Election Day in CD-2- News -Vote Zuma Dogg/ David Saltsburg; Media Ignores City Hall- as usual

VOTE for David Saltsburg. He's running for CD-2 to shift power away from special interests.

Today, until 8 pm, CD-2 registered voters will trickle to the polls for a SPECIAL ELECTION and vote for a Los Angeles City Council Member for this district that is mostly in the San Fernando Valley from the 405 Freeway and meandering to Sunland-Tujunga. Wendy Greuel, up until she was sworn into her new office as City Controller 2 months ago was their Council Member. There are a few years of unexpired time remaining for that term.

If you rely on television for news, there's a good chance you don't know anything about the election, that it's today, that there are 10 candidates running or that 3 of these are "the Machine" candidates, having well-financed campaign, running against 7 "grassroots" under-financed campaigns.

If you think, "CD-2, What's that? Who Cares?" then you are doing well to fall into the chasm that keeps the same types of rotten politician in office. CD-2 has a population equal to many name-cities. It is one of 15 Council Districts in the City. Voter apathy is what we have for most city elections, as only 18% of the registered city voters came out to vote for Mayor and the odd-numbered CDs, 7 of them. The city council members decide L.A. life. Another bad choice keeps this club to do that, unimpeded.

As L..A. is run, the rest of the Southern California is affected. The fallout will eventually spread over to impact other cities and policies set in L.A. WILL wind up impacting other places. If you say I live in CD-14 so I have my own problems- and we do- we don't want another bad player in the game to strengthen the choke hold the Council puts on the constituents. Same as CD-1 with Ed Reyes and his DENSIFICATION to make every housing a packed deal, more congestion- and no infrastructure attention FIRST. Broken water mains? Just a start of what to expect by bad mangement of the City.

The CMs keep there jobs through voters being both apathetic and ignorant. The lack of City Hall news coverage on television or newspapers on the elections (at time for any given city election) contributes to this condition. Most incumbents welcome this low-profile situation at election time, being able to control information better when they send out waves of slick campaign brochures in the mail to residents to convince them that all is well and will continue to be well with things as long as you re-elect them.

Most of the city's current financial mess, with the current budget over $450 million in the hole, and recent arrangements keep certain union employees safer from layoffs than other who, coincidentally don't supply elected officials with the all-important campaign contributons that get attention. The Engineers and Architects Assn. is one union that's getting about 27 days of furlough, being on the outs with last week's City and unions "deal" - and tell me, how that's really gonig to work when most of the favored unions will be protected from layoffs and others get early retirement deals to be paid but not work?

Is a CD job a good one? Just look at how hard the CMs go to protect these jobs. See the L.A. Weekly's February story just before the March 2009 elections,
"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/

Yes, lots of money is nice to have, and the other thing is the power. You will see that L.A. draws people back to the city politics like with Richard Alarcon, a former state assemblyman who makes a career manipulating power, and CM Wesson, another of the refugees who left Sacramento for a better payday in L.A. by choice or because there were termed out.

Without going much more into the problems, you can see a list of items showing a badly run city in Mayor Sam's blog covering mostly local politics
http://mayorsam.blogspot.com/

Ron Kaye, former editor of the L.A. Daily News based in the San Fernando Valley, supplies some through and critical thought, often exposing the secret side of dealings at city hall, on his blog www.ronkayela.com

The most colorful and absolutey harshest critic of the City Council and L.A. politics is "L.A. Daily Blog" http://ladailyblog.blogspot.com/ written by David "Zuma Doog" Saltsburg,whose been pulled into the political whirlpool since his own visit to City Hall over 3 years ago when the city shut down his right to sell things at Venice Beach, and that started it all.

I got to know ZD over the past few years and his knowledge of the city operation is gained by day to day involvement, contacts with people who know how things work, and inside information from people tired of the sneaky dealing going on in City Hall.

One thing that I have to give much credit to ZD for and not to any others in the same way, is that he has broken down the city's way of burying the real actions in paragraphs of legalese and boilerplate language that tells you nothing of the real meaning of the motions, the ordinances and most money-shuffling that goes on.

