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)
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)
Ron Kaye
If MJ were "white," you can bet his $500 milion estate would be paying.
Sad to say 3:00 is right. She's letting the likes of Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Joe Jackson the penny-pinching nightmare of a Showbiz dad call the shots. According to Fox 11 treating LAPD like his personal slaves, especially Joe. And then there's Perry's connection to the Nation of Islam clowns with their bow ties and racism. (How the Jewish Journal calls her the only remaining Jew on the Council now besides newcomer Koretz is a mystery.)
And because she's a black woman, she's getting much less heat for her incompetence in not asking the details of WHO would pay (like she did with the Lakers, owned by a white guy) in ADVANCE of issuing the permits for the memorial at Staples/ LA live/ all over downtown AND the funeral itself at Forest Lawn.
However the black lady morning reporter for Ch. 7 whose name I forget did interview Perry and ask about details of the burial and when Perry replied, "I have no information about that," looked amazed. Since then reporters have followed up getting details directly from the LAPD Asst. Chiefs in charge of the various sites and actually feeding info to Perry's office as it comes in, but of course the Officers are just doing their jobs and say of course they have no idea what it will all cost or do to LAPD's budget. Perry's one of those voting to cut police hiring by the way for budget reasons, but never questioned this cost in advance, just says "it would be nice if" the Jackson family, promoters and others who profit would chip in. Making beggars and fools out of the city. Zine goes around second-guessing her on tv but as second pro-tem after her he hasn't done anything useful as usual either, just likes to backstab and badmouth others he sees as competition. (Setting himself up for a run for Mayor or Police Chief when Bratton leaves, lord help us.)
Neverland in San Luis Obispo county should have been the site for this memorial, especially since the fans are already there and they have so much more room out in the country, but they sensibly denied the permits and foisted it on us. We've spent millions guarding Bel Air and Encino locations, Hollywood Blvd. etc. already.
The Jackson family and promoters will take this memorial "show" on the road and rake in a bundle -- we should get a percentage to recoup some of what they're costing us. This is a "production" more than a mere funeral.
The main event is being held inside the Staples Center and all the crowd control is outside. Unless there is a usable law already in place that creates financial responsibility for anyone, or a contractual term addressing the matter, it looks like there's an uphill battle ahead for the city to get some money for police and related expenses.
With all the deputy city attorneys on the payroll, there's got to be someone there to come up with a viable manner to recover some of the costs. The Delgadillo legacy staff should be on this one and try to earn their keep, as unworthy as they are. Is there a way to require some payout for this? If not, then why not?
Maybe the City Council could now pass ordinances to anticipate events that will create major drains on police resources like this and require some indemnification before events can be held. Some first amendment issues will complicate some things, but controlling the venue in the first place would be a start. If they can't pay for the directly-caused expenses, then the event can't go on. Some way to impose a collateral expenses responsibility on the organizers and venue landlords might help to avoid future problems.
City council is always saying how the freebies they give to private enterprises give back money to the city in all the business generated. At least the local hotels seem to be doing well. Taco trucks, paleta men and other licensed and unlicensed entrepenuers should do well on Tuesday. The sales taxes on those folks would be a help, too. Maybe there is something to be salvaged from this event that no one saw coming.
Another expensive learning experience for L.A. City Council.
When the full council is back next week, we need to take a page from the publixc employee handbook and show up to "testify" in front of city council. Of course, I don't know how we are going to paid for our appearance.
Idea for raising money: if you wear a tee shirt in front of city council or city hall supporting a particular POV, you must buy it from the approved LA cirty vendor.
The city needs the money....after all, Elizabeth Taylor may die.
Rosendahl is my Councilmember. He is just as much of a moron for not standing up and saying anything
We had a community meeting w/about thirty community members (voters) and everybody is on the same page.
There is another reason why we are not hearing from Rosendahl and it has nothing to do with his views on this issue.
The simple question is did Jan Perry consult the Mayor's office before making her public statement that the City will pick up the tab?
