Villaraigosa gets investigated two times for not reporting freebies.

First, there was the news about some things the mayor wasn't tell us.
Mayor Villaraigosa is being investigated by Ethics Commission about accepting free tickets as reported by Fox television reporter John Schwada. "Ethics Commission Investigating LA Mayor," Friday, 11 Jun 2010.Reporter: John Schwada
http://www.myfoxla.com/dpp/news/local/ethics-commission-investigating-la-mayor-20100611


Then, today, it seems that there's yet another investigation of the mayor that has the potential for more serious consequences.

"Second investigation opens into mayor's free tickets - D.A.'s Public Integrity Division joins the city's Ethics Commission in looking into whether Villaraigosa's unpaid attendance at sports and entertainment events should have been disclosed." By David Zahniser, Los Angeles Times, June 22, 2010.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mayor-tickets-20100623,0,562239.story

The mayor's attitude on this whole situation is the most revealing part of entire picture. Tony still has the arrogance and cavalier attitude on the subject is what continues to be the most troublesome here. The idea of disclosure of such gifts according to this the law is to provide some limits on the amount of influence that may arise where gifts are given alone. The other part of the law creates an obligation to report where there is some dealing in city business by the gift giver.

AEG has a number of ongoing transactions with the city and the mayor tries in a very lame fashion to try to shield his actions from disclosure by saying he is acting on official business so no disclosure and nor any gift value limitation applies here. He is just too far gone into his own caricature of a fool. When anyone expects something even remotely resembling the truth from this mayor, it's not going to happen. He is continually evading and avoiding disclosures of any sort. The mayor is taking the exact path to make it look like THERE IS something to hide- and he's right.

On the D.A.'s investigation? I really don't think there's any chance of criminal violations being found as the mayor has too many friends and some exculpating factors will be found to cover him; no specific intent to do the acts, a misunderstanding or any other "excuse" is going to let him slide.

The real story here is that we have a mayor who holds himself above the laws and regulations that are intended to apply to elected officials. If he does this with the simple stuff, what else do you think he might not be exactly following that he should be? The answer: Any and everything.

The additional signal here is that the Council members don't dare speak out against the actions since "birds of a feather flock together" and no one will blow the whistle where it might be themselves next in the news. THAT failure on the part of any of the CMs shows their own character flaws and just because they make the highest pay of any city council in the country, over $15,000.00 a month apiece, there is no connection to any higher level of anything being followed, be it morals, character, ethics or good judgment.

It's all about money and power and they already get too much money and you can see how much the power has corrupted them in assorted ways.

Operation Clean Sweep for a new Council in the even-numbered district elections coming in March 2011- like burned out light bulbs that leave us in the dark, they need to be replaced.

Alumni Association meeting on Saturday, June 16, 2010

It's time again for another Alumni Association meeting on Saturday, June 16, 2010. 9:30 a.m. in the Student Cafeteria at Lincoln.

It's the third Saturday of the month and time for the Alumni Association meeting.
The meeting is on the campus of Lincoln HS, at 9:30 am. in the student cafeteria. No charge, no obligation, everyone is welcome even if you are only an interested person and not alumni.

There are a few events to come and check for more details at the Alumni Association pages linked in the sidebar here.

June 25, 2010 Golf Tournament
* July 10, 2010 Picnic
* August 28, 2010 Texas Hold'em Poker
* Save the date: October 23, 2010. The next Alumni Dance.

Mayor Villaraigosa makes announcement on Lakers home game. Can he be more idiotic?

It just keeps getting better with Tony as he makes an announcement today that is being played on the radio news. He is making an annoucement to try to help the police side of things and keep people out of the area if they don't have tickets.

He says that you should stay home if you don't have a ticket and spend time with your family and save money and gas, blah, blah, blah. And where will HE be?

Well, he doesn't care- He's not exactly your best role model for much and most people are getting to see that as time goes on. He gets free courtside tickets he was not declaring and still doesn't as far as I know. at 3 to 4 grand apiece, there's a value for each pair that creates some tax impact for him but maybe that's not declared either. Some estimates at the value of free tickets he's been getting are around $400,000.00.

But to go on, his radio announcement is particularly idiotic since he's not telling you anything useful, helpful or even trustworthy. He gets free tickets, the city pays for his vehicle, his gas, his drivers, his police bodyguard detail, and who charges him parking? and you already know he's in the process of getting a divorce so there's the family aspect.

All more of what's so irrelevant with this guy. He is so bad that I can only see Eric Garcetti as a worse mayor with all his personal ambitions that will cost everyone but Garcetti should he get into office and work on more social engineering.

Well, good luck Lakers and if you notice the mayor there, he's supposed to be on "official city business" according to his view of things. According to Tony- "if you have an official purpose, it's not a gift, no, it's not a 'reportable gift'."

Spending more time at city hall and less at glitzy affairs would probably be too much of a culture shock for him. Anyway, it looks like the city's being affected more by Austin Beutner whose in charge of, what? 15 different departments now? He probably does know more about management of things than the Mayor does, but it's from his experience as a profit-motive entrepenuer. Is that good for the city? I don't think it is.

City Council's Arizona Boycott- sort of.

When the City Council decided that part of the job of managing the City of Los Angeles also included managing not just another city's business, but that of another state, Arizona.

Arizona's bill that passed, modeled after federal law, creates another statute to deal with the illegal immigration problem within the Arizona borders. The outpouring of criticism of the statute appears to have been made in many instances, and by persons of relative importance, without it ever being read.

One very vivid example was presented that was pretty amazing for what it demonstrated. This was within the Obama administration itself, no stranger again for making hasty statements on matters. So you have persons including the U.S. Atty. General Eric H. Holder, Jr., testifying about his views that he stated were formed without reading the law.

"Holder Admits to Not Reading Arizona's Immigration Law Despite Criticizing It," Published May 14, 2010. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/05/13/holder-admits-reading-arizonas-immigration-law-despite-slamming/

I recall that he mentiond the media as his source for forming his views during that session. So if this is the way the chief lawyer for the U.S. acts when he's expected to be better informed than just going by what he's heard, who can fault the rest for doing the same. (Except that this guy is getting paid to know such items of legal substance and if this were the private sector that employed him, he'd be looking for new job the next day.)

Here's the link to the YouTube video on the exchange (time: 3:53) that's also linked in the story above. "Eric Holder on Arizona Law: 'I have not read it yet'," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rH1FEcbi4A (By the way, Rep. Ted Poe who is doing the questioning was a state court judge beginning in 1981 and a felony prosecutor for 8 years before that.)

Council members approved the boycott, in a vote on the motion made by Janice Hahn during her campaign period for Lt. Governor, and Council president, Eric Garcetti, who might be even more disastrous than Villaraigosa if he ever becomes mayor.

The boycott that was so quickly adopted by the Council of course like most things that they do in their rushes to judgment, is not clearly a boycott in purist terms. There are lots of exemptions and exceptions that had to be made to keep the City from shooting itself in the foot.

The case of the Agenda Item 23 today, Tuesday, June 15, 2010, is one of those exceptions. The choice is to boycott or carve out an exception since this is something that may have some actual benefit to the LAPD, one of the pioneers in using helicopters as part of the law enforcement tools, now commonly used by the departments across the country.

