This is what we’ve come to: Four million people provide an average of $1,700 each to City Hall for police, fire, paved streets and sidewalks, parks and libraries and other basic services but all they care about is dogs, cats and gang-bangers.
Welcome to the City Hall Follies — a burlesque that lasted 11 hours on Monday and amounted to petty bickering and maneuvering to add another $5 in fines for illegal parking so they can provide more jobs to hoodlums and keep a closed-to-the-public warehouse with 167 unwanted pets functioning.
Once again, the City Council signed off on a budget that carries out the mayor’s plan for destroying the quality of life for the many to protect the few.
Even the word budget is inappropriate since it’s largely a work of fiction: Unrealistic revenue projections, revenue that doesn’t exist, layoffs and spending cuts they have no intention of carrying out.
Why they even go through the charade of holding a meeting in public and boring themselves and us to death is beyond me since it was always a done deal and solves nothing.
They balanced the budget on paper, not in reality. They want us to approve a tax on billboards so they can approve even more of them and legitimize the thousands of illegal ones they have done nothing about for years.
They make a mockery of government and fools of us.
It took them most of the day to come up the $5 illegal parking fine increase so they could keep the Northeast Valley animal shelter staffed to look after stray cats and dogs. It is the newest and costliest shelter in the city but never has opened to the public, nothing but a depot for animals destined to be euthanized.
A third of the dogs in the city are unlicensed so they impose a 50 percent fee on those who do license their dogs and do little or nothing to penalize those who don’t.
They spend millions to keep gang members from killing each other and the occasional bystander and plan to spend far more to train them as “green doctors” and laborers so they can put them on the DWP payroll and justify more rate hikes.
But the people who obey the laws and pay the taxes see their libraries and parks closing and the 75-year backlog in paving streets and sidewalks heading toward the century mark.
Like bums cadging for money on Skid Row, they beg the city unions that elected them to temporarily give back a little from the years of sweetheart contracts just so they can get through another few months without layoffs or furloughs.
They put themselves in this position by cutting a deal last year to bribe 2,400 workers to retire early and signed a contract that deferred wage increases with the promise that workers would get two years’ of wage hikes totaling nearly 6 percent in 2010-11 if even a single worker was terminated or furloughed.
The bills are coming due for those wage hikes just as they are for the wage hikes they gave DWP workers at the same time, just as they will for their plans to borrow heavily to get through the next 12 months.
They are digging a financial hole for the city so deep that the day of reckoning accounts will have disastrous consequences.
At the end of the day, they all voted for this budget except Alarcon who objected that they didn’t do enough for the poor, the unions and the special interests and Koretz who simply disappeared when the vote was taken to no one’s surprise.
The instinct of many is to break up the city, slash their pay in half, declare bankruptcy or refuse to pay your DWP bill like so many others are doing with impunity.
We have come to this. We have become a global symbol of America’s failure and fading glory.
My only answer, for what it’s worth, is to throw these people out and start again with new leaders and a new vision that will treat people equally, restore trust in City Hall and offer a new deal that provides for a healthier future for LA Otherwise it’s time to sell off what you can and pack your bags like so many families and businesses already have done.
Now the fun begins tracking the City Council agendas from now until the end of the year to see what new pet projects will be approved and funded with millions they don’t have, and beginning July first, the Council will vote on costly items for the new year, as if the deficit disappeared.
At this late stage of the game ANYONE COULD do a better job then these clowns. They’ve had over 2 years to deal with the financial crisis and have been dicking and screwing around with people’s pain. I have seen more get done at neighborhood councils then these bafoons. They spend way too much time bullshitting and talking about nothing. They grandstand, are ignornant in their statements and waste hours. At the end of the day the city is hardly better off then when they started. Garcetti is a poor leader who can’t reign in these juvenile behaving council members. I remember at least they never behaved so poorly when Padilla was president. They sat in their seats on time and behaved like adults. This group is like Barnum and Bailey 3 Ring Circus. Every newspaper local and nationally has made fun of them but they continue to feed the talk show babble.
