Deflecting blame for the city’s money woes on “forces and factors outside” his control, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa ordered a series of “belt-tightening measures” Tuesday to try to reduce a looming $110 million budget deficit this year and a $400 shortfall next year.
The mayor’s memorandum to department heads, the City Council and other top officials praises cost-cutting efforts undertaken already and tosses around phrases like “prudent, focused and multi-faceted,” “hard work and sacrifice,” and “conservative revenue forecasting and expenditure discipline.”
But those efforts are not enough, he said, because the city “has had to endure enormous financial challenges” caused by the national housing and credit crunch, failure of financial institutions and the stock market declines.
In addition, his budget underestimated the cost of gas prices and lawsuits by $55 million and overestimated revenue by the same amount.
The six-page memo called “FY 2008-2009 Belt Tightening Measures” AVBudget.pdf contains seven directives to department heads but it contains no drastic steps such as layoffs or cuts in public services.
Instead, he urges them to limit hiring and overtime to essential needs; suspending general fund purchases for furniture, equipment and computers; raiding infrastructure investment funds as has been done often in the past; cutting back on mailings; speeding up grant and bond funds recovery and seeking $2 million from signage on the Convention Center and $38 million from selling the Mangrove site.
He called these steps “but a part of the extraordinary measures we must take to address our projected year-end deficit.”
But taken as a whole his actions seem like window-dressing for a mayor seeking re-election right at the time next year’s budget must be put together rather than a tough CEO prepared to brave criticism for imposing austerity measures that would get ahead of problems of declining revenue and rising costs.
The giveaway is his plan to go ahead with a 3.9 percent cut in business taxes on Jan. 1. He called it a “stimulus” even as he is seeking tax hikes on the general public on the Nov. 4 ballot and his administration plans on imposing a 13 percent water rate hike on Jan. 1. Clearly, one of his goals is to keep the business community on his side — something that could be vital to his re-election if developer Rick Caruso who runs a multi-billion-dollar corporation jumps into the race.
The mayor’s strategy all along has been to raise so much money — now nearly $2.5 million — that he can scare off well-funded challengers and avoid a runoff election campaign in March and April when more severe actions likely will be needed.
Besides going forward with the business tax cut, Villaraigosa suggested a series of other actions that should be taken::
* Limiting fee waivers for special events
* A 10 percent reduction in water and power use in city buildings
* Voluntary furloughs by city employees
* Advertising revenue on the city’s public access computers and at its wi-fi locations
* Reviewing existing contracts for possible savings
* Reducing fuel consumption and replacing gas-guzzling vehicles with higherf-mileage ones.
“Working together, creatively and wisely as we have, I know that we can all meet the current fiscal challenges,” he concluded
“…The giveaway is his plan to go ahead with a 3.9 percent cut in business taxes on Jan. 1…”
Probably the only rational thing he’s actually going to do.
Los Angeles is notorious for its’ anti-business atmosphere at City Hall, with its’ over-regulation, and over-taxation of anyone who has the temerity to attempt to open/grow a business and actually hire people to do work.
As usual, AV has his head up his backside and there is nothing viable there.
Correct me if I am wrong, but aren’t talks starting soon for LAFD and LAPD contracts?
Also, on the property tax increase…opps, the parcel tax increase, is there a lockdown provision on that measure ensuring the monies will be going to deal with the gangs or???
The March, 2009 election cannot come too soon!!!
We must end this reign of terror and cut off the head of the snake! Villar belongs in prison! He should be indicted, tried, and convicted on RICO charges, gross dereliction of duty, gross malfeasance, and gross mis-appropriation of funds!
Rumors are that Rick Caruso will throw his hat in the ring, and for the first time in almost four years…I feel optimistic…euphoric!
If Villar is defeated, I will take up a collection to have City Hall fumigated! This has been the worst period in the history of L.A. on every level.
get rid of this chump and his cronies like rudy montiel in the housing authority. cant you dumbmies see the game and the rip off of this city wth these mafiosa style crooks
FACT SHEET:
William Ayers – Barack Obama
Background: William Ayers was a member of the Weather Underground, a radical leftist group that from 1969 to the mid-’70s conducted several bombings of government institutions. Ayers served on the group’s Central Committee. The Weather Underground bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, military installations, and police stations. In all, seven people were killed. In 1981, two police officers and one security guard were killed by members of the Weather Underground in the robbery of a Brinks truck in New York state. After Ayers married Bernardine Dohrn, also a member of the Weather Underground (who was described by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover as “the most dangerous woman in America”), they settled in Chicago.
Fact: Starting in the mid-’90s, Ayers and Obama served on the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge Project. They served together on the board for approximately seven years. Ayers and Obama were tasked with the oversight of a $100 million budget. The board, under Obama’s chairmanship the Annenberg project gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to Bill Ayers’ projects promoting alternative schools.
