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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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