L.A. County Board of Supervisors rescind $707,000 office remodel request of Ridley-Thomas.

The report from the L.A. Times, "Amid outcry, L.A. supervisor Ridley-Thomas rethinks plans for $700,000 in office renovations [Updated],"
December 22, 2009 1:36 pm, by Shelby Grad and Molly Hennessy-Fiske

The L.A. County Board of Supervisors finally acted as they should have done in the first place by rescinding the approval that they gave in a near-automatic fashion to Mark Ridley-Thomas, the newest member of the 5-person Board of Supervisors. If you will recall, that approval was given earlier this month, without any of them questioning the expenditure at all. Three-quarters of a million dollars to be spent on a remodel job for an office? I suppose "lavish" outranks "Spartan" too often in the style that politicians conduct things once in office.

That's over twice the median price of a single-family home in Los Angeles. The vote came today on without any fanfare or comment after the news of the initial approval was learned by more members of the public thanks to reporting by John North at KABC-TV, Channel 7 - You can see that at http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/video?id=7148140

To hear Sup. Ridley-Thomas talk about the plan, you would think he had spent the last year punished as an initiation for his first year as Supervisor. Yes, he was a very arrogant and defiant fellow, so eager to treat himself well with public money.

Sup. Don Knabe was on the radio the following Friday on KFI-AM 640 in response to an inquiry over the unanimous approval of Ridley-Thomas' request. Knabe was initally unconcerned and said in a casual fashion, in reply to the question, "Why did you approve all that money for the office remodelling?," "Well, it's Mark's money."

That statement was clearly a demonstration of how politicians treat tax dollars under their control, not in any way acknowledging their duty to the public to make spending decisions that do not include wasteful or unneeded expenditures.

For one example of changes sought, Sup. Ridley-Thomas wanted to replace the oak wood panelling with CHERRY wood. There was going to be a lot of detail work (expensive hand work) since this was some pretty fancy and extensive work that was planned. There was nothing wrong with the existing wood.

Even a kitchenette was to be included on account of the cafeteria only open to 2 p.m. There's more but you get the idea. This choice for Supervisor, replacing Yvonne Braithwaite Burke last year, is as intense as Mayor Villaraigosa in his demonstrations of self-aggrandizement.

The other less obvious impact of such deals is that you have to consider that throwing work to be done over to the "friends" of some sort or another who will make some profit on the task is usually another way to reward supporters and make people beholden to the big spender for future dealings. So you get the job done and you get some expectation of "something for something" by choosing who gets the work, always beneficial for one spending- and doubly good when you consider it's not their money in the first place that gets them such status.


What's to come?
You can see that the task is still in Ridley-Thomas' mind, and he is expected to do the same work with small, less noticeable chunks of money applied so as not to draw attention to his use or abuse of tax dollars. When you consider it's supposed to be a case of someone elected to serve the public here, it doesn't quite work out that way.
You have what might be seen as the adult equivalent of a kid loose in a candy store. In this case, he tried to grab it all in one visit and was easily caught in the act. The other Supervisors were caught, too. By letting Ridley-Thomas move ahead on this, they were as wrong as he was in their responsibility to the public.

Trust is not any part of the deal with any politician, shown so simply here to add to all the other examples of State and local people who were caught treating themselves very well. And you know that there's still more who haven't been caught.

The other Supervisors SHOULD have handled this request correctly by rejecting it when it was made. INSTEAD they approved it because this was another "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" set of rules. You know that Supervisors Gloria Molina, Don Knabe, Mike Antonovich and Zev Yaroslavsky don't want anyone butting into their business when they decide to spend money, wisely done or not, so they really were not comfortable today in re-doing the consideraton but they were stuck with all the attention that it got.

You can bet Ridley-Thomas was not happy in having this happen, especially since he, like many politicians, have cultivated some serious arrogance. And they don't want to anger him so he makes trouble later- that's why they usually let each other have their way- it keeps things moving quietly along for everyone.

So we will have to keep an eye on the situation to see when and how he makes his move, and all this will do in the end is make for more concealment in manuevers by the offenders at the expense of dealings that put citizens second in importance to the politician and their deals.

ANOTHER SMALL FACT in Government operations:
(Did you know that the matter is being handled by an appointee who makes $310,000 a year and not many know this name? It's William Fujioka who is the CEO of Los Angeles County. He was to be the person to review the work needed, in a sort of legitimization effort here. )

L.A. TIMES: [Updated 2:20 p.m.: Ridley-Thomas also said he has ordered an "independent review" to "re-scope and re-evaluate the proposed project."

"We’re reassessing the appraisal, the cost, the scope of what needs to be done," he said. ]

So the arrogance turns into what? whining? You can see he still has his eye on the prize, but he's no hero, not by any means.
=======================================================
SOMETHING ELSE THAT THIS WHOLE MATTER BRINGS UP THAT THE SUPS WOULD RATHER NOT GET A LOT OF ATTENTION:

And what could that be? It's an even LESSER know fact is that EACH of the Supervisors, each year, get several MILLION dollars in "discretionary funds," that they apply from their account as they see fit.

This bears some remarkable resemblance to a slush fund. From Wikipedia,
in short,

Slush fund is a colloquial term which has come to mean an auxiliary monetary account or a reserve fund. However, the term has special meaning within a context of corrupt (including but not limited to) political dealings by governments, large corporations or other bodies and individuals.

There is a little more on this term at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slush_fund

Maybe a LITTLE in such an account could be reasonable, but this is the highest level in the country for any sort of "discretionary funds." Is it any wonder that the people in power actually have a reason to FEEL that power? And that is where notions of accountability begin to fade. Consider the Wikipedia brief discussion on that link and see the dangers created to the fair operation of any "systems."

"Granny Flats" for Los Angeles? Let's all squeeze in more people together. City Council backs off on selling that idea.

The plans for increasing population density in Los Angeles have changed because of public opposition. The "Accessory Dwelling Units," aka "Granny Flats," are no longer being pushed as a goal supposedly mandated by state law. The idea raised the eyebrows and the ire of the public to such an extent that it is being abandoned for now. What exactly was that idea about? Please read on for recent commentary on the topic.

"Invasiaon of the Granny Flats; Los Angeles weighs a plan to allow back yard dwellings and car parking on lawns." http://www.laweekly.com/2009-12-10/news/invasion-of-the-granny-flat - By Steven Leigh Morris, "L.A. Weekly," published on December 09, 2009 at 12:30pm, This is another of the examples of why the "L.A. Weekly" is the place to see the real picture of what's going on at City Hall, things that are not presented as they actually are when it comes to truthfulness of the Mayor and the City Council.

The other source for shedding light on dark conditions is the "Ron Kaye L.A." blog, where Ron Kaye wrote about this particular topic even earlier. In November, his item on the blog covered the situation with an article called, "Coming Soon to Your Neighborhood: Granny Flats, Converted Garages, Houses Turned into Tenements," By Ron Kaye on November 16, 2009 1:44 PM. http://ronkayela.com/2009/11/coming-soon-to-your-neighborho.html

The impact of the public's response to the City's direction towards "densification" of an already densely populated city was to stop this effort. In a posting on Ron Kaye's blog on Saturday, it was recognition of another step taken by the people against an arrogant "City Hall" plan that would reduce the quality of life in many parts of the city.

"The Granny Flat Gambit: Vigilance and the Struggle for Self-Governance," by Ron Kaye on December 19, 2009- 12:03 PM, http://ronkayela.com/2009/12/the-granny-flat-gambit.html . The message was very simple and direct, shown in an excerpt from that column:

"On Friday, the City Planning Department announced in an email to angry mob of homeowners that plans were being abandoned to legalize Accessory Dwelling Unites (ADUs) -- granny flats in backyards, converted garages and houses turned into
tenements -- in every residential neighborhood except those occupied by the
hillside-dwelling rich and the open spaces of the equestrian crowd."

Yet, there is not a complete victory as some people view it here since the state law may hasten some of the same undesired outcomes without a city law in Los Angeles to define controls that are separate and more restrictive than the State law, as some other cities have done. The Los Angeles city trend, different from the public's view, was to relax the rules to allow more housing units to be permitted, going along with the general direction of over-development that aggravates an already inadequate infrastructure, i.e., breaking water mains, traffic gridlock, heavy burdens on service from the LAPD and the LAFD, and on and on with more like these examples. So, the danger remains in this area. Unless there is a city ordinance enacted, according to the interpretation of State law by some people, that State law would provide for such additional housing to be built anyway, all to the detriment of the local public.

All that remains to be seen, but for now, it is a result that was generated by the actions of an involved public. That vigilance will continue on this front and on others to bring to city leaders the novel concept of a government that is supposed to represent the constituents, not dictate to them. Trusting the politicians to do the right thing for us is no longer a safe path to follow and probably never was. The conditions now call for more scrutiny of elected and appointed officials and their decisions if life in the city and state is to improve. We already see how well life is for the politicians with salaries and benefits in excess of any logical need, serving often to make them feel endowed with qualities of royalty. History tells us that control by royalty was what the country was trying to escape when it declared its independence a few centuries back.

DWP works for YOU? More reasons for Santa to skip that stop.

