Firefighters Union President Pat McOsker issued a pointed warning to the CIty Council on Tuesday over the planned "brownouts" in the city FIre Department -- rolling closures of up to 28 stations every day and idling of dozens of ambulances.

He made the point that the actual cost to the city of $3.5 for the Michael Jackson funeral would avoid brownouts throughout the hot days of August at least if it was paid by AEG, the main beneficiary of the event and hundreds of millions of dollars in other gifts from the city.

What with the mayor and City Council being such good friends of AEG, that isn't likely to happen. But McOsker didn't completely waste his precious two minutes before the Council.

On Thursday, Fire Chief Douglas Barry said no stations will be closed or paramedic-ambulances taken out of service thanks to the mayor asking the Council to steal $13 million from city reserve funds to reduce the impact of the $56 million cuts that were imposed.

But he admitted response times would be slower. That means that if  you have a heart attack, there's supposed to be ambulance teams on duty every so you'll have a decent chance of survival.

But the same can't necessarily be said if there's a bad fire. Reduced staffing everywhere might sound better than closing some stations every day but it's certainly a gamble unless you believe LAFD is overstaffed.

I suppose if something goes terribly wrong, you'll get a letter of regret from your City Council member saying how sorry they are for your loss.

I feel like the doctor breaking really bad news to the patient: Your political system is seriously ill and it may not have long to live.

The governor and state legislators for the second time in six years has spent California into such a deep hole filled with red ink that only a series of money transplants against future revenues can keep the state functioning even briefly. They are euthanizing aid to the sick, elderly and hopelessly poor. The only winners are the 27,000 convicts -- 15 percent of the total -- who are going to be awarded get-out-of-jail free cards.

This farce of a budget debate has gone on all year, for years actually, and now at the last minute 180 cities and many counties, including LA, are threatening at the last minute to sue to keep the tragi-comedy on stage for weeks or months longer.

At 10 a.m. Friday morning, the good mayor of LA will join the whiners we elected to public office with his own pantomime over funds for the Community Redevelopment Agency -- City Hall's second favorite cash cow after the DWP -- being taken away to paper over the massive state budget deficit.

The problem, he and the City Council say, is the state Constitution's requirement that two-thirds of the members of both houses have to agree on a budget -- something that gives Republicans, with just a couple of votes more than a third of the members, the leverage to block the Democratic majority from imposing a rash of new taxes.

So they and the Democratic power structure are seeking a Constitutional Convention which they believe they can control to rewrite the budget requirement so they can swiftly get their way on taxes and spending.

There's no question California's taxing and spending policies are screwed up. Revenue skyrockets in boom times and they overspend; revenue drops in bust times and they borrow against the next boom.

It is a vicious circle of failure that has tarnished the Golden State and jeopardized the future of all of us.

But what kind of fools would trust the people -- Democrat and Republican alike -- who for so long have bickered and quarreled and keep on fighting today over old grudges and old ideas while they take money away from the schools and community colleges, let the roads decay and the infrastructure rot.

These people cannot be trusted.

The mayor and City Council can blame the state all they want, they can talk about how their "non-partisanship" avoids these intramural conflicts, how they "balanced" the city budget and approved it unanimously -- but their actions speak louder than their words.

What they have done is even worse than the state. They have turned the city treasury into a bank for special interests while gutting basic services from fire protection to park programs, planning and street paving.

Is it any wonder that the 22,000 members of the city coalition of unions representing half the work force jumped at that offer the mayor and Council made them to balance the budget on paper?

Wouldn't you like to be one of the 2,400 city workers who get to retire as young as 50 with 75 percent of your paycheck and full health care for life, $15,000 in a cash buyout and up to half your annual salary for unused vacation and sick time?

If you could keep your job, avoid wage cuts and furloughs and be guaranteed you would come out ahead financially within years, wouldn't you jump at the deal?

Of course, city workers quickly ratified this deal and, of course, the Council and mayor will quickly give their final approval to it even though they know it doesn't solve the problem, that cash will run out soon enough and that all the money they can steal from the DWP, CRA, harbor and airport won't be enough to cover the bills.

Take it from Dr. Kaye, your political system is seriously ill and it may not have long to live.

You can keep hiding behind your apathy, ignorance and indifference. You can keep obsessing about the fragments of government's failure to serve you and your own political agendas. You can keep writing letters to the politicians and pleading before them for mercy like peons before their masters.

But nothing will change until you take matters into your own hands, until you march in the streets by the thousands, until you organize and mobilize to take back the reins of power from the politicians and the special interests they serve.

If you don't do it now when the patient might still be saved, when the time is right, it will be too late.

The damage they are doing to our city, our state, our hopes, our dreams will be so great that we may never recover.

I hope I'm wrong but that's what I believe, what I'm working so hard to do something about, what so many are working hard to do something about it.

It's now or never.

Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich found himself under fire today from a campaign supporter, former Controller Laura Chick, who accused him of being a liar and a "demagogue."

Chick, now Inspector General for federal stimulus spending for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, was interviewed on KABC Morning Talk Show Host Doug McIntyre's show.

A reader supplied this transcript, confirmed by Mcintyre, regarding Trutanich's promise to reverse former City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo's legal opinion limiting the City Controller's authority to conduct audits of other city officials::

"The City Attorney lied, and is not a man of his word...he is a demagogue who will say anything to get elected, and then go back on his word... he stood next to me and lied to get my support. 

Chick said she hopes the public will "see through this man, see that
he's a demagogue who will say anything to get elected, but is not a man
of his word."

Here's an excerpt of the interview as it aired and one replayed later:
chick2(128Kbps).mp3
mcintyrechcik.mp3

City Attorney Carmen Trutanich told the City Council Tuesday that his investigation of how the city became liable for the cost of the Michael Jackson funeral at Staples Center has taken a surprising turn.

He said the investigation could lead to civil and criminal charges, adding the Denver billionaire Phil Anschutz's company, AEG, owner of Staples and LA Live, has been asked to turn over various documents.

After reading his 5-minute statement, Trutanich went into closed session for more than an hour with the Council to discuss the civil case.

The council is expected to order a thorough audit of all city expenses for the memorial, and members specifically want to know why the city paid $48,826 for the 3,500 lunches handed out to police officers providing security and may also establish policies that dictate how much the city will spend on such "extraordinary, non-emergency, multi-departmental, large-scale events,'' the Times says.

Councilwoman Janice Hahn calling for a complete accounting of the tourism benefits derived from the memorial. Hahn said the memorial promoted Los Angeles as a global destination for Jackson fans.

