June 2009 Archives

Huizar's Prenuptial Deal: Binding Agreement to Keep Both Autry, Southwest as Living Museums

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 30, 2009 10:45 PM | | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)
In a dramatic last-minute shift, Councilman Jose Huizar proposed a "prenuptial agreement" that would require the Autry National Center to renovate the Southwest Museum in Mt. Washington and operate it as a living museum as part of its lease agreement with the city for its planned expansion in Griffith Park.

It wasn't clear that Huizar's Solomon-like "splitting the baby" proposal fully pleased either of the warring parties.
huizar.jpg
The Autry took over the Southwest and its vast collection of artifacts of the Old West in 2003 at a time when the city's oldest museum was in disrepair and had suffered years of mismanagement  It has spent $7 million on repairs to the century-old facility and promised to restore it but refused to enter into a binding agreement.

Eastside activists have waged an intense campaign to block the Autry's 79,,000 square-foot expansion that would more than double the size of its Griffith Park museum and demanded that the Southwest be fully restored  and operated as the main site for display of the collection of 250,000 artifacts.

On Tuesday afternoon before an overflow crowd in the City Council chambers, the years-long fight came to a head before the five-member Board of Referred Powers.

"While I believe that the Autry is acting in good faith when it says it is committed to renovating the Southwest Museum, I think the community deserves to have a binding commitment in writing to ensure that they and future generations enjoy one of Los Angeles most treasured
cultural institutions," said Huizar, who represents the area.

The board -- Janice Hahn, Ed Reyes, Bernard Parks, Bill Rosendahl and Tony Cardenas -- gave Huizar four weeks to negotiate the agreement with a firm timeline for the Southwest's
reopening.

Here's a report from the meeting by OurLA.org writer Chris Rowe, a West Hills Neighborhood Council member:
Thumbnail image for southwest.jpg
At the start of the meeting, it was announced that Councilmember Huizar wanted to speak first. And the feeling from the "Friends of the Southwest" was one of fear. Would this Councilmember ask his colleagues to support the Autry.
 
In a surprise to everyone present (Friends of the Southwest), and the mood was one of disbelief, Huizar spoke about a document signed by the Autry that promised to protect both museums. He stated that he wanted a " Prenuptial Agreement" -- a very finely crafted document that was airtight that would protect the Southwest Museum and its contents from being taken by the Autry for the purposes of creating the grander "Autry National Center" at Griffith Park.
 
The Autry's representatives stated that this hearing had only to do with the EIR for the Autry  - and nothing to do with the Southwest Museum. They believe that what the future of the Autry is will have no negative impact on the Southwest Museum at all.
 
Brenda Levin, the architect for the expansion of the Autry gave a beautiful presentation of the renderings of the future museum in Griffith Park. Levin spoke about how this beautiful modern museum of glass would blend with the landscape and incorporate the most modern of designs that fit the concept of "Green Building". As she spoke about how this glass structure was more natural -- I was thinking: "How much more natural can you be than the adobe of the Southwest?"
 
VICA's president Stuart Waldman and many friends of the Autry spoke in favor of the expansion at the Griffith Park site.
 
Native Americans -- including Rudy Ortega Jr. of the Tataviam tribe -- favored the Autry. At least five representatives from different Native American groups said the Autry would be a place where more small children would learn about their Native American cultures and the history of these people and the missions in the area.
 
Daniel Wright of the Friends of the Southwest spoke about the need to protect the Southwest Collection -- to keep it at the Southwest intact. He said Levin had created a rendering of an expansion of the Southwest on its current site prior to being hired to design the expanded  Autry. A great deal of fuss had been made about the many projects that Llevin had designed throughout the City.
Continue reading Huizar's Prenuptial Deal: Binding Agreement to Keep Both Autry, Southwest as Living Museums.

A Blogger's View: That Was the (Fiscal) Year It Was -- City Hall's Failure Reaches New Heights

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 30, 2009 7:00 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
"We're not going to allow an election to impede the future, to impede what we have to do in the city."  -- Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, June 29, 2009, on his commitment to go ahead with the solar energy plan owned and installed by the DWP despite voter rejection of Measure B.

Since I'm so obsessed with the goings-on at City Hall and my dream that we the people can actually bring about some semblance of democracy and make things better for everyone, the end of the city's fiscal year seems a good time to take stock of the last 12 months.

What a year it was! The people of the city showed signs of awakening and scored a long series of victories against the City Hall machine even as our elected officials showed just how shameless and arrogant they are.

They gave 6 percent raises to city workers, cut costly sweetheart deals with the rich and ran up spectacular deficits but proved themselves too weak and corrupt to take any effective steps to protect the future of the city.

But it was the mayor, in the closing hours of the fiscal year, who symbolized best City Hall's contempt for the public and the public interest. After the community rose up and defeated Measure B in March, he and other city officials promised an open dialogue on solar energy policy with business-labor-activist coalition but as he said Monday election outcomes don't matter, nor do promises.

If these were truly public servants instead of pretenders to royalty, they would wear sack cloth and crawl on their knees to the steps of City Hall's South Lawn on Wednesday for swearing in and inaugural ceremonies.

They would beg for our forgiveness and swear on the Bible to change their wicked ways. Instead, they will magnify their meager achievements and ignore the enormity of their failures even as the searing winds of change blow across the city.
 
Blogging LA: July 1,2008 - June 30, 2009

July: My year began July 1 with Chapter One of the "whodunit" about who's killing my neighborhood, a mystery that has grown to 15 chapters about how the city dealt with the illegal conversion of a modest single-family home in my neighborhood into a three-unit apartment building. It took most of the year to get the house more or less restored to building codes but the culprits have run circles around the legal system and will probably get off with a slap on the wrist.

Two weeks later, the Saving LA Project staged a rally at City Hall for a "New Spirit for LA" and to protest the endless string of rate, fee and tax hikes, sweetheart deals with unions, developers and contractors and the failure of our elected officials to solve the severe problems in our city and in our schools.

AUGUST: The dog days of August saw the introduction of Bruno, the LA Watchdog as he savagely attacked my swimming pool when the filter motor started up. There also were a lot of hot topics that needed watching: Southwest Museum, Home Depot in Sunland-Tujunga, South Central Farm, City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo's refusal to allow public scrutiny of his office, higher speed limits on surface streets, new planning rules that let developers get away with murdering neighborhoods.



SEPTEMBER: The deadly Metrolink train crash in Chatsworth in September exposed just how incompetent our officials are and a HUD audit exposed a piece of the scandal in the Housing Authority of the City of LA  Then there was another sweetheart deal for billionaire Phil Anscutz and my prediction of looming economic catatastrophe.

OCTOBER: One judge slams city's lack of transparency as illegal, another finds the DWP stole $160 million a year from ratepayers, first hint of scandal in city pension funds, mayor takes baby steps to deal with giant budget deficit -- City Hall's failings grow more apparent even as the community mobilizes to fight for reform.

DWP Commission President Nick Patsaouras takes up the call for a Ratepayer Advocate and quits when the mayor nixes the proposal. Planning Commission President Jane Usher lays out how to fix digital billboard fiasco and will quit soon enough over mayoral opposition to smart growth and healthy neighborhoods. The community even moves toward a victory to protect Griffith Park from development.

Continue reading A Blogger's View: That Was the (Fiscal) Year It Was -- City Hall's Failure Reaches New Heights.

Autry vs. Southwest Shootout: Symbol of LA's Cultural and Political Poverty

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 29, 2009 9:00 AM | | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)
Editor's Note: If you support retaining the Southwest Museum as a a living museum, you can help by going to the Friends of the Southwest Museum's website  and joining their email and fax campaign.



Of all the dozens of city issues I've learned a lot about in the last year or so, the one that befuddles me the most is the Battle of the Museums -- Autry vs. Southwest.

As things stand, we have a really mediocre facility in the Autry in Griffith Park and a rundown facility in the Mt. Washingon/Glassell Park area that represents the oldest museum in LA, a landmark on the Eastside.

For all I've paid attention to the arguments on both sides, I can't understand why we can't have two wonderful museums dedicated to the artifacts and history of the Old West. The Southwest Museum's vast collection -- now owned by the Autry -- could sustain both museums as valuable community assets if there was the will and the money.

southwest.jpgThe showdown in this long war comes Tuesday at 3 p.m. in Room 350 before City Hall's Board of Referred Powers with both sides mounting intense campaigns by fax and email and mobilizing their supporters to attend.

It is a foregone conclusion that the board -- Janice Hahn, Ed Reyes, Tony Cardenas, Bill Rosendahl and Bernard Parks -- will green light the Autry's doubling its size and the Southwest Museum will get fixed up on the cheap and used as little more than classrooms.

I just don't get it.

The city's cultural and political leadership valued the Southwest and its collection so little they allowed the building to deteriorate and the collection to be looted until it reached the point that the Autry came in as the white-hatted hero with promises to restore it as a living museum.

But that isn't what happened. After the takeover of the Southwest, the Autry started making plans to operate only one museum, not two as promised.

It's a question of money, or the lack of it. Autry32.jpgThe "Singing Cowboy" died at his Studio City home in 1998, leaving an estate worth hundreds of millions of dollars to his widow Jackie.

Despite promises the Autry Museum will eventually inherit a good chunk of the estate when Jackie dies, it has operated on a relative shoestring for many years and it's far from clear it has the money to expand the facility.

The questions I keep wondering about are these:

* If the Autry now can raise the huge sums needed to expand, why can't it raise the much smaller amount needed to restore and operate the Southwest?

* If the city's leaders think there is so much value in a first-rate museum celebrating the Old West, why did they neglect the Southwest for so long, why have they not come forward with money?

* Where's Hollywood? Don't the studios have a stake in promoting the Cowboy and Indians story anymore, in actually contributing to the city's cultural life instead of running away elsewhere to make movies on the cheap?

For my money, this conflict epitomizes the cultural poverty of the city and the lack of political will to create great institutions like Disney Hall and and preserve local institutions as well like the Southwest Museum.

City Hall could not start down that happy trail towards a greater LA on Tuesday by supporting the two-museum solution but don't bet on it.

What Really Happened in the CD5 Race...

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 27, 2009 1:26 PM | | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)
Editor's Note: This is the full version of an opinion piece that appeared in the Daily News.

By Danielle Elliott with Michael Several
Community Correspondents

Paul Koretz was formally declared the winner of the Council District 5 runoff election on Tuesday - a victory that was not surprising except for the slim margin he won by over community activist David Vahedi.

Koretz was backed by the city's power structure: koretz1.jpgMayor Antonio Villaraigosa, County Supervisory Yaroslavsky, two local Congressmen, the Board of Realtors and several city unions and others who stand to profit from his time on the Council. He had name recognition, serving 12 years in the State Assembly and as Mayor of West Hollywood.  And he outspent his opponent approximately 3 to 1.

But he didn't win the hearts and minds of nearly half his constituents, particularly homeowners and residents active in trying to make our neighborhoods better.

There were also voter irregularities. Normal polling places were changed at the last minute without notification. Voters were told they were not on the voting role and were not offered provisional ballots. Sixteen precincts were required to vote by mail only and the voters that tried to find a poll to vote only to be turned away.

The closeness of the election says something about the liberal Democratic district and the tenor of the City.

The east side where I live is a mix of residential and commercial - the goal of modern urban planning philosophy.

But city policy, despite the oft-repeated Smart Growth mantra, is causing dramatic changes in the neighborhood.

Little of the new commercial is for the local residents. You don't see the small markets selling fruits and vegetables and staples or hardware stores or shoe repairs.

They have been displaced by businesses that target people who live outside the area such as restaurants, bars and trendy boutiques, exotic plant shops, and incense and candle stores. These aren't neighborhood mom and pops. They are owned by outsiders hoping to catch some of the gold from the oversized Grove, Beverly Center and Beverly Connection.

They don't have the same stake in the neighborhood and attract customers from other areas whose cars clog our streets and take up the limited parking that's available.

