L.A. Weekly on LAUSD's many "Failures to Un-launch"

The L.A. Weekly edition that's now out and online has a lengthy article on the employee teachers of the LAUSD that should not be teaching and should be fired. Most have remained for years beyond the point where a termination should have happened, but have managed to stay on in the face of showings, at minimum, of an inabiity to produce lessons for their classes to teach the students, with many also showing some intemperate personalities that are incompatible with being a teacher of children and, in many cases, small children. In other words, these people are long overdue for unloading and the "boss," for all the huge size and layers of administration you have, cannot manage to do it and haven't figured out how to learn. In the heart of a behemoth of a school district, nor have they figured out how to teach themselves how to deal with an expected part of their operations. No wonder the parent takeover movement is getting some momentum.

"LAUSD's Dance of the Lemons - Why firing the desk-sleepers, burnouts, hotheads and other failed teachers is all but impossible." By Beth Barrett, Thursday, Feb 11 2010, L.A. Weekly. http://www.laweekly.com/2010-02-11/news/lausd-s-dance-of-the-lemons The District's attorneys don't seem to have been given resources over many years where they say they need that-and that's in just the cases where they WANT to accomplish termination of the employee- to properly address the problem. The option taken as an alternative to establishing a case doesn't sound right, but it probably saves some money in the long run and ends the case for some situations. It's simple enough to see- the District, in many cited cases, has made settlements of forty to fifty thousand dollars or more to go away because that is the only way it could happen.

I don't think it's the only way, but it's in the story and has been done. What would they actually have to do to follow the "process" properly? It might depend on which people in the story have been telling the correct version of the story since there just are so many things that don't happen right with what the LAUSD says and does. One thing is certain, and that is the difficulty that's been engineered into the firing process.

There's criticism of the District's claim of being mired in the process due to OTHER public agencies being incapable of handling all the cases. That's disputed by the agencies and who knows the accuracy of any claim since the LAUSD attorneys have not pushed these matters in all directions. From what I see, and that's just me, there is a direction from the top that creates limits for what's done at levels below. The top people COULD deal with the problem if it was considered to be a PRIORITY, that clearly it is not. It was simple enough to bury the problem and keep people on payroll meanwhile.

All this is what erodes the confidence, what little that may be, that the public might have in the LAUSD. The defense of course is that the teacher's have TENURE and are for most intents and purposes bulletproof when it comes to being fired for being poor teachers. Stories in the past have shown cases of IMPROPER behavior that stymied efforts of LAUSD to fire them.

Long Beach is a district that the story mentions that takes it's tenure decision very seriously in comparison with the LAUSD. The LAUSD usually gives the go-ahead to tenure at the two-year mark without much fanfare and by the word of many, even without the expected individual level of attention to each teacher's performance.

To me, THAT is the whole problem. Since this is some near-permanent appointment that I don't see is really called for to have a responsive teaching component at the K-12 levels, the State should consider if it is even called for at all, considering the function served. College and University level teachers or professors, if you will, might need a higher level of job security to protect some of the areas of teaching that may not be within popular views, but that still are being conducted in an academic setting like non-controversial subjects. That is, they are teaching, but it might not be what people like. At this post-secondary level, who do you have for students? it's the legal adults, 18 or older, for the majority of students that are being taught, and you don't have any situation like public schools with a mandatory nature. So changing that might be something to do. It would be unpopular and opposed by teacher unions, of course, but you already see what we have now and there is an argument or two to be made to change this condition.

Read the story and consider what you think would fix things and identify those levels where there's not a real effort made to fix things.

City Employees Salary Database added in sidebar.

There's a Daily News link to an L.A. City Employees Salary database that I have added to the City sidebar and here http://lang.dailynews.com/socal/citypayroll/ which you can use to see what kind of salaries go with jobs in the city system. There's an explanation on that site for more details on the source and interpretation of the numbers shown.

From just checking a few things here, I can see why everyone wants to hang on to these jobs. The pay levels are really nice and what I see from that is that there's room for some cuts spread across a lot of employees to keep many more of them from their losing jobs altogether. There's a huge listing of "comments" posted by readers and what I see is that most are negative on the pay that's going out. One quick check on some of these showed a comment from a city employee, a manager, I believe, who said a problem was that there are often too many employees, shown by the fact that many don't have a lot of work to do , but that since a supervisor has budget money to use or lose, that keeps them staffing like that, given the options.
I don't know all the details, but insiders could see more and not all the details are known by all. The DWP information is not here and I checked for my own last name to see if my semi-long lost cousin at LAPD was there. What I found was that that no police officers are listed, only the LAPD's civilian employees. I did find there's at least 21 people with my last name working for the city, and even one with the same name- first and last, too. I compare that result to some time in high school or earlier when I checked the telephone book listings for the city when there was just one big book for everywhere- there were about 10 listings at the most for my last name and about half were my relatives. But on the L.A. City payroll, there's no one I know among those 21, so you see how big the city has become and how big the city's work force has grown.

Art Laboe Oldies but Goodies and L.A. Radio.com- More on both

The older and maybe even younger people in the local area may be familiar with Art Laboe and his Oldies But Goodies record series, now moving over to CDs. Art Laboe is STILL on the radio now, many years later, still playing those oldies with a few more additions made to the playlist as time moves on. LA Radio http://www.laradio.com/ has a series of stories about Art Laboe on its website this month, with a lot more interesting things about Art that you may not have known before.

L.A Radio added another part to the series yesterday (February 11, 2010) as part of the acknowledgement of the recipient of the "2010 LARadio Lifetime Achievement Award" last month. There are a few more entries to check out before it goes into archives.

LARP, or "Los Angeles Radio People," are the persons involved both in front of and behind the mikes in the Los Angeles radio industry. The L.A. Times finally got around to mentioning this web site yesterday in a short story that gives some insight into what the web site is all about.

Under the heading of "ON THE MEDIA," you will find "L.A. radioheads, this site's for you-LARadio.com founder is filling niche left open by mainstream media. " By James Rainey, February 12, 2010, http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-et-onthemedia12-2010feb12,0,4522006.column There you will see interpretation of the L.A. Times' reporter James Rainey of the impact that LARadio has had and what it does besides put out a daily report on radio. Ever since Rainey blasted the L.A. Weekly and editor Jill Stewart last year on a story they did on the city and the mayor, and without much of a foundation, I don't put too much credibility into that kind of reporting. Stewart refuted the story on the air very specifically addressing the critic's points and I never heard anything back from Rainey in response.

So I wonder about where Rainey's coming from, and view his stories with a lot of skepticism. However, this story is of a different nature and if anything, understates the value of the L.A. Radio. com. The web site is a free site now for basic news and a subscription site for more features. The free part has a lot for casual browsers and you can check it yourself. I have been logging onto this site since the beginning, which for me was about 1997 or 1998. Over that time, I have met personally or online a lot of LARP people from on-air people to others in a support role, and Iconsider this site important to me for things like that and many other reasons, especially the information and entertainment derived from it.

If you are among the elder alumni- or maybe let's say among "the long-term alumni" at Lincoln, you might recall Luis "Benny" Torres" from the Cl. of S'68. He was doing well in his years at LHS and I think he was on the Railsplitter school newspaper staff, maybe even the editor. Well, he became more formally known as "Luis Torres" and did a very good job in a news career at KNX Radio 1070-AM here in L.A. I know he won at least one "Golden Mike" broadcasting award, but probably more. He's one of these LARP, one of many Latinos in this media over the years and even George Lopez is among them for his morning show broadcasting for around 6 months on the air before hitting it big a little later in television about 10 years ago. If you see Luis (who has retired from that job) pass along the greetings from me. I think the last time I saw him was only briefly at a birthday party for Bobby Verdugo in Whittier about 1998. How time flies.

You can find a lot of things of behind-the-scenes on www.laradio.com from the past and the present. And as I have written before, some people on the air mentioned they check it out to see if they have been fired, since Don Barrett, the man behind it all, is really good at getting the news before others. And one other thing I like about the site is that I get my email letters published there as I occasionally submit items about something that has gotten my attention.

Neighborhood Council funding in jeopardy while elections in progress

In all the commotion at City Hall, I haven't been able to stay current with all the news that you can find about City Hall politics and other local operations. The story in the current edition is useful to see just how critical the City budget has become, to the extent that even the Neighborhood Councils are facing the City Council's decision on funding and other changes.
"89 Neighborhood Councils Face the Knife - City Council pauses over plan to slash budgets of groups who criticize it." By Sophia Kercher, Thursday, Feb 11 2010. L.A. Weekly. http://www.laweekly.com/2010-02-11/news/89-neighborhood-councils-face-the-knife/

The Neighborhood Councils ("NCs") were authorized by the L.A. voters around 1999 and that changed the City Charter. The NCs became an authorized part of the city govenment by that action and the city council may not eliminate them although they control the funding that is only required to be "reasonable," giving the City Council a lot of latitude in that funding decision. With that small but important control, they now want to further reduce the funding of the NCs that are comprised of elected and appointed volunteer members. It's now a mandate of the City Charter and that means the City Council is not able to dismantle it.

There is a city wide NC election period now in progress, with NCs of the same "Regions" holding their elections on the same day for all NCs in that region.

