Hot Topics: August 2008 Archives

EDITOR'S NOTE: As honorary chairman of the Saving L.A. Project, I am going down to City Hall on Wednesday to object to the City Council going behind closed doors to discuss in private what is nothiing but a political fight between Controller Laura Chick and City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo. I hope others will join me in the council chambers to protest this unlawful closed door meeting that is a slap in the public's face.


Who are they? Your Los Angeles City Council, who else fits that description?

OK, they could be anybody elected to city office in a system that's so rigged an honest person doesn't stand a chance and, if they did by some miracle fluke into office, they wouldn't be able to stay honest very long.

Here's the story of the best political catfight in L.A. in ages -- call it "The Tigress vs. The Rock." Here's a City Council that prefers to do business in the dark under rocks and act like a pussycat in public and this is a story they want to suppress:

City Controller Laura Chick who's earned a reputation as a maverick crusader without quite trampling on the tulips of City Hall's corruption keeps on demanding City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo get out of her way and let her audit how he has handled worker compensation cases.

Calling herself "a tigress," Chick "insinuated that Delgadillo was trying to block the audit because he feared auditors might find that the workers' compensation division, including the hiring or outside attorneys, is inefficient and wasting taxpayer dollars," as the Times put it.

Not to be outdone, Rocky claims she's intruding illegally on his authority and is up to the kind of "political mischief" she's engaged in before. She has nothing but a "personal politically-motivated purpose" in seeking to conduct the audit, he says..

She said, he said...it started back in March when pro-gang Councilman Tony Cardenas wanted to derail the mayor's efforts to take over the city's failed gang intervention programs by questioning whether Chick would have the authority to ever audit the programs success.

Which is funny when you think about it because one of the criticisms of her is she refused to audit the L.A. Bridges anti-gang program -- an audit many believe would contain explosive revelations.

Rocky quickly issued a legal opinion that controller does not have the authority to audit programs run by other elected officials because it's not explicitly given in the city charter.
That same day, Chick allegedly questioned the legal opinion at an anti-gang group meeting and followed up by declaring she wanted to audit the workers compensation program -- something that is well-know to be out of control.

Flash forward to Aug. 11, when faced with renewed pressure from Chick, Rocky filed a complaint in Superior Court seeking a court order backing his position.

Chick told the Metropolitan News-Enterprise: "What is he afraid of? What doesn't he want the public to see?"

Enter the Council. The very next day Councilman Jack Weiss -- the wannabe City Attorney who has a hard time actually getting to council meetings and casting votes --  intervened by proposing an emergency motion that has led to Wednesday's closed door session intended to make this political quarrel go away while keeping the public as ignorant as possible.

Weiss, as usual, wasn't actually at the meeting to introduce his motion or even vote for it but the courteous Greig Smith did his job for him while Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel, who loathe any public quarreling as much as the mediocrity of their colleagues, felt uncomfortable with the public knowing what's going on so they co-sponsored Weiss' phony effort to play the absentee peacemaker.

The heart of the motion says: "There appears to be significant confusion as to the intent of both commissions and the meaning of the language that was ultimately submitted to the voters in this regard. Legal action between two City elected officials is an extreme avenue to resolve disputes and spending taxpayer money, including the hiring of outside counsel for the Controller that would be required if this litigation proceeds, should be a last resort, All other avenues for resolving this issue should be explored. It is imperative that the Council receive a complete briefing from both the City Attorney and Controller and explore options for resolving this issue in a manner that best serves the public."

 

Despite some talk about letting voters decide in the March primary, Councilman Dennis Zine couldn't keep his mouth shut about what was really up -- headlines that let the public know just how messed up city government really is. That kind of thing could destroy the whole dirty political machine, bankrupt developers, force workers to earn no more than their worth and lead to actual public servants replacing the self-servers who now hold public office.

 

"It's fodder for talk shows, but does it accomplish anything? I don't think accomplished anything," Zine declared.

 

Which brings us to Item 15 on Wednesday's calendar. The council, refreshed from two weeks of vacation that included party time in Denver for many of them takes up the motion behind closed doors about how to make this political issue go away by pretending it's a legal issue.

