Few places on Earth needs to worry more about the impact of global warming than Los Angeles. If we lose this climate, we won’t have a lot left.
The big banks and big stores have all left town or closed down along with the big defense contractors that provided the middle class jobs that drove the consumer economy.
Now, we rank in a class with Detroit and Cleveland for poverty and unemployment, the first big city in the Great West to look like the Rust Belt cities of the Midwest.
Our pipes leak. Our power system dirty and obsolete. Our roads potholed and congested, our trees untrimmed, our libraries closed on Sundays and Mondays, our parks trying to stay open by selling advertising space on everything from the facades of buildings to trash cans, as Dennis Hatthway at Ban Billboard Blight reported.
We are at a tipping point and it has nothing to do with climate change.
The choice of whether we tip over or right our ship will not be ours unless we step up our efforts to challenge destructive policies and to demand accountability..
The forces that have created and profited from the vision of L.A. as Manhattan West are desperate to the point that they are willing to subsidize any deal with public money without regard to public benefits.
The vision that drives the city’s policies should be clear enough now:
Sell the city for any price they can get from developers, Chinese green
energy companies, investment bankers and tycoons and profiteers of any
story — no matter how much it costs in subsidies and giveaways of the
public’s money.
That’s insane. How can
you make money giving away tax dollars without getting a significant
piece of the profits if and when they come.
Chagrined that City Hall critics would raise the issue of criminal charges against Councilman Richard Alarcon in public comment, Paul Koretz comes to his defense by suggesting cutting citizens right to speak directly to their elected officials from two minutes to one minute.
Frustrated at their own failure to streamline planning processes rationally, City Hall tries to cut the public out entirely only to face an organized campaign from Cary Brazeman and LA Neighbors United that forces a 90-day delay — time that gives residents the opportunity to mount a citywide campaign to protect their neighborhoods from over-development.
At every turn from the DWP to City Hall’s overspending, more people are coming to understand just how high the stakes are high and becoming involved.
The business community is starting to see the long-term consequences of the runaway costs of the city’s payroll and benefits and starting to question whether the crumbs thrown them from the table of power are worth the price.
Even the unions are seeing the numbers for worsening deficits year after year — deficits that can only be made up by the loss of more jobs and the loss of income through more furloughs.
City Hall is spiraling out of control, chasing the financial numbers downhill and looking to fill the March 2011 ballot with a long list of tepid measures to cloak their failure in the cloth of reform and save themselves from the wrath of the people.
There will be a collision of forces on election day that could turn L.A. around and start moving the city forward again.
The city’s leaders know this doesn’t work for anyone but themselves and their political friends.
But they have no other idea about what to do, lack the courage to do what needs to be done if they do know, or just plain don’t care or don’t understand what is going on as is the case with most of the City Council.
This is the tipping point and it’s going to take a revolution to force a debate on how we rebuild our neighborhoods, create a healthy business climate and job opportunities and restore the promise of greatness that is the destiny of L.A.
:
Hundreds of people have joined the LA Clean Sweep campaign to bring people together from all parts of the city to help them get elected. It’s going to take thousands to really make a difference, to raise the money, staff the phone banks and walk the precincts to get them elected.
There’s nothing but bad news coming out of City Hall. This is the moment when real change is possible.
But LA Clean Sweep can’t do it unless others on the sidelines or fighting in isolation the battles that are important to them, join the movement and take leadership roles.
That’s the goal and the opportunity. It is going to take all of us.
Check your email Ron.
What’s the point of this post besides recapping for the eighteen millionth time the same stuff?
I find the best way to see what your point is to skip to the bottom of the post for the last sentence….”But LA Clean Sweep can’t do it unless others on the sidelines or fighting in isolation the battles that are important to them, join the movement and take leadership roles.”
Alright, so the entire rant was a promo announcement to join Clean Sweep Los Angeles. Gotcha!
Quit yer bitchin’ about repeated rants, Anon. 1:40 p.m. who’s probably on the mayor’s or council’s staff. There’s a good reason for them.
People have very short memories and there are always new readers who need the reprise to be current with what’s happening to this city, how we got to where we are now and how we can make changes for the better.
If you don’t like what you’re reading here, there are plenty of other blogs where you can go to be ill-informed and unenlightened.
It’s the Flipping Point: The time to flip the incumbents out of office.
1:40 p.m. must be part of the corrupt downtown machinery that wants the community to be kept in the dark so they can continue to make moneys ripping off the city. No honest person would complain about the site.
4:03 p.m. If it makes you feel better to think so. But actually I’m completely independent. And the comment was about the post not the site. In the future please substitute something important to say in lieu of flowers.