Christmas is a week away and the City Council is on their "holiday" or "seasonal" or whatever break they accept as the politically correct term to use in place of a "Christmas" break. Regardless, they are off and no bad decisions can be made until next year.

Meanwhile, the DWP is ending the year with the H. David Nahai "consultant" contract coming to an end. You remember that Nahai, the chief of the DWP, appointed by Mayor Tony and approved by the City Council, resigned from his $325,000.00-plus per year job. "Outgoing DWP chief Nahai would keep full salary as consultant under proposal." by David Zahniser, October 5, 2009, 2:28 pm.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/10/outgoing-dwp-executive-nahai-would-keep-full-salary-as-consultant-under-proposal-.html

The DWP employees have raises for 5 years- approved by the council by some sort of rationale that is a math that defies my limited comprehension of the explanation of HOW a raise, and NOT a one-time raise, will be cheaper for the city than NO RAISE. My own view remains that City Council, is hopelessly intertwined with special interests, including the IBEW union here, and could not make a needed deal to save its life. And we are talking about saving the life of the city. They need to be replaced but money to keep them or their clone replacements is readily provided by the special interests.

The story at the DWP stage is here: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/12/dwp-appointees.html DWP approves 5-year contract with employee union by David Zahniser and Phil Willon at City Hall,
December 1, 2009 3:42 pm

The city approval was soon after at a city council meeting. If you are an employee of the DWP, you have to breathe easy compared to lots of other workers in the City who face layoffs and already seeing furloughs. It's the management that's the problem, at thi s point, S. David Freeman is the chief, taking the job after H. David Nahai resigned (and maybe Antonio likes appointing people with a name starting with an initial, or maybe just coincidental).

THE BEST COVERAGE OF DWP's actions
See http://www.ronkayela.com/ for what I think is the best coverage of what DWP does. From yesterday on his blog, Ron Kaye L.A., "Your DWP: Hollow Promises, Cheap Talk, Insider Deals, Mismanagement, Secrecy, Illegalities, Lost Credibility, Waste...FAILURE!" By Ron Kaye on December 18, 2009 6:09 AM
http://ronkayela.com/2009/12/your-dwp-hollow-promises-cheap.html

WHAT NEXT?

I will end there and you can go into more on that blog for other dealings that will never be revealed by our elected politicians and so-called "leaders" of the city. There's lots more to see happening about DWP, but, like they say, "too little time," so a lot I want to present has to be left to other sources for views and coverage, so I will try to include at least those references instead of skipping over topic altogether as has been done to this time. And truly, with all the gifts city council and the DWP management manages to get for themselves, usually with a cost to the rate-payers (city dwellers), they already have a better deal that whatever Santa could bring.

LHS Alumni Association December Meeting Saturday morning

MEETING Saturday
There's an Alumni Association meeting on December 19, 2009, that will close out the year.

Time: 9:30 a.m.
Place: The Student Cafeteria in the 500 Building

A few events coming up for next year will be the Day at the Races, Santa Anita Racetrack, April 11, 2010, tickets $20.00; the Valentine's Dance, or After-Valentine's Dance, as the case may be, tickets $35.00 if purchased by Dec. 31, and $40 in 2010; a January date TBA for a Shakey's Pizza Night fundraiser. See LHS Alumni Association link in sidebar for details and other information.

Attendance at the meetings is open to all persons interested in the mission of the organization, especially alumni.

Guadalajara Book Fair, expensive and totally optional excursion in spending and diversion of already limited personnel resources.

Mayor at Guadalajara Book Fair-

The Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade (ICEX) and the Spanish Association of Publishers Guilds (FGEE) have developed the campaign "America Reads Spanish," and the "News" section on that web site reports on this event.

http://www.americareadsspanish.org/industrynewsdet.aspx?id=2141

"L.A. an 'example to the world' says its mayor at int'l book fair in Mexico,"
Date: Dec 10, 2009



The mayor's presence is used to promote the event that further validates it as a cause for Los Angeles to spend money from a federal grant, $2.1 million, and from its own funds for other items not covered by the grant. In the times of the ongoing budget crisis, the usual reason that is recited to justify this is that it promotes business for Los Angeles. This is getting to be a tired claim.

The costs and really the function of this event don't appear to be a wise expenditure of tax dollars at this time, even if $2.1 million is from the federal level and not the city level. It still demonstrates that current economic conditions aren't recognized to any degree as the government at all levels continues to dwell in the red from a budget standpoint, with politician grasping at any and all opportunities to tax and charge to try to offset the conditions. There will be a cut in services, and it will be done more drastically as the deficit continues to rise. That is the itme that the city will feel the consequences of the poor management by elected and appointed officials.

Last year as this Book Fair grant was awarded to Los Angeles, the woman in the cultural affairs department was besider herself with joy, defending the costs for participating as being paid for by "federal" money, as if such money was free instead of being other taxpayer dollars collected from us. I recall that she made an accusation against critics on talk radio over the planned expenditure at that time, yet she did not hear first hand the criticism itself. I did, and her comments were themselves perfect examples of painting with a broad brush and applying stereotypical characterization instead of facts to the matters raised by those talk show hosts and audience members. This is what happens when people have considered the impact based simply and only on their view from their own world, in this case, the "cultural" aspect of that city department.


This year, city budget conditions are undeniably bleak, much more critical than recognized last year, but nevertheless, there's no real acknowledgment on the one hand that spend money in a business-as-usual level.


The fact is that then and now, spending such huge sums makes little sense but filtered through the way that government operates, any logical analysis of the fiscal truth is entirely rejected in favor of the less tangible and very subjective values of the artistic impact that may be present.

"Cultural affairs" as a representation of the arts by city government continues with a very defensive posture that continues to anticipate criticism for reasons stated above. The locale of the book fair, Mexico, seems to color the defensive treatment at Tuesday's meeting by council members, especially Latino members. The fact is that there is a lot of money spent that originated as tax dollars and it is spent out of the country, outside of our economy and it takes people away from doing their regular jobs that are becoming more critical to be performed now.

City council and staff need to be working on the immediate matters, becoming more urgent with each passing day. But the distractions of other events that are not of the same level of urgency, and more of a discretionary nature in comparison, continues to divert time and work from needed city actions. I think it was CM Ed Reyes and CM Jose Huizar sent out for this event, something that I am sure they enjoyed but I think I would have felt a better level of attention to city business as a factual and symbolic matter would be demonstrated by staying in L.A. and getting progress on the issues of budget, public safety and planning. But to criticize this event as imprudent fiscally gets turned around to some sort of anti-Latino or anti-Mexican comment that is "racist" which totally serves the purpose of quelling lots of criticism before it's even expressed. Turning a discussion around like that based on nationality and ethicity is itself racist and further serves to avoid any fair discussion while sensitivities are raised unfairly.

The statements about the majority of Los Angeles being of Mexican ancestry and interested in further cultural enlightenment may be true but it does not address the financial aspects of such a choice of expenditure. The personal, the emotional and the recreational travel influences connected to this event seem to sway any opportunity for objectivity, and Cardenas delved into a lot of "fact-finding" as something anticipatory of further criticism.

It looks like the Mayor is their role model, already having left the country on several trips since July's swearing in for his second term of office. And has anyone noticed that while the Mayor is gone, statements and announcements continue to be made in by his office and appearing in the news as, "The Mayor has announced ..." or "The Mayor said ..." but he's not even here and it comes from his office to give the illusion and soften the appearance of his absence. A daily log of his whereabouts since July's inauguration could show the actual travel activity that's led to Villariagosa as being named "the 11% Mayor," spending that much actual time doing his job.

The city council spent a lot of meeting time yesterday and what I heard of that session was a demonstation of a pre-emptive strike that addressed the "positive" points of the event and expenditure. What one public commenter said about the naming by the Guadalajara Book Fair of Mayor Villaraigosa as a the honored guest was that it better named a self-promotion for Antonio Villaraigosa. That's a foregone assessment for most of the international travels by this Mayor, especially that done in the last 6 months. Well, one thing you can say for the City Council and their minions is that obfuscation of anything, be it issues, motive, facts, is a skill that they continue to hone and they are very good at that. It's unfortunatelfor the general public who too often, gets taken in by it as L.A. continues it's change away from being an affordable place to live.

DWP gets 5 years of raises, LAPD doesn't; LAFD still on rolling brownout conditions- Layoffs and furloughs. ERIP to hit services.

Here's a little information on the DWP's union, the IBEW where it seems they are more in control of that agency than the public, or more precisely, the public servants supposed to be watching out for us common folks, and that would be the CITY COUNCIL, with the Mayor giving cues to the many puppets at City Hall.

When you have a budget that is in the red as it's never been before, last Friday's meeting showed approval of the DWP raises that just don't make sense to me and many others when you have the LAPD going without raises and the LAFD has less than full staffing as the rolling brownouts reduce the ability to respond to emergencies as fully as they used to.

ERIP is going to hit the city pretty pretty hard in services. That's the "Early Retirement Incentive Program," that is planned for 2400 employees to retire early. There's about 400 over that number who have signed up to leave, but for now, 2400 will be leaving.

You can check some of the "progress" in city business by going over to columns posted by Ron Kaye L.A. www.ronkayela.com last week. The DWP commotion is explained well and there's a few video clips from the Friday Council Meeting to show that all is not well with a reduced staff.

