Neighborhood Council leader and community activists staged a revived Budget LA forum Saturday in Hollywood, luring a crowd of about 100 in sweltering heat to listen to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s top people explain why the crisis is city over-spending has kept gettting worse, reaching $463 million for the coming fiscal year.
Their answer was simple and direct: The mayor has done just about everything wrong.
He closed libraries on Mondays, approved brownouts in fire services, took cops off the street, stopped fixing potholes, reduced parks programs, cooked the books among many other strategies that never made a dent in the underlying program that the city is committed to spending far more — 85 percent for employees — than the revenue it takes in.
Deputy Mayor Larry Frank started the program, which also featured labor leader Julie Butcher and NC budget experts, by admitting the strategies tried so far from furloughs to early retirements, small numbers of layoffs and various one-time solutions were unsuccessful. (VIDEO TO COME).
When pressed, Frank said some of the solutions the mayor will propose in his spending plan for 2011-12 on Wednesday will actually help reduce the structural deficit some and Villaraigosa is “hoping” the economy will recover at some time in the future and solve the rest of the shortfall that now runs into billions of dollars over time.
Deputy Chief of Staff Matt Szabo, the mayor’s man in charge of the budget, offered his own hope and prayer analysis, saying they are optimistic some services — libraries reopening on Mondays, for instance — in the new budget.
Noting soaring costs of pensions and health benefits account for two-thirds of the deficit, Szabo said unionagreement, subject to worker ratification, to pay a portion of health care costs for the first time in exchange for guarantees they won’t be subject to any negative impact from Obamacare. He deflected all responsibility for the mayor’s agreeing to give many city workers 5 percent raises next year.
“It’s not like we’re adding services paving a lot more streets, fixing more potholes,” Szabo said, adding last year’s use of furloughs for civilian workers was a “disaster option” that did “maximum damage” to services and “maximum damage” to worker morale as well as chaos in the operations of departments that must coordinate their functions.
“We can’t afford what we’re doing right now,” he admitted.
The mayor and his team have learned hard lessons about their three-year failure to offer long-term solutions to the deficit, he said, so they dumped their budget staff and recruiting smart financial people from the DWP, Fire Department and Personnel.and for the third time in three years negotiating concessions from the unions.
Szabo brought with him an Hungarian board game for children played with marbles to demonstrate what the mayor has done wrong in managing the city’s fiscal crisis. The winner of the game is the one who collects the most marbles.
“The trouble is the people who scream the loudest and grab the most generally win at the end of the day,” he said. “The trouble with this process when you only got two marbles in the pan it doesn’t work it just doesn’t work.”
The new budget process, he said, involves playing with toddler’s blocks in different sizes and colors, each representing a different financial problem. The blocks helped them come up with specific solutions to specific problems.
Matt Bozo seems very thoughtful. Too bad they are all the wrong thoughts.
Here is one solution. Get rid of Szabo and 90% of the Mayor’s staff. They are worthless and add absolutely no value to managing the city.
I would say Villaraigosa has lost his marbles, but I don’t think he had any to begin with.
Either the mayor’s mouthpieces are as dumb as dirt (no offense, dirt, at least your know how to make things grow), or this goes to the top of the Best Spoof of the Year so far. Real National Lampoon stuff.
WTF?? Deputy Mayor Matt Szabo brought children’s toys (Ron you forgot the child’s puzzle he played with) with him while explaining the financial crisis our city is in. He deflected from the real issues, made excuses, passed the buck and insulted our intelligence. I wish I would have asked why the Mayor continues to hire more staff, has a staff over 200 more then any other Mayor in our history and sat and did nothing with CRA knowing full well it was unethical for council to transfer millions of dollars. Matt Szabo is a classic example of what is wrong with the Mayor and City Hall. THanks for the clown show.
LA’s Best “Act”uary? “Brother can you spare a dime?”
It seems holding office takes granting all wishes
to the government union workers which is a run
on on the taxpayers lives and families. How?
the union members vote.
When these unions are part of gang warfare, which
it seems they are, it is time for a major change
in our state and local laws.
When will we ever learn: EVERY VOTE COUNTS???
Didn’t, in the Times, the mayor say the pension crises won’t make the city bankrupt or something like that? And, weren’t the unions all recently told that if they do not vote to increase payments into their pensions that the city will go bankrupt?
