L.A. Weekly has a good "all-about" story on City and MMDs; The City Council Medical Marijuana Ordinance draft due today.

Last week, the L.A. Weekly put out a really detailed story on the long path taken for the city to get to a long-awaited ordinance on Medical Marijuana Dispensaries. If you want to see what's really happened in the course of events in how City Council members dropped the ball in so many ways, read this story and you may be surprised. All that dubious "leadership" that the CMs reflexively mention ( especially during those Friday awards days) in congratulating each other really seems to be completely absent when checking how the MMD problem developed.

THE L.A. WEEKLY'S WORK ON "THE REST OF THE STORY"-
The L.A. Weekly's story: "L.A.'s Medical-Weed Wars
How the potheads outwitted Antonio Villaraigosa and the L.A. City Council,"
By PATRICK RANGE MCDONALD AND CHRISTINE PELISEK. (Published on November 23, 2009 at 11:49pm) is a story about this one topic, Medical Marijuana, and what happened over the years that brought us to nearly 1,000 hardship exemptions filed as more "Medical Marijuana Dispensaries" have opened up in the city. See http://www.laweekly.com/2009-11-26/news/l-a-39-s-medical-weed-wars/

Ed Reyes of CD-1 (that includes Lincoln Heights and Highland Park) was not quite the mover and shaker on this matter that some people might believe he is. As Chair of the PLUM, "Planning and Land Use Management" committee, he was responsible for the committee assigned to make decisions on the very ambiguous "hardship exemptions" for applications to conduct these business. CM Reyes did nothing on these from the end of Summer 2007 when the "moratorium" ordinance and its hardship exemption were enacted, until Spring of this year when community pressure to address the increasing numbers of MMDs that were popping up in the city. CM Jose Huizar's move was to end the "hardship exemption" this year, prompting hundreds more applications to be filed before any change became effective. There's always something that sounded good on paper but didn't quite work out in application.

Well, read the story and see the others involved over the roles that they played over the years. There's a lot that you'd expect should have been done that didn't happen, but that often happens with the way the City Council works. The big public comment day a couple of weeks ago had CM Dennis Zine appearing frustrated with the snail's pace progress that was being made and urged the PLUM Committee to adopt the West Hollywood law as a model and then make adjustments to it later. (Now why didn't that come up BEFORE by anyone? TOO logical? Well, "better late than never" applies here.)


CITY COUNCIL TO HAVE A DRAFT ORDINANCE ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA TODAY.

Council President Eric Garcetti announced today that there would be a draft ordinance online for review later this afternoon. The ordinance that was to be drafted to the specifications that the Council agreed upon in the rounds of hearings will be ready to view by going to the city's website. It will be coming up for more discussion

Tomorrow's AGENDA item no. 8, Council File: 08-0923 will bring up the matter again . This will go on for a while but you need to remember that the City Attorney Carmen Trutanich and the District Attorney Steve Cooley had been saying for some time that the state law, "The Compassionate Use Act," does not allow "sales" to be part of the operations. The Council really did all it could to ignore that advice for a long time and then Jerry Brown, the Attorney General for California, said "sales" are not permittied. SO the council apparently started to believe that part and plan in that feature. But not all were happy, and really, if they could allow sales legally and collect taxes, they would as any money source gets their attention these days.

Check the city's web site or just make a google search later for the draft ordinance. And there's more to come. No matter what you hear from these council members praising each other at even the slightest incremental advance on this issue, no one is a "hero" or real "leader" in this area. (I think it's simply politics at a base level where their constant praise of each other will gradually imprint on the members of the public who are either uninformed or easily impressed.) They should have figured this out earlier, like 2007 and they really needed to shut down the businesses around that time, too, when there were few. Doing nothing just encouraged all the others to open in the City. No heroes here in this batch of CMs.

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.

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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

Daily News reports on City Council's Friday Awards spectaculars.

The Daily News on Thursday April 2, 2009, carried the story, "When L.A. City Council comes to town, it's not business as usual," http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_12059920?source=rv about the City Council Friday awards presentations, commonly referred to by city hall observers as the Council's "Dog and Pony Shows" This example was observed at the Van Nuys City Hall where L.A.'s City Council members make their once-a-month visit to conduct a Friday meeting for people in the area to see them personally.

The story gives a colorful picture of what's going on most Fridays. The Daily News story gives another version of what's been printed here on these pages about waste, disinterest and generally poor conduct by the council members, especially offensive when it involves the personal efforts and discomfort in having to trudge on over to city hall in Los Angeles or Van Nuys, as the writer observed.

