Villaraigosa gets investigated two times for not reporting freebies.

First, there was the news about some things the mayor wasn't tell us.
Mayor Villaraigosa is being investigated by Ethics Commission about accepting free tickets as reported by Fox television reporter John Schwada. "Ethics Commission Investigating LA Mayor," Friday, 11 Jun 2010.Reporter: John Schwada
http://www.myfoxla.com/dpp/news/local/ethics-commission-investigating-la-mayor-20100611


Then, today, it seems that there's yet another investigation of the mayor that has the potential for more serious consequences.

"Second investigation opens into mayor's free tickets - D.A.'s Public Integrity Division joins the city's Ethics Commission in looking into whether Villaraigosa's unpaid attendance at sports and entertainment events should have been disclosed." By David Zahniser, Los Angeles Times, June 22, 2010.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mayor-tickets-20100623,0,562239.story

The mayor's attitude on this whole situation is the most revealing part of entire picture. Tony still has the arrogance and cavalier attitude on the subject is what continues to be the most troublesome here. The idea of disclosure of such gifts according to this the law is to provide some limits on the amount of influence that may arise where gifts are given alone. The other part of the law creates an obligation to report where there is some dealing in city business by the gift giver.

AEG has a number of ongoing transactions with the city and the mayor tries in a very lame fashion to try to shield his actions from disclosure by saying he is acting on official business so no disclosure and nor any gift value limitation applies here. He is just too far gone into his own caricature of a fool. When anyone expects something even remotely resembling the truth from this mayor, it's not going to happen. He is continually evading and avoiding disclosures of any sort. The mayor is taking the exact path to make it look like THERE IS something to hide- and he's right.

On the D.A.'s investigation? I really don't think there's any chance of criminal violations being found as the mayor has too many friends and some exculpating factors will be found to cover him; no specific intent to do the acts, a misunderstanding or any other "excuse" is going to let him slide.

The real story here is that we have a mayor who holds himself above the laws and regulations that are intended to apply to elected officials. If he does this with the simple stuff, what else do you think he might not be exactly following that he should be? The answer: Any and everything.

The additional signal here is that the Council members don't dare speak out against the actions since "birds of a feather flock together" and no one will blow the whistle where it might be themselves next in the news. THAT failure on the part of any of the CMs shows their own character flaws and just because they make the highest pay of any city council in the country, over $15,000.00 a month apiece, there is no connection to any higher level of anything being followed, be it morals, character, ethics or good judgment.

It's all about money and power and they already get too much money and you can see how much the power has corrupted them in assorted ways.

Operation Clean Sweep for a new Council in the even-numbered district elections coming in March 2011- like burned out light bulbs that leave us in the dark, they need to be replaced.

Alumni Association meeting on Saturday, June 16, 2010

It's time again for another Alumni Association meeting on Saturday, June 16, 2010. 9:30 a.m. in the Student Cafeteria at Lincoln.

It's the third Saturday of the month and time for the Alumni Association meeting.
The meeting is on the campus of Lincoln HS, at 9:30 am. in the student cafeteria. No charge, no obligation, everyone is welcome even if you are only an interested person and not alumni.

There are a few events to come and check for more details at the Alumni Association pages linked in the sidebar here.

June 25, 2010 Golf Tournament
* July 10, 2010 Picnic
* August 28, 2010 Texas Hold'em Poker
* Save the date: October 23, 2010. The next Alumni Dance.

Mayor Villaraigosa makes announcement on Lakers home game. Can he be more idiotic?

It just keeps getting better with Tony as he makes an announcement today that is being played on the radio news. He is making an annoucement to try to help the police side of things and keep people out of the area if they don't have tickets.

He says that you should stay home if you don't have a ticket and spend time with your family and save money and gas, blah, blah, blah. And where will HE be?

Well, he doesn't care- He's not exactly your best role model for much and most people are getting to see that as time goes on. He gets free courtside tickets he was not declaring and still doesn't as far as I know. at 3 to 4 grand apiece, there's a value for each pair that creates some tax impact for him but maybe that's not declared either. Some estimates at the value of free tickets he's been getting are around $400,000.00.

