You got to love Jerry Brown — he rode attack ads and hit pieces to defeat Meg Whitman’s clumsy campaign and now that he’s governor-elect he has discovered state government is really sick with a $20 billion structural deficit and decided it’s the public that needs a “reality check.”
So he’s about to jump on a soap box and start beating us over the head with how really “bad the situation is . . . but he won’t be talking solutions yet,” according to his spokesman.
Who knew?
Still, as contemptuous of our intelligence his posture is, he is light years ahead of our own mayor he never talks about anything relevant to the predicament the city faces, offering only slogans like “a million trees . . . greenest city in America . . . 30/10 subway to the sea” — hollow words, empty promises that do nothing to solve the problem caused by mismanagement, bloated payroll and pension costs and runaway spending on non-essential programs and services.
It’s a mess and as the mayor and City Council have been told over and over by their own experts, “Next year is worse and the year after even worse.”
How about some straight talk for a change? Is that asking too much from the nation’s highest paid city officials, people paid more than federal judges, paid nearly twice what New York City officials are paid and endowed with10 times their staffs, people who live like the multi-millionaires they so slavishly serve at the public expense?
Instead, they put 10 and possibly 11 meaningless measures on the March 8 ballot that do nothing to solve a single problem and are raising millions of dollars from unions, developers, contractors and other special interests to squelch the rebellion by ordinary citizens fed up with a city government that has raised taxes, fees, rates and fines while closing the parks and libraries and cutting other basic services without a plan that comes close to put the budget back in balance.
This is a City Hall that is in the process of short-circuiting all planning processes to all but eliminate meaningful public input while giving away hundreds of millions of dollars to developers and corporations for subsidized projects while embarking on a massive subway and light rail construction program even as slash bus services and 100-year-old water mains burst and 100-year-old power poles topple and the streets and sidewalks crumble.
This is a parody of government, a dark satire on what public service is supposed to be about.
This is a mayor who has abandoned every belief he ever had in a desperate effort to save himself with a mythical list of achievements.
He’s a devoted union man who has infuriated every public employee union leader — except the IBEW’s Brian D’Arcy who keeps on getting more while everyone else gets less.
He’s an ultra-liberal who has brought together leftist groups like the Bus Riders Union and the Human Right to Housing Coalition into a movement challenging two of three pillars of his phony claim to fame: Public transit and public housing.
And his third claim to fame — hiring 10,000 cops, something he’s never quite achieved — is under attack from the cops themselves who don’t understand why they are sweeping floors in police stations and doing other civilian jobs and are barred from earning overtime pay while new recruits continue to be hired even though it will take several years before they really know what they are doing.
“When the City Council voted to raise trash fees in 2006, the action came with a promise to Angelenos that the money would be put toward expanding the Los Angeles police force to more than 10,000 officers. But even as we’ve moved closer to meeting that goal on paper, the number of officers on the street is being eroded,” writes police union president Paul Weber in an LA Times oped article.
“Because of attrition, early retirement incentives and mandatory furloughs, the number of police officers doing actual police work is gradually declining, and the problem is becoming more acute.”
The truth is most of the money from the trash fee never went to the LAPD as was promised.
Yet, the mayor remains silent and irrelevant. The Council remains gutless and out of touch, hoping to save themselves with lies and special interest money even as they attack the character of anyone who dares to challenge them.
Half a million people are unemployed, under-employed or unemployable in L.A. The middle class has been fleeing for three decades as we devolve into a city of rich and poor. Our schools remain terrible.
It is time the business and civic leadership stops settling for crumbs and flatter and takes a stand on what kind of city L.A. will be in the future.
Back in 1973, a revolution occurred that ended the rule of a narrow class of greedy bigots and brought to power with Tom Bradley a liberal class of leaders with a vision of a greater city, one that respected people of all races and backgrounds and provided hope and opportunity.
It is clear to everyone that the promise of that revolution has been betrayed, corrupted over time as revolutions often are.
It will take those business and civic leaders to turn L.A. around by joining with ordinary citizens on the left, right and center to revive hope and create new opportunities.
One can only hope that they take a hard look at the reality of what is going on and remember the ideals they once held so dear. Their legacy and place in history is at stake and so is the future of L.A.
Thank you Ron. So many are terrified of the weasel of a Mayor to say the truth. We all know the trash fee hike was a lie and exaggerated more lies. Millions are going into the general fund and yet they want to keep hiring cops when right now there are fewer 300 cops because of the OT issues. These losers ask why cops are doing civilan jobs, but it was their dumb asses who put a hiring freeze on civilans. Are they really as stupid as they all look? IF the media really want a story investigate the money from the FEDS that is suppose be used for all the LAPD CLEAR target areas the Mayor now has control of. We’re hearing the Mayor is moving around that Federal money to his croonies and some CLEAR officers are being shut down. With the crisis in LA why does the Mayor still have over 15 Deputy Mayors and what do they do? BEWARE EVERYONE The Mayor is sending his flacks to meetings to find out where all the good events are so he can show up without being invited to get his photo ops.
Why compare Jerry Brown with Villar? One has character, integrity and a zeal for public service and the other has not done a day of honest work other than to feed off the public trough.
Although you cannot comnpare Brown and the mayor – Villaraigosa can’t even carry Jerry’s water – still, I am not optimistic about Brown making meaningful headway, if any, in resolving the state’s financial misery.
His own party and the unions will neuter him.
Paul Hatfield
We need a reality check, but that is not going to happen until investors say no more.
Crunch Time is in June when the City needs to repay $600 million in loans and then raise $1.5 billion to finance pension payments and to fund operations for the first 6 months.
But do not be surprised if investors tell our Dear 11% Termed Out Mayor to take a hike unless there is a realistic long term solvency plan.
But the police, firefighters, the Coalition of City Unions will go ape.
The Bankruptcy Mayor and Council will have to shed the decades of blind gifts to the unions. The public unions have raped the City treeaasure.
Way to go 1:40! Right On!
The reality check will only happen when the investors stop accepting these terms from our politicians.
It’ll be a pain to see when the city repays it’s $600 million in loans and then raise $1.5B to pay for the pensions and get money for their first six months in operation.
Public servants like the police, fire-fighters and the Coalition of City Unions will go nuts.
Police officers are declining and crime rate is going up…. Sounds familiar ?
Procellix
Police officers are declining and crime rate is going up…. Sounds familiar ?
Procellix
It is real pain to see when the city repays it’s $600 million in loans and then raise $1.5B to pay for the pensions and get money for their first six months in operation.