City business- making appearances? Is this what a Mayor should be doing? Being in

The mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, still does not find a purpose to staying in the Mayor's Office to get to city business, the real kind, and continues to tour city to keep his face before the cameras.

From The City Maven blog's "Morning Coffee" section,  http://www.thecitymaven.com/2011/08/10/mavens-morning-coffee-66/ today's listing of press items for city hall shows the mayor to be making four public appearnaces:

Pressers

10:30 a.m. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will help launch a bilingual Internet literacy program at Magnolia Place Family Center.
11:30 a.m. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will be at L.A. Live to announce the location of the 2012 Breeders’ Cup.
7 p.m. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will attend Summer Night Lights at Imperial Courts Recreation Center.
8 p.m. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will attend Summer Night Lights at Jordan Downs Recreation Center.

This doesn't seem to be the best use of a mayor's time when you consider what condition the city is in.  But then, why should he change his ways now as he travels the city with his security detail and assorted staffers, all paid for by tax dollars, too. 

Does anyone really want to see him out in the city instead seeing him stay in city hall, getting to know the place, and trying to get familiar with city work to be done.  The real priorities of this city don't match those of the mayor.

 Maybe there's a reason for the mayor to have over 200 staff members when the other mayor's had less than 100 to assist them.

Villaraigosa coming at you with another State of the City, 2010 edition.

The mayor's speech that he's given each year is about due- 4-pm. I don't know if anyone's covering it live but there will be text of it printed somewhere. It may be out now since he's not ad libbing- that would be another disaster for him to add to the list.

Well, the list of layoffs is down from 4,000 to 750 and that's not even certain since it's really "positions" that are the things to be eliminated. I don't know city hall math, and I can't see how keeping anyone from being laid off makes the budget any lighter. It's not like they are working for free.

And the transfers to DWP side actuall wind up better since they never get laid off there AND they make more by 20 to 40 percent or more, depending on the positions, not to mention the good benefits that the IBEW squeezed out of the city- actually the negotiations really don't call for too much squeezing, they just ask and it happens, relatively speaking. That's how we have the situation we have. Tony has a big hand in all this- don't let him fool you on that.

Well, let's see what comes up and here's hoping he's settled down to cut out all that aah, eehh, uhh that he fills into sentences as if they are part of the speech. In reading things, he's not too bad. Pronunciation is off on some big words- "Noble" instead of "no-BELL" Peace Prize. Just little things you would expect a mayor to know.

Well enough, it's time.

Recall Mayor Villaraigosa? Not So Fast. Think about what that means.

Well, in case you haven't noticed, the Mayor is not having too good a time lately. First he scolded the City Council with a warning about the need to approve the request for the DWP rate hikes or that would be creating a very direct path to bankruptcy. That was in a report to the Council and it did not sit well with Ed Reyes for one, so the messenger got a bit of a dressing down on that topic.

Then the Mayor said that bankruptcy was not what he meant and it was ony a report for the Council- but it was freely distributed to the press, too. And by the way, did Tony mean that the Council gets one version and the public receives something different? Not a good outcome no matter how he tried to spin it.

Then the Council shut down that DWP rate hike (the first of a schedule of 4 increases) and proposed some lower increases until they got a better explanation of what exactly is the need attached to the charge. Then DWP's commissioners got to it during a late afternoon session, decided to bump their request back up and pass over what City Council had approved.

Next, on that same evening well after the sun had set, the Council saw the reply and shut the DWP down flat. Even Council Member Herb Wesson, usually trying to appear as the more wise and calm, collected member of the Council was angry, saying, "We are pissed," in remarking to the Council how the DWP had acted and what was to come.

So City Council held firm, rejected the counter-proposal and NO rate hike for DWP customers can happen until the next quarter, July. It was clearly a showdown that the Mayor gambled on and lost. So even the Council-approved, reduced-level rate hike vanished as a result of the DWP trying to make the big grab and losing.

All of this was from the direction of the Mayor- he appoints each of the DWP commission members and you can be certain that the Mayor's office was calling the shots during the breaks- much like major league baseball managers relay their instructions after being ejected from games. Everybody at DWP management is a puppet of someone, either the union or the mayor or both when there is agreement. The only ones coming up short are the DWP customers- us.

Then Tony ordered a 2-day closing for non-public safety work done in the City. That sounded like there was a super emergency that just came up that called for such drastic and sudden action. But there was a problem. Tony has no authority to make that order. At least to make the order that would be "enforceable." The City Charter often gets ignored in these moments of excitement. The Charter is to the City what the Constitution is to the U.S. government.

And don't forget that the unions had some contract provisions that were set up which were made to insulate them from losing days and losing pay. But then, Tony is not a man to let such details get in his way.

The closings were announced in the next day's Council meeting to be unenforceable. Not looking very good for the Mayor's choice of decisions.

So then somehow over $20 million dollars was found in some account or some re-calculation and the closings that were planned turned out not to be needed. Good one.

I forgot that Tony also made a sort of tactical error when the Council denied the DWP's requested rate hikes. The DWP (in another shady but regularly used deal) was supposed to transfer "surplus funds" to the city for the "general funds" that pay bills and payroll. Tony and the DWP said that the transfer was not able to happen now that the rate hikes were denied.

Sounds right? It's not. Tony's hikes were really for Tony's plan to make himself look good as a mayor in getting L.A. to go "green" in a big way and do it ahead of other cities. That cost money but who cares? Tony doesn't pay for it, we do. So the rate hikes and the transfer of a balance of $73 million dollars were not supposed to depend on each other to come through for all to happen.

But Tony said it did and his DWP man, Mr. Freeman, the real salesman or "hired gun" on DWP deals, as the case may be, said, "Can't do the money transfere because the rate hike did not go through." Of course somebody was lying and really, not just one person but entire sides, with Tony one of the usual suspects.

So it's all about retribution and picking up one's marbles to end the game and go home. Speakinf of marbles, have you noticed that the Mayor is making more and more conflicting announcements. Either he's got instant amnesia and figures everyone else is shaking the old Etch-a-Sketch, too, so we all start over with the plans he keeps changing on the fly, or he's losing a grip on reality for some chemical or organic related reason.

I don't know which, but there's something going on with the "ahhs, uuhhs and eehs punctuating his spoken communtications that are not written down. Reading is not to bad for him, but there's a lot of stalling in flight as he speaks off the cuff. Maybe that's why he never takes questions or he'd really be nailed to the wall very quicky, and I draw no parallels to any Jesus-like images or sacrifices Tony's made. Clearly, all that Tony has sacrificed during his time in office has been the well-being of the city and its people.


WHO WOULD REPLACE TONY FOR MAYOR? PROBABLY ANOTHER VERSION OF BAD NEWS.

City Council members are planning in their own minds some career climbs that include running for mayor when Tony is out of office in 3 years. Recalling him now would just give us more bad choices to push into a premature Mayoral race. We need time to build up some honest and helpful candidates. That goes for council members, too. Any current council member - and even Wendy Greuel, Controller- would like to try a shot at being the mayor and they don't cut it at all.

We need new CMs in the March 2011 election for the even numbered districts to replace these career ones now. In two more years after that, the odd numbered districts come u for election and a major change can happen.

Tony, as others have remarked, might welcome being recalled just to be done with the city problems that he never was dedicated to solving despite hiring enough aides and deputy mayors to run a few small countries. Sorry, we all will be suffering. A recall and special election campaign will waste money that's not there and give us inferior choices- maybe even worse ones.

That's L.A. and all you need to do is some lightweight Google searches to see that chaos is the order of the day. Meanwhile, the city council is busy trying to give away a fire engine to a worthy organization of local firefighers for a training function, but fire engines, at least as described in council meetings of the past few weeks, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to be fully equipped. Selling this for ONE DOLLAR is pure waste upon the tax payers- we can't afford this now. eBay is a place council members have remarked about when one city put up something of an expensive vehicle to get money in. LOS ANGELES is ALSO in such need and here's a perfect opportunity to get cash.

That was from yesterday's Budget and Finance Committee hearing and I don't know the outcome and have little expectation for them to do "what right" and that means "what makes sense" since that's a foreign concept in City Council chambers, practiced ever so infrequently so as to make news when the do so.

Well, enough meandering through topics. It's all pretty gloomy- and I wish I had a little time to write about Wendy Greuel, City Controller, and her interview on a news network. Just too wacky to believe, but they still talk as if we are trusting children. Not anymore we aren't.

Low Performer: More about selection of Lincoln High for school takeover and choices made by LAUSD

The recent decisions by the LAUSD Board have determined winners among applicants to operate 24 new schools and 12 low-performing 'focus' schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) beginning in the 2010-2011 school year. The goal is to improve academic performance, somthing that LAUSD has seen deteriorate over the years. (Photo, right: LHS student protests LAUSD teacher layoff proposals, May 22, 2009. And, no, that's not a color-balancing error; the yellows shown are the actual shades painted on the buildings at LHS- an entirely separate problem.)

