Is Today's State of City Finances Any Surprise? Question the Failings of the City's "Leadership"

Ron Kaye, former editor of the LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS, again is the guy to go-to for some especially painful but pointed enlightenment about the predicament that the City of Los Angeles finds itself in. It is the product of the city "leadership" - meaning the elected officials who were entrusted to run the city.

Here they have done just that: They have run Los Angeles into the ground while warning signs and calls for urgent and swift action continued to be presented for months and years. So the leadership is a word that has to carry quotation marks around it- "Leadership"- as something special since it identifies the only the roles but not the successful accomplishments that the players pretend to produce.

Ron Kaye's blog http://www.ronkayela.com/ has two new items today. The first one posted is entitled, "This Is No Way to Run a City." By Ron Kaye on January 21, 2010 6:29 AM. http://ronkayela.com/2010/01/this-is-no-way-to.html

This is a capsule summary of the conditions and reasons that we have been subjected to as an inept management of the city continues to victimize the businesses and residents. They do it shamelessly and they do it continuously. They lie to the people directly as in the failed Measure B's solar energy ballot item that was produced with a tilted playing field in operation to favor the goals of the DWP's union, the IBEW. The city propositions S and R were about a phone tax of 9% that would have been Zero percent through an ongoing court case if voters were not fooled to institute that tax upon themselves, and the "term limits/ ethics" combo that EXTENDED terms of council members so that we get another four years of the same bad representation by the same connected groups working for special interests (when they aren't working simply for increasing their own power and influence to later use for trading with the special interests). That was supposed to make for more ethical regulations to be giving us better government; that was purely the distractor that was used to slide in that extension of another term.

Please continue and see that column in the Ron Kaye's L.A. blog.

The second posting for today is, "Bankrupting LA -- Who's Fault Is It?" By Ron Kaye on January 21, 2010 10:24 AM. http://ronkayela.com/2010/01/dont-blame-the-bureaucrats-for.html Here is a rundown of the series of revelations, acknowledgments and warnings that should have been heeded earlier. Even earlier than these events, there were warnings of the impending disasters that the city was headed for by the actions of the council and mayor. The activist most loudly chastising Council Members and Mayor Villaraigosa was Zuma Dogg who was both theatrical but usually right with his predictions that were usually met with resentment and, often, ridicule. And that would be funny except that the doom and gloom consequences were the real thing. And I have to say that through all the years of Zuma Dogg's antics and burning of bridges, the words spoken carried the truth more often than not.

Ron Kaye gives some highlights, or lowlights, of the failings over the last year for you to see and to consider yourself. We went from Mayor Hahn who was very unnoticed and was the low profile mayor during his time in office, and then we went to Mayor Villaraigosa who cannot stay away from cameras and who sees no boundaries for his office, going into national and international events that serve himself first and occasionally, the city. His administration was the one that took on L.A. schools when it was outside his jurisdiction. His office had no authority to act since it was under the LAUSD's Board of Education, but still he meddled and diverted his already-sparse time available as the City continued to slide downhill with neglectful or bad management in plentiful supply. The Mayor's absence from the city and lack of attention to local issues over the years has come at price to bring L.A. to the brink of bankruptcy. Even to today when he's given up on seeking higher office (for now), namely the Governor of California, there's lots of distractions that he obviously enjoys over just staying put in City Hall for any extended time.

Recent example: Antonio's appearance on the television soap opera, "All My Children," gets his attention- justified by the production relocating to L.A. from N.Y. Eric Garcetti gets into this, too, as both will play themselves. Eric is a mayoral hopeful and bad news for L.A. He was pushing a lot of the deceptive measures mentioned above- even Solar Measure B was slipped by the other Council members for a while until the whistle was blown by activists that sent CMs to say they approved things based on what was presented (and that was their "out" on responsibility as they quickly back-pedalled out of that jam.)

Enough said for now on this sad state of affairs coming from the highest paid (about $178,000/year; a shade under $15,000/month) council in the United States. Every 2 years the Council comes up for elections of about half of the seats; even-odd numbered districts alternately up for election. We need representation not victimization. The termed-out CMs already have plans for their next office as most are professional politicians, hopping to new offices like a frog hops from lily pad to lily pad, or you can see it a little more clearly as a very taxpayer-expensive form of musical chairs.

CD-2 Election goes to December Run-off for this 12% total turnout

The results are in for CD-2 and the worst candidates got the most votes which turned a bad possibility into an even worse reality.

Who voted? It was a TOTAL of 14,525 -- That's just 11.84% of 123,750 REGISTERED VOTERS of CD-2. And more than HALF of that was from people MAILING IN ABSENTEE Ballots.

Paul Krekorian, fresh from participating in creating the State budget chaos in Sacramento, got the most votes. CHRISTINE ESSEL, simply an agent of Antonio Villaraigosa, running for the CD-2 office for what reason? Because "it's the only spot open" for a new CM. She really doesn't live in the area but has an apartment rented to cover that.

Larry "Nativo" Lopez, Latino activist, was charged with a voter fraud crime for registering in Boyle Heights but really living in Orange County. But I don't think he rented any place for a real address to claim in the district.
"Immigrant-rights activist to fight voter fraud charges
No plea deal reached between defense and prosecutors, attorney says." By SALVADOR HERNANDEZ , The Orange County Register, 9-22-09. http://www.ocregister.com/articles/lopez-charges-county-2576763-orange-prosecutors A deal was in the making on that case but fell through in a dispute over whether the charge will be a felony or a misdemeanor, so it's now headed for trial.

Chris Essel, on the other hand, has lots of money and DID have a place to call home in CD-2. It's strange that the WORST candidates, tools of the special interests, had the most money to spend on the campaigns- or maybe that's not so strange an outcome. MONEY does wonders, and that's more and more the case shown in politics. Krekorian also came in to the district to run for the office.

IT'S ALL TO BE SETTLED IN A DEC. 8th RUN-OFF election. FOR pretty good commentary on how it all came out yesterday and some ideas of "why," along with some thoughts about what the people need to do to get back control of these offices from bad candidates, see Ron Kaye's blog today, http://www.ronkayela.com/ "City Hall's Win-Win Strategy Wins in CD2 -- Who's to Blame?" by Ron Kaye, September 23, 2009.

My favorite, David "Zuma Dogg" Saltsburg, along with most of the "grassroots" candidates did not get anywhere close to the votes expected. Even Tamar Galatzin, the third "Machine" candidate came out with a much lower percentage of voters than either Essel or Krekorian. Half of the votes were mail in absentee ballots and those were sent out weeks ago. So if these voters did not hear the word from anyone other than Essel and Krekorian, both making use of mailers to drive their story home early in the campaign, then that was a seriously missed opportunity.

Pretty sad but then it's the voters who did not vote that let this election happen like it did: 12 % voted, so that means 88% did NOT vote. More than SEVEN times the number of voters who cast ballots stayed completely silent at the polls, the election could-hypothetically speaking- have come out with ALL grassroots candidates EACH getting more than the total votes cast in this election.

No one got more than 50% of the votes cast, so the run-off in December is required to settle it- NEITHER of the two TOP vote-getters received MORE than a number equal to 6% of all the voters registered in the district. So these things can do a complete flip in results, depending on how many people come out to vote. The voters are there- AND in relatively HUGE proportions. So HOW DO YOU GET THEIR VOTES?

2011 will bring you another district-wide Council election in the EVEN-numbered districts and I hope a good answer is found by then.

Council votes on Special Events motions Tuesday

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/09/budgetwary-la-council-strikes-new-policy-for-subsidizing-grammy-oscar-and-other-events.html L.A. Council votes on new policy for subsidizing Grammy, Oscar and other events
September 1, 2009 5:37 pm

Well, the special event fee waivers has been something going seemingly giving money to anyone who makes the request or is connected, a relatively small but steady drain of tax money without any real guidelines made known to the public.