The City Council might have considered using "prioritization" and working on getting the budget settled and not spending time and energy on a non-city, non-California items. But there's so much the Council is doing poorly, so what's another bad choice going to mean to them anyway? They have since authorized a amicus curiae brief to be drafted and submitted in the litigation on the Arizona law. So we have more expenditures of taxpayer money on items that do not have an impact on us and the bried if one of dozens, which means that unless L.A. finds something novel that other lawyers missed, it won't matter much in the big picture here. And in the face of the City Attorney's office being the subject of the reduction of their numbers by 100 according to Villaraigosa's budget proposal, it's not a good application of resources. But that's my view and you already know that there's lot's more poor application of resources by the Council and Mayor that a book could be written about it. Several books if you get into the unethical aspect, the intimidation and the political payoffs and bartering of appointments and intentional deceptions made upon the public. "Transparency" in city government is purely theoretical under Villaraigosa's leadership and Garcetti's own manipulations in the City Council.

And let's add the choice on the Agenda that they have to make today on an exception to the boycott:
ITEM NO. (23)
10-0991

MOTION (SMITH - PARKS) relative to Council authorizing a one-time exemption to the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) to attend the annual Airborne Law Enforcement Association Conference in Tucson, Arizona from July 12 through July 17, 2010.

Recommendation for Council action:

AUTHORIZE a one-time exemption to the LAPD to enable four officers to attend the annual Airborne Law Enforcement Association Conference in Tucson, Arizona from July 12 through July 17, 2010.

And so much more to consider. March 2011 will be elections for even-numbered council districts.

DWP gets caught again on a matter of veracity- This time by Controller Wendy Greuel

The DWP held back the transfer to the city of $73 million a few months back, saying it needed a rate hike and could not spare the money at that time without it.

The City Controller, Wendy Greuel, completed an audit and found that there was over $700 million in the DWP's own account, 10 times the amount that the City was waiting for.

"Controller finds DWP misled the public when it threatened to withhold funds from city- Wendy Greuel launched a probe into the agency's accounts after officials refused the mayor's request for $73.5 million. 'The DWP's actions unnecessarily plunged the city into a fiscal crisis,' she said." By David Zahniser, Los Angeles Times, June 11, 2010. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dwp-controller-20100611,0,7666607.story

Somebody in the DWP lied? All I can say is, 'What else is new?" Wendy is still a political person and very close to the mayor so she's not about to call these guys liars, even if that's the best word to use. The Mayor was the one pushing for the rate hike in April and he was completely on the DWP's side of the situation that was going to make bills higher for the residents and businesses in L.A. (Didn't he get elected to take care of the public's well being, and not to try making the road clear for DWP to make the most money it can make?) But you know what? He doesn't care as long as it moves all things to his goals of "looking good"- in this case, not the pretty boy stuff, but in the context of heading to a better record on converting to renewable energy and environmentally friendly things. It's all very expensive but not anything that will have him taper off for the public benefit. It's kind of like the way that Eric Garcetti presents, continuing to press on no matter how much expense it means for you and me.
===============

Check out Ron Kaye's blog and see his view of that situation,
"Condemned to Failure -- Beutner, DWP and the Refusal to Learn from the Past " By Ron Kaye on June 10, 2010 3:56 PM
http://ronkayela.com/ Austin Beutner is the Mayor's pick to run about 15 city departments. Usually you have one person with one department and that's the way that should make the most sense. Milliionaire or actually billionaire is working for a token amount and is the Mayor's hope for a solution to get him out of this financial jam that's been closing all around the city little by little over the past few years.

Ron Kaye sees some problems with Beutner's style and it's pretty apparent that there's a lot of posturing on this subject all around since no one wants to look bad here. The DWP workers caught by the Channel 2 reporter as they were drinking on the job and spending some down time in a strip club was just a little of a lot of ills that may not be widespread but should not be allowed to happen at all. DWP supervision either condones by its acquiescence regarding such activities or they didn't know at all what was happening until the Channel 2 reporter pointed out the problems by showing them. In that case, it points out some poor supervision practices followed, like, maybe, a failing by whoever is supposed to be supervising.

The DWP is more or less working on its own like a rogue agency, out of control from the City Council's view. Mayor Villaraigosa put Beutner into the job to be the extension of his authority. Villaraigosa was part of the problem when he was pushing for the rate hike that the DWP wanted, or it could have been a rate hike that the Mayor wanted to CYA on the budget, and keep the IBEW happy (as if they were not with the salary disparity and cushy terms that gave them raises to come in for 5 years).

The Mayor usually used to be on the union side of things and now had to be the bad guy on budget matters and you can be sure he did not want to be on the bad side of any union issues since he has relied on them for votes, a real big reason he caters to the union interests all around but look where it left the city. Such a fool.

But let's leave that for now as there's lots more going on- more antics of the Council and the Mayor to be examined, past and ongoing.

LAUSD now chooses disabled students to suffer cuts due to their own inept management

Well, the LAUSD finally has come around to affect the disabled students as part of the ones to carry the burden for the administration's history of waste, fraud and abuse.

"L.A. Unified to shutter 200 classes, campus for disabled students-
The schoolchildren will be transferred to other classes, sometimes meaning longer commutes to other schools. It's part of the beleaguered district's attempts to deal with a $640-million deficit." By Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times,
June 3, 2010, http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-disabled-20100602,0,7041114,full.story


The millions that they at LAUSD have wasted from malfeasance at the management level was apparent in the hugely expensive payroll software. That payroll software did not work properly and caused problems that costs the district in terms of money and frustration as well as the real impact in shortchanging people in their paychecks and leaving them unable to address their financial obligations, all due to the foul ups of that software.

Step back in time and see in Mayor Sam's posting in September 2007 what was happening- nothing good and it was nothing unusual for that to be the case.
http://mayorsam.blogspot.com/2007/09/lausd-payroll-problems-redux.html


Here is another sample on that particular project from Tim Rutten, usually with a very liberal sort of leaning, but not forgiving on this topic. "The clowns at LAUSD - Who was in charge of the school district's failed payroll system? No one -- and that should be enough to send Supt. Brewer packing. " By Tim Rutten - February 13, 2008, http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rutten13feb13,0,1383536.column

The LAUSD over years was lax in most areas where belt-tightening was not even the question, just simple accountability for expenditures made and justifications that made sense, rarely present in LAUSD dealings as long as the paper work was pushed properly.

The education effort by LAUSD was at least attentive to the children in special education programs and those especially needy at the special education centers. There has been a lot of problems with service to the special ed students in the comprehensive (regular) campuses and many obligations of the legally significant IEPs were not met with compliance for a variety of reasons, yet corrective action was only made in sporadic fashion. We had a law that said that all students were supposed to have their textbooks issued and when the spot checks by the district were actually made, still about 13 teachers/classes were not on the ball to show it- even though there was a concentrated effort that week to have ALL needs meet as far as books were concerned. There should easily have been a ZERO non-compliance number but there wasn't. Maybe that was a follow-up for the principal's crew to do before the spot-check, but that water over the dam now.

So you see that simple things don't even go right as they should, so tougher things slip through on a more regular basis.

Now the disabled students see closures that should not be happening, especially when there often is a tightly knit group of teachers, at least more so than at the regular campuses, and the populations served more regularly have parental involvement, often out of necessity in many cases where disabled students are involved.

I don't think that the answer to improved quality overall in education is solved by throwing money at it, but the special ed side of things needs to be maintained for both the producing results and for compliance with the federal and other mandates that don't seem to be given proper attention.

