Results tagged “Walter Moore” from Ron Kaye L.A.

This is the start of something big -- the birth of a grassroots movement to bring all of Los Angeles together to work for open, honest and responsible government that serves residents and business to create safe and healthy neighborhoods and a city that believes in itself.

It is the beginning of the end of sweetheart contracts and back room deals, of disastrous political and policy decision that are all too often made in ignorance, or worse, by deceit.

Hopefully, a new spirit of Los Angeles will be born, one that offers respect to everyone and brings every segment of the community to the table of power where competing interests can be balanced and everyone can feel an ownership stake in a great city.

People from all over LA are coming to the launch party for LA Clean Sweep -- the political action committee to elect better people for a greater LA -- at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Mayflower Club, 11110 Victory Blvd. North Hollywood.

The program will begin at 1:30 p.m. and feature a great lineup of speakers:

* KRLA midnight talk show Kevin James, the only radio show devoted entirely to local issues. is emcee.

* Former Mayor Richard Riordan, the only prominent civic leader who has come out in public and called for major policy reforms to avert municipal bankruptcy.

* Tezozomoc, leader of South Central Farmers, subject of the Oscar-nominated documentary "The Garden," who organized dozens of people into an organic farming cooperative after the city bulldozed the decades-old community farm.

* Gerardo Almeida, Labor Relations Representative and organizer with the Southern California District Council of Laborers, who has worked tirelessly on behalf of workers.

* Shirley Ford, lead organizer for the Parent Revolution that is bring parents and teachers together to transform our schools into successful learning institutions.

* Walter Moore, lawyer and blogger who was runner-up in the last mayoral election and has dug deep into the city budget to show the waste and inefficiency that costs the public hundreds of millions of dollars in badly-needed services every year.

All candidates who are seeking election in the March 2011 elections are invited to the event and will be introduced and have the chance to meet the concerned citizens who are committed to working hard to turn LA around and reform City Hall.

Visit lacleansweep.com for more information..

"The state rules require a public official to perform a duty on behalf of [their city]. Merely being a public official is not enough to use this exception." -- Roman Porter,  executive director, Fair Political Practices Commission, told Tibby Rothman, LA Weekly, on Thursday.

With District Attorney Steve Cooley running for California Attorney General, he's got to look at the political ramifications of going full bore after Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for violating the law by not reporting all the gifts of tickets (meals, wine and travel) he's taken -- some clearly from those who stand to profit from the favors he has dispensed.

Will it hurt his chances with Latino voters, hamper his ability to raise campaign funds, cost him the election?

Politics should not be consideration, nor should Cooley, as his office has indicated, sit back
and wait for the city Ethics Commission to decide on whether Villaraigosa -- unlike every other elected official in California -- is exempt from city and state ethics laws on reporting gifts because everything he does is ceremonial and part of his official duties.

Based on the Ethics Comission's track record, the mayor could be out of office and serving on the boards of corporations he's done favors for by the time a report is issued.
Here's a suggestion: Why not take the politics out of it and expedite the investigation by appointing a special prosecutor?

Who better for that job than a smart attorney who already has done the legal research and is motivated to get to the bottom of the Ticket-Gate Scandal, namely Walter Moore, the runner-up to Villaraigosa in last year's mayoral election and the main who filed a formal complaint with the Ethics Commission.

Since early June, Moore has been blogging extensively about Ticket-Gate at his website. He calculated the mayor could face bills of $405,000 for gifts tickets and suggested it was legal for the mayor to accept gifts of Staples Center tickets from AEG because the Municipal Code bans on such gratuities from restricted sources, persons doing business or seeking to do business with the city.

Given the hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies AEG has gotten it qualifies under the law as a restricted source.

Recently, he did the legal research for the benefit of the media, public and investigators of the city and state laws on gifts to politicians, noting that Villaraigosa must comply with provisions of both in reporting all income he received to prevent conflicts of interest.

The 1990 city Governmental Ethics Ordinance, he noted, states, "In addition to statements of economic interests filed pursuant to the (state) Political Reform Act of 1974, as amended, high-level filers shall file financial disclosure statements disclosing" various items not required under the state law.  Those items include "[a]ny income (including . . . gifts . . .) regardless of whether the source of income . . . does . . . business in the City of Los Angeles."