With the audacity of a man distracting the world for a thousand failures, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa chose the 40th anniversary of mankind's first walk on the moon to pump his plan to save the Earth from global warming.

And he got Huffington Post, no less, to carry his toxic hot air to the world:

"It was only fitting, then, that today I signed a partnership agreement between NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) to explore ways to decrease water usage, cut greenhouse gas emissions, and stimulate green job growth in Los Angeles," reads the post attributed to the mayor.

"You see, the next great hurdle we face, the next dream we must make a reality, is combating climate change. We must work together to combat climate change head-on and reverse its course. If we do not, there might not be a planet left for our future generations."

I'd have thought the next great hurdle in LA was to provide jobs for the 13 percent of the people who are jobless and the 13 percent more who don't even count in the statistics.

Or reduce the 75-year backlog in street and sidewalk paving.

Or ease traffic congestion now rather than build a subway extension 20 years from now.

Or save the quality of life in the neighborhoods.

Or end the scourge of 40,000 gangsters who control the turf in half the city.

Or to actually balance the city budget and end runaway spending and stop giving sweetheart contracts to unions, developers, consultants, lawyers and all the other insiders who cut their deals in the darkness of back rooms.

Need I go on.

"The Next Great Challenge" is how the mayor hypes this deal that puts JPL in bed with the city's favorite cash cow, the Department of Water and Power, which is hiking rates faster than a rocket ship launched to the moon.

"We are setting the stage to be at the forefront of the clean tech revolution that will drive the new, green economy and relegate global warming to the prologue of the Great Book on America in the 21st Century," the mayor concludes.

Is that why we elected him mayor? Is that why we have a city government? Is City Hall that screws up everything it touches from elephant exhibits at the zoo to digital billboards in our neighborhoods and pot shops on every street corner really up to the task of writing the "Great Book on America in the 21st Century?"

I'm no rocket scientist but I've got a better idea: Let's send the mayor and the CIty Council on a mission to the moon, or better yet Mars. That way they'll all be term-limited out by the time the return and we won't have to put up with their nonsense anymore.

In the meantime, I'm certain us ordinary mortals could go to work on the problems we actually can fix and even make the city more environmentally healthier.

Just getting rid of their poisonous political games would be a giant leap for the four million who call LA home.

I'm never quite sure how to refer to Ron Kaye.  Owner? Master? The old guy who feeds me?

Anyway, Ron posted one of those funny videos of the City Council debating taxes or something headlined "All They Want Is Your Money ...."

These "debates" are either sleep inducing or hilarious, depending on your point of view. Most of the time, they make you want to move out of LA.  But get ready, I learned this afternoon on the Dog Trainer's website they also want your roosters!

Cock-a-doodle-do!

According to the trainer, roosters "are a serious menace, causing noise, foul odors and public sanitation issues. They drag down property values, disrupt the peace in neighborhoods and can harbor deadly illnesses. They even give rise to criminal and gang activities that residents are afraid to report for fear of retaliation."

Good God! And the neighbors think I'm bad.

Turns out this is a long-running issue  -- cock fighting is frowned upon and the birds carry a lot of diseases -- and the city's Public Safety Committee approved an ordinance today to limit the number of roosters to one per property.

And set your DVRs and Tivos, it's going to the City Council.

Given what happened during the debate over the fate of Billy the elephant, I can't wait for this one.  Who'll be the first to refer to the birds as "cocks?"  (Ha-ha, he said cock.") Will Tony Cardenas suggest a rooster sanctuary in the San Fernando Valley, where I guess a lot of them crow now? 

And will the mayor support the ordinance. After all, he might have seen an animal or two during his recent trip to Africa with girlfriend Lu Parker. Don't laugh, it might have happened.

For those of with more than one rooster in your yard, probably sitting on the carcass of rusted out old car, there is hope.

If the ordinance prevails, anyone wishing to keep more than one of their current pet roosters will have to secure a permit from the Department of Animal Services by the end of the year. The additional animals will have to be micro-chipped or fitted with a city-approved leg band for permanent identification, and owners may be charged a one-time permit fee. The licensed roosters will be allowed to live out the remainder of their lives, but no "replacement roosters" will be approved.

Maybe in a cock sanctuary in the Valley. There, I said it!

Woof!

UPDATED: Excerpts of what Council members said at the bottom.

And they'll say or do anything to get their hands on it.

Here's a 10-minute movie I made from comments made by each of those who spoke in support of a motion that would put the City of Los Angeles on the record as backing any  and all measures that would reduce the threshold needed to approve a state budget from the current two-thirds

The City Council -- policy making body of the City of Los Angeles -- voted unanimously Friday, Democrats and Republicans alike in the non-partisan unity, to support getting rid of Proposition 13 and its taxpayer protections.

And they supported using any means necessary to get their way and repeal Proposition 13.

Missing just a couple of votes in the Legislature, and often just a couple of points at the polls, to raise taxes, your elected officials will be happy to settle for anything less than two-thirds -- 50 percent, 55, 60, why they'd even take 65 percent and still be able to raise taxes and approve a budget locally or at the state level.

All they want is your money.

The billions in dollars of government deficits could be wiped out just like that.

The tens of billions in unfunded pensions to public employees, the sweetheart contracts, the sinecures for former politicians, the patronage, the back room deals, the sellout of the public interest -- just like that your tax dollars let them go on same as always, business as usual.

I know it's asking a lot but I hope you'll watch this 10-minute movie. It might help you to make up your mind about which side you're on:






Just to be helpful for those who didn't watch the video, here's excerpts, with an interpretation, from each Council member who spoke Friday.

Koretz: Blame the Republicans: "It's a disaster of epic proportions. It's purely caused by the two-thirds budget (requirement)."

Huizar: It's not our fault: "Here we are now looking at some dramatic cuts...when we've already passed our own budget and we may have to go back to the table to make some changes because the state has not passed its budget."

Parks: Limited tyranny of majority: "Prior to Prop. 16 there was a caveat of 5 percent ..as long just as we are here today in the council nonpartisan we get to vote on what we choose to vote on. We have no one that's punishing us one way or another."

Garcetti: Selective tyranny of majority: "Californians are angry...the rules that we have passed have to change in order forf California to repair itself...It's ironic in this state as we saw with the vote on Prop. 8 you can take someone's civil rights away with a majority vpte but it takes a two-thirds vote just to pass a budget."

Rosendahl: No term limits, no Prop. 13: "No. 1 we need to restructure the budget and the budget process...this six-year term-limit is insane...the initiative process is totally dysfunctional...we need to do deal with political reform. I'm talking about clean money."

