If you want to know why the city teeters on the brink of bankruptcy, why city services are being slashed and employees losing their jobs, why business, labor and the community as whole have lost confidence in theCity, tune into the joint Personnel/Public Safety Committee meeting at 9:45 a.m. today and the joint Budget/Audits Committee meeting at 1 p.m. today.

You can get there online or by telephone ((213) 621-2489) but first you need to take a look at the documents linked from the agenda, documents that prove beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond a shadow of doubt that the nation's highest paid city officials weren't worth the minimum wage at any time during the last 20 years.

If you knew, and were repeatedly reminded, that half the money you were owed every year wasn't being collected because you had dozens of billing systems and bank accounts, each managed by different people who never communicated with each other, used entirely different accounting systems and rarely followed up on anything, wouldn't you do something about it before it was too late to save your enterprise?

You would, of course, have taken steps long ago but then you aren't one of the preening and posturing elected officials of the City of Los Angeles.

"Independent studies performed over the last 20 years regarding City receivables all suggest that centralization of collections in some form will create efficiencies by standardizing process and procedures; standardizing billing formats; and establishing a single point of accountability, yet to date, no action has been taken to implement any such proposal," says one of the Council motions on today's agenda.

The sudden concern of Council members was triggered by Controller Wendy Greuel's recent audit that found the city collect only $293 millionshows of the $553.4 million billed by city departments, most of it involving parking tickets and ambulance services.

That's a 53 percent collection rate -- an increase from the 52 percent rate revealed three years ago by then Controller Laura Chick whose long list of recommendations was haphazardly followed at best, ignored at worst.

"How can the City of Los Angeles, that has so many unmet needs and demands for services, not care about collecting ALL the money legitimately owed it? Chick asked in 2007. "How can we ask taxpayers for more money or continue to complain about inadequate funds, when untold millions of dollars remain uncollected?"

Chick traced the Council's failure back two decades, ignoring its own motions to replace outmoded financial practices like firefighters using paper forms to report ambulance services and the department often not getting around to billing people for months, if ever.

The loss alone from uncollected ambulance services runs around $1 million a week, month after month, year after year.

Long-term contracts for computerized services with Scan Health and ADP to fix this particular problem come before the Personnel/Public Safety Committee meeting today eight years after then Mayor James Hahn ordered a study that led to a report that led to hiring a consultant and more studies and more reports.

But no action.

Last November, in the midst of fiscal calamty fand with Ron Galperin's ad hoc Committee on Revenue Enhancement digging into the details and driving reform, the Fire Commission approved the contracts to outsource the ambulance services collections but it's taken until now for the Council to even consider them.

As concerned citizens of LA, you have to ask yourself why nothing was done for so long?

It's a softball question. Outsourcing means creating jobs in the private sector when the goal of a mayor and Council elected with lavish amounts of union money is to create city jobs no matter what the cost, no matter how inefficient.

It's why Greuel, who was part of the problem during her eight years on the Council, concluded in her follow-up audit: "The City remains stuck in the mud." 

"Collecting more money wouldn't close the entire budget deficit, but it would help save the City money and protect critical services for Angelenos," Greuel said.

"I don't know of any business that would stand for such a low collection rate, particularly
a business the size of the City of Los Angeles. It's simply not sustainable, and the City
cannot and should not allow this to continue. The Mayor and the City Council now have two audits and a consultant's report to guide them to centralizing the billing process, which will save the City millions of dollars each year."

Just how serious the city's financial situation is comes clear in a report being considered today at the Audits/Budget Committee meeting.

Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich found himself under fire today from a campaign supporter, former Controller Laura Chick, who accused him of being a liar and a "demagogue."

Chick, now Inspector General for federal stimulus spending for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, was interviewed on KABC Morning Talk Show Host Doug McIntyre's show.

A reader supplied this transcript, confirmed by Mcintyre, regarding Trutanich's promise to reverse former City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo's legal opinion limiting the City Controller's authority to conduct audits of other city officials::

"The City Attorney lied, and is not a man of his word...he is a demagogue who will say anything to get elected, and then go back on his word... he stood next to me and lied to get my support. 

