Final Vote Count Leaves Solar Measure B defeated. Runoff election coming.

The final vote is in from the March 3rd election and it's final- Solar Measure B is dead, just over 2,000 votes difference decided "No" on this DWP Union-crafted proposal. It would have limited work to only the IBEW union and included a DWP job training program for prospective workers to add to the union ranks, along with an unknown cost that consumers would have to bear. This hastily passed proposal also would have changed the City Charter to give more spending authority to the Mayor- a provision that's a disaster standing all on its own.

The additional ballots amounted to 49,000 more besides the ones cast on March 3rd, including Absentee ballots and provision ballots that were because of damaged ballots, absentee ballots not received, and voters registered but not listed.

The runoff election will be Tuesday, May 19, 2009 to settle the CD-5 council seat between David Vahedi and Paul Koretz. Another position in the runoff is the City Attorney spot. The race is between Carmen Trutanich and Jack Weiss. Weiss really has no business running for this office if you know his history. He is running because Mayor Tony needs more support in government and Jack is a his loyal "Yes-Man" that he can control.

Trutanich is the more experienced lawyer and did not have his attorney practice stopped for 7-1/2 years like Weiss did while serving as Council Member for CD-5, being vacated by Weiss under term limits. Chief Bratton, another official beholden to Tony for his position, naturally support Weiss, so that should be ignored as a hollow endorsement.

Currently, Weiss is on his best behavior, in attendance at Council meetings and speaking up on matters to be more visible as the election nears. He was often absent or disengaged during meetings, and he behavior pushed Zine to say, "Vote for ANYBODY but Jack Weiss. Jack Weiss would be a disaster for the City." I whole-heartedly agree.

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

Solar Measure B- a union job program on your dime.

As if there were not enough reasons to reject the Solar Measure B ballot item- AS IT IS WRITTEN- I see an item in the Wall Street Journal that is reported in other sources too, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123457326090086555.html , "A New Gang Comes to Los Angeles: Solar-Panel Installers; In Tough Economy, Homeboy Industries Trains Ex-Cons for Brighter Prospects" by Miriam Jordan. The story tells about the progam at the East L.A. Skills Center by Lincoln Park where it joins El Sereno's side and the LAUSD sub-district office. The Skills Center does an admirable job to get people employable and at a reasonable or no cost. Many students in LAUSD were trained in construction trades to be part of the work force in the bond funded school building program.

Problem: DWP is a utility company. Function: to supply electricity and water and related service of the utilities usage and supply sides.
DWP is not a social agency or an employment agency to conduct job training programs with the money that it's given.

But a job training program is exactly what is included in Solar Measure B's terms, as Brian D'Arcy, DWP union head of the IBEW, and the man that was in charge of putting the UNION's side of a wish-list in the ballot proposal.

A job program is the newest revelation to hire people, many with low or no marketable skills, and put then into the "solar energy" side of construction. This is part of the plan and it favoring ex-offender, ex-cons, felons or whatever label you apply to formerly incarcerated individuals after conviction of a crime.

I am for programs to rehabilitate anyone. The thing that I don't think is right is that the public money is used for this when IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE USED FOR SOMETHING ELSE. Here it's the DWP being a social agency and for the Union.

Check the artcle and consider that lots of people are left OUT of the program and it's for making the UNION bigger and stronger. The Mayor already gave them some sweetheart terms at the last contract negotiations and they have this sent their way by TONY, AND they get to make it ONLY the IBEW who will be doing the work.

The UNION tailored this for their benefit, not for the consumers. That's the job of the UNION SO you can't be too mad for that. But you don't have to allow them to control it in the first place, like the Mayor did. THAT'S getting a little too friendly with the other side of the negotiation table and SELLING OUT the consumer just to make this be ANOTHER sweetheart deal for the UNION.

Where's the part that says taxpayers-consumers have to help them do that?
Where's OUR union rep?
IT'S YOU AND YOUR VOTE on March 3rd.

Let them write a NEW DEAL WITH FACTS for the next go round.

Vote "NO" on Measure B, a change that leaves cost increases OPEN, after NOT EVEN KNOWING the EXACT cost of this plan. We don't sign "blank checks," and this isn't "now or never."

The "Bungled Solar Plan"- Another view of Tony, Brian and David giving it to you, and NOT in a nice way.

Here's more on, yes, Solar Measure B, the ballot initiative that comes up for a voter decision in Los Angeles on March 3rd- Tuesday, all the elections fall on Tuesdays by some rule that is only important to know that day, Tuesday. The story "LOS ANGELES' BUNGLED SOLAR PLAN; How D'Arcy and Villaraigosa turned clean energy into a dirty dispute," February 10, 2009, ( http://www.laweekly.com/2009-02-12/news/los-angeles-39-bungled-solar-plan/ ) is a pretty concise, to-the-point and very revealing article as the Los Angeles Weekly continues to produce about L.A politics. There is so much bad that is happening in government that books could be written on all the political people and their conniving.

This story, by reporter Beth Barrett, puts it down very clearly and it tells a very direct tale of how our Mayor Tony is involved in this mess, as it turns out, again for his own career advancement.

"Career Advancement," all for Tony, and it's the reason for most of what Tony does. Notice it's not doing "what is good for the city," because that doesn't happen here. A lot in the story is the same information as what I posted earlier today, but I did not copy that from this story. Lots of the same things show up because both just report the same facts that are seen as the whole series of events have unfolded. You know, it's like two play-by-play announcers describing the same game, one is broadcasting for the home team and the other is sending the story back home to the visiting team. Tony and friends try to hide things and sometimes they do get away with it since they are career politicians who manipulate things while they make a living at it.

"David" in the title here is David Nahai, a lawyer Tony appointed to be the DWP general manager and is loyal to TONY- you know that, too: "When he says 'jump', you say 'How high?'" Expect nothing EVER from David that goes against the Mayor's decisions. And that's how it is here in this story.

Read the story, it's much shorter than my version and she's the one paid for writing anyway.

You still come up with the bottom line, we in L.A. are being asked to sign off on a bad deal that benefits the UNION- oh, I forgot- the "Brian" part in my title is for "Brian D'Arcy" who runs the IBEW in the DWP operations, the union big wig. Brian is the one who put together lots of the terms. Remember there's a part written into this Measure that requires the IBEW workers only to handle installation. Gee, that's one part that Brian can claim credit for. Can you tell? And the idea of Unions is that the benefit of any deal the Union makes is going to .... the Union, not the DWP, not the Consumers or the City, but the UNION. That's always the way the game is played. No surprises here.

The idea that this is a locked in deal means it is going to be costing us more just on the basis that there is no competition for the work and THAT means "not an ecomical deal." IBEW: 1, Consumers:0. And on it goes.

Tony gets the credit for this, as the story tells you. I knew that part just from knowing Tony and keeping track of his antics. I used to support him but somewhere after losing the first election for Mayor, he turned bad and not just bad as a person, but bad in hurting people financially for one part and by dragging L.A,. into more wasteful things that are not honest. His personal family life is important as well, and you already know that part, so you won't expect to see the same family photos in campaign brochures this time around. But I don't need discussion on that aspect to decide against a second term for Tony.

There's a Mayoral Candidate Forum in Eagle Rock "Center for Arts" this Thursday night at 7:00 pm for all candidates to talk, and it's not even a debate, just a "tell us about yourself and why you should be mayor" kind of thing and a sort of brief mixer afterward. Well, Tony is not coming because of a "schedule conflict," according to his aide. I will tell you right now that the conflict is that his schedule rules out any appearances with any of the challengers. That way Tony doesn't goof up and lose votes- or even worse, by allowing some words of truth to come out - maybe even about "Solar Measure B."

Imagine that. Mayor Tony can't explain it to us, doesn't have the exact cost, and still wants us to give him complete authority to run up expenses and to approve later changes without any other supervision or vote. (and the story shows there LOTS of information still MISSING- the EXACT COSTS is just one of the things that should sink this deal on that basis alone. "You want to charge me and you still don't know how much it's going to cost us?" And he will be long gone when the entire impact of this will be realized, another nice deal for him.

Please check the story and don't rely on me only when you form your own opinion. Tony, David and Brian are on the same side- and it's not yours.