This invasion has given rise to strengthened home owners associations.  And it was here that Vahedi had his support.  The closeness of the election is a testament to the strength of the home owners associations as a political force.

They are voluntary organizations, community based, that are a bridge between people and their government. They are a countervailing force to the influence that money and connections distort public policy. They are seen by developers and government officials as anti-growth, insular and indifferent to the greater good.

But it is not development that residents oppose. It is the nature of the development and corruption of the development process that angers and frustrates the community.

A voice for disenfranchised residents who are true stakeholders in their communities and leadership in a City Council more committed to political theatre than good public policy is what the people who voted for David Vahedi wanted.

In his June 5, 2009, LATimes blog article Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky wrongly called this resident backlash "Anti-Development Sentiment".  The readily accepted NIMBY terminology disguises the true sentiment of the resident stakeholder----Anti-Corruption Sentiment. There has been an imbalance in which special interests have used their financial resources to get their way.

The city has created a master plan to control development but routinely grants variances to its own rules  for those with political and financial clout, the same people who funded Koretz' campaign as they did his predecessor Jack Weiss'.

That's why residents are angry. There are too many liquor licenses, too many large high density buildings being permitted without sufficient infrastructure and not enough parking or attention to what the community wants.

With such a narrow victory, Koretz does not have a mandate to lead. Like Weiss before him, Koretz could continue down the path he has followed and hope to stay in office with the money and support of outside interests.

But he should take note of the trend. Weiss almost faced a recall and a neighborhood activist almost won the May 19 runoff.

The community is getting stronger and hopefully Koretz will reach out to homeowners and community activists and make use part of his team to balance his leadership and fulfill his campaign promise of standing up to special interests.

An Offer They Can't Refuse: Council Gives City Unions What They Want

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 26, 2009 1:57 PM | | Comments (39) | TrackBacks (0)
UPDATE: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will hold a 3:30 p.m. press conference with union leaders on the deal with city unions. His press release () calls it a "MAYOR-DEAL.doc
landmark agreement (that) will save $500 million over two years 
without layoffs through early retirements and raise deferrals" but 
no mention of what it will cost taxpayers.
 
Meeting behind closed doors, the City Council gave to unanimous agreement to give 2,400 city workers as young as 55 sweetened benefits if they retire early.

The vote was no surprise and requires the agreement of all six unions that make up the Coalition of Unions with 22,000 members. A similar deal is likely to be offered to police, firefighters and other city workers but not the DWP, which is expanding instead of shrinking despite the economic crisis.

"We can't afford not to do it," Councilwoman Janice Hahn told the Times after the vote.

Added Councilman Richard Alarcon: "We're doing our best to save city services."

The deal requires deferring cost-of-living pay raises for two years but requires the city make up the lost money plus a bonus in the following years. It also calls for unions to up their contributions to their pension fund from 6 to 6.75 -- far below Social Security contributions for far better benefits -- to fund the early retirement costs but doesn't impose the increase for two years and ends it in 2026.

The Times reported there are serious financial and legal questions about the deal.

Gary Toebben, president and CEO of the LA Chamber of Commerce, has called for a thorough financial analysis of the plan.

"The public deserves a very thorough briefing when the council gets out of their closed-door session about what impact this will have on the budget over the next five years," he said today. "Because, ultimately, the taxpayer will end up paying the bill. They're not in the room. But they'll end up paying the bill."

Still, the Chamber later issued a statement saying it "applauds Mayor Villaraigosa, the City Council and public employees union leaders for their hard work and dedication during these lengthy and difficult contract negotiations. Saving 500 million dollars will be very helpful during this period of economic downturn."

The Engineers and Architects Union, under siege from the SEIU which is backed by the mayor, issued a similar call and questioned where the plan would withstand a court challenge.

"The [early retirement plan] that they're proposing is not legal," said Bob Aquino, EAA executive director, which represents roughly 7,800 city workers not included in the negotiations told the Times.

Here's the Plan: Is It Good for You or Good for Them?

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 26, 2009 7:46 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
Editor's Note: Read the plan the City Council will vote on today to sweeten the package for 2,400 city workers to get them to retire early. It gives the unions until 2026 to repay the pension and other costs by raising their contributions from 6 to 6.75 percent during that period. The deferred wage increase element similarly will make city workers whole within five years. Will this really solve the city's budget and pension fund crisis?


EARLY RETIREMENT INCENTIVE PROGRAM (ERIP) MANAGEMENT PROPOSAL 6/25/09

1. The goal of ERIP is to separate 2,400 employees from City service as quickly as possible.
2. Benefit enhancements as provided on June 22,2009
(see attached). Add $15K to Scenario E.
3. Accumulated Sick and Vacation time will be paid out over two separate tax years.
4. Employees shall only have the retirement option to select ERIP during the window period (the
choice to select the standard LACERS retirement shall not be allowed during the ERIP window
period).
5. Window period of 45 days.
6. Management shall determine the order of the retirement dates for employees electing to retire
during the window period.
7. After all employees who enroll for the ERIP have retired through the program, the LACERS'
actuary shall determine the total cost of the ERIP by calculating the difference between the
increase in the Unfunded Actuarial Accrued Liability (UAAL) and the decrease in the Normal
Cost (based on the actual employees retiring from ERIP and including the backfill assumptions
provided by the actuary). This cost shall be an obligation of the Unions.
8. The additional cash components of ERIP shall be an obligation of the Unions.
9. Payment for the two obligations identified in items 7 and 8 above will commence on
July 1, 2011 and end on June 30, 2026 or until the sum of the obligations identified in items 7
and 8 are fully paid, whichever comes first. The payment shall consist of an increase in the
active employee retirement contribution rate of three-quarters (3/4) of one percent (0.75%).
10. The employee contribution rate for employees hired prior to 1983 (i.e. defrayal group) shall be
adjusted to 6% upon ratification of this agreement. Commensurate with item 9 above,
employees in the defrayal group (similar to all other employees) shall have their retirement
contribution increased from 6% to 6.75% on July 1, 2011. Savings from the elimination of
defrayal shall be credited towards the target savings figure (in items 7 and 8 above).
11. Once the City has recouped all costs associated with the ERIP as identified in items 7 and 8
above, the retirement contribution rate will be reduced by 0.75% to 6% for all employees.
12. As part of its Normal Cost calculation, the LACERS' actuary will provide an update on the cost
(identified in items 7 and 8 above) and savings (identified in items 9 and 10 above) so that
contribution rates may be adjusted accordingly to account for shortages and surpluses
collected towards the payment of the ERIP. The actuarial updates shall not occur later than
October 1, 2016, and October 1, 2021. The City and Unions will meet at least once annually
after the release of the actuary's report to assess the progress on eliminating the obligation.
13. Certain classifications will be excluded and/or capped at 20% (see attached lists).
14. Each Union shall conduct its own membership vote. Ratification by each bargaining unit must
be completed and the CAO notified in writing of ratification within three weeks of Council
approval. Units representing a majority of the LACERS members must ratify all of theEARLY
provisions of the retirement package. Compliance with this provision will be based on the
Wages and Count for full-time employees dated November 17, 2008.
15. An Early Retirement Incentive Program that is cost-neutral to the City is a critical element
of the parties' collaborative partial solution to the City's long-term economic viability.
Therefore, the parties agree that should there be a successful legal challenge to either
mechanism (end of defrayal or increased employee contributions) designed to ensure cost
neutrality, the parties will meet under the Mutual Gains process to discuss and agree on
alternative measures to ensure cost neutrality. Should the parties fail to agree on
alternative measures that will ensure cost neutrality within 60 days of the City's exhaustion
of all appeal options in the state court system against a successful legal challenge, the
City may invoke established bargaining practices to ensure cost neutrality as envisioned in
this agreement, i.e., payment of the actual incremental cost of the ERIP and any refund of
previous payments toward this goal required under the successful legal challenge.

Whodunit Chapter 15: Who's Killing My Neighborhood

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 25, 2009 9:13 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Justice delayed due to faulty machinery, mechanical -- bureaucratic

Chelsea Cody
OurLA.org Writer

"There will be no more continuances. This is the last one." said Commissioner Thomas Grodin before dismissing Nasir Shaikh, his new attorney Monica Romallo and ex-wife Nadya Mahdavi's counsel Gerald Cobb from the courtroom to discuss a settlement plan with Deputy City Attorney Donald Cocek. 

After a long day of delayed hearings due to malfunctioning public elevators at the Van Nuys courthouse, Commissioner Grodin was short on patience.
Thumbnail image for elevator.jpg
The court waited for over an hour and a half for Shaikh to appear and Mahdavi was not present as her attorney advised her that her appearance would not be necessary.

Grudgingly granting a continuance, Grodin said all parties involved had better come to some kind of settlement or be prepared to go to trial come July 14.

More than a year of delays and difficulties has prolonged the case of the People of Los Angeles vs. Shaikh and Mahdavi. Pleas of poverty, denials of ownership and failure to appear before the court (with or without an attorney) have postponed any final decision. Yesterday it was malfunctioning machinery.

Resolving the illegal conversion of a single-family home into a three-apartment tenement on 19953 Haynes St. in Woodland Hills has dragged on since the beginning of 2008 only to be delayed - one hopes - one last time.

That is, if the city can keep the elevators working.

LA Chamber: Sweetheart Deal Means "Short-term Political Gain and Long-term Financial Pain"

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 24, 2009 2:40 PM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
Like the rest of us at the mercy of the one-dimensional City Hall political machine, the Chamber of Commerce constantly finds itself going along with a lot things it doesn't like in order to get even a few crumbs from the table of power.

But this time, with the city's future hanging in the balance and the mayor and City Council selling out any hope for the future, the chamber is drawing the line and demanding officials prove through a detailed five-year economic analysis that the proposed early retirement  and guaranteed pay raise package is workable and in the public interest.
toebben.jpg
Gary Toebben, president and CEO of the LA-area Chamber, sent this letter to City Council members on Wednesday with a copy to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Re: Proposed City Employee Labor Agreement - Economic Analysis Request

Dear Council Members:

On behalf of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, I write to request that the Mayor and City Council provide the public with a 5-year economic analysis of the impact that the proposed city labor agreement will have on the city's budget and taxpayers prior
to Council consideration.

For taxpayers, the proposed agreement outlined earlier this week does not appear to fulfill
the promise of "shared sacrifice" in a difficult economy. Instead, it appears poised to
deliver the kind of short-term political gain and long-term financial pain that has
contributed to California's fiscal implosion.

We are particularly wary of the early retirement packages that will add to the City's
massively unfunded and unsustainable pension liability. The moderate increases in
pension contributions do not begin to address this huge problem that is estimated to
require two billion dollars per year in city contributions in six years - 20-25% of the
entire city budget.

At a time when city residents and businesses are struggling to live within their means,
taxpayers deserve a detailed analysis of the future financial ramifications of this proposed
agreement. And, unlike Measure B, it is essential that this analysis be released and
publically discussed prior to a vote.

Sincerely,


Gary Toebben
President & CEO

Cc: Mayor Villaraigosa

Is This What They Mean By Shared Sacrifice?

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 24, 2009 8:45 AM | | Comments (25) | TrackBacks (0)
I'm not too worried about the sweetheart deal our city fathers and mothers have cut with our city workers -- it will blow up in their faces long before the paper it's written on yellows if not before the ink is dry.

Anyway, they've been doing this to us for a long time so what's new?

While the rest of the city's population is worrying about how to make ends meet and what happens if someone in the family loses their job or gets sick, our city workers are getting to retire at the youthful age of 55 with full lifetime pensions and health benefits.

The loss of the labor of the 2,400 in this lucky class will mean worse services for those who pay the bills. But for 90 percent of the city workforce who retain their jobs it will be something of a bonanza: Promotions galore, excuses for every failure, deferred raises for two years with iron-clad guarantees that they will be made whole soon enough and get a large cash bonus to boot.

Imagine how sweet life would be if we all had this deal.

