L.A. County Board of Supervisors rescind $707,000 office remodel request of Ridley-Thomas.

The report from the L.A. Times, "Amid outcry, L.A. supervisor Ridley-Thomas rethinks plans for $700,000 in office renovations [Updated],"
December 22, 2009 1:36 pm, by Shelby Grad and Molly Hennessy-Fiske

The L.A. County Board of Supervisors finally acted as they should have done in the first place by rescinding the approval that they gave in a near-automatic fashion to Mark Ridley-Thomas, the newest member of the 5-person Board of Supervisors. If you will recall, that approval was given earlier this month, without any of them questioning the expenditure at all. Three-quarters of a million dollars to be spent on a remodel job for an office? I suppose "lavish" outranks "Spartan" too often in the style that politicians conduct things once in office.

That's over twice the median price of a single-family home in Los Angeles. The vote came today on without any fanfare or comment after the news of the initial approval was learned by more members of the public thanks to reporting by John North at KABC-TV, Channel 7 - You can see that at http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/video?id=7148140

To hear Sup. Ridley-Thomas talk about the plan, you would think he had spent the last year punished as an initiation for his first year as Supervisor. Yes, he was a very arrogant and defiant fellow, so eager to treat himself well with public money.

Sup. Don Knabe was on the radio the following Friday on KFI-AM 640 in response to an inquiry over the unanimous approval of Ridley-Thomas' request. Knabe was initally unconcerned and said in a casual fashion, in reply to the question, "Why did you approve all that money for the office remodelling?," "Well, it's Mark's money."

That statement was clearly a demonstration of how politicians treat tax dollars under their control, not in any way acknowledging their duty to the public to make spending decisions that do not include wasteful or unneeded expenditures.

For one example of changes sought, Sup. Ridley-Thomas wanted to replace the oak wood panelling with CHERRY wood. There was going to be a lot of detail work (expensive hand work) since this was some pretty fancy and extensive work that was planned. There was nothing wrong with the existing wood.

Even a kitchenette was to be included on account of the cafeteria only open to 2 p.m. There's more but you get the idea. This choice for Supervisor, replacing Yvonne Braithwaite Burke last year, is as intense as Mayor Villaraigosa in his demonstrations of self-aggrandizement.

The other less obvious impact of such deals is that you have to consider that throwing work to be done over to the "friends" of some sort or another who will make some profit on the task is usually another way to reward supporters and make people beholden to the big spender for future dealings. So you get the job done and you get some expectation of "something for something" by choosing who gets the work, always beneficial for one spending- and doubly good when you consider it's not their money in the first place that gets them such status.


What's to come?
You can see that the task is still in Ridley-Thomas' mind, and he is expected to do the same work with small, less noticeable chunks of money applied so as not to draw attention to his use or abuse of tax dollars. When you consider it's supposed to be a case of someone elected to serve the public here, it doesn't quite work out that way.
You have what might be seen as the adult equivalent of a kid loose in a candy store. In this case, he tried to grab it all in one visit and was easily caught in the act. The other Supervisors were caught, too. By letting Ridley-Thomas move ahead on this, they were as wrong as he was in their responsibility to the public.

Trust is not any part of the deal with any politician, shown so simply here to add to all the other examples of State and local people who were caught treating themselves very well. And you know that there's still more who haven't been caught.

The other Supervisors SHOULD have handled this request correctly by rejecting it when it was made. INSTEAD they approved it because this was another "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" set of rules. You know that Supervisors Gloria Molina, Don Knabe, Mike Antonovich and Zev Yaroslavsky don't want anyone butting into their business when they decide to spend money, wisely done or not, so they really were not comfortable today in re-doing the consideraton but they were stuck with all the attention that it got.

You can bet Ridley-Thomas was not happy in having this happen, especially since he, like many politicians, have cultivated some serious arrogance. And they don't want to anger him so he makes trouble later- that's why they usually let each other have their way- it keeps things moving quietly along for everyone.

So we will have to keep an eye on the situation to see when and how he makes his move, and all this will do in the end is make for more concealment in manuevers by the offenders at the expense of dealings that put citizens second in importance to the politician and their deals.

ANOTHER SMALL FACT in Government operations:
(Did you know that the matter is being handled by an appointee who makes $310,000 a year and not many know this name? It's William Fujioka who is the CEO of Los Angeles County. He was to be the person to review the work needed, in a sort of legitimization effort here. )

L.A. TIMES: [Updated 2:20 p.m.: Ridley-Thomas also said he has ordered an "independent review" to "re-scope and re-evaluate the proposed project."

"We’re reassessing the appraisal, the cost, the scope of what needs to be done," he said. ]

So the arrogance turns into what? whining? You can see he still has his eye on the prize, but he's no hero, not by any means.
=======================================================
SOMETHING ELSE THAT THIS WHOLE MATTER BRINGS UP THAT THE SUPS WOULD RATHER NOT GET A LOT OF ATTENTION:

And what could that be? It's an even LESSER know fact is that EACH of the Supervisors, each year, get several MILLION dollars in "discretionary funds," that they apply from their account as they see fit.

This bears some remarkable resemblance to a slush fund. From Wikipedia,
in short,

Slush fund is a colloquial term which has come to mean an auxiliary monetary account or a reserve fund. However, the term has special meaning within a context of corrupt (including but not limited to) political dealings by governments, large corporations or other bodies and individuals.

There is a little more on this term at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slush_fund

Maybe a LITTLE in such an account could be reasonable, but this is the highest level in the country for any sort of "discretionary funds." Is it any wonder that the people in power actually have a reason to FEEL that power? And that is where notions of accountability begin to fade. Consider the Wikipedia brief discussion on that link and see the dangers created to the fair operation of any "systems."

L.A. County Supervisor Ridley-Thomas asks for $707,000.00 to remodel his office- And it's approved.

Mark Ridley-Thomas is certainly not anyone to take the "cheap" route, even if it's the taxpayer dollars getting burned up. He is the newest member of the County Board of Supervisors and make a big splash in this entirely wasteful and shameless expense as some sort of testamenta and validation of his own self-worth. Channel 7 yesterday has a feature on this. "$707K approved for Ridley-Thomas renovations," Tuesday, December 1, 2009. http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/los_angeles&id=7148171

$707,000.00 for "remodelling" the office comes out to about two times what the mean value of a house in L.A. costs. Tiger Williams may be doing the Kobe thing and buying his wife a "house on a ring" but this is two houses, and paid with tax dollars, too.


Channel 4 NBC television has a news item by Jonathan Lloyd on this as well- it still comes out bad for Ridley-Thomas. Still "Oink, Oink" for the supervisor.
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/politics/County-Considers-Supervisors-700000-Office-Renovation-78250317.html (Dec. 2, 2009).