ZD's theatrical manner at Council meeting annoys many but exemplifies the ills that he finds and puts it out into the open. He's gotten more people clued into city activities, and has more young people learning more about what's there to affect by action. More people now than ever are challenging the city leaders, but still in small numbers that have not yet caused any upheaval in the MACHINE type of special interest controlled organization.

That special interest controlled group handles that first and you and me last. Parking meters quadruple the rates, extend hours, end free Sundays and that's a small part of what's visible that affects your day-to-day life. There are so many more things that sneak by that you don't even notice and that's the way City Council works- them first, you, well, you're just there to pay the bills, see your city billings rise and services deteriorate as you watch their Ch. 35 or internet video broadcasts of their "performances" to see "how smart" they are. The word is not smart but "insulting", "slick", "greedy", ignorant", "arrogant", "condescending" or a number of other words at various time that fit them all at one time or another. It needs to change.

DWP is bled dry by the CMs deals and your transformers blow, the water mains burst and people see things are not being maintained. The GENERAL FUND of the city gets money fed into it by many things and DWP is one source- also DWP's IBEW unions was the best contract deal made from the employees side, with pretty good raises every year as the economy was beginning to collapse.

Mayor V. is just too out of touch with city business, claimed he approved that deal because he could not tell of bad times ahead. He's barely changed since then, the union's best friend as long as the keep supporting his campaign funding, he's still trying to keep them happy even when layoffs are avoided when really needed to balance the budget.


Zuma Dogg/ David Saltsburg is one candidate I support, and any of the other of the 7 grassroots would be an improvement over what's there now.

NO, NO, NO TO ALL MACHINE CANDIDATES. Tamar Galatzin is the least harmful of the 3 MACHINE candidates, too closely tied to Mayor V., Chris Essel is totally a carpetbagger who was assigned to run and be a stooge for the mayor, and Paul Karabian would be bringing more State bankruptcy-making skills to further plunge L.A. into the financial black hole it's already headed for.

If you live in CD-2, vote. A 20% turnout is predicted. The top two vote-getters will be in December run-off election if no one gets 50% plus one vote, a majority.

Carrie Lopez, the "Dir. of Dept. of Consumer Affairs", billed transportation costs to state to attend Timberlake concert with her daughgter.

There's a lot of Gov. Arnold's top administrators who are ripping off taxpayers by charging the state for their personal activities. The story is carried on many outlets today and Carrie Lopez, Director of Consumer Affairs is one who got caught among ten top staffers. Lopez is supposed to be in charge of watching over to be sure that consumers don't get ripped off, and now we see that she and others are ripping off taxpayers themselves.

When he first took office, Schwarzenneger had a policy of requiring top officials to live in Sacramento to save travel expenses and time. Then Arnold did not enforce that restriction and now we have all the abuse as these politicians can get their thieving little minds to pull on us, and travel expenses fall into the plans.

A couple of words to insert here:

"reimbursement" and "resignations,"

and maybe a third word,

"prosecution."

The expense sheets they turn in to get money ususally require a sign-off as true and correct, sometimes with a "declaration under penalty of perjury." And if ANY do not, then THAT needs changing.

Too severe? You might recall how President Obama's nominees could not continue with their appointment process for problems with unpaid tax bills. At least they are already "charged tax" and just need to "pay" it. But HERE, the trickery was done with the idea that no repayment or refunding was ever going to be done. That's stealing and when you have it in government, it's also "corruption."

Removal from office would be some sign of attempting to keep the offices "clean," preserving some level of integrity. We all know there's much more that needs attention, as well. Allowing these offenders to keep their jobs without seeking resignation just gives everyone the sign that "you can cheat but we will just slap your wrists if we catch you, and come up with some phony speech to cover it, but you still keep your job." AND THAT'S A WRONG message- especially when lay offs of people in government are happening for lots who TRY to do a good job and do not violate rules or steal.

That's just at the state level. If you are local, it's not that much different. But deal with what you have now.

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.