Sunday, February 28, 2010

L.A. Times Gives Revealing View of Mayor's Cousin, Assembly Speaker-elect, John Perez- A True Politician

And what do you know? There's a story in the L.A. Times today about Mayor Villaraigosa's cousin, John Perez, who was elected to the state assembly with a lot of help from Antonio and his associates. Perez is being sworn in as the Assembly Speaker on Monday and although he's often viewed as the defender of the downtrodden and neglected members of society, the Times' story shows that Perez is definitely not being neglected by those with big campaign donation money to send his way.

And why would you think campaign money is donated to a politician? Could it be like "forget-me-nots" that keep the donor in the mind of the politician when it comes time to make decision? Working for special interests keeps that money flowing so denial of any "quid pro quo" or "something in exchange for something else" just pushes the limits of credibility. What do they take us for? Fools? Quite possibly. With the rise in taxes in California, you can add that saying, "A fool and his money are soon parted." So, "Yes" they do take us for fools. Electing and re-electing them may be signs of that categorization.

"California Assembly Speaker-elect Pérez has ties to deep pockets - The legislator, who has cultivated an image as a crusader for the marginalized and powerless, has also advocated for the powerful."
By Patrick McGreevy and Jack Dolan, L.A. Times, February 28, 2010. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-perez28-2010feb28,0,2336364,full.story Tony has undoubtedly shared tips and trained John in the art of accumulating campaign donations, and it involves a lot of cozying up to those with access to large amounts of cash.
Before his election to the Assembly, while a member of the Los Angeles redevelopment commission, Pérez voted to give millions in government subsidies to a giant real estate firm that contributed heavily to his union's political fund.

Pérez, 40, a cousin of L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa -- a former Assembly speaker himself -- responded philosophically when asked about his involvement with powerful patrons.
That response is representative of another political skill developed by politicians and constantly improved on by practice- the art of spin. What you say in response to challenges is affected by HOW you say it. It all depends on how you give your interpretation to a set of facts. The truth is that the other characteristic often found in politicians seems to co-exist with all else in the make up of an elected offiicial, and it's that proclivity for shading the truth that most people call "lying."

Deception, mischaracterization, omission of facts, failures to disclose and a whole array of other terms for not giving the true picture will all apply to the political scene. I see that regularly in the City Council affairs as they conduct business, sometimes subtley done and sometimes shown by a contradictory statement that itself exposes an earlier position of the same speaker. But read the story and see that John Perez is only a rookie in terms of years in the Assembly, but not by his political experience. He can play to both sides of an issue and come out ahead and he's spent years before the Assembly election to use the same paths and directions that his cousin, the celebrated Antonio Villaraigosa, has tested and developed to advance himself along in politics. Would you call that the "Villaraigosa Way?"

My obervation here is that we are getting another politician in the mold of the Mayor, and we have seen that all the political victories of the individual do not equate with running things well and producing a benefit for the public. Instead, I see that we are in for more economic mistakes to be made by legislators, with the taxpayers being used to foot the bill. Taxpayers become again involutary enablers of the overspending, overextending authority of state government. That government ignores individuals rights, practices its costly experiments in social engineering as a nanny state, while making it expensive for businesses, including small businesses, to remain operating as many more regulatory measures are produced that continue to force business closures or chase businesses out of California, taking their jobs with them.

Read about John's background and see how money is the lubricant of the political machinery that operates for benefit of those that maintain the machine. The only one who I see making out very well in all this economic calamity over all the years is John Perez. He is not the only one able to manipulate the power he's accumulated to generate even more power, but the fact is clear that challengers to office holders generally don't do well at all without the funding to wage expensive campaigns. That result is shown by most victories from the city level to the national level. A change in campaign funding laws might balance the playing field or at least allow others onto it.

A change to PART TIME LEGISLATURE could force legislators to focus on the priorties of the state first and not pay them to stay in Sacramento the entire year to run their personal business of power brokering and cavorting with the special interests that include the monied businesses and unions alike. Cutting down the unneeded time in Sacramento will get them in and out of the city more quickly to force completion of real work ahead of non-essential activity. They would not have time to play footsies with the campaign funders the rest of their time year-round and they would have less time to plot out ways to satisfy demands of these sources of campaign funds while they concoct needless and expensive laws along the way. Politicians would have less time to brainstorm more ways to exploit their offices as they do now, and it would reduce prostituting themselves as has become more widely revealed regularly in newspaper reports about politicians as we continue with day to day life.

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Mayor Tony to Host Pre-Oscar Party Thursday- What Budget Crisis?

From the L.A. Weekly's City News, "What Budget Mess? Mayor V. To Host Pre-Oscar Party," by Dennis Romero, Friday, Feb. 26 2010 @ 12:14PM
http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/city-news/mayor-host-oscar-party/

The Mayor always aims to please- unfortunately it has very little to do with making the city better for the people. The paragraph below, from that story, captures the incongruity of the situation that continues to be the trademark of the Villaraigosa administration.

Now comes word that Mayor V., ever the man with his priorities straight (witness December's trek to Europe or this month's cameo on All My Children), will be hosting a pre-Oscar party at the city-funded mayor's residence Thursday night. Because, when the city's on it's last dime and you can't find a cop when you need one, what it really needs is a red-carpet event celebrating the ultra-rich of Hollywood.

Only one year into his second 4-year term as mayor of Los Angeles and Tony V. has not lost one bit of his penchant for showing his lack of concern for the regular people of Los Angeles. Tony's actions continue to contradict what the situation calls for. I suppose we should all be used to that by now. Tony simply cannot resist the opportunity to mix it up with monied interests and the Hollywood (or wherever they are making movies these days) celebrities. It's like his entire being is all about validating his self-image of grandeur. The idea he's apparently following is, "Look at me. I am important and I have to hang around with other important people to prove that to you."

And some people wonder how things can get any worse in management of the city. Stand by for more bad news from all the regular elected sources of ineptitude.

Friday, February 26, 2010

Remember the Golden Gate Theater on Whttier & Atlantic?

Here is something from last week that concerns an old landmark of sorts in East L.A., the Golden Gate Theater. I only remember passing by this location that was on that heavily visited cruise strip of Whittier Blvd. back in the 60s. Over the years the adjacent building were demolished and left what you see in the photo in the story link below. Well, it's still there and some changes are planned for its use.

"The Golden Gate Theatre's Second Act - Becoming a CVS Drugstore," Written by EGP News Service, Friday, 19 February 2010. http://ourla.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1549&Itemid=3236 The property is in the unincorporated part of the County of L.A. and approvals for everything planned goes through that governmental agency. It is good to see that not everything in Los Angeles is torn down to facilitate everything that is new. The downside of this is that there are lots of hoops to jump through, everything is more expensive, gettting more so as time moves on, and sometimes there is a lot of opposition to anything for better or worse, and the changes wind up taking years and years, or sometimes just getting scrapped.

I like to see that there's something left of history in Los Angeles, and that people want to preserve it. But a factor in the interest level is that there are so many newcomers to L.A. that could not care one bit less of what was there before. These "newcomers" include some young people arriving in L.A. "more recently" by reason of being born long after many of these historical sites had their best days.

You can look to downtown L.A. as one example of local history. Who remembers that that used to be the place to see a movie with all the theaters on or near Broadway? And even MORE trivia- Do you remember that you would be seeing TWO movies for your admission? If you remember those days you are part of the shrinking group of L.A. people that can only pass along stories to the younger ones - and when I say younger, that now includes the 30 and 40-somethings who were lucky to have seen the last remnants of that era.

More on the LAUSD rejection of Charter Schools applications.

"The charter school test case that didn't happen - If they hadn't been mostly shut out of bids to run a slew of new L.A. Unified campuses, the groups might have demonstrated how they handle students with challenging needs." By Howard Blume,
February 26, 2010 - L.A. Times.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-charter26-2010feb26,0,1231323.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fmostviewed+%28L.A.+Times+-+Most+Viewed+Stories%29

The story is pretty rich in content to tell you that there is a good helping of politics that goes on in decisions by the LAUSD Board when it comes to everything. The Public School Choice voting for preferences of takeover proposals a few weeks ago, leading to School Superintendent Ramon Cortines to recommend among them just which ones will walk away with the right to set up shop and do some serious schooling on campus.

I was surprised with what the Board Member, Yolie Flores Aguilar, said since it made so much sense and I had not noticed that kind of thing as one of her qualities. I guess I was still miffed about her good fortune to double-dip and work for Gloria Romero and pull in thousands as a consultant without any observable work produced while on the Board.
And in this instance, charters agreed to operate by more inclusive rules in exchange for access to state-of-the-art, multimillion-dollar campuses.