Wesson: Demoracts good, Republicans Bad: "We in Los Angeles i don't think we have a lot in common with the state of Arkansas..or Rhode Island...The entire system needs to be changed. The majority party is the Democratic Party. So you would think the agenda in the state government would be led by the majority party."

Alarcon: Who needs reform? "There's a lot of problems with the state. There's a lot of problems with Los Angeles. Anywhere in between would be better than 66 and two-thirds percent. They say... we have to do all these other radical things to fix state government... To me democracy is about the majority ruling."

LaBonge: Huh? What? Vote Aye! "Whatever is this about?: "What are we recommending?...I ask you for an aye vote."

Zine, as presiding officer: Just trying to help: "12 ayes, that matter passes. Hopefully that will help the state and the budget."

UPDATE: Controller Wendy Greuel took her claims against City Attorney Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich to KABC Morning Talk Show host Doug McIntyre Thursday. Here's the audio (greuel.mp3).

First, he pulled a grandstand play over Michael Jackson, giving the City Council just 72 hours to clean up the messy problem of how much the funeral extravaganza cost and who will pay.

Then, he laid down the law to the Planning Commission over their latest giveaway to the well-connected in such harsh term that one member went before the City Council to complain he found it "disturbing and frankly a little bit frightening."

Now, City Attorney Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich finds himself in a power struggle with City Controller Wendy Greuel in a replay of the yearlong fight between their predecessors, Rocky Delgadillo and Laura Chick.

Is this Rocky II? Is Nuch the tough sheriff trying to clean up Deadwood and its outlaw City Hall? Or a gunslinger riding into a new town and making his mark no matter who gets hurt?

In office just two weeks, Trutanich has stirred more controversy than most LA elected officials in their whole careers (Michael Jackson, Planning Commission, Wendy Greuel)..

The latest flap with Greuel is the most intriguing although it's far from clear at this point whether it's the opening round of what will be a long fight or just a misunderstanding that will disappear as quickly as it began.

The heart of the matter is Chick's attempt to audit the City Attorney's worker compensation claims management system, an effort undertaken in the belief millions of dollars were being wasted. Delgadillo sued her on behalf of the city after she issued subpoenas to his staff, arguing the Controller overstepped her authority under the City Charter and lacks the power to audit the activities of elected officials.

During their campaigns, both Trutanich and Greuel promised to resolve the dispute one way or another to ensure the Controller got the full authority that Chick wanted. But that hasn't proved so easy to deliver since the case was already before a judge who just ruled tentatively the Charter does not give the Controller the authority Chick wanted.

Greuel wasn't happy with Trutanich over how he handled this. She had wanted him to go to court with her before they were sworn in and tell the judge they were on the same side but he balked, arguing that even if he were in office, he could not act unilaterally without the Council's permission.

After the judge ruled, Chick's attorney Fred Woocher sent a letter on behalf on Greuel seeking a stipulated agreement establishing the Controller's authority.

The lawyer handling the case in the City Attorney's office, Valerie Flores, sent back a letter on Friday saying Woocher didn't know what he was talking about (trutanichletter.pdf) since the lawsuit was against Chick, not the Controller's office, so Greuel isn't a party to it and Woocher represents Chick, not Greuel.

That didn't sit well with Greuel who fired back a letter (greuelTrutanich.pdf) on Tuesday to Trutanich saying that she was "dismayed" by his failure to live up to his promises and threatened to take the issue to voters if he didn't.

"I am the voice at this point in time to say we need to protect taxpayers' dollars," Greuel told the Times Wednesday.

Who could disagree with that. Let's see how whether they move forward together in that direction or whether the fight between Trutanich and City Hall escalates.

For all the talk and political pandering about LA being the "greenest city in America" no matter what it costs, the truth is we're the least environmentally progressive city in California.

For all the talk and political pandering about the homeless problem no matter what it costs, LA is officially the "meanest city in America," the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty (NLCHP) and the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH).

After all, nothing in LA politics is quite as cheap as talk. It's political will that's lacking and has been lacking for a long time.

Historically, public employees were paid less than those private sector who did the same work but enjoyed a level of job security unimaginable elsewhere.

Over the last 30 years in LA, and to a less extent California, that balance has gotten out of whack.

Today, LA city workers are paid more than comparable private sector workers and in the case of the DWP 30 percent more than the rest of the city workforce for the same jobs. And they can retire with full lifetime health care and pensions of as much as 75 percent of their highest play, 90 percent for police and firefighters.

Their jobs are just as secure as ever. The cost-cutting measures offered city workers by the Mayor and City Council provide sweetened pensions that will allow 2,400 city workers to retire with full pensions as young as 55 and guaranteed there will be no layoffs, furloughs or pay cuts.

Former San Fernando Valley Assemblyman Keith Richman now heads the California Foundation

There's only one thing I know for sure these days and that's the people of this city in all walks of life are crying out for something that brings us together to make our collective lives better and give hope to our individual dreams.

We need a New Spirit of LA

We don't need cheap slogans like "shared sacrifice" when there's nothing shared or fair in our sacrfice. We don't need Ideological politics or racial or sexual or class politics. And we don't need greed and selfishness by a insider clique that has looked after itself better than the city it rules.

No, we need a new spirit in LA

We need to stop looking down at the ground through the tiny prism of our own narrow lenses and we need to stop scrounging in the dirt for crumbs from the table of power.

I traveled the world looking for a place I could live my dreams and when I gave up all hope, I settled in LA where against all odds I started to live my dream. I've come too far to back down now even if the situation were hopeless.

And it's not. I am not alone. Even bums on the street I know are living their dreams too, nightmare as it must seem to most of us.

For me, that's all LA is about, nothing more and nothing less, then every human being has the right, the responsibility, to live their dreams in LA. That's why so much shit happens here, why they call us zany and wacky and weirdos.

Freedom is a dangerous thing and absolute freedom can be destructive.

We are making a hell of heaven. I don't know if it's too late to reverse the course of global warning but I know with the absolute certainty of faith that it's not too late restore LA to its heavenly state.

Anyone who strives for less betrays the very Spirit of LA throughout its whole history.

All over this city -- in every neighborhood, in every class, in every passion -- we are locked in little cells like prisons, kept separate as much by our own choice as by the machinations of others.

It's time to break out, escape our cells, and to reach out to others with the realization that all our fates are bound up together in our homes, our neighborhoods, our schools, our city.

