In returning from a long book-writing sabbatical, LA Times stalwart Jim Newton spent several weeks talking with “more than two dozen influential Angelenos — current and former politicians, labor leaders, environmentalists, neighborhood activists and bureaucrats.”
On Tuesday, his first column was published. The subject was Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the headline was “How Disappointing.”
“Criticism from his longtime foes wasn’t unexpected. They regard the
mayor as selfish, arrogant and ineffective. But his longtime backers
weren’t much happier. They complain that he’s been an incompetent
manager and has squandered the public’s initial enthusiasm for him. They
too are astounded at his preening self-indulgence.
“Neighborhood activists think he is labor’s agent, determined to feather
the nest of public employees in exchange for political support from
unions. Labor representatives find him two-faced, reneging on deals and
sloughing off basic management responsibilities. Environmentalists say
he’s all talk. Conservatives deplore him; liberals are tired of him.
Politicians believe he’s principally driven by his pursuit of higher
office,” Newton wrote.
In the end, Newton offers more of a prayer than an analytical insight: “Villaraigosa has gifts of leadership and ability, and the time to take
advantage of them. The city needs him to focus and deliver on his word.”
Those of us in all walks of life who have engaged in civic discourse continuously are long past hoping the mayor will ever get his game back.
From the endless string of conversations I’ve had with business, civic and community leaders and ordinary folks in all parts of the city, the unanimity goes far beyond disappointment in the mayor.
Almost everyone who pays the least attention believes City Hall — still looking for penny ante solutions to profound budget deficits — will have to declare bankruptcy sometime in 2011 or 2012 at the latest.
You can look at the new City Administrative Office’s proposals to deal with the $87 million in overspending already in this year’s budget and see the futility of tinkering with the numbers, juggling money from one fund to another when a $400 million deficit equal to 10 percent of the general fund looms next year.
And the following year is even worse with planning already under way to further slash spending on libraries and parks and just about every other core service.
It isn’t just the mayor but the whole city leadership that is out of touch with the reality of a world that is undergoing fundamental economic changes.
Yet, they continue to act as though nothing is changing, as if the good times will soon roll again.
So they are moving forward on providing massive public subsidies in one form or another to luxury hotels and football stadiums.
They continue to spend tens of millions of dollars on housing for the homeless and the very poor and jobs for gang members even as they close libraries and parks programs for kids who play by the rules and dun the struggling working class and middle class people of the city for more and more of their money.
There just isn’t enough money any longer for all of these things. Hard choices are needed on what we can afford and what provides the greatest public benefits.
.
It isn’t just the mayor but the whole city leadership that has failed. We aren’t just “disappointed” in the mayor but in all of our elected officials.
The campaign for the March 8 election for seven City Council seats and 10 or 11 ballot measures is starting up and the failed City Hall political machine has one goal: Self-preservation.
They are raising millions of dollars to crush all opposition. They are prepared to ruthlessly destroy their opponents as Jose Huizar is doing to well-funded challenger Rudy Martinez with vicious personal attacks rather than defending his own record or discussing solutions to our real problems.
I’m just one of the “neighborhood activists” that Newton talked to but I’ve spoken to hundreds of business, civic, political and community leaders over the last three years.
There isn’t any mystery. We all see pretty much the same thing: Dramatic measures need to be taken immediately or the consequences are grave. Yet, we too continue to behave as we always have, as if there is nothing we can do about it.
The reasons vary in each group but they are just excuses for inaction.
The disappointment we should be feeling isn’t just in Antonio Villaraigosa but in ourselves. We know something has to be done but we are going to leave it to a bankruptcy judge to fix it sometime in the future when the damage is done.
It’s crazy but that’s the way it is today.
Anonymous 
The Mayor is a low class, low-esteemed, SEIU corrupted, pootang-chasing, vain, two-faced, attention-deficit, pathetic excuse of a human being.
He no more grasps the concept of “keeping his word” as he understands his marriage vows. At this point, the destruction of our City is about to occur on his dithering watch.
He will do what he has done time and time before. He will run away. It reminds one of the film Citizen Kane and the meaning of “rosebud” traced to a childhood memory. Tony’s childhood memory is breaking grandmother’s prized water pitcher on the floor and then, not wanting to suffer the consequences, running away to avoid being held accountable. He’s still doing it today. He’ll do it tomorrow. The man is a eunich when it comes to leadership.
“The disappointment we should be feeling isn’t just in Antonio Villaraigosa but in ourselves. We know something has to be done but we are going to leave it to a bankruptcy judge to fix it sometime in the future when the damage is done.”