But we don't because it's unaffordable. When business is bad, we lose our jobs with nothing but vacation pay and unemployment. When we can't pay our mortgage, they take our houses away.

We pay as we go in our own lives and now we get stuck with the bills for our city government's failure to do the job they are so handsomely paid to do.

They've been getting away with this for a generation while leading lives of relative luxury and absolute security even as the schools failed, poverty increased and urban problems mounted.

Sure, they pick up the garbage but their new trash fee was used to inflate city salaries, not hire thousands of new cops.

Sure, the water and power are flowing in our pipes but rates are soaring, the infrastructure rotted, and green-energy-at-any-cost policies are squeezing our pocketbooks.

Sure, the LAPD is better today than it was a generation ago but it took rage in the streets, hundreds of millions of dollars and the federal courts to achieve reforms that our city leaders had refused to carry out.

No, I'm not too worried about this latest sweetheart deal. The city can't afford it. There isn't enough money coming in. They know they can't raise taxes or fees anymore. Even the DWP cash cow can't generate enough to cover payroll costs.

This sweetheart deal is nothing but a timebomb -- an improvised explosive device that will inevitably blow up in their faces.

But unless we do something about it now, they won't pay for their failure -- we will.

UPDATED: LA's Road to Ruin: Payoffs instead of Layoffs

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 23, 2009 11:18 AM | | Comments (19) | TrackBacks (0)
UPDATE: Here's what the SEIU has to say about leaders of 19 city bargaining units grabbing at the deal to avoid layoffs: "While public workers across the country are being forced to take layoffs, furloughs and pay cuts, and residents suffer drastic service cuts, Los Angeles has the chance to lead again by embracing a solution that creates long-term fiscal stability, prioritizes direct service and invests in the future workforce." Full Text

DETROIT -- Out in the prosperous suburbs northwest of Detroit, the first days of summer are glorious with warm sunny days and gardens in bloom even as the auto industry that feeds the region's wealth teeters on the brink of collapse.

In the heart of this once great city, there is nothing but the smell of decay. Houses sell for less than $5,000, one in four people are unemployed, whole neighborhoods are returning to a state of nature unseen since the first settlers came here.

The long-term failure of leadership in the auto industry and the political and civic culture of  detroit.jpgDetroit have come together and brought the region into a profound crisis.

And as is usual in such cases, those who have failed offer versions of the same excuse: If we knew then what we know now...

I can't help seeing the parallel with my town given my obsession with trying to get the leadership of LA to learn from the mistakes we and others have made that have led to the decline of great cities, the destruction of the middle class and the separation of our communities like you see here in the difference between Detroit and its wealthy suburbs.

And yet I see City Hall's leadership doing what they have done for so long as they created the city's financial crisis and continue to repeat the mistakes of the past.

The deal on the table with the city's unions guarantee, that short of an economic miracle, LA will soon be just as bankrupt as Detroit is today, that the disparity between rich and poor will grow and the middle class shrink, that suburbs will thrive in and the inner city decay.

My friend Karen Kanter foreshadowed the future in a new comment on a piece I wrote entitled "What Price Labor Peace..."on City Hall's buyout plan to reduce the payroll.

"If this goes through, I think we can count on our mayor to say next year or the year after that: 'No one could have predicted these kind of budget shortfalls.'"

For all the talk about no pay raises (for everyone except the DWP) and furloughs and layoffs, what's on the table is an early retirement package that lets city workers get enhanced pensions with lifetime health benefits and voluntary leave at age 55 with as much as a $33,000 cash payoff for many.

Eliminating 2,500 jobs through early retirement plus 1,200 others that are vacant and deferring pay raises will allow city officials to achieve a balanced budget on paper.

Think about it: If you're 55 and the boss will pad your pension up to 75 percent of your highest salary or even 90 percent for police and fire and give you a bundle of cash, would you be delighted to retire and go fishing?

Certainly those the mayor called "deadwood" will jump at this deal but so will many others whose knowledge and skill is irreplaceable.

The unions price for this deal is to raise their contribution level from 6 to 6.75 percent -- still a third less than Social Security deductions in the private sector -- and waiting two years to start getting raises every six months to make them whole as if this was all just a terrible dream.

"Once that two-year period is over, however, those same workers would receive six pay increases between July 1, 2011, and Jan 1, 2014, ranging from 2.25% to 4%, most of them delayed from their current contract," according to a draft proposal obtained by David Zahnisher in the Times. "Those workers also would receive an extra cash payout equal to 1.75% of their salaries in 2012 and 2013."

This is a fantasy that will become a nightmare.

City and union officials know this. So who are they kidding? The public obviously but city workers as well.

This inability to face reality is why the city kept giving big raises and increases in benefits for years. And now that the bills have come due, they still don't have the courage to face the truth that city government costs too much and delivers too little.

When this deal blows up it will be because the soaring cost of city pensions and payrolls is unaffordable. We will never be able to pay for these bills. We will face even more severe cuts soon enough and city services will continue to decline and cause further erosion in the city's economic base.

It's not a mystery. It's what has happened to Detroit and other cities in decay and it's what has been happening year after year in LA.

What Price Labor Peace? Marathon Union-City Hall Talks: Furloughs & Layoffs vs Early Retirement

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 20, 2009 6:48 PM | | Comments (22) | TrackBacks (0)
Editor's Note: With just 10 days before the fictional city budget takes effect, unions and City Hall officials are finally getting down to serious talks. The budget crisis requires a major reduction in the work force. Unions want sweetened retirement benefits so thousands of workers can retired at an early age with full pensions. The mayor claims it's unaffordable and wants city workers -- except those in the DWP, Harbor and Airports -- to forgo raises, take furlough days, and accept layoffs. I've been betting a long time the unions will get what they want in the name of "shared sacrifice." What do you think?

Here's the link to the latest report from the LA Coalition of Unions, the Engineers and Architects Association and  the latest report from longtime City Hall union leader Julie Butcher, who I've long known and respected, to members of SEIU Local 721:

Important Update from LA City Hall

I'm taking a break from a meeting at City Hall to give you an important update about ongoing discussions with the City that could affect your job.
butcher.jpg 
I think we all agree that mandatory furloughs and layoffs would be devastating to our City. That's why SEIU 721 and the Coalition of LA City Unions have been working for well over a year toward an agreement with the City that keeps L.A. working in this time of unprecedented budget crisis.

This week I, along with Cheryl Parisi of AFSCME, Daniel Villao of the Building and Construction Trades, Victor Gordo of LIUNA 777, Carlos Rubio of the Teamsters and Lance Bedolla of the Operating Engineers have met with the Mayor, the Mayor's staff, the Executive Employee Relations Committee (EERC), interim City Administrative Officer Ray Ciranna and Chief Legislative Analyst Gerry Miller to discuss a detailed framework that would prevent mandatory furloughs and layoffs and provide early retirement incentives for those who have given decades of service to the City. 
 
We're working around the clock today, and will continue through the weekend if necessary. Our goal is for the Executive Employee Relations Committee (EERC) to authorize a package on Tuesday morning so it can come before SEIU and Coalition bargaining teams that afternoon. Additionally, the Los Angeles City Employees' Retirement System (LACERS) will meet on Monday to discuss a City proposal regarding early retirement incentives.
 
I know you're all aching for more details. Expect to see more information in your email inbox on Monday about early retirement incentives, and on Tuesday afternoon after your bargaining team meets. Remember: No agreement will be final without a full vote of all union members.
 
I am well aware that you expect your union to be responsible and proactive in working with City decision-makers, rather than sitting on the sidelines. Rest assured that I and the Coalition of LA City Unions' principals and bargaining teams are working tirelessly to protect your job, the City services you provide, and your ability to support yourself and your family during this unprecedented economic crisis, and that everything you the members have done: rallying in front of City Hall, dogging the Mayor, rallying at the Mayor's mansion, marching on City Hall and calling and e-mailing the Mayor and City Council has created the climate for us to move this forward. We would not have gotten so far without your actions.
 
In solidarity,

Julie Butcher
Director, SEIU 721 LA Cities Division

City Watch, Weekend Report: On Bikes, NCs, 50 Percent Solution...

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 20, 2009 9:09 AM | | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)
Ken Draper's City Watch publishes new content from CIty Hall activists, observers and insiders every Tuesday and Friday. Here's some articles up today:
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* Greuel Scolds Transpo for Dismissing the Public on Bicycle Plan

* Los Angeles Dreamin' on 10th anniversary of Neighborhood Councils.

* Growing Wheat in the Tundra on bulldozing urban blight.

* In the Driver's Seat on the NC movement.

* Congestion Pricing: More Heat than Light on traffic congestion.

Here's my contribution to City Watch:

We Need a Bombshell

In the last 25 years, the consumer price index has risen roughly 100 percent while the salaries of Los Angeles' elected officials has soared by more than 700 percent.
 
So the question I ask is this: Is LA a better city than it was a generation ago?
 
Admittedly, the air is cleaner but it's still the most polluted in the nation. Traffic congestion is still the worst in the nation. There's a 75 years backlog to fix the streets and sidewalks. Planning for neighborhood improvement is non-existent. The poverty rate has soared. Few major corporations call LA home and the civic culture has weakened to the point or irrelevancy.

The list of negatives is long and the current batch of city officials has done little to make things better and a lot to make things worse.
 
From time to time, the public has risen up and demanded change: Ethics reform in the early 1990s, City Charter Reform a few years later and finally San Fernando Valley secession at the start of the 21st century.
 
For all the lip service that was paid to the commitment to reform, city government today is more corrupted than ever, more immune to the voice of the people, more held hostage by the role of special interests whose money makes them all but unbeatable in elections.
 
The result is massive public subsidies to billionaires and large corporations for developments that most people didn't want, digital billboards and pot shops popping up everywhere much to the annoyance of residents, a soaring budget deficit at the same time rates, fees and taxes have risen sharply.
 
For years, community activists have spent endless hours trying to have their voices heard, to be partners in solving the city's problems, working hard to put people into public office who will represent their interests.
 
Their efforts have largely been to no avail although the defeat of Measure B in March and the election of Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich as City Attorney in May are signs that the winds of change are gaining strength
 
To make a difference, we need to redouble our efforts. We need to become better organized and learn to collaborate among the city's far-flung regions, to gather better information and expertise, to be as effective in bringing pressure on City Hall as the best lobbyists.
 
But none of that will mean a thing unless we awaken the sleeping giant of LA politics: The 83 percent who ... apathetic, uninformed or defeated ... don't even bother to vote.
 
We need a bombshell, maybe many of them.
 
The weapon at hand is the salaries of our elected officials - salaries that are far higher than the elected officials of New York or any other city in the nation.
 
Our council members are paid $180,000 a year, the controller, city attorney and mayor 10, 20 and 30 percent more.
 
A Charter Amendment that slashed those salaries in half would be the wakeup call we need to get the public debate focused on the performance of the people who win elections with dirty money and serve special interests far better than the public interest.
 
It's a giant task to get a Charter Amendment on the ballot but no politician in his or her right mind - if there are any - can oppose it without looking the self-servers they are.
 
The "50 percent solution" itself is only one piece in the puzzle of how to turn LA around, but it's an important step down the road of real change.


Bruno, the L.A Watchdog: "I Love a Dogfight"

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 19, 2009 10:29 AM | | Comments (12) | TrackBacks (0)
Editor's Note: LA Times columnist James Rainey, following the lead of several former Times and LA Weekly writers, today slammed the aggressive coverage of city politics in the LA Weekly and the person responsible for its prize-winning stories, News Editor Jill Stewart. Stewart, whose body of work over many years is as good and as important as anybody's, fired back in an email blast (jillstewartresponse.doc). It's all too much for Bruno, the lover of dog trainers.

By Bruno
LA's Watchdog

Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail imageYou may assume I make of habit of peeing on the The Dog Trainer - AKA the Los Angeles Times - both literally and metaphorically (how do you like that for a dog?), but sometimes those guys downtown just make it too damn easy.

