What you are seeing in the LA bankruptcy melodrama is a calculated and deliberate effort of the Mayor and his colleagues on the City Council to silence the voice of the people.
It is a hopeless task.
The silent majority is awakening and beginning to realize that what is at stake in this crisis of confidence is their jobs and property, their businesses, their hopes for a better tomorrow for their families, the future of the city they call home.
Neighborhood Councils whetted the appetite of thousands of people from all walks of life for a say in their government, for policies that improve their lives and communities, for a measure of power.
It was supposed to take 25 years before NCs were able to flex their muscles and provide the margin that defeated the solar energy fraud Measure B and elected Carmen Trutanich and Paul Krekorian to office.
When the threat of secession by San Pedro, Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley loomed leaders in the civic culture of the city proposed a system of boroughs the governed large chunks of the city and send their best to the full City Council.
Unions and other special interests watered that down to elected Neighborhood Councils with first authority over land use issues and then drowned it with powerless Councils self-selected by anyone who chose to call themselves a stakeholder.
And still the good and decent people who for so long had worked for reform accepted that as a place to stand to begin to move City Hall.
Over the next 10 years, the elected officials did everything in their
power to keep the NCs as weak as possible, blocking initiatives from the
community and the leadership of the Department of Neighborhood
Empowerment to make the system stronger and more effective.
And yet hundreds of extraordinary people – true heroes of the struggle
to save LA – worked tirelessly to learn how city government operated and
to affect its directions constructively.
As long as they knew their place, city leaders were content to treat
them patronizingly as if they were nothing but do-gooders who had to
desire beyond getting an abandoned car removed or speed bumps to slow
traffic on residential side streets.
Freedom and power are infectious things and natural born leaders emerged
like Len Shaffer who put together a coalition of remarkable people to
hear from insiders and experts what the issues were. They learned from
that and began to push for changes.
People like Dr. Soledad Garcia stepped forward and brought her knowledge
and expertise to bear on the heart of this Chinatown story, the
Department of Water and Power.
She organized smart people into a group and spent endless hours with the
man who invented the machinery of City Hall that still operates today.
Over the years, I have called Ron Deaton every name in the books, names
like Master of Machiavellian Manipulation, and yet I always respected his brilliance and integrity and know he never would have let what’s happened to
the city occur.
Deaton, as head of the DWP, cut a deal with Soledad and her team to
bring their NC committee inside the utility as partners, limited
partners to be sure.
It was a breakthrough that established that ordinary citizens weren’t
NIMBYs saying no to everything but people who could understand the
currents and cross-currents and help navigate the troubled waters of
public policy.
Nothing ever came of it. The deal was betrayed when Deaton retired.
But the seeds of empowerment were planted. Today, NCs, homeowner and
resident groups and others active in community life form hundreds of
cells of energy creating a new LA.
They have come together to create something greater than themselves,
something most of them don’t yet fully realize has happened. They are a
force that counter-balances the special interests that run City Hall, a
force to be reckoned with, a force to be feared.
So the response of the Mayor and Council is to crush them.
To take away the small amount of money doled out to them. To take away
the small staff that supports them. To humiliate in public the man
designated to lead them, DONE General Manager Bong-Hwan Kim.
That’s exactly what Greig Smith did last week when he suggested on
camera during a Council crisis meeting on the budget that BHK should be
fired for failing to carry out the incomprehensible directives of the
Mayor and Council, the same kind of directives that have every capable
department head at City Hall whispering to anyone who will listen that
they are dealing with incompetents who are destroying their ability to
provide adequate public services.
Ignore the Reform City Charter and kill Done. Take away their funding.
Throw their elections into chaos. Get rid of all those inside City Hall
who actually believe in community empowerment. Stop them before they get
so strong that the throw out the seven Council members up for
re-election in a year and thwart the plan to shutter parks and
libraries, sell off future revenue streams, borrow heavily against the
future, double power rates to pay inflated salaries and buy renewable
energy at any price to meet artificial goals.
It doesn’t matter what the city’s leaders do. They are headed down the
wrong road and every step they take only makes matters worse and awakens
more people.
The genie is out of the bottle.
It isn’t just the gadflies, crazies and obsessives anymore. They can no
longer ignore the voice of the people.
There are four million voices in this naked city and every one of them
wants to be heard or will demand to be heard soon enough.
Old-fashioned ideas like freedom for all and equality under the law are
like viral infections once activated.
There is only one possible ending to this LA story. Sooner or later, we
will all have to sit down together and have honest conversations about
how we get out of this hole we have created for ourselves.
The only question is how much damage will be done before that happens.
a general strike and collective action by this city of stolen water with a general uprising of all sorts of grassroots activists is long overdue
my comment about having a general strike was censored
That sounds like a very long list of complaint and criticism but without any alternative solutions.
No one wants to the city the spending that they consider most important. It is the very essence of NIMBYism. I would argue that the money that the neighborhood councils gets for feel good neighborhood improvement does more harm to them than good. All they do is fight over what to do with it – ultimately the majority can’t even figure out truly beneficial or effective uses for it (hence so much of it going unspent).
