Results tagged “mayor antonio villaraigosa” from Ron Kaye L.A.

Once upon a time in the city we all love and hate, a man named Antonio stepped forward and inspired us with promises of a better life for everyone, of a new era with a new spirit that brought us all together..

He was going to plant a million trees and beautify our neighborhoods.

He was going to take over our schools and make sure every kid git a good education and graduated.

He was going to end corruption at City Hall after defaming the Hahn Administration as the "most investigated" in LA history.

Most of all, he was going to make us the "greenest city in America" -- something that would restore our pride in the city and create tens of thousands of good jobs.

Fairy tales can come true or they also can turn into nightmares where everyone suffers, well, nearly everyone. Insiders and the well-connected flourish while neighborhoods are destroyed, kids still drop out cause they can't read or write, corruption reaches unprecedented levels.

The man of a thousand broken promises has turned on his friends in the unions and embraced the evils of unbridled capitalism, indulging himself in a life of royal luxury while half a million of his subjects can't even find a minimum wage job.

And now, in the latest chapter of this fairy tale gone awry, comes the ultimate hypocrisy: Antonio wants his pals in Sacramento to make a special exemption from environmental policy for LA so we can keep on destroying the oceans around us for another two decades.

"The city of Los Angeles has launched an aggressive lobbying campaign to roll back tough new state regulations meant to limit the environmental damage that power plants inflict on the oceans," the LA Times reports today.

The justification for this is that it will cost $2.3 billion and require increases in the already soaring power rates of at least 6 percent for eight years.

Driving the effort for the exemption is Austin Beutner, first deputy mayor, jobs czar and part-time temporary DWP general manager.

"That's money that will cause jobs to be lost in our economy and money that we can't use to invest in other renewable energy initiatives that we have," he says.

The issue is Assembly Bill 1552, now in the Senate, a measure created through subterfuge at the last minute with help from people like Antonio's cousin, Speaker John Perez, and other phony environmentalist lawmakers.

It would exempt the DWP from tough, new State Water Board regulations that require sharply reducing the amount of seawater used for cooling coastal power plants.

Under AB 1552, every coastal plant in the state -- except the three owned by DWP -- would still be required to pump in seawater for cooling only once and then recycle it or move to air cooling

DWP's three plants, now required to comply between 2015 to 2020, would be given up to 11 years longer, to 2031.

Environmental groups -- long-time friends of the mayor -- are as furious at him as his long-time friends in labor and the voters who elected him.

Heal the Bay has started a phone call and email campaign under the heading: "Your Help is Needed to Protect California's Coast & the Public Process - OPPOSE AB 1552."
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"It completely ignores five years of process and guts the entire policy," said Mark Gold, president of Heal the Bay.

Adds Sierra Club California lobbyist Jim Metropulos: "Now here is the L.A. DWP coming in at the last second with a special-interest exemption for them."
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What's spectacularly appalling about this is that the DWP under then General Manager David Nahai was working on a rational compromise with the State Water Board long before the regulations were approved.

But like so many others, he ran afoul of the mayor's political priorities -- and in his case the greed of DWP union bully Brian D'Arcy -- and was fired last fall.

His successor, David Freeman, the poet laureate of green energy who never actually built any, dropped the ball on that effort as he did so many others during his two disastrous terms running the city's mos valuable asset.

Freeman preferred to play political hardball with the state board when the regulations were being finalized but struck out.

"It makes the department appear cynical and manipulative," Nahai told the Times.. "I believe it was unnecessary, because the state board has shown a willingness to try, even now, to deal with the department's concerns."

Put your money on the environmentalists winning the fight because they are right that DWP never should have been put in this position. You'll need those winnings to pay your power bill.

So how did so many high hopes end in failure and broken promises? Whatever happened to the Antonio we knew and loved so much to put him in charge of our city at a time when we needed great leadership?

No one could possible have gone so wrong, betrayed so many. The answer can only be that the real Antonio was kidnapped and a replicant was put in his place to turn LA into the vision imagined in "Blade Runner."

What other explanation could there be?

Steve Cooley is not just another pretty face.

 

And he may be the cheapest date in town -- especially if you compare him to our mayor.

 

The San Francisco Chronicle, in a story Sunday that reads like it was written by Kamala Harris' campaign consultant, Ace Smith, details the gifts Cooley has received -- and reported as the law requires.

"Corruption fighting candidate took many gifts," the headline says. suggesting he's a crook and a hypocrite.

Good God! Lakers tickets!! Stop the presses!

