November 2008 Archives

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, through his in-house attorney, accused the federal  housing authorities of a "capricious" and politically-motivated decision to end a contract with the city that helped provide healthcare centers at housing projects, summer job programs for at-risk youths and housing and services for poor people.

"The hasty decision to implement this dramatic policy change in the last days of a presidential administration raises serious questions about the motivation behind the change," said Thomas Saenz, counsel to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. He added that given the city's current financial circumstances, it would be "extremely hard if not impossible" to make up the nearly $8 million in lost funds.

So the city filed a lawsuit Monday.

That in any case is how the L.A. Times tells the story, noting at the end that "also on Monday, in an unrelated move, HUD's inspector general released a report that said nearly two-thirds of the apartment units inspected by auditors in its Section 8 program did not meet minimum standards."

In fact, the city isn't suing to make sure the poor get badly needed services. The $8 million was for administrative overhead and the city is seeking a temporary restraining order because HACLA, the Housing Authority of the City of L.A., desperately needs the money because it's in such a mess financially.

And worse, much worse, the Inspector General report is as damning a document as you'll every read with photos, charts and tables showing just what kind of slum housing conditions the city is responsible for.

To see if HACLA boss Rudy Montiel -- undoubtedly America's highest paid public servant with an income from serving the poor of more than $400,000 -- had improved after two bad years of audits, HUD came back and looked at 68 statistically selected units and found 43 did not meet minimum federal housing standards.

And they weren't just a little below standard. The 43 units had 318 deficiencies -- one with 39 deficiencies alone. And there's aren't small things. They are the stuff of slums and slumlords, filthy and unsafe conditions, plumbing in disrepair, lack of security and on and on.

In all 134 of those deficiencies existed before HACLA inspectors did their last inspections which were so poor they found only four of the 134 deficiencies.

HUD warns that the city stands to lose $65 million unless it brings these units up to standard and fixing its inspection program. Just a couple of months ago, HUD demanded the HACLA pay back more than $27 million for its incompetence.

Montiel dismisses the HUD findings without really engaging them but he seems to have the mayor's ear. 

Instead of being sickened to find out that HACLA allows landlords to get away with slum conditions, Villaraigosa goes into court with accusations that HUD's attack on this long controversial agency and its controversial leader is a Republican dirty trick.

Does he think President-elect Barack Obama will tolerate slum conditions on property owned, operated or overseen by the City of Los Angeles when a Republican administration won't?

Does he actually know what's going on in the housing agency he is responsible for or what the conditions are in these units or what the report says or where the nearly $400 million HUD funnels through HACLA every year goes?

All over Los Angeles, residents complain about the city's failure to enforce housing laws, how it tolerates slum conditions and overcrowding and substandard conditions and how there aren't anywhere near enough Building and Safety inspectors to make a dent in the problem.

That's a terrible thing but it's nothing compared to the city housing programs themselves, funded by the taxpayers to help the poor, providing nothing but slum conditions in two-thirds of the units.

I'm not sure which is worse: The mayor not knowing what a poor job HACLA is doing when he talks so much about helping the poor or that he does know and chooses for whatever reasons to cover up HACLA's failures.

What I do know for sure is that a city that allows these conditions to persist year after year is worse than a slumlord. And if the mayor and the leadership of the city won't do anything about it, then maybe it's up to the feds to start digging into who's profiting on these federal dollars at the expense of the poor.

March 3 City Primary

100  Days and Counting

You got to feel for poor Jack Weiss. He gave up an undistinguished career as a government lawyer and somehow beat the famous carpetbagger ex-radical Tom Hayden in a race for the City Council.

And barely a week after being sworn into public office as one of the lucky 15 highest paid city council members in all of America, he admitted he didn't really know why he was there, saying, "Ron, I have to tell you how happy I am just to be sitting around the horseshoe."

Trouble was he often found himself not sitting around the horseshoe when city business was being and chalked up what must be a record for missed votes. To his credit, he hasn't just skipped out on controversial votes that might upset his constituents, he missed hundreds of routine and insignificant ones as well.

Given the advantage of incumbency -- the odds of unseating a sitting member are something like 50 to 1 -- he easily won re-election four years ago.

But he was smart. He jumped aboard Antonio Villaraigosa's bandwagon early on and curried favor that now has him the front-runner to become the City Attorney with a handsome campaign warchest of more than $1.5 million donated by the many friends of City Hall politics.

Of course, his constituents took a shot at recalling him from office for his many failures to serve them or look after their interests and it's likely that voters in Fifth District on the Westside and Sherman Oaks would make him the 1 in 50 if he tried to seek a third term in office.

The reasons for constituency discontent are many: Neglect of his duties, staff arrogance, developer interests ahead of neighborhood interests.

Right now, they're furious.over Weiss' plan to raid $250,000 from their street furniture fund to pay for DNA rape testing kits. This is money that's supposed to go for neighborhood improvements to compensate for the annoyance of all that advertising but Weiss desperately needs the money to cover up the fact that he hasn't been able to get city funds for something this important despite years of trying.

Still, you got to give hm credit. Weiss is right about this issue and some others and probably should make that his campaign slogan: Weiss Is Right.

Weiss is the only council member to stand up to the billboard companies and their dirty deal with the city that let's put up 1,000 digital monstrosities all over town and he's stood alone week after week holding hearings to get money for DNA testing of rape samples.

Trouble is Weiss doesn't get anything done even when he's right. He's got no clout with his colleagues and even his sucking up the mayor doesn't help.

So his well-qualified challengers Carmen Trutanich and Michael Amerian might come up with the slogan: Jack Can't Hack It .

Still, nothing is going to stop Weiss from pursuing his ambition. He took his campaign on the road Wednesday for his annual visit with his constituents in the San Fernando Valley.

Here's a report on evening with the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association by Ellen Vukovich, a writer and leader of SOHA:

"My City Council Member, Jack Weiss, made his yearly visit to the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association.  Anticipating a briefing on all things Sherman Oaks from our Council Member, the large room was filled with interested community members and various candidates running for city offices.

"Weiss opened with a quick stump speech subtly reminding us that he is running for City Attorney.

"Figuring this was just the warm-up, I was stunned when Weiss then asked for questions.  Why didn't he have more to say? 

"Then my "a ha" moment came.  Weiss couldn't say more because he realized the level of hostility in the room was so high there was no point in continuing.  Now, the audience wasn't shouting, heckling or booing. They communicated by nodding their heads in disagreement, by crossing their arms at their chests, and by looking over to others with a look in their eyes that said: "Is this guy kidding or what?"

