Results tagged “L.A. Observed” from Ron Kaye L.A.

Join a gang, run free -- Waste water, go to jail
Finally, a year after progressive cities like Long Beach cracked down on water wasters, L.A. is ready to impose some restrictions in the  face of the looming drought. The mayor is supposed to sign the water conservation measure today. How will any of us survive  without a glass of water arriving promptly at our restaurant table when we arrive? How much anxiety will we suffer trying to program our lawn sprinklers to run before 9 a.m. or after 4 p.m. Life sucks! All the more reason to figure out ways to destroy our neighborhoods by over-development.

Foreclosure epidemic hits middle class -- L.A. wants to subsidize resales
Fresh from guaranteeing toilets and other comforts to day laborers on the street, the City Council has disclosed its real plans for the city's future: Homes for the poor in Brentwood and Studio City and subsidizing sales of foreclosed homes to the working poor. OK, that's not completely fair but I'm entitled to some literary license, aren't I? Here's the facts: the Times, which devotes all of 8 paragraphs to approval of the controversial Housing Element of the General  Plan without actually mentioning it, reports that "inclusionary zoning" was included for the first  time to require units be set aside for poor people in all new developments The Daily News is more complete, emphasizing the goal is to build 113,000 new homes in five years no matter what you want. And Rick Orlov talks to Mercedes Marquez, general manager of the  Housing Department, and finds out the city wants a big chunk of the $1.2 billion coming to the state in federal funds so it can buy up the soaring number of foreclosed homes and sell them to people with incomes around or below the median level. "The first year, it was primarily the subprime loans where we saw the most foreclosures. But now we're beginning to see it hit the middle-class loans." Marquez said.

Should bashing the incredible shrinking -- and shirking -- Times become an Olympic sport?
 I've spent too many years criticizing the L.A. Times for its criminal neglect of Los Angeles to ignore the double-barreled beating it just got.
At L.A. Observed, Kevin Roderick, the former Timesman and defender of its "glory" days, mocks Editor Russ Stanton for publicly boasting that the incredible shrinking paper is fatter than ever -- 828 pages -- and even fatter than the N.Y. Times. The evidence is provided in an email from "a former editor of another Los Angeles newspaper" -- be assured this one wouldn't hide behind anonymity -- who sat down and counted the pages and reported 80 percent were preprinted ad inserts that routinely fill up recycling cans unread.
At Patterico's Pontifications, blogging prosecutor Patrick Frey publishes an email to Stanton from attorney Michael Fabet who represents my long-time friend Doug Dowie in his appeal of his conviction in Fleishman-Hillard's overbilling the DWP. Faber accuses the paper of letting former Times editors and Fleishman executives Fred Muir and Carol Stogsdill hide behind anonymity in its coverage of the story and of ignoring Muir's self-incriminating testimony at the trial. Patterico says what interests him is the allegation "that people with connections to the L.A. Times were given favorable treatment in the stories."
In the category of what a small town L.A. is, it's worth noting that Stogsdill runs the PR operation at UCLA and Roderick works for her.

Every story needs a villain, and DWP General Manager David Nahai has achieved that status in the political story of L.A. in record time.

At least that's what many members of neighborhood councils, community activists, DWP managers and media mavens who have encountered Nahai's arrogance and glib glossing over of the truth are saying.

But that's only the half full glass of water view of the millionaire real estate lawyer turned environmentalist.

Every story also needs a hero and David Nahai is definitely that if you read the hagiographic puff piece in L.A. magazine's July issue by Kevin Roderick, the expert in all things media in L.A., defender of the L.A. Times'  hack pack and public relations consultant.

Normally, I'd hold my nose and look the other way but given my passion for exposing the waste, inefficiency and corruption at the City Hall's most powerful and insulated institution and Roderick's holding himself as up the ultimate arbiter of all things journalistic, I cannot let this article headlined "Troubled Waters" go unnoticed.

Let's start with the fact that the closest there is to a critical voice comes from a group out in Mojave worried about power lines. The rest is quotes that glorify and turns of phrase that befit a man who walks on water.

To Owens Valley victims of DWP's pillage, Nahai is "the one Angeleno the locals trust" as "they are laughing easily with a natty figure who is sporting a black turtleneck and an English boarding school accent and hovering at the mayor's shoulder."

Nahai's sermons are "persuasive stuff," he's "uncommonly engaged" in the details, he's called "a Middle Eastern James Bond," he scored "one of his early victories" by misusing (my word) the accidental death of a firefighter to justify rate hikes while  he "deftly handled an unexpected media storm" and "stared down the critics...For Nahai, turning the agency into one of the environmental good guys is the fun part."