I always suspected it but now I am sure that this guy is just all about himself- and using the SEIU and other unions interests to get to where he convinces himself of his importance. Maybe the Mayor and the others in the State Asssembly members were bad role models in taking the frugal path in expenditure in funds more seriously. Fabian Nunez and pal, Gil Cedillo, have each been in the news about their choices and amounts (large) of expenditures, usually tied in to travel.

I heard a caller last night on talk radio say he works at the L.A. Co.-USC Med. Center in the basement of an old building. He said he's in the service employees union and supported Ridley-Thomas, but they have a carpet in the workplace that for years they have been trying to get replaced or removed because it triggers allergies in numerous poeple and is a hazard in that regard. They have been unsuccessful and can't even get it out just to leave the bare concrete floor there. That's a very symbolic view where people in public office tend to forget the little people who get them into office and have less interest in what the little people have to deal with in their lives, especially when there are problems in the workplace that is county affiliated.

When you talk about "pigs feeding at the public trough" this situation is what reinforces that picture and I won't call it a "stereotype" picture, it's just what there.

The more surprising thing is that the other 4 supervisors approved the expenditure- and none of them has ever had such an expense accumulated for their own office remodels. What happened here? (or does Mark Ridley-Thomas have some deal for them in store that makes it worthwhile? If so, I can't imaging what it could be to have them allow this.)

City's sale of "surplus property" -$1 each for 2 Kawasaki 1000 Police Motorcycles?

Some curious things in the City of Los Angeles Council Agenda for the meeting tomorrow, Tuesday, 12-1-09- some real bargains but not for taxpayers of Los Angeles.

When you think of how much penny-pinching is going on with the city leaders trying to balanace the budget you see some really odd situations.

This is a sale of "surplus property" for $1.00 each for 2 Kawasaki 1000 police motorcycles. It goes to the San Fernando Police Dept. but I am supposing that these are worth SOMETHING MORE than a dollar each.

OK, it's to a neighbor city but is this what we want to see when the city is approaching a $500 million budget shortfall.

Here is the item as it appears on the 10-30-09 agenda:
"ITEM NO. (10)

09-2209

BUDGET AND FINANCE COMMITTEE REPORT relative to the sale of surplus motorcycles at below market value to the San Fernando Police Department.

Recommendations for Council action, pursuant to Motion (Garcetti - Zine):

1. AUTHORIZE the sale of two Kawasaki 1000 police motorcycles to the San
Fernando Police Department (SFPD) for the below market price of $1.00 each, in
accordance with Los Angeles Administrative Code Section 22.547.

2. REQUEST the City Attorney to expedite preparation of the appropriate documents to effectuate the sale and transfer of the above identified surplus equipment at below market value to the SFPD.

3. INSTRUCT the City Clerk to inform SFPD [Robert R. Ordelheide, Chief of
Police, 910 First Street, San Fernando, CA 91340 (818) 898-1267] that the
surplus equipment must be claimed within 60 days from the date of Council
approval of the request at which time they will revert to the City's surplus
equipment pool for disposal by the Department of General Services.

Fiscal Impact Statement: The Chief Legislative Analyst reports that the sale of two Kawasaki 1000 police motorcycles at below market value is consistent with the City's Financial Policies as the SFPD is a police department of a neighboring city, whose border is contiguous with the City of Los Angeles. This below market sale will increase the General Fund by $2.00.

Community Impact Statement: None submitted."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am sure that there must be some logical explanation for this that's somehow not very apparent. But for now, I need to see it to believe that the city can afford it and not just making an outright gift when there is no more money to make gifts.

Here's the motion that was made by Eric Garcetti, that ever so generous Council President, seconded by Dennis Zine, former LAPD officer, http://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2009/09-2209_mot_9-4-09.pdf

And it really still looks like a gift. This just is one little part of a lot of odd things that the city does through the actions of its Mayor and Council Members that mounts up. Somebody has to tell them that they should really cut out the gift-giving when you are talking about laying off lots of employees and cutting services.

So far the city has its libraries still open regular hours, for example, but that's one area that is in danger of being cut back, and cut back a lot. There's always been a huge disconnect with that idea as the city CMs still really act as it things are NOT as bleak as they really are. They came back last month from break in Council meetings for several days of a meeting of cities in San Antonio, Texas. It's part of mixing business with pleasure, I'd say, but even more interesting is that they learned from others how to use PR, public relations, better and other ideas on management.

You might expect the Council Members to be doing the same things as before but making it sound very nice as they start using the tips on the PR end of things. They just really use up too much money without a real need. Some call it "waste."

And the Mayor? He went to Guadalajara for a Book Fair that's costing a few million dollars (federal funding for this, I believe is their justification for the huge expense. This is also to honor the mayor- and of course, that's all right down his alley, so how could anyone expect him to give a second thought to saying "No" to leaving the city again as usual. Some things just don't improve.

City Council appears fearful of unions on Early Retirement issues.

MORE HAPPENING IN CITY HALL AS CM APPEAR TO BE SELLING OUT THE CITY - again - and not GETTING TOUGH ON WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE. The fear of unions and the potential votes here is greater than their fear of city bankruptcy. The City of L.A. spends a million dollars more that is collected EVERY DAY.

The mayor said the Early Retirement agreement will be vetoed if Council approves it- and Tony was the one that put that agreement together in the first place back in June. But Council is working TO GO AROUND THIS and just doesn't seem to be able to do what needs to be done.

Tony did not want to lose union support and came up with a way to keep jobs and keep the unions happy. Tony said way back in the beginning of the year that layoffs were needed but only a few at most have been laid off to this day. Instead, Early Retirement, allowing retiring up to 5 years earlier was the plan to cut out jobs. So you get the Employee roster cut down, but they moved over to "retired" and now don't do any work but still get paid a lot. Not a good approach and this was from day one.

Tony has seen the light, being told that the savings on this would be about $12 million this year, just a fraction of what they orignally planned. But they did not consult the profession number crunchers and did not WANT TO BELIEVE reality.

For Tony, You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't keep union people on jobs, happy and collecting raises, while the city is sliding down a financial hole from uncontrolled spending that was allowed to go unchecked for years.

Well more is to come on this story, but don't expect the city council to be the "bad guys" to the unions. The CMs want to cover their own asses and point fingers elsewhere. We can see how the mayor handles this one; if he chooses the city's financial survival over his union buddies.


Try giving a look to the blog, WWW.RONKAYELA.COM - (and its many other items posted that will show you MORE city nonsensical and corrupt behavior- some sneaky and some right out there in the open that you just don't recognize.)

"L.A. in Crisis: Do They Have a Clue? Do You?" http://ronkayela.com/2009/09/la-in-crisis-do-they-have-a-cl.html By Ron Kaye on September 16, 2009 10:06 PM
This blog really gets into some frank opinion and usually is accurate and representative of a more sensible way that city council should go, be does not.

Today's Council Waste? Is there really any question of approval of Waivers?

