The question of whether the "No on Prop. B" ballot argument is false and misleading will go before Judge David Yaffe at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday Jan. 8, 2009 in Department 86.

Mitchell Schwartz, president of the Los Angeles League of Convervation Voters and a partner in a new public affairs consulting firm specializing in labor and environmental issues, filed suit Dec. 18 against the author of the ballot argument Jack Humphreville, a long-time activist and member of the DWP Committee that operates with a memorandum of understanding with the utility as well as the  DWP Committee that operates outside the agency as an independent watchdog.

The seven others who signed the ballot argument -- Soledad Garcia, Humberto Camacho, Kristine Lee, Nick Patsaouras, Joe Pulido, James O'Sullivan and myself -- were not named.

The so-called Solar 8, had great difficulty finding a lawyer to handle the case during Christmas week, a problem compounded by getting only 10 calendar days to respond.

Noel Weiss, a candidate for City Attorney with a long record of community service, came to our rescue on Saturday and worked continuously for most of the next four days to prepare the pleadings in defense of the ballot argument.

From my point of view, he did a great job in defending the "No on Prop. B" argument and offering alternative language based on the highly critical outside consultant's report that was made available to City Council President  Eric Garcetti on Nov. 4 but kept secret from the public until Dec. 19.

The declarations from Humphreville and from Patsaouras who was president of the DWP Board of Commissioners until Oct. 23, eight days after Garcetti began his three-week push to get Prop. B on the March 3 ballot are the heart of the pleadings.

Taken together their declarations make a compelling case that the process used to enact this measure was so seriously flawed that it made a mockery of the role of public hearings and debate and the measure itself is so seriously flawed that it will cause great harm to the city, to ratepayers and to hopes to bring a green energy program to Los Angeles.

But that's just my point of view. What matters is what you think. And to come to conclusions on your own, you are going to have to read the documents for yourself. I have posted other documents in early articles and will post other documents later but here are Humphreville's and Patsaouras' declarations, the pro and con ballot arguments and the lawsuit.

solar-humphreville.pdf
solar-patsaouras.pdf
solarpro-con.doc
solarlawsuit.pdf

Happy New Year!

Editor's Note: Even as the City Hall power structure argues Proposition B will avoid the need to build costly high-voltage transmission lines to bring green power to Los Angeles, it is rushing forward to do just that: Build a costly high-voltage transmission line across the Southern California desert to bring green power to L.A. In both cases, the DWP's goal is maintain its energy monopoly -- whatever it costs the public, whatever damage it does to the environment. In both cases, the result is growing community opposition. Prop. B is under attack because it isn't a solar energy plan at all but a payoff to the DWP's union, the IBEW. The desert plan faces massive opposition because it will destroy beautiful and sensitive areas. The DWP has just rejected an offer to add its lines to existing SCE transmission towards along I-10. Sheila Bowers, a long-time Santa Monica resident who spends a lot time at her home near Joshua Tree National Park, sent this email that eloquently bridges the two worlds from the desert to the sea and she asks how we can all come together to bring green power to Southern California and protect the environment and our pocketbooks..By Sheila Bowers

Studded with the exact rock formations and unique plant and animal life, that made Joshua Tree rise from a simple desert into a National Park, and surrounded by flat-topped mesas with enormous spiritual significance for our native american predecessors there, this is an irreplaceable spot of endless beauty, tranquility, drama, danger and purity.

LADWP is planning to destroy this pristine wilderness with important cultural resources on it, and bulldoze, dynamite, scrape, poison, pave and develop this gorgeous region, and force hundreds of people from their homes -- people that will never see a single watt of the power, even though there are FANTASTIC solar resources right in LA that DWP resolutely refuses to tap, despite LA's sprawl, urban heat islands and desperate need for local jobs and economic stimulus for residents. No, they want to destroy lives, property values and the fragile desert ecosystem (which happens to be a highly effective carbon sink when left intact), and jack up rates, to support their monopolistic desires.

So, who are the NIMBY's now? Who is refusing to bear the costs of their own consumption in their own yards? Not rural desert dwellers, who are very anxious to have policies that will promote rooftop solar and microwind on our own properties - policies like feed-in tariffs which pay us for power we produce and feed into the grid, instead of forcing us from our properties to produce (and transmit) the same exact power on the same exact properties, only owned by monopolists.  Ironically, many of those in the path of this despicable death train are already living "off grid" in total harmony with their environments. How unfair is that?

We in the desert also want policies like guaranteed financing for PV (photo-voltaic), which can be repaid through AB 811 and the property tax system. Financing, incentives and compensation for power we produce are so basic, and so critical throughout the region, the state and the nation if we want to prevent the Robber Barons of Big Energy (including LADWP) from re-centralizing the grid and bottling OUR sun and OUR wind on OUR land and selling it back to us for a high profit, yet we still don't have them.

Why not?  It's unconscionable, and people need to know that Villaraigosa and Nahai are speaking for them when they say, in essence "Screw Joshua Tree. Screw our Ratepayers. Our ends (monopolistic chokehold over ratepayers) justify our means (destroying carbon sinks, poisoning and decimating wilderness areas and watersheds, impoverishing thousands of rural people, hijacking DWP ratepayers, denying economic stimulus and jobs to a city starving for them, etc.)."  Are they speaking for you?  If not, better have a word with their bosses, eh?

This is pay-to-play pure and simple.

The DWP and the IBEW union that runs it blocked solar energy development in Los Angeles for a decade, demanding that the utility own all major solar installations and that the work of installing the units and maintaining them belong to the IBEW.

They blackmailed the city, held solar energy development hostage. And now the elected officials who lacked the courage to stand up to the DWP/IBEW want us to bribe them to let us have green power.

That's all Proposition B is about: Rewarding the very people who used their political might and the public's money to prevent under contract the 30 largest customers from installing rooftop solar energy units or other green power by giving them discounted rates.

They stopped a solar energy industry from flourishing in Los Angeles, actually chasing away companies to greener communities, and kept such a tight lid on solar energy that the city gets less than 1 percent of its electricity from the sun.

Prop. B doesn't do anything to increase solar energy use.

It only gives into the DWP/IBEW blackmailers' demands: They will own solar power, not us. They will feed the City Hall political machine with huge campaign contributions and the city treasury with hundreds of millions of dollars in ratepayers' money.

The campaign being orchestrated by Mayor Antonio Villaraigsoa is a big lie. Prop. B is nothing but a blank check to steal. It's got nothing to do with solar energy.

And when eight ordinary citizens stood up to them and told the truth, the mayor and his team dragged them into court to intimidate them, to tie up their time and energy, to threaten them with huge legal bills, court costs and attorney fees.

I am one of those eight, the L.A. Solar Eight -- Jack Humphreville, Soledad Garcia, Humberto Camacho, Kristine Lee, Nick Patsaouras, Joe Pulido, James O'Sullivan are the others. And they have made our Christmas week tough, trying to find a lawyer, raise money, understand the law and the risks we face.

We dared to sign our names to the ballot argument (solarpro-con.doc). Even that is now too much for this out-of-control political machine.

Sometimes a great notion comes from unexpected places like the answer to rampant pay-to-play dealing in City Hall comes from inside City Hall itself.

In an effort to prevent Metrolink train engineers from text messaging on their cell phones when they should be watching the signals and the track, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's point man to clean up the mess wants to have video cameras installed in the locomotive cabs so we can keep an eye on what's going on.

"We're talking about the ability to look into a [locomotive] cab in real time and see what's happening," said Metrolink board member Richard Katz, who Villaraigosa put on the panel after the deadly Sept. 12 crash in Chatsworth.

I'm all for saving lives and for saving the city, too.

Think of how much better off we'd all be if video cameras were installed in the back rooms at City Hall where all the deals are cooked, where the City Council members get their marching orders on how to best serve the people who matter: Lobbyists, consultants, contractors, public employee unions.

Why before long, we'd be seeing the ambitious if listless Jack Weiss turning straight to the camera and saying, "No, I won't do you favors no matter how much cash you contribute to my campaign for City Attorney."

Or we might see the mayor himself declaring: "Sorry, it sounds like a fabulous party with fine wines, great food and beautiful women but I'm busy reading Jane Usher's 14-point program for planning a great city for the people who live and work here. Policy is more important than politics partying."

And just to make sure they don't stray off camera we could try what worked in Illinois to catch the governor selling Barack Obama's Senate seat and wiretap and bug their offices.

Saving the lives of Metrolink passengers is important but so is saving the quality of life in the city.

I know it's asking a lot of people to actually get informed for themselves about things and make up their own minds but if I have to go back to the fateful City Council meeting on Nov. 7 and listen to these people prattle dishonestly about a half-baked solar energy plan, you should to.

The debate started with President Eric Garcetti asking -- or more precisely answering -- what he claimed were the 13 questions distilled from a secret report by the DWP's consultant that found the plan is "extremely risky," will cost ratepayers too much and doubts DWP's management is capable of handling the task.

Understand that the largest solar energy plan in U.S. history was introduced and approved for the ballot in three weeks while back room deals were being cut with various special interests to win their support or at the least keep them silent. The public was given none of that information, making what passed for public hearings a mockery of the whole idea of public discourse.

Stop me. I don't want to poison the well with my anger of what is the worst example of machine politics I've ever seen and I cut my teeth in politics in Chicago when Richard J. Daley was the Boss.

Let's start in the middle of the carefully scripted and staged debate where Dennis Zine makes clear the council really doesn't have the facts about this plan and calls for a lively debate during the campaign -- a debate the mayor and his team are trying to squelch by suing the ordinary citizens who point out the DWP itself barred solar developments for the last decade and believe this is the wrong first step, nothing but a sweetheart deal for the IBEW.

