Checking the blog, www.ronkayela.com run by Ron Kaye, former editor of the L.A. Daily News, His short-and-to-the-point blog entry, "Wendy Greuel Loves You, Needs You, Hears You..."notes Wendy Greuel's message that's spread by her emailed newsletter. You might remember that Wendy, currently representing CD-2, won the election last month for City Controller. You might also remember that Wendy has been one of Antonio Villaraigosa's strongest supporters on the City Council, with nary a hostile word ever directed at his administration by her. Her message was that "the voters have spoken." The "Comments" here have some of them being even more vivid in their lack of faith in Greuel and their suspicion that the strong friendship with Villaraigosa is going to affect her decisions.
You can put all this together with the nature of the city office she won, City Controller. In that capacity, current Controller, Laura Chick, conducted audits showing item after item of city waste and irresponsible conduct in the handling of taxpayer money. We found that the city has a small fleet of cars that are assigned full-time to quite a few more people than really have a reason to have them, and the city credit card were gettting a workout, some cards doing several fill-up on the same day at gas stations instead of at the city's pumps. The Controller is the city watchdog over operations and spending behavior.
Laura Chick was aggressive in that job, often embarrassing the city hall administration of Villaraigosa, and getting City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo so bothered that he filed a lawsuit against Chick to stop an audit of his office. Incidentally, Chick went to City Council for funding to defend herself against that action and under Council President Garcetti's profound lack of support for Chick, she was denied that support even though she was acting in well withing the course and scope of her duties, but that's how bad Council performs.
The L.A. Times "Opinion L.A." editorial of December 11, 2008, was on the right side on this one, despite the accusatory tone carrited by the title, "An Impatient Chick," http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2008/12/an-impatient-ch.html, and the reader comments in large part are supportive of the actions of Chick.
Keep a watch on Greuel to see her actions. I think that the voters made a horrible choice among the candidates. That's based on the reasons described above that are by no means all that apply here and I see the "checks and balances" in government rapidly disappearing in City Hall as far as the Controller's position is involved. And DON'T vote for WEISS for City Attorney or you'll see a rubber-stamp for whatever Villaraigosa wants, leaving the citizens needs in second place. In that runoff election next month, Trutanich is the only choice to very literally safeguard ourselves.
Words tend to carry very flexible meanings and in politics they just have minimal value without being put into action to show the commitment. And those upcoming actions will be the truest test for Greuel, since her actions duirng her City Council membership did not do much to hint that she could do the job.
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