City Council appears fearful of unions on Early Retirement issues.

MORE HAPPENING IN CITY HALL AS CM APPEAR TO BE SELLING OUT THE CITY - again - and not GETTING TOUGH ON WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE. The fear of unions and the potential votes here is greater than their fear of city bankruptcy. The City of L.A. spends a million dollars more that is collected EVERY DAY.

The mayor said the Early Retirement agreement will be vetoed if Council approves it- and Tony was the one that put that agreement together in the first place back in June. But Council is working TO GO AROUND THIS and just doesn't seem to be able to do what needs to be done.

Tony did not want to lose union support and came up with a way to keep jobs and keep the unions happy. Tony said way back in the beginning of the year that layoffs were needed but only a few at most have been laid off to this day. Instead, Early Retirement, allowing retiring up to 5 years earlier was the plan to cut out jobs. So you get the Employee roster cut down, but they moved over to "retired" and now don't do any work but still get paid a lot. Not a good approach and this was from day one.

Tony has seen the light, being told that the savings on this would be about $12 million this year, just a fraction of what they orignally planned. But they did not consult the profession number crunchers and did not WANT TO BELIEVE reality.

For Tony, You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't keep union people on jobs, happy and collecting raises, while the city is sliding down a financial hole from uncontrolled spending that was allowed to go unchecked for years.

Well more is to come on this story, but don't expect the city council to be the "bad guys" to the unions. The CMs want to cover their own asses and point fingers elsewhere. We can see how the mayor handles this one; if he chooses the city's financial survival over his union buddies.


Try giving a look to the blog, WWW.RONKAYELA.COM - (and its many other items posted that will show you MORE city nonsensical and corrupt behavior- some sneaky and some right out there in the open that you just don't recognize.)

"L.A. in Crisis: Do They Have a Clue? Do You?" http://ronkayela.com/2009/09/la-in-crisis-do-they-have-a-cl.html By Ron Kaye on September 16, 2009 10:06 PM
This blog really gets into some frank opinion and usually is accurate and representative of a more sensible way that city council should go, be does not.

City Council meeting comments on Green movements

Among the comments on Agenda Item 10 (shown below) that passed unanimously:

By Jose Huizar, CD-14:

"We are preparing the workforce for the jobs of the future"

"We want to show the rest of the county that we are on the cutting edge."


By Ed Reyes, CD-1:

"We are creating industrial zones right next to residential zones"

and that we want " …. to find way to create these jobs so they are near to our homes….. " will alleviate some traffic.
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The comments like those above that come up before the votes on matters of course are mostly rhetorical and not subject to any questioning, but I just get tired of all the gratuitous comments that ignore things that were done before by the same persons or groups, or that are illogical considering what's been going on.

For Huizar, the workforce preparation was interesting since you usually consider the local schools to be doing some of that. In our case in L.A., LAUSD is doing an unsuccessful job in addressing that, hitting near 50% dropout rates in some schools.

What jobs are they being prepared for with that level of education?

There was a report a few years back that reported that a good many of LAUSD grads would not be suited for hiring for jobs available locally. I don't think that was given too much notice since we are years past that and it looks like the same condition may exist.

(Also relating it all for Huizar's case: CM Huizar was formerly the LAUSD Board President for years immediately prior to election in CD-14- he should know best what is happening and what has happened in the LAUSD area, and it's not been good.

For Ed Reyes' comment,
I just want to remind him of the continued changes that ELIMINATED industrial and manufacturing areas and there is still a little left on the eastside of downtown where there once were huge areas. Times change but there was widespread elimination for what I think could be called "redevelopment" and converting to residential areas.

Many residential developers did not see nearby manufacturing/industrial areas as "selling points" for their projects. Thus, eliminating those and converting the areas to compatible or enhancing uses to the projects would serve to BOOST the value of the properties of the developers. I see that's what's happened.

There's not a lot of the same type of manufacturing and industry in the future as was the case for the original site occupants practiced. Yet the area's zoning should have been preserved for ideas of return to be able to fit in with a new era of industrial use. Things like that don't get reversed, so losing that industrial zoning means loses that area forever. All residential and no "industry" to be the employer? But the change also is in the PRICING OF THE NEW HOUSING- that's UPSCALE, and geared mostly for financially well-off when a redevelopment occurs. Different populations now are there as residents.

The idea that Reyes speak about in making jobs for people living locally with a side benefit of limited need to travel. Nice concept but it assumes too much that is hard to imagine. What would the jobs be? Service industry? Professions such as law, medicine and other areas where graduate school is usually required? Would the people want to live IN the city as it is now?

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Just another comment on the proposal today on RAISING RATES as part of DWP Water Conservation -

WHY does Council speak of the need to conserve and then they continue to DEVELOP areas for the "DENSIFICATION" or packing more people in to the smaller areas that were LESS populated before?

It is only logical to see that more people will NEED more water, even with conservation. Is the conservatioin REALLY to ENABLE more "Densification" and to make the NEED to conserve a man-made (council-made) matter of urgency?

THIS GOES FOR POLICE SERVICE, TOO- "We need more police" is what most agree would help living conditiions. Then why does the Mayor and Council continue to PUSH to add more people to come to the city? It puts more pressure on all resources. Is that a hard concept to get a hold of? Really, it's money that they are trying to pull in and meanwhile the living conditions continue to slide downhill in the city.

Until the infrastructure is under control or even closer to control, WHY work in the opposite direction? There is just so much contrary action all through what is done in city government. The right hand does not know what the left hand is doing just is not the right description- it doesn't go far enough. And that's assuming that the flaws in operation are accidental or unintended, but the real picture cannot be that hidden from the lawmakers, so "intentional" acts are what we see.