"This would have been an opportunity to have [charters] rise to the challenge as we in the district do every day in serving these populations at an equal level," said board member Yolie Flores, who brought the school-control proposal to the board in August.
Union president AJ Duffy was speaking the party line and I have come to take what he says with the proverbial grain of salt. He is never one to be constrained in his comments by actual facts.
His job is to work for teachers and of course, perpetuate the power of his union. The collateral benefit to actual children who are the students to be served is always secondary as a priority.

Read the story and see what I mean. Maybe there SHOULD have been a charter allowed to try it's hand since LAUSD has had years with the results being shown among these low performing schools. The addressing of needs of special education and English Language Learners if attempted by charters who are not without some success was not allowed. It's political, remember?

The title of labor czar could have been applied to Maria Elena Durazo, as the labor head with considerable influence that is thrown the way of the LAUSD, who in its typical and characteristic style, is hopelessly unable to resist any of it. I think the role held by the Board President Monica Garcia fits nicely into a too-cozy relationship where Garcia's very comfortable. Too often I think we have something of hero-worshipping substituting for objective and productive actions taken on behalf of students and the publie in general.
Although Supt. Ramon C. Cortines favored mostly internal proposals, he had also recommended giving schools to Green Dot Public Schools, the Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools and ICEF Public Schools, which all came away empty-handed. All are charter management groups with a track record in the city.

Flores, the author of the reform strategy, had argued that Cortines' recommendations should be followed without exception.
The personal issues override the fiduciary duties owed by the public officials. And what the heck does that term mean? I doubt that Garcia is even aware of the concept, as appears to be the case with so many local politicians.
=========================================================
"fiduciary duty
Definition
Employees' or directors' legal and moral duty to exercise the powers of their office for the benefit of the employer or the firm. Directors owe the duty of utmost good faith and must not put themselves in a position where their personal interests and their fiduciary duties may conflict. Also called fiduciary obligation."

So there is the quick "in a nutshell" definition. A little more elaboration below will give you a better basis from which to evaluate how it is so constantly breached by our politicians.
================================================================

"Breach of Fiduciary Duty Law & Legal Definition
A fiduciary duty is an obligation to act in the best interest of another party. For instance, a corporation's board member has a fiduciary duty to the shareholders, a trustee has a fiduciary duty to the trust's beneficiaries, and an attorney has a fiduciary duty to a client.

A fiduciary obligation exists whenever the relationship with the client involves a special trust, confidence, and reliance on ithe fiduciary to exercise his discretion or expertise in acting for the client. The fiduciary must knowingly accept that trust and confidence to exercise his expertise and discretion to act on the client's behalf.

When one person does agree to act for another in a fiduciary relationship, the law forbids the fiduciary from acting in any manner adverse or contrary to the interests of the client, or from acting for his own benefit in relation to the subject matter. The client is entitled to the best efforts of the fiduciary on his behalf and the fiduciary must exercise all of the skill, care and diligence at his disposal when acting on behalf of the client. A person acting in a fiduciary capacity is held to a high standard of honesty and full disclosure in regard to the client and must not obtain a personal benefit at the expense of the client. "
===================================================

And that doesn't seem to be what we are getting from electing these people into office.

On with the charter situation and their exclusion- You can see the turf issues in the story. The teachers feel an entitlement and it is viewed that way by the union, too.
Charters should not be allowed to run new schools, paid for by taxpayers, that were intended for all children, said A. J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles.
Well, Mr. Duffy missed the idea that the charters WERE going to address serving those children, but you see how defensive they get. What else do you or can you expect him to say? "Let them try out and we will find out if they know what they are doing."? No, that's not a good approach since they children might actually do well- and that's not good from the union's way of looking at things.

Turf enters the area where the Board did not follow the Cortines recommendations, and he was the one with a large role in conducting the evaluations of the voting and the program proposals. Like I said, it's politics and not any way following duties within their fiduciary obligation. How can anyone expect this Board to improve things when it keeps following a political path that's about adults and not the education path that affect children?

Thursday, February 25, 2010

L.A.P.D Chief to improve treatment of cyclists; Officers to be trained

"LAPD Chief Charlie Beck vows to better protect cyclists
He calls bike riders the 'most vulnerable commuters.' Bicycle advocates have been pushing the department to do more to crack down on motorists who don't respect bikers' right to the road
." By Ari B. Bloomekatz [Times staff writer Kate Linthicum contributed to this report.] February 26, 2010

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bike-beck26-2010feb26,0,7906796.story

The City Transportation Committee met on Wednesday afternoon where the problems with safety of cyclists and actions of LAPD were discussed. There was a city employee who bikes his way to work and was hit by a motorist who stopped but left with the cyclist still in the street, with injuries. The woman driving the car went to the police later and no charges were made.

The increasing numbers of bicycle riders in the city is growing more and there is a lot of confusion on the law when it comes to bike riders and motorists sharing the roads. There's a lot of bicycle riders who don't obey laws and cause a lot drivers to become less tolerant of bike riders in general, as if all do that bad behavior.

Lack of enforcement of traffic laws and lack of both motorists and bicyclists knowing the law themselves has pushed the conditons to a point where safety all around has been diminshing.

The story gives more details but you should consider that with all the irritation that some riders cause does not justify any reponse that could cause injury or death. The doctor who caused serious injury by suddenly stopping in front of cyclists behind him with the intention to hurt them was convicted of assault and got himself some prison time. He said he was sorry but that's not enough to erase any of the harm, and it's something that would probably apply to getting caught as much as regretting that this happened. Too late. So anger does not exuse conduct that would cause injury just to prove some useless point, especially when jail time is the cost.

Consider that your child or friend could be victimized by motorists who have had bad experiences with OTHER riders and not with your child or friend. It is not be right for a motorist to try to respond to an offending bicyclist with physical harm, especially using a car or an even larger SUV to do it, but IT IS CLEARLY AND COMPLETELY WRONG to vent on someone who is not connected with causing any problems. So even an attitude condoning a "getting even" or "teach them a lesson" type of action is part of the problem. It could come back to cause your friends or your family problems like that undeserved kind of action when the go out bicycling.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

NC Elections Continue- Council rejects CM Greig Smith's Penny Wise, Pound Foolish Motion; Rollover Funds Swept.

THE NC ELECTIONS DECISION
Greig Smith, City Council Member, decided to take the spotlight and make a motion to save a few dollars by taking the Neighborhood Council elections (affecting 89 of 90 NCs) out from the City Clerk's responsibility and give to the NCs to save some of the unspent funding that the Clerk's Office was allocated. Well, it was not anything that Mr. Smith could have spent much time considering before jumping on this idea- A motion to shift the elections from the City Clerk to the Neighborhood Councils as had been the case UNTIL THIS YEAR'S ELECTIONS, and that change was something that the Council approved some time back, at more than a year ago.

CM Smith tried to scoop up unspent funds from the City Clerk and leave NCs to finish the election with NO time to arrange the changes and NO funding to pay for any outside expenses. The City Clerk took the job, and I think it was done for the City to keep them busy in this non-election year for the City, and get funding from the NCs budget.

To do this change now would be more than a bad move. NCs have proposed taking over their elections for the NEXT election cycle- in 2012, I believe, not NOW when there's an elaborate process already constructed to be followed by all NCs that would go out the window if it was broken down among the 89 NCs now. So we could have a bad election, a lot of irregularities and where any challenges are made, the city has to check into it, especially if anyone challenges something with a lawsuit, a best bet for corrective action if something is not right with any of the elections.

To sum it up, CM Smith would get some change back from the very expensive City Clerk processing of the election but lots of that has already been spent with 9 regional elections to be held from now to June. All that work and planning would be mostly wasted if not all wasted.

On Tuesday, the Council voted to approve an amendment, based on another Education and Neighborhoods Committe recommendation, that allows the elections to continue and see if any cost saving measures can be applied to provide any money saved to go back to the Reserve fund.

NC FUNDS- ROLLOVER FUNDS SWEPT
The NCs that did not spend all funds alloted by the end of each fiscal year that runs from July to June, used to have that money roll over into the next Fiscal Year's funding. That is no more as the City Council is furiously looking for was to collect more dollars in the current budget crisis. Some funds for each NC can be paid from that rollover account IF documentary proof of spending commitments with specified requirements can be established. That just means that funded but not paid items will get paid, provided that necessary documents are presented for accounting proof. A memo with a list of requirements has been sent to each NC's board members for compliance before an April date for cut-off date to use this exception procedure.

The LAUSD chooses operators for low performing schools; Lincoln to see changes in operations.

