VOTE for David Saltsburg. He's running for CD-2 to shift power away from special interests.
Today, until 8 pm, CD-2 registered voters will trickle to the polls for a SPECIAL ELECTION and vote for a Los Angeles City Council Member for this district that is mostly in the San Fernando Valley from the 405 Freeway and meandering to Sunland-Tujunga. Wendy Greuel, up until she was sworn into her new office as City Controller 2 months ago was their Council Member. There are a few years of unexpired time remaining for that term.
If you rely on television for news, there's a good chance you don't know anything about the election, that it's today, that there are 10 candidates running or that 3 of these are "the Machine" candidates, having well-financed campaign, running against 7 "grassroots" under-financed campaigns.
If you think, "CD-2, What's that? Who Cares?" then you are doing well to fall into the chasm that keeps the same types of rotten politician in office. CD-2 has a population equal to many name-cities. It is one of 15 Council Districts in the City. Voter apathy is what we have for most city elections, as only 18% of the registered city voters came out to vote for Mayor and the odd-numbered CDs, 7 of them. The city council members decide L.A. life. Another bad choice keeps this club to do that, unimpeded.
As L..A. is run, the rest of the Southern California is affected. The fallout will eventually spread over to impact other cities and policies set in L.A. WILL wind up impacting other places. If you say I live in CD-14 so I have my own problems- and we do- we don't want another bad player in the game to strengthen the choke hold the Council puts on the constituents. Same as CD-1 with Ed Reyes and his DENSIFICATION to make every housing a packed deal, more congestion- and no infrastructure attention FIRST. Broken water mains? Just a start of what to expect by bad mangement of the City.
The CMs keep there jobs through voters being both apathetic and ignorant. The lack of City Hall news coverage on television or newspapers on the elections (at time for any given city election) contributes to this condition. Most incumbents welcome this low-profile situation at election time, being able to control information better when they send out waves of slick campaign brochures in the mail to residents to convince them that all is well and will continue to be well with things as long as you re-elect them.
Most of the city's current financial mess, with the current budget over $450 million in the hole, and recent arrangements keep certain union employees safer from layoffs than other who, coincidentally don't supply elected officials with the all-important campaign contributons that get attention. The Engineers and Architects Assn. is one union that's getting about 27 days of furlough, being on the outs with last week's City and unions "deal" - and tell me, how that's really gonig to work when most of the favored unions will be protected from layoffs and others get early retirement deals to be paid but not work?
Is a CD job a good one? Just look at how hard the CMs go to protect these jobs. See the L.A. Weekly's February story just before the March 2009 elections,
"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/
Yes, lots of money is nice to have, and the other thing is the power. You will see that L.A. draws people back to the city politics like with Richard Alarcon, a former state assemblyman who makes a career manipulating power, and CM Wesson, another of the refugees who left Sacramento for a better payday in L.A. by choice or because there were termed out.
Without going much more into the problems, you can see a list of items showing a badly run city in Mayor Sam's blog covering mostly local politics
http://mayorsam.blogspot.com/
Ron Kaye, former editor of the L.A. Daily News based in the San Fernando Valley, supplies some through and critical thought, often exposing the secret side of dealings at city hall, on his blog www.ronkayela.com
The most colorful and absolutey harshest critic of the City Council and L.A. politics is "L.A. Daily Blog" http://ladailyblog.blogspot.com/ written by David "Zuma Doog" Saltsburg,whose been pulled into the political whirlpool since his own visit to City Hall over 3 years ago when the city shut down his right to sell things at Venice Beach, and that started it all.
I got to know ZD over the past few years and his knowledge of the city operation is gained by day to day involvement, contacts with people who know how things work, and inside information from people tired of the sneaky dealing going on in City Hall.
One thing that I have to give much credit to ZD for and not to any others in the same way, is that he has broken down the city's way of burying the real actions in paragraphs of legalese and boilerplate language that tells you nothing of the real meaning of the motions, the ordinances and most money-shuffling that goes on.
ZD's theatrical manner at Council meeting annoys many but exemplifies the ills that he finds and puts it out into the open. He's gotten more people clued into city activities, and has more young people learning more about what's there to affect by action. More people now than ever are challenging the city leaders, but still in small numbers that have not yet caused any upheaval in the MACHINE type of special interest controlled organization.
That special interest controlled group handles that first and you and me last. Parking meters quadruple the rates, extend hours, end free Sundays and that's a small part of what's visible that affects your day-to-day life. There are so many more things that sneak by that you don't even notice and that's the way City Council works- them first, you, well, you're just there to pay the bills, see your city billings rise and services deteriorate as you watch their Ch. 35 or internet video broadcasts of their "performances" to see "how smart" they are. The word is not smart but "insulting", "slick", "greedy", ignorant", "arrogant", "condescending" or a number of other words at various time that fit them all at one time or another. It needs to change.
DWP is bled dry by the CMs deals and your transformers blow, the water mains burst and people see things are not being maintained. The GENERAL FUND of the city gets money fed into it by many things and DWP is one source- also DWP's IBEW unions was the best contract deal made from the employees side, with pretty good raises every year as the economy was beginning to collapse.
Mayor V. is just too out of touch with city business, claimed he approved that deal because he could not tell of bad times ahead. He's barely changed since then, the union's best friend as long as the keep supporting his campaign funding, he's still trying to keep them happy even when layoffs are avoided when really needed to balance the budget.
Zuma Dogg/ David Saltsburg is one candidate I support, and any of the other of the 7 grassroots would be an improvement over what's there now.
NO, NO, NO TO ALL MACHINE CANDIDATES. Tamar Galatzin is the least harmful of the 3 MACHINE candidates, too closely tied to Mayor V., Chris Essel is totally a carpetbagger who was assigned to run and be a stooge for the mayor, and Paul Karabian would be bringing more State bankruptcy-making skills to further plunge L.A. into the financial black hole it's already headed for.
If you live in CD-2, vote. A 20% turnout is predicted. The top two vote-getters will be in December run-off election if no one gets 50% plus one vote, a majority.
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