SELECTION OF THE SCHOOLS THAT WILL BE AFFECTED
These selections were based on several factors. The voting was done on a local basis for each school as part of the "Public School Choice" process to determine what the parents, faculty, students, community and other interested parties wanted for each school. The results were evaluated by various teams making recommendations to Supt. Ramon Cortines. Cortines then used the information to send his recommendations to the Board where the final decision was made last month.

But how did Lincoln get into that group to qualify for such significant process? That's explained in the story published five months ago, on October 1, 2010, in EGPnews.com :


"LAUSD Identifies ‘Focus Schools’ Eligible for Potential Outside Takeover- The schools were selected based on the results of the latest Academic Performance Index that offers a complex view of incremental improvements of local public schools." By Paul Aranda Jr., EGP Staff Writer
http://egpnews.com/?p=13007

The problems considered were not just the low test scores but the "progress" made by schools in performance. Lincoln was low in test performance, as you can see in the story, but just as importantly, had not gained and instead, showed a negative for yearly progress in scores. I often criticize the way statistics that may be accurate in themselves, are manipulated by people to slant the picture to favor the presenter's objectives, and you see that with lots of local politicians as they try to make something out of what it is not.

Here, that's not the case and the low numbers, viewed in any light, still are low numbers that stand out for LHS because test scores went into a negative direction, too. The story fills in a picture that shows we have some very steep gains to be made if students coming out of these schools will have the level of education just to be considered "competent" as high school graduates. There's still the problem of the students that quit before graduation, adding to the roster of dropouts that LAUSD is becoming known for. Improving the way teaching is done could keep more in school. Finding ways to "engage" students is what most teachers try to do. If you can do that, it makes the rest of what you do as a teacher much more enjoyable as a teacher, and as a student, too. Being bored or lost is not what you want students to have as the high school experience. It goes for other levels, too, but I use observations and experiences of mine and of others that center on the high school range.


THE OUTCOME OF CHOICES MADE
"Teachers to Run Local Schools- Board turns northeast and eastside schools over to teacher applicants." By Gloria Angelina Castillo, EGP Staff Writer
http://egpnews.com/?p=16408 February 25, 2010. This report is on the Board's action just over a month ago, where you can see it was not a smooth process.

AJ Duffy, president of the teachers' union, UTLA, urged a rejection of outside applicants. No surprise there, as any union, not just the teachers, will oppose a threat to its membership's jobs and a weakening of union power. Another union leader echoed the same action, still a union-first, students-second or worse, in my opinion. In summary, there were disputes within the Board as Monica Garcia, Board President, favored teacher-led proposals over the outside applications, putting aside the choice recommended by Supt. Cortines, the person working on the recommendations report. You can see here that Garcia, continues to be concerned more with political influences than she is with what should be best for the students to improve.

Garcia, I will add for those not following these things much, has a lot owed to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for her job. She was on the staff of now-L.A. City Council Member for CD-14, Jose Huizar, then moved up when he left. CM Huizar owes much to Villariagosa himself, succeding him as CM in CD-14 when Villaraigosa won the election in 2005 for mayor. Much of the association with Villaraigosa is viewed as a negative now, with all the poor performance of the Mayor finally visible despite the spin that the Mayor and his staff put on things.

But getting to the impact on the students, we saw some dissension on the Board. It was between Garcia and Board member Yolie Flores who favored following the recommendations that the Superintendent presented. Flores did not prevail. This result, from other reports I read in the past, amounted to the Board rejecting a couple of charter school organizations that are the "gold standard" among charters, in favor of going to the untested proposals from the teachers' side. And if you consider that the influence of the LAUSD style on it's teachers imprints on their style to some extent, breaking away from those ideas is really not something of any realistic expectation.

Lincoln High School’s two applicants were approved. The Lincoln High School
Focus Team was approved with reservations, while the ‘Law, Leadership in
Entertainment & Media Academy’ (LEMA) was strongly recommended by the
superintendent. There was no discussion regarding concerns of LEMA’s proposal to
pay students based on academic performance, behavior and attendance.

Eighty-five proposals were submitted for 12 low-performing schools and
24 new campuses that became available under the Public School Choice Resolution
approved last year. Cortines eliminated many of the applicants for submitting
identical proposals for different schools, for lacking details for
implementation, or lacking strong plans to help English Learners, among other
things.

I think that there should have been at least some less defensive attitude shown here. Something should have been done differently, some attempt to allow a charter school operation if it's going to work and help the students. Isn't that supposed to be the goal of the educational system, educating the students?

The politics here are a strong influence. Garcia has consistently responded to situation with decision based on the influences exerted upon her by special interests, including the unions. The Mayor spent much time and energy in his first term as Mayor on trying to assume power over LAUSD schools. That is NOT within the scope of his powers as mayor, and he finally landed a partnership agreement with a few low performers that still have not shown any change from before. In fact, teachers in those schools voiced many complaint after the changes became effective. Not much to show here by the Mayor. Worse yet, the CITY where he was supposed to be managing, continued to show worsening conditions that only NOW he's forced to face up to.

What's to show for all this? Still a weakened school system that's got a money crisis, too. And the City is looking at 4,000 layoff to balance the budget, with services of all sorts being likely to be seriously reduced or eliminated across the city. So we need to see where all the changes approved by the Board will do any good. I am very skeptical since the LAUSD culture is really one that has no effective oversight of anything, tends to act way past the time something should have been done, and makes lots of decisions from the Board level down to the school level that don't make sense and perpetuate the same level of substandard education.

There are some fine products from LAUSD among the students graduating, but that's just it. They are graduating, a result of continuing student AND PARENT effort. Absent that, you add to the at-risk students population. Too often choosing to dumb down or lower the bar is preferred over finding ways to achieve higher goals. The Board talks about higer goals, everybody does. But they don't make them attainable by any plans or facilitations. The Fraud, Waste and Abuse in the system does not help either.

What I am talking about is not the handling of the "good students" that are really a pleasure to teach. They make their teachers look good and will rise to the top anyway. I am pointing to the other end of the spectrum with troubled students that need to be redirected. That may be the more sizeable portion of LAUSD students. Our students still can make some dramatic improvements with all the energy and potential they possess. The need that potential used to take advantage of the EXISTING opportunities for an education now, and not wait for some untested or theoretical solution as the LAUSD's savior as an institution. I used to remind my students of the following observation, or a variation of it, "This is the last time that you will have FREE education. In the future, you or somebody else will have to pay something for you to go to school, so you should try to get all you can now." I discussed this and the ways to do it. I did not just say this as a slogan but I have already written too much here to get into that.

It's a big job and the problems in the system are serious as they also affect getting the education job done. But we have to continue trying; and it might be a good idea to see what worked in the past and what now works for other districts that are doing better- so much so that parents have transferred their children to those districts.

That's the subject of another planned blog posting.

So the DWP tried to run the ball into the end zone and came away empty.

That action that the DWP took in reponse to the City Council's rate hike determination left the DWP holding an empty bag. They tried to run the ball across the goal line for a "win" instead of a field goal to "tie," but were turned back by a firmly insistent City Council. There will be no DWP rate hikes for at least three months when July 1st is the earliest any increase could happen.

And aside from the "next time" that's coming, this action showed that there's some real backroom dealing going on here. There was a time yesterday when, through all the public comment of people saying how much of a burden the proposed hikes would be, especially on the business, that the contacted the Mayor's office for some refreshing of what the game plan would be. Apparently, the instructions were to go for the whole enchiliada and not settle for the side order that the Council presented to them.

The decision of the DWP Board just hit members of the Council wrong last night after the DWP decision came back to have the Council act on the change. CM Herb Wesson said, "We are pissed" and that about sums it up. Council heard public comment and really, they know this is all Antonio's sloppy management that's got no "plan" no matter how many times he refers to it.

The Mayor had gone through a lot of position changes, and I mean they only showed that somebody's not telling the accurate story, maybe even lying. The real thing that Tony wants is to make a name for himself and he already has done that, but it's on the extremely negative side of the scale. All this need to go green for requirments of the law in converting to cleaner power generations is HIS plan as far as timetables go. There is not any set progression of steps they have to follow at this time.

And by the way, the DWP has a BILLION dollars in reserve. Sounds like "a million" doesn't it? but a "billion dollars" is one THOUSAND million dollar bills (if there were such bills) a very big number. Imagine 1,000 persons going into Dodger Stadium or maybe Staples Center and each one has a million dollars on their person. That would be the ONE BILLION dollars dimension we speak of. Quite a lot of change, and the only chump around is the one who wants to have us believe the DWP is teetering on poverty. Hey, take a look at the "rate-payers" if you want to see people who feel wrongly relieved of their cash.

Well I have to say Ron Kaye (blog: http://ronkayela.com/ ) comes out again to put a lot of what I have thought all along. He's added lots more to fill us in on DWP numbers, labels, interpretations and real motives here. The fact that the Mayor is losing his grip on things should be nothing new.