Friday's are Presentations and Awards Day at City Council Chambers, and after all that is done, there's the special event/fee waivers to be approved. I think too much of this is a waste of the diminished levels of tax funds that the city continues to commit without any thought other than to buy votes.

Here's today's list if another batch of waivers, including the one I mentioned here in this blog before, a motion made by CD-14's CM, Jose Huizar, for the sum of $13,322.00 to be waived for the "3rd Annual Boyle Heights Technology Center Community Awards Gala on May 29, 2009," which is today. This is already a done deal. It's really not a good showing for the process that this works out like that. You know the approval is a formality and if anyone challenges it at the council meeting, it's too late to stop the unanimous "aye" vote.

THIS will be approved, like most motions introduced, there's only the questions at the most, but any denials are so rare that they make news. What-if Questions: What if this was NOT approved? Where would the money come from if there is no money available- which is why most of the requests are made? Does the City eat it? or do they chase payment as a collection item that has to be eaten ultimately? OR more unlikely, deducting the amount from any funding approved for the Center's operation? The City is on the one hand, outrageous in actions to impose steep increases in costs felt by most in the city, like parking fees and trash fees, but on the other hand, gives away money for activities that most residents know nothing about and will not be getting a benefit from.

Are we out of the "budget crisis" and city workers no longer considered for furloughs? I continue to make note of these expenses since they are voluntary ones on the City's part. Each CM has $100,000.00 available for spending on assorted things in the districts and so on. THIS is where that allotted money COULD be used to slow down general fund expense and STILL FUND events, should a CM think it's a worthy expense. They don't have to now, and they continue to generously approve the expenses as they are presented to them.


note: 09-0218 Also a Huizar motion, co-sponsored by CM LaBonge, an expense (unstated) for a union "rally" - relative to declaring the SEIU Rally on May 22, 2009 a Special Event (fees and costs absorbed by the City = none submitted). If this is simply for noting it as some special affair, that's one thing. I do not think that's the case, and there's likely a cost generated for the public on the part of the "SEIU," the Service Employees International Union, that represents many government workers among its membership.

Why is a Union getting a waiver for it's own rally? If you didn't notice, the event was on May 22, 2009, so it's already done, and there's no notation of expense calculated since that time. Why? Too many expenses and automatic approvals are all that can reasonably be concluded from the way these are appearing on the agenda. Where does any input from the public come in to influence expense approval?

ON TODAY'S AGENDA:
"ITEM NO. (15)

09-1223
et al. MOTIONS relative to “Special Events” to be held in the various Council Districts.

Recommendations for Council action:

DECLARE the following community events as “Special Events”; APPROVE any temporary street closures as requested; and, INSTRUCT the involved City departments to perform such services as detailed the Council motions attached to the various listed Council files, including the waiver of fees, costs and requirements and other related issues, as specified:

09-1223
CD 3
a. MOTION (ZINE - PERRY) relative to declaring the Optimist Dads’ Day Dash on June 13, 2009 a Special Event (fees and costs absorbed by the City = $3,591).

07-0809-S1
CD 3
b. MOTION (ZINE - PERRY) relative to declaring the Walk for Darfur on June 7, 2009 a Special Event (fees and costs absorbed by the City = $3,860).

09-1224
CD 9
c. MOTION (PERRY - ZINE) relative to declaring the Swearing In Ceremony on June 4, 2009 a Special Event (the event organizer shall reimburse the City for all fees and costs associated with this event).

09-1225
CD 9
d. MOTION (PERRY - ZINE) relative to declaring the Father’s Day Affair on June 20, 2009 a Special Event (fees and costs absorbed by the City = $500).

08-0753-S1
CD 8
e. MOTION (PARKS - PERRY) relative to declaring the Sixth Annual City Lites Inner City Sports Event Bike Tour, 5K-Walk, and Health Fair & Festival on May 30, 2009 a Special Event (fees and costs absorbed by the City = $16,359).

08-1192-S1
CD 9
f. MOTION (PERRY - ZINE) relative to declaring the Celebration of Freedom on July 4, 2009 a Special Event (the event organizer shall reimburse the City for all fees and costs associated with this event).

09-1215
CD 10
g. MOTION (WESSON - SMITH) relative to declaring the Health Fair on May 16, 2009 a Special Event (fees and costs absorbed by the City = $2,262).

09-1217
CD 14
h. MOTION (HUIZAR - LABONGE) relative to declaring the Third Annual Boyle Heights Technology Center Community Awards Gala on May 29, 2009 a Special Event (fees and costs absorbed by the City = $13,322).

09-1218
CD 14
i. MOTION (HUIZAR - LABONGE) relative to declaring the SEIU Rally on May 22, 2009 a Special Event (fees and costs absorbed by the City = none submitted)."

Mayor Villaraigosa makes 4th "State of the City" address this afternoon; and Check MTA rail scheme

The Mayor's theme for his fourth "State of the City" address today will be "Green Collar Jobs" according to the L.A. City News Service story posted on NBC's web news, http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Mayor-Wants-LA-to-Green-Collar.html "Mayor: 'Green Collar' Jobs Tied to LA's Future, " Tuesday, April 14, 2009.

Villaraigosa is in a situation of a monumental budget deficit as far as that record goes for Los Angeles. The time for some layoffs of City workers appears to be nearing. Both he and the council have cut so many of the city services, sold city "surplus" real property and worked hard to maximize fees and taxes imposed on the city folks to really put it to the residents and it just doesn't end. The idea is that the government was supposed to exist to serve the people in providing an organized and orderly environment in which they can live, not for the politicians to screw it up and then have all the bills mount up higher and higher every year.

The address theme first used by Villaraigosa was "Dream with me" and that was really about what he wanted to do in the future, and not much about what was done at the moment. In a sense, we are still in that zone. The idea for now in tryiny to take out some of the citizens' pain from all this chaos is to hear about employment opportunities that he will bring up. "Jobs." That's always good to work into speeches and plans. When it comes to government, though, it's usually "government-created" jobs that would not exist in other circumstances and the employment is funded by tax dollars, a "robbing Peter to pay Paul" situation if you happen to follow the money trail.

A lot of the "green" items are just expensive matters and there's money to be made that creates a danger of inside dealings with favors traded for personal benefit in financial and political terms.

What would be good is for private sector jobs to open up. That's another angle of what's happening to the plan to get rail cars for the MTA. An Italian firm with a history of failing to meet contract deadlines and specifications is favored by Mayor Tony for getting the big dollars coming from the billions that Prop. S will be spreading as it's collected in sales taxes. The L.A. Weekly has a good article last week on that job picture, "Los Angeles Infrastructure or Bust- Metro gives second chance to a snafu-riddled Italian railcar builder," by Beth Barrett, April 8, 2009, http://www.laweekly.com/2009-04-09/news/metro-gives-second-chance-to-a-snafu-riddled-italian-railcar-builder/

In that situation to make the firm's proposal sweeter to tilt the balance in their favor, they said that they will open a manufacturing company here in L.A. and employ hundreds. Good approach to use. But nothing is verified and you can say anything at this stage. The Mayor is trying to get them to be chosen, and the bad track record for an existing contract doesn't seem to be making much difference. And why should the Mayor care what the REAL cost to the city will be? He's trying out for becoming the candidate for Governor and needs all the points he can get to use as his "accomplishments."