Chick said she hopes the public will "see through this man, see that
he's a demagogue who will say anything to get elected, but is not a man
of his word."

Here's an excerpt of the interview as it aired and one replayed later:
chick2(128Kbps).mp3
mcintyrechcik.mp3

UPDATE: Controller Wendy Greuel took her claims against City Attorney Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich to KABC Morning Talk Show host Doug McIntyre Thursday. Here's the audio (greuel.mp3).

First, he pulled a grandstand play over Michael Jackson, giving the City Council just 72 hours to clean up the messy problem of how much the funeral extravaganza cost and who will pay.

Then, he laid down the law to the Planning Commission over their latest giveaway to the well-connected in such harsh term that one member went before the City Council to complain he found it "disturbing and frankly a little bit frightening."

Now, City Attorney Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich finds himself in a power struggle with City Controller Wendy Greuel in a replay of the yearlong fight between their predecessors, Rocky Delgadillo and Laura Chick.

Is this Rocky II? Is Nuch the tough sheriff trying to clean up Deadwood and its outlaw City Hall? Or a gunslinger riding into a new town and making his mark no matter who gets hurt?

In office just two weeks, Trutanich has stirred more controversy than most LA elected officials in their whole careers (Michael Jackson, Planning Commission, Wendy Greuel)..

The latest flap with Greuel is the most intriguing although it's far from clear at this point whether it's the opening round of what will be a long fight or just a misunderstanding that will disappear as quickly as it began.

The heart of the matter is Chick's attempt to audit the City Attorney's worker compensation claims management system, an effort undertaken in the belief millions of dollars were being wasted. Delgadillo sued her on behalf of the city after she issued subpoenas to his staff, arguing the Controller overstepped her authority under the City Charter and lacks the power to audit the activities of elected officials.

During their campaigns, both Trutanich and Greuel promised to resolve the dispute one way or another to ensure the Controller got the full authority that Chick wanted. But that hasn't proved so easy to deliver since the case was already before a judge who just ruled tentatively the Charter does not give the Controller the authority Chick wanted.

Greuel wasn't happy with Trutanich over how he handled this. She had wanted him to go to court with her before they were sworn in and tell the judge they were on the same side but he balked, arguing that even if he were in office, he could not act unilaterally without the Council's permission.

After the judge ruled, Chick's attorney Fred Woocher sent a letter on behalf on Greuel seeking a stipulated agreement establishing the Controller's authority.

The lawyer handling the case in the City Attorney's office, Valerie Flores, sent back a letter on Friday saying Woocher didn't know what he was talking about (trutanichletter.pdf) since the lawsuit was against Chick, not the Controller's office, so Greuel isn't a party to it and Woocher represents Chick, not Greuel.

That didn't sit well with Greuel who fired back a letter (greuelTrutanich.pdf) on Tuesday to Trutanich saying that she was "dismayed" by his failure to live up to his promises and threatened to take the issue to voters if he didn't.

"I am the voice at this point in time to say we need to protect taxpayers' dollars," Greuel told the Times Wednesday.

Who could disagree with that. Let's see how whether they move forward together in that direction or whether the fight between Trutanich and City Hall escalates.

Often, when I listen to City Council debates on an important issue like Prop. 11, I think I must have come from another planet because what they say seems so to be in a language I don't understand or maybe they're just lying through their teeth.

I'm sure they feel the same way about what I have to say.

I know they are elected officials and claim theyhave the support of voters so they think that makes them right about everything. But when you look at the numbers it doesn't mean they have anything like a mandate from the people, or that there is anything like democracy in L.A.

Among those who denounced Prop. 11 Tuesday -- the Nov. 4 state ballot measure that creates an independent Redistricting Commission in hopes of ending the gerrymandering of legislative districts --were Council President Gil Garcetti and Councilmen Richard Alarcon and Tony Cardenas.

Garcetti won his last election with less than 5,000 votes and Alarcon with just over 7,000 -- out of the 275,000 who live in their districts. And Cardenas got similar vote totals with nearly 10 times as much money as all his challengers put together.