He had a chance to do right, even as he was sworn in to his second term as July began. What happened? A suprise trip (to us) to South Africa with Lu Parker of KTLA news, and then Michael Jackson dies. There began the steady decline in the story of the Mayor's leadership. Add in another trip to Iceland and then a needless trip to Copenhagen where nothing was accomplished, nor even required to be attemped.

And every day the budget is going into the red at roughly $350,000 each day that nothing happens to stop it. So is it any surprise he has little credibility and is only what you might call the spotter to identify money for chums to collect as he lines up his "green energy" plan. And that benefit to be bestowed on his selections would be all that represents any plan, I would say.

Again, this situaton we have now is summed up well in today's posting from Ron Kaye:
"This April Fool's Joke Is No Laughing Matter," By Ron Kaye on April 1, 2010 5:04 AM. http://ronkayela.com/2010/04/this-april-fools-joke-is-no-la.html

Council Elections- March 2009- Incumbents re-election their priority while Budget issues smoldered.

It was March 2009, nearly a full year ago from now that the city elections were held, with the Council District offices for odd-numbered districts up for voters to decide. The "L.A. WEEKLY" carried a story about this opportunity for new blood in the Council chambers with the word to the uninformed about the near stranglehold influence that special interests have on these elections, throwing money into the campaign chests of their favored politicians. The LAUSD Board was also having an election.

To reflect just how difficult it is to wage a challenge with any competitive possibility against such special interest supported candidates I point out that Monica Garcia ran UNOPPOSED for her re-election. While hardly being any prize for the District's students, she had support, mainly from the Villaraigosa camp. Garcia rose to the position after her boss, Jose Huizar, the former LAUSD Board President, moved on to the greener pastures of the L.A. City Council and received strong support from that same Villaraigosa for CD-14's seat, a seat held by Villaraigosa for less than the "promised full term" that he pledged to CD-14's voters. The calling to run for Mayor of L.A. was the irresistible lure that Antonio ultimately chose to follow and bail out on CD-14's consituents.

The nearly impossible task of defeating Los Angeles machine politics, a small machine in comparison to those of the cities back east, still a major influence on who gets into office, is what a challenger has to take on. The story in the L.A. Weekly tells about some of those facing that strength, more often being a sinister strength now in its effect on operations in government. Special interests include developers, energy industry people, labor unions, and other varied groupings of goals that find their way to put money into favored politicians pockets for campaigns for re-election and other areas of financial support.

"The Unsung in Today's Los Angeles City Council and LAUSD Elections," By Jill Stewart in election, politics. Tuesday, Mar. 3 2009 @ 2:24PM
http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/election/the-unsung-in-todays-los-angel/

For those of you in Lincoln Heights, one of the areas within CD-1, Ed Reyes is the Council Member representing you in City government. In that election of 2009, Jesse Rosas won over many voters with what I observed to be a very small effort in campaigning for votes. But with such an unenergetic effort, he still was able to gather some large numbers of votes. That outcome was as shown below:

COUNCIL DISTRICT 1 -----Votes -----------Percent
ED P. REYES----------------- 7,608-----------76.06%
JESSE ROSAS---------------- 2,395-----------23.94%
http://ens.lacity.org/clk/elections/clkelections309862718_09292009.pdf

The nearly 1 out of every 4 votes cast that were for Rosas really could be seen as a vote AGAINST Reyes more than FOR Rosas. A lot of people just are tired of the way Reyes handles things.

COMING UP: Even numbered districts where Jose Huizar will be among the CMs trying to hold on for a last term under the term-limits. That "TERM LIMITS" law that was extended by voters, most of whom I suspect had not much idea of what they were voting for, in a completely fraudulent representation of that proposition that disguised the true impact of the changes sought.

The "term limits" urged were actually EXTENSIONS of terms, but most people just don't even bother with considering ballot measures to any extent beyond finding them on the ballot, relying on the propaganda of campaign mailers- as if that had any reliability factor- to inform them. The other part of that "combination ballot measure's" unusual 2-in-1 propositon was "ethics reform," an ironic selection considering the campaign on this proposition was completely a matter itself devoid of any ethical practices.

Well, for now there's lots for what gets attention of Council members. The budget and spending cuts is the main attention getter.

AS for ethics, you also currently have CM Richard Alarcon appearing to really live outside his district and that's against the law. The story Alarcon presented is a huge pill to swallow when it changed everyday for the first few days that the story broke. We will see if the DA's office actually gets serious with him but you know, CMs develop a huge attitude of overly self-importance and an arrogant attiude to go with it.

See the story from KABC TV news for a taste of what's there on this story. http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/politics/local_elections&id=7219957

There's just a lot going on to say we should get a whole new crew there in city hall after the budget spending was allowed to go so far out of control before any of them really gave it attention. The mayor is already a lost cause but that's a separate story to go back to later.

L.A. City Council's "discretionary" funds, or just good old slush funds?

"L.A. budget analyst's report shows council's off-budget accounts,"
February 3, 2010 3:48 pm L.A. Times, -- Maeve Reston at Los Angeles City Hall
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/02/city-budget-analysts-report-identifies-city-councils-offbudget-accounts.html

What was that? More money that no one mentioned earlier? Well, Mr. Santana knew of it and from the description, it's simply a slush fund. From the story:

As the Los Angeles City Council debated how to close a budget shortfall that is
expected to grow to nearly $484 million next fiscal year, the city’s top budget
analyst for the first time identified more than $30 million in accounts
controlled by City Council members that are generally kept off the
books—reserved for special projects in their districts.

Yes, it's like the reported $3 million that each one of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors get each year, but here it's 15 CMs getting $2 million each.

And you know what, Wendy Greuel as the Controller was talking this week against dipping into the reserve fund and how that would hurt the city credit rating, not to mention take out a big chunk that might be needed later But as a rainy day fund that might be a consideration, consider that it's raining for the city budget purposes.

Wendy WAS a council member up until July last year when she took over as City Controller, so the existence of the money could be no suprise to her but she never mentioned it's existence to my knowledge.

Keeping secrets? Oh, well, what else is new? This was like the money Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas had as the County's five Supervisor's get about $3million apiece each year to do with as they may, but with the idea being that it's for a public purpose. Ridley-Thomas must have thought that meant that spending was ok if it was done in a public building. His request of over $700,000.00 to remodel his office was first approved unanimously by the full board, then the public heard of this absolute waste of good money by a foolish politician, and then it was rescinded with little fanfare. The other 4 Supervisors were as bad as Ridley-Thomas in letting it happen to begin with but- and again- you know the drill: "We won't block your request and you won't block ours" and that's the way it is with any notions of checks and balances among peers. It just doesn't happen by nature- it has to be artificially done by citizens blowing the whistle on them.

It is the same thing with the City Council, except there's more of them to be watched. Again, I refer you to that symbol of harmony and co-existence, the UNANIMOUS VOTE, that is so pervasive in the Council Chambers as the clerk takes the vote. That happens often after public commment on the agenda item and sometimes its done so fast after the last speaker is done, that it's got to look like they didn't even pay attention to any of what was said. And you know what? That's just what it is. Most things are a "Done deal" before any CM even gets into the Council Chambers; they might as well have phoned it in. This is one of the rare situations in City Council where what it looks like is actually what it is.

You get a better deal in court where usually your papers are read by the judge before dealing out the decision. When you have a motion, in the civil area, at least, there is a sort of preview of what the decision will be that's given to the two sides of the argument, a "tentative decision" that is usually posted at the court doorway and clerk's desk. In those situations it's really the judge tellling you, "This is what I am going to do unless you can convince me to do something different." Then you at least have somebody hearing you out.

But City Council more or less rubber stamps the earlier produced recommendations of their committees (fellow CMs) or the wishes of whoever made the motion (also a fellow CM) and unless you have a busload of agitated people to breathe down their necks as they complain during public comment, you won't get noticed. The more people that show up, the less of a rational argument you will need to demonstrate in order to have your position gain favor. At least that's the way it looks to me.

But if the Council Members' slush fund was not mentioned in CAO Santana's reports, when would any one of them cough it up? Your guess is as good as mine if you have noticed what I have written all along on this blog. One thing I like about Santana is that he's pretty easy to understand because he speaks slowly and clearly and doesn't get too excited.

Side note: The typist who types out the words on a screen for the deaf or hearing impaired members of the audience at the Council meeting has a pretty good time keeping up with Santana's part of the meetings. Unfortunately for him, some of the other speakers rattle off things so fast and less clearly that they put that same typist guy into overdrive and it's really hit and miss affair as he tries to keep up with the speaker. I wondered if he was familiar with the jargon terms used in City Hall setting. I sat nearby on Monday and marvelled at his just his sheer speed in making the attempt to keep up with the speakers all by himself. Of course if you relied only on the screen text for following the course of the meeting, you would often be puzzled but it's describing the meeting, more or less. Even the sign language interpreters had a sort of tag-team like in wrestling so they could rest for a while as the next sign language interpreter takes over.