City Council went back into session after a couple of weeks of summer break and they approved a change that was originally proposed by CM Parks and amended last by CM Huizar. The video portion that I saw of CM Alarcon was not much of a surprise when he complained that "I do not want Zuma Dogg dictating public policy," adding that to other jabs to ZD that Alarcon throws into his comments from time to time. The idea, I suppose, was to connect ZD and the notion of being "a bad guy" to the creation of the controls on Special Event Fee Waivers (where the city winds up eating costs of doing work caused or needed by events, including traffic control, closing off streets and all sorts of things like that).

Actually, ZD or David Saltsburg (as he's becoming to be known now in his CD-2 council bid) has constantly been a thorn in the side of city council on what they do. The problem was not created by ZD but instead was snowballing into an out-of-control fee waiver practice for too many things that were not appropriate to do- and now in near-bankrupt condiitons of the city, this is even more needed.

The whole matter was voted on and approved, with CMs Hahn and Alarcon being the two NO votes, complaining that this will end needed events. The real policy should and apppears to be making these contributions on the city side to be 50-50 instead of covering 100% of the city expense, and the main idea is that the events should be public ones, open to all members of the public, as opposed to "private" affairs.

Still, there is the Grammys, the Oscars, and other awards keeping eligibility for waivers, and these are definitely NOT inclusive of anyone in the general public to drop in or sign up to attend. That side is still a big part of the "trade off" Council makes on things, to some extent logical by considering the economic effect generated, but that's still not a non-profit group operating at all, and the council people like to rub elbows with movie stars and celebrities. They will often trip over themselves, figuratively, when such celebs come to City Council meetings to speak on topics, and if you get one who has a real fan on the Council, the gushing is pretty obvious and often over the top. So you have lots of simple reasons for the way things happen in the official world of the city political organization.

But on Tuesday's action, the matter has to be voted a week later to become a law and that will be on next Tuesday or soon thereafter if voted to put it off.

There is a list of the years spending by districts that you can see at
http://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2009/09-0600-s46_rpt_bfc_8-12-09.pdf the Recommendation from the Budget and Finace Committee, composed of CMs Parks and Huizar. There's a lot of money spent in the different districts on small events that are what the waiver process is really supposed to be about.

Using CD-14 (my CD) for a big example of what's been happening, you see that the big dollar expenses of CD-14's CM Jose Huizar, include:

Cinco de Mayo Celebration $ 57,724
City's Birthday & Feria de la Salud Events $ 28,597
July 4th Fireworks Show - Boyle Heights $ 13,550
July 4th Fireworks Show - EI Sereno $ 4,642

All this is ironic when you see that more is spent in this category for the Cinco de May event, $57,724, that is mostly a U.S. event and not the Independence Day of Mexico, but more celebrated in the U.S. than Mexico, with a tradition evolving as being the reason to drink and party.

That's pretty big. The U.S. Independence Day-related expenses in Boyle Heights and El Sereno together are less than $20,000, and that's still a big expense, going to two fireworks shows.

That "Cinco de Mayo" money from CD-14 overshadows even the listed amounts for the "City Birthday and Feria de la Salud Events, $28, 597."

I think there is way too much money applied to the wrong parts of celebrations and there should be recognition of culture, fine and well, but the culture of pure and simple partying is something that should be financed by private money and contributions from other than tax-dollars. If anything, parades held now should first cover the U.S. holidays before this home culture withers and dies, and I include Veteran's Day events in this area.

It's like that for other CD's as you can see, but accountability and justification of the spending has never really been an obstacle and so the money flows.

Well, there's little money these days to cover city expenses, and the council members spent $5 million last year on the Sp. Events, but the change will give $1.5 million to this, and each of the 15 CDs will get $100,000.00 to spend instead of the uncontrolled (or self-policed by council votes, which still means "uncontrolled") way it is now.

The vote comes up next week and we'll see whether there's any action of any remedial or controlling fashion that will be approved. Something that Zuma Dogg brought up for years, but also brought up as needing control by none other than the Mayor himself, but that's not mentioned by Alarcon since the mayor's toes cannot be easily stepped on by CMs whereas a member of the public, especially a critic, can be demeaned and it's safe to do most of the time. The problem happens when the people see the B.S. that goes on and no amount of excuses can compete with common sense and arithmetic.

More Rocky Delgadillo land mines for Trutanich as outgoing Ctiy Attorney shows he's no friend to taxpayers

The L.A. Times reports again on the sleazy move by soon-to-be ex-City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo that's left the City of Los Angeles taxpayers with political appointees taking on a civil service level of job protection. The souvenirs that Rocky leaves behind are pulling in paychecks for $100,000.00 to0 $200,000.00 a year. Rocky couldn't manage to handle things well for the city during his term, but who would have seen this coming? He applied some of his purported legal skill that ends up at landing his friends a secure, well-paying (actually "over-paid") position when they should be leaving with him.

Again, Rocky costs the taxpayers money unnecessarily. If there no way for the City Council to unwind this trick, the Council should move immediately to create a change to prevent future occurences by city politicians. What a slimy guy Delgadillo is to do that when the budget is all fouled up and the CMs are turning the cities pockets inside out while planning furloughs and layoffs for city workers. And this is supposed to be the top law enforcement officer, the City Attorney for Los Angeles pulling this crap that was done purely intentionally as a favor to his pals.

"Trutanich contends that tenure limits his appointing of a team; Los Angeles' city attorney-elect says aides with job protection under the current officeholder are taking up spots and that there is no budget allocated to bring in his own staff." By Rich Connell, June 12, 2009 Here are the pay details and the view from incoming City Attorney Carmen Trutanich. The Timse report is not entirely accurate if it's basing Trutanich's view as a "complaint" when you consider also the reference to the radio interview by Doug McIntre Thursday morning on KABC radio. I heard that part of the interview and you could not have imagined how tactful and careful he worded his comments to NOT sound angry or frustrated, both of which you would expect. I thought he was too much of a gentleman but really there's not much to be gained by rants from the City Attorney- at least the one coming in shows some class. I happened to hear an evening interview live with Trutanich by John Phillips on KABC radio where STILL he was avoiding any nastiness on a clearly provacative move by Delgadillo. Trutanich said he discussed some things will Delgadillo on the transition and they will work out some things.

And on this very topic, there's some good commentary from Wednesday's City Council meeting by Zuma Dogg. He laid it on the line there for the City Council, and that 2 minute clip is at http://lacity.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=130&clip_id=6190&caption_id=8542830

ZD's comments are very colorful but more than that, they drive the idea home that the City Council members continue to let things get beyond control through slippery moves of fellow elected officials.

I read the Zuma Dogg entry from Thursday evening in the "L.A. DAILY BLOG" and it's simply a scathing denunciation of Delgadillo and the underlings he installed to continue their sucking up of city money for the long run, like turning on all your faucets at home and going on a trip. Totally useless and destructive of the opportunity for his successor to operate at a 100% level.

Well the ZD comment is not even close to being as kind as Trutanich has been here, and you can read his "no-punches-pulled" commentary, "Did Nick Velasquez PURPOSEFULLY LIE or just make an un-innocent mistake when he said MOST of Hahn Appointees remained wtih tenure when they didn't; What kind of spokesperson is Nick Velasquez if he can't get the facts straight on his own office?"

See: http://ladailyblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/did-nick-velasquez-purposefully-lie-or.html

Another good entry there on the "L.A. Daily Blog" for Thursday is the long item on "Medical Marijuana Dispensaries" (MMDs) and that seems to me exactly what happened. All the blame lies with the City Council's poorly written ordinance with the unspecified criteria for exemptions, and then leaving ALL the applications for hardship exemptions UNTOUCHED by the PLUM committee or Council since Fall of 2007. This is what created the groundwork for what followed. And that was the MMD exemption "filing panic" or "last chance filing" sparked by Jose Huizar's announcement in early May, or so, of his motion to strike the Hardship Exemption. That's where the bulk of the people making the filings got their inspiration, a really big backfire to the purpose of the motion.