I don't know if this is a done deal, but the way that the district spent money on other things they should not have is what I think about when considering if you have any responsible management at the top there. This edition of the school board bears the current blame, but there is also a legacy of past members, including my own Council member Jose Huizar CD-14, who was the past president and thought that was a "plus" for his campaign for re-elections. I would have thought he should have downplayed that role for all the results that did not materialize under his "leadership."

Huizar's former aide, Monica Garcia, is carrying on her own politically controlled leadership now, heavily if not totally influenced by our loser mayor Antonio Villaraigosa who was so wrapped up in who-knows-what thoughts that he forgot to include the Korean War in the list of wars at the Memorial Day observance at the National Cemetary in West L.A. - and reacting poorly to a comment by adding "Do you want to do this?" or "Do you want to come up here," not a calm and collected reaction to any comment at all. You can find him courtside tonight at the Laker game. Ticket value each: about $4,000. but he's not reporting such things, so I will. So you can see there's influence spread that's around by freebies and Antonio says it's "official business" so it's o.k. Nice try.

Read the story and you may not really see the significance of this kind of facility but it does make a difference in the life opportunities for the future of disabled students especially where there is a signifcant limitation as here with blind and vision-impaired students. Learning is what it is about and diminishing the facilities available for such functional exercises is another problem on top of the reduced numbers of teachers that the budget cuts are causing.

Press access limited by Council President Eric Garcetti "rules"

Garcetti remarked today, during the first Council meeting of the week, about some changes that he's made (presumably with assent of the others in the Council) in response to complaints about noise duiring meetings, "This will allow the the proceedings to be better heard," to paraphrase Garcetti.

The more complete background and impact is discussed in the blog, "LA Observed" today- "City Hall reporters in uproar over access rules," by Kevin Roderick • May 11 2010 1:59 PM http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2010/05/city_hall_reporters_in_up.php

The change makes a lot of the City Hall off limits to reporters and allows the council members to evade questions that they used to hear as the reporters would catch up with them. Now they have an easier time of not having to be confronted by reporters. Well, if good ol' Eric is thinking that he's the real brain of the place, he's really IS out of touch with too many things.

I always sensed that he's just too smug and condescending and not much changed when I was at a small meeting in Glassell Park last month with Garcetti as one of the speakers. He's a smooth talker but that's his strength. The weakness is the content.

I don't think Eric should keep "Mayor" as one of his career goals as he continues to show he's not accountable and doesn't care to be, but a "just get out of my way, please," kind of guy.

A few City Council items to shift cost to you.

Just a quick note to point out another way that City Council is looking for ways to get out of their economic jam and put you there instead. They now want to have the homeowner pay the bill for fixing sidewalks in front of their property. That's not a cheap proposition, either. (That' why they want to make the change, of course.)

From the L.A.Times news blog, "L.A. NOW," we have this story on that clever little move from the Council Members: "L.A. may stop footing bills for sidewalk and driveway repairs." Martha Groves, May 9, 2010 http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/05/la-may-stop-footing-bills-for-sidewalk-and-driveway-repairs.html

Now, if there were better management of city spending and some attention paid to forecasts, we might not see the CMs go into the "money-grubbing" gouging of the public modus operandi that is becoming nearly all they do these days. The idea that the economic downturn is the major reason for the chaos is really a lot of B.S. but then that would mean that they would have to take some of the blame for the bad decisions they made, and you know that's not going to happen. They would be better off not saying anything about the causes than to blame it on Wall St. or anything besides their own lack of planning and foresight.

True, the outside economic forces did foul up a lot, but to use that as the excuse for the city's slow but continuing slide to insolvency is a real smokescreen for more personal failings. I can say this, that these men and women of the city council and the other guy in the Mayor's office have all done a poor job of representing the people of the city. On the other hand, that would be something of a disappointment if you EXPECTED them to do the right thing.

Other than working on keeping their jobs as professional politicians - here on the Council at the rate of $15, 000.00 a month salary- there's not much else that they put all their energy on that happens to coincide with doing a responsible job, the job that they were supposed to be doing because of their election to the office.

A big concern now is that "bankruptcy" is not a word you hear them say now. It's the "B-word" that it's called, like if you don't say it, it won't happen. That's a pretty mature way to handle the situation.

But let me assure you that these folks do not want to be known for being the political counterpart to the Titanic's captain. They will not sit still to let the city go into a bankruptcy filing and, no, it's not because they are in any way noble people. On the contrary, they are totally into selling off every asset that the city has to get some quick cash to bail themselves out of this mess. This is the way burglars operate- They steal property and sell it at an amount that is all profit to them since they never paid for any of it to begin with. So for City Council members, they don't see it as a loss- but the larceny is in the transferring of property for the any amount that is LESS than the proper and full value. Council does this when they "gift" a city asset as recently done with a fire engine given as "surplus property" for $1.00 to a firefighter's organization for "training purposes." This is not the time to "give" away any assets that could be used to reduce ANY of the deficit. But they do it anyway.

This movement has none other than the Mayor with the bright ideas that shine only upon his own personal interests and those of his pals, but leaves the rest of us in the dark, in some ways, nearly literally so whenever a DWP transaction is involved.

There are city parking facilities planned in the budget that are not yet sold, but counted anyway. The mayor wants these 99-year leases on parking meters like Chicago did to get a lump sum of cash for the city. Nice move, Tony. First, it's not approved as far as I see it. Next, that would be bad since that asset category GENERATES money, money that will come no longer if this change happens. But for now, and "now" is all they care about- when they leave office, it's all history to them and they will wash their hands of it- but they will leave the city short on some cash-generating ability.

The sidewalk repair idea would not be happening if they did not screw up things so badly over the years. Council President ERIC GARCETTI, I want to add, is very much a part of this movement to jack you up on fees and taxes. He said, about 3 months ago, in a reply to city workers seeking an alternative to losing jobs, that he believed that L.A. "has long been tax-starved." What's that meaning? Very clearly that more taxes would be in order. That's the way Eric thinks. He's got no real grip on what people have to deal with, although he constantly likes to put himself into the picture as a regular guy who is just trying to help you.

Cutting expenses is only happening now, and done extensively- aside from NOT reducing personnel which might be useful. (The "early retirement incentive program"was an expensive program, was done without much oversight that let in 400 retirements that were NOT paid out of the "general fund" category, therefore, it added the COST to the city for the premium retirement-ERIP- and those DID NOT CUT DOWN the salary expenses for the "general fund" that was the whole reason for the program. Second part of the problem was that the ERIP nearly wiped out the experienced people in many departments, so there was a need to cover those jobs and do some backfilling that again weakened the impact of the retiree's exit from the city workforce. Too tough for anyone to figure out in advance, I suppose, and plan so these things would NOT happen.

Creating more costs by funding non-profits that don't always have a clear or proven effectiveness is what they do best. Then they continue to do it and with more money usually requested for each renewal. And non-profits will not be subject to any part of any layoff plans, either, no matter what the city does. Stopping the spending and checking on waste, fraud and abuse are simply beyond the capacity of the Council. Wendy Greuel was part of the CM body until last July. What did SHE do as a CM for the problems? ("Nothing" might be a good choice here). Now she's another Mayor candidate and some good PR is very important to her now. I said "good PR" and not "Good achievements," two separate things.

And the additional danger to the city that I want to bring up is that Garcetti is one of many on the Council seeking a shot at the Mayor's job when Tony leaves office. For my two cents, the ones on the Council now who have plans for sitting in the Mayor's office in 3 more years would mean just a different person than Tony who will be creating a new disaster for the city.