LATE NEWS: The mayor- yes, he seems to still be in town- has announced at a press conference that he's ordering that 1,000 layoffs of employees be laid off now. What he says and what actually happens may or may not match. I expect that the unions will file some sort of legal challenge to stop this, or maybe there will be another backroom deal to put it on hold like the Council decided yesterday. They set 30 days within which to get their actions sorted out. Good luck- who else is hiding money?

City Council still trying to find the budget solution; Zuma Dogg's video is on target.

[Updated on Feb. 3, 2010]
The Monday meeting was an 11-hour long session and there still were only a few decisions made. Packing the council chambers were Neighborhood Council members from all over the city, employees, appointees and patrons of the departments that were slated for reduction or elimination, including Disability, Human Relations and Cultural/Arts.

One particular objection to cuts came from CM Bill Rosendahl who said the Calligraphers on staff were not to be cut. And this cost has been reported to be around $500,000 per year, but I have not seen it form myself, but it's still a lot I am told . Of course the CM's won't cut this out since it is a FREE (to them) service to keep them in office. How? You give out the awards in the form of these handmade certificates to people and an organization for whatever reason you choose and you have just bought some votes in the next election. Get these going out to community members often enough and you have a good base of voters. THIS should be the first item to dump but it's a purely selfish decision of Council Members that is paid for by the taxpayer, so it will stay.

There's a report with some important comments and facts on the Monday Budget and Finance Committee meeting in the L.A. Times, "Some L.A. Council members resist spending cuts, layoffs - A majority of the council's Budget and Finance Committee has refused to sign off on the plan to cut 1,000 jobs, a key component in the plan to plug a $208-million shortfall." By David Zahniser and Maeve Reston, February 3, 2010, http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-la-budget3-2010feb03,0,7778047.story


Tuesday's full Council meeting was not quite so long, but there was a much livelier debate. CM Richard Alarcon jumped all over the CAO Miguel Santana about not getting more jobs for the federal stimulus money instead of cutting jobs- but Santana is the administrator, not the guy with the decision making power- apparent even now since the Council is DECIDING what to do with the RECOMMENDATIONS/REPORT of Mr. Santana.

Eric Garcetti, Council President, was quick to take up the theme, "We are a family." Well, maybe instead of a family, if it was treated as a business it wouldn't be so fouled up. Trying to look good to all sides is what the council people try to do. Appeasing the work force and the tax payers at the same time is tough to do and maybe not possible, but "votes" is the precious commodity they constantly strive to amass. That motivates them to spend more and more and say "No" to program funding less and less. The Mayor started the ball rolling down the path to disaster by approving all the DWP's inflated pay scale salaries and raises when he took office after defeating Jim Hahn in Antonio's second run for the Mayor's job.

The difference in pay for DWP jobs is about 20 to 40 percent above comparable positions in the city's other departments. The union, the IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) more or less runs the show there at DWP, and they were just given raises in the past few months while other city employees were being furloughed. (See: L.A. Times, "L.A. council unanimously approves raises for DWP employees," December 11, 2009, -- David Zahniser at L.A. City Hall , http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/12/la-council-unanimously-approves-raise-for-dwp-employees.html

The city's Engineers and Architects took a hard hit for not getting on the bandwagon with the Mayor and were and will be punished for causing trouble, with furloughs applying to them in a very generous share.

The Coalition of Unions, another group that got a really good no-layoff deal for making some concessions is now digging in its heels against the city's plan to re-negotiate the terms and implement layoffs of their members. A strong letter that states the city is in breach of their agreement went out last week and it looks like the city is in for a big fight. The only significant change here is will come just about when it's bankruptcy time and all the deals and agreements are thrown out and everything is restructured under a bankruptcy court judge's supervision.


All a sad outlook for a lot of people, and especially the people of the city.


I saw Zuma Dogg's stickcam video that recapped Monday's budget hearing- "Zuma Dogg Recaps Budget Hearing (IT'S OVER!)" - 02/02/2010 - http://www.stickam.com/viewMedia.do?mId=187472900 and it's something to listen to even though I am in the game for supporting Neighborhood Councils and DONE (Dept. of Neighborhood Councils), especially since that's about volunteers, not a paid workforce as contrasted with other objectors to the funding cuts.

The video is 18 minutes and gets off to a quick start and keeps up the pace so that time moves quickly. Even just hearing a part of it will tell you that the city management is not looking up to the task that it has. It is pretty insightful as Zuma Dogg usually is, but if you have a sensitivity to profanity, you are forewarned. Nevertheless, it is loaded with very specific criticisms and comments as well as coming down to the seriousness of the case.

A point I want to bring out is that Zuma Dogg HAS been saying all this stuff for years that the Council has just come to realize. He told of these dangers to THEM, the CMs at council meetings for so many times over the years. Even the Mayor's April speech on "The State of the City" incorporated projections and actions (all later ignored by Tony himself).

The ZD video is very candid and vivid. You might not like it but even with that viewpoint, the whole city situation is addressed in the blunt, often tactless style used by ZD- but that is so refreshing and colorful while getting to so many points and mini-evaluatons of the actions in the city. Entertaining, but I think it's also got a lot of correct assessments all through it.

And now to Wednesday and another try for City Council to make cuts. By the way, the share of the budget the departments and such that are included in the recommendations is 30% and the part that fire and safety (Police and Fire Department) have is 70%, so, as was stated at the Monday hearings, "all is on the table," that is, all except for then nearly or above 200-person workforce Tony Villaraigosa hired as his staff that originally was in the 70's. And STILL it doesn't help get him on any thing close to the right course for being a real mayor and getting a job done. See Steve Lopez' column in this weekend's L.A. Times, ("A Fresh Start" at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez31-2010jan31,0,5864779.column ), the mayor, after all, is personally at a "good place" or whatever he says on personal self-assessment, to bypass any handling of the reality of the city problems with any tenacity.

The Mayor's Personal Life Is At A Great Place- what's missing here?

One of the more odd pieces of printed material on the Mayor was found this weekend in the L.A. Times. "Villaraigosa's personal life is 'at a great place'
Without the drama of a run for governor or a media frenzy surrounding his relationships, the L.A. mayor seems more at ease both at home and at work." By Phil Willon, January 17, 2010.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-villaraigosa17-2010jan17,0,2354939,full.story It's one of the fluffiest of fluff pieces that the L.A. Times could have constructed about a subject who thrives on such items.

After reading this, you'd think all was fine with the city so that L.A. Times had to really search for a worthy area to focus upon regarding the Mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa.

Pretty much an item you would expect to find in some sort of Christmas card or press release and this is coming from Phil Willon who gets his paycheck from the L.A. Times and not the Mayor, but you might not believe that after reading this article that does nothing to cast any serious doubts about the Mayor's performance in term one or this one, term two, thankfully his last one.

For about every paragraph here, you could construct some criticism or some counterpoints very easily. The Mayor- and it's an important point, but mentioned subtlely- admits he was distracted by the governor's race that he's given up on. Another "Really?"- As if we didn't know that L.A. was getting a part-time mayor for all that time. And do we know if Antonio was "districted" in his efforts at getting Hillary Clinton on the Democratic ticket for the 2008 election for President of the U.S.? How about the idea of his shift to Obama when Hillary called it quits after being considered a shoe-in a for that spot a year or two earlier?

You have to remember that Tony V. still was trying to cultivate a relationship with the Obama administration to be picked up for a spot with them, maybe a cabinet position. Many in the Los Angeles City administration WERE invited to go to D.C and work with the administration, but Villaraigosa himself was not. That's why he's had to fill a lot of spots in L.A. as noted in the story- but that reason was not indicated in the story.

You see the "family" importance being mentioned, but the immediate family is nearly all grown
and it's a case of too little, too late when you talk about connecting with your children. And why? That Political Career that swept up Tony V. and left little room for anything that did not work to feed that insatiable thirst for power, praise and attention.

Too bad that Phil Willon didn't try to balance some of the realities of the city with the points that he mentioned. "Meatless Mondays?" I think we could expect a lot of people in the city to be experiencing that, too, along with some of the other days of the week. In their cases, it would be due to a lack of money available more than some health regimen that's been adopted by the people. With the pairing up of the Mayor with Lu Parker of Channel 5's news department, you would expect something of substance to be written. The influence of Parker on the Mayor has done not one bit of good for getting him to be serious about helping the city residents and businesses and leaving the photo op and center-of-attention stuff alone.

The story would leave you with the idea that all is well with the world, with Tony, his family, and the City. Aside from the well-known straying from the marriage during his career that lead to the divorce filing, the Mayor's actions continue to be a series of contradictions to what we see in real life situations. The only thing that we can be glad about that was mentioned in the story is that this second term is his last one. Re-elected to a second term by a bare majority of one of the slimmest voter turnouts just doesn't say much for "having the support" of the people. And I have read that the mayor's "staff" has grown to almost 200 persons from less than 100 when he started out. Any explanation? Of course one will be created if needed, but really, it's all about his importance being raised commensurate with the numbers serving him from my observation here.

