City Council and Billboards- Where's the Enforcement? A new Plan.

The L.A. City council has some activity on it's poorly handled billboard managment in the city where there are large numbers of illegal billboards, coming from the poor settlement terms during the handling of litigation with some billboard companies. Rocky Delgadillo was the City Attorney in charge- or supposed to be in charge- of the office and the "settlement" was one that gave in to what defendant billboard companies wanted. There were so many concession that the "favored treatment" for defendants made the city's enforcement against the other billboard companies that were not involvled in the settlement agreement unenforceable. The court said the agreement was flawed as it treated similar situations differently, favoring those covered in the settlement agreement and then the whole thing got out of hand.

The city has few inspectors for violations to be issued- and this could be a real source of revenue if the fines were more than wrist-slaps. The department head that manages it came to a city council meeting with an distinct attitude of indifference and lack of concern for getting the job done. This guy was quite guilty of failing to have any report ready as requested months earlier, and worse, had a projection of about a half a year longer to get one ready, making the usually ultra-composed Council President Eric Garcetti about as angry as I have ever seen him during a council meeting. Good for Eric. Now he sees how most of us feel about how the Council acts, or usually, fails to act

The council created a moratorium on new billboards but that's been another law ignored by the billboard companies quite boldly. Since they make loads of money for billboards, especially the digital and super-graphic ones, no matter what happens under the weak fine system in place, it's still more profitable to break the law than not to, at least as the city handles things now.

So the Council's now working on getting a handle on the problem with another ordinance and creation of "districts" to address control. I am wary of "districts", the designation of area for special treatment on a topic, as that usually means more costs to residents and businesses that didn't exist before. In other words, it's for "generating revenue" more than helping the people. So more is happening as the L.A. Times story on Saturday reports, "L.A. weighs changes in billboard law; The proposal, due for a vote Tuesday, would allow the City Council to create sign districts in up to 21 neighborhoods," By David Zahniser, May 24, 2009. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/valley/la-me-signs24-2009may24,0,1939732.story I expect the billboard lobbyists to be very active in cornering Council members about their vote. The City Attorney Rock Delgadillo, received campaign contributions from billboard companies when he ran for the office successfully. Does the phrase, "What's wrong with this picture?" come to mind?

Delgadillo pledged that he could maintain independent judgment and avoid any influence from those donations. I don't believe that happened, or else the settlement would not have been so flawed. I hope the new City Attorney, Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich, will do better- and it would be hard to do worse in office than Delgadillo did. For every step forward that he took, it seems that we went bacwards two steps. Well, come July 1, that will change and Rocky will be gone.

The story on the billboards has captured quite a bit of controversy involved, and mentions some key observations,

Garcetti and his colleagues moved to overhaul the city's sign law last year after facing voter outrage over a series of lawsuit settlements approved by the council in 2005 and 2006. Those agreements, approved unanimously, delivered a broad array of concessions to four outdoor advertising companies that had challenged the city's 2002 billboard law.

The settlements gave three of the four -- CBS Outdoor, Clear Channel Outdoor and Regency Outdoor -- permission to convert up to 900 billboards to digital formats, with illuminated images that change every few seconds. As new digital signs began going up, neighborhood groups in Silver Lake, Westwood and elsewhere lashed out at the council, saying it had granted the billboard industry carte blanche for hundreds of visually intrusive signs.

And you notice that the Council was involved in approving the deals, and the "unanimously" description is not unique- that's the rule, not the exception. They are like the 15 Musketeers, all for one and one for all. Some might think that the work generated is more like the "Mouseketeers" instead, but what do you expect? Look at how well they get paid. Getting $178,000 plus an estimated $100,000 in benefits can give one a pretty big head and make them think "royalty" more than "democracy."

Well, I don't like districts created since that's usually a ploy to squeeze out more money from us in a sneaky, shell-game fashion. Did I mention that on the whole, council is not to be trusted if you are thinking of things from the public's view. But the billboard companies are making out like bandits on the money scene, facing little enforcement and even less likely any significant penalties if actually caught.

The plan is to change all this, but the council leaned so far to favor billboard companies that the that the companies took advantage of them and are out of control. And don't think about First Amendment and Free Speech because this is all about "commercial speech," an entirely different animal that can be tamed with some better planning. So be forewarned that if you lean too far to favor someone, you might get yourself bent over, so to speak, as did the city with this mess.

More to be seen at Tuesday's Council Meeting.

How Much Marijuana is Too Much? Herbal Sprawl in the News, past and present; Government still deciding which way to go?

There are a few stories in the news about the widely used substance, marijuana, one of the commonly encountered drugs that stirs up lots of difference of opinions on how it should be treated.

"U.S. agents seize 640 pounds of marijuana on private shipping boat;
The seizure occurs four nautical miles west of San Diego's Mission Bay. Two U.S. citizens onboard are arrested on suspicion of smuggling," Larry Gordon, L.A. Tmes, March 29, 2009 . http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-smugglingside29-2009mar29,0,5599460.story

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers intercepted a 27-foot boat with a load of marijuana off the coast by Mission Bay in San Diego, and arrested 2 men. The report says this was different from most cases where drug smuggling is discovered since "there were no undocumented alients" aboard, the L.A. Times' reports.

(In a statement by) ...Vince Bond, a spokesman for the agency. "Though it was not a record marijuana seizure, Bond described it as a substantial haul.

