For a moment there, he had me -- I thought the Antonio Villaraigosa I had hoped five years ago would save LA from misrule and mismanagement had awakened from his amnesia and was stepping forward to provide the city with desperately needed leadership at a time of crisis.
Where the City Council on Wednesday had shown itself to be gutless and indecisive, the mayor stood tall at the microphone and announced he was carrying out the drastic budget deficit measures recommended by City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana.
"Mayor Orders 1,000 Layoffs" screamed the headlines on TV, newspapers, websites and emails.
But on further examination, it appears in the fine print (budget-mayor-ltr-100204.pdf) that he is "eliminating" 1,000 jobs from the general fund payroll and moving the workers into other jobs in the DWP, Harbor, Airport or paid for with special funds.
They are phantom layoffs that achieve exactly what the City Council wanted to achieve 30 days from now, what the unions have demanded.
They are savings on paper that do nothing to solve the city's real financial problems caused by the spectacular $11 billion that taxpayers owe to the pension funds.
Once again, the mayor has raised our hopes and then dashed them.
This is exactly the kind sleight of hand that has become the hallmark of City Hall, a political stunt intended to beguile the uninformed and the indifferent and prop up the mayor's standing at a time he couldn't beat Zuma Dogg in a recall election.
For that moment of my delusion, I thought we'd see the mayor address the Council today at its final meeting in Van Nuys -- another abandoned commitment to reach out to the public -- and lay out a plan of action that would restore order to the city's finances and preserve public services.
Instead, we find the mayor is continuing down the road to oblivion for himself and for us.
It's clear he will carry out his plan to gut services, sell off assets and do the bidding of the unions without bringing all the constituencies of the city to the table to figure out a long-term solution that will protect the jobs of employees, balance the budget and provide the services needed for a healthy city.
Yet another missed opportunity, a third strike.
Watch how quickly the city's parking structures to the very companies that owe the city more than $100 million in back taxes, the companies that have poured thousands of dollars into city political campaigns even as they were nothing but scofflaws ripping off the public
Watch how quickly AEG takes over the Convention Center, the white elephant that has cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, to run it as part of their luxury hotel and entertainment complex at LA Live and Staples Center. Digital billboards will quickly be plastered all around the Convention Center to enrich AEG's billionaire owner while the public gets pennies on the dollar.
Watch how the golf courses, Ontario Airport, the zoo and so much else winds up in the hands of insiders and profiteers while the city borrows billions and mortgages our future.
There is no one among our elected officials who will stand in the way of this high-speed train to worsening poverty in a bankrupt city.
They have ignored the warnings of their financial advisers. They have left the documents showing how serious this crisis is unread beyond the cover sheets. They have ignored the will of the people.
And yet, we all hold out hope somehow that common sense will prevail, that something will turn the tide.
We meet and talk and strategize and offer alternatives to inattentive ears. We beg for respect and get nothing but lip service.
If only we the people could transfer our lives to another place as if nothing was wrong...If only we could throw all these nobody politicians into the trash heap of history...If only we could re-create our city into a series of smaller towns that could be managed for the benefit of all with the full participation of all...
Where the City Council on Wednesday had shown itself to be gutless and indecisive, the mayor stood tall at the microphone and announced he was carrying out the drastic budget deficit measures recommended by City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana.
"Mayor Orders 1,000 Layoffs" screamed the headlines on TV, newspapers, websites and emails.
But on further examination, it appears in the fine print (budget-mayor-ltr-100204.pdf) that he is "eliminating" 1,000 jobs from the general fund payroll and moving the workers into other jobs in the DWP, Harbor, Airport or paid for with special funds.
They are phantom layoffs that achieve exactly what the City Council wanted to achieve 30 days from now, what the unions have demanded.
They are savings on paper that do nothing to solve the city's real financial problems caused by the spectacular $11 billion that taxpayers owe to the pension funds.
Once again, the mayor has raised our hopes and then dashed them.
This is exactly the kind sleight of hand that has become the hallmark of City Hall, a political stunt intended to beguile the uninformed and the indifferent and prop up the mayor's standing at a time he couldn't beat Zuma Dogg in a recall election.
