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

To be perfectly honest, I never quite trusted Hal Bernson, the longtime councilman from the Northwest Valley.
For one thing, Hal admired his council contemporaries from his early years, men who engaged in more than a few visible deals that stunk. And for another, Hal had a few stinkers of his own.
Greasing the skids of government never has bothered me as much as nothing getting done that benefits the public. In that regard, Hal on a few occasions would challenge my criticisms with a lecture about how well the city operated to get done what people wanted. He was particularly eloquent when discussing the efficiency with which garbage trucks came by every week right on time and, he would note, it didn't cost homeowners a dime.
I bring this up in the context of my call yesterday that we protest the city's new policy of double taxation for trash pickup by going down to City Hall on Bastille Day July 14 and putting a bag of garbage on the steps as an act of civil disobedience. My good friend Teddy says we should call it the "L.A. Tea Party."
There's good reason to choose garbage as our symbolic tea. L.A.'s trash policy itself fails the smell test.

"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." -- Thomas Jefferson

Since I retired from the Daily News two months ago, I've learned one thing above all others from email, comments and community meetings: The people of L.A. are afraid that City Hall willl trample on them at every turn.

That's what led me to this quote from Thomas Jefferson that speaks straight to what I believe is the only way to change L.A. for the better.

So many people who have worked so hard for so long for their communities believe that their government is their enemy, that even voting, sending emails and letters of protest, organizing their neighborhoods will not make much of a difference.

In Jefferson's terms, they fear their government. And that is truly tyranny.

That's what I have believed personally for a long time. I did what I could to show the truth of it in stories and editorials at the Daily News. I believe there has been some change over the years, most notably the LAPD is no longer a militaristic army at war with the people, particularly the poor and minorities.

But for the most part, the public gets lip service to their grievances while City Hall continues to serve itself and the special interests.

What keeps coming up for me is that only drastic action -- a campaign of civil disobedience -- can possibly change things.

Already, there are signs that others feel as I do.