CD-2 Election goes to December Run-off for this 12% total turnout

The results are in for CD-2 and the worst candidates got the most votes which turned a bad possibility into an even worse reality.

Who voted? It was a TOTAL of 14,525 -- That's just 11.84% of 123,750 REGISTERED VOTERS of CD-2. And more than HALF of that was from people MAILING IN ABSENTEE Ballots.

Paul Krekorian, fresh from participating in creating the State budget chaos in Sacramento, got the most votes. CHRISTINE ESSEL, simply an agent of Antonio Villaraigosa, running for the CD-2 office for what reason? Because "it's the only spot open" for a new CM. She really doesn't live in the area but has an apartment rented to cover that.

Larry "Nativo" Lopez, Latino activist, was charged with a voter fraud crime for registering in Boyle Heights but really living in Orange County. But I don't think he rented any place for a real address to claim in the district.
"Immigrant-rights activist to fight voter fraud charges
No plea deal reached between defense and prosecutors, attorney says." By SALVADOR HERNANDEZ , The Orange County Register, 9-22-09. http://www.ocregister.com/articles/lopez-charges-county-2576763-orange-prosecutors A deal was in the making on that case but fell through in a dispute over whether the charge will be a felony or a misdemeanor, so it's now headed for trial.

Chris Essel, on the other hand, has lots of money and DID have a place to call home in CD-2. It's strange that the WORST candidates, tools of the special interests, had the most money to spend on the campaigns- or maybe that's not so strange an outcome. MONEY does wonders, and that's more and more the case shown in politics. Krekorian also came in to the district to run for the office.

IT'S ALL TO BE SETTLED IN A DEC. 8th RUN-OFF election. FOR pretty good commentary on how it all came out yesterday and some ideas of "why," along with some thoughts about what the people need to do to get back control of these offices from bad candidates, see Ron Kaye's blog today, http://www.ronkayela.com/ "City Hall's Win-Win Strategy Wins in CD2 -- Who's to Blame?" by Ron Kaye, September 23, 2009.

My favorite, David "Zuma Dogg" Saltsburg, along with most of the "grassroots" candidates did not get anywhere close to the votes expected. Even Tamar Galatzin, the third "Machine" candidate came out with a much lower percentage of voters than either Essel or Krekorian. Half of the votes were mail in absentee ballots and those were sent out weeks ago. So if these voters did not hear the word from anyone other than Essel and Krekorian, both making use of mailers to drive their story home early in the campaign, then that was a seriously missed opportunity.

Pretty sad but then it's the voters who did not vote that let this election happen like it did: 12 % voted, so that means 88% did NOT vote. More than SEVEN times the number of voters who cast ballots stayed completely silent at the polls, the election could-hypothetically speaking- have come out with ALL grassroots candidates EACH getting more than the total votes cast in this election.

No one got more than 50% of the votes cast, so the run-off in December is required to settle it- NEITHER of the two TOP vote-getters received MORE than a number equal to 6% of all the voters registered in the district. So these things can do a complete flip in results, depending on how many people come out to vote. The voters are there- AND in relatively HUGE proportions. So HOW DO YOU GET THEIR VOTES?

2011 will bring you another district-wide Council election in the EVEN-numbered districts and I hope a good answer is found by then.

My "Summing it up" views on City Election Day

I was thinking about what to put into my next blog entry, with nearly all things being about the election locally in Los Angeles and not too much else. Well, I decided what might be useful to share with you reading this on Election Day for Los Angeles, maybe repeating some things presented in the past, today, worth another look for some decision to be made.

I sent an email late yesterday to a friend of many years who worked with me for a time back 30 years ago- how time flies- and we have teneded to let months, sometimes years, pass between calls. We both knew just about the same group of people from that time and the origins of so many Latinos in political and legal circles. Even before then, she's not lived in the City of L.A. so is spared from a lot of the impact our "leaders" have inflicted upon the residents and businesses in the name of "public service." We surely are not.

She, like many or most people, is a busy person and spends time on other things, so the comings and goings of city hall don't get much notice at all except for the Villaraigosa-style photo-op press conferences and publicity stunts that- much to TONY'S delight- get spread across the television broadcasts that pass for "News" these days. So I wanted to let her know another view of things just as a matter of completeness of the picture, and maybe to vent a little.