That action was designed to cut jobs out so the payroll will drop and city expenses are lowered, right? Well, there's the double situation there to replace the old one: First, the pensions mean there will be payments for people NOT working anymore. It might be less overall, but the City is still responsible. A colleague of mine asked the Mayor at a public event just what was going on with the pension situation and Mayor Villaraigosa glibly replied, "I don't know, I'm not a pension expert." Well, that's pretty clear now, except there's supposed to be the "... but I'll find out" added to these response when you have somebody who is actually DOING their job.

The second part of the ERIP impact is that you will have the most senior employees leaving and that's usually cutting heavily into management. At Friday's council meeting, the people in the know reported all this to the CMs, many of whom were surprised. They mostly are surprised because they don't pay attention to news the first time it's brought up. Rosendahl was one of them. None of this is news but he started demanding reports and saying that no one should leave without somebody having their tasks covered, most of this directed to critical position holders. The staff reporting said, for example that one department's entire HR people will be leaving.

Usually, matters of common sense and logic don't always register with the CMs. You already know they don't with Villaraigosa who is on another out-of-country trip to Copenhagen and other European destinations that further add to the City deficit. There is nothing that requires him or Los Angeles to be represented at this conference so it's purely for image, usually his own, and as a functional matter, there's a limit to what can be done. Villaraigosa, with the support of Council President Eric Garcetti, continues to "pledge" to meet goals in "greening" Los Angeles, even though most of these actions will be costly to the "rate payers" or other participants.


Costs to the public for greening activity takes a back seat to the "image" and self-interest of the politicians, especially the Mayor. While he continues announcing all these so-called benefits, there is nothing to match that in HOW people, especially those on low or fixed incomes will be able to meet the predicted higher bills. Why is this the case? Simply because THEIR future and life style is more important to THEM and "THEY" call the shots as long as they keep getting re-elected. The Mayor, as a lame duck in his last term as Mayor, still does not appear to care about the city as much as he does to grab the next flight out of town on time.

Getting back to ERIP- the Council will meet on Tuesday and Wednesday and then be off until 2010. There's lots of business unfinished and the ERIP predicament is not clear- other than the people leaving will not be coming back due to "no funds" so the distess that CMs express should be no surprise IF they had been paying attention to the overall picture in the first place. They each have a budget for 20 staff members- and I heard that CM Huizar has more than this, but that's not confirmed. Surely they could have delegated some tasks to some of them for FINDING OUT the consequences of major changes that they put into action. What happened here? They won't tell, of course, but for certain, they won't take the blame and will be spreading around heavily any credit for reaching a solution, complete or half-baked, but any solution wil do for them to grandstand.
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And there's more, too. The Medical Marijuana Dispensary matter is still not finished as there is another delay while more changes and conflicts keep the CMs from fully agreeing on settling this after a few years that it sat on the back burner and the MMDs have risen from less than 200 when a moratorium on new ones was enacted in 2007, to an uncertain number now (as they are opening without city approval) that may be 800 or more in operation. A "hardship exemption" to the moratorium was written into the ordinance that opened the doors for the new operations to open, and that moratorium, though without any enforcement ever happening, was declared invalid as the City tried to extend it further. So there's no moratorium and no ordinance and clarity in this area is still missing. That is a topic for another day, as I see the CMs have postponed action until 2010.

Lincoln Heights Christmas Parade for 2009 today at 11 a.m.

Well, it looks like the Lincoln Heights Christmas Parade will not be needing raincoats and rowboats to get through the route. It's today at 11 a.m. starting at Lincoln Park Avenue at the DMV offices and travelling up to North Broadway at Lincoln High to the destination at Avenue 24 behind the Bank of America.

It did not look good for the weather side of things at this time yesterday, but it looks like the storm hurried up and moved on overnight. (Photo: LHS at Dec. 2008 Parade)

On December 10, 1961, Sunday- the Songs and T.V. Programs of that day from L.A. Radio.com.

From Don Barrett's website, www.laradio.com under the "LARP Rewind" section, we see what happened on the music scene on radio and the programs found on television on December 10, 1961 (Sunday). That website is free for the rest of the year (3 more weeks) if you follow the simple log-in instructions provided. check it for current and past news and stories about Los Angeles Radio People. Don will be ending the current daily format of the LARP site after around a dozen years that I have been following it. Check it out, especially the Archives section.

The songs playing were Big Bad John, Please Mr. Postman, Goodbye Cruel World, The Lion Sleeps Tonight, and Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen. All of these are now genuine oldies. Right off-hand, I can name the Marvellettes as the artist for "Please Mr. Postman," and The Tokens singing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," a song that made a couple of comebacks over the years. "Goodbye Cruel World" was a sort of novelty song by Bobby Darin and Neil Sedaka sang "Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen." I don't remember who did Big Bad John at the moment, but all of these songs told a story and something that you could understand pretty easily, unlike a lot of what sells now. Maybe that's why they are so well-remembered.

On television, we’re watching Lassie, Maverick, Candid Camera, Bonanza, and Dennis The Menace.

IF you happen to remember the songs from actually listening to radio live, add in this fact: that was 48 years ago. And each of the television programs listed on that Sunday night lineup were very popular programs, all having years of success, with "Dennis the Menace" having a shorter run than the others. You may have seen all of these in reruns at one time or another.

Do you remember that television programs were nearly all still broadcast in black-and-white then? Gradually color television became more widely seen with more programs produced in color, or as NBC called it, "Living Color" and starting off shows with the NBC Peacock showing the colors.

The other popular Sunday night show that was not mentioned here was on CBS on Sundays, "The Ed Sullivan Show." If you remember watching it, you need no further explanation. If you were not so old to have seen that show, it was a variety show of assorted acts, hosted by Ed Sullivan and broadcast "live" from New York.

The "Ed Sullivan Show" would be where The Beatles would be introduced to U.S. audiences in just over 2 years later in early 1964. The British Invasion period of music would begin with these four relatively unknowns appearing on that show for 3 successive Sundays to change things in a big way. The Beatles' "hair" length they had then was considered radically different. Today it would not get much attention with all the styles that we have to compare.

Now with hi-def digital, satellite and cable television, and LCD and plasma big screens, you see that we have come a long way from that technology of those days, as well as the kinds of programs you can find now. We have gone through VCRs and now moved on to DVDs and DTRs as part of the changes that many could not seriously imagine back then. And along the way, we have all grown up and become much older.

CD-2 Election- Chris Essel or Paul Krekorian? Voter turnout to be in the 'teens.

Today is the special election for the office of Council member for CD-2 that was vacated by Wendy Greuel as she won the race in March, 2009 for City Controller, getting even more votes than even Mayor Villaraigosa, in his underwhelming win.

If you live in CD-2, do go vote. There will be no lines, no waiting and a lot of lonely poll workers waiting for people to come by. These election are usually decided by a small percentage of the registered voters, and the ones that bother to vote will make the difference.

The interests of each of these candidates was suspect in the special election a few months ago, but these were the two top vote-getters. It's tough as both of these persons may not have the interests of CD-5 residents and business persons as a priority, and both have other elements competing for their attention.

You can read Mayor Sam's blog where it all Krekorian and "down with Essel"- the Krekorian supporters clearly in the majority for posts there. http://www.mayorsam.blogspot.com/

I don't live in CD-2 and my choice if I could vote, went back and forth depending what news came out about each. I finally decided.

I finally decided that Essel would be a better choice because she is not as attached to Politics as a life that the challenger Paul Krekorian has practiced. Krekorian is a career politician and strongly influenced by the unions, continues to increase government spending without any real balanced cutbacks to control that spending, all working as part of the Asembly to make no progress on the budget and not really being somebody I want to see on City Council.

I think that Chris Essel has the best chance of bringing jobs to L.A. and as a business person with successes behind her, she is in a better position to know what works in business and so far, City Council practices over years, has cost jobs, chasing many out of L.A. and California as too expensive and having too may regulations to operate a busines. Businsses hire people and losing businesses costs jobs. Krekorian is a politician and without actual business experience to know what works and what doesn't, demonstrated by the loss of jobs and businesses statewide.

Chris Essel, not a career politician and has the best chance of "doing right" for the residents and not being in the pocket of the mayor as too many others have been.

I would like to try to start off with a CM with some hope and not another slick, well-spoken politician who will give us more of the same, and that's been mostly bad most of the time for us.

There are already 4 ex-Assembly members, Herb Wesson, Richard Alarcon, Paul Koretz and Tony Cardenas, and I don't see much that's a postive from their own membership in the Council. There's not a real need for another of this background, although the job gives a big pay hike to the successful candidates. They all are primarily politicians and that demands of them the continual quest for getting re-elected or elected to a new office, above all else.

See "Los Angeles on $300,000 a Year," an L.A. Weekly item published just before the March 2003 City Elections, http://www.laweekly.com/2009-02-26/news/los-angeles-on-300-000-a-year/

The race is pretty close, I would say, and each side has to say they are winning to keep voters from staying home. Not being the "favorites" here, there are some who voted in the last election who won't vote now. That's still not right. There is a choice, and that should be used. The term is up in a couple of years and we will see what shape the victor here has left things by that time.

