The issue was a second round of business tax reform and volunteers on the city’s Business Tax Advisory Committee faced denunciation from Councilman Tony Cardenas for failing to say thanks for modest tax relief in recent years and daring to suggest LA is not “business friendly.”
In an arrogant and shocking display that captured the Council’s sentiment, Cardenas set up Greif — a prominent investment banker, philanthropist and business leader — and Mel Kohn — a highly successful CPA and business leader honored for his public service — by asking how much the 3 percent reduction in gross receipts taxes for five years saved the business community.
Kohn noted business tax revenue is up $150 million despite the $92 million saved by business from the reduced rates, triggering an angry tirade from Cardenas who said he was fed up with criticism of the city when the business community should be saying thanks for the great work by the Council.
Nobody mentioned this Council has pushed the city to the brink of bankruptcy or that just before the business leaders appeared, leaders of city unions demanded the Council back down on layoffs of 246 workers and threatened legal action if furloughs were imposed after July 1.
Council President Eric Garcetti thanked each of the labor leaders for their comments and even did no more than mumble when Cheryl Parisi went far over the two minutes allowed for public comment.
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What is California’s AB 155? Why do WE need it? What are the pros and cons of AB 155? What is Chapter 9? Who benefits? Working Poor? Working Middle Class? Capitalist? How does AB 155 prevent Globalization from decimating OUR California cities? Why doesn’t the FED bail out our floundering cities? Our we just postponing the inevitable? TAX me it ain’t so….
As a business owner who will no longer invest in LA- Cardenas- you are a dumb,pompous, arrougant ass.
Another example of arrogance and lack of intelligence from the Council. I can tell Cardenas has never owned a business. I can also tell he hasn’t been reading economic news for Los Angeles. Businesses are leaving, Councilman. Why do you think that is? Oh, when they’re asked, the business owners say that it’s because Los Angeles isn’t business-friendly. Oh, but Cardenas says that’s not true. He must be right and they must be wrong.
With respect to the unions — I don’t really see what they’re doing as a threat. They’ve turned in various versions of cost-savings, which, as they said, the City repudiated. The City may have done so with good reason. The revenue projections might not have been supported with good research, or they may have not taken all the costs into account. I don’t know. But the fact remains that the City entered into a Letter of Agreement with the Coalition (remember the koom-bah-yah session in October?), and they agreed to enter into mutual bargaining practices regarding furloughs, layoffs, etc. It’s in the Letter of Agreement. Granted, it’s not the clearest language, but that’s where an arbitrator or judge is going to make the determination.
If their numbers are right regarding the salary savings versus the COLA (Save $13 million, spend $52 million), they have a logical argument, but the response is that there will probably be more layoffs later this fiscal year. They know that as well as I do, and that’s what they’re trying to prevent. They want to try methods other than layoff or reduced hours to close the gap. From what I hear, they might be able to prevail in a “bad faith bargaining” decision. I hear from several union reps that practically every time they met with the City, the numbers (deficit) changed. The Coalition would go back and figure out ways to address the gap, then they’d come back only to be told, “Oh, it’s more now.” Remember the “found” revenue from the property taxes last April? That kind of thing, only apparently in reverse. The projections seem to be fluid.
The unions have to show that they’re fighting layoffs, but in my opinion, they should let layoffs happen. The Council won’t be able to try to shift the burden of closing the budget to either the employees (via furloughs or give-backs) or to the public (via increased fees and taxes). Department heads should be given the flexibility to manage their funds without interference from Council and their pet projects.
Cardenas is just a d**k, plain and simple.
cardenad is a idiota ignorante latino
i am a latino but crooks like this trash we dont need for them to repesent any distric in los angeles is a macimo latino in his small mind this {s} dont stick baboso cardenas