Now if Villaraigosa would try to get a grip on the issues and stick to that job instead of being a camera-hound, that energy might lead to some re-direction of the City to accomplish some solutions. All of this is not any new thought. It had just been ignored by the Mayor and the Council member for years when they could have had a jump on fixiing things BEFORE they slid so far and heavily downhill. Talk about the rain sending down mud from the hillsides in the burn areas of the county in this rainy spell, the worsening of city conditions were allowed to fester and to get a real foothold so that remedies that your politicians preach of, the "serious" steps needed, and so on, have become very crucial indeed. Working on things sooner might have done a lot to lessen the current near-bankruptcy of the city.

I noticed today that the local Public Library branch hours have been cut down on Fridays. This is probably not going to stop there. That's a small taste of what we are headed for very soon. The story in the Times is just weird when you consider all the crap there is out there that needs attention from city officials to keep things from going over the cliff. But I guess there's at least one person in the city who's really feeling good about where he's at.

And with all his travels, including three international trips since the July second-term inauguration, not to mention all of his first-term travels where he earned the LA Weekly's story title, "The 11% Mayor" for working so little on actual city business, we wondered where he was, too.

When you listen to him now, he's really having some difficulty getting out his verbal version of anything. When you might expect that a lot of things would be on the tip of his tongue, he's acting like he's searching for an answer to some obscure topic that's testing his recall instead of items that he's been preparing to present. Listen to the recent news audio clips and it is not the realm of an artful and agile speaker that can handle any topic on the fly. We know he detested being challenged in question and answer session unless they were heavily scripted, completely rejecting appearing at any debates during the mayor's race for his second term, but now he really has no challenger and the content of his words is becoming of secondary interest to the actual reason for these speech problems. That is a very different situation from the creation of the L.A. Times article, but it's also a curious situation that is becoming increasingly apparent. The plain act of cutting down on speaking opportunities might help all around for a lot of reasons.

[Note: A Little History/Background-
There was a response to the September 2008 "11% Mayor story" on December 26, 2008 in the L.A. Daily News story by Ric Orlov. The Mayor's response was then addressed in another L.A. Weekly story. "Villaraigosa, the All About Me Mayor, Is Still 11 Percent There." By Patrick Range McDonald, Published on December 30, 2008 at 8:17pm http://www.laweekly.com/2009-01-01/news/villaraigosa-the-all-about-me-mayor-is-still-11-percent-there

Next, a January 7, 2009 story in the L.A. Weekly wrapped up the jousting between the Mayor's side and the L.A. Weekly's reporting with another very revealing story that's still valid today in it's assessment of the Mayor. In my opinion, the comments also address the failure of the L.A. Times to go any distance to be meaningful in its reporting the facts and views properly. "The 11 Percent Mayor Villaraigosa Lashes Back - Blasting L.A. Weekly, he says we relied on bad facts. Aides say he misspoke." By Patrick Range McDonald Published on January 07, 2009 at 4:27pm. http://www.laweekly.com/2009-01-08/news/the-11-percent-mayor-villaraigosa-lashes-back/

Besides being unable to dislodge the report in the L.A. Weekly as incorrect, the Mayor opened up the issue that he's keeping two calendars, one actual and one for the public's consumption, and that had to be addressed by Matt Szabo, then-assistant to Villaraigosa, and still it was an insufficient and very suspect. ]

News from the week on local matters- Los Angeles

Looking back on the week in local matters, here are a few comments that I passed along yesterday to another group for sharing that I think might be worth repeating generally, and so, here it is as a sort of "weekend update":

A FEW NEWS ITEMS

1. CITY AUDITS: City Controller Wendy Greuel has presented some findings this of audits on some aspects of city government, including the Neighborhood Councils, with Highland Park's NC one with problems. "Neighborhood Councils Accused of Misspending Public Money." By EGP News Service http://egpnews.com/?p=15333 DONE [Dept. of Neighborhood Empowerment] has been working with them since at least the summer to resolve the problems with their operations and maintain their status as a certified NC. You many have read of some of the issues affecting their operations appearing in the Boulevard Sentinel over the past months. http://www.boulevardsentinel.com/ .

2. AUDIT- CITY PHONES WASTING MONEY. A news item in the past week showed a huge cost to the city of phones that were apparently unused- [from] NBC news, "LA Wastes $237,800 a Month on Idle Phone Lines- Wendy Greuel calls the city on its wasteful hones." By OLSEN EBRIGHT and CHRISTINA VILLACORTE http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local-beat/LA-Wastes-237800-a-Month-on-Idle-Phone-Lines-81564507.html

Among the problems was the failure of the call-blocking feature that allowed international calls to the Phillipines, Canada and Mexico. The Daily News report shows that corrections have begun on the problems. "Audit: 12,000 idle phone lines cost city $3 million." By Rick Orlov, Staff Writer. Updated: 01/14/2010 10:32:21 PM PST http://www.dailynews.com/ci_14191733?source=most_emailed

3. DA'S PUBLIC INTEGRITY DIVISION AT WORK. An investigation into CM Alarcon living outside of his council district is under way. "Alarcon says his legal residence isn't safe, so he's staying elsewhere- The councilman says he stopped living there after an October break-in and has been living outside his district." By David Zahniser and Maeve Reston, January 16, 2010- L.A. TIMES. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-alarcon16-2010jan16,0,2218965.story Neighbors said he's not lived there for months and the CM has an explanation that he says supports his actions.

4. SHOWTIME FOR THE MAYOR AND COUNCIL PRESIDENT. And probably the most bizarre item among city-related matters involves the Mayor and Council President Eric Garcetti as reported in the new, with a representative report linked here: Friday, January 15, 2010, 6:54am PST, "Villaraigosa, Garcetti to appear on 'All My Children.'" Los Angeles Business from bizjournals http://losangeles.bizjournals.com/losangeles/stories/2010/01/11/daily28.html

You can read the particulars yourself. I will comment on the significance of things like this that we see too often from people who might look at themselves with a bit more scrutiny. Role models? Getting down to business? Doing their best for you, the public?

I have to say -and it's all personal opinion- that this is typical of the way "leaders" continue to put the business of the city on the back burner while they engage in self-indulgence that continues to operate as a distraction from the urgent business of city survival. In a few weeks or months we will be seeing services cut back and city employees facing reduced hours or no work at all. Wendy Greuel told us at her appearance at our meeting that the city was spending a million dollars a day more than it was taking in, and where does that leave us? Not with time to waste, I'd guess. And that is why this dalliance into show business adventures is so irritating to me.

Until the financial picture of the city is in a presentable condition, things like this are "inappropriate." Some may say "stupid." City "leaders" should be in a 24/7 mode to address the crucial issues (and there's more than enough to go around), which would exclude a lot of their recreational activities. I don't see them doing that in the least. It's just my own opinion, but I don't think it is any more crazy than what you see happening with the electeds and appointeds around town.

REMINDER - THE amended MMD ordinance is coming back to council chambers on Tuesday. Many speakers are really distorting the picture in their public comments. The fact is that an ordinance to allow MMDs to operate is going to occur. The maximization under the most lax provisions is what many "pro" speakers are really looking to accomplish. There are many speaking as if there will be a complete cut off of this method of obtaining med. marijuana. Already noticed is the usage by CMs of "medicine" in place of marijuana. The City is trying to fix a condition that shouldn't exist but already an "entitlement" attitude appears present since laxity in this area was the rule for so long. The recreational usage is blending in with the separate purpose that the state law carved out for this drug.

Many on the Council are really in favor of complete legalization but that is not what is before the Council. Instead, a system of regulated operation of MMDs is the goal. Those CMs have to remember that and focus. They had the option to completely reject MMD operations in the city as many other cities have chosen, but that choice, as convenient as it would be to end the matter for now, is history. I think that the intimidation factor that large numbers of speakers creates is at work with this issue. I have to give credit to CM Huizar's restrained operations approach here, and he appears to be in the minority.

SIDE NOTE- Mention of proposal at the State level, I believe, to legalize and tax marijuana has been made. The proposed tax would be $50 an ounce. A matter of dollars in their eyes has overtaken some legislators. The value is arbitrary and may even make illicit street sales more economical, promoting instead of reducing the trade of marijuana on the illegal market.

"Marijuana legalization bill approved by key Assembly committee- The measure, which would tax and regulate pot for users 21 and older, is unlikely to get additional consideration until next year." January 12, 2010By Patrick McGreevy
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/12/local/la-me-marijuana13-2010jan13


And that's it for city business as usual as it is.