City Hall better be afraid of LA Clean Sweep because a lot of friends and associates are the ones who used their computers, networking groups, meetings etc. to slam them on Measure B and making sure idiots like Chris Essel didn’t get in. If we all band together and use the power of the internet to inform as many people as we can about the corruption of the city council members, Mayor, Controller etc. then we can help every district to make sure morons like Mitch Englander and others DON’T GET ELECTED. Its not about money as everyone thinks. Its about networking and putting out the bullshit that’s been going on in City Hall for too long.
Seems like the same story that got LA in to trouble in the first place. Rirdon changed the charter so now GM’s are beholden to the Mayor. Instead of making decisions to better LA and have a great long lasting City we have people afraid to do their job. Now its worst as people are put in to positions of power to make the City workers (who know what they are doing0 tow the line for the developers. Lets put more people in charge that don’t have a clue.
Riordan, the doddering fool would have been the worst Mayor if not for our current one, who will forever hold the record. Where is Ticketgate? Why has the DA not taken any action on this issue while he is using the Bell scandal for political gain.
I think what most readers are missing Ron, and most of Los Angeles, is that the decomposing tcorpse of LA is BEYOND THE CONTROL of City Hall, City Council or any of the “players’ boosters, Eli Broads of the world, can do anything about. It won’t matter who’s in office. Clean sweep, or just the same old downtown gang. The tipping point came and went.
Los Angeles is like the film production business in LA – it ain’t comin’ back. People sitting around waiting for 80′s & 90′s heydays of LA property values and high-living are delusional.
It won’t be that again for another 20 years if you’re lucky. You’vr NIMBY’d yourselves into oblivion.
“Hundreds of people have joined the LA Clean Sweep campaign”
Hundreds only out of a population of over 3 million? That basically means after months of press and organizing, you still have no support.
“Smart people with track records of achievement have stepped forward to challenge for nearly every Council seat in March.”
Nice and vague, with no proof. I’m guessing smart means Walter Moore thinking Mexico is invading LA.
Maybe more people would join your movement if you bothered to actually tackle the issues. As opposed to write propaganda pieces that make for great theater but have absolutely nothing to do with reality.
so must of you think let it be the same way
city hall have become a trash no one ones to pu
so most of you say let it go
that what this crooks and liars whant us to belive and dont do a thing about it
i have no idea what is goin to wake up america and see what this crooks and liars are doin to us
god help us , but i dont goin to give up i have made a promise to my kids i will fight for them
i work 30 years in a wall st top 100 company
for what
the only ones that are making any money are unions special interest for the tash in city hall that votes have ilective in to office
my father dint go to ww11 for me to give up
so i hope no one in los angeles give up
this crook in city hall dont have and ideal the train is coming we need to clean city hall they all are crooks and liars
8:14pm Ticketgate storm is comimg. Stay tuned.
Don’t know if 10:13 PM is same person I heard it from, but I, too, have heard Ticketgate is coming.
GOOD lead article in citywatchla.com about Zone Code.
This was (in part) Commission President Bill Roschen’s take on the staff-proposed changes. He is referring to the Core Findings and says the change “…only modifies “language” that means the same thing as the current code….”
It doesn’t mean the same thing. The changes mean a different thing.
It took Brazeman, a bunch of NC’s and neighborhood coalitions to point this out to the Commission, over-and-over again. Good.For.Them.
What a BS. As always a Rep with sheep cloth. Most of us know who have cause this financial disaster.
I haven’t seen this subject mentioned in the papers:
“Chagrined that City Hall critics would raise the issue of criminal charges against Councilman Richard Alarcon in public comment, Paul Koretz comes to his defense by suggesting cutting citizen’s right to speak directly to their elected officials from two minutes to one minute.”
And since Channel 35 no longer does the City Council re-runs on Sunday, I’m missing many evening visuals of what occurred during the day. So my question: did Mr. Koretz make this recommendation during a Council meeting?
Granted, there are a few yahoos’s who like attention and get carried away in what I consider a very embossing manner, BUT the Public should have their two (2) minutes.
Shame on you Mr. Koretz for suggesting that the Public should have to give up their time. Terrible . . . . . . . very disrespectful.
Ron said, there are a few yahoos’s who like attention and get carried away in what I consider a very embossing manner, BUT the Public should have their two (2) minutes.
Unless the Cty is under threat of a Lawsuit, they don’t care about the subject, nor do they pay attention 99% of the time. These Yahoos are very much needed. I love them.
FYI regarding Koretz’s comments about public speakers. Paul Koretz stood up to see if anything could be done about cutting off some of the speakers. Then, Tom LaBonge, who is asking for you vote in the next election stood up to ask if comment time could be cut down to a minute. So Paul and Tom. It kinda surprised me when Paul stood up to initiate that comment. But then again, really not.
Youmadea few