Case in point:  Jim Rainey's "On the Media" column this morning that damn near calls for news editor Jill Stewart to be dragged out of the LAWeekly and shot for her alleged sins against journalism.

As my dear old dad used to say:  "People who live in stone houses shouldn't throw glass." (Hey, he was just a dog.)

Rainey -- whose own paper recently wrapped an entire edition in an ad for a TV show - under the masthead! -- bemoans the fact the Weekly isn't the same old lefty publication it was in the old days before his pals got fired, then attacks Stewart for being, well, just too hard on the elected officials his colleagues pal around with.

"... Stewart's more important, and insidious, influence has been not as an ideologue but as a pedagogue -- pushing for what one writer who has worked with her called "gotcha, pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey journalism."

(Like most of those who spoke to me, this scribe declined to be named because he feared Stewart could hurt his chances of writing for the Weekly, a risk he didn't want to take in a contracting market.)

Whoa Jimbo!  Is that an anonymous source you're quoting?  Isn't that what you always do? And are you allowing "this scribe" to dump on someone who might have been his or her boss? 

I'm just a dog, but I thought that was forbidden under the guidelines established by The Dog Trainer after it was embarrassed by one of its writers a few years ago.  Regardless, isn't it only fair that your readers know the name of "this scribe?"

Rainey devotes a lot of his column criticizing a LAWeekly piece that eviscerated our mayor for not working hard enough.  He doesn't like the analysis of his schedule.  He feels the same way about the Weekly's look a crime stats.

I guess his subscription to Los Angeles magazine expired.  He probably really hates its recent cover declaring Antonio a "failure."

Rainey wraps up his piece by saying:

"I don't see the Weekly regaining its equilibrium as long as Stewart remains in charge of the news section."

Bruno has a suggestion for Rainey's next "On the Media" column:  Try to find your boss Russ Stanton and ask him why The Dog Trainer has euthanized his staff, pretty much killed local political coverage and sold its soul to advertisers.

I'll read that one - before I relieve myself.

Woof!


City Budget Mysteries: Dire Consequences of City Hall's Nasty Money Games

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 18, 2009 4:45 PM | | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)
Here's a job for incoming City Controller Wendy Greuel that will test her commitment to fill the shoes of Laura Chick: Give us a full accounting of all the finagles, deceits, borrowings, outright thefts, supplanting of funds and other dirty tricks used to balance the city budget -- at least on paper.
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Greuel was on the Budget Committee and should know this stuff cold. She has an obligation to make sure the public understand just how perilous the city's financial situation is and how dishonestly they have patched the budget together with terrible consequences to basic services and the quality of life in the city.

A prime example that was brought to my attention involved the Department of Recreation and Parks, one of the few services like libraries which directly connect the public with city workers on a regular basis.

It is those two departments -- parks and libraries which their operations dispersed throughout the city -- that have suddenly been singled out to pay their DWP water and power bills and their SoCal gas bills out of their existing revenue streams instead of through the general fund.

These aren't small sums as these paragraphs buried in Volume Two of the thousand pages of the "blue book" budget documents show:

Recreation and Parks:
Contractual Services Account Adjustment
EXPENSE: $14,016,723
Add funding in the amount of $14 million to the Contractual Services
account. The Department will fully reimburse the Water and
Electricity Fund for water and electrical services provided to
Department facilities. Additionally, the Department will partially
reimburse the General Fund for natural gas, fuel and fleet services

Libraries
Contractual Services Account Adjustment
EXPENSE: 10,932,323
Add funding to the Contractual Services account for direct service
costs to the Library Program including Water and Electricity, Building
Maintenance, Fuel and Fleet, Natural Gas, Security and Custodial
Services.

In these cases the total loss to the department's is more than $30 million and comes on top of the mandated 10 percent "shared sacrifice" cuts imposed on all agencies -- except of course the DWP, harbor and airports.

More than $25 million of that money will go directly into the paychecks of DWP workers who are not facing pay cuts, furloughs, layoffs, early retirements. They are not even giving up the mammoth raises that have been bestowed on them -- 6 percent in recent years.

Nor is the DWP slowing its hiring frenzy or putting off massive purchases of renewable energy at huge premiums by outbidding other utilities. Those costs you the public will assume through huge increases coming in your DWP rates -- hikes that will show up on your bills without anyone in public office even voting on them.

Only parks and libraries are being hit with these charges. The impact on services to the public will be dramatic: Shorter hours, fewer programs. And they are being imposed at a time when people -- in the private sector -- are losing their jobs in record numbers so borrowing books and having recreational opportunities are more important than ever.

Parks General Manager Jon Kirk Mukri laid out his case in writiing to the Council's Budget Committee at the start of the hearing process but all he got for his trouble was an hour-long grilling on why he wanted to restructure job functions in a department that will lose more than a fifth of its workforce.

"The Department will be faced with reducing direct recreation and family services to our communities who are currently facing the same financial stresses. Affordable recreation and family services are critical during normal times but are essential during these times of financial and emotional uncertainties," Mukri wrote.

Community activists who have studied the parks budget closely note that the department now will be entirely dependent on property taxes allocated to it under the City Charter and on whatever revenue it can bring in on its own.

"The question that everyone should be asking is why is Recreation and Parks now being burdened with costs that were 'General Fund'ed for the past 100 years," noted one activist.

You can be sure that the situation is worse than portrayed in the budget and revenue will be lower than projected and far worse in the 2010-2011 budget year.

City officials have done their best to conceal the truth but the public will feel the consequences

Wendy Greuel wanted the job of being the public's financial watchdog and she got it. Come July 1, we will find out soon enough whether she will actually fulfill her commitment.


Pot Shops: Get High on Today's Best Viral Email

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 18, 2009 3:45 PM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
Jane Usher, executive director of City Attorney-elect Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich's transition team, sent out an email today updating the community about the problem of the proliferation of marijuana dispensaries all over the city.

By the time I got my sixth copy from various activists, I knew it was a hot-button issue people needed to know more about, especially since the problem was created by City Hall's incompetence. The email includes Jane's analysis, an excellent rundown from Councilman Herb Wesson to his Neighborhood Councils and key provisions of the proposed ordinance.
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Dear Neighbors --
 
This email concerns the City's overdue regulation of Medical Marijuana Dispensaries, which has been allowed to escalate to a crisis. Please circulate this to your interested neighbors. I provide excepts, including the proposed passage that will govern MMD locations and also some of the licensing and penalty passages, for your consideration. The full proposed text is attached. I close with Councilman Wesson's update, dated today.
 
Please provide your comments to our City Council. Among many other changes that the City should consider, the City should debate whether to prohibit MMD locations within a specified distance from single-family and other residential zones, or houses of worship. As you know, this City has historically failed to provide appropriate buffers between incompatible land uses. That said, MMD operators are very concerned that the location restrictions as written are overly broad.
 
Jane Usher
 
*******************************************************************
 
PLANNING AND ZONING.
Excerpt from Proposed Land Use Provisions:
A Medical Marijuana Dispensary shall not be established or located within 1000 feet
of another permitted Medical Marijuana Dispensary, smoke shops which sell
paraphernalia for consuming drug or tobacco products, any school, daycare,
nursery, playground, park, library, or property zoned, planned, or otherwise
designated for such use, or any Sensitive Use.

Update from Councilman Herb Wesson
 
Neighborhood Council Leaders:

My office has received inquiries about my position on medical marijuana dispensaries (MMDs) so I thought I'd give you my position directly.  I am opposed to the unregulated and uncontrolled spread of MMDs throughout the city; and I want to not only stop the spread but also reduce the number of MMDs operating now.  
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As you might have heard or read, the City Council has recently taken several steps to address the MMD issue.  I thought I'd give you an update on some of the recent developments on this topic.

"Hardship" Exemption Removed from the ICO.  Last week, my colleagues and I voted to remove the "hardship exemption" from the MMD Interim Control Ordinance (ICO).  While all ICOs include a hardship exemption provision for legal reasons, the City Attorney felt that the city can now legally defend removal of the provision from the MMD ICO as enough time has passed since the enactment of the ICO.  This would mean that at the effective date of the new ICO, the city would no longer be accepting "hardship" applications and no new MMD would be able to get around the ICO and open just by virtue of the fact that it filed a hardship application.  In addition, we voted to extend the revised ICO another six months.

Council Action on Pending MMD Applications.  Also last week, we finally started to go through the MMD hardship exemption applications submitted to the city.  There have been over 660 MMD hardship applications submitted citywide (throughout 15 Council Districts), 31 of which are in CD 10.  Attachment 1 is a list of CD 10 MMD facilities that have submitted hardship applications as of today.  Legally we have to take up - and afford a public hearing for - each application individually either through the Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) Committee or the full City Council.  So far, the full Council has taken up and denied 14 MMD hardship applications. 

My office has been asking PLUM to schedule CD 10's MMD hardship applications as soon as possible.  We have been informed that PLUM now plans to hold a special hearing on MMD hardship applications on June 29 and, so far, CD 10 has the most applications slated to be taken up that day.  We expect the final agenda of that hearing to be posted around June 24 or 25.  In the meantime, if you have information you'd like to share with my office about any of the locations in the list, please send them to Susan.Yi@lacity.org or my deputy assigned to your area.

Proposed MMD Ordinance.  Finally, PLUM has provided my office with the latest version of the proposed MMD ordinance, in the form of two documents.  I'm attaching those two documents for your review.  The first document (Attachment 2) addresses the land-use components of the proposed ordinance and the second document (Attachment 3) covers the remaining aspects of the proposed ordinance.  We expect PLUM to meld these two documents together to one ordinance, and amend it at least once (maybe more) before it would move to the full Council.

As an aside, one of the issues about the ordinance that has been raised with my office has been the MMD fee.  Some of you have recommended specific figures for the fee.  While those figures may ultimately be close to what the city would charge, the final amount would actually be based on a fee study.  That is because the city can only charge a fee of up to the cost of operating a program.  Charging a fee beyond the cost related to the program would make it a tax and, therefore, subject to a vote of the people.  Thus, to determine the actual MMD fee, the city would have to conduct a study to determine the program's cost.

My office is currently reviewing the proposed ordinance.  I encourage you to do the same.  I would be interested to hear your take on the proposal.  Again, please send your comments about the proposed ordinance to Susan Yi or your area deputy.  I would also encourage your Neighborhood Council to file your comments with the city in the form of a Community Impact Statement, thereby making your comments part of the official record of the ordinance.  DONE or my office can assist you in filing your statement.

Thank you for your commitment to our community and I look forward to your comments.      
Herb

HERB J. WESSON, JR.
Councilmember, 10th District

*******************************************************************
PLANNING AND ZONING.
Excerpt from Proposed Land Use Provisions:
A Medical Marijuana Dispensary shall not be established or located within 1000 feet
of another permitted Medical Marijuana Dispensary, smoke shops which sell
paraphernalia for consuming drug or tobacco products, any school, daycare,
nursery, playground, park, library, or property zoned, planned, or otherwise
designated for such use, or any Sensitive Use.

 
LICENSING AND PENALTIES.
Excerpts from Proposed Licensing Provisions:
 
SEC. 46.60. PURPOSE AND INTENT.
The ordinance codified in this Article, in compliance with California Health and
Safety Code Sections 11362.5, et seq., does not interfere with a patient's right to
medical marijuana, nor does it criminalize the possession or cultivation of medical
marijuana by specifically defined classifications of persons, pursuant to state law.
Under state law, only qualified patients, persons with identification cards and primary
caregivers may cultivate medical marijuana collectively. Medical marijuana dispensaries
shall otherwise comply with all provisions of the Los Angeles Municipal Code, including
the zoning ordinance, and the California Health and Safety Code. Nothing in this
ordinance purports to permit activities that are otherwise illegal under state
law.
 