LAUSD's Board members have decided on their selections for the lowest performing schools and some new schools. Lincoln High is one of them, and it's not on the new school category to clue you in. Read the reports that are just a little diferent from each other. Some see this as a monumental change from what has been going on in LAUSD and others see that not much change is shown since the takeover operators are still teacher-based, union influenced or otherwise of a lot of what was formerly in operation instead of a charter operator.

The proposals of three charters considered the top of the heap were rejected by the Board. Some of the choices made from the elections held at the school sites a few weeks ago and evaluated by Superintendent Cortines were not followed by the Board. A lot of charter school applicant were dissatisfied with the results and did not feel they were fairly considered.

"LA school board snubs charter school operators." By CHRISTINA HOAG Associated Press Writer, Posted: 02/23/2010 10:50:52 AM PST, Updated: 02/23/2010 09:30:43 PM PST http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14454893?nclick_check=1

EDUCATION- FEBRUARY 24, 2010. "Novel School Plan Upheld -Los Angeles' Board of Education voted Tuesday to hand over some of its public schools to charter school operators and teachers groups, part of an unusual experiment."
By TAMARA AUDI
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703503804575083914215873570.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond

As far as Lincoln's voting went, there was a proposal from a teacher-led group and from a prinicipal-led group. Some schools had many more to choose from, and just the two proposals at Lincoln left many voters still unclear as how the changes were different between the proposals. As to which of the two plans prevailed, I did not see in the reports but I believe that the Superintendent's recommendation to the Board was favoring the principal-led operation. So we will see just how the operations change and what we see in the way of improvements in performance of the students, the ultimate purpose of the changes.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Charter Schools deficient in meeting needs of students with disabilities, report concludes.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Monday, February 22, 2010

The Mayor says pay cuts for all city employees to save jobs

"Mayor Villaraigosa calls for pay cuts for all city workers
He says the action would reduce the need to cut 4,000 jobs. He also plans to eliminate Environmental Services and Human Services departments and transfer some duties to other agencies."
By Phil Willon, February 20, 2010, L.A. Times.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/la-me-la-budget20-2010feb20,0,2380036.story?track=rss

Here's a story from Saturday that gives some more information on what the Mayor's plans are to allow you to fill in that information with the big picture. The pay cuts request is another thing that you can add to the Mayor's dreams for L.A. and that's about how close this will ever become a reality because no one's taking a cut without anyone else going first. They have to put in some bigtime trust into the city's management for that to work out, but I think it's safe to say it will never happen. They were supposed to lay off after the agreement with the coalition of unions that gave that groups some layoff protection for the rest of the fiscal year and that delay was worth about $350,000 a day in expenses exceeding the revenues, or "income" as we regular folks call it.

So much dishonesty in the making of the mess and now it's reached proportions that make them scramble to throw everything overboard to lighten the load of the sinking ship, but keeping the employees in other NON-general funds jobs. It's kind of like that ship needs to be lightend up but all the weighty things favored by some are "untouchables" and so, aren't tossed overboard. What happens now? Simple, now the whole ship goes down with all aboard. And that's what we see at City Hall as they try to dream up more taxes and fees to extract more cash from the rest of the people in the city.

All that money they get in City Hall and in State government is like dope to a junkie. They want more money and they wind up in the same condition, well, actually, in worse condition, than they were in before. And that gives you a good picture of why you have to resist any taxes. Now in the State government, a tax on sodas, 1 cent for every teaspoon of sugar as they describe it. And it's all in the name of health (always a good approach for cover to sneak in what they really want to do) and it's supposed to address obesity. I guess diet sodas won't be touched if there's not any sugar content. I want to see the way the politicians will try to grab that, too.

If they wanted to address obesity, think about video games, internet access, texting and all kinds of other things that keep young people from getting into any actual physical exercise as part of their daily routines. You used to have kids walk to and from school all the time. Now nearly everyone gets a ride. It's not safe on the streets out there you know. They may be right to a large extent. Gangs are a threat and really that has not been addressed well by anyone in Los Angeles. The state really just looks to what they find to sell the public on a justification that will cause the resistance to the tax to disappear.

Remember that the true welfare of anyone is rarely the motivation for doing anything by politicians. They respond to pressure, be it from special interests or citizen groups. That converts to votes if they play it well. But they thrive on handling money, your money. And do not be so accepting of things like this tax on sodas. It will continue next time on other products and finally there will be nothing protected from these junkies.

We really need different kinds of office holders who don't have that traditional money grubbing training in their histories and instead put in people who see what we need to do for improving the mess left by the current crop of politicians, politicians that you and your neighbors and friends put into office either by voting FOR them or by NOT coming out to vote for OTHER challengers and letting them take an easy ride to re-election. They have had their chance at city hall and they did not come up to the task.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Mayor Villaraigosa Uses Sunday Times column for more Propaganda

In Sunday's L.A. Times "Opinion" section, there's a column written by the mayor that is another adventure into polluting the English language with more pure and plentiful crap than we would likely see from any assembled city gridlock of gasoline-fueled internal combution engines. The title is not a bad start, but that's where the whole tale started to go wrong. Quite simply, it is another example of what's been going on for years, Mayor Villaraigosa lies. This time Mayor Villaraigosa lies about the spending so that he can accomplish more of the bad decision-making. The Mayor plans on making bad condions worse, exempting his favor projects from any "shrinking" he talks about. Tony, of course, will be able to walk away from the disaster without any personal responsibility when his term expires in three more years, probably looking for another public office and more voters foolish enough to give him an opportunity to share his "dreams" that turn into nightmares for everyone else.

"L.A.'s mayor: We must shrink city government
For years, spending has outpaced revenue. Solving that problem means cutting or eliminating services we can't afford. Unfortunately, it also means layoffs."
By Antonio R. Villaraigosa,
February 21, 2010. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-villaraigosa21-2010feb21,0,3201095.story The Mayor is laying off- well, let's say that accurately- he says we need to lay off more workers. Last week it was 1,000 jobs. Then he said it was not necessarily "people" but the "positions" to eliminate, so that the numbers of people will not be all lost, just the "positions." That's due to some shifting people to city agencies like Airports, Harbor, and the DWP that run on different funds. So what the Mayor says and what really happens or could happen- since we really don't have much to show for layoffs since I heard him say that word at least as far back as January 2009- is not the truth.

Now getting to the article, rather than making this run on and on as usually happens, I will just say that first, I don't think that the Mayor wrote this all by himself. There's a huge staff he's hired since first taking office 4-1/2 years ago, around 200. So I am sure one or two of them do the writing for Tony. Second, although the column is not any masterpiece of wordsmithing, I don't think Tony is up on writing a piece completely by himself. I don't think he's got the interest or the patience to focus on the activity.

Now getting to the content. He uses a lot of really crude devices to set up his arguments by comparing things we could say we reasonably MUST have, like police and fire protection. Then he juxtaposes that with what he wants to scrap, something that is LESS in important, but still may be important all by itself, so you have a hard time to disagree with him in making the choice as he sets it up.

But the idea is to really give you NO choice and to make it look as if this is the only option there is. Clearly no one said "It's the cops or the potholes" so setting up this is all phony but what it does show you is what Tony is setting up as things that are going to be cut. There is a lot that is staying that HE decided has to be that way, in contrast to his often stated "shared sacrifice" approach to managing the situation.

We already saw a big example of his fanaticism with the goal of increasing the LAPD size to 10,000 officers and to do it at all costs to US, the people of Los Angeles. The first step was supposed to do it all and that was by kicking up the trash fees by three times the existing levels of charges of about $11 a month to about $36 a month for most residents. (The DWP does the billing and it comes every 2 months to make the trash bill about $72 each billing period.) All that was NOT spent like advertised by him and MORE money was sucked out of the public that did not get the LAPD levels up to the stated goal. So on and on with this project, and he's still resisting cutting back on LAPD hires when there's no money- but that's why you see him using the L.A. Times to spread his version. If he says things enought times, people may even believe it.

Now, layoffs are needed to balance the budget as you know the unions have already told Tony to shove it as far as he can if he thinks they will take cuts. They say they already worked out an agreement and any problems with the outcome are all the City's fault now. He screwed up negotiations with the unions on the Early Retirement Incentive Program ("ERIP") and that's costing us money AND the loss of some experienced and talented people that the city might need to run things right. The unions are using, as usualy, their very skilled negotiators and they are not really supposed to look out for the city's interests but only that of their members. That's what the city has negotiators for. The deals have not worked out, lots of things were not worked out properly, delays in taking action by the city let the city go more deeply into the red, lots of ERIP retirees were not from the General Fund and their retirements did not work to whittle down the expenses included within the budget. Only the unions made out well, having job protected from layoffs an raises shifted around to come back to them on new dates later.