 

There is no excuse for a closed door meeting except for the cowardice of the council to stand up in public and say what they mean.

 

This is a council that engineers unanimous votes with back room deals, routinely squelches debate on public controversies, inflicts rules for public meetings on neighborhood councils that they don't obey themselves and refuses to listen to the public's concerns while pandering to special interests who keep them in jobs that are better than anything they could earn in the public sector.

 

That's why I'm going down to City Hall on Wednesday to challenge the legality of going behind closed doors.

 

Let Delgadillo and Chick make their case in public.

Let the council debate and discuss it in public.

Let the public be informed about who -- if any of these people -- is serving the public interest and who are tools of a corrupt system that must be reformed.

 

With a hearing set this afternoon before the South Valley Area Planning, Clear Channel has backed down at the last minute and withdrew its controversial application to put a much-hated electronic billboard up in Encino.
Perhaps Clear Channel has decided to be a good corporate citizen and renounce the incredibly lucrative deal it was awarded by the mayor, city attorney and City Council for no other reason that it's a cash cow to their political campaigns.
No, that isn't it.
Are they afraid of Gerald Silver of Encino Homeowners and his oft-proven ability to mobilize strong community opposition to schemes that destroy the quality of life in the neighborhood?
Or maybe the company figured out that the commissioners would be run out of the Valley of they approve the billboard at 15826 Ventura Boulevard, a block west of Haskell Avenue?
The only certainty is that hardball players like Clear Channel aren't suddenly going to respect the community and so it's up to no good. Count on it.
The company offered no explanation but is expected at the 4:30 p.m. hearing today at the Braude Center in Van Nuys. Here's Clear Channel's email to the city billboard.pdf.
The L.A. Weekly's Christine Pelisek did an excellent item yesterday on the citywide effort to fend off the mass invasion of electronic billboards that flash brightly all night long distracting drivers and disturbing the peace.
It's one of the most blatant examples of City Hall's crimes against the people.

It's hard to believe how this could be happening after all the headlines and trials and mayoral directives but it's true -- the give away of public money to public relations firms for jobs that city workers are paid to do or don't need to be done is still going on.

Last month, it was the L.A. Harbor officials who got caught red-handed ignoring the mayor's order and agreeing to hire two PR firms for $1.6 million to tell truckers new rules were coming to cut down on pollution.

Now, with documents I obtained under the California Public Records Act, we learn that Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) has been doing the same thing dating back to 2005 when Antonio Villaraigosa came to power and kept in place Jim Hahn's directive that ended the use -- and abuse -- of PR contracts that were nothing but payoffs for "other" services rendered.

Amazingly, the contracts I obtained -- and there may well be others in a subsequent release of documents -- show they were awarded without competitive bidding by keeping the deals just below the legal limit that would have required making them public at the time.

When things are done to keep the public from knowing what's going on, I like to use the word secrecy. It makes it sort of sinister and it's accurate.

Now I don't know whether these deals were a secret from the mayor or his staff but if I supported a ban on something that was useless and tainted by scandal in the past I'd be mad as hell to find out my orders were being disobeyed by people who work at my pleasure.

Of course, if I did know about it or didn't really care, I might do as the mayor did with the Harbor contracts when they became exposed to the light of public knowledge -- I'd cut the initial payoff back to say $350,000 and look for opportunities to extend or expand it.

And under those circumstances, I certainly wouldn't hold anyone responsible for defying my orders.

Maybe when the mayor gets back from Denver or campaigning in New Hampshire or raising money somewhere, he'll have a different view of these LAWA contracts.

UPDATE: The Cultural Heritage Commission will consider a proposal today from the Griffith J. Griffith Charitable Trust to designate Griffith Park as an historic-cultural monument to protect it from city efforts to develop it. The great-grandson of the man who donated the park to the city in 1896 will make the presentation at a hearing at 10 a.m. in Room 1010 at City Hall.

This is a complicated story of promises betrayed, public trust trampled and ethics ignored -- the kind of things that take place every day, in one way or another, when the city's people stand in the way of the politics of City Hall.

