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.
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.
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.
Can I work for your election campaign?
Thank you for remembering our Sky Terrace. We are in dire straights because we are the working poor and seniors and most of us did not have insurance. Only eighteen of the 40 homes that burned down have been helped financially in any manner so far. Most of us make just enough money to fall through the cracks and do not make enough to pay for "affordable housing" and still pay utilities, food, and transportation. This is a terribly sad situation.
Had most of our homes not burned, we would have been evicted for the development of million dollar homes anyway.
WHEN WILL YOU GET IT THIS IS A PROMISE LIKE THE ONE HE MADE HIS WIFE LOOK WHAT HE DID TO HER.
HE IS A WHORE FOR CAMERAS, ILLEGALS, AND OTHER WHORES. NO TRUTH IN HIM. LOOK AT WHERE HE CLAIMS TO RECV THE VOUCHERS FROM. ONE OF THE HIGHEST PAID AGENCY CEO IN LOS ANGELES, AND ANOTHER CARMERS WHORE AND BIG LIAR AND A CROOK.
There is one component that usually makes people start paying attention to local issues. That's when they get scared over, say, a planned development down the street, a McMansion going in next door, etc. Something that really impacts their quality of life.
So, I am hopeful that lots of lights are going to go on lots of voters/residents minds in the next few months once they really get just how serious the city's and state's problems truly are. And, what it means to their dwindling resources.
I figure there is going to be enough time between now and the next election for people to realize they still can do something about the status quo. In other words, they will succumb to the fear, feel the energy that generates and then start getting active and standing up with the rest of us.
Hey, call me an optomist...call me unrealistic, but I do believe that the restructuring Ron described is unprecedented and has huge implications that will change the world as we know it. The question is will people really think they can have a say? Obviously, I do.
From wildfires in California to tornadoes in Oklahoma to hurricanes in Louisiana...it never ceases to amaze me that people insist on 'rebuilding'...isn't it wiser to go build someplace far away from disaster-prone areas?
Hi,
Let's face it, most Americans have been like teenagers at a wild party for the past 4 years without a designated driver.
Now they all piled into a van and the van has crashed.
There is simply no way all these troubles can be blamed on one Democrat or one Republican. The money was flowing, the home values were skyrocketing, and most people never stopped to ask, "Gee, where is all this money coming from?", because we probably wouldn't have understood the math of it anyway.
Geez, even the folks who rate Wall Street stocks cannot tell you for sure how they arrived at AAA ratings for those stocks that are now worth pennies.
If the economists aren't quite sure what's going on then what is the average homeowner supposed to do when his equity suddenly jumps by 25%? Write a letter to Congress and complain?
The real problem here is that we don't have enough transparency in gov't., on all levels.
Our economy is in trouble because of lies, greed, secrets, lies, greed and secrets. Oh, and in the case of GM, because the manufacturers didn't care about the future---they just wanted sales. I think they'd sell cookies and cigarettes if it would help them make a profit.
The country has taken a good first step. We have a new President with lots of practical ideas and he's really smart. What a relief---he's really smart!
But back to my teenagers at the party analogy---which teens should the police arrest?
All of us.
Why is it that whenever Villar grabs the limelight...I ALWAYS have the feeling that he just doesn't give a D A M N about anyone or anything but himself???
"The country has taken a good first step. We have a new President with lots of practical ideas and he's really smart. What a relief---he's really smart!"
Maybe. But then again he had more support from Wall Street than the other guy.
What's going to help this country is that Americans need to learn 1) how capitalism works and 2) how our constitution works and stop making decisions based on emotions - and learn to take care of ourselves!
Caveat emptor!
To 9:33pm, You may have the "feeling" because there finally is some transparency in government; the Emperor's new clothes are really seen for the true nothingness that Tony embodies.
Tony is starting to have people hear his b.s. for what it is. That old saying, "How can you tell when a politician is lying? Answer: "His lips are moving." Just go ahead and insert "the mayor" for “politician” and there's the real story on Tony.
The only ones, if you notice closely, who support Tony are those who will be losing out on their piece of the action if he is displaced from his office in the March elections. These would be the various staff aides, appointees, the connected council members and the special interests who have dumped lots of money into his campaign war chest and propaganda into the air so that he can come back to dump on us; they all have a stake in keeping Tony in office.
They would all have to start over with a new mayor in terms of their investment, and they don't know if the new mayor would keep things heading their way like Tony does, and generously so.
Keeping Tony means their investment is safe and becomes stronger. Losing him means they start again with attempts to get a foothold, aka peddle influence on an unknown quantity, but they risk being unsuccessful.
Right now, they ARE very successful, and that’s been a certainty, much to the woe of the rest of us. Why would they allow a change to happen if they have any say in the elections? And THAT is where the loudest voices of support for the mayor are coming from.
As an aside, is there any uniform that Tony has yet to wear in a press conference? An outfit with a hooker treatment might be appropriate- it would be one of the things that would not be a phony posturing.
A closing observation: For me, it has become so tortuous to listen to Tony's press conference performances, with his constant interjections of "uuh" and "ahh" that have become his trademark. Include with that, those more casual or “street” pronunciations he's come to adopt, "gonna" instead of "going to", "hunnert" instead of "hundred", and "el-LEYH", close to sounding like "alley" when he means simply "L.A." He needs to do what football players do to see the problems, look at the game tapes to see how utterly horrendous his oratory skills have become and remember these words, “Everyone thought he was a fool until he began to speak- and then he proved it.”
There's more, but you can find those yourself among the pointless reasons that most of those press conferences include him. The DNC managers were wise to keep him, essentially, sequestered. We can do the same permanently in the next election.