"Any time you can get 640 pounds of narcotics is a very good day for Customs and Border Protection," he said.

"Police seize 12,000 pot plants", L.A. Times, by Rong-Gong Lin II, March 28, 2009 http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/03/police-this-wee.html

The Schubarum Regional Park apparently was not big enough to keep somebody from finding the garden of some ambitious marijuana cultivators, as it was a mile from the nearest trail and still somebody came across the garden, but three men with pellet guns who were there when police were summoned, managed to elude capture. The 3 pellet guns were recovered and the plants, ranging in size from 2 to 12 inches, were uprooted for evidence.

This all brings to mind the recent release from prison of the two former U.S. Border Patrol agents, Ingnacio Ramos and Jose Campeon , who were granted clemency by President Bush as one of his last official acts. It was not a pardon and still the release from prison was delayed until after the new president took office. The two were released from federal prison and remained under house arrest to serve out additional time until a few weeks ago. Both were barred from talking to the press until the end of the house arrest.

You may recall that there was a conviction of both in an 2007 trial based on them shooting at a suspected smuggler Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, and apparently he was hit in the rear end by one bullet as he escaped to Mexico. He left behind a van with about 750 pound of marijuana.

The U.S. Attorney's office found the "suspect" some time afterwards and made him their main witness, with the government accusing the officers of shooting at an unarmed person. The officers said that they saw him with a gun and the government obtained a conviction on assault and "use of a firearm in a crime" - yielding an enhancement for another 10 years for the gun allegation, so they got 11 and 12 years in a case that seems to me was the oddest set of facts and circumstances for the government to decide to pursue this case against its own officers. The U.S. attorney in Texas, Johnny Sutton, a personal friend of President Bush, handled the case and among many on the government's side of the case, told stories that were false, lying about what was really happening to get the congress members off their backs.

That 750 pound load of the weed that the smuggler abandoned did not get any attention in the big picture, and it was never attributed to the suspect/witness in court. Usually matters like that are relevant to credibility and the actions you have in court really become a matter of gamesmanship and not any inquiry into that idea we have a hard time locating these days, the truth. Lots of rules make resemblance of "the charges" and the events that caused the prosecution to be "coincidental" more than identical. The idea that a smuggler carrying a load of drugs is armed to protect against having his load hijacked was rejected, even though others interviewed the smuggler's family who admitted he caried a gun for protection when he was transporting loads.

So now we are looking at the same amounts of the contraband substance that makes news, and that interception gains a load of credit. The supply of marijuana in the Ramos and Campeon case was apparently an incidental or acceptable matter that was not significant to take any important role into what the reasons for the Border Patrol agents were doing with the escaping smuggler to begin with.

The real focus in that case, in my opinion, was a Bush-authorized action to curry favor with the Mexican government. Apparently there was a need to show that the U.S. was tough on it's own people and not picking on the Mexicans crossing the border. The case had so many problems that it was pretty obvious that the government was dug in on the prosecution and was not lettiing it go. But for the continued inquiry into the matter by people learning about the case and following it's progress, the complaints to elected reprentatives and the inquiries generated, the two agents would still be serving the sentence.

By the way, that gun charge, a 10-year sentence enhnancement, is supposed to be used to keep crime down, trying to make criminals NOT use guns in their planned criminal conduct and to punish for crossing into a more deadly level of action. The law was not supposed to apply this style of punishment to law enforcement conducted in the course and scope of the duties of sworn peace officers on-duty, since any mistake with the use of their firearm could lead to that 10-year add-on to the sentence. Ramos and Campeon would have had a 1 and 2 year sentence.


For a peek into one of many views that you can see for reference, written over two years ago in February 2007, "Bordering on insanity," by Frank Miele, in the Daly Inter Lake.com news source from Montana, of all places. But that tells you how the story's oddities spread so widely across the country once more facts came out. http://www.dailyinterlake.com/articles/2007/02/14/columns/columns01.txt The story is just one of many that gives examples of what looks wrong with the case. And this was TWO years ago, with President Bush taking the side of the U.S. Attorney as a personal friend he knew when serving as the Governor of Texas. When reporters asked Bush one day about looking into the motives of the case, Bush responded that the prosecutor Johnnie Sutton, was a good friend of his and he trusted his judgment. In a legal setting, such a basis for a conclusion would not be sufficient, but Bush demonstrated that he did not intend to change anything.

At this point, I want to add another view into the marijuana related picture, and that is the story today from Steve Lopez in the L.A. Times, "Former judge fired up on making pot legal," http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez29-2009mar29,0,88438.column That story gives you yet another view coming from judge with a lot of experience in the legal system and he comes up with a solution that's a totally different one than we've heard of for years. The medical marijuana is for a treatment that usage of the drug can provide, besides the usual motive of regular users, getting high.

Addressing pain and nausea from other medical procedures is a valid basis for usage, and has been a part of the reasons for the dispensaries to open. I think profit might be another one, but the law provides for service. The judge's view has long been supported but by too few for any kind of change in the overall laws to change, but it could hapen. Read it for your own assessment of the idea.

Well, don't times change how things are handled? Now the "capture" of the weed continues to be important at the same time that the Obama Administration has told the DEA that medical marijuana dispensaries where the states made it legal, should not be raided, but that still got a lot of people in jail. Still lots of motivations in government need to be aired out for everyone to be on the same page. All that we know for sure is that the views can be so different, depending on which level and which agency you happen to examine.