For that moment of my delusion, I thought we'd see the mayor address the Council today at its final meeting in Van Nuys -- another abandoned commitment to reach out to the public -- and lay out a plan of action that would restore order to the city's finances and preserve public services.
Instead, we find the mayor is continuing down the road to oblivion for himself and for us.
It's clear he will carry out his plan to gut services, sell off assets and do the bidding of the unions without bringing all the constituencies of the city to the table to figure out a long-term solution that will protect the jobs of employees, balance the budget and provide the services needed for a healthy city.
Yet another missed opportunity, a third strike.
Watch how quickly the city's parking structures to the very companies that owe the city more than $100 million in back taxes, the companies that have poured thousands of dollars into city political campaigns even as they were nothing but scofflaws ripping off the public
Watch how quickly AEG takes over the Convention Center, the white elephant that has cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, to run it as part of their luxury hotel and entertainment complex at LA Live and Staples Center. Digital billboards will quickly be plastered all around the Convention Center to enrich AEG's billionaire owner while the public gets pennies on the dollar.
Watch how the golf courses, Ontario Airport, the zoo and so much else winds up in the hands of insiders and profiteers while the city borrows billions and mortgages our future.
There is no one among our elected officials who will stand in the way of this high-speed train to worsening poverty in a bankrupt city.
They have ignored the warnings of their financial advisers. They have left the documents showing how serious this crisis is unread beyond the cover sheets. They have ignored the will of the people.
And yet, we all hold out hope somehow that common sense will prevail, that something will turn the tide.
We meet and talk and strategize and offer alternatives to inattentive ears. We beg for respect and get nothing but lip service.
If only we the people could transfer our lives to another place as if nothing was wrong...If only we could throw all these nobody politicians into the trash heap of history...If only we could re-create our city into a series of smaller towns that could be managed for the benefit of all with the full participation of all...
Ron Kaye
Get this Ron, a management analysis in the city gets a 20k a year raise if they transfer to DWP. Virtually all positions pay more in DWP which equates to the residents getting screwed even deeper but from a different revenue.
Everything you presume in your article is exactly the Mayors agenda knowing his political career is damaged beyond repair.
So residents of Los Angeles should prepare for an increase in DWP fees along with others to essentially cover the tax increase the public will never pay towards the general fund.
D`Arcy must be in heaven. More employees overnite, more dues, more money to finance the whores in City Hall. Poor ratepayer. Screwed again by this Mayor.
Ron, I see a nice amount of words in this post, but I don't see one sentence offering what you consider to be solutions? Are you only able to spot something bad and point at it, or do you also have some thoughts of your own and are just too lazy to present them to us?
This is exactly what Janice Hahn and Alarcon have been battering Santana about all week: ordering him to "find" jobs at Ports (which Janice feels she controls), also LAWA and DWP. Ordered him to sit down the heads of those depts. and demand they "Find" jobs. Even though Santana kept explaining that they had their own financial problems and had to lay off people. But then all of them leapt onto this scheme, LeBonge calling it "laying up" to these depts. instead of laying off. Added to refilling jobs lost by ERIP - meaning, experienced people will be replaced by those just taking their old jobs out of the blue to have any job - this is more in line with what we've come to expect.
So the city is facing bankruptcy, homeowners who may have lost their jobs or be forced to work into old age IF they can get jobs, are confronting higher property taxes from Rosendahl and the rest to pay for it, while some poor are hit with new trash fees. All to save 1000 jobs for workers who'd have retirement deals better than most of the rest of us?
Rosendahl is the one who got the citizenry together a year ago at a huge townhall meeting to demand from Chief Bratton that he put more cops in the westside, and he explained the city needed the 10,000 to have enough to cover highcrime areas and theirs. But Rosendahl later told the media that Bratton had "threatened" him with removing cops, because he flip-flopped soon after and supporting shrinking the force.