Then, he asks a softball question about whether the Neighborhood Councils and the public were brought into the process as required -- a question that prompts DWP General Manager David Nahai to turn as usual to dissembling and doubletalk, saying "Nowhere near enough." Listen here  zine-nahai.mp3

Back room deals, critical reports kept secret, basic processes violated, insiders get the money, the public be damned -- that's what City Controller Laura Chick sees in the mayor and City Council's mad rush to put the largest solar energy plan in U.S. history on the ballot in just three weeks.

The Department of Water and Power, its engineers, planner and even its board, were left out of the process.

The only public airings of the scheme -- or what passed for them -- left council members and public in the dark. Council President Eric Garcetti defends the process he controlled by saying he investigated so nobody else needed to read the devastating critique by the DWP's consultant.

On Larry Mantle's "Air Talk" Tuesday on KPCC, Chick did what no one else in public life in L.A. has the courage to do, saying the whole deal smacks of Chicago-style politics -- something unheard of in a city that used to boast about its clean government.

Here's what Chick had to say, listen for yourself, it's important:   chick1.mp3 chick2.mp3

For months now the people behind Antonio Villaraigosa -- men like Ari Swiller and Keith Brackpool who have huge investments in water and power development companies -- have been raising millions in campaign funds for the mayor and the political machine he heads.

They are part of the inner circle of strategists and operatives who see themselves on the brink of controlling every city office, every city department, every aspect of the political machinery of power in Los Angeles -- Mayor Villaraigosa, City Attorney Jack Weiss, Controller Wendy Greuel and an obedient City Council and bureaucracy..

And are drooling at the prospect of looting the city treasury, the sales taxes targeted for transportation projects and the Department of Water and Power with all its billions of dollars in ratepayer money

They have shed themselves of obstacles like Nick Patsaouras, the head of the DWP Commission who got so fed up with what he saw he decided to run for City Controller to be the watchdog on the public's money. And Jane Usher, the head of the Planning Commission who tried to stop billboard blight and densification without a plan or the infrastructure to support more people without making the nation's worst traffic congession worse and running out of water and power without massive new investments funded by even higher rates and taxes. Even MTA head Roger Snoble has seen enough of this and is moving on.

All that's left in the way of the dictatorship of special interests is you the people. And most of you act like it's somebody else problem so you don't have to pay attention, as if you can.trust your elected leaders and the civic leadership to look after their interests and the well-being of the city as a whole.

But there are thousands of ordinary citizens who volunteered their time and energy for years for no other reaason than a sense of public service and they are under attack, their very right to speak out against the government at stake.

The trail of responsibility for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's fraudulent solar energy proposal leads straight to President-elect Obama, raising questions about whether all that talk of change and citizen participation and democracy was just so much lip service.

The mayor himself was named to Obama's transition team of economic advisers.

Deputy Mayor Nancy Sutley -- architect of the Proposition B plan as his environmental expert -- was just named chair of Obama's council of environmental advisers.

Mitchell Schwartz, the political operative who was Obama's California Campaign Director, is the point man for the City Hall political machine who is using the courts to try to intimidate ordinary citizens who have dared to challenge the lies, the secrets, the back room deals that have gone into Prop. B.

And Schwartz, who is represented by Stephen Kaufman, the legal mouthpiece for the mayor and the Democratic Party's Hall of Fame, wants to stick these citizen opponents, myself included, with a hefty bill for court costs and attorney fees for having the temerity to stand up for what's good for the city, good for the environment.

Prop. B is an outrageous fraud. It was created by and for the benefit of the DWP union, the IBEW which is led by City Hall's Mr. Big, Brian D'Arcy, the long-time pal of the mayor who has gotten nearly 6 percent raises for his union in the middle of the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression.

Editor's Note: Judge David Yaffe gave Jack Humphreville and other signatories on the No on Prop. B ballot argument until Dec. 30 to respond to the legal intimidation by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's lawyer who is representing Mitchell Schwartz and the League of Conservation Voters political action committee which claims there are false and misleading statements. Rebuttals are due Jan. 5 and the next hearing is Jan. 8. We are seeking a lawyer and received several offers of donations.
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At a news conference Friday, City Council President Eric Garcetti and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa defended their Proposition B solar energy plan and the mad rush to get it approved after disclosure that a consultant warned it was "extremely risky" and too costly

Garcetti claimed that the public had full knowledge of what was in the report because he used a one-page bullet-point digest of what was in the 26-page report to ask questions at a hearing. The bullet points were prepared by Chief Legislative Analyst Gerry Miller and shown to only a few council members with at least Wendy Greuel and Jan Perry admitting they took little or no notice of it. You can listen heresolar.mp3

Garcetti admitted he did not read the sonsultant's full report or make public the 13 bullet points. But his office made both available late Friday along with a second report and Miller's letter attempting to explain away the problem. You can read them all here Solar_initiative_packet.pdf

The critical study was made by PA Consulting Group, which is conducting a five-year review of DWP operations.

Both Garcetti and the mayor insisted all the issues raised in the report -- high costs, shortage of supply, lack of trained workers, low efficiency of roof top solar panels among others -- were addressed in the final form of Proposition B that voters will decide March 3.

The plan counts on $2 billion in subsidies from the federal government -- two-thirds of the total cost. Most of the money will go to China which Garcetti said is ramping up its capacity to make the panels -- a fact that undermines City Hall's claims it will significantly stimulate the local economy and give birth to a local solar technology industry.

The jobs of installing the solar panels will go to the DWP union, the IBEW, which developed the plan in the first place.

The City Hall political machine's mouthpiece, attorney Stephen Kaufman, is dragging community activists who oppose Proposition B -- the solar energy fraud measure -- into court this morning to challenge most of their argument on the March 3 ballot.

Kaufman -- who has long represented the mayor and boasts his clients include the City Attorney, a majority of the City Council, powerful city unions, numerous Democratic Party politicians, several insider institutions and Clear Channel billboards -- filed a 15-page petition demanding opponents' arguments be watered down and that they pay court costs and attorney fees.

He is representing Mitchell Schwartz, president of the League of Conservation Voters, one of the environmental groups that have signed on in support of Prop. B, which "which calls for unionized DWP workers to install solar panels on rooftops and parking lots across the city,''' accordiing to the L.A. Times.

Editor's Note: For months City Controller Laura Chick and City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo have been engaged in a legal and political war over whether the City Charter gives her office the right to conduct performance audits of programs run by other elected officials, specifically how he's managed the city worker compensation programs. With Janice Hahn playing a critical role, the City Council last week refused to pay for Chick's lawyer to defend her position in court against a lawsuit Delgadillo filed to block her audit.

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT

City Controller Laura N. Chick

Last week the Los Angeles City Council voted to refuse hiring outside legal counsel to defend me against a suit brought by City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo.  The suit, City of Los Angeles vs. City Controller Laura Chick, is attempting to block me from conducting a performance audit of Delgadillo's multi-million dollar workers compensation program.

During the debate, Councilmember Janice Hahn, a member of the 1999 elected City Charter Commission spoke out against allowing the City Controller to conduct performance audits of programs housed in elected official's offices.

Councilmember Hahn's views were a major influence on the discussion since she was part of the Commission which wrote the Charter.  The City Attorney has been circulating Councilmember Hahn's statement to back his position.

However, just eight months ago. Councilmember Hahn spoke at a public hearing of the City Council's Ad-Hoc on Gang Violence and Youth Development and supported having the City Controller conduct performance audits of programs no matter where they are housed.  .

I have included the transcripts and audio clips of Councilmember Hahn's statements." 

Councilmember Janice Hahn
City Council Meeting
Wednesday, December 10, 2008

I was on the charter Commission, I think I know what we wanted it to be and I think what you're seeing here is exactly what we wanted to avoid.   One political, um, office, you know, having an opportunity to um, you know, investigate another political office for, um, you know,
whatever reason but we've seen it in the past how that has happened and I think we on the City Charter, and I think Erwin Chemerinsky might disagree with me but, I think we wanted the City Controller to do performance audits of departments to find out, uh, ya know, how we could do a better job.  We never intended one political office to investigate another political office.

Councilmember Janice Hahn
City Council's Ad-Hoc on Gang Violence and Youth Development
March 14, 2008

I think what everybody here is wanting, particularly me, is this accountability, this transparency, this accountability that everyone in the City knows for a fact as we move forward, which programs are working.  How tax dollars are being used and we can see this in an open process.

And I want to tell you, I'm probably the only one sitting around here who wrote this City Charter.  I was elected to the Charter Commission and I will tell you in the intent in this section 261, the intent of the elected Charter Commission which represented the people, no offense to the appointed Charter Commission.  It was our intent that programs and offices would be, you know, audited by the City Controller.  And I will tell you,  the public, we sold this City Charter to the public saying that while we gave the Mayor more accountability, we also gave the City Controller, really we wanted the City Controller to regularly audit,
financial and performances of offices.

There never was in my opinion, an intent that if a program was somehow housed in a City official's office that it would not be under this intent.  I would challenge you to, you know survey other Charter Commissioners, because I believe we have the same--and even if you look at our campaign material when we tried to get this City Charter passed by the people, this was one of the key things that the Controller would be able to audit programs inside the City of Los Angeles.

I work all night, I work all day, to pay the bills I have to pay
Ain't it sad
And still there never seems to be a single penny left for me
That's too bad ..

Money, money, money
Must be funny
In the rich man's world
Money, money, money
Always sunny
In the rich man's world

Maybe it's just the songs from Abba in Mamma Mia still ringing in my head but as I listen to the mayor and City Council -- unanimous in their paralysis about what to do -- I keep wondering how with more than $7 billion to play with, they can only find $74 million in savings after months of discussion.

That's 1 percent of the total budget. It's all they could find tocut on Wednesday in the face of dire economic forecasts.

I'll bet even L.A.'s billionaires, if there are any left, have found they could cut back more than 1 percent. I know I have and I'll bet 99 percent of the population has in the face of the Second Great Depression we're now experiencing.