What to do? Tony now is ready to sell off (or "long term lease", say 99 years) anything that will get money. A lot of this is revenue generating and the losses that he complains of could have been profits if there were something of a plan in management. Tony doesn't care. He is desperate now that he's looking to go down in history as the worst mayor ever of Los Angeles. Selling off the Zoo, Convention Center, Parking Lots, Meters and so on only make sense to him because he will be gone in 3 more years and he can forget about the other 96 years left on the long term leases.

Suppose parking meters and city owned parking lots go over to a private company. Do you think rates won't jump up and by a lot? Of course. That's the only reason to buy these things, to make money. These "money losers" have created a lot of interested buyers and that's a sign that Tony's story is missing the true picture. Who wants to buy something to LOSE money?

If the city held onto these it as it has, it would not be the purpose of the city to screw everyone for every last dollar in parking money and the rates would be at least a little more reasonable than any private sector business would charge. The city is supposed to provide services to the people at a reasonable cost. The parking is a service, part of city operations for the public. This is all going out the window with Villaraigosa's plan. If the parking meters lose money, take them out and just put up signs limiting the time only. You will never have to pay for fixing meters again and still give tickets for overtime parking with the available workforce as time permits for this task.

The city is not doing anything equtably when it comes to it's own work force. DWP is out of control, getting up to 40% higher salaries for the same jobs as other city departments, getting good deals on top of good deals, getting raises for the next several years while others are on furlough schedules. This is partly due to the inept contract negotiation characteristic of the city and the desire to cater to unions wishes over the needs of the people of the city.

Tony spent much of his career on the side of unions and the unions contribute to his campaign funding. Tony cannont come down too hard on them because he still knows they also have votes and they have a disciplined membership that can mess with his plans for future public office, should he think of running for one. Tony CANNOT really come to pull the trigger on the heavy duty plans as they affect the unions. Instead, he can jack up the departments that are small and will not have such impact against him. He can throw it all back on the public to pay for HIS planning and for his FAILURES to plan.

Wednesday, the SEIU will be coming down to City Hall to show the Council how much they do not like the plans. Tune in to see them wear down the City Council members and see the CMs talk out of both side of their mouths at the same time. Maybe that's why they are the highest paid CMs in the country, pulling in about $15,000 a month for all these talents. One talent that remains missing is competent city management.

Tony is such a hypocrite with spending. He has spent untold thousands of dollars on travel internationally and to D.C. while claiming it's part of the job. He has NOT spent those dollars and the hours that go with the travel on what was supposed to be his job, taking care of city business. EVEN WHEN HE WAS HERE, he ventured into an area clearly out of his jurisdiction- the school, and worked to put his choices into LAUSD and even to go the extra mile to take over some school.

I for one saw that this was crazy. There was not enough work to find in the City business so he has to find OTHER agencies tasks to try to take over? And he was and still is not any expert in the field, so why do this? Ego? Vanity? Probably.

So, is it any wonder now that Tony is trying to convince US that WE have to suffere losses of city services due to the ECONOMY? Economy is not the reason for all this. Other cities have had the same situations but have not dug themselves so deeply into a hole when things started to go sour. SPENDING by the city - and the "city" meand "city council" and "the Mayor" since they make those decisions and put people into jobs to get things done, including finding problems early so that they can be avoided or remedied. That didn't work out too well, did it?

They had a pension fun loss in millions after the person advising them was able to collect some money that were essentially commissions for sending over the business. Now there's some criminal problems happening there, but the money doesn't come back. No, the people supposed to help the city avoid problems were the problems, and expensive ones.

I already went on too long, but there's just too much here to say it all. With L.A. city officials, you will see no one take the blame and everyone take the credit AND they will say, "and thank you for YOUR GREAT LEADERSHIP IN THIS ACTIVITY, COUNCIL MEMBER (fill in the name)." You can take all that flowery language, put it in a bag and take it to your garden and empty it out there for some first class manure application, which is all that congratulating is worth.

In closing, I want to point out how these CMs and the Mayor try to jam each other for the blame without blaming themselves. You have the regular attacks on department heads by Alarcon and now Smith. You have the very annoying cross-examination approach Tony Cardenas uses, often appearing sincere in his unfamiliarity of a topic as he asks fundamental questions, then as if he's another person, he makes a mini-speech where he recites a summary of what the subject area is about, clearly not being in the dark about anything except been terrifically annoying in the entire demonstration.

Read Tony's letter and don't take it as being all that can be done. It is only what Tony wants to do and he's trying to get you to accept that pain so you won't squeal so loudly when it all starts to take effect, showing you then how lousy of a manager he and the city council were in preserving any quality of life like they were supposed to do.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

The Mayor is Abolishing Dept. of Neighborhood Empowerment; NC seriously threatened.

There was a meeting yesterday afternoon held at City Hall with Deputy Mayor Larry Frank and the Neighborhood Council members to discuss the plan for NCs. The announcement was made that DONE is no more, merging with the Community Development Department, phasing out to begin next week and finished by July.

"DONE is Done: Mayor Abolishes Dept. Of Neighborhood Empowerment, Dismantling Starts Next Week," By Ron Kaye on February 20, 2010, 11:32 AM
http://ronkayela.com/2010/02/done-is-done-mayor-abolishes-d.html

"DONE is Done -- Mayor Abolishing Dept. of Neighborhood Empowerment," Written by Al Abrams, DONE Board Member, Saturday, 20 February 2010. http://ourla.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1558&Itemid=3233

Note that operation of the elections now in progress among the 9 regions affecting 89 NCs is sougt to shifted from the Clerk's office to the NCs directly to save money. Penny wise and pound foolish. The NCs are not now equipped to instantly takeover this and the NEXT elections would be more logically possible. CM Greig Smith came up with that gem of an idea. I can forsee a lot of integrity of process issues that could undermine the entire NC elections if this goes forward. Contact your CM and voice opposition to this not-well-thought-out plan brought to us by CM Greig Smith.

Friday, February 19, 2010

City Council orders 3000 more layoffs; SEIU members coming on down to City Hall on Wednesday

Thursday's special meeting of the L.A. City Council resulted in one very strange and unexpected decision. Some things did go pretty well, however. Recommendations for the Neighborhood Councils resulting from the hearing in the Education and Neighborhoods committee were followed to a large extent. There's more to determine before all issues of money are sorted out and finalized. Meanwhile, on the layoff numbers you now have a huge jump from 1,000 that Villaraigosa "ordered" last week to the new number from the City Council that was decided somewhere but I missed that part apparently in all the reports. A "backroom" decision? It's a possibility. Other than matters of a confidential nature, the Brown Act puts a lot of limits to what can even be discussed in private among the politicians making decisions.


"L.A. City Council orders 3,000 more job cuts - To help address the city's budget crisis -- and after the threat of a credit downgrade -- the council tells agencies to act by July 1. The move is on top of 1,000 cuts already in the works."
By Phil Willon and Maeve Reston, February 19, 2010, L.A. Times, http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-la-budget19-2010feb19,0,1667101.story Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.

So the SEIU, the union representing a big segment of city workers is not standing for this one, not one bit. And here's the reply in an open letter to SEIU 721 members at LA City from President Bob Schoonover:

"It's Time for Leadership, Not Layoff Threats from LA City," 9:19 PM - February 18, 2010. http://www.seiu721.org/2010/02/time-for-leadership-not-layoff-threats.php The letter is pretty brief and what will be happening Wednesday is a big show of opposition to what the Council has planned. This particular union is part of a union coalition that cut a deal with the City last year on terms and layoffs. No layoffs of their members can happen before July1st. In this deal, the City employed the usual bad approach that was as if the union's interests take precedent above the city's interest. So now the picture is worse for the city and the move to cut costs is apparently cutting 4,000 "positions." The city is into saving job and shuffling around people and the numbers don't actually mean "people" but they will not be able to shift all the workers to avoid layoffs with these big numbers.

So expect the city to cave in to the unions after the regular parade of people wear down the Council and the Council backs off as usual. It's just a prediction and it's based on observing the pattern that these Council members have followed for years. More to come. Meanwhile the city gets closer to a bankruptcy filing as they go deeper into the red by about $350,000 a day by failing to act because they have laid off no one.

Tiger Woods and the mistress have press conferences.

I tried to ignore all this and its not within the scope of things I usually post about, but this is too rich to pass over. Besides, the "Tiger" is Lincoln's mascot and that's good enough for me to connect to this story. Tiger gave the expected mea culpa and asked for forgiveness and made promisses for his past cheating. He was probably prompted to go this route, at least in part, because of the need to rehabilitate his image so he can get back some of the lost endorsement deals that cost him millions.