Still I'm tired of hearing Parks praised as 'the only grownup' by some bloggers and the SLAP folks. He's taking home a pension of almost $300,000 on top of his salary, which he's earned as head of the Budget Committee while all this went down. He was the worst police chief ever, destroyed the morale of LAPD inside and made it seem from the outside like a corrupt invading army, was responosible for the Consent Decree which cost many millions and continued to try to demean Chief Bratton, the man who turned LAPD into one of the most respected in the U. S. His wanting to cut LAPD all along isn't just fiscal responsibility but a slap in the face of Beck- Bratton's LAPD. Smith has always wanted to take the trash fee hikes promised for cops for the reserve fund, denying it was ever meant for cops. (Maybe it was to the extent that the trash fee hikes went into the general fund, but only if Smith, Parks, Zine, Rosendahl and company keep this promise.)
Wendy Gruel has been warning of impending doom, like Santana urging the city NOT to deplete the reserve fund for short-term benefit but hasn't found significant savings (partly because she's prevented from doing so by the city attorney reneging on his promise to support the controller's right to audit, instead dragging the case on in court). If there really are savings in efficiency to be found, to avert these layoffs, none of these self-styled fiscal hawks have "found" them.
With the council turning him into the "anti-union bad guy," who got booed at a union meeting this week, you can't be surprised the mayor decided not to order real layoffs. He's damned if you do (your crowd would find something to hate him for anyway in a day or two), damned if he doesn't. However, he should have risked taking his case to the public and media. Refilling jobs of experienced people lost in ERIP by those who don't have a clue will not improve city services. Shuffling people to DWP when the agency's already blamed for not putting its money into infrastructure adds fuel to the fire of taxpayer unrest, and that is bad for his political future, too.
9:43AM, what political future does Antonio have? Please enlighten us.
The Daily Breeze's Art Marroquin reports that the Port and LAWA will only be able to take at most 49 workers, in funded positions, nowhere close to the 360 promised by the mayor. The difference would have to come from DWP which is already heavily criticized for spending too much on employee programs from lactation classes to high pensions, instead of infrastructure like exploding manholes, power lines that go down in the wind (though to be fair, at my home in Topanga where we have Edison, the situation is worse and forget about customer service, they also don't seem to repair as fast), and of course the infamous bursting water pipes. Did Matt Szabo check this out of just cave to the grandstanding noise of wanna-be Lt. Gov. Janice Hahn?
(I never thought I'd say he was a better choice than ANYONE, even our mayor, but I'd pick Gavin Newsom for the job over her any day - the way she's been hammering Sanatana on this though he kept telling her there are not enough jobs is downright executive malfeasance. But with Maldo likely to be confirmed maybe they both need to look for another job.)
Forcing DWP to "create" these jobs will not go unnoticed if it comes to pass. But that didn't stop these people from pushing the unpopular Measure B, even though it drove people to the polls to also defeat democrat Jack Weiss as part of their 'city hall' and even though it made David Nahai hugely unpopular - though they all, including Jan Perry, gangbanged him to make it look like it was all HIS idea, not theirs when it lost. They've now got 80-year old iconoclast Freeman taking the heat for them but if it turns out they're adding 300 new jobs to DWP there will be hell to pay.
however, the mayor's insisting to the media that the other 700 jobs are really going to be lost. What evidence besides Walter Moore's biased views is there, that they will be taking the jobs lost to ERIP?
And yet, we all hold out hope somehow that common sense will prevail, that something will turn the tide.
Who is this WE???? The current leaders are shisters, flim-flam men. You should have realized this years ago. I certainly did. But, what's the point in saying so when the "people up front", the NCs, the Newspapers, the "activists" are all working against the TRUTH. They themselves buy into the sham (or else are profitting handsomely from it).
It's always possible that a REAL Leader will emerge from this mess. But, it won't come from the current pack of thieves.
And, why should Villaraigosa care what happens to the City? He's got his next job waiting in the wings from one of the Billionaire Boys.
Hey, didn't someone point this out in the comments to your prior story? ; )
What the mayor is doing is creating a diversion away from the real problem. I was at the "Dog & Pony" show at the City Council meeting on 1-2-2010. I was amazed that Alarcon "found" about 400 million dollars from the Parking Contractors and disclosed this just before the agenda item regarding union concessions. He implicated that if the City could collect from these debtors, they wouldn't need to layoff employees.