It's only in the quality of our lives today and in our hopes for a better tomorrow that a great city lives.

And that's the question everyone has to answer for themselves: Do you want LA to be a great city or just another place out in the desert somewhere?

City employee union members could take the first step by taking a hard look at the sweetheart contract they have been offered to balance the city's $320 million budget deficit -- temporarily at best.

It's not worth the paper it's written on. Giving full pensions with bonuses to 2,400 senior city workers so they can retire at 55 with full pensions is going to cost those who keep their jobs and it's going to cost the public too.

What do you think is going to be the reaction in a few months when it's clear the mayor and City Council can't make good on their promise not to impose furloughs or layoffs on you, when the city can't be its bills or the interest on the $1.1 billion they borrowed to fend off a cash flow crisis?

Will city workers threaten to strike when the bad news comes? Will the public understand that they have to pay 50 cents for city workers' pensions for every dollar they put in the pockets of city workers still on the payroll?

It will be like the wrath of God, a test of whether the anger of city workers is greater than the anger of the public.

Personally, I don't want to go there.

It's time for peace talks, for the civic elite to get organized, for the labor and business communities to stand up for what's right for the city as a whole, for the tens of thousands of ordinary people so deeply involved the city's civic culture to make a stand in defense of their neighborhoods, their livelihoods, their futures.

City workers are going to take the deal on the table and the mayor and council are going to sign off on it and keep using the Department of Water and Power as a cash cow and cutting deals that keep them in power and feed the interests of developers, contractors, lawyers and lobbyists.

But it's past the point of no return. Sooner, rather than later, the bottom is going to fall out and the bills are going to have to be paid.

The longer we wait, the worse it will be. There will be fewer options and greater consequences.

I don't know the answer to all the problems LA faces but I do know that nothing good will happen unless we all have a seat at the table of power, begin to talk honestly about things and start to figure out how we live within our means and balance our competing interests.

It's going to take a quality of leadership that has been missing a long time and mutual respect that is now non-existent.

The question I raise is this: Who will make the first move to bring us together so we can create the New Spirit of LA?

By Chelsea Cody
OurLA.org Writer

Since my search for the online IOU market began last week, the number of Craigslist ads for California registered warrants has grown. The number of IOU sellers however, has not. At least that is the consensus among earnest online buyers.

Craigslist advertiser Dan Goldsmith hasn't received any response from buyers. But he was contacted by NBC and the Wall Street Journal about his ad for IOUs.

Goldsmith said he plans to attend an auction in Rocklin, CA where IOUs will be sold and will use an online marketplace called SecondMarket that deals in illiquid securities.

"People are taking California warrants very seriously and someone is going to make a pretty penny off these things if they can find a seller in a desperate enough situation," said Goldsmith. "I've seen offers as low as 69 cents on the dollar up to 99 cents."

Co-creator of the online IOU trading site, BuyMyIOU.com, Jason Boze has received just two legitimate but hesitant calls from sellers since the website's creation a week ago.

"We've gotten more of a response from news agencies and investors than we have from people looking to sell," said Boze. "But the market for this won't start until next week because of the banks."

He has a point.

California banks said they would stop accepting warrants last Friday and people will be unable to easily redeem the full value of their IOUs, forcing some to seek lesser reimbursement elsewhere.

As a result, the potential for a secondary online market is great. That is, of course, if legislators don't force regulation. Regulation would depend on whether or not the IOUs are viewed as securities and whether or not they fall under federal securities law.
 
The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, as well as the Security and Exchange Commission that oversees the MSRB favor viewing the IOUs as securities.
 
On the other hand, the State Controller's Office, which distributes the IOUs, views them not as securities but as a form of payment.

If the IOUs were to be viewed as securities it would mean that anyone acting as a go-between for sellers and buyers would have to register with regulators.

Until the securities debate is decided, California Treasurer Bill Lockyer's office won't redeem IOUs sold from one party to another without an accompanying signed and notarized bill of sale.

From the State Treasurer's Office:

PLEASE NOTE: The State Treasurer's Office will not redeem such registered warrants (purchased from another individual) without a notarized Bill of Sale signed by the payee whose name appears on the registered warrant. This requirement to present a notarized bill of sale to redeem a registered warrant does NOT apply to banks, credit unions, investment banks, other financial institutions, brokerage firms or broker-dealers.

Whether or not the online CA IOU market will become more than media hype is, as of now, difficult to determine.

The coming weeks and the next several months will decide the livelihood of the online market for registered warrants and the state of California. Unfortunately, the two appear to have mutually exclusive interests.

The premise of my new journalism as I gear up for the full launch of OurLA.org is that all politics is local and everybody's got the right to speak up so I'm putting together citizen and professional writers to tell the story of our community.

NBC revamped its website a year ago to bring together local news from a wide variety of sources and now is launching "The Filter with Fred Roggin," a mix of fast-paced commentary, satire and humor. I'm happy to be one of the commentators as you can see in these short clips from Monday's first show where Roggin, attorney Leo Terrell and I bat around some news items. (It will be broadcast regularly Monday-Thursday at 7 p.m. on NBC's experimental digital Channel 225 starting July 20 and may come to Channel 4 itself if successful.)

Every news outlet on radio, TV and newspapers is cutting staff, slashsing costs and trying to figure out how to survive in the Internet world with audiences fragmented and revenue declining sharply.

There's a lot of desperation to these efforts at reinvention.

A case in point is LA Times media columnist James Rainey, apparently under pressure to be interesting and provocative. Three weeks ago, he called  for the firing of the widely-respected LA Weekly news guru Jill Stewart. As far as I could tell Rainey suffered from story envy since Stewart's reporters have been beating the Times to death on the LA story.

Then, this morning, Rainey called for KTTV's weather and lifestyle anchor Jillian Reynolds to be fired along with the 25 percent of the staff getting the axe in September because she talked about intimate details of her sex life with Howard Stern on satellite radio.

Maybe Rainey doesn't like women news people or the mayor for his affairs with media women. Or maybe he just doesn't like women news people named Jill. My guess is he's just run out of ideas.

His columns are part of an anything-goes-as-long-as-you-attract-an-audience mentality that is widely shared in the news business. Certainly that has something to do with the unbelievable hype and non-stop coverage of the Michael Jackson story, the spectacular success of Glenn Beck on Fox and a lot of other things we're seeing and reading.

Personally, I love it. Let's all try everything we can think of to attract an audience, provide value that holds them and get their participation.