Mayor Villaraigosa Speaks at Oxy on the way to Copenhagen Conference

The Mayor is here and then gone and then here again. There's a pretty strong pattern for his travels, and by one measure, it has him gone from the city one day in six. I think that there's a lot here in town for him to stick around and give more serious attention them, such as the budget deficit, what direction that his appointees have allowed the DWP to take that, contrary to the interests of the ratepayer customers. Just learning more about the pensions and the other expenses would keep him from having to admit to people that he doesn't know about "X subject" or "Y issue" as he is questioned by members of the public during the course of his first term of ofice.

Mayor Villaraigosa just got back from the Guadalajara Book Fair, spent some time on the job swearing in the new LAPD Chief, Charlie Beck, and then he's off to a conference in Copenhagen, Denmark on global warming.

Getting an opportunity to get some photographs always rates high with the Mayor's itinerary. The mayor visited Occidental College on Friday and spoke about the greening of Los Angeles as he was about to depart for a Conference in Copenhagen. The story on the Oxy web site is found at http://www.oxy.edu/x9277.xml

It's always interesting to give some closer examination of just what the Mayor's comments are at different venues. The speeches that are prepared for him are better than when he goes off script and inserts his off-the-cuff remarks. Those writers must feel a bit of frustration on the occassion where there are deliveries that are not done well or plainly fumbled.

There is a web item from THE INDEPENDENT in the U.K., "The Greenest Show on Earth." It goes into the function of the Copenhagen conference, some pros and cons and other assorted facets of this event considered, including the mention of the contribution to the world's CO2 by this conference.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/the-greenest-show-on-earth-1834633.html

Speaking of pros, there is mentioned a special added feature at the Copenhagen trip by several sources, including the NY Daily News; Prostitution is legal in Copenhagen (although brothels are not), and some freebies will be available to Conference delegates "Prostitutes offer free sex to global-warming delegates in Copenhagen," by Kevin Flynn, Daily News Staff Writer.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2009/12/04/2009-12-04_prostitutes_offer_free_sex_to_globalwarming_summit_delegates_in_copenhagen.html

MSNBC reports another view of this offer, "'Gropenagen': Free sex coupons available at Climate Summit," By Cindy Perman, writer.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/34278820

The mayor of the Copenhagen was reported by some sources to have mailed some postcards to warn visitors not to patronize the prostitutes. The prostitutes have responded to the actions by announcing that anyone bringing one of these postcards would get free sex. So we can wonder if anyone's collecting postcards from those intending to heed the message. The particular group of travellers is a high risk group, as politicians are not generally regarded as following the straight and narrow very reliably. There's plenty of new revelations about that in the news to support the view that politicians and morality are not words very readily used together.

Meanwhile, the City Council will still be in session with more opportunities to create commotion for the residents.

Mayor Villaraigosa Announcement on running for Governor: Good News, Bad News.

The Mayor was on CNN with Wolf Blitzer for his big announcement on whether he will be a Democratic candidate for Governor. Good news for California is that he won't be running. The bad news for Los Angeles is that he will be here for the full second term of office and that will begin on July 1st.

The Mayor's reasons for his decision not to run and the real reasons for his decision don't match, but that's o.k., he's always had a hardtime being forthright. He still continued with the theme of his first State of the City address, "dream with me" and he should have left that phrase alone, because it leaves him open to clever plays on words like, "And he's still dreaming; we need some real work done," or "Stop dreaming and wake up and smell the coffee, Tony." There's been nothing of real accomplishment by him in the first term. L.A. has lost more population in the middle class range and continues to pick up numbers of people in lower economic status as it's sancturary city status continues to contribute to that demographic shift.

When Tony says anything about working to help the middle class and to be business friendly, he's not even close to being honest. Rising taxes and looking for more ways to charge residents is making it much more expensive to live in Los Angeles. In July, another rise of .5 % sales tax will hit L.A. County. Many people who can afford to, are leaving Los Angeles. Tony's not the cause of all of it, but much of what he's done has had the effect of worsening things in many ways.

Tony's mention of the economy and the need of the city for him to be here to see it through was mentioned as a reason not to run. Much of what he said is happening is either not within his ability to really affect, or is part of his participation in the first place to help in making the present mess. Deficit conditions in the city were sped to the current status by just over-spending and no thought was given to the possibility that the good times were headed for a reality check. Nope, the city based everything on the continuing good times and they matched the good times with their big spending.

Rainy days arrived and the DWP contract and other labor union arrangements that the Mayor and council approved helped to make things worse both financially and in terms of morale and feeling of unfairness by other unions in the city where such choice terms were not offered. Now the concessions upon which the Mayor includes in the budget still are not approved by the unions and so, it's a problem.

Well, there's more to say on the reasons for his announcement today, but maybe it's simply that Lu Parker, his new love interest and news anchor on television Channel 5, just wasn't up to a move to Sacramento in the event he would win. What Tony did say concerning anyone in the family circle was that he wanted to be in the city, to be there for his 16 year old daughter as she completed high school. Tony is a man of many stories and some of them may even be true, but it really doesn't matter. If the city can be kept out of bankruptcy, that would be a big achievement.
While Tony has continued at various press conferences to reference all the city jobs that have to be cut, there have only been only a handful of actual cuts. Many of the calculations were handled by not filling vacant positions. He never crossed into the territory where real numbers of people were laid off. Tony still was trying to hold onto his favored position with labor and has delayed any action to cut payroll by layoffs, meanwhile, things are not getting better by such holding on.

Today's announcement on running for the Governor of California would certainly have been different if Tony thought he had a better chance of winning, and all the stuff he said today would probably be the furthest thing from his mind. After all is said and done, Tony still is the "all about me" mayor.

Mayor Tony's not happy these days with Council or L.A. Magazine; Good news, Cal.S.Ct. Justice Moreno in running for U.S. S.Ct.

After taking some time from posting and just observing what's going on, it's hard to be positive about the political situation and the economy, but sometimes seeing reality hit high-profile figures is satisfying for the good and the bad things. Just to be brief- for a change- here's some of what I have noticed in case you have been too busy to see such items.

It's good to know that the Mayor is able to break out of that phony friendly, handshaking, photo-opping role he plays when he showed his displeasure, or even some real anger, when he responded to the City Council's budget committee's recommendation to put a hiring freeze on police. You will remember that this 1,000 officer goal has been Tony's major hook to hang his had for any accomplishment and this is about all that's left in his administration that he's almost achieved.

And that achievement is an expensive one. Mayor Tony, in effect, "threw the L.A. residents under the bus" as far as costs to be paid, boosting the trash collection fee by triple what it was, cancelling the "step-increases" of a gradual increase over 3 years for "quick cash." That STILL did not pay the bill as promised and the charges continue to get this thing happening, at all costs, at all costs TO US, not to TONY. It's a political tool, one thing he needs for his Governor's race aspirations. So his anger (and it may be "rage") overshadows all common sense from a position of economic survival of the city. I hope the Council does not yield on this point. See below for what I mean of disappointing Council performance.

They told you "L.A. residents have to pay for this service like other cities and not expect it for free anymore." I think Greig Smith was that messenger of baloney- what was so annoying about his statement, and he can be as annoying as any of the CMs, is that it was all a lie.

Being a lie spoken in City Council chambers is nothing new. It's come to be part of the procedure, like expecting that ball players will sweat while playing their games. But the trash expense WAS part of what was part of city planning in budgets and SUPPPOSED to be in the lump sum tax bill. Only now the change was that the Council got their marching orders from the Mayor that they needed to "generate more revenue"- so the "trash fee" was extracted to become a separate item so they could justify attaching a separate bill to create more billing for residents.

That was one fraud of many that continue to be perpetrated against the L.A. public. The Mayor has hit the cover of L.A. Magazine in a big way. "Failure" printed boldly across his photo- something that will get his attention, no doubt. It's coming out Monday and the picture is the big clue to what the content of the article will demonstrate.

Better news-Lincoln High alum Carlos Moreno of the Summer Class of 1966, who may be more precisely addressed as Hon. Carlos Moreno, Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court, is on the "short list" for appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court to fill in a vacancy that is created by the announced retirement of Justice Souter.

In the Chicago Tribune's Washington Bureau blog, "The Swamp"- you will find some reader comments after the main story that gives you a brief summary of the situation. http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2009/05/carlos_moreno_supreme_court_ca.html
I haven't seen Carlos Moreno in recent years, but I have seen him from time to time since leaving Lincoln High, mostly before he was a judge, and less frequently afterwards. He's been a supporter of alumni activities and in my opinion a good person- and importantly, there's lots of judges who are nowhere near that, too. But combining those contacts with what I see of his work and opinions as a judge, it would be a very satisfying selection all around to see him replace retiring Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court.

Justice Moreno is the only male on the "list" according to one network's story. "Women Dominate Supreme Court Short List;President Obama Is Considering Mostly Women As He Narrows Down List Of Possible Successors To David Souter," the CBS News blog, dateline: WASHINGTON, May 13, 2009. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/05/13/politics/main5012138.shtml If you consider that the Obama administration is trying to be all things to all people, something that makes it very susceptible to not working out well, the appointment of a woman to the position is urged by many groups, of course, The appointment of a Latino (or "Hispanic," as the governement calls this group, a label that I thoroughly despise as being completely a synthetic creation of government, and misleading- not to mention that having "panic" is a word is another undesireable) is another goal, and there's Latina candidates for the position, as well.