"And the funny thing is no matter what he had to say in response to the questions (and some of it was okay), the people were conveying the same message.  "You represent a failed local government and we no longer believe what you say."

"Today, I have chatted with a few fellow activists about last night's interesting meeting, Turns out we think this meeting really wasn't about Jack Weiss. It was about sitting in a room with a bunch of people who are clearly tired of business as usual downtown and let their feelings be known to their elected official.

"I must confess this has stirred a dormant hope.  Dare I believe that people will hold on to that anger and vote out all incumbents in March's city election?

"Clearly, we have work ahead by spreading the word and making sure our friends, neighbors  understand what's at stake next March - the City Attorney, Controller and eight City Council seats. eight makes a quorum in City Council. And with eight new Council Members we will have hope again in Los Angeles, not just in Washington D.C."

Personally, I love Ellen's enthusiasm and we do need hope. We need to change L.A. I don't honestly know if we can win eight seats on the council.

But I do know if we let Antonio's political machine control the offices of Mayor, City Attorney and Controller and the City Council we might as well turn out the lights and start packing.

Vote for Change. Just Say No to Antonio's political machine on March 3.

San Fernando Valley attorney and civic leader Lee Kanon Alpert was appointed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to be president of the Department of Water and Power Board of Commissioners, the Valley Business Journal reported.

Alpert takes over for Nick Patsaouras who resigned to run for City Controller after attempting to create a Ratepayer Advocate office within the massive publicly-owned utility -- an effort that ran into stiff opposition from the mayor and others in City Hall and was rejected by a majority of the commission.

Councilman Jose Huizar has proposed a similar watchdog position. Community groups organized by Soledad Garcia, head of the DWP's Neighborhood Council Committee and the ad hoc DWP oversight committee, strongly support the Ratepayer Advocate as needed to restore the DWP's credibility and protect the public..

Alpert, a partner in Alpert, Barr & Grant in Encino and member of the regional governing board of Providence Health Systems, is a long-time civic leader in the Valley and winner of the Fernando Award for volunteerism.

"You feel like you are participating when you can be heard on issues that are vital to the survival of the city," Alpert said.

Long-time public discontent about sweetheart deals with the IBEW, the union representing all but the top management of the utility, and lax contracting practices were exacerbated in recent years by a series of water and power hikes at the same time that power outages and other breakdowns in the aging infrastructure were occurring.

The DWP now is the battleground in the March 3 primary election because of a so-called "solar energy and job creation" ballot measure that would put virtually the entire city effort to expand the use of solar energy in the hands of the utility.

Critics point out DWP workers are paid far more and have costlier benefits than those in private sector and the measure was rushed to the ballot for political reasons without study, cost estimates and clear details.

All across California, cities and counties are frantically scrambling to find new sources of revenue even as they look at ways of cutting public spending.-- and bankruptcy looms as the best alternative for some overburdened by debt.

The state government, paralyzed by political and philosophical conflict, remains at loggerheads over whether to triple vehicle license fees and increase the sales tax by nearly 20 percent or slash spending on public services.

Even as President-elect Barack Obama has inspired much of the nation with hope for real change, the federal government is bailing out banks, insurers and others with $700 billion and looking at spending a whole lot more to save the auto industry and stimulate the economy with massive public works spending, aid to states and local government and tax cuts to ordinary folks.

It's a case of irreconcilable differences, a zero sum game that defies all logic.

Go to NBC Los Angeles for the rest of the story.

Two weeks ago, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a plan for $1.5 billion in budget cuts to help the city deal with its soaring deficit that could reach $4 billion over the next two years..

Today in L.A., the task was left to Ray Ciranna, the interim City Administrative Officer, to outline a plan to cut spending on libraries, the zoo, tree trimming, new police cars, left-hand turn signals and hiring in the City Attorney's and Controller's office.

Those cuts would only save $55 million, half the current deficit, and not make a dent in the $400 million shortfail for next year -- both low-ball estimates of how serious the  city's money problems really are.

So you ask why was this left to acting budget numbers guy? Where was Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa? Isn't this a crisis that calls for bold leadership?

It's not like Villaraigosa isn't aware of the problem. He was briefed on the crisis and did issue a statement which said "immediate and dramatic budget adjustments" are needed but it's not his job to take the heat..

"The revenue picture for the city is grim, and it is nearly certain to get worse before it gets better," Villaraigosa said..

In contrast, Bloomberg stuck his neck out and is feeling political heat because he wants to cancel a promised $400 rebate to taxpayers, cut 1,000 police positions and raise the city income tax by as much as 15 percent.

In L.A. the solution to a dire budget crisis is to stop buying library books to save $1.45 million out of a $79 million library budget and $800,000 from tree trimming.

Here's more items from the LATimes report:
* $1 million from the crossing guards program -- a 20 percent reduction.
* $650,000 less for installing left-turn arrow signals.
* $1.92 million from the LAPD's plan to older squad cars. The city had budgeted $4.3 million to replace 118 black-and-whites but 53 older cars will stay in service.
* Transferring $1.14 million from a Los Angeles Zoo trust fund -- money set aside for the long-delayed Golden Monkey exhibit.

I know the detailed savings don't come close to adding up to $55 million but you get the gist of the penny-pinching proposals that do nothing about the overspending problem.

There's also that favorite cash cow, the Department of Water and Power which is overflowing with cash from all its rate increases so you be sure those funds will be raided and the infrastructure allowed to continue to rot.

It will be amusing to see the council grapple with this and to see if they actually pay attention to the details supply an overall vision for the city's economic future.

That would entail bringing up the problem which is the payroll and benfits costs of the city are out of whack with the city's financial reality. Police and Fire unions already are demanding the same 5.9 percent raises DWP workers just got and the city still is paying for every type of community event even though they said they would stop.

L.A. doesn't have a revenue problem. It has a spending problem. Taxes, rates and fees have gone up and up to the point that there's nothing left to tax. You can see City Hall can't find anything else to cut much.

So that leaves the one place where spending has gotten out of control: Wage and benefit costs. But to stand up to the unions would take political courage and require the mayor to take a stand where he's the Mayor of City Hall or the Mayor of Los  Angeles.

Bloomberg took a stand in New York. He ordered the heat turned down in city buildings to save fuel costs and when criticized for it, responded: "Wear a sweater if you're chilly."