It is the stuff that sleepless nights are made of for ordinary citizens trying to preserve what's good in their communities, the stuff that happy paydays are made of for those on the inside of a bankrupt political culture.

It sweeps in priceless American Indian artifacts and the city's oldest museum, the giveaway of public money to private interests, the corruption of the Griffith family's gift of a great "people's park" to the city and the web of insider relationships that are so much a part of L.A.'s "Chinatown" history.

Mostly, it's the story of what's killing L.A., the story of leaders that operate in secret and put private interests ahead of publc interests, the theme that runs through the heart of L.A.'s history for 150 years, and of the disregard for the needs, values and interests of local communities.

The focal point of this particular drama is the Southwest Museum campus in the Mt. Washington-Highland Park area where community activists are battling the Autry Museum which has assembled a high-powered team that includes respected architect Brenda Levin, the high-powered lobbying firm Latham & Watkins and PR man Steve Sugerman, the City Hall insider convicted in the DWP/Fleishman-Hillard scandal.

"The fight to save the museum is at the crossroads where politics meets culture in Los Angeles," says Daniel Wright, the local attorney who helped the effort to preserve this community treasure for years and with activist Mark Kenyon has put together a remarkable website called The Biggest Black Hat in the West..The Autry National Museum's Theft of the Southwest Museum."

There was an astonishing collision at that crossroads at a 4 1/2-hour hearing on Monday on Autry's plan to expand dramatically in Griffith Park and put the Southwest to death as a museum a century after it was born as the heart of the area's identity.

Autry CEO John Gray declared at the hearing he had "saved the Southwest, and put a plan in place to make it viable on a day to day basis."

But not as a museum. Instead, its collection -- worth between $300 million and $1 billion, far more than the Autry's --  will be put on display in the expanded Autry's proposed "Southwest Galleries."

To many in the audience, the plan to save the Southwest Museum dropped like a bombshell: The public will pay the bill to end the Southwest's life as a museum.

Under an extraordinary deal, the Los Angeles Community College District quietly agreed to use money from its $3.5 billion bond issue on the Nov. 4 ballot to renovate the Southwest Museum and use it as a satellite campus, thus relieving those costs from the financially-burdened Autry.

The deal was cut without community involvement or discussion and inserted as a line item in the bond issue by College Trustee Mona Field, according to the Arroyo Seco Journal.

"The bond measure plan came as a surprise to participants" at the City Hall hearing, it reported.

Members of the Friends of the Southwest Museum Coalition pleaded that the Autry's 2003 takeover of the Southwest contained a commitment to keep the museum and its collection together and the building's conversion to a school "could jeopardize the Southwest Museum's position on the National Register of Historic Places," said historian Charles Fisher.

Coalition co-chair Nicole Possert, a preservationist, told the hearing officer:  "The Southwest is an icon that can once again be lifted to the level of the Observatory: "When the taxpayers paid for a Gold Line Southwest Station, they were not paying for an educational facility, they were paying for an (active) museum."

The Black Hat blog headlined the latest twist in the plot this way: Coalition Reveals Autry Plan to Shift Costs to Rehabilitate SW Museum to Los Angles Taxpayers.

"This bait and switch by the Autry demonstrates a reckless disregard for its fiduciary duties to operate the Southwest Museum as a separately identified and independently run museum institution," they wrote in a post today.

The Autry's website took a decidedly different view of the situation in a posting under a small banner promo labeled "A New Plan."

"The City of Los Angeles and the Autry National Center have begun an important public review process for the Autry's plan to modernize and reconfigure its Griffith Park facility. The modernization plan provides greater access to larger segments of the collection, especially the Southwest Museum Collection, which has been hidden from the public for decades."

The drama over the Southwest Museum goes back to the 1990s when it fell on hard times and no one paid much attention until the Autry made its play, boasting that it had $100 million in assets and would come to the rescue and restore the Southwest's glory.

Activists claim that the Autry inflated its assets 25-fold and actually had less in assets than the Southwest. They have filed complaints with the state board that regulates accountants over the financial statements the Autry used and with the City Ethics Commission against PR man Steve Sugerman.