Good politicians use even their mistakes and failures as positivies, once they turn around some concepts or re-cast the applicable facts. I said "good politicans" and that doesn't mean that a "good poltician" is the same as a "good person" or anything like that. It's all unrelated, and totally coincidental if found so. They just happen to get a lot of mileage out of bad things. And Villaraigosa is that, very good since he is still in office, being re-elected by a slim margin of the small voter turnout in March. That happened when Villaraigosa should have been replaced by just about anyone willing to get down to doing real city business. What we have are decisions that are affected by all the "how will this impact on my career advancement?" thinking. You will undoubtedly see that in today's address.

To his credit, Tony has dropped the annoying speech style of delivering it as if he himself were the reincarnation of Martin Luther King, Jr.. Listen to that first speech and you can see how pretentious it is. I thought that Tony did this so he could collect his speeches to roll out again after he climbed the political ladder, something like a high school yearbook, video-style, and address his ego-centric needs. But really we are in bad shape as a city and a lot of what people don't want to acknowledge is a big part of the problem. Illegal immigration, though it affects many personally, is one of the issues that really is never touched as a negative and that's probably a big failing of the lawmakers who pander to every and any source of votes, no matter how costly in the overall picture.

Tony will now get around problem areas in speaking events by not taking any questions. He only does rehearsed speaking. Too much "off-the-cuff," unscripted speaking brings out a flurry of "uhhs" and "aahs" and other gastric noises mixed into the content that you might get from consuming too much rich food. No, Tony knows his strength is not that and he leaves spokesman Matt Szabo or his personal counsel Tom Saenz with the job of handling delivery of the heavy duty explanations to the press.

But another cause of the financial predicament is the increased spending decisions without any well thought-out plans to fully meet the expenses they generate. Expecting the boom economy of the real estate market to generate untold amounts of revenue was another mistake. Much of the Benjamin Franklin stockpile of sayings would have been useful to follow to be more careful with the money. And they STILL spend like nobody's business in city hall and Sacramento.

Tune in on the radio or t.v., if it's important enough to carry there, and decide about those things for yourself. Even if you don't live in the city, you will always have an impact from the fallout in assorted ways, so no one is insulated from the nonsense and shady dealings of Los Angeles poltitics. THAT would be a useful subject for our high schoolers to learn, and they might be able to see how they need to change things that don't automatically come up "right" by being ignored, as many now assume.
------

Another City Council Extravagant Spending Item In a Budget Crisis

"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 08, 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/

The L.A. Weekly has a revealing story about the City Council's questionable expensive spending choice, another one, that's been going on for years. It's all about the costs that City Council runs up each year, and continues doing that for something costing $1 million a year. This is from the city's "Creative Services" that employs calligraphers to make the fancy certificates that get handed out at the Friday awards presentations before the actual business part of the council meeetings begins. (See a sample shown with the L.A. Weekly's on-line story linked above) The Mayor Sam blog http://mayorsam.blogspot.com/ mentions in the "Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Friday," that this came to light last year, brought out by Walter Moore, the strongest challenger that Mayor Villaraigosa faced in the March 3 city election. Moore was a source of a lot of information that revealed more examples of waste in the city government, much directly attributed to the Mayor.

I was already aware that the city was spending a lot on this but the figure that I had was $500,000, but the LA. Weekly has it at over twice that amount. The story includes a recap of the salary figures for council members and for the Mayor that have been mentioned before. But the idea that the Council still continues to spend money on the awards while deep in the midst of a budget disaster just goes to show you how much they worry more about themeselves than the condition of the city. That is what I have been saying all along, but that's something anyone can figure out from observation. The L.A. Weekly puts it all out front nicely:

"Yet the council and Villaraigosa recently cut back on such basics as city
paramedic captains and library books, even as they continued to burn through a
cool $1 million a year by ordering up a mountain of scrolls — 27,978 of them in
the 2007-08 fiscal year alone. They are on track to repeat that feat this year.
The elaborate scrolls often depict a glowing image of City Hall set among
garlands and highlighted with gold inking of the sort associated with
illuminated manuscripts."

I was just at the local branch library and noticed a lot of display changes and asked what happened. A librarian told me that they re-arranged things now with more space being available because there were a lot of cuts in funding for magazines orders and they didn't need so much space anymore. That was one effect of budget cuts. But the fancy awards continue as a public relations item to get the council members some goodwill, and the cost is paid by taxpayers.

One paragraph shows that the Mayor actually did some relevant work on city business to try to save some expenses, and the blame for the continuation of the extravagant spending lies squarely with the Council, and it's not something they can claim was some accident they were not told about:

"During the fiscal year so far, the mayor’s office ordered 4,215 of these
“certificates.” Last year, Villaraigosa sought to trim seven employees from the
Creative Services Division to save $600,000 annually, according to his office.
He was rebuffed by the nation’s highest-paid City Council, who rallied like a
court of stunned Rose Parade princesses facing the loss of their matching
gowns."

Check this story for more details and you will see why this council, each the highest paid in the country for work at a city level, and their pay exceeds or nearly matches many federal officials including federal judges and congress persons. They plainly get paid too much money to keep them honest. Who could ever walk away from this job? Reducing the pay to make it more in line with being a "public servant." Being a Council Member should be a task done for the simple reason that it is for the city's benefit, and not to enrich them personally. The function of the job is to get good things done, not to make them financially comfy and work their position to get more power for further personal benefit. But that's what they do. Reduce that pay and you will get a complaining response, "If you don't pay well, then you won't get the same quality of people to do the job." But I am talking about being paid lavishly when it comes to public service pay scales. If we did not get the same "quality" running for office, it just might be an improvement over the ones currently occupying the seats. You can see what's done now and fluffing up the pay just allows their arrogance to become more deeply entrenched- making them even believe that they actually "deserve" all of what their paid.

Read the story on this little bit of that big picture that takes a big bite of the taxpayers dollars for simple vanity to be catered to and manipulated by Council members. If you believe this should be continued as something of value, I might agree if you see that the value goes to the Council members and not to the city. That's all the more reason that they should chip in to cover all of it- it's a campaign device in disguise that taxpayers are paying for. Another example of some very expensive stroking going on that is completely worthy of immediate elimination as a City-paid expense.

==========================
See also, more from another L.A. Weekly story, just before the March 3 elections were held; it's about what Council Members get as the true value BEYOND their paychecks:
"Los Angeles on $300,000 a year; Why next week's City Council "coronation" will cost you far more than money," By Patrick Range McDonald, Published on February 25, 2009 - http://www.laweekly.com/2009-02-26/news/los-angeles-on-300-000-a-year

LAUSD "h.s. No. 9" needs a principal; Cortines will make the "artful" selection.