The Northeast area is "Region G" and has NCs from Eagle Rock to Lincoln Heights, from El Sereno to Elysian Valley, and many others within the area. These all will be having an election on Thursday, April 29th. Now the future of the system is uncertain as the funding is proposed at a 50% cut of the current $45,000.00 yearly allocation. And that allocation was cut last year by 10% from the initial $50,000 yearly budget.

There are now 90 certified NCs operating and the news showed some examples of that was done by a man convicted of robbery- twice- and he was the treasurer of an urban NC with access to fund. Another bit of spending was questioned in a couple of other NC, and the documentation more than the subjects funded were the problems. The rest of the NCs had kept up the money management reports and were not problem. This bad publicity is making it easier for City Council to come down on the NC system with budget cuts and other changes like cutting the city Neighborhood Empowerment department staff in half by removing 17 positions. (As for that dept., the CMs CAN make a lot of changes to it), and the CMs want to merge it with another department that will have the effect of dissolving it.

The L.A. Weekly story fills in the story with more information and this budget crisis may help the CMs who are against the NC program to cut it down and hurt it's effectiveness. They don't want anyone looking over their shoulder or butting in to the business they do- and you can't blame them with the lousy job shown overall. Some CMs are good with the NC system, but others just are hostile.

One final note here. The City Clerk was given the power to conduct this year's NC elections instead of the Dept of Neighborhood Empowerment ("DONE"). Its costing a few million dollars and many in the NCs think DONE would have been better at the job and cheaper, too. Some suspect that the job was transferred to give City Clerk's office more work and budget funds in an off-election year. In other words, to keep them funded well, at the same time as work is assigned that justifies their existence. It's could be just that, I don't know. City manipulation is not always detectable from the outside.

For now, the decisions are being considered and contacting the CM for your district and any others you can do, too, by telephone calls or any other means, would be useful.

It looks like the city council is intent on selling city assets and that's another objection to add to that call to say "No" to selling parking meters and parking lots, the Zoo, golf courses and other assets that can generate revenue if operated properly

Time is running out.

Results in for LAUSD's low performers; Voting integrity an issue

The LAUSD vote for some of the District's lowest performing schools and yet-to-be finished schools was finished last Saturday.

The L.A. Daily News story tells about some problems with the voting.
"LAUSD voting guidelines ripe for corruption."
By Connie Llanos, Staff Writer, 2-2-10, http://www.dailynews.com/ci_14320994?source=most_emailed

The results are in but this is only advisory and the District will evaluate the results and make its conclusions and choices later.

"School Choice Voters Overwhelmingly Side with Focus Team Proposals," By Gloria Angelina Castillo, EGP Staff Writer , from EGP online,
http://egpnews.com/?p=15925

I did have a page from the LAUSD web site with links to all the results for this election and the evealuations of the voting by different groups within LAUSD.

I will post that when I come back to it, and for now, you see the problems that came up and this still is not controlling.

At Lincoln High, there were two proposals submitted, one from the Principal-led group and one from the teacher-led group. That means that LHS will be under the operation of one of those two, and they will not be much different from each other in my opinion, with a few items obviously different and overall, the LAUSD influence still is there.

More millions found in the hands of City Council by Controller Wendy Greuel

As a real quick thing list to pass on to you for the latest moves happening downtown, here's a few more CITY News items with minimal comment by me, for a change (or these things will just get older and you can figure out what these are all about from considering my information from my earlier posts and from the story content.)

1. L.A. NOW online section of the L.A.Times.
"L.A. controller asks City Council to give up property sale proceeds,"
February 10, 2010 1:08 pm, Maeve Reston at Los Angeles City Hall
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/02/as-the-city-grapples-with-a-212-million-shortfall-los-angeles-controller-wendy-greuel-called-on-city-council-members-wednes.html

Wendy found more money but not in friendly hands.
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2. In the L.A. Times, "Villaraigosa sets sights on City Council's pet projects funds;
To plug a shortfall, he's seeking to borrow $40 million from accounts that are used for neighborhood initiatives. But some of the funds can't easily be touched, council aides say.'" By Maeve Reston, February 9, 2010.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-la-budget9-2010feb09,0,4496658.story

Tony Wants the money moved over to the general account for city use. There's CM opposition.
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3. L.A. Times, "L.A. City Council's spending accounts"

February 9, 2010, Source: Los Angeles city budget analysts and Times reporting
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-la-budgetbox9-2010feb09,0,6865259.story

What these accounts are about and what's in them.

City Council Adds a Thursday Council Meeting; Selling off assets is their plan- More Loser Moves.

As useless and slow as the Mayor and Council members have been with respect to keeping the city financially secure over the years, they still don't shape up. They refuse to let go of any employees, keeping the salaries and related costs for each job in pension and other benefits without having the money to pay for such costs, including the salaries.

So to go on wth these things, they want to shuffle people into other positions in "proprietary" areas of the city, like the city agencies: DWP, Airport, Harbor, and you have to wonder what that's about. I can see a receptionist in one place moving to another job that has such duties, but say a traffic or street maintenance worker just cannot be lifted and put into ANY other job for the sake of employment preservation.

Well, the Council added another meeting for themselves on Thursday - most of the agenda is about privatization, working on selling or transfering operations to private concerns. Selling anything off is a mistake. Most of the properties can generate income, and besides, how good do you expect the offers will be when buyers know the city is panicky over money? If you talk about "managing things"and keeping the assets and control, that may be a diferent story, but council is so clueless on anything but snatching up money and they have been holding millions that another story in the L.A. Times will tell you about.

Leasing for the long term is as bad as selling anything outright- bad deals by the city that were made only 10 years ago included the rights for posting digital signs on the Convention Center that amounted to giveaways from a past assembly of council persons who had no ability to make a good deal for the city, but a very large ability to lock the city into a deal that goes to a politician's favorite "charity," AEG, the same ones with the Staples Center and LA Live among their properties.

Tomorrow the City Council will be preparing moves in this direction and and CAO Miguel Santana is really only looking at the numbers for now and his narrow view is to accomplish a balancing of accounts - so you can see he is going for this approach, too. Even he, with a really sharp mind when you compare him to the elected overseers, is not perfect- but selling assets would be really stepping on a big pile for the city, and that's never nice.

Call, fax and Email your local CM- see the side bar for links to their contact information with phone numbers- you can leave message that you oppose any decision that involves selling assets that include the Zoo, the Convention Center and any city Golf courses. AND PARKING STRUCTURES and PARKING METERS are on the market- Something from "if you think parking rates are hign now" dept.- voice your opposition now- and do it often. And if you ask for a reply for their position, you might get one, but it will at the very least let them know their plan is AGAINST the interests of the public. You didn't like the parking meter rates hiked during that 2008 Christmas Season, did you? That was nothing compared to the potential that the plan has to make parking as expensive and difficult as driving has become in the city.

Again, the story about the 1,000 person layoffs was mentioned by the CM Alarcon as I recall, or possibly CM Cardenas, "So what we have is reducing 1,000 positions, not 1,000 layoffs." I don't think that even they are aware of how strange their reasoning sounds to the average outsider.

The story by Ron Kaye is pretty descriptive of the behind the plan reality that goes with what Antonio presented last week. "Antonio's Phantom Layoffs: Eliminating Jobs Doesn't Mean Eliminating Workers." By Ron Kaye on February 5, 2010 6:46 AM http://ronkayela.com/2010/02/antonios-phantom-layoffs-elimi.html

City Council Welcomes Villaraigosa Amid Boos- Outlook Remains Bleak

The City Council met today for the first of the three regular meetings this week. They ended last week with the announcement that their monthly first-Friday-of-the-month meeting at the Van Nuys City Hall would end due to the budget conditions. This decision might make some sense unless you give it a second look and ask, "What are the extra expenses that we can't manage?" It's the one opportunity for Valley residents to see their CMs in person without the trek downtown and all the inconvenience inherent in downtown visits.

They have ONE meeting a month and their burden for one day a month compared to the one consituents bear visiting City Hall downtown is minimal. But that's the way they think and that's not a compliment. Another example of Garcetti-led choices that are completely baseless and dishonest, not to mention being "constituent-UNfriendly." The CMs decision also was not one decided in public, and violation of the Brown Act's provisons sure sounds like a possibility.

Today's meeting started late, as usual, a little after 10 a.m. when Council President Garcetti started out quickly and boldly, saying very clearly that we want to “save city services, save city jobs…” Again, putting the idea of saving jobs ahead of all else that the city does. It should be no surprise that the oft threatened layoffs never have materialized in the year or more that has gone by since first announced. Even the ERIPs (Early Retirement Incentive Program) has only just begun to take hold, with 2400 retiring under that program, with about 350 retirements a month being processed out as we were told back at Villaraigosa's City Hall budget meeting back in October.

The delays with moving that program haven't helped. But there has been a continual effort to find a way to transfer people to jobs "not paid for by the general fund." The mayor's 1,000 person layoff was really coming down to 1,000 POSITIONS eliminated, and that doesn't mean losing all those jobs.

