Gridlock at the “crossroads between the past and the future”
The Daily News, under the headline “Transit tax drive picks up speed,” takes a favorable look at MTA’s $40 billion sales tax hike in terms of what the Valley’s $1 billion share for public transit through Sepulveda Pass. Monorail, subway, light rail of busway,
it doesn’t seem to matter much. No criticism is offered for the project that won’t be completed until 2038 — if there’s any money left. County Supervisors Mike Antonovich and Gloria Molina the MTA plan is so faulty they want to write the ballot arguments against it. “County residents in the San Fernando, San Gabriel, Crescenta, Santa
Clarita and Antelope valleys – and the Gateway Cities and East Los
Angeles – will reject this poorly constructed, unfair proposal,”
Antonovich said That raises the question about whet the mayor meant when he said yesterday that “the residents and commuters of Los Angeles County are at a crossroads between the past and the future.” Apparently, the crossroads is on the Westside where most of the money goes.
Put aside the sweetheart deals and the question is: Is Raj qualified to run the DWP?
At CityWatch, community activist Jack Humphreville gets in the last word for now at least on DWP’s Chief Operating Officer Raman Raj. It’s not the unprecedented $152,000 signing bonus GM David and the commissioners approved, the $247,000
salary, the $116,000 in fringe
benefits or the apparent conflicts of interest that bother him. It’s not that he got a six-figure payoff when the DWP fired him back in 2001. It’s Raj’s lack of qualifications for the job. “Where was the Board of Commissioners in this? Where was Jan Perry’s
Energy & Environmental Committee? Where was the City Council? Where
was the Mayor?”
City Hall’s uncivil war: Rocky vs. the Lioness
The Times gives more extensive front page coverage to the Russia-Georgian war today than it did to the first day of the riots after the Rodney King verdict but no a word about the civil war at City Hall. So much for owner Sam Zell’s insistence the Times actually start covering local news. Controller Laura Chick’s fight to conduct a performance audit of City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo’s handling of worker compensation cases turned into armed conflict with Rocky suing to stop her, claiming she doesn’t have to right to audit his office and used her audits as “opposition research” to help Villaraigosa beat Jimmy Hahn in 2005 and more generally for “a personal, politically motivated purpose.” For her part, Chick wants the City Council to clarify the law and insists she’s just trying to make sure taxpayer money is spent well, The Daily News quotes her as boasting, “I’m a tigress! I’m a lioness!”
Maybe the voters are wising up to the city, county and state’s ‘tax and not spend it on what it’s dedicated to’ policies.
The Daily News daily poll asks: Would the sales-tax increase make your life better?
I don’t know why they posed the question that way, but they did, and apparently 90.0-percent of the the 33 people who voted answered with a resounding NO.
And they voted that way for good reason besided the above mentioned.
The transit projects won’t be up and running until 2038 — so for 30 years traffic will crawl through construction zones making driving life a pure hell.
Regarding the DWP/Nahai/Raj situation: All need to be S.L.A.P.ped upside the head. The only reason that the DWP continues to get unquestioned approval or whatever it wants is because it is the Mayor’s and the City Council’s cash cow. Please do not forget about all of those millions of dollars each year that are approved and transferred to the general fund as “excess,” just before the demand and subsequent approval of your next rate increase. When are we going to wise up, people. Take back control of your City. S.L.A.P. those fools and get their attention. Then, kick their backsides out!