each other and look after each other, where people from all over the world, people of every race and religion live quietly and unpretentiously, in harmony.

And someone was trying to destroy that, infecting a deadly virus, a broken window, into our little piece of paradise. It's a crime these things are happening.

That's certainly how my neighbor feels about this. She was calm but clear as she described her frustration over months to get this attack on our way of life stopped by the city, by Councilman Dennis Zine's office, by somebody. But to the city it was nothing but a minor annoyance, just a routine "unapproved construction" problem -- no an attack on the quality of our lives, our neighborhood.

She and some other neighbors got the runaround from Zine's office and the bureaucrats for weeks as they tried to figure out how to get somebody to do something.

Finally, they drew up a petition that says in part:: "This community and others like it will not exist if investor-buyers succeed in violating zoning laws to create multiple family dwellings in single family dweIling zones and utilize schemes such as deliberate re-sales to associates, friends, and/or family, in order to delay government action."

I was hooked. Foul play was alleged. I loved the idea of playing a journalistic Columbo right in my own backyard but as we talked I learned my neighbor already had the part of Mrs. Columbo down pat.

My wife was out on her early morning jaunt through the neighborhood with Bruno the beast this morning and couldn't help noticing -- news maven as she is -- the number of drivers chatting away with cell phones at their ear.

It is after all the first day of the rest of our lives with our hands free, even though our minds may be far away in conversation.

And then she saw the motorcycle cops, red lights flashing, with victims pulled over to the side of the road.

Being the kind of person she is -- a cell phone hater -- she couldn't help commenting to one of the cops about the latest add-on to his role as server and protector of society.

"Just trying to save lives," he told her, with a friendly smile.

So watch yourself out there, friends, it's dangerous. The phone police are on the job -- and don't get hit by a stray bullet from some street thug. 

Chapter One

I'd suspected something was amiss for a while but until I heard the knock on the door I looked the other way like everybody else.

It was Saturday and there was a neighbor lady standing there. She held a piece of paper in her hand.

"Do you know what's happened?"

Bruno was going crazy, yowling and lunging at the screen door with the full force of that giant head of his, 60 pounds of pit bull/shar-pei fury. Damn, I wish my wife had never taken him in from the bushes just because she thought he'd kill somebody.

"Shut up, Bruno," I yelled to no avail.

The woman was unfazed.

"You know that house they turned into a board-and-care facility five, six years ago. The one at the corner? It's been converted into three apartments with kitchens and baths. It's illegal. Did you see who's moving in? We can't get the city to do anything ."

I perked up. This was my beat. I stepped outside, yelled at Bruno one more time and said: "You've knocked on the right door, ma'm. My name is Ron. Maybe I can help."

She and another lady were going door to door with petitions. They'd been trying for months. It's an illegal conversion. It's got to be stopped.

I got the picture clear enough. Our tract of modest bungalows on the Valley floor was threatened. Quiet streets, no through traffic, no crime, nice people. The only time we see a cop is when our next door neighbor comes by.

"I'm busy," I told her. "We'll talk."

To be continued....