"Sensitive Uses." Schools, public parks, libraries, public beach access points,
child-oriented establishments, or establishments that (i) advertise in a manner that
identifies the establishment as catering to or providing services primarily intended for
minors, or (ii) the individuals who regularly patronize, congregate or assemble at the
establishment are primarily minors. A "Sensitive Use" shall not include a daycare facility
or preschool facility that provides supervision of 12 or fewer minor children.
 
SEC. 46.72. ADMINISTRATIVE PENALTIES
(a) Any Dispensary determined by the Los Angeles City Attorney or hislher
designee to have violated Section 46.71 shall be subject to the penalties of this section.
The Los Angeles City Attorney or hislher designee shall notify the Dispensary that there
has been an initial determination of violation under the provisions of this ordinance, and
shall specify the violation and the penalty imposed, including the effective date of the
suspension, if any. The notice shall further state that the Dispensary may, within 15
calendar days of receipt of the notice, submit to the Los Angeles City Attorney any
written or documentary evidence to contest the initial determination of violation. After
receiving and considering the evidence that is provided, the Los Angeles City Attorney
or hislher designee shall prepare a final written decision with findings, and shall serve
this final determination upon the Dispensary. Upon written request, the Dispensary
shall have the right to receive copies of any records upon which the final determination
is based. This final determination shall be served within 30 calendar days of the initial
determination.
(b) Administrative penalties shall be imposed as follows:
(1 ) for the first violation in any five-year period, the Dispensary shall
receive a letter of reprimand from the Los Angeles City Attorney
including a requirement to pay a penalty fee;
(2) for a second violation in any five-year period, the MMD Permit shall
be suspended for 90 calendar days and the Permittee shall be
required to pay a penalty fee;
(3) for a third or subsequent violation in any five-year period, the MMD
Permit shall be revoked and the Permittee shall be required to pay a
penalty fee.
(c) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Article, prior violations at a
location shall continue to be counted against a location and permit suspension periods
shall continue to apply to a location.
 
SEC. 46.75. EXISTING "MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARIES".
Any marijuana cultivation operation or dispensary, including any "Medical
Marijuana Dispensary," as that term is defined in lnterim Control Ordinance No.
179,027, not in compliance with the requirements of this Article shall have 1 year
from the operative date of this Article to obtain an MMD Permit, provided the
operation, dispensary or Medical Marijuana Dispensary was registered with the Los
Angeles City Clerk's office in accordance with the lnterim Control Ordinance No.
179,027 before November 12, 2007, proving it was operating prior to September 14,
2007.

Let's Celebrate Champions -- Not Bums Who Fail Us

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 17, 2009 6:12 AM | | Comments (19) | TrackBacks (0)

This is a city that is so broke, so lacking in civic pride, that it can't even afford to pay for a parade for the World Champion Los Angeles Lakers.

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Our city officials with their inflated salaries and egos go begging like the tens of thousands of penniless people walking our streets. The only difference is they cadge a million here, a hundred thousand there, from billionaires who think they're helping the city when all they are doing is helping conceal a failure of leadership.

 

And then they have the nerve to take the day off so they can join the festivities and stand in the limelight of the champions who worked so hard to earn their place of honor.

 

For 18 months, they have fiddled while their overspending burned a hole in the city budget so deep that they soon won't have the money to pay the bills without borrowing staggering sums and selling off the city's assets even as they know they are on the road to bankruptcy.

 

Not a one of them has the nerve to actually tell city workers that thousands of them must be fired and those who remain work harder for less money.

 

Instead, they talk of temporary measures like furloughs and deferred raises as if the problem will go away next year or the years after when the cost of pensions will be nearly as high as the cost of salaries.

 

Even that talk is just for show because they are working behind the scenes to offer lucrative cash payments if anyone is actually fired while getting ready to cut a deal to provide  enhanced pensions with lifetime health benefits to those who retire at the ripe old age of 55.or so.

 

This is a city going broke because our leaders have failed us.

 

They are indifferent to the harm they have caused, seemingly oblivious to how they have made things worse, not better.

 

And why should they care? They are secure in their posts as long as they serve the circle of special interests that fund their campaigns and strip away even the pretense of democracy.

 

Our elections are no more an exercise in democracy than those in Iran, where millions of people at least have the courage to take to the streets in protest and face truncheons and bullets. The only people who do that in LA are the thugs who smash windows and set fires and think they're celebrating.

 

Even when the people of LA do rise up and defeat City Hall, as they did on Measure B, our officials go right ahead and do whatever they want regardless of the will of the people.

 

In LA, politics has become a back room deal and policy-making a pay-to-play game where everybody wins except the people who pay the bills.

 

Personally, I love a parade but I wish we really had something to celebrate about, something that had the whole town dancing in streets and chanting "I love LA."

 

It's great the Lakers won and they deserve to be honored. I just don't want to see the mayor and City Council out there today posing for the cameras as if they were the champions instead of the bums they are.

Carmen's Army -- Can He Live Up to the Community's Hopes?

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 15, 2009 4:41 PM | | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)
Warning to City Hall: Messing with City Attorney-elect Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich just might be hazardous to your political health.

At least, we can all hope so.

Trutanich announced Monday a transition team (TRUTANICHTEAM.rtf) of more than 70 people he called a "who's who" of people who are or have been prosecutors, law enforcement officers, academicians, attorneys, homeowner leaders, educators, gang prevention and specialists in civil rights, victims' rights and animal rights advocates.
Trutanich-Carmen.gif
"As I stated often during the campaign, this election was not about me, it was about the people of Los Angeles who deserve a City Attorney who will bring honesty, integrity and transparency to City Hall," said Trutanich.

"Many have never served in this capacity and offer fresh new ideas and new perspectives on the Office... to develop an action plan to restructure and reform the Office of City Attorney to
better serve the people of this great city."

There is someone for everyone, including critics to find fault with, and obvious questions about just how a massive team with undoubtedly different views of how to approach a dozen categories of legal operations from gangs to environment, criminal and civil cases, public integrity and  victim rights, land use and management.

The organizational task falls to Jane Usher as executive director of the transition team, a role certainly suited to the former President of the Planning Commission who stood up to the mayor on billboards and fought for growth that enhanced the quality of life in the city.

He stressed that outgoing City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo's decision to try to protect as many as 30 political appointees from being fired by shifting them into civil service jobs complicated the transition task, especially at a time when the city faces a massive budget deficit.

Trutanich owed his election to grassroots support from Neighborhood Councils, homeowner groups and other community activists who saw Jack Weiss as little more than a cipher who would serve the political machine mindlessly.

His decision to appoint the well-connected former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg and former DIstrict Attorney Bob Philobosian as transition team chairs and this army of transition team supporters adds to the sense of expectation that will be difficult to fulfill.

Many can raise questions about what he's doing, and rightly so.

But does anybody have a better way to put the City Hall political machine under pressure other than to get control of what their city-paid lawyers are doing to grease the gears of the moral -- if not criminal -- corruption that infects our local government?

Paying City Hall Officials What They're Worth: How to Cut Their Salaries in Half

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 14, 2009 10:45 AM | | Comments (19) | TrackBacks (0)
EDITOR'S NOTE: You can vote on whether to cut our city elected officials' salaries should be cut in half at OurLA.org -- the community-based online non-profit newspaper for all of LA which is now in beta test.

They are the nation's highest paid municipal officials - the Mayor, City Attorney, Controller and 15 Council members.
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But they don't earn their pay, their squadrons of staff members, free cars, slush funds or long list of perks.

They are guilty of turning politics into a pay-to-play scam, selling out the public to unions, developers, contractors, lobbyists and anyone else buy them expensive meals with costly wines, stuff bundles of $1,000 checks into their campaign war chests or otherwise keep them in office.

They have squandered billions of dollars and run up massive budget deficits that mean basic services to the public are being slashed and make the prospect of bankruptcy the most likely way out of LA's financial troubles.

They tripled the trash fee with the promise of hiring more cops but put the money into the pockets of all city workers, used the DWP cash cow and its soaring power and water rates to fund useless poverty programs, allowed over-development to ruin the quality of life, bungled everything from billboards to pot shops, killed hopes for a new Children's Museum and revived Southwest Museum while putting hundreds of millions of dollars into hands of billionaire Phil
Anschutz and his LA Live and Staples Center projects.

Their crimes against the people would fill an indictment dozens of pages long if each of the city's nearly four million citizens were given the opportunity to list their grievances.

Now, the time has come  for them to pay the bill for their failure. Their are many changes that need to be made to right the ship of the city but let's start with making is simple and personal.

Let's cut their salaries in half.

That means the Council members' $180,000 salaries would drop to $90,000, which is more or less when other big cities pay their legislators. Cut in half, the Controller would get roughly $100,000, the City Attorney $110,000 and Mayor $120,000.

On Saturday, participants in the Saving LA Project's Town Hall voted 23-1 to take the lead in organizing the campaign for a half-off sale at City Hall -- something that might send our public servants the message that they have lost the confidence of the people..

To cut our elected officials' salaries in half will only take a slight change in the City Charter's Article II, Section 218 (a) (1):

"Members of the City Council shall be paid a salary equal to that prescribed by law for judges ...The Controller shall be paid a salary that is 10% more than that of a Council member...The City Attorney shall be paid a salary that is 20% more than that of a Council member.  The Mayor shall be paid a salary that is 30% more than that of a Council member."

All that we have to do is insert the word "half" after equal and princes and princesses will be brought to the economic earth where the rest of us are trying to make ends meet.

Doug Epperhart of the Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council proposed the Charter Amendment and will head the organizing committee to mount what will require a massive public campaign to get the salary reduction measure on the ballot.

Some 240,000 valid signatures on petitions will be needed and we'll have six months to gather them once the Charter Amendment is certified.

There's a lot of things of greater importance in the grand scheme of things that need to be fixed but let's start somewhere that everyone can understand.

Lip Service to Democracy -- The Irrelevance of Public Comment Before the City Council

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 12, 2009 6:31 AM | | Comments (24) | TrackBacks (0)


Every time the LA City Council meets, my pal Zuma Dogg and others who qualify as gadflies by the regularity of the attendance to rant and rave for their two minutes of public comment and a minute or two each on an assortment of specific issues.

Under the council's rules -- rules they set themselves -- members are not required to pay the least attention to these self-styled spokesman for the people. And usually don't, gossiping or plotting amongst themselves.

Once in a while, groups of ordinary citizens descend on the Council chamber to plead for a cause: Stop the project killing their neighborhoods, ban billboard blight, clamp down on pot shops.

Sometimes like when the fate of Billy the Elephant is at stake, the public, pro and con, get to speak for hours. Other times, they get short-shrift if a committee hearing has been held where they had the chance to speak.-- five minutes a side at one minute per speaker if they're allowed to speak at all.

But recently, the council -- apparently chastened by growing evidence that the natives are becoming restless -- has taken to suspending the rules and allowing the public enough time to actually convey their concerns and objections.

This dismays the council's legal adviser, Assistant City Attorney Dion Connell, who grimaces as he advises the council members that those rules of theirs require them to actually pay attention when they conduct what are called "fair hearings."

The hearings may be "fair" but the result is the council votes exactly as they planned to, unanimously, no matter what the public says.

That's what occurred last week when the La Brea Gateway project came up and again Wednesday when the the council gave the green light to a massive expansion of the Museum of Tolerance so it can raise money holding weddings and Bar Mitzvahs.

It's no coincidence both projects are in the district of the developers' and lobbyists' best friend, lame duck Jack Weiss.

I bring this up and share the video of the Council wasting its precious time trying to figure out whether or not to give the public a few extra minutes to vent its spleen to make the point that public comment and public hearings don't amount to a hill of beans if nobody's really listening and everything already has been decided in back rooms.

What's the point of trekking down to City Hall, waiting around for hours, paying $13.20 to park just to have two minutes to speak your mind if Council's minds are already made up?

I've done this myself a few times in the last year and always come up feeling empty and foolish.

Part of the strategy that the Saving LA Project has developed but not yet implemented consistently is to emulate how lobbyists work.