Villaraigosa's defense for not reporting his gifts comes from a state law provision: "A ticket or pass provided to an official for his or her admission to an event at which the official performs a ceremonial role or function on behalf of the agency is not a gift to the official."  (Cal. Code Regs. Title 2, Div. 6, § 18944.1.)
 
Moore is unconvinced by the mayor's spin team that everything he does is in his "official" role as mayor.

"First, Villaraigosa and his staff apparently have no evidence that Villaraigosa actually 'perform[ed] a ceremonial role or function on behalf of the City,' within the meaning of the state regulation, at 81 events for which he received tickets," Moore wrote.

"Second, the mere act of attending a concert, sporting event or stand-up does not constitute performing 'ceremonial role or function' under the FPCC regulation.  More is required."

His research turned up an FPPC opinion letter issued to a City Council Member in Berkeley, explaining why her attending the grand opening of a theater qualified for the "ceremonial role or function" exception

The gist is the Council contributed millions of dollar to open the theater, the council member was introduced at the grand opening and event directors introduced and thanked the Council for its support.

Moore writes: "That is a very far cry indeed from, "You attended Beyonce's late show.  Wherever you go and whatever you do constitutes official business, because you are special.  'Nough said."

"Villaraigosa needs to prove he attended an event to conduct a ceremony -- not that he conducted a ceremony so he could attend an event.  "Here honey, take this nice calligraphy certificate and get lost so Lu and I can see the show."

Moore notes that city law,unlike the state, doesn't exempt tickets from being reported if they are worth more than $100

Besides that, city law requires disclosure of all gifts regardless of vallue which is why the mayor's  most recent disclosure filing included a $15 hat, a $50 clock, $75 worth of tequila, and $150 "event ticket."

Finally, he points out, Villaraigosa violated city ethics laws by accepting tickets worth more than $100 per year from companies like AEG that are actively involved in seeking permits, subsidies, tax breaks and other concessions from the City. LAMC § 49.5.10.3.  This is a lower dollar limit than state law imposes, namely, $420 per year.  (Cal. Gov. Code §§ 89503(a) ($250 limit) and 89503(f).)

"Bottom line:  Villaraigosa's acceptance of tickets worth tens of thousands of dollars, and his failure to disclose those tickets on his disclosure forms, constitutes a serious breach of ethics laws," Moore says. "Don't be fooled by professional "spinners" who want you to think there's some loophole that authorizes this type of corruption.  There is not."

You can read all that and more at waltermooresays.com.

I'm sure Cooley would be squeamish about naming the mayor's No.1 challenger in last year's election as a special prosecutor, the man who filed the formal ethics complaint, the man who so clearly has no respect for the way the mayor has ruled the city for the past five years -- in his official as well as ceremonial roles.

But that won't keep Moore from filing friend of the court's briefs if Cooley actually goes so far as to file charges against Villaraigosa, charges that could go far beyond Ticket-Gate if subpoenas were issued and a grand jury impaneled.

With Moore's help or on his own, Cooley has the chance to go down in history as the crusading District Attorney who cleaned up LA City Hall or the DA who sat back and let the spin-doctors and manipulators and insiders let the mayor get off with a slap on the wrist. 

Welcome to the doghouse, Steve.  Hope you don't have fleas.

As everybody knows, Steve Lopez is the highest paid writer at The Dog Trainer, making about ten times more than my master Ron got as editor of the Green Sheet.

Lopez is also famous for writing about a musical homeless guy that was made into a movie.  Lopez was portrayed by Hollywood star Robert Downey Jr., who was on his way to being homeless himself before cleaning up his act. Now he's Iron Man.  Good for him.

As a columnist, Lopez does have a tough job.  He needs to come up with 800 or so words every few days to earn those big bucks.  So I suppose I shouldn't be offended if he borrows from me.

But for the record, all I get for my efforts is some crappy kibble, which is now doled out by some Nazi-like contraption in a fruitless effort to control my behavior after I bit the pool guy.

For those of you with short memories, two days ago I compared City Hall to a circus:

"I've been sitting on the sidelines over the last couple weeks watching our so-called leaders turn City Hall into a circus, seeing the showdown between our ringmaster mayor and his clowns at the DWP with the Council over whether LA is going to go broke without the a bailout from the utility.  Controller Wendy Greuel's been the girl on the flying trapeze."

Pretty good, if I do say so myself.  I particularly like the Wendy line.  She's so damn cute.  Much cuter than the scary woman she replaced, who I think I once compared to the Wicked Witch from the East. Or was it the Wicked Witch from the West.  You know who I mean.  The one with those freaky flying monkeys.