Who is on that PLUM committee you might wonder? Chair: Ed Reyes (cd-1), with members: Jack Weiss (cd-5) and Jose Huizar (cd-14). So it kind of fell on Jose's lap, this obligation to respond to his Eagle Rock constituents' complaint on the growing number of MMDs in the local area, being part of the bunch- that being City Council and the PLUM committee- that "dropped the ball" on this (more accurately, they never even picked up the ball). Ed Reyes, reportedly, rejected Huizar's idea of beginning hearing the applications for exemptions with all due speed. If that was correct, Reyes looks like he made a complete turnaround on that view by the time Tuesday's Council meeting came around.

BUT THAT'S A DIFFERENT TOPIC. DO read Zuma Dogg's comment on that to see if that's not the case. http://ladailyblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/la-city-council-needs-to-base-medical.html (I don't agree with the "too many MMD's" analysis by ZD, and I think DENSIFICATION is not the effect that you want with MMDs and the controlled substances sold that are only legal for medical purposes. So far, the sale of caffeinated coffee is not in any way made a crime and a comparison is unfair and misleading.)

Zuma Dogg's take on the Delgadillo situation is on target.

Just checking Zuma Dogg's "L.A. Daily Blog" and there's quite a bit, maybe more than the average L.A. resident would know about. I see that his assessment of the conditions being left by outgoing City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo as mentioned in my earlier post and L.A. Times story reference is a no-holds-barred summary that should enlighten you on the workings fo real life political manueverings that hurt the service to the public.
"Shame on Loser Like Nick-Velasquez and Ben-Austin Who Want a Free Ride on Your L.A. City Taxpayer Dollars (during this economic hardship) " http://ladailyblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/shame-on-loser-like-nick-velasquez-and.html

There is a lot of abuse of power that goes on behind the scenes and you can get peek by reading some of the posts on this L.A. Daily Blog, http://ladailyblog.blogspot.com/.
There's an assortment of posts that are pretty informative and what printed there is often ahead of the pack in breaking stories and filling in details. It's also presented in ZD's own style that puts off people, but it's the message not the messenger that you should keep in mind. I like Zuma Dogg's postings and I think most of the time that he's got some news to bring out. Some people simply despise him for what he reveals and you can figure out who those people may be.

Rocky Delgadillo did no favors with what he leaves L.A. city government. You should remember that the next time you ever see his name on any ballot and return the favor by voting against him- and keeping him out of office would be doing him a favor when you really consider the whole situation. The L.A. Daily Blog's post tells you who some of Rocky's friends are, too.

Has City Council forgotten that the "Infrastructure" is ALREADY stressed?

The Water Conservation ordinance is now in operation. In that language, the ban on watering between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. is pretty clear, with few a very narrow exceptions for some specified businesses. The "Tuesday and Thursday Only" restriction on watering days is definitely for sprinkler systems, but you won't have to let everything in your yard die for lack of water.

Phase II has language that gives a break for most of us:

"3. These provisions do not apply to hand-held hose watering of vegetation, if
the hose is equipped with a self-closing water shut-off or device, which is
allowed every day during Phase II except between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 4:00
p.m." If somebody has a different interpretation, let me know but check the ordniance (amended) at DWP's website.

AND WHERE DOES ALL THIS COME FROM?
There's a clip from the meeting of City Council- the link from Zuma Dogg's website- where he speaks on an agenda item that is one example of the City Council's continuing mission to densify the city's population pattern. I have mentioned the same ideas, but not in the very clear and loud way Zuma Dogg does, and still, Zuma's message is simple and is ignored- that's how we got into the mess and getting deeper into it every day with City Council's assistance.

See the 2-minutes of ZD's "Comment" this part of Tuesday's meeting- Zuma Dogg is speaking from the Van Nuys City Hall remote location: http://lacity.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=130&clip_id=6129&caption_id=8436539

(Zuma Dogg's website L.A. DAILY BLOG http://ladailyblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/zuma-doggs-devastating-public-comment.html with his own view on things, as unpleasant as it seems, a lot of this is already seen to be true, and the rest of his "inside information" may be on to something, as he's been right very often in the past)

The city is sinking under the overload of a burden on everything it has, BUT it slows development down NOT ONE BIT. Are we racing to the edge of a cliff and expect not to fall off? One clear example is the obvious need for more police officers on the street- we are understaffed here. But why do the Council and Mayor keep pushing the goal line further and further away by EXPANDING THE NEED for police by putting in developments for packing in more people?

Actions like this are either insane or politically motivated. In this city, it's some of both. I would like to see somebody on City Council own up to this contradiction. There is money being made on the actions going on and not all of it is obvious. City Council: Instead of trying to shoot the messenger, pay attention to the message. That is the biggest failing of the City Council.

Villaraigosa appointee resigns after barred campaigning for Jack Weiss

This is really late news, old news, maybe not news to many since it was from last week. In any event, since lots of people don't or won't check the L.A. Times or other newspapers, I want to bring it out again to fill in a part of the progression of events in the campaign for City Attorney in Los Angeles

"Pension officer resigns after Weiss fundraiser; Mayoral appointee Kelly Candaele quits after inquiries about his involvement in a fundraiser for city attorney candidate Jack Weiss." By David Zahniser, April 29, 2009.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-pension29-2009apr29,0,2196014.story Kelly Candaele is listed as one of the hosts of the event. City law bars commissioners and board appointees from having their names on fundraising invitations.

Roughly four hours after The Times asked Villaraigosa's office about the event,
Candaele submitted his resignation letter, saying he had put his name on the
invitation by mistake. "Although I did not raise or contribute any political
funds, this is inconsistent with the ethics pledge I signed when appointed to
serve," he wrote.

Jack Weiss, facing the runoff election May 19th against Carmen Trutanich, was in a financially comfortable position during the campaign for the March 3 election, raising well over a million dollars. This was shown early in that campaign, reported in the L.A. Times, by Phil Willon and Maeve Reston on January 13, 2009. "Antonio Villaraigosa, Jack Weiss and Wendy Greuel campaigns rake in funds; Los Angeles' mayor and two City Council members outpace opponents in 2008 fundraising. Villaraigosa is running for reelection, Weiss for city attorney and Greuel for city controller." http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jan/13/local/me-cityelex13

All candidates for city office, including those running for City Council, were required to file reports Monday detailing contributions collected during the three-month period ending Dec. 31 and totals for 2008. Candidates had until midnight to file, so not all reports were available Monday evening.

In the city attorney's race, Los Angeles Councilman Jack Weiss led his top rival more than 2 to 1 in fundraising. Weiss, whose campaign began in 2007 and is chaired by Villaraigosa, reported more than $1 million in cash on hand after raising $970,478 in 2008

That drive for campaign funding this time around appears to have pushed the edge on ethics and in this case overstepped the limits. Since Antonio is running for Governor, barring some other revelation of personal or political failing, this is not anything he can have connected to him in even the most remote manner to will weigh down that campaign and give more canon fodder to opponents. Since Kelly Candaele was an appointee of Mayor Villlaraigosa, a resignation was inevitable once the revelation was made.

Jack Weiss is trying not got get more negatives on his side while he works hard for ways to spin his past record to a positive. It's all beginning to be a big job and besides not being good for a candidate for office, it's especially a gloomy omen when you consider that the office is "City Attorney," the top city enforcer in the law.

Weiss, who is running to replace City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo in the May 19 election, will give back roughly $20,000 raised from Monday's event, said his campaign consultant Ace Smith. "Jack Weiss believes that his campaign must be held to the highest standards," Smith said in a statement.

