It’s hard to believe that City Hall was in the doldrums so long it was hard to stay awake during their endless exercises in self-aggrandizement and self-service and now just look at what’s happening — it takes your breath away.
Let’s start with the City Council grilling David Freeman and calling him in the liar he is, leaving him dissembling and mumbling even as he insisted the DWP is going broke despite a billion dollars sitting idle in the bank.
Hopefully, it was his last stand for deceit and ripoff of the public with his disastrous term as general manager ending next week. It’s as hard to believe he could make David Nahai as it is the Antonio Villaraigosa could make us long for boring Jimmy Hahn.
Speaking of the mayor, he responded immediately to the Council’s calling on him to sit down with them and DWP officials to work out the transfer of $73 million to the general fund so the city doesn’t run out of cash May 5 and have to shut down.
The mayor has other ideas: He ordered the City Administrative Officer to prepare to close all city departments two days a week starting Monday with the exception of police, fire and revenue-generating agencies.
Now there’s a plan for the history books, a profile in courage in the mayor’s mind.
“There are no easy decisions or simple ways to solve this budget crisis,”
Mayor Villaraigosa said. “But as the CEO of this great city, it is
my responsibility to make these difficult but necessary decisions to
steer the city out of this crisis and onto solid financial ground.”
The guys wants the public to pay 20 to 30 more for electricity to pay the inflated salaries of his pals in the IBEW who he keeps giving more raises to and spend lavishly on a crash program for green energy that will kill untold thousands of jobs and squeeze already strained budgets of residents.
What’s worse there isn’t even a plan to do what he says, his trust fund lockbox is a total fraud (even Freeman admitted that today) and he’s encircled by green-washers and green-feeders who stand to profit handsomely from his plan.
In just a few weeks of desperate and bungling miscalculation, the mayor has left himself with no friends other than those who are getting rich off of him, payback for sure for how well he has wined and dined off of them.
The public is angry at him. The Council is unanimous in their disgust with him with the exception of RIchard Alarcon and Tony Cardenas who duck every vote involving the DWP that they can.
And after being slugged with a 40 percent pay from losing two days of work, the Coalition of City Unions reached the point of no return putting out this statement:
LA City
Workers to Mayor: ‘This Is Not a Game’.
Residents who rely on city services and workers who provide those services are about to become collateral damage in a political fight around DWP funds.
This is playing brinksmanship and city residents will pay the price. This is not a game, it shouldn’t be treated as a game.
Los Angeles has a serious crisis, but we are doing something about it. We need to change how our city does business, to resolve budget problems and preserve services for the future.
City workers are putting together a real plan, not political games. We call on everyone to come together as one City, put residents first, and work our way cooperatively through the very real challenges we face.
“Closing
libraries
two days a week will hurt thousands of children we see every day, who
rely on our libraries as places to study, discover their creativity, and
find
safety,” added Madeleine Kerr, a librarian who works with children and
teens. “Closing recreation facilities affects child care, sports and
after-school programs for
Angeles
families. The mayor is reacting not leading.”