Yesterday was December 7th, 1941, "...a day that will live in infamy." November 22, 1963, "The President is Dead."

December 7th , Pearl Harbor Day. On the anniversary this year of the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan that led to the U.S. declaration of war against Japan, and soon thereafter, against Germany, there is not much mention that I notice anywhere as more an more WW II veterans fade from the scene.

The more recent event against the U.S. that rivals the Pearl Harbor attack is September 11th, 2001, where the World Trade Center's twin towers were each hit by a passenger jet loaded with fuel soon after the takeoff of each plane, and where the Pentagon was hit by another airliner with a fourth headed for Washington, D.C. but crashed in Pennsylvania after the passengers fought the hijackers.


Both events mark very tragic events for the U.S. but the recognition for Pearl Harbor Day seems to be passed over more and more each year, and as a major historical event it should be more completely understood and acknowledged before it one day becomes so obscure that it becomes a footnote in a history book. Could you imagine September 11th every becoming an insignificant event from any perspective? It can be an eventual outcome with the public becoming more and more removed from the event and witnesses replaced by younger people who only learn about it.

Looking back to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy while riding in a motorcade in Dallas on November 22, 1963, the anniversary becomes less significant each year. The people alive that day 46 years ago have become older and many have died. The family of JFK since that date continues to shrink due to death: Jackie Kennedy Onassis, John F. Kennedy, Jr. and two brothers of President Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy by assassination and Teddy Kennedy from cancer. As more people pass on, leaving fewer persons with any first hand information, the events gradually transform from what somebody saw or witnessed to what has been written and interpretted to be the truth.

Too many events that are part of the culture and history of the country seem to be replaced by whatever there is that distracts attention for people, and this seems more prevalent during bad times, with people looking for something positive and settling for anything distracting to take their minds away from what we have at any time in history. The interest in Tiger Woods is much more compelling that other news and yet it is of little significance to most of us. But it is a form of escapism that serves a purpose to many people who would rather not hear how our troops are doing or what is been proposed by elected officials to make life more expensive for any of us.

Theses are just some trends that continue and change the way people act regarding assorted events of the past. Just an observation of an erosion of the national memory and I wonder to what depth anything is examined these days in the context of local high school curriculum that hastens such a result and further dilutes the concept of one nation when it comes to the United States.

Mayor Villaraigosa Speaks at Oxy on the way to Copenhagen Conference

The Mayor is here and then gone and then here again. There's a pretty strong pattern for his travels, and by one measure, it has him gone from the city one day in six. I think that there's a lot here in town for him to stick around and give more serious attention them, such as the budget deficit, what direction that his appointees have allowed the DWP to take that, contrary to the interests of the ratepayer customers. Just learning more about the pensions and the other expenses would keep him from having to admit to people that he doesn't know about "X subject" or "Y issue" as he is questioned by members of the public during the course of his first term of ofice.

Mayor Villaraigosa just got back from the Guadalajara Book Fair, spent some time on the job swearing in the new LAPD Chief, Charlie Beck, and then he's off to a conference in Copenhagen, Denmark on global warming.

Getting an opportunity to get some photographs always rates high with the Mayor's itinerary. The mayor visited Occidental College on Friday and spoke about the greening of Los Angeles as he was about to depart for a Conference in Copenhagen. The story on the Oxy web site is found at http://www.oxy.edu/x9277.xml

It's always interesting to give some closer examination of just what the Mayor's comments are at different venues. The speeches that are prepared for him are better than when he goes off script and inserts his off-the-cuff remarks. Those writers must feel a bit of frustration on the occassion where there are deliveries that are not done well or plainly fumbled.

There is a web item from THE INDEPENDENT in the U.K., "The Greenest Show on Earth." It goes into the function of the Copenhagen conference, some pros and cons and other assorted facets of this event considered, including the mention of the contribution to the world's CO2 by this conference.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/the-greenest-show-on-earth-1834633.html

Speaking of pros, there is mentioned a special added feature at the Copenhagen trip by several sources, including the NY Daily News; Prostitution is legal in Copenhagen (although brothels are not), and some freebies will be available to Conference delegates "Prostitutes offer free sex to global-warming delegates in Copenhagen," by Kevin Flynn, Daily News Staff Writer.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2009/12/04/2009-12-04_prostitutes_offer_free_sex_to_globalwarming_summit_delegates_in_copenhagen.html

MSNBC reports another view of this offer, "'Gropenagen': Free sex coupons available at Climate Summit," By Cindy Perman, writer.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/34278820

The mayor of the Copenhagen was reported by some sources to have mailed some postcards to warn visitors not to patronize the prostitutes. The prostitutes have responded to the actions by announcing that anyone bringing one of these postcards would get free sex. So we can wonder if anyone's collecting postcards from those intending to heed the message. The particular group of travellers is a high risk group, as politicians are not generally regarded as following the straight and narrow very reliably. There's plenty of new revelations about that in the news to support the view that politicians and morality are not words very readily used together.

Meanwhile, the City Council will still be in session with more opportunities to create commotion for the residents.

Ron Kaye comments on City Commissions- out of control? You can decide.

Ron Kay has another item of information and opinion on the City Commissions as another area that has not worked to the public's benefit as was the design when the City Charter (the controlling document for city operations much like the Constitution is to the federal government) was amended in 1999.

Check this at http://www.ronkayela.com/ the blog that will tell you more about what really goes on that our politicians will ever admit. The current abuses are noted and discussed and in case you don't pay much attention to city government and lack of responsibility to the residents, it happens to be the DWP, quickly becoming a rogue agency for the most part and doing such things as giving a contract to H.David Nahai, former head of the DWP, so that he gets the same salary rate (a bit over $310,000.00 per year) until the end of the year. Why?

That's part of the problem. The DWP Commission can approve a contract that comes in under $250,000.00 WITHOUT any control by the City Council. That happened when Nahai resigned and was enlisted as "consultant" where he gets paid to be available by phone during business hours by telephone or fax. He doesn't have to show up and he doesn't have to really do work, just give answers to questions. Why isn't it hourly for the actual work done? Good question and they have not come up with a good answer. Behind the scenes arrangements that we know little about may acccount for the cozy and expensiver deals.

Read the Ron Kaye blog for today,
"The Failure of Reform, Part I: The LA Commission System," By Ron Kaye on December 3, 2009 http://www.ronkayela.com/ and get a broader picture of why things don't work out well for the public and the politicians continue to let it happen as it suits them just fine. And, you may not know this, the mayor appoints these commissioners with the council approving the selections with little actual resistance. (Some token 'hard" questioning happens once in a while but it's all for show. Should a single CM not go for the selections, the future relations with the mayor will be very much changed. And we can't have that, can we?

And THE MAYOR went to a book fair in Guadalajara to get "honored" there, spending over $2 million in federal money (as if that makes it o.k.) and taking a lot of city people with him. Is this any way to act in a budget crisis? Might they be useful staying in L.A. to actually work on problems instead of these thinly disguised junkets?

L.A. County Supervisor Ridley-Thomas asks for $707,000.00 to remodel his office- And it's approved.

Mark Ridley-Thomas is certainly not anyone to take the "cheap" route, even if it's the taxpayer dollars getting burned up. He is the newest member of the County Board of Supervisors and make a big splash in this entirely wasteful and shameless expense as some sort of testamenta and validation of his own self-worth. Channel 7 yesterday has a feature on this. "$707K approved for Ridley-Thomas renovations," Tuesday, December 1, 2009. http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/los_angeles&id=7148171

$707,000.00 for "remodelling" the office comes out to about two times what the mean value of a house in L.A. costs. Tiger Williams may be doing the Kobe thing and buying his wife a "house on a ring" but this is two houses, and paid with tax dollars, too.


Channel 4 NBC television has a news item by Jonathan Lloyd on this as well- it still comes out bad for Ridley-Thomas. Still "Oink, Oink" for the supervisor.
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/politics/County-Considers-Supervisors-700000-Office-Renovation-78250317.html (Dec. 2, 2009).

I always suspected it but now I am sure that this guy is just all about himself- and using the SEIU and other unions interests to get to where he convinces himself of his importance. Maybe the Mayor and the others in the State Asssembly members were bad role models in taking the frugal path in expenditure in funds more seriously. Fabian Nunez and pal, Gil Cedillo, have each been in the news about their choices and amounts (large) of expenditures, usually tied in to travel.

I heard a caller last night on talk radio say he works at the L.A. Co.-USC Med. Center in the basement of an old building. He said he's in the service employees union and supported Ridley-Thomas, but they have a carpet in the workplace that for years they have been trying to get replaced or removed because it triggers allergies in numerous poeple and is a hazard in that regard. They have been unsuccessful and can't even get it out just to leave the bare concrete floor there. That's a very symbolic view where people in public office tend to forget the little people who get them into office and have less interest in what the little people have to deal with in their lives, especially when there are problems in the workplace that is county affiliated.

When you talk about "pigs feeding at the public trough" this situation is what reinforces that picture and I won't call it a "stereotype" picture, it's just what there.

The more surprising thing is that the other 4 supervisors approved the expenditure- and none of them has ever had such an expense accumulated for their own office remodels. What happened here? (or does Mark Ridley-Thomas have some deal for them in store that makes it worthwhile? If so, I can't imaging what it could be to have them allow this.)