It's hard to see all this as a simple mistake there's a lot that I agree with in the criticism and the running critique of the story that's presented in a blog posting by Zuma Dogg on his "L.A. Daily Blog" thread item, "Villaraigosa's PENSION APPOINTEE Steps Down Over JACK WEISS CAMPAIGN FUNDRAISER (Too Good To Be True!) on Tuesday, April 28, right after this story broke last week. Zuma Dogg has a few loud critics but they cannot ignore the fact that there is a huge amount of information that is not seen elsewhere that is correct and that others don't cover a lot that should be big news stories.

As a complete aside, I should also add that a lot of bloggers, nearly all of whom post as "anonymous," have a connection with the subjects of ZD's criticism and use the blogs to plant the retorts in defense of their jobs, their boss's jobs and their own bias. The majority of those are personal attacks and not addressing topics on the merits, if you want to spend any time reading a lot of such comments in Mayor Sam's Blog, http://www.mayorsam.blogspot.com/ In blog comment postings, lots are written as separate comments, but by the same persons or groups of persons to make it look like "everyone" is saying the same opinion. This does not happen just for Zuma Dogg, but for any topic that may be critical of a group or position, but ZD writes so much, he's the biggest target for most of it, being criticized generally or specifically in that same ascerbic style that is rarely productive of any ideas or solutions to the topic. A lot just want him to quit, even though that would end their recreation. It would keep a lot of things from being mentioned, and like in the L.A. Times' inquiry into the campaigning by the appointee, can lead to bad outcomes for those subjects.

There's so much to criticize in the Weiss operation, including the candidate himself, the most important shortcoming. Weiss' campaign has already achieved the unusual action of having an endorsement taken back by a prominent official. Sheriff Lee Baca did that and issued a statement scolding Weiss for how he's run his campaign, including noting the absence of "fairness," a quality that causes concern for electing one to the ofifce of City Attorney.

There's always more to see about Jack Weiss and why he should not be elected as City Attorney. The continued events in the campaign just bring out more to see. He was poor as council member and now a completely wrong person for the City Attorney's office. Undoubtedly, there will be more to come in the campaign and so much backfires on Weiss that I can't predict what will happen next, only that it won't be good for Jack.

Mayor Sam's blog on Teacher Layoffs and Monday Hotsheet

If you haven't visited Mayor Sam's Sister City blog (about L.A. politics and sitting to the left in the sidebar here with a link), there's the TEACHER LAYOFF thread commentary, "Public Utility of a Pink Slip," that I thought was off base and you might read a reply that sounds like me in there. http://mayorsam.blogspot.com/

The Monday Hot Sheet has several things today:

Zuma Dogg got Monica Garcia disregarding the civic responsibility to mind a couple of laws. If the video camera battery did not die at that moment, the clip would have been great. It's still good to show that your elected officials, MONICA GARCIA here, unfortunately, ignore simple requirements of the law.
CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO: LAUSD President Monica Garcia Parks State Vehicle in "No Parking" Zone

There's comment on the expense that DWP racks up with the Free CFL light bulb program- And you read my views here weeks ago with some of the same thoughts- not that I am that smart it's just that the better way was too obvious. DWP is an easy target because it has so much that is wrong from the appointed bosses to the programs they run.

"Mayor Sam's" is a good place to hear about what's wrong in local political activities and you can read comments from the critics who only say their political bosses are doing well for the people but continue to make attacks on everyone else, and still manage not to have any solutions to discuss. There's a lot to consider and sorting through the city officials' slant is part of it. That negativity is not the style you see here- I do suggest some solutions and consider that personal attacks are not way to win a rationale argument or persuade anyone of much besides only having bad manners.

Mayor's Race and Death Threat charged; Where's Tony?

MAYOR’S RACE- PART 1:
The mayor candidates are coming down the home stretch for Tuesday’s election and my choice, David “Zuma Dogg” Saltsburg, was pulled away from a mayoral forum event on Thursday after another of the 10 running for mayor, Craig X. Rubin, complained to the police. The other candidate’s charge: Rubin said that Zuma Dogg had called him and made a death threat. The news reports say it was "recorded on an answering machine." Then, it wasn’t recorded, said Rubin, among the events claimed to have happened.

Zuma Dogg will speak his mind, very clearly and sometimes very loudly. Sometimes people just don’t like what they hear, especially if it is about them and if it is bad. Rubin is an advocate for marijuana legalization and his complaints of being hassled by the DEA just have others saying he’s a paranoid. There is a lot to say bad about him, rightly or wrongly, but he’s become very sensitive, judging from his past behavior and may over-react, I’d say.

Well, Zuma Dogg was met by the police at the event Thursday as the Rubin “death threat” complaint had to be checked out. Lots of people don’t like Zuma Dogg for revealing lots of behind-the-scenes stories or for pushing for changes to the history of sweet deals between the politicians and developers who build non-stop around the city, making some big money on it all, and moving on to another deal..

People around city hall especially don’t’ like other people to “rock the boat,” especially if it can affect their paydays. The LAPD released Zuma Dogg after doing their investigation and were satisfied that he was not a threat to Rubin or anyone else. They are done. If the D.A. wants to charge him with something, they might need a few things; one being a “credible witness” and some evidence might help. For now, it looks like an overly sensitive candidate making a big deal of something he imagined.

MAYOR’S RACE- PART 2:
There is another mayoral forum set for today at the Henry Fonda Theater in Hollywood, and Craig X. Rubin is claimed to have made a request that David “Zuma Dogg” Saltsburg not be allowed to participate in further mayoral forums. He’s asking another candidate, Walter Moore, to join him. That was reported in Mayor Sam’s city politics blog this afternoon. http://mayorsam.blogspot.com/ , “Saltsburg Responds to Rubin and Moore Debate Threats.” An audio clip lasting just under 2 minutes that contains the recorded response from Zuma Dogg is attached, where he says he’s not stopping his campaign and they do not control that, and he denies that any of the charges made by Rubin are true, and that’s why the police investigation is finished.

And that’s what you might have heard on the news- “death threats made by Zuma Dogg” that really is all the T.V. news does, looking for “sensational” things to get better ratings. You don’t hear them telling you where the candidates will be holding their events, or rolling any tape to show you what happened in debates. They usually don't even follow up to say nothing more came out of the story. They don’t report something unless it’s a big deal- and that’s why I say television news is not your best source of news.

Mayor Villaraigosa still keeps his smug, arrogant and take-your-vote-for-granted position unchanged. He’s making a tour of spots to get his face in your face, but they are carefully planned so that he doesn’t get challenged with questions that he cannot answer truthfully.

Tony has over 2 million dollars-nearly 2 million dollars- to throw around to be sure there’s that party atmosphere for everyone to “feel good” about Antonio. Do you think he wants the voters to read on the measures? Then they would know more than he does about what’s going on.

Villaraigosa is still the guy puling strings, though and he’s the one who’s getting all his things in order to head to a Governor’s race in 2010. He will spend most of his days on NON-City business until that election, like he did with the Presidential election. THAT is his plan, THAT is his priority.

A story in the L.A. TIMES today shows that the budget deficit is much worse than earlier thought, "L.A. budget gap could hit $1 billion," By Phil Willon, February 28, 2009, http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-la-budget28-2009feb28,0,4878373.story and Tony is looking for drastic steps such as selling off city parking lot rights for a lump sum- leaving HIM high and dry and YOU AND I will be left with parking fees rising HIGHER. Meanwhile, he’s gone to the next political office and we are stuck with the bill. He doesn't care about that and you need to see it before it happens.

VOTE TUESDAY but NOT for Villaraigosa

I say Zuma Dogg would be better, but you have some choices. David Hernandez is among the civic minded group who's also worth considering. Walter Moore if you are so inclined, and he is smart. Phil Janerjahn is just not very deep into what's needed, but then, Neither is TONY- he needs notes from assistants to tell him about what each city item is about, he's gone that much. Phil is too kind to Tony, though and there's no reason for such forgiveness.