Let's see how the Council continues to justify putting more on the backs of property owners and city residents. And if you think they have no choice, you need to give the whole picture another look. And there's more of this kind of "bail out" thinking that you will be seeing coming as a budget has to be settled upon by the end of June. You just saw last week how the dog owners were viewed as a source of some really quick cash by the CMs.

Fri. City Council meeting shortchanges 200 because of Herb Wesson

That was some meeting Friday- There's a rent control ordinance, RSO, the Rent Stabilization Ordinance that applies to rentals up to 1978 contruction that allows limited rent increases each year.

This year Richard Alarcon wants a one year moratorium because of the economy- and there's the beggining of a problem. So 200 people put in cards to talk at Friday's meeting, 100 for and 100 against a motion that's been changed to have a study on the impact and to exempt owners of 5 or less units from the restrictions on raises that the RSO would allow.

But Wesson has his grand kid maybe 2 years old there, and I wondered what's the deal as I popped the meeting up on the computer then. He says he wants this to be approved to go to the study and have all the debate put off for that return of the study. He says "I just came to vote and I want to go see my new granddaughter." He said she was born in the last couple of hours.

OK, Herb, but to accommodate you, you have 200 people being shut down on their moment to vent for probably the 1 minute now, as the 2-minute period gets cut to 1 when there's so many to speak.

Maybe some of them should have been allowed to speak on THAT question, of putting off the coment period for another day for them, another day to skip work or whatever they might do, another day to find parking and to pay the not-so-cheap-rates that Council Members have absolutely no appreciation for since they park their selected CITY paid cars in the City Hall parking lot for free.

Well, to make it short this time, the Council voted as Wesson wanted, to put the real matter off and deflect public comment today. Talk about the self-serving nature of the beast. CMs really don't care about the effort that the members of the public make to get to City Hall for a meager 2 minutes maximum time to speak on an agenda item. And you know, it's only a one-way speaking experience- no one answers you or has to answer you- sometimes they really aren't even paying attention to you or are not present in the Council Chambers. "Council members are able to view the proceedings in their offices, so they ARE aware of what you are saying," is the usual line Council President Eric Garcetti uses to quell complaints made by public commenters about absent seats or CMs talking, apparently oblivious to the words being spoken by the person at the podium.

So much arrogance and then they wonder why anyone should even challenge their decisions. Well, for one big reason that might just bypass the idea of what they THINK- it's often that they don't even READ THE TEXT OR BACKGROUND of any motion- and some carries much baggage if you click the agendas to see the history.

In spite of that explicit personal non-reading of the motions, they are not inhibited one iota to keep from making their opinions heard on any of it. They rely on committee reports, the assurances of other CMs who TELL them what it means, often the authors of motions, and so you have no real knowledge of what's being voted on, so why even listen to the public? You see, it's too much to expect of them and maybe at the best, they have an aide TELL THEM what THE AIDE'S interpretation is, so you have them acting on a 2nd hand level.

It's just another day at the Council Chambers and maybe it's not on the up and up, but you might expect some courtesy and consideration for the public who is, after all, not getting a paycheck for coming to city hall that day.

If the Council was going to move something off the agenda or some other action was planned whereby the people would not be getting the opportunity to speak, maybe it could be announced IN ADVANCE IN SOME COMMONLY UNDERSTOOD MANNER so the trip downtown could be avoided and not be a waste when you find you aren't going to be heard.

This is just my complaint on seeing a little of what happens very simply and commonly by the actions of Council Members. And I still don't know if the automatic "Yes" vote on the Council members' devices has been stopped so the device will only work manually to show a "Yes" or "No" vote. All that phantom voting was happening without you really knowing if the CMs were even in the building. Wesson's been seen to grab a smoke outside and that's surely an abuse if you break a quorum by his absence. Others have had meetings in their offices during that time. But they have a zillion excuses and on top of everything else, they don't care about you. Oh, what? "You say you are a union member?" Or, "Is it THAT group of campaign contributors you are part of? Well, that's different." Don't you just love it all?

Council seeks boosted fee (tax), the "bite," on barking dogs

Of course, in the search for money to fill in the budget gaps, this idea came up to sidestep the exiting process and make it an immediately due charge like a parking ticket, and the "what ifs" are thinking about $100 for barking dogs and a few other things.

"L.A. wants to put the bite on owners of law-breaking dogs -
The City Council seeks an ordinance that creates immediate fines for violations of the city's leash law and noise regulations." By Carla Hall, Los Angeles Times, May 6, 2010 2:54 p.m. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0506-barking-fines-20100506,0,1959121.story

This really seems to me to be just another excuse to collect some money from residents with the the "guilty until proven innocent" approach undeniably the best feature to get that cash rolling in. I don't think any of that "safety" of the public and quality of life consideration really takes the forefront here and, though I didn't see or hear the discussion in the Council meeeting, I have seen them go off the deep end with the projections for collecting money as if the public were the enemy or some sort of target that's loaded with money to be extracted as deftly as possible.

The well being of the public, only one part of this, probably doesn't really come up on their radar when the money-grubbing mode if fired up. They might think about the impact of the process on the city RESIDENTS. Dogs barking? Well, you know that's one of the things dogs do. They do it as a way to communicate different messages- often that there's something that's got their attention. Some, of course, becomes irritating to people on a variable level, according to one's particular sensitivity and incessant barking does need to be addressed. It's a lot of behavior issues of the dog that you have that come with the territory and the owner should handle it.

I am concerned that the newly found money source will have the animal regulation officers quick to write up violations and there's probably more people than not for whom a $100 hit will cause severe impact, maybe not hardship, but it will need some budget moves to cover.

There's also a chance and I don't know how big it might be, that there's going to be some dog owners who will resort to some immediate and severe corporal punishment as the response when this thing comes into effect, as I do think the Council will not change their collective and narrow minds on this topic.

Another side effect: You will have some pet owners turning in their dogs to the animal shelter and certain death attaches to that choice. These are the ones who probably shouldn't have a pet to begin with if they do that. I think that when you have a pet you have a commitment to do some working on the problems and not dump the animal like an old toaster. The existing rules as set up, deal with a lot of the errors and remedies, and have some element of fairness to be found.

This change to an "administrative fee"eliminates that, and there's an uphill battle to challenge it if you compare that to getting a parking ticket that arises due to confusing or missing signs, actual hours cited and so on. And then, even if you have a good case, you have to have the time to jump through the hoops and attend a hearing, assuming also that you did not exceed the time within which to request one.

All in all, the purpose of the City Council is to run the city and serve the public. The have done the running part very well. They have run the city right into the ground with so many examples, including continual waste and lack of oversight when they fund projects and non-profits (and non profits aren't subject to the city layoffs once they are funded- but then you might say city workers aren't subject to city layoffs, either, if you look at the actual actions so far).

They will, however, have to have someone show them how their actions are doing anything even remotely resembling "serving the public." Being "in charge" has the benefit of allowing them to call the shots, but it's got the responsibility, too, of doing things CORRECTLY. They call shots, spend money and many spending choices are poorly made, overly generous and, plainly, serving to funnel money to associates, special interest, and, quite easily seen, union interests that, in the end, don't do much other than give a lot of people a paychecks from tax dollars.

