Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Wendy Gruel's T.V. Campaign Ad doesn't match her actions.

Wendy Gruel, current CD-2 council member, is being termed out of office and needs a new job. She is running for the office of CITY CONTROLLER, now held by Laura Chick since Chick is herself being termed out of that office. Wendy is the Mayor's choice for the office, and she has always been his pal, never challenging Tony's decisions in any significant way, and that's not a good quality for any candidate for City Controller where you are expected to watch how money is spent.

Well, it looks like the L.A. TIMES, in a story by David Zahniser, one reporter who unerringly sees through most of the political smokescreens so often thrown up by office holders, has found some problems with Ms. GRUEL'S television ad. She's against now something that she approved in connection with the Housing Authority, and, next, she did nothing to act on another matter with the Animal Services department after she learned about it from an audit produced by Laura Chick's office, until bringing it up now. See:

"Greuel attacks program she approved;
L.A. councilwoman's 30-second spot names three city programs she says she would tackle if elected city controller. She voted for one of them and did not intervene on a second,"
a February 15, 2009 story, http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-greuel15-2009feb15,0,2829452.story.

Getting caught on conflicting details that show some real bad memories or plain outright "fibbing" on advertisements is just so enjoyable to see when you know they try so hard to hide it from us and then they still manage to mess up and not keep their stories straight. Reporter Zahniser used to work for the L.A. Weekly before the L.A. TIMES hired him away, doing the same detailed work on city hall stories that the L.A. Weekly continues to present with other reporters taking up the task.

Zahniser's story's ususally present the truest picture of all the reports on what's happening with politicians and he's often the one to discover problems with these officials.