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.
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.
Ron Kaye is the former editor of the Los Angeles Daily News where he spent 23 years helping to make the newspaper the voice of the San Fernando Valley and fighting for a city government that serves the people and not special interests.
Twice in recent years, Los Angeles Magazine listed Kaye among the city’s most influential people, specifically in the area of politics. Kaye has been variously described in the media as the “accidental anarchist,” “the Patrick Henry of the San Fernando Valley” and a “passionate populist.” He is now committed to
carrying on his crusade for a greater Los Angeles as an ordinary citizen. Previously, Ron worked at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner,
Associated Press, Cleveland Plain Dealer and The Australian as well as papers
in Fairbanks, Alaska and Yakima, Wash. He also wrote for Newsweek magazine, The Guardian in London and the National Enquirer.
What the council members are afraid to say -- and the Times is too stupid to know -- is that Chick created this problem for herself. She's despised in City Hall for being a back-stabbing, headline grabbing media whore who has screwed more people in her career than anyone in the building. These people will just never give her the satisfaction and they hope she just disappears when her term is up.
And before you say the character and political motives of the "investigator" doesn't matter, remember Kenneth Starr.
Anon 10:51 is right -- the Council just wanted the Controller's audits to be as transparent as anyone else: who's auditing the Controller? What's to prevent her from targeting people for political reasons and throwing them under the bus by refusing to give the whole picture and seizing only on already-identified problems on their way to being solved, like the DNA issue -- to grandstand for her own purposes and future election, as she HAS been doing? It's easy to make this about personalities like Rocky and Tony Cardenas that's she's most notably tangled with, but that's not the point, the point is to establish perameters and reasonable frameworks and accountability, INCLUDING for her. Like above Anon. says, she's not just ignorant but feigns ignorance to be backstabbing and headline- grabbing, after others have done the work to generate enough momentum on an issue that she can say: "Yes, that will be good PR for me, I'll 'discover' the problem!"
Alarcon suggested an outside auditor without a political axe to grind -- she's already paying outsiders to do most of "her" audits, and clearly knows less than nothing about most of the details involved. The issue isn't getting audited, but "having one (very politically motivated) official audit another," as was stated repeatedly.
Chick behaved like a spoiled brat, who will sue the City Attorney since she couldn't get the Council to give her everything she wants. She's going to cost the city millions because she wouldn't discuss or compromise, just make demands. But she can count on people like Ron to so blindly hate everyone else at City Hall that they blindly annoint her the One Who Can Do No Wrong, The One above all suspicion, The One.
Anon@10:51 and Anon@12:14:
“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”
All I hear here is blind anger, including this last contribution from Ron, THAT is the point. His hatred of Wendy and especially Jack Weiss is absurdly hilarious, he can't resist a gratuitous and false swipe at him in virtually every thread, even though the entire effort against him has been controlled by the very few people Ron himself described in his earlier thread on the CD5 "candidates forum" as "extremely organized" (read, manipulated) by essentially, one person with help from a few others whose bitterness and anger make them sad people. They do not represent anywhere near the mainstream of the district -- the vast, vast majority of whom never even heard of them -- but of course, westside-hating Ron seizes on them as "proof" of his own biases.
Worst of all, such blind hatred and bias leads to very bad public policy, when those like Chick and the amateur would-be players can harness it for their own benefit -- which is what the first commenters are pointing out.
It's good that 12:18 is in therapy and has probably paid a fortune for a book full of cute sayings, but this is politics and not a problem with your cheating spouse. Chick has been given a free ride for too long. I'm in favor of letting her audit Rocky's operation, as long as she doesn't mind Rocky turning a dozen investigators loose on her.
it's good you're in therapy 12:18, but this is politics, not a cheating spouse.
it's good you're in therapy 12:18, but this is politics, not a cheating spouse.
12:51 and 12:51, you people are the ones who confuse blindly venomous and misleading "politics" with therapy -- get that in some more constructive way. Start with working on your self-awareness. Godspeed.
I for one appreciate any blogging forum which allows people to express their feelings/ anger or vent, like many do here, and I feel sorry for a lot of them -- but as for mixing that blind anger and harmful prejudice with meddling, that's another matter. I for one wouldn't want someone who derides the Valley side of my CD5 district and the rest of the Valley as bland, boring boxes occupied by bland, boring people to presume to come here and interfere in my elections and issues, seizing on a handful of misanthropic bitter betties and bobs with no concept of reality to focus their anger around.
Oops, 1:21 was meant for 12:18 but the two overlapping posts got in the way.