Now that the city is taking the money away, they are freaking out that all their power and their voice is being taken away. If they are really such an effective grass roots voice of the people them why do they need that money anyway.
The only thing contribution they are offering during this crisis is “do whatever you want just don’t cut my neighborhood council funds.”
So Ron Kaye – what helpful solutions do you have? You gave a long list of things that should not be done including not cutting spending AND not borrowing us into further debt. So….where’s the money going to come from? Something’s gotta give.
The only thing that will balance this budget is permanent City worker wage cuts and permanent reductions in pension benefits/increases in worker contribution requirements.
We need more of an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.
The police, fire, and other public employee unions spend all day figuring out how to raid the public treasury for the “benefit” of their members. This long-festering raid of the treasury has bankrupted the City in lean times.
The employees need to give back some of the great pay increases and pension benefits that no one else can get in the private sector. Without such concessions, layoffs will decimate the City’s services to the public and the blame will land squarely on the public employee unions.
Under this scenario, the people will more likely rise up to solve the problem themselves and the unions will like that solution even less.
The public can’t even rise to vote. What problems are they going to solve other than deprive employees of their wages and benefits.
How about eliminating all the City-assigned home-garaged vehicles given to the Mayor and Council, General Managers and thHeir staffmembers? All those folks should be driving their own vehicles and paying for their own vehicle maintenance and gas like the rest of us city employees….that alone should place a big dent in the budget
Villaraigosa has increased annual spending by 32% since taking office.
Revenues are down just 2.6% from last year.
There are PLENTY of items City Hall could cut, and the only people who would miss it would be special interests on the taxpayer funded gravy train. Examples:
– $680 million per year in “welfare for the rich” through the CRA;
– $68 million or so for sketchy “anti gang” programs run by “ex” gang members who keep getting arrested for new crimes;
– $1 per year “leases” of City property to “non-profits,” while the City pays market rents to private lessors to lease property for City employees;
– subsidies for various dances and plays.
There is plenty of fat in the $7 billion budget. The City survived on a $5.3 billion budget when Villaraigosa took office. It can survive on $6.8 billion budget now.
Walter Moore
http://WalterMooreSays.com
WAY TO GO WALTER. YOU ARE RIGHT ON THE MONEY. How the hell can they have CRA with millions of dollars and continue developement? BINGO on those shady Anti Gang programs that we all know are BS. In fact some of them aren’t even in the city. MIllions given to gang bangers who get arrested abusing our tax dollars. Get rid of council staffers who don’t do anything just like their bosses. Get rid of that $1 million caligrapher a big waste of money. Get rid of Lisa Sarno and the million trees, she’s paid a fortune and the tree guys have been laid off. Get rid of Paul Hernandez, Steve Olivas, Jimmy Blackman all who do NOTHING and make a fortune as well. Where is the budget for CITY HALL and why isn’t WENDY collecting the millions in outstanding debt? Something smells fishy
The CRA has been asked by the Mayor’s office to sell the Cinerama Dome Parking Garage to the City of LA to that the Mayor can in turn put it out to bid with Hollywood and Highland, Westwood, and other City parking structures. How much higher will the parking fees go? The sky’s the limit thanks to Antonio is the criminals he eats and drinks with.
And if you watched the CRA meeting on Channel 35 you know that when the CRA Commissioners were asked in public to authorize the CRA staff to “negotiate” a price for the Cinerama Dome Garage with the City, NO ONE WOULD MAKE THE MOTION! The Mayor has no confidence from his own CRA appointees!
Most of the Commissions appointed by this Mayor are fraudulent. If they had any integrity they would all resign en masse.
Hey, 3:18 p.m.:
Thanks for the info. That is VERY interesting.
Do any of you know how much revenue the City’s parking meters and structures throw off each year?
You can find out at my website. It will blow you away. Read the essay, “Villaraigosa Does NOT Want To Shrink City Government.”
Walter Moore
http://WalterMooreSays.com
Thanks 3:18…I stumbled upon the item myself (http://www.crala.net/internet-site/Meetings/Board_Agenda_2010/upload/Feb_18_2010_Item_13.pdf) when I was trying to find an notification or agenda for an apparent CRAllywood meeting that evening at their poster child Metro Housing at Messtern. I shudder to think what kind of blighting project they plan on creeping over towards Edgemont, but it may take more digging, if they’re not posting on their website.
Ironically, my bass player friend mentioned the Dome lot as a parking option for last Saturday’s classic rock sing along at M Bar near El Floridita, but I managed to find a street spot south of Lexington to save the contribution to the General Fund…(Kudos Walter for your parking lot revenue info)
It’s good to hear that they are not so bald-faced so as to assent to this scheme on camera!
I agree if it was not for Foxy Bingo I would get bored and having nothing to do in the evening.
I would like to thank you for this post I find Foxy the cutest Bingo character yay for Foxey Bingo
I agree if it was not for Foxy Bingo I would get bored and having nothing to do in the evening.