The RonKayeLA/OurLA news desk got a call the other day from a reporter asking questions about our mayor’s travels, obviously hoping to put together a piece accusing Antonio of globe trotting while the city sinks deeper into economic depression.
These hit pieces are clichés: They don’t take much work and they’re almost impossible to disprove.
But as far as this dog is concerned, Antonio could travel to the moon first-class – and bring girlfriend Lu Parker and her dog Monkey – if it meant more jobs for Los Angeles.
If you haven’t noticed, it’s gruesome out there. The jobless rate in LA is now at 13.4 percent. Grrrrrrrr!
Don’t think it’s that bad? I heard of somebody who put an ad on Craigslist last week for a barely paid intern and got applications from as far away as Georgia – and that was from a lawyer.
And for all the talk about how Bill Bratton eliminated crime, three guys robbed the Tiffany jewelery store at 6:30 last night – in the Westfield Century City shopping mall! (Three hours free parking but I’m sure they didn’t spend that long there.) Who knows about the culprits’ job status, but if we don’t do something soon, LA could end up being more dangerous than downtown Johannesburg. (Guess we’d have to lure Bratton back.)
That’s why I began growling and barking this morning when I read that Antonio cancelled a trip to Washington to deal with unemployment because it’s raining.
OK, I know it’s raining pretty hard (I spend a lot of time in the doghouse in the backyard), but it’s not like the mayor’s going to jump into a swollen storm drain and save a puppy – unless it’s Monkey — even if he is in better shape because of meatless Mondays and yoga.
He’s staying because he doesn’t want to miss the opportunity for press conferences wearing one of those cool firefighter turnout coats he looks ridiculous in.
Antonio was going to Washington to, among other things, lobby for what’s called the 30/10 Initiative, which, simply put, means we’d do the three decades of transit work approved by you folks in Measure R in just one decade.
The proponents of this plan say it would create 127,800 transit construction jobs in Los Angeles County alone and at least 2,800 permanent operations and maintenance jobs.
That’s a lot of kibble on a lot of tables. Let’s get the guy on a plane – now!
Meanwhile, the mayor did find time though to appear on an episode of “All My Children,” which just moved production to LA. That creates some jobs and our newly svelte mayor (meatless Mondays and yoga) loves the attention.
Maybe that’s why he and the Council are today ordering everyone in city government to do cartwheels for Hollywood. We need more production jobs in LA and the mayor will probably get an Actor’s Equity card for being so helpful.
Woof!
I’m hating the narcissism of this mayor more and more.
Hi Ron
It’s no secret that the U.S. has been losing its factory and production sector, to the point that most of what is sold locally is manufactured in Asia. The one economic point about the film and television industry that is sometimes lost in the debate is that it is an export industry. Film and television revenues from Europe and Asia come back to the U.S. firms in part. The idea of creating a jobs program wrapped around local highway and subway construction has its merits as an economic stimulus package, but it doesn’t really address the underlying slow death of the manufacturing export sector.
Los Angeles County was actually the most productive agricultural county in the United States as late as the 1950s, this presumably due to the high value of fruits and berries, as compared to the relatively low price of wheat and corn. With the urbanization process, Los Angeles has lost its agricultural status. Los Angeles was also a center of manufacturing, albeit on a much lower level than Detroit and the rest of the industrial midwest. There were auto plants, furniture, clothing, chemicals, petroleum products, etc. We are mostly now a bedroom community, and the government (generally for good reasons) has been hostile to manufacturing due to its noise, air pollution, water pollution, and waste stream. (The worst example is probably the load of DDT and DDT byproducts that fill a substantial area of the sea floor locally, the product of the long-defunct chemical plant that poured its waste stream into the creek that fed the harbor.
We could potentially become a center for “green” manufacturing, by which I mean the production of biodiesel, solar electric systems, the distribution apparatus necessary to rewire whole cities, etc. The problem with this is that in order for it to occur, it requires some successful businesses that act as the “seed crystal” for the industry to coalesce around, it requires the land area or recoverable industrial area for the industry to grow, and it requires a government that is at least neutral, if not necessarily actively in favor. The current government climate in Los Angeles is actively hostile to the creation and opening of new businesses, if our experience with local people who are trying to start restaurants is any indication.
We should remember that the “Silicon Valley” area was once mostly open space with a few companies like Hewlett-Packard, and it was the development in microprocesser technology and the open architecture of the original IBM PC that stimulated its growth.
Getting sick and tired of hearing again and again , crime is down in LA. Well Ron, so it is in every major city in America, starting with NY.
The Slimes are not going to report a comparative analysis. So Ron,why don`t you give Bruno some easy homework!
Is crime really down? Perhaps it has just morphed into something less recognizable. Isn’t it criminal for the tax and rate payers to pay additional monies into the city’s pension fund that bottomed out? Why should we pay for their follies? When the private sector employees got screwed with their retirement investments, did they get reimbursed for monies lost (‘not talking about the banks-talking about all the employees that lost their retirement)?
I will admit I was one of those who believed crime was down until I started talking to more and more patrol officers who are pissed Beck and his croonies are saying crime is down to make the Mayor look good. CRIME IS NOT DOWN. Ask anyone who lives in the Eastside. In Dec. there were 5 homicides and this year already 3. Watts had 5 homicides in one week. Beck doesn’t want people to know the truth and its pissing off the troops.
WTF????? I got this email and thought it was a joke. Cardenas is asking for a study to find out how much it would cost to have rooms in city buildings for women to breastfeed. I’m not kidding. 12-0 vote today and Cardenas was the one who proposed it.
You were right Ron about the Mayor wanting to be the front man at news conferences about the rain. He droned on and on on Channel 4 (NBC) and introduced Chief Beck as Chief of the Fire Department & had to be corrected by Beck. I’d have more respect for the Mayor, if like the Governor of whatever state, who flew to Argentina for love, he would admit, he’d rather be with Lu and monkey and resign and let someone more capable handle state of affairs.
The problem is not with admitting that you are way over head in your job, but rather in the pretense that you are in control. It hurts everyone.
well, you people re-elected the midget mayor. You’d not support Walter Moore because ??? He wasn’t good enough? But Villar is?
So all of you (and this includes you, Ron), stop whining. You got what you deserved.
The “B” word is swirling in City Hall. Great legacy for the Yogi!
Hey, may be meditation will solve the budget shortfall. I`m waiting for the Mayor`s urgent call.
Isn`t a shame, that this great Latino hope of four years ago, has been denigrated to a laughingstock around town, a cartoon caricature, running around as a Hollywood playboy, rather as the leader of this great city.
Antonio and his likes, such as Fabian, have ruined it for many good, aspiring Latinos. Padilla, stay put. There will not be a Latino Mayor for many, many years to come.
Will someone list the elections for this year or even 2011. Which council members are up for re election? Our only hope left in Los Angeles is for the SLAP guys to get something going and NOW. Too many meetings are wasted bitching and leaving with no solutions. Too many people love to complain but when its time to go into action they sit idly by the sidelines. How many of these people complaining about the Mayor actually have been to council to speak out?
Latin hope? If the hope was to bring the Mexican mafia here, Villar succeeded.
They are now entrenched here disguised as political leaders, all dressed in ties with slicked down hair and even slicker tricks to rob us blind without using a gun.
I am sure that most of you who follow city finances are aware that the city departments with funds have had to LOAN money to via the CAO to the Controller’s office to make payroll last month? Of course, the departments receive a small amount of interest. The real question is what will happen when April rolls around and the departments no longer have their own funds to loan ?????