Results tagged “james hahn” from Ron Kaye L.A.

Like a Rottweiler with a steak bone, Channel 11's John Schwada has bit into the "Ticket-gate Scandal" and he's got our mayor running like a Chihuahua with his tail between his legs.

The question - if I can stretch this ad nauseum - is whether our District Attorney and U.S. Attorney are bulldogs or lap dogs? 

And The Dog Trainer?  Well, they're just copy-cats., or maybe the overly abused word for feline females. Certainly not up to the job of watch-dog.

For those of you in bed at 10 last night or watching the Dodgers lose - again!! - this time to the Angels, Schwada provided yet more evidence Antonio has been playing fast and loose with the facts concerning all the free tickets he's been receiving to sporting events, concerts and awards ceremonies. 

Antonio has argued all this was, well, work: that he was performing his official duties as mayor.  But Schwada went back over his schedule and found - surprise! - that many of those events were blacked out as "personal." 

Oops! He was covering his butt on one issue and got something else stuck in the wringer on another. 

And when confronted with the evidence -- and the fact that DA Steve Cooley is now looking into the matter along with the Ethics Commission -- Antonio yelped that everything he does is official and ran away from the cameras like a frightened puppy. 

See Antonio run and hide for yourself: 
 

 
 

The Dog Trainer played up the story up this morning, embarrassed that a TV guy -albeit a former print slob - broke the story and has been ahead of them from Day One. The best they've managed so far is a sarcastic, but relatively mild editorial. 

Remember, Jimmy "Don't Ever Touch Me" Hahn paid for all his tickets and three PR guys close to his administration got convicted of overbilling the DWP despite the fact their company repaid the city 10 times what they were charged with overbilling -- and they weren't even accused of getting a free tickets to a Little League game. 

So, Antonio, what's good for the goose ..... (Yet another animal.)  Just paying the city back doesn't work if you've committed a crime - and lots of smart people think you have. 

Let's see how smart Steve Cooley is.  After all, he thinks he's smart and tough enough to be California's Top Cop. 

Do you? 

Woof!

Who the hell do you people think you are questioning the mayor of Los Angeles...this isn't some small town out in the desert somewhere

An interesting study by UCLA Law Professor Gary Blasi casts doubt about whether the mayor's highly-touted plan to blanket skid row with cops was worth it in terms of crime reduction.

"Importantly, our study shows there was no statistically significant effect on serious, violent crime in Skid Row, with the exception of a very small effect as to the crime of robbery," Biasi tell the Daily News.

What he found was that the 50 extra cops pulled off patrol from all around the city has resulted in roughly 50 less robberies -- one per cop -- and that crime in other categories was down to the same degree it is everywhere in the city He also suggests that more people actually living in homes downtown and "walking on the streets...serves to deter crime" among the homeless.

Fair enough but that kind of talk gets under Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's skin and doesn't help him in his one-issue quest for a coronation instead of an election in March.

"The Blasi report plays games with the numbers in order to achieve a desired outcome and totally ignores the real progress made on the streets," Szabo said. "A 60 percent drop in homicides might not be 'significant' to some in the academic world, but it's a life-and-death issue for the residents of Skid Row.

"The mayor makes no apologies whatsoever for slashing violent crime in a neighborhood which had been neglected for decades."

Speaking of getting under people's skin...I don't know why former Mayor Jim Hahn gets so angry whenever I say something

So there I was downtown at City Hall Thursday morning participating in a panel on charter reform, part of the L.A. Chamber of Commerce's L.A. Access program that attracted about 500 people.

George Kieffer, the attorney and former Chamber head who somehow got charter reform through a political thicket a decade ago, moderated the discussion with UC Irvine Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, SEIU leader Julie Butcher, City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, Neighborhood Empowerment GM BongHwan Kim, Hahn and myself.

The others had a generally positive take on charter reform while acknowledging some problems depending on their point of view. Not being able to control myself as usual, I called it "a disaster" but said it was worth the price because it sparked a grassroots democracy movement for the first time in L.A. history.

Suddenly, the man sitting next to me, Hahn, exploded. I don't know why I seem to get under his skin. Perhaps, it was the occasional criticisms I offered in the Daily News of his lackluster leadership as mayor and the fact it had something to do with his achieving the impossible -- losing a re-election bid.

Here's how Dave Zahniser in the Times saw it: 

"Always more of a politician than Hahn, Kaye worked the populist themes that he had embraced for years, describing city government as systemically corrupt...'The city has never had democratic institutions in its whole history. It's been ruled by narrow elites from Day One.'

"That was too much for Hahn, who rolled his eyes and audibly groaned. 'We haven't had democratic institutions in the city of Los Angeles?' he asked, incredulous.

"After staying quiet a few more minutes, Hahn spoke up: 'I think I'm a living example of how democracy works. I was denied a second term. If we didn't have democracy, I probably wouldn't be on this panel.'"