["Anderson Cooper 360," CNN, Oct. 6, 2008]
Fact: In 1995, Ayers and Dorn opened their Chicago Hyde Park home to host a political coming-out party for Barack Obama, when he ran for the state Senate. Someone who was at this party for Obama wrote that Ayers and Dohrn were launching him, “introducing him to the Hyde Park community as the best thing since sliced bread.”
[Politico.com, Feb. 22, 2008]
Fact: From 1999-2002, Ayers and Obama served together on a second charitable foundation, The Woods Fund. While at the Woods Fund, they gave money to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s church, which Obama attended, and a children and family center, where Dohrn worked.
["Anderson Cooper 360," CNN, Oct. 6, 2008]
Fact: In 2001, Ayers posed for a photograph in Chicago magazine, accompanying a profile of his book, which shows him stepping on an American flag.
Fact: In his 2001 memoir, “Fugitive Days,” Ayers writes of the time he took part in bombing the Pentagon. “Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon. The sky was blue; the birds were singing. And the bastards were finally going to get what was coming to them.”
Fact: In the 2008 presidential race, Obama downplays his association with Ayers, saying that he is just a “guy who lives in my neighborhood.”
[The Washington Post, Oct. 7, 2008]
Fact: David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist, attempted to downplay the Obama/Ayers relationship: “Bill Ayers lives in his neighborhood. Their kids attend the same school . . . They’re certainly friendly; they know each other, as anyone whose kids go to school together.”
[Politico.com, Ben Smith, Feb. 26, 2008]
Fact: Obama’s children never attended school with the Ayers children. Obama’s children are ages 9 and 6. Ayers and Dohrn have two adult children, and they adopted a son from their fellow Weather Underground terrorist Kathy Boudin. That son was born in 1981.
Fact: Chicago’s Hyde Park residents speak of Obama and Ayers’ relationship. “Neighbors said it’s only natural that Obama would know Ayers and Dohrn, who often open their homes for gatherings filled with lively discussions about politics, arts, and social issues. Obama and his wife ‘are part of our neighborhood and part of our social circle,’ said Elizabeth Chandler, a neighbor of Ayers’.”
[ChicagoTribune.com, April 17, 2008]
http://www.nationalrepublicantrust.com/ayersfactsheet.html
Wow, 10:56 pm, You just posted all that material that has not one thing to do with this thread. That whole text really might have been something if placed in the right location.
And to top if off, you only have your “facts” but nothing of an opinion or conclusion coming from your personal assessment.
Now, Back to Tony- Do you think that a lot of what Tony does is a product of his absenteeism and his notorious aversion to being in his office, tending to city business instead of roaming the land in search of a camera lens?
I think, had he acted like he really cared about the city, many of the ills would have be noticed or predicted months, maybe years, earlier. Now he’s in a harsh, reactive mode, and the ideas are probably from his assistants who have to try to cover for him.
Maybe some people read his actions as a examples of a decisive, insightful and take-charge kind of guy, but I look at it all as coming from a guy who is in dreadful need of catching up with reality.
And I agree with Ron, to some extent. I think that Tony could have been a remarkably bright light on the scene if he had kept the same attitude that his first mayoral campaign hinted at. I voted for him then, my LAST time ever to do that. Now we have a mayor who victimizes his constituents instead of helping them. Not so for his campaign supporters.
“One-term Tony,” I’m for that now.
Thank you 12:11 for bringing us back to the proper subject matter. I totally agree that this has to be the end of AV. Los Angeles deserves and must get better than 11%. Remove AV and Jack Weiss-ass from “public service” (oxymoron — we are the morons who keep electing these guys) and elect those who “care” about Los Angeles and are not looking past us to the next office up the ladder.
The CAO has been sending Villaraigosa memo, since October 2005, warning that he’s overspending.
The City’s revenues have risen $1.7 billion PER YEAR since Villaraigosa took office.
The problem is not “external factors,” it’s a spendaholic, absentee, unqualified Mayor who uses our tax dollars to reward the out-of-state billionaire developers and other special interests that fund his campaigns.
Walter Moore
Candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles
http://WalterMooreForMayor.com
Yes, it’s about time to do some cleaning in our city offices. City of LA taxpayers need to see where the money is going…..start with some house cleaning at the City Housing Authority. Why is Rudolph Montiel receiving such a explicit salary, multiple stipends…. monthly “living expense” check, endless free lunches,unnecessary travel expenses the list goes on….. his senior staff endless hefty salaries some more than City Chief of Police (sad!) The city can certainly provide more housing or feed hundreds of more residents with these public funds.
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