The LAUSD’s “high school No. 9” that is supposed to be a jewel of the downtown skyline is really turning out to be a problem for the District. It’s a $242 million school, according to the story in today’s L.A. TIMES, “Discord builds over new downtown arts school; Only months before it is to open, it has no principal and there is disagreement about who should run it and who should go there," by Mitchell Landsberg, April 6, 2009, http://www.latimes.com/news/local/los_angeles_metro/la-me-arts-high6-2009apr06,0,1125806.story?track=rss
I mentioned this project and the growing delays and cost overruns that diverged from the original plans. [see: Part II- New High School ("H.S. #9") for Downtown Area March 26, 2009, and LAUSD Back to the Future High School, HS #9, "parent tours"? on March 7, 2009] How long was the delay? The involved architectural firm included mention of the “2007” original completion date in its own blurb, "Cool school worth waiting for; Coop Himmelb(l)au’s Los Angeles Flagship High School delayed one year," appearing in World Architecture News.com, Monday 19 Nov 2007. http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.projectview&upload_id=1607

So what’s the problem today? The District seems to have a problem in its search for a principal to handle this school with the specialty “arts” function. Furthermore, some of the supporters of the project are now becoming critics. The story points to an idea to turn “high school No. 9” over to charter schools for handling and the billionaire, Eli Broad, is complaining about things. Broad, I remind you, is the one who had a lot of influence in selecting this extravaganza of architecture. He was a pal of Mayor Villaraigosa in the big “Grand Avenue Project” that was planned to run from the Civic Center to Staples Center.

The idea of having a monumental design, with the school to serve as a book end on the north side of the project, was part of this whole notion of self-indulgence. The “Grand Avenue Project” is experiencing it’s own problems now. “L.A.'s upscale downtown delayed; As the economy takes a toll on plans, observers focus their concern on two mega-projects: Grand Avenue and Park Fifth,” By Cara Mia DiMassa, L.A. Times, February 25, 2008 http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-downtown25feb25,0,6053516.story


The "GrandAvenue Project" has a separate history of shadiness beginning with what was presented to get it started, being a lure for the developers in the downtown area, along with tax dollars and tax concessions provided as financial aid. It’s seriously behind in getting going and a few maneuvers to shift taxpayers' money over to help pay for it still continue, but not rightfully. In short, it’s wasting tax dollars of many people for the unnecessary and fanciful ideas of a few.

Why is it that the “private” developments seem to be such a sink-hole for tax dollars? Besides that, you have a lot of politicians totally excited and supportive of these things at the beginning and they really don’t have any liability for ANYTHING when the storm clouds of financial disaster rain down upon it all. Many of these men and women have long departed the scene and moved on to other offices in the meanwhile, too.

If there were really some actual responsibility for spending decisions- any responsibility- you would see a different picture. You would have an entirely different way of handling money and we would not have all the waste and constant rewarding by contracts to the politicians’ “friends.”

In the military, when casualties come from mistakes of fellow military allies, the mistakes are called a result of “friendly fire”- not so “friendly” for the deceased and wounded. In politics they should have some name for that effect, the figurative “killing and wounding” of the taxpayers by serious and continual mishandling by politicians and the contractors who are awarded construction project contracts.

But that’s another story and right now the LAUSD has a very expensive school that Supt. Cortines has to get ready for September classes. I expect that he could get a principal there by just assigning one to the job, but there’s got to be more to it or the job would be done by now. It seems that it would be a prize assignment but then you don't know what strings are attached that may be the downfall of an appointee. If major performance improvement is expected with some rubrics set up to measure that, then maybe the risk is too great for anyone to put his or her career on the line for a constantly changing degree of support that you can't rely on- not to mention turning around the learning style that the LAUSD has typically been known for.

You can see that the charter schools, hungry for facility space, would love to wind up with a brand new school. Charters are public schools in the sense that students can attend them for free and the LAUSD does have an obligation by law to provide some space, but I don’t think anyone really had this, the second most expensive in the country, behind the Beaudry high school financial morass (“Roybal Learning Center”), as one of the available spaces. They haven’t really even tried yet to make this school work.

Another issue is the fact that they are NOT using the school for only arts-interested students. That’s something that I did not have a clear idea about earlier, but it looks like just living nearby to "high school No. 9" will qualify you for an opportunity to attend even if you don’t care about arts or music as an area for study. THAT’s the big mistake of LAUSD, no stranger to mistakes, and if they do not alter that idea, they are in for more criticism, and rightly so. As I said before, you don’t buy a Ferrari to drive it on the daily snails-pace freeway commutes everyday, and you should not have all the “state of the art” go to waste by not having the school fully used to it’s highest capacity and level happens to be.

Supt. Cortines should be better able to handle the situation than his several recent predecessors. But it should never have gotten to this condition, and it’s all because nobody is or can be held accountable, unless there’s been some crime or near-crime that’s provable. What do you think is at stake for Monica Garcia, the president of the Board if things go wrong? Not much. She's just been re-elected to the Board, but running "unopposed," that means only that no one else could finance a campaign against her, not that she is doing any kind of bang up job in solving problems. The political maching is on her side and that's her role. She's a completely political entity, as were her predecessors, and Garcia only needs to satisfy that condition for continued life politically-speaking- meaning here, that keeping her major benefactor, Mayor Villaraigosa content is of primary concern. Any benefit to students or the public would be incidental, possibly better described as "coincidental" to the job of running things harmoniously with the Mayor's preferences.

On that matter, thinking about what behavior passes in politics, we shouldn’t expect much on that basis since the bar on what's “proper” has moved progressively downward over the years- think “limbo lower, now,” here and you get an idea of how far things have come to bring us where we are now.

"Bang for Your Buck?" Favors to the Connected at Taxpayers' Expense

In the L.A. Times today, you get a different angle on the employment situation, and this is one financed in nearly all cases, by you, the taxpayer. It’s about jobs gained from political and family connections. “California jobs go to those with connections; Lawmakers can hire anyone they choose. Sometimes that means friends and family, “ by Patrick McGreevy, March 27, 2009, http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-nepotism27-2009mar27,0,1567133.story
The caption in the photo by Anne Cusack, reads, “Marisela Villar listens to her father, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, at a City Hall news conference. Californians pay Villar $68,000 annually as a field representative for Democrats.”

That’s a big clue to the content of the rest of the story-
Yolie Flores Aguilar does not fare well in portraying the image of a hard-working public servant. She seems to be the one served here and very well, at that. The story is revealing about what a lot of people think is an area where noble ideas and actions abound. Not so, as many realists continue to point out, supported by reporting, not even investigative reporting, but even simple press releases demonstrating these actions.

Although all parties may be within legal limits allowed, the matters of personal and professional ethics and simple notions of fairness in public dealing get pushed to their limits. - Well past that, I think, for too many examples.