 

Except in this case, while Antonio is courtside sitting beside Jeffrey Katzenberg, poor Steve is obviously in the nose-bleed section, drinking cheap wine the mayor wouldn't give Lu Parker's dog Monkey and sucking on an unlit $5 cigar.

 

Just so you don't get lost -- or fail to enjoy this as much as this dog -- Kamala Harris, the very attractive San Francisco DA, is running against the somewhat less attractive LA DA Steve Cooley to be state Attorney General -- California's Top Cop.

 

Antonio isn't running for anything at the moment. It's more like he's running from investigators from three agencies - including Cooley's! - looking at his attendance at dozens of concerts and sporting events, for which, as we all know by now, he was comped by lots of big shots doing business with the city.

 

And unlike Cooley, Antonio failed to report the gifts, saying he was there to perform "ceremonial" duties.

 

(I'm sorry. Bruno always has to roll on his back and laugh when he writes that. Rub my tummy.)

                                                                                                                                               

This is all so delicious.

 

In case you forget, Ace, who relishes the fact that he's a very mean guy when it comes to politics and will probably take the Chronicle story, roll it up and try to beat Cooley over the head with it from now until Election Day, also ran Antonio's last earth-shattering mayoral campaign. To help you remember, Antonio barely won re-election against a field of unknowns that he outspent close to 20 to 1.

 

Cooley bad.  Antonio good.  Maybe we should call him Deuce Smith.

 

After giving Kamala's spokeswoman lots of space to beat up Cooley for taking the cheap gifts -- which he reported! -- the Chron writer, or Deuce, added this graf:

 

"Harris, San Francisco's top prosecutor since 2004, has only declared a handful of gifts in the six years she has been district attorney, and most of it was travel funds related to an Aspen Institute fellowship, which is given to elected officials seen as emerging political leaders. "

 

Shameless!

 

Then there was a list of just about all Cooley's gifts, including - 20 $5 cigars from a very cheap judge,  $150 in tequila and cologne from Ghanem G&G Auto enterprises and $94 dress shirt and tie from Aimen Slaeb, of a Shell service station.

 

A Shell service Station?

 

Journalists have an expression for this kind of writing, but Bruno's far too polite to repeat it. It rhymes with "snow job."

 

To heck with how these two feel about the death penalty or other issues affect California.  I'll leave that to the real reporters.

 

I want to know why nobody's giving Kamala any presents and what the guy from the Shell Station is trying to buy with the shirt and tie from Walmart?

 

Woof!

When times are tough and the challenges great, real leaders sometimes step forward and rise to the occasion with bold steps that bring people together.

This is such a time in the history of Los Angeles, a time that cries out for a great and courageous leader. Yet, it's business as usual at City Hall with more back room deals and a greater disparity between the public and private stories than ever.

Commissioners and bureaucrats are brow-beaten into obedience by an increasingly desperate administration. The City Council is rudderless and confused, lacking the talent and integrity to fill the void.

As the public wakes up to the dangers that confront their hopes for a better future, the leaking political machine that rules the city offers small tokens to appease the anger.

Controller Wendy Greuel took a baby step -- not a giant leap forward -- on Monday by announcing she will post online in a searchable database the jobs and salaries of all city employees, well almost all.

"By this time, I am sure you are all aware of the recent controversy in the City of Bell where the City Manager, City staff and Councilmembers were paid exorbitant salaries with little to no public accountability," she wrote the mayor, Council and all department heads.

"In light of these developments and heightened public interest, I am taking steps to ensure openness and transparency in our own City salary system...During these tough economic times, I take my responsibility as the City's chief financial watchdog very seriously, putting a high priority on ensuring that our finances and payroll are properly managed and reported."

There's one big problem with Greuel's commitment to open and transparent government: No names, which makes the list almost meaningless.

Several years ago, the Daily News did put the full list of city employees, their salaries, names and positions in a now outdated searchable database.

The DWP did its best to keep from turning over the list and its union, the IBEW, organized a campaign of phone calls threatening lawsuits because disclosure would endanger lives and people who cheat on spousal support would be exposed.

It was ridiculous but California law requiring full disclosure prevailed without the sky falling in.

Yet Greuel is omitting the names out of concern for the safety of employees who have had threats made against them, as well as those who work in sensitive positions such as jobs within the Los Angeles Police Department. DWP employees are also exempt because the utility has its own payroll system outside the control and scrutiny of Greuel's office.

