BREAKING NEWS: Alarcon says grand jury indictment coming down today over his residence problem, LA Times reports.
Dr. Keith Richman, a man I admired who was elected mayor of the City of the San Fernando Valley in the secession election, died last week after spending the last years of his life crusading for reform of the public employee pension systems that threaten the future of our city and state.
Forthright, honest and sincere are words that come to mind in my long relationship with him. He was not a hypocrite.
After listening to the LA City Council spend hours getting what they called an education in pension reform — Pensions 101– and hours more debating whether to outsource collecting bills for ambulance services to raise millions of extra dollars, I fumble for a word that can quite describe what I heard.
What word can describe the hypocrisy of the nation’s highest paid municipal officials who quote their past hypocrisies as proof of their current honesty, who are such phony impostors that they pay lip service to truth why lying through their teeth about what they have done, are doing and intend to do?
There is no other word except hypocrite, spelled large HYPOCRITE.
There was Paul Koretz audaciously demanding to know why the city’s financial, policy advisers and pension experts never said a word about pension costs will soon eat up 40 percent of the general fund.
His question should have filled the Council Chamber with such derisive laughter it would still be echoing through the hallowed halls of City Hall.
But he was told gently, as is the custom when dealing with fools in the City Hall family, that there have been repeated warnings for a decade, endless studies and reports and numeous lengthy Council debates on the astronomical increases in the cost of pensions and health care for city workers.
Nothing was ever done about any of this so the city faces pension bills for as much as $2 billion a year in coming years — costs that will force the city to offer the public little more than basic police and fire services unless something is done about it.
If there was a point to Bill Rosendahl’s setting up the Pension 101 educational event, it was to make sure the Council and the public understand that there is little or nothing that can be done about it.
City staff explained patiently for the umpteenth time that state law and contracts with city unions require that any changes to the pension system can only be implemented if the unions are given roughly equivalent value for any concessions they make.
It wasn’t mentioned whether actually guaranteeing job security for city workers now facing layoffs and furloughs is equivalent value for agreeing to pay a greater share into the pension funds or moving the full retirement age from 55 to 60 or even 65.
There was no indication Council members were any more likely to take any action on what was discussed than they were during the last decade.
Then, the Council moved onto the no-brainer issue of approving contracts to outsource billing and collection for ambulance services.
The Fire Department currently operates like a mom-and-pop store in the Great Depression, leaving $100 million of $150 million in ambulance bills going uncollected.
It’s tough to run a business when you don’t collect two-thirds of the money customers owe you so city officials have goofed around for several years to get rid of the 52 people who have failed at their jobs so miserably — failed because the mayor and council didn’t give them the training and computer equipment needed to do a decent job.
The unions naturally are opposed to this since thousands of workers jobs would be at stake if cost and efficiency became priorities. Since they have such a significant ownership stake in the Council, they have prevailed in blocking contracting out this service which would reduce costs and add tens of millions of dollars in new revenue to the general fund.
Fire Chief Millage Peaks found a perfect solution: Despite a “no hiring” policy and being forced
to cut fire services to the public, he magically found jobs for everyone now involved in billing and collection.
It was an offer even the unions couldn’t refuse, or at least resist with any great passion.
But the union lackeys on the Council stood tall, showing for all the world to see that they care more about serving the unions than the public, more about getting union campaign support than bringing a fortune to keep workers employed and preserve public services.
Koretz tried to renegotiate the contracts, displaying his ignorance and indifference to all business practices. Cardenas, Hahn, Huizar and Zine all lined up with the unions in opposing the deal. Alarcon took it a step further and showed his utter contempt for the deal, and his colleagues by not even bothering to vote..
HYPOCRITE Definition: Person who pretends, is deceitful
Synonyms: Pharisee, actor, attitudinizer, backslider, bigot, bluffer, casuist, charlatan, cheat, con artist, crook, deceiver, decoy, dissembler, dissimulator, fake, faker, four-flusher, fraud, hook*, humbug, impostor, informer, lip server, malingerer, masquerader, mountebank, phony, playactor, poser, pretender, quack, smoothie, sophist, swindler, trickster, two-face, two-timer, wolf in sheep’s clothing.
What does it mean if he’s indicted?
AT least this is a start. now go get the rest of them
Councilman Alarcon annd his wife Indicted
A Los Angeles County grand jury Wednesday indicted City Councilman Richard Alarcón and his wife on a total of 24 counts of perjury, voter fraud and other crimes for allegedly living outside his council district
How can Los Angeles Council do anything right when they can’t obey their own council rules? Here are some rules council members violate with NO repercussion. List any other violation(s) readers see fit.
“Regular meetings of the Council shall be held in City Hall on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday of each week, recess dates established by resolution and holidays excepted, at the hour of 10:00 a.m.” It appears Fridays are come in LATE to chambers when council members feel like it due to no roll call prior to the two or three hours Presentations and Proclamations.
19. All members shall be in their respective seats at said hour of each regular Council meeting and at the time set for the session of any adjourned or special meeting. August 3, 2010 Council Awaiting a Quorum Again as Council members Tony Cardenas, Janice Hahn, Jose Huizar, Paul Kortez, and Bill Rosenthal were late which are customary in Los Angeles.