They work to shuffle things around and that's not getting us anywhere. They really conisder that the city work force should not be touched by the consequences of both a bad economy joining with the lousy management of the Mayor and Council members for years- and now it's all hitting the fan and they still work on all this shuffling of personnel as a solution. It seems a hard concept to swallow. How will things will be better if they KEEP onboard all or most of the numbers of employees currently employed?

Well, that was a theme that seemed to draw all the CMs attention in budget concerns, led by CM Janice Hahn, saying it would only make the economy worse; it would add more people to the unemployed. Well, it sure would do that for the ones losing their jobs, but it's been happening in the private sector almost immediately after each business decides to pull the plug. Should the city operate differently? Is that maybe just another reason WHY the city is in bad shape?

It’s kind of like a few critical decisions have to be made on the ship to keep it from sinking with all aboard, and the delays just allow the water levels to rise each day. Will it sink? If we just keep thinking and not doing, I expect it will. And that's the style of management at City Hall.

NOBODY really says that this condition would have been less serious had it been attended to earlier by them instead of just sitting by and watching as the events unfolded to a more serious level with the passage of time. You can say, “What were they thinking?” Maybe they just were not thinking at all, expecting things to roll along merrily as they continued spending beyond what was being covered by the money coming in, their "revenue."

CAO Santana spoke of the urgency of the situation. Hired consultants laid out the reality of the money situation and the impact of different choices. It wasn't a session with choices filled with hope and joy, not in the least.

At approximately 11:30 a.m., Mayor Tony began speaking in the increasingly-halting style he's acquired that sounds like he’s never seen the speech before, doing a cold read, and poorly at that. One word Villaraigosa had in the speech was "heretofore," a word that of course is used mostly in legal papers and is supposed to be impressive. It wasn't impressive, at least in any positive sense. I have to add "pomposity"as another descriptor of what we have with the Mayor- and you only have to see television news for that demonstration, especially when there's a disaster or city problem happening.

Another part of the Mayor's style was reflected by his statement, "I would dilute the urgency of the message if I came here on a weekly basis." This is how he thinks. Something has to be "worthy" of his attention, and in this case it's truly a crisis that's been begging for his and the Council's attention for over a year, and even longer if you would expect any of them were sharp enough to recognize the warnings and read the signs that came up even earlier.

The Mayor would have been wise to keep some open communication with the Council and these visits to Council Chambers shouldn't be the rarities that they are. Maybe if Tony had tended to the store and cut out the accumulation of frequent flyer miles while trying to hit every political or social event he could find across the country, he would PERSONALLY be familiar with things instead of being "briefed" as he must be- often showing the superficial nature of his familiarity with any number of topics that he SHOULD have known. All that "11% Mayor" business has cost us a real mayor. He talked a good game, but his actions never showed any genuine effort by him to be a good mayor.

I need to wrap this up for now with the key points for the Mayor's pitch to the Council. He wants to effectively,sell off about 5 parkng structures to private business, unload the zoo and the Convention Center and parking meters. The city of Chicago did that, and it was a failure. Chicago's 30 or more years lease to private operators is a disaster with quadrupled rates put into effect immediately and meters vandalized. Tony says it tells us "what NOT to do" but that was entirely read incorrectly by him- it tells us "Don't do it AT ALL." Losing a revenue generating operation is not smart.

What Tony and some of the CMs want is a lump sum payment NOW whatever the cost LATER (since they will be out of office and not accountable anymore- as if they are now), and that's bad. Remember when Magic Johnson was signed to a "lifetime contract" that paid out $25 million? It sounded huge back then but now you see the Lakers came out prety well with today's ability to look back and size things up. That short-sightedness is another one of the attributes to most of the council's and the mayor's decisions. But why should they worry? It won't hurt them at all; it's part of the system to mess up things and either point fingers at others or just not even be around to be hit with blame.

Back to the Mayor's sell-off plans: Tony cited other cities that don't run zoos. The idea was that the city is not in the business of operating zoos. Another twisting of facts to his specifications. I remember that the zoo was working and apparently without much problem since the 1950s, from the old Griffith Park Zoo to this one from the 60's. He just managed to have everything become unravelled in the city while he was Mayor, and now he's blaming other things and people.

The mayor tried juxtaposing the public safety elements of the police and fire departments with golf courses and parking meters, and concluding in this setup comparison that he "has to go with public safety." What a surprise. But looking just a little past this shocking choice, you will see that he is setting up the sale of the parking meters and golf courses. "Partnerships" is the word used for "privatization" to make it sound cool. SOME things COULD be handled better by the private sector FOR the city, but GIVING AWAY assets is purely stupid for the one-time benefit received. First, the price to expect will have to be below-market value since everyone knows the city is with it's back up against the wall and will take whatever it gets. Fire sale prices is one term used. THEN, you know you will be in for a rate increase, steep and often. That would be expected. The city operates things to serve the public and the private sector has no such mission.

The "leasing" for anything longer than what would be a storefront's term, maybe 5years, would be as good as a sale. That's what he has planned here.

Our Mayor only cares about how he looks, and the CMs are right there with him. Selling off city assets means losing them. It really is an admission of the failure that Tony has accomplished for the city. There are other areas that private sector MANAGEMENT would work, however, but if the golf cart concession at some city golf courses is still unsolved by City Council bungling and the ever present influences put upon them, what would you expect to happen with other opportunities. It only took a couple of years to get a Medical Marijuana Ordinance after the 2007 moratorium was ordered (and meanwhile, essentially ignored without consequence).

CM Alarcon says, we need to "turn over every stone, we want to AVOID layoffs." That's probably their priority and why we still don't get anywhere. Alacon added, "How many of those jobs can be city jobs? IF we created 50 jobs, that’s 50 layoffs not needed." But you know what? Adding all the jobs over the years to the city's financial obligations just was another of the burdens, and, by not keeping a watch on things all around with a lot of wasteful spending is what got them where they are.

An example of needless city expenses accrued was given the LAPD's Police Protective League director, Sgt. Manna, who spoke at a community meeting last Saturday. He said that the city did not move phones from 150 N. Los Angeles Street, the Parker Center, over to the new headquarters a couple of blocks away, putting all new lines in and leaving the old ones there. He said, as I recall the number, that it was costing something like $2 million a year for those old lines. I could be wrong either up or down, but that's something that can be checked out. The idea here is that city business operations do nothing to control details- remember when the DWP was spending lots of money for bottled water? Add all this up and you see it was a culture of waste. Since there was "always more money where that came from," it continued unabated.

CM Greig Smith tried to nail down how all this came about and the Mayor said, "We took too long." Finally something of truth from Mr. Villaraigosa.

You can read the more complete report of this Council meeting where they include his comments on the "criticism" by the media where he said that it took courage for actions of council when they knew they would be targets of such criticism. Well, boo-hoo for being targets, but who's courageous when they continue to yield to union pressures all through the years- and Tony himself kicked off that kind of approach when he took office in term one, approving that sweetheart DWP contract, the one that keeps on giving, to the employees, that is. That's the same DWP union getting about 4 more years of raises recently approved by council. Very courageous, Mr. Mayor.
"L.A. mayor visits City Council to urge quick action on budget- Antonio Villaraigosa was cordial but adamant about the city's urgent need for layoffs, department cutbacks and privatization plans. Any delay could force the city into a 'financial tailspin,' he said." By Phil Willon and Maeve Reston, February 9, 2010 8:04 p.m. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-budget-mayor10-2010feb10,0,136871.story

The Lincoln High Alumni (post-) Valentine's Day Dance coming up, and a Memory Test.

Just a short reminder to all who have an interest in seeing some faces from the past again- it's almost here, the Alumni Association's Valentine's Day Dance after the fact- it will be held on Saturday, February 27th (still under the wire to be in "February"), set to begin at 6 p.m. and going to midnight. $40 ticket price.

See the sidebar link for a flyer with details- unless you are already receiving Mike Ibarra's reminders in your email everyday that ends in "Y". There's a list of the attendees circulating, so you might see a few people you know, and that's a nice thing for a social activity. Food, buffet style and music, DJ style, will be provided.

There will be two things happening on that topic before the dance event is here: First, Valentine's Day itself is on Feb. 14th, and then the February Alumni meeting a week later on Feb. 20th, Saturday at the Student Cafeteria at LHS.

Here is the part on testing your memory, or just, "Do You Remember?"
Nostalgia items- Do you rembember when they actually did some cooking in the cafeteria? Now it's an "unpack and serve" or "unpack, heat and serve" for the most part. And there's the free lunch and free breakfast programs that may have become an institution, replacing that old notion of packing your own lunch for school.

Let's go even further back- Do you remember the freshly baked cinnamon rolls sold at nutrition from that little shed of a building near the big drinking fountain in front of the cafeterial building? That's all history now as both that shed and the decorative fountain are only memories, with the entire area replaced with the concrete shelters for lunch seating. And there was another choice there, too, as I recall now, the buttered slices of French bread or rolls. What were they costing us then? 10 or 15 cents each? Another fountain that survived everything except one of the modernization campaigns was the fountain at the end of the Administration building on the Auditorium (now th "Andrus Theater")side. That was a smaller twin to the one in front of the cafeteria. It was made with greenish tiles and dark ones, too, and had the old knobs on the fountain head. I remember somebody saying that there was not any real reason to remove it as they did, and maybe it was the recently-retired Mr. Shapiro who said that, but I am not sure.