A runoff election will likely be the best outcome, so vote for ANY OF THE CHALLENGERS to Tony and FORCE A RUN-OFF election. If the Mayor does not get OVER 50% of all votes cast, there will be a runoff. That's why voting for ANY one of the challengers will be A GOOD THING. Those votes take us to a run-off - or maybe even enough to defeat TONY there without a run-off election.

REMEMBER, A LOW-TURNOUT MAKES EACH VOTE THAT IS CAST THAT MUCH MORE SIGNIFICANT- come out to vote Tuesday. My guess is 5 minutes of your time, no lines, no waiting if you mark your sample ballot first.

VIDEO OF MAYOR-But it's not at a debate. It's his San Fernando Valley campaign office opening

There a place you can see Mayor Tony but it’s not in a debate, but YouTube from last week where he went to the San Fernando Valley to open a campaign office you can see he has no apologies for ducking debates and ignoring his responsibility of telling voters WHY WE SHOULD RETURN HIM TO OFFICE. He’s just so smug, but there’s a little bit more that you should consider before you simply roll over and accept another term of this mayor’s abuse of office and people, us. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b05_bIOMg7w #3 of 3, 6m 19s.

I NOTICED A CURIOUS THING IN TONY'S VIDEO, he bragged about the transit tax passing "in a recession" and noted that it's not supposed to happen. TONY forgot the lies that he and his political friends pushed on the voters for all the measures, as always, hiding the ball, saying whatever needs to be said to get their vote. Then he uses the results to add to what he's achieved. Another sales tax boost, 1/2 %, a regressive one at that, like all sales taxes, impacting disproportionately on those less able to absorb the added financial impact.

His speech style is just too poor and everyone there in this video is on HIS side- he would easily melt in a debate with anyone. It's all due to him lying with every word and thinking about how not to get caught.

IT'S A STUPID CONCLUSION if he’s proud of that outcome, since TONY manipulated people to screw themselves (again) but he thinks it's an achievement or some sort of true public approval- the public never really got any truth given to them by TONY’s side to even be able to properly consider what they were voting for. It’s the lambs being led to slaughter there, and meant more as literally than figuratively when you think about the real-life impact on the lives of people now. THAT result should not be something to be boasting about, TONY. It just shows that TONY is completely self-absorbed with his own career ladder-climbing, and his mind is as far as it can be in considering the impact on the public.

TONY is truly a demon when you see the impact that more taxes have had on the most financially vulnerable, the FIXED income elderly or disabled persons who get no chance for a raise or promotion to compensate for rising taxes and “fees” that the government imposes. The city council is relentlessly following that “revenue generation” instruction from TONY to cover the excesses in city spending that THEY approved and now refuse to accept that as having been caused by them. The really unforgiveable part is that the Council and Mayor did this spending while also ignoring all the warnings given and available months or even years ago.


Well, all that just leaves me very unsure of expecting that "the right thing" is going to be done by even mildly informed people, many of whom will buy into having another disaster of a second term of TONY as Mayor. Too many people rely on television news that is really an “info-tainment” show now, and any resemblance to real news is purely coincidental.

Television won’t give real news to viewers and I believe polls have found that, even with that warning, this is the main source of news for most people. Only very lightweight amounts of serious knowledge are shared about critical issues so no real news is delinered to the public. But you can bet that there will be television news cameras at the polling places on Tuesday, March 3, to cover their “news reporters” saying the predictable things like, “The election is bringing out a very small turnout.” What kind of news is that?

Television news, while always hunting for ways to get you to tune in for ratings, is the poorest of all the sources for anyone to get news on any kind of story. It’s absolutely fine for visual images, like car chases, but television news is mostly for looks, not for substance. Another poor source of real facts and any truth would be to see Tony's campaign mailers and video spots. Chief Bratton, who endorses him, is simply another of Tony's puppets, depending politically on Tony for all that he has.

Vote next Tuesday- and you already know what TONY'S about- pick someone who cares about improvement for the City and the people. You have your choices, and I support Zuma Dogg, who knows the issues and the processes from years of bringing his views to Council, with all the theatrics used to deliver the messages, many of them bearing unwelcome news and opinions to Council and the Mayor. But you have your own choices, make them informed ones, not rubber-stamps for Tony.

Another rainy day- Still not a "full" day at LHS, City elections nearing, and some news stories to notice

After the 3-day weekend, LHS students ease back into school with a shortened day via a "Professional Development Day," and will be out at 1:34 p.m. today. Not so for the teachers who have the time cleared for some training and information sessions on these days.

The City Elections will be held in 2 weeks on Tuesday, March 3, 2008. Most registered voters got out to vote for the November Presidential election, but the City election is coming with a LOW profile, hardly considered by the residents. People thought they were doing something important in voting heavily for Obama in California- not so much as you might think, since the Electoral College system minimizes your individual vote. Electoral College votes matter, and individual voters are only important in CLOSE elections which was not the case in California.

The CITY elections are completely opposite, with EACH voter's choice becoming very important. Back in around 2001, in the CD-1 race, it was only a matter of around only 32 votes needed by a friend, attorney Robert Nakahiro, a Roosevelt alum, who missed forcing a run-off with Ed Reyes, and that's when Reyes came to office. I do think Robert would have resisted being taken over by special interests and maybe it turned out better for him to stay out of that contaminated environment. But now we have to clean things up, like a clogged sewer that's backed up and cannot be ignored.

The city election is the lowest turnout of all, and 11% of the registered voters are predicted to come out, if that many. I've given my views on the candidates and the sleazy treatment that city residents have been handed by elected and appointed representative. MAYOR TONY is the latest mover, refusing ALL debate invitation to say WHY he should be re-elected.

TONY refuses since his hand-shaking, partying-style of controlled meetings with the "public" and phony "news" conferences to publicize himself and get face-time on T.V. will be what he is depending on to do the trick, and it IS a trick. Like the NBC public announcement slogan a few years ago, "The more you know....." but for TONY, the more you know, the more you should see he needs to be shown the door.

The voters can come out and get rid of the Mayor in two weeks. If Tony gets less than 50% of the vote, he still has to face a run-off. The political machine is what gets the benefit from the city officials now. Once in a a while, the actually do something right or good for the city, but mostly they wind up costing us more just to live here. Next year you will be paying 25 cents a bag, paper or plastic, at the stores in L.A.- and ED REYES was 100% behind that, for example.

A low-turnout election gives more leverage to each voter. Suppose, as an example, 1,000 votes were cast and Candidate "A" got 60%, that is, 600 votes and the others got the rest, 400. That's over over 50% of the votes for "A" and he's a winner. But if the other side gets OVER 50% plus 1 vote, there is a run-off. The Candidates, "B" and "C" and others could force a run-off by getting 201 more voters to show up and have them vote AGAINST Candidate "A".
"A" gets 600 votes
"Others" get 601 votes. RUN-OFF TIME.

That's a LOW turnout example. But suppose 10 times the number came out, 10,000 voters. And keep the same percentages for all, so for Candidate "A" that would be 6,000 votes for "A's" side, and 4,000 votes for Candidate "B" and "C" and the others combined.

To force a runoff, the challengers' side needs 50% plus 1 vote or 2,000 and 1 more voters to add to their side for a total of 6,001 votes, forcing a run-off.

Compare how powerful the fewer voters' effect is in the low turnout number of 201 to force a runoff in our example, to the higher turnout requirement of 2,001 more voters to make the run-off happen. Grabbing your friends and neighbors and relatives to come out to vote with you can swing the results with ENORMOUS effect in local elections. Just the newly registered young voters coming out of LHS in the last few years would form a significant group of voters.