If Justice Moreno is to prevail as nominee, he has to overcome that and other competition. A Latina nominee would hit two goals for the administration, and that's one point. A condition that I have observed in Latino involvement in political things, and most things, for that matter, is that there's lots of "in-fighting" among competing groups within the Latino cultures- and that's a plural that I insert, since what's included are many different groups and cultures under that label. When one gets ahead, you can count on someone or group to jump in and derail the move for any of a number of reasons.

When people talk of the "Latino Community" (or "Hispanic Community", ugh) it's a fiction. What is that? I might as well insert here my disdain for those who jump in front of the news cameras and say, "We represent the "_______ community' and we say......." Really? Who voted them in? All a fiction and positions and words that are generated when there is a commotion of a social or political movement in progress. But all that behind us, we can see that the female Latina jurist, U.S. Appeals Court judge Sonia Sotomayor is a prime challenger for the position.

Whoever is selected will have to get through the confirmation hearings to finally get the appointment approved, so whoever gets the nod will have to manage this item that may or may not be a huge obstacle, but other nominees have been kept from the appointment at this point.

Well, that's my little blurb, prompted by many who anticipated I would write about Justice Moreno, as if I didn't know about it, but it's still a positive item that will take care of itself, and the upcoming local elections are so pressing for all that they represent in day to day life, that I did not give much thought to this judicial matter. Good luck on this, Carlos.

More to come on all of this later. One more thing- DON'T vote for outgoing City Council Member JACK WEISS- total bad news. Carmen Trutanich for City Attorney- a seasoned attorny and with actual prosecutorial experience and not a rubber-stamp rookie for Mayor Villaraigosa like Jack, his shadow, is. The more you know of Jack Weiss, the more you will dislike him for what he does and has failed to do.

An L.A. CITY Tax Hike proposal held off for now.

The L.A. Times reports that the city will hold off on its attempt to get the the city property owners to vote to quadruple their storm water pollution fees (aka "tax") over next 5 years in a story by David Zahniser, "Los Angeles tables storm-water fee hike plan; A plan to ask city voters to approve a quadrupling of storm-water pollution cleanup fees on property owners is shelved over council concerns that it had been rushed and might not pass," 7:43 PM PDT, April 27, 2009. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-stormwater-fee28-2009apr28,0,1689138.story

The City of L.A. is holding off on the move that would give the Department of Public Works more money besides the $500 million that was approved by voters in 2004 for storm water clean up. Was the reason maybe that it's too much for an already heavily taxed population of property owners? Of course not.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's appointees on the Board of Public Works voted last week to move ahead with the mail-in ballot plan, which would have asked property owners to hike their storm-water fees from $23 per year for the average parcel to $99 per year in 2013.

The idea was scrapped because it was considered to have a weak chance of passing. The idea came to light last week, and the story provides more details. Board President Cynthia Ruiz will work on the P.R. and it's going to come up again. From the story, it looks like Ruiz was looking for some more money to avoid the layoffs that the Mayor's budget reduction would require. This is one of the more simple examples of the never-ending need for tax dollars that politicians look to property owners for to satisfy the budget shortfalls.

Maybe the spending has been too high over the past years. Maybe the expenses chosen to be made were done without much thought to necessity of the expense or to the most economically beneficial supplier used. A lot of reasons to how the deficits arose can be found, but the politician is over that and they simply need the money ASAP to plug the financial hole in their dike. All the P.R. in this case is with that in mind. They just are regrouping their troops. It's really a war of the spenders versus the property owners- who they apparently and mistakenly view as all being rich.

You need to remember that the politicians, when they "brag" about California or Los Angeles being a leader in this or that, they will leave out the part about how much of an additional load that they cause to be placed financially on the citizens by the trailblazing ways toward a "green" society or to some other progressive goal. One other example of the trend: The state passed a measure for a change in the gasoline that will be used in the future and that is going to make the already expensive California gasoline cost us even more. But, to them, that's o.k. since it's a cleaner environment that's being produced. I dare say that it's at a big cost for that result, and at a cost that the public has not any choice at all in so choosing. Why do we HAVE to be FIRST all the time? Has anyone considered what efforts CHINA is making along with us? THEY should be the ones to act, having the largest impact and having the most damaging methods employed in industry. No one mentions those things.

More of the "revenue" generation moves will be forthcoming by our politicians, something that they do well, second only to their ability to burn up tax dollars with all due haste. When you see the Mayor and others say L.A. is going "green" and all the steps that cost us have to be endured, remember that they are working to continue development of the city, not in the sense of evolving the quality of life to an improved state, but quite the opposite. They continue actions that boost building to put more people in less spaces- "densification" as I and others call it. And as they cram more into smaller spaces, the quality of life is sliding downhill just as fast.

You in Lincoln Heights see that honeycomb construction of housing off I-5 just south of the Pasadena Freeway as a big example of this. All that was done with changes in the parking spaces for the units changed to a lesser number. That's why you have so many cars all over the residential streets where there was ample parking before. As well as the increasing practice of not including parking spaces with residential units but charging like a separate property, you have already made conditions deteriorate, and that falls out to the neighbors of these projects and will continue to be seen as more happens.

If you live near a bus route or rail line- like the Gold Line for the Lincoln Heights example- you can see relaxed treatment of codes to enhance the payday for developers while the rest see the quality of life disappear more with each structure built, no matter how "green" they make it. Remember that "run off rain water" is happening because the ground is disappearing and replaced by concrete and steel, and that doesn't allow the earth to soak up the water.

At the bottom of it all are the Council members who facilitate this movement and do nothing to put the brakes on the strain to our city by their actions. They will get their campaign contributions and they will get to go to dinners and be congratulated as people with vision. All that will be done by the people who really see the awarding of contracts as builders and, as Ed Reyes, CD-1, constantly says, these are jobs for our people. Any job gets him excited, I've noticed. The consequences of deals made or the costs spent to get that job don't much matter to him. Jobs are what count for stats, and any jobs will do.

We have a water shortage. OK, so city council makes regulations cutting down the water that can be used or you pay penalties. If they did not push development, there would be less demand for water. The same in the demand for police and the need for fire department services, both already strained past any financially reasonable limit. Remember the Fire Department overtime story? That's overtime more and more because there's a need that's not going away, and development strains it even more, wouldn't you say? Then WHY don't Council Members and the Mayor see it? Actually, they must, but they can't stop the gravy train now.

Sewers, streets, traffc congestion and the crime that denser living generates instead of a traditional style where more people know their neighbors.

Read the story to see what you have been spared for now, and I will leave things at that for the moment. People have said that politicians are able to talk out of both sides of their mouths at the same time- and you have the example of that in City politics.

The Woes of Gil Cedillo, lavish spender- Saga Recap

On May 19th, some of you in the San Gabriel Valley will have the opportunity to vote for a replacement to fill the Congressional seat vacated by Hilda Solis who moved to the Obama cabinet post. There are several candidates running for that office, with the leading contenders being Judy Chu, state controller, and Gil Cedillo, state asssembly member.

Gil Cedillo, to refresh your memory, filed reports on the money raised by his campaign and it showed a high style of living. The report was in contrast to Judy Chu's filing that showed a modest sum spent. The San Gabriel Valley Tribune's blog, "Leftovers from City Hall" is a continuing source of the events of the Cedillo journey in this campaign. The entry entitled, "Maximum Cedillo exposure," By Tania Chatila on April 15, 2009. was an early exposure of the response of readers, most critical of the financial generousity of Cedillo to himself. http://www.insidesocal.com/sgvgov/2009/04/maximum-cedillo-exposure.html#comments

The story progressed to time that Mayor Villaraigosa gave an endorsement to a different candidate running for that office and it was for Chu, not the longtime buddy Cedillo. "Chu gets Villaraigosa endorsement," http://www.insidesocal.com/sgvgov/2009/04/chu-gets-villaraigosa-endorsem.html by Jennifer McLain on April 21.

Well, that was something that generated a quick response, Fighting words from Cedillo's camp," By Jennifer McLain on April 22, 2009, http://www.insidesocal.com/sgvgov/2009/04/fighting-words-from-cedillos-c.html, McLain wrote, "I was wondering just how Sen. Gil Cedillo would be combating Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's endorsement of Board of Equalization Chairwoman Judy Chu." It was brief press release from the Cedillo campaign that discounted the endorsement.

Next phase: First Cedillo disses endorsements, then he touts 'em
By Frank Girardot on April 23, 2009 http://www.insidesocal.com/sgvgov/2009/04/first-cedillo-disses-endorseme.html So now it "who's supporters are more important?"