But to go on, his radio announcement is particularly idiotic since he's not telling you anything useful, helpful or even trustworthy. He gets free tickets, the city pays for his vehicle, his gas, his drivers, his police bodyguard detail, and who charges him parking? and you already know he's in the process of getting a divorce so there's the family aspect.

All more of what's so irrelevant with this guy. He is so bad that I can only see Eric Garcetti as a worse mayor with all his personal ambitions that will cost everyone but Garcetti should he get into office and work on more social engineering.

Well, good luck Lakers and if you notice the mayor there, he's supposed to be on "official city business" according to his view of things. According to Tony- "if you have an official purpose, it's not a gift, no, it's not a 'reportable gift'."

Spending more time at city hall and less at glitzy affairs would probably be too much of a culture shock for him. Anyway, it looks like the city's being affected more by Austin Beutner whose in charge of, what? 15 different departments now? He probably does know more about management of things than the Mayor does, but it's from his experience as a profit-motive entrepenuer. Is that good for the city? I don't think it is.

City Council's Arizona Boycott- sort of.

When the City Council decided that part of the job of managing the City of Los Angeles also included managing not just another city's business, but that of another state, Arizona.

Arizona's bill that passed, modeled after federal law, creates another statute to deal with the illegal immigration problem within the Arizona borders. The outpouring of criticism of the statute appears to have been made in many instances, and by persons of relative importance, without it ever being read.

One very vivid example was presented that was pretty amazing for what it demonstrated. This was within the Obama administration itself, no stranger again for making hasty statements on matters. So you have persons including the U.S. Atty. General Eric H. Holder, Jr., testifying about his views that he stated were formed without reading the law.

"Holder Admits to Not Reading Arizona's Immigration Law Despite Criticizing It," Published May 14, 2010. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/05/13/holder-admits-reading-arizonas-immigration-law-despite-slamming/

I recall that he mentiond the media as his source for forming his views during that session. So if this is the way the chief lawyer for the U.S. acts when he's expected to be better informed than just going by what he's heard, who can fault the rest for doing the same. (Except that this guy is getting paid to know such items of legal substance and if this were the private sector that employed him, he'd be looking for new job the next day.)

Here's the link to the YouTube video on the exchange (time: 3:53) that's also linked in the story above. "Eric Holder on Arizona Law: 'I have not read it yet'," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rH1FEcbi4A (By the way, Rep. Ted Poe who is doing the questioning was a state court judge beginning in 1981 and a felony prosecutor for 8 years before that.)

Council members approved the boycott, in a vote on the motion made by Janice Hahn during her campaign period for Lt. Governor, and Council president, Eric Garcetti, who might be even more disastrous than Villaraigosa if he ever becomes mayor.

The boycott that was so quickly adopted by the Council of course like most things that they do in their rushes to judgment, is not clearly a boycott in purist terms. There are lots of exemptions and exceptions that had to be made to keep the City from shooting itself in the foot.

The case of the Agenda Item 23 today, Tuesday, June 15, 2010, is one of those exceptions. The choice is to boycott or carve out an exception since this is something that may have some actual benefit to the LAPD, one of the pioneers in using helicopters as part of the law enforcement tools, now commonly used by the departments across the country.

The City Council might have considered using "prioritization" and working on getting the budget settled and not spending time and energy on a non-city, non-California items. But there's so much the Council is doing poorly, so what's another bad choice going to mean to them anyway? They have since authorized a amicus curiae brief to be drafted and submitted in the litigation on the Arizona law. So we have more expenditures of taxpayer money on items that do not have an impact on us and the bried if one of dozens, which means that unless L.A. finds something novel that other lawyers missed, it won't matter much in the big picture here. And in the face of the City Attorney's office being the subject of the reduction of their numbers by 100 according to Villaraigosa's budget proposal, it's not a good application of resources. But that's my view and you already know that there's lot's more poor application of resources by the Council and Mayor that a book could be written about it. Several books if you get into the unethical aspect, the intimidation and the political payoffs and bartering of appointments and intentional deceptions made upon the public. "Transparency" in city government is purely theoretical under Villaraigosa's leadership and Garcetti's own manipulations in the City Council.

And let's add the choice on the Agenda that they have to make today on an exception to the boycott:
ITEM NO. (23)
10-0991

MOTION (SMITH - PARKS) relative to Council authorizing a one-time exemption to the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) to attend the annual Airborne Law Enforcement Association Conference in Tucson, Arizona from July 12 through July 17, 2010.

Recommendation for Council action:

AUTHORIZE a one-time exemption to the LAPD to enable four officers to attend the annual Airborne Law Enforcement Association Conference in Tucson, Arizona from July 12 through July 17, 2010.

And so much more to consider. March 2011 will be elections for even-numbered council districts.

DWP gets caught again on a matter of veracity- This time by Controller Wendy Greuel

The DWP held back the transfer to the city of $73 million a few months back, saying it needed a rate hike and could not spare the money at that time without it.

The City Controller, Wendy Greuel, completed an audit and found that there was over $700 million in the DWP's own account, 10 times the amount that the City was waiting for.

"Controller finds DWP misled the public when it threatened to withhold funds from city- Wendy Greuel launched a probe into the agency's accounts after officials refused the mayor's request for $73.5 million. 'The DWP's actions unnecessarily plunged the city into a fiscal crisis,' she said." By David Zahniser, Los Angeles Times, June 11, 2010. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dwp-controller-20100611,0,7666607.story

Somebody in the DWP lied? All I can say is, 'What else is new?" Wendy is still a political person and very close to the mayor so she's not about to call these guys liars, even if that's the best word to use. The Mayor was the one pushing for the rate hike in April and he was completely on the DWP's side of the situation that was going to make bills higher for the residents and businesses in L.A. (Didn't he get elected to take care of the public's well being, and not to try making the road clear for DWP to make the most money it can make?) But you know what? He doesn't care as long as it moves all things to his goals of "looking good"- in this case, not the pretty boy stuff, but in the context of heading to a better record on converting to renewable energy and environmentally friendly things. It's all very expensive but not anything that will have him taper off for the public benefit. It's kind of like the way that Eric Garcetti presents, continuing to press on no matter how much expense it means for you and me.
===============

Check out Ron Kaye's blog and see his view of that situation,
"Condemned to Failure -- Beutner, DWP and the Refusal to Learn from the Past " By Ron Kaye on June 10, 2010 3:56 PM
http://ronkayela.com/ Austin Beutner is the Mayor's pick to run about 15 city departments. Usually you have one person with one department and that's the way that should make the most sense. Milliionaire or actually billionaire is working for a token amount and is the Mayor's hope for a solution to get him out of this financial jam that's been closing all around the city little by little over the past few years.

Ron Kaye sees some problems with Beutner's style and it's pretty apparent that there's a lot of posturing on this subject all around since no one wants to look bad here. The DWP workers caught by the Channel 2 reporter as they were drinking on the job and spending some down time in a strip club was just a little of a lot of ills that may not be widespread but should not be allowed to happen at all. DWP supervision either condones by its acquiescence regarding such activities or they didn't know at all what was happening until the Channel 2 reporter pointed out the problems by showing them. In that case, it points out some poor supervision practices followed, like, maybe, a failing by whoever is supposed to be supervising.

The DWP is more or less working on its own like a rogue agency, out of control from the City Council's view. Mayor Villaraigosa put Beutner into the job to be the extension of his authority. Villaraigosa was part of the problem when he was pushing for the rate hike that the DWP wanted, or it could have been a rate hike that the Mayor wanted to CYA on the budget, and keep the IBEW happy (as if they were not with the salary disparity and cushy terms that gave them raises to come in for 5 years).

The Mayor usually used to be on the union side of things and now had to be the bad guy on budget matters and you can be sure he did not want to be on the bad side of any union issues since he has relied on them for votes, a real big reason he caters to the union interests all around but look where it left the city. Such a fool.

But let's leave that for now as there's lots more going on- more antics of the Council and the Mayor to be examined, past and ongoing.

LAUSD now chooses disabled students to suffer cuts due to their own inept management

Well, the LAUSD finally has come around to affect the disabled students as part of the ones to carry the burden for the administration's history of waste, fraud and abuse.

"L.A. Unified to shutter 200 classes, campus for disabled students-
The schoolchildren will be transferred to other classes, sometimes meaning longer commutes to other schools. It's part of the beleaguered district's attempts to deal with a $640-million deficit." By Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times,
June 3, 2010, http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-disabled-20100602,0,7041114,full.story


The millions that they at LAUSD have wasted from malfeasance at the management level was apparent in the hugely expensive payroll software. That payroll software did not work properly and caused problems that costs the district in terms of money and frustration as well as the real impact in shortchanging people in their paychecks and leaving them unable to address their financial obligations, all due to the foul ups of that software.

Step back in time and see in Mayor Sam's posting in September 2007 what was happening- nothing good and it was nothing unusual for that to be the case.
http://mayorsam.blogspot.com/2007/09/lausd-payroll-problems-redux.html


Here is another sample on that particular project from Tim Rutten, usually with a very liberal sort of leaning, but not forgiving on this topic. "The clowns at LAUSD - Who was in charge of the school district's failed payroll system? No one -- and that should be enough to send Supt. Brewer packing. " By Tim Rutten - February 13, 2008, http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rutten13feb13,0,1383536.column

The LAUSD over years was lax in most areas where belt-tightening was not even the question, just simple accountability for expenditures made and justifications that made sense, rarely present in LAUSD dealings as long as the paper work was pushed properly.

The education effort by LAUSD was at least attentive to the children in special education programs and those especially needy at the special education centers. There has been a lot of problems with service to the special ed students in the comprehensive (regular) campuses and many obligations of the legally significant IEPs were not met with compliance for a variety of reasons, yet corrective action was only made in sporadic fashion. We had a law that said that all students were supposed to have their textbooks issued and when the spot checks by the district were actually made, still about 13 teachers/classes were not on the ball to show it- even though there was a concentrated effort that week to have ALL needs meet as far as books were concerned. There should easily have been a ZERO non-compliance number but there wasn't. Maybe that was a follow-up for the principal's crew to do before the spot-check, but that water over the dam now.

So you see that simple things don't even go right as they should, so tougher things slip through on a more regular basis.

Now the disabled students see closures that should not be happening, especially when there often is a tightly knit group of teachers, at least more so than at the regular campuses, and the populations served more regularly have parental involvement, often out of necessity in many cases where disabled students are involved.

I don't think that the answer to improved quality overall in education is solved by throwing money at it, but the special ed side of things needs to be maintained for both the producing results and for compliance with the federal and other mandates that don't seem to be given proper attention.

I don't know if this is a done deal, but the way that the district spent money on other things they should not have is what I think about when considering if you have any responsible management at the top there. This edition of the school board bears the current blame, but there is also a legacy of past members, including my own Council member Jose Huizar CD-14, who was the past president and thought that was a "plus" for his campaign for re-elections. I would have thought he should have downplayed that role for all the results that did not materialize under his "leadership."

Huizar's former aide, Monica Garcia, is carrying on her own politically controlled leadership now, heavily if not totally influenced by our loser mayor Antonio Villaraigosa who was so wrapped up in who-knows-what thoughts that he forgot to include the Korean War in the list of wars at the Memorial Day observance at the National Cemetary in West L.A. - and reacting poorly to a comment by adding "Do you want to do this?" or "Do you want to come up here," not a calm and collected reaction to any comment at all. You can find him courtside tonight at the Laker game. Ticket value each: about $4,000. but he's not reporting such things, so I will. So you can see there's influence spread that's around by freebies and Antonio says it's "official business" so it's o.k. Nice try.

Read the story and you may not really see the significance of this kind of facility but it does make a difference in the life opportunities for the future of disabled students especially where there is a signifcant limitation as here with blind and vision-impaired students. Learning is what it is about and diminishing the facilities available for such functional exercises is another problem on top of the reduced numbers of teachers that the budget cuts are causing.