There's only one thing I know for sure these days and that's the people of this city in all walks of life are crying out for something that brings us together to make our collective lives better and give hope to our individual dreams.
We need a New Spirit of LA
We don't need cheap slogans like "shared sacrifice" when there's nothing shared or fair in our sacrfice. We don't need Ideological politics or racial or sexual or class politics. And we don't need greed and selfishness by a insider clique that has looked after itself better than the city it rules.
No, we need a new spirit in LA
We need to stop looking down at the ground through the tiny prism of our own narrow lenses and we need to stop scrounging in the dirt for crumbs from the table of power.
I traveled the world looking for a place I could live my dreams and when I gave up all hope, I settled in LA where against all odds I started to live my dream. I've come too far to back down now even if the situation were hopeless.
And it's not. I am not alone. Even bums on the street I know are living their dreams too, nightmare as it must seem to most of us.
For me, that's all LA is about, nothing more and nothing less, then every human being has the right, the responsibility, to live their dreams in LA. That's why so much shit happens here, why they call us zany and wacky and weirdos.
Freedom is a dangerous thing and absolute freedom can be destructive.
We are making a hell of heaven. I don't know if it's too late to reverse the course of global warning but I know with the absolute certainty of faith that it's not too late restore LA to its heavenly state.
Anyone who strives for less betrays the very Spirit of LA throughout its whole history.
All over this city -- in every neighborhood, in every class, in every passion -- we are locked in little cells like prisons, kept separate as much by our own choice as by the machinations of others.
It's time to break out, escape our cells, and to reach out to others with the realization that all our fates are bound up together in our homes, our neighborhoods, our schools, our city.
It's only in the quality of our lives today and in our hopes for a better tomorrow that a great city lives.
And that's the question everyone has to answer for themselves: Do you want LA to be a great city or just another place out in the desert somewhere?
City employee union members could take the first step by taking a hard look at the sweetheart contract they have been offered to balance the city's $320 million budget deficit -- temporarily at best.
It's not worth the paper it's written on. Giving full pensions with bonuses to 2,400 senior city workers so they can retire at 55 with full pensions is going to cost those who keep their jobs and it's going to cost the public too.
What do you think is going to be the reaction in a few months when it's clear the mayor and City Council can't make good on their promise not to impose furloughs or layoffs on you, when the city can't be its bills or the interest on the $1.1 billion they borrowed to fend off a cash flow crisis?
Will city workers threaten to strike when the bad news comes? Will the public understand that they have to pay 50 cents for city workers' pensions for every dollar they put in the pockets of city workers still on the payroll?
It will be like the wrath of God, a test of whether the anger of city workers is greater than the anger of the public.
Personally, I don't want to go there.
It's time for peace talks, for the civic elite to get organized, for the labor and business communities to stand up for what's right for the city as a whole, for the tens of thousands of ordinary people so deeply involved the city's civic culture to make a stand in defense of their neighborhoods, their livelihoods, their futures.
City workers are going to take the deal on the table and the mayor and council are going to sign off on it and keep using the Department of Water and Power as a cash cow and cutting deals that keep them in power and feed the interests of developers, contractors, lawyers and lobbyists.
But it's past the point of no return. Sooner, rather than later, the bottom is going to fall out and the bills are going to have to be paid.
The longer we wait, the worse it will be. There will be fewer options and greater consequences.
I don't know the answer to all the problems LA faces but I do know that nothing good will happen unless we all have a seat at the table of power, begin to talk honestly about things and start to figure out how we live within our means and balance our competing interests.
It's going to take a quality of leadership that has been missing a long time and mutual respect that is now non-existent.
The question I raise is this: Who will make the first move to bring us together so we can create the New Spirit of LA?
We need a New Spirit of LA
We don't need cheap slogans like "shared sacrifice" when there's nothing shared or fair in our sacrfice. We don't need Ideological politics or racial or sexual or class politics. And we don't need greed and selfishness by a insider clique that has looked after itself better than the city it rules.
No, we need a new spirit in LA
We need to stop looking down at the ground through the tiny prism of our own narrow lenses and we need to stop scrounging in the dirt for crumbs from the table of power.
I traveled the world looking for a place I could live my dreams and when I gave up all hope, I settled in LA where against all odds I started to live my dream. I've come too far to back down now even if the situation were hopeless.
And it's not. I am not alone. Even bums on the street I know are living their dreams too, nightmare as it must seem to most of us.
For me, that's all LA is about, nothing more and nothing less, then every human being has the right, the responsibility, to live their dreams in LA. That's why so much shit happens here, why they call us zany and wacky and weirdos.
Freedom is a dangerous thing and absolute freedom can be destructive.
We are making a hell of heaven. I don't know if it's too late to reverse the course of global warning but I know with the absolute certainty of faith that it's not too late restore LA to its heavenly state.
Anyone who strives for less betrays the very Spirit of LA throughout its whole history.
All over this city -- in every neighborhood, in every class, in every passion -- we are locked in little cells like prisons, kept separate as much by our own choice as by the machinations of others.
It's time to break out, escape our cells, and to reach out to others with the realization that all our fates are bound up together in our homes, our neighborhoods, our schools, our city.
It's only in the quality of our lives today and in our hopes for a better tomorrow that a great city lives.
And that's the question everyone has to answer for themselves: Do you want LA to be a great city or just another place out in the desert somewhere?
City employee union members could take the first step by taking a hard look at the sweetheart contract they have been offered to balance the city's $320 million budget deficit -- temporarily at best.
It's not worth the paper it's written on. Giving full pensions with bonuses to 2,400 senior city workers so they can retire at 55 with full pensions is going to cost those who keep their jobs and it's going to cost the public too.
What do you think is going to be the reaction in a few months when it's clear the mayor and City Council can't make good on their promise not to impose furloughs or layoffs on you, when the city can't be its bills or the interest on the $1.1 billion they borrowed to fend off a cash flow crisis?
Will city workers threaten to strike when the bad news comes? Will the public understand that they have to pay 50 cents for city workers' pensions for every dollar they put in the pockets of city workers still on the payroll?
It will be like the wrath of God, a test of whether the anger of city workers is greater than the anger of the public.
Personally, I don't want to go there.
It's time for peace talks, for the civic elite to get organized, for the labor and business communities to stand up for what's right for the city as a whole, for the tens of thousands of ordinary people so deeply involved the city's civic culture to make a stand in defense of their neighborhoods, their livelihoods, their futures.
City workers are going to take the deal on the table and the mayor and council are going to sign off on it and keep using the Department of Water and Power as a cash cow and cutting deals that keep them in power and feed the interests of developers, contractors, lawyers and lobbyists.
But it's past the point of no return. Sooner, rather than later, the bottom is going to fall out and the bills are going to have to be paid.
The longer we wait, the worse it will be. There will be fewer options and greater consequences.
I don't know the answer to all the problems LA faces but I do know that nothing good will happen unless we all have a seat at the table of power, begin to talk honestly about things and start to figure out how we live within our means and balance our competing interests.
It's going to take a quality of leadership that has been missing a long time and mutual respect that is now non-existent.
The question I raise is this: Who will make the first move to bring us together so we can create the New Spirit of LA?
Ron Kaye