The L.A. Weekly has a revealing story about the City Council's questionable expensive spending choice, another one, that's been going on for years. It's all about the costs that City Council runs up each year, and continues doing that for something costing $1 million a year. This is from the city's "Creative Services" that employs calligraphers to make the fancy certificates that get handed out at the Friday awards presentations before the actual business part of the council meeetings begins. (See a sample shown with the L.A. Weekly's on-line story linked above) The Mayor Sam blog http://mayorsam.blogspot.com/ mentions in the "Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Friday," that this came to light last year, brought out by Walter Moore, the strongest challenger that Mayor Villaraigosa faced in the March 3 city election. Moore was a source of a lot of information that revealed more examples of waste in the city government, much directly attributed to the Mayor.
I was already aware that the city was spending a lot on this but the figure that I had was $500,000, but the LA. Weekly has it at over twice that amount. The story includes a recap of the salary figures for council members and for the Mayor that have been mentioned before. But the idea that the Council still continues to spend money on the awards while deep in the midst of a budget disaster just goes to show you how much they worry more about themeselves than the condition of the city. That is what I have been saying all along, but that's something anyone can figure out from observation. The L.A. Weekly puts it all out front nicely:
"Yet the council and Villaraigosa recently cut back on such basics as cityI was just at the local branch library and noticed a lot of display changes and asked what happened. A librarian told me that they re-arranged things now with more space being available because there were a lot of cuts in funding for magazines orders and they didn't need so much space anymore. That was one effect of budget cuts. But the fancy awards continue as a public relations item to get the council members some goodwill, and the cost is paid by taxpayers.
paramedic captains and library books, even as they continued to burn through a
cool $1 million a year by ordering up a mountain of scrolls — 27,978 of them in
the 2007-08 fiscal year alone. They are on track to repeat that feat this year.
The elaborate scrolls often depict a glowing image of City Hall set among
garlands and highlighted with gold inking of the sort associated with
illuminated manuscripts."
One paragraph shows that the Mayor actually did some relevant work on city business to try to save some expenses, and the blame for the continuation of the extravagant spending lies squarely with the Council, and it's not something they can claim was some accident they were not told about:
"During the fiscal year so far, the mayor’s office ordered 4,215 of these
“certificates.” Last year, Villaraigosa sought to trim seven employees from the
Creative Services Division to save $600,000 annually, according to his office.
He was rebuffed by the nation’s highest-paid City Council, who rallied like a
court of stunned Rose Parade princesses facing the loss of their matching
gowns."
Check this story for more details and you will see why this council, each the highest paid in the country for work at a city level, and their pay exceeds or nearly matches many federal officials including federal judges and congress persons. They plainly get paid too much money to keep them honest. Who could ever walk away from this job? Reducing the pay to make it more in line with being a "public servant." Being a Council Member should be a task done for the simple reason that it is for the city's benefit, and not to enrich them personally. The function of the job is to get good things done, not to make them financially comfy and work their position to get more power for further personal benefit. But that's what they do. Reduce that pay and you will get a complaining response, "If you don't pay well, then you won't get the same quality of people to do the job." But I am talking about being paid lavishly when it comes to public service pay scales. If we did not get the same "quality" running for office, it just might be an improvement over the ones currently occupying the seats. You can see what's done now and fluffing up the pay just allows their arrogance to become more deeply entrenched- making them even believe that they actually "deserve" all of what their paid.
Read the story on this little bit of that big picture that takes a big bite of the taxpayers dollars for simple vanity to be catered to and manipulated by Council members. If you believe this should be continued as something of value, I might agree if you see that the value goes to the Council members and not to the city. That's all the more reason that they should chip in to cover all of it- it's a campaign device in disguise that taxpayers are paying for. Another example of some very expensive stroking going on that is completely worthy of immediate elimination as a City-paid expense.
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See also, more from another L.A. Weekly story, just before the March 3 elections were held; it's about what Council Members get as the true value BEYOND their paychecks:
"Los Angeles on $300,000 a year; Why next week's City Council "coronation" will cost you far more than money," By Patrick Range McDonald, Published on February 25, 2009 - http://www.laweekly.com/2009-02-26/news/los-angeles-on-300-000-a-year
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