They don't waste their time sitting around the Council chamber to speak for a minute or two unless it's to put on a show for the cameras when the public shows up in large numbers. They meet privately with Council members and their staffs numerous times in advance of the public debate, such as it is.

Community activists can't shower money on Council members like lobbyists and their clients do but they can organize their neighborhoods and pose a threat to the political futures of their elected representatives. 

If you can't help or hurt your elected representative, all you'll ever get is lip service and two minutes to blow off steam.

A full court press on all 15 Council members from well-organized local activists can, and has, changed the course of events.

It's my belief that Neighborhood Council need to stop talking their issues to death and start banding together within each Council district, coordinate with other organizations in their areas and become lobbyists meeting frequently with their electeds to become an effective pressure group.

From the beginning of my life as an activist, I've put my faith in the power of the people to change the political agenda, if not the politicians, through action, not talk.

That's how Measure B was beaten, Carmen Trutanich elected City Attorney and a growing number of issues won. The Council is even gritting its teeth and allowing the public to speak more often.

Of course, I may be wrong as I often am. But I'm an optimist in a time of so much gloom.

Fire Teachers Who Molest Kids? LAUSD Needs a Committee to Study the Question

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 10, 2009 11:09 AM | | Comments (14) | TrackBacks (0)
After decades of lax treatment of teachers who molest children or commit other serious crimes, the Los Angeles School Board is finally ready to take action -- well, to think about taking action.

What the school board did Tuesday night was to water down a proposal to move quickly to get rid of criminal teachers and then approve forming a task force headed by Occidental College President Ted Mitchell to study possible changes in state laws and presumably union contracts.

Even then, the mealy-mouthed action barely passed on a 4-3 vote.

I know It's hard to believe that dozens of cases of molestation by teachers have been exposed over the years, cases in which district officials with a wink and a nod looked the other way, transferred the offender or shifter them to a desk job where they sat around doing nothing for ages.

Jason Song in the Times produced a terrific series of articles last month entitled "Failure Gets a Pass" that told the story of the roughly 160 teachers and other LAUSD employees who are paid to do nothing -- people whose competence is questioned or have run afoul of the law. They are paid about $10 million a year.

One article specifically dealt with molesters, citing the case of teacher's aide Ricardo Guevara, who is now serving 15 years in prison and whose sexual abuse of three young adolescent girls led a jury to award $1.6 million in damages against LAUSD.

"But there was something the jury -- and the public -- was never told: This was the third set of accusations that Guevara had molested students," Song wrote. "Twice before, when law enforcement officials had decided they lacked the evidence to win a criminal conviction, L.A. Unified officials had quietly put him back in the classroom."

LAUSD policy and state law require protecting students first and foremost yet the practice is that "the district has erred on the side of protecting its staff," the Times said.

The Guevara case is hardly an isolated example.

Yet, School Board President Marlene Canter has twice had to withdraw proposals to take actively lobby for legislation to be able to fire teachers who shouldn't be within 1,000 feet of a classroom but in the end had to settle for nothing more than a study committee looking only at teachers accused or egregious or immoral acts.

"It's very difficult to bring up the topic of dismissal without people feeling very protective," Canter said.

Think about it: If unions and school board members are opposed to firing incompetent teachers, criminal teachers, molester teachers, is it any wonder LAUSD has failed for three decades to serve parents and students?

Like City Hall, LAUSD is a jobs program, not a service program. The people who pay the bills count for nothing. What matters is the people who get the paychecks.

Cortines Socks It to the Inspector General: Who Needs a Watchdog for Bankrupt LAUSD

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 9, 2009 3:19 PM | | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)
UPDATE: Connie Llanos in the Daily News today quotes Supt. Cortines as saying he wants Inspector General audits limited to possible crimes -- not waste and inefficiency. Board member Marguerite LaMotte and UTLA President A.J. Duffy said the IG office is important and suggested Cortines' proposed cuts are too steep.

With billions of dollars to spend on school buildings and no money for anyone to teach him, LAUSD Superintendent Ray Cortines has decided the last thing he needs is someone to watch how he spends the money or how his administration performs its job.
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Striking while Inspector General Jerry Thornton was out of town, Cortines sent a memo (Budget Reduction for Board of Ed Direct Report OIG.pdf)Monday to the School Board saying that he had examined the district's huge administrative budget and believes that "a reduction of 50 to 75 percent in the Office of the Inspector General is achievable."

That could slash Thornton's staff from about 70 to 15, making it impossible to track the billions of dollars the district has at its disposal for construction projects and the billions more it spends every year for salaries and educational programs.

Cortines' bold move to gut oversight -- culminating years of efforts to hamstring the IG's office -- comes as the LAUSD has eliminated summer school and is facing a massive budget deficit and the potential for laying off thousands of teachers.

He won't present his austerity budget to the board until later this month so his sinigling out the Inspector General came as a shock to those concerned about where the district is headed.

Thornton responded with a sharply-worded memo (Memo to Board on Budget Cuts.pdf)Tuesday, noting his office was created by the state Legislature as an independent watchdog and approved by the school board as an "independent voice that expresses its views without censorship by District Management.

"At a time when transparency and accountability are needed more than ever, the Superintendent's actions argue for less independent oversight of District Management, that is the Superintendent's management team."

Thornton offered a detailed analysis of the impact of possible cuts, saying a 50 percent cut would be "horrific ... and would essentially end the useful and beneficial operation of the office" while a 75 percent cut would be "catastrophic and would not permit OIG to function as a viable office.

Instead, he could reduce his budget by 22 percent from $6.7 million to $5.3 million and still operate his investigative, audit and contract review operations despite previous cuts.

"Investigations help prevent fraud, waste and misconduct and have a deterrent effect," he wrote, noting his investigators "ended a $20 million multi-year theft scheme from the Facilities Services Division" and a $37 million return on investment in the first six months of this fiscal year.

He concluded by noting the savings obtained by his nine-year-old office helps buy a lot of school supplies, books, desks, buses and pays a lot of teacher salaries.

Antonio the Magician and City Hall's Hocus-Pocus Act -- What Are They Smoking?

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 9, 2009 4:29 AM | | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)
If I had a personal staff of 15 and and an army of bureaucrats working for me, I might be able to figure out the magic tricks the City Council is set to perform today.

But I don't. I only have a tip from a viral email from the citizen activist network and the bureaucratic gobbledygook of the council agenda.

The tip is that Item 30 on the budget allows the mayor to "make his deals that he lost by the defeat of Measure B. He can work with LAUSD and the Community Colleges for "green energy and good jobs"--for a start. It is that same financial blank check that was in Measure B.
 
What the ordinance does is expand the mayor's role in Community Redevelopment Agency projects by adding this language to his duty to help "in maintaining working relationships and communication" between the CRA and other city agencies.":

"In addition, the Office of the Mayor shall, in regard to redevelopment project areas, work with
property owners, developers, lending institutions, governmental entities and other private
entities to promote and facilitate development, housing opportunities, business and job creation, and other activities directly related to specific redevelopment activities."

Frankly, I don't really know what the game is in this or whether it goes so far as being a back door way of doing what they wanted in the solar energy measure: Get their hands on billions of dollars of the public's money without discussion or accountability. I think DWP is doing that on its own without bothering to tell us.

But it might have something to do with Item 14 which gives the CRA authority to negotiate a deal with AnsaldoBreda -- the rail car manufacturer that bungled its previous MTA contracts -- to build a 240,000-square-foot factory in the mayor's "clean energy corridor" in a toxic brownfield on East Washington Boulevard.

I'm sure City Council members will be as forthcoming in making the implications of all this known as they will be about admitting their responsibility for screwing up the city's billboard and medical marijuana ordinances when they try to repair the damage today and their finagling with $9 million through fund transfers to deal with the budget catastrophe they created.

Having allowed more than 600 pot dealers to open shop in LA since Prop. 215 passed in 1996 -- compared to a few dozen in the entire San Francisco Bay area -- the council belatedly wants to impose some kind of control.

Nearly half of pot shops are operating illegally under city law selling illegal drugs under federal law thanks to a feeble attempt at control 2007 that allowed a "hardship" exemption that was totally unenforceable. .

"Unfortunately, the spirit and intent of Proposition 215 has been exploited and abused for both
profit and recreational drug abuse by many of the medical marijuana dispensaries in the City of Los Angeles," says Jose Huizar's motion defecting all responsibility.

The problem is the council imposed a moratorium in 2007 but 287 pots shops opened since then claiming a "hardship" that City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo decided made the moratorium legally unenforceaable.

Now the council is set to eliminate the "hardship" provision but that won't close the pot shop near your.

"The Amending the ordinance will have no effect against those dispensaries that that registered prior to November 13, 2007, and will also have no effect upon those dispensaries that have filed for a hardship exemption," Huizar's motion concedes.

Perhaps, the council will enact an effective ordinance in a few years.

The same is true of the council-created billboard fiasco which only dates back seven years. Having bungled the legislation, court cases and legal settlements, the council will extend the temporary moratorium another three months while they try to figure out how to please the sign companies that have been so generous to them and cut the angry community activists off their backs.

It is a busy day for the nation's highest-paid municipal officials but I'm not sure they're earning their $180,000 salaries. It's too harsh to suggest only paying them what they are worth but anyone for cutting their salaries in half?

Will Success Spoil Carmen Trutanich?

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 8, 2009 8:41 AM | | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)
Some people are worried his election will go to Carmen Trutanich's head. Others are asking, "What's all this talk about Nuch already turning into an unapproachable <expletive>?"

Then, there's the matter that goes before the City Council on Tuesday to let him raise up to $100,000 from private interests to pay the costs of transition as he gears up to take over the City Attorney's office with its 700 lawyers engaged in civil and criminal matters and the legal affairs of the city's agencies.
trutanich.jpg
As someone who owes his election to strong support from community activists and is the only city official carrying the torch for positive changes at City Hall, Trutanich has created high expectations, impossibly high expectations for that matter.

On the day after his crushing defeat of Jack Weiss, Trutanich told the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association:

"I'm not going to let you down...We're going to prosecute misdemeanor ethics law violations by politicians...We're going to change the way politics is played in the City of Los Angeles...The future of this city is going to be bright and clean...I want to be your City Attorney. I want to be the people's lawyer..I want to hear what you think is broken and I want to try to fix it. I'm not a politician. God forbid I ever become one."

That's the kind of talk that puts a guy in a fishbowl with everyone watching his every move.

His appointment of former Republican District Attorney Robert Philobosian and former Democratic Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg to head his transition team raises questions among some who note both are connected to powerhouse law firms

His commitment to use private money rather than city money to cover the costs of transition has some people asking whether that will make him beholden to the same special interests who control so much of what goes on in City Hall.

Others worry the City Hall power structure will get their arms around him, flatter his ego and lead him away from his stated goals. They are skeptical he can turn the mammoth law firm the City Attorney's Office represents into a legal engine that puts the public interest first.

All those concerns are legitimate and should come up no matter who holds high office. It's only through the vigilance and participation of the citizenry that public officials will stay true to the course.

For his part, Trutanich needs to bring a cross-section of the community into his world and operate transparently even when his decisions are controversial or disappoint one group or another.

He represents an opening in the great wall of City Hall but will quickly find, like former City Controller Laura Chick did, that you can only push so far without becoming maginalized in a system where power is so tightly held.

Still, he's going to have to keep the community involved and informed and be honest and straightforward in his communication. But he's also going to have to dance with the devils in City Hall to get anything done.

Already, the mayor and council are taking their measure of the man and the City Attorney's staff is gearing up to resist change -- a task no doubt made easier by outgoing City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo's decision to put his senior staff on the tenure track that allows them to move from political appointments to civil service protected jobs.

The winds of change are blowing through City Hall but it's going to take a hurricane to clean out the stench of corruption.

Personally, I'm optimistic. Nuch is a start, the Council District 2 election is coming up Sept. 22 and the failure of the mayor and council to come to terms with the budget deficit is a timebomb.

We'll see soon enough what stuff Carmen Trutanich is really made of.