Council members accuse Boomberg of taking a "let them eat cake" attitude. But his taken a stand in public and facing the criticism.

In L.A., it's just the opposite. City Hall's attitude to the people is "let them eat cake" and the mayor is invisible on the subject of what must be done.

In the amazing debate over what to do about poor Billy the Elephant, one Council member after another got up and admitted they didn't know what they were doing two years ago when they approved spending $40 million or so on a new pachyderm exhibit at the L.A. Zoo.

And even more incredibly, they were still in the dark after all these years of plans and reports and discussions what their  options are so they put off a decision for another day.

We're talking here about the nation's highest paid municipal officials at more than $170,000 a year with vast staffs of 20 which puts them in a class with the chairs of major congressional committees and they stand up in public and admit they don't know what they're doing.

If only it was about one elephant. But it's the truth about everything they do. They don't know, they don't care. They take orders from unions, lobbyists and special interests and all their efforts are focused on manipulating the politics of every situation to their own advantage.

And that usually means keeping the public as ignorant as possible and as fragmented as possible because when the people actually know what's going and unite, the council crumbles and runs for cover to avoid accountability.

Christine Pelisek in the LA Weekly puts one of a hundred issues like this under the microscope in a long and devastating dissection of how the city came to be taken over by digital billboards -- an assault on our visual sense of place that is only exceeded by the foolhardy rush to trash every neighborhood with more and taller buildings as if densification will improve the quality of life for anyone other than those who profit from it.

She traces how the city won its case in courtagainst the billboard companies and how City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo worked out a settlement that allowed these scofflaws to remove some of their illegal billboards -- a fraction of the 4,000 they put up without permits -- in exchange for putting up nearly 1,000 giant electronic signs that flash new messages every few seconds. The council approved the deal -- no questions asked -- within days unanimously.

"Each new sign is capable of pulling in $735,000 in annual gross ad revenue, with a top monthly intake of $128,000 for a single heavily booked, LED display," Pelisek reports.

?Thanks to the Council's action, signed several days later without any challenge by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the huge billboard firms stand to reap a windfall of up to $1 billion in ad revenue each year from the 800-plus digital displays, according to L.A. Weekly calculations.

"City Hall's take for granting this crass new form of clutter: about $100 per billboard...elected leaders paint a picture of confusion and ignorance that led to their 2006 unanimous vote to grant broad new rights to the digital-ad companies. Some City Council members, seven of whom, along with Villaraigosa, are seeking re-election March 3, say they have no recollection of why they agreed to the dramatic digital makeover of the city's streets."

Here's what Councilman Tom LaBonge has to say: "I am looking at my daily calendar for that day. I don't recall it being a lengthy discussion at all...We just took it, and obviously many of us regret it. It seems like this city has never had a successful strategy with billboards."

And Councilman Dennis Zine: "I can't recall back that far. When we discussed digital, I don't think anyone had a clear idea of what it was about. It was new to me...I don't know if any of us saw how bright they would be. It's a whole new world. I had never seen it before, so I don't know how we would have known what it is. I thought it would be one advertisement on the board."

And Council President Eric Garcetti:  "It was probably a mistake...It was a really bad decision...There is no massive conspiracy of billboard companies owning Council members...I don't want to make too many excuses...you have to rely on your lawyers."

Amnesia, ignorance, bad legal advice -- but nobody is making excuses.

It isn't just Billy or billboards. It's the open slather policy on development with the full intent of denying a say to residents of the city that's just like this. It's the solar energy plan that enriches the IBEW and their own campaign coffers that was approved without examining the implications of a policy that will cost the public a fortune and slow expansion of green energy and the development of a major industry in L.A.

It's everywhere you look. Call it incompetence, call it criminal.

The point is the same: They spent special interest money to trick the public into giving them a third term when they have forfeited their right to be our leaders. And they have locked up their re-election in March with the same dirty money -- thousands of times more than their challengers can raise.

We are held captive by them even as they sell out the public interest to special interests. We can elect agents for change to City Attorney and the Controller offices. We can reject every measure they put on the ballot. We can organize and mobilize into a unified force and change the system and hold them accountable.

Or we can sit back in our apathy and defeatism and let the amnesiacs and ignoramuses and crooks decide the future of our city.

Photos by Ted Soqui in the LA Weekly.

The art world isn't my beat, the news is so I couldn't help but notice the NYTimes had a lengthy story on the front of its culture section today on Eli Broad deciding he'll build his own museum in Beverly Hills to display his vast collection. The LA Times had a short story on page 8 of its culture section atop a bunch of movie listings.

That doesn't reflect the LAT's not seeing the significance of this story among the culturati. It simply was beaten on the story and was catching up late in the day and had no place better to put it -- except on the paper's front page in place of the story about the transgender mayor of a small Oregon town.

No brainer. There's lots of signs the Times they are a changin' whether it's the demoralizing impact of one round of layoffs after or another, the new leadership team or  confusion/resistance to demands from owner Sam Zell for change.

The story earlier in the week by the Dave Zahniser, normally a terrific and tough reporter, is a case in point. It heaped unending praise on Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for his Oscar-worthy performances in front of the TV cameras during the recent spate of catastrophes as if such symbolic roles was all that is expected of him like the Queen of England.

There's lots of other examples of hackneyed journalism these days in the LAT.

No doubt papers get scooped all the time but the LAT has long owned the Eli Broad beat. He is the richest, most influential, most civic-minded philanthropist in town and except for one piece mocking his art collection as mediocre, the paper has always treated him and his interests in a flattering and largely uncritical manner.

In the art world of L.A. where MOCA is in serious financial trouble and LACMA losing support because of the impact on the wealthy of the nation's economic crisis, the news that Broad has finally made up his mind about building his own museum is a big story.

The NYT got the story by getting hold a letter Broad's lawyer sent last month to Beverly Hills officials. The story probably was on the Internet already when the LAT started to play catchup by calling the head of the Broad Art Foundation, Joanne Heyler, who confirmed that the top site is at the busy corner where Santa Monica and Wilshire Boulevards meet.

For once, my point isn't to pick on the LATimes, which didn't bother to mention the NYTimes had the story first. It goes to the transformation of the world of news and information.

To the consumers of news and information, it doesn't matter at all where they find out what's going on.