For too long, the news media has stagnated and gotten out of touch with the public as giant corporations reaped spectacular profits and imposed rigid rules and standards on journalists. Rupert Murdoch, always the boldest innovator in the corporate world, put Fox TV on the map by breaking a lot of those rules.

Now, the rest of the media is trying to break the mold. I don't see how the public loses from the wide-ranging attempts at reinvention and the vast increase opportunity for free expression and the free exchange of ideas.

I thought that what was America and the First Amendment were all about even if it includes Jill Stewart's exposes of City Hall's failings, Jillian Reynolds' exposes of her private life and James Rainey's contempt for both of them.

In any case, here's a sample of what we're trying to do on the "aggregation" segment of "The Filter with Fred Roggin:"

.

 

I hate myself on days like this when it seems so clear it's my fault -- and yours.

The state is broke, the city is paying its bills with credit cards, the schools are a disaster, the traffic a nightmare, houses are worth half what they were, people are losing their jobs in record numbers and all we can talk about is poor Michael Jackson.

What the hell is wrong with us anyway -- with me?

My pal Joe Scott notes two of three Americans find excessive the 24/7 coverage of the death of the pain-ridden and unhappy King of Pop even as they stare mindlessly at the boob tube coverage and send cable TV news ratings soaring off the charts.

Something is terribly wrong when we spend $20 billion building brand-new schools in LA like Santee High and the test results are just as bad as they were before and when the mayor's highly-touted reform effort makes the dropout rate worse than it was.

Something is wrong when the governor and state legislature stare each other down after a five-year spree that saw spending increase six times faster than population growth and we're paying our bills with IOUs that are trading for discounts on eBay.

Something is wrong when a city's revenue soars by a third in four years and it winds up overspending by half again as much.

When good employers in the private sector dread having to cut the pay of staff and lay them off while the city gives bonuses and sweetened pensions out, something is wrong.

When dedicated and well-rewarded people think nothing paying nearly $50,000 to have 3,500 sandwiches brought in from Wrightwood in San Bernardino County for the cops guarding the Staples Center on Tuesday, something is wrong.

Everywhere you look it seems things are broken. Whose fault is it --theirs or ours?

I've gone to dozens of community meetings all over LA in the last 15 months, and there's rarely more than 25 or 30 people trying to do something about what's wrong. The exceptions are the Encino Neighborhood Council meeting last night where the community's passions were aroused because the media frenzy outside the Jackson family home on Hayvenhurst disrupted their lives and their neighborhood.

It's proof all politics is local but how often does that myopic view of the world ever expand into action on the root cause: A political system taken hostage by special interests.

Just one in six registered voters went to the polls in the last two city elections and it will be more like one in ten in the Council District 2 special election on Sept. 22 -- an election the City Hall political machine hopes to steal with two heavily-financed candidates running against a dozen mostly unknown community activists.

Something is terribly wrong.

I've railed against their corruption for years and demonized them as villains but on introspective mornings like this I know they are just captives of a system run amok, no more or less at fault than me -- or you.

I talk with civic and business leaders and they don't sound any different than the leaders down at the grassroots involved in Neighborhood Councils and homeowner groups and service clubs.

They can all get 25 or 30 people together to talk about what's wrong but when it comes to action, it's not easy. People only care about what affects them directly, what impacts their businesses or their pocketbooks or their neighborhoods or the singular issue that inflames their passions.

I never said I knew the answers to any or all of what's wrong; only that I held a deep faith that if we all looked up from the ground in front of us and saw how our problems are inter-connected, we could and would do something about them and find answers that were better, far better, than the ones we have.

I haven't lost my faith. In fact, my time as an activist, as an ordinary citizen getting involved in the life of my community, has convinced me more than ever that we the people can make a difference.

Our economic, political and cultural crises are going to get worse in the coming months. That's a certainty. More people will lose their jobs. Government agencies will be under even more financial pressure to cut basic services, eliminate critical educational programs, free dangerous criminals onto our streets.

And the future will be in the hands of all those little cells of 25 to 30 people who have been involved so long and know so much to reach out beyond themselves to their larger communities of interest and to come together into a force for real change.

That's what democracy is all about and that's what we have lost with our preoccupation with ourselves, our own advantages, our own little worlds.

This isn't the America I learned about as a kid, the freest nation on the face of the earth where everyone had an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, where the people were the rulers and the government was the public's servant.

From the bottom of my heart, I believe the moment is at hand for that America to come to life. It just depends on you and me.

That's what I believe anyway, right or wrong. 

In office just a week, LA City Attorney Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich boldly appeared before the LA City Council Tuesday and declared he would get to the bottom of the Michael Jackson fiasco.

Taking the extraordinary step of appearing during the public comment period just like Zuma Dogg, Nuch laid down the law on the city spending millions of dollars for police and other services in support of the Michael Jackson Memorial at Staples Center.

He vowed to investigate who authorized spending the money at a time when the city is carrying a $320 million deficit into the new fiscal year --a time when the Mayor, City Council President and Police Chief are all out of the country.

In a matter-of-fact and friendly manner, Nuch said he has a plan to recoup whatever the city spent for round-the-clock police on a holiday weekend and on Tuesday when the 3,000 cops on duty outnumbered the crowd outside Staples Center.

His final comment left no doubt about where he stands.: Nuch said he would back to the Council on Friday, in private session if need be, to discuss his investigation and plans -- and to propose legislation to make sure something like this never happens again.

The Mystery: Who Approved LA Paying the Bill?

Councilwoman Jan Perry is quite an actress -- acting mayor and acting City Council president at the same time.

And what a time it was: The Michael Jackson Extravaganza.

To all appearances, it was Perry -- as the woman in charge with the Mayor and City Council President junketing overseas -- who gave the green light for the city to pick up the multi-million dollar tab for police and other services needed because of AEG's decision to hold the Michael Jackson Memorial at its Staples Center.

At first, Perry defended the expenditure which comes at a time the city is operating with a $320 million hole in its budget in the new fiscal year and has to borrow $1.1 billion - a quarter of its annual operating budget - just to meet cash flow demands.

But was it really Perry who made the call? Or the mayor's office? Or even Police Chief William Bratton?

Councilman Dennis Zine told a meeting of San Fernando Valley Republicans Tuesday night that Perry was "kept out of the loop" in the decision-making process that led to the city's decision that providing around-the-clock police security on overtime during the long July 4 weekend and extensive planning for a massive crowd outside Staples for Tuesday's Memorial Service.