I really think most of the CMs are out of touch and that opinion comes from hearing them for so many years and seeing the position changes that they make on issues for reason that lack a logical basis other than being influenced from outside sources, usually monied ones. 15 grand a month I think is just too much money for them to walk away from and they will do all they can to stay on this job, at the voter's expense, the dog owner's expense or the rental property owners's expense. A pay cut here might make this job attractive to the truly dedicated people instead of the ones there now. Cut the pay in half and see the howling come out of all the politicians- but it still would not affect them by law for any current terms of office, anyway, and they know that. But a future crop of CMs would be under such a change. Nobody MAKES you run for council.


There's going to be a lot of people making complaints to the city who want dogs to be quiet instantly. As it is, the staffing of Animal Services is in jeopardy. Tony Villaraigosa talked big about having no-kill shelters as a goal, but it's stated in the story that there will likely be closures of two shelters. Just owning a dog will be risky financially, I expect. Herb Wesson, the CM with the dog adoptions might have to figure out another sales pitch on Fridays when he does that pet adoption part of the Council meeing on Fridays.

Nice job of city management, council members and mayor. When it comes time to put bandages on the system where years of ignoring financial warnings were ignored, who has to foot the bill? Us. And, like choosing which Electric Company and Water Company we will use, there is no choice. Lucky us. Thei biggest utility company in the nation and one that pays it's employess premium pay AND one that's taken hundreds of city "general fund" refugees" to give them new life, nice raises, and a real "NO LAYOFF" job, with generous benefits, on top of all that. Nothing to say against the workers, but the managers' "plans" don't seem to really save the RESIDENTS much like they benefit the CITY WORKERS. But on "City Hall Math" I have to confess I don't follow it at all.

There's always so much to counter to whatever nonsense that the Council does. It's a real effort sometimes just to tolerate hearing what goes on there. The continue to call the comments "testimony" and I continue to say, "Who is sworn in to tell the truth?" It would be simple to do that if they were serious on "taking testimony" but you could come in and lie up and down and nothing of consequence will happen. But sometimes I see that the council ignores the comments as they hastily call for the vote and, other than when the Chambers are packed with people, the votes are UNANIMOUS and it's FOR whatever the motion happens to be.

REMINDER- The L.A. TIMES reported the story of the automatic "Yes" votes on the Council's voting machine- you don't even have to be there as many aren't. The "Yes" vote happens every time UNLESS you are there to push "No."

See this report in the L.A. Times that shows the lack of real attention to business during council meetings where CMs and their usual arrogant style is seen to be exercised. The result, it's just something of convenience that gives lip service to any "hearing" and deciding that should be happening- with my favorite jr. lawyer, Tony Cardenas right up there.:
"Automatic 'yes' votes allow time for back-room dealing at City Hall
Thanks to voting software, City Council members can hold meetings, give interviews, even grab a smoke while deciding the day's issues." March 08, 2010 By David Zahniser and Maeve Reston, http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/08/local/la-me-backroom9-2010mar09

I don't see there's going to be a good outcome for the pets or the owner, but that, as usual, matters not where there's a buck to be collected by this group, so desperate to get any money in at all costs to integrity, just to be sure they head off any bancruptcy filing for the city. It's very close to happening but expect more money grab and on the other end, the cutting of expense, watch out there. Already the lowly and pretty defenseless library is cut back a lot and more is to come. But it's all stops out in this cover-your-ass term of office- nobody wants to be stuck in this musical chairs situation of being the guy (or woman) in office when the bankruptcy filing was made. I think they call such things "career killers" and you know the CMs will have none of that. To a person, they are "Career Politicians."

More to come- Tomorrow they vote on a Rent Control one year moratorium- and what does that do? Hurt the mom-and-pop landlords, increase maintenance penny pinching and in the end make the owner try to do something with the real estate other than renting the property - That will cut housing even more in the long run, at least the closest that we now have to affordable housing. But CMs like Ed Reyes who complains about that won't figure that out any time soon. Who want's to have even the small raises in rents that rent control allows in the first place? And then you can't pass all the increases in costs while water and power rates climb (thanks to the CMs and ultra complicit Mayor). Not a good time to be a landlord in L.A., especially if you are under rent control.

L.A. Weekly on Billionaire Eli Broad's $1-a-year rent and the Comments

Eli Broad got a mention in a one-page item in the L.A. Weekly's edition a week ago- that I just got around to reading yesterday. Not a surprising outcome if you follow the local administration's courting of private interests to make themselves look good- something that is the trademark of Mayor Villaraigosa.
"$1 Rent for Billionaire Broad- So much for Villaraigosa's new era of transparency and shared sacrifice," By Tibby Rothman, Thursday, Apr 29 2010.
http://www.laweekly.com/2010-04-29/news/1-rent-for-billionaire-broad/

It's sure another shady deal when you see- or really, as the complaint is here, you don't "see" the dealings. There's this deal happening but no one heard of it until it happened. I mentioned the Eric Garcetti move to skip putting the DWP rate hike action on the agenda- yeah, those things get in the way, and you just can't be creative or spontaneous with those kinds of step put into the process. Besides, that just gives troublemakers a chance to complain and slow down the process, maybe even bring it to a stop.

You can't blame Eric, after all, as he's for anything to get "green" and it's often the green in your wallet that's the target. The DWP really has to stop complaining and saying, "We supply power for rates that are below other utility companies."

In a few more of the planned rate hike steps, they can scratch that complaint and maybe move to the top of that category instead of that "too cheap" level that is somehow intolerable. Well, don't shed too many tears for these folks. You might feel for the guys caught in the Channel 2 investigative report, though. They are the example of people just too cozy in their jobs to really follow the rules like most employees. In a real world condition, they would be fired without much fanfare, but here, they will probably have the union (the IBEW, the real force in the DWP) work out a deal. After all, they do make around $90,000 a year base with some overtime when they aren't taking a brewsky break and cruising in the DWP trucks.

But back to the DWP management and their money worries. Are they too pinched for money? Maybe if they didn't fluff up the benefits and roll over during contract negotiations to benefit the CONSUMER for a change, it could be more reasonable. But for now, it's a condition that's not so poor that it doesn't keep them from passing along a "surplus" every year of a sum as was for this year of $220,000,000.00 (Two Hundred and Twenty MILLION dollars)- and let's not forget that they have that Billion dollars stashed in reserve that no one mentions.

But the whole city operation is bad, and this Eli Broad deal is part of what rich involved people manage to extract from the system. They didn't get rich by being nice guys all the time, and this is one of the ways, by getting breaks here and there to save some money so you can use that money elsewere.

Read the comments that aren't much but still representative of different views.
"One-Buck Eli" Comments By L.A. Weekly readers Thursday, May 6 2010
http://www.laweekly.com/2010-05-06/news/one-buck-eli/

It's Cinco de Mayo- Do you know where the DUI checkpoints are located?

Yes, today is a day that has more significance for all the partying that it generates in the U.S. than any battle for any cause that it originally was noted for.



The big question now is who will be driving home and not make it as a result of a DUI. To bring everyone up to date, DUI's aren't very well tolerated like in days of old, and with the level to earn a violation for a regular DUI at only a .08 percent blood alcohol level, it's even easier to do that than before.



Did you know that the blood alcohol level used to be up around .14 not that many years ago? The penalties were not that heavy compared to today, but it's still not enough to keep many from spending $20 or $30 dollars on a taxi to go home safely after partying.