The NBC Los Angeles website I blog for is built around that idea, using items of interest to L.A. no matter where the story comes from whether it's corporate media, its own content, blogs or whatever. Its goal is to be a one-stop site for L.A. news.

I'm developing a site called OURLA.ORG as a non-profit website for community and political news and conversation for the entire city -- a sort of Valley News meets Facebook meets Huffington Post.

The business model and form of corporate journalism is broken and the industry hasn't come close to figuring out a new way of  doing business.

The result is a creative opportunity for Internet startups to fill the void left by the shrinking corporate meda. There will  be an explosion of such effort in the next few years and for the activist community of L.A. to come together and set the agenda for news and information and community connection.

With time on my hands and laid up with a heavy cold, I spent four hours listening to dozens of honest citizens make their case why elephants belong in the wide open spaces of a sanctuary and not in zoo -- and others who believe the $42 million elephant exhibit will be a wonderful habitat and enhance the L.A Zoo as a public asset.

They had their own experts and advocates. They each offered a compelling logic to their view. They all shared their concern for poor lonely Billy the Elephant who spends a quarter of the day neurotically nodding his head.

I don't have an elephant in this race. I don't know enough about it. I see validity in both sides' positions.

What I do know is that the City Council of this city doesn't know a whole lot more than I do despite having listened to this debate for years and having approved the elephant project two years ago. And here they were spending four hours listening to the public and debating each before sending the whole controversy to Bernard Parks' Budget and Finance Committee to find out a few basic facts.

Not that they don't already know that $12 million is already spent on the zoo project and the rest of the money will pretty much all have to spent for another exhibit even if the let Billy go to some far off place. And then there's the cost of what some council members feel is a desperately needed 100-acre elephant sanctuary within the city limits or seeing live elephants will be the privilege of the affluent few.

Frankly, most of what the council members said was pure nonsense, posturing by Tony Cardenas for the "Free Billy" people and by Tom LaBonge for the L.A. Zoo lovers.

Only Herb Wesson made any sense at all, wondering about whether his colleagues or the impassioned public care as much about what happens to all the Billy the kids of the city, too many of whom are running wild on the streets and end up imprisoned like Billy the Elephant.

He noted that he and his colleagues didn't spend anywhere near four hours debating the gang tax or gang policy for that matter. He could have added how they approved a boondoggle of a solar energy plan for the March ballot without knowing anything about it except that it would enrich the DWP union and their own campaign coffers.

You can go through all the major policies of this city -- planning and development, traffic congestion community empowerment and most of all how the spectacular increase in city revenue in the past five years turned into a massive deficit -- and you would see the same thing.

It's all politics, a sleazy game of self-advantage and self-aggrandizement,  a deception of the public.

And the result is they find Billy the Elephant the kind of issue to spend their time on even as a generation of children are lost to gangs, neighborhoods are overwhelmed by over-development, congestion gets worse, basic laws on housing go unenforced, roads and sidewalks are broken and the infrastructure is aging.

All the while the public is gouged for higher rates, taxes and fees.

Maybe those who think Billy the Elephant belongs in a sanctuary far away have got it right. Surely, the tens of thousands Billy the Grownups who have left the city over the last two decades to find sanctuary in Oregon, Washington, Nevada and Arizona think so.

Which Way, L.A.? on KCRW at 7 p.m. tonight
Fire Safety and Mobile Homes
WED NOV 19, 2008
Host:    * Warren Olney

People in mobile-home parks have complained for years they are second-class citizens unprotected by the same codes and regulations as other residents of California. After the loss of hundreds of mobile homes this week, officials from the Governor on down are promising to find out what needs to be done and what authority they have to do it. On Reporter's Notebook, has the Governor's Global Climate Summit produced concrete results?

Guests:

    * Glenn Bell: President, Neighborhood Friends
    * Zev Yaroslavsky: Los Angeles County Supervisor
    * Chris Anderson: Director for Field Operation, California Department of Housing

Councilman Tom LaBonge introduced a motion Tuesday to revive the question of putting the issue of the City Controller's authority to conduct performance audits of elected officials on May ballot -- seven weeks when the official tally won't be complete until a few weeks before they Controller Laura Chick and City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo leave office.

That did not sit well with Chick who issued this statement:

"They have got to be kidding.  I pulled my performance audit of the City
Attorney's workers compensation program  in good faith in August because of the
Council's promise to put this before the voters in March.  The Council sat on
the issue for three months and at the last minute decided not to give the voters
the opportunity to clarify this important issue.  The time for inaction and game
playing has passed.   I will do everything in my power to pursue  this
performance audit and a resolution on the City Controller's ability to 
scrutinize the use of  hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars and to push for
greater transparency.

"I have no confidence, given this second chance, that the City Council will act
to put this issue before the voters.  What the City Attorney and Council are
actually doing is finding every way to stall and run the clock till I'm out of
office on July 1st.

"This is now a fight between the people of Los Angeles and their government.  I
will not back away from this fight, This is a battle that must be won for the
taxpayer bringing full transparency and accountability to government."

Desperately seekiing cash to cover a growing deficit, the LA City Council is looking at putting in more street cleaning signs and parking meters, charging everyone for the cost of 911 emergency calls and selling "insurance" for ambulance services among other new fees and taxes.

Councilman Bernard Parks: "I hate to say this publicly because it gives people ideas about lawsuits."

Councilwoman Wendy Greuel: "Every week we should come up with new ways we can increase our revenue."

Read the full story "LA City Hall's Money Squeeze: HIgher Fees and
Taxes at NBCLosangeles.

Controller Laura Chick escalated her fight with City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo Tuesday by seeking subpoenas for the members of his staff in connection with her planned investigation of the performance of his office in handling costly city worker compensation cases.

In a press release headlined CHICK DENOUNCES DELGADILLO GAMES AS "A SLAP IN THE FACE TO TAXPAYERS," the controller accused Delgadillo of trying "to stall" her audit and "evade scrutiny."

Separately, she sent a letter to City Clerk Karen Kalfayan asking that she issue subpoenas to six City Attorney staff members ordering them to appear for question on Dec. 2 and 3.

Her actions escalates a battle that has been building for months ever since Delgadillo rejected her efforts to conduct the audit, claiming the City Charter did not give her the authority to examine the performance of other elected officials.

City Council President Eric Garcetti intervened to head off a court fight over what the charter says but failed to deliver on his commitment to put the question on a March 3 ballot measure to let voters decide on the question. Other council matters scuttled the ballot measure at the last minute, setting the stage for a courtroom showdown.