But don't be fooled by TONY, or by Wendy Gruel, city controller (the city "watchdog" for abuse, waste and corruption in city business) since she's Tony's too-good-of-a-buddy to come down on his case if problems are found. In fact, SHE's part of the problem using the phony phone tax scam and term "limits" EXTENSION disguised as an "ethics reform" to fool voters and get the phone tax embedded and enlarged for taxing at 9% when it was going to ZERO percent, but the council did not tell you that. Wendy was fully aware of that. All of them, even ED REYES. And ED's fellow committee member JACK WEISS needs to be rejected, with his weasly style of doing business, when he finally decides to show up at a Council meeting. JACK is running for "City Attorney" not even having any legal experience in the last 2 terms since he's only been CD-5's council member. ALL OF THESE CMs are on TONY'S TEAM- reject them.

ED REYES also was hip-deep in the stuff with term limits since he would have been looking for a new job after this term ends but the Proposition EXTENDED the term another 4 years. You bet he did not tell you that. So Ed's up for re-election and taking it for granted he's winning. I would vote for the sole challenger Jesus Rosas just to shake up ED and let him know the vote is NOT AUTOMATIC and he can't take voters for chumps, like his boss, Tony does. If you work for him, of course, you at least have a reason to vote to keep that bad condition going on some more. If you've got Ed swinging money your way by favorable votes for programs, including lucrative non-profit's making their proposals, that's got to continue for you- whether you are doing a good job or not. But that doesn't help us, the common people, the members of the public.

THE average citizen needs to come out to vote. You KNOW the interested parties WILL be there, like the ones needing their jobs and money flow to continue like I just showed above. Unions (getting more jobs and city contracts) and developers (getting permission to be excused from following existing codes and policies, and grabbing subsidies and tax breaks) control your representatives, not you. Vote to even up the playing field.

One more story on slippery dealings by elected representative is here with Norwalk's Representative, Grace Napolitano, in Congress, "California Congresswoman discovers get-rich-quick scheme," a blog item at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=32f_1234652738
and the L.A. Times story, "Rep. Grace F. Napolitano has collected at least $158,000 in interest on loan she made to her campaign; The FEC allowed the Democrat from Norwalk to charge an 18% interest rate on $150,000 she lent her campaign." And though it might have been planned to be squeezed in as legally done, you see she's been using this as a money-making deal by letting it continue not to be paid off , and for no other reason than to collect money for herself as lending the money to herself in the first place. How much better could that be? She's 71 or 72 and you would think she is a little more wise than most- but maybe that's what people keep voting for her; the image of this little old feisty lady that representing them in office. This is just a SINGLE example that's been discovered with ONE person's situation, and you know it's not the only shady scheme used by politicians, groups and affecting us paying for them to benefit in working for themselves first.

Lincoln High students and alumni living in the CD-1 area for council elections and in L.A. for city-wide offices can make a real impact. Only CD-1 residents can vote for CD-1 candidates Reyes or Rosas. The other candidates are up for all city voters to choose.

My preference for Mayor is David Saltsburg, "Zuma Dogg." who happens to have knowledge of city business, having become involved with City Council accidentally when "victimized" by city policies himself at Venice Beach almost 3 years ago.

Zuma Dogg finds CM Dennis Zine rejects CM Jack Weiss as City Attorney candidate.

City elections in less than 3 weeks. JACK WEISS, Council Member for CD-5 (on the west and north from the UCLA area), perhaps the weakest candidate for City Attorney among them all, has also been a lousy representative as council member.
(Who are they? See the City Council list, contact info and photos: http://www.lacity.org/council.htm )

In a candid video moment with Zuma Dogg, CM DENNIS ZINE (CD-3) in Council Chambers, we really find some true views spoken on JACK WEISS as candidate for City Attorney. I have to say that I agree completely with CM ZINE'S view- as to WEISS, not as to Zuma Dogg's chance to win. (THIS ELECTION is going to be the typical low-turnout, 11% predicted, March primary that the "Bought-and-paid-for" representatives rely on to stay in office.) CM Zine is not the only CM rejecting JACK'S bid for City Attorney.


And if you are wondering what that brochure is about, it's a JACK WEISS political mailer- look for more from your candidates who are well-financed, but don't mix up "well-financed" candidates with "well-QUALIFIED" candidates.

Here's more video with Zuma Dogg's humor added in while delivering some reality about CM JACK WEISS in particular.


And JACK WEISS has a lot of people of the political machine type who want him IN, but JACK and his history of actions as CM are doing a good job to make JACK HIS OWN WORST ENEMY. He's trying now to cover a poor record during his 7-1/2 years in City Council with some last-minute splash of propaganda.

THERE'S A CHOICE HERE FOR YOU- VOTE FOR: NOEL (not "Jack") Weiss, Nuch Trutanuch, Amerian, (that's my sequence preferred) but vote for any ONE of your choice- other than the political machine's choice- DON'T vote for JACK WEISS, and ANY one of the several challengers are better FOR THE CITY and the people.

Mayor Villaraigosa WILL run for Govenor in 2010 if re-elected.

The news is out and Mayor Villaraigosa's plans are staying open for him to run in 2010 for Governor of California. A few things to consider- First, Tony has to WIN the election to a second term as mayor first. Otherwise, who would consider him for Governor if he did not win? See the Associated Press reference in the "Street Hassle" blog, http://street-hassle.blogspot.com/2009/02/mayor-skips-local-scribes-gives.html Tony had come out and say this since he already failed to honor his promis to serve out the full term as our council member in CD-14. Instead, he left as soon as the Mayor's race came up, not doing much for CD-14 for the people. It would really look bad for him to get caught in another lie on the very same question, so he has to admit this, and he takes your vote for granted anyway.

Next, if you think Tony was missing a lot from the City of L.A. BEFORE while he traveled freely on his fundraising for his campaign for mayor (and how much travel done at the City's expense?), JUST IMAGINE him running for Governor. Add up the past years' traveling to help Hillary Clinton's nomination for the Democratic candidate for President, and then, all the time after he shifted over to the Obama side after Hillary ended her bid, and you see lots of time lost to the City of L.A. as Mayor. It's clear that being the mayor rates second to rubbing elbows with bigger politicians to move Tony's own career.

Do you know that the L.A. WEEKLY article that was mentioned here in the past calculated that it was an amount of 11% of Tony's time spent actually on CITY business? The fundraising, personal travel and photo ops do a lot for being a High-Visibility character, but little for first-hand dealing with actual needs of the city

TONY refuses debate invitations and will not give the VOTERS the courtesy of TELLING WHY he should be re-elected. Treating the voters as small children to do as daddy says is not the quality that a mayor or any elected official should have.

There are no debates for TONY because there is NOTHING GOOD TO SAY on TONY's side- he will only be embarrassed and unable to explain too many things from a wide open range of topices. It's not a good idea to expose himself to that risk, so he won't debate so that he can't be caught on his poor showing as Mayor. The outcome for him can only be bad. His voter-insulting choice to have no debate appearances shows HOW bad things are for him to do that to voters. If he has no respect for your choice and evaluation, WHY vote for him anyway?

That quality is, however, no surprise since that is the way he treats others supporting him. If there is any objection, you discover that the appointee quickly finds that they are "unwelcome" and are soon replaced. If you "follow his direction" you see that the commissions and committees are staffed with his choices as their rewards for cooperating.

All politics, all the time.

DON'T vote for Tony on March 3rd. But that doesn't mean to stay home. You need to cast your vote for ANY of the challengers to keep TONY from getting over 50% of the vote and force a runoff election.

There are nearly a dozen challengers, and my pick is Zuma Dogg as the most informed and relevant candidate, but there are others who are running that would no doubt be an improvement over the current Mayor.

Don't vote for Villaraigosa UNLESS you want a mayor who puts his own goals ahead of the benefit of the city and the people.