I have to take into account that there are many LHS Alumni that have no idea of all of this. It is an older generation, that's getting even older and smaller each year that can remember what campus was about before the buildings that housed the old shops, arts and vocational classrooms were torn down. That big Sylmar earthquake in 1971 damaged those buildings, as I recall, but maybe it was a later one. You can tell you're getting older when you can't keep your earthquakes straight, but I do remember that I was not in L.A. in 1971 for that one, and only heard about it on the news in San Diego where I was in my senior year at college- talk about a long time ago. (I did experience some of the aftershocks on the weekend return visit home, and that was something, but not close to a full earthquake.)

But younger alumni still have a few more earthquakes under their belt now, as do I- the 1987 quake after 7am and the last really big one that happened in the early morning hours when all the power went out, leaving everyone in the dark. I think that there was another one about 10 years ago. Somethings for everybody to recall over the years.

If you want to go to the dance, try to get yout ticket order in now to make life easier for the planners to coordinate things. Maybe the delay is intentional. You don't want anyone to know you're coming and waiting to the last minute will avoid having your name show up on that guest list. It's all up to you now.

Why was the City Attorney's Office getting hit so hard in layoff numbers? No coincidences.

"Sending Trutanich to His Corner- Outspoken city attorney gets singled out for big layoffs by irked L.A. City Council " Published on February 05, 2010 at 4:27pm,
By Gene Maddaus, Thursday, Feb 11 2010
http://www.laweekly.com/2010-02-11/news/sending-trutanich-to-his-corner/1

Did you know that there are many in city government who dislike the newly elected city attorney? It's in this story and you will see why. (Interesting that Rocky Delgadillo really had little negative attention drawn his way, and he really deserved to be checked more closely for so many bad acts- not all illegal, but some would rate a charge filing for somebody else doing the same thing.) Now you have a bull in a China shop who's a different sort of City Attorney. I still have a reservation based on the issue of Audit Authority of the Controlller's office and the way the promised cooperation of the City Attorney's office simply evaporated AND Trutanich was never at a loss to manufacture reasons for whatever he did.

All in all, I think City Attorney Trutanich is doing some good. All that farming out of legal work to private attorneys is welcomed by the private bar. But when you have to ship out things that you EXPECT will be part of the regular cases coming to the city like employment law cases from city employees complaints and court filings, it sounds like a stupid thing to do. Keep it in-house and avoid the big bills and expertise will increase- there are harder things to understand than employment law. Their are other areas that have the same need to remain in-house.

Training a few of the hundreds of lawyers IN-HOUSE could have saved them lots- and even a savings by keeping things under control at the negotiation level. Too many cases were going outside and creating mounting legal costs in the millions of dollars. Those law offices would occasionally hire a city attorney from time to time, too. That expertise could theoretically be applied against the city but the ethical requirements in the law would prevent it. Of course it would. When you have big money at stake and lawyers involved- and it's their pay affected- you should not get your hopes up too high, and neither should you expect that any shadiness will ever be detected by outsiders. All around, Trutanich is addressing some of the conditions that make sense.

Here is some background for that 100 person cut that was proposed for the City Attorneys office last week, made an immediate direction to act by Mayor Villaraigosa during his press conference. A Friday legal opinion challenged the authority for the Mayor to do that and Tony's backed off since he's controlled by the City Charter in what amount of authority he posseses. He went overboard here. Some people think that press conference was a staged event by the timing, just one day after the Council officially delayed a decision for 30 days.

The action was, by one newsperson's count, the 3rd time that the Mayor has annouced that severe actions are needed for city workforce members, and the "cry wolf" observation was mentioned. The story refutes the notion raised in council hearings that the City Attorney's office was intentionally targetted. Again, no coincidences, especially in L.A. government.

Council member Bill Rosendahl says Calligraphy cannot be cut? Tax Dollars at Work- for politicians, that is. What else is wrong?

Last week CM Bill Rosendahl was quick to respond once the topic of the calligraphers was mentioned as an item on the budgt chopping block. "No" to that cut which really is one of the easier calls to make in these tough times. This is not by any means the first time that the topic of costs for this activity as a tax-dollar-paid-for expense. The L.A. Weekly covered the topic and they did this LAST YEAR in an April 8, 2009 story. So when you add this into the wholc budget picture, nobody did anything even of a token gesture to addressing the quickly arriving certainty of the bankruptcy of the city.

You saw in the Mayor's "State of the City Speech" that he gave last April, a few days after this story came out, that he knew of the urgency of the city's financial plight, and he listed actions needed to head off a complete disaster, filling in the speech with the usual personal propaganda to suit himself and his then-expected ability to run for Governor. Nothing was done other than seeing Mayor Villaraigosa continue to take trips for supposed benefit of the city. Here was the highest paid mayor around getting nothing done and letting his staff grow to over 200 persons- and NONE of them is scheduled to be cut in all these current discussions on budget.

Well, the story of the calligraphers in the fuller sense that most people do not ever know about is presented in that L.A. Weekly story for you to really see how un-smart this city operates, thanks to the inability of the Mayor and the Council members to stop pandering to every interest that can get them votes or campaign dollars instead of paying attention to the city's well being for the people who actually live here and expect more.

"Pen Pushers Break Bank: Cash-Strapped L.A. City Hall Spends $1 Million on Calligraphy- Despite fiscal free fall, Villaraigosa and City Council spend public money on scrolls." By Daniel Heimpel, Published on April 09, 2009 at 4:12pm - http://www.laweekly.com/2009-04-09/news/pen-pushers-break-bank-cash-strapped-l-a-city-hall-spends-1-million-on-calligraphy/ This has the story THAT WAS FROM LAST YEAR when they could not kick the habit and save more than a few dollars.

The blog, LAist has a very brief item that notes how Rosendahl has changed his tune, giving priority over to calligraphy now. "Despite Budget Crisis, Rosendahl Wants to Spend $1 Million on Calligraphy," By Zach Behrens in News on February 3, 2010 11:12 AM. http://laist.com/2010/02/03/rosendahl_wants_to_spend_1_million.php
Bill Rosendahl is not the only one who can't act right, and you can see that by the fact that NOBODY said, "Hey, this is a luxury we can't afford anymore." And they could have put in, say, 10% of their individual yearly salaries of $176,000 or so, into a pot to pay for this, each CM for a total $264,000.00 to keep some of this going if it's so important. You won't see that happen, however. And that's all one example of a lot of other things that are not getting done by them. They just enacted a Medical Marijuana Ordinance that was years overdue since first bringing up the topic, spending tremendous amounts of time and energy of the government, supporters and opponents of the work and all of this pushed the work of budget repair off to the side.

What can you expect from them? Read the story on the calligraphers employed by the city. And, to really annoy some of the artists out there, or to please some of the critics, a lot of that "public" protest to keep culture and arts going really is in the same category or very close to it from an "essentials" standpoint- a luxury that can be put on hold. Arts and culture are very important things in a society, but to retain the status quo will be another example of the CMs and Mayor again trying to make friends for more votes and money. There's supposed to be some personal attachment to culture and "keeping it alive" is a family or personal responsibility, not neccessarily a mandate of government. If you add to this notion of individual reponsibility that I present, the fact that the actual cultures reflected are not really the ones from the mixture of classic American culture but instead, selections of activities that come from other countries, then you might see the idea that perserving culture and assorted art relevant to each culture is supposed to be a personal thing and not government-funded.

The El Grito celebration as an aspect of the September 16th Mexican Independence Day might be recognized by the city without much concern, except that I think one of the cost items for this rolls in as a weighty $25,000.00 expense to the city, and that's still not the total bill. My point is that there is a lot that can be put on hold immediately until the money situation improves. Some ranking in importance needs to be done, I suppose. It should not be the case that public taxpayer money has to be the only way that items of value to assorted members of the public will be operated. Another observation is that even the 4th of July celebrations don't necessarily get the funding or attention that goes to other of the types of activities described above.

The city politicians have been too long riding the city money train to a bad destination and that's simple enough to see- many of them, actually most of them if not all, blame others and even each other now as the chips are down. Seeing personal blame accepted by any of them is a rarity indeed; it's like the criminal suspect caught on tape doing a crime and then gets to court to put in the plea, "Not Guilty." These people are truly gulity but will never go down for the crimes, figuratively or literally. It's a sort of crude example, but the most vivid one I can come up with at the moment. We all know it's not really the case, but they do it because they can.

Check a meeting online for the city council with a check on YouTube for CM Richard Alarcon going off into some tirade against other city staff members, even some of his CM colleagues, but to a lesser extent. As CM Herb Wesson said to another CM who joked about ignoring Wesson, I think it was not intentional, but the joking was responded to, as Wesson said, half-joking, "You know I'll get you back later." So for the serious topics, it' unusual to see any hostility arise, even the disagreements are based more on theoretically-based ideas than actual occurrences .