Look at Miguel Santana who was stopped driving a city car on his way home from some benefit dinner. The CAO for the city got a DUI and thereafter fell on his sword, getting into rehab after heavily apologizing to everyone for it. I think it was overdone, but who knows how much into drinking Miguel was into? Too bad.



Even with the DUI, Santana probably was more of a worthy role model than most of those on the city council for owning up to the errors of his ways. And his math was definitely miles ahead of whatever the Mayor figured into the budget presentation currently. Jeez, even Mike Hernandez was caught cold as a Council Member scoring and using drugs and then some. AND STILL he refused to resign. Worse yet, NO ONE on the Council even tried to have Mike quit. But of course, he was "a victim" and not any offender. I still am not sure how he was the victime. I think we, the public, were taken for jackasses to allow him to stay at that job.



And with today's raised salaries in City Council, you'd need dynamite to separate any of them from their council seat. (That's another reason for cutting down that exorbitant salary- no one wants to leave that office- it's higher than any other political office holders managing a U.S. city).


City Council members will probably be hitting the party circuits around town. They do enought damage with their regular accpetance of the Mayor's "deals" that I don't see are made in public. There's parking lease money that Tony counts in the budget math, but I don't recall when that shady deal came into effect. Maybe they thought the rest of us were off drinking and wouldn't notice.

You have to give the city council some credit as far as shadiness goes. Start with creating the deceptions that Prop S and Prop R embodied to fool voters to install a 9% phone tax when Zero tax would have happened there if the Council didn't practice to deceive. That was so clearly evil. And as if that was not enough to do to pull the wool over the common voter, the "Ethics Reform" that worked to add another term to each CM's limit was a real "bait and switch."

And lately, it was equalled if not topped by our Council President's last minute "touchdown" for the DWP. It was the work of Eric Garcetti "Badges? What badges? I don't have to show you no stinking badges" move in circumventing that pesky "Brown Act" to get the "emergency" hearing on the DWP rate hike instantly approved on April 15th. It takes effect on July 1 so the emergency was in Eric's imagination, no matter what he claims- but 9 others on the council approve that conclusion and 8 voted "FOR" the rate hike.



Party up y'all. And then guide yourselves accordingly. I do believe there's quite a few items submitted to the D.A.'s "Public Integrity" section based on all the fast and loose spending and maneuvering of council and county board of supervisors actions. If anyone gets stuck from that, I would be very surprised, and probably so would they.

Neighborhood Council Election Results for Region G- East and Northeast L.A.

Here are SOME LINKS to the City Clerk's postings ON THE RESULTS FOR THE ELECTION in "Region G" that was just held on Thursday.

There are links to all the Regions and to the many items posted by City Clerk's Office regarding the assorted topics concerning the election process.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NC ELECTION RESULTS for all regions- scroll down to the "Region" and select which NC you want to see:
http://cityclerk.lacity.org/election/ncdocs/2010%20NC%20REGIONAL%20ELECTION%20DAY%20OFFICIAL%20AND%20UNOFFICIAL%20RESULTS.pdf

The MAIN PAGE for all the City Clerk election related links is
http://cityclerk.lacity.org/election/ncdocs/website.pdf

City of L.A.- From the "All is not as the City has told you" Dept.

[Some of what I write goes to other destinations and so this blog gets nothing to show for it, so I decided to post more of the other things that I send along to others to share the information generally that I think would be useful to shed more light on current issues. (Photo, right: City Council hears from city workers on layoffs)

The following is from an email I sent out yesterday, Sunday, to an NC group, slightly edited from that copy, and with a better proof-reading, too. There's just too much that our politician's do that is wrong as in "evil" or "dishonest intent." At other times, it's just that they are complete Bozos who haven't got a clue on what they are doing and rely on special interests and the things they think will get them to look good to the voters.

The Council Members and the "Emperor Has No Clothes" Mayor bank on the fact that most voters don't have the time, the interest, or the understanding of city hall code words, euphemisms and political-speak to uncover the real story under the B.S. and so they take things "as advertised."]
---------------------------------------------------------
Some Sunday reading to consider.

Since you may not have the time or opportunity to view all that's going on within and surrounding local government these days, here are a few links that may give you another perspective that may not be readily encountered in the television news and so on.
==========================================================
But to give credit to a television source:

There is a DWP expose of sorts, however, 2 months in the making, by David Goldstein at KCBS Channel 2, about what some (not all) DWP workers, mostly all linemen, do in the course of their workday.

[THE VIDEO: http://www.dailynews.com/politics/ci_14991360 (it plays more like an episode of "Cheaters" when the offenders are confronted).

THE STORY: http://cbs2.com/goldstein/DWP.Workers.Drinking.2.1665634.html with some transcribed portions of the video, and it's ignited a lot of comment, much tinged with anger and collateral concerns.]

On this, DWP officials declined Goldstein's offer to look at more tape for more evidence of discovered drinking, driving DWP vehicles while drinking/open container, visiting strip clubs on rainy days, picnicking with a collection of DWP workers in a Boyle Heights park, and a lot of things that don't fit within the expected acceptable behavior for employees.

DWP officials said they were investigating the matter with a lengthy press release issued.
Question: How would they investigate when they reject the very material that displays the behavior?
Consider that for yourselves, but that's a sampling of what CM Zine called two weeks ago in a Council meeting, "an agency that's out of control," and added that "We are going to get it under control," a yet-to-be-seen goal.

Council President Garcetti thought that an investigation would be more proper if done outside the DWP. Garcetti was the one who enabled the rate hike measure to come in without being agendized (Dep. City Atty. O'Connell, assigned to the Council, gave his opinion that it was not an urgent matter and should be handled by other regular procedures, but that advice was ignored by all) and subject to hearing or public comment on April 15th, appearing to be in contravention of "The Brown Act," that you can read about in several sources. So even Garcetti- who is a supporter of rate hikes and any green issue, here has a different opinion on the investigation's handling.

==========================================
GETTING TO MORE ISSUES AND SOURCES
===========================================
Saturday's posting by Ron Kaye,
"Poking Holes in Antonio's Clean Energy and Rate Hike Story"
By Ron Kaye on May 1, 2010 11:37 AM
http://ronkayela.com/2010/05/poking-holes-in-antonios-clean.html
----------------------------------------
[And for the benefit of newcomer's to this "RonKayeLA" blog, Ron Kaye is the former editor of the L.A. Daily News, and nearly all of his posts provide more insight into a lot of city government action that happens in a in a surreptitious manner, but many cases involve that which is before your eyes but sliding by under the radar.] http://www.ronkayela.com/ ]

============================================
"Villaraigosa’s Chinese Car Deal: A Potemkin Village For The 21st Century"
Thursday, April 29, 2010
http://web.mac.com/waltermoore/WalterMooreSays.com/Blog/Blog.html
This blog source, http://www.waltermooresays.com/ is a source of detailed items that usually contradict, with authority cited, the press release content of most local government. It's often depressing and distressing to consider our outcomes.

=============================================
On pension items there's Jack Humphreville's story from Friday on www.ourla.org,
"Jack Humphreville: City Hall’s Fuzzy Math"-
Written by Jack Humphreville, on City Watch
http://ourla.org/city-wide/2029-jack-humphreville-city-halls-fuzzy-math

------------------------------------------
City Watch is another blog that can show more City operations a little more critically:
http://citywatchla.com/index.php
=======================================

And from the L.A. Weekly [ www.laweekly.com ]- probably the most regular of the irregular press category- and the longtime leader of investigative reporting in Los Angeles, had this short revelation on Wednesday as many CMs expressed concern over the permanence of the rate hike that was expected to have a 90-day life after the July 1 effective date- all generating from the April 15 introduction as an emergency by Garcetti, and passage of a motion on that Wednesday, last minute action of the council. (What a tangled web we weave...)