The last entry has brought another action called for by another candidate- "Rival asks Cedillo to donate campaign contributions to homeless" By Rebecca Kimitch on April 23, 2009. And now we see some constructive applications to the discussion- donate the money to the homeless and other worthy causes. As the filed report was all about, "money spent," I don't think there's any ability to do that, but there's even more resistance by Cedillo to the idea that he did anything wrong. You can read the "challenge" presented in the blog entry:

Rafael Nadal, who, like Cedillo, is a candidate for the 32nd Congressional district, is asking Cedillo to donate to the homeless and needy the $125,000 in campaign contributions the LA Times reported the senator spent on lavish hotels, meals and shopping trips.

As the various campaigns near election day, you can see more attempt to capture the votes, both by truthful communications and by the usually used twisted logic and omitted facts that sell the ideas on the uninformed- which is what they want to get the votes. It's hard to tell people in the Cedillo case that he did not spend the money, so it's going to be a question of how important is being so loose with money a factor to taxpayers, and just "what" do the campaign donors expect in return for all the buck put out for Cedillo's pleasure?

It's not my congressional district for voting on that one, but since I see too much of "the bought-off style" of representation already, if I had the opportunity, I would end that string of bad news for us ASAP, and that would be at the May 19th election.

LAPD Overtime a City Council Topic last week. Can they handle it?

The LAPD has it's own overtime considerations on overtime that the City Council is examining as part of the city budget items. "City grapples with LAPD's overtime pay," By Jason Kandel, Staff Writer http://www.dailynews.com/ci_10707094 is a story that appeared in the DAILY NEWS on April 17, 2009, a little earlier than the Fire Department's overtime story. The LAPD has it's overtime cost rising over the last 10 years but the workforce has been relatively stable, and that's caused concern.

Sizable increases in base pay - which is how overtime pay is determined -
are also part of the reason LAPD's annual overtime bill surged from about $32
million in fiscal year 1997-98 to nearly $79 million in 2007-08, according to
LAPD figures.

Greig Smith, Council Member and an LAPD Reserve officer, offered an explantion,

It's cheaper than hiring more police officers," said Los Angeles City
Councilman Greig Smith, a member of the city's Budget and Finance Committee.
"For a long time that was our reasoning. It was acceptable because it is
actually cheaper.

"It kind of spun out of control."

Regardless of what Smith says, and often it's in the form of a poor analysis or inappropriate analogy, the overtime is an increasing expense to be dealt with directly.

The city council is trying to get the budget balanced and some have asked that the mayor's plan to arrive at a 10,000 officer force by continued hiring be held off temporarily to help financially. Mayor Tony is intent on this goal, as he's in urgent need of more feathers in his cap to use in his bid for California's next Governor- as if he hasn't done enough for us at the city level already. The union, of course, would like to have more members and says that would ease the OT, which is often due to time spent in waiting in court to testify on cases.

The LAFD overtime as the city's other financial concern, will keep council busy for the near future, and satisfactory "solutions" rarely can be expected by the Council.

If you have any views of this council having some special skill or lofty ideals applied, you can forget that. Just tune in online live or on-demand to the meetings and after a few of those sessions you will either be thoroughly frustrated and disillusioned, wondering why no one runs against them, or you will be like many others who have no time to see that and become an "admirer" of these noble folks who are able to work so intently on the city's problems.

Let me tell you now, a lot of the problems were created BY them and their "lofty" ideals and ideas. Remember, each Council Member makes almost $180,000.00 cash salary a year and all have another $100,000.00 or so of benefits to help them get their job done. 15 Council Members with a staff of 20 and they've had up to 8 city cars apiece assigned full time to them and they still waste time with personal agendas for Resolutions and other items, all out of their jurisdiction, to send to D.C. or to Sacramento for those elected representative to ignore or to acknowledge courteously and then ignore, but to sound as if they are taking in such offerings.

The budget crisis comes, in part, from spending for programs without enough checking into worthiness of the programs they fund. A good deal of cronyism is showing in this area. Sometimes it's just throwing money at a problem on some "snake-oil salesman's" pitch for a cure that they are to lazy or ignorant to work on. This tradition is not new, but the dollar values increased and the assumption of continued tax money rolling in was a bad one to adopt.

So now, taxpayers get more taxes and "fees" imposed to cover the past council shortcomings in judgment and there's plans for MORE- (May 19th brings a lot of them for you to hang yourself with.)

L.A.F.D. overtime pay rises as Mayor spins budget

Mayor Tony gave his State of the City speech last week, telling us what we already knew- that the city was spending more money than it had. The Mayor continues to proclam the theme he's pushing, "Everyone has to share in the pain of the financial hardship." More symbolic than "painful," he's even pledging to cut an hour of his own pay. I dare say that his hour of lost pay will barely be noticed in his life style and pay rate- it's like swatting a fly at a picnic for him, but for others much lower on the pay scale, it's closer to bumping into a beehive with angry bees joining your picnic. But we can quibble later about the fallacies of his speech and actions. Meanwhile, the story of the L.A. Fire Department "overtime costs" continuing to rise has surfaced in numerous news outlets (but not much in the L.A. Times here) and there's been a lot of views on "why" this is happening, and "what" it means, and "what" cutting might do to hurt the public and "what's" responsible.

All well and good to find these things out, but as the "powers that be" start to look for solutions as to this aspect, you are witnessing a "circling of the wagons," a normal behavior when there's an agency, company or department of any group that comes under scrutiny of any sort, especially when it has to do with money operations.

The L.A. Daily News is on the topic, "L.A. Fire Department overtime pay going through the roof," By Jason Kandel, Staff Writer, April 19, 2009. [http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_12175241 link earlier omitted in error.]

The story observes that,

Los Angeles firefighters now average six times more overtime than their counterparts in Chicago, five times more than in Houston and two times more than
in San Diego - a city that has roughly the same ratio of firefighters-to-residents as Los Angeles.

Some of the information is an eye-opener, to say the least.

The Daily News analysis found:

--56 firefighters earned at least $100,000 in overtime on top of their annual salaries last year, up from three in 1999 and 10 in 2005.

--The average Los Angeles firefighter earned about $36,500 in overtime in 2008, compared with $29,000 in 1999. Their average salary and overtime compensation totaled $117,000.

--The department's top earner racked up a total of $570,276 in overtime in the last three years, including $206,685 in 2006. His three-year overtime total was nearly double his base salary for that period.

The story also includes views on why the overtime situation is justified and may still be cheaper than hiring more persons to fill the need. It's something that's been going on for years and growing. You have to wonder why some of the solutions were not considered earlier. It has to come to reaching this "city budget crisis" for any examination of internal operations to come to the light of day.

You might check the Daily News story and form your own impressions. The story is being treated in assorted ways by different people and groups. The KTLA TV news story, Report: Los Angeles Fire Department Racking Up Overtime states "The Los Angeles Fire Department is apparently under fire for racking up the overtime." While it tries to handle this topic delicately, adding the word, "apparently," does appear to be hedging the bet needlessly. Firefighters and a fire department are essential components of city services. But that still creates no entitlement to "carte blanche" terms as an expense. No one wants to see the loss of city services or the unnecessary spending of tax dollars. The city needs to cut expenses or collect more money overall and this area looks like it could use some changes.

I heard one question on the radio about whether as some calculate, that a pension is calculated with the highest yearly (or series of years) income used as the base to set the pension value. So "spiking" the pay with lots of overtime has the real benefit to come up for an even longer lasting benefit. That is just someone's speculation and there's not anything to say if that would apply to city service in any way, but if it does, there's another bit of motivation for an employee to keep up earning the overtime hours.

Neither losing services or paying more taxes is a choice that city residents will enjoy. But that's the way that the Mayor is begining to build his case. I think that there's a need to get into this topic before the city goes entirely down the drain. (I am still trying to see how the Mayor's "Summer Midnight Basketball" pet program fits in as an additional expense to a service-slashing endangered parks and recreation dept.)

If we think this is all part of operating a big city and we have to just suck it up, then I ask, "Why don't other big cities have the same catastrophic sized budget conditions?" Management would be the word you might look for, good management, actually. We don't have that. Look for more taxes- sales taxes- to be the way out for those who see taxes rising to meet expenses instead of better management. Check how much is going to sales taxes NOW and think about another 1% here and .5% there. I say we need to check "expenses" and if current management (Mayor and City Council) can't do it, then we need new attitudes and new people without that DNA spending gene so prominently operative to be our leaders.

On top of all this financial chaos, Mayor Villaraigosa continues to have his eye on the prize, in this case, it's the Governor's office. Villaraigosa's speech says "share the pain" and still no layoffs in city service- he does not want to have anyone angry at him, not city employees or trades unions or anyone who could possibly be a vote. There's some real wheeling and dealing going on by Tony to try to keep his chance at being Governor of California within his grasp, so keep that in mind as you read more on the city scene. "It's not all as it appears to be," is the punchline to a colorful story involving cellmates in prison, told to me years ago in a different setting to illustrate the point. These are words to keep in mind to apply regularly in connection to current events.