I'd like to know how these contractors were allowed to amass this much money, for so long, in debt to the City without the City Attorney putting a lien on their business, when a contractor reached $100,000 in debt to the city. If it's true that these contractors contributed thousands of dollars to the mayor's and councilman's campaign, then they should be recalled, or better yet jailed.
The argument that "something" has to be done to keep the City from going under, has some merit. But, forcing others to pay for your mistakes is bordering on criminal negligence. It may not be the best time for the blame game, but the "solution" should not reward incompetence.
Ron, the LA Times got it wrong. I've spent the whole day researching this whole thing, and the ERIP-vacated positions are not going to be back-filled. I listened to the Mayor's press conference and I read the memo and asked questions -- nowhere in either does he say that he's going to move the other 700 or so positions into ERIP-vacated positions.
What's happening is that the people targeted for layoff are being given the opportunity to vie for about 360 positions that are not paid for out of the General Fund. Those who qualify and get job offers will be transferred. The rest will be allowed to take a regular service retirement (if they qualify) and those who do not qualify will be laid off (which in some cases means they will bump employees in positions they previously held, who have less seniority than those initially laid off).
And today (Friday 2/5/10) Teflon Tony's latest pronouncement regarding the "immediate layff of 1000 employees" was again shown to be only a photo-op scenario. According to the press-release, employees (primarily EAA members) would have until 5:00 pm today to submit their request for transfer to Proprietary Departments (DWP, Harbor, Airport) and be prepared to show up for work in their new organizations on 12 Feb - allegedly all City Department Heads were notified of Teflon Tony's plan. Well, gues what folks, the head of, for example, ITA, today allegedly had no information at all as to what openings existed at DWP, Harbor, and Airport, and therefore could not initiate any process of collecting names of volunteers for these "open" positions, therefore nothing happened at ITA today. BTW, ITA had a "target lay-off count" of 50 - so these 50 (most of whom are EAA-affiliated) were unable to "volunteer" - of course no one at ITA has yet been formally informed that their names are on the 50-layoff list to start with!!!
Bottom line, Teflon Tony was blowing smoke again - just another photo-op - and there are no reporters from any local newspapers who will be working this weekend (and Tony and Lu will be out of town anyway) so maybe by Wednesday there might appear something on page 18 about how this super plan of Tony's just didn't seem to work out - or more likely, it won't even be mentioned,,,,,, do you want to take side bets on that outcome?.
One of these days, some LA City employee is going to go postal, after having been f**$%@?d over so many times and lied to so many times.
LIES, LIES, AND MORE DAMN LIES.........
The fact that so many City workers don't know if they've been targeted for layoff is an indication that the mayor thinks that the transfer problem will fix itself if he initiates a stampede. I already see numerous violations of the Civil Service Rules, Administrative Code and City Charter, and numerous Civil Service Appeals are sure to bog down the process. There are already ranked employees who are on the Departments' eligible lists for most of these "open" positions, and have seniority; will they be by-passed? Does the mayor have the authority to alter the Civil Service Rules? Does his alleged authority as "Chief Executive Officer" permit him to alter the Administrative Code, on his own? The layoff process has not been used for many, many years and the people who know its process have long since retired. The train-wreck is about to happen. This I gotta see.
I'm appalled that there are entire departments where employees didn't know, as of Friday evening, if they were on the layoff list. Our department met with out employees the day before the list was to be made public (that is, a week ago last Thursday). This was because we were initially told that the list would show the number of layoffs in each classification for each department. Even though the CAO later changed their minds, we met with our employees anyway. We thought it was the respectful thing to do, so they could have a chance to look for an opportunity elsewhere.
The information about the vacant Special-Funded positions came out late Friday, and I believe it was not initially emailed to the department heads, but rather to the HR staff in the departments.
The City Charter gives the mayor the authority to order an employee transferred from one department to another for a limited time. He cited this authority in his press conference and in the memo. I believe the idea is to move these employees ASAP and then they'll do a regular transfer at some point. That's just a guess.
Banging body girl LiLo (Lindsay Lohan) will keep out of gaol till the court date. Famous people justice strikes once more!!!