Tomorrow is Election Day- The Props. Still Victimize the Public

The election day is here tomorrow. The State ballot measures contain Props. 1a through 1f, that will help the politicians get more money to waste, but guess where that money comes from? More taxes to be collected.

Sales and Use taxes, increased vehicle reg fees and more. Prop 1a includes the slick move to put in a "cap" on tax to be charged, but the current record-breaking arrangement will EXTEND FOR 2 YEARS at that HUGE scale. It's all their magician's sleight of hand, a shell game and you are the true victim if you agree to these. The supporters of some of these measures include professional sports organizations who want to keep their ticket sales from being taxed, and leave the public to all get taxed more heavily instead. And THAT's just one example of behind scenes operations that leave YOU, the individual, out in the cold and presented with higher bills, while they trick you, as the magician does, to believe what is not really true.

Ron Kaye has a blog that discusses relevant local issues and political behavior. His item today is very much the condemnation of what polticians have done after being elected. "Why I'm Voting Against the Props, Jack Weiss, Paul Koretz and Every Other Politician," on May 17, 2009. http://ronkayela.com/2009/05/why-im-voting-against-the-prop.html

Most of the items on RonKayeLA.com give you a real dose of the political reality that you should know about to see how things can and will get worse if you let them continue. All this is happening at the State and local levels. Remember, these places are populated by so many of the same people, with the game of "Political Office Musical Chairs" running at every election to have a termed-out person latch onto another political office- Just check Gil Cedillo, the lavish and self-indulgent spending State Senator, running for Hilda Solis' old office. Then Ed Reyes, Council Member to be termed out in two years, already filed papers to run for Cedillo's seat in the state Senate, in case Cedillo wins.

Others in that "Musical Chairs" game: Fabian Nunez, termed-out former Assembly Speaker is another contender for Cedillo's seat Cedillo wins. Nunez has his own history of lavish spending on campaign donors dollars, but somehow thinks it's o.k. to spend as long as it's not tax dollars. Quid Pro Quo is a Latin phrase, "something for something" is what it means- and it's here and all over politics. That outcome is- "I do a favor for you, You do a favor for me." They don't give out money to people who are NOT holding office, so figure that connection out. Nunez can't.

The county levels of government don't get much publicity but are important by the sheer amount of money that is handled at that level.

In the true sense of "sounding good" you will find a prop. to transfer funds collected for early education to be "borrowed" for a while. All a charade, and it just keeps these spending junkies on their habit, never really making them face up to fixing the problems. Leave the money there, and don't steal it, a tax fund that itself should not have be collected, either, but don't let the state politicians get into it continue wasting money.

There is a measure that holds up the lawmakers' pay if the budget is not done on time in the future. It is a "feel good" provision that can be bypassed by the legislators without much work since there are several "loopholes" carefully inserted to avoid anyone from losing a single day's pay. Did you think they would REALLY sacrifice their own cash? No on that prop.


ALL THE PROPS NEED TO BE REJECTED. They do not address the problem and they increase and extend taxes, as if there was not already a heavy burden.

You might hear the ads that make you think it's all for the schools and children, spoken in scenarios very "family-like" but don't fall for it. The reality is harsh and expensive and the ad is to make you think only "good" thoughts.

To illustrate this: Remember Sam Kinison, the cutting edge comedian with a black trench coat and black beret, who often posed choices for his own struggle to find the right decision as part of his comedy act? He would use harsh and loud tones right on top of the microphone to tell you of an evil choice or outcome. Kinison would contrast this by using a childlike, high-pitched voice to try to present "innocent, inviting" choices. And then those "innocent" choices that his sketch presented, like "Yes, fall in love again, I would not break your heart a second time," would change to the evil voice, as the personality was converted to the Devil to cause him anguish after enticement into entering that "love" relationship.

That's what you have here- very sweet sounding - with the betrayal to hit you later- and to hit very hard. But-if you check out things a little first, you can SEE IT NOW, so don't fall for it.

Water Conservation, Water Rationing, Water Waste and the DWP

The Mayor of L.A.- Tony Villaraigosa- announced during the week of heavy rain, that we still did not have enough water and would have to conserve by way of a water ration plan.

Water Ration Plan
MSNBC carried the news item on February 9, 2009, showing that there is a first time for L.A. water rationing plan that he has submitted for approval by the Board of Water and Power and the L.A. City Council. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29106741/ The plan has some drastic controls on usages that are described in the story.