Who told them that? Certainly not the mayor’s office–didn’t they say bankruptcy won’t ever happen?
Sometimes, in making sense of odd situations, need you to say, “You really had to be there.” But I was there and the side of the budget picture presented by Larry Frank and Matt Szabo was just an extension of the Villaraigosa logic behind the speech on Wednesday. More of the “Emperor’s New Clothes” style of management.
Matt is simply the wingman for Antonio, trying to plug holes in the dike that the mayor generously leaves after each public statement.
We had a couple of speakers challenge the administration’s handling of the budget very loudly but, of course, even that did not produce any real answers or explanations of value.
SECOND PART – Neighborhood councils were warned by Jay Handal, heading the NC Budget Advocates efforts, of expected serious cuts to NC funding, with any unspent funds swept, and the election process affected. A big effort by all to oppose that by all means of communication to the CMs was urged.
I don’t know how most of what’s been said by the Villaraigosa administration can be made with a straight face. Poker players? Well, definitely gamblers all around- and that’s easily done with tax dollars, “other people’s money.”
The culprits include the CMs, the enablers and just as often the perpetrators of our expensive city ills.
One thing I think the Mayor’s side of things was setting up was “blame” so his union proposals to “solve” some parts will be their fault if rejected. The “No Furloughs” discussion was phony. As I understant it- I could be wrong- was that a “no furlough” term was included with the union proposal.
That bars use of furloughs as a future option for the city, even if conditions make it needed. But the city negotiators tend to work well with theo opposing side, too well. I keep getting that feeling after these deals that the farm has been given away. The public needs to form their own “special interest group” to be represented since that’s all these politicians seem to pay attention to. (How many more years of DWP raises are still coming up, thank to the mayor and CMs? And what private sector raises- aside from CEOs- are raises still happening?)
Maybe Antonio should have kept his political aspirations exercised exclusively on the Education side and leave municipal government alone. That might have spared us all of much of this disaster of a city government. That would really have been a dream for us.
Ron,
Please do a piece discussing the qualifications of Matt Szabo to be the budget director for the second largest city in America. Does he have a finance degree? Wasn’t his prior position as a press deputy in tue City Attorney’s office? Shouldn’t we at least have someone with a finance background? Someone who knows City Hall. Can’t help but think Jim Hahn would have done a MUCH better job with the budget as he had worked his way up from City Clerk ? City Atty, Mayor. He was not exciting bit he actually had the knowledge of the City that has been sorely lacking since term limits changed the political landscape in L.A. Every Pol is now looking for their next landing pad rather than focusing on where the City will be when the music stops.
Please look into Szabo’s background and education and whether he is fit to be the budget director. What a joke! We can and should do better. Shame on Antonio for not recruiting better for the position.
“When pressed, Frank said some of the solutions the mayor will propose in his spending plan for 2011-12 on Wednesday will actually help reduce the structural deficit some and Villaraigosa is “hoping” the economy will recover at some time in the future and solve the rest of the shortfall that now runs into billions of dollars over time”.
I’m also hoping that the economy will recover and I can sell my house for what I paid for it and hit the lotto.
I attended BudgetLA this Saturday. It appears to me that Matt Szabo was invited to discuss the re-arrangement of the chairs on the Titanic without mentioning that we’ve hit an iceberg and are about to sink to the bottom of the financial ocean. Szabo did the task requested of him and he was honest enough to admit that the only real hope was Prayer.
Except for one young woman who mentioned the corrupt CRA during question time, everyone assiduously avoided the two huge causes of our financial mess: (1) Corruption and (2) Incompetence. [Corruption alawys brings Incompetence since crooks do not need competence to make money since they steal it. All the mayor and city council need are people who will follow the code of silence plus a council that votes together 99%+ of the time.]
Next year CRA/LA will rake off about $1/3 Billion dollars of property tax dollars. [Were you deceived by the Gov when he said he would abolish the CRA? I admit it -- I was that naive.] The City is loosing population in Hollywood — the place where the CRA/LA has probably victimized more people than anywhere else. District 2 of HSDNC lost 5.3% and District 3 of HSDNC lost 14.5%. The CRA/LA concentrates projects where the developers will make money without regard to population trends. In fact, back in 1993 the City’s own Telecommunication Report said that increased density would not attract more people but would increase a population exodus. Nonetheless, Angelenos are silent while the City gives away hundreds of millions of dollars to corrupt developers.
