Results tagged “tom labonge” from Ron Kaye L.A.

They're coming after me and my four-legged brethren to help solve the city's financial crisis!

After perusing the Dog Trainer and Green Sheet this morning, I saw an LAWeakly story highlighted on the Westside White Guy's blog that the dog catchers think could fetch an additional $3.6 million for the city by going after unlicensed pooches.

And who would rat them out? DWP meter readers! Apparently these guys have something called a  "doggie database."  Sure, the homeland security folks can't do racial profiling, but when it comes to dogs, the DWP can be Gestapo-like in their record keeping.

I knew there was a reason I didn't like those guys, and the pool guy, and the mailman, and the UPS deliveryman, and the.   Well, I don't really like anyone coming near the house.

I am a watchdog, after all. And a good one! Ask Ron and Saint Deb last time someone burglarized RonKayeLA.com central.

My favorite part of the LAWeakly story was Tom LaBonge, one of the 14 city council members who got us into this financial crisis (Krekorian gets a pass cause he's new), had to get his dog a license. Had it not occurred to him before?  Someone might remind him - ex-motorcycle cop Dennis Zine's the perfect candidate - that he also needs a driver's license.

There is, of course, no mention of cats.  I guess the DWP doggie cops don't notice them.  

Here's a suggestion:  let's license everybody in City Hall and make it contingent upon them doing their jobs.  And if they screw up, put them in one of our overcrowded animal shelters.  I'm sure it will give them a new appreciation of our "no kill" policy.

Woof!!

After decades of a failed experiment in municipal socialism, Austin Beutner looks like just the right man for the job of reviving LA's sagging economy from the tornado of mismanagement and poor leadership that has hit it, a steal at $1 a year.

He is the man who the mayor says "led a team that helped the Russian people in their transition to a market economy" after the fall of communism. If that doesn't convince you. consider that he made a goodly chunk of his fortune as an investment banker and expert putting people to work in Third World countries with an abundance of cheap labor.

A Third World economy, cheap labor and all the assets of the DWP, harbor and airport to work with -- it's right up Beutner's alley.

You can gamble your tax bill on his ability to wipe the nearly 14 percent jobless rate, put the 200,000 people who have abandoned even looking for a job to work, balance the city budget and erase the $10.5 billion city pension debt.

It's only a matter of time before he leads us to that somewhere over the rainbow and becomes  known as the Wizard of LA.

There are a few obstacles he will have to overcome, however, like the ambitions of the mayor and council to stay on the public dole for the rest of their lives without actually doing anything for the public benefit.

Can the Wizard of LA find a brain for Scarecrow Tom LaBonge (who wants to be mayor), a heart for Tin Man Dennis Zine (Controller) and courage for Cowardly Lion Bill Rosendahl (US Senator)?

If he does, he still faces the challenge of getting help from Good Witch Glinda (Lt. Gov. Janice Hahn) to help Dorothy (Mayor Jan Perry) and Toto (Assemblyman Richard Alarcon) to get back home to Kansas or wherever they're from.

Surely the Wicked Witch of the West (Mayor Wendy Greuel) or is it Mayor Eric Garcetti will have a lot say about what he is trying to do, especially if it makes any sense.

No, it's not going to be easy, what with the yellow brick road all cracked and broken and the Emerald City flooded by bursting water mains.

But he does have help from the man who counts, a mayor so desperate to be Governor or Senator or Ambassador or just plain rich like him that he swears on the stack of bibles and promises to give him all the support he needs no matter what.

Of course, his promises in the past have proven to be about as valuable and reliable as AIG securities.

No matter. The Wizard can fix it all if only everyone really believes it's possible.

And that's the twist in this little story that makes it all just a fantasy.

This cast of characters has betrayed the public trust. Nobody believes anything they do is for anyone's benefit but their own and the people who put them on the public stage.

It's simply a question of faith and you got to wonder if the Wizard of LA even has clue about that..

