LA Times’ distinguished columnists Steve Lopez and Jim Newton took up important if thorny challenges in recent columns – examinations of the role of the professional politicians running for mayor and city controller.
For his part, Lopez dismisses the outsider candidates Kevin James and Emanuel Pleitez because they’re not insiders, wishes really good candidates like Zev Yaroslavsky, Rick Caruso or Austin Beutner had jumped in and is skeptical that insiders Eric Garcetti, Wendy Greuel and Jan Perry can overcome their past performance and rise to the occasion as mayor of a troubled city.
“It’s only fair now to ask Greuel how she can be expected to act more responsibly as mayor, particularly after picking up recent support from police and DWP employees”” he writes. “The business-friendly Perry, meanwhile, has her own potential conflicts, and one can wonder whether Garcetti will be able to stand up to the developers or union chiefs who write him checks.”
What the city needs, he says, is someone who combines the limited virtues of Richard Riordan (audacity), James Hahn (focus) and Antonio Villaraigosa (hustle).
“Los Angeles has had mediocre mayors. It’s had decent mayors. Isn’t it time we had a great mayor?”
He begs the question he asks by not offering a clue about whether he thinks Greuel, Garcetti or Perry is capable of greatness – or even in the same league as Riordan, Hahn and Villaraigosa.
Newton does something similar in the controller’s race by letting Dennis Zine blow hot air all over him with non-stop bluster in response to the columnist’s previous article in which he said the retired traffic cop “seemed an odd fit with the office of city controller.”
He gives the tell-them-what-they-want-to-hear blowhard free rein to outline all the things he would do as controller – fiscally responsible and good management things he never stood for as a councilman and bombastic police union leader who wept for the TV cameras when chief-for-life Daryl Gates was finally being held accountable by the city’s civic leaders and the press.
Zine tells Newton he “could retire, feed pigeons under the park bench” although with roughly a quarter of million dollars in city pensions and millions in the bank he probably could find more interesting ways to spend his senior years.
“But he sees potential for the controller’s job, the opportunity to demand more from the city, to hold others accountable and make them better too. ‘If you’re a quarterback and you throw that bomb, and there’s no receiver, it’s incomplete,’ he said.”
Newton’s conclusion: “Who could disagree?”
He too begs the question he poses.
I bring this up because columnists are given literary license and exemption from the strangling conformity of corporate journalism’s rules so it seems a disservice to lead us to the water by raising important questions without at least offering some answers.
In contrast, the New York Times’ conservative columnist David Brooks tackles the weightier subject of President Obama’s second inaugural address on Monday and finds “it has to rank among the best of the past half-century … an argument for a pragmatic and patriotic progressivism.”
But Obama “misunderstands this moment.” he says, America is no longer “a young and growing nation … We are now a mature nation with an aging population.”
Brooks concludes:
“Reinvigorating a mature nation means using government to give people the tools to compete, but then opening up a wide field so they do so raucously and creatively. It means spending more here but deregulating more there. It means facing the fact that we do have to choose between the current benefits to seniors and investments in our future, and that to pretend we don’t face that choice, as Obama did, is effectively to sacrifice the future to the past.
“Obama made his case beautifully. He came across as a prudent, nonpopulist progressive. But I’m not sure he rescrambled the debate. We still have one party that talks the language of government and one that talks the language of the market. We have no party that is comfortable with civil society, no party that understands the ways government and the market can both crush and nurture community, no party with new ideas about how these things might blend together.
“But at least the debate is started. Maybe that new wind will come.”
Brooks gives us food for thought, a way out of the gridlock and decay, a line down the middle. It is at least a finger pointing the way, not a finger in the eye obscuring out vision.
Ron, I would not waste a $ on that hypocrite , incompetent , say nothing Greuel.It would be a sure loss. Did you notice the lazy press is closing in on her lies?
I find there to be a TREMENDOUS amount of greatness in the size of Dennis Zine’s waistline…
Zine is a talented BS artist…
he should never hold public office again…
incompetent, reckless, unprincipled…
would not entrust him with my lunch money…
but fools would give him “controller” power
over LA’s $7,223,000,000 billion budget…
Garcetti’s legacy–Cirque de Soleil’s bade farewell to Los Angeles and the $30 million taxpayer gift bestowed by slimy Garcetti. An “Iris” staff member said that the show’s location at the Hollywood & Highland complex was a turn-off because of the traffic in the area and parking concerns. ‘You couldn’t give tickets away”, he said.
But it is not enough traffic & parking problems for Garcetti who approved a Hollywood Community Plan with four times the current density and will bring the same density with no parking to each and every city neighborhood. Vote for anyone but Garcetti. Cannot be trusted with public money or your quality of life.