-

Gateway to Hell: Jack Weiss' Goodbye Present to Developers

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 7, 2009 12:17 PM | | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (0)

Editor's Note: Community activist Lucille Saunders has long been in the forefront of the fight to stop over-development -- projects that add to traffic congestion, strain the water and power supply and harm the quality of life in our neighborhoods. Writer Chelsea Cody of OurLA.org -- the new online community-based newspaper now gearing up launch in coming weeks -- covered the story of the City Council voting to approve the project. The fireworks between dead-duck Councilman Jack Weiss and Councilwoman Janice Hahn captured in this video highlighted the debate.





Maintaining Illusion of Due Diligence, the City Council Green Lights La Brea Gateway Project despite Community Objections

Chelsea Cody
OurLA.org Writer

For 38-year La Brea-Willoughby resident Lucille Saunders, the Los Angeles City Council's unanimous approval of the long-contested 219-unit La Brea Gateway apartment project last week was not a surprise.  

Nor was it surprising that Councilman Jack Weiss who represents the area would wish to block Saunders and other area residents from voicing their opinions before the council's decision.  

Saunders has encountered a great deal of limited if not discriminatory consideration from elected leaders since her fight against the Gateway project began four years ago.

Saunders, who is the president of the La Brea-Willoughby Coalition of concerned fighting to maintain the quality of their neighborhood, has been slugging it out with developers, city officials and lawyers since 2005.

In June 2008, Saunders' coalition sued the city for violating state law and the city's general plan over its failure to conduct annual audits of infrastructure for a decade.  

Appearing before the council Wednesday with about 75 of her fellow La Brea-Willoughby residents, Saunders sought to make a last-ditch appeal to the council to halt the project which had sailed through the planning process.

But without debate or allowing public comment, the council approved the project unanimously. And the issue would be closed right then short of filing a lawsuit if Councilmen Tom LaBonge and Bill Rosendahl hadn't felt squeamish about not even giving the public a chance to be heard.

They were given five minutes and so were supporters.  

"We have tried to work with and within the system. But this is not a planning process it is a political process," Saunders said in an interview. "One project overrides a whole community's health and needs in order to serve those of one well connected developer."

Gateway developers, the Martin Group and Bomel Companies, have cited the project's capacity to bring jobs and amenities to the area as a primary reason for allowing the development. However, the developers and their counsel Latham & Watkins land-use attorney, George Mihlsten have been short on details about these jobs and benefits.

The tipping point Saunders said is that the project will dramatically alter the zoning classification of the area, changing an industrial zoned block into a mixed-use residential/commercial area and eventually into a strictly residential block.

This change, residents insist, would dramatically alter the character and scale of the La Brea Willoughby neighborhood.

In an area dominated by narrow streets lined with one and two-story bungalow homes and a shortage of parking, the complex of 219 apartments and about 35,000 square feet of retail space would be a dramatic departure from the neighborhood's current aesthetic.  

During the council debate,  there was no mention of the community's concerns: Zoning changes, environmental impact, traffic congestion or the loss of industrial jobs. Instead, the council focused on the lack of affordable housing and got the developer to agree to set aside 10 percent of the units for affordable housing -- something that was not achieved during the long process from Neighborhood Council to the Planning Department, Planning Commission and Councilman Ed Reyes pro-development Planning and Land Use Committee.

The debate climaxed with the lame-duck Weiss giving the rest of the council a lecture about how they shouldn't get involved in development issues that have gone through Reyes' committee.

Councilwoman Janice Hahn, the main target of his lecture, shot back with a fiery rebuke to Weiss, noting that the full council achieved what he had not -- an affordable housing commitment.

The vote was unanimous 13-0 --  in no small part because the issue did not come before the council until the last day for action when unanimous approval of at least 12 members was required to avoid a second vote this week which would put it past the deadline.

Saunders indicated the neighborhood coalition would continue to take steps to try to preserve their 'modest' community. 

What Do Pot and Cell Towers Have in Common? You Can Help Stop Their Proliferation

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 6, 2009 4:28 PM | | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)
Public nuisances like cell phone towers and medical marijuana cooperatives seem to pop up everywhere around us on a daily basis.
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In both cases, the problem is caused by the failure to do its basic job of providing rational standards for regulation and control. In both cases, you can actually do something about the problems in coming days.

Monday is the deadline for signing the petition to support the repeal or modification of the Telecommunication Act of 1996 that gives the right to put up cell phone towers just about anywhere, stripping communities of just about all their rights in this as in many other regards.

Barbara Kohn, president of the Pacific Palisades Residents Association, is urging leaders of Neighborhood Councils, homeowner groups and other concerned citizens to sign the petitions to get the law change. You can go to Cloutnow.org to sign the petition to support giving local control to local communities.

"I have been working with representatives from Glendale, Pasadena, Hancock Park, Windsor Hills re the proliferation of cell towers in residential neighborhoods and have requested our elected representatives to join in by submitting comments to the FCC on this effort to repeal/modify the Telecommunication Act of 1996 -- to include health and environmental impacts when considering placement and construction of the equipment and to authorize local governments permitting power," she writes in an email to me.

LA County Supervisors, the LAUSD board, Councilman Bill Rosendahl and state Sen. Fran Pavley are among those who have supported this effort to allow local control of cell towers.

marijuana_plants.jpgCalifornia voters led the nation in deciding to defy federal law and allow for medical marijuana cooperatives and in most places both DEA and local authorities have looked the other way to the quasi-legalization of pot.

Progressive cities like San Francisco set down clear standards about their operations and have kept them under control with less than half a dozen cooperatives in a city with a pothead reputation.

LA, in contrast, now has 600 with drug dealers and profiteers moving in on the turf of the several dozen legitimate cooperatives so that marijuana is all but legal in the city if you've got a hundred bucks for a prescription for your anxiety -- which may be the best argument for fully legalizing and heavily taxing pot.

Several hundred pot shops have opened in the six months since the issue actually came before the City Council as many neighborhoods are seeing marijuana cooperatives opening up all around them.

That has sparked an outcry in many neighborhoods and forced the heads of our city government to actually schedule a council committee hearing on Tuesday before Ed Reyes' Planning and Land Use Committee where it was stalled back in January.

Mayoral pals Jose Huizar and law-and-order Jack Weiss are also members of the committee.

There are classic examples of situations where government has just not done the job it's supposed to do of protecting the health and welfare of our communities.

The Green Machine That Ate LA -- DWP Goes Solar Without Sunlight

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 5, 2009 2:57 AM | | Comments (15) | TrackBacks (0)
Time's up for the DWP to lay out in detail with cost estimates, timetables and implementation strategy its proposal to make LA the greenest city in the nation.

Or at least the deadline would have arrived if voters had not risen up and defeated Measure B on March 3 -- a defeat inflicted because it was a back room deal that amounted to a blank check for billions of dollars for the very people who had failed over and over to deliver on their promises to deliver solar energy to LA.

The only meaningful provision in Measure B was the requirement that the DWP come back in 90 days with a real plan to finally deliver on its promises to bring solar energy to LA.

The 90 days are up and there is no plan -- at least no plan that has been brought forward for public debate, discussion and analysis.

But that hasn't stopped the DWP from getting the blank check for billions it wants or moving ahead without public scrutiny on a green energy scheme that, based on past performance, will enrich its union, the IBEW, and the usual coterie of profiteers and power brokers without producing the clean power it promises.

Promises are cheap to the LA political machine. After the defeat of Measure B, there were promises to meet with community, business and labor to develop a solar energy plan that would win public support. No such discussions have taken place.

In the meantime, the DWP has moved forward to get approval for its Green Path North transmission line through fragile and unspoiled desert terrain near Joshua Tree although the I-10 corridor already provides a cheaper and faster way to move renewable energy to the city.

The mayor helps this along by filling a vacancy on thesayles.jpg DWP Commission with former Sempra Energy executive Tom Sayles who and was recently appointed USC's vice president of government and community relations.

The public is demanding a ratepayer advocate to protect their interests and provide transparency and open discussion but what we get is a corporate lobbyist for energy companies.

His appointment does not suggest someone who will stand in the way of the DWP from getting a 4,000 percent increase in the "pass-through" rate hikes as it goes about buying renewable energy no matter what it costs while enriching contractors and consultants.

Just as with Measure B, environmental groups with their own economic and ideological interests are all aboard the DWP's underground solar energy plans.

The problem with their holier-than-thou, old school political power play is that it leaves the public out and ultimately fails to achieve the stated goal of a cleaner environment.

Just because a Prius emits less pollution than the '55 Chevy I dream of owning doesn't mean it isn't destroying the planet too. If you want less pollution, you need fewer and cleaner cars which means building a real public transportation system and making the streets safe for cyclists and pedestrians.

Just because solar installations are less polluting than coal-burning plants doesn't mean you are cleaning the air when the dirty power plants are still operating and you are adding to electricity demand with over-development.

We need to use less water and power -- not more cars even if they don't pollute as much as old ones or more people even if you install rooftop solar panels.

Routinely approving more massive developments as the City Council did this week for Century City and the La Brea-Willoughby areas doesn't reduce our consumption of water and power or ease traffic congestion.

The contradictions of boasting you're making LA a green city when you're actually making the environmental problems worse exposes the truth about what's going on.

This isn't a green machine but the same old greed machine.

Bruno, the LA Watchdog: Psychoanlyzing Antonio

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 4, 2009 12:21 PM | | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)
I might be naive, but I thought when Ron left the Daily News (we refer to his departure as a "retirement" around the house), he'd be spending a lot more time with me throwing balls, walking around the block scaring neighbors, harassing the postman. You know, dog stuff.
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But I was wrong.

The guy first discovered blogging, which was OK because he could do it in the kitchen in his underwear and throw me bones while he was throwing bombs at the power elite who run the city.

Then he started running around town.  First, it was some rally in front of City Hall, a somewhat bizarre event where everyone was supposed to bring a bag of garbage. The Dog Trainer actually covered it!  It must have gone to his head, because now he's actually going inside City Hall..

And yesterday, he tells me took his new Our LA reporter Chelsea Cody around City Hall to show her the reports and dropped by a news conference where the mayor refused to answer questions about his love life. At the end, he invited the two of them into his office!

This worries me a lot. Only days ago Ron compared the guy to Jimmy Walker, the crooked playboy mayor of New York.  And you might remember a few weeks ago Antonio snuck up behind the guy who feeds me and gave him what some called a hug.  I saw the video and it sure looked like a chokehold to me. Now he's inviting him into the inner sanctum?  Dangerous, if you ask me, without me there for protection.

I understand at one point our mayor pointed to his window to his childhood neighborhood of City Terrace and said, "I always remember noticing City Hall. It dominated the skyline," adding that never thought he'd ever go to City Hall - let alone sit in the mayor's office.

That triggered a memory. In a May 2005 Dog Trainer profile by celebrity-politics maven Tina Daunt, Antonio had his driver take them to City Terrace.

"The road rises, dips and then curves again, cutting unnervingly close to the precipice of a dangerous urban hillside. It's an easy place to get lost, a place where the streets seem to circle to nowhere.

Villaraigosa knows exactly where he's going. A few more turns and the top of the hill finally is in sight. The candidate tells his driver to stop for a minute. On a clear day, the power center of the country's second-largest metropolis glimmers in the distance. As a boy, he would often ride his bicycle to this spot on the western slope of City Terrace. The view offered a measure of beauty -- and possibility -- from the vantage point of a tough neighborhood.

"I always remember noticing City Hall," he said. "It dominated the skyline."

Leaping Labradors! The same line.  Does he have a script?  How many times has he pointed out that window and uttered that same dramatic line?

Thumbnail image for billy_bud2.JPGIn that same profile, Antonio told Daunt that his favorite childhood book was "Billy Budd," Melville's incredibly ambiguous classic about a hopeless naïve young sailor who ends up getting hung.

