L.A. CLEAN
SWEEP ENDORSES CANDIDATES FOR CITY COUNCIL
The L.A.
Clean Sweep movement – a non-partisan citywide coalition of community group and activists working for change at City Hall – endorsed candidates
Sunday in six of the seven City Council races on the March 8 ballot.
Long-time
Neighborhood Council leader Stephen Box, a leader in the campaign to defeat
solar energy Measure B two years ago, won overwhelming support in Council
District 4 over incumbent Tom LaBonge and Tomas O’Grady, an activist leader in
Neighborhood Council and school improvement groups.
In CD14,
businessman Rudy Martinez who has raised more than $300,000 got a strong endorsement
over incumbent Jose Huizar.
Austin
Dragon was the clear choice in CD 10 over incumbent Herb Wesson and several
other candidates.
In CD 12, the open seat because of Councilman
Greig Smith’s retirement, businessman Kelly Lord received the Clean Sweep
endorsement over several candidates and Smith’s chief of staff Mitch Englander
who was criticized for claiming on his ballot designation that he is a “policemen”
when he is only a volunteer member of the LAPD reserve.
Richard
Goodman, David Barron and Jamie Cordaro shared the endorsement in CD6 in the
race to unseat incumbent Tony Cardenas.
Councilman
Bernard Parks, the only incumbent to participate in the selection process and
support Clean Sweep’s efforts for fiscal responsibility and emphasis on core
services, got the endorsement.
In CD2, now
represented by Paul Krekorian, Clean Sweep made no endorsement.
L.A. Clean
Sweep was formed last year to bring community groups and activists together in
every part of the city to bring open and honest leadership to City Hall.
Balancing
the budget and fiscal responsibility, elimination of waste and inefficiency and
non-core services are among the basic principles of Clean Sweep.
You can
read more at lacleansweep.com or contact Ron Kaye at 818-621-8349 or
ron@ronkayela.com.
Thank god Clean Sweep is supporting Stephen Box!
Now, someone pay for a professional campaign ad for Stephen!
Clean Sweep should have taken a neutral stance on Parks as they did with Krekorian.
As much as Parks portrays himself as a fiscal conservative, he has yet to take any action to validate that characterization.
Paul Hatfield
Why was no endorsement made in CD2?
Joe B. please don’t come over here. Don’t worry about it.
Here comes Paul and Joe to let the group know they do not agree with you. Interesting these two both have blogs of their own. How about you let these people have their opinion on this blog and you can criticize them on yours. Sorry not everyone agrees with you. How dare us.
I’m glad David Barron got the endorsement in CD6. Good guy, intelligent and knows his stuff. Rudy Martinez for CD14 good choice. He’s really for the people and grew up like many in the district so knows the issues. Glad Kelly Lord got endorsement over little Mitch Englander who has been caught already lying not telling people he’s a volunteer police officer and still works in city hall. I’m confused on Parks. Councilman Parks voted and was pushing to cut Neighborhood Council’s budget by 80%. He’s been the most vocal against Neighborhood Councils but you guys endorsed him, hmmmm??? He and his croonies last December voted UNANIMOUSLY TO approve raises for DWP employees. If he’s so fiscally responsible why did he hide out until the vote on Council taking over jurisdiction of DWP was done? His vote would have given it to Council. Last week he sounded as if he was going to VOTE NO on the parking garage sale, but then again when it came time to VOTE he voted with the croonies on council. I can’t find one vote where you can say Parks is fiscally responsible and all his votes support DWP. Why no endorsement of Paul Krekorian who has been a good friend to Neighborhood Councils? This is whack!!!!
Apparently Krekorian never responded to Clean Sweep
questions or invitations so no endorsement was made. Bisani, of course, was not going to get it. Thanks to a Clean Sweep member for contacting me to fill me in.
You endorsed Bernard Parks? Wow. He pays a little lip service to fiscal responsibility, and that makes up for . . . Oh well. This is why I have been trying to stop paying attention to local politics.
Walter, you say are trying to stop paying attention to local politics but you post a comment on this thread as soon as it is posted. Did Ron’s blog jump off the screen at you?
411 – I’m expressing an opinion as anyone can on this blog…and others.
441 – Did you see it was a three-way endorsement? Still glad? Or maybe just a third as glad. I’m going to vote for all three.
hey walter {you can not get what you whant }we all now ex cop parks is a crook whats new he dont walk the talk he will never will
forget about that idiot and try to get the new ones in office as you run for mayor you whent as to make a change they all trying to do the same and i belive ron kaye belives the same
i belong to cd14 eagle rock last sunday rudy marinez came by my home i let him havet it he was late 6pm he dint stop me , i ask him if he new what is a PNL he did how many of those crooks politicians in city hall you think they now or how many have run any thing out side city hall rudy martinez walk alway having 3 votes from my home , the same we did for you walter we voted for you
los angeles need a change and evry one in this blog now it
los angeles voter need you walter dont let the ones who belive on you down
yes i have 3 large RUDY MARTINES signes in front of our home
now lets get this crooks and liars out of office
The CD8 endorsement (Parks) is why South LA activists have failed to get involved in Clean Sweep and other “reform” efforts. It shows how terribly out of touch those who run these “reform” movements are with the on-the-ground conditions in our communities and little concern to the real world impact the City Council decisions have on those of us south of 10 freeway.