I could have made a crack about how having a father named Kenny Hahn who was L.A.'s most popular and well-connected politician for 40 years helped but I'm too much of a gentleman.

An hour later I was at the Justice Armand Arabian public service awards banquet where I was being honored along with such truly deserving people as Gerald Turpanjian, Jayne Shapiro, Greg Baker, Greig Smith, Tommy Lasorda and Daryl Gates.

Now, if there's anyone in L.A. public life who has reason to be unforgiving of my wicked ways, it's the former police chief. My attacks on his chief-for-life status and the excesses of the old LAPD started back in the early 80s at the Herald-Examiner and kept up to the day he was forced from office.

But time can heal all wounds and we shook hands and chatted a while as if we were old friends.

Thataway Jimmy.

I know it will sound sarcastic after the rough time I've given Jim Hahn for so long but I genuinely mean it. Congratulations on your decision to become a judge.

From my days in the early 1980s at the Herald Examiner, I knew Kenny Hahn. He was always good for a quote whenever you needed someone official to bolster a story of misfeasance or malfeasance, someone who would demand a full investigation or was angry to find out something was amiss.

Kenneth Hahn was the consummate politiician. His son was not. My dad was meticulous and organized; I'm chaotic and sloppy. The apple does not fall far from the tree in all ways.

And that was why I gave City Attorney James Hahn such a hard time and why I gave Mayor James Hahn a much harder time. He didn't have a political bone in his being. He not only didn't like to glad hand the public, he didn't even like to be touched.

During his four years as mayor, Hahn never spoke to me. I can't really blame him. He was the first mayor in modern L.A. history to start his term with the power to take charge of City Hall under the new charter that limited the City Council largely to being a legislative and oversight body and gave the mayor control of the entire vast bureaucracy.

Instead of asserting his authority, Hahn let the council continue to run the show and maintain its fiefdom power over its members' individual districts. Instead of chasing the lobbyists and manipulators out of City Hall, he opened the doors to them and let them call the shots.

I never thought his was a moral failing but a failing of leadership. He would never have been in politics if his name wasn't Hahn, if it wasn't for the shadow of his father who stayed in elected office for decades representing a largely African-American constituency because he had the gift of the natural born politician.

Personally, I don't think that gift is such a great thing or that it alone has produced great results.

I think James K. Hahn is perfectly suited to sit on the bench and I think he'll be a good judge. I'm happy he's found his calling and I'm sure he'll be happier too. The best to you Judge Hahn. 

 

It was nearly 25 years ago that then state Attorney General, John Van de Kamp, told me the politicians had written California's public corruption laws in such a way that only a politician stupid enough to stand up in public -- or get caught on camera _ and admit he took money and did favors could be convicted of a crime.

The politicial culture of L.A. has thrived on that carefully sculpted loophole for years, Our elected officials give access to special interests they don't give the general public, do favors that sometimes are worth tens of millions of dollars and sell out the public interest for contributions to their campaigns and officeholder accounts -- if nothing else.

L.A. is corrupt in a way and on a scale that goes far beyond what goes on in Chicago or New York where politicians often go to jail but the system works to make those cities better -- not worse.

A prime example was back in the news today in the L.A. Times  where Ted Rohrlich followed up on the long-running scandal involving well-connected developer Chris Hammond and the Santa Barbara Plaza project near Baldwin Hills.

The plaza was a rundown center with 20 shops and Hammond -- with the generous help of Mayor James Hahn -- put together a plan for a $123 million redevelopment called Marlton Square. It was to be a housing and retail project with $43 million in public subsidies.

The Daily News exposed the shenanigans in an an article by Harrison Sheppard which discussed Hahn's hope to win votes in South Los Angeles with his no-questions-asked support.

Even by that time, Hammond had bundled tens of thousands of dollars into politicians' coffers despite a record of bouncing checks on his own accounts. He had close ties to most of the area's black politicians, including Herb Wesson, Bernard Parks and Mark Ridley-Thomas among others.

Because Hammond had such strong political support, the project got approved even though there was critical news coverage, a critical audit and criticism from the city's watchdog, Controller Laura Chick.

Insiders say Hammond was smooth and made big committments to campaigns and nonprofits, and even his bad checks. never stopped fundraisers from putting him high on their lists of targets for money.

Hammond's story is the story of how City Hall works, or rather doesn't work for the benefit of the city.

Hammond bought influence, the politicians gave him what he wanted, which was public money and Santa Barbara Plaza is just the way it was years ago -- except even more run down, a cancer in the community.

Did Hammond get in trouble wth the law? No.

Did any of the politicians who did him favors for money for their campaigns. No.

Were crimes committed? No.

Is this corruption? Yes.

And it is still going on every day. Follow the money and you will see how and why your elected officials aren't serving you and why they back projects that are bad for your community and why they are constantly taking more money from you and why L.A. keeps getting worse.

Give me some out-and-out quid-pro-quo bribery like they get in Chicago and New York. and I'd give you some politicians in jail and a city that works.