The Black Hat blog tells the back story of what unfolded:

Even as they were spending the city into a $500 million deficit four months ago, your City Council members came up with yet another bright idea to make your life better and the mayor wholeheartedly agreed: Every cat and dog in L.A. would have to be spayed or neutered, no exceptions without paying heavy penalties.

Of course, talk -- like City Hall's selective enforcement policies -- is cheap. In this case, they were so cheap in fact they provided no funds to enforce this law.

That should surprise no one since the city doesn't even enforce the requirement that every dog must be licensed every year.

Law-abiding citizens clearly are as much a rarity as city politicians who expect the laws they pass to be obeyed.

Back in May, Controller Laura Chick estimated there's only 125,000 law-abiding dog owners and as many as six times that many who are scofflaws -- which made people like my wife feel pretty foolish for obediently licensing Bruno, the beast she rescued from bushes before he killed someone.

In a city so cash-strapped it's imposed charges on just about everything honest people do and seeks to make them pay even more to save the souls of hardened gangsters,  it seems like getting their dirty little hands on the $9 million a year lost from not enforcing the pet registration law would be enough motivation.

But no, this is L.A. and as Chick showed in an audit Tuesday absolutely nothing has been done to fund the mandatory spaying and neutering law for cats and dogs and the Animal Services Department has done nothing to educate the public or implement the law when the grace period ends in October.

"Though Animal Services is charged with enforcing the mandatory spay and neuter law, it does not intend to do so," Chick said in her audit statement.

In other words, it's up to you to decide whether you want to obey the law or not -- like just about everything City Hall does to selectively punish the law-abiding while letting the scofflaws do whatever they want.

I suppose some of you NIMBY types and middle-class malcontents have a problem with that. If so, why don't you post other examples of the city's SCOFF LAWS or selective enforcement.

The City Council as usual revealed a lot by showing what's important to them with a chamber full of community activists angered because they were about to be steamrolled by adoption of housing policy that would lead inevitably to the destruction of their property.

Toilets for day laborers, contracts for artists, sobriety at group homes wherever they are --- these were among the dozens of issues that got priority as the audience drifted away.

In the end, it was a done deal like all of City Hall's dirty deals: 13-0 with Tony Cardenas and City Attorney wannabe Jack Weiss absent for whatever reasons.

Through it all, there was a constant refrain that the Housing Element doesn't really mean anything, just a state legal requirement. What really matters are the Community Plans.

And just before the vote, Ed Reyes, the point man in this deceit, admitted the city is five or six years behind in amending the Community Plans.

To the point, Richard Alarcon blamed that inefficiency for the incomprehensible over-development without logic or adequate infrastructure that is going on all over the city.

What wasn't mentioned is the General Plan for the city which is constantly ignored and back room deals are routinely cut so that the the city's building, zoning, and planning policies, ordinances, and procedures have become meaningless.

That's why lobbyists and other political operatives earn millions getting entitlements for developments the wreck the quality of life in neighborhood after neighborhood and undermine the rules and regulations intended to protect them.

Case closed. 

1. The draft does not adequately assess constraints to water supply as required by California Government Code 65584.04

Editor's Note: The  City Council refused to take up the issue of the city's failure to enforce the law against illegal immigrant gangbangers  for months and now says it will hold a hearing in October. If you want this issue addressed now, you should call, write or email your council member. Click here for the information you need to have your voice heard.

The long-standing constitutional limit on free speech is you can't yell fire in a crowded theater. The corollary to that is you have a moral imperative to warn people if you know there is an imminent danger.

That's why we all must stand up now and demand City Hall do something about enforcing the law against known criminals who are in this country illegally.

Enforcing the LAPD's Special Order 40 as it's written is all that has to be done. As it is, the only provision consistently enforced is the don't ask, don't tell language that is used to effectively look the other way at all questions of immigration status.