City Coucil to consider Med-Marijuana ordinance next week- Today Ed Reyes and the High Speed Rail Route.

The Medical Marijuana issue was to be heard today and is being put over another week to examine the terms of the proposed ordinance.

Ed Reyes wants to get into details. Item 11 asks for another EIR on the route for the High Speed Rail project other than Union Station. (Ed wants the HS Rail to move the route elsewhere but takes forever to get to his real point.)

The Agenda Item 22 also involves placement of the station.

CM Rosendahl in his own unique style says that this was waived out of his Transportation committee as a "no brainer" (an oh-so-appropriate phrase for lots of city council activities) and paraphrasing, "We all agree that we all want High Speed Rail." I disagree.

The California High Speed Rail is supposed to get you to where? The closest destination in the earliest time will be Lancaster. Is there a big demand now for that?

The whole idea to me seems simply and plainly a great sounding idea that really is too costly and not useful when you consider the benefits and burdens (especially the tremendous financial one.).

Frankly, I am surprised in one respect, at CM Reyes' resistance to moving this along. He usually can't push things like this fast enough when you say the magic words, "it will bring jobs to L.A."

The real reason is that the main proposal puts the route too close to the L.A. River and his pet project at making the area useable.

I don't know how many of his concerns have merit, but he wants the alternatives to be chosen. Reyes says there's to be 4 trains in and 4 trains out that will make noise and the rest of the things that go with transit, all presented to support his position, but perfection is rarely achievable. It sounds to me like something to add to slow down this project for a complete re-routing, making an enormously expensive project even more a hideous expenditure of public money. I think the better view would be to decide if the range of changes is financially feasible, and not conisdering only the preference that it keep a distance with its noise and hazards.

I think that this High Speed Rail is another political animal that wastes lots of money that is even more shameful in times of our poor economy. But that's not ever an essential element of any public office holder to consider, other than as a false front to disguise their own agenda.

LaBonge is backing the concern of Reyes also, citing past choices and outcomes like the Green Line rail never reaching the Airport- blaming an earlier roster of Council persons. That result was due to the city planning with special interests - I believe that case involved the taxi companies- to keep the end AWAY from the airport and not go TO it as other cities provide. It is not a mistake, it was done on purpose and a political result. What isn't a result of politics nowadays.

Again, there is a thing called a plane to get you to San Francisco for a cost that the high speed rail planned will likely only reach when it is subsidized. The route that the project takes through California is the real reason to make this boondoogle get off the ground.

The ballot measure probably sounded good when voters read it- "Yeah, a high speed train? Great. I vote 'Yes' on this." The bond and tax increase probably did not dominate their thoughts at that moment. We don't need this and the idea that people will get out of their cars to take this train instead of driving is false because, (a.) it will not go where they need it to go to any regular frequency, (b.) what transportation needs will be met at the destination is not clearly shown, and (c.) people will only get out of their cars when they NEED to, as in traveling by plane, and leaving behind cars for public transportation is more opposed relative to how nice a car they have.

Comparing California to Europe is an unfair one. European countries are small and distances are not the same for one thing. One more thing, the governments tax their people to heavily subsidize their rail projects. And don't forget that driving in Europe is not universally a part of life. They don't all have cars AND the gas is and has always been even MORE expensive than it has ever been in L.A.

What arguments they use in City Hall are really a lot of inaccuracies and half-truths to prop up their own positions that don't have too much relevance in connection with what is best for the city. In other words, they still do what they want and make it look like its something else, masking a lot of the true picture so the projects slide by the public to get to the desired conclusion. They hook up their arguments to other considerations that sometimes are inconsistent with their positions the same people originally taken but don't mention they were on the other side of the fence, so to speak, earlier. "Whatever works" to convince you to agree is the rule here.

If you happen to oppose anything in these situations then you most often are villified and considered an obstructionist or some other label with negative connotations.

==========================================================
text of the 12-02-09 WED- agenda selections:

"ITEM NO. (11)

09-0252
AD HOC RIVER COMMITTEE REPORT relative to California High Speed Rail alignment and station options for the City of Los Angeles.

Recommendations for Council action:

1. DIRECT the Department of City Planning (Planning), and other City departments as appropriate, to continue working with the California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) as a participating agency.

2. DIRECT Planning to continue working with City departments to explore the possibility of a Union Station East/Vignes Station.

3. DIRECT Planning to continue working with other City departments to provide a formal comment letter to the CHSRA on the recently released Draft Alternatives Analysis reports.

4. DIRECT Planning to work with the Department of Transportation to explore hiring a consultant to assist with the preparation of comments on project alternatives and the development of feasible mitigation options.

5. DIRECT Planning to provide a list of communities impacted by this project.

Fiscal Impact Statement: None submitted by Planning. Neither the City Administrative Officer nor the Chief Legislative Analyst has completed a financial analysis of this report.

Community Impact Statement: None submitted.

(Transportation Committee waived consideration of the above matter)

------------------------------------------------------------

[ALSO TO BE CONSIDERED together with Item 11]

ITEM 22
ITEM NO. (22) - Motion Required

09-0002-S179
COMMUNICATION FROM CHAIR, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS COMMITTEE and RESOLUTION relative to requesting the California High Speed Rail Authority to consider multiple sites for a downtown Los Angeles high speed rail station.

Recommendation for Council action, pursuant to Resolution (Reyes - Perry - Huizar), SUBJECT TO THE CONCURRENCE OF THE MAYOR:

ADOPT the accompanying RESOLUTION to REQUEST the California High Speed Rail Authority to include in its study on possible locations for a downtown Los Angeles rail station more than one potential site and include an examination of potential sites that are in the proximity of Vignes Street and East Patsaouras Plaza, between Union Station and the former westbank option.

Fiscal Impact Statement: None submitted by the Chief Legislative Analyst. The City Administrative Officer has not completed a financial analysis of this report.

Community Impact Statement: None submitted."

---------------------------------------------------------------

Both item passed unanimously with a "friendly amendment"

L.A. Weekly has a good "all-about" story on City and MMDs; The City Council Medical Marijuana Ordinance draft due today.

Last week, the L.A. Weekly put out a really detailed story on the long path taken for the city to get to a long-awaited ordinance on Medical Marijuana Dispensaries. If you want to see what's really happened in the course of events in how City Council members dropped the ball in so many ways, read this story and you may be surprised. All that dubious "leadership" that the CMs reflexively mention ( especially during those Friday awards days) in congratulating each other really seems to be completely absent when checking how the MMD problem developed.

THE L.A. WEEKLY'S WORK ON "THE REST OF THE STORY"-
The L.A. Weekly's story: "L.A.'s Medical-Weed Wars
How the potheads outwitted Antonio Villaraigosa and the L.A. City Council,"
By PATRICK RANGE MCDONALD AND CHRISTINE PELISEK. (Published on November 23, 2009 at 11:49pm) is a story about this one topic, Medical Marijuana, and what happened over the years that brought us to nearly 1,000 hardship exemptions filed as more "Medical Marijuana Dispensaries" have opened up in the city. See http://www.laweekly.com/2009-11-26/news/l-a-39-s-medical-weed-wars/

Ed Reyes of CD-1 (that includes Lincoln Heights and Highland Park) was not quite the mover and shaker on this matter that some people might believe he is. As Chair of the PLUM, "Planning and Land Use Management" committee, he was responsible for the committee assigned to make decisions on the very ambiguous "hardship exemptions" for applications to conduct these business. CM Reyes did nothing on these from the end of Summer 2007 when the "moratorium" ordinance and its hardship exemption were enacted, until Spring of this year when community pressure to address the increasing numbers of MMDs that were popping up in the city. CM Jose Huizar's move was to end the "hardship exemption" this year, prompting hundreds more applications to be filed before any change became effective. There's always something that sounded good on paper but didn't quite work out in application.

Well, read the story and see the others involved over the roles that they played over the years. There's a lot that you'd expect should have been done that didn't happen, but that often happens with the way the City Council works. The big public comment day a couple of weeks ago had CM Dennis Zine appearing frustrated with the snail's pace progress that was being made and urged the PLUM Committee to adopt the West Hollywood law as a model and then make adjustments to it later. (Now why didn't that come up BEFORE by anyone? TOO logical? Well, "better late than never" applies here.)


CITY COUNCIL TO HAVE A DRAFT ORDINANCE ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA TODAY.

Council President Eric Garcetti announced today that there would be a draft ordinance online for review later this afternoon. The ordinance that was to be drafted to the specifications that the Council agreed upon in the rounds of hearings will be ready to view by going to the city's website. It will be coming up for more discussion

Tomorrow's AGENDA item no. 8, Council File: 08-0923 will bring up the matter again . This will go on for a while but you need to remember that the City Attorney Carmen Trutanich and the District Attorney Steve Cooley had been saying for some time that the state law, "The Compassionate Use Act," does not allow "sales" to be part of the operations. The Council really did all it could to ignore that advice for a long time and then Jerry Brown, the Attorney General for California, said "sales" are not permittied. SO the council apparently started to believe that part and plan in that feature. But not all were happy, and really, if they could allow sales legally and collect taxes, they would as any money source gets their attention these days.