I don't buy that "no domestic violence" line one bit. Maybe Tiger just has another terminology for what happened on Thanksgiving. But all of that press conference was so contrived. I mean, what did anyone expect?

On the other end of the "it takes two to tango" part of this story, Joslyn James, that stripper-turned-mistress, was crying and was suprised by what she called lying. "Tiger Woods' Alleged Mistress Wants Personal Apology," KTLA News, 2:38 PM CST, February 19, 2010. http://www.wgntv.com/sports/tiger-woods/ktla-tiger-joslyn-presser,0,7828085.story She said she deserved better.

In that story, she was with her lawyer, Gloria Allred. Here's a good part from this story:

Her attorney, Gloria Allred, immediately offered a response, saying Woods' apology was "a staged public relations stunt" and "a disgrace."

"I just watched Tiger Woods' apology on television, and he said that many people believed in him. He also said he wanted to make amends. He did not apologize by name to my client, Veronica, and I ask, why no apology?"

Well, duh? Ms. "Pot calling the kettle black" lawyer, the very fact that you represent this woman is part of the circus, but that's a given for so many of the cases that you take before the cameras, in my opinion. Consider that the guy is married and owed a duty to his WIFE according to the wedding vows. The MISTRESS was a willing participant in Tiger's cheating and could see Tiger was making his own rules as he went along. Maybe Ms. Mistress owes the wife an apology. But Tiger is trying to keep his wife, it seems, and not his mistress, but he might be more successful if those roles were switched, but we'll see.

The apology expectation by Allred's client is such a bunch of nonsense. When somebody's cheating, that's already a big tipoff to a character flaw and asking for an apology from somebody like that is neither called for, nor should be expected. Tiger was too slimy, and to use a phrase from the old Lone Ranger t.v. show, "He speaks with forked tongue." Before you take off with that imagery, let me specify- Tiger was a cheater with the mistress completely in on it, and that makes him a liar, so what causes you to think he's going to apologize to his accomplice? She went into this thing fully aware of the cirecumstances. I was going to say "with her eyes wide open," but let's avoid any more imagery being misinterpreted.

Well, I did a quick Google search and there are just TOO MANY mistresses to keep track of. Tiger was a walking Viagra commercial, but without the Viagra. What a life this guy was having and it turned out to be some very expensive sex in lost endorsements, missed golf tournaments and potential divorce settlement terms. I will leave it at that. But you know that with all this mess, he is and will remain very wealthy, which is a lot better than many people have it these days. Poor Tiger.

LHS Alumni Association meeting Saturday

MONTHLY MEETING
The Lincoln High School Alumni Association ("LHSAA") February general meeting is tomorrow, Saturday, February 20, at 9:30 a.m. in the Student Cafeteria on the LHS campus. The meeting is open to the public and alumni are encouraged to attend and to join the activities and plan events. Another Saturday Professional Development day for teachers is calendared and may mean a room change, but that should be quickly sorted out Saturday.

ABOUT REUNIONS
The LHSAA does not arrange reunions, or even knows about reunions unless someone provides it with the information. There have been many inquiries about upcoming reunions but each class reunion is done independently, usually by a group of interested alumni.

Class Reunion information will be posted on this blog, as well, when it is available. But guess what? I rarely am the first to find out any of this information because no one sends any notice to me directly, and I know even less about how most of them turn out. For that reason you should look at the LHSAA pages on the LINCOLN HIGH OFFICIAL website. I usually find lots of barebones information on the school side of things with a lot of cryptic calendar entries that link to another entry of the same cryptic message. So for utility purposes, you will find the calendared dates but the events often remain clear only to the insiders.

VALENTINE'S DANCE
Again, the meeting is tomorrow and there's still the Valentine's Dance coming up a week later on Saturday, February 27th. Tickets are $40 each wtih a buffet style dinner included. See sidebar for links to the flyer and payment arrangements. I have suggested that some electronic method of payment (i.e., PayPal) for the dance tickets and other payments be made available. Since you don't see that happening, you know the outcome of that suggestion. I think there's a difference between tradition and simple resistance to change but it's not my affair to affect. The word was that it would not be anything that would be used enough to make it worth the effort. Well, we shall never know.

There's still a dependence there on snail mail (the kind with a postage stamp) for this sort of thing and I expect no changes to expedite transaction speed at any time soon. Keep those postage stamps handy. And those rates will rise from the nearly half-dollar level each year around March for a few more years, as I remember reading from a news story last year. Nostalgia item: When we were the LHS contingent at Occidental College for the "Upward Bound" program in the summer of 1966, a year after the Watts Riots, stamps were just 5 cents each. Cigarettes were about 25 cents a pack- and how did I know that? (In college in San Diego my then-roommate was a military dependent and the PX at the Navy base was about ten minutes away. They had cigarettes for $2.00 a carton and that was regular run at the time. Today they say "Smoking will cause cancer" and I don't remember if there was health warning printed back then.. The warning used to say "may cause cancer." Why anyone smokes now with all that health risk and cost is defies logic. I notice that a lot of Asians and Latinos are the most ones in the young smokers category and who knows why that happens?

I checked on the internet to be sure of that postage amount and found a chart that shows more about the postage prices and what they were worth in today's dollar value. There's the CPI ("Consumer Price Index") shown on a chart and it's way too much information for most people. I did gather from checking that, however, that the 60's was a time when the stamps stayed priced pretty low and the inflation condition was dipping to it's lowest level on the graph. But with today's email availability making communication almost instant, the price for using the mail is really looking even more expensive. With all the choices for communicating these days, some just prefer mail and remain traditionalists.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

2 things from LAUSD- Cortines resigns from side job and 100 percent graduation rate made a goal.

Two things coming out today in the news from LAUSD. One is the resignation from the job at Scholastic by Supt. Ramon Cortines. That side job (a side job with a six-digit paycheck) was really not a big deal to me since I think they were paying him for his name and his position, while the Board and not Cortines made decisions on the educational products that were purchased. I could be wrong- but he's resigned and so, on with business. And at this stage of the game, who else would really want to take over for this ship's captain as the icebergs are getting closer and bigger and the radar is failing.

The second and more important item is the story in the Daily News on the plan to get 100% graduation rate. "LAUSD reform effort aims for 100% grad rate. EDUCATION: Coalition of leaders signs pact modeled after successful schools program in Boston." By Connie Llanos, Staff Writer, Updated: 02/17/2010, 08:46:48 PM PST http://www.dailynews.com/ci_14422596

Somehow, I am sure Monica Garcia had a big part in this deal. She's been saying for years that this is the goal of LAUSD, and I think that all during that time, the enrollment has continue to drop and the dropout rate still is dismal. That might be due to the inherent problems with the huge district and the inability it has to respond to new adaptations to the changing situations quickly enough to be useful. That rapidity of response happens at about glacial speed. There is so much disconnect in the District that we might wonder how things cannot be worse.

That Boston model is not too impressive as you consider that the story mentions the length of time it's been going on and the proportions of changes are not too impressive, at least not to represent this as being a clear solution. I agree that gears of societal elements have to mesh to get things improved, but I have said that there have been a lot of little things that could be instituted all along over the years to re-direct the course for a collective improvement. It didn't happen so now they look for a big fix. Too much, too little, too late. That sums up the changes planned, the impact expected, and the time implementation begins.

The parts reported in the story seems to show this plan for 100% graduation is DOA:


It has produced several academic gains for Boston, including increasing college attendance rates from 50 percent in 1985 to 78 percent in 2007.

Still, even after 28 years the agreement has missed the mark on other key goals, like improving the region's graduation rate, which has remained at 60 percent.


Let's see. 50 percent jumping up all the way to 78 percent is nice. A 28 percent gain for all you statistical fans. Unfortunately, it took 22 years of climbing to reach that level. We can't be too impressed with an average improvement of just over 1% a year. In fairness (and you won't get that with politicians using statistics here) there could be some large jumps relative to hitting upon some key parts of the program, and the actual year-to-year data is not shown here, so much of this gain actually could have been happening in recent years, and that WOULD be a good sign.

The other part of the quoted item from the story is that the main item, the graduation rate, is still an anemic 60%. We might match that overall in the foreseable future but it's should already be better than that.

Reading in the reader COMMENTS for this story shows that there's an abundance of negative reaction to this announcement. Maybe smaller, do-able goals would have been more realistic and thus, more supportable by the public, but there's been too much backsliding over the years. I have to say that the teachers are not necessarily the problem, and probably not the problem at all for a lot of schools. It is how all the work force is deployed, and the strategies used and the goals that are set that will have a lot to do with outcomes. Morale might play a bigger role than the subtlety of the topic allows it to be shown in this District.