I remember howling my head off when I first  read it.  Remember, Antonio once had "Born to Raise Hell" tattooed on his arm and runs an evil political machine if you believe what the hopelessly naïve Ron writes.  Maybe Billy Budd and memories of City Terrace are clues to hizzoner's personality.

But what do I know. I'm just a blue-collar dog from the Valley.  You figure it out.

Woof!

Shared Sacrifice: You Pay More and Get Less

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 3, 2009 4:54 AM | | Comments (16) | TrackBacks (0)
The LA City Budget now enacted into law without a single line-item veto is not worth the paper wasted on printing it or the ink of the mayor's signature.

It's as phony as the baloney of the "Shared Responsibility and Sacrifice" slogan used to sell it.

For one thing, there's a $326 million payroll hole that can only be filled by furloughs, wage increase deferrals, layoffs, buyouts, sweetened retirement packages -- none of which the unions have agreed to despite many months of talks. Then, there's the problem of the $60 to $120 million the state is about to "borrow," which will put the deficit back to the just about where it was when the process began a month ago.

You can be sure the final deal with the unions will provide as soft a landing as possible.

Not so for the public. It is a certainty that public services will be cut sharply: Libraries, street paving, planning, code enforcement, everything even that sacred cow the LAPD will have fewer cops on the street.

Everything that is except the city's cash cow, the DWP (DWP-Budget.pdf).

There, the sacrifices will be entirely the public's. With a long list of pass-throughs, the cost of water will rise 16 percent and power 28 percent, probably even more. Pass-throughs, for the uninitiated, are surcharges for renewable energy and purchased water that don't have to go through the normal rate hike process and the DWP wants to lift the cap on how much they can charge extra for these costs by up to 4,000 percent.

Yet, there's no talk of furloughs, wage increase deferrals, layoffs, buyouts, early retirement. In fact, the DWP added 300 workers this year and plans to keep on increasing wages -- even in the face of its own massive pension liability problem.

The mayor's message (Mayor Budget Letter.pdf)to council approving the budget captures -- in all of its contradictions, deflections and obfuscations-- just how pathetic the city leadership has been in dealing with this crisis.

"Our work on this budget, however, is far from complete," Villaraigosa conceded. "The nature of the economic crisis will require us to calibrate and adjust the budget to constantly evolving realities. The duration and depth of the recession, the impact of the state budget crisis on the city and the outcome of negotiations with our labor partners remain uncertain."

In other words, forces beyond the city's control are the problem -- not the failure of the mayor and the council to do anything about employee salaries and programs that are, and were for years, unaffordable.

The ship of the city is sinking and the captain is oblivious, planning trips to Kenya with his latest TV anchor flame while the council is allowing 600 marijuana dealers to operate legally on every street corner and approving massive high rises that will clog the streets with more traffic and use up more of our precious water and power resources.

Burning Rome and fiddling Nero got nothing on LA.

Quit your job, close your business, sell your house, run for your life. Sorry, it's too late for that. You're just going to have to stay and fight or remain apathetic and helpless while the fat-cats feast and the city rots.

Chorus Girls, Women TV Anchors, Political Machines -- and Antonio

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 2, 2009 8:07 AM | | Comments (15) | TrackBacks (0)
Frankly, I don't give a damn about Antonio Villaraigosa's latest seduction. It's the corruption that bothers me and the failure of his political machine to deliver what the city needs.
antonio-lu.jpg
Sure, the mayor loves hanging out with beautiful dolls like KTLA anchor Lu Parker and appear in the pages of Playboy, run up huge tabs at Mozza and other fancy dives where he indulges himself in fine wines and his fantasies of glamour.

That's his business as long as he can pay the bills. (How does he afford his luxuries when he can't afford to finalize his divorce from Corina?)

mr-smith-goes-to-washington2.jpgA friend notes the Mayor's top ally, the LA County's Federation of Labor, is now asking its members to flood LA Magazine's website with a defense of Villaraigosa over its cover calling him a "failure period" and sees a parallel to the Taylor Machine in Frank Capra's "Mr Smith Goes to Washington."

In that movie, the innocent Mr. Smith (Jimmy Stewart) faces removal from the U.S. Senate over trumped-up charges inflamed by the Taylor Machine into a public frenzy with its stooge Sen. Paine (Claude Rains) leading the charge.
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Personally, the parallel I see is from real life, New York's playboy Mayor Jimmy Walker  , a the puppet of the Tammany Hall political machine in the Roarin' 20s.

Like marijuana dispensaries today, speakeasies proliferated under Walker who dumped his wife for a string of chorus girls. (Are women TV anchors the new chorus girls?)

He was the toast of New York and won re-election to a second term but was brought down by the Great Depression, forced from office and fled to Europe until the scandals surrounding his administration died down.

Today's economic meltdown is doing the same thing to Antonio, exposing the corruption in the emerging public employee pension fund scandal and the failure of the City Hall political machine to serve the public interest as well its own interests.

Questions arise about who really runs this machine: Antonio? Maria Elena Durazo of the County Federation of Labor? Some behind-the-scenes players close to Antonio like Ari Swiller or Keith Brackpool?

It is one of the wonders of the City Hall political machine that came together in the latter years of Tom Bradley's reign and evolved under the passivity of Jim Hahn before taking firm control in the Villaraigosa ear that nobody really seems to be the Boss.

And maybe that's what is wrong with it.

When the Daleys are running the Chicago machine, the city thrives and regenerates despite the back room deals, sweetheart contracts, graft and corruption. When they're not, the snow doesn't gett plowed, cultural monuments don't get built, neighborhoods deteriorate.
LaGuardia.jpg
When Jimmy Walker fell from grace in New York, Fiorello La Guardia  was elected mayor on a "Fusion Ticket, an anti-corruption coalition the Italian-American Republican put together with the city's civic elite and ordinary citizens. He got rid of the mob, the machine, corruption and revived the fortunes of New York.

I think LA's civic elite and its strengthening grassroots political movement could well take a lesson from that history and begin to come together into a force that can take back control of CIty Hall.

It's a "field of dreams" scenario: If we build that coalition, a leader will come forward..

  
 



Restoring Democracy -- It Won't Happen Without You

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 1, 2009 8:23 AM | | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)
EDITOR'S NOTE: This article was published in the current edition of Nina Royal's North Valley Reporter.

By Ron Kaye

I chatted recently with a longtime union leader about my belief in grassroots democracy and how people all over Los Angeles could come together in a movement for change despite their differences in values and demographics.

He scoffed at the notion.

"Grassroots movements will work when there's a single hot-button issue," he said. "People get mad. They come together but once the issue is over, they go back to their lives or start fighting with each other. It's not like a union where we've got their jobs to keep them involved."

He was right, of course, when times are more or less normal. But these are no ordinary times. War, global economic chaos, high taxes, government overspending, reduced public services, unmet needs.

There are growing signs the people's patience has finally worn out with the failure of our politicians, from Washington to Sacramento to our local communities. The list of small victories by community activists, from the Home Depot fight in Sunland-Tujunga, to the solid front of Neighborhood Council members for adequate funding, has grown long in the last year or two.

The same energy that fueled those efforts also drove voters to the polls to reject Measure B, the solar energy boondoggle, on the March primary ballot.

And to show their contempt for the handiwork of the politicians in the May 19 election, they defeated state ballot propositions 1-A through 1-E.

The LA political machine even lost its bid to install the lackluster Jack Weiss in the City Attorney's office and a true outsider, Tina Park, knocked off the incumbent in the LA Community College board race.

In the grand scheme of things, those are small victories. The big challenges remain.

The state is facing a $21 billion deficit this year. LA faces billions of dollars in expenses it can't pay for in the next few years.

In both cases, our elected officials have shown no ability to get their arms around the problems. They only know how to tax and spend. It seems like they lose touch with the people almost from the day they are sworn in and start selling out their integrity to special interests.

The only answer I have is people power.

Structural reforms, tougher ethics laws, and clean money might be useful but it ought to be clear by now that the politicians can corrupt just about every effort at reform.

Democracy is a full-time job.

Seventeen percent of registered voters going to the polls on Election Day only shows the politicians that 83 percent of the people don't give a hoot about what happens.

In the last year, we've seen the impact that a few hundred community activists can have when they keep the pressure on City Hall day after day.

For real change to occur, it will take a citizens'army of thousands coming together from all over the city.

I don't know if people make history, or if the circumstances create the people who make a difference.

But I'm certain that the time is ripe for real change in our city, state and nation. It depends on each and every one of us waking up and getting involved.

There are so many ways to make a difference, from political action groups like Neighborhood Councils and homeowner groups, to service clubs like Kiwanis, to charities of one sort or another.

So turn off the TV and get off the sidelines and join the movement to restore democracy to America.

Antonio Plays Hamlet: A Two-Man Race for Demos?

By
Ron Kaye
 on June 1, 2009 3:05 AM | | Comments (15) | TrackBacks (0)
To Run or Not to Run? That's the question  Calbuzz.com Editors Jerry Roberts and Phil Trounstine  ask today with commentaries by political consultant Richie Ross  and me. They offer this context for the debate on whether Mayor Villaraigosa will run for governor in 2010:

At the start of 2009, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa antoniosmiles.jpglooked like a surefire, top-rank contender to succeed Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Apparently poised for easy re-election, he exuded confidence, even brashness, standing atop a strong base of labor and Latinos on which to build a statewide campaign.

Since then, however, the mayor has suffered a series of political setbacks, beginning with his underwhelming 55 percent re-election on March 3 against a weak field, and his city has become mired in the same kind of fiscal mess afflicting California government at every level.

Amid that backdrop, the calendar presents him with a tactical handicap in the Democratic race; he won't be sworn in for his second term until July, effectively stalling his candidacy, while Attorney General Jerry Brown (not formally a candidate) and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom (a declared candidate) have both been politically active for months.

For now, Newsom has a clear field in sniping at the front-runner Brown, styling himself as the Obama-like tribune of new politics against the old school Brown, the front-runner for the nomination. If Villaraigosa gets in, the shape of the race instantly changes, as he and Newsom will elbow and crowd each other as they try to position themselves as the chief challenger to the attorney general.

At this point, Villaraigosa himself is the only one who knows if that will happen or not. The indications we have say that he has genuinely not yet made that decision. As a practical matter, it's not a choice that will wait much longer; lacking independent wealth, the L.A. mayor has to go out and grub for contributions like almost every candidate in California, and he's already months behind in the money primary.
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Where's Ron?


Catch Ron on the Kevin James Show on KRLA 870 at 9:30 p.m. this Wednesday night and as a regular commentator on Monday nights NBC's innovative news show "The Filter with Fred Roggin." "The Filter" is broadcast on NBC's Raw Channel 225 at 7:30 p.m. Monday-Thursday with re-broadcasts of the previous night's show starting at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday-Friday on Channel 4. Here's links to latest chats with Kevin James http://tinyurl.com/ybh5fu6   and http://tinyurl.com/yfno96b and http://tinyurl.com/y9fgdm5 and the last two "The Filter" shows where Ron appeared with actress and regular commentator Debra Skelton: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXZwzrtlF1E and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCoGofOr07o and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr4NllJ67cM and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otUJ3HQWj0w Here's the recent interview on Off The Presses with Brendan Huffman, Damian Jones and Edward Headington http://www.latalkradio.com/Presses.php

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The Saving LA Project will hold meet this Saturday, Jan. 23, at 10:30 a.m. at the Hollywood Community Center, 6501 Franklin Ave., Hollywood. Organizing SLAP for action, the budget crisis, DWP policies, planning issues, LAUSD are on the agenda. Everyone welcome, sandwiches, easy parking. Don't be a bystander. Get involved and help save LA.

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About Ron

Ron Kaye

is the former editor of the Los Angeles Daily News who has become a community activist, helping to found the Saving LA Project. He writes on city issues in Los Angeles and is a frequent speaker at community groups on the need to get informed and involved in the effort to make LA a city of great schools and neighborhoods, a city with a healthy business climate and good jobs, a city where the people are respected and have a seat at the table of power.

Email Ron at ron@ronkayela.com

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