It's not like there's a mystery to the problem:

City Hall spends more than it take in despite an endless succession of increases in rates, fees and taxes under Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa while it gives raises of up to 6 percent to city employees on top of the endless step increases they get for doing the same job this year they did last year.

Revenue is up 30 percent in three years under the mayor's leadership but spending is up even more.

American Justice: Smokers, the con man and the quality of our lives

Once again Wednesday, I found myself sitting in Department 101 of the Van Nuys Municipal Court to observe the case of the People of Los Angeles vs. Nadya Mahdavi and Fidelity Investments LLC who are accused in a criminal complaint of illegally converting a single-family house in my tract into a three-apartment tenement.

She was standing in the hallway chatting on her cell phone and smiled sweetly at me as I headed into the courtroom. She was there to finally enter a plea to the four misdemeanor charges dating back nine months to when the Building and Safety Department first cited her  for construction without a permit.

As the citations grew in number and finally turned into criminal charges, Mahdavi had managed to avoid even getting to the point of entering a plea,  first by failing to appear, then appearing without a lawyer and then getting a continuance.

Assistant City Attorney Don Cocek assured me she wouldn't get another delay.

So I sat in court and listened to case after case of people facing everything from petty theft to drug charges to building code violations to spousal abuse.

Muncipal courts are fascinating, the place where ordinary people come against the law with little chance of escaping the consequences.

Nancy Johnson and Nzinga Owolo, like most of the defendants, found there was no alternative to pleading guilty to the crime they were accused of: Smoking in the park.

"Cigarettes?" I asked Johnson.

"Yes," she said, "my cousin and I went to Balboa Park to fish, for tilapia mostly, and we lit up cigarettes and we're just talking when the ranger came up and wrote us up."

Johnson and Owolo pleaded guilty and were fined $30 each. But the court costs raised their penalty to $250 each because smoking in the park is a misdemeanor crime, not just an infraction, so the fees are high and they now have criminal records which makes those fish they were catching pretty expensive.

"It's crap" Johnson said. "Ridiculous  There's no signs posted. We went around the park and took pictures but nobody cares. They just want your money."

UPDATE: Shortly after the City Council voted on the billboard moratorium, Jack Weiss' office put out a press release boasting of his leadership on the issue.  And Bernard Parks' office announced four billboards were going up in the next month in his district offering a reward of up to $500,000 for the arrest and conviction of the "Grim Sleeper" serial killer. Parks' press release said Clear Channel Outdoor "has consistently been a  responsible member of the communities it serves and also takes a proactive role in making the communities better places to live." And now City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, the main culprit in the billboard fiasco, has joined the PR orgy with his own self-congratulatory praise of the moratorium.

Call me a cynic, call me a troublemaker, call me Ishmael for all I care, but when I hear the City Council try to sell out the public interest, it makes me mad as hell.

Let's start with the closed-door session on Tuesday when under the ruse of talking about one of the two dozen or so lawsuits the despicable billboard companies have filed against the city over its bungling -- deliberately corrupt or mere incompetence as the case might be -- the council discussed for nearly two hours a six-month moratorium on all new billboards.

Janice Hahn admitted that today they really talked about the moratorium -- a clear violation of the state open meeting law -- and that they had reached agreement in closed session on a ban on all billboards, not just digital signs supergraphics.

But even that weakening of what had started out as a one-year moratorium was too much for Jack Weiss -- the wannabe City Attorney who rests his case in great part on his tough stand against billboard blight.

Weiss, aided by Ed Reyes, proposed not only reducing the moratorium to three month but watering it down to only electronic billboards and supergraphics.

It was a screwball twist that only Hahn and to some extent Bernard Park had the honesty to challenge. How could anything be more outrageous in a city where more than a third of the 11,000 off-site billboards were put up without permits, many of them decades ago?

Such concerns never occurred to Bill Rosendahl or Wendy Greuel or Tom LaBonge who couldn't rush fast enough to get unanimous agreement on anything.

That may be the most important point. They needed unanimity and they needed 12 votes and they were desperate to get this interim control ordinance for a moratorium passed today.

The reason for that is the lesson people who actually care about the quality of life in L.A. need to take to heart.

Just days ago, the council intended to put this off until January when they return from their luxury Christmas vacations By then, they hoped permits would be pulled by their contributors for more digital and supergraphic monstrosities and more offensive billboards.

But the public's anger made that impossible. You can be sure that much of their illegal back room discussion was about how to defuse the public outrage while doing the least they could do.

The answer was to pass the moratorium but make it as brief as possible even though their lawyers and planners had told them they needed the full six months to find out where the 11,000 billboards are and which are illegal and to figure out an ordinance that actually stood up in court.

Once upon a time, the city had such an ordinance and it did stand up in court. But thanks to the City Attorney, the council and the mayor, they chose to cut deals with the billboard companies that undermined the ordinance and gave away the city sightscape to visual blight. Already, more than 100 digital billboards are in place.

Council members as usual claimed today they didn't know what they were doing -- a plea that falls on deaf ears when judges hear it in court whether it comes from hardened criminals or crooked politicians.

"I want the public to know we have good intentions," Hahn declared, losing much of the credit she earned for pointing out Weiss' hypocrisy a few moments earlier.

Just before the vote, Dennis Zine -- perhaps upset that it was suggested by colleagues that he leave the room if he wouldn't support a watered-down ordinance -- told the anti-billboard activists what they really wanted to hear: Ban all new off-site billboards permanently like some communities have done.

Zine stood alone at that point but went along with the three-month moratorium on all off-site signage, a 14-0 vote.

That's not the end of the story, only the beginning.

If you think this issue is important, you need to tap into the widespread public anger and organize to demand full participation in the planning process where a new ordinance will be developed. You need to work with Building and Safety and the City Attorney and the Planning Department to make sure what is drafted and finally approved is what you want.

You need a lawyer, a good lawyer.

There is a strong case to be made that the settlements with the billboard companies are illegal and were made without the authority to overturn the city's zoning laws.

There is a strong case to be made that the deals being made with L.A. Live since the moratorium issue was raised violated the law.

There is a strong case to be made for a total ban on all billboards of any type until the mess is completely cleaned up.

And there's an even stronger case that they city should be getting millions in revenue from the billboard companies and the property owners they pay to use their space rather than the few hundred dollars the city now gets.

But if you don't learn the lesson of the billboard scandal, none of that will happen. When the people get angry enough to pose a threat to the rank and privileges of their elected officials, they do the right thing -- at least while the anger is hot and the public is vigilant.

Frankly, nothing else works.

The warning signs are clear: The City Council and the mayor have no stomach to take on their benefactors -- the billboard companies -- who they gave away the city to even after they won a lawsuit to stop the visual blight of electronic and illegal signage.

Only you can put the fear of the people in them. And they are worried about a rebellion. On Tuesday, the council met for an hour to talk about the billboard problem -- behind closed doors because it's none of your business -- but didn't disclose what conclusion they reached or whether they violated the open meetings law by talking about the moratorium.

Visit Dennis Hathaway's Ban Billboard Blight website and read what Westside community activist Barbara Broide commented heer today on last week's article Scandal at City Hall  

Below you will find the email addresses of city officials to bombard before Wednesday's City Council meeting where the issue is on the agenda. Let them know you're not going to take it anymore.

By Barbara Broide

All citizens of Los Angeles have an opportunity to be heard tomorrow at a City Council meeting that will consider passage of the Interim Control Ordinance (ICO) on an OFF-SITE SIGN MORATORIUM. 

This would hopefully halt all new off-site signs, digital conversions and placement of supergraphic signs on buildings (the new frontier in the off-site advertising industry's horizon).(These supergraphics are not permitted in much of the City but the City has been unable to force their removal even though many of the signs create significant fire hazards and endanger the occupants of the buildings involved.)

The City Planning Commission passed this urgency ICO motion in November and PLUM has just waived consideration and sent it directly to Council for a vote.  As an urgency measure, it needs 12 votes to pass so all concerned citizens should contact their councilmember and all the councilmembers to voice their support for the ICO.

Whether you are "for" or "against" off-site signs, a new ordinance that is enforceable is urgently needed to keep the City out of court every time it attempts to do some enforcement.

Imagine the cost of fighting all the currently pending lawsuits, alone. (There may be over two dozen such suits, which often result in private (secret) settlements made far from the public's eye.)  Even the City Attorney's office is in favor of a moratorium and opportunity to write a new off-site sign ordinance as they face endless lawsuits and cannot enforce what remains of the  City's 2002 off-site sign ordinance. 

That ordinance's enforcement has been hobbled by litigation, secret settlements, inconsistent City programs like the street furniture program... leaving the City unprotected from the profit-minded outdoor advertising industry -- whose only concern is their own bottom line and the ability to raise income at any and all costs. 

(So you have a 24-hour digital sunrise in your bedroom?  So, your kid was maimed in an accident as a result of a distracted driver watching a digital billboard?  Ever tried to sell a home with a ditigal billboard in your backyard?  Much to ponder. The City needs time from the moratorium to get its house in order.)

councilmember.reyes@lacity.org    councilmember.greuel@lacity.org  councilmember.zine@lacity.org      councilmember.labonge@lacity.org, councilmember.weiss@lacity.org     councilmember.cardenas@lacity.org, councilmember.alarcon@lacity.org     councilmember.parks@lacity.org, councilmember.wesson@lacity.org     councilmember.smith@lacity.org, councilmember.garcetti@lacity.org      councilmember.rosendahl@lacity.org, councilmember.huizar@lacity.org   councilmember.hahn@lacity.org    Jan.Perry@lacity.org, mayor@lacity.org

Imagine yourself deep in debt, your expenses far exceed your income and the situation is getting worse day after day. What would you do?

A: You could cut back on how much you spend to keep on living large. B: You could stop sending that check to your aging widowed mother. C: Or you could walk down the street and rob everybody you see.