Alarcon is often WRONG in his assessement and interpretation of the information, many parts of which are not facts but he's on a roll with these attention-getting moments and in the end, the common people will think he's standing up for them. See one video example on YouTube (time: 4:41) of last week's "caring" about people in his predator mode that he uses from time to time to make himself look good; execpt, if you follow city hall matters, you know he's 100% politician and 0% useful as a CM in handling all things anytime earlier. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqsoAQ4LhPs Maybe he will win you over, as is his objective.

Miguel Santana, the posted child for remaining absolutely calm and poised in a crisis, was an attack victim of CM Alarcon and incorrectly made so by Alarcon. If you step back and see who actually is responsible for certain tasks, it would be Alarcon, not Santana, a number cruncher who supplies the analysis and recommendations, while it is Alarcon who is supposed to act on matters along with the other 14 Council members. But if they were face-to-face, I doubt that Santana punching out CM Alarcon would be a complete surprise, it might even be considered to be quite deserved. But you see how city council chambers are laid out, something like a courtroom with distance and raised counters and seating adding to the buffer zone. That physical separation also has a side-effect of isolation that fosters arrogance among the CMs. The target of blame that Alarcon was looking for could have been found quickly had Alarcon put a mirror up to his own face- something that would have been right on the money. And, by the way he acts, you would expect him to have a few mirrors handy, being a self-admiration type, much like the Mayor.

There is so much that is wrong that's happening in city business and most people don't know and also don't care until something happens to put it in their face. They may see the DWP bill and the extra charges that are slipped into that bi-monthly notice. The rate for parking meters went up a year ago and most people say, "That's too much" and park on sidestreets or just suck it up and pay. And that's part of the way things work. There's a 9% tax on telephone bills for L.A. addresses, cell and wired, and it was headed to zero-percent except City Council fooled voters again with a "10-percent tax cut" (and the math was right: down from 10% to 9% actually is correct, "10% cut"- except a court ruling to end the tax ENTIRELY was soon to be issued but voter approval gave the 9% tax a life, and the 10% imposed tax was replaced and the court decision was no longer needed.

They, the CMs and the Mayor's office staff, tell you little and the "done deal" syndrome is too often apparent- even with the "Brown Act" pushing them to air things openly instead of their usual "behind closed doors" style of decision-making. That has historically been the model followed by both them and most of all, the lobbyists of the registered and not-registered types. (Get ahold of an appointment book or vistors log for these CMs and see if there's anyone getting together doing the chit-chat who also has some city business pending. I am sure it happens, and logically so, and it's not all talk of "How are you?, Nice Day; How's your golf game?" and assorted city-business-neutral talk.

Compare the effectiveness of influence that a lobbyist has, with real accessibility to the CMs outside of council chambers, to the input that the people of the city have during council meetings that lasts for 2 minutes apiece- and it's cut to one minute when there are very many people showing up. How much is that time worth for effective "communicatin" when compared to getting personal appointments with a CM to go over things pending in city hall? From the usual and immediately taken "unanimous" votes by council that follow the last speaker, I would conclude that the impact is very slight. And that is the way it is. Not right by any means, but that really is what happens there, not to mention the inattentiveness and disinterest that most CMs demonstrate while there is public comment happening for an agenda item. So you see now that CMs haven't done much on budget fixing in the last year but check their travels for the same period and many "vacations" are slipped in there, oh, that's right, it's called necessary "city business." That part of the job doesn't get passed over. For a city government, they manage to chalk up a lot of international travel.

Lots more but this is enough for now.

Council Elections- March 2009- Incumbents re-election their priority while Budget issues smoldered.

It was March 2009, nearly a full year ago from now that the city elections were held, with the Council District offices for odd-numbered districts up for voters to decide. The "L.A. WEEKLY" carried a story about this opportunity for new blood in the Council chambers with the word to the uninformed about the near stranglehold influence that special interests have on these elections, throwing money into the campaign chests of their favored politicians. The LAUSD Board was also having an election.

To reflect just how difficult it is to wage a challenge with any competitive possibility against such special interest supported candidates I point out that Monica Garcia ran UNOPPOSED for her re-election. While hardly being any prize for the District's students, she had support, mainly from the Villaraigosa camp. Garcia rose to the position after her boss, Jose Huizar, the former LAUSD Board President, moved on to the greener pastures of the L.A. City Council and received strong support from that same Villaraigosa for CD-14's seat, a seat held by Villaraigosa for less than the "promised full term" that he pledged to CD-14's voters. The calling to run for Mayor of L.A. was the irresistible lure that Antonio ultimately chose to follow and bail out on CD-14's consituents.

The nearly impossible task of defeating Los Angeles machine politics, a small machine in comparison to those of the cities back east, still a major influence on who gets into office, is what a challenger has to take on. The story in the L.A. Weekly tells about some of those facing that strength, more often being a sinister strength now in its effect on operations in government. Special interests include developers, energy industry people, labor unions, and other varied groupings of goals that find their way to put money into favored politicians pockets for campaigns for re-election and other areas of financial support.

"The Unsung in Today's Los Angeles City Council and LAUSD Elections," By Jill Stewart in election, politics. Tuesday, Mar. 3 2009 @ 2:24PM
http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/election/the-unsung-in-todays-los-angel/

For those of you in Lincoln Heights, one of the areas within CD-1, Ed Reyes is the Council Member representing you in City government. In that election of 2009, Jesse Rosas won over many voters with what I observed to be a very small effort in campaigning for votes. But with such an unenergetic effort, he still was able to gather some large numbers of votes. That outcome was as shown below:

COUNCIL DISTRICT 1 -----Votes -----------Percent
ED P. REYES----------------- 7,608-----------76.06%
JESSE ROSAS---------------- 2,395-----------23.94%
http://ens.lacity.org/clk/elections/clkelections309862718_09292009.pdf

The nearly 1 out of every 4 votes cast that were for Rosas really could be seen as a vote AGAINST Reyes more than FOR Rosas. A lot of people just are tired of the way Reyes handles things.

COMING UP: Even numbered districts where Jose Huizar will be among the CMs trying to hold on for a last term under the term-limits. That "TERM LIMITS" law that was extended by voters, most of whom I suspect had not much idea of what they were voting for, in a completely fraudulent representation of that proposition that disguised the true impact of the changes sought.

The "term limits" urged were actually EXTENSIONS of terms, but most people just don't even bother with considering ballot measures to any extent beyond finding them on the ballot, relying on the propaganda of campaign mailers- as if that had any reliability factor- to inform them. The other part of that "combination ballot measure's" unusual 2-in-1 propositon was "ethics reform," an ironic selection considering the campaign on this proposition was completely a matter itself devoid of any ethical practices.

Well, for now there's lots for what gets attention of Council members. The budget and spending cuts is the main attention getter.

AS for ethics, you also currently have CM Richard Alarcon appearing to really live outside his district and that's against the law. The story Alarcon presented is a huge pill to swallow when it changed everyday for the first few days that the story broke. We will see if the DA's office actually gets serious with him but you know, CMs develop a huge attitude of overly self-importance and an arrogant attiude to go with it.

See the story from KABC TV news for a taste of what's there on this story. http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/politics/local_elections&id=7219957

There's just a lot going on to say we should get a whole new crew there in city hall after the budget spending was allowed to go so far out of control before any of them really gave it attention. The mayor is already a lost cause but that's a separate story to go back to later.

Are L.A.'s ERIP Pensions a Bargain to City? See the list.

In order to cut payroll costs, the City made the early retirement program with an incentive. It's one of those "hard to refuse" deals that traded having to pay a worker a salary for showing up every day on the job for now paying the worker for not working anymore. Some money was added as a bonus for taking the deal and it was supposed to be limited to 2400 employees. It makes you wonder how good the deal turns out for the city when you also consider the recent announcement that several hundred of the approved participants were employees that were not paid out of the general fund and these retirements will not reduce the deficit calculation.

The revelation makes you wonder how well the planning was done in this area, with so many annual pension figures rising above the $100,000.00 mark.

"City Pensions Since ERIP: The Facts, The Figures, The List" Written by Ron Kaye, Saturday, 06 February 2010, as appearing in the blog, "OurLA.org" at http://ourla.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1447&Itemid=3233 (The story also posting on the blog, RonKayeLA.com)

Release of Results in Public School Choice may be delayed to Friday

That election process to determine parents' preference of those bidding on taking over school programs could be delayed in release until Friday, according to the L.A. Times story in the L A. NOW blog. "Results in L.A. school-reform elections could be withheld until Friday," February 6, 2010, 7:53 pm, Howard Blume.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/02/results-in-la-schoolreform-elections-could-be-withheld-till-friday.html

The results are non-binding on the District's selection. Complaints by charter advocates about the lack of access to parents telephone numbers and other methods of reaching parents and students that the teachers were able to use were made, among other criticisms of the process.

It may turn out that the changes might not be substantial after all, but it's going to be a decision for the District and the Board, so what happens could be anyone's guess.

Mayor Villaraigosa orders 1,000 layoffs; City Attorney Says Mayor is without that authority

Tony V, aka Antonio Villaraigosa, as Mayor of Los Angeles, in a press conference called late Thursday afternoon, ordered several things, including the "immediate" layoff of 1,000 city workers. The City Council handled this matter Wednesday in their regular council meeting and agreed to hold off any decision on layoffs for 30 days. The mayor obviously disagreed.