I thought I'd seen just about everything from this City Council but my eyes were opened by Tuesday's debate over a plan to raise fees for homeowners and neighborhood and community groups to appeal Planning and Building Safety decisions by 200 to 2,000 percent.

This is a City Council that isn't worth the $180,000 a year they are paid. They aren't even worth half that as community activists are proposing to put on the ballot next year. They aren't worth 10 cents.

What was before the council was an urgent ordinance to fix "typos" and backed off somewhat from the astronomical appeals fees approved unanimously Aug. 12. It also was supposed to fix the open meeting law violation that was used to sneak it through -- something that was sure to lead to a lawsuit that could nullify the ordinance months or years from now.

What it didn't fix was the blatant constitutional violations represented by onerous fees intended to stifle the due process rights of ordinary citizens to challenge city decisions that ruin their neighborhoods and destroy the quality of their lives.

When Richard Alarcon is the people's hero, nailing the illegal anti-democratic nature of this measure, and when Tom LaBonge is the voice of reason, saying he doesn't think anyone is "comfortable" with it so put it for another day -- you know this was as ill-informed and muddled a debate as you've ever seen. 

For 90 minutes, the Council circled around what this was about in a confused and pointless discussion that left them even more dumbfounded than usual, if that's possible.

In the end, they agreed, unanimously, to revisit the issue Wednesday and seemed to agree to keep citizen appeal fees to the $75 to $300 level they have been instead of up to the $6,188 level that was proposed.

But that's only a temporary decision. The intent is to come back with a new fee schedule that moves toward "full cost recovery" -- City Hall's policy of making the shrinking middle class and homeowners pay the bulk of taxes and pay again for everything they get in services from the city.

There ought to be a law, maybe there is if the nation's civil rights laws apply to ordinary law-abiding people. 

A dozen or so community activists spoke out against the measure at the outset of the debate, people from the wealthy hillside communities to the Eastside, from Neighborhood Councils and environmental justice groups.

When people from all classes and backgrounds come together like this, as you're seeing so often these days, you know the winds of change are blowing and the discontent with City Hall's failure is growing.

Not everybody sees that, of course. Some are oblivious.

Ed Reyes, the Council's point man for developers, and Bernard Parks, the Council's point man on fiscal irresponsibility, for instance, argued the proposal dates back three years, that a consultant was paid $100,000 to come up with the fee schedule and public hearings have been held since April.

So everyone should know about this measure. Only everyone didn't know about it, not the Council or the public.

That's because the language on agendas hid the appeals fee issue from the public and Neighborhood Councils and other community groups were never actively brought into the process.

The best the Planning Department could do was say that information was posted on its website and emails sent out to NCs. Developers, in contrast, were brought into discussions about the increased fees they face and how they would get better and faster service for their money while the community would for the most part be silenced by the high appeals fees.

You can be sure developers, their lobbyists, lawyers, consultants and PR advisers were given all the access they wanted during the three years, five months and 68 days that have gone into the process of killing democracy in LA.

It is a sign of the times that the Council has once again back down in the face of public opposition. They are afraid of the people and the growing cohesion of activists that is rapidly building into a full-scale revolt.

They have good reason to be afraid. Their neglect and incompetence has allowed the budget deficit to threaten the city's future, billboards and marijuana stores to flourish without regulation, the DWP to gouge the public to put into the pockets of a union that is out of control.

The list of their failures goes on and on and so does their list of attacks on the rights of ordinary people to be treated fairly and to get a government that serves them.

There are only so many grievances the public will bear before they awaken and do something about what's wrong, even in LA.

Columnist Kevin Modesti in the Daily News offers an amusing look today at the issue that has paralyzed the City Council for so long:

One recent afternoon at the Los Angeles Zoo's

elephant exhibit, a grayish creature with wrinkles around the eyes stared over the wood-and-rope fence. He was slow afoot, kind of lumbering. He seemed, in some ways, ill-suited to the modern world. He faced an uncertain future. And, my, what big ears he had.