One comment caught my attention above all the others:

"True Freedom" in Pasadena wrote, "100% grad rate? EASY!
Just kick out half the kids."

At this point I would be favorably impressed with major attention given to promoting literacy and at least giving the students a key to opening up more knowledge on their own. The blame for not learning is not all on the school but when you don't provide ways to remedy such thing, the lack of enthusiasm on the students part should not be any surprise. Each year as students approach some mode of exit from the LAUSD schools, it's one unforgiveable and a huge disservice that many still have not attained even a moderate level of reading abilty.

Reading is one of those areas where improvement happens with continued practice, exercising what's been learned in the preceeding excursions into reading to make progress with improving skills. But for poor readers, the difficulty met in attempts at reading makes them all the more averse to plunging repeatedly into the task. And I think that accounts for what it all creates. It looks like "good readers" will become better readers and "poor readers" will get worse without some intervening acts of somebody else occurring. The job of noticing the poor reading skills condition and seeking a remedy usually defaults to the classroom teachers. Here is one bottleneck to the flow of hoped-for progress. Among teachers without the leadership of a good administration, you have a wide range of skills that may or may not be applied with all due efficiency, nor will all weaker-skilled teachers be aided to shore up their skills in the area to be part of the solution.

That's the problem with a too-large school district and uneven supervision or absence of monitoring. But for the poor or very poor readers, all the reasons don't matter. It's their problem if no one helps now. Well, I think that's important to the drop out rate. Maybe if there was not that "A-G" college track in place, you wouldn't shut off many who would excel in vocational areas given the opportunity. Thank you Mr. Huizar who unhesitatingly takes credit for this "achievement."

There's a statistic that sort of goes with the graduation rate and that's "how many go on to college?" But you don't get much into THIS follow-up question because no one wants to ask it, "How many entering college actually get a degree?" And you can break that down into "WHICH DEGREES?": AA degrees (2 years or a full schedule of classes) or a BA or BS degree (4 years of a full schedule of classes). You have many students never finishing a degree program for any number of reasons. But just getting into college is NOT the answer if weak skills leave a student unprepared for the work level needed or makes the effort a task that is not taken seriously. That last part has to do with "work habits," and THAT really never gets proper attention by parents, teachers and of course the students who need that improvement.

It all affects how they perform academically. Many people may have a course here and a course there and really make a couple of years of progress a being a college student quickly becomes their career. But that side of things really is not the kind of things you hear about very openly when educators talk about getting students into colllege. It should be considered a long time before even if college is not considered. Some training with parents, teachers and students in how to develop good work habits and not try for all-nighters, cramming or other approaches for neglected contact with their assignments over the quarte or semester.

For many of this group of weak readers with or without good work habits, they will be quite defenseless in the struggle to make a productive life for themselves. Unfortunately for too many, the realization of that condition comes too late.

'BudgetLA - From the Horseshoe to the Mayor's Office!'

An important link for your enlightenment:

'BudgetLA - From the Horseshoe to the Mayor's Office!'

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Some NC background
The City's budget issues impact all areas of life in the city. The Neighborhood Council system is currently one of those items. There are 90 Neighborhood Councils within the system, a system created under the City Charter that was authorized by L.A. voters about 10 years ago. Members of an NC board are elected or appointed and ALL these positions are taken from that NCs stakeholders, and ALL of the people holding the positions are VOLUNTEERS, not paid staff.

Major changes are being made by the City Council and recommendations have been made by the CAO, Chief Administrative Officer, Miguel Santana. Funding cuts here are bettter described as slashes more than cuts, with a 50% reduction of each NCs funds sought. The NCs current funding was earlier cut by 10% for the current fiscal year, July 2009-July 2010. Proposals affecting the NC system to the extent that any real ability to operate each NC are dangerously close to be approved.

There have been some negative aspects of the NC system highlighted in the news in recent months that involve only a handful of the NC's 90 certified NCs ranging from a criminal theft (being prosecuted now) to use of poor accounting methods and spending choices. All this was done within a handful of the NCs but used by opponents of the system to tarnish the rest of the system and disregarding the many notable achievements throughout the system by dozens of NCs.

Each NC has issues and interests particular to the corresponding area of the city it represents, but all have a common interest of seeking to serve communities and bridge the large gap often found between communtities and City Hall in attending to quality of life in Loa Angeles.

The BudgetLA organization
This is a coalition of NC members, stakeholders (and nearly all in the City are stakeholders of an NC with voting rights attached), and other interested persons working to produce a result that will improve the NC system with organizational changes and workable budget results to avoid outright neutralization of this part of city operations.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ACTION REQUESTED:
Read the link for the current status of actions and consider using emails, telephone calls, and faxes to support the NC system. (The City Council contact information is shown here from a posting made earlier in the week.)

City Council added a Special Meeting today at 10 am and has a regular meeting Tomorrow at 10 am. Messages to their offices are important, with your own CD having the most weight- since you can vote for or against them (or their endorsed friends if being termed-out).

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

More details on the LAUSD's Parcel Tax plan

Here is the L.A. Times story reporting on the LAUSD's Board meeting yesterday afternoon and the vote to ask voters to raise property taxes in the form of a $100 parcel tax.

"L.A. Unified to seek $100 parcel tax hike- The four-year increase would alleviate the school district's projected budget deficit but probably not prevent class size increases, teacher layoffs or a shorter school year. " By Howard Blume, February 17, 2010, http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lausd17-2010feb17,0,6463784.story

The LAUSD just has a strong history that shows it spends too much and wastes much of what it has on bad decisions and lack of oversight. I don't think that there's any recognition of that by most of the Board members. Tamar Galatzan was the only "No" vote and Marguerite LaMotte was absent. Many of the spending choices made of the Board in the past were poor ones. The construction program was planned for a condition that has changed. The last LAUSD request for money was approved by the voters and THAT probably was the last time you can see the public taking a chance on giving more money to this District.

The $7 billion that was put on the ballot and approved was originally to be a $3.5 billion request. Even without a specific plan to spend all of that the money at the time that ballot measure was created, a good reason to reject it. I doubt that this time around the LAUSD will be getting any benefit of the doubt. A 2/3rds vote is necessary to create the tax on real property and even renters will have to consider the impact of the charges passing through.

This is more in the nature of a "Hail Mary Pass," and but if it's approved, it's still not taking them out of the budget hole, but they must really view it as a chance worth taking. The District will have some costs for this election in the area several million dollars.

A quote by one Board member shows a view that doesn't match up with reality in my opinion.

"We're funding [education] like a third-world country, and I have to take a
stand and do something about it," said board member Richard Vladovic. "I'm
voting to give parents the chance to say yes or no."

I doubt there's much spending in third-world countries done like in the size of funds that LAUSD handles. Actually, you might look at the way money has been spent for the problems here and not to the money collected. The District continues spending huge amounts for expenses that don't seem right and who wants to give up money for that to keep happening. The money this time is said to be limited to teachers and not administrative or construction expenses, but that's something that should have happened with a big part of the BILLIONS last time around.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

LAUSD Board votes for a parcel tax on June ballot.

The meeting this afternoon of the LAUSD Board of Education resulted in a majority vote to approve placing the parcel tax measure on the ballot. If voters approve it, add another $100 to the list of taxes on your bill. Tamar Galatzan was the only member to vote against the action, commenting about the expectations of the public for the board to do some serious review of the spending practices and programs. In other words, the wastefulness needs to end.

In a Board led by Monica Garcia, President (re-elected without opposition, not because of talent or good performance, but backed by special interests as CM Huizar's successor and annointed by the Mayor) with Yolie Flores-Aguilar (also remembered for double-dipping by getting a side job as a "consultant" for a few months with more than a few tax dollars collected for a group formed by friendly female politician that did not meet more than once a month, if at all) among the group of colleagues with like minds and here, a similar lack of utility, there is not much you can expect in the form of worthy actions or just any solutions. See the blog story from http://www.democraticunderground.com/ ,
"California jobs go to those with connections. Lawmakers can hire anyone they choose." http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=141x33873 and its reference to the underlying story in the L.A. Times, "California jobs go to those with connections," March 27, 2009, by Patrick McGreevy
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/mar/27/local/me-nepotism27

The annual sum to be generated by this tax is estimated at $90 million. Compare some values. That payroll software that the District put into action a few years ago and didn't work out cost $200 million with what amounted to as an "Oh, Well," as a followup. All the hours of personnel that were lost in trying to repair the damage and the aggravation created by the wrong paychecks calculations is not part of that cost, nor was the money lost by overpayments that teachers didn't give back. It is the public that the Board looks to cover their losses again. Is there anything to demonstrate good use of money here? They want us to become "enablers" of more wasteful spending and that makes no sense.