In Garcetti's mind -- if he meant what he said about Prop. 11 -- the problem is Sacramento isn't caused by districts the legislators drew for themselves so that only far left Democrats and far right Repbulicans could get elected. Gridlock is caused by partisanship and he'd like to see the parties abolished so everybody could get along unanimously like they do on the City Council. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

For Alarcon, this whole redistricting thing is infuriating, nothing but a dirty trick being played by Republicans to cheat the voters who can't stand them.

Cardenas credits gerrymandered districts for the surge in Latino elected officials as if the massive demographic changes had nothing to do with it.

A single quote or characterization doesn't do them justice. You really got to listen to them for yourselves. And then listen to the supporters of Prop. 11 -- former Democratic Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, former L..A Chamber of Commerce head David Fleming and City Controller Laura Chick explain their position.

Call me naive, call me stupid, slap me upside my head, but I somehow thought there was a mayoral ban on city agencies hiring outside public relations firms -- a prohibition put in place by Jim Hahn to cover his butt in the DWP/Fleishman-Hillard scandal and kept in place by Antonio Villaraigosa.

I guess when it comes to City Hall you just can't believe a word they say.

First, we learned in July that L.A. Harbor authorities were set to spend $1.6 million in public money for PR consultants to let the public and truckers know there's tougher air pollution rules at the port -- deals that were cut back to $350,000 after the mayor was embarrassed by the publicity.

Then, we exposed a series of PR contracts quietly awarded by airport authorities without competitive bidding to let international travelers know the Bradley Terminal is undergoing construction.

That led to somebody dropping a dime on the Animal Services Department's deal with Samson PR to let to the public and press know about the new spaying and neutering law. Animal Services  Director Ed Boks told me it isn't costing taxpayers any money thanks to a combination of pro bono services and monetary contributions.

Now, I find out the Public Works Department's Bureau of Sanitation -- flush with cash from massive increases in trash fees recently imposed on homeowners --  miraculously found at least $1.735 million, half of it available now, to hire PR firms to let the world know about the city's recycling efforts and intends to spend a lot more for media and public opinion manipulation over the next six years.

Trash fees undoubtedly will have to keep rising to pay those bills.

Unlike the other examples PR abuses, the mayor and the City Council have no cover story for this deal.

They signed off on it in principle nearly 18 months ago. And now Public Works -- moving with bureaucratic swiftness -- has identified eight PR firms and several dozen minority subcontractors as potential recipients of this gift from homeowners and is ready to award the contracts

City Controller Laura Chick has scuttled the City Council's attempt to hold an illegal closed door meeting to cut a back room deal to end the political fight between her and City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo.

Wannabe City Attorney Jack Weiss, backed by council leaders Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel, introduced a motion last month in absentia making council intervention in the dispute an emergency issue and setting the closed door meeting for tomorrow's council agenda.

At issue is Chick's insistence on being able to audit programs run by other elected officials, in this case the city's troubled worker compensation cases handled by the City Attorney. Delgadillo refused and filed a Superior Court complaint claiming the City Charter does not give the controller authority to subpoena his records or an audit his performance.

The council then jumped into the fray even though if Delgadillo is right it would not have the authority to intervene in a political and legal fight between two elected officials whose positions are created by the charter.

Since the council cannot affect the dispute, its justification for freezing out the public is specious as well -- nothing but a naked deceit to operate in secret on an issue that should be debated in public.

With Chick's refusal to bow to the council, the issue of her authority apparently isn't so urgent.now and will not be taken up for several weeks by the Rules Committee.

"This must be a public and open discussion that will begin in the Council Rules Committee soon and ultimately decided by the voters in March," said Chick.

I had intended to go to City Hall Wednesday to object to the closed door meeting on legal and moral grounds. The issue remains the same: The public must be vigilant and object to every illegal action by the council or other city officials

City Hall must start obeying the law. If you know of illegal actions by city offiicals, let me know at ron@ronkayela.com

EDITOR'S NOTE: As honorary chairman of the Saving L.A. Project, I am going down to City Hall on Wednesday to object to the City Council going behind closed doors to discuss in private what is nothiing but a political fight between Controller Laura Chick and City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo. I hope others will join me in the council chambers to protest this unlawful closed door meeting that is a slap in the public's face.


