In a devastating six-page letter Thursday afternoon, City Attorney Carmen Trutanich accuses Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa of “a remarkable lack of leadership and imagination,that puts “public safety and the protection of taxpayer dollars at substantial risk.”
Responding to the mayor’s budget proposal that cuts his spending 18 percent on top of a similar cut this year, Trutanich suggests the mayor has “lost faith” in the city’s residents and public employees and is engaging in political cynicism.
“Your proposals will only exacerbate the budget crisis looming in the future and appear to be motivated by some agenda other than the continued success of all of the public safety offices in this City, including the City Attorney’s Office.
“It is also obvious that your proposals cynically protect political positions at the expense of public safety and essential services. For example, I note with great dismay that the proposed Budget recommends only a 2.6% reduction for the Mayor’s Office. I also understand that, despite a so-called ‘hard hiring freeze’ for other City employees, your office continues to hire political staff, which is not tasked to perform public safety functions.”
(READ THE WHOLE LETTER AT OURLA.ORG)
Villaraigosa’s budget has two very interesting items, each of which is about $17 million:
1. $17 million in cuts from the City Attorney’s office; and
2. $17 million in funding for “anti gang” programs in the Mayor’s office.
How about we ditch the “anti gang” programs and keep the law enforcement personnel?
I’d rather see my tax dollars go to lawyers who enforce the law, instead of “ex” gang members who seem to keep breaking it.
Details:
http://web.mac.com/waltermoore/WalterMooreSays.com/Blog/Entries/2010/4/21_I_Will_Be_Cutting_My_Office_Budget.html
Does the math add up? Eighteen percent this year; 18 percent next fiscal year. Isn’t that a 36 percent cut. No other city department has been asked to give up so much, least of all the mayor’s office.
Walter is absolutely right about the ineffective corrupt anti-gang program that does nothing but support Tonion’s former gang member buddies and their moms.
Villaraigosa wants to tie Trutanich’s hands and feet behind him so he will fail.
This will help Villaraigosa’s puppet-masters put someone more to their liking in the office. Someone more Weiss-y. (The bad Weiss, not the good Weiss.)
The Mayor is a complete failure at everything he touches. His spitefully vindictive budget will come back and bite him when the Council rejects his stupidity. But don’t cry for Antonio the Failed One, this is all part of his master plan – in 2013 when he will have to find some other political job to support his lavish lifestyle (like maybe US Ambassador to Mexico), he’ll be dragging out the sound bites and saying “Look, I was the tough guy. I wanted to make budget cuts and they wouldn’t let me.” The whole thing is a shell game, just like with the DWP rate hike. Wake up Los Angeles, this failure of a mayor is gaming us.
This is shaping up to be another Villaraigosa manufactured blow up which will further damage the City’s already tenuous reputation, especially in the financial markets.
As for the budget, the pension costs are dramatically understated.
We want Wendy Gruel, Controller, to audit the Mayor’s Gang program ASAP.
This guy comes off like a pompous jerk.
- We’re more important than (insert Dept)
- We work hard
- Why are you picking on us
- Booga Booga – The Criminals will get you!!
How old is this guy? Two? He seems to play fast and loose with the reduction numbers in his department compared to other General Funded departments and is taking a scatter shot approach in his criticism. First shot is legitimately aimed at Mayor and his non-shared non-sacrifice staffing. He then moves on to LAPD and LAFD and finally to unspecified departments who “can’t manage their budgets” (might they say the same about him?).
Maybe he’s positioning himself for Mayor down the road but he is seriously burning bridges with this 7-page temper tantrum. Whining and disparaging all other City Departments except for his perfectly managed, hard working group of angels is counterproductive and will be ultimately ineffective in solving the budget problem.
You must work for the Mayor. As an insider, I’ll be happy to disclose names and those non-performing departments and managers who should be indicted for malfeasance in front of a Grand Jury.
To Anonymous @ 7:24 p.m.
Criticism of Trutanich is hardly an endorsement of Villaraigosa. Unfortunately, there appears to be room for more than one grandstanding jerk at City Hall.
Are you an insider in one of the so-called non-performing departments or just throwing grenades from outside like cryin’ Carmen? No one is stopping you from coming forward with your indictable info about the malfeasance in all departments (except for the gloriously run City Attorney’s office, of course).
As an insider, I’ll be happy to disclose names and those non-performing departments and managers who should be indicted for malfeasance in front of a Grand Jury.
If you’d really be happy to disclose names, get your ass to the City Attorney’s office and do it then.
And I agree with 6:01. You can take any city department and frame it as an essential service. That’s called spin. You can take the DoT, talk about how they make our roads safer, cite the number of cars that use LA’s freeways every day, and frame it as a public safety agency.
3 of the last 4 posts are so clearly people who think the status quo is just dandy. In the words of George Jefferson: ” Your time is up.”
And the last post is by some guy who needs Ron and Walter to tell him who to support because he’s clinically retarded.
It might be a big surprise to people who can only think in binary, but it is possible for both the status quo and Trutanich to suck at the same time (which they do)
Jack Humphreville/ 5:32: I agree that this is another blowup which will damage the reputation of this city, but it’s NUTS and shows the wacky bias of you people to claim it’s “another Villaraigosa manufactured” crisis: this is Trutanich’s letter on top of Jane Usher’s hostile email, attacking the mayor of the city, his “client” to boot (as IF) and calling him incompetent in so many words. Something the mayor and his associates have never called Trutanich, they’ve been PROFESSIONAL in their relationships. Unlike Tritanich and Usher. Who are NOT – if your analyis is correct, that this publicized blow-up is further damaging the city’s reputation – thinking of the city at all, but their own reputations and ambitions.
They’ve also never proved they’re actually “saving” money as they claim – and since he’s reneged on his promise to the Controller(s) to let Greuel audit his office ANY WAY she wants (not just Rocky’s workers’ comp books, to find dirt on him as boss Cooley’s opponent in the AG race) he’s preventing independent oversight.
We know Trutanich refuses any cut in pay because “I made more in private practice,” what about sidekicks Usher, David Berger (who probably is making MORE now than in his former job working for DA Cooley, a job from which he had leave to work as attack dog on Trutanich’s campaign), and other top aides like Bill Carter, Curt Livesay? Are they cutting their pay to retain other lawyers?
I agree that the people posting above (starting with 6:01) are either on staff with the “Mayor That Ruined Los Angeles” or oblivious to events. Probably the frmer: no one can be that dense.
Trutanich may not be perfect, but I’d vote for him for Mayor even if he swore he’d never work more than one day a week. I’d get more from that than I am getting now from our current “I have to fly to Copenhagen,” “Don’t I look nice in photographs,?” “I hugged Obama at LAX,” and “Competence? What is that? A Latin word?” Mayor.
I’d also vote for Dick Riorden if he refused to work more than an hour a week.
Trutanich and Riorden both seem to have a better than elementary grasp of what a JOB is, what COMPETENCE and DILIGENCE are, and what it means to hold office as a public TRUST.
I hope Trutanich doesn’t get a swelled head over all the fuss. I’d like to vote for him for mayor.
I agree that the people posting above (starting with 6:01) are either on staff with the “Mayor That Ruined Los Angeles” or oblivious to events. Probably the frmer: no one can be that dense.
T y p i n g s l o w l y so even those like 3:45 p.m. can grasp the concept. Calling Trutanich on his BS DOES NOT indicate support for the Mayor. *Maybe* 1:37 p.m. could be accused of positivity towards AV by using the word “professional” but that’s it for those above who wrote against Trutanich.
No one’s opinion can be valid unless they bash Villaraigosa? Okay, this is for you 4/22 @ 7:24 & 4/24 @ 3:45. Mayor “La Raza” is an incompetent idiot. This “gangster” has no business being Mayor. Not only does he know nothing about the inner workings of the City, his only accomplishment has been to unite the public, DWP, City Council, gadflies, and union members against him. He needs to crawl away back to his “thug hombres” before taking the City further down the drain.
Is that better? Now can we move on to CT?
Trutanich’s recent diatribe shows he doesn’t give a damn about the City. It’s all, ME, ME, ME and positioning himself for his next job. If he planned to stick around for any length of time, he would not be trying to fill his vacancies or keep them from being lost by disparaging other departments. Instead of bloviating about how poorly managed and wasteful the other Gen Mgrs have been, let’s see him open up his books. Someone who has been in office as short of a time as Trutanich has no clue what his own department is doing let alone the other departments.
Lying about the loss of City Atty’s as if current staff is being dragged kicking and screaming from the office when in truth he’s losing his ability to fill vacant and ERIPed positions like EVERY OTHER GEN FUNDED DEPT should be beneath a man of law. If he wants to make the argument that he should be exempt from the 7% ERIP back fill rate, then make it honestly instead of bombastically and disparagingly.
Okay… Trutanich is not running for mayor nor has he said he plans to run for mayor. You might as well have said you’d vote for him if he runs for President of Chile, because that’s how pertinent your example is.
I don’t know why some of the posters here seem to think anti-Trutanich automatically means pro-Villa. Both the mayor and the city attorney suck equally, both in how they do their job AND characterwise.
Somebody tell me again, since Trutanich was elected, what has he done that’s so great and makes him immune to all criticism?
The ONLY thing Trutanich has done is go after the marijuana clinics, which sucks. And billboards, which is good. Let’s see which one of those two issues end up getting completed and enforced.
The state of CA will vote to legalize marijuana soon enough and then all of the work that stupid Trutanich has done will be wasted. So he’s as much of a money/time waster as anyone else. He may as well have been on the Copenhagen trip.
The mayor has done more than some people realize. Every time there is a new politician, they have to suffer and/or correct the wrongs that the elected before them did. They also get to take credit for the things that were good that the politician before them did.
That goes for the President, Mayor and Councilmen. That’s life.
The Mayor has done more HARM than some people realize.
6:29 and 6:40: To help you understand the concept so even you can understand it (and I’ll use small words), the City is not beng hurt by Trutanich right now; its being hurt by the Mayor That Ruined Los Angeles.
Trutanich is not on again/off again on firing some of the city’s hordes; he is not off to Copenhagen; his Department is not the bloated mayoral staff. Our problem mayor is the problem.
Diciding to take on Trutanich, like diverting divisions to Stalingrad, or becoming upset at Pearl Harbor that some of the sailors in the water were out of uniform, is a rather myopic view of what’s hurting the city right now.
To paraphrase Lincoln, “One war at a time.”
2:23, after ranting about how you’d vote for Trutanich in an imaginary election, you’re now backtracking and claiming Trutanich is actually irrelevant and nobody should be critiquing him in light of the mayor.
So why were you gushing about him in the first place?
And personally I think claiming only one public official can be held accountable at a time qualifies as myopia.
Trutanich is not on again/off again on firing some of the city’s hordes; he is not off to Copenhagen; his Department is not the bloated mayoral staff. Our problem mayor is the problem.
That’s because Trutanich is NOT the mayor and therefore does not make mayoral decisions. Meanwhile the mayor isn’t litigating BS that won’t matter in a year, because he’s NOT the City Attorney. Your argument is meaningless. You might as well argue that LAPD sucks because they’re not putting out fires.
The best thing about our Mayor is that he can’t stand Trutanich! I know “Nuch” personally and he is all for himself under the guise of helping others. DON’T BE FOOLED BY HIM AND FOR GOD’S SAKE DON’T EVER VOTE FOR HIM AGAIN IN ANY POLITICAL POSITION!!!
The best thing about our Mayor is that he can’t stand Trutanich! I know “Nuch” personally and he is all for himself under the guise of helping others. DON’T BE FOOLED BY HIM AND FOR GOD’S SAKE DON’T EVER VOTE FOR HIM AGAIN IN ANY POLITICAL POSITION!!!