Last week CM Bill Rosendahl was quick to respond once the topic of the calligraphers was mentioned as an item on the budgt chopping block. "No" to that cut which really is one of the easier calls to make in these tough times. This is not by any means the first time that the topic of costs for this activity as a tax-dollar-paid-for expense. The L.A. Weekly covered the topic and they did this LAST YEAR in an April 8, 2009 story. So when you add this into the wholc budget picture, nobody did anything even of a token gesture to addressing the quickly arriving certainty of the bankruptcy of the city.
You saw in the Mayor's "State of the City Speech" that he gave last April, a few days after this story came out, that he knew of the urgency of the city's financial plight, and he listed actions needed to head off a complete disaster, filling in the speech with the usual personal propaganda to suit himself and his then-expected ability to run for Governor. Nothing was done other than seeing Mayor Villaraigosa continue to take trips for supposed benefit of the city. Here was the highest paid mayor around getting nothing done and letting his staff grow to over 200 persons- and NONE of them is scheduled to be cut in all these current discussions on budget.
Well, the story of the calligraphers in the fuller sense that most people do not ever know about is presented in that L.A. Weekly story for you to really see how un-smart this city operates, thanks to the inability of the Mayor and the Council members to stop pandering to every interest that can get them votes or campaign dollars instead of paying attention to the city's well being for the people who actually live here and expect more.
"Pen Pushers Break Bank: Cash-Strapped L.A. City Hall Spends $1 Million on Calligraphy- Despite fiscal free fall, Villaraigosa and City Council spend public money on scrolls." By Daniel Heimpel, Published on April 09, 2009 at 4:12pm - http://www.laweekly.com/2009-04-09/news/pen-pushers-break-bank-cash-strapped-l-a-city-hall-spends-1-million-on-calligraphy/ This has the story THAT WAS FROM LAST YEAR when they could not kick the habit and save more than a few dollars.
The blog, LAist has a very brief item that notes how Rosendahl has changed his tune, giving priority over to calligraphy now. "Despite Budget Crisis, Rosendahl Wants to Spend $1 Million on Calligraphy," By Zach Behrens in News on February 3, 2010 11:12 AM. http://laist.com/2010/02/03/rosendahl_wants_to_spend_1_million.php
Bill Rosendahl is not the only one who can't act right, and you can see that by the fact that NOBODY said, "Hey, this is a luxury we can't afford anymore." And they could have put in, say, 10% of their individual yearly salaries of $176,000 or so, into a pot to pay for this, each CM for a total $264,000.00 to keep some of this going if it's so important. You won't see that happen, however. And that's all one example of a lot of other things that are not getting done by them. They just enacted a Medical Marijuana Ordinance that was years overdue since first bringing up the topic, spending tremendous amounts of time and energy of the government, supporters and opponents of the work and all of this pushed the work of budget repair off to the side.
What can you expect from them? Read the story on the calligraphers employed by the city. And, to really annoy some of the artists out there, or to please some of the critics, a lot of that "public" protest to keep culture and arts going really is in the same category or very close to it from an "essentials" standpoint- a luxury that can be put on hold. Arts and culture are very important things in a society, but to retain the status quo will be another example of the CMs and Mayor again trying to make friends for more votes and money. There's supposed to be some personal attachment to culture and "keeping it alive" is a family or personal responsibility, not neccessarily a mandate of government. If you add to this notion of individual reponsibility that I present, the fact that the actual cultures reflected are not really the ones from the mixture of classic American culture but instead, selections of activities that come from other countries, then you might see the idea that perserving culture and assorted art relevant to each culture is supposed to be a personal thing and not government-funded.
The El Grito celebration as an aspect of the September 16th Mexican Independence Day might be recognized by the city without much concern, except that I think one of the cost items for this rolls in as a weighty $25,000.00 expense to the city, and that's still not the total bill. My point is that there is a lot that can be put on hold immediately until the money situation improves. Some ranking in importance needs to be done, I suppose. It should not be the case that public taxpayer money has to be the only way that items of value to assorted members of the public will be operated. Another observation is that even the 4th of July celebrations don't necessarily get the funding or attention that goes to other of the types of activities described above.
The city politicians have been too long riding the city money train to a bad destination and that's simple enough to see- many of them, actually most of them if not all, blame others and even each other now as the chips are down. Seeing personal blame accepted by any of them is a rarity indeed; it's like the criminal suspect caught on tape doing a crime and then gets to court to put in the plea, "Not Guilty." These people are truly gulity but will never go down for the crimes, figuratively or literally. It's a sort of crude example, but the most vivid one I can come up with at the moment. We all know it's not really the case, but they do it because they can.
Check a meeting online for the city council with a check on YouTube for CM Richard Alarcon going off into some tirade against other city staff members, even some of his CM colleagues, but to a lesser extent. As CM Herb Wesson said to another CM who joked about ignoring Wesson, I think it was not intentional, but the joking was responded to, as Wesson said, half-joking, "You know I'll get you back later." So for the serious topics, it' unusual to see any hostility arise, even the disagreements are based more on theoretically-based ideas than actual occurrences .
Alarcon is often WRONG in his assessement and interpretation of the information, many parts of which are not facts but he's on a roll with these attention-getting moments and in the end, the common people will think he's standing up for them. See one video example on YouTube (time: 4:41) of last week's "caring" about people in his predator mode that he uses from time to time to make himself look good; execpt, if you follow city hall matters, you know he's 100% politician and 0% useful as a CM in handling all things anytime earlier. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqsoAQ4LhPs Maybe he will win you over, as is his objective.
Miguel Santana, the posted child for remaining absolutely calm and poised in a crisis, was an attack victim of CM Alarcon and incorrectly made so by Alarcon. If you step back and see who actually is responsible for certain tasks, it would be Alarcon, not Santana, a number cruncher who supplies the analysis and recommendations, while it is Alarcon who is supposed to act on matters along with the other 14 Council members. But if they were face-to-face, I doubt that Santana punching out CM Alarcon would be a complete surprise, it might even be considered to be quite deserved. But you see how city council chambers are laid out, something like a courtroom with distance and raised counters and seating adding to the buffer zone. That physical separation also has a side-effect of isolation that fosters arrogance among the CMs. The target of blame that Alarcon was looking for could have been found quickly had Alarcon put a mirror up to his own face- something that would have been right on the money. And, by the way he acts, you would expect him to have a few mirrors handy, being a self-admiration type, much like the Mayor.
There is so much that is wrong that's happening in city business and most people don't know and also don't care until something happens to put it in their face. They may see the DWP bill and the extra charges that are slipped into that bi-monthly notice. The rate for parking meters went up a year ago and most people say, "That's too much" and park on sidestreets or just suck it up and pay. And that's part of the way things work. There's a 9% tax on telephone bills for L.A. addresses, cell and wired, and it was headed to zero-percent except City Council fooled voters again with a "10-percent tax cut" (and the math was right: down from 10% to 9% actually is correct, "10% cut"- except a court ruling to end the tax ENTIRELY was soon to be issued but voter approval gave the 9% tax a life, and the 10% imposed tax was replaced and the court decision was no longer needed.
They, the CMs and the Mayor's office staff, tell you little and the "done deal" syndrome is too often apparent- even with the "Brown Act" pushing them to air things openly instead of their usual "behind closed doors" style of decision-making. That has historically been the model followed by both them and most of all, the lobbyists of the registered and not-registered types. (Get ahold of an appointment book or vistors log for these CMs and see if there's anyone getting together doing the chit-chat who also has some city business pending. I am sure it happens, and logically so, and it's not all talk of "How are you?, Nice Day; How's your golf game?" and assorted city-business-neutral talk.
Compare the effectiveness of influence that a lobbyist has, with real accessibility to the CMs outside of council chambers, to the input that the people of the city have during council meetings that lasts for 2 minutes apiece- and it's cut to one minute when there are very many people showing up. How much is that time worth for effective "communicatin" when compared to getting personal appointments with a CM to go over things pending in city hall? From the usual and immediately taken "unanimous" votes by council that follow the last speaker, I would conclude that the impact is very slight. And that is the way it is. Not right by any means, but that really is what happens there, not to mention the inattentiveness and disinterest that most CMs demonstrate while there is public comment happening for an agenda item. So you see now that CMs haven't done much on budget fixing in the last year but check their travels for the same period and many "vacations" are slipped in there, oh, that's right, it's called necessary "city business." That part of the job doesn't get passed over. For a city government, they manage to chalk up a lot of international travel.
Lots more but this is enough for now.
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