Council Elections- March 2009- Incumbents re-election their priority while Budget issues smoldered.

It was March 2009, nearly a full year ago from now that the city elections were held, with the Council District offices for odd-numbered districts up for voters to decide. The "L.A. WEEKLY" carried a story about this opportunity for new blood in the Council chambers with the word to the uninformed about the near stranglehold influence that special interests have on these elections, throwing money into the campaign chests of their favored politicians. The LAUSD Board was also having an election.

To reflect just how difficult it is to wage a challenge with any competitive possibility against such special interest supported candidates I point out that Monica Garcia ran UNOPPOSED for her re-election. While hardly being any prize for the District's students, she had support, mainly from the Villaraigosa camp. Garcia rose to the position after her boss, Jose Huizar, the former LAUSD Board President, moved on to the greener pastures of the L.A. City Council and received strong support from that same Villaraigosa for CD-14's seat, a seat held by Villaraigosa for less than the "promised full term" that he pledged to CD-14's voters. The calling to run for Mayor of L.A. was the irresistible lure that Antonio ultimately chose to follow and bail out on CD-14's consituents.

The nearly impossible task of defeating Los Angeles machine politics, a small machine in comparison to those of the cities back east, still a major influence on who gets into office, is what a challenger has to take on. The story in the L.A. Weekly tells about some of those facing that strength, more often being a sinister strength now in its effect on operations in government. Special interests include developers, energy industry people, labor unions, and other varied groupings of goals that find their way to put money into favored politicians pockets for campaigns for re-election and other areas of financial support.

"The Unsung in Today's Los Angeles City Council and LAUSD Elections," By Jill Stewart in election, politics. Tuesday, Mar. 3 2009 @ 2:24PM
http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/election/the-unsung-in-todays-los-angel/

For those of you in Lincoln Heights, one of the areas within CD-1, Ed Reyes is the Council Member representing you in City government. In that election of 2009, Jesse Rosas won over many voters with what I observed to be a very small effort in campaigning for votes. But with such an unenergetic effort, he still was able to gather some large numbers of votes. That outcome was as shown below:

COUNCIL DISTRICT 1 -----Votes -----------Percent
ED P. REYES----------------- 7,608-----------76.06%
JESSE ROSAS---------------- 2,395-----------23.94%
http://ens.lacity.org/clk/elections/clkelections309862718_09292009.pdf

The nearly 1 out of every 4 votes cast that were for Rosas really could be seen as a vote AGAINST Reyes more than FOR Rosas. A lot of people just are tired of the way Reyes handles things.

COMING UP: Even numbered districts where Jose Huizar will be among the CMs trying to hold on for a last term under the term-limits. That "TERM LIMITS" law that was extended by voters, most of whom I suspect had not much idea of what they were voting for, in a completely fraudulent representation of that proposition that disguised the true impact of the changes sought.

The "term limits" urged were actually EXTENSIONS of terms, but most people just don't even bother with considering ballot measures to any extent beyond finding them on the ballot, relying on the propaganda of campaign mailers- as if that had any reliability factor- to inform them. The other part of that "combination ballot measure's" unusual 2-in-1 propositon was "ethics reform," an ironic selection considering the campaign on this proposition was completely a matter itself devoid of any ethical practices.

Well, for now there's lots for what gets attention of Council members. The budget and spending cuts is the main attention getter.

AS for ethics, you also currently have CM Richard Alarcon appearing to really live outside his district and that's against the law. The story Alarcon presented is a huge pill to swallow when it changed everyday for the first few days that the story broke. We will see if the DA's office actually gets serious with him but you know, CMs develop a huge attitude of overly self-importance and an arrogant attiude to go with it.

See the story from KABC TV news for a taste of what's there on this story. http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/politics/local_elections&id=7219957

There's just a lot going on to say we should get a whole new crew there in city hall after the budget spending was allowed to go so far out of control before any of them really gave it attention. The mayor is already a lost cause but that's a separate story to go back to later.