The traffic and parking problem over here is already bad, and I can’t even imagine how it’s going to be when people move into these numerous high-rises they’re building along La Brea.
Now we’ve had notice that the corner of De Longpre and Highland will be the site for another one of these.
Guess you can’t stop progress. LOL
I’m curious if those high rises will even be occupied (eek-occupied is becoming a bad word).
I suppose the freeways are becoming decent parking lots.
Time to toss the “ins” out. None of them can be trusted as they’ve proven over and over again.
Who is that Emanuel Pleitez? Are you sure that he is not a diversion on the part of the machine to take away votes from Kevin James and thus keep him out of the runoff?
I’d not be surprised if the ruling party did this. After all you remember there was some sort of a republican running against Mark Reed and berman/Sherman in the primary. She took the votes away from mr Reed and guaranteed Berman/Sherman in November.
People are suckers in LA. I predict garcetti – perry runoff.
Ok I googled that Emanuel guy and he looks like a gruel’s way of neutralizing garcetti. He sure looks like a lock on the same ethnic, sex and demographic groups that garcetti is going after.
So maybe you guys should not discount the Wendy gruesome.
I agree w Ex Valley.
Perry- Garcetti runoff. Wendy is already out of balance, lost, and when the public learns their DWP bills are going to skyrocket , because she was bought by Boss D`Arcy, she`ll end up 4th.
I`m not the only one who calls Wendy LIAR. Read mayorsam.blog for details. I hope the press wakes up from their long siesta.
Speaking of utility bills, has anyone else been getting Gas Company calls? They don’t send me the bill, then I get the “about your account” auto-call. This has happened three times in the last three months and three times I have not received my bill. Have you ever tried getting though to someone? If you call the number the taped man tells you to call, be sure to have all your info handy ’cause you can only call that number once. After that, you have to go through multiple hoops to address their mistake. I finally hit the cash strapped-will make payments number option (which isn’t the case but the other options yielded no results) and that got me through to a person. I wish I can send them a bill for the 3.5 hours they took from my days. Maybe I can set a tiered scale–any phone time beyond 2 hours they get charged a “penalty.”
The mayor will be a scumbag, the city controller IS and WILL BE a scumbag, the city attorney is a SELL-OUT/SCUMBAG and the next one will be just a scumbag, and the 15 chairs at the Horseshoe will continue to vote automatically YES at each called vote.
In other words “the more things change, the more things stay the same.”
The Gas Co. is going to implement a new “billing” scheme to steal more of our dimishing funds, that is why the caller to them gets nowhere.
I just spent $667.00 on an engine light problem in my car THAT IN ONE DAY THE ENGINE LIGHT CAME BACK ON!!! This is L.A. City’s influence on all businesses—STEAL , STEAL, ROB, ROB, ROB to pay all those taxes and fees. I had to drive to the next County today and they told me about what happened—I GOT FUCKED.
So there you have it. Another day in L.A.
OK… the controller’s position…
LA’s budget is $7.246 billion….$7,246,116,661
no way in hell is Zine qualified…
and as you already know…follow the money….
Draiman says that voters deserve to hear from all Mayoral candidates on the ballot
It is anti democratic to ignore candidates who have earned their place to be on the ballot.
In the current political mood and the growing apathy by voters it is imperative that every candidate who is officially on the ballot to be heard by the public.
Ignoring these candidates only reinforces to the voting public that money and not the most qualified candidate is given a chance to run for office with a level playing field.
The deck is stacked against a candidate who is not willing to be swayed by money and political influence. This is a sad day for our Democracy.
The Media and the various organizations who host a candidate forum – debate have a great responsibility to present unbiased information to the public, of all the candidates that appear on the ballot with a level playing field.
To ignore some candidates is a distortion of our Democratic oath and they are practicing the very same unacceptable behavior that they are trying to correct in today’s political scene.
By ignoring candidates who are on the ballot the voters are deprived of critical information and opinions of all the candidates on the ballot. It is a disservice to the community at large.
Angelenos have the right to an open and balanced election process resting on the values of our democracy, which is open to all candidates.
We have to show to the public how real democracy at work – by presenting all the candidates, not just the select few.
The right to vote is the right that protects all other rights. That includes all official candidates.
YJ Draiman
http://draimanformayor2013.com
Go to Wendy’s web site and see all the Villaraigosa people who have endorsed her including the majority of City Council. If you want another Villar then Wendy is your person. No one can say what she has actually done in office. There’s millions of outstanding debt owed the City and Wendy has not collected one dime. She refused to audit the non profits which was one of her campaign promises when she ran for Controller. Kevin James came out yesterday with a story in LA Times on Wendy’s ties to County Assessor John Noguez.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0125-mayor-james-assessor-20130125,0,3129635.story
You are preaching to the choir here. But will misinformed or not informed LA voters understand this ?