REMEMBER, because of the Mayor's directions, Your trash fees tripled, the parking meters went from 25 cents an hour to $1.00 per hour, and extended to 8 pm or later in many areas, and some Sunday free parking was eliminated. All this to raise more money to make TONY look good for the next step in the political ladder. And that's just the simple examples- there's plenty more.

Also note, that the Obama cabinet could have chosen Tony to fill some spot in the administration, but Tony had to much personal baggage to bring onboard. He was a political undesirable. Tony said that he was not taking a position with the Obama administration- sure, he wasn't offered any.

The Democratic Convention was a signal of the arrogance of Tony coming to full bloom. Tony took his full security entourage with him onto the floor of the convention, perhaps the safest place in the world at that time, with multiple levels of security already in place and a plentiful supply of Secret Service agents present. Even the object of many news reports, Mayor Gavin Newsome from San Francisco, left his security crew behind and was able to move about easily, but TONY was very conspicuous by having the large group in tow.

That is why his style is called "It's all about me" mayor from the L.A. Weekly story in September. Well, there's a follow up to the story in the L.A. Weekly,
"Villaraigosa, the All About Me Mayor, Is Still 11 Percent There," by Patrick Range MacDonald, Dec. 30, 2008- http://www.laweekly.com/2009-01-01/news/villaraigosa-the-all-about-me-mayor-is-still-11-percent-there/

If you want to be Tony's stooge for dollars and wind up paying more and more taxes to advance Tony's career, like his expensive "Measure R" created for the Subway to the Sea project, you might think it over to see how expensive it is, and it won't be finished, if ever, until 2032. The estimate for the Subway to the sea alone is over $6 billion - that is over a million dollars times 6,000.

See the article in L.A. TIMES, "Subway to the Sea timetable too long for L.A. Mayor, "
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jan/07/local/me-subway7

My pick for mayor is Zuma Dogg. You are free to select from assorted challengers, but knowing ZD, we would have an involved person and a positive thinking one to replace an ego-driving political machine moving from office to office.

Vote March 3. Bring out all your registered voters and stand up for yourself in this city. The March turnout is predicted to be as low as 11% of the voters in the city ("11%- that's the same percentage of time that TONY worked on city business). The lines will be SHORT, it there are any lines at all, and your vote will be that much more valuable in this election.

Spending a little time to make a BIG difference on March 3rd.

Sweep OUT the old Mayor VILLARAIGOSA and his friends.

Steve Lopez in the L.A. Times- Should Mayor enter debate? What's to hide?

Steve Lopez: "Mayoral race is worth a debate"- Vote on that decision on same page as the story. Mayor ducks from the challengers. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez28-2009jan28,0,5532518.column

Election time will be here in just over one month. Compared to the presidential elections there’s not been much of any widespread news about the race for Mayor of the City of Los Angeles. That was the case until today when Steve Lopez, columnist for the L.A. TIMES wrote in his column about the fact that the mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, has refused to participate in any debates with challengers for the office.

Lopez’ column is the first real commentary on Walter Moore, the candidate for mayor who, of all challengers, has raised the most money for campaign funding, over $200,000.00, but no one really knows ABOUT him or any of the other candidates where the general public is concerned. (Moore's website: http://web.mac.com/waltermoore/WalterMooreForMayor/Home.html )

Lopez mentions only Moore and not any of the others, including Zuma Dogg, a friend who I think has learned a lot from attending city council meetings for well over 2 years. ZD has had better attendance at the 3 meetings per week than some council members, many of whom wind up missing important matters, and many just missing a lot of meetings, like Jack Weiss, a council member running for City Attorney.

My opinion has always been that if you want the vote of the public, then you should earn it and not just expect it. Antonio Villaraigosa has become so smug in his job as mayor, a job he has done very poorly, that is, when he decides to stay in the city instead of campaign for Hillary Clinton for President, and then shift to Obama when Hillary ended her attempt. Also part of the road trip was Antonio’s need to travel around the country to raise campaign funds for this election. It’s kind of funny that he’s collecting money to be reelected as mayor of a city that these donors don’t even live in.

Antonio’s focus on getting as much money as he can to pay for ads to convince people he’s great and he’s working for you all the time, things that are completely unsupported by any facts and that would actually or “should” actually cause an uprising of voters against him.

In Los Angeles, you don’t have a very informed body of voters. Campaign propaganda gets to be a very effective tool when reach people who do not bother to look beyond the advertising. When you get your news from television as your main source, it’s like getting the TMZ version of life, more than any real news. Listening to radio will do more to inform but even radio news is not evenly available.

This all leaves the voter to rely heavily on what comes to him or her by the one-sided presentations typical of political ads. Tony Villaraigosa depends on this condition and the campaign funds he raised while traveling out of L.A. amount to over $3,000,000 (that’s right, THREE MILLION DOLLARS, to be spent to keep him in office. Like I said, don’t expect there to be anything objective in those ads. Honesty is not part of the political gain.

Tony wants to win and he is so sure of it that he will just skip any debates and FORGET ABOUT VOTERS as usual until he needs them.

VOTERS deserve some respect from a candidate- he’s asking US for our vote, we are asking HIM for his approval. THIS IS RIGHT WHERE IT’S ALL TURNED AROUND and there is complete and utter contempt the voters, especially regarding their needs in terms of honesty and some truth. With Mayor Tony, that’s asking too much. Debating ANYONE for him would show the flaws he has to hide. Someone doing a good job would gladly entertain challenges and be able to HANDLE QUESTIONS with some confidence, not trickery and playing out a strategy to cover up things.

The Mayor has become such a publicity whore that he finds his way to tragedies in the news. Anywhere there are cameras clicking or tape rolling is where you can expect to see the Mayor, even if he really has no legitimate function or business to make his presence necessary at the scene. Sometimes his presence entirely inappropriate, but Tony cares only about getting his face on camera and more publicity to try to cover up the true picture. Remember the recent train crash that happened in Chatsworth? There was Tony to give us the updates on what was happening as if he were the news reporter there.

The head safety official working on the scene normally handles this. In this case, the City Fire Chief was the man on that job, but Tony actually bumped him out to take over at the mike, while he also put on a fire fighter's yellow coat that might make you think he was doing some of the rescue work.

It’s all for appearances, like a magic act that tricks you into believing something that isn’t really happening like it first looked to you. That’s Tony’s entire administration of the past, coming up on 4 years. It was 4 years of planning for the next election and the next political moves, when you could see all the while that the city was being run on auto pilot, with the Council doing most of the decisions for the mayor to just come by and approve when he was in town.

And now, after the Presidential election is done and his own race is rapidly approaching, the mayor is staying around longer inside the city limits, but he still cannot stay in his city hall office. Tony has to find those camera lenses for his own performances. The family of 7 that was killed by the father in Wilmington was completely shocking and a horrible event, but Tony found that HE was NEEDED there on the scene. It wasn’t the police and counselors and other emergency responders on the scene who were important, only Tony. The EVENT, with the loss of the lives of an entire family ws not bad enough. It was NEWS, so that was enough for Tony to do this ghoulish appearance, saying NOTHING THAT WE DIDN’T ALREADY THINK AND SHOWING NO RESPECT for the sadness of the friends and family of the deceased. But Tony got his face in the cameras to show us HE’S important.

I forgot for a moment that the L.A. Weekly’s story has it right, “Antonio Villaraigosa, the All-About-Me Mayor” who works 11% of the time on real city business and spend 89% traveling, attending fundraisers and other personal matters, all documented in the story which based it’s calculations on the calendars that it was entitled to receive according to the law. http://www.laweekly.com/2008-09-11/news/the-all-about-me-mayor/

Well, as Steve Lopez’ column says, maybe Tony will win, but aren’t the citizens entitled to hearing him in a debate for the voters of Los Angeles to know what there is from each Moore and Villaraigosa to give to voters? Lopez thinks it’s pretty arrogant of Tony to refuse to present any kind of information to voters that he could give in a debate.