"We wanted to get the information up as quickly as possible so that the public could see without compromising any security concerns, and posting city positions and salaries is the best way to do that," Greuel aide Ben Golombek said.

This isn't good enough.

Greuel should show courage and go all the way and not just post salary levels but all overtime and bonuses as well with updates at least annually if not more often.

The mayor and the DWP Board of Commissioners should follow suit immediately.

Semi-open and semi-transparent have no more meaning than being a little bit pregnant. City Hall will either open up all its records to the public or remain a closed system protecting itself from public knowledge and scrutiny. Halfway measures do not serve the public interest..

It took the Board of Commissioners of the Recreation and Parks Department just 16 minutes to sell out the public interest Monday and trash the City Charter at a special meeting with little advance notice..

Not bad for a few minutes work by the people who are supposed to be the citizen watchdogs on our elected officials and bureaucrats.

The citizens themselves did no better in protecting their interests. Not a single member of the public was present to comment as the commissioners agreed to include the Pershing Square parking garage -- property under the City Charter of Rec and Parks -- in the basket of 10 garages being auctioned off to the highest bidder, or in this case as in most others, the biggest campaign contributor with the most influential lobbyist representing them.

In fact, the only person other than a staff member and the commissioners who spoke was mayoral aide Michael Mullin who was there to make sure the board caved in without raising any thorny issues.

The board complied meekly, raising nothing more than a plea that when the Pershing Square garage is leased for 50 years for a pittance that the operator be asked to make a good faith effort to reegotiate if possible in case anything changes in how the park is operated between now and 2060.

Even that sounded alarm bells to Mullin who wanted to make it clear in the record that the board was only asking for "reasonable good faith requests" to be taken into consideration and didn't really expect to have any control over how its property or the park is actually run.

"Our job is to see that the parks work," the commissioners said apropos of nothing since come Labor Day the parks won't work very well anymore thanks to the mayor and Council regarding them along with libraries as the first services to be gutted.

Back in May, this deal was dissected here complete with a warning from the City Attorney's Office that any effort to lease Pershing Square was likely to end in a lawsuit because it was deeded to Rec and Parks as a revenue stream and resource in perpetuity.

"We also advised that the potential consequences of violating the Charter are that an action for declaratory relief and injunction could be brought by any taxpayer. The likely result of such a lawsuit would be that payment to the RAP Fund would be compelled, with interest, and attorney's fees and costs would have to be paid by the City's General Fund," the City Attorney said then.

"If an arrangement that would violate the Charter is included in the lease, the City Attorney would not be able to approve the lease. If an arrangement that would violate the Charter is included in a public report to the Board of Recreation and Park Commissioners or any other City body, the City Attorney would be compelled to comment on the Charter requirements."

On Monday, the City Attorney's Office offered no more concern about including Pershing Square in the garages lease proposal than to say the Commission has the sole discretion and authority to do what it wants -- as if the public and the public interest is irrelevant.

The commission seemed quite content to expect no more from this deal than the same $2 million a year it gets now plus increases reflecting half a century of inflation.

In a report (pershing square.pdf) submitted by Rec and Parks General Manager Jon Kirk Mukri -- a man fighting daily to keep his job in the face of the abuses and demands of the mayor's offiice - the Pershing Square garage is the city's most profitable and has the "greatest potential for future growth," according to a report commissioned for the city.

"Because of the abundance of development slated for downtown Los Angeles, the location of the parking facility and the amount of excess capacity in the garage, the prospects for revenue growth from an increase in parking demand are very bright. The report indicates that as demand grows and the number of competing facilities shrinks, rate increases will provide another avenue for future revenue growth."

In other words, Pershing Square is the plum in this deal that was supposed to bring in $150 million in a lump sum now plus future revenue but now is worth only $53 million up front, according to city estimates.

So why lease it out at the bottom of the market and expect no more than to keep pace with inflation when their own report says Pershing Square's value will soar?

Why deflate its value by putting it in a basket with nine poorly managed garages that mostly lose money?

Why ignore the intent of the City Charter and sell out the public interest?

Don't expect answers to these and other questions from your city officials. It will take a lawsuit that will tie up this deal in court to have any hope for answers.

Anybody know a good lawyer who cares enough about the quality of life in this city to take on City Hall.-

Not long before he was whacked for betrayal  while saying Hail Marys in a boat on Lake Tahoe, Fredo Corleone complained to his brother Michael about the way he was treated.

"I'm your older brother, Mike, and I was stepped over ...I can handle things! I'm smart! Not like everybody says... like dumb... I'm smart and I want respect!"