But I digress.

Anyway, the headline on Steve's offering this morning is: "Attention Cirque du L.A. ringmasters: Do your jobs".

Steve's subject, of course, is also the chaos and foolishness going on at City Hall over the last couple weeks

"They could sell tickets to the spectacle at City Hall -- it might help fill the budget gap -- and I've got the perfect name for the show.

"Cirque du L.A."

OK, so the guy knows French.  Big deal.  I bet he can't lick himself like I can.

Steve did come up with an original twist, one I hadn't seen anyone do up till this point in the absurdity - he quoted the Wicked Witch from the East, or West or somewhere, and guess what?  She had absolutely nothing interesting to say.  At least Dick Riordan told Rick Orlov of the Green Sheet that the city should declare bankruptcy.  Don't you just love old Dick, don't you miss Jimmy even?

But I digress -- again.  Back to Steve.

Before you hit me with the old "imitation is the most sincere form of flattery"  crap, please remember I am a freaking dog writing for a blog that nobody at the Dog Trainer admits to even reading.  Those guys on Spring Street have been dissing Ronnie since he was at the old HerEx writing front-page stories about crocodiles - or was it sea serpents? -- in the storm drains.

And I suppose the circus-cirque thing could be just a coincidence.  It's not like it's the most original metaphor.  So I'm going to cut Steve some slack.  It's hard coming up with new ideas all the time and he did give credit to Walter Moore, remember the guy who ran a strong second to Antonio last year and would be a favorite to beat him if the election was this year..

After all, look what I wrote about this morning.

Woof!

So it's come to this: Would we better off if Walter Moore or even Zuma Dogg bad beaten Antonio a year ago?

I can say with certainty that we wouldn't be worse off.
Think about it: The Mayor with 10 times the money as the other nine candidates narrowly won re-election and then spent the next 11 months traveling the world, wining and dining in restaurants only 1 percent of the people can afford, and living the life of a multimillionaire with bodyguards and servants nursing to his every whim.

Time and again, he was told the city's finances were in desperate shape and yet he paid no attention and kept on spending the public's money as if there were no tomorrow on sweetheart deals with unions and subsidizing luxury hotels and entertainments, expanding social welfare programs.

And all he's offered is a blueprint for disaster, a strategy to do the bidding of Wall Street so he can borrow billions of dollars to conceal his failure while perpetuating the decline of the city for decades to come.

Tomorrow has already come and the bills are already coming due and all we get is a City Council following along this road to ruin like sheep. Their solutions are to fire 4,000 workers on top of the 2,400 handsomely paid off to retire -- and all of them coming out of the 12,000 city workers who provide services to the general public at libraries, parks, community planning, building code enforcement.

City Hall is in chaos, our elected officials are in a panic and thinking only of themselves and their own luxurious lives even as poverty rates are soaring, unemployment is among the highest in the nation, property values declining, storefronts empty, homes being foreclosed with parks and libraries shutting down after fortunes were spent to build them.

They have betrayed the public trust but are without shame because we still treat them with a measure of respect they do not deserve when we should be storming City Hall by thousands and demanding a new deal because the one on the table stinks.

So I ask again: Would we better off if the Mayor and the Council were gone and we started all over again with a new set of faces drawn? You certainly could not be worse off.

I don't know if Antonio Villaraigosa is a liar, or even a crook -- though I've got my suspicions about some of his cronies.

But I do know he has a hard time taking responsibility for his actions, living up to his promises and facing the truth head-on.

That's why I put up his 2009 State of the City speech and highlighted the phrases that leap off the page to me, phrases that show he deflected all responsibility for the city's financial condition, pandered politically to segments of the population and quoted a Japanese proverb (Adversity is the foundation of virtue) as if to give moral weight to his commitment to fix what he had broken.

He might better have had his speechwriter dig out the Zen koan: If you do the right thing for the wrong reason, or the wrong thing for the right reason, what if you die?

The right reason that the mayor outlined was his committment to take the drastic steps needed skillfully scale the city work force and spending down to a level in line with falling revenue.

The heart of his plan to deal with the fiscal crisis was that he was not going to "take a meat cleaver to essential services -- threatening meals for the poor, housing for the homeless, libraries for our students, job assistance for the unemployed and police patrols in our neighborhoods."