Chick said her decision to act now was based on a letter from Delgadillo which she called
"a slap in the face to taxpayers."

"The City Council had the issue before them for three months and in the end failed to give the voters the opportunity to clarify this issue of transparency.  As the taxpayers' watchdog, I will continue to pursue conducting a performance audit of the City Attorney's multi-million dollar workers' compensation program," said Chick.

"The question before us is a simple and important one: Should the Controller be able to audit all programs of the City of Los Angeles? That's what this issue is all about-full transparency and accountability.  I certainly believe the public supports scrutiny of how all of their taxpayer dollars are spent. It is unfortunate that the voters will be denied the opportunity to clarify their intentions in the upcoming March election.:

Editor"s Note: Glenn Bell, a resident of Blue Star Mobile Home Lodge and organizer of Neighborhood Friends which has served an advocacy group for manufactured home owners, wrote this article in response to promises being made to those who lost their homes in the recent brush fires.


By Glenn Bell
Correspondent

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger joined Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in promising to rebuild Oakridge Mobile Home Park in Sylmar and went a step beyond that and said he was going to look into the manufacturing standards of manufactured homes, to make them more fire retardant.  

This is peculiar to me considering his office has been asked for years to "LOOK INTO" the manufactured housing industry.

He has been asked to look at the park owners business practices, he has refused.

He has been asked to look into the health and safety of Manufactured Housing Communities throughout the state, he has refused.  

Now all of a sudden when four mobile home parks have damaged by brush fires or demolished, he is going to "LOOK INTO" the manufacturing of these homes?  

Arnie, how about looking into the fact that in two of these parks, Sky View Terrace and Oakridge, the water pressure was so bad that the firefighters had to drop their hoses and run for their lives??   

Or how about looking into the failure of the park ownerships to clear away combustibles, again Sky Terrace, Blue Star and now Oakridge?   

Or how about looking into the safety procedures of county evacuations in emergency situations? Blue Star homeowners sat in the middle of a firestorm in their cars, waiting to be cooked with fires raging on both sides of them for over a hour and a half. All while the manager of the park refused to open an emergency?

Arnie, do you remember just two years ago, when a bill that had made it's way through the Legislature that required park management to be trained in emergency procedures?

What happened to that bill, Oh that's right, You VETOED it, just like the overwhelming amount of bills that mobile homeowners have fought to get to your desk.

For years you have been in the pocket of park owners, you know like the more than generous fund-raiser that Sam Zell, owner of Equity Lifestyle Properties, the largest mobile home park owner in the world, gave for you in Chicago?

Or how about the political contributions made to you by WMA, CMPA and MHET all lobbies of MHP Owners, something like $50,000.  Are you going to look into these things as well?   

Well how about the misuse of affordable housing funds being used to dislocate 70 affordable manufactured homes (Cal-Re-Use Monies) so a wealthy developer can put up a small industrial facility, and then build 116 luxury homes, according to the report made to the state assembly in 2006?? Are you going to look into that too??  

Or maybe you will look into state Housing and Community Development agency which has identified that over 85% of the states 5,500 mobile home parks have illegal electrical systems. Every one of those parks has a severe fire risk every day. When the park owners are cited and instructed to repair or replace the electrical systems the park owners just basically tell the state to bugger off and you do!! Are you going to look into that to?  

Or maybe you will look into the "Unconstitutional" aspects of California's Statutes, which actually discriminate against manufactured homeowners.  Like, allowing park owners to include a paragraph in their leases to remove rights from homeowners.

That's a big -- and a glib -- commitment for the mayor to make to the 500 owners of manufactured homes who were wiped out when fire raged through the Oakridge Mobile Home Park in Sylmar.

Despite endless rounds of hikes in taxes, rates and fees, he's mismanaged his basic responsibility to look after the public treasury. The city faces a soaring deficit even as revenues are falling.

Every dollar squeezed out of the public's pockets means there's even less money to spend on goods and services that create jobs and wealth. It's a downward spiral to oblivion.

And the mismanagement is even worse at the state level wherre profligate spending is about to lead to higher taxes that will take more money out of the economy and reduce spending on education and law enforcement and social services and health care and just about everything else.

None of that incompetence can even compare to the bungling misfeasance in office of the federal government which is printing trillions of dollars to try to prevent the entire world from tumbling into a greater depression than the Great Depression.

When the elected representatives of the people all say the same thing -- it's a long and painful road ahead -- you know we're headed into troubled times. It would be comforting to hear them all say they screwed up terribly and are resigning in mass so more prudent people could step in and manage our affairs.

Don't hold your breath. They are all lined up to protect themselves and their privileges and to go on making promises they can't fulfill like building 500 new homes just like that for people who are huddled in shelters, having lost everything they own.

It's not like we provided much help to the 41 families who lost their homes at Sky View Terrace mobile home park in the last brush fire. Less than half even got federal housing vouchers or much aid of any sort.

The problems we face are not just of the temporary sorts caused by catastrophes like the brush fires that are raging across Southern California.

We have ignored the warning signs for too long, building too many homes in the wrong places out of the wrong materials without regard to the certainty that fires and earthquakes and mudslides and floods are natural phenomena common to the area.

The time has come for accountability. We can't go on electing people who fail us. We can't go on approving taxes for half-baked schemes that achieve little but filling the bank accounts of special interests that provide millions of dollars to sell us a bill of goods -- manipulations  made easy because we prefer to be gullible and uninformed as if ignorance will make us blissful and safe.

Wake up all you little people out there. Let's grow up and demand institutions and leaders that serve us, that solve our problems.

The era of hyper-consumerism is over. The era of endless growth is over, A fundamental economic restructuring is taking place that will force enormous economic, political and cultural changes.

We can't afford to be passive bystanders when our futures, and the futures of children and our society, are at stake.

Why does it take a guerrilla war by law-abiding citizens to get City Hall to comply with the law, to do what's right for L.A., to respect the people?

It's a silly queston. We all know the answer. Special interests own City Hall. None of our leaders have the courage to stand up for the people. We aren't organized enough to have the power to demand they put the public interest ahead of private interests, to make our elected officials become public servants.

But there are positive signs that change is coming. Discontent runs so deep and so wide that a grassroots movement is being born and growing day by day, inch by inch.