I wish I could say I was surprised.
Clean Sweep blew it when they put Walter Moore on their board of directors. The racist rarely attended meetings, drove away the Latinos, and now shows up to Monday morning quarterback. Loser.
I agree with Walter.
Review the council voting records and you’ll see that Parks votes with the others almost every time no matter how he pretended to fight for fiscal responsibility. Krekorian’s voting record is just as bad.
What does Clean Sweep mean? Sweep everywhere except the corners? For LA Clean Sweep to endorse Parks and not outright oppose Krekorian for council is ridiculous.
Cande Eguia
Clean Sweep means get all the dirt out of City Hall! Yes, that means cleaning out those hiding in the corners trying to fool their constituents with righteous rhetoric before voting with the rest of the Hill Street Gang.
You can’t change City Hall by keeping two incumbents that vote with the mayor & Garcetti on almost every issue. Ask these two candidates, Parks & Krekorian, how they voted on the Vine “Welfare for the Rich” Project, the Eli Broad Early Christmas Gift, the DWP wage contracts, the DWP retirement system, the illegal alien deportation issues, & the parking lot yard sale.
How do they stack up now? You have to admit, they don’t come close to making the grade as Clean Sweep candidates!
Walter Moore is not on the board of Clean Sweep anymore, moron @12:02.
Do your homework.
Bisani vs. Krekorian.
Have you ever heard Bisani tell community members that their community and lifestyle is all wrong and that if elected, he would change their entire way of life?
Bisani is a nice man but a self-deluded nutbag. Best not to endorse in CD 2.
O’Grady is not a community leader in CD 4. He takes credit for the work that other activists in CD 4 have done for DECADES.
For the many with questions on the endorsements and non-endorsements, you really had to be there.
The anti-Walter Moore contingent simply are off base here, and anyone could have participated in L.A. Clean Sweep, even if only to attend meetings.
The idea that Latinos and Blacks were not wanted simply is unwarranted, speaking as a Latino. It’s a non-issue except for the critics. You can’t make people show up and participate, as many in NCs already know.
The fact that unions are so against Parks in his race against Mark Ridley-Thomas shows a lot. Maybe the votes don’t tell all in 99.9% dictatorship of a city council that still has their voting machines set to an auto-pilot “YES” vote for all tallys. The discussions if you hear them reveal much more on each CM than the votes.
Still, you try to work with what you have and aside from Parks, the others are not even arguably worthy of another term. What? Another 4 years of the same outcomes? And when we are on the brink of bankruptcy, what city asset will be on the auction block then?
NO, they, as led by Eric Garcetti, are too interested in keeping full employment at city hall as earlier actions might have mitigated the situation at hand now. Union support and their personal longevity are what matters above and beyond good choice for L.A.
What these endorsements show are fairness and thoughtfulness.
Even though I may not agree with all of them:
1. It wasn’t a mindless drive against all incumbents – LA Clean Sweep did not go against Parks and Krekorian.
2. In one district, CD-6, LA Clean Sweep endorsed more than one candidate.
3. In one district, no endorsement was made.
David Barron for CD6. Best man for the job!
DAVID BARRON FOR CD6!
I’m not going to spend much time debating an endorsement that no one who will actually vote in CD8 knows about, cares about or participated in making. I will simply say regarding the response from Eagle Rock, the point is not that the meetings were open. It’s that there is a reason “open meetings” are not attended, and it doesn’t have as much to do with race as it does with a separate values system, which manifests itself in things like this. I could write a book about how if activists north of the mountains would only RECOGNIZE some of the principles and conditions south of the mountains and altered their strategy (but not goals) accordingly a much more powerful coalition could be developed.
And focusing on the unions in Parks race versus Ridley-Thomas doesn’t explain how Parks lost every precinct in the 2nd Supervisors District. No amount of money can lead to that type of wholesale rejection of a candidate who had high name recognition.
People, in particular social activists, really don’t like the Parks for a whole lot of substantive reasons. It’s not just about his horrible constituent service, and rejection of community input, which I suppose anyone outside of CD8 wouldn’t know about. Anyone paying attention to any of the issues that come to city hall, outside of simply the budget, could figure it out. He votes/advocates in the wrong more than not.
If he wants to legislate like a Republican he should move out to Chatsworth and run in CD12. Right now he represents CD8 and thankfully the community is rising up against him.
I think it’s disgusting that Parks could get the endorsement and Krekorian didn’t. Nobody on the current council has done more for neighborhood councils so this proves that the SLAP-HAPPY valley Republicans chose those most like them, not the best for the job.