From the story,

"Yolie Flores Aguilar, a longtime friend and political ally of some powerful
California Democrats, last year supplemented her income as vice president of the
Los Angeles school board with more than $32,000 as a consultant assigned to a
state Senate committee that, during her tenure, did not meet or release any
reports."

There's lots more, but here's a little if you don't get to read the whole story that is a brief but telling one.

"At least a dozen political allies, relatives and friends of legislators,
including political candidates in need of a salaried landing or launch pad
between elections, were on the legislative roster last year at a cost of
$754,000."

The story shows several connections of dubious merit, most appearing to be involving Democrats, but that's probably since that's the party in the majority, at least for appointment authority.

The Mayor managed to get his daughter, Marisela Villar, a nice spot in today's economy. (She’s “Villar” and not “Villaraigosa,” being of a prior relation before the Mayor’s name change happened.) The handing out of jobs, the appointments to positions, all to relatives of a politicians, directly or indirectly, is part of the game of politics and a fringe benefit of the positions.

As for our LAUSD sub-district rep, Yolie Flores-Aguilar did not appear to be too strained as far as the demands of actual work performed, since the committee didn't ever meet, I doubt that being so involved in that activity is a reason for her low-visibility in local problem-solving on District business. Maybe the LAUSD job is not challenging enough, but there’s not a lot of good things coming out of the Board to see that anyone’s really excelling at the job.

"Aguilar was given a $7,252-per-month salary for more than four months as a
consultant to the Senate Select Committee on Urban Economies by Sen. Gloria
Romero (D-Los Angeles), who has been an ally on school reform efforts in Los
Angeles."

The story is good to read for being a reality check. That's all part of handling by those in assorted venues, taking their respective approaches, and contributing to budget crises and the way such conditions happen.

A complete list of examples of politicians doing what’s fiscally prudent in government would be something way more than this story touches. This only scratches the surface of what’s going on in government. The named officials here probably don't even care about what's written from a propriety standpoint, having developed their level of arrogance to any public inquiry over the years.

People are behind decisions so it might be something of a twist here on another observational phrase, but, “Government doesn’t waste your money, People do.” Adding a couple more to the situation feels fitting, “It’s the thought that counts,” and the unavoidable interpretation here is that the thought is about self-gain. Try, “Actions speak louder than words,” where we are told to conserve, to tighten out belts, to give that extra dollar of taxes for the good of all, but we see the skimming off a part of those dollars as a form of “sales commission” for delivering those platitudes. The interpretation is correct and the action is wrong.

Instead of good decisions by the politicians so that we “get more bang for our buck,” we get more banged and it’s costing us more bucks. That is all courtesy of the politicians that voters put into office. Voting is important and with these results, more attention needs to be given to the selections. Unless, of course, you happen to be connected here somewhere.

It would be something of distinction if any "shame" in their conduct was evident. That's probably a word they don't include anymore in their vocabulary. I think it's been replaced by"entitlement."

City Council off until March 20th- Friday, the next dog-and-pony-show

Council is on a break until next Friday's usual "presentations and awards" where some deserved recognition and some simply vote-getting awards will be given. All however, take too long, are the epitome of butt-kissing.

This event really uses up all the congratulatory words in each council person's vocabulary to stretch these things out beyond human tolerance. Everything is "outstanding" or "strong leadership" and "fine example"- all the things that Council Members are not. You can see that even the recipients and families can't wait to leave and are gone in less two minutes after receiving their awards.

The people who come to speak at the meetings on regular matters are the victims on those days. They are the most abused and neglected on these Friday departures from their regular robotic routine of rubber-stamping each others motions- with little attention paid to content as most clearly demonstrated with the mindless approval of that nasty "Measure B Solar Energy" ballot proposition before the holiday season late last year- and with less attention paid to the struggles many endure (aside from the tortuous awards presentations themselves) in order to be there at city hall.

That is easily remedied by having actual business conducted FIRST- I am sure the recipients of awards will be glad to wait for these things to come to them, and having to get to downtown a little later will be better for all who can avoid more traffic by coming in an hour or two later.

Think of the impact less vehicles stuck in traffic can make, Mr. Garcetti, as you remind us of all the green power efforts at each opportunity. This could be another one. And Business Before Pleasure could be a mantra for city hall. But City Council rudeness and inconsiderate behavior rules here. Don't expect rationale, logical, compassionate changes to happen because they just don't care.

And today were are spared more giveaways of city tax money. The City Council approved the following last Friday as “special event waivers”- only two items were to be “reimbursed” to the city:

ITEM NO. (21)
09-0446 et al. MOTIONS relative to “Special Events” to be held
in the various Council Districts. Recommendations for Council action: DECLARE
the following community events as “Special Events”; APPROVE any temporary street
closures as requested; and, INSTRUCT the involved City departments to perform
such services as detailed the Council motions attached to the various listed
Council files, including the waiver of fees, costs and requirements and other
related issues, as specified:

09-0446 CD 13 a. MOTION (GARCETTI - ZINE)
relative to declaring the Armenian Independence Day Festival on May 31, 2009 a
Special Event (fees and costs absorbed by the City = $10,999).

07-1532-S1 CD 15 b. MOTION (LABONGE for HAHN - ALARCON) relative to
declaring the Harbor Adult School Graduation on June 16, 2009 a Special Event
(fees and costs absorbed by the City = $1,226).

09-0449 CD 15 c. MOTION
(LABONGE for HAHN - ALARCON) relative to declaring the 2009 Independence Day
celebration at Cabrillo Beach on July 4, 2009 a Special Event (fees and costs
absorbed by the City = $7,880).

08-1485-S1 CD 15 d. MOTION (LABONGE for
HAHN - ALARCON) relative to declaring the 14th Annual Wilmington Family Picnic
on June 13, 2009 a Special Event (fees and costs absorbed by the City = $1,220).

09-0450 CD 11 e. MOTION (ROSENDAHL - SMITH) relative to declaring the
Purim Block Party on March 10, 2009 a Special Event (fees and costs absorbed by
the City = $2,651).

09-0452 CD 13 f. MOTION (GARCETTI - LABONGE)
relative to declaring the X-Men After Party at Avalon on March 2, 2009 a Special
Event (the event sponsor shall reimburse the City for all fees and costs
associated with this event).

09-0453 CD 13 g. MOTION (GARCETTI -
LABONGE) relative to declaring the Nike Presents: Living with Armstrong on March
7, 2009 a Special Event (the event sponsor shall reimburse the City for all fees
and costs associated with this event).

09-0454 CD 13 h. MOTION (GARCETTI
- LABONGE) relative to declaring the Enchantment of Beauty and the Beast on
March 3, 5, 10, 12, 17, 19, 24, and March 26, 2009 a Special Event (fees and
costs absorbed by the City = $13,136).