Instead, he was going to surgically remove the "deadwood" as he told Times editors days later.

Of course, that isn't what he -- or the City Council -- did.

He took a shotgun to the city work force and blew it to pieces with a sweetened retirement package that is getting rid of the talented and invaluable senior staff along with whatever "deadwood" has volunteered for it.

Huge gaps in managerial skill and experience are left in every department. There was nothing targeted about the ERIP, nothing strategic. It was open to just about anyone who wanted so a lot of the people who grabbed it could afford to retire with five extra years of service credit and $15,000 in cash to buy more.

Why would any capable person stay aboard a sinking ship if they didn't have to?

And now he's taking the mess he made of city government and grinding it into mush with 1,000 layoffs that will only buy a few months before the city can no longer pay its bills, time enough to sell off airports, golf courses, parking structures and meters, the zoo and Convention Center and buy a little more before the city has to file for bankruptcy.

By then there will be nothing much of value left to sell, except maybe the DWP, LAX, the parks and vast open spaces like Chatsworth Reservoir.

Nine months after his State of the City speech, what he has done to make matters so much worse, turned a crisis into a catastrophe.

He didn't do what he said he was going to do. He hasn't even had the courage to speak to the public about the budget catastrophe in all that time, preferring to flit from photo op to photo op boosting achievements in small things while the city falls apart and dreams of a better tomorrow turn into a nightmarish vision of a city without hope.

There was nothing mysterious about the city's worsening financial condition. Year after year, city bureaucrats warned of the deepening deficit.

As Walter Moore noted during his campaign for mayor, the City Administrative warned at least five times from 2005 to 2007 that the city was running more than $200 million in the red and needed to act prudently.

Instead of dealing with the problem, the mayor kept on hiring and hiring thousands of more city workers, kept on raisiing fees, taxes and rates and then spending more, most of it on poverty programs instead of basic services and infrastructure, kept on cutting sweetheart deals with unions, developers and contractors.

And now he wants to gut the Parks, Library, Planning, Neighborhood Empowerment, Building and Safety and other departments that do provide services citywide.

Even worse, he and the Council want to slam these cuts through without allowing any time for analysis or public debate.

They are seven months into this fiscal year and still have a $200 million deficit. They borrowed more than $1 billion to be able to pay their bills and don't have enough cash to pay the bills, in no small part because only a few hundred of the ERIP volunteers have actually left their jobs and will still be in them for many months more.

Today, they are raiding dozens of special funds of millions of dollars because they are out of cash. Next week, they will start ordering layoffs without regard to the functioning of departments, layoffs of the youngest workers, just like the ERIP got rid of the oldest.

Nothing they have done or are doing has anything to do with running the city for the benefit of the public. They are chasing the numbers of falling revenue downhill without a plan.

City unions are in an uproar after having been dragged to the bargaining table with a gun at their heads three times in less than a year. Their own positive ideas for reducing spending have been largely ignored, their members are as furious at their leadership as they are at city officials.

The activist community has awakened and begun to mobilize into a force to be reckoned with.

Council members, few with any experience beyond serving in government staff jobs before being elected to positions as the nation's highest paid city elected officials, see the danger to themselves and are looking for whatever deceit and subterfuge will protect them from the wrath of the people.

They will do anything except face the truth and find the courage to lead the city out of the darkness.

There is no light at the end of this tunnel.

The only hope is that a new civic culture will arise out of the ashes of City Hall's failure.

Somehow the unions must come to realize the commitments from city officials are worthless. Business leaders must see the city can't deliver on promises to create thousands of jobs and revive the economy. And ordinary citizens must look beyond their grievances and their anger and seize the moment to find common ground with each other and with these other interests that are more powerful and better organized.

We cry out for a leader who can bring us together and save us from disaster. We thought Antonio Villaraigosa might that leader five years ago. We were wrong. He has betrayed our hopes and dreams.

Worst of all, he has betrayed himself -- and for that there is no redemption.   

"SORRY, BUT I CANNOT ATTEND THIS ONE AFTER ALL. I GOT A TRIAL DOWNTOWN THAT DAY."

 

That's the message on attorney Walter

Moore's campaign calendar for Tuesday and the event, the UCLA Bruin Political Forum at 6 p.m. is crossed out.

 

What makes Moore's cancellation so

interesting is the nature of the trial downtown that will force him to pass up the chance to win over voters to his mayoral candidacy.