It's been more than five months since the senseless murder of high school athlete Jamiel Shaw Jr. allegedly by an illegal immigrant gangbanger released from jail the day before without the Sheriff's Department holding him for deportation. Outside of domestic disputes, gangs are involved in most of the murders in L.A. and a significant portion of them could be stopped and the  terrorism that holds so many neighborhoods in the grip of fear reduced.

Yet, Councilman Jack Weiss -- the man who has all but shined the mayor's shoes for the last four years to get his support to be the city's No.1 law enforcement officials -- has refused to hold public hearings on Jamiel's Law and the whole issue of criminal aliens.

Under presssure from last week's protest at his Westside office organized by KABC talk show host Doug McIntyre, Weiss ran to Chief Bill Bratton to ask what he should do.

Bratton told him to wait two months when he'll have a policy on gangs ready just in time to influence voters to support the proposed parcel tax -- the single most regressive tax there is.

Obedient as always, Weiss agreed and the mayor and City Council are on side with him.

There will be blood on the streets between now and October from violence by illegal immigrant criminals and the blood will be -- already is -- on their hands.

The least anyone can do it is to email or call you own council office and demand that immediate hearings be held and the council put on record on the issue: Do they support illegal immigrant criminals living in our city or are they going to do something about it?

Out in the middle of nowhere along a river in faraway Iceland with the midnight sun shining down, Antonio Villaraigosa and his entourage were fly fishing for salmon and enjoying the life of the rich -- which some of them are -- at a private lodge with cooks and guides all around.

Some have found the rustic life a torture but to others, it's a grand party with great wine and great food and great fishing in the great outdoors.

Compliments of Keith Brackpool, the wealthy British bon vivant and wannabe California water king, the mayor and his entourage enjoyed a holiday real fisherman only dream of -- especially after a few days of luxury in London.

Money is the game and Brackpool and another smart operator, Ari Swiller, are raising a lot of it as the mayor's chief fund-raisers to make sure he doesn't face a difficult re-election challenge on his way to higher office. The goal of his fund-raisers and political consultants is a coronation befitting a king rather than and election battle that could wake up the citizenry to what's really going on.

Life is grand for Antonio Villaraigosa and money is the game, luxury is the payoff.

For truly ambitious politicians, the payoff is power and the glory. I know Antonio well enough to say I believe he could have been one of those who really changed L.A. for the better, or failed trying.

He offered himself as the punk from East L.A. with big dreams and high values, a guy who could stand up to gangs -- at least the gangs of special interests that feed off L.A.'s treasury, the developers, contractors and public employee unions. But he made his choice early on when he could have blocked the sweetheart contract negotiated under his predecessor's watch with the Department of Water and Power's all-powerful union.

Instead, he signed off on it.

And what's happened since has made his administration the most corrupt in modern LA. history. His charm and glibness, his easy way of smoothing over and obscuring the truth, his selling out the city's future to the highest bidder, his endless travel in search of self-importance and cash to fuel his campaigns for office, for higher taxes, for political advantage.

Most of all, there's the love of the high life: Gourmet food, $1,000 bottles of wine, beautiful young women, life in a mansion or hanging out with rich pals in theirs, bodyguards and drivers.

He is leading the life of the fabulously rich on a salary of $225,000 while supporting a wife he's separated from and their house in Mount Washington, a kid at Princeton and another at the exclusive Marlborough School.

Check out the list of his favorites eateries that he gave the L.A. Times: The foie gras.he "always" gets at Patina, the tuna tartare and oysters at the Water Grill, his preference to "entertain dignitaries" at Spago. the "really beautiful presentation" at La Serenada de Garibaldi, providence where he just lets " the chef kind of fix me up something great," and for dessert there's nothing like the tres leches cake at Frida in Beverly Hills.

But never forget, he's still a man of the people and drops by Pink's for a hot dog from time to time. "I love the atmosphere here and I don't mind waiting in line. Sometimes I like waiting in line just to work the line," he told the Times.

He told me once he'd rather be out in the world getting rich than in politics. But why bother when you can live like the rich and hang out with them and not do the work of earning the money yourself.

Why be rich when you can pal around with Bill and Hillary Clinton and when their dreams go bust, switch gears and jump aboard Barack Obama's bandwagon in the blink of an eye.