Check the city's web site or just make a google search later for the draft ordinance. And there's more to come. No matter what you hear from these council members praising each other at even the slightest incremental advance on this issue, no one is a "hero" or real "leader" in this area. (I think it's simply politics at a base level where their constant praise of each other will gradually imprint on the members of the public who are either uninformed or easily impressed.) They should have figured this out earlier, like 2007 and they really needed to shut down the businesses around that time, too, when there were few. Doing nothing just encouraged all the others to open in the City. No heroes here in this batch of CMs.

City's sale of "surplus property" -$1 each for 2 Kawasaki 1000 Police Motorcycles?

Some curious things in the City of Los Angeles Council Agenda for the meeting tomorrow, Tuesday, 12-1-09- some real bargains but not for taxpayers of Los Angeles.

When you think of how much penny-pinching is going on with the city leaders trying to balanace the budget you see some really odd situations.

This is a sale of "surplus property" for $1.00 each for 2 Kawasaki 1000 police motorcycles. It goes to the San Fernando Police Dept. but I am supposing that these are worth SOMETHING MORE than a dollar each.

OK, it's to a neighbor city but is this what we want to see when the city is approaching a $500 million budget shortfall.

Here is the item as it appears on the 10-30-09 agenda:
"ITEM NO. (10)

09-2209

BUDGET AND FINANCE COMMITTEE REPORT relative to the sale of surplus motorcycles at below market value to the San Fernando Police Department.

Recommendations for Council action, pursuant to Motion (Garcetti - Zine):

1. AUTHORIZE the sale of two Kawasaki 1000 police motorcycles to the San
Fernando Police Department (SFPD) for the below market price of $1.00 each, in
accordance with Los Angeles Administrative Code Section 22.547.

2. REQUEST the City Attorney to expedite preparation of the appropriate documents to effectuate the sale and transfer of the above identified surplus equipment at below market value to the SFPD.

3. INSTRUCT the City Clerk to inform SFPD [Robert R. Ordelheide, Chief of
Police, 910 First Street, San Fernando, CA 91340 (818) 898-1267] that the
surplus equipment must be claimed within 60 days from the date of Council
approval of the request at which time they will revert to the City's surplus
equipment pool for disposal by the Department of General Services.

Fiscal Impact Statement: The Chief Legislative Analyst reports that the sale of two Kawasaki 1000 police motorcycles at below market value is consistent with the City's Financial Policies as the SFPD is a police department of a neighboring city, whose border is contiguous with the City of Los Angeles. This below market sale will increase the General Fund by $2.00.

Community Impact Statement: None submitted."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am sure that there must be some logical explanation for this that's somehow not very apparent. But for now, I need to see it to believe that the city can afford it and not just making an outright gift when there is no more money to make gifts.

Here's the motion that was made by Eric Garcetti, that ever so generous Council President, seconded by Dennis Zine, former LAPD officer, http://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2009/09-2209_mot_9-4-09.pdf

And it really still looks like a gift. This just is one little part of a lot of odd things that the city does through the actions of its Mayor and Council Members that mounts up. Somebody has to tell them that they should really cut out the gift-giving when you are talking about laying off lots of employees and cutting services.

So far the city has its libraries still open regular hours, for example, but that's one area that is in danger of being cut back, and cut back a lot. There's always been a huge disconnect with that idea as the city CMs still really act as it things are NOT as bleak as they really are. They came back last month from break in Council meetings for several days of a meeting of cities in San Antonio, Texas. It's part of mixing business with pleasure, I'd say, but even more interesting is that they learned from others how to use PR, public relations, better and other ideas on management.

You might expect the Council Members to be doing the same things as before but making it sound very nice as they start using the tips on the PR end of things. They just really use up too much money without a real need. Some call it "waste."

And the Mayor? He went to Guadalajara for a Book Fair that's costing a few million dollars (federal funding for this, I believe is their justification for the huge expense. This is also to honor the mayor- and of course, that's all right down his alley, so how could anyone expect him to give a second thought to saying "No" to leaving the city again as usual. Some things just don't improve.

State Senator Carol Liu to speak at Eagle Rock NC meeting Tuesday at 7pm.

The Tuesday, December 1st edition of the regular monthly meeting of the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council has State Senator, Carol Liu, 21st District, (photo, right) as the special guest slated to provide the public with some insight into what's going on in Sacramento. District 21 web site -http://dist21.casen.govoffice.com/

The ERNC meetings are held at The Eagle Rock Center for the Arts, on Colorado Blvd., one block east of Eagle Rock Blvd. Additional parking at Bank of America's lot on Colorado Blvd.

The December meeting will be the Holiday meeting for the year adn there will be refreshments provided. As another note, this will be the third consecutive month for the ERNC to be hosting the presentation of an elected official as a guest speaker. Anthony Portantino, Assemblymember for the 44th Assembly District (the Assembly District's successor to Carol Liu), spoke at the November meeting, and in October, Wendy Greuel, City Controller, made a presentation about the state of city finances and what her office is doing during the current financial calamity.

The time scheduled is already noticed to be brief by the Senator's aide, but this will still be a relatively rare opportunity to hear first-hand from another official that the people elected to represent the local area.

UC Regents kick up the fees 32% for Undergrads- what next?

The U.C. Regents met at UCLA to make the decision to increase the charge for attending the 10 campuses of the University of California system by 32% or about $2,500 a year more, making the cost (without food, housing or books) come to about $10,000.

There were protests of this and many said that they were probably not going to be able to handle the increase. The thing that most that I heard on news clips talk about was the burden it puts on them and their inability to meet it. They did not really have all of the picture in at that time. There is going to be increased financial aid and what the University does is sort of give you credit for the expenses that would otherwise be payable when the term starts.

Instead, they hold off and then make you pay when you leave school by graduation or dropping out. And there's a large percentage of students that have financial aid in the form of grants that are simply "gifts" and don't get repaid like a loan. Those can change too. The ceilings for financial aid maximums for certain sums of aid is being raised to include more families.

BUT WHY THE INCREASE?

It's simple enough of a reason. There is not enough money coming from the state to cover the bills and the student payments will have to substitute for the difference. 32% is huge for a single bump up, and I don't know if this is one of those things to be made high enough so that another hike will not be needed so quickly the next time.

The State of California is on the verge of bankruptcy, only there's no bankruptcy relief for a State. There's cuts and more cuts but not enough to make the budget work out. The taxl boost of last Spring was a deception and they are, as often said, "kicking the can down the road," so that later it still has to come up again.

So the UC system charges more and then it's only for the undergrads. The professional schools, the grad students, all will have some big changes in their bill to after this part is finished. It looks like the plan is for the professional schools to pay higher fees eventually to help subsidize the undergrad program.

WHAT'S HAPPENING IN SACRAMENTO THAT GOT THINGS THIS WAY?

That is what some should be asking instead of just believing that sitting in is going to be an equivalent of printing money.

The people in Sacramento were elected to represent the people but when they got there, the people they worked for somehow transformed from the people in their district to union representatives and lobbyists for assorted industry and financial entities.

You saw many begin to handle THAT business to the detriment of the home town people. What happened, and this is largely to do with the Democrats who were and are the majority party, was that spending and spending and then more spending happened. More program and more payments to this project and that.

The good times came and brought revenues (that's the word that replaced "taxes" in Assembly Speaker Karen Bass' vocabulary) as the dot-com boom arrived and then as the real estate market heated up. Unions got what they wanted from legislators and public employee unions were replacing many as the influence on lawmakers. Raises in pay, more holidays, paid of course, and better and better pensions were happeining.


Well, it went downhill fast and the revenues dried up with economy downturn and there were all these programs created in years past that craved more money to stay alive. There were pensions modified over the years so that you have people makng lots while retired and these pensions are like salaries but here, the "retiree" is not doing any work for you. (And sometimes they actually get another government job and get that pay AND the pension- but that's another story in itself).

What students and maybe their parents might think of now is that it is very important to watch these people that get elected and that what they do and what they set up and promote in Sacramento does sometimes have a delayed effect on you and like the UC students, it is a profound effect. But you know, when government spends, no one really thinks about the money someday NOT being there. Many young people have friends (or may be that "friend") who spends and buys them drinks and is a fun-loving person that they like to have around.

But sometimes they may wonder where's this money coming from? Is it ok to spend so much for other people? Oh, well, let's enjoy it all since he (or she) would not do it if things were not covered. And that's the thought given to it for a moment and then you forget about it.

In government, these people spend, sometimes on nothing worthy of the tax dollars committed by their choices, and then for a moment, people wonder, "Is this idea actually making any sense?" But like most thing for the casual observer of government, that thought gets replaced by some new problem or issue and it's gone- for now.

Here, all that happy time of spending and raking in the revenue changed and the bills come due without the income to back it.

Still, government (the representatives are govenment) does not curtail it's ways, still spending like nothing is changed and things get worse.

Did you know about the bad times that California government is in? Is it news or is it a new situation? I think we have seen things going downhill for a while, but the State has been hiring an average of 42 people a day for years. All this is the wake of furloughs and lay offs. (By the way, some unions managed to get an agreement of no layoffs or even furloughs from the state- that's some pretty big power for a public employee union to have).