Who are they? Your Los Angeles City Council, who else fits that description?

OK, they could be anybody elected to city office in a system that's so rigged an honest person doesn't stand a chance and, if they did by some miracle fluke into office, they wouldn't be able to stay honest very long.

Here's the story of the best political catfight in L.A. in ages -- call it "The Tigress vs. The Rock." Here's a City Council that prefers to do business in the dark under rocks and act like a pussycat in public and this is a story they want to suppress:

City Controller Laura Chick who's earned a reputation as a maverick crusader without quite trampling on the tulips of City Hall's corruption keeps on demanding City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo get out of her way and let her audit how he has handled worker compensation cases.

Calling herself "a tigress," Chick "insinuated that Delgadillo was trying to block the audit because he feared auditors might find that the workers' compensation division, including the hiring or outside attorneys, is inefficient and wasting taxpayer dollars," as the Times put it.

Not to be outdone, Rocky claims she's intruding illegally on his authority and is up to the kind of "political mischief" she's engaged in before. She has nothing but a "personal politically-motivated purpose" in seeking to conduct the audit, he says..

She said, he said...it started back in March when pro-gang Councilman Tony Cardenas wanted to derail the mayor's efforts to take over the city's failed gang intervention programs by questioning whether Chick would have the authority to ever audit the programs success.

Which is funny when you think about it because one of the criticisms of her is she refused to audit the L.A. Bridges anti-gang program -- an audit many believe would contain explosive revelations.

Rocky quickly issued a legal opinion that controller does not have the authority to audit programs run by other elected officials because it's not explicitly given in the city charter.
That same day, Chick allegedly questioned the legal opinion at an anti-gang group meeting and followed up by declaring she wanted to audit the workers compensation program -- something that is well-know to be out of control.

Flash forward to Aug. 11, when faced with renewed pressure from Chick, Rocky filed a complaint in Superior Court seeking a court order backing his position.

Chick told the Metropolitan News-Enterprise: "What is he afraid of? What doesn't he want the public to see?"

Enter the Council. The very next day Councilman Jack Weiss -- the wannabe City Attorney who has a hard time actually getting to council meetings and casting votes --  intervened by proposing an emergency motion that has led to Wednesday's closed door session intended to make this political quarrel go away while keeping the public as ignorant as possible.

Weiss, as usual, wasn't actually at the meeting to introduce his motion or even vote for it but the courteous Greig Smith did his job for him while Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel, who loathe any public quarreling as much as the mediocrity of their colleagues, felt uncomfortable with the public knowing what's going on so they co-sponsored Weiss' phony effort to play the absentee peacemaker.

The heart of the motion says: "There appears to be significant confusion as to the intent of both commissions and the meaning of the language that was ultimately submitted to the voters in this regard. Legal action between two City elected officials is an extreme avenue to resolve disputes and spending taxpayer money, including the hiring of outside counsel for the Controller that would be required if this litigation proceeds, should be a last resort, All other avenues for resolving this issue should be explored. It is imperative that the Council receive a complete briefing from both the City Attorney and Controller and explore options for resolving this issue in a manner that best serves the public."

 

Despite some talk about letting voters decide in the March primary, Councilman Dennis Zine couldn't keep his mouth shut about what was really up -- headlines that let the public know just how messed up city government really is. That kind of thing could destroy the whole dirty political machine, bankrupt developers, force workers to earn no more than their worth and lead to actual public servants replacing the self-servers who now hold public office.

 

"It's fodder for talk shows, but does it accomplish anything? I don't think accomplished anything," Zine declared.

 

Which brings us to Item 15 on Wednesday's calendar. The council, refreshed from two weeks of vacation that included party time in Denver for many of them takes up the motion behind closed doors about how to make this political issue go away by pretending it's a legal issue.

 

There is no excuse for a closed door meeting except for the cowardice of the council to stand up in public and say what they mean.

 

This is a council that engineers unanimous votes with back room deals, routinely squelches debate on public controversies, inflicts rules for public meetings on neighborhood councils that they don't obey themselves and refuses to listen to the public's concerns while pandering to special interests who keep them in jobs that are better than anything they could earn in the public sector.