Now that he's resigned as Deputy Chief of Staff to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Jimmy Blackman has time to say his Hail Marys, watch "The Godfather" movies and feel a special empathy with Fredo Corleone.

Replace "older brother" with "most loyal soldier" and you can hear Fredo's complaint in  Blackman's dilemma as he was passed over for chief of staff, Austin Beutner's team took power in the mayor's office and the "Ticketgate" scandal erupted.

Loyalty, like Corleone family blood, no longer meant a damn thing.

Blackman was the guy who was always there for Antonio, connecting the favors to campaign contributors, arranging the tickets to sports and entertainment events, linking the mayor to the City Council and political world outside City Hall.

He was a trustworthy confidant, a pal. Yet, he was the odd man out when the mayor's dreams of becoming governor were shattered, when his administration was branded far and wide as a failure, when outsiders indifferent to and ignorant of politics were brought in to run the show.

Who needs a bagman when there's no money to raise for the next campaign, when the big-time favors are being dispensed by Wall Street types who think running a city is no different than making a deal, taking over a failing company or manipulating the stock market?

Mayoral Villarigosa's long-time aide and most loyal supporter, Deputy Chief of Staff Jimmy Blackman sent out this email blast Friday afternoon after announcing he was resigning. In a statement and email he told the LA Times:  "I will always remain loyal to Mayor Villaraigosa and proud of our accomplishments over the years..."I am not a part of any inquiry into this issue, nobody has asked to speak with me about it, and it has absolutely nothing to do with my departure." Here is Blackman's email to friends explaining his departure:

From: Jimmy Blackman

August 13 will be my last day in the office working for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.  

This decision is mine and mine alone and it came after a great deal of personal deliberation.  Public service, politics, and the Villaraigosa world has been near the center of my life for most of the past 13 years - more than one third of my life.  It is not easy to walk away. I plan
to take some time off and figure out what my next career move will be. I have solicited no job offers and have nothing lined up.  I will continue to work hard at this job until my very last day in the office.

Over the past years I have tried to stay true to my values and beliefs. I have tried to remember the reason why I got into this business - to serve others and create positive change, particularly in under-served communities.  I have made many mistakes along the way, but I have no regrets.

I ask that this email serve as my going away message to those that I have worked with and for. I will leave the office the same way that I entered 13 years ago.  I want no parties, no fan fare, and no long good byes.  Anybody who knows anything about me knows that I would not have it any other way.

I will be in the office for the next two weeks for those who wish to stop by or send me a message.  Other than that, let this message serve as closure from this chapter in my professional life.  If it is too long  I apologize in advance.

In April of 1997 I was given an opportunity by Assembly Majority Leader
Antonio Villaraigosa and his District Director Suzanne Manriquez to be a Field Deputy in Echo Park and the surrounding communities.  Shortly thereafter I became a Special Assistant to Speaker Villaraigosa, worked as the Field Director for his 2001 campaign for Mayor, served as his Campaign Manager in 2003 for his race for City Council, then as his Chief of Staff in City Council and most recently as his Deputy Chief of Staff in the Mayor's office for the past 5+ years.  
 
An opportunity was given to me in 1997 and I have tried to make the most of it.  At each step along with way I have realized how fortunate I have been.  Hard work and loyalty has helped me to build my career, but nobody can ever make it here all alone.  With that in mind, I have many people that I need thank and acknowledge.

First and foremost I want to thank the Mayor for giving me this once in a lifetime opportunity.  It has been my honor to work with a great leader and a great team in an effort to create positive change in both the State of California and the City of Los Angeles.

I was there when we lost in 2001 and then again when we won in 2003.  I was there for the 24 hour bus rides and once again on election night in 2005 when I held the phone as Mayor Hahn graciously called to concede and wish newly elected Mayor Villaraigosa well.  I was right in the  middle of history as it all unfolded.

It has been a long and incredible journey.  I will always remain loyal to Mayor Villaraigosa and proud of our accomplishments over the years  I have thousands of stories that will remain with me.  Those who know the most say the least.

I want to thank Richard Alarcon for being the first one to give me a chance to have a leadership position in politics when I served as his Chief of Staff in the State Senate in 2002.  I remain thankful for the opportunity that he gave me and I will always be a supporter of his.
I want to thank the rest of the City Council that as a body has been very good to me over my past 7 years here in city hall.  In addition to Richard Alarcon, I want to especially thank Ed Reyes, Tom LaBonge, and of course my friend Dennis Zine for always being there for me
personally.

