A bit of support now for David "Zuma Dogg" Saltzburg for Council Member for CD-2.Wendy Greuel was elected City Controller in March 3rd's city election, getting more votes than the Mayor, by the way, but that meant there was no one to take the office when Ms. Greuel took the City Controller's job in July.
The Council chose to fill the vacancy by holding a city election, as opposed to the available alternative of appointing someone to represent CD-2 until the next regular election comes around in another year or two. The expense is huge but at least you don't have to depend on the City Council to do us more "favors" like they have been doing regularly over the past few years, and making it more expensive to live and work within the City limits.
Council District 2 was represented by Wendy Greuel and her replacement will be among the 10 candidates in the field, mainly separated by the grouping "the machine"- for having lots of campaign money coming in usually from non-CD-2 sources, and affiliated with Mayor Villaraigosa's group of politicians, and that's where
"the Machine" reference came from. It's a political machine, not as powerful as the East Coast versions of these forces, but enough to get things to go its way.
The other 7 candidates are from assorted backgrounds and have little if any money invested in the campaign for CD-2 Council Member.
David "Zuma Dogg" Saltzburg is one of the candidates for that office. You might remember the he ran for Mayor in the March election, coming in 4th of all the candidates, and again, with little money for running a campaign, mostly supported by word of mouth from people who know him or know of him.
I was one of those people supporting his run for Mayor and he's still my favored candidate for the CD-2 office, but I don't live in CD-2 and cannot vote for him. For people who don't know him, it's difficult to give a capsule view of his background without distorting one thing or another and there's really no way to easily convey the particular effect that David, as the name he is now known by as a candidate, or Zuma Dogg, as the name that we attach to the history of his interaction with City Council during their meetings.
The DWP is among the agencies that victimized rate-payers as they like to call residents, manipulating rates whereby the individuals have little to do but pay the bills as they rise.
David is and has been homeless during all this time of activism and he gets support and criticism both. His detractors take that position as a strategy to bolster support for their own candidates, either from "the Machine" side or the regular people side. Others like me, see that as something that he's decided to tough out while working to reveal a lot of the activities and behind-scenes operations that give an inordinate of power, and what used to be pretty much "uncontrolled power" to elected officials and appointees, commissions and agencies, all with their own goal of doing what they want without any "interference" from "the public.'
David/Zuma has provided a recent and recommend-for-reading source to show what the homeless status involves and how it affected things for him. See his blog entry for August 17, the
L.A. Daily Blog This was in response to another candidate (from the "regular person" side) who chose to mock him and his homeless history- a legal choice for her but totally a low blow, unnecessary to the issues but telling as to her personal attitudes on the issue of homelessness and other things, as well. She did a lot with just a few words and she should not be elected. Mayor Sam's blog posted on this topic yesterday,
http://mayorsam.blogspot.com/ , entitled,
Does Mary Benson Hate the Homeless? (8-27-09)
City Council, before Zuma Dogg arrived on the scene, was simply a place that was "off limits" in terms of individuall involvement with local operatons on a political level. You were an "insider" knowing the game or you were somebody that came to city hall to ask for something and then got shuffled off with the operational equivalent to a "pat on the head."
Zuma Dogg, or David Saltzman as he yields somewhat to the forces of conformity to quell some voters' fears, came to be able to break down the processes to something more understandable to the regular guy and gal. You no longer had an agenda item that could be cloaked in secrecy automatically being approved and only publicly felt when the "new fee" or "changed regulation" affected the L.A. resident. This secrecy is still attempted and it's successful most of the time, like the parking meter rate hike that came just before the December holiday break last year and now meters have a 4x the old rate cost: $1 an hour when it was 25 cents an hour, $4 an hour where it was $1 an hour like the Downtown area, and 6pm was no longer the limit to the meter's control. 8pm and 10pm in some places, and shorter times, all increasing the chance for the parking ticket that was also raised another $5 across the board for violations.
I like Zuma Dogg because you can understand what he tries to put forward and so often it's in the face of oppositiion by Council Members who oppose his view with their own misinformation and slanted views that they used to apply to get their way when no one every criticizec them. The thing that I like, maybe most, about Zuma is that he can see the situation presented and then break it down into tems most people can comprehend, translating the gobblygook legalese that purposely used to mask the real effects, and he's also able to project what the impact will be for assorted choices of actions. He's far from infallible but you would still have to rate his predictions light years ahead of whatever you rate the council and the mayor. The mayor maybe is behind times due to absences and campaigning out of town and ignoring L.A., but the Council can't plead ignorance for letting things fester to the crisis point. I will leave any examples for another time since this piece is too long already.
You might think the newspapers would cover City Hall and reveal what's going on but the "newpapers" have now come down to the L.A. Times and the Daily News, a much smaller influence. Wrong. There ARE no more papers of greater influence- these ones are struggling to survive as it is. Alternative newspapers are small-time players, except for the
"L.A. WEEKLY" that's about the only one on the case of many politicians for years now, bringing the "actually, this is what's going on," side of things out for public examination. The Times is only recently dabbling in
City Hall coverage with the addition of
reporter David Zahniser to the staff, but no one puts things in the face of the Council to provoke some direct response or explanation like Zuma Dogg.
The other thing of benefit- that's been also called "a problem" by some- is that Zuma has, by his conduct, or as they say in the education field, "as a model of the desired behavior," has come to encourage other people to speak in Council Meeting's public comment portion for non-agenda items, and he's promoted the accessibility of speaking to the council for smaller grass roots types of organizations like the ones opposing the Autry Museum actions subordinating the Southwest Museum to, as many fear, extinction, and so on.
These groups might have arisen anyway and Zuma Dogg did not create them, but they undeniably have to experienced the new and heightened interest of residents that they seek to join the fights. "You can make a difference." And more people acting together can make a bigger difference and make it faster than a lesser body. It's helped to make recruiting to their side a little less onerous than it was before.
Zuma Dogg's impact is that he's shown by his actions that a person can bring things to light if they are persistent and diligent in their efforts and they don't have to be wealthy to be heard. Turn that into a group action and you have even more ability to be noticed. Like I said, the City Hall chambers, especially that Rotunda area, tend to give this City Hall business an appearance of royalty or mysticism, and none of that is deserved. We have seen that the protections of Council Members that such attitudes created is disappearing, little by little, and they are just people who were elected to office to work for the residents of the city, and not for their own special interests, money-generating, campaign-funding companies and individuals who are wating for some reciprocity of action, or 'something for something" that normal thinking would expect when looking at this picture and the history of operations.
The notion of being a "public servant" has long left the confines of City Hall and most other places housing elected officials.David Saltsburg is said to be unqualified for the job of council member but, as he says, he's been at more Council Meetings than most Council Members in the last few years. He has learned issues not only from his own exposure and acquaintence with the system, but he's been aided by insider information. Many know him and feed him information either not accessibe to the common person or that has not yet come to public knowledge. Some people are disgruntled folks who want to see something happen about something they know of and see as a wrong that is being maintained or ignored by a power, maybe even by the Council itself. But they have information and they have faith that Zuma Dogg can look into it and spread the word if it can be done.
Detractors treat this citizen involvement of Zuma Dogg as being a crank, a lunatic and time-waster of City Council members' attention. That's just what Council would like- limits on their critics- a way to bring it back to how it used to be when all things were effectively secret until done. They just passed another rule to kick out whoever they say has violated "rules of decorum" for up to 30 meeting days. We need access and not this chilling effect hanging over the public; More restrictions makes it nicer for council to have "less interference" from opponents and THEY can decide who is giving them grief to be kicked out. They have the place loaded with police so "safety" issues are not the main concerns, and they can eject a person easily on a meeting by meeting basis but they have really gone extreme here.
For now, I will end this support for David "Zuma Dogg" Saltzburg for CD-2 Council Member. You can read on and on in the Mayor Sam's blog from all the haters and Zuma critics for the negative side. Of course, he's the underdog here, with little money for a campaign.
Contrast that to the others, especially Krikorian, a state assembly rep who's expecting a win and will vacate a position that will call for a special election to fill that seat at the cost of a million dollars-plus. A very exensive side-effect to hand the near-bankrupt State just to improve his job search.
Chris Essel is another who's apparently a "plant" by the Mayor, living outside the district until recently to qualify, and really neither a proponent of the city residents nor the interests of CD-2.
Tamar Galatzin, City Attorney and LAUSD Board member recently elected, is also a candidate and has her critics on issues of being another of the Mayor's team members and for the job-hopping that would leave the LAUSD short another member, with another election needed. I think
Galatzin is good for the job on the LAUSD Board, and she's shown a little independence from the Mayor's control. He was a good bit responsible for her winning her election. Campaigning for that job was boosted by his efforts.
For my part, being a supporter of Jack Weiss for City Attorney put Galatzin irretrievably into a suspect class and I do not support her as Council Member candidate.
Galatzin still is too close to the Mayor for comfort to put her onto an already-heavy pro-Mayor's-calling city council is dangerous for the people of L.A., as we have seen that downhill slide of the Council and it's products so far, and that needs to go in a different direction, one away from "the Machine."
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