But enough about me.

This is supposed to be about Billy the elephant...

People care about elephants such as Billy because we see a lot of ourselves in them, particularly at a time when both man and beast are struggling to keep up, humans in a rapidly evolving workplace and animals on a fast- changing globe"

Exactly. The way the City Council has given poor Billy the Elephant -- and the hundreds of people on both sides of the issue -- the runaround for months is typical of how the nation's highest paid city officials treat everybody.

A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer in your face. But who's laughing?

Tom LaBonge, fresh from his triumph over those who wanted to really protect Griffith Park from the ravages of development, now has moved a step closer to winning approval of finishing the elephant exhibit at the LA Zoo. The council is finally set to actually make a decision today.

His City Council's Arts and Parks Committee on Tuesday recommended completing the $42 million Pachyderm Forest -- now halted after a third of the money was spent.

And he's armed with a new report from the Chief Legislative Analyst to defeat Tony Cardenas' plan to create a sanctuary out in the wilds of the Valley while turning the elephant exhibit into a home for rhinoceroses and hippopotamuses who apparently don't need room to roam despite their mammoth size.

The CLA, sharing some of the responsibility for the city running up a $400 million deficit despite a 33 percent revenue increase, has become quite conscious of how the public's money is being spent.

Here's the findings on the financial impact of changing course (billy-cla.pdf):.

If the Pachyderm Forest Exhibit is completed and the GLAZA offer is accepted, the project's impact
to the General Fund of $24 million over 20 years would be completely mitigated.
If the Pachyderm Forest Exhibit is cancelled, the General Fund would need to repay $5 million in voter approved funding to the County of Los Angeles within 60 days.
If the Pachyderm Forest Exhibit is replaced with another project, the project's impact to the General
Fund would be about $26 million in debt service over 20 years.

So if time and money are important, the council will not foreclose on Billy's home.

It wouldn't be so bad if this was just an isolated example of City Hall's failings. But it isn't.  The council has a way of leaving just about everyone feeling frustrated and wondering why everything takes so long and gets so complicated -- everyone that is except those who throw  a lot of money at the animals in the City Hall zoo. 

Tom LaBonge loves Griffith Park more than life itself but that doesn't mean we should save it from development
That's the extraordinary position taken by Councilman Tom LaBonge in the face of efforts to declare L.A.'s greatest urban asset an historic-cultural monument to provide legal protection against the many schemes to turn it into Disneyland.
The city's Cultural Heritage Commission voted yesterday to move forward in considering the massive park for protection but not before LaBonge got to make his point that city officials have big plans to develop the park for commercial gain of their friends.
LaBonge supports the historic-cultural designation for the park's buildings "but not an entire park," said Renee Weitzer, the councilman's chief of staff and chief planning deputy, according to the Times.
"There are many unknowns that need to be researched," she said, raising concerns that the designation would make city projects in the park "unnecessarily difficult, more time-consuming and costly."

It's safe for kids and old folks to walk the streets -- L.A. 's pols are getting high in Colorado on luxuries provided by special interests
Stop complaining about all the meetings City Council members cancel and all the travel the mayor does to raise millions for himself -- if they're not here, they can't hurt you.
Most of the city's elected officials, formerly known as public servants, are heading off to the Democratic National Convention for an orgy of self-congratulations and enjoyment at some two dozen lavish parties and other entertainments paid for by unions, corporations and everyone else who wants to buy their votes.

The self-destruction of the Times' reputation continues without any help from owner Sam Zell
Times' insider-blogger Kevin Roderick at L.A. Observed got the scoop on the latest development in the tawdry story of fired Editorial Page Editor Andres Martinez and his love-hate obsession with PR flack Kelly Mullens.
He sued her, claiming she got him fired by lying about her role promoting Hollywood mogul Brian Grazer as guest editor of Martinez's Opinion section. It was a crackpot idea and her lawyers says he is a crackpot who needed to be restrained by court order to stop him from stalking her after she dumped him.