The Real Cause of Infrastructure Strain
The Mayor, of course, does not mention that the high-density construction that his administration has supported might be contributing to the problem in the least. Meanwhile some aggravation of the problem continues, all being a part of the actions of the Mayor and the City Council to create more stress on a system that ALREADY is on the verge of failing. The death from an explosion in an electrical vault last year of a city firefighter Brent Lovrein was blamed on the old infrastructure, "Remembering L.A. Firefighter Brent Lovrien," http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/spot-news/remembering-la-firefighter-bre/

Politicians shamelessly put this tragic death in the spotlight to gain the voter approval for more money that was supposedly to fix things in the infrastructure that need attention urgently. See LAist Blog brief item of April 2, 2008: "Will the Death of a Firefighter Be the Tipping Point of DWP Rate Hikes?" http://laist.com/2008/04/02/will_the_death.php That article also states that the money sought will only partially go to infrastructure improvement - about a third of it, with the rest to other things including DWP higher wages.

But these politicians continue the increasing development projects, just as fast as they can, knowing our stressed conditions are already underequipped to handle PRESENT conditions. In a way, this is their strategy. Create the BIGGER NEED and they can have a BETTER reason for INCREASED FEES and CHARGES as being URGENT. They do this with a lot of things- intensify the problem to a crucial level that needs MORE ATTENTION, and then manipulate things to get money, approval or whatever the highlighted crisis demands to be done, pushed to that condition intentionally or as a result of stupid policies followed intentionally.

When you continue to build, and build with his problem-creating "densification" along "transit routes" (which justifies elimination of normally required parking spaces to be included) you have to expect a strain on EVERYTHING in the city. It is not a hugely challenging concept for you to see but that politicians CONTINUE TO IGNORE- When you jam more housing and businesses in existing space, you strain ALL parts of the infrastructure, especially utilities, police and fire protection, trash collection and disposal- and the most visible problem, the vehicle traffic and parking problems.

There is no rationing of building projects here in L.A. included in Mayor Tony's plans. The only thing that is slowing all this building is the down real estate market that makes even the "Grand Avenue Project" downtown, continue to miss more construction deadlines, and cost more public money for this already-risky venture.

[THAT downturn is shown in another story to check as an example of how local politicians foul up things for residents in costly ways, L.A. Times, 2-10-09, Cara Mia DiMassa, reporting: "Grand Avenue developer seeks revisions to project's schedule; With a Feb. 15 deadline to break ground on the downtown L.A. development, Related Cos. petitions the city and county for changes, which have not been made public." http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-grand11-2009feb11,0,832272.story ]

Maybe some attention to staying safely within present capacities for a while might be a reasonable thought to put in to action instead of creating more strain on an already ill system. If you had tires on your car that showed bald spots, how wise would it be to go on long trips at high speeds?- and I say "long" trips since local traffic is usually jammed at any given time, making "high speeds" only a theoretical possibility. This Council and Mayor are not able to look at things that way; they have been too busy spending your money and doing giveaways for the Grammys (over $100,000.00 in special event waivers- "their expense, we pay the bill", and the Academy Awards that will receive over $400,000.00 as a waivers.

Water Waste?
There's a small problem that has come up this month with a huge waste that DWP has been unable to stop- a broken hydrant, wasting enormous amounts of water for days. The Daily News story, updated 2-11-09, provides details in "DWP hydrant spews water for 10 days,"
http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_11684536 You might expect this to be repaired quickly, but DWP says it can't do more than it is doing. But you still wonder how the city can create more burdens on purpose.

So rationing is the answer? When it comes to getting yourself on the news, the Mayor is very effective, the messages are often inappropriate, but he gets his face on T.V. and in the news. But for being economical, handling city money with some eye to frugality and working for the PEOPLE first, not for HIMSELF, he's still only able to talk it up, but not come through with anything good.

Politics the problem?
I can tell you again, as I have seen from DWP's history, when you don't conserve, they have penalties ready to lay on you for being a high user, and they blame you, the consumer for using too much water, as shown now. Before that, it was a problem of using too much electricity. So charges are made up to punish you for more use.

So then people try to conserve and cut back in responding to that condition with less consumption of electricity or water the result. Very good? Maybe not so much, as the DWP sees it, because then the message becomes urgent. The new word is that the DWP is losing money because the people don't use enough of the utility's service, and the bills are coming out too LOW, which means adding in a "surcharge" or "rate increase" for DWP to manage to bring in more money.

In all these conditions, the DWP is not going to be the loser. They say, "It" ("It" is anything they do or plan that might be costing money to do) is not going to cost taxpayers anything since the rate payers will get those charges. Honest, I heard that verbalization of the shell game from them in a past trickster move. There might be some very tiny difference you could come up with but the same people get the bills any way you see it.

You really have to watch these characters constantly due to the skilled way that manipulate proposals and results. And by that criticism, I don't mean to say it's the regular workers- no, they don't set policy and the direction DWP heads to. The regular employees do have benefits from such deals, but the shiftyness is done by management operations.

Again, it's the Mayor's crew and they work for him and his career, and they don't work for you and trying to keep your bills low. How great that would be. And that's the way is SHOULD be.