He accused AEG, owner of Staples and promoter of Jackson's planned revival tour, of hyping claims that hundreds of thousands of Michael Jackson fans would show up as part of its strategy of profiteering from the King of Pop's death. In fact, the 3,000 cops on hand -- a third of the LAPD force -- outnumbered the fans.

Zine went so far as to suggest the lottery for tickets to the service was part of AEG's strategy and the firm would cash in on the 1.6 email addresses submitted for the 11,000 tickets that were made available to the public.

Tim Leiweke, who's in charge of Staples and other AEG operations in LA and one of the city's most influential powerbrokers, was the target of much of Zine's attack.

Leiweke has rebuffed demands that AEG pay the city's costs which could run as high as $4 million and sharply criticized Zine.

"There should be a thing called common decency," Leiweke said. "This could have waited until after the family was through the memorial. It shows no class at all. Beware the man who shouts while standing on another man's casket."

EDITOR'S NOTE; This article, recently published in Nina Royal's North Valley Reporter community paper, outlines what's at stake in City Council District 2 election, a brutally gerrymandered district that includes Sunland-Tujuniga and most of the Northeast Valley, a sliver along the Burbank border and then stretches from Studio to Sherman Oaks and takes in parts of other neighborhoods. Candidate filing opened Monday with Paul Krekorian, Chris Essel and Frank Sheftel the first to declare their candidacies to succeed Wendy Greuel in Council District 2.  Five other candidates -- Pete Sanchez; Mary Benson,  Jozef "Joe" Thomas Essavi; Laurette Healey and Michael McCue -- filed later in the day.

By Ron Kaye.

It ought to be clear by now that the City Hall political machine has no intention of giving an inch to the people who live and work in Los Angeles.

Community activists, with help from business and labor, defeated Measure B but that hasn't stopped the Department of Water and Power's David Nahai and the IBEW boss Brian D'Arcy from going right ahead and doing whatever they want with a wink and nod from the mayor and City Council.

Then Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich, with the same citizen-labor-business coalition behind him, knocked of the machine's puppet Jack Weiss so the machine put its greasy arms around the City Attorney-elect in hopes of bringing him to heel and taking the bite out of his teeth.

Along the way we were entertained with the idea that catastrophic budget deficit would actually be solved through a policy of "shared sacrifice," only to learn the sacrifices will entirely be borne by the public while city employees get a sweetheart deal with enhanced retirement at age 55 and bonus pay raises over a five-year period.

So the battleground for some semblance of fiscal and political responsibility now shifts to Council District 2 race where voters in the heavily gerrymandered district curving from Sherman Oaks to Sunland-Tujunga get to choose a successor to Controller-elect Wendy Greuel.

The machine at first thought it could foist on CD2 the double-dipping former Assemblywoman Cindy Montanez, who's living high beyond her wildest dreams on sinecures from the state and the DWP.

But further analysis showed Montanez was a loser so the political manipulators anointed not one but two candidates to confuse and divide the electorate.

Their picks are Chris Essel, a Westside elitist who has served the machine without blinking on the Community Redevelopment Agency and the Airport Commission, and Democratic Assemblyman Paul Krekorian of Glendale, who's done such a fine job of pushing the state toward bankruptcy that he's fully qualified to help the city along in that direction.

How the mayor, public employee unions, developers, contractors and lobbyists divide themselves in support of both Essel and Krekorian is still being worked out but you can be sure they will both be heavily endowed with oodles of campaign cash.

They will need as much money as they can get their hands on since both are carpetbaggers with phony addresses in CD2 but polls show voters - in their ignorance, apathy and defeatism -- are less concerned about such matters than whether they recognize the candidate's name from mailers sent by fictitious groups that appeal to the prejudices.

Far less clear is where that leaves Tamar Galatzan, the school board member who was elected to her position with the mayor's millions as part of his failed takeover of LAUSD.

Unfortunately for Galatzan, they had a falling out when she opposed giving unaffordable health benefits to 3-hour a day cafeteria workers and other issues that did nothing to improve the quality of education.

Galatzan actually lives is the district and has a lot of knowledge about the issues on the ground from being the City Attorney's neighborhood prosecutor in Van Nuys. Questions remain about her ability to raise the money needed to overcome the machine candidates and whether she can convince grassroots activists she's tough enough to stand up to the pressures in City Hall to back every sweetheart deal and giveaway of public money.

Then there's the people's candidates, the ordinary citizens who step forward despite the long odds and carry with them old-fashioned ideas of public service.

At one point, it seemed like everyone who lived in CD2 would run but now it appears the citizen candidates are Frank Sheftel, a candy-maker and medicinal marijuana cooperative operator, Mary Benson, a long-time activist with extensive knowledge planning issues and Michael McCue, a Studio City Neighborhood Council leader with a passion for community empowerment as the antidote to machine control of the city.

I confess I like them all but have to admit it's an uphill struggle for any of them to make it into the top two vote-getters in the Sept. 22 primary and make it to the December runoff where anything could happen.

It's going to take a groundswell of community support for any of them to break through and stop the machine.

But I'm an optimist and believe the time is ripe for change. And I take heart from the fact that the real campaign for CD2 will start just six months after this election is over since the real election will take place in spring 2011 for a full four-year term.

By then voters will have a pretty good idea about who the citizen candidates are and whether the winner is December actually is serving them.

That's why it's so important for activists to get involved now and go to work in hopes of thwarting the special interests' power play now or, at the least, giving a Council member who serves them in 2011.

Editor's Note: My email inbox is loaded with comments about City Hall starting the fiscal year with a $320 million deficit and still footing the bill for the Michael Jackson memorial extravaganza at Staples Center when many stand to make huge profits exploiting his death. Some note the mayor and City Council president are all out of the country. Monica Harmon, a passionate Eastside activist and strong LAPD supporter, sent out this email blast along with this list (city-fee-waivers.PDF)of 1,000 fee waivers approved in the last year.

By Monica Harmon
OurLA.org writer

Thankfully we are all on the same page and outraged the taxpayers of Los Angeles are footing the bill for  the Jackson memorial. 

AEG stands to make millions on this event, had a $17 million insurance policy on Michael Jackson and received millions of dollars in tax breaks from the city.  I've attached a document of 1,000 special event waivers City Council have passed some for non profits but many for corporate companies that could easily afford the fee but the city absorbed their cost.

LAPD has already had their budget cut. For 12 days officers have been stationed at four locations 24/7.  It is absurd they get the burden of the cost of this event.