 

Moore is the lead attorney for Clear Channel Outdoor which is accused of fraud, specifically forging documents so it could expand its easement on a Studio City commercial property in order to have enough space to put up a digital billboard.

 

It's no mystery that Moore has made a handsome living representing the billboard industry for years or that he's taken campaign contributions from his billboard benefactors.

 

But it can't help Moore's campaign for mayor for him to be spending the rest of the week in court defending the most despised billboard company at a time when billboard companies are the most despised of the many villains that City Hall's pay-for-play political corruption produces.

 

Digital billboards and their visual blight popping everywhere with their messages of glamorous hyper-consumerism, thousands of illegal billboards annoying everyone, dozens of lawsuits blocking enforcement of even the timid laws are city officials have enacted - none of that does much to Moore's pseudo-populist anti-immigrant, anti-government waste campaign.

 

But a guy has got a right to earn a living and even villains like Clear Channel have a right to legal representation.

 

The particulars of this case add another dimension of interest.

 

The plaintiff is Carpenter Plaza strip mall on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City which is owned by realtor Mort Allen, a driving force behind the City Attorney campaign of Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich.

 

In a case to be heard by Superior Court Judge Mary Ann Murphy, Allen alleges that Clear Channel through its predecessor company Eller Media engaged in fraud by forging documents back in 2001 when he agreed to give the company a 10-foot easement for 35 years for an 18-year-old billboard on his property in exchange for $650,000.

 

There wasn't any problem until February 2007 when Clear Channel sent Allen a form to give permission for an electrical upgrade so the sign could be converted into a digital billboard.

 

That's when Allen, objecting to the digital billboard on his property, started looking into the situation and discovered that the county registrar's records showed company had a 20-foot easement - not a 10-foot easement - which would be big enough for a digital billboard.

 

According to a deposition in the case, a company attorney in Phoenix changed the 10s on the front page of the legal document to 20s and attached a drawing of the site when the papers were being filed.

 

At issue for the judge to decide is whether Allen or his attorneys gave their permission for the changes and whether he's entitled to substantial damages.

 

If Allen wins, another question might arise: Is this the only time that Clear Channel engaged in such practices or are there other victims?

You got to feel for Walter Moore. Maybe he should just call himself "Wally" and dress up and act like Rodney Dangerfield who plays an obnoxious talk show host in a 1997 movie that at least got some reviews.

Whatever your politics, you ought to support Moore at least getting looked at by the local media, having his public fund-raising events at least get a brief notice and at least have examined why his constituency  is so aroused by Jamiel's Law which would crack down on illegal immigrants in gangs.

But poor Walter gets totally ignored in the media -- except for radio talk show hosts like Doug McIntyre on KABC and blogs like Mayor Sam.

Moore held a fund-raiser at Cal State Northridge on Saturday and 300 people showed up so he can get a crowd. He raised about 10 bucks a piece from them to put his campaign warchest at $107,000 so he'll qualify for city matching funds. But he got no press coverage. Stories written about the upcoming mayoral election.state Antonio Villaraigosa as the only announced candidate and refer to the fortune he's raising for his campaign and the possibility that billionaire developer Rick Caruso who's vacationing in Italy is the only possible serious candidate who might challenge him.

In the eyes of the media, it's a coronation, not an election.

This isn't new. Across the country, the corporate media are complicit with the vast machinery of big government, big money and big politics. It's been that way a long time, ever since half the papers in the country went out of business in the 1950s  and 1960s because of  their inability to compete with television.

All that was left of a once free and vibrant press was corporate ownership of mostly monopoly newspapers. Gone were the 12 papers in New York, the eight in L.A. with a variety of owners and a variety of politics, styles and points of view. Instead, what we got was journalism that reduced politics to on the one hand this and the other hand that as if there were only two ways to see any issue. The result was apathy, alienation, the loss of freedom of expression and the vital public conversations that lead to compromise and progress.

Some think it's all an overt conspiracy but that wasn't my experience in my 44 years in newspapers and publications of various types in many parts of the country.

What there was and is today is a conspiracy of consciousness, a shared belief of journalists that what they're told by the vast army of political operatives and politicians -- and what they tell each other -- is the American political reality, that the political reality inside the world they operate in is the political reality of  Americans.

That is the big lie.