So now it's come to the point where the UC system undergrad students have the bill coming to them. And financial aid boost or not, this still causes class elimination and reduced services- all as the eventual consequence of an out-of-control spending proclivity that our lawmakers possessed. I repeat, you have to watch them and NOT let these people spend OP (other people's) money without accountability.

IF they were made responsible and not living lives so very privileged by the very fact of holding the public office, maybe the cuts to education would have been lighter or not at all.

It's like that for all the consequences, but no one connect the relationship of PUTTING PEOPLE IN OFFICE (voting for them) and HOW LIVES WILL BE AFFECTED.

Looking back to Fabian Nunez, termed-out Assembly Speaker who had travels to other countries, drank fine wines and made purchases of things that he could because of CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTONS and other people paying his bills, you see that this life-style does not make a person suddenly trim down the spending when it's time for handling taxpayer paid money.

Not at all, that spending Jones, the living high on the hog and feeding at the public trough is just too damaging and costly for voters to ignore. Nunez is not the only one who has travelled that path and is not the last one but we need to monitor all of them since "they are victims of their own greed" and can't be held accountable. Nor will they be held accountable with everyone turning away as this conduct goes on.

UC students may have a better insight into how these politicians made laws and programs that wound up damaging the common person who may never have associated politics with ordinary life. There is a connection and some of it is very direct and other times it is not direct or immediate, but it's there. Not voting, and especially not voting with at least a little knowledge, can be harmful to your own health.

I will talk about how bond measures have come to affect us another time, but that's another way we suffer now and maybe, maybe get some benefit later, much later, all because of what we think we will get for no cost but to make a mark on a ballot.

Coming on Tuesday's Council Meeting-MMDs and Parking in San Pedro

This came in today from the City Clerk's office:

Los Angeles City Council, Supplemental Agenda Tuesday, November 24, 2009 John Ferraro Council Chamber, Room 340, City Hall - 10 am

ITEM NO. (41) -
Motion Required
08-3237-S1
http://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2008/08-3237-s1_mot_11-6-09.pdf
CD 15

CONTINUED CONSIDERATION OF MOTION (HAHN - LABONGE) relative to free holiday parking program for shopping districts located in Council District 15.

Recommendation for Council action:

INSTRUCT the Los Angeles Department of Transportation to take the necessary steps to implement a 2009 free holiday parking program from Monday, December 14, 2009 through Friday, January 1, 2010 in the San Pedro parking meter zone (No. 518), the City's parking lots in San Pedro (Lots Nos. 641, 647, 648, and 735) and the
Wilmington parking meter zone (No. 534).

Community Impact Statement: None submitted.

(Transportation Committee waived consideration of the above matter)

(Continued from Council meeting of November 20, 2009)"

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This is Janice Hahn's district, CD-15 and it makes sense to have some parking handy if you want customers to come by. The "problem" is only a problem because of the holiday season gift from the Council to the city from one year ago. That was the tripling and quadrupling of the parking meter rates and extension of hours past the usual 6 p.m. PLUS ending lots of free Sunday parking. So the usual 25-cents per hour rate jumped to a dollar an hour. Parking was already $1/hour in the downtown area, going up to $3 and $4 per hour.

They now have PAYMENT CENTERS that are computer credit card terminals set on posts along the streets WITH NO parking meters, only numbered SPACES that you match to your payment, all to make the money flow more quickly from you to the city. Try to skimp and you may get a parking ticket for your frugality.

Back to the Motion- it's to give shoppers a break here so they can shop and not be an obstacle for shoppers in deciding whether to visit the area so that merchants can have a better chance for customers to come by this holiday season..

Criticism (Of course), is that this would be entirely unnecessary IF the Council did not try to gouge the public with the huge rate change for parking meters. This was certainly no "motorist-friendly" action to begin with and Council discussions mentioned raising parking fees to discourage driving and make people use public transportation. Well, that's never going to happen in the near future. People with the BMWs and Lexuses among others will not be parking their cars to ride the bus or light rail voluntarily. Pubic transportation ridership will remain the realm primarily of those without another form of transportation available or a matter of immediate economic situations.

But IF this parking holiday passes, and why not, the other CMs should try to do something for their CD residents. And 'Why not?'"

MEDICAL MARIJUANA:

There is too much to include in this post but it's going to be something to see if the City Council relents in their pursuit of an ordinance that allows money for a "medical marijuana" product to be exchanged between strangers, something commonly know as a "sale." Whatever they call it, unless it does not resemble a "purchase" it is not going to work- so they have to make it complicated, I expect and that's something they do very regularly with city business.

The state law makes "sales" under the Compassionate Use Act, i.e., Prop. 215, but then dollar signs started to fill the eyes of CMs as the thought of collecting more sales tax here could help them out a little in the budget. They see ways around this detail and proponents of better access to marijuana were for anything that did not restrict the current wide open city handling of dispensing marijuana.

The City Attorney, Carmen Trutanich and District Attorney, Steve Cooley both have expressed their opinion that any "sales" would constitute a violation of state law in this area. (Federal law already makes marijuana an illegal substance and they just hold off prosecution in states where such "medical marijuana" legal provisions are in effect.) DA Cooley has said that he will prosecute any sales of marijuana since they are not permitted under the state law.

The STATE OF CALIFORNA's Attorney General Jerry Brown said, as reported in the news today, that sales of marijuana are not permitted under state law and can be prosecuted. A sort of 60s style commune organized for raising marijuana and distributing it to members of the commune is what the law envisions as a permissible set-up, and not a 7-11 open at all hours for anyone to show their "doctor's recommendation," pay some cash as if buying a pack of Marlboros, and then head on to another Medical Marijuana Dispensary for more of the herb.

The MMDs are raking in money now and there's no system in place to limit or even know the amounts of marijuana that any "qualified patient" or "Care givers" have obtained at any other MMD. The establishment of the MMD and how it can operate is currently the area that is not clear. But SALES that make them profitable businesses is not supposed to happen- it's almost like only the "expenses" can reimbused. And you know that's not what the operators have in mind in putting these things together, most done after the prohibition was made to stop new shops from opening. Just a small detail that all forget as they tell the CMs, "They have done everything legally and should be allowed to continue." Everything except opening without legal permission- but that's a technicality that all ignore.

The Council held off a vote on Wednesday and several "amendments" to the proposed ordinance were made, requiring another round of public comment there. A lot of proponents of "legalization" of the Medical Marijuana Dispensaries appear to be more interested in just getting the weed as recreational users more than alleviating physical symptoms due to "serious medical conditions" that the statute contemplated as a basis for its passage.

I expect the matter to continue past Tuesday and for some CMs to be a little more reflective on the situation that has the number of MMD applications reach almost a thousand. Too many shops opened up AFTER the "moratorium" on new facilities was enacted in 2007. No one from the city side of things acted to shut them down or to make a ruling on the applications.

"APPLICATIONS" for a "hardship exemptions" was taken by about all applicants to mean, "Start up your business." Most common meanings of "application" would have you expect that somebody FIRST has to make a decision to ALLOW YOU to start business.

In Los Angeles, the City Council acts in its own convoluted fashion and the APPLICATIONS were untouched until around MARCH 2009 when this came back into the public light.

So what you see now is what happened when no agency or department took any action to enforce anything to shut down non-compliant businesses from operating. Stand by for Tuesday's meeting.

Tomorrow, Saturday, Alumni Meeting at LHS

MEETING:
There's an Alumni Association meeting tomorrow.

Time: 9:30 a.m.
Location: The Student Cafeteria in the 500 Building

Attendance at the meetings is open to all persons interested in the mission of the organization, especially alumni.

See the Alumni tab in the Lincoln High website link in the sidebar for more details on events, the mission, bylaws and other items that you may find informative.

MAIN LOBBY DISPLAY CASE
The Alumni Association has the use of one of the main display cases in the Administration building (the "100 building") that is both for students and adult vistors to see. The display usually has a lot of photographs with some views of the past among them, and the job of changing the content is performed as there are volunteers and material to present.

The City Council and City Attorney's Office on a Rocky Road to an MMD Ordinance.

The City Council members in a joint meeting of the Public Safety and the Planning and Land Use Committees on Monday held a hearing that was memorable, to say the least. (Right: file photo- Ed Reyes, Council Member for CD-1 and Chair of the "Planning and Land Use Management['PLUM']" committee.)

On the city political view, the hearing on Monday was really a battle between the Council members and the Deputy City Attorneys office. The CMs seemed peeved since there was that "threat" of jailing Jan Perry if the AEG signs were allowed to be erected, according to CM Jan Perry's account of a conversation with CA Trutanich. The CMs also appear to be pulling rank in trying to put the City Attorney's office "in it's place" as an "advisor" and that it's the Council that has the final word. The CMs are dopes.

PUBLIC COMMENT supporters were using threats of litigation (probably heard somewhere that LA CITY Council is preoccupied with avoidance of litigation in much of their decision-making.

The idea for many who spoke in public comment was to use this issue as a foot-in-the-door to on the way to simply legalizing marijuana, more so than achieving the limited use that Prop. 215 allows.

The angle that there could be tax dollars realized by allowing the MMDs to operate, apparently with little restriction.