It's when the real business is on hold for an hour or more, and the private citizen who takes time to come to speak or to support a speaker is forced to wait until all the awards and presentations are made until they can be heard. And if there was a packed council chambers for award, you can bet it's mostly vacated after the recipients are done with their own part. The public comments are made to a venue that's mostly empty, except for other's concerned with the business that brought them there.

The Council members themselves tend to display extreme disinterest in what people have to say in each 2-minute allotment of time for their "public comment" (reduced to 1 minute when there are many speakers on the same subject.) . You will see lots of private conversations and very little eye contact made between council members and speakers. The story shows a lot about what's going on in city council on Fridays, when one Council member tries to top the next CM in heaping praise upon the recipient of the award and it all tends to cheapen the idea of awards when only positive things are said that often are just about doing "the right thing" but treated as if NO ONE ever is expected to do right- so the award recipient is made to be, in many but not all cases, the exception to the majority who don't or couldn't do what was done.

Aside from the phoniness that most council members practice so especially vigorously on these Fridays, the other noticeable feature of the meetings is the constantly interjected comment, usually by the Council President or President Pro Tem (the CM "sitting-in-for-the-President"), "We have to try to move more quickly since we are about to lose quorum." Well, isn't that absolutely foreseeable by how they set up the agenda? They COULD have put awards LAST after the necessary business is done; it's not like anyone is going to walk out on their certificate. That would ensure there is a quorum and avoid what you have now and what seems to be such a mystery for the Council members to fix. They just don't want to do it.

The utterly common sensical approach to these meetings is just beyond these pampered officials. The people who come to the meetings to comment or to find out about what's happening on a decision over their personal or business interest have had to hear the bad news, "We have lost quorum with the Council member having to leave." That means postponing the rest of the agenda to another day since legally the body is without enough members present to conduct business.

So what? The Council is above it all but for the private citizen it means another trip to the meeting will be needed, another battle with traffic, finding parking and paying for it, and sitting through for the opportunity to speak for two minutes on the agenda item, or another two minutes in "Public Comment" for non-agenda matters where they could probably complain about the "process" that they encountered in visit "number 1." Oh, don't forget that maybe you have a person who still has a job and had to take a day off to come to the meeting who has found that it's all wasted and has to be done again. The Council doesn't care; they don't validate parking, they don't give priority to such a returnee- especially if the matter comes on another Friday, and they do not accommodate the people.

The total disregard for the REAL job of doing business is what happens. Maybe the Friday are really escapes into all that reciprocal back-slapping and giving out the "atta-boys" for the expected return of some constituent support is viewed by the Council members as their "REAL" goal and ensures their political security. That above all else is what matters to any and all of the Council members from District 1 to District 15, and to the Mayor and any other elected official, city, county, state or federal.

The idea of the elected official being a public servant an anachronism. We have not seen that condition or anything close to that since probably World War II. What we have are opportunists who hold the door open for their friends and relatives to come in and benefit at the expense of the public.

The names of the politicians that come to mind are the same ones as in earlier stories and some lesser-knowns, some in office, some recently termed out and some who have actually been part of the minority of whom have "done the right thing" and resigned from their position in connection with the misdeeds.

The City Council is all about that, and what I'd say makes it so much more the attractive perch for them are the highest salaries in the United States for municipal government offices. They should really reflect some sort of frugality in government. That should be a theme of the office, and not the extravagence that they have had it come to represent. The spending in that environment is part of what the culture of politics is all about; they spend and spend and reward their special interest and personal favorites and then they pass the responsibility for the generosity on to the taxpayers. The idea of NOT spending, or slowing it down, rarely dominates the thoughts on solutions in this area. That would have kept the huge budget deficits smaller, which isn't any elaborate analysis, so it was within their grasp to understand, but they didn't think it applied to "them."

Look at the City Council's continued generousity with "Special Event Waivers" for a small example. I am aware of what people use to justify these amounts, but the City Council acts as though they MUST step in to cover all these things. In a budget crisis, until there is some control, then maybe a halt to this would be in order, at least to show everyone that we ARE in difficult financial straits. Continued fundings by Council sends out the opposite and makes everyone think all is fine. There's so much more that isn't so obvious but tremendously larger. That's usually where you find lobbyists involved. There are more actions to be discussed- there will always be more with the same people, and the examples usually are negatives in terms of what benefit we see for the city and it's people.
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Reader Comments on the Daily News story show some very opinionated views on local politicians and proceedings- http://www.topix.net/forum/source/los-angeles-daily-news/TDL2B5FQ9OGL75I6E