Walter Moore vs. Jim Newton

 

This email exchange between mayoral candidate Walter Moore and Los Angeles Times Editorial Page Editor Jim Newton may not be the fight of the century but it is amusing and a window into the mindsets of each.

 

That's a non-judgmental statement, I'm leaving it to you all to score the match as you see fit, in comments: 

 

Round One: Moore attacks

 

Sun 4/20/2008 9:18 PM

To: jim.newton@latimes.com

 

Why is the L.A. Times coverage of Jamiel's Law biased? In a word, 

"money."

 

Jamiel's Law would apply only to illegal aliens in gangs. However, 

the L.A. Times has confused its readers by publishing a raft of 

articles about the supposed disadvantages of ending "sanctuary 

city" protection for all illegal aliens (e.g., day laborers), 

rather than focusing on those in gangs.

Want to know why? The company that owns the L.A. Times also owns a 

Spanish-language newspaper called "Hoy." Sales at Hoy would plummet 

if L.A.'s "sanctuary city" status ended.

During the past four years, the L.A. Times has lost 20% of its 

daily circulation. Hoy, by contrast, is bullish about the growth of 

"Spanish Speaking Hispanics" in Los Angeles: the publisher expects 

a 42% increase by the year 2525, for a total of 7.3 million.

"Hoy publications," the company recently reported, "have a gross 

weekly distribution of more than 1,375,000 copies nationwide."

So when you wonder why the L.A. Times hires reporters and editors 

who never seem to "get it," just remember: the newspaper is a 

business. Unfortunately, it's a business that puts its own profits 

ahead of the lives of the people of L.A.

The publishers are not going to entrust their English-language 

subsidiary to managers who might cut sales at their Spanish-

language subsidiary. Instead, the publishers hire reporters and 

editors willing to adhere to the "party line," namely, "there are 

no illegal people."

The L.A. Times should, at a minimum, disclose its conflict of 

interest. After all, whenever ABC news reports on the Disney 

company, the newscasters always disclose that Disney is ABC's 

parent company. Shouldn't the Times disclose, when it reports on 

illegal immigration, that it is owned by the same company that owns 

a Spanish-language newspaper?

 

ROUND TWO: Newton brushes off the punches, hits back

 

Apr 21, 2008, at 6:14 AM

Dear Walter,

This is absurd, and I think you know it.

Jim Newton

Editor of the Editorial Pages

Los Angeles Times

 

ROUND THREE: Moore counterpunches

 

Mon Apr 21 07:09:05 2008

Your "coverage" of this issue is absurd.

You go out of your way to attack straw men, distort the facts, 

mislead the public about the provisions of Jamiel's Law.

You're not running a newspaper; you're running a propaganda machine.

 

ROUND FOUR:  Newton goes for the jugular

 

Apr 21, 2008, at 7:18 AM:

 

First, I run our opinion coverage, not our news coverage. And we can have whatever opinion we want on this. If you're concerned with our news coverage, take it up with those editors.

Second, however: whatever you think of the coverage, to blame it on Tribune's ownership of Hoy is ridiculous. I don't give a damn about the effect of this issue on Hoy. I have no idea whether they've taken a position. I don't even know who runs Hoy or how it's doing -- any more than I do about Newsday or the Baltimore Sun.

Criticize all you want. But this argument is just nuts.

 

ROUND FIVE: Moore moves in for the kill

 

April 21, 2008 7:30:05 AM

 

Why do you think YOU have the job?

Why do you think the Tribune hired and keeps you instead of someone able to acknowledge that importing gang members from abroad might not be the greatest idea in the world?

And why don't you let readers decide whether it's "nuts" by disclosing your conflict of interest?  ABC discloses its financial relationship when it reports on Disney.  You should likewise disclose your paper's stake in illegal immigration. Your paper has a vested financial interest in maximizing the number of Spanish-speaking people in America.

Your editorials, moreover, ARE slanted.  The argument that Jamiel's Law wouldn't have saved Jamiel Shaw, II is -- to use your word -- absurd.  You claim that because Espinoza's most recent arrest was by Culver City, the policy would not have saved his life.  How about the preceding five years?  He was a known gang member.  What if he had been deported for violating our immigration laws five years earlier?

You're not a journalist.  You're part of big business's propaganda program to boost profits.  Maybe you don't realize it.  I don't really care if you do or not. But for you to claim that the Tribune's multi-million dollar conflict of interest isn't relevant, well, good luck with that one!