The most incompetent and irresponsible statement Jan Perry made at the press conference on Friday was this: "Perry said the cost of police protection for "extraordinary" events like the memorial is built into the Police Department's budget, but she still solicited help for "incremental costs."   Does she not know LA is in a financial crisis?   Not one politician has had the courage or leadership to speak out for the taxpayers of LA and say this is not right.
 
Media web site blogs are posted with negative statements from Angelenos who agree with us. Yet, why aren't the reporters who we all know and are blind copied on this e-mail here reporting it? Do they not read their own blogs?

Thank you for the feedback and to those who stated they are taking this issue to their neighborhood council boards.   Contact your council member and ask others to do so.

Click here for information on how to contact your Councilmember. 

And check out Tuesday's City Council Agenda: (Item #65 council spending $500,000 for another "study",  Parks waived $60,000 for a fireworks show, $1,218,055 for new Bureau of Street Lighting positions, $70,000 to fund a park,   $200,000 on a Traffic plan, Perry waived fees for Farah Fawcett memorial service, and more special event waivers)

17,500 -- The number of tickets available for Tuesday morning's memorial service for the late entertainer Michael Jackson.

500 million -- The number of hits in the first hour on the Staples Center website where you can register for the lottery  to win tickets to the 10 a.m. service.

Billions of dollars -- What the Jackson family, Sony and Denver billionaire Phil Anschutz' AEG company that owns Staples and was arranging the Michael Jackson tour stand to make in exploiting his death, his music, his celebrity.

Millions of dollars -- What LA taxpayers will spend for police and other services Tuesday at AEG's Staples Center and LA Live -- both heavily-subsidized to begin with -- for the Michael Jackson service.

It doesn't make any sense at all, does it?

Why should the long-suffering taxpayers of LA -- who have given hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies to Anschutz and massive tax breaks to Sony and other entertainment companies that continue to support runaway production -- pay for the exploitation of Michael Jackson's death?

The answer is we shouldn't.

Huge crowds, their emotions at a fever pitch fed by the media frenzy, will show up for this event which is being used by all those who stand to profit handsomely from the death of this tragic figure.

Cops on overtime will be needed to avoid a riot. There will be tons of trash. It will go on for hours and hours and tie up traffic throughout the downtown area.

I guess it really doesn't matter. The city is going broke, its leaders lack the will to do anything about it, so why not live it up because there's no tomorrow.

"A Crisis is a Terrible Thing to Waste"

By Chelsea Cody
OurLA.org

As I was meandering through the blogosphere this morning catching up on the latest dirt about the state's financial downward spiral (a little light holiday weekend reading) I came across a short item on LAist about people looking to buy California issued IOU's on Craigslist.

I wanted to know more so I went in search of the marketplace in California IOUs. Craigslist had plenty of them, dozens in fact.

While I didn't see any ads selling IOUs (yet) there were a wide variety of people looking to purchase them. Some buyers were looking to collect IOUs for posterity and as souvenirs, others were advertising IOU auctions and the ability to speedily match and connect sellers and buyers.

Most ads offered to buy IOUs at discounted prices, counting on some people's fears that the state will default on its obligation to repay.

Here's a sample: Private investor will pay you CASH now for any State of California IOU's issued to you instead of you waiting for payment due to you. If you need CASH now and can't wait for the state to solve the Budget I will buy your California IOU's and pay you cash. I am in the Los Angeles/Downtown area and only interested in working with LA based individuals. Please reply with your contact info and I will call you. Thank you.

Seeing as California has not issued IOUs since 1992 and that the interest rate on the 29,000 IOUs ($53 million) currently given out is 3.75 percent there is the potential for industrious (or conniving) people to make money if they could get their hands on enough IOUs.

The risk is lessened for buyers because the state, unlike city government, is obligated to guarantee payment. It then becomes a matter of when and how much?

One Craigslist advertiser, Brandon Schlichter, has created a website called BuyMyIOU.com. He believes Californians unable to wait to collect on their IOUs may have to settle for an amount 50-60 percent of the value of their IOUs for payment.

Another buyer, Glen Jones, hopes to connect to a lot of people holding the IOUs and to become a broker between buyers and sellers if he can get enough volume going.

"How'd I come up with this idea?  I was just reading about the interest rate the state was offering to have people hold these warrants/IOUs and thought about what type of incentives it would take for people to /make a trading market/ in these instruments," he said.

"II then thought it would be pretty cool to hold on to one of these docs.  I'm a professional economist and simply want one of these as a primary historical document. Not really expecting to get anything out of this other than a piece of paper." This is one of the truly remarkable things about America; there is a market for everything, even -- or perhaps, particularly -- during times of crisis.

As California faces a growing  $24.3 billion deficit and as lawmakers continue to argue with the Governor over how to best shore up the state's finances (be that through cutting state programs or raising taxes on oil and tobacco products) this "fiscal emergency" means that State offices will be closed three days a month and that the state will continue to issue IOUs.

Many of which will be sold off for a fraction of what they are worth, as many banks will no longer be accepting IOUs come July 10.

Although the state will begin to cash IOUs Oct. 2 the online IOU market may very well be booming by then.

After all, people can't pay their bills, salaries or buy groceries with IOUs.

Here's the deal (Union-mou-Letter_of_Agreement_2009-06-26_TA[1].pdf) your elected city officials have cut to protect union jobs no matter what the cost to the public, and to the future of the city.

It's eight pages of giveaways and promises to protect union jobs without regard to the public interest. (The ninth page, the last, is missing and may contain even more damaging information).

The goal is to reduce the city's payroll by $320 million but there is no financial analysis yet provided that shows this deal will actually achieve that in the short term or that the huge costs built into it over the long term can ever be afforded.

On paper, the savings is achieved by enhancing pensions of 2,400 senior city workers to get them to retire, and deferring cost-of-living but not other raises for two years with commitments to make them whole with bonuses in the following years. It ensures they don't lose a cent through layoffs or furloughs, and most of all saves city officials from the task of making hard decisions on what services we can afford, the basics, and what we have to eliminate.

City Hall, after all, for too long has been a jobs program, not a services program. That's why it costs so much and does so little. There's no workplace discipline. Nobody gets held accountable for performance. It's all politicized and the public interest counts for nothing.

The mayor, fatigued by his lackluster inaugural address, has headed off to party in South Africa for nine days, instead of getting down to work as the steward of the city's affairs and putting his efforts into revitalizing our neighborhoods and making sure we get the basic services needed to create economic opportunity and rebuild LA's vanishing middle class.

This document, for all its gobbledygook, is a bill of indictment on the failure of leadership.