 

That's why I'm going down to City Hall on Wednesday to challenge the legality of going behind closed doors.

 

Let Delgadillo and Chick make their case in public.

Let the council debate and discuss it in public.

Let the public be informed about who -- if any of these people -- is serving the public interest and who are tools of a corrupt system that must be reformed.

 

Here's how the Daily News, Times and City News Service covered Monday's Bastille Day rally, which also got coverage local radio and TV news shows.

"The political institution of LA is corrupt," Kaye told a sizable crowd yesterday afternoon. "We've got to take them down and be the boss."

The crowd, which was mostly white and middle-aged, clapped, cheered, and egged Kaye on to say some more. It was the first public rally for the former editor's brainchild called The Saving LA Project, and it showed, at the very least, that a groundswell of frustrated citizens were now willing to speak up, organize, and hit the streets. The politicians will be watching Kaye's follow through.

Daily News:

Ex-editor holds  fix-L.A. rally

Is it just me or is the behavior of what passes for the political aristocracy of L.A. beginning to look a like it did during the last days of the French royalty and the Russian tsars?

Take for example the mayor and his entourage heading off to Israel on the dime -- quite a few dimes at that -- of the customers of the Department of Water and Power who have just been slugged with yet another big rate hike supposedly to rebuild the infrastructure that was allowed to rot while contractors and employees got rich on sweetheart deals.

Or how about Councilman Greig Smith -- who has fought so hard to get a sane and modern garbage policy -- skimming a quarter of a million dollars of revenue from the much-despised Sunshine Canyon Landfill to go globetrotting with City Council staffers in Europe where a Coke costs $15 or so in U.S. currency.

I'm not trash-talking in bringing these things up. They're just pieces in a mosaic of arrogant conduct and wanton disregard for the people of the city -- people mind you that are seeing their federal income tax rebates gobbled up by city tax hikes, who can't afford $4 a gallon in gas to sit in gridlocked traffic trying to get to work, and are living  in fear of losing their jobs and their homes.

It's like everywhere you look there are signs of privilege and self-indulgence.

The new L.A. airport director subverts the contracting procedures to reward old pals with a lucrative deal, but skates because nothing is in writing and nobody involved is hauled before a grand jury to testify under oath about exactly what went down.

Even city watchdog Controller Laura Chick whitewashed the deal while finding the process was a lot less than wholesome. Obviously, she's in a good mood since she also hailed the great strides made in cleaning up the adolescent, illegal and costly misconduct in the Fire Department.

And the man who would be the people's lawyer, lackluster Councilman Jack Weiss, has taken a noblesse oblige attitude about consorting with felons as long as he can raise a lot of money for his campaign for City Attorney next year.

Weiss shows no shame about well-connected public relations operative Steve Sugerman holding a $500 a person fundraising event June 10 in Santa Monica even though Sugerman admitted to felony misconduct in the DWP/Fleishman-Hillard billing case. Of course, Weiss isn't alone in seeing nothing wrong with the involvement of Sugerman who operates freely in City Hall despite having confessed to bilking the city.

Then, there's the report by Thom Senzee published here that District Attorney Steve Cooley has enough empathy for sexual predators that he won't use the full force of the law against them like other prosecutors across the state.

I could go and on but I'm in Philadelphia having a good time with friends and family and my outrage meter isn't running as high as normal.

Hopefully, yours is and you're working up a lather and will start taking note of these kinds of rotten excesses and get off your duffs and do something about it.

  

 

The evidence is now unequivocal: Civil disobedience works in L.A.

Not only does City Hall give away the public treasury to employees, contractors, developers and other special interests but it can't even get up to 80 percent of dog owners to pay for a license.

City Controller exposed the bungling incompetence in the Animal Services Department in an audit released Tuesday. 

She reported that the Animal Services Department only issues 123,000 licenses when the dog population is estimated at 400,000 to 800,000 -- roughly 75 to 80 percent don't pay, she said -- and doesn't do a damn thing to collect the money it's owed.

Reports like this are exactly why Chick has earned the title of the city's watchdog.