He's just about all the message, minus the personal asides that messages have, with some highlights and with clarification and spelling in brackets, added here by me:

"Dear [my friend],

I suppose you aren't registered in L.A.and don't have much interest in the elections- lucky you.

Antonio is still plundering his way forward to hit that election nomination for Governor in the 2010 election. That means a year ahead of time to work on his campaign and getting bribes- oh, I mean "campaign contributions"- for the campaign. AND why no debate? Because anything revealed will send him stuttering and lying and his millions will be the smokescreen for his mal-performance.

THERE'S LOTS on Tony and his council who spend hours on Billy the elephant's story, turning it into a circus, so the elephant's already built-in. But they rush Solar Energy Measure B to a vote with very little discussion and really no available facts to fool the voters- Eric Garcettii, the culprit, doing what Antonio needs him to do. AND IT ALWAYS LIKE THAT.

ABOUT THE MAYOR PERSONALLY
That means more travel and more B.S like the 11% mayor story in the LA WEEKLY http://www.laweekly.com/2008-09-11/news/the-all-about-me-mayor/

A FOLLOW-UP ON THE STORY and he's pissed:
or see "The 11 Percent Mayor Villaraigosa Lashes Back. Blasting LA Weekly, he says we relied on bad facts. Aides say he misspoke. By Patrick Range McDonald. .1-7-09.." http://www.laweekly.com/2009-01-08/news/the-11-percent-mayor-villaraigosa-lashes-back

and MORE DOLLARS BURNED BY COUNCIL
Los Angeles on $300,000 a year http://www.laweekly.com/2009-02-26/news/los-angeles-on-300-000-a-year/
"Why next week's City Council 'coronation' will cost you far more than money."

Well I will vote for Zuma Dogg and not for Tony or wendy greuel for Controller or JACK WEISS.
* * *
[UCLA alumni news] sent me an alumni newsletter and fluff page on JACK WEISS as the right guy to run for city attorney.

I sent back my own composition listing all the sh** he's done and thanked them for not including their own opinions on others who already know better about the candidate- especially irritating how he held up JAMIELS LAW, the Dennis Zine motiion, in Public Safety Committee from April to October, and WEISS could have sent it to the council floor and should have within a month.-

So HE's the easiest one to decide "REJECT HIM." ANYONE BUT Weiss will do. See Council member Dennis Zine tell it like it is,
http://lincolnquicknotes.blogspot.com/2009/02/zuma-dogg-finds-cm-dennis-zine-rejects.html on my page with a YouTube window for the clip, 2m27s.

and MONICA GARCIA is part of the Villaraigosa machine, totally the wrong person in the office; she [is] into all the old Mechista ideas and not into what will get the students properly educated. Too much personal baggage and hang-up[s] brought with her from Chicano Studies at Berkeley. I think that is where she met Council Member JOSE HUIZAR, my slug for a cm. She was his aide and then moved to the BOARD with TONY'S help. TONY helped Huizar to take TONY'S vacated spot in cd-14 when TONY bailed out to run for Mayor the second time, winning this time.

So, [my friend], sometimes it's better to not know all the things going on- and I could rattle off another page of ills and bad dollar deals that LAUSD made recently and in the past; all bad moves and very expensive to the taxpayer.

QUESTION- if LAUSD student avg. performance sucks (and the Asians keep scores from gong totally in the toilet) [for Lincoln], why do neighboring cities, especially Alhambra NOT have a poor record. I passed by Alh. H.S while entering the new library last week and a big banner is on the front of the building, and it says they have exceeded State testing requirements for the last 3 years. I don't think it's the Asian element- could be, but there has to be more.

Ok. need to go- tell your friends who are LA registered voters to vote- UNLESS they are Villaraigosa people, then skip it. Tony's already mobilized the uninformed to get their votes tomorrow. "


And that, by E-mail, is my "summing-it-up" opinion to let you see that WE can change things and NEED TO do that.

Council District 1 elections coming March 3rd. Consider.