Ron,
It could just be my mood, but, I think it has to hit rock bottom before anything is done.
To Anon. 7:41, “It could just be my mood, but, I think it has to hit rock bottom before anything is done.”
It’s not your mood; it’s a fact. Too often situations have to hit rock bottom before something is done.
Look at the state; California has hit rock bottom as did the City of Bell, the mortgage crisis and so many others.
Los Angeles just does not get it when it come to our worthless Mayor. An old friend once said to me “You can not make chicken salad out out chicken shit.” L.A. must understand that Mayor greatest weakness as a person, are the most important to success as Mayor. For example, he never had a real job. He never has managed a large group of workers. Every office he has held has become a sex scandal beside city hall, how about during both his major campaigns for Assembly and Mayor, and everyone else he screwed while in office. So, common L.A. this Mayor is nothing but a dam freeloader, wine drinking, I will never pay for thing thug!
I really don’t understand the seemingly eternal ‘maybe Villaraigosa will get his game back” stuff. I cannot think of one bit of real good he’s done as Mayor. What are you hanging your hope on, exactly?
Meanwhile, he has left children and paranoid religious control freaks in charge of the store. Frightening.
Can someone please tell me why do we have a Controller when she fails to do her job and collect money due the city that it can desperately use. All Wendy is doing is audits but no solutions, no collections what is going on? Now she’s showing up in communities she needed a map to find before campaigning for Mayor.
L.A. has failed to collect $48 million in overdue fees from apartment owners, audit finds
I’ve got to agree with Sandy…some quirk in human nature seems to be set on the mode “When things get really desperate, then I will pay attention…” Meanwhile, for those who are fully cognizant of all of the failings of our Mayor and City Council (and more), we find ourselves just holding on for dear life waiting for the outrage that is sure to erupt once people really begin to understand just how bad our city’s fiscal situation truly is. (Will violence erupt by those looking for just an excuse to cause trouble? Will violence erupt because so many depend on the public services from the city, county and state?).
Frankly, at this juncture, I’d rather have a judge running the city than the clowns who are now in position. They have shown a complete disregard for the people who have entrusted them to care for this magnificent place.
“Is It Really All Antonio’s Fault?” And the answer, Ron, is “Nearly all of it IS.” The rest of the blame belongs to his colleagues and disciples, many and most of the more blameworthy ones are currently sitting as Council members.
Tony is like a kid working on a video arcade game who soon tires of it, abandoning it for something that captures his new interest. He is not able to deal with details, works in general ideas and leaves the actual work for any matter in the hands of his staff, delegated while he reserves the right to claim credit for any achievement, should that rare event materialize.
That characterization by Newton as “disappointing” should really have been bumped up in degree to something like “disastrous”, (one fitting definition below from the Miriam Webster dictionary:
dis·as·trous/diˈzastrəs/Adjective
1. Causing great damage.
2. Highly unsuccessful)
Tony deserves no slack or benefit of the doubt. He has clearly demonstrated a very clear response to challenges and queries that show no spirit of a true public servant, nor, and very definitely, no quality at all of “altruism.”
Altruism (pronounced /ˈæltruːɪzəm/) is selfless concern for the welfare of others.
And that’s something likewise missing among most present day politicians, clearly the case with our current batch of CMs.
He instead had grown to respond to many stimuli with a style of arrogance, being contentious as his order of the day.
(More vocabulary words of the day here) “contentious”-
exhibiting an often perverse and wearisome tendency to quarrels and disputes, [Example: "a man of a most contentious nature."] (This definition from Wikipedia.)
Tony is so far gone with this narcissism that he cannot see how ludicrous he appears to others. What that happens to do is allow him to shift gears with some level of confidence preserved and that creates the ability to create for himself a false prediction that he’s capable of pulling off his new endeavor, whatever it happens to be.
In Tony’s world, this makes sense. And so, too, to some of the CMs beholden to Antonio for their jobs, lest they speak the truth and make a quick exit, banished from the political scene at the next election. Absent the financial boost Tony can still manage to generate, along with the votes of the unknowing masses that still exist among the city’s registered voters, some CMs will not want to anger him.
I think Antonio would desert the ship himself if he could. The “Call me if you need me” style of leadership as the Mayor that Tony adopted as his work ethic truly doomed us as a city. The idea of bankruptcy is about the only thing that can slap him back to some level of reality. And to avoid that, he, with his CMs also vulnerable to the possibility of a bankruptcy on their watch, will work to sell off every last bit of city property to avoid that- regardless of the future effect on us all.