In the case of City Hall, the first option is unthinkable. Cutting back on how much you pay city employees for wages and benefits is out of the question. Even getting rid of some of them is impossible because you've given them contracts that all but prevent layoffs.

So that takes you to option B, which isn't so bad. You can cut services to the public who brought you into office and keeps you in the green as the highest paid city officials in the nation. Close some youth programs, cut back on library and park hours, reduce street paving since there's already a 75 year backlog, squeeze every penny you can out of what you provide to the people who pay the bills -- it still only amounts to a pile of pennies.

Then, there's option C. Eureka! Rob them blind.

Today, the City Council will pursue that option by dipping into the $111 million Special Parking Reserve Fund -- the money piling up from meters and parking structures that is supposed to go under the law to pay for new parking structures intended to get cars off the streets and relieve traffic congestion in high-density commercial areas.

The people who make the laws can break the laws, or at least change them. So after a lot of research by bond counsel and attorneys, City Hall has figured out a way.

Put aside the money to pay this year's costs of bonds used to build existing structures, declare the rest of the money is surplus so it can be moved to the city emergency reserve fund and then transfer it to the general fund where it can be used to pay salaries and help cover the budget deficit that seems to be growing by $10 million a week, according to the mayor's report last week.

That way nobody on the city payroll gets hurt. Only the taxpayers and the people whose neighborhoods don't have enough parking because the city is approving more apartments and businesses than the infrastructure can handle.

It's all so simple you got to wonder why nobody ever thought of it before. Perhaps, it's because robbing Peter to pay Paul is always a bad idea since it doesn't really solve the problem. But this is L.A. and solving problems is not the city's business.

It's not like the mayor has really delivered on his promise to curb spending despite the massive shortfall he papered over in this year's budget and the even bigger one he is creating next year.

How's his plan for unpaid furloughs of city employees doing? Halfway through the budget year, a total of nearly $600,000 has been saved out of the $7 billion budget, most of it going for employee costs.

How's the city doing in reducing all the costly lawsuits it creates with its mismanagement and lax discipline? Not so good, there's an expectation that settlements and judgments will cost $29 million more than the $32 million budgeted -- a misjudgment of nearly 100 percent.

Oh well, there's always the Department of Water and Power with all that cash from endless rate hikes and its unlimited capacity to borrow. Trust me, they've already got their eyes on that pot of money and if it's not enough, they can always raise rates again.

After years of controversy and millions spent on lobbying and public relations, the Las Lomas project -- 5,500 homes, a hotel and 2 million square feet of commercial space -- has died a quiet day. There are few, if any, mourners.

On Thursday, Dan Palmer, the driving force behind the controversial project just outside the city limits north of the Valley, resigned as president of the Las Lomas Land Co. Hillary Orozco Norton, his staff lobbyist, already had left to ply her trade in the lucrative arena created by passage last month of the the half-cent sales tax increase for transportation project.

Then, on Friday, a judge threw out Las Lomas' $100 million lawsuit against the city.

It was a victory for community groups that mobilized to fight against the development when it appeared to be headed on the fast-track to city approval.

Northwest Valley Councilman Greig Smith, who championed their cause, announced the court ruling today.

"I am delighted that after six years of fighting this ill-conceived project, it appears to be finally dead," Smith said. "This victory is a great holiday gift for the community."

Las Lomss had a lot of momentum going for it, despite the opposition of the City of Santa Clarita,  but Smith won a 10-5 L.A. City Council vote against it, raising issues of public safety, traffic and environment concerns.

Even as community groups citywide organize to fight Proposition B on the March 3 ballot,Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has armed the campaign for his controversial solar energy plan with broad support from the environmental movement and access to millions of dollars from unions to fund it.

A key element of the mayor's strategy was the replacement late last week of former Department of Water and Power Board President Nick Patsaouras -- a ratepayer advocate who is challenging the City Hall political machine by running for City Controller -- with the highly-regarded Green LA Director Jonathan Parfrey.

Parfrey, 50, heads an environmental coalition housed at the Liberty Hill Foundation and is committed to the mayor's plan to have the city get 20 percent of its electricity from clean sources within two years. He has the backing of nearly all of the region's environmental group leaders.

Critics of Prop. B are not challenging the clean energy goal but do raise numerous questions about this plan from its vagueness to its high cost.

Read the rest at NBC Los Angeles

At a meeting of the Oakridge Mobile Home Park fire victims last month at Mission College, Councilman Richard Alarcon proposed using the $100,000 from the Lopez Canyon fund to aid the victims of the Sylmar tragedy but not victims of Sky Terrace who should also have benefited from that assistance.

Glenn Bell, President of Neighborhood Friends- an advocacy group that champions the rights for mobile home park owners, said all victims deserve help and the two parks should be given equal funding.. "The Governor brought FEMA into the Oak Ridge Fire, where at least 85% of the victims were insured, leaving those in Sky Terrace to fend for themselves." 

Here are the headlines for the week of Dec. 7-13:

Vote "No" on Prop. B -- The Solar Energy Fraud

URGENT: Tribune Co. Hires Bankruptcy Advisers

Newspapers: The Final Solution

L.A.'s 'Elephantastic' Debate: Follow the Money

Bruno the L.A Watchdog: Welcome to the Doghouse, Ben

Bjagojevich Breakthrough: Selling Public Offices Outright

Accountability in L.A.: Meet the Fall Guy for the Metrolink Train Crash Tragedy

Jane Usher Out as Planning Commission Head

SCANDAL AT CITY HALL: Pay-to-Play Deals on Digital Billboards

The Tight Little World of City Hall: Jane Usher Replaced by Henry Cisneros' son-in-law

Changing L.A.: Chick and Austin Carry on the Fight

Freezing Out the Public: The Curious Goings-on at the L.A. Housing Authority

Editor's Note: The author of this report heads a company that manages 4,500 rental units in the L.A. market, most of them subsidized for low-income families. A third of those units are under the jurisdiction of the scandal-plagued Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA), which is led Rudy Montiel, a highly controversial figure who is paid nearly $500,000 a year. Damaging federal audits that may cost the city more than $30 million, whistleblower and wrongful termination lawsuits, questions about low performance in providing housing -- those are among a host of current issues plaguing HACLA. Levine Management brought tenants to Tuesday's HACLA board meeting where Montiel wanted to turn management of 1,500 units over to two firms that charge more but scored higher in staff evaluations. Apart from questions about the HACLA's processes in not renewing Levine's contract HACLA-protest.rtf , what is important is that the tenants were not allowed to speak in apparent violation of the state open meeting law. The meeting itself and the agenda were not posted on the HACLA website.

By Jeffrey S. Levine
 
About 20 residents, including several disabled senior citizens, who reside in apartment communities for low-income elderly and poor families owned by the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA), tried to attend a pubic hearing last Tuesday to testify on
behalf of the property manager, Levine Management Group, Inc. (LMG), but
were denied access.

Most journeyed from the San Fernando Valley, Northeast Los Angeles and East
Los Angeles to arrive promptly before 9:00 am intending to complete a 'speakers card,'
required for them to speak before the Board of Housing Commissioners. 

Unfortunately, only about half of them were able to fill out the speaker cards before the
attendant ran out of cards.  They were advised not to worry, as the attendant would return with more cards in time for them to speak during the public comment part of the hearing.

Unfortunately, the attendant never returned with more speaker cards, and
the residents were ultimately informed that they would not be admitted
to speak because the hearing room was completely full, and that the
public comment time had passed. 

City Controller Laura Chick just announced she has retained public interest attorney Fred Woocher to carry on her fight to audit City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo worker compensation program despite being rebuffed by the City Council.

Chick refused to back down this week to the council's latest attempt to avoid a court test of her authority under the City Charter to conduct performance audits of other city elected officials. The council retaliated by pigeon-holing her request for $100,000 to hire a lawyer to contest Delgadillo's lawsuit seeking to block the audit.

Delgadillo is represented by his office but the city is paying for ourside counsel to represent his staff members who were subpoenaed by Chick.

."In order to enhance accountability, the City Charter was revised in 1999 specifically to give the City Controller the right to conduct performance audits of all City departments and of all City programs, no matter where those programs are located," Woocher said.

"The City Attorney's refusal to allow an audit of the Workers Compensation Program prevents the Controller from performing her elected duties and deprives the taxpayers of critical information about how their money is being spent. We will step up to defend the City Controller against the City Attorney's lawsuit now, and we'll worry about getting paid later."

Ben Austin -- whose run for the LAUSD school board from the Westside was derailed when Burnside & Associates got the signatures on petitions  in the wrong district -- says he will continue to work for school reform.

"This is a sad day because I deeply believed in the power of this campaign to transform public education for my daughter, Fiona, as well as every child in the LAUSD," said Austin, who works with Green Dot charter schools" Parents Union.

"But this campaign was never about holding an office.  It was about revolutionary change.  And starting next week, I will continue to work for that same change for Fiona and the children of Los Angeles as executive Director of the Los Angeles Parents Union by providing a new voice for the parents of Los Angeles.

Honestly, I don't make this stuff up. It's real. It's L.A. It's about the hubris of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and how he's created a political machine that has no fear -- or respect -- for the public.

Jane Ellison-Usher resigned Thursday as president of the City Planning Commission after fighting against policies that were destroying the quality of life for most of L.A.'s nearly four million residents -- digital billboards, density bonuses that add to congestion and overwhelm the inadequate infrastructure, real principles of planning that would make neighborhoods healthier.

Today, the mayor named Sean Burton, the son-in-law of his pal and fund-raiser Henry Cisneros -- the scandal-tainted former San Antonio mayor and now a housing developer with many projects in L.A. -- to replace Usher.

Those are facts the mayor forgot to mention in his press release. Need I say more.

Here's the full press release:

MAYOR VILLARAIGOSA APPOINTS SEAN BURTON TO CITY PLANNING COMMISSION

LOS ANGELES - Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa today announced the
appointment of Sean Burton to the Los Angeles Planning Commission.
Burton is a three-time appointee to the West Los Angeles Area Planning
Commission - first in 2004 and most recently reappointed by Mayor
Villaraigosa in 2008 - where he currently serves as President.

