The L.A. Times reports that the Mayor has announced that the City services, other than police and fire, should shut down 2 days a week due to the budget problems.
"Villaraigosa calls for shutting down some city departments amid budget crisis," L.A. Times, "L.A. NOW" April 6, 2010 12:13 pm by Phil Willon at City Hall.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/04/villaraigosa-calls-for-shutting-down-some-city-departments-amid-budget-crisis.html
Now this is one of the ways that Tony wants to retaliate against the council for shutting down the DWP's rejection of a rate hike last week that attempted to slide a HIGHER proposal by, even though the council made it's reasons know. So the new DWP last minute attempt to get a higher rate hike like the original one was rejected in a late night Council meeting.
DWP and the Mayor said that, early on, the $73 million in "surplus funds" that DWP was to pass over to the "general fund" of the city to apply to the budget deficit was not connected to the rate hikes requested now. They said that this hike was for other things. So now that's over and they change the story and say "We needed that money and can't affort to pay the city any of that $74 million."
Well, who is lying? I say most all of them at one time or another. The city needs the money as it's been counted in the budget. The DWP said before that it was not part of an operating need and then it says it seems to affect them now that the rate hike is rejected for 3 months. The DWP also is sitting on a billion dollars, (an earlier analogy presented by me as an example: A thousand people at one place, say it's Staples Center, with each one holding a million dollar bill (if such a bill was printed). That's a billion dollars.
But let's take away 173 people out (and their money) from that 1,000 and you see the change is not putting the DWP into chaos. The Mayor is.
The Mayor is not only taking his ball back and going home as the spoiled child, he's trying to shut down the playground for everyone else.
But all is not only Tony's fault and all is not happening overnight. I have heard the warnings for years brought up by many and the Council did NOTHING. And that observation is not anything to do with knowing any inside secrets. All this was like a weather report coming years ahead of the arrival, and this Council and Mayor kept taking trips and having a good time spending money as freely as ever. It's only an urgent condition because they head right into this storm instead of making some needed course corrections years ago to avoid it. Even worse, you can say the storm is beginning to rage AND there's an iceberg in the path, too. And that iceberg would be insolvency. At that point it would not be in God's hands but a less merciful Bankruptcy Court's trustee
READ THE TEXT OF THAT "State of the City" speech (see LINK below) from April 14, 2009- most everything now that's a problem was know THEN and NOTHING was done, only talk. Even the ERIP early retirement of 2400 people got 400 of the wrong people that did nothing for the general fund's benefit since they were paid from other sources. And lots of experienced people left a huge gap in knowledge when they took their ERIP; And that was when if finally operated to retire people about December and only 300 to 400 a month could be processed, slowing down whatever savings were supposed to happen. What a mess.
Read the Mayor's State of the State speech from the TIMES' "L.A. NOW" of last April. It has all the problems stated FROM A YEAR AGO. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/04/full-text-of-villaraigosas-state-of-the-city-speech.html "
"Prepared text of Villaraigosa's State of the City speech," April 14, 2009 The mayor could have re-read this speech every day and get things moving that could have lessened today's problems. Well, he didn't.
RON KAYE'S BLOG FOR THIS MORNING
The posting here from early this morning tells us that the failings are the fault of them all. This column is really something that has most lines representing a lot of events that apply in seeing how the City became ground zero for the financial disaster we see now. This entry should be read carefully for what it tells us about the condition of the city and of the events and warnings of the past that got no response from the people in charge here.
"Failed Leaders, Failing City -- They All Must Go," By Ron Kaye on April 6, 2010 5:40 AM http://ronkayela.com/2010/04/dsfsdf-1.html#comments
The mayor has to decide if he's going to HELP the people or stay with his own ego and political ambitions that somehow remain, even though he's about destroyed the city by neglect and narcissistic plans that he made to boost his political career. It was supposed to be a boost to him at a huge expense to us. Of that plan, only the huge expense to us is happening. The worst mayor in the history of Los Angeles is about the only thing he's achieving. And you know how when things can change, people say, "It's not cast in stone" to show a possibility of change? Well his legacy IS being cast in stone and mounted, as well.
Too many City Hall stunts. Expect the Council to quietly start to approve hikes as they come up since many want that over the wishes of the people. Garcetti is doing all he can to contain his true desires to "go green" at all costs, even when the law's timetables don't require these hikes to happen now. It's just Tony trying to grab the glory of being the first city to have such progress in cleaner energy. Meanwhile that vehicle (the city) that he's trying to use for moving up the political later, is running out of gas on the freeway as it is adorned with eco-friendly accessories- and there is no roadside service for it.
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