One of the targets of the layoff was the City Attorneys office, with a 100 person cut planned. The idea of going in this directioni is odd since that is the office that handles city prosecution of misdemeanors and represents the city in civil actions. The cut to the staff with more than half to be lawyers, would seriously hurt the ability of this office to do the job.

Carmen Trutanich was elected to replace the old City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo and took office at the beginning last July. Under Delgadillo, a lot of money was spent on outside law firms because they had "the expertise" needed. That cost the city a lot to pay outside attorneys for such work. Trutanich began immediately to have city lawyers have training so as to be able to handle cases in-house and to cut out a lot of this spending for outside lawyers. It also would affec the ability to prosecute criminal cases and you have to wonder what they were thinking to come up with this idea.

Trutanich gave the Council much grief by his challenges to legality of the paths that the council tried to take in drafting an ordinance on the Medical Marijuana issue. The idea of cutting the C.A.'s office looked like it was some sort of payback. That was denied at hearings this week, all being just based on non-personal reasons, they said.

So now Friday, the latest news from the L.A. Times, is that there's not going to be cuts to the City Attorneys office. "Showdown brewing between L.A. mayor and city attorney over layoffs [Updated] " February 5, 2010 4:24 pm, by Maeve Reston at Los Angeles City Hall http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/government/


For now, the Mayor seems to have backed off on cuts at the C.A.'s office because, he says, of their work in debt collections and reductions of the judgments against the city. Under Delgadillo, there were several prominent cases with large settlements made when facts seemed not to justify the sums.

Remember firefighter Tennie Pierce and his Million Plus settlement for being tricked by fellow station members into eating some dog food in his spaghetti? Racial Discrimination was alleged, even though he had worked for years with the same people and was a prankster himself with them. So Delgadillo's departure was overdue in my opinion and he should have resigned when it was shown he filed reports of damage to city vehicles that happened while his wife was driving but that fact did not appear. So you see a big change happened and it was not "Business as Usual" anymore with the new City Attorney. And it was about time.

One good thing from Villaraigosa's Thursday announcement was the mention that he wanted the council to turn back to the city certain assorted funds in the sum of $40 million dollars that they had as for use as a slush fund. And noobdy on the Council ever spilled the beans on this fund before this. That fund was reminiscent of the county's $3-million fund given each year to each Supervisor. Here it was over $2-million average for each CM.
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From the L.A. Weekly, "Show Us The Money: L.A. Council Slush Funds Revealed," By Dennis Romero in City News, community, economy, politics Thu., Feb. 4 2010 @ 7:09AM http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/city-news/council-slush-fund/

Who can you trust? The mayor's timing for the press conference could be the product of his own need to be on the news- if you follow his habits- which often seems a stronger motivation that the actual content of his press conferences.

More on "Public School Choice" -voting tomorrow; Study finds racial imbalance in some Charter Schools

Here's a bit more about the reason for the voting that's happening at Lincoln and other LAUSD schools that will end tomorrow. (See the LHS official home page for copies of proposals by the groups seeking approval.) There's more detail on what the election process is about than what I was able to find the other day in the Lincoln web site material.

In the L.A. Times, "Voters advise L.A. Unified on preferred campus takeovers - Parents, teachers, students and community members weigh in -- sometimes more than once -- on their preferred plans for 12 underperforming schools and 18 new ones in the advisory election." By Howard Blume, February 3, 2010.

Another bidder is Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who seeks to expand
the number of schools managed by his nonprofit Partnership for Los Angeles
Schools. (I would not recommend anything that carries the name of the mayor with it.-r.g.)

The bidding process also drew furious participation by groups of teachers from the very schools that were deemed the district's worst. (I think you see that there is some irony to this is being pointed out for you. -r.g.)

The district paid the League of Women Voters $50,000 to run the
elections. Seven different ballot pools will be tallied separately. (And you can see that nothing the LAUSD pays for comes cheaply, even it its a civic group charging. -r.g.)

"Who Will Run Your Schools? It's Up to You," Written by Anjuli Kronheim, North Valley Reporter, Wednesday, 03 February 2010, http://ourla.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1430&Itemid=3236 that appears in the blog: OurLA.org , a blog about activism in the area of city operations and the ongoing (mis)management you find at City Hall.

==================================================

There's a story in the L.A. Times today about a pattern in charter schools- that the ethnic makeup is not diverse in some of the schools, a racial imbalance, if you will. There's a comment reflecting on the integration goal achieved by bussing practiced a few decades ago, that says that schools should not be going backwards. Some of the reason is that establishing schools in some neighborhoods will reflect the makup of the neighborhood and there is where you have a lot of the main ethnic/racial group, be it Afican-American or Latino, or other identifiable grou that forms the makeup of the neighborhood as often exists weighted in much of the city. See the story, "Charter schools' growth promoting segregation, studies say - A UCLA study is one of two finding that the increasingly popular campuses skew toward racially separate student bodies. Charter advocates criticize the reports." By Howard Blume, February 5, 2010 L.A. TIMES http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-charters5-2010feb05,0,3300930.story

L.A. City Council's "discretionary" funds, or just good old slush funds?

"L.A. budget analyst's report shows council's off-budget accounts,"
February 3, 2010 3:48 pm L.A. Times, -- Maeve Reston at Los Angeles City Hall
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/02/city-budget-analysts-report-identifies-city-councils-offbudget-accounts.html

What was that? More money that no one mentioned earlier? Well, Mr. Santana knew of it and from the description, it's simply a slush fund. From the story:

As the Los Angeles City Council debated how to close a budget shortfall that is
expected to grow to nearly $484 million next fiscal year, the city’s top budget
analyst for the first time identified more than $30 million in accounts
controlled by City Council members that are generally kept off the
books—reserved for special projects in their districts.

Yes, it's like the reported $3 million that each one of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors get each year, but here it's 15 CMs getting $2 million each.

And you know what, Wendy Greuel as the Controller was talking this week against dipping into the reserve fund and how that would hurt the city credit rating, not to mention take out a big chunk that might be needed later But as a rainy day fund that might be a consideration, consider that it's raining for the city budget purposes.

Wendy WAS a council member up until July last year when she took over as City Controller, so the existence of the money could be no suprise to her but she never mentioned it's existence to my knowledge.

Keeping secrets? Oh, well, what else is new? This was like the money Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas had as the County's five Supervisor's get about $3million apiece each year to do with as they may, but with the idea being that it's for a public purpose. Ridley-Thomas must have thought that meant that spending was ok if it was done in a public building. His request of over $700,000.00 to remodel his office was first approved unanimously by the full board, then the public heard of this absolute waste of good money by a foolish politician, and then it was rescinded with little fanfare. The other 4 Supervisors were as bad as Ridley-Thomas in letting it happen to begin with but- and again- you know the drill: "We won't block your request and you won't block ours" and that's the way it is with any notions of checks and balances among peers. It just doesn't happen by nature- it has to be artificially done by citizens blowing the whistle on them.

It is the same thing with the City Council, except there's more of them to be watched. Again, I refer you to that symbol of harmony and co-existence, the UNANIMOUS VOTE, that is so pervasive in the Council Chambers as the clerk takes the vote. That happens often after public commment on the agenda item and sometimes its done so fast after the last speaker is done, that it's got to look like they didn't even pay attention to any of what was said. And you know what? That's just what it is. Most things are a "Done deal" before any CM even gets into the Council Chambers; they might as well have phoned it in. This is one of the rare situations in City Council where what it looks like is actually what it is.

You get a better deal in court where usually your papers are read by the judge before dealing out the decision. When you have a motion, in the civil area, at least, there is a sort of preview of what the decision will be that's given to the two sides of the argument, a "tentative decision" that is usually posted at the court doorway and clerk's desk. In those situations it's really the judge tellling you, "This is what I am going to do unless you can convince me to do something different." Then you at least have somebody hearing you out.

But City Council more or less rubber stamps the earlier produced recommendations of their committees (fellow CMs) or the wishes of whoever made the motion (also a fellow CM) and unless you have a busload of agitated people to breathe down their necks as they complain during public comment, you won't get noticed. The more people that show up, the less of a rational argument you will need to demonstrate in order to have your position gain favor. At least that's the way it looks to me.

But if the Council Members' slush fund was not mentioned in CAO Santana's reports, when would any one of them cough it up? Your guess is as good as mine if you have noticed what I have written all along on this blog. One thing I like about Santana is that he's pretty easy to understand because he speaks slowly and clearly and doesn't get too excited.

Side note: The typist who types out the words on a screen for the deaf or hearing impaired members of the audience at the Council meeting has a pretty good time keeping up with Santana's part of the meetings. Unfortunately for him, some of the other speakers rattle off things so fast and less clearly that they put that same typist guy into overdrive and it's really hit and miss affair as he tries to keep up with the speaker. I wondered if he was familiar with the jargon terms used in City Hall setting. I sat nearby on Monday and marvelled at his just his sheer speed in making the attempt to keep up with the speakers all by himself. Of course if you relied only on the screen text for following the course of the meeting, you would often be puzzled but it's describing the meeting, more or less. Even the sign language interpreters had a sort of tag-team like in wrestling so they could rest for a while as the next sign language interpreter takes over.

LATE NEWS: The mayor- yes, he seems to still be in town- has announced at a press conference that he's ordering that 1,000 layoffs of employees be laid off now. What he says and what actually happens may or may not match. I expect that the unions will file some sort of legal challenge to stop this, or maybe there will be another backroom deal to put it on hold like the Council decided yesterday. They set 30 days within which to get their actions sorted out. Good luck- who else is hiding money?

LHS in Finals Week; Public School Choice Voting in progress

LHS MINIMUM DAY FOR FINALS WEEK
With all the activities on L.A. City Budget happening, I haven't been able to check on the old alma mater. Now I see that we are at that moment of truth on varied levels. The Finals Week is in progress with a Minimum Day schedule operating yesterday, today and tomorrow, rotating with two periods per day holding their final exams. The new semester will start on Monday.

VOTING FOR "PUBLIC SCHOOL CHOICE"
Public School Choice voting is in progress, too, with voting days of last Tuesday and next Saturday. This is one of those responses to the LAUSD's schools' overall poor performance in mosts tests that you can find, all the way down to the CAHSEE, (California High School Exit Exam) that seems to be the first indication that there's a problem. It's given every year, each semester, beginning in 10th grade according to my memory, but that's not the crucial part. The test only has to be passed once and you are done with it. That's not been happening enough, even though the grade-level design of the test was supposed to cover only up to the 8th or 9th grade level of learning.

The exit exam should be simple and direct to get over with and taking the test each semester with a second testing a semester woven into the schedule for make-up for absentees on the regular date. But I am not sure about more than one try per semester. In any event, the passing numbers are not good, but they are getting better I'm told.

Now, that Public School Choice is in the LHS official website and that's appearing in both English and Spanish for parents to choose among the competing offerings since LHS has been in PI (Performance Improvement) status for 5 consecutive years. They have lots of company but after 3 years a change can be made by the State taking over a school. Too many schools in this category to handle all by the state, but it looks like your charter schools and other operators have the door opened by District to present their proposals that will lead to opening up shop as a school operation.

SOME PROPOSALS PRESENTED BY THE CURRENT TEAM ON CAMPUS
The LHS entry is there too but I am not too encouraged by it. I see one big part that should have been done years ago, and that's adopting school uniforms. Most charter schools follow that practice and while a lot of people want to have "independent thinking" extend to dress, we have to remember that high school should include preparing students for the future. That future usually includes working and more often, it's working for somebody else. In line with that is the need for some conformity with standards of dress unless you happen to be self-employed. Even there you want to attract clients and customers, so you will dress accordingly.

The other item that I was not whole heartedly in agreement with is the block scheduling. Roughly, it's a 2-hour or extended class session as opposed to the 50-something minute class. I don't like it for the simple reason that attention begins to wane in long sessions for young people. That's my unscientific conclusion from observing students in my own and other classrooms.

Next, the student who misses a class will be twice as far behind for missing one of those sessions and that's not good. In a related situation, I think it's better for shorter more frequent class sessions to give information and allow a time before the next class to allow some digestion of the material and maybe some homework on it.

Regular sessions as a more practical use of time compared to Block sessions-

I used to talk a lot with teachers, being a newcomer myself, and we considered teaching to be something of a performance to get students engaged, to give them information and show them how to use it. Regardless of our own situation, we had to perform and when each class was over, you had to have felt something was accomplished by your efforts. Being new, it was often a bit stressful and fatiguing. Getting some experience under your belt probably makes this part easier as the years mount up for teachers on the job. Working two hour classes into the program is where it can make the productivity of each class more crucial since you have two session now pushed into one.

So, a block session operation is so long and if it's fully engaging students it's great, but if it's a bad day for students or teacher, too, then twice as much mediocrity happens. A two-hour show, essentially, has to be prepared and has to be a hit each time for the students to really get something out of it. Students in college might like less trips to a classroom and can tolerate it, but I doubt there's the same utility or benefit to younger students who already show resistance to being in school- not all, but a lot, and these will be the ones that mght not do well here when we want to be as inclusive as possible. There's enough drop out already without pushing out more.

Blocked time justified in some cases:
I should add another comment, that when we had classes like I remember in the case of shops, the longer time that back-to-back periods for those shop classes made sense. You had to set up things and prepare for doing some work, and then you also had to get some instruction for advancing to more steps. The sports programs were like that, too. Not much use for an hour PE class for team sports, but the last period continued to after school for practice time to be worthwhile.

Academic classes usually don't involve too much set up time and equipment for a need to add time. There's a comment about discipline improved by not having students moving from class to class as one passing period is eliminated for each block that is in the schedule. That sort of admits that the school capitulates on the discipline ability and uses elimination of that action to be the solution. On the other hand, being short handed in staffing and having a lot of energetic students trying to move to another class in a few minutes is a real job and reducing the need might help operations, but I don't think it's a "plus" for the school to demonstrate success.


INNOVATION ENOUGH TO WORK NEEDED CHANGES?
I will have to get back to this area later- the charter schools really pose a threat to conventional school operations. LHS is trying to be innovative to challenge any bidder for operating all or part of Lincoln High's facility. From being in LAUSD for so long, I don't know how well different thinking will be realized and whether that different thinking is worth the value that will be claimed.

Another negative to me is that idea of the SLC, the Small Learning Community. The idea included having smaller groups of students, like a mini-school, where the teachers would be closer to their students and needs, contrasted to the conventional big-school setting. I don't think largeness itself is a negative if education is demonstrated to happen. Just using Alhambra, a district that I know a little about, I see there's Alhambra High apparently functioning adequately with a huge population that makes knowing all students a tough job. But it's not in trouble as far as I know.

One reality that is never actually factored in to SLCs is that there is a lot of faculty turnover. LHS had over 100 teachers and in only a few years, you have a major change in the faculty roster. So a big school or a small school will have turnover - and if it's a small school, it will be felt even more when it happens.

There's just a lot of the changes that are proposed that either don't mean that much as a certainty to produce an improvement, or, they come so late in the game that you wonder why it took so long to happen. And THAT last part is what gripes people about how LAUSD handles the schools. It's what I see happens to cause pollution of minds so people only act "the LAUSD" way

There was a description of being able to address student problems individually but SST was supposed to be a part of each school to handle that. SST was the Student Success Team that would address anything that was impacting negatively on a student and could be triggered by a teacher referral. At least that was what the training taught us, but I really never saw that provision explicitly established in the few years I was at Lincoln. One of many of the expectations that were created in training but not found to be quite what was happening in practice.

CHANGES - ANYONE REMEMBER HOMEROOM?
Finally, whatever happens INSIDE the schools usually is unknown to the outsiders, even to many parents. I remember that when I spoke with alumni while I was teaching, that then fact of a "home rome" or "roll call" was long gone. A lot of people say,"big deal," but you still had that thread of continuity of students and teacher for at least ONE session AND there was a break from the work aspect of school. We were informed by the daily bulletin, spoke about current issues in the news or school or just did a few minutes of socializing with the same students in this homeroom that would carry on to graduation.

That's a capsule description and there's more to it, but it doesn't happen anymore. Adding a few minutes for daily roll taking and reading sessions for whatever happens to be 2nd period or whatever period that activity defaluts to is not the same as a homeroom. As I have said, outsiders usually assume it was like when they were in high school, that is, UNTIL they have students in school or make a campus visit to see all is not like it was before. It's been a shocking revelation to some-usually in the mode of dress of the girls of today.

An example of another time that caused some impact: I remember when a state team visited the school to evaluate it around 2004 and the general usage of profanity by students, easily heard while just walking among them in passing periods, was a big shock- so much so that a behavior plan was among their proposals presented to the administration. It was supposed to include parents, too. I just got used to the profanity outside and dealt with it as needed inside the classroom. And just in case you wondered, nothing ever happened to address that part of the recommendations but that was an expectation based on how a lot happened or didn't happen at Lincoln. Parents and outsiders just don't really know a lot about those things, and there's a lot of defensive attitudes in place on the school side of things that you might notice, maybe more now than before.

CHARTERS A HOPE?
In any event, there's a lot more problems in the LAUSD but I just noticed this program-changing item on the school's calendar. I need to get up to date on charters' operations- one big thing that is different- and some will not be happy with this comment- the charters don't have unions as another influence like LAUSD has.

Some organizing is happening but it's not yet widespread, and that entanglement in LAUSD is a source of a lot of things coming to a standstill. The role of unions appears to have changed over the decades and I will leave that topic for another discussion, too, for now.

L.A. City budget moves still on hold by Council; new taxes an idea- a bad one.

The Council is still not able to come to a decision to fill the deficit in the budget. Over $330,000 a day- I don't recall the exact quote off-hand- is the amount that is added to the deficit EACH DAY that no action happens, according to Miguel Santana, Chief Administrative Officer ("CAO"). Putting that another way, from the same source, you would have to add another 4 positions to the lay off to cover the additonal shortfall.

From the L.A. Daily News, "In crisis, city hall talks new tax hikes - Council faces 1,500 layoffs if revenues aren't found to offset a more than $200 million deficit," By Rick Orlov, Staff Writer, Updated: 02/03/2010 09:02:48 PM PST
http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_14329429 Here's the idea and it's not a good one for taxpayers already living in a state with the highest taxes in the country:

As the City Council delayed a decision on making layoffs and eliminating city
departments to balance the deficit, some council members began talking Wednesday
about proposing new taxes to help ease the city's budget woes.

Councilman Bill Rosendahl suggested placing a parcel tax for an
undetermined amount on the November ballot to generate more revenue, in part to
help pay for the city's ballooning pension costs. Councilwoman Janice Hahn said
she wanted to consider submitting a variety of potential tax increases to
voters.

Bill Rosendahl is the same one who did not want to give up the Calligraphy people- and if that's something that stays in the budget in tough economic times, they you are in for problems in seeing what SHOULD go, if not that PURE LUXURY that serves to stroke people and businesses. Bill Rosendahl is one of the people behind kicking up the parking meter rates. Not anyone you would call "a friend of the public."

Aside from the mention of tax hikes, the story today adds that, "The council debated for six hours, with hundreds of city employees showing up to express their anger about potential layoffs." This is something of another luxury that happens only in this arena, the Los Angeles city government. It is something that most people in the private sector do not see in their jobs at all and it sounds pretty crazy when you study what's going on.

For the private sector, when the decision is made to do layoffs, usually there is not anything to do but pack up and leave. But take the City situation. It really amounts to having the employees blast the boss and then they expect to get some changing of minds as their reward. A real life, non-government job would have security called and out you go with that escort and it's over. And I don't think the city employees recognize what an oddity the system creates for them to do that. They do their work- of course they do, and was that supposed to be a unique thing for an employee? This is another place where we see reality drift off track again.

There was a photo in the L.A. Times today of a city worker wearing his bright safety vest and speaking during public comment. It said, as closely as I can remember, "What am I going to do for a job if I get laid off?" That happens to be everyone's thought in these times, and there is not going to be an easy answer.

But you know what? In city government, they flip flop so much in what the decision will finally be, that it often works. There is not that much resistance put up to the public pressure- and it's not the public, as here, it's employees. Anyone who gets a group together to fill up the seating in council chambers has a good chance of influencing outcomes. The Intimidation factor at work.

This is really why nothing happens. You might notice a theme, "We do our jobs" and "We work hard," but if you were the boss, wouldn't you say that that was the reason they got hired in the first place. That whole line of reaoning is lacking some real bsic logic, but you know with the layoff, it's financial and not performance that is mainly driving this.

And HERE, city council members have agreed to put off a decision for 30 days to decide what they will do. Meanwhile the meter is still running on mounting deficit until there's actioni actually happening.

But I will leave it at that and tell you later about the decision that WAS made: trash rate hikes for some seniors and disabled.

And how high will these proposed taxes be that will still probably be short when the time comes to find a figure?

I heard today that the revenues now compared to last year are at 97% of last year's and revenues have not been higher- the problem is in the way council and the mayor continue to spend and management continues to allow waste. There's lots of abuse in there, too, mostly known to insiders and not a whole lot of people willing to take responsibility to fix or report it.

So much needs to change here. If you agree with approving tax hikes, it's just making you an "enabler" to these spending junkies. Money is the fix for them. Elections are coming for the even-numbered council districts and new blood is called for since this crop of representatives is firmly set in their ways and it's not helping us; it's not getting the job done that they were hired to do.

And woe is us if ANY of them does becomes mayor- since being voters, we control that choice if there's enough to take that responsibility. It's bad enough now in the city with Tony V. , "the 11% Mayor"and you see he's not improved his habits one bit, even with increasing his staff to the 200 person range, they can't produce solutions. What about cutting THAT part of staffing? Those positions rate a pretty impressive pay check. Hmm?

City Council still trying to find the budget solution; Zuma Dogg's video is on target.

[Updated on Feb. 3, 2010]
The Monday meeting was an 11-hour long session and there still were only a few decisions made. Packing the council chambers were Neighborhood Council members from all over the city, employees, appointees and patrons of the departments that were slated for reduction or elimination, including Disability, Human Relations and Cultural/Arts.

One particular objection to cuts came from CM Bill Rosendahl who said the Calligraphers on staff were not to be cut. And this cost has been reported to be around $500,000 per year, but I have not seen it form myself, but it's still a lot I am told . Of course the CM's won't cut this out since it is a FREE (to them) service to keep them in office. How? You give out the awards in the form of these handmade certificates to people and an organization for whatever reason you choose and you have just bought some votes in the next election. Get these going out to community members often enough and you have a good base of voters. THIS should be the first item to dump but it's a purely selfish decision of Council Members that is paid for by the taxpayer, so it will stay.

There's a report with some important comments and facts on the Monday Budget and Finance Committee meeting in the L.A. Times, "Some L.A. Council members resist spending cuts, layoffs - A majority of the council's Budget and Finance Committee has refused to sign off on the plan to cut 1,000 jobs, a key component in the plan to plug a $208-million shortfall." By David Zahniser and Maeve Reston, February 3, 2010, http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-la-budget3-2010feb03,0,7778047.story


Tuesday's full Council meeting was not quite so long, but there was a much livelier debate. CM Richard Alarcon jumped all over the CAO Miguel Santana about not getting more jobs for the federal stimulus money instead of cutting jobs- but Santana is the administrator, not the guy with the decision making power- apparent even now since the Council is DECIDING what to do with the RECOMMENDATIONS/REPORT of Mr. Santana.

Eric Garcetti, Council President, was quick to take up the theme, "We are a family." Well, maybe instead of a family, if it was treated as a business it wouldn't be so fouled up. Trying to look good to all sides is what the council people try to do. Appeasing the work force and the tax payers at the same time is tough to do and maybe not possible, but "votes" is the precious commodity they constantly strive to amass. That motivates them to spend more and more and say "No" to program funding less and less. The Mayor started the ball rolling down the path to disaster by approving all the DWP's inflated pay scale salaries and raises when he took office after defeating Jim Hahn in Antonio's second run for the Mayor's job.

The difference in pay for DWP jobs is about 20 to 40 percent above comparable positions in the city's other departments. The union, the IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) more or less runs the show there at DWP, and they were just given raises in the past few months while other city employees were being furloughed. (See: L.A. Times, "L.A. council unanimously approves raises for DWP employees," December 11, 2009, -- David Zahniser at L.A. City Hall , http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/12/la-council-unanimously-approves-raise-for-dwp-employees.html

The city's Engineers and Architects took a hard hit for not getting on the bandwagon with the Mayor and were and will be punished for causing trouble, with furloughs applying to them in a very generous share.

The Coalition of Unions, another group that got a really good no-layoff deal for making some concessions is now digging in its heels against the city's plan to re-negotiate the terms and implement layoffs of their members. A strong letter that states the city is in breach of their agreement went out last week and it looks like the city is in for a big fight. The only significant change here is will come just about when it's bankruptcy time and all the deals and agreements are thrown out and everything is restructured under a bankruptcy court judge's supervision.


All a sad outlook for a lot of people, and especially the people of the city.


I saw Zuma Dogg's stickcam video that recapped Monday's budget hearing- "Zuma Dogg Recaps Budget Hearing (IT'S OVER!)" - 02/02/2010 - http://www.stickam.com/viewMedia.do?mId=187472900 and it's something to listen to even though I am in the game for supporting Neighborhood Councils and DONE (Dept. of Neighborhood Councils), especially since that's about volunteers, not a paid workforce as contrasted with other objectors to the funding cuts.

The video is 18 minutes and gets off to a quick start and keeps up the pace so that time moves quickly. Even just hearing a part of it will tell you that the city management is not looking up to the task that it has. It is pretty insightful as Zuma Dogg usually is, but if you have a sensitivity to profanity, you are forewarned. Nevertheless, it is loaded with very specific criticisms and comments as well as coming down to the seriousness of the case.

A point I want to bring out is that Zuma Dogg HAS been saying all this stuff for years that the Council has just come to realize. He told of these dangers to THEM, the CMs at council meetings for so many times over the years. Even the Mayor's April speech on "The State of the City" incorporated projections and actions (all later ignored by Tony himself).

The ZD video is very candid and vivid. You might not like it but even with that viewpoint, the whole city situation is addressed in the blunt, often tactless style used by ZD- but that is so refreshing and colorful while getting to so many points and mini-evaluatons of the actions in the city. Entertaining, but I think it's also got a lot of correct assessments all through it.

And now to Wednesday and another try for City Council to make cuts. By the way, the share of the budget the departments and such that are included in the recommendations is 30% and the part that fire and safety (Police and Fire Department) have is 70%, so, as was stated at the Monday hearings, "all is on the table," that is, all except for then nearly or above 200-person workforce Tony Villaraigosa hired as his staff that originally was in the 70's. And STILL it doesn't help get him on any thing close to the right course for being a real mayor and getting a job done. See Steve Lopez' column in this weekend's L.A. Times, ("A Fresh Start" at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez31-2010jan31,0,5864779.column ), the mayor, after all, is personally at a "good place" or whatever he says on personal self-assessment, to bypass any handling of the reality of the city problems with any tenacity.