It's like trying to set up campfires in the middle of a high-risk fire season- You are ASKING for trouble. Council should stop "lighting the fires" until the risks have been handled. The continued practices just show the Council deceit in its motives and goals.

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"ITEM NO. (10) -Motion Required

06-1963
COMMUNICATION FROM THE CITY ATTORNEY and ORDINANCE FIRST CONSIDERATION relative to establishing the Green Retrofit and Workforce Program, including creation of a Green Retrofit Development Interdepartmental Task Force and a Green Retrofit Development Advisory Council.

(Housing, Community and Economic Development Committee report to be submitted in Council. If public hearing is not held in Committee, an opportunity for public comments will be provided.)

(For background reports and materials related to this matter, contact the Legislative Assistant for the Housing, Community, and Economic Development Committee at 213-978-1080.)

(Information Technology and General Services Committee waived consideration of the above matter.)"

Trust your DWP Solar bill to a City Council Member? Are You Kidding?

This is my comment on the item in the "RonKayeL.A." blog yesterday ,"Apathy, Defeatism and the Solar-At-Any-Price Argument for Appeasement," speaking of Measure B, the Solar Energy proposal on next Tuesday's ballot that is going to cost a pretty penny- well, more like billions of dollars, that to get that to that size, you have 1,000 x 1,000,000 (one thousand times one million = one billion). See blog article: http://ronkayela.com/2009/02/apathy-defeatism-and-the-solar.html#comments

Council Member Bill Rosendahl said that first he opposed it and now he supports it, and he will make sure that everything is run so that there's no abuse when it comes to money, so go ahead and vote for it.

Nice Idea. It's only an idea, and what's Bill using for making good on his guarantee for anything if something goes badly? Political talk.
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Now, the comment:

First, who said that this is the ONE AND ONLY opportunity for a Solar Energy Project to occur for Los Angeles? I don't hear anyone saying "It's now or our choice will be forever barred in the future." Then why act that way.

Informed decisions are the best ones and impulsive or uninformed types ("I heard that...," and, "From what I know ...") are missing any secure basis to make a call.

Measure B lacks as much information needed for a true informed decision as it has proponents with everything to gain. Too many "interested parties," to use the legal term, to trust their judgment, especially when big dollars AND power will go their way. They don't even have any risk attached- that's all going to the DWP consumers. How much sweeter can it be for them?

Yeah, some real fatalists out there and that's what the Measure B "interested parties" including the IBEW, and the Mayor with his City Council rely on to get over, WITHOUT a full airing out of the facts. "Just trust us," is not enough for me to buy into this rigged game.

Would people get on a plane for their vacation, board the plane, and then have the destination and costs decided IN FLIGHT? You just about have the same condition here, and it's not going to be over in a few weeks as would be the case with the situation offered for illustration.

The Idea Man, Bill Rosendahl is so much the wrong guy to handle any watchdog function. First, he's a council member and can be voted out or recalled and so is not always going to be there. Besides, to stay in office, he'd throw the watchdogger advocates overboard if it meant staying employed.

Next, his judgment rests on what foundation? The elephant exhibit fiasco showed his inconsistencies. The decision for Billy, the elephant, was to ship him out to a sancutuary to be with other elephants and we stop going forward on the $42 million (so far) project for his home here at the Zoo.

Well, Bill changed his vote from NO as to project continuation, and that would send Billy out, to a vote of "YES." It was all Bill's style. First, the idea of keeping Billy in the best situation for Billy's health seemed to rule, and the construction was still not complete anyway. But a finance person with the city went on to present a tale of obligated expenses from STARTING the project- it wouldn't be all the $42 million, but still a few more from what already was spent.

O.K., so all by itself, a significant matter. Then the impact on "JOBS" THAT WOULD BE LOST gets tossed up for the consequence of stopping the project.
Now Bill is swayed, "Well if it means we'll lose jobs then I'm changing my vote."

What happened to the "Billy's best interests for health" that was pivotal to many advocates on both sides of the argument? For BILL, eff that, its "jobs" and so what if MORE money is thrown down if the work stops because we will stop the project and still cut our losses.

Now with Bill (the council member, remember the elephant is "B-I-L-L-Y"), it's like he's now an dollars-and-cents man, and the magic word, "JOBS" was spoken. Billy's welfare is now being completely overriden by finance, and finance not to the city but finance benefits to those "jobs" and, of course, they probably are UNION jobs, meaning VOTES for Bill.

If Billy's case was so heavily based on a moral question as many or all sides viewed it, how did money usurp that value to change the decision? Because it's related to votes and special interests and you just can't rely on people whose own jobs are swayed by all that.

The jobs issue sounded good, and the entanglement's additional costs per contract commitments that would have continued for a time should not have been bought at face value.
The decsion should not have been made on that day with the fressh information tossed in that had not been shown before this meeting.

Bill Rosendahl is FOR Measure B and his judgment and rationale are among the most fallible on the City Council. The track record in the recent example is very revealing as to Bill's decision making process.

The opportunity for a solar energy plan is still open and this last minute attempt to slide it by voters and to "trust" anyone in government is another exercise in the city council's deceit. And THAT deceit is fact, not opinion, for anyone willing to think back to the past examples of city council sponsored ballot measures.

Vote No and ask for a COMPLETE PLAN next time- with $, Dates, Names, and all INFORMATION that THIS PLAN IS MISSING