The City Planning Commission approved an ordinance Thursday to impose a six-month moratorium on new billboards in the city while a full audit to identify the estimated 4,000 illegal signs is conducted and a policy to end visual blight, particularly from giant digital billboards,  can be formulated.

This morning, the DWP is belatedly and reluctantly providing a dog-and-pony show for Neighborhood Council members on the outrageous solar energy plan approved by the mayor and council for the March 3 ballot. It's outrageous because it will lead to massive rate hikes on top of hikes already imposed and others that are coming, because it will cost way too much and will achieve way too little, because it is nothing but a boondoggle for the IBEW which pours millions into preserving its power in the DWP and keeping servile politicians in office.

Last week, a second lawsuit was filed over City Hall's failure for the last decade to conduct legally-required annual reports on the impact of growth on infrastructure.

The LaBrea-Willoughby Coalition led by Lucille Saunders sued the city five months ago over the issue in an effort to get compliance. It's set for trial in May.

And last week, the Fix The City coalition filed another lawsuit on the issue, according to Ken Draper on City Watch

"The point of filing another suit was to bring Neighborhood Councils into the mix," James O'Sullivan, president of the Miracle Mile Residential Association, said in an email today."There is now an argument that these reports need to be done so NC's can effectively monitor City services and participate in the budget."

O'Sullivan makes the point that the City Charter's requirement to seek the advice of Neighborhood Councils on important city issues is being routinely violated.

Dumb cops and dumb reporters have a lot in common. They plod along gathering the facts, just the facts M'am, and they hope that sooner or later that they'll stumble across something or get a tip and it will become clear what's going on.

It was that kind of break that took me up the long winding road with its switchbacks to the top of Topanga Canyon high in the Santa Monicas looking for Javier Ovando and his mansion.

Unlike the hippie shacks and cabins and old compounds down below that give Topanga its character, the houses on top of the ridge are new and modern and large. Ovando's house at 21126 Bellini Drive sits on a hillside at the end of a cul-de-sac lined with luxury homes.

It was clearly deserted and looked like it had been for a while. Trash filled half a dozen garbage cans and several boxes behind the gate to the property.

Ovando is L.A.'s ultimate victim, the central figure in what became known as the Rampart Scandal.

On Oct. 12, 1996, LAPD Officers Rafael Perez and Nino Durden entered apartment of the then 19-year-old illegal immigrant gang member and shot him in the head, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. Then, they framed him and got him sentenced to 23 years in prison. He was released three years later and on Nov. 21, 2000, his attorney Gregory Moreno won him a $15 million settlement -- the largest ever from the LAPD.

The money got him this 6,000 square-foot house but it didn't restore his ability to walk or let him find a happy life.

Once again, he was a victim, according to the tip I got that sent me to the Lost Hills Sheriff's Station on Agoura Road.

"Suspicious circumstances possible grand theft," according to the Sheriff's Department report dated Oct. 16, just 12 years and four days after Perez and Durden shot him.

The investigation involved the alleged theft of some $60,000 in property from the house -- four crystal chandeliers, a fireplace mantel, a pool table, a microwave, 35 door knobs, 20 curtains, three trash cans and a mailbox among other items.

Ovando's sister-in-law Angelica Martin reported what had happened to deputies but she wouldn't put them in touch with Ovando himself.

That didn't sit well with Deputies Diestel and Braden who took down her complaint and said she was "evasive," and told them that Ovando "had become mentally ill due to the burglary and could not be reached by anyone."

"Martin told me the suspect in the theft was Nadya Mahdavi AKA Hena Alvi Wall St. Financial Group," the deputies reported.

That's what had gotten my interest.

Mahdavi, president of Wall Street Financial with offices in Encino, Fidelity Investment Group, another company that lists her as an officer, are charged with four misdemeanor Building and Safety code violations involved the conversion of a single family home in my Valley floor tract into a tenement with three apartments and a dozen or so rooms in a 2,000 square-foot house.

The case has dragged on for months as the ownership flipped from Mahdavi to her employee at Wall Street to Fidelity. She had failed to appear the first time she was due in court and had to put up $5,000 cash bail when a warrant for her arrest was issued. She made it to the court the second but pleaded poverty and wanted a Public Defender, a request that was denied.

She appeared in court Thursday afternoon with attorney Gerald Cobb and was granted another continuance and is due back on Dec. 17 -- nearly 10 months after conversion of the house on Haynes Street in Woodland Hills began without a permit.
 
The sheriff's report makes no mention of Mahdavi being interviewed about what happened at the house on Bellini Drive and concludes: "I was unable to determine if a crime had occurred. I was unable to contact the owner of the location or verify if Javier Ovando had any connection to the property."

Deputies did determine that a restraining order was issued against the 31-year-old Ovando at the request of Mahdavi.

My next step was to call Martin who insisted she gave deputies all the information she had but Ovando was in no condition to talk. The trauma of what had happened was too much for him.

He had put the house up for sale in the spring, she said, and Mahdavi and her husband Nasir Shaikh had agreed to buy it for about $2 million through a local real estate agent. They put some earnest money into an escrow account but even before the sale went through, the couple and their family moved into the house.

The sale never was completed and they stayed there until early October when they left after an eviction order was issued. In the intervening months, she said, a dispute arose over demands for what she said was an exorbitant commission for the sale and that's when Ovando went to the house and the incident occurred that led to the restraining order.

"They accused him of making a terrorist threat," said attorney Moreno, who got involved about the time of the incident.

He's still talking to the District Attorney's Office about charges Ovando faces over his run-in with Mahdavi on June 22 and for leading police on an hour-long high-speed chase a week later in Glendale.

He also is sharing with investigators the information he has gathered about what happened atop the ridge above Topanga Canyon and the sale of the house the Rampart Scandal bought for Javier Ovando.

To be continued...

Save the Date

LADWP WORKSHOP ON THE COMPREHENSIVE SOLAR PLAN Please make plans to attend the LADWP WORKSHOP ON THE COMPREHENSIVE SOLAR PLAN

Friday, November 14, 2008

9:00 AM. to 10:30 AM

LADWP John Ferraro Building

LA/Portland/San Francisco Conference Center

111 North Hope Street (Free Parking)

You are receiving this notification under guidelines established by the LADWP-Neighborhood Council MOU. LADWP will provide notifications of significant matters or proposed actions by the Board of Water and Power Commission. Such actions include, but are not limited to, major policies or programs; changes in major policies or programs; significant projects, such as those requiring environmental impact documents; the upcoming fiscal year draft budget; and any proposed rate action.