You can read the details in the story just out, Tuesday Feb. 16th: "LAUSD board agrees to place parcel tax on June ballot." 6:31 p.m., Adolfo Guzman-Lopez, KPCC FM-Los Angeles 89.3. http://www.scpr.org/news/2010/02/16/lausd-board-agrees-place-parcel-tax-june-ballot/ This surely will generate a lot of opposition once it becomes general knowledge and people become not just bothered, but angry with this move. The bad thing for the District is that this is happening in bad economy, they have instances of poor management and inability to control employee, i.e., teacher, behavior in getting good performance and ending abusive and just bad behavior. Top that off with all the LAUSD waste of money and assets that will fill several pages of stories and you do not cultivate any environment for a happy property owner forking over more money to a District that is not working.

The budget for the LAUSD is larger than even that of the City of Los Angeles. There is a construction page on the LAUSD's website that shows school construction program status, with the details for all schools built or to be build and the cost. I thought that the Arts high school was outrageously expensive (and taking almost 2 years longer than estimated to finish- with months more before it saw a single student begin classes there) at a figure approachng $250 million, but I saw a figure of over $200 million for one school already built in the Valley and I just did not want to see anymore.

L.A. City Council contact information list for 2010

L.A. City Council- contact information from city link :


This will make it simpler to send your opinions by Voice, Fax or Email to any and all Council members.
==================================================
DISTRICT----- COUNCILMEMBER --------EMAIL--- TELEPHONE----FAX

1st------------- ED P. REYES
mailto:councilmember.reyes@lacity.org
Phone: (213) 473-7001
Fax: (213) 485-8907
Includes Lincoln Heights, Highland Park, Cypress Park, Glassell Park

2nd------------- PAUL KREKORIAN
mailto:councilmember.Krekorian@lacity.org
Phone: (213) 473-7002
Fax: (213) 978-3092

3rd ------------- DENNIS P. ZINE
mailto:councilmember.zine@lacity.org
(213) 473-7003 Tele
(213) 485-8988 Fax

4th------------- TOM LABONGE
mailto:councilmember.labonge@lacity.org
Phone: (213)-473-7004
Fax: (213) 624-7810

5th ------------- PAUL KORETZ

mailto:paul.koretz@lacity.org
Phone: 213-473-7005
Fax: 213-978-2250

6th ------------ TONY CARDENAS

mailto:councilmember.cardenas@lacity.org
213) 473-7006
FAX (213) 847-0549

7th ------------- RICHARD ALARCON
mailto:councilmember.alarcon@lacity.org
(213) 473-7007
213.847.0707 Fax

8th ------------- BERNARD C. PARKS

mailto:councilmember.parks@lacity.org
(213)-473-7008
fax: 213-485-7683


9th ------------ JAN PERRY -
mailto:Jan.Perry@lacity.org
Phone: (213) 473-7009
Fax: (213) 473-5946

10th------------ HERB J. WESSON, JR. -
mailto:councilmember.wesson@lacity.org
(213) 473-7010
Fax (213) 485-9829

11th ----------- BILL ROSENDAHL
mailto:councilman.rosendahl@lacity.org
213) 473-7011
(213) 473-6926 Fax

12th------------ GREIG SMITH
mailto:councilmember.smith@lacity.org
213) 473-7012
Fax: (213) 473-6925

13th------------ ERIC GARCETTI
mailto:councilmember.garcetti@lacity.org
(213) 473-7013
Fax:(213) 613 0819

Includes Glassell Park

14th ----------- JOSE HUIZAR
mailto:councilmember.huizar@lacity.org
Phone: (213) 473-7014
Fax: (213) 847-0680

Includes Eagle Rock, Boyle Heights, El Sereno, Glassell Park

15th ----------- JANICE HAHN

mailto:councilmember.hahn@lacity.org
Phone: (213)-473-7015
Fax: (213)-626-5431

You can just call any time of the day and leave a message, brief or longer. Since you will not be speaking directly to any of them directly, the hour of your call is not as important as your message.
...................................................................................

Monday, February 15, 2010

Call with opposition messages to LAUSD Board members- they decide Tuesday on June Ballot proposal: New $100 parcel tax

An answer to some of the budget shortfalls for LAUSD will be more taxes, according to the school board. "LAUSD board to vote on parcel tax," By Connie Llanos, Updated: 02/13/2010 05:59:27 PM PST http://www.dailynews.com/ci_14397750?source=most_viewed There was a ballot measure that was put on the ballot by this Board a few years back for $7 BILLION and it was first planned to be about $3.5 Billion tax proposal, but at the last minute, the LAUSD Board decided to DOUBLE it.

It was an amazing burst of arrogance and disrespect for the taxpayers in a worsening economy in 2008. Even the board members admitted then that they didn't have specific things in mind to be addressed by the planned taxes.

More amazing was the result: The voters PASSED this proposal. There is a very good story on this proposal, written before the election happened. This gives a good description of the problems and circumstances with this taxk hike.
"LAUSD Doesn't Need $7 Billion in Bonds- District's budget is rapidly growing even as enrollment declines, schools close," by Lisa Snell, October 17, 2008 in the Reason Foundation's news blog, http://reason.org/news/show/1003203.html

Mentioned in this 2008 article was a discussion of facts to show that the money was not needed. The District was facing problems of declining enrollment and yet more construction was an expense undertaken. The LAUSD's history of handling money is an example of waste and neglect, with some fraud in there as well. This article has a lot of reasons that will still stand up to show why the current parcel tax is not a good idea.

When you give a wasteful group of politicians that are only able to throw money at the problem and do it with little or no accountability, you just encourage and enable them to do that even more. The irresponisbility of the District is visible in many areas; the $200 million spent on payroll software that did not work and overpaid some teachers and underpaid others is one huge expense without any real accountability ever shown. The District does a collective shoulder shrug and that's about it for responding to wasteful incidents.

At this point, the projected increase generated by this tax is $92 million per year. In comparison, that software disaster was double that amount. A public agency really does not treat tax dollars like it would treat the money coming from their personal wallets. Would they be so quick to spend if they would have to cover goofs? They are very good at making POM ("OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY") disappear.

More prudent policies on construction and expensive legal fees generated by building schools that were not needed. Another bad effect of this program was that it cleared out blocks of housing in the very neighborhoods that were supposed to be aided by the school, further cutting down on the student population level. On top of all this, many of these new schools will not even be managed by the LAUSD as alternative organizations that include charter schools, will have the right to submit proposals to control the schools. That makes no sense, at least to me, although charters are technically "public" schools with a right to access some facilities.

But does building a new school, and often lavishly designed instead of one being built with necessary functions in mind, promote the solution to the budget crisis for LAUSD? The story in the Daily News has some comment from former Board member David Tokofsky that very accurately covers the picture:


Former LAUSD board member David Tokofsky, who served from 1995 through 2008, said the district has been considering a parcel tax at least since 2004.

"We shouldn't have gone for $7 billion in facilities money when we knew for the last five years that we were running out of instruction money, not construction money," Tokofsky said.

The LAUSD board has until March 12 to decide whether to place the parcel tax on the June ballot.

More mismanagement will be the only certainty that any tax increase will create, above all else that is claimed by the Board.

3 pm MEETING - AGENDA: http://www.laschoolboard.org/files/02-16-10SpclBd.pdf

It is the first item, and you will notice that the common practice of agenda writing is followed here, as in City Council. The real subject of the agenda item is not very clearly stated- you won't find "parcel tax" or a dollar figure to clue you in to the nature of the item. Instead, you have the intentionally crafted language inserted that satisfies legal requirements of notice while not generating any practical information to the general public that a "written in plain English" policy would do. (Another example of constutuent-unfriendliness in government.)


"1. Board of Education Report No. 221 – 09/10 PUBLIC HEARING
Office of the Superintendent (Resolution Ordering an Election to Authorize a Qualified Special Tax, Establishing Specifications of the Election Order, and Requesting Consolidation with Other Elections Occurring on June 8, 2010)"
=============================================

I urge you to call and leave message for each of the Board members to oppose this plan. A vote Tuesday is possible although they have until mid-March as a deadline to put it on the ballot. Even if it happens to be after the 3 p.m. time that the matter comes up in the Board's Tuesday meeting, leaving your message for each Board person will show them the amount of opposition and unpopularity of the public- that is, of course, if you do oppose the tax (and renters would still be subject to some pass thru, so it's not just property owners being affected).