I agree with 12:43 as a matter of general principle, not just as pertains to Rocky but to Chick vis-a-vis any elected official. She HAS had a free ride for way too long, and now she's the one who's chosen to put her performance and refusal accept any boundaries or oversight in the spotlight. This time, it turned out to be a spotlight she couldn't control.
12:43, 12:51 and 12:51:
1) I heard you the first time. Slow down, take a deep breath, exhale... Feel better now?
2) Therapy ain't my thing, but you should look into it.
3) The book is the Sutta Pitaka.
4) What's up with the cheating spouse references? Are you the cheater someone's throwing hot coals at, or the cuckold holding the coals in anger?
5) "Chick's been given a free ride for too long. I'm in favor of letting her audit Rocky's operation, as long as she doesn't mind Rocky turning a dozen investigators loose on her." Your reference to investigators is clearly meant to imply that Chick has engaged in some unethical or illegal behavior. Can you provide any facts to back that up? Headline grabbing isn't a crime, is it? What are you trying to say?
Hey Ron,
You must be getting traction at City Hall, or at least under someone's skin, because they're trying to marginalize you now. (see 12:34)
Congrats buddy! You're in good company!
Hello??? Alarcon suggested an outside auditor because he has fifty in his pocket that he'd like to set up for the overpaid, zero-accountability position. That's why.
What's the difference between an auditor and an investigator? Nothing. And Chick's "audits" have been arbitrary since she took office. Ask Ted Stein and the rest of airport folks who now want the city to pay their legal fees.
Ted Stein. Webb Hubbell. 'Nuf said.
@12:14:
Anon 10:51 is right -- the Council just wanted the Controller's audits to be as transparent as anyone else: who's auditing the Controller? the Controller's job is to audit budgets to check for financial mismanagement... the Controller is elected by the People to do this... it's the job... the Controller does not have the huge organizational budget, as the other L.A. organizations do, to reasonably warrant an audit of the Controller's books, but if it's needed then let the City Attorney's office hire someone for it What's to prevent her from targeting people for political reasons and throwing them under the bus by refusing to give the whole picture She is doing her job to expose budget mismanagement... if they are guilty then throwing under the bus is appropriate and seizing only on already-identified problems on their way to being solved, like the DNA issue nobody unbiased person believes that the DNA testing issue is being adequately solved -- to grandstand for her own purposes and future election, as she HAS been doing? you don't like her doing her job then fine, your own bias It's easy to make this about personalities like Rocky and Tony Cardenas that's she's most notably tangled with, but that's not the point, you make NO POINT the point is to establish perameters and reasonable frameworks and accountability, INCLUDING for her. Like above Anon. says, she's not just ignorant but feigns ignorance to be backstabbing and headline- grabbing, after others have done the work to generate enough momentum on an issue that she can say: "Yes, that will be good PR for me, I'll 'discover' the problem!" only a lowly CC Staffer would worry about "backstabbing" and "PR". There now, you've been outted.
Alarcon suggested an outside auditor without a political axe to grind -- she's already paying outsiders to do most of "her" audits what outsiders?... her staff should be doing the audits , and clearly knows less than nothing about most of the details involved. The issue isn't getting audited, but "having one (very politically motivated) official audit another," as was stated repeatedly. if an audit is WRONG then it is open for all to realize. nothing wrong with that!!!
Chick behaved like a spoiled brat, who will sue the City Attorney since she couldn't get the Council to give her everything she wants. she probably is a spoiled brat, but Delgadillo is clearly crooked. I hope is corruption is exposed She's going to cost the city millions because she wouldn't discuss or compromise don't compromise on corruption, expose and convict them , just make demands. But she can count on people like Ron to so blindly hate everyone else at City Hall that they blindly annoint her the One Who Can Do No Wrong, The One above all suspicion, The One. all hail The One, heehee.
I think Chick should audit the L A County Recorder's office, to find out who stole the Beverly Hills election over the Hilton Hotel site. As posters there noted, it's impossible for the developers to have won out at the end by such a narrow margin, after the opponents felt assured of victory. As the only honest politician around, Laura Chick must get to the bottom of it. Even if it's not strictly speaking her jurisdiction, she should hold a press conference to express her dismay that there is election stealing going on.
(After she determines whether or not being on the side against development is really the best for her future. Probably so, since meddling in the affairs of Beverly Hills can earn her brownie points in some quarters while having no impact on any future actions she might take in whatever district she ends up in as Councilwoman. On the other hand, if she shoots for statewide office, it could be tricky. The last honest politician must think carefully about this, but not too much -- Save Beverly Hills, Laura!)
Los Angeles City Ethics Commission –
2009 Municipal Election and LAUSD Election
March 3, 2009
http://ethics.lacity.org/efs/public_election.cfm?election_id=37&RequestTimeout=500#S142