Great commentary! Tony Villar has it coming to him.
At the same time that our mayor and City Council are concerned about Arizona state law and raising parking tickets while Rome burns, San Francisco under the leadership of Gavin Newsom is voting on a change of pension funding next month that will shift more of the funding burden onto city workers and away from the government. This ballot measure has no formal opposition–even from public employee unions–and will only apply to new city workers hired after July 1st; pensions will be calculated on last 2 years rather than just last year and an increase employee contribution of 9% instead of 7.5% current contribution.
“I don’t think there’s a more important issue that we have to own up to, and that’s the pension, “said Newsom. “The costs are something that’s crowding out our discretionary budget.”
If the city of Smug (as South Park calls it) and one of the most liberal mayors in America can address this issue, it makes LA’s performance even more pathetic.
How dare they mistreat those poor dogs and cats. Move the Council and Mayor to that warehouse. Not one of them deserves to be in City Hall.
Well, if people are serious about the problems in City Hall, why is the recall effort doing so poorly. I wonder if Ron and the folks here are overestimating peoples anger at their elected officials. At least in this city.
Yes I am the LA Mayor
About my city I haven’t a care,
I don’t intent to retire there,
The unions have stripped the city bare.
Its really not entirely fair,
that I am called a photo-op mayor,
Its not my fault and its not funny,
That we’ve used up all the city’s money.
Its true I’ve made my share of flubs,
and pay city workers to go to strip clubs,
but we all pals here on the city plantation,
those city workers are “under investigation,”
I tried to cut some union deadwood,
to cut expenses as I knew I should,
but I need those union votes you see,
If I’m ever to get to big D.C.,
herb wesson he is one big flack,
he wants me to hire everyone back!
and it really makes me sick,
that everyone says they want Dick
Riorden back to fix it all,
and boot me out of city hall.
I can only say i see the tension,
But i don’t care, I have my pension,
I trust you’ve liked this little ditty,
all about me-the mayor that ruined the City.
2:35pm should read the polls of what people in Los Angeles think of their politicians. Don’t compare this blog to the recall effort. All anyone has to do is go to a alliance, coalition or huge citywide meeting and you will hear and witness the vemon for these clowns. Problem is rarely will the media report it. Look how slanted and bias the LA Slimes in reporting the protest yesterday. Maybe 20 people showed up but they made it sound with a huge photo that there were more. Look how main stream media has twisted SB1070 and not reported the facts that it is actually just like a copy of section 834b of the California Penal Code that deals with immigration law enforcement at the local level.
3:17, 2:35 here. Every elected in the country is in trouble. I wondered how its possible that there is so much anger, yet the recall effort has only a few hundred names? If the effort was a serious one, you’d think a simple online campaign could generate thousands of signatures. And, if they went to a few slap meetings, a few neighborhood council mtgs, surely they’d get signatures.
If the recall falters, it is a big blow because people will mistake its failure, for support for the mayor. I agree; people are furious at AV. Again, why hasnt that translated itself into concrete results?
Because people in this city are too lazy to do anything that requires a serious civic discourse. Only a handful vote, and they get angry only when it affects them personally. Expect the same City Hall crowd to be elected again and again.
I didn’t hear much of the meeting yesterday as it quickly became a tedious endeavor. It seemed to bog down on one topic that I could not figure out during the brief time I went online- probably the cost of the animal shelter operations now that I can piece it together- but Ron, was that the flow of one plan, to get gang-bangers (or, hopefully fully-EX-gangbangers) to train for DWP jobs as “green doctors”?
Is that the Council members’ idea of fair treatment? Engage in a lawbreaking path and then after causing society needless grief, generally and individuals specifically, get a bump up for a job with DWP ahead of any RIGHT acting people?
That sounds like the Council’s customary enabling approach to cultivationg irresponsibe citizens and for those working to follow the law, you get no breaks but, instead, literally wind up financing this operation. But you can’t be part of the preferred employment gravy train and have to make your own way because you did not decide to cause problems by being in a gang?