One can only hope that the feds have bugs and wiretaps all over City Hall these days as they cut dirty deals to trash the city by approving a bunch of digital billboards as favors for Phil Anschutz' Staples Center and L.A. Live and others who give so often and so generously to their campaigns.

Item 39 on today's City Council agenda is an element in this conspiracy to undermine the public interest: File No. 08-2893, Closed Session "to confer with legal counsel relative to the case entitled World Wide Rush LLC vs City of Los Angeles."

This is the federal civil rights case brought by -- and won by -- billboard companies against the city claiming regulations on signs were done in a manner that violated their right to free speech. It was no accident the city turned offensive billboard advertising into a free speech issue.

That's right. The nation's highest paid city officials -- from the mayor on down to the lowly City Council members -- lost this case and opened the door to the virtually unlimited visual blight of giant digital electronic billboards wherever the companies want to put them.

For nearly seven weeks now, the settlement of this case has been continued week after week and it will be continued again today

Dragging out the case is part of a City Hall conspiracy to delay imposing a moratorium on new digital billboards until next year while deals are being cut to get new ones approved for favored contributors before the moratorium takes effect.

"They need to close the free speech loophole they created before they can put in the ban or the billboard companies will punch holes in it," said a well-placed source.

"They need time for the mayor's economic development arm to work out deals with the lobbyists so they won't do anything until the horses are out of the barn."

UPDATE: You can read Jane Usher's letter of resignation by clicking here Jane UsherResignation.pdf

It doesn't pay to stand up for a greater Los Angeles -- not with City Hall committed to a poorer, denserj, more congested and uglier Los Angeles.

Just ask Nick Patsaouras who spent most of his adult life as an unpaid public servant, a watchdog on public spending and public policy who, as head of the Department of Water and Power Board, ran afoul of City Hall's corrupt political culture by trying stand up for ratepayers. He finally quit and is running for City Controller.

Now you can ask attorney Jane Ellison-Usher who is resigning today as head of the Planning Commission after running afoul of those same forces that have done such disservice to the city.

Usher has done many courageous acts such as proposing 14 bold principles last year for a better city under the title "Do Real Planning."

She created a row in March with an email saying the city's efforts to give housing developers carte blanche to roll back zoning laws was "fatally flawed" and would lead to lawsuits, which it has.

And she recently pushed through proposal for a six-month moratorium on those hideous digital billboards that are blighting the city's neighborhoods.

Such acts of leadership, such passion for a better city are clearly unacceptable to the mayor, the council and the special interests who pull their strings.

Thanks, Ms. Usher, for trying to change L.A.

In the tight little world of L.A. politics and government where accountability is rare, there has to be a fall guy when things go wrong and the public knows about it.

Metrolink boss David Solow is a case in point. Ever since the train collision  that killed 25 people in Chatsworth in September Solow has been a dead man walking and his interview -- non-interview reallly -- with the LA Times today is the kiss of death.

Here's the entire interview as it was reported:

Solow gruffly began the session, "Got the ground rules? I'm not going to talk about the incident or any actions after."

Asked why, he answered, "It's not in my best interest to talk about the accident."

Talk about a guy who needs public relations help. Unfortunately, Solow's PR adviser Denise Tyrrell quit in a public huff right after he hung her out to dry over criticism that she told the world the day after the crash that the Metrolink engineer, who we later learned was text messaging a teenager at the time, went through a red light.

Read the rest of the story at NBC Los Angelees

Contrary to popular opinion, I think Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich might be on to something.

Forget this stuff about campaign finance reform and clean money and the other efforts to clean up government. It ought to be clear by now that all levels of government in America are owned by special interests of one sort or another. Nowhere is that truer than in L.A.

So let's stop pretending. Let's just sell public offices.

Instead of the mayor and City Council candidates going out hat in hand to unions, contractors, consultants, developers and fat cats of various types and giving them whatever they want in exchange for campaign cash, let's just put our elected offices up on eBay and sell them to the highest bidder.

At least then we would know who owns the office and have a pretty good idea of what they are up to. At least, it would bring transparency to government which would be cleaner and more honest than the system we now have in L.A. where the offices are sold to the highest bidders in secret.

Read the rest at NBC Los Angeles.

Welcome to the doghouse, Ben Austin.

Just days ago you were chowing down with Steve Lopez of The Dog Trainer, explaining how you were going to fix our schools after you were elected to the LAUSD board.

Unfortunately, you failed math -- and geography. Big time.

According to Howard Blume and David Zahniser, to other Dog Trainer reporters who've you've undoubtedly nibbled with during your stints as deputy mayor and political consultant, you shot yourself in the paw by not submitting enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.

And you waited until the last day to do it. Didn't your mother ever tell you not to procrastinate?

And Austin, who has in the past represented Rob Reiner, shortly before he was kicked off the First Five Commission (link) and our City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo during his career-killing problems, didn't just miss by a little in his attempt to replace Marlene Cantor, who's quitting. He missed by a lot! And he missed by miles!

It seems he turned in more than 900 signatures. He only needed 500. Easy, right? Nope. He was 105 short - which means he turned in 505 invalid signatures, most of them from the wrong district!

Didn't this guy have Google maps?

For some reason, his wife Tracy, not Ben, explained the screw up in an email to a lot of important people in LA who had given him lots of money for his now dead campaign. And taking full responsibility for the mistake, she blamed the consultant.

"I am so sorry to tell you guys this, especially after all of your hard work, but the signature gathering firm we hired, Burnside & Associates, apparently collected signatures in the wrong district and then validated them in the wrong district, so we didn't qualify for the ballot," said wife Tracy, also a political consultant. 

What's this "we" stuff? Were they running as a team? Next time, she may want to dump him and go it alone.

And Ben, who fancies himself as something of a political communications expert, had this to say to the Dog Trainer late yesterday:

"I can't talk right now. I'm sorry. I've got to go."

Somebody call Bartlett's. This guy makes barking sound articulate.

The following day he added that he was "sad" and threatened to sue Burnside.

What makes all of this interesting is that Ben, somewhat of an eccentric who never misses the annual Burning Man Festival (somebody's going to have to explain that to this dog), was being backed by our own Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, our own former Mayor Dick Riordan and our favorite billionaire education activist and art collector Eli Broad.

And it's too late for anyone else to enter the race.

So Antonio, Dick, Eli and all the people on Tracy's email -- which I am polite enough, especially for a dog, not to embarrass by naming, although there are some good ones! - I'd like you to meet one candidate who has qualified: Marshall High School teacher and community activist Steve Zimmer, who has the backing of -- get ready to laugh your tails off - the United Teachers of Los Angeles, the district's teachers union!

If you don't know why that's funny, you shouldn't be reading this blog.

Woof.

At the Oregon Zoo in Portland, they hold "Elephantastic" birthday parties every spring for Packy, the crowd-pleasing star of the show, the first Asian elephant born in the Western Hemisphere.

Beloved by children of all ages, Packy is celebrated like a movie star. There's all kinds of Packy memorabilia for sale on eBay, murals go up on walls around town. He's the pride of Portland and the sire of seven of the more than two dozen elephants born at the Oregon Zoo in the last 46 years.

Packy and the five other Asian elephants at the zoo thrive in the space of little more than an acre.

So what's the controversy all about when it comes to Billy the lone elephant at the L.A. Zoo?

A lot of people who have followed the City Council's marathon debate over on-again, off-again construction of a $42 million elephant exhibit on 3.6 acres have developed the habit of shaking their heads a lot, which may help explain the nodding-head tic that Billy has developed during his years in L.A.

No doubt those who believe elephants and presumably lions, tigers, giraffes and most other species don't belong in cages have nothing the purest motives of compassion at heart.

But something about the Billy debate makes no sense. After all, the L.A. Zoo exhibit is three times the size of Portland's where the elephants are happy and healthy, from all accounts.

Council members who show so little compassion for their constituents suddenly have become pachy-philiacs?

Gimme a break.

These are people who don't care about anyone but themselves, who don't care about anything except what's in it for themselves.

So why do they want the elephant exhibit abandoned with $24 million or so still unspent and Billy shipped off to a far away elephant sanctuary where it costs $200 a person to see him? Why would they prefer to buy 100 acres of land in the Valley for our own sanctuary unless there was some way for them or a friend to profit financially?

It makes you wonder.

Today, it made Hector Tobar at the Times recall his childhood visits to the zoo and the wonder of seeing the giant mammals up close and in person and lament what appears the likelihood that today's children won't experience the same fascination.

That's the other side of the debate among sincere people who care both about animals and people.

But it doesn't answer the question of what's up with the people who don't care about anything except themselves, your local elected officials.
The mayor, as he so often does on contentious issues, has chosen to hold his tongue in. Silence, his strategists say, is his "an elegant way of showing power, with retraint."

The council is less elegant in its displays of power than the mayor just as it is in its displays of style in dress and epicurean delights.
For them, the issue is all about money.

That's why they sent the issue to their Budget and Finance Committee for analysis and asked the city's financial experts to tell they what they did when they approved the elephant exhibit two years ago without any real debate.

Their question now is how much of the money still left on the table for an elephant exhibit that will thrill generations of children to come can they put back into the city treasury to cover up the scandal of their having squandered billions of dollars without benefiting the public.

That's all this elephant debate is about, that's all anything the council does is about.

They have raised taxes, rates and fees so fast and so high, there's little or nothing more they can squeeze out of people who can't pay their mortgages or rents, who live in dread of losing their jobs, who have nothing left to give that doesn't take the food off their tables.

But the city's bills must be paid.

City workers must keep on getting 6 percent raises on top of salaries 20 or 30 percent higher than those paid in the private sector for the same work. The cops and firefighters expect no less come June when their contracts expire. There's all those lobbyists and PR operatives and consultants and contractors who have lavish lifestyles that must be maintained.

The burdens borne by city officials are great. No wonder they're America's highest paid municipal officials. They face the burden of dealing with massive deficits that are soaring as the economy collapses and all those mouths to feed.

Under the weight of such burdens, is it any wonder they don't have the time or energy to deal with the problems of the four million little people who struggle to make ends meet in a city with the nation's worst traffic and air and schools and gangs?

Too bad we can't all move to Portland where tens of thousands of Californians already have migrated -- much to the chagrin of the natives -- and enjoy a visit to the zoo where Packy and his mates still light the imaginations of children with wonder of a more innocent kind. 

This is not the end of your daily newspaper. It's just the beginning of the end for hundreds of newspapers and the collapsing of many others into single regional franchises that can survive as the only source of printed news and advertising on a daily basis.

One paper. One staff. One press. One distribution system. One voice.

In Los Angeles, the Times will be that voice.

If the Daily News or other daily papers remain in the L.A. metropolitan market, they will do so in name only as intensely localized sections of the Times. Consolidation will occur quickly through sales, partnerships or closures.

I don't think there's any other way. And it's become clear in recent days that the people who run the nation's major newspaper corporations have come to the same conclusion after months of secret meetings that undoubtedly violated anti-trust laws.

But who cares about the legal niceties? The cost of producing and distributing a daily newspaper is too high and the revenue too low to sustain even minimal competition. Not enough people, especially younger people, read a newspaper regularly. Not enough advertisers still need to sell their products through a newspaper.

Most will say the Internet has won the war. But it would be truer to say that the newspaper industry has lost the war. Newspapers are boring and irrelevant to the lives of most people, too much of what they print as news is already old by the time it's delivered.

The editors and publishers who run newspapers responded too slowly and with too little imagination to the online revolution.

The same thing happened when television arrived in every house in the 1950s. Suddenly, people could see events live in their home as they happened and the words and still images in newspapers couldn't compete with the film footage and live video on television.

The result was that half the newspapers died. Major cities went from four, eight, 12 newspapers to one to two. .

Corporations took over took over from individual owners who published papers that let them give life to their point of view and values as they fought ferociously for readers in an anything-goes war.

There were outrageous tabloids and profoundly serious ones and everything in between. They were heirs to what started out as the free-wheeling penny press that gave birth to the First Amendment. In Philadelphia alone Ben Franklin and 120 others who owned presses told the world what they knew and what they believed. They slandered and muckraked and sparked lively public debates.

For the last 50 years, the voices of those who could tell the stories that move minds and hearts have been thwarted by the new rules of corporate journalism that demanded a kind of pseudo-objectivity and awarded great prizes and high salaries to those who conformed the best.

The result was profit margins of 20, 30, 40 percent on spectacular revenues  A lot of people got rich, even a lot of journalists got well-to-do.

Those days are over.

The Tribune Company, owner of the LA Times, Chicago Tribune and many other major newspapers and TV stations is preparing to file for bankruptcy. It's not broke, it just can't pay its bills in part because of the global economic crisis, in greater part because its revenue are falling far faster than it can cut costs.

The problems of Tribune are the problems of the industry.

For much of this year, most of the major newspaper corporations have been meeting in secret to figure out how to survive -- without really changing. The strategy involves consolidations through partnerships and transfer of ownership and closures that will give total dominance over major metropolitan entities to single newspaper operations.

In recent months, the strategy has been unfolding with more than two dozen major papers being put up for sale only to find out they were worth no more than the value of their assets: Buildings, land, the distribution system, the bottom line value to advertisers of those, mostly older, customers still addicted to holding a newspaper in their hands.

The presses themselves were worth no more than what Third World countries were willing to pay for them.

Then, last week, the Rocky Mountain News announced it probably would not be able to find a buyer and would likely stop printing after many months of losses -- a move that would leave its joint operating agreement partner, MediaNews' Denver Post, with a total monopoly.

The Miami Herald sent up a similar smoke signal Friday and then Sunday, it was Tribune hiring bankruptcy advisers and ready to seek protections that will let it sell off assets, restructure contracts and other liabilities, cut whatever kinds of deals that will allow it to survive.

Many of those deals are probably already negotiated, at least in principle.

Like the auto industry, the newspaper industry is out of touch with what people want and its cost structure is out of whack with the value of what it produces.

Newspapers don't need the federal government to bail it out of its failure. It just needs the federal government to look the other way as the last vestiges of competition are eliminated.

So be it.

Pasteurized and homogenized news and information is all the press is capable of anymore. 

The free expression of ideas envisioned in the Bill of Rights is alive and well on the Internet. Anybody can say what they want and stand a chance of being heard. Businesses based on news, information and opinion are starting to flourish online with vastly different cost and revenue models. 

The exercise of First Amendment rights has never been stronger. It's just that free speech isn't what newspapers sell. They might just as well be licensed and regulated by government if it made any difference. But it doesn't

No, this is not the end of newspapers. It's the end of competitive newspapers. The survivors will keep shrinking until their revenue surpasses their costs. Their importance in our lives will shrink along with the changes as the public increasingly turns to the Internet where everyone can be a provider of news, information and ideas and well as their consumer.

The democratization of news is a good thing, and will become a great thing in the next few years.

I can only speak for myself and have been here on my blog for the last seven months since I was fired by the Daily News for standing in the way of its decline and fall. \

Needless to say, the money isn't the same. But there's joy in finding my own voice after 44 years of bumping up against corporate journalism's stifling constraints on free expression.

I'm an activist now, not a journalist. But my belief in the power of the truth to change the world is as strong today as it was when I started out in newspapers. The truth isn't a commodity that someone can own. It's what endures over time when the voices of many are engaged in a and open public conversation.

Newspapers are just a part of that conversation, a much smaller part. And that's a good thing. Much of what's wrong with America, with our city, is due to the lack of the kind of public conversation that the Internet makes possible.

Let the conversation begin.

Read all about it, New York Times just reported this about the LATimes' parent company:

Tribune Hires Advisers to Try Staving Off Bankruptcy

Tribune has hired bankruptcy advisers as the ailing newspaper company seeks to stave off a potential bankruptcy filing, people briefed on the matter said.

The newspaper, which was taken private last year by billionaire investor Samuel Zell, has hired the investment bank Lazard and the law firm Sidley Austin, these people said. Tribune has been hobbled by debt related to that sale last year, which has been compounded by the growing drought of advertising for newspapers.

It is only the latest -- and biggest -- sign of duress for the newspaper industry yet. Several newspaper companies have struggled to cope with declining revenues and mounting debt woes.

While Tribune has sought to ameliorate its woes by selling off assets like the Chicago Cubs, the company still faces a looming debt crunch. Tribune hired Lazard several weeks ago to assess its options, these people said. Sidley Austin is a longtime outside adviser to Tribune, and it has a well-respected bankruptcy practice as well.

At Saturday's town hall meeting of the Saving L.A. Project (SLAP), the overwhelming sentiment of participants was that the ill-conceived and hastily approved March 3 ballot measure Proposition B is a fraud and must be defeated.

A lot of discussion focused on the lack of strong candidates taking on the mayor or any of the six incumbents seeking a third term they are eligible for thanks to the ruse they used to undo term limits restrictions under the guise of meaningless ethics reform in Proposition R.

Mary Ann Hutchison of Pico-Union and Jim O'Sullivan of the Mid-City area provided a preliminary political strategy for the activist community that would focus on backing longtime spending watchdog and city commissioner Nick Patsaouras for City Controller and environmental lawyer Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich for City Attorney while sending City Hall a message by voting against the mayor and incumbent council members or not voting at all in those races.

"Nick, Nuch and No, No, No" was suggested as a campaign slogan. area suggested a popular slogan for the March.

Their ideas had broad support and a committee was set up to explore how to mount a grassroots movement that would bring together members of Neighborhood Councils, resident groups, service clubs, non-profits who have long worked hard to make L.A. a better city for all its people.

Score another victory for community activists: The City Planning Department has rejected Home Depot's request for an exemption from conducting a full environmental assessment about the impact of converting a closed K-Mart store in Sunland-Tujunga into another giant home improvement center.

Here's the ruling issued today homedepoteir.pdf  What city planners decided is that an exemption from the environmental study process is not appropriate because quite simply the store conversion is not "negligible'' as Home Depot -- a decision that will require a lengthy study and public debate.

The company has spent millions of dollars and used all its clout and gotten a lot of help from some city officials to ram this down the community's throat.

It has sued the city and the City Attorney's Dispute Resolution Program has lost its credibility trying to run roughshod over opposition.

Yet, all that's happened is that Sunland-Tujunga has become a model of what residents can achieve when they organize.

Hundreds of people have gotten involved, taken action and raised their consciousness about the issues they face throughout the Sunland-Tujunga area. They have won battles to protect the historical nature of some neighborhoods and gotten special protections against mansionization among other victories.

But none is sweeter than than the long fight to make Home Depot comply with the law.

Home Depot got a building permit with no questions being asked three years ago, with no input from the community. A long and often vicious campaign followed as the community mobilized, set up When local residents found a websute and created enough political pressure to force the City Council to call the Planning Department to review the situation

Home Depot sued and then put it on hold while the city's mediators trying to get around opponents and the planner went about the process of analyzing the company's claims that the store conversion was just a simple remodel with new signs and security lights.

The "No Home Depot" campaign focused on traffic impacts, toxic chemicals near schools,  local businesses that would be harmed and many other issues. What they really wanted was a general merchandise store and a community center that would meet their needs.

Home Depot's response was to accuse the community of being racist and opposing day laborers hanging around the store as they do at most of the company's home improvement centsrs.

  .


 

The event was called "light of the Angels," and none other than Britney (She's No Angel) Spears was there at L..A. Live's Nokia Plaza to hold the candy cane switch with Councilwoman Jan Perry and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to turn on the Christmas tree lights.