Why be rich when you can be entertained by Mayor Richard Daley in Chicago and Mayor Michael Bloomberg in New York as if you were royalty and come with oodles of cash to chase away challengers for mayor.

Why be rich when you can raise millions from special interests to salvage your reputation as a leader by making the working stiffs of the city pay for gang programs neither you nor your colleagues have done anything about for decades, for a "subway to the sea" that will do nothing to ease traffic congestion for decades to come, for a failed school system that is beyond salvation.

It's all just marketing, you see, like selling fat-laden Ultimate Cheeseburgers with bacon and Happy Meals to an obese nation.

This isn't meant to be an indictment of Antonio Villaraigosa. It's a plea for him to get to work and help save L.A., for him to aspire to greatness for himself and his city -- or to get out of the way and let those who care more about others than themselves get to work on the challenging task of creating a city that works for its people and not just the insiders in a corrupt political culture.

Five months after an illegal immigrant gangbanger was arrested for the senseless murder of Jamiel Shaw Jr., Councilman Jack Weiss agreed Wednesday to hold hearings on a measure that would order police to investigate the immigration status of suspects at the time of arrest.

Weiss backed down in the face of a planned protest Thursday at his Westside office (see story below) organized by KABC talk show host Doug McIntyre who arranged to bring Shaw's family and the family of Anthony Bologna who was murdered along with his two sons in San Francisco in a road rage incident pinned on an illegal immigrant gang member.

The councilman -- who has positioned himself as the front-runner for City Attorney by a close alliance with the mayor -- said he conferred with Chief Bill Bratton before deciding to hold a Public Safety Committee hearing on Jamiel's Law. That appears to be why the hearing will not be held for two months to give Bratton time to come up with a strategy to defuse the raging controversy.

I have reviewed this issue closely and have worked with Chief Bratton, and as a result I am today announcing that we will be holding a public hearing in October to address issues related to Special Order 40,'' Weiss said.

Join McIntyre and the Bologna and Shaw families at the protest at Weiss' Westside office from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 at 822 S. Robertson Boulevard, Suite 102,

Shining the light on L.A.'s blind spot on illegal immigrant gangsters, talk show host Doug McIntyre is bringing together the Bologna family from San Francisco and the Shaw family from L.A. on Thursday -- families that lost loved ones to senseless murders by illegal immigrant gangsters.

Their grief over the loss of Anthony Bologna and his two sons and Jamiel Shaw Jr. has prompted them to lead in the fight to end "sanctuary city" policies that they -- and many others -- believe have allowed criminals who should have been deported long ago to terrorize San Francisco and L.A.

After talking to the families on his KABC 790AM morning show, McIntyre is going with them to the office of Councilman Jack Weiss -- the wannabe City Attorney who has pigeon-holed Jamiel's Law in committee and refused to allow a public discussion of efforts to get tough on illegal immigrant gangsters -- some 25 percent or so of the total gang population in LA  The protest is from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 at 822 S. Robertson Boulevard, Suite 102,

Imagine if we got rid of those gangsters and started dealing with the rest with intervention programs that sorted out those who need education, training or jobs -- and those who belonged in prison.

We might have a chance to do something about the gang problem that has ruined so much of the city and its reputation for decades.

A gang tax won't fix the city's lack of will to enforce the law or even to follow Special Order 40 which was adopted 29 years ago as a middle ground that recognized there were a lot of illegal immigrants who worked hard and lived in fear of reporting crimes against them or testifying against others who committed crimes.

Hard-nosed Chief Daryl Gates issued Special Order 40 and for a time the LAPD enforced it as it was intended which was to bar cops from initiating investigations solely to find out someone's immigration status.

It wasn't soft on illegal immigrant criminals; stating clearly that anyone arrested for 

"multiple misdemeanors, a high-grade misdemeanor or felony or has been previously arrested" for those crimes should have their files marked "undocumented  alien" and immigration authorities should be notified.

But over time, the widespread practice by LAPD officers became to totally ignore immigration status and officers who obeyed the actual policy often found themselves getting heat from their superiors.