The council practices have created a culture of entitlement where any day care cuts and other public programs have caused people to believe they are SUPPOSED to have free or low cost day care and the rest. This theme appears over and over, and then when money runs out, the public comment que produces the public’s pleas and projections of chaos in the streets, etc., if cuts occur. What people take for granted these days is part of the doing of the government, including city government and its policies, fiscally precarious as they were in the first place.
As for timo-on-task, the council spent a little less of it’s meeting time, it sounds like, for the few topics mentioned, compared to the marathon sessions for Billy the Elephant and really- as usual- arriving at no productive solution for the problems.
The entire council is an elite club of fools, seeking more taxes to cover the deficit, that they would continue to waste on things that they have let- or caused- to go out of control in all senses of the term (notably, fiscal accountability & a management serving the public’s well-being).
All this idea of the DWP’s premium pay for higher performing workers is a fiction for justifying the sweetheart deals the city managers gave them. The managers themselves, i.e., Council and the mayor [little "m" for being of "Little use"], get paid the most of any city managers and proves you don’t always get what you paid for in Los Angeles city government.
The special interests, including unions might take a different view, however, and can see more bang for their buck.
Let’s all believe in the Power of Positive Thinking. No one thought grass root supporters would defeat the Bullshit Solar Measure, but they did. No one thought Chris Essel with all her millions and developers and losers on council endorsing her would lose and Krekorian get it. But it happened. No one thought back years ago the NC’s could rally and stop DWP from raising our rates with the money machine they are. But they did it. Let’s start thinking positive and push the will of the people to Clean Out City Hall.
THE RECALL IS A RUSE!!!
This is before the news from AZ’s power controller about cutting 25% of power LA gets from AZ. This Council cannot do anything right and the mayor and Council should RESIGN en masse and let someone else run the CITY. We go from one disaster to another, charade after charade. They obviously are not competent enough to run anything. These are first class morons and buffoons, posturing and preening like a bunch of peacocks.
Alarcon wants $20million extra from DWP to pay for his socialist policies. How long before the ratepayers will revolt against these bums?
WTF???? The FAILURE of a Mayor is on his way to Washington AGAIN!!!!! HE has traveled to Washington 3 or 4 times in less then two months. How much is this costing the tax payers of a city that is on the verge of bankruptcy? He takes his detail that cost the city $450,000 per year. The Mayor is staying for two days with how many staffers at hotels, meals, travel, etc. Someone needs to post those figures to show his complete arrogance and incompetence and lack of responsible behavior. Did the Budget & Finance Committee back in March pass a motion for no more travel. And Janice Hahn ‘the dumbest politician in America” has also been jet setting around campaigning. Is this done on city time and how much $$$, how many staffers employed by the city does she take???
This is before the news from AZ’s power controller about cutting 25% of power LA gets from AZ.
Arizona can’t do a damn thing without illegally breaching their contract with LADWP, which means they will get sued and be held liable for economic damage. Meanwhile LA’s boycotting of Arizona is perfectly legal because the mayor is only targetting future contracts and contracts that can be legally nullified
This is how stupid the local news is. Some idiot in Arizona makes a threat and all the local news reporters just assume he can actually carry it out. Handel already ripped into the stupidity of this story this morning on KFI
On 8:46am item: The local news IS stupid on two levels, one being the reporting that mischaracterizes and distorts the actual story, and secondly, the news is stupid at the source when you are looking at the Council members and Tony Villaraigosa- the computer observation works here: “Garbage in, Garbage out.”
As for the letter on cutting L.A. off, John & Ken spent a good amount of time with the author and the point was not really that the power is getting cut but more as an action to illustrate the selectivity that the L.A. politicians have injected to this “boycott” action. Lots of what was a complete rejection here turns into a backpedal operation that further illustrates how little council thinks before they act.
Making the boycott motion also goes to show that Janice Hahn and Ed Reyes make better bookends than legislators. And by approving the motion, it made the coucil members look appropriately as publicity hounds, (no disrepect intended to canines who, in contrast to what we have here in City Hall, are up front with all they do).