What is there to say? Could there a truer image for the state of the city?

A dozen years ago when the discontent in the Valley was rising and secession sentiments building, Dick Riordan seized the moment to try to change the "weak mayor" system of government that has so much to do with what's wrong with L.A.

When no one's in charge, nothing gets done.

Unfortunately, Riordan's bid for power was blown up by the City Council, unions, contractors, consultants and lobbyists who feast like vampires sucking the life out of the public treasury.

But one thing was achieved through reform of the City Charter: The City Council was stripped of its role as the governing body of the city, reduced to legislative and oversight functions and the mayor gained direct control of all 45 city departments.

The weak mayor system became a hybrid system -- a fact that never quite registered on Jim Hahn who let the City Council run all over him and continue to operate as if the mayor was a functionary like the Queen of England rather than the boss of big city like the mayors of New York and Chicago.

Enter Antonio Villaraigosa with his big ambitions and ego to match. But there's more to leadership than photo ops and political machinations.

There's policy for one thing but that's hard to figure out when you've got attention deficit disorder. And there's the need for the courage to stand for something and use power ruthlessly to affect change.

The closest Antonio has come to doing that in the last 42 months is his failed attempt to take over the schools which has turned into a fiasco that has now descended into the gutter of racial politics with A. to take stands in public Admiral David Brewer coming out fighting for his job as LAUSD Superintendent in public and prepared to go down with his ship like any good naval officer.

So where does the mayor stand? Is he calling for Brewer to resign? Is he going public with his criticisms?

Hardly. All we know is that "those who are said to favor Brewer's departure include Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, former Mayor Richard Riordan and billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad,'" according to the Times, which reported "sources close to Villaraigosa suggest he wants to see a change...(but) has not moved openly."

Nothing else. Riordan, of course, has gone public and gave an interview on KPCC to Patt Morrison on why Brewer must go. The mayor remains silent.

And what about a less important issue like what to do with Billy the L.A. Zoo elephant?

Villaraigosa sympathizes with the activists in their opposition to elephants at zoos, he will go along with whatever the council decides. "Obviously they're revisiting the issue and they have a right to do it and I'll respect whatever they do."

I guess it's the job of Tony Cardenas and Tom LaBonge to figure that out.

It's not as if Antonio doesn't love being mayor what with the Getty Mansion to call home, bodyguards 24/7, fine wine, women and song.

He has gone to great lengths to turn his re-election into a coronation by chasing away all serious rivals and is "honored and flattered to have been considered for an appointment in the Obama administration...I made it clear I love what I do. And I feel that at this moment in my life, this is the job in which I can best serve my city and country."

Launching a campaign for governor of California next year, of course, is a different matter entirely. We'll learn then that he can best serve his state and country in that capacity.

It's a different story entirely when the TV cameras are rolling at the scenes of disasters or personally filling the millionth pothole or announcing "a milestone in our effort to modernize the hub of the region's air transportation system and restore it to the premier international gateway the airlines need and the City of Angels deserves."

Or sweet-talking a disastrous plan for solar energy with obsolete and inefficient technology, costs the public a fortune and sells out the public interest to the powerful union that runs the Department of Water and Power.

"L.A. has everything it takes to make this [solar plan] work," said Villaraigosa. "We have the sun in abundancy. We have the space. We have the largest municipal utility in the country."

Standing beside him when he uttered those fatuous words were environmentalists, union leaders and City Council members. In a city without real democratic institutions, that's all it takes to hold power even for a weak mayor.

.

Billy the elephant keeps nodding his head and public access TV advocates keep shaking theirs.

Once again Wednesday, the LA City Council -- paralyzed by its lack of homework, its own skewed priorities and its self-inflicted budget crisis -- spent hours debating what do about the L.A. Zoo's new elephant exhibit and maintain public access shows on cable television.

And yet again, it couldn't make decisions on either hot-button issue.

Listening to the debate on these issues which goes back as long as two years ago is almost scary for its plodding mediocrity, lack of straightforward honesty and self-congratulatory back-slapping.

These are not exactly complicated matters that take rocket scientists to resolve. But then the council isn't exactly blessed with a lot of brain power. If there weren't so many smart people among the bureaucrats, lobbyists, consultants, union bosses, contractors and developers pulling their strings, these puppets would fall limp to the ground and never get anything done.

Is it any wonder that during one of the greatest booms in tax revenue in history accompanied by an endless string of hikes in rates, fees and taxes the city is going broke?

It's clear that to a man and woman their hearts go out more to the elephants than to people. They are heart-broken poor head-nodding Billy is locked in a cage when he should be allowed to roam free in a sanctuary with others of species somewhere in the San Fernando Valley.

But that would cost money and the $28 million that's unspent on the new elephant exhibit has them drooling with the possibilities of rewarding their friends and contributors -- or at least covering some of the sweetheart deals they've already made with them.

So the question was sent back to zoo advocate Tom LaBonge's committee yet again to see if he can find a benefactor by Jan. 23 who will foot the cost of completing the exhibit. The council has its eye on the $28 million already raised and allocated for the project so its up to you zoo-lovers to make good on the cost.

Meanwhile, construction will be halted, adding to the costs, and the city will have to pay back millions that the county and others put up in the belief that the council's approval of the project two years ago actually meant something.

We now learn from this debate it didn't because one council member after another has confessed they didn't know what they were doing back then. Big surprise!

Nor is it a surprise that they didn't have time to face up to the issue of public access TV until just four weeks before Time Warner Cable was ready to exercise its legal right -- thanks to a gift from the state Legislature -- to pull the plug on its 14 public access studios and channels.

No time, no money -- those are good excuses in the minds of these people. Of course, they had more than a year to deal with the issue and they do get $25 million a year in franchise fees from the cable company which is really cable subscribers money and a form of taxation.

And there will be another $5 million a year coming in from the additional 1 percent tax which the Legislature threw in for good measure when it abolished the requirement for cable companies to give the public the right to be heard.

But that money must go for capital improvements and the city has its own needs to upgrade facilities at Channel 35 so it can broadcast its own tedious meetings and endless hours of self-serving propaganda that would make the commissars in the old Soviet Union proud.

The public be damned -- that's really the heart of this farcical debate. Who needs public access or the free exchange of ideas and information when there isn't any democracy in the city anyway?

They have a point in that regard. What difference does it make what the citizenry thinks if nobody in power has any intention of listening?

Just six months ago, state officials approved stealing $30 million from affordable housing bonds to improve the "streetscape" at billionaire Phil Anschutz' massive L.A. Live entertainment complex next to Staples Center.

The feeble justification for screwing the needy was the money would help revitalize the blighted Figueroa Street corridor,.

"It will be tremendous for the area," said Cliff Hoffman, chairman of the board of the South Park business group.

The money came on top of the $270 million in tax breaks the City of Los Angeles already had committed to subsidize the luxury hotels, multi-million dollar condominiums, expensive bars and other entertainments for the affluent.

Now we learn from Christopher Hawthorne, architecture critic at the Times who found it wanting in almost all regards..

It adds nothing to creating a vibrant downtown: it doesn't help revitalize the South Park area; it isn't architecturally interesting; it's not much good for anything.

"The problem is not just that the space is primarily aimed at visitors to L.A. Live's concerts and restaurants rather than local apartment- and condo-dwellers; it is that it actively discourages any of the activities we traditionally associate with the use of collective space in a city: talking, reading, sitting under a tree, even pausing with a friend for a cup of coffee," Hawthorne wrote Monday.

"Anybody who tried to do any of those things in the L.A. Live plaza, which is filled with both yelping video displays and security guards, would look not just out of place but foolish. That is even more the case now that the second phase has added a giant video screen -- 42 feet wide -- overlooking the plaza. Another huge screen hangs from the corner of Figueroa and Chick Hearn Court."

If that's not an indictment enough, the Times puts a smiling face on today's opening of the of this $2.5 billion second phase of the project but has to admit: "The biggest question for now is how L.A. Live will fare with the economic downturn."

You can count on the city helping all its can with L.A. Live's goal. LAPD which is raiding understaffed divisions from the Westside and elsewhere to provide 12 to 18 officers to keep the drunken tourists, suburbanites and college students -- the target audience -- from hurting themselves or being hurt by others.  

"The complex is packed with the kind of high-end establishments that do well in good times but not always in bad times," the Times reports in an article headlined "Economy could make it hard for L.A. Live to be the life of the downtown party."

"The complex is packed with the kind of high-end establishments that do well in good times but not always in bad times. They include the Conga Room nightclub, Lucky Strike Lanes & Lounge, and Club Nokia -- and eventually restaurants like the Yard House, the Farm of Beverly Hills, Fleming's Prime Steakhouse, Lawry's Carvery and Trader Vic's. A West Coast broadcast center for ESPN is at one end of the complex, with an ESPN Zone restaurant and bar on the ground floor."

Get it? The city went on a spending binge raising your taxes, fees and rates and still wound up deep in the red to the tune of $500 million or so thanks to giveaways to projects like this, sweetheart contracts with unions and contractors.

We don't have enough cops to keep us safe in our homes and on our streets but we have enough to make sure L.A. Live creates a safe atmosphere.

So the question you have to ask yourselves is this: Why do projects like this happen without making sure what we get for our money and our land is good for the city, good for us?

And if you can answer that question, ask yourselves: What are you going to do to change the political culture of City Hall to make sure it serves you and not special interests?

Editor's Note: Carl Olson, who teaches college accounting and participates in the American Accounting Association's Public Interest Section, offers insight into yet another important area where the lack of transparency and accountability harms the public interest. He closely follows actions of the California Board of Accountancy for a couple years and set up the non-profit Fund for Stockowners Rights, P. O. Box 6102 Woodland Hills, California 91365.