Anon 1236 -
Your're not being fair...please, what is the "other" reason that prevents Mr. Rosendahl from commenting on this situation/event?
Keep the Public informed.
Thank you.
Let's stop this pettiness. Michael Jackson did nothing to BK the City.
The similarity between Michael Jackson and the City of LA is that both have parasites and leaches sucking the life out of them.
In one day CRA gives millions more money to a single developer [CIM] than 5 Michael Jackson Memorials would consume.
LA's absent mayor, vacationing police chief and raft of council members have no conception of honorable civic service. None at all.
A near insolvent city ought not to be giving a public bash for any one. Money for LAPD overtime and crowd control ought to go to policing neighborhoods, or fixing out of order public pools, not a private memorial service.
But we ought not to be paying millions for dogfood eating firefighters, or troublemakers at MayDay parades either. Nor should we be paying already underworked public employees to retire at age 55.
LA's taxpayers are better than Jan Perry and our absent photo-op mayor. But the number that find it painless to install people like Perry is growing as the good ones are going.
Until the people that install the Perrys have to pay the taxes as well as enjoying the benefits, the Fleecing of the Taxpayers and the Decline of Los Angeles will continue.
One day we'll be just like Detroit. The same totally corrupt city managers, but out of money. And just like Detroit, people will wonder "what taxes can we raise, what industrious people to tax have we overlooked?" The city employees will be retired like GM's living on fat pensions. All will wonder why people don't come here anymore. Sad. It really deserves to be better than that.
The issue here is how can an acting Mayor like Perry be so gullible to simply do what a muli million dollar corporation asked from the city and that was for police to this event without any thought to the cost? The problem is Perry and all city council members allowed AEG and the Jackson family to abuse LAPD, CHP, LA Fire they even had the fwys shut down for this. The CHP are escorting all of them to Beverly Hills for a private lunch. Do the Jackson's think they are entitled to use up valuable resources in this manner and are the CHP going to wait until they finish lunch to escort them to whereever? The nerve and arrogance is appalling. They need to clean out all these fans from the Encino home, Hollywood and the mortuary and not spend one more dime of our resources on this circus
So Rich Abrams says that the CRA (Chris Essel) gave one developer millions of dollars. Tamar Galatzan is married to the former chair or president of VICA and is extremely pro-development over pro-community on every issue.
Krekorian seems to be the only one who has a chance.
Дискутировать можно бесконечно, поэтому просто поблагодарю автора. Спасибо!
aeg and the jackson clan need to hand over the 6 million... period. this non sense needs to stop. this is ridiculous that a memorial from a pedophile is allowed to steal this amount of our taxes while our state is in such financial state. utterly ridiculous. jesse jackson and al sharpton need to shut the hell up and take that race hustling the hell out of america.
aeg and the jackson clan need to hand over the 6 million... period. this non sense needs to stop. this is ridiculous that a memorial from a pedophile is allowed to steal this amount of our taxes while our state is in such financial state. utterly ridiculous. jesse jackson and al sharpton need to shut the hell up and take that race hustling the hell out of america.
Some interesting points, but I'm not sure this really looks at the history of the issue. How has this come about? And where do we go from here? Look forward to you addressing this in future posts.
Michael Jackson is just wonderful. The whole of the earth misses you a lot! No-one could possibly debate that Michael hasn't inspired pop music and pop culture around the world. He was obviously a music genuis and that he was the inspiration for a variety of artists that were to come after him. I know Michael continues to making music and videos in heaven.
Hollywood starlet Lohan could stay out of gaol till the troubled celebrity's court day. Celeb justice strikes again!!!
Wonderful to read!
You should blog about a suggestion of websites for people like me. I discovered your blog last week when I was surfing the internet, unfortuneatly I am not really into the blog scene. I don't think it's because I do not enjoy blogs, but just due to the fact that I'm slightly ignorant to them.
Lindsay Lohan really needs some massive help.