26. Whenever a member questions the presence of a quorum, the Presiding Officer shall direct the Clerk to call the roll and announce the result. There shall be no debate. Every member present must respond when his or her name is called. How often is this done? Council members only praise each other on how great each other are.
27. No member shall be considered present unless the member is within the Council Chamber. Many times a vote has been made and the council member is nowhere to be found in chambers.
28. No member shall leave a Council meeting without permission from the Presiding Officer of the meeting. Many times Council President Garrett states that a certain council member, Council member Jose Hazier, has left but no further action is taken from President Garrett, who has the responsibility to keep order.
RULES OF THE LOS ANGELES CITY COUNCIL AS AMENDED (July 2009) http://cityclerk.lacity.org/cps/pdf/CouncilRules.pdf
55 for normal retirement ?????? The normal L.A.C.E.R.S. full retirement age IS currently 60 , not 55.
I hope they are all running scared and are getting the message that the DA’s Public Integrity Unit WILL COME AFTER YOU. Kudos to Steve Cooley on this one. He may have just won my vote. There’s the other case of the DWP issue and how city council voted without community input. Don’t forget the conservative “responsible’ yeah right!!!! Bernie Parks even though was in the building, came in late to council chambers to avoid having to vote on the DWP jurisdiction issue. They are all corrupt and perception is “everything.” Another blog is touting someone else is next soon.
It’s time for the former Los Angeles Chief and current Los Angeles Council member Bernard Parks to show Angelenos dignity and bring forth a motion requesting whether Council member Alarcon should be suspended or not. This would allow Angelenos in his district to comment on his suspension before a close session.
Los Angeles Charter
ARTICLE II – OFFICERS OF THE CITY
SEC. 211. SUSPENSION PENDING TRIAL.
PENDING TRIAL, ending trial, THE COUNCIL MAY SUSPEND ANY ELECTED OFFICER, and the appointing power may suspend any appointed officer, AGAINST WHOM FELONY CRIMINAL PROCEEDING,
OR criminal misdemeanor proceedings related to a violation of official duties as described in Section 207(c). The temporary vacancy shall be filled in accordance with the Charter.
http://www.amlegal.com/nxt/gateway.dll?f=templates&fn=default.htm&vid=amlegal:laac_ca
9:42am it wouldn’t be Bernie Parks who should do this. IF there was ANY leadership on city council it would be from Garcetti president or the pro tems Perry etc. Let’s bet who will have the balls to create a motion to have Alarcon thrown out until his mess is cleared. Although he’ll scream innocent until proven guilty. The DA’s office and grand jury must have some pretty solid evidence to have indicted him.
A shout out to Los Angeles Daily News for exercising the FREEDOM of the PRESS
The indictment charges Alarcón with:
•Seven counts of voter fraud for voting using the
wrong address in 2007, 2008 and 2009.
•Two counts of filing false declarations of candidacy on Dec. 6, 2006, and Nov. 6, 2008.
•Nine counts of perjury, including three for allegedly filing false driver’s license applications.
His wife was charged with six counts, including:
•Three counts of perjury, for allegedly claiming she lived at a Panorama City house within Alarcón’s district on a provisional voting ballot, in registering to vote and on a driver’s license application; and
•Three counts of voter fraud, for voting in an election in 2008 and two in 2009 using the wrong address.
LA Daily Newshttp://www.dailynews.com/ci_15676633?source=most_viewed
IF Alarcon opted to not vote at all, then he is counted by the Clerk as having voted YES. That’s right. Under the City Council Rules, if a Councilmember fails to cast a vote by touching the “Yes” or “No” button on their screen, then the Clerk is directed to automatically convert the Abstension vote to a “Yes” vote. This rule “frees” Councilmembers from having to sit in their seats and pay attention. And as the LA Times has reported, until Garcetti was shamed by press coverage on it, the Clerk counted as present, Councilmembers negotiating deals in the back room and when they failed to vote at their desk, each of those failures to vote were converted to “Yes” votes. Where else can you get a job that pays $178,000 and not do the most fundamental thing you were elected to do: vote?
To August 5, 2010 7:55 AM:
Thank you for remembering the DWP Rate Increase incident.
It was in an April 2010 City Council meeting in which City Council President Eric Garcetti said that I have “good news” and proceeded (with the support of his colleagues) to declare “Special 1″ at around 4 PM.
What Garcetti was trying to accomplish with this move was to pre-approve a “smaller rate increase” that was “acceptable” to our representatives in the City Council (thanks a lot).
Luckily our hero Wayne Spindler was there to call their bluff. If Mr. Spindler wasn’t there, no objection would have been raised in regard to the Brown Act.
What was so shocking was that the City Council went against the opinion of City Attorney Dion O’Connel who stated that he didn’t feel that this met the requirements of calling it special and avoiding the 72-hour Brown Act Notice and the 24-hour Special meeting notice.
Even Mr. Zine went along with voting for the findings to allow it to come to a vote.
Usually O’Connel is in kahootz with Eric Garcetti and some of his colleagues especially when they want to shut up public speakers.
I too would like to know if this was given to the public integrity division of the DA’s office.