The Mayor and his Workforce Investment Board have the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees under their thumb. It is hush hush, but Community College Trustees Mona Field, Sylvia Scott-Hayes, Kelly Candaele, and Georgia Mercer illegally spent over $7 million of restricted school bond funds to destroy classrooms designed for the historic Van de Kamps Bakery building now under construction at San Fernando Road and Fletcher Drive.
Why were these classroom designs, already approved by the State Architect, thrown in the trash can and the community college classroom building built out as Executive Administrative Offices? Could it be because the Mayor wanted the building and some members of the LACCD Board of Trustees were all too willing to spend our school bond funds to benefit a couple of union oriented unemployment programs?
Who is going to move into those Executive Administrative offices that have no business being built inside a bond-funded community college school facility? The tenants targeted to benefit from this illegal expenditure of $7 million of bond funds include:
Community Career Development, Inc. – This is one of 18 work source centers around Southern California that LACCD Board is trying to figure out a way to give most of the school building to instead of LA City College actually teaching classes in the building. Most of the Executive Administrative offices were proposed to go to Community Career Development run by Gloria Moore.
SEIU/Worker Resource and Education Center (WERC) – The second largest amount of Executive and Administrative office space built inside the Van de Kamps Bakery where there was supposed to be classrooms is proposed to be handed over to Diane Factor and her SEIU cronies. Ms. Factor told the LACCD staff that she wanted a “private suite” of offices separated from spaces in the building where worker training would take place. Apparently Ms. Factor does not want to rub elbows with the students. The LACCD obliged by deleting art studios and computer labs so that Ms. Factor and her SEIU program would have her executive administrative offices.
Archdiosean Youth Employment Program – The third major tenant proposed to benefit from the LACCD’s illegal expenditure of bond funds is Catholic Charities that operates a youth employment program called Archdiosean Youth Employment “AYE”. The AYE administrative office will be located in an area of the Van de Kamps Bakery where there was supposed to be a community college classroom. The classroom was destroyed for Executive Administrative offices for unemployment programs that should have been rented in a private sector building.
Learn more about the fraudulent use of community college bond funds to benefit unemployment programs funded by the Mayor’s office. These job training programs might be fine elsewhere, but why did the Mayor’s office pressure the LACCD to hand over a $72 million community college satellite campus to a bunch of unemployment programs?
Is that the message of the Mayor to Northeast Los Angeles? That its residents, historically underserved by LA City College, do not deserve academic programs that lead to transfer to four year colleges or AA degree programs? That the residents of Northeast are only suited to learn how to become solar panel installers, weather strip installers, and other low paying short-term jobs funded through the economic stimulus? Thank you Mayor Villaraigosa for your vote of confidence in your former neighbors.
Go to:
http://www.VanDeKamps.org
Don’t know the local news, CBS ch2 has a new traffic girl in the morning….sweet
10:22AM, does Tony know yet?
Wow blame the unions, yeah that’s the ticket. Remember that the last union agreement that agreed to freezing cost of living also increased the retirement contribution of the employees. No one seems to understand that there are seperate penion funds for different city employees. Some are fully funded by members and some are guaranteed by the City. Before you blame union members you need to look at the different pensions. This is also true of contracts. There are different contracts that cover the city. Over 20,000 workers gave up something last year. However, some of the other workers did not. They received their oosts of living, got no furloughs and some even received overtime. All City workers are no the same. Remember that the next time you go to a closed park or library.
What the media is failing to report is that even though we all know there is an issue with the pension system the city for years wasn’t paying its part of the contribution as the employees were. I wonder how much the total amount of that was??? Parks, Rosendahl, Huizar, Smith, Koretz all sat and did nothing all this time when they could have started to implement change as members of Budget & Finance committee. On another note I wish Janice Hahn would learn to juist shut the hell up. Now she’s quoted re ARizona bluff to turn off electricity since LA wants to boycott them Hahn said, “AZ Official ‘Forrest Gump Of Politics” Well Janice Hahn then you are STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES.