Results tagged “carmen trutanich” from Ron Kaye L.A.

In a devastating six-page letter Thursday afternoon, City Attorney Carmen Trutanich   accuses Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa of "a remarkable lack of leadership and imagination,that puts "public safety and the protection of taxpayer dollars at substantial risk."

Responding to the mayor's budget proposal that cuts his spending 18 percent on top of a similar cut this year, Trutanich suggests the mayor has "lost faith" in the city's residents and public employees and is engaging in political cynicism.

"Your proposals will only exacerbate the budget crisis looming in the future and appear to be motivated by some agenda other than the continued success of all of the public safety offices in this City, including the City Attorney's Office.

"It is also obvious that your proposals cynically protect political positions at the expense of public safety and essential services. For example, I note with great dismay that the proposed Budget recommends only a 2.6% reduction for the Mayor's Office. I also understand that, despite a so-called 'hard hiring freeze' for other City employees, your office continues to hire political staff, which is not tasked to perform public safety functions."

(READ THE WHOLE LETTER AT OURLA.ORG)

.Editor's Note: Please observe how the two-minute warning clock doesn't run when Tim Leiweke is speaking but it does when John Walsh is mocking him and the the City Council.

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Unable to get on with the job of fixing the city they have broken, the LA City Council kowtowed Friday to AEG's Tim Leiweke's bullying, repudiated the elected City Attorney Carmen Trutanich for his efforts to clean up the billboard mess they created over seven years, and then repudiated him for being a bully.

What a day it was! Only regular viewers can fully appreciate the ironies and absurdities:

* Leiweke who's made billions off of the city subsidies of Staples Center and LA Live threatening to sue LA for hundreds of millions of dollars if he had to wait a week for a judge to rule on whether giving him six more giant billboards at the new Regal Cinema complex on top of the 16 already up would make the 2-month-old billboard ban illegal;

* The Central City Assn. and Chamber of Commerce lined up with ironworkers and IBEW electricians to demand the Council live up to their commitments to make AEG even richer because nobody else is creating jobs, union and living wage, and Leiweke gives generously to politicians and their favorite charities;

* One Council member after another, even best pal Dennis Zine, taking off the kid gloves and punching Trutanich's chief deputy Bill Carter, accusing Nuch of violating their bond of trust by fighting for what's right and legal;

* After spending most of three hours crucifying Trutanich before voting unanimously -- a foregone conclusion -- to reject Carter's entreaties to let the federal court decide whether giving AEG all those billboards would make the ban unconstitutional, the council needed 10 minutes to agree to stop hiring cops, temporaily unless it becomes permanent;

* And finally for something entirely different, the agreed to throw a crumb to the populace by letting a couple of Westside farmer's markets off the hook for newly imposed fees for two more weeks because the Chief Legislative Analyst couldn't get around to sorting out the details of how the onerous new system is supposed to work before the law takes effect Monday.

There's a lot of ways to look at this but the one of my choice is Trutanich is a dangerous man and must be stopped.

At least that's the view of the City Hall power structure which is not used to anybody having power not being owned by those who have power and money.

They accused him of threatening them with prosecution if they committed crimes, of failing to tell them the total ban on new billboards might queer their endless commitments to AEG, of engaging unprotected legal advice, of contradicting theadvice of his predecessor in the City Attorney's office who went along with anything they wanted.

It was a feeding frenzy and many of the Council members were foaming at the mouth.

But no one rose to the occasion more than Leiweke himself  who strode to the public comment lectern without being called like ordinary citizens as if he owned not just the Council Chamber but the whole of City Hall and laid down the law as if God, him or herself, was speaking through him

You made commitments, you will honor those commitments, you will cost me hundreds of millions of dollars and ruin my financing based on all the corporations paying fortunes to advertise on LA Live's digital billboard, you will pay dearly.

There was no doubt who was boss in this town.

Yet, Leiweke didn't merit a mention in the LA Times online story headlined "L.A. Council ignores Trutanich warning, backs signs for theater at L.A. Live."

Instead, the focuse was on Building and Safety interim general manager Raymond Chan saying he plans to issue the permits despite Trutanich's warning in great part because he believes the ban passed in August does not cover projects already approved and substantially underway, including the AEG's theater at L.A. Live.
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Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa also supports issuing the permits, said Jeff Carr, the mayor's chief of staff.

The Times said that once it receives the permits, AEG will put up four giant movie posters, including at least one for the Michael Jackson documentary "This Is It,'' which premieres Tuesday, which Carter repeatedly said already were legal as onsite signs, and signs for two of L.A. Live's sponsors, Coca-Cola and Toyota. Even the Coke ad would be legal since it's sold on premises.

Christine Pelisek at the LA Weekly's blog picked up on Councilwoman Jan Perry saying had  been threatened with criminal charges by Trutanich and arguing that AEG has had exclusive developments agreements with members of the Los Angeles Sports and Entertainment District, including AEG, since 2001.

"I am not comfortable about being represented by a guy who might get me turfed over to the District Attorney's Office. I am doing my job."

She also quoted Trutanich's interview in the Daily News where he said:

"I'm just enforcing the laws. Right now there is a ban on digital off-site billboards. Where I grew up (San Pedro), when you said 'no more,' it means 'no more.' Up here in the central city, I guess it means something else."

By JANE USHER
Former President LA Planning Commission

 

Tuesday is Election Day, and turnout will be low. Your vote will make a difference. In the spirit of putting the City first, I am writing today to share my best ideas for Tuesday:

 

1.  Learn your polling place. 

Some polling places are different from November's presidential election. Your polling place is printed on the back cover of your Official Sample Ballot. Or look it up online at: http://www.lavote.net/LOCATOR/. (Note: parking rules will be relaxed on Tuesday within one block of the polls. No money needed for the meter.)

 

2.  Cast two essential votes.

We can't fix everything with one election. And not every choice on the ballot is crystal clear. But we can unite on voting day to oppose City Hall's worst shenanigans. Every newspaper in the City agrees with me on two key votes:

 

·     Vote for CARMEN TRUTANICH for City Attorney

Trutanich is tough, independent, the most experienced candidate in this race, and committed to enforcing the law. We can't afford to elect a political insider, like Jack Weiss, whose door is closed to our concerns. Trutanich will make City Hall a more open and honorable place.

 

·     Vote NO on Measure B (the solar power scandal)

Our elected officials bypassed every public vetting step to put this half-baked idea on the ballot. Measure B has an appealing solar energy label, but it is a power grab in green clothing and a poster child for bad government.         

 

3.  Make our great city better.

Our current government devotes too much energy to trading favors and building power. Many of our elected officials and bureaucrats are making important decisions based on personal advantage. We need to insist on - and vote for - real leadership, checks and balances, and independence from special interests.

 

Jane Usher

The word leaking out of City Hall is that poor Jack Weiss has awakened from his long smug slumber and is having a panic attack at the very real possibility of finishing out of the money in the City  Attorney's race.

Nobody inside the leaky City Hall political machine actually likes or respects Jackie Boy -- except maybe Chief Bratton who enjoys sending him out for coffee and other errands -- so the news that Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich and Michael Amerian might make the May runoff and not Jack is getting more laughs than tears.

Tears are, however, being shed over the prospects that Measure B -- the ultimate pay-to-play money machine -- will fail.

Let me repeat that a little louder: MEASURE B IS NOW A TOSSUP, TOO CLOSE TO CALL, 50-50!

That's right, your vote on Tuesday could change the whole political dynamic in LA, send City Hall the message that the people are fed up with failure and self-service and will no longer tolerate a government of, by and for special interests.

Make no mistake: Clean energy and green jobs is something that has support from everyone -- something that everyone has wanted for a decade or longer. But Measure B is on the verge of being rejected by a majority of voters on Tuesday because it is so bad, because it doesn't do anything to create clean energy or green jobs as it claims. Because we want clean government, too.

Millions of dollars being spent to con the public are being beaten by a grassroots citizens campaign that has nothing but the truth on its side and the energy of hundreds of community activists who care about the future of LA when all their elected officials care about is themselves and the special interests that keep them in office as the nation's highest paid municipal officials in America.

Virtually everyone who has listened to both sides of the Measure B debate or read what both sides of the debate have to say have come to the same conclusion: Measure B is a fraud.

That's the conclusion reached by the LA TImes, Daily News and the Breeze; by labor organizations like the Carpenters Union and Laborers Union; business groups like the LA Chamber, Apartment Owners association, United Chambers of the Valley, VICA, by every homeowner and resident group and  Neighborhood Council and NC coalition that put it to a vote, which is most of them.

There's a lot reasons why Controller Laura Chick says Measure B "stinks."

It's a boondoggle that was put together in back room deals. Critical information was kept secret from the City Council and the public. It was ramrodded through the council in three weeks without any meaningful debate, without ever being brought before Neighborhood Councils or the DWP Commission as required by the City Charter. The DWP management has done no analysis, planning or studies of its feasibility, costs or financing.

As if those are not enough reasons to vote against Measure B, try this: It's a Charter Amendment that undermines every safeguard against graft and waste with the exception of annual unfunded audits by the City Controller and oversight by a hand-picked commission appointed by the mayor and council who can't wait to get their hands on the billions of dollars in public money Measure B would authorize.

The trouble with that oversight is if Wendy Greuel beats NIck Patsaouras for City Controller, the watchdog will be a lapdog. Greuel is an author of Measure B and if she wins she will owe her election to the IBEW, the union that represents 95 percent of DWP workers, and has lavished a fortune on her campaign.

Brian D'Arcy, the all-powerful head of the IBEW, actually wrote Measure B after doing everything in his power to block every attempt to bring solar energy to LA for the last decade.

But as the special interests who are funding the Yes campaign like to argue: Solar power is an idea whose time has come. Actually, it's long past that time but who's quibbling.

So D'Arcy's play is to get a DWP monopoly on the $3.6 billion Measure B so only his union gets the jobs and to have a shot at getting any other jobs that might flow out of the other solar programs the DWP has suddenly slapped together to try to get this passed.

We can do so much better than Measure B.

Environmentalists, the solar industry, experts in technology and finance, the DWP, the public and others could sit down on March 4 and develop a plan that gets us clean energy faster and cheaper than Measure B and actually brings solar manufacturing and research facilities to our region.

The choice is clear. The outcome depends on who shows up to vote. There's no excuses in this election. You can put Jack Weiss on the scrap heap of the city's political history. You can trash Measure B and join the rest of the world by joining the clean energy movement. You can even keep Wendy Greuel in her place on the City Council and put someone into the Controller's office who will carry on the tradition of Laura Chick.

No surprise, the IBEW which stands to profit handsomely from the Measure B charter reform and DWP solar energy monopoly fraud and is its author and main financial backer gave the maximum to the campaigns of Jack Weiss and Wendy Greuel.

Nor is it a surprise that the remarkably ineffectual sleepwalker Weiss has raised $1 million almost entirely from lawyers who stand to reap millions from the City Attorney Office's dependence on outside attorneys and even more from settlements and lawsuits against the city.

The payback on $1,000 contributions would make even Bernie Madoff is his heyday drool.

In contrast to Weiss, his best-funded challenge for City Attorney, Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich has half as much money to run on but only gotten a smattering of money from lawyers. More money came from law enforcement interests and those who don't stand to cash in monetarily from having a friend in high places.

Greuel, too, counts a lot of lawyers among the contributors to her $700,000 war chest for her campaign to succeed City Controller Laura who earned a reputation as the people's watchdog, not the political machine's lapdog.

The special interests that count or have counted on Greuel to deliver the goods with a wink and a nod to their excesses include a lot of people and companies in property development. People like the Westfield shopping center interests and those involved in the NBC-Universal massive development project, even new City Planning Commission member Sean Burton and his wife among others that are part of the well-connect empire of Henry Cisneros.

Both Weiss and Greuel also collect healthy sums from the consultants, contractors and others who live off City Hall's sweetheart deals. Even lobbyists' spouses are helping them out since the lobbyists themselves are barred from contributing thanks to the Measure R fraud two years ago that wrapped giving council members a third term about phony ethics reforms.

You won't know any of this reading the four paragraphs on the campaign statements filed Monday reading the Daily News or the Times which had a somewhat longer story. In both cases, all that interested them was the horse race for how much money the campaigns have raised.

But the truth of what kind of government you'll get is in the details of who they solicited money from and owe favors to. That's where the devils are and I urge you to click on the links to Weiss and Greuel in the first paragraph and report back to me if you spot some devils I missed.

We all know the answer to that question: Because he's the only one in L.A.'s political culture with any credibility left.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has lost the confidence of the people across the city. A cloud hangs over City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo. His anointed successor Jack Weiss couldn't even win re-election in his own Fifth District and there's no other City Council member who has established an image of integrity and competence that could sway any voters.

That leaves only Bratton and, of course, City Controller Laura Chick. But her aggressive critiques of City Hall's endless string of failed policies have made her a persona non grata among the ruling elite. Besides, she's too smart to support higher taxes -- especially such regressive taxes that rob the working poor and middle class -- for programs that are at best vague and at worst ill-conceived.

The public's mistrust and disgust with City Hall -- except for Bratton and the lame-duck controller -- will become more important after Tuesday's general election and the focus shifts to the March 3 city primary election.

This is the final week for candidates to file for the primary.  And the entry of DWP board president Nick Patsaouras into the controller's race against Wendy Greuel, and the challenges of Carmen Trutanich and Michael Amerian in the city attorney race, have sparked hopes that the public will have real debates on important issues and real choices.

The big question that remains is whether developer Rick Caruso will find the courage and commitment to challenge the mayor.

Caruso has told everyone who's asked that his hesitation is based on his concern that running for mayor and the demands of the job might negatively impact his pre-teen children.

That, of course, is a legitimate concern but it must be weighed against his public duty since he knows full well that L.A. is at a tipping point where the greed of special interests and the slavishness of the politicians to those interests have pushed the city to the point of no return.

Villaraigosa has lived in fear of a Caruso challenge for months and successfully chased away other well-funded candidates by raising nearly $2.5 million -- much if not most of it from out-of-town interests.

Caruso is the one candidate who can't be intimidated by the mayor's ability to raise money from special interests since he is a billionaire who can write a check for $10 million or more to mount a serious challenge.

With competitive races for the three citywide offices, an open seat in CD5 and the possibility that serious challengers to council incumbents might file candidate papers this week, there is the real possibility that voters might actually get the kind of public conversation about the state of the city and its future that is so desperately needed.

Run, Rick, Run -- the city needs you now. And if not now, when -- after it's too late?

With the irony and mean-spiritness of a grizzled newsman, I often would declare that long-time Northwest Valley Councilman Hal Bernson lived under a rock -- and developer Ted Stein owned the rock.

That truly was unkind of me because for all his devious ways and pandering to special interests in that old-fashioned political way of one hand strokes the other, Bernson knew how to keep his constituents happy for the most part -- probably due to his chief of staff and successor, Greig Smith.

Not so with Jack Weiss. With the irony and mean-spiritness of a grizzled newsman, I often have said Jack lives in the pocket of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and every special interest that will fund his ambition to be City Attorney or invite him to their parties

Jack who has represented Council District 5, which straddles the Westside and the Valley, is no Hal Bernson.

His constituents hate him. That's not too strong a word for it. They hate him so much they got 20,000 signatures, which is three-fourths of the votes he got in the last election, to recall him but didn't have the time or the money to qualify it for the ballot.

They set up a website that accused Jack of being a stooge of developers, and ignoring the interests of residents. And they filed a complaint with the City (Un)Ethics Commission over allegations of illegal fund-raising.

I would have focused as much on his absence during most council meetings, his ducking of critical votes and his ineffectiveness about getting things done even when he takes strong public stands on important issues.

Here's just a few examples:

Let's start with Jamiel's Law, the attempt to force the city to get tough on illegal immigrant criminals.

Weiss, who wants to be the city's chief law enforcement officer, ignored the groundswell of support for the measure until the pressure got great enough. Then, he relented and agreed to hold hearings -- but stalled for another two months so the hearing won't be held until October).

Law-and-order Jack also jumped on the LAPD's huge backlog of testing DNA samples in criminal cases, something that would take $10 million to fix.

As head of the Public Safety Committee he promised last December to "hold hearings every week...until every woman and man in this city is outraged'' by the failure to find the money to fix the backlog problem and lock up hardened criminals.

As the Daily News recently commented, "Nice sound bite, but ultimately empty" since that would have required Jack to actually do some work which is not his strong card.

Then, there's his claim to be king of the anti-billboard effort. Weiss staked his claim to succeed Rocky Delgadillo in part on accusing the City Attorney of failing to fight against the explosion of billboards in the city and the lack of enforcement against billboard companies. Yet, Weiss rolled over with the rest of the council last week and support the sell out of public interest in the deal to give Phil Anschutz's AEG the right to create massive visual blight with 75 billboards and flashing electronic signs at the Convention Center.

Typical of Weiss, he introduced a motion July 29, calling for the city's planning department, Department of Building and Safety and City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo's office to revise and toughen the 2002 ban on billboards. Meaningless as it is, the motion won't be heard by the council for months.

Now Jack wants to be City Attorney and has the support of the mayor and council leaders Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel who know better but are too weak and ambitious themselves to face up to the punishment they would face if they stood up to the political machine that passes for L.A.'s city government.

Weiss must be stopped.

With Villaraigosa as mayor, Weiss as city attorney and Greuel succeeding Laura Chick as city controller, the public will have no voice at all at City Hall.

The last pretense at this being a democratic society will be gone. There will be nothing in the way of a system that cuts sweetheart contracts with public employee unions, rolls over to billionaires and special interests of every type and fails to deal with the city's problems.

There are alternatives to Jack -- Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich, an environmental lawyer from the harbor area, and Assistant City Attorney Michael Amerian, who works out of the Van Nuys office.

Here's video of them made by Michael Cohen talking recently to the Saving L.A. Project: