SATURDAY AFTERNOON IN HIGHLAND PARK- for the public
The March 2011 city election nears, just a bit over five months away, and here is the first event featuring the candidates for the even-numbered City Council District seats. Well, even though the incumbents have been invited to attend, Bernard Parks of CD-8 is apparently the only one who feel secure enough to show up.
"Clean Sweep Presents LA's First All-City Council Candidate Forum from 1 to 4 p.m.. Details at: http://ronkayela.com/2010/09/clean-sweep-presents-las-first.html
This is a free event, with a registration requested to ensure the seating requirements can be met.
The location is the American Legion Hall at 227 N. Ave. 55, between Figueroa and Monte Vista.
This city election offers an opportunity to unseat several from their reign over the city where you see that honesty in government is a lost concept.
Some of the signs of that, if you are a non-believer or maybe simply a fan of these elected officials is that they had their voting machines set to generate an automatic "Yes" vote for motions, showing that really no one opposes another's motions or there's payback. "You vote for my motions or your motions will not pass," is an unspoken rule, and where there's no response to meaningful discussions or just no meaningful discussions to begin with, you have a dictatorial environment operating.
It's all very corrupt to say the least. Sometimes a "Yes" vote would be registered and the Council Member was NOT EVEN IN THE COUNCIL CHAMBER. (That had them scrambling for excuses when the L.A. Times revealed this set up.) I've heard Eric Garcetti ask for corrections from time to time on the vote as incorrectly registered and I suspect they still have not set the auto-pilot "Yes" vote control to "off."
The other thing that this automatic voting setup tells you is that there is really no need to read or study whatever comes before a CM. If they aren't interested in the particular topic- why should they read it? They are voting "Yes" anyway, right?
This seems to have happened with that ballot measure B on solar power- totally distorted by Garcetti and they all voted to put it on the ballot only to find a lot of manipulations and self-serving provisions (of course) inserted that would have you thing the IBEW local union itself
wrote it. Maybe they just dictated it. The CMs were changing their opinions when the public complained and it was Garcetti trying to find some way to avoid blame. Fortunately, Measure B was defeated at the polls by the people for the phony setup that it was.
There was a calculation of the votes taken in Council's motions that showed they voted UNANIMOUSLY in over 99% of the votes taken.
So when you see people in Public Comment speak against a motion in front of the Council and then see that the vote taken right after those comments is a unanimous "Yes," it looks like those speakers were totally ignored. And that's just what happens.
The speakers might have had more success in persuading the public out on the street by saying the comments out on Spring Street instead of inside the Council Chambers.
The other fact often presented is that while Public Comment goes on, the CMs have their own conversations with aides, chat with each other, or simply leave the room. It's so bad that often the person at the podium has to ask that they please pay attention to what they are saying.
There's lots more to show that tells you we need an overhaul in City Council, but if you are in the groups getting an inside connection and are having your interests addressed, then you have an interest in keeping that CM in office with so much invested in making campaign contributions and deals. Or maybe you are on the staff and in that case I can see why you would like to stay employed aside from the CMs worthiness or lack of same. That's just about job survival, not anything to do with a CMs actual merit.
More to be shown by candidates, for sure, before the elections, but at that $15,000 a month salary and perks on top of that, you know it's taking nearly a demolition team to get those incumbents out of their seats.
Too often we have acquiesced to the political double talk and allowed the career politicians to control major decisions that have taken us perilously close to a city bankruptcy filing.
Politicians at other levels are as bad, if not worse- check the State level and see that even Mayor Villaraigosa's cousin, State Assembly Speaker John Perez is caught clearly with more political-speak than substance in the news clips of the last few days, but it "sounds" important. Mostly it's all for the public to think something productive is happening with a state budget that's nearly permanently overdue.
It's time for change all around, but starting at the local level is a very do-able action to get better government.
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