"Villaraigosa Knew L.A. Electricity Rate Increase Was Permanent" By Dennis Romero, Monday, Apr. 26 2010 @ 6:03AM
http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/city-news/villaraigosa-knew-dwp-hike/
This matter did not collect the 10 (2/3 of Council) votes for the city to take jusrisdiction pursuant to a Sec. 245 motion- CM Parks arrived a minute or two after the vote and Garcetti would not reopen matter for the Parks' vote to be considered (known to be a "Yes" on this issue).

As usual, there's more on everything but this should be a good sampling that you are free to reject, among all of the actions that can be done. It is, however, a lot of information that, as some say, "connects the dots" and explains some of the oddities of recent governmental action. The County is another body, along with the LAUSD, that has to wait for another time to mention in this edition of news.

Meeting tomorrow of City activists- No, it's not the May Day Rally.

The meeting tomorrow at Hollywood Community Center has a lot of community activists and just plainly interested people in the well-being of the City working on restoring some good governement to L.A. And you can see this is an entirely different group of persons than are meeting and marching down South Broadway on Saturday, also hoping to affect some changes of their own.

From an email today from Daniel Wiseman, one prominent individual among the many, comes an invitation to observe and/or participate in the items among the 3 meetings that will be on the morning's schedule.

PLEASE, join with other NCASH's, tomorrow, SATURDAY, May 1, 2010 at the Hollywood Community Center (Fountain & Wilcox Streets) for...

9:30 - DWP Committee Meeting - recent ECAF raises, Mr. Smith's 8 DWP-related Motions, more

10:30 - LANC Coalition Meeting - DWP, City Budget, Planning Department, Studio City Board Member removal, more

12:30 - NCs' Budget Advocates Meeting - Current Year Budget Crisis (?insolvency), Mayor's FY2010-2011 Proposal, B&F

He prefaced this with this word on the purpose of the meetings and actions, generally,

How many times have you heard someone say, "No one told ME about that?"
- Sometimes, that is true.
- Sometimes, our City Officials seem to be withholding vital information from us. Sometimes, they seem to ignore us, entirely.
- Sometimes, the reporters from the Times and Daily news don't ask for and don't print our opinions.
- Sometimes we NCASHs (aka Neighborhood Council ACTIVE Stakeholders)
fail in our "outreach" efforts, too.
OOUTREACH isn't OUTREACH unless the people we are OUTREACHing to REACH BACK back to us.

So...we need to put our thoughts together
we need to put our thoughts into print.
we need to get those thoughts printed.
we need to get those printings read.
we need to hear from our readers.
Then...we need to start from the top (put our thoughts together) and begin the next cycle. (Recycling is good.)

LANC Coalition's and NC Budget Advocates' statements and Minutes are now being posted on BudgetLA.org. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, who said, "Democracy it is the worst form of government...except for all other forms of government", we could say, " http://www.budgetla.org/ is the worst website to use...except for all other websites (real or imagined).

Let's publicize this activity.
Let's read and respond to its content, regularly.
Let's tell our friends (and some of our enemies) about it and encourage them all to be more friendly.

A worthwhile endeavor to sample if you are not sure about a more firm commitment, and you can see a lot of what's really happening at City Hall that doesn't get to the news(papers).

Mayor Villaraigosa grabs spotlight on May Day event and hops on the Arizona Boycott bandwagon

And can you guess what has Mayor Villaraigosa been up to besides directing rate hikes for customers of the DWP? And wasn't the Mayor a position that takes care of CITY business? Somebody should tell Tony about this. And the rest of City Council, too, with Eric Garcetti, another who says the city is "tax starved", and include Janice Hahn who called herself the "parcel tax queen." This tells you what they are thinking about, and it's not the people of Los Angeles. But let's get back to Mayor Tony's present surfacing in today's news conference.

MAYOR VILLARAIGOSA LOOKING FORWARD TO MAY DAY.

Besides being the former Pothole King, he's the Rhetoric Prince. Another May Day is coming and he's probably going to show his face. His press conference today was a warm up but the Arizona Boycott idea provoked him to grab the spotlight again.

He is not a lawyer, not even close. His expressed views can be considered as either pedestrian, or, just the echoing of some anonymous staffer paid a lot for nothing really meaningful.

He needs an attorney to do this summary for him in order to make a better grounded legal evaluation, but as it's actually rhetoric, why bother?

The Arizona Boycott gives Tony a vehicle to come out of his May Day self-imposed exile after making his "We Clean Your Toilets" revelation to the crowd where Mexican flags were displayed in abundance throughout the scenes shown on television. (He even gave instructions for the anticipated rally-goers, including bringing plastic water bottles and bags to pick up after yourself upon leaving. He's so much the civics director- but remember that plastic bottles were taken to such events but frozen first in order to get some better distance in the water toss event that became part of that earlier day's activities that came to be called the May Day Melee. It cost L.A. a pretty penny when the claims were settled. Don't you just love rallies? Tony apparently does. Darn those pranksters.

TONY IS THE ORATOR AGAIN- He Has a Dream.

If you review the recordings of the style he's used in speaking during his first couple of "State of the City" addresses, you can see that they were over-enunciated as if he was repising the "I Have a Dream" speech of Martin Luther King. I think he actually expected to be some great mayor and was planning to have some vivid recordings for the expected archival footage of his early administration. Too bad he turned out to be, instead, and increasingly certain, "the worst mayor in the history of Los Angeles."


As that complete self-delusion began to clear from his head a bit, he started talking normally (in his case, not to impressive) and make normal speeches of vapid content.

Today, he's gotten his second wind apparently, and the product was a very contrived assortment of inflections and more conclusions that only he and his staff could believe.

TONY THE DREAMER

Does anyone read these items for him in advance to try to clear out some of the puzzling phrases.


AND GUESS WHAT?

None of this helps solve the city's budget predicament which Tony helped create while travelling most of his first 5 years in office and attending a record number of press conferences and photo opps (and some of these should really be called "photo ooops" for all the silliness involved) instead of working in his office to tend to the city business that was presumably the reason for his election.

His budget plan is in trouble- it seems he's not paying attention here, too. Tony is getting so desperate to avoid bankruptcy under his "leadership", as are the other CMs, that he will sell off any city assets he can to get his butt out of the short term jam just to avoid bankruptcy of the city. The fallout from that is that he will be leaving the city to face a heavily indebted and disastrous future, but by then, he will be long gone.

Maybe Villaraigosa will be running for the Senate, or as some think, being selected to be the Ambassador to somewhere. Ambassadors attend lots of social functions and that's probably a good fit for Villaraigosa, the party mayor. Too bad he couldn't have skipped this one stop as L.A.'s mayor on the way there.

Lincoln Open House tonight and an arts program in the Aud (officially, it's the "Andrus Theater" as re-dedicated a couple of years ago).

And it looks like the Ethel Percy Andrus Theatre, formerly the auditorium, will get some general public performance time logged in tonight and tomorrow night. The event that almost passed us by, but for the just-received email from Mike Ibarra of the LHS Alumni Association has passed along the following information:

Andrus Performing Arts Program Proudly presents. . .
"ONCE ON THIS ISLAND" - HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN'S,
The Little Mermaid .... Timeless tale of true love's battle against
difference of social status, skin color, and even death!