 

Those are excerpts from the email notice that went out on Wednesday from Department of Water and Power notifying Neighborhood Council activists that General Manager Daviid Nahai would deign to fulfill his legal obligations to inform them about City Hall's dirty back room deal on a multi-billion-dollar solar energy scheme.

For the uninitiated, it shows how your city government works -- 36 hours notice to people who volunteer their time and energy and have a lot of other things going on in their lives to attend a meeting where they can learn about what's already a done deal..

The mayor cut thea deal with his long-time pal Brian D'Arcy -- the IBEW union boss who runs the publicly-owned utility behind the scenes -- to suddenly end 10 years of resistance to solar energy and embrace it as a city-wide mandate.

The price is that all the work must be done by IBEW workers on the DWP payroll -- humble workers who thanks to the mayor's generosity are enjoying 6 percent wage hikes in the nation's worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, increases that come on top of their already inflated salaries.

In a matter of a few short weeks -- without public hearings of any consequence or any kind of coherent analysis or study or even the involvement of the public and DWP commissioners -- the City Council agreed to put this outrageous plan on the March 3 primary ballot "to let voters decide."

There's a lot reasons they want voters to decide something they could have decided themselves: They avoid accountability for what is likely to be a total fiasco that sends electricity rates soaring, costs billions of dollars and achieves far less than working with the private sector to create thousands  -- not hundreds of DWP jobs -- and gives birth to an industry that has huge future potential.

Jill Stewart in an LA Weekly article today quotes Anthony Rubenstein of Californians for Clean Energy, which led the successful fight against Proposition 10, the failed "big wind" initiative, as saying this is "a 'staggering' undertaking so vast it could distort the already distorted global price of solar panels.

"I wish them the best, but only if we are prepared for real oversight.David Nahai has huge testicles, to bite this off. He didn't have to stick his neck on the line. Let's admire that. But if this is a boondoggle, he will have to answer for it -- because the L.A. City Council has chosen to punt this onto the voters. And to punt this onto voters is an invitation for disaster."

You can be sure the mayor will soon be offering some crumbs from the table of power to the green movement activists to keep them quiet while hauling in millions from the IBEW and other special interests to help himself and the council get re-elected and to try to put his obedient allies Jack Weiss and Wendy Greuel into office as City Attorney and City Controller.

This is how political machines work and that's what we now have in L.A. -- except it's a political machine that doesn't work for the benefit of the people or the city, only the insiders and special interests.

And so after this is a done deal, the machine decided to follow the legal procedures that it is required to follow before decisions are made and actions taken.

That's why people who have jobs and volunteer endless hours to be part of the DWP's Neighborhood Council oversight committee are given less than 48 hours to rearrange their lives to go down to the DWP building where a squadron of overpaid bureaucrats will cover their butts by briefing them on what they've already know and can do nothing about.

The first priority for reform of the corruption of City Hall is to require openness and transparency in all matters.

We need to know who is giving money to our elected officials and for what purposes on the day the contribution is made.

We need to know who they're meeting with and what their interests are.

We need to know what the real implications are of the policies they enact.

We need to see an end to carefully staged council meetings and back room deals.

Clean government is open government. Good government is transparent. It's the only way there can be accountability and an informed public.

What we have is as closed a government as the Kremlin in the heyday of the Soviet Union and elections that are no more meaningful than any in a one-party state.

We need a watchdog, an army of watchdogs, for that matter, to shed light on the darkness of City Hall.

Look at how the system derailed a simple proposal to create a Ratepayer Advocate to serve the public inside the Department of Water and Power -- the city agency that has the greatest impact on our lives day-to-day, that gobbles up the biggest chunk of our money and is run by IBEW union boss Brian D'Arcy without regard to the public interest.

DWP Commission President NIck Patsaouras proposed the Ratepayer Advocate as a way of restoring some of the utility's credibility with the public and creating some measure of accountability. The mayor and his minions panicked at the thought of such openness and leaned on other DWP commissioners to kill the proposal.

Shortly after, Patsaouras resigned from his post and shocked City Hall's inner circle by the ultimate act of betrayal: He announced he is running against the insider's designated City Controller candidate, Wendy Greuel, who they count on to be more lapdog than watchdog.

And that brings up what happened Friday when the council abandoned the commitment it made three months ago to let voters resolve the question of whether the Controller has the power to conduct performance audits of programs run by other elected officials like the City Attorney or even themselves.

They made that commitment when City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo refused to turn over records of how his office handled worker compensation cases to Controller Laura Chick, leading to legal actions that would let the courts decide months or even years down the road at considerable cost to the public.

But when that day of reckoning came on Friday, council members decided they would prefer to continue to hide under rocks and do business in the dark than allow anyone to see if what they do is working for the public benefit. So instead of going to the ballot, the issue of the Controller's authority -- which City Charter reforms approved by voters nearly a decade ago intended to clarify in favor of conducting performance audits of elected officials -- now is headed back to court.

"I am disheartened that the City Council did not support letting the voters clarify the powers of the City Controller to conduct performance audits of hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer funded programs," Chick said in a statement.

"Unfortunately I am left with no other alternative than to reinstate my audit of the City Attorney's workers compensation program, which will lead to this issue being settled by a court of law."

Even the Times, which has such a hard time focusing on local issues, took an editorial swipe today at the council, seeing its inaction as funny in an ironic sort of way.

"OK, here comes the funny part. When council members discovered that they too might come under controller scrutiny, they suddenly found the issue too important to put to the voter..So, on the last possible day to put a measure on the March 3 ballot, the council "protected" voters from deciding to give their controller broad performance audit powers...The council's "mediation" amounted to protecting its own interests, disenfranchising voters, delaying for three months and failing to avert costly legal proceedings. Funny stuff."

For the record, Jack Weiss who wants to be City Attorney even though he couldn't get re-elected to the council again in his own district, managed to be absent for the vote as were Bernard Parks, Herb Wesson and Tony Cardenas.

Greuel, of course, voted to put the issue to voters even though it's doubtful she would ever use the power if elected controller. Dennis Zine, Bill Rosendahl and Eric Garcetti also cast safe votes for the ballot measure.

CORRECTED REPORT:

Late Tuesday, the Los Angeles Country Registrar-Recorder's released a new tally for the general election showing the massive condo-Waldorf Astoria project at the Beverly Hilton site had pulled ahead by 16 votes. About 1,000 votes remain to be counted.

