UPDATE: Chief Legislative Analyst Gerry Miller shot down the mayor’s plan to close most city government agencies two days a week starting Monday, saying he does not have the “unilateral” authority to carry out his threat. Council members said they would “never” approve such a plan.
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There are enough laughs and tears, pathos and bathos, fear and loathing for every taste — Channel 35’s hot new soap opera, City Hall.
Tuesday’s episode was one of the best with the apostle of clean energy left muttering in his cowboy hat he must have “misspoke” after being exposed as a liar with even the see-no-evil Janice Hahn calling out, “I think we need some honest answers here.”
The mayor, with the mysterious Austin Beutner as his side, perhaps pulling his strings, declared the government would shut down completely for two days except for the cops and others but it was unclear whether that was to protect him or the public from growing unrest and lawlessness in the streets.
The obedient DWP Board then provided a ray of hope in the gloom by pulling back millions of dollars in new spending that could keep LA from going broke until late May.
But the unions put a damper on that slim hope by saying the mayor was playing games with fire and was going to get burned.
By day’s end, they all looked like kids playing in a lockbox filled with dynamite.. The mayor accused the Council of using “the politics of ‘no’…the kind of demagoguery you see in the Congress…the kind of scare tactics you saw around the healthcare
debate.”
Paul Koretz responded that the mayor’s behavior was “bizarre” and worried that “a crazier and crazier game of chicken” would lead to somebody actually getting hurt, maybe everybody.
The overnight reviews were devastating — for the mayor.
LA Times Editorial: L.A.’s financial quagmire: The city is in deep trouble, and the mayor and the Department of Water and Power are to blame
What heartache and heartbreak will unfold today as the Council goes back to its snail-like efforts to micro-manage the budget crisis.
Will they finally make some decisions? Will they denounce the mayor or cuddle up to him? Will the unions make love or war? Tune in at 10 a.m. for today’s episode of City Hall, the LA soap opera.