Use the link below to get CONTACT INFORMATION FOR ALL LAUSD BOARD MEMBERS and call, email or fax your opposition to the tax plan.

http://www.laschoolboard.org/

Lincoln High and the Lincoln's Birthday that is masked by the "Honors-all" Presidents Holiday that really honors none.

Today is the Presidents Day Holiday. There used to be two separate holidays in February, one on the 12th for Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, and one holiday on the 22nd for George Washington’s birthday.

The holidays now honor neither Lincoln nor Washington, and are supposed to be a tribute for all the presidents. Going from the two most famous presidents in the country’s history to a generic holiday for all who held the office is an honor to none of them.

Looking at Lincoln High that has a namesake with a rich and vivid history is still pretty dismal with the way that the birthday on the 12th of February and the all-purpose Presidents Day is recognized at Lincoln. Sometimes I wonder what other “Lincoln High’s” do across the country- are there doing any better in dissemination of any history of this president or are they just plodding along like the LAUSD non-distinguished manner of doing anything commemorative or informative?

We used to talk, as teachers, about "teaching" strategies, "teachable" moments, scaffolding, and "engaging" students as activities for the purpose of enhancing or maximizing the learning experience. So when it comes to using Lincoln’s birthday as such a vehicle to focus some better attention on such things of history, they miss the boat and it just doesn’t happen. I do have to say that this is not the case for everyone that was teaching at Lincoln, but the task should be something coordinated from the policy and decision-making levels for accomplishing some overall impact in education instead of being left to chance and totally an unplanned event.

I could be just too picky here and what with all the drop outs and the problems with passing the High School Exit Exam and dealing with budget cuts, it might be too much too ask of a school to try to find each opportunity to develop a higher level of education while shoring up some of the lost pride that has eroded so much from the days when I graduated from Lincoln. There’s a lot that can be accomplished at this school in a lot of small ways to improve things but most of the time somebody is looking for a bigger, flashier solution to fix everything. Unfortunately, I don’t believe the solution is all just one thing. It’s a lot of little things working together to move the whole program along. Waiting for some big bang theory of education to arrive or to be created is not the answer. A little bit of parent involvement, more student participation in decisions (and that does not mean abdicating everything to a student body choice), work in some community business activity of a reciprocal nature and try to get alumni working in more than the limited peripheral activities at football games or cash awards for select programs and students.

Right now, the budget crisis keeps the LAUSD busy doing a lot of hand-wringing and the potential for more job cuts is growing. On the teachers side, headed up by the union, it just looks like there is some wagon-circling going on for a priority of maintaining teacher job security under the union umbrella, and the district is moving in a slow and unsatisfactory manner to solve things. (I will talk about LAUSD’s move to kick up property taxes by $200 a parcel separately.) In the meanwhile, the main reason for schools and the District is still the students and the attention to their educational needs takes a back seat, as usual, to the other parts of the system, the adults.

So, while there is a day off from school today and while most government offices are also closed, there is little recognition of any particular one of the presidents that this re-structured holiday has fostered while replacing the Lincoln’s Birthday and Washington’s Birthday holidays. It’s been a real step backward.

Jay Leno used to have a segment of his show with man on the street questions posed that brought out some really ignorant answers- a city election was going on months after the Presidential election ended and a couple of young women were asked who they voted for. “Obama” was the answer for each. They were asked again, “No, who did you vote for in the city elections today?” They answered, “ Oh, what elections? Is there an election today?” Aside from the comedy aspect of this, it shows a cloud of ignorance in basic history and civic awareness that hangs over the heads of a lot of people in L.A. That drift to creating a larger group of less-informed persons (in this area, at least) is what allows greater control to be granted to those who are informed and can take advantage of things based on that condition. They tend to be politicians and they are more able to manipulate the less educated masses for their own purposes. Look around and see city and state conditions for that happening.

That’s the kind of general deterioration of education that’s come about by making changes in these holidays for the political expediency of creating room for more contemporary holidays. Changing the holidays around didn’t cause the current ills by that singular act, but it’s a part of a lot of things that work together to get us here.

If check LHS’ web site, you might see what I mean. Last year was the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. There was a display case in the main lobby of LHS prepared by the Alumni Association. Not much else was observed by me about this event at LHS. This is the now the 201st birthday but who would know? I would like to be wrong about seeing nothing happening along these lines, and maybe I just haven’t caught much of the news from LHS because I didn’t look too hard or they didn’t promote things too much. Either way, I don’t think there is as much to represent the educational system at work to use opportunities in this narrow slice of the entire pie of school actions.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Some Stories of Thouroughly Rotten People for your awareness.

Just checking the L.A. Weekly for stories in the news and right off the bat I find some truly vivid examples of heartless people. Quite rotten examples to demonstrate some of the darker side of life in a civilized society.

"Today In WTF: Man Steals Dog At Site Of Car Crash," By Dennis Romero, Friday, Feb. 12 2010 @ 5:45PM. L.A. Weekly blogs, http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/community/dog-stolen-crash-site/ There was an auto accident Wednesday afternoon in Highgrove, located in Riverside County. The driver and her 2-year old son were in their vehicle that rolled over and came to rest on it's roof. Their little dog, Rizzo, (see story for the cute dog picture) took off and some neighborhood kids held onto him as the woman and child were preoccupied with the accident and did not notice they did not have the dog with them until way later. A man comes by and told the kids he'd take care of the dog. He took off with the dog and the police and family are looking for the dog and the thief. The story mentions that the kids said he spoke Spanish to them. Maybe that's a Latino who took the dog, or just somebody able to speak Spanish to kids that were Latinos, or maybe that's all the thief could speak. Either way, it's part of the story, and I am glad they aren't into political correctness to filter out details from the story.

Some people are just rotten and what's almost as bad is that there's going to be some friend or family member of the thief who sees the dog and may know the guy stole it but no one turns him in or gets him to do the right thing. There's a chance that the guy is just caring for the dog until he can get back to them; that would really be two chances- slim and none. Sorry, he snatched the dog and I have no sympathy for those people and the terrible impact on people that this has of losing the pet, not knowing what's happened to the pet, and just upsetting a family's life by being a low-life among criminals.

The second story I bring up is about an adult woman who was mentally disabled and operated at a level of a young teen. "Jennifer Daugherty, Mentally Disabled, was Tortured and Murdered by her 'friends': Six arrested." By Pete Kotz, Friday, Feb. 12 2010 @ 4:47PM, in True Crime Report, Douchebags, assault, homicide, kidnapping.
http://www.truecrimereport.com/2010/02/jennifer_daugherty_mentally_di.php

This woman was treated brutally and killed by these people, with details of the story showing the kind of hearts that make the death penalty sound about right here. The details are horrible and it's as if these men and women did not consider the victim to be a human being. The woman was put on a bus by her step-father to go to a community center in another nearby city and that's where the ordeal happened. The step-father must have seen the woman as capable to travel like this, but she was probably very susceptible to getting into real trouble endangering personal safety if anything began to go wrong. Some things are o.k. as long as nothing goes wrong- but that's a condition easily upset with the many types of defenseless people.

The disabled woman, like many people who have mental disabilities, exhibit a lot of trust in persons, due in a large part of their inability to recognize all the bad things that can happen, and not being able to anticipate and avoid danger situations or harm when it's happening. From their limited mental processing it's can become very dangerous very quickly as they have no ability to defend themselves. The people here appear to have exploited those characteristics for something that's goes way beyond just a warped form of amusement. It was purely cruel if done to someone who is not able to fully mentally function. The disadvantaged level of the victim makes this something most evil. If you check the story and the details described, there's not much doubt that the victim must have suffered as the indignities were inflicted.

These two stories are examples of what you see as examples of really sick behavior. Animal torture is not quite the case here, but taking and keeping the pet shows no concern for the pet. The owners were involved enough with the dog to be taking it with them before they had the accident. The dog, any dog, needs proper care, and taking pet from an owner is first of all, theft, and next, shows a person's bad character that I think justifies some serious punishment if they ever find him. And if anyone covers for him, they could and should share some criminal charges.

The people who killed the disabled woman have no excuse of any sort other than they are slime bags and need to spend any time they have left living on this planet to be inside a cell. Sexual predators of children, aka, Child Molesters, are pretty clearly seen as bad folks, but I don't know if there's all the same clarity is seeing people who victimize the weak and defenseless are as blameworthy for their acts. I will leave it at that, since this is not an area that needs any extensive explanation for showing that this conduct is evil, should not be tolerated, and is worthy of condemnation and incarceration.

When you have people who do things like this, you have no reason to think there's any limits they will follow as to any other persons, and removing them from being among us is needed.