And then they came back for the next meeting on Tuesday, March 10, 2009, with the following:

ITEM
NO. (36)
09-0473 et al. MOTIONS relative to “Special Events” to be held in
the various Council Districts. Recommendations for Council action: DECLARE the
following community events as “Special Events”; APPROVE any temporary street
closures as requested; and, INSTRUCT the involved City departments to perform
such services as detailed the Council motions attached to the various listed
Council files, including the waiver of fees, costs and requirements and other
related issues, as specified:

09-0473 CD 4 a. MOTION (LABONGE -
GARCETTI) relative to declaring the Los Feliz Village Holiday Festival on
December 5, 2009 a Special Event (fees and costs absorbed by the City = $2,925).

09-0472 CD 4 b. MOTION (LABONGE - GARCETTI) relative to declaring the
Oaks Halloween Walk on October 31, 2009 a Special Event (fees and costs absorbed
by the City = $1,188).

09-0474 CD 4 c. MOTION (LABONGE - GARCETTI)
relative to declaring the Halloween Block Party on October 31, 2009 a Special
Event (fees and costs absorbed by the City = $1,288).

09-0475 CD 9 d.
MOTION (PERRY - GARCETTI) relative to declaring the Operation School Bell on
Wheels on March 12, 2009 a Special Event (fees and costs absorbed by the City =
$500).

09-0471 CD 5 e. MOTION (GARCETTI for WEISS - PERRY) relative to
declaring the Temple Isaiah’s Purim Carnival on March 8, 2009 a Special Event
(fees and costs absorbed by the City = $1,200).

08-0401-S1 CD 5 f.
MOTION (GARCETTI for WEISS - PERRY) relative to declaring the Temple Beth-Am’s
Purim Carnival on March 8, 2009 a Special Event (fees and costs absorbed by the
City = $1,198).

09-0315 CD 15 MOTION (HAHN - LABONGE) relative to
amending previous Council action in connection with a Special Event declaration
for the 42nd Annual Palos Verdes Marathon, Half Marathon and 5K Community Run
and Walk on May 2, 2009. Recommendation for Council action: AMEND the Council
action of February 18, 2009 relative to the Special Event declaration for the
42nd Annual Palos Verdes Marathon, Half Marathon and 5K Community Run and Walk on May 2, 2009 sponsored by the Kiwanis Club of Rolling Hills Estates (Council
file No. 09-0315) to waive all fees, costs and requirements associated with this
event, except insurance requirements. Approval of this request will mean that an
estimated $4,226 in fees and salary costs will be absorbed by the City.

At a time when city employees and services are being cut, celebration might not be so quickly paid for by tax dollars.

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.

LAUSD Back to the Future High School, HS #9, "parent tours"?

NOTE:
"DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME" starts tonight- set CLOCKS AHEAD 1 HOUR TONIGHT.

-------------------------- there was no posting for Friday, as everyone just is pretty busy with thinking of the weekend and needs a break from reading somebody else's opinions, including that somebody. I still collected a little more work to present, and here's part of much more about the LAUSD's activity that will cover a few more days of postings. Just a break from the City politics for a brief moment- not that they have improved one bit, either, but LAUSD needs some attention here, too. ----------------

NEW HIGH SCHOOL ("H.S. #9") FOR DOWNTOWN AREA:

The LAUSD is posting invitations for "School Tours for parents and their children to see the new LAUSD high school number 9 (built on the old LAUSD HQ site at Grand and Sunset/now Cesar Chavez) that is all done with construction. This update on the school situation is one that I accidentally discovered in checking a notice I saw posted at local LA Public Library branch this week. Now they need students for September 2009 to start it off. There were no other copies to take with me, so this is based on what I remember- I'll go back later anyway and check it again. The notice added that there would be NO senior class for the entering students in September 2009.

The announcement did not entirely clear up whether they decided that it was for a split of enrollment for local students and city-wide art-oriented students. Still lots of questions on the operations, but parent tours with their children is the purpose of the announcement. It sounds like this was going to be for city-wide enrollment.

CURRENT STATUS:
The focus will be the "arts"- meaning drama, art and music and maybe a few other things I can't think of now. About 1200 enrollment is the number set per the flyer; the dilemma before this time was whether a state-of-the-art school would be for the "local" population, like a generic school would be, or if all the specialty facilities would be used for an "art-music" school, open to students citywide like the County's Arts school does in County territory.

Apparently that's solved by "district-wide enrollment," and logically so, a very rare outcome for LAUSD Board. They must have hired an outside consultant.

If you have a state-of-the-art facility, it would be wasting that resource to have a population that does not fully use all of the potential that's available. So now that they sunk a ton of money into the second most expensive school construction in the entire United States (and I really doubt that LASUD wanted to win that title) they should play it out for BEST use of the place.

If it's used for "general" education- which isn't even offered in LAUSD anymore under that label, replaced by the "A through G" college track for all, then that would be some primitive thinking showing up again in LAUSD, like having a Ferrari for daily driving in city traffic.
=================
A REVEALING LOOK AT THIS PROJECT BY THE L.A. WEEKLY
Going to the L.A. WEEKLY for an examination of the LAUSD's second most costly school construction (over $230 million, on a basic design school price of $30 million) and delayed readiness of 2 years (first September 2007, then 2009), they did a very thorough job here,

"Art School or LAUSD Folly?
A gorgeous downtown high school has no plan, no curriculum — but sure looks fab," By Erica Zora Wrightson
Published on September 03, 2008 at 4:55pm
http://www.laweekly.com/2008-09-04/news/art-school-or-lausd-folly/

L.A. Weekly has become the leading source of uncovering a lot of what's going on in L.A. The L.A. Times sometimes finds and sometimes just finds and ignores, with the same now for the other paper, the L.A. Daily News, that used to be more reliable for covering city issues.

The article is so revealing of all kinds of examples of mismanagement, arrogance in operations, and outright waste of time and money in the educational system and you can see that maybe the LAUSD still doesn't have a clue on how to improve student performance, trying out expensive experiments. It's hard to have faith in an institution that spent.

For all the value that "arts" in education have in society, was this the best choice for a struggling school district to plow funds into? Doesn't it sound more like a specialty school that vastly overshoots the aim to produce educated students, competent to fend for themselves in society and even ready to pursue higher education without most of them needing semesters of remedial classes to account for inadequacies of the system like it is now?

What WAS the priority? Was it a specialty school to fulfill the wishes of big shots in society, or was it to create a basic complete high school facility to start producing better-educated students than we produce now?

LAUSD could have had a functional and new school two years ago for lots less, with enough change leftover for another half-dozen or so schools. The school would already be in use NOW, working at it's purpose already a couple of years to give our students that better education that the newly constructed schools were supposed to provide. But LAUSD did not go that way, did it?

(still more to come on this topic)

Another Showing of More Waste by City of L.A.- hundreds of cars gong home every day and no control on city's gas credit cards.