The project was losing by seven votes through Friday's counting of votes from election day but with absentees and provisional votes, the result is Measure is ahead 7,017 to 7,001 or 50.06 percent to 49.94 percent. A recount seems certain.

The latest figures show Los Angeles City Measure A, the so-called Gang Tax, still is short of the needed two-thirds majority 65.38 percent to 34,62 percent.

And Measure R, also still in question, remains ahead with just over the two-thirds needed with 67.23 percent to 32.77 percent.

When you just got voters to give you $3.5 billion to spend on construction projects, you're going to find you have got a lot of new friends.

Kelly G. Candaele, president of the L.A. Community College District's Board of Trustees, enjoyed the company of a lot of new friends Tuesday morning in the luxury of the City Club on Bunker Hill -- friends in the contracting and consulting world who coughed up as much as $5,000 each for his re-election campaign in March.

MIchelle Gastelum, president of Summit Consulting and Engineering, hosted the event and is doing the same for Trustee Nancy Pearlman next Monday.

But the "pay-to-play" games don't end there.

Trustee Angela Reddock is taking it a giant step farther by inviting her "friends" to an event
laccd-reddock.htm Thursday night at the posh Hancock Park area home of campaign consultant and fund-raiser Brian Rix and lobbyist Bob Burke. While her colleagues limited contributions to $1,000, $2,500 and $5,000, Reddock is clearly more egalitarian and will allow people who give only  $250 to drop by the evening.

Rix is the perfect host, having helped raise the money that put LACCD's Measure J -- as in Jobs for you know who -- over the top with nearly 70 percent of the vote last week.

He's also very big at City Halll where he's been paid $1,334,323.13 by a long list of candidates over the last decade: Wendy Greuel, Herb Wesson, Laura Chick, Bill Rosendahl, Tom LaBonge, Dennis Zine, Joel Wachs, Janice Hahn, Martin Ludlow, Julie Korenstein, Rod Wright and Rudy Svorinich.

What makes Reddock's event even more interesting is that the invitation lists seven trustees and eight presidents of L.A. Community colleges, suggesting she counts them among "Friends of Angela Reddock,''  the title of her campaign fund.

And "Special Guests" for the event include several politicians and the head of the faculty union as well as LACCD Chancellor Mark Drummond and LACCD Facilities Director Larry Eisenberg.

Every single person who has a role in deciding who gets the $3.5 billion plus the hundreds of millions still unspent from the two previous bond issues are offered as supporters of Reddock, who is out there raising money from the people who will get these lucrative contracts.

Is there no shame left? Are there no laws against this sort of thing? Is no one in public office accountable for their actions? If the work is shoddy or there are unjustified cost over-runs who of these people is in a position to do anything about it?

Hey, they are all friends after all and friends don't blow the whistle on friends.

Warren Olney takes on the solar energy scam plan at 7 p.m. Monday on KCRW 89.9 http://www.kcrw.com/news/programs/ww/ww081110green_power_jobs_and/#

Here's the website promo:

'Green Power,' Jobs and City Hall Politics

Money for solar panels on roofs all over Los Angeles will be on the March ballot, but even supporters of alternative energy are raising questions. Also, the nation's largest artificial reef will hopefully mitigate damage to marine life caused by nuclear power plants at San Onofre.  

---

Main Topic

'Green Power,' Jobs and City Hall Politics (7:00P)

The LA City Council wants the Department of Water and Power to install solar panels on government, commercial and industrial roofs all over the city. They would generate 400 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 100,000 homes. Friday, the Council put a bond measure on the March ballot, bypassing the appointed commission that oversees the DWP and without getting an outside analysis of the cost. But even supporters of alternative energy are raising questions. Why will the DWP install and own them, even on private buildings? What did the DWP's employee union have to do with getting Council approval? We look for answers.

Measure J -- the L.A. Community College District's $3.5 billion bond issue -- won passage with nearly 70 percent of the votes last week thanks to a well-funded campaign that has money left over, in no small part to LACCD's liberal use of taxpayer funds to sell the public on its worthiness.

And now the trustees who approved spending public money on advertising to promote the bond issue -- the district's third in just a few years -- get their payday.

Call it pay-to-play, call it politics-as-usual, call it whatever you want but it doesn't change the facts: The insider political culture of Los Angeles makes a mockery of the whole idea of elections and democracy and believes, perhaps rightly, that it can get away with anything.

Tuesday morning at 8:30 a.m. you can breakfast with LACCD Board of Trustee President Kelly G. Candaele -- if you put up $1,000 as a supporter, $2,500 as a sponsor or $5,000 as a host. Here's the invitation if you want to contribute to Candaele's re-election on March 3 laccd-Kelly G. Candaele 11.11.08.pdf but if you can't make it, maybe you can get to Trustee Nancy Pearlman's next Monday laccd-Nancy Pearlman 11.17.08.pdf

The invitations are identical except for the names and the events are too.

Both are being held in the luxury of the City Club on Bunker Hill high atop the Wells Fargo Center where the views of downtown that massive public subsidies helped build are magnificent.

It's a fitting place for such events since you can be sure most of the money that will be ponied up for Candaele's and Pearlman's re-election will come from the contractors and consultants who profited handsomely from the past bond issues and stand too profit even more from what is far and away the biggest yet.

The host of the events offers some insight into how the system works. It's none other than Michelle Gastelum, president of Summit Consulting and Engineering in Pasadena and a member of the California State Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors.

In the small world of L.A. politics nobody thinks there's anything wrong with contractors and consultants throwing fund-raisers for politicians who have billions to spend on contractors and consultants.

And should anyone raise their voice in protest, they are drowned out in a blitzkrieg of advertising bought with special interest money and public money as well.

And so bond issues and tax hikes are passed and the same old faces get re-elected time after time and nothing changes, or will ever change, without a grassroots rebellion.

The March 3 primary provides an opportunity to start organizing to take back the city, the schools and colleges if community groups and activists decide to look past their differences and their preoccupation with the local issues and seize the day.

We can bitch and moan and rail against the injustice and corruption of the system for another generation. But doesn't everybody already know that?

Or we can set out an agenda on how to solve the city's problems and how to make the educational system work better and start getting the message out in our neighborhoods to convince people it's time for change, for hope.

It will take an army of ordinary citizens to bring about real change but it won't happen if we just keep talking to ourselves and muttering about our complaints.