By Carl Olson

If you can't trust CPA auditors, who can you trust in making investments with your family funds?  Managers of pension funds, endowment funds, mutual funds, insurance companies, and so on have the same concern.  Auditors are supposed to certify that the figures on corporate financial statements are accurate and reliable.  But if auditors misbehave, what recourse does the investing public have?

We all have watched with apprehension numerous debacle companies and the losses of hundreds of billions of dollars for the investing public.  The state government's two enormous pension funds, CalPERS and CalSTRS, have lost tens of billions in the last few months.  The debacle companies all had one thing in common.  Their CPA auditors said that everything was just fine for years.

AIG and Freddie Mac are clients of PricewaterhouseCoopers.  Fannie Mae and Bear Stearns have Deloitte & Touche.  Ernst & Young audits Lehman Brothers and IndyMac Bank.   The last of the Big Four,  KPMG, is responsible for Wachovia and  Countrywide.

Misbehaving CPA auditors are supposed to be disciplined by  state boards of  accountancy.  The board can impose fines,  re-education,  suspension of licenses,  and  ultimately the revocation of licenses.   But this process depends entirely on the political wherewithal behind the boards of accountancy.

Unfortunately in California, the board of accountancy has become totally overwhelmed with cases but without any means to investigate most of them.  Major cases go begging because of lack of staff.  The board is so hampered that it does not even have an office in Southern California.

The governor and legislature share the blame.  They have just recently taken away $11 million for the board's Accountancy Fund.  The board runs entirely on license fees and not on tax revenues.  The governor and legislature have enacted hiring rules such that the pay scale for investigator CPAs is way under the market rate.  The obvious result is the abject inability to protect the public.  The board's enforcement division has had several vacancies for years.

In a real sense, the board of accountancy is more than important than the medical board.  Doctors can injure patients only one at a time.  Misbehaving CPAs can wipe out thousands of investors with the stroke of a pen on defective audit opinions.

Our current financial system needs to produce confidence in its integrity.  A key advance would be to make CPA auditors truly responsible for their audit opinions.  The sooner the better.  California is the biggest state.   Why isn't it the best in consumer protection?

By Bruno
The L.A. Watchdog

In the Internet age, the news that arriveson your driveway is referred to as "dead-tree" journalism because, for those of you scratching your heads, it's on paper.

This morning, my copy of the Dog Trainer (the LA Times, for the uninitiated) makes me want to pee on a tree.

Do reporters at the Dog Trainer follow the news?  If you're going to cover City Hall, shouldn't you have some idea of what's happened there recently?

Or maybe the Dog Trainer has signed up for Antonio's re-election campaign, which isn't necessary because he doesn't have any opposition.

Here's the headline: Villaraigosa says he won't join Obama administration.

And according to the Dog Trainer, here's why:

Villaraigosa said he had a "conversation" with Obama in mid-November about joining the new Democratic administration but told the incoming president that he would stay in Los Angeles to focus on his reelection campaign and ongoing efforts to address the city's financial troubles and other pressing issues.

Then the Dog Trainer published this quote, noting the mayor "told the Times," like it was something special and not incredibly self serving.

"I'm honored and flattered to have been considered for an appointment in the Obama administration," Villaraigosa told The Times on Monday. "I made it clear I love what I do. And I feel that at this moment in my life, this is the job in which I can best serve my city and country."

Did the reporter just fall to Earth?  Maybe he never saw this story in the New York Times: For a Washington Job, Be Prepared to Tell All.

And maybe he forgot our mayor was involved in a nasty scandal a while back involving an attractive reporter, which led to divorce court.

You wouldn't know it from the Dog Trainer, which just ignored Antonio, if he wanted to join our new president in Washington, would have to subject himself to the most intensive vetting in history.

Who knows?  Maybe Antonio wouldn't be concerned with answering the 63 incredibly personal questions.   But since he's already our mayor, shouldn't  he answer them for us?

Here's the questionnaire, Mr. Mayor.  Please send your answers to Bruno the Watchdog at ron@ronkayela.com.  

Woof!

Oh the pain, the pain...you got to feel for Admiral David Brewer, the man in charge of a broken-down and obsolete school system that has defied the reform efforts of the city's civic elite, a succession of mayors and dozens of community groups for 30 years.

Here's a military bureaucrat who's read every management treatise ever written and comes out of nowhere to head the nation's second largest school district -- a stranger in a strange land of palace politics, back room dealing and insider contracts, to name just a few of LAUSD's more visible problems.

He never stood a chance. Today,  the school board just might pull the plug, according to the Times, a johnny-come-lately to the campaign to blame Brewer for sins that are all our own.

A dozen or so superintendents who actually had some background in education preceded him without success at changing the "can't do" culture of the vast soporific LAUSD bureaucracy or breaking the resistance to change of the unions.

Breaking up the district into pieces that would bring parents, teachers and principals into partnership was always the only way to generate the energy needed to turn around the district.

And, unintentionally, that's what was happening under Brewer's watch through growth in the charter school movement.

You can bet the school board, functionaries as they are, will come up with the sweetest of sweetheart deals to get Brewer to take a buy-out on his $300,000 annual salary.

Brewer's days were numbered more than a year ago when the civic elite lost confidence in him and started tilting belatedly toward small schools and charters. And when Ray Cortines, the mayor's right-hand man was put in charge of just about the entire district, it was only a matter of time before the taxpayers wrote him a big check and gave him his discharge from this thankless task.

What really matters is what happens next. It's a certainty that Cortines will take over as superintendent in name as well as function. It will be his second shot at the job and maybe reform is easier the second time around but I doubt it.

LAUSD won't be saved by tinkering and clearly it hasn't been saved by $20 billion in new and renovated buildings.

The problem is in the classroom and on the campuses. Teachers need to be freed to educate and rewarded for success and held accountable for failure. Parents need to be fully engaged in their children's education. Principals need to provide the leadership.

That's not a secret. It's what Dick Riordan's LEARN program and every other reform effort was about. It's what charters do.

So the problem isn't really Brewer, is it?

It's the lack of political will to clean out the bureaucracy and confront the unions over protections for failed administrators and teachers.

And the question is: What's going to be different with him out of the way? That's what the school board, the civic elite and the mayor need to provide answers for after they make Brewer their latest fallguy.

Editor's Note: This article, written by Gary Aminoff who is president of the San Fernando Valley Republican Club, describes the effort of many conservatives to  come to terms with the election of Barack Obama as president at a time when the nation faces a severe economic crisis.

By Gary Aminoff

Do you remember how we laughed at Democrats when President George
W. Bush was elected.  They were going nuts.  We even gave it a label, "Bush Derangement Syndrome."  We thought, how weird and how irrational.  It also hurt the credibility of Democrats.

I have been concerned ever since the election that something similar is happening with Republicans.  We have all this blogging and email correspondence going on about whether he is a "natural-born citizen" and why he won't disclose his birth certificate.  The same has been taking place with respect to whether he is a secret Muslim and was "planted" here to enable the radical Islamists to take over the country.  Someone objectively looking at Republicans could well say we have been infected with "Obama Derangement Syndrome."

I have consistently said that all of this is not going to accomplish anything except to hurt our credibility.  Barack Obama was elected by nearly 53% of American voters - over 62 Million people.  He hasn't done anything yet, except to appoint what seem to be, for the most part, fairly reasonable people.  The criticism continues nonetheless.

Editor's Note: I've mentioned my dog Bruno from time to time, a vicious-looking stray with the sweet temperament except when he's provoked. Fed up with my rantings, Bruno is starting his own blog feature to take on the dog-eat-dog world of City Hall as Watchdog L.A.

By Bruno

It's not easy to type with paws.

But Ron has convinced me to step forward and help him expose the waste, fraud, corruption, stupidity and pure silliness that plagues Los Angeles.

So move over Zuma Dogg.  Bruno the Watchdog is here. Just think of me as Andy Rooney with a tail.  (We have the same jowls, however.)

Where do you begin when you have so much to pick from?

Ron has pretty well covered the City Attorney's campaign of Jack "Are you proud of me yet, Dad?" Weiss. This guy is such a loser that it appears he's even been frozen out by Antonio "I don't want to know you, Dad!" Villaraigosa.

Of course, that could have been the decision of the mayor's campaign manager, Ace Smith. (I have a bias for people with dog names, even though this guy reportedly bites.) Would you want your guy standing at news conferences with a city councilman whose only claim to fame is not being recalled by his constituents, who have turned into an angry mob? And Ace is running his campaign, too.

I guess I could comment on the mayor's race - if there was a mayor's race. The previous mention of mayoral candidate Mr. Dogg will be the last in this column.  And I can't remember the names of the other guys running.

So let me kick this off with the easiest target around: LAUSD. 

Not only does the district have a problem educating your children, but it has been well documented that they've had a problem paying its employees, as well.

Sometimes employees would get no pay.  Sometimes employees got too much.

According to the LA Times (which one radio humorist dubbed "The Dog Trainer"):

"The payroll system, based on software designed by a German company, SAP, and tailored to the district's needs by Deloitte Consulting, cost $95 million. It was a disaster from the moment it went online in January 2007, spitting out checks that were wildly inaccurate, including $53 million in overpayments to Los Angeles Unified employees."

A district spokesman told The Dog Trainer that although the employees were ordered to return the extra money, many had already spent it or simply balked - and the district has yet to recover $19 million in overpayments!

But here's the lead, which I might have buried like bone (sorry, there are going to be a lot of dog puns):
 
The district settled its suit against the bozos that installed the high-tech payroll system last October for roughly half the amount the district said it spent to fix the rogue system --  and then decided to announce it the day before the Thanksgiving holiday.

You've heard of "Dumb Animal Tricks?" Trying to bury a negative story on a holiday weekend is called a "Dumb PR Trick." It doesn't work anymore. At least not since the Internet was invented.

And I never thought I'd say this, but the whole episode makes me miss David Tokofsky.

 "I guess this is one major company the federal government doesn't have to bail out because the district just did," the former school board member said.

Woof!