The Daily News on Thursday April 2, 2009, carried the story, "When L.A. City Council comes to town, it's not business as usual," http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_12059920?source=rv about the City Council Friday awards presentations, commonly referred to by city hall observers as the Council's "Dog and Pony Shows" This example was observed at the Van Nuys City Hall where L.A.'s City Council members make their once-a-month visit to conduct a Friday meeting for people in the area to see them personally.
The story gives a colorful picture of what's going on most Fridays. The Daily News story gives another version of what's been printed here on these pages about waste, disinterest and generally poor conduct by the council members, especially offensive when it involves the personal efforts and discomfort in having to trudge on over to city hall in Los Angeles or Van Nuys, as the writer observed.
It's when the real business is on hold for an hour or more, and the private citizen who takes time to come to speak or to support a speaker is forced to wait until all the awards and presentations are made until they can be heard. And if there was a packed council chambers for award, you can bet it's mostly vacated after the recipients are done with their own part. The public comments are made to a venue that's mostly empty, except for other's concerned with the business that brought them there.
The Council members themselves tend to display extreme disinterest in what people have to say in each 2-minute allotment of time for their "public comment" (reduced to 1 minute when there are many speakers on the same subject.) . You will see lots of private conversations and very little eye contact made between council members and speakers. The story shows a lot about what's going on in city council on Fridays, when one Council member tries to top the next CM in heaping praise upon the recipient of the award and it all tends to cheapen the idea of awards when only positive things are said that often are just about doing "the right thing" but treated as if NO ONE ever is expected to do right- so the award recipient is made to be, in many but not all cases, the exception to the majority who don't or couldn't do what was done.
Aside from the phoniness that most council members practice so especially vigorously on these Fridays, the other noticeable feature of the meetings is the constantly interjected comment, usually by the Council President or President Pro Tem (the CM "sitting-in-for-the-President"), "We have to try to move more quickly since we are about to lose quorum." Well, isn't that absolutely foreseeable by how they set up the agenda? They COULD have put awards LAST after the necessary business is done; it's not like anyone is going to walk out on their certificate. That would ensure there is a quorum and avoid what you have now and what seems to be such a mystery for the Council members to fix. They just don't want to do it.
The utterly common sensical approach to these meetings is just beyond these pampered officials. The people who come to the meetings to comment or to find out about what's happening on a decision over their personal or business interest have had to hear the bad news, "We have lost quorum with the Council member having to leave." That means postponing the rest of the agenda to another day since legally the body is without enough members present to conduct business.
So what? The Council is above it all but for the private citizen it means another trip to the meeting will be needed, another battle with traffic, finding parking and paying for it, and sitting through for the opportunity to speak for two minutes on the agenda item, or another two minutes in "Public Comment" for non-agenda matters where they could probably complain about the "process" that they encountered in visit "number 1." Oh, don't forget that maybe you have a person who still has a job and had to take a day off to come to the meeting who has found that it's all wasted and has to be done again. The Council doesn't care; they don't validate parking, they don't give priority to such a returnee- especially if the matter comes on another Friday, and they do not accommodate the people.
The total disregard for the REAL job of doing business is what happens. Maybe the Friday are really escapes into all that reciprocal back-slapping and giving out the "atta-boys" for the expected return of some constituent support is viewed by the Council members as their "REAL" goal and ensures their political security. That above all else is what matters to any and all of the Council members from District 1 to District 15, and to the Mayor and any other elected official, city, county, state or federal.
The idea of the elected official being a public servant an anachronism. We have not seen that condition or anything close to that since probably World War II. What we have are opportunists who hold the door open for their friends and relatives to come in and benefit at the expense of the public.
The names of the politicians that come to mind are the same ones as in earlier stories and some lesser-knowns, some in office, some recently termed out and some who have actually been part of the minority of whom have "done the right thing" and resigned from their position in connection with the misdeeds.
The City Council is all about that, and what I'd say makes it so much more the attractive perch for them are the highest salaries in the United States for municipal government offices. They should really reflect some sort of frugality in government. That should be a theme of the office, and not the extravagence that they have had it come to represent. The spending in that environment is part of what the culture of politics is all about; they spend and spend and reward their special interest and personal favorites and then they pass the responsibility for the generosity on to the taxpayers. The idea of NOT spending, or slowing it down, rarely dominates the thoughts on solutions in this area. That would have kept the huge budget deficits smaller, which isn't any elaborate analysis, so it was within their grasp to understand, but they didn't think it applied to "them."
Look at the City Council's continued generousity with "Special Event Waivers" for a small example. I am aware of what people use to justify these amounts, but the City Council acts as though they MUST step in to cover all these things. In a budget crisis, until there is some control, then maybe a halt to this would be in order, at least to show everyone that we ARE in difficult financial straits. Continued fundings by Council sends out the opposite and makes everyone think all is fine. There's so much more that isn't so obvious but tremendously larger. That's usually where you find lobbyists involved. There are more actions to be discussed- there will always be more with the same people, and the examples usually are negatives in terms of what benefit we see for the city and it's people.
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Reader Comments on the Daily News story show some very opinionated views on local politicians and proceedings- http://www.topix.net/forum/source/los-angeles-daily-news/TDL2B5FQ9OGL75I6E
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