One day the head of the Police Commission resigns "unexpectedly" one day to spend more time in his private law practice.
Two days later, Fire Chief Douglas Barry "abruptly" hangs it up at age 55 after two years in his post. He spent 35 years in the Fire Department so he'll draw most of his $258,000 salary and full health benefits for the rest of his life so who can blame him.
In between, ex-cops-turned-Councilmen Dennis Zine and Bernard Parks opened their guns on the scandal-shrouded city employee pension funds and the mayor's role in naming a majority of the members of the boards that have overseen disastrous investment policies and insider dealings.
This is no small matter since three of the five mayoral appointees to the Fire and Police Pension fund have resigned in recent days over ethical questions but members of the closed City Hall power structure to point fingers is a rare event.
If the weren't enough, the passions of the community are aroused and the masses -- so easily beguiled and confused for so long -- are suddenly challenging just about everything the city does.
Too many billboards, too little planning, 16 percent electricity rate hikes, 28 bump in water rates, 300 percent increase in water runoff charges, the monumental budget crisis -- there's no end city issues that have become battlegrounds.
Or more local ones like the La Brea-Willoughby neighborhood's fight over the Gateway Project which just got committee approval and goes before the full council next Wednesday.
Or the decade-long battle over preservation of the Southwest Museum which will come up again June 16 when the Board of Referred Powers considers approval of the Autry Museum's application to expand a new wing in Griffith Park.
Then, there's Hollywood's fight over a long list of building code violations like front yards that have become parking lots with open storage and fences that are too high.
The list goes on and on.They are signs of LA's new political realities where the mayor can no longer count on a City Council intimidated into submission, where the Council is looking over its shoulder at an increasingly dangerous electorate, where the community is becoming increasingly emboldened to fight City Hall.
On Friday, as the video shows, the council led by an impassioned Richard Alarcon derailed the mayor's plan for distributing $19 million in federal stimulus money for community development projects targeted to low- and moderate-income residents and left bureaucrats and mayoral staff speechless.
Bernard Parks supported increaseing Janice Hahn's share of the money while Alarcon fought for a greater share for himself and Parks and Dennis Zine presided over a delicious floor show that gave the mayor until Wednesday to come up with a revised plan.
Welcome to the rise of democracy in LA.
Ron Kaye is the former editor of the Los Angeles Daily News where he spent 23 years helping to make the newspaper the voice of the San Fernando Valley and fighting for a city government that serves the people and not special interests.
Twice in recent years, Los Angeles Magazine listed Kaye among the city’s most influential people, specifically in the area of politics. Kaye has been variously described in the media as the “accidental anarchist,” “the Patrick Henry of the San Fernando Valley” and a “passionate populist.” He is now committed to
carrying on his crusade for a greater Los Angeles as an ordinary citizen. Previously, Ron worked at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner,
Associated Press, Cleveland Plain Dealer and The Australian as well as papers
in Fairbanks, Alaska and Yakima, Wash. He also wrote for Newsweek magazine, The Guardian in London and the National Enquirer.
You mention "ex-cops" Parks and Zine leading the charge on police and other pensions costs but you neglect to mention that these two are drawing the huge pensions Barry will get. For arguably a lot more cause, having done a good job last two years reforming the dept. best he could after he'd planned to retire 2 years earlier.
Parks is getting over $250,000 a year already on top of his council salary, while Zine gets between $80-100,000 because he retired at a lower level. How about Parks making a good-faith gesture and returning some of that money.
Alarcon making a stand only because he didn't get enough of the pie for himself, he and Hahn fighting over who gets how much, is hardly a stand on principle. They just expected Obama Claus to funnel a lot more money into L A so that it could make up for the city's mismanagement. Under Parks, who along with Smith and Rosendahl are pretending to be some sort of brave heroes standing up to the Mayor because they're stealing the trash fee hikes the Mayor promised for cops, to cover their being asleep at the switch until now. Some heroes.
Alarcon's emotional tone is just about the same outrage that SHOULD be expressed when the City Council is asked by Latham & Watkins lobbyist George Milsten to participate in, subsidize, and endorse the Autry Museum's raid of the Southwest Museum, all to please the ego trip Autry expansion proposed on the People's land in Griffith Park.
What If Council Grew a Backbone on the SW Museum:
Councilmember Huizar: I am holding the Autry Museum's own expert study in my hand. The Mayor himself, when he was the CD-14 Councilmember, forced the Autry to release this 227 page report. It says right here that the National Register listed Southwest Museum can be restored to meet museum exhibition standards for temperature and humidity, and here it says that the likely revenues from operating the exhibition of the collection at this site would be within the normal range of the museum industry.
Therefore, Mr. LaBonge, I would like to know why you are supporting the addition of 20,000 square feet of exhibition space for the Southwest's collection INSIDE a proposed Autry building on OUR land in Griffith Park? Why would we participate in the unnecessary destruction of one of the earliest institutions of this City?
Councilmember LaBonge: Well, Jackie Autry told me they wanted to bring the old Autry Museum and the Southwest Museum under one roof because it would be more financially efficient. We have to do everything we can to help the Autry.
Councilmember Reyes: Mr. LaBonge, we all worked for many years to invest $25 million to put a Gold Line rail station in front of the Southwest Museum. The Autry's own experts told it that the presence of the Gold Line station would enhance attendance if the building were properly returned to public service as a working museum. We are about to open a new convention center hotel. With proper and competent cross-marketing, tourists in the LA region can have easy rail line access to the Southwest Museum whereas transit access to the Autry Museum inside Griffith Park is NOT convenient to downtown and Hollywood hotel tourists. Why would you propose that we throw away the opportunity for renewal of the Southwest Museum, just like we all supported YOU in the renewal of the Griffith Observatory?