It is not Szabo’s fault that he was placed within a forum where there was no credible challenge to the city budget and no discussion of its origins. There was no one speak to document the decades of fraud and theft of city funds.
It was like discussing the murder rate in Chicago in the 1930′s without mentioning Al Capone.
I believed Brown and if he does not abolish CRAs, he’ll never have my support on anything.
I am not certain that Angelenos are much different than other Americans who condone lies and corruption. We see Eric Cantor come out and declare that if the Senate does not adopt the house bill, then the House bill becomes law. Did the Constitutional Worshiping Tea Baggers protest? No, they thought it was a grand idea.
The people who caused the financial crash are getting billions upon billions in bonuses after the tax payers gave them trillions and upon trillions in free loans. The banks did not repay anything — they invested our trillions of dollars, which the Fed Reserve gave them,in US govt bonds and then the banks gave the govt the interest they earned on the loans as “repayment” of the stimulus money.
Meanwhile, the banks have been foreclosing on more and more homes.
Donald The Hair Trump runs around like Chicken Little saying Obama is not an American — it was a grand plan for Obie’s grandparents to get the benefits of American citizenship, which Obie would have had even if he had been born elsewhere as long as his Mom was a US citizen. Trump shoots to the top of the ratings.
The loons still love Glenn Beck even after he was too extreme for Faux News.
So it should be no surprise that Angelenos who complained about the pot holes as they drove to the polls on March 8, then re-elected the councilmen who caused the pot holes. $1.5 Billion of property tax dollars disappeared into the CRA while LaBonge has been in office and the voters re-elect him in a landslide.
The Mayor, the Councilmembers, the developers steal from Angelenos right and left because we are such patsies — even our advocacy groups don’t complain.
city hall are all crooks and liars
I AM VERY PROUD TO SAY I CAMPAIGNED AND VOTED FOR JIM HAHN’S RE ELECTION. I got slammed, cursed at, verbally assaulted because no one wanted to believe what many of us knew. Antonio Villaraigosa is nothing more then a Gangster in a Suit. You can take the gangster out of the hood and put him in a suit, but you can’t take the gangster, thug, corrupt mentality out of his lame ass brain. This City has deteroriated so horribly people are now leaving. The gangsters are taking over. The shooting at Venice Boardwalk, the Dodger Stadium incident, the Hollywood shootings, the Valley shootings, Staples violence, and Charlie Beck sits on his ass, takes his orders from the Mayor and our city is falling apart. Our City is becoming the Wild Wild West with lawlessness. Add to that the incompetent, corrupt morons in City Hall and you have a novel of “What Happened to the Great City Of Los Angeles?”
8:17. — so why have you been quiet about Villar then? I don’t recall Hanh bringing up this in the open? Oh because you all wanted to be PC, to be nice so you wouldn’t offend this great Latino hope. Of course both La slimes and dailyrag were too obliging to keep up the illusion.
LA is already the third world hell hole (just drive around the valley) and this PC running amok is truly sad.
11:25am Did you not read the post of 8:17am. We spoke LOUD AND CLEAR and got verbally assaulted because we were telling the truth to anyone who would listen. Interestingly enough many of us are Latinos and wanted Jim Hahn because no one knows our own kind more then we do. Look at the mess all the corrupt Latino politicians have done to communities. There are more Latino politicians in this day yet every Latino community is worse off then ever. The neighborhoods now look like Mexico and the Latino politicians like it that way because they don’t have class.
While you’re checking qualifications, Ron, check the qualifications of the last Deputy Mayor in charge of budget, who’s now Assistant CAO, Ben Ceja. The Mayor responds to accusations that his staff is too large by planting his shills in other departments. The Treasurer’s office is another place. The interim Treasurer has ZERO financial qualifications, yet he’s been there the better part of a year.
April 18, 3:45, you are so right! One of the more interesting analyses of census data shows that the more minorities come into power, the worse off a region becomes, because usually, the minority politicians establish social programs and raise taxes. The business owners and middle-class of all minority backgrounds flee, the poor of all backgrounds continue to pour in, and the quality of life starts dropping. Check out Detroit — there have been minority mayors there for decades, and although their intentions may have been good, the end result is destruction and despair.