Yeah, mostly it’s his fault, with every bit of criticism he’s received absolutely fully earned.
The idea of LA Clean Sweep just came along to slowly to save us from him, though his re-election was a true squeaker. Wendy Greuel, with more illusion than performance, we see now, received more votes in that election.
I wish the federal authorities would finally end the corrupt administration of Tony the thug. There is plenty of smoke, and where there’s smoke, there’s fire. The corrupt house of Los Angeles is on fire.
I want to know what happened to Ticketgate?
Jim Newton has LONG been a tool of the Republican old guard, his editorials have screamed it, he has written hoping to be courted by “them” so this is NOT in the remotest way objective, any more than anything Ron writes.
Also as for personal life: Jim NEWTON left his first wife right after she had their baby, just a couple of years ago – she’s a writer and wrote a book about her devastation, but do you think the Times reviewed it? Why? He married a high- powered lawyer at the Times. Check it out, Ron.
HOWEVER I think much of the damning first sentence by the first poster is true. It could, however, speak of many of the elected councilmembers, who are afraid of their own shadows and pander to this one and that, from SEIU to loud homeowner groups.
(Zine most comes to mind when we think of “two-faced” and crazily unsuited to his higher ambition of being Controler, but many will do.
Speaking of the Controller: why isn’t Wendy trying to figure out how to collect on the $500 tickets for running red lights at cameras, a full 45% unpaid, according to reports, including the NBC/ Ch. 4 news tonight? Word is many of them are illegals who can’t be traced: is this about being politically incorrect? That’s many millions uncollected while the “usual suspects,” law-abiding citizens, pay up – well, Wendy?
Energy consultant to run DWP? I thought Antonio was looking for someone with private utility experience, who was in charge of thousands of employees and dealt with multibillion dollar budgets. But, I suppose noone of “the best and brightest” wants to deal with this looser, as validated today by Newton. I guess Antonio forgot another ” high power executive”, D. Nahai! As they say, dejavu.
Well, we cannot blame the Los Angeles magazine for being harsh on Antonio. His cheerleader , the LA Times was even harsher! Who is next? LA Weekly? Oh, I forgot. They have labeled him, “the 11% Mayor”. What an embarrassment! Two yrs to go, and it can only go down.
“The Decline of the Californios” by Leonard Pitt should be compared and contrasted with “The Decline of the Angelinos(Circa 2010)” by Mayor….
IT ALL STEMS FROM THE TOP, THE FAILURE OF A MAYOR
At many community meetings the dialogue is how horribly City Hall has deteroriated under the Clown of a Mayor. Mayor Hahn may not have had a outgoing personality but he had CLASS. Notice all the losers now in city hall. A bunch of Mexican Mafia thugs in suits like Alarcon, Reyes, Huizar, Cardenas, lobbyists like Richard Alatorre who is the Mayor’s right hand but no one reports it and getting paid a ton of money. City council morons have no class, no ethics, no professional decorum and behave like immature teenagers. They speak to people with an arrogant attitude that is beyond appalling. They have the audacity to question other depts. when their own offices need to be audited and scruntized. Ron, yes its the FAILURE of a Mayor’s fault then it trickles down to the losers called politicians who have done more harm to our city then any other group in our History. And I agree what will it take for the people to get really pissed off and revolt!!!
6:46 am : excellent comments but ….
When will the people revolt? Are you kidding me? In CA and especially LA, the incumbents never lose. The people had a choice whether or not to re-elect Villar but they re-elected that scum. I do hope & wish the city will be forced to declare bankruptcy because all these “people” who let Villar to stay in power richly deserve this. I hope by then I’ll be out of this mexican paradise.
Wait till all the city clowncils will be re-elected next March. Of course they will.
7:46Am I am confident from what the buzz is around the city that there is indeed an Anti-incumbent attitude. When these losers were elected the city wasn’t or we didn’t know how bad shape we were in. NOW everyone knows how bad and the financial crisis this city is in thanks to them. Chris Essel is a prime example of having millions and still winning because of the will of the people. Its going to be interesting to see how these loser incumbent campaign when they have all supported the corrupt DWP on their votes. I agree with Ron posting the negative, personal attacks on CD14 candidate by Sleazy Huizy. Constituents in that district are waiting for the FEDS to investigate his operation which everyone knows is corrupt. The personal attacks are back firing as it shows the desperation and lack of confidence Huizar has in his own ability and his deflecting from HIS failure as a councilman
S. Carloina, what is the O organization?