Councilmember Garcetti: We are in a City deficit situation. The Autry, unlike any of the other non-profits that this City supports with low-cost leases of land or buildings, is backed by the personal fortune of one of the wealthiest individuals in the nation. For Mrs. Autry, the fair market value of the land lease would be a small piece of interest earnings on her huge personal fortune. Why would the City Council, in the midst of this financial crisis, agree to continue giving away this extremely valuable land for free? Autry's balance sheet lists the 50-year value of our subsidy at about $30 million.
This would be as offensive as the Getty Trust asking for the City to give away land to a museum backed by the fortune of John Paul Getty, or the Hammer Museum coming to City Hall with its hand out. I am troubled by this continuing give away of millions of taxpayer dollars that we could be collecting from the Autry for the benefit of the taxpayers of this City.
Councilmember LaBonge - But we give away parkland and surplus buildings like the Armory to every non-profit that knocks on our door!
Councilmember Garcetti - Things have changed and we must change with the times.
We have hammered the taxpayers and ratepayers and park meter payers of this City and I think we have a responsibility to ask whether or not some of these non-profits actually are backed with resources that could afford to pay the market value of the City assets we are asked to hand over to them. Some small non-profits, yes, maybe the free use is appropriate, but the Getty, the Hammer, and the Autry, maybe not.
Look, at one point, Mr. LaBonge wanted us to step in to commit City resources when MOCA mismanagement was revealed. But MOCA is now backed by the fortune of Eli Broad. Our subsidy, proposed by Mr. LaBonge for MOCA, ended up being totally unnecessary.
Councilmember LaBonge - Well, MOCA was in danger of being removed from where it belongs on Grand Avenue.
Councilmember Hahn - Well, 10 Neighborhood Councils are on record as demanding that this Council do the same thing for the Southwest Museum: keep it where is should be.
Councilmember Huizar - And with my urban planning degree, I know that the City's Northeast Community Plan states that the City shall take no action that does not maintain the Southwest Museum on Mount Washington. If we approve the portion of the Autry's expansion plan that would enable the removal of the Southwest's collection to Griffith Park, we are violating the City's own laws.
My community has raised the money to sue the City over this issue. But why should our City treasury have to defend a lawsuit we are not likely to win and then have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for attorneys' fees? Many say the only way to be heard at City Hall, is to file a lawsuit. Maybe this needs to change. Maybe we should not be seen rolling over for the Mayor and his supporters on the Autry Board of Directors.
Zuma Dog - Well well well, Mr. LaBonge. You fancy yourself as a booster of the history of Los Angeles. That's what you tell us all the time in this Council chamber. You are nothing but a hypocrite! If you lead the way and use your power as Councilmember to try to ram this through, you will be remembered for selling out the cultural history of this City. And I hear the Autry promised in the merger agreement to preserve the INDEPENDENT IDENTITY of the Southwest Museum. How is that going to happen if Mrs. Autry is allowed to take it all into her single building? You will have participated in a RAPE, and absolute RAPE of the history of this City! To quote Councilmember Alarcon on equity issues: It would be a Shame. A real SHAME.
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Will that happen?
Does this Council have the backbone to stand up to the corrupting influence of Latham & Watkins and convicted felon Steve Sugarman who are working the back halls of City Hall on behalf of Autry right now?
Where do we get the report on the Southwest Museum that says that it is seismically safe, and can be temperature controlled to current museum standards?
I am told that the Southwest Museum should be considered a historical place of interest and the collection should be kept intact if it can be protected there safely and with accurate record keeping.
I want to know how to contact the curator, where to get the paper work, and what committees this is in - please.
Is it on any of the committee agendas before June 16th?
Thank you Ron.
The Southwest Museum Rehabilitation Report is found only on the website of the Friends of the Southwest Museum. Autry refuses to make it public on its website because it is contrary to the misrepresentations Autry makes to City Hall about the condition of the building.
www.friendsofthesouthwestmuseum.com
The best proof of the seismic stability of the Southwest Museum is that Charles Lummis built the building with steel rebar and thick poured concrete in 1912-14. Mr. Lummis overbuilt the building from the beginning and this preserved it. This building has been through the Long Beach, Sylmar, Whittier Narrows, and Northridge quakes when other more modern buildings failed and collapsed. Overall, despite its age, the building is is suprisingly good seismic condition. However, its electrical, heating, cooling,and water systems are way beyond useful life and need to be replaced. This is the work Autry refuses to do and has no further funds to carry out.
The Rehabilitation Report did recommend seismic strengthening of the tower window frames to further protect against a seismic failure. In 1994, some minor earthquake damage occurred where the tower meets the main building of the museum. FEMA gave the former SW Museum Board $1 million to pay for a fix of that problem. Autry just completed the FEMA seismic work. Additionally (finally) state funds were added to the same project to put a new roof on the tower that had a roof leak. Additionally, cracks in the poured concrete structure were injected with epoxy and the whole tower has been replastered and repainted. Autry deserves credit for moving this rehab project forward. Sadly, because the Autry lied about its financial strength at the time of the Southwest merger, Autry has no funds and has refused to raise or accept new funds to complete the rest of the building rehabilitation recommended by its experts.
The Mayor's bloggers have posted crap here and elsewhere about the age of the building, trying to imply it cannot be rehabilitated. It's spin. The report, prepared by about 15 respected experts in their fields concluded the building could be returned to service for the price of about $25 million. Meanwhile, Mrs. Autry wants to spend $100 million in our parkland to expand HER building. The Autry expansion is so wrong on many levels and makes less economic sense.