As we head into 2009, City elections set for March 3rd will decide council offices in the odd-numbered districts up for election for another 4-year term (The even-numbered Districts will be up for election in two more years). Guess what? Lincoln Heights is in Council District 1 ("CD-1").

CD-1 Council Member ("CM"), Ed Reyes, is running for a 3rd term with only one opponent, Jesus Rosas, having qualified to be on the ballot so he's certainly pleased. The lack of any challenge to what City Hall routinely does is disheartening. Occasionally, the ire of the community is raised as with the aborted "Las Villas" project that would have put a restaurant and banquet facility on the site that was occupied by the Rose Eye Clinic. The biggest objection was made based on the intention to have alcohol served in the restaurant. Many opponents likened this condition to having a liquor store added to the neighborhood and scenarios of doom and disaster for residents and students were some of the extreme levels to which the discussion was taken.

The site is now a dirt lot across the street from the LHS on Thomas St. and North Broadway. CM Reyes resisted for a while, considering an addition to the business element of Lincoln Heights would be economically beneficial. Finally, the continued protests forced Reyes to reconsider the whole thing, and he relented in his support and the project ended. This was about as close as Reyes has come to being challenged while in office.

City elections largely demonstrate an historic apathy, with often only 1/4 or less of the registered voters participating in the city elections. The city council ran through two deceptive measures that pulled in the desired result in 2007. One total lie was the "term limits" proposition that really was a"term extension" ploy, connected with the "ethics reform." The Council supported this wholeheartedly- who do you think put it together? The result was to fool the voters to think that "ethics in government" were being somehow monitored and enforced. The reality was that the second of the two-fold purpose of this measure had the purpose of changing the term limits from two-term to add one more, for a total maximum of THREE-terms. That was played DOWN to a whisper level, lest anyone understand the true reason for creating the ballot measure.

The ethics part of the measure was another irony. What ethics are demonstrated by a council that intentionally misleads the voters? The called for in the ethics part of the measure had little useful effect, just a little re-shuffling of the deck chairs on the Titanic. But it did serve the purpose of camouflaging the term extension as it was designed to do.

Our city council, including the CD-1 representative, Ed Reyes, pushed another measure that was called a "10 % tax reduction of the phone tax." That was another completely dishonest move in intent, although not in math.

The City had a 10 percent tax on all phone service in the city. There was a court challenge to the City's tax because the federal enabling regulations relied upon for collecting this tax had recently ceased, but the City kept it's tax collection running. The court case was pending a decision that was very clearly heading to a decision that would declare the tax illegal and bar the City from collecting the 10 percent tax or any tax.

The "deal" that lured voters was a "reduction of 10 percent" of the phone tax. It would change from a "10% tax" to a "9% tax" and that IS "ten-percent." Sounds good? What's the catch? If the voters had simply all stayed home, or voted "NO" to the measure, the anticipated court decision would have invalidated the tax completely- you would have a "Zero" tax, reducing it "100%"; and the end of that tax altogether.

The Council saw this outcome clearly and quickly moved to create the measure to ENACT a tax by "voter approval." Such "voter" approval WOULD legally be the authorization needed to take the place of the federal provisions that were ended and no longer available to support the continuing 10-percent city tax. A "NO" on this measure would have meant what? It changes it all. The existing tax would have been ruled invalid and the City would be missing that money- and all politicians live to handle and disperse money, the more the better. We can examine to whom it goes at another time.

Now that the tax measure was voted on and approved, there is a NEW city tax put into place that collects 9% instead of 0%, NOT a good deal. Oh, and they didn't make the other parts of this very clear, but the measure not only created the 9% tax for phone service, it extended the City's authority to tax other aspects of phone usage including Internet activities. Proponents say that won't happen but they could not give a good reason for putting it there. If they did not intend to have it ready to be used and create more tax opportunities for the City, then why put it there?

All this is the City government that Reyes is part and parcel of and it's too bad that there is only one challenger to run for that office to represent CD-1, or any CD in an ethical manner. Both measures were supported by all CMs as you will find no comments by them as I have presented to show the "OTHER SIDE" that they did not want to reveal. That is not honesty, but whatever you want to call it, that IS what we have now.