Here's more on, yes, Solar Measure B, the ballot initiative that comes up for a voter decision in Los Angeles on March 3rd- Tuesday, all the elections fall on Tuesdays by some rule that is only important to know that day, Tuesday. The story "LOS ANGELES' BUNGLED SOLAR PLAN; How D'Arcy and Villaraigosa turned clean energy into a dirty dispute," February 10, 2009, ( http://www.laweekly.com/2009-02-12/news/los-angeles-39-bungled-solar-plan/ ) is a pretty concise, to-the-point and very revealing article as the Los Angeles Weekly continues to produce about L.A politics. There is so much bad that is happening in government that books could be written on all the political people and their conniving.
This story, by reporter Beth Barrett, puts it down very clearly and it tells a very direct tale of how our Mayor Tony is involved in this mess, as it turns out, again for his own career advancement.
"Career Advancement," all for Tony, and it's the reason for most of what Tony does. Notice it's not doing "what is good for the city," because that doesn't happen here. A lot in the story is the same information as what I posted earlier today, but I did not copy that from this story. Lots of the same things show up because both just report the same facts that are seen as the whole series of events have unfolded. You know, it's like two play-by-play announcers describing the same game, one is broadcasting for the home team and the other is sending the story back home to the visiting team. Tony and friends try to hide things and sometimes they do get away with it since they are career politicians who manipulate things while they make a living at it.
"David" in the title here is David Nahai, a lawyer Tony appointed to be the DWP general manager and is loyal to TONY- you know that, too: "When he says 'jump', you say 'How high?'" Expect nothing EVER from David that goes against the Mayor's decisions. And that's how it is here in this story.
Read the story, it's much shorter than my version and she's the one paid for writing anyway.
You still come up with the bottom line, we in L.A. are being asked to sign off on a bad deal that benefits the UNION- oh, I forgot- the "Brian" part in my title is for "Brian D'Arcy" who runs the IBEW in the DWP operations, the union big wig. Brian is the one who put together lots of the terms. Remember there's a part written into this Measure that requires the IBEW workers only to handle installation. Gee, that's one part that Brian can claim credit for. Can you tell? And the idea of Unions is that the benefit of any deal the Union makes is going to .... the Union, not the DWP, not the Consumers or the City, but the UNION. That's always the way the game is played. No surprises here.
The idea that this is a locked in deal means it is going to be costing us more just on the basis that there is no competition for the work and THAT means "not an ecomical deal." IBEW: 1, Consumers:0. And on it goes.
Tony gets the credit for this, as the story tells you. I knew that part just from knowing Tony and keeping track of his antics. I used to support him but somewhere after losing the first election for Mayor, he turned bad and not just bad as a person, but bad in hurting people financially for one part and by dragging L.A,. into more wasteful things that are not honest. His personal family life is important as well, and you already know that part, so you won't expect to see the same family photos in campaign brochures this time around. But I don't need discussion on that aspect to decide against a second term for Tony.
There's a Mayoral Candidate Forum in Eagle Rock "Center for Arts" this Thursday night at 7:00 pm for all candidates to talk, and it's not even a debate, just a "tell us about yourself and why you should be mayor" kind of thing and a sort of brief mixer afterward. Well, Tony is not coming because of a "schedule conflict," according to his aide. I will tell you right now that the conflict is that his schedule rules out any appearances with any of the challengers. That way Tony doesn't goof up and lose votes- or even worse, by allowing some words of truth to come out - maybe even about "Solar Measure B."
Imagine that. Mayor Tony can't explain it to us, doesn't have the exact cost, and still wants us to give him complete authority to run up expenses and to approve later changes without any other supervision or vote. (and the story shows there LOTS of information still MISSING- the EXACT COSTS is just one of the things that should sink this deal on that basis alone. "You want to charge me and you still don't know how much it's going to cost us?" And he will be long gone when the entire impact of this will be realized, another nice deal for him.
Please check the story and don't rely on me only when you form your own opinion. Tony, David and Brian are on the same side- and it's not yours.
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