The LA Times today raises questions — finally — about whether massive subsidies and tax rebates for luxury hotels makes any dollars and sense for a city that has so much trouble paying its bills.
Toting up the long-term cost of letting the J.W. Marriott at LA Live and the planned Wilshire Grand on Figueroa and and Mandarin Oriental on Grand Avenue, David Zahniser comes up with a tidy $640 million figure — “money that otherwise would have helped pay for police officers, firefighters and other basic services,” he notes.
LA Business Journal Editor Charles Crumpley finds a lot more “gold in the gutter,”
as the City Council likes to refer to their annual effort to erase massive budget deficits, $457 million this year and even more looming next year.
In the last three years alone, the city has faced legal judgments totaling $45 million for LAPD management abuses involving 15 current and former police officers who were punished for such behavior as objecting to illegal orders to meet daily quotas for writing traffic tickets
Throw in the millions in judgments for similar action in the Fire Department plus the $260 million a year audits show city departments fail to collect and all of a sudden you have a lot of money in the city treasury.
Crumpley writes in his article at Fox and Hounds:
“The reason I bring all this up: People all over town, especially
business people, assume that sooner or later their city taxes will go
up. They assume the city’s stuff may be sold, more services will be cut,
more layoffs will follow. They assume fees will be ratcheted up,
potholes won’t be filled and quotas for traffic tickets will go up. Even
though quotas are illegal.
“We could send a river of money to the Los Angeles City Hall, but as long
as much of that money swirls down an immense drain of waste, well,
probably no river would be wide enough.
“Before we send more money to City Hall, or accept many cuts, maybe the
business community should demand that City Hall first show respect for
the considerable amount of money we already send in.”
Why the city is in trouble is becoming clearer to a lot of people, not just us perpetually critical ordinary citizens.
The problems start at the top with leadership that serves itself and the insider interests that keep them in office while politicizing the bureaucracy and turning every policy decision and action into an exercise in political manipulation without regard to the public interest.
The politicized bureaucracy for its part is incapable of doing the right thing for the right reason. No one is held accountable for failing the public, only for failing the politicians.
In a culture as corrupt as City Hall’s is it any wonder that there is no discipline down on the ground among the people who actually do the work, like the parking enforcement officers who participated in making a porn film while in uniform and on duty.
NBC Channel 4 broke the story last week and provided evidence that the people in charge looked the other way at the officers’ transgression until the TV cameras were rolling and the questions were being asked.
“The entire chain of command is in the discussion at this point,”
Councilman Bill Rosendahl told NBC4 in a followup interview.
“Who knew what when, and why wasn’t it shared?
They’re all part of the investigation.”I want a full-scale investigation. There are no limits to where this will go at this point.”
Based on City Hall’s past performance that is unlikely to happen but it would be a starting point.
What is really needed is a no-limits, full-scale investigation of how the flow of political money from special interests buys city’s leaders votes, corrupts the bureaucracy and creates a workplace environment that punishes honesty and efficiency.
As much as we help small businesses and large, the return to the City has been null. We give away for Eli Broad and we take away libraries and Art Grant money.. We want Private/Public money to help Parks.. Yet we give Private Firms all the tax benefits and subsidiaries possible.. The W tax subsidiary is BOASTED by Eric Garcetti as he then takes FED money designated for poverty areas, and loans the money to cir du solei – The CRA the nonprofits, they get to pay off the debt through service- the tax payer pays it all. This business approach is flawed. Businesses are happy to get them, but never willing to give back to the City. The act like 2 year olds.
The public receives, dog fees, layoffs, parking fee hikes, and don’t sell your car in Silver Lake -a lot of NO! No relief on Rent No affordable Housing.. I love it when Mix USE Projects, the owners must rent 2-3 units to low income-No enforcement, Would love to live at the W.. but while they make money they don’t pay their fair share – Negotiate a deal with NFL and Team.. they use our roads, our police, fire, and ambulance .. expanding the economy is the only way out and that means at the top, their bottom line may have to go down until City can recover.
Incredible!
I know I would be on trial if I even came close
to what is going on.
It takes the media to uncover waste and abuses within City Hall. Our highest paid City Council or the 200+ employees Mayor are asleep at the wheel, even as they continue to cut back services.
-Investigation Uncovers City Employees Driving On Your Dime
April 28, 2011 11:00 PM
“LOS ANGELES (CBS) — While you spend nearly $5 a gallon at the pump on your own car, a CBS2 News investigation has uncovered some public employees taking a free ride at your expense.
For the past four months our undercover cameras have focused on some of the thousands of taxpayer-funded cars that we found on the streets.
You have probably seen them yourself with a city, county or state seal, and wondered whether they were on official business or something else — or if they are even necessary?
In one instance we caught a guy getting a ride to work in a city car and you are paying for it. In another women go to lunch with their car and gas paid for by taxpayers.
The City of Los Angles has nearly 2,100 passenger vehicles. They cost more than $51 million with an additional $3.5 million just to operate and maintain last year.
Some cars are permanently assigned to city council members and various city departments. Others are checked out for daily use through the city motor-pool, where employees with permission can temporarily use a car to conduct city business.
Many of the cars are white hybrids like one that we found on the streets. The only problems were that the man driving it was not a city employee and he was not on city business.
Behind the wheel was Raul Gonzalez and the passenger was his wife Hilda Garcia.
She works in the mayor’s office as a program manager in the gang reduction unit. In March we followed them the 12 miles from their home in Highland Park to Gonzalez’s job at a school in the Wilshire District, where he got out and went to work — and you paid for it”. She was fired.
“According to the L.A. City Municipal Code, it is unlawful to operate these vehicles for any purpose other than for official business and the policy states that only city employees are authorized to drive city owned vehicles.
Even then there could be abuses. We followed city employees in a motor pool car roughly 15 miles from Downtown L.A. to Rosemead. They went to a restaurant where they sat and had lunch.
“The taxpayers are paying for your transportation for a personal lunch. Is that right?” I asked.
They didn’t have anything to say”.
The employees caught on tape lunching in Rosemead were five city planners, the ones who can’t complete community plans because they are “short-staffed”.
“According to the L.A. City Municipal Code, it is unlawful to operate these vehicles for any purpose other than for official business”. When will the Mayor fire Michael Logrande, Director of Planning, for abusing taxpayer money. Maybe, the Feds would take more interest in such corruption. If Department of Building & Safety is taking bribes, planning is just a stone throw away.