It is an appendix to the city budget which was balanced on paper by raiding bond money and special funds, transfering millions of dollars in general fund costs to the DWP which is raising rates with impunity and requiring residents and businesses to pay the full cost for services that should be, and have been provided with tax dollars.

You can read for yourselves how the city is promising it won't contract for any outside services if city workers can do the job no matter what the cost difference; how city workers will fill open jobs at the harbor, airport and DWP (all are exempt from budget cuts) whether they're qualified or not; how assets will be sold, money borrowed on credit cards and federal stimulus money stolen to protect city workers from layoffs and furloughs.

It doesn't end there.

This sweetheart deal actually guarantees the unions will get 25 percent of any new revenue source of more than $40 million and that in the event of a catastrophe that costs the city $100 million or more, only one third of the cost will be borne by the unions.

In other words, your elected officials have tied their own hands in dealing with this ongoing budget crisis for years to come and as this passage makes clear, they are on the same side of the bargaining table as the unions, leaving the public out completely.

"In reaching this agreement, the Coalition of LA City Unions has stepped forward ahead of all others and demonstrated its commitment to the long-term sustainabilty of the City workforce and the services its workers provide," the agreement says. "The City acknowledges the sacrifice and initiative taken by the Coalition and will use the Mutual Gains process to address concerns that Coalition members are treat equitably for the life of this agreement."

Page 3 of the document is the most telling as it shows the length city officials will go to avoid actually downsizing city government and learning to live within the means available:

You might have noticed the mayor in his inaugural address promised to give us all jobs, clean the environment, get traffic moving, get rid of gangs and crime and educate our children.

He said nothing about actually running the $7 billion enterprise called city government or the airports, harbor or DWP -- the job he was elected to do. And he certainly didn't offer a clue as to how he was going to pay for all those monumental good works he promised, let alone balance the city budget or pay for the sweetheart early retirement deal he's offered the unions.

It's only day two of the new world order that he, Controller Wendy Greuel, City Attorney Carmen Trutanich and the City Council pledged to bring us so let's start with an easy one since they all swore to give us transparency and accountability: Show us the money.

They balanced the city budget on paper with a proposal to sweeten the pensions of 2,400 senior city workers without spelling out how much it would cost for buyouts now, how much it will add to pension costs in years to come, how much it will mean in higher salary costs to promote people into those positions left vacant by early retirements.

In fact, it's so full of holes that the union the City Hall political machine hates -- Robert Aquino's Engineers and Architects Assn. -- already has gone to court to block the deal.

And the person who plays a key role in managing the early retirement deal -- LACERS Pension Fund General Manager Sally Choi -- has told city workers that even she doesn't have a clue.

"Like you, we are still awaiting answers to questions...We do not know at this time what the final terms of the Retirement Incentive Program will be, when exactly it will take effect, and who it will impact," Choi wrote city workers on Wednesday. "However, I can tell you that as soon as we have any information, we will share it with you so that you can process your retirement and plan for your future."

Choi went on to outline seven "What We Know" points:

• The City Council approved the concept of an Early Retirement Incentive Program (ERIP) on Friday, June 26, 2009, but details of the program are not finalized yet
• The City Council also adopted a motion that states LACERS Members who retire after June 29, 2009 and before July 1, 2010 that are eligible for the ERIP shall receive all incentives and benefits under the retirement incentive program
• LACERS only knows some of the proposed details regarding eligibility requirements, but we do not yet know the full scope of the program or how it will be administered
• LACERS does not know at this time whether a retirement incentive program will ultimately be adopted by Council or the number of people, classifications, and bargaining units that will be allowed to retire under the program; and which, if any, Members will be affected by the motion.  For example, some classifications may be capped (limited number in class would be able to retire under a retirement incentive program).  Until the final provisions have been adopted, LACERS will not know the details of how the retirement incentive program will be applied
• The final approval process may take months as the retirement incentive program presumably will need to be approved by unions and LACERS members before it goes back to the City Council for final approval and adoption
• The 45-day opt-in period for the retirement incentive program will not start until after the program has been adopted by City Council by ordinance
• If Members are considering retirement before formal Council adoption and clarification of the retirement incentive program, LACERS will be asking them to sign an acknowledgement that they are retiring without knowing whether the retirement incentive program will apply to them and that they are assuming that risk.

I know it's asking a lot of you all but actually to read Choi's "What We Know" points. They should have been called "What We Don't Know" since she doesn't really know anything about the details of the deal.

In truth, nobody knows -- not the Council when it approved it, or the union bosses, or the bureaucrats or the workers who are supposed to vote on it. Certainly not the public who will pay for it.

The terms of this deal are so vague that Choi has warned city workers who decide to retire in the next two months of the approval process will have to sign a waiver acknowledging "they are retiring without knowing whether the retirement incentive program will apply to them and that they are assuming that risk."

This is no way to run a city.

We all have a right, a necessity, to know all the costs and terms of this deal before the Council acted on it and made it a done-deal before the details were actually defined.

This is only Day Two of the New World Order promised us by our newly-elected city offiicials. Let's blame the old regime that put the deal together even though the characters are almost entirely the same. Let's believe for a minute that they didn't know then what they know now.

The question then is: When are they going to come clean about it?

Put aside your skepticism, forgive the past and move forward -- that's my advice for the start of the next four years of city government.

But never forget what they've done to you and our LA and take their inauguration day.promises as gospel.  Hold them to their words.

The mayor's speech outlined his achievements -- as he measures them -- in jobs, environment, public transit, cimgreen energy, transportation, public safety -- and set them as his priorities for his second term.

Astonishingly, as commentator Shirley Bebitch Jeffe notes at the end of the video, he makes only an oblique reference to the city budget catastrophe he's overseen -- something he blamed on forces beyond his control. And he promised to hit residents hard with DWP rate increases to pay for his green energy at any cost program and to subsidize companies' utility costs to get them to locate here.



In her speech after being sworn in as City Controller, Wendy Greuel echoed the themes of her predecessor, Laura Chick, by pledging to be an independent watchdog on how the public's money is spent.

In a strong, straightforward speech, Greuel acknowledged the serious money problems facing the city now and in coming years and promised her first project will be to provide the public with a clear and detailed picture of city finances.

Those are big promises and you can be sure the public will be watching.

For her part, Chick is making a splash in Sacramento as Inspector General overseeing spending of billions of dollars in federal stimulus money. She's on the cover of a national magazine, Governing.

I'm quoted as saying, "She was something like a Joan of Arc standing in the way and calling attention to the greater excesses of the system. At City Hall they hate her guts. But out in the community, she's never been more popular."