I want to thank all of the people that I worked with for Councilmember Villaraigosa from July of 203 to June of 2005 and the honorary members of the team like Michael Trujillo and Miguel Espinoza who were always busy working on "outside projects". We built a great team and many of you are still with us today.  I will always have a connection to CD 14 and the team that we had.

When we started in the Mayor's office in July of 2005 we had a limited staff and a small leadership team that included myself, Robin Kramer, and Marcus Allen.  Together we built a great team of staff, commissioners, and general managers that I remain extremely proud of.
The best part of this job has always been the people that I have had the privilege of working with.  Robin Kramer - a truly incredible leader.Marrcus Allen - the single smartest person that I have ever worked with.  And of course Larry Frank - the most effective person I have
ever worked with.

I want to thank all of the people in the Mayor's office who stay behind the scenes and get the work done.  I am proud to be one of you.There have been so many unsung heroes over the years in this office, many of whom I have had the opportunity to personally hire.  People who
work hard to get the job done and ask for very little in return.  People like Mike Fong, Paola Valdivia, Margarita Rivas, Patricia Bryant, John Choi, Martha Preciado, Antonio Sanchez, Brenda Anderson, and many, many others.  I hope that you know that your work has been recognized and is appreciated.  You are the ones that have made this place work and you
are the ones that have made the journey worthwhile for me.

I want to thank all of my assistants who have worked with me along the way.  Cathy Finley, Serena Zeise, Angelica Ayala, Carla Martinez, Jessica Oleta, and Alvaro Pacheco - yes there have been many.  You have given me so much and taken care of me and my family at every
opportunity.  I am proud of each one of you as you have all moved on to bigger and better things.  Know that you are appreciated and I will forever be loyal to each one of you.

Most importantly I want to thank the very small group of people who have been through the battles and stayed loyal to both the Mayor and me at every single turn.  The people who have never let me or the office down.  The people who know the real story of this administration.
People like Areen Ibranossian and David Rahimian who I love like brothers.  People who knew the story before the words were ever spoken.

To my mother and father, Sam and Susie Blackman.  I have tried to learn from you.  You have kept me grounded and reminded me to work hard, pay my dues, and always remember where I have come from.  My mother came to this country from Taiwan, never went to school a day in her life, and rides the bus every single day - yet she worked hard to put my brother
through Columbia Business School and me through both Stanford and graduate school at USC.  And my father - if there is one person on the planet who is smarter than Marcus Allen it's Sam Blackman.  I got my work ethic from my mother.  My brother got his intelligence from our dad.  Go figure. Thank you both for always being there for me.

To my ex-wife Maria - I will always be grateful to you for being there when I was not.  You have endured so much and remained true to yourself and our family.  You have supported me at every step along the way, even when I didn't deserve it, and been the primary caretaker of
our beautiful daughter. I will be thankful to you for the rest of my life.

Finally to my 14 year old daughter Alyssa who has grown up with this job almost from the start.  Every day I remind myself that I am the luckiest man in the world to have you in my life.  Over the past 13 years this job has been synonymous with my struggles to balance the
demands of my work with my responsibilities as a parent.  It has never been easy, but you have been worth it.  You are, and always will be, the single most important thing in my life.

From the Speakers office to the City Council to the Mayor's office it has been a wonderful experience.

One day the real story of the Villaraigosa administration will be written (not by me) and it has truly been my honor to have played a small role in this history.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's nomination of Michael LoGrande, chief zoning administrator, to succeed tGail Goldberg as Director of the L.A. Department of City Planning won praise from pro-development interests and condemnation from many planning experts There was no nation search or inclusive vetting process as were used in selecting Goldberg. The man who headed that selection process and served as interim planning director in 2005 under Villaraigosa was  Mark Winogrond of Planmark Associates, a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners. Winogrond wrpte this article for David Abel's Planning Report. He questions whether the nominee has the experience and the vision necessary to guide the city's future development. Here is an excerpt of the full article at the Planning Report.

I've known Michael for some years: when I was Mayor Villaraigosa's Interim Director of City Planning trying to restore hope in the Department and coordinating the recruitment for Con Howe's replacement, I was impressed by his can-do attitude. Somehow he seemed fresher than the stale negative, "Our first answer is NO." philosophy that permeated the Department of 2005.

I did not come to this naively. I had created and written San Francisco's ground-breaking zoning code and maps, led the West Hollywood team that took it from a run-down industrial pocket to "The Creative City", managed every concept and detail of the renaissance of Culver City, and helped numerous other cites and colleges get to a better future than they'd expected.

I put him in charge of the "Expedited Projects" unit, and was quickly disappointed. The skill of a good city planner - more importantly, of a good planning leader - is the ability to step away from a project and see how it fits into the context of the City's vision, the Department's goals, and the governing rules. At that time, I was disappointed to discover that Michael did not have that capacity. He had antennae very attuned, especially for his few years in public service, to the internal politics and pressure, and the importance of a particular project to the real power brokers.

For the last two years, all we've seen and heard from our City Council is tears and pleas to save the jobs of city workers or at the least to shelter them from losses caused by a government that costs too much and delivers too little.

Los Angeles -- the city of sprawl and no planning or bad planning -- long ago became a city of limits, a city that had filled its vast open spaces with homes, businesses and factories and wore out its infranstructure.

Smart growth became a necessity a quarter century ago, yet the city continued to regard every project on a case by case basis where political influence played a more important role than the value of projects to the quality of the city's life and economy, much to the displeasure of many.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa held a press conference Monday and spoke directly to these concerns, promising -- as ke did five years ago -- a new era in city planning that respected the neighborhoods while expediting developments that meet the highest standards.

The occasion then was the appointment Gail Goldberg as planning director, a position she surrendered weary from the endless battles with the mayor's staff..

Monday's news conference, heavily attended by pro-development interests and a handful of reporters, was to announce his appointment of Michael LoGrande as her successor as LA City Planning Director.

Many planning experts and current and former city planners question LoGrande's qualifications since he is not a certified planner and has worked in various roles in city planning for barely a dozen years. They also questions his work ethic and his commitment to smart growth and full, open and inclusive processes in all aspects for city planning.

Here's everything he had to say at today's press conference:



Here's the mayor's announcement where he makes a commitment to smart growth:

In the city of Bell, residents finally rose up and threw out the bums who were ripping them off.

In Venice and Eagle Rock, residents mutter about what so many in the San Fernando Valley still yearn for: Seceding from LA and forming their own cities.

The CRA keeps on looting property taxes that could be used to keep libraries and parks open and giving it away to bring sweatshops to town and subsidize well-connected developers to build projects that nobody wants.

The DWP quietly goes about buying up land near downtown, as Joseph Mailander reports in the LA Weekly, on speculation to serve the mayor's fantasy of a clean tech corridor, whatever that means, in a city with half a million unemployed or unemployable low-skilled workers.

But today we celebrate the triumph of our political leadership: The far-flung subway and light rail system that isn't a system at all.

It was plagued with corruption and catastrophe during its construction, cost $8 billion and has failed to get more people to use public transit.

Twenty years too late, the LA Times finally gets around today to reporting just what a fiasco it is, quoting transit experts Tom Rubin and James Moore on what they have been telling the world all along: The rail system was built at the expense of the bus system, destroying the critical links that make transit systems effective while driving up fares.

The result is more traffic congestion and lower ridership despite a 20 percent increase in the county's population.

Yet, the mayor in his desperation and delusion is staging a dog-and-pony show for the TV cameras today near Staples Center -- where else? -- to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Blue Line between downtown and Long Beach.

The real reason is to promote himself and his plan to build more rail lines, mostly on the hopelessly congested Westside.

The problem with that is the same problem with the whole rail system: It is making the cost of public transit even more expensive and forcing even more cuts in bus service that are needed to connect passengers from train stations to where they want to go.

The only facts you really need to know are that bus use doubled in the 1980s when fares were cut in half and that the construction cost per passenger of the Orange Line Busway across the Valley was a fraction of the cost of the subway and light rail per passenger. In addition, took only three years from conception to operation, not a decade.

Richard Riordan, when he was mayor, understood that the only reason we were building a rail system instead of a transit system that works was to feed the contractors and unions that funded the political system with campaign cash and gifts. .

Only, the Valley, that poor stepchild of the city, got a busway from his efforts and we're now moving forward on more subways and light rail to feed the contractors and unions instead of going back to the drawing board and figure out how we get more people into public transit because it gets people where they want to go at a cost that gets them out of their cars.

That isn't going to happen until we take a lesson from the residents of the city of Bell and throw the bums out.

JOIN THE LA CLEAN SWEEP CAMPAIGN (lacleansweep.com) TO ELECT BETTER PEOPLE FOR A GREATER LA