I say that Tony should debate Moore and include the other challengers, too. Most of them are only known to a few people and Zuma Dogg is one of the grass roots challengers who got way over the 500 valid petition signatures almost entirely by himself in order to qualify to be on the March 3 ballot. It worked well for him so that he could personally hear from people as to what they thought about matter's including the city's needs and conditions.

David Hernandez, another candidate, is an activist on the ballot as well, and was a plaintiff in a lawsuit that tried to have the winning city ballot measure overturned by the court to cancel the EXTENSION of the term limits to three terms from two, a measure that the City Council intentionally and dishonestly described as “limiting” as in shortening, not “extending the limits” like it actually did. It was all done by them to keep their jobs longer, and 5 of them benefited from this voter approval that I call a voter deception.

Hernandez recently returned to the appellate court to hear the decision. The court there rejected his challenge that relied on the actions being in violation of the city charter, saying that while it could not be done by the state government, the 2-in-1 law was not prohibited specifically by the city's charter.

So if you think that Tony is such a great individual, just think about why Tony could only could get hurt and not helped from being in a debate- maybe something might come out such as "the truth." That's a threat to his image; “the truth” about what he’s done and what he’s not done.

Of course the Mayor is not into truth- that’s his enemy. I just said that the campaign money will pay for ads on TV and radio. And the money will give you those very fine glossy brochures in your mail that should include lots of the pictures that Tony’s generated from all his necessary appearances. I see Tony proclaiming, “I’m the pothole king” and figure that it’s all that matters to him, the publicity. It brings to mind the Sit’N’Sleep set of commercials where the owner “Larry” is always doing something to sell more mattresses and making deals that make his accountant say, “You’re killing me, Larry.” Tony is the huckster, hustling the voters for something he’s shown he does not deserve. He needs to be the “One-Term Mayor.”

One other item missing from Tony's election brochure and website this year will be the same family man style of photos he used last time around. We all know why that is the case. Nice job, Mayor.

See the Steve Lopez column online (linked at the top of this item) in the "California" section of the L.A. TIMES, and make your selection online to VOTE on your opinion, Should Tony debate? Most responders are saying “Yes”

Elections all done? Still a chance in March to change the City.

The Presidential election is over but the city elections are almost here. Locally, voters in Lincoln Heights will be deciding on who will represent it in Council District 1 ("CD-1"). Ed Reyes has been the Council Member ("CM") since winning the CD-1 seat on the Council in 2001, just barely avoiding a runoff election. The current term would have been the last term for Reyes, except that the City-created "Measure R" passed in November 2006 added a third term. That part of "Measure R" was played down so as not to draw attention away from the "ethics reform" half of the combined ballot measure, one prime example of the self-serving nature of CMs when fairness takes a back seat to personal interest.

Grab a copy today of the free L.A. WEEKLY at libraries, stores, restaurants and news stands before the new edition comes out tomorrow so you can see their big story on how public access t.v. has been cut out so that you will no longer have community access channels to see what the local politicians are up to as Channel 35 presents on cable t.v. now.

The L.A. WEEKLY gives loads of details to show how "special interests" can get lawmakers to change laws if they get to the right people to take their side. Fabian Nunez, ex-Assembly Speaker, was a prime mover on the state's change in the law. Could he have been motivated by the heavy campaign funds headed his way, as well as his favored charity getting sizeable donations from the telephone industry, including AT&T?

The CMs in LA really did nothing to resist cutting this out and voted approval. That means that there will be no more cable access channel, beginning next month. [The online version of the L.A. WEEKLY is still available at http://www.laweekly.com/ , but the hard copy versions can be carried around to read without having to be near a computer.]

And if you still believe that L.A. City politicians really care about the common people of the city, see "L.A. Slams Residents With Stiff Fees and Taxes" by David Heimpel in the same L.A. WEEKLY edition, also available onlline at http://www.laweekly.com/2008-12-11/news/l-a-slams-residents-with-stiff-fees-and-taxes/ . The continuing mismangement of the city by the council under Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's so-called and ego-driven leadership means that when more money is needed they come to the regular people to carry the burden.

Ed Reyes, along with most of the other CM's, has continued to support these measures, being a strong supporter of Villaraigosa, even if that means that his constituents suffer as a result. Any examples to show you? Yes, and one big one is described in the "L.A. Slams Residents..." article, with a little sample shown here:

In May 2006, the City Council announced a trash-collection fee that
Villaraigosa sold to residents by publicly promising it would go to hiring 1,000
new cops. In concert with that, the City Council has boosted the trash fee 330
percent, from $11 to $36.32.

The fee hike goes far beyond the actual cost of collecting and dumping trash. By this fall, it had generated a $137 million mountain of cash. But Villaraigosa’s vow that the excess funds would go to hiring cops proved untrue. An audit by city Controller Laura Chick has shown that Villaraigosa and Police Chief William Bratton spent only $47.2 million hiring new officers. Much of the rest went to raises and perks for the powerful police union.

This is an eye-opening article for those of you who just quietly assumed that city lawmakers had your best interests at heart and that things were all fine and well at City Hall. Well, that's not the way it is. If you do not do anything about politicians taking advantage of their power, they will continue to pick your wallet and leave you worse off, while they empower their own circle of friends with lucrative contracts and appointments to positions. These actions are there for you to see if you examine beyond what they present to you.

Ed Reyes as the CD-1 incumbent in the March election has the advantage in money for advertising and other campaign tools over his opponent, Jesus Rosas, the only challenger for Reyes to face. Despite the disparity in the power base shown in this Council race, you should really give serious thought for change, if only for the sake of change. A good showing at the polls will let politicians know that the voters' support is not to be taken for granted.

As another example of representation of the people and not the existing political machines of the incumbents, Mayor Villaraigosa is facing a long list of challengers for his second term. The most interesting challenger on that list is Zuma Dogg, a city activist, beginning over two years ago in that role with a dispute for his own matter with the city and learning the ropes of what goes on in city hall since then, much to the chagrin of the Council.

Zuma Dogg has probably attended more meetings than many of the Council Members over the last six months where he did not miss a single meeting. The CMs do not like that they have to explain anything to anyone, but he finds and reveals a lot of the problems that make the city worse, AND it's not just negativity. Among the discussions during limited "public comment" time that the Council provides, Zuma Dogg gives some pointed and highly spirited presentations that the CMs try to ignore, often only to find out that what he says IS true.

Ed Reyes' representation of CD-1 should be examined, as well as his ties to the policies and instructions he received from Mayor Antonio. As a certainty, the Mayor needs to be ousted for the benefit of the city- Villaraigosa is the "All-AboutMe 11-% Mayor" who cares about his own publicity first, over the city's well-being, over his duties, and even over family. (See the September L.A. WEEKLY article that reveals "Hours of travel, fund-raising and PR leave little time for his job. ... " http://www.laweekly.com/2008-09-11/news/the-all-about-me-mayor/ )

Any vote for Reyes should be carefully considered- unless you work for him and then you just want to keep your well-paid job and might even make anonymous blog comments against the challengers to keep your guy in office. For the rest of use, some dedication to the constituents and not to the paycheck would be nice to see. Reyes, makes the standard council salary of OVER $186,000.00 a year, an amount that is the highest in the entire United States, and there's MORE benefits, too, you know. That's comes to a tidy sum of $15, 500 a MONTH, a salary figure that's really WAY, too high for elected "public servants." But just try to get them to take a pay cut and these "servants" just about revolt.

There should not be automatic votes for whoever is in office, raising your bills, wasting your money, and expecting you to be grateful for any attention you get from them. THEY should be thanking YOU for the support that put them into office, and, that support can and should be REMOVED when they fail to represent you. More later.