That "sales" language that leads to TAXING possibilities has some of the CMs absolutely drooling at the thought of getting some more revenue in. The City Attorney's office deputies said that the STATE LAW does not allow "sales" and the brilliant CMs tried an assortment of approaches clearly attempting to circumvent that interpretation.


The opponents of the proposed ordinance were made up of persons appearing to focus on the need for access to marijuana as patients with a medical need, and those persons who seemed to have more of a recreational usage and freer access to obtaining marijuana as their motivation. References were made to marijuana as a "medicine" very often, and many from both of these groups pushed the “compassion” aspect.

There was little acknowledgement from either the objectors and supporters of the fact that MMDs were opening without any compliance that a more conventional business venture would have to follow. The Building and Safety Department is pretty much a neutered city department but should have issued something like a certificate of occupancy in connection with a city business license to operate.

I don't think that the MMDs forming after the City’s Interim Control Ordinance, aka, “the moratorium” on opening more MMDs, had given any thought to following the law, using the ambiguous “hardship exemption” to justify their application. This was only AN APPLICATION, and not permission to open up shop, but that detail didn’t stop anyone.

Clearly, they moved along to open up and conduct business in the face of the then-existing "moratorium" on any additional MMDs. The loosely framed "hardship exemption" APPLICATIONS were treated as PERMISSION TO BEGIN BUSINESS and "following the law" was certainly not a component of the process. Neither the spirit or letter of the law was followed- the MMDs popped up like their product: weeds.

The committee members, most vocal among them, Reyes and Cardenas, appeared to square off with the Dep. City Attorneys appearing there in the special joint committee meeting. More than once, the CMs reminded the City Attorneys that they were only there to advise the Council and that it was the Council that would follow or reject the advisements. Someone among the Council members mentioned that the Council in the past has sought out their own counsel apart from the CA's office where there was disagreement in the past. That was during the “Rocky Delgadillo, City Attorney” period.

I don't know why the Council members wish to act with these chips on their shoulders. Maybe I am the only one noticing that nuance.

It was particularly noticeable when "sales" was the word that the CA advised NOT be used in the language since the STATE LAW does not allow "sales," under the interpretation of their office. The CMs were pretty stubborn and appeared not to grasp the idea that using "sales" invites a challenge to the validity of any ordinance, as "sales" under the state law were a prohibited action. Putting “sales” as a term into the language of the ordinance would be inconsistent with the language of the state statute.

Nevertheless, some of the CMs were looking at ways to circumvent that aspect. It comes down to the CMs, in their constant quest to collect revenue by hook or crook, setting the stage here with some ripe ground for levying taxes on sales.

CM Cardenas appeared to be annoyed at the cautions that the CA was giving and finally said, "If we use 'sales' are we going to be sued?" Cardenas asked that in his usual challenging style of his that he employs when conducting questioning of persons in Council meetings. This time that tone was used in the questioning of the City Attorney and you again gather that there's some hostile attitudinal issues involved.

But the City Attorney, in an effort to explain their insistence on NOT using the word, “sale,” explained that the ordinance COULD state that a transaction for money did not constitute a sale so that it was "not a sale" under the city’s ordinance, BUT the facts could constitute a crime and subject persons relying on the ordinance to be prosecuted by the attorney general.

The CA’s actual reply was, "No, but someone relying on the ordinance and believing they are in compliance could still be prosecuted if the Attorney General decided that they violated the state law."

It was pretty obvious that many CMs want money to come to the city and see this as an opportunity to squeeze some money out for the city. The "fees" aspect was described and you could see by the questioning of the CAs that the CMs were headed to recouping money by imposing fees as distinguished from taxes. “Fees” however are not allowed to be imposed without limit and some showing of a relation to actual expense of a service has to be established rather than simply having an arbitrary value assigned. And you could already tell that's what the CMs had in mind- if they couldn't have a “Sales Tax” since there is not “sale” occurring, they could set a high "fee" to make this bring in some big bucks. Well, they can't do that, at least not legally.

That sound bite of Sen. McCain came to mind: "You can call it a banana if you want" when a choice of wording was brought up as he campaigned for President, meaning in the bare bones analysis, that the underlying facts will show what something is, regardless of the label you want apply. Another phrase used during that campaign was similarly brought to mind; "It's like putting lipstick on a pig." And that's pretty stark in demonstrating that you still have a pig after all is said and done.

There was a lot of this nitpicking on words and the CMs seemed to be like children at a candy story who wanted to do what they wanted to do, and any type of suggestions by their parents was treated as meddling. Here, the CMs did not want the CA to meddle.

The other problems that I saw were more of a land use nature. The 500 foot radius, and the1,000 foot radius sorts of things were complicating all of the job at hand in arriving at an ordinance to vote upon.

My view here is to make an ordinance that handles “how” to dispense the substance (and avoid calling it "medicine" as was happening there), and just work that out. Then, separately, as to zoning and the details like the distances from schools and so on, leave that task to the Planning and Land Use committee or the Council as a whole.

Keeping the physical facilities and related subject matter SEPARATE would do much to ease the task of finishing the ordinance- they could add some language like, "The facility shall be in compliance with the requirements specified in the city's Planning and Land Use directives and subsequent ordinance” Mixing both areas, the legal scheme of distribution with the physical location and facility, just make it out to be the city version of the Rubic's Cube. The task just never ends as more adjustments are added.

Just to close now, and there was so much more that comes out in listening to hearings instead of only reading about the actions in the newspaper- Zine was saying towards the end of the hearing, to paraphrase, "Let's use W. Hollywood as a model go ahead to get an ordinance- we have wasted to many years already."

The lawsuits were among the topics mentioned- or threatened- during Public Comment. The passage of the ordinance would result in "costly litigation" according to some opponents speaking at the hearing. Dennis Zine stated later, paraphrased here, "We are going to get sued anyway so let's pass an ordinance and go from there."

I was wondering months ago why they didn't adopt the approach taken by any of a number of other cities where the situation has been managed without so much commotion. The West Hollywood ordinance may have a flaw in that is uses "sales" in the language and the City Attorney remarked on that but the CMs still seem to try to pull rank on their legal counsel more than listen to the REASON for the advisement.

Zine got lots of applause, but his thought process in saying we should be getting an ordinance out now and then amending as needed was not earth-shaking in any way since even I thought of that before as the City constantly re-invents the wheel in it's plodding along with city business.


====================
MAJOR POINT OF THE STATE LAW:
COLLECTIVES are what everybody did not want to deal with- and COLLECTIVES ARE what the state law allows.

In a COLLECTIVE, there's not an outright payment for the product, but a shared endeavor to raise the weed from planting to harvesting and using. So this is not conducive to any current models of the MMDs in L.A. and was glossed over by those in favor of trading money for weed as has been done so far.

"PROFIT" AND "for Profit" were terms bounced around but they miss the point. Non-Profits do this all the time, getting some "employees" wealthy and then not showing a book "profit." If you check a lot of the non-profits you will see that there’s some good salaries getting paid out to the managers- and that is what it’s all about for many non-profits getting money from the city. Non-profit groups can be very profitable.

Using “out-of-pocket expenses” and “actual expense” “with documentation” would be better choices to try to screen out a lot of padding that goes on. But the CMs were not on that track anyway.

ANOTHER MAJOR POINT
”CAREGIVER” and “PATIENT” or “QUALIFIED PATIENT” are separate categories of persons that can be authorized under the law to obtain the marijuana. A “CAREGIVER” is somebody who very literally gives continuing care to the patient. A Medical Marijuana Dispensary is not giving a patient such personal and continued care and is not considered under state law to be a "CAREGIVER."

The "PATIENT" is one who becomes qualified under the terms of the statute and thereby can obtain and use the marijuana.

If you may recall, the "compassionate use" that underlies the passage of Prop. 215 envisioned the circumstances where many people had HIV and were dying from AIDS as well as persons afflicted with cancer. THIS is how the CAREGIVER fits in as often times the patient is disabled and cannot personally go get any marijuana, so the caregiver is allowed to do it. (The CAREGIVER is effectively the proxy or agent for the Patient).

THE LEGAL EFFECT ignored by City Council-
Because money for a product in the "sales" framework of operation clearly doesn't match this state law's picture of compliance, all this profiteering by MMDs is actually in violation of the state law and the City cannot make it legal by “proclaiming” in the words of a statute that it is legal. The State law is still the ruling this area, and under Federal law, marijuana is still illegal all by itself, compassionate use or not, with some deference given to states passing laws such as California’s “Compassionate Use” statute passed by voters as Proposition 215.

The CMs in their actions Monday, apparently trying to show their version of "leadership" here, continue to fumble along and air their arrogant attitudes with the City Attorney's office regardless of how appropriate the interpretations appear to be.

CONCLUSION
The City Council committee members don't get to the point, ignore legal advice, have their eyes full of visions of tax dollars coming in and totally are incapable of doing a competent job of making a clear law to end this MMD explosion in the city.

They don't learn anything and need to get a pay cut and move to part time so that they stop spending so much time showboating but instead get down to business and stop all the back-stabbing and back-slapping that has become an addiction to the current crop of CMs (and Mayor).

In the end, the city dropped the ball and is now trying to find it to continue the game. And they are really bad at this game.

And, this is my opinion, of course.