Performed by
The LHS Choir, Drama students and Musicians

$2 General Admission, $1
Students

DATES:
THURSDAY, APRIL 29TH, 7:30 pm
FRIDAY, APRIL
30TH, 7:00 pm


LETS SUPPORT THE PERFORMING ARTS PROGRAM & THE
STUDENTS OF LHS!

Thanks, Mike.

An OPEN HOUSE TONIGHT at LHS

Lincoln High will be holding an Open House today, Thursday, April 29th, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

It's on the school Calendar without any further elaboration or fanfare. (Clicking the links just gets a re-arrangement of the same few words- I thought that there woudl be an expansion of the basic notice, but so far I haven't seen that concept applied with about all of the LHS calendar items; "What you see is all you get," it seems. )

(I only post the things that I find or those things that are passed along to me . You can see that precious little comes my way that's originating from the alma mater. A little better promotion might help them out to reach persons who DO want participate but don't get any advance word- and I am not saying I am any great terminal for people to pass through to find out things, only that If I get some announcement, then somebody is doing a pretty good job of outreach to hit even my obscure destination.)

Communication. There's an irony here.

Today is the Election Day for Neighborhood Councils in Region G

For the ten neighborhood councils in the eastside that were grouped into Region G, this is the day to vote. All NCs will have only one polling place each, open for a 6-hour block, most have chosen 2 to 8 pm for the hours. Highland Park - Rec. Center on Piedmont by the library; Eagle Rock, at the Eagle Rock City Hall, and Lincoln Heights at Lincoln Park. I don’t know about the others, but you can Google the rest.

[ Here is one link to see the City Clerk's resources page of links assembled for the elections: http://cityclerk.lacity.org/election/ncdocs/website.pdf ]

STAKEHOLDERS can vote and that definition includes those who live, work, own real property or businesses, attend school, worship, shop and on and on.

Tge problem, if any, in the process is the documentation to support the voter eligibility. See http://cityclerk.lacity.org/election/ncdocs/Acceptable_Forms_of_Documentation_2010.pdf for the sort of things needed.

A Provisional Vote can be made to bridge this gap, so no one has to walk away without voting, but supporting documentation is to be supplied within 3 days to make that vote count.

This is ironic that so much documentation could conceivably be a bar to voting when the local, state and federal election require NOTHING to vote. So you have the two extremes, or potential extremes, to encounter in these differing voting situations.

There's a provision for curbside voting for voters who are unable to enter the polling places to have a poll worker handle their voting from their vehicle. You can call in advance (and it's not clear- call the polling location or the city clerk?) or just show up but somebody with the voter then will have to go inside to ask for that. Some NCs will be busy and I think most will not, especially where there's not much controversy or challenge for seats on a particular board.

But in any event, vote. And for many NCs, the voting age minimum extends down to 16, according to the Bylaws of that NC. That was a sore spot for some last time around in Lincoln Heights, where it was a topic for many complaints in Mayor Sam's blog, http://www.mayorsam.blogspot.com/ There's still criticism carrying over on recent posts.

The NCs are part of a 90 member Neighborhood Council system mandated by the City Charter over 10 years ago as a result of voters' choosing this. The origin came about as a fallout from the move of the S.F. Valley effort to secede from the City of L.A. Better representation of the public by the council members was the goal, but it's only now that it is coming to some effectiveness. The DWP and City actions have become targets of public opposition, in many cases led by the coalitions of the NCs.

That newfound effectiveness could account for why some council members oppose funding NCs and would just like them to go away and butt out. And the positions are "volunteer" ones, no pay and advisory in nature.

Please participate and continue in this way to have City Hall hear the public's voice.

Northeast and Eastside Neighborhood Councils elections on Thursday

The 10 Neighborhood Councils in Region G will have elections to fill positions for the next two-year terms on Thursday, April 29, 2010.

The process is a pretty simple concept. But that might show a weak spot in the area of documentation needed to show at voting time to establish eligibility. Some items of documentation may not be handy or not even exist to satisfy some categories of voters. Residents and property and business owners should not have trouble on this, but if you have lesser connections that are established by being on a membership list, having a membership document or appear on a letterhead might not be that easy.

Provisional votes will come to the rescue with supporting docs needed to be submitted within the next 3 days to have your vote count. Last election time there was an LA. Times story by a reporter or columnist travelling to various NCs to vote under the assorted categories and it was not a very strong showing of integrity of the system. That may be why the City Clerk's office was given the job this time around, but funding dried up to do it with outreach.

There are voter eligibilities for as young as 16 per bylaws of each NC. And that was a big criticism in the Lincoln Heights NC's last election where many students voted at the Lincoln High Auditorium (now "Andrus Theatre") voting place.

Some changes for the future will probably be called for. So you add this to the funding cuts proposed for more problem to affect the NC system.

Another report on waste of tax $$ on vanity- First Ridley-Thomas, then 10 DWP unknowns; And a word on Villaraigosa's speech.

The story a month or so back in the L.A. Times reported on how there's some pretty big chunks of money that wer not in the interest of the public. It included the $25,000.00 that L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas paid to be included in "Who's Who in Black Los Angeles." in a way that you would put an ad in the Yellow Pages. And this would be his own venture into narcissism and I or many others would not really care, as the public offices are peppered with knuckleheads when it comes to having problems maintaining any personal integrity or dignity.

But Steve Lopez wrote about that and more who have shelled out public money for this same personal luxury today in the LA. TIMES - "Who's Who with whose funds? - L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley Thomas spent $25,000 for a spot in "Who's Who in Black Los Angeles." The DWP also put down ratepayer funds to spotlight 10 of its top leaders in the book." L.A. Times, April 21, 2010.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopezcolumn-20100421,0,7882706.column

There realy is no accountability by many politicians- dare I say "most polititcians" as well? Lopez makes this some interesting reading if it only it didn't hurt the tax payer. This is the kind of thing that is in line with campaigning for office and maybe even crosses the line of permissible use of public money and it shows that no one is watching the store. When confronted, you can bet there's some idiotic reason they can dream up (they have lots of practice at being idiotic). Another insult added to injury for us out in the public is that these people usually have a nice and secure payday and benefits, which is the case just by knowing that they work for the DWP.

More people should send some words of appreciation to these officials to tell them how we appreciate their generosity with "OPM" (other people's money) or more specifically, "TPM" (Tax Payer's Money). But there's lots more money that will roll in with all the rate hikes proposed by the DWP. I have to remind you that this is an agency out of control as the DWP commission works essentially hand in hand with the Mayor (Tony appoints them all), who himself is often the best friend when it came to union deals, and with all the expense of more added to the DWP payroll, they need to have more money. You know it would kill them to have to dip into the Billion Dollars of funds that they have built up.

Ok, just check the story and maybe I will get to the State of the City Address, 2010-style, that Villaraigosa read pretty well- dull but well. Too bad most of this was a combination of lies, reversals of blame and totally a CYA operation. But, as I seem to say too often here, "What else is new?" And Tony's blaming the economy downturn for where we are as a city is absolutely lame, (pun time), done by the "lame duck" mayor- still with a very long 3 years left on his second and last term.

Ok, I'll leave that for another time but keep checking www.ronkayela.com where you may get a laugh or too with all the bad news of our "leadership" at City Hall.

And check out the Lopez column and see what else he brings up or out.