"As much as $10 million a year could be saved by cutting back on the number of vehicles that city employees take home." That's the conclusion of an audit report of city car usage, and that includes the fraudulent gas purchases. Records show that for a period of just over 2 years, there have been 393 instances of a car being filled up 10 times in one day. The city owned pumps are for city cars, but gas credit cards with a $1500 limit are issued for purchases at commercial stations.

The Los Angeles City Council continues its work of wasting money at the same time looks for more ways to collect more money from the individuals and residents. Remember it just finished one phase where their work triples and quadruples parking meter rates, installs credit card payment stands for parking and has raised all city tickets by another $5.00, as well as boosting trash collection fees from $11 a month to $36 last September. (All this happens during City Council meetings that often slip by quietly and quickly. Once in a while, it all hits the fan and the Council Members are quick to find reasons not to take the blame or to make it look like it is doing you some real good.)

This time is was City Controller Laura Chick bringing out information like a "Ripley's Believe It or Not" feature. She's released information from an audit that shows city cars have been assigned to employees of the city, some to emergency response personnel and others simply assigned to our wonderful politicians. Did you know that EACH of the 15 Council Members has 8 City cars provided to them, with gas, maintenance and insurance also covered?

The January 22nd story can be found- [last updated today] in the NBC Los Angeles News website report, Free Ride Ending For LA Employees With Auto Perks, http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Free-Ride-Could-Be-Over-For-LA-Employees-With-Auto-Perks.html The LAPD's included in the report, along with the civilian employess.

The Los Angeles Police Department has 4,692 vehicles, 786 of which are home-garaged. The audit questioned whether the more than 200 LAPD employees who live outside Los Angeles County and have take-home cars could respond to an emergency in a timely manner, and whether the department could justify providing them with vehicles.

"I really want to know the rationale for saying that our public safety officers need take-home city cars to be able to respond quickly in case of an emergency and they live 100 miles away. There's something wrong with this picture," Chick said.
As a result of the audit, the LAPD has decided to eliminate take-home vehicles for 120 employees

The L.A. Times' story, "Controller critical of L.A. workers driving city cars," http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/01/auditor-critica.html shows examples and blog comments of readers.

The City, like the State and Federal government, has its budget problems. The City however has no military personnel to support and the schools are not under their jurisdiction, with a separate budget under the LAUSD. A lot of what's collected as taxes is just turned around and shipped out as payments for programs of often questionable merit and unproven effectiveness, and a lot goes out to pay for services and construction costs. Some people call it "pay to play." Part of the benefit of being "in good" with the decision makers in City Hall, from the Mayor with his 90-plus aides, to the 15 City Council Members, with their 20 staff aides apiece, is that when you have a bid or request for funding a program or supplying a service you might get more attention- like approval of your request- and on that point, we see how tax money flows in the direction of some and not to others.

LAURA CHICK is on the job now but formerly was a supporter of Antonio Villaraigosa, also known as the Mayor, the "11% Mayor," The Absentee Mayor, the Photo Ops Mayor, Tony V., or simply, Mayor Tony. That closeness has appeared to have been over for a long time with a lot of the discoveries by the Controller's Office showing a poorly managed city with no one watching the store- or as I sometimes consider it, the inmates running the asylum- and running it very expensively at that, running it right into the ground if you look more closely, behind all the rhetoric.

You can see that WENDY GRUEL, CM from the CD-2 in the San Fernando Valley is trying to get some good campaign mileage out of this situation. She's been an Antonio supporter from way back and as CM, she's not been part of the "solution", but clearly, part of the problem.

Running against GRUEL as a better person for the job is Nick Patsaouras, formerly President of the DWP commission, but having left that post after finding he was still unable and not authorized to control a lot of what is DWP is adding to the cost of everything when you live inside the Los Angeles city limits. The L.A. Daily News story, "City officials to review use of take-home vehicles," has more response of officials to Chick's audit, including an order from Tony to departments to "suspend the issuance of new take-home vehicles or purchase of new equipment" and to end the use of city gas credit cards at commercial gas stations. Good move, Mr. Mayor. It's the least he could do.

CM WENDY GRUEL has been presenting a more enlightened image to the public since embarking on her campaign for City Controller. Her hard glares and lapses of patience have been toned down remarkably so and you can see that staying in a public office is her aim. The benefit of that will be going only to Wendy, not to us, the residents of the city. She's been too much the "yes man" (or "yes woman") when it comes to doing what Mayor Tony has asked for without any serious evaluation to see it his requests have merit.

Most of City government operates that way- "I do you a favor, and then, you do me one in exchange," and on and on like that. Unfortunately, these favors often come at a hefty price just because expenses run that way, or because they waste money by sloppy spending, getting into bad contracts that leave the city a loser on the terms, or just plain effing up the whole deal by not having SOMEONE keep track of things. The city lost thousands of dollars in parking fines by not collecting them from the agency it hired to do collections; the city lost money a few years back when they discovered that rent had not been charged to some tenants on Olvera Street and that there were many tenants without any written rental agreements.

Did you know that our present City Attorney ROCKY DELGADILLO was being audited, well, his office was, that is, for how it was handling workers compensation cases? So did he cooperate to show us how well things are? Not quite. ROCKY filed a lawsuit against City Controller LAURA CHICK to stop her from conducting the audit of his department- all leaving Ms. CHICK TO GO to the city council almost two months ago for some funding to handle the suit, but they put that off and left her on her own for legal costs EVEN THOUGH IT'S PART OF her JOB. Council President Garcetti tried to pass the buck saying that the litigation was done with any prior consulting from the City Attorney's office.

What Chick did get was a token showing of sympathy from guess who? WENDY GRUEL, the one who wants to be elected on March 3, 2009 to Ms. Chick's office. Term limits require Chick to leave the post. I suppose WENDY wanted to show some knowledge of the way things go in the Controller's office, or maybe she did not want to have ROCKY jack her around if she were to get elected and have to meet up with his legal antics while trying to get information from the City Attorney's Office.

The Council has approved payments of legal fees for other city employees very routinely, but you know they are not happy with Chick for finding out things that embarrass them and for revealing what is REALLY going on that SHOULD NOT be happening.

WENDY says she can be independent from any influence by the Mayor’s office, and that’s what ROCKY said about the billboard companies. So now the settlement MADE BY ROCKY with the billboard companies turns out to be a legal disaster, with the uneven exceptions undermining the whole thing. That allowed the court to find the settlement flawed as authority regulating billboards the way the city wanted to.

ROCKY has a history of problems, shown vividly by an L.A. Weekly story on June 28, 2007, "Rocky Delgadillo's Flameout," http://www.laweekly.com/2007-06-28/news/rocky-delgadillo-s-flameout/ that includes the problems created by false reports of an accident while his wife was driving a city car. And to remind you again that he is the city's top attorney